Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast coming to you live from the planet
Clom, and you won't believe how appalling the neighbours are.
I'm Nathan.
James.
I'm Max.
Mere seconds have passed since the thrilling cliffhanger to our
last episode, but we're confident that everything can be resolved
very quickly indeed.
So that we can get on with discussing the next episode of series
one World War III.
What did we think of the resolution to the Cliffhanger?
It was a bit rubbish, wasn't it?
Is it resolved before the opening credits?
Yeah, yeah.
Well, he just... deadly to humans, maybe.
And then you get the sort of the, what I do love is coming in out
of the, out of the title sequence to people who have just tuned in
to large aliens getting sort of electrocuted and making noise.
That's really fun, but it is very swift.
In fact, it has that thing that all sort of cramp alien races have
which is that they are somehow linked to one another.
So you only need to defeat one of them.
So we talked about how there were 3 separate attacks in the
cliffhanger, and they're all resolved by the doctor sticking a
sort of big thing on general answer.
What does he stick?
Well, he sticks his ID back.
Which has been electrified onto...
I see.
Yeah.
And so that works for all the civilines.
It's like destroying the robot control.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Electronically.
Not by Wi-Fi or something.
We don't know.
It could have been Wi-Fi?
interstitially through space between them, yeah.
In fact, they do actually use that properly later when sit fell
fodge.
Passimir day.
Slovene is killed by Mickey and Jackie.
And there's actually a little moment of acting, I think, where
Joseph Green notices that.
Yeah.
And it's actually quite well done.
Yeah, I think his whole performance is quite good.
I think I like the little moment because it's of, as he's prepping
to go outside and make his big planet Earth is at war moment.
And it's sort of quite believably, I bought quite believably into
sort of that because we establish how closely links they all are.
I like the fact that if one of them dies, they just get really
really sort of just, that angers them and they just go forward
with it sort of really hastily.
And it gives that character more depth and purpose in, like, the
speech, Thanksgiving. has more meaning, you know, makes personal
for them.
Yeah.
Whereas before they were just, you know, killing the human race.
As a side effect of wanting to turn the planet into fuel, not that
we find that out until later in the episode.
But now it's, well, you know, you've hurt one of our own.
So it becomes revenge for them.
I think it also just plausibly allows the sort of transitioning
tone from the sort of giggling children that we see in episode one
to someone who is making this sort of proper speech.
And that speech, you know, thematically it might be the most
important speech of the story, is so well delivered.
Like it's, you know, proper political rhetoric that really kind of
sells itself and that Murray comes in and does a beautiful job of
kind of enhancing.
So I think it allows that.
It gives us a little moment for him to go from being silly to
being serious.
And I think it also helps.
It helps that they're all a family.
I like that they're not representative of their entire race.
It's a family of creatures.
I really, I like, like that seems to be pretty, that's a sort of
novel take on, and it gives a bit of depth that otherwise it would
have, and I actually think their whole plot and the sort of the
fake alien crap, and sort of using a hoax to distract people is
quite gleefully inventive.
I sort of really like how there's a lot of different layers to
it.
And when the doctor's sort of unravelling it, you do feel like
it's sort of a deep conspiracy that makes sort of sense.
I like, yeah.
I mean, we've talked, I think, in the past about alien races being
slightly problematic, like that's a sort of slightly well.
Yeah, racist idea.
And so it's not our species, it's our surname.
So they're our crime family.
Yeah, sitting on its head and it's going, well, not all aliens.
But, you know, like not all aliens have to be evil.
Not all of one race of aliens is evil.
No, I'm sure lots of Rexacorocofalipatorians are really lovely
people.
I think they've revisited that in the comics quite a lot.
And that allows you to bring their race back, but it's not their
family.
They've painted them bread.
Um, in, um, what's that?
Sarah Jane invention?
Yeah, yeah.
The blathering.
Yeah.
Simon Callow, I think.
But still, Miriam Margoli, or something?
Yeah, it turns out three.
I haven't watched that for a while.
When are we doing the Sarah Jane adventures?
Yeah we're doing it now.
I think also that there is a tendency that we talked a little bit
about when we were talking about the end of the world to try and
shift Doctor Who away from just sort of very straightforward alien
planets with very straightforward, you know, alien races and
stuff.
So the big 5 or whatever, the Dale excitements on Tarans, whatever
that that's not really how the show's operating anymore.
And that, again, is kind of taking it away from us and giving it
to a new group of people to enjoy.
And it's something that Stephen Moffatt does quite a lot, once he
takes over the show, the, it makes Doctor Who less about these
characters encountering monster of the week, and more just makes
it a universe.
And that reaches a high point and say, what, series 6, like, with
the good mangos to war, all that sort of stuff, which it's a
trope.
It's something that Moffat does constantly, from that point on was
the, let's up the anti, bringing all these monsters to come in the
background.
Well, as early as the Pandora opens, actually.
Well, yes, yes, so true.
But it's very evident in that sort of midseason cliffhanger.
Like you say, it starts in end of the world.
I like to think of it as the Douglas Adams of Doctor Who.
Douglas Adams was always brilliant at huge concepts, not great at
you know, actually delivering a manuscript on time.
But, like, you believed Hitchhiker's going to the Galaxy was a
universe populated by fantastic aliens, in a way which he didn't
really ever expect of Doctor Who, even when he was writing it
because the scope of the show wasn't that great.
How about we bring it back to the Saline?
How do you think that they look on screen?
Look, as a design, look, I really love them, they're identifiable
instantly.
You can't confuse them with anything else.
They're queen, as um...
I would have said.
But I think Max had a point that he wants to make.
Well, it's also, I'm not sure if I know, I don't think I did
notice it at the time, but obviously in retrospect, you see the
difference between the...
The suits and then the CGI renditions of them.
And there's quite a bad shot of Billy Piper and Penelope running
through the corridor and they've clearly just been pursued by sort
of, I know people with stinks or something. tennis ball.
And it doesn't quite, it doesn't quite, and they get, again, they
get better at at superimposing like CGI creatures into shots, and
it's quite cloying.
And I think you can obviously, like, I'm sure even then you could
tell.
Yeah.
Do you know, I have a massive soft spot for that shot.
And the reason is, I think that there was a very early trailer or
something, which actually showed it, and it was kind of like, oh
my god, there are going to be CG monsters in this show.
You know, those sort of run quite effectively, but they don't at
all match the way that the costumes move.
And I think it's telling that they never appear again.
Like we never see CG Slavene in Boomtown or in Sarah Jane
Adventures.
We only have the costumes.
I think there's a problem with how the costumes are shot.
Like, then, yeah, it's I think they get better at it by Boomtown.
Yeah, and also it might be when there's just a whole room full of
them.
I don't know, they look they look silly, but I mean, they kind of
work looking silly.
It not like you're meant to take them.
Yeah, grave series. you know, like it doesn't necessarily throw
you off completely, but it does, yeah.
I think it might be a fault of the, because I think the, I think
the costumes are quite effective, but I think it's, I think I
think you're right.
I think it's the presentation in the direction.
They're not filmed to their strength.
Yeah, yeah.
I think it's maybe one of the 1st days in the recording block that
they use the costumes.
Like, and I think maybe one of the very earlier scenes is that
scene.
There's a scene in an office where Penelope and Billy are hiding
from the Sabine, and I think it's Margaret initially, but another
Sabine comes in as well.
And they're kind of shot.
Like I don't know why they are, where they are in the frame.
They're shot from like waist down.
Were they shot from a long distance away?
Yeah, but also like there's lots of butt shots as well.
Like they're sort of lamp shading their whole, Oh, they fart a
lot.
Well, I just think that, I mean, you know, Keith Boke doesn't come
back.
And I think there's probably a reason for that beyond just the
kind of conflict between him and Chris.
I don't think he's all that good.
Although he's not universally bad, and there were certainly some
great scenes like in last week's episode that we even talked about
but this scene, he has no idea how to shoot these giant rubber
costumes.
No, and it makes the whole scene a little ridiculous.
And you sort of still buy the threat from the strength of
performances of Billy and Penelope.
Yeah, they're quite, and Penelope's so good at being under
threat.
Yeah, she's so, and like we talked about last week when she's in
the cupboard and she gives the whole scene genuine, like a sense
of horror.
And she does that so well here as well that it's still an
effective scene.
It just, it means that the whole scenes with them being menacing.
They don't work as menacing creatures.
No, they just look like people in suits at that point.
But I think they could.
You know what I mean?
They had been with effect.
Yeah, yeah.
More effective with less bum shots.
So one of the Sabine obviously starts to foreground herself during
the course of this and they get Margaret out of the costume so
that she can just act as herself and then we've got her kind of
sidekicks and stuff.
How do we feel she does?
Look, I love Annette Badland and everything I've ever seen her
in.
I think, uh, did we talk about that last week with just how
brilliant an actress she is.
And it's evident that Russell really loves writing for her because
the relish that she has when she's delivering those lines and
we'll see it again.
Well, I don't think I'm on that podcast.
The podcast will see that again in Boomtown.
She's a really quite impressive actress.
I think she gets like she gets the job of kind of representing
them.
There's a sort of standoff.
I love the scene with the scene at the threshold of the door. when
she's decostumed and she and she's just herself.
This scene is fantastically direct.
Well, just the, the, the, the interplay between her and Chris with
the, and then that scene with what you trapped in your box.
And she's just, and then, but her face that goes from total
Instagram, like she's, she's convinced she's winning.
They've got it in the bag.
And then just how seriously, like, the doctor is just sort of, it's
a fantastic scene for the doctor where it's just, yeah, me.
And then he closes the door.
And then, and then when you see her face just slightly falter, like
she goes from being totally inscrutable to, oh, no, like he could
he could.
There's that little, there's that slight, you can see it in her
performance and it's just, it's fantastic.
She she gets some moments of comedy as well because when she's
welcoming all of the Slavene back into number 10 and she's taking
their coats like she's taking their costumes.
And I think sort of one of them farts and she goes, oh, that's the
spirit, you know?
She's not taking their coats.
She's taking their skin.
It's just like the absurdity of that, it's like, she's taking
their coats.
Yeah, yeah, they're people's bodies.
But she's even hanging them over a coat hanger and sort of putting
them in a closet and stuff. is really sort of wonderfully great.
And the corresponding scene with Andrew Barr outside wondering
what it is that all of these random people have in common.
Like what they're doing here is unclear at this time.
What was it?
Who's the representative for Fisheries Commission?
Yeah, they're all just sort of nobodies from sort of various
government positions, but they all have one mysterious thing in
Coleman.
I feel like another writer might have put the Slovene in positions
of power.
So it was sort of a more, you know, you would, an argument could
be made that it was a more plausible sequence where like these
sort of chief political figures come in.
But that just sort of robs it of all the fun.
The fact that they're all just obscure people that they've been.
It's kind of like they've got as close to power as they possibly
can.
Yeah, but they've landed at the fisheries consultant.
Yeah, that's that still works.
That's fine.
I think that's strange.
It's implying that overweight people can't achieve high office.
No, but like I think that he does have problems with fat people.
I think the adipost is another thing.
I think that the guy from Clom in Love and Monsters, again, you
know, like a big sort of fat guy monster.
And, you know, Russell's a big man.
And you know, a gay man in a community that has all these kind of
body image issues.
So I do think that he is sometimes a bit cruel about fat people.
Even in Boomtown, where Rose looks down her nose on the person
that Mickey's been going out with on the grounds that she's a bit
fat.
Like, there is a little bit of that in Russell's writing.
And also in queer as folk, there's a scene about them refusing an
extra slice of cake because they learn about the impact of fatness
on their kind of, I don't know, sexual impressiveness or
something.
So it is a theme in Russell's writing.
But like we said last week, there was that idea that the chubby
kids could get to be the villains in the playground.
But they couldn't be the heroes, only the villain.
One of the criticisms of this episode is that the main character
spends so much time locked in a single room.
I like the Doctor Who stories where they're sort of, and I
understand it from a writing point of view as well when you've got
it's just easier to have them locked in a space to work it out.
It's kind of the based on to see you've taken to the Mth degree.
I also think it gives the story time. at its sort of climax when
all sorts of things are going on to be a bit character focussed
because we have the mobile phone and we have it sort of hooked up
to the sort of speaker phone on the cabinet office desk, the one
presumably that opens up and fills the room with poison gas in a
later episode.
Well, no, because they rebuilt it.
Okay, fair enough.
So we have Jackie and the doctor talking about whether Rose is
going to be safe and about that sort of course of action.
And we talked a little bit about the kind of family plot last
week.
So here I think it sort of becomes a little bit more explicit, that
critique that you were talking about, James, of the doctor's
life.
I see why they did it. in the new series.
They kind of belabour it a bit.
I think, too, that it does answer what we saw last week.
You know how he sort of suspected that the doctor might be having
too much fun and that becomes a thing.
And, you know, you think this is fun, you think this is clever.
And Chris does get the opportunity to answer that back.
Yeah.
And I love how that's beautiful that he doesn't answer her until
later he doesn't have an answer to that.
And the way it circles back around when they're settling on what
they have to do.
Yeah, is really lovely, I think.
And even you even get it with Harriet.
I love that you're a very violent young woman.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
In fact, she makes the joke about another fat joke, by the way
about wishing that she had a sort of compression field so that she
could fit into a smaller sized dress and Harriet tells her off and
then, you know, when she contemplates using nukes, Harriet tells
her off.
So there is this whole idea that the doctor sort of relishes
violence and danger.
But then Harry is the one that ends up saying, well, we're going
to do this.
Yeah.
Well, but because the doctor says that no, it's not all about sort
of fun and violence.
It is about taking a stand and doing the right thing and, you know
saving people's lives.
He's not just doing it for kicks.
He's doing it in order to do good.
And I think that that's really good.
And I also think I like the chance that Mickey gives Jackie the
chance to intervene and stop him from endangering Rose.
That's a really lovely beat for his character as well.
Yeah, I think I think I really like Noel Clark in these 2
episodes.
I think he's, I always think sometimes the writing is a little bit
less, like, like, you clearly Jackie has the really defined
character.
And Mickey can sometimes be a bit looser with how he's
characterised, particularly among other writers as well.
I think it's because he's written as a joke character to start
with. and before they got such a good actor, Noel Clark is an
amazing actor.
You see, in the film work that he's done since the films that he's
written, and directed since, like, he's a bloody good actor.
Um, And that character is written as a joke.
And then when they realise this guy can act, that's when he starts
getting more depth and, you know, like, I mean, series 2, Yeah, but
I think, you know, he's got a really clear redemption arc here
where he's sort of rather pathetic, you know, inability to even
contemplate going with a doctor at the end of Rose, like he's the
dead weight that's keeping Rose tied and, you know, that nearly
makes her decide not to go with a doctor.
And then he kind of steps up and is brave and competent and does
the right thing.
And you know, the doctor stops calling him Ricky as well.
You know, as he does that.
Like the doctor's got quite a lot of contempt for him.
But he's the one who realises that publicly crashing a spaceship
into Big Ben is a strange thing to do if your plan is to take over
the world.
He's the one who's smart enough to realise that he's the one who
manages to, you know, send the missile that kind of wipes the
Sabina Buffalo.
Yeah.
I mean, he's super brave.
He's super brave and smart, even in this story.
So, you know, and I always hop on big finish pickers.
I love big fish.
Hello?
Is there a buffalo boxing?
Almost.
So, um, big finish retcon Buffalo is the doctor's password.
In a 6 doctor audio from a couple of years ago, Vampire of the
Mind.
So that's been his password for a good 300 years.
So they're not very serious sort of password complexity
requirements in the unit system.
Well, he must have got that back in the 80s, surely.
I love that.
I love when...
It might actually be the AV.
I'm not sure who writes the AV club review of this two-parter, but
I think it's someone who does a whole suite of them, but calls
Mickey sort of hacking to save the world very 2005.
Or yeah, or maybe that is Santa Fe.
I can't remember, but, um, I think it's kind of, it's charming.
Like, it's kind of like very any sort of just typing, typing away
keys and that like 2 fingers.
Two fingers.
And it happens a bit in school reunion. there's a lot of that as
well.
But it's, yeah, it works from a character point of view, which is
sort of what is important about it.
It doesn't really matter that it's sort of a crap kind of...
I think there's an attempt not to have the sort of resolution be
too complex and to have it something that Mickey can do.
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, yeah.
Because he is an idiot.
Yeah, well, not anymore.
So, let's talk about Harriet Jones.
I think everyone, she's a sort of adored character within those
1st few years of Doctor Who.
But I love, particularly in a story that is quite political.
There's a character that's meant to embody what politician should
be or an aspirational MP that stands up, even when there's aliens
and farting aliens and the end of the world is sort of looming in
front of her.
She's just standing up for her constituents.
Yeah, you know, and I think it's, um, it's a really lovely, like
it's, it's obviously like simplistic, but I think it's, it's
particularly placed in, in quite a politically minded story.
I think it's a very clear indication of what Russell's trying to
say.
I think I think she plays that brilliantly.
Yeah, like the wanting to talk about cottage hospitals and the um
the acting prime minister's uh, line, oh, for God's sake, woman
get some perspective.
And it's like busy.
Yeah.
And, and, you know, just in that scene, you've got a microcosm of
what politicians are, what politicians should represent.
And the look on her face of being crushed when she's, you know
she's standing up for what she believes in in this this cynical
horrible person, just, you know, destroys her.
She has like as an actor, she's got just an enormous amount of
sort of personal charm.
She's just so sweet and so incredibly lovely.
And she's sort of properly brave and properly sensible.
Like, she does seem like a bit of an ingenue at the beginning.
You know, she's naive and it's bizarre that she expects to have a
conversation about cottage hospitals on the day that aliens land.
But she kind of stands up and takes control at the end.
And I love how instantly the doctor warms to it.
Like, it's literally within 5 seconds of properly, properly
meeting her that he's already saying, I really like.
Yeah, yeah.
You're very good at this.
Yeah.
And I think, yeah, she just has such a, yeah, you're right.
There's such a personal charm to her performance.
And I think it works really.
And I'm so like, I think obviously after seeing the strength of
her performance, they thought, well, we've got to bring her back.
And obviously it's not...
I'm sure it'll be covered when she next appears, her arc into what
she becomes as a prime minister is probably more representative of
that Russell sort of cynicism that someone like that can
eventually be corrupted.
Well, she, I mean, she has that idealism.
And, and, you know, Russell very definitely in this story kills
Tony Blair and replaces him with someone who isn't, you know
cynical, someone who has a faith in humanity.
Who voted against the, I voted against that, by the way.
Yeah. and her fall from grace later. is also sort of, Yeah, I mean
I think that's one of the great tragedies and we'll talk about
this definitely when we get to the Christmas invasion of any
character in the new series.
I think she is most poorly treated, apart from, say, Donna
obviously, because it was like that suited the story.
It suited the story that she would make that decision.
She had to protect the world.
And she's slightly ridiculous.
Yeah, and that's horrible as well.
She should have pre routine without being killed.
Just because I love her so much.
Although apparently she survives.
Did you say that little in the poetry illustration?
There's a sequence where she...
And escaped on a motorbike?
Yeah, as soon as the Daleks are about to exterminator, a trap door
of fire ramps off on a scooter.
Oh, brilliant. makes me much happier.
So we talk about political cynicism and that's really what this
entire story is aimed at because this story is a political satire
in a way that Doctor Who hasn't quite done before, I don't think.
So this is, of course, about 911 and about the, um, the response
of the British and American government to that and about the, um
the lead up to the war in Iraq.
I'm probably the only one who remembers 911.
Do you remember 911, James?
I was born there, were you?
I was born.
Yeah, I was born.
I was 20.
Oh, okay.
All right.
Yeah.
Oh, you are old.
You're right.
Not as old as you are.
No, no, no. one's as old as me.
Yeah, no, so it was like, 911 was 8 days before my 21st birthday.
Oh, wow, okay.
So, you know, it's very definitely evoking those images in the 1st
episode.
Yeah, of course, yeah.
I think it's, it's sort of, I mean, obviously, flew over my head
no pun intended.
But, but, of course, like, is it an 8 year old's not going to pick
up?
Yeah, yeah.
But I think, yeah, it's obviously a deliberate, having a sort of
unidentified flying object slice through a major landmark.
And then sort of, it's quite a bold set piece, but it sets up the
ensuing story and it states pretty early on what it's going to be
concerned with. yeah.
And so you get that world-to-all media coverage that we got.
You get a city that's sort of in lockdown, you get everyone sort
of panicking, and it seems like this sort of huge seismic change
in kind of the whole world order is sort of about to happen.
But there is, um, you know, the idea that that's a ruse that 911
is really there to put us all on alert.
Like, you know, I don't think that there's any sort of weirdo sort
of 911 conspiracy truther stuff behind it.
But that event put those governments on kind of high alert and we
started to get the sort of paranoia around Muslims at airports and
stuff like that.
And the governments use that sort of anti-Muslim fear as a way of
justifying the invasion of Iraq.
You know, even though that link isn't explicitly made, and sort of
people know that Iraq has nothing to do with 9-11.
I mean, the Middle East has always been, you know, one...
No, no, but there's always been a sort of genuine problem, a sort
of post-colonial problem.
The Middle East has always been kind of volatile and things.
But because we don't know that much about it on the whole, and we
sort of tend to lump it all together.
The Iraq thing and 911 seemed related, I think, in the public's
mind.
And so it was much easier to convince the public that Iraq posed a
threat.
And so what you get is you get that incredible scene where Joseph
Green goes out and says, we've detected massive weapons of
destruction.
And it's the September dossier, isn't it?
So from like in September 2002, the British government puts out a
document, which says that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass
destruction, chemical and biological weapons that it's working on
reactivating its nuclear program, and that Britain could be under
threat, like they could deploy these weapons within 45 minutes, and
not 45 seconds, which is what Joseph Green says.
And in fact, there was talk about sexing up that dossier.
The dossier had been sexed up to make it seem a little bit more
urgent and threatening.
And there had been a line, I think, in the original script of this
episode, about sexing up the document that had to be card.
Oh, that would be...
I wish, like, did they not film it?
I wish they'd filmed it.
I want that as a cut scene.
Oh, it needs bits of sexy up there.
No, and even that, even the, I mean, of course, because the
Slovene fake an alien crash in order to make their demands and
what they need to happen more plausible.
So the whole, the whole structure of their strategy to get what
they want.
It evokes the sort of fear mumbering. really.
And it's, and I think that's, that's, I think, what makes the
story particularly, uh, particularly what feels particularly
urgent and relevant.
Yeah, yeah.
Again, the UN involvement.
Do you know what I mean?
The September dossier was intended to convince the UN.
Well, the thing is, at the time, the British wouldn't have needed
the UN to unlock their nuclear code.
No, no, no, that's all that's all made up.
But I think it was News Night.
The BBC late news.
Like kind of like our late line.
They discovered, I think it was in 2007.
They uncovered that the British nuclear weapons were locked down
by a set of bike keys.
So like that's how they were operated.
They just had some bike lock keys to activate their nuclear
weapons.
They didn't need any sort of permission to do it, and the way they
were controlled was literally by turning to the bike.
But they did want the UN to kind of give blessing to the American
and British action in Iraq.
So that's kind of turned into that's turned into that.
And what I really like and why I think it's important that the
Slovene fart is that the important lesson we need to learn from
this is that our politicians, or the Blair government, at least
were just a bunch of fat flatulent aliens who were concerned about
fuelling every cut price cargo ship, you know, that the whole
thing was, in fact, about fuel, which is what we suspected.
I remember in 2003, attending protests about the Iraq war.
And, you know, Hans Blix was there in Iraq, hadn't found anything
yet, but the American and the British government, obviously didn't
want him to find nothing.
They wanted the story that he was a real threat.
And we were all kind of suspecting that it was about oil, which it
always is in the Middle East.
And so that's the story that Russell's telling, the Slovene are
here to get fuel.
The whole thing is to allow nuclear weapons to be dropped so that
they can sell the planet off as fuel.
I don't think I've heard that reading before.
I mean, like, you know, I'm familiar with the reading of the
nuclear weapons, the the weapons of mass destruction link, but the
whole the whole story is is actually a parody of the Iraq or not
just that scene.
Yeah.
So, and I think that, you know, they get Margaret Slovine to make
that point.
And when she talks about what the fuel is going to be used for, it
sounds like she's about to say everyone's car, but she says cut
price cargo ship, and it just seems like, you know, she sends out
an ad.
It becomes really kind of sorted and commercial.
So it's not a strategic thing at all.
It is just about making a profit.
And particularly there's that newsreader in the dawn of the day
after that's supposed after the UN are sort of deciding and
deliberating.
It says, like, yesterday saw the start of a brave new world, today
might see it end, which is the fantastics of Doomey proclamation
but it was like, it's, that sort of distils it into like one
little sound bite.
It's really good.
He's terrific, isn't he?
I don't know his name.
He's a real guy though, I think.
Yeah, I think he's another one of his actor.
Oh, he's an actor.
Oh, that's a shame.
I thought real people.
Yeah.
Jack Tarleton?
But no, I thought he was a real news reporter as well, but he's an
actrian.
Sorry, I'm telling Richard.
It is, um, he does a very good job and that is a very good scene.
And, you know, I enjoy how much of this story is mediated. through
television broadcast.
Well, even the doctor sitting down.
Like, they can't get closer, so they have to go back and just
watch it on telly.
Yeah, there's so there's so much or when they watch it on telly
inside the TARDIS.
Yeah.
There's just a lot of just like, oh, we can't get any really
closer, so that's just let's just watch it.
Well, in fact, the speech, like Joseph Green's speech is relayed
to the doctor who's trapped in the cabinet room by Mickey on his
mobile phone, holding the mobile phone to the TV. when he takes
the photo of the of the slippine.
Yeah, yeah.
And and uses it.
Even that even felt like rewatching that.
I thought, oh, that's, that was like 13 years ago, but there was
still like sort of like phone cameras, like that, that sort of
like a terrible phone.
Yes, because because the iPhone didn't get out, get released until
about 18 months later.
Yeah, 2007, I think.
It was, yeah, but it surprised me how so much of that sort of
groundwork had been laid in the 1st contemporary two-part story.
Like, and then it's sort of come, like, if you look at something
like this igon invasion, which is sort of, probably a nice
comparison, given that they're both obviously political and
obviously concerned with a political allegory.
Yeah.
And but seeing now, then, like, sort of 11 years later, how
instrumental, like, just phone cameras are in that story.
Evil Clara is just going around taking videos of things and
upload.
You know, like it's just, but it's nice to see how 11 years that
Doctor Who doing a contemporary polluting thriller can change.
I actually think, too, that that's probably the closest parallel
isn't it?
I mean, I mean, that zygon is probably less, like, it's less fun.
Like, it's less Jove.
It takes itself a bit more seriously.
Although it is still funny.
Like it's clearly like it's well written and it's not like sort of
doomy.
But they are quite, they're Doctor Who doing sort of a similar.
It's like coming from the same.
Yeah.
And having a sort of something that's got a real sort of global
scale.
Yeah, and a particularly recent political event and that's clearly
signed, but like you have the Zygon hostage videos.
Yeah.
And then, yeah, it was pretty.
I remember when that I remember because I was probably more aware
of the politics of that one when that was broadcast.
In fact, I think that's maybe a bit more telling.
I think it's a bit more and like it's fair.
Yeah, and I think it probably it's signposting it even more loudly
I think, in that one.
Let's talk about the final scene, because we're heading towards
the end.
We do actually get the whole thing resolved quite early and we
have sort of something like 5 minutes or maybe even more at the
end, which is all just about, you know, Jackie, Mickey, Rose and
the doctor.
That's, actually, I lied before.
That's probably my favourite scene in the episode.
That final, I love the, I can't get over the, I rewatching it.
I'd forgotten the joke.
Oh, what is it?
Mum's cooking dinner.
Yeah, yeah.
Mum's cooking and it's kind of like, oh, yeah, put on a low heat
and lettuce.
It's just fantastic.
Or her speculation that the doctor eats grass or safety pins.
See, my favourite part of the episode is actually the scene where
the doctor's trying to convince Rose to keep travelling with him
and it's, look, I think it's a really conscious reference. where
you say, oh, you know, I could show you a plasma storm in the
horse head nebula.
We call it the Florana speech.
Yeah.
And which is why I love it so much because, um, spoiler alert
invasion that has dinosaurs is one of my favourite doctor stories
of all time.
I know, the puppets are crap.
But it's just such an enjoyable story.
And that last scene, I think, is one of my favourite scenes in the
classic series, Doctor Who.
Do we talk about it because it ends with Sarah putting her hand. no
no, no.
And because of that, it's like, it's one of the most beautiful
places in the universe.
And she's like, no, doctor. as she's covering her ears and shaking
her head.
And that's what we go out on.
We don't go out on her being persuaded.
We just know that her resistance is going to be overcome.
It's wonderful Yeah, it just sort of crashes into the titles and
it's just like, oh, that's just it's gorgeous.
And, and, and it really sells like Sarah Jane as, as being this
believable real character in a way that, you know, you don't see
for, for a while after that.
But because of her reaction to trying to be persuaded.
I think the doctor's actually a bit of a...
Yeah, I'm a dick here.
I always wanted him to go to dinner with...
I was I still was overcome with frustration that he doesn't.
There's no, I don't do that.
And he manipulates her as well.
It's kind of like, well, you can have your family, but, but
there's the, like, yeah, but I do something.
Yeah, more exciting.
And I just think, which is why I think ultimately when David
Tennant goes to Christmas dinner with them and a Christmas
invasion, it's such a.
That's a long, slow boil thing.
Yeah, that's a deliberate thing.
It's being set up here, so that when you get there, you're like
well, very satisfied.
Like, you feel like that's a significant change.
The doctor now feels like he can, he's accepted in a family.
Yeah, he has a family deal with him.
Yeah, and it sells the fact that this doctor is damaged.
Like his, you know, not that we've touched on this in the plot of
the story in a big way yet, but the fact that he's newly
regenerated out the time or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So all coming to a head next week.
And and that's, you know, like it's, it's not just that he's a
bastard for being a bastard's sake.
He's damaged.
He's been alone, he's lost himself.
I mean, I like it.
It's a more kind of, I mean, it's not, you know, it's not exactly
Shakespeare, but it is more sophisticated in its depiction of the
doctor allowing him to be selfish and manipulative and a bit
unlikeable.
Like, I think that kind of works.
I mean, Camille just pulls it every heartstring, like that the, and
particularly when she comes in with the 2 cups of tea and she's
packing and she's, and she seems excited by the prospect that, oh
I can be involved in this now.
I sort of, I sort of know what's happening now.
We can do dinner and we can talk about it and we can, and that she
knows that she's not going to get that yet.
And she says, don't go, sweetheart.
Like, I'm sort of crying now.
But it's just such a, because you don't really get that.
I know.
I mean, I love Russell Davis doing companions' mums.
I think that's fantastic.
But I think she's so Camille is so good.
And I think she's given so much more time as obviously she has the
2 seasons.
Don't get Nathan started on Camille.
She's there, I agree with you.
Aside from Love of Monsters, which I think is probably her shining
moment, I think this is just such a, it's a downbeat ending, that
that fine.
Yeah, that 10 seconds.
I know that you're keen to talk about is just maybe one of the
best endings.
It is great, isn't it?
And because, like, you remember watching it at the time and not
knowing how Rose's story ends.
Of course, yeah.
And there's this fear that she'll come to some harm, which is what
Jackie's been expressing all through the episode and she reassures
Jackie that, no, it's a time machine.
I can be back in 10 seconds.
She gets on board the title and says, see you in 10 seconds and
then doesn't come back.
And her mother's looking at her watch and counting down the
seconds after they've gone and then she turns away crestfallen and
walks away.
But then you also see Mickey just, he goes back to his seat and he
just stays there.
Yeah, he just sits and waits and he says nothing, but it's just
fantastic.
It's such a great little waiter in the episode It's so fresh.
It's so fresh for Doctor Who.
He's never done this. in this way.
Yeah, we were talking last week about the unit family.
Yeah.
What's that last week or was it this week?
Every week.
We're talking last week.
We were talking last week about, you know, this being the sort of
modern take on the unit family by giving him an actual family to
interact with and grounding that in the present day in reality in
a way that unit never quite did.
Yeah, well, I mean, domestic reality.
And, you know, there is that.
I think it's fun that the doctor, maybe like some of his fans are
resisting Doctor Who being sucked into the kind of domestic realm
but in fact, it really elevates.
Yeah.
Well, they have really bad PTSD memories of dimensions in time.
Can you blame them?
It's also, it's also when, I think it's when Doctor Who's at its
best whenever it's, like, I think, when it grounds itself really
well in, in season 4 a little bit as well, and then, and then in
season eight, there's quite a bit of, or certainly Stephen
Moffatt's most deliberate attempt to do it.
Yeah, um, and perhaps in the upcoming season as well.
Like I, I, I think it's, because, because it gives you the light
and shade of the whole, it, it makes when they go over to these
fantastical places.
It makes them feel special and it, I think it elevates everything
around it when it's, when it's so focussed on, on a particular
impact that this is happening or a family or.
I think right from the very beginning of Aliens of London, where
we see that this is going to be a story about the impact of
travelling with the doctor on your family.
Yeah.
And it's something that has never ever probably been done before.
None of them ever had families.
No, that's right.
I mean so many orphans. or Perry just running off in a batting her
stepfather.
They deal with that in Big Finish as well.
Of course they do.
He gets accused of murdering her or something.
Is Rose the 1st companion we meet with their parents?
We meet Leila's father.
Oh, yes, yeah, of course.
Of course. his name?
I can't remember.
Her mother, her mother was Leila's mother.
I don't think her mother actually got a name.
Yeah, but certainly we get Leila's father.
I don't think we really get anyone else.
Dodo's an orphan.
Sarah's an orphan.
Tegan becomes Tegan.
We meet Tegan's auntie.
Susan?
We meet her family.
I suppose so.
So this is new, but it's the kind of thing that Doctor Who has to
do now that it comes back in the 21st century.
And it's such an interesting thing to do.
I think it works really well.
And one of the things that I feel sort of sad about during part of
the moffity, right?
is just missing that.
Yeah.
I have said before that I always think it's a bit sad when the
doctor and his companion have no friends.
You know, one of the things about the Colin Baker era is that, you
know, apart from Asmail, or maybe Professor Arthur Stengos, who's
dead, the doctor doesn't know anyone or have any friends.
And I think that the show works better with a larger regular car.
And I just think Kamil Kajuri is absolutely superb and the best
thing ever to happen to Doctor Who.
Yeah.
Big Finish brings her back whenever they can.
Brilliant.
All right, we haven't done this for a while and it's something
that we used to do at the end of every series, but we didn't used
to spend 13 or so episodes discussing a single series.
So we're going to bring it back in every part 2 of every story.
It's going to make season 9 interesting.
Very repetitive.
It's pics of the week.
Who wants to go first?
I'll go first.
My pick of the week is a very English scandal, which is a three
part TV miniseries written by Russell T. Davis.
It stars Hugh Grant and Ben Wishaw.
It's fantastic.
It's really really special.
When's it set?
It's set in London, 1965.
No, that was terrible.
That was terrible.
Ian says it at the end of the chase.
So it was in the 1st doctor's little clip.
Was that in the trailer?
in the trailer that they showed?
trailer for Twitch.
Yeah, okay, right.
1965.
And it's the retelling of the true scandal surrounding Jeremy
Thorpe and his terrible hit, he calls out on his ex gay lover.
And it's both the one of the funniest things I've ever seen and
one of the most tragic things I've ever seen.
And Hugh Grant is just, I mean, Ben Wisher was always fantastic.
But Hugh Grant's sort of a bit of a revelation in how good.
He's also amazing in Paddington too, which I'll drop in there as
well.
Which has every known British guest artist like just pops up for a
bit.
Piticol is in it.
But sorry, a very English scandal is is, I'm not sure where you
can see it in Australia.
I'm just sort of, by now, by the time this comes out, I'll be out
on DVD.
It's either been on ABC or... definitely, definitely seek it out.
Yeah, I loved it.
I thought it was really great.
Amazing.
Very rustly.
Very Russell.
Yeah.
So mine's a bit more predictable, if you know me.
It's a big finish.
It'll probably always be a big finish.
It's the ninth Dr. Chronicles, which is Big Finisher's attempt to
set something in the ninth doctor here without being able to get
Eccleston back.
Um, so it's a, it's a narrated, part acted, what do we call them
enhanced audiobooks?
Well, it's like what they did with the companion chronicles and
stuff.
Yeah, it's okay, it's the kind of doctors.
Yeah, it's basically like the companion chronicles.
It's got Nick Briggs narrating and doing most of the voices
including a bit of a ropey.
Northern accent.
But it does feature Bruno Langley.
Oh, wow.
Returning as Adam Mitchell in an unseen adventure from series one
and brings back Camille fantastically in another episode.
And it's just so enjoyable.
And like, you can tell that, like, you know, that era is held in
such high regard, by them, and they do it proud, even with the
ropey, um, the ropey Eccleston impression, I really enjoyed it.
Okay, well, mine is, uh, since we've had this hiatus from flight
through entirety, and we haven't really been recording very
regularly.
I've discovered television, just like.
Yeah, no, no, it's a thing that apparently Barbara and Ian
discovered in the 1st episode of Doctor Who, according to the
doctor.
And it's amazing.
And I'm going to recommend a TV show that has nothing really at
all to do with Doctor Who.
It does have a sort of weird, slightly science fiction-y
sensibility, and that's the good place, which is a sitcom, and I
can't tell you very much about it.
It's an American network sitcom, but the basic premise is that a
young woman, a sort of rather horrible young woman has died.
She's found herself in the afterlife and realises fairly quickly
that she has been sent to heaven by mistake and should have been
sent somewhere else instead to the bad place.
And so she has to hide that this sort of administrative era has
happened.
And it's um, Kristen Bell and Ted Dans and um, sitcom royalty Ted
Dans. don't think he's ever been better.
You'll see, he's in the 1st 4 minutes. the funniest, those that
cold open for the show is just such amazing.
It's wonderful, isn't it?
And it's, it sort of does have a kind of science fiction
sensibility in that it creates a weird world.
And it's so gleefully inventive and in how it takes you down
little rabbit holes that you don't you never you never have a
handle on what the show's going to be.
It's the narrative collapse show.
Like heaps of times an episode will end. and it won't be how we're
going to get out of this.
It's going to be how can we keep on telling stories in this show
at all?
Yeah, this universe has just been completely turned on his head.
It's also, I think you've made this point, and probably the AV
club has made this point and everything.
My husband has probably made this point.
It's that it made something funny out of philosophy.
Yeah.
You know, it took all these quite high philosophical concepts and
used them as the basis for a primetime comedies kind of
impressive.
It's really special.
And it's come back for a 3rd season, really.
Yep.
Well, they listen up, we've just seen the next time trailer, and
looks like we'll be spending next week running around terrified of
a brass pepper pot armed with a sink plunger.
So do join us next week for Dalek.
In the meantime, you can find us at flightthroughentirety.com
flight through entirety on Facebook and Apple Podcasts and at FT
podcast on Twitter.
Where can people find you, Max?
At max underscore Gelbart?
Excellent. on Twitter.
Okay.
Over on Bondfinger, we're nearing the end or perhaps have reached
the end or may well and truly be past the end of the series of
Bond films, so you can find a range of commentaries there.
That's bondfinger.com, bondfinger on Facebook and Apple podcast
and at Bondfingercast on Twitter.
Until next time, may none of your government dossier is advocating
war against another country, be sexed up for public consumption.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
That was Flight Through Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Max
Gel Barton, James Selwood.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, Strings performance by Jane
Orberg.
This episode, less bum shots, was recorded on the 8th of July 2018
and released during my wedding on the 23rd of September.
This episode is dedicated to husband of the podcast Calvin Yeo
who's been surprisingly patient with my Doctor Who obsession over
the past 16.5 years, but who will never, ever listen to this
podcast.
We still have Peaks of the Wii.
Oh, yeah.
Well, if you want to do...
Something else to...
Yeah.
So I've got a point here.
The sort of thing are basically doing what the dominators wanted
to do.
Oh.
So, because we could drop that in.
But I think that's that important.
Um, It's terrible.
But do the microphone thing because this could be.
Okay, yeah.
Well, I haven't seen, I haven't seen it, but I was watching it, um
one of the, what, people have sort of re-uploaded all the
featurestes onto YouTube.
Right.
And so I was watching a Doctor Who does politics.
I think it was a feat.
I can't remember which classic release they put it on.
But it's a it's a 45 documentary about politics in Doctor Who.
It's really good.
I think it's done by Nicholas Pegg.
Okay.
But it talks about how the Dominators is the most transparently
right wing Dr. King story that there is.
I think the arc is pretty transparently.
That's true.
But very counter revolution. you know, like sort of a bit turning
the nose down at, you know, hippies and, well, yeah, an anti
Vietnam war protest. horrible.
But it was, it was talking about, um, Aliens of London, World War
III, and then the Christmas invasion that sort of, that sort of
brings the Falklands, wore into it with Harriet's decision.
Yeah, to attack them as they're retreating.
But there's, yeah, so there's, and I think there's, I know if, I
don't know if Russell T. Davis here is, is, is viewed much as
being particularly political.
I think people complain about or people my age tend to complain
about the Capolio of being the most like too political.
But I actually think I actually think there's no...
I think Matt Smith's era is pretty apolitical, but I think this is
a clear effort in Russell T. Davis era and then, and then the
latest even offered to do, to engage a bit more with the current
current political...
I think we said it before, I think that, you know, like, if you're
not, like, apolitical art is just art in support of the status
quo.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think that's all good tag stuff actually.
Let's talk about the final scene.