Goon Daleks

[00:34]

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to 500 Year Diary, the only Doctor Who podcast where a bunch of space chums get together to talk about spaceships, space powers and space, you know, hats.

I'm Nathan.

I'm Fiona.

I'm Peter.

And I'm Simon.

It's the 23rd of February, 1974.

It's been just about 10.5 months since Terry Nation returned to Doctor Who to drop a space expedition onto a 3 syllable planet, and tonight 8.100000 people have tuned in to watch him do it again.

But what happens when some daleks and some rubbery alien cultists come face to face with some nice people you might meet at a drinks party at Margot Ledbedters?

Let's find out as we discuss Death to the Dialects.

[01:44]

I've said this before on the podcast, but on the 20th of June, 1978, iTuned in to watch Death to the Daleks part one on the ABC, and it was the 1st time that I had ever watched Doctor Who.

I mean, what a story to hook you.

Yeah, I'm not sure that I would have kept watching after.

I have to say, though, that so this is Michael E. Bryant, isn't it?

And the 1st episode, I think, is incredibly atmospheric.

Like it is really, really good and I do think this is the kind of thing.

Like, this isn't the Doctor Who that I prefer so much now.

But I do think it is the perfect Doctor Who for a 10 year old to tune in and watch.

I mean, I think no matter what you think of the rest of the story, and I happen to think very highly of it, so that is heresy, Fiona, and I'm going to sacrifice you to something in the tunnels.

Don't get to wear a fancy frog.

You absolutely can.

[02:46]

I think episode one is a masterpiece of moodiness.

I mean, it's really, really well shot on location.

But as good as episode one is.

I have a confession to make that, like Nathan, the 1st dog who I saw was season 11 on its 1st run in Australia in 1976 on Friday night.

Still, I think we had a black and white television.

But come 1983, Death to Daleks, episode one, is the 1st episode of Dog 2 I willingly missed.

Oh, wow.

I know.

There was a counteroffer because I used to walk to my mother's work from school and so I was 11 in 1983.

I walked down.

It was a Thursday night.

The sites Doctor Who broadcast tells me that it was the 11th of August, 1983, which is amazing.

And mum said it was Thursday night.

She said, do you want to get McDonald's and I was looking at the time ticking down and I thought, well, Doctor Who's on, but I do want to get McDonald's.

And she said, is it one you've seen before?

And I said, yes, it was one I had seen by that point 3 times before. 1976, 78, and 79.

[03:52]

So we went to McDonald's.

I got my happy meal and we sat there and I watched the time ticked down past 6.30 with this incredible sinking feeling of what have I done?

Peter, that admission can only bring you incredible shame.

I'm sorry, because the very important word that you were missing out there was the word only.

Three times.

You may have seen it 3 times, but basically 3 times is not enough to sacrifice it for a McDonald's happy meal of all things.

I think you're going to say something like it was a Blake 7 event. decided to miss it four.

What is all this talk of sacrifice, I'm hearing.

Anyway, look, my 1st experience with the story is actually the 1st episode that you elected to not watch because I came in at the very end of the previous pert we run in 1979.

So my 1st story was playing on the spiders, which I've mentioned before.

So this was my 1st chance to see it. when you were willingly missing it.

And it was just another, I mean, it was just another pertly story for me by that point.

I wasn't looking forward to it.

I didn't have any kind of hype around it from what I'd read.

[04:54]

Don't think I might have read the novelisation, but then I don't know.

But yes, it was just another Doctor Who story.

But yes, I mean, the 1st episode is very atmospheric.

A lot of, so much of the good part of the story, and there are many bad things which I'll come to later, but so much of the good is not just the music, but the soundscape.

Yeah, yeah.

So often they go together and so often those saxophones are used by Kerry Blyton to communicate atmosphere and especially in the bleaker moments and more frightening moments of that 1st episode where, for instance, Sarah is beating the excellon over the head with the crank thing that's opened the TARDIS door.

It's a terrible thing to say about John Purwin.

It's actually quite awful.

And actually, I wonder whether such a sequence would be allowed to be made today.

That soundscape is incredible because those weird kind of echoing sounds that you get on the landscape of Excelon at night.

And it sounds like sort of water drips in the background and it's very, very evocative.

The entire episode, I think, is a masterpiece of Doctor Who Inis.

[06:00]

I found the most striking sound thing in that 1st episode is the Tartar set without the hum, but with additional reverb as well.

So it seems really empty and you've got Sarah saying that it's dead and things and it's surprising.

It's 6 and 11 and it's never occurred to us to do this before.

And it's really striking.

I was kind of thinking, Doctor Who tries not to be too dark because it's basically on a small screen in the corner of a well lit room, probably.

And so it needs to read like there's something on the screen.

Oh, you mean like visually dark as opposed to metaphorically.

No, no, no, just visually dark.

And they do do an incredible job of turning the lights off.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, that is really striking and and, you know, that's my 1st experience of the TARD, so it wasn't sort of as surprising. or a tick.

Yeah, amazing stuff.

And I'm tuning in, of course, because the Daleks are here.

And my 1st introduction to Doctor Who had been the Doctor Who Monster book, the 2nd edition, so I had seen the dialects in that, and then my friend, Luke, said the Daleks are on tonight.

[07:11]

You should tune in.

Wow, so you actually knew about the show and the Daleks and it was because of a book that you watched this for the 1st time as opposed to discovering it because you happened to have the television on.

Yeah.

Also, it's amazing that you'd read about Genesis of the Dialects before you saw Death to Alex, and so you were chronologically correct.

Fiona.

What was your 1st experience of this?

you remember?

I remember being actually really quite frightened watching it as a child.

So I'm not sure when the 1st per we, what was the date that Peter mentioned for the 1st run?

76, yeah.

Friday nights.

So I would have been about 6 and I definitely know that I was watching Doctor Who then because of my junior primary school teacher, she was a Doctor Who fan.

And yeah, I had the experience because it was in black and white TV that when people started to get colour TV, I had to ask somebody what the colour was of the Tartars when I wanted to draw a picture of the Tartars.

And when they said blue, I didn't believe them.

[08:13]

But I remember just being very scared by some of these atmospheric scenes that Peter is alluding to.

And also just simple things like the flashing light on the top of the Exalon City.

It seems just such a simple image, but as a child, that was terrifying.

And, I mean, even the vacuum cleaner monster, which seemed...

I was just going, this is really bad watching this.

I watched it at age 6.

Like, it really was, like, that was really terrifying.

But the weird thing was that most of that 1st episode scene in the TARDIS.

I actually was watching going, I actually have no memory of watching this bef previously, and that kind of threw me a little bit because I was kind of expecting it to be like, 0 yeah, def to the Daleks, da, da, da, da.

And apart from the, like, I definitely remembered this episode one cliffhanger when the Daleks arrive.

But a lot of that stuff prior, um, and especially that they were going to the beach and everything like that, and Sarah comes out in, uh, my only member of, like, a Sarah at the end of this, uh, Seeds of Doom, um, where she's in the polka dot, bikini, and, um, yeah, there's another sort of um, thing where they have, there was another trip where she was meant to be going to the seaside that didn't happen.

[09:27]

Um, but yeah, that kind of threw me a bit on the rewatch seeing that I just didn't remember watching this before and obviously I would have.

Fiona, you wouldn't have had a memory of watching that 1st scene where the member of the scientific team gets shot with an arrow, because of course that was cut from all Australian transmissions.

And that's more effective, I think, in the normalisation because I think we help ourselves to some more spears and arrows.

It's a longer scene, a much longer scene.

I think it starts, he was a dead man running.

Is it a prologue rather than being chapter one?

one of those fantastic Terrence Sticks opening line?

It's funny because it's a prologue.

And because, of course, we hadn't seen that scene in Australia.

I just assumed it was one of those scenes that are added into the novelisation.

Yeah.

Whereas this, it's very short.

We do see a bit of Terry Walsh in this and there's terribly obvious when Galloway wrestles the doctor to the ground. very much Terry Walsh as Doctor Who.

[10:29]

But that sort of Terry Walsh, we only get one arrow.

I have to say, though, in episode 2 where they're firing arrows at each other quite a lot.

I am there wondering kind of, that does seem quite dangerous.

It does seem a little dangerous.

I mean... sound, again, the sound. that makes you think about it because I'm sure that would have been added, that that's not a sound that you've heard.

I mean, the other thing, you know, Fiona mentioned how striking and frightening the beacon on the top of the city was, but I think that it's equally the sound that is made by that line.

That warbling kind of...

Yeah.

Which is very evocative.

Yeah.

You know, absolutely going back to the sound design again.

Subtlety is like the arrows whooshing into the sand, the sound of the Excelon city.

The way sometimes the incidental music, the saxophones almost digestically, sometimes the added reverb, as you mentioned before, Nathan, on the dead Tartars, the added reverb added to the excellence when they're chanting.

I mean, there's a whole lot of stuff which you lift, what, I'm afraid to say from my point of view, is an otherwise kind of middle of the road story.

[11:36]

Yeah, it really does lift it.

And also, I think, um, this could have been quite a straightforward story, but that weird honking incidental score that Kerry Blythe Nads, which is like his music for Dr. and Salurians, and like his music for Revenge of the Sidemen.

Yes and no. actually adds a level of whimsy to the story, which I think makes it much more Doctor Whoey.

Now, if we're going here now, everything in this musical score is probably the best he does out of those 3 stories, with the exception of the theme he gives the Daleks, which is somehow suddenly very panto, when you consider how incredibly dark and mature, a lot of the music is in episode one and answer out the story.

But then as soon as he introduces that Dalek theme, it's like, wow, this is now a bit twee and trite.

Now, yes, there is music in revenge and there's music in Salurians, which has also got a certain triteness to it, but that kind of Silurians theme, is still better for me than the theme he gives the Daleks.

[12:40]

And it's an interesting choice because you've got saxophones mixed with percussion as well.

And it just, like his other scores, is completely different from everything that we get around it.

And that's the other reason why I think it stands out.

The only other thing I was going to mention about the arrows and how sort of like you do feel like I'm actually flinching.

I don't really flinch very much in classic Doctor Who, it must be said, at my advanced age now.

But I, I, Different kind of flint.

But the flinching because of the arrows is unfortunately let down, the fact that they're all cowering in a beautifully rectangularly dug pin, which is fine until we see the shot, which is like, come on, Michael.

Just think about that.

You're better than that.

That's a, we've run out of time, shot.

That's who we're running.

Oh, please.

Pet and Robin.

Let's talk about the Daleks, and then I think we'll move on and talk about Terry Nation more generally.

[13:42]

I think I may have said in the flight through entirety episode that this is my favourite kind of dialect livery.

And the Daleks themselves.

Are there 3 of them?

There's a bunch of props. 3 in an empty prop, I think.

There's 3 in an empty prob.

Yeah, so what they did was they created six sort of fake props for Planet of the Daleks and they just kind of like sat in the background and got wheeled into water and stuff like this and they called them goondaleks and they put them up the back.

And actually, they work fairly well.

And again, this is slightly a lapse in direction.

They work fairly well if they're placed in the background.

You don't really notice them.

But if they're pushed forward into a scene, and all the other 3 dialects are doing what the Dalek operators do so well, and they're fidgeting, they're moving and the ice stalks are moving around and they're sort of fidgeting on the spot, and then there's this one inert goon sat there and you think, have you gone to sleep?

But why?

I mean, but why?

That shot where you've got the 4 of them having the little conference after they've just arrived in front of the humans realise they don't have any power.

So, as you said, those 3 daleks are fidgeting beautifully just as you want them to.

[14:44]

And the 4th one is still.

Again, just have the 3 in that shot because it looks so even when you're an eight-year-old watching this on a tiny screen in the corner of your living room, it looks a bit NAF, surely.

Yeah, it's a failure of direction, I think, but I do appreciate the fact that we have these goon garlics, which means that they can do things, like set them alight and push them over the edge of the cliffs. into trash it, right?

They do.

And that gives us some of the most striking images of the story with the Daleks in flames.

Yeah.

The novelisation cover.

The novelisation cover indeed.

Although that one's kind of more exploding.

More impressively than we see on screen.

Funny that.

That's what happened after we cut away from the one in episode four, which said Am exterminated Amic Stone.

Look, I was reading, and I don't know whether I cannot claim that this is a reliable source, because I merely found it on the internet.

My impression, having rewatched it, was that I felt the Dalek props were all looking pretty shabby.

[15:44]

But whatever they do for Genesis, they pimp them up because a lot of their slats are on slightly crooked.

The top bits aren't flush and level, sometimes.

Now, admittedly, there's an awful lot of them on a sandy location and I suspect that outside the studio environment, It's harder to get everything working.

They've got less time and so on and so on.

Maybe it's just that.

I do think they just feel shabbier.

And so I don't know whether they were blowing them up and doing the rest of it because they were thinking, well, this is the end of the life of these ones.

Do you know what might have contributed to that?

Michael E. Bryant experimented with rehearse record.

And so they were rehearsing and then recording shots.

On film?

No, in the studio.

And so they were actually, rather than having a big rehearsal period in the afternoon and then filming in the evening in a block.

They did rehearse record throughout the day, which meant that it might have been difficult to have kept the Dalek props in good working order as they were going.

Also, having spoken to Michael Bryant, ding in 1995 in Amsterdam, Simon, you were there.

Oh, wow.

That's right.

He said that he painted them silver because, of course, he'd worked on the Dalek stories in the 1960s as an AFM, and his memory was that the Dalek should be silver, and so he painted them that rather than the gray of Day of the Dialect.

[16:53]

So Day of the Daleks, that livery is the same as the livery in Genesis of the Daleks.

Is that right?

and Planet of the Dialects.

Okay.

I mean, I think it looks really striking.

I do quite like the silver and black.

I think it does look good.

Yes, they look they look different to what you used to.

Like sometimes when you see either the console or the police box prop and even within a series of stories, sometimes you think, oh, God, that hasn't been looked after, well, has it?

assembled very well.

There's a moment where it shudders, I think.

Well, that's indicate that it's arriving like a crash land. right. one of those great sort of idiosyncratic TARDIS landings.

It's like the noise going backwards in spearhead from space or it just popping onto location.

Colony.

It's like relish as a child.

It does look pretty amazing, but it does look very rickety though.

Fiona, do you have anything to say about rickety tardises or Daleks?

Well, I like the way that the Daleks had these little model Tartars that they, that was the printer kind of thing that they could just rustle up all these things to little target practice with the Tartars.

[18:02]

I thought that was that was probably my favourite Darlic moment.

Also, how did they get that?

Because isn't that the same little TARDIS that kind of Orum fishes out of the scope and carnival of monsters?

Like people say that this is a fresh new take on the Daleks, because they are...

Yeah, I know.

It's just like, basically for a scene they can't shoot anyone and then they just get different guns and then they find.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, one might think that if David Whitaker had been handed this premise.

He's more interested in the Daleks as Machiavellian characters.

And I think he possibly would have made more of that scenario rather than being handed that incredible premise of the Daleks have no firepower, and so therefore they have to work with the humans.

And then basically wishing it away in the 1st scene of episode two.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes, I mean, this story could have been called also Power of the Dalek. secondary power of the Daleks.

[19:02]

Yeah, yeah.

I think it is just a way of getting out of the episode one, Cliffhanger.

It a pretty great cliffhanger where they just come out and gun everyone down.

Although we do get quite an extended close-up of the gun, not doing anything. anything.

But I love that noise.

But I mean, yeah, I mean, obviously, but it's much better than someone coming on and saying, wait.

But, I mean, there is something that doesn't make sense, of course, in, you know, the Daleks themselves.

The machine itself needs power.

It's not just the gun.

With psycho kinetic power, I think you'll find.

I thought it was static electricity.

David Whitaker taught.

Yeah, no, it was.

There is a line of dialogue that kind of just explains that way.

I missed that.

I mean, you know, flossing my teeth.

Simon, you were too engrossed.

Gross.

I was letting the magic wash over.

We have to hand it to Terry because he understands all the potency of all those kind of ancient adventure tropes, like kind of lost civilisations and sacrifices and things like that.

[20:07]

And would you believe this is only the 2nd time in Doctor Who that the doctor and his companions have been threatened with sacrifice.

Really?

Are you saying the demons is the previous one?

No, that's Joe offering herself the sacrifice.

No, she was going to be sacrificed before then.

This is only the 3rd time in Doctor Who. where the doctor and or his companions were offered for sacrifice.

There's Joe and the Demons, and there's also the underwater menace, but I mean, this is kind of an ancient civilisation sacrificing them.

And I think the potency, you know, we've been dulled to the potency of those tropes. they became tropes and they became a bit old hat because they work so well.

They're such great dramatic devices.

I did in our flight through entirety season 18 coverage declare that there was to be a moratorium on sacrificing the doctor and or his companions, but I'd really had enough of it.

Sarah gets a fairly, yeah.

How many times does she get sacrificed?

Well, I was just worried about cleaning up that big rock that was going to fall on Tom Baker.

Like, it was just like, who was going to clean up after that?

[21:09]

Oh, you know, the lessers.

But what you're talking about, Peter, though, is the tropes of like the science fiction theme movie of the 50s.

And I'm not saying that in a majority of way.

That is, as we've kind of touched on before going back to brains in jars.

That's what Terry Nation did with Doctor Who. what he was steeped in growing up.

Yes, it's what he was steeped in, but also it's what he did to Dr. Who, where, you know, Sidney Newman didn't want brains in jars.

He didn't want bug eyed monsters.

Terry Nation basically says, well, we're doing them.

This is what's happening.

And of course, the show's an enormous success, but I still maintain that the show does it differently and better than most of those films did.

We spend a lot of time, I think, on FDA talking about H-Rider, Haggard, as a possible source for this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

This is full of Terry's preoccupations and especially, I mean, he's always been utterly focussed on kind of the downfall of civilisation and what that means.

And, you know, obviously in survivors, there's a lot of Blake 7 episodes which are about reverting to primitivism.

[22:11]

I think there might actually be a quote from Blake in Blake 7 reverting to primitivism.

We see it in Doctor Who.

There Scaro, there's obviously like 22nd century earth, even places like Aridius.

And the reason that these things work well is they are terrination tropes and terrination tropes are Doctor Who tropes.

He is the one who creates the series as we know it.

And so we come to think of this as being a generic dog 2 story, whereas actually it's classic Doctor Who story.

Yes, it's not, I wouldn't, I don't want to say, I mean, one of the reasons I was saying that this is a very middle, for me, this is still a very middling Doctor Who story.

It's not necessarily because I feel it's retreading old grounds or it's cliched.

It's just missing a certain magic that I see in top drawer ones.

But you're absolutely right that the way he treats those things.

It's always about the fall of civilisation.

There's decay.

It's a fascination with how's all this going to end.

Certainly by the time he's writing this story.

Less so when he's writing, you know, the early 60s stories.

There is this sense of Britain as the Empire and Decline.

[23:14]

You know, they may have won the war, but they've lost their empire.

You don't really see a reversal of that until Thatcher in the 80s.

I mean, they talk about in the 70s about managing the decline.

It's like what we have sort of now with our fear over AI, is an AI going to turn us on's paper clips kind of thing.

And because that's basically what the excellons have done.

They've become so advanced that they've created something that has then destroyed their civilisation.

Not a war, not a nuclear war this time, but a piece of technology which was supposed to improve their lives has actually destroyed it.

So in that regard, the story is like 50 years ahead of its time.

We have seen very much the same thing, I think, in colony and space, the story of the people of Uxarius creating the doomsday weapon that takes all the life and vitality from their planet.

It's a weapon though.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Like a doomsday, it's a doomsday weapon.

And it's really interesting, then, in tandem with that, Simon, that's absolutely correct what you've identified there.

We have the space plague, which is wiping out 100000000 people.

[24:16]

Now, this was written in mid-1973 around then, and survivors, Terry Nations show about a plague wiping out 99% of the world's population. debut in 1975.

So he would have been thinking about that and writing that at the same time.

So this is clearly at the forefront of his thinking, which came first?

But we also, we also have the giant space plague that wipes out all of the non-white people of Earth in Dalek invasion of Earth as well.

So the space plague is something that he has helped himself too before.

I thought that the most hilarious trope that gets a repeat here, though, is the large quantities of blood that don't seem to come from anywhere left behind on a physical object.

And so it was the travel dial, I think, in peace of Paris.

And then the hurricane land. seems to have an awful lot of blood on earth that doesn't seem to come from anywhere.

[25:16]

You know, Stephen Moffatt identifies that scene as something that Terry Nation does so well.

It's this beautiful doctor-ish moment where Sarah heads back to the Tartars to put on more clothes because she's in a water wings or whatever.

And she turns around, she comes back to doctor and she says, don't wander off, will you?

And he says, of course not.

Off she goes.

And the 1st thing he does is wander off, yeah.

But that whole water wings thing is so terrible.

It just reminds me that, oh, yes, that's right.

There are so many adult Britons.

Even to this day, you can't swim.

I think even as a child, I thought that was a bit pathetic of Sarah not to be able to swim. did as well, Simon.

I thought that was pretty, I was like, what are you doing?

It is that funny line though, where she says, oh, I could sink anywhere, which I think is pretty funny.

It's a little bit like her talking about, you know, unless you intend to stay here and raise lettuce, I guess.

It doesn't really matter what the nutrients in the soil are like.

And she does get one or 2 of those little fun things and that has to be Terry Nation.

[26:18]

Absolutely.

And I think she's written a lot like Joe Grant. in her story.

Like, she's quite girly in this story.

And I don't think that's, it's not particularly Sarah.

You know, Miss Slaton obviously makes it the character, but I think as the doctor's companion.

It's really pretty fun and she's also given agency.

So she and Jill Tarrant, who is, I think, a stronger character on the page than she is in the delivery of the performance.

Oh my god, yes, she's terrible. isn't she She does she does still have time to do her eye makeup, though, even on a even as a prisoner.

Yeah, yeah. that is awesome.

Wow, she's down to her last packet of sulfagen.

She has plenty of eyeshadow.

Yes, Agnetta blue eye shadow.

Even Sarah had some dirt on her face at one stage. which is very unusual because normally they do look amazing, but she actually does have dirt on her face and Jill just, yeah, full hair and makeup the entire time and looks fabulous.

She's absolutely doing like kids TV acting when the Dalek spaceship lands.

[27:21]

Oh, Jill Tarant.

Oh, yeah, just shockingly bad.

It does make me think a little bit less of Terry.

We've talked about Bob Holmes after lack of interest in women, but Terry seems to have a similar lack of interest, I think.

And Jill is pretty wet.

Certainly say compared to Jenny or Lizanne, is it Lizanne?

Oh, oh, in Mars Clan one?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like compared to Jenny anyway.

Barbara in the Darlin?

Yeah, Barbara and the Daleks.

Yeah, see Dione's terrible, though, in the Daleks as well, isn't she?

And this is the 1st next week we're going to have the same thing, where Sarah just gets shunted off into a block, where all she gets to do is be menaced by people.

I'm not going to disagree.

While the doctor gets on with the actual story.

I disagree with that because...

The doctor does the investigation of the city, but actually Sarah paired up with Jill Tarrant, who I think must be the sister of Dell and Dita Tarrant.

[28:23]

Yes.

Actually get the prime moving of the last episode, which is making sure that the perineum gets stored onto the human spaceship rather than the Dalek space.

I think she plays an important part of the action.

And, you know, after John Abeniri gets some arrow down.

And, you know, Galloway proclaims that he's the next in command.

It's a great delivery where she says, okay, commander, how are we going to get out of this?

Like that's actually quite a powerful.

And that shows that while she's, you know, I mean, she's a civilian geologist, remember, she's not a member of the military.

And it comes back to a lot of things.

See, with Jenny in Dalek Invasion of Earth.

I don't think it's because these people don't care anything about women.

In Dalek Invasion of Earth.

Jenny is a civilian.

London has been destroyed, but it is, you know, they're at war.

They're civilians trying to be resistance fighters.

The concept of females in the military at all in this time is, let alone in places where they're going on a dangerous mission is very, very small.

So it's just, it's just the world that these people are used to.

[29:26]

And the fact that there's a female character in the crew at all, even classes as a civilian geologist is pretty good.

Which makes Sarah Kingdom quite a standout.

Yes, but we remember in that, we also get the surprise because she's only referred to as Kingdom Kingdom, and we assume she's a part of the gag here. referred to as kingdom.

She referred to kingdom.

I stand correctly.

But my overall point remains that the fact that she's a woman in itself a thing in that.

But I do think Jill is a step down from Rebeck, who is also sort of slightly wet and a bit of a liability from last week, but I still think that she's not quite as interesting as Rebeck was.

Yeah, I mean, I don't think Jill Tarrant's that great and, you know, it might be useful to hear from the woman on our podcast. about this.

But I will take issue with the fact that Terry Nation, as you said, Nathan, doesn't seem interested in female worlds, because as we were talking about earlier, he was probably riding survivors at the same time and survivors.

[30:27]

It has a female lead.

An incredible female lead.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I actually found that the guy, what was the other male...

Yes.

He's such a nice young man So he gets along so well with Chill. think he's a gay.

The whole time I thought he was incredibly wet.

I wouldn't have relied on him to really save the world or look after me.

I would have been, I think if I was stranded on a planet with him.

I'd be taking charge and looking out for myself, I think.

I wouldn't be relying on him to take care of. me So they are hilarious, aren't they?

And it is because they're all calling each other Peter and Richard.

It's a very posh group.

That's why I love it.

And the only mean one doesn't have a posh accent.

So what's that to us?

That's right.

Scottish duplicity.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

So, again, I think I said in FTA that one of the things that just shocked me was Galloway just refusing to take the commander's orders and pretending that he hadn't heard them.

[31:37]

I just found that appallingly appallingly terrible, like unbelievable.

And it is very ter nation, I think.

And in the moral universe of Doc 2, that's not what good characters do.

No, characters do.

Absolutely.

But he gets his redemption because he blows up the ship at the end, the dark ship at the end, sacrificing his life.

Somewhat unnecessarily, you know, let's talk about a timing device.

For example, but, you know, but nevertheless, the character gets that redemption.

In a way, it's not quite redemption in the sense that he changes as a person.

What we get is a revelation that he's prepared to do anything to save these people, including sacrificing himself.

So he has this sort of utilitarian calculus, but he doesn't exempt himself from it.

But also it shows that, you know, maybe that's what a good commander would do.

Well, exactly.

The captain goes down with the ship.

But yes, I mean, that's why at least, whilst I don't think the character is that deep, it is nice to have someone rather than it's just like a villainous or a menu here for myself, I'm here for the glory.

I just want to save the universe and get medals.

All the things he said before about sacrificing the excellence or sacrificing other crew members or whatever it is, is for the greater good, the greater good is to save 1000000s should really be 1000000s, but it's to save 1000000s of people from this disease.

[32:49]

And the reason he disobeys the commander's orders is because he feels that in order to achieve that he needs to take the reins, because he feels that Peter will be too wet and will just rightly so, I think.

Exactly. not unreasonable. not unreasonable.

Galloway's one who has the idea when they're up the top of the city to only use the one wall.

So he's the one who actually is advanced.

Oh, yes, there's so much you can do with bombs in Doctor Who.

Absolutely there is, Simon.

But that was a bit like Noah in the Arkan space because he was the guy who was a bit of a dick the whole episode and not very nice at all and then he kind of does the big ultimate sacrifice for the human race at the end.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I think that there is a sort of very terry nation thing about that kind of morality.

And, you know, we had that sort of fairly unsophisticated discussion of pacifism and things in the daleks, but it does show that asking questions about people's kind of moral frameworks is something that Terry Nation's interested in, and he is interested in people sacrificing themselves for the good of other people like Dortmund, I guess.

[33:59]

That's right.

And as we will see next week in Genesis.

He is the one who crafts the doctor as a moral figure and presents him with moral dilemmas.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, there's several really important conversations about morality next week, which we'll obviously be talking about.

And one less important one about morality last week.

I love the courage thing.

Yeah, it's wonderful.

It's a moment of charm.

I think Terry doesn't get enough kudos for his elegant character work.

He doesn't draw deep characters and he doesn't draw them in lots of colours, but he plugs them into the plot and they move things forward efficiently.

And if we are going to talk about characters in the story, one must talk about Belal.

Because Belal is quite an incredible whimsical creation that comes from the pen of terry nation and I don't think that's all in the performance.

[35:03]

So he is essentially kind of Wester redone, isn't he?

Yes.

Yeah.

And obviously, the performance is very charming.

Arnold Yarrow, who died, I think, last year at the age of 102.

Oh wow.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's a very big performance, but it needs to be.

It's that this is how one needs to act when one has no facial expressions.

So lots of things happen with arms and double takes with shoulders and things. body movement.

Yeah, body movement, something like that.

I love the other one, some of his fellow rebels.

GoTow.

Yeah, I didn't realise they were names. which is so good.

But yeah, it's lovely to see, which you don't actually get very often in perkwear stories because you've got unit people anyway, but you don't really get very many surrogate companions in Bel Al in those last 2 episodes is a surrogate companion.

The doctor's calling him old chap and putting his arm around him.

Yeah, and the other thing we get is the fact that Sarah is, of course, terrified of him at first, even though she knows she shouldn't be.

She's just, 0 my god, this hideous thing with like glowing bits on him.

[36:05]

And, um...

I didn't want to say.

But she and she's trying to overcome that.

And you know, when she puts her hand on her in his arm and then suddenly realised, 0 my god, I'm touched.

It's a dry rum and I cook.

Yeah, exactly.

Yes, it is.

But it's also great then to see as one should see, the doctor then coming in and treating him like a just like a person who's your friend and treating him from the get go, like any individual.

And that's the underlying morality of Doctor Who.

I think that's that's great when you see that.

So that's right.

This is Sarah's 1st trip to an alien planet.

And so she started jumping out of her skin.

Yeah, he's a bit of a doomy alien planet to have your 1st trip on.

Yeah.

And I think the fact that Bel is spoken about in fan circles as a pseudo-companion. you know, I could have been companion.

I mean, personally, I can't really, I can't really see him in robots or just Daleks, but he's spoken about in the same breath as someone like Will Chandler from The Awakening, as a companion who could have been but wasn't.

[37:08]

And it's very interesting that they're quite similar characters in that kind of thing.

Will Chandler?

Yeah, they're kind of charming naivety and kind of like almost childlike presence.

A lot of front axial projection in this story.

I think it's still super impressive.

So you've got it on Bell Out costume and you've obviously got it on the walls of the city in close-up, and it's just done in camera, and I think it looks really quite effective.

Is that what it is?

I thought that's not the thing from silver nemesis.

Yeah, it is.

I didn't think it existed until seven.

Oh, we did.

I just thought it was a luminescent, like a glow in the dark sort of substance.

No, so from axial projection, they put a certain paint on it and they put a lighting rig to the side.

And that makes sense.

But who knew that that lighter makes that woo, woo, woo, woo.

Again, the importance of sound often underestimated.

You know, in different hands, what I feel is a mediocre story would actually be very dull indeed because you'd have no sound.

[38:10]

You'd hear the polystarine of the cave walls.

You know, a bit of reverb makes you feel, yes, I'm in a cave, you know.

I mean, one of those incredible what ifs was that Paddy Russell was originally earmarked to direct this story, and I think she would have done quite an interesting job of it, which meant that Michael Bryant would have done invasion of the dinosaurs, and I think would have done a fairly decent job of that.

So there is an alternate universe out there where this is directed by Paddy Russell and would have been pretty great, I think.

I think even Paddy would have struggled with them.

Episode four.

Some of the things you needed to do in this.

I mean, a lot of that's down to design.

I don't think the design work in the story, apart from the city model, which is incredible.

I don't think the scenery is that great.

The tunnels are pretty uninspired.

The flats in the city look very, very bad.

Indeed, flat.

Well, yeah, with a few sort of latter spits, just to kind of, you know, which are not shot through.

You know, this missed opportunity, Michael.

No, there was ones.

The Darlings going past them. them Yes, I know.

But not like Douglas, where he's sort of using them in the frame.

Every moment he can.

[39:11]

Exactly.

But the designer is Colin Green, and Colin Green's only other Doctor Who story is enlightenment, where he does, I think, a better job.

It's interesting that those are the 2 stories and not 2 Pantheon, where the TARDIS loses power.

There is a famous story where...

Is it Death to the Darling?

It is called Death to the Dark.

There's a famous story that when Terry comes up with a script for Genesis of the Daleks.

I think Terence says, that's lovely, but you've sold it this script to us twice already.

Now, I don't think that's fair, but this, I think it's a little bit fair.

It is a bit fair.

This is very similar to last week, isn't it?

There are aspects.

Look, obviously it's not always the same.

It's just the fact that Terry has his soup of stuff and he picks out different things each time and so there are inevitable overlaps between different stories.

[40:15]

And I think Death to the Daleks and Planet of the Daleks are probably the 2 best examples where there are many elements which are similar to other terri nation stories.

They're both a melting pot of kind of his archetypes, but you know, that's a pretty great pot.

I'm not saying that's necessarily bad.

I'm not saying it's wrong.

You know, he's going to what works and so on like that, but what Terrence was saying was that we need something else, we need something a bit more different.

And you get the idea that Terry is, I push back on this idea, this sort of terrible criticism of him, that he was a lazy writer.

You're not lazy at all.

He knows what works, but also what he also needs is another creative to push him and say, how about this?

When he's given the idea of, let's go back to the genesis of the Daleks, he knocks it out of the park because he's got something a different focus.

We'll talk more about, I think why Genesis is so successful next episode, but I will push back on your pushback.

And I think I said this early in an earlier episode.

I'm not saying that Terry Nation is a lazy writer, but he is a jobbing writer.

[41:17]

He is a business writer.

He's got episodes of this to write episodes of that.

You know, he's getting real work.

I'm not saying it's laziness.

Sometimes the 1st idea that comes to your head, often that 1st idea is the best ones.

That's why often some of the best Doctor Who stories are the ones that had to be written in a weekend.

Because they don't have time to sort of wonder about this wonder about that.

You go to the right things.

I find it my own work.

There's a kind of laziness which makes you efficient because, you know, you don't want...

You're looking for the best shortcuts.

Let the guess this done. lets get this out of the part.

We know what works.

Let's not overthink this.

That's his thing.

I do think, yes, as you said, Peter, though, the other creators that he works with, I think do impact what he comes up with.

I think that's one of the reasons as we kind of gotten to why working with Derek Spooner and Donald Toshford, Masterplane ends up with a bit of a, well, there's some good stuff there, but there's a lot of weird laziness as well.

Terry's writing, though.

Okay, but in some respects, I think he's left to his own devices in things like the chase.

[42:19]

It's curious that given the fact that you've got such a strong production team in the form, Barrelettes and Terence Dix, that both plan of the Darks and Death of the Daleks are so, in a number of ways, unremarkable when Robert Holmes and Philip Shinscliffe are able to get such great work out of him for Genesis and very good work out of him for Android invasion.

I think, yes, it's the collaboration process because it's not just the fact that we're not, I'm not saying that Robert Holmes, right, half of Genesis the Tug.

I'm saying that it's the collaboration.

It's the gentle pushback.

See, well, what about this idea?

What about that?

And then someone like Termination, who is not proud of his own work going, oh, no, I must keep that because it's the most pivotal part.

He'll go, yep, you're right.

That's crap. lets do this.

That's what makes him a professional, which people can work with.

That's right.

And if he'd come into the office and have been, I'm Terry Nation, and I'm writing the story that I always want to write, the criticism would work of him sort of being a bit lazy and being a bit of a hack, and I will push back on that word in particular very much next week.

But the fact that he's open to ideas and sits down collegiately with the production team and says, okay, what do you want?

[43:23]

What do you want me to do with this?

Okay, we'll do that, indicates that he's an intelligent and empathetic writer as well.

And not precious if someone says, how about this?

This is a better idea.

And he'll go, yeah, it is. lets do that. absolutely.

I think I probably said last week that I do like Planet of the Daleks quite a lot.

Oh, yeah.

And, you know, after a bit of an absence from the show, it's nice to sort of come back and do our sort of dialect greatest hits, it resets the daleks and imagines them in the sort of terms that Terry Nation had introduced them, you know, in the daleks, and in Dalek's masterplan.

This is the Daleks from those stories.

I do think that this is a little bit too similar. to Planet of the Dalegs.

And I guess that the idea of the city, which isn't super original, as we've said before, is, I guess, what lifts it and makes this different from last week. sort of the power drain that makes it different, isn't it?

Yeah.

Maybe.

I think there's quite a lot of points of difference between Plum and Alex and Death to the Dialect.

[44:27]

Yes, of course there are.

I think people lump them together and they sort of undersell Planet of the Daleks a little bit as, oh, Terry was just revisiting his greatest hits.

Yes, he was, but it was also the 10th anniversary of Dogs Who and the Daleks and said, that's why he was doing it. absolutely the right time to do that.

I actually think the death of the Daleks.

Well, it's a bit of a similar setup with kind of, you know, the human characters on an alien planet full of dangers.

I think there's a lot of points of difference and certainly atmospherically, I think they feel quite different.

I agree atmospherically, they feel different.

Again, yes, obviously they're not the same.

They're different for a whole host of reasons, partly because of who's making them.

But when I'm watching Death of the Daleks, even when I watched it for the 1st time, it just felt very run of the mill familiar.

We've done all this before and not in a comforting way, but in a not looking at my watch kind of way.

I wouldn't want to dare suggest that, but just it's not that interesting.

Plan of the Daleks, I think you do get away with it being similar to aspects of master plan and others because enough time has passed.

[45:30]

Master plan's only shown once, but even by 1973, it probably doesn't exist anymore.

Well, maybe it does.

There are those play Eclipedia clips, but you know what I mean?

Like, it is, for, to all intents and purposes, it doesn't exist.

So I think you can get away with that, whereas I think Plan of the Diaries has got a different reason rather than a lack of originality, which is why it disappoints in some ways while still being great.

But yeah, it's hard to pinpoint, and it's not just the fact that, yes, Belala's Wester, and, okay, instead of a group of fowls that are stranded on the plane, you've got to be humans, you've still got the kind of indigenous people who are enslaved by the Daleks to mine, you know, slaves being made to mine, all that kind of stuff.

It's just, here we go again, in a way that even though I feel that season 11 as a whole is comparatively unremarkable with the absolute exception of Time Warrior, it adds to that flavour of the show is reaching.

A production team is reaching the end of its inspiration.

I think it's also probably proximity, direct proximity.

If there was a season in between them.

We would be having this conversation.

It's the fact that Planet of the Dialect was the 4th story of last season. and this is the 3rd story of this season.

[46:33]

So there's only 2 stories between them.

Yes.

And, you know, when Invasion of the Dinosaurs wasn't being shown.

It was very close.

Although we weren't getting planned on the Darks either, so I scratched it.

My main problem with the Daleks was that as well as being sort of impotent, you know, with having their laser guns taken away kind of thing.

Although I thought it was quite amusing once they did work out how to get the, you know, use the, you know, the mechanical guns, how they were kind of like almost like little kids got to go.

But yeah, I think that was a good opportunity to show just like how ruthless and terrifying they are by the fact that they're also like they are an intelligent alien.

Whereas in this, they also made them incredibly stupid.

I think probably the most stupid that we've seen them so far.

I mean, you have seen the chase.

Yeah, the good point.

Yeah.

No, but Fiona, you're right.

There are stupid things that they're made to do in the chase as for a comedy, whereas here they are actually stupid in comparison.

[47:38]

Yeah, and things like, you know, when they're going through the Excelon city and they've had the doctor already go through and they have like one of those um, the tiles where you've got to step on the, the, you had to do the Venusian hopscotch.

And the doctor demonstrated, you know, that one of the, if you stepped on a red tile, it would blow up.

So the daleks come across this one.

Oh, there's suddenly there's some tiles here.

That might be a bit suspicious, but also one of these tiles has already like got an explosive, you know, burn mark on it.

So, it could be dangerous, but yet they just go, oh, we'll just go across it.

And, you know, what could possibly go wrong?

Oh, there's one dialect to turn to the other and say it's as easy as pie.

Yeah, exactly.

I don't think they were prepared to stand there and play pigeon pie.

Yeah, lots of little things that where the dialects just looked like they were stupid.

I mean, you've got Sarah and Jill like while they're being watched by the Daleks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. that's right Somehow that goes unnoticed.

[48:38]

Also, Dalek does kill itself, though. 10000000 people, they're all getting like one grain of sand, aren't they?

Well, maybe it dissolves it soluble in water and maybe it's kind of like...

Maybe it's like, yes, maybe it's homeopathy.

Maybe there are...

And those, the excellence, in the bit where they're sort of mining and they've got that big sort of pool and they have the excellence sort of like going through as slowly, like, how could they move any slower through the water?

And then the vacuum cleaner wants to comes out and it's like, okay, we might need, the shark in the water. let's get out of the water kind of thing and and it's kind of again like, can we move any slower to get out of the water?

And then one of them gets shot so that he is in flames.

But rather than going, well, I'm in water.

But maybe...

Yeah, yeah.

Well, maybe they're not That's Terry Walsh.

It says Terry Walsh needs needing to show off a bit.

But again, but again, found to remember underneath all this, they're all British extras and, you know, Brits don't have a very good relationship with swimming pools and oceans.

[49:42]

And so, you know, in a sharp head under, love.

Yeah, that's why we feed them to the sharks at Bondi.

It's just, you know, useful.

I think it's useful to understand death to the Dalek's relationship to the doctor audience after the fact because Death to Alex was the 1st budget VHS released here. 7 and it was a big seller.

Huge seller.

That's right.

So it came out at 999 pounds. and I think was a special promotion in WH Smith or something like that.

And so it was a very big seller.

So lots of people owned Doctor Who on videotape for the 1st time and it was this story.

Can you think of a better story, not necessarily quality wise, but archetype wise, for someone to own.

I can think of many, many, many better stories that they could have gone with, even taking out the ones that had already been released at huge stupid prices by that time.

Four times, yeah.

But it had to be a, it had to be a four-parter for this, obviously, because 6 part ones were put out on 2 videos.

[50:47]

Oh, not at this time.

This is before, because this is when they're started.

Releasing omnibuses, but the 6 partners they released were talons and seeds of death.

At this time, they hadn't released, but, you know, their seeds of doom there.

But you know, if they wanted a Dalek story, they could have released Destiny of the Daleks.

That was still far enough ago.

But look, I mean, whatever.

But it absolutely solved an absolute mint.

And I always remember thinking at the time, it wasn't one that I was a go-to story, but when I watched it, it was, oh, that was actually quite good.

I quite enjoyed that, it kind of, you know, moved about and things happened.

Yeah, these things are a self-fulfilling prophecy because I think it was probably put out because they thought, you know, it's four-part Dalek story with John Pertwheat, that'll do well.

People bought it because of that, but then it's a self-reinforcing thing because it is one of the most Doctor Who stories of all time.

And so the fact that it became a big seller just is meant to be.

It wouldn't surprise me, actually, if it also had to do with John Pertwe's availability, because he was always, when he was alive, he was always made himself available for any kind of promotion.

[51:47]

Willing to turn up to the opening of an envelope, if anything like this, whereas Tom at that time really wasn't.

And so I bet that was something to do with it as well.

That's right.

You can imagine. he could do all the signings.

There was a season 14 Dalek story.

It would have been the 1st story released in any media at any time.

The 1st VHS out.

The 1st DVD out, that four-part Hinchcliffe Dalek story.

What, not Revenge of the Cyberman?

Do you know, that was, I think that was £50 for them when that was released in 83.

Funny, that's what Kaftan...

In the story that everybody voted that they wanted at Longley, was Tomb, which sadly didn't exist at the time.

But that's an astonishing amount of money in 1983.

An astonishing amount of money.

Oh, I just was just astonished by that. £50 in 1983.

What would be the equivalent of that in today's money?

That would have to be a lot.

We'll be talking about £150, £160.

Yeah, maybe even 200, I guess.

Who knows?

But something of that order.

Just an astonishing amount.

Avenger the Cyberman.

[52:48]

Yes, with the wrong logo, one on the wrong side of it on the front.

I mean, God.

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

We'll be back next week to see how it all began, again, in Genesis of the Daleks.

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.

[53:50]

Until next time, remember that sand is coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.

Even in your perineum.

Thank you very much for listening and good night.

Good night.

Good night.

Bye bye.

That was 500 year diary, starring Nathan Bottomley, Peter Griffiths, Simon Moore, and Fiona Tomney.

The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.

This episode, Goon Daleks, was recorded on the 19th of July, 2026 and released on the 4th of October.

By the most amazing coincidence, the members of the next Marine Space Corps expedition to land on the planet Exilon were also called Nathan, Peter, Simon, and Fiona.

Their mission, to gather all the premium they could eat, before heading off into town to celebrate in one of the nicer Exolonian wine bars.

[55:01]

Oh, yes, yes, yes.

Well, I reckon we talk about that.

This is a tag. do you think?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So, Simon and I, Simon, you and I have had differing opinions about credits over the years.

I remember one moment where you said that the 2nd Matt Smith credits are the best... 21st century, yes.

Yeah, absolutely not.

But I think we agree that the season 11 credits are the best in the classic series.

They're remarkable.

I mean, there's such a step forward from the still obviously very good, you know, 7 to 10 credits.

I think one of the reasons why they have a place in many fans' hearts, and I know Todd feels the same about this too.

I think they're his favourite classic series credits as well, is because we are so used to those Tom credits because of course they're on so many episodes.

Whereas this has all the best bits of the Tom credits, with the exception that there's missing the TARDIS.

[56:04]

But look, that John Pertwee shaped time tunnel. don't know what they got on about this.

But there's just something incredibly effective about that.

And I don't think the silhouette of any other doctor works with that.

The way John has this incredible distinctive, the cape makes a perm, but his stance, the buffon hair is just right.

And that's why I joked.

I only half joked when we were doing deep breath that it could have worked with Capaldi as well.

Yeah, yeah, for the same reasons because he, I mean, he had, there was a certain pert-esqueness about his doctor.

But yeah, the way those, those, the, the, the circular lights, like lightning coming towards you is so much forward energy, so much more information that you don't get in the credits up to this point.

There is no sense of forward travel.

There is a sense of a pattern on the screen.

Whereas this is the 1st time you get the sense of travelling through time and my god, how powerful and of course creating the introducing the what is unquestionably the best logo, the program has ever had.

[57:06]

If it wasn't the best, why have we gone back to it?

Yeah, of course we've gone back.

Alex is very worthy of the diamond load.

Very worthy of the Diamond logo. absolutely.

What were you going to say, Fiona?

I think you were going to counter that.

Yeah, it's actually not my favourite.

I still, I'm still, this, the tong face thing.

I just, it's just image of Tom's face is so good.

However, all the other bits, I do agree with that all the swirly bits and like that is pretty special.

But with the, um, like the outline, what am I trying to say?

The pert we outline.

Silhouette.

Silhouette. is the word I'm looking for.

My only problem with that, because I think it could have been perfect, but when I was rewatching it, I was ready to go, wow.

And then it almost looks like they've chopped off his feet.

Like he just looks like he's actually a little bit too short.

It starts off really well and you go, oh yeah, when they do the pan back and then when they have the bit where you actually can't see the photographic image of him.

It's just literally the tunnel.

[58:07]

It just literally looks like they've shortened his outline.

It is a bit squat, they made squat, I think, maybe.

That's the lens they used to shoot.

Yeah, yeah.

They just kind of almost like they've chopped off his feet a little bit and he's a bit too short.

For me, it's the very opening shot, which doesn't make it to the Tom Baker version, which is just the sort of shards of things coming at you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And it is, it is that propulsive forward movement.

And that one of the reasons why I don't like, for instance, that Matt Smith one, which has all sorts of interesting images and the doctor's face and all sorts of good things, is that it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

That's fascinating because I feel it is going somewhere.

I do get that one of the reasons I do love that one is because I do get the sense of forward motion that I think I felt had been properly missing.

That sort of prefigures the Davison credits.

Yes.

And the other reason I like these credits and love most of the, in fact, I love all of the classic era credits above and beyond virtually all of the 21st century credits is because in most cases, the 21st century credits seem to have been done independently of the music.

[59:12]

Whereas this is another great example with that forward propulsion, with those 1st notes as you get them, you get it the same with Tom's version with the 2 strips of the tunnel that you get at these.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you can even, you know, when you, when, you know, the ABC League logo didn't fade over the top of it too long, you actually saw them arrive and all that kind of stuff.

It was that sense and everything happened to the music.

And I think and these credits.

Well, I mean, it does happen to a certain extent in the black and white credits and the 7 to 10 credits, but this is the 1st time you really get a sense of them working so perfectly together.

One final thing on them for me is there's a fault on the bottom left.

There's a black blob, which is very odd.

That wouldn't be why.

Yes, an artefact.

It like a bit that was covering the split screen.

But it is in Genesis as well.

Like it is in all of those.

No, it's on the Tom. on the purple version of the opening.

It only on the pertwee version of the opening.

Okay.

Look, I'm going to agree a little bit with all of what you're saying.

I do love these credits and I love the fact that they're only on one season. because that makes its own thing.

And I do think they're very well crafted.

[1:00:12]

I think it's a pretty opening credits.

I think the Tom version is more focussed because you get the TARDIS, which I think is great.

You get Tom earlier, but also it's timed more correctly because in these credits, the Doctor Who logo has barely appeared before you get the name of the story across the top.

He goes over the top of it.

That's right.

Whereas I think they time it better for the Tom version.

No, absolutely fair.

There's just there's something that captures have always forever captured my imagination about these ones.

Okay, all right.

I think that was good.

I think that was good.

Um, uh, we are going to start recording in another fine.

Just a little quick week.

Pay them a quick way.

Thank you for joining us, Fiona.

I will talk I will talk to you.

I'll probably talk to you.

Okay.

Okay.

We'll see how it goes. you In my imagination, I see Terry Nation Writing the same script each time In his mind, a delegation With trant insolation And slaves are made to mine With no imagination.

[1:01:40]

Here comes Terry Nation.

There's radiation everywhere and space.

Place by halfway through portfolio.

They're cutting through the door.

There's so much you can do It comes in Doctor Who.

We love gerry nation.

My extermination, we love gerry nation.

Yeah We love Jerry Nation.

Call incubation.

We love terri nation.

Here.

It's a crazy situation.

To think of terri nation.

Adding space to every line There'll be darlic, every story.

[1:02:48]

Oh, tyrant and mock cory.

I'm slid ooh.

There's no imagination And little complication To my beasts My rat and magic chair.

The cores on desperous We're born on Beconos But you can name the thought With just two syllables.

Bel nation Face communication.

With obteration.

Yeah.

We love terri nation, sentient, meditation, belong terri nation.

[1:03:55]

No imagination.

Here comes terry nation.

And now we realise that all is cliches Or present in each script.

Which is mostly rich. ex masterpand He's dairy, so he can.

We love terri nation, riding, operation.

Yeah.

We love terri nation, thank God.

On rotation.

We love geri nation.

Here.

We love terry nation.

[1:04:57]

Robert Holmes frustration We love termination. of ter nation Of words, of creation, we love cherish.