It was a Sunday and only a couple of weeks after our last meet up! It was a fairly pleasant day and the whole lot of us gathered around mine to watch Planet Of Evil - a four part story set on a planet that was evil.... or was it?! Was the name a misnomer? Let us see....
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MJ: "Well here we are around mine - I'm late with Leigh's Earl Grey. That's what I'm doing in the kitchen now and I wander into the living room.... it's a Sunday and we're all around here to watch Planet of Evil. We're all here - even Yana the dog, but then she lives with me, so..."
Jason: "I actually thought we were watching Pyramids Of Mars but obviously I'm wrong!"
MJ: "Durr!"
Leigh: "Don't you know NOTHING?!" *Laughs*
MJ: "Is that curtain okay for you slightly open? Do you want it fully closed?"
Jason: "Can I have it fully closed, please?"
MJ: "Yeah, course you can!"
Leigh: "Can I have it slightly open?"
MJ: "Hah!"
Shaun: "Can I have it changed to a nice purple curtain? I'm not keen on that blue!"
Mark: "Can I have it constantly shifting?"
MJ: "How about YOU constantly shift!!?"
*Mark & MJ chuckle*
Leigh: "He does."
MJ: "Close the kicthen door!" *Does so* "And we're all enclosed to watch Part One of" *Evil voice* "Planet of Evil."
Jason: "On Mars."
Leigh: "With Pyramids!"
*MJ laughs*
Shaun: *Smiling* "Leigh's got his tea" *Leigh cheers* "Everything's good!"
*EPISODE ONE STARTS*
MJ: "Part One!" *Singing to theme tune* "Doc-tor Whooooo. Tom Ba-ker, no Harry!"
Jason: "Ohh - I forgot about that!"
MJ: "Yeah I forgot about that as well."
Jason: "What happened to Harry? Did he just say 'I'm not coming'?"
Leigh: "Yeah."
MJ: "Yeah he just said 'I'm not gonna....I SAY!'" *Okay so clearly I don't know WHAT he said!*
Jason: "Did he fall in love with a native girl?"
MJ: *Laughing* "He did, yes!"
Leigh: "A native of Earth."
Jason: *Laughing* "Yes!"
MJ: *Referring to onscreen* "That's a big red planet, Yana." (Yana, my dog, didn't care!)
Leigh: "It's Mars."
Jason: "It's getting bigger now!"
Leigh: "It's where the pyramids are!"
MJ: "Anyway, Part One!"
*EPISODE ONE GETS WATCHED*
Photo 1: At MJ's house.
MJ, Shaun (with the sign - looking lovingly at MJ),
Leigh (pulling a great face with the DVD case) & Jason.
MJ, Shaun (with the sign - looking lovingly at MJ),
Leigh (pulling a great face with the DVD case) & Jason.
Shaun: *Partway through a chat* "... It's not very scary, is it?"
MJ: "No it isn't. Well, end of Part One and The Doctor and Sarah Jane are menaced by the, sort of, outline of red, sort of like, monster thing."
Jason: *Defensive* "That's quite scary!"
MJ: "I thought it was a nice effect. Because the monsters were invisible throughout which annoyed -"
Jason: *Reading end credits* "- Pretis Hancock! Good name!"
MJ: "Yeah he's been in a few." (He had been in the Jon Pertwee stories Spearhead From Space and Planet Of The Daleks) *Reading end credits surprised* "Michael Wisher!"
Shaun: "Why are they visible NOW then??"
Jason: "Because it's a cliffhanger!" *Laughs* "That's the answer!!"
MJ: "Yeah. They now can SEE the invisible aliens! Just as a red outline."
Jason: "You can't do a cliffhanger without SEEING the monster!"
Leigh: *Laughing* "Else it would be just a shot of jungle!"
Jason: "Scenary!"
Mark: "I've seen a lot of these now and I CAN believe they would do that."
*Laughter*
MJ: *Reading end credits seeing the Director's name: David Maloney* "What a load of Maloney! I liked it..." *Laughs*
Jason: "May as well end it there then!"
*Leigh laughs*
MJ: "Part Two." *High pitched singing* "Pa-art Twoooooo - of Doctor Whooooo! Ach-oo, 'cos I got the flu!"
Leigh: "You're upsetting the dog!"
MJ: *Laughs* "She says:" *Puts on weird voice that veers into Papa Lazarou (from the comedy show The League Of Gentlemen* "I DON'T LIKE THE HIGH VOICES!! IT'S ME VOICE!! I'M YANA!! HELLO SHAUN!! HELLO MARK! HELLO DAVE!!" *Laughs - then normal voice* "Part Two."
*EPISODE TWO GETS WATCHED*
Photo 2: At MJ's house.
Mark (with eyes open!), Shaun (with the sign and eyes shut!),
Leigh (with the DVD case) & Jason.
Mark (with eyes open!), Shaun (with the sign and eyes shut!),
Leigh (with the DVD case) & Jason.
MJ: "End of Part Two and The Doctor has fallen down the hole of nothing into the universe of anti-matter... or maybe not!" *Laughs* "And there's people there (on the planet), grumpy!"
Jason: *Reading end credits* "Ponti!"
MJ: "Sorry?!"
Jason: "The character was called Ponti."
Leigh: "I don't know, I didn't see Malachy Shaw Jonesd-Bar up there either!"
Jason: "He was!" *Laughs* "Not under that name though!" *Leigh laughs* "He was probably Salamar - can't spell."
MJ: "Please do sneeze over the salad bar!"
Jason: *After a pause* "Yeah. Doctor Who, that!"
Shaun: "I wonder what they are going to do for another two episodes?"
Jason: "I did watch that one going: 'Are we only on the second episode? It seems to be coming to an end?!'"
MJ: "Yeah but there's lots of stuff going on - I mean, like -"
Mark: "- They've got an episode in Anti-Matter Land."
Jason: "Well, there's not a lot of stuff going on! 'Do we take these things or not?' 'No'." (The things to be taken are samples of a mineral ore from the planet)
Leigh: "'Okay then, let's go'."
Jason: "NOW the Thing (the invisible anti-matter creature) thinks we're going to take it so we have to communicate with the Thing to say we're not going to take it. Just put them DOWN and leave!"
Shaun: "Yeah!"
Leigh: "'Here you are, Thing, here's your stuff'!"
MJ: "I assuming that the Thing won't listen because it's Planet Of Evil - it's not the Planet Of Reasonable -"
Shaun: *Interrupting* "- It's done NOTHING evil!"
Leigh: "It's killed people. That's quite evil..."
Jason: "No one's referred to it as 'The Planet Of Evil' yet - apart from the title."
Shaun: "No, it's killed an invading force that it doesn't understand!"
Jason: "That's how it communicates!"
Leigh: "Evilly!"
Shaun: "That's not evil!"
Leigh: *Laughing* "How can it kill them in a nicer way than sucking all the life out!?"
Shaun: "You don't know that what it does with them, right, it disappears with them and it treats them to a really nice meal."
*Leigh chuckles*
Jason: "It does! Forty YEARS they're off having a nice meal!"
Shaun: "Yep!"
Jason: "Then it comes back and they're starving."
Leigh: "And in the same clothes."
Jason: "It puts them back in the same clothes - so people can recognise who they are."
Shaun: "Yeah! So they can be properfly buried!"
Jason: "Yeah! That's nice - that's how you communicate."
Leigh: *Laughing* "So it should be the Planet Of Nice then, should it?!"
MJ: "Maybe it's the Planet Of Misunderstanding?" *Leigh laughs* "So Shaun was saying he likes the flying eye thing (like a little spying drone) because it's steadily getting worse!"
Shaun: *Smiling* "Yeah the more we see it, the crappier it looks! I'm very pleased with that!"
Mark: "The Oculoid."
Leigh: "Tracker!"
Jason: "Tracker."
MJ: *In style of Tobias Vaughn from the Patrick Troughton story The Invasion* "Tracker!!" *Laughs* "And now I have to put a bracket as to why that's funny!"
Leigh: "I don't understand why that's funny. I remember Tracker Bars!"
MJ: "Because there was a character called 'Packer' in The Invasion and Mavic Chen - no, what was his name?!"
Shaun: "It was Mavic Chen."
MJ: "Well, it was the same actor, but he was playing Tobias Vaughn in that. 'Packer!' That was his... ahem, anyway..."
Shaun: *Smiling* "MJ's done that joke before!"
Leigh: *Laughing* "I don't remember it!"
Shaun: *Smiling* "'Cos I had to ask LAST time, so that's why I remember it THIS time!"
*Leigh laughs*
Jason: "Yes I VAGUELY remember it from the episode but I MOSTLY remember it from MJ's imprssion!"
*Leigh laughs*
MJ: "I liked it when he used to give his assistant sweets and would say: 'Fudge, Packer?...' I made a joke like that before... It's good..... Probably..."
Shaun: *Laughing* "Dear God, the riotous laughter that it did THIS time.."
MJ: "'EVERYBODY laughs hilariously' I shall type afterwards!" *Leigh laughs* "Anyhow it's the future, in the story, so we have one black actor! No women - apart from the, err, main companion."
Shaun: "Yes, but we do have a gay couple! They're running the ship - so that's alright!"
Jason: "You don't know how many of those gravestones at the beginning were female!"
Leigh: "Gravestones don't have a genders..."
*Shaun laughs*
Jason: *Laughing* "I'm not partaking in your gender-study group!" *Leigh laughs* "I say they DO!"
MJ: "Tarzan was called 'Gravestone' wasn't he?...."
Leigh: "No, that was the castle that He-Man lived in!"
MJ: *Laughing* "Ahh yeah that's right, yeah!"
Jason: "'By the power of Gravestone'?"
MJ: *Laughing* "I 'AVE POWER! Anyway we're going onto He-Man now! So that's it so far. It's an enjoyable romp!"
Jason: "Is it a romp?"
MJ: "I dunno."
Shaun: "Is it enjoyable!?" *Laughter* "I don't think any of us have agreed to that!! You're making a blanket-statement for the ENTIRE group, MJ! I may disagree!!"
MJ: "Well I'm enjoying it so far, but there's not really -"
Mark: "- Standard Doctor Who."
MJ: "Yeah."
Jason: "They've been captured. They've been released - well they've not put them in a cell, as much this time. They've been captured in a sense!"
Mark: "They've been captured twice already."
MJ: "They were captured before they were questioned. 'Oh clearly there is some bad stuff happening - you're there, so it's all down to you'!" *Laughs*
Shaun: "Which is fine - that's basically how our police force works."
MJ: "Hah! Political."
Shaun: *Smiling* "No! That is LITERALLY how our police force works!!"
MJ: "Yeh."
Shaun: "If I'm standing over a guy who's dead, they are probably going to take me in for questioning!"
MJ: "Oh yeah they will do."
Shaun: "So that's fine. They figured 'Ooo, you know, now two - that's an awful coincidence - we should probably detain him (The Doctor) again. Then he helped them and they thought 'Oh, maybe he didn't do it! Maybe it's this thing we've now seen and know exists, that we didn't know existed before'!"
Jason: "That's not how the courts work!"
Shaun: "No that's not how the courts work, but this is a Military Court."
Jason: "'In my defence I shall produce someone MORE evil than me'!"
Leigh: *Laughing* "Hang on - you just said they WEREN'T evil?"
Jason: "No, they ARE, I'm just saying he's PRODUCING something mor evil than him!"
MJ: "I'd like to see these on Judge Rinder!"
*Leigh laughs*
Shaun: *Smiling* "I don't know what Judge Rinder is!"
Mark: "It's a TV show."
Shaun: "Is that like, to us young people, what Judge Judy is, but was forty years ago so therefore I don't remember it?!"
Jason: "No, it's currently on."
MJ: "It is currently on, yeah. It's an English one with a camp judge who was on Strictly Come Dancing."
Jason: "That's what I mainly know him from."
MJ: "Oh yeah because Shaun's a BIG fan!"
Shaun: *Sarcastically* "That thing I DEFINITELY watch..."
Mark: "That makes him a professional judge..."
MJ: "Anyway!! From Judge 'Doody' and Judge Rinder..."
Shaun: "I like Judge Reinhold!"
MJ: "Oh yeah! He's American isn't he?!"
Mark: *Laughing* "He's not a real judge!"
Shaun: *Laughing* "He IS a real judge!! He's Judge Jedge Reinhold!!"
*Mark laughs*
Jason: "I like Judge-mental..."
Leigh: "Is that a rapper?"
Jason: "He's one of those Judge Dredd characters..."
MJ: "Okay - Part Three!"
*EPISODE THREE GETS WATCHED*
Photo 3: At MJ's house.
MJ, Shaun (with the sign),
Leigh (reading the DVD case) & Jason (about to pounce!).
MJ, Shaun (with the sign),
Leigh (reading the DVD case) & Jason (about to pounce!).
MJ: "Well they're in space (in a space-ship trying to escape the planet) - but they've still got some anti-matter on board which is keeping them dragged to the Planet Of The Evil! And, at the end, The Commander decided that -"
Leigh: "- Salad-Bar!"
MJ: *Smiling* "Salad-Bar! Well he decided that Sarah Jane and The Doctor are the ones who are causing it (the drag to the planet) so he has ejected them into space! In coffins, so they'll die..."
Shaun: "And his husband was against the idea."
Jason: "You ASSUME that they are married! There is a HUGE weight of evidence against that!"
Shaun: Yes I just ASSUME they're married!"
MJ: "'Salad-Bar, no!!' And, err, Beardy-Guy is still getting red, glowy eyes. And he dropped some of his anti-anti-matter thing."
Shaun: "Anti-matter blood!"
Mark: "He's now Anti-Man!"
*Leigh chuckles*
Shaun: "Oh yes he's Anti-Man now."
Mark: "Aunty Man."
Shaun: "Not Aunty-Man!"
Jason: "Aunty Man would be the Uncle!"
*Laughter*
MJ: "Yeah! It's Anti-Man - because there's a super-hero called Man! Something Man. Man Man!"
Shaun: "Triangle Man and Particle Man."
Leigh: "And Bat Brick! It's a man in a Batman-type costume, running around with a brick!"
*Laughter*
MJ: "There's Man Man: Furry Road!"
Jason: "Years ago I was going to make a comic called Man-Man. And Boy-Boy.
Man-Man had all the power of a Man."
*MJ laughs*
Shaun: "Boy-Boy, ironically, had all the powers of Boy George!"
MJ: "Hah! I could imagine him saying to people 'Do you really want to hurt me? Do you really want to make me cry?' And then people wouldn't."
*EPISODE FOUR STARTS*
*Onscreen Salamar finds The Doctor and Sarah Jane near a dead body and thinks they did it! He asks his colleague Vishinsky 'How much evidence do you want!!?'*
Leigh: "Eleven evidences!"
Jason: "How about MORE evidence than NONE!"
MJ: "Yeah! You've got NO evidence! You just want to kill them because you're-"
Jason: "- Mad on power!"
MJ: "I'm keeping this recorder on to see if they die.... and no, Vishinsky has reversed the polarity of the lever. It's lucky those machines don't eject quicker!! Part Four!"
*EPISODE FOUR GETS WATCHED*
Photo 4: At MJ's house.
Mark (with eyes open!), Shaun (with the sign),
Leigh (with the DVD case) & Jason.
Mark (with eyes open!), Shaun (with the sign),
Leigh (with the DVD case) & Jason.
MJ: "Yay.... that was the end of Evil Planets!"
Leigh: *Reading end credits* "Salad-Bar!"
MJ: "Yay! Salad-Bar - Prentis Hancock."
Jason: "These are great names!"
MJ: *Reading end credits* "Malachy Shaw Jones!?? There you go!"
Jason: "There will be more - there will be better names. In a minute - not that one."
MJ: *Reading end credits* "Jenny Shircore."
Jason: *Reading end credits* "Mac Adams!"
MJ: "MAC Adams!"
Jason: "I know, but he SAYS it as Mac Adams! Tarmac Adams."
MJ: "Funnily enough his first name IS 'Mac'. It's Mac Ac C Adams!" *Laughs*
Jason: "Is he alien?"
MJ: "He is alien, yes."
Jason: "Is he legal?"
Leigh: "Is he an Englishman in New York?"
MJ: *Laughs* "He is indeed. That was Planet Of Evil - what did people think?"
Mark: "That was nonsense!"
*Laughter*
Jason: "It was okay but, yeah it has been pointed out, they could have just gone!"
*Laughter*
Shaun: "Yeah! Basically the first two episodes were really good. They clearly had half an episode left of ideas, and then ran it into the ground."
Jason: "It was a mash-up of previous stories."
MJ: "I could certainly see Inferno, with the guy who was like a panting monster!"
Shaun: "I mean that was terrible."
Jason: "Remember when this was made, it was the height of Hammer Horror."
*Shaun laughs*
Photo 5: At MJ's house.
MJ, Shaun (with the sign and saluting!),
Leigh (with the DVD case and a gurn) & Jason.
MJ, Shaun (with the sign and saluting!),
Leigh (with the DVD case and a gurn) & Jason.
MJ: "I liked the red-lighted aliens that were anit-matter. I thought they worked quite well."
Mark: " I thought the red-eyes worked well."
Shaun: "I like the set. The set of the planet was good. Then the set of the ship was the same set of the ship that we've had for the last several, which is really boring."
Jason: "That's because ships are always designed by the same people! The Ship Corporation!"
*Laughter*
Shaun: "Ships Are Us!"
Jason: "Yeah, all ships are made by the same, massive, global corporation."
Shaun: "Well they shouldn't be!"
Jason: *Laughs* "It makes it easier to make a Doctor Who set!"
Shaun: "Yes." *Laughs* "It certainly makes it easier to re-use a Doctor Who set!"
Jason: "They were not re-used as they had different signage! And did they replace that tool?! I don't think so!"
Leigh: *Laughs* "No, that seemed to be very important in the FIRST two episodes!"
Jason: "I hope there's an end of credits sequence where that gets put back!"
*Leigh laughs*
MJ: "I thought the sets were quite good."
Jason: "I would agree, apart from the -"
Shaun: "- The planet sets were good."
MJ: "Mm."
Shaun: "Their porta-cabin was rubbish."
Jason: "It wasn't. I can imagine, in space, if you're going to try and save on materials you're going to make a thing that looks a bit like a porta-cabin."
Shaun: "Right, here's what happened there: they were dropped off by another ship. That was supposed to be a space ship that travelled there, right?"
Jason: "What, that brought the porta-cabin?"
Shaun: "No, the porta-cabin WAS the ship."
Jason: "Okay."
Shaun: "So what you've got is a space-ship -" *Laughs* "- that has a door that you can just go through like that - and if you leave it, it will just swing!!"
Jason: "That's because YOU can't see the science! There's science there!"
Leigh: *Laughs* "Yeah because of 'science'!!"
Jason: "There's a scientific seal!"
Shaun: *Laughs* "Yeah because of 'space science'!!"
Mark: "They have force-fields."
Jason: "You're just moaning because it doesn't make a cool 'Whoosh' noise when it opens!"
Shaun: *Laughs* "No I'm just annoyed as it's not the kind of door I expect on a space ship!"
Jason: "After thousands of years of doors going 'Zhoom!' they realised that people like a tactile open-closey effect!"
MJ: "Yep!"
Jason: "I'm miming a handle."
*Leigh sniggers*
MJ: "Yes, Jason's miming a handle."
Jason: "And I'm Irene Handl. Who's Irene Handl!!?" (she was a comic actress who died in 1985 - she was a recognizable face in many comic TV shows and films)
Shaun: *Smiling* "And I'm miming seven giraffes... conga-dancing...to the flamenco!"
Leigh: "No you're not."
Shaun: *Smiling* "Yes I am! I'm doing it really well as well!"
MJ: "Well - Ooo what did the -"
Shaun: *Noticing Jason looking through The Book* "- Scores, Jason!! Jason's cheating again!!"
Jason: "I'm finding the right page! I'm finding the right page!"
Shaun: "He ALWAYS does this!"
Jason: "I'm not! Erm, it was....."
Mark: "It was meh."
Leigh: *Agreeing* "It WAS meh."
Jason: "I liked it more as an idea."
Leigh: *Laughing* "What!?"
Jason: "I quite like the idea of it."
Shaun: *Smiling* "I completely understand where you're coming from with that statement!"
*Mark giggles*
Jason: "There's a lot of good things in it - but I can't give any reasons as to why I liked it."
MJ: "I thought I enjoyed it a lot better the first time I watched it, so I'm a bit disappointed. So I'm going to go six."
Shaun: "That is MJ's lowest score ever?!"
Mark: "That's harsh."
Jason: "I'm going to go six point four."
MJ: "What do you say Marky?"
Mark: "Erm, five. It's, erm, yeah..."
MJ: "I think it maybe IS better but I don't know.... maybe it's not!" *Laughs*
Shaun: "I'm going to give it a six but for the first two parts I would have given it an eight. It was on course for that but got steadily worse."
MJ: "Yeah! It did."
Jason: "I don't think it got worse as it went on - it just went ON!"
MJ: "And Leigh?"
Leigh: "Five."
MJ: "Five - so really it was pretty average. It wasn't totally rubbish because, you're right, those first ones I thought were really promising. Then it seemed to -"
Shaun: "- Meander."
MJ: "Meander, yeah! But something happened! I don't know..."
Jason: "It just got into a stage of 'You can't do this!', 'That's not true!', 'I'm the Controller!', 'Shutup, Dear!'" *Leigh chuckles*
Shaun: "It really feels like they had two and a half episodes of story and then they had to pad it out for another episode and a half."
Mark: "Yeah."
MJ: "And him, the Controller, not letting anything happen..." *Smiles as he notices Jason take out The Book* "Oh I bet they give it a high score! Go on then Jason! What does The Book say?"
Jason: *Reading from The Book* "'On Zeta Minor, a Morestran expedition is menaced by an energy force from a back pit... The extensive Zeta Minor jungle set was designed by Roger Murray-Leach and filmed at the BBC Film Studios, Ealing. The Antimatter Monster was based on the similar looking Id Monster from Forbidden Planet (1956). Verdict: A claustrophobic horror story with a palpable sense of menace around every corner. Nine out of ten."
Shaun: "Gah."
MJ: "Wow! There you go -"
Jason: "- I'm sorry - Nine out of ten!" *Slams The Book shut*
*Laughter*
MJ: "Phew! Thank God you did that! So The Book, once again, disagrees with us!"
Mark: "I think the writer of that book watched them when he was a kid and never went back to them."
*Laughter*
Jason: "I thought it was 'palpable'."
Leigh: "I didn't 'palp' it at all!"
MJ: "Isn't that what Jesus used to tell? The stories?..."
Jason: "Yeah he told 'palpables'..."
MJ: *Laughing* "And on that brilliant joke..."
Jason: "Parables...."
MJ: "Join us next time for.... don't know!"
Jason: "Pyramids of Mars! I just looked at it."
MJ: "Oh okay, right! I thought they were going back to Earth."
Jason: "They ARE! They have pyramids on Earth!"
MJ: "Oh okay."
Leigh: "What, Martian ones?!"
Jason: *Laughing* "Not not Martian ones, no!"
MJ: "I thought they were going back to UNIT - oh okay!"
Jason: "I'm sure the pyramids are just the teleportation device..."
MJ: "Bye!"
Photo 6: At MJ's house.
Shaun (with the sign) looks at the DVD case
held by Leigh.
Shaun (with the sign) looks at the DVD case
held by Leigh.
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Bye indeed! Well those EVIL scores again are:
Shaun: 6
MJ: 6
Jason:6.4
Leigh: 5
Mark: 5
Mark: 5
Oh well, Mars next so until then I shall return, yes, I shall return...
MJ - 17/08/2017
