Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast that's overdosed horribly on Botox
this week, and we'll be waiting in this Kage at the police station
until it sorts itself out.
I'm Nathan.
I'm James.
I'm Adam, and I'm a 405 line.
Joyce Grenfall, face suck off upper mooring mast for this one. as
usual.
It's London 1953, which can only mean that it's time for a
delightfully domestic celebration of privileged imperialism and
aristocracy.
So please join us as we gather round in the living room to watch
the Idiot's Lantern.
So, Adam, David Tennant's hair.
Yes or no?
Oh, no.
Like, I didn't, just all around.
Like before the 50s and after.
I haven't had hair since the 90s, so maybe it's jealous. none of
us has, really.
I actually found the Next Time trailer a bit of a relief.
Well, although it was because I hadn't seen it in a few years.
Like, the next time trailer, I was like, I remember his hair being
way more sticky uppy.
It looked flatter than I remembered.
It is unfortunate.
It's, yeah, it hasn't aged as well as some of the other parts of
the show.
We would call them coxcombs in the period.
Or DAs.
Yeah, ducks arse head.
DA's or Tony Curtis.
Yes, yeah.
So, yeah.
We're all Spartacus here.
Yeah, it's the whole period thing.
Don't.
Well, actually, this just comes to it down to.
Are we codifying bits of tenant or are we actually talking about
how we receive tenant?
back on that one again.
We have received tenants.
I think it will turn out that a lot of these episodes have us
expressing reservations for tenants performance and there's plenty
of it here.
There's a lot of it.
A lot of performance.
Yeah, yeah.
A lot of teeth, a lot of face pulling.
Do you know what I found like towards the, like the back half of
the episode.
I kind of realised that, you know what, not a lot of people are
fans of season three.
And I think Tenet is only as good as who we're standing next to.
And the back half of this episode feels a bit, yeah, because Billy
Piper's gone faceless into a cupboard.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think that was in David's contract.
At least my faceless billion month.
Billy Musket off her face in the season.
I have heard some stories.
Oh, yeah.
That's big.
Yeah, I think he's only as good as who he's playing off against.
Like, I think he's a great straight man, but he's annoying. as the
as the comedic.
No one's called him a cypher before, but I think you're really
onto something.
I think there's some problem and, you know, again, it'll come up
again and again and again, but when he is doing that accent, I
think, you know, he's an incredibly skilled actor and he's very
good at accents, but I do think saddled with that accent and doing
that voice means that there's rarely any sort of interiority.
It all kind of surface, I think.
I think I think that's what he's like as an actor full stop.
I think he's just one of these people that is really good at
remembering their lines, not bumping into the furniture and, you
know, whatever people see beneath the surface is, well, down to
people who can see things beneath the surface that aren't there.
Right.
There's a reason a lot of teenage girls to, you know, who were
teenagers at the time still have that palpable Tony Curtis Cliff
Richard slash.
That's one of the ironic parts of this episode is where he's like
oh, yeah, your mum would love Cliff and it's like, look who's
talking.
When did you ever get tied off on a rope about Kenny Everett and
slashed on TV?
You would wish for such career hypes.
But yeah, I think he's he's talented at what he does, but it's, um
yeah, I don't know.
All the gurning and mucking around.
It's especially after someone with the gravitas of Eccleston.
And this is what we're only halfway through this season.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, so it's, you know, we're just sort of coming to grips with
who he is as the doctor.
And, like, I loved him when he was on, but now I kind of, I don't
know, I find I find it a little bit annoying.
I think I'm circling back around.
I felt the same way I loved him when he was on and then I kind of
thought maybe it's my least favourite performance from a modern
doctor.
And now when I watch it often, but not always, I'm relieved that
it's not as bad as I feared it was going to be.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But certainly he gets one big kind of snarling hero moment where
rose comes in, sort of faceless and now suddenly it's personal, you
know, despite the fact that dozens of other people are sort of
faceless in a cage at the police station.
He was and he was all right with it.
And that performance is sort of that's upsettingly terrible, I
think.
Look, I think Euroslin is a great director of action and like I
love all the wacky angles and it's a great looking episode, but I
don't think he's ever really chosen great guest stars.
But they do have Roncook.
Yeah, no?
really like him.
I like that he under pedals because what else can you do when
you've got the tenant storm in the room, the oncoming whisper. then
shouts.
I'm coming back wrong.
I really, really do like Gronkook.
I've seen him on stage over in the UK.
He's amazing Yeah.
I don't know.
I liked, look, I liked some of the performers.
I like Nan, but you know, she was gone very quickly.
She was Megan Jones in Fury from the Deep.
Oh wow.
Yeah.
Is she old Nan from the Game of Thrones?
Yes.
Who, yeah, who passed away and was eulogised in the 1st episode.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah, she's great.
I loved her.
Hey, I'd, like, Derek from EastEnders gives me the heroids
though.
That's Eddie Connolly?
Yeah.
The dad.
It's a really, really weirdly misjudged performance.
About time says that everyone's acting like they're in a different
production apart from him who's acting like he's in a school
play.
It's like Samuel Beckett was 14 and writing the book.
And none of the characters are actually talking to each other.
That's the problem I find, though, with modern pieces.
You tell me what you think, that when they try and do a period
piece of 20th century, especially the BBC, They get it totally
wrong.
Adventure in time and space.
Now, I love that we love the big finish audios, and you know we've
got the wonderful David Bradley back doing those with the
adventures in Spoon and whatever cast, but the lovely Gemma who
plays Barbara.
There's no tonal variance.
It is.
I'm doing this as an RP person.
And she really, look, you know, just that is not what actors have
ever been.
We actually got more naturalism back then.
I think it's kind of the same here.
There haven't been any RP voices on the BBC, and on the radio
anyway, since 2013, when they exorcised Charlotte Green, Charlotte
Green, from the news quiz, whom the fabulous Jeremy Hardy
described as Sonic Viagra.
And she was saying, you know, you don't hear people like me
anymore, except on this podcast.
Yeah.
So there is that sense of, oh no, we're performing rather than
giving us some naturalism.
They actually get it more right when they go back to the 19th
century than they do here.
I think here he is a big problem because he's he's such a linchpin
of the story that everyone's kind of, you know, thrown out of
orbit by the fact that he's so off kilter.
It is really important, isn't it?
And he nearly completely obscures the points of the story.
And as you were saying before, Adam, and he's thin.
I mean, there's not that much to it.
But it's clearly about that generation that went through the war
and, you know, we're getting a new sunnier future, you know, the
doctor says, and we're going to be moving into a more modern
Britain than the 60s and things, and that's going to be sort of
Tommy's generation.
And he's kind of left behind.
And I think there's some room to have some sympathy with him, but
he is such a horrible shouty character.
Obviously, the script's written for us to have sympathy with him.
Yeah, like when Tommy goes off to, you know, carries suitcase at
the very end and it's like, oh, so we're meant to think that there
was a human inside this over the top lunacy that's been going on.
Yeah, I think that like that's my biggest problem with it.
There are things I love about this episode, though.
Anytime I see Maureen Lipman, I get excited.
She's so great.
Well, you know, you know that she she wanted to be in it for
ages.
And you know her, have you seen her stick over there, her Joyce
Grenfell readings?
Which is where I was coming home?
She's obsessed in an unnatural lady fashion with the works of
Joyce Grenfall.
So if you remember her from the, um, um, she wasn't ever in carry
on, but she was in St.
Trinians.
Was it no, she was in the new carry-on, wasn't she?
The one with Julian Clary?
Carry on Columbus.
She passed by then.
Oh, Joyce Griffith.
I thought you were talking about Maureen Lipman.
Just the Olivia Coleman.
But yeah, she does this lovely piece and she's done this stand-up
thing for years reading Grenfell's poetry, which is very funny and
very much about the constraints and about just pushing gently.
She was a Christian scientist.
Wow.
Oh wow.
Really darkly humid as you would be.
John Crawford.
I was a Christian scientist wasn't she?
Oh God, this is everything to me.
Explained so much.
They all were suffering with appendicitis.
That's going to give you real grit to your performance.
But she loves this period and she's quite obsessed with this whole
notion.
And the really telling thing.
I'd like to hear Gatus talk about this.
You would never have had a Maureen Lippman.
No. because she's too Jewish.
And pronunciation is actually still not quite right.
Just because we're the kind of people that pick on that kind of
thing.
But that, I suppose, as a meta thing, it's quite interesting.
I love Mark Gatas's writing, I just never get to see what it is on
screen because 3 quarters of it, it's always cut out.
So all the beautiful ideas and the richness of his text.
I thought the best production of one of his scripts was the most
recent one, the Empress of Mars.
Like, that all felt like it was there.
I saw everything that I was expecting.
Because there's like a moment where in this one where Tommy's
talking, kind of implying that, you know, he might have feelings
for people and you'd like, it's as neutral as that.
Yeah, like you're like, what is what are you saying?
You know, in the original script, Tommy was supposed to actually
have a crush on the doctor.
There you go.
Adam was written for Eccleston as well.
Yeah, that all makes sense. season from Series one.
I would have said Eccles would have minded.
And there was going to be this whole, well, you just assume that I
don't dance kind of conversation.
You're assuming that I'm straight.
Which would have been brilliant.
Yeah, but it was all cut.
Yeah.
They had to turn down the gay agenda.
This is very gay to see still though, isn't it?
Yeah it is.
I mean, sometimes with a gator script, I feel like I can see the
whiteboard in from the meeting.
Like, okay, we want 50s, we want the coronation.
We want blank faced people.
Maureen Lipman on television.
It's like there's a checklist and the episode moves through the
checklist ponderously and you get to the end and you're like, okay
well, we ticked off everything.
Did anything happen?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I did, yeah.
I like the writing of the kitchen sink drama, like in the house
like it was terribly performed.
I thought the mum was okay.
But the dad was so bad that everyone seemed to be, it was kind, you
know, I don't know if you've ever performed with someone who's
chewing the scenery, like most of the people who perform with me.
You end up having to really temper your performance to deal with
what they're doing.
Like it's just you'd never really enjoy it.
No one ever has a good time because it's like, well, we just have
to work around this person because they can't take direction, they
can't listen, or maybe the director was just like, oh, yeah, you
just, I trust you to do what you're doing. which it feels like in
this instance. like everyone was just doing whatever they felt
like.
I wonder if that's eternal thing that's coming from tenant, and I
could have been a lot cheekier with that, but I actually mean this
seriously.
If other people are rising to the sort of level of artificiality.
He is the showrunner on screen anyway.
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I guess you do take your cues from the main
actor, the star of the show.
But if anyone really knew what they were doing, they'd be taking
their cues from Billy Piper, because the way the show has been set
up in the modern era is that the doctor is the 2nd banana.
Like a doctor gets to do all the mucking around.
So our viewpoint character is the most normal one.
Yeah. being Billy or Paul Freema or Catherine Tate.
And, you know, that was the beauty of casting someone like
Catherine Tate, is that the doctor could occasionally be the
viewpoint character, because she could be the lunatic for an
episode and you could flip back and forth.
But, yeah, I guess if you are taking your cues from a prize ham.
It's difficult not to put the glaze on.
And where are you placing the maraschino cherry?
Right up the top.
You look at...
You've really got me thinking.
You look at how pert we would have played this, who really was a
prize, poor scene, all of his years, and we're still doing navy
luck.
And really over the top thing. when he came into Doctor Who.
I think he and Tennant's personality were probably not that
different on set.
You know, there is a sense of iron the entire room.
We certainly hear that from folk who've worked on the thing.
Not a bad thing, simply the way the actors work, but pertly would
have, I suspect, done a whole lot of sotto voce in this one, but
might have been quite nice, especially the snarly scene.
Yeah, it feels like tenants taking his cues from, you know, Graham
Williams era, Tom Baker.
Yeah, no, I think that's it.
Because, I mean, trying to think of a Doctor Who does anger really
well, and it is early Tom.
You know, he's terrific.
He's terrifying.
Also, when he's angry about something, like, just ludicrous.
You're like, why are you angry about that?
It's not something people get angry about, but whatever.
You're out of space, man.
Yeah, no, it's almost certainly something that happened in the
green room shortly earlier.
Yeah, it was.
Someone nicked his fags.
He'd been out of the pub for far too long.
An hour.
I had never noticed until now that they live on Florizel Street
which was the original name of Coronation Street.
No. when it was in development.
And, you know, it's set during the coronation.
I'm like, oh, that is so cute.
It's such a little, you know, a little delicious nugget that if
you, you know, if you know coronation street.
You're like, oh, Florizel Street, who was the prince from Sleeping
Beauty, I think.
Oh I'm not sure.
That's what the, what's his face?
Tony Warren named Coronation Street after Prince Florizel, because
there was a picture on the wall and was like, oh, yeah, that'll
do.
Pat Phoenix had played it naked on a cushion at the age of four
probably did.
It's very gay-azy though, isn't it?
And that's why I love him.
Well, this whole thing is this sort of incredible love letter to
early TV.
And it says in the script that 1953 is the 1st time that something
is watched by 1000000s and 1000000s of people.
It's really the birth of TV as a sort of popular medium.
And, you know, there's a sort of through line from that, obviously
to the fact that we're watching Doctor Who, the Doctor Who starts
and Coronation Street starts, you know, just a very few years
after this.
And what we do see on TV is sort of, apart from Muffin the Mule
obviously, is sort of...
Which was early Jerry Anderson?
No, no.
Oh, no, he was the Torchy the Light boy.
He owes his career to Roberta Tovey, who sounded exactly, was a
singer.
It sounded exactly like the Dear Woman.
What was her name?
game with the name, who did muffin.
The mule went fat ever. forever. absolute...
Oh my lord.
Also, it's very carry on to put muffin the mule in the script
because it's basically terrible British slang now for crumpet.
Muffin the Mule is... has in later years become something other
than a children's cartoon.
With a puppet.
What do they do with Maureen Lippman?
Oh, too.
See, this is I got distracted before.
Maureen Lippman I've loved for a very long time.
When I was a kid, I had like these tiny black and white television
that I bought for $50.
I have exactly this story.
Keep going.
Is it about agony?
Yes.
Watching it under the covers on a tiny black and white
television.
It was on very late. was on the ABC or something very late at
night and it was just the most glorious show.
There were gay people in it, which was exciting.
I was like, oh my god.
There's gay people on the television.
It's late at night.
So this is 80s, early 80s?
Very early.
Yeah very early.
So it was on like, I think 11 o'clock or something, Friday night.
She was an agony aunt at a newspaper, like she read an agony
column for a newspaper.
She's married to, I think, Simon Williams in the show from
upstairs downstairs and obviously Doctor Who.
Junkie Gilmore.
She had like a sort of stoner musician friend called Andy Evil and
like the 2 gay, the gay couple who were like the neighbours.
That was the 1st gay people that I remember ever seeing on TV.
It was so good.
I've never been able to find it.
No, same.
And like, I remember there was an episode that completely
destroyed me where when she gave birth.
Did you ever see that one?
I don't remember.
Anyway, she has a baby and she names it after someone and like the
husband comes in and goes, oh, we should call it so-and-so and
she's like, oh, he'd love that.
And then she realises, oh, he's died, hasn't he?
And you're like, no.
It is, yeah.
He's taken an overdose.
They try and wake him up in the shower and it's like, it's very
funny and it's hilarious.
And then you get to the very end of the episode.
You're like, you've just torn my heart out of my chest.
I love it.
She was amazing. was really good.
And so I knew...
Sounds like a Russell T. Davies. really does, doesn't it?
He would have like, I'm an old person.
He would have probably been a teenager, but yeah.
Yeah, it was a long time ago.
Also, they don't repeat things in England, so it would have been
on and then never seen again.
But yeah, it was my favourite.
I loved it so much.
And she's, and then when I lived in the UK in the early 90s, she
was on TV all the time, she did ads for BT, you know, their
Telstra.
So she was always on the television.
There was a sitcom called all at number 20.
I want to say, something like that. something like that.
Yeah, I mean, I think she's marvellous, and I do remember being
incredibly excited that she was going to do Doctor Who.
And she's, of course, she's such a big star.
Like she's huge.
So yeah, it was very exciting, even though all of her scenes were
done in a cupboard, like 3 books later.
Yeah, yeah.
In one morning.
They were actually filmed at Alexandra Palace.
Oh, wow.
See, this is this is something that I feel with the old, older, now
I love that we're talking about old Doctor Who and older Doctor
Who.
But with this series, like I feel like season 11 has done
something that these were never really good at, which is explore
the history of something and really give you a sense of what was
happening, what was going on.
This you get a sense that, yes, the coronation was fun and yeah
it's at Alexandra Palace, but to find out any of that stuff, you
have to go online and research it yourself.
Yeah, it was kind of background.
Yeah, it's just like, yeah, it's like it's just colour.
But, you know, I have enjoyed that in season 11 when you get King
James and the witch burning, you're like, oh, yeah, this is this
is really what it was like.
This is filling its original remix.
Yeah, you're learning things.
Whereas this, it's just like, oh, yeah, that's where they made TV
and I'm like, what?
Alexandra Palace?
Why are they going?
a big antenna there?
Like, it's, I don't know, I felt like it was giving lip service to
history as opposed to like just really throwing us in the middle
of it.
I think that series 11 is the 1st time that like Doctor Who
doesn't do that, when it goes back to the past in the new era, it
is, I think, about time calls it, kind of theme park, Britain, or
Heritage Park, Britain, you know, where it just hits the beats.
These are the things that we know about the 1950s.
And because we don't know that much about the 1950s in Britain, we
have to have all these sort of Elvis, Ed Sullivan references at
the beginning just to put us in the right sort of time frame
weirdly inappropriate.
Also, I love that he he knows when they've gone to, but he's
missed continents by quite...
Well, it makes a change.
Normally it's he's the wrong, you know, there's one digit wrong in
the date, you know. like tooth and claw earlier in the year.
It meant to be the 70s.
The original the original script had Elvis in it.
Um, was set later um, during, like, the birth of...
So, kind of, for 3 years later.
And so the wire wasn't the wire.
It was a living song.
Oh, yeah, that's hard to dramatise.
Oh, yeah, everything.
You could have just been day and night chasing.
See, this sounds like a virgin new adventure.
It really doesn't.
It was called Mr. Sandman.
Or Sonic.
Oh, that episode happened.
It took it like 10 years.
And again, it was difficult to dramatise. yeah But he never lets
something go.
No, his his recycle bin is obviously very full.
Just delete it, mate.
Build a bridge.
Move on.
But yeah, I liked that it was at the coronation.
Like, that gave me a sense, you know, but again, it's this has
been a problem of many episodes this season.
Like, you know, obviously you've got coming up the terrible 2012
Olympics.
But yeah, like the coronation, you're like, oh, it was a big party
and everyone was excited and it's like, it's a handful of people
in a room watching TV and then it's a handful of people standing
at a chess or table with some bunting.
All duplicated by CGI.
There's lots of people who look identical to one another at the
party.
It makes me think of that French and Saunders on the Titanic when
they're...
They're like told to don't do too much.
They're like, I'm kind of away for baby.
Iceberg iceberg person, but they're dead baby.
In fact, it pissed down at the coronation and all of the street
parties were cancelled.
Everyone was watching.
Thats why everyone remembers watching TV.
Yeah, so that's another, you know, like, I feel like, you know
paying lip service to history, you miss out on the verisimilitude
of what is what England was really like.
Like, bad enough you're filming it in Wales and trying to make it
be London.
That, I believe, but then can't you go the extra step and I don't
know, we could have done without Derek from EastEnders screaming
at people and had a bit more excitement about the coronation.
I did love that they had the actual coronation on the television.
Like that is a nightmare footage to get cleared.
Right, okay.
I know for a fact.
From having had contact with the palace.
For just a photo of mum in her chair.
So yeah, it's, you know, I guess the BBC owns a decent copyright
of it, but she's a fan.
She is a fan.
Apparently she got the series one box set for Christmas. in 2005
or something like that. took it up to Balmont.
That's how I always feel a bit bad about tooth and claw where the
doctor makes it very clear that they're all werewolves.
That's RTT.
She probably had a laugh, looked side eyes at Philip.
Oh my God, I forgot the best story about Philip.
Is it repeatable?
He got lost in the River Caves ride at Sydney Lunar Park.
Which is a ride that you just sit in until the end.
Right.
And he got off halfway through.
And they could find his way out.
How gloriously, Philip, is that?
Getting lost on a ride, you don't get off.
Terrifying tiny children passing by.
Oh, it was in...
It was in, I think, 45.
So like it was, yeah, it was before.
Before, like it was a sign of things to come, obviously.
Yeah, before he went quite, quite mad.
Yeah.
There's always one foot there, wasn't it?
Hell, yeah.
I love him.
He's ridiculous We talked about Britain and its the time and how
it was reflected, but we're only seeing, as Russell likes to do
It's starting to grate on me that it's always so suburban.
It's not even at the scale of urban.
So there's a lot of other things happening.
I've been reading again about Diana Dawes, the power that she had
in 1953 is a bigger film star, more highly paid than a cabinet
minister.
Looked like Marilyn Monroe, but actually was a star before
Monroe.
They're all based on Gene Harlow.
Well, and any drag queen, Rhonda, Virtual, any drag queen you
would care to sign.
So there was a polarity in Britain, that there were also figures
of great height and silliness and and also a celebratory notion of
well, what do you want to call it, capitalism?
Do you want to call it sexuality?
Do you want to call it the burgeoning after the festival of
Britain in 51 where I want to see a story set in that with a space
needle in that?
gorgeous.
And it looks like Dalek City, off the back of TV21.
But yeah, so the scale that he always brings it down to.
I get that because he loves it's a soap.
So, Doctor Who is now a soap, and admits to make it relatable.
But again, look, this is my problem with Mark Gadis.
It's being let loose in a lolly shop, but you've only got 30
seconds.
So you throw everything in the bag and then you've got to sit down
and work out what's going to make it on screen.
Adam said it.
I don't know that we ever actually get.
Well, you get a lot of rumination afterwards, don't you?
Because you haven't really had a full feed.
So again, with this one, ironic, given how many times we hear the
word hungry.
Yeah, yeah.
Paradise Towers again, isn't it?
I think Paradise Towers is a lot more successful at actually
setting a mood in a small environment.
Thank you.
Because that's exactly a parallel that I'd be looking at.
I get much more of a sense of, it's J.G. Ballard.
We talked about it, much more of a sense of world than I get
here.
Yeah, I mean, I kind of, I don't know, thinking about the kitchen
sink drama part of it, like the, well, it's a lounge room sitting
around the television drama, but the, you know, there's just a
couple of moments where I was like, yeah, I get what's going on
here, but you haven't really addressed why.
Like, there's a brief moment of I didn't fight a war for this
which is where, so men were emasculated by the fact that they came
back from war and all the women were working and they all had jobs
and they were all, you know, like John Crawford, Mildred Pierce
was sort of the type of woman that was on screen.
So they were replaced very quickly by a Diana Dawes and Marilyn
Monroe's trying to make women seem subservient and keeping house.
And, you know, women wouldn't have done that easily given that
they had the run of the country for, you know, the last 5 or 6
years.
So the fact that the woman is such a milk toast, like she just
sort of puts up with this ranting, screaming behaviour.
So when she throws him out, it feels so out of character.
I think that's a failure in not only performance, but writing
because she has no dialogue.
Apart from, no, don't.
Like, she sounds like Jackie O. Stop it, guys.
Kyle, you can't say that.
I've got to cover my ass with the broadcasting authority.
There's no room on the sofa for anyone else.
But yeah, I think there was a reason for all this behaviour.
There was a reason men were put at the head of the household all
of a sudden and made the breadwinners.
Like that was the cultural necessity because there were all these
men come back from war with no jobs to do.
So it was like, well, you go and do your wife's job. she can stay
home and that was something that happened.
But also this weird Union flag Union Jack business that comes out
of nowhere.
Like, I mean, it's it's fascinating and you learn something.
You didn't know that last season when she was hanging from a
barrack.
It's like when I found out the red ensign, the Australian red flag
that's only so flown at sea.
Before, you know, the craziness of the Australian flag, like
either the red or blue were fine.
You could fly them anywhere in Australia.
They were both our flag.
And then one day it was decided, yeah, the red one can just be for
the sailors.
I love finding out things about flags.
Well, that line.
In fact, it's one of my favourite moments is where Billy yells at
Mr. Connolly for, you know, only an idiot hangs the union flag
upside down, which is just tremendously great.
And then she sort of ducks out a frame and runs off as if, you
know, she's going to be grabbed by a sort of a cartoon hunter or
something.
Because there's a lot of Looney Tunes, Chuck Jones direction.
Yeah, they're really troping the interrupt.
We said trope.
That little, yeah, that.
Yeah.
I mean, that is sort of fun.
I think too, with Mr. Connolly's generation, they're about to be
replaced culturally as well.
And so he's looking into his own obsolescence, I think.
And you've got Tommy, and we've said before, Tommy's speech is
like upsettingly vague and very on the nose as well.
Like, just even the use of the word fascism to describe.
I think what you're saying about it being set later is where that
speech comes from, because that feels very out of place in 53.
Yeah.
Like 53 was very much about conformity and that kind of change
hadn't started to happen.
Like the kind of wave of youth feeling empowered.
Like, you know, like they don't only just got out of of
rationing.
So no one felt empowered.
Everyone was hungry.
Actually, that's a good point because Murray Gold's score is an
acronistic. should not be coming in for another 4 years.
They were listening just to listening to Sweet.
They were still, yeah. it was all it was all Sinatra and and and
you know, that kind of thing.
We have to wait until Vicki comes along for sort of proper youth
culture.
That's really what we're looking forward to.
But yeah, like the fact that the Beatles are 10 years off and he's
talking like they've been around for 5 years.
It feels very, you know, out of place.
But yeah, I can see if it's, if it was written intending to be
much later in the 50s or early 60s.
And rock and roller didn't hit the UK until much later in the US
as well.
We had it earlier than they did.
Yeah.
Well, we're at very small country, and it takes telling 3 people
about something for it to become important.
It's huge.
There were actually only 3 people in the country.
Yeah, that's true.
They were all menzies.
But yeah, I felt like it's just, I mean, we're analysing it to
death.
It's a bit of fluff television and it's it's not the strongest
episode in the season.
And it has come off the back of a fairly powerful 2 parter, which
has its own flaws.
But yeah, it just feels like a, it's just like, oh, I don't know.
It's like when you're in a plane waiting to land.
I'm going to get to something good next because the next 2
episodes are amazing.
Yeah.
Well, think about the long game.
That's where we were this time last year, which again, like ends
up in retrospect, having more to do with the season, but like
seemed at the time to be sort of filler.
I think this looks more interesting than that.
But there's really much less to it.
I mean, yeah, the thing with the long game, though, is, and this
is one of the problems with this episode, I think, is that the
long game, you've got some of the best actors working in Britain
like Anna Maxwell Martin. you've got Simon Pegg, you...
Tams and Greg, for God's sake.
Just a little cameo. and what's her face that's now in Black
Lightning.
And it's like, it's all about the performances and they're great
performances.
Whereas all the performances in this, uh, just in search of
something in the script that's not there, like looking for subtext
that's not there, or obliterating it with shouting and carry on.
It's, I feel like this is probably the weakest Euros Lynn episode
and he's a great director of action and a director of the camera
but I think he's just, he does have fear her later in the year.
Yeah, I know In fact, there was there was one time, I mean, they
brought this forward in the running.
They were nearly going to have, like, fear her and this, like
consecutively, and they're so similar.
Like they both have, you know, angry, abusive fathers.
They both have a big media event, which is going to cause sort of
widespread havoc and chaos.
They have people translated into sort of some kind of visual
medium.
It ends with a big party in the street.
Like it's the same.
Also, it's the, I think both of these episodes we get to see why
why the tenant and Piper team is such a team, because when you
take one part away, what's left is kind of just flapping around in
the breeze.
Yeah, you have some time without the doctor, don't you?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He turns into a drawing.
Yeah.
So it is.
It's the reverse.
Yeah, it's essentially the same story, but flipped around.
And yeah, just as tenants quite annoying when Rose isn't around.
Yeah, Rose is quite annoying when the doctor's not around.
I actually do think she gets a good moment in this episode, though
where, you know, she and the doctor are separated.
He goes off to chase the police and she investigates the
television, then does her funny line to Connolly and then goes and
speaks to Mr. Magpie.
Yeah, but that's this is what I mean though.
Like, you know, when you've got them, they can be separate in the
same episode because you'll cut back and forth between them and
you, they're still both there.
But when only one of them is in charge of the story.
It's like, eh, like Tommy's meant to be being fulfilling the rose
role and, you know, he's a nice enough kid, I'm sure, but he's a
little bit dull.
He's like 29 or something when he's...
I thought he was like a 30-year-old doing the sort of squeaky keen
Simpsons.
I assume anyone attractive on television is 29.
Just to make me feel better about myself.
You know, they actually originally wanted Nicholas Holt to...
Oh, he'd have been grown.
Is he too young?
He was too young at the time.
He was 17 and he would have been playing a 17 year old.
Oh, no, the 17 thing is more about the amount of days.
Yeah, because he's a minor and therefore.
Yeah, it wouldn't have worked.
You're going to have a parent.
It's expensive.
Yeah.
It just wouldn't have worked with the amount you needed to be in
the episode.
Yeah.
Oh, that's frustrating.
It would have been really good.
Even up against Ed Connolly, though?
Yeah.
Well, see, I reckon he, this is an, oh, no, maybe he couldn't.
I watched EastEnders a lot and there's a kid in that who is
dreadful.
And he's like a big theatre star.
He's a great singer and he spent like a year doing episodes with
Timothy West playing his grandfather.
And I'm like, how do you go to work every day with Timothy West
and not learn anything.
Like, he was just abominable.
I'm like, there is this powerhouse, this talented, incredible
performer in front of you every day.
And he's known to be generous on set, with younger, with ingenue
performers, with ageing juveniles.
No, he's really known to be generous.
Yeah, this kid, other than filling out his jeans well, was doing
that.
Have you heard the David Tennant, Jodie Whittaker podcast?
David No. the podcast interviewing Jodie Whittaker.
I worry about him doing a podcast.
Does anyone get a word?
No, no, no, it's really good.
It's Olivia Coleman, then, will be Goldberg.
And as we record, we've just had Jodie Whittaker.
And she talks about working with Peter O'Toole, who...
Oh, yes, when she was a kid.
Yeah, and she spent her whole time asking him what was it like to
be in King Ralph talking about how great King Ralph was.
And he was like, what?
Oh dear, I love her even more.
I've worked with Olivia.
I don't care about it.
But yeah, I think, I don't know, it's...
He's like, yeah, he was not good at EastEnders.
He's very annoying.
I want to say that the whole problem with the episode is him.
And it radiates outwards.
I think, too, that it kind of doesn't have much ambition to say
anything.
And Gatus does atmosphere.
And, you know, there's a very sort of league of gentlemen feel to
the faceless grandma, you know, knocking on the floor upstairs, you
know, like David upstairs in the local shop sort of thing and
she's turned into a monster.
We don't know what it is.
I mean, that's super atmospheric and that works very well.
And they're set pieces, but there's nothing very much to say.
And it is, you know, you've got this sort of central thing where
television is becoming a mass, you know, a form of mass
entertainment, which is going to change the landscape of the world
and change, you know, people and you've got the grandmother
warning us that it turns your brains to mush and makes them leak
out of your ears.
And if only it had had something to say about that, you know, like
if the wire had been successful in some way, not taking people's
faces or something, but, you know, if we'd had a sort of comedy
beat at the end where the reason that we all sit staring at this
thing for hours every day.
She did much better when she moved to Baltimore and got her own
show.
I mean, look, the Beta Max bit at the end.
I found hilarious and cute.
I like the label where he's written something in Gallifrey and on
it and has crossed it out because he's taped something else.
Maybe she did succeed because Magpie Electricals exist.
I know.
Forever.
I know.
In the new series.
I kind of like, that's another one of those weird things where the
production team are doing something that the writers don't seem to
notice or care about.
I think they bring it back about 6 or 7 times.
Yeah, it keeps coming back.
It works very well in the beast below because obviously that's, you
know, theme park Britain heritage thing.
And they also write into the animation of Power of the Daleks.
Oh, yeah.
But that's what I mean.
It's like it's not written into these things.
It's just kind of sticky taped on.
But like, you know, the same orange jumpsuit being used for 14
things.
It's like, oh yeah, we made one.
We'll keep using it and we'll keep the stupid logo on it that
means it came from this place.
Even when someone's wearing it, that shoe and have the logo.
Yeah, there are a few times where I think the foot was off the
pedal, especially in the Moffatt years where like he'd written the
episode and he was happy to do interviews about the show, but I
think he was very much not paying attention to the actual
production as it was going on.
In contrast with Russell, who all over it.
Yeah, like, you know, that Russell wouldn't even let them, wouldn't
let like a book or a big finish episode go out that was vaguely
similar.
Whereas, you know, you get Moffat episodes that you're like, this
is the same plot as a thing I just listened to like 2 weeks ago.
Well, this is the same plot as a thing from that book that, you
know, that comic story and you're like, wouldn't you have said, oh
no to that?
If you'd read it.
So it has meant that we've got some great big finish.
Oh, yeah.
In the meantime. because he wasn't as controlling.
Yes.
Instead of getting, what was it?
Mr. Stream in that lost audio.
Like, it was supposed to be the master, the master and tractators
like, lost story that you finished it.
And he was like, no, no, you can't have the master.
So the character is just called Mr. Stream.
I think or Professor Stream or something.
Well, they could have just postponed.
Yes.
Yeah, I mean, that, but I kind of like that Russell was that hands
on.
Yeah, I just felt like there's being hands off and then, I don't
know, I think the Metabulous thing was the thing that made me go
oh, yeah, you're not there.
See, my theory is busy over it, Sherlock.
My theory is that John Pertley's doctor can't pronounce the names
of planets, which is...
That's it.
And so he gets metabolis wrong and he gets spiral on that. yeah
that's right.
I didn't think it was worth noting the return of the
insufficiently executed villain from the dawn of time.
They were a big staple, obviously, of the late 70s.
It's our 1st one of the new series and there'll be another one
next week.
Oh, yeah.
Look, I have to say, I did enjoy the scariness of it.
It's just that it didn't pay off with anything that's scary.
Yeah.
Like the chanting of hungry, the face is being pulled into the
television.
All of that was really was really effective, but I want to be able
to get to the end of the episode and be afraid to turn the
television on.
Yeah.
Whereas this I was like, meh, it's something that Doctor Who in
this era does.
I think I remember being tentative walking down the street not
wanting to put my hand on any solo bins, you know, like after
series one.
And it should have done that, should it?
It should have made kids to turn.
It should be like the exploding bubble wrap, which I thought was
ludicrous, but terrifying.
And the same with, you know, well, I had the same problem with
bubble wrap from Ark in Space.
But also, like, just, you know, Moffatt managed to make us
terrified of graveyards, statues.
Like, it's Doctor Who can be terrifying, make the mundane
terrifying, and we should all be afraid to turn the television
on.
And it's almost like as a television show, that's a bold choice to
make, but they kind of, yeah, I felt like it just didn't get there
in the end.
Well, they listener, we've finally got our faces back, and they're
all looking a bit hairy, and we remember.
So we'll be back next week to settle down with a mortgage and some
carpets in the impossible planet.
In the meantime, you can find us at FlightthroughEntirety.com
flights through entirety on Facebook and Apple Podcasts, and at
FTE podcast on Twitter.
You can also find more up-to-the-minute takes on Doctor Who at
Jody Intaterra, which is at Jodyintaterra.com.
Jody interterra on Apple Podcasts and at Jody interterra on
Twitter.
And, of course, there's our James Bond commentary podcast
Bondfinger, which is at Bondfinger.com, Bondfinger on Facebook and
Apple Podcasts. and at Bondfingercast on Twitter.
Where can people find you, Adam?
At Adam Richard on Twitter and the Instagram and fabulous Adam
Richard on the Facebook, the faeces book.
And I have a monthly newsletter that I've been writing monthly
supposedly.
You can get like Adamricard.com.
Brilliant.
Awesome.
All right.
Until next time, may all your evil nemeses be sufficiently
executed enough.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Bye.
That was Flight through Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, James
Selwood, Richard Stone, and special guest star Adam Richard.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, strings performance by Jane
Orberg.
This episode, put a glaze on, was recorded on the 17th of February
2019 and released on the 28th of April.
The wire was, undoubtedly, a particularly evil villain, but I
can't help thinking that we'll all be really feeling her absence
when it comes time for the coronation of King Charles III.
Okay, I think that's good.
It didn't get there in the end.
That's the actually...
Exactly.
That's really our takeaway.
There's so much good stuff in it.
It just, you know, at the end, I'm like, oh, well, I've got some
lolly rappers. don't feel the best afterwards.
All right.
What do you think?
It's a really good one.
It's a, that's probably the name of the I think it'll be fun.
I'm still thinking something about berinas.
You can pop that in later when you do this asylum of the dart.
Marina and the Dale.
Sorry.
Delta and the Barina.
No, sorry.
Okay.
So, yeah, the title would probably be something you said.
Oh, don't Yeah, no.
It's usually something the guest, the guest says, at least on
their 1st view.
Did you use the seatball?
No, that was you.
Thus evil.
There you go.
I didn't use the scene.
What, coronation?
Yeah, I do say coronation.
I love Florence El Street.
If you ever want to watch, it's far superior to an adventure in
time and space.
The road to Coronation Street is a brilliant.
I have it on my... the same kind of thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's about Tony Warren creating Coronation Street.
And it is.
And it's got Cat Slainer from EastEnders as Pat Phoenix and she is
brilliant.
And Enos Sharples is old, mate, from open all hours.
Oh, not Linda Berlin?
Yes.
Linda Barron.
Well, we own her.
The other baron.
The other one. we own.
We own.
Yeah, 3 times.
When was the last time we watched the Gunfighters?
Because, you know, she sings, she's in action.
Yeah, yeah, she sings the theme. not really funny.
It's great.
Oh, no, it's superb.
Dodo's hat of accents.
Yeah.
I think she's Dota's at her best in that one.
That is her best one, I think.
Do you know what I've noticed?
I've been watching Game of Thrones from the beginning with the
other half.
And I had never realised that, um, oh, mate, little finger from
queer folk.
He...
Gillan?
Gillan, he dips into the hat of accents.
Like when you're watching week to week, it's fine.
When you're watching more than one back to back, you're like, oh
you're from somewhere different this way.
Like, he's like, he's all over.
One moment, one moment, he's from Manchester.
The next moment he's from Wales.
Seriously.
But isn't he Irish, actually?
Yeah, in reality?
Yeah.
So, yeah, one way.
Yeah, he's he's seriously, he moves around. was the thing?
rattling up and down the end.
That reminds me of, um, it's, uh, when Pierce Brosnan says to Mrs
Duff, your accent's a bit muddled.
Oh, yes, like you're tan.
There should be someone on set, always saying that to Pierce.