Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast that's still got a bit of a love
life.
But let's not go into that.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Brendan, and I'm Max.
Well, we're back on Earth this week, and that sound you can hear
are the cries of a 1000000 fanboys complaining that they're
breaking the format.
But the truth is, it's much stranger than that.
It's so much darker and so much madder.
It's love and monsters.
Sun shining in the sky.
There ain't a cloud inside.
It's something.
Everybody's in the play, and don't you know?
It's a beautiful day.
So, Max.
When you 1st started watching Doctor Who, it was kind of back on
the air.
Yeah, so my memory of these seasons of Doctor Who is sort of a
1000000 miles away from the fandom that I think this episode, maybe
you know, slightly talking about, but it was like sort of that
lovely rose tinted part of fandom where you're a kid acting out
the episodes at lunchtime after you see it, you know, on the
weekend.
I do have like quite distinct memories of certain episodes and
what I thought of them when I was like that age and then coming
back and like playing them out with all my friends in the
playground.
I don't remember specifically this episode, but I do remember like
there was the few years where you're just not, you don't think of
it with a critical, in a critical way.
It's just all so exciting because it's like the most mad, amazing
show and you kind of fall in love with it.
So that's my, particularly these 1st 2 seasons.
That's my presiding memory of the 1st 2 years, yeah.
Were there fan events or fan groups or anything that you were ever
involved in?
I think well, certainly later.
I think it was, it was probably, as you sort of get to the 11, 12
year old, like, I started watching when I was probably about 6 or
7.
And then, so by the time, so it was Matt Smith, and I was sort of
yeah, 11 or 12 years old, and that's when you start taking it a
bit too seriously, maybe when you're 12 years old.
And you start, like, you start looking down on, like, the silly
episodes, like, loving monsters or, like, you know, boom town.
I remember just, I remember arguing with a friend of mine about
how, you know, how, you know, I loved all the dark ones when I was
12 years old because that's what you...
Yeah.
But so about that age, yeah, I remember going to, but it probably
only, it was probably just, I was starting to be aware of like big
fan events and like, I wanted to meet older doc, particularly at
that point because I'd, I'd sort of started watching old Doctor
Who as well, classic Doctor Who.
And so, like, the prospect of meeting Sylvester McCoy at a big...
I can't remember.
I actually think I went to one where you were there actually.
I can't remember what it was, but it was like a big, it was around
maybe leaning up to the 50th anniversary.
I remember this as well.
There was something on in town.
It was like a big event.
And when the new series came out, all those events became kind of
more more commercial and more professional and things.
And I think this was run by some outfit called Lords of Time
possibly.
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
And Sylvester was there and Colin was there.
And I remember seeing you there.
And I remember sort of, um, we were talking to Colin Baker, and I
don't know Colin Baker.
I couldn't really be said to know Colin Baker, but Todd knows
Colin because back in the day, and this has come up on the podcast
before.
Back in the day, Todd would be guest liaison with all of the
guests at our conventions.
And, you know, his parents had a lovely house on the harbour and
he would take them there and he would spend days going out with
them and getting to know them.
And it ended up that he just knows everyone now.
And so we were all standing around talking to Colin Baker and I
was sort of secretly kind of thinking, wow, you know, like Max, you
can see me here.
I'm talking...
It was a bit crazy.
I think it was, I do recall, but it's sort of that sort of slow
dawning sense, I think.
I remember in the 1st convention I went to was that I remember
actually, no, I remember it was like 2011 because I remember they
were playing, um, a good man goes to war or something.
So that was like had just aired.
Yeah, and it was sort of that sensation of, oh, there are people
that are crazy here.
And and it was sort of slightly liberating in a way because you
just go, okay, I'm not the total, you know, as Peter probably the
anorak. fanboy.
Like, I'm out anoract here by several, several paces.
But I think, again, in that, in that way that I was still, I was
still super young and it was still a very roast tinted kind of
view of this whole situation.
Like it just seemed all really marvellous, but yeah.
And you, I mean, you've, you wrote letters to Doctor Who magazine
when you were little.
I had too published.
There was one there was one because I'd met Sylvester McCoy and
then they just released an, I think, was like a big interview like
a big profile interview that they just had.
And it was really fantastic.
I think it was the one, Unlucky 7, Oh, yes.
Yeah, that one.
I met him and also I watched his stuff and like he was one, him
and Tom Baker were my 2 favourite when I was a little kid.
Those 2 were my favourite.
And still probably now.
So I just, I was head over heels with his stories and so meeting
him was so exciting that I thought, I have to write a letter.
So I wrote one and it got home getting it, I can remember it
landing like the front door and getting it and finding my name and
it was a bit ridiculously exciting.
So good. was really fantastic.
Well, the funny thing is, that's where I 1st heard of you because
I was living in the UK at the time with a Doctor Who magazine
subscription, which you knew about Nathan.
And you messaged me one day on Facebook saying, Go open your
thing.
Is there is there a max on the left?
Really?
I do remember that at all.
I have I have a memory because when...
It would have to have been me.
Yeah, when you 1st told me that you Max were going to be on the
podcast last series.
I'm like, Max Jobba.
I know that next.
Oh, because I had to look, look, this up.
Because we had Max and I had the Doctor Who Club at school, which
I mean, Max, that was basically your idea.
So yeah, so the genesis story of this is that I arrived at the
school and there was a whole list of like very obscure clubs.
I remember there's a tin tin club.
I think that would have been phased out, but it was still in the
list of registered clubs.
So I thought, well, this seems to be, I won't say what school it
is, but it was a school that I thought if any school had a Doctor
Who club, This would be the one.
Yeah.
And also just like there was such a vast group of people that
attended this school that I knew would watch Doctor Who.
So then I knew I knew one teacher that was really obsessed with it
and I asked him, we should, there should be a Doctor Who club, and
he said, yes, there should, but you should also go to see Mr
Bottomley.
And then that was sort of, yeah, I think I just asked you to do
it.
And then it sort of happened and then we just watched old classic
episodes and classrooms at lunchtime every week.
Still doing it?
Is it still going?
It's still going on.
Because for a while it was like a secret club.
Well, not secret.
But it wasn't officially, it was sort of a pirate radio stuff.
Yeah, exactly. sort of like swapped classrooms every now and then
to stay under the radar.
And then, and then I think I remember when it became like, it was
I had like an official announcement.
Maybe a year later when it started and it was, we were watching
Pyramids of Mars, episode one, and I'd felt like half the school
turned up inside one of those little classrooms to watch it.
Including the headmaster.
Yeah, that was fun.
He was roaring with laughter as that poacher guy gets like hugged
to death by the 2 mummies.
But it was really fun and it was because it was fun because a lot
of a lot of people that went hadn't seen Old Dot Who.
I think a lot of people really got into it and what they must have
done.
And it was like a very, I think it was also a very thing of like
when you arrived at the school.
I've heard many things about people seeing that there was
Adulthood Club at the school and that sort of swinging the, saying
oh, that this seems like the right school.
And there is a sort of, there is, if you will permit this sort of
slightly long-winded anecdote, because one of the kids that went
to this club, his dad directed, well, has directed three episodes
three, four, I think. of Doctor Who?
Daniel Netheim.
Yeah, and he, and he, uh, yeah, and he came into one of our, to
one of our clubs and brought props and and did the hot, like, sort
of talked us through how he filmed.
It was very lucky that there were really good episodes as well
because otherwise that would have been really awkward.
But they were fantastic and he was super sweet and it emerged that
through that Stephen Moffat had found out that the club existed.
And I think what did he say?
He was, he thought it was terrifying.
I think.
He found out a bit upsetting.
But that was great.
And that sort of Daniel Netheim thing where I was just, you know, I
would occasionally see him at sort of events and say hello and
stuff like that.
Or, you know, I introduced myself to him at the big 50th
anniversary thing.
Yeah, with Capaldi, Ingrid Oliver, and Sylvester.
And that was where we 1st met Stephen from New to Who, was it?
Or did I dream that?
Yeah, yeah.
No, he and his sister had a wonderful photo taken with Peter
Capaldi.
They brought in that publicity shot from the smugglers with
William Hartnell, Anika Wills and Michael Craze looking up at the
scanner and they said to Peter, can we reenact this?
Oh, yes.
And it is the most amazing like the look on, of course, the look
on their faces, they're so delighted and really getting into it.
But Capaldi just immediately slips into that wonderful wide-eyed
terrified thing he does.
And they're all they're all just looking up.
Now, of course, they haven't got the Tardus backdrop.
They've got like that standard kind of mottled blue and purple
photographers back there.
Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, I long ago stopped getting convention photos.
I think the last convention photo I got was with Cato Mara while I
was dressed as Bonnie Langford. which Kate thought was amazing.
Oh my god, your body.
And she blinked halfway through the photo.
So it just looks like she's totally unimpressed.
And she's like, darling, darling, shall we take it again?
I'm like, no, you look like you're really annoying with me.
Oh, but darling, I'm not annoyed with you.
But, you know, that photo with Stephen and his sister, Peter
Cabaldi kind of made me go, oh, actually, no, these can be nice.
Because I'd just seen so many where I'm not going to name any talk
to celebrity names, but certain people who just are not enthused.
Yes, hello.
Yes, yes.
The cybermen, Yeah, okay, yeah.
Yes, they were my favourite.
Thank you.
You have to think that Capaldi would have been massively into
recreating that photo because he is such an incredible fanboy.
Oh, yes.
Yes, absolutely.
What was it he wrote to Barry Ledz?
Like, how can there be 2 different versions of Atlantis?
Was that the question?
But he used to like illustrate fanzine covers and things.
And like whenever he's on Graham Norton or some chat show, they
bring up the fact that like the BBC production office wanted him
to stop riding to them.
Maybe instructed him to stop writing to them.
One of my favourite Capaldi artwork stories is when Titan comics
started doing the comic of him, he sent a sketch of his doctor
sort of walking along the rings of a planet to the main comic
artist and I forget her name.
It could be Alice Jang.
I'm not sure.
Yeah, but yeah, he just sent it to her saying, you know, thank you
for putting my wonderful face in this story.
And she just uploaded it to Twitter.
Like, ah.
Yeah, I mean, both he and Tennant are the 2 big fanboy doctors
aren't they?
So there's that, I've mentioned it before.
There's an incredible commentary where it's Moffatt RTD and tenant
doing silence in the library.
Oh, and this is the best commentary in any DVD. so good.
Is it on the DVDs?
I thought it was on the DVD or maybe not.
They were releasing commentaries, I think, as a podcast.
Oh, I see.
I've got it somewhere.
I tried to find it, maybe on the DVD, but, you know, it's at the
time where Moffatt knows that he's taking over. and it hasn't been
decided whether tenant's going to stay and there's a bit of a joke
about that and he jokes about getting Jimmy Nesbit in to have his
face on the title sequence and stuff because of Jekyll.
And he makes these jokes about the monoids and stuff.
I was kind of like, 0 my god.
David Tennant knows what a monoid is.
And of course, he does that.
Do you remember the 1st time confidential, which we did actually
show at the club one time?
Because all of those people making the show at the time during the
RTD era, you know, massive fanboys.
Like Cornell, who, like he used to come to Australia and pitch
story ideas with Kate Orman, who was kind of like my flatmate at
the time.
And there was this whole sort of era in the early 90s where we
didn't have a show.
You know, we tried to feel the Doctor Who shaped hole in our heart
by watching the X-Files and Star Trek the Next Generation and
stuff.
And we would sort of get together really quite often at my flat
which was like super central and eat cake and have burgers from
Cafe Brontosaurus, which was this sort of fabulous cafe just
across the road run by these sort of pair of fabulous lesbians who
used to, like, I think we overpaid them one time and they came
round to our flat to give us the money back and stuff.
And that, like, you know, that was where I 1st met James and some
of the people that the listeners have been introd to over the last
5 years we've been doing this.
We have.
But I mean, we've also had, you know, we've had guests for the 1st
time over the last year or so and a lot of those guests are people
from that time.
And we had, I hope everyone or forgive me for saying this, but we
had come out 93, where kind of one by one, everyone in the group
declared that they were gay.
I am a homosexual.
Oh, I am...
I am also...
We kind of got quite bored with these revelations by the end.
Oh dear.
And then Neil Hurgood came along.
What do you mean, you're straight?
honestly. ruining the whole decor.
But it was spectacular.
And we, you know, our only experience during the 90s was, of
course, with a TV movie and going to a sort of day event, I think
and seeing it.
Was it at Erskineville, Churchhall?
Church Hall, yes.
Because that's where I started coming to think.
Yeah, so what was your, because I actually don't fully know your
story, I think.
Right.
So around 1994, my dad started going to this club called
Trekastralis. which is now defunct, but basically Trekastralis
turned into Friends of Science Fiction, which is now pretty much
culture shock events.
You know, each one kind of shut down and someone who was involved
in the previous one, then moved on to creating the new club.
But at one of the Trek Astralas meetings, a chap called Neil Hogan
was there with flyers for the Sydney Doctor Who Science Fiction
fan club.
You know, one day, Linda, for sure.
But one day, Walt decided we need to simplify this acronym so it
became the Sydney Doctor Who science fiction club.
You got rid of that one.
Yeah, and so 1995.
I started coming to this.
I persuaded my mum to part with, I think, $20 to subscribe to Time
Brains 2013.
Oh, my God.
The fanzine of the Sydney to whose science fiction fan club?
Said in the far future.
Said of 2013.
So named because of this wonderful thing I discovered through the
Sydney Doctor Who Science Fiction Fan Club, called Dimensions in
Time, which was played at 10 AM once a month at the meeting.
Oh my god.
Really?
Every month.
And there was a time in time brains 2013 where there was a one
page size 6 font transcript of the whole of dimensions in time
which I believe was done by James.
Right, right.
And I said I said to him recently.
You know, why wasn't there a run of about 6 issues where it was on
every page?
Well, we had to fill a page.
But yeah, that's how I got involved.
And I seem to recall that when I started going, there was so the
day would start with dimensions in time.
And then as all fantastic days did.
So bizarre.
And then it would go into 4 to 6 episodes of, at that time
Hartnell.
So when I came along, they were showing the time meddler that day
which I'd never seen.
Wow, right.
And then it would be tapes fresh from the US.
So this was where I 1st saw Caretaker, the pilot of Voyager.
Wow.
And also, um, no, it must have been slightly later, but I remember
Babylon 5 episodes and I remember the Shadow War and seeing that 9
months before Channel 9 put it on at midnight.
Right, sort of thing.
And you know, there were all these books, which I couldn't afford
to buy.
But I did buy one book.
And I read it so much, the cover fell off and I read bits of it to
people at school, particularly the double entendres.
It is the discontinuity guide by Cornell Day and Topping.
Wow.
And yeah, I read it cover to cover.
Yeah.
And the line I remember most from it is Terrence Dix is, of course
you can use this book to write your own Doctor Who story and
figure out where it fits into continuity.
But remember, if you have a story idea and it doesn't fit in, write
it anyway and let future continuity cops adjust to conversion
which it's informed my view of in the Doctor of Universe
everything has happened somewhere.
John and Gillian are legit.
Katerina's a companion and travelled for 6 months with the doctor
but they had to memory wiper.
That happened in a short story, by the way.
Yeah, but that was sort of my burgeoning experience of it.
So I met James around that time.
Yeah.
I would have met Todd around a year later at Huvention 96.
Sorry, Whovention 3, I should say, continuity.
Was that the one with Liz Slayton?
Liz Slayton.
I only turned up to that one for a day to chat with Gary Russell
and I never really got to meet Liz.
And Wendy Padbury was at that as well.
No, that was a later one.
Wendy Papery was later.
So yeah, after that came Sylvester and Nicola at Juvention 2000
and then Colin and Ickty, I think, in 2001.
And then Wendy and Janet in 2003.
And I was at a bunch of those.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I think you and I met around 2000, 2001, around the same time I
met Richard.
Right, yeah.
Yeah, so I think I met James first, then Todd, then you then
Richard, and lots of other people along the way.
Peter Griffiths, funnily enough.
I think I met before all of you because he used to knock around
with a friend of the family, Robert McKnight, who created a 1st
produced studio 10, for instance.
You know, he works in television now.
He used to make these videos called scanner screen, which, you
know, included him, the Melbourne drag queen, Jessica James, or as
she was 1st Desiree, but then Desiree in one video was killed in a
car accident, except Fraser couldn't drive, the man playing the
drag queen.
So it was literally just people pushing the car out of frame and
sort of a Bel Lugosi style scream off camera.
But, you know, Robert was inspired to make those videos with his
friends because they were all Doctor Who fans.
And now he's gone on to be a successful TV producer and journalist
you know?
But Peter, I don't really recall him as a kid.
But what I do recall is, he appeared on the afternoon show in the
Doctor Who quiz.
Yeah, and I think Kate Orman was on an episode of that as well.
Both with the same haircut.
Yeah, yeah.
It was super peak 80s hair.
Oh my god.
Like, he's got a bouffon mullet.
I think he went around and got a Dalek gun and wiped all the
tapes.
I have it somewhere.
I have it somewhere in our office because, of course, um, uh
Dallas Jones, also, friend of the podcast and, yeah, one of the
founders of the Doctor Who Club of Australia still involves still
making fan scenes, making audio dramas now.
He was on that quiz, and of course, I met him through fandom as
well.
So, yeah, my path to fandom is very different from yours, Max
because no one else at school watched Doctor Who.
Even though it was, you know, in constant reruns.
No one else watched it.
The only other friend of mine who knew anything about it.
His parents were actually very strict Jehovah's Witnesses, and he
didn't have a television.
Oh, no.
All he knew about Doctor Who was.
He watch Castro Valver once on video at the library.
Gosh.
And that was literally all he knew about Doctor.
All my friends knew I watched Doctor Who because I told them.
So instead, me sort of finding my tribe was having to go outside
my usual comfort zone because I lived down in Campbelltown, you
know, and so had to come into the city to go to these events.
That was me finding that.
And of course, then I got involved in the organisation because I
was a precocious little thing.
And you did end up as president and supreme commander of the
Doctor Who.
Vice president.
I was vice president to James's president.
Oh, okay.
And there's the title.
And then we were persuaded to leave.
But that's for later.
I think I was very lucky to have that.
Because I think it just coincided really well with the timing of
me being sort of 7 years old in 2005 and with a group of friends
that were pretty nerdy, you know, like, or not even nerdy, just
like a group of friends that just it perfectly like, because
everyone was watching Doctor Who at that point.
Like so many, because like our parents have watched it.
So it was it was sort of on anyway, I think, in that 2005.
And it just sort of was this perfect, like, setting fire, the
imagination, it kind of just went, yeah, and it just kept...
I remember, I remember my mum and dad being like initially
surprised that we were all in love with it, but then kind of
loving that we were all loving it in the same way they'd done it.
So it was very it was like an encouraged thing for us all to watch
Doctor Who.
And then, generally speaking, at the start of the season, the end
of the season, we'd all meet up at, we don't meet up.
We were 7 years old.
We'd go to at someone's house and watch like the 1st episode of
the last episode.
So I remember, I remember watching like Smith and Jones and then
Last of the Time Lords and different, you know, different places.
And yeah, and I remember sort of there's, so the Russell T. Davis
era, very, it's like this very, sort of beautiful memory of that
at the age that I was at.
And I think, yeah, like you said, I think it was just lucky that
it was on and it was being watched by everyone.
And it was so, and I just remember it being huge in Australia.
I, this is just, I don't, you know, this is just anecdotal and, you
know, in my memory, but like, I remember just of everyone talking
about it, everyone watching it.
It was just, yeah, it was sort of this.
I was very lucky.
I was very lucky that I went through that, the time that I did.
Because Australia has, you know, he's probably 2nd only to Britain
in the amount of Doctor Who, that's or the importance of Doctor
Who on TV because, unlike Britain, it was stripped like Monday to
Thursday and sometimes Monday to Friday.
So when I was in primary school and then high school, it seemed to
be on nearly all the time and we saw lots and lots of baker and
pertwee.
And I remember the 1st time that I was aware that there was a new
season coming out, was, I think, with Horror of Fang Rock, because
I think there was a making of Doctor Who book that might have
finished with Talons of Wang Chiang.
And so I was aware that I'm not sure whether it was new or whether
it was just new to me because of my knowledge of that book.
But I'm certain that Destiny to the Daleks, I knew that that was a
new season coming out.
And so I'd watch it all through high school, friend of the podcast
Matthew and I used to talk about Doctor Who all the time, but it
was when I hit university.
There was a thing called Soutec, which was the Sydney University
kind of science fiction club, clearly named after the villain in
Pyramids of Mars.
And that's where I met, like, I think that's where I met Todd and
Peter and Simon and all of these people that have recently kind of
guessed it on the podcast.
So, I mean, it's, you know, by the time this goes out, I'll be
50.
And so these are people that I've known for kind of getting on for
30 years.
And, you know, the fact that that at the moment I'm getting
together with friends literally every weekend and recording a
podcast that, you know, Brendan's created this thing that, as you
said, just now has gone on for 5 years.
Like, it's been a creative outlet.
You know, it's something that I think we both like super proud
of.
Yeah, yeah, it's part of our internet.
Why should it stop?
That's it.
And the people that we've met, like we talked about meeting
Stephen Bee, in person, but the number of people that we've met
just through having done the podcast.
Adam Richard a few weeks ago.
Yeah, yeah.
And I know I wasn't on that episode.
But the funny thing is, I met Adam Richard because of the podcast
but completely unrelated to this.
Oh, really?
The ABC held a podcasting day. like a podcasting symposium, if you
like.
And Adam Richard was there.
And I was such a fan of his work in Outland that I just walked up
and hello, Mr. Richard.
And he's like, oh, hello.
And, you know, we had like a good half hour chat with Shampers and
canapes and what have you in the in the reception after the
conference.
He's such a lovely band.
So, you know, Nathan was slightly apologetic to me, not being on
the Adam Richard episode, but he's like, oh, you know, Richard
Adam, know each other and James is the one who contacted him and 5
people's view.
I don't mind, I've met it before.
You know, it's like, yes, yes, it would be fun, but at the same
time.
One thing I can't stand in fandom is fans pulling rank.
And some people call it gatekeeping now, but even things like just
you know, just sort of...
Oh, what do you mean you don't know who played the 3rd garden
state of decay?
sort of attitudes.
So when I decided I wasn't going to do every episode of the
podcast anymore.
Something I decided was, I would never argue about what episode I
was allocated.
Like, of course, I do put myself forward for certain episodes.
Like, this is one I put myself down for But I never wanted to be
the person who would, you know, say to Nathan at one point.
Well, I created the podcast.
I should be allowed to be on New Earth. didn't want to.
Just kidding.
Love you.
Love you, Zoe, Wanamaker.
I actually kind of feel that with my sort of constant nagging
about how to hold the microphone and please turn up at this
particular date and, you know, assigning people to be at different
places and in different episodes and giving James imperious
messages about who to contact next and stuff like that, that, you
know, like I'm kind of turning into the sort of Victor Kennedy of
the groove.
But I saw a lovely shade of green.
I still think I still think that there's a sort of creativity that
so many people have been inspired to undertake, you know, people
who've ended up making the show and people who are inspired by the
show to do stuff like this.
Yes.
And I think it's been really incredible.
And I, I, I literally have to say that watching Doctor Who has
completely changed my life and that the people that I kind of know
and love and meet regularly and see are kind of really all people
that I've met through my love of the show.
It's really very strange.
It's also the thing that made me definitely want to do what I'm
studying at the moment, which is screenwriting and stuff and doing
all that because literally that started from A sort of being in
the playground and sort of acting out Doctor Who and then doing
like, there's an acting school in Sydney called Nider that for a
while hosted Doctor Who's specific.
Yeah.
Summer courses as a, as an obviously like cash in, cash in.
No, no, but no, but it was tiny. because you got to tie it. and
you, but you also got to, I think they, it was a very shrewd move
because I think they understood how many people start wanting to
be in the industry or to write or to act or to do whatever from
this show.
And that was exactly what happened to me.
I read the writer's tale and then, like, when I was 10 and then
became obsessed.
And then because all the scripts are laid out in that book.
Yeah.
And that was sort of the realisation that, oh, that's something
you can do.
You can you don't have to necessarily be in Doctor Who.
You can make it and you can write it.
And it was sort of pretty early that I sort of worked out that
writing the show was something that would be like, that's sort of
the dream job.
Not, you know, like, you know, like when you're a kid, you always
like, oh, I really want to be Doctor Who and all that kind of
stuff.
But very quickly, I realised that like Russell T. Davis was that
that was a cool job to be Russell T. Davis.
That was Pete McTani's experience.
Yeah, so, and again, I met him like in the 90s and like have known
him for a really long time.
He was kind of part of the group.
And, you know, then he moved back to Adelaide and all sorts of
other things, but he, in the publicity to series 11, like when the
writers were announced, he said that his entire career has been a
plan that he's been hatching since the age of 10 to one day ride
for Doctor Who.
And, you know, he's a very accomplished scriptwriter and has
contributed enormously to a huge number of different TV programs
but he finally, you know, achieves.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he wrote one of the best episodes of the most recent season.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think it's an episode that you can tell kind of exudes love
for the show.
Yeah.
I think it's like of that whole run.
I think it's the episode that, oh, this sounds very gatekeeping.
But I just mean to say that you can, you can, that enthusiasm and
like love for the show is so apparent in the episode he wrote, I
think. yeah.
I think Vinay Patel, who wrote Demons of the Punjab, actually said
that he kind of really understood the show better after seeing
Pete's enthusiasm for it.
Like he literally mentioned how Pete's love of the program kind of
informed his writing for it.
And I just think that's that's really incredible.
Yeah absolutely.
This is a bit of a divisive episode, I think.
And when I got this team of people together to discuss Love and
Monsters.
One of the things was I didn't want to put out an episode where 3
people just ripped into the show and I had always kind of like the
show, but thought it was really flawed and had some real problems
with it.
But now, having watched it twice in preparation for the podcast, I
think it's one of Russell's best scripts.
I would agree.
I, I think, um, there's the hot, there's a very, like, established
respectable in quotation marks opinion that it's a great 35
minutes and then a terrible 5 minute of a lousy 10 minutes.
Which I think does carry a bit of, I think that's a fair
assessment of it.
But I really, I don't think it's emphasised enough how fantastic
the 1st 35 minutes are.
And I think there's also aspects about the ending that I love as
well.
But certainly the 1st 35 minutes is probably next to maybe the
girl in the fireplace, my favourite episode of the season up until
a certain point.
Coming up a certain shift, which I think is fine.
Anyway, sorry, I'm really labouring this point.
But I think it's a really fantastic script.
Yeah.
Do you have the same reservations or how do you feel about it
Brandon?
Going back to 2006, that was when I was running the day events for
the Doctor Who Club of Australia.
So we had 3 events because the ABC were showing episodes 3 months
later still at this point.
So we would acquire the episodes.
And I'm pretty sure for this particular day event, and you can
always deny this, Nathan.
But I'm pretty sure you're the one who turned up with the acquired
copy of Doomsday at like 3 in the afternoon, maybe.
That's entirely possible You know, we will talk about it.
We'll talk about it later, but I watched it beforehand to make
sure that I didn't cry in front of everyone when it was screened
later, but Did you still cry?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So these events were called the new tenant.
Oh dear.
So, um...
So the 1st event, which was the 1st 4 episodes was called moving
in.
Right.
The 2nd event with episodes 5 to 9, I want to say, was called
Houseguests, and this event with Love and Monsters, Fear Her, and
the 2 part finale, was called Home Invasion.
Oh, dear.
And the 1st two, I actually made videos for to start the day and
they are the 1st 2 videos on my YouTube channel.
Oh, really?
And they still get people, like, they'll get one or 2 views a
week.
You know, they're standard deaf, horribly pixelated.
Yeah.
But at this point, we were in the Menzies Hotel, which I think is
closed down now.
Yeah, the Menzies Hotel at Wynyard in the downstairs bar because
the bar manager, friend of the podcast, Andrew, was a Doctor Who
fan, and a friend of James's and said, look, we never get anyone
in the sporties bar on a Sunday afternoon, I can give you the room
for free if people drink.
And, you know, we did.
Who fans?
So, we watched Love and Monsters. in a dark basement room.
Oh, wow.
As a group of facts.
So already this story holds a special place in my heart because of
that.
The other reason, and I don't think I've really stated this
explicitly on the podcast before I think I've hinted it, but the
week before this event is when I met Rod.
Oh, okay.
My partner.
And because we got chatting, because as I was taking his number on
my Motorola razor.
Oh, love that.
2006.
Oh, Max doesn't even know what that is.
Sorry, I can't understand you.
It's a flip phone.
I've heard about them And I had a Colin Baker wallpaper on my flip
phone that I'd made myself in Photoshop. to which Rod said, how do
you know who the crap doctor is?
Paul Colin.
And yeah, found he found out I was a Doctor Who fan.
And I explained, actually, I've got this event next week. you
should come Yeah, he turned up in the final scene of Doomsday.
Oh, no.
Where I...
We were crying in a manly way.
And you've been together.
Well, we dated for another 8 months, broke up, and then we got
back together again in 2012.
So that day is indelibly printed on my memory.
But look, I've always loved this episode, and I think I've always
loved this episode because I recognised myself in it.
And there was criticism in reviews at the time that this was an
insulting parody of fans, but I think it's an affectionate parody
of fans, and I think there is a very important difference.
I think if you want an insulting parody of fans.
You go look at Star Trek, Next Generation, season 2, Samaritan
Snare, with the pack-leds.
Yeah, yeah.
And you look at hollow pursuits with Barclay.
And they are insulting parodies of fans.
But the amazing thing is it totally backfires because the Packlads
take Geordie prisoner and, you know, hold up the entire crew and
almost get Captain Picard killed because Dr. Pulaski can't perform
surgery or him.
And in holo pursuits, you know, Barclay is presented as this
character we laugh at, and it's like, no, you keep bringing back
Barclay because we love Barclay because we are Barclay.
Whereas this is, it is a love letter to fandom, but also a warning
about it consuming you, literally in this case.
Because, you know, when Linda starts up, they're all obsessed with
the doctor, but they start sharing their other passions and their
other interests.
And that's where the friendship forms.
It's absolutely my favourite part of the episode.
Because they're such dorks.
And like Mark Warren, like Elton, you know, dancing in his alone
in his room to ELO.
I listen to that on the way here.
I was listening to it all last night.
And again, it's a super daggy song as well.
But just how sweet they all are, just how absolutely sweet.
And they're awkward and they're shy and we were as well.
And, you know, they pair off, they fall in love with one another.
They're cooking, they're playing music, and then they get murdered
one by one, one.
It happens almost immediately too, doesn't it?
Who mentioned 3 was crazy.
But it's true.
It's so, I love, and particularly Bridget.
Yeah, by Moya Brady.
She's, I love that, even it's such a small little moment, but I
love when you learn about what's, you know, has kept her coming to
London and it's just such a classic Russell T Davis thing to just
like, there's not much space actually given to them.
You find, like, it's done really economically.
You find out, you know, about these people fairly quickly, but
each character has sort of a sort of an outer shell that they're
putting up and then there is sort of some sort of deeper reason
that they're here or whatever.
And I think I think that's just so sensitively handled.
And it makes their deaths kind of hurt quite a bit.
I think even people who don't like the episode of in even
criticism, they criticise how cruel the murdering of all these
people seems.
And I think it is like, it is awful.
I think that that was my previous objection to it.
And like, I agree with what you say about the way he makes us love
those people.
Bliss really doesn't have that much to do.
She's just really in that sort of montage of a couple of minutes
before Victor Kennedy turns up and she's so beautiful and so
adorable.
And they're all just terrifically lovely and their awkwardness
which they kind of don't fully lose among themselves.
Bridget and Mr. Skinner doing that awkward kiss is so
heartbreakingly sweet and he just keeps murdering them.
And it's something that Russell does, I think you've, yeah, Stephen
Moffatt said about Russell T. Davis, he creates interesting
characters, then melts them.
Yeah.
And you remember Cucumber Max?
Yeah. where it's episode six, I think, which is absolutely Russell
doing that.
It's absolutely.
It's an episode where he tells us that a really likeable character
is dead.
Then we get to see their entire life and then we get to watch them
die from a perspective of being inside their head.
So you get to experience their actual death in a sort of 1st
person way.
And it absolutely destroyed me.
It's really the most upsetting thing I've ever seen on TV.
I was alone in the house.
My husband was away and I watched it and I didn't know anyone else
who was watching it, so I had no one to talk to about it.
And I was so devastated and I tried to hug the dog and the dog
wasn't particularly interested.
And then I remember the next morning.
I remember the next morning going to work and having the 1st
couple of periods off and having to go to a cafe to be away from
people and then chatting to Peter, sometime guest of the podcast
Peter, about the episode, he was in Britain.
And there's a real darkness to Russell's writing from time to
time.
And I think that back in the 60s and 70s, where the people who
died on Doctor Who were people, they were men who were known only
by their last names, who worked on a space base.
And that's a cheat.
You know, it doesn't matter when those people die because they're
no one.
And reminding us that death, which is just kind of a plot point or
an atmosphere point or something to raise the stakes in Doctor Who
is a real, a real thing that we all experience.
Um, you know, in our families and in our groups of friends and
colleagues, you know, that people die and it's, it's heartbreaking
that's what Russell wants to talk about.
So those deaths are proper deaths.
And even the fact that they're humiliated before they die, even
the fact that they become this joke, which I think, again, people
could quite reasonably object to.
And also, well, there's still, Bliss is still sort of a joke when
she's on his bum and he farts.
And I kind of wonder whether the actor refused to get made up, but
I don't think so.
I think it was probably a budget saving thing where we just have
to make up some of them.
Death can be like that as well.
You know, in hospitals, there's humiliation and drool and shit and
people don't leave easily.
So, you know, the grotesqueness of it is the kind of grotesqueness
that I think that they're not we thought that Doctor Who always
had.
You know, they always thought Doctor Who was sort of weird people
in rubber suits and that kind of thing.
And here that grotesqueness is super alienating and upsetting.
Like, you know, I've read reviews that say it would have been
better if they'd just been killed.
And I think Russell making us aware of their, you know, the
humiliation of the process.
It's bleak.
It's super horrible.
It is. and you know, Elton shouts, that's not fair.
And it's, it kind of ties in with the theme of this season of, you
know, the doctor saying, I only take the best.
He said it last season and he and Rose have this belief that they
are the best.
The stuff of legends.
And here we have 5 characters who are potential Doctor Who
companions.
You know, Shirley Henderson as Ursula and Bliss, they're sort of
the archetype, they're the young ladies, but...
In the audios at this point, we've got Evelyn Smythe, of course.
So you could have an older companion, like Mr. Skinner, or like
Bridget, Mark Warren is sort of an advocate turlo hybrid.
You know, he's very intelligent, but he's very awkward.
But these people...
They go hunting after the doctor.
They kind of marry Sue characters.
But instead of being the Mary Sue who saves the day.
They are sacrificial loud. sacrificed and they're obliterated and
it's not fair.
No, yeah.
And that is something that Russell does so well.
And I think next to this, the best example of it is in Torchwood
Children of Earth.
And Gwen gets that monologue to camera where she says, I think
sometimes the doctor doesn't come back because he's ashamed of
us.
The difference here is, of course, it is an external force
corrupting something about humanity, corrupting a passion.
Um, I love Elton as the narrator.
I think he's deliberately set up to be a slightly unreliable
narrator, and they're a deliberate visual cues for that.
There's the Scooby-Doo sequence.
And I think fans, fans often fall into 2 camps.
And I'm also going to say with that, fans like putting things in a
hierarchy.
You know, says the guy whose YouTube videos kind of consist of
yeah, top 5 lists. and bottom 5 lists and, you know, ranking all
the Dalek stories and things.
But no, we do.
We love ranking things.
And I think the 2 camps people fall into for this episode is
people look at the visuals and take them entirely, literally.
Or people look at them and understand that they're a metaphor.
So the chase between the Dr. Rose and the Hoyks probably didn't
look like a Scooby-Doo chase.
But Elton translates it as that because that's what it feels like
to him. you know.
I think also too, it's Russell, because that stuff happens really
very early on.
And you have Russell getting Elton to say that he's constructing
the episode, that's a really good bit.
I'm going to hook you.
We're going back in time, but he's put that beat at the top.
Exactly.
Yeah, it's always a cheat, isn't it?
Where they used to do it in Battlestar Galactica all the time
where some really exciting bit of action would happen and then you
would get the credits and then you would get 24 hours earlier and
you would realise they'd just put an exciting bit at the beginning
because they wanted to get you in.
But he's constructing the narrative is explicitly saying that he's
constructing the narrative.
But, I mean, when you talk about what the chase was really like.
Of course, that isn't a question that has an answer because all
there is is Elton's version.
And I think people who create the Hooniverse.
People who have that idea that this is a series of stories that
happen to a single individual in a self-consistent world.
They're the people who get angry at this sort of thing because it
makes that world ridiculous in some way, that that world isn't a
world that can be fully taken seriously, because it has an
absorbable off in it.
And I think that that's the wrong way to look at it.
That's a way to look at it, that ends up with you angry at huge
swathes of the program.
Absolutely.
I mean, the thing with this story, as much as I love it, it's like
the mind robber, or Kinder, or midnight, or turn left, it's an
experiment.
And if the show was like this every week, I probably wouldn't
enjoy it.
And you know what?
I put the Caves of Andrazani in that category as well I've spoken
about my opinion of Caves of Andrazani before.
But isn't it wonderful that we can have this kind of story?
Russell often spoke about how he'd been inspired by shows like
Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
This is directly inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode
called The Zeppo.
Yeah, yeah.
It's about like secondary characters, really.
Or like...
It's Xander, I think.
Xander.
Yeah.
So Xander who, you know, in the early seasons, there's lots of
lots of jokes where he's like the most useless member of the gang
but he's the one who has to face threat and the others just sort
of run in and out of shot dealing with another menace kind of
thing.
It's great.
They have a massive apocalypse happening kind of off screen.
And the bits that we see of it are just overwrought and utterly
ridiculous.
And meanwhile, he's saving the world on a smaller scale and he
loses his virginity and all sorts of sort of fun things happen.
And there's also the storyteller, isn't there, in series 7 of
Buffy, where a secondary character has a camera and constructs a
narrative.
Yeah.
Survival of the dead, George Romero's last dead film, I believe
uses this device as well, but it's really kind of cynically done
and James Rolf, who runs cinemassacre.com, which specialises in
video game stuff and horror movie stuff.
He's a massive fan of George Romero, but he got to this movie and
he's just like, because the Elton character of the movie, I forget
her name, she actually lampshades that, you know, this is footage
I took, but I've put music over it because that's what you do in
movies, isn't it?
That's an actual line from this.
Whereas Elton, you know, he might say, oh, I put that bit at the
beginning to sort of draw you in, but it's very clear that this is
like a believable task that he's actually assembling all this
stuff.
Like that you don't, you totally buy it as something that he would
do.
And that his, like, I love the idea that he's inserting all the
little cutaways to like Elton John or and he thinks he needs to go
and dance to Mr. Blue Sky to cut it into the, like, I love, I love
it's totally plausible to me, and I think that's the strength of
the writing, but I think probably predominantly Mark Warren's
performance, that that is so, it really hangs together, I think
because of his performance because it's so plausible and it's so
you just, you totally buy that this, this construction of this
episode is his attempt to find meaning in this, you know?
It's amazing.
He sort of borders on loveable and irritating. like sweet and
irritating at the same time.
Oh, hi, it's me, age 16.
Yeah, yeah, well, that's it. all of us, I think.
And there's that wonderful scene with Jackie who we haven't
mentioned yet.
And this is a superb performance from her.
It's the last thing that they shoot in series two.
And they get her back.
Russell writes it at the end and realises he wants more Jackie in
the season, which is a creative decision that we're all absolutely
behind. absolutely.
And he doesn't know how to meet people and become friends with
them.
And there's stages that he's been coached in by Victor Kennedy
because he's such an anorak that he can't do that.
But of course, Jackie has effortlessly mastered all of those
stages and she manages to hit each one before he even gets the
opportunity because she's normal and loveable.
And we've said before, that she represents someone who would never
have watched Doctor Who or never been in it before.
She's from the real world.
And the 2 of them are wonderful together.
And I think one of the highlights is when he realises that trying
to find the doctors actually nonsense and what he should really be
doing is becoming mates with Jackie because Jackie's sad and
lonely.
And I love how it's, it almost, I realise how clever that setup
was that you think he's, he sort of wants to become friends with
Jackie, but there's also that subtext of knowing that he, he's
going to go and ask Ursula out.
Like it's just so there's so much going on in that scene.
I agree. and when Jackie's on the phone.
It's just like one of her best perfor- like that scene, I think, is
just so fantastic.
It's like one of the, I just love her performance so much.
And it's so, she gives such a nuanced performance that I don't
think poop enough people give credit for because it's just, yeah.
Well, because there's a whole sequence where she looks like she
wants to have sex with him.
And, you know, she's wonderful at comedy and she is sometimes just
played as a comedy character, I think, in the 1st episode.
She's a comedy character.
And she does that here.
She's trying to have sex with him.
She looks at him like he's stretching up to do something from the
roof and we see, you know, his flat stomach and and, you know, she
looks at his bum and she's pouring wine on him.
And she's doing all this broad comedy and then she gets the phone
call from Rose and then she realises, no, I'm just really
incredibly lonely and I'm being silly.
And she's so happy when he offers to just watch telly with her.
And the moment that they mentioned Mickey as well.
Oh my god, you know, like I used to have this mate, Mickey, and
he's gone.
And of course, to Elton, that means nothing.
Like nothing in Victor's briefing has mentioned Mickey.
Yeah.
And, you know, given that all the briefing stuff seems to centre
around the Slothian incident.
All the visual records of Rose.
It's understandable that he wouldn't mention Mickey.
So in that instance, Elton's just like, oh, okay, you know, you
used to have this friend called Mickey, no relation or what have
you.
That scene where, you know, she chucks the wine on it, but whatnot
his nervousness is so well played and then his confidence as he
walks back in and then he just sort of shrinks in on himself when
when she's talking.
And yet that is when he has the realisation, but it's so
wonderfully done as sort of a set of creeping close-ups.
And something I noticed about Camille in this.
And I think it's a conscious decision because there's so many
subtle design elements in this.
Like when Elton comes back from getting the pizza, his shirt is no
longer stained.
And I think that's a deliberate thing, part of the unreliable
narrator.
You know, he's forgotten that detail telling the story because
this is a really heartfelt moment.
I don't think that's something they would have screwed up.
But also, I noticed watching this last night, that Camille's
makeup just makes her look a little bit tired in a way that Jackie
hasn't looked before, except, you know, for that year when Rose
wasn't coming home.
And I think it's deliberately set up that way to emphasise sort of
her loneliness and her worry and her concern.
Yeah, we got the script because the next Christmas special was
commissioned, Runaway bride had to be moved down to the Christmas
special.
So we get love and monsters instead.
Next week, fear her will be commissioned because Stephen Fry's
1920 script falls through.
And, you know, Russell also wanted a story where he could put in a
monster designed by a viewer.
Yeah.
And so the absorber off is designed by Will Grantham, who...
This is so bizarre.
And this is the world of Doctor Who.
So on my YouTube channel a couple of weeks ago.
I get this comment from a channel called Channel Pup, and he said
really like your stuff.
I'm surprised you don't have more subscribers, but I think you'll
get more.
I got my start in Doctor Who and I have lots of people watching
now.
And I click through, and the 1st video on the channel is that time
I created a Doctor Who monster.
So Will Grantham. is now a young man.
He has his own YouTube channel and he's producing some really good
really well thought out content, an opinion based off.
And he does a great sort of 15 minute video looking back on Love
and Monsters as an adult.
And you know, setting the records straight that, yes, even though
he designed the monster as being, you know, 2 stories tall.
He wasn't disappointed that it was the size of a man because there
were lots of reports.
He did apparently come into the workshop and say, oh, oh, I
thought he was going to be bigger.
But it was just like that.
Oh, it wasn't a disappointment.
It wasn't like a diva moment.
Yeah, meant to be like that.
There's a beautiful thing in the confidential where he sees the
costume on Peter K for the 1st time and his eyes just light up and
he gasps and Peter K gives him an autograph photo.
And I just think it's so wonderful that in this world of fandom
where we can have very toxic elements.
I mean, Stephen Moffat and Peter Davidson both quit Twitter
because of abusive messages, basically.
And you watch, like if you subscribe to the BBC Doctor Who YouTube
channel, you're absolutely Nazi adjacent from that point.
Like there'll be why Doctor Who hates white men will be your next
suggested video.
You know, there are toxic elements.
Yeah.
Doctor Who hates single fathers.
No, there is one single father who does something stupid.
Anyway, I was so heartened to watch Will's channel because he
still has such love for the show.
He knows that this story is divisive, but he kind of, he kind of
just mainly values his own opinion on it and takes the praise for
the story as well, and he's grateful to have had that.
And he says in the video, you know, I showed my girlfriend this
story and she enjoyed it.
And I thought that was absolutely lovely.
I watched it with a friend last night who knows Doctor Who has
watched a bit of it.
He's known me for ages.
I've inflicted plenty of Doctor Who on him over the years, but
he'd never seen this one before and he just thought it was
splendid.
You know, he thought it was really terrific.
And part of our anxiety about Doctor Who is residual anxiety from
the 80s where everyone thought we were really kind of strange for
liking this stuff with the people in rubber suits.
And so the moment the Doctor Who looks like it's being
ridiculous.
We turn on it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
If I could ask you, Max.
So have you then always had people around your own age in your
social group who were also into the show?
Like, I think so.
Like if I, yeah, because it's fascinating.
Yeah.
It's I think there was certainly a peak of popularity with the
show generally from probably started to fade a bit after the 50th
anniversary.
Yeah.
But that said, there were always people watching the show.
There was never there was never like, I think less people watched
the Peter Capaldi era, but like it wasn't as if there were just
still rusted on people watching.
Like a lot of people still watching it, but it just wasn't, there
wasn't this sort of dedication and there wasn't like a massive
group of people that were all watching it and talking about it all
the time.
And then since of going to, you know, uni and all that kind of
stuff, there's been meeting people that are there in the degree
that I'm in because also they love Doctor Who.
So it's like, it's a strange thing just sort of never, maybe while
it's still continuing, and obviously this kind of, the past year
you know, I've noticed that a lot more people watched it than had
done for maybe a few years, or even probably, even maybe even
longer than that.
So that's obviously exciting as well when you know heaps of people
are watching your favourite show.
But I think I'm like, yeah, I think like you said, I think I've
always had people my age that were watching the show.
Because you sort of grow up with the show as well as people and
it's sort of like, there's always that, I don't know, I think
there's always that feeling that you're like, oh, you know, maybe
the shows and the series that you grow up with when you're a
little kid are the ones that are very special to you.
And I think that's probably still the case, but yeah, it's
tempting maybe, I think, and a lot of people that maybe aren't
like, still really big fans of the show, but look back on it
really fondly from their childhood, watch episodes now and sort of
go, oh, it's not, you know, it's still nowhere near, like, David
Tennant.
Everyone, everyone, I think, remembers David Tennant era. in my
generation as this sort of like, you know, golden.
But that's also just the, that when you watch the show.
Like, I'm sure if I was like 7 or 8 when Matt Smith was the doctor
I'd feel that way about the show then, you know?
Yeah, maybe.
I do think it had a big sort of cultural place at this time.
But there were all these sort of unhealed wounds from the
cancellation because, you know, there's the hiatus and then the
cancellation and we go for such a long time without the show.
So every time a new episode came out.
Was there nervous?
Like, was there still that?
When do you reckon that faded?
Do you reckon it was like by maybe series 3 or 4 or did it ever
fade?
Is it still?
I think some of us, it hasn't faded for?
Yeah, yeah.
Like, I think part of the reason that, particularly when Stephen
Moff, actually, not particularly when Stephen Moffatt took over.
But when we had the sort of 2009 year with the specials, that made
people aware that, hold on, we may not get a season every year.
And if we don't get a season every year, it fades from the public
consciousness.
And for phase from the public consciousness, then people will stop
coming back.
And it's this underlying feeling that then Stephen Moffatt had to
deal with as executive producer, but every time it wasn't on, when
it was meant to be on, oh my god, it's going to get cancelled.
Now, why is it getting cancelled?
Well it's getting cancelled because of all the complex plots.
Oh, it's getting cancelled because of River song.
And people start looking for reasons that it might get cancelled.
And it is this anxiety that it's going to go away again.
And so this at the end of series 2, where you get this episode
which is super divisive and initially really quite off-putting to
a lot of people.
And then you get next week's episode, which is also, I think
probably not well liked.
People are still anxious about it, even though this is the show at
its absolute height.
I mean, series 2 and series four, I think, are like, I don't think
it's just an artefact of the age that you are now, Max.
I think that that's the time when Doctor Who had its biggest sort
of cultural influence.
Now it's something that's been on for quite a long time.
It's a different kind of, I think, and I think the difference
maybe between series 11 and something like series 2 or 3 is, like
you say, because it's, because this new incarnation of the show
has been around for longer than any show would probably ordinarily
work for.
There aren't many shows that start in 2005 that are still going.
Yeah.
So it's kind of sort of a, and it's also like, but it's that
that's not unique necessarily, but it's like, it's an artefact of
just how, how just the show just keeps marching on and and not
marching on implies that it's the same, you know, but it's not, but
it's just like, there is a specialness to this point in the show's
life in series 2 and series 3 where it has that freshness from, you
know, from being away from a very long time.
I also think too, that it's very clear from this script, which I
think is one of Russell's most writerly scripts.
I think this in midnight, him being a screenwriter, you know, I
mean, he's always a screenwriter, he's right, the thing.
But, but, you know, they're his most rightly script.
And it just makes me think that we were incredibly lucky to have
him and that we kind of don't deserve him.
You know, it was extraordinary.
That Doctor Who was brought back by one of the great scriptwriters
on British TV, someone who's continued to write incredible drama
and funny comedy and all sorts of things.
We'd be lucky to have him now.
Yeah, yeah.
That'd be something.
But he really is really incredible.
And, you know, people, I think people think that the tone at the
end of this episode is a misfire, but I don't think that at all.
I think it's absolutely under RTD's control.
He knows exactly what he's doing.
Yeah.
And I don't think it's immune.
I think there are problems with the ending But yeah, you can't, I
don't think the claim that he's sort of, it's incomprehensible or
it's not, it's vastly out of tone with the rest of the episode.
I don't think that's true at all.
Yeah.
One good thing about the ending.
There's no CG.
Well, there's compositing, but Shirley Henderson is actually in a
sort of mask that joins the side of her face.
Like she hasn't been CG'd into the slab.
She's just been composited.
Yeah, in fact, they digitally get rid of her sort of body below
the neck in that shot.
So he's holding the paving stone and there's no sort of Shirley
Henderson sort of underneath.
So, um, so that joke, like, I think Doctor Who has had sort of sex
jokes in it before, I think that joke is not inappropriate for
children because it will sail completely over their heads.
You know, maybe the love life they have is that they snog.
And so I absolutely don't see a problem with that.
And Doctor Who has made kind of jokes like that for a very long
time.
Harry's only qualified to work on sailors.
You know, it's a thing that the show has done.
There is some discussion about, you know, whether that's a
terrible fate or not.
You know, that's a terrible thing that happens to Ursula, a really
terrible thing.
But it makes thematic sense that these people have been through
this thing and they've been affected by it.
And, you know, people get sick and people get hurt and people age
and life isn't tidy.
Like, you couldn't tell that story and have Elton and Ursula
together properly at the end.
Yeah, and I think we need to take what the text shows us and the
text shows us that Ursula is in herself. okay.
Yeah.
You know, she is accepting of this problem that life has thrown at
her. and she's happy to be alive.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
People say, you know, she'd be better off dead.
But again, she's not real as well.
And that's the other thing too, which is that this is a text that
is incredibly aware that it's a constructed thing.
And if you're watching this show as, I think, we're contractually
obligated to mention El Xander for at this point, if you're
watching this as gossip about imaginary people, then you're going
to find that really upsetting.
But I think what it's trying to say is that we come away from
terrible experiences damaged and changed and, you know, in
incredible, unexpected ways.
And our lives don't go the way that we think they will.
You know, we don't just get married, have a mortgage, have a kid
you know, live that life is stranger than that, and it's darker.
And, you know, all of us have or will have things in our
experience that are so terrible that we never properly recover
from.
But life goes on and that's kind of okay.
Like, Elton's, like, I initially, and I still feel a little, like
the, obviously, the, the backstory to Elton about his mum and the
doctor's connection to, to him from that sort of night, I
initially, like, on review, I'm rewatching it this time, I think I
was, I, I think I was much more moved by it than I had been
previously, because I think I felt maybe because I felt that it
sort of, it felt weirdly.
I suppose it is like a thing of suppressing it.
And given he's the person constructing this story, you wouldn't
necessarily want to labour on it particularly.
And I suppose it becomes more relevant when the doctor enters the
story, which is probably just, I think it's just a consequence of
the documenting the story so late that it feels like it comes out
very quickly.
And then there's the montage.
It's really lovely and it pairs so well with the song of her
fading into the white, which I think is really that the visual and
the sound of that is really lovely.
I just think that there is still that feeling that I think it's a
weirdly minimal part of the story.
But but maybe that that is also saying something about his efforts
to kind of not talk about until the last possible minute.
I think, too, like, I agree, for a while, I thought it was just
one too many things.
But it's a more real example of the kind of thing that is
addressed metaphorically by what happens to Linda at the hands of
the absorber off.
You know, it's a silly pantoscience fiction thing that eventually
kills them.
But, you know, people in their lives have experiences like that
loss.
And so there's a real one somewhere in there as well.
Yeah.
So I think it resonates with what's going on elsewhere.
And over the course of the episode, it gives Mark Warren, just
some amazing little moments, like when he's outside the house with
Ursula.
You know, I realised watching it last night, it's him starting to
remember and he does that little sort of turn away and then he
can't speak.
And it happens again when Victor plays in the sound of the Tartar
and he has to walk away from the group and sit down.
And there's so many emotional moments in Russell's doctor.
But the thing that made me cry last night was when he looks up at
Rose and says that was Ursula.
Yeah.
Oh, God.
And but what, you know, as much as he sells it, what really sells
it for me is the fact that all the anger goes out of Billy.
Yeah, she's really good in that bit, I think.
She's got like 2 lines in the whole episode and she just nails
both of them.
And, you know, we see proper crying.
You know, it's not, you killed my brother, Commander Ivanov.
It's real proper emotion.
And with the exception of the scenes from the child's point of
view.
Mark Warren's in every scene of this episode.
Not necessarily every shot, but every scene.
It even ties back to things like the telly movie where the doctor
recognises Elton as an adult, having met him once as a child.
Yeah, and that last scene, it's people standing urgently in a
corridor.
It is.
But it's 4 very good actors. reacting and riffing off each other.
It's an impressive denouement.
And the line of the doctor saying, I think the others have
something to say about that originally wasn't in there, but
Russell and Julie discussed it and they discussed, look, these
people have been waiting for the doctor so long.
It's okay if they want to save him, but also they kind of deserve
a bit to hear from him.
And so he kind of gives them the idea of how to be the companion.
You know, a bit like he said to Mickey a few weeks ago.
You know, any idiot can use computers through the thing.
It's like, I'm not going to tell you what to do, but here's an
idea.
And yeah, I really like the doctor going, no, I'm not going to
sacrifice all the time and space for one man.
Sorry, but no, your plan's rubbish.
And I like that we can have a slightly rubbish villain with a
slightly rubbish plan, but he's still a threat.
And there's a brilliant bit of editing where he jumps up from
behind the desk and they cut out a few frames.
So he moves with unnatural quickness.
Well, and he's said, you know, I'm a big, slow moving thing, you
know, take pity on me, but then he just sort of leaps over the
desk.
Yeah.
I actually think the absorb life looks pretty good in the interior
scenes.
Yeah.
You don't like how grotesque the running in the loincloth
outside.
I kind of, well, I don't know.
I always found it.
I kind of just find it funny.
Because Russell's writing often does massive tonal shifts.
Yeah.
Well, actually, no, it's not just, like, Stephen Moffatt's does
too.
Russell particularly.
And I think it's successful all the way through the episode, and
it's not really, I don't think it's particularly Russell's fault
but I think maybe it's too much tonal whiplash for me to then find
him running through the street like really, really funny because I
think it looks really silly.
But then again, I suppose if that's their intention.
I'm not 100% sure how to feel about that. it has to be his
intention, doesn't it?
Because he's designing this story around a monster that he already
knows what it's going to look like that he's designed.
He knows that that scene is going to look ridiculous.
And he leans into it, I think.
And it's really extraordinary.
And it's not surprising that for a lot of people it doesn't come
off.
And it's super off putting because you can't find it funny because
you are still horrified by what's happened to all of those
people.
Yeah.
See, I think it's the same level of humour as Jackie cowering and
saying, I'm going to get killed by a Christmas tree.
It's a situation that's so ridiculous.
Yeah.
It's kind of like you don't exactly have to play it for laughs, but
you have to, in some way, acknowledge that this is silly.
But also, you know, there is a thing about the human condition
being ridiculous.
And I said earlier in the episode about just indignity and Bliss
ending up on the answer.
Yeah, yeah.
That's where we all end up, eventually.
We haven't specifically singled the amount.
But Peter K does a wonderful job, I think.
Yeah, I actually find his performance as the absorbeloff massively
massively off-putting.
And I think that that's absolutely deliberate.
It's the lolling tongue.
The lolling tongue.
Also something I really like about it.
I've spoken about them before, but the audio visuals plays that
Nick Briggs and Gary Russell and many others made before Big
Finish.
They have a recurring villain in them, who, in the big finish
place, is played by David Warner called Cuthbert.
Cuthbert is the head of conglomerate, sort of evil corporate
entity.
And he's played by an actor called Barry Killerby with a northern
accent, much like the Bolton accent.
And one line that just sticks in my mind from those plays is when
he 1st learns the doctor's interfering in something and he says to
one of his servant robots.
I don't need any problems caused by some do good nosim Park.
But at the same time, he's really menacing.
And it's kind of like, oh, lots of planets have a north.
It's like, well, why can't we have this menacing alien who is also
you know, saying, oh, should test?
Ah, check in.
Again, that's super, super off-putting and it's part of the
humiliation.
You know, this character that we love and he makes a sort of
tasteless joke with a silly accent.
It is, I think, a deliberate choice.
Yeah, for sure.
And I really like his performance outside of the prosthetic as
well, I actually think.
Because there's all the...
I think I think I was reading that apparently he spent quite a
while talking with Russell T. Davis about how to pitch his
performance in this episode.
And I think you can, I think that comes across that he's given a
lot of thought that he's not sort of a, um, well, he's, I suppose
part of the point is that he's a little bit of a caricature as
well.
But I think he balances that with others of nuance as well going
on.
And I think he's, um, because he sort of has to be at least a
little bit tender to appeal to people to stay and come back.
Yeah.
And I think he does that really believably and balancing those
two.
Yeah.
He was originally offered the part of Elton.
Right.
Oh right.
But what happened was he wrote to Russell during the 1st season.
He just said, this is amazing.
I've been a Doctor Who fan for ages.
I'm a fan of your work and oh my god, you're brilliant.
And Russell, of course, reacted to this because at the time, Peter
Kay's vein of comedy is very similar to Catherine Tate, and he's
done lots of different comedy shows, but one of the ones that was
really notable at this time was Britain's got the pop factor
right?
Which was a send-up of talent shows, but Peter Kay, playing a
woman competing on these talent shows.
And, you know, much like when Catherine Tate plays a man.
It was a comedy character, but it was as serious as it could be
kind of thing.
So he was used to this kind of work in prosthetics and whatnot.
What I think is so successful about his human persona as Victor
Kennedy, is it kind of highlights adoration in fandom versus
entitlement?
Yeah.
So the members of Linda, they kind of adore the doctor and they'd
like to meet him.
If it's not too much trouble, kind of thing.
Oh, let's have some cake, you know, let's have a chat.
Oh, Bliss, your sculptures are amazing kind of thing.
Whereas Victor, he's an unscrupulous convention organiser, and I
want to emphasise that word unscrupulous because there are loads
of great convention organisers.
There's Todd, of course, there's P Bal and Dex who do events in
the UK, but there are also these unscrupulous people who they're
not interested in, you know, sort of the actors putting on a show
and getting to meet people.
They're interested in how many sort of notches they can put in
their belt for how many actors they've met.
I also think it is that approach to Doctor Who, where it's knowing
the names of all the cybermen stories or being able to name lots
of planets or knowing who the assistant floor manager was.
And all of those things are things that we all know.
But an insistence on that.
And he comes in and immediately dismisses the stuff that we've
been admiring about the interaction between that group as like
cakes and blubbing or something like that, you know, and he says
he doesn't want any of that.
He gets angry at Elton for trying to be friends with Jackie
because he's got a purpose. creates like an, like the classroom
set up.
Yeah, yeah, where they're raising their hand to talk.
Yeah.
And it becomes miserable.
All of the things that were actually good about those
relationships, which, to be honest, wasn't their obsession with
the doctor.
I mean, I guess I guess the fact that the doctor for them inspires
art, like it inspires them to create art and stories, stories and
podcasts and stuff.
You know, that that's a good thing.
But what is really good is, you know, the friends we made along
the way.
It's interesting because they sort of quite explicitly become
students of the doctor, which is Victor Kennedy's doing.
And like before there's sort of, like in the classroom setup, it's
a market shift from them being admirers or like, or just sort of
fans of him to becoming like disciplined like studies of, you know
like, and that's the thing because Stephen Moffat calls like fans
of students of the show.
But he says it in sort of a loving way.
But it's interesting that that sort of reads, in this episode, that
comes out as an attempt to kind of, you know, make it less fun and
organic than it ordinarily would be, you know, but yeah.
The other day on Gallifrey Bass, people discussing the season 18
upcoming, probably recently released by the time this comes out
Blu-ray box set.
The special features article for it in Doctor Who magazine, they've
obviously used the template from season 19 because Warrior's Gate
is listed as having 2 episodes.
It's on Disk 5, like Black Orchid was, which has 2 episodes.
And someone commented, they've lost 2 episodes of Warrior's Game.
And someone else came along and said, isn't it 2 episodes long?
And I just replied saying, oh, it's it's 4 episodes long and he
said, oh, I thought all JNT seasons had a two-parter.
That's what I've been told, and I sort of explained about the
canine company thing.
But I just thought there are other fans who would come along and
berate this person for not knowing that Warrior's Gate was 4
parts.
Because Doctor Who Fandom is this weird thing of you've got people
who've been watching it since they were 7 or 5 or 10, you know.
But you've also got people who have just switched on the Saranga
conundrum one night and then gone Google searching because they're
like, oh, that was that was interesting and a bit weird.
What?
There's more of these, you know?
And I think fan knowledge is something very precious and you can't
take it for granted that other people have the same knowledge as
you.
And I think as soon as you take that for granted, you turn into a
Victor Kennedy.
It's not about knowing the production codes because you find them
interesting.
It's about knowing the production codes.
So you can say to someone, what do you mean you don't know what 4
X was?
Well, dear Miss Nevia, Zorbolov is gone, and now we're left to
live with the consequences forever.
We'll be back next week to see how that goes with fear her.
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 at our
James Bond commentary podcast, Bondfinger, which is at bondfinger
com, Bondfinger on Facebook and Apple Podcasts, and at
Bondfingercast on Twitter.
Until next time, we'll remember you this way.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Anyone fancy a slab?
That was flight for entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Max Gell
Barton, Brendan Jones, theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, strings
performance by Jane Orberg.
This episode, Linda for Short, was recorded on the 9th of February
2019 and released on the 19th of May.
If you enjoyed our discussion of the royal and caldron of fandom
that gave rise to flights through entirety, you'll also enjoy our
upcoming 12 volume series on the subject, complete with a 3 volume
forward by Peter Hayning.
I think we can probably end it with a moral, do you think?
What is 4X?
I don't know, it's season 15.
It's definitely season 15.
I was going to say Voyage of the Dam.
No, no.
Well, yeah.
They're using numbers again.
Foray is some robots.
Foray's robot and 4Z is invasion of time.
Okay.
Peter knows all of them Toby Hate Oak knows all.
Toby Hate Oak is amazing.
Like, um, did he direct the...
No.
No, he's the...
He's Monse my Doctor Who scarf.
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
And running through corridors, which is just wonderful.
I saw I saw him performing my stepson stole my sonic screwdriver.
Oh, yeah.
And he's got a bit where he has the Doctor Who program guide and
he gives it to a member of the audience and says, open it to a
random page and read me a random name. like from a, from a, um
from any story, actor, crew, crew is probably better.
And so someone like reads out this name and he says, ah, now he
was a guard in the reign of terror and also came back for
uncredited work in the seeds of death.
And he does it like 5 or 6 times.
Yes, I know all of these things.
No, that doesn't make me superior to you.
Quite the contrary.
All right, I'm going to try and do an outro.
Does that sound like a thing?
Well, the listener, the Azorbilov is gone forever.