You Have to Bring Your A-Game

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight through Entirety the only Doctor Who podcast that has decided to quit Doctor Who completely. Do a series of commentary podcasts on Thor 2 and then spend a long period in complete obscurity. I'm Nathan. I'm Todd. I'm James. I'm Richard for today. That's a revelation. We've reached the end of the 1st series of New Who, so it's time to sit down, take stock and work out what valuable life lessons we learned from the Christopher Eccleston era. Take it away, Chancellor Flavia. Hello, listeners, and welcome to our Christopher Eggleston Retrospective for his one season in the role. Well, let's begin with some of the hard hitting questions. So Nathan, knowing that Bad Wolf is your favourite episode of the season, Snog, marry a void, stars in their eyes, call my bluff bear with me. Okay, I'm totally snocking bear with me for some definition of the word bear, I think, probably. Is that when they revive at Lizabethan Theatre and just throw you into a bear pit with live crushing bears? No, that's the one where they don't they have a bath with a bear? Yeah, the bear gets in the bath. It's the best bit. And then stars in your eyes. We've all been there. Yeah. I'm keen to avoid stars in their eyes. I think that sounds terrible. And call my bluff. Was that the other one? With real guns? Yep. I'm going to I'm marrying that. Oh excellent. It means you married Dennis Norden and the lovely, what was the other lovely fella with the gruffly moustache and all the rest of it? Anyway, it's a very long time ago. Frank Muir, Frank Muir, and Dennis Norden, who were doing call my bluff back in the 50s. But that was just a nod for us fan folk. Who are a 1000000 years old? Yeah. Coming back to this 14 years later, What's the thing that stood out for you for this entire series? This is a terribly nerdy story, but I'm going to tell it anyway. Someone at work in 2005 said to me, you look really happy. And I said, it's because Doctor Who's back on. And this series made me incredibly happy because not only did it come back, but it was really good. And you look at it now and it does look sort of cheap in places but it is so tremendously great. And I guess that's what I've been thinking over the past 13 episodes. Richard? My only take, and I've said it before, is it really shows with a drama, this complex that you need 18 months of script development. I didn't even, not even talking about design or casting or whatever the directors, you know, then do with the scripts, but each time we've had a hiatus. And you look at other big shows that are done. This rapid turnover, as they've seen with modern television. We saw how much they got away with and what was acceptable in the 70s and the early 80s with rapid turnover, but I now stop and think of this as seeing just how well-developed the scripts are and that the time for everyone to know what they're doing and know their parts and work with it really well. And I look at the 70s and the 80s and think, It wasn't actually maybe just a matter of budget. Imagine what they would have been able to do if they had another 6 months between seasons back in the day. At a 13 episode season. Wouldn't it have been interesting? I think we would have had a much better quality for all these years. Counterpoint season 22. Oh, nice. And season 23, you know, but... But they were also, you had to see one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Right. going there. James, coming back to this. I am not this huge a fan of Eccleston as Nathan, but why not? That's interesting. I think it's more a case if I just preferred tenant. I know that doesn't sit well with Richard, look at his face. dear listener. But I think it's, yeah, look, I mean, I was surprised how much I enjoyed it rewatching it for the podcast because I didn't have as fond a memory. I kind of, I think I got caught up in the, you know, him quitting after a year or after an episode. And all of that and kind of maybe was a little bitter, you know because... That was exactly the temperature at the time. I enjoyed his portrayal, but I was kind of, you know, why couldn't we have more? If we'd had another season, we had, like he, he was having teething problems and it's not until, say, the doctor dances that you kind of go, well, I think we've said this, well, at least you and Brendan and Richard have said this in those episodes that that's where he really feels like he's getting the role. But it's like any doctor coming in. There's always a shakedown period where they're trying things out and then they sort of, there's a moment where they completely click and from that moment on, there's there's no dull beats, you know? Yeah. And I certainly think around that time, that two-parter onwards. It certainly very clear. And I think that's, that's, it's all coloured by that. But having rewatched and knowing what's coming, um, and looking at it through eyes that probably hadn't seen those episodes for maybe 5 or 6 years, I really appreciated him in a way that I hadn't before. That's something that I've taken out of this is how much I've appreciated his portrayal as the doctor and what he's actually doing. I think for me, the biggest revelations is how consistent this season is in terms of script, which goes back to what you were saying. Tone and variants as well. It's a very modulated symphonic piece. There's not an episode that I wouldn't go back and rewatch, whereas I can't say that for every other season, necessarily, of the new series. And of course, the other big revelation for me was the dialogue in Bad Wolf, which I'd forgotten like over a 3rd of it. I thought I was coming back to a brand new re-edit of the episode. So that was, I was just there going, what's happened to my brain? And also the other thing is the special effects. I think they do look more dated now and a bit more ropey. There's still some spectacular ones. Not saying that there isn't, but I was surprised at certain times where I kind of thought, oh, I thought it would hold up better or I thought it was better at the time. Well, it was great at the time, but I just suddenly went, it's aged a bit compared to what's happening now, bit more than I thought. It's that thing when you teach kids and they talk about Doctor Who back in the old days when the effects were crappy and you realised they're talking about series one. you know, rather than the 1960s. I just want to vomit. But what are the ropey effects if we're already there? I think that there are some really poorly directed moments with the Savine in World War III. I think that they're really quite bad. Who was the director on that one? Keith Boke. We've mentioned him a bunch of young. Chi fans in the end of the world. I think, yeah, those aren't convincing, but I think that I think the idea that the special effects are trying to present a convincing version of reality is wrongheaded. They're trying to be impressive special effects. We're talking about direction, though, here, because I know how hard it is and I did it for a very small time, but getting the CG right is just time and bankruptcy. I'm impressed just watching Father's Day again yesterday. How good the vortosaurs are, which I insist on calling them that because they're an obvious nod, to storm warning. The chronos 1st story. Aren't they coronavores? what I want. 1st of all, maybe. So it's the same thing. They exist in the vortex and when Charlie Pollard has them one as a pet because she couldn't get an Australian surfer of heterosexual domain. I mean, I do agree with you. I mean, it is budget is time, and I think over time, as the years have gone on, with special effects, you can get better effects more quickly and people have worked out how to do things. I think at certain times here it's the shading, all the shadows and stuff like that. I'm not saying like it's a breaking point or anything like that and they're appalling, but there's a little less reality to it. Like I kind of look at it and go, I just wince a little bit at times. It's the matching and the green screening. But that is a visual thing. I care about being able to see the actors' faces, their reaction and how they interplay together and how they play against the FX. Look at Snow White, or, you know, original animation was not, well you know, it doesn't stand up to what you're talking about now, but pace, tambler, and pause, that the time that you need for actors to do their work is given it. I think Father's Day is the most successful story that does that but so is Bad Wolf. And so I can't really think of actually any stories other than the directors that you just talked about, Mr. Bogue stories, where that doesn't really happen in this season. I think now the special effects are trying to be realer. And, you know, there is a type of special effect where you don't realise it's a special effect where they'll match something out or you know, do something like that when you think about, you know Mad Max Fury Road. There weren't many special effects, but most of them were things like wiping out cables and stuff like that, not creating CG worlds like Phantom Menace or something. Whereas something like the end of the world is very much saying look at our new toys and what we can do, and those special effects I think, would be spoiled by being so subtle that we didn't realise they were effects. They needed to be sort of big brash computer effects just to say that's what we can do. Well, let's just talk about Christopher Eckleston, because this is his retrospective. What do you think his legacy is? Acting. He gets it right, and I don't believe it's not finding the part. He said that he wasn't comfortable doing children's. He saw it as children's television. as did Tom, as did everyone. We actually, everyone, even if we don't necessarily love them, the ones that the majority of the viewers, and that's the reason the show is back on the air. It wasn't made for us. Let's remember. All we get is ice hop galaxy on a monitor. That's for us. The rest of it is for the not we. So, the point of their customs performance, I believe, or the punctiliousness of it and the repetition. Again, it's very it's very symphonic. He really does modulate what he's doing and he'll start off, that timorousness or that sense of uncertainty is actually the actor's trope, that he is playing a man who was recently, as he saw it came into a body. He read, he was very careful with Russell for all that time to consider the time war, and we know that they had complete fan spas where they all got together into a bubbling round pool of fan chattiness and talked about the character in the development because that's what a theatre actor does dining. And then he's how they treated it. You can really feel it. I don't think he's I don't feel that he was coming from a place of uncertainty. I feel that he was very carefully. Like you mentioned Todd. It's the Colin Baker principle of starting off cool and warming him up as he comes into it as he gets used to being here as we get used to him. It's a really sterling performance watching them again. And I think that's the reason the series went so well afterwards for so long. Nathan? I think that Richard's right. And I want to take another kind of look at it. Every time the story comes out that the doctor's leaving and we're going to cast a new doctor, we get, it'll be Ken Dodd. It'll be Jeanette Cranky, you know, like it'll be someone hilarious from TV. And partly, I think, too, that it was a result of the idea in the 80s that it was a job for a light entertainment star. And it was really important, I think, to Russell that it was a proper actor. And Eccleston was such a proper actor that it seemed unlikely that he would even agree to do it, despite having worked with Russell before, on a project, which is the 2nd coming, that is not that dissimilar from his role as Doctor Who. And it turned out, he was an actor who wasn't going to stick ground for the part. And so I think we were super lucky to have him for the short time that we did the sort of crankiness that we get from the sort of behind the scenes stories. Maybe that's the flip side of the kind of actor he was. And that kind of discomfort with the role, which I think is visible, is a good thing because I think that this season, and I have said it before, doesn't know whether it's going to be successful. It doesn't know what it's going to be. They're making this without realising that in a few months time. It's going to be the biggest show on British television. And so there's no complacency here. They're all really bringing their A game and trying as hard as possible. And I think that's why this season's good. And I think that that's why Eccleston is so good. James. I would tend to agree with Nathan that it's having such a serious actor in the role really did make the entire production team work that much harder to try and make a success. And it also proved to the viewing audience that Doctor Who is a serious, or at least back then it was a serious program that had to, you know, had good actors. It wasn't, you know, that sort of fondly remembered creaky TV show that had those sort of be great actors. You know, which is how the viewing public remembered it, rightly or wrongly, wrongly. And so casting such a well-regarded actor in the role, I think, is it probably actually made it survive. I don't think you could have cast. someone not of his higher calibre without, um, without it possibly not having been renewed the next season. So it's changing the perception of the public of what the show actually is. His job is so much harder than anybody's come after him apart from Jody. Yeah. It's like Pat, you know, like Pat is there to prove that the doctor can be a new actor. Chris proves that the show works in the 21st century. Again, yes, I agree with all that you're saying. He sets a benchmark for everybody who comes after him to realise that you have to take this seriously. You have to bring your A game. You can be funny, you can be heartbreaking, you can be angry. And I think without that, you know, the performances of his successes may not be what we actually ended up getting. Well, Christopher's one part of the of the duo, that is the stars of the show. The other one is Billy Piper. Let's talk about belief for a moment in the role of Rose. What did Billy bring to the table? Oh, the fact that we've still got a show. I only look at her when she's on. Is that Charlie Brooker game? Have we mentioned it before? Where you're looking at her and trying to decide which of her facial features is the biggest? Since she's done the work. When she comes back, spoiler alert, and it really is. Oh, my God, why are they using an anamorphic lens on her shots? Oh my god, no, it's her new tea. That's weird. But I'm not even a fan. I'm really not. I couldn't care less, but of anything she does outside. blithely disinterested. Didn't even know who she was or that she'd had a recording career. Of course, you know, hey, BBC listener. But sticking her on there, the subtleties, she gives Eccles heart and warmth and she's the reason the doctorates were propelled. And the reason we're actually interested in the doctor is the character of Rose and it is Billy's performance. Because when she says to him, I know you, and she throws the line really nicely, not dwelling on it, because she's not cruel, you're sad. You will disappear and you'll be waiting for me at that box and I'm going to make you wait a long time. That didn't mean to sound as naughty as it just did. She brings some real kind of TV style realism to the part. She's just a bloody good naturalist actor. Yeah, yeah. I just can't get over. I'm sure I said this just a couple of weeks ago. that on the weakest link, The success of that entire sequence just hinges on her performance, you know, she's amused and then terrified. She's so good. She's so terrific. And she'll be great again next year. I just think she's extraordinary and we were really lucky to have her. I actually don't remember the bit where all the fans said, oh she's a pop star, Shelby Crap, you know, what's going on. Oh yes. I don't remember that. All the forums were lit up again. was Christmas every day. I had a moment where I thought you were going to say, oh, she's back with Jody next year. Ooh, better get a bit late seasons, Buffy, wouldn't it? Which one's the witch? I think one of the things in rewatching this is that Rose is a lot more selfish and quite unlikeable at times. Like, how she's treating Mickey and various... And I didn't realise that it was quite like that, but that's one of the biggest revelations I got, but her performance throughout the entire season. There's just a realism and a grounding that she brings to the role that even despite those things in rose, you can't help but love the character and that's because of what she brings to the part as an actress. Yeah. I remember being disappointed in the end of the world when she gets knocked on the head and then just sort of recovers. You know, like you get smacked on the head by one of the adherents of the repeated meme and everyone knows that you go straight to A and E and, you know, have concussion and things. And she had been so sort of TV realistic up to that point. I thought, oh, really, is she going to be menaced and thrown downstairs and knocked unconscious and stuff, like used to happen back in the classic series? And in fact, she more or less avoided that and did get to be like a person reacting to this stuff. And the other characteristic she has is that she's really smart. Like, she is quick to work out what's going on. So she does seem to be a more well-rounded character than we've had before, I think. She's a clever person, even though she doesn't necessarily have like an education. Yeah, that's exactly it. She's not an idiot. Yeah. I think that's that's right. And, you know, when they bring in Pete, they make Pete smart. like clever at working out what's going on and that's where Rose sort of seems to get it from. And so already we've got a character who has some personality traits. She isn't just from the Sever team or a time lady or a journalist whose character is more or less completely defined by the actor's performance. She is actually a person with more personal characteristics. And I think that's a step up. James, do you have anything to add? Look, I have seen. I mean, I'm one of those fans who, when they see someone in Doctor Who will go, where have I seen them before? I would like it, where can I see them? And so I did seek out a lot of her television following this. Well, I assume she didn't really have a TV. Really in the smoke? Yeah, so I did track down Ruby and the Smoke and Secret Diver, Call Girl, and various other things that she'd done. And it's not just Doctor Who. She is a bloody good actress. I've seen her in Penny Dreadful, and she is a consumptive prostitute. She's struggling with her new teeth and an Irish accent, which is really quite terrible, but she still manages. So often go together, don't they? She still manages to do an amazing job. She is very good. Strawberry avoid. The Lady Cassandra. Trisha Delaney, Margaret Slavine. I'd snug Trisha Delaney because I was having trouble getting over Rose. I think I would avoid the Lady Cassandra, because she'd outlive me and probably make me into a kaftan or something. A high waisted evening jacket with Chanel buttons. Or a blue Kagool. That leaves you with Margaret Slovine. Oh, I marry Margaret Slippin because I just loving it Badland and everything I've ever seen her in. And he'd end up being the lady mayoress of Cardiff as well if he did that. Or her handbag. There's another aspect I'd like to talk about, which is the console room, which we just see, the room itself for budgetary reasons. What was our initial impressions of that when we saw it and what do we think of it now? Look, it was so refreshing at the time. I, as a classic series fan, as we all are in this room, you expect it to be this modern, white, Spartan technological space and the boldness of reinventing that in an sort of organic, coral, sort of crystalline kind of way was so different from everything that's gone before. I think the problem with that is that that established for every console room since. You know, we have to go with dark and moody instead of modern and and the closest you get is the late Matt Smith and the Capoldi console room, which is the closest you get to the classic series in that it's obviously technological, but it's still dark and brooding. And I think that makes the whole show dark and brooding after a while. I wasn't taken with it at 1st. I was actually quite anti-it. I guess in my head, I thought they'd either go very classic, like the white one, or they'd go like a telly movie, much more like Jules Verne type sort of thing. So it was it was a shocking surprise to me to see what they went with and it took me quite a while to sort of warm to it. I think that the attempts in later designs to be quirky are terribly tiresome. And Matt Smith's 1st console room. I think is horrific. And I think Capaldi's console room is a little bit too TV moving a little bit too self-consciously Jules Verne. And so this is technological without being sort of 60s kind of modernist technological. It doesn't have the skill or ambition of the original design, but I think it's very good, and I think it does the job of telling us what the doctor is like because this is where the doctor lives, and in this enormous space, he is a very small figure. So the console tells us that the doctor is lonely. Just to look at it. It's not a homely place. It's not stuffed full of sofas and lovely books to read. It's a dark place that should have more people in it and should be more brightly lit, but it doesn't because the doctor's on his own. And I think it also serves to reinforce at the doctor's working class with the sort of metal grating. you know, the kind of roughness to it, that it's... Well, it's the job of a mechanic to run it, not a computer programmer. And I think that that's another good thing as well. to the north. Yeah, I get a lot of that. Look, my main disappointment when I saw it was, oh, you're just taking Jeffrey Sax's principles. of the overarching um flying buttresses meeting the console and you just you just taking out the steampunk. And I thought the oversimplicity of the mushroom set, the big dome wasn't going to lead to interesting shots, and the murkiness of it is just like every fanboys dig when they're a student. a lot of it was nice. It works as a film set. I actually prefer the Philip Siegel one, even though I know all of the rest of it and was doing all the Victoriana steampunk stick that we really don't like, but it just had a more interesting dynamics around the certain ways to shoot it and would have been more engaging as a long term. Because we've got that same principle. And that's what's really disappointed me with the Jody set, but we won't go there now. Um, look, I really like what you're saying about isolating the doctor or the sense that this is an alien thing that the Titus never was before. It certainly works for what the show's trying to do. I think this is a really hard question. to answer, because there's so many strengths to this season. I was thinking about asking you all. If you eliminate Christopher and Billy, who is the MVP on screen? But there's just so many people you could choose. Yeah. Yep, that's my answer. The correct answer? What does MVP mean? Most valued player. It's a sports thing, James. I don't do sports ball. Sports ball, yes. I don't do sports. Okay, and your favourite guest star of the year. I actually really love Sean Dignant, I really love. The way Rose is rounded out by seeing both parents. And Camille's performance in Father's Day is fabulous. She really does drama very nicely and angry, not very bright vituperous person. And then we can see how she developed to the person she is now. I think she's one of the, she's really a great performer. Yeah, there's some real good proper acting. She's playing 2 different characters in Paris Day. And she's different in each role. And, you know, she's someone who, I said this before, I think too. She would never have been in a Doctor Who story before, she would never have watched Doctor Who if it was on. She's someone from a completely different world and she just works so well. And she's there's a real warmth. One of the things that made me sad when I heard that Billy was leaving the show, was that I didn't think that they would find a way of bringing Camille back. And so I thought that that would be the last that we'd see of Jackie. And I'm glad I was wrong, spoiler alert. She is an absolute revelation and probably the best thing about the season. James? I agree that Sean Dingwall is great. And I think that's possibly because he comes back. And next season. Well, I'm not thinking towards the future. Yeah, but I mean, to me, to me, he has so much potential in this story, which is realised in series two. Um, my favourite guest star of the season is um, Florence Hoth. Oh, she's wonderful in Empty Child of Doctor Dances. Not just because she's a very good actress and plays that part with such, I don't know, like warmth and realism. and yet power as well. I want to keep calling her Florence Horter. That would be wrong. But also, the character, when you realise towards the end of the 2nd episode that she had a child out of wedlock and she's been struggling without her entire life and that, you know, the societal judgement that she had to hide her son away as her brother. That character just really, having studied history for a long time especially 20th century history and knowing that period so well. That character just resonated with that, I think. I love Murray's music. I think it's impossible to imagine the 1st 10 seasons of the new series without him. I think there are lots of issues with it in the mix in series one. I find that quite often you can't hear any dialogue. Maybe, look, maybe that's on rewatching it or the way it's been remastered for Blu-ray. I don't know, but the music itself is joyous, it's exciting adventurous. It's pitched exactly where Russell, I think, intended it to be. That's why he chose Murray. He worked with Murray before on queer folk. It encapsulates the show that he's making. And I don't think you can imagine the new series without it. I love Murray's music, but there was a really extraordinary article. I don't know if any of you guys read it. I dropped it into the chat during the week. It was an article in the New Yorker about the music of Doctor Who which talked about Segun Archinola's music for the new series and his new version of the theme. And we've been saying in Jody into Terra over the past few weeks that we like the music. And I found, after 10 years of Murray Gold, that it has been a relief to not be told what to feel. Except that I, we said this before because I think that he has taken the approach and it's with Russell's direction, that his job is to tell us what to feel. And that's one of the roles of incidental music. And it's a particularly kind of Star Wars-y, you know, a big bombastic genre. Very John Williams. Yeah. And you can see that they do want to get away from sort of weird plinky kind of see devil's music because that's kind of alienating. And while they're introducing it to a new audience and a broad audience, they're trying to be conservative. And I think that they took the right approach. That's not what Verity did though. No, no, that's quite right. I agree. The New Yorker article cites Malcolm Cole, which I think is the worst piece of scoring to have ever been done for the history of the series for the sea devils, because all I'm aware of is the terrible score, and it overwrites the action to the point that I'm dissociated from what I'm seeing. However, there's no mention of Tristram Carey, who we've mentioned before in the old days as being, I think, one of the greatest 20th century electronic composers, and his score for the Daleks, his score, even for the mutants later on. Just beautiful and censorious and odd and strange. But I'm getting this now. This feels like Carrie with the new series with Carrie and Dudley Simpson. Yeah, the underscoring in the subtleties. I like that, but I do love Murray's approach. And I do think it was the right approach. I agree, I agree for this season. It's the right approach. Maybe not for 10 seasons. No, no. The the reimagining of the the theme tune is fantastic. And all the little personal themes, especially Rose's theme, just underscore everything, and I just think it's beautiful. All right, it's not Mary Avoya. The Temple of Peace, St. Albion's Hospital, and the Powell Estate. I don't think you give me all the warm relationship alternatives here. architectural things. You know all things about architecture. pretend to. I really love the hospital, the Alban hospital and it was a hospital, wasn't it? It's the genuine thing. It's just gorgeous. And you get Richard Wilson as a surprise. And, you know, he's a great recontour. He's a great wit. Believe me, he's his autobiography and I thoroughly recommend everyone run out and listen to it. You can get it on audible. And he grew up with Sean Connery and plays tennis to this day, so a great pair of pins. So I'm definitely marrying that hospital with Dr. Constantine as it's cracker delight. The other one was the was that decon platform one, wasn't it? Which is an empty cold set. I don't think that's going to offer me much except, you know, the opportunity of leaving Bruno behind. So that in itself is a reason to leave it alone. And what was the 3rd one, Todd? The Palestate. The Palestate. the Palestate. Oh, that means I have to snog. Mind you, there's a lot of totty on the Palestate. There's all those, you know, there's all those lubatorium and mechanical offices just next door. I mean, where does Mickey work? He works at the Palace State. Yeah, no, I'm fine with the Palacedale. snog that. Why not? Excellent. So sitting here now, thinking about each of those episodes, as a snapshot, there's a moment in the episode that stands out in your head, right? A moment, maybe visual, align, something from each of those that sits with you. Do you know where I'm going with this? Yep. All right. Rose. It's the bride Autons. I said this on the actual podcast itself, the realisation that because autons were mannequins, they could be wearing dresses and that would be deeply hilarious. So it's that. Oh, for me, it was it's Camille. When she sexualises the doctor and his reaction to it. I'm thinking, what would pert we do? He'd probably jump right in. It was really shocking and surprising. I thought, my goodness, we are in the 21st century. It's an amazing scene. James? Mine would have to be the scene towards the end of the episode where Rose does the whole speech about winning the bronze in the gymnastics and saves the day by thinking, like thinking on her feet and going, well, you know, the doctors being held captive Mick is useless. I have to save the world. And I just love that scene. It's kind of like, look, this character is not just going to scream and fall down, like so many before her, she is a, like she's a driving force in the, in the narrative of, of this story. Okay, for me, it's Camille in the bedroom, blow drying a hair. Like, that's, you know, when the doctor walks in, that's, that's that's, that, that just, so it is that potent that, you know, I thought it was just me. Good, good. anything could happen. All right. End of the world. It's Britney. Yeah, toxic. Yeah, yeah. And the iPod and all of that sort of joke. The realisation that the future's not going to be sort of drab space corridors, it's going to be clever and funny. Richard. Oh, Mrs. Wood. Mrs. Tree when she gives him, you know, the exchange a bit of wood. I just love the actress. I'm sorry, I can't remember who it is. off the top of my head. The woman. Yasmin Bannum. Yes, madam. Of course, we own her now. She's doing Blake 7 Big Finish audios as the non-Dana. The non-data Dana. And she's superb, and she's marvellous in this, and again, we've got a flirty doctor, and it's really poultritudinous and cheeky and she does a lot of pouty mouth action, and he does a lot of cool introspective northern I could be up for this eye action back at it. It's just so exciting. And then they go and have a lovely testament to wood chipping industries and how and how cruel they are. I think it was, it's the just that establishing shot of the space station. Um, and and and the ships flying in and going, as somebody who like all of us grew up watching this show when it wasn't quite so uh, highly produced and and, you know, we look back at it now and go, oh, these special effects look a bit, don't you love, didn't you get that moment where the rings were a bit nerve a beacon? that little moment. Yes. But when I rewatched the episode for the podcast, hey, there were other shots that I thought, well, this doesn't quite stand the test of time. I think that one still does because it's so iconic and it's and it's the 1st time you get to go, well, this is what this show can do now. And it's still, it's still to this day, is one of the most impressive shots in the show. Okay, it's either the giant fans. The doctor having to go through them, which I think is just hilarious. It just cracked me up and it's the moment that spider hits the television camera. Oh, yeah. That's genius. It's a Doctor Who fan, you know? Okay, I'm Quiet Dead. I have no memory of that episode. Was it a bit tiresome? What Phantasmagore area is this? the only thing I can remember. My moment, sir, with Gwen and Rose. Again, it's when the actors are doing a beautiful piece and Gwen is talking, they're talking about boys, and it's really poignant and, you know, you're getting to see the, well, just the opening of a person who is so restricted in their lives, but you can say oh, yes, we look at, Well, I wouldn't know about that, madam, but then she talks about being able to read rows and the steel planes in the sky and that is to her more displacing and more shocking and more revelatory than actually talking about the sexualising of life, which was utterly forbidden. So there's just these layers of a girl then and the girl from now and that's really a beautiful, poignant scene. And yeah, that's the 1st thing that comes to mind for me. All right, and the two-parter, moments from that, from Aliens of London, World War II. It's the scene where a toddler is crawling on the doctor's lap and he's trying to get the toddler out of the way so that he can watch television, and it is because nothing ever remotely like that had ever been in Doctor Who before, and it's emblematic of that 2 parter, which is absolutely extraordinary, the best alien invasion either since the invasion or to date, because you just never know what it's going to do next. It's amazing, incredibly great story. I like the way that he takes to Harriet and as he does through all of these stories where it's not necessarily the underdog, it's the person who is meek and who is hesitant to speak, but they actually are the person who is going to reform and rebuild. In fact, all of these stories. I'm quite astounded at how socialist the base of this is, if you'll indulge me, because the powers that be, I would say, are conservative, in that they are reductive, in that they are formalised, and that they do not listen to anything that is peripheral, they have a, they have a direction, and that's what they stick to. The doctor never does that. It used to, only even in Pertweese day, where we saw him. I suppose most is the antithesis of the Eccleston doctor, I don't remember him doing what Eccleston does. He does it slightly. He does it with Bilal, but he does, but there's this lovely moment of, no, the doctor recognises Penelope Wilton's character and listens and that's what changes the world. And though Rose does it first. I think my favourite scene is uh, it's Margaret Slithine confronting the doctor and him saying, you know, I'm going to stop you and her going, what, you in your box? That's a great confrontation is all just done with looks and dialogue. And good actors. Yes, it just sort of encapsulates his sort of fighting against oppression against sort of... I mean, look, that's the other thing. So, I mean, aren't really defined as evil per se just as like capitalists. Yeah, yeah. They're just hyper capitalist. Yeah, and capitalist. Invading capitalist. Mainland Chinese business. So evil. Like capitalism. But capitalism taking to a 10th degree without, you know, with no consideration for life or... Yeah, that'd be crazy. Imagine if we've had it up for fuel and didn't care that we were all going to die. crazy stuff. I guess for me the moments that stick in my mind are Harriet Jones MP for flying down north. Yep. know who you are. Um, and... In the 2nd episode, it's that shot of the missile. streaking through London. I just, I, that's just something that just, yeah, that just sticks in my mind and it's the little pig running away too. That's the other thing in episode, the 1st episode. That is awesome. Dalek, the long game and Father's Day. Is there something that sticks out in your mind from those 3 episodes? I actually think for me, the best moment in that episode is the framing story in Father's Day, the one that's told into different versions by Jackie, and the way that that story fixes the history of Pete's death. And I said this in the episode in our Father's Day episode and I was tearing up as I was mentioning up not only because of the fact that Pete doesn't die alone, but that the person driving the car gets forgiven in that. And I think it's an extraordinarily beautiful thing. I think it's Paul. You know, I think Paul Cornell's responsible for that. And it's great. I guess for me, it's having Rick Astley play never going to give you up in the music track of that episode. Oh, actually, that is better. You're right. James? I think I touched on this in our episode on Dalek is the way that they obviously went... Well, what did what did the general public think was crap about the Daleks? Let's turn everything on its head. Um, which ostensibly was, was, uh, Rob Sherman's wife having, like he robbed, apparently chatted to his wife and asked her, what did you think was crap about these things and, and she gave him a list and he debunked every, every one of them in the episode. That's why she gets a Dalek Wrangler credit. Does she? No. Oh. She's the one that sticks the ramp on the stairs. Yeah, she now's the plywood. The green the green screen ram. Okay, the empty child, the doctor dances Boomtown. I'll just start off. I guess where's my mummy? And for the mayor, one is just a hilarious chase of chasing Margaret Slovene up and down that corridor, she materialises in and out and in and out. All right, and the final two, two-parter, is there something that really stands out for you? I think it is those TV shows. I think, you know, when you don't know exactly what Doctor Who's going to be like in the 21st century, suddenly seeing that it just openly satirises 3 TV shows that are huge and popular in 2005 and doesn't explain it, there's no kind of space reason why this is happening. It's happening because the audience watching the show also in 2005 and the show is created and directed at them. And I think that explicit kind of postmodern approach where the show is being written as a television event that will take place sometime in the middle of 2005, I think, is so daring and so interesting for Doctor Who, and it manages to be funny and clever and so confident, you know, so incredibly confident and ambitious. And for that reason, that 2 parter is just one of my favourite pieces of Doctor Who ever. And I think, unlike you, Todd, I have the entirety of bad wolf seared into my memory. I could do a performance of it for you. here on the sofa at a moment's notice. I think it's an incredible achievement. just extraordinary. So that's your favourite episode of the season? I think it might be my favourite episode ever, but it is my favourite episode of the season with an honourable mention for Aliens of London, World War III. Okay. You want to do favourite episodes? What's what we're going to do? Oh, okay. Well, it depends what we're looking for if you want my favourite Doctor Who episode. It's probably Dalek because it rebuilds the whole mythos, if you've been saying, of what Doctor Who is and surprises us all and waggles the finger of opprobrium and says, you see, we're a lot better than you thought we were. And we were always a bit better than you thought we were. But if you're talking about heart and feeling, Father's Day is extraordinary. And if you're talking about venturesome, open-eyed, wonder, um aliens of London, World War 3, and on the end of the world gives me all of those things. End of the World is Galaxy Quest on a budget. It's that much fun. Especially the fans that they have to get through. Why do we have these chumpy, chumpy things? That's great. I think that episode is often overlooked. Not underrated, just overlooked difference. I think Bad Wolf is my favourite episode. funny or surprising or because it's so contemporaneous? And it's so fresh. He's never seen it before. I find it very difficult with series one to actually fault anything. It works as a whole for me. Like, it builds over the course of the series, I think it works as a single story in that if you're following rose as your like point of reference for the show, that whole 1st season is rose's adventure. And so I find it very difficult to go. Well, this one's my favourite. That one's my favourite. I find something to enjoy in all of them, even the ones which are a bit clunky. I think it's what Richard said earlier. Richard used the word symphonic to describe this season, and I think that that is exactly right, that this is one coherent story that the basic unit of narrative in Doctor Who now is the season and so the unquiet dead. Well, it's not, you know, it has a lot going for it. I don't enjoy it as much as some other episodes, but the show would be poorer without it. It's just possible the season wouldn't quite work without it. And so it is one big giant thing. Russell T Davies has redefined the show. What has he done that new that has improved the series? I think this is all stuff that I've said before, but I think the 45 minute episodes were an obvious thing. I think that having character-based storytelling was the right thing to do. Having more women in it than Doctor Who had often had. So broadening the audience, and mining more of Doctor Who than what people remembered from the 80s or going further afield than the Hinge Cliff era, and including things and approaches that we'd only seen in the 60s or that we'd seen in the Sylvester McCoy era. Just the idea that Doctor Who isn't those 3 years of Doctor Who in the 70s, the Doctor Who can be a lot of things that can be fun and funny and silly and character based, it doesn't have to be deadly serious science fiction designed simply to provide material for TARDIS with KEA entries. And so it becomes something that everyone can watch. And that everyone does watch. It becomes the biggest show on TV because Russell knows television and knows how to be entertaining and knows how to speak to a general audience. And it's something that Doctor Who had lacked for, you know, a very, very long time. Is it part of also building this family on the show? I think that's it too, that the premise of Doctor Who, and I think I've said this 4 or 5 times in different episodes over the last 13 weeks. The premise of the show is 2 people who travel from place to place and there's a different guest cast on a different location every week, and yet somehow he creates this semi-regular cast, which is a secret that lets cracked in the early 70s with unit. And that makes the show more grounded and more relatable. It gives the characters more things to do because they have more different people to interact with. It's how rep theatre works. Soap, you mentioned it in one of the podcasts this year, soap and SF for sci-fi, have a lot more in common than the SF audience would like to admit. This works because it's not really Doctor Who. it's a new show It's the Russell show. Doctor Who doesn't work when it tries to go dark, Stephen. No, not for too long. Even just, you know, the idea that he wouldn't show blood or he wouldn't show human beings shooting one another. You know, he would never have produced earth shock. No. No, an earth shock wouldn't look how look how much that would stick out in this season. It just wouldn't work. Yes, it's something you just mentioned, Nathan. Like, he wouldn't show blood. Like there's times where I've gone, oh, they've been shot. I should be seeing blood. But I mean, people are very rarely shot with just proper guns in Doctor Who. The one that I can think of is Mr. Saxon at the end of series 3 where he does break his rule and show a bit of blood, but certainly, you know, you don't get Lytton's hands at the end of Attack of the Sidemen too, that's inconceivable in Modern Doctor Who. And I think that's good because it wants a broad family audience. It can't just be for teenage train spotters that we all. Well, dear listener, that's all we have time for this week. We'll actually be taking a break for a bit before coming back at you in the new year with new teeth and our shiny new coverage of Series 2. That's Billy and the doctor. That's right. That's weird. You can keep up with our news at Flight3entirety.com, flights through entirety on Facebook and Apple Podcasts on Twitter. But between now and then, we'll also be releasing a couple of commentary podcasts, including a very special Christmas episode and we'll still be on air each week to talk about the new episodes of series 11 in Jody interterra, a Doctor Who flashcast where we dispense hot takes about each week's episode. You'll find that at Jodyintterterra.com, Jody interterra on Apple Podcasts and at Jody interterra on Twitter. Over on Bondfinger, you can find commentaries on every film in the James Bond franchise, even a view to a kill. That's bondfinger.com. Bondfinger on Facebook and Apple podcast and at Bondfingercast on Twitter. Until next time, may you enjoy a refreshing break between seasons followed by a triumphant return in the new year. Thank you very much for listening and good night. Good night. See you soon. Good then. That was Fly through Entirety, starring Todd Bilby, Nathan Bottomley, James Selwood and Richard Stone, theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, Strings performance by Jane Orberg. This episode, you have to bring your A game, was recorded on the 4th of November 2018 and released on the 25th of November. Just in time for Christmas, FDE Enterprises has released Snog Marrier Void in the form of a customisable card game, featuring all of your favourites, including Eric Seyward, the Planet Bravelox, and every extant episode of the John Wilds era. Could this have been done without her? Could you ever see anybody else in the role? What do you think of her performance in this particular season in chemistry with Christopher? I think it was a major industry disappointment that Jeanette Cranky was not cast. It's a core role with Ken Dodd as the lead. Who's Jeanette Cranky? She's a yuppy duppy. She's the one when French and Saunders do Silence of the Lambs and she's in the cage next door. Oh great. I mean, that's just a go to. She plays Safie's midwife in series 5 of Absolutely Fabulous. And is a husband and wife, comedy Scottish duo that play a man and a little boy. Oh, yes, I know who she is now. Little sort of cap. In the great tradition of British comedy in the way of Jimmy Clitheroe, who was actually a midget, gentleman playing a boy child for 14 years, I think, on BBC radio, or entertaining Archie where you had a mannequin for almost 20 years on BBC radio and no one blinked. Okay, thank you. So was dismal over them. And that's the grand tradition of British comedic styles that takes us to the comedic elements in this one. Yeah, I mean, obviously it should have been someone like that. So what does Billy what did Billy bring to the table? Oh, the fact that we've still got to show?