Captures and Escapes and Reversals

[00:34]

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to 500 Year Diary.

The only Doctor Who podcast that likes to call this one, The Ordeal.

I'm Nathan.

I'm Peter.

I'm Simon and I'm Todd.

It's the 21st of December, 1963.

Just 7 days ago, the doctor, his granddaughter, and 2 of her teachers made a hurried escape from the tribe of gum, and tonight, much to their surprise, about 6900000 people will tune in for an encounter with the most important sink plunger in the history of television.

And over the next few weeks, those numbers will reach as high as 10.4 million.

Something big is coming, and we're here to talk about one of the people responsible, one of Doctor Who's most important creative figures, Terry Nation.

Let's see how he acquits himself in his 1st run of Doctor Who scripts, the story that nowadays we like to call the Daleks.

[01:49]

I mean, we're basically here to talk about Terry Nation, but I do think that we should take the opportunity to talk about the production, given that, I mean, this is terribly early.

And it is kind of very odd.

I mean, I think Richard Martin, and we didn't talk about this when we did Dalek Invasion of Earth way back in our own series two, but he obviously directs the big climactic battle at the end.

Yes.

And it's terrible again.

The weakest part of the story, unfortunately for me.

Yeah, the battle in the in the Dalek city.

Not the running through the corridors part is fine.

It's just that last sequence in the in the control room, which I think is a bit unfortunate.

And I think it's useful to compare that sequence to the sequence in episode 4 where the Daleks ambush the thals.

Because, yes, that's a slower sequence.

There's not quite as much action happening in it, but there is still a lot of stuff going on.

What Christopher Barry does is he plants his cameras in interesting places so that you've got pieces of the set in the foreground and you're shooting around corners.

[02:55]

So you get an idea of where Irvine is in this space and what's happening.

Watch Richard Martin tends to do, is try to cut things too quickly to make it fast paced.

And so therefore, in that environment.

He keeps missing the shots.

Yeah, it's that thing where in his mind's eye, he's got a filmic outcome and it's very difficult to do that in multicamera.

Certainly then without doing lots of takes, which of course they couldn't do.

I think we're quite lucky that Doctor Who is sort of on the cusp of, like when it's made of technology improving, right?

If this hadn't been done 2 years early.

They just wouldn't have been able to do what they're doing here.

And I'm not to say that everything here succeeds, but they're pushing what they can do, and it's enough that you believe it.

You know what I mean?

I think we're very lucky in this room, in that we're children of the late 70s and 80s.

So we got to see in movies in particular, a lot of technical advancements with cinema, right?

And we went through that and saw all that progress, and all the science fiction and all the tropes that you kind of see coming out of books are in like 70s and 80s stuff, and then we're of an age when television, like, you know, with Star Trek and all the fantasy stuff like Buffy's and that of the 90s, we're old enough to see all of that, those rewards getting reaped then.

[04:13]

So we then take that and we can look back at what was happening here in 1963.

And we've got that sort of knowledge and we've lived through that, like that perspective, and I kind of think that Doctor Who, and with Terry in particular, is, has there been much television before that's done what he's doing?

Like there might have been a bit of cinema, there might have been stuff in the states, but a lot of it's books and that sort of thing.

And I kind of think this is the 1st time we're seeing a lot of this.

I mean, we talk about cherry tropes and that.

But that's just how I feel about this.

So I find it fascinating to watch, to see that marriage of what is science fiction and science fantasy.

Like we've got enough science fact in here that it's not, again, if it was 2 or 3 years earlier.

We probably end up with Venus and you could breathe on Venus, which are things that I hate, right?

Whereas here it's like you've got radiation and he's pulling in stuff that's believable enough.

And so I appreciate it from that aspect and just seeing, oh, we're going to talk about it in this series and you'll see production evolved.

[05:13]

But I think there's enough in this that, yeah, some of it's ropey, but there's enough that I believe it and I can take my experiences from the 80s and 90s and play it back and see where they're coming from and I find it fascinating.

Well, you're saying there, Doctor Who has our own analogue as well, because every 3 or 4 years, Doctor Who's production moves on.

And so you compare something like the Arcan space to the monster of Paladon.

It's like there's a light year between their production.

You compare something like the Dalek's master plan to the Daleks and the Daleks is exceptionally good for what it's attempting to do.

But you can just see that television and production has changed and moved on.

I mean, I even think Dalek Invasion of Earth next year.

Like, I do think that it is significantly better than this in all sorts of ways.

We were quite critical of it, I think.

We're critical of certain aspects.

Basically, and that aspect, particularly was Richard Martin not being able to cover things. fact that it should have been far superior to what it was.

It could have been, especially compared to other stories around it.

[06:14]

But I mean, the sophistication of the storytelling and things, even though it is very linear, there's a sort of quest narrative.

It's just over the last week or so, you know, watching Terry Nation Doctor Who in preparation for this, he is just a past master at getting them to split up for no reason.

Like, it just happens all the time.

There's always a miss.

That's true because if you watch, obviously, the next story, he does the keys of Mariners.

Mariners, they spit up all the time.

There's something about him is that his logic within an episode, I feel kind of generally does make sense.

But then when you take the episodes and put them all together, then there's inconsistencies and that sort of thing.

But I think within an episode, generally he's getting from one part to the end, like, I mean, later on in this episode, they find that piece of art that just sitting up the top of the building so they can push it down, you know, the lift, just stop the Daleks.

Like it makes sense, but then you think about, well, why is that piece of art there for God's?

The garlics do in their spare time.

[07:16]

You know where I'm coming from?

Yeah, on that thing of the history of television aspect of it. what you're saying about when it starts, it does start at a cusp in television technology.

And at university, in one of my subjects, I think we saw an episode of homicide, the Australian, very, very popular, long-running police drama that was in black and white and you ended up in colour, I seem to recall.

And I think the episode we saw was around the time of this, it was like 63 or maybe even been 62.

They could not do sync sound on location.

And I think I mentioned this in the Dark Invasion of Earth episode in that you'd have, like, you know, the cop showed, like the car arriving at the police station and they'd walk up the steps. there'd be no dialogue.

They could, Foley, some footsteps and stuff and there'd be music.

And remember, the 1st location filming we get, Israel of Terror, and that's just, I think it's not even hard.

I think it's Edmond Warwick walking down a country lane. from the Keys of Mariners.

Yes, indeed.

I was going to good at that.

And then in Dialect Image of Birth.

A lot of the location work is just, you know, them running and pushing things through London.

[08:17]

There's no dialogue involved.

But the film that they use in this part of the series is, you know, the complex stuff at Ealing.

So, and what I am surprised going back to that final fight sequence in the Dialect control room.

I was surprised watching it.

Like, this would have been a candidate for filming at Ealing or filming on the thing.

But of course, that would have been difficult.

Well, you can do sync sound in the context of a studio setting, but that would have been a better use of it than having what's his face fall from the rope and, you know, in your ordeal and some other bits of filming that they've done.

Like they do at the end of unearthly child.

The climax, the fight sequence, is all done on film.

And that's a shame that they didn't do that.

But yeah, the technology is moving at such a rate that even this is different to what you get a year later.

So I think there are things about the production that are incredibly successful.

Incredibly success.

And they include the design.

We'll talk a little bit about how much Terry Nation is actually responsible for the dialects, but the look of the dialects is incredible and they could so easily have been terrible and they're not.

[09:20]

They're amazing.

And it's the Daleks in their final form, the times that the show has departed from that look.

It's always failed miserably.

They're perfect.

The corridors of the Dalek city are incredible, just stunningly good.

The miniature.

I know it's their sort of 2nd attempt at the miniature because they have to reshoot episode one.

No, not for that.

It's just the fact that the 1st model is rejected.

That's right.

And isn't that something?

They reject it.

Oh okay.

It looks amazing and even the way that they have those characters standing in front of the cliff.

Yeah, I think that looks really good.

Yeah, you know, with the Matt shot and having all that there.

Like, I would like to point out the scene in episode 4 where around the lift, which is just masterfully done, incorporating that inlay with the lift into the live action.

Yes.

Yeah.

I mean, it like there are all sorts of things that are really successful for everything, however, that's really successful.

There's sort of things that are a bit pants.

[10:21]

I mean, I'm going to disagree.

Yeah, there's not very much that's pants, really.

Because there's 2 things really to follow up on there.

The 1st thing is that terrenation always goes big.

One of the things he does with the show is pushed the limits.

Yes.

And if you go direct to like Richard Martin, who can't quite pull it off.

It means that it can go a bit wrong.

If you get someone like Chris Barry, who's willing to rise to that challenge and try and make it work, greatness ensues.

The thing about the production is that they have to concentrate on the things that they can make work and the garlics is an exemplary illustration of that.

So, no, they can't go out on filming.

They have to do a jungle in the corner of the studio.

They have to do some city corridors.

So what they do is they make the design of the city corridors amazing and distinctive.

They give the scenes an incredible soundscape.

Oh, yes.

Unbelievably.

So much to the finished products.

And I'm not just talking about the boom boom of the dalek control genius, though, that is.

I'm talking about that weird whistling. like whistling wind sound.

[11:23]

Yeah, which they should make it again, because Jeff Mills continues on series.

By the time you come to destiny of the Daleks, it's there.

It's there on the surface of sky.

Exactly.

There's no jungle But incredibly, the sound in those subterranean corridors in the Dalek city, that incredible clanking and whirring kind of distant sound of machinery absolutely builds the picture that you want.

The lighting is incredible.

And sometimes for no particular reason.

That scene in episode 2 where the Dr. Ian and Susan enter the room with the Geiger counter.

It's all lit from underneath.

And it looks incredibly dramatic.

There was no particular reason to do that, but it makes that scene look really special.

So Christopher Barry. is there going, what can I do to really sell this?

And everything works together.

And to go back to what you were saying, Simon.

Richard Martin does do a reasonable job of episode three, not so much on 6 and 7, but that's because all of the big creative decisions have been well made by Christopher Barry.

Yes, but the name, of course, is Raymond Cusick. who created the Daleks, really, is it Terry Nation?

[12:28]

is it Raymond Cusick?

And as you were suggesting before, the design is perfect.

Unlike the cybermen that go through many different iterations and essentially redesigned after their fairest appearance, the Daleks are correct from day one.

But thought has been given.

The fact that the doorways, they only need to be large enough to feed the daleks through them.

Someone, you know, that implies that, you know, Ray Coustic has sat down and probably with Christopher Barry as well, has sat down and thought about what would the interior of the city be like?

And I think it goes to a lot of care and thought that has gone into this, which I'm afraid to say starts to dissipate as the series presses.

And I want to talk a lot more about that show, because there's a lot of the history of the genesis of the show, which is, you know, I mean, obviously the genesis of the show and the creation of this story are intertwined because this story is the show, becomes the show.

But also there are some drunken camera angles in the sequence where Barbara's running through the city towards the climax of episode one.

[13:29]

I saw a handheld in there as well.

Yeah, a handheld.

She puts the way she puts her hand on the camera lens at one point.

That's kind of thing that even I don't even know.

How much would that have been done?

That's effectively breaking the 4th wall.

How much?

It's very modern visual storytelling there.

It's extraordinary.

And but the sound, the doors make.

Those semi-transparent doors, semi-transparent doors.

And then the the terror in her breath as, you know, 1st the translucent one comes down and then the solid one comes down and from the other side.

I mean that is doing a great deal with not very much.

And I think that's what the series and Terry forgets pretty quickly almost immediately from the next Terrenation story.

It's funny that that design, that iconic design of what the dalek city looks like and what the corridors look like, doesn't really come back until series 9 until magicians apprentice.

And you're basically they're doing, not a pastiche, but a homage, thinking to it.

I would say the power of the Daleks.

[14:29]

The Dalek vessel and that.

Yes, and that's Chris. that's true.

And so it makes it look darlicky.

But I would also like to pick up on what Simon said there about Terry Nation.

Basically, Reikusik gets all of the glory in modern day criticism for the Daleks and people tend to want to take it away from terrination.

So I want to go back to what he actually said in the script.

Everyone knows the bit about 4 hideous machine creatures, their legless moving on around base.

They have no human features.

And people tend to leave it there and say, look, look how little effort he put into describing what was masterpiece of design.

However, he then went on to say this, the creatures hold strange weapons in their hands.

One of them glides forward.

It speaks with an echoing mechanical voice, they make a hissing noise as they fire, the picture goes negative.

So he's not responsible just for the idea of the Daleks.

He's responsible for that entire kind of design and atmospheric universe that surrounds the Daleks.

That's him.

Oh, yes.

But in another early version of the script, they're described as froglike creatures on a base.

[15:33]

And I do recall that in one of the discussions, they were talking about having a cloth kind of cursing around the base, like it would have been...

Yeah, it would have just been nothing, nothing like it.

Don't talk about frog-like people on a base.

You'll give the trout and era ideas.

Back to what you just said.

Like, you mean, that really highlights Raymond and the production team, their inspiration is drawn from what Terry said.

So, yes, we were all saying Raymond, Raymond Raymond, but, you know, Terry had to write this and write the Daleks the way they're written as well. you know, and they're all in, they're quite individual.

They've got a kind of a leader in that control room, but they talk about things, you know, section, whatever it was, was it, section 3 or, section 3 or died, but section 2 are recovering.

But little things like that that are just more human.

Saying that the files are disgustingly mutated seems like a very undalek sort of thing.

And the most undalek line that I came up with, it was a few questions will reduce the mystery.

[16:37]

You don't get you don't get that kind of because the problem is, as soon as they are realised, then the way he writes for them in the way a lot of other people write for them changes and diminishes them to basically being robots going around as opposed to individual sentient things.

But the voice actors are in on it as well.

The voice actors know that these are not just monotone beings.

So that line where they're explaining the history of Skaro to the doctor and whoever's voicing that dalek says there are 2 races.

The Daleks pause at the thal.

Yes.

And yes, just say, okay, they're doing something with this.

They know that there's a libling.

There's an act in there.

There's an actor there interpreting the lines.

Absolutely And I think that that's, you know, one of the things that when the, when the Daleks come back in 2005, not only do we retain that look unchanged, beefed up with a little bit more detail for kind of, you know, a better TV picture, but we also retain the, um, Peter Hawkins, David Graham voices that that's exactly what, what Nick Briggs is imitating.

[17:43]

And the Michael Wisher version.

Yes. in Genesis and so on.

But don't forget, the Daleks also, like say, cannot control help me and go, ah, ah.

Like, I mean, we laugh about all that later on in Doctor Who, but it is here right from the beginning.

And the 1st sterior is when they're trying to escape the cell and it's like, keep away from me, keep away from me.

That's the 1st example of that kind of...

That's because they know if you if you gently push one into a console, then the whole story will be over.

I think the fact that they're not bug eyed monsters is a real achievement.

Because obviously what Sidney Newman didn't want was Monster of the Week turning up and that's what we start to get.

And Terry himself can be an advocate of that.

So the sliver, for instance.

No, just the slither, but, you know, the Maya beasts and the virus.

Yes, it starts appearing everywhere.

[18:43]

And the mutation in the swamp.

And one way to even say the magneton from episode one.

But, yeah, he loves a weird and way out creature, but the Daleks are not that.

No, they're people are guide monsters in any way.

They resist being bug eyed monsters and that's why they're successful because there's an intelligence behind their career.

They're not evil.

In their story.

No, you're right. not necessarily evil.

I think they are not going to kill it.

I think they are even when they decide they're going to release all the radiation.

They're entirely self-interested and they are amoral and immoral as well.

But I don't think they're evil.

They're trying to survive.

That's their thrust.

Well, Doctor Who hasn't settled on monsters yet, and it takes a while to do that.

And so the Daleks aren't monsters in this story, but obviously part of the story of season 2 of 500-year diary was the discovery that the 2nd time a creature turned up, it would become a monster at that point.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I do think, you know, it was the idea of not having any physical human characteristics, no limbs, none of that because that's what could have gone wrong.

[19:49]

It could have looked like the servo robot.

They could have looked like the Cyberman. you know, like the reason that the cybermen are not as interesting as the Daleks, I think, is partly how obviously they are men in suits, I think.

Brilliance always requires an amalgamation of people and ideas.

It requires everyone to bring their A game.

And that's what the Daleks does.

The dialects are written brilliantly.

They're designed brilliantly.

The sound design is biant.

Everything works together.

There is an alternate universe where you've replaced the Dalek voice with something like the morpho brains.

And it's a plummy English actor.

Dexter, yeah.

Mobility.

And it wouldn't have worked.

It wouldn't have caught on.

Everything has to work in concert with each other.

And time has dulled us to the fact that the Daleks are one of the top 5 monster creations in all of film and television.

[20:54]

The series, at this point, though, and I think this is one of the reasons why all of these things come together, is that there are a lot of very brilliant people working together in what is an incredibly chaotic early period for the series when basically various head honchos in different departments are desperately lobbying for the whole thing to be canned.

Right?

Donald Wilson is keeping a very close eye on it.

Sidney Newman's keeping a, not as close, but he's obviously, it's his, it's his baby as well.

So Terry Nation comes along.

I mean, we know that Anthony Coban obviously wrote the 1st 4 episodes, he was also supposed to write the next six.

He did write the next six.

That's the masters of...

And then I think that turns into the Masters of Luxor.

Now, for whatever reason they're not happy with that. and Terry Nation script, The Mutants, is after Journey to Cafe, right?

And it's pulled forward when they decide that the robots is not working.

[21:55]

And he writes an episode a day over 7 days.

No, no, no, no, no, no. plenty...

Daleks is not written in a hurry.

And in fact, the Daleks goes through an amazing number of redrafts, partly because everyone's not quite sure and is it a bug-eyed monster?

We have to make sure it's not a bug-eyed monster.

There's a lot of there's a lot of additional layers that are added into it to try and make sure it's doing what they want the series to do.

Now, the Daleks, we'll talk a bit more about how the Daleks completely, well, not completely, somewhat diverts the direction of the show compared to that original briefing document.

So Terry Nations had a falling out with Tony Hancock, who he was writing for.

So he's looking for work.

And somehow I think Whittaker had some previous encounter with Terry Nation and invites him.

Because Whittaker is having an incredibly hard time getting scripts for serious SSSNs one.

They are all just wrong.

Like, it's just people just don't get it.

The historicals that people are coming up with are just not interesting in a way.

You could argue this.

The thing that's turning up is the masters of Luxor.

[22:57]

It's all this kind of ethereal space.

Yes, but that's partly the briefing document because the briefings document is always about like the futuristic non-historical stories, slash non-historical stories. are always based around some concept, like Malcolm Hawkes, the hidden planet.

Like, oh, you know, it's a mirror of earth on the other side of the sun and all that sort of stuff.

They've been reduced to an inch high in Ian's laboratory.

Exactly, all that kind of rubbish.

It's all these fantasy tropes that I don't like.

Exactly.

I would not have liked that series.

So Whittaker, when he gets the scene breakdown from Nation, for a 6 episode version of the Daleks, he tells his colleagues, it's the best scene breakdown.

The 26-page scene breakdown., the best he's ever seen.

And Whittick has been working on the Sunday night play, whatever it's called, in the years before this, another way.

He's incredibly impressed.

And so they expanded up to 7 episodes and bring it forward.

Now, Nation stops being involved basically after the 2nd draft.

A lot of the added layers, like the fluid links, the fluid link at 1st is going to be just a part that needs to be recharged.

That's David Whittaker.

[23:58]

Oh, okay.

Adding the fluid link aspect.

It's filled with mercury. of course it is.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

No, but it's the thing. because I have to work out, you know, why they need to get back to the city to get some more episodes kind of thing.

You know, but they have to work out what the conceit is there and it's never quite right.

But Donald Wilson, he hated the scripts, all of, you know, in those early drafts, and he told Verity and David Whittaker about that, and they just said, look, we've got no choice.

We have to go ahead.

The robots is just not going to work.

We've brought this forward.

This is basically literally the only story we can do.

I saw very, say that.

She said, it's good stuff, Sydney.

It's strong stuff.

No, this is Donald Wilson, but apparently this really shook both David and Verity because they really trusted Donald Wilson and they were really worried.

Oh my god, are we just getting this totally, totally wrong. distrust their instincts and their instincts were correct.

Exactly.

Chris Barry also has doubts about the logic of the plot and those things and the clarity of the exposition.

These things are all fixed in the subsequent draft done by David Whittaker.

[24:58]

In the same way that Robert Holmes, I think, tightens up some of Terry's stuff later.

David Whittaker is definitely the person for the Daleks that is a huge contributor to why it is so polished and everything actually does.

Despite there are a few bits and pieces here.

Everything does make it in internal sense, which I'm afraid to say when people stop riding Terry Nation scripts quite so much.

You start to see the, there's a certain 1st draftness, which I'll be commenting on in the Keys of Mariners.

Right.

I mean, I think I think the genius thing about the fluid link is that it's, and it's very clearly a Whittaker thing is that it's based on the doctor's character, isn't it?

You know, that this, we've got to have reasons this early on in the show and we will see that next week when we do Keys of Mariners.

How do we keep everyone from just getting into the Tardus and leaving?

And that becomes a feature of these early stories, isn't it?

Why is that?

Because the doctor's not a hero at this point.

We're not here to solve any problems.

No, that's right.

And so here the doctor, because he's a mischievous old man who gets them into scrapes.

[25:59]

It's all based on his character, what he's like as a person and what his plot function is.

I love those scenes.

You're uninvited passengers.

I shall do what I like.

I think that's one of the big strengths of this story is seeing the interplay between the 4 regulars. and the friction between them and the chewing and the fro, like, and the discussions they have, and then seeing that develop throughout, when they are working together towards the end, as it all comes together.

And I just love it, you know, even the discussions when they're all in that cell as to who's going to go and go back to the Tartars and that sort of thing with, you know, it should be the man and, you know, it's all about Ian, it's legs getting right.

But in the end, those middle episodes where Susan actually has some gumption, right?

I actually find really interesting now.

Like, and it's all this stuff like fluid link, fluid and mercury and radiation metres, like things that are grounded in reality that we can connect with. going back to the TARDS to get the radiation gloves. is taking the educational remit of the show seriously.

[27:00]

Oh, yeah.

So we've got discussions for the kids on Mercury, on static electricity, on the effects of radiation.

He's doing it properly.

And of course, the effects of radiation, very much top of mind.

I mean, we are living moments after the Cuban missile crisis.

I think that there is an assumption that there will be a nuclear war at some point.

That's what that's what the world was like.

But Todd, also that scene in the room where they discover the Gaga counter and the doctor reveals that there's nothing wrong with the fluid link and he wants to get it off air to go back to the ship, right?

You says you can stay here and look for Barbara.

You can absolutely believe in the context of the show at this point that the doctor would just leave.

Leave the planet.

If Ian doesn't agree and just to abandon Barbara.

I mean, earlier on, Barbara doesn't even want to be there. she just wants to go back to the ship and leave.

She says, I make a very unwilling adventurer and, you know, that's Terry, isn't it?

homing in on what's important adventure.

Yes.

And I mean, that's how this is structured and even how the episodes are named, isn't it?

[28:02]

The ambush, the ordeal, the expedition.

You know, that everything is named after some kind of adventure, you know, some kind of stage in the adventure.

And so we aren't here really to do, for instance, the kind of discussion of morality or anything that we get at the beginning of, is it episode four?

I think that discussion happens at the end of episode four, beginning of episode five.

It's all about pacifism and all that sort of stuff, which is very 1960 stuff.

Yeah.

Which is, you know, totally relevant.

It's all that.

And, you know, the use of drugs, which obviously people are taking...

I think you'll find.

It's all that stuff that grounds it for me, as I was saying earlier.

Like, it's not fantasy stuff.

It's fact, and that friction between what is science fiction and what is real really helps this serial and the 4 main characters.

The science fiction for me always works best and I think it works in Doctor Who.

[29:02]

Like the Doctor Who stories always work best where they, whoever they are in each context, have really thought about it, have thought about how does this, would this, trying to place it in a realistic mindset.

Obviously, it's ridiculous, but trying to within that framework, then having everything kind of have a logical and understandable and relatable aspect to it.

And I think when the series fails at other times, it's because it chucks that out the window too much and it becomes silly, whereas somewhere like here, everyone, whether it's Raymond Kouzik, whether it's Terry Nation, whether it's David Whitaker, they're all thinking about, how could this actually work?

And how would these people actually react?

And why would the thials be persuaded to go down and help the doctor?

And so on. you know what I mean?

Like it's rather than just stuff happening.

Harry Nation is a science fiction writer.

People don't give him that credit.

We know from his later work that he likes science fiction and he develops science fiction.

But what he understands is that science fiction only gets you so far.

In Doctor Who, it gets you, sorry, Simon, inside the spaceship, the censorites, whereas if you add adventure to that, you get the kind of storytelling that people who aren't science fiction fans will tune in and watch.

[30:17]

For me, I think the weakest stuff is those conversations around pacifism and trying to persuade the files to help them.

Why?

I think the reason is that there doesn't seem to be any reason for the individual characters to take the position that they do.

No, I mean the our regulars.

So, for instance, it's Ian who doesn't want to be responsible for persuading the files to come and just help them get the fluid link and get killed in the process.

He doesn't want to persuade them to kind of trick them to go.

He doesn't want to trick them.

Yeah, to go into the city to help them.

Barbara doesn't care that much about that and neither does the doctor, but none of that seems to stem from anything about those 2 people and particularly Barbara.

It seems like an odd position for Barbara to take.

And so all of that stuff seems just not quite formed yet.

You know, the reason the characters behave the way that they do, like why is Barbara now, all of a sudden, sort of, she's a reluctant adventurer, but by the later episodes, she's on this expedition, she's decided to go with Ian, and all of that stuff is very much centred on, Ian needs someone to talk to during those episodes.

[31:32]

To some extent, yes, but I also...

No, she's gunning for Ganitis, isn't she?

No, but I think yes and no, because I think what you're missing there is what they're perhaps clumsily trying to demonstrate is the a slight evolution of her character.

You know, she's just being to prehistoric Earth.

She's now arrived on a distant alien world where everything's strange and there are creatures of metal and yada, yada, yada.

And so she's a reluctant adventurer because she didn't want this life.

But in like the spirit of the blitz, she's going to pull herself together and go off and do the expedition seconds of story.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, that's what I read it as.

She pulls herself together.

I think that we're reading that into.

Well, I like to be excited into it.

But also, like, she's encountering, like, that metal dead animal.

Magneton, the Magneton.

Which is capable of recharging torches, it seems.

Yeah, awesome They're also encountering for the 1st time, alien creatures, like both humanoids and machines, right?

[32:35]

So they've got to react to that and get used to that.

And then these are the 1st real mega deaths that Ian and Barbara are really encountering as well.

So I kind of think that there is this shift as the show comes together in these episodes.

Like, even at the end, in the last episode where the doctor talks about the evil, senseless killing, like, the Daleks are moving from, well, they're setting them up to be the evil central skillers, like, of the show, you know, as opposed to what they are in the 1st few episodes.

Who'd have thought that that little magnodon would be responsible for moving Earth light years off its course?

Look, I think that scene that you're talking about, Nathan, I actually really like it.

Yes.

And I like the fact that the characters are not fully formed at this stage.

I think Terry's doing interesting things with him.

It's not quite where they'll end up, but I find it a very interesting kind of look into a slight detour.

But also it gives Terry a chance in that sequence to deploy something that is very seldom commented upon, and that is his sparse, elegant dialogue.

[33:38]

So that scene has 2 pieces of dialogue, which are really great when Ian's describing xenophobia and he describes it as dislike for the unlike.

That is a very, very interesting way of talking about that.

And Ian later says, what argument can you make to make a man sacrifice himself for you?

That is a lovely piece of dialogue.

Terry never leads with his characters.

He never leads with the dialogue.

He leads with the situations, but he plugs in some really quite nice flourishes, which I think helped bring the story alive.

I just think, you know, it's not very long before, say, we get the Aztecs and we have between that, we get Marco Polo and Mariners.

Yeah, yeah.

But I mean, you know, the Aztecs, the conflict between the doctor and Barbara, I think, is just better.

And this is this is very early days and we're still finding our way.

How do we write dialogue between all of these characters?

And so it is a little bit functional.

And I think despite the fact that, you know, there are some nice, nicely kind of worded lines and stuff.

[34:43]

I just think it's all a little bit simplistic.

But the thing is, in the Aztecs, by that time, the Tartars team is a team, they've been working together.

So when you get that conflict, it is more heightened, whereas here they're not all together.

So when the conflict happens, it's sort of a bit disjointed and not quite working the way that you say it later on.

I know I cannot prove what I'm saying.

But I would have thought that a lot of the dialogue you're praising Peter and not Terry Nation.

And I can't prove it.

You can't prove it, but given what I've been reading of late in David Whittaker's biography of that year of the show, And when Terry Nation effectively stops being involved with those scripts.

I would be very interested to know where that dialogue comes from because most of the better allegedly terri nation lines in later terri nation stories, I think we can put down to other people as well.

That could possibly be true.

But I will always push back against this because I think that's something people do, like with Genesis of the Daleks, insisting that must have been Robert Holmes, who made it good because they don't want to give Terry his bouquets.

[35:51]

I think that's being oversensitive.

We know that Robert Holmes virtually rewrote most of the scripts.

No, we do not know that.

We know, in Inchcliffe's words, that Robert Holmes came in and tickled up the dialogue.

That's him being polite as well. don't think so.

Because he then went on to say that Terry Nation scripts are what you see on screen.

And, you know, 98% of them is terrination.

And also, we have the illustrative example of Blake 7, where we have on one of the box sets.

We have Stephen Pacey's audition for Tarrant, and that is using the original Terry Nation version of that scene in the episode PowerPlay, 1st scene to be shot for Siri C.

And it's a scene where Terrence talking to Avon and saying what his background is.

And that scene is celebrated for having some great back and forth dialogue. and that dialogue is all terri nation, 100% terri nation, apart from the best line.

Apart from the joke at the end.

Yes.

[36:51]

Was Chris Bouchard.

And that's great.

You know, it makes an already great scene. brilliant.

But that's what a script editor does.

And the fact is, it was an already great scene of dialogue and Terry Nation wrote it.

Fine, but I still maintain that, and I'm saying it's not provable, but I think the tickling up of lines is what turns a good script into a great script.

And Terry knows this.

He knows, especially if he's under a time restraint, that he can give the bones, he can give a great line here and there.

He can give some nice character moments, and the script editor will make it ready for production.

Just more on that sequence where they persuade the files that they've got a fight for their own lives.

I think it's it's a really well-timed, powerful, um, moral, which is, which is in that sequence.

And I think it's, uh, it's even more relevant today than it was in 1963.

See, I think the trouble with it is that it's incredibly muddy because in fact, we only discover that the thaws are fighting for their lives after they've made that decision.

[38:00]

Do you know what I mean?

That the dialects later are deciding to erradiate the planet.

They haven't decided.

No, they'll start a death because their crops have failed.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So there's 2 There are multiple threats.

It's not just the data that's going to destroy them.

I'm just saying in terms of that thing of like Ian's line, passivism only works if everyone feels the same.

But I think there's something, I do think that that sort of general approach to the idea of pacifism, which you do get a little bit in the 60s, is, you know, a kind of caricature of pacifism.

And I think there is something a little bit unpleasant about the prospect of, like, where do we get it?

We get it in the dominators, don't we?

Where the pacifists are just...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. you know, ridiculous people.

And we're bordering on that here.

And there's not enough proper weight given to the idea that everything that you see around you is the result of war and that's why they've rejected it.

No, but I think that that's why it's, I think, a more complex thing here because I think that that is, it's lovely actually when Aladon says, when earlier in the argument, it says, like Danie says, you don't understand.

[39:09]

And it is actually a lovely way of doing it because basically you're saying, look, I know what you're saying.

I know what you're saying, but you just don't understand our history.

And so, you know, this is not something we just thought about in the last 5 minutes.

And I think, and I think from that point of view, it's, you know, Ian, et cetera, have to have to persuade them that, yes, we respect and totally understand where you're coming from, but you also have to understand too, that there's a time where we have to stand up for ourselves otherwise we'll be annihilated.

And Nathan, I agree that the dominators take on it is terrible.

Horrible.

I don't think the Dalek's take is because it's not just about pacifism as concept.

It's about pacifism in the face of oppression.

Yes, exactly.

And that is what Terry is always interested in.

Yes, we're not talking about the kind of the Gandhi-esque kind of civil disobedience kind of pacifism.

That's because that's still doing something.

We're talking about, we're talking about effectively surrender.

And he's made, he makes it very clear.

There's a difference between passivism and cowardice.

Oh yes, exactly.

And that's a thing, you know, we're going to be talking about this over the next 11 weeks, but, you know, the idea of cowardice, which is obviously Antidus is, he's the main kind of location that that whole conversation happens, much like, well, total.

[40:20]

You know, like much like the conversation between Codal and the doctor in Planet of the Daleks.

And also the self-sacrifice thing, you know, a character sacrifices himself in order to save everyone else.

You know, that's classic Terry.

Like all of these things that are here in this sort of embryonic form.

We will see sort of developed and reused in later stories, I think.

Terry is intrigued by the nature of war and the nature of conflict.

And I think this all stems from that.

And of course, you have to remember that it's very much leaving memory.

Yes, of course.

You know, there is still large swathes of London that and other cities, which have still got bombed out buildings.

I mean, to some extent, some of the people coming in are the children or they were children during the war, but there's a lot of people who are adults.

Only, what are we talking about 18 years earlier?

It's a different mindset and the world is different.

And I think that the message that is trying to be told there is the fact that, I mean, because it's to try and tell the children who are growing up in this glorious new era of what is effectively peace.

[41:24]

Okay, the Cold War's going on, but here we are.

We do not want another war.

Absolutely not, but at the same time, they're thinking back to the fact that the last war started because we didn't stand up to the oppressor early enough.

We left it too late.

And it's the appeasement.

I think it's as much about appeasement as it is about pacifism.

And you know, Terry always had that kind of, when he created survivors.

It's basically about the end of the world, and he's always been very interested in that.

I read an interview with him where he bought a big pile in the country with his kind of Dalek cash.

And what he said was, nothing's going to remain the same.

He said, something big could be coming in the future.

What you need is a retreat where you can pull up the drawbridge and be self-sufficient.

So this animated him in his personal life, not just in kind of what he enjoyed writing about.

And I think, yes, that the atomic war is there in the background, that idea that everything could be annihilated.

That was a preoccupation of people in the 1960s.

But there's also another reference, a source which I don't think gets commented on enough, and that is HG rolls the time machine.

[42:31]

So, and specifically not just the book, but the 1960 film, which would have been fresh in Terri Nation's mind.

So in the book, they go forward and basically the human race has split into 2 different races.

There's the hideous morlocks who live in their subterranean caverns and the kind of idle, naive Eloi who live outside on the planes.

And people, I think, are probably more familiar with the 1961 film.

But the e-loyer are so correctness that they can't even speak.

And yeah.

And the thing Nathan uses that word correctly.

Yeah, and the thing that has caused the divergence between the 2 groups isn't the nuclear war that you see in the 1st film.

Because we don't have that in...

The E-lawyer, the descendants of the...

Yeah, and the more often, the ones that in who are being sent to darker and darker factory. right.

Yeah, working underground.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What was the scene split along sort of class?

Exactly.

Whereas Terrenation doesn't do that.

He's obviously looking at it through the anxieties of the atomic age.

[43:34]

But what's interesting is if you've been watching that film, there's additions to that script which are not in the original book where when George is moving forward in the time machine, the places that he visits before he ends up in the year 800,000.

The 1st World War, the 2nd World War, and an atomic war that's about to break up. 1966, which is the future.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And you can't help but think that film is fresh in his mind and this is his take on that story.

Oh, absolutely it is.

And so you have 2 groups that have mutated.

And, you know, Terry Nation think about in terminal.

He thinks that there is an end point to evolution.

And that endpoint is the Tyran Wood beast that eats people's clothes, right?

That that's what we turn into.

It is what mankind will be.

Which is a tremendous line in a truly superb episode.

And so we have this sort of weird idea that the files have mutated into their sort of final form and that they've kind of gone round, you know, they were disgustingly mutated, like the Daleks and now they've gone full circles.

[44:43]

Gustingly mutated.

And all of that slightly kind of awkward, isn't it?

Well, it's all very end of history. every era, even the modern era, we all think that we've reached this final point.

Everything is going to be the same from now on.

I think that's it.

And, you know, there's a kind of eugenics kind of feel to the whole thing because that's just in the air generally and it's not just the, you know, the province of the extreme right, the way it is now, I think.

But it does mean that everyone looks the same.

I think that's a big problem.

All the men look the same.

No, they've got very different jaw lines.

Simon, you are splitting heads.

Or hairlines.

Some of the extras are incredibly ancient.

See, well, I like the fact that there's a disparate age group.

Oh, young sort of.

Look, Barbara says, do you think that pacifism can become a human instinct?

That's very Eloy.

Yeah, yeah.

Also, I just get a little kick out of the fact that the simple brilliance of the Daleks may have been inspired by the simple mediocrity of time lash.

[45:53]

Yeah.

But back to what you were saying, like, you know, the warrior race of stars and our farmers and the Daleks were teachers.

Like, all of that stuff is sort of weirdly interesting as well.

And someone, it's suggested that there is a history here that's kind of in itself interesting, that this isn't just like the Star Trek planet which didn't exist before we arrived and is here to make an important point about, you know, racism or something. the Daleks and the and the files are given some kind of history. which I think is kind of interesting.

I mean, it is, it is in a sense that sort of classic science fiction idea of a race that's diverged.

Like they're called different races, but it does sound like they were the same people.

Do you know what I mean?

Like the same sort of thing as well?

Species.

The fact that the files were the warriors ones.

[46:54]

One could imagine that the tharls had started the war in the 1st place.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Absolutely.

And I do think, I mean, I take your point, Nathan, but I do think the files are well presented.

They say sort of the same holistic look and feel, the same attention that's given to the Daleks, I think.

And I also appreciate that Temesis goes on to become governor Erica Davidson's lover and prisoner.

Does he wear the same pants?

I mean, behind closed doors, who can say?

What do we think the weaknesses are in the script?

There aren't any.

Yeah, I don't think there are there are very many weaknesses in the script.

The only thing one could criticise is that yes, perhaps it all unfolds a little slower than one would like.

However, however, what it's doing, of course, is using the realities of the fact that they're shooting the entire episode and only that episode in a studio with a certain number of sets.

[48:02]

And I think this, despite the slowness, at times, I would call it deliberate rather than plotting, if I can put it that way.

I would also say that I actually don't think it unfolds very slowly.

I think it unfolds at a really good and interesting pace until it reaches the penultimate episode where it stalls.

We have some really interesting timings.

Like, you know, when you look at the city, how far away is that?

Then we're going to take 3 or 4 days to go over the mountains and it's one of Terry's things.

We're going around the back effectively.

Yeah, but what I'm saying is the timings of all that.

I don't personally think make total sense and then we've got the vibroscope and we've got all the flashing radio waves and the television stuff like his timings in a lot of things don't make sense to me.

There are a lot of scopes, aren't there?

There's the ranger scope and the vibroscope and the laser scope and the...

Back to what you're saying about it being plotting.

Not plotting.

Not plotting.

It's a product of its time on television, right?

So when you put a modern day lens on it and you watch it with that, you can sit there going, oh my goodness, like this is taking forever.

[49:07]

And I remember, and you were there, and I think you and you were there.

And you were there.

When I 1st saw this, which was at a Doctor Who convention in Sydney, was it who invention?

No, it was just one of the Dallas called them parties.

We call them.

We call them Dallas Days.

We were watching this in Cars Law Theatre.

Which is a lecture theatre. in university.

And you don't watch this in one big...

But that's what we were doing.

When I came back to watch...

It was 2 blobs.

I watched it in separate episodes or maybe 2 at the most.

We got up to episode 5 and then I think I turned to you or something. said, like, this is supposed to be a 7 episode story, like, I mean, they're back at the ship, and then he goes, oh, they're fluidly, give me the fluid, like, oh, no, it's back in the city.

Well, there's groan just went down the entire theatre going, oh.

There's 2 more episodes of this.

I think three.

[50:08]

But we were we were sitting on very uncomfortable benches to design for university students.

Obviously, we were with that age at the time.

We're at school.

We're only 16 or something like that.

And we had that mindset.

Like, I come back to it now.

And that was your 1st encounter with a Hartnell story, wasn't it?

I'd seen Planet of Giants at the previous one.

And so I was thinking, 0 gosh.

So it is interesting, but it's a correct reaction to play...

No, but it's interesting because going back to what you're saying, yes, it is to Peter first. what you were saying, it is gripping.

I actually do find it very gripping.

I'm just observing that by modern standards.

It does progress slower than one would do it now.

And Todd, though, that my, from my 1st reaction from that day, I went, oh, gosh, it's just so boring and terrible.

And then the VHS came out and I was absolutely transfixed when I was watching it in the comfort of my own lounge room and being able to watch it.

One episode or all of it.

In fact, I did actually manage to watch the entire thing in one hit and I was entranced the entire time.

[51:11]

But yes, in a lecture theatre, not so much.

I think it's taken me 35 years to appreciate this.

Really?

Like I've watched it before and really gone, 0 my god, there's this and there's that.

But really this time round.

Seeing the science fact, seeing the crew evolve, seeing what the dialogue is and what they're discussing and all these different aspects, right?

And then the whole structure of the thing, you know, whether they're having to work together to escape the city or they have to go through the swamp, like all the terry nation stuff that we've got to do, I really just appreciate it, all of that storytelling, and, you know, what they could do with what they had at the time.

I think that the story isn't complete at the end of episode four.

Because we've had the ambush.

We need to go back and confront them again.

I think the story keeps the Daleks away from the human characters for far too long and we just have scenes where there are Daleks talking to one another, but because he doesn't know what he has yet.

And because he doesn't know how important the Daleks are.

[52:12]

The scenes with just the Daleks talking to one another aren't as compelling as the sequences where it's our crew talking to the Daleks, and there is a very, very long period of time where our crew up with a file to it, not that interesting.

And so we don't get enough Dalek stuff.

And he won't make that mistake again.

That's a thing.

Yeah, see, I had the complete opposite view.

I think it's because the Daleks are more to the background and on the side and because, you know, yes, you have a few, you have enough sequences and I don't think too many sequences of Daleks talking to each other, you get far fewer, then you start to end up within length of the chase and master plan and so on like that.

And this is one of the things that I said when we did Paris.

So they're talking to each other about something.

Yes, exactly.

I'm saying we're going to...

When we did Power of the Dialects.

I specifically said one of the strongest things about it is the fact that the Daleks are hardly in it for the 1st half and then they...

And likewise, Genesis of the Daleks is one of the reasons it works so well.

They become tedious if you have too much of them.

But you do have the doctor talking to them.

You have Susan talking to them when they're interrogated and so on.

[53:13]

Yeah, yeah.

But like in episode six, like we tune in for some great Dalek action and we're just going across a chasm for like 25 years.

As mentioned earlier, that is probably the part where you go, okay, people, let's get on with this.

Yeah, just to add my ¢2 on that end of episode four, we've got to go back to the city.

I think that's actually a terribly dramatic.

It is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I think it's a really good cliffhanger once it makes you want to see what happens next.

But also, it's Terry's meat and drink.

He is the writer of cereals.

He likes cliffhangers.

He's all about captures and escapes and reversals, which if that is a major example of a reversal because he knows what will keep people tuning in episode to episode.

He turns his ideas into action adventure storytelling.

That's at the heart of it.

Look, I agree with you and I like that cliffhanger now.

Like it's really...

It's just... in 1988, not so much.

It takes me back to that point.

It does.

It really does.

But, like, you know, I mean, even after that, when the doctor says, like, you know, my trick has rebounded on me, it's not like they have another all in sort of discussion brawl about it. like between the crew.

[54:20]

It's just like, well, it's happened and I made that mistake.

And we're moving on.

I think Ian shuts it down, doesn't he?

Does Ian shut it down?

And he was the one who really reacted to that in episode 2 where he calls the doctor, you fool.

Old fool.

Yeah, really good.

In terms of praise from the upper echelons, and I think it is canonical, Sidney Newman said when he saw the script, says, oh, these are bugeyed monsters, I specifically said, we're not doing bugeyed monsters, and Verity said, no, they're not their, you know, scientists that are yada, yada, yada.

So Sidney Newman is sceptical about it.

And as I said, Donald Wilson was as well.

So when we think about this, this is going out like episodes one, 2, and 3 are kind of the 3 weeks surrounding Christmas and New Year.

Okay?

So episode 3 goes out, whatever the Saturday is after New Year.

Sydney Newman to capture.

Yes.

Sydney Newman, rather than having seen it probably because he was away the week before.

So he's watching it with his family on the day it goes out.

Episode three, which prompts him to write a memo to verity saying how brilliant it was.

[55:23]

And yes, this is exactly what I want from the show.

The way they work out about the static electricity and they work about the door.

And they put their wits together and work out how are they going to get out of this cell and so that was basically Sidney Newman saying, yes, this is what I want.

And isn't that the episode where the ratings actually take off?

Like, isn't it?

Yeah, they take off a bit website, too, but of course it's episode 3 that they start to then...

People like the cliffhanger with the same plunger, but then they really like it when they see the dialogue.

Because, well, it's just a sink plunger.

And they think, oh, that was interesting.

And it's, you know, there's obviously an audience developing for the series and it's actually around this time that David Whittaker is starting to have to, as part of his job, starting to deal with fan mail.

They start getting fan mail.

And in fact, there's one bit of fan mail, which is hilarious.

So there's a very distressed child that writes to him after episode 6 goes out. you know, this is back in the day where there's 2 male services a day.

So you can get letters.

It's not like the modern era.

It's almost as good as email.

And basically utterly distressed because he's going to have to miss episode 7 the next week.

And David Whittaker writes back to him with a brief synopsis of what's going to happen.

Oh wow.

Isn't that amazing?

Can you please organise for a video release in 30 years?

[56:27]

But isn't that marvellous?

But obviously, like, you know, with that upswing in the ratings and what Newman has said to them, they obviously then have the confidence from this point forward with the scripts, and I assume less interference from other people.

Oh, yes.

Remember, the series is it's threatening cancellation.

At one point, they want to cancel it after an unearthly child.

Then they say, okay, we'll give you 13 episodes, which is the reason edge of destruction exists.

Not because Marco Polo wasn't ready, but because they needed to be able to end it at 13.

And that's the reason why you have 7 and 6 because that's a 2nd 13 block.

And then it starts getting renewed during the Daleks, they're confirmed they'll be doing 26 episodes.

It's when the Daleks are going, but they still haven't committed to it as an ongoing series just yet.

But this is an interesting thing because, of course, the Daleks, as we've often said, changes the direction of what the show is going to become.

So it's when episode 5 has just gone out that they're not sure what's happening after Marco Polo yet.

Are they going to do the Malcolm Hulk hidden planet slash beyond the sun story, or are they going to do the Anthony Coburn story, both of which they're having problems with because it's just not.

[57:30]

They just don't think it's working.

And it's when the Daleks is going out that they realise, no, this is what we're doing.

And they effectively kick both of those stories off into the long grass.

They also tell Terry, stop rising the red fort.

No, the Red Fort's still an idea.

They commission him around it when episode 5 is airing to write keys of Marinace as the next sign to me.

And it's at that time because also Witiki is very happy with John Lucarati doing Marco Polo and then immediately commissions him to do Aztecs.

And so because he's had such a terrible time getting writers who get the show, he decides he's going to.

Okay, no, forget that.

We're going to have a small pool of rice that we're just going to kind of alternate in between.

And yes, you do have other ones too, that come in, but mainly they're trying to create a stable of writers.

David wanted to write a full story, but this is when the writers union was having a thing about the fact that all these script editors were walking around the corridors, commissioning each other to do scripts.

So there was this kind of band push on that, that he could get away with edge of destruction, given the circumstances, but he was going to write, basically the reign of terrorist slots.

[58:30]

But also...

And even as late as like 1983 then.

Oh, yeah, there were some waivers to get Terence to write something.

Exactly.

But all of the science fictionist stories in that original pitch document are all kind of just weird concepts that, and how do you actually stretch that out to 4 and 6 episodes?

See, for instance, the senssorites.

Well, and the sensory rights is probably a good example of that.

I would argue the space museum is another because that was always in the original briefing document a going sideways kind of thing.

And Planet of Giants.

Another one, which we kind of look back on.

Well, that was kind of an interesting idea, but it wasn't that successful.

They're all remnants of the original raving document.

And that all goes out the window with the Daleks and the historicals as well, because they're getting massive audience reactions from the Daleks, their audience survey things.

By the time you get even to Marco Polo, which I know it doesn't exist, but having watched reconstructions, I'm very confident, is a very strong dramatic story.

People are saying this is boring and even William Russell is saying, well, wait a minute, we're hardly in this.

It's just basically about the guest characters.

[59:32]

And so that's why historical start being only 4 episodes, if you notice, after Anatera.

I mean, I think that one of the things that this does and that Marco Polo does is that it's not quite a story in the same way that we'll eventually...

No, exactly.

On. Because when Marco Polo's written, the series isn't really started.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's just, here's a bunch of stuff that happens over 6 weeks.

Yes, and we're just here to observe it.

But it's interesting.

Like, here's our action adventure story, science fiction.

And who's our next action adventure story written by?

Yeah.

So you have 2 stabs at this before other people are really coming in to do the same thing, setting a scene for what is to come.

And if you look at one of the 1st science fiction stories, Daleks, Terry Nation.

Tarinas, Tarination, Sensorites by somebody else.

Then the Darlic Invasion of Earth, Terry Nation.

And 3 of those 4 stories, you can draw a line from them to the Shooter Gatwa era.

Yeah.

The sensor rights is a different show.

Yeah.

I think there's a strong argument to be made that the only really successful science fiction stories of the Hahnal era are written by Terry Nation.

[1:00:39]

Yes, war machines, you could argue, is the next example.

Terry was a jobbing writer for hire.

So he worked on kind of action drama series for ITV or ATV or whoever, but we also know that he would create series formats.

We know that from the survivors and Blake 7 going forward.

MacGyver, he pretty well created the series format in the 90s.

So what I think he brings is this sensibility of not just how to make a series, but how to make the action repeatable as a format.

And so he lays down the idea of how a Doctor Who story should feel and how it should run, like the structure of how a Doctor Who story should work.

And I think that's possibly the most important thing that he brings to the show.

He's formatting the series in his own head and he's deviating a little bit from the established format that's been set up and thinking, no, this needs to be something else so that it can run and run.

I think that's what he brings to the show.

[1:02:05]

Well, that's all the time we had for this week.

You'll be back next week to help an old man fix the computer that controls his wayward populace in the Keys of Mariners.

So I do with my dad every weekend.

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 the entirety of flights or entirety, which comprises every episode of our 4 Doctor Who podcasts.

Until next time, may your week be directed by Christopher Barry rather than Richard Martin.

Thank you very much for listening and good night.

Good night.

Bye bye.

See you soon.

That was 500 Year Diary, starring Todd Bealby, Nathan Bottomley, Peter Griffiths, and Simon Moore.

The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.

[1:03:07]

This episode, captures and escapes and reversals, was recorded on the 24th of May 2026 and released on the 16th of August.

Turns out that the most important sync plunger in television history was wielded by Michael Ferguson, which is just the sort of fun fact that I like to deploy at surprising moments, to delight my workmates, people I meet in bus cues, and my rapidly dwindling circle of friends.

My God.

He created the show.

Oh, yes, absolutely.

100%.

In fact, if you believe trivial pursuit in the 1980s, He did create.

Yeah, it's not it's not unreasonable to say that we would not be sitting here talking to each other now, were it not for tearing action.

I mean, I mean, that's true of a heap of people, though.

David Whitaker, I think, creates the show.

David, what did you get?

But even then, and I'll talk about that when we're talking about keys of Marinus, um, in terms of from that point of view.

[1:04:11]

Obviously, they all do, but Terry Nation is the one that, through his script, which other people obviously work on and editors, they say, he's the, that's the, that's the template.

It's the template, the catalyst.

Yes, it becomes a template.

Terry took the bones and he made a living thing by the end of this story.

It's Terry Nation's world and everyone else just living in it.

But at the same time, I think that, though, that he, by the time we get to the chase and dark master plan, I think things are, he's not being, I think, Terry, you're right, is a jobbing writer, and that's got the positive that he can churn something out.

It all works.

It all kind of makes a sort of sense.

The disadvantage of that is that he's a jobbing writer and that he basically, he kind of just is happy just to kind of churn the same thing out, especially in an era when there are no repeats and no videos and so people aren't, might not recognise that this is a sort of a similar plot to before.

But he's getting an out, he's getting something on the screen.

And the idea that being a jobbing writer, just turning out efficient scripts on time with things that people recognise is in any way a bad...

Exactly.

That's what we liked about Terrence Dix. you know, precisely the same sort of thing.

[1:05:14]

We need something we do, you know, what Barry Lett said, you know, with the last thing we want is to have the test card.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Something propulsive. you know, where things happen.

Oh, yes, yes, yes.

That's right.

And that's the positive take on Terry.

I think the least positive take is that he's a hack for the same reasons, but I think there is a golf between those two.

I just think Hack is like a, like, you know, like a, some way of being negative about someone doing their job.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, he's just someone who's, like, he's not Shakespeare and he's not creating, you know, eyebrow literature, you know, but he is, yeah, it's where art meets craft.

It's the fact that you need you need, you know, at the end of the day, this is a job.

Your job is to produce scripts.

But at the same time, there is an artistic aspect to it.

I think I said last season, there is a tension between those 2 aspects.

Well, I think I said the season before last that, you know, art without craft is just basically wank, isn't it?

Yes, exactly.

Yeah, exactly.

Like pornography.

Yeah.

[1:06:14]

I know I know we don't do picks, but I do need to acknowledge, and which I'll be talking about in the Keys of Marinus episode as well. acknowledge the biography of David Whittaker, which I've been reading, which goes into excruciating detail about his life.

If you like that, it's definitely worth getting David Whittaker in an exciting adventure with television.

And it really, I've only read up to the point where he leaves Doctor Who at the end of season one and there's still half the book to go.

But he's, but basically understanding David Whittaker's work before Doctor Who, and because he starts out as an actor as well.

It really does.

You really understand how he makes and how he moulds Doctor Who.

Was it mercurial?

That actually comes up before Doctor Who, believe it or not.

No, it's as well as the fact that the, a lot of the original titles in elderly child, like all the character names, between him and his brother's house, which is about a 10 minute walk and they'd eat each other, he'd go over there for dinner, he and his wife would go.

[1:07:17]

Because his brother-in-law Cal.

But basically...

Chesterton Real Estate on the way.

Sure, it wasn't right right Avenue.

Or basically a lot foreman.

Basically most of the most of the characters' names are between the walk on the walk between his home and his brother. fantastic.

He probably called his mum old mother.