On the Time Lash
A podcast pub crawl through Doctor Who old and new with film programmer Mark Donaldson and stand-up comic Ben Verth
On the Time Lash
154. All Talc in His Hair (73 Yards/K9 & Company)
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"Everyone gives Doctor Who shit for sticking some glasses on Millie Gibson but what about Amol Rajan?"
Spooky women, sexual deviants and robot dogs abound as Ben and Mark tackle Russell T Davies' A24-lite thriller 73 Yards and Terence Dudley's occult oddity, K-9 & Company.
Do either of these companion-centric Doctor Who stories actually have anything to say? Who does Susan Twist's Ncuti Gatwa impression remind us of? And while we're at it, whose house smells of ouzo and johnnies?
Hello and welcome. It's on the time lash, episode one five, four.
SPEAKER_10My name is Ben. My name is Mark, and uh yeah, this episode we are going to be talking about uh well, two kind of folky horror, although we can debate how much either of these things are actually part of that genre. Um episodes of Doctor Who, well, one episode of Doctor Who, one Doctor Who spin-off, um, that basically feature the companions and not a lot of doctoring, uh, essentially. So we're doing 73 yards, and we're pairing that up with K9 and Company at last. We got there in the end. We get to we get to discuss K9 and Company.
SPEAKER_08I have never seen K9 and Company. I'll get that out right up front. And I've been waiting for us to find a way to get I've been saving it for on the time lash. I don't want to just throw it away one idle evening. I was like, it's gotta have it's gotta have purpose, it's gotta have note. Yeah. Finally we're here. And boy, do I have thoughts.
SPEAKER_10It's it's such an odd concoction, uh, K9 and company. But we'll we'll we'll get there, as uh podcasters like to say. Um shall we just dive dive straight in with 73 yards?
SPEAKER_0873 yards. My apologies. Let me get the uh I'm all arse over elbow, if that is the phrase. Uh let me just get the um stats for you there.
SPEAKER_10So still you have you conflated arse over tit with not knowing your arse from your elbow.
SPEAKER_08Is that what's that's what I have there? I do a lot of that recently. Um what was that sent to group chat? I confused uh I confused the the cost of living crisis with the crisis of living and I stand by that. Which is apt as a better saying.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_08I think we I think we encounter the crisis of living far more than the cost of living crisis. Sorry, yes, anyway, Ars is tits and elbows. Let's let's have 73 yards the stats. Okay, 73 yards. Um it was written by Russell T. David Davis and directed by Dylan Holmes Williams, and it was first broadcast on Saturday, the 25th of May, 2024. Um it was broadcast, obviously the BBC, but across the globe on Disney BBC. Uh it was seen on the day by 2.62 uh million viewers rising, uh consolidated to 4.58 within seven days. And in terms of reviews, this one Digital Spy, Empire, Evening Standard, Radio Times, Independent, it's all solid four and five stars, an 8.6 out of ten uh on Rotten Tomatoes. So the consensus is, I think a lot of people enjoyed that. That's certainly my memory, and this was the standout for me for that season. But we'll talk about that. We've done the paperwork. Now it's time for the fun bit.
SPEAKER_04It's so yes, it's time for Dexies.
SPEAKER_10Um, and basically Ben and I have 20 questions to figure out what that item is. Um, the category for this round is audio, so that could be anything. That could be music, it could be audio dramas, it could be talking books. Um who would like to go first? Would you like to go first, Ben?
SPEAKER_0820 questions. Okay. I have to ask this question in a way that doesn't give away what you will have to guess. Okay, so it's obviously audio, so it's something to listen to. Is it something you play audio on?
SPEAKER_10Oh, uh no. Well, yes, I mean, yes, in the sense that the thing the thing ha you know in the sense that CDs and vinyls and things like that, you the music is on it, yes.
SPEAKER_08Right, okay. I mean this this will this seems idiotic, but uh I think when we get into your one you'll understand what it was angle about there. Um okay, so okay, so is it okay well let's do the simple things. Uh is it uh is it classic Doctor Who? Yes. Okay. Is it sixties? No is it seventies?
SPEAKER_10Uh yes.
SPEAKER_08Okay, what is that? So seventies. Okay, so is it uh is it the audio recording of uh of a story?
SPEAKER_11No.
SPEAKER_08No. Uh is it is well is it a fiction first then?
SPEAKER_11No.
SPEAKER_08No, so it is it's uh it's a factual thing? So is it uh yeah, is it the Doctor Who Sound Effects album?
SPEAKER_10Yeah, it is, yeah. It is seven questions. The BBC Radio Photo Workshop, Doctor Who Sound Effects LP from 1978.
SPEAKER_08Okay, cool. Alright. That I'm I'm I'm happy to receive that. Yours will be here all day.
SPEAKER_10Well, I'm gonna just let's just let's just kick ourselves off here. Yeah, is it music? It better not be this fucking punk band again, I swear to god.
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_10Is it new series or new series related?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_10Is it a compilation of some description?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_10So is it an audiobook?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_10Is it from the 1980s? I'm gonna work back.
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_10Is it from the 1970s?
SPEAKER_07Yes.
SPEAKER_10Okay. Does it contain some kind of like narration?
SPEAKER_08I'm gonna say no.
SPEAKER_10Is it a official Doctor Who thing?
SPEAKER_08Uh is it official? I I I actually can't tell. Uh, but you know, the 70s is that kind of lawless land of uh there's no one there's no one looking after the uh the IPs. So it has Doctor Who on it. It's got Tom Baker's face.
SPEAKER_10Does it have like the low but I suppose doesn't mean like I suppose I mean is it has it got like the diamond logo or is it like the BBC logo, I guess.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, it's got the diamond logo.
SPEAKER_10I mean is it another another sound effects collection that I'm forgetting exists?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_10Oh okay. Formats, formats, let's go formats. Is it a cassette?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_10So is it on vinyl?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_10Oh, is it oh hang on now. Hang on now. Is it the TARDIS tuner?
SPEAKER_08Oh my god, mate. You actually got it, yes, it is yes, you actually got it. Rare 1978, Doctor Who, TARDIS Medium Wave Tuner Radio. That's what it was. That's why I was like, you know, at the start going, alright, well, is it you know, is it uh is it like a record or like is it like a themed fucking device? I can't believe you got that. Amazing, mate.
SPEAKER_10The thing the my favourite fact about the TARDIS tuner is that uh I think was it for David Tennant's 50th birthday or something, Georgia Tennant managed to track him down a TARD like a TARDIS tuner, and that was his like Okay, yeah. It was like a photo over on Instagram, just like absolutely fucking delighted with his TARDIS tuner.
SPEAKER_08The second I saw it in uh a direct email, I was like, oh my god. I didn't even know this existed. I know you know more than me, but I'm like, oh, this is gonna be tough. This is gonna be tough. Uh you got it in what 12 questions?
SPEAKER_10Because although, yeah, you had cut I suppose you had to signpost at the start, but it was the fact that it wasn't an audiobook, it wasn't a sound effects collection, it wasn't on a vinyl or cassette, and CDs hadn't been invented yet. I was like, Well, what the fuck else could it be?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, a radio. Yeah, it was um it had Doctor Who slapped on it, but it wasn't necessarily a Doctor Who thing that you would hear out of it. Yeah, sure. Uh okay, well done. Was that a point each? Is it point each? Nice one.
SPEAKER_10Alright, well, before we uh dive into 73 yards, let's get some listener correspondence. So, as you said before, Degsy's what what what is it game? Fairly positive consensus at the time. I think I was fairly positive about it at the time. I would say I still am fairly positive about this episode. However, Luke Sims Jenkins says, I'm the only fan I know of that thought 73 yards was boring as fuck with a terrible ending. I was surprised when I jumped online and discovered everyone hailing it as a modern classic. It could have used a robot dog. Well, Luke Sims Jenkins, as a wise man once said, you are not alone. Because we also have Dylan Reese who says, 73 yarns very good, uh, is the first Doctor Who story I ever turned off on first watch. Millie Gibson isn't strong enough to lead an episode, and the brief appearance of Gatwa is as phoned in as it gets. When I eventually did watch to the end, I was greeted by a companion who lets a woman be sexually assaulted. Who the fuck wrote this? Well, Dylan, a man who cast both Noel Clark and Bruno Langley in prominent roles in early Doctor Who. I might cut that out. I wrote it. I wrote it in this bit just to remind myself to say that and see it written down and say, Oh, is that too is that too anyway. Um the scenes in the pub are some of the worst in the show's history. With act I mean, come on. With acting and camera work, they would feel more at home in 90s Nickelodeon. As for the central mystery, as an audience, we don't need to know what's being said by the women, but I do need to know that the writer knows, which he clearly doesn't. It's just another that'll do script from Davies. Uh, and in a similar vein, J.R. Southall says, It's an engrossing watch, but I'd have liked to have been able to believe that Russell T. Davis had the first clue how the story logic holds together. Just like Midnight, you know how marvellous Russell T. Davis thinks we should all think it is, but like Midnight, I have no clue what happened or why. Paul McAvoy says, Don't be too harsh on Kate. Pretty much everyone abandons their friends after drinking at the Tiny Rebel in the centre of Newport. Um, 73 Yards is such an odd one. I think because of its great performances and decent cinematography, it sort of tricks you into thinking that it's a better story than it is, because as much as it's a fairly well-made film, it's just sort of nothing, a masterclass and just nothing. It's not bad, it's just nothing. Small blessings though. At least Gat wasn't around to chew it into something completely unwatchable. He said last episode that he wasn't gonna keep doing that. On the more positive note, Ian Martin says 73 yards is the RTD2 episode I may watch again. Damning with faint praise there. Lucy McCall. Um, this is interesting. I didn't want 73 yards because I don't need to see a story where a woman dies alone after being abandoned by everyone, she should have been able to carry on. Except she does save the world, but then it didn't happen. So that's okay. I mean, yeah, you've not seen it, but that's a pretty good summation of the episodes. Um, and finally, Mark Harrison, who says, It's fascinating how fandom suspenders of disbelief twang based on how much they like the era. The that robot dog is lasering witches versus Millie Gibson is not 40 in 73 yards. There's the folk horror snaps back hard to the status quo, but its dramatic vignettes are all Ruby, and um Gibson holds the fort brilliantly.
SPEAKER_08Well, thank you to everybody who sent in a correspondence. There's a lot, there's a lot there. There's a lot there.
SPEAKER_10No, I think that taps into something that I think is why the the sort of critical uh appreciation of the Civic Defeat compared to well, uh smattering of of fan opinion there. Is that this is how am I putting this? I think this is very kind of like it's basically Russell T. Davis has watched some A24 horror films like Midsummer and Hereditary and uh The Babaduke. I can't remember if that's an A24 one, but you know, that kind of that sort of elevated horror we would call it now, in which the monsters of the piece are always metaphors for grief or motherhood or some kind of you know overhanging trauma, generational trauma is a big one, um, as well. And I think this is is Ross Tavis going, well, what does a Doctor Who version of that look like? Um, and for me it mostly works until the end where I'm like, oh, okay, so was it not about that? Was it actually this instead? I'm I'm I'm sort of slightly confused because I think uh as it goes along, it it's about one thing and then the resolution snaps it into like arguably a bit more sci-fi. Whereas the whole thing's been supernatural and horror twinged. It's one of those it's one of those things where everybody can can sort of talk about how oh it's very cle it's very clever what he did that it's very clever. Um, you know, it's all about um themes and because it's ultimately from my my reading of it, I'm very rambly on this, but my reading of it is the woman on the woman who is standing 73 yards away is ultimately the kind of the embodiment of Ruby's fear of abandonment, and it's a story about how that fear of abandonment can push people away and stri and can then kind of like leave you quite alone, and so by the end of it she kind of reconciles that and is then kind of reborn and then gets to kind of live her life kind of unencumbered by that. Now, obviously, the rest of that series she still she still has those hang-ups, she still wants to see her mother, she's still all that kind of thing. But for me, that was always that was the reading, but then kind of re-watching it, it's kind of like oh no, is she the woman on the hill and she just doesn't want her to step on the fairy circle because loads of weird shit will happen? Because it has to be Doctor Who and it has to have some kind of sort of plot resolution because Doctor Who fans don't deal very well with ambiguity. Well, I think a lot of pop culture fans don't deal very well with ambiguity. But yeah, so that's kind of like my starting point for discussing this. Is is it is it is it like sort of J.R. and Dylan are saying a writer who's trying to be very clever but doesn't really actually know what he's doing or what he wants to be saying. But if he d if he relies on a director who very, very good director um who kind of imbues it with atmosphere and performances that kind of really lend it some weight and some class, um can he get away with it? So you know that's that's kind of I guess what I'm coming at it with. And I think it's more the latter than the former. But I do think there is some kind of there are a few kind of writerly issues that maybe come up because obviously this was written quite quickly because they realized that Shooty Gatler wasn't gonna be there for the full series because sex education had overrun. So they needed to fill the gap and Millie Gibson was free. And because this was her first episode, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_06It was, yeah.
SPEAKER_10So it so I think a few of these things kind of could they have been ironed out if they had a bit more time. Like if this was a season two episode, for example.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. Um, food for thought. Oh, what a splendid table you have lain. Um okay, so I I'm gonna be a bit more um uh what's the word? Uh broad and basic. I that's fine. Uh I when I saw it, it was the standout of the season. Uh, and I just dug it because it I was exactly I was sitting down, and I just you know that that perfect time where you're just in the mind space. Um you're enjoying the subject matter, you're enjoying the performances. I'm not really sure where Dylan's head is at, but Millie Gibson gives uh as good, if not better, a performance than Carrie Mulligan does in Blink, uh in terms of being the leading woman carrying a very spooky, very atmospheric Doctor Who. I think she's great in this. I think she's in general great. I think she's brilliant in this. Um what lets her down is the hairstylist and the glasses maker. There is a funny moment where the last time you see her after she's successfully gotten rid of Roger Abgwilliam, and this is 40 years later, and it is so stinging the way it cuts to suddenly this fucking 40 years of past only 40 years, but it's like a decrepit geriatric person sitting in a wheelchair or getting out of and you go, Fucking hell, she's really she must have been hitting the bottle the second she got rid of that guy. I like the transition from you know Millie Gibson in glasses uh to a fucking pen a pension or deep in the pension thing, like it's just that's not four years. Like anyway. Uh I think it was great at the time, and the fact that at the end nothing is overtly explained to you. I was like, okay, well this is this is something illustrative that's gonna come up in uh you know, if not the end of the season, it'll be the next season. And indeed, I think there was some mention in rumours about abandoned ideas for rejig to Disney season two, season threes, that this was supposed to be somewhat illustrative of Ruby's power to create different realities, which in the end was abandoned for some old shite. Um so we never get a resolution. And so as a result, watching it again, it just makes it uh very ephemeral. It's very gossamer and I don't I neither care for it nor do not care for it. It's a great it's a it's a if you're in the mood for it, it's a great watch. And if you're gonna watch it position it in a place which would be complimentary, um you know, like some sort of wintery twilight evening, something like that, where you can really appreciate the the skill of the thrills and the the s the scares that are deployed. But in terms of the writing, it's a valiant effort done very quickly with no real satisfying identity. And it's interesting we're talking about the woman because I can buy into every aspect of it, even getting to the end of the old woman is Ruby herself. But what is it she's saying to people? Like we can understand where you kind of don't need to know what is being said if the woman is in fact nobody that we've ever encountered before nor will encounter again. But the fact it's Ruby in that time, what has she what has she thought to tell people across that that life that she's lived that will be the perfect thing to scare people away and to keep people out of Ruby's way until she works out that she has this singular purpose in her life.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, well so the direct I mean obviously I don't think I think this was just him kind of uh Dylan Holmes Williams. I think is it in Unleashed I don't think I can't remember if he says it or if one of the actors says it. Like it's maybe Susan Twist or something, but somebody ba basically the point's made that the actors who have to run away from the women are told that oh basically just imagine that they've told you the most terrible thing that you could possibly imagine and and you're kind of running away in fear. Now obviously that that's just a direction, that's not anything that comes from the script. Um and I mean I I'm of the school where I don't it it doesn't matter to m the the woman and what the woman says doesn't really matter to me because I think I get it on a thematic basis. The issue I have with this is that it's the stuff you say up you said earlier about kind of like it seems to be setting itself up. Um and I Don't necessarily and I don't mean in the kind of the old woman and the timeline and the thing. I think the the huge emphasis it puts on Roger App William for what ten ten minutes of the episodes because it it just felt such a strange paper, sort of really sort of thumbnail sketch of a kind of far-right politician that doesn't really have anything to say that Russell T. Davis hasn't already said and stuff like years and years. And also it's nowhere near as good as because I was thinking about this recently, like Harold Saxon in uh Last of the Time Lords, no um Sound of Drums more specifically, um is Tony Blair. It's it's it's RT David, RTD turning turning it kind of as at the end of Blair's um I almost said presidency there, he wishes, um, prime ministership. It's kind of Davies turning back on that and kind of exploring how he played with he sort of really played up to this kind of media persona. It's how he basically circumvented parliament and his own cabinet at times to make decisions and things like that. It's a really quite good sort of take on Blair as the master that I think that works really well. Here he's just kind of a bit of a creep who wants to who's just really into nuclear weapons. Um the Welsh the Welshness of it as well that he's a kind of Welsh nationalist, but he's not a Welsh nationalist because he's all about the Union and making the UK really strong, and all the stuff in here about what it what is this saying about Wales, yeah.
SPEAKER_08Well, I mean, so there's the line that Shan Davis talks about in um when she talks about the blood, and then there's the blood, she says about the uh the cruelty that has been visited by England upon Wales for what six-seven hundred years. And I do wonder if another theme of this is this is what England has done to the Welsh is that they are it's that they have become more violent than the people who taught them the violence, and they're determined to retake their nationality uh from the union by taking over the union. That's a that's reading into absolute shape, but that's the problem with this, is that you can read loads of stuff into this, and I don't know if you've come out with actually any definitive proof of anything.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, there's there's a lot of stuff that actually like I say, it's all like I watched this at midnight, you know, when it went up, and it was great. Like it was it was dark outside, it was dark inside. I think I had a one little tiny lamp on in the corner of the room, had a glass of whiskey, and I was watching this, and I was really in invested, really kind of engaged in it because I think I think this is one of the best directed episodes of of the era. Absolutely, you can see why they give him the the spin-off to direct, because there's some really like I love the the train sequence feels really dynamic and exciting, and that's where you kind of go, Yeah, they got Disney money because they can put a camera crew on a train and like watching that unleashed where they kind of explain how they did it. If anybody hasn't seen it, I'd I definitely remember recommend checking it out because it's a lot more exciting than in the old days of confidential, where it's just like you know, Danny, what's his name? Just going so we just fired this car into our lake uh seven times. Um, it's you know, they had a crew and then they had to kind of move from trains to trains, and and there was like extras positioned in various fields and streets that were on that trip. It's weird, it's like that's where you kind of go, oh, okay, so I I can see where the money's going. Yeah, it's into giving us kind of these kind of quite it gives you such a sense of what's happening. Like it's all very well to be like, oh, there's a woman at the end of that street, but you then have to take it bigger, and I think that that does the job so brilliantly in such a short space of time. I did the audiobook of the novelisation to see if there was because Scott Hancock was the script editor. I was wondering, like, oh, maybe there's some little insights in there that that he's kind of thrown in. Yeah, not really. What is interesting, he is at pains to point out that Roger Ap Williams really into DNA testing, because obviously that's never fucking mentioned in this, and then it comes up as a crucial plot point in Empire of Death. So he's got this kind of Terrence Dick's head on of going, well, I need to kind of tie those two things in together.
SPEAKER_08Oh my god, I had completely forgotten that. Of course.
SPEAKER_10So basically his two policies and the target novelization, or the all the nuclear weapon stuff and the defence and all that kind of thing, and also mandatory DNA testing because he's about controlling the borders and all that kind of thing. And you go, Oh, okay, yep, right, okay, I see what you're doing there.
SPEAKER_08Like, firstly, well done him for doing that.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Although low bar, low bar in terms of a duty of care to the the reader or also.
SPEAKER_10I mean, it might have been in the original version of the script, I don't know, but um I thought of it.
SPEAKER_08Then it should have been. That feels like that was if if that is all that in the end that this episode counts for.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Is that there was a freaky politician who was into like mapping people's mapping people's DNA. Why the fuck wasn't that in the Eve, just even kept in as I know it's weird, isn't it?
SPEAKER_10It's such a big plot point for the finale.
SPEAKER_08But I mean, like, this is I wish this was more something. Because it was great watching it the first time around. I really enjoyed it. I liked watching it again. I got a lot more uh out of it in terms of her performance and in terms of the direction. The writing, I don't want to say it stinks, it doesn't stink, but it is obviously rushed and given to us in a way that we feel like it's gonna have more significance, and it does not.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, and and also like it it feels like I I think it's trying to do too many things at once. He wants to write a story about a far-right politician, he wants to write a story about he wants to write a Welsh folk horror, and then I think because I get that was the other thing with the novelization. I was like, I wonder if it kind of actually digs into what are we playing with here? What what because I don't know anything about kind of the myths and legends and and the sort of the folklore of of of Wales. Um so you know, does it kind of properly dive into that? Not really, no. There's a few name checks of various sort of uh folkloric creatures and things like that. Um but it kind of abandons that it kind of and then it becomes a kind of sort of political thriller for a little bit, and then it abandons that, and then it just does that scene at the end of years and years again where it's like in the far future and sort of the the lead character passes away and it reflects back on what the whole thing's been about. It's just yeah, it's just it's I it's it feels like three episodes kind of pasted together, yeah.
SPEAKER_08Which is all but I come out of you said it at the start, but is borne out by the fact that production has begun, but our leading man has not been released from his previous employment. And we're gonna encounter that again next episode with uh Dot and Bubbles reduced. And two out of the eight episodes are just kind of fillers, as it turns out.
SPEAKER_10This is why I was like, I I could see how this would maybe work better if Millie Gibson stayed on and you throw this in in the exact same spot but in series two, and and so therefore you've spent more time with the Doctor and Ruby, you feel that loss because for all the kind of stuff where she goes, Oh, I didn't even know him that long, but it feels like you know, it feels like forever. Fine, sure, but for the audience, it hasn't been that long actually, and it it's quite hard to kind of feel the emotional weight of that loss, and also because we don't we haven't really got to know the doctor himself all that well, so when we lose him, it doesn't quite feel it doesn't like you know what Father's Day that's a good example this sort of third act of Father's Day where it's all fucking kicking off and the Reaper comes down and kills the doctor, and Rose is kind of left with her dad, and they have to figure out how to save the day. That that has such weight because you spend eight weeks with them, and also it seems like such an impossible situation, and like how are they gonna get out of it? And the only way to get out of it is the thing that she's been avoiding for that whole episode. That's such a brilliant um thing. Whereas this, the doctor blinks out of ex out of existence, and it doesn't really like Ruby goes back to her life. The thing that really impacts her is obviously Carla leaving, I suppose. But even that's not really given all that much that's given a lot more weight in the novel than in the in the actual script. Like it goes into a lot more detail about like what happens when Cherry dies, you know, like and she's not invited to the funeral, but she still gets some money in the will to buy a flat, and that's how she can afford the flat and all that kind of thing. Um but Carla contests the will, and and there's all this kind of other stuff about how they kind of because obviously the running away and changing the locks, that's kind of like a oh okay, so that she's cut off ties, but the novelization kind of gives it a bit more emotional heft.
SPEAKER_08It's it's all very emotionally manipulative, what we see on screen. I'm glad that the uh the novelisation has at least a bit more of a kind of emotional authenticity grounding to it.
SPEAKER_10It has a lot of fanwank in it as well. She buys a flat with power estate.
SPEAKER_06Oh of course she does.
SPEAKER_10And before she meets Kate Stewart, she gets vetted by Unit. And do you know who does her vetting?
SPEAKER_06Oh who Ace. Ace.
SPEAKER_10Ace. Which I was a bit like, oh fuck off. But then kind of I see why he does it. In it's partly to fill up the page count, I suppose. But you know, they're both Doctor Who companions who were kind of caught between a fight between the Doctor and some gods, so I can kind of get why he throws her in there as a kind of like dripping with destiny, the pair of them.
SPEAKER_08What is her uh you know, outside of all the fanwang bits or the emotionally uh straining bits, what's her life like? What's it described as? Like, I know we get to see in the episode her just having a chat with some boys, but like, what does she work as? You know, like does she what's she like when she's at home and knows that there's like a old woman outside?
SPEAKER_10So like there there's a lot more. So that bit actually, the the last boyfriend that breaks up with her. Um there's a whole thing about how he's chosen the venue for that date, and she's very quickly realized that there's no window in sight, so she can't see the woman, and she feels really anxious because well, what if you know, and so there's like a whole thing about the anxiety of when she can't see the woman. What if the woman bumps into somebody she knows and then tells her something she loses somebody else? So, like, there's there's quite a lot of thought given to kind of what it would be like to kind of to actually live with that thing. Also, it it makes it obviously it is kind of explicit in the show in the episode, but it makes a big point about Ruby toasting the woman every year on her birthday, which again ties into my reading of it as kind of this fear of abandonment that's tied into her mother. She goes to see a therapist as well. That's a really good bit that she sees a therapist about it, and she kind of knows that it's a weird sci-fi supernatural thing that he's not really going to be able to help her with, but she wants somebody to kind of talk to about it. And the guy's like, Well, what does this woman represent? She must represent your mother and the fear of abandonment and all this kind of thing. Anyway, he meets the old woman outside the outside his office one day and then fucks off.
SPEAKER_08There is comic potential there, like a woman who's constantly 73 yards away from you, and like is it's it behind? Is it like you know, like what if 70 what if you're standing a place and 73 yards away is like the changing room of a swimming pool? Something you know, like what would be like an inappropriate like a kid's playground? Um, what would be an inappropriate brothel? Well, also, yeah.
SPEAKER_10But you know the bit where she's like, Oh, I positioned her in front of a police car once and they just drove around it. I was a bit like, well, yeah, but what if you did that with like a train? Yeah, that's and it's just on a very narrow track, that's got nowhere to go. What happens then?
SPEAKER_08Well, she did say that there is a bit where Kate asks her, uh, you know, what if you got on a plane or on a boat? And she went, I haven't though. I feel like Yeah. I feel like I'll die rather than her die. I feel like I'll die if she disappears.
SPEAKER_10Which is obviously, yeah, that so it sets up this whole thing that it is actually just Ruby living through that timeline.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_10So that she can then just go, Oh, I don't I wouldn't step in that if I was you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_10I think what this wants to be, I I know I said kind of like highbrow horror, but I think also there's a a real touch of you know those star like those Star Trek episodes like The Inner Light or The Visitor. The visitor is a good example of this. Um where it's you know it's a character that we know and love lives a completely different life, um has all those experiences, and then it has to kind of snap back at the end because it's it's a timeline that particularly in the visitor, obviously, inner light is Picard's living somebody else's life, but and so then it kind of snaps back, but you get all that kind of emotional because the visitor is a masterpiece, um, but it it feels like it wants to be that, it wants to be sort of Doctor Who doing that kind of but what happens if somebody lives through a timeline where the doctor's gone and they're kind of left alone and they don't know what to do with themselves, and it's really sad, and but it just doesn't quite have the heft because I don't think I think it's too scatty, it doesn't quite know what it wants to be.
SPEAKER_08And even even if we just take it this this suggestion at face value, what would it be like if a space a time machine's perception filter landed on something a bit more um you know uh mythical and wor worldly and and this was just something the TARDIS was doing in order to what strengthen Ruby for something coming up? Like we still don't we we have any possible thing that this could be in terms of developing the character, strengthening the character, arming the character for a battle for a conflict coming up. Nothing nothing like that happens past this point. There's nothing.
SPEAKER_10Well, yeah, because it just all gets it all just gets undone. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_08But there was a suggestion that Ruby was going to be the wish world child. Yes, and this would then suddenly make sense. That this would then suddenly make sense. There's something inherent about her um in the right circumstances being able to create fully fledged uh dream worlds, fantasy worlds, uh alternate universes, something, and that's what the Rannies uh utilise. Um that's what this probably was gonna be, and it isn't, and so it doesn't, and it's not so it's a it's a it's a charming little atmospheric piece. Move on. That's it.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, I think that's fair. Um you got any favourite scenes? I I do like the pub scene because it's just a cozy looking pub, but I would have a drinking like but yeah, it does tap into that kind of I I don't like I say, I don't know what it's saying about the Welsh, um, or they're really hostile towards towards vulnerable, scared English girls that come into their pub.
SPEAKER_08Unless that landlord ho owns the freehold, she should be thankful for everybody that comes through the door trying to spend money.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_08Because that business is gonna go under if you've got some fucking Jessica Fletcher-esque woman sitting in the bar and two weirdos playing games, and then like a guy, and that's your entire custom base. Yeah, and then and then weirdly you have like nighttime pastry delivery, like a pasty delivery guy. Like, I don't know, like I'm who the fuck cares? Like, like I know everyone's listening for our take on this, but there comes a point where actually I I was in the position where like I really like this at the start, and it's just unraveled as we've talked, and I'm just like, uh well, there's another interesting, it's not an interesting point, Ben. Shut up, like it's just like it's fucking there's nothing like enjoy it or don't, and then move on. There's nothing to this any more. There's another thing, uh it was it on Unleashed or was that something else where Russell T. Davis is talking about how he spent ages going out into like big spaces so he could map out exactly what 73 yards looked like. I think it was like on a pier or something like that, and he was measuring the ballards along the middle, but like also but like okay, so you've done that. So so now what? What about what about a ca a coherency test? What about letting somebody r read the script before you fucking throw it at a production team? Like it's so you so you you walked out to see how far away people's faces start to blur with your glasses on. You're a man with glasses. I mean like what are you anyway? Who cares? Nobody nobody cares, mate. It's absolute shite. Anyway, thanks for listening. Um I think we'll like I think we'll cut well okay. Performances. It's Millie Gibson, who cares?
SPEAKER_10Um It's Millie Gibson. Um I think Shan Phillips does give it a bit of class. I think the pub scene is maybe a bit too hammy at times, but I think she's she's quite good, kind of classes up the place a little bit. Um, but yeah, it is Millie Gibson. I also uh everybody gives this episode shit for putting big glasses on Millie Gibson and saying she looks 40.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_10I submit to the court uh Amal Rajan with all talc in his hair and his mustache. It's uh it looks so shit.
SPEAKER_08It was very uh David Badil and Rob Newman History Today, isn't it? Like if he like if he sneezed, there would suddenly be flower everywhere.
SPEAKER_10There was something else I wanted to bring up. Oh, yes, before we before we move on, um the the Target novelization reminded me why I don't really like listening to audiobooks of fiction. I'll listen to an audiobook of like a non-fiction book sometimes because it's like a podcast, isn't it? You can just, you know. Susan Twist does all the voices, and I mean all the voices. Oh god. She does Angela Winter.
SPEAKER_00I told her that man was no good with his backs and magic tricks, some kind of gozone.
SPEAKER_10And she does Shuttigatwa, who is a cross between um at times, he sounds a bit like either Shrek or Fat Bastard from the Spy Shag thing. Um and at other times he sounds a bit like he sounds a bit like that sort of drunk drunk guy you bump into on Swaky Hall Street at 11 o'clock in the morning.
SPEAKER_01Someone made this, said the doctor reverentially, picking up a sprig of dried flowers. Sorry, man, sorry, I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_09Pure step dinner fairy circle. Oh no, man, the fairies are gonna go me to look pure fairies are gonna go after me, I fucking oh no. Fucking oh fucking calm down fairies, like I didn't mean you fucking harm like fucking calm your wee wings, you fairy mad contain and soon.
SPEAKER_08Okay, well that was my favourite part of this whole endeavour.
SPEAKER_10Same, same. Uh well, okay. Well I think that's uh 73 yards.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. Yes, it is. Uh enjoy it. Um uh I do enjoy it.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, I d I enjoy it. Um I think it is good. I think there's a lot about it that's good, but I do think it suffers from the the fact that it's been dashed off very quickly.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_10We've all been there. Um so we'll t we'll take a little break. Uh which oh I I'd I I should bring up what I was thinking. But I got a can uh by the Lakes Brew Company uh of Leave No Trace, which the doctor does, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_10When he fucks off. Um oh that's my last favourite thing about this, uh which we've never had in Doctor Who before, um, which is that when the doctor disappears, Ruby thinks he's just nipped around the back of the target for a quick slash.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_10That's good. I like that.
SPEAKER_08And then and then says that, but rushes around to look at before she's that warning.
SPEAKER_10In the in the novelisation, Scott Hancock appropriately named, has uh clearly realised this and says, after an appropriate warning, Ruby then moved around the back of the TARDIS to check if the doctor was there.
SPEAKER_08Shlong out his uh his bigerated schlong. Two of them flapping around. Wee wee flying out.
SPEAKER_09Oh no man! I've gone up to my bigenerated cock. Oh, the fennies are gonna see me in my fucking scants with my bigenerated cocks flying about it. Oh no. Oh gotta wee drop a wee wee on a few fucking hell. This is a bad day.
SPEAKER_10I think we should I think that's just um you know like Bob Mortimer does like you know Peter Bearsley, he doesn't really say death like Peter Bearsley, you know, all that in the kind of comments. I feel like we've found we've found our shooty gather impression for the for the rest of the series.
SPEAKER_09Oh rogue, I'm sure of you. You're a hot lad, so yeah, so yeah, so you fucking are and I've got two of them you can fucking juggle about like sausages.
SPEAKER_08That's from the uh target novelization of Rogue, which we'll be touching upon more when we get to that episode in the series. Next on Radio 4 is the shipping forecast. Okay, we are back. It's canine and company. What a landmark! Uh let's uh let's do the stats. So canine Company, a completely different thing, off on its own, it's a spin-off. It was created by John Nathan Turner, written by Terence Dudley, uh, and directed by John Black. Uh it was broadcast on the 28th of December 1981, uh, and it got uh like a fairly decent viewership, 8.4 million, which was uh more than 73 yards. Yes, but it was also more than all of Legopolis. This is this falls into the gap between Legopolis and Castro Valva. Didn't get as much uh as a lot of the parts of Castro Valva. They were obviously a new doctor, so they are hitting the 10 million mark. But you know, it's at least a million, a million and a half, in some cases, two million, more than uh pretty much all the installments of Legopolis, which in terms of it uh having I've read somewhere disappointing ratings, that's simply not true. It does better than a good few uh stories uh uh from from Tom Baker's final season.
SPEAKER_10Because when did it air again? It was quite around.
SPEAKER_0828th of December 1981, and apparently uh there was some So I guess maybe they're expecting it to get higher because it's in the kind of that period between Christmas and New Year's. Possibly. And it would have done, apparently, in the northeast that a transmitter went out, so like a sizeable portion of the north of England did not get this.
SPEAKER_10Wow.
SPEAKER_08So it almost certainly would have been higher. Anyway, that's the stats, that's the paperwork.
SPEAKER_04Now it's time for So for the second time in this episode, it is Digsies.
SPEAKER_10What is it game? And the category this time round is books. Um, Ben, you went first in the last round, so I'll go first this time, I guess.
SPEAKER_05Okay, sure.
SPEAKER_10Um so books. I guess I'm gonna start with the the classic. Uh is it a novelization?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_10Is it original fiction?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_10So is it like a like a factual book?
SPEAKER_05Yes it is.
SPEAKER_10Okay. Is it classic series related?
SPEAKER_05Yes it is.
SPEAKER_10Does it have the diamond logo on it? No. Does it have the neon logo on it?
SPEAKER_05No.
SPEAKER_10Is it from the 1980s?
SPEAKER_08Yes.
SPEAKER_10Is it written by like a familiar name?
SPEAKER_08Uh absolutely.
SPEAKER_10Okay. Is it a day in the life of a producer by John Nathan Turner?
SPEAKER_07Uh it's not. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_10Is it like uh so it's a factual book? Is it like a making of the show kind of a deal?
SPEAKER_07Yes.
SPEAKER_10Is Malcolm Hulk involved?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_10Okay, so it's a making of kind of deal. It's written by somebody that we would know. Oh, so let's think about the cover. Is it like um like monsters on it or anything like that? Is it got all the doctors on it?
SPEAKER_06Yes.
SPEAKER_10Is it like the 25th anniversary? Is it like Doctor Who a celebration or whatever it was called? No. Does it have seven doctors on it?
SPEAKER_05Yes, it does.
SPEAKER_10Okay, right, so we're in the late 80s or the early 90s. Is it the Doctor Who magazine 25th anniversary special that No, wait, it wasn't the 25th anniversary, but wasn't the 25th anniversary? The one that had the pink cover and it had all the No, it wasn't. It was the two is it Doctor Who magazine issue 250 or whatever it was. No, no, it's not.
SPEAKER_08Uh it's it's definitely a book. I don't think that's breaking any rules. You don't have to think about kind of you know, magazine or supplements or anything. It's it is it is.
SPEAKER_10Oh yeah, I was kind of counting magazines and books, but yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, okay. So bound publicity. Oh wait, is it oh wait, hang on. Hang on. Is it Doctor Who the television guide?
SPEAKER_08Uh it's not. It's uh it is not but program guide? No. Last one. Last one.
SPEAKER_10Oh, I don't know, the fucking discontinuity guide.
SPEAKER_08Uh it's Doctor Who, the handbook, specifically the third doctor era by David J. Howe and Stephen James.
SPEAKER_10Oh, they've all they're all on the fucking bottom, aren't they?
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_10I did think the handbook, you probably heard me mumble the handbook, but then I was like, well, I didn't, I didn't hear you.
SPEAKER_08Sorry, I would have kind of nudged you in that.
SPEAKER_10Well, no, because I still wouldn't have got it. I still wouldn't have got it right. But yeah.
SPEAKER_08Oh well, never mind. It was Doctor With the Handbook. Essential texts. I love these books.
SPEAKER_10Yes, yeah, they were good. I've still got a couple of them somewhere in the house. I don't know where though, because they're not on the shelf. But yes, no, I had yeah, I had a few of those.
SPEAKER_08Okay. Commiserations. Uh so mine then.
SPEAKER_10Good luck, is all I can say.
SPEAKER_08Oh oh, okay, perfect. Right, okay. Uh right.
SPEAKER_10So category is books.
SPEAKER_08Books. So is it a fiction book?
SPEAKER_10Yes.
SPEAKER_08It is. Okay. Is it a classic series?
SPEAKER_10Yes.
SPEAKER_08Okay. Uh I guess zeroing in. Is it a classic series written within the classic years?
SPEAKER_10Oh, right. I mean, yes. Yes.
SPEAKER_08Okay. Uh is it the it was it written in the 60s?
SPEAKER_10No.
SPEAKER_08Was it written in the 70s?
SPEAKER_10Uh I don't think so, but let me just double check because I might be wrong on that. Christ, I've just seen how much it goes for on Amazon.
SPEAKER_08Um, oh, that's interesting.
SPEAKER_10Uh so this uh this item here. Oh, just on the cusp. So uh no, not the 70s. And forget I said just on the cusp.
SPEAKER_08Right. Uh so is it the 80s then?
SPEAKER_10Yes.
SPEAKER_08Okay. Um is it a single work of fiction? As in or sorry, maybe is it an annual?
SPEAKER_11No.
SPEAKER_08No. Uh was it published by Target?
SPEAKER_11No.
SPEAKER_08No. Okay, interesting. Um was it uh is it a paperback?
SPEAKER_10Yes.
SPEAKER_08A paperback, okay. A paperback, so small uh not published by Target. It's a fiction. Was that was that that Who Killed Kennedy book? Was that that wasn't published by Target, was it?
SPEAKER_10Uh No, it was Virgin, but it wasn't the nineties.
SPEAKER_08That was the nineties, okay, so it wasn't that. Okay. Um is it about Doctor Who? You know. Is it the Doctor's in it?
SPEAKER_10Oh what is in the character of Doctor Who?
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_10No.
SPEAKER_08Okay. Is it a companion book?
SPEAKER_10It's a book about a companion, yes.
SPEAKER_08A book about a companion, okay. So is it uh is a book about a companion? Okay. Is that about canine?
SPEAKER_10Yes.
SPEAKER_08It is. Is it the novelization of canine and company?
SPEAKER_10No. I believe we already had that, this series, but no, it's not that.
SPEAKER_08Okay, okay, I've got five more, so it's about canine. It's a fiction. Is it is it that canine's monster book? That canine's like baddies and stuff. No.
SPEAKER_11No.
SPEAKER_08Oh my god. I feel I feel like I'm gonna waste the rest of these and not get the thing.
SPEAKER_10Uh I I it's something I sort of knew existed, but I wouldn't if you asked me to give you the name of it, there's no fucking way I would give you the n be able to give you the name.
SPEAKER_08Right, so it's a book. Which doesn't help you anyway. It's paperback, it's about canine, it's a fiction. Um, is and it's not an annual. Uh is the page count like over a hundred pages?
SPEAKER_10Oh no, see, I don't know.
SPEAKER_08Okay, re maybe rephrase.
SPEAKER_10On TARDIS Wiki is quite blank.
SPEAKER_08Would you would it be like a no would you consider it a novel?
SPEAKER_10Um TARDIS Wiki does. I think it's probably more a storybook.
SPEAKER_08A storybook, okay. Um Is it pr is it prose in it?
SPEAKER_10Yes.
SPEAKER_08Okay. Uh okay.
SPEAKER_10You've got two questions left, three questions left, three questions left.
SPEAKER_08It's a fiction but like is it is it like is it like canine like like a little science guide for kids with canine as the guide?
SPEAKER_11No.
SPEAKER_08Right, okay. Um is it uh oh my god, I don't know. And it's not like canine and other kind of baddies. Um is it like a canine puzzle book?
SPEAKER_11No.
SPEAKER_08No, I think this is my last one. Is it some unlicensed canine pornography that you could only get at selected fan events? Canine Does Dallas. Uh 12 Angry Men in K9. Something like that. Is that no, it's not my last one?
SPEAKER_10Um what it is is K9 and the Zeta Rescue, which is part of a series of um books published by Sparrow Books um in 1980, um, which were K9-led stories. Uh the plot of this is there have been great explosions in the galaxy. There's danger that the whole galaxy will be blown apart. The situation is too dangerous for even the Time Lords to handle, and so they call K9 to the raid. Oh, it's he knows to save their world.
SPEAKER_08Fucking hell. Like, I just saw these books on the Blu-ray extras because they're written by Dave Martin. It's four of these books that were released, written by Dave Martin, off of the back of K9 and Company. And yeah, I literally saw that book. I know what the King was.
SPEAKER_10K9 has a little spaceship called the K N L.
SPEAKER_08The K the K N L. Ah, I was gonna bring that up in the body of our conversation.
SPEAKER_10So K9 and the Time Trap uh was the first one written by Dave Martin, and the main enemy was Omegon.
SPEAKER_08Alright, yeah.
SPEAKER_10I wonder if that's where the time quake came from.
SPEAKER_08Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_10Or if it because I think he's supposed to be Omega. Because also the doctors referred to as Thetis, the Time Lord's Theta Sigma, not uh the Doctor. Uh so K9 and the Time Trap, then K9 and the Beasts of Vega. Yeah. Um, then you've got the Zita Rescue, um, and then the finale, the big finale, was uh hang on. K9 and the Missing Planet. Uh and I think they were all recorded by John Leeson for like one of those like audio BBC audio collections recently. Um so yeah, there we go.
SPEAKER_05There we go.
SPEAKER_10So K9 and Company, a little bit less than uh 73 yards. Jackson Reese says it's a unique pilot in that it gives you zero insight or impression as to what the fuck the show would actually be about in terms of tone, genre, demographic, theme. Absolutely fuck all. I think both RTD2 and Kanan and Company both failed to establish a new show. Shooty's character makes no sense as a lead, both as a wise, genius immortal that we should defer to, and as a young at heart, easily hurt, gay party guy. The expectations of him as the lead are confused, exacerbated by his absence from two stories. In the same vein, why is a more human earthbound detective series foregrounding the robot dog as the fucking lead character? Uh J.R. Southall says, King of the Company is a great example of what happens when you get your mate from All Creatures Great and Small to write an episode of something Doctor Who adjacent. If you squint, it's almost a wicker man, but if you stare it full in the face, it's a robot dog with its antenna up a cow's ass. Um I'd have loved to see I've seen a full series of the barely functioning robot dog turning up in other famous countryside tales, like The Wind in the Willows, he'd have made an excellent ratty, or Elvira Madigan. Watch the canine and company opening opening titles to a bit of Mozart and tell me it doesn't make sense. I've never seen Elvira Madigan, but I'll take your word for it. Um Dylan Reese says, enjoyable old shite, occasionally dull, frequently camp, and often unintentionally hilarious. In retrospect, it's a bizarre choice to send canine to the country. An 80s canine spinoff could have worked wonders in a busy city immersed in the advances of computer technology and big business. And finally, Lucy McCall says, I love K9 and Company, probably because it is so balmy. Isn't it? Isn't it mental? Isn't it a strange little piece of work? Because I think on the one hand, it's really weird how that this is kind of ultimately the format that we end up with the Sarah Jane Adventures. It's Sarah Jane with a kind of uh sort of slightly wonderkined young protege solving weird mysteries in her local area. That's ultimately what the Sarah Jane Adventures is.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, but it's yeah, it's called the Sarah Jane Adventures, not the canine and company with Sarah Jane in it.
SPEAKER_10Yes, it's a bit more exciting than Sarah Jane. It's a bit more for kids, I would argue. Than this is.
SPEAKER_08That this was what this was gonna be. This is my first time seeing it, and I was saving it for on the time lash, and I honestly didn't know anything about it. I knew I'd seen the title sequence, and I know people thought that was a bit over the top. Uh, you see the promotional image, you know, Sarah in that kind of grey, uh, you know, woolen suit thing hunkering down with K9. You see Sarah Jane and K9 at the start of the Five Doctors, and you kind of think, oh, it must be something like that. They're living whatever the fuck they're living, Croydon, Ealing, whatever. I didn't think it was going to be like a like a pre-pilot to the Sarah Jane Adventures, but I was not expecting like witches. I was not expecting Deep Countryside, I was not expecting some sort of midsummer murders, fucking what was that with Pam Ferris and uh you know Rosemary and Tyne was the the detective show where it was two gardeners that are constantly doing the gardens of people getting bumped off. Like it was like it was all that cozy crime. I don't want to say folk horror, because it's just such a watered-down wicker man-esque conceit. Uh and as I text this to you, it is half of it is as stoltifyingly boring as the other half of it is just off the scale camp bizarre strangeness. Uh and it makes for a very discombobulating watch. Sometimes you're bored out of your mind, sometimes you can't believe like that um like after uh the farmer and his son break in and they uh to the house and then canine goes after them. Uh he's lasered them a couple of times, and the the the farmer, the guy's like hiding in the greenhouses, and canine doesn't do anything except knock over some pole supports which crash down on top of the greenhouses, and it makes the guy fucking shit through the eye of a needle and run off and almost drive him mad because he thinks it's some sort of devil punishment, and it's just a clumsy pro prop being a clumsy prop in real, in real in the fiction, which completely diffuses any kind of tension that was being built about the the horror of home invasion in the middle of the country.
SPEAKER_10That whole sequence, even before it but canine bumps into the knocks the poles out, whatever whatever he does to knock that ladder through that greenhouse. Um like you've got this guy running running away through the gardens and canine very slowly trundling after him. And in that sequence, I was like, Well, this is the limitations of the format, isn't it? Because what we're gonna have, canine slowly chasing criminals around every week, because that's not gonna it's not very dynamic, isn't it?
SPEAKER_08I can see why they've done it, I can see why they did all of this stuff. Okay, John Nathan Turner got a pilot and he wanted a series out of it. And he's obviously sussed out exactly what the BBC can do brilliantly costume, atmosphere, contemporary set building, um, location shoots. Uh put out in the countryside where it's it's a controllable environment in a way that maybe a like a you know uh city setting would not be. And then you can present a pilot where everything has been guarded against that you would normally look at Doctor Who and go, ah, that was shit, that was terrible, why did you do it like that? You know, the interior of all these kind of barn cottage country residences, um all charmingly made out, apart from the very obvious studio floor that they all that they all are sitting on because of the robot thing. Uh Sarah Jane uh Elizabeth Slaydum uh imbues that character with a lot more maturity uh since her time on Doctor Who. Everybody is giving a decent performance, which covers over a lot of the fact that there is no surprises to be found anywhere. Like the whole plot is Aunt Lavinia is gonna go off early and then goes off early and somebody just forgets to tell or intentionally does not tell Sarah Jane, and she starts and she uncovers this whole witch's fucking conspiracy. Um just because she doesn't have the right information rather than it's actually linked to the disappearance of the aunt. The ant is perfectly fine, it's inside so there's no there's no guessing going, Oh my god, has Lavinia been captured? No, she hasn't, she's fine. Like she's off. So there's nothing, there's no surprise there. The only thing that's surprising is that uh Juno and Howard are not involved at the end.
SPEAKER_10That's no, they just host the local swinging party instead.
SPEAKER_08There's a deep suspicion on them because they've actually, if anything, got uh a a more grave and deeper secret than purely human sacrifice. Human sacrifice. Shame will die there. Like for Juno and Howard, shame is a shame and being outed in a community. It's a constant hangover. Um, there is nothing surprising here. Uh, the moment you meet each of the characters which are revealed to be the uh the coven leaders, you went, I knew I knew that the second I spoke to There's a music, there's a literal music cue when she meets um what's his name?
SPEAKER_10Uh Mr. Mr. Tobias, you know, the editor of the local paper. She meets him and there's like a proper music sting. Is it oh he's the bad guy by the way? The moment you meet people that's the that's the bad guy now.
SPEAKER_08They are the baddies. Like I think again John Black, the director, has done like uh like in 72 yards, created something that's visually very appealing and holds the production in good stead. I think the writing is the most basic distillation of cliches without trying to subvert anything or be clever with anything. And the novelty of seeing K9, the good work that Elizabeth Slayden does, although there is strange acting choices in certain scenes. Uh aside from that, like it's such a and and I can understand as well why why would they have chosen witches? You know, the tradition of having the ghost story for Christmas, you know, that's presumably what that idea was. Do something that's reflective of the Christmas programming at the time. But uh yeah, I can't remember who said it, Jackson. Maybe what would the show have even looked like?
SPEAKER_10Yeah, I don't like would it have been a Midsummer Murders thing where she's just in the same village and maybe next week a new a new power plant is uh started operating and oh there's some weird stuff going on down at the old.
SPEAKER_08There's a great uh extra where they uh uh on the Blu-ray where they're talking about how there's a specific canine annual that comes out after this, and even the people creating the canine annual don't really understand what would the continuation of this series have been because there's just more stories of canine versus witches. Completely a completely different story from canine and company, it's just canine versus more witches.
SPEAKER_10I'd forgotten that actually it's just the doctor left it at her old house ages ago. Um, I always thought it the doctor gives Sarah canine as a Christmas present.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, I also thought that. No, but it's it says it's set in 1981 specifically. So this is this is something that throws unit dating completely out of whack. So so in actual fact, because it says in the set is in the episode, the doctor left it with her or left it in Croydon in 1978, which means the doctor left it with left it with Sarah before the 1980 events of Pyramids of Mars.
SPEAKER_10Fuck that up. Could you not open that box for for three years?
SPEAKER_08She was still with John Pertley's doctor at that time. She's barely met him. During the events of the paradise of death.
SPEAKER_10I I like the idea though of the doctor just like you know, you've got that relative who just gives everybody the same present, you know. And the doc the doctor's got he's got the blueprints for canine now off of Professor Marius. He can build his own sort of slightly better version, and he's just gifted it to all his all his ex-companions, Ian and Barbara, Dodo, Ben and Polly, Jamie McCrimin, the fucking lot of them. They've all got robot dogs. There's robot dogs. I'd like to see that story everywhere.
SPEAKER_08I'd like to see Jamie McCrimen re-raising the Jacobite standard and retake it, just wandering down through England, England with no army, just a robot dog blasting out of existence any militar any military opposition until he eventually arrives at Buckingham Palace. That's why he's so happy in the memory, TARDIS. That guy, that guy has retaken the throne for the Stuart Kings. I enjoyed it. I think we should say that. I don't think we've either said, did we enjoy it?
SPEAKER_10It's fun, it is fun. Like I I hadn't I hadn't seen it until a couple of I think when this box set came out. I watched it. And it was great. Like watching it for the first time, I was it's it's a lot of it is a lot of fun. Um there's some mad choices in this. Like if you're looking at a young audience, the amount of sort of dull as dishwater fucking conversations about like soil pH, which I get, it's about science over like superstition. I get it, but it's very dull. It's not like I watched um uh this TNG episode Who Watches the Watches the other day, which is a fucking belter of a story about sort of science and reason over religion, and then I watched this, and it's a dweeby guy talking about soil pH with a slightly superstitious gardener. I was like, Oh yeah, it's not a good one.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, there's a there was a bit of Emmerdale Farm back when it was Emmerdale Farm about it.
SPEAKER_10Yes, but Terrence Dudley does this. Have you have you you've seen Survivors, right? Oh, so in the second series, he kind of takes over in the second series of Survivors after Terry Nation kind of does that thing that he does where he goes, I'm bored of this now, you somebody else can take over. And there's so and fine, it's about people you know living in a sort of post-apocalyptic Britain, but the amount of stuff about like methane farming, um, so that they can use it as a new like power source, and there's just so many just really dull stuff about I think that's just what Terence Dudley's into, just you know, soil science and uh gardening. Well it's interesting.
SPEAKER_08Well, black orchids he's done, and uh the king's demons, uh so another kind of obviously historical. Um but there's uh he's also done four for doomsday, four to doomsday, which is just a lot of dancing. It's a lot there's a lot of boring stuff in his he's not a very dynamic and exciting writer.
SPEAKER_10Um to the point that like so obviously Brendan gets captured, uh he's gonna be sacrificed, uh, and Sarah's oh, I've got a couple of days. There's no until there until K9 goes, no, but mistress, the winter solstice is at midnight tonight. That's the alright, okay, I'd better get a fucking shift on then. So hang on a minute, you you your young ward has been kidnapped. I got a few days, they're not gonna sacrifice them just show up.
SPEAKER_08Like karate kicking and like punching and chopping. You know, it's nice to see Sarah doing the rescuing.
SPEAKER_10It did I did think there was something slightly uh subversive, I suppose, about the kind of the Doctor Who girl in inverted inverted commas sort of saving the young, vulnerable, virginal boy. Uh I was like, oh that's that's kind of like a a long overture twist of it.
SPEAKER_08I think I probably would like it a lot more had I had the optimum viewing experience. Uh but I I watched half of it. Uh my child then projectile vomited twice in his cot, so I had to spend a bit of time seeing that he was alright and cleaning everything up.
SPEAKER_10Canine and company's not for everybody.
SPEAKER_08I just read him the synopsis and he did that. He didn't even see the actual anyway. So about an hour after fucking being knee-deep in uh the dinner that I just given him, I went back to watching it, and you know, I I've got to go out in a limp and say it maybe destroyed a bit of the enjoyment momentum that I I was building up for it. But despite that, despite the um the trial that it was put through, I liked it fine. Do I have a lot to say about it? Not much. It's like 78, 73 yards. It's there, who cares?
SPEAKER_10Yeah. Speaking of children, the bit where is it Howard goes to the post office and nobody's there, and there's a poster up on the wall that says how to hurt your child without trying. And I'm presuming it's an old public safety thing about like don't leave these appliances on around the house, because you know. So, yes, I found the poster that is in Canine and Company. Um, and it says, How to injure your child without really trying. Uh, remember, children will try anything once, so protect them from themselves, keep your home safe from accidents. And the the accidents here are uh sort of flammable teddy bear next to a sort of three-bar fire, uh, a boiling a boiling saucepan, just some stuff oh no, uh an unlocked baby gate on on the stairs, uh, a bottle of an open bottle of pills next to an open box of smarties. I mean that's just asking for trouble. Who's doing that? And then and then just an open cupboard full of bleach and uh metal polish, so you know a lesson for us all there. Um but yeah, I just thought that that really caught my eye this time round. Um and I was that's what an odd production design choice. But there we go.
SPEAKER_08Um what did we fucking say about this? Like I thought there would be more. Like I thought the and it's weird what you get as the body of the episode compared to what you get as the title sequence. Like there are those are two very disjointed tones.
SPEAKER_10They are, um because yeah, it's the the title sequence is the 80s show that Dylan sort of mentioned. Um it's you know, it's it's Liz Sladen jogging and uh having a glass of wine outside a pub while on a typewriter and you know and driving a you know mini metro down a down a country road. It's exciting, it's dynamic, it's it's just a lot of poncing around in country houses and yeah, and and worrying about soil pH. Yeah, it's just it doesn't quite live up to the and the theme tune talking about favourite performances, Ian Bloody Levine. I think this is I mean I know it's Peter Howell's arrangement, um, but the K9 and Company theme tune is a banger. I don't care what anybody says it is so catalyst.
SPEAKER_08Well it's like it's like Space 1999. That season one that is an exciting title sequence. The actual thing itself is so slow, slow, space nineteen ninety nine. I'm not slating, I'm not saying it's bad, but it is very leisurely, it's very leisurely, uh, and it's like this here it's like you're promised something by that title sequence. Like, you know, uh, you know, Sarah Jane in this is a lot more mature and down the line than uh boozy sport Sarah Jane who's running to to you know presumably sweat out the copious amount of alcohol in her system from whatever book she was fucking slamming away on the typewriter. I want to see that. I want to see you know, canine on a wall. What's he doing on a wall?
SPEAKER_10Yeah, I know that he's just why is he up on a wall? Uh and also I like the bit where to kind of go in, they sort of break into the house uh to kind of spy on the guys that have kidnapped Brendan and she has to lug K9 at the back of her mini metro, sort of wheel him in the house so he can hide in a cupboard somewhere and sort of listen to everything. And again, it just kind of I think if if you have a character have to literally lift canine up, it really sort of shows the flaws with the idea of kind of making him the dynamic the sort of like lead of the show.
SPEAKER_08Well that's why they stick him away for Sarah Jane Adventures, stick him away in an event horizon or something. Isn't that what that is? Yeah, yes, and yeah, something like that. Well, I think it's that and rights issues, but yeah, it's also that and then like but then also the replacement canine, Mr. Smith, he's just a computer and a wall, so you've got to get all your data and then go off and do an adventure rather than fucking decant him into I don't know.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, and then sort of slowly plodding behind your stick him on a skateboard or your trumbling computer.
SPEAKER_08Well, they could have carried him around like Ziggy and Quantum Leap, something like that. But you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_10I was reminded of the Box of Delights uh part of in parts of this. Now the Box of Delights, Doctor Who fans will tell you it's a masterpiece, it's a w oh, it's a one, it's a wonderful, magical television programme, and it's look, it's good, it's good, I enjoy it, but I've always been a bit cold towards it because it is unbelievably posh, it's so posh, and the idea of the kind of wards, you know, Brendan is sort of Aunt Lavinia and by extension Sarah James Awards.
SPEAKER_08I mean, um how do you even explain that to a like a now and now audience? What the fuck is a ward?
SPEAKER_11I know, yeah.
SPEAKER_08Well, I know what award is, but like you know, like the last time I think I heard him being a ward was um, you know, an attempt to uh hide an illegitimate birth in Downton Abbey or something like that, you know. Which maybe maybe that's what uh maybe that's what he is. Could be really like that would be a fucking cracking final part of uh K9 and Company. Sarah and Brendan are are not just linked with familiar, but actually familially.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Because uh Aunt Lavinia had uh an affair with like a uh you know a journalist from Reuters or a professor from NYU or something like that, and this is what fucking now it turns out that Brendan's dad is the baddie, he's the head of the New York Witch's coven that wants to take revenge but from what happened in part one. The thing is though, Ben, the show you're pitching there has a kind of emotional drama that would be immediately undercut by the fact there's a robot fucking dog just gliding around illegitimate children, yeah, secret relationships, nothing really, but he didn't know he would like do the DNA test by just putting his little wee sucker antennae thing onto Brendan's knob, I guess. I don't know. Uh and then all I'm saying is just give it back to the fans. We know what to do with it. That's all I'm saying about Doctor Who and any spin-off. You know. Why do you think Big Finish is going from strength to strength?
SPEAKER_10What are your favourite performances?
SPEAKER_08Sarah Jane, Elizabeth Slayden. Yeah.
SPEAKER_10She's brilliant in this. Like, I think she's she's she's so charismatic from the minute she kind of steps out of that car. Um but I was a bit sad that we didn't get the kind of Sarah Jane show in the 1980s. Um I mean we eventually do get it, um, and that's great. Uh but yeah, I don't know, there's just something about her at that period, whereas I think you know, she's she's gone away from Doctor Who and she's kind of come back and she's had a little she's she's properly considered what how the character would have changed in the intervening what five four four five years? Also look Linda Pollen as or Poland as Juno Baker. Fantastic.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, she's up there with the um the unique uh one and done women of Doctor Who. Uh you know, what's her name?
SPEAKER_10The fucking woman in Stones of Blood and Imagine if we'd had this a year earlier, you know, maybe or two years earlier, and it had taken off. And you could have had a Christmas special where the fourth doctor would turn up and he would meet Juno Becca, oh the doctor would it would be another 73 yards kind of scenario where Sarah turns around and the doctor's gone and she's like, Oh fuck, if the fairy's taken home.
SPEAKER_08It's like, nah, it's just in that weird cum stenched house that's just across. Smells weird, smells like smells like Uzo and Johnny's And that's where he is.
SPEAKER_10Yeah. Oh god. That that's what Juno Baker's house smells like. There you go.
SPEAKER_08Um yeah, well, there we are. So that was K9 and company. That was 73. What an unrewarding listen. Sure was for our Yeah, I feel like we've just fucked around and there's not really been any other things. Uh stories or the most honest opinions that we've given. It's just that there's not much to say about either of these things, and uh I think we're I think we're fine with that.
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_08So thank you for listening, everybody. Uh you know, if you stuck around this far, hopefully you're giggling at uh Uzo and Johnny's. Um what are we gonna do next, Mark?
SPEAKER_10What are we gonna do? Uh we've got to get through these better is what we're gonna do. Well, we've got Tottenham Bubble, more shooty light uh. But they kind of do a flat line and tricky that he's in it the whole time because he's only just but it was that about it's about a kind of privileged class who live in a kind of social media bubble. Uh they're basically just a big bunch of space racists. So, what are we pairing that up with?
SPEAKER_08Uh, we're gonna pair it with the savages. First Doctor story, you know, until until the animation came out. Not uh not not really a well-known Doctor Who story, and now that the animation is out, still not really a well-known Doctor Who story, but there is uh elements of society uh preying on other elements of society by racial and social profiling. So that's what we're gonna do. Yeah, Dot and Bubble.
SPEAKER_10It's a light little podcast that we'll be doing. Um I mean, you know us, as you can absolutely Johnny's and who's or all the fucking so thank you very much everybody for joining us.
SPEAKER_08Thank you for your um listener correspondence. Um we'll we'll be with you next time. Uh I've been Ben.
SPEAKER_10I've been Mark, and to play us out, it's Ian Levine and Eastbound Expressway. Oh yes.