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This transcript was created on 2026-08-23 at 20:30:16

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

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The only Doctor Who podcast that always tries to cover all possibilities to the best of our abilities.

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I'm Nathan.

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I'm Peter.

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I'm Simon, and I'm Todd.

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It's the 11th of April 1964.

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It's been just over 2 months since the broadcast of Terry Nation's most recent Doctor Who script, and tonight, the 9900000 people who've tuned in will get to see him having another go.

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And quite unexpectedly.

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Perhaps, it's with a rollicking quest narrative that takes us through a number of exotic and cheaply realised locales before turning into an exciting detective story, set in space New York and featuring a young Fiona Walker.

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Is it everything we could have wanted and more?

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Let's find out as we discuss?

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The keys of mariners.

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Now, confession time, who called it the keys of Marinus when you were reading the novelisation when you were 12.

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Of course I did.

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Yes, I did.

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Indeed.

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It's on our marine world.

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Of course, it's a marine world.

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A sea of acid.

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I never read the novelisation.

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And I came at this one quite late, and I have a confession to make as well, which is I like this much more than the Daleks.

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Yes, you're wrong.

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Look, I'm prepared to suggest that there are ways in which it's inferior to the Daleks, but I always kind of thought that the big advantage here is that essentially we have a framing story and then 4 stories in the middle.

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And so we never get time to get bored.

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There's no the ordeal here.

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That is true.

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But I think some of the characters do undergo great ordeal.

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They do.

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Barbara and Susan, poor Altos and his legs.

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I think whilst that's strength and certainly the strength that I experienced when loving and rereading many times the novelisation, when I did come to watch it, I did discover that in the context of a 1960s, Doctor Who story where there's limited budget and limited sets and the rest of it, you can't do very much with each of those little mini stories.

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And so nothing in those little episodes develops properly and the whole thing ends up with a bit of a Scooby-Doo flavour for me me Not a bad thing.

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I'm with Nathan on this I've always appreciated the keys to mariners.

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I like its light touch.

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I like its sense of kind of daring do.

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I think it pleased terri nation strengths because what he wants to do is get in, tell a little story and get out and that's what he does with each episode.

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He's the master of the set piece.

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And so each episode is basically built around one good set piece.

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And I think that of the 3 quest style stories that Terry does for the series, this obviously, and then the Chase and then the 1st half of the Dalek master plan, where you're hopping from location to location, I think this is the most successfully realised of them because not only are you just moving from random planet to random planet, but you're moving from continent to continent or country to country on one planet.

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And so you're actually seeing something that you rarely get in Doctor Who, which is different facets of the same culture.

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Yes, it's refreshing to have a world which does not have one culture and one climate.

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So when I initially watched this, I was bitterly disappointed, because it could not be realised in the way that the book could be done, but I absolutely adore it now, even with those limitations.

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And putting an 80s child lens onto things, you would have seen movies and stuff that were very action adventure going to places to place.

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And so I thought, oh, this is just a series of tropes.

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Like, I've commented about that before, but this is the 1st time Doctor Who's really doing that within a story.

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So again, Terry's setting the scene for things to come and I don't think it would have been done very much on television, at least in Britain.

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So I actually think it's really inventive.

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And again, his strength is the fact that, as you mentioned, he's got these set pieces.

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Every individual episode has got the challenges to overcome to get to the cliffhanger.

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But did he actually sit down and go, okay, now, on my map of this world, I'm going to have this pyramid with this sea of acid and glass.

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And then over here, I've got this city that's taken over by these brains that nobody's going to visit, but they're just going to be their own little thing.

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And then we've got this jungle that's going to attack you up to the north, and then we've got, like, you know, the ice age, like with furs up here.

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They've never really developed, except they've got the people frozen and the tap into the... basically the opening sequence of Game of Thrones.

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You're right.

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But like, did you sit down and do this whole big map?

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We've then got this other city that's so advanced, you know, with phones and whatever, you know, where...

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You know what I'm saying?

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phones, yes.

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But their phones and they don't have an angle in them.

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But did he sit down and do that?

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No, he didn't.

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He wrote episode to episode to episode.

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And within the episode, the logic makes sense.

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But then when you build it all up, it sort of like does it all gel together as a realistic world that we see in Doctor Who moving forward properly, not.

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That's exactly it.

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I think we're kind of overstating it by saying different facets of the same culture.

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I did not use the word culture.

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You get the sense that it's a world.

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Like, you know, I mean, remember the world in 1964 is very vastly different.

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Well, now in terms of there's no satellite communication.

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You know, there are parts of the world still where the indigenous population has not met Europeans yet.

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Um, it's not unreasonable to think that the, different economies of the different nations that make up mariners, especially after this debacle where the, the conscience machine obviously had to be dismantled.

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It meant that they've all fractured and so they're all, you know, cities.

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And they're all fitting for themselves.

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No, I think it's fine.

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I mean, I don't think that we're even thinking about it.

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No, I don't think we're...

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No, I've never thought about that either.

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And I'm never going to think about it then.

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Well, you seem to have a job as a Doctor Who fan is to think about everything.

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We seem to have the city of millennia, which has police and guards and prisons and the death penalty and Michigan stuff. coexists on the planet where there's the conscience machine that makes everyone behave themselves.

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And giant brains that mesmerise everyone.

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I mean, all of it is just absolutely delightfully fun and funny and just terrifically enjoyable.

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I wish we had had mentions of how they relate to each other.

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Like, you know, maybe, for example, the Morpheton City was in a state of cold war against the city of millennia.

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I wish we had had a little idea of how they fitted into it.

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But it's not what he's interested in.

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No, it's not what they've got time for.

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I mean, yeah.

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Well, I mean, I mean, he's only barely interested in the relationship between the files and the daleks given, you know.

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Well, but we've got to spend time, you know, having that guy die of being next to a drain. and like and like an octopus and all of that sort of thing.

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Like, that's what he's interested in.

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He's interested in the action he's interested in what the daleks look like.

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He's interested in the aesthetics of the files, all of that sort of thing.

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All those great things.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, those are all great things.

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That's right.

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And so here, like we are really leaning into just action and adventure.

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Yeah, yeah, just really, but very simple kind of ideas.

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The people who write about time suggests that in fact, what's happened is that because the Daleks were successful at realising what Terry had put on the page, he began to overestimate what it was likely to be successful at realising.

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And so, I mean, the reason that there is some kind of unity from place to place to place here is mostly we're just reusing design elements.

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Well, we reusing a lot of black drapes.

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But to be fair, oh, look, because in Marco Polo, they get around that by Barry Newby apparently has like a simple set for the 1st town that they visit.

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And then basically his idea was that it's the same set, but they keep making it more elaborate, as they get closer to Peking.

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Here, you're talking about completely separate things.

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And Ray Kusik says on the short interview on the DVD that basically it was totally unrealistic and unreasonable to be asked to do that and he actually uses the words.

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He says he was embarrassed by some of the results.

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And there are a lot.

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There's a lot of use of black drapes, which is fine.

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Having this format means that they can't do the thing which they got so right on the Daleks, which is build a cohesive design world for each of the situations that they're in.

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So it sort of irreverts to generic a little bit, which I'm fine with.

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But yeah, I understand what he's saying.

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But it kind of works in the idea of a cereal, like you are going from place to place.

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Each episode set in a different place, basically.

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I can absolutely understand that if I was 8 years old in 1964 watching it go out, I would have loved every moment of it.

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And it's always hard to view these stories from a, you know, even in the 80s, late 80s when you're seeing them for the 1st time.

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But you're having to build a new set every single week.

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Yeah, and reuse sets, really, and redress them, you know, whether it be like that corridor with the statute, like that swings around for Barbara and then the other side of that.

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Oh my goodness, that sequence with her with the statue with that heart with the hands.

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I don't know.

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I just sit there every time like when I 1st watched it going, I remember watching a black and white movie which was set in Africa, I think, and it was like Abbott and Lucostello or Tarzan or something and they went to this strange city where if you came out of it, everybody sort of aged death, but they had those sort of statues, you know?

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And that was better realised than those hands or the warriors that are just standing there like apparently frozen.

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Like, you know, we're not going to put them in anything. just going to be standing there like, oh, the warrior guy like that goes to chop Ian and Barbara again in the screaming jungle. like things that just don't quite work.

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I think that Mark Gatis says that his 1st memory of Doctor Who is those frozen nights from the snows of Tesson.

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Oh, Peter Davidson, is it?

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Yeah, because that's super memorable, isn't it?

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Like that's and that's what he's doing here.

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Like, it's something that we've thought about and said a lot of times before, that at this point, the individual stories are really a production thing rather than an actual thing because we have individual titles for the episodes.

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The story titles don't go out, they're not part of the program.

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Stories run into each other on cliffhangers.

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Yeah, that's right.

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There are cliffhangers in between stories, aren't there?

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And so here, we're just doing something slightly different.

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It's a series of one episode stories, in a way.

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But he's also, like within the 20 episode stories, he has to give us deadly danger.

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Like, suddenly you've got a C, but it's of asset, right?

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that can kill you.

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You've then got like the force field around the TARDIS, which is...

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He doesn't do a very good Marcel Marcel impersonation.

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Susan just walks in front of them.

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If only it had been a Delta and the Bannerman stole one, which had been exploded.

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Well, that would have been, well, it could have been so much better.

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But, you know, then they go back to Arbitan.

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It's like, oh, yes, you can go and get my keys.

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Like, nobody thinks to sort of like, you know, punch him out and like we're just going to rack off and forget about your keys and get the force field down.

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But, you know, like the tropes, like the morphedon city, like, you know, that whole thing of everything's not what it is.

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Like, and I think that's really well done with all the scientific equipment and when it's the handheld stuff when it's like, you know, when it's not good and when it's good, like the cutting between that, I think that's all clever with...

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And that's remarkable for the time.

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And the point of view stuff where they're talking to camera.

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Well they have to do that in order for the scene to be able to keep being recorded, I think.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Within episodes, there are different things and different.

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I'm going to say tropes, but different science fiction ideas that he's pulling in.

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Like, you know, with the jungle that's screaming and moving and that sort of thing. within all these individual episodes to keep the tension up to keep the thing moving, even if it's not the best realised in certain episodes.

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Some are stronger than others.

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And it's so lazy to consider a format like this. like within Doctor Who's wider format, to consider an idea of doing this.

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It's such lazy criticism to say, oh, it's just lightweight and ephemeral, and, you know, why weren't they doing something else?

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You take this and you put it on the big screen 15 years later, and it's Raiders of the Lost Ark.

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Yeah, globetrotting with set pieces and fun and tricks and traps and that kind of thing.

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Obviously, it's being done in studio D at Lime Grove and they've got limited resources, but that's exactly what they're aiming for.

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And I would argue they pull it off pretty well.

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I mean, you mentioned Tarzan, Todd.

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And, you know, like, I think that Tarzan and Dan Dare and all of those things are what Terry is going from.

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We talked about him.

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It's the cinema, it's comic books, you know, those are the things that he's inspired by.

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It's literature, it's Edgar Rice Burrows, all of that sort of stuff.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Yeah, no, it's very boy's own adventure, 100%.

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Peter, back to what you're saying, like, as I was saying earlier, and in the last episode, like us taking our senior experience, like Raiders of the Lost Ark, we think we've seen it all before, but this is really the 1st time Doctor Who's doing this and television's doing this.

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And I think it does now in hindsight, pull it off quite successfully.

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And I prefer it to the Daleks, as, I mean, because of the movement and the pace and I just get into it.

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And also the supporting characters, like Sabitha, in particular, and Altos, right?

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But Sabita, when she comes in and grows, we don't necessarily see that in the Daleks.

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Altos has a very regrettable surname.

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Altos.

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Altos. and a regrettable costume.

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No, it's great.

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Oh, it's great, but it's never so much.

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It doesn't seem to regret it.

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Even when he's in the city, like it's like I'm just going to stay in my little skirt, I'm fine.

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My mother was moved on from Bondi Beach for wearing more than that.

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Back in the day.

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Look, wasn't the sea of acid?

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Look, I don't disagree with the fundamentals of what you're saying.

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And yes, it is absolutely what Raiders like ends up doing.

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I think that's one of the reasons why I was so captivated by the novelisation because from a story point of view, yes, this is exactly what you want to talk to.

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But what I find is the result is that I'm not interested in what's happening in each of those episodes enough because I'm not feeling an overarching pull of the narrative.

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I know the overarching pull is that they're collecting the various keys.

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And, you know, reading it post having seen key to time, you kind of get that all condensed into one story.

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But I'm just finding each of those episodes, until really you get to millennia's just not very interesting, particularly specifically the snows of terror and the screaming jungle, whatever the 2nd episode.

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Velvet Web.

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The velvet web.

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I think the velvet web and the city millennia are the best sequences.

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It's those other 2 which I think let it down.

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How interesting because the 2 middle episodes are my favourites.

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I really like the snows of terror.

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Because I really like the 1st 2 and the last 2 and I find the screaming jungle probably the one I don't like the most.

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Shout out for having 2 episodes that end with of death in the title.

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Two episode titles that end with Of Death, Sendence of Death, just tremendous.

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If only they were next to each other.

200
00:15:53.700 --> 00:15:54.840
I like the Snows episode.

201
00:15:55.320 --> 00:15:58.259
Barbara is really quite menaced by that guy and like his...

202
00:15:58.259 --> 00:15:58.919
Oh, very rapey.

203
00:15:59.039 --> 00:15:59.580
Yeah, yeah.

204
00:15:59.820 --> 00:16:03.240
But is it the best realised thing with the drawbridge and the guards and all that?

205
00:16:03.419 --> 00:16:06.419
Perhaps not for me, but I still really enjoy it.

206
00:16:07.080 --> 00:16:13.139
I'm not thrown off by the fact that the thing's being made in 964 with a limited budget and they're doing the best they can.

207
00:16:13.679 --> 00:16:14.879
That's not what's throwing me off.

208
00:16:14.940 --> 00:16:19.259
It's the way the story unfolds, which is, I just find it a bit tedious.

209
00:16:19.320 --> 00:16:21.480
But I have other observations as well.

210
00:16:21.960 --> 00:16:26.700
I have to say that I like this chasm better than the chasm in episode 6 of the time.

211
00:16:26.820 --> 00:16:27.480
Absolutely not.

212
00:16:28.139 --> 00:16:31.080
The ordeal, the ordeal, chasm.

213
00:16:31.139 --> 00:16:33.600
Wasn't one of the guards just jump straight into it for this one?

214
00:16:33.720 --> 00:16:37.019
Yes, yeah, it's a better chasm than the one that Eldron falls into.

215
00:16:38.940 --> 00:16:40.019
Yes, that's unfortunate.

216
00:16:40.259 --> 00:16:43.440
I was very impressed that they built that rope. bridge. thought that was awesome.

217
00:16:50.940 --> 00:17:01.799
I mean, let's look back a little bit of why this came into existence because we mentioned on the Daleks that obviously they looked ahead to the series. realise what it was going to look like.

218
00:17:01.860 --> 00:17:03.480
That's right. should look more like this.

219
00:17:03.539 --> 00:17:05.759
So they got Terry to not write the red fort anymore.

220
00:17:05.819 --> 00:17:13.200
They ditched the boring stuff, like Master Deluxe or the robots, the hidden planets, beyond the sun, all of those kinds of ideas.

221
00:17:13.380 --> 00:17:15.839
They should have ditched plenty of giants, but somehow that turned up later.

222
00:17:16.200 --> 00:17:17.700
Well no, there was multiple attempts at that.

223
00:17:18.960 --> 00:17:23.099
And then they said to Terry, no, give us more science fiction action adventure.

224
00:17:23.160 --> 00:17:25.140
They realised that that's what the series should be.

225
00:17:25.200 --> 00:17:29.640
So he had successfully reformatted the series in his own image.

226
00:17:30.299 --> 00:17:32.940
He then wrote it quickly but not very quickly.

227
00:17:33.000 --> 00:17:40.799
It wasn't like a last minute thing, and he had to give up writing an episode of Out of the Unknown, which was kind of like the BBC's answer to the outer limits.

228
00:17:40.859 --> 00:17:45.779
He had to get out of his contract on that to have the time to write the keys mariners for them in short order.

229
00:17:46.079 --> 00:17:55.140
So I think what he's done is approach, he's seen what Christopher Barry's done on the Daleks, he's gone, okay, they can put on the screen something that is approaching what I want.

230
00:17:55.319 --> 00:17:57.720
And so he's like, okay, now I'm going to raise the stakes a little bit.

231
00:17:57.779 --> 00:17:59.400
Let's do that every week.

232
00:17:59.759 --> 00:18:04.980
And so he's set them, this design challenge by moving from location to location.

233
00:18:05.160 --> 00:18:08.039
I think that is his job early on in dog two.

234
00:18:08.099 --> 00:18:09.180
It's to push the limit.

235
00:18:09.539 --> 00:18:13.019
I don't think he's just trying to do it to push the designs department's limits.

236
00:18:13.079 --> 00:18:17.519
I think they just think that, you know, they have to assemble and disassemble sets every week anyway.

237
00:18:17.579 --> 00:18:22.500
It's not like they're standing in a studio and they can, you know, film bits of episodes 13 and 5 or on the same night.

238
00:18:22.559 --> 00:18:23.160
We know that.

239
00:18:23.519 --> 00:18:24.900
He does write it promptly.

240
00:18:24.960 --> 00:18:25.980
He writes it in 4 weeks.

241
00:18:26.039 --> 00:18:27.539
So he has 4 weeks after being commissioned.

242
00:18:27.779 --> 00:18:29.819
David Whittaker goes to his home.

243
00:18:29.940 --> 00:18:32.220
They have the little script conferences.

244
00:18:33.119 --> 00:18:35.759
And basically, Terry's come up with the idea of it.

245
00:18:36.660 --> 00:18:40.440
And David Whittaker contributes the middle episode.

246
00:18:40.440 --> 00:18:43.019
Not the writing of them, but the idea is, why don't we do this?

247
00:18:43.079 --> 00:18:43.680
Why don't we do that?

248
00:18:43.740 --> 00:18:44.460
Why don't we do that?

249
00:18:45.119 --> 00:18:53.460
And many of the ideas are from the are inspired by the original pitch document for Doctor Who, that original briefing document that they're sending writers.

250
00:18:53.640 --> 00:18:57.839
So you've got the idea of, you know, that thing where everything's backwards.

251
00:18:57.900 --> 00:18:59.880
So you're guilty until proven innocent.

252
00:19:00.599 --> 00:19:06.059
The idea of the vegetation becoming human and coming to life and being the dominant species.

253
00:19:06.119 --> 00:19:07.319
That's taken from these people.

254
00:19:07.380 --> 00:19:09.539
Terry really does love himself in sentient vegetation.

255
00:19:09.720 --> 00:19:11.220
Yes, he loves the sentient vegetation.

256
00:19:11.279 --> 00:19:22.259
The idea of the city of Morpherton is also a kind of thing that's expressed, it's that, it's basically utilising those ideas that they know they're never going to do a whole story on. enough of an idea there to cover a single episode.

257
00:19:22.859 --> 00:19:25.859
I just love the fact that you've said it as a design challenge.

258
00:19:25.920 --> 00:19:27.359
I can just see a reality show.

259
00:19:27.420 --> 00:19:29.160
Terry Nation's design channel.

260
00:19:30.660 --> 00:19:47.279
I mean, because the whole show is set up to use the same sets over 7 weeks for budgetary reasons, and the reason that we have long stories is a one episode story costs a lot of money, and in fact, we only really land on that in the 21st century is a way of making Doctor Who.

261
00:19:47.460 --> 00:19:49.920
Well, to be fair, though, they always wanted it to be a serial.

262
00:19:49.980 --> 00:19:51.299
They always wanted the cliffhanger thing.

263
00:19:51.359 --> 00:19:52.619
The cliffhanger thing was very important.

264
00:19:52.680 --> 00:19:54.660
So that's why you have multiple episodes.

265
00:19:54.660 --> 00:19:59.819
And 4 was originally what they wanted and then they realised they needed to stretch the speed. because it was too expensive for the sense.

266
00:19:59.880 --> 00:20:02.160
And yet they do a story where there's a different set every week.

267
00:20:02.400 --> 00:20:02.940
Yeah, yeah.

268
00:20:02.940 --> 00:20:09.000
I don't think that Todd's terrination design challenge would have got to a season 2 considering they were gone, great, for Daleks.

269
00:20:09.119 --> 00:20:10.799
Let's see what you can do with the Vord.

270
00:20:12.299 --> 00:20:30.059
If I may observe, though, I think that where the Daleks sets up the series in terms of what the series can be when it's doing its best, I have to say that the other reason I'm not a huge fan of Keys of America, although I did like it more this time than the last time I watched it, which was some years ago.

271
00:20:30.660 --> 00:20:32.579
Um, it sort of pleasantly surprised me.

272
00:20:32.700 --> 00:20:34.200
I thought, oh, this is not as bad as I thought.

273
00:20:34.380 --> 00:20:41.519
But I actually think that there is a lot of evidence and keys of marinace as to when the show is not at its best.

274
00:20:41.940 --> 00:20:46.380
And I think that is a lot of the dialogue, especially in those sequences.

275
00:20:46.440 --> 00:20:48.779
I think you touched on earlier, Todd with Arbitan.

276
00:20:49.019 --> 00:20:50.880
It's basically exposition central.

277
00:20:50.940 --> 00:20:55.200
It is just line of exposition, line of expert, Arbiton explaining the conscience machine.

278
00:20:55.200 --> 00:21:02.700
And it's for something which is an area which you generally associate with being quite stretched and slowed because of, you know, production reasons.

279
00:21:03.119 --> 00:21:04.619
It all kind of happens in a hurry.

280
00:21:04.680 --> 00:21:07.859
They all agree that they're going to go around marinous and collect the remaining keys.

281
00:21:08.099 --> 00:21:15.119
It's all sort of really rushed and really hammy, like, because of the dialogue, and this is in other episodes as well, because a lot of the dialogue is expository.

282
00:21:15.299 --> 00:21:19.859
The actors don't know yet how you deliver those sorts of lines convincingly.

283
00:21:20.220 --> 00:21:29.339
And I actually think, I mean, I know that the Thal's performances are somewhat stylised, but in the other stories we've had to date, the performances are all genuinely very good.

284
00:21:29.400 --> 00:21:36.900
And I would argue that he's a Marin, this is the 1st time that I see some pretty dodgy performances, pretty hammy performances for the 1st time.

285
00:21:37.019 --> 00:21:41.279
Now we can enjoy some of them, but it really is a step down in quality.

286
00:21:41.279 --> 00:21:55.980
Because I actually think the stuff in millennia, which is more like modern television than anything that we've seen so far in either the Daleks or the rest of Keys of Mariners, where you just have sort of a procedural, you know, like a courtroom drama and stuff.

287
00:21:56.160 --> 00:21:57.960
Agatha Christie, really quite a good one.

288
00:21:58.140 --> 00:22:02.579
It's really quite good and people talk normally and there's slightly naturalistic performances.

289
00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:05.460
Yes, and then there are some slightly non-naturalistic forks.

290
00:22:05.519 --> 00:22:09.720
Even though I love Donald Pickering and Fiona Walker to my dying, died days.

291
00:22:09.900 --> 00:22:11.759
They are during the scenery somewhat.

292
00:22:11.940 --> 00:22:13.140
They're tremendous though.

293
00:22:13.500 --> 00:22:18.299
Do you know, I think what you were saying there, Simon, about the fact that there's not a whole lot of dialogue outside of the exposition.

294
00:22:18.359 --> 00:22:25.380
I think that's by order to what's happening because Terry knows he needs to get into a world and out of the world in an episode.

295
00:22:25.799 --> 00:22:29.099
And so he's just, he's just, to coin a phrase, cutting to the chase.

296
00:22:29.579 --> 00:22:36.539
I know, but that is always when the series is not doing its quest. the kind of thing they're avoiding in the darkness.

297
00:22:36.599 --> 00:22:50.400
They may have changed the shape of the series in terms of making it more adventury and a bit more spacy, but they're then kind of starting to do in case of Marin is exactly what Sidney Newman didn't want them to do, which was bug eyed monsters in the form of the brain.

298
00:22:51.000 --> 00:22:52.380
They are actually bug ideas.

299
00:22:52.920 --> 00:22:55.859
And he specifically says no brains in jars.

300
00:22:55.859 --> 00:22:57.720
And we have brains.

301
00:22:57.720 --> 00:22:59.279
But...

302
00:22:59.279 --> 00:23:02.940
Do you think David and Terry had a little laugh about that in his pattern?

303
00:23:03.059 --> 00:23:06.240
No, remember, Sydney, Arthodoxy, he just says to verify, you know, whatever you want.

304
00:23:06.299 --> 00:23:07.019
You know what you're doing.

305
00:23:07.079 --> 00:23:07.980
You obviously know what you're doing.

306
00:23:08.039 --> 00:23:14.220
But the point is that there is a line for me between good Doctor Who and or successful Doctor Who and less successful Doctor Who.

307
00:23:14.279 --> 00:23:18.960
And Keys and Mariners falls on the wrong side of that line because of these kinds of things.

308
00:23:18.960 --> 00:23:21.900
And they are traps that you can fall into.

309
00:23:21.960 --> 00:23:26.339
Maybe when they're doing something in a hurry or not focus in, they're just trying to get it out the door and they're trying to do this.

310
00:23:26.400 --> 00:23:27.299
You need.

311
00:23:27.359 --> 00:23:29.700
I need something more and it's a shame.

312
00:23:29.819 --> 00:23:30.779
I totally hear where you're coming from.

313
00:23:31.019 --> 00:23:32.759
I understand where you're coming from too, right?

314
00:23:32.819 --> 00:23:37.019
But the fact is we've got 5 different settings or whatever in 6 weeks.

315
00:23:37.079 --> 00:23:46.559
So, you know, he's having to give us a lot of exposition, like the exposition death of that old guy, like DE 302 is he's dying and like 5 minutes earlier, he's perfectly well.

316
00:23:48.119 --> 00:23:50.099
That's the robot Doctor Who you're talking about.

317
00:23:52.259 --> 00:23:54.779
Can't you tell, can't you see the close resemblance to it?

318
00:23:55.380 --> 00:23:58.740
Also that strange figure walking down the laneway in Revolutionary France?

319
00:23:58.920 --> 00:24:00.119
different people, I think.

320
00:24:00.599 --> 00:24:07.799
But also in that episode, like that wonderful, like Barbara's screaming and she's in the net and then the stakes are coming down.

321
00:24:07.859 --> 00:24:09.119
That is so ridiculous.

322
00:24:09.180 --> 00:24:09.720
That's so bad.

323
00:24:09.779 --> 00:24:10.799
But that's it's so bad.

324
00:24:10.859 --> 00:24:11.880
I mean that's what I'm talking about.

325
00:24:11.940 --> 00:24:13.799
Basically, we're going to that whole.

326
00:24:13.859 --> 00:24:15.599
This is why I mentioned the Scooby-Doo thing before.

327
00:24:15.660 --> 00:24:18.839
It's also twee and comic book.

328
00:24:18.900 --> 00:24:20.519
It all becomes a comic book type thing.

329
00:24:21.000 --> 00:24:22.319
Susan is much more hysterical.

330
00:24:23.099 --> 00:24:23.640
Absolutely.

331
00:24:23.700 --> 00:24:25.140
And that's the other observation I was going to make.

332
00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:25.440
Susan.

333
00:24:25.500 --> 00:24:32.160
And I think this is probably one of the reasons she leaves is because by now, even in Marco Polo, she seems to be a sensible person.

334
00:24:32.400 --> 00:24:35.339
I think even in the Daleks, she's a sensible person.

335
00:24:35.400 --> 00:24:40.859
She has, obviously she's frightened at this in front of that, that's correct, but they basically turn her into pathetic in this story.

336
00:24:41.460 --> 00:24:48.599
Well, yes, I will agree with that because I mentioned in the Daleks that she's very proactive in those middle episodes and actually gets things done despite being very frightened.

337
00:24:48.779 --> 00:24:54.119
Whereas here she just breaks down over the screaming jungle within like 30 seconds.

338
00:24:54.599 --> 00:24:56.759
Yeah, I'll give you another example of the dialogue thing I'm talking about.

339
00:24:56.819 --> 00:25:04.799
So the snows of terror episode where you've got Vassor, who, so when the earlier sequence is in the hut where it's just Barbara in him and he's warming her hands in this kind of slightly rapey way.

340
00:25:05.339 --> 00:25:08.279
And the dialogue bit, he's obviously a reasonable actor.

341
00:25:08.339 --> 00:25:09.779
He's doing those sequences really well.

342
00:25:09.960 --> 00:25:11.700
He was Jedakiah and the tomorrow people.

343
00:25:11.759 --> 00:25:12.359
There you go.

344
00:25:12.779 --> 00:25:14.880
Not a series known for its quality actors.

345
00:25:16.859 --> 00:25:18.839
That all for me, again, because it's realistic.

346
00:25:18.900 --> 00:25:23.579
It's a setting, it's dialogue that the actors would be used to delivering that kind of, like a lot of the courtroom stuff.

347
00:25:23.640 --> 00:25:25.319
It's kind of, yeah, I know how to say these kind of like.

348
00:25:26.039 --> 00:25:39.539
Compare that performance with the performance he gives in the 2nd half of the episode where he's basically being forced into the ice tunnels and so on like that, and he's delivering all these terrible words about the demons, whatever they are in the...

349
00:25:39.539 --> 00:25:41.220
And basically, it's chalk and cheese.

350
00:25:41.279 --> 00:25:48.059
Like, it's like they haven't been able to get better performances during that week of rehearsal in terms of, no, no, no, try it like this, try it like that.

351
00:25:48.119 --> 00:25:50.220
Other actors can do that sort of thing later more successfully.

352
00:25:50.759 --> 00:25:57.839
I think that's just generally bad because suddenly a science teacher turns up and this person who is feared by men all over.

353
00:25:59.220 --> 00:26:00.420
That's right.

354
00:26:00.480 --> 00:26:01.079
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

355
00:26:01.079 --> 00:26:02.519
It suddenly just falls to pieces.

356
00:26:02.640 --> 00:26:04.019
Yes, yes, yes.

357
00:26:04.200 --> 00:26:08.279
Because he really liked Barbara and she didn't like him back, emotionally broken.

358
00:26:09.240 --> 00:26:19.920
But further on performances too, I would actually argue that all of the regulars, not just Caroline, but all the regulars with the possible exception of Jacqueline Hill, are not giving brilliant performances here.

359
00:26:19.980 --> 00:26:23.519
I think this is one of William Russell's weakest stories from a performance point of view.

360
00:26:23.700 --> 00:26:26.039
And I certainly want to Caroline Ford's weakest.

361
00:26:26.039 --> 00:26:36.180
Ian's character is like simplified too much in this and he's he's tried to be made too much of a matcho action hero and I don't find him very subtle compared to other performance.

362
00:26:36.299 --> 00:26:41.400
Part of that is because he's moved into the central role for 2.5 episodes and so he's the hero.

363
00:26:41.460 --> 00:26:43.500
And so Terry is writing him as the hero.

364
00:26:44.099 --> 00:26:47.460
Yeah, but whether it's the dialogue, whether it's him, I don't know. not good for him.

365
00:26:47.519 --> 00:26:53.099
His best line is at the very end of the story when he taps Barbara on the shoulder and says, come on, Barbara.

366
00:26:53.279 --> 00:26:54.240
I mean, that's great.

367
00:26:54.240 --> 00:26:55.619
That is a beautiful light.

368
00:26:55.680 --> 00:26:59.579
And there it's like, yes, where's that gone for so many of the other sequences?

369
00:26:59.759 --> 00:27:01.799
I love that he's wearing his Marco Polo.

370
00:27:01.859 --> 00:27:02.759
I love that.

371
00:27:02.819 --> 00:27:03.539
It looks amazing.

372
00:27:03.660 --> 00:27:07.319
But also, I think this is the 1st instance of a companion being taken over.

373
00:27:07.920 --> 00:27:12.119
And so you get William Russell giving his, I'm undermined control.

374
00:27:12.180 --> 00:27:14.160
Oh, I didn't mind that, too, which is really great.

375
00:27:14.519 --> 00:27:18.660
And also, I agree on Carol Anne Ford, but not on William Hartnell.

376
00:27:18.720 --> 00:27:23.099
I think William Hartnell is the very best moment so far come in the city of millennius.

377
00:27:25.079 --> 00:27:29.220
Okay, but in the earlier part of the episode, he's got so many fluffs in that 1st episode.

378
00:27:30.359 --> 00:27:31.680
More than it's like, wow.

379
00:27:31.740 --> 00:27:38.519
Yeah, there are a couple of things in the Daleks, but it was like, whoa, this is the, and for my memory of lines in Marco Polo, There aren't very many flies.

380
00:27:38.579 --> 00:27:39.720
This is when he started there.

381
00:27:39.839 --> 00:27:43.380
Obviously, it's a stretch. to, we're getting towards 26 weeks into the run.

382
00:27:44.039 --> 00:27:49.019
Yeah, and I think we also have to separate the performance that's being given from mistakes on the night.

383
00:27:49.440 --> 00:27:56.279
My favourite one is the one about, you know, how the sea wouldn't be frozen at this temperature besides it's too warm.

384
00:27:56.880 --> 00:27:58.920
I just think that's tremendous.

385
00:27:59.099 --> 00:28:03.000
And also in that opening Tartar scene when he says, okay, let's go outside.

386
00:28:03.119 --> 00:28:09.720
There's clearly been a chunk of dialogue missed because William Russell stands there, obviously thinking, what am I going to do now?

387
00:28:09.779 --> 00:28:12.420
And then says, but doctor, wait a moment.

388
00:28:12.599 --> 00:28:15.059
I'm sure that I saw movement on that screen.

389
00:28:15.240 --> 00:28:20.160
William Hartle written all over his face is like, oh god, that's the piece of dialogue that I've missed.

390
00:28:20.160 --> 00:28:21.900
And he just goes, mm, yes, quite.

391
00:28:21.960 --> 00:28:23.700
Well, yes, let's go outside and sit.

392
00:28:25.440 --> 00:28:29.519
There are a couple of moments where William Russell and Jacqueline Hill are behind.

393
00:28:30.119 --> 00:28:33.720
And you can just see them kind of subtly glance at each other with the dollar.

394
00:28:33.839 --> 00:28:36.299
But that doesn't mean that that Hartnell's bad.

395
00:28:36.359 --> 00:28:37.380
He's still in character.

396
00:28:37.440 --> 00:28:38.400
I will agree.

397
00:28:38.460 --> 00:28:40.559
Like, I mean, I brought up Carol Anne Ford's performance.

398
00:28:40.680 --> 00:28:42.299
But the rest of them I think are all great.

399
00:28:42.480 --> 00:28:44.220
Yes, I think it's amongst their best.

400
00:28:58.440 --> 00:29:00.420
Is this the first time a regular goes on holiday?

401
00:29:00.720 --> 00:29:01.140
Yes.

402
00:29:01.259 --> 00:29:01.680
Okay.

403
00:29:02.400 --> 00:29:08.880
Although Hartnell was sick in an episode or two of Marco Polo, so he's sulking in the tents, sulking in the car.

404
00:29:08.940 --> 00:29:11.400
I might argue that Caroline Ford's quite quizzing at times.

405
00:29:12.420 --> 00:29:13.259
It is that thing.

406
00:29:13.319 --> 00:29:19.680
It's the same thing that you get at the end of Dalek Master Plan where he's back and you think, oh, wow, you're back and you're really great.

407
00:29:19.740 --> 00:29:23.519
Like when he turns up in millennia and just says, I'm going to take control here.

408
00:29:23.759 --> 00:29:26.460
He's totally critulized by his 2 weeks.

409
00:29:26.460 --> 00:29:34.799
Absolutely. 110% enthusiasm, especially that scene where he's playing out how Ian got hit over their head in the roof.

410
00:29:35.220 --> 00:29:36.839
He's obviously relishing that seat.

411
00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:45.240
Whereas, whereas I actually don't miss him for the episodes where he's gone and I don't miss like, um, I don't miss Carol Anne.

412
00:29:45.299 --> 00:29:46.740
She disappears for an episode, does she?

413
00:29:48.180 --> 00:29:49.079
You know, like...

414
00:29:49.079 --> 00:29:49.859
Not completely, but yeah.

415
00:29:49.920 --> 00:29:50.759
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

416
00:29:50.819 --> 00:29:54.480
I, uh, like I think, I think all of that sort of stuff works.

417
00:29:54.539 --> 00:29:58.740
And because Terry is the pastmaster at splitting the party up for no reason.

418
00:29:59.819 --> 00:30:01.019
He's important.

419
00:30:03.240 --> 00:30:05.039
All of that works tremendously. well.

420
00:30:05.279 --> 00:30:14.819
I think this is sort of on the fun side of things and the, the, the side of things where I can laugh, if not at it, like near it.

421
00:30:15.299 --> 00:30:17.460
And you should be laughing with it, not ass it.

422
00:30:17.519 --> 00:30:19.079
Well, near it, I'm happy with.

423
00:30:19.559 --> 00:30:23.220
And, you know, like I just think there are all sorts of really, really terrific things.

424
00:30:23.279 --> 00:30:26.099
I think, you know, Donald Pickering is just tremendous.

425
00:30:27.180 --> 00:30:47.819
Fiona Walker, my favourite moment, the one moment that had me roaring with laughter was she's crying and Altos and Sabitha and Barbara have been visiting her to sort of question her, and then she's crying, they leave, and then she just sort of turns and smiles with her evil lady pays for her smile. giggle.

426
00:30:48.779 --> 00:30:50.339
And she's just so great.

427
00:30:50.700 --> 00:30:56.940
The bit where they're constantly just blurting out things is hilarious.

428
00:30:57.359 --> 00:31:00.480
Like, it's really just so fun and so enjoyable.

429
00:31:00.720 --> 00:31:04.799
Also, her and Donald Pickering share the same performance traits.

430
00:31:04.859 --> 00:31:15.359
So I'm thinking in the faceless ones when Donald Pickering's going to inject Victor Winding, whatever he plays, Spencer, and he's sort of doing the whole sort of Betty Davis, you know, with the syringe.

431
00:31:16.079 --> 00:31:25.740
Of course, when Fiona Walker, as Cara comes to the door and Susan is held prisoner, she opens the door and looks at her and then brandishes her gun menacingly.

432
00:31:26.220 --> 00:31:42.240
I love this I mean, he's tremendous in this, and there's that great scene where you actually realise that he must be the missing villain where he and the doctor say, oh, you know, under other circumstances, we could have been friends or something, and he kind of go, oh, yeah, it's okay.

433
00:31:42.480 --> 00:31:47.460
And then, of course, he, for some reason, decided to don a suspicious black hood in order to go.

434
00:31:47.460 --> 00:31:49.619
I wanted to go in, whereas he could have just drawn.

435
00:31:49.619 --> 00:31:50.400
He could have just walked in.

436
00:31:50.579 --> 00:31:57.059
Speaking of the Scooby-Doo aspects. of the script, even with the doctor walking up to him and whisking the mask off.

437
00:31:57.119 --> 00:31:58.259
It's like, phew.

438
00:31:59.700 --> 00:32:03.119
So good. all the time. all the time.

439
00:32:03.660 --> 00:32:06.420
Yeah, so that summarises, I think.

440
00:32:06.420 --> 00:32:08.759
But these are...

441
00:32:08.759 --> 00:32:10.740
No, they're just wonderful things.

442
00:32:10.799 --> 00:32:11.460
No, they're not.

443
00:32:11.519 --> 00:32:15.000
They are examples of what Sidney Newman was not wanting.

444
00:32:15.299 --> 00:32:17.160
And, you know, verity was not wanting them out.

445
00:32:17.160 --> 00:32:18.599
You know, the Daleks, she's right.

446
00:32:18.660 --> 00:32:20.099
Daleks are not bug-eyed monsters.

447
00:32:20.640 --> 00:32:23.339
And everything has a motivation in that story.

448
00:32:23.400 --> 00:32:27.359
Whereas here, we've reverted to a boy's own adventure, a comic book.

449
00:32:27.420 --> 00:32:31.680
I felt like I was kind of watching a version of a choose your own adventure book.

450
00:32:31.740 --> 00:32:32.640
I might...

451
00:32:32.700 --> 00:32:33.900
Yeah, it is a bit like that, isn't it?

452
00:32:36.720 --> 00:32:38.940
Yeah, but I just think that makes it shallow.

453
00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:46.140
And for me, Doctor Who was always, I like Doctor Who rather than everything else because Doctor Who had greater depth grader kind of, there was more there.

454
00:32:46.319 --> 00:32:47.339
But do we do that very often?

455
00:32:47.519 --> 00:32:49.380
Does this choose your own adventure style thing?

456
00:32:49.500 --> 00:32:50.700
Well, no, no.

457
00:32:50.759 --> 00:32:51.960
I mean, I think we do a bit.

458
00:32:52.019 --> 00:32:55.799
And I think probably saying that the Daleks, there's more there there.

459
00:32:56.460 --> 00:32:57.960
There's not that much more there.

460
00:32:57.960 --> 00:33:00.000
There's a lot more like that.

461
00:33:00.059 --> 00:33:00.720
There's a lot more there.

462
00:33:00.779 --> 00:33:01.559
Do you know what I mean?

463
00:33:01.619 --> 00:33:03.900
Like we're walking through a swamp, we're being attacked by a drain.

464
00:33:04.019 --> 00:33:06.960
No, but you're talking about the incidents.

465
00:33:07.019 --> 00:33:09.420
You see, I'm talking about the world that has been built.

466
00:33:09.480 --> 00:33:10.079
That's right.

467
00:33:10.079 --> 00:33:10.799
They are the least parts.

468
00:33:10.799 --> 00:33:16.859
They are the, where it's just much more to it, whereas, I mean, teas and marinace is basically, but that is basically that.

469
00:33:17.039 --> 00:33:17.400
Exactly.

470
00:33:17.460 --> 00:33:19.140
Keys of Marinus is just stuff that happens.

471
00:33:19.319 --> 00:33:20.880
And I don't care about it.

472
00:33:21.059 --> 00:33:22.380
Simon, you use the word shallow.

473
00:33:22.440 --> 00:33:24.359
I would say I appreciate where you're coming from.

474
00:33:24.420 --> 00:33:25.319
I don't think it's shallow.

475
00:33:25.380 --> 00:33:26.039
I think it's efficient.

476
00:33:26.339 --> 00:33:31.140
And I think that's why they went to Terry Nation because they said we want the, you know, this came from the...

477
00:33:31.200 --> 00:33:36.720
No, they went to Terry Nation because they realised that his vision of the show was the one that they were going to go with.

478
00:33:37.079 --> 00:33:38.640
But also this plays to his strengths.

479
00:33:39.000 --> 00:33:39.960
He will get in there.

480
00:33:40.019 --> 00:33:45.660
He will sketch a world briefly with characters and some good expositionary dialogue and then get out.

481
00:33:45.720 --> 00:33:48.059
They went, no one is better than Terry Nation at this.

482
00:33:48.119 --> 00:33:53.940
And can I just say that obviously the production team absolutely rated everything that he did.

483
00:33:54.000 --> 00:33:55.859
It's not like he disappointed them in any way.

484
00:33:56.039 --> 00:33:59.279
You know, in just a couple of months when they're preparing the season 2 document.

485
00:33:59.339 --> 00:34:03.720
David Whittaker will be talking very seriously about making Terry Nation. the head writer.

486
00:34:03.960 --> 00:34:09.840
Obviously, this didn't happen because Terry didn't particularly want to do it and he was busy with other things and they couldn't afford that.

487
00:34:09.900 --> 00:34:11.579
And then Dennis Spooner comes.

488
00:34:11.639 --> 00:34:12.059
That's right.

489
00:34:12.119 --> 00:34:14.699
But they wanted they wanted what he could bring to the program.

490
00:34:14.760 --> 00:34:16.199
They rated what he was delivering.

491
00:34:16.679 --> 00:34:17.460
Yeah, of course.

492
00:34:17.519 --> 00:34:24.420
And, you know, and and a time when they're desperate to get the scripts that they need because very few people get the show that they're making.

493
00:34:24.719 --> 00:34:26.039
I can absolutely understand it.

494
00:34:26.099 --> 00:34:27.719
I'm not saying the termination's about it all.

495
00:34:27.780 --> 00:34:42.420
I'm just saying that in this instance of it, unlike what we see in the Daleks, which, as I sort of touched on in that episode, that there is a lot of redrafts, whether it's Donald Cotton, or Chris Barry, they were all saying, oh, this isn't quite working there, there's a lot more time there.

496
00:34:42.599 --> 00:34:45.659
One of the things Keys of Marinus is lacking are a couple more drafts, I think.

497
00:34:45.719 --> 00:34:47.579
I think that would have maybe tightened it up.

498
00:34:47.639 --> 00:34:53.579
It would have probably relieved it of some of the perfunctory expository dialogue that I was kind of, which kind of just keeps coming at you.

499
00:34:53.880 --> 00:34:55.500
I think it would have softened all that.

500
00:34:55.739 --> 00:34:59.280
I just think it's a victim of it being churned out.

501
00:34:59.340 --> 00:35:00.960
It's not churned out. it's just written.

502
00:35:01.679 --> 00:35:04.139
I think there's a big problem with the framing story, actually.

503
00:35:04.380 --> 00:35:17.159
And although I like the interiors of the building and I like the exploration of the island that the conscience is on, I don't think that the actual thing about the conscience makes any sense.

504
00:35:17.940 --> 00:35:22.440
It's very morally dubious, but it's also all of that exposition doesn't go anywhere.

505
00:35:22.800 --> 00:35:23.820
Do you know what I mean?

506
00:35:23.880 --> 00:35:28.679
Like, basically it's a big thing and you need to stick the keys in it, and then it'll explode.

507
00:35:28.679 --> 00:35:32.880
And then the doctor will say, actually, it was all a bad idea to begin with.

508
00:35:33.360 --> 00:35:35.219
But it's not meant to explode, though.

509
00:35:35.340 --> 00:35:40.860
No, no, no, but it kind of bears no relationship to anything else that's happening anywhere else in the story.

510
00:35:41.579 --> 00:35:51.179
In the sense that in a more modern story, everything would be working towards one end or there would be some kind of thematic unity to the thing.

511
00:35:51.659 --> 00:35:56.760
And I'm not objecting to the absence of that at all, because that's not what we're going for.

512
00:35:57.119 --> 00:36:11.400
It's one of those things where, like, the basic idea of the conscience must have been super important, but then we write the story and it turns out it actually has no bearing on anything else at all and we could have lost it, but that was our animating basic idea.

513
00:36:12.360 --> 00:36:15.179
Well, what's going to happen when they put the keys in and it actually did work?

514
00:36:15.840 --> 00:36:18.360
It's going to stop people being evil, Lesley.

515
00:36:18.420 --> 00:36:18.599
Yeah.

516
00:36:18.599 --> 00:36:20.579
And is this too controllable?

517
00:36:20.579 --> 00:36:24.059
Because, no, the vaard, the alien vaard wanted to use the machine for their own purpose.

518
00:36:24.179 --> 00:36:24.599
Yes.

519
00:36:24.840 --> 00:36:25.739
To control everyone.

520
00:36:26.099 --> 00:36:31.440
But they found a way of resisting machines. they kind of resisting why they became, why they're able to commit crimes and that kind of thing.

521
00:36:31.500 --> 00:36:32.039
That's right.

522
00:36:32.099 --> 00:36:33.659
And so basically, that's right.

523
00:36:33.719 --> 00:36:34.980
Arbiten has reconfigured the machine.

524
00:36:35.039 --> 00:36:37.619
So even the board will be will succumb to...

525
00:36:37.679 --> 00:36:38.460
How are the people pretty bad?

526
00:36:38.639 --> 00:36:44.460
millennia or the morpho brain still exists, how are they going to feel if this sort of goes over the whole planet?

527
00:36:44.519 --> 00:36:45.179
Do you know what I mean?

528
00:36:45.239 --> 00:36:47.340
Like, there's no real logic behind it.

529
00:36:47.760 --> 00:36:48.119
No.

530
00:36:48.119 --> 00:36:48.480
Right?

531
00:36:48.539 --> 00:36:49.199
When you start to think about it.

532
00:36:49.679 --> 00:36:50.820
There's 2 things on that.

533
00:36:50.880 --> 00:36:59.760
I'm going to push back a little bit on what you said, Nathan, about there not being really any overarching unity of theme because I think the city of millennia is that theme.

534
00:36:59.940 --> 00:37:05.460
Millennius, obviously, when the conscience's influence was dissipated over marinace.

535
00:37:05.820 --> 00:37:07.380
Everyone was left to fend for themselves.

536
00:37:07.440 --> 00:37:13.800
And so what you got in the city of millennia was they had to create their own laws from scratch, which is why everything is in reverse.

537
00:37:13.980 --> 00:37:16.320
Your guilty into your proven innocent.

538
00:37:16.559 --> 00:37:22.860
The execution is handed down unless the defence can come forward with a very convincing argument why it shouldn't take place.

539
00:37:23.039 --> 00:37:24.300
I think that is intentional.

540
00:37:24.480 --> 00:37:28.019
I think he has extrapolated that from what the wider situation is.

541
00:37:28.679 --> 00:37:33.480
Yes, and maybe morpheton too, that the brains are more for to know controlling people because that because they now can.

542
00:37:33.900 --> 00:37:36.300
Yes, well, maybe because people were used to being controlled.

543
00:37:36.480 --> 00:37:38.280
That's form of mind controller conscience.

544
00:37:38.340 --> 00:37:39.960
So the morpho- brains, God.

545
00:37:40.019 --> 00:37:42.719
The morphic brain just...

546
00:37:42.780 --> 00:37:51.599
Yeah, but the thing is, then the snow to terror and the screaming jungle episodes are separate to everything else. there's no one there. the city of millennius knows the importance of the key.

547
00:37:51.659 --> 00:37:54.719
They know that Arbiton has left it there and it's very important.

548
00:37:55.019 --> 00:37:56.519
Even the city of Morpherton.

549
00:37:56.579 --> 00:37:58.019
They don't know the importance of the key.

550
00:37:58.079 --> 00:38:01.980
Sabitha just proclaims she wants it as her most desired thing and she gets it.

551
00:38:02.039 --> 00:38:04.139
They don't seem to have any idea what the hell it is.

552
00:38:04.380 --> 00:38:07.559
In fact, they say the morpho brains fail to recognise its significance.

553
00:38:07.800 --> 00:38:12.179
Yeah, I mean, they sent these keys out so that they would be distributed around the planet, right?

554
00:38:12.360 --> 00:38:17.760
Then in the snows of terror episode, like it's trapped within a block of ice. block of ice.

555
00:38:18.059 --> 00:38:19.559
But you can conveniently turn a tap.

556
00:38:19.920 --> 00:38:21.059
Yes, that's not that difficult.

557
00:38:21.119 --> 00:38:24.300
But you need to get it out of there because that's where I put my keys when I get home.

558
00:38:25.199 --> 00:38:27.780
But, you know, there's a get out of jail free card.

559
00:38:27.900 --> 00:38:38.460
Like, we're going to be able to get it out of there, but why is it in the 1st place who actually put it there and then constructed that to make sure that we could get to it in episode 5 and all 4 or whatever and release it?

560
00:38:38.519 --> 00:38:38.820
you know?

561
00:38:38.880 --> 00:38:48.599
So I think this is what we're sort of coming to is the fact that, you know, I've often said that a Love Doctor 2 story is written in a hurry, like Talons of Wayne Chihang, Arken Space, and so on, are some of the best the shows ever produced.

562
00:38:48.659 --> 00:38:49.440
Seats of Doom.

563
00:38:49.440 --> 00:38:50.219
Seats of Doom.

564
00:38:50.280 --> 00:38:52.980
Then there are other instances where the rushed ones aren't so good.

565
00:38:53.039 --> 00:38:57.659
And this isn't rushed, per se, but I do think not enough thought has gone into everything that you're just saying.

566
00:38:57.780 --> 00:39:06.840
Like, why, especially because Terry was wanting the vaud to be the next Daleks, he wanted them to be a kind of a monster, even though they're not really monsters, they're just men in suits with strange helmets.

567
00:39:06.960 --> 00:39:09.000
Yeah, and they get referred to as men.

568
00:39:09.059 --> 00:39:09.900
Exactly, yes, yes.

569
00:39:09.960 --> 00:39:14.400
Guy, I don't know why Yartek doesn't take his helmet off to when he's disguising himself as Arbiton.

570
00:39:15.360 --> 00:39:16.380
And why they fall for that?

571
00:39:16.440 --> 00:39:18.480
And why are they...

572
00:39:18.480 --> 00:39:21.420
Because he's some strange radiational disease?

573
00:39:21.480 --> 00:39:22.260
Oh, that's British.

574
00:39:22.320 --> 00:39:25.079
Oh, Sabiza, they're going, you don't sound anything like my father.

575
00:39:26.579 --> 00:39:30.179
Maybe the city of Morford and she thought, no, but I can imagine.

576
00:39:30.239 --> 00:39:31.440
I mean, he turns into the chase.

577
00:39:31.920 --> 00:39:34.739
But why aren't the Vaud pursuing them to each of the cases?

578
00:39:34.800 --> 00:39:35.400
They arrive.

579
00:39:35.460 --> 00:39:36.420
They kill Arbitan?

580
00:39:36.539 --> 00:39:38.219
Oh yes, that would have improved at no end.

581
00:39:38.519 --> 00:39:41.099
But no, no, but you can imagine.

582
00:39:41.099 --> 00:39:44.519
But there's a certain, I mean, it's kind of separate.

583
00:39:44.579 --> 00:39:45.539
You've got this archie thing.

584
00:39:45.599 --> 00:39:50.099
It's kind of like the fact that the black and white Guardians only appear in the beginning of the rival separation, at the end of I'm getting back.

585
00:39:50.159 --> 00:39:51.239
It's literally the same decision.

586
00:39:51.719 --> 00:40:04.199
Yeah, and I think it's a good thing in the context of the key to time where the decision is we're going to have the shadow and the shadow is sitting there, he's found the 6th segment and he's just waiting for the doctor to bring the other 5 with him.

587
00:40:04.500 --> 00:40:12.179
And so that way we don't have all of that sort of framing story, ruining androids of Tara or power of crawl.

588
00:40:13.079 --> 00:40:14.579
Oh, improving power.

589
00:40:15.900 --> 00:40:18.000
So I'm glad that they're not pursuing him.

590
00:40:18.059 --> 00:40:34.800
I think that what Terry's doing is just the minimum possible amount of work to motivate a story where they go from place to place to place, because the TARDIS can't be controlled, we have the travel dials, which you kind of think are kind of unnecessary given that we have a TARDIS with us.

591
00:40:34.860 --> 00:40:36.360
But at this point...

592
00:40:36.420 --> 00:40:40.559
Clearly, clearly the precedent for the liberator teleport bracelets.

593
00:40:40.619 --> 00:40:44.159
Yeah, and also the best moment in the 1st episode.

594
00:40:44.159 --> 00:40:48.539
When the doctors are saying, if you think I'm going to go in one of those glass submersibles, you've got another idea.

595
00:40:48.539 --> 00:40:53.159
Upton shows in the Travadile, he shuts down Ian immediately and says, oh, no, there's quite a good age travel.

596
00:40:53.219 --> 00:40:53.579
Shut up.

597
00:40:55.380 --> 00:41:04.860
And again, you know, we talked about keeping people away from the TARDIS, and you'll notice very carefully that Arbitanic agrees to switch off the force field the moment that they leave.

598
00:41:05.340 --> 00:41:05.940
Yeah, yeah.

599
00:41:06.000 --> 00:41:09.539
So that he's... good thing he got over to that console and pulled the button before he was stabbed.

600
00:41:09.599 --> 00:41:10.019
That's right.

601
00:41:10.619 --> 00:41:11.639
There's a lot of stabbing.

602
00:41:12.000 --> 00:41:12.840
There's a lot.

603
00:41:12.840 --> 00:41:13.920
Excluding the one.

604
00:41:14.039 --> 00:41:16.199
I wonder if they were on the ABC since the list.

605
00:41:16.260 --> 00:41:18.539
I just like the one that falls down into the wall.

606
00:41:18.780 --> 00:41:20.579
Yeah, that's a bit of a strange cutaway.

607
00:41:21.059 --> 00:41:23.159
He's very thin, almost two-dimensional.

608
00:41:23.820 --> 00:41:24.780
I'll thin that way.

609
00:41:26.519 --> 00:41:30.539
But there also seems to be one that accidentally stabs himself at some point, isn't there?

610
00:41:30.599 --> 00:41:31.860
There's one that's been...

611
00:41:32.699 --> 00:41:36.420
There is a childlike part of me that really loves that structure.

612
00:41:36.480 --> 00:41:40.440
Just a part of you. that loves to choose your own adventure kind of stuff.

613
00:41:40.440 --> 00:41:41.400
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

614
00:41:41.460 --> 00:41:50.880
But also the fact that, you know, we've spoken previously about the way that episodic television, shapes, series. characters, kind of picks, they're going on holidays, that kind of thing.

615
00:41:50.940 --> 00:41:59.639
I love that that's worked into the story where the doctor goes 2 stops ahead to the last one, like they do in the keys of time where the shadows they're waiting for them.

616
00:41:59.699 --> 00:42:06.239
But then they're all going to be there in episode three, but then they decide that, oh, Barbara might have gone ahead, so you 2 go ahead to the next one.

617
00:42:06.300 --> 00:42:10.199
And so it sort of splits up the parties and puts interesting combinations together.

618
00:42:10.380 --> 00:42:11.099
I'm here for that.

619
00:42:11.280 --> 00:42:12.239
Oh, no, that was good.

620
00:42:12.300 --> 00:42:13.619
No, no, that's amongst the best thing.

621
00:42:13.679 --> 00:42:22.920
And in some respects, I prefer, I mean, what they do here to have Hartnell have 2 weeks off is in some respects more elegant than Barbara staying on the spaceship in the sense rights.

622
00:42:22.920 --> 00:42:30.300
Or, well, I suppose them having a single scene where they're on film, like, um, Caroline Ford has in as...

623
00:42:30.300 --> 00:42:32.039
Ran of terror for William Russell.

624
00:42:32.639 --> 00:42:33.900
I'm not sure which I prefer.

625
00:42:33.960 --> 00:42:36.539
But yeah, no, it is all of that is all elegantly done.

626
00:42:36.599 --> 00:42:38.940
It's all great, fabulous.

627
00:42:39.179 --> 00:42:41.579
I just think they needed to go through it again.

628
00:42:41.880 --> 00:42:44.579
I think another draft would absolutely...

629
00:42:44.639 --> 00:42:46.440
I'm fairly happy with the draft that we've got though.

630
00:42:46.800 --> 00:43:03.179
And also there are, as I touched on before, Heart will basically kicking off episode one, not obviously being not particularly all there in his lines, but there's also a lot more production hiccoughs than you get in other stories thus far.

631
00:43:03.239 --> 00:43:13.260
I mean, I know William Russell rips a bit of the cave wall off in the ordeal when probably, you know, with the poly star. comes off on Barbara's hand, which they expertly get rid of, but there's all sorts of clubs.

632
00:43:13.320 --> 00:43:17.940
Like, obviously, when they're wandering around the pyramid before they actually get inside it, There's one bit where I think the doctor's fallen through.

633
00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:26.579
And it's quite clear that this tiny little bit of pyramid side set is then being reused for Ian and Barbara to come on and stop and go, who was that?

634
00:43:26.639 --> 00:43:27.300
That was a scream.

635
00:43:27.420 --> 00:43:29.219
Well, you actually see them.

636
00:43:29.460 --> 00:43:34.500
Yeah, they're supposed to be on the other side of the period, but obviously they're running into the same little bit of set that Hartman was in.

637
00:43:34.559 --> 00:43:39.360
And it's like there's more of that kind of stuff in this story than we've had in the series today.

638
00:43:39.420 --> 00:43:44.280
I mean, so many of those things can be put down to not necessarily, you know, the director's got it wrong, but like the PA got it wrong on the floor.

639
00:43:44.340 --> 00:43:46.860
They just queued someone a little bit late, you're a little bit too early.

640
00:43:46.980 --> 00:43:49.440
So I think a certain amount of that is outside people's control.

641
00:43:49.679 --> 00:43:58.260
But we talked about this kind of thing before, and when it's a Warris Hussein or a Chris Barry or a Douglas Campfield in charge, those things don't happen.

642
00:43:58.440 --> 00:43:59.219
Who directed this?

643
00:43:59.219 --> 00:44:00.840
John Gory.

644
00:44:00.900 --> 00:44:02.460
And so we never hear from again.

645
00:44:02.519 --> 00:44:03.179
No, no, we do.

646
00:44:03.539 --> 00:44:06.480
Yeah, no, he does an episode of Marco Polo.

647
00:44:06.900 --> 00:44:10.139
Oh, he does episode four, the one that's the one that we don't have Telesnaps for.

648
00:44:10.199 --> 00:44:10.619
That's right.

649
00:44:10.679 --> 00:44:11.639
Yes, the wall of lies.

650
00:44:12.539 --> 00:44:15.539
Well, we don't we can't comment on the directorial quality of that episode.

651
00:44:15.599 --> 00:44:21.059
I suspect it would have been handled better because again, back to that thing of it being in a familiar surrounds of what is effectively in historical drama.

652
00:44:21.420 --> 00:44:21.840
Yes.

653
00:44:22.019 --> 00:44:25.679
I think, though, they're not able to make much corridor.

654
00:44:26.159 --> 00:44:27.239
Obviously, you know.

655
00:44:27.239 --> 00:44:36.900
No, I know the reason for it, but I'm just observing that some directors, for whatever reason, are capable of avoiding that more so than others. talked about that.

656
00:44:37.079 --> 00:44:38.219
Let's take that direct example.

657
00:44:38.280 --> 00:44:41.519
You have Chris Barry shooting those extended corridors in the Dalek city.

658
00:44:42.719 --> 00:44:45.480
And the forced perspective is correctly framed.

659
00:44:46.380 --> 00:44:47.460
With the photographs, right?

660
00:44:47.519 --> 00:44:53.760
So you've got the right angle on them to make them look good, whereas the way that they're shot, you don't really believe that those extensions along the base of the period.

661
00:44:54.960 --> 00:44:55.980
They're bad, though.

662
00:44:55.980 --> 00:44:56.579
They're bad.

663
00:44:56.760 --> 00:44:57.420
They're bad.

664
00:44:57.659 --> 00:44:59.159
You forgive them because you know what it is.

665
00:44:59.219 --> 00:45:00.480
It's like seeing a theatre set.

666
00:45:00.539 --> 00:45:02.099
That's when it is like a theatre setting.

667
00:45:02.159 --> 00:45:06.000
Well, you know, part of the reason that they're bad is that they're framed incorrectly and you can see the base.

668
00:45:06.420 --> 00:45:08.099
Yeah, you can see.

669
00:45:08.099 --> 00:45:08.880
I think you would have struggled.

670
00:45:09.000 --> 00:45:19.019
But also the camera angle needs to be, it's more about the not seeing the base. about the camera angle matching the angle that you're getting in the photograph, the photograph, and it doesn't too often.

671
00:45:19.380 --> 00:45:22.920
Nathan, if they had to frame that out, I can assure you, I would have 100% believed.

672
00:45:22.920 --> 00:45:26.639
They were on an island on the planet now.

673
00:45:27.480 --> 00:45:34.679
But you get that, but then you get episode 2 with all of the handheld stuff and Barbara looking at them very cleverly done.

674
00:45:34.980 --> 00:45:36.480
I'm not saying there's not good stuff there.

675
00:45:36.539 --> 00:45:45.960
I'm just observing that the that overall quality, whatever it's quality control, whatever you want to call the talk about is lower than in the Daleks.

676
00:45:46.739 --> 00:45:49.260
And from what I can see of it, Marco Polo.

677
00:45:49.619 --> 00:45:50.820
And certainly the Aztecs have come.

678
00:45:50.880 --> 00:45:54.719
And having to do different sets every single week, having to write people out.

679
00:45:54.840 --> 00:45:58.619
Like, you know, Terry's great at doing all the individual stuff that makes sense.

680
00:45:58.679 --> 00:46:03.000
But then the whole world building, which we basically discuss doesn't quite hold together.

681
00:46:03.059 --> 00:46:06.539
But at the moment, you're just watching it week to week in 1964.

682
00:46:07.380 --> 00:46:13.019
It's the demands of the production as well, necessarily by the fact that you've got a location where you have a mini adventure.

683
00:46:13.440 --> 00:46:16.260
You've got lots of people moving around and running around.

684
00:46:16.320 --> 00:46:26.400
And so the capacity for things like that, you know, queueing people too early, people walking into scenes early, increases because you're not in a room with people sitting there talking to each other.

685
00:46:26.639 --> 00:46:27.059
Yeah.

686
00:46:34.079 --> 00:46:40.679
Whenever I come back to this, I still enjoy it every single time, unlike a few other stories, which I won't mention, ahead.

687
00:46:40.739 --> 00:46:41.400
Just mention it.

688
00:46:41.460 --> 00:46:42.059
No, no, no.

689
00:46:43.139 --> 00:46:45.059
So when was the last time you watched the Senza, right?

690
00:46:46.139 --> 00:46:47.099
That's a good question.

691
00:46:47.159 --> 00:46:48.239
It could well be last century.

692
00:46:48.599 --> 00:46:49.980
That's how long I have not seen that.

693
00:46:50.039 --> 00:46:51.420
That's how long the sense rights is.

694
00:46:52.380 --> 00:46:53.579
It just feels that love.

695
00:46:54.900 --> 00:46:59.639
I would like to point out the weird and wonderful aspects of Terry's writing.

696
00:46:59.699 --> 00:47:08.940
People sort of treat him as being a bit sort of utilitarian, a bit like functional in his writing, but Nathan's talked on our late 7 podcast, Maximum Power.

697
00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:09.360
Look it up.

698
00:47:09.420 --> 00:47:09.840
It's great.

699
00:47:10.019 --> 00:47:12.599
Um, about Weird Blake 7.

700
00:47:12.780 --> 00:47:18.179
You know, episodes like the web, where you sort of go to these outlandish worlds, which kind of diminutive creatures.

701
00:47:18.239 --> 00:47:21.659
And yeah, it's nothing which is really steeped in what we know.

702
00:47:21.900 --> 00:47:37.320
I think Kismarinus gives us a real, really nice glimpse of things like that, and especially the 2nd episode, the morpho brains, are really like they're grotesque things, and they are brains in jars with ice stalks, and they speak like this.

703
00:47:38.039 --> 00:47:41.340
And that is a weird and wonderful combination.

704
00:47:41.639 --> 00:47:44.099
And I think other things in the episode, the same as that.

705
00:47:44.159 --> 00:47:50.099
Simon, you mentioned earlier, the cut and reverses, where you're seeing, you know, the, the love of things and then the author side.

706
00:47:50.159 --> 00:47:54.480
That's really well done and it's a very nice idea, which is well realised.

707
00:47:54.840 --> 00:48:13.199
And when they go into the laboratory, and obviously they don't want to build an entire laboratory, so it's all done from the perspective of being the shabby version, there's something very wonderful and meta about the idea of William Hartnell picking up a chipped old mug and going, oh, yeah, I think this is, you know, I could be very happy here with all this advanced equipment.

708
00:48:13.260 --> 00:48:18.059
That's a wonderful image and we don't sort of give it the credit for how interesting that is.

709
00:48:18.659 --> 00:48:26.760
In fact, it's extremely unusual for what we see on screen. not to be what's happening in classic Doctor Who.

710
00:48:26.880 --> 00:48:27.300
Yep.

711
00:48:27.420 --> 00:48:30.119
It's probably this and then Mind Warp.

712
00:48:30.539 --> 00:48:31.260
You know what I mean?

713
00:48:34.739 --> 00:48:36.840
You know, that is really, really quite unusual.

714
00:48:36.900 --> 00:48:50.699
And I also think that the idea, the idea that plants sped up, behave like animals, I think, is a really interesting idea that they do throw away on this sort of single episode thing.

715
00:48:50.880 --> 00:48:51.900
I think that's really good.

716
00:48:52.260 --> 00:48:53.760
Well, we come back to it in Seeds of Doom.

717
00:48:53.940 --> 00:48:54.420
We do.

718
00:48:54.480 --> 00:48:55.380
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

719
00:48:55.440 --> 00:48:56.940
But I think that's really strong.

720
00:48:57.119 --> 00:49:01.199
I think that might be the weakest of the episodes, but I don't hate it.

721
00:49:01.260 --> 00:49:03.539
It comes back to the plant things in the chase.

722
00:49:03.780 --> 00:49:04.380
Yeah, yeah.

723
00:49:04.860 --> 00:49:06.059
Planet of the darker plants.

724
00:49:06.300 --> 00:49:08.519
Yes, but the interesting thing is what I was saying.

725
00:49:08.699 --> 00:49:13.739
Unlike the Varga plants, so who are that are kind of animal plants and the seats of doom kind of thing as well.

726
00:49:13.800 --> 00:49:21.420
It's a special, whatever it is, whatever force field thing that Edmund Warwick has set up has essentially accelerated time.

727
00:49:21.480 --> 00:49:26.099
The water droplet dripping on a rock takes a 1000 years to start creating an indentation.

728
00:49:26.159 --> 00:49:29.340
You know, what if we sped that up so it happened in a day rather than a 1000 years?

729
00:49:29.400 --> 00:49:35.940
And that's what you're talking about, a place, like the way plants will gradually pull walls down, a ruined building, and the vines will gradually pull walls down.

730
00:49:36.119 --> 00:49:37.559
What if that happened over the course of?

731
00:49:37.619 --> 00:49:39.420
Yeah, where plants just grow and pull a bit.

732
00:49:39.480 --> 00:49:39.780
Exactly.

733
00:49:39.780 --> 00:49:41.280
It's more like an acceleration of time.

734
00:49:41.880 --> 00:49:46.139
Yeah, well, that's another one of those wonderful terry nation, clean, beautiful exchange.

735
00:49:46.199 --> 00:49:49.739
He calls it the tempo of time. as a kid. go, yeah, yeah, I get that.

736
00:49:49.800 --> 00:49:51.000
That would have been a better episode type.

737
00:49:51.059 --> 00:49:52.019
The tempo of time.

738
00:49:52.380 --> 00:50:02.219
That's in other words, wonderful, clean little terry nation things where, you know, he calls it the tempo of destruction, which is just, you know, as a kid, you would watch that going, yeah, I get this and understanding what it is.

739
00:50:02.280 --> 00:50:03.719
It's a great science fiction idea.

740
00:50:04.260 --> 00:50:06.780
Was that one of the chapter titles and the novelisation?

741
00:50:07.500 --> 00:50:14.519
Is that a strange historical curio that sometimes in doctor you have eras meeting eras and you think, well, I didn't expect that to happen.

742
00:50:14.579 --> 00:50:18.960
So it was Graham Williams returning to write the nightmare fair for the important season 23.

743
00:50:19.139 --> 00:50:24.539
It's John Lucarotti coming back for the 1st Tom Baker season to sort of do the early version of the Outer Space.

744
00:50:24.599 --> 00:50:30.659
And it's Philip Hinchcliffe having novelized Seeds of Doom and Masking and Drago going, what's next and being handed the keys?

745
00:50:30.719 --> 00:50:31.320
mariners.

746
00:50:31.380 --> 00:50:31.920
Yes, exactly.

747
00:50:32.099 --> 00:50:32.880
Can you do that?

748
00:50:33.239 --> 00:50:34.019
Yes, he did that.

749
00:50:34.079 --> 00:50:34.500
Yeah, yeah.

750
00:50:34.559 --> 00:50:34.920
Wow.

751
00:50:35.280 --> 00:50:37.320
And he's a very he's a very good novelisation writer.

752
00:50:37.380 --> 00:50:38.579
They're the only 3 he did, isn't it?

753
00:50:39.360 --> 00:50:44.519
He makes the mistake of cutting heaps of Amelia Ducart out of the seeds of doom.

754
00:50:44.579 --> 00:50:49.079
Yes, which is unnaturally thin for a 6 pass story. is immaterial.

755
00:50:55.860 --> 00:51:09.840
In the past, when we've talked about the advantages of the classic series over the new series where you can spend 7 episodes, getting to know a bunch of people, except you almost never do, you...

756
00:51:09.900 --> 00:51:10.500
Yeah, yeah.

757
00:51:10.739 --> 00:51:12.059
That was so nice.

758
00:51:12.119 --> 00:51:22.019
And and even the fact that the Vord, uh, that yeah, Tech leader of the alien Vord knows that they're in love with one another, you know, like and I think that's really great.

759
00:51:22.079 --> 00:51:27.599
I love them saying goodbye and caring about where they're going next.

760
00:51:27.659 --> 00:51:28.920
You know, now they're going to set up.

761
00:51:29.039 --> 00:51:34.320
There's a version of dogs who out there with Ian and Barbara and their assistants, Altos and Sabitha, which is great.

762
00:51:34.860 --> 00:51:35.519
It's great.

763
00:51:35.579 --> 00:51:38.460
Like they say we're going to miss them because they've really been part of the show.

764
00:51:38.699 --> 00:51:40.380
They're being the last month or so.

765
00:51:40.440 --> 00:51:40.980
Yeah, yeah.

766
00:51:41.099 --> 00:51:45.179
They should be considered companions in the same vein as Katerina and Sarah Kingdom.

767
00:51:45.360 --> 00:51:49.679
Yeah, because they don't go in the TARDIS, but they go in what we're using as the time.

768
00:51:49.980 --> 00:51:52.380
But also they're collected like companions are collected.

769
00:51:52.619 --> 00:51:55.739
Like we go to a place and meet and they're giving a goodbye and they're giving.

770
00:51:55.800 --> 00:51:56.519
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

771
00:51:56.820 --> 00:51:58.800
They're like mini companions, but that is the thing.

772
00:51:58.860 --> 00:52:00.599
I mean, I think it happens a lot more than you think.

773
00:52:00.659 --> 00:52:02.460
You know, you get to know some of the files.

774
00:52:02.519 --> 00:52:08.039
You know, you certainly get to know some of the characters in, you know, Jenny and Tyler and all that sort of in Dala Invasion of Earth.

775
00:52:08.159 --> 00:52:14.159
And certainly by the time you get to the Pertwear, that's when you really are getting to know the the guest guest characters.

776
00:52:14.639 --> 00:52:15.780
You think Greg and Petra.

777
00:52:15.840 --> 00:52:16.679
Greg and Petra.

778
00:52:16.739 --> 00:52:16.980
Exactly.

779
00:52:17.579 --> 00:52:31.980
And I would like to praise Catherine Schofield, who plays Sabitha and Robin Phillips, who plays Altos, because I think they do, there's not much there on the page, but they do, they do a lot to sort of bring those characters to life and make them loveable regular parts of the team.

780
00:52:32.099 --> 00:52:37.500
They're doing what William Russell and Jackie Hill are doing in the early days when there's not much there yet.

781
00:52:37.980 --> 00:52:40.920
Yeah, she recognised that the key is just slightly smaller.

782
00:52:41.460 --> 00:52:42.599
Yeah, yeah, yeah, she does.

783
00:52:42.659 --> 00:52:45.300
Because she's comparing them when she puts them on a necklace around her neck.

784
00:52:45.780 --> 00:52:51.300
And I actually thought that that was pretty good too, because I haven't rewatched this a bunch of times.

785
00:52:51.900 --> 00:53:01.079
Like this time I was just absolutely delighted by Ian's solution of putting the fake the counterfeit key, which was clearly introduced for that purpose.

786
00:53:01.500 --> 00:53:03.539
Yeah, law of conservation of information.

787
00:53:03.599 --> 00:53:04.320
One for stuff.

788
00:53:04.559 --> 00:53:08.400
It's like Sarah Jane not liking ginger pop.

789
00:53:08.519 --> 00:53:13.019
You know, like it will just come back and be important at the end of the story.

790
00:53:13.559 --> 00:53:15.659
She also hates brandy, the picky.

791
00:53:17.639 --> 00:53:24.480
I think Robin Phillips is great in that scene in episode 2 where he's staring down the camera when Barbara just realised that they know it hasn't worked on her.

792
00:53:24.539 --> 00:53:25.980
He's like, aren't you feeling well?

793
00:53:27.000 --> 00:53:28.559
I shall take you to our position.

794
00:53:31.619 --> 00:53:35.519
Well, she does she does lose it then and goes smash, smash, smash.

795
00:53:35.820 --> 00:53:38.880
He was gay in real life. and he was gay.

796
00:53:38.880 --> 00:53:39.119
Really?

797
00:53:41.039 --> 00:53:44.880
Probably appreciated having his thighs robbed by William Russell.

798
00:53:46.079 --> 00:53:55.380
But he served as the artistic director of Canada Stratford Festival from 1970 to 1980. and was apparently very well recognised for his artistic contribution.

799
00:53:55.440 --> 00:53:57.360
He received the order of Canada for it.

800
00:53:57.539 --> 00:53:58.860
So he emigrates to Canada, obviously.

801
00:53:58.920 --> 00:53:59.519
He was Canadian.

802
00:53:59.699 --> 00:54:00.900
Oh, he was okay.

803
00:54:00.900 --> 00:54:01.619
I believe he was.

804
00:54:01.679 --> 00:54:02.219
I believe he was.

805
00:54:03.000 --> 00:54:06.719
So he turns into more of a kind of an artistic director and so on rather than an actor.

806
00:54:07.019 --> 00:54:20.820
Yes, and when I was reading his obituary, which I think he only died in like 2021 or something, I died quite recently, and they had a very handsome photo of him from like 1977, still a very good looking man, sort of, you know, 15 years later.

807
00:54:21.300 --> 00:54:23.820
And so, yeah, I'm very well disposed towards him.

808
00:54:23.940 --> 00:54:26.219
And I think he's a companion that we could have had.

809
00:54:26.280 --> 00:54:27.599
You know, he's a Stephen Taylor.

810
00:54:27.659 --> 00:54:30.300
He's someone if William Russell had decided he was summarily leaving.

811
00:54:30.360 --> 00:54:32.280
He absolutely would have been aboard that time.

812
00:54:32.400 --> 00:54:34.199
Yes, he would have in contract roulette, yes.

813
00:54:34.260 --> 00:54:35.940
Yeah, so Caroline Ford was leaving.

814
00:54:36.000 --> 00:54:37.199
We could have had some beef.

815
00:54:37.559 --> 00:54:38.940
I had Yartek.

816
00:54:40.079 --> 00:54:47.219
I would also like to talk about George Caluras just before we finished because he was the first, I think, star get for the series.

817
00:54:47.280 --> 00:54:48.059
I thought Mark Eden was.

818
00:54:48.119 --> 00:54:52.079
No, I mean, he had a good profile as dramatic actor, but George Clurris was a star.

819
00:54:52.619 --> 00:54:55.860
So George Cluras had started off with Austin Wells Mercury players.

820
00:54:56.099 --> 00:54:59.280
He is in Citizen K. and won an award for it.

821
00:54:59.519 --> 00:55:00.059
Yeah, yeah.

822
00:55:00.059 --> 00:55:04.260
And so obviously, I mean, I don't know what had happened in the meantime.

823
00:55:05.039 --> 00:55:14.880
I think I think you've just proved everything I've been saying for the last hour, which is the fact that even great actors can struggle when the material is one dimension.

824
00:55:15.119 --> 00:55:19.619
Are you telling me that there's a version of Keyzamarinus out there, directed by Orson Wells, that was fantastic.

825
00:55:20.639 --> 00:55:21.900
Quite probably, yes.

826
00:55:21.960 --> 00:55:49.559
I'm sure it would have been interesting Well, that's all the time we have this week.

827
00:55:49.739 --> 00:55:50.760
We'll be back next week.

828
00:55:50.940 --> 00:55:57.659
The 500 year diary's second visit to a dialect controlled 22nd century Earth in the Dalek invasion of Earth.

829
00:55:58.320 --> 00:55:58.800
Again.

830
00:55:59.940 --> 00:56:16.679
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.

831
00:56:18.360 --> 00:56:25.739
Until next time, remember that the successful criminals are the ones who don't blurt out admissions of guilt whenever they're slightly startled.

832
00:56:26.219 --> 00:56:27.360
But you couldn't have known.

833
00:56:28.380 --> 00:56:30.119
Thank you very much for listening and good night.

834
00:56:30.300 --> 00:56:30.900
Good night.

835
00:56:30.960 --> 00:56:31.380
Bye bye.

836
00:56:31.679 --> 00:56:32.460
See you soon.

837
00:56:44.219 --> 00:56:49.199
That was 500 year diary, starring Todd Bealby, Nathan Bottomley, Peter Griffiths, and Simon Moore.

838
00:56:49.260 --> 00:56:51.300
The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.

839
00:56:51.539 --> 00:56:58.619
This episode, splitting the party up for no reason, was recorded on the 24th of May 2026 and released on the 23rd of August.

840
00:56:59.820 --> 00:57:07.559
This was our 3rd take on the Keys of Mariner since 2014, and next week will be our 3rd take on the Dalek invasion of Earth.

841
00:57:08.039 --> 00:57:16.860
So if anyone out there has any plans at all to make new Doctor Who episodes for us to talk about anytime soon, please let us know right away.

842
00:57:30.000 --> 00:57:31.019
We have to talk about this.

843
00:57:31.079 --> 00:57:32.219
We must talk about this.

844
00:57:32.400 --> 00:57:36.780
Simon and I have special history with Fiona Walker and Donald Picknick.

845
00:57:37.679 --> 00:57:38.460
Separately, though.

846
00:57:39.119 --> 00:57:40.199
Well, no, together.

847
00:57:40.440 --> 00:57:41.400
No, no, no, no.

848
00:57:41.460 --> 00:57:42.960
It was Wanda Ventham and Donald Pickering.

849
00:57:43.019 --> 00:57:43.500
Oh, yes.

850
00:57:43.559 --> 00:57:43.860
Sorry.

851
00:57:43.920 --> 00:57:45.059
Yes separately.

852
00:57:45.420 --> 00:57:56.219
We have special history with them because we spent an afternoon and evening with Donald Pickering and with Fiona Walker back in the 90s when I was interviewing them for Doctor Who magazine.

853
00:57:56.280 --> 00:57:59.159
Simon came along, basically because he should have come along.

854
00:57:59.280 --> 00:58:01.559
Yes, notionally as the photographer.

855
00:58:03.960 --> 00:58:07.320
And they were both so utterly delightful.

856
00:58:07.380 --> 00:58:11.639
Oh, such great company. so much fun to spend time with.

857
00:58:11.880 --> 00:58:13.980
And so every time I see them on screen.

858
00:58:14.099 --> 00:58:19.019
I mean, obviously in Sylvan Nemesis, particularly in Time and the Rhiny, because they have slightly bigger roles.

859
00:58:19.079 --> 00:58:24.539
But in these, just seeing them on screen takes me to such a happy place because they were so beautiful to hang out with.

860
00:58:25.019 --> 00:58:25.559
Yes.

861
00:58:25.679 --> 00:58:31.260
And that's right, because we we shouted them after we watched Sylvan Nemesis with Fiona, Walker, Gerard Murphy.

862
00:58:31.260 --> 00:58:31.980
Gerard Murphy.

863
00:58:32.039 --> 00:58:32.699
We took them to dinner.

864
00:58:32.880 --> 00:58:34.260
I think it was Kettner's, wasn't it?

865
00:58:35.159 --> 00:58:39.480
And yeah, it was, and then, of course, the conversation continues and the alcohol flowed.

866
00:58:40.199 --> 00:58:40.619
Yeah.

867
00:58:40.679 --> 00:58:44.820
No, but Fiona bit, she's exactly funny, but the thing is, her accent is exactly the same.

868
00:58:45.000 --> 00:58:46.980
Like, this is incredibly plumbing.

869
00:58:47.039 --> 00:58:55.079
Like I got I got to the venue because we went to an edit suite to watch the video and I was waiting in the foyer and I think you'd gone to the loo or something and this woman arrived.

870
00:58:55.139 --> 00:58:57.300
This did quite diminutive, like fierce looking woman.

871
00:58:57.360 --> 00:58:59.820
It's like, hello, I'm here to see Peter.

872
00:59:03.119 --> 00:59:04.139
That's fantastic.

873
00:59:04.559 --> 00:59:05.699
She was so indiscreet.

874
00:59:05.760 --> 00:59:10.079
She was talking about she was talking about Dolores Gray, who played Mrs. Remington.

875
00:59:10.139 --> 00:59:12.420
She said, her face had to be wound up every morning.

876
00:59:14.699 --> 00:59:27.420
And then, of course, a year later, we went and had a lovely pavla lunch with the divine Wanda Ventham and Donald Pickering, who are lifelong friends, and, of course, appeared in Doctor Who together a number of times.

877
00:59:27.480 --> 00:59:29.940
And that was just an amazing afternoon.

878
00:59:31.139 --> 00:59:33.360
We laughed like dreams the entire time.

879
00:59:33.420 --> 00:59:35.940
I think Donald was very fond of us, which was great.

880
00:59:36.000 --> 00:59:37.019
We were very fond of him.

881
00:59:38.880 --> 00:59:40.199
And he was a mentor.

882
00:59:41.579 --> 00:59:57.780
And just in the background, while we were conducting this interview, wandered through Roger, Roger Hammond, who plays the doctor in Modern Undead, not the actual doctor, but the doctor at the school, in Modern Undead, and who just lived sort of locally in the village.

883
00:59:57.840 --> 01:00:00.900
And so it just became this kind of like, you know, who else are we going to attract?

884
01:00:00.900 --> 01:00:02.699
Is Edmund Warwick going to share?

885
01:00:03.360 --> 01:00:03.840
Yes.

886
01:00:04.199 --> 01:00:04.860
Throughout that.

887
01:00:05.099 --> 01:00:07.440
I just wanted to be Donald Pickering when I grew up.

888
01:00:07.500 --> 01:00:11.039
You know, it was just that kind of being kind of wit.

889
01:00:11.519 --> 01:00:23.340
At least incredible stories about, you know, his risqué language when he was at home when he was visiting with Wanda Ventham and her 12 year old son would always be listening at the door with his ears flapping and of course we know that is Benedict Cumberbatch.

890
01:00:25.860 --> 01:00:27.360
I mean, he's tremendous in this.