Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast, whose analysis of any given Doctor
Who episode does not in any way constitute a form of legal
contract.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Todd.
I'm James.
I'm a thinly stretched plot device for this episode.
Happy year, everyone.
Yeah, so it's a new year, a new season, and a new, new doctor
which means it must be time for us to see what we think of new
whose difficult 2nd album.
Let's start by taking a trip to New Earth.
The windiest place in Wales, not the air that buffets between
Billy's teeth whenever she grins on a landmark, but...
I thought she's breathing out through a note.
Yes, ouch.
Has she got new, new, new, new, new, taken this?
Not yet.
They're her season 4 teeth.
We refer to the gentle listener to the big chief, 12 inch dolly of
her that is possibly the cruellest piece of casting I've ever seen
since.
Oh, actually, no, there's some pretty cruel casting in this
episode too.
When we did Black Orchid, I suggested that the garden party in
Black Orchid was taking place on the Planet Castria after all the
barriers had fallen.
And this is very much the same. next door.
Yeah, just next door.
And it was still warm enough to let Janet fall.
Exactly.
So it is, I mean, it's a beautiful location and it is our 1st
alien planet.
They've obviously been very reluctant to do an alien planet for a
couple of reasons.
I think to not alienate the audience, but also because they didn't
want to do it crackly.
They didn't want to just go to a quarry endorse it, you know.
They went to a cliff edge in Wales.
Exactly.
This is their 1st alien planet, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, okay.
But before that happens, of course.
We have a little introduction to the new series.
So the pre-credits teaser.
Very, very quickly and efficiently reestablishes what the series
is about.
So we get Jackie and Mickey and a farewell.
Yes.
Yeah.
I guess we assume that this is them leaving after the Christmas
invasion.
Yes, I think so, and part of their contractual obligations for the
season.
Oh, just to have them back.
Well, you know, got to be in 6 episodes.
Here you go, here's your cameo.
It's implied in latest stories and in, I think, some of the books
that they actually stayed there for quite a while.
It's actually quite a while after Christmas.
It is actually, doesn't, doesn't look it on the telly.
I guess, so that you can fit big finish stories in between them.
I always think there's a couple of days max.
Yeah, I liked it a lot, actually, because it recaptured the moment
at the end of World War three.
You notice that Jackie can't bear to watch the TARDIS materialise
and she walks off and Mickey is just there, you know, staring at
it as it goes.
And notice, too, that both Jackie and Mickey say, I love you, I
think, to Rose, and Rose says it back to Jackie, but not to
Mickey.
Not to Mickey because she's a cow.
She's really, she really is.
She's awful. you'll be hearing a lot more of that this year.
I don't think David's very nice too. splashing the Nashes in this
episode, aren't they?
There's a lot of gnashing.
A lot of new teeth.
Oh man.
I think you've said this before.
Rose is supposed to be a unlikeable character.
Well, Billy says she is.
That's how she was playing her.
Yeah, I don't know that she's unlikeable, but I do think that
she's kind of selfish.
But Russell's also said that's himself when he was younger.
So, well, he's, you know, he's given her the name Tyler, which is
the name that he gives all his characters.
He's basically named her after himself.
Like, you know, it's very definitely who he imagined he was when
he was watching Doctor Who in the 70s, I think.
Russell Tyler Davies.
Yeah, Russell Tyler Davies, Russell Ver Davies.
Is that what the T actually stands for?
No, stands for not.
TARDIS.
It was already a Russell Davis in equity, and so he just added the
tea.
Tiberius TARDIS.
It stands for tea.
It's interesting.
This series opener of the 4 that Russell writes is always the one
that I always considered to be not as good as all the others.
I agree.
However, the day after.
In this rewatch, you know, I think a year later after Rose, already
the graphics work looks so much better in this than the previous
year, which looks really dated.
And I actually think the story itself hangs together much better
than all the set pieces in Rome.
So even if I don't think it's necessarily realised towards the end
the best.
But I actually enjoyed this.
Certainly the 1st 30 minutes a lot more than I previously had.
And I was talking to friends of the podcast, someone more about
this during the week.
And we were saying like in these 1st 2 seasons, because I think we
were so worried that the show could get cancelled either because
it's new or it's new doctor, whenever there's an episode that's
slightly, whatever we perceive to be below quality, we think the
ratings are going to crash in and we sort of project onto it that
it's really that terrible.
So I was actually really surprised at, certainly for the first, you
know, half an hour or so, that I was actually really enjoying it
and found down the performances and what was going on and the
story.
Really good.
I think we've talked a little bit before about how much weight. we
put on Doctor Who, each new episode back then when it was 1st
starting, and that's exactly what you were saying, because New
Earth wasn't as good as Rose or wasn't as, you know, explosive and
and interesting as Rose, we were worried that the show was going
to, you know, had lost its mojo.
And I think because we've got the Christmas invasion as well
introducing the 2nd season, really.
The opening episode doesn't have to do everything that the
previous opening episodes and the 2 subsequent opening episodes
have to do.
It doesn't have to introduce a new character.
It really is just us off and adventure together.
But it is interesting.
I think the fact that, you know, here you've got Mickey and Jackie
there at the beginning, you've got a recurring villain in the Lady
Cassandra, you've got New New Earth, which is like right next door
to platform 5 or one or whatever it was back in.
The 2nd episode, you've got the face of bow.
There's a lot of elements here that are trying to, you know, say
to the audience, This is still the same show.
In a coherent world.
Even if we've got a new doctor, because, you know, we've only had
the new doctor really for, you know, 20 minutes or whatever.
This is his 1st big outing.
Yeah.
His, you know, we didn't do a proper episode of the Christmas
invasion.
Obviously, we just did a commentary, but, you know, the big thing
about the Christmas invasion is it works because it's full of
characters that we already like and that enables Russell to keep
the doctor off stage for a long time.
Now he's here, giving him a world that we already know from a, you
know, well liked previous episode, a pretty well-remembered
episode, I think.
Boomtown, because you've got that big Welsh cultural centre.
Yeah, slap bang as the obvious hospital.
It's the millennium, the millennium centre on Cardiff Bay
which...
Oh, as a hospital.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I was watching it going, oh, I've been in that foyer.
In fact, that toy... can't remember.
That foyer will be another hospital in the girl who waited in a
few years, and of course, that building provided all of the
corridors for Van Staten's base in Dalek, and it appears over and
over again.
So that's Millennium Stadium.
It's the basement of the football stadium.
Oh, just see, they've got that one.
There's more than one public building in Wales. you sure?
Yes, they're all called millenniums.
Because that's the only time they ever spend any money.
But it's very interesting in those 1st few minutes how well the
doctor and rows are getting on and how, you know, they're smiling
at each other and they're sort of, you know, reinforcing this is
our 1st date and everything.
And she's accepted him as the new man after the, you know, the
Christmas special.
So sort of, you know, Sandy's audience.
Yes, he's the doctor and she loves him, so you need to as well.
In fact, it's upped a bit, hasn't it?
Like the relationship is much more clearly approaching boyfriend
girlfriend.
Oh, I love being here.
I love it.
I can't believe that's not Billy Piper.
I can't believe it's not Sophie.
We've just got the, I've just got the whole tourism, Wales, spend
your honeymoon on the grass and we'll spray it with apple cider.
No, they're already completely abominable. obnoxious and I just
want them to have something horrible happen to them.
Fortunately, it does.
Really quickly.
The wet t-shirt competition is the most jarring thing.
And the only thing that actually revived my my attention this time
around.
I remember this being quite dull.
And it certainly hits a lot of beats.
And it also looks incredibly cheap.
And yet it's the most expensive prosthetics.
I think they would have.
It's a very costly thing to do for TV.
But again, if I had all the dollies, you feel this is just like
finding a lot of toys in the toy bus and going, I'll put them all
on the table and have an adventure.
I think that's how he writes his synopsis.
What were you going to say about the wet t-shirt?
T-shirt competition.
Billy Piper did not know that she was going to get sprayed with
me.
So that's a real reaction?
Yes, yes.
Russell did not tell her.
And the director didn't tell her that that was going to happen.
And so that is her real reaction.
But she doesn't swear.
But they, like, pro.
And her teeth staying.
But they kept it in because it was so hilarious.
I like that.
I like that whole. so silly.
Well, I think Russell says in the commentary that it makes them
part of the world.
So they're not just wandering around on obvious set or, you know, a
public building in Cardiff.
They are wet.
They are in the world.
Something happens to them that makes them part of the world.
And it's a fun, silly comedy bit that is ends up being crucial to
the way that the episode is finally resolved.
So I think it's really very good.
And again, it's Russell's obsession with verticality and lifts and
things as well.
They get in different lifts by mistake and one goes up and one
goes down.
Billy gets out to the wrong lift.
Oh, does she?
Yeah.
She gets into the right lift, gets out the left.
There you go.
That could have been the tradesman's entrance or something.
It was sideways very quickly.
Sideways, really quickly.
No, I'm not going to touch that remark.
Yeah, every Shakespeare had a forested Arden, didn't he?
But, you know, well, doors off stage, but it's a nice little
theatre trope 1st of the year.
But yeah, not like that whole lift sequence.
I just, yeah, it's just delightful.
And it's so silly, like, you know, the fact that, you know, it
gets totally drenched, then totally dried with powder and
everything and it's just perfectly fine to walk out, you know?
It doesn't quite make sense.
Like you kind of think, no, you couldn't be completely dry.
But you are.
So, you know, yeah.
You know, it's a fast drying poison.
I mean.
You know, it reminds me of Peter Tottenham shouting out, sterile
area in arc in space.
And notice it would have been called decontamination in the
Hinchcliffe era, but here it's just called disinfectant because
you know, we're trying to keep it comprehensible to the viewers at
home, I think.
Yeah, because viewers back in the 70s actually had wide vocabulary
because they read things.
They did.
I was alive in the 70s.
I do understand.
Constant fear of nuclear war.
That helped too.
So one goes up and one goes down.
What do we want to talk about first?
So we knew Cassandra was going to be in it because we'd heard her
voice and we had seen the little spider thing creeping through the
apple grass when we were still on location.
I was a little bit disappointed, kind of, at the incredibly pat.
Well, as Richard said, sort of plot device that enables her to
come back.
You remember when we did the end of the world, I said that, well, I
think James said that Cassandra was literally mooning the audience
that the whole, that the whole directly behind her mouth was her
bum hole, um, she'd had everything removed and was just, uh, like
all of us are sort of, um, hollow tube.
Oh, the other.
Nothing in between.
It's alimentary to Watson.
That's it.
It is extremely obvious in end of the world.
Yeah, it's meant to be that.
But here they kind of throw that away and say that was her front
half and this is her back half and it makes no sense.
I like that we get to see her all halves.
It's lovely to see Zoe Wanamaker in a frock camping it up.
With a whole lot of Nelly Queens.
It's like, you're not getting lots of attention in this one other
than comments on your dress.
No wonder, no wonder no one told you you're beautiful.
Exactly.
It's nice. actually nice to see her on screen in the film
projection.
I assume that that's recorded as a film projection because she was
that film was taken at a 1920s party, so they decided to do it
like that because...
I also just sort of think that looks cooler than just a sort of
dumb old screen.
Like, again, it gives it a little bit more physicality and stuff.
And Doctor Who, you know, like leaning into the fact that their
technology is always going to look a little bit crummy or a little
bit store bored.
I thought that was a nice choice.
Yeah, but it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense in your head
Canon, Todd, does a pretty good job of dealing with it, I think.
She filmed everything in one day.
In that dress?
Yes, in that dress.
And stretched it out.
Yeah, and she is very good.
And you can see why they want her back and she's funny.
So in my research, I discovered that apparently, sorry, Wanamaker
is in stage for decay episode two.
What?
According to IMDb, so that might all just...
Well, it's IMDb. as a child villager.
She wasn't that young.
I thought she was Mr. Kimber or whatever that name. person's name
is.
She's a bit older than me.
Actually, though, that was a while ago, isn't it?
isn't it?
Actually, that's possible because she came over, her dad's same
want to make her as the American director and actor who had to get
out because of the MacArthy stuff.
He didn't work for a long time.
He's in lots of episodes of the Avengers, the champions, the Baron
the Saint.
That's instrumental in the recreation, the globe.
Exactly, which he was going to say, which he's most famous for, is
his theatre work, because he did not shite tea, is not just me.
And he was, he would have had a better career, but the anger that
he presents on screen is exactly how he presents in theatre and he
wasn't an easy dad to grow up with.
And Zoe has kind of said that and also apparently presents a
similar thing.
I'm really sorry she wasn't in more Harry Potter.
Well, you know what?
But she's a bit mouthy.
Yeah, yes.
We back to the teeth.
Well, I've got a couple of reaction shots.
There, sorry.
I'm way too French and short now.
But she got really angry that the, what the American actors were
paid more than the English actors or that.
That's right.
Bloody fair enough.
I agree.
I absolutely agree.
I think it was also the kids were being paid so much because they
complained and they were the stars, even though all of the, you
know, you have Dame Bloody Maggie Smith.
Yeah, yeah. it's not just the bee is silent, is it?
It's the full time.
Yeah.
Anyway, what else happens in this show?
Oh, cats.
I think Russell's actually spot on with cats.
So the cats thing as nuns.
Where is that going?
It is very strange.
They're cat nun nurses.
Well, you just said, stick an animal head on a dolly and you've
got a monster.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, he'll do it later with the Jadoon as well.
The cat.
The cat people would be back for the sequel to this, obviously, as
well.
I think the prosthetics look amazingly good.
Like, I was hugely impressed by how expressive the actors can be
under those.
You know, they clearly move with the actors.
What do we think at the time?
Was it just the freshness and bling of it and not the sharp
editing?
We should give a throw to the director.
It's James Hawes again?
I think it is because it's just neatly done.
You can see they've put everything into getting it right.
Yes, it is James.
The editing I really, really like.
And then sometimes it's almost too quick, but again, that needs to
be done.
And it actually still feels quite fresh 80 years later.
How long has it been?
about that long.
The cats the cats look wonderful.
I mean, obviously the one budgetary thing is when they all have
the veils over the top. you know, in the latter part of the
episode.
But the 3 main cats are all played by really amazingly strong
actors.
Hairy hursuit actors.
Well, including, including Francine.
Martha's mother who plays Julius Caesar.
Yeah, who plays Matron Jatt.
No, Casp.
Casp.
One of them.
Anyway, not the older one, but the middle one who meets the
doctor.
You can always tell her...
She did Julius Caesar at RSC, which is apparently extraordinary
love to see.
Russell had her back for cucumber and she was very good in that as
well.
So she obviously will get a bigger role in next season.
And, of course, in Mumcon when I finally organise it.
She'll be one of the 3 main guests. right.
And I think that they're really amazingly good.
And it is also kind of Russell having another sly dig at religion
because, is there?
I think so.
I think the fact that, well, he kind of brings religion back into
Doctor Who.
You know, in the future that we used to have in Doctor Who, in
Classic Doctor Who.
There wasn't really religion except for sort of weird occultists
on sort of strange planets and stuff.
And someone being Marestron Orthodox in Planet of Evil.
But now we do have religion and we're always slightly suspicious
of it, I think, in Russell's Doctor Who, and here, obviously, these
nuns are making complicated and dodgy ethical judgements.
And so naturally they're kind of religious.
I just like the way they sort of, they move and they just
conspiratorily like talk to each other and the looks that they
give and when she flares up her claws and, yeah, they're a great
little villain to have.
They're catlike in the sense that they glide and they're complete
psychopaths.
They kind of slink everywhere.
They rub their arse.
Again, they didn't strike me as particularly feline having lived
with one for so long.
This feels like a lovely post-New Year Panto.
It actually feels like the panto we didn't get for Christmas in
that there's the numbered players doing the serial things.
They've even got all those green doors that open up and we're
behind you.
It's very, very panted.
And then there's lots of squishy zitty things to squeeze if you're
a teenage boy watching this in the privacy of your own video
bedroom.
You know, there's callouts to most of the audience here.
I think my problem with this one is tonally, it all looks great
but tonally, it doesn't give me very much, and I'd like to feel
more, say, for pretty much anyone in this.
But the real, the real horror of what's going on, maybe it struck
you, but I just found this all again a bit panto villains.
I didn't really care for any of the people who were suffering.
And then they moon about like they're on the set of Oprah, after
all, being given a beauty treatment.
It's all very woo-woo at the end of it.
I didn't gentle touching, although actually that probably could
have been a bit saucier.
I couldn't it?
You know, in the original draft of the script, All of the diseased
people were supposed to be killed by the doctor.
Yeah, yeah.
Really?
That's so Russell isn't it?
Well, because he's absolutely kind of bleak and cynical.
He was going to put them all on a bus and have the Bannermen sort
of fire a gun at it.
But Moffatt, Moffatt, criticised him, but creating interesting
characters and then melting.
Melting them, yeah.
But I mean, the thing is that it's got to establish that David
Tennant is the doctor.
And so having him cure a whole bunch of sick people and say if
their lives seems obvious.
Like it seems almost like, why are you even setting this in a
hospital if that's not what you're going to do at the end?
First drafts are just getting everything down and they're
unfleshed out.
Yeah.
I think it absolutely fleshy metaphor, yeah.
It had to be that.
And so it's accident and emergency, isn't it?
No, it's called intensive care, that section.
And we discover that behind this sort of gleaming white hospital
are these sort of catacombs full of people who are being
experimented on.
The catacombs look great and even the explosions, I think, do as
well.
I mean, this is a big step up from the effects from like one year
ago.
I don't think there's enough of these people, like, you know
downstairs or wherever and just talking about jumping forward and
talking about the resolution, like, you know, yes, I've got one
lift with some liquid water and it goes on a few of them and then
they touch other people.
That's the part of the episode that I find visually lets it down.
Like, I want to see, I want to see multiple lifts with multiple
lots of water and lots of people going in.
Or feed it into the sprinkler system.
Something like that.
That's what falls down for me in terms of resolving the thing.
I just think that looks very weak and cheap.
Yeah, well, they can have, you know, giant catacombs because
they're all just done in the computer, so it doesn't cost any more
to make them absolutely massive, but they don't have quite as many
extras as that shot would imply.
And as Richard says, they're all just wandering around, you know
like they're on Mogadon or something.
Maybe that was one of the cocktails.
Yeah, maybe that was the Strokeats metaphors in this one.
So for me, that part of things lets things down with this episode
right?
Not the story, but how it's visually had to be represented on
screen.
What do you think about the doctor's reaction to it?
So you've got this moral calculus where a group of people are
being tortured in order to cure a larger group of people of their
diseases?
And so it's a sort of, you know, utilitarian or sort of
consequentialist kind of moral calculation where you're hurting
some people to help a larger number of people.
And I think Doctor Who's morality is very definitely always come
down on, you know, on the opposite side of that, that that's the
wrong thing to do.
How do you feel about the doctor's reaction when he discovers it?
Doesn't he get very angry and teethy?
Yeah, what do we think of that?
Well, there's a lot of teeth.
It was very David Tennant.
Like, I think this aspect of this story is that he's very much the
doctor. you know, there's one aspect I don't particularly like
which is the whole possession thing, but we'll talk about that
shortly.
But he's very established as the doctor.
And does he give them one warning?
Does he say that?
Yeah.
And that, I'm watching slightly a few episodes ahead and that's
come up a few times now.
Like he gives this one morning and he did it last time, but then
it's like, boom, you know, that's it, you know?
Well, I mean, Jody did the New Year's special.
She's still giving them one morning.
So, I actually find this a little bit off putting.
I think it's the weakest thing about tenants' performances when he
gets angry and snarly and um, his performance is very mannered
generally.
And uh, it's like an act.
And you kind of get that a little bit with Eccleston, where
Eccleston is playing the doctor and that the doctor is in some
sense a mask and then sometimes that mask drops.
And then you get to see Eccleston's real trauma with the part and
his own indecision and insecurity, and that's why he's a
successful doctor, the mask falls.
We never saw the mask full with Tom or Pat or even with John
occasionally with John.
But that was actually quite interesting watching those again.
But with David, no, I never see it.
It's a very mannered, perfectly presented poised part, and I think
that's why it's grating on me.
I'd like to actually see something of the truth of the actor.
I'm not getting it.
There's something about the sort of lonely god thing, the fact
that he's setting himself up as a kind of moral arbiter who
decides whether something stops or not.
He's the one who decides that.
And the show is this year, like in 20, well, last year in 2018, has
very definitely moved away from that conception of the doctor.
But here I do find his anger, his arrogance really off putting
like really off putting.
And I think it's great that the doctor gets angry at injustice and
outrage.
And we saw it with Tom.
You know, we saw it with Pertu, even, you know, he would do that.
But I just don't like the way that Tennant plays that particular
emotion.
Interesting.
That this is discussion we're having because I didn't come into
this thinking that so soon that we'd be talking about this.
And I actually didn't feel it as much as all that.
I just thought this is just part of his performance when he starts
boom, it's there, and it's going to break me down the track, but
it's not great here yet, but I, so I didn't actually have a
problem with it at all.
I always find myself surprised by how much I enjoy his performance
whenever I go back to one of his episodes.
I can't remember, oh yeah, you know, this is why he's so popular.
This is why he was so well liked.
But I always go into it expecting to be annoyed by that.
But I think the mask does slip slightly when he's talking when
they face a bow and who's the cat with him?
Novice Haim is talking about this learning wanderer.
You do see at least the look on his face.
So you do, I think that mask is slipping there, but he doesn't let
it slip totally.
It's just like, I think there are later episodes at times when you
do see the mask slip and where the performance is much realer and
I do like that.
And I like the idea that the doctor is a performance, you know
particularly in this era with a time war and all of that sort of
thing.
It's, you know, I think it's interesting.
It gives him a bit of interiority.
Talking of his performance, he also has to perform as another
character during this episode, which is, of course, the Lady
Cassandra, which I'd love to talk about, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And when I 1st watched this, I really detested his performance as
the Lady Cassandra.
In fact, I detested Billy's performances, Lady Cassandra.
I really, really hated that entire aspect of the entire show.
You know, when Billy was playing the Lady Cassandra, she was
wearing a Wonderbra...
She did. could look nowhere else during those scenes when she's on
screen and she unzips her top and she's got, you know, just
fabulous breasts and it was all I could look at.
And then she's like, let's do the bouncing...
Well, that bouncy parcel line is from queer as folk.
So she says it's like being inside a bouncy castle and she sort of
jiggles her bum and her breast up and down.
And I think she looks fabulous.
I think there's that sort of problematic trope of women who are
kind of sexually aggressive are obviously evil.
But it's, I think she's having fun.
I'm expecting Todd, you to go on and say, however, watching it
this time, I thought it was really great.
However, however, listeners, watching it this time, I actually
thought Billy's performance was really great.
It really is fun.
She needs it.
And when she kisses the doctor.
I was just bursting out laughing, like, you know, and his and his
reaction to that, like I've still got it all.
No, but he's squeaky.
He goes squeaky, squeaky voice.
Yeah, no, I really enjoyed her possession performance this time
which really sold it and improved this episode. so much for me, you
know, and and Chip's the other one who actually, like when he
becomes the Lady Cassandra.
I also think his performance is really affecting as well.
I just don't like, I still don't like the doctor getting possessed
this early on in his reign.
I still...
It's the panto transformation scene.
It just...
But also too, like the fact that she has to get into the body
using that huge device and then she can just zap herself, you know
and they're climbing up a big ladder.
Like, not that, when it zaps into you, you don't suddenly let go
of something, you know, for a split second.
You know, I just don't buy that.
Well, remember when Crozier invented technology not quite as
sophisticated as the time loads all kind of lost their bundle and
killed off Perry.
You know, like, I know, that's right.
But it was, you know, the most impressive piece of technology even
imaginable and it turns out that Lady Cassandra has it in the
basement of a hospital. don't tell me it's actually called the
same thing.
No, no, but it's called a psychograph, but, you know, the ability
to detach someone's psyche from their body and allow it to turn
into something that travels from person to person.
You know, I had thought too that it was too soon to see David
Tennant acting odd before we knew what he was really like as a
doctor.
There's the famous thing in Star Trek, The Next Generation, where
the 2nd episode, The Naked Now has them all getting drunk and
behaving oddly, and it's kind of like, I don't even know who these
people were.
They were incredibly wooden in the 1st episode.
I've got no sense of who any of these people are.
You know, why are we showing them behaving oddly until I know what
they're like?
But he's actually only Cassandra for a little while, and I think
they're doing it to make it very clear how different tenant is
going to be from Eccleston.
It was written for Eccles.
Eccleston would have torn his own head off rather than do that.
I mean, this would be written for Eccleson at all.
I think Eccles could have done that very, very well and it was
part of his loosening up and one of the reasons he wanted to play
the part.
He said it's for children, but it was also expanding the range.
Maybe, yeah, maybe you're right.
But it does...
I do like when he taunts wrote about loving or...
Yeah, finding the doctor attractive. attractive.
I do like that.
Like, I mean, I will pay it.
Like, it was better than I thought.
But I don't think his acting's great in some of those. that's his
weakest part of the acting for me in this episode.
I think that what that does, though.
That whole sequence is actually really, really good because it
looks like a silly science fiction conceit where someone can just
go from body to body and hilarity ensues.
But when there's nowhere left for Cassandra to go, she ends up
going into the body of one of the plague people.
Sorry, I'm laughing, listeners, because I'm just thinking of that
woman's performance.
Well, God.
The thing is, yeah, it's great, isn't it?
Because she's a shambling plague zombie and then she's got a
terribly posh voice and all of that, which is really quite fun.
But it's empathy.
You know, she inhabits that person's body.
She's spent all of her life obsessed with looking beautiful and
has gone to great lengths in order to achieve that.
And she's in this horrific, degraded body.
And when she comes back, when she's back in Rose's body, the 1st
thing she says is that those people have never been touched. you
know she actually learns empathy by inhabiting the body of another
person.
And so it gets to work as a metaphor for that, which I just think
is so beautiful.
And that's when the change happens.
Yes, I agree with you.
The end of the device to get her to that.
You know, that point is great.
And even the fact that she's investigating the whole and
suspicious of these cat people anyway.
Yeah, yeah. shows some sort of change.
Like, and and I think that's, you know, I'm actually sad at the
end.
Yeah.
I'm actually sad to see Chip and her reaction as an earlier self
that she actually has got warmth and caring there when we just
expect to have this bitchy trampoline.
She wasn't always that.
And that did affect me like actually, almost blumping.
I think that's beautiful because she's also surrounded by, like
she's expressing concern for someone who is utterly unimportant in
that scene when Chip comes back inhabited by her.
He's no one and he falls to the ground. everyone else ignores her
pleas for help, like no one else cares about him, and she gets to
comfort herself as she dies.
And it's that thing about touch as well.
The cure to the disease is transmitted by touch, but also just
concern and compassion are transmitted that way as well.
And so she gets to hold herself as she dies.
Um, and it is actually really good, I think.
And I don't think we forgive Cassandra, particularly, you know
should we?
No, typical, he, it was touched on at Boomtown last year.
I mean, I think that's why I wasn't enjoying this so much.
There wasn't any gravitas.
I know it's a panto and it's an opening thing, but Boomtown just
had so much.
There was, I've run around in a chase comedy as well, Keystone
cops comedy, but with gravitous and human truth, and some really
salient, perfect one-on-ones.
And I miss that from the Eccleston doctor.
I miss the adultiness.
This is all smarty pants kids dressing up and being a bit silly
and fun.
Yeah.
Yeah, and like, I think there's a place for that, but I think that
it's going to become the new normal.
Yeah.
You were saying earlier, Richard, like, you don't really care very
much for many of these people.
And I think that's quite true.
Like, like, even up in the ward with, um, The Blue Man, who's not
Blue Man.
Duke of Manhattan and his Osada, which I think is just hilarious.
So she's Frau Clovis.
She's the 1st of many women who look like this, who will appear in
Doctor Who.
Yeah, Mr. Del Fox and Miss Foster and all of that.
That's a look that we're going to.
That's another avatar of Russell, isn't it?
So, to.
That's it.
Look convincing in a lady suit.
I think it's, you know, when we were talking about the moral
calculus.
The people who are being treated in the hospital are all
incredibly rich.
Some of them don't seem to have anything sort of particularly
wrong with them, although the Duke of Manhattan was turning into a
statue hilariously.
So I think that needs to factor into the moral calculus, that it's
people being oppressed and imiserated in order to make the rich
better off.
And so it does add a sort of a class thing to that whole kind of
moral allegory.
It is very funny.
I think they are.
Oh, those 1st sequences are very funny.
Yeah, you know, and lots of blue people and white people and red
people.
But also when they, you know, when they go through there and they
look out the window, like all that special effects of what's going
on in new earth flying outside.
Like, I've got the Blu-ray, and I never really had noticed it
before.
It looks winning.
It looks really great.
Big set with a high ceiling and everything.
It does look it does look very good.
But, you know, if she was actually touched, like at the end
because she's such a cow, like with her thing, I wouldn't have
cried.
Like if she'd bit in the dust.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, I mean, she closes the door like the water as quickly as she
can.
So, um, Rose Cassandra has to jump and go down the, the lift well
with um, David Tennant.
I mean, a lot of rope burned there between the legs probably.
Did you note that the working titles for this story were Body Swap
and the Sunshine Camp?
Why has the sunshine came?
That's from its macraterra phase.
I was thinking that when I was reading that.
I was like, is that looking forward to gridlock?
Well, maybe.
I mean, it is possible that he had more ideas that he wanted and
spun the others off into a sequel. isn't it?
Well, I mean, the face of Beau was originally supposed to impart
his message and die at the end of this episode.
Oh, was he?
And so he then decided that he would just say, well, we'll meet
for the 3rd time for the last time. out during production that
they were getting a 3rd series.
Oh, wow.
Of this episode.
So they he went, oh, I'll crib that and use it in a later story.
That's the most poignant moment for me, is the big rubber rest
ahead.
Billy Piper's boyfriend broke the prop.
Yes, he is, like playing with all the knobs.
Like you, Nathan, had you been given much of a chance on a set?
Yes.
It's not John Barriman yet.
I love the face of Bo.
And I think it was a great way of getting the doctor in, and it is
a bit of a cheat as well.
Like, um, and I love the doctor's reaction to its disappearance
the textbook enigmatic line, I think, is beautifully hilariously
well delivered.
He can do comedy.
It's a very funny line.
He can do comedy.
But it's also very clever, the whole thing because it just, through
the dialogue, it's just reinforcing that he is alone.
The time laws are gone, the war has happened and it's just
reinforcing things in the audience's mind. like we've settled
already.
Jackie, Mickey, the psychic paper.
Here's the face about.
Here's the doctor, here's the rose.
It's just reestablishing everything and just solidifying this is
where we are and this is where we're going from.
Yeah, and what the doctor does.
You know, I'm the doctor and I cured them.
That's exactly what he does.
Like he comes in, overthrows, a corrupt and oppressive system, and
you know, frees prisoners and cures their disease.
He's Jesus, really, isn't he?
Jesus.
Well, yes, he kind of does.
Well, dear listener, it's time to leave New Earth and head back to
the crummy old version.
Join us next week in 19th century Scotland to learn more than we
ever wanted to know about the royal family in tooth and claw.
In the meantime, you can find us at flights or entirety.com
flights through entirety on Facebook and Apple Podcasts and at FTE
podcast on Twitter.
You can also find us at our series 11 flashcast Jody Interterterra
which is at Jody Interterra.com, Jody Interterra on Apple Podcasts
and at Jody Interterra on Twitter, and we're also available at our
James Bond Commentary podcast, Bondfinger at bondfinger.com
Bondfinger on Facebook and Apple Podcast and at Bondfingercast on
Twitter.
Until next time, may you find someone who looks at you, the way
that Cassandra looks at herself.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
See you soon.
How does a vertical trampoline actually work?
That was Flight for Entirety, starring Todd Bilby, Nathan
Bottomley, James Selwood and Richard Stone.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, Strings Performance by Jane
Orberg.
This episode, already completely abominable, was recorded on the
5th of January 2019 and released on the 17th of March.
This week, we're happy to announce our new FTE dental support
group, providing care, compassion, and contemporary prosthodontics
to the dentally distressed, including Rose Tyler, the Hoyks, and
long-term patron Queen Zanxia.
Call us today.
This will never win any, you know, season polls or anything like
that, but it's just gone, it, you know, it's gone up so much in my
opinion, you know, once I was giving it, like, I don't know, if I
go for marks, like, you know, less than 6 out of 10, but now I
think it's a solid 7 and I did enjoy it.
Yeah.
Oh, I love Doctor Who fans in their reading.
I always do it James.
Get used to it.
I just generally like or dislike things.
Well, it gets improved. improved dramatically for me.
I give it a blue octagon.
Oh, thank you.
Did you?
Oh, yes.
Apple, grass, slash.
Alpha 17 then.
Were you entertained, Tom?
What by this?
I generally was surprised how much I got into this and enjoyed the
majority of it. bar a few little things because I was expecting
that I'd be sitting there going, oh, not this, but I was actually
there going, oh, okay, I like that now. 12 years later.
Well, how many years later, a century later?
Nearly 13 years later.
Oh my god.
I think, what do you think?
We've been going for 46 minutes.
Is there?
In fact, I've used all my notes up.
I don't think I've got anything more to say.
I need to go back and find Zoe, you want to make her in state of
decay now?
Oh, you know, I was going to say something maybe we'll tag it.
If this was a Moffat episode, I wonder whether Chip going back and
telling us she's beautiful before she hacks all her bits off in an
effort to look beautiful, whether that would like avert her going
down the sort of bitchy trampoline. path.
I think, you know, it doesn't, there's something about that
character where she's super, super self-conscious about not being
beautiful and she's gone to these absurd lengths and it's, I think
it's telling that the thing that she gets told that kind of makes
it all right is that she's beautiful.
I think that's nice, you know.
That is nicely done.
Although it's still, it's still as shallow and thin.
It's not... slender in the plot itself.
Really, we're rewarding narcissism by feeding it.
I don't know that that's necessarily the cinosure, is it?
She does die.
Is that all you can do to cure narcissism?
Possibly.
An up note, isn't it?
All right.
Okay, let me do.