Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight Through
Entirety.
The only Doctor Who podcast found Carrying in a cupboard when the
werewolf arrives.
I'm Nathan.
I'm James I'm Liz.
It's Doctor Who's 2nd annual celebrity historical this week, so
we're off to Scotland to find out what Queen Victoria thinks of
Rose and our new, new doctor.
It's the 2nd episode of series 2, Tooth and Claw.
So, this is another celebrity historical just about a year after
our last one.
How do we think this one compares to The Unquiet Dead?
Um, I've enjoyed a lot more than I expected to.
I rewatched it again for the 2nd time in the past couple of months
because I was I'm doing a new who rewatch and I hadn't seen it for
it must have been like almost 10 years and in my head, couldn't
stand it.
It's like the pinnacle of the smug 10th doctor and rose thing that
I'm not a fan of.
But I ended up, I watched it this time.
I was like, okay, yeah, yeah, they're kind of smug.
Their roses like, I can't stand the treating Victoria is like an
amusement park, but actually I really enjoy this.
I really, really like it.
It's a great story, great characters.
It's really exciting and it's in Scotland.
And obviously, it's an incredible depiction of my beautiful
country.
I absolutely love that they got the ninja monks in there and our
werewolves, which if there's one thing Doctor Who does, it's to
pick Scotland beautifully.
So this is Wales standing for Scotland, isn't it?
But it is true that there aren't ninja monks.
Am I right?
Oh yeah, yeah.
Go down the shops, go go pop along to your local loch with its
miniature monster in it. out when we go hunting haggis, they're
they're in labour, yeah.
Brilliant I actually did want to talk about the monks because, you
know, they do kind of play a role in the plot, but their big role
is this sort of pre-credit sequence, which seems very much to have
been designed to kind of beef up the next time trailer last week.
Yeah, I think you could easily argue that that was, it's
superfluous.
It doesn't fit the plot, but I think it's one of those things that
gosh, it's just so cool that I don't care in all honest state.
If it was a story that I hated and I wanted to find things to
nitpick at it, then I could totally understand if you didn't like
the story having a go at it, but because I really enjoy it.
I'm like, yes, let us have just some random jumping through air
and slow-mo fighting against people stuff.
That fine.
That's cool.
I think too, that it is the sort of thing that you want Doctor Who
to do.
You know, like if you're asking for sort of some kind of credible
science fiction explanation for where they got the outfits from
and, you know, where they've been training and are they Catholic
or Protestant or, you know, like if you're trying, you know, if
you're asking yourself those questions, you're really approaching
the whole sort of thing the wrong way.
I think I actually remember watching this.
I was like, are they Catholic?
It was bothering me because I was like, do we do we call prod to
do because there are Protestant monasteries.
Do we call the people there in charge, father?
Is that something we do?
And I didn't know.
It's not really bothering me though.
They do some Latin. which is sort of worth mentioning later on.
They say the wolf is god and the wolf is brave over and over again
when they sort of finally reveal who they are.
So I'm going for Catholic, but I'd be prepared to be proved
wrong.
I would assume Catholic just because it's the kind of, what's the
right word?
I don't want to say trope.
The stereotype.
If you're dealing with spooky stuff, then they tend to be Catholic
because they're like more qualified in it.
Like if you, if you want an exorcism done, don't call a Protestant
call a Catholic priest, that's, that's who's going to actually get
rid of the ghost day for you.
They actually believe in God.
Well, no, no, I think they're just, you know, the problems are a
bit more bloodless a little bit more, you know, yeah.
Um, I also think that the monks are actually playing a role in
distinguishing this historical from the previous historicals
because I think, you know, Russell is quoted as saying, they
needed a good kick up the arse.
I think that was actually Julie Gardner.
Right.
Yeah, and so what you had, I think, with the Unquiet Dead, was
like a very kind of, you know, BBC costume drama.
There's a little bit of stuff outside, but we're basically in the
studio for a lot of it and everyone's wearing lovely frocks and
speaking very formally.
And then, so we start this historical in a really vastly different
way and directed a very different way as well.
It's Eros Lynn, I think.
And his shooting, you know, everything's speeded up.
You've got sort of matrix bullet time and all of that sort of
stuff happening.
And I think the rest of the episode delivers on that promise in
that there's heaps of sort of handheld and and, you know, the
interiors are shot on location and stuff. locations.
Really?
That's amazing.
Yeah, they use 7 different, like, stately homes, basically.
I think the is the corridor a set?
There's some, some, Yeah, a lot of the corridors were sets.
I don't know about the staircase.
No, well, the staircase is massive.
It's definitely location.
But a lot of the running up and down corridors that those are
sets.
Yeah, so instead of people sort of delivering kind of, you know
sort of portentous lines in sort of proper BBC RP English at each
other.
You have people running up and down corridors and running up and
downstairs and not just sort of the small length of corridor that
you can fit into the studio, but until... studio, one at Mime
Grove. that's right.
It does very much feel like this is still, they're kind of in that
early knew who mood of, we must distinguish ourselves from classic
coup and showing that we have a little bit more money and can do
it a little bit more epic.
So when we have a chase scene here, like I said, it's huge.
There's so much space.
There's, it's so fast paced.
You feel like they're really racing away from this terrifying
thing.
And the direction during that, I absolutely love because you
barely see the wolf, but you've got it from its perspective, you've
got the sound and you feel like it's chasing you, even though
they're desperately trying to save money by not actually showing
it up.
It's a good example of how budgetary restrictions can actually
improve something because that wolf costs so much money.
And they actually had to bring a guest, CG artist onto the show
who would specialise in animals because of the hair and the close
up shots.
And so the cost of that was so colossal, that they had to, they
had to do the POV shots and lots of fast cuts and it actually
improves it, that you, they didn't have the money.
Yeah, no, I think it works so much better, especially because CGI
no matter how good it is, is always going to age really badly
really quickly.
But I still think the wolf looks reasonably good here.
I think it looks much better than the one in Harry Potter and the
prisoner of Azkaban.
And that had quite a lot more money for it.
It might have been a bit earlier, but still, you know, where
you're like, our Doctor Who Werewolf is better than one of the
biggest movies of like 2 or 3 years earlier.
I think I might have got that wrong.
Um, that's still pretty impressive.
It still looks good.
It doesn't look like it's a real wolf, but it's pretty nifty.
I mean, you know, like it's never going to.
We knew at the time it was CG.
Like, no, it was kind of fooled.
I mean, the and you didn't think it was a man in a suit at any
point, I don't think.
It wasn't real werewolf.
And it wasn't a werewolf.
They're so difficult to cast, aren't they?
But...
Keep biting.
I think too, it's trying to improve on the sort of the CG Slothine
like last year, which I actually, I actually don't mind.
I have a very, like, a soft spot for the CG, so then in World War
3 just because they were in that very 1st trailer and it was kind
of like, 0 my god, you know, we can do CG monsters now on Doctor
Who.
It was so exciting.
But this with the hair and the teeth.
And that wonderful sort of alien 3 close-up as well that it gets
to do.
Yeah, I think it's impressive.
We'll put a link if we can find it in the show notes to that.
I don't know if you've heard this, Liz, but there's an interview
where David Tennant talks about the guy who's in the MoCap suit.
No, no, I haven't.
It's just, it's completely improper.
But David Tennant says that he was distractingly distractingly
well proportioned, perhaps intimidatingly well proportioned, I
think, is how Tennant put it.
And so people had typically looking at the ping-pong ball. you
know, the on the on the ping-pong.
The ping-pong ball on the stick on top of the on top of the helmet
that was that was supposed to give them the eye line was nowhere
near as compelling as the guy himself.
So, yeah.
So it's footage of that.
There is, I think there is actually footage of the guy in the
motion capture thing, some special feature somewhere.
Well, it's not confidential.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
You watch confidential in preparation for this.
Yes.
I've got to up your pay.
He's not paying me.
There's a theme, I think, that runs through this entire series.
Um, And it really starts in this episode.
Um, the whole arrogance and um, of hubris.
Yeah, of the Doctrine Rose.
How do we feel about the handling of that?
I have a lot of negative feelings about it?
I had a lot more negative feelings before I rewatched the season
late last year and it's not as bad as what I remember.
At the time, I was about it, which is a very accurate and
meaningful Scottish word that you just heard there.
But I think it's, and I think it's at its worst here, but seeing
seeing the way it goes through.
I'm just I feel less angry and frustrated at it and more just very
embarrassed by it and I'm like, oh, no, no, stop, just stop.
Which isn't the best feeling to feel about your Tardis crew and
your heroes, but, you know, if the story around it's great, then
I'm prepared to go with it.
I think that my main problem with it is I never really feel like
there's a proper payoff.
I mean, yes, there's torture at the end.
Yes, this ends up with them getting separated, but I never get the
sense that they realise, oh, if we hadn't been quite so
appallingly rude and laughing whilst people were dying around us
when Victoria was there, maybe this wouldn't have happened, maybe
maybe we should self-reflect a little bit.
And um, I didn't, I don't get the feeling that ever happens, but
she, you know, would be nice. don't need.
I don't need a lot of self-reflection, just a little bit, just a
little acknowledgement that, oh god, the walking away at the end
of this adventure, and it's clearly deliberate.
They're walking away, they're having a laugh about whorls.
We cut back to the torchwood house, and we've got 2 widows here
one of them, brand new widow, grieving, and uh, and the contrast
is like, we're meant to think they're behaving like, I don't know
if I can say asses.
Is that okay?
They're making like utter acids and we're we're absolutely meant
to condemn that behaviour.
But where's my gosh darned payoff by the end of the season?
Where they're like, oh, maybe, you know, learn something from it.
You know, originally I had thought that the reason was that
Billy's departure had meant that, like that there'd been some kind
of long-term plan that Russell didn't get to do, but it turns out
that I think it was during the shooting of this, that the scripts
for the two-parter at the end, like Army of Ghosts and Doomsday
like actually arrived.
So it's clear that this is working up to kind of a known end.
And like it is a massive problem.
Like, just seeing them suffer as payoff for this behaviour isn't
enough if they don't learn a valuable lesson.
And like even in series 3, the doctor hasn't learned a valuable
lesson.
He just sort of sulking and upset because not sulking, that's his
girlfriend.
Well, that's unfair, but he's upset at the loss of rose, but he
hasn't learned anything as such.
And I also think it's a bit complicated too, that even if he had
learnt something in episode 13, that still doesn't mean that we
don't have a whole bunch of episodes where he's just being super
obnoxious and that kind of matters, I think.
Yeah, because we were still left this adventure.
If you imagine this is another sort of doctor era.
It just, it wouldn't be like that.
It wouldn't be, and it, oh, it would make it better if you didn't
leave it thinking, oh my god, my TARDIS team.
Why?
Why, why?
If you could leave with them with them cheering or with them being
a little bit, you know, say something to Laura.
The poor woman's just lost her husband, a little bit of compassion
and empathy there instead of a final attempt to get Victoria to
say she's not amused.
It's, it's, I want to be on side with the Tardis team.
Is that wrong?
No, no, I think that's right.
I think, I think, so you talked about the, you know, trying to get
her to say we're not amused.
And it is this sort of thing, this tendency that we have to just
regard people from earlier historical periods is just sort of
being stupid.
And I also think it's kind of magnified slightly, you know, like I
think Russell brings religion back into Doctor Who.
Just an odd thing.
Russell T is as far as I know is an atheist, yes?
Yeah, I think so.
And I think he writes about religion wonderfully.
I think he does a great job in it, Joe. My experience, generally
speaking, is I find atheist writers actually tend to write really
thoughtfully about religion.
I really appreciate it.
Yeah, it was certainly like Eve Miles character last year wasn't
patronised for being religious.
And in fact, she gets to sort of slap Rose down a little bit.
Not, you know, not very forcibly, but says you just think I'm an
idiot, but I'm not.
I know this world.
Um, You know, there was no religion in Doctor Who in the 70s and
80s unless you were a cultist, you know, if you worship Demnos or
Logar or something, you got to be religious.
Yeah, that's right.
But no actual proper religious people.
And I think that making her religious in a way that the doctor and
rose aren't, and that sort of reflexive modern sort of arrogance
towards that sort of really heartfelt religion, which is obviously
not universal because plenty of people are religious.
Like, I think that that sort of reinforces for me that sort of
arrogance, you know, the doctor and Rose know how the world works
really, you know, because they're from space and they're from the
future and stuff.
And so Queen Victoria is, you know, like a simple primitive to
them. despite being the queen.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's so disrespectful.
Yeah, I completely agree.
I'm not suggesting the bounds great because she's the queen.
It's like, just treat her as though she's not there for your
amusement, you know, as though she's a real person.
That'd be good, you know?
And you can tell that Victoria knows what's going on.
Rose is so obvious and so sort of blunt and flat-footed in the way
that she tries to do it.
And you can sense, I think, Queen Victoria getting more and more
irritated with it.
Yeah, and um, it's, uh, yeah, it, oh, it just makes me cringe.
It's just one of those words where I have to look away for the
delic.
Oh no, don't stop.
Stop. when the doctor at the start is like, no, no, no, no, don't
don't do that.
And yet he lets this happen.
It's no, I'd have preferred the very dodgy Scottish accent.
That would have been fine.
No cringing there.
That's cool.
You want to do that?
I don't mind.
I have to say that David Tennant doing the Scottish accent, like
doing his own accent is significantly better than his Cod
Cockney.
Yeah, Dick Van Dyke.
It's this sort of thing where I'd kind of like David Tennant, but
had sort of started to find his performance a bit more mannered or
a bit too mannered as it sort of went on.
And then suddenly seeing him in Broadchurch, just doing his normal
voice and being sort of vastly, vastly sexier all of a sudden.
And I think it's because he's not having to sort of...
Yeah.
Yeah, I know, I completely agree.
I remember, this is actually, was the 1st thing that I saw David
Tennant in.
And then when it was outside in another performance, it was, oh, I
think it was Blackpool I was watching with, yeah, because it
because it had, there was a nice jiff of him dancing in it or
something.
And I was like, whoa, whoa, this guy's actually really, really
good.
Um, and I went to see him when he was doing his hamlet and that
was like, wow, that was amazing.
It was fantastic, was it?
So great.
Just, I just, I love the direction and stuff of that as well, the
way they got the spookiness across, which just, whoa.
But it's, I, I often feel like he's, he's really done a sort of
disservice in Doctor Who because it doesn't, it, I don't think
it's one of his best performances.
I think his best performance in Doctor Who is in human nature and
family blood.
Um, because he's not paying the doctor.
Terrible.
I feel terrible saying that.
There's there's that moment in, is it silence in the library where
um, uh, river reveals that she knows his name.
And then the mask drops and it becomes clear that all of this
stuff, which seems like a mannered performance actually is a
mannered performance and the character.
Yeah, and if that if that had happened a little bit more often, I
would have been on board with it, like if it was clear.r.
That makes sense.
Because the doctor is someone who we learned last year has
undergone this sort of frightful, horrific loss.
And I think Christopher Ecklson made it clear when he was being
jolly and putting a mask on.
But in this 1st David Tennant series, because he's so self
satisfied, you very rarely see that mask drop at all.
Yeah, there are some really, really nice moments though.
Now you've mentioned that I'm remembering a couple.
There's really a nice one to fear her when he says, um, I was a
father once and you're like, a little bit of heartbreak there
because it's, it's just, as you said, it just drops away the whole
mask thing and you just see this, this old grief in him and it's
like, whoa.
And um, I think there's some really good stuff in um, with Sarah
Jane as well. where he feels, it's like he allows himself to be
more vulnerable with her than he does around Rose, who he, it
feels like for her, he has to put on a performance because kind
kind of because, because that's what she wants.
She wants this, this fun and and, oh, no, no, I'm sorry, I've got
half a thought here.
So it's not actually sentences because I'm just, I'm speaking as
I'm thinking it.
But yeah, no, it's, um, Yeah, yeah, I think what you're saying is
absolutely right.
I mean, it's right from that 1st scene where they're together in
the TARDIS and they're playing injury on the blockheads and, you
know, the TARDIS lands and they fall over and they're just sort of
laughing and things.
It just sort of sets this whole scene that for them, this is going
to be a game.
This is going to be funny all the way through and they're here
just for the laughs.
And maybe he's overcompensating.
Like, you know, they should have hung a lantern on that.
Yeah, yeah.
I think that's it.
We can't just sort of head cannonet into sort of some kind of
psychological realism.
It just, yeah.
Oh, I can.
That's how I get, that's how I get through the dodgy Doctor Who.
Hey, this is how I get through the twin dilemma.
I can do it for that.
I can do it here.
But yeah, I appreciate that.
I mean, this is a lot of people's favourite season.
Um, which I completely legitimate.
That's absolutely fine.
And it does work for a lot of fans, which, you know, but then the
Time Monster doesn't for some reason.
So I, I, I, I can see how if you feel, You, if Rose maybe is your
if Rose is your, like, identifying figure, if she's the one you're
really connected with, then this is kind of what you want, you're
in this little club of 2, the doctor adores you, he wants to
entertain you.
I get that, but that's that's not what I'm used to for my
companions.
I think it works a lot better if you haven't watched Doctor Who
for your like childhood beforehand.
Yeah, yeah.
I think, you know, there's sort of technical reasons like series
one is clearly everyone sort of doing the Doctor Who story that
they've had bottled up for like the last 16 years or whatever.
You know, they've gone to the top shelf for their Doctor Who idea
and they've been given the opportunity to do it.
If we're going to kill it.
We're going to make it our very best.
Yeah, but I think this one has the sort of difficult 2nd album
feel to it because now what the hell do we do?
But it also has the advantage of knowing what worked and what
didn't work last time as well.
I feel I'm being very harsh on it a little bit because I genuinely
does enjoy it.
And actually this season, I really enjoy it right through the
Cyberman one, which I've found a bit dull.
And, um, then God help me, I don't hate fear her and and uh, Satan
Pitt's Impossible Planet.
I think, I think, is one of the best, possibly the best story of
Russell T. Davis era.
Um, but I'm just, yeah, because I feel like I'm being really
harsh.
I'm being really mean.
I still really like it.
Just really not my favourite bit of the 55 plus year.
Yeah.
Sorry, I always feel very guilty when I'm quite negative of Birch
Akshahoo because it's like, ah, the thing I love, and I'm
criticising a part of my child.
That's fine, isn't it?
It's absolutely fine.
Well, cause any psychological damage.
That's it.
We all record podcasts.
Yeah, that's it.
So did you know that this story was a really late edition to the
season?
I think so.
I did not.
Yeah, so initially, initially, because they didn't want to get
into a situation where if a script dropped out, they would be left
having to desperately write a replacement story, uh, Russell
actually commissioned a number of scripts on spec, uh, this was
one of them.
It was given to like a writer that never actually ended up writing
for Doctor Who.
I think Russell has never said who it was.
No, no.
And they said, Queen Victoria, monks, werewolf.
And the writer dropped the werewolf and the monks and rewrote the
story as something about Queen Victoria getting a bug in her eye
and The rest has lost her time.
But, um, and, and they, they, they did not like where that was
heading, so they dismissed him or, or her.
Who knows?
Um, and so they actually end up in the situation that we're trying
to avoid and Russell had to write the script. pretty much at the
last minute.
Seems he does quite well on the last minute thing.
Yes.
Yeah.
Well, I think Boomtown was last minute after something dropped, and
we really enjoyed that last year, and I think...
Yeah, no, that was a great one.
I think midnight, again, is some a quick replacement. last trip
yeah, yeah.
This was actually supposed to...
Well, this story initially was actually supposed to be episode
six.
Yeah.
And they moved it up the running order.
In fact, I had heard that the runaway bride.
It was episode six.
Yeah, and then he decided, well, that could be a Christmas special
if we get special.
Yeah, when the BBC commissioned the 2nd Christmas special, he went
well, this is a great idea. going to develop that into the
Christmas special because it works so much better as a Christmas
special.
And you end up with Catherine Tate.
Yeah.
And then you get series 4.
So it's all good.
But when they got the Christmas special, he replaced Runaway Bride
with this script that he wrote as a replacement for the other
one.
And then it got moved on the running order because there were so
many delays on the other episodes.
I'd heard too that there was a toss-up whether this was going to
be the 1st episode or the 2nd episode.
New Earth had been so plagued with delays.
And it would have been possible.
I think they worked it out.
So, you know, the pre-credits thing at the beginning of New Earth
that that could have led to the credits and then opened with the
beginning of tooth and claw, like there was every possibility that
it could have been first.
And I think once they had finished it, they were pretty happy with
how it was going.
And so that was a consideration.
Wasn't New Earth practically only finished like the day before
broadcast or something.
Really?
There are a number of stories in the new series where they were
down to the wire.
They were literally finishing off the special effects in the dub
and finally it's as they were prepping it for broadcast.
Wow.
Yeah.
It's like the trout era.
Film for live.
I think, you know, the result is probably that the story is fairly
simple.
You know, you think sometimes with the 45 minute episodes, they're
sort of trying to cram, like a 4 parter in there.
And I think that's always a mistake.
Bass under siege.
I read about time earlier today and they compared it to Horror
Fang Rock. that essentially you have, yeah.
It does very much feel like a modern.
I know horrifying oxscreen Williams, but it's a Hinchcliffe
hangover.
It does feel like the modern Hingecliffe taking out everything
that annoys me by Hingecliffe and keeping everything I love and
then adding the doctor.
Actually having women.
How could you possibly think, no, that was what I was referring
to.
Good Lord.
But yeah, but it's definitely got that kind of that Gothic
atmosphere, which I really love.
And it's relatively straightforward, but that it makes it, it
feels like it completely fits in its time slot.
But drawing sort of some themes from it is kind of.
It's kind of a bit difficult.
There is, there is stuff about religion and and the fear of
there's a lot of stuff from Victoria about knowing what's beyond
and sort of her, both her fascination with it and her distrust of
it.
Um, in that she, she hates the doctor in Rose's world, but also
she's, she's really introspiritualism at this time as, as she says
herself, which is, which is pretty interesting.
She's lost her husband.
She's grieving.
She is facing her own mortality.
I think she's wonderful in at the dinner, you know, when they're
talking about her husband, and the doctor says to her, you must
really miss him, and she's kind of a little bit blindsided by that
as if, you know, it's not the sort of question the queen would get
asked, you know, a question about, about her feelings.
It's an intimate question from someone that doesn't know her.
She, yeah, as a member of the royal family.
She wouldn't be asked such a direct question.
Yeah.
And I think the doctor in that scene is much less obnoxious
because, you know, Billy Piper has the day off that day and she's
you know, Rose isn't there.
And so he's not sort of showing off in front of her.
You know, he's a lot more likeable in that scene.
And she, you know, she expresses how much she misses him, but then
kind of pulls herself up and then there's the twinkle in her eye
again.
I think it's a good performance.
We haven't even said who it is.
It's Pauline Collins, of course, who was Shirley Valentine.
Um, but more importantly for us, um, she's, um, She's Sam breaks
in the faceless ones.
Oh, sometimes wonder what it would have been like if she'd
actually been brought on as companion.
Really?
Yeah.
I love Victoria.
Yeah, she could she could come along with Victoria.
Yes, her playing an altar version of herself.
That would be, sorry, her original character and Victoria at the
same time.
That would be brilliant.
Oh, I meant, I meant waterfield. as well.
It could be Victoria Waterfield and Queen Victoria.
Oh, no, I love her performance in this.
I think it's just, it's so good and it manages to, you get the, oh
the sort of standoffishness and the imperialism and you're like, oh
yes, this is definitely woman who's messing up the world with her
ridiculous empire.
Although by this point it's more parallel its fault.
Um, but she's also, she's also a real person.
We're also invited to have compassion for her.
She's very personable. and interesting and she, it's, it's a
nuanced performance with with layers, but it doesn't, I don't feel
that it whitewashes her, uh, a lot, her, uh, her negative impact
on history.
We don't forget the imperialism here.
It's mentioned several times the empire.
And I don't think it's mentioned with any sort of reverence.
You could argue it's a neutral mention.
But um, I think given what she starts at the end, given um, the
sense of, I don't know, um, we must protect the British Empire
from this stuff, it's, uh, it, it is a, gentle, gentle
condemnation.
Um, but then there's, there's a fascinating contrast in what she
says, because, well, at least this is what made me think of, is
when she says, um, now, now leave my world.
The 1st thing I remember thinking when I heard that was, was the
brigadier in battlefield, get off my world.
And they're both saying, I'm human.
The earth is my planet, a new alien person that is just not here
or should be here. leave.
And to say it to the doctor is like, huh, interesting.
It is sort of surprising that she has this terrible experience
with this sort of awful monster, but her takeaway is that the
doctor and rose are the problem.
And I actually think, and I don't know whether it's just because
of when we're watching it now.
But that thing about defending our borders, you know, now, I think
has a sort of peculiar resonance.
It's gained a lot more meaning.
Especially the last few years.
And it is that thing where she has a world.
I mean, we saw it with Charles Dickens as well last year, that
that sort of idea that, um, intellectually, the Victorian world
kinds of sees itself as having understood everything that there is
to understand, having gone through a whole heap of sort of
scientific revolutions and quote from a ghost light.
Well, it is, it's like ghost like, she's like lies in ghost
light.
You know, she wants a comprehensible world and the doctor is this
sort of chaotic sort of force who comes in in disrupt.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so this thing about sort of slamming down the borders.
And then later in the year when we actually see what Torchwood has
ended up being, and it's, you know, like a little outpost of the
British Empire that still uses kind of imperial measurements and
things.
And I think just now that seems sort of particularly resonant.
I was actually a bit shocked by how much I disliked Victoria in
that last scene.
She's a Victoria that would have voted for Brexit.
That's right.
Breakfast.
She has, she has, she actually has the empire that good old Brexit
here. imagine that somehow we still have.
She did have it.
So, um, yeah, she she wouldn't have.
Yeah, she's she's got the most bland on the planet at that point.
Yeah, no, I don't think she's about to be likeable now, I've seen
but I think it's kind, it's, I think it's meant to be, it's not
flat out.
Oh my god, you evil baddie, because she has just watched these
people laugh and dance about immediately after people who are
giving their lives for her, and that she's known some of them a
long time, are ripped to pieces by a werewolf.
It's a bit of an odd reaction from her perspective, bit bit
creepy.
I wouldn't want them around either.
Um, but I don't have an empire to exile them from.
She does knight them.
You know immediately before that, which I think is odd as well.
Like there is this recognition that, you know, that the doctor and
her saved them, and that they did do a good thing, and she gives
them an honour, and it is a sort of massive surprise.
And, I mean, how did Rose and the doctor look after she suddenly
change his tone and starts exiling them?
Well, like the wind's being taken out of their sails.
She may have had like a good grasp of this is the way to really
get through to them.
You know, I'm gonna, you did save my life.
I'm very grateful.
I will express my gratitude in the royal way.
But I'm also going to use this opportunity to let you know just
how annoyed I am. put you in your place.
And she does it, of course, by saying the thing that Rose has very
obviously been trying to get her to say.
And it's absolutely clear that she knows all along what's going on
there.
And so when she comes to do that and when Rose wins the bet and
gets what she wants, there's just this shot of Rose looking
horrifically embarrassed.
As she should.
So, did you know that, originally, whilst Russell was scripting
this story, he had actually planned to kill Victoria at the end of
the episode?
And yes, and that was going to be the alteration to history that
created the alternate universe that we end up in the Cybermen 2
parter and then revisit in Army of Ghosts and Doomsday.
But then, what hamster real history?
How do we get our universe?
He decided it was too complex for the casual view.
Just drop it.
I kind of like that because, you know, they created an alternate
timeline, they don't end up living in it, but somehow, it sort of
spires off.
Yeah, but you get the cybermen coming up out of that and invading
our universe and killing lots of people.
Surely they would have had some reaction to going, oops, maybe we
shouldn't have got Victoria killed.
This is bad.
That would have been an amazing moment.
They were just like, is she dead?
Is she really dead?
She coming back?
Oh my goodness, she's dead.
It's a thing that Doctor Who has never done before, has it?
Like it's got history wrong and it kind of does that sort of
fairly regularly.
And even here, the best new adventures.
But it always sort of tries to keep the shape of history kind of
happening.
And it's one of the problems, I think, with sort of historicals in
a way because...
You can't rewrite history and not one line, the doctor's kind of
stuck, you know, making sure things go along a sort of
predetermined path.
Um, whereas that would have been a big surprise.
But I think, like, one of the things that Russell has, I think, is
a real instinct for what, you know, what works for the audience
and keeping a sort of broad audience appeal.
I think you're right.
I think Russell more than any of the people that have come after
him understand mainstream primetime drama and what will attract a
broad audience.
I loved most of the last 7 years of Doctor Who, but by the end of
it, it had become made for the fans.
And I think they've course corrected quite a lot in the last
series.
But I still think that Russell's Doctor Who was the most
accessible era of the modern show.
Oh, I'd pick season 5 just because that's that's my favourite, but
also I think I think actually now the 11th hour is is the sort of
one that I say that's what you should start with.
And if you, there's, if there's nothing in that that you appeals
to you at all, then this probably is not the show for you kind of
thing.
I think I think that works better now as an entry point.
I think season five, if we're going for the popular thing.
I think that works very, very well in the same kind of way.
But after that, you can definitely make that argument, even though
this is my favourite era of new and one of my favourite eras of
who.
So my inclination is to defend it against all criticisms and say
that it's perfect in every way, even though that might be
objectively incorrect.
No, look, I mean, I I, as a fan, I totally, I totally get where
you're coming from with that.
I really loved Stephen Moffat's take on Doctor Who.
No, no, I completely get who coming on the popularity thing
because this is a show that was just remembered as, you know, it
was in our pop culture, but it was kind of a joke, you know
terrible special effects, wobbly sets and vertic commas because it
happened like twice.
Um, and it became the most biggest show on television.
Everyone absolutely adored and it just got bigger and bigger and
bigger under Russell's rain as far as I remember.
I'm really not good with like viewing figures and stuff.
It's one of my latest favourite topics.
I think it does get huge.
I think Stolen Earth and Journeys end up sort of massive in terms
of ratings.
Like it's, uh, it's near nearly as big as the show ever got.
But, I mean, this is a story that Moffat would never have done
simply because it is really very, very linear and simple.
And, you know, I think it's telling that we're talking about lots
of other things apart from the story itself. because you know, once
you get past what it looks like, the shape of it and the main
characters and the sort of conflict between them, there's not
really that much to it, is there?
Yeah, I don't think it's, I don't think it's completely flat and
shallow and meaningless, but there's, um, it would not be entirely
incorrect, so there's not great deal of depth to it.
It's a very something wrong with very plot driven, quite action
adventure, great atmosphere.
Um, but it'd be very difficult to, you know, if you want, if you
want, if you were writing about about the themes to get a lot of
words out of it, you probably could if you really tried.
You could get a lot in about, I guess, popular perceptions of
Scotland and of what this says about English writers looking at
the country and what they think they can get away with or
something.
So actually, actually, I really...
Maybe.
Why do we think it is in Scotland?
Because Scotland's, because Scotland hasn't had any Doctor Who
stories hardly.
We need what we're said in Scotland.
Oh, I'm not objecting.
I'm just wondering whether there was anything particular.
Is it just the prevalence of Shaolin monks that...
I think I think it was because Queen Victoria, if you're setting
Elite in her range, she spent a heck of a lot of it in Scotland in
Balmoral.
And if you want to have werewolves, the feeling is more, I don't
know, you could, I guess you could sit it somewhere in England, in
the north, there's like Moors or that, but if it feels more of a
Scottish thing.
And the last wolf in the country was killed in Scotland.
We had wolves the longest.
They were still, they were still wiped out in the 18th century.
I think the last rule was like... well extinct by this point.
Yeah, I want to say 1743 but I might be well out with that.
I think I think that's about right.
It was somewhere.
I crossed that in my reading.
The story.
I think, yeah, it was mid mid 18th century.
That some serious research.
But yeah, I just it fits with the theme of it.
It fits with how you're feeling and, you know, Scotland's very far
away and foreign, but not too foreign.
They still almost speak English there.
So it's kind of thing.
Um, yeah, I, I, I'm just, I think it's because it's associated
with Victoria and it's, it's more reasonable to think.
Maybe there is a wolf still out there because as Victoria says, you
know, there's story.
She doesn't believe there's any wolves left.
But she's like, oh, stories scare the children.
And I bet Victorian's children are still like, oh, there's totally
rules out there.
I've been suspicious about wolves in forests before, and I knew
perfectly well there weren't any out there, but maybe there were
and they're just really good at hiding for 200 years. less
werewolf and more werewolf.
That's terrible. sorry.
I'm sorry.
So good.
Quality putting.
Sorry.
Do apologise. was quality.
For me, I guess the thing that stands out here is it's the 1st
time that Doctor Who has been really sort of confident to just
base a whole story on essentially action, uh, that they find
themselves in a position where they can do lots of proper running
around uh, in a sort of expansive location and set an episode
which largely consists of running away from the monster and then
sort of stopping and regr and then running away from the monster.
And I think that that's something that hasn't really properly been
tried.
Um, simply because technically it wasn't a possibility.
Yeah.
And generally, genuinely, you make them, you make them lumbering
and slow menace, don't you?
Historically speaking, side men.
Ice warriors, Dalek.
I could definitely see this being stretched out to like 6 parts in
the 60s.
I could see how they do that.
It would not be as good, I don't think, even though I'm very much
for give me all the padding that you like.
I don't mind, lovely 60s who, that's not padding, that's character
development sort of.
Yeah.
It's meat on the bone.
Well, it varies from story to story, does it?
This one's in our fantasy world.
But yeah, this does have that that feel like they've gone.
Well, let's let's see how you like our base under stage with
pacing in it.
And that is it, isn't it?
It is a problem based under siege, too.
I mean, we haven't had one since, well, actually probably last
week, um, with New Earth, uh, which has a little base under siege
moment where they all go into quarantine and sort of zombies start
long bringing around the place.
But this is a little bit more of a trend base under siege and that
comparison with horror of fang rock complete with its, you know
mythical tales of a beast and and no one can get out and all of
that sort of thing.
You know, that's that's a sort of classic base under siege.
So, yeah, maybe that's they're doing a base under siege at speed.
On speed.
Have there even been any quite fast monsters in Noohoo by this
point?
I was thinking through them.
Except for those slithine in those Sichi shirts.
Yes, that's a bit difficult.
Well, they don't come across as that limber when we're seeing the
costumes.
So it's like, are they actually that fast or was that a trick of
the light because I'm trying to, it's difficult for me to, for me
to get the kind of like head cannon in there that the yes were
actually that fast because I don't believe it.
I think they were lumbering rubber suits.
I love them.
I love those stories, but...
No, me too.
Absolutely adore them.
Fantastic.
Hugely underrated.
So much fun.
Oh, wonderful.
Isn't that your favourite 2 part of the new series?
No, it's not.
I still like, um, I still like, um, Bad Wolf and um, Parting of
the Way is an enormous amount, but certainly that 2 parter is
wonderful.
It's just where the hell's it going to go next, the scale of it
you know, it's so great.
The 1st watch of it, but I just, I remember, oh, it was so good.
Even just at the start, we were like, 0 my gosh, they're a year
later and they've come back.
This was so new, a novel, exciting.
Oh, such a long time ago now.
That's terrible.
Yeah, and it's got plenty of Camille Kaduri.
Well, that's right.
That's it.
She's so great.
Well, dear listener, we've defeated the werewolf, and so we're
heading back home to do some offsted style school inspections, and
maybe to meet up with an old friend.
We'll see you next week for school reunion.
In the meantime, you can find us at flightthroughentirety.com
flight through entirety on Facebook and Apple Podcasts and at FTE
Podcast on Twitter.
You can also find us at our series 11 Flashcast Jody into terra
which is at Jodyintaterra.com, and over on Bondfinger, we've
completely run out of Bond films, and we've started making
commentaries on a variety of other spy movies.
You can find that at bondfinger.com, bondfinger on Facebook and
Apple podcasts and at bondfingercast on Twitter.
Liz, where can people find you?
They can find me on Twitter?
At LM Miles and at my website with my very regularly updated block
at ww.lmiles.com.
Also, if I'm allowed to do a quick plug.
Also, there's the 1st 12th doctor adventure from Big Finish is
coming out in February and it's a short story called the Astria
Conspiracy and it's written by me.
If you'd like to pre-order it.
I'd be ever so grateful. already had.
Thank you bless you.
Brilliant.
Well, look, thank you so much for agreeing to join us.
It's been fantastic talking to you today.
Thank you for having me on your lovely show.
It's been a delight.
Thank you.
Well, until next time, may you remember to bring plenty of
mistletoe the next time you're invited to the royal garden party.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Good morning.
That was Flight Through Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, James
Selwood, and special guest star Elizabeth Miles.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, Strings performance by Jane
Orberg.
This episode, having a laugh about werewolves, was recorded on the
20th of January 2019 and released on the 24th of March.
If anyone out there knows Josh the Werewolf, would you mind asking
him to get in touch?
No pressure or anything.
Just for a drink.
We'll see how it goes from there.
Um, all right, I don't know.
We should, I...
What do you think?
Yes, please.
So, you know where the title comes from?
Tennyson.
Yes.
Well, that was quick.
Well, no, no, no.
Like, so family, family history?
No.
My...
Well, my father's great, great, great aunt married Lord Tennyson.
Really?
What?
Maybe there aren't enough greats in there.
God.
Yeah, no, Emily Selwood.
Wow.
Do you have a Wikipedia page?
Do I?
Yeah, I think I do.
You should.
Is that, is that, okay.
Wow.
Yeah, that's amazing.
Um, I don't have, I only discovered this in the last couple of
years.
Wow.
Um, yeah.
It's very cool.
It's kind of cool.
Not a direct descendant. or anything.
I, you know, say, I mean...
But you still feel that you could take a little bit of credit for
this episode.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Totally.
Repeat rights, I would think.
So it is a strange choice for the title.
Do you think?
Did we have Queen Victoria as a, that would have been just a sort
of rough working time?
Well, yeah, so Queen Victoria, yeah, because it was the Queen
Victoria story.
But I think, you know, choosing a line from a poem by her poet
laureate.
Yeah, yeah. is appropriate.
Yep.
It, it's, um, you know, it describes the monster.
It does what it says on the tin.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I guess that's fair enough.
And keeping with the cane of, I don't want to say literalism
that's extreme, but, you know, keeping going to street forwardness
of the story.
You know, you don't want an out there title. to just accidentally
confuse you and think it might be deep.
It's not a Babylon 5 episode.
That helps.