S7 E07 - Subs & Dom(inie)s

On this episode Dylan is joined by Jon Arnold to discuss the BBV audio 'Punchline' by Rob Shearman and staring Sylvester McCoy as The Dominie, along with the Big Finish audio 'Static' by Jonathan Morris and starring Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Doctor Who Hot For TV.

SPEAKER_03 0:39

Welcome back to Doctor Who, too hot for TV. We are the podcast that looks at all things expanded universe in the world of Doctor Who. Today I'm joined by a repeat offender around here. You heard him a few weeks ago during May Gan as part of The Strangers Troop. And I've bought him back for another solo episode. It's Mr. John Arnold. John, welcome. Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 1:02

It's a nice kind of borstel to be in, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 1:07

Well, I thought those other lads you hang around with brought you down somewhat. So I thought, must get John back by himself. You kind of forget what you've done and haven't done on this. And in my mind, I was like, John's done loads of these, but it's because we podcast on Strangers Together all the time. And after we did the The Stranger's Too Hot for TV crossover, I was like, oh no, John's only done one episode of this. So immediately I was like, we must get John back.

SPEAKER_05 1:30

You're a gentleman. And you know, what can be better? But you can't improve on the Dalit Generation, surely.

SPEAKER_03 1:36

Oh, well, we can but try. Now, as listeners may remember, last time you were here, we talked about the Dalit Generation, which I was very positive about. And I don't know whether I said this at the time, but I want to be clear, I was only positive about it because Joe Ford hates it so much. It is an awful book. But uh so it was a whole episode of bullshit.

SPEAKER_05 1:58

Joe Joe was quite happy at that. He he was singing your praises for how you nice you were about to.

SPEAKER_03 2:06

But it's it's also that thing of I could pull positives from it, but it was fundamentally a badly written book. There was things you could enjoy, but it's bad prose.

SPEAKER_05 2:14

It's bad prose, it's bad plotting, it's a terrible story, it's incoherent. But apart from that.

SPEAKER_03 2:24

Well, finally the truth is out there, what, probably 18 months, two years later. Well, I'm sure Joe keeps Joe happy, doesn't it? Well, exactly. So the first thing we're going to look at today is from BBV Productions, my old favourite, and it's Punchline, written by a man called Jeremy Ledbetter, better known as Rob Shearman, directed by Paul Ebbst, produced by Bill Baggs, and it was released in February of the year 2000. News at the time, Dalek 6, Primords, Nil. After the disappointing ratings of the repeat of the John Pertwee serial Doctor Who and the Silurians was dipped beneath the 2 million mark shortly before Christmas, Shooty Gatwa wants a word, there will be no repeat of Inferno on BBC Two, instead, jumping straight to Genesis of the Daleks. Because if Genesis of the Daleks can't save Doctor Who, what fucking can, eh? Nothing. Nothing in this universe. I'm pretty sure those repeats were canned straight after Genesis, right?

SPEAKER_05 3:28

Yes, they were the last one. No one wanted to see a story from 1975 in space year 2000.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

Absolutely. No, I'm yeah, nothing can save it. Look, it's it's a weird thing, isn't it? Because early 90s, those stories are everybody's quite nostalgic about them, but by 2000, you can really see the tide has turned and no nobody in the general public really gives a shit.

SPEAKER_05 3:50

And if you'd wanted it, it's been out on video for what? Six, seven years at this point? Eight years? Yeah, '92, wasn't it? I think. I love Doctor Who, and I wasn't tuning in because I've got the VHS. So so it's like, yeah, can I be asked to sit through seven episodes of the Solerians are a week? No, I could not. Exactly. I'm a Doctor Who fan, I gorge it all down in one large gulch.

SPEAKER_03 4:13

Yeah. Not doing it every night or whatever. I tell you who did want some Doctor Who though. BBC Radio 4. Rumours had been circulating for some months, but BBC Radio 4 announced they've commissioned a pilot for a new Doctor Who radio series starring Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred. It was to be produced by comic writer and performer Dan Friedman, with a script from Colin Meek, who was also Dan Friedman. This would ultimately become Death Comes to Time, which would get a pilot. The pilot wouldn't be picked up, and then BBC I would pick it up. What a wonderful time that was to think, oh, the BBC might make Doctor Who on audio, but they've gone for the previous Doctor, not Paul McGann or somebody new. Strange old time.

SPEAKER_05 5:01

I knew it was going on because a friend's housemate was in it.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

Right.

SPEAKER_05 5:05

So he would have to tell me about it. Uh it was Murray something, I can't remember his name yet. Uh Dylan's probably got this to hand. I'm expecting this to be encyclopedia. Actually, it's not BBB, so maybe not.

SPEAKER_03 5:18

No. I mean, I do love Death Comes to Time, but I can't remember the full cast list. There's too many celebs in it for me to know the smaller parts.

SPEAKER_05 5:25

Well yeah, I mean, after Stephen Fry turns it up, everything everyone else is kind of tiny by comparison, isn't it? Who who even remembers Sylvester Goyze in it? Well, exactly. Although many people say it's his best performance. Do they?

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Do they really? Yeah.

unknown 5:41

Really?

SPEAKER_05 5:43

No.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

No, not even at a time. There you go, it's either that ten minutes at the front of the TV movie or Death Comes to Time. It's clearly walking away from the from the circus in the Greatest Show in the Galaxy. But yeah, true. Ultimately Death came to Death Comes to Time and it did not get a full series. But one day I must cover. Did you ever hear The Minister of Chance, the spin-off series they did many years later? I uh did not. I I I was just out in my completest phase then. Ah, okay. So I did it when I wrote the damn time book specifically for that. And it's not bad, but about 20 minutes in you realise, oh, it's just a retelling of Death Comes to Time, but without the doctor and the minister as the main character.

SPEAKER_05 6:28

Oh, well well, I always thought the point of Death Comes Time was I can set this up for my own character. It set spin-off up. Yeah. So it's okay. I mean, it it was fine. But it's just it feels like he tried to do something iconoclassic for the sake of it. I'm the man who killed Doctor Who off.

SPEAKER_03 6:48

Yeah. He's planning. I remember see him at a convention and he was like, oh, what I'd do is I'd kill him off in this radio thing, and then we're hoping to get a TV series, which is Doctor Who the Next Generation, with Ace and the Minister, and then at some point the Doctor will come back. And it's just it's a very convoluted way of just like you can see why Russell went, just rebooting with a new doctor, just kill everybody else off, off screen.

SPEAKER_05 7:11

Yeah, well gutted, because you know to just think how much Joe would have loved a spin-off with a new TV shoot with Sophie Aldred as a lead. He'd have been gagging for that.

SPEAKER_03 7:22

Straight in on it. I'm sure I'm sure he would have been there. Finally, Big Finish has announced their latest big casting from the world of Doctor Who. Bonnie Langford is to reprise her role as Melanie Bush in an upcoming seventh Doctor audio called The Fires of Vulcan. That was an exciting time because everybody was like, after years of slagging Bonnie off, everyone was like, if anybody can rehabilitate now, it's big finish. And a lot of people were vindicated, I think.

SPEAKER_05 7:51

Absolutely, she's great. I remember because I think her first con it was her first convention was the 2000 Panoptican up in Manchester. And they were queuing down corridors for this. It was a huge way to get one to get her autographed.

SPEAKER_03 8:07

It it's funny, isn't it? It was all the people that had been slagging her off for the last decade and a bit, and then the convention happens that I need to get Bonnie's autograph. Haven't got it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:16

Completists. It's the whiz kid thing, isn't it? I've heard it used to be good.

SPEAKER_03 8:26

Releases at the time. From Big Finish, we had The Fearmonger featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace. From BBC Books, we had The Shadows of Avalon, featuring the Eighth Doctor, Fits and Compassion, and Tomb of Valdemar, featuring the Fourth Doctor and Romana One. On TV, we had The Harry Hill show, series three, episode one, featuring Nick Courtney playing the Brigadier in character, so it's canon. And the comic strip was The Glorious Dead. So we're at a time where Big Finish is starting up. There's brand new Seventh Doctor audio out there. The BBC books have been going for some time. Shadows of Avalon is just after Escape Velocity, something like that, is it?

SPEAKER_05 9:09

Um is it the year it's about year. No, it's before. It's Compassion. Because Angie comes on Escape Velocity, so it's the year before that. Right. 2001 Escape Velocity. So yeah. It's before The Ancestor Cell, um, Calvary getting blown up and everything. It's the Brigadier again, actually, in that.

SPEAKER_03 9:28

It's Paul Cornell writing The Brigadier. That's what I remember reading and really enjoying as a kid, but I couldn't tell you anything about it apart from what you've just said, The Brigadier and Paul Cornell. And who knows if I went back to it, whether it would be any good or not. And there's a dragon on the cover. Yeah, oh yeah, of course. Dominic Perkins lives in the seemingly idyllic town of Suburbaton, a place that functions like a perpetual 1970s television sitcom. Every day follows the same comforting routine: a perfect suburban home, a cheerful family, and problems that are always neatly resolved before the closing credits. At the centre of this artificial world is June, who plays the role of his devoted wife and mother to their son Kevin, and a mysterious authority figure known only as Sir. As Dominic becomes increasingly aware that Suburbaton is an artificial construct, he begins to resist the roles assigned to him. The carefully controlled sitcom world starts to break down as its characters question the routines they have been repeating endlessly. June is revealed to be the force most invested in preserving the illusion, believing the predictable happiness of Suburbaton is preferable to the pain, uncertainty, and disappointment of reality. The enigmatic Sir acts as an enforcer of the rules, attempting to keep the narrative on track whenever the characters begin to stray from their scripted lives. Dominic, who is actually the Domini, persuades June to confront the truth about the world she has created and maintained. As she finally accepts the perfection of Suburbaton as hollow and unstable, the sitcom setting dissolves around them.

SPEAKER_05 11:05

I picked this because I haven't listened to it in ages, and I remember it being one of the kind of the cream of the BBB crop reading. Yeah. It it was I I mean it get again, I knew a few people who were working for BBB at a time, and they said you need to hear this because it's really good. And yeah, I didn't know who Jeremy LeBron was. I don't think the Holy Terror isn't airbase one. No one knew who Rob Shearman was at this point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:35

We're not at the point we haven't had any Rob Shearman at this point in in Big Finish. I think he'd written one by this point, because the Holy Terror's like a month or two out, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, it's it's the Hope the Holy Terror's the end of the year, I think, almost. Top my head. Yeah, that makes sense. Nobody knew who Rob Sheerman was, let alone who Jeremy Ledbetter was. I didn't hear it at the time. I came to it a few years later, I want to say like 2005, six, something like that, when I was just, you know, filling the holes in my BBV audio collection. I had no preconception of who it was written by or what it was. And I remember to varying degrees loving or loathing a lot of the BBV audios, but the time traveler ones were always amongst my favourite. And this was a real like, as you say, it was the cream of the crop. And I think, you know, it probably still is. But it was it was just a a really refreshing listen back then, I think.

unknown 12:36

Definitely.

SPEAKER_05 12:36

I mean, for all I I did love the time travel, straight from Republica onwards. You know, I went straight and got that when it came out, and it's just like, yeah, this is this is the the out-of-copy right to indoctrinate, and it's great, it's exactly what I wanted. It's Mark Gate is doing a kind of a trad idea, you know, that alternative universe thing. And then you come to this and it is operating on a different level because you know, audio from fans they can be I should put it, they can be kind of drawn from quite obvious sources by those kind of communal things, you know, uh particularly around the late 90s it'd be folk horror, what we the TV we grew up on. And this obviously does play on the TV we grew up on, but it's operating on a different level with it. Yeah. You can hear this writer and you're going, this writer's trying to do something completely different. He's trying to do something deeper and push beyond that kind of surface.

SPEAKER_03 13:44

Yeah. What I liked about the time travelers range, and I don't think I knew this at the time, but when I've ever revisited usually for this podcast or just occasionally, because I like to, by not quite being Doctor Who, it frees itself from the continuity shackles that I think fans would like. And even when BBV start doing Zygon plays and things like that, they never go, well, let's get the Professor and Ace to meet the Zygons because that will be too much like Doctor Who. So by ha not doing the continuity stuff and not, you know, not having loads of episodes set in the TARDIS with the Daleks and the Brigadier or something like that, you just get them to do what Doctor Who does best, which is just land somewhere and have an adventure. And so for a brief time in the late 90s, this was my primary source of Doctor Who before Big Finish started. Those audios, more than anything else, were the, to me, the nearest thing you could get to Doctor Who at the time.

SPEAKER_05 14:43

And yeah, you know, obviously they are Bill Bags obviously are asked about the copyright for these, so they're they're completely canon. But what they were doing was essentially they they were doing interesting things with continuity. You know, it's it's take it on you're something like, oh soldiers, what's the nature of a Santauran? What would be a good story to tell with you know the nobility of them, that campfire tale. Yeah. It's a brilliant idea. You know, root for root of all the the barnacle baby again, that that does something different with a zygote. Yeah. And it it's pushing it in a way that kind of, particularly around the time of early bait finish, you never felt they were. You felt the continuity was kind of hemmed them in. It was there for a comfortable thing. Yeah. It's almost as before they they were confident enough to push beyond that, they needed that to make sure that the fans were on board.

SPEAKER_03 15:34

Yeah, absolutely. I wouldn't change what we got with Big Finish for the world, but I I kind of wish Big Finish had happened like a year or so later, just so there was a little bit more of the Professor and Ace, because this is the last one for them. This is the and Ace isn't even in it. And as said, like Fearmonger came out this month. You don't need the time travelers when you've got the fearmonger. Whether the fearmonger's your favourite big finish or your least favourite, it is Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred playing the Doctor and Ace in a licensed release. So you just don't need it anymore. There's no room for it.

SPEAKER_05 16:09

No, it's it's when it's time once you've got a big yeah, again, once you've got a big finish, what you you don't go for the other tat stuff if you can get the good stuff for roughly the same price. Exactly. It it's like you go for the full heroin, you don't have to make a joke.

SPEAKER_03 16:25

Exactly. Obviously, we talked a bit about you you mentioned the format just then. So essentially this is a play set in a sitcom, right? Like a 1950s style sitcom.

SPEAKER_05 16:38

Yeah, the very basic kind of I I think it's aiming for the good luck, is it? I mean, yeah. It's more like kind of mid-70s, maybe even RTV-ish, because it's quite it feels quite deliberately broad and and slightly too fast, slightly off in a way that a lot of ITV sitcoms do.

SPEAKER_03 16:58

And for the first sort of four or five minutes, you're like, what is this? This is this is just uh an outdated sitcom. What are we doing here? But slowly, you know, things start to unravel and you realise that the character of the Domini, as he's known as this point, is is trapped in this sitcom. But I think it's such a brilliant premise. In fact, it's such a brilliant premise that One Division stole it, I'm gonna say. I'm saying that I'm gonna say the pit Marvel listen to this, somebody at Marvel, and went, I'll tell you what, we could do that with One Division. Bill Bags, where is your lawsuit?

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Come on, come on.

SPEAKER_03 17:36

I'm surprised you haven't sued them already. Wouldn't it be amazing for somebody to steal something from Bill Bags for a change? So, what do you think about the way it develops and uses the sitcom setup as a sort of a trap, essentially, for the the character of the Domine, the Doctor, whatever you want to call him?

SPEAKER_05 17:55

I uh thematically I think it's absolutely brilliant because a sitcom essentially is is a form of time, you know, by this nature. It's situation couple, the characters are trapped in a situation they cannot escape. It fits thematically. It's almost um, it's it's a waiting for Goddo thing also. That that's almost a sitcom to my mind as well. Yeah. It's it's characters who are stuck, they can't escape, and they're just being laughed at. And this flips on its head and it's like, what's it like to be the characters who are being laughed at?

SPEAKER_03 18:26

Yeah. It's in an era of like things like the Truman Show and stuff like that, and just done in a very, very British way. Also Dark City as well. I think it's got sort of slight elements of that, of just like playing with the mundanity of day-to-day and people's need to reject it, but also being trapped by it. So it sort of works on several like it's a it's a meta comment on the genre, but it's also got sort of s social aspects to it as well that I think really that ri really enhance it. And the way he talks about his marriage and and things like that. And because ultimately at the core of this is this creature that wants to be a part of the basically is loves the doctor and wants to be a part of his life because it gives him energy. And uh isn't that all relationships? One person sucking the soul out of a no, I'm joking.

SPEAKER_05 19:14

It's fandom. No, it's true.

SPEAKER_03 19:18

It's a very meta comment on fandom as well.

SPEAKER_05 19:21

And it it's a very Rob Sheeman thing to see as well about fandom.

SPEAKER_03 19:26

I think it's a brilliant premise and one that you could you could quite easily turn this into a big finish now. You could quite easily turn it into a TV episode now, although everybody would go, oh no, you're just copying Wondervision.

SPEAKER_05 19:39

Well, why not copy it?

SPEAKER_03 19:41

That's what Doc Two does, frankly, most of the time, isn't it? What do you think of the of how the story develops over the hour and as the sitcom world begins to unravel?

SPEAKER_05 19:54

I mean, the thing I was listening struck me listening to it now, obviously, first time I listened to it was before I'd heard anything else, but it how very Rob Schuman it is, because he loves these nebulous entities that have created these worlds. You know, he does it in Chant of Midnight, he does it in the Holy Terror. So it's it's a very Rob, it's a very Rob Schuman thing to do. He has these uh concerns that go through his work, um, and there's stuff in so many short stories as well that also follows that up. So it it's really nicely done. It's because if you're playing with a time loop, you have to kind of uh break the loop a little every time. You can't just go back and chat, you know, you can't go back and tell the same thing twice. So it really does, it is really nicely paced. I know it's only an hour long or so, but that feels like an absolutely right thing. You I suppose you could say for a sitcom at this point, half an hour would be the perfect length. But again, that's kind of this being a wrong sitcom almost.

SPEAKER_03 20:59

Yeah, but also we we get multiple versions, multiple episodes of the sitcom within the hours, and we get fast forwards and rewinds so he's able to play with the in-world linear narrative and speed it up. So yeah, just realizing you're getting those things, that happens. And do you know the characters start talking about season finales and mid-season episodes and things like that, and uh I think that's such a brilliant way to sort of move the story on.

SPEAKER_05 21:26

Again, it's the metacometry, but it's not an irritating metacometry, it's someone who understands what they're doing with it. They're using it as a way to build the tension of it because you you really don't know what's going on till probably the last five minutes here. Yeah. So it's just a case of this world. How how does it get this world?

SPEAKER_03 21:47

What happens? You don't know. Because you it's trapped with these these three other characters, and you're not sure, as you say, until probably the last five or ten minutes, who even is the one behind it. Are they all behind it? Does that matter? Moment where his son Kevin is turned into a ginormous beast because that's what his wife June ultimately thinks he needs to keep him there. He wants to fight monsters, he's a monster.

SPEAKER_05 22:11

And I mean, the obvious thing there is a little bit of misdirection because the obvious way to think about it, it's his boss.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 22:16

Because I I was every time I heard that, I was thinking the boss character is gonna be the guy behind it or it's gonna, you know, Star Trek and villain. And to make it the wife is a far more interesting idea.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

No, absolutely. The way the narrative adapts as he changes. Like I and I don't mean the nar I mean both the narrative of the thing uh of the play and the narrative within the play, that they're just able to alter the perceptions of things slightly in in order to the way the state that green stain on the trousers is described as well. Yeah, tweaking narratives both externally and internally. It takes a clever motherfucker to do something like that.

SPEAKER_05 22:57

It's annoying, isn't it? He's annoying that he's good. He's good, isn't he? He's good. We can't tell him. I shouldn't tell him that. No, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_03 23:04

Let's talk a little bit about the characters in there. So we've got June played by Susan Travers, Sir played by Barry J. Gordon, and Kevin played by Neil Bull. What do we think of his adopted family and boss?

SPEAKER_05 23:19

I really love Susan Travers' performance because she does that sitcom thing, that heightened performance. And then you need to switch that on a dime when the situation is revealed. So she absolutely nails that kind of thing. And I do think it's kind it's it's a better ending than his big finishes. Because I think Charms of Midnight and Holy Terror. I think he wrote them back, no, the ending. So he didn't so he basically it's just all the equivalent of the home is blow everything up. And this one it has that it uh it almost kind of like a sh uh shirt in f in the future, but it's got such a poignant ending. And it's the way it doesn't really it doesn't end like a sitcom does. Yeah, it just it kind of fades almost and it's entirely thematically appropriate on that front. The others I I think they they essentially just have to play that broad comic thing and their timing is good. Their timing is good because they are I think they are s just just off enough for the play to absolutely work. Because a play it it's a difficult performance to have to be just off to make you it it's not really funny, it doesn't really work.

SPEAKER_03 24:36

Yeah, uh there are moments where they're slightly panicked by what's happening with the eternal narrative, and so you get a bit more of a realistic performance, but they're they're doing a a tonally suitable performance for this style of sitcom 99% of the time, but they're not sending it up at the same time.

SPEAKER_05 24:58

No, and that again, that's that's difficult to do because the idea you have is to go really broad with these kind of things. So much as I don't like to give empty compliments, it's it's really nicely directed in terms of the performances. Yeah, and then you know when the really odd things happen, when his son turns into a monster, it's it's it's perfectly done, and it's that is genuinely funny and horrifying at the same time. It's it's so well carried off. Um yeah, and uh when they don't get the lines they expect, uh Sir and the son, it's it's lovely because you're right, it's a slight more realistic form. There's a s a slight panic, and that is sitcom to a degree, but it's also human.

SPEAKER_03 25:46

There's that moment with Sir at the end or near the end where the Dominee is figuring out, oh, actually, no, like I can get ahead of the narrative here. And he goes, Well, you've promoted me for the last few episodes, so now I must be your boss. And the way the character sort of stops for a second and then just accepts it because it goes, Yes, of course, that makes total sense. And Barry J. Gordon, I was convinced when I was going to look him up that he'd be some old thesp that had been in classic Doctor Who. But he's got had nothing to do with Doctor Who, but he sounds exactly like a classic series actor would sound. A bunch of them show up in BBV and early big finish, and I just thought this would be another one of them. He's he's a proper kind of fruity old character actor, isn't he? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:31

And does this perfectly.

SPEAKER_03 26:32

Yeah, I and I just think it's all very measured, and even the kid, uh, I mean, I don't know how old Neil Bull is, I suspect he wasn't like 14 or whatever. I don't think so. But he plays the the role of the sort of teenager always up to Japes in a in a sort of traditional sitcom role really well, and again, just has has a few odd moments where you're just like, oh, there's something, there's something more to this guy.

SPEAKER_05 26:57

Yeah, it's the I twice it's it's like almost like the Nicholas Linders in butterflies kind of thing. Yeah. That kind of performance. Where they yeah, they they're not they're kind of arrested, aren't they? At that point in analysis. And yeah, they they get that absolute you guess absolutely right as written against, but it's quite possibly a strength of the script as well. Yeah. Because the characters the characters feel perfectly outlined with what they're gonna do.

SPEAKER_03 27:25

I I think everybody gets the script and goes, This is gonna be great. Paul Ebbs is like, I'm not gonna let the side down on the direction, and each of the actors clearly relish it. I mean, McCoy was quoted at the time as saying it was the best Doctor Who script he'd ever done, which Bill Baggs then took for the advert and changed it to this is the best script of this genre that I've ever done, or something like that.

SPEAKER_05 27:48

That's not like Bill to do anything like that. Oh I think so best is perfect. This though, because there's is it's kind of how I put it, he's frenetically standing still right through it. He can't work out what's going on. His his his head is trying to were, but he's trapped. He he it's like the geek the wheels are turning, but there's no purchase there. So he's getting frantic and it's brilliant.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

To start with, it sort of plays to his strengths of you know, his his background with like Ken Campbell and stuff like that, and being an over-the-top performer. But there's some real quiet and more subtle moments, you know, when he goes, Oh, I I I know that I I love you or whatever, but I don't know why. I can remember marrying you, but I I don't really know why, like none of the feelings are there, I think is what you what he's saying, rather than it's just implanted memories. And I think he's able to do those those quiet moments. And actually, I don't think the quiet moments have ever been Sylvester's problem. I think it's the big shouty moments that have it's it's that anger, isn't it?

SPEAKER_05 28:50

That yeah. He can't doesn't quite pitch, he can't quite pitch those levels.

SPEAKER_03 28:54

He can he can do anger when it's again when it's a quieter anger, but yeah, the feeling the end my life.

SPEAKER_05 29:01

Yeah, yeah, where he where he takes the guns off the snipers in that as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:05

But if he'd sh if he shouted that, you'd be like, oh well, you should be.

SPEAKER_05 29:21

I think that's the the anecdote that always comes out. Yeah, it it's that kind of world weirdness. And yeah, that was always forty. I think that's why I love his doctor. The obviously it's cafe scene and remembrance, that kind of thing. Yeah, which is it's a human moment. And it's again, the ending of this only works because Sylvester can do those as well. Yeah. I think it feels like Rob's kind of gone, what what are Sylvester's strengths? Broad, broad fast, sitcom, and this.

SPEAKER_03 29:51

Yeah. And this quiet moment again. Introspective, quiet sort of like he can do emotion, he just can't do the big emotion. Yeah. Does the character of Dominic in the sitcom, the Domini, the professor, feel like the seventh doctor?

SPEAKER_05 30:07

Certainly does at first, because but I don't know how much of that is the actual production be because obviously it's it's you know, the the names have been slightly filed off. Or scra scrap scratched around a little.

SPEAKER_01 30:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:20

Um the tug towers. But yeah, it always felt because it's I mean, it's Sylvester and Sophie. Yeah. It's their relationship. They will all, if they're together, it always feels like the Doctor and Ace because they've got that rapport, they they fall back into it so easily.

SPEAKER_03 30:39

This is the one where if you gave someone this before they'd heard any of the other time travels, I think this would be the one that goes, well, no, maybe it doesn't feel like Doctor Who, and maybe it's not the Seventh Doctor. But because you've had eight or nine releases of him as the Domine before this, it's unquestionably the Domine, who's unquestionably the professor, who's unquestionably the doctor.

SPEAKER_05 31:00

Absolutely. I and I can kind of see it as the doctor around the TV movie kind of time. That sort, that sort of just that older, that world where you that on his own.

SPEAKER_03 31:10

Yeah. Yeah. He doesn't need anyone else. Exactly. He he doesn't need anyone else, but he's also not quite into the big manipulation as he was a few a few years ago in the new adventures. Yeah, he's being manipulated in this. So you know, the shoes are on the other foot here. What do you think of Sheerman's take on the Doctor Who universe? And we'll call it the Doctor Who universe here and in other places. Does this A feel consistent with his previous work? And what do you think what what what's his vision for Doctor Who?

SPEAKER_05 31:41

I think it's more how does Doctor Who fit into Rob Sheerman's kind of worldview, because it always feels to me when it is too that ye Rob Shearman, almost more than any other writer that Big Finish had, certainly at the time, has this very distinctive worldview, this very distinctive voice. He has I I think the term he's used now, the world he's in, is weird fiction. It always feels like slightly more violent. It's it's there's something nasty lurking under the surface, and it is properly unsettling. You know, when the massacre happens at the end of the Holy Terror, for instance, you know, hang on a second, this you know, this is supposed to be influenced by uh revengers, tragedies, that kind of thing. And the end of it, where it's just I I know it's uh I think Rob said to me before he couldn't think of how to enders who just had that big massacre. Yeah. But it's genuinely nasty. If you think about the ending of this, this is genuinely nasty. There are all these uh closed confined worlds, even something like Scherzo later on. That's a the almost the ultimate closed confined world. Yeah. Two characters put together. So he is uh very interested in this in not not the wider tablet, the shorter one. It's probably his theatre training, or you know, because he was primarily a theatre writer at this point. He puts them in this box and pokes them. I I always feel like he's poking the couch and seeing what they're doing. It's like you know, like a like a boy playing with playing with the ants or something.

SPEAKER_03 33:20

He reminds me a little bit of Paul Mars, where they're both authors, even though they're very different authors, they're both authors that, as you say, they almost shape the universe around them rather than try and squeeze into the Doctor Who universe. And they do, they both do very different things, but in in a similar manner, I guess you'd say.

SPEAKER_05 33:38

I d I think there's a um, and I say this with all the there's a crueler edge to Robster. Even if you've read the novelizations of chimes and jubilee, it's an absol it's an absolutely nasty. He had to tone down Jubilee for Nobilization, if I remember rightly, having read it, because he thought he went too far. Darek juice. My god. Yeah, Russell, keep that in. Come on. The kids all love it.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

Think of the merch, the cans of it on the shelf. It's a ruthless universe, but not in an Eric Sayward sort of way, because there's such a dark macabre humour to it that Eric Sayward script, unless you're 10, in which case it's fucking brilliant. In an Eric Sayers script, you go, Oh, this is bleak. In a Rob Sheerman script, you're willing on the death because he's always doing it in such a fun and interesting way. And you're laughing at it.

SPEAKER_05 34:33

Yeah, exactly. He likes to make you laugh and unsell you at the same time, which is a hell of a trick. Because you're not supposed to laugh when you're in settled like that. It's why the Joker works, obviously.

SPEAKER_03 34:46

Yeah, absolutely. How does this release compare to other BBV and indeed Big Finish of uh the era?

SPEAKER_05 34:54

Well, I I think we've kind of blown that one already, haven't we? Because it's it is again I yeah, I go back to it, it is still one of the better releases, and not because Sophie Auldra's not in it, Mr. Ford.

SPEAKER_03 35:08

Bollocks. Well, how about Big Finish? Because Big Finish have been going for about a year at this point, well, two years at this point. So we've got we're just at the time of the fearmonger coming out. We've had the early Benny stuff and the first few releases. So yeah, this is early days.

SPEAKER_05 35:24

It's an interesting kind of thing, that early Big Finish, because they there's nothing hugely adventurous there. You're maybe Marion Conspiracy, possibly. But it's again, it's keeping the fans on side because you have obviously had all the doctors in Sirens of Time.

SPEAKER_03 35:41

Yeah. We've had Sirens of Time, Phantasmagoria, Whispers of Terror, The Land of the Dead, and then The Fearmonger.

SPEAKER_05 35:49

Fearmonger is yes, number five. Yeah. I mean, I really like the Fearmonger actually. It's okay, it's a banger. But it's a standard Doctor Who story, it's it's within the boundary. I think this pushes what Doctor Who can do. Fundamentally, it's more interesting than what Big Finish have you up to yeah, uh Whispers of Terror. It's um Justin Richards can come up with a really good idea, but he is a kind of a very straightforward writer on that front. So I so I I do did enjoy it, but it feels something different, something new. And God bless Big Finish, they did not feel quite new at this point. They felt like they were still operating within the boundaries of what of you know Doctor Who beans on toast in front of the telly 5.30 on a Saturday night.

SPEAKER_03 36:42

What this does well, and I think you mentioned this with some of the monster releases that come after this as well. With Big Finish having the licence to do proper Doctor Who, and they're do they're being quite safe. Not safe, they're being traditional, because it's still an exciting time just to have the doctors playing these roles again, and they're concentrating on carving out, you know, uh once a month, you're gonna get four episodes of traditional Doctor Who, albeit with, you know, a few bangs and flashes that uh feel a little bit new. For something like BBV to try and survive, they have to do something completely different. And if they managed to get more things like this out of the gate, I'm not saying they would have gone on forever, but I think there would have been more curiosity about it than you know, as you said, but by the end, there's some there's some good Santa and stuff, there's some good Zygon stuff, but then by the end it's a bit like there's a couple of things, but then you've got that final crinoid play and a few other things, and you're just like and the Rutan play that are trying really hard to just get the But you've got the Rani Reaps the World Wind too.

SPEAKER_05 37:51

Come on. I'm always entertained by that. It's it's Pip and Jane and Kate O Mara. How can you how can you not be entertained? It's great fun, but it is terrible.

SPEAKER_03 38:03

It is. Um so yeah, I think this is a bold sort of not reimagining, but a a a bold take on the time travellers. Do you think it was right that the time travellers range ends here?

SPEAKER_05 38:17

It would have been kind of nice to have them not fade away, although I suppose then this is thematically appropriate with the way it kind of fades away at the end. But as you alluded to, the Doctor and Ace were were back officially on audio. There is no need for this now. And it's kind of sad if this was the direction they were pushing in, because it particularly the time, I think they you know it could have kicked Big Benish Big Finish up the backside at a point where they kind of needed it, I think. But then while they were still feeding it away, maybe just push them into not just recreating what was on screen.

SPEAKER_03 38:54

But then you kind of look at when the Holy Terror lands, it gains a bit of a cult following, but for a time people are absolutely furious about it. Oh, they hate the Holy Terror was hated. I think was it wasn't it bottom of that DWM pole that yeah? Yeah, and it was their lowest selling story for a while, I think, which just goes to show that Doctor Who fans don't have any fucking taste at all. They vet they they know what they like, and that's it.

SPEAKER_05 39:23

They have a narrow version.

SPEAKER_03 39:24

So I'm not sure like the Holy Terror wasn't gonna kick them into doing a different thing, so I'm not sure something like this would have. So it would have perhaps been better placed at BBV, but obviously BBV was having its own troubles internally as well.

SPEAKER_05 39:39

So I suppose this could have been done slightly later in Big Finish when they were actually giving Rob his head a little, with something like again with shirts up. Yeah. Or even uh my own private wolf gang. You could you could do it as one of those things on a hundred, although my own private wolf gang is quite snarky for entirely different reasons to this.

SPEAKER_03 40:02

Narratively it fits as the final piece for the time travelers, I think. But it is a shame that the final one didn't have them both in it. But I guess they just didn't know they were going to end it there. I think it just sort of fizzled out, and it's quite fitting that at the end it just sort of fades to static, I think, before that that theme tune plays for the final time. It it needs its cities made of song.

SPEAKER_01 40:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:26

And having work to do. But yeah, no, it it's quite a nice kind of bleakish ending because it it goes out as as the situation was. Yeah. I mean, it was a hell of a time creatively for fandom around this point.

SPEAKER_03 40:41

Yeah, the show's deader than it's ever been. And yet there's things like this happening, and it just goes to show that you can do so many interesting things with the format. Yeah. There's the fan phologies, which do some really wild things.

SPEAKER_05 40:54

They the BBC books, I think they're trapped in a slight rut nag towards the end of Steve Pilstein, but they were again, they're about to get a kick up the ass.

SPEAKER_01 41:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:03

It was it was kind of, despite the fact there was a Doctor Who, it was a really kind of exciting time to be around and have Doctor Who. Absolutely. Do you have anything else you want to say on Punchline? Yeah, it it's I'd I'd love it to be more widely available, essentially, is is my main take on it. Because it I think you could do this as a radio play quite easily. You could you don't need the character of the Doctor. No. Really. You could if you can just put it kind of a general purpose lead character.

SPEAKER_03 41:35

Because it's it's a meta comment on Doctor Who in some places and the relationship between the fans and the show and what drives the character. But that could quite as easily be generic, sci-fi. Like, if you put Captain Picard in this, you wouldn't have to change virtually anything. It could work for almost any franchise. Yeah, and that would be can you imagine that?

SPEAKER_05 41:57

That would be beautiful. Who'd be the worst Shrek actor to do this?

SPEAKER_03 42:03

Oh, it'd be Shatner.

SPEAKER_05 42:06

Oh, oh. I would love to hear this Shatner do this. Yeah, Patrick Stewart played the hell out of it. Um I imagine the Kate Mogrew version now.

SPEAKER_03 42:19

I've loved this since the first time I heard it. I still love it now. There are some BBVs I will never listen to again. This is not one of them. Every couple of years, it's something I stick on my phone and just, you know, I'm traveling somewhere and I'm like, give punchline a listen again. It was brilliant to revisit it. And it always is. And if you're new to BBV or only heard a few, seen a few, this is the one that you need to seek out more than any other. It is the creme de la creme. Uh, and something I've wanted to cover on here for ages, but nobody's ever bought it up, so just didn't Well, you should have had me back quickly. We did it ages ago. Exactly. So we must rate it. Is it a clanger, a banger, or an average meander?

SPEAKER_05 43:06

Well, have you got any combi noise? It's a clanger. No, of course it bloody isn't. It it's a it's a banger. It's such a good piece. It is, it feels as much of a piece with anything about Double Doctor 2 as it does with Rob's radio play, something like Odd. It fits really in sync with those.

SPEAKER_03 43:28

Yeah, short stories, things like that. Again, you could shave off the identifiers of the character and put this in something like Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical. Oh god, yeah, put it in Wheel Here Stories in the Dark.

SPEAKER_05 43:40

Well, exactly. A looping story. Yeah, go to this, go to this story again. Oh, why didn't you do that? I'll have working into that.

SPEAKER_03 43:49

But uh yeah, unsurprisingly, it's a banger from me too. What a brilliant fucking story. So the next thing. We're doing is Static, written by Jonathan Morris, directed by Jamie Anderson, produced by David Richardson from Big Finish Productions, released on the 12th of December 2017, recorded on the 6th and 7th of June 2017. News at the time. I was so jealous. Yeah, me too. And it looked great as well, didn't it? The packaging. How far away were we from the collection? I feel like that was 2018, so we're only like a 20.

SPEAKER_05 44:41

It's the Whittaker logo, isn't it? So it's is it late 2018, early 2019, somewhere around that?

SPEAKER_03 44:48

Something like that. I certainly remember that I didn't get it to lockdown and it had been out about six or seven months before that. So yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:56

I still never bought the replacement disc, so I still got the faulty disc. That'll be worth more than your sense, boys.

SPEAKER_03 45:03

Other releases at the time. On DVD and Blu-ray, we had Shada for the four millionth time. From BBC Audio, we had the audiobook of the tenth planet. Also from Big Finish, we had The Wreck of the World featuring the second Doctor Jamie and Zoe, Only the Good, which was a Warmaster release, The New Cantermeasure Series 2, and the first Doctor Adventures Volume 1, featuring the David Bradley Doctor, Susan, Ian, and Barbara. From Candy Jar, we had The Case of the Missing Fairy featuring The Brig, and What's Past is Prologue, which featured Alistair Kamish Lethbridge Stewart. Don't know who that is, brother, dad, I don't know. From Thebes Publishing, we had two Eroman books, Message in the Cards and Old Acquaintance. Online we had The Horror of Coal Hill featuring the first Doctor and his famous companion, Shivani. Also, obviously featuring appearances from the Third Doctor, Eleven Doctor, Twelfth, Doctor, Sarah and Missy, classic. And on television, we had Twice Upon a Time and the comic strip as The Phantom Piper, featuring the 12th Doctor and Bill. Quite a slew of releases. I think I've got quite fond memories of all of those Big Finish at the time. I don't remember the Wreck of the World, but Only the Good. The new countermeasures and the first option ventures were all ones that rate quite highly for me.

SPEAKER_05 46:23

I haven't listened to all of them, but yeah, I I did like the the yeah, only the only the good was it? Sorry? Yeah, yeah, that was yeah, I'd like those early Warmaster.

SPEAKER_03 46:33

Yeah, but like all the rangers at Big Finish, the first few Warmasters was like, this is great, and then they just sort of petered out, and I was just like, I don't think I need any more Warmaster.

SPEAKER_05 46:43

It has the idea and the thrill and the thrills there for the first releases, but it doesn't change or do enough interesting with it after that, which I think is why they kind of merge into one after a while for me. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 46:58

The Doctor, Flip, and Constance arrive near the isolated village of Abbey Marston, where a caravan park enforces a strange rule. Radios, televisions, and any device capable of receiving broadcasts are forbidden. The area is surrounded by eerie landmarks, including an ancient stone circle and a disused RAF research station, dating from the Second World War. The travelers soon discover that the people who listen to the radio static hear voices from the dead, and some of those voices seem capable of physically manifesting. As the Doctor investigates, he uncovers a temporal anomaly stretching between 1940 and 1980. During the war, military scientists at the RAF base attempted to exploit mysterious transmissions coming from outside normal time. Their experiments opened a pathway to entities known as the static, incorporeal beings that exist as fragments of lost moments and dead lives, feeding upon human consciousness and grief. The static have become intertwined with local history, creating hauntings, time loops, and apparations that blur the line between memory and reality. As the static grow stronger, the Doctor realizes that the ghosts haunting Abbey Marston are not merely spirits, but echoes trapped within the temporal breach. The creatures intend to spread beyond the village through radio transmissions, effectively turning humanity into part of their collective existence. The Doctor traces the source of the disturbance to the wartime experiments and discovers that the breach can only be closed by severing the connection between the two eras. He confronts the static within the heart of the anomaly, using the very temporal paradox that sustains them against them. The connection between 1940 and 1980 collapses, trapping the static outside normal space-time and freeing the countless echoes they've absorbed. Static. Now I chose this because I remember hearing it at the time, and I had a vague recollection it played a bit more with the concept of radio than it actually does. So the two things that link these two stories are they've both got static in them. That's it. That's the linking theme. But you know, we've had more tenuous than that.

SPEAKER_05 49:11

It's quite static, as they say, it's the radiation from the big bang. So yeah, we're linked to the very stuff of the universe itself here. We're classy on this. Exactly. Was this bang big enough for you, John? I haven't actually heard this one before because I think it was I I'd largely abandoned the main range, which is and I think it was a really good idea that Big Finish did that, because then you don't just go, oh, it's just another release month after month. It was a boost. But confess, I thought I really kind of enjoyed this. I think what Johnny Morris is good at, he is good at letting you know exactly what he's been inspired by, and he is very, very good at fitting it into a Doctor Who story. It's not you know the I think the concept here is essentially white noise, um, the film. Yeah, if he did nothing interesting with that, it's not interesting. But I think he does really fun things with this.

SPEAKER_03 50:11

Yeah, absolutely. This is one that I heard at the time. And I remember thinking it was good, but I was suffering from big finish fatigue, and I abandoned the main range to release his time. There was a thing called Ghost Walk, and I just got one episode in and just went, I can't be bothered with this, and I've never really I had dipped back in for the purposes of this pod, but uh I think yeah, it was running on empty. Although, was it perhaps me visiting it every month meant that it was running on empty, it was too much of the same. But it is still throwing up interesting stuff, and I'm sure if I went back to Ghost Walk I'd find things to to like about it, but uh it turns out I'd reach my fill of new classic Doctor Who. I think I was a few years ahead with you on that one, and possibly as well.

SPEAKER_05 51:02

I had wallet fatigue at this point as well. So I was trying, you you know you you can't keep up with it. God bless Big Bridge because they did cure me of my completism. Yeah, no, I think they cured us all.

SPEAKER_03 51:15

They cured us all. This I remember thinking was good, but I probably wasn't even that enthralled by it at the time because of the fatigue. But again, I've had in the back of my mind I must revisit it someday, and I thought it was fucking brilliant from start to finish. Like, I th I think every now and then they've still got capabilities of doing like if you'd have told me this was in the first 100, I would have easily believed you.

SPEAKER_05 51:37

Yeah, oh god, yeah. This is the strength of it, is it's not doing anything you've seen before with Doctor Who. It's not I I don't think there's a single continuity reference in there off the top of my head.

SPEAKER_03 51:49

There are a couple of continuity references to recent stories that they've done. But there's no returning, it's not the Daleks, it's not the weeping angels, it's not the masters behind it all. It will stand alone quite easily for anybody jumping in.

SPEAKER_05 52:04

Yeah, and I don't mind the continuity references to recent stories because that's just stitching it in to make it feel part of a larger whole.

SPEAKER_03 52:10

Yeah, that exactly worse for me. And ultimately, I don't remember those stories. You probably haven't heard them, so we're not going, what the hell is going on?

SPEAKER_05 52:19

No, because I was going, hell, I knew who Constance and Flip were, because I I mean, you know, I get I get DW and everyone that I cannot help but know everyone who's been a big finish, even if I can't remember who they are at the moment. But you know, I didn't know Constance and Flip were as characters. But again, they work so well for me here. Particularly, I'm sure we'll come to the big moment in this. Which Johnny Ross does not fuck about.

SPEAKER_03 52:48

Yeah, I mean, I mean, let's just jump let's jump into it now because at the at the centre of this is grief, right? Yeah. All the spooky stuff he's doing, which is handled really well. You know, you've got these people being reborn, and you get the telephone call and it's something close to you, and we find their their sham in a tree after they walk out of this fog and stuff like that. But we see that through the eyes of the supporting cast, and then the big moment, I presume you're referring to is when Constance walks out of the fog after going back into the past with the doctor. Yeah. And that's astonishing. That's like just before the season finale level cliffhangering at that point. What a brilliant cliffhanger to do without any like, oh, big monsters, end of the world.

SPEAKER_05 53:36

Because I yeah, because as well, I went back to the start afterwards. Because that voice out to the static is constant.

SPEAKER_01 53:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 53:45

I didn't know that before, and then I'll go back, it's like I didn't notice it either.

SPEAKER_03 53:48

And then it's my god, that is cold. And it's it's so rare that big finish, or you know, a lot of spin-off media will make you go, Oh my god, I did not see that coming. What a brilliant plot twist, and how the fuck are they gonna get out of this? But for one episode, they fucking do.

SPEAKER_05 54:08

Every time um and I I go I I do find flip a little bit annoying. I I I gather I'm not alone with that. But I I think here and Herod Consults play off each other quite nicely because sometimes you can get a bit indistinguishable with the big finished companion voices. Yeah. But with this, you've you know, you've got the the kind of well-spoken voice and the for one of that working class kind of voice almost. That almost dodo, I always kind of thinking of it as. And that's a really nice combination.

SPEAKER_03 54:40

I really like, I mean, they're from two different points in history, which is great. Uh that always works quite well, but not so far apart that they've got nothing in common. Yeah. It's not a barbarian and a woman from 2017 or whatever. But they've got good chemistry. I really like Flip. I think she's cut from that new series companion model. She's cut from that that Lucy Miller thing ultimately, I think. Uh, I remember at the time thinking, oh, she sounds a bit too Lucy Miller, but again, given time now and I haven't heard any Lucy Miller in a while, and I've done another flip story recently, that'll come out after this, wibbly wobbly timey while me. But I'm just I I'm really enamoured with her, and I think she she works well as sort of a younger modern companion with Colin's sixth doctor, who, you know, by this point is sounding older, but is also he's doing his big pip big finish performance rather than his uh TV series performance.

SPEAKER_05 55:35

And I think with the old doctors now, they re-benefit from sort of that more energetic companion, that younger energetic companion. That really kind of moves the story on.

SPEAKER_03 55:46

Yeah, I think you're right. It brings it up to date a little bit because we are at a point where people from the new series are dipping in and out of big finishes of all of all sorts. And I think they just need like I think having a slightly more relatable character than and this is no slight to like Bonnie Langford or Nicola Bryant or something like that, but just someone who's a bit more of an in for a newer audience really helps. But then Constance could be pulled straight out of classic Doctor Who quite easily.

SPEAKER_05 56:16

Yeah, they feel like they're from the old received, they're there to reassure the fans. It it's a classic thing of they come up with the character brief first before they think about how does the audience work relate to this. I mean, I I know they've had adventures with Constance without flips since off the top of my head. Um that's where they are at the minute. But I'm not sure that would work for me on after on the back of this. I I just I just think it's a really kind of nice because I did think at first it was a bit I was a bit meh to start with. But they were kind uh yeah, I I was kind of I don't know if I liked performances or not. Okay. Yeah, but I did get I did get there across the story though, purely again on the acting moments.

SPEAKER_03 56:59

I I'd wonder if a Constance and Colin story together, they'd feel a bit too pompous to and not that she's pompous, but because she's a tradition like she's from history, there's something more traditionalist about her performance. Yeah, I worry that like they wouldn't be accessible enough. Like you kind of with the six doctor, you need that Perry as an inn, or you need that Mel, or you need that flip as like someone to bring him down a level. And if kind of cheery, yeah, yeah. And then if they're both a bit highly strong, then that's gonna be quite a complicated duo to penetrate.

SPEAKER_05 57:35

Yes. Uh and I mean Colin is quite well spoken too. So and on the audio, the accents do convey a lot about the character to you. And you it's kind of the absolute I I you know, even me and Mike, I would have trouble relating to them as they are. But again, with with that third wheel on it, it it's it's a really nice dynamic.

SPEAKER_03 58:03

And so what about Colin? As I said, he's in his big finish era doctor, but are you sensing compared to say you know, 1998-99, he's pitching his performance in a different place 20 odd years later?

SPEAKER_05 58:18

I think it it is a kind of it is a colder kind of forms, isn't it? It's kind of edging to back towards a TV porn from his kind of cuddlier, lly big finish doctor.

SPEAKER_01 58:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 58:30

Because th this doctor does some unpleasant stuff really.

SPEAKER_03 58:34

Yeah. I'm getting a bit more, he's towards the end of his life and he's getting a bit more manipulative of the situation. So he's not trying to screw his companions over or anything like that. But what he does with Percy and uh how Percy has to live his life is quite cold and calculated in a way, uh that the way he he utilizes him and that, you know, even down to Constance gets her new body at the end, but there's no sort of he's trying to he did it to save her, but there's no thought of like, and I don't know whether this is explored as what does it feel like to suddenly inhabit a new body.

SPEAKER_05 59:09

Yeah, it's a nasty kind of claim for him because it it reminds me, um you've seen Saprog still, haven't you? I've seen, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:16

I couldn't I don't know it for beta, but uh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 59:19

Yeah, it's it's the end of Avenger 2, the one in the railway station where he basically just sacrifices the guy to the girl. He this is essentially what he does to Percy. He said, That's your life, you're not having anything else.

SPEAKER_03 59:29

Yeah, it's cold, it's calculated, but he is warmer towards the other people around well to his companions, definitely. Like he's not strangling any of them, but um but he's also colder to Joanna and Andy, isn't it? Yeah, and the sister Susanna, who's died and survives, is like, but you can never see anybody that knew you previously. I think that's a bit trusting of the doctor, to be honest, because I just don't for I don't foresee anybody actually sticking to that. And yeah, I think that does that deserves a follow-up of like, oh no, she's ruined time. 30 years, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:01

30 years later, it's like my god, what's happened? I can do that just by being nice to her. Yeah, it's it's again Sapran Still, it's a venture adventure four with the you can never have a photo taken of you again. Yeah, it's it's a it'll happen.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:16

Yeah. I thought this story, and I couldn't remember how it ends. I thought it was going to end with Susanna being left in the Percy role, and yeah, there was gonna have to be somebody the guard there, but obviously the sort of stuff with the static is wrapped up a little bit by that point, so it doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:31

So it's kind of a loose end, but it's it's again, it's a loose end. You you leave the potential there. And I think Johnny Morris has left, but it makes the story feel that little bit more real if there are a few loose ends. It's not neat and easy.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:44

And again, this is it does involve time travel, but you could shave the identifiers off a little bit, and it doesn't have to be Doctor Who. You could this time it's more sapphire and steel, or maybe you could even a far flip a far-flung X-files or something. You could tell this in a number of sci-fi genres, or even as like a standalone movie or something or series, and it would work quite well.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:08

Yeah, I mean, all you need is some way to fall through time, and it's easily done. I get you're right, sapp and still be perfect for it because that plays with time so much. The kids from Time Slip. Oh yeah. Can you imagine Spencer Banks in this? Come on. I I I listened to it. It at last made 10 minutes has been really nasty ending, but come on. Yeah, I mean, I do have fan skum brain because you know, once Percy comes in, oh I know you, you're going, okay, so it's gonna end up with the doctor going back somehow.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:40

But the credit to Johnny Morris, that isn't that much of a sort of tension, it's what happens when you're back there. That's explanation. That's really kind of nicely done.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:50

And what do you think of the setting? Because it's basically caravan park, stone circle, forest, RAF base, which kind of sounds if you if you if I say it like that, it feels like a uh almost like a Bristol boy script where they move to a different location, everything. But the way it's all weaved together, I think really works. And I'm glad there wasn't like a whole episode of like, oh, we've got to go back to the Stone Circle time and then we've got to go to the RAF and things like that. They dispense with the it's the RAF in the past and it's this campsite in it's not quite modern day, is it? It's um uh a few years ago.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:28

Is it 70s or 80s or something like that?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:30

It's uh 1980, so it's Abbey Marston, 1940, and 1980. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:35

It's something like backcomes to me, that caravan park. It's that limnal kind of space. Because if you go into a caravan park, it should be summer really. Or something's good weather. But it's it's redo because it's so isolated, it's foggy, it's nasty, it's a perfect kind of horror setting. Johnny Morris again, the um I can't remember who's done the sound for this, but they do an absolutely bang up job.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:00

So it's Joe Kramer and Josh Arcalane, and they are giving it their all because it takes a lot, I think, for audio to get it to that point where it's unnerving and unsettling and scary.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:13

The static helps as well, because the static is an unnatural thing for audio at this point, particularly in the this century when you know digital cuts out all that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:26

Yeah, but it it's sort of going because you kind of forget static. You kind of forget like I remember waking up like as a teenager and the TV in my room playing shh. And we see it in a million horror films from the era.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:40

Yeah, the the grains on the screen going around.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:43

Yeah. Yeah. And even now, a lot of times in films, they still use the static effect for when people change the channel because it just looks better for effect. It's shorthand, isn't it?

SPEAKER_05 1:03:54

It's easier.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:55

Yeah. And so doing a story, arguably a decade after we've lost static, I guess you'd say.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:02

There's a world kids today, they don't know they're born, but kids today don't know what static is. They've never tuned in a radio or tuned in a television and and and had to deal with that. And I'm drawn back to that thing as a kid of trying to get a signal on a shitty TV and thinking you're seeing shapes in that TV. Oh, yeah, waving the ear around above it. Yeah. And eventually getting, you know, a grainy image. But like the idea that there's something trapped in there is an irresistible Doctor Who idea that I'm surprised, honestly, hasn't been done more times.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:32

Yeah, I mean, it it's always Johnny Morris was going, has has no one else done this? I think he's been going back, because he obviously he's quite encyclopedic about Doctor Who. And you go, No, they haven't. It's like, has Stephen Moffat not done this? Because it's a very Moffaty idea. I suppose kind of Hyde almost plays with it to a certain degree, but not as centrally as this. And then what do we think of the aliens that are at the heart of the static? How do you feel about them? It it's really kind of again, it's really kind of creepy, isn't it? That idea of what they do with the dead bodies and the dead people. They wouldn't let them go. It's like, oh my yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:13

That's horrible.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:14

So the idea that they sort of transfer the living consciousness of people into the dead body and just send it back to their point of death so they can live in their lives. Like that's a proper good Doctor Who concept. And you can you can feel like I sometimes suffer from sleep paralysis. So when he says, Oh, and the the body, you know, the consciousness is in that body, I can I can see and feel what that is like.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:40

You wake up and you yeah, you feel like I can't do anything with this, I don't know how anything works.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:46

Yeah. Yeah, it's a brilliant idea. And it's I was expecting it to drop the ball. Sure, the static aren't like uh, we need to bring them back, we need to bring because it's about the setting, it's about the atmosphere, it's it's a one trick pony. I think. But then not everything was made to be brought back. I'm looking at you, the Zygons. You've been great once. Yeah, don't doctor. So I'm just sort of in awe of this story that gets gets it so perfect and is also capable of leaving it and going, that's enough. That is all you'll get of the static. I mean I say that. I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:25

They might have a fucking actually got a name, have they? They're not even called the static really. It's which I quite like, because that me makes them that little bit more unknowable.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:35

Oh, hang on, hang on. Eunice intended to use the static to resurrect a dead man who helped with a secret they wanted to know in the sleep of death. Okay, well, forget what I said. They did come back, but uh was it a Johnny? It was a Johnny Morris story. We'll let him off.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:52

Yeah. He complete with zero ideas, that's fine.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:54

Yeah. And who knows, that story could be fantastic. But I just I like this as a standalone idea. And sometimes I can be very down on I like my Doctor Who quite arc-based, especially in the modern series, and I get very down on standalone episodes. But something like this reminds me how good a standalone episode or standalone story can be. It doesn't have to feel like a season finale or a season opener. You can just bring all the elements together and create something fucking brilliant.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:25

As long as it kind of has a feeling that it fits in in the character, the way the characters' relationships are developed at this point. That's the key, I think. It gives it the feeling of an arc without actually being linked into that larger story. You need the sense I mean, I think I I I tend to agree that you need a sense of forward motion in almost any TV episode these days. And this kind of doesn't need but then it suits us because it's about being stuck. John Randy are stuck with the grief. Their relationship is stuck. I'm assuming because of that grief, Tersey is stuck in this caravan from the events of 40 years earlier. He and yeah, and David Graham, by the way, great performance as the younger man as well. I I was I was he had to be 90 odd at this point, and I was just what the hell?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:15

He's brilliant as creepy old man in that sort of Billis Manger fame. Scooby-Doo Caretaker. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you think he's gonna be the villain of the piece, and he's not ultimately. He's someone that's paying a penance for what basically what happened to him, and it's you know that the the doctors sort of committed him to this life. Yeah, he's he's locked in creep as much as Joanna and Andy are again. It's thematically, it's a really strong play. Yeah. And as you say, the way he pitches the two performances is really good. I do like Joanna and Andy and Susanna. I think they that you know they deliver great performances. I will get slightly with Andy, they're doing the big finish thing where they're like, we need to reuse people to do different voices for different soldiers later, like back in the past. Yeah. And there is just a little bit of the guy playing Andy, Scott Chambers, has got too much of a recognisable voice. And so you can hear him play a couple of different parts, and it's like I get it, it's the need, they've got a small cast, it's a need for it, but I just it's the one thing that pulls me out of the place lightly. But that that's a kind of occupational hazard with a big finish, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. Like you can hear Nick Briggs in there as well because you can always hear he's in the static, he is the static.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:33

Static played by Nick Briggs.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:35

As you say, it's an occupational hazard, and I would not want to hold it against it, but it's that one little thing that just makes you go, oh. I was so in, and but there we go.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:49

You recognize the extras running around in the background, it's that same kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:53

Yeah, exactly. He's got an identical it's his long-lost grandfather, it's fine. That's it. You mentioned the sound design, but I do think the music, again, it's all come together to make this this a perfect story, and the music isn't that overbearing, but it's got that there's a there's a hint of curse of Fenrit to it from time to time, I think.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:17

They know they're making a horror movie, essentially. I get it, it it's like I think Steve Mark said, Doctor, you have to bring your your big pitch, your biggest idea, that that one that could be a movie, as a symbolistic. And that's what he's done here. Um as I said, he has what it is essentially white noise. The first two episodes, anyway, the atmosphere of it, the idea of people in the static. But it's absolut and and it's absolutely those those first three episodes, there is a kind of sense of progress because you are shifting around time, you are shifting around the sense of place, but it's all atmosphere, is it? It's all a buildup to that last episode, as you said. The ending works as well. It's yeah, and that doesn't always happen with these stories. No, you know, normally the top two stories, three and a half episodes. I'm having a great time, it's a lot of fun, and then shit, we've got to wrap it up quickly.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:09

Yeah, I thought, oh, it will drop the ball in the last episode, and it just didn't, like it's a satisfactory sci-fi ending that ties up most of the loose endings, and I think that works really well.

unknown 1:11:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:20

It only takes a certain amount of elements here to not quite work, and the script be perfect pretty much, and there's just like the direction's out or one performance is out, and it just isn't as good. I always think of knock knock as the example of like there's a really creepy, good episode of Doctor Who in Knock Knock, but the script's not quite there. The direction's working and the production design's working quite well, but the script hasn't quite taken it there, the music isn't quite there, and so it just yeah, do you know what I mean? Like there's a classic trying to get out, whereas this one, all the pieces have come together. Suchet is creepy as well.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:56

Yeah, that's exactly yes, you're you're absolutely right. They don't play into it enough, it's it's almost like they pulled all the kind of arguments back because it's like this this scene's gonna be a little bit lighter than the one before.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:10

Yeah. And there's not a lot of light in this at all. Despite I think Flip is quite a funny character in general who alleviates things, but it's quite fr from you know the opening scene, it's this is this is going to be a grim story, but not in in a too depressing way.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:28

I mean, we are only months on from heaven sent here, and this kind of reminded me of that in some ways because it's about characters being trapped in grief and dealing with it horribly.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:38

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. This is the really budget version of it where we can only trap them in a campsite. It it it's the low-budget British 1970s film version. Yeah, but you know, it works. Carry-on grief is what it was originally called. I'm officially calling it that now. I don't have too much more to say on this. What about you?

SPEAKER_05 1:13:03

No, I I just think it essentially you just come down to it. It's a really good story which understands why it's going for thematically with all the elements in place. I'm always kind of a bit doubtful about going back to these kind of post-100 big finish productions, because I I just find them really bearable when I whenever I pick them up, like when I pick them up for eBay or pick them up in the sales as it as you as you do. But I yeah, but I came back so yeah, actually Dylan's got taste somewhere downline, doesn't he?

SPEAKER_03 1:13:35

I think with Big Finish, inevitably there is there's a lot of output. So there's going to be ones that don't quite have the same appeal to you and I, but they will appeal to other people. And because there's so much output, there's there's a bigger margin for error. Because I guess when there was only one release a month, you either liked it or didn't like it, and that was it, and then you waited for the next month. And now you don't you almost don't know where to start with which of the ones you're gonna like. And I've been doing a lot more later big finishes at the moment, and sometimes just for my own listening pleasure, and sometimes for this podcast. And I'm surprised I shouldn't be surprised, but I can say that quite comfortably the quality is still there in places you just have to sort of root around for it.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:25

And I think a lot of the criticism of big finish is that the people don't have time or they don't look around for it. They just people just see the headline of it's a doctor with Monster X and Monster Y this week. You know, they put the they've put the names of the monsters in hand and drawn out, you know, Zygons versus the Centroids or whatever against the War Doctor.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:45

Great. Yeah. Great. And maybe that is a perfect combination and they've done something brilliant with it. But I think you already go in with a cynical mind when it's something like that. Absolutely. Whereas something like this, I'm usually going in going, oh god, this is just gonna be a bit dull. And then I walk out the other side going, isn't it, isn't it brilliant to have a have a great time with it?

SPEAKER_05 1:15:05

Kind of takes me back to the 80s, 90s before you had to know everything about something before you went to it. It's uh you just sit, you know, you you either bought something or you'd give it something and you were gonna get through it. Whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:17

And this was yeah, this was uh, yeah, this is from the start.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:21

Okay, I'm hooked by that that entrance and I'm right.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:26

Yeah, it it's gorgeous. It's a brilliant, brilliant story. And again, I urge people out there to check it out. So it's another banger from me. What say you?

SPEAKER_05 1:15:38

I have to agree, it is an absolute banger, and it should be just if you're gonna dive into Big Finish, it's a good place to start. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:52

Well, John, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been a pleasure to jump into two certified bangers, because it's not always the case. No. Um a thumbnail. Well, exactly. If people want to find you on the internet, where can they find you?

SPEAKER_05 1:16:08

Um, usually on the Stranger Space podcast with certain other reprobates who you may know. Um I I'm talking the books on perhaps the book club with Joe. We're currently doing the Timeworm series, which is fun. And generally, I'm probably I'm probably on Blue Sky at the minute. Um, a John Arnold at B Sky, whatever it is it is. I I don't go, I'm not very magic with my name on there.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:38

Next time I'll be joined by Mark Harrison, and we're going to be looking at the fifth Doctor Big Finish audio power game, along with the Doctor Who Weakest Link special and the Doctor Who themed episode of Nevermind the Buzzcocks. But until next time, I've been Dylan. And I've been John. And this has been Doctor Who Too Hot for TV.