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This transcript was created on 2026-06-07 at 09:11:02

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

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The only Doctor Who podcast that has the Loihagel and nothing can stop us now.

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I'm Nathan.

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I'm Pisa.

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I'm Simon.

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And I'm Todd.

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It's the 7th of September, 1987.

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It's been more than 2.5 years since the Rani 1st turned up in Killingworth to prevent the local miners from getting a good night's sleep, and tonight, 5.100000 people have switched on to find out what she's been up to since then, and possibly for another important reason as well.

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Does the Rani still have a role without 2 camp silly blustering time lord men to make fun of?

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Let's find out as we discuss time and the running.

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All right, so this is obviously important because it's the second appearance of Cato Mara's Rani in the show, but it is kind of important in that it is also the start of an entire new era for Doctor Who, and that's the Sylvester McCoy, Andrew Cartmel, late period of JNT.

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And I think it immediately looks a bit different from what's come before.

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I think it does look very different.

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It's almost like season 23, Trial of a Time Lord, was this weird cul-de-sac where they just didn't know how to make Dr. 2 and how to make it look good on screen.

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Whereas suddenly the production has taken this leap into the future, I think.

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And so the series as a very definite visual style, which was lacking last season, and I think the money is suddenly there on the screen, they're able to go out onto location and meld video elements of the show to the location.

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It suddenly it looks like a show which knows how it wants to look.

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And again, I think that probably comes down to the director, because I think part of the floor with season 23, and I said this last week with Mind Warp, was that they kind of had forgotten how to make Doctor Who, is that you've got the 3 directors of season 23 are not particularly strong directors.

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Some of them will get to see again, but Andrew Morgan is an incredibly strong director, and of course, we see that again next year with remembrance.

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That's true, I think.

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And if you look at remembrance as the example, if you buy into the fact that Doctor Who had a late Renaissance and became a very good series that knew itself towards the end, I think this is half the puzzle unpicked.

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They've actually got the production looking like a show which they're not embarrassed to put out on BBC One.

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It may not be the style of show that a lot of people like, but it's definitely, it knows what it wants to be and it knows how it wants to look.

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The other half of the puzzle. is unpicking the scripting.

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And I think that when we come to remembrance of the Daleks, under the same director, you suddenly have something that's really great.

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Yes, I think that was only half the picture and the other half is definitely sadly missing at this point.

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But you see how great he is as a director.

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I still think there are problems with this.

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Like the Rani TARDIS is just so poor and you can see the string that she's hanging off.

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I don't like the Tet traps lair.

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I think that the scene involving the doctor and Mel meeting and all that is one of the most embarrassing scenes ever perpetrated in the history of Doctor Who.

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There might be a confidence there, but I just think that there's something, and I think it is the script, and it's a fact that I think that Mel is a character with no character, and I think there's mistakes there. he's as good a director as you're kind of making out that he is.

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I think there are problems with the way the production looks.

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Like, I think the location work is very good, as you said, and that they managed to meld video effects and visual effects like practical effects in the traps and stuff like that.

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But my experience of watching it for the 1st time, I remember going to the phone, we had a phone attached to our house back then and Vanderthal.

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Yeah.

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And I went to the phone.

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Yeah we did.

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And I rang my friend Matthew and I said, I think this is a key to the show now, and I will continue watching it, but I'm not entirely sure that I'm on board with it.

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And I think the problem is the incredible light entertainment set, which is the Rani's laboratory, which doesn't look like a laboratory.

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It does look like a game show said.

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And while it's trying to be visually interesting, you know, it's that kind of stylised look in the studio that I think doesn't really work.

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Is this a problem with the script?

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Like, was this script developed with no script editor?

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Was this script developed like for potentially Colin Baker and then augmented for Sylvester McCoy?

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I mean, I had to give it to Pip and Jane Baker.

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They had to do a lot of heavy lifting in the last 10 episodes.

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Yes, with no Swift editor.

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And it's only like, you know, on reflection that you, like as a kid, I didn't see the faults perhaps in terror the vervoids or even the ultimate faux.

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But when I got to this, I began to like lose heart.

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Like everything was just so A to B to see, like we've put together and it's a workable script and it's got cliffhangers. got monsters, it's got aliens, but somehow it just doesn't quite work and I don't know, I can't explain it.

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Like, is that part of the problem?

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Yeah, it is a script where there's not a whole lot going on.

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But I want to address a couple of things that we were talking about production wise there.

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What are the problems with the sets is that they're too big.

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And so they spend a lot of time in that in the Rani's laboratory just moving around that laboratory with the camera following them around.

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I think that also stymies Sylvester's performance a little bit because in location work, he's generally fine.

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But when he gets into that 1st production block, most of which is spent on the Rani's laboratory set, as just him and Kays O'Mara, often dressed up as Mel doing her mal impression, just the 2 of them, on that big set, I think he has a crisis of confidence, and you can see that on screen.

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He's not able to deliver things.

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Those early scenes in the Rani's laboratory where he's desperately overplaying it and trying to almost to fill the set because it's just them don't work at all.

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And I think that's a serious blow to his early performances, the doctor.

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When you come back in the 2nd recording block, he's obviously gathered himself together and does a much better job, even on that set.

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Those Pratt falls, the early Pratt falls, and it is in the scene where Mel grabs him and it's in the scene, I think, where he's running away from the run.

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He's running away from the Rani.

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But at the beginning of episode 3 when he runs away from her and he escapes from her by Prattfall, by comedy Prattfall, in a sense.

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You know, he puts his scarf around her, pushes her over.

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He runs out of a thing and does that jump and then, you know, the little jump on the leg, which I think works really well.

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And that's kind of where we end up landing with this doctor.

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And we'll talk a little bit about how the Rani is kind of cartoonized a bit by this story.

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But the early Pratfalls are embarrassingly bad, I think.

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And it's the same problem, I think, that Colin has in the studio, isn't it?

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Where it's much, much harder to act in these garish, light entertainment style sets that we've been getting.

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And the moment that you get outside, everyone starts to behave a little bit more naturalistically and to rein it in a bit.

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Okay, I think there's several things going on there.

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We're still in an era where the location work is done first. that be correct.

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So it's interesting that he's more confident in his 1st scenes than...

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Well, I think that's the thing of being able to shoot it on single can.

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Yeah, and even though it's yes.

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So even that's video, we're still shooting it like it's film in that it's one camera at a time, one camera position at a time, you have the opportunity to rehearse and record in a way that you do not get in the studio.

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And you also in some respects have a bit more of flexibility with doing a few more takes as well.

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I suspect that that's what's missing in those early practical sequences, which I actually think are very embarrassing.

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They're actually almost unforgivable.

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Oh, yes. going back to what Todd was saying about the 1st meeting of the doctor and Mel.

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It's terribly covered and should never have made it to screen.

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It's embarrassing.

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The light entertainment thing.

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And this is an extension of what I was saying in Mind Warp, which is the fact that things, I know there's disagreement out there, but what I feel was very strong, visually strong, season 22 and script wise and everything else, gritty, interesting, love it. you know, few failures, but basically I thought is brilliant, Doctor Who, exactly the way I wanted it at the time. you know, and then season 21 also was great and gritty and had interesting stories like Planet Fire or Frontios, which were kind of doing something unusual.

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Basically, they've still forgotten how to make the show in season 24, but in at least in time in the Rani, at least they've got a competent director, you've got this light entertainment set, as you said, it's all light and bright and spangly.

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The effects, the explosions are all psh, rather than these meaty kind of sounds.

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Um, you've got a much more um, childlike story.

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You're right.

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When I was, and Todd, you'd remember this when we were watching it at school and there are a couple of friends who'd mock the fact that we were still watching this show and I felt that not that I had ached out of the show, but that the show had gone backwards in terms of the age that it was being pitched at.

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And that was coupled with the fact that it used to be at 6.30 in the evening and now in Australia.

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Now it's 5.30 in the middle of what is basically a 2 hour afternoon for kids programming block, which had cartoons around it.

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But it feels like that.

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I can't blame the ABC for scheduling it there because...

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So it aired in the same breath as Count Duckular.

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Exactly. and Roger Ramjet and all those sorts of things.

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Whereas you consider in British, it's actually being shown opposite Coronation Street.

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I mean, no wonder hardly anyone's watching it.

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I remember at the time, desperately needing to like it because the show had been cancelled and we were living on borrowed time, so we had to like this, we had to defend it and I defended it.

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I'm less keen to defend it now because I actually think season 24 is whilst they're experimenting and you can see what happens to the show in the later last 2 years.

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It's flailing.

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It's really everywhere.

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It's like I had the same experience, like, obviously, you were talking that we were watching this together at school.

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But I remember desperately wanting to love it.

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And I remember my father coming in wanting to bond with me over this show, which they had, my parents had just, you're not going to buy Dr. 2 magazine anymore, like all this sort of stuff that they didn't want.

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And I had to turn to him and say, look, you don't have to watch this with me.

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This isn't very good.

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And I remember me saying those words to my father.

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Now, I don't know if it was time in the Rani or Paradise Towers, but it was one of these 2 stories that happened in.

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And that will stick with me forever.

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What you've just talked about season 24, I think, after this story, I think there's some really wonderful ideas coming in, but it's, but it's failure of consistent production in one aspect or another.

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How to deal with those ideas.

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And the other thing for me is Monty Langford as Mel.

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And you have to give Bonnie complete marks.

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She's such a professional.

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Like, you know, she's, she screams when she needs to scream.

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She reacts when she needs to react, but it's just so stagey.

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And at this point, I don't think she's learnt how she's very young.

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I don't think she's learned how to act for television.

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Whereas the episode we've just seen today, the reality war, she was just, again, superb in.

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But in this and in the next story, these 2 stories just kill that character for me so much.

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And I'm sorry to go down that road.

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I don't want to be negative because I really, I actually enjoy watching Mel's and her performance over these 20 episodes to see what she's trying to do.

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She's trying to give it energy.

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She's trying to give it oomph.

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But it doesn't work.

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Let me pick up on a few things there.

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First of all, my father also watched time.

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And he watched it quite impassively and I wasn't sure what he was thinking of until the end of episode 4 when the doctor ushers Einstein out of console room and says it's all relative where he burst out laughing.

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I thought that was hilarious.

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In a good way.

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Oh, that's good.

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I am much more positive about this story because I think it's, as ever, when you look at the scope of Doctor Who, there are blind alleys and places where it goes and things which feel like they're wrong at the time, but then you can see them in the sweep of the series.

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Season 24, I actually enjoy on its own terms.

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I don't think a lot of it's very good.

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I don't think a lot of time in the Rani is very good, but I really enjoy this slight sidestep into a Doctor Who that we never otherwise had.

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I also think that it's a comprehensive production.

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I know you've got problems with the way that's made.

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I do think there's bits which are not very well done.

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Like we talked about earlier, the Pratt Falls, the scene between the doctor and Mel, which is just how on earth that made it to screen. don't know.

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But it is a comprehensive production.

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It feels like there is someone behind the camera who knows how to make television, and that hasn't always been a given previously, and I'll use as an example, the buildup to the cliffhanger of part 3, which starts 5 minutes before the end of the episode in a very modern Doctor Who way, and is this melting pot of coverage and performance and music.

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The music is so beautifully to that cliffhanger, and the best Doctor Who has always done that.

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I'm thinking of previous cliffhangers, like maybe robots of death, part 2, and um, the Cave Zero and Design, part three.

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I'm not saying obviously that this story is in that league.

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Obviously it's not, but in the way that that is crafted, as television, and as good Doctor Who, as few peers.

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So, I feel a bit more like you about season 24, and I think at the time, I was kind of on board from Paradise Towers onward, and I acknowledge that Paradise Towers, even at the time, felt like kids TV, and one of the things it does, is it, you know, it combines that kind of dystopia, that strange urban dystopia with children's TV in a way that Doctor Who sometimes will juxtap to things that don't seem to belong together in a way that only Doctor Who can do.

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And so while that's a failure, I was excited by the new ideas, and of course, we all know that it's the 1st Doctor Who story in some considerable time that doesn't have a returning element in it.

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And that felt to me to be incredibly fresh.

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Refreshing.

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Yeah.

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Now, I actually think that something like Delta and the Bannerman is amazing and is a template for the show going forward.

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Well, let's not go too fast.

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Why, no, no, I genuinely think it's great.

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I'm going to agree with that as well.

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I said, you know, it's halfway there and remember install of the way there.

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I actually think Deltron Fantoman's 75% of the way.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Yes.

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It has people looking out a window and seeing other people.

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I just think that's amazing.

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Talk about a low bar for drama.

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That's all I want.

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Can I make an interesting observation of the way I 1st saw these stories?

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Because this is this marks the beginning of, and Todd's, the beginning of our arrival into not just being obsessed fans, but being an organised fan.

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You were watching Time in the Rani one week and the web planet, the next.

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Possibly.

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That's not the story that I'm really going to.

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So I had already seen, because the ABC delayed season 24 by 12 months.

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So we got it like in October or so, 88, and so it was already a year old, right?

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It through means that, you know, we can't just legally discuss. you know we were able to see some of these episodes.

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And so I went to a day event and my 1st Sylvester was Delta and the Bannerman.

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Right.

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Which I was completely blown away by their opening credits.

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I just watched this thing happen in front of me.

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I thought, oh my goodness me.

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That was around the middle of the year.

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Todd, you and I went to one where they showed remembrance one and two. was only one and two.

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We also watch all the Daleks that same day.

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Remembers one and 2 was quite the contrast, let me say.

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It was probably literally the next day, if not the next day, then 8 days later, the time in the Riny was going to be broadcast.

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So I saw Delta and the Batman.

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The 1st 2 episodes of remembrance.

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Then...

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I see Time in the Rani.

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Now can you understand why perhaps I don't have very fond views of time and the writing and then of the season going on because we've just seen remembrance.

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Remember it's the 1st 2 episodes.

190
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But I suppose that gave us hope because we knew that that was coming, I suppose.

191
00:17:05.819 --> 00:17:06.299
Yes, yes.

192
00:17:06.359 --> 00:17:13.740
Because, I mean, our experience was, of course, the reason that they delayed it was so that they could, because they went in to remembrance straight after.

193
00:17:14.460 --> 00:17:23.039
The reason they delayed it was because I don't think they felt like showing, giving the show as much love as they used to. like they were giving it in the late 70s and into the 80s.

194
00:17:23.099 --> 00:17:33.720
I think from the, when the cancellation happened, the 85 cancellation happened, that's when suddenly they stopped caring about the show as much and then it, uh, although they, they sort of did because then they showed all the pertways again.

195
00:17:33.779 --> 00:17:37.859
But you know, they didn't feel the need to catch up and show it too quickly.

196
00:17:37.920 --> 00:17:47.339
That also mirrors my journey as a fan in that I was now embedded in organised Doctor Who fandom, and I ceased caring about Doctor Who on television.

197
00:17:47.400 --> 00:17:51.420
That was no longer the forum in which I received my Doctor Who.

198
00:17:51.480 --> 00:17:55.680
And so this is all a haze to me after that big Pertwee and Tom Baker run in 1986.

199
00:17:55.859 --> 00:17:58.559
That's basically, I've stopped watching Dot 2 on television.

200
00:17:58.619 --> 00:17:59.279
On TV, yeah.

201
00:18:08.819 --> 00:18:34.799
One of the things, though, that I think was immediately apparent is that we're in a quarry, but in that quarry, we have a much clearer sense of where everyone is and what they're doing at different locations in a particular scene, and we are doing a better job of combining visual effects and video effects, as I said earlier, not just on location, like we do with the traps.

202
00:18:34.859 --> 00:18:51.960
But you remember the scene where one of the locustions gets killed by a bangle and she falls and her hand falls into the water and the water is like there's froth in the water where her hand is while there's a special effect and stuff.

203
00:18:52.019 --> 00:18:59.039
There just seems to be a lot of care in matting all of the effects together and kind of making them come.

204
00:18:59.099 --> 00:19:01.559
I just thought that was an accident and they had a little bit of soap suns in there.

205
00:19:01.920 --> 00:19:02.400
No, no, no.

206
00:19:02.460 --> 00:19:03.420
This is a definite thing.

207
00:19:03.480 --> 00:19:04.079
That's a definite thing.

208
00:19:04.200 --> 00:19:09.180
That's what we're saying about Andrew Morgan. what we've talked about before, you know, against people like Richard Martin.

209
00:19:09.240 --> 00:19:10.799
He has control of the production.

210
00:19:10.859 --> 00:19:17.099
Obviously not in all places because there are things which go wrong, but he has created a production which coheres.

211
00:19:17.160 --> 00:19:30.359
And so you go out onto, I think it was a bad choice to move it from a forest where it was scripted into a quarry because that plays into all of those Doctor Who cliches about quarries being alien plants and makes it seem a bit hoary and old.

212
00:19:30.480 --> 00:19:31.859
Having?

213
00:19:31.859 --> 00:19:32.339
I don't know.

214
00:19:32.400 --> 00:19:34.200
I really don't know why they decided to do that.

215
00:19:34.259 --> 00:19:39.599
Maybe because it looked too similar to the forests of Mysterious Planet, but it's a decision that's been lost in time.

216
00:19:39.660 --> 00:20:01.559
But having said that, the fact that going out into that quarry, they've made such an effort, giving it a pink sky with Quantel, adding on the bits from the Rani's laboratory, not just the practical bits in the quarry, but the visual effects kind of dragon's head that rears over that, the fact that the model work is so good of the Rani's rockets taking off.

217
00:20:01.619 --> 00:20:02.880
And well matted.

218
00:20:02.880 --> 00:20:03.779
Well matted.

219
00:20:03.839 --> 00:20:08.099
It feels like a cohesive production in a way that a lot of season 23 did not.

220
00:20:08.160 --> 00:20:10.440
Even with the tinsel in the stormwater drain.

221
00:20:10.559 --> 00:20:14.039
Well, I mean, that's a stylistic choice, and I don't necessarily agree with it.

222
00:20:14.099 --> 00:20:24.180
But however, there's blue rocks and the blue tinsel, which leads up to the Riney's headquarters, putting that in the pipe, again, as Nathan said, makes it feel like it's the same location.

223
00:20:24.240 --> 00:20:25.200
It's the same location.

224
00:20:25.259 --> 00:20:30.599
But interestingly too, the sky is so much better than the one only a year earlier in my...

225
00:20:30.660 --> 00:20:31.500
It's not too over the top.

226
00:20:31.559 --> 00:20:33.359
And that's what I take from it.

227
00:20:33.420 --> 00:20:38.279
It's just like, suddenly it's 1987 there has been a leap in technology.

228
00:20:38.339 --> 00:20:42.660
If you look at 85 to 87, there's that huge change.

229
00:20:42.720 --> 00:20:51.900
And in the 80s changes so much, you look at everything pre 85 and the last few years of the 80s can be really almost into the 90s.

230
00:20:51.960 --> 00:20:58.200
But interesting, also, we're suddenly with the technology, is the introduction for the 1st time of proper computer graphics.

231
00:20:58.200 --> 00:21:00.180
Yes.

232
00:21:00.180 --> 00:21:09.900
As representing real life, with, 1st of all, we've got the opening pre-credit sequence, which is not effective in the modern era.

233
00:21:09.960 --> 00:21:16.259
Good on them for saying, let's give this a go and saying rather than having a stupid card, well, little Tartar's model flying about.

234
00:21:16.319 --> 00:21:17.880
We've tried to use the computer graphics.

235
00:21:17.940 --> 00:21:19.559
Well, Doctor has taken its cue.

236
00:21:19.619 --> 00:21:21.359
Season 23 felt a little bit lost in time.

237
00:21:21.480 --> 00:21:25.859
They were forced to film location sequences on videotape, I think, because of budgetary reasons.

238
00:21:25.859 --> 00:21:28.200
And so it was almost like, well, we have to do this.

239
00:21:28.259 --> 00:21:34.140
Now they've sat and thought about it and thought, Doctor Who is now a videotape show, how can we bring all of this together?

240
00:21:34.200 --> 00:21:44.099
So the emphasis on effects has moved from film model work to video model work, and with doing that, they are then able to integrate that better into the show that they have.

241
00:21:44.160 --> 00:21:53.819
And so Doctor Who, as a whole, looks better than it has since maybe the perwi era for a show that all looks like it's on the same wavelength.

242
00:21:53.880 --> 00:21:58.980
I mean, you look at the strange matter asteroid visual that's on her control.

243
00:21:59.039 --> 00:22:04.559
And you look at 12 months earlier in Terror the Voids where they're playing Space Invader.

244
00:22:04.619 --> 00:22:07.380
Yeah, like it's just there's no comparison.

245
00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:16.799
I think Terror the Vervoids is a good comparison for that because Terror the Vervoids is this weird, tremendous backward step when it comes to the special effects.

246
00:22:16.859 --> 00:22:28.019
Those scenes of the Hyperion 3 in space and they actually, if you've looked at the special edition or at the Blu-ray, they've cut some of those scenes because they are so woeful, bad.

247
00:22:28.079 --> 00:22:30.420
And you think, how did they let this happen?

248
00:22:30.539 --> 00:22:33.960
Well, you go 2 stories forward and suddenly they figured out how to do that again.

249
00:22:34.019 --> 00:22:46.799
I mean, I think it's impressive and we kind of underestimate it now, but the way that that image of the strange matter asteroid on the Rani screen is matted into the screen when we're looking at it from an angle.

250
00:22:46.799 --> 00:22:54.299
And so it's a parallelogram or something, some kind of quadrilateral, it's not just keyed into a square on the wall.

251
00:22:54.359 --> 00:22:56.880
It's actually front on, even though it's basically an angle.

252
00:22:56.940 --> 00:22:58.619
Yeah, that is Quantel, isn't it?

253
00:22:58.680 --> 00:22:59.640
That the way they manage to...

254
00:22:59.700 --> 00:23:02.579
They're able to manipulate the angle of the image, yeah.

255
00:23:02.640 --> 00:23:03.839
I think that looks really good.

256
00:23:03.900 --> 00:23:21.299
And even though the crappy kind of rotating three-dimensional asteroids and to a lesser degree, in the opening credits into a lesser degree, the TARDIS, they're bad, but that rotating galaxy thing out of focus is actually pretty effective, I think.

257
00:23:21.299 --> 00:23:23.099
Can we talk about the opening credits?

258
00:23:23.160 --> 00:23:23.759
Yeah, why not?

259
00:23:23.819 --> 00:23:32.579
Well, I mean, obviously they blew me away in 1988 when I saw them on a screen in Karlslaw 5, I believe. to get that in.

260
00:23:33.660 --> 00:23:36.240
If you know, you know.

261
00:23:36.299 --> 00:23:42.960
The thing is, I was blown away by the fact that it was not using the traditional linear opening credits anymore.

262
00:23:43.019 --> 00:23:44.700
And I thought, wow, this was a step forward.

263
00:23:44.759 --> 00:23:45.420
It a leap forward.

264
00:23:45.480 --> 00:23:49.079
I thought the music whilst it still wasn't the Peter Howell version for me.

265
00:23:49.140 --> 00:23:50.400
I still thought it was great.

266
00:23:50.460 --> 00:23:54.960
And yes, look, there are so many good things about the opening credits, particularly for its day.

267
00:23:55.019 --> 00:24:12.480
I think the regrettable things, and the guy who made the opening credits agrees with us, was the asteroids are unfortunate, but that's what they are, because they can't do fractals. enough computing power because they'd have needed weeks and weeks of rendering to get the fractals deep enough.

268
00:24:12.539 --> 00:24:15.420
Any asteroid of this era is a potato.

269
00:24:15.480 --> 00:24:16.259
Sea silver nemesis.

270
00:24:16.319 --> 00:24:17.279
Well, it's already a potato.

271
00:24:17.339 --> 00:24:21.180
It's a crunched up piece of paper, really, because it's pointy. anyway, there's that.

272
00:24:21.240 --> 00:24:24.660
If only the galaxy could have been, because we're kind of moving around the galaxy.

273
00:24:24.720 --> 00:24:27.900
Imagine if the galaxy had been moving faster on the inside than the outside.

274
00:24:27.960 --> 00:24:29.460
It's just...

275
00:24:29.519 --> 00:24:30.180
That is never going to do that.

276
00:24:30.240 --> 00:24:32.220
But...

277
00:24:32.220 --> 00:24:33.299
It's just...

278
00:24:33.299 --> 00:24:33.539
Exactly.

279
00:24:33.599 --> 00:24:34.200
It's just too hard.

280
00:24:34.259 --> 00:24:36.720
But the worst thing is the doctor's face.

281
00:24:36.779 --> 00:24:37.559
Yes.

282
00:24:37.619 --> 00:24:37.980
Oh, yeah.

283
00:24:38.039 --> 00:24:44.099
Because it's, it's, um, when you can sit, yes, it's painted silver, but that's the least of it.

284
00:24:44.160 --> 00:24:59.400
It's the fact that the face, it just fades in, it's deep etch in a very perfunctory way, it just goes from the 3 different states of his face, when you consider how elegant Colin smile is at the beginning of his credits.

285
00:24:59.460 --> 00:25:02.640
It's like this lovely fades through, I think, several states of photographs.

286
00:25:02.700 --> 00:25:04.619
Whereas this is just blink, blink.

287
00:25:04.680 --> 00:25:06.900
It's stuck on, it gave me the ear.

288
00:25:07.019 --> 00:25:11.099
It's from the 1st moment I've seen it and I've lived with that feeling for the last nearly 40 years.

289
00:25:11.160 --> 00:25:12.660
Let it outside.

290
00:25:12.779 --> 00:25:14.220
Yes No, no, I have.

291
00:25:14.279 --> 00:25:14.640
I have.

292
00:25:14.700 --> 00:25:16.440
I think you're right.

293
00:25:16.500 --> 00:25:23.220
The Colin thing where the lights change during the course of it, like you underestimate how good that is, I think.

294
00:25:23.279 --> 00:25:26.640
It's got something that we miss in the modern era, I think.

295
00:25:26.700 --> 00:25:36.420
The doctor's face is the important part of the credits and it feels like Sylvester has been somehow shoehorned into those credits rather than being an organic part.

296
00:25:36.480 --> 00:25:36.839
Exactly.

297
00:25:36.900 --> 00:25:37.319
Yes, yes.

298
00:25:50.220 --> 00:25:54.599
So, let's talk about the Rani.

299
00:25:54.660 --> 00:25:56.940
Let's...

300
00:25:56.940 --> 00:26:16.920
So I have to say that I am not a big fan of Mark of the Rani, and the reason is that I think probably to a culpable degree, I'm in Doctor Who for the monsters, and there are no monsters, and the master doesn't count.

301
00:26:16.980 --> 00:26:24.720
It does get points for kicking a small child over in an early scene and it loses points for killing a dog.

302
00:26:25.259 --> 00:26:29.220
So it's not one that I go back to very much.

303
00:26:29.279 --> 00:26:37.740
And all I remember is, of course, that Kate's performance is markedly more muted in it than it is here.

304
00:26:37.799 --> 00:26:43.019
Now, Todd, you really like this mark of the Rani, Rani.

305
00:26:43.079 --> 00:26:44.339
I really do.

306
00:26:44.400 --> 00:26:46.980
I think that she's actually clever.

307
00:26:47.039 --> 00:26:55.740
Like she's been on earth in various circumstances collecting the sleeping drug for her aliens to control them.

308
00:26:55.740 --> 00:26:58.440
And she's been getting away with it for centuries, right?

309
00:26:58.500 --> 00:27:01.559
Until the master and the doctor come blundering in.

310
00:27:01.559 --> 00:27:03.359
And she's got backup plans.

311
00:27:03.420 --> 00:27:04.619
I mean, she's still quite evil.

312
00:27:04.680 --> 00:27:11.519
Like I did notice when I rewatched it, that she's still quite happy to kill off her henchman with the mark of the Rani.

313
00:27:11.579 --> 00:27:13.799
Oh, right when she gets Pip Baker in the corner there.

314
00:27:14.819 --> 00:27:17.220
At the drop of her hat, you know?

315
00:27:18.180 --> 00:27:20.400
Is that just dumb kill?

316
00:27:23.579 --> 00:27:27.960
But I just think she's got the great set and the master takes on all the villainous roles.

317
00:27:28.019 --> 00:27:29.579
Like he takes the heat off her, you know?

318
00:27:29.640 --> 00:27:31.859
She's hardly in it for the 1st 25 minutes.

319
00:27:31.920 --> 00:27:33.599
She's just in her little bit of a disguise.

320
00:27:33.660 --> 00:27:35.099
So it's really quite different.

321
00:27:35.160 --> 00:27:37.319
I mean, she's got, you know, she's got her tree things as well.

322
00:27:37.380 --> 00:27:41.160
She's got backup plans, even with Perry, she's got the powder stuff to get out of that.

323
00:27:41.220 --> 00:27:42.240
She's she's clever.

324
00:27:42.299 --> 00:27:46.079
I don't find her as clever in time in the running.

325
00:27:46.140 --> 00:27:49.680
I mean, she's got a different role to play because she's got to be front and centre.

326
00:27:49.740 --> 00:27:51.599
Things that just irritate me.

327
00:27:51.660 --> 00:27:55.319
The big hair, that nose stud, it just really gets to me.

328
00:27:55.380 --> 00:27:56.279
But she's dumb.

329
00:27:56.339 --> 00:28:04.140
Like, she's supposed to be this clever scientist, but she can't work out what PVC, you know, element that she needs the doctor to work out.

330
00:28:04.200 --> 00:28:04.680
What is it?

331
00:28:04.740 --> 00:28:06.539
It's some plastic.

332
00:28:06.599 --> 00:28:11.579
Which is such a weird description of something slightly amber, almost opaque.

333
00:28:11.640 --> 00:28:13.980
That's such a paper Jane line.

334
00:28:14.039 --> 00:28:16.019
But she's supposed to be clever.

335
00:28:16.079 --> 00:28:16.980
She can't even do that.

336
00:28:17.039 --> 00:28:20.400
She has to have a fixed trajectory rocket for God's sake.

337
00:28:20.460 --> 00:28:21.299
You know?

338
00:28:21.359 --> 00:28:26.700
And then she gets trapped inside that cubicle, but she's just banging on that little bit of plastic like anybody could break out.

339
00:28:26.700 --> 00:28:36.599
And then the doctor just checks her in that like look to your left and then that little bit of a scarf thing that takes her 10 minutes to get over.

340
00:28:36.660 --> 00:28:38.160
These things irritate me.

341
00:28:38.220 --> 00:28:41.279
I just think she's clever in the 1st story.

342
00:28:41.400 --> 00:28:43.200
I say everything you just mentioned.

343
00:28:43.259 --> 00:28:45.299
I really like about the Rani in this story.

344
00:28:45.359 --> 00:28:46.079
No.

345
00:28:46.079 --> 00:28:57.839
See, I do, and we will talk about that because she is in a way cartoonized because there's a real proper panto element to the story which we're obviously going to deal with.

346
00:28:57.900 --> 00:29:04.440
And it's not just the fact that she dresses as Mel, but it's the way she plays the Rani Asmel.

347
00:29:04.500 --> 00:29:08.519
And so she's defeated in a way that you can defeat a pantomime villain.

348
00:29:08.579 --> 00:29:17.640
And there's, obviously, there is a massive English tradition of pantomime and it's definitely a thing that happens and it is happening here.

349
00:29:17.700 --> 00:29:25.619
So the thing that she brings from Mark of the Rani is that she's ruler of a planet.

350
00:29:25.680 --> 00:29:35.039
So only this had instead of been Lukersha had been me as a great Doctor Who Planet names of all time, Maya Simi Agori.

351
00:29:35.039 --> 00:29:36.059
Yeah, pretty great.

352
00:29:36.119 --> 00:29:37.680
She is Robert Holmes.

353
00:29:37.740 --> 00:29:39.720
She does get like in Mark of the Rani.

354
00:29:39.779 --> 00:29:43.140
I was actually quite surprised at how ruthless she actually is.

355
00:29:43.200 --> 00:29:47.039
And also she doesn't really care for the people either.

356
00:29:47.099 --> 00:29:50.940
Like, she's actually quite evil, but it just gets overshadowed by what the master's doing.

357
00:29:51.000 --> 00:29:58.680
Yeah, look, I think it is a performance team because obviously this 2nd appearance by the Rani is written by her creators, Pip and Jane.

358
00:29:58.740 --> 00:30:06.599
And I think on page, they've retained a lot of what made the Rani different and made her a villain who wasn't just the master.

359
00:30:06.660 --> 00:30:07.319
Yeah.

360
00:30:07.319 --> 00:30:13.980
She retains that iciness and that dispassion for things, which is commented upon by Mel.

361
00:30:14.039 --> 00:30:18.539
And she tells Bass as such, which says, you know, Lilocutions mean absolutely nothing to me.

362
00:30:18.599 --> 00:30:19.680
And I do believe that.

363
00:30:19.740 --> 00:30:21.660
That sets her aside as a villain.

364
00:30:21.720 --> 00:30:27.359
And I think the things that make her different in this story come down to her presentation rather than the way she's written.

365
00:30:27.420 --> 00:30:28.140
Exactly.

366
00:30:28.200 --> 00:30:33.240
And going back to what I was saying before is the whole thing is just betrayed in a much more kidzy way.

367
00:30:33.299 --> 00:30:37.920
Like Todd, I much prefer her in the 1st her 1st outing.

368
00:30:37.980 --> 00:30:49.859
I think we got a little bit of it in what we've all just seen in the 21st century where you've got the Rani sort of stating that, you know, as time lords, the doctor is slumming it by being around all of these humans.

369
00:30:49.920 --> 00:31:03.000
But I think it's a thing that we've come back to time and time again on this 2nd time round series is that the 2nd time round, the adversary, the enemy is made that little bit more generic.

370
00:31:03.059 --> 00:31:05.579
And I think that the Rani suffers from that too.

371
00:31:05.640 --> 00:31:10.619
She does, no, she isn't just the master, but she does become more like the master.

372
00:31:10.740 --> 00:31:21.960
She does become a little bit more the generic moustache twirling villain, and I think that's not helped by the lack of elegance around her lines, just all the interactions.

373
00:31:22.019 --> 00:31:28.200
The thing that Mark the Rani has going for it, which actually has gone down in my estimation since I 1st saw it in 1986.

374
00:31:28.440 --> 00:31:29.759
It would have been January 86.

375
00:31:30.000 --> 00:31:35.819
It doesn't resolve in a satisfactory way. got this great setup and then it kind of just disintegrates.

376
00:31:35.880 --> 00:31:38.400
But what it's got going for it is the look.

377
00:31:38.460 --> 00:31:39.539
It looks so good.

378
00:31:39.599 --> 00:31:41.940
It's the BBC classic drama.

379
00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:45.299
It's an old museum, like a kind of an old Sydney town type place.

380
00:31:45.359 --> 00:32:01.319
But, you know, it's just so much better presented and the fact that the performance is more downplayed and colder rather than Vampia, I think, even if the same elements are there in time in the Rani, because it's plagued so much bigger, it's just much less interesting for me.

381
00:32:01.380 --> 00:32:04.980
It took a moment to retrieve the file assignment, but it's Iron Bridge Gorge Museum.

382
00:32:05.039 --> 00:32:05.579
Right.

383
00:32:05.640 --> 00:32:07.380
You can file it back away now.

384
00:32:07.440 --> 00:32:09.119
Thank you, it's gone into the resources of my mind.

385
00:32:09.180 --> 00:32:15.000
I do think there are still sciency things that the Rani gets to do in time in the Rani.

386
00:32:15.059 --> 00:32:34.859
And I'm not that worried that she needs to recruit the doctor as an expert because one of the things that it reminds us of is that the doctor is a scientist as well, which is not something that we've mentioned terribly frequently, perhaps in the last few years, and that they have different specialisms, in a way.

387
00:32:34.920 --> 00:32:41.819
And we learn that he's, you know, expert on thermodynamics and she's a neurochemist or something like that.

388
00:32:41.880 --> 00:32:43.799
So they have different roles.

389
00:32:43.859 --> 00:32:46.740
She's created this brain, which is grown in the thing.

390
00:32:46.799 --> 00:32:51.900
She has a plan that involves time stuff because she's a timelord.

391
00:32:51.960 --> 00:33:03.779
And so all of those sorts of things, you know, she still has that focus on science and she doesn't seek power in a way for its own sake.

392
00:33:03.779 --> 00:33:09.779
Now, admittedly, you know, what you're going to do with the, what's it called, a time manipulator.

393
00:33:09.839 --> 00:33:11.339
For God's sake.

394
00:33:11.460 --> 00:33:12.900
You know what?

395
00:33:12.900 --> 00:33:14.940
I think she's going to bring back Omega.

396
00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:16.980
Oh, but certainly.

397
00:33:17.039 --> 00:33:35.220
But I have to say that the things that you dislike about her in this, Simon, are the things that I think were inevitable and in some ways the right thing to do, which is he's Kate O'Mara. let her go to town Yes.

398
00:33:35.279 --> 00:33:36.960
Why is that inevitable though?

399
00:33:37.019 --> 00:33:38.579
Because it's Kate O'Mara.

400
00:33:38.640 --> 00:33:43.440
Well, let me just say, I think Rani is a distillation of Pip and Jane Baker's interests.

401
00:33:43.500 --> 00:33:49.259
They have this weird preoccupation with language, as we know, but they're also interested in science.

402
00:33:49.319 --> 00:33:59.279
They read science journals and they were interested in bringing that to Doc 2. didn't do it very elegantly sometimes, but I think the Rani is what they want in a character in Doctor Two.

403
00:33:59.339 --> 00:34:04.680
What I think maybe some people don't like and what the Rani suffers from in the story.

404
00:34:04.740 --> 00:34:09.900
I actually personally like it like Nathan does, is that there's a collision of real world events.

405
00:34:09.960 --> 00:34:15.000
So Kate O'Mara, in the meantime, has been playing Caress Morale in dynasty.

406
00:34:15.059 --> 00:34:22.920
And I think when she comes back to play the Rani, not only does she still have caresses hair, but she's still got, oh, she does.

407
00:34:23.039 --> 00:34:25.019
Does she caress her hair?

408
00:34:28.559 --> 00:34:31.019
Do you want to caress it?

409
00:34:33.000 --> 00:34:36.059
she brings back to the role.

410
00:34:36.179 --> 00:34:39.300
And it's also a symptom of the Rani having been moved to centre stage.

411
00:34:39.360 --> 00:34:50.400
She's no longer a 2nd banana to the master, and so now she's the chief villain, and she's occupying that space, but she brings that externalisation in the performance, which is required in something like dynasty.

412
00:34:50.460 --> 00:34:57.659
I don't think she necessarily puts herself back in the same space that she was performing in and Mark the Rani.

413
00:34:57.719 --> 00:35:08.460
I think she's bringing that LA soapy, very obvious kind of television performance to the Rani, which is a hugely 80s thing as well.

414
00:35:08.519 --> 00:35:10.079
It's absolutely up to the minute.

415
00:35:10.139 --> 00:35:18.480
It's the sort of, you know, the big TV events were sort of giant bitch fights on dynasty and who shot that kind of thing.

416
00:35:18.539 --> 00:35:20.940
Like that was huge in the 1980s.

417
00:35:21.000 --> 00:35:23.519
And so you can see why they're doing that.

418
00:35:23.639 --> 00:35:32.099
But then the other thing that they have is the utterly baffling decision to get the Rani to dress up as Mel.

419
00:35:32.460 --> 00:35:34.500
I say something here.

420
00:35:34.619 --> 00:35:39.300
It is the baffling decision because Mel has no character.

421
00:35:39.360 --> 00:35:42.659
Can I just, I just personally think she's got no character up to this point at all.

422
00:35:42.719 --> 00:35:44.280
She's not met the Rani.

423
00:35:44.340 --> 00:35:50.099
So the running has had to spy on Mel and the doctor to work out how to play Mel.

424
00:35:50.219 --> 00:35:58.199
And at the time, and this distracts me from the performance of the Rani, like because she's not been the Rani.

425
00:35:58.260 --> 00:35:59.219
She been Mel.

426
00:35:59.340 --> 00:36:03.119
And at the time, I absolutely thought it was just the worst thing ever.

427
00:36:04.559 --> 00:36:17.639
So I sigh people, because I went back to it, and she's actually doing a bloody good job, and I actually really quite enjoy it now. seeing how Bonnie Langford does it, seeing how she does it.

428
00:36:17.699 --> 00:36:21.900
And when she drops character, and like calls him Chris or whatever she does.

429
00:36:21.960 --> 00:36:33.000
She goes, she goes. she goes back to, it's actually underplayed quite often, and it reminds me of Mark the Rani, like when she just breaks that for a moment, and I really, really enjoyed it.

430
00:36:33.059 --> 00:36:35.940
And for me, that's the strongest part of this story.

431
00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:45.719
I, you know, I've spent quite a bit of this sort of berating this production, but I actually, for some bizarre reason, now I actually think it works really well.

432
00:36:45.780 --> 00:36:51.000
No one can chew on a wasp before spitting out a one word insult like cater.

433
00:36:51.539 --> 00:36:57.239
I think the idea is almost unforgivable, but the execution is superb.

434
00:36:57.300 --> 00:36:58.619
It's so great.

435
00:36:58.679 --> 00:37:01.019
It's literally the best thing about.

436
00:37:01.079 --> 00:37:06.780
But it was one of the most, I did want the earth to open up and swallow me when I was watching that in 1988.

437
00:37:06.900 --> 00:37:13.920
I understand that, but I do think in retrospect, this story is the one where Kate dresses up as Bonnie.

438
00:37:13.980 --> 00:37:20.820
And because Bonnie has been on English television since she was a tiny child at this point.

439
00:37:20.880 --> 00:37:23.940
She's been certainly on English stage. since she was a child.

440
00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:25.079
Violet Elizabeth Bot.

441
00:37:25.139 --> 00:37:25.800
True, yes.

442
00:37:25.860 --> 00:37:26.219
Yeah.

443
00:37:26.280 --> 00:37:28.380
So everyone kind of knows her.

444
00:37:28.440 --> 00:37:29.460
She's a thing.

445
00:37:29.579 --> 00:37:30.960
She is Bonnie Langford.

446
00:37:31.019 --> 00:37:31.619
Yeah, exactly.

447
00:37:31.679 --> 00:37:33.420
And so it is Cadis Bonnie.

448
00:37:33.480 --> 00:37:41.340
Mel doesn't have a character partly because 5 of her 1st 6 episodes are written by Pip and Jane Baker.

449
00:37:41.400 --> 00:37:46.320
And also because Doctor Who Companions in the classic series rarely have characters.

450
00:37:46.380 --> 00:37:51.000
What they do have is a great opening story that sets the template for what they are, which Mel never gets.

451
00:37:51.059 --> 00:37:51.599
That's right.

452
00:37:51.659 --> 00:37:54.360
And she's just got the one paragraph bio, essentially.

453
00:37:54.420 --> 00:37:57.960
The computer programmer from Peace Pottage, which she is nothing at all like.

454
00:37:58.139 --> 00:38:00.539
Like, you do scripting.

455
00:38:00.599 --> 00:38:02.519
I teach software engineering.

456
00:38:02.579 --> 00:38:10.679
And then the doctor goes, put this little string of whatever around the bracelet on the legs of the locations and you do computer programming.

457
00:38:10.679 --> 00:38:11.820
You know how.

458
00:38:11.880 --> 00:38:14.039
The target has to be the right sort of wire.

459
00:38:14.099 --> 00:38:15.000
It does.

460
00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:17.460
I wouldn't know what from an ornament.

461
00:38:17.940 --> 00:38:24.480
So you have Kate playing Bonnie and it's absolute panto.

462
00:38:24.539 --> 00:38:26.940
Those things where she reverts to being Kate.

463
00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:28.800
Perhaps she's fashion conscious.

464
00:38:30.119 --> 00:38:32.880
There are sides to the audience.

465
00:38:32.940 --> 00:38:34.260
Yes, yes.

466
00:38:34.260 --> 00:38:37.199
And so she's being a panto villain.

467
00:38:37.260 --> 00:38:40.559
She's occasionally throwing to the audience in this sardonic way.

468
00:38:40.619 --> 00:38:48.360
And in fact, it's kind of funny when the doctor overhears them because they're so stagey and she has to quickly walk it back.

469
00:38:48.420 --> 00:38:49.500
Oh, nothing, you know.

470
00:38:49.739 --> 00:38:52.380
So, like, oh, I love it.

471
00:38:52.440 --> 00:38:53.760
It's so funny.

472
00:38:53.880 --> 00:38:55.199
I mean, it is so great.

473
00:38:55.260 --> 00:38:56.880
I do agree with you.

474
00:38:56.940 --> 00:39:00.840
Like, because now I understand British culture and I now understand Banto.

475
00:39:00.900 --> 00:39:03.480
When I was 15 I didn't have any reference point for that.

476
00:39:03.539 --> 00:39:06.300
So this is obviously like British audiences will get it.

477
00:39:06.360 --> 00:39:14.579
But as an Australian boy in Sydney, I didn't get that and it just went over my head and I just found it embarrassing and going, what is this?

478
00:39:14.639 --> 00:39:15.000
you know?

479
00:39:15.059 --> 00:39:33.539
And I was longing for a return to the gritziness of things that I still had on VHS that I was still watching far more than this, things like Vengeance and Varos, things like Resurrection of the Darks, all those sorts of, even the 5 doctors for its sort of relative simplicity was felt far more mature than what I was being put through here.

480
00:39:33.599 --> 00:39:37.139
But I mean, it's not maturity that's the problem, is it?

481
00:39:37.199 --> 00:39:38.460
It's not that this is immature.

482
00:39:38.519 --> 00:39:39.960
It's immature.

483
00:39:40.019 --> 00:39:41.400
Well, no, but what it's doing.

484
00:39:41.460 --> 00:39:48.119
Like, I think that there is kids TV elements to it and stuff, and it is Pip and Jane, and they are deliberately writing to children.

485
00:39:48.119 --> 00:39:56.280
And the science staff is very much their vague memory that the show was intended to have some kind of didactic purpose, I think.

486
00:39:56.340 --> 00:39:59.039
Yeah, like the mid-20th century BBC did.

487
00:39:59.159 --> 00:40:05.219
But what it's doing is it's drawing on a theatrical tradition.

488
00:40:05.280 --> 00:40:11.639
And so what it's not really trying to do is represent a sort of coherent or credible sort of reality.

489
00:40:11.699 --> 00:40:14.579
It's being kind of metatextual.

490
00:40:14.639 --> 00:40:17.039
And so there's something grown up about that, I think.

491
00:40:17.099 --> 00:40:27.300
I think we have to unpick the decades of critique that have been overlaid onto this, where the fandoms received wisdom, basically saying what a terrible idea this was.

492
00:40:27.360 --> 00:40:36.659
And to go back and understand what an imaginative leap it was in Doctor Who storytelling terms, to have the villain impersonate the companion.

493
00:40:36.780 --> 00:40:38.820
We haven't seen that before.

494
00:40:38.880 --> 00:40:40.619
That's new for Doctor Who.

495
00:40:40.679 --> 00:40:48.119
There is a different and more serious version of this story where the Rani is presenting herself as a generic companion to the doctor.

496
00:40:48.239 --> 00:40:55.380
Whereas the fact that not only is she dressing up as the companion and putting on the voice and the wig.

497
00:40:56.400 --> 00:41:04.800
But also the fact that you can see the Rani passing herself off as, say, the 1st Romana or Nissa.

498
00:41:04.860 --> 00:41:08.699
You can actually maybe buy into that, but the fact that it's Mel.

499
00:41:08.760 --> 00:41:14.820
In fact, it's Bonnie Langford is what people can't take on board.

500
00:41:14.880 --> 00:41:21.239
And actually, that's what I think is the genius of it because it turns the story into something else entirely.

501
00:41:21.300 --> 00:41:38.820
But like having things like these crucial scenes, you know, like the Dr. Pixies outfit scene, which is kind of a thing at this point because the show has become much more aware of regeneration and because this producer is now doing his 3rd regeneration.

502
00:41:38.880 --> 00:41:41.940
So he has to find a new way of doing it.

503
00:41:42.000 --> 00:41:47.460
But having Kate play the companions role and having Kate comment sardonically on his clothes.

504
00:41:47.460 --> 00:41:49.980
Every time it cuts away from the choice of costume.

505
00:41:50.039 --> 00:41:51.719
It's to an even bigger iron.

506
00:41:51.840 --> 00:41:53.099
Yes, yes.

507
00:41:57.900 --> 00:42:00.539
Can I just say we cut into that scene?

508
00:42:00.599 --> 00:42:06.719
It's very elegantly done from Mel in the quarry saying one thing about the doctor, you can't miss him in that outfit.

509
00:42:06.840 --> 00:42:09.539
Q, Collin's coat being...

510
00:42:09.599 --> 00:42:10.079
Yeah.

511
00:42:10.139 --> 00:42:12.539
Wouldn't that have been in the scripting, you know?

512
00:42:12.599 --> 00:42:17.579
Yeah, but it's an elegant piece of scripting and people don't give Pip and Jane enough credit for the things that they get right.

513
00:42:17.639 --> 00:42:18.960
Yeah, that's true.

514
00:42:19.019 --> 00:42:20.519
I mean, they really are trying here.

515
00:42:20.579 --> 00:42:26.880
They're trying to present, um, alien race that doesn't look like humans with the locersians.

516
00:42:26.940 --> 00:42:30.900
They're trying to do monsters with their different viewpoints.

517
00:42:30.960 --> 00:42:32.639
I mean, they're all cartoon.

518
00:42:32.699 --> 00:42:39.780
Like, and I don't think the occursions work because who runs like that when you can pick up things like we normally do and I don't buy that at all.

519
00:42:39.840 --> 00:42:40.920
I run.

520
00:42:41.940 --> 00:42:48.719
But, you know, you know, they really are looking at what makes Doctor Who and trying to put in things.

521
00:42:48.719 --> 00:42:51.900
I think that the locustions actually look great.

522
00:42:52.019 --> 00:42:53.940
That are probably one of the best things about the story.

523
00:42:54.360 --> 00:43:01.440
Yeah, they've got a really consistent look with the clothing that they wear, the colouration, is really good.

524
00:43:01.500 --> 00:43:06.539
I love the fact that the mains that they have coming out of their head aren't all just identical.

525
00:43:06.659 --> 00:43:07.679
It's all different, aren't they?

526
00:43:07.800 --> 00:43:08.400
They're all different.

527
00:43:08.460 --> 00:43:12.239
And I think they're not just accidentally different because that's just the way they came out of the thing.

528
00:43:12.300 --> 00:43:13.619
They're deliberately different.

529
00:43:13.619 --> 00:43:18.900
So it's like Kona, who's a very handsome young, you know, played by this very handsome young man. hes the handsome young hero.

530
00:43:18.960 --> 00:43:22.380
He's got this very large mane, which is impeccable.

531
00:43:22.440 --> 00:43:28.860
And then you've got Farun's Maine, which is kind of, obviously, she's an older woman, so it's got a bit of grain and she's female, so it's coloured.

532
00:43:28.920 --> 00:43:31.679
And then you've got Icona's ugly brother.

533
00:43:31.679 --> 00:43:34.619
And he's just a shambles.

534
00:43:34.679 --> 00:43:39.659
So it's like that, it's not really nice that they've got their, that, that feels like they've gone to an effort.

535
00:43:39.719 --> 00:43:40.559
Like that's not just an accident.

536
00:43:40.619 --> 00:43:49.019
And they sort of gesture at them being lizardy by just giving them a few scales on the face without making them look too odd.

537
00:43:49.079 --> 00:44:04.440
And I actually think that Icona Mark Greenstreet is doing something with his hands and the way that both he and San hold their arms when they run is odd, and it is an attempt to make them look less human.

538
00:44:04.500 --> 00:44:07.980
It is an attempt to make them look alien in a way.

539
00:44:08.039 --> 00:44:17.820
And there's that scene too, where they all walk into the leisure centre and they kiss the rock, kiss the rock. like there's just little alien themes.

540
00:44:17.880 --> 00:44:19.619
That's what we were saying, cohesive production.

541
00:44:19.679 --> 00:44:23.460
Yeah, but it's a 60s way of presenting an alien race.

542
00:44:23.519 --> 00:44:29.639
In particular, it's not like Yurak and the and the tet traps who are just sort of big rubber constitutes.

543
00:44:29.699 --> 00:44:32.099
But I think that comes from Pip and Jane Baker.

544
00:44:32.159 --> 00:44:38.820
I'm pretty sure that they would have been quite descriptive about what they wanted. in that, not just from the directoral point of view.

545
00:44:38.880 --> 00:44:41.820
Pippin Jane's problem is not any of that.

546
00:44:41.880 --> 00:44:46.079
Pip and Jane's problem is their inability to write dialogue.

547
00:44:46.139 --> 00:44:58.320
Now, I know we're in the heightened Doctor Who universe here and you want it to be science and so on like that, but I know people critique Eric Saywood's dialogues being not naturalistic, but Pippin James gives that a real run for its money.

548
00:44:58.380 --> 00:44:59.639
Yeah, I think that's true.

549
00:44:59.699 --> 00:45:00.659
Very unfortunate.

550
00:45:00.719 --> 00:45:02.639
And you can see people like Mark Green Street.

551
00:45:02.699 --> 00:45:04.679
And I think it affects the performances.

552
00:45:04.739 --> 00:45:09.840
It affects what you could have some quite, you can tell that, you know, you've got some good hactors here.

553
00:45:09.900 --> 00:45:19.380
You've got Mark Green Street. you've got Wanda Ventham, and you've got Donald Pickering, and they are all real serious actors, and they are, and Kate Amara is a real serious actor in her own way.

554
00:45:19.440 --> 00:45:26.519
But the point is, their performance is inevitably going to be affected by this ridiculous dialogue that they're having to say.

555
00:45:26.579 --> 00:45:33.719
Before we started recording, I mentioned Cat O'Mara's line, the bumbling fools ready made as a sacrificial lamb.

556
00:45:33.840 --> 00:45:40.500
Because she actually swallows that in embarrassment and quickly sort of ushers another character out of the way.

557
00:45:40.559 --> 00:45:49.800
So, Simon, you remember in 1998, we went and spent a lovely afternoon with Wanda Ventham and Donald Pickering.

558
00:45:49.800 --> 00:45:51.360
Husband and wife. amazing.

559
00:45:51.420 --> 00:46:06.539
Well, of course, those 2 had known each other for many, many years, and in fact, they told stories about Wanda's, I think, then 12-year-old son listening at the door just to hear Donald's very blue stories. like, of course, that's Benedict Cumberbatch.

560
00:46:06.599 --> 00:46:12.239
But we spent a very lovely afternoon with them and basically, you know, talked through everything.

561
00:46:12.360 --> 00:46:16.440
They were such a wonderful double act, and they had various things to say, which we've just talked about.

562
00:46:16.500 --> 00:46:26.099
So, it was very funny seeing Donald Pickering's reaction when you talk to him about BS because he was looking at pictures of BS in Doctor 2 magazine they brought along.

563
00:46:26.159 --> 00:46:29.940
His brow just sort of dark and he went, I just felt like such an asshole.

564
00:46:31.019 --> 00:46:43.260
Which I think says a lot, but also Wanda, we spoke to her about the dialogue, obviously presenting it in a way as wasn't it crap dialogue presented as, you know, how do you present dialogue of this nature?

565
00:46:43.320 --> 00:46:46.260
And she said, you have to treat it as Shakespeare.

566
00:46:46.320 --> 00:46:49.320
You have to deliver it with all the conviction of Shakespeare.

567
00:46:49.380 --> 00:46:51.840
And I think that's what they're doing in this story.

568
00:46:51.900 --> 00:46:55.380
It's maybe not quite appropriate for what the rest of the story is.

569
00:46:55.440 --> 00:46:57.000
I do think it helps to ground it a little bit.

570
00:46:57.059 --> 00:47:14.400
I actually find that scene where Faroon, there's 2 moments where Wanda, I think, is her performance is really quite moving, and the one is when she discovers Sun's body, and the way that Icona gently breaks it to her.

571
00:47:14.460 --> 00:47:18.059
And the way that then Bonnie reacts.

572
00:47:18.119 --> 00:47:21.780
And, you know, there's some fake tears and stuff happening there.

573
00:47:21.840 --> 00:47:24.300
I had to be told.

574
00:47:24.420 --> 00:47:26.820
Yeah, I know, I know, I think it's one really good.

575
00:47:26.940 --> 00:47:35.280
And then the other one, which again is a little bit overwrought, but I think actually sells it, which is normal, basically. based without San, which I think is wonderful.

576
00:47:35.340 --> 00:47:37.320
I mean, they are really really great.

577
00:47:37.380 --> 00:47:57.420
And I think, you know, the closest the story comes to being about anything, is the sacrifice that Bayos makes, that all the time we despise Bayos as a collaborator, but the reason he collaborates is the same reason that he dies, it's to save his people.

578
00:47:57.480 --> 00:48:02.519
So he collaborates to keep his people safe and he sacrifices his life to keep his people safe.

579
00:48:02.579 --> 00:48:07.739
I like the sequence where he says, when the doctor asks him, you're, why have you assisted?

580
00:48:07.739 --> 00:48:10.380
and he says, collaborated is the word you're avoiding doctor?

581
00:48:10.440 --> 00:48:12.480
But also, there are different kinds of collaborators.

582
00:48:12.539 --> 00:48:14.699
There are collaborators who are out to get advancements for themselves.

583
00:48:14.760 --> 00:48:20.340
He is a collaborator because he thinks that's the best of 2 several bad options, which is fine.

584
00:48:20.400 --> 00:48:30.360
And the fact that the story does, visit that, like, who is the, is it better to run off to the hills and and be the rebel encampment or is it better to try and...

585
00:48:30.480 --> 00:48:31.860
Are you Bayas or are you Icona?

586
00:48:31.860 --> 00:48:32.340
Exactly.

587
00:48:32.400 --> 00:48:34.079
And I think it doesn't do that very deeply.

588
00:48:34.199 --> 00:48:36.000
But at least at least that does it.

589
00:48:36.059 --> 00:48:36.780
Yeah, yeah.

590
00:48:36.840 --> 00:48:40.679
And Bayos, you know, like it validates his approach by...

591
00:48:40.739 --> 00:48:41.639
And so we're sympathetic to him.

592
00:48:41.699 --> 00:48:42.900
We don't dislike him.

593
00:48:42.900 --> 00:48:43.380
No, no.

594
00:48:43.440 --> 00:48:44.820
And then I cona validates.

595
00:48:44.880 --> 00:48:46.920
Exactly as well by taking over at the end.

596
00:48:46.980 --> 00:48:48.360
There's actually character work going on.

597
00:48:48.360 --> 00:48:52.619
That's not a critique, which people lay at the feet of a Pippin Jane script, but there is.

598
00:48:52.679 --> 00:49:04.199
Can I just say as well, it puts that scene where they discover San's skeleton into context because Wanda said that immediately before they started rolling, one of the very camp dresses came up.

599
00:49:04.260 --> 00:49:05.880
Trent said, do be careful, darling.

600
00:49:05.940 --> 00:49:12.119
There's tet trap dung everywhere, and she had to deliver that scene, trying to get a straight face.

601
00:49:13.860 --> 00:49:15.480
Brilliant.

602
00:49:24.539 --> 00:49:25.260
Simon's right.

603
00:49:25.320 --> 00:49:26.579
It's the dialogue that lets it down.

604
00:49:26.579 --> 00:49:40.019
And the performances that these guys actually make it work, whereas I think for me, in the following 2 stories, I think there's much better dialogue, but there's performances that don't work for me.

605
00:49:40.079 --> 00:49:40.920
Very much so.

606
00:49:41.039 --> 00:49:43.380
And the direction is not anywhere.

607
00:49:43.440 --> 00:49:44.039
It's very flat.

608
00:49:44.099 --> 00:49:45.119
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

609
00:49:45.179 --> 00:49:46.619
And there's occasional good lines.

610
00:49:46.679 --> 00:49:55.920
I mean, obviously, Pip and Jane never met a piece of naturalistic dialogue, but are you prepared to abandon walking in case you squash an insect underfoot.

611
00:49:55.980 --> 00:50:00.719
I think it's actually a really good line and a great one line distillation of what the Rani's character is.

612
00:50:00.840 --> 00:50:02.340
You need that sort of line.

613
00:50:02.340 --> 00:50:04.619
It's just the fact that they come one after the other.

614
00:50:04.619 --> 00:50:07.199
And that's actually kind of a nice one.

615
00:50:07.260 --> 00:50:10.079
It's not the sacrificial land, but I can't even repeat it, Nathan.

616
00:50:10.139 --> 00:50:12.719
It's all these other ones which are just ridiculous.

617
00:50:12.780 --> 00:50:13.980
And they don't float.

618
00:50:14.039 --> 00:50:17.159
Sometimes they don't even seem to flow like one line into the next.

619
00:50:17.219 --> 00:50:19.500
Did they just like some random sentences?

620
00:50:19.559 --> 00:50:30.780
The worst thing that happened to Pip and Jane is they were asked to write space-based stories because they're kind of very fruity English language is suited to an historical story.

621
00:50:30.840 --> 00:50:31.980
It doesn't work.

622
00:50:32.039 --> 00:50:34.199
It really doesn't poke you in the eye nearly as much.

623
00:50:34.260 --> 00:50:40.739
When it's put in the mouths of Commander Tonka Travers or the Rani, it sounds immediately more artificial.

624
00:50:40.860 --> 00:50:42.000
And I agree with you.

625
00:50:42.059 --> 00:50:49.380
I think it's much more naturalistic in Mark of the Rani, and I think you get two of the vervoids, and then it ramps up with the ultimate faux part two.

626
00:50:49.440 --> 00:50:51.960
So by the time I get to hear, it's dialogue fatigue.

627
00:50:52.019 --> 00:50:53.519
I'm really struggling with it.

628
00:50:53.579 --> 00:51:00.900
And we really do get a huge wodge of Pip and Jane at the end of season 23 in the beginning of season 24.

629
00:51:01.079 --> 00:51:03.059
It is a lot to cope with I think.

630
00:51:03.119 --> 00:51:08.519
Because you said before that Pip and Jane wrote 5 of Mel's 1st 6 episodes, no.

631
00:51:08.579 --> 00:51:10.800
They wrote 9 of 10.

632
00:51:11.699 --> 00:51:13.079
Exactly.

633
00:51:13.139 --> 00:51:16.139
They basically write practically half of her material.

634
00:51:16.199 --> 00:51:24.300
Yeah, I think he can get away with aliens being given quite weird dialogue, but it's when it comes out of the mouths of our supposedly human characters.

635
00:51:24.360 --> 00:51:31.739
My favourite line of the story is when Mel says, I could nominate a few candidates for extermination myself.

636
00:51:31.800 --> 00:51:34.380
And you think, who says that?

637
00:51:34.739 --> 00:51:36.239
I do.

638
00:51:37.920 --> 00:51:53.519
I think going back to Bonnie, if I may, I'm not saying she's a bad actress, but I think as Todd sort of implied before, I think she's she's giving a performance which is far bigger than the medium requires or demands, shall I say, particularly in this era.

639
00:51:53.579 --> 00:51:56.760
I think she's much, much better in the 21st century iteration.

640
00:51:56.820 --> 00:52:04.920
Although I had to say in this morning's episode where, I don't know what the line is, where she says that the Rani is, I've met you before and you're utterly evil or something.

641
00:52:04.980 --> 00:52:10.019
It's like, it was really channelling the male of the late 80s.

642
00:52:10.079 --> 00:52:12.119
It was almost the same line reading.

643
00:52:12.179 --> 00:52:14.099
How utterly evil.

644
00:52:14.219 --> 00:52:25.619
But what I will say is that I think in her defence, and I've used this defence, even before she came back in the 21st century, that the character and the actress were for Colin's doctor.

645
00:52:25.679 --> 00:52:26.039
Yes.

646
00:52:26.159 --> 00:52:29.519
And I think she does work so much better against the bigness.

647
00:52:29.579 --> 00:52:32.340
Collins a much bigger stage year performance.

648
00:52:32.400 --> 00:52:33.480
He's a bigger guy.

649
00:52:33.539 --> 00:52:35.039
He's got the loud outfit.

650
00:52:35.099 --> 00:52:43.320
And so having her, he kind of really works and vervoids an ultimate foe, whereas I think Mel in season 24 is when you kind of go, oh, I don't know whether this is quite right.

651
00:52:43.380 --> 00:52:45.900
I would agree that apart from Delta, I really like her in Delta.

652
00:52:45.960 --> 00:52:47.880
I would agree that it works in verboids.

653
00:52:48.000 --> 00:52:50.940
I think it works less so in Ultimate Foe.

654
00:52:51.000 --> 00:52:54.119
I think there's, you know, was it dull and boring as they come or whatever it is.

655
00:52:54.179 --> 00:52:55.920
Yeah, yeah, she's not as good in that.

656
00:52:55.980 --> 00:53:01.139
And I do think that Mel does work in George of the Man Room quite effectively.

657
00:53:01.199 --> 00:53:15.420
But having listened to her on Big Finish, I think seeing the progression of the character and what she brought to that before she came back into the current show, just seeing and hearing her performance change has been a delight.

658
00:53:15.480 --> 00:53:17.579
And today I thought she was again tremendous.

659
00:53:17.639 --> 00:53:23.579
So, I mean, I don't hate it, but she's just too big for the small screen at this point for me to be a believable character.

660
00:53:23.639 --> 00:53:38.219
It's interesting that we both like her in Delta and what we miss, of course, is because we've got all this space stories, is the Delta. it's not contemporary earth, but it's as close as you're going to get, how fascinating it would have been to have seen Mel in a present day story.

661
00:53:38.280 --> 00:53:38.940
That's right.

662
00:53:39.000 --> 00:53:42.539
Deltron Banner is the only story where she actually interacts with human beings.

663
00:53:42.659 --> 00:53:45.780
And it's set on earth and it's on location.

664
00:53:45.840 --> 00:53:47.460
And she turns it right down.

665
00:53:47.519 --> 00:53:48.059
Yeah.

666
00:53:48.119 --> 00:53:49.380
She's gracing that.

667
00:53:49.440 --> 00:53:52.800
But also, I think time in the Rony distorts our view of Mel.

668
00:53:52.860 --> 00:53:58.679
I think without Mel and Bonnie's performance in Time and the Rani, Mel feels different.

669
00:53:58.739 --> 00:54:03.000
This story is almost a distillation of what people don't like about it.

670
00:54:03.059 --> 00:54:03.599
Not me.

671
00:54:03.659 --> 00:54:04.860
I like it.

672
00:54:04.920 --> 00:54:11.579
But she's too big and she's wearing an outlandish outfit, even in 1987.

673
00:54:11.820 --> 00:54:14.340
That's not something that you would have seen people wearing down the street.

674
00:54:14.400 --> 00:54:18.119
Whereas her outfit in Paradise Towers or Terra the vervoids.

675
00:54:18.179 --> 00:54:19.260
You could get away with that.

676
00:54:19.320 --> 00:54:21.119
It would look it would look weird.

677
00:54:21.179 --> 00:54:22.440
But it was all the time.

678
00:54:22.500 --> 00:54:24.840
Whereas what on earth is she wearing?

679
00:54:24.900 --> 00:54:33.000
And also the candy stripe and the white tights in a quarry. muddy, wet quarry.

680
00:54:33.059 --> 00:54:34.260
It's so bizarre.

681
00:54:34.320 --> 00:54:42.420
And then the fact that because the Rani is dressing up to impersonate her, she has to adopt that most outlandish of costumes. pretty great, actually.

682
00:54:42.659 --> 00:54:44.400
Fantastic.

683
00:54:44.460 --> 00:54:48.119
I see that it offends people sensibilities in some way.

684
00:54:48.179 --> 00:54:52.079
And I think time and there only distorts our idea of what Mel is.

685
00:54:52.139 --> 00:54:55.980
Maybe it's KJ Mara's impression of her, which distorts our idea.

686
00:54:56.039 --> 00:54:56.760
Yeah, could very well be.

687
00:54:56.880 --> 00:55:12.000
When she comes back in the giggle, she actually gives an interview to DWM, where she actually says that she thought that she did a bad job as Mel, which made me really sad and the interviewer obviously kind of says, no, that's ridiculous.

688
00:55:12.059 --> 00:55:15.300
You know, you were great, you did what you were meant to do.

689
00:55:15.360 --> 00:55:27.659
And she jumped at the opportunity to come back and do a more mature job this time round, which I think, you know, she obviously has managed to do.

690
00:55:27.719 --> 00:55:30.300
It was delightful seeing her in the kitchen.

691
00:55:30.360 --> 00:55:30.900
Wonderful.

692
00:55:31.440 --> 00:55:34.679
Because the job that she's doing back then is the job of a child.

693
00:55:34.739 --> 00:55:35.940
She's a child star.

694
00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:44.699
Obviously, she's a grown woman, but she's sort of channelling that kind of child star energy into a family TV series for Jog 2.

695
00:55:44.820 --> 00:55:45.900
Now she's a grown woman.

696
00:55:45.960 --> 00:55:50.099
She's got all of those years on the stage in dramatic roles.

697
00:55:50.219 --> 00:55:57.539
She's got that incredible role in EastEnders, which she won awards for with her reaction to her child's death on screen, things like that.

698
00:55:57.599 --> 00:56:00.539
She's able to bring all of that life experience to bear.

699
00:56:00.599 --> 00:56:03.900
And because Mel was only ever Bonnie.

700
00:56:03.960 --> 00:56:06.059
Mel now is bonning.

701
00:56:18.659 --> 00:56:29.880
So, as we've already alluded to, we have all watched the reality war mere moments before sitting down to record...

702
00:56:29.880 --> 00:56:32.760
Literally 5 minutes between stopping and getting in the car to come here.

703
00:56:32.820 --> 00:56:36.000
I did get up at quarter to 4 this morning.

704
00:56:36.480 --> 00:56:38.940
You flew to watch. as early as possible.

705
00:56:39.059 --> 00:56:42.539
No, I, like Simon, I finished about 10 minutes before I left.

706
00:56:42.659 --> 00:56:55.440
And Russell very clearly wanted to bring the Rani back, partly because every major female character in the history of the new series has been rumoured to be secretly the rhyme.

707
00:56:55.500 --> 00:56:58.559
And so at one point we have to do it.

708
00:56:58.679 --> 00:57:08.280
And also, I think, you know, it's Russell's mission, I guess, to give as much of the classic series law to a new audience, a 21st century audience.

709
00:57:08.340 --> 00:57:21.420
And my feeling was that he didn't do a very bad job of this in the sense that the performance isn't the Catomara performance from Time in the Rani, I think.

710
00:57:21.480 --> 00:57:24.539
It's a lot more muted than that.

711
00:57:24.599 --> 00:57:28.199
It's not the full-throated panto. vampi, but not camp.

712
00:57:28.260 --> 00:57:29.340
It's not scenery chewing.

713
00:57:29.400 --> 00:57:30.360
Yeah, it's not scenery chain.

714
00:57:30.420 --> 00:57:30.840
Yeah.

715
00:57:30.900 --> 00:57:41.159
And having 2 actresses actually play the Rani in various aspects is actually gives it a lot of colour and flavour, and I really like the fact that Mrs. Flood needs to see another day.

716
00:57:41.219 --> 00:57:43.139
But Archie, I think, did a wonderful job.

717
00:57:43.199 --> 00:57:48.000
She had so much exposition to get through, but she made it seem effortless, but the Rani still had a plan.

718
00:57:48.059 --> 00:57:51.719
The Rani's plans do seem to be getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

719
00:57:51.780 --> 00:57:53.639
Do you think maybe very unfairly.

720
00:57:53.699 --> 00:57:59.460
Ah, Japanjabi was meant to be the Rani and Mark of the Rani, and Mrs. Flood was meant to be the old crone running half house.

721
00:58:00.539 --> 00:58:02.219
Come on in.

722
00:58:03.179 --> 00:58:12.780
Well, so we did have some elements of the Rani in that one of the things that we know the Rani does is dress up as the doctor's companion.

723
00:58:12.840 --> 00:58:14.760
And so we do see her.

724
00:58:14.820 --> 00:58:19.260
I think this was Brendan's comment in the 2nd great and bountiful human empire.

725
00:58:19.320 --> 00:58:30.659
Mrs. Fod does dress variously as Clara, Rory and Romana one in series one of this era of Doctor Who.

726
00:58:30.719 --> 00:58:34.440
If only she turned up in Sarah Jane's hand of fear outfit.

727
00:58:35.039 --> 00:58:37.320
Just like Andy Pandy.

728
00:58:37.380 --> 00:58:43.500
I would have actually quite liked it if the Roddy and Mel, when they finally met, were wearing the same out.

729
00:58:43.559 --> 00:58:45.179
They're delicious.

730
00:58:45.239 --> 00:58:48.599
Oh, can I just say that is the one thing for all of Pip and Jane's greatness.

731
00:58:48.659 --> 00:58:54.900
We missed out on the scene in Time in the Rani, of the Rani dressed as Mel and Mel coming from.

732
00:58:54.960 --> 00:58:58.199
That should have been the scene that you hinged everything on.

733
00:58:58.260 --> 00:58:59.639
Yeah, absolutely.

734
00:58:59.699 --> 00:59:02.460
And and she's still quite scien-y, I think.

735
00:59:02.519 --> 00:59:07.860
I think she did have a plan, like, with all these wishes and what the vindicator.

736
00:59:07.920 --> 00:59:09.599
There was all that science-y stuff to do with that.

737
00:59:09.659 --> 00:59:10.980
So I was quite happy with all that.

738
00:59:11.039 --> 00:59:13.800
I think she avoids being missy.

739
00:59:13.860 --> 00:59:14.400
Yes.

740
00:59:14.519 --> 00:59:24.719
Because Missy as such was such a uniquely brilliant portrayal and characterisation, but I think they've started to feed off each other, which is what the best characterisations do.

741
00:59:24.780 --> 00:59:29.579
I think the floor with Archie is that she's only done those two.

742
00:59:29.699 --> 00:59:35.159
Well, I know she was at the end of that previous episode, the Eurovision episode, but I wanted there to be more of her.

743
00:59:36.000 --> 00:59:40.079
And I would hope that she would come back, despite being eaten by Omier.

744
00:59:40.139 --> 00:59:40.920
I don't...

745
00:59:40.920 --> 00:59:44.340
I'd hope to...

746
00:59:44.400 --> 00:59:45.900
I tend to.

747
00:59:45.960 --> 01:00:04.920
But look, but given the fact that if we look at the trajectory of any villain monster anything, they start with a kind of a unique concept or a relatively unique concept, become more generic of the 2nd time round, and then the 3rd go, they or 3rd or 4th go, they try and do something a bit different and try and expand on it.

748
01:00:04.980 --> 01:00:12.960
I'm not prepared to say that we're necessarily at that point, but I think that they didn't just make her even more generic a villain.

749
01:00:13.019 --> 01:00:16.559
I originally thought we've had Missy, why do we need the Rani?

750
01:00:16.619 --> 01:00:20.099
I mean, in a sense, we've had the evil female time lord.

751
01:00:20.159 --> 01:00:21.900
So why do we need the Rani?

752
01:00:21.960 --> 01:00:27.360
But because the Rani isn't out to destroy the doctor specifically?

753
01:00:27.420 --> 01:00:52.860
And because the Rani usually has some kind of plan that involves her power that is kind of mediated through some kind of science, although here, you know, as always, it's a combination of science and kind of magic and alchemy, that in a way, what we do have is raining back in the time of the Rani Rani and making it a little bit more like the original.

754
01:00:52.920 --> 01:00:58.860
But you still get all those lovelier sides and comments from Mrs. Flood, like she gets to do all of that.

755
01:00:58.920 --> 01:01:06.360
And can I just say those platform shoes that Archie was wearing, my god, walking around the sets and all that sort of thing?

756
01:01:06.420 --> 01:01:06.960
Did you notice that?

757
01:01:07.079 --> 01:01:08.039
costume?

758
01:01:08.099 --> 01:01:09.420
They were really built up.

759
01:01:09.480 --> 01:01:11.639
Like she was on some... the outfit was great.

760
01:01:11.699 --> 01:01:12.719
Oh, yeah, she looked wonderful.

761
01:01:12.780 --> 01:01:13.679
Yeah.

762
01:01:13.739 --> 01:01:16.800
Like it's such a callback and her hair and everything.

763
01:01:16.860 --> 01:01:18.179
Oh, God, there I go.

764
01:01:18.239 --> 01:01:19.980
Yeah, the hair.

765
01:01:20.039 --> 01:01:29.039
But the thing that I think I can see in all 3 of those portrayals of the Rani and why the Rani is not just missy, is because they're all at the academy together.

766
01:01:29.099 --> 01:01:36.960
And so you can imagine that, you know, the master and the doctor are having some kind of bitch session fight sort of over here and trying to outdo each other and blah, blah, blah.

767
01:01:37.019 --> 01:01:42.059
And the Rani is on the other side of the classroom lab just looking at them going, just wanting to get her experiment.

768
01:01:42.179 --> 01:01:47.940
Just wanting to get there, his experiment, those idiots over there and basically being, you were thinking like that they were just fools.

769
01:01:47.940 --> 01:01:50.400
Releasing dinosaur to eat the president's cat.

770
01:01:50.460 --> 01:01:51.300
For example.

771
01:01:51.360 --> 01:01:55.619
I love that she's still taken with dinosaurs, even if they're bone dinosaurs.

772
01:01:55.920 --> 01:02:04.860
I have to say, obviously, I think the Rani is possibly the best thing. about the season finale that we just saw and a lot of that is down to Archie.

773
01:02:04.920 --> 01:02:08.699
The thing which did disappoint me was her relationship with the doctor.

774
01:02:08.760 --> 01:02:14.280
She's always had an adversarial and almost belittling relationship with the doctor.

775
01:02:14.400 --> 01:02:20.639
She's never bought into that kind of that flirting with him that a lot of other RTD villains do.

776
01:02:20.699 --> 01:02:23.280
And I thought it was a shame that that was their relationship.

777
01:02:23.340 --> 01:02:33.840
Whereas I think she could have been the much colder, more dispassionate representative of the Rani, whereas Mrs. Flood could occupy the position of being the cosier, friendlier Rani.

778
01:02:33.900 --> 01:02:42.599
I think to the join with me and we can rule the galaxy together offer is a kind of thing that's characteristic of the master rather than a variety.

779
01:02:42.659 --> 01:02:43.920
Yes, the Rani wouldn't want him there.

780
01:02:43.920 --> 01:02:45.119
Getting in the way.

781
01:02:45.179 --> 01:02:46.679
Getting under a feet, for goodness sake.

782
01:02:46.739 --> 01:02:48.900
Ronnie doesn't want to run a galaxy. too much work.

783
01:02:48.960 --> 01:02:54.239
She wants the galaxy to be her slave workforce while she conducts her experiment in the leptonic era.

784
01:02:55.079 --> 01:02:57.360
Well, what, of course, we're missing.

785
01:02:57.420 --> 01:03:04.079
We were missing from the Reality War is what happens to the Rani at the end of her previous 2 story.

786
01:03:04.139 --> 01:03:06.719
And that is to kind of be hoist by her own potato.

787
01:03:06.780 --> 01:03:09.539
I mean, so I suppose she is hoist her own batai because she gets eaten by Omega.

788
01:03:09.599 --> 01:03:18.599
But you just needed that final scene of her being, you know, going off in her Tartars with like, you know, dinosaurs hatching or Tetraps prodding her or something, you know, Mrs. Flood sort of making her tea or something.

789
01:03:18.719 --> 01:03:20.400
I was prepared to...

790
01:03:20.400 --> 01:03:26.460
Bet money that Mrs. Flood was kind of going to lose it with the Archie Rani and turn into Yurak.

791
01:03:26.760 --> 01:03:29.159
She was going to...

792
01:03:29.280 --> 01:03:29.880
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

793
01:03:29.940 --> 01:03:30.659
I thought that that was it.

794
01:03:30.719 --> 01:03:34.920
And I was forgetting the Rani out of the way and she says, I can control the machine.

795
01:03:35.460 --> 01:03:41.940
I was also disappointed that Mrs. Flood didn't escape with the time ring more in a Genesis of the Daleks kind of way.

796
01:03:42.480 --> 01:03:44.400
Rolling around on the floor.

797
01:03:44.639 --> 01:03:49.260
Rather than in a sort of a Captain Jack kind of way. with his band.

798
01:03:49.320 --> 01:03:55.679
Yes, I wanted to see her in the immortal words of dimensions in time, hoist by her own petardis.

799
01:03:55.739 --> 01:03:56.760
Oh my god.

800
01:03:56.820 --> 01:03:58.800
Why did we talk about dimensions in time?

801
01:03:58.860 --> 01:04:00.420
I haven't seen it forever.

802
01:04:00.480 --> 01:04:05.219
What we're missing these days is Kate Tamara's performance and she is the OG.

803
01:04:05.280 --> 01:04:10.260
I want to talk about what Kate Amara means to me because she's embedded in the fabric of Dog 2.

804
01:04:10.440 --> 01:04:12.239
I think she's the 80s villain.

805
01:04:12.300 --> 01:04:14.699
Like the master is the 70s villain.

806
01:04:14.699 --> 01:04:21.480
And Kaysomara has such an incredible relationship with Doctor Who, because not only does she come back.

807
01:04:21.539 --> 01:04:24.900
She's in the story, she comes back to kick off a new doctor.

808
01:04:24.960 --> 01:04:35.639
She then comes back, 6 years later for the big anniversary runaround, which is seen by 16000000 people where they're on the EastEnders lot.

809
01:04:35.699 --> 01:04:37.079
She's the villain of choice for that.

810
01:04:37.139 --> 01:04:39.599
That would have set back the show coming back another couple of years.

811
01:04:40.619 --> 01:04:48.000
The reason people keep saying is the Rani coming back, not because she was tremendous character, although she was, but it's because she's important to the show.

812
01:04:48.059 --> 01:05:07.980
And I think Kate O'Mara's involvement in the show was great because Kate O'Mara not only had the history with Colin Baker, who she'd starred with in the brothers, which lent Frishon to those scenes, she was also married, of course, to Jeremy Young, who played Cal in 100,000 BC.

813
01:05:08.159 --> 01:05:13.980
She was then later married to Richard Willis, who played Vash in full circle.

814
01:05:14.039 --> 01:05:14.699
Wow.

815
01:05:14.820 --> 01:05:20.340
She also had a baby by Ian Cullen, who was Ixta in the Aztec.

816
01:05:20.400 --> 01:05:24.059
She, she is like, she's like, kidding me?

817
01:05:24.119 --> 01:05:27.599
She's like Clara in the 50th anniversary.

818
01:05:27.719 --> 01:05:31.619
He's woven throughout the history of Doctor Who.

819
01:05:31.679 --> 01:05:39.900
And I just think she is such an incredible presence as the Rani, the Rani, especially in this story, Time and the Rani, is her.

820
01:05:39.960 --> 01:05:41.639
It's Catomara powered.

821
01:05:41.699 --> 01:05:44.159
And I think we were very lucky to have her.

822
01:05:44.219 --> 01:05:49.860
And so, do you remember the 50th anniversary convention in London, which we attended?

823
01:05:49.920 --> 01:05:50.400
She was there.

824
01:05:50.460 --> 01:05:58.260
Yes, sitting next to Peter Davidson on a panel with this incredible mane of silvery gray hair.

825
01:05:58.320 --> 01:06:01.920
She looked wonderful and she was very ill at the time.

826
01:06:01.980 --> 01:06:15.840
She died like 3 months later from ovarian cancer, but she wanted to be there, and seeing her there in the flesh, the Rani from all of those years ago, just meant a lot to me, and I was so pleased that I got to see her.

827
01:06:15.960 --> 01:06:18.900
Now do that all again and call it an unearthly child.

828
01:06:47.099 --> 01:06:49.619
Well, that's all about this week.

829
01:06:49.679 --> 01:06:56.760
We'll be back next week to catch the second appearance of Blonfel Fotch Passimir Day Slovene in Broomtown.

830
01:06:56.880 --> 01:07:15.420
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts, and you can keep up with us on our website, 500yearDiary.com, where you'll find our social media links, as well as links to all of our other podcasts, including our other Doctor Who podcasts, Flight through Entirety, and the 2nd great and bountiful Human Empire.

831
01:07:15.480 --> 01:07:20.639
Until next time, all together now. leave the goal.

832
01:07:20.699 --> 01:07:22.800
It's the man I want.

833
01:07:22.860 --> 01:07:25.139
Thank you very much for listening and good night.

834
01:07:25.199 --> 01:07:25.980
Good night.

835
01:07:26.039 --> 01:07:26.460
Bye bye.

836
01:07:26.519 --> 01:07:27.420
See you soon.

837
01:07:39.480 --> 01:07:44.940
That was 500 Year Diary, starring Todd Beelby, Nathan Bottomley, Peter Griffiths, and Simon Moore.

838
01:07:45.000 --> 01:07:47.400
The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.

839
01:07:47.460 --> 01:07:54.960
This episode, an even bigger eye roll was recorded on the 1st of June 2025 and released on the 15th of June.

840
01:07:55.019 --> 01:08:07.920
To commemorate the life of Cato Mara back in 2021, our James Bond commentary podcast, Bondfinger, did a short series of commentaries on some of her TV performances from the 60s and 70s.

841
01:08:07.980 --> 01:08:12.539
You can check them out at bondfinger.com slash Omarathon.

842
01:08:22.920 --> 01:08:26.279
Now do that all again and call it unearthly child.

843
01:08:28.079 --> 01:08:31.260
I knew when I was making that.

844
01:08:31.260 --> 01:08:32.279
That's where we go out.

845
01:08:32.399 --> 01:08:33.960
That's it.

846
01:08:35.340 --> 01:08:36.899
That's it.

847
01:08:36.960 --> 01:08:37.739
That's it.

848
01:08:38.159 --> 01:08:39.960
I don't get it.

849
01:08:40.020 --> 01:08:49.439
Because he called it 100,000 PC. Oh, and a small part of me died.

850
01:08:49.859 --> 01:08:56.100
But it's just how beautifully heartfelt that speech was followed by you being picky.

851
01:08:56.159 --> 01:08:57.960
It is absolutely perfect.

852
01:08:58.020 --> 01:09:11.340
I thought my fan cards would be revoked. real time when you're assembling your thoughts, they're about to come around your mouth. and I almost said an unearthly child and defaulted to 100,000 BC and had the thoughts at the same time as I was speaking, Simon won't like.

853
01:09:11.399 --> 01:09:14.760
Go save it Vash. of course, because time in the mark of the Rani.

854
01:09:14.819 --> 01:09:17.220
I mean, she's a, what, 40-something year old woman?

855
01:09:17.220 --> 01:09:17.520
Oh, there.

856
01:09:17.520 --> 01:09:18.420
He's a toy boy.

857
01:09:18.479 --> 01:09:19.979
He's 18 years her junior.

858
01:09:19.979 --> 01:09:21.659
And just fun fact.

859
01:09:21.720 --> 01:09:23.880
That's quite a hot...

860
01:09:23.939 --> 01:09:24.539
Well, yes.

861
01:09:24.600 --> 01:09:26.100
Oh, yeah, absolutely.

862
01:09:26.159 --> 01:09:30.840
But also the fact that he also married Kira from Full Circle.

863
01:09:30.899 --> 01:09:32.579
Oh, yeah, yeah.

864
01:09:32.579 --> 01:09:34.920
He's on set with his future with his future wife there.

865
01:09:34.979 --> 01:09:37.560
Practically everybody else in that gang of gay.

866
01:09:37.560 --> 01:09:40.079
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

867
01:09:40.140 --> 01:09:40.619
Thai lost.

868
01:09:40.680 --> 01:09:42.420
I don't trust her.

869
01:09:44.640 --> 01:10:04.079
Do you think it was interesting today that we had that flashback to John Pertuy with the Daleks and the floating heads of Trouton and heart and all the pictures and then you having dimensions in time, the floating heads of Trouton and Hartnell.

870
01:10:04.140 --> 01:10:05.939
So Russell does.

871
01:10:06.000 --> 01:10:17.460
So obviously in last in last week's episode in Wishworld, we actually get 3 flashbacks to Cato Mara as the Rani, including one from Dimensions in Time.

872
01:10:17.520 --> 01:10:19.859
And Russell did this thing.

873
01:10:19.920 --> 01:10:21.600
He did a post about the Rani.

874
01:10:21.659 --> 01:10:33.300
And I think he actually mentions that as one of the kind of, you know, like one of the adventures that the Rani is in, which is absolutely it.

875
01:10:33.359 --> 01:10:34.140
Do you know what I mean?

876
01:10:34.260 --> 01:10:36.659
Like, he doesn't care anything about Canon because it was on television.

877
01:10:36.720 --> 01:10:38.100
It happened.

878
01:10:38.819 --> 01:10:44.699
And, you know, like he talks about her being in disguise and all of that sort of thing.

879
01:10:44.760 --> 01:10:55.920
And how, and he even kind of teases the fact that he wouldn't put us through that two-part story without giving us the Rani and Mel meeting for the 1st time.

880
01:10:55.979 --> 01:10:57.899
And that was so great.

881
01:10:57.960 --> 01:10:59.100
Don't you think?

882
01:10:59.159 --> 01:11:01.920
Like that thing where she says, I haven't thought about...

883
01:11:02.640 --> 01:11:08.939
And I thought you were a painted princess who wouldn't have survived or whatever, like, like all of that stuff was just terrifically great, I think.

884
01:11:09.000 --> 01:11:11.279
Oh, it was quiet.

885
01:11:11.340 --> 01:11:12.119
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

886
01:11:12.180 --> 01:11:23.939
Oh, no, we would have been justly quite furious. one of the many fabulous things about the Rani, which is true of great dog 2 villains, is that she has an independently adversarial relationship with the companion.

887
01:11:24.000 --> 01:11:28.680
Yeah, not just Mel, but also Perry and Mark and Randy. you know, the 1st time she sees her.

888
01:11:28.739 --> 01:11:29.760
Who's this brat?

889
01:11:29.819 --> 01:11:33.239
Yeah, but that's, but that's, that's the way the mark.

890
01:11:33.300 --> 01:11:40.380
I mean the master's always at his best when he has a independent relationship with the companion, which Missy, which Missy has with Clara, right?

891
01:11:40.560 --> 01:11:43.920
Miss Grant, I've come to take away from all this.

892
01:11:43.979 --> 01:11:44.460
Exactly.

893
01:11:44.520 --> 01:11:46.319
Thank you, Miss Grant.

894
01:11:46.380 --> 01:11:47.579
I'll let you know.

895
01:11:47.579 --> 01:11:52.859
It's Delgado's best line in the role.

896
01:11:52.979 --> 01:12:01.020
And, you know, the moment where Missy pushes Clara down the hole in order to test how deep it is, yes, exactly.

897
01:12:01.020 --> 01:12:02.159
Acting as an audience.

898
01:12:02.220 --> 01:12:04.079
Oh my god. so good.

899
01:12:04.140 --> 01:12:04.979
So good.

900
01:12:05.039 --> 01:12:06.659
I think we're done.