Pushed up in the Schedule

[00:34]

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to 500 year diary, the only Doctor Who podcast that thinks that flying around Spain would make for quite a relaxing holiday.

I'm Nathan.

I'm James.

I'm Adam.

And I'm Kevin.

It's the 22nd of May 1965.

It's been nearly 5 months since we locked Susan out of the TARDIS and fled post-apocalyptic earth, and now as the Doctor Who's 2nd season nears its end, it looks like a rematch is on the cards.

And after last week's surprise Dalek Cliffhanger, tonight, 10000000 people have tuned in to watch that rematch take place.

So what new ideas does Terry Nation bring to the table for his 3rd dialect outing?

Let's find out.

It's the chase, you know.

I want to talk a little bit about the fact that this story comes out on the HS in 1993 and it came out in a tin box with Remembrance of the Daleks, I think.

[01:48]

Is that right?

Yes.

Yes, yeah.

I remember the tin.

I remember what was in it.

And it was Gary's tin.

It was Gary Russell's idea.

And I wasn't buying all the VHS tapes, which is impossible to imagine, was it?

I just, you know, that's insane.

I had a handful.

I had that TARDIS 10 such an enduring format.

Yeah, that's right.

They're all landfill now, aren't they?

They go for lots of money on eBay, apparently, the VHSs.

People love them.

Oh, I shouldn't need to move away.

Let's just stop and say it's a truly terrible format.

Abs shockingly bad.

Not even as good as Beta Max.

No, no.

Yeah, well, Beta Max was better, but it lost.

And it was still bad.

I think Beena Max has kind of past se now.

Everyone now is alpha maxing.

There we go.

So I wasn't buying the black and white ones because I actually was only buying the ones that I really, really cared about and, you know, we I'd never watched the black and white ones as a kid apart from the crotons and that other one.

[02:53]

What was the other one?

The Mind Robber, which used to be shown on ABC TV.

So the chase was kind of like the only black and white Doctor Who story that I had.

And I really had no idea that Doctor Who in the 60s got any better than this.

Like, I thought it was all...

Or less directed like this.

And I watched it over and over again.

Like, I absolutely watch the hell out of it.

Yes.

Yeah.

I kind of love it, I have to say.

I have a massive soft spot for it.

I used to.

And like this was one of those ones that, you know, when you read about the ones that we've never seen because they, you know, never showed them on television, that were all off in the ether.

This one seemed exciting.

Like, you know, it had departing companions.

It was, you know, the Daleks chasing the doctor through time and space. like, how could this possibly work?

And you're like, oh, it doesn't.

It was funny watching this through because I haven't in a number of years, and I always had very fuzzy memories of it from just the warm and fuzzy nature of just one of the best companion departures in the classic series that actually cares about characters.

[04:04]

What a concept.

And I let that really bias my memory of the entire cereal because most of the cereal is not good.

I know, I was excited because remember when Doctor Who was on Twitch for a while and everyone went crazy for London, 1965.

Okay, yeah.

And I was like, oh, I don't remember that being as much fun as this.

And then you watched only that bit, just the photos of them kicking pigeons. in Trafalgar Square.

You're like, oh, this is great.

This is wonderful.

And I'm like, oh, I forgot about the 6 episodes that preceded this best.

All those shots make me do is itch.

Those pictures are all over Jackie Hill's fair and faith.

Yeah.

Really, really triggering.

They do.

Have you been there?

Honestly, that's the least goopy monster that's attacked her.

That's true.

She does get molested by a big rubber octopus in episode two.

Yeah, she avoids the slither.

She also gets, you know, manhandled by a sailor.

[05:07]

Well, yeah, by Ian, Ian nearly takes her trousers off earlier in that episode.

Yeah, yes, I mean, we'll get to the ending, and I do think that the ending is absolutely magnificent, like really properly good and maybe much better than I thought it was in the past.

I think it's really great.

And obviously directed by someone else.

Yeah, yeah, and possibly written by someone else.

Actually.

I do think it is really extremely good.

So we obviously did the Keys of Marinace a couple of weeks ago.

And I love the keys of Marinace.

Like I just think the keys of marinace is awesome.

And it's got Fiona Walker in it, obviously, and she's magnificent.

The whole thing is just really fun.

Everything gets out of your way in 25 minutes so you don't have the chance to kind of get super bored by any offer.

So this is kind of him going back and doing the same butt with Daleks.

But I have to say that I think it is just less successful, though, despite the Daleks.

[06:14]

I mean, watching Richard Martin talk about it in the special feature, bit of business, and he basically said, uh, Terry turned up with a handful of scenarios, and Dennis Spooner went and wrote the scripts, and you're like, it doesn't even feel like they put that much effort in.

Also, this, I mean, I don't want to malign any production decisions, but the metres of Hessian with a bit of sand thrown on them are not convincing anyone that they're dunes.

No, no.

I mean, they're very, very close up against kind of the painted backdrop, which is just painfully visible.

You know, in a way that we probably won't see again until Lagopolis.

Yeah, it's really it's really quite bad, I think.

And, you know, we go on location and the location staff is good, but there isn't really that much of it.

But we do go to some sand dunes in Kent, apparently, for the beginning there.

Should we go for a swim?

[07:15]

No wonder the Dalek was convinced that by the cardigan in the coat over some stinks, the sand dunes were so unconvincing.

The ultimate ignominy of this.

I mean, everyone else is convinced by a man who is very clearly not William Hartnall.

Miming badly to a record.

Accepting close-ups.

But sometimes not even then.

I mean, sometimes not even in close eyes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, so that's like a terribly weird production decision.

And there's times where you sort of think, Bill could have just popped around behind the cameras and then turned up on the other side of the thing.

And, you know, that wouldn't have required a special effect and we could have given Edmund, you know, the week off or something.

Because, I mean, there's one particular scene in the big fight scene in episode 5 where it's Edmund Warwick, isn't it?

And he's standing between Jackie and and Maureen and uttering dialogue and it's just like ridiculous.

[08:16]

He looks like Odo from Deep Space Nine.

It's really like it's really quite bad.

I think I did an episode of all of time and space on the chase.

And because it was sort of famously one of my favourite stories.

And it was that really, I think, that spoiled it for me because since I had really grown to love the chase, I had seen those surviving episodes or the then surviving episodes of the Daleks master plan, you know, directed by someone who can direct in the set where we'd put some effort into making it look like a jungle.

And they're really good those scenes.

Like the Planet Campbell's amazing as we're going to discover next week.

Whereas this is really dismal, isn't it?

Like just the sets are really poor, you know, you've got some transparent fabric that we've painted things on and the studio floors are really apparent everywhere.

When we arrive and we start talking about the corridor of lights.

[09:18]

It's maybe 3 or 4 scenes before you actually see them, even though we've been talking about them, like you, you know, the miniature doesn't sell it.

Like there's just all of these production decisions that are bad.

And I think, you know, there's the big climactic battle at the end of episode 2 on Aridius where, again, he's just pointed the camera at the action and just let the action happen in front of it.

And again, the big one at the end of episode four, is it?

like in the haunted house where everyone sort of seems to be standing around waiting for their queue and stuff and like it's just very hard to know what's going on.

He can't cover it.

He clearly wants to do something, but it's the same as the Dalek battle in Sloane Square or the battle at the end of episode 7 of the Daleks, where he just cannot do it and doesn't seem to be learning.

There's a couple of really odd shots as well.

There's one, like a really high one.

I think it's on the boat where you can see the Cyclorama and the rings that it's hanging from.

[10:24]

I probably shouldn't have watched the Blu-ray version.

It was a little bit chilled.

And you've seen how big my television was.

There's just some really strange choices as well.

Like, I noticed in one point in the haunted house.

A Dalek shoots one of the creatures and we don't hear the sound effect of the Dalek gun.

You just see the screen get inverted.

He doesn't feel it tuned to even the comedy in the script.

Like, I know the Dalek Cliffhanger episode one is sneezing.

But you wouldn't know it from listening.

It sounds like it's reaching a very different kind of climax in the episode.

Well, it is working its way out.

What?

Like, it's a very strange sound. upsetting.

It is trying to be comedy.

Is that Dennis Spooner?

Like, it doesn't seem...

I think so.

I mean, Terry Nation's a comedy writer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. one of Hancock's comedy writers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I was thinking that too, because, I mean, there is that the Morton Dill bit as well, which is all kind of...

Yeah, it's being played for copies.

[11:29]

Just again, very strangely done, paced, acted, like directed the whole thing.

And, you know, it had the potential possibly to be funny.

I think there are definite gags there.

And Spooner is funny.

You know, the Romans is a funny script.

But this was obviously done in a hurry, though.

Like it's anyone who's been through a couple of drafts can write the Romans well. anyone who's been given a collection of notes from Terry Nation has gone, oh my god, we need to film this next Thursday.

He's probably not going to do the best job because apparently a script had fallen over. when this was rushed up.

This was kind of like pushed up in the schedule.

And I mean, this is according to Richard Martin.

He could be lying and trying to cover his tracks.

I mean, I think that the plan was for this to end the season.

So we would, you know, have the Daleks near the beginning of the season and then the Daleks at the end and then the departure at the end.

And so I think it does get brought forward.

And there was some thought of making it 7 episodes as well to make up for the lost episode of Planet of Giants.

[12:36]

You don't want to spend even longer on the Marie Celeste?

No, maybe even longer in the mushroom jungle. incomprehensible mushroom jungle.

I think I've been in one or 2 of those, but they looked a little different.

Yeah.

Let's talk about the terry nationness of it.

For me over the last few weeks, the thing that I've learned that Terry Nation does basically better than anyone else is splitting the party up.

And there is quite a lot of that.

There's, you know, in Keys of Mariners, there's one really, just let's go this way and I'll go that way for like no other reason than to give the cameras time to reposition or something.

Here, we split the party up like we do in the Keys of Marinace, where the doctor jumps ahead to episode 5 at some point.

No, no, that's Barbara on the scene, right?

[13:40]

And here we leave Vicki behind and don't notice in this way that just seems so outrageous, unless you've already seen Siklo K, destroy from season one or series A of Blake 7, where they do the same thing to Calli, where no one notices that Calli hasn't been beamed up. person who can speak to us in our brains.

Why isn't she here?

Speaking of waiting for your cue, she's literally just standing there in the middle go, oh, what's my cue?

What's my cue?

Oh, oh.

Oh, I didn't give him the charters.

I mean, I actually don't think that's a bad thing.

And I do think that given the premise at the time, which is that we can't control the TARDIS and suddenly the TARDIS can't go back to the same place twice, which seems to be new, but that is actually sort of not too bad.

And I imagine that it happens so that Vicky can have their heads up about the Dalek, the robot replica of the doctor, I guess.

[14:43]

Also, it's, you know, hit some jeopardy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think the story is also very good at giving us every sort of permutation of this cast on the way out.

Like there is a stretch where it's the Dr. and Barbara, Vicky and Ian.

There's a stretch where it's Ian and Barbara.

There's a stretch where it's Vicky and Barbara.

They sort of, you get to enjoy every little mashup.

It's one of those times where you can almost, almost buy the postmodern interpretation of things.

Yeah, yeah.

I think Sandifa has a very clear sort of redemptive reading of this where it's all deliberate, which is pretty great.

It's her, you know, it's her thesis that it's better to enjoy something than not to enjoy it.

And so she finds a way of rescuing this which I find not compelling exactly, but I've got a fair amount of sympathy for it.

And certainly this crew, this Tartar's crew, is great.

I think, you know, one of the all time great Tartar Cruise.

We get Vicky being a bit of a panicky idiot a couple of times, but vastly less frequently than Carol Anne would have been forced to do, I think.

[15:52]

I think that's just Terry writing.

Yes. as Susan going, oh, it's not her.

I'm just writer as her anyway.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because she even has like a, like instead of breaking her ankle, there's something wrong with her shoe and it's like, it's almost like Maureen's gone, I don't do the ankle.

I mean, her panicking as she's being lowered down from the city is pretty kind of grim to watch, I think.

There's a lot of grim underage people going off of things in this because there is a woman with a baby. in one scene that is so much.

I'm like, what is happening here all of a sudden?

Like the 2nd unit have just gone off on their own and go, ah, we'll kill a baby.

This will be fun.

What's a baby on the ship?

Yeah, I know, maybe in dialogue.

No, no.

I know historically there was a baby.

We don't need to see it.

I'm pretty sure Queen Elizabeth didn't also tell Shakespeare to write 200 plays.

She did.

It was her idea.

[16:53]

She did know the Falstaff in love.

It was.

But then we got the completely fabricated Hamlet thing.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Almost as historically accurate as the new ham nap.

I mean, that kid did die, but that's about it.

I mean, we start with the time television episode, and I actually think that this is incredibly charming, and I think it is what you say, Kevin, that because this isn't a proper Doctor Who story in any kind of sense of the word.

What it is is an opportunity for us to hang out with this crew and see sort of what their life is like.

And when I was a kid, I always love those scenes in the TARDIS.

And here I think they're really great.

You know, and you've got Maureen acting oddly and being a useless person and stuff.

That's so super strange.

But she's kind of fun.

She's being a teenager.

They get disaffected easily.

It does have the very good gag though of her saying, oh, if you told me what this was, I could have fixed it for you.

[17:57]

That's awesome, isn't it?

It's pretty good.

That is pretty good.

And, you know, the fact that she thinks the Beatles play classical music as well, because she is so much cooler and more modern and hip than the Beatles are, which is pretty great.

That was cut from what I watched.

I was destroyed.

Oh no.

It's on the bus.

They've taken that scene off of streaming.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, they would do.

Somehow, just by accident, it made its way onto the DVD and onto the Blu-ray, even though there were obviously rights issues with it.

What you did miss is the much anthologised clip of Ian dancing, like with his hand up, like a science teacher.

We should have screen grabbed that.

He's hilarious You know what I did find interesting was because this was contemporary with the Beatles. and Vicky talking about them.

Of course, I know the Beatles.

I've been to their museum and they're all kind of like, as if that's going to happen.

[19:01]

I'm like, no, no, no, you need to be here now.

That is absolutely a thing.

They are revered in a way that no one else is revered in music since Mozart, probably.

It's just surprised that Dan wasn't working in the Beatles Museum in it all.

Oh, God.

It is pretty incredible though, isn't it?

Because they're not, I mean, they're big, but they're not, and obviously, you know, Dalek Mania takes its name from Beetle Mania and stuff.

Yeah, big, but no one has any idea.

And I guess it's part of that just because they're a thing that boomers like that it became just so massively kind of such a massive cultural thing.

But it is really strange because it's like, it'd be like a joke for us going, oh, it's one direction, as if they're going to have a museum in the future.

Like, it feels very much like a, it's meant to be a joke about the museum, and we're like, now in this day and age, we're like, no, that would absolutely, when the other 2 go, there's, they'll have statues.

[20:03]

They're currently making 4 movies about each one of them.

It's ridiculous.

All of that stuff is really great, isn't it?

And the thing is that we're watching them watch TV and yeah, it's like a little goggle box moment where they're just sort of flicking from channel to channel, watching television in a way that hadn't been invented yet because TVs didn't have remote controls.

And back in the day, of course, in the UK, you would put on one channel and you would be on that channel for the whole evening, essentially, or possibly your whole life.

Yeah, like...

It also sets up that beautiful ending where they're all watching Ian and Barber leave on TV.

It's so good.

Just so perfect.

So does somebody need to get in touch with Terry Nations estate and let him know that they ripped him off for gold?

Yeah, yeah.

It's quite terrific, isn't it?

But it is kind of not necessarily what we were expecting last week.

[21:03]

And so then the Daleks sort of come along, but as usual, we're just faffing around, aren't we, for a whole episode before they arrive so that we can do that cliffhanger again.

We should have gotten the Daleks watching TV too.

Yeah, they love the television.

Get their running commentary as well.

Do you think there was a subtextual meaning to the Gettysburg address and that particular section of it?

Because it was, it felt kind of pointed in a way that I don't have any context for now, but I'm wondering if it was meant to mean something then?

Was there some kind of racism thing going on in the UK?

Was there some kind of, it just feels like an odd thing for Ian to choose to watch?

I wonder though, like these seem to be the sort of things and the Mary Celeste seem to be the sort of history things that you learn about at school.

And I think because people read the speech, like the speech would have been read in schools just sort of regularly in the UK.

[22:04]

You know, like it is obviously the time of the sort of civil rights movement, but I don't know that the Brits were kind of looking over at the US thinking about that, but they certainly weren't when they were writing the dialogue, the civil toymaker, or doing the makeup for the savages.

That's right.

That's right.

I mean, Enoch Powell is a few years off as well.

Yeah, yeah.

So, so I do think it's a school thing.

I think that, you know, the idea that the Merry Wives of Windsor was something that was based off a character from Henry IV, part one and that it was the Queen's idea, that's something that you would learn at school then, and the Mary Celeste, like, we have that sort of closing shot on the slate where he's written the thing about the Azores and stuff, and that's clearly a detail that you're supposed to know as well as the woman with the baby too, I guess.

I think that that's that's what's happening.

And it is very much the parents and a grandfather and a child, so it's a family unit all sitting around watching TV and commenting on it.

So there is something sort of contemporary about it.

[23:05]

I think.

So it's like they're watching Doctor Who.

Oh, Doctor Who's a little bit educational. and also entertaining.

Look, there's the Beatles.

There's no sofa, so they can't hide behind that.

So you can't have the Daleks on it.

I mean, you do eventually, but yeah.

And that's great as well.

Like, I do love how they rope that in, you know, that somehow it decides to show them the daleks of coming to get them, which is pretty awesome as well.

Well, that's the Tartars, isn't it?

Well, I guess so. yeah.

I do really hate that they spent all of their external filming money on doing Queen Elizabeth and Abraham Lincoln.

I like, why didn't you do them in studio and then go outside to a sand tune?

Well, I mean, they do a bit.

I mean, they do a bit.

So a radius is another one of these sort of low effort terry nation planet names.

Oh, yeah.

And of course...

It's nominative determinism.

Well, it is because you know what the best part about that is, it used to be an ocean player.

Yeah, that's right.

[24:06]

Everyone's called go to the ocean planet of Aradius.

No idea determinism.

And it became Arab.

Yes.

Yeah.

But all of that stuff is just incredibly limp, isn't it?

So Terry does like monsters, like big sort of slimy monsters and he, we had the slither, God help us.

I love the Maya Beast.

My Beast is spectacular.

It has all the things that you want to be scared of.

The bug eyes, the big tentacle, and it's large and can swallow a whole person.

The long inside.

In other words, Vicky would adopt it as a pad.

Vicky would love it.

It's just constantly lolling sideways because they can't keep the head straight.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like that one sea devil in Warriors of the D. They fix that in the special edition.

I did.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh that's sad.

I like when they leave that stuff in.

I like that my Zigon dolly has a microphone in one of his little suckers.

[25:12]

So, I mean, again, because this is so unlike a Doctor Who story, because we're just escaping and essentially that's all we're doing.

And so there is some kind of sense in which maybe the Daleks just leave, but maybe they massacre all the Oridians.

Maybe they massacre Hewell Bennett, just for, you know, letting the doctor and that escape because that looks like where we're heading, but we just leave and we're gone.

There's some kind of attempt at a bit of a story by having, you know, we talk about the elders we talk about, the Daleks negotiating with these people.

I mean, it is sort of a thing, and it does, I guess, sell why the Daleks are bad people.

We need that kind of introduced.

They need to be able to kill someone, you know, early on.

Yeah, but I feel like the direction is so bad.

We don't, there's no tension.

There's no menace.

There's no idea of that.

And there's constantly people standing in front of other people who are speaking.

[26:13]

It's always a hat or a head in front of the person who's speaking.

It's like, are you going to move the cat?

No, just leave it there. that's fine I feel like there's a it's lacking that that threat.

Also, I don't know what Dudley Simpson is doing, but he's having a whale of a time making some sort of madcap comedy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, music is wild.

I mean, there's no tone meeting is the problem, isn't it?

Everyone's on a different page.

And like Dennis Spooner's idea to have comedy daleks is probably a bad idea.

Yeah, sneezing Daleks, but aren't clearly sneezing.

There's also the comedy dumb Dalek where it's not very clear that that's what's going on.

So you're just like, why is this stuff?

Oh, you're trying to be funny.

Well, he's got a kind of, he's got some kind of non-RP accent as well.

Like he seems to have some weird regional accent or something or like a working-class accent of some kind.

And he's having difficulty with the addition, isn't he?

[27:14]

He's kind of going 45, carry the one. you know, like that sort of stuff.

There's also the one that gets ordered to go somewhere and doesn't leave.

Well, do it then to it.

Get on with it.

See, that that's kind of gold.

I think they can be funny.

And I do think, you know, in Daleks, in Manhattan.

There are a couple of scenes.

There's that wonderful scene where the 2 Daleks are bitching about Dalek Sec.

Remember that?

one of the looks around to just see that no one's listening and then they start gossiping.

Like, I think you can do it.

It is possible.

I don't think it ruins it.

And the Daleks with the T in Power of the Daleks. is very funny.

And also the little baby daleks.

Evil of the Daleks.

Like, they can be funny.

Without ruining them.

And that's the thing that Doctor Who can do, it can make its monsters funny without making them less menacing, I think.

So it wasn't necessarily a bad idea.

I think the problem here is it just feels half-hearted.

It feels unmotivated and it doesn't really commit to the joke.

It's just like, oh, we're kind of doing a joke here.

[28:15]

Yeah, kind of.

I think that's it.

I think that's it.

And so, you know, like later on when you've got sort of Ian kind of, he gets hit on the head by Vicky and we even get told that's a joke, you know, like in the scene afterwards and stuff and it's not really particularly funny.

I mean, you know, Ian's right.

So I think you're right.

It is intended to be a comedy, but no one has told Richard Martin, perhaps.

No.

I mean, look, I think it's also partly Dennis Spooner being in a hurry.

I don't know if you, like, you'll probably find this when you do dalek master plan, but the Feast of Stephen is hard work, because, because it doesn't exist.

But obviously there's a lot of kind of something kind of coronation street regional going on in the 1st half.

Then there's a lot of unseen slapstick in the 2nd half, which I'm not convinced was even any good at the time.

Because all this slapstick is, you know, slapstick requires rehearsal and precision.

Yeah, yeah.

And all the slapstick in this, like with hitting Ian on the head as a prime example, is not funny because it doesn't, it's not framed well.

[29:19]

It's slow. sound effect isn't even in time with the action.

Yes.

It's, it's, you know, that kind of stuff needs, you know, clowning is difficult and annoying.

But it's difficult.

I don't know what you're talking about.

I see Doctor Who fans clowning on social media every day.

And so we get these middle episodes again.

So, uh, nothing really sort of seems to properly land there.

And it is making me think fondly of the velvet web and the screaming jungle and even old vase or wacky old vase or.

Um, you know, those were fun and interesting and light.

They were 25 minutes and then we were off, you know, there was even a sort of reasonable high concept one, I think, in the in the velvet web.

There was fun stuff going on.

Whereas here, like the thing on the Empire State building is fun or funny.

[30:21]

Like it just doesn't work.

It could have been funny.

It's also not fully thought through because it's 1966, they outright say.

And at no point, Ian and Barb, but turn to each other and go, what if we just took the elevator down?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I think there's a thing where Barbara says I never thought of this before, but we could get home now.

And I wonder whether that's a line of dialogue that's supposed to paper over it because I think they have actually thought about using the Dalek time machine to go back and get Vicky.

They've already thought of that.

So, yes, why don't they go home?

So that doesn't make any sense.

And I guess they're in a sort of terrible hurry or something or they don't want to abandon the doctor and Vicky, but no one even mentions it.

Like no one says anything.

I just wonder with the Empire State building scene, who saw that and thought, oh, yes, he could be a good companion.

Like, I mean, hip hop is a great actor.

He is.

He is actually a really good actor.

He's not good at being American.

[31:24]

Maybe they did that scene and like, damn, this man is a really good sport.

We can put him through all sorts of glory production schedules.

If we'll put up with that, He can deal with Billy Hartman.

I mean, maybe that was it.

Maybe he was.

He was like really good with William Hartner on the day and they've gone, oh, this is what I mean.

That was part of it.

He got really well with Bill.

Right, right.

I didn't know.

I didn't know.

So he was, like, he was really cast and then they said, can you come back in 2 weeks and be Stephen?

Is that, is that what happened?

Yeah, no, no, like they hadn't found someone to replace Jackie and William.

And so they were fishing around for an actor and they saw him and went, oh, he gets on with the both of them, especially Bill Harnell.

And why don't we ask him back?

Kevin, can I ask you a question?

Do you know anyone from Alabama and do they sound like that?

I have met several people from Alabama.

I was interacting with one just the other week.

They do have very strong accents.

[32:26]

In some ways, stronger than that, but nothing like it.

It felt like a strange, like, this is someone from 4 bits of America all at once.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And just the kind of them was trying to be taxan, I think. was something about that.

He sounded like Valeen from not slanting.

And then the guy, the guy doing the New York accent as well at the beginning is pretty terrible.

And again, he's delivering lines that are kind of meant to be funny.

The, you know, the quick way down and all of that.

Like that's not a funny joke, particularly, but it is a joke of some kind.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's your typical uh, joke that tour guy would tell. a very disaffected manner, but he's neither disaffected nor funny.

It's also a joke in need of payoff.

In order for that to be funny, you need to see somebody go over the edge by the end of it.

We should have seen a Dalek takeout Morton Dill.

It is funny that Morton Dill isn't killed as well.

[33:27]

And I guess because it is comedy, they don't want to do that, but it is sort of odd that they just leave and don't kill him.

It would have been funnier if they did.

Also would have given it some emotion.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that's kind of terrible.

I think they're Mary Celeste stuff, again, like is why, you know, like I don't get that either.

You can see Doctor Who in real time for decades after kick itself for blowing the Mary Celeste that early in that bad week.

You can just see Carnival of Monsters going, god damn it, we already did it.

It wouldn't have stopped them, though.

Really?

Oh, curse the back of curse of the black spot going, damn it, we can't do the Mary Celeste.

It is actually funny that some spinoff media has done it according to TARDIS Wikia, because it makes the point that the chase has since been contradicted at some point.

But it also, it's not the Mary Celest.

Mary.

It is a Mary, Mary.

Okay, so the other the only thing is the wiki actually notes that, and the wiki says, it's often misspelled as Mari.

[34:35]

Yeah, but it's actually M-AR.

So it says Mary Celeste on the thing.

Ian calls it the Mary Celeste, and then Barbara calls it the Mary Celeste.

Celeste, because she's her history picture.

So she actually does pronounce it wrongly.

And the subtitles on the on the DVD, at least, have her misspelling it as well.

And then we get the just the bafflingly odd journey into Terror episode.

And I think I remarked at the time what was interesting about it is the doctor's theory.

So this is another kind of idea that this is a comedy, isn't it?

Because the doctor comes up with the theory that they're in the human subconscious and he will not let that go.

No, and he's definitely...

Ian's just like, no.

Yeah, yeah.

But then we can't, and we see that it's the Festival of Ghana from 1996. by Peking, which is now called Beijing, and certainly at the point in future that it is, it would be Beijing.

[35:36]

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's 1996.

So it's the distant past.

It's the year I was born.

Wow.

I think I've got shirts, that old Kevin.

You may have a VHS that old.

You're a fishman for the human imagination.

I won a prize for best short story, but I write a under 25 that year.

I was 25.

It's bad in all sorts of ways.

But what is interesting, of course, is at this moment in the program.

It could be that the Tarness can land in the human subconscious.

You know what I mean?

And I think celestial toy maker, obviously, kind of makes it canonical that the doctor can land in weird spaces.

The mind robber, feel like. somewhere very strange.

Yeah, the land fiction for goodness sake.

I mean, what's that?

But a representation of a thing that is an important part of the human mind.

A liminal space.

[36:36]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, like, I like that idea.

Like, I think that idea is charming and it doesn't seem very terry nation-ish because he does tend to be sort of quite literal, I think.

He's so literal.

Yeah.

And here, I think the last time I podcasted about this, I explained that the doctor and the Daleks are attacked by a Dracula and a...

Frankenstein.

Like that's literally what we have here.

We don't have Dracula from the book and we don't have Frankenstein from the book.

We literally have them from like Hammer horror films or whatever.

Yeah.

And also, I don't understand why Dracula's voice has to be pre-recorded.

Because he's got a...

Because he can't get his mouth around the teeth.

It's so weird.

It's a statement on meta fiction and it's post-modern because Dracula just keeps reciting catchphrases. just like the Doctor Who companions have been reduced to it at this point.

I don't know something like that. love that.

There's supposed to be robots, aren't they?

[37:37]

Yeah, so like, I always read that as the reason, like, it's pre-recorded because they're robots and it's on a tape.

Right.

And so now is the doctor, a robotic amusement park attraction.

That's next week.

Dalek saw them and thought, this is a great idea.

They're like, oh, why couldn't we kill mostly convincing Doctor Who?

Maybe they were just like, hey, that robot absolutely just rocked our world and nearly broke us into little bits.

I bet we can do that to the humans.

And of course, the ghost, the gray lady is the famous Rosalind de Winter of insect movement by...

Yeah, yeah, pretty awesome.

Amazing.

The one who sort of gets exterminated without a sound effect.

Yes.

Does it actually take?

I can't tell if she's actually taken out by it or not. she keeps screaming.

Like a like a teenage girl at the shops.

[38:38]

But again, like that, none of that's really fun or menacing, and it doesn't work in any way, and there are some really bad kind of production errors in there with people just standing around waiting to start acting.

Is that the episode where Barbara's just standing with her back to everyone and doesn't think she's on camera?

Very odd.

Yeah, it's very odd.

And so I think what is fun.

I think it's Kevin who has kind of nailed what's fun about this, is that you're just hanging around with these guys while they don't have a proper Doctor Who story, but you get to see them in action together and there's a pleasure in that.

And, you know, again, we split the party up, so we get the girls and the boys separate and interacting and, you know, like nothing particularly thrilling is happening.

But we like them and we like hanging out with them.

I think my favourite part of, I think, episode five, maybe, is when they're talking about, oh, shouldn't the doctor pretend to be the robot and go outside and trick the Daleks?

[39:38]

They're like, oh no, that's a stupid idea.

And the doctor's like, and then just wanders off to do it.

It's tremendous.

I think that's great And it doesn't work.

There's a sense of graduation to the characters at some points here, just in general, of being able to know each other like that, or even, like in episode one, there's a moment where they're walking through in the desert and Vicky's just like, well, at least it is an acid pool, you know?

Like, this is all old after them, and that's kind of charming.

Like speaking of Richard Martin's terrible direction.

The throwaway of the line that reveals to them that it's the the robot is a robot is the robot is that he calls Vicky Susan.

Yes.

And that gets lost.

I, in fact, I noticed it this time, but I think I've failed to notice it for many years.

I don't think I was aware that that was what it was.

I thought it was because...

This was the time I realised that too.

Yeah, because it looked like someone else entirely.

Well, there was that as well.

[40:39]

But I thought at the time, because at that moment, I think that you're supposed to think that Barbara and Vicky, with our doctor, even though it looks nothing like him, that Bill Hartnell's playing the robot over here.

It wasn't a postage stamp.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, yeah, no, no, I know.

But I was watching it on my phone, to be fair.

Oh, yeah.

So you're like old school now.

Yeah, that's right. much higher reservation.

Yeah, that's right. 6251 screen.

Exactly.

So the structure here is very different from Keys of Mariners.

And Keys of Marinace basically has a one part story at the beginning, the sort of framing story, and then it has, you know, episodes two, three, and 4 are all individual stories, episode 5 spills over into episode six.

You get sort of one. 5 episodes on millennials, or in millennials, it's a town.

And then we go back to the Yardec leader of the alien Vord.

Here, though, it's like 2 kind of rather dismal episodes on a radius, then those 3 things, the flights are entirety, and then the Jody and Terra episode.

[41:44]

And then, you know, we have 2 episodes on the planet Mechanus, and that's probably the closest to actually having a Doctor Who story that we have.

But even then all we do is escape and let someone else kill the Daleks.

Maybe Terry Nation was out of ideas because he used so many of her keys and mariners.

You could only write a couple of, you know, post-it notes and a synopsis for episode one.

It's execution though.

Like the 1st half of Dalek Master plan is basically this again.

Yeah, no, it is.

No.

We go there, we'll go there, we'll go there, we'll go there.

And it's, but it's got a thrust and excitement.

And I think because it was ready more in time.

Because there is something going on.

I mean, the great thing about that is that that's like 3 months where Doctor Who just does this.

You know what I mean?

Where Doctor Who is about the time destructor and the Daleks wanting to kind of take over the solar system and stuff like that.

And like that's really compelling and interesting.

[42:46]

Whereas this is just 6 weeks of larking about.

And I guess the chase is a good idea.

I mean, if you're thinking about what to do with the Daleks next.

Like the one thing that Terry does manage to do very well, I think, which he doesn't do in the Pertuy era, is to get the dialects to do something really significantly different each time or get them in a significantly different kind of environment each time.

And so, you know, it's their home planet and they're set up and then it's, they invade Earth, which is incredibly striking and interesting and, and, you know, gives some great visuals even though Richard Martin's directing them.

And then you get the chase, which again, you know, like he, he, the Daleks are now the doctor's opposite.

You know, they've graduated to becoming his greatest enemy and they can do what he does.

And so they actually fundamentally change the structure of the program.

You know, the idea that there's someone else travelling in space.

It's like Carolyn Seymour is the evil leaper or even, you know, in the next story where we get another person from the doctor's planet.

[43:49]

We see another TARDIS, which is slightly spoiled by this, the sort of dumber Tardis. this story.

And then the dialects master plan. like those all those kick things up a notch and and do do something new and interesting.

Whereas Planet of the Daleks is just kind of the Daleks warmed over and Death of the Daleks is Planet of the Daleks kind of warmed over as well.

And both of them have charms, like I'm a big fan of both of those stories, but they're not super new or inventive in the way that these 60s Dalek cereals are that Terry does.

But I mean, the problem is that the chase is the brilliant idea and we're kind of out of ideas after that, basically.

I feel like, so I don't know about you guys.

I used to read a lot of the books, like the Terrence Dick's books.

So shows that I'd never seen were really lurid in my imagination.

And then I would see them, things like...

The Taylor Convasion of Earth, which is a great book.

[44:51]

It's really exciting.

And then it's like a bit of a slog. with Belaclava Jenny pushing tortmund around from days on end.

But the same happens in reverse.

Like when I see something like this, I watch it and I go, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's limitations.

It's you know, the 60s are difficult.

The direction is terrible.

There's people standing in front of the speakers all the time.

But my brain goes to novel land.

So in a way, I remember this in a really exciting way.

Like this is a really exciting story where heaps of stuff happens.

Like that Frankenstein's monster picking up a Dalek and throwing it is amazing in my head, even though it's quite prosaic on screen.

And it should be incredible because it's it's a dalek having the better gotten of it.

Like it's, it's happening.

We've never seen a dialect picked up and thrown.

Actually, have.

In the evasion of Earth.

Oh, yes.

Which is very funny there too.

[45:53]

Yeah, yeah, it falls in half there too.

Yeah, yeah.

The dalek that falls off the Mary Celeste also falls in half, doesn't it?

Like it is just a feed.

Yes, it hits the water and just...

This one that almost falls in half as it comes onto the screen in this...

On a radio, I think it's like...

Wobbling.

One of the Dalek operators, at one point, lifts up the casing and walks.

Like, and walks to get over, like, a camera cable or something.

But yeah, in my head, this is incredible.

And I think it has the bones of a fun story.

It's just that it's, yeah.

And like you were saying earlier, Kevin, about the, you know, spending time with the people.

Like, watching Barbara make a dress for Vicky, like, oh, how often did this go on?

All the time?

Almost certainly.

That awful noise.

That's wonderful, isn't it?

No, no.

They are an awful noise.

It's terrific.

[46:53]

So much fun.

Barbara couldn't make a dress for Susan because she couldn't trust her with the scissors.

Yeah, I think that was it.

That's why there were scissors, though, I think. isn't it?

That's why there were scissors.

There was some dressmaking going on.

My mother used to make dresses.

It just seems like an extraordinary thing.

I never got to wear any of them.

Oh my mum used to make them all the time.

Get your simplicity and your butterick patterns.

It's incredible, isn't it?

It's very odd thing.

I mean, I was excited to work on a TV show called The Chase because it was named after...

I was so disappointed when it wasn't based on the chase. a game show.

I was so disappointed.

It did have a Doctor Who companion.

Weren't they going to make this into a movie at one point too?

like a 3rd Dalek movie, that was this.

Yeah, so bizarrely.

So we have the mechanism.

After you were even.

[47:54]

So we have the mechanoids and the mechanoids, I think, are actually kind of maybe the best thing about this.

They make 3 of them.

There seem to be 3 physical props.

They're massive.

You know what I mean?

So, I mean, that scene where they're all in the lift with it, like, right up against it because they're in this sort of tiny set.

It was kind of adorable.

There's 2 of them, one trying to get past the other one. just keep reversing it, going forward, reversing people.

In fact, they're actually some powers.

But 3 of them caught fire because for actually Lambert kept trying to light her cigarette. gun.

But I mean, they're great.

And, you know, again, it's the usual thing.

I mean, they're just robots.

So apparently any kind of robot can really defeat the Daleks.

It can be, you know, a fake Dracula in a haunted house for a festival or something like a scary haunted house.

And these are just servants, aren't they?

They're kind of designed to kind of build the city and look after the people.

[48:57]

Oh, why couldn't we get the planet of the robot Dracula?

Oh, yeah, that would have been great.

Imagine if they sent a whole bunch of Draculas ahead to build the city. popping in to say something, not even swishing a cape.

And so the idea, the way that they speak as well, that's a code, and so if you can understand the code, then they'll make you dinner and do everything that you tell them to do, but no one can understand the code.

I'm just imagining Dracula doing that dialogue English.

Stop.

The code is impenetrable, like much many of our computers today.

Like if we had to like work this computer and just type into the code, I'd be like, no, I've broken.

I don't know how works.

So I think that they're, I mean, I think that they are cool.

I think that the city looks incredible.

The city looks just absolutely amazing.

That model is great.

You know, every bit, I think, is good as the original...

I love all the retrofuturism, but it was just futurism back then, obviously. exactly.

[49:59]

I do think they feel a little undercooked though.

It feels like an interesting visual design, an interesting concept, and we just don't spend any time with them to make them interesting.

Yeah, to make the sets work as part of the model.

Like there's a couple of little shots of tiny little, tiny little... adorable. one of those.

Have you watched the Constring series where the Daleks and the Mechanoids?

Yes.

Hang on. don't remember a thing about that.

Doesn't Ashley Mahindra play one of them?

Yeah, she does.

She plays a mechanoid or a darling?

She plays a mechanoid.

Does she really?

That's awesome.

It's part she was born to play.

I do love the mechanoids.

I especially love the way they hurt the Daleks by giving them a little hug.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Just get their little pincers out and going, oh, little.

Maybe that's what's killing them.

It's kindness.

They are allergic to kindness.

Stop it, stop it.

I do not like being touched either figuratively.

[50:59]

Oh, literally.

Can I just say, though, that we're on film for those scenes at the end.

Like the big climactic battle and it's actually pretty good, I think.

I don't think Richard turned up to the filming days. you think?

You think if that's possible.

Yeah, because the boat scene is amazing where everyone's being thrown off, like that's all quite terrifying.

Um, the, the stuff on a radio looks great when they're on a film, like all the stuff on film feels like they've sent the 2nd unit.

Who is someone good?

Because, I mean, sometimes film, you know, like we observed on flights through entirety that Colin Baker's performance is much better on film than it is in the studio.

And I think just because there's a level of realism, you know, the believability around just kind of being on location that kind of helps the performers.

And, you know, there's more space, like Martin has more space, he's got film cameras.

Because, I mean, it's not a battle that makes any sense, really.

[51:59]

It is more like a comic strip, isn't it?

Like you see bits and pieces.

It's very kind of pop art in a way.

You know, the, you know, the recut version of the Daleks that Benjamin Quinn.

Oh, the colourful... that makes it kind of pop artie in a way that the Daleks isn't at all.

Like the Daleks is rather daggy and kind of early 60s.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. sort of late 50s in a way. you know, the long 50s really, right?

In the 1960s.

But I do think that the Daleks versus the mechanoids at the end is very kind of pop art and...

Like, that's the other thing. there's editing with film.

Like, you know, we know that the videotape was almost impossible to edit.

So everything had to be done as live. which is why there are so many when you're Martinell mess ups because it's like, just keep going. do this again.

Because I've got to do the whole thing from the beginning.

And and maybe Richard, if it is Richard Martin who's running the film set, maybe he's just no good at studio.

[53:03]

Yeah, maybe this is a limitation.

He's trying to get like big high angle shots and getting the curtains in.

He's trying to do that weird thing where William Hartnell was operating the TARDIS, but it's the camera.

Also, I think too, that like when he fails, he fails in a particularly studio way.

Like he fails at doing the big fights in the studio because it all has to be done. as live and the cameras can't keep up with what he wants to do and he hasn't somehow learned that that's an ongoing problem.

But I do think that that is really great.

And I also think the stuff at the end is really great.

I mean, let's talk about the big cast changes that happen at the end of this story.

I think Peter Purvis is incredibly charming immediately.

Immediately.

Yeah, just so good.

And he's going to carry the program.

I know.

I know.

Which they never bring back, which is very upsetting.

It did die in the fire, I'm afraid.

I didn't want to break it to you, Kevin.

It's upsetting No, it was carrying a chest he was running.

[54:06]

TARDIS.

All right, sorry.

Okay, just drops it.

It was a burnt syndrome.

I'm sure Big Finnish have a box set about it to be coming out any day now.

Isn't it Iris Wild Time's best friend?

I'm going to say, hasn't Paul Mars wishing many books about him?

So, so, I mean, I just think he's superb instantly.

And the doctor's reaction to him is wonderful, isn't it?

Like, I'm glad to meet you, Stephen Taylor.

Like instead of being grumpy like you might expect or something like that, he's just absolutely charmed by him instantly.

And it's Peter Purvis that we have to thank, I think, for, you know, the success of that run at the beginning of series three, I think.

You know, he's just properly good and can hold up the show.

He's the leading man.

He's really great.

Yeah.

I mean, one of my favourite quotes ever about Doctor Who from Not we is in The Wife in Space where she says, why isn't this show called Ian?

[55:10]

Yeah, Doctor Who does nothing?

I have to say, the biggest ignominy of this entire 6 parts is the sacrilege that's committed against the barbarian. when Ian just uses it to trap a Dalek into a hole.

It's I can't steal. 2nd story in a row because in the previous story, he unravels the cardigan in order to find the way through the museum.

And so when he asks for her cardian, she says, oh, not again.

Yes.

And then she puts on a card, she can buy more now.

But she does put on that thing and Ian calls it her battle dress, which I just think is absolutely great.

And it's a superb outfit.

I mean, those outfits with the slacks that Barbara wears are so good.

It's a tactle neck.

It is a tactle neck.

She looks magnificent, you know.

She's amazing in everything.

She always like, Barbara is the best thing in the 1st 2 seasons of this show.

[56:11]

Oh, yeah, I've heard so much.

This entire show, to be honest. how much she wants to look at things.

Like as soon as they're on the Maricelesse.

I've got to look at a boat.

I love a boat.

It's wonderful.

But I, and, and so I actually found.

So my flight through entirety, which flight through entirety itself caught up with, was that I just wanted to watch the Barbara era all the way through.

Like I just wanted to see all of her things.

It was the 1st time that I ever watched a recon.

I was watching Marco Polo in that in that run.

And then I just ended up watching it all the way through because Flight Through Entirety happened and caught up with like caught up with the watch through.

And it's the only time I've done the fly through entirety is for that.

Like, those 2 are so great.

And the way that that story ends.

Like the way that they do the ending, and I had always thought that they didn't do the scene where Barbara and Ian and the doctor say goodbye, that we don't see that.

[57:14]

So we see the fight and we see the doctor's reaction.

We see Vicky persuading him to help them.

Then we see them go into the Dardus, I guess.

DARDIS.

And then just Vicky and the doctor leave and we never actually see the scene where they say goodbye.

And I thought that was a mistake, but I don't think that now.

I think I think that that that would have been too hard to watch.

And what I found really properly moving this time was how sad the doctor is when he leaves the when he leaves the dialect time capsule.

He's really properly sad and you're very rarely asked to sympathise with the doctor.

Do you remember the shock that you feel when Christopher Eccleston tears up in the end of the world and you sort of think, 0 my god, the doctor has feelings.

I've forgotten.

Same as at the end of the Green Death. like the...

Yeah.

[58:14]

John Pertwee's doctor just being like, I'm glad she's happy, but I'm not happy.

Yeah.

But I just found that really heartbreaking, particularly since the doctor, the doctor is very silly and grumpy.

You know, like he can't express how much he loves them in any other way than just getting super cross with them.

It's a tantrum.

Yeah, throwing a tantrum.

It is.

He like a child.

He's not in charge of his emotions.

He's his granddaughter out.

Then leaves her.

With a little...

I think this is so much better because Barbara is an adult and can hold her own to him.

So we get the actual butting of heads of what they want rather than the doctor choosing for them.

And for one last time, too.

Do you know what I mean?

Like she she gets to sum up the relationship as well.

Like all of those things that we think are kind of new series things or, you know, like Dodo gets sent to live in a farm on the country or something like that, you know, like all of those terrible companion departures that we have for just contract roulette reasons throughout the run of the show.

[59:19]

Whereas this is really properly considered, it's the 1st good companion departure.

And, you know, like our 2nd good kind of replacement cast member arriving.

Those are both done well, aren't they?

The rescue's great.

You know, Stephen arriving here is great.

I mean, this companion departure is still, I think, one of the most affecting ones in the history of the show.

It's really properly.

Also because it's joyous.

Like so many times companions leave and it's like, oh, it's sad.

I want to travel in time in Spain.

I want to be in the show.

I'm really sad.

Yeah, I don't want to go and live with these weird people in the 60s, but here I am.

Yeah, I'm from the Victorian era.

Well, I try to play some seaweed, but for some reason, looks like soap.

I think a lot of the like happy companions leaving on their own terms, departures don't really get what makes this work because the companions walk off a little too easily.

There's been a lot of, you know, I remember a lot of people praising the departures under Jody Whitaker's tenure for being like, well, they were happy.

[1:00:23]

They weren't the end of the world, all that.

It's like, well, sure, but they didn't leave an emotional impact whatsoever.

It wasn't even a drop in the puddle.

Whereas this, you actually get to feel the sad feelings as well as the joy and it feels more complete.

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

We'll be back next week for a completely doctor free episode in mission to the unknown.

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

[1:01:30]

Until next time, we'll be waiting for you here in the dark recesses of the human minds.

Thank you very much for listening and good night.

Good night.

Ta-ta.

Good night.

That was 500 year diary starring Nathan Bottomley, Kevin Bernard, Adam Richard, and James Selwood.

The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.

This episode, pushed up in the schedule, was recorded on the 6th of June 2026 and released on the 6th of August.

If you've got time after the tag this week will be including a loving and affectionate musical tribute to the work of Terry Nation, brought to you by Peter and Simon.

So stay tuned.

[1:02:37]

What do you think?

What are we, sort of, an hour and 21 minutes?

Oh, really?

I reckon we probably have it now.

I reckon there's probably an out there, for sure.

That was so much fun.

I could have done that for another hour and a half . thought it was about 30 minutes.

Yeah, no, it's like an hour and 22 We've got recording there, hour and 20.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

But yeah, unless anyone has any sort of closing statement, but I think we did end on the departure.

Yeah.

I think it's it's fun.

Like it's it's badly handled.

It's a mess behind the scenes, obviously, but everyone on screen is having a good time and that's kind of infectious. like you never buy into how the Daleks are clearly being lifted and pulled across things.

There wheels on the bottom of the tartars.

There's swathes of canvas, but everyone is selling it so much that you're like, oh, yeah, that's just what it looks like on that planet, maybe.

I mean, I have never read the, I've never read the book.

[1:03:38]

I've never...

It's a John Peel, isn't it?

Understood?

Oh, I don't know.

I think it's a later book.

I don't think it's great. sort of ideas, you know.

Yeah, okay.

All right.

Well, I think I think, what do you think?

I think we might be done.

You think?

Yeah.

All right, I don't have to do it.

It is a John Peel.

It is a John Peel.

So it's not going to be funny.

It's not going to be even slightly funny. might even be an actual rape in it.

It might be funny without realising it, which would be the truest possible statement to this story.

Doesn't he set the dialects in 1863 or something?

Like, I think he thinks the Daleks are said in the 19th century.

I once did.

I once very briefly had a Twitter account called Doctor Who Facts, and I used to post facts, like, um, Toda Lemcoff is the only homosexual ever to work in the cast or crew of Doctor Who, or um, Jill, Jill Tarrant, that's the only actress that appears in any Terry Nation story.

[1:04:49]

Stuff like that.

Or, you know, 6 production eras in the Colin Baker era.

The script for time lash 2 not sufficiently thick to ward off and assault from Gary Downey.

I can't remember where I was going with that.

I don't know but it was fun.

It was John Teal and it was funny.

John Teal.

No, it was, it was, it was something like 6 Doctor Who stories said in 18, 1863, and it was like Ghostlight, Genesis of the Daleks, and I don't know the savages or something.

I can't remember.

But John Peel, I think, does said it in 1863.

In my imagination.

I see terry nation.

Right in the same script each time.

In his mind, a delegation With trance is insulation.

[1:05:51]

And slaves are made to mine With no imagination.

Here comes Terry Nation.

There's radiation everywhere in space place.

By halfway through part four.

They're cutting through the door.

There's so much you can do with bombs in Doctor Who.

We love Terry Nation Mass extermination.

We love Terry Nation, yeah.

We love Terry Nation, Collin incubation We love Terry Nation, yeah.

It's a crazy situation To think of terry nation.

[1:06:53]

Adding space to everything.

There'll be dollics, every story.

Taryn and Mark Cory.

And slithers, slithering There's no imagination.

And little complication to my upbeasts, Mara and magic gem.

The core's on desperate.

We're born on Mechanus.

But you can name the falls With just two syllables.

We love Terry Nation.

Space communication.

We love Terry name.

Nation, yeah We love Jerry Nation, sentient, vegetation.

[1:07:56]

We love terry nation, yeah.

With no imagination.

Here comes Terry Nation.

And now we realise that all his cliches.

Our presence in each script.

Which is mostly ripped off Dalek's master plan.

He's Terry, so he can.

We love Terry Nation.

Mining operation.

We love cherry nation.

We love cherry nation, same plot on rotation.

We love cherry nation.

We love cherry nation Rock home frustration But we love c Nation, yeah We love terry nation, but all Their creation.

[1:09:12]

We love cry Yeah