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This transcript was created on 2026-06-07 at 09:13:55

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

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The only Doctor Who podcast that's starting to suspect that the wasting would be much better than whatever it is we've got going on right now.

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Bring on the wasting, I say.

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I'm Nathan.

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I'm Peter.

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I'm Simon.

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And I'm a Commodore 64 in a revolutionary cave that's seen things a box that size shouldn't see.

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It's the 22nd of November, 1980.

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It's been a few years since we had a Terence Dick script on Doctor Who, but tonight he's back rescued from Christopher H.

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Bidmead's wastepaper basket and ready to thrill and delight the 5.80000 viewers who have tuned in to watch.

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But Doctor Who is quite a different show in 1980 than it was back in 1969 or 1974 or even 1977.

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How does Terence's Doctor Who hold up 11 years after its debut?

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Let's find out as we discuss state of decay.

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So, this script has a pretty storied history, I think.

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It does.

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As we know, it was originally planned to open season 15 and then got pushed.

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And there's one of those stories that's become uncontested and kind of, you know, just gone into fan consciousness, that it was feared that it would be a mockery of Dracula, which was being produced by BBC One that autumn.

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I think they just didn't want 2 of their flagship programs to be dealing with vampires in the same week.

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So eventually it got binned.

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I don't know why it wasn't resurrected for season 16, which it really should have been.

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But when JNT came on board and had no stories left.

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This was one of the ones that was in the file. was retrieved from the waste paper basket.

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Yes, but then it gets very quickly tossed into the wastepaper basket again in the sense that it is very, very heavily edited by Christopher H.

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Midmead.

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And we see him do that with David Fisher's the leisure hive, which, I mean, David Fisher does 2 scripts in season 16 and they're both really funny and basically none of that survives.

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Well, I assume the leisure hive rewrites to do with the fact that, you know, J&T wanted the tone of the show to be changed.

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So I suspect that I think the original leisure hive was a bit of a sillier version of it.

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And wasn't there a moment in time when James he had wanted to bring it back to 3 episodes, which is one of the reasons why Leisure Heart and Megloss underrun so much?

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That's right Yeah.

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And I'm going to push back a little bit on the idea.

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Again, it's in fan consciousness that Christopher Bidmead edited this very heavily.

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I interviewed Terence about this story, like in 1997.

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And he said that actually he went back to basics.

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So he just had a storyline.

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He then went back and revamped the storyline.

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So they didn't really pull much out of the waste paper basket.

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Yes, it's not like they just replaced Leila with remarks.

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That was one of the key things, but also I had to introduce Adrick and all that.

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He just went back to basics on how to tell the story.

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And he said that he and Bitmead worked on it together.

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He said it was like working with any other script editor or Bob Holmes on the show.

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He was happy with what happened.

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What he then heard through his friend Barry Letts, who is the executive producer, is that Bidmead completely tore up the script and rewrote it, like page one rewrite, and he couldn't remember very much about it, but he said it had things like the vampires hatched out of eggs and things like that.

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He then said, I'm not very happy about that.

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Peter Moffatt, the director said, I'm not directing this.

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This is not scripts that I was brought on board to do, and they basically went back to the original, which had been hashed out between Chris and Terence, with a couple of little things added in, like the mechanical reader in the TARDIS, rather than some old scrolls with the legends Rassalon.

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Right, right.

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That's just tweaks, though.

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I mean, it's interesting because on the Blu-ray, what would have been the original DVD extra, the making of, I mean, that would have been recorded 9 years after that interview that you did.

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And it's interesting that maybe his memory of that had kind of developed because he does recall in that.

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And so does Chris been made a very fractious relationship between the 2 of them.

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And a lot of that situation kind of being retold.

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Yeah, Peter Moffatt saying, no, I'm not going to do this.

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And Terence was very happy that he said, it's not usual that a director comes to your defence.

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Absolutely.

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And also the fact that Terrence, you know, has a healthy sense of humour about these things.

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He knows what being rewritten is like.

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He knows what he rewrites about. absolutely.

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And so he has a sense of humour about it.

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He said, who does this crisp meat think he is?

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Terence Dix.

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I mean, there is a lot of bit meat in the script, I think.

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And in particular, there are 2 things.

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One is just the obsession with scientists and technology, which is a feature of stories all the way through this season.

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Bitmead season always has scientists and things.

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And we've already had, you are scientists.

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We've already...

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We've already had a story this season, which has religious obscurantists versus scientists in Meglos, and that's absolutely what we have here.

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We have a situation where science is forbidden.

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Any kind of learning?

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Any kind of learning?

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reading is forbidden.

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And the lords who are doing religious rituals and things, you know, they're not just sort of predatory class, they're also a religious group in a sense.

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You know, there's sacrifices and rituals that need to be performed and you've got Orcon who's a seer and all of that sort of thing.

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And so those contrasts, again, that's very bid me.

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And that will reach, I think, its apotheosis in Legopolis, which is all about science being performed as mathematics, being performed as ritual, monopolis.

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Yes.

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It's interesting actually you talk about it kind of the religious aspects of the Lords because this whole style of thing. you know, any kind of learning, reading, being forbidden, kind of presages, certain developments with religious fundamentalism that start to develop after this time.

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And even the Handmaids tell, the book of the Handmaid's Tale is, I think, early 80s.

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So it's actually after this as well.

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So that's fascinating. being banned from libraries.

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Exactly, all that sort of stuff, yes.

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Banning of knowledge, yes.

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I mean, there were at times laws in the pre-civil war South, forbidding the teaching of reading to enslave people, like, and that was sort of quite common.

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That's always been a thing, yeah.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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There's also something, I think, in the season.

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It plays out in virtually every story about the way that things change or don't.

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And so obviously you have entropy as a big thing in Legopolis.

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Entropy increases, the universe is past the point of heat death in full circle.

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You have that idea of everything going around in circles.

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In this, it's the fact that for a 1000 years, nothing has changed, and it's always critique of change or not in this season.

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And that lack of change is bad.

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Absolutely.

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I mean, it's in the title, isn't it?

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It's called statewide decay.

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In one of the original titles, the wasting, exactly.

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Yeah.

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I mean, the wasting is kind of funny because it seems to me that sort of mystification, you know, the idea that the ruling class is here essentially for our benefit and not to take staff office and, you know, live well.

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They have all the cheese, apparently.

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I don't think Ivo's wife.

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Ivo's wife doesn't know what cheese is, but Orcon and Camilla and Zargo serve cheese to the doctor in Romana in that scene.

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I love how Romana looks down her nose and goes, no thanks.

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It's interesting you mentioned the wasting, though, because I've wondered a couple of times when I've watched it.

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She will lead to a waste.

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Anti-ways, to mention.

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But I've always wondered whether there was going to be more made about the wasting because it is not a throwaway.

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It's more than a throwaway, but it's never really explored.

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I suppose it's just a device to say, it's something to be frightened of, I suppose.

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Yeah.

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But I mean, it's interesting.

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It's one of the ways that the Lords have power over the population is by having this thing called the wasting, which we don't know anything about.

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The wasting is the wasting.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Does anyone, whenever they have those nicely choreographed shots of Orcon, Camilla and Zago, does anyone else see Charles, Camilla and Andrew?

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No, that wasn't what came.

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I think we mock them in flight through entirety, we actually make fun, perhaps, of those sort of tableaus that they're self-consciously creating.

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I think they're wonderful.

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I think they are hilarious, particularly when Zargo sort of bears his teeth in the background of a shot or something.

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I just think they're really terrific.

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Yeah, it's every band girls were drawing on their pencil coaster. at exactly that year.

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But I think it's actually just the right side of it because it only happens in that one scene when Orcon says that, you know, I think I found someone and...

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It's all being played to camera in this theatrical way, but I think it's on the right line of absurdity.

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And I think it also goes to the fact that, you know, they all look like, well, particularly Zago and Camilla look like playing cards.

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Yes don't they?

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And that's part of the design.

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And so it all kind of works when they do that little dump.

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Yeah, I mean, isn't that the story of successful Doctor Who?

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It's just on the right side.

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100%.

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Yeah, 100%.

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And it's just like the entirely historically accurate mask of man dragon. in terms of the way the clay is done.

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In any case, there is plenty of Christopher H.

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Bidmeade here.

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But I am interested in trying to identify what is particularly Terence here, because this is different, I think, from any of the stories that we've discussed so far.

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It is, and yet it isn't.

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I think the Christopher H.

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Bidmidness of it are light touches, the trappings.

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The trappings.

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Thank you.

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Whether it's the Jaki, Jaki, Jaki, Jago business.

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Which is absolutely bidmead.

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Which is very bitmeading so much so that Terrence said that basically Bidmead wanted to spend like about 5 minutes of the story explaining the consonant and bowel shift or whatever, whatever they are.

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I would have loved that.

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Yes, I would have loved that.

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Not entirely sure that the audiences would have, I think I think it's done enough.

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Like we get it.

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And that's more of a tense, something.

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But fundamentally, it is actually different to all the other stories of this season because it is an older-fashioned Doctor Who story. reassuringly traditional.

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Yes, and I don't mean old-fashioned in a pejority because it is traditional.

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And again, I don't want traditional to be a pejorative either because Terrence is capable and I think it's partly because of all the, you know, novelization's here, he wrote.

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So he understands and being scripted for such a long time.

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He understands how to make a story go from A to B to CCD.

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And so he doesn't sit there and agonise about how to get from A to B, C to D. There's a kind of a logical and easy flow that happens.

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And when I was watching it to do this podcast, I was reminded of that, the opening scene is set up with so many wonderful things mentioned, the time of rising, and the chosen one, and all of these capitalisations, the kind of allittered throughout the script, but not in a way which detracts.

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And the whole structure of the story is so Terence, the way it builds the positioning of the cliffhangers, the way different things are introduced in different episodes.

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We kind of talked about this in horror Fang rock, I think, last week.

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Same sort of deal.

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We also talked about it in robot.

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He's able to introduce new elements to the script.

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So he doesn't need.

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We never get, you know, 2 episodes of people running in place.

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We don't delay things artificially.

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No one has to be locked up in episode 3 although that does kind of happen here.

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In the most entertaining way possible.

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Exactly. delivers information.

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And that's the point.

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I mean, it's often been a discussion on this podcast that is the ideal length of Doctor Who story, actually classic era one, actually 3 episodes.

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And whilst I don't have anything against 3 episode stories per se, in the McCoy, they're great, but I think that happens as the 80s progress because a certain script editor doesn't understand how to structure or get a story is structured when you've got only so many sets, only so many speaking parts.

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Terence completely understands how you do that.

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And let me pick up on what you're saying there because obviously from all his years of script editing, Terrence knows exactly how to structure a 4 parter.

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What he does here is he drops you into the action.

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He then moves the doctor in Romana around the place, so they go to the village.

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They meet Heberus. find things out.

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That's right, find things out.

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They then go to the Technicothica and meet Mr. Kimber.

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Find other things out.

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Find other things out.

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He delays meeting the villains until episode 2 to really start that with a punch.

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But in that scene, which I would like to talk more about later, they actually dance around each other, you don't find out too much.

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And so that saves more kind of revelations and confrontations further on.

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When you reach episode 3 and there's a danger that the story can run out of steam.

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He splits up the regulars.

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He has the doctor go back to the TARDIS to find out background on what they're facing, while Romana hooks up with one of the sporting characters and goes and explores the castle.

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He's so effortless about it.

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And I think that's why we think this is traditional.

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It is classic, but it has that archetypal Doctor Who structure, which Terence Nails.

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Also, he adds things.

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So the time of arising is a thing that's coming, that sets a kind of endpoint for the thing, and it turns up.

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And I think the fact that Kalmar discovers the scanner and is then able to verify the fact that there's something under the tower.

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And then the villager's decision to storm the tower.

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Like those are all things that happen and move the story on.

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So he introduces new elements.

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It's like the arrival of the boat at the end of episode one of Horror of Fang Rock.

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All of that stuff is a thing that he does.

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And you're right.

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I think you said something, Peter, and I can't remember if it was in a podcast or just in real life at some point, that later on they lose the knack of doing that properly, that what we do is we set up an environment and then have a series of escapes and captures and stuff until we reach the denouement.

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Until we run out of time.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And Terrence sets that up.

201
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You're right. the presaging.

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We talked about this on robot, the structuring you were just saying.

203
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And how predicating these little moments of horror.

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So the 1st moment I remember watching this in 82 was that the boys keep disappearing.

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I thought, oh, the guards are, oh, they're all going to be guards.

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Even before we that, we know they're knocking down the east wing of the hydrax to build the ballroom.

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But are they?

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Don't they fire the east wing of the hydrax into the air?

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It is.

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Sounds a little nightpad.

211
00:15:42.480 --> 00:15:46.980
We know it's a vampire story early on, but there's just all these little points.

212
00:15:47.100 --> 00:15:53.519
And yes, he goes to Hammohora and Bram Stoker, but he's actually going more to...

213
00:15:54.299 --> 00:15:56.279
Well, you know, there's that novel, Carmeilla.

214
00:15:56.399 --> 00:16:01.320
Anyway, there's a lot of Vampire, and Christopher Fralin, who talks on the DVD.

215
00:16:01.379 --> 00:16:05.100
I've got a book of his from the 80s because I was so loved this story.

216
00:16:05.159 --> 00:16:09.360
And wasn't this the 1st target that came out for season 18 quite early on.

217
00:16:09.419 --> 00:16:10.980
This was the 1st target.

218
00:16:11.399 --> 00:16:19.019
And it came out, I think, about 6 months after it was on TV, which is fairly, fairly short in target novelisation terms.

219
00:16:19.080 --> 00:16:21.299
We got it in Australia before it was on TV.

220
00:16:21.360 --> 00:16:22.080
No.

221
00:16:22.080 --> 00:16:23.100
I think we did.

222
00:16:23.159 --> 00:16:25.379
I would be surprised.

223
00:16:25.440 --> 00:16:26.460
Yeah, that's true, actually.

224
00:16:26.519 --> 00:16:28.980
I don't remember reading that logo in bookshops. interesting.

225
00:16:29.039 --> 00:16:31.799
I remember reading it, grabbing it. didn't know.

226
00:16:31.860 --> 00:16:34.019
We just saw it on a shelf and we'd haunt these books.

227
00:16:34.139 --> 00:16:34.860
You've got it.

228
00:16:34.919 --> 00:16:36.840
And reading it before it was on TV.

229
00:16:36.899 --> 00:16:39.179
And that would be Terrence as well.

230
00:16:39.240 --> 00:16:44.519
Terrence would not do anything as inelegant as just going to Dracula as his source material.

231
00:16:44.580 --> 00:16:46.620
He would be better read than that.

232
00:16:46.679 --> 00:16:49.980
And so that book, Camilla.

233
00:16:50.039 --> 00:16:54.360
Obviously, that was one of the earliest works of lesbian vampire fiction as well.

234
00:16:54.419 --> 00:16:56.580
And the current royal family we did not mention.

235
00:16:57.000 --> 00:17:01.259
And of course, Camilla in the story was originally spelt Camilla.

236
00:17:01.320 --> 00:17:02.580
Yeah, right, he's making that clear.

237
00:17:02.639 --> 00:17:14.700
But Terrence also pointed out that he went to the Hamahara style of Dracula, not the actual Bram Stoker, because it's a very different way that the vampires are portrayed.

238
00:17:14.759 --> 00:17:17.640
And so this is the more of this little schlock horror kind of thing.

239
00:17:17.759 --> 00:17:18.779
Isn't L in one of them?

240
00:17:18.839 --> 00:17:20.160
Yeah, she is.

241
00:17:20.220 --> 00:17:21.240
She thought she was.

242
00:17:21.359 --> 00:17:23.640
Would you like a great piece of trivia as well?

243
00:17:23.700 --> 00:17:25.859
Always, Peter, always.

244
00:17:25.920 --> 00:17:28.740
The judgement is out on what this will be great.

245
00:17:28.799 --> 00:17:29.819
It is a piece of trivia.

246
00:17:29.940 --> 00:17:32.039
Emirus James, who plays Orcon.

247
00:17:32.099 --> 00:17:32.759
Wonderfully, yeah.

248
00:17:32.759 --> 00:17:36.779
In the same week as episode 3 was in a hammer house of horror.

249
00:17:36.900 --> 00:17:37.680
There we go.

250
00:17:37.740 --> 00:17:40.980
With his bodice being ripped as we speak.

251
00:17:41.039 --> 00:17:44.460
How can we just say, what a delicious performance.

252
00:17:44.519 --> 00:17:48.000
You say Simon earlier, just on the right side of the line.

253
00:17:48.059 --> 00:17:50.519
His performance just straddles that line.

254
00:17:50.579 --> 00:17:51.900
Absolutely perfectly.

255
00:17:51.960 --> 00:17:56.039
He knows when to make it dramatic and when to go soaring over the top.

256
00:17:56.160 --> 00:18:04.980
And the other thing about a great performance, which I think can be lost with bad directors, is there is opportunity for him to pause.

257
00:18:05.039 --> 00:18:07.920
So the performance is given with poise.

258
00:18:07.980 --> 00:18:11.460
Lala did an RSC with Emris James.

259
00:18:11.519 --> 00:18:12.539
And it was funny.

260
00:18:12.599 --> 00:18:16.140
It's a very, it's that sort of RSC and almost faux RSC thing.

261
00:18:16.140 --> 00:18:17.160
And that's one of the things it makes.

262
00:18:17.160 --> 00:18:18.660
That era of Dr. B so good.

263
00:18:21.420 --> 00:18:23.220
For example.

264
00:18:24.119 --> 00:18:30.359
But the other thing I want to note, that something else Terrence has said, which I think is very evident here.

265
00:18:30.420 --> 00:18:33.599
He said, once you've created a good setting.

266
00:18:33.660 --> 00:18:36.660
The supporting characters do kind of just create themselves.

267
00:18:36.720 --> 00:18:40.740
Like they just come out of the setting that's been created.

268
00:18:40.859 --> 00:18:46.500
And that's kind of goes back to the point I was trying to make before about the fact that it's an unpretentious way of creating a story.

269
00:18:46.559 --> 00:18:47.579
There is nothing forced.

270
00:18:47.640 --> 00:18:49.259
There is nothing shoehorned in.

271
00:18:49.380 --> 00:18:51.839
It all just naturally progresses and flows.

272
00:18:51.900 --> 00:18:53.579
It's actually kind of what you would expect.

273
00:18:53.640 --> 00:18:56.400
And I think that that is Terence, while that is true.

274
00:18:56.460 --> 00:19:00.359
That's Terence being typically kind of self-effacing.

275
00:19:00.420 --> 00:19:01.619
They don't create themselves.

276
00:19:01.680 --> 00:19:05.519
A great writer creates these great characters that come out of the setting.

277
00:19:05.579 --> 00:19:07.259
It's just that he would never make that claim for himself.

278
00:19:07.319 --> 00:19:15.420
Yes, but what the point he's making is that he doesn't he doesn't kind of have a pre-ordained idea of what the people need to be, what needs to happen.

279
00:19:15.480 --> 00:19:23.579
He's kind of just saying that if you effectively he's saying if you do the legwork on the idea and the concept, it all just happens.

280
00:19:23.640 --> 00:19:25.319
Again, see horrifying rock last week.

281
00:19:25.380 --> 00:19:25.920
Exactly.

282
00:19:25.980 --> 00:19:26.579
Another good example.

283
00:19:26.640 --> 00:19:29.819
I can detect some Bob Holmes in this as well.

284
00:19:30.420 --> 00:19:38.519
I mean, last week, Horror Fang Rock, people say, oh, you know, that's a Hinchcliffe story because they don't really want Graham Williams to have a good story.

285
00:19:38.579 --> 00:19:43.079
So, but it's just some dumb aliens landed.

286
00:19:43.140 --> 00:19:44.519
Whereas here what we...

287
00:19:44.519 --> 00:19:45.779
We're talking about Reuben the Ruten.

288
00:19:45.779 --> 00:19:46.619
Reuben the Ruten.

289
00:19:46.680 --> 00:19:57.059
But what we have here is what Holmes has in so many of his stories, which is an ancient evil, long thought dead coming back to life, much like this point.

290
00:19:57.660 --> 00:20:10.500
But, you know, which exists in so many of his stories in the Hinchcliffe here are obviously Brain of Morbius, but Pyramids of Mars, even the Crinoid, for God's sake, is from 1000s of years ago.

291
00:20:10.740 --> 00:20:13.859
Had a fear, not sufficiently executed enough.

292
00:20:13.980 --> 00:20:16.259
The master in the...

293
00:20:16.380 --> 00:20:18.180
Yeah, mastering the deadly assassin. absolutely.

294
00:20:18.240 --> 00:20:20.819
And so that is a very homes thing.

295
00:20:20.880 --> 00:20:27.480
And obviously tanks full of blanded, all of that. pretty much an island view of the ostensible threat, isn't it?

296
00:20:27.539 --> 00:20:32.940
We're clutching here on the edge of Europe and these things from Time Memorial, waiting.

297
00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:34.440
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

298
00:20:34.500 --> 00:20:41.519
But it is Robert Holmes because yes, even if the script was redone from the original concept.

299
00:20:41.579 --> 00:20:45.779
The original concept is created with Robert Holmes because remember, Robert Holmes doesn't end with talents being changed.

300
00:20:45.839 --> 00:20:47.460
He goes into halfway through season 15.

301
00:20:47.700 --> 00:20:48.180
That's right.

302
00:20:48.180 --> 00:20:54.539
Which has probably got more to do with Horror of Frank Rock's brilliance than the lack of Philip Shinsley before, the edition of Graham Williams.

303
00:20:54.599 --> 00:20:55.140
That's right.

304
00:20:55.259 --> 00:20:58.799
And so when people say that horror Fang Rock is a Philip Hinchcliffe story, what they really mean.

305
00:20:58.799 --> 00:21:00.240
It's a robot.

306
00:21:00.240 --> 00:21:05.940
It's just done with the sobriety that we associate with the Hinchcliffe era, not with the Williams era.

307
00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:11.220
We lose something of the elegance of the fact that Terence essentially did back-to-back stories.

308
00:21:11.279 --> 00:21:15.059
So once he'd finished the brain of Morbius, he then went on to do horror fang rock.

309
00:21:15.119 --> 00:21:25.920
The plundering of Frankenstein, for Brain of Morbius, and then the plundering of Dracula, straight after for the vampire mutations, which was going to be opening season 15.

310
00:21:26.220 --> 00:21:31.859
The elegance of that is lost on us because vampire mutations was moved, and Brain of Morbius is under someone else's name.

311
00:21:31.920 --> 00:21:32.579
Yeah, yeah.

312
00:21:32.579 --> 00:21:39.839
Well, I actually think it probably benefits from the gap because I think it would have felt like, oh, this is just another one of that.

313
00:21:39.900 --> 00:21:40.680
This is more of the same.

314
00:21:40.740 --> 00:21:42.480
I mean, that is the Hinchcliffe.

315
00:21:42.539 --> 00:21:44.099
Yeah, that's how I feel about that.

316
00:21:44.099 --> 00:21:47.220
No, but not in quite the same way. so obvious.

317
00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:49.920
I mean, Terrace would have had a good chortle about that, I think.

318
00:21:49.980 --> 00:21:51.960
Frankenstein, let's do Dracula.

319
00:21:52.019 --> 00:21:52.740
What's next?

320
00:21:52.799 --> 00:21:53.460
Zombies.

321
00:21:53.579 --> 00:21:56.279
I mean, it would have had a season and a half, I suppose, in between.

322
00:22:03.180 --> 00:22:09.480
The other thing that's very Terence, I think, is the introduction of the Time Lord, and we talked...

323
00:22:09.480 --> 00:22:10.440
Never misses a beat, does it?

324
00:22:10.500 --> 00:22:14.940
Yeah, well, we've talked in our 1st episode.

325
00:22:17.400 --> 00:22:25.500
We talk about how Terrence invents the time lords and kind of inflicts them on the Barry Letts era in a way.

326
00:22:25.559 --> 00:22:33.599
He sets them up and creates them and then uses them judiciously as his era goes on.

327
00:22:33.660 --> 00:22:41.400
And here he is bringing them back as an idea again, and they are in a way central to this.

328
00:22:41.460 --> 00:22:48.720
And what struck me this time is, you know, the time lords are lords, and these people are from earth.

329
00:22:48.779 --> 00:22:58.740
You know, there's something about the how inextricable Gallifrey and earth are from each other, and obviously it's because Gallifrey features in a television program that's mostly made on earth.

330
00:22:58.799 --> 00:23:07.500
But I think that that is a very Terence thing, and I think, unlike a lot of the times that the 80s goes back for the time lords.

331
00:23:07.559 --> 00:23:08.819
This is pretty successful.

332
00:23:08.880 --> 00:23:13.140
Yeah, because, I mean, no time loads are actually, you know, apart from the doctor in Romana.

333
00:23:13.200 --> 00:23:14.700
Time was made appear in the story.

334
00:23:14.759 --> 00:23:18.900
I mean, it's a set of scrolls or like it's in the ancient database.

335
00:23:18.960 --> 00:23:22.440
So the time lords are a backdrop rather than essential.

336
00:23:22.500 --> 00:23:24.059
It just provides that line.

337
00:23:24.119 --> 00:23:26.880
You know, you have to defeat them even at the cost of your own life.

338
00:23:26.940 --> 00:23:32.279
Yeah, which actually almost makes it feel like it could have been a regeneration story. wanted it to be.

339
00:23:32.339 --> 00:23:34.019
It could have been a great regeneration story actually.

340
00:23:34.079 --> 00:23:37.799
And Terence never strays from the idea that Time Lords are mythical figures.

341
00:23:37.859 --> 00:23:40.619
So it sets them up as such in the war games.

342
00:23:40.920 --> 00:23:51.119
They are realised to varying degrees in the per wheat era, but he never goes away from the fact that they are kind of these superior beings that occasionally appear and a part of the action.

343
00:23:51.180 --> 00:23:53.579
I think that's the same with this backstory.

344
00:23:53.640 --> 00:23:57.539
He set up this mythic battle between the time Lords and the great vampires.

345
00:23:57.599 --> 00:23:58.859
And that's almost time war-ish.

346
00:23:58.980 --> 00:24:04.200
You know, that's something that was huge that no one knew about that happened in the background aeons go.

347
00:24:04.259 --> 00:24:08.579
I think that view of the time lords. actually works for the series.

348
00:24:08.640 --> 00:24:15.779
I also think Robert Holmes view of the time lords in the deadly assassin, which is then carried on in the invasion of time, works for the series.

349
00:24:15.839 --> 00:24:24.660
I think when you remove those 2 master craftsmen from the time lords, you end up getting rough. like mark of Infinity care.

350
00:24:24.720 --> 00:24:28.440
I think everyone's in trial of a time. harsh on Ark Infinity.

351
00:24:28.500 --> 00:24:29.579
I think it's trial of the Time Lord.

352
00:24:29.640 --> 00:24:31.559
But Arc Infinity, yes, I do agree.

353
00:24:31.619 --> 00:24:35.940
It's not as bad as all that, but what it does with the time lords is basically nothing.

354
00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:38.759
It uses trappings, but has nothing to say about.

355
00:24:38.819 --> 00:24:41.400
You're quite correct, but I actually think most of the problem with the time loss.

356
00:24:41.460 --> 00:24:43.799
Yeah, is travel time, but also the 21st century.

357
00:24:43.859 --> 00:24:47.220
I think, you know, Gallifrey should have stayed destroyed in so many ways.

358
00:24:47.279 --> 00:24:49.440
But that's an argument for another thing.

359
00:24:49.500 --> 00:24:51.660
I think that you've hit the nail on the head there.

360
00:24:51.720 --> 00:25:05.880
I think that Terrence Sticks is around when Holmes recreates the time lords and Holmes recreates the time lords in order to give the doctor something to rebel against in a way, which is not Bernard Horsfall previously.

361
00:25:05.940 --> 00:25:07.200
You know, yeah.

362
00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:08.279
Not the 1st burnet horse.

363
00:25:08.279 --> 00:25:09.119
The other burnet, right?

364
00:25:09.180 --> 00:25:14.400
They're always regenerating into the same British character actors, I'll say, time lords. amazing.

365
00:25:14.460 --> 00:25:15.299
There are only so many.

366
00:25:15.359 --> 00:25:17.160
They've given that a choice.

367
00:25:17.220 --> 00:25:18.119
No, that one's too old.

368
00:25:18.599 --> 00:25:21.059
I'll have a Bernard, please.

369
00:25:21.119 --> 00:25:22.019
Is that all right?

370
00:25:22.200 --> 00:25:30.180
So Terence takes the time lords back to the mythical era that Holmes's time lords are only dimly aware of.

371
00:25:30.240 --> 00:25:37.200
The doctor and Umana don't know about the vampires, and I assume that Holmes's timelords don't know about it either.

372
00:25:37.259 --> 00:25:41.880
It's the story told by the hermit in the mountains of South Gala, right?

373
00:25:42.119 --> 00:25:43.740
That rubbish.

374
00:25:43.799 --> 00:25:44.940
Yes, brought that back.

375
00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:46.440
I love that he goes back.

376
00:25:46.500 --> 00:25:47.279
Oh the Hermit on the Mountain.

377
00:25:47.339 --> 00:25:48.000
Yes, yeah, yeah.

378
00:25:48.059 --> 00:25:52.980
But the thing that I do like, that Pythia era, which is from Timeworm something.

379
00:25:53.039 --> 00:25:54.960
No, not time of anything.

380
00:25:55.019 --> 00:25:56.279
Cat's cradle time.

381
00:25:56.279 --> 00:25:56.940
Cat's cradle.

382
00:25:57.000 --> 00:25:57.480
There we go.

383
00:25:57.539 --> 00:25:58.559
Time's crucible, exactly.

384
00:25:58.619 --> 00:26:01.079
Then long barrow, any and all, frankly.

385
00:26:01.140 --> 00:26:03.779
Infinity doctors, like all of those things.

386
00:26:03.779 --> 00:26:05.400
The word tiresome comes to mind.

387
00:26:05.460 --> 00:26:15.839
Yeah, but, but, but there is something about that sort of grand, absurd histrionic space opera that the Time Lords used to belong to.

388
00:26:15.900 --> 00:26:22.500
And I can see why, because it's sort of well executed and kind of intriguing.

389
00:26:22.559 --> 00:26:27.359
I can see why writers have said yes, you know, I would quite like to see a bit more of this.

390
00:26:27.420 --> 00:26:33.299
I don't think anyone's ever watched Arc of Infinity and said, we need to see more of these versions.

391
00:26:33.660 --> 00:26:34.079
Califrade.

392
00:26:34.140 --> 00:26:35.039
Well executed.

393
00:26:35.099 --> 00:26:38.279
It's well executed because it's Terence.

394
00:26:38.339 --> 00:26:39.599
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

395
00:26:39.720 --> 00:26:44.759
It's just very well judged and it doesn't contradict anything that we've seen before.

396
00:26:45.180 --> 00:26:46.559
It adds a little bit of mythology.

397
00:26:46.619 --> 00:27:01.259
We had the minions being the reason that the time lords didn't intervene back in underworld, but here it's established it was this, that sickened the time lords of violence and caused them to stop intervening. this sort of giant war.

398
00:27:01.319 --> 00:27:03.119
Yeah, it's a time war, isn't it?

399
00:27:03.180 --> 00:27:05.700
It's the 1st round of the time war or the 1st go at it.

400
00:27:05.759 --> 00:27:06.480
Absolutely.

401
00:27:06.539 --> 00:27:12.059
And also, we see in lesser hands how something like that can be so boring in underworld.

402
00:27:12.119 --> 00:27:16.319
That's a really great setup, which isn't explored remotely in that story.

403
00:27:16.380 --> 00:27:19.380
Whereas Terrence loves bringing in the time watch for a little bit of colour.

404
00:27:19.380 --> 00:27:29.220
So those 1st scenes in Brain of Morbius, which I'm absolutely certain are Terrence and not Bob Holmes, where the doctor is railing against them and Sarah's mocking him for it.

405
00:27:29.279 --> 00:27:30.599
That's vintage Terrence.

406
00:27:30.660 --> 00:27:31.319
Yeah, yeah.

407
00:27:31.380 --> 00:27:35.579
Yeah, it's something that Pertwe, you can imagine Pertwe doing.

408
00:27:35.640 --> 00:27:45.839
And it's something which they do for better or for worse than Attack of the Cybermen, when the doctor is locked in the cold room. that's right You can't lure me to this message, so that I can get you out.

409
00:27:45.900 --> 00:27:51.119
That's right. that's one of the best moments of that story when the doctor suddenly realised that, you know, maybe the timelords are doing something.

410
00:27:51.180 --> 00:27:53.759
Oh, I'm the one who's been put in place to do something about it.

411
00:27:53.819 --> 00:27:54.539
Yes, yes.

412
00:27:54.539 --> 00:28:05.339
I suppose what I don't like about that part of the time, Lords, is I was never a fan, and maybe it's just to do with the order that I saw things in, is that I was never a fan of the supernatural version of the time, Lords.

413
00:28:05.400 --> 00:28:11.940
I probably did prefer the House of Lords version of the Time Lords, which is sort of what you get in Deadly Assassin. and Arc of Infinity, basically.

414
00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:15.059
Because they're amusing, which they're not amusing when they're gods.

415
00:28:15.119 --> 00:28:15.960
Exactly.

416
00:28:16.019 --> 00:28:21.299
They become, it's like, um, it's interesting that Hebrus says to the 3 who rule.

417
00:28:21.359 --> 00:28:22.859
I could swear that they were laws.

418
00:28:22.980 --> 00:28:24.119
They were lords, yeah, yeah.

419
00:28:24.180 --> 00:28:25.079
Because they are lords.

420
00:28:25.140 --> 00:28:25.859
They are time laws.

421
00:28:25.920 --> 00:28:26.880
We are your lords.

422
00:28:27.900 --> 00:28:29.640
Yes, exactly.

423
00:28:29.700 --> 00:28:31.440
And now, but it...

424
00:28:31.440 --> 00:28:33.000
She knows that's one of Surfland's commanders.

425
00:28:33.059 --> 00:28:33.720
Is he really?

426
00:28:33.720 --> 00:28:34.380
Yes.

427
00:28:34.380 --> 00:28:35.519
I'm glad he got other words.

428
00:28:36.480 --> 00:28:38.579
They don't tend to go on.

429
00:28:39.599 --> 00:28:50.700
But there is something about the concept, I think, goes back to what you were saying, Nathan, before about, you know, Earth is the common people and the time lords are our laws as much as anything else.

430
00:28:50.759 --> 00:28:59.700
And, you know, there is the stratification of society still back in this time, to a greater degree, and that's just sort of a natural way of seeing how things are.

431
00:28:59.759 --> 00:29:06.539
But the fact that what sets them apart is probably not just the way they speak, but how they're dressed, but also their knowledge.

432
00:29:06.539 --> 00:29:15.299
And as we said before, if learning is forbidden, the only people who are allowed to have knowledge are the lords, therefore these people are knowledgable, therefore these people are lords.

433
00:29:15.420 --> 00:29:19.500
Yeah, in fact, that's explicitly said when the doctor and run are escaped from the throne room.

434
00:29:19.559 --> 00:29:23.460
And Camilla says they have the greatest weapon of all knowledge.

435
00:29:23.519 --> 00:29:24.720
And that's wonderful.

436
00:29:24.779 --> 00:29:27.599
And that is the moral of Doctor Who.

437
00:29:27.720 --> 00:29:32.519
Basically, that is fundamentally the entire series is summarised in that one little moment.

438
00:29:32.579 --> 00:29:36.900
Terrence always goes back to the Reetian polemics, doesn't he?

439
00:29:36.960 --> 00:29:40.319
He's really an old school empire boy at heart.

440
00:29:40.380 --> 00:29:46.079
But then there's a little bit of wit. listening to you all talking about this and having lovely flashbacks.

441
00:29:46.140 --> 00:29:55.200
We talked on robot about how structural it was and that we felt that at this point in his career, Terence was firstly a structuralist.

442
00:29:55.319 --> 00:29:59.940
Albeit, as you say, characters come out of the wainscotting afterwards.

443
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:10.079
Well, no, they don't because he's brilliant, but structure before all of that other fun, where homes, maybe, I think homes is there for the dry crack.

444
00:30:10.140 --> 00:30:10.799
Yeah.

445
00:30:10.799 --> 00:30:12.839
Firstly, and having a dig.

446
00:30:12.900 --> 00:30:19.619
But in this one, I want to know what you think, because it still feels very structural to me, but he's starting to be at that point in his career.

447
00:30:19.619 --> 00:30:21.779
As you do and you get to a certain age, I'm right here.

448
00:30:21.839 --> 00:30:35.940
Where you're looking back at what gave you joy, and there's that reinterpretation that, but still very respectful, and firstly and foremost, it's about, as you say, it's the plotting and the points, and then letting the actors sing from that.

449
00:30:36.000 --> 00:30:38.519
Don't think it would have worked without Peter Moffat, though.

450
00:30:38.579 --> 00:30:50.880
Before we talk about Peter Moffat, let's think about where Terence was in his career, because he'd left behind obviously script editing Doctor Who, that would have given him a vast knowledge of how to structure a Doctor Who story properly.

451
00:30:50.940 --> 00:30:56.700
He's now become embedded in the series as a whole through all the novelisations that he's done.

452
00:30:56.759 --> 00:31:01.200
So he would have seen, and he, as a rule, tends to novelize four-part stories.

453
00:31:01.259 --> 00:31:03.420
There are some 6 parters, he does 4 parters.

454
00:31:03.480 --> 00:31:05.519
People like Malcolm Hulk do their own 6 parts.

455
00:31:05.579 --> 00:31:09.299
So he has seen what everyone else has done with 4 partters.

456
00:31:09.359 --> 00:31:10.440
He knows how to structure them.

457
00:31:10.500 --> 00:31:17.700
He has now moved on to the classic series where he is the script editor to the Sunday classic to Barry Letts, who is the producer.

458
00:31:17.880 --> 00:31:22.619
So I think that gives him more of a freeform knowledge of kind of how drama comes together.

459
00:31:22.680 --> 00:31:28.980
He will eventually, in a couple of years time, take over as the producer of those Sunday classic dramas.

460
00:31:29.039 --> 00:31:35.279
And so I think if Terence is experimenting and letting go with that structure, that's just where he's at his career as well.

461
00:31:35.339 --> 00:31:43.440
It's also what's coming easiest, and I don't mean that implying that he's lazy, but it's the fact that when you do get to a certain age, you really do know what you're doing.

462
00:31:43.500 --> 00:31:52.259
If you've got that much experience, it just happens and you don't need to try too hard and often, it's when people try too hard that it's all about what?

463
00:31:52.380 --> 00:31:58.859
That's why often the scripts that have had to be written in a weekend turn out so well because you go to the obvious.

464
00:31:58.920 --> 00:32:24.720
If I can just go to structure and pacing before we talk about Peter Moffat, one of the reasons, I think the pert we year as a whole is successful, is because it understands, and I think this is a lot to do with Terrence, how you plot out a 4 or 6 part story, too often in the what we've just come from in the Trouton era, the resolution happens in the last 10, 5, sometimes 3 minutes of even a 6 part story.

465
00:32:24.779 --> 00:32:28.619
That starts to happen again, sometimes in the cartinal era, I'm afraid.

466
00:32:28.680 --> 00:32:36.000
If you look at this story, state of decape, most of episode four, not all of it, because if it's a 6 part, all of episode 6 was generally the resolution.

467
00:32:36.059 --> 00:32:40.500
The cliffhanger into the last episode was always about to be ready to...

468
00:32:40.559 --> 00:32:41.819
Green Death is the perfect example.

469
00:32:41.880 --> 00:32:47.700
And here you have a proper resolution where it's all planned out and things happen one after the other.

470
00:32:47.759 --> 00:32:57.119
So it is a 90 minute movie that has been chopped into 4 with a few allowances for the fact that they have to be cliffhangers and so on like that.

471
00:32:57.180 --> 00:33:02.039
But you don't get this sense of at the end of episode 3 that we're still, nothing is really progressed anywhere.

472
00:33:02.099 --> 00:33:10.079
No, I think what we've found so far is that in all of the stories, new elements come in and propel the narrative on.

473
00:33:10.140 --> 00:33:19.980
And like, I mean, it is like the death of Orcon Camilla and Sarko is not quite at the end, but it's not in the middle or anything like that.

474
00:33:20.039 --> 00:33:24.180
But we do have time to just kind of tidy up.

475
00:33:24.240 --> 00:33:28.980
I'm not just talking about a de Nou More. the buildup to that. about the resolution.

476
00:33:29.039 --> 00:33:34.500
The whole episode 4 is about the resolution and you get that so often in anything that Terrence is touched.

477
00:33:34.559 --> 00:33:45.119
And I think he retrofits that into many of those 12 chapter target novelisations that we loved reading over and over back in the day. that he didn't write the original script for.

478
00:33:45.180 --> 00:33:45.900
Absolutely.

479
00:33:45.960 --> 00:33:52.019
And also, the fact that we'll talk more about this, but when we come to the 5 doctors, he's possibly the only person who could have made that work.

480
00:33:52.019 --> 00:33:53.220
Capable of doing that.

481
00:33:53.220 --> 00:33:54.420
Because of that approach.

482
00:33:54.480 --> 00:33:55.619
What do you need?

483
00:33:55.680 --> 00:33:57.660
Give me the small explorer of things, here you go.

484
00:33:57.720 --> 00:33:58.380
It's all in place.

485
00:34:08.519 --> 00:34:11.519
It's interesting you mentioned Peter Moffatt before.

486
00:34:11.639 --> 00:34:20.159
As I've frequently said, a good director is what makes or breaks, or lack of good directors, what makes or breaks a Doctor Who story, a classic era Doctor Who story.

487
00:34:20.219 --> 00:34:28.739
Peter Moffa is, I think, too often unfairly maligned, and I think it's basically for me, it's just because of twin dilemma.

488
00:34:28.800 --> 00:34:39.659
And I think if you take to a dilemma out of it, as a rule, all of his stories, even the less successful ones like visitation, which is a bit dull, have excellent casts.

489
00:34:39.719 --> 00:34:40.619
Yes.

490
00:34:40.619 --> 00:34:56.579
And Lala said that Peter Moffat was an actor's director because he's all about finding the right people for the part, allowing them to do their thing, modifying it as necessary in a way which is collaborative in the same way that the best theatre directors do.

491
00:34:56.579 --> 00:35:07.860
And that's what they were allowed to do with the acting rehearsal rooms and so on, they spent all this time to properly workshop the performances and that's where things like that choreographed dance between the 3 who rule would have been developed.

492
00:35:07.920 --> 00:35:08.820
I strongly suspect.

493
00:35:08.880 --> 00:35:20.159
And I suspect that stage of decay is actually Moffatt's best directorial outing, not just because of the choreograph scene, but I think just because of the way he was able to bring it all together.

494
00:35:20.219 --> 00:35:23.039
I think he's actually a very good director who's underrated.

495
00:35:23.099 --> 00:35:27.059
So, I mean, you've said to me before that Peter Mothad is by no means a bad director.

496
00:35:27.119 --> 00:35:28.260
He's a conservative director.

497
00:35:28.320 --> 00:35:30.000
And that is true.

498
00:35:30.059 --> 00:35:31.860
He covers the action conservatively.

499
00:35:31.920 --> 00:35:36.840
I would argue that in this story, he's being quite forthright with his camera work in a lot of ways.

500
00:35:36.900 --> 00:35:43.019
That wonderful moment where Orcon refers to his servants and we don't know who they are.

501
00:35:43.019 --> 00:35:47.639
And then you get the bat, which is so unusual.

502
00:35:47.699 --> 00:35:48.900
So, Doctor Who...

503
00:35:48.900 --> 00:35:49.739
Do you had a crossfay?

504
00:35:49.800 --> 00:35:50.760
any era, really.

505
00:35:50.820 --> 00:35:51.420
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

506
00:35:51.480 --> 00:35:53.699
And also, I would point to the end of episode two.

507
00:35:53.760 --> 00:36:05.099
It doesn't entirely work, but I appreciate what they were trying to do where Orcon says, welcome to my domain and it cuts into a big close-up in his eyes, which is taken from a later shot in episode three.

508
00:36:05.159 --> 00:36:07.079
But I see...

509
00:36:07.079 --> 00:36:08.820
That might be why it's missing from the reprise.

510
00:36:09.960 --> 00:36:14.639
Look, I think Peter Moffat, There's a couple of undersold things about him.

511
00:36:14.699 --> 00:36:17.579
He was quite old when he started working on the series.

512
00:36:17.639 --> 00:36:20.039
And so the 2 doctors ended up being the last thing he ever did.

513
00:36:20.099 --> 00:36:21.960
He basically came out of retirement to do that.

514
00:36:22.019 --> 00:36:25.980
So I think there is a natural thing of kind of slowing down a little bit.

515
00:36:26.039 --> 00:36:39.420
I also think that when Lala talks about him as an actor's director, we've talked before about performances all being on different pages, all of the performances in many of the scripts that he directs are all on the same page.

516
00:36:39.480 --> 00:36:45.300
And if you look at it through that lens, that actually makes him the perfect director for the 5 doctors.

517
00:36:45.360 --> 00:36:53.460
Maybe not as a spectacle, but as someone who could sort of bring all of those big personalities together and have them gel on screen.

518
00:36:53.519 --> 00:37:08.400
I think the reason one of the reasons I think is a conservative director is, perhaps, because of the stage of decay experience, because he did say that that last sequence with the special effect of the great one coming, the hand coming through the thing, he didn't know, as I think was common in the era.

519
00:37:08.460 --> 00:37:13.019
He didn't really know what the special effects people were going to give him until it was way too late to do anything about it.

520
00:37:13.079 --> 00:37:14.219
Well, he really liked that.

521
00:37:14.280 --> 00:37:15.719
He loved the hand coming through.

522
00:37:15.780 --> 00:37:17.099
Who was the puppet?

523
00:37:17.099 --> 00:37:19.079
Was the puppet and the rocket.

524
00:37:19.139 --> 00:37:24.539
Oh, right. what is clearly what's intended in the script is that the tower has 3 turrets.

525
00:37:24.599 --> 00:37:26.159
Yes, turret, silver one.

526
00:37:26.219 --> 00:37:27.719
Not that it actually splits in two.

527
00:37:27.780 --> 00:37:28.260
Yes.

528
00:37:28.320 --> 00:37:31.619
Well, no, but that's not the special effects because that's drawn by the designer.

529
00:37:31.679 --> 00:37:34.019
Dean Roscoe's original sketch is very much.

530
00:37:34.019 --> 00:37:35.099
It's her sketch is that.

531
00:37:35.159 --> 00:37:36.239
But he wouldn't have seen what the...

532
00:37:36.239 --> 00:37:37.739
Well, it's based on the series.

533
00:37:37.800 --> 00:37:40.739
Yeah, but no, what he was saying about the hand coming through.

534
00:37:40.800 --> 00:37:46.500
He actually thought, I think it's probably the chroma key shot of the Lord's backs, and you see that the hand he was not happy with that.

535
00:37:46.559 --> 00:37:50.820
He said he would have rather if he knew what he was going to get, he would rather have just had the crane shot.

536
00:37:50.880 --> 00:37:54.239
And so the camera goes up as the Lord's.

537
00:37:54.300 --> 00:37:57.539
With a shadow, as Nosferatu does in what, 2324?

538
00:37:57.599 --> 00:37:58.619
You just get the bat wing.

539
00:37:58.679 --> 00:37:59.639
That would have been mum.

540
00:37:59.699 --> 00:38:00.300
Exactly.

541
00:38:00.360 --> 00:38:08.099
And I kind of agree with him and I wonder whether that kind of informs him what he starts to do in later stories to make sure that that sort of era doesn't happen.

542
00:38:08.159 --> 00:38:13.440
Because there are very few poor effect shots in Peter Moffatt directed stories when you think about it.

543
00:38:13.500 --> 00:38:18.059
That's true because he tends to be conservative because he's conservative about what he needs to make sure that it looks convincing.

544
00:38:18.599 --> 00:38:29.760
I like how those miniatures are kind of directed the way that we get lighting, different lighting and different times of day and things for the for the miniatures, but they're not that great.

545
00:38:29.820 --> 00:38:32.219
They do look like a Hornby train set.

546
00:38:32.280 --> 00:38:34.199
Well, yeah, great music architects.

547
00:38:35.039 --> 00:38:36.059
Yes, yes, yes.

548
00:38:36.119 --> 00:38:38.039
Yes, you talked about the Lycan trees.

549
00:38:38.760 --> 00:38:41.159
But of course, the music helps them.

550
00:38:41.219 --> 00:38:43.679
Oh, that's bringing the production together.

551
00:38:43.739 --> 00:38:45.360
Yeah, you get that kind of refrain.

552
00:38:45.780 --> 00:38:47.400
Yeah, yeah. wonderful.

553
00:38:47.519 --> 00:38:56.519
And isn't it interesting that the music, even though we've now entered the radiophonic workshop era of incidental music, it still managed to have that imperious...

554
00:38:56.519 --> 00:39:00.539
It's got a lot of organ sound, yes, but it's electronically produced.

555
00:39:00.599 --> 00:39:01.019
Yes, of course.

556
00:39:01.079 --> 00:39:04.559
So it's not a 1000000 miles away from what Dudley was doing on something like the deadly assassin.

557
00:39:04.619 --> 00:39:05.579
No.

558
00:39:05.579 --> 00:39:07.380
Or Androids of Tara.

559
00:39:07.440 --> 00:39:11.219
I think there's a lack of critique in Doctor Who directing.

560
00:39:11.280 --> 00:39:15.000
A lot of people associate good Doctor Who direction with a fancy camera.

561
00:39:15.059 --> 00:39:16.860
Yes, yes, I do as well.

562
00:39:16.980 --> 00:39:18.539
Graham Harper. and you did very much.

563
00:39:18.599 --> 00:39:21.239
Yeah, you know, Donkey Canfield, Graham Harper, absolutely.

564
00:39:21.300 --> 00:39:22.619
I can make it look amazing.

565
00:39:22.679 --> 00:39:26.099
But what Moffat does a lot is choreography.

566
00:39:26.159 --> 00:39:28.619
He blocks things so well in scenes.

567
00:39:28.679 --> 00:39:36.119
And I would like to talk about, you referenced it before, Simon, the scene in episode 2 where the doctor and Romana confront the 2 villains for the 1st time.

568
00:39:36.179 --> 00:39:40.860
That is so beautifully mounted, that entire scene.

569
00:39:40.920 --> 00:39:48.840
Really, all it is is just kind of a lot of wide shots with the characters moving around within the frame and then the camera following them to 2 shots.

570
00:39:48.900 --> 00:40:04.800
In fact, there's a beautiful opening sweep, when Camilla and Zargo 1st appear, and Romana's noticed them and points them out to the doctor, and it pulls out from 2 shot of both of them, to this tableau of the doctor and Romana posing Camilla and Zargo.

571
00:40:04.860 --> 00:40:08.639
And it's just an absolutely majestic way of telling that introduction.

572
00:40:08.699 --> 00:40:16.739
What Peter Moffat said was that obviously they'd come back from holidays with the leisure hive, Tom and Lala had broken up.

573
00:40:16.800 --> 00:40:18.659
They were on extremely bad terms.

574
00:40:18.719 --> 00:40:20.579
He said they were on shouting terms with each other.

575
00:40:20.639 --> 00:40:25.679
So on location, they would finish shots and then walk as far away from each other as possible.

576
00:40:25.739 --> 00:40:31.079
When they were doing rehearsals for the 1st block, they had what was called red corner and blue corner.

577
00:40:31.139 --> 00:40:38.639
And if you were having a red corner blue corner day when they were at opposite ends of the Acton rehearsal rooms, you knew, you know, not to upset things.

578
00:40:38.699 --> 00:40:40.559
And so he told a story, actually.

579
00:40:40.619 --> 00:40:44.880
I mean, this is this is how Matthew Waterhouse arrived.

580
00:40:44.940 --> 00:40:48.539
That's right. the middle of this fraction is, you know, being told to...

581
00:40:48.659 --> 00:40:49.800
Because this is actually shot first, isn't it?

582
00:40:49.860 --> 00:40:51.840
In terms of before full circle is what I'm saying.

583
00:40:51.900 --> 00:40:52.920
That's right, Waterhouse.

584
00:40:52.980 --> 00:40:53.639
That's right.

585
00:40:53.699 --> 00:40:59.280
And so in the 1st block, things are out there, absolute worst between Tom and Lala.

586
00:40:59.340 --> 00:41:10.440
And the way that he got through to Tom to sort of get him on board and invest in the material was by saying in that scene with Zargo and Camilla, he said, we're going to choreograph it like a dance, he said, it's going to be like the gavotte.

587
00:41:10.500 --> 00:41:20.579
And so he invested Tom in kind of getting all of this together and got Tom's mind off, kind of the fractiousness, and that's a good director at work getting that to happen.

588
00:41:20.639 --> 00:41:22.440
Tom was also very ill, wasn't he?

589
00:41:22.500 --> 00:41:25.199
You can really see that it's almost cadaverous that really...

590
00:41:25.199 --> 00:41:26.400
Warrior's Gate is his low point.

591
00:41:26.460 --> 00:41:30.659
I don't know what the illness had been, but I know it was fraught for him.

592
00:41:30.780 --> 00:41:33.480
They were having to perm his hair because it kept kind of...

593
00:41:33.539 --> 00:41:34.320
It kept falling out.

594
00:41:34.380 --> 00:41:46.440
There was some kind of metabolic disorder that hasn't been revealed what it is, but he ended up being able to deal with it and it's obviously still with us now. hopefully.

595
00:41:46.500 --> 00:41:58.500
But you know, going on from what we were saying there, that scene where the doctor and Romana climbed down the ladder, apparently Peter Moffatt was in the studio control room, and when they climbed down, he said through the PA.

596
00:41:58.559 --> 00:42:03.300
Oh, it would be nice if Tom helped Lala down, to which Tom turned around and said, why, should not a cripple?

597
00:42:03.360 --> 00:42:06.719
Ah, they've made statement, isn't it?

598
00:42:06.780 --> 00:42:08.159
This is all on the record.

599
00:42:08.219 --> 00:42:09.539
Yeah, it's all on the record.

600
00:42:09.599 --> 00:42:10.260
It's all into you.

601
00:42:10.320 --> 00:42:15.239
They then made up between the 1st 2 episodes and the 2nd 2 episodes and got back together.

602
00:42:15.300 --> 00:42:21.000
And so you can tell in there's certain scenes where Tom will not look at Lala.

603
00:42:21.059 --> 00:42:25.139
Then there's scenes where he's absolutely lovey-dolvey with her.

604
00:42:25.199 --> 00:42:26.760
He can't stop looking at her.

605
00:42:26.820 --> 00:42:30.000
And so that, from whichever recording block it comes from.

606
00:42:30.059 --> 00:42:34.440
In the 2nd recording block, they go down further, so they're not just in the engine room.

607
00:42:34.500 --> 00:42:35.519
They're now in the caverns.

608
00:42:35.579 --> 00:42:39.239
Tom turns around and says, oh, wouldn't it be nice if I helped Lala down now?

609
00:42:39.300 --> 00:42:41.039
which Peter said, oh, what a good idea.

610
00:42:43.199 --> 00:42:45.719
It just goes back to the thing I was saying.

611
00:42:45.780 --> 00:42:52.139
A good director knows how to navigate all of these challenges to get his actors on board and make it work.

612
00:42:52.199 --> 00:43:01.739
I believe it's the line from an adventure in space and time where Sidney Newman helps verity out with dealing with a grumpy William Hartnell.

613
00:43:01.800 --> 00:43:05.340
And when Verity goes up and says, oh, thank you so much, Sydney.

614
00:43:05.400 --> 00:43:09.659
He just interrupts her and says, be a producer, find a way to deal with this stuff.

615
00:43:09.719 --> 00:43:11.280
And that's unfortunately part of the job.

616
00:43:11.340 --> 00:43:15.300
Ridiculously, it is, that these people can behave so appallingly.

617
00:43:18.360 --> 00:43:23.820
It's incredible just the number of speaking parts in this story.

618
00:43:23.880 --> 00:43:25.920
It's a pretty big cast, isn't it?

619
00:43:25.980 --> 00:43:30.539
I think you're just too used to watching New Doctor Who, where there's like three.

620
00:43:31.440 --> 00:43:33.360
It's a normal number.

621
00:43:33.420 --> 00:43:36.900
I mean, you've got the as Terence said earlier, you've got the right people.

622
00:43:36.960 --> 00:43:38.519
You've got the innkeeper man and his wife.

623
00:43:38.880 --> 00:43:40.860
But also their son.

624
00:43:40.920 --> 00:43:41.940
And there's son.

625
00:43:42.000 --> 00:43:45.119
Oh, yes, he's well, he's one of the kind of 2 line kind of characters.

626
00:43:45.179 --> 00:43:46.199
But you need a few of those.

627
00:43:46.260 --> 00:43:48.360
That's why that's why we think it's a big couple of guards.

628
00:43:48.420 --> 00:43:49.619
We've got Stuart Fowl.

629
00:43:49.679 --> 00:43:50.639
We need some lines.

630
00:43:50.699 --> 00:43:53.820
Of course, that's Terence's humour, where we've got those amazing guards.

631
00:43:53.880 --> 00:43:57.000
There's more than one guard who have kind of one scene and are really funny in it.

632
00:43:57.059 --> 00:44:01.800
So there's the one in which Lala takes the door key and he's like, wait, hang on. are you doing?

633
00:44:03.480 --> 00:44:05.579
Wait, you're a rebel.

634
00:44:05.639 --> 00:44:07.440
There's a garden in the...

635
00:44:07.559 --> 00:44:09.360
There's a garden.

636
00:44:09.360 --> 00:44:10.139
So well delivered.

637
00:44:10.139 --> 00:44:15.179
Where he's just listening in, what the doctor and Martin...

638
00:44:15.239 --> 00:44:20.760
It's the things that we think of, the things that we loved when we were growing up with Doctor Who.

639
00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:24.420
Yeah, particular to this kind of Terrence-ish Doctor Who.

640
00:44:24.480 --> 00:44:35.940
Well, I just want, for no reason at all, to mention Orkon's line, where Heybra says to him, we'll be killed and he just goes, well done.

641
00:44:36.179 --> 00:44:44.280
That is the purpose of gods, which is so brilliant and so perfect for that character.

642
00:44:44.340 --> 00:44:47.460
But isn't it interesting, I think, Habris's reaction to that.

643
00:44:47.519 --> 00:44:54.000
The way he looks and he's suddenly real, like, it's almost, what I wanted to see was actually a guard's revolt from that point.

644
00:44:54.059 --> 00:44:56.280
That's, I think, the scene that's missing.

645
00:44:56.340 --> 00:44:59.460
I think he's hypnotised by Orcon.

646
00:44:59.519 --> 00:45:01.380
Oh, interesting to walk on Zion.

647
00:45:01.500 --> 00:45:02.219
Fascinating.

648
00:45:02.280 --> 00:45:05.340
Maybe that's intention, but that's not my reading, but maybe that's...

649
00:45:05.340 --> 00:45:06.659
That would have been incredible, I think.

650
00:45:06.719 --> 00:45:08.940
Because yes, because Allcon had hypnotised Adrik.

651
00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:10.079
Yes, yeah. yeah.

652
00:45:10.139 --> 00:45:10.440
Yeah.

653
00:45:10.500 --> 00:45:13.019
They've been shielding their faces from Orcon and stuff earlier.

654
00:45:13.079 --> 00:45:13.679
That's right, yes.

655
00:45:14.039 --> 00:45:14.699
Quite crazy, yes.

656
00:45:14.760 --> 00:45:24.059
I also think too, we were talking earlier about how Terrence is steeped in Doctor Who, and you mention all of those abstract nouns that...

657
00:45:24.119 --> 00:45:27.539
Yeah, yeah, yeah. these rareified abstractions.

658
00:45:27.659 --> 00:45:31.019
And I think that that's an interesting thing here too.

659
00:45:31.079 --> 00:45:36.420
This is a setting taken out of classic Doctor Who in all sorts of ways.

660
00:45:36.480 --> 00:45:39.179
And you know, this is not our 1st great one.

661
00:45:40.139 --> 00:45:48.539
All the 1st chosen one. not the 1st selection is at the 1st arising, you know, like all of those things.

662
00:45:48.599 --> 00:46:07.440
So these villains are not just from Galifrayan history, but in a real sense they're from Doctor Who history, they're steeped in the traditions of Doctor Who, every bit as much as Terrence is, I think. steeped in the 70s traditions of Dr. Mid. because that didn't really exist in the heart and trout in the area. also in the traditions of folklore.

663
00:46:07.500 --> 00:46:09.719
Which is what the story draws it on so much.

664
00:46:09.780 --> 00:46:12.000
I mean, we talk about the brothers grim earlier.

665
00:46:12.059 --> 00:46:14.699
And, you know, the laws of consonantal shift.

666
00:46:14.760 --> 00:46:16.679
I always want to say continental.

667
00:46:16.739 --> 00:46:18.480
There's always a continental shift.

668
00:46:18.539 --> 00:46:23.460
Of course, that was Bidmade. brought that to the story. and as a 10 year old watching this story.

669
00:46:23.519 --> 00:46:24.420
I loved that stuff.

670
00:46:24.480 --> 00:46:31.920
There wasn't any other avenue on television or in popular fiction for me to learn that stuff and I loved it.

671
00:46:31.980 --> 00:46:45.599
And I think if you were to talk about the Brothers Grim, who not only were linguists, but were sort of master storytellers and bring us together of collections of folklore, who does that remind you of in the Doctor Who Pantheon?

672
00:46:45.659 --> 00:46:47.940
Yeah, yeah, it's Terrence.

673
00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:50.400
But, I mean, the brothers Grima, the forest.

674
00:46:50.460 --> 00:46:51.300
You know what I mean?

675
00:46:51.360 --> 00:46:58.739
The village and the forest and the sun and the chosen one, the castle, the monsters, like that's that stuff.

676
00:46:58.800 --> 00:47:02.579
And so the mentioning of the brothers Grim can't be an accident.

677
00:47:02.639 --> 00:47:05.760
It has to be something to remind us of them.

678
00:47:05.820 --> 00:47:06.780
That's right.

679
00:47:06.840 --> 00:47:13.920
And if it's coming from Bidmead, that indicates that the discussions between Terence and Bidmead were all together on a sympathetic level.

680
00:47:13.980 --> 00:47:14.280
Yeah.

681
00:47:20.340 --> 00:47:24.420
And Robert Smith is the eyeliner consultant for this one.

682
00:47:26.460 --> 00:47:29.159
I just keep wanting to hear prog rock.

683
00:47:29.219 --> 00:47:33.119
The reason it stays with us, yes, it's a vampire story.

684
00:47:33.239 --> 00:47:35.400
Christine Roscoe and Amy's costumes.

685
00:47:35.460 --> 00:47:37.440
Everything's deep burgundy velvet.

686
00:47:37.500 --> 00:47:43.320
Very beautiful, actually, when you look at the tones going through. that everything is cohesive.

687
00:47:43.380 --> 00:47:45.780
And that's pretty impressive as something made so quickly.

688
00:47:45.840 --> 00:47:49.679
I think that's what Moffat was saying about the script changing.

689
00:47:49.739 --> 00:47:59.039
Yes, I think there was probably a whole lot of scientific underpinning brought to the script by Bidmead in his rewrite, but what he really changed, which Moffat didn't want changed was the aesthetic.

690
00:47:59.099 --> 00:48:10.739
And so I think we would have lost that kind of lords in a castle in tunics and those deep crimsons and those walls, which look like they could be a spaceship, but also look like a tower.

691
00:48:10.800 --> 00:48:11.940
I think we would have lost a lot.

692
00:48:12.059 --> 00:48:13.619
It may have been more like underworld, basically.

693
00:48:13.679 --> 00:48:14.760
Correct. what you're saying.

694
00:48:14.820 --> 00:48:28.199
I love, though, the, and again, it comes back to the discovering things bit by bit by bit, is, you know, when the doctor and Romana are in the throne room for the 1st time, and I don't know what the lead in is, like, you know, what you think about the windows.

695
00:48:28.260 --> 00:48:30.239
What do you think about the windows, hot windows?

696
00:48:30.300 --> 00:48:35.880
And then can I just say, as soon as the guard leads, Tom just looks around and says, funny about the windows.

697
00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:37.019
Rana says, what windows?

698
00:48:37.079 --> 00:48:39.119
He says, yes, and then there's the general architecture.

699
00:48:39.179 --> 00:48:42.360
Just an amazing piece of doctor who died.

700
00:48:42.420 --> 00:48:44.159
And the Rococo. it's like Rococo.

701
00:48:44.219 --> 00:48:44.519
Not really.

702
00:48:44.880 --> 00:48:50.880
It's just, but it's also the brilliant Tom Lala dynamic or the Dr. Romana dynamic.

703
00:48:50.940 --> 00:48:52.800
Who knows whether this was a good day or a bad day for them.

704
00:48:52.860 --> 00:48:59.820
But maybe actually, I wonder whether it was a bad day because the way they're kind of talking away from each other makes the scene work.

705
00:48:59.880 --> 00:49:05.340
And it's like that moment, the beginning of Destiny of the Daleks, where they're kind of having different conversations at the same time.

706
00:49:05.400 --> 00:49:12.179
But it's what I think is missing about some latter-day companions and too many companions.

707
00:49:12.239 --> 00:49:22.800
You know, I really love the fact that Romana was a time lady who was on a different level who was able to meet the doctor's intellect because it enables you to have sequences like that.

708
00:49:22.860 --> 00:49:23.699
Yeah, wonderful.

709
00:49:23.699 --> 00:49:25.800
Basically, it's how city of death works so brilliantly as well.

710
00:49:25.860 --> 00:49:28.800
Yeah, in many ways, she's a little bit dismissive of what the doctor says sometimes.

711
00:49:28.860 --> 00:49:30.420
Exactly. that's brilliant.

712
00:49:30.480 --> 00:49:46.739
Terrence and Mac Hulk did write for the Avengers, and I do remember somewhere, you might remember Peter saying that that pitch of the Diana Regan Pat McNee together purloining the events before they happen and dissing them a little bit and playing with them is exactly what we see, especially in City of Death.

713
00:49:46.739 --> 00:49:49.019
It's very Avengers script model.

714
00:49:49.139 --> 00:49:51.900
So that could well have been a deliberate thing.

715
00:49:52.019 --> 00:50:02.219
And more on that is that it's the way moments of comedy are placed, not just in this, but in other Terrence scripts, and not just ones he's written, ones he's touched, basically, a script editor and anything else.

716
00:50:02.280 --> 00:50:07.260
And he actually said that it's fatal to write a comedy, but it's okay to have comic moments.

717
00:50:07.320 --> 00:50:10.320
And I think that's the thing that makes it proper doctor.

718
00:50:10.380 --> 00:50:12.780
You've got to have the light in comic moments, but their moments.

719
00:50:12.840 --> 00:50:16.380
They're not the kind of the raison d'etre for the sequence or the story.

720
00:50:16.500 --> 00:50:30.539
I mean, I think that you identified that, Peter, in the war games as a thing that Terrence was bringing to it was making the doctor and his friends, I think, funny, making them fun people to be around.

721
00:50:30.599 --> 00:50:32.880
Not that they're cracking hilarious jokes.

722
00:50:34.199 --> 00:50:36.360
No, no, but they're just kind of fun and funny.

723
00:50:36.420 --> 00:50:39.059
And clever and banterous.

724
00:50:39.179 --> 00:50:39.599
Clever.

725
00:50:39.659 --> 00:50:40.019
Exactly.

726
00:50:40.019 --> 00:50:40.500
Clever.

727
00:50:40.619 --> 00:51:06.900
The way of mounting these things, well, we talk about that scene in episode 3 where the doctor's talking about the hermit halfway up the mountain, you get a lot of exposition, which is done really beautifully, which comes some nice backwards and forwards between Romana and the doctor, then get a piece of action into cut with Habris and the guard outside, you then get a masterful comic punchline where he comes in through the door and slams the door on top, whose bit kind of dazzled behind him.

728
00:51:06.960 --> 00:51:11.099
I mean, that's perfect, and it's funny, and it doesn't undermine any of the drama.

729
00:51:11.159 --> 00:51:15.239
Five minutes later, when they go to, you know, they're going into the villain's den.

730
00:51:15.300 --> 00:51:19.380
They're going into the sleeping vampires chamber and we have that...

731
00:51:19.380 --> 00:51:20.219
Wake up, wake up.

732
00:51:20.280 --> 00:51:28.980
I mean, that is amazing, but the comedy scene before it where they can't get in and so has to take the key and put it the wrong way around in the lock.

733
00:51:29.039 --> 00:51:32.820
I mean, that's just a beautiful intermeshing of comedy and drama.

734
00:51:32.880 --> 00:51:34.440
And Terence is masterful at it.

735
00:51:34.500 --> 00:51:48.480
The scene where Romana is frightened because we're down under the ship and, you know, there's tanks full of blood and the doctor says something about, we really want to find out who this is or we really want.

736
00:51:48.599 --> 00:51:50.460
And she just goes, no.

737
00:51:50.820 --> 00:51:55.860
And of course, the moment where she's terribly scared and the doctor yelps and she says, what?

738
00:51:55.920 --> 00:51:56.219
What?

739
00:51:56.280 --> 00:51:58.019
He says, you stood on my toe.

740
00:51:58.079 --> 00:52:05.639
Which must have come from rehearsals, but is playing off that mode of Doctor Who that has all of these things in perfect sense.

741
00:52:28.139 --> 00:52:30.840
Well, that's all the time we have for this week.

742
00:52:30.900 --> 00:52:37.139
We'll be back next week to gaze in wonder at how old everyone's got, in the five doctors.

743
00:52:37.380 --> 00:52:56.039
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.

744
00:52:56.880 --> 00:53:05.519
Until next time, remember that if Tom Baker asks you out on a date, the only sensible course of action is to run away.

745
00:53:05.639 --> 00:53:07.619
Terribly fast.

746
00:53:07.679 --> 00:53:10.139
Thank you very much for listening and good night.

747
00:53:10.199 --> 00:53:10.980
Good night.

748
00:53:11.039 --> 00:53:11.579
Bye bye.

749
00:53:11.639 --> 00:53:12.239
Good then.

750
00:53:22.679 --> 00:53:28.980
That was 500 year diary, starring Nathan Bottomley, Peter Griffith, Simon Moore, and Richard Stone.

751
00:53:29.039 --> 00:53:31.619
The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.

752
00:53:31.679 --> 00:53:38.880
This episode, The East Wing of the Hydrax, was recorded on the 9th of November 2025 and released on the 14th of December.

753
00:53:42.900 --> 00:53:53.519
Our legal team have instructed me to say that the destruction of the Lords in state of decay should not be regarded as normative in our dealings with our current billionaire overlords.

754
00:53:53.579 --> 00:54:03.780
FDE cannot be regarded as legally responsible if any member of its audience decides to crash an escape pod into a member of the Bloomberg billionaires index.

755
00:54:07.559 --> 00:54:12.000
I'm looking around this room, and I'm astonished at how everyone's gotten so old.

756
00:54:12.599 --> 00:54:14.519
Silence, you.

757
00:54:15.360 --> 00:54:23.760
Speak of yourself, Q. We'll start to crumble to dart. right.

758
00:54:23.820 --> 00:54:25.019
Oh my god.

759
00:54:25.079 --> 00:54:25.980
Oh my god.

760
00:54:26.039 --> 00:54:27.179
All right. do you think?

761
00:54:27.239 --> 00:54:27.840
Just one thing.

762
00:54:27.900 --> 00:54:36.960
That's why I sort of never understood that thing that various showrunners in different areas of the show, you know, right from Time and Memorial have had about the audience identification character.

763
00:54:37.019 --> 00:54:38.219
Like you can't have...

764
00:54:38.280 --> 00:54:41.699
Why can't why isn't Romana an audience identification character?

765
00:54:41.760 --> 00:54:45.059
I identified with her when I was 8 years old in 1980?

766
00:54:45.119 --> 00:54:46.079
Yeah, yeah.

767
00:54:46.139 --> 00:54:46.320
Yeah.

768
00:54:46.380 --> 00:54:52.320
I mean, I think I don't think the I don't think the companion is really a good audience identification character.

769
00:54:52.320 --> 00:55:03.659
And there's actually that there's that wonderful moment where the doctor says, you know the saying, what goes up, must come down, and Adric says no.

770
00:55:03.780 --> 00:55:05.519
Yes, yes, yes.

771
00:55:05.519 --> 00:55:10.260
You know, because Roman has been to earth a lot and she knows all about it now.

772
00:55:10.320 --> 00:55:17.820
And, you know, like initially there was going to be a sort of fish out of water thing with Romana on earth, not knowing what tennis is or whatever.

773
00:55:18.420 --> 00:55:22.320
But now that's Adric, you know, gets to do that.

774
00:55:22.380 --> 00:55:37.139
And I don't think, I don't think that audience identification character is really the right thing, um, uh, to call a companion, because like the doctor's the one, he knows all of the earth references.

775
00:55:37.199 --> 00:55:37.739
Do you know what I mean?

776
00:55:37.800 --> 00:55:40.619
We don't need the doctor interpreted to us by anyone.

777
00:55:40.679 --> 00:55:41.940
I don't know what they're doing.

778
00:55:42.000 --> 00:55:45.059
It's just a, I don't know why they think that that was a problem.

779
00:55:45.179 --> 00:55:51.239
See, in the original setup of the show, where the doctor's just the crazy old man who gets the characters into scrapes.

780
00:55:51.300 --> 00:55:52.260
You know what I mean?

781
00:55:52.320 --> 00:55:53.639
It's actually about his...

782
00:55:53.639 --> 00:55:57.960
Yeah, then it's about Ian and Barbara, but it becomes about the doctor soon enough because he's been here the whole time.

783
00:55:58.019 --> 00:55:58.800
Yeah.

784
00:55:58.860 --> 00:56:01.860
I mean, because you're not a crazy old man being watched by 8 year olds.

785
00:56:01.980 --> 00:56:02.579
Yeah, yeah.

786
00:56:02.639 --> 00:56:02.880
Yeah.

787
00:56:02.940 --> 00:56:05.699
I mean, it's one of those one of those things that people just accept.

788
00:56:05.760 --> 00:56:10.739
It's like people accept when Graham Williams came in, he said, well, they told me to turn down the horror.

789
00:56:10.800 --> 00:56:14.760
So the only thing to fill the vacuum was humour, and you think that makes no sense at all.

790
00:56:14.820 --> 00:56:17.400
There is no vacuum left by turning down.

791
00:56:17.460 --> 00:56:18.360
You just got to turn down.

792
00:56:18.420 --> 00:56:19.320
You just tone down the horror.

793
00:56:19.380 --> 00:56:22.380
There are plenty of things that are just dramas and not horror, right?

794
00:56:22.440 --> 00:56:25.920
Yeah, and yet people accept that as this is the way it must be.

795
00:56:25.980 --> 00:56:28.619
Like JNT saying no hanky-panky in the TARDIS.

796
00:56:28.679 --> 00:56:29.460
Rubbish.

797
00:56:29.519 --> 00:56:34.980
There was ways of doing inverted quotes, hanky-panky and the Tartars, which would have been incredibly interesting.

798
00:56:35.039 --> 00:56:38.460
Like if Dr. Todd from Kinder had become a companion.

799
00:56:38.519 --> 00:56:40.320
And you had that kind of freison.

800
00:56:40.380 --> 00:56:42.719
That tanky-panky in the TARDS without actually...

801
00:56:42.719 --> 00:56:43.800
Actually being hanky-panky.

802
00:56:43.860 --> 00:56:44.159
Exactly.

803
00:56:44.519 --> 00:56:48.059
Not quite sure whether we had that in mind, though, at the time.

804
00:56:48.119 --> 00:56:50.519
Barbara and Ian running around that villa.

805
00:56:50.579 --> 00:56:52.679
Yes, for example, and Vasor.

806
00:56:52.920 --> 00:56:54.420
Yuck.

807
00:56:54.480 --> 00:57:00.840
But it's funny because JT does exactly the same thing after season 22 with, you know, oh, we were cancelled because we were too violent.

808
00:57:00.900 --> 00:57:02.880
One of the bizarre excuses they came up with.

809
00:57:02.940 --> 00:57:06.659
And then, um, trial of the Time Lord is then awful.

810
00:57:06.719 --> 00:57:08.940
Pencil because Warriors are the deep love.

811
00:57:09.000 --> 00:57:09.599
It's just acceptable.

812
00:57:09.719 --> 00:57:18.239
Yeah, I know, but then again, JNT, again, says that we have to ramp up the humour, which is like nonsense. ramp up the silliness, you know, the inconsequential silliness.

813
00:57:18.300 --> 00:57:19.199
That's right.

814
00:57:19.260 --> 00:57:21.179
Just tone down what you're being asked to tone down.

815
00:57:21.239 --> 00:57:23.699
You don't then have to bring in something that is opposite to that.

816
00:57:23.760 --> 00:57:24.599
Yes exactly.

817
00:57:24.780 --> 00:57:26.820
Well, I think we're done.

818
00:57:26.880 --> 00:57:27.420
What do you think?

819
00:57:27.420 --> 00:57:28.260
I think we're in that plan.

820
00:57:28.260 --> 00:57:29.579
I have to be looking for an out for 10 minutes.

821
00:57:29.639 --> 00:57:33.900
I want, I want, yeah, I want to say that silliness is very important.

822
00:57:33.960 --> 00:57:35.219
I know you do.

823
00:57:35.280 --> 00:57:35.760
Yeah, good.

824
00:57:36.239 --> 00:57:40.260
And I'm saying that the right amounts of slamen.

825
00:57:40.320 --> 00:57:41.460
I think it's just a question of degrees.

826
00:57:41.519 --> 00:57:42.360
Oh, maybe.

827
00:57:42.360 --> 00:57:44.579
Not the baby, yes.