Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight or Entirety, the
only Doctor Who podcast full of salty fats and vintage wines and
all those Michelin star sauces.
We're delicious.
I'm Nathan.
I'm James.
I'm Todd, and I'm an NHS slightly see-through oversized brine
nylon 90 for this one.
Of course you are.
Well, the show ended its two-year run mere months ago, and so all
of Britain is tuning in this week to find out whether it's even
possible to conceive of a Doctor Who, after the shock departure of
Camille Kaduri.
Can anything ever be the same again after the 1st meeting of Smith
and Joan?
Yeah.
What could happen on an average beautiful day?
You never know.
Summer breaks seasonal changes.
It's hotcore, brother.
On a beautiful...
Turn out of 10 for teeth.
Excellent teeth on the new gill.
Very good.
So, I mean, we open, don't we?
Let's do this.
Doing a street scene again.
Yeah, yeah.
And last week.
Well, not last week.
Last Christmas, we restarted the show with that opening shot of
the moon heading down to Earth and then Donna's wedding, and I
guess that was a way of saying, well, the show is restarting, but
we've sort of found a way to do it.
Here we don't have an opening thing.
We go straight into the...
Yeah, yeah.
And then we see Martha.
And I guess she's introduced to us very economically.
It's a pretty good scene.
It's a very now television scene, like having the mobile phone and
cutting between all of her family and introducing.
Could you imagine?
Back in 1980 with Tegan, having a phone going off in the house, and
then she's talking to her grandfather, and then Auntie Vanessa has
a phone in the car or some big, huge gadget thing, and then
she...
Colin Fraser.
She speaks to Colin. you know, and then they have to, they go down
the freeway and then they find a police box and they talk to
that.
Could you imagine that?
That's a great way to introduce all the family and selling
regulars.
And then her aunt gets horribly mad.
In 25 minutes.
But here it's all done in like 2 minutes.
And it's very clear that what Martha's job is in the family is to
kind of smooth things over.
Like Tish calls to kind of get her to persuade her father not to
bring Annalise, who is one of the great characters of the RTD.
He names these creatures, doesn't it?
Well, we had Naris last time, who I just think he's spectacular.
I was about to say, like, you know, he's trying, like, for 3
episodes in a row, we had the wonderful Jackie, and then it's like
we don't have Jackie anymore, so now we've got Neres, and now
we've got Annelise.
I mean, she never appears ever again.
But, you know, that joke at the end of the episode.
It's just, I just burst out laughing where Martha's mum says, you
stole my husband.
He seduced me.
And it's just like, he really, did he?
Like, 0 my god.
So we've got some people who've gone on to doing incredibly well
as well.
Like all of these people, like Joe Ando has been in a bunch of
things.
Russell's used her again.
She's got a big career.
Goo Goo Mabatha Raw is in everything these days, including the
sort of spectacular San Junipero from Black Mirror, and then
Reggie Yates, who was apparently famous, but we didn't know about
him then.
That's her brother Leo.
Yeah, yeah.
And so Leo comes back, but not quite as often as Russell had
originally hoped, I think.
But Tish will be following Tish's career.
She has a very eventful week.
Yeah, and again, he's done the same thing with Rose, hasn't he?
No pre-title sequence.
I was trying to think, why is this like Rose's introduction?
Oh, yeah, because...
This is the new girl.
Front and centre. and this is her family and she's here to stay.
I really meant what I said in the opening.
It was really hard to imagine what Doctor Who could do without the
Powell estate without Mickey and Jackie and Rose, who had been so
important to the show.
And then, you know, you can't do the same thing again.
Russell has to choose to do something different.
And the shocking difference, I think, with the family is that
they're...
I was going to say, because Rose isn't upper middle class.
No, more working class.
Yeah, and here we've got an actress of colour cast in the role.
And so the whole supporting cast, obviously, is.
And it's well overdue in Doctor Who.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, yes, it's not like they had to powder up Louise Jameson.
But that is actually sort of a huge, a huge thing, isn't it?
Suddenly you've got this massive cast of black actors, it has semi
regulars, and I think it's a fantastic thing, and I think also
it's meant to kind of sweeten the pill of having an upper middle
class family who would otherwise be inclined to dislike.
So looking forward to Sophie Aldred's comments on the sofa when
this is re-released.
That's it.
They're not as posh as I was when I was on the show, you know.
Well, no one was.
And and of course, she's because she's sort of older.
She's not being rescued from something so much.
Yes, that nice thing that we get now in the 21st century, all we
were supposed to get it with Liz Sladden.
It kind of is actually a bit like Sarah James' 1st story, where
she's very much part of the narrative and pushing it along and
solving problems along, Geroff, murder, cup of day, that sort of
upper middle-class behaviour.
Yeah, very much so.
In fact, there was quite a few little parallels to the time
warrior.
So she kind of has to prove herself to the doctor in this.
And, you know, the doctor starts to like her, I think, when they
sort of 1st meet in the hospital, but he's sort of peripheral to
the story for quite a long time, I think.
It does spend a lot of time establishing her.
There are a number of moments where she actually drives the plot
more than he does as well, where she basically, like, starts
trying to solve the problem even before he said anything.
When they're on the balcony, she starts working out the problem.
She shows herself to be an intelligent and capable character quite
quickly.
Yeah, I like how, and you're quite right, James.
I just like the way in which she's presented with different
problems and she takes a moment to process it and then work out
what she's going to do and deal with whatever she's thrown up
against, you know?
And there was a strength in her.
I think there's just this strength.
The fact that she's slightly older than Rose.
She's obviously the older sibling, the other 2 are younger, and in
that opening scene, you know, it's obvious the parents' marriage
has broken down.
And there's a real strength in Framer's performance that you can
see the parallels with her mother.
But she's also got aspects of her father, who's quite comedy.
She actually has some nice little asides and one liners.
It's actually a really beautiful nuanced performance by Freeman.
Now, I just want to say this to the listeners, and you might have
gathered that previously I dismissed famous performances, Martha
has been okay.
I've talked about Martha's blank face, where I have spoken to
Brendan about this, where I felt that she wasn't get the motive.
Well, I'm wrong.
And she is just, I just, I'm just, my, my opinion has completely
changed.
Interesting.
So is mine, but to back to where you were in the beginning.
Because there's more than one slab on set.
Wow.
No, no, she's lovely and warm and charming, but as our friend
Kevin Johnson, who taught it Nyder for, I think, a half a century
almost, you know, they're C class actors.
Oh, that's a bit harsh, isn't it?
It's a term they use, which means that lots of warm plots of charm
but it's not getting over.
I'm seeing a person reading a lovely person reading lines.
I'm not getting involved in a character.
See, I mean, I think that, you know, the character as written is a
little bit less.
Well, we've had more time with Rose, I guess.
But, you know, that sort of slight, you know, we were constantly
sort of cross-it rows for being sort of selfish and thoughtless
and things and that wasn't all she was.
But in a way, Freema's character is kind of designed to be the
perfect companion.
And, um, you know, she's smart and resourceful and thoughtful and
caring and selfless.
And she's willing to put up with a whole heap of stuff to go
through a lot of stuff to help people.
And so maybe that character isn't quite as complex.
But I've seen actors do a lot more with a lot less.
No, I just think it's about performance and you know, and just the
way to get your character.
It's almost alchemy, the way it works on camera.
And it's different from theatres.
She might actually be okay in theatre.
And she's also an angournue and all the rest of it.
But the great warmth, great charm, and you can see just what
magnetism she has in interviews and her enthusiasm.
And all of that is there, but there is the quintessential. there
is that 5th element that an actor needs to get that across.
And we still haven't actually been able to isolate what that is.
And you don't always know it.
In fact, it doesn't, the camera is a filter.
Sometimes it allows and it magnifies and sometimes it actually
just shuts off.
So the warmth of a person doesn't come through.
But anyway, that's kind of what I'm getting from this episode.
And that's a disappointment for me because it is a strong light
story and Russell shows that you can have a Buckminster full of
geodesic dome of great volume and surface area, but very lightness
very much lightness of structure.
I think that is something that I'm sort of keen to talk about
because the actual plot, yes.
I think we should be talking about moon architecture, considering
the time of year that this is.
The plot is very, very straightforward.
And I think it works incredibly well.
We haven't yet really properly established a pattern where the 1st
episode is kind of light and maybe a bit comedic.
I maybe, I guess, with the 3rd season, that's when the pattern is
sort of finally established.
But the fact that the initial problem is that rain is falling
upwards is so easily comprehensible.
It's not that the doctors, you know, getting emissions well into
the E-band or something.
Do you know what I mean?
It's the rains falling up.
And I really think that that's, you know, something that Russell
does really well, something that we haven't ever thought of before
and that is super obvious.
And, you know, the technobabble used to justify the HTO scoop is
pretty rudimentary. but it makes for a great image I think.
I like it as a condensatory heat runoff from all that energy thing
thing.
We're 7 days off the moon landing after the 50th anniversary.
That's what I mentioned, that's when we're recording.
So there'll be lots of fascinating facts.
Todd.
That's your trip.
I think this is the most confident.
Opener to date.
And I love that brain falling up and actually having the whole
hospital taken up to the moon.
It's just something that I never would have thought of.
No, and it just works so well.
I just think this whole story is so confident.
And I'm going to disagree with Man City next to me, Richard.
I, you know, Rich and I did not like Martha that much, but I just
changed my mind completely.
I just think she's fantastic in this entire story.
I really think she's got the it factor.
And I think it's really hard to follow up, Rose, and I'm glad that
we had a brake last week.
The doctors managed to get to a point where he can accept roses
gone, which is so vital.
You could not have had this companion in the Christmas special, you
needed that stock gap.
And I just believe that throughout this entire episode she just
shines.
I have only watched this far.
I haven't watched any further into series 3 yet.
I mean, I've watched it before, but I'm really looking forward to
seeing how I respond to Freeman's performance.
The hardest thing is that she's following up from Billy Piper in 2
years of what she's delivered and the fact that she's not, she's
the not rows, basically.
And I think that's a real noose around her neck.
And during this episode, of course, the doctor kisses her, for
genetic transference and a plug device.
Um, and when she, you know, this man's walked into her life, this
all this stuff's happening, he owns he spits.
Do you know what I think the kiss is?
It's a rehash of the conversation that we had in our episode at
the end of series one where Rose and the doctor have a kiss and
some of us wanted to insist that it was a science fiction kiss and
some of us wanted to say that it was a kiss.
And here the doctor is the person who says, no, this is just a
science fiction case.
And Martha, for Martha, is a kiss, you know, like she reacts to
it.
And perhaps for me, that's the part of the episode that I don't
like so much, is that, you know, she's immediately kind of won
over by the doctor's invincible charms, one kiss and, you know
she's sort of suddenly in love with him.
And there's a scene, she does a face in the final scene in the
Tartars, where she says, no, look, I'm not interested in you at
all, and then sort of turns slightly to Cameron, pulls a face to
make it clear to us, but in fact, she is.
And, you know, like, I think that's okay.
But I do think that it all happens rather suddenly.
Oh, look, I would agree with you, and it's, it's really a hard
thing to judge at this point.
Yahoo fans only know of pros being in love with the doctor.
And so does it make sense to go there again, as classic fans, we're
used to not having people in love with the doctor.
Do we just ignore the fact that people could fall in love with him
that quickly?
It's a road that they're taking.
Is it a noose around this character's neck?
And we'll see that throughout the season.
We'll explore that.
Because certainly the following year we react against that
immediately, don't we?
With the, you know, the I don't want to mate conversation that
Donna and the doctor have in partners in crime, Russell very
definitely kind of takes on board the criticism or sees what the
being in love plot does to Martha as a character.
And I think it plays out well.
We've talked about who gets the best ending of any companion in
New Who.
And I reckon Martha's very much up there and it pays off the being
in love with the doctor all the way through.
I would agree with you, Nathan.
I think it pays off at the end, but the path along the way is
pretty treacherous and quite arduous at times where you kind of
think, just drop this, you know?
I guess we're not up to that yet.
So from looking at the character of Martha in this one.
I can see how the writing would, you can, you can kind of see
where, where he's going with it, and it's, and it's a bit bronte
isk, isn't it?
There's definitely a setup for a fall already because innocence
and capability will never go unpunished.
Russell's talk to.
And I wouldn't have cast, I think, any other type of actor.
I think that she's, yes, the persona is there.
And hopefully that will warm up and there'll be a bit more of the
Tara King confidence building as the season goes on.
I believe there was.
But where we are with this one.
There's a lot of flashes and distractions and a really able senior
supporting cast.
And you've got, um, Anne and Richard, and who else do we have?
Oh, and Francine.
And that's a cruel twist of lime, and that's all you get.
Well, I mean, I wanted the full gin bottle, but I only got it.
A little taste.
It's a senior cast, most of whom have been in Doctor Who before.
So Francine's been in Doctor Who before.
Obviously, she was one of the cats.
Sister Jack.
Hasn't changed much.
No, I actually really, I really like her, and the reason is that
Jackie was such a superb effortless comic character.
We adored her at the end of those, um, to years.
Absolutely, you know, I've said before, that I was much more upset
about Camille's departure from the shows than I was about
Billy's.
But so we get Francine and Francine instantly repels any attempt
on our part to like her.
She's brittle.
She's super no nonsense.
Um, you know, we immediately see her in conflict, like Martha has
to kind of smooth things over so that Francine doesn't get angry
at uh, at the party.
Have you never cohabited with a cat?
back in the recording studio.
So I think she's wonderful.
I can't wait.
Powerful, isn't it?
She's on the screen for nothing and that's what I remember.
And she's kind of outshining people, I think I said Richard before
but Roy Marsden and Anne Reed as Florence Finnegan and Mr. Stoker.
I said that carefully. is I just, they really are propelling this
thing along every time they're on screen, you think, this is, this
is fantastic.
I just wish the poet weeds or the older Doctor Who's had had
characters that were allowed to play up the comedy.
Because I haven't really had a pair like this since Fury from the
D. He is really spectacular, I think.
And he kind of underplays like the way he plays being stranded on
the moon, you know, looking out and seeing Florida and saying, I'm
never going to see my daughter again.
And it's not like he doesn't overplay that.
It's he's very restrained.
Very believable.
He's wonderful.
I'm taking the medical students through and making fun of all of
their terrible answers to his questions.
I can't believe that he hasn't been Doctor Who before.
Has he?
He was in a big finish earlier that year.
Oh, okay.
He reminded me of who's the fellow with that incredibly fruity
voice in the space pirate, the one that Brendan made terrible fun
of?
He's just got such a rich kind of BBC voice.
He's wonderful.
And then, of course, we have Anne Reid, who was Nurse Crane in
Curse of Fenrik with the accent, and who we've recently seen in
years and years, and she's spectacular in that.
Yeah, Russell's had her back.
And I think, you know, he really wanted to get her for this role
and she's just so great.
She's so good.
Like, she just manages a menace with the humour.
It's just a lovely layered performance.
Like when she talks about, what does she, who does she eat?
She eats the child princess of...
Just keep bursting out of my little straw.
And then burn in hell.
She's so funny and that's such a Russell thing, you know, no, it's
not, you know, the president of the planet Zog or anything like
that.
It's a little princess that she's killed in a little dress.
Football Magnus Brewer.
Oh, dear, and the straw is a ludicrous Bendy straw. not a science
fiction straw.
It doesn't have any lights or anything on it.
It's ridiculous.
It's just wonderful.
And she's got her slabs with her.
It's the line from Barbarella, isn't it?
They are leather men.
They have no actual substance.
So they're completely made of leather.
Yes, yes.
It is from rubber.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, from the planet Zavyrax.
That's brilliant.
Yeah, he does great terrific.
If the listener doesn't remember, they used those ads in the 90s
had a some bloke with a cycle helmet on because he didn't want to
show off his massive herpes.
He's a not a boy.
It's a very Russell joke.
Yeah, we had them out in Australia as well.
Back in the old days when the only pop culture references were, you
know, a flying saucer with Batman at the controls, which is just
utterly baffling and incomprehensible.
That's John Pertley, I think, in his 1st season.
So, you know, referencing a cold sore cream. is really quite a new
departure.
And they get destroyed by radiation.
Well, yeah, they get destroyed by sort of whatever's right, anti
science science. 5000 rats, please.
When the doctor gets to get it out of his foot or shoe or whatever
it is.
It's a terrible scene.
I hate that scene.
In fact, can we?
Also, he has horrid feet.
Oh, pleasant horsute, boony toes. really not what you want to see
on.
Have we seen the doctor there for on TV?
Oh, we've seen Perts.
Bert's back crack, just a little semblance. speaking of intimate
parts of the doctor.
I'm going to have to go back and have a look at David Tim.
It was really horrid.
Brace yourself.
Okay.
I hate that scene.
That's a moment where I find tenants performance just completely
embarrassing.
And I have to say that there are.
He's not comfortable.
No.
And I have to say there are a few other. scenes like that.
You know the scene where he is, for some reason, using his sonic
screwdriver on the monitor of the screen in order to get something
out of a database?
to get the patient records, which why?
It's not a Mac?
And he has just the worst hair.
Like he's been running his hands through his hair and his hairs
all over the place and he just looks stupid, I think, in that
scene.
Now we get the introduction of an iconic monster.
Francine, yeah, we'll...
And I've documented this in our podcast that I that I have not
liked her at all.
Like, I hate her.
Who want to?
There's so many choices.
Oh, how can you not like fancy?
I haven't had a cat.
Nathan and I had a big discussion about this.
And so at this point in time, watching just this episode, she's
obviously a damaged woman.
She had to be strong for her family.
Yeah, right?
Um, and so, It's a really good performance, and I want to say this
she's a tremendous actress.
Yeah, yeah, she's really something.
But though I may not, I don't dislike the character at this
point.
Yeah, okay.
But I think you're meant to dislike that.
I think Russell wants that.
Yeah, he's doing something different.
We loved Jackie.
She was immediately hilarious.
She's the funniest thing in that 1st episode.
And so now he's just getting us by bringing in some brisk and
unlikeable.
The comedy elements are being transferred to her husband.
Yeah. and Annalise, but of course they don't appear ever again
except at the end.
I don't know.
I would like to come in as a marginalia in praise of St.
Francine.
Because I would, no, seriously, I do think she is the woman who
held the family together and has been tossed over for a younger
one.
I'm completely with her.
No, no, no, I agree with you.
This is what I'm getting out of here.
She's she's had to be the rock of the family and her husband has
not been a great husband.
He's a wonderful father, but he's a terrible father. a bit of a
dope too.
Yeah, it's pretty obvious that the intelligence comes from
Francine.
It's true.
Martha is the oldest sibling, is the one that's had to support her
mother and look after young. and be the alpha in the family.
And that's where she's this linchpin of the family.
It's absolutely a beautifully constructed scenario that we're
going to explore.
I'm totally on board and at the time I wasn't, but I am now.
And I think that that's what the doctor is rescuing her from at
the end, you know, the doctor was rescuing Rose from sort of life
in a shop.
Whereas here I think she gets into the Tartars because her family
are having just this sort of massive public fight in the street
and he offers her a way of escaping it.
See, I think I prefer her father in leathers and mind warp.
His acting has an impact.
He's in mind warp.
I rubbished him now.
Which one is he's in one of the guards?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's the one who says the rock was proud of his upgrading.
When I recently watched this, I really enjoyed Goo Goo's
performance more than Freeman's.
Isn't she shining in this?
She really does, doesn't she?
But frame has leaped ahead of her this time round.
Her performance is much more.
She the younger, the younger sibling.
It's much more a rose type of character, and I see that now for
what that is.
I mean, I like her.
But I don't know, I just want to do this with different eyes.
It's just, Nathan, you're smiling.
No, no, no.
And it's because I'm just finding so much more in this from
Freeman.
I just blown away.
It's mostly because I can't think of an example where you've
rewatched something and then reevaluate.
That actually never happened.
Yes.
Richard, Nathan, listeners, that never happens.
Yes, same chicken smile.
Let's go on to the big monsters for this episode.
John Coleman's not in this.
She's not.
She's coming soon.
Common Bill will be able to comic on.
I'm sure he will.
Did you do?
A platoon.
Yeah, he's got his assonance generator out and running, hasn't
he?
I actually like that line.
It's so random. doesn't mean anything.
You know why that light is in there?
It's because the double-O-N sound is really difficult for a
Scottish person to say in an English accent.
He's been running around with David. trying to stop him saying
platoon.
Like, no, it was deliberate.
It was deliberately done to... don't want to say that word.
That is hilarious.
No, you're right, because I've heard Tenant on his podcast talking
about this exact thing with the double O sound with other
hackators.
Well, it works for the doctor because, you know, he's super, yeah
he's super verbal, you know, like that's, we'll see that in me.
Gum up, doesn't he?
Yeah, yeah, ever.
And so having him having him just play with words and the sounds
of words, I think works really well.
It's a fun line.
What do we think of the monsters themselves?
Okay.
Here I go.
That's own Reed, isn't it?
Absolute fine.
I was really upset the 1st time I watched Clip.
Oh wow.
Oh, because you do.
I was really upset because I felt that they were looking off
there's some tyrants from the classic who.
They did feel like that. were sort of in leathers and I thought
well, if the Satarians ever come back, what are they going to do
with them?
nowhere to go.
Yeah.
Of course, now I'm over that.
They're fantastic.
The whole design, that whole rhino head.
I think is brilliant.
So we only get to see one big rhino head, don't we?
The rest of them keep their hats on.
There's a lot of them and they look fantastic.
They're all very sort of fetishware, aren't they?
So I really know where Russell spent his early 90s.
I think I prefer them with the Mohawk.
Yeah, so they're coming.
Can't wait. coming back.
Yeah.
And they came back for Sarah Jane Adventures.
Well, they did too, didn't they?
Yes, yes.
A good episode where one was a, he was a sort of cop, um, and they
sort of played upon the sort of police thing of the jedune.
But I love the whole, I love their spaceships.
They look fantastic.
I love the fact that they scooped the hospital up onto the moon
which is just a wonderful concept.
And then to assimilate the language to go through that whole
little process of actually getting somebody to talk Earth English
and put it into their translator.
It's like nothing.
Right, I just don't have an imagination.
I just love the way Russell thinks about these things.
Yeah, it's all something that we haven't seen before
interdimensional magic marker.
Yes, I love that.
And again, if you're going to do that.
You know, like it's it's such a good...
It's so good.
It's so simple, you know, like it's not a space.
Well, it is a space marker, isn't it?
A space sharpie.
But so you get across on your hand.
I think that's what's so wonderful about Russell's writing is he
takes something so simple and just goes with it and makes it a
science fiction thing without having to be some some convoluted
process.
And it's the thing that solves the episode.
Like we reveal and read for who she is. by Freema grabbing the
magic marker off one of the Jadoon and pointing it at Anne Reid.
So it's definitely there. and very well established.
So the whole thing sort of fits together really well.
I love their language.
Yes, it's almost as if it's post-Slavic, isn't it?
It's very eastern block.
Well we really know where Russell's coming with this, don't we?
Once again, he's metering the entire discourse of our planet, at
least as far as reportage goes, and this is just a comment, around
2006, 2007, the cognitive dissonance of there was no moon
landing.
Yeah, yeah.
And that we're now at the 50th moonlighting.
I had 3 people, just the week of the moon landing last week, say
oh, you know it didn't happen.
It was on TV.
I was a chemical engineer, whose father was a senior general in
Afghanistan.
So she's, but she's a chemical engineer.
Another one is an architect I worked with.
Another one was a bloke in the queue in high views at the post
office, but they all said to me, you know, there was no moon
landing.
I said, you know, I ended up saying, I'm so sorry.
And then I got this kind of, you know, quizzical and
confrontational.
What do you mean?
I said, well, I'm so sorry that, that's how you have chosen to see
450,000 people's work, including folk I've actually shaken hands
with in Australia, who are at, you know, who are on Canberra, who
recorded the 1st things.
But Russell again talks about he, he, his horror of where we are
with his lightness of touch and like the cognitive dissonance that
we are being told not to believe what's in front of our bloody
eyes.
So at the end of the hospital, oh no, there's that great line.
And of course, it's Annalise who gets to spiel.
Oh, Facebook bullshit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, but it didn't happen, you know, and Martha's being called a
liar, of course.
And he goes back to that well in years and years because of course
one of the features of the current world is, you know, people just
choosing not to believe that the world is round.
We've actually got that happening now.
And I know it's my usual shtick of Todd, I know it's my usual
stick of, oh, you're you're mattering everything and you're going
too far.
But I'm not because it's being proven.
This is how Russell thinks in years and years is the evidence.
He was always thinking like this.
When I be doing the Years and Years podcast.
I think doing it now.
Um, I'm Tish.
I hadn't really...
I hadn't thought along those lines at all but I think that's
absolutely right.
And the show, because during this era of the show rightly wants to
make alien invasions into a big public spectacle, but it still
wants to be said in our world.
And they made fun of that, obviously, last episode with Donna, you
know, scuba diving during various alien invasions and missing out
on them.
So she gets to be someone who's sceptical about aliens because she
was hung over or underwater or something when they all happened
and somehow she's missed out, anyone filling her in on what
happened while she was down there.
And the show has sort of played with that a little bit.
I mean, even when the spaceship sort of crashes into Big Ben, by
the end of the episode, there are, you know, headlines in the
evening standards saying that it was all a hoax.
And so there is that kind of narrative level of it.
But there is that thing that he wants to say, is that we are
really good at justifying choosing not to believe in things that
kind of we don't want to believe in.
Martha is a Bridgepoint for the viewer and for us sitting watching
it and that she is an ordinary person, very capable and higher IQ
ordinary person, sure, but really just an ordinary person who's
worked jolly hard.
And with EQ and IQ and he's able to see clearly and call out the
nonsense.
And that's how it cypher enrol in this is to say, you're all
bloody misleading yourselves.
And that's the lovely thing.
I think that's why she's fallen for the doctor because she's a
she's she's actually quite a Homeric character, isn't she?
She's constantly in search of the truth.
And if David's doctor is her golden fleece.
That's why she's fallen for him because he is the final
destination of truth.
Well, they're both doctors.
So they're both, you know, they're both going.
That should be illegal, really.
Yeah.
And that's why she's so good.
And she's been touched by all of this because her cousin...
Stop it, man.
Just stop he's nudging me.
That stays in.
Heaven help me.
Please save me now.
Um, like her cousin was at Canary Wharf and never returned.
And so she's been touched by this.
Just played by the same accent.
Totally a thing.
Yeah.
Probably.
Well, that's all right.
We're okay with, you know, Ian Martin turning up 2 years later, or
let's face it, Colin Baker turning up a year later in the title
role of the show.
Maybe her father wasn't... infidelity...
Yeah, having a fur with Francine's sister or something.
Oh, we didn't Twitter.
Why didn't they explore that more during this season?
Back to the Jadoon.
I like the fact that the doctor describes them as like space cops
or whatever, and then they go, that poor man that assaults them
he's just executed.
Yeah, yeah.
So that you get the sense that they are pretty harsh in their
judgement.
Give them a bit more menace.
I thought it was for your benefit because...
Yeah, yeah, because you get rather sort of weary if there aren't
enough deaths in Doctor Who.
And so we have 2 here.
We have Mr. Stoker, and we have the person who hits the Jadoon
with a vase.
And it also gives us a chance to do another sort of another new
effect for people being destroyed.
Because one of the things that the design always does in this era
is completely new spaceships, like you talked about before, Todd.
Yeah, yeah, each spaceship that we've seen has looked really
different and isn't just the sort of standard detergent bottle
with a few things stuck on that we got in the Hingecliffe era for
spaceships.
You know the most exciting thing.
For me, I really wish we had got a plastic washing up bottle.
You know who the directory is, Charles Palmer.
And you did a whole few of this season. you know, cooking in
Shakespeare code. and I'll go on to why I think this is all about
cognitive dissonance because the next story is about how
Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare.
This whole season's about that.
But jumping back, Charles Palmer's dad is Jeffrey Palmer.
Yes, yes.
That's very owned Jeffrey Palmer.
The only one who's married to Penelope Keith and everything.
But he, of course, appears in what colony in space.
So, isn't he?
isn't he?
Yes, he's inside your...
Yeah, and later on he'll come back to be on the Titanic with
Kylie.
He will.
Well, we weren't going ahead of ourselves there.
Back to...
Oh my god, I can't say.
But did you say to this gorgeous shark?
Don't do that No, I can't.
Don't do the accent.
Back to the space rhinos.
I love their compensation thing with Martha as well.
That bit of comedy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like it's just... tickles my fancy.
They are really good. and they're not villains.
Like, we've got a proper villain who, again, is a comedy villain
in Anne Reid.
So these are just sort of aliens.
And I think that they are sort of different enough from the
Santarians in the fact that, you know, their whole sort of concept
is kind of different.
And we bring this on tyrants back, perhaps not particularly
successfully, in the future.
Um, but, you know, until you get tracks.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's when they kind of do it right.
But they have to do it by kind of undoing this on torrance a
little bit.
I don't think we can ever use them again, for instance.
An appreciation, audience figure of 88.
I think I've got 8.700000 in the UK.
It was ninth.
Not really the expert on this.
I'm just a fanboy.
So it's in the back of my head somewhere.
8.71 million.
Oh, there you go.
Thank you, James.
Let's see. most popular broadcast on television that week.
Ah, top 10 episodes.
Yeah.
It did better in terms of the chart than Runaway Bride.
Right.
Really?
Yeah.
Well, because Runaway brides at Christmas and has about 15
episodes of EastEnders to come in behind, probably.
Okay, yes.
Yeah.
I like the fact that the Sonic screwdriver gets destroyed and
then...
Nathan did too, because he was hoping for a terrelep.
Then I should rephrase that.
It does cheapen the fact that it gets destroyed back in the Dark
Ages of the Davis and era. like you can just replace it like
that.
But it's nice to have it not there, so they actually have to find
a different way to stop things, i.e. pulling out the cord from the
yeah, unplugging it.
And...
Which I just think it's just so clever and obvious that it's never
really been...
I actually really like how Martha's leafing through the
instruction manual on the MRI thing to find out what button to
press as well.
Like, you know, it's sort of comedy and silly, but it also is
character stuff about how incredibly competent she is.
Yes, she's presented with a problem and she's got to solve it and
she just deals with it, right?
This is the thing I've got to get it done.
I just think she's just so practical that way.
It's also the moment too.
And I'm not quite sure that Freeman completely sells it or whether
maybe the scene is a little bit overwritten, but when they're out
kind of on the smoker's balcony, you know, uh, of the hospital
sort of near the patient lounge, and the doctor and Freeman get
their 1st sort of proper chance to talk.
And the 1st thing that she says is, you know, I might die, but
this is beautiful.
I'm on the moon.
You know, she's the one who realises they're on the moon.
And I think that that is kind of a mission statement here.
It's not just that she's super competent.
It's not just that she kind of sort of sacrifices her life in a
way, you know, to save the doctor to make sure that the doctor's
able to sort of solve the problem and save everyone. is that she
appreciates the beauty of the universe in a way that the doctor
does as well.
So she ticks all the boxes.
She's kind of the perfect companion.
It's a doctor also working through his loss of rose, still, from
the previous episodes, and it's that journey that he's undertaking
from Runaway bride through these 1st few.
Is he horrible in this episode?
To her?
Well, kind of to everyone.
There's another young woman who's presumably another medical
student in the room with a Jedun.
No, no, with Martha.
No, you.
Yeah, not you. leave her.
She's crying.
Too slow, leave her.
Yeah, which is really horrible.
And she actually is horrible.
She's not incompetent.
You know, Martha checks in with her later. to get the stuff about
the oxygen.
And she's actually, she's doctoring.
She's helping people.
She's just in a moment of terror and not coping.
And the doctor just dismisses her immediately.
That is this doctor.
Yeah.
And they've never all been entirely nice. have they?
I think we all get it wrong when we turn into certain kinds of
fangirls and go, oh, he's so romantic and lovely.
No, he's not.
He'll leave you in a crater with a horrible, horrible man radiated
with Daleks just behind your back door.
I think...
Suck it, boys, poised and ready to remove the last of your hope.
But don't you think he's kind of horrible to her in?
He never comes back.
No, no.
Um, he's he is kind of horrible to her, though, in the TARDIS as
well, where he says, you know, you're just going on a trip and
that's all and like, you know, you're not replacing her and you're
kind of, um, and I don't know whether that's the lines or whether
those lines are kind of written to us as the audience or what.
Do you think he's being horribly, horribly meta Russell Clever and
actually writing the doctor with some of Rose's persona because
you know that's where he got the accent from?
Oh, so maybe he's being sort of selfish and stuff.
Well, I like to think that Capaldi is part of Capaldi's doctor is
part of Amy, and that's why he's as preserved, well, he's as Amy
like as he can be.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't know.
I think it's a bit of bravado or...
He's just trying... he doesn't want...
He obviously likes master.
Yeah.
And he's just gone through a loss, and he's seen that so many
times, and it's him sort of dealing with that saying, well, it's
only one trip, you know, I'm just, I can't want to cope with
saying you're going to be here forever.
Like, because that would be, I can't guarantee that, but he's not
verbalising that.
He does just come across as a bit obnoxious though.
And you can see him softening even over the course of the next 2
episodes.
He's going to be horrible to her again next week.
He's oblivious to how horrible he is.
And her reactions actually sell that really well.
We all are, though, especially with those who are more in love
with us than we are with them.
I mean, this is actually Shakespeare. we end up with him next
week.
It is.
Yeah, yeah.
Can't see Mary Tam putting up with it, can you?
She'd be straight at him with a locator muticore.
That's right.
And burn a hole in his frontage.
That's a big hole.
K9 did it for me.
I've got the all in on it.
I do like her reaction to the whole Tartars.
I love the mouthing, yes.
Oh, when he goes, it's bigger on the inside than the outside.
That is massive by tenon.
No, that's brilliant.
And I'm so glad that she gets to say that.
Yeah.
It's just so perfect.
And when he talks about being a time lord and she goes, oh, well
not pompous at all.
Like, that's so, that's so Martha.
I love that Martha thing.
It's very Liz Sladden too, isn't it?
I know you're a timelord.
This is why I'm falling in love with her.
She might be my MVP.
This season.
Yes, James, you've got those James.
Martha's visible pantelion.
The tattoo's visible.
Yeah, yeah.
I know, I think she's I think she got that with the spittle
because it's the pert wee tattoo. just keeps jumping around.
It's a tattoo.
You know the joke, though, that that's the Corsairs tattoo.
Oh, he's tattoo.
Go back and watch Spearhead from Space.
There's shenanigans there, James.
Say it 3 times and there'll be a big finish spinoff about this
tattoo. written by boys.
I like and it's a very rustly thing that she observes that the
spaceship's made of wood.
Your spaceship's made of wood.
That is, you know, again, it's just that earthy normal thing. that
Russell kind of brings to the table.
It's very sweet.
I think he's a bit proud of that line.
I'm sure that it gets a mention in confidential or something.
Except it's actually metal, isn't it?
Because that's what Chester Field says.
Oh does he?
Yes.
And of course, police boxes are concrete.
So yes.
We know these things, don't we?
So you don't have to.
Look, I just have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this.
I mean, I'm giving this a solid eight.
I think creamer is an absolute revelation and delight.
The family I'm liking the performances and it's a really confident
star to...
I'm open to seeing how we are.
Well, they're listening, that's all we have time for this week.
We'll be back next week for our annual celebrity historical cage
match between Gareth Roberts and William Shakespeare in the
Shakespeare code.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us at flightsthroughentirety.com.
Flight through entirety on Facebook and at FTE podcast on
Twitter.
You can also find our series 11 flashcast, Jody Intetera, at
Jodyintetera.com, and at Jody Intetera on Twitter, and our James
Bond commentary podcast, Bondfinger at bondfinger.com, at
bondfinger on Facebook, and at bondfingercast on Twitter.
Until next time, please remember to be kind to your new stepmother
Annalise.
She's really very lovely when you get to know her.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
I was seduced.
Again.
Good night, everyone.
See you soon.
That was Flight for Entirety, starring Todd Beeleby, Nathan
Bottomley, James Hellwood, and Richard Stone.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, String's performance by Jane
Orberg.
This episode, the Tara King Confidence, was recorded on the 28th
of July 2019 and released on the 15th of September.
Like many of you, we have a love of Doctor Who that owes an
enormous amount to the work of Terence Diggs, and so we would like
to dedicate this silly episode to his memory.
The blue suit.
Love the blue suit.
I know did the blue suit. in my notes.
I said the blue suit.
Yeah, I got sort of halfway through the episode before I realised
that we'd never seen it before, and it is really good, and it's
used as so often to kind of indicate the doctor a 2 time period.
So, um, when he stops Martha in the street.
He's wearing his brown suit. that he takes his tie off.
Oh my goodness.
That's the joke.
The fact that he changed the colour of the suit.
Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So he was in the blue suit and then so I actually really like that
that you're only allowed to cross your own timeline for the sake
of cheap tricks.
And I never got the joke.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, I go, he's just gone into the TARDIS.
He's taken off his tie.
That's it.
The tires are faint.
Yeah, is deliberately there to make you think, oh, he's just
taking this tie off, but do you realise in that split 2nd is
changed his suit and gone back in time and taken his tie off in
front of her and then come back?
Yeah.
Thank you, FTE, for explaining that to me because I've never got
that before.
I don't think I consciously realised until I was watching it like
last night.
Preparation.
I'm an idiot Just wait one second.
I don't think that's true.
I think he's wearing the brown suit in that final scene.
He is wearing the brown superfinals.
So he doesn't change.
He doesn't change suit.
Yeah.
Get it up on Plex.
Well, he does in the final scene, but he's wearing the blue all
the way through.
So check that's different.
And if that's right.
No, I think that's fine because it is a different colour from the
same from the body's wearing for the rest of the episode.
Yeah, that's right.
Hang on.
If he still, if he's wearing the brown suit, goes into the TARDIS
and just says the tie, right?
And he's got a brown suit earlier.
If it's all brown, like to say we were wrong in our conversation
we just had, then what's the joke?
Well, the joke is that he went back in time and took off his
time.
Yeah, which is pretty crack.
I can see 16 pages, threads of text on gallery base about this.
I only need to say it 3 times.
When is my Anne Reid and Roy Marsden spinoff series coming
Nicholas Briggs?
Are there dollies?
There ought to be.