Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flightthrough Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast, which sounds like it got here just in
time.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Todd, and I'm Peter back for more.
Well, a couple of scripts have fallen through and there's not much
going on.
So this week we've decided to hang around Cardiff Bay and have
dinner with an old friend.
It's time for Boomtown.
Well, I think this is the episode that no one expected.
Yeah.
Least of all me.
Like, I mean, personally, I don't think the Celine were terribly
successful in their realisation in the previous two parter, and I
wouldn't have put my hand up to say, let's bring them back.
But having been in the situation where they have brought them
back.
Russell does a great number on it and ups emotional stakes with
their use.
And for me, redeems them as characters.
Yeah.
I think the Sabine had the problem of being directed by Keith
Bogue, you know, very, very early on in the history of the
production, when they didn't really know what they were doing
yet.
Yeah, I agree.
And this is such an unassuming little episode, but it's so good
for the series.
It's kind of like it's the glue that binds the series together.
And I think if it wasn't there, it would be a much less rich
experience, that 1st series of Doctor Who.
Well, I agree with you.
There's so much in here, Peter.
We've got the rift, we've got Cardiff, we've got Mickey dealing
with Rose's treatment of him.
We've got the Russell being of having this joyous team all
together before they're all ripped apart at the end of a season
and making Jack a proper companion in it.
That's correct.
We've got the heart of the TARDIS introduced.
We've still got references to Bad Wolf actually explicitly.
There is so much here that is set up for the end of this season
and threading through the entire season.
It's such a crucial episode.
And to think that he wasn't originally going to write this, was
he?
That's right.
This 11th episode, I believe that they were holding the slot open
for Paul Abbott, who's one of Britain's premier screenwriters.
He did things like shameless and clocking off and I think Russell
might be friends with him or knows him very well.
And in the end, he just didn't have time to do it.
And so Russell himself stepped in and wrote an episode, which kind
of tied together everything so far and gave us a little bit of a
breathing space before we went into the big two-part conclusion.
And you need the breathing space.
It's great breathing space.
I think that it's something that he does later with less success, I
think.
Things like Love and Monsters, which is obviously very
controversial, and maybe even the end of time, where there's a
sort of very, very kind of thin premise.
There's not really much going on in a sort of Doctor Who sense and
he's writing character drama instead.
And I like that a lot.
And I think he absolutely lampshades how stupid the science
fiction premises here.
So you've got, you know, Margaret, she turns up out of nowhere.
She's become the mayor, no one ever takes photographs of her for
some reason, even though she's the mayor, they do take, they
plaster over the front page.
That's it.
Somehow she's got this plan where she's able to get people to
agree to knock down Cardiff Castle and build a nuclear power plan
in the middle of the city. of the city.
Like that's, it's so cartoonish.
And when she's foiled, she's foiled in this sort of fantastically
Scooby-Doo kind of way.
That happens so early on.
Like she's completely foiled, that whole sort of plan, uh, goes to
hell super early on in the episode well within the sort of 1st
half of the episode, and then we get what the thing's really
about.
And there are times when I sometimes think that I can detect
Russell kind of spinning his wheels a bit.
But he does that here so well that I don't think it's a problem
and it will become a problem, I think, in future episodes.
I love all the comedy moments in this.
Like right from the get go with Margaret dashing out the window.
That line of Chris where he says, she's dashing out the window
isn't she?
And he goes, yes.
And that whole sequence of her with her like teleport and then
coming back. so funny.
Like how the doctor pursues her out the window saying, Margaret.
And, you know, the comedy Mickey stuff where everyone's, you know
Jack leaps over a tea trolly and everyone's being super heroic and
Mickey sort of treads in a bucket, which he then trails after him
with sort of toilet paper behind him or something.
Like it's all really, really fun and super funny and in a way that
Doctor Who hasn't been, that sort of slapstick comedy, like not
treating the main plot, particularly seriously, and kind of
throwing it away.
And it's something that I wish Doctor Who did a little bit more.
You know, each episode has to have a threat and an adventure and a
climax and a plot getting foiled and all of that kind of thing.
And I think we could afford to have episodes that weren't like
that.
I think it works here because you know what the thread is.
You've experienced this, Celine before, right?
She's out for revenge based on what's happened in the past.
So we don't have to have all that setup.
No, and we can have just a stupid plot and throw it away because
it's not the focus of the episode.
It doesn't matter.
I think the closest parallel is for me is power of three.
I think that's really excellent.
That might be my favourite chibnal episode, but I think it does a
much worse job of the science fiction plot when we finally get to
it.
I think that bit's kind of terrible.
Whereas here the science fiction plot is deliberately cartoonish
and outlandish.
You know, all of the people who've been killed on the Blythe Drew
project.
It was a very icy pad.
But also that they'd written danger explosives in Welsh and so the
French inspection team didn't know what it meant.
And that whole thing is so ridiculous.
Like, not for a 2nd can you believe any of it?
But it's also the fact that Margaret's not just going to set up
this nuclear reactor and then, you know, send it into overload or
something.
She actually builds in a design floor.
So it's designed to explode.
And then only one person.
I've checked the figures. detects this.
I'm gonna disagree with you about the Mickey comedy.
I think him running into that trolly does a disservice again to
the character, and that has happened before in Russell's writing
back when he tries to hug the TARDIS back in the previous Slovene
episode.
And I do have to say that I actually think Russell's writing of
his character.
He's trying to redeem him in some aspects, but I also think at
times, I think it really just... sort of making him the butt of a
joke doesn't sit that well.
And I think at this point I don't want it anymore.
And it does come back a bit, I think, in the finale as well.
Like he's ever mourning about things.
But here he does get to actually have a good, you left me moment
with Rose and actually pull her up, which I like, but what he
giveth in one hand, he taketh away in the other.
I find it times and that really just, that's probably part of the
episode that I don't particularly like, that he's moaning and
complaining or is sent up as a comedy character.
I think who would you give that to?
I mean, if it had been Moffatt, the doctor would have been the
less competent one, like he would have been the one who kind of
falls over or does something silly rather than a companion.
I mean, it's true.
I mean, we want to see that, you know, the others are now a team.
They mention all these other adventures they've been on.
They're very much a unit.
So yes, obviously it's going to be that character.
But in fact, what's nice is him being included.
That thing where they're having breakfast in that cafe where the
doctor sees the picture of Margaret on the newspaper.
Like Mickey's kind of included in the fun there, you know, and
Jack's telling the story.
Does Mickey give the punchline?
He realises what the punchline is.
That's my line.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's nice.
Yeah.
I think this episode is essential for Mickey.
I think it's the episode where both Noel Clark and Russell work
out what to do with the character.
And it does start off with Mickey being a klutz, which is, you
know, consistent with what we've seen beforehand, but then it
makes the punch of his emotional wounding at Rose's hands all the
more powerful because, um, you've set him up as a klutz, but he's
actually a real person with real feelings and you see that in the
sweep of the episode.
And he's forced into having to go out with Trisha Delaney.
I think that that's amazing that scene.
So you've got 2 dinners going on.
And I had heard somewhere that the working title of this or one of
the possible titles was dinner with monsters, and it's obviously
the doctor has dinner with Margaret and she's a monster.
Margaret thinks the doctor's a monster, but the other monster is
Rose in this, and she gets some level of realisation as well.
The final moment of the story where we have the shot of the egg.
Heartbreaking.
Yeah, she says it would be nice to have a chance to start over
again. like... abuse so well And she is horrible.
Like she's abandoned him and she's horrible about Trish.
Like that awful.
She's a bit big.
You know, she lost weight.
Like, she's just a dumb girl from a shop who won't run away and
explore the universe and leave him behind.
And like Rose just snaps her fingers and drags him all the way to
Cardiff for no reason, on pretence.
I actually like to the way that scene looks like it's going, which
is that they're going to have dinner and then a hotel room and
stuff.
I thought that was really nice and something that we'd never had
before in Doctor Who, you know, like the companion kind of is a
grown up having relationships and like in a proper grown up way.
And it looks like it's going so well.
And then it just takes a real emotional turn.
Yeah, well, that would be consistent with Rose's character because
one of her defining characteristics is that she's selfish.
Yeah.
And, you know, Billy Piper's commented on this in interviews
before, where she says Rogue is just a selfish cow.
And it's true because she thinks nothing of dragging Mickey to
Cardiff on a pretence to bring her passport and then say, oh, let's
go out to dinner and let's get a hotel because that's what she
feels like at that very moment.
Whereas the previous episode she was quite happy to flirt with
Jack and see where that went and poor Mickey's just disposable.
Yeah, a convenience, isn't he?
I mean, it does seem that that's Swede, the way that's going, but
it isn't.
Like it's just her using Mickey to get her end away in between
adventures because he's convenient and he'll come when he's
called.
And even at the end, like where he sort of looks at the scenes
that are unfolding and where she is and sort of thing goes off
without really, there's no real goodbye.
So she goes out to sort of say goodbye.
She has forgotten about him in the excitement.
You know, she rushes back to the Tartars.
She only realises that she's left Mickey behind and doesn't know
what happened to him after everything's been resolved.
And he could have been hurt.
Yeah, yeah.
And then she runs off and Mickey sees her, but he just leaves
without, you know, saying goodbye.
And then Rose comes back into the Tardisan lies about having seen
him.
You know, he's fine, you know. powerful stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
It's why I think this episode's so good for Mickey because at the
end there, he retains a small shred of dignity by not going up to
her and saying, yeah, I'm fine and sort of playing her game.
He decides to take control.
He makes sure that she's okay.
He makes sure that she knows, you know, she's talking to a
policeman, that he's not among the injured or whatever, and he
just takes his dignity and turns around, walks away.
It's a turning point for the character.
It is, which is why I like the fact that he's, you know, typical
aliens of London Mickey early in the episode because you get that
move for his character.
Yeah And it's been a little while since we've seen him, I guess.
Apart from Little Mickey and Father's Day, yeah.
Who, okay, is running around after Rose.
And so, of course, the other big dinner that's going on is the
dinner between the doctor and Margaret.
And the show does take a turn into this kind of moral dilemma.
Is it right for us to take Margaret back to
Rexicorricofalapatorius and have her executed?
And it looks like the doctor is fine with it.
It does.
There's a moment where sort of Margaret does the Sylvester McCoy
look me in the eye and tell me it's okay and none of them can do
it.
And the doctor, I don't think, even attempts to look at her or
initially pretends to be sort of engaged in something.
And all of that is so tremendously well directed because you've
got Margaret out of the stupid suit.
I think we have a bit of CG Celine when she's getting out of the
suit to attack Kathy earlier in the episode.
Later on, she pulls off a Margaret hand.
But basically you've just got Annette's acting performance.
And what Russell did, of course, in the design of the Sabine is
have them look like fat people. you know, like they've got big
round, chubby baby faces.
And so Margaret still looks like a Slovene, you know, and she's
quite happy to show her sort of somewhat terrifying teeth and is
quite happy to be shot in close up.
You know, it's not a very forgiving way of directing her.
She's got massive sort of close-ups of her face.
And they light her green.
Like they use the TARDIS atmospheric lighting to give her a green
face in a lot of shots just to remind us that she's a saline.
And I think it's terribly well done.
And she lectures them.
It's another one where the monster has the high ground, morally.
It's a great performance from her.
And and the things that he gets here to say like, I bet you are
always the 1st to leave.
At last you have consequences.
This is something that never has been really addressed in classic
who, for us as classic who fans.
And also to reinforce to the new audience as well.
You know, we're not just going to choof off and that's the end of
it.
You've actually got to face up to what you're about today.
I think that sort of critique of the premise of Doctor Who, whether
Doctor just kind of does something and then disappears and doesn't
deal with the consequences.
Um, It's something that will come up again.
Have we ever had it before?
It's never really talked about in the original run of the show.
The doctor just ducks out at the end.
He doesn't want to clean up any of the mess that he's created.
Yeah.
And he says I don't like goodbyes and things and he often just
sort of leaves people to rebuild what he's kind of blown up.
Yeah.
Yes. robots of death.
Yeah, yeah.
You don't even get to see a goodbye.
You know?
Yeah.
I mean, obviously here, you do have consequences earlier in the
season when Rose has been away for a year.
So you get to see that, but here they're really addressing it, and
I just think it's very powerful, especially, you know, with the
comedy goal that is that dinner with Margaret.
You know, with the best doctor villain confrontations in the
show's history, right up there with the doctor in Soutec.
No, I seriously, I'm in it.
Yeah, yeah.
It is great, isn't it?
It's so good.
And it's something which is lacking, I think, in the new series, is
that you don't often get Dr. Villain one-on-one.
Like Davros in Genesis of the Daleks.
That's right, because so often in New Doctor Who, the villain in
Inverted Commas is, you know, misfiring tech or something like
that.
It's not an actual person being a villain.
Yeah.
Well, I think that that scene is so good because it goes from just
the sort of hilarious comedy of the poison gas and the dart and
him sort of breath freshening her and stuff.
And even the just cheesy, you know, she puts a pill in his drink
and he swaps it around.
I mean, it couldn't possibly be cheesier and that stuff's super
funny.
And then you get heard discussing the details of what the
execution entails and asking him if he's going to be there for
him.
And he says he will, like he'll be there to support her while it
happens.
Well, like that absolves his conscience.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the thing about letting one go too.
You know, the way that the doctor critiques her morally because
she's congratulating herself for having spared Kathy.
And what I think is a great scene.
I love Kathy as a character and it is a very, very rustly thing to
you know, she's got a boyfriend, they're pregnant, but it was a
mistake, you know.
She can't lose her job because her family will get mad at her.
All of that.
She's got a very Russell name as well.
Kathy Salt.
It is a very rustly thing, a very warm and kind of human thing.
I like that a lot.
But Margaret's congratulating herself because she didn't slaughter
you know, Kathy.
And she turns that around on the doctor.
Why don't you let one go?
You had all of my family killed a few episodes ago.
Like, how many Sladine were there?
There were like a dozen or something.
There were a lot of people and the doctor just was happy to let
them all die.
And, you know, it's interesting that he decided to bring back
Margaret because in, obviously in Badlands, brilliant.
In aliens of London, Margaret's an underwritten role, there's not
a lot of meat there.
And so bring her back, was a decision to make this character
something based on the performance that she did earlier on, where
she is great in those earlier episodes as the 3rd pig in that sort
of wheel.
She's the one actually who is out of costume for most of the 2nd
episode for most of World War III.
She's the human face of the Sadine.
So we do know her and she gets some great comedy and some good
scenes.
And she gets to act against Chris.
Like, you know, when it keeps opening up the door and that sort of
thing, like she's going one on one.
So if there's a character he's going to bring back, she's the most
obvious.
There's that bit of history there.
And she's, I mean, is she just delicious, the entire performance?
And of course, she went on to be an EastEnders as Aunt Babe, and
was a very popular character delivering an equally delicious
performance.
I love her in Wizards versus Aliens.
I think she's just tremendous.
She is so great.
I'd hope that she was going to be Dolores Umbrage in the Harry
Potter films.
I wonder if she wasn't in them.
Yeah, she's a relative of Willy Wonka's or something into Tim
Burton film.
It's interesting talking about the confrontation between the
doctor and Margaret, you know, let one go.
I'm not sure whether I like the fact that at the end of the
episode, it's shown that this was all a ploy of Margaret's.
She didn't really mean any of it. because she was just setting it
up to get on her pan-dimensional surfboard and head off, and that
was her plan all along.
It felt like it should have had the stakes that she was being
honest with him and trying to convince him.
I don't think she was.
I agree with you.
It's the one thing where I kind of went, oh, that seems to come
out of the blue.
Like all these conveniences to get to this point. sort of, I just
kind of doesn't ring true to me.
Yeah, we needed a sort of climax for that stupid plot, maybe.
And so that's the big climax at the end of the episode where we
can have her defeated and we can pump the moral question as well.
They get to escape from having to make the moral decision, just
like Tom does in Genesis of the Dalek.
We set up a big moral decision and then punt on it.
But maybe we didn't need that confrontation scene.
You know, maybe it was Russell just hewing a little bit too
closely to the kind of Doctor Who formula and we would have been
better off if that stuff hadn't been a lie.
I think it's a little bit like Dalek, where if we think about that
stuff being a ploy to get Rose to touch the Dalek, It's less
effective because it's got a sort of stupid science fiction
explanation.
It's less effective than the Dalek being frightened and tortured
and abused and kind of terrified.
Yeah, it makes a little bit more sci-fi than it should have been.
And I think it just needed in Boomtown, a clearer turn in the
storytelling.
You maybe needed Margaret to say, I've tried to convince you
enough.
I don't believe you, so I'm just going to do this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That would have been better.
You could have still had that big climax, the big sort of swirly
special effect climax at the end and Margaret being threatening
and stuff, but if she'd lost the moral argument. and decided, well
I'm not going to be executed, so I'm going to do this.
Yeah.
Yeah, and that seems more organic.
Yeah.
But, you know, obviously in that sequence, the heart of the TARDIS
is opened and she gets to look into that. which is very important
for the upcoming finale.
Without looking like it's setting things up for the upcoming
finale.
I mean, what happens is she gets her heart's desire.
She looks into the heart of the Tartars and it gives her what she
wants. and she says, thank you, and what she does want is a 2nd
chance, a chance to do things differently.
So maybe that's Russell's way of saying, no, actually, it wasn't a
ploy.
Like the doctor's discussion with her has changed her in some way
and the thing that she wants more than anything else is to be
brought up.
You know, she blames her evilness on her upbringing.
She would have been fed to the venom gloves if she hadn't.
That's right.
So she talks about she talks about her her upbringing and blames
it on that.
And so she gets the chance to have a new upbringing where they get
you know, it's a little bit like bringing Pangol up properly this
time.
Possibly if she hadn't have had those conversations with the
doctor. and examined her own actions.
Maybe her greatest desire when she looked into the heart of the
Tartars would have been that, you know, everyone around her was
destroyed and she, she had it off on away.
What do we think about the heart of the Tartars?
One of the big criticisms of Russell's writing by people who have
no taste is that he relies a lot on the Deus X Markina as a
trope.
He does, and he does it a number of times.
This is the 1st time he does it.
So it doesn't worry me.
It doesn't worry you that in 2 weeks time he's going to use
exactly the same day as Xbox.
Oh, I don't know.
Like, I mean, it's set up that the TARDIS is organic, that it's
connected to the time vortex or whatever.
I think there's enough for me anyway, and you know what I'm like
when it comes to these sort of things.
There's enough building their backstory and explanations that I'm
not going to go and go, ah, this is terrible.
I think, you know, had it just turned up in the party of the ways
that would have been bad, I think.
You know, we needed boom down.
You seated the ground for it.
And I think in Boomtown, it just does the job of making visible
the change in Margaret, the sort of moral change that Margaret's
experienced.
We have this sort of magic fairy tale thing in the TARDIS that
gives you your heart's desire.
We get to see what our heart's desire is and we wouldn't have seen
that quite so easily.
And I think that's Russell all over.
I mean, I don't think it's doing him a disservice to say that he's
more concerned with character than plotting.
And I think the emotional payoff for the characters is much more
important to him than the physical payoff of ending the story.
Yeah.
And so it's perfectly serviceable, even though it is a DeSX
Macina.
But because you get the emotional payoff for Margaret and for Rose
as well, that makes it a satisfying ending.
I think you can overlook the sort of weakness in a plot device
because that emotional stuff in there.
To me, that's one, the biggest strength of his writing is that
emotional stuff and that really sells anything, any weaker
concept.
The complaint is always, if we'd had some lines of dialogue in
there, I would have bought this better.
You know, like if we just had it addressed in dialogue, I would
have been happy with it.
And I kind of think, well, you know, that's a recipe for just
technobabble, isn't it?
Like, I'd be happy for this plot development to happen, provided
it had some kind of technobabble name to it.
And I'm always sort of glad, let's not have the technovabble, let's
just provided it was explained on screen rather than working out
what's obvious in getting on with the character stuff.
Yeah, and I think, you know, like his biggest day at sex marketer
has to be the end of series 3, doesn't it?
And that's seated.
Like there is actually an attempt earlier in the episode to set it
up.
So I don't think he's anywhere near as sloppy as people claim he
is.
I think there are weaknesses in his writing sometimes that are
evident, but sloppy plotting is absolutely not one of them.
And people talk about absolute, as they say, Russell's all about
character and his plot's terrible.
That's not right at all.
He is all about character.
It's just, I think his character work is stronger than his
plotting work.
So we've been talking about lots of things being seeded in this
episode.
We haven't talked very much about Captain Jack.
And he's probably putting the background quite a bit being in the
TARDIS, but he's dealing with the rift.
He is wearing a blue shirt which shows off his arms.
Sorry, I just had to get that in.
And we are in Cardiff, which is all stuff setting up for
Torchwood.
I just want to throw in there as well.
They actually talk about the clerking device being a chameleon
circuit.
I think this is the 1st time they actually say chameleon circuit.
Previously it was talked about being a cloaking device.
So we are beginning to throw in a couple of things for fans.
Well, in fact, there's a big explanation of why the Tartars looks
like a police box here, which is just there, I think, for fans.
And it has a sort of slight eating up time kind of feel to it as
well.
But that's the beauty of this episode.
It has the time to address things like that.
And I think like Russell saying that it was very important to
actually follow Rose into the Tartars, the 1st time she went in
not like the TV movie, where you see the inside of the Tartars
before you see the outside and they get married together
properly.
You needed that explanation for new fans and new viewers who'd
come to the series who may have legitimately been wondering, why
does it look like a police box?
And so he allows time to address that.
In fact, the term cloaking devices from the TV movie.
It gets called a cloaking device in the TV movie and so Russell
addresses it.
And he will later make fun of the TV movie as well in a couple of
weeks time.
Good on you, Russell.
I actually really like the introduction where Mickey turns up.
So he's the outsider and he sees this team of people who have got
really super weird since he lasts.
Yeah, yeah, really terrible.
That will continue, won't it?
I mean, more so when David Tennant takes over the role of the
doctor because he is, you know, insufferable.
Sorry.
Not personally.
I think he's very charming, but his doctor and Rose together are
kind of bad for one another.
It's probably a good thing that we never got run of episodes with
the 10th doctor, Rose and Captain Jack.
Yeah, but, you know, there's that sort of cute flirty thing too
that goes on, which I just think is really funny, where Mickey has
misgivings about Rose travelling with Captain Jack because Captain
Jack is handsome. think you'll find he's cheesy.
Is he cheesy?
Did he say Captain Cheesecake in this one?
No, no, he says he's cheesy and he asks him what he's captain of.
Is it the innuendo squad?
Which, again, all of that banter is really fun.
And the doctor's kind of slightly hurt, but Mickey isn't sort of
sexually threatened by Rose travelling with a doctor.
You know, he comes down that sort of ladder and says, so, you know
you're saying I'm not handsome and the crack about his ears, which
is, like, I think that was a Moffat joke from the empty child.
All of that stuff is so fun and so light and so wonderful.
There's kind of a weird sexual tension between all of these
characters because Rose was flirting very heavily with Captain
Jack in the previous episodes. there's none of that now.
The doctor and Jack have a little kind of banter flirtation, you
know, buy me a drink. all of that.
And even Jack and Mickey kind of, I don't know, there's a weird
thing going on there.
But the bit which I like is when Rose decides to go to dinner with
Mickey and they walk off and the doctor's watching them on the
scanner and looks really hurt for a moment and then brush it
aside.
Well, I think Jack actually says what's on Italian, he says
nothing.
This is the 1st of 3 episodes that is directed by Joe Hearn, who
we haven't seen back on the series, and I think we may have
already talked about this during our coverage of series one.
Well, it's no secret, but I think there were certain frictions on
set, uh, and that Christopher Eckleston and Joe Aherne, who
directed Dalek and Father's Day, um, had gone on particularly well
and so it was a good idea to bring him back to do the last
episodes and, you know, keep the ship happy and all of that.
There were 2 other directors who were booked to do episode 11 and
then 12 and 13.
In fact, one of them then came back and directed on the series
later on.
But I think you'd be hard pressed to get anyone who'd do a better
job of Boomtown than Joe Oherne.
I think Joe Hearne's great.
I mean, the 5 episodes that he does this season are all
outstanding.
And I mean, he doesn't come back, does he?
Because he'd ended up spending so much time in Cardiff that, you
know, it was kind of in peril, I guess, relationship, I think.
He did the Toby Haynes thing where he came back very quickly
entered a chunk of episodes and kind of burned out and that was
his lot.
It is a shame because none of that seems to make it to screen, does
it?
I think you were saying earlier, Todd, that everyone seems to be
getting on so well in front of the camera.
I mean, it's a testament to the direction and to their acting that
you would never realise that there's any tension behind the
scenes.
And the chemistry on screen is fantastic between them all.
It's funny, isn't it?
But we never got the chance to see series one without knowing
right, from episode 2 that this was going to be Chris's only
season.
Yeah.
And all, all credit to Chris.
I mean, he supported that series right through to the end, even
after he'd essentially finished filming and left the production.
He was there doing all the pre-publicity for the season and, you
know, with a smile on his face and only hinting at the fact that
he might not be back, but never saying it.
You know, he did the series proud.
Yeah, I think there's an interview with him on the series one box
set where he's asked are you in it for the long haul and he kind
of says, I think I've already done the long haul.
And, you know, that's clearly before the show goes out and any
announcement is made.
And I think the announcement of his departure was leaked or
something or he was kind of angry about it.
There was some problem.
It was the spin, I think, of the BBC press office where they said
he didn't want to be typecast and he was like, actually, that's
totally untrue.
Right, yeah.
Yeah, it is a bit of a shame because I think one of the strengths
of this series is the family that it creates that a series where
there's a new guest cast every week.
There's a new location every week, a series that can go anywhere
in time and space, has actually managed to create a coherent story
over these episodes and a really strong, fun, regular cast bigger
than just the sort of 2 leads.
And I think Boomtown is absolutely crucial in doing that.
It's like, for me, like the long game.
The long game is overlooked because of the emotional stakes around
it.
Here you've got this single episode between 2 big two-parted
stories. and all that's going on in those.
So I think, again, it's overlooked, but it is just such an
important episode in the creation of this new Doctor Who.
And the writing that's going to continue on for another 10
seasons.
It's a little bit of a mission statement.
It puts all of the meat on the bone.
It's like, yes, this is a success from the new series.
This is the direction that we're heading in.
I also like the fact that it's not only shot in Cardiff, but it's
set in Cardiff.
So it's sort of bringing the production close to home with Doctor
Who as well.
Yeah.
I mean, it was part of the thing that they had to do, didn't
they?
I mean, if it was BBC Wales, they really wanted to kind of
foreground Welsh locations and Welsh actors and stuff, there's a
lot more Welsh voices than you might have otherwise heard.
We've got 2 stories set in Wales.
Yeah, I'm not sure if it was policy.
It may have been, but I think Russell, you know, wanted to give
back and say thank you and show off how beautiful Cardiff looked
after its redevelopment, sort of down around the bay.
And I think he ends up outsourcing that job to Torchwood.
Obviously, once Torchwood gets going, and we don't have to go back
to Wales quite so often.
Can I just talk about some torchwood related news from this as
well?
Margaret's secretary, Idris Hopper, played by Ahled Pedrick, I
think, is so cute.
He's does.
I mean, he's gorgeous in that one scene that he's got where he
says some, Oh yes, the man's just busy with some paperwork.
And of course, he was meant to transfer across to Torchwood.
He was meant to be in the Eanto Jones role.
And I don't know why.
It never happened and so they created Yantu, but you can just see
how that dynamic would have worked.
Interesting.
He's really good, isn't he?
That is such a fun scene.
I think we talked about that.
I love that scene alone.
Hello, when he pursues the doctor out onto the balcony, saying
leave the mayor alone.
And then the doctor dispatches him by sort of grappling with him
for a bit and he runs back inside.
So here, for the first time, we directly reference Bad Wolf.
It appears in Welsh, and then it's translated, and then the doctor
actually mentions that he's heard this before.
And as an audience, if we've been picking up on things, we would
have seen or heard little things, and you may or may not be saying
there's something in this, and then he dismisses it.
Yeah, it's a funny fake out, isn't it?
So we don't know whether the characters have been noticing the bad
wolf thing.
We know that they've heard it.
And of course, it's painted on the TARDIS in episodes 4 and five.
So we know that they've seen it, but we've been noticing it, and
it was something that we were talking about.
Do you remember when this season was 1st on, we were aware of it
and we were wondering what it meant?
And so this is the 1st time that the actual characters in the show
make it clear that there's some running bad wolf thing going on.
It's hard to remember what we thought it was going to be.
Like, I mean, I've really forgotten.
I know that we had huge discussions about what this was, and then
going back and watching episodes to see where it was, and you pick
up on so many different things, like, you know, Bad Wolf One
descending, all the Bad Wolf TV, like all these little things in
the background.
There was a bad wolf scenario that the mocks of Balhoon talks
about.
You've got Gwyneth the Big Bad Wolf.
You know, it's just coming up too often.
And when the doctor dismisses it.
It's like, I don't think we ever bought that.
It's sort of like he's trying to cover it up as if to say, well
it's Chris Comedy doctor performance where he's trying to change
the subject, I think.
He doesn't quite dismiss it because it looks like the doctors
deliberately trying to not address it.
You remember they put out a list of episode titles and they
left...
They left off episode 12.
Yeah, we didn't know what the title for episode 12 was going to
be.
And so clearly they've got to lampshade Bad Wolf before we go into
an episode that's called Bad Wolf.
Like it needs to be there this episode, but they want to leave the
big flashback to all of the previous uses of Bad Wolf to that
episode.
So he can't address it now, but it needs to be there in the
episode, I think.
And you wonder if it was an original episode 11 by Paul Abbott.
Would this have played a similar role or is Russell taking the
opportunity to say, right, let's really foreground Bad Wolf now?
is what he does with the whole episode.
He's sort of, he's picking and choosing the things that he wants
to kind of bring to the foreground and concentrate on and make you
take away from the series.
I think it's a blessing in disguise.
As I said, this is the episode that no one expected, but it's the
one that was needed and required all of the stuff that we've
discussed, the setup of torchwood, bad wolf relationships, et
cetera.
If it had been handled by somebody else, would the emotional
payoff happen in the next 2 stories?
Like if all of this stuff wasn't flagged to tie everything in
would it lessen the impact of this series and what people's
perception of the writing and the plan and how he delivers the
long game?
It is a lovely scene as well, that bad wolf scene because the
doctor's absent for the 1st half of the scene.
He kind of disappears from the action and all the dialogue is
between Margaret and Rose and Jack.
And then it just cuts to the doctor, looking at his back, looking
up at the words.
And so it's given import in the direction.
And so to then have it dismissed him, say, oh, it's nothing.
It like hearing a word, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And one of Rose's best eye rolls.
You know, one of the things that Doctor Who going to a 42 minute
format means that we have less of what Stephen Moffat calls
talking cheaply and urgently in corridors and stuff, you know.
That stuff gets cut out and it is sort of wall-to-wall action.
And that's good, I think, from a storytelling point of view, that
means that Doctor Who is more interesting.
A story that takes 4 episodes to tell can now be told in much less
than half the time.
And I think that that's good.
But I think that this story does a lot of just standing around
talking and getting to know characters, it doesn't have to have
relentless nonstop action.
And I miss that.
I would like to see more of that in Doctor Who.
What's standing around talking?
Yeah, I would like to see just a little bit more character
interaction.
I don't think we need to have a big alien threat every week.
I think we could have a week off every so often.
And it's a structural thing as well, because a lot of modern
Doctor Who covers a lot of time.
And so you jump time sequences, whereas in Boomtown, you get the
impression that most scenes are pretty well following from the one
that came before.
A couple of points.
One, by having these 42 minute episodes with a 13 episode
structure, you actually get the opportunity to have these type of
stories, to take the place of having these scenes in other
stories.
I think you need this sort of story once or twice a season to give
us that feel of characters talking around and that sort of
resonance of character development.
So I think the new way of telling stories in modern television and
allows episodes like this to happen.
Spoiler alert, like series 11 is going to have 50 minute episodes
as opposed to 42.
Is that extra 8 minutes going to be enough to put in more
sequences of standing around in corridors?
Like, I'm just putting it out there that you might get more of
that with Series 11 that's either on now or about to, well, beyond
by the time this comes out, I guess.
Be interesting to see if we think about that when we watch.
Yeah, it will be interesting, I think.
I want that stuff.
I just don't think TV can be what it was, where you just have
Sarah Jane, who is a person with no particular characteristics
other than that she's played by Liz Slade and that she gets thrown
downstairs every so often.
Yeah, yeah.
But it's quite true. 42 minutes is not enough to put that in.
Will 50 minutes be enough?
If Doctor Who came back as 60 minute episodes, would you have got
that mix?
I mean, it's all what if scenarios?
Referring back to what I was saying earlier about this, the
episode that makes Captain Jack a companion.
The reason it makes him a companion is he's not driving a plot.
He's not there for a reason.
He's just pottering around in the background doing companion
stuff.
Yeah, he's being Nissa.
Yes, I was about to say that.
He was Anissa all along.
I think you find he knows quite a bit about telebiogenesis.
Almost certainly.
I love BTown.
I think it's a brilliant episode, but not everyone does.
And I don't genuinely understand why people don't like it because
it's so much fun.
I think maybe if there's a Kinsey scale of gun and frock in Doctor
Who, then Boomtown is a very definite 6.
It's very frock, maybe the most frocky episode since something
like the Androids of Tara.
There's no gun going on in it.
There's no people pointing guns at each other.
There's no, you know, it's all character drama.
And, you know, I think maybe if you think tack the site, but is
that alt drama, then it's not for you.
I think Phandom has a problem with anxiety about not being taken
seriously.
And because we're fans of something that is kind of opaque and
inexplicable to a lot of people, and perhaps because we've even
endured playground teasing in high school for having liked it
acutely sensitive to things not being taken seriously.
And because Boomtown throws away the alien thread.
And because in Boomtown, it's solved in such a Scooby-Doo way.
And because the threat is so deliberately silly and cartoonyish, I
think people may not like it for that reason.
And I think it's easy to conflate silliness.
So it's the silliness of a monster looking a bit NAF or a wobbling
and the silliness of being whimsical in the script and so people
conflate it as it's all just silly and I don't like it.
And that was my initial reaction to this back in the day.
Oh god, it's the Celine again.
Oh, it's a comedy episode.
Oh, there's no real threat.
This is really stupid, right?
So I was very dismissive, especially considering the stakes of the
2 stories around.
So I think if you come to it at a certain level of understanding
I'm going to say superficial, but if you glance at it at a certain
level, you could dismiss it and go, I don't really like this, but
when you start to actually watch it and analyse it like what we've
just done in the last 50 minutes, this is a really enjoyable
critical episode that is undervalued and should be appreciated by
a lot more people.
And it's a very important episode.
I mean, bad wolf parting way is an important episode, but so is
this.
It's important for the series.
Well, they listen about about all we have time for this week.
We're heading off to infiltrate the television landscape of an
entire empire, which means we'll see you next week for Bad Wolf.
In the meantime, you can find us at Flightthrough Entirety.com
flight through Entirety on Facebook and Apple Podcasts and at FDE
podcast on Twitter.
If you'd like to hear more of this kind of nonsense, then why not
check out Bondfinger, our James Bond commentary podcast.
That's bondfinger.com, bondfinger on Facebook and Apple Podcasts
and at bondfingercast on Twitter.
Until next time, may you always remember when dining out on the
Planet Raxacorrico Fallapatorius, don't order the soup.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
See you soon.
A fascinating discussion.
Goodbye.
That was Flight 3 Entirety, starring Todd BLB, Nathan Bottomley
and Peter Griffiths, theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, Strings
Performance by Jane Allberg.
This episode, going one-on-one, was recorded on the 5th of August
2018 and released on the 4th of November.
And if you want to hear our immediate reaction to each new episode
of Jodie Whittaker's new series, just tune in to our new flash
cast, Jodie Interterra.
That's Jody Intoterra.com and Jody Interterra on Apple Podcasts.
Maybe that gets to be the end.
That's pretty good.
Either all.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Working around.
Yeah, yeah.
This is what happens when we when we do this podcast is that you I
walk away going, 0 my goodness, it happens. like you come in with
preconceptions and then we have discussion and and I'm
enlightened.
Or you're enlightened or you go areas you just don't think you'd
ever go to.
I never thought about Captain Jack and Lisa.
That's when I was watching it this time.
I thought, oh, she's here making a thing to smash an Android.
He gets to...
Well, it's because you've got those 2 dinners.
Do you know what I mean?
And so there's nowhere for Jack to be.
You've, yeah, he's, he's a 3rd wheel in that, in that bit.
No.
Just shag a bunch of lepers.
All right.
I don't know until next time.
Until next time.
May you, then then arrived before I could...
And fall apart.
What are we doing next time?
Until next time until next time.
May you...
Remember never to order the soup at a Rexacorricofalipatorian
restaurant. sounds good.
The next time.
Yeah, because the soup is Margaret Slovine, you see, being melted
into us.
Soup.
It's an eternal order.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Still alive.
You always remember.
Not to order the soup.
No, may you remember until next time.
Remember, because it's always a Mayu.
It hard to say, isn't it?
Until next time, may you avoid ordering the soup?
No, but it needs to go at the end.
The ordering the soup needs to go at the end of it for it be a
joke.
So until next time, uh, when you're at, when you, until next time
I don't want to say next again.
So next time you're at Araxacoracopal... next time, I can't say
next time again.
May you remember the next, may you remember?
When you dine?
Yeah, when you dine on Rights of Coron Hotel, Notorious.
What are the Margaret's sleeping?
The blonde flat...
Plus in Jets Lane soup.
That is an awesome line repleading for mercy out of the dead
woman's.
That's what Stockaking and Waterman said to the Reynolds girls.
You finally said it to Noel.
No, I didn't go there.
You did. try this Is it to Jackie or Siobhan?
To Jackie.
Oh, dear.
Well, dear listener, that's...
That's blue.
No, that's fear her.
Blompell fotch.
It has to be nice of me.
So bad.
Brandon wants to do it.
I think he wants through a demon.
If I'm doing the last 3 episodes, whatever it is, I'll have to get
a rant.
So bad.
Well, dear listener, that's about all we have time for this week.
We're heading off to infiltrate the entire television landscape
which means that we'll see you next week for Bad Wolf.