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8 September 2018 at 19:42 #64074
@everyone
The song is ‘Glorious’ by Macklemore and Skylar Grey. Can’t say he’s an artist I follow, but in terms of appropriateness, the lyrics include:
You know I’m back like I never left (I never left)
Another sprint, another step (another step)
Another day, another breath (another breath)
Been chasing dreams, but I never slept (I never slept)
I got a new attitude and a lease on life
And some peace of mindI heard you die twice, once when they bury you in the grave
And the second time is the last time that somebody mentions your name
So when I leave here on this earth, did I take more than I gave?
Did I look out for the people or did I do it all for fame?
Legend, it’s exodus searching for euphoria
Trudging through the mud to find the present, no ignoring us
Got 20, 000 deep off in the street like we some warriors
My mama told me never bow your head, woo!The crib looking Victorian (oh yes it is)
You know that we been going in (been going in)
Since we hopped out that Delorean (Delorean, yeah we win)(Songwriters: Ben Haggerty / Holly Hafermann / Joshua Karp / Tyler Dopps / Tyler W Andrews
Glorious lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc)So I suspect someone picked it for the lyrics, rather than the tune. 🙂
8 September 2018 at 19:07 #64073more courteous language
Where is pedant and what have you done with him?? 😯
@jimthefish
I certainly think the casting director was making a better decision than Gattis. But I’d argue that he’s making the point that what he thought he knew about the past was wrong; the argument for race-blind casting is not just representation, important as that is. It’s that our pictures of a rosy past, or a sweet little modern Welsh/English/Scottish village are almost certainly wrong. And if we’re not careful, we’ll ‘whitewash’ good actors out of the castings because of that wrong picture. And we’ll then pass that wrong picture on to our children, and to our audience.And, all questions of drama aside, what we’re doing then is lying to them.
I don’t know if Iannucci is going to simply ignore his David’s race, or whether he’s going to use it to make a point – but the important thing to me is that there were Dev Patel’s in mid nineteenth century England. They were there, and we should demonstrate this to audiences. Because I have, in my study of history, come across far too many occasions when the history books damn well lied to me.
But there’s also a broader point, which is that Dickens, Shakespeare, Austen, the entire canon of ‘English Literature’ is the rightful inheritance of everyone who lives in any English speaking country. I don’t give a damn if you learnt your English after you arrived, whether you have a different skin colour to me, or what. It is the rightful inheritance of everyone who can speak English – and whenever we tell people that actors of colour shouldn’t be performing in Dickens, Shakespeare, Austen, we are telling them that this isn’t their inheritance. Just ours. Because Shakespeare/Dickens and Austen were white, doncha know. I’m sure there’s some nice stuff by Maya Angelou you can be reading?
Well, bugger that.
8 September 2018 at 14:20 #64068@pedant If you want to see some small minded racism, try following Tracy Ann Oberman on Twitter. She was Yvonne Hartman in both Torchwood and Doctor Who.
I don’t mean TracyAnnO is racist. I’m talking about far too many of the people currently attacking her – for speaking her mind on a subject that personally concerns her. THAT is small minded racism.
What we have here is a polite discussion about our own attitudes.
[addendum]
We’re getting wildly off-topic here, and should probably move over to the pub, but – Mark Gattis, writer of Empress of Mars, has said in interview how his first instinct was to object to the casting of Bayo Gbadamosi – on the pretty much the exact same grounds as @missy objecting to David Copperfield; there were no black soldiers at that time and in that place.Fortunately, before he emailed, he checked. And discovered that he was wrong; that there had been at least one black soldier on the British side and in a regular regiment. It had been the right decision to cast ‘race-blind’.
6 September 2018 at 23:26 #64050@missy
I don’t think Dickens had television in mind, either. So? I also doubt he imagined his David as Jewish or gay, but that’s acting for you. People pretend to be someone else. 🙂 Incidentally, non white actors who’ve already appeared in Dickens adaptations include Who alumni Freema Agyeman and Sophie Okonedo.There were probably about 40,000 people of Indian background in the UK in the 1840’s – we were heavily involved in conquering and trading with India at the time. They were mostly sailors, students studying at British Universities, diplomats, soldiers’ wives – you name it. Iannucci’s already said he wanted the casting and production to reflect modern London rather than be 100% historically accurate; but David Copperfield can be made mixed race without damaging the novel.
In fact, it adds to the novel. It can be used to hint why the Murdstones hate David so, why they dump the boy in a labelling factory after his mother’s death – and why his Great Aunt preferred not to have anything to do with him. Until he turns up on her doorstep, abandoned and in desperate need of help.
To be charitable, colour-blind casting can require something of a mental adjustment the first time people come across it. But we don’t refuse a lead role to a fine actor because their hair colour/eye colour/height isn’t as specified by the author. What’s so different about skin colour?
[Caucasian actors have played Othello in modern times, by the way. The idea that it’s solely reserved for black actors is a myth. But the play Othello is about race and prejudice, so it’s generally a black actor who gets the job.]
4 September 2018 at 23:20 #64008Ha!
It’s not proper tea unless you leave the teabag in the cup for several minutes. Five, maybe. Possibly ten. If the spoon starts to dissolve, that’s possibly a bit too long. Then again, iron is good for you. 🙂
Once the tea has reached the preferred strength, add the milk. Adding it first will reduce the temperature of the water to below boiling, so you won’t get the proper spoon-dissolving properties of good tea.
4 September 2018 at 16:39 #63999Looks like whatever the exact date, it’s going to be Sundays. I think that’s a good choice – Sunday evening has taken over as the ‘family drama’ slot, and Saturdays has become ‘live variety shows’.
Now let’s hope the BBC gives Who a regular start time and stops playing ‘what time is it on this week?’ 🙂
4 September 2018 at 11:33 #63993Reports are coming in that Jacqueline Pearce has died.
From the Whovian point of view she played Chessene in The Two Doctors – but those of us of a certain age will always remember her as the gloriously nasty Supreme Commander Servalan in Blakes 7.
3 September 2018 at 19:52 #63980Is this spam season or something? Anyway, this time it’s Lambarth Peter who has something to share with me. Sadly, I suspect he may have something to share with many other people.
1 September 2018 at 19:25 #63958Agreed.
‘Could have’ and ‘should have’ are a losing battle. It IS taught – ‘could of’ vs ‘could have’ turns up regularly as ‘spot the grammatical error’ and in SATS grammar tests. But pronunciation has shifted both phrases into using the same neutral vowel. When kids hear ‘could’uv’ every day (for ‘could’ve’) and ‘of’ is also pronounced ‘uv’, it’s not surprising they all think ‘could’ve’ is could of.
I’ve moved to teaching it as ‘written English is different from spoken English’.
My problem with commas is that I’m often writing for spoken English and the commas are essentially used as short pauses. Which means you end up with a lot more commas than needed in written English. Oh, well. 🙂
15 August 2018 at 19:50 #6376715 August 2018 at 19:47 #63766Yes, that’s why I mentioned the other programmes. They’ve dropped by an average of 5%, but Series 9 and 10 dropped by more than 5%. Blogtor Who has a rather nice graph in which you can actually see the difference between the averages. What’s noticeable to me is that Peter Capaldi’s first series was fine. The ‘fall’ for that was exactly what you’d expect with the general fall in TV viewing.
I took Blogtor Who’s figures because they used the 28 day ratings. Arithmetic mean for Series 10 was 5.9 million. Arithmetic mean for Peter Capaldi’s first series (on L+7, which should be smaller) was 8.4 million. By the second series it was down to 6.8 million.
Or in other words, when other popular programmes were dropping 5% of their audience, Doctor Who lost nearly 19% between Series 8 and 9, then a further 13% between 9 and 10. The overall drop between Series 8 and Series 10 was something like 30% of the audience.
Now, these are not bad figures by any stretch of the imagination. 5.9 million puts you comfortably into a BBC1 top ten programme. But the point is that 8.4 million puts you at no. 2, but 5.9 million puts you at No. 8. That’s what happens between Series 8 and Series 9 and 10 – in 2014 you can see Doctor Who hitting the top 5 quite often. By Series 10 Doctor Who is in position 8, or even not in the top 10.
So, sorry. To say it’s outperformed is not accurate. It was outperforming, back in the days when I was posting on The Other Place’s BTL comments, explaining why overnight ratings are dropping everywhere. But Series 9 and 10 lost that non-core audience; people were perfectly happy to give Capaldi’s Doctor an entire series to see if they liked him, but not more than one.
15 August 2018 at 17:18 #63761I stopped watching NG after about two series, but Troi usually got included on ‘diplomatic’ away teams. NG was much better at picking their away teams for a sensible reason than the original Star Trek, which usually seemed to go on the principle of ‘We’re paying William Shatner leading character wages and he’s damn well going to be in as many scenes as possible.’ 🙂
Likewise, I think Dr Crusher was on the away team if there was a reason they needed a Doctor rather than a first-aider.
Uhura had a different problem; they had to sell the original Star Trek in the Southern States, and I have heard that it was the network rather than the producers or writers who kept her firmly on the bridge. There was supposed to be an episode where she took command; didn’t happen because the network wouldn’t have even a temporary black captain, especially if she was also a woman.
The kiss between Kirk and Uhura was originally supposed to have a choice of scenes – kiss/no kiss – for the network to make the final choice. Didn’t work because, legend goes, William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols deliberately screwed up in every one of the ‘no kiss’ takes.
15 August 2018 at 17:02 #63760Here’s what I heard in these interviews: each episode is discreet, so you can jump in anywhere and not need to know anything about the (admittedly immense) backstory behind S11 (or even remember what happened in the *last* episode). Fun. Escape. Energy. Fizz. The Doctor is “delighted”. For the whole family to share together of an evening.
That would make sense because, with the best will in the world, the ‘darker’ Capaldi years lost the non-core audience. Yes, fine, audiences are changing and watching on catch-up, but if you look at the first Capaldi series versus the second and third, his first series performs respectably compared with the Eccleston, Tennant and Smith Doctors, then his second and third loses between one and two million viewers. Which is distinctly more than the 5% drop you’d expect by comparing Who to all the other shows.
The Capaldi era may well be one that will be considered artistically successful (I’d place it as a bold experiment that failed, myself), but the conclusion that has to be made by any sensible producer is that things need to lighten up if Who is to get its non-core audience back.
If Chibnall wants to have a series arc, it needs to be the type of arc that makes sense at the end of the series; people who want to dip in and out can enjoy the show, people who watch everything find that all the episodes do tie together. And I have to admit that I heard the ‘standalone’ comment slightly differently – I seem to remember that it was described as ‘you can jump in anywhere, and will then want to go back and watch the earlier episodes’.
13 August 2018 at 18:44 #63744Truthfully, I think Chris Chibnall is taking advantage of the lack of continuity (no inherited Doctor, no inherited composer, no inherited assistant…) to do what Stephen Moffat did – not a complete reboot, but a brand-new jumping off point. So, new sets, new props, new everything.
As for the very giggly cast, I think you also have to realise that ComicCon was their first exposure to the madness that is convention season. As Jodie Whittaker said at one point, they’ve basically been spending the last nine months working away in Cardiff. Then they dutifully turn up at Comic Con to do a round of publicity interviews and find that they’ve just achieved geek stardom.
And it’s insane. 🙂
11 August 2018 at 18:36 #63735I was thinking more ‘dilithium crystal desktop’. 🙂
11 August 2018 at 13:25 #63733Yes, I can see why they’re annoyed. The lighting is awful, so it’s clearly a ‘set photo’ rather than a proper production photo. Somebody sneaked a snap on their mobile, then leaked it? A continuity photo? It’s certainly not a proper publicity shot.
Properly lit, I can see that design being really great – it reminded me a bit of the Russell T Davies TARDIS.
21 July 2018 at 01:08 #63676@jimthefish And @blenkinsopthebrave
The thought that’s occurred to me is that they simply haven’t finished all the post production yet. The teaser had post production special effects, the trailer was more hints of the overseas locations they used.
19 July 2018 at 22:04 #63664@wolfweed and @blenkinsopthebrave
Ooh, actual information! October start, and the TARDIS is part of the team.
19 July 2018 at 11:25 #63654@blenkinsopthebrave and @wolfweed
The structural advantage of the TARDIS over a Vortex Manipulator is that you can’t stick a TARDIS in your pocket. 🙂
That is, while the TARDIS can conveniently get you to the place the story is about to happen, it’s big enough that you then have to park it – and all sort of exciting things can happen to stop you getting back to your parking spot. Up to and including the TARDIS deciding ‘Sod this for a game of sailors, I’m off to the South Pole’.
But with a Vortex Manipulator, the thing is strapped to your wrist and can be used as a get out of jail free card at any time. This is why the only Vortex Manipulators that we see in working order don’t belong to full-time cast members. Any Vortex Manipulator that goes near a full-time cast member is never working properly. It has to be repaired, needs a code, will break down as soon as you arrive…
Star Trek had a similar problem with their communicators, and the resulting easy access to the teleport. They usually solved it by hitting William Shatner on the head very hard. Can’t think why. 😀
15 July 2018 at 18:37 #63639Yes, could be.
I’d add that if it’s a specially made teaser, it’s been filmed on three sets – and they’ve included quite a few background artists, as well. So that suggests it IS genuinely teasing something about the upcoming series; either, as you suggest, it’s a ‘Mrs Peel, we’re needed’ montage that may appear in the final series, or it’s a clue to the theme of the series.
15 July 2018 at 18:06 #63637It just seems such a looonnng time that we’ve had to wait. 🙂
Agree with @blenkinsopthebrave, but –
All three Companions are eating.
In each case, time reverses itself.
It may be a specially made teaser, but it seems to be set after the three of them have met the Doctor. At least, none of them are completely freaked out by the time reversal.13 July 2018 at 15:59 #63622Oh, goody. That’s hopefully the series teaser, and even more hopefully will include the start date. 🙂
11 July 2018 at 09:08 #63616@geoffers
October has been the default assumption for some months now. Whether it’s true or not depends on a) the post-production schedule and b) BBC schedulers.In the rumour’s favour is the point that this is a new production team – and the new Head Writer clearly wanted a lot of new people, to shake the series up a bit. Given Russell T. Davies’ joke that he ended his first week of Post Gap Who production two weeks behind, they might have built-in extra time for the new team to discover the, ah special joys of producing Who. >:)
Starting the first weekend in October would allow them to finish the ten episodes in the first weekend of December. The ratings for the Christmas Special have fallen from Doctor Who’s previous ‘must see’ status, so the logic for a late start might be to see if they can keep the momentum going for Christmas.
26 June 2018 at 22:49 #63594@wolfweed et al
I did the traditional Whovian thing of immediately finding out all I could – he’s more classically trained than Murray Gold, with a First from Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. He’s got quite a bit of experience in scoring documentaries and drama-docs, and it looks like he’s been working on scoring short films to get experience in film/drama scoring.
By the look of it, this is his first high-profile drama. It looks like Chibbers has picked someone who is hopefully on the verge of making his big breakthrough, rather than going with someone who was as established as Murray Gold was in 2005.
For those who want to judge his music for themselves, streaming is available on https://soundcloud.com/segunakinola
3 June 2018 at 12:38 #63519They’re called culottes over here – and yes, they’re worn here in the UK, though I don’t know how much that comes from the 2017 publicity over the new costume reminding young women that the things exist. 🙂 They were quite popular back in the early eighties, which makes me think that the Whittaker Doctor may be acquiring her new clothes from a charity shop.
But I think they’re a ‘halfway house’ costume, myself. Something picked up by a Time Lady-who-used-to-be-a-Lord who’s spent the last several millennia in bloke’s clothing, and now has to quickly find stuff for a women’s body. Hence the braces, which are a bit of a boo-boo, and the culottes, because they’re a half-way house between a skirt and trousers.
9 May 2018 at 13:22 #63477@jimthefish – I was assuming that Craig had that annoying thing known as Real Life to deal with and would get round to Episode 2 eventually.
The audio commentary! It has John Leeson, Louise Jameson, Anthony Read (half the scriptwriter) and Matt Irvine (special effects).
Louise Jameson adored working with K9, mainly because John Leeson would act him out on his hands and knees (or do a crouch). Louise notes that little bits, like her tickling K9 under the chin, only came about because she had John to play off. This is one of the reasons for the rise of mo-cap for CGI characters, BTW. Beginning with Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and Andy Serkis, directors discovered that actors give much better performances when they’re in a scene with other actors. Funny, that. 🙂
Keeping the audience in the dark was part of the ‘hook’, according to Tony Read. Though he admits the speed that they had to write it meant that it was a bit ‘all over the place’. Some character stuff never got written in.
Okay, the problem was that the writer commissioned to do the six-parter for this slot simply couldn’t get the ‘idiom’ right – he produced a good script, but it just wasn’t Doctor Who. Bob Holmes and the other ‘go-to’ regulars weren’t available, being busy doing other work. Hence ‘David Agnew’ – also known as the Script Editor Tony Read and Producer Graham Williams frantically putting something together. And yes, they DID haul the set plans and costumes out from The Deadly Assassin – it was a case of ‘What do we have? Oh, all the Gallifrey costumes and plans…’
Tony Read remembers that he basically had ten days, and the BBC were sending a motorcycle dispatch rider every day to pick up that day’s finished work. No email back then – he didn’t even have a fax as they were rare for private houses. Graham Williams was acting as script editor back at base, sitting down and discussing with Gerald Black (director) what could realistically be done from Tony’s script.
This explains things like the TARDIS screens being blank/closed. They didn’t have time to do those effects – the location work had to be done after the studio filming, rather than (as was normal) before.
Apparently one of the bloopers that wasn’t recorded (or kept) was Louise Jameson doing a belly-flop into the TARDIS swimming pool. Louise Jameson also recalls that one of the problems off-screen was that almost every person asking for an autograph would offer the actors a jelly baby. And would be very disappointed if she and Tom didn’t eat at least one of the things. By the end of a long day at the Longleat exhibition, she was definitely feeling quite sick – don’t know about Tom.
Interesting that the commentators find the set quite good – it’s multi-height, which was apparently difficult to do at the time.
Much admiration for Milton Johns and John Arnatt – especially John Arnatt’s still, economical performance, which really plays up the ‘Prime Minister’ aspect of Borusa. They note that John Arnatt is giving a ‘stage’ rather than ‘TV’ performance, but agree that they don’t mean that in a critical sense; he’s like a Prime Minister having to be the PM to this lunatic Doctor. Louise argues that Doctor Who is a heightened form of acting anyway – much closer to the technique needed for the proscenium arch than to the naturalistic soap style.
Praise for the lighting director, Mike Jeffries, who allowed the story to be underlit, in keeping with the ‘has the Doctor gone mad’ storyline. This was not BBC practice at the time; bright lighting was the style. The lighting (which was lit for multi-camera work) somehow seems more like the nu-Who single camera lighting. Matt Irvine notes that there are some very early electronic effects with the screen – which was probably obtained by twiddling a few knobs and going ‘ooh, that one looks good’. The levitating Matrix helmet was colour separation overlay.
As @jimthefish notes, it was quite a heavy sort of script for 5.30pm on Saturday.
19 April 2018 at 19:35 #63454The BBC’s helpful guide to spotting fake news:
… if thermonuclear war was breaking out in much of the world and the BBC had reported on it, it is likely the news would be mentioned on the website and would be corroborated by other news organisations.
Just so you know. 😀
10 April 2018 at 19:19 #63437I’ll chime in to agree with that. The Day of the Doctor is really good – the others are on my ‘to read’ list.
9 April 2018 at 15:25 #63430I think you ought to choose the Romana I story, because otherwise this Retrospective is in danger of turning into an ‘All The Stories JimTheFish Really Hates Retrospective.’ 😀
Sorry you don’t like it – I agree about the sets, which definitely had a ‘someone find the plans from Deadly Assassin’ feel about them. The costumes were probably dragged out of storage as well – but the tech is supposed to look clunky. Engin mentioned that the Time Lords aren’t the greatest at any technology unrelated to time in The Deadly Assassin – though he put a typically Time Lord spin on it. Can’t remember whether its this or a later story where the Doctor mentions that he’s visited other planets that are far more advanced.
I’d disagree that Tom Baker is phoning it in – he looks like an actor having fun playing ‘conflicted, possible villain’ rather than his normal Doctor. ‘Scenery chewing’ and ‘Tom Baker’ are kind of synonymous, really, don’t you think? 🙂 There’s an old joke about him (which you’ve probably heard). A young and somewhat exasperated director once told him ‘Tom, you can’t even walk through a door normally!’ To which Tom replied: ‘I don’t want to walk through a door normally. I want to walk through a door interestingly.’
8 April 2018 at 00:59 #63411No, Twice Upon a Time
7 April 2018 at 20:13 #63409This was surprisingly good, considering it was written in two weeks flat when another script didn’t come up to scratch. I do remember watching it – I’d have been in my early teens and at least one scene is engraved in my memory – and so I’m going to try and avoid spoilers. I believe this has got a reputation as a mediocre story, but the first episode certainly isn’t mediocre.
Some nice model work with the spacecraft. The Doctor is clearly Up To Something – by now the audience has long learnt that Tom Baker’s Doctor may be unpredictable, but he is always on the side of good.
My golly, but K9 is noisy. In fact, the entire soundtrack is noisy, what with whirring special effects and actor’s boots clomping across studio floors. I notice that we can’t yet see the aliens who are the villains – maybe they couldn’t make the costumes in time. As Steven Moffat once said, the best kind of script is the one that says ‘the spaceship cannot be seen’ or ‘the aliens are invisible.’ 😉
I love Louise Jameson’s indignation that the Doctor doesn’t trust her, when she’s just proved his point. There’s a faint hint that K9 knows what’s going on, and that he and the Doctor need to keep Leela in the dark for some reason. The TARDIS also seems to be a bit in the dark; I like the way that K9 sneers at her inability to talk.
Gallifrey! Milton Johns! Oh, wonderful. The moment you see Milton Johns you know you’re going to have a nasty, oily, sneaky character to watch out for. A creep. [I hasten to add that the actor himself is a lovely man, very generous and with a good sense of humour.] Commander Andred clearly doesn’t like this Castellan – an early sign that he might be a good judge of character.
You can see where Steven Moffat got the ‘the army are the failed Time Lords’ thing; they’re clearly the second class citizens in this set up. And we see yet another style of Gallifreyan writing – they seem to have almost as many types of writing as we do.
I’m not sure why we see Leela in the swimming pool, but that may be because I’m a woman and the scriptwriters were men. >:)
I note a certain amount of trouble with the ceremonial cloaks, which is quite separate from the soldiers’ problem with the Doctor.
Ooh, shouty! And Tom Baker does shouty so well. Not to mention cutting. And he doesn’t like the Castellan either, but he’s quite happy to use him.
And we see more Time Lords. More male Time Lords. Solely male Time Lords, though Rodan did at least get a name-check earlier. One of the things I missed in Day of the Doctor was the other ceremonial colours – everyone was in Prydonian purple. But there’s a nice bit of gossip, and I can’t help thinking that the Time Lord in orange is on to something important with his little ‘hobby’.
Okay, this was the start of every scriptwriter in trouble going completely overboard on Rassillon. The Sash of Rassilon. The Staff of Rassilon. The (missing) Great Key of Rassilon. Yes, Rassilon was early established as a complete egomaniac. There’s probably a Cuddly Toy of Rassilon somewhere…
And the poor background artists have to look serious when carrying a blow up plastic cushion… I suppose someone thought it futuristic. But that missing Key is clearly what the Vardans are after, judging by the way they almost jump out of their seats when they see it’s not there.
Charles Morgan (Gold Usher) is very good, isn’t he? Pitch perfect ceremonial. With just a hint of dislike.
Well, at the moment, I’m glad we’re watching this one.
7 April 2018 at 16:28 #63407Time Heist?
7 April 2018 at 16:21 #63406And it’s the last audio commentary for this story.
Verity Lambert notes that Sidney Newman taught her the importance of cliffhangers – ‘you’ve got to grab them by the balls in the first 30 seconds.’ The cliffhanger was what brought the audience back. He also taught her the importance of splitting stories into ‘acts’. For the 24 minute Doctor Who episode, you had a two act structure, with a mini-cliffhanger in the middle. That kept people watching, even if the exposition/running round corridors was starting to flag; the mini-cliffhanger in the middle meant that it wouldn’t flag for too long.
Stories the length of modern Who episodes would have a ‘three act structure’. Next time I watch, I must check for two mini-cliffhangers…
The attention to detail for this story is noticeable – Carole Ann Ford picked up that props even put dust on the cord Ian uses, so that we see (even if we don’t consciously note) dust as he picks up the old cord.
They so hate Lime Grove. Every commentary where a story was shot there, there’re comments about the awfulness of Lime Grove. This time it’s the noticeable change in picture definition, due to the old and not-very-good cameras at Lime Grove.
A note that Ixta is the fall-guy, who never gets things right…
The music was done with only a few instruments (no orchestra). I think I mentioned previously that the director got a friend who was a well-regarded professional composer to do this – it shows.
Now this is something where fortunately Doctor Who manages to survive an advance in our knowledge of the past. The Aztecs did have the wheel – but when this programme (and the commentary) was made, that wasn’t known. What they didn’t do was use it for anything beyond toys, because they lacked large enough draught animals to make the wheel remotely useful in their mountainous territory – and they never discovered the principle of the pulley. But Cameca would probably have thought the Doctor was making some kind of toy, if a rather large one.
A joke about ‘order Autloc’. William Russell notes that the names in this story were hard enough without adding tongue-twisters.
A joke about ‘What subjects did Ian teach???’ I remember Steven Moffat making a similar joke with the English teacher Clara taking Year 7s for Tae Kwon Do. I think the various additional material – novels – made it clear he’d done National Service, because he certainly knows how to fight.
Okay, I was wrong. This fight didn’t use the modern method of cutting between stuntmen and actor’s faces. They used multiple cameras, the fight is done by the actors – and some of their precious editing cuts. Verity Lambert thinks she might have gone up to seven editing cuts, when she was only supposed to have a maximum of four.
William Russell remembers that he had to drag that bloomin’ great pulley with him, as it couldn’t be left behind for the Aztecs.
Some laughter as John Ringham chews the scenery for the sacrifice. ‘He’s really enjoying it!’ But also a note from Carole Ann Ford that this episode provided another educational opportunity besides pulleys – kids were going to go into school and ask their teacher what an eclipse was. 🙂
Finally, the commentators really enjoyed re-watching it. They decide that the story still stands up, forty years later, because everybody was committed, the performances were for real (even Richard III suits Tlotoxl’s character beautifully), and props, set, writing and director were all doing this ‘for real’. Nobody was sending it up. That, said Verity Lambert, is why it’s lasted so well.
Which is a tribute not just to the cast, but to her production values. She made her actors and crew take this low budget kiddie programme seriously, commissioned scripts with serious themes – and made a programme that has lasted nearly fifty-five years.
5 April 2018 at 20:19 #63385Our female Gallifreyan, played by Carole Ann Ford, will leave the TARDIS in November 1964. From that point on the audience will not see another female member of the Doctor’s race until Leela finds Rodan, in The Invasion of Time. In February 1978.
While the long gap is partly understandable (the concept of ‘Time Lords’ wasn’t invented until Patrick Troughton was leaving in 1969), the nearly ten years in which we frequently saw male Time Lords, but never a female one is fairly incomprehensible by modern standards. Especially given that we visited Gallifrey itself in 1976, and never saw a single woman. We did get to hear Helen Blatch doing a voice-over, but see a female Time Lord? Nope. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Carole Ann Ford’s Susan, Time Lords could easily have been perceived as like the Sontarans – a race that only has one sex (apparently male), possibly reproducing asexually.
Maybe, at some point in future Who, we’ll become comfortable enough with the new idea of regenerations that gender-swap to retcon that nearly ten-years of exclusively masculine Time Lords. Perhaps it was ‘something in the water’. Or maybe some temporary craze for male bodies. Possibly even that Gallifeyan activists were protesting against the Sisterhood of Karn.
Or perhaps they’ll do a Star Trek, where someone brings it up and an embarrassed Gallifreyan hisses ‘we don’t talk about that!’ 😀
5 April 2018 at 20:13 #63384Okay, a mere one-and-a-half weeks late. Blame Holy Week and Easter. 😀
Great episode – this is such a well written story. Within the limitations of time and budget it’s so well done.
For example, last week’s cliffhanger isn’t resolved easily. Ian really has to work at escaping from the rapidly rising water. I also note that what the scriptwriter doesn’t do is have Ian talking to himself; William Russell has to carry off two scenes that are played in total silence.
That scene painting backdrop of the city is a lovely bit of work; very theatrical. And I thoroughly enjoyed the highly educational demonstration of the benefits of pulleys when lifting heavy weights.
Interesting that when Barbara talks about the ghosts of the dead, waiting for her to be killed, too – this Doctor doesn’t rail against superstition. Perhaps he’s feeling something in the atmosphere of that temple, as well.
Ian, oh Ian. This week’s holder of the ‘Idiot Ball’. In only the last story you were handed a murder weapon and then got arrested as a murderer. Didn’t you learn anything? When you see an unconscious/dead body, do not pick up the weapon helpfully placed by the body. However, Ian does have the sense to later nick a helmet that hides most of his face, so I suppose we have to forgive him his temporary plot-related dip in intelligence.
Autloc may have wandered off into the wilderness to find a new faith, but he finally shows he’s just as clear sighted about human motivations as Tlotoxl. You want to get Ian and Susan out? Never mind the heroics, just bribe the guard.
I love Cameca, and almost wish that Margot Van Der Burgh could have joined the TARDIS team. In fact, I love the way that William Hartnell plays the Doctor as genuinely falling for her. She deserves it; she could have given River Song a run for her money.
Those helmets looks suspiciously like they hide the stuntmen, and that the fight was done in film (at Ealing?) to allow fast editing between shots showing the actor’s faces, and shots showing the stuntmen whacking lumps out of each other.
I agree with @craig, @blenkinsopthebrave et al that stories like this do show that it’s a real shame the current format only allows a maximum two-part story, and that they effectively have to sneak three-parters in by pretending they’re separate stories. This was a great four parter, using its expanded time to tell a complex story and developing it week by week.
31 March 2018 at 19:31 #63357@missy
It’s a perfectly genuine clip of a youtube video of some flooding. One of the items carried off in the flood was a portable toilet. A blue portable toilet. A TARDIS sized, blue, portable toilet.First, add some Doctor Who Theme music.
Then, imagine a normal city street, with a river of floodwater running through it. The floodwater is of that colour which strongly suggests it’s taken a trip through the local sewerage system before it decided to hit the streets.
In the midst of that river of … er, brown, a blue box appears, floating resolutely and determinedly upright through the flood. It travels past the camera, finally leaving the shot to pursue new and exciting adventures – in worlds that are hopefully less full of … brown.
😀
16 March 2018 at 20:48 #63287“Splendid chaps, all of them.” 😀
12 March 2018 at 23:26 #63281Audio Commentary:
Not much commentary on this episode; the actors and producer frequently seem to be caught up in watching the action – and then remember that they’re supposed to be talking about it. 🙂
First comment is the way Jacqueline Hill took complete command of the first scene (and later scenes). Praise for Ian Cullen and Keith Pyott, as well. Generally, there’s a repeat of the comment last week that none of the actors are relaxing because this is supposed to be a kiddie show; they’re all playing up to the well written script and giving it their best. Generally, they remember the actors as enjoying this story. The script has real conflict between the characters, who are generally trying to do good, and yet finding it difficult.
Comment that with friends like the Doctor, who needs enemies. 😉
William Russell remarks that Ian started out as a po-faced action man, but grew through the various stories. Also, this is definitely the only time Hartnell’s Doctor Who fell in love with someone.
A lot of complaints from parents that this one was too scary; Verity Lambert said she felt it was mostly from parents who left their kids alone in front of the TV, rather than staying with them. She remembers that, as a child, she enjoyed reading books that were ‘too scary’ and that they certainly gave her nightmares. So it’s probably Verity Lambert who is to blame for: ‘Doctor Who: giving kids nightmares since 1963’.
But they also had letters from teachers saying that the historical episodes really did make teaching history much, much easier, because the kids wanted to know about the period they’d seen on Doctor Who.
The maxim of Doctor Who at this period is that history must not be changed; Barbara is transgressing by trying to use her hindsight to change things. But Ian’s point – that the entire civilisation is what needs to change, and Barbara can’t do that by herself – is right. They can change one or two minds, maybe. Shades of Fires of Pompeii, when Donna tells the Doctor that he can’t save Pompeii, but he can save one family.
This writer has made Susan ‘more mature and thoughtful’, able to say who she is inside. Still a teenager, but growing up. Verity Lambert notes that they always thought of Susan as ‘quite young’ – she knew stuff that was well beyond 1963, but in the first story, she was supposed to be a child.
The ambitious nature of the sets is noted. As is the fact that Tlotoxl really is a nasty piece of work. 😀
9 March 2018 at 20:47 #63257Hi, Thane!
For your problem, you’d have to distinguish between the different types of memory. We remember facts, events and what kind of person we are as different types of memory. My knowledge of this area of psychology is hugely out of date – there’s been a lot of recent research – but apparently our memory of our character is stored as a ‘fact’. That is, we remember ‘I am stubborn’ in the same way as ‘Grapes are okay to eat’.
So if Jack’s episodic memories have been changed, so that he now remembers success instead of failure, that would not change his ‘fact’ that he’s stubborn. The thousand things you’d have to change would have to include his ‘facts’ about the sort of person he is.
His sense of identity, that is, his sense of being the same person as the one in his memories, is also quite distinct from his sense of what sort of person he is. People can lose their memory almost completely, be so badly damaged that they can’t hold a coherent thought together for longer than a few seconds – and they’ll still have a sense of self.
So knowledge of oneself as a continuing identity doesn’t seem to depend on memory of oneself in the past. The self-knowledge seems to be carefully stored in a completely different place. In fact, its survivability in the face of multiple, severe damage suggests that our self-knowledge is some of the most ‘protected’ parts of our memory.
Philosophy, however, won’t depend on mere facts. 🙂 The question would be whether Jack has continuity with the person he was before he altered his memories. I’d say yes – he’s got physical continuity, he probably has trait continuity. Locke would disagree with me, though. Locke would go for continuity of memory.
9 March 2018 at 20:22 #63256Yeah, I could imagine Alan Cumming as James 1st and VIth. More interesting is why it would be a recurring booking…
3 March 2018 at 20:42 #63235@blenkinsopthebrave and @whisht
Yes, you can see why some of the actors have decided to go for flat-out RSC style. ::cough:: Tlotoxl ::cough::
And you can’t help wondering whether Team TARDIS’ competence with weapons has been developed in the previous five stories; at least, I hope Barbara didn’t pick up that facility with knives during her teaching practice. 🙂
Again, Tlotoxl really is all go. Failure to kill Ian? Threatened with having his own throat cut? Drat, but it’s on to the next plot – and when that fails, the next plot – and presumably when that fails, the next plot. Tlotoxl’s kind of an Aztec Energiser Bunny.
The slightly depressing (but probably correct) conclusion of this episode is that people who can see beyond their cultural context are rare; Ian argues that it’s Autloc who’s the odd one out, not Tlotoxl. Human sacrifice wasn’t something forced on the Aztec people; it was something that was a long-standing part of Mesoamerican culture. Getting rid of it, as Barbara wants to do, would require a major cultural change – and she’s not going to be able to change an entire culture by herself, even if she has been cast as a god.
Barbara reluctantly agrees, and everyone turns towards the problem of retrieving the TARDIS. But it’s pretty deep stuff for an educational programme.
Fortunately, there’s the Doctor’s little romance to lighten things up. 🙂
26 February 2018 at 19:56 #63216The Audio Commentary: Verity Lambert, William Russell, Carole Ann Ford.
General agreement that John Ringham is terrifying in the opening scene, especially for kids. ‘He means it’ is one comment. Bill Hartnell’s Doctor was always at odds with everyone he met – and William Russell remembers Bill was always looking for comic bits. You never knew what his Doctor would do, or how he’d react. This may have been what kids liked about him – his Doctor was deeply ‘anti-authoritarian’. And they all agree; the kids loved Bill Hartnell’s Doctor. For that matter, I get the distinct impression that they loved Hartnell’s Doctor.
Sidney Newman, apparently, wanted the Doctor to be a loose cannon, because that meant if things were getting boring at any time, the Doctor could be used to liven things up – as here, when the Doctor decides to help exactly the wrong person. So Hartnell is playing the character Newman wanted.
Apparently Episodes 2 and 3 were allowed into the ‘hallowed portals’ of BBC TV Centre to film. They had more room, a sprinkler system that didn’t go off for overheated cameras and a lighting console.
Filming: supper break at 6pm, Line run at 7pm, start filming at 7.30pm, be finished by 10pm. Or they’d turn everything off. No casting directors in those days; even the background artists had to be hand picked – Verity thinks the PA cast the background artists. That explains why, in previous episodes, the entire cast appeared to be mates of the director. 🙂
Verity Lambert remembers that they weren’t allowed to use anything that could be picked up and used for violence at home – hence the fuss about the scissors in Edge of Destruction.
Some wondering why the Perfect Victim is ‘perfect’. John Lucarotti, the writer, was apparently very good at research (he also wrote Marco Polo). There’s also some comments about how sad it is that the Aztec civilisation was destroyed: the ‘educational’ remit certainly seemed to work for cast and crew.
25 February 2018 at 20:29 #63208So, the audio commentary: the late Verity Lambert is running the interview, with William Russell and Carole Anne Ford.
Verity comments that the historicals had to be completely accurate – right dates, right costumes, authentic designs. Several decades later, they’re pretty impressed by the set and costumes (quite rightly, I’d say). Though the authenticity caused a couple of problems – apparently the feather headdresses were prone to tickle, and the actor bowing could easily ‘get’ the actor being bowed to. There’s also a problem with camera focus – choice of focusing on face, or face with headdress. But the sets are much admired, especially the garden set.
And we’re not the only ones to think John Ringham is doing Richard III – it’s the first thing Verity Lambert says, and the other two promptly agree. Later on they reckon he’s copying Laurence Olivier. 🙂 But Verity also notes how truthful the acting is (even Richard III); also that given the time to prepare and rehearse, everyone has tried to create something as accurate as possible. No cutting corners, or relaxing because ‘it’s just for kiddies’. Quite a lot of favourable comment about the way Jacqueline Hill varies her performance to play Yetaxa.
The director chosen, John Crockett, was from BBC Schools, was ‘academic’, and was grabbed because he knew the Aztec period well. He took the ‘educational’ remit very serious and checked sets, costumes etc. for accuracy. Verity thinks he was the one who got them the composer Richard Rodney Bennett to do the incidental music – John Crockett knew him.
A few jokes about Ian’s ‘hidden talents’ as a fighter and the way he reacts incredibly calmly to the news that he’s going to be an Aztec warrior; William Russell remarks that he had about five minutes to practice the new moves.
Some discussion of which studio it was – D or G? And how the heck did they manage to fit all these sets in? Verity notes that she developed quite a reputation in the BBC for fitting more sets in a small space than anyone believed possible. Even for the 1960’s, however, the Studio D and G facilities were old fashioned – ‘out of the ark’, is one comment, and the cables were a health and safety nightmare. The actors couldn’t really run anywhere – they’d have gone flying. At one point you can see the camera jerk violently as it runs into something.
I note that Carole Ann Ford is obviously a fashionista – she didn’t like Susan’s costumes generally (Susan’s top is ‘shapeless’), but would have grabbed Jacqueline Hill’s Aztec costume in an instant. That fits with Mark Gattis’s An Adventure In Space And Time, where a row develops between her and William Hartnell after she buys one of the Marco Polo costumes. Whether or not that scene actually happened, it’s clearly true to both her and Hartnell.
24 February 2018 at 18:49 #63205Bit late in watching this one: it’s full of derring do, excitement, and the Doctor getting things wrong. 🙂
Given that the scriptwriters had an ‘educational’ remit, they’ve done really well in portraying the Aztecs as ‘people like us’. Good, bad, nosy, wise, foolish. Set in their ways, and open to new thoughts.Susan learning the ‘Good Housewife Guide To Aztec Life’ is very funny, and also hints at the later fate of her character. She’ll choose her own husband, thanks. Barbara is skating on thin ice as Tlotoxl increasingly doubts her divinity. Ian is facing an ambitious warrior – fortunately, he’s from 1963 and clearly either fought in WW2 (which I think William Russell did) or did National Service. Either way, he’s just as much a trained warrior as Ixta, and his fighting techniques have the advantage of five hundred years of development.
He wouldn’t have any problem throwing Ixta round the room, if it wasn’t for the Doctor showing that manipulative, too-clever-for-his-own-good side he’s got.
The fight isn’t very well directed – both actors obviously do know how to do stage fights (as @blenkinsopthebrave says, William Russell had already played Sir Lancelot), but it seems to be suffering from either lack of rehearsal time, or lack of fight direction. Lots of judo style throws and grappling.
The costumes continue to be amazing; making up for the slightly limited sets. John Ringham has really got his teeth into his ‘Richard III Tlotoxl, and is portraying a seriously high speed schemer. Get rid of Barbara, have Ian killed in a second fight after the first one didn’t work, arrest the Doctor for entering Barbara’s presence after deliberately not telling him he shouldn’t… it’s all go for Tlotoxl. He’s really NOT someone you want as an enemy; something doesn’t work, he just thinks up another way to kill you.
There’s an air of tragedy about this: Barbara’s ‘prophecy’ – which is her remembering history – tells us what’s going to happen. And we, the audience, know that she can’t possibly succeed in changing that history. It’s a bit like Fires of Pompeii – the history is that this culture will die. And the good will die along with the bad.
17 February 2018 at 17:50 #63179@2011bumblebee
Congratulations on creating a genuinely short and ‘no trouble’ survey. 🙂
13 February 2018 at 19:17 #63149@wolfweed and @jimthefish
The bum bag may represent the Doctor’s discovery that too many trousers for women do not have pockets. Fashion designers tend to say ‘oh, but women don’t buy clothes with pockets’. Yes, that’s because you don’t sell them, idiots! 🙂
The worst thing is when they decide to include stupid fake pockets …
10 February 2018 at 20:08 #63138I agree that the spiritual home of Who has always been Saturday evenings, but Saturday evenings have changed – they’re now more Variety orientated, with big, often live, shows. The big ‘family drama’ slot is now Sunday from about 7.30 – they might be thinking of popping Who in the 8pm pre-watershed slot, for example. Currently, Who is adding on a third of its viewers via IPlayer, plus there are regular complaints about the ever-changing start time. So maybe a more regular slot on Sunday would be better – especially when a lot of people who haven’t watched for ages are likely to tune in to see what Jodie Whittaker’s first female Doctor is like.
That would actually be a very good slot – Call The Midwife is there now, and doesn’t exactly get low ratings. 😉
10 February 2018 at 19:46 #63137Thanks for that. I did think of dropping a hint about setting up ‘Female Time Lords Retrospective’, but then decided that I didn’t know whether you were hugely relieved/celebrating or drowning your sorrows. Glad to hear it’s ‘hugely relieved’.
🙂
10 February 2018 at 19:04 #63134My first comment would be that the Special Edition of the DVD is amazing value – for seven of our British Pounds, you get The Aztecs AND a reconstructed version of Galaxy 4. You also get two child orientated introductions to the Aztec people, various making of/commentaries/documentaries about Who. Plus How the Aztecs Made Cocoa. 🙂
Okay. Title: The Temple of Evil. A hint that this is not going to be a revisionist history of the Aztecs. Basically the scriptwriter has seemed to take the attitude that, civilised as the Aztecs were in many ways, human sacrifice is a no-no. We’re not talking one or two people a year, here – estimates vary, but a minimum is 20,000 people per year, a maximum is 250,000. Per year. This split is emphasised by the two priests we see – Autloc is willing to recognise Barbara’s ‘servants’, greets them politely and means them no harm. Tlotoxl, on the other hand, wants blood, and lots of it. 🙂
John Ringham, who plays Tlotoxl, has clearly decided he’s not going to be asked to play Richard III at this stage in his career, so is going to go for a ‘Richard III’ Tlotoxl for all he’s worth. Complete with crooked back and Laurence Oliver style enunciation. 😀 Plot no. 1: get the young, possible warrior killed off quickly using promotion-by-combat. Plot no. 2: get the young handmaiden killed off for interrupting the sacrifice. We’re not even past the first episode…
Notably, the Doctor seems to have more than a working knowledge of the Aztecs himself. And doesn’t like being called an ‘old man’, or handed over to the retirement home. No wonder he was annoyed when he found his regeneration wasn’t ‘younger’. And yes, @blenkinsopthebrave, the Doctor clearly fancies Cameca.
Ixta even looks thick. And that’s a very slow stage fight, though possibly they were going for ‘practice fight with menace’.
And here we have the main intra-Team TARDIS conflict. Barbara and Ian would cheerfully alter history in favour of banning human sacrifice early; the Doctor knows they mustn’t do that. Though he’s still trying to protect Susan from this sort of nastiness, as is Barbara.
Aaand we see the first set of problems with trying to change the world (never mind trying to change Whovian fixed points). The First Victim wanted to be sacrificed and is horrified that it’s stopped, and Tlotoxl reckons that any goddess who comes down and explains that God doesn’t actually want human sacrifice is a false god. Somebody’s done their research, and they are trying to accurately convey the real history in a child-friendly way – the primary accounts of the Spanish Conquest agree that this is pretty much what happened. Rescued sacrifices were horrified that they’d been ‘rescued’; the new Christian religion’s idea that God didn’t want this was indignantly rejected by the Aztec priests.
And yes, Barbara is indeed a badass.
8 February 2018 at 11:45 #63109 -
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