Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to 500 Year Diary, the only Doctor Who podcast thinking of making this an annual event.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Brendan.
I'm James.
And I'm Mr. Rumbold's 1st speaking part doing battle with a 9 foot slithering latex, pussy thing for this episode.
It's the 21st of November, 1964.
It's been a bit less than 10 months since the Daleks all stopped working for no particularly urgent reason.
And since October, the show has been back on the air for its 2nd season.
A season made possible in no small part because of Terry Nation's 13 scripts for season one.
Tonight, 11.40000 people have tuned in on the promise of the return of the bug eyed monsters that Terry created for them last year.
What has he got ready for them this time round?
Let's find out as we discuss the Dalek invasion of Earth.
So, last time we were here on 500 year diary, We were talking about this as the second coming of the Daleks to Doctor Who, but obviously today we're really here to talk about Terry Nation, but I don't think a podcast episode about the Dalek invasion of Earth can really possibly be said to have taken place unless we've given Richard Martin a jolly good smacked bottom.
Which was an ad lib.
And I didn't realise that until this.
How many times have we done this now, Jones?
watched this and the look on Carol Anne's face and thought, there's no time to retake, isn't there?
There is a lot of ad living in this one.
Yeah, I think considering it's the tightness of Terry's script is delivered.
Next week, things don't go quite so well for Bill, I think, and there are quite a lot of fluffs.
He's actually generally in better form here.
But again, we just have these sort of terrible problems that we identified in the Daleks a couple of weeks ago where we've got these big fight sequences and things that take place and no one seems to know what to do with a camera and just everything is a little bit slapdash and unimpressive.
Not in Josh Snare's wonderful movie length reedit of this story, which makes it quite pacy.
And I switched that, didn't you?
Yeah, it was I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Nice touch.
He used the soundtrack from the movies.
Oh, okay.
Very great.
I mean, the music is one aspect of the production that goes incredibly well.
I think.
And we never hear from Francis Chagrin again.
Yeah.
He was born in Romania, actually.
Okay.
Yeah.
Hence all the romantic chord progressions.
It's a good score.
It is.
Kunky clunked.
It's still library music, isn't it?
No, no, he's, he does specially compose it.
This is when we pretend to not know things so that we get audience inclusivity.
Yeah, so they actually died in the wheelie bin bumper skirts of knowledge of this thing. aren't we?
We can actually tell you what time of the morning they trundled over the bridge.
Which of the Dalek operators was a bit hung over and lost control of the tricyclet.
I hope so after...
Three, 300?
It was a very long time.
The music is beautiful.
I want also the problem with Richard.
We did discuss the problem with Susan in the 1st recording of this, which, of course, is also referencing C.S. Lewis, which we shall never do again, because we've done plenty of that, and he's had enough attention.
Thank you.
Still on my enemies list.
Yeah, but speaking of that, Richard Martin's use of really horrible big clunky cameras bigger than Daleks is actually pretty good.
And I'm thinking about the shots of the external set of the Dalek saucer with the plywood ramp of doom. rattling.
I'm actually feeling captivated by this and I've got to say, it wasn't too excited watching it again because it has its flaws.
This has got pace and drama unexpectedly.
No, I agree.
I agree.
But I do think that is kind of down to Terry in lots of ways.
We talked last year about the location work because our 1st time round, which is, you know, was 2014 or something we 1st podcasted on this a long time ago.
I remember just being hugely impressed by the amount of location work.
It's incredible, isn't it?
And right at the front in episode one, we get nothing sort of particularly thrilling or exciting.
They're just going through a broken down warehouse or whatever, but just immediately it seems so much better.
And I do think that while Richard Martin's work on location isn't perfect. best location work we've ever had.
Well, at that point, yeah.
That's right.
But it is also pretty good, and it is better than his studio work, I think.
I would say the location work is probably the best until we get to the war machines.
Yeah, okay.
And, you know, the war machines is London as itself.
Here they've got to do London 200 years in the future.
And aside from a lorry and a pleasure cruise, it's not too bad.
And a museum of dead things.
I mean, luckily, a lot of London is a bombed out... like post-war landscape in the early 19th.
So we've started on K Starmer already.
I do think part of the problem with the studio work is there's several parts which are just long in terms of duration wide shots.
So, for instance, when Ian realised that Craddock has been robotised.
And sorry, Terry, when exactly does that happen?
Because the doctor's been laid on the table.
And then Bernard K comes in 2 minutes later and then 2 minutes after that, there's explosions or whatnot.
So when does Credit get repetized?
But anyway, it's like, Craddock comes around the corner and Ian says, Craddock, and we just stay in wide shot.
And I kind of look at Richard Martin's other work and Richard Martin loves cutting to a camera before it's ready.
I have a feeling there's meant to be a close-up there and the camera's not in position and Richard's just gone, okay, I'm like for once.
And you know, that's not a huge indictment.
That is someone being as ambitious as Verity Lambert or Warris Hussein or David Whittaker.
And you see it in with interviews with him now and he's 90 something.
He has incredible energy and you can imagine him up in the booth going, yeah.
One, two, two, one, two, come.
Move.
Number four, move.
Worst bingo game.
Brendan pricks up on a very good point.
Richard Martin's energy and nation's energy are one and the same.
And I was looking at this, you probably all discussed this.
How many times have we recorded this trip?
Well, this is the third.
Thank you.
There is that same enthusiasm in the face of reality.
But why do they give him stories like, sorry, Richard Martin stories like the web planet?
This one.
These are the big mythic dramas.
These are the big over the top, the circus performance.
This is octopus without Roger.
It's because of the ebb and flow, and the Joyce enthusiasm, and the fact that maybe he just does do the holy fool leap of faith thing and jump in and go, it's going to be great, guys.
I'm very just sitting there going, I have no damn idea where's the Quait Ludes.
Go ahead, Richard.
Let's give it to Richard.
He makes the studio happy in the brings everyone together in spite of everything that can possibly go wrong.
And especially, I think also the cast really respond to Terry's script.
They do up the game, don't they?
Because even from its earliest conception, it was seen as a way to write out Carol Anne Ford.
So Terry does put in moments of character and reflection for her. ankle bending. ankle bending.
And fish cooking?
Fish cooking.
Well, the fish cooking was actually Carol Anne and Peter Fraser came up with that in rehearsal.
It was just meant to be, they're sitting by a campfire cooking something.
And they're like, every other episode so far, we've had a Frisson.
We don't really have a free song in this episode.
Why don't we build up to a kiss and then Bill comes in and breaks it up.
Cock blocks.
Yeah.
Dock blocks.
But dog blocks.
Just looking at the cast's energy in this.
This is the end of a 54 week production block.
Wow.
Now, I say 54 because we have the rejected pilot recording and we also have a recording of the dead planet where the soundtrack was unuseable.
Oh okay.
And so that had to be remounted between episodes 3 and 4 of the Daleks.
And then we shoot an extra episode of Planet of Giants, which gets edited together.
Yeah.
So there is an extra 2 weeks added on.
And yet, at the very end of this, the cast, our responding exactly the way they did 50 weeks ago.
And I know they've had holidays here and there and whatnot, but I think they're responding to Terry's words and characterisations because he brings in a lot of supporting cast in this one.
There's sort of a revolving door of, you've got Craddock, you've got Larry, you've got Baker, Jenny.
Yeah, Dortmund as well, isn't there through the whole story and Tyler, and of course David.
It's a big ensemble cast.
But rather than go, oh, okay, I have to find something for all of them to do for 6 weeks, Craddock gets swapped out with Larry.
Baker's only there for 2 episodes. then you've got Ashton and Wells in the back half of the story and Wells was only supposed to be in one episode.
He only comes back because an extra didn't turn up.
And Richard Martin enjoyed working with him and said, oh, why don't you come in again?
And that's why Wells sort of has a really big character in his 1st appearance.
And then in the last episode, he's just running around with a gun going, yeah, and then carrying a 2 by 4 because it was written for an extra that part.
When we did the Daleks a couple of weeks ago here.
There is something about the Daleks and the way it's directed and the way it's written, you know, it's very classic Golden Age science fiction.
It's directed in this sort of sort of expressionist kind of way, I guess.
We said probably the 1st time around.
So it's very worthy, I think, but it does make some mistakes in pacing.
I think episode 6 is really terrible.
It keeps our main characters away from the Daleks for quite a long time.
And it is very kind of lacking an incident.
It's very stately.
And then the madcap keys of marinace comes along, which is just lots of action and lots of changes of pace and lots of things happening.
And here, I think, Darlic Invasion of Earth is, I think, his best script so far.
And I think it is because he actually manages.
I mean, it's best of three, right, at this point.
I think it's better than the Daleks because it is careful to be full of incident and give people things to do.
Terry Nation's absolute superpower is splitting up the party.
And so he splits the party into 3 groups.
He gives us plot arcs that are happening over episodes that have different people involved.
The whole thing has this sort of epic scale because it travels all the way around the UK and something has happened to the entire world.
I just think it's really, really properly solid and enjoyable, I think.
The Daleks, again, is worthy never to be repeated.
We said last year that the Daleks in the Daleks were vastly better and more interesting than the Daleks in the Dalek invasion of Earth, but nevertheless, I just think this is the best story of the 3 that he's done so far.
Does feel like a template for the entire future too.
And it's our 1st invasion of earthy type story thing, isn't it?
They're still getting right up until season 26.
Yeah.
I remember years ago, JR South All of the Strangers in Space Podcast and many others, had a series of books called You and Who, which was all about the sort of effect of Doctor Who on Us the Viewer.
And he came up with the concept for a book of thirsts.
And I don't think it was ever published, but I was going to write an article and I think we sort of came up with the idea together in that the censorites followed by this.
The sensor rights is sort of Doctor Who's direction on paper of what the future will look like as in humanity's future.
But then it's decided, no, we're going to do alien invasions and we're going to do what's the threat on earth here and now.
And it's sort of like if you compare Stephen and Carol and John in the sense rights, who are all sort of very upstanding and up here, and very British like that, and you know.
But then Terry Nation comes along with a Dalek invasion of earth.
And something you said to David Whittaker was, in order to show that this is all over earth, I want a diversity of characters.
And they did actually look into having more than just white people in the background, but the agencies they contacted couldn't provide a mix of extras for them.
So Terry instead, in his 2nd draft scripts, specified regional accents around the UK.
Right.
Now, the production team would still try to work on securing people of colour in the background.
It didn't happen.
Well, that way it's kind of like you've got Craddock who's a little bit cockney, you've got Wells, who's from the west country, you've got Larry, who's Northern, and that was Terry kind of going, this is all over the world.
This is happening everywhere, even if we're just showing London and Bedford.
But it's mostly about Bedford.
It is mostly about Bedford.
And we do kill off like several continents and things in a way that we won't see happen again until parting of the ways, I think.
Do you think that the Dalek invasion of Earth actually changes the future that the sense rights is setting?
Oh.
That's an interesting point.
The sensor rights mentions being in the 29th century or something.
So that's, you know, that's enough type.
But I don't think we ever quite get the censorites future again.
You know, humanity is treated in a more sort of complex manner.
And I'm not dissing the sensor rights here because I think the sensor rights does do interesting things with psychology.
From an universe point of view.
That's a really good thought, James.
Although we do know that the sense fear exists, thanks to the ood.
So, well, in fact, what is kind of interesting is we go from this story to the rescue and we get to see that Britain, in particular, rebuilds after this invasion and that Vicky comes from that future.
And then in the chase, which we'll be talking about quite soon, she actually talks about ancient New York having been destroyed in the Dalek invasion.
So it is part of the history that she's learned.
And so this is kind of the 1st time.
It's kind of Doctor Who's best of both worlds.
It's the 1st time a big historical event happens that changes the universe that Doctor Who takes place in because something here happens to Earth in the 22nd century, something that we're referring to 25 years later in the show and harking back to when the show returns in 20052.
Luckily, Billy got off a bit better than Captain Picard.
Yeah, that's true.
It was a touch and go there for a bit though, at the end of one of those episodes.
Yeah, he does have a galop going up and down over his head.
That's right.
The chicken rotisserie.
Slash solarium.
Is that Billy lying down for that one?
Just tell a little map.
It is, yeah.
Oh, yes, that's in my contract.
Thank you, dear.
Yeah, straight on.
She had a whole week off.
Well, I know because of that bouncy bouncy bassinet of plywood.
Oh, yeah.
Everything that could have gone wrong almost did and then it did end it for this production.
It is very weird that bit.
Again, you know, splitting the party up, which happens all the time.
We were talking about there's even just one moment where for no reason Bill tells Ian and Barbara to go off in this direction while he goes off in another direction around that building on the on the island of mariners for no particular reason.
And here they all split up for...
They all split up for various reasons, but that incredible episode where they drop the doctor and then go off in an adventure and then come back and pick him up, which is just absolutely kind of bizarre.
But what are they going to do?
You know, they're stuck with it.
For those not in the know, what we're referring to is during rehearsal for the scene where the doctor saved from the Dalek ship, Richard McNef playing Baker, is meant to sort of carry him across the threshold of the ship.
And because...
And because the ramp of the Dalek ship had been damaged earlier in rehearsal, he lost his footing and dropped Hartnell on...
The extras were marching in step, which you cannot do on a plywood ramp because you'll fracture your brain.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah.
So, yeah, Richard McNef lost his footing, fell over, dropped Hartnell.
On the ring around the pedestal, bottom of the pedestal.
That was never comfortable.
No.
Like Hartnell was temporarily paralysed, but was able to complete the evening's recording, but his doctor then signed him off work for a week, which is why it's the following episode he's not in.
Isn't it Edmund Warwick?
It is Edmund Warwick.
Who, in universe.
Oh, travelling back in time.
And Edmund Warwick, in full costume, was actually mistaken in the BBC canteen for William Hartnell on the day of recording with horrific results. which we'll discover next week.
Were they viewing him through glasses, mate?
screen.
See, the funny thing about this is the regular cast very quickly figured out that the catering facilities at Lime Groove were awful.
So always brought in a picnic lunch on recording.
So they never even went there.
So 3rd episode is rewritten with Hartnell's lines mainly given to David.
Also a few to Carol Anne and some to Tyler at the end.
But the main thing that was rewritten here from the 1st draft is they're meant to find sort of subterranean humans who have devolved into like morlocks under the ground.
And that was removed in exchange for alligators.
But guess what?
When the web planet is underrunning in a few weeks' time and Richard Martin has to write some new material, Ian falls down a hole in the ground and phones these subterranean devolved creatures.
Yeah, okay.
No offence to Barbara Jaws.
But it just kind of goes, okay, Terry's work is so good that when Richard has to get rid of it.
I don't know if he was part of the decision to get rid of that.
That is so good.
In time lag.
Again, yeah.
Again.
But yeah, Richard would have had access to early scripts.
He's like, I'll just bring in this bit from Terry Dation.
I mean, I think, you know, those are adorable, those little alligators.
They're not alligators, aren't they?
They're like tiny alligators Yeah, the same ones in the bath in Tintin's episode on Thumb.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, they are adorable.
And I guess what ends up happening is they're trying to scope out a way of escaping, and then they always intend to come back for the doctor.
But it is a weird running in place thing, which is just kind of unavoidable because of what happened.
And because you have Barbara's plot and you have Ian's plot as well, it's okay.
The episode still kind of works, I think.
It also, again, gives Susan some relationship development with David.
You know, we will come to expect contract roulette.
Thank you, Andrew Hodson.
But here, they're actually listening to Carol Anne somewhat when she's saying, I don't have a character.
Yeah.
And attempting to give her a character as a sendoff.
You could have started that earlier, but okay.
I think it's an amazingly good thing too.
There's 2 scenes that I think are really good.
And the one is where she says that she never felt that she had any identity and she never belonged anywhere and stuff and that's obviously leading directly to her staying behind.
But it's the scene where the doctor gets cross at Susan for saying, this is what David says we should do.
Let's do that.
And the doctor gets cross at her.
And then David comes in...
Follow Eddie cockle it ahead. woman, all words to that effect, yes.
But then but then David comes in, he's kind of deferential to the doctor and the doctor like agrees with him.
It's like really cold.
Oh, no, he's a bit spanky, isn't he?
Yes, all right.
That's such a sweet scene though. where he then empathises and repeats her plan back to him.
Yeah, and gives it to David. lets David have the decision.
Do you know what I mean?
It's so sweet.
You just made us all think.
Is it Terry that writes Billy's effectiveness is really just as a pugnacious child.
He doesn't really know what he's doing.
It's simply the fact that he's using age to his advantage and those lapels, the power of a pair of clutch lapels.
Is that Terry?
Well, I was going to say that, actually, in the 6th episode where the garlic is advancing on the doctor and we get that perspective shot, and I think it is the 1st big lapel grab, a defiant lapel grab, like, because we've had lapel grabs before, but this is the doctor staring down a monster.
Terry specifies in the script that the doctor stands in view of the Dalek, gripping his lapels defiantly.
Wow.
So interesting, you should say that, Richard.
I think he has picked up on it Because the war machines, like, honestly, makes panto of it.
I think the doctor is a bit of a petulant child.
We'll see that again next week when Barbara and Ian Lee, you know, and he's unable to show his real emotions, he just gets angry.
And here, he does have, like, we've made fun.
We've spent 12 years on this podcast and others making fun of the way that Billy locks Susan out of the TARDIS and then goes away.
Like we're constantly making fun of that.
But that speech, the one day I shall come back, speech is so good.
You know, he could see Carol Anne on the monitor.
I didn't realise that until this viewing.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, and it was 3 takes.
How many times have we done this one?
Yeah, it was thank you.
It was 3 takes, wasn't it?
To get it right.
There was some noise and Billy fluffed a line and then, yeah.
And she was basically in his eyelines standing under the monitor as well.
So he could see the real Carolan in his periphery.
Mooning him.
How's that for a bottom that needs to be?
sunshine I mean, I'm 23. can drink.
Like a fish.
Let's cook one now.
It is an incredible speech.
Next time we get a companion departure, which we'll talk about next week.
I think it's streets ahead of this and one of the best companion departures of all time, even now.
This one doesn't quite work because it is sort of weird behaviour from the doctor in some sort of way.
Yeah, yeah.
You don't quite buy it.
But, you know, you have to remember, he doesn't really know where she comes from.
Oh, are you lung burrowing?
I don't know, I'm losing it.
The real name is Liz Blaws. isn't it or something?
There is law now, isn't there?
Well, like law of it being rewritten at the last minute, because Disney cancelled the series.
Well, of course, her real name is Finn Duclair of the House Duclair, if one believes Anthony Coburns, initial unearthly child script.
Are you kidding me?
So it goes.
It's just French for Susan.
Yeah, yeah.
It goes from the doctor explicitly saying, her name's not Susan, it's Finn Duclair and when Ian challenges him.
The doctor rounds and says, would you challenge a lord of Duclaire?
Which then becoming, there's a reason his son won't let that ever be.
And they're vicious enemies, the paladins who they're on the run from.
And there's early draft groups of other things that mention the paladins as their enemy from the Galactic War, that gets watered down to, I was born in the 49th century, which gets watered down to.
I was born in another time, another world. which totally better. is totally better.
And...
A lot of fog and it's super mysterious.
Yeah, that's why I love it here.
And there's no there's no record that Anthony Coburn disagreed with any of those notes.
Okay.
You know, writers will just sort of flush it out.
I mean, you know, you're banging off than the typewriter in an Australian accent, you know, you've got, you know, got a lot of bang out there.
I mean, the idea of leaving the doctor's past completely mysterious was always the right one.
And some of us, yes.
Some of us here might prefer that it had always remained so, Nathan hadn't they?
absolutely.
Although I love war games.
I do too.
I do think watching that last scene with Susan, I think what could have made it so much better, and this is, you know, the benefit of hindsight, and this is, unfortunately not how women were generally treated on television at the time, is if instead of David saying he knew you would never leave him, if Susan had said it, he knew I would never leave.
Yeah.
And so because like Susan looks traumatised at the end, which is upsetting.
I've got no job.
Yeah, that's right.
She never had a job.
So David is quoting her, isn't he?
Well, she does say, I can't leave grandfather.
He needs me.
Okay, that's a good point.
Yeah.
Like I said, like, short, it would be better if she'd had that line, but he is actually quoting what she had said earlier in the story.
That's a good point.
Yeah.
But, I mean, it is beautifully led up to in a way that doesn't always happen.
I mean, you know, there's no saying that Mel is leaving.
It's Dragonfire.
She wanted a bit of rough. right.
But Dibber had already left.
Yes.
So, so, you know, it doesn't completely work.
But, you know, it still matters and we still get to see the doctor sad next episode and we do spend 2 episodes. dealing with the fallout of it, which I think is pretty good.
Yeah, yeah.
And also it's easy to criticise it now, but the show hadn't done it before.
And we see, say, over with the Avengers, which is another similar show of the era that has regular cast changes.
Only once do they actually do an episode of saying we're writing this character out.
Yeah, yeah.
Otherwise, they just disappear and they're hardly referenced the following series.
Whereas Doctor Who kind of goes, we can't not give a proper sendoff.
Yeah.
This script started work around the time Marco Polo was airing, but discussions that started before that pretty much the robot by Anthony Coburn, better known today as the Masters of Luxor, had fallen through.
Malcolm Hulk's The Hidden Planet had fallen through.
So David Whittaker contacted Terry Nation to give us a 6 parter, and John Luca Roddy to give us a 4 parter.
It sounded for a moment, like you said, the robot spy at Anthony Copurn.
That explains a lot. played by Edmund Warwick.
So even at that early stage, David Whittaker and Terry Nation were discussing bringing the Daleks back, but decided to do the keys of Marinace instead with the multiple locations as a way to write something quickly that didn't need a huge overarching plot.
Right.
But this still started that idea.
And it was known that Carol wanted to leave at the end of the 52 episodes.
Okay.
But what was difficult was Terry writes a new script with a character called Seder.
Now, she is described in the script as Anglo-Indian, but what that means at the time, a child of the British Raj.
Yeah, she was the Cliff Richard all the time.
Yep, Cliff Richard, Joanna Lumley.
What have you?
Jackie Pierce, Jackie Pierce.
And Sader was written as Dortmund's daughter.
Now, what happens is, one, she's written to someone younger than Susan.
Two, they don't know if the series is continuing beyond Dalek Invasion of Earth, and Verity Lambert writes many memos to Donald Babistock saying there's no point in us writing out Carol Anne if we're ending the series.
Can you please tell us if we have more episodes?
That's right.
It was really tight on the line.
It was really tight on that.
And Terry was only given this, what, really late in the day?
Well, the original scripts come in June and we're shooting in late August.
So it's 5 or 6 weeks between the 1st draft and the final draft.
Bavistock only commissions the new episodes on August 14.
The 1st location shoot is August 23.
Oh, wow, okay.
Now, by that time, David Whittaker is already rewriting Seder as an older character called Jenny.
Yeah.
Any reason for that?
Well, I think they realised, oh, do we want another teen character?
They probably couldn't cast her.
Well, they Mind your language, you're still 10 years old.
Well, this is the thing.
She was an Anglo character, born in India, rather than someone of Anglo and Indian descent, because Verity wanted to get in Pamela Franklin, who was a 14 year old actress.
Now, Verity starts making inquiries about Pamela Franklin on August 17, but by August 19, Jenny is now a one-off character, and Verity stops trying to get in touch with Pamela Franklin's agent, then on the 21st and Davies's cast.
So we start off with Sader being a replacement for Susan, then up in the air because we don't know if we're getting more episodes.
Then hold on, do we really want a 14 year old?
Then make it an older character, then, oh, it can be a replacement character, but now it's too late to rewrite the script.
Also, how distasteful taking another girl with you after dumping your granddaughter.
Just give it to weeks.
It's right.
It's right that it happens in another story.
Yeah, yeah.
But this is another example of a writer going, oh, thanks, Terry, I'll have that because in the draft script, Sader is conspicuous by her absence in the last scene, because, you know, we say goodbye to Tyler, we say goodbye to David, where's Jenny?
Oh, okay.
Where is Jenny?
Well, she's specifically not there because she's already snuck on board the Tartars.
And the idea was we wouldn't end on Susan dropping her key.
We'd come back to the TARDIS and the doctor just staring off into space.
Barbara comes up and kisses him on the forehead and he says, oh, you silly old sentimentalist and you hear from the other side of the set, hello.
Oh, wow.
And say to her snuck in.
Yeah, well, guess what David Whittaker does when he has to write Wendy Padbury into the show.
Sticks her in a box.
I actually think Jenny is really great.
And I do want to use her as an example of talking about how bleak this script is because I do think it is actually nastier than Doctor Who generally should be.
And it is nastier than the, Well, I mean, Terry helps himself to sort of giant plagues that kill 1000000s of people over and over again, doesn't he?
And stuff.
It is a thing.
But like Jenny is super cynical and she's so much more interesting than the female character that he creates for the Daleks.
Jenny is a much more interesting character than Dioni, who seems to have no characteristics other than being a...
Being menaced by Ian.
Yeah, yeah, being a woman.
Darren.
For the listener at home, that was her name.
Yes.
But what we do get is a very kind of low key character arc for her, where she starts off really, really kind of bitter and cynical, but then under Barbara's influence.
Like she is clapping her hands with glare as Barbara's running Daleks over in the big truck and stuff.
And I think she really is enjoying herself and that it's Barbara that brings her on board and in a way, I think it would have worked for Barbara to have introduced this bitter and disaffected young woman and then warmed her up and made her the sort of person who enjoyed fun adventures where you run them monsters over and then she becomes a regular character.
So I think that works really well.
And I do think that when Jenny kind of does warm up to Barbara, she's a much more enjoyable character to watch, I think.
So Ian Briggs is borrowing from this as well when he writes Dragonfire.
Well, it's always the template for, you know, things going forward.
I mean, generally we are in a world that is really, really horrifically bleak, and I think the death of Dortmund is rough and a little bit upsetting, I think, in the sense.
Well, but he's also a liability because he uses a wheelchair and that is the sort of thing.
We'll see it in, there's a survivors episode that is really brutally upsettingly bad on the topic of disability and you wonder whether that's creeping in here a little bit.
There's Phil and Larry, which I just think is horrible.
Like, that's just awful.
Like being shot as you strangle your robot to death.
That's right.
I mean, that's just Christmas, you know what I mean?
Even like, you know, no, we were talking about Jenny warming up, but she's warming up and she's becoming a less bitter, more open woman-y character.
And then they are handed over to the Daleks by the old woman, Eileen Way.
The Island Way?
No, it's not Island.
Eileen Way in the Fridge. should be, I mean.
I mean, like, I mean, wait, in the film, at least.
And her daughter.
It's like, you know, like you can't have anything nice.
Like, yeah. yeah?
She can have secret army.
Yeah.
I mean, I think that that is a good scene and we spoke very positively about it.
Last time we did this the 2nd time because there's a level of realism there, which is something that this setting allows for, because it is essentially, you know, Britain under Nazi occupation or whatever.
And I think that's really good, but there's, again, this level of cynicism about human nature that Terry Nation has, that he creates worlds.
Look at Blake 7, full of people who are kind of hardbitten and bitter and out for themselves, disco-ey.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. camp as as hell, obviously.
And I don't know that that's not really where we land.
And even, yeah, again, I guess it's like Genesis of the Daleks, where just everyone is awful.
I think though, in terms of the human characters.
Most of them are working towards making things better for more than just themselves.
And it's like even the old woman and her daughter.
There's a sense of pity there.
Oh, yeah.
Where, whereas, you know, you get Ashton, who is very much just there to be a bastard who's then eaten by a blanc mange.
Usually it happens the other way around.
Yeah, not yet.
With great horns. with great horns.
But yeah, you know, Jenny has that kind of antagonistic streak.
And then Barbara actually gets a bit shirty with her on a few occasions, but then sort of realises, well, hold on, that's not doing any good.
Larry and his brother, was even more upsetting in the script because his brother recognising him as he died is not in the script that was suggested by the actor playing Phil.
We should point out, I think it was Kingsley Amos, who mentioned this in, you know, one of the high literary critiques of TV and theatre at the time as being one of the most terrifying moments, history of British television up to that date, is the Roberman Kenton Moore, who we just lost.
We should probably mention, you know, walking into the Thames.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Again, like a forgotten tea bag.
Not an expression we can use anymore.
That has been cited as.
It's brutal, isn't it?
And he's very good.
It is very good.
Is this what Terry does bring us back to our theme?
Bricolaging, as we say on the podcast, all these different interesting threads, and then weaving something actually new.
I mean, it's impossible to escape from thinking about Dave of the Truffords, if you're looking at post-apocalyptic Britain.
And Day of the Triffords is, in many ways, the basis for this, and even more so, I think, for survivors, because what people forget is...
So Carol Anne is in Day of the Trippers.
I mean, what people forget is that what happens in Day of the Triffids isn't just that there are killer plants on the loose.
It's that everyone's blinded and there's a plague. meteors.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it does the thing that survivors does, which is takes us around Britain to see how different groups of people are surviving and how different ways of organising society fair in this situation.
And it's very clear that that's what Wyndham's doing.
But it is, I think that's why we have this sort of tour of Britain here.
It is so that we see different places.
Now we don't have time for it and we're busy having adventures and, you know, there's bombs and daleks and all sorts of things to worry about.
He does have more time to explore this in more detail in survivors.
But I think, you know, just as we identified the time machine, as an important source for the Daleks, very definitely, I think, he is riffing on Day of the Triffords here.
Speaking of post-apocalyptic.
Peter Diamond, who plays Kenton Moore, once he gets in the water, it is Kenton Moore before he goes in the water.
But Peter Diamond and Robert Jewell, who is the dalek who comes out of the water at the end of episode one, were both given very strict instructions not to take on any river water, and a taxi was hired by production on location on standby to take them into the hospital to be stomach pumped if they feared that they had.
Oh my god.
Didn't Peter actually get ill from this?
Quite possibly.
I think he did, yes.
We've seen the war between the land and the sea.
That's after all.
Not drinking that, look.
More than my job's worth.
They did imbibe the river water and that's how they eventually died. from Lyme's disease.
Peter Diamond did make it to 2004, so I think...
That's a very old slow acting.
Yeah.
And you can also see Peter Diamond in episode one where Ian launches himself out of the warehouse door.
That's Peter Diamond and he gets a more substantial role in the Romans as Ian's Roman friend in the galley and he is then a Moroch guard who Ian subdues in the space museum.
Right.
Yeah.
So Rob quite liked that Ian would beat up Peter Diamond. watch that It is an impressive moment, isn't it?
And it is, you know, Terry has the sense of what works visually as well, I think, that is pretty great.
Well, take a drink because initially when Barbara and Jenny are captured by the Daleks, they come to in a large white featureless room. which was one of Terry's favourite things to write when he didn't know what to describe it.
That's an episode of absolutely fabulous. 2000 surfaces, yeah. you seen it?
It's in white box.
Because Raymond Cusick said, Terry, you know, you've written the Daleks are in a white, large white featureless room.
Why is that?
I couldn't think of what to write.
Just do what you like.
I think the closest we get in a Terry Nation script too, someone being in a large white featureless room, the teleportation room in the planet mirror or whatever.
Yeah, heading to the planet mirror.
Yeah, they couldn't cope. some lines on it.
One of the other things that we talked about last time.
And so we probably don't need to talk about it now, is that Terry Nation, in a way, creates the doctor, and we've already talked here about that hero moment where the Dalek looks at him, but we talked last time about how the doctor's role is split between Ian and Barbara, and certainly Ian, you know, panicking at that final cliffhanger to try and connect all of those wires in the little capsule is classic doctor behaviour.
And so is Barbara issuing orders that can't be countermanded where she does that hilarious kind of mock-up of history.
Do you remember those days when teachers had real power?
I can't be counted.
I just, I love how she, you know, gets her hand.
With her hand.
Which, like, she said, like, she's an extra on F-true.
And then the doctor kind of slaps her head to wait.
It's like don't be stupid.
Stop looking a bat.
Like, I was listening very closely this time and what he actually says is, let me, let me.
Really?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But the funny thing is, like, Barbara to walking like this and hitting her mouth is basically what the ring modulator's doing anyway. switching off the voice.
Oh, is that all a dog?
In fractions of a second.
It's not changing tone.
No, which is why when you get to Day of the Daleks.
The voices are so terrible because the actors didn't realise that they also had to perform it.
And that's why when you see interviews with, unfortunately, the late great David Graham.
He can basically do the voice because it's an acting performance.
And he does in these early ones. did not realise.
In terms of how Terry Nation creates a doctor.
There's an interesting line that's cut out that would not be out of place in a Stephen Moffatt script.
Oh, really?
And it's the doctor, it's the doctor's initial response to Tyler calling him doc.
Ah, thank you, but I prefer Dr. Doc reminds me of the time I met that Vulgarian Nefertiti.
There is a line that she's still obsessed with me.
I just listened to it the other day.
It keeps going on and on and on through the series.
What the hell was I listening to the other day anyway?
So Moffat had seen that script.
Yeah, very probably.
But that's the thing, it's a very Moffat line.
But then I thought, hold on, in the Sensorites, we've got the doctor showing off his new cape and say, Bo Brummel said I looked better at a cloak.
Have you ever met Piro, dear boy?
So it had already started?
starting to happen.
But yeah, we just blame Pertwee because...
Yeah, yeah, we do.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But that line about the Bulgarian Nefertiti calling him Doc.
That does have a slightly different colour to Beau Brummel's fashion advice.
It does have a colour of, oh, Billy, you rogue.
I'm going to add all my own teeth then.
They shared some hot chocolate, did they?
He is quite coquettish even in this one.
There's lovely colour to this.
Was it just this perfect synchronisation of script to actors to...
I'm even going to include Richard Martin.
We've talked about this before, and Brendan's directed theatre. you know, we've all had a go in theatre on some level or another.
Maybe it's just the adrenaline makes it work.
Oh, I think it carried along with it.
But there is adrenaline in the script.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
There's a real sort of sense of creating incident, and we didn't have it so much in the Daleks, and you have that very languorous, you know, back 3 episodes, which just seemed to be an exercise in delaying the final confrontation.
And he doesn't make that mistake again.
Daleks wasn't written to be 7 episodes.
No, well, I mean, it's hard to tell.
It doesn't work if it ends at episode 4 as it stands because we do need a final confrontation with the Daleks.
But it does delay things quite a lot.
To be fair, they didn't have the option of going back to the Dalek City for some more episodes.
No, that's right.
Not this time.
And so we had he had to actually write some episodes, yes.
And he does it by having consecutive subplots in the keys of Mariners, that he distributes the characters among, whereas here they're not consecutive.
They're all happening at the same time.
They're simultaneous subplots that all lead to the meeting again in Bedfordshire at the very end.
And you know, it's something that he'll do again.
It's Genesis of the Daleks, you know, it's death to the Daleks.
It's essentially everything.
He's the past master at splitting up the party.
He invents that.
But he does it so well here that even though there's individual plants.
So silly we make fun of the slither because it's dreadful.
Ian's plot kind of isn't super interesting, but it does have Ashton in it and stuff.
It's like it's not defend the prop makers and the latex extenders.
It does look good in that 2nd episode when it appears.
And it is very crinoidal.
It's simply the way it's shot.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, and performed, maybe.
There's a lot of sort of bouncing up and down.
Yeah, and the googly eyes on stalks.
Which were apparently something that was added for the 2nd appearance.
It wasn't.
Funny you should mention 7 episodes.
There was a suggestion of adding another episode to this because of Planet of Giants being cut from 4 episodes to three.
However, it came through between episodes 4 and 5 of this big shot.
And Berity Lambert pretty much wrote back a memo saying, no, we're not reworking these last 2 scripts.
And also, the actors shot the amount of episodes they were contracted for. and they've done 2 re melts.
So no, we're not doing that.
And of course, we wouldn't then make up that episode until the end of the next production block.
Yeah, I wouldn't have liked to see this extended further out.
I think the length of it is quite good.
Now, of course, Josh does an amazing job in his cutdown.
There is certainly stuff you can cut out and it doesn't affect the story.
But I think some long shots that are held too long besides.
I think the pace is very good.
Yeah, there's probably like one or 2 shots per episode where I'm like, okay, they're waiting for something to happen.
When Ian's pulling out the wires and whatnot, the camera snaps down to the trap door and then the trap door opens.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you're just looking at squatting William Russell.
Beg your pardon?
Not a bad thing.
Yes, quite. an episode title.
I am a little sort of lost and perplexed as to how much of this is Terry and how much of it's everybody else.
And I guess like all of these things, it's everybody at the end of it and working with Terry's ideas and there must be something about the way he puts down those 2 sheets of foolscap that inspires everyone else to.
Yes, I can spring from this.
It's a week of rep.
We've only got a week.
Let's make it work, and then it's all extemporisation.
I mean, I have no evidence for this and I haven't read anything, but certainly the chase is a much scantier script than this, and I think this script is, like, it shows every signs of at least being structured by nation.
So it's not the sort of, you know, late series A of Blake 7, where it's all being written on the back of a napkin and stuff and given to Chris Boucher to flesh out.
I don't think that is happening here, whereas you do get like Dennis Spooner having to do work on the chase.
Is that right?
Yeah.
Yeah, Dennis Spooner and Richard Martin both said for the chase and then later Justin Spooner and Donald Tosh, both said for Dalek's master plan.
They had to do a lot of fleshing out.
Here, looking at the initial episode breakdown pitch, there's not a lot of difference between what Terry originally pitches and what he ends up presenting, the big one being the subterranean creatures are cut in favour of alligators.
So, yeah, I think it was pretty well fleshed out by Terry.
And while this was in development, Verity Lambert and David Whittaker suggested that Terry Nation should be considered a senior writer and write at least 3 stories for the upcoming production block.
It's great ideas, man.
Yeah.
And pretty much what those 3 stories end up being are the chase.
And eventually the Daleks master plan, which Verity chooses to hold over for the incoming producer to say, you've got 12 episodes ready to go.
Yeah.
Now the reality ends up being somewhat different and you'll be discussing that in a few weeks.
You know, like, I think that this story is inevitable.
I think we said this last time and probably the time before, that the Daleks in their sort of ethereal science fiction city, 1000000s of years into the future, is interesting and the Daleks are more interesting and all of that, and it's very traditional science fiction, but this is action adventure.
So setting it on earth in a recognisable environment.
Having the thrill of seeing the dialects going down the Thames Embankment or Trafalgar Square.
It's Sunday afternoon war movie.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yes, it is.
So that is why I think, too, it works as a film later.
The film doesn't cut a great deal.
It has the same basic structure in all sorts of ways.
Lots of the memorable things are still there.
It's obviously tighter and has a higher budget and stuff, but it's largely what we see here.
And even though it wasn't very successful, perhaps because it was a bit too grim.
Oh, I think part of the reason the film wasn't successful is it came off the back of the Dialect's master plan.
And people had just had 3 months of Daleks.
Right, okay.
Are we talking about the massacre again?
There were people around at the time who kind of went, okay, the Daleks are a bit much now.
You know, we've got the playsuit, we've got the books, we've got Daleks in cinema.
We've just had 3 months of Daleks on TV.
Is it just Daleks?
Is that all we're doing?
I mean, the theory is, too, that just that we were all a little bit too optimistic for another sort of post-apocalyptic. what if the Nazis had won the war, you know, we just won the World Cup and we were a bit excited about ourselves and it's the mid 60s.
England starting to get a bit exciting again.
And so it just doesn't match the kind of mood, whereas this, and I think, you know, the black and white and the production values and Billy Hartnell and stuff, just all of that tone, there's a kind of bleakness to this, which doesn't seem to be entirely intentional, but that helps, I think, the production land.
Well, that's all the time we have for this week.
We'll be back next week to find out what happens when you cross the Daleks with the keys of Marinas and get the chase.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts, and you can keep up with us on our website, 500yearDiary.com, where you'll find our social media links as well as links to all of our other podcasts, including the entirety of flights through entirety, which comprises every episode of our 4 Doctor Who podcasts.
Until next time, we'll see you in 2027 for another trip to the Dalek Mines in Bedfordshire, probably.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Ta-ta.
And good then.
That was 500 year diary, starring Nathan Bottomley, Brendan Jones, James Selwood, and Richard Stone.
The theme was composed by Cameron Lam.
This episode, the power of a pair of clutched lapels, was recorded on the 7th of June 2026 and released on the 30th of August.
As you heard several times this week, we talked about the Dalek invasion of Earth last year, in season 2 of 500 year diary, the 2nd coming.
So if you need more Dalek invasion of Earth content, and you know you do, head over to our website, 500yeardiary.com slash S2 to continue the conversation.
We'll see you there.
I just realised I should have said, meh, meh.
Ah, it's fine.
I'll later that back in.
You can have said that.
You will, Oscar, you will.
Um, yeah.
Yeah, I think that's right.
I've said everything that was in my notes.
Yeah, I think we could.
I think we are good.
I'm not sure how much of the genius is Terry and how much is everyone else, but then that's the point.
It's an ensemble piece.
I think, I mean, one of the advantages of doing this, we watch all of them in a row.
I, like I never discovered, because the thing, the thing that I discovered about Terrence Dix is that he gives the villains a series of things to do.
So that the status quo, the threat that they pose is changing throughout the story, which gives the doctor something to react to.
And so it's why you don't have the doctor sitting in a cage for episode 3 to prevent him from confronting the villain.
The villain kind of isn't ready for that final confrontation yet.
And you see it in, think about robot, right?
Where it's collecting all of the things for the disintegrated gun, but it doesn't make the disintegrated gun until kind of episode 3 or whatever, and then the plans change and we're reacting to something different.
It means a doctor.
Then Leila says, I'm never coming back again, you soggy bastard.
But do you know what I mean?
so Terrence is very good at making things happen?
Like, at not kind of spinning our wheels waiting to reach episode four?
Whereas I think what what Terry seems to be doing is increasingly being able to just get lots of fun incident and lots of set pieces and and just action adventure stuff happening.
He's the one who turns it into an action adventure program.
You know, the previous science fiction, you know, the sensor rights is an action adventure in any sense of the word.
Far from either word.
That's right.
There's a lot of standing around.
If your kink is stretched jersey and latex skimp masks, it is, of course.
Yeah.
Yes, it has charms all its own, obviously.
Q season 2 is based 1999.
All right, it's the closing credits to season five, episode 3 of 500-year diary.
That was 500-year diary starring Nathan Bottomley, Brendan Jones, James Selwood, and Richard Stone.
The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, splitting the party up for no reason.
That's not what it's called.
That was 500-year diary, starring Nathan Bottomley, Brendan Jones, James Selwood, and Richard Stone.
The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, the power of a pair of clutched lapels, was recorded on the 7th of June 2026 and released on the 30th of August.
As you heard several times this week, we talked about the Dalek invasion of Earth last year, in season 2 of 500 year diary, the 2nd coming.
So if you need more Dalek invasion of earth content and you know you do, head over to our website, 500yeardiary.com slash S2 to continue the conversation.
We'll see you there.
Go once more.
That was 500 year diary starring Nathan Bottomley, Brandon Jones, James Selwood, and Richard Stone.
The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, the power of a pair of clutched lapels, was recorded on the 7th of June 2026 and released on the 30th of August.
As you heard several times this week, we talked about the Dalek invasion of Earth last year, in season 2 of 500 year diary, the 2nd coming.
So if you need more Dalek invasion of earth content, and you know you do, head over to our website, 500yeardiary.com slash S2 to continue the conversation.
We'll see you there.