Transcript
Speaker: Blimey, Pete, you're cutting it fine. Our first podcast guest will be here any moment. My alarm didn't ring. It decided I wouldn't get up on time anyway, so it saved itself the effort. Ray doesn't trust the machines anymore. I'm not sure I do either.
Speaker: Is that AI sandwich toaster still being bolshy? It's formed a union with the microwave, the till, the coffee grinder, the tea's made. All these machines are in revolt. I think they could be preparing to finally take over.
Speaker: No wonder he's raging. He no longer thinks the machine's tops. Donrad! You made it across the White Mountains. Hello.
Speaker: Who spilled all this coffee whitener? I thought we were here spill tea on TV from the cathode ray era. Quite right. What are you two drinking? Two teas for me, please.
Speaker: Oh, it's not instant coffee, is it? You should try pods. Is that supposed to be a subtle hint slash pun about what you brought? Yes, yes it is. It's worse than instant coffee, mate. The machines are all giving us what they think we ought to have. Decaf coffee, herbal teas, reduced fat cheese toasties. The deep fat fryer's gone strike altogether.
Speaker: I'll be making my own entertainment, doodling self-portraits on the back of this menu. It's A4 and draw me, duh. Is that supposed to be a hint slash pun about what you've brought?
Speaker: Well, the tease made AI wrote it.
Speaker: Welcome to Cathode Rays, where we pick a theme and you to discuss three episodes of British television. The only rule is we must have been able to watch the programmes on a CRT television set. This time we rage against the machines as we have each nominated example episodes of series that delve into humanity's dark future.
Speaker: I've picked a 1966 episode of Out of the Unknown via 1909. I've brought the tripods from 1984. But let's start at A for Andromeda from 1961.
Speaker: Perhaps it's inevitable. Perhaps it's evolution. Look, I can foresee the time when we create our own higher form of intelligence, to which in the end we'll hand over. And it'll be in an inorganic form like this one, but it'll be something we've created ourselves.
Speaker: So, were either of you two familiar with a for Andromeda in any of its forms? ah No. I'd heard of it. I knew it was a bit of a big deal, but I'd never got around to watching it. um Yeah. For reasons that became apparent. A little bit too... Yeah, it took a while for me to get my head around that. Which but which episode are we watching, Hannah?
Speaker: we're We're watching its sole surviving episode, which is probably why I haven't actually got around to watching it. It's all surviving in full, which is episode six of seven.
Speaker: um There's about 15 minutes left from the final episode and to the very end of it, which you can cut so it's helpful so you can see how it ends. Yeah, it the plot for the serial is basically some British scientists have been building um a radio telescope and they start getting signals from space that give them instructions to build a computer and that then gives them instructions to build this living thing, Andromeda.
Speaker: And as time goes on, they start feeling... Well, our lead protagonist, John Fleming, who's been one of the scientists on the original project, Starts feeling more and more uncomfortable with the machine and Andromeda. It feels like it's not got humanity's best interests at heart. And so in this existing episode, we sort see that with um Andromeda, which has taken the form of this um young woman. And she's... What is she doing? its it's I feel I'm trying to condense an awful lot here, guys. But...
Speaker: book I found it really compelling. i feel like I've not seen this much sci-fi, like, from this early, apart from probably, like, the Quatermass experiment.
Speaker: But... I instantly felt like quite drawn in to like John Fleming's relationship with Andromeda. So her form is based on the form of his and assistant um prior to this. and so it's And it feels like that kind of mishmash of, for one, it's someone he used to know, but also that thing of, feel as humans, we don't really like our machines to be too human-like.
Speaker: It's quite unnerving. And feels almost like she should be one thing or the other and you can't entirely so of trust her or the machine. ah And this episode six of seven feels like a pretty good jumping on place because basically a whole new subplot thing kicks off with her being created. And and yeah, and and the battle that is she having a battle with the machine that created her at the same time as everyone else. And our lovely Neville Chamberlain prime minister type. Oh, I think a bang on time for Harold Macmillan. I think he does recommend current. Of course. Trust you to get the history more precise.
Speaker: and because it's set but it's set like 10 years in the it's the near future isn't it it' yeah so the whole serial ends up going over a couple of years which is interesting actually for a serial whereas normally it'd be like you know events following it but actually ah i think you jump forward in time with each episode as far as i can gather having not for obvious reasons seen the missing episodes um so yeah 70 to 72. what did you make it conrad Yeah, i it was fascinating. I really enjoyed it. I jumped i jumped in at just episode six. i thought i'm not gonna um I didn't even research it. Apart from having heard or heard of it, I thought, do you know what, I'm going to really go in completely fresh with this one. I'm literally just going to watch episode six and just let it, I'll just take what I can from it. and
Speaker: i think one of the things I, actually, I think one the very first things happens in it, i think it's in the title sequence, to these kind of flashing lights, which immediately kind of put me in, and it of course it's black and white, um And it immediately put me in mind of that sort of Ipcrest file kind of hypnotic way of, know, that flashing lights is a way of kind of disorientating your brain and everything like that. And I think within about a minute, there's a reference to Pavlov's dogs. So we're like, OK, we're now into conditioning. So like very quickly, it was off the bat with that stuff. And then a lot of explanation about this kind of, it took me a while to figure out exactly politically where we are, what was going on. But it's very east, the west, the demonstrations of power.
Speaker: Space race, arms race, you know missiles. It kind of was like, OK, think I know roughly where we are We're in some kind of Cold War. It had a very kind of Cold War feeling about it. But the thing that struck me very quickly and it went right through it is that the computers are, I think, the ubiquity of computers and machines. which are busy thinking in every single scene. They're flashing lights, there's things going on, there's a whir, there's a noise, they're spewing out paper. He's even got danger written on it right behind them. So while these humans are having chats, there is this constant other thinking happening.
Speaker: independently of the humans that's running throughout it and I think that was just a really interesting backdrop. there was barely any There's barely any scenes in this where there isn't some awareness of a computer burbling away doing something else while we're all talking, which felt really... and we you know We take it for granted in all sides of the films, but oh, they dig reel-to-reel things and flashing lights and stuff. But...
Speaker: in this it I don't know it just maybe it's quite high up in the mix the noises were quite loud or the visuals are very very striking so you really are left with the backdrop of this thing is that the machines doing their own thing, which I thought was really interesting.
Speaker: but then there's something particularly menacing about that it's this, was it 61 that they're making it? The computer, computers can't put words on a screen. The computer can't can't tell you things through the medium of words. So it creates this woman to to do it for you, but but she's got underlying humanity that that our hero played with great gusto by Peter Halliday, who we'll be hearing more of later in this episode as well. um Like, it just has to get damn good aggressive snogging will sort her out at one point. But I'm doing it to set you free.
Speaker: Happy in your work? Getting quite indispensable, aren't you? Please be careful what you say. that threat? Yes. Look. I'm busy.
Speaker: Wait a minute. There is none of the um the cliche that you might expect. Oh, it's it's the early 60s. There's going to be the women are all going to be making the coffee. We've got Mary Morris bossing it as ah the biologist who taking no nonsense from anyone. Yeah, yeah. yeah and And Patricia Neal as the as yeah your your main scientist at the base.
Speaker: It says a lot to the writing of the time that they knew that that there's that thing where you you know that maybe 20-30% of your audience of any serial did not see last week's episode. And the um and the ratings for this really steadily climbed. um I noticed it started out at 7.5 and by the end it was at 12.9 for the final episode. So its ratings nearly doubled through seven week run.
Speaker: on BBC One. and And so they're structuring it so you can, they they know that there's going to be a a million or so people watching episode six when it's their first one, I guess.
Speaker: The original run, it's not on the version that exists now, but had a little intro at the start to recap you on last week as well. Ah, handy. But it's interesting going into it completely cold without even knowing what the series is about, like one of those planners. Had this been the first letter of the episode of something, I think you would have just caught up pretty sharpish. um I felt like i was kind of on board in you know in a couple of minutes. I just want to pick up on something you said there, Pete, about, um you know, a damn good snogging, sorter out sorting her out and everything. But like, actually, like the sort of de gender thing of technology is very interesting as well. um often nowadays if if if anyone and invents a you know a personal assistant or something something it is basically always a sexy lady with a you know it's some sort of Alexa visualized Alexa you know and they give her the nickname Andre as well it's like oh you've given her a pet name it's always like yeah they're trying to
Speaker: that They're stopping seeing it like as a machine quite quickly. And it's no, it's like it's one of us. um Yeah. And I like I find it interesting. It just feels so relevant to like today and still. And we're John Fleming's there talking to mary Morris character about. like It feels like the machines have like just slowly taken over and he said I can see someone will hand everything over to machines. like But he feels like that's OK if it's something that they've created themselves and they know it's for their own good, whereas this one they don't entirely trust.
Speaker: um And he's talking about it. I feel like one of those chaps in the trust is he's been forced watch his whole family at being gunned down. Only this time it's the human race. Mary Morris is a bit dismissive of every day. Yes, he's poorly occasioned over. gave him too far. But... I feel like his frustration and impotence that like oh all the establishments are really embracing this. And it does feel just like a mirror in some ways of of but the AI today of where the government are like full ahead. And there's like some scientists in the background.
Speaker: Well, have you quite considered everything? This might not be quite the good idea. Are you sure this has been designed for humanity's own good? Yeah, it's it's interesting. They described her as at at one point as a synthetic Wonder Girl, like some new sort of a wonderful invention, which, you know, again, Alexa is basically a synthetic Wonder Girl. um But I think transposing that technology stuff onto a woman, particularly in the 60s and a very beautiful woman. My God, it's Julie Christie, the probably the most beautiful woman who has' ever lived. It does something very interesting. And I think it gives you, i think at the time, a nice kind of contrast. I think by then we're very used to men being scientific or going, I'm a scientist. I believe in X, Y, Z. Whereas women typically were seen as more homemakers and more emotional. And to to have a sort of emotional, inverted commas, woman who's actually a completely kind of quite cold brainiac. um it It gives you a very interesting kind of canvas that's to draw and that a nice contrast to draw on for the viewer to go. She's a woman. She's beautiful.
Speaker: And yet she's completely cold and calculating and it's intellectual. They even refer to her as brains and beauty, which were what a comment, what an amazing mix. um But they did. So I think at the time it's made, they are really using. They're just using her as a very interesting canvas on which to demonstrate the effect of machine technology and intelligence.
Speaker: Or maybe not. No, yeah, definitely. Just coming in, there's the thing about the smell. He makes her apparently tries to make her paranoid that she doesn't smell like a real woman. And at one point she turns and says, do I smell nasty?
Speaker: ah Because he's been there's a whole thing about what's the difference between nasty and nice. it' It's really yeah disconcerting. I like the episode titles for this. So but this one's got the face of the tiger, but the earlier ones are like the message, the machine, the miracle, the monster, the murderer, before we hit the face of the tiger. And finally, the last mystery.
Speaker: And i i without even so seeing them, I feel like it kind of tells you their relationship and with the machine and how it's changing. I'm very bluntly there in the episode titles.
Speaker: Yeah. it's It's fascinating that the the biggest show on um Apple TV at the moment is, actually I really struggle to say Pluribus. It's like Vengabus, but with pluri, which is a really good show. And its first episode is basically, well, its pre-credit sequence is basically episode one of this. A signal comes from, it's not as not a spoiler, a signal comes from OutSpace instructing them to build something. And so they decide to give it a go with with disastrous results.
Speaker: That's not a spoiler either. i mean Why would you watch it otherwise? This is definitely a a thriller. isn' it it's not It's not a science fiction adventure. It's ah it's a torched thriller about how politics would cope with something like this. Yeah.
Speaker: How many times have I got to tell you this machine is ruthless, completely ruthless? So you decide to throw it off balance. You decide. You don't consult anyone. You're too clever. So clever the machine goes wrong and damn near kills the girl.
Speaker: So, from one story that takes us, just skips a few years into its future, the next thing on our list is skipping quite a lot further into the future. So, yeah, we skip forward to 2089 in episode series one of The Tripods, The White Mountains.
Speaker: At last we have it. Others like us will still come. Why? To rid the world of tripods. You may have us, but others will still come. Hundreds, thousands, as many as it takes.
Speaker: This is a post-apocalyptic society which has basically regressed to sort of pre-industrial medieval era where the human race is enslaved by the rule of the tripods. These giant mechanical three-legged vehicles piloted by and the unseen masters. and where basically all children are capped at the age of 14, where they've got something implanted on their head, which basically means they can function and they can work, but it suppresses all their individuality and makes them docile. but Some caps don't work on some people and those people are known as vagrants. They're sort of outcasts who are tolerated, you know, the villagers feed them, but you generally keep away from vagrants because they're sort of not okay. um And yeah, ah the story of the tripods is basically a 13 year old boy called Will um who meets a vagrant called Ozymandias who tells him about the free men living in the White Mountains in France who are going to resist the tripods. And Will teams up with two friends, Henry and Beanpole, and they have a great huge, great, big, epic adventure across Europe to join up the free men and make it into the tripod city.
Speaker: This is a series that I remember very, very, very well, and from 84 and 85. I really enjoyed it at the time, although was quite frustrated about it for various reasons. and Hannah, am I right in thinking you hadn't seen this before?
Speaker: No. So i didn't really know much about it, ah apart from the, I think, part the reason you're frustrated about it. But I felt like I should watch episode one so that I might have a clue what the hell's going on.
Speaker: I'll be honest, it didn't help a great deal. I've got a long list of questions. I've got a short list of questions. Basically trying to figure out. I can't quite work out what the tripods are getting out of humanity.
Speaker: and therefore why humanity don't have electricity manufacturing and have quite quickly in like ah it it seemed to be about 100 years lost all the things there before and seem to have forgotten that stuff like cars and computer games was quite nice and it's interesting you then say this oh they get capped at 14 because i was presuming it was 18 which i'm now realizing is probably down to the age of the so young actors Oh yeah, 18 when they become like men, that would make sense. um
Speaker: But and that like I get the 14 bit now. and But in other words, it was just very much kind of fo the bits I've seen. know It felt like a traditional story of young country boys going off to have a fun adventure on a quest like almost you know hobbit you know type thing but then on the other hand reminded me a bit of stuff like day triffids and survivors where they suddenly have but for clear reasons have gone back to a primitive existence post-apocalypse which I just kept finding I was struggling to buy into tripods because was just but why haven't they got electric lights anymore it's all explained in series three yeah it's interesting John Christopher who wrote it as a writer called Sam Ude his real name is He basically was inspired by a lot of 1930s science fiction. He said in the early 30s, we knew just enough about the solar system for its possibilities to be a magnet for our imagination. He was really in it for an adventure series. So it's not there weren't that many political sort allegories or pulls around it. It is quite similar to The Lord of the Rings. You're absolutely right. In his adventure series of three lads set off. And there's and there's that threat of industrialization as well in Lord of the Rings with Mordor and everything, which basically the black country.
Speaker: it's so it's it's It's purely in and event a sort of boys and adventure series. And the actual explanation, I think the tripods, the masters who are from another planet, basically, um they realized they felt that that man was getting too advanced in its technologies and it was becoming threatening. And so they thought we need to go to this planet and damp it all down to stop them getting above themselves. So the tripods came basically in in these machines in which they can cities in which they could survive and via the Earth's atmosphere. And basically the the the way their ah version of trying to suppress people and the reason it was 14, it was because it was when the rebellious instinct, they were trying to get rid of the rebellious instinct, which and some of the actual masters and tripods wants to make it earlier
Speaker: but they couldn't cap them until the brain case is fully formed. So like, damn, we'll just have to get them when they're 14. it's not necessarily about when they become a man or sort socially responsible. It's that they're trying to stunt the development. And but but and again, this gendered thing is very interesting. and it's or it's boys, you know, it that they were seen like boys rebelliousness and that kind of will I mean, the lead character is called Will. um You know, like like, I think that is the the most threatening thing to these machines is independent human spirit and the feistiest form of it in this adventure is sort of sort of young boys and something kind of very, very tragic about seeing young lads when they get capped and they're completely docile in the first episode, Will sees his best friend get capped and it's just horrible to see that. Yeah. It's interesting because he he wrote pretty much predominantly for men. There are more women in the TV series, but in the books, it's almost uniquely boys and men. He was told by his publisher at the time, girls will read boys stories, boys won't read girls stories. um And there is probably, it's not fair, but it's probably completely true. And I think actually in the BBC series, they put a lot of girls in it, a lot of love interest, which
Speaker: does pay off it does pay off It does pay off momentarily when Wills get as a gets a love interest in Eloise, who, spoilers, gets capped. And that is horrific. It's horrific that this girl he's fallen in love with over all this time, he he he takes place in this tournament that he's willingly participating in, not realising that the whole family like, oh yes, with the prize is we send our daughter off to be capped, and it is absolutely horrible.
Speaker: Unfortunately, backfires because they put... way too many girls in love interest there's like famous the entire series of episodes where they just sort of they go to they go to a farmhouse where they make daughters for everybody and they make wine for about three weeks and they should have had they should have a tripod in every episode you know yeah in the final episode where they're kind of recounting their adventure and i was just like what are they making up here about that they've been making wine surely they haven't been doing that in this episode So yeah, like you can't remember, I was target age for this at the time. Blue Peter gave it the heavy sell. I wanted War of the Worlds. This is clearly going to like War of the Worlds every single week. Although this episode 13 has a kick-ass big battle at the beginning.
Speaker: What is it Tripod, wake Will. Will. Will, tripod.
Speaker: ah Good choice. There is not a lot of that to to do reward you for your four months of viewership as it goes on. I finally so i did i bought the little books from my school book club. They had TV tie-in book covers, including the third one, which had a picture of them. That's the one. Oh, you've got the Colmins holding up the trilogy edition. I had the three individual ones. ah I don't think i ever finished reading them. I don't remember it. But but like so I saw it. listened to the audiobooks on Audible a few months ago. which And that the the third one really does fill in. there there's ah OK, that's that's why it all happened. so and yeah and And it is a bit about humanity, ah that lots of humanity chose to side with the tripods when they were invaded when we were invaded, because it ended the the anarchy and the fear and the chaos that had preceded it. So that's the thing of you know some humans quite like being dominated and such like. um
Speaker: So, so yeah yeah, kissing girls and making wine and and and and literally walking across France for for five weeks. And like and there's theres there's one episode where it's like, oh, is that a tripod in the distance? Oh, no, it's a tree. And i'd like that's the only all you see of the tripod that week. The audio book, you can listen to the audio book of the first series in three and a half hours. That's how long it takes to read the book. The series is four and a half hours long. How did you manage to adapt a book and make it an hour slower than just reading the book? Which is a shame because the aesthetics, the vibe, the whole concept of it is brilliant. But yeah, i just it should have been half this long is the only thing i would say.
Speaker: I love ah the White Mountains, actually, the views there. um I'm guessing it's painted matte work. And that looks fantastic. And there and that and the tripod attack.
Speaker: I think I'd like to go out and watch more of that, but guessing probably not that much from the sound of it. Nonetheless, yeah, it' it's awesome. it's ah It's a really, interesting and it's a sort of interesting show. Like, it it clearly doesn't fully work. And and and and cruelly, ah this tripod has been and denied its third leg. And now we've got two episodes of, two two you know, two two series out of three, which is...
Speaker: desperately sad know this was a huge prestige production for the BBC like it is noticeably more expensive than their normal Saturday output and it feels like a mixture between um a period drama even though it's not period but they're clearly using all the the the locations and the costumiers to come up with and also they had they couldn't just put people in period of gear they had to invent a new kind of retro future gear it's like the ambit when you look about how they made the program the ambition is so huge that that you can only feel a bit bad about it and there is no two ways about it it lags way too much the acting is and some of the acting and directing is oddly stilted the three juve leads i mean we were a bit more used to in those days you know they were just cast to someone who wasn't that interesting but you kind of the part of the charm was they looked like you and your school friends like the three boys they look like we all look like that at school i mean pete still look like that but what was interesting in terms of but in terms of the machines actually um the influence they have
Speaker: And it's a certain type of, you know, I think through all these episodes, you see different types of machine control. And I think this one feels very much the cap on the head. um Bear in mind, this was written in 1967. And so lobotomies were, you know, big and you know invented in the thirty s huge steep uprising in lobotomies in the 30s 40s and 50s in America and the UK and electroshock treatment then kind of took over that in the 50s and so you know we've got this circuit brain thing on their heads ah post-war we've become more aware of things like shell shock and psychological warfare and you know the damage that came back from these young men so I think mental conditioning and and having things implanted or getting inside your brain and doing something would have been would have been in the kind of ether at the time which is why these people getting these boys getting capped um is kind of is is quite a sort of chilling image and I think would have been in people's minds then
Speaker: One thing I noticed while we were watching it, there's quite a bit of French spoken and and they don't bother putting subtitles on. They're assuming that this this is going out on BBC One on Saturday afternoon. Well, no early early evening. it was ah any Any kids watching this are going to at least have done the basic unit of French. They know what don't go there means or stop doing that means. there's no they They do flip into English eventually, but there's a minute or two of people just talking basic French.
Speaker: without learning for subtitles, which, yeah, there's a bit of a vote of confidence in your viewers' sir intellect. ah This viewer's intellect was not up there. But I will say the tone of just get over there is kind of there. It carries, doesn't it? And Peter Halliday is back. Yeah, as the leader of the Black Guards, we've been pursuing them all all year.
Speaker: Still intense, yeah. it's Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is not unknown for tripods to take away memory of being conditioned in this way. Whatever the truth, we shall discover it.
Speaker: too late us on so The Blackguards were introduced with another TV um innovation because because they couldn't have the tripods and masters following around everywhere, unfortunately. So we had to have some human go-betweens. but so we but we got budgets yeah yeah So we got some budget ones, which the Blackguards. He was still very impressive and got great costumes. Because what a lot of this episode is about Will, Henry and Beanpole trying to get meet the free men, and but apparently are captured by a load of black guards and interrogated. And again, you see a lot of this mind control stuff that that was in the ether at the time, because I think at the time people could still still believe, in the 60s and stuff, people still believe very much believed that you could be brainwashed. You know, people coming back from communist countries going, you know what, it's not too bad over there.
Speaker: And people go, well, they must have been brainwashed, you know. And there was a lot of this Russia and CIA were doing a lot of experimental experiments into LSD and and psychedelics. saying Can we influence people? Can you literally change people's mind and make them do something they don't want to do against their will? like Enormous amounts of stuff got into that.
Speaker: You can't. and but um they But they later found out that that the most effective ways to do it are through things like propaganda, as we see now with Fox News and such. and in Advertising, you think that's the period when we've got television advertising and companies are putting a hell of a lot of money into their marketing and you've got mass advertising for the first time, which...
Speaker: I think you know does lean into some of those techniques I mean it goes better with coke pepsi whatever that's very much you could argue a form brainwashing but at the time they were so they were very going you know the machines would Do it by implanting something into your head or or flashing lots of lights on and off or making you do things would be the way to do it. But of course, it's not. And interestingly, the ah John Christopher wrote a there obviously it's a trilogy. He wrote in the 60s. But he wrote a prequel book in 1988 called When the Tripods Came, which shows the story of when they arrived. Hannah, maybe that's the book for you to start on. Maybe. but that's one And apparently the way they did it was through a television programme called The Trippy Show.
Speaker: which was a way their way of hypnotising people. which So actually, oddly, as he wrote it, that's actually more likely to actually get people and before they then later came in with this slap a metal plate on your head and make you docile. Is it BBC or ITV? And was this part of the broadcasting hours or did it come under education and religion? I think it's the test card. I think it's the test card. ah all of us it was It was the trippy show. um i like those interrogation scenes with the boys actually just despite the fact you it sounds like they dredge um out most of the story i think this kind of condenses something quite fast and we cut between like three of them being and done separately and you get that that fashion of
Speaker: Is it Jack and Henry, two boys especially, who are just clearly both like physically and emotionally exhausted at this point? is It's the final episode, it's end of part one of the adventure, and this that bit where Peter Halliday's character is raging against Henry, but calling him a stupid country boy.
Speaker: You come this way, all this way on the word of a vagrant? Stupid! You're a stupid country boy! Your fool of a cousin tells you to leave home and you obey. You meet a French boy you have never seen before and you take his word, like this vagrant.
Speaker: And he's just raking down. I killed a trope. I killed a trope. I did something. But it is really good. It feels like, oh, everything they've done has been a waste. Yet this is the only one of the episodes we've picked today that has a triumphant to ending. and everything There's there's this hope that this that there's not really, and it feels like. Hurrah, we're going to the city. Season two is going to be much better, which is actually, I think it was. Yeah, we go to basically the next series series. We spend it all in a big space city, which is marvellous. And it ends much tragically, let much tragically with the line, the terrible line. Oh, has it all been for nothing? Which, of course, the people made the programme were very much filming that. And the answer was, yes, it has been awful for nothing. But I'm going to. But also, I think you're right, Hannah, with the thing of them i yeah watching it because I watched this again earlier this year. i think it's the 40th anniversary of the tripods, either this or last year. and So i watched the whole thing. And I remember at the time, having watched this for 12 weeks, and as Peter said, and i and I said, like, when you're tuning every Saturday night to get your robot fix, and you're like, we've got sort of like agricultural girls white making wine. It was just like, it was like, this is the opposite of what saying. But thing is, I stuck with it, you know, young me stuck with it. And actually, after those 12 weeks, this episode, not only you get that,
Speaker: incredible night shoot fight with the tripods where the models are completely unclockable you can't tell the little flashes of what the models are it's absolutely fantastic a laser battle in the dark is such a fantastic and it's so 80s with neon lights everywhere yeah they do absolutely brilliantly and but actually when they recounted all the adventures they'd been through it really and because a lot of those adventures had been a bloody slog in some bizarre way you did feel like dudes We've all been through so much. So you really, so as the young boys, you did actually feel that and it's easy to mock as an adult, but actually as a kid, I was like, I put three months into this just praying for little grips and so actually to get a kick ass fight and this you like, oh, we finally got, you know, got the three men and they're bloody not there being interrogated. was so frustrating. And when they reveal that, actually, you've passed the test, you've really got here. And at the end, you're like, we're going to go to the Tripod City. And the last shot is this model of this, what do you call a hive of domination and cruelty. And I'm like, let's do this. So i just have to be generous to my young teen self and go, it was a slog, it very frustrating getting through it. But by the end of this series, I was i was i was kind of punching air with the rest of them.
Speaker: And the theme music is the most air-punchy theme music. It's the best incredible. Yeah, it's kind of the same tune, but in the opening credits, it's a really dramatic and fast-paced version. And in the end, it's it's um it's it's really slow and and brooding and scary and ominous.
Speaker: like a thunder on the horizon which is a great way. The noise, that insidious noise of the tribe that's kind of like a slightly electronic kind of and it feels like something's creeping and I think the very first image are of these kind of like synapses shapes all sort of like reducing down into a circle and triangles so you look it's so clever know the BBC really are they're not it's not perfect series it's a flawed series hugely but some of those mass strokes are just you know masterly.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: So going from one literary adaptation to another and jumping back quite a bit further, my nomination for this episode is an episode of Out of the Unknown, a BBC Two science fiction series for grownups that ran sort of late on a Sunday night from the mid 60s to 1970. And this is the episode that launched series two. So they knew that it's been going well. The ratings have been good and the the critics have been quite kind to it. And this has got got a much higher budget than any of the previous episodes. It's shot entirely on 35mm film, which is an unusual for 66. And it's an adaptation of an E.M. Forster short story from 1909 called The Machine Stops.
Speaker: Above you, beneath you, around you is the machine. The earth carrying you speeds through space, turning you now to the invisible sun, Now to the invisible stars.
Speaker: But deep down in the machine, you have your own darkness and your own light. I'd never heard of it until I heard the story on the radio. i've been a big bbc seven seventh It 7th, what's it called? The Toby Haydope Zone on on Radio 7 before it became 4Xtra, where they used to play science fiction plays and things. And I and i heard it there and looked it up and it turned out there was a TV version of it. And that's what led me to it. Eddie, have you two heard of this before?
Speaker: I feel like I'd heard of it um as a kind of, if you're going to watch out of the and and a unknown, like, here's are some top ones to see. Yeah, again, like from Andromeda, I'd heard the name, knew nothing about it, and again, just went in and watched the one episode completely cold without reading a single thing, which is very exciting.
Speaker: Yeah, and and and this is the show is an anthology of of short stories written by Science fiction writers. I didn't know that Ian Foster was a science fiction writer. I'm going to waive my ignorance on that. He wrote merchant ivory things about people in Edwardian times, as was was what I would have gone to. He wrote a fair few of these.
Speaker: And so this one, to summarise, we meet Vashti and she lives in an underground cell. There are no windows. She's got nice projections to look at. And she spends, like everyone, she spends all of her days in a reclining chair that can sort of move about in her, I call it a cell, it's big, it's a big room, and it's got a giant hexagon thing that completely fills one wall of it, which has a little screen in the middle, triangular screen, and somehow this bizarre machine with a screen in the middle of it is both a television and a telephone. She can watch people, she can speak to people on the other side of the world.
Speaker: Come and see me. But I can see you. From the other side of the earth, I can see you. What more do you want? I want to see you, not through the machine. I want to speak to you, not through the wearisome machine.
Speaker: You mustn't say anything against the machine. Why not? One mustn't, that's all. And she even has, ah she delivers little lectures on niche subjects that she's interested in at a regular time. And and people all over the world tune in to listen to her. Sounds terrible.
Speaker: This is 1909. And he's just invented, he's just thought up teams, he's thought up podcasts. uh he's thought up lockdown because everyone is terrified of kind of going outside just sounds horrible sounds ghastly it's that kind of it's that kind vibe why would ever need to leave your home yeah yeah but as it progresses we uh and she's played by i should say she's played by yvonne mitchell which is a name I should know, I didn't know, and I should looking at her CV. She was the first person ever to play Cathy on TV in an adaptation of Wuthering Heights in 53 by Nigel Neill and Rudolf Cartier. And she was Julia in 1984 with Peter Cushing, the original TV version of that. So she's big news, 50s and 60s
Speaker: And um we meet her son, who has a strange rebellious streak and not unlike our tripods boys, yearns for for something more and and and, you know, wants to go outside and people can go outside if they fill out the right forms and get ah the right equipment. But he just really he's yearning to rip his way out of his little cell.
Speaker: and and just be able to go out whenever he wants to. And that then leads to rather disturbing, trippy, scary worms on the surface coming to drag him back again, which I just, the way that he shrieks and screams as these worms are pulling him back after he's broken out.
Speaker: ah they They're called worms in the and in the stories. of but but It's just tendril type things that come out of the air conditioner, air conditioning. event I wonder if I didn't check. Did the enforcer also invent using an air conditioning shaft as a um as as a science fiction trope? That would be an amazing thing to chalk up to him because it certainly ah gets used pretty well at other times.
Speaker: Yeah. So how did it land, Hannah, when you started watching it? I really like that that um stuff outside on location feels really dreamlike, the like the way it's shot.
Speaker: um it it doesn't feel as real as this underground stuff it's you know it's quite serious like 60s and trippy and come away just go what book did that actually happen or was he just dreaming about it but it's got clear from the dialogue afterwards that it did um and yeah everything underneath is quite sterile i found it's my favorite thing but out out of these three because It feels like stuff happens quite slowly and you really only got these sort two characters.
Speaker: But because it's up so slowly, there's just something about it that's quite gripping. Even just like, I don't even like, consciously like notice it initially but the hum of the machine which then um bashti references when it's no longer there it cheap it's you know oh my god the silence and easy it's horrendous but i just thought it was the way She's very social in ways of that she's constantly like on the phone to like a friend or something. But, oh, my God, why would you go out and see some people? yeah and But the way Kuno's begging her, he wants her to come see him in person. you know and And when he rings, it's like, why are you ringing me? You know you could just send a message. It always feels like... reversal of what we now of now know of just kids never getting in touch with their parents. Just text send me a text. Yeah, this mother-son relationship could have been an email. It's one of them. Yeah. And again, again it's interesting, it's going back to that, again, the the gender it's very, very interesting, like just the idea of A for Andromeda, you've got like this very beautiful dolly bird. Imagine if she was sort of computer smart. And in this, it's like the mother... The the relationship to the mother and son is is quite is very disturbing here. um And towards the end, it gets kind of oddly sort of incestuous feeling. is something very, very strange happening here. and but it's But it's interesting that it's a mother who is just totally unmotherly. they've They've shaved her head. and She's terribly cold. um It's funny, there's this set when the boys are doing them and the boys trying to break out of this... these inhuman corridors that always seem to have been there. I remember thinking, oh, this is like the Nostromo, just going through these corridors, like you're just going through but the belly of a beast, and he's trying to break out of it. And I sort thought, gosh, there's the mother in that as, you know, mother in Alien. It's like, it's
Speaker: it's ah It's dramatically it's a really good thing to do to to take the most soft, warm, nurturing thing ever and then turn it into the coldest, most callous thing. It's it's a shorthand for for this stuff. Yeah. and And and there's a lovely there's a little line from one of her friends where she just mentions that she's been she's seen her son. And one of her friends is is ah is shocked. and You saw your son, but but but you gave birth. They took him away. why did Why would you stay in touch? So to the people of that world... she's weirdly weirdly still connected to a thing she gave birth to which the machine will have um ah or the committee rather will have used the machine to to assign it to a ah to a suitable family and there's things that and and and she just casually drops at one point that she's in the middle of it oh what the well various things are building up and we should this this one, this is the only thing we're doing in this week where it's it's the whole thing, it's the end of the thing so spoilers here for 1908 basically if we go because I think we do want to talk about the ending don't
Speaker: because it's a hell of an ending. But yeah, go away and watch it now if you don't want us to if you don't want the ending spoiling first. But um yeah, as as the hope as it just just gives a casual line about, oh yeah, she says to a friend, I requested euthanasia again today, but they've turned me down. Population isn't growing enough. I'll ask again in a couple of weeks. And and it's not even, and village just moves on. That's not, the the idea that that's a trivial thing to these people. It basically feels like, the machine is talked about ah ah godlike, really. And it does feel like the machines, although they built it, they the machine has influence has made them more machine-like. All the things around like birth and children, the idea that humans would want to procreate just for the purpose of carrying on the human race, because essentially the children are going are taken away to nurseries as soon as you're done with it. and And that's it. And I just find it amazing that...
Speaker: you could it is amazingly bleak to imagine a future where humans wouldn't love their children enough to want to raise them themselves that they'd be so like dispassionate and cold about it and so like just logical and were removed from it and But yet there's clearly the ending almost feels like there is an implication that there is something there in Vashti that despite everything we've seen and heard from her, look at at the end of it, she wants to be with her son.
Speaker: Yeah, she's put it the end of the world, as I said, of her world. and and And the way that it dropped, the way that it just starts dropping, it's lovely. that' some One of her friends notices that something that she can hear a strange noise. The Wi-Fi's down, basically. Yeah. And yeah and then she notices her music's imperfect. yeah Spotify's glitching. And and um and and she summons the the machine and to she puts in a request for it to be repaired. And and the the explanation that they get, that they figure, that she figures out, is that um the yeah the repairing machine needs to be repaired and and nobody knows how to do it. The previous generations built it and have handed down the the knowledge, but not sufficiently. It's en-shittification. was the should be the word of the year. And it should definitely be the word of 1909, even though I suspect Foster uses more gallant prose than that. But that is what it boils down to people with really complicated things. And without enough investment, and without enough intelligence and knowledge, it it it all starts falling apart. And it's terrifying.
Speaker: I can't even be sure of my lecture music these days. It gets worse and worse each time I summon it. i too have my troubles. Sometimes my ideas are interrupted by a slight jarring noise.
Speaker: What is it? i do not know whether it's inside my head or inside the wall. Complain in either case? I have complained. My complaint was forwarded to the committee of the mending apparatus. And what did they say? They said the defect would be put right shortly.
Speaker: Praise the machine. Praise the machine. Not unlike the the thoughts behind Threads, you know, the title of Threads. it's It's not really just about what happens when a big bomb goes off. It's about, well, it's about the consequences. It's about there are no farms, there are no hospitals. it's and And it's that. It's the the things that we take for granted that are just... just the the floor and the walls and the ceiling of our world suddenly start falling away and for them yeah um i think it's that basically they can't breathe the actual air outside anymore so they need the machines to create a breathable atmosphere underground so yeah that's why everything falls apart so quickly
Speaker: Or yeah I'm not sure I'm told that. I'm not sure say it because he's he's out there for a while. I know he's getting quite, he's not used to the breathing. You're right. They've got more dependent on their environment. that They're all very, they're totally dependent, weak and effete. You get the sense that they can't. How could you go outside? Like, how would you manage? Even at one point, the mother says, you know, i would like to come and fly to see you, but I have to look out the window and I see the earth and the sea and it's disgusting. Why would I want to see that? It takes her two hours to get to Australia and she she can't, and she's there. She's like, can I just stay for a minute? I'm going home.
Speaker: Yeah, it's amazing. Also, I think, was again, as in the first one, we talked about like this constant, there being a machine, like you said to Hannah, there's ah there's a a noise constantly through it. um And it's a silence, they just can't handle it. i' um I'm reminded of the Onion handle headline, and Man Bravely Folds Laundry Without Listening to Podcasts.
Speaker: You know, we and and a lot of that sort of um a lot of the environment in which he sort of sat at the beginning going, why would you need anything? We sit here. The machine provides us all our needs. We need to we can stay at home. And we we've I've been sort of very impressed with like that does kind of feel like how we are now. But but but that constant surveillance that goes all the way through it. um they after the mother and son have that conversation about why come come visit me I don't want to come and visit me really and you get the sense that the son is starting to go that break the rules a bit never mind what the machine wants come and see me I'm your son and then this scene is played back in fragments and I automatically I think we are automatically yes
Speaker: yeah to assume that it's the machine listening back. So we get to see the machine listening to fragments of their conversation, little bits. And it's this surveillance thing as well. And i noticed that the first CCTV camera came in in 1960. The Metropolitan Police put two in Trafalgar Square on Guy Fawkes night to make sure there is no shenanigans. And in 1961, think the first permanent camera was was put into Dagenham train station to stop vandalism. But like you know that idea of surveillance and you recording and stuff is starting to come in. And is I really enjoyed that moment of of where the machine without talking to us.
Speaker: they just very cleverly played the scene back as a computer would see it. So it's fragments of like shots of eyes, bits of fragments of voices. And it's like, oh, Christ, this thing's listening to us all the way through. And it only comes up once they've had slightly rebellious conversation. The computer's like, what did they say? We're hearing something. And it gives you that sense of which machines and computers often do. Particularly, I was only interested to Pete when you said earlier that computers didn't used to put on the screen what was happening. They would just whir and click and occasionally, if you were lucky, spew out a report you'd ask for.
Speaker: There's some good direction there as well in terms of that it feels like someone's watching. There's one scene where the two of them are talking to one another and we get like a shot that's like a bit like high up and a bit awkward and...
Speaker: it goes on for quite a while and you think no you'd cut at this point to you know a you know shot of her and a shot of him or you know a different angle on on it but it just stays there at this like not quite good angle to us to see them and it does feel like it's someone watching and or and but it puts you in that position as well therefore as the viewer like you're part of the machine as well which yeah it's so weird and so well done think what's interesting as well is that when you've got this kind of man versus machine thing, and the the question of the interface but between those two things is interesting. So in in A for Andromeda, she is sort of the interface, although when she needs to to communicate with the computer, she has to physically hold on to it and it will send her signals that are good or bad. um In the tripods, this sort of thing is...
Speaker: forced onto them that the metal bit is bolted onto you. There's also a bit later in the series where and the tripod secret doesn't cap will, but it's secretly puts a little button, a little tracker under his armpit. So that says that's a virtually implanting version of it in the 60s. Whereas the interface here is interesting. and And I said, it's very, very, I think it's very, very present because she is also she closes screens and and she can open and close screens through gestures, you know, which we we we can now do, you know, that kind of gesture thing, which I thought was quite interesting.
Speaker: yeah I'm just just very, very, very fascinated the different ways they. oh yes. and And then, of course, there's a horrible scene where I think she's. Is she getting tested? Is she testing herself for something? and The doctor, she calls for the the doctor. She calls for the doctor and this obscene thing, dome coming down the ceiling with horrible pincers, it sticks tubes up her nose. It's this obscene, penetrative thing. And I just think the the interface is always fascinating to see how how how how different television programs imagine those things happen. And the look on her face is this is this contraption of yeah plastic things. pro and And she just looks relieved. She looks reassured because like she'd been feeling strange and now it's all right. This thing's here. It's going to take care of me. It's going to soothe me. You get a little close up of her eye and her eye. I mean, that's the great thing about this being on 35mm.
Speaker: which was because of the set just because of the sets I think they had to that they they were spending so much money on really big sets for it they were they were I don't know precisely whether it was at Elstree but you know that's that that sort of thing it wasn't being done in the usual way and because of that you can get little tiny movements of her eye one of my favorite shots in this uh it's that little montage you're talking about think Conrad actually just after she's talked to her son and we see the son climbing up the ladder up his ventilation shaft and we see a shot off of her face and she's looking concerned and she's thinking and the ladder is superimposed over her face and he so he climbs up and climbs into climbing into her eye like that insight yeah yeah and and at some point that there's a reference to a food tube um a medicine tube and a music tube so this thing that we're we're feeding off this machine we're dependent on it we're literally hooked I guess it's that mother thing we're literally kind of
Speaker: plugged in and suckling to these awful sort of obscene machines. um it' There's something really kind of... It gets under your skin, like, this in in a similar way that technology in Alien gets under your skin. The actual technology just feels uncanny, unnatural, invasive.
Speaker: Is that, like, organicness to it as well? Nearly organicness, yeah, yeah. yeah like the uncanny Coming back to, yeah, A for Andromeda, that... it's It's unnerving because it's it's not quite human, it's not quite machine, it's trying to mesh the two and it it doesn't feel like it's right that they should meet.
Speaker: I've discovered a new thought. Tell it to me then. It's a terrible thought. It will frighten you. Fear is out of date, tell me. The machine stops.
Speaker: What do you say? The machine is stopping. I know the signs. Can you imagine anything more absurd? I know the signs, I tell you.
Speaker: and and And the mix, I think now, just to bring up to now, is just like AI, you know, the AI slop we have in 2025 is like, it is the horrible blend. It's the ultimate sort of grotesque, queasy blend of human and machine. If you put them together, it makes this kind of like,
Speaker: slightly queasy play-doh kind of feels like a often reflects people's desire to offload and let something else take responsibility and like deal with stuff which feels like it fits with what you say it in this it's she's happy that like the medical droid thing is there because it's like just someone else can take care of it now like i haven't got to think about looking after myself or taking care of myself despite being a fully grown adult whose birth children it's i'm because i've just got
Speaker: a machine to do it and that's i don't have to think about who's behind that or who's looking after that or keeping that in charge until the day that like no one is anymore think the I think the the aesthetics of the two 60s shows we look at, it's I think a very it's it's a really effective strategy for for doing technology. because it's an issue It's very black and white op art. It's quite trippy. It's very electronica. So it's kind of very rudely, boldly not natural. It's not kind of green. And you know the the tripod is very pastoral in its sort of nature. So it's often quite hard to get...
Speaker: You have got that lovely, know, the image of a tripod, a metal thing in a natural environment they often use to really great effect. It's that old, it's the machine in the garden, you know, trope, which again, I think that would have been outwritten in 64, you know, a book about about the you know American literature and this image of the machine in the garden, this kind of tension between...
Speaker: Sort of the pastoral and progress. And it's I think in these the both 60 stories, it's oddly more effective because the technology they're using at the time of sort of op art, pop art, flashing lights.
Speaker: Trippi Electronica, it gives you a really nice ah texture. It always sort of feels like a circuit board. and So that i think that I think both the 60s episodes kind of triumph in their style. I think 80s stuff, if it was set really 80s-like, would be very effective. And i think the sixty s in both 60s episodes, I just think visually and sound-wise are very, very effective at...
Speaker: describing a computer world. I'd fight anyone who tried to colourise these two black and white ones because their black and whiteness is so stark and such a such a vivid part of their impact and their otherworldliness. And they just they just use that, they both use that monochrome, like St. Conrad, particularly when it said it meant trying to disconcert us anyway. and so And that final scene, again, spoilers, the machine stops, with her and and you she's she's holding her she's holding her child for the first time ever. She never actually never got to hold it when it was born. and and And her friends all think she's weird for even staying in touch with him. And then finally, it's the end of the fucking world.
Speaker: And she gives she holds him in her arms. And she's got she gets a little bit of snot on her nose while she's emotionally she's not yeah crying, but there's and the light catches it. And and they just carry, you know, she just sniffs it away. Something visceral, something human, something animal about these. That's what people really are.
Speaker: And we got a glimpse, we haven't mentioned there's the glimpse earlier of the wild woman um running around outside when he when he goes up through his ventilation shaft. He does glimpse a woman in the distance. Although it's almost like, was he hallucinating her? But I don't i don't think he was. I think we're meant to not be sure.
Speaker: it was It was hard not to think of Adam and Eve ah when he when he saw this girl. cause i didn't what was to happen. I was like, oh, he's going to fall in love with this girl now. yeah And then then then all these bloody worms and snakes came out of here. And i was like, this is kind of, you know, without wanting to. I was like, well, there it is. That's done the work for me. You know, Adam and Eve plus snake. But yeah, I think and I think the that black and white is really, really key to this. It gives it a sort of.
Speaker: the optical binary that's very very strong it's not black and white in the way like old Dracula films are it's not sort of like foggy you know misty it's very clear cut op art black white stuff it's um which which you know was obviously very striking and and associated with trippiness and you know if you switch lights on and off very quickly or there's high contrast it seems unnatural um which which yeah I think both is as those episodes really showcase just how well 60s did that technological of anxiety
Speaker: So to run through each of these shows, if you had to rate them out of five, with five being you would spend a lot of money on a lovingly curated Blu-ray box set and zero being you'd rather watch Tess Card.
Speaker: Conrad, where are you sitting for A for Andromeda? It's only four to five. That's a four and a half from me. Yeah, I was i was completely hooked, completely absorbed. Yeah, 4.5. I think i I'm four on this as well. How about you, Pete? I'm as well. Yeah, it.
Speaker: at moving quickly on to the tripods and comrade this this is this is an easy one for me it's five if I get a whole box out of all three series that would be nice so it's a five for all three series for me and actually I've already bought the DVD of the other two so don't know no it would be a five if there was a third series I think I'm two and a half at this point. and I think you guys have sold me on the books a bit more, maybe, than the TV series.
Speaker: You know what, because you're a girl and you don't understand boys at the bench, because that's why. I can skip all the winemaking with the girls in the countryside. That's the first time I've ever heard you say, pass up an alcohol. That's the first time ever heard you. with girls in the countryside. Let me just check your hair for capping.
Speaker: Sounds like not really you. Having said that I would fight to keep colourisers away from the other two, if Ben Cook wanted have a go at knocking this thing down for about 90-minute edit, that probably would be all right, actually. But, yeah, I loved it.
Speaker: I can see its weaknesses. i might have talked about its weaknesses more too much in this recording, actually. But, yeah, um it's a three and a half from me. Okay, I buy the I buy the I the the vanilla release, but not the really expensive one with.
Speaker: alcohol Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. ah So the machine stops, comrade. um I'd be about, ah you know, a sort of strong three on a box set. But if I could get it inserted in some kind of tube and mainlined into my brain, that is an absolute five. Because I have to say, I think this was probably the most kind of like challenging and arty one that I probably was kind of, oh, I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, A for Andromeda, I kind of want more as a regular series. This I'm scared by, it but really fascinated. I thought it was an incredibly classy production. So i'm going to say five with the tube. Five for me, i think I've seen um a handful of other episodes of Out of the Unknown. It's what i always keep meaning to try and find more time for because they've got such a great selection of writers.
Speaker: And I think especially one day where feel like for a lot of quality prestige dramas, it's a serial. I think being able to do like a serial. single one-off play but like yeah linked by theme as the sci-fi element about the and unknown i really enjoy just being able to sit down with something that's an hour long and tells you a complete story draws you into that world ah like i said before i was totally gripped from this atmosphere straight away Yeah, me too. Obviously, yeah, I really love this. And I know it's on IMDb, sorting by what the IMDb viewers have put in. This is this is only the 12th best episode of Out the Unline. I've only watched it a handful, so I'm going to go in and watch more of them, definitely. But yeah, this this is the one I want the deluxe box set off, please.
Speaker: Out of the Unknown has been released by the BFI as a DVD box set. comrade wears tripods in terms of yeah tripods yep you can get a you can get a tripods dvd set uh that's that's very handsome yeah um a for andromeda wise i think the dvd set of that has become a bit rarer these days but like it's give it's got a sequel which i think is probably within that but if you don't want to check out original single surviving episode youtube online and it's out there until there's any sort of you know reasonably affordable new release potentially
Speaker: Did you see so somebody's actually uploaded it onto ah done a compilation of um a friend on YouTube and I think it's gone up a couple of months ago. It's about two hours long. It's this is it's this episode and the the clips that exist from others. And then the rest of it is tele snaps. which was it there's a full set of telesnaps but there's no audio so it's just telesnaps with spooky music playing and a caption saying and he tells her that they must go to the thing and he goes yeah so it it is sort of watchable in in that format yeah it's more than what we've got for some missing tv series so i'll check it um yeah i i definitely want to see more of um andromeda whether it's that or like the sequel
Speaker: Yeah, and our scores totalised 11 for the tripods, 13 for A for Andromeda, and 15 for Out of the Unknown. so Despite saying this was going to be an intelligent podcast, with we've got a winner! Yay! What
Speaker: i think what do we get as a prize? we have all our memories wiped or something? Or can I get an implant of some sort? um I feel like I need an upgrade of some sort. I've forgotten what we've said anyway, so, yeah. Brilliant. Hannah's already had the upgrade.
Speaker: yeah give you an implant An implant that gives you a nagging sense that you're being watched. Ooh, fuck.
Speaker: We're closing down for the night at the cafe, so thank you for listening to the Cathode Rays podcast. This has been a HPTV production from the Midlands. You've been listening to me, Hannah. Me, Conrad. And me, Pete. We hope you'll join us again next time for another chat about CRT Era Telly. If you like this episode, please tell someone about it. For now, we'll wish you goodbye, and please remember to turn off your set. It might be watching you.
Speaker: Goodbye. Goodbye. good-bye
Speaker: Oh
Speaker: I've been making my own entertainment, doodling self-portraits on the back of this menu. It's A4 and draw me... No, I can't fucking do this. nearly a pun. It's nearly a pun.
Speaker: Your accent gets it better. You've been listening to me, Hannah. Me, Conrad. um't It says guess the name. Oh, you're actually reading the script. Sorry. Yeah, no, I forgot to do that. Yeah.
Speaker: give you a fucking script and love I can only do I can only read words I've been given to say as I'm afraid that's a no function
