Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast, the combined theology, literary
criticism, and massive computer generated crabs.
I'm Nathan.
I'm James.
I'm Brendan.
And I'm Eric.
Well, the air stinks.
We're trapped in a tiny room and we seem to be going round and
round in circles.
So either it's just everyday life in a late capitalist society, or
we're discussing our next Doctor Who episode, gridlock.
I'm gonna put my cards straight on the table.
This is, for me, one of Russell's best scripts, I think, and
possibly my favourite episode.
So I'm desperate for some kind of counterpoint to that.
I think it's really good.
It's another example of Doctor Who.
Using a situation where, you know, you may be able to poke holes
in the realism of it, but it's not about the realism of the
situation.
It's about what the situation represents.
You're not going to get any disagreement from me.
Oh, Eric.
No, yeah, no, I, when asked to come on, I, this was one of the
episodes I asked to have because it's, it certainly, I think
Russell's best standalone episode, um, that does a traditional
Doctor Who style thing, um, isn't part of a finale or whatever.
And it is magnificent, I think, in almost every capacity.
There are a few small equivables you can have with it, I think, but
it's fundamentally just amazing from top to bottom start to
finish.
So.
We all love this idea.
Okay.
Well, thank you very much for listening and good night.
Well, the idea that podcasts need dissension and argument to be
interesting.
I think is utter nonsense.
Yeah, I disagree with that viewpoint as well.
Well done.
Will fight you for dissension.
So we don't normally go through the episode beat by beat or
anything like that, but I do think it's kind of worth starting
with the opening given that we're now 3 episodes into the season.
Let's look perhaps at how Martha and the doctor's relationship is
developed.
Yeah, we have we have an interesting 1st scene here where
obviously, Martha is keen to stay around, but the doctor is also
keen to take her on one more trip.
He sort of rationalising out loud how he can keep her on board the
Tartars for a bit longer.
And, you know, she just says, well, that's fine by me.
And I find that very nice that, you know, he's been the one saying
to her, oh, you know, I'll take you home, like last week we had
that horrible scene where he says, oh, you know, you don't know
what's going on.
I'll take you home tomorrow.
Yeah.
Whereas here it's him kind of going like, oh, yeah, I like hanging
out with you.
Yeah, let's let's keep this thing going on.
And I love that Freema plays it very cool.
Like she's obviously bursting at the opportunity, but she's just
like, yeah, okay, fine.
I don't think he wants to admit that though.
Like I think he's still visibly kind of pushing her away.
I think he's a massive... podcast.
He's a bit of a jerk to a massive tool.
Yeah.
We're leaping that alone.
It's interesting because you're right.
He does seem, he's eager to have someone, but he doesn't seem to
care who the someone is, which is what's very distressing about
this moment in the tense doctor sort of lifecycle, as it were.
And it becomes kind of the emotional core of the episode later
where they both sort of have their moments.
Martha and the doctor where they realise they don't know this
other person.
They don't kind of know why they're in this situation except that
people are lying to each other and people are treating each other
badly and now, you know, the doctor says, I, uh, I think it's the
cat man whose name I'm currently forgetting.
Because this Martha must mean a lot to.
Yeah, yes, Branigan. you.
Yeah, and she actually has a similar conversation with Milo and
Sheen.
Yeah. where she says sometimes I think he likes me. sometimes I
think he just needs someone.
And I mean, that's kind of resonant given what Donna told him in
the runaway bride.
And I guess we haven't really been thinking about that, but maybe
he's doing what Donna told him.
And I mean, he clicked with Donna immediately.
He invited her on board.
Whereas here it was always just kind of provisional.
Yeah, and I think part of the reason it's provisional is as when
you've been through any breakup.
You know, you are still going to crave companionship, possibly
even more so as a result of the breakup, but most people in that
situation would then would then push against that a bit and go
okay, well this could hurt again.
I could go through the same separation I've been through.
And I think that's the tension of the doctor here, and he's not
considering how Martha feels about it at all.
No.
It's entirely sort of companion as adjunct to him.
He even says I was showing off.
Yeah, you know, and I don't even think like Martha describes it as
a rebound, but I think it's not quite as human as that.
It's it's him.
It is him showing off.
And who does he show off too?
Well, he shows off too, the silly little humans he travels around
the universe with.
But this then is the story where he thinks about, well, no, hold
on.
She is her own person and she deserves.
She deserves to understand who I am, what this situation is, which
of course leads us to the last scene, but we'll talk about that
later.
I think that lying scene, though, is interesting in that, you know
when Doctor Who gets brought back 2 years ago.
Russell gets to make the choice to reinvent the character and to
make him more haunted and a bit more mythical by making him the
last survivor.
And that's been a huge feature of the character.
And now he has someone new for the 1st time. since the show came
back and he gets to reinvent himself.
And is he showing off or does he just want the chance not to be
that doctor for a bit, not to be the doctor who's haunted by this
sort of terrible past?
Well, he says that he says that himself in dialogue.
He says, just for a moment, I could pretend they were still
alive.
It's him, you know, living out that fantasy of not having to carry
that burden.
It's really something that Russell can write a script where the
leads are separate from us the entire story.
And yet it's the story that ends up binding them together as a
unit.
Yeah.
So that by the time we get to the Dalek 2-parter, which is coming
up, they feel like proper doctor and companion, it no longer feels
like this sort of, will there, won't they sort of weird, Martha's
not officially on board sort of thing.
But I think, I think a lot of what everyone, you're all saying is
great, but I do think we shouldn't overlook the fact that the
doctor is using her in a very unpleasant way.
If any doctor is going to be aware when a human has a crush on him
it's the 10th doctor.
And I think he clearly knows.
He doesn't want to think about it or talk about it, but he knows
partly that's why she's there.
He knows that he's as attractive to her as the travelling in space
and time.
And so the fact that he's willing to do that to gratify his own
ego, to have someone to show up with, to just to have someone, all
of those reasons, is really speaks volumes about where the Tense
doctor is at this moment and why maybe he was more hesitant to
bring Martha on board than he was Donna.
Donna made it clear from the start, no, not happening here, stick
and sex. which is a great attitude, I think.
That's very funny.
Whereas Martha, from the beginning, is kind of moony-eyed.
Um, and he's winking at her and being all charming and flirting in
Smith and Jones and kisses her and all that, he knows.
He knows.
I think you're probably right.
I'm not sure that we, because there doesn't seem to be a visible
moment.
You know, like Martha in Smith and Jones does a sort of eye roll
to camera, sort of immediately after she denies that she's
interested in him.
And, you know, there are moments where Freema's clearly playing it
that way.
But there's nothing, there's no particular moment and as far as I
can remember and nothing in dialogue, but I think that the
behaviour has to be prompted by that.
It's a weird choice because it does make the doctor quite
unlikeable, I think.
In a way that we haven't seen for a while.
I mean, he was sort of annoying last season. but not actively
unlikeable, like not horrible.
And, you know, I think it's something Russell is doing
deliberately.
Yeah, no, I think I think I think it's right.
I think it's deliberate.
And whether or not he was unlikeable or just annoying in season 2
as a matter of some debate, I think.
But the 10th doctor's journey, such as it is, his arc is kind of
trying to purge those elements of his character.
And he never actually succeeds.
The sort of the selfishness, the sort of vaingloriousness, this
sort of desire to have the affection of these people, even though
he knows it's not really a good idea.
He never gets rid of it, but it's why I think a lot of people
respond best to the 10th doctor with Donna in the 4th season
because that part is sort of put on the side and it becomes purely
about his hubris or the time lord and not as sort of like.
Hey, for the 1st time ever, I'm a sexy young guy.
This is fun.
Let's try it He does really take advantage of that, doesn't he?
Absolutely.
Like in his 1st story, you've got Jackie mooning over him.
Oh, is there anything else you've got 2 of, you know.
Then in New Earth, when Rose kisses him.
It's not shock so much as...
Still got it.
Yeah.
Still got it.
That's absolutely surprising.
And Cassandra even says he's noticed you watching.
Right.
And yeah, he is aware of the effect.
I'm reminded of when I was very young, Cliff Richard and Olivia
Newton, John did an Australian tour.
James has gave me a face of like, where is this going?
But Cliff Richard was sort of asked, you know, you and Olivia
working together.
What's that like?
And Cliff said, well, she's in love with me and I'm intrigued.
She's a beautiful woman, probably.
Exactly, exactly.
The 10th doctor.
Oh, okay, yeah, fine.
Yeah, this fancying thing is fun.
And then, of course, you know, when Rose goes, he's like, oh, this
is what heartbreak is.
Oh no.
And then I think he has no idea.
Yeah, he has no idea what he's doing.
What is this human emotion called, love?
Yeah, you know, what is this pain in my chest?
Like, is this what you humans call friendship?
Don't give me this Star Trek crap, Krich.
He's not he's not being vindictive or cruel. deliberately, but
he's kind of like he wants he wants a friend and this friend he's
met has a crush on him and he has no idea of how to deal with it.
So as you were saying, Eric, I think he just sort of pushes it to
one side.
Oh no, we're not going to talk about that now.
We're not going to deal with that right now.
And yeah, I mean, this story then gives him an opportunity to
start doing that because, you know, he brings her to a place he
knows, he knows New Earth because he was here before with Rose.
Oh, dear.
Yeah, no it was their 1st date.
It was their 1st date.
And yeah, Martha even calls him out on that, you know, rebound.
You're taking me to all the same places you took her.
And of course, Martha being Martha, she gets the crappy version of
the same trip.
Yes.
Yeah, you've brought me to the slubs.
She even lampshades that.
Yeah, it's great.
But, you know, then she's she's taken prisoner, which is a very
sort of standard terry nation.
Yeah, it's awesome.
How do we make sure we don't just get back into the ship?
And it takes the doctor from this place of, you know, being at
best inconsiderate of her feelings.
And putting him into a more heroic role, if he has to save this
person, he hardly knows.
And all but acknowledges that the only reason they are in this
situation is that she's kind of doe-eyed for him and would follow
him anywhere, blah, blah, and it's all his fault.
When he calls out her name and she's being captured and it's sort
of overplayed by tenant in a sort of fairly typical way.
Oh, yeah, but it is his 1st it's his 1st actual sort of proper
emotion, that it's all been surface, that it's all been kind of
sort of calculated and with a sort of eye to the audience.
And so, you know, I think that that's the moment where he's
actually made at some point to care about her.
Yeah, and I think what you say there about it all being surface is
really beautifully sort of illustrated by the opening scene in the
TARDIS, which we've talked about, but I just want to go back to
because we see him go from being broody to manic doctor, and we
know it's an act.
We as the audience know, and Martha probably doesn't notice
because she's too busy mooning and wooning and whatever.
But we see him go from sort of feeling regretful and sad about the
time lords and all that, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But then we see him immediately go, ah, and do his big tenant
manic energy thing, and you realise it's fake.
And then it makes you question every other time it's happened and
think, how often is this doctor pretending to be excited about
things?
Certainly, there's a moment when they're in pharmacy town and he
gets very excited about being in the slums and the rain and that
kind of thing.
And there's a delivery he does that he hasn't done before, but
that I had heard him do when he was doing the audiobook of the
Stone Rose.
And when he's doing the audiobook, he has to distinguish between
the narrator and the doctor.
And so he overplays the doctor's enthusiasm, I think.
I mean, it just seems to me that he's even pushing it further and
further about the surface, you know, about just creating an
impression, that this is all about constructing a new person to be
in order to impress Martha and that it's not at all the way that
he would have behaved around Rose because they had a rapport.
And because they had a sort of proper relationship with each
other.
Here it's all very, very calculated.
And, you know, Tenet is very good at drawing a difference between
the performance version of the doctor and the doctor when we see
him sort of really honestly feeling things.
And I think he's sort of definitely doing this here.
And he's also very good, I would say, this episode at being
unbelievably angry at how stupid humanity is.
This is maybe one of the best 10th doctor looking at us as stupid
apes episodes.
Not only with the anger at the people in pharmacy town where he
sort of shrieks and bellows at them.
But then the moment in the car where he's on their Phoebe radio to
the Casini sisters, and he, he just keeps hammering home the point
that you're all stupid.
And you've all been telling yourself these lies, and you won't
know their lies, but you won't face the truth.
And he's like, ever won police car, ever won, any, anything
official ever.
And he just keeps going and they're all telling him to stop.
They all clearly have gotten the point.
But he won't, because he's not done making them feel stupid yet.
It's it's an interesting portrait of the doctor in this episode.
I quite like it, but it is not, it is not happy go lucky tenant.
Let's move on and talk about the world that's presented here
because I think that that's by far the most interesting part of
the episode.
And I want to kind of talk about a conversation that we've just
come from.
And this is a conversation at the pub.
And this is a conversation that we've actually had in our The Girl
in the Fireplace episode with Simon.
And I have a number of friends who dislike this episode and the
peg on which they want to hook their dislike is the fact that they
can't believe the world that's created.
And in particular what they can't believe is the length of time
that people are prepared to spend in the traffic jam.
And we 1st hear about it, I think, from Martha.
It comes from the moment where Martha's in the car with Milo and
Sheen, and they talk about their plans for the unborn child that
they have, and they say that it's going to take them 6 years to
get to, what, New Brooklyn or something.
And she's horrified.
And then later the doctors on the CB radio to the Cassini sisters
and they say that they've been on the most way for 22 years.
Yes, yeah, yeah, 23 years, we were among the first.
Yeah.
And we find out in the chronology of the episode that it's been 30
years since the doctor has been here.
But yeah, the virus hit, I think, 24 years ago. 24 years ago.
Yeah.
Yeah, and on that idea that, you know, this world is unrealistic.
My thought on that is, you know, at the moment, it is very hard to
afford to buy a house.
In many parts of the world, in many cities. especially in Sydney.
Especially in Sydney.
But the thing is, people still go to work and they still save
their money and they still go talk to banks about what they can
borrow and they still look at property guides because we want to
believe that if we follow the prescribed program.
In this case, the prescribed program is, okay, life isn't too good
at the under city, but if you can just get to New Brooklyn.
Yeah.
You know, you'll make it New Jersey or New New Jersey.
But, you know, everyone's trying to get there at the moment and
that's why it's so hard to get there and that's why it takes you
so long, but if you just have faith, you know, you'll get there.
And everyone believes that they're the one who can get there as
well.
So Russell T. Davies has said with the story, he didn't set out to
write a satire about religion.
You know, he just built this world and a lot of people see it as a
satire of religion because it features religious songs.
But yeah, he chose the old rugged cross because as a him type song
it's not as religious as some.
Not sort of not any specific denomination is mentioned.
It's so Protestant though.
We will get to this because I think it's super important.
And I think that that moment in the episode is perhaps the most
interesting one and it's the one where James and I burst into
tears every single time we watched.
Is that right?
Yeah, see, whereas I don't write...
Yeah, I think it's incredibly beautiful, but I think it is like
you know, Russell's take on this isn't necessarily definitive, of
course.
And I think that his obsession with religion means that this is
much more, in fact, than a satire of late capitalism.
I don't think it's a satire of religion at all.
I think it's a really interesting exploration of it.
And in that scene, where the doctor has been badgering the Cassini
sisters.
One of whom, by the way, Alice, the driver, played by Bridget
Turner, wife of Frank Cox, director of the Brink of Disaster, and
the last 2 episode of the Sensory.
Oh my god.
That's real thing.
But during that, when the song starts up in Russell's script, as
they're singing the old rug across, the doctor actually puts a
hand on Valerie's shoulder and she looks back at him and smiles
and it was written as his apology.
Right.
And Tennant actually said in rehearsals.
I get what you're going for, but it's like he is accepting their
version of the situation and he doesn't.
I feel like he, you know, he will say to them, I've got to go and
do this.
But tennis is like, I feel like that's the doctor saying you're
doing the right thing when they're not, but I think we can still
perform it like he sees their point of view.
I think that's actually the correct way to play it.
You know where we've seen her again?
Where?
She's Bill's foster mother.
Oh, Valerie.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yep.
I knew that.
I didn't realise that.
I've seen her before.
Yeah, the actress Jennifer Hennessy had also appeared in the 2nd
coming. with Christopher Eccleston.
What do you think Russell's going for in this world, Eric?
It's tremendously complicated.
To get, you know, I think the people who get hung up on whether or
not it's a believable world, I think, like, really, that's the
thing you're gonna fight this episode on?
Like, you think it doesn't quite make sense.
I mean, I think it makes just enough sense to be plausible.
One does wonder what the motorway was like on day 7 of the
lockdown, for example.
You know, when the casini sisters 1st got on, which was a few
years after the lockdown and the entire under city, and people
also forget this.
The entire under city was sealed.
It wasn't just the motorway.
The motorway is part of the under city.
So there are people in in houses and in pharmacy town and all
those other places.
So don't forget that.
There's and whole life.
We only see one part of it.
But I think that's a very silly thing to fight an episode on
because it's Doctor Who and there's a man inside a police box
that's bigger on the inside and just go with it for people.
Yeah, for God's sake, I don't think, um, you know, hand of fear
creates a believable world.
Almost no, almost no classic theory story does, and yet they get a
complete pass on having completely ridiculous premises and absurd
ideas because they're classic series.
And yet a new series story does something that's even a touch
maybe more metaphorical and literal and people, you know, shout to
the rooftops about, well, the moon is clearly not an egg or
whatever.
Some of some of the best Doctor Who is the more allegorical Doctor
Who.
I also the Happiness Patrol.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The most unrealistic, unbelievable worlds ever produced.
Yeah, entire Earth colony said in a BBC television centre studio.
Even outside.
Yeah, that's right.
I also think, too, that they get a pass because we encountered
them when we were 10.
I mean, at least people, you know, kind of our age.
So that kind of slipped past our, you know, watchful dragons and
we were kind of prepared to buy that.
Oh, just a total segue here.
A very big Doctor Who Twitter account. don't think it was the
official one.
I think it might have been positive who.
Just sent out a question this week, which is what Doctor Who
scared you most as a child.
So, of course, I responded Frontios, to which Nathan said, yeah
that's the one you're not allowed to watch because it still scares
me.
But what sort of hit me was someone said, oh, the gas mask
zombies.
I was 5 years old and it's like, of course there are people who
were watching, even this story, as children who are now adults.
I'm a school teacher.
I got kids talking about how crappy the special effects were back
in the old days, like 2007.
Yeah.
Well, some of them have been on this podcast.
Yeah, I do have to say on the Blu-ray, the mashing around David
Tennant when he steps out into the motorway.
Not great.
No, but it doesn't.
I mean, it doesn't have to be.
No, again, as Eric said, it just needs to be as plausible as it
needs to be, I think.
You know, yeah.
Yeah, and something I find so good about it.
And it's a minor thing, but sort of everyone in their individual
cars having their own aesthetic, particularly the linchpin for
that for me, is what I call the Harajuku car with the 2 young
Asian women.
And that's where the doctor gets the bandana and whatnot because
of course Harajuku in Tokyo is full of people in extraordinary
clothes and you can get extraordinary clothes from there.
What about the white guy who has 2 racks of identical white suits
in the carbines?
I think my favourite one, and it's not one that the doctor jumps
into, but it's the 2 virgins and the bondage cat.
Oh, the black cats. with the yeah, the black leather Bethal and
the Bethal virgins?
Yeah, what's going on there?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, and what about the nude people reading the radio time?
I mean, and I'm surprised there aren't more naked people.
I mean, if you're in your cars and literally no one ever sees
you.
Come on.
A lot of people would be naked or at least partially.
Well, I think everyone else that we didn't see.
They were all like it.
It's just a coincidence, yeah.
But the reason I love that so much and why I mentioned Herajuku is
of course, in Japan in particular, because Japan was an
isolationist power for so long, the 60s onwards when Western
culture started having more of an influence there.
You see people over there and they might be wearing an entire punk
ensemble, like spikes sticking out of everywhere.
But then they'll come up to you and ask where you got your t
shirt.
Oh, you look wonderful.
Don't you look lovely?
And it's kind of an aesthetic thing rather than necessarily the
attitude.
Yeah.
But my in universe reason for this happening in new, new, new, new
new, New York is humanity constantly looking back across history
and adopting something from there.
And, you know, when we get to the last guy in the stack, the
bowler hatted guy, you know, the doctor asks for water and he says
well, you know, no one can accuse me of not having manners.
So he is not only aesthetically the 60s businessman on the way to
work in London, he's adopted that attitude as well, like, oh, I
won't have guns on my ship, you know?
But he's also sort of Trevor Sigma.
I mean, you don't need an universe reason for him to look like
that because we're, you know, conveying things to the current
audience.
But I think it's a coping mechanism because, you know, when the
doctor starts talking about his suspicions, it's clear that the
casinis and the Brannagans have thought about this kind of stuff
before, but they push it aside.
So the Brannigans push it aside with their kids and Mae pushes it
aside with their car spotting.
And this guy pushes it aside because stiff upper lip and all that
I'm John Steed.
You know, so everyone's chosen their aesthetic and decorated their
car with it to kind of cope with this never-ending monotony of the
motorway.
And I think that's great.
That people decorate their houses, though.
Like, I mean, we decorate our houses to illustrate our
personalities and to give us a safe place in a world which is not
always the most fun thing to be in.
Well, like, I think that that whole point is hugely important.
And I think the reason is that these people are trapped in a world
that looks to us appalling and ridiculous.
You know, that they are travelling minuscule distance every year.
The audience is shocked when they hear that someone can be in a
traffic jam for 23 years.
But if we look at it as an analogue to work, which seems like an
obvious thing to do, given that we commute to and from work, and
we do it every day and we do it for decades and decades of our
lives, um, you know, the fact that in that situation, they are
able to marry and have children, that they are able to conduct
their lives in these diverse ways, and that they're able to form
some kind of community.
None of them seems weighed down by the situation.
Um, That that's a positive thing.
It's about the triumph of the human spirit through adversity
really.
It?
And I think this is where I get to this sort of what is this story
saying?
Because I think it's not about the triumph of the human spirit so
much, it's about the ability of the human mind to deceive itself
in order not to confront a harsh reality, isn't it?
I was trying to be optimistic.
I think maybe it's both, and I think that's why this episode is so
intriguing to me is that moment that you referenced earlier with
the old rugged cross, by the way, yes, as a Catholic, very
Protestant, this whole thing.
Yeah, yeah.
That moment is both about the comfort of faith, but it's also
about the lie of faith.
There's no way off the motorway.
There's no jobs going in Brooklyn or no one's ever getting to Fire
Island, which was a funny joke.
Yes.
The laundry must be incredibly busy.
But they've all they've all convinced themselves of this idea that
if they believe this fiction and live their lives in a very
prescribed way, At some point, there is literally a promised
land.
Yeah.
I mean, come on.
It's not even metaphor at that point.
The subtext would become death.
In fact, it's worse than that, because they all know that there
are monsters underneath the motorway, and they know that people
are being killed and they're not thinking about that.
As you said before, they know that there are no police.
They don't want to admit it, but they've never seen it and they're
all shifty and evasive and they try and shut the conversation
down.
There's no one in authority.
There's a terrible, terrible nightmarish monster beneath them.
And yet inside all of that, they managed to live lives and have
children and have relationships and have some kind of faith.
And I think that the 2 different takes on the idea that we have
outlined are the 2 different takes that Martha and the doctor have
on what's going on.
So when the old rugged cross is played, Martha cries and joins
in.
You know, she sings it with them.
And one of the reasons why that's so affecting is that it's
uplifting and it's beautiful.
But the doctor's reaction and the reason he doesn't put his hand
on Valerie's shoulder.
And the reason, in fact, that that galvanises him into action is
that he knows that that's a lie, that all of that stuff is based
on a comforting lie.
There's no God, there's no one in authority who is coming to
rescue you.
And so he has to do something to help these people and partly
because they've shown him that in spite of all of the kind of
horror and pointlessness of the situation that they're in, that
they haven't been crushed by it, that they've found a way of
accommodating it and living good lives in spite of it.
For a story written by an atheist, it's complete religious
allegory.
To the point where the doctor at the end leads them into the
light.
He takes the place of the non-existent god in their world.
It saves them.
Well, the future is the non-existent part.
The 1st of all, save them, but can only do so much where they need
a redeemer.
And so God sent his only begotten son.
The doctor to save them all.
Yeah, okay, so the face of bonnet, bow is god.
The doctor is Jesus Christ.
Well, no, not quite, because the face of Bo dies in order to, in
order to release them.
So he's, you know, he's the dying saviour.
Well, he Russell's an atheist.
He got the metaphor confused.
Well, like, I think, you know, Russell Russell is an atheist, but
he is clearly fascinated by religion, and I've said before on the
podcast that he's the person that brings proper religion to Doctor
Who for the 1st time, that religion is not just, you know, the
cult of Demnos or...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like it's not just, you know, crazy cultists who want to sort of
tie you to a rock and drop another rock on you.
Or worshipping the dough deckhedron for bizarre reasons.
Yeah, yeah.
No, he actually has really proper people who are sort of quantum
Presbyterians or whatever, you know, in the Church of the Tin
vagabond.
You know, he brings that back into the show and he's really
interested in it.
And he does a sort of classic Dawkinsian atheist thing in the end
of the world where he says that no weapons or religion are
permitted on platform one.
Do you know what I mean?
That's a sort of standard kind of new atheist idea.
But here I think he's so fascinated by religion that he does, I
think, deliberately use that metaphor.
So there's a discovery, like I think we suspect, we'd never buy
the idea that there's someone to rescue them.
And in fact, the very opening scene, the cold open, is 2 people
calling the police and no one answering, you know, and they get
killed.
So we know that there's no one.
But then we do discover there is someone that this pointlessness
isn't just the sort of cruel futility of the actual universe where
there's no one in charge and we're all going to die, that it has
been set up to save them.
And that's the sort of inherent tension in being an atheist and a
Doctor Who writer, is Doctor Who requires people to be in horrible
situations from which they're saved by something that resembles a
kind of supernatural being from heaven.
And this is the season that sort of goes back to that well and
again and again with here, but, you know, most notably with the
finale where, you know, Dr. Zidis has resived by everyone
believing in him.
I mean, and then he does a cross position as he huffers across the
room.
I mean, that is a serious, serious kind of grapple with the idea
is like, how can you believe in the doctor but not believe in
God?
And isn't the doctors fundamentally just sort of an extension of
the idea of there being a divine force that is stronger than all
of us that can save us if we're just good enough and maybe a bit
lucky, which is where the Protestant bit comes in?
Yeah.
But I mean, I mean, the doctor doesn't save them exactly because
his attempts to do it fail.
Like he throws the big lever and it only works when the face of
both gives up his life to save them.
So he's not putting the doctor in the god position here exactly
but he's certainly playing with that idea.
And I mean, he does create a world where things aren't what they
seem, that the sort of simple, straightforward faith that the
people on the motorway have is proven not to be right, but
nevertheless, the deeper truth is still a kind of theistic and
essentially Christian truth.
It's deeply platonic is what it is.
Yep.
It's ripped straight from the Republic.
We have the idea of the noble lie that people are in classes, that
people will live this life, and that is how you keep people from
trying to fight too hard.
The noble lies often identified with religion, and Plato initially
do it, but he sort of hinted at it, and clearly here it's religion
but it's also the idea of the rules and the structure and the
class system and all that, keeping everyone in place.
Meanwhile, um, we have the allegory of the cave, they're all
trapped in the light, and Plato says explicitly that those people
will be so fascinated by the little images, the little holograms
on their screen, the little things they fill their life with, that
they won't notice or won't care, that they are completely
oblivious to anything resembling actual truth or reality.
They'll be so obsessed with predicting the number which will come
next, counting the cars.
You know, they'll just not care.
And then what we have is the doctor coming in and trying to save
them, and they fight him, just as Plato said, the people in the
cave will fight the man who comes to try to rescue them because
they will not want to go into the light because it'll be so bright
it will blind them, which is exactly what happens at the end.
Yeah.
We see this image of the light coming down and everyone's, it's
it's literally too bright for them to look at.
Now, the fact that that metaphor also works for Christianity is
sort of because Christianity found a lot of metaphors I liked and
built it into its framework.
Yeah.
But fundamentally, I would say it's deeply platonic and it's this
idea that Average people need someone else to save them because
we're too, we're too willing to believe in the shadows.
And so we need the doctor.
Yeah, and that, um, that sort of platonic nature is something I
wanted to say because even though, you know, the doctor in the
face of Bo and Novice Haim together work to change the status quo
and give the city back to the people, the story still ends with
the city still singing their songs.
It's a new song.
It's abide with me rather than the old rugged cross, but that
sense of community has been retained that was built as its own
kind of faith system, if you like, and in a way, the new earth
that we saw last time, a lot of the humans we met seem to be, you
know, just out for themselves, like the Duke of Manhattan's
secretary wants to get out of the hospital, even if it kills
everyone on the planet. planet.
Whereas now, being trapped underground for 24 years has led to
this sense of community, and that also is very biblical, you know
the people wandering in the desert.
The promised land.
Yeah, towards the promised land, yeah.
I guess maybe the thing is the critique of people is what you were
saying, Eric, how quickly they accommodate that.
And that they're so willing to settle for it, that they don't
fight for it.
There's no kind of political movement or any hint of anything like
that where they express dissatisfaction with what they find.
When Brendan mentioned the doctor, the face of Bo and Nurseim, and
realised for the 1st time that they're the Holy Trinity, we have
the feminine feature and we have the father and the son, although
the roles are kind of going back and forth between father and son
but then we have the Holy Spirit being the sort of feminine force
who's a cat in this case.
And between the 3 of them, they're able to redeem mankind, although
not without sacrifice.
But I think this idea, and this kind of, you know, the idea that
they're all satisfied, this gets into the sort of more Marxist
late capitalist critique, which was very similar to what he did in
New Earth with his society.
And he had hints of it in, um, end of the world as well.
But it's interesting...
Yeah, the great and good, and the idea that Rose would talk to the
plumber.
I don't remember her name.
Raffallo.
Raffello.
Rafalo, like not many people would talk to me.
Mark Rafallo.
It'd be great if there were just Minecraft, low and Blueface.
But this idea that the future is not some sort of communist utopia
in fact, it's this late capitalism that people like to talk about
as being the moment we're currently living in.
Now this extends for 5000000000 more years.
Yeah.
This is just how it is and it gets worse and worse and worse.
And, you know, the elite will exploit the common people more and
more.
And the common people will never, ever, ever rise up against them
because they'll have something to keep them occupied.
This small little, oh, we made 20 yards last week.
Great. awesome.
They'll convince themselves they're reaching towards some goal.
Meanwhile, people above are theoretically flying around on their
jetpacks and doing whatever.
But of course, in this case, they're all gone.
Like those people aren't there anymore.
Certainly in New Earth, where you have a whole class of people
being sort of viciously immiserated by rich people who are mostly
getting cosmetic treatments upstairs.
Like that's super clear there, I think.
But here, by taking the oppressors away and just making it a kind
of accident.
I think there's something interesting about that.
The revolution happened in spite of them.
Yeah.
Well, they brought their own revolution on themselves through
bliss.
You know, they already had everything they could ever need, but
they wanted to take away whatever little stress they had.
I have to say, like, um, something that struck me watching it
again, was, you know, Novasheim says there was a new mood, bliss
and in my head, I'd remember it as, and, you know, they just
lethargied themselves to death.
But it's like, no, there was a new mood bliss.
And then there was this virus and we couldn't we couldn't contain
it.
It's like, did Bliss become the...
No?
Okay, it was a separate virus, but then they didn't do it.
And then it killed the world in 7 minutes flat.
Well, it doesn't particularly matter if they're blissed out then
does it?
There's not much they could do.
And what they did do was save a bunch of people.
Yeah, the mood could have been slightly peckish.
It doesn't really matter.
Yeah, I think you're right.
I think he kind of missed a trick to her going and I, um, the last
Gregarians and the Odyssey, the, the, the opium metres, essentially
the ones who just keep eating the poppies and that's their entire
life.
That would have been a fine metaphor, I think, for the sort of
indolence of the upper classes.
But instead, yeah, he has this idea of the super virus, um, that
mutates and becomes airborne and kills everyone on the planet in 7
minutes, which is really fast.
And, and he, he really sticks that idea and I think, I think it's
one of my main quibbles with the episode of it.
It feels, it feels like he added that to be less judgemental, maybe
of the people who died.
And to make them more victims instead of I don't know, instead of
like the rich jerks they probably were.
It also strikes me that maybe, you know, during a script meeting
Julie Gardner or Phil Collins and said, okay, so they've got this
they got this mood bliss, but surely not everyone will be taking
out.
Oh, well, fine, Julie.
That was a virus.
Can we go for a cigarette now at very time?
Don't do that.
No, don't go for a cigarette now, kids.
You know, just have some happy happy.
No, do not have happy, happy.
I did not endorse that.
Yeah, and it's also, but it does make you wonder, like, what was
what was bliss that wasn't happy, happy or, you know, any of the
other moods.
And also honesty, sorry, is not a mood.
That's a dumb, that's a dumb little trick that he does to make it
clear that she's not lying.
There's no reason why someone would wear an honesty patch.
It's just a cheap trick.
And it gets a laugh.
I think that that's just one of those things where his desire to
have a funny close-up, uh, kind of overcomes the world building
instinct.
Yeah.
And I think the, you know, just throwing the entire upper class
away with just some convenient lines of dialogue is just sort of
getting getting the world to be the shape that he wants it to be
in for the sake of the point he's trying to make, I think.
It was a virus 200 years ago and it killed everyone who knew how
to make Androids.
That's it Yeah.
And that is my favourite story.
But even I can say, really?
Yeah.
Did you know that Bridget Turner, who plays Alice?
Frank King's wife.
Apart.
Yes, yes, yes.
She was also John Cleese's 1st choice for Sybil. about that?
But she said no.
But she did this.
No, John, I know what you're like.
I've got one extra piece of information about the macra.
Oh, well, we haven't even talked about the Mac.
We talked about the macro. their name.
Yeah, there are no such things.
Look, pretty much, it started like, you know, Russell went, I need
some kind of monster, and his initial thought for the under city
was it's where the city meets the sea.
So he was thinking sea creatures.
So his 1st thought was actually a Godzilla style sea lizard.
That eats cars.
But then he started thinking about squids.
And then he started thinking about crabs and went, hold on.
We've done crabs.
And so he went, well, if I'm going to have crabs, I'm going to
make them macra, which only classic series fans will care about
because the macraterra is one of his earliest memories of Doctor
Who.
And it's exactly 40 years since they appeared.
Yeah, that's right.
So that's why he settled on Macro, but wrote them in such a way
which both honoured what they'd been before, but you didn't have
to know anything about them.
And I remember squealing. sitting on the sofa and going, ah, it's
background.
So, you know, I may have seen the closing credits before I saw
anything else, so I think I may have seen macro created by Anne
Stuart Black.
He actually recons the macro terror because there's uncomfortable
kind of feelings that if the it's the macros planet, then, you
know, what the hell are all these people doing here and why is the
doctor so happy to kill them when clearly they're being
colonised.
Yeah.
But so he makes them a sort of galaxy wide plague of evil people
who live on gas.
Which is great.
Yeah, crabs.
Who are crabs?
crabs.
Yeah.
It's kind of like when was it Gareth Roberts decided that bandrels
were 50 foot high cyborgs.
And, you know, we only ever saw the head of them.
It's like, you know, let's take this slightly crap thing.
And you know, make it better.
That does remind me, though, one of the things looking at my notes
the initial reception to this episode, at least as I can discern
it from Wikipedia, was actually quite, quite dumb.
You astound me.
I know, with actually a surprising number of the reviews
complaining that they didn't see enough of the macra.
Oh my god.
Yes.
Or people getting fixated on very small little things.
It's one of the clearest instances where Doctor Who fans and the
people who write about it, especially in the heat of the moment
can almost never see the forest for the trees.
Like the fact that Kindo was the least popular episode of its
season, the fact that apparently the macra not being in it enough
made gridlock just would have an okay episode for some people.
Like, you're idiot, people.
You were being given masterpieces of the form and you're
complaining about things and saying, oh, it's only 7.5 .
Surely that should be, they couldn't see the crabs for the smoke.
No place.
Oh, James.
We've got a final scene to kind of finish the arc, which we talked
about at the beginning of the episode, and it happens all the
while while that hymn is going on.
Abide with me. stay with me.
Yeah.
And it certainly has a resonance.
And I have, I'd said this last week, so I won't bang on too much
but I have always liked Martha's character.
But the moment that cements it for me in this episode is when, you
know, she she's trying to connect with him and she's trying to get
the doctor to talk about what is obviously traumatising for him
about him not being alone, which means he thinks he's alone.
So she's saying, I'm here.
I'm ready, I'm listening.
And he just totally rejects her and she just grabs the chair and
right, no, we're not going.
In fact, I'd kind of forgotten that because he doesn't drop his
facade willingly, does he?
She's present when the face of Beau explains who he is.
Yeah, yeah.
And in that, Russell had forgotten that in a book Justin Richards
wrote, because for the 1st 4 years of the new series, Justin
Richards wrote these books like Monsters and Aliens, Enemies and
Allies, et cetera.
And in one of them, Russell had written this historical text
translation that says, you know, the face of Bo will live a long
time and then the sky will crack asunder and he will speak his
final secret to the alien wanderer without a home.
And when Russell sent off the script to Justin Richards for
writing the next book, Justin said, oh, wow, it's so great you
remembered that thing you wrote for me last year and Russell said
what?
Sorry what?
And, you know, Russell Liston said, it was a total coincidence, you
know, the roof opened and we can interpret that as a skycracking
asunder.
Because I don't remember what I write.
Yeah, but I think you're right that it's important that Martha is
there for their revelation, as it were, because otherwise the
doctor would have continued to keep her at bay.
He would have kept her, but she's there and she hears it and she
knows that he's lying about something.
She's pretty in the dark as to what actually the truth might be
but she knows he's just lying to her, straight up lying to her.
And she realises that in that moment, I need to either press this
or else I just let him take me home and end this.
Um, whether it's the right decision to make for her emotionally is
questionable, especially given her her great speech at the very
end when she does leave.
That she kind of kept trying to invest in something that was never
going to be.
But I think it provides a really wonderful moment where they do
come together.
And what I love most about it is she just listens.
Um, Martha just listens to him talk about Galifre.
She doesn't, she asked a few very basic questions, but it's kind
of like therapy where she just sort of gets him to finally say
what he won't say.
And then once he starts, he can't stop.
And in fact, the speech continues sort of, and we move away from
it.
Like, he's still talking.
We don't hear the end of the speech.
We don't know how long it goes on before the camera goes up and we
hear the him again.
Well, we're speaking about the censorites earlier.
That's actually Susan's... about Gallifrey from the...
Yeah, yeah, the silver leaves, et cetera, et cetera.
And also, it's very interesting that, you know, Rose knows very
early on that he's the last of the timelords, and she knows about
the time war, et cetera, et cetera.
But we've discussed that Rose is a very self-involved character.
So Rose doesn't ask him about, you know, the tragedy he has
experienced.
And I think that's not necessarily Rose being self-absorbed, but
it's also that, you know, Rose is in love with him.
He's in love with her.
So you're not going to bring up that sad stuff.
But we, we don't even know it at that point.
So we don't know there's anything to reveal, really.
There's Jabe, you know, that interaction with Jabe in the end of
the world.
And the reason he tells her is that he sees her reaction to the
end of her own planet.
Yeah, but Rose never asks him.
No.
About Galifre afterwards.
And, you know, it's things like when he talks about having a
family and being a father.
She's like, what?
But then it follows up on it again.
I think that's it.
The other point there is that Rosie is supposed to be a character
who is a lot younger than Martha.
Martha is a professional.
She's trained to be a doctor.
That's not something you do in a short period of time.
She's, what, in her final year of med school.
So about 26, I think Russell envisioned her.
Whereas Rose is supposed to be in her late teens.
Yeah, she's mid-20s.
Rose is 19.
Yeah.
And yeah, we kind of lump the young companions all together.
And then we put sort of Donna as an older companion somewhere
else.
But in fact, there's big gradations between 19 and 26 or so.
Yes.
I think you're right that Martha, through both her age, and
probably her training as a doctor, is sort of prepared to fit and
let this man be vulnerable and let this man tell his story. and be
sad and isn't expecting him to sort of entertain her.
Like, It's interesting.
I don't want to say Rose was sort of always expecting the doctor
to sort of dazzle her, but that's kind of the vibe.
Yeah, yeah, like give me some spock.
Yeah, exactly.
Whereas Martha wants to know who he is.
It's like the fundamental difference between like when you're like
a teenager and you're dating somebody and it's all just the show.
And then you get older and you realise, no, what matters is who
you are.
Like fundamentally underneath, I want to know what's going on
inside you and I don't really care about the trappings.
Those are great, but a lot of people have nice bodies or good
suits.
Like what she wants to know is who he is underneath.
And I think that's quite interesting.
Well, dear listener, that's all we have time for this week.
We'll be back next week in old New York for an old fashioned
depression era alien invasion in Daleks in Manhattan.
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 interterra, at
Jody interterra.com, and at Jody interterra on Twitter, and our
James Bond commentary podcast, Bondfinger at bondfinger.com, at
bondfinger on Facebook, and at bondfingercast on Twitter.
Where can people find you, Eric?
People can find me at SJC off tonight on Twitter, at SJC-A-U-S-T-E
N-I-T-E, or you can take a listen to one of my podcasts.
I have a Doctor Who podcast called The Real McCoy, where we look
at all of the 7th doctor stories, including some of the non
television ones.
Um, and then more long-term.
I have been doing a show called The Raiders Room.
We originally did, we look at all the writers of classic Doctor
Who, that took about 5 years, and now we're doing an American
television show called The Outer Limits, which is a classic of sci
fi television, and we're about halfway through our 1st year of
that.
So, the real McCoy pod.
And the writer's room, colon, the outer limit.
You can find it wherever you find good podcast and on Twitter.
Brandon Gasp.
Audible, audible gasp there, listeners, because the outer limits
is fantastic.
I will be devouring that.
Thank you, Eric.
And the podcast.
Thank you very much for joining us, Eric.
It's been great Thank you, Eric.
This has been super fun.
Thank you guys for having me.
So, until next time, may you cling to that old rugged cross and
exchange it someday for a crown.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Do it off.
That was Flight through Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley
Brendan Jones, James Selwood, and Eric Stadnick.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, Strings Performance by Jane
Orberg.
This episode, Deeply Platonic, was recorded on the 4th of August
2019, and released on the 29th of September.
You know, people are always saying that there's no such thing as
macra, but for me the macra have always just been the friends we
made along the way.
Now, where did I put that hydrocortisone?
Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast that combines theology, literary
criticism and massive computer-generated crabs.
I'm Nathan.
I'm James.
I'm Brendan.
And I'm Eric.
Brilliant.
Excellent.
Well, the air stinks.
We're trapped in a tiny room and we seem to be going round and
round in circles.
So either it's just everyday life in a late capitalist society or
we're discussing our next Doctor Who episode, Gridlock.
Hold on a sec.
Yours are computer generated.
Damn, I knew I was doing that wrong.
Mark it 40 seconds before the 1st crabs joke.
Yeah.
Much like the real thing.
You have to get them out quickly. of this is staying in.
This is literally the only reason I'm hit.
That's why we're still friends.
I'm gonna put my card straight on the table.