Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast, which always remembers to take at
least one banana to every party.
I'm Nathan.
I'm James.
I'm Todd.
And I'm Simon.
It's the 51st century and Samsung has just released its 1st range
of clockwork Android devices.
Let's see how well that all turns out as we watch The Girl in the
Fireplace.
So, Stephen Moffat's back.
He's already given us a two part story in season one, and here is
his first single 45 minute episode, and I've avoided watching this
for quite a long time since he's been a showrunner. because I
thought coming back to it, I might see a lot more of his tropes
which, you know, he's using probably for the 1st time.
And so we've got a cold open, and I have to say, that he really
does know how to hook you in.
Simon?
Yes, it's almost like we've started with the Cliffhanger to
episode three.
Because you've already got a character who we've never met before
in the program, who obviously knows who the doctor is, but it's
not done in that sort of rubbish way where, oh, yes, I remember
meeting the doctor back on the planet Zog in the 52nd century.
It's as if we're already well into the story.
And we sort of are because that's what actually happens at the
sort of roughly the 3 quarter mark of the episode.
But I too actually hadn't watched it for many, many years.
I don't know how long.
I sort of been only watching the new series as it's come out and
then, you know, the Blu-ray box set, sort of like 12 months behind
kind of like it used to be back in the 70s in Britain where you
just get like, you know, a repeat of Genesis of the Daleks or
something at Christmas in between the seasons.
But coming back to it after all these years, it really does
actually remind me how brilliant Moffatt was and how much we
really wanted Moffatt to be the showrunner at the time because, you
know, his episodes, I feel it anyway.
I think a lot of people do.
His episodes in the Russell T. Davies era are the best, I think
and this is no exception.
In fact, it's probably the best of all of them.
It is really something, I think.
I also hadn't watched it for about 10 years.
And I can never quite work out why I avoid them.
So last week we did school reunion, obviously, and that's one that
I put on from time to time, but I really hadn't watched the girl
in the fireplace for maybe a decade.
I still haven't.
James, that's why you're not allowed on the podcast.
So you haven't you haven't seen it.
I haven't rewatched it.
Right.
I noticed, Nathan, you just said you've avoided it.
You've avoided this particular episode or just the entire era.
No, I tend to avoid the Moffatt ones.
And I'm not quite sure why.
I think partly because their tone is different to the surrounding
episodes and they're notable for not having been rewritten by
Russell.
So I always imagine they're going to be a little bit less fun than
an RTD episode.
You know, like I would put school reunion on or New Earth on
before I put Girl in the Fireplace on.
But I think there's also a kind of feeling that they're sort of
special and I don't want to waste them either.
Certainly, I am quite wrong because Girl in the Fireplace is
incredibly funny.
Like really, really, very clever and funny and super, super
enjoyable.
But I don't know.
There is a sort of there's a more sombre tone to Moffatt's
episodes.
It's the same with the empty child and the doctor dancers.
You know, I would watch Aliens of London and World War 3 before I
would watch those, even though rewatching them.
I'm just astounded by how incredibly good they are.
I think the silliness level for me, and that's an argument we've
had privately over many years.
And I think for me, it's because the silliness is more central to
something like aliens of London, certainly something like aliens
of London.
Whereas with the Moffat stuff and with Girl in the Fireplace
you've got a lot of sort of silliness that goes on, which is more
incidental.
And I think that's perhaps what I like most about it, and it's the
flavour of it, which I really, really love.
And it's because it is so much more serious, and I don't mean
serious, as in deadly serious earnest.
I just mean there's more, it just feels like there's more gravity
there's more at stake, even though it's actually just the life of
one woman.
It's only the life of one woman who's that's at stake.
And there's no talk about, oh, it's going to change the course of
history of Madame de Pompadour. just not blah, blah, blah.
That's all irrelevant. literally just the safety of this one
person.
But it sort of shows how important one person can be, even though
you know, like it's not, it's not universe shattering.
Yes, but it's important because we like her.
It's not, it's not that old sort of thing that, oh, everyone's
lives is important.
And that's an important message, an important sort of thing that's
been happening in the new series.
It doesn't have to be a king or a queen or an empress for their
life to be important.
It can just be an individual.
But it's just the scale of it, which is it feels both epic whilst
still being intimate.
And I think that's an interesting combination, which I don't think
there's a formula for.
I don't think you can't recreate that.
It just, to some extent, happened by accident, but I happen to
sort of feel that a lot of the best of Doctor Who actually happens
by accident.
The emotional stakes in this episode are incredible.
And I think Sapphia Miles is just amazing as Renette, and she's
got a great chemistry with David Tennant.
And it really makes me want to have a companion from the past with
the doctor.
Like, you're not going to get it here, but it's something that the
new series hasn't done, and I would love that.
Interestingly though, an alternate version of the ending of this
story written by Moffatt was that she would come with them.
It's interesting to the contrast between 2 weeks ago where
historical figures, you know, quite august and revered historical
figures were kind of poked fun at.
And that was critiqued.
I mean, that wasn't just kind of left unaddressed.
It was a problem, but the doctor and Rose were like super
dismissive of Queen Victoria, who showed a sort of dignity that
sort of surpassed their kind of mockery.
Whereas here she is an incredibly impressive person, and not just
because of a historical accomplishment, but just because of the
way that she interacts with the doctor.
They don't make the mistake, which is frequently made, that an
historical person is stupid.
You know, we're just as intelligent now as we were in the 3rd
century BC.
It's just that we've got all this stuff to start us off that we
know that we can then kind of learn all these other things.
And the beauty is that she comes across as a highly intelligent
and perceptive person when she understands what Rose is saying
about the fact that there's basically this place where all bits of
her life are all joined together and it's not like magic.
She doesn't accuse it of doing just magic.
She sort of just tries to comprehend it and manages to.
And I think that's great.
She comes up with that book analogy, doesn't she?
Where all the days of her life are like pressed together, like
pages in a book.
She clearly understands it and is even able to kind of explain it
to the audience in a way.
And of course, there's the Vulcan mind meld that the doctor does.
Is this his 1st Vulcan mind meld?
Well, since the 3 doctors.
Yeah, I guess so.
And she finds out about him.
He is reading her mind.
Yes, but she wasn't supposed to, was she?
He was not expecting that to happen.
No, that's right.
And she's the one.
Yes.
Yes, which adds to her level of, I don't know.
Superpower.
Complexity.
Intelligence, I should say.
And she talks about, you know, so lonely, you know, very lonely
childhood.
And is this the 1st time that it's really talked about?
This is something that Moffat's going to touch on again and
again.
Yeah, this is a place where he goes to, because this story, a
little bit like the doctor dances is very much about who the
doctor is and what he's like.
And you get the mythic doctor, you know, the doctor who comes with
the monsters, the doctor who monsters have nightmares about.
You know, Moffat has said that Doctor Who takes place, you know
under your bed.
And behind the sofa.
Yeah, yeah, just sort of very much about the role of the doctor
and that's something that he will go on to address sort of ad
nauseam in his era as showrunner.
But it's also about the doctor as a person.
Like, what was it like for him growing up?
And again, you know, look at listen and he'll do that again.
In fact, he'll make it much more explicit that the doctor is
lonely.
Well, it's the fan thing.
It's the fanboy.
It's trying to relate to the experience that I think many of us
serious fans had as children, and that is that we may not have had
very many friends or certainly not very many quote unquote normal
friends.
And so where we're wanting, that's one of the reasons why I think
we gravitated towards Doctor Who and the kind of person he is.
And I think Moffat's just remembering that from his own childhood
and feeding it into the fact that the doctor had that sort of
childhood as well.
It's a sort of meta commentary on, you know, the doctor as a
character in a TV program.
The doctor as the script writer.
So for one terrifying moment, I thought I'd accidentally put the
11th hour DVD in.
Why, Nathan?
Are you seeing all the different Stephen Moffat tropes in the
writing?
That's the biggest thing that I sort of was looking at at this, you
know?
You know, straight up.
It's suddenly 3000 years later and you're on a spaceship.
He does that quite often.
Like there's some sort of time jump to where the doctor is
compared to what's actually going on in things.
You've just hit on the fact that the doctor looks under the bed
and there's a jump moment and a scare and he does that as well.
We've got bananas, we've got doctor dancers.
Can I get Simon?
Can I just interrupt the 3000 years later thing?
But you notice how in the opening shot, which goes down to where
Madame de Pompito is, it starts on the same sort of nebula or
Starfield or whatever it is, and goes down to Earth, and then you
go back to that after the credits and it goes up to the
spaceship.
It's really clever, isn't it?
You think that it's an opening shot of space and it's the night
sky over.
Which of course doesn't actually look like that, but who cares?
No, no.
And I guess that's something I love.
I love the way in which, you know, how does this fireplace in 17th
century connect to the 51st century?
Why is she screaming into a fireplace?
Yes, yes.
Why is this?
He hooks you in and then it's slowly, the story slowly unravels
and you're putting it together at the same time as them, but
you're slightly ahead, which is something that I think is very old
school Doctor Who, like, Simon, when we were kids, watching the
show.
Yes, but how fast?
Well, I'll come back to what's old school, Dr. Hun just a sec.
But what is that thing about those 1st moments after the credits
where the TARDIS arrives and they go out and they have a look?
It's so quick, the way everything is summarised.
Oh, here we are.
This is a fireplace, but there's nothing on the other side because
I can see straight out the window and there's nothing there.
And then all those things are kind of set up so fast.
What makes it feel like a classic episode of Doctor Who is you
have a scene with other people?
And then you have the TARDIS materialising.
And I think that, and it happens at the end as well, when the
Tatis leaves, where they actually all decide, okay, we're going
now.
And that, that topping entailing of the episode with that really
makes it feel like a classic episode because it's happened so
infrequently in the modern era.
Because we start from the Tartar Cruise point of view.
Like either we're in the TARDIS at the beginning or the TARDIS
materializers at the beginning and we start with our crew.
The 1st time we saw that was in the Unquiet Dead.
Yeah.
And that's when that episode came on when all this was new.
It was like, I went, oh, thank goodness.
This is the way it's supposed to be.
You start with a scene where there are other people, not the
doctor.
Then drop the doctor in, then drop the doctor in.
Yeah.
It's not a surprise that that's in a Stephen Moffatt episode.
I think Moffatt, more than most writers understands the mechanics
of Doctor Who in an obsessive, compulsive kind of way and, you
know, revisits these tropes, not just his own tropes, but the
tropes of the show and reimagines and reinvents them constantly
especially when he gets control of the show.
And it's one of the things that I find joyous about watching that
era of the show is that his grasp of the mechanics of the story.
But isn't it wonderful the way the timey whiminess?
which is the whole raison d'etre of the story, is actually not
overly stupidly complicated.
It does actually make sense within the story.
Mere mortals can follow it, not just people like us.
You know, so it's using those tropes, for want of a better word
but in a way that is kind of accessible.
I think that what's interesting is what you said at the beginning
Simon, is that this is clearly someone who's had a relationship
with a doctor over a long period of time.
And we see that long-term relationship start.
And the fact that the doctor's a time traveller means that he can
have this long relationship with someone over many, many years in
one episode organically.
It's not like disaster from the planet Tigella who met the doctor
in an unseen episode. we actually see that relationship begin Yeah
yeah.
It's all it's all just terribly terribly clever.
And I think the other thing that Moffatt does is we think of
Doctor Who as a thing that does odd juxtapositions, you know, that
makes the mummies into robots, loyalty on the loo in tooting bag.
Exactly.
That's how we think of Doctor Who.
And Doctor Who wasn't actually always so much like that.
But that's our memory of what Doctor Who is for.
And that's what Moffat does here.
And it's the image of that horse. on the spaceship that absolutely
sells it.
And that little bit of dialogue where, you know, Mickey's surprise
there's a horse on a spaceship and the doctor comes back with, well
pre-revolutionary France is here on a spaceship, you know, get
some perspective.
What he's done is crashed this sort of space show into a
historical frock drama about Madame de Pompadour.
And it just works incredibly well.
It seems like that's the sort of thing Doctor Who always did, even
though it probably wasn't.
Just occurred to me also that this is basically his 1st draft of
River Song.
Yeah.
Like the whole doctor having a relationship with a with a woman
over a long period of time, not necessarily in the right order.
Yeah. which he's going to hang whole seasons on. the future.
But this is the 1st time the doctor is someone's imaginary friend
when they were a child and that's exactly what he does with Amy in
the 11th hour as well.
Yes, I was going to say, like, this explicitly says an imaginary
friend.
The raggedy man.
Another trope, you know?
And of course, you know, they get to have a snog.
This is our 1st proper snog for the doctor, I think.
I think so.
Ah, that's an interesting comment, especially because I've just
listened to the end of the 1st season podcast.
Yeah, so podcast when you're arguing, discussing the kiss.
So sucking the yellow goo out of it, whatever it was.
Yeah.
So, like on one level, that was a science fiction kiss.
But on the other level, what about the kisses in the telly movie?
of which there are at least two?
Oh, yeah, but he there's proper snocking.
I was watching David Tennant.
He's doing, he's getting properly into it in a way that former
mechanics.
Is it only in the bedroom when she's an adult for the 1st time?
Yeah.
She kisses him.
No, but he's into it.
He kisses back.
Yeah.
I had it on freeze frame.
I was slow motioning my way through that, Simon.
That's not necessary.
No, I'm not...
You're saying that she's instigating the kiss.
Is that what you're saying?
Exactly.
And that's exactly when Rose is possessed by Cassandra in New
Earth.
She leans in and kisses him and he just lets it happen rather than
recoiling.
Yeah, he sort of kisses back a little bit.
But it's more the reaction.
He loves it as a sense of, yeah, still got it.
He knew it.
And he's kind of, it's kind of happened the same sort of deal
here.
So I don't think the doctor is a character who goes off actively
kissing people if I...
No, no, no.
I think that this is up another level for the doctor.
But I think if we are accepting that this is going to happen in
the program.
I think it can work here in the same way that it can work later
with River song and so on, because she's not actually the
companion.
I think when it's a bit problematic is when it is the companion.
And I think that's why there was a bit of an issue with the rose
moment.
Yeah, season one.
But it's because the character of Renette is so is a character
that keeps recurring throughout the program.
Every now and again we get whether it's, you know, Dr. Todd in
Kinder or even someone like Astrid Ferrier in Enemy of the World.
It's Maker.
No, no, not, no, not gonna make it.
But it doesn't really happen in the heart and all era.
It's sort of more that sort of Davis era onwards, but it's a
mature aged woman who's not a girl.
Most of the companions are girls.
We get it from time to time when they're not a girl, whether it's
Barbara or Romana or Dr. Shaw, depending on how you define those
people, but mainly they're kind of kids, right?
And we've always hankered for these characters, like the women in
stones of blood.
We love them and they're fantastic, but they're only there just
for that one story.
And in each case, the doctor seems like he forms a more mature
relationship with that person that isn't on the same level as even
Sarah and Harry or Lilo, certainly not Tegan and Nista and
Andrik.
Certainly the companion as child analogy really is very evident in
early Davidson.
I mean, Nyssa and Adrick.
I think Matthew Waterhouse brings this up in his autobiography
when he's recording a commentary, he talks about how he flashed
back 30 years and he and Sarah Sutton were the kids and Davidson
and Janet Fielding were the sort of important adults having a
serious adult conversation.
It's explicitly in dialogue in Four to Doomsday.
Remember, the doctor says to Persuasion, you know what children
are like.
And he says, I don't as it happens. but he's talking about Nissa
and Adric.
They are definitely children.
And I know what you mean.
There is, you know, Doctor Who's been reluctant to have a more
mature female companion, arguably, I guess, Donna, who is.
Yes, Donna is, and it works terrifically well.
We know that Evelyn works very well on audio with...
Yeah, yeah.
They're a sort of person that he can have a proper relationship
with.
And I think Renette at the time that they kiss is 23.
It's the 1st time that he meets her as an adult.
But by the end of it, she's what, 37, like she's a similar age to
how the doctor looks, and she's not in awe of him.
They're very much equals, and I think that makes the relationship
seem more credible.
And less groomy.
Yeah.
I mean, there are 3 occasions.
This is the 1st of 3 occasions where the doctor meets someone as a
child who will become important to him in his later life.
And so that's Amy, like Amelia Pond.
And there was, I think, around about season eight, I think, there
was a Clara in the playground.
Clara in the playground when she was a little girl.
And I think by the 3rd time I started to think actually...
Yes, I would very much like never to see this again.
Yes, but at least he doesn't form any kind of romantic
relationship with him or anything that could be said to be a
romantic relationship.
The other thing is that in the context of being in the Tartars
being the Tartars team, is the doctor is the one responsible for
the more.
So it is a kind of a duty of care.
There is a, yes, there is a certain level of that which you could
read into it, which makes it that little bit icky, if something
like that.
Yeah.
It's an inappropriate workplace relationship.
Exactly that.
Yeah, yeah.
I think it's really interesting that over the last 3 weeks, in
particular, we've had this bond between the doctor and Rose, like
their boyfriend and girlfriend very much so.
And last week, you know, they threw Sarah into the mix to sort of
shake up this notion that is this the case.
And because Moffatt's writing this week, like the doctor is with
Renette, like a boyfriend, girlfriend thing, whereas Rose is much
more, she doesn't seem as phased as what she has in the past, like
she's with Mickey and they're off on their own little thing.
And she's got words to say to Renette.
But it's interesting just the way he writes it. as as intense a
bond, like in tooth and claw, you know, how they're very much
together.
Whereas here, I don't get that.
You don't get a sense that she's jealous.
I think that that comes from Mickey's dialogue where he is kind of
ribbing rose about what the doctors like.
You know, last week it was Sarah Jane, a Cleopatra, you know, it's
something that the doctor seems to do.
But I don't think Moffatt is interested in pursuing that
relationship between the doctor and Rose.
And Rose spends pretty much all of her time with Mickey.
And I think that because Moffatt is a writer of such stature, RTD
doesn't rewrite him, if there's something that is going on in the
series as a whole, that Moffatt doesn't want to address, he just
gets to leave it alone.
It doesn't need to go in that week.
So, you know, initially, in the early scripting stage of the
season, this was planned to be episode two.
Oh, okay.
And so a lot of what we're talking about eventuated because of its
place in the season, I think. when once you decide to put it in
episode four, mainly for production reasons, because it's so
complex, it makes sense because you've got them being flirty, then
you know, she meets Sarah Jane and it makes her rethink her
relationship with him and then her boyfriend.
Well, the ex-boyfriend comes along and is there.
So it sort of shows the relationship in flux.
But isn't it so refreshing not to have her absolutely besotted by
the doctor?
I think it would have been bad to have jealousy again this week
after last week's episode.
And I do think whether it's deliberate or inadvertent, Like having
an episode where the doctor basically abandons Rose and Mickey on
a 51st century spaceship in order to ride a white horse off and
rescue his new girlfriend, you know?
So you know that horse?
Arthur.
That's the same horse that turns into a zygon and day of the
doctor. recurring actor.
A horse with a career.
Maybe it was already a zigon in that.
I remember, because I think there's quite a good commentary on
this episode with Noel Clark and Stephen Moffatt.
They used to release commentary podcasts.
It must be where we got the idea from during early series of the
new series.
And Moffatt says that the scene where he bursts through the mirror
on a white horse that Russell actually came to him and said, I
think we have to lose that scene for budgetary reasons.
And he described himself chucking the most epic hissy food. in
Christendom or something along those lines.
And it had to be there.
It's the doctor is a romantic hero making a grand giant, romantic
gesture.
The scene itself as realised is not very good.
Do you think?
Yeah, I don't think it's the best that it can be.
I mean, there's a little bit of the CGI, you can sort of, is a bit
visible, should we?
It's all composited together and he moves in a sort of slightly
odd way.
It doesn't quite work, but certainly attempting to do it was much
better than kind of writing around it or having him sort of roll
back and mix into the ballroom or something.
I think the realisation that a frog on a chair is worse.
Oh, no, that was a real puppet.
That was like a metabolist. spider.
Do not criticise that.
It would have only been better if it had been Kermit.
Well, let's just say the problem I have with the sequence of him
leaping the horse jumping through the mirror is not the horse, the
mirror, or the CGI, but the music.
So that's the thing that was the Murraygold is comparatively
restrained throughout the episode, apart from that sequence.
But I mean, that is the hero moment.
I mean, part of Murray's brief, I think, is to, you know, leave no
Aristea unturned in being absolutely kind of bombastic.
Oh, I have no doubt.
I just don't like it.
Mickey and Rose.
Yep.
I really enjoy Noel Clark's performance in this, the growth in
Mickey, the joy it.
I got a spaceship on the 1st time round.
It looks so realistic.
Oh, yes, that is hilarious.
But that's also there for all the people.
It like the Dalek going up the stairs in remembrance of the
Daleks.
It's saying, look, doctor's not crappy anymore.
Yeah, and then they get, you know, they get their big guns and
investigate the spaceship.
Well, I mean, let's talk about that plot that they have together
on the spaceship while the doctors off.
Matter de pompering.
Yeah, yeah.
So to speak.
Well, I think it's just great to see to see him investigating
things and wanting to know what's going on and the dynamic between
him and Billy Piper and how different it is from the 1st season.
In fact, it's even different from the end of the last episode
isn't it?
Where she's visibly annoyed that he's been invited onto the TARDIS
with them, but that's been completely dropped, I think, for this
episode.
And I think that's a good thing.
I think it's also, it's indicative of Moffatt's approach to
stories in Doctor Who, which is that he never wants one story to
pick up where another one has left off and he deliberately does
that so that you can slot big finish adventures in between them.
You know, that's his raison d'etre for that sort of thing.
So he's, I think he said in the confidential in interviews around
there, he deliberately head cannoned that as they're having been
quite a lot of time had passed between the underschool reunion
here.
Despite the fact that he says that I got a spaceship on my 1st
game.
Anyway, I'm glad that we didn't sort of pursue that because I
think that would have been a bit.
But also it's icky.
I mean, it's the Doctor Who universe that we aspire to.
It's supposed to be an inclusive place.
People are welcome in the Tartars.
I know in practice you don't have like 50 people travelling with a
doctor at a time because that's, you know, they...
Not travelling from story to story.
But I found all that.
And, you know, you picked it up with Boomtown on this podcast.
It's all a bit awful and they all look terrible and it's Mickey
that's the one that you feel sorry for.
And I think finally we're getting, we've moved through that and
we're at a point where, no, no, Mickey is actually, you know
allowed to be called a companion, everyone.
You know, he's travelled to the Tatars, you know, get stuffed.
And in some respects, that's being said to Rose, or at least to
the rose of Boomtown.
Yeah, no, someone completely agree with you.
And through these episodes here in the middle of the season.
He just shows maturity in the character that I don't think is in
always shown in Rose's character.
And, you know, Billy has said that she considers Rose to be fairly
selfish.
But even at the end of the episode, you know, when the doctor says
he's all right.
But Mickey knows, come on, you know, show me around this place.
He knows that they need to get out of that to give the doctor a
moment.
I think that's actually really, really good.
That's one of my favourite moments in, I think it might be in
Tenant's run.
You know, tenants so mannered and so like sometimes a little bit
irritating.
And he comes in after losing Renette, like after seeing the hearse
drive off.
He comes into the Tartars and he's just normal, you know, like
he's just someone who's been bereaved.
Rose asks him if he's all right and he says, yeah, I'm always all
right.
But the mask has dropped.
The doctor performance has stopped for a bit.
But it is Mickey.
You're right, Todd.
It's Mickey who's the one who realises that the doctor should be
left alone.
On the Mickey thing.
Sorry, if I can just add one more thing to that.
The making fun of Mickey, though, there is still one remnant of
it.
And it's the when Rose says, you're not keeping the horse.
And he says, I let you keep Mickey.
And now that's kind of acceptable because it's just a bit of
banter, but it's still that kind of leftover bit of, you know, oh
Mickey's just a piece of like an extraneous character.
You know, he'll probably get killed by the end of the season
because he doesn't really care.
He doesn't really matter.
Colour is his shirt.
Yeah, exactly.
But if I can also say that regret scene in the Tartars at the end
with Tenets reading the note and everything, it starts when he
spins the fireplace around, after Renette said, oh, actually, no
this is still here and he works it out.
And he goes, yeah, it's great.
And he clicks it and the thing starts spinning around and she says
no. wish me luck.
And then, and then the look on his face, and I'm not a fan of
David Tennant as the doctor.
But that look on his face, it is just so, oh my god, what have I
just done?
Because we've already established at the beginning that years can
pass in the same fireplace.
And it's that look on his face saying, am I just throwing this
away?
It's disappearing as I turn around and I think that's beautiful.
And I think that's...
That's when he realises that this could go terribly wrong.
And I think that's when he realises he's never going to see her
again.
Yes, even though he shouts at her through the fireplace then and
says, capacia things, you know.
Look, that's almost like sort of out of place because by then he
should have said, you know, don't move away from the fireplace or
someone stay by the fireplace because if we don't, you know, 10
years will go past like they did last time.
But it's this emotional gravitas and the cleverness of Stephen
Moffatt's writing and the performances of the entire cast here at
the end of this episode, that moves you to tears.
I was mentioning last week that I've got a stone called Heart when
it came to like the Sarah Jane.
Yes apparently.
When it came to the Sarah Jane episode.
Now, I don't get anywhere near as emotional, right?
But on the 1st viewing of that episode of Sarah Jane, end of
this.
Like I was in tears at the end of this.
Like, it's real testament to the writing and Stephen's ability to
manipulate you in that way and the structure.
It's a structure of the whole script.
But also actors work best when they've got good stuff to work
with.
I think he gives them Moffatt, gives them the lines to do those
performances.
They don't just get conjured up, especially not in the modern era
where, if I understand this, right, and I might not.
It's, you know, in the olden days, they used to have weeks of
rehearsal in a room in Acton or wherever it was.
Whereas now isn't it more like sort of rehearse record, like
modern television, quote unquote.
So they don't have that time to think, oh, wait a minute, maybe
the character of a net would say this, blah, blah, blah.
So it's Moffat, yeah.
And it's him writing to his strengths because, you know, he starts
with witty screwball romantic comedy where you have 2 clever
wilful characters saying clever things to one another. very
coupling.
It's very coupling without the sexism.
And it's something that he writes incredibly well.
I mean, you have someone who is brilliant at sitcom dialogue.
Sort of a bit love, actually, is what you say.
I love actually.
Yeah, it's love actually the Christmas one.
He's just very, very funny and very, very clever and the dialogue
just works incredibly well.
It's just sparkling.
And just the way he seeds everything.
Like, you know, how does this woman link to the 51st century and
then keeps coming back to it?
You know, the ship is 37 when she is 37 years complete.
I just love all those little builds up building up to that point
in the script.
One of the complaints about RTDs era is that things aren't
properly accounted for or things aren't always explained in
dialogue.
And, you know, people make that complaint that, you know, the
conclusion of an episode just seems to come out of nowhere and
people think it's sort of careless plotting.
I actually don't think that's the case.
I think that's the way Russell writes, and he chooses not to weigh
things down with too much explanation.
Here, Moffatt is much, much more careful about providing
explanations for things.
And he creates this puzzle box plot and brings mysteries up, all
of which get resolved until the very end when finally the Y
Renette question gets answered.
Yes, but they don't know.
And they never find out.
That's something that they never find out.
And isn't that great?
Yeah, that is awesome.
But he does cheat by making the shape of the world kind of
preposterous.
He does this with the weeping angels as well.
The fact that what we have here is a spaceship that is powerful
enough to punch bunches of holes in one person's timeline that is
populated by robots that, for some reason, decide to carve up the
crew and then travel to various points in time in a particular
person's timeline in order to chop off their head.
And the whole thing is just hugely, hugely high concept.
And it has the shape it has, not because that's a thing that might
happen or, you know, like something that is thematically resonant
or anything, but it enables the story to happen.
And it's the same with the weeping angels.
Nothing like the weeping angels could ever possibly evolve.
You know, they're absolutely magic.
They're just magic.
Yes, but you can make that criticism about any episode, or
virtually any episode.
I mean, I think you mentioned it in Boomtown, where Margaret's
going to do whatever she's going to do to the nuclear power plant
to do whatever it is so she can serve it home.
I mean, really.
I don't think that's a criticism.
Oh, it's just an observation.
But Doctor Who has got so many of those and I think if you stop to
worry about them.
Like, you know, I've been watching the Blu-ray of Genesis of the
Daleks.
And much as I absolutely adore that story from my childhood and
everything, I was watching it and going, oh, but how does that
work?
I mean, if they've really been at war for a 1000 years and this
and that and da da da.
And, you know, they create this world, which is just nonsense.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
They'd never end up there.
It's 2 cities, 2 dome cities within walking.
Walking distance on the entire.
Yes, we've been walking just like an hour's walk.
So what I'm saying is, yeah, I get what you're saying, but I think
to criticise this or to observe it's particularly about this
episode.
I think Moffat in particular does these sort of strange high
concept things that work as the episodes going along.
But if you stop afterwards and sort of think actually what's
happening here, it has a very strange shape.
It's a world that has a very, very unusual world shape.
The world fits the structural plot. not the other way around.
Yeah, it's the structure of the writing.
It requires this to tell that story to tell that particular
story.
And that is not a criticism at all because when you're watching it
the performance is the sparkling dialogue, the whole structure of
it just takes you away.
If you compare it to, say, gridlock where Russell creates a world
and then drops the doctor in it and gives him something to do and
the shape of the world isn't determined by the type of story that
he wants to tell, it's determined by the themes that he wants to
explore, here, I think it's the other way around.
But I mean, in gridlock, you've got all these cars on a freeway
for God knows how many years, which is just completely...
And that's, yes, but and that's what I was going to add, is that
the problem with something like gridlock is it's perfectly fine
until they happen to say that they've been in a traffic jam for 30
years or whatever it was.
I can't remember the number, but it's an absurd number of years.
And that level of absurdity, for some reason, for me, makes me go
jolt.
Oh, that's just stupid.
Whereas the fact that this spaceship can punish, you know, a dozen
holes in this woman's timeline.
It doesn't phase me at all.
Just to get a spare part.
And I wonder and I make that not as a criticism of what you're
saying, but just as an observation.
Like, isn't that interesting that some things cross the silliness
threshold and break you out of it.
But then other things.
Oh no, that's perfectly fine.
But I think, too, that Moffatt is more interested in Doctor Who as
a storytelling vehicle than Doctor Who has a sort of coherent
account of an individual person's adventures in time inspired.
I think that's as it should be.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, yes, absolutely.
And I mean, I love the plot device that they just happen to move
the original fireplace.
She just moved it.
Yeah, both throwing brick brick.
I actually found that convincing though, because she knew that
that was where the doctor appeared.
Of course, she would do that.
Like I didn't think I thought that that just about hung together
as a plot point.
But again, just about, just about.
Again, I didn't have any problem with that at all.
But again, two, it's the only one that isn't blown out.
And again, you know, all of the windows are blown out. just making
this up, you know.
All of the windows are blown out except the one in the fireplace
which we observed in the 1st scene is very well built. you know
because it's offline or something.
Yeah, and it's offline and all of that, like...
It all works.
Like what you were saying, there's some things as individuals take
you out of things.
You know, we're all different and we all have to. different things
that sort of go, oh, you know, that's okay, well that's not.
For me, it sort of just indicates an approach that I approve of
which is that for him, plot and character are more important than
world building.
Well, no, but he can.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I would actually suggest that all of the Shaverunners thus far
have had that precise, same vision because they've handled it in
different ways. even right up to Chipmill now.
They're much more interested in the story than they are with that
sort of inconvenience.
Yeah, but I mean, if you think about 80s Doctor Who, it would be
create a concept and then just have the Dr. Tegan and Turlow, you
know, getting captured and escaping for 4 episodes, then explosion
and that's our story.
Whereas we have actual proper plot, like proper story happening in
a careful way.
And then the world tailored around that in order to make the story
work.
Doctor Who is in my DNA.
I've always loved it, even underworld.
But the thing that the new series I've always struggled with a
little. is, and what makes it for me a different program, is the
fact that they are 45 minute self-contained episodes.
There's a sort of the fault is either one for me, one direction or
another.
Either they're trying to do a traditional four-part story, but
squeezed into 45 minutes.
And yes, I know you get rid of the standing urgently in corridors
thing, and all the padding in episode 3 being locked up, da da da
da.
But what you lose is the sense of the passage of time, the epic
feel, you know, and the other possibility is that there's just not
enough, which is like Boomtown, much as I keep mentioning Boomtown
because I've just listened to the podcast, but Boomtown is an
example of an episode which I did not like at the time, but I like
a lot more now because I can sort of see how it works.
But it's just the exploration of an idea rather than a four-part
story sort of squished in.
The girl in the fireplace manages to, in 45 minutes, have that
epic feel because of the way the pages of the book are squashed
together.
And when it finished, I sort of had the same feeling as when, you
know, for instance, when I get to the end of, say, the Green Death
where you've gone through all of this period of time with these
characters and they've changed, they've evolved, they think
differently now to what they did at the beginning, and too often
in modern Doctor Who, you just don't feel that.
I still think, though, that the story would work beautifully as a
traditional four-part story, with adding in a few more subplots
you know, bringing in a few other things, having a bit more
exploration of the 17th century or the 18th century, 17th century
isn't it?
It would work so beautifully still, but it still works as a
standalone 45.
It's really interesting. what you're saying there.
Like, I mean, because remember as kids, like we used to talk about
the different characters in classic Doctor Who who aren't the
companions, right?
Yes.
And very often in modern Doctor Who, who are they?
Who are they?
But here, I always remember Madame de Pompadour from this season.
Like she is like a character who stands out.
She is pretty much the single guest star.
I mean, you've got the handsome king, the very handsome kid.
Is he Louis the 15th or 14th that guy?
Ben Turner, as King Louis.
What did he say that, people?
Gorgeous.
But so we can look him up.
She's the Richard Mace, though, of the episode in that she's the
one character with a name, not just a title, who actually gets an
amount of dialogue, and so there is time to explore her.
Unlike her little person she's strongly.
In the garden. in the gardens, who is Angel Colby from Merlin.
She was Guenevere, yeah.
Yeah.
And last week we had Anthony Stewart Head, who was also in
Merlin.
So a few Merlin connections in these couple of episodes.
So I think that character's called Catherine.
And that's a great scene because it's outdoors.
You know, we're in the studio for most of this, but that's
actually quite a lovely scene and it is a romantic comedy scene
with the doctor ducking down behind, you know, a stone railing in
order to stay out of sight.
It also manages not to whitewash history as well.
Yeah.
I mean, not so much anymore, but certainly in classic costume
drama made by the BBC or ITV.
History was always white, like uniformly white.
And television was uniformly white, and they actively made a
choice there to get a black actress.
And there are plenty of black extras as well in the scenes too.
Yeah, no, like but I think they talked about that in
confidential.
Right.
That they specifically made sure that they had a diverse cast.
Has anyone seen Casanova?
Yeah.
The Russell of D. Davies thing just before Doctor Who.
That's what it feels like to me, because that also, I think, had
that sort of diverse casting.
It's definitely the kind of rehearsal, the audition piece, isn't
it, for Doctor Who?
And he does go on to cast some of the other people in Casanova and
we'll get to that when we talk about fear her.
Oh, yes.
Can I also observe, though, the other comparison I want to make
with Casanova.
And one of the things I don't like about the episode is the makeup
and hair.
There's something about it, which feels, it's not, it doesn't feel
authentic, and I know we have...
Yes.
It's like, you know, even, you know, King Louis's early 21st
century stubble and the hair and the makeup of Renette and so on.
It's kind of like a nod to historical, but it's and I know it's a
production choice and it's a stylistic choice.
It's deliberate. a deliberate production.
I know.
And I wonder why they do that sort of thing because for me, it's
like, oh, it doesn't feel as authentic as it could feel.
And even the lighting as well.
I mean, yes, they've made a lot of effort to have shadows and, you
know, as if the whole thing's being lit by candles.
But there's not that flickering.
There's something about it, which I don't think would have been
difficult to achieve, which you see in plenty of other historical
costume dramas of the modern era, whether it's Victoria or what
have you.
Look, I would tend to agree with you on that as somebody who, for
a lot of their life, studied history.
I get that quite often, you know, it's to make it accessible and
it's an active production choice to make it understandable to the
modern audience.
Kind of very peculiar.
Like not the reason, but why this would make it inaccessible.
I actually think authenticity in a historical thing is something
that you're never going to get.
And I don't know that it's something that you should be aiming
for.
In the opposite direction, do you have historical dramas which
show how bad everyone's teeth were?
Yes.
Yeah.
Or the, you know, the faeces.
Yeah, we need more lice.
No, obviously.
No, no, no.
But there is, I suppose, I mean, obviously historical productions
are always, they make certain choices and it's going to be, I mean
the ones which are really gritty and grotty.
And they're the ones which are a bit more romanticised where
everyone's got good teeth and clean and they don't smell and so
on.
But there is, I think this is a choice which for me is just a
little bit too far. trying to make contemporary.
And I think that if they are the excuses, and I don't know whether
they are.
But if they are the excuses or the rationale, I think it's a very
poor one.
They describe it as a rock and roll version of...
Well, Casanova, see Casanova, tenants wandering around in Casanova
I seem to recall with like gelled early 21st century hair.
And, you know, it's kind of like, really.
I mean, compare it to, and I was comparing it to, because of the
scene at the end where the horse, you know, comes through the
glass, the mirror.
Mask of Mandraga, it's like the mask scene in Mask of Mandraga.
Now, maybe it's just because I saw that when I was like eight, but
for me, and that's what, you know, Renaissance is.
See, I don't have a problem with that aspect of it because I find
the spaceship to be rather dark and metallic and it's falling
apart and it's all highly robotic and, you know, with body parts
and all that sort of thing.
And then you can't to opposite where it's all romantic and
brightly lit and love story.
So, on that level, that's how I see it. to draw that contrast.
Yes.
And it's Doctor Who's aesthetic during this period, an aesthetic
that it's only just shed of everything being kind of hyper real
and oversaturated and that kind of thing, a slightly cartoonish
aesthetic, which is what they're going for. then becomes fairy
tale for a number of years.
Yeah.
But it's certainly consistent with that.
And this is a fairy tale.
I mean, this is a fairy tale.
The doctor makes up a technical term for the fireplace
specifically so that he doesn't have to call it a magic door, which
is just what it is.
It's a magic door.
This is really, it's Moffat cutting his teeth on how he will make
Doctor Who.
Yeah.
Well, I think, I think the way that you go through the magic door
as well, where there's no sort of silly, um, vortex.
It just, it just turns around like...
Yeah, it's wonderful.
It's great.
Listeners might be taking note of the times where I have memory
lapses since last season.
You know how I've been talking about the fact that I can't
remember slabs of things for some reason with the new series
happened again here.
I was watching it all the way through.
I'm going, is Rose and Mickey ever really going to meet Madame de
Pompadour?
So that entire bedroom sequence where, you know, she talks about
the slow path and all that, I completely erased it from my head.
I really like that scene.
Sounds great.
It's really good.
The 2 of those women are excellent.
And I think again, you know, for the 2nd time this season, they've
had a sword of historical where they haven't put rose in a frock
and she's just sort of standing there in the t-shirt opposite.
Another intelligent young woman dressed in sort of 17th century
gear.
I think it's wonderful.
But no, coming back to this, I enjoyed this as much, as if not
slightly more than ever.
It's my joint favourite of this season for me.
Yeah, I think that my habit of leaving the Moffatt stuff on the
table really needs to be reevaluated because I thought this was
this was exceptionally good.
It's the 1st early new series episode I've watched in many years.
Usually I'm just watching where we're up to.
And I came back to it, wondering what to expect.
And I was actually blown away.
I thought it was even better than I remember it to be.
The concept behind it is mature and intelligent.
It's timey-wimey without being over the top and stupid about it.
It doesn't dig itself holes that it can't then get out of later
and just solves with a big explosion.
I think, as I've said before, the silliness is an aside rather
than central, and it really is everything that Doctor Who should
be for me.
Well, dear listener, we've reached that part of the series where
it's time for a controversial two part story set on the planet
Earth or its nearest equivalent.
We'll see you next week and just a little bit to the left for Rise
of the Cybermen.
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 Interterterra
which is at Jody Interterra.com, Jody Interterra on Apple Podcasts
and at Jody Interterra on Twitter.
And we're also available on Bondfinger, our commentary podcast on
the James Bond franchise and a bunch of other silly things.
You can find that at bondfinger.com, bondfinger on Facebook and
Apple Podcasts and at bondfingercast on Twitter.
Simon, where can people find you?
You can hear me on FineMusic 102.5 FM in Sydney.
And if you're not in Sydney, you can stream it at findmusicfm
com.
And I have been known to play the Doctor Who theme once or twice
in my time.
Brilliant.
All right.
So until next time, may you remember to keep your vessel's auto
repair system switched off at all times.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
See you soon.
Good night.
Bye for now.
That was Flight Through Entirety, starring Todd, we'll be Nathan
Bottomley, Simon Moore and James Selwood.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, Strings Performance by Jane
Orberg.
This episode, tropes for want of a better word, was recorded on
the 26th of January 2019 and released on the 7th of April.
Of course, Moffat's original much more upsetting premise involved
the SS Teresa May, which saw the entire population of Britain
trapped on a spaceship, repeatedly reliving the events of the past
three years.
Don't do the story titles, yeah, just...
Yeah, no, no.
I'm just seeing if I forgot anything else.
Um working titles.
Um, You know, the Moffat lifted the whole description of the
doctor being what monsters are scared of Paul Cornell.
Yeah.
It's a new adventuresism.
Yeah, love and war.
Doesn't he say I'm the lord of time at some point in this?
Not in this, I don't think.
Yeah, no, he's the king says I'm king of France and he says
I'm...
Oh, that, yes, no, that's beautiful.
I love that.
Yeah, that's a very that's a very good line.
There are a few other kind of cultural references in there, like
with Camilla being referenced.
When did they get married?
It wasn't that long before then.
Actually, well, maybe they're not married.
Actually, after, I think you're right.
So she's still the girlfriend mistress at that point.
And the, um, Mr. Thick, thickety, thick from Thickton, or whatever
it was, that's, is that, is that sort of just specific?
Yeah, is that sort of a sort of a black atism or is that?
Because I mean, I wasn't sure whether it was a unique blackout or
whether it was just a generic British thing.
I think it's a specific blackadder thing because it's a frocks and
wigs story.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And it's got the sort of the, the, the, the, the feel of the black
adder.
Is that when he's drunk?
Well, when he's playing drunk. to be fair, because I think I think
that is actually quite good where he comes in pretending he's
drunk and then so he can pull a swift one on the robots, which we
haven't actually commented on yet, if I can.
They are so beautifully designed and the masks, which are almost
reminiscent of the clowns from Greatest Show, I sort of thought.
I don't think it's a homage to.
I think it just happens to be because they're a painted face.
And the doctor says, oh, you're so beautiful.
And he's just said that 2 weeks prior to the werewolf as well.
It was interesting. sort of... that's right.
Now that you say that, that made it was a bit tedious at the
time.
It was like, are we just using the same kind of thing?
Oh, you're beautiful, but after destroyed it.
But also, I think you're about to say something similar.
Sorry.
It shows how he's different.
Like his eth, not his ethics.
His aesthetics are different from the average human.
Like he's... being, you know, he's being menaced by a werewolf and
he stops to admire its beauty and it...
Here they're being menaced by these clockwork soldiers and he's
saying, oh, he's so beautiful and everything when other people
just run screaming from the room.
I mean, they're ludicrously impractical again.
But the clock thing, you know, in a story about the passage of
time works terribly well and the broken clock thing is another
sort of very clever Moffattism where they break the clock so that
you don't notice them ticking.
And of course, he'll revisit it at the beginning of series eight.
Yeah.
Well, in fact, the villains in sort of exaggerated masks thing
that's a well that he'll go back to a few more times, I think
before he's done with the show.
But that's only, I think, because it's a good idea.
And when their masks are off, where it's that sort of glass ovoid
with with actual proper moving clockwork in it, I just think looks
incredible, just looks wonderful.
I think, um, like you and I have both said, yeah, had a conclusing
concluding thing, James, do you want to say something and then
Simon say something or are you good?