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NOTE
This transcript was created on 2026-06-07 at 14:03:52

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Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety, the only Doctor Who podcast with absolutely no idea who Harriet Jones is.

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I'm Nathan.

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I'm James.

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And I'm Max.

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Well, we're finally back on Earth after a 12 hour jaunt through time and space, and everything seems to be completely normal.

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The city is gridlocked.

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Big Ben doesn't work anymore, and the government is run by fat, flatulent aliens.

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Is it real life or is it just aliens of London?

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So, uh, Max, can you talk to us a little bit about when you first saw this episode?

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I can.

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This episode was the first episode I saw, and I, as a kid, as I saw, I was 7 years old, and I, I'll just, I'll drop that in there.

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And then, no, but I was 7 years old and I, um, I saw the trailer on ABC, and it's had the spaceship hitting Big Ben moment.

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That was about the most exciting thing a seven-year-old could possibly say, or at least it was like a dream.

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It was fantastic.

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And I think my parents were worried that it was going to be too scary for me.

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So they taped episodes and then I sort of didn't, and I just was, I think I was only interested in seeing the carnage of Big Ben at that point.

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I wasn't really interested in anything else.

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So then I finally sat down and watched the episode and it hooked me from the moment from that scene where there roses on the rooftop and she's talking about like the things I've seen and no one's seen them and then the lorry sound and the spaceship flies over.

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And I think my dad was saying that he saw in that moment, he thought, well, he's not interested in cricket or football, but at least he's got Doctor Who.

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And that was it.

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And that I was hook clone and sinker.

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That was me.

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Yeah.

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And so that was the 1st doctor who you'd ever see.

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Yeah, yeah, pretty well.

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I think I'd seen the classic reruns before the new series came back Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Because I have a vague memory of Sylvester McCoy crouching in a quarry, but I don't know.

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That's sort of that's a vague.

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Maybe it was could be anything.

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Could be anything.

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But no, but that was in earnest, that was the 1st time.

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Time of the rhyming?

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Well, it could have been, but it could have been any of those, Alan Waring ones on location.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, but effectively, yes.

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And then it became like sort of playground, like, in my imagination, every kid was watching Doctor Who and pretending to be Doctor Who at lunchtime from that point on, probably wasn't the case, but from that point on, all of our year one class or whatever, reenacting Doctor Who all week.

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That's such a great thing to hear because I think there is very definitely a sort of conscious effort from RTD to make Doctor Who something that gets reenacted in the playground.

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Yeah, when I when I watched it again.

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The sort of zip in the forehead moment.

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I realise it's just perfectly distilled kind of playground fodder.

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I remember hearing him interview where he talks about how he loved the idea of like slightly chubbier children being able to just sort of menacingly, like start to unzip their foreheads and everyone would scream and run away.

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I think RTD probably does have a little bit of an issue with ways.

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And not always in a good way, but it might be something that we get back to.

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But I think, you know, in the ones that we've done already this year, I think things like the bin, I don't know if we said that in the rose episode, but I like to imagine kids.

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Oh, you know, dodging bins as they walk down the street just so that they don't suffer Mickey's fate, um, and giving the aliens catchphrases like pity the Gelf and stuff like that.

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I mean, it was just perfect for the playground.

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Or even just the way the doctor's given a normal key.

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Yeah.

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As, you know, in this early 70s, they had that gorgeous spade design, that per wind baker had, which they brought back in the TV movie.

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But giving, giving the doctor, you know, a household key.

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Yeah, for the TARDIS means that any key can be a TARDIS key.

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Any door can be an opening to adventure.

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Yeah.

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You know, like he's he's very evidently going, this is a family show.

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I want kids to, you know, have the same experience I had growing up watching this where, yeah, the whole world was this adventure.

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Yeah, I think that's it.

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I think I've said before, he kind of enchants the world.

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You know, like he imbues it with things, so that a kid looking out the window as they drive along in London and seeing Big Ben thinks about the ship crashing into it or even sort of seeing a London bus or driving down Westminster Bridge or the London eye, you know, like all of those things.

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Oh, or a yeti on the loop.

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Precise.

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Tooting Beck's not a real place, James.

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Yes, it is.

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So we're talking about family.

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And of course, the episode opens, the cold open, doesn't do what a Doctor Who story normally does, which is show you the monsters or show you the threat.

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The role of a cold open is to tell you what the episode's about.

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And the cold open is entirely about Rose's family.

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So the doctor brings Rose back.

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She thinks she's been gone for 12 hours, but the doctors made a mistake.

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And it's a kind of hilarious mistake that we're used to the doctor making, but we suddenly see that it has this massive impact on Rose's family.

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She actually has a real life.

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Yeah.

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She's a real person.

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And it's even with the, I think the doctor's going up to that missing poster.

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And even like Marigold's music is kind of just like really sort of pleasantly and then it just sort of goes sour and there's like this really like huge cheesy stick that just starts to, and as these sort of face drops and horror. fantastic.

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I think it's such a good as the music tells you how to feel.

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It tells you exactly how to feel.

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I like Jackie's reaction because she has been such a sort of hilarious, oblivious comedy character and just the look on her face, like she's seen a ghost and she drops the thing. and it is all intercart with the discovery of the missing poster. and I think Rose looks across a table and there's heaps of missing posters and it's clear that Jackie's entire year has been about Rose being missing.

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And I think I was, I was reading sad for sentry on this, and she talks about the idea that there is concurrently with Doctor Who, a kind of EastEnders style soap going on, and that the 2 of them are crashing into each other, and every 3 weeks we come back to Rose's family in season one, and there are clearly episodes of the soap going on while we've been enjoying the end of the world and the unquiet dead.

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Like, yeah, you get Mickey and Jackie's life is just is happening while we're away.

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Like, even in Mickey's terrible apartment, you know, like that sort of like, like, there's the stop sign on the wall.

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But there's all his UFO books and you get the sense he's just been, like, it's just built into the world of the show that, oh, you know sort of what he's been.

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And I love the detail that like Jackie just assumed that he'd murdered him.

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It's just sort of simmering away underneath it.

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But it's sort of, it's, it's a really, it's kind of terrifyingly dark thing that's just sort of thrown by the wayside.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, there's it's played for laughs, in fact, when Rose asks him later if he's been with anyone in the last 12 months and he says, no, but mostly because everyone thinks I murdered you.

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And, you know, the idea of a black man being called in by the police for the murder of a white woman.

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Like, the show is kind of too light to deal with that really properly.

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But I do think there is a pretty good bit in the middle where the doctor and Rose step out of the TARDIS with Mickey and there's a helicopter and they're going to be escorted to number 10 and the moment that Mickey sees these soldiers, he knows that he has to run, you know, like he doesn't have the kind of charmed life that the doctor and Rose have.

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Exactly.

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Like, I mean, and that's really subtle.

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And like, on 1st viewing, when you're much younger, you don't realise the coding there.

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Yeah.

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I mean, I was 24 when I 1st got this.

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And I didn't even get that coding.

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Um, I like what you say about it being an EastEnder style.

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Soap going on in the background, I much prefer this to the last time Doctor Who didn't, he send his cell soap.

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We'll put that in the show.

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What it reminds me of, and I think I've said this before, is that it's like the Pertwee ear is sort of small semi-regular cast, and particularly after kind of season eight, they do become sort of very semi-regular, but they're always there and we go back to them and it's nice to see them again and they're there for season finales and stuff like that.

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But they're sort of a ridiculous TV army.

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And having them instead being a ridiculous TV sort of soap opera family, particularly at a time where Doctor Who doesn't know if it's going to be popular, it doesn't know whether it's got an audience.

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And I think pitching it at just normal people and having normal TV depictions of normal people.

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I mean, I don't think Jackie's a normal person, but she's a TV mum.

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And the soap opera is so engrained in British culture by this point.

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Yeah, yeah. much more so than for us, I think.

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Yeah, and much more so than it.

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I mean, soaps were very popular back in the 60s and 70s as well, but not in the same way they are in modern Britain now.

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I mean, I think both EastEnders and Coronation Street are some of the highest rated programs on television, like soap is still, most British drama.

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And, you know, soap and science fiction have a lot in common, I think, and there's a scene in queer as folk.

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And I think, again, I probably have to credit Dr. Sand for this again.

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But there's a scene in Quira's folk where Vince goes to a straight pub with people from work and he meets a girl and they bond over Coronation Street and talk about how Doctor Who was put up against Corey in the 80s and ended up suffering in the ratings.

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And most people would have assumed that the audiences for the 2 shows were quite different, but of course they weren't.

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And soap creates a involved world where there are a lot of things to know about a lot of different characters.

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And science fiction does exactly that, particularly in the 80s as well, Doctor Who's completely doing that.

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So I think they're a natural fit.

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But I do think it was met with a bit of hostility from Doctor Who fans.

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Yeah, and I'd be interested to see with season 11 coming up, whether that's the same approach that is used because I think as an exercise in grounding the show and making it much more open to families and to anyone.

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Yeah.

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Like, it's proved an incredibly worthwhile tactic, like, since the 70s, you know, for doctors.

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So I'm interested to see whether that's an approach that Chris Chibnell takes as well.

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Because in a way, it is sort of, I think, coming from the same place and that they want this show to appeal to the most amount of people possible.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I think just having a regular cast of 2 is problematic even just from a TV production point of view.

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It looks, I mean, and this is probably certainly fan rumour.

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But it looks like series 11 is probably hitting down more of a like, you know, police procedural crime drama.

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You know, probably season 11 will all have been screened by the time I managed to get this.

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Well, it's supposed to be out in October.

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Yeah, yeah.

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Yes, it came out in October.

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So we take a little bit of time away from the Tyler family to just go upstairs and have a breather while mum's downstairs having a little bit of a panic.

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And so the doctor and Rose get to have this conversation where they talk about, you know, kind of the story so far.

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That's a great scene, but there are bits of it that aren't land, in my opinion, especially coming from a gay writer. chucking in, you know, and look, we all grew up with this, you know, with the word gay being an insult in the playground.

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And the fact that Russell chucks in, oh, you're so gay.

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And what is it?

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It's in response to the doctor saying that it hurt when Jackie hit him.

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And yeah, look, I mean, yeah, yes.

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But we should be expecting better from a gay writer.

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If you were writing it now, I don't think you would do it, you know, obviously.

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But I think, yeah, it's interesting.

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It is an interesting choice.

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Like he said in defence of that scene at the time, you know, I wanted to put that in there because I am a gay writer and I wanted to make people stop and think and go, oh, if a gay writer is writing this.

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Is it okay?

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Is it okay?

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It's not the 1st use of the word game.

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Because it gets used in rose.

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Remember, you know, that won't work.

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He's gay and she's an alien.

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Yeah, but that's a different sort of thing.

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I mean, that's not being used as an insult.

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And the sort of general ask with Slaven talks about his previous host, having a wife, a mistress, and a young farmer.

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Again, again, that's normalising.

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Yeah, yeah.

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That's normalising being gay or at least... sort of representing it itself.

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Yeah, representing in some way.

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Look, yes, you can read it that way. is that Russell coming up with a reason for using something which he possibly should have questioned.

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Or, I mean, I don't have a problem with that scene if the doctor calls her out on it.

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Or somebody...

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I just think it's too it's complex and distracting.

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And that's a scene where the focus is on that incredible rose tireless smugness about knowing something that no one in the whole world knows and then suddenly getting the rug pulled out from under.

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Yeah, and then I think the lorry sound as the spaceship comes over is just an incredible masterstroke.

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Because you hear it before you see it.

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Yeah.

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And so you're not quite sure what's happening and then just this massive spaceship.

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I just think as a sort of trailer moment and as a scene, I think it's fantastic.

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So Doctor Who's had alien invasions before, but I think that this is vastly different from anyone that we've ever seen in that it's the most public alien invasion ever.

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Well, we're talking about the Saigon gambit with the Loch Ness monster or the yetis in the underground.

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Yeah, I guess they have been public in the past, haven't they?

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We've evacuated London twice.

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Or the invasion of the dinosaur.

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I think what makes it feel particularly new obviously is looking at it through the prism of the media.

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The scene where the flicking through the channels and the doctors just in this sort of, it's just forced to be in this in, like, everyone's just bickering about, you know, like, I think Jackie's talking about like an old relationship or or like something like, he characterises it as some talking about where you can get cheap top-up cards.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And I love, but then like seeing the spaceship in Blue Peter.

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And then seeing, obviously, like the US media, like as the episodes go on, as it becomes sort of more, a more sort of global UN getting drawn into it.

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And it becomes such a staple of the Russell T. Davis era.

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Yeah, even the US newsreader has a name and has a character and Trinity Wells.

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Wells.

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And I remember in the writer's tale, he talks about wanting to bring her in a sort of fantastic cameo appearance in the stolen earth where she has to be your badass and kind of, I think, but I just, I love that there's this extended world and it's pretty quickly drawn and it's sort of quite surface, but I like having actual BBC anchors.

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Yeah, like Andrew Marr.

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Andrew Mar talking about and he's fantastic.

184
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Yeah, like he's just such such a natural kind of...

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And he's just in it a lot and he's giving this little sarcastic snipes throughout the entire episode.

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He just takes it up slightly one level sort of bigger than reality.

187
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Yeah, yeah. yeah exactly.

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And it's, and I love, and I just think seeing an alien invasion through contemporary 24 hour news is something that feels incredibly fresh for the program.

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And if you're thinking about likes of the capolia, they kind of jettison it because it became such a staple and a tribe of the of the Russell T. Davis era, but I think it's it feels fantastically fresh in these 2 episodes, I think.

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They basically jettison it from, yeah, from, from, it's the 11th hour onwards practice.

191
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It's in the power of it's in the power of 3 a little bit.

192
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But that feels more like a bit of a callback when they bring Brian Cox on, all that kind of stuff.

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Yeah, or that sort of episode 11 sort of montage of various people that happens in the Russell T. Davies thing as well.

194
00:17:49.140 --> 00:17:51.539
It is something that he did in the 2nd coming.

195
00:17:51.599 --> 00:17:55.259
Like he partly tells that story through media as well.

196
00:17:55.319 --> 00:18:03.000
And in fact, this is very similar, I think, in some ways to the 2nd coming, which is absolutely definitely worthwhile watching.

197
00:18:03.059 --> 00:18:03.900
Yeah, it's fantastic.

198
00:18:03.960 --> 00:18:08.099
Absolutely, definitely him going, I'm trying to make Doctor Who, but I can't do it.

199
00:18:08.160 --> 00:18:09.059
Not yet.

200
00:18:09.119 --> 00:18:11.400
So how can I tell a story?

201
00:18:11.460 --> 00:18:12.720
Kind of a bit like Doctor Who.

202
00:18:12.779 --> 00:18:15.299
Ah, I know, I'll bring back Jesus.

203
00:18:16.140 --> 00:18:21.599
But he actually uses it sort of quite deftly to push the story along as well.

204
00:18:21.660 --> 00:18:29.640
I mean, part of the story is that the aliens have done something huge and public and dramatic to create an impact.

205
00:18:29.819 --> 00:18:42.839
But then he actually moves the story from the doctor in Rose, where it stays for quite a lot of that 1st episode into the hospital and then we move away from them and have scenes without them for the 1st time.

206
00:18:43.259 --> 00:18:49.200
Of course we get the 1st introduction of Tashiko Sato.

207
00:18:49.259 --> 00:18:57.599
Yeah, so she's credited as Dr. Sato, and we discover, I think, in Torchwood series two, that...

208
00:18:57.599 --> 00:18:59.220
Is that episode 11 or series two, I think?

209
00:18:59.880 --> 00:19:02.460
But Owen Owen was hung over.

210
00:19:02.519 --> 00:19:04.980
He was supposed to do it because he's actually a doctor.

211
00:19:05.039 --> 00:19:07.859
And so she was just there pretending to be a doctor.

212
00:19:07.920 --> 00:19:11.160
And that's how she sort of comes to be just a really rough day.

213
00:19:11.819 --> 00:19:18.539
I mean, there's no sign that she's tortured and obviously they didn't think of that until later and it was just a sort of cute recon.

214
00:19:18.599 --> 00:19:20.400
Those are quite good scenes, I think.

215
00:19:20.460 --> 00:19:29.400
Yeah, I love the whole, again, I think maybe because it's quite fresh in my head from when I saw it and I was devastated by the shooting of the big man.

216
00:19:29.460 --> 00:19:37.380
Like, I, that was, I mean, I'm pretty easy tears, but, but that I was, I was sort of very, um, and I think, I, I don't know.

217
00:19:37.440 --> 00:19:45.059
It seems like one of Russell T. Davis's where you can be quite brutal in just killing off this poor little...

218
00:19:45.480 --> 00:19:54.539
It's sort of quite a devastating scene, and it seems, and it's quite, it's a bit of a tonal shift, certainly, from the episode that it's been set up before that point.

219
00:19:54.599 --> 00:20:01.980
It's very clever because it goes from being kind of horror with the thing banging inside the sort of mortuary drawer.

220
00:20:02.039 --> 00:20:05.220
And then it goes to comedy when the pig sort of sticks its head around the corner.

221
00:20:05.339 --> 00:20:06.240
It's clearly peak.

222
00:20:06.299 --> 00:20:11.579
It makes a pig noise and then it runs off in this sort of comedy way and then suddenly it shot dead.

223
00:20:11.640 --> 00:20:16.079
And I think it's Eccleston who sells that with the, it was scared line.

224
00:20:16.140 --> 00:20:18.839
He says it twice and he really feels it.

225
00:20:18.900 --> 00:20:22.440
Like, and I think you're right, identifying Russell as brutal.

226
00:20:22.500 --> 00:20:28.920
I mean, he does have this light tea time tone, but there's a lot of kind of horrible nastiness.

227
00:20:28.980 --> 00:20:37.200
Even I'm skipping ahead slightly, but even when all the experts are killed in the cliffhanger, and there's just a room full of dead scientists, like it feels...

228
00:20:37.259 --> 00:20:51.599
I mean, I mean, Doctor Who does that a fair bit, but I think maybe even coming from the Moffatt era where I think you just see less of that sort of willingness to just kill an entire room of people and then just sort of like flippantly kind of move on.

229
00:20:51.839 --> 00:21:10.319
But I mean, it is he's he's pretty good at making it sort of wash over your head while you're watching, but it's sort of taking a step back and going, there's some incredible sort of, I mean, Doctor Who is incredible at definitely navigating massive tonal shifts from comedy to what otherwise would be horrific.

230
00:21:10.380 --> 00:21:10.619
Yeah.

231
00:21:10.680 --> 00:21:16.200
No, I think there's a real kind of dark cynicism behind Russell's really sunny exterior.

232
00:21:16.259 --> 00:21:18.359
You know, that sort of public persona.

233
00:21:18.420 --> 00:21:24.059
He has all the way through the publicity of his time, all of the DVD commentaries and stuff.

234
00:21:24.119 --> 00:21:26.339
Everything's marvellous and everything's just lovely.

235
00:21:26.460 --> 00:21:29.279
It's just so jovial, but like under the surface.

236
00:21:29.339 --> 00:21:31.200
Yeah, it'd be really horrible.

237
00:21:31.259 --> 00:21:37.259
I think that episode, I think it's episode 6 of cucumber is the most upsetting piece of television I've ever seen.

238
00:21:37.319 --> 00:21:38.460
Yeah, don't.

239
00:21:44.519 --> 00:21:46.319
Can we talk about the Slovene?

240
00:21:46.380 --> 00:21:48.779
Maybe the most controversial part of the episode?

241
00:21:48.839 --> 00:21:51.900
The Slakeen, the Slakeen, as Jackie calls them.

242
00:21:54.240 --> 00:21:58.019
Maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves because it is in the next episode.

243
00:21:58.079 --> 00:22:07.500
Do you read the most controversial part of the episode because of the farting or because of or because of the terrible cliffhanger that goes on for 25 minutes?

244
00:22:07.559 --> 00:22:17.880
Well, we'll talk about the Cliffhanger, but let's talk about the Sabine because it is kind of, this one is in fam memory as the one with the farting aliens.

245
00:22:17.940 --> 00:22:21.960
And I know that there's a lot of people who are really angry about that.

246
00:22:22.019 --> 00:22:29.339
And I think that Russell is definitely kind of rubbing it in our faces, like it's very deliberate, I think.

247
00:22:29.880 --> 00:22:36.720
I mean, yes, you say that, but it's like there are 4 episodes with gassy aliens this season.

248
00:22:36.779 --> 00:22:38.700
We've had the we've had the gals.

249
00:22:38.759 --> 00:22:39.480
Yes.

250
00:22:39.539 --> 00:22:42.299
Yeah, and then these two, and then Boomtown.

251
00:22:42.359 --> 00:22:43.079
Is there another one?

252
00:22:43.140 --> 00:22:44.339
No, I think that's it.

253
00:22:44.400 --> 00:22:51.900
But I mean, Bob Holmes has that entire planet living off Kroll's farts joke in the power of Kroll?

254
00:22:52.019 --> 00:22:53.759
Or the terceron?

255
00:22:54.059 --> 00:22:55.980
by more of it.

256
00:22:56.039 --> 00:22:59.099
But I think this is the 1st time it's been on screen in Doctor Who.

257
00:22:59.160 --> 00:23:10.920
And I think we've seen from, say, the last Jedi backlash that people who are proprietorial over their science fiction franchises want them to be super, super serious.

258
00:23:10.980 --> 00:23:13.259
And it's not just the farting.

259
00:23:13.319 --> 00:23:21.779
It is that kind of childish glee. that the Slavene, you know, exhibit.

260
00:23:21.839 --> 00:23:24.539
I think I loved them when I was a kid.

261
00:23:24.599 --> 00:23:29.819
And then when I was 11 or 12, I sort of thought, you know, oh, it thought who should be serious.

262
00:23:29.880 --> 00:23:32.160
Yeah, and that's ridiculous and stupid.

263
00:23:32.220 --> 00:23:33.059
They're very teenager.

264
00:23:33.119 --> 00:23:34.079
Very teenage thing.

265
00:23:34.140 --> 00:23:55.319
And I think then I've come back around to I think they're perfect for the story that they've been put in because I think it's the idea that you would put what is effectively sort of a bit of an urban kind of thriller, you know, returning to earth and telling this, like the longer story so far in the season about this sort of strange alien arrival.

266
00:23:55.380 --> 00:24:06.720
The fact that you would put then silly green monsters that when they're putting in, you know, on their human bodies, I think it's fantastic and it's just, it's a way of not appearing to take the whole thing too seriously.

267
00:24:06.779 --> 00:24:07.559
And I think, yeah.

268
00:24:07.619 --> 00:24:16.440
I think too, the conception of the aliens where they actually sort of tear people's skin off and sort of live in the skin is actually really kind of horrible.

269
00:24:16.500 --> 00:24:22.920
And when you get Harriet Jones cowering in the cupboard watching it happen and sort of reacting like it's a real, horrible, scary thing.

270
00:24:22.980 --> 00:24:26.279
So selling the fact that this is horrific what's happening.

271
00:24:26.339 --> 00:24:32.220
Yeah, but then having Annette and Joseph being just sort of truly hilarious.

272
00:24:32.279 --> 00:24:33.180
Fantastic.

273
00:24:33.299 --> 00:24:34.799
The juxtaposition.

274
00:24:34.859 --> 00:24:35.220
Yeah.

275
00:24:35.220 --> 00:24:36.839
I had a neighbour.

276
00:24:36.900 --> 00:24:40.680
Our next door neighbour was the spitting image of Annette.

277
00:24:40.740 --> 00:24:48.180
And so the combination of that and having her like evil, yeah, it's that sort of evil glee that she has.

278
00:24:48.180 --> 00:24:51.000
And she just steals the entire...

279
00:24:51.059 --> 00:24:52.500
So you can totally understand why.

280
00:24:52.559 --> 00:24:56.460
I mean, I don't, was it reflective of a performance why they came back to her character?

281
00:24:56.640 --> 00:24:57.180
I think so.

282
00:24:57.240 --> 00:24:59.940
Like, I think they bring her back for Boomtown.

283
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:03.539
I think something falls through or something like it's a bit of a late thing.

284
00:25:03.599 --> 00:25:08.339
I'm not entirely sure. of the production history, but I think they bring her back on the strength of that performance.

285
00:25:08.339 --> 00:25:13.740
And then, of course, they cast her in wizards versus aliens as well as a result of it too.

286
00:25:13.799 --> 00:25:28.259
Friend of the podcast, Peter Griffiths says that Annette tells a story about being kind of stared at by a small child on the tube one time and her sort of turning around and going to zip her forehead open at the child.

287
00:25:28.440 --> 00:25:31.319
And like I can just totally imagine that.

288
00:25:31.380 --> 00:25:32.700
She's really, really wonderful.

289
00:25:32.759 --> 00:25:36.059
But I think all of them are really sort of terrific and funny.

290
00:25:36.119 --> 00:25:42.720
And um, look, I'm not sure that all of the farts land quite as well as they might.

291
00:25:42.779 --> 00:25:48.420
And I think we can talk more about that next week when we talk about Keith Folks' direction.

292
00:25:48.480 --> 00:25:53.099
But I have absolutely no objection to it and I really like.

293
00:25:53.160 --> 00:26:03.599
I mean, you know, Russell makes the doctor say, would you mind not farting while I'm saving the world, you know, and puts it, I think, in the next time trailer for the previous episode.

294
00:26:03.720 --> 00:26:05.400
Like, he totally leans into it.

295
00:26:05.460 --> 00:26:18.180
So it is a very definite attempt, I think, to alienate the show from sort of 80 style science fiction fandom and to say this is for kids and families as well.

296
00:26:18.299 --> 00:26:19.740
This is going to be funny.

297
00:26:19.799 --> 00:26:23.039
And it's not like this story is without any serious intent.

298
00:26:23.099 --> 00:26:30.000
It's got serious things to say, but it has a lightness and a comedy and a refusal to take itself too seriously, I think.

299
00:26:36.059 --> 00:26:38.819
So, who do we think was the prime minister in the cupboard?

300
00:26:38.880 --> 00:26:42.299
Well, I mean, was definitely actually supposed to be Tony Blair?

301
00:26:42.359 --> 00:26:48.480
I actually like the, there's a little bit of banter when they're in the car on the way to number 10.

302
00:26:48.839 --> 00:26:56.700
Because on the posters, it says that Rose disappears on the 6th of March 205, 2005.

303
00:26:56.880 --> 00:26:58.920
And so...

304
00:26:58.920 --> 00:26:59.519
I don't know.

305
00:27:00.059 --> 00:27:01.980
I'm quite old.

306
00:27:02.279 --> 00:27:10.019
And so this story is set nearly 12 months into the future. by time of broadcast.

307
00:27:10.079 --> 00:27:20.940
And since 2003, Brown and Blair had been clearly having conflict over whether Blair should step down and whether Brown would take over.

308
00:27:21.059 --> 00:27:25.259
So, Rose, Rose doesn't know who the prime minister is.

309
00:27:25.319 --> 00:27:31.559
Well, there's that, but if it had been brown, they could have actually just replaced the prime minister.

310
00:27:31.619 --> 00:27:32.400
With a saline.

311
00:27:32.400 --> 00:27:34.440
Oh, absolutely.

312
00:27:35.220 --> 00:27:44.160
No, they actually did employ a Tony Blair lookalike to play the dead private on the floor.

313
00:27:44.220 --> 00:27:50.880
But when he turned out not to look very alike to Tony Blair, they decided to not really show his face.

314
00:27:50.940 --> 00:27:53.160
I like the fact that he just falls out of a cupboard.

315
00:27:53.160 --> 00:27:55.380
And it sort of, it's completely humiliating.

316
00:27:55.440 --> 00:27:57.839
They've just shoved him in a cupboard.

317
00:27:57.900 --> 00:28:02.519
I think it will become very clear next episode why the hostility to Tony Blair.

318
00:28:02.640 --> 00:28:13.920
It gives them a little bit of like a room to say, no, it's actually a fictional Prime Minister, but on the staircase in number 10 where they have the photos of all the Prime Ministers, the very last one there is John Major.

319
00:28:13.980 --> 00:28:15.059
There's no photo after that.

320
00:28:15.119 --> 00:28:19.380
So let's say it's Tony Blair and we'll talk about why next week.

321
00:28:19.440 --> 00:28:27.059
Well, there's also that line from Harriet Jones where she says, I'm hardly one of the babes.

322
00:28:27.119 --> 00:28:27.960
Yeah.

323
00:28:27.960 --> 00:28:39.059
And after Labour one, the landslide election 1987, there were, I think, 100, 101 new feet.

324
00:28:39.119 --> 00:28:43.740
Well, not necessarily new, but elected female labour MPs in parliament.

325
00:28:43.799 --> 00:28:48.299
It's one of the highest representations of women in British Parliament ever.

326
00:28:48.900 --> 00:28:51.119
Still to this day, I believe.

327
00:28:51.180 --> 00:28:57.359
And in Parliament that year, there were 120 women elected.

328
00:28:57.420 --> 00:29:05.400
So, like there was in the media, in typical sort of misogynist fashion at the time, they were dubbed Blair's babes.

329
00:29:05.460 --> 00:29:06.000
Right.

330
00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:14.640
Because, you know, like, let's trivialise the fact that, you know, instead of Instagram, wow, this is amazing.

331
00:29:14.700 --> 00:29:19.200
We've got the highest representation of women ever in British Parliament.

332
00:29:19.259 --> 00:29:21.000
Let's just trivialise it.

333
00:29:21.059 --> 00:29:23.160
Trivialise them as babes, basically.

334
00:29:23.220 --> 00:29:25.680
Okay, so that is Blair.

335
00:29:25.799 --> 00:29:42.480
Yeah, and that was deliberate foregrounding the fact that it was supposed to be Blair, but they cut everything else out when it turned out the guy that they'd hired as a lookalike. wasn't that good or like, which is sort of failing at the 1st post if you're, if you're billing yourself as a blender.

336
00:29:42.539 --> 00:29:43.680
Yeah, yeah, you had one job.

337
00:29:44.640 --> 00:29:49.799
You've lost your shot to be the murdered Tony Blair and Doctor Who.

338
00:29:57.059 --> 00:30:00.660
So what do you guys think about the doctor and Rose in this story?

339
00:30:00.720 --> 00:30:06.240
Like, I was reading Sandifer's thing as well. jumped on that bandwagon.

340
00:30:06.299 --> 00:30:13.259
And it was interesting how it's saying the walk, because the 1st 3 episodes are clearly story of the week and sort of dealing with this is what Doctor Who is.

341
00:30:13.319 --> 00:30:23.039
But this is sort of the 1st occasion where the doctor in Rose sort of particularly Rose's character starts to impose itself on the whole show rather than rather than a sort of textbook.

342
00:30:23.099 --> 00:30:24.000
This is Doctor Who.

343
00:30:24.119 --> 00:30:24.900
Yeah, yeah.

344
00:30:24.960 --> 00:30:35.640
I think that the overall arc thing, because there is a big story about what Rose is doing in her relationship with her family, which really becomes clear, I think, in the very final scene of next episode.

345
00:30:35.700 --> 00:30:46.259
But I think that there is something about the relationship between them that is already kind of slightly problematic and that is how much they enjoy what's going on around them.

346
00:30:46.259 --> 00:30:51.660
And it's really sweet seeing them both in the car and both being super excited about going to number 10.

347
00:30:51.960 --> 00:30:58.440
But I think that the show as early as this is starting to kind of look askance at that.

348
00:30:58.680 --> 00:31:16.019
And it sort of reaches its apotheosis in series 2 with Rose and the 10th doctor and the fall at the end of series 2 and her ending up in other universe because of their hubris, basically.

349
00:31:16.079 --> 00:31:21.839
Um, as a character arc, I actually quite like that.

350
00:31:21.900 --> 00:31:28.079
The fact that the show is going, you know, there are costs to the way you approach the world.

351
00:31:28.140 --> 00:31:38.220
Um, you know, you, you, you're enjoying the fact that you could die any minute and the thrill and the adrenaline of that and, but there are costs.

352
00:31:38.279 --> 00:31:41.759
There's a price you have to pay if you keep approaching the world in that way.

353
00:31:41.819 --> 00:31:48.299
And they return to that in season 9 with Clara's ark quite deliberately and probably a bit more sort of explicitly.

354
00:31:48.900 --> 00:31:55.740
But it's interesting, I think, because both of those characters have the longest kind of, I suppose Amy does as well.

355
00:31:55.799 --> 00:32:01.319
But they have the longer sort of one-on-one relationship with the doctor that we see in this.

356
00:32:01.380 --> 00:32:06.000
And I think it's treated as an almost inevitable if you stay with the doctor too long, this...

357
00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:09.660
Their lives are forever altered by interacting with him.

358
00:32:09.720 --> 00:32:19.859
And unless you sort of get out like Martha does or tragic circumstances before you like Donna, it's almost like a corruption or something.

359
00:32:19.920 --> 00:32:25.980
It's just this sort of altering of these adventures and this danger will definitely change.

360
00:32:26.039 --> 00:32:30.359
You could backwards construct that onto Sarah Jane Smith as well.

361
00:32:30.420 --> 00:32:36.660
I mean, not that it's a deliberate thing in the classic series, but well, school reunion does that as well.

362
00:32:36.720 --> 00:32:46.380
But when you were talking about this in the classic series of flight through entirety way, you were talking about how after her 1st couple of stories, she's not really a real person anymore.

363
00:32:46.440 --> 00:32:52.380
And she becomes corrupted by travelling with the doctor.

364
00:32:52.440 --> 00:33:02.099
I think it'll come up later on next series where Jackie suggests that at some point Rose won't even be human anymore as she keeps travelling with the doctor.

365
00:33:02.160 --> 00:33:06.660
She'll be on some moon somewhere and she'll have forgotten who everyone is.

366
00:33:06.779 --> 00:33:09.180
And all of that, I think, is yet to come.

367
00:33:09.240 --> 00:33:19.200
But I think here, that feeling manifests itself most of all, in the kind of cavalier way that the doctor wrecks, Jackie, and Mickey's life.

368
00:33:19.200 --> 00:33:31.200
And, you know, he runs into the room at the end of the cold open and just goes, I'm sorry, you know, you've been gone 12 months. sorry and then gives that smile, that sort of embarrassed smile.

369
00:33:31.259 --> 00:33:37.980
And then we just cut back to this sort of, you know, weeping, Jackie, like all of these terrible things have happened.

370
00:33:38.039 --> 00:33:39.480
Unfortunately, he does pay for it.

371
00:33:39.539 --> 00:33:40.740
I mean she does smack him in the face.

372
00:33:40.799 --> 00:33:43.319
It would have been perfect if that smack had come.

373
00:33:43.380 --> 00:33:45.720
At the end of the cold open.

374
00:33:45.900 --> 00:33:47.700
Or at the beginning.

375
00:33:47.700 --> 00:33:50.039
At the beginning of the credits.

376
00:33:50.099 --> 00:33:51.059
So it would have been perfect.

377
00:33:51.119 --> 00:33:53.460
And that stuff is great as well.

378
00:33:53.519 --> 00:34:03.299
They give Chris things to do that the doctor's never done before, which is, you know, push a toddler off his lap while he's trying to watch television.

379
00:34:03.359 --> 00:34:16.079
Um, even when he sort of has to stay, and they, because the police officer comes around at the end of the coal open, and he sort of has to sort of sheepishly, sheepishly stand there, sort of, you know, being questioned by...

380
00:34:16.199 --> 00:34:17.280
Is this a sexual relationship?

381
00:34:17.340 --> 00:34:18.300
Well, shouldn't have that.

382
00:34:18.360 --> 00:34:26.460
That's never a question that gets asked of the classic series at all, even when the doctor and Lala are running hand in hand through Paris.

383
00:34:26.519 --> 00:34:34.199
But, but, but, I mean, companion was always quite an innocent thing. you know, what was that lied about?

384
00:34:34.320 --> 00:34:37.860
Isn't a companion, uh, something that dowager aunts had?

385
00:34:37.920 --> 00:34:39.300
What's that from?

386
00:34:39.360 --> 00:34:40.260
I don't remember.

387
00:34:40.800 --> 00:34:47.280
Companion has only really got that meaning between the classic series and the new series.

388
00:34:47.340 --> 00:34:50.639
Companion has gained this sexual innuendo.

389
00:34:50.699 --> 00:35:00.539
Which is interesting, particularly because the news series has dropped the word companion from the entire format of the series when they had their big sort of worldwide launch.

390
00:35:00.539 --> 00:35:01.860
They don't call them companions.

391
00:35:01.920 --> 00:35:02.820
They're the doctor's friends.

392
00:35:02.880 --> 00:35:08.219
Yeah, every reference to companion seems to sort of be kind of pushed away.

393
00:35:08.280 --> 00:35:13.800
It's that weird Fanish construct where you get to argue about whether Katerina is a companion or not.

394
00:35:13.860 --> 00:35:16.380
And it's sort of nonsense. like what is that?

395
00:35:16.800 --> 00:35:21.300
I was reading feminist critique of Doctor Who recently.

396
00:35:21.840 --> 00:35:32.280
Which was, you know, interesting, but they counted Caterino's companion, but not Sarah Kingdom, which I was like, is Brett Vine a companion?

397
00:35:33.840 --> 00:35:38.940
How could you count someone who's there for like an episode, really?

398
00:35:39.179 --> 00:35:42.239
to someone who's throughout an entire story.

399
00:35:42.300 --> 00:35:51.119
Well, I mean, anyway, the whole thing is a sort of silly idea, and the word companion is a sort of stupid word, and kind of the doctor gets slapped down for using it.

400
00:35:51.239 --> 00:35:56.460
But he is also kind of sexualised in a way that he hasn't really been much before.

401
00:35:56.519 --> 00:36:00.480
I mean, we had Pat Trouton flirting with various female guest stars, but...

402
00:36:00.480 --> 00:36:02.820
From the moment Jackie meets him, he's sexualised.

403
00:36:02.880 --> 00:36:03.900
Yeah, yeah.

404
00:36:04.019 --> 00:36:12.480
Even when he's walking away from the power estate to his TARTA, someone calls out from the balconies and come back to the party handsome, too, which I really like.

405
00:36:12.480 --> 00:36:16.260
And he sort of just, and you can tell that he's heard it and registered it.

406
00:36:25.320 --> 00:36:34.019
We're kind of nearing the end of our discussion and it's not a real Doctor Who series unless there are some cliffhangers.

407
00:36:34.079 --> 00:36:38.340
So this is our 1st cliffhanger of the new series, and it's one of 3 cliffhangers.

408
00:36:38.400 --> 00:36:41.280
We're not getting a cliffhanger every 25 minutes anymore.

409
00:36:41.400 --> 00:36:44.400
How do we think this one lands?

410
00:36:44.460 --> 00:36:46.380
It's definitely the worst one.

411
00:36:47.099 --> 00:36:50.699
Probably the worst cliffhanger of the entire new series.

412
00:36:50.760 --> 00:36:53.519
Possibly the entire series altogether.

413
00:36:53.579 --> 00:36:54.480
Why do you say?

414
00:36:54.539 --> 00:36:57.000
It's almost as if they'd forgotten.

415
00:36:57.059 --> 00:37:00.659
I mean, well, you know, it's the new people making this show.

416
00:37:00.719 --> 00:37:06.360
So they haven't forgotten, but it's almost as if the show doesn't know how to do it, Cliffharing.

417
00:37:06.420 --> 00:37:08.400
Okay, they work it out by the next time.

418
00:37:08.460 --> 00:37:12.179
But it's so bloody prolonged.

419
00:37:12.239 --> 00:37:15.719
It's like, how many peril monkeys can you have?

420
00:37:15.780 --> 00:37:20.219
Can 3 different cliffhangers intercutting backwards and forwards constantly?

421
00:37:20.280 --> 00:37:25.800
It could have worked if there were 2 3 is just overkill and it's just so slow.

422
00:37:25.860 --> 00:37:27.480
It's like, oh, they're undoing their zips.

423
00:37:27.539 --> 00:37:28.500
They're undoing their zips.

424
00:37:28.559 --> 00:37:29.579
They aren't doing their zips.

425
00:37:29.639 --> 00:37:30.780
They aren't doing their zip.

426
00:37:30.840 --> 00:37:33.780
Like, when is somebody going to die, please?

427
00:37:34.500 --> 00:37:39.539
And then straight after the cliffhanger, we get the next time trailer.

428
00:37:39.599 --> 00:37:41.519
And it's just...

429
00:37:41.579 --> 00:37:47.699
I mean, you can tell they're they're, you know, they, it's a new show that like, it's the 1st recording block, isn't it?

430
00:37:47.760 --> 00:37:48.539
Yeah, yeah.

431
00:37:48.599 --> 00:37:54.179
And I think that scene with the doctor and the experts doesn't really land, I think, at all.

432
00:37:54.300 --> 00:38:06.719
It feels orchestrated, but I need to get to the cliffhanger rather than a sense of, I mean, I know that there's the sense of, oh, we're getting experts and it is sort of part of the Sadine's plan to get rid of get rid of these people in this room.

433
00:38:06.840 --> 00:38:13.019
So I get that, but I just feel like it sort of comes, I don't know, it comes out of the blue a little bit.

434
00:38:13.079 --> 00:38:16.380
It's almost like RTD went, well, they're all here.

435
00:38:16.440 --> 00:38:17.340
How am I going to kill them?

436
00:38:17.400 --> 00:38:19.559
Oh, security passing.

437
00:38:20.340 --> 00:38:25.739
I think what's odd about it too is Chris's demeanour in that scene is very strange.

438
00:38:26.099 --> 00:38:35.699
Yeah, I think when he's talked about not landing the comedy right, I always think of that scene where it's a bit, I think, well, maybe because it's the 1st recording block.

439
00:38:35.820 --> 00:38:38.880
Yeah, he handles the comedy with sort of quite heavily.

440
00:38:38.940 --> 00:38:40.679
I think he's talked about in the part.

441
00:38:40.739 --> 00:38:46.019
Yeah, he's not natural to him. when he works it out, when he actually gets the rhythm of it.

442
00:38:46.079 --> 00:38:47.280
He's quite charming.

443
00:38:47.400 --> 00:38:48.000
Yeah, yeah.

444
00:38:48.059 --> 00:38:51.599
I also think those experts are kind of scenery as well.

445
00:38:51.659 --> 00:39:05.400
Yeah, like none of them get aligned, you know, yeah. who are so integral to certain parts of the classic series and are mythical and just thrown away.

446
00:39:05.460 --> 00:39:11.880
And that's that's a very deliberate thing, Russell's part as well going...

447
00:39:11.940 --> 00:39:12.960
This is what you think, Doctor Who is.

448
00:39:14.099 --> 00:39:19.679
It's interesting what you say about Chris, you know, looking uncomfortable at the scene.

449
00:39:19.739 --> 00:39:22.920
I think I like to think that's the scene at which he realised he wanted to leave.

450
00:39:24.360 --> 00:39:30.719
Because that, I mean, essentially the 1st recording block is where he kind of went, oh, this thing is a mess.

451
00:39:30.780 --> 00:39:32.760
I don't like what's going on.

452
00:39:32.820 --> 00:39:35.099
I don't like how they're treating their actors.

453
00:39:35.159 --> 00:39:45.539
Like, he read that as a toxic work environment, apparently, from what he said since, when, you know, it was more a case of they were clueless.

454
00:39:45.659 --> 00:39:46.559
They didn't know what they were doing.

455
00:39:46.619 --> 00:39:50.400
They were overrunning, they were over budget apparently.

456
00:39:50.460 --> 00:39:54.360
And, yeah, it's accident more than design.

457
00:39:54.420 --> 00:39:55.380
Yeah, I think.

458
00:39:55.619 --> 00:40:02.039
But I kind of think if they've got like 3 cliffhangers, they really need to make them each land.

459
00:40:02.099 --> 00:40:05.940
And so there's a very clear desire, I think, to make this enormous.

460
00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:14.340
And so having the same cliffhanger at sort of 3 plot strands and building it up, I think you're right, it takes too long.

461
00:40:14.400 --> 00:40:21.659
But I do think it strikes upon something that is genius, which is having Jackie in peril. love that.

462
00:40:21.719 --> 00:40:26.039
I love it's the same cow that she does with the autons, like notes.

463
00:40:26.039 --> 00:40:26.880
It's just fantastic.

464
00:40:27.000 --> 00:40:28.079
It's like, and it's the same.

465
00:40:28.139 --> 00:40:37.079
I think she's, of all the three, I think, the one in Jackie's apartment is the most, there's something fantastic about seeing the Slavin in just in a normal apartment.

466
00:40:37.139 --> 00:40:37.739
Yeah.

467
00:40:37.800 --> 00:40:51.960
I mean, it is fun seeing them in Downing Street, but having just a like a huge, like a really like monster monster in a way that the new series hasn't done before, like, you know, like it's men in massive suits, you know, leering over, and it's kind of just, I like that part of it.

468
00:40:52.019 --> 00:40:52.739
And I think you're right.

469
00:40:52.800 --> 00:40:59.400
Like, I think it takes like work to get those to converge at the right time with 3 separate, very similar, you know.

470
00:40:59.519 --> 00:41:01.739
Well, it didn't really work.

471
00:41:01.800 --> 00:41:04.019
No, no, but the effort.

472
00:41:04.079 --> 00:41:10.139
I sort of, I can see where the intention in creating this sort of all of the regulars in peril.

473
00:41:10.199 --> 00:41:13.019
If they're all in peril, how can they possibly get out of it?

474
00:41:13.079 --> 00:41:21.719
Yeah, but they could have done that in ways which, you know, would be used later in the series, you know, during split screen or just much faster intercutting.

475
00:41:21.780 --> 00:41:23.760
I don't think they've quite developed that yet.

476
00:41:23.820 --> 00:41:26.880
And the pace is a problem and it takes up quite a bit of the episode.

477
00:41:27.000 --> 00:41:34.260
Well, it's funny because I was thinking, like, then I was thinking about Russell's Cliffhanger in Bad Wolf, which is totally different.

478
00:41:34.320 --> 00:41:39.539
I mean, that's clearly a different approach to it that just works, I think, incomparably well.

479
00:41:39.599 --> 00:41:53.340
Like, it's just, it's funny because I was trying to think of incidences where they sort of return to that style of cliffhanger where it cuts between everyone in peril, but I kind of was struggling to, unless they're all, I mean, it sort of happened, the side man one, but they're all together.

480
00:41:53.400 --> 00:41:54.539
It's of a big set piece.

481
00:41:54.599 --> 00:41:57.179
But I think they don't really go near it for a long time.

482
00:41:57.239 --> 00:41:59.760
Yeah, they come out, oh, well, that didn't work.

483
00:42:23.820 --> 00:42:25.619
Well, do this, ma'am.

484
00:42:25.679 --> 00:42:33.960
There's a nice policeman hacking down our front door, and James is rummaging around in the pantry for a jar of pickled gherkins, so it looks like that's all we have time for this week.

485
00:42:34.019 --> 00:42:36.960
Do come back next week for World War III.

486
00:42:37.019 --> 00:42:45.960
In the meantime, you can find us at flightthroughentirety.com, flight through entirety on Facebook and Apple Podcasts, and at FTE podcast on Twitter.

487
00:42:46.019 --> 00:42:48.300
Max, where can people find you online?

488
00:42:48.360 --> 00:42:51.780
You can find me at max underscore Jailbar on Twitter.

489
00:42:51.840 --> 00:42:55.800
It's pretty barren there, but if you wish.

490
00:42:55.860 --> 00:43:05.639
Excellent. and that'll be in the show notes Meanwhile, over on Bond Finger, you can find a very sober and well-informed series of commentaries on nearly all of the James Bond films.

491
00:43:05.699 --> 00:43:12.059
That's Bondfinger.com, Bondfinger on Facebook and Apple Podcasts and at Bondfingercast on Twitter.

492
00:43:12.119 --> 00:43:19.920
Until next time, may your country's head of government not be replaced by a giant farting alien baby, unless, of course, that's happened already.

493
00:43:19.980 --> 00:43:21.960
Thank you very much for listening and good night.

494
00:43:22.019 --> 00:43:22.619
Good night.

495
00:43:22.679 --> 00:43:23.159
Good night.

496
00:43:29.219 --> 00:43:37.619
That was Flight for Entirety starring Nathan Bodley, Max Shel Barton, James Selwood, theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, strings performance by Jane Orberg.

497
00:43:37.679 --> 00:43:44.400
This episode, Men in Massive Suits, was recorded on the 8th of July 2018, and released on the 16th of September.

498
00:43:47.460 --> 00:43:57.420
If you want to know more about the Slovene's plans to take over the Earth, why not check out next week's episode of Flight through Entirety, or consult the Wikipedia article on neoliberalism?

499
00:44:00.539 --> 00:44:06.480
Seeing a London bar or driving down Westminster Bridge or the London eye, you know, like all of those things.

500
00:44:06.539 --> 00:44:09.539
Oh, or a yeti on the loop.

501
00:44:09.599 --> 00:44:10.559
Precise.

502
00:44:11.280 --> 00:44:14.159
Tooting back's not a real play, spread.

503
00:44:16.260 --> 00:44:18.059
Let me try that.

504
00:44:18.179 --> 00:44:21.900
No, well, well, no, no, I'll go and ring him. can come and replace me now.

505
00:44:22.559 --> 00:44:25.380
I know I have a 2nd class substitute.

506
00:44:25.500 --> 00:44:27.420
Freudians, lady.

507
00:44:27.539 --> 00:44:29.039
There's your excellent.

508
00:44:29.400 --> 00:44:31.380
Let me try that again.

509
00:44:31.440 --> 00:44:33.000
Tooting.