That Which Is Missing

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight through Entirety the only Doctor Who podcast that has always done its duty by Queen and Country. And look how well that's turned out. I'm Nathan. James. I'm Todd. And this is the last story I'll ever tell. The last story I'll ever tell about leaving FTE podcast. The last story I'll ever tell about leaving FTE podcast to go to the toilet between recording this episode in the last episode. So what's new with you, Richard? I'm Todd Shtick for this. Well, the surprise Daleks have taken a week to emerge from their sphere, but they're ready to join the cyberman in some trash talking and killing random people in bus cues. You still in there? But after 28 seasons of Doctor Who, we're confident that everything will be just fine. After all, this is an episode called Doomsday. He does go back to Round the Horn. We've been practising this story for something like 60 years now. It's all going to end, everything's falling apart, but no, we'll have a sing along and a bit of a panto at the end, and we'll all be fine, except someone has to die. I'm sorry, Todd, it's all time. I take it you don't particularly like this episode. No, no, we just I'm harking on from what we were saying last week about the parallels to the present, really. Go on. I don't know if I've told this story before, but we were watching the series in a bar at the Hilton Hotel in Sydney. Do you remember this, James? You were probably organising it. It wouldn't been to the Hilton. It would have been at... It was the Men's Hotel. It was the Menzies Hotel. You were quite right. The Men's Hotel. Yeah. Yeah, no, that would have been right, yeah. And I had a way of getting the episodes. I can't imagine what it was. And I had agreed to bring the episode with me. And I was expecting it to be a tear jerker, I think. And so I thought, well, I don't want to cry in front of all of these sweaty fan boys, so I'll watch it before and then bring it and watch it again in public with everyone. And of course, I balled my eyes out. when I watched it the 1st time and then again, you know, miaow hours later, I was like a giant snivelling mess in front of everyone at the at the bar. I think I was hiding behind the merchandise. to try trying to cover my shade. This time when I watched it, the moment that I really started crying was Jackie and Pete meeting up. You know, about halfway through the episode. There's about 20 minutes to go, and Jackie and Pete, both of whom have lost their parallel universe counterpart, husband and wife meet up, and it's such a great scene because it's super rustly. It's so rustly. How rich. That's right. How very. I don't care about that. But there's also... anyone else. She says there was never anyone else, and you get a little shot of the doctor and Mikey kind of, they're not rolling their eyes. They do it a little bit more subtly than I remember. It's more subtle than I recall, too. Yeah, because I remember a panto boomtish. But it's lovely. It's so lovely. And, and, you know, Peter's already kind of rejected Rose as his daughter at the end of the age of steel, and he goes to reject Jackie as his wife, and he's already said to the doctor before in the episode, she's not my wife, and he starts to do it again, but he can't sustain it. They just run into each other's arms and kiss. And I think it is so beautiful. And I think this episode has, it's our 1st companion departure, you know, in the new series and they had to get it right. And I think they do. Well, in that moment, they do. You're not happy with the end? No, I'm talking about the fact that, dear Jackie, who is our companion? departing with a love story. Like Joe Grant? Yeah, right? So that's absolutely beautiful. And I think it's just amazing how it's not the real Pete and it's for him the real Jackie, but we accept it and it's all going to be fantastic for them and it's turned out really well after you think that she could be potentially under a lot of threat coming with the cybermen and having to, you know, I just love the fact when the doctor phones are aware, are you? Like a staircase and what do you see like a fire extinguisher? Like, it's so Jackie. a door Camille in this. And I just think it's a fantastic departure despite the fact that it's not, they don't have the history between them. There's a history between them in their own worlds, if you know what I mean. It's also wonderful that, yeah, like, who would have thought that she would have got that plot line and that that send off 2 seasons ago, that... No, James, you're quite right. You couldn't have seen it coming. From a joke character making, making comments about, oh, there's a strange man in my bedroom. anything could happen to, to, to this. This is fantastic. what they've done with that character. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. And I think I mentioned in one of the previous episodes that I just had a stone cold dead heart when it comes to the Sarah Jane Smith episode, if you record back to that. And in this, I can't recall if I really was crying when Rose was leaving. I can't remember if I was. And even now, I don't cry at that. It's this section with Jackie is the thing that gets me most upset. When I was a kid, we've talked about this before, Brandon said that he used to cry when the doctor regenerated, because you would never see the doctor again. But for me, it was kind of exciting and it was still the doctor. Oh, I did see the back of all of them, yeah. But I did... Richard, I agree with you. I didn't cry at any of those generations. I never had that because the 1st Doctor Who story I ever watched was the 5 Doctors. You knew that they'd be back. Especially the 1st doctor. Yeah. But in his various guys. Yes, wearing different faces. But I used to get upset when the companions left and I remember even, you know, in invasion of time being heartbroken that Leela was going. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and my 1st companion departure, I think, was Sarah Jane Smith. Oh, absolutely heartbreaking. I remember going to bed and dreaming that it didn't happen and trying to come up with a new story that she'd come back in the next story. Like, that's how upset I was. I actually rage quit Doctor Who at the end of season 19 because the doctor had left Tegan behind at Heathrow Airport and I didn't tune in for Arc of Infinity because I was so cross. And it turned out she was back. What a stupid fool. You are. Well, I did miss Arc of Infinity. So there was a silver lining. Actually, no, I stand correct, Nathan, you were a very clever man. But here, what I think has to happen when the doctor leaves you. And we've said this before, that he has to leave you better than how he found you. So even though this is sort of the heartbreaking into a series long love story, he leaves Rose with her family now intact, that big missing piece of her family, her father's death when she was just a baby. The doctor kind of inadvertently fixes that. And Jackie, you know, in that little flat being lonely, not having much money. That gets fixed as well. And we get to see it too. Like the genius of having that scene, um, the Norway scene at the end, is we get to see that they're all together in a family. Even Mickey is living with them. And Jackie is still wearing sort of powder pink, but it's sort of glamorous powder pink rather than sort of powder pink active wear. It reminds me of Ramana's outfit from Destiny of the Daleks. It's lovely, isn't it? She looks great. And so the doctor leaves her in a parallel universe in a changed world where she has a role to play sort of fighting the forces of evil, but where she has an intact family. And I think that it's the best of the 3 companion departures. Oh, maybe it's the best of the 3 companion departures that Russell gets to do. Well, that's a big call because I would not have gone there with that at all. I think she's an ungrateful cow. She's got all of these things that you've just mentioned and all she can do is blub on about herself and her love life. Get over it, honey. You've got all these great things and you've had this time with the doctor move on. Oh, that's very Barbara Streisand. Sorry, I just got to, that just came to me. I didn't think I was going actually say it like that. Okay, I'm being overdramatic. Like, I think it actually is a really good departure in a sense that now when you are with the doctor. You never, ever want to leave and it's the best thing ever. And we're not going to kill you off. So how are we going to get around it? So that was Streisand talking about leaving Netherland when she talked about the young people who had been brought up by Mr Jackson. get over yourselves. You got everything. We're lampshading. However, however, in the episode. It's fine. true. However, Richard's just going diverting for a moment. To the beginning of the episode. Rose confronts the Daleks and she talks about how she put the time vortex into the emperor and how... And it goes... What a badass she is. But all I, every time I watch that scene, all I can see is Billy Piper's big teeth. And it just, I'm just thinking, oh, please. Why do you think it's so terrifying? And they aren't even her biggest teeth. They're not so bigger still. Well, spoiler alert people. Yeah, just come back for the end of series four. I think that's a really big call to say this is the best command departure because I would argue that that next season would have the best companion departure. It is a very good companion departure next season where we'll get onto that. There is a problem at the heart of the show, I think, now that the doctor can control the TARDIS and that we see him coming back to Earth all the time. And so there is no reason why she should ever leave. She wants to stay. We have that moment at the beginning of last week's episode where Jackie imagines rose on a planet somewhere. Some nameless woman. Yeah, in the market. completely changed. She's not Rose Tyler. Yeah. Some old bent. She does get to be Rose Tyler at the end. She gets to stay Rose Tyler. She sees her as Barbara wins it, doesn't it? Rose Tyler Earth defence. Well, she gets to be a better version of herself and having a better life and she doesn't get to travel with the doctor, but the payoff is, you know, like he doesn't leave her tragic and broken. He leaves her with a family who love her. And again, maybe at the end, the moment that I tear up his Camille running to her, you know, because she knows what Rose has lost. I just think that is so beautiful and so she's going to be okay. Agreed. Totally agree. Billy Piper over these 2 seasons is just phenomenal. And in all seriousness, I just think she's a tremendous actress and she sells all of that stuff at the end, leaving the doctor with the tears. It is, I think, an extraordinary performance in all serious. That's the reason it's still here. Yeah, I think so. I absolutely think so. She's the Barbara of our generation. No one's going to say she's Sarah Jane Smith, but yes, you're right. She is that glue at the beginning of the series that people really turned in full. I think it's extraordinary. And I do think that it was brave of Russell and Wright of Russell to give her more sort of personal characteristics than just shop girl who travels with the doctor. And we've been making fun of Rose for being a selfish cow. an ungrateful cow for quite a few episodes now, but that was great. You know, she's just a flawed person. And she's capable of great kindness. There are lots and lots of moments where she steps forward to comfort someone who is in distress. She is basically supposed to be a teenager. Yeah, in her early 20s. Yeah, and that's true to a character to the character of someone of that age that they do focus on themselves a lot more than, say a character like Donna later who has a lot more going on. I think too, there is that the kind of love affair that you have in your 20s, you know, which is all consuming and nothing really exists outside it and she really has that with the doctor. We've had quite a bit of Shakespeare in this, haven't we, from Romeo and Juliet, which is the romance you're talking about to Ludic doing is Richard the 3rd stopping, but stuck in a bath chair. Yeah. There's quite some classical themes in this story too, aren't there? The grand parking. Yeah, in fact, you know, we've gone straight to This is our 1st topic without actually really discussing much of the plot and part of the reason is there isn't. There really is much of a plot. Because there's even less than there was last week and there doesn't need to be. Exactly. It is, in fact, a character driven piece. It's about interaction. And her reaction at Jackie and Pete. Their conversation is that one shot of rose in the middle of that conversation. She cross? No, no, no, where she's actually like, just the look that Billy gives and possibly the way it's been directed by Graham Harper. It's just a beautiful moment that she wants her parents to get back together. And you're quite right. Her departure, I think, is beautifully handled. Jackie's departure is beautifully handled, and the other person departing, of course, is Mickey, and it's just so telling the growth in that character. I just love the fact that when the Daleks say the female's heartbeat has increased and he just says, oh, yeah, telling me about it. It's just wickedly wonderful. Like he's just so good in this. She tells him too that he's the bravest man she's ever met and he's gone from being, you know, like pissing himself at being captured by the autons in the very 1st episode. It's it's wonderful. I really, really like that. And I sort of alluded to it last week where Rose and Mickey get the chance to reconcile and we see them. I don't think they're a couple at the end at all. No, then I don't feel that either. Eventually he ends up with Martha Jones. Yeah, but they're they're living in that big giant house with mum and dad, and I think that that is really lovely. But they're equals. He's not the puppy dog or her little thing to look after. He is as good as she is. And when he goes to get that gun, the whole dalek situation, and he's the one that pushes on the genesis. I love the fact that he's the one rather than her. I mean, we get the flashback to her, but he's as much important as what she is because he's travelled through time as well. And I just like that so much, even though the focus is obviously not on Mickey, but there's all these moments with him in the background. You still get a Mickey the idiot moment. We still have to remember who he is when he falls on the genital arc, whatever the thing is. Although the doctor does say the big rice maker. Yes. That's right I mean, the doctor does say, look, they would have blown up the sun in order to get in there. So, you know, it is him being clumsy again, but it's a sort of fortunate clumsiness. No one berates him for being an idiot. Yeah. Yeah, he is really, really terrific, I think. You know, the idea of having the Daleks and the same men bachelor each other is not, is not new. Of course not. Every fanboy. No, no, no, no. Todd has exercise book's full of drawings of it. What do you mean drawings? I've written stories about that when I was. Of course, of course. The Daleks and the Siemens turned up at the end of episode one. I mean, I mean, in an official sense. The BBC actually made inquiries to the Terry Nation Estate in 1967. Really? And they were told no. And Terry Nation to turn around and told them to go themselves. There's only one Helen Lawson in this production. Very Valley of the Dolls, yes. But every fanboy, going back to whenever, has always wanted the Daleks and the Simon in the one story. And besides the 5 doctors would never really had it. And to have them here, and to think coming into this, they're going to have an alliance and it's going to be impossible. But then when it's that bitch scene from, I'm not going to say from hell, it's from heaven. Because the dialogue in that is just so... It's so dynasty. But, you know, in Dalek, we have a cyberhead. And it goes back. There's about 5 stories going back where you've at least had an element of them, even if it's just flashbacks of they've been teasing us. Yeah, they had been sprinkling it through the time stream, haven't they? It is. It's Clara. It's that bloody Clara. Yeah, she would have done that. Bugger off. She can't leave it alone. Would you have predicted that the Daleks were so much better than the sidemen? I mean, if I had asked you in 2005 Daleks versus Sidemen, who would have won? I think they would have been more Joan Collins. I think we always knew I always I always would have thought the Daleks. Like, when the Dalek says we would destroy the Cybermen with one Dalek, and you get to see the soldiers battling Cybermen, and the only way they can destroy them is by having a bazooka. But then the Dalek then just exterminates the 2 side of men like with one shot and they've been trying to destroy them. It's like this hierarchy of death. hierarchy of of England versus Europe. The humans are down the bottom. The cybermen are like a big threat, but then the Daleks are again twice. A Belgium. Yeah. I'm doing some hand gestures. works very well on radio. Sorry. You've got excellent hands for radio. You know that this rarely for Doctor Who, this story actually outrated most of the the football matches that week. Okay, because I guess people knew Billy was leaving. Oh, you had lost the week before. And they put them on the radio times cover. They had 2 radio times covers, one with the psyche men and one with the Daleks holding footballs. I seem to remember that actually. What was the actual rating? Eight point something? 8.22. It's still an appreciation index of 89, which is one of the highest of joint highest. Yes, but people will like any old thing. I just like to shout out to the listeners of FTE at this point. But in all seriousness. I really enjoyed watching this episode. Again, it improved for me. And you might say there's not much plot. But I love the way he sets up this genesis art thing as this special thing and you're kind of going, oh, what is this genesis art thing, you know? It can't be anything major. And then it's, you know, it's time or technology. And I'm there in my head going, what do you mean it's time? Because they make it look like a dalek, don't they? I mean, it's sort of Dalek shade. Well, that was the question when I was... Yeah, why would they make a TARDIS thing look like Idyllic? Oh, to hold darling? But never in a 1000000 years did I think that it was going to be like bigger on the inside. That was the most simplest time lord technology. I'm thinking, oh, it's some, you know, the matrix or goodness knows what, but then it's, it's staring you right in the face. It's the one thing that normal people know about time, Lord technology, isn't it? You know, they travel in time and their thing is bigger on the inside than the outside. So the matrix or the transduction barrier or any of that kind of thing would have just been sort of too tiresome, I think, as time or technology. That is absolutely perfect. And it is Russell's approach to science fiction, which is here's some science fiction concepts that a normal person can understand like the sphere last week. It is hilarious. There's one really, I think it's a sort of shockingly bad moment where dialect sec, I think, and the Genesis Arc are up in the air above sort of stock footage of Canary Wharf, you know, like right slap bang in the middle of the shot. But it is a great reveal when it starts sort of coughing dialects up at sort of massive rates. It is pretty amazing. What do you think of this cult of Skyro business? Oh, you know, like it's obviously something that he'll pick up later. And we have had Daleks with names before, remember? Way, way back in the beginning. We've also had cyberpersons with names, but it's from the TV21 dialect comics. They all had names in that because David Whittaker said they had to. Oh, I was thinking of the, again, sort of the evil of the Daleks where the human Daleks are called sort of alphabetia and gamma or whatever, and they have names and they play games and stuff. I think it's actually quite good for Russell to kind of add to the mythology, like to bring in something about the Daleks, that nerds who've been watching the show forever and ever didn't know yet. Again, at the time, I was there going, oh, I'm a big nerd from the show and we've never heard of this. What, this has never been any, anything, and at any time, this is just a magic McGuffin thing that you've pulled out of wherever, but I now totally agree. I think it's fantastic to add to the mythology and to expand it and things will come into play later on that we can't see. You know, Duoss was saying the same thing about Dav Ross's introduction in 75, 76. But how did you feel about Torchwood? Because I had exactly that same reaction. This is annoying. This doesn't fit, this can't be made to retrofit. Yeah, where were they in the 70s? were unit really so hapless. Really, that we didn't know. And if there were anti-doctor, why were they not active? Well, I mean, they're a secret organisation and they're pro British, so they would be hiding themselves from the UN. Yeah, so come on. All the stuff that was falling down through devil's armpit. Surely, where did that all end up? They're sneaking around the stink. Yes. They're actually different devils. They're the travellers. They're the gypsies in the caravans. They're biding their time, right? They're just gathering all of this stuff that this moment in time their moment has come and their doomsdays upon them. I guess, I mean, as one viewer, I have to say, put me off the concept of torchwood before I'd seen torchwood. Just didn't really fit for me. And you saw Torch to it. And that put you off the concept of torchwood. When are we doing that podcast now? We're doing it now. I love the fact that when the cyber leader is destroyed, we suddenly get a new cyber leader to download and the black handlebars on the cyberhead, which is just important, since I'm a classic Doctor 2 series fan and one must have that. I don't particularly like the end when they all get sucked back through into the void. So there's all these Daleks being sucked. So the cybermen go through the cracks that they arrived through. So they don't go through the void thing, I guess. I guess that's the reason. But there may be budgetary reasons about not having their CG Cyberman models bouncing off the walls. While they're in that room and they're hanging on to the magna clamps or whatever, and the Daleks sort of fly into the thing and they're bouncing off the walls. I'm kind of thinking, like, what if one of them hits, Billy? It didn't seem very dangerous. Not even a scuff mark on the plaster board afterwards. It's something that's never set well with me, the fact that the southern just sort of just go, we, and then they're gone, and then all the Daleks just go back through that particular point when they came out of the sphere. I don't know. It makes for spectacle and I guess that's what you want. You want something that you couldn't have seen before. So I guess it's okay, but it is slightly, it's slightly odd, I think. Well, I think if you had this album going through there, they'd be like rag dolls and it'd look really terrible. So all you can do is they go up and into their cracks. much easier to have lots of tiny little pepper pot shaped things. This before HD. They do have CG Cyberman, don't they? I mean, when the ghosts turn into Cyberman, they're initially CG Cyberman. Yeah, I think they only had 10 costumes for the shoot. So everything else you see in the street. It's like doubled. Yeah. They do a great job of that. Like they do an amazing job and that was always the thing with Doctor Who, you know, in terror of the Zygons, the doctor says to Broton, you know, isn't the planet a bit big for the 5 of you? You know, there's only ever, there's only ever a small number of aliens. And so the moment that we can have lots and lots of them. Russell says that he wanted to recreate those big epic dalek battles that we imagined or read in the comics and stuff and now he can finally do it. Thrill to witness Planet of the Daleks. as we shall soon. The other thing that perhaps doesn't sit particularly well with me in that scene, too, is is roses going to get sucked into that rift and then Pete just magically appears at the right moment in the right spot to catch her. And then he stands there for what seems like quite a bit of time without getting sucked in himself. I just kind of think, how did you know to go to that point? Is that stupid of me or? he's he's her dad. He's her dad, of course, he's gonna know how to rescue her. 30 seconds earlier. He's saying she's your daughter, not mine. Yeah, yeah. But so he has to rescue her to make up for that so that he does become her dad. Don't get me wrong. No, it's an absolutely brilliant moment because those camera angles when from her point of view, from the doctor's point of view, when they're looking at each other and they're screaming and the camera's moving apart, like their points of view are moving apart as she goes into the void. That's fantastic direction. And you actually think, 0 my goodness, she's actually going in there. How are they going to get out of this? And they've said that she's going to die, you know, over and over again. She said that she's going to die. How she's saying she's going to die? She's dead. Well, yes. She only means her future acting computer. And that's actually the saddest thing. The most poignant thing for me. And yes, I had a little weep. I hope you all did as well. Yeah, omen here in this room. There was. There were 2 points. Actually, the big one for me is the same with Todd when Camille and Sean had their moment together. I thought, oh, if anyone who's lost a parent for one for reason or another is going to really be feeling that because this is about finding safety in an island that has been transgressed both from within and without. Have we mentioned Brexit this episode? I don't think we're about to. I think we're about to. But there is, again, that the cause of what is, that Russell does so well is what is our main defence. And he does it in a really nice way. It is still the primary family unit that you'll get every crypto fascist in every neoliberal right wing government saying, you know we're fear for families first, but he says yes, many different shapes make up a family. Well, and it's a weird family. It's a family where the mother and father have both died at one point. It's a strange lash up of a family. Cross-pollinating Mirror Universe Star Trek mashup family, isn't it? So it's wrong and bad. And Mickey's part of that family as well. So it's a created family. I still feel badly for Mickey right at the end of this, the one I'm really, he is still the dog because, you know, he said, oh, you oh, another member of the family. Oh no, not me. Not me. And I thought, oh, oh, poor Mickey, he's still being sidelined. It was the big as if moment. That is actually, she pranks him twice in that heartfelt final... Working in the shop. I'm pregnant to Mickey. It was honestly like the future of Sophie Aldred's career, wasn't it? In a lovely upper middle glass shot, folding scarves, with clean teeth. So, Richard, you said that the Camille, Pete was one point that you cried. What was that the time? Got me. That just got me this time. And the other one was, again, it's Billy just managing to make it happen. Billy actually, no, it was standing on the beach waiting and then he appears and I thought, oh, no, I've never really cared for the doctor and rose coupling. It never really worked for me. It was always a little bit self-aggrandizing, if you like, or yeah it was exclusionist. Yeah, not just being exclusive. I was always Mickey in that relationship. I was, I was always there with an old thinking, actually, Noel's got, got the talent in this scene. I'm really paying more attention to him. But yeah, it did work because they're both very, very good. I'm just astonished at what a good director Graham Harper is. You don't tend to get those who can do terrific action and intimacy other than in really good cinema, which is why I mentioned Michael Powell last episode, who did Colonel Blimp Deborah Carr. We referenced Stark Materials, but does also reference the roles that Deborah Carr plays as the other women in Blimp's Light. Anyway, you can see little nods to that. When Russell writes these things, he always allows a little room for the quiet single fan person. I won't say the lonely fan, but there probably is a reason that we all obsess over a TV show. There might be something else missing from our lives as young people. Oh, I do firmly believe that. It's no bad thing that, you know, we use things like this to replace that which is missing from our lives as children and I might just be not having the kind of friends that we want or living in a quiet life or having parents that are at work. But this show has been there for so many young people. And when it does an emotional scene like this, it's not about what we're watching, it's about us as Russell and Mickey wanting to be a part of something lovely and big and warm and safe, never quite being there. The doctor's alone in his little phone box, and so are we, and that's really why this works. And that's why I'm really grateful to Russell. And writers like him for understanding that small people, who are still inside all of us, need this connection to the bigger world and to find our own place in that world. Quite right too. I think she does say that, doesn't she? He says that. And she says that quite well. Looking at my notes here. When she says, I love you, which I found quite affecting. And he says quite right to a line that I never really, at the time liked, I kind of thought, because he's a narcissistic. It's a bit, it's been layout in Han. Yeah, it's not. It's yeah. But when he says that, and I suppose one last chance to say it Rose Tyler. And you don't get him saying, I love you. But he was going to. Yes, but I breathe a sigh of relief. Yeah, I think that might have been a little bit too much, but, I mean, it's definitely what he was going to say. I don't think that there's any question. Have we seen him actually cry before? Yeah Have we ever seen the doctor cry? I don't think pertly cries when he leaves Joe. No, Eccleston sheds a tear when Jabe is no, before that, when Jabe is consoling him about... Yeah, which I, again, at the time thought was absolutely incredible before she becomes a box of matches. Yes exactly. Oh, thank you, Richard. But that is so great because it's a scene which is super superhuman. There's that wonderful moment where not wooden at all. No, where Billy says, where Billy says she doesn't know what to say. Like, after all this time, there they are. They've got this limited time. What am I going to say? It's truthful, isn't it? It's really truthful. We would all be like that. There are jokes in the scene and all of that, but it is. Can you imagine what if Olivia Coleman had played the rose character through all of this and she'd stood there for 2 years we'd had Olivia Coleman instead of Billy Piper and she'd stood there and she said, I've got nothing to say. We can reference her Oscar speech. She would have found lost to say. And it all would have been on the cutting room floor. Such a shame he didn't put on his 3D glasses for that sake. would have added an extra level of gravitas to it. You've nailed something there too. And maybe that's where we come back to the safety of how we live is that there's always a wall. is always a shield. There's always a defence. So when he says quite right too. It's that very brittle, wildy and what Oscar Wilde uses it a lot in his plays as well to obviate true lachrymose emotionality, you know, to before it gets too sloppy. They'll they'll throw that in. Yeah, I'm really uncomfortable with that line. It is sort of defensive as if the doctor's aware that he's not meant to say that sort of thing. It allows me to go back to my old life. Yeah. So maybe that's okay. But certainly he doesn't build. He doesn't really learn, does he? We talked earlier in this episode about crying at companion departures and now Russell has written one that's deliberately intended to make you do that. And he's good at it. He really is. I mean, I don't think that anyone writing terminus thought that we would care that he was leaving. That was awful. God, you had to bring our owl. I'm just like, I'm still feeling I feel that ow. Yeah, she's going to stay with the lepers. Gee, that's going to end well isn't it? But here, you know, he, Russell, watched the show the same way that we did. And so he knew that that's what these scenes were for. Don't leave her on a Blake 7 set with a lot of lepers. That's not what you do. You leave it with family. You leave it with family. Yeah, better than how you found her. And that's why the I'm working in a shop joke works so well because if that had been true, that would have been absolutely shockingly terrible. And so she pranks him by saying, actually, that my time with you had no effect at all. And here I am working in a shop. And he falls for it. That's her bit of defence. He falls with it because he's a snob. So if he'd actually been completely heart engaged, he'd go, oh, but you know, you're so much more than that, but because he can't do that because he sees it as the same for things. So, therefore, he has to be dissembling at all. Patronising, that it's okay, instead of saying, as a normal person would or an engaged person. What the hell are you doing that for? You've got so much more you can do now. You weren't happy then? Why are you doing it to yourself now? A normal person who engaged emotional person would say that. We know the doctor has a narcissistic thread to him. Do you also think that he feels guilty because it's an accident that Rose ends up in the parallel universe, but it's not completely an accident because that's the doctor's plan. And when he tells, yes, he allowed that going, I'm closing the wall and I'm staying here. And he does it with no emotion at all. Like, he absolutely can't bring himself to address what he's... Shields, Simpson. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's actually just 13 millimetres of plasterboard, but you know, it's enough to keep Billy's teeth out. But what an affecting shot. Like when they are on both sides of the ball. Oh, it's absolutely brilliant. And the reason it's brilliant, and again, it's Russell taking a science fiction concept and making it comprehensible, they're just on 2 sides of a wall with no door between it, no way of interacting. And Rose senses when the doctor is on the other side of the wall. Like she reacts. She's up against the wall crying with her family behind her and the doctor goes up to the wall and listens and she reacts when he puts his ear to the wall. So she can sense he's there. And just having it 2 people on either side of a wall is perfect. That's what you need to see. That's how you tell that story visually. We don't have to worry about science fiction nonsense about parallel universes. We can see how completely separated they are from each other. I think it's absolutely extraordinary. And one of the most remarkable visual images of new who, I think ever. Just needs a crack in the wall. Yeah, that'll come. She'll be back. But the emotion of all of this throughout all these characters in this episode is what knits it all together. And even with Yvonne, you know, I did my duty for queen and country, her passionate and emotion overrides cyber control in that moment where she's up the top of the stairs as the cyberman and having that tear come out of the cyberman's tear hole. It's now officially known. Is that the weakest moment, though? No, I like it. I really didn't work for me then or now. It's boldlerized, to my sense. Also because the character herself. I know that we need to rescue the humanity in our human monsters and Russell's very good at doing that. But this is something new that we've never seen before with people if you're cybertized, you're well and truly cybertized, and this manages to give a bit of, there's something in the human that can fight that. I like that. I think you have to give her some more interesting ending than just have her sawn up and turned into a cyberman. Like, yes, she's a scary fascist imperialist, but there is that sympathy for the villain that I think the best Doctor Who often has. And so giving her some role in defending the earth even after the Cyberman thing. And of course, she gets to be called Tracy Ann Cyberman from now until forever, I think she's occasionally referred to herself that way on Twitter. So it's a sort of enduring image. And we said when we did Rise of the Cyberman that the one note that Russell said about how the Cyberman had to look was they had to have that teardrop hole because the whole point of the Cyberman is that they don't have emotions. And so it was showing on their face that, well, they kind of do. What about the shorter citizens that they put in the same size armour? They need to peek out as well. That's what they... Apparently that's what they were for back in too. So, yeah. I like to pay off with the doctor in the glasses. Like, with all the void stuff. I like the fact that he's seeing all that as part of the plot and it's a subtle thing that, you know, people go on about Russell, not uh, he just pulls elements out of nowhere to resolve things, but it's all, it's all in there, built up, worked in, and when it comes to the four, perhaps at the time when I was watching it, I was much more critical, but now I really, really like that. Well, it's another mystery, isn't it? It's like what's in the sphere. Like, why is he wearing these? And none of the other characters seem to comment on why he's doing it, and then it becomes clear why he is. And it is a marvellously sort of low tech kind of thing to do, but it pays into the sort of ultimate payoff. When Russell talks about writing this, He says that he had this one image, which was a room with the 2 levers in it that open and close, the weight of the parallel universe. And that was the 1st thing that he kind of thought of, a little bit like the end of time where he's got those 2 chambers that someone has to be in at all times. And that was going to be central to the way that that story played out. And I think that that is so simple and so well done. And you know, he makes up the rules about the void. You know, you get void stuff and it sucks you into the void for some reason and blah, blah, blah, whatever. But it doesn't matter, I think. I think it is a good resolution. I think it's always interesting to hear about how a writer, what sparks the whole story, just those images suddenly from that everything else hangs off that one set piece, which is really cool. I like that. Yeah. Well, you should mention Philip Pullman's his dark materials again. We did talk about this before, but the 2 leads, spoiler alert. find themselves separated in parallel universes, and they can no longer cut through from one universe to another because of the damage that it will cause. So it has, yes. So it has been completely lifted from that. But he was really pleased with that. And he said, I nixed stuff all the time. It's lovely that writers do that. Writers have always done that. Robert Holmes, you know? Yeah, yeah, you know, Shakespearean's. Didn't Philip Pullman write the forward to the writer's tale? Peter Russell and basically said, thanks horrific. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thieving, gypsy. Like, I was really flattered. But this is basically his stock materials. Like the basic concept of this story is that love story. So we also get the return of Drake in this episode and that is the moment where the doctor and Jackie are still upstairs with Yvonne and a whole bunch of Cyberman and the doctor says, you know, I prefer an emotion like hope. He says that before Jake arrives. So he's got a 6th sense that he's going to read the script. But I like the fact that they're tying all the parallels world stuff in from earlier in the season. It's great to see Jake back in that role. I love the fact that when they talk about who's the president, you know, a woman called Harriet Jones. Watch out for her. Yeah, I love that. I love that. But he does say something else, which is about the fact that it's been 3 years. Yeah. I'm not sure about that either. That is sort of very strange. So they sort of kidnap the doctor and take him to the parallel world where we see another version of Torchwood, which is all sort of broken down. And the parallel world is under threat from global warming, which is going to sort of mean that they have to close the breach. If there's a torchwood in the parallel world, then there is a doctor in the parallel world. Yes. How about that? Because the doctor prompted the creation of torchwood. And it was mentioned in Rise of the Cyberman at the party someone. I think Pete says to someone, how are things going on George World yeah. We talked about this in our tooth and claw episode, that Russell's original plan for the season was that Queen Victoria would die at the hands of the werewolf in episode 2, and that it would create the alternate universe which created the side man world. So it would have been the break, you know, the thing that broke the 2 universes off. I've never heard about this. I never heard about that point. Never heard about too complex. You probably tossed it. Oh, I think that's it. I think it is too complex and too science fiction-y, and I think you don't need to know that. literary. So again, it works in a book. Moffatt would do and alienate the entire... I don't necessarily think the entire audience. I don't necessarily think the doctor has to be in the parallel universe at all. I think that sometimes in the parallel universe, things something else has happened that has made that evolve. And, you know, because her husband knew about that this threat was there and they had the, what's the diamond, the Colonel? And so he may not have died back in whenever, he might have been travelling with her and there might have been able to defeat this thing and realising we need to stop these threats. So I'm going to create torture because we defeated this here. I think there are other explanations rather than the doctor is here. I'm not a big head cannon fan, but my head cannon about parallel universes generally is that adjacent parallel universes have similar content. And so when we go to a parallel of universe. There's always parallel versions of our characters doing the same thing. We still have Greg and Petra working at the Inferno project, even if it's a scientific labour camp in this reality. And the reason is that the universes are adjacent and distance between a parallel universe. There's no document is how different they are. There's no doctor in that universe. No. It's just a coincidence that it's the same parallel universe. Maybe it isn't because, you know, there's meant to be almost infinite ones depending on each small transgression of one truth to another. You can still read this parallel universe with the sidemen in it as one, which is a republic because the queen died in the late 19th century. And so what's happened? since, um, since episode six, Mickey and Jake have been, um, like they confine the cybermen to barracks, and then the sidemen all just vanish. And it takes them 3 years to come. But is it is it 3 years from their creation by Lumic? Like Lumic had already created them ages ago? It's unclear because, I mean, yes, you can read it that way and then, and then, you know, the timeline works. But they'd already taken a torchwood. They'd already initiated this plan before the doctor turns up and it starts... Yeah, and defeats them. I guess this was the 1st time watching it that I'd ever noticed that 3 years thing at all. I had a todd moment. I didn't remember it. I had my own moment when I was going, what? What? But that line doesn't work because they're saying it's taken them. They disappeared and it's been 3 years since they disappeared. Isn't that it? No, I think I think they say it's been a few months since they since they disappeared. Look, I mean, the whole thing, you know, like I ragged on Moffat in our girl in the fireplace episode for creating a world that only exists in order to make that particular plot possible. Here, I think all of the stuff about the void and the void rules and stuff. Russell definitely puts dialogue in to justify pretty much everything that's going on, but I don't think it holds up to very sort of serious screw. Scrutiny. So it still works as a TV show, so it still does its job. I've just realised the difference between Moffat and our Russell. It's the one writes for television and the other one writes in a literary manner. He writes for books. Or you could say for film, but actually, no, it's a literary mind. All the conceits and concepts that you get that have to be truncated into 45 minutes for Moffat stories, which is why the public gets annoyed. Actually, belong in something that needs a full day to sit and read if you're going to sit down properly. Have you read his novelisation of Day of the Doctor? Not as yet you like. incredibly good. I'm not surprised. He's a good writer's writer. Russell gets that he's writing for the medium of his 1st love which is soap opera. Yeah. And that's why he keeps a science fiction comprehensible and tries not to kind of make anything sort of too demanding. And I think that's okay because here, you know, parallel universes are not massively interesting, to be honest, except insofar as they give. The actors. Yeah, yeah. Give us a chance to see Zeppelins and Jackie being mean to the staff. But what is important is, of course, Billy's departure from the show. And so we have what we need in order to strand really in a parallel universe, I think, and that's the main thing. going on here. and quite right too. Should we talk about the final ending? With the cliffhanger? Oh, yes, I think we probably should. Yeah, no, no, we haven't done that. I'm still sitting here in all this tule and no one's mentioned me. That's right. So this was a massive surprise. Thank you what? I always dress like this on the occasion. You know that? Do you, Richard? It's a bit flouncy, isn't it? Just when you've been put through the emotional ringer. And you think it's all like it's like, okay, I just need a breather and take this all in. All of a sudden the doctor looks up from the console and there's Catherine Tank? There's a bride who's screaming and screeching at him. It's brilliant, isn't it? Because you've got to give Billy Piper a final ending, but you mustn't make anyone think that the show is over. That's the important thing. This is such a final episode. You have to show that there's some way forward to continue having Doctor Who after Billy Piper's gone. And if this does it so well, Catherine Tate is massive at this point, isn't she? Yes. So that's huge and she's very Catherine Tatey sort of straight away. We will later get to know what an incredibly subtle and gifted dramatic performer she is. She's really, really something. But here she's doing sort of screeching Catherine Tate stick. And I imagine that there were any number of very, very serious Doctor Who fans who thought that that was terrible. They're probably really angry and ready not to watch the next episode. I didn't know who she was, but it was like, 0 my goodness, what like, I've got to watch the next episode to see how has this event occurred. Yeah, and we do get Doctor Who will return at Christmas in the Runaway Bride. So we get the title and things in the closing credits. So it is it is pretty great. And I guess we'll... I think it says with the runaway bride, because they don't work like me and James. All right, we'll do our picks of the week. Who'd like to start off? Todd. Okay, I guess I'll start off. I'm going to pick the season 12 Blu-ray box set and you go and you watch the Doctor 2 Classic Revenge of the Cybermen when the Cybermen were really scary. I'm biting with armoured armadillos. That went all necky over Sarah Jane, yes. was scary. It was scary. only because of Liz's fantastic response of, oh mother. Pure panic, yeah. No, she was a bit like Graham Garden with, you know, like a little bowl, you know, like she's there making it kind of attack her neck because it's a sort of big puppet. And there's also the Tracy and Cyberman of the Vogans as well. Yes. Yes. Well, there aren't there aren't very many women in that story at all, are there? All that season?? No. Richard? Oh, well, again, I've cited him last time, but I like Michael Powell, and if I was going to look at something that reminds me of Graham Harper's direction, but gets people. I can't go further than Deborah Carr and Roger Live Z and um, oh gosh, who was Anton Walbrook? I had to look it up And it's actually a lovely film made in the middle of the wall, Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, and it has Deborah Carr playing 3 different female characters, kind of like kind hearts and coronets, but not tin drag. And it's lovely. Michael Powell made Peeping Tom. He's a really expressionistic out there director, but it just has moments of this. There's the military feel or the sidemen thing, and then there's that really emotional sense of, I'm definitely sure that this is one of the predicates for this for this story. And, you know, and British film is worth looking at. And it also had cost the equivalent of £2000000, which was a lot in 1943. So it's lovely to look at. And it's Deborah Carr. Dip a car. And we own her because she's in Casino Royale. James. Look, I'd hate to break with tradition. I tend to recommend big Finnish stories because unlike some of the people in this room, I actually quite enjoy them. I love them, yeah. But big finish have got Tracy and Openman back for a number of audio. That's not fair. But they got her back for 2 sort of miniseries. One's called Before the Fall. and like they're called Tortured One before the fall. And they bring back Yanto, pre-torchwood, um, and... Do they bring back his cyber girlfriend? No. Oh, the shame. That's a continuity problem. Yeah. Well maybe they do. I'm not going to spoil that. And do they bring back one after the fall? And the next one is called machines. and is take on the war machines. Wow. So they bring them back in the 21st century. Really? Do they go, Yvonne Hartmann is required? Yes. Now I need to bloody go and listen to them. Don't redesign them to look like the cleaners. Oh, this gets better and better. Highly recommended. This is highly recommended. Actually, no, I actually would go and listen to that. But no, she's great in them. They've also done a couple of single episodes, ones where she's popped up and she just, she's fantastic. It makes you wish they'd actually maybe made a series based on Tortured one instead of Tortured three. So Nathan, what's your pick of the week? So I'm going to pick something that I've picked before. Friend of the podcast, Johnny Spandrel, has been doing a blog at randomhunus.com, and he has been watching Doctor Who stories in random order. So that's the opposite of what we do. And he's been finding something completely new to say about each story as he does it, which is also really the complete opposite of what we do. And he is a very clever writer. I'm constantly impressed by just new things that I've never thought of when I read his essays. They're really fun and he's very, very close to the end. He's been doing it for a while. He's about to run out of Doctor Who stories. And so I recommend everyone to check that out. That's at randomhunus.com. Well, dear listener, that's all we have time for this week. It will give you a week to recover from all the emotional turmoil and we'll be back after that for our Series 2 retrospective. In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts and you can keep up with us at FlightthroughEntirety.com, flight through entirety on Facebook and at FTE podcast on Twitter. You can also find our series 11 flashcast, Jody IntoTara, at JodyintoTara.com, and at Jody InterTara on Twitter, and our James Bond Commentary podcast, Bondfinger at Bondfinger.com, at Bondfinger on Facebook, and at Bondfingercast on Twitter. Until next time, remember that it's been an emotional week for all of us. So make sure that you take good care of yourself. Have a bath or a massage or do a season 20 marathon. You deserve it. Thank you very much for listening and good night. Good night. See you soon. Good then. That was Flight through Entirety, starring Todd, but it'll be Nathan, probably James Selwood and Richard Stone. Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, Strings performance by Jane Orberg. This episode, that which is missing, was recorded on the 28th of April 2019 and released on the 9th of June. We would like to apologise for this week's single fleeting reference to Brexit. We know you love to tune in to our hot political takes, and we promise to make up for it next week with a hilariously prolonged bit about the size of Donald Trump's hands. You can also find our series 11 flashcast Jody IntoTera at Jody IntoTera.com and at Jody Into... Me. You can also find our series 11 flashcast, Jody into Tara at Jody into Tara.com and at Jody into Tara. This is the tag. This is the Turk.. I just cut out the recording from last week and drop it in. Like, good. You can also find out.