The Metebelis Two - a Doctor Who podcast

Ben and David
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The Metebelis Two - a Doctor Who podcast

An ongoing conversation about Doctor Who with Ben and David.

  1. 17/12/2024

    #259 - The Wheel Deal

    We discuss the phenomenal animation of "The Wheel in Space" by Iz Skinner and her partner Steve Skinner. It easily ranks in the top three of Doctor Who animations. We speculated about this animation having an official release before Josh Snares released his informative "Making of" documentary. Thus our podcast is a little behind the times due to the editing and production lag. To view the animation, you may watch the complete episodes on Gav Rymill's Missing Episodes Patreon or a playlist on TARDIS Timegirl's YouTube. Opening and closing music is from Wheel's soundtrack and was composed by Brian Hodgson. We recorded this podcast on 2 December 2024.

    57 min

  2. 29/11/2024

    #258 - I Think I'll Stick to InterCity

    We conclude our look at Ian Marter's time on Doctor Who with a chat about the role of Harry Sullivan in Terror of the Zygons and The Android Invasion. Harry starts out strongly in Zygons, but is treated poorly in his final appearance. Harry was the third wheel to the Sarah and the Doctor relationship, and he was bullied by both of them in the Season 12 finale, which helps explain, storywise, his departure from the team. We suggest some ideas to give Harry a dramatic series exit. We wrap up by lamenting Marter's untimely death on his forty-second birthday and the missed possibility of him writing for New Adventures novels. As a listener bonus, the final 10 minutes of the podcast is an August 1984 interview with Ian Marter on The Chuck Rabb Show that previously appeared on Doctor Who: Podshock, episode 306, courtesy of Louis Trapani and Chuck Rabb. Opening and closing music is from the Terror of the Zygons soundtrack composed by Geoffrey Burgon. We recorded this podcast on 18 November 2024.

    56 min

  3. 17/11/2024

    #257 - The Rise and Fall of Harry Sullivan

    We continue on with our leisurely-paced examination of Ian Marter's time on Doctor Who by looking at Harry Sullivan's role in Genesis of the Daleks and Revenge of the Cybermen. The character starts out strong with Terry Nation's sidekick / buddy writing for Sullivan in Genesis, but by the time Bob Holmes writes Revenge, Harry is on the chopping block, and we witness a prickly, almost hostile relationship with Sarah and the scapegoat and butt of jokes for the Doctor — a total disintegration of the character due to no fault of Marter. Opening music is from the Genesis of the Daleks soundtrack composed by Dudley Simpson and closing music is"Rockfall" composed by Carey Blyton. We recorded this episode on 4 November 2024.

    45 min

  4. 07/10/2024

    #256 - Marter Makes It Seem So Effortless

    In this podcast we talk about Ian Marter's first two stories after his character, Harry Sullivan, joins the TARDIS crew: The Ark in Space and The Sontaran Experiment. We discuss the ease at which Marter portrays Sullivan as a decent, square-jawed Englishman. We also lament what could have been if the Doctor Who production team better utilised the character since he was an effective foil and compatriot of Tom Baker's Doctor. At the end of the podcast are two brief convention panel answers from Marter (on Harry being "naff" and "clumsy") in 1983 in Chicago celebrating 20 years of the programme. Opening music is from The Ark in Space soundtrack and closing music is from The Sontaran Experiment soundtrack, both composed by Dudley Simpson. We recorded this episode on 16 September 2024.

    43 min

  5. 10/09/2024

    #255 - Marterology

    We continue with our Ian Marter discussion with a brief conversation about the debut of Harry Sullivan in "Robot"! But, before we get underway, we pick up where we left off with new details about Marter's time at St. Edmund Hall at Oxford University with the discovery that there is a recording on vinyl of Marter singing in You Can't Do Much Without a Screwdriver, an original musical staged by the Oxford University Experimental Theatre Club at the Oxford Playhouse in May 1965. Marter played the lead character, Guy Ffolkes, an Amnesian nationalist, and sings "Bang On" with Jack and Harry, described as two villains in the playbill. There's a photograph of Ian with Adèle Geras née Weston on stage during the production. We also uncovered a photograph of young Ian with fellow Oxford students, Tamara Ustinov, John Dodgson, Anne Bibby, and Nick Elliott rehearsing for another play. Plus a photograph of Marter with actor Richard Burton in a local pub. Opening and closing music is "Mysterious Robots," composed by Dudley Simpson. We recorded this episode on 26 August 2024.

    34 min

  6. 25/08/2024

    #254 - The Freewheelin' Ian Marter

    We kick off our Ian Marter retrospective with a look at his time at Oxford University. Thanks to back issues of St. Edmund Hall Magazine, we uncover new information that places Marter at Oxford three years earlier than is widely and incorrectly reported in other published sources. From our research, we found that Marter was at St. Edmund Hall, aka Teddy Hall, from 1963-1966 and was heavily involved with drama in the college's John Oldham Society and the Oxford's drama cuppers. Before Oxford, Marter went to school at the Beckenham and Penge Grammar School in Greater London and went to Oxford on a scholarship to study English language and literature. Among other highlights, Marter directed a well received production of John Osbourne's Luther in 1964 during the Trinity Term of his freshman year at the Oxford Playhouse. He also acted in productions of Fire in Heaven, The Sport of My Mad Mother, and Anton Checkov's The Cherry Orchard. In his final year at St. Edmund Hall, Marter co-starred in Samuel Beckett's play, Waiting for Gadot and was in Richard Burton's production of Doctor Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe which was also released as a film in 1967, giving Marter his first screen credit. Marter was awarded a Class III degree from St. Edmund Hall, which may help explain why he never corrected the record about his time at Oxford. After leaving Oxford in 1966, he landed an assistant stage manager job at the Bristol Old Vic and by the following year, he was acting once again. We briefly talk about his small role in the Vincent Price horror film, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, and his reoccurring role in ITV's Crown Court where he played a police constable and then barrister, Quentin Ingrams, QC. Finally, we discuss being cast as Lt. John Andrews in "Carnival of Monsters" and how Doctor Who may have been different if he landed the role of Capt. Mike Yates a few years earlier. The opening and closing music is "Sinfonietta: IV. Allegrteto," composed by Leoš Janáček and performed by the Pro Arte Orchestra, which was the opening theme for ITV's Crown Court. We recorded this episode on 12-13 August 2024.

    1h 4m

  7. 29/07/2024

    #253 - Push It

    We discuss the recent animation of the William Hartnell story, The Celestial Toymaker. Overall, we think it successfully presented a boring, at times, story that is hard to follow with moving images for episodes 1–3 missing. Ben would like to see the animators push it even further away from the original broadcast visuals. David would have preferred the guest cast's likeness to be better expressed in the animation designs for the clowns, cards, and toys. The opening music is from The Celestial Toymaker, incidental music composed by Dudley Simpson. The closing music is "Push It" by Salt-n-Pepa. We recorded this episode on 22 July 2024.

    48 min

  8. 20/07/2024

    #252 - The Original Leading Man

    We pay our respects to William Russell, the actor who played Ian Chesterton, Doctor Who's original leading man. With Russell, Ian proved to be a solid and dependable man of action and reason. Along with Jacqueline Hill, who played Barbara Wright, the two provided the moral centre for the early show, which relied on their decency, normality, and dependability to guide the viewers in the early mid-1960s along this amazing adventure in space and time. The programme will likely never see another character like Ian again. The opening music is from "The Chase" soundtrack composed by Dudley Simpson and the closing music is from "The Aztecs" composed by Richard Rodney Bennett and performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra in 2021. We recorded this episode on 15 July 2024.

    45 min
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An ongoing conversation about Doctor Who with Ben and David.

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