Slutty Title

[00:34]

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to 500 year diary, the only Doctor Who podcast, which is actually a traditional African village of huts, typically enclosed by a fence.

I'm Nathan.

I'm Brendan.

I'm James And I'm Stephen.

It's the 22nd of November, 1975.

It's been over 10 years since we allowed Terry Nation to contribute a script to the show unaccompanied by the Daleks, and by now we've kind of forgotten how much fun that was.

But how much fun will be had tonight by the astounding 11.90000 people who've tuned in.

Let's find out as we visit the village of Devesham just in time for the Android invasion.

I have to say that while this is charming, and I have very, very fond memories of it, I don't think it's actually very cool.

[01:43]

There is kind of a thing this season.

It's not every story, but a lot of the stories kind of fall apart a bit in the last episode, and I think that's the main problem here, because in the last episode, you have to pay off all these schemes that Stigrin has, and you have the eye patch moment, and you have the doctor disabling all the Androids, and then using his own Android, but then they run out of time to record the explanation.

So Barry Letts just goes, eh.

You know, but Brain of Morbius kind of runs out of steam in the last episode.

Planet of Evil runs out of steam in the last episode, Pyramids of Mars.

The sequences on Mars are quite divisive for a lot of fans.

So I think kind of what we've got is Terry always writes a brilliant episode one.

Always establishes a really great mystery.

Episodes 2 and 3 were underrunning and the deal with Terry was they agreed to pay him slightly more as a senior writer payment, but it meant he wouldn't be paid for rewrites.

Right.

But he'd already told Philip and Robert, he said, I'm happy for you to rewrite the script and just send it to me for approval.

[02:49]

So it was all understood that he would be offered the chance to write rewrites, but when they came back and said, look, 2 and 3 are underrunning.

Terry said, well, look, I'm happy for Bob to handle that.

Right.

Okay.

Because it just looks to me.

And I think this is the impression that Sandover has as well, that you've got Lets and Nation, and they're just a reliable pair of people to just get the story made.

And so they can concentrate on their stories, which they think are kind of more interesting, because it is unusual, I think.

I mean, it is a visible throwback, isn't it, to the Lets era.

And not just in the units, about the place kind of thing.

Like stylistically, it's a very pert-esque story.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think, you know, you've got a radio telescope and a space base and things.

Companions spreading their ankle.

Yes.

Sinister village.

Yeah, sinister village.

We'll get onto that.

Rubber monsters.

You know, it is very trad and it's very thin.

There's nothing to it.

[03:51]

And in a season.

It's a little bit like the way that series 2 has both the idiots lantern and fear her. which are 2 stories that are really, really very similar to one another, one of which is substantially better than the other one.

And that's, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

And here you have Terror of the Zigons, which does heaps of this stuff only substantially better and manages to be about something and has an interesting and surprising climax in episode four.

Like it doesn't fall off in episode four, I think.

And lots of backstory and lots of atmosphere.

And I think that this has sort of atmosphere, but it is very thin and it is hard to regard the kraals as anything, but Timu Zigons, really.

I think there's something in that.

It's silver nemesis to remembrance of the Daleks.

Yeah, okay. years early.

[04:52]

Where it's the same story, retold, just crapper, and...

I mean, to the point of like going, Harry doesn't even get a farewell seen in this story.

He literally is just there on the floor and then they're going back to the Tartars and nothing is there.

And it's a story that has a doppelganger Harry as well in a way that's much, much more terrifying and effective.

That scene with Harry in the barn and Sarah is one of the most memorable and terrifying scenes of the year, I think.

And Terry, don't forget, had recently written Genesis of the Daleks.

So he actually, in his original script, wrote a bigger role for Ian Marta.

Oh, yeah.

So the episode one cliffhanger was actually going to be Android Harry threatening Sarah.

Right.

Philip Hinch.

They said, no, we want a foreground Elizabeth Sladen.

She has to be intelligent and resourceful and get herself out of trouble.

Ian is no longer a regular.

So Elizabeth is the regular, must get the lion's share of the action.

And so the park got watered down and watered down and water down to what we see.

[05:53]

And also for John Levine, not that he had a bigger role in earlier stuff.

But, you know, he gets a very desultory what they didn't expect to be a sendoff.

And this is what Hingcliffe says on the commentary. he's like I wasn't expecting this to definitely be the last time we saw them.

You know, we had Seeds of Doom coming up and Nick was invited back for that and John was invited back for that.

Nick is touring in a play that's going to Toronto in a few weeks, which is why he's not here.

And I don't know if John Levine said no to the Seeds of Doom or if it was even offered.

You know, I could imagine them going, oh, well, if we don't have Nick, we don't have to have John. sort of thing.

I wonder whether he said no because he didn't want to be fed into a mulcher.

Well, that's a possibility as well, because that's what happens to Sergeant Henderson.

Also, maybe he was too busy selling used cars by that point.

That's true.

That's true.

It is kind of weird, isn't it, how little we do with the actual duplicates, and it is baffling that you get Ian Marty back and just don't let him be warm or funny or any of the things that we loved about him so much.

[06:59]

It was such a crushing blow to leave him behind at the end of episode 4 of this season.

Now we get him back, but we kind of robbed of any pleasure that that might have brought us.

Yeah.

And I feel like it's a bit of a writing problem that will rear its head again in the Davis and era, which, frankly, it's kind of reported as a problem that didn't need to be a problem in that.

It's kind of like, oh no, we don't have room for Harry because Tom does his own stunts.

It's like, well, write the stories better.

Yeah, you know, it's kind of like you had room for unit while John Pertwee was running around punching people in the throat, you know.

Yeah, you can make room for Harry.

Now, the dynamic between Tom and Liz is brilliant and doesn't necessarily need anything else, but Harry did add something last season, and it is very sad that his last word on the show is twin while he's tied up.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it is it is a shame.

I mean, he worked so well in season 12 and he was very frequently a straight man for Tom, wasn't he?

While Sarah led her own plot.

[08:00]

She was shunted off to the side to be menaced by people while the doctor and Harry got on with the actual plot.

And in fact, he actually often plays the role of the female companion in a lot of stories, getting his leg caught in a clam.

Falling down a ravine.

Yeah, yeah, making mistakes that further the plot was Harry's kind of role.

I think Hinchcliffe has sort of noted that, though, that, you know, getting rid of Harry as a character when they did was probably a bit premature and they really were onto a good thing.

Now, I'm not unhappy that we have Tom and Liz. as the main duo, I guess, going forward into season 13.

I absolutely adore those two, in fact, and everything that we've said so far about the Android Invasion is actually true.

But it's also one of my absolute favourites to put on on a Sunday afternoon and just watch on repeat, particularly those 1st, well, 1st episode in particular, but the 1st 2 episodes, they're so sunny and bright and they're lovely.

Those 2 traipsing around the English countryside.

I could watch that for 90 minutes, never mind, for 25.

[09:03]

And like for me, that is one of the high points, I think, for the Hinchcliffe era for me, that chemistry between the 2 of them, particularly in that 1st part.

And I think too, part of the thing about it being a kind of let's era throwback is that it's less grim than the stories around it, like less generally miserable.

I mean, we noted when we were talking about season 12 how many times Liz has to clamber over dead bodies and then season 13 continues to be really quite dark all the way through.

I guess the nearest equivalent to this is, of course, Terror of the Zycons, which is fun, but this is much lighter than that, isn't it?

And kind of much more fun.

But still with torturing of Sarah and also planning to give her a deadly virus.

Yeah, yeah.

This is the lightness of touch there. a relative scale.

She falls down on a gentle incline twice.

Less, a less gentle incline than the 5 doctors.

Yes, so similar, though.

[10:04]

Well, the whole thing with this is not only is Terry riffing on himself, he's riffing very deliberately on 50 sci-fi, the invasion is sort of a stand in for reds under the bed and sleeper trainee villages, invaders of the body snatchers, the invaders.

Terry originally had this tell in the script that got reworked.

So the bit with the doctor realising it's not Sarah because he's still got her scarf and she doesn't like ginger pop.

It was originally that all of the androids were mirror imaged.

Oh, okay.

That would have been cool.

And so it was things like he noticed that Harry had his medals on the wrong side.

Yeah, he still had Sarah's coat from when they escaped and he gave her back her coat and he noticed she buttoned it up on the wrong side.

But Hinchcliffe pointed out in the script conference.

Well, any alien race, sufficiently advanced to create these androids, would just flip them back.

Would know how mirrors were.

So yeah, it became reworked instead.

But they're not sufficiently advanced to program in alike or dislike of ginger pop.

[11:09]

Well, I don't understand where the 2nd scarf comes from.

She's not wearing it when she gets put in the machine.

Yeah, yeah, she remembered.

She remembers wearing it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's her mental image of that outfit that gets replicated.

Silence, Mr. Spock.

I'm tired of your half blooded interference.

Yeah, Sarah Jane.

Mr. Spock, well, no, you're not the real Captain.

Yeah, episode, yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Even that, you know, is commonly used in science fiction.

It's the Android not knowing something that the human would know.

This is actually the 1st Doctor Who story to feature the word Android, by the way.

Ah, wow, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because Edmund Warwick was the robot doctor who got the Android Doctor Who.

And we haven't really had replica Androids, apart from that, I think.

Yeah, maybe right.

No, I mean, yeah, yeah, we've had doubles.

We've had plastic people, but yeah, not robots.

Robot replicas.

[12:12]

I will say this, that it's not just the atmosphere.

It's the location, which is really great.

Again, just incredibly memorable, and also the cliffhangers, I think, are all absolute bangers, aren't they?

Has this village been used in the Avengers?

It really feels like we should have.

Oh, we should know this, shouldn't we?

We should. don't think it has.

But it's so reminiscent of the town of No Return.

It is so reminiscent of Murdersville.

It's so reminiscent of James, you've mentioned Metroland before.

It's kind of like the village at just one stop beyond the end of Metroland.

So you're now at the sort of fringes of the urban rural English divide.

And you're kind of in this sort of liminal space, really, and anything can happen here.

And this is why I love the setting.

Apart from Tom and Liz for me, Nathan is like the star of the show.

I think it's the best thing other than Tom and Liz in the Android invasion.

And part of that is, obviously, the location shooting, but you know, Brendan, you just mentioned it there as well, like all of the antecedents that it's drawing from, all of the things that are happening at that point in time, we've got this British space program, which never was, but kind of could have been.

[13:20]

You know, they launched, um, I think it was Black Arrow in 1964 by 71, they'd cancelled the program.

But this is kind of like a glimpse into an alternate Britain where if you squint just hard enough, Devisham is kind of deep space research centre in the auton invasion or what we see in Lagopolis, it's kind of like the same location in Britain does have this base program.

I mean, there's a very definite space program in ambassadors of death, isn't there?

Yeah, and again, it goes back to the sort of old way of doing Doctor Who underlets that we had and it's kind of brought back one last time. was expecting almost the 1st time watching this that the master was going to show up at some point.

Yeah.

And I do think that the mystery is very well done.

Like, it is kind of very visual and interesting.

And, you know, just like trucks coming along and just sort of disgorging a group of people who walk into the pub and so on.

Very Avengers.

Yeah, yeah, isn't it?

And the guys with the fingers, again, are genius.

[14:22]

Like, that's absolutely brilliant.

Remember the slabs in Smith and Jones where they just look like bike couriers and stuff.

So they don't scream.

These are aliens, so they don't take us away from Earth.

We still think that we're on earth.

And the doctor thinks that we're on earth for quite a while.

And it ties in with the high level of radiation thing as well. in suits.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, it kind of furthers the, are we near, like a Nanton power complex?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And just the finger thing is just like exactly we were doing it in the playground.

Right, right, yeah.

Yeah, you know.

And it's also the autons all over again as well.

Yeah, yeah.

So it has the benefit of not having to split your hand open.

And I do think there's some wonderful red herrings in this.

And as much as, you know, we can look at a terry nation script and go, okay, we've got radiation tick.

We've got an abandoned village tick.

We've got a virus.

[15:22]

In the 1st episode.

The doctor comes up with several wrong guesses as to what's going on, but they are guesses that would be right in other Terry Nations scripts.

Yeah.

But I think Terry himself. because Philip asked for a story that didn't have Daleks.

Terry's kind of going, oh, okay, how can I subvert my own kind of output?

Because what's interesting with talking about the Avengers and the Town of No Return and what have you, is Terry later became the script editor of the Avengers for the final season, which also famously had a doppelganger episode called They Keep Killing Steed.

It wasn't one of his because so he writes Invasion of the Earthmen.

He gets the job as script editor on the strength of that.

How?

That's a really good question.

In the same way that Eric Seward did after writing the invitation.

He borrowed someone else's script from the Avengers, though, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, how would this work if I turned the steed into the doctor?

Yeah, Mrs. appeal into Sarah Jane.

The town of No Return, which starts with a black sort of balloon walking out of the ocean and a man in a bowler hat with an umbrella steps out of it and wanders into the village. was written by Brian Clemens and he and Terry did collaborate on scripts later.

[16:34]

The closest possible comparison to his Avengers scripts is probably noon, doomsday, which is a bit of a Western.

You've got this isolated area where agents go to recuperate and someone's trying to kill Steed there.

Right.

And also Anthony Ainley's there too. feels like the prisoner.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And well, the prisoner was in vogue then as well.

I think that Terry does work to subvert his usual tendencies here because there is radiation, but no one gets radiation sickness.

Yeah, yeah.

There isn't a Tarrant.

There isn't a Tarrant.

Let's say, Stigrunge, darky.

Oh, of course, because of his son, Chadanki Nation.

I can't help feeling that the initial guy who goes over the cliff is our Roberman from episode one of Dalek Invasion of Earth and our Terry Walsh from episode one of Death to the Daleks, don't you think?

[17:34]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

That's Max Faulkner.

In his larger speaking role on the show to date.

Yes, okay.

And Barry Let's chose him specifically because he didn't want the audience to go, oh, okay, now they've changed the stuntman.

Yeah, okay So he's like, get Max in, who doesn't usually get close-ups of his face or whatever.

So people won't know, okay, there's a stunt coming up.

Yeah.

But then have him play the role throughout as well.

That cliff is obviously all completely created in kind of editing and camera angles and stuff like that.

But the shot where he kind of flings himself.

It's a great jump really good.

And very terrible the autons as well.

It's also the 2nd story where Max Faulkner comes back to life after the ambassadors of death.

Yes.

He does too, doesn't he?

But yeah, it's a great shot, isn't it?

And but again, the 1st thing that we entered my head when I saw that was, oh, they're recreating that wonderful, you know, auton being flung into the chasm and then relaxing coming back up.

[18:36]

Yeah, yeah, except it doesn't hear.

But that's part of the mystery, isn't it?

That's seeded, like, how is it that we see him march back into the pub later on?

Those kinds of cues around the uncanny valley, I guess, aspect that this really carries on.

And it's 1970, I think, where what's the chap's name?

Masahiro Maury coins this idea of the uncanny valley, where the copy disturbs most at near perfection, not at a crude approximation.

So the closer you get, obviously, that's where the uncanny valley effect happens.

But, you know, the fact that they all sort of file into the pub and then they're absolutely still into the stroke of midday.

And then they come back to life and it's the normal scene and you feel safe at that point, but obviously you're not because there's something really strange going on.

There's such great totanic dread, I guess, in the way that all of that is set up by nation.

And this is what he does really, really well.

I don't think it's a great script, but I think it's a great series of moments in Doctor Who, and all of them are just sort of rely on that.

The visual language, I guess, um, that Doctor Who does particularly well.

[19:37]

And, you know, look, at the same time the Avengers were doing the same thing. mentioned the prisoner, like this is another isolated village where things are happening that are unaccountable for.

I just think that the whole thing, I know it's redbare, but it's just so redolent of all of those influences that I love and I can just watch it over and over again as a result.

It's kind of a collection of delightful set pieces.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

Or, I mean, that's something that he is very good at, I think.

And things like the Cliffhanger to episode too, which I think is probably one of the best...

Unbelievable.

Stepford Wives, I like to call it.

But, you know, the face falling off is an all-time great image of Doctor Who.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Well, the Stepford-wise was released in the UK, when Terry was writing the scripts.

There you go.

Yeah.

And also 2 years after Westworld.

Of course, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

As much as we're talking about 50s references.

His other references are right up to the minute.

And it's interesting in the middle of a season where Hinchcliffe and homes are looking back at literature.

[20:38]

So, you know, we're doing Frankenstein, we're doing mummy legends, we're doing loch bins.

We're doing Forbidden Planet.

Terry looks at film and TV sci-fi from the last 10 or 15 years. rather than going back to the 1st half of the century or even further back than that.

And it's kind of interesting because just a few years from now, Graham Williams will be looking even further back into literature and not looking at the visual medium.

Terry is a very visual writer, in terms of action, in terms of set piece.

But he then famously will write things like a blank featureless corridor, a blank featureless room.

Because he's just he's just like, I'm not interested in telling the designer how to design the room.

I'm interested in saying they go over here, they do this.

They pick this up.

It's crystalline technology, but also things like the doctor being tied to the obelisk.

In the script, Terry's like, it's an ornamental bird bath or sundial or whatever you find on location.

Yeah, yeah. and writes in things like, depending on, depending on the size, perhaps Sarah grabs a shovel to leave her off the top so the doctor can stand up.

[21:43]

If it is too tall, perhaps she gets a ladder for him to walk up and get off the thing.

But it was actually Barry Letz, who said, well, why don't we just use this thing?

And we'll write in the Sonic Screwdriver and just put a blowtorch on some plastic ivy, which is how they did that effect.

I think that's incredible, actually, that whole sequence.

And obviously it's the memorable thing.

It's what they put on the front cover of the novelisation, isn't it?

Like it is a really, really striking image.

And I'd kind of forgotten that it wasn't a cliffhanger because I'm there hearing Sarah say 9 minutes and I think, wait, it's 25 minutes to the end.

Wait, what's happening?

But because it is so incredibly memorable and it has one of the best countdowns ever, doesn't it, with the doctor standing back to allow Sarah into the door in front of him while we're on like one.

Ever the gentleman?

Yeah, yeah.

But they're just that wonderful moment with the cliffhanger where they get through the door, but don't have enough time to press the button before the match dispersion bomb goes off and that throwing themselves around in slow motion.

[22:48]

Just fantastic.

And the funny thing is, that's not the cliffhanger.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because I always remember that as the cliffhanger as well.

The cliffhanger is Elizabeth Sladen, of course, grabbing her ears and pulling back on her own face.

Because they're underrunning.

It is the weakest of the cliffhapers, I have to say.

What's the 1st cliffhanger, I can't.

The 1st cliffhanger is...

Yeah, and it's basically a retread of the episode one cliffhanger of Terror of the Cycons.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Boton looms into screen.

Well, in fact, it's so similar, isn't it?

part of it is just the sort of sensibilities because I'm also getting kind of vogan vibes from the outfits that the kraals are wearing and it's the same kind of rubberheaded people.

You know, like this is what rubberheaded people look like. been the Santarans, to be honest.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, that's a nice thought.

Yeah, they're doing it again.

Planning another invasion Over elaborating.

Yeah, if at 1st you don't succeed, try, try again 10,000 years earlier.

[23:51]

There are a lot of similarities.

I mean, even the, is the dartboard, the dartboard doesn't have a camera in it, that is...

No, the dartboard does have a camera in this one.

Oh, it is.

The zigons is in the stag's hand.

It's above the dot.

Of course.

Yeah, yeah.

It's moving down.

Just like, you know, the plot antecedents.

Yeah.

And I feel like also like the whole use of androids may be the reason that in Brain of Morbius, they go off Solon being a robot putting together a hodgepodge body. yeah Because, I mean, like we literally have just the pub is bugged by the alien who can see it on a screen.

We've got fiddling with the power system in the ship in order to attack someone or escape or whatever.

Not just sexy.

No, that's right.

God.

I do love that 1st episode, Cliffhanger, because it's like, why does Stigrid have a removable intercom just there when he has cameras elsewhere?

He really likes that corridor.

[24:52]

Well, it's one of those cliff addingers.

It's like that cliffhanger in nightmare of Eden where you open up the wall and there's a mandrel and so then you close up the wall at the beginning of the next episode.

And here, like it is absolutely he opens that little door because we're 25 minutes in.

Yeah. monster.

Yeah, it was so memorable at the time.

It's his cliffhanger pit hole.

I just love the fact that there's one eye sort of balefully glaring at you. you know, they're sort of squinty.

It just looks so inhuman.

It's wonderful.

And you know what?

A lot of people have said they don't like this design for many years.

I actually like it.

Like, he looks scarred.

And, yeah, they're on this irradiated planet.

They look kind of melted but they also look kind of like rhinoceroses.

Yeah.

And Martin Friends has something interesting on the commentary, which is pretty much the chin was spring loaded.

So it wouldn't flap about, but it meant that he had to over annunciate everything to make it move.

[25:56]

And so he's like, it was a painful experience.

But he's like, I'm looking at it now and I can't see the struggle, which is good.

It looks like I'm moving naturally.

I think it looks really good.

And I did notice at the time because it's the thing that they know or knew who.

It's the reason that he would have those tentacles, is that getting the mouth movement right on a mask like that is terribly difficult.

And obviously they're mastering it at this point in the program where they make up the actors.

I guess they do it for the 1st time with the draconians, don't they?

But it becomes the standard thing that they do with Davros and with the Zygons.

But here I think it does work really well that we can't really see the actor's lips and it doesn't matter. looks really good.

Everything they totally fail to do with Legend of the Sea Tables.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, no, they don't move their mouths quick, quick.

Let's use some post-production to try and warp their mouths to make it look like they're talking. like, guys, come on.

Well, I mean, next week we're doing Destiny of the Daleks.

And again, that's kind of failure of the mask and the actor's lips and things.

[27:00]

Like, it just doesn't kind of work.

But I think they do look really good.

I think they work well here, but they are just this week's rubber monsters.

They are, but they are absolutely, you know, discard genetic relics of whatever the kraal race was prior to, you know, whatever happened to a site.

And like they look like they've gone through an Armageddon.

I think, again, this is like Terry's home turf, really.

The 15, 20 years after the 2nd World War, the preoccupation with nuclear Armageddon and what would happen to the planet.

You know, he writes survivors is it just before this?

The 1st season finishes just as this is about to shoot or is about to air, I think it is.

Is that right?

I think it's definitely in production around the same time, yeah?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

When he was writing this, he had pretty much stepped away from writing survivors due to his disagreements with Terence Dudley.

So yeah, the 1st season, I think, goes out early to mid-1975.

And this goes out in November.

Yeah.

So they're actually shooting in June, July, I think it is.

Yes, that's right.

Yeah.

Okay.

So he's just rolled off writing for it.

But I mean, it is something that he's obsessed with general.

[28:03]

Obviously, there must have been formative experiences for him as well, right?

And as a writer, those, I guess, you know, mythologies that you sort of grow up with are your preoccupations in your writing as well.

But, you know, also at that time, to go back to villages.

Well, there's a few stories.

So there's Ibra in Wiltshire and Tynham in Dorset, and these are villages that are evacuated of people and are sort of set up for for military war games and you know how to prepare in the case of a Nazi invasion.

In 53.

The survival town, the Nevada test site, which the press dub Doomtown, which is basically a perfectly replicated town or village, if you like, in Nevada.

And it's obviously designed to see what would happen if we detonate a nuclear bomb.

And there's mannequins, you know, sitting down at the tables having dinner, you know, sort of to sort of replicate what life would look like after the blast.

But also most famously, the story of Inver Lair Lodge in Scotland, which is George Markstin, the chap who sort of 1st wrote the premise for the prisoner with Patrick McGuin, this idea that during the 2nd World War, It was a secretive, comfortable holding facility in Scotland for individuals who possessed sensitive information or classified knowledge.

[29:10]

So all of these things are sort of, I think, in the ether and nation imbibes from it and it just sort of comes out in these sort of tropes that we're very familiar with.

But he's such a product of that sort of 1945 to 19, perhaps, 60, 65, and he's stuck there.

And that's why as we sort of move further away from that period and we get past, I think, certainly the chase or at the chase, it kind of becomes less compelling as a Doctor Who ride it because he's no longer cresting the wave of what, you know, Doctor Who is is very much a relic of the past.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think he's successful in the 1970s Dalek stories.

Just because it's the sort of thing that we haven't seen for a while.

Like it's bringing the Daleks back and in colour and for a generation who haven't seen them.

Exactly right.

And so he has 2 quite successful stories, one perhaps more successful than the other one.

And then, of course, we hit on the genius idea that brings us genesis of a dialect.

Which wasn't even his idea.

No, that's right.

That's right.

But he certainly rises to it, though.

[30:10]

Like, we did talk quite a bit last week about how sympathetic.

Bob Holmes and Terry Nation were in their kind of interests and outlooks.

And so the 2 of them kind of work together a bit.

Terry gets to be a bit off the leash as far as, you know, making it very dark goes here.

He's very, very much back in that sort of Let's era, planet of a Daleks, death to the Dalek sort of thing.

I'd like to talk about the title.

Yes.

That's all right.

So, um, one of the early working titles for it was just the kraals, which was never going to be the title, but it was just, I'm writing a story about kraals.

What a Carls.

And of course, in Africa, surrounded by gates.

What was that?

Fence. you go.

And I believe is also where the word corral comes from.

But it does go through different titles.

[31:13]

One of which is still on the paperwork for the location shoot, which is take a drink, the enemy within.

However, I think what Terry and the production team decide, perhaps not in these words, but as Stephen Moffatt wants to describe the way he titles season finales, you need a slutty title.

And the Android Invasion.

He's a slutty title.

Very, very.

Yeah, you know, especially with the Stepford Wives, with Westworld, with other robot duplicates in other places.

The $6000000 man was super popular at this time.

You get the Android invasion, which rather than subverts all the red herrings in episode one.

It's like, oh, maybe it's radiation.

Maybe it's this.

Maybe it's, or maybe it's the Android.

But that's so Terry Nation.

It's Planet of the Daleks.

Oh my god, there's a dalek.

Death of the Daleks.

There's Daleks on that ship.

Oh my god.

Okay, but how many of us, the 1st time we saw this?

[32:13]

Thought that the Androids were the guys in the motorbike helmets.

That's true.

That's great, misdirection.

Absolutely.

And they are Androids though.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we see their face.

Yeah, but the big reveal, of course, which he doesn't spoil, at least that we're not on earth at all.

That's true And that is actually pretty good, even though Karl does just seem to be a photograph of a beach.

Isn't it Cromer?

A photograph of Chroma.

Stephen and I watched behind the sofa for this in the last few days. and it's actually really interesting to watch. most of the sofas are made up by people who've never seen the story before.

Apart from St.

Toby Haydoke.

And seeing them try and work out the plot. is great.

It's like, they go, oh, they're androids, but I think it's Maureen O'Brien or Sophie Aldred, sitting there going, oh, no, I don't think they're, they're on.

And one of them says, oh, those humans, they've been brainwashed.

[33:15]

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah, the faint works.

Yeah.

For someone who's never seen it before.

Yeah, fair.

It doesn't work for us because we've seen it a 100 bloody times.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

And read the novelisation.

So it's a great, because it's like Maureen O'Brien who's famously not a science fiction fan.

And she's like, I don't get it.

I don't get it.

And then she sees that scene, they come to life in the pub and she's like, oh, wow, that's a great effect.

You're kind of seeing her through going, oh, there's something in this science fiction is kind of cool.

What's interesting about that scene as well from a production standpoint is usually when you hire extras for location, you don't have to worry about getting the same extras for studio.

Yeah, okay.

But here, of course, they do.

So what Barry Letts does is all the principal extras who we see close-ups of are people who've been extras in previous stories, particularly Planet of the Spiders.

Right.

So most of them were metabolian villages.

Brilliant.

But the guy with the impressive gray moustache, who is just staring into the camera in surprise, did that just about 6 months ago as the honourable MP Joseph Chambers, guardian of the plans for the disintegrator.

[34:26]

Yes, of course.

Where he makes exactly the same face.

So it's kind of a deliberate thing to go, oh, have I seen them before?

Yeah, yeah, it might be uncanny for viewers.

Yeah, especially one of the most recognisable ones is the guy in the sort of blue cap. was a very prominent villager or metabolist, like not speaking, but was in a lot of the action scenes and what have you.

To the point that whenever I watch the story, I'm like, who's that guy?

I have to go look it up, oh, yeah, that's right.

He was in Plan of the Spiders.

And I think the one who grabs Sarah is like an audience member watching the Turkish belly dancer in at the beginning of one.

And dear Psai Town is in there as well. famous Dalek operator and fondant surprise victim in the happiness patrol.

There's also, of course, speaking of famous Daleks.

Roy Skelton playing Chidaki.

Yes.

I think Roy Skelton is the worst Dalek voice.

Apart from Michael Messalin, obviously.

But he is quite good in this.

[35:27]

I have to say.

So I was playing a game whilst I was watching this to try and work out where the extra dialogue came in from the underrunning, and I think it's the scene when Sarah saves doctor from the machine on the corral ship.

I feel disoriented.

This is the disorientation centre.

Actually, I thought that was the funniest line, and they did call it the disorientation centre earlier on in dialogue, and it did seem like a very kind of new hoo joke, actually.

Yeah, yeah.

But you're right, James, that was one of the extensions, and I don't know if it was scripted or if Tom and Liz came up with it in rehearsal, but some of the other extensions were a lot of Chadaki and Stigren chatting away scenes.

And the thing is, Philip Hinchcliffe generally hated rubber suited monsters talking to one another, but it was kind of like, we're underrunning, and also, Terry was a lot more interested in Crayford and the Androids, and he was in the kraals.

[36:32]

And if you look at F4, which didn't have a lot of rewrites from Bob Holmes, Stigrid only talks in one scene when he confronts the doctor.

So particularly the scene where Chadaki's like, but how do we know the androids won't turn on us?

And Stickron's like, well, because I can shoot them in the face?

That whole home seat.

Right.

I mean, that baffling that scene.

Because I was kind of wondering what it was setting up.

Like, it had to be kind of setting up shooting the fake...

Android doctor in episode four?

Or is it the fake Tom shooting, is it Stigwater doctor?

Well, sticker and yeah, sticker and shoots the fake Tom, but we think is the real Tom.

But also, I don't think we're under any doubt that an alien laser gun would destroy an android anyway.

Yes, that's right.

We could have just believed that had it happened.

Would have been going, how is that even possible?

So it's hard to know what that scene was for.

I do have to say the special effect of the light coming from the gun looked absolutely gray.

Yeah, properly good.

[37:33]

Barry Letts is the master of CSO and also...

And also, you know, does the 1st on-screen laser effects in Doctor Who as part of his era.

So if you need anyone to do it, he's going to do it.

And the CSO in this story is actually really good.

Yeah, yeah.

I also love the fact that it's not quite perfect, but they've spent a lot of time lining up the eyes of the Android with Tom's face.

Like when it just, it's almost perfect with the eyeballs.

Yeah, yeah. really well done.

Yeah, yeah.

Terry's original idea for the Kraals was actually to have them insectoid.

But we couldn't afford that?

Well...

We saw the we're in.

Yeah, yeah.

All he sort of talked about was like an insectoid carapace, which became the hump.

Okay, okay.

Yeah.

And then the designer went in the direction of, oh, okay, radiation, you need a resilient skin, what has a resilient skin, rhinoceroses?

I'll make them look like rhinoceroses, but was also thinking, oh, reptiles are very durable.

[38:37]

Like the Crystal Palace dinosaur with the big spike on its nose, like Stigren has.

Yeah.

And the other thing, and this was another red herring, the doctor expressed that there was a particular alien race who were very good at exerting a mesmeric influence, and that could be what's going on called the dominators.

And now there's no evidence that Terry meant for it to be the previous thing.

There's also no evidence that Terry Nation knows any homosexuals because in the subsequent lines, the doctor just keeps referring to them as the DOMs.

Yeah, thank God that was Kart.

Oh, and speaking of homosexuals, Kenneth Williams actually wrote about this story in his diaries.

Oh, did he?

Yeah.

So watching episode 2 on Saturday, the 29th of November.

Yeah, great cliffhanger.

Watching part 2 of the Android Invasion on Saturday the 29th of November.

Kenneth Williams wrote in his diary, Doctor Who gets more and more silly.

[39:41]

That's all.

Around the same time, he also hated porridge and the good life.

So, you know, he might just be allergic to fun.

He did just make carry on a manual.

He didn't say he hated the silliness.

Yes, that's true.

I mean, he was in carry on.

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

We'll be back next week. to watch Doctor Who's second Dalek focussed regeneration story, Destiny of the Daleks.

[40:41]

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 through entirety, which comprises every episode of our 4 Doctor Who podcasts.

Until next time, did we ever mention that we can't stand ginger pop?

We're mentioning it now, just in case it becomes important later on.

Thank you very much for listening and good night.

Good night.

Ta ta.

Be seeing you.

That was 500 year diary, starring Nathan Bottomley, Stephen B, Brendan Jones, and James Selwood.

The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.

This episode's slutty title was recorded on the 26th of July 2026 and released on the 18th of October.

[41:45]

If you want to hear more about the Avengers from Brendan and Stephen, and of course, Richard, head on over to the three-handed game, a podcast which takes a look at themes from the entirety of the Avengers run.

That's at the 300 game.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

The thing you just looked up.

Yeah, I think it's Michael Wishard.

Yeah.

Puppy.

I may take your home with.

Just put him in your pocket.

It's a laptop.

Lap top.

Lap, top.

Give it away.

No, it's not just for life.

It's Christmas.

Oh, look, he's looking at me. those eyes.

Nathan.

He's so pretty. you pretty?

He's a pretty boy World building transit.

Oh, God, Sarah's outfit is so hot in revengeless, I mean, isn't it?

[42:49]

She looks great.

She does look great.

I'm pretty sure it is, my whole wish show.

Because Michael Wisher, doesn't he do the other voice?

Doesn't he do the...

Oh, the... shuttle anyone here?

That guy?

I do know that Vorus is David Collings.

Yes, Vorus is David Collings.

Kevin Stoney is Tyram.

Tyram, yes.

Tyram Banks.

Yes.

He's great too.

Again, you get Kevin Stoney and you put a big rubber head on.

Who was it?

Who was it who came up with the term squabbling rubber?

Is that Carrie Russell?

I don't know.

I can't remember.

Is this someone like that, but I don't think it was.

Maverick is Michael Wisher, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

You're right.

Yeah, share.

Brian's a shepherd.

What was it, Gary?

Oh, Zap leader.

Huh?

Was it Gary Gillette?

Yeah, maybe it was Gary Giller.

Someone, anyway, someone, one of those people came up with squat.

It is because Peter has mentioned it.

Yeah.

Lance Parkin just reposted this week.

[43:49]

Star Trek has been making stories for 60 years.

He is all 16 of them.

And one of them, as you would expect, is some family member turns up on the Enterprise and is either hilariously annoying or evil.

Gosh, did you see Stranger Wells, they say?

Yes.

So good.

Yeah, I loved it.

I think they missed a trick not having the aliens from Distant Origin in it.

Yeah, yeah, where, where, the Voth.

But I thought that that was great.

That woman, the, and having Martians and stuff and like Earth has 3 class 7 planets, like it's one of 3 that was all of that stuff was so fun.

It's like, you are short.

She was really good. she someone that I should know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I can't remember her name now, but she is a name where I'm like, oh, it's her, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Though the Voth wouldn't have been there because they'd already left.

They'd seen something coming to destroy their planet.

The moon.

Like this, like the Silurians.

Anson mounts hair.

That's an answer.

[44:50]

So great.

It was so good.

Pellina has now the, the, there's um, Carol Kane from, um, uh, what she from, Kimmy Schmidt.

Yeah, Kimmy Schmidt.

Princess Bride.

Yeah, she is from 1985.

She is 1000s of years old.

She's an alien who's 1000s of years old and she's an alien.

Well, she's from Earth.

Well, she's a lanternite.

Yeah, they are aliens.

And she... they're native to earth.

No, no, no.

They've been on Earth. so many rans.

So what they are.

No, no, no.

They've just been on Earth for a long time.

They're in a Voyager episode.

Okay.

Beside your NCAA.

And she says that the last time she saw a spatial anomaly like this, it was from a phone box.

And if she has suggested that it's not the 1st time she's... travels with a doctor.

Time travelling doctor.

Yeah, this episode last season where she's like, remind me to tattoo of the time I met a time travelling doctor.

Oh I've said too much.

But also she implies he was very sexy, so it's basically it's shooting.

[45:53]

There's no way that those 2 are doing their nails and stuff.

But also, like, there was an interview with, was it, like some of the showrunners, 4 Star Trek, saying, we had been in negotiations with Russell, to do a, to, to, to do a crossover, but never came to pass.

Yeah, and there and there was...

The TARDIS was visible in... in an episode last season, like the Enterprise is trapped in this other ship.

Like it's been drawn in by 10 books.

And as you pan around the ship, there's a police box sitting on one of the Nasselles.

That's nice.

Yeah.

So, yes, shooty stalker, though, for sure.

Much like much like the plot of this episode.

Shall we get back on tour?

Yeah, we should.

What are we got to talk about?

Are you entering through the countryside is the point?

Did you want to talk about Michael Wisher?

No, not particularly.

Okay, I do.

Surely you should have said, do you wish to talk about Michael?

Who do we wish to talk about?

[46:53]

I think I said everything here.

There is one thing I did forget to say.

We've gone 57 minutes, so...

I've just mentioned 2 last things about the drafting process.

So Terry's original idea for the...