WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:15.920 The appeal of the Monoid, that's quite hard to quantify. I think it's because they're 00:15.920 --> 00:20.680 the absolute epitome of a comedy villain. They have a slightly ridiculous appearance, 00:20.680 --> 00:22.640 they walk around telling their plans to each other. 00:22.640 --> 00:25.560 Take them away to the security kitchen. 00:25.560 --> 00:31.160 They've got a security kitchen, they throw flowers menacingly on the floor. It's all 00:31.160 --> 00:35.960 a bit ridiculous. And that's, watching it with sort of an adult knowing eye, you can 00:35.960 --> 00:37.440 enjoy that and think that's great. 00:37.440 --> 00:40.920 Yes, I bet it'll take some time to get the whole of the population down here, so the 00:40.920 --> 00:43.080 sooner you get started the better I should think. 00:43.080 --> 00:47.840 Don't worry, it may not take as long as you think. 00:47.840 --> 00:53.280 But at the same time they are actually quite menacing because they are ruthless. They're 00:53.280 --> 00:58.320 prepared to wipe out the whole of humanity. I mean this is the whole of humanity on the 00:58.320 --> 00:59.320 ship. 00:59.320 --> 01:04.880 What do you mean? Are you up to something? 01:04.880 --> 01:10.240 I think it shows really that you can be ridiculous and scary at the same time and that's in some 01:10.240 --> 01:18.160 ways scarier than just being scary. 01:18.160 --> 01:23.120 We don't see many Doctor Who monsters repeated actually. There's a sort of myth that Doctor 01:23.120 --> 01:27.240 Who is obsessed with its own continuity and there's a great sort of repetition of Daleks, 01:27.240 --> 01:31.480 Cybermen and what not. But actually there's only a few that are repeated more than about 01:31.480 --> 01:37.560 twice. They all tend to be monsters that are undilutedly evil. So they can be just used 01:37.560 --> 01:45.040 again and again as standard, horrible, frightening monsters. And they're also flexible in terms 01:45.040 --> 01:48.360 of purely the design. You know, a Cyberman can go anywhere. It can be in a desert, it 01:48.360 --> 01:52.160 can be in an ice planet, it can be in a spaceship, whatever, whatever, whatever. 01:52.160 --> 01:57.720 They're one-off monsters. They're also by one-off writers. What tends to happen with 01:57.720 --> 02:01.680 the monsters I think is if they return they come back quite quickly and they come back 02:01.680 --> 02:07.160 by their creator. And so if the creators didn't come back then most of the time there's no 02:07.160 --> 02:11.200 real impetus for the monster to come back unless they were phenomenally popular. 02:11.200 --> 02:15.960 So why bring them back? They look like men in suits and that's something that I think 02:15.960 --> 02:20.960 Doctor Who wisely avoids these days is having monsters that patently are a man with a stupid 02:20.960 --> 02:25.960 wig, you know, with a sort of Chewbacca suit and whatnot. They've got stupid voices or 02:25.960 --> 02:29.200 they don't speak. I mean, you know, what's to like? 02:29.200 --> 02:33.760 They're sort of monsters built entirely around a what if you put the eyeball in the mouth. 02:33.760 --> 02:38.360 That's it. That's the whole idea of the Monoids. I remember actually at the time being quite 02:38.360 --> 02:44.360 taken with it and watching it again. It is a striking and strange effect even if their 02:44.360 --> 02:50.760 outfits are a bit baggy and the wigs are sort of odd looking. They don't individually or 02:50.760 --> 02:56.080 as a race have enough character to distinguish them from many other races that only appeared 02:56.080 --> 03:01.360 once on Doctor Who and we've never gone back to that. So I wouldn't rule out anybody turning 03:01.360 --> 03:03.080 up again in a show that's run this long. 03:03.080 --> 03:07.800 Well, I think that the Monoids suffer from a condition that's quite common among Doctor 03:07.800 --> 03:14.080 Who monsters in that they have wonderful torsos and heads, but very ridiculous feet. The Monoids 03:14.080 --> 03:20.360 are sort of these odd splay-footed duck-like creatures from the knees down. It's very hard 03:20.360 --> 03:25.040 to tell whether their knees are their true knees, whether their skin is their true skin 03:25.040 --> 03:30.520 because in the shots that we see of them actually walking around, they waddle. They almost like 03:30.520 --> 03:35.920 have a kind of carapace that goes down to their ankles from beneath which these great 03:35.920 --> 03:40.200 flappy feet protrude and rather like, you know, this may be the same reason why the 03:40.200 --> 03:45.080 Wirren have never come back. Dodgy feet, I think, is the answer there. 03:45.080 --> 03:53.080 The current incarnation of the series does seem to me surprisingly hung up on the William 03:53.080 --> 03:58.440 Hartnell version of Doctor Who. It seems to me that almost all its references go back 03:58.440 --> 04:04.080 that far and I do think that, for instance, the treatment of the Monoids is very like 04:04.080 --> 04:09.040 the treatment of the Ood. You can see what, as it were, a modern take on that type of 04:09.040 --> 04:13.960 story would be like. Since they can do those sort of stories, there's no particular reason 04:13.960 --> 04:15.320 to do this one again.