Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast coming at you forwards in time
backwards in time and sideways in time.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
I'm a pointy bitter chalk and a gaudily hilted prop sword for this
one, so you watch yourself.
It's about to get a trifle sharpish on the battlefield.
It's a really terrible prop sword.
Something that gets to be enclosive.
On all the time.
I'm thinking, didn't I get this in a show bag?
This is part of the 1988 Doctor Who showback, which the year
before had invisible ink and a cutout pregnant looking Mary Tan.
She's in this and all, isn't she?
Guess who we've got?
We've got Gene Marsh.
We have.
And we've got Angela Douglas.
We have, carry on.
Brigadier.
Actually, was Gene Martian a carry-on?
She wasn't, she should be.
I don't believe she was, but I could be wrong.
I was saying to you during the week, Richard.
I'm surprised that fewer carry-on actors were in the Avengers.
You know, we've had a few in...
They just saw themselves, saw themselves a little bit middle to
high brow for what they were doing.
So they didn't lampoon themselves quite that way.
They had half the cast of dad's army.
Yeah, well, class.
And dad's army didn't start till late 67.
Ah, well.
But no, I just found that odd because, of course, Angela Douglas
was the female lead in about 3 or 4 carry-ons, I think.
She was.
Carry on up the kyber.
No, I'm not joking.
And carry on up the jungle.
Why is it up everything?
She's always in the...
Don't you love how these seasons have started?
You know, for one of them, we've got an extraordinary moment in
you know, above the earth, hovering with malcontent and fizzling
with expectation, and then another season, we have a starburst and
the death of a doctor, and now we have a lovely garden centre and
some retired people. that's the best opening.
I think that's why people like this season so much as it's like
every villain is going to be Patricia Rutledge, you expect.
And I have to say, Richard, I think great minds think alike here
because our dear listener, other Pete, made the same
observations.
No, we did not.
During doing marathons.
I did not, did he?
I love you other people.
Get off my patch.
It's a lovely opening and it is in a way...
They said that of him as well.
Well, you know, when we had all of that sort of introduction of
who the brigadier was and stuff in Morden undead, you know, now
Sergeant Benton's a used car dealer and all of that sort of thing
that was...
Yeah, better than he ought to be, either.
But this is really terribly sweet.
Wasn't that fronty of them to say that too.
I mean, where's Mike Yeates now?
He runs a fish shop.
They don't even mention him next to a primary school.
And in Richard Franklin's novel, Operation Hate.
Oh, ow.
Really hurt.
I believe it is implied that, of course, Yeats had his
dishonourable discharge with the dinosaur invasion, but of course
that novel is also about Yeats coming to terms with his sexuality
in a time that was, you know, difficult.
So Richard Franklin has said, yes, this is semi-autobiographical
and I'm putting some of my own life into Yeats' life.
Still in publication?
So originally it was called The Killing Stone, and it's been
rewritten and retitled Operation H, which I believe is still in
publication.
And people have said, it's not actually bad.
Wasn't that the 3rd reboot of Thunderball with Joe Collins as
Fatima Blush?
Everything goes blurry in the wash doesn't it?
George Lazenby as Bond.
George decay as Fiona Volpe.
Actually, I would so pay to watch that.
Do you know why this show is so freaking great, kids?
It's not for any of the lovely garden scenes.
I'm staying in the bloody garden scenes.
I love this.
How the hell would he get that house?
I think Doris.
I think I think Doris.
I think he married up.
I think it's Doris' money.
This is the same universe as Ambassadors of Death.
Get it?
No, it really is.
Mars Landings in the 70s.
Britain has a space program.
No, okay, it's still Doctor Who, so of course it's the same
universe, but it is actually LinkedIn really nicely.
You know what?
I think you're onto something there, though, with the brig
marrying up, because when he leaves, Doris asks, does all this
mean so little to you as if this is what she is offering?
Yeah, this is...
Am I just your cash cow?
This is her house.
She answers the phone.
She does too, doesn't she?
And when at the end, she's like, make dinner for us.
Yeah, because you are my B at.
B for BH, Brigg.
Except that the name Doris, of course, comes from Planet of the
Spider.
She's a nice watch.
She's a bit of a scrubber. that's right.
I thought she was a sort of good time girl and he was kind of...
He was sort of embarrassed to have had this liaison with her in
Brighton, presumably while still married to Fiona.
Volpe.
He was still very starchy though, and the 70s were, that's Sutech
agrees.
Yeah, he was very starchy.
So judgy, isn't she?
No, those opening scenes are properly charming.
And this is closest Doctor Who gets to to the manor born.
This is Doctor Who does Sigma.
And it's really time we had this.
There's so much.
I don't want to get to the rewritten, a hastily rewritten end
scene because you know that this was meant to be the last story of
the brig.
And that there were, in fact, as Nick let spill in one of the
things there were, it was the end of the Death of the Greyhound.
So they did, in fact, rehearse 2 tag scenes, 2 end scenes.
So I think that the narrative still is building up to the death of
the brigadier because, you know, we see him suit up, we see him
decide to go back.
We even see the moment where he would have been killed where the
destroyer.
Yeah, all full of busty promise standing there twitching away like
quite like a would-be extra for a Mel Gibson casting call covered
in wad and full of mock Scottish promise. even for a poll anyway.
I think is he the greatest pole of the season?
Marek Anton?
Oh, my.
Oh, if you could only have seen young Brendan's face light up.
It was like you got full tilt on the pinball.
We'll see more of him in a couple of weeks, yes.
Oh, I see quite a bit of him here.
Is it just in my head that he's got a blue painted chest?
Do you actually not see it in this?
No, you do.
Yeah.
You pause and your whole, your sad old VHS is stretched like a
tacky old bit of playground rubber band by the end of it because
you've been pausing on that scene for so long.
There's a photograph with Sue Mansfield fitting his head, as it
were.
And yeah, he's not wearing anything.
Right in front of her salad.
Gigantic nipples, right, in front of her cell.
Is he still with us?
I think so.
Well, of course, we had our viewing marathon for this a couple of
weeks ago and we were watching from various locations.
I think you were having work done in your bathroom.
Not a euphemism.
But no, James and I were sitting together watching Maracanton in
Curse of Fenrich and just kind of gushing, as it were.
And I believe I have found, I found a website of a Merrick Anton.
The face shape is similar.
He looks very different, of course, because it's 30 years on.
But he's aged rather well.
So it seems he's still with us.
He's still doing bathroom renovations in London, like most Polish
gentlemen.
That is a euphemism.
No, something I really love about those early scenes with the
brig.
I kind of like, and I kind of don't like the disillusionment in
Modron Undead because a lot of season 20 relates to the
destruction or erosion of dreams, snake dance, for instance.
Terminus, of course, you know, people are promised a cure, but
just kind of thrown in a radiation chamber and we hope for the
best.
Given Sarah Sutton instead.
In enlightenment, you know, the Eternals basically want to be able
to dream and they can't.
You know, with unit, it was kind of seen as this golden age of
Doctor Who even then, but what Modron Undead does is goes, no, this
is the real world, you know, soldiers do retire and they do go on
to prosaic day jobs.
Well, this kind, it still honours that because Doris refers to the
teaching.
I think, yeah, that's what rescued him.
They obviously had a falling out.
He had a breakdown.
Oh, this is such a soap, isn't it?
Yeah, I'm surprised that Russell didn't refilm all of this, do
we?
Probably did.
But yeah, and then and then she rescued him from his.
So he goes from chalk from his bitter chalk.
Yeah, he goes from living in like a studio caravan on the school
grounds to this grand old country house with a wife who adores
him.
It's reclaiming some of that, but also still honouring what's come
before.
It's one of the more deft moves of continuity we have in the 1980s
because you don't need to have seen that he was a teacher in order
to understand that scene.
Yeah, better not to, really.
Yeah.
I think the one the one sort of flaw in that scene is where poor
Doris has to say, you don't regret it, do you?
he's like, regret what?
Leaving United Nations intelligence task force.
Binary location. 01 zero.
You kind of go, oh, yeah, that kind of makes sense.
People need to know what it is. central.
Anyone who knows what unit means.
If she just says unit will understand it.
Anyone who doesn't know what unit means is still going to go
United Nation Intelligence Task Force.
What the hell is that?
It's it's the Blofeld moment from Spectre.
We're back to the...
But yeah, Angela Douglas and Charming.
It's a really strong female cast in this one.
Angela Bruce and Angela Douglas actually conflated my head.
I don't know how, but I really would have liked to have seen some
standoffs between them.
But we'll get that, won't we?
Miss Whittaker.
We will.
Well, I mean, but later on, unit becomes a sort of completely
female organisation.
I think they're all women in the Zygon invasion and the Zygon
inversion, apart from a few grants.
This is really pressing it, isn't it?
It's the 1st time that it's actually looked like something from
the United Nations that has a little bit groovy casting.
Yeah, yeah.
So you have Zabegnyev and you have, you know, actual people who
are from other countries.
You know who he is, don't you?
He's Frobisher in the audios.
Yes, he really.
Robert Jessak.
He's Frobisher.
I know, isn't it great?
Don't you wish?
Throw a bit of that in.
But what it does.
And it's what happened so rarely was to bring an element of the
past back and give it something completely new to do.
And when I say completely new.
I guess the nearest analogue is the demons where we see unit
confronting the devil in essence and magic and stuff like that.
And it is given a scientific explanation, but Miss Hawthorne
points out, well, that scientific explanation is just going to say
that, yes, magic is real.
So we have had unit facing magic and the supernatural.
Here we have it again in a really sort of sword and sorcery way.
Something that we've never seen unit confront.
You know, it was endless sort of aliens invading the home
counties.
Here we have something really different where unit confronts this
myth, this Arthurian myth, where it confronts the doctor's future
confronts the other greatest piece of British mythology of all
time.
And we haven't really seen it done in media.
Monty Python and John Borman's Excalibur do not count as current
you know, as current modern reinterpretations.
The closest, in fact, we had in media at the time was, um, and I
was already starting to really date, which is, of course, talking
and whatever media representations of Lord of the Rings.
Butch isn't really exactly Arthurian, but it's probably the
closest that we had.
Yeah, the King Arthur Myth is right up there with Anibelund.
Yeah, we're about almost 10 years on from Ralph Baske's attempts
to do the Lord of the Rings animated films, which tripped me out
as a kid.
And they're actually so bloody Wagner anyway.
He's he's taken it all from the Norse stuff.
So in the extended version of Battlefield, because this, Nathan
you've mentioned this problem of, you know, they write too much
material. and it's a big thing this season, pretty much every
story this season overruns in terms of shot material.
And there's a bit that's on the special edition DVD.
And it wasn't actually cut because of time.
It was cut because it didn't look very good.
It's the doctor and ace walking up a spiral staircase to get to
after the spaceship.
But they cut the bit where Ace is asking how magic exists and the
doctor explains, have you heard of Clark's law, which is any form
of sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
magic, and the doctor has the wonderful line of the reverse is
also true.
Any form of significantly advanced.
Magic is indistinguishable from technology.
So I actually think that is, you know, that's a take on the
demon's explanation, but it's much better and it's not...
Yeah, you know, we kind of agreed that Pertwee is a bit
patronising towards Miss Hawthorne.
Which isn't, which isn't...
Every single person.
Yeah, here's your superior offer.
He's even a little bit withering at the Maypole, isn't it?
I'm glad you're mentioning cut scenes because that's where this
story gets interesting.
Have you watched the elongation?
I have ages ago. did for this one.
Yeah.
Most of the cut scenes.
Well, there's a there's a line in any of them anyway.
They mentioned that this is the time of the Azanian ceasefire
that's occupying most of unit forces.
It was one of the proposed names for a post-apartheid South Africa
which is, you know, sadly, when Nelson Mandela, then a multiracial
democracy.
He didn't turn to even war for inspiration, oddly enough.
But it is mentioned in Scoop.
Right.
And it was one of the perceived things.
So we're actually now back in an even war universe.
Which is nice.
I like that.
All right, we probably aren't.
You could be.
Again, it's tagging and feeling into other great British
literary.
There's the word.
Yeah, no.
Go on.
What I was going to say is just to pleasure our listeners.
Tropes.
Bingo cards at the ready.
What I was going to say is that, of course, Aronovich's 1st story
goes back in time to look at the history of the program in
remembrance of the Darlings.
And now his story is the opposite of that.
He's going forward in time.
Sideways.
And what, to ITV?
Yes.
And using it as a way of also examining the past of the program by
bringing us back the unit era, but also by talking about Doctor
Who being a new modern thing.
Like this time, Doctor Who is set in the distant future of 1999, I
think.
They don't say it on in the script, but yeah, I think that that's
what it's supposed to be.
And so we've got, you know, that stupid phone, like Peter Walmsley
has a car phone.
You know, The brigadier doesn't care if it's the king on the
phone.
So Doctor Who was killed Queen Elizabeth?
No wonder she was avoiding him down and, you know.
Well, it's their revenge for Silver Nemesis and not being able to
get Andrew.
Or was Edward?
It's Edward.
Wonder.
They're always the glove puppet children on the goodies.
Oh, I did say with it being said in 1999.
It's like, 0 yeah, £5 for 2 soft drinks.
I remember those.
This, as you alluded, Nathan, was actually Ben Aronovich's 1st
pitch for the show, Stormover of Valley on.
Yes, we're a Valiant, and that's the, so our world is available.
In fact, in that extended version, the storm. is actually much
more of an element in that 1st episode.
You know, there's this big inexplicable storm.
It's why the missile convoy is stuck in the mud and it's clearly
associated with the arrival of these knights from an alternative
dimension.
In a real Warner Brothers, bugs, bunny one.
But that doesn't really sort of survive the savage cuts that the
thing has to understand.
And that's the problem. also a budget cut.
I think the reason this doesn't work.
And okay, we know the publicity because it is, Brendan, go on as
far as ratings goes.
We have the lowest rated episode of Doctor Who of the classic
season as part of this.
The 1st episode gets 3.1 million.
Which is almost respectable for today's audiences, considering
everyone's on an iPad.
I believe.
Yeah, for a 1st run.
Yeah, the lie of the land is the only episode to get a lower 1st
run figure.
Now, part of the reason for that was the lie of the land was up
against the X Factor final, which was unusual because the X Factor
final was going to be on Sunday, but Sunday there was a benefit
concert after the Manchester bombings.
And pretty much every other channel put something on that wasn't
going to rate very well anyway.
But that meant moving the X Factor finale opposite Doctor Who
which is why they should have taken Doctor Who off for that week
really.
It was the live, the land.
I mean, no big loss.
And yes, and of course, you know, you can see that this is a
really even-handed play on Britain at the time and the real
dangers that the world was seeing.
The wall was just about to come down in Berlin and Sophie Aldred
almost died because of it.
Yeah, no, she apparently was also got sick from having to stay
under the water and try and hold her sorted up price.
It's real hard to hold these things straight and maintain an upper
middle class disposition.
It's actually really funny, that scene, because she just...
Hands anselling the sword and says, here, you can be king of
England.
Yeah.
Factually.
That for post-tach.
For anyone who doesn't know, 102nd version.
When Sophie Eldred is in the water tank and it's filling with
water, the glass wasn't thick enough.
When you see it break on screen.
It actually bows, you can see it.
It breaks for real.
Water goes over the floor and Sylvester, it shouts out to everyone
you know, get off the cables, get Sophie out of the tank.
And yeah, if she, the glass never broke completely.
It just kind of crashed out.
There's electrocution that could have actually been the problem.
But also, you know, she could have passed through it and got quite
badly cut.
And for years afterwards, that studio footage was used in a BBC
production safety tape on working with water tanks.
Working with So Field.
Well, she's only allowed to do voiceovers.
It's not exactly glittering.
Yeah, she's only allowed to do voiceover since Doctor Who.
How's it to your health?
It's not very good either because they clearly don't.
Well, they don't have enough coverage for that scene.
So one of the shots, like there are some shots where the camera's
struggling to gain focus.
There's shots where the glass is breaking and there's shots where
studio guys have their sort of hands around Sophie Aldred and are
hauling them.
Yeah, which was pretty much a daily a car.
As received, wisdom will take.
I have to say just generally, I don't think this story is very
well directed.
It's not.
It's chunky.
And the reason I don't think it works.
It's budget and it's time, but it's also props.
Those guns, come on.
You know the armour was meant to be robocop looking?
Yeah, yeah.
The designs for them to be stock armour, don't they?
Which you've seen in lots of other BBC period productions as
well.
It's probably stuff, you know, that was in Black Adder and
things.
You know, I think it's the weakest story of Sylvester's era.
I would not disagree.
Well, you know, it fights it out down the bottom there with Silver
Nemesis, but the fact that these are the weaker stories of the era
I think, is really telling, because I found Battlefield incredibly
entertaining.
Much more fun than I remember, and I hadn't watched it for many
years.
Yeah, And it has that unit comfort food thing going.
You know, the fact that unit, we're on earth, which is nice, you
know, we're on location a lot.
We're in a lovely part of England.
Yeah, it's really a holiday brochure to go and get shot for, isn't
it?
You know?
Have a nice old witch queen, you know, kill your bint, but she'll
also cue a blindness.
But you've got exactly you've got the fabulous Gene Marsh in her
what, 3rd appearance in the program?
I think the cat disagrees, but no, it is the 3rd appearance.
And she's wonderful.
I mean she's just tremendous.
She really holds it together.
It's just on the edge of how, of, you can see that JNT would have
thought, oh, get a whole hour of panto out of this. stretch it
up.
And she is slightly painter, but she manages to keep it.
The scene with the brig and Gene Marsh, or the bion twins.
You know, I didn't even think that.
That's wonderful, isn't it?
I killed you before.
She said, now you have and you just watch yourself because it's
Margot now.
That's the whole thing of yes.
Oh, and yeah, but that's also very Nibelundi, isn't it?
Actually, although it's, no, the Arthurian.
No, no, no, let's not go to those Norses.
I'll go to those Ikea people. you know, with their Alan Keying
their stories together.
No, no.
It's an English story.
So of course it has incest, rape, and buggery. pork pies.
Oh, for you Game of Thrones fans out there, there is a shot of the
actors who play Jamie Lannister and you're on Grey Joy at the
football together, but not looking terribly happy and someone's
put the caption on it when you are forced to hang out with your
sister's new boyfriend.
Now I understand that, man.
I've seen them all week and had no idea what it was about.
Can we talk about?
can we talk about the thematic stuff?
Like I actually think, well, despite the fact that it is a fun
romp in that sort of unit style.
It does at least attempt to have something to say.
And what's interesting about it is that there are 2 types of
soldier in it.
There's the brigadier and the people from unit.
And, um, you know, Morgan recognises that he's a soldier and
recognises that he's steeped in blood.
He's killed a lot of people.
And then there's more gain and, you know, all of the people from
the parallel universe.
And you get those 2 viewpoints exemplified by Winifred Bambera and
Anselon, who have that gorgeous sort of rom-com arc, which I think
works so terrifically well and should really have happened all the
time in Doctor Who.
There should always be a rom-comer, I think.
And it's one of the few times we actually get token extras who are
meant to be Totty, who are in fact attractive.
Yeah, yeah.
Both Mordred Nance and you think, oh, you know, it depends whether
you play which side of the chessboard you play on, you've got a
piece.
So there's a scene after the big final battle, you know, which is
really incredibly poorly done.
It should have been done with the Yakety Yak theme tune from Betty
Hill, and then it would have worked.
Yeah, no, it's not very well.
No, it's real.
Well, just tighter and less time between them and maybe a few more
mixing the shots up.
Yeah, well, it's just a lot of people running around shooting in
each other. got no idea of how the battle's going or what's
happening or anything.
And it's why people criticise Silv when he runs in and says there
will be no battle here.
And people kind of go, oh, it's completely inappropriate. like, no
it's not inappropriate if he's shouting it to a 1000 people, which
is what Silv has read the scene and what the scene is written as.
But as we see it on screen, there's like Mordred and Anselin and
one guy off behind a tree who's a bit embarrassed to be in the
shot.
It's actually the Californian Monty Python Appreciation Society
meeting the Society of a Creative Anachronists to make them make
their own chain mail out of dad's old beer cans and they're
meeting together.
Yeah, nah.
It's not going to work.
And the Wigan Women's Country Association reenacting the Battle of
Trafalgar.
Oh, how delicious.
That was awesome. remember that.
I'll put that in the show notes, you have to say.
Actually, how good would it have been if they'd been entirely in
mud and drag?
The weird thing is, like with those big battle scenes, the bits I
really like are the bits where, you know, Mordred, Anselon, and
Bambera actually have lines in interaction with each other, like
there's that great bit where Anselon, um, swans on and Morden says
I'll teach you about courage, and Anselon just, um, Marcus Gilbert
just completely goes off at the top.
Courage from the man who fled the field... such a bummer, isn't
it?
It's just the thing is, it wouldn't work if he wasn't an Arthorian
knight, you know?
Had we had Kenneth Brenner's endless four-hour version of Hamlet
at this point?
I'm not sure. really good?
Like everything Brandon does.
It's just because it's Branner that we discouraged it.
Have you seen Dunkirk yet?
Dear listener, go and have a look. at Brenner's favourite moment
because he's hardly in it.
But no, it's really, yeah.
Yeah, Brenner has gravitated.
I am.
So just much unlike this episode.
I'm actually looking forward to Kenneth Braner as Poirot in Murder
on the Orient Express with Judy Dench and Daisy Ridley.
Butchers, though.
Both is Miss Levin.
Yeah.
Meanwhile.
Um, and then and then we get that great bit at the end where um
Ansel and and Morda are having their sword fight and the doctor
wanders in between them and hello and they both do a double take
which shouldn't work.
But it really does.
And yeah, I think it's one of the few instances where just having
a static camera works because it lets the actors do their job.
I'm just hoping that Jodie Whitaker puts on one of Nicole Kidman's
old cast off ginger wigs and then we could redo this.
I have been waiting all this time for the ginger doctor and we all
have been.
It's even, you know, everybody thought.
Everybody thought that Tennant was lampooning Chris Evans when he
says I'm my ginger, and it was a take on Billy's ex-husband in
Indoctrine.
But no, he's actually referencing this story.
Because in the novelisation, which is actually by Mark Platt
because it's good.
Well, Beneronovich used to not be able to write... notorious.
Yeah, having a hissy.
And not using a backtop.
Yeah, well, so Mark Blatt had to step in and finish the
novelisation.
He was the Kate Orman all the time, wasn't he?
Well, Kate Orman had to step in and finish one of his new
adventures novels.
Which, spoiler alert, is one where a main character dies and it
was delayed by about five.
It was technically brought out after Virgin had lost the license.
So it was just a...
Yeah, it was a good grace arrangement with the BBC.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, they'd already published the novels that came after
that in which that character was dead.
And of course, now he's a very successful novelist.
But it is a very good novelisation, I think.
Again, like Aronovich's remembrance of the Daleks.
It spends a lot of time in the characters heads telling us a
little bit more about what they think.
But can I just get back to that, that sort of conflict between 2
kinds of ways of looking at soldiering.
So at the end of that battle, there's a scene where Anselon and
Winifred are resting afterwards.
And Winifred sees the dead body of the guard captain, the young
man who gets one or 2 lines earlier on and he's died and she's
she's sad about that.
And Anselon says something about it being a glorious battle and
she looks at him in horror.
And in that moment, our conception of the way war works where it's
deplorable and tragic and not glorious, not something that we
should be proud of, that scene is superior.
But then at the very end, the way that Gene Marsh is defeated, you
know, she, the doctor doesn't cross some wires or press buttons or
do something to defeat the enemy in this.
He goes...
He persuades her.
But what he persuades her off is the superiority of her own
morality as a warrior.
He poshes it up. doesn't he?
Well, he just says you wouldn't you wouldn't deploy weapons of
mass destruction against civilian population.
Thatcha.
Yeah.
And that's what that's what...
Yeah, exactly.
That's what this is about.
You know, like the nuclear weapon convoy, which is taken straight
from mind of evil, isn't it?
You know, the nuclear weapon is there to...
Yeah, it's there to embody our attitude to war, which is vast
deaths among innocent civilian populations.
Yeah, and it goes back to what the doctor said in Happiness Patrol
and it goes back to something that Mordred does to the doctor
here.
Look me in the eye, end my life.
And it predicates survival in a really nice, gee, this is a good 3
years of doctor.
But yeah, that scene is so powerful.
And the doctor's speech, you know, a child turns its eyes to the
sun and its eyes turn to cinders.
When I hear that, I think of Sarah Connor's nightmare in
Terminator 2 when she's standing outside the playground.
And I know Spielberg watched Doctor Who, I don't know if James
Cameron did.
They all did.
Yeah.
Well, you know, Joe Michael Strazinsky says he did, George Lucas
Steven Spielberg, all those people.
George stole.
I think it's more of, you know, it's easy to not to say.
Empress of Mars is entirely a George Lucas rift.
You know, it was actually George ghosting on that story.
There is no Mark Gatis.
No, there's only Sam Kisgard.
We are so fan.
Something else, it presages is Ace's attitude to racism, which
will become important in ghost light and in survival and in the
new adventures.
I am a little bit disappointed.
I know it's the 80s and we get it with Benny Summerfield in the
books, but I'm a little bit disappointed.
She's not a little bit girl on girl because a lot of young ladies
watching this were getting their very first, you know, and we know
this from, even at the time, certainly now, it wasn't just the
little boys having a girl, a companion they could actually
identify with young queer women, we're saying, this is the 1st
time I've actually felt involved in Doctor Who.
I am now being represented.
So just a little bit of flirtation would have been nice.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, with one of the one or 2 of the guilds.
Why not?
Oh, we get that in ghost light. am I saying?
Who knows what's going on behind those screens?
But also in this last season is just when Ace starts developing as
a romantic or sexually interested character, I'm not a little girl
anymore, Captain Soren.
We don't really see it in this story, but we see it.
We see it there.
And we did have a little bit of it with Mike last year, of
course.
We've really moved on from here to the 70s, haven't we?
But also, I think, and, you know, I'm not quite knowing where of, I
speak here, but I think Ace could be seen as a role model for
queer women because in terms of the mould of the Doctor Who
assistant.
She is already queer in that she, you know, her interest in
explosives and fighting and her physical attitude and her sort of
righteous anger about things.
We haven't really seen that in any other Doctor Who companion
except Leila.
And it's entirely, exactly, and it's entirely appropriate for a
period where there was an illness decimating the community.
Another deleted scene in this, of course, is when the brigadier
just reduces Ace to the latest one and she gets really annoyed
about that.
She does face, doesn't she?
Yeah, and she storms off and the brigadier says, oh, I just can't
understand women.
And the thing is, I think that scene kind of critiques, that old
fashioned attitude without moralising or sermonising. you know, it
happens organically.
And I love the doctor's response, which is don't worry, brigadier
people will be shooting at you soon, which is why later on in the
car, the doctor's like, the brigadier, are you happy now?
It does feel as if everyone's on holiday. doesn't it Yeah.
Despite the death thing.
In fact, the deafiness, that's the thing.
There is no real threat of deathiness in this.
And that's what kind of lets it down.
It's lovely. and frothy.
And you've got everyone working terribly hard to say, no, no, it's
actually serious and people are going, no, they're not going to
get hurt at all unless it's by a low-flying eccles cake or, you
know, one of those bloody pork pies again or a scabbard.
That's the most threatening thing in this whole production.
I do think that the one death in this that's really effective.
And we touched on it earlier, is the death of Flight Lieutenant
Lavelle.
Thank you.
That is actually the only poignant moment, isn't it?
And it's handled quite well, do you think?
it's handled quite well.
I mean, with a dustbuster.
Yes.
Aside from Bambera.
Lavelle is given the most character development of the new
soldiers, and she's really fun and likeable, like...
Do you speak Czech lieutenant only when I'm drunk, sir?
So what have you got on you?
But having her a young woman as well and having the brigadier kind
of misgendering the new brigadier, you know, because he's such a
crusty old thing.
And she is really sort of terribly sweet.
She's got a foreign accent, so she's not English like unit was
back in the 1970s.
She is really good.
And I think the way that she's killed by Gene Marsh's character is
another way of selling her alien morality.
You know, she'll kill Lavelle, but then pick up the tab, you
know.
I mean, I especially love all good killers should.
Lavelle confronting Mordred.
And he says, am I to do nothing?
Well, you can get the tab if you want.
And he's like, yeah, you know, and it's that thing you were
talking about earlier, Nathan, they see each other as warriors and
they understand what that means.
And yet that bit where Gene Marsh restores Pat's eyesight paid by
Beryl Reed's girlfriend of June Bland.
Yeah, that bit where she restores...
With exactly the same haircut.
I think she had that haircut from 1962 and she never got rid of
it.
Well, when you're onto a good thing.
But she's very good in this, isn't she?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Much better than she was in Earth Shore.
She does some terribly unconvincing braille reading. to be able to
see what she's doing, Nathan, obviously, so judgy.
Like she's playing the piano, though.
I read a wonderful opinion piece.
Well, I say wonderful.
Wonderful in terms of its evocativeness and terrible in what it
was about.
A blind woman whose husband, of course, parks in disabled spots
when he's taking her places and they constantly get challenged
despite the fact she's got a cane and glasses and she finishes the
article on what a lot of people don't realise is that not all
disabilities are visible.
And I just thought, oh, what an amazing choice of words.
A lot of it is fandom.
Indeed.
Ruin this for me, Chibnell. vomit. all over my microphone.
Now, of course, the problem with with Pat and Elizabeth and Mr
Walmsley is when the plot runs out for them, they're just
evacuated at the end of episode three.
Well, I mean, that is a step up from hurting them onto a bus and
blowing them up.
That's true We haven't learned.
They just heard them onto a bus with a bit of casual racism and
hypnotism.
That bit where Pat challenges Major Husack by saying, you can't
tell me what to do.
You not English, are you?
But that's exactly what he would have said.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. realistic.
And that there's the soft, the pianoforte peddling of that, that
yes, I mean, they're likeable characters, but they're still racist
bug beats because they are of a certain age.
People are like them.
Speaking of proof.
Dismissal.
So I was going to say, because you were talking about more gain in
the in the caravan of courage, again, which is with all the
blinking lights.
It does, it does feel very early career.
Chris Brosnan doesn't understand.
Well, there's dangerous blinking lights, cook off at any second.
It's a terrible set.
Well, he takes the key and as if she's not going to do anything
but that's the point.
She will submit to being shackled.
Receive phantom at the time was what a ridiculous ending.
She's, you can't leave unit to lock her up.
She's a star destroyer.
She's an enormous, delta shaped wedgie in space that can destroy
her, you know.
Ornithopter at like 50 paces just to glance.
But that's the point.
It's because it's nobility, you know, it's morality.
And she would, she would allow herself to blow it away and she
probably just disappears quietly, you know?
In the novelisation.
The ending's very different.
Do you remember this?
That someone comes from the parallel world that they're all from
to the brigadier and says, actually, we've got an opening for king
of England.
So he heads back to replace King Arthur.
Did I dream that or is that a thing that happened?
Scott, that can read it.
That'll be worth it.
Yes.
The thing is, the other thing that topples more gain.
And this is something, it's a recurring thing in the Sylvester
McCoy era.
And that is Andrew Kartmel's Vision of Doctor Who is that all
humanoid beings in some way or another are driven by their love
and affection for another.
So, you know, the other...
It should have always been that way.
It kind of always was though.
Except for locking out your...
When she gets the 1st whiff of hormones.
We haven't always done it have we?
Yeah.
Well, that's the thing, you know.
Doctor Who's approach to love used to just be, and then she runs
off with some blokes she's never met.
My good room, you don't.
Whereas at the end of the Happiness Patrol, Helen A is finally
stopped because her dog is dying and she absolutely loves Fifi and
the planet's going to be okay because Earl Sigma and Susan Q
appear to be going on a romance.
The brigadier is asked at the beginning.
It's bit hot, actually.
The brigadier is asked at the beginning of this.
Bye, Doris. you know, do I mean so little to you?
She's appealing?
She's appealing to his love?
And Mulgain, you know, her last words are about how much she loved
Arthur and now he's gone and she'll never see him again.
So what is the point in fighting anymore?
Is this the polarity of duty and love and really what Britain and
the Western world were going through at the time on what are we
and what are our structures, but who are we?
And they're not necessarily the same thing.
And if you think about your own life, dear listener, there's
probably a single person or a group of people whose approval and
affection and love, you kind of base some of your actions on.
Some of the people at home that could be a group of dogs can they
just intervene?
Yeah, that's true.
That's fine, even-handed, we're not, yes.
Something we're not judgy about your pets.
Something we've joked about in the last few episodes. is, of
course, Ian Levine's reaction to the casting of Jodie Whittaker.
But when you view...
I have such a gentle space for Ian living in my heart.
I really do.
I really get him.
But just like, for instance, okay, we can understand Gene Marsh's
character is driven in part by the love for Arthur, which I don't
think weakens her character in any way.
No, it's strength, it makes it so much more interesting.
That doesn't excuse that she's killed Lavelle. just gives us a
better understanding.
Well, she saw Lavelle as a peasant.
That's why Oh, but she sees her as a warrior too.
Yeah, but I think, yes, that's right.
There's a there for an excuse to do so.
And she doesn't kill her out of sadism.
She kills her to get information.
Now if you look at something like Game of Thrones.
The end of the 1st episode where Jamie pushes Brian out of the
window, he does so with the explanation, the things we do for
love.
It's the only book of Game of Thrones I've read and it's really
good in the book.
Yeah, yeah.
But it's a common feature of very good drama, and it's something
that... right. right.
Louise Jamison was there 1st though, wasn't she?
long before.
But also, remember, it's something that Silv said was his approach
to the character, that his elderly grandmother who was so sad
because everyone she loved was gone.
When she turned to 100 and she said that, she said, that's it. and
she's never, she was a teetotaller.
She was a very careful Scottish Presbyterian lady who never
touched alcohol, never smoked cigarettes, and she that hoisted up
her skirts, said, that's it, and started on the whiskey and fags
and she died 3 years later, and he said the last 3 years were the
happiest year.
That story's not...
It's true, retrospectively. awesome.
But, you know, all of a sudden, doctor was talking about the power
of love, and it's not, and this isn't an indictment of the new
series, but there are quite a few stories in the new series where
the power of love defeats aliens because aliens don't understand
what love is.
Whereas this is...
Or it's a black cube.
Oh, honestly, Stephen Moffin.
That is one of my favourite stories he's done. yeah go on.
Well, that's by Chipnal.
Yeah, don't get it.
But so's exit wounds inside the lady person.
Just in case we're still on the subject.
But here, love is seen as as a driving force for various
characters, you know, for Pat and Elizabeth, for the brigadier, for
more gain, and to a lesser extent, as the story goes on, because
they're just getting to know each other, Bambera and Ansulin.
Mordred, Mordred loves his mum.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, way too much.
Yeah, and you know what?
He is the child of an incestual relationship.
So it's no wonder.
I do have to say, I think Christopher Bowen's performance is
probably the weakest in the story.
He's Mordred.
I don't really get where he's going with his performance.
He gets a few good moments. to be snarly and have lovely pretty
rich boy hair and he actually thinks he's just presenting the boat
race. folk.
He's really just a rich kid.
Yeah.
He's like Eric Trump talking about his father, you know.
Yeah.
Make a valley on great again.
In particular.
And I know it's gauche to talk about this, but the laughing scene
and I do have to wonder if just the comms unit to the floor
manager was down and they're saying, he can stop laughing now.
For God's sake, Christopher, stop.
That always goes into the Panto Christmas party outtakes.
They always do that.
No, just...
Keep it going, keep it going.
Keep it going.
Dude, it's gorgeous job, Chris.
I do have to say, I've seen him in other things and he's great.
He's not a bad actor.
I just think he misses the mark in this, although...
I don't think he does.
I think he's playing spoilt Shallow Rich boy really well.
And I also think he's getting the tone of the production and it
might not be the tone that we want it, but it's the tone that we
get.
It's the tone that we deserve.
It's actually the held over late broadcast Christmas pantos.
Yeah. like it's fun and light, you know, like the script clearly
doesn't want it to be.
The script clearly wants it to be a bit more serious, but the
production clearly decides to go summary and ridiculous.
And that's okay.
That's one of the reasons why it's entertaining.
And we do, of course, now have the neon blue TARDIS as it was
repainted at the end of the happiness patrol, much to the shragrin
of Clayton Hickman.
I actually think it's gorgeous.
It goes with the whole field.
If you're not following Clayton Hickman on Twitter, please do.
He posts rare photos of TARDIS.
And for instance, he's explained why the 1st doctor's TARDIS in
the upcoming Christmas special doesn't have the white windows
because halfway through the war machines.
We all knew that anyway.
But there were about 3 weeks where he just had to retweet it once
a week and he's like, wasting battery power.
We're typing that out.
We all knew that.
He kept having to retweet it, saying, I'm having to explain this
to people again.
I wasn't angry about it. frustration, can't you?
But yeah, if you're not following him on Twitter, he's seriously
lovely, so please do.
One other thing I would like to mention in this episode because
during our viewing marathon, Nathan and I had different opinions
on this, and so Richard, I'd be interested to hear yours, the
scene in the circle where Ace and Xiao Yung, can we just mention a
non-white supporting character, once again, much like Earl Sigma
last year, so Doctor Who is trying to get non-white faces on
screen, which is fantastic.
In general, I really like her.
I think she's a good foil for ace.
In the circle scene where Morgain starts manipulating them and
Xiao Yung starts talking about how Ace is a juvenile delinquent
and Ace fires back with pretty much racist abuse.
What do we think of that scene?
Does she?
Yeah, she does.
It's really hard to hear.
We're discussing it on Twitter with friend of the podcast, Andrew
Hodson, and I may have misheard what's said, and I don't want to
say it.
Do you know what I mean on this podcast?
But the trouble with it, and it's an unavoidable problem, I think
in that you aren't going to really broadcast, you know, on a show
where she constantly calls people bilge bag and toe rag and stuff
like her kind of abuse is always.
So Manchu talons and fingers.
But she's never going to say anything that sounds like a real
racial slur.
Yeah.
And so it is kids TV racial slur and it is, she sort of swallows
it as if she's embarrassed by it.
She certainly says it really quickly.
Look, I think...
I don't mind having those things brought to the surface.
No, I don't think that's bad either.
I just don't think the scene quite works.
It's just nice to have another young lady who doesn't have
elongated fingernails in this one.
Well, I mean, it's pretty Kruger fingernails.
It would have been nice to have Shao Jung in the show without
having to make a point of her race at some point in the story.
Yeah, but it's a point of crisis.
It's unwrapping of the id and, you know, the removal of the super
ego and the seeing of the what is are the real flaws and what with
the true fears in both of these young people.
So, of course, it could actually just be a projection of, I keep
wanting to refer to her as the girl from the Tomorrow people
because she didn't register for me as a character, which is a nice
thing.
She registered for me as just another girl in the show.
So I agree with you, and that's probably why it is a shock and why
I missed it, because you don't read her that way.
So when there is a race of slurs, because, oh, because that
Dorothy is your fears and probably the other girl's great fears
that have been projected and that Ace is picking up on.
They're all picked, they seem to be mirroring each other's
darkness.
So it does make sense that, oh, you've seen my shame or what I
fear.
Yeah.
I think it works really well.
I really like that scene.
It could have been cripplingly celestial toy makery, but it
gets...
Oh, and I quite like then Gene Marsh appears and she's underlit
because she's outside of the bright circle and also not as young
as she was.
But there's also the thing too, where the whole point is that
she's got to protect the sword and when she fails to do that, the
doctor isn't angry at her like she expects it to be a failure.
She's failed, but in fact, you know, provided that she stayed
alive. interesting that Morgan let them live.
Yeah, again, she does have a different morality. think that's
respect for Merlin.
Yeah.
And also that they are, they are non-combatants.
They are not soldiers.
Very true.
I said a few weeks ago that there was one scene where I thought
Silv just doesn't get the line reading, right?
And it's actually when he comes back to the hotel when Morgain is
attacking ACL.
If they're dead.
It's like, it's like he's going for, if they're dead, and also
trying to shout it at the same time, and it just, I don't get what
he's going for in that.
Pierce Brosnan either.
That's what you call everything bad these days, Richard.
Really?
Dinner, you know.
The weather.
Malcolm, Malcolm Turnbull's very Pierce Brosnan.
Actually, that could be dated by the time we put this out.
He may not be Prime Minister anymore.
We could have a potato as prime minister instead of a bag of
rice.
Anyone for chips?
So we've got the tag scene, which feels like the end of one of the
early Emma Peel Colour Avengers episodes.
Nathan, you may not have seen these.
So season 4 of the Avengers.
The black and white ones thing.
They always drive off in a different vehicle, something related to
the episode.
They continue that in the 1st colour season, but it's always the
same country house they're driving away from, they have a little
conversation inside, and then all of a sudden they're out in some
weird car and drive out through the gate, and that's the tag
scene.
And that's what this feels like to be because you've got the
brigadier, Anselon, and the doctor sitting out in the garden.
And then it turns out that all the female leads.
So Doris, Bambera, Xiao Jung, and Ace are going off for a drive-in
town.
I had shopping.
Yeah, because that's what girls do. right.
I don't mind it.
I wish more gain had been there as well.
She could have gone shopping as well.
Wouldn't that have been awesome?
What is this thing you call shopping?
It's a very carry-on kind of ending, isn't it?
It feels like the cover of the beano or the dandy Christmas
special.
But the script is originally heading towards the death of the
British.
Yes.
Yeah, so we would have had a very, very different ending from
that.
But the show is no longer as cynical as it once was.
And this and the previous 3 and 3 quarter episodes would not have
supported it.
No, exactly.
The tone would have been quite wrong.
And so it's a lovely ending.
And there is that thing, we'll bring a major character back and
kill them.
That's drama.
That's so exciting.
But it's such a...
Adolescent, Saywardian kind of...
You know, version of drama.
Whereas this, I think, is so light and so funny.
It gets sort of ludicrous, cafe comedy cartoon music at the end of
it.
Which, you know, works for once.
I do think this is Kef's worst score for the show.
Yeah, it's a big house, I know, but, you know, okay, there's a
piece in Paradise Tower, which is worse than anything in this
story, and that's the March of the Cleaners, which I've already
mentioned.
Like when they have a cleaner going down a corridor.
Shall we speed up the footage?
No, let's just put on this 62nd piece of dun, dun, dun, dun, dun
dun.
Yeah, I was gonna say, it makes the sorcerer's apprentice.
Yeah, and as I was doing that, Richard covered Soutex ears, so she
also upset.
But yet, the scene is so lovely.
And yeah, the death of the brig would have been terrible.
In the broadcast version, and the special edition version.
I haven't watched the 2 scenes back to back.
But the scene in the special edition version where the doctor's
saying, you know, you were meant to die in bed and cradling the
brigadier in his arms.
I think they must have done something to the footage because in
the broadcast version, Nick Courtney is just sitting there
blinking.
But in the special edition version, maybe I just haven't noticed
but I think they've like composited earlier frames onto his face
so his face is still, but the bridge is waking up and saying, of
course I didn't stay inside.
It's like, that is totally in character.
You know, back in season 10 and season 11.
We kind of criticise that he'd become Colonel Blimp.
But he's really back in force in this one.
I love him in Spearhead from space.
Yeah.
And he's jolly rompers.
And just the sly and saturnine.
You know, this is really department S units.
BBC being terribly glamorous, my dear.
I can't wait to get popping your vesty thing that you're wearing
right now.
You're expecting him to be the sort of dumb, unimaginative
straight man.
But in fact...
Later on years.
But that's not how he was written.
No, he's amused by the doctor.
How lovely was he in the invasion?
He was a slick call.
And what about Webber Fear when he was the saturnine anti-hero?
Courtney's had a great.
Oh, Brett Vion.
No, this, I mean, this is his final appearance, obviously, in the
classic series.
So, you know, it was an incredible career and really worth
celebrating, I think.
He was spectacular.
And that's what the story has become, and it is a later edition.
There was no brigadier written into the story.
It was JNT suggestion.
Oh, if you're having a brig, why don't we use this one?
She was a USAF colonel, wasn't she?
Yeah, I think that's right.
I'm meant to be American.
Yeah, back in Silver Nemesis.
Nicholas Courtney was one of the tourists wandering around
Windsor.
And that's when he got chatting to JNT and JNT said...
Well, it was actually JNT who said to him, hey, if we wrote a
script, would you like to come back?
And he said, oh, yes, please.
And Janti said, what if we killed you off in a blaze of glory?
Oh, yes, please.
Because you know, any actor wants to do a death scene?
But I mean, I'm glad goodness they didn't do that. yeah It would
have been inappropriate.
And I love that sign.
You were meant to die in your sleep, and then, of course, Russell
would have really stuck to that for Sarah Jane.
It's just lovely.
And a really appropriate sendoff, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
This is his story.
I don't mind that it's his story.
He deserves it.
But I do wish he'd been Brett Vion.
Well, dear listeners, Sylvester McCoy has just cooked us lovely
supper, but now we're off to somewhere where you really don't want
to try the soup.
We'll see you next week for ghost light.
You can find us online at flightthroughentirety.sexy flightthrough
entirety on Facebook and Apple Podcasts and at FTE podcast on
Twitter over on Bondfinger.
We are on a top of things with the Pierce Brosnan era of James
Bond.
You can find that at bondfinger.com, bondfinger on Facebook and
Apple Podcasts and at FTE podcast on Twitter.
Until next time.
Boom.
Thank you very much for listening, good night.
Good night.
Good everything.
That was Flight of Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Brendan
Jones, and Richard Stone.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, logo designed by Anthony
Wells.
This episode, why is it up everything, was recorded on the 6th of
August 2017?
The next episode will be released on the 22nd of October.
Fans of Parallel Worlds in Doctor Who will enjoy Pete's World, the
world with fascists spoiling in lava, and the world where people's
rights aren't subject to a ridiculous postal survey.
It's the one where she saves the world thinking of her mum.
Again, again, and a puddle.
Left a puddle on the floor. a whole euphemism there for ladies.
Some moistened bin throwing around spaceships.
There's no representative basis for government.
And yes, and of course, you know, you can see that this...