Hello, Delissa and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety, the
only Doctor Who podcast that provides insightful analysis of every
single Doctor Who story in order.
It's nonsense for deep people.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Liz.
Well, the doctor and Martha have the week off, and so we have the
chance for some quality time with Carrie Mulligan in an episode
partly about the terrifying brevity of human life, but mostly
about how clever Stephen Moffatt is, exhibit A, blink.
So, Liz, this or the Time Monster?
Oh, my goodness.
Oh, you said it would be easy.
That's a bit.
You're a cruel man.
That's been harsh.
In terms of love?
The Time Monster, obviously.
You can't just chuck out childhood's beloved favourites for this
newfangled nonsense of the 21st century.
But I suppose technically, in a purely objectivish or subjectivish
you can get sense, oh, which one is actually better written, I
must reluctantly admit, it's probably blank, a little bit.
Maybe.
What might argue the show's a greater command of scriptwriting
craft?
Yeah.
Little bit.
It's still, the Time Monster is really fun and we really enjoyed
it when we covered it, didn't we?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, it'd be like asking me, you know, bandrils or adipos, and
it's like, you can, no, you can't get rid of the bandrils.
I'm not saying we have to get rid of one.
Oh, okay.
This isn't Sophie's choice.
It's not, you know, like it's, I'm not being sort of terribly
cruel.
I would the world would be a much worse place without the time
monster to kind of relax in front of.
It's wonderful.
Yes, but it is a different pleasure from work.
Yes, that makes sense.
Though I would love to have someone new to Doctor Who be like, okay
we're going to show you an example of the new series. sit down and
watch blink.
And now here's the best of the old series, such down, I watched
The Time Monster.
I just watched the expression on their face.
Oh, dear.
I have never shown the time monster at the Doctor Who Club at
school and I really should.
I need to find someone to do that too, Liz.
That's genius.
Very helpful. like that.
I suggest some small people that you insulate from the world at
large until they are ready to be exposed to Doctor Who and
continue on in ordinary lives.
That might be immoral.
There might be some ethical considerations there, which is why I
obviously don't do any sort of experiments like that.
That'd be...
I don't like talking.
Shut up.
No, no.
It's like that friggin king who had those 2 children that no one
was allowed to speak to or something.
I can't even remember.
Cut all that out.
That nonsense.
This is a bit of an uncontroversial one, isn't it?
I mean, we're not going to be wrangling over the, you know, our
opinions here.
Does anyone not like this?
I think it's great.
I really enjoy it.
I remember really enjoying it at the time and kind of being blown
away at the time and going, wow, this is something new and
different and exciting.
How about you, Liz?
But the time I was at university and I was watching this at my
flat with a friend and we were steadily getting more and more
scared as it went on to the point where the bit where the TARDIS
is surrounded.
I believe we may have been screaming in terror.
Genuinely freaked out to that extent because it was, it was just
so cool and new and it felt fresh and and and very, you know, it
feels like a very classicy twilighty zone slash outer limits um
style for yielding modern, yielding modern error, the modern error
but it's none of the cheese of the the remakes in the the 90s of
it's, it's like modern and cool science fiction.
That's really, really scary.
I forgot when I was watching Stems, just how good some of the
direction is, like there's this gorgeous one where Sally, um, she's
crouched over something.
The angels there looking at her.
She stands back up, and as her body moves across the face of angel
it switches back, um, in the same shot, and it's just, I'd
forgotten stuff like that.
I'd forgotten just how creepy a lot of it is before you get to the
actual bit where they're like screaming at you silently.
Um, what watching it again.
It's one of the ones that I try to watch very seldomly because uh
like uh, the girl in the fireplace.
I'm terrified that it will just become too well known.
So I, it's, it's, yeah, and I love that feeling of, um, Not, like
yes, I know what's going to happen, but I've forgotten enough of
the details that it's interesting again.
And this has definitely been, yes, I know it's really good.
But watching it this morning, it was like, wow, this is really
amazing.
I'd forgotten all this stuff, which was very cool.
Yeah, yeah, I just watched it today as well.
You're so right about those, those moments where the transition
over the angels is a person moving across them and all of a sudden
they've moved or that bit where Sally's looking out the window at
the police station and sees the angels across the way and then
gets distracted and looks back and the angels are gone and they're
right next to the window, she's staring out of.
That's wonderful, isn't it?
In fact, that's not an obvious decision.
Like it didn't have to be like that, did it?
The idea that we as the audience count as someone looking at the
angels.
And so that's why we never see the move.
And they will move the next time that they appear.
But that choice to just have them as completely motionless figures
isn't something that had to happen.
Was it Stephen Moffat's idea?
Yes, yes, it was.
He was recalling a, I believe, a trip he had as a child and he saw
an old busted down church from far away behind a fence and he
could just make out the statues in there and it really unnerved
him.
And he was trying to write this script in a hurry, basically
because 1st of all, he says, well, you know, I still want to write
for the 3rd season, but can I have something towards the back of
the season and maybe just one episode and he sort of, he says he
put Russell off so much that eventually he volunteered for the Dr
Light episode because he thought no one wants to do that.
Everyone wants to write the doctor.
And that's also why the sort of plot of the episode is borrowed
from the 2006 Doctor Who annual.
Yeah, which has a story about it's like what I did on my holidays
by Sally Sparrow.
Yeah, but there's no weeping angels or anything in that.
The doctor's just stuck in the past and is sending Sally messages
from there and Sally's, I think, around a 12 year old character in
that.
But the decision was made to make her an adult for dramatic
reasons because Stephen kind of quoted Sidney Newman to say that
he felt that children were more interested in watching characters
older than them rather than characters of their own age.
Yes, I do recall that as a child.
Doctor Who was more interesting than any children's tell, any just
children's television that was available to me.
Stephen Moffatt will put more children in Doctor Who when he takes
over.
But at this point, there aren't that many.
And I still think that, you know, the way this works, because the
other thing that it leans into, apart from Stephen Moffatt's
really kind of careful plotting is how good he is at romantic
comedy.
And so, you know, having Sally's emotional arc, sort of.
I mean, it is sort of fairly thinly sketched, but we get a meat
cute with Larry, you know, leading up to her taking Larry's hand
and just sort of very quietly kind of agreeing that they're kind
of together now at the very end once everything's been resolved.
I mean, Moffatt writes funny sitcom dialogue in a way that seems
so incredibly effortless and I think that he always does really
well when he's got that structure to work with.
Yeah, I think the dialogue throughout.
It was one of the things that I'd partly forgotten.
And so, um, all the lines that are like, oh, yeah, that was like
um, that was just really cool to see again.
And it's, yeah, it's so annoying how good the dialogue is every
single time and the way it works, the way it's like, yes, it's
character stuff and it's funny and you enjoy it, but it's also
pushing the plot forward.
It has a point.
It's just, it's desperately irritating how good.
Almost all of it.
Ive got one. there's one scene that I'm with a couple of dialogue
that I'm like, eh, I don't like this, but that might be probably
down to personal taste more than anything else.
But so much of it, all of Sally's conversations are just an
absolute delight.
I take such joy in the way that they are so efficient and witty.
I mean, the stuff with Detective Shipton and how just quick it was
and yet how much it got to you was, 0 my god, I was like tears in
my eyes with the, he's dying now and her, I'll stay with you.
And it was like, did I cry this before?
What?
This is terrible.
I think I cry every time I see it and I was definitely in tears
and I think it is the Billy Shipton thing that gets to me.
And it isn't just, like, he's so tremendously, fabulously sexually
confident.
And Stephen Moffatt writes women like River Song. who are also
sort of just supremely confident.
Like she, um, Sally definitely wins in sort of every interaction
with, with Larry, um, but she's put on the back foot by Billy.
But it's not just that, which I think is beautiful, that scene of
two, you know, just attractive young people flirting wittily.
But the payoff to it.
And I guess what people maybe don't talk about quite so much is
just the idea that it's about how quick life is, how quickly it
goes.
So Billy Shipton lives a long life.
And Kathy Nightingale lives a long and full life.
But to Sally, they're over like that.
You blink and you miss it.
And it's that line that Billy says about looking at his hands and
seeing that they're old man's hands and asking when did that
happen?
You know, and it happened just instantly it happened on this day
as well as happening, you know, sometime between 1969 and now.
Just how quickly life is over.
And so obviously weeping angels, which appear on tombstones.
They're obviously the correct monster for that, for that theme.
Something I really like about the Billy stuff is you've got
Michael Obiora playing young Billy.
You've got Lewis Mahoney previously of Planet of Evil and Frontier
in Space as Old Billy.
I imagine they would never have met the way that modern television
has made the 2 actors.
And yet they managed to capture the same mannerism.
So I can only put that down to Hetty McDonald, the director.
And this was her 1st Doctor Who.
She's making the Dr. Light episode, which is double banked with
other things.
She will come back to the series in Peter Capaldi's time.
But this is just so well directed.
And then after Sally has sat with, with Billy, I don't think we
even get a crossfade, which would be the usual thing to show that
time has passed, we cut to the floor of the hospital and tilt up
to find Sally staring out the window and the rain has stopped.
I'm choking up now.
But it's when you can see the floor.
The floor is reflective.
Yes.
And so you would have seen the rain in it in the previous scene.
So the moment you see that floor, with the lighting different, you
know that enough time has passed and that rain is over.
Yeah.
Like I know I know for a fact I bawled the 1st time I watched that
scene.
I absolutely bore it.
Oh, sorry, I'm just going to get everyone.
Oh God, Italy is just, it's so, it's so good.
And it's not the only time she does stuff with reflections in the
story.
She does it in a very uncanny way in the house where Larry's
staring at the Dooda, the angel, and Sally's trying to get out and
there's a mirror in the hallway and it uses the mirror to show her
as much as it does actually looking at her, which is using
reflections in a slightly creepier way.
Um, but yeah, no, it was just, um, what was said about, um, about
life being over so quickly.
And one of the things that really made that work for me was that
the people being sent back in time, Kathy and Billy, they didn't
have like short, horrible, tragic, miserable lives in the times
they were in.
They're both shown to have happy fulfilling lives that they don't
regret that, you know, they, they, um, found joy in.
And uh, and yet that's still layered with the sadness of it being
over.
And to me, that kind of, that makes it more relatable and more
meaningful because we're not being asked to, 0 my god, it's so
terrible, long life miserable.
But it's that, yeah, it cuts out that idea of it being a
completely horrific thing that the angels are doing to you and
you're focussing on the fact that it's, yeah, it's about the
quickness of time passing instead.
It's really neat.
It's really beautiful, isn't it?
There's that.
Do you remember young Billy says to Sally, life is short and you
are hard.
And then old Billy says life is long and you're hot.
And just the idea that life is long.
Like life is long.
He lived another 50 years.
But it's still tragic that it's over.
And, you know, Doctor Who Death is usually so stupid.
Like you get shot.
You get shot in the in the throat, you clutch your stomach and
then fall over sort of thing.
You know, there's a ray gun or something like that.
You find a comfortable spot to land and move out of the way, so
canine can get down the corridor.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You get hugged to death by robot mummies or something.
Like the whole thing is so sort of preposterous.
But having real proper death and here's what it means.
And the new series has done death sort of rather better than the
classic series often does.
But this, I think, is its best treatment of death today.
No, because it's, yeah, because as you say, it's just like kind of
often a sort of comedy window dressing.
I mean, my favourite story for Death is a chair of the autons.
And none of those, I actually feel particularly bad for the
characters.
I think it's hilarious though, where they're dispatched, which
isn't necessarily the best thing when you're doing that every
single time.
But yeah, part of part of the reason Blink works so well.
I mean, I sometimes I feel like the weeping angels and the
brilliance of them overshadows everything else that's brilliant in
it, but that's such a, um, such a compassionate and kind way of
looking at the end of life and not being um, sentimental or
softening it, but not being cruel about it, um, is is just, yeah
it's really moving.
And both, um, Billy and Kathy's deaths are treated, treated in
that way that you really feel that these are real people.
There's a realism to the whole episode that is relatively unusual
in Doctor Who as a whole, um, which obviously benefits uh, partly
from the doctor being in it for a minimum amount of time.
But these, um, occasionally you get characters wandering into
Doctor Who that do feel realer than what we often have.
There's a lot of them, I think, in season 7, uh, parties 1st
season.
Um, and here we have another handful of them that, uh, they have
they have that extra feeling of, of, of depth and seriousness
that's um, often absent or is minimised because of the
extraordinariness of the situation.
Whereas this, it's very, it's very down low, it's very creepy.
Such, there are no real, there's like, I wouldn't say real, because
that's not true, there's practical effects, but there's, there's
nothing glitzy about the special effects here.
It's all done in, oh, it's done such a nice sense.
It's a nice simplistic way that this could have been made anytime
in the past 50 years and still have been beautifully done.
Yeah, I think that is such a good point. sort of, there are
stories which, if they had been made for the classic series, the
limitations of the special effects back then would have impacted
the ability to tell the story, say the end of the world, which is
still a very good script, but as you say, I was watching this this
afternoon thinking this is almost a stage play.
You know, you've got Kathy's flat, you've got the DVD shop, you've
got the house, and you've got the police station, really.
You've got those 4 locations. hospital as well, I suppose.
It could be a stage by it. has that quality where they are simply
relying on the performances of the actors to tell the story.
And of course, the weeping angels don't have voice.
And even when they're given voice in later stories.
There's a conceit around it that we're not quite really hearing
them speaking sort of thing.
They are that alien, that they do not communicate through speech
or through telepathy or any other way that we have had aliens
communicate indocto before.
They don't communicate.
We don't know how they communicate to one another because nothing
is known about them.
And that makes them even scarier and almost love crafty in their
design and conception.
Yeah, there is, there is quite a lot of crafty vibe there, whereas
both the beginning of the universe thing and the, it's not a true
sort of weird existential horror thing, but it is, there is a
there is a horrific sort of stretch, human, but not quite
humanness of them that really is quite freaky.
The unexpected sharp teeth on the inside as well. that um, yeah.
I think that's the moment where I jumped, like again.
And I knew it was coming.
Of course, I knew it was coming.
But, you know, there's a musical sting.
It's the 1st time Larry, I think, sees the teeth.
Is that right?
Yeah, yeah.
And he's really close.
That thing too, where he can't sort of stop himself from blinking
or whatever.
And then suddenly it's like right in his face.
Like it's it's really good and he sells that so well.
That scene where he's just absolutely frightened.
The camera is right in his face.
He's looking straight at us.
We're watching his eyes for any sign that he's going to blink.
It's super tense.
And he still manages to be kind of really funny and likeable as
well.
It's funny how when he turns up, he says, you live in Scooby-Doo's
house and he's basically shaggy.
It's another one of, you know, Stephen Moffatt is a writer who
talks about masculinity like quite a lot and, you know, right from
coupling and even joking apart, I think it sort of interrogates
the smart man, the smart, smug man sort of thing.
And, you know, both of his doctors deal with that too.
And Larry is sort of, he's a little bit like Oliver, a little bit
like Jeff from coupling, you know, like he's a super nerd and he's
got the t-shirt and, you know, his mates are the internet and all
of that sort of thing.
And Sally, I think Sally seems a bit less typical.
She's very smart and she does say apparently when she's annoyed.
Like Susan.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I was thinking about coupling as well.
And I think what sets Sally apart is, you know, all the characters
in coupling have their fatal flaw, if you like.
Sally doesn't really seem to have a fatal flaw that's based in
hubris, like the coupling characters do.
Yeah.
You know, she's a flawed character and she doesn't know everything
but she is a lot more of an ideal person without being hyper
perfect.
So she's believable.
Yeah.
I absolutely adore her.
It's a detective story and we get Sally and Kathy joking about
being an ITV detective duo, but it's a detective story with an
amateur sleuth, but figuring things out in a way that we, the
audience, can figure out as well.
She's an expertly crafted character because she doesn't talk down
to the audience.
She's on the same level as the audience.
And when she figures out and we figure stuff out, we get that
she's clever, we feel clever being brought along with her.
I can see why Stephen Moffatt tried to bring her back several
times.
Yeah, that is the brilliant thing.
Other than Carrie Milligan's performance, which is just, God, it's
amazing.
We get her here in an early role being so brilliant, but that
sense that, yes, she's obviously clever, and that satisfaction is
an audience of, yet absolutely figuring it out, she goes along
which is so rare, generally speaking, detective shows.
The detective knows more than us.
They're ahead of us.
Sometimes they cheat, and it's not things that fall down to make
sense, but in a, in a, if anything, we have a slight advantage
here because we know it's Doctor Who.
We know there's time travel involved, but everything is at, we're
giving enough information to sort of be able to guess at it, but
the moment of confirmation is the same as when, when Sally is
getting it, and that sense of satisfaction as a viewer of having
the mystery set up and then the reveal. is fantastic.
And that's the sort of sad thing about rewatches of this because
you're never going to get that 1st time watch back.
And this is a story where the 1st time watch is just glorious on
so many levels.
But yeah, I miss, I miss having the delightful surprise and
satisfaction of the mystery reveals as we go along.
I do like the stages of it, but it is kind of funny, the way that
the way that it kind of works is because it's Doctor Who and
because there's time travel.
You know, one of the things that a detective writer does is
carefully sets everything up and provides clues and red herrings
and all of those kinds of things.
A good detective writer.
Some of them cheat.
But the doctor is kind of doing that here, isn't he?
Like the doctor is kind of setting things up.
So the doctor has the message under the wallpaper, but also tells
tells Billy to tell Sally to read the list and that leads her to
the next discovery.
You know, there's something that the doctor's doing in the
background.
And I couldn't help thinking all the time that I was watching it
that because Stephen Moffatt is sort of famous for these puzzle
box plots.
Which is basically the fault of this story.
Because it's this one and it's like nothing else is quite like
this.
And yet we expect them to do this every single time.
You have to be this good every single time or you have failed
Stephen Moffatt.
I think that, you know, next year when he does the 2 parter and
the 2 parter has lots of questions, you know, is a sort of very
weird puzzle box, it's impossible, the 1st time you watch it, to
know exactly what's going on and how it's going to resolve
itself.
And in true Stephen Moffatt fashion, It resolves itself perfectly
and all makes sense, even though I think by the cliffhanger, you're
absolutely wondering how, you know, how can all of these things be
happening?
And so the doctor and Stephen Moffatt seem to be having a similar
role here in the episode, that there's something here, which
whether it's deliberately or inadvertently, has Moffatt sort of
commenting on his own craft as someone who devises plants.
That's interesting.
I like that.
Well, that bit at the end, you know, where, where does Larry say
look, sometimes we just don't find out what happened and that's
okay.
You know, there's a kind of a way of watching Doctor Who, where it
doesn't matter if everything's not resolved or if you get to the
fridge afterwards and, you know, take out a milk bottle or
something and then you think, actually, how could that even
possibly have happened?
You know, there's a way in which that doesn't, that doesn't matter
and plenty of fantastic Doctor Who doesn't tell you everything.
But that's not Moffatt's Doctor Who, you know.
And Sally, who is standing in 1st Stephen Moffatt here, says, no, I
have to know.
It has to resolve itself.
It has to make proper sense.
And then within sort of 2 minutes, the thing happens that makes it
all make proper sense and fit together.
Yeah, yeah.
I definitely think that as if you're watching the episode at that
point, you're like yelling at Larry going, no, we need the
answer.
We have to find out.
I just all resolve.
So I feel very onside of Sally Sparrow at that moment, and then as
you're sort of inwardly yelling, if you're me.
Then the exhale is, ah, there we go.
We now know everything.
It's all good.
Yeah, yeah.
And there's just a few little details around those scenes that I
love.
First of all, you know, this is one year later after the main
narrative, and there's an earlier point in the episode which says
that this episode is taking place in 2007, which, from the
perspective of the new series of Doctor Who is contemporaneous
with series 2, because each one of Russell's series is the year
ahead of production, because of that 12 months.
So that year means that the doctor and Martha are back on Earth
contemporaneous with her timeline.
Right.
So, you know, this is sort of Martha just popping home briefly
between 42 and the sound of drums, kind of to find a to find a 4
things and a lizard, 5 minutes to red hatching.
And I also love because I was watching this in the knowledge that
they've often asked Kerry Mulligan to come back.
And of course, her star has risen and she's doing amazing things
in other productions now.
But I watched that scene where she hands over the folder to the
doctor and as she takes Larry's hand, I'm like, you know what?
I'm actually glad that we haven't revisited Sally Sparrow and
Larry Nightingale, because with her conversation with Larry
beforehand, she can't, she can't get on with her life until she
has closed the loop with the doctor.
And when she closes it, she doesn't say the doctor, take me with
you.
She doesn't say I want to go travelling.
Let me see the TARDS again.
It's like, actually, no, I'm good now.
I'm ready I'm ready to go on.
And yeah, I've often said that with Amy and Rory's story, I kind
of wish there were several earlier points where that could have
ended and I really like the ending of Sally and Larry's story
within the world of the doctor here and they go back into their
shop and Bantos nowhere to be seen.
They've bought him out.
They're free-named it.
Yeah, that's the final shot.
It's Barrow and Nightingale.
Um, I just, I just really like that, that because we've, we were
discussing earlier how, despite the tragedy of Billy and Kathy
being sent back in time, they did have their full lives and as, as
Larry says, they're like, I think your obsession is getting in the
way of your life.
There certainly isn't a comment on any companions, I'm sure.
Or us.
But it's, Oh my goodness.
No.
I don't need that.
But exactly.
Badlands.
I did hear that.
But Larry and Banto are a comment on fandom.
You know, Larry's got the t-shirt and he's on the egg forums and
the doctor says, look to your left and he says, I think that's a
political statement.
How many times have I argued with David from the Doctor Who show
about the politics of the Sunmakers for God's sake.
You know?
I couldn't pretend it's a comet on Meal Phantom.
I think you can, particularly Banto.
Bantos are particularly kind of horrible kind of male fan.
Yeah, well, the script refers to him, rather uncharitably, as all
gut and a tight T-shirt.
I feel really attacked, right?
Banto, you know, he's kind of presented as a bit useless because
Sally walks in and he's just like, oh, yeah, Larry's doing that
whatever.
But as she's leaving the shop, he's the one who says, why does no
one ever go to the police, like lamp shading this whole thing?
Yeah.
But does that give her the idea?
Like, that gives her the idea.
Isn't that why she goes for the toilet?
That's what I mean.
It's like he's set up to be a stereotypical, useless fanboy.
Bit harsh.
It a perfectly reasonable comment.
I have heard fanboys make before and I agree with them.
That's a good point.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, yeah.
It's an important comment and it speeds the plot along.
In fact, the fandom thing with Larry.
Sally is very sweet about it.
You know, like she doesn't make fun of him or anything.
And, you know, sometimes you can imagine Stephen Moffatt writing
someone being a little bit more dismissive, like some of the
characters in coupling.
And she thinks it's funny.
Like that smile that she gives when she decodes his reference to
you know, his mates and she says, you know, that's the internet
isn't it?
It's very sweet.
Like she's she's lovely.
I think the 2 of them, they don't sort of get any scenes where
they're sort of growing, you know, warm and attached to one
another in any overt way, but they go through this thing
together.
Then we get a year.
And like I think it's a credible ending.
Yeah, that's the other reason I don't want them to come back
because Stephen Ruffoot would just melt them or turn one of them
into a Zygon or something.
Yeah, or they'd be getting divorced or something.
Yeah, yeah.
Divorced for no readily apparently.
Yeah.
No, I do think it's a perfect kind of story that can be left alone
quite well.
And I suppose there are a lot of things that you could say about
that in Doctor Who that did come back and I probably like most of
them, but I think seeing this in context of however many, 0 god
it's been like over 10 years, doesn't it?
10 years later, you're like, it does feel very nice that these, you
have the complete thing.
It has a happy ending.
People die, but not in horrible ways.
Um, and yeah, I think them coming through that kind of uh, trauma
terror together is definitely the sort of thing that, you know
that uh, a new understanding of the other person for you have both
survived, weird stuff that you can't talk to anyone else about
especially.
And um, I think they do a really good job with the uh, makeup and
the acting of Larry.
So you definitely get the sense that he has become a, a, I don't
necessarily grown up.
That seems harsh, but you do see if you get the feeling that he's
grown up in the interim in the year between.
He does feel like a more put together person.
And in a very short space of screen time there.
So I really like how it's done.
I'm glad you spotted that as well, because yeah, his hair looks a
bit neater, his beard looks a bit neater. clothes are ironed, you
know, it's just, it's just little, those little clues.
Yeah, even though he's standing, he's standing with a sense of
self-assurance that he didn't, he didn't have before, he seems
like, yeah, he seems like I know who I am a lot more now, which
you know, again, could be partially due to the trauma as well as
Sally's friendship slash romantic thing.
It's like, oh, look at me.
I have a person who can survive terrifying weird things and get on
with life.
Great.
In fact, maybe there's a little bit of a sort of crossover because
you know, Sally's definitely the one who has hand in the, you know
in the relationship at the very beginning, like she wins in sort
of any interaction between them, but she hasn't been able to let
go and he has.
And so he's moved on and grown up and she's stayed where she is.
Yeah.
So he's the one that's showing the emotional maturity, even though
we, the audience, in our immature famishness.
What the gosh darn dancers.
But yeah, no, you're absolutely right.
I think that isn't that is a nice, you know, an evening out.
I know it's, uh, yeah, I think that, yeah, I do, I do really like
that about it.
Even though it would be a bit weird if he was the one who hadn't
moved on, that would make sense.
But it's, uh, it's nice to see that he's the more emotionally well
adjusted one.
Given that rule is normally given to the woman.
I really like the way that a whole bunch of mysteries are set up
the start and that we get answers to them all in succession
things.
Like, the teaser is that, you know, tearing wallpaper off the wall
and having someone speak to you like that.
That's an amazing teaser.
I don't know if there's ever been a better one than that.
And then to have the delivery of the letter, and the weirdness of
letter, 1st of all, it's to her.
And then you solely realise it's from the path.
Well, not solar is, but it's been a very long time coming.
And it's from his grandmother and you're suddenly like, 0 my
gosh.
And then he confirms that he's the grandson and that was just the
beats of that scene or series of scenes. series of scenes.
The beats of their, of the, the slow reveal.
It's just it's so satisfying.
And they do it again with the DVD extras, setting it up.
And then when you finally get the conversation happening, it's
like, oh, the 1st time seeing that, it's like, this is, this is
brilliant.
This is genius.
How weird and bizarre and exciting is this to watch?
And it's a bloody conversation with the computer screen
effectively they're having.
This is so good.
It's really incredible, isn't it?
I think that 1st scene that you mentioned.
Once you watch it for the 2nd time and you know who the letter's
from, seeing Kathy in the background of that scene as well, is
really amazing because she's there listening and sort of trying to
work out how to leave and things and trying not to be seen.
And I think that just adds a sort of extra kind of Frisson to that
scene.
Indeed.
And it's another use of that big mirror you were talking about
earlier, Liz, because that's how Kathy is observing the
conversation.
I have to confess that in 2007, before we all had computers in our
pockets, when I 1st watched it and didn't immediately have access
to Wikipedia or things, I thought, is that Daniel Craig?
No.
It's a good choice to have him look weird and old-fashioned as
well.
Like he's out of time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then the DVD extras.
I mean, we've barely talked about the doctor and Martha and
obviously they're barely in it, but the DVD extras conversation is
incredible, isn't it?
And the way that Sally nearly starts to have that conversation
with the doctor, when she's in the back room at Bantos, just
listening to sort of one DVD extra.
And then when the conversation actually happens and we've already
heard that bit.
It's so incredibly well done.
And even the fact that, um, you feel like that they could hear
each other, that surely they can hear each other.
And partly it is because David Tennant, even though the doctor is
just reading from a transcript, Tennant is acting as if he can
hear her speak.
Yes, yeah.
Yeah, and that's that's another one of the business bets where you
get to feel clever because you're like, 0 my god, it's a
conversation, but they don't work it out till later.
So you're like, aha, I was told that earlier.
So I knew it before you, Sally Sparrow. which is very helpful.
There's some of the, some of the bits with, one of the reasons
that I really, really love this episode and I feel very chill
watching it is because there's no bits between Martha and the
doctor that make me wince and go, why are you being so mean to
Martha?
Kind of dumb.
It's just Martha.
Martha's my RTD companion.
Martha's the one that I empathised with.
And to feel that your identification figure is just being mean to
all the time or every other episode.
It doesn't make you feel good.
It was not, it was not very happy for me.
I have to ignore those bits from watching season 3, which is
really annoying because this is my favourite RTD season and yet I
have to go, la la, la, it didn't happen. at some point in almost
every episode.
Yeah, which is why it had terrible, terrible knock on effects
because I don't really care all much about Donna.
And the reason being, when we've got a new one, I was like, well, I
know not to get attached to you because I know what happened last
time.
And also, I don't want to get attached to you because you were
really mean to the one that I loved.
So I'm not going to have any feelings for this new one.
I was doing a doctor there because I had felt betrayed at the way
that my companion had been treated.
But we've got, it's okay, it's because she's in it for like a
minute here.
At least at least we have that.
She does have a bow and arrow, which is very cool.
And she does annoyingly have my favourite outfit of hers for that
one scene in 1969, which is like, god damn it, really?
One scene.
But yeah.
So that was quite pleasing in this, yeah. beloved Martha.
We've been talking a lot over the last few episodes about how mean
the doctor is to Martha and how unpleasant and difficult it is to
watch. and and even when he's not actively being mean to her.
Like when he kind of welcomes her on board at the end of the
Lazarus experiment and he does seem to tone all of that sort of
stuff down, she ends up, you know, having to scrub floors or yeah
she has to work in a shop.
And she just seems to have a really undeserved bad time of it.
And Freema is so charming, like just so charming.
I mean, I just think that Martha lights up the screen in every
scene she's in.
I think she's just wonderful, massively underappreciated.
Yep, I absolutely adore her.
And um, Liz, you may, you may have heard on the show before I
occasionally mentioned that I do, I do wrestling as a sport and
we've got a, um, we've got a club here in Sydney.
We've got a sister club in Melbourne and I'm fascinated to find
out where this is going.
Well, after the Melbourne Club got set up, some of them flew up
here for our Christmas party, and I met one of them, and I think I
must have been wearing a Doctor Who badge or something, and so I
weren't wearing your Bonnie Langford outfit.
I wasn't wearing my ballet.
No, well, I only found that again recently.
It's been in the garage.
Um, time of the Rani Bonnie Langford outfit.
I was going to ask, because it's like, is it the pink one or the
blue one because I assume it must be one of those two.
Yep, yeah, pink stripy shirt and white boots.
Anyway, um, so I'm I'm like 5 foot four.
So I'm not very tall.
One of the Melbourne wrestlers. is just shy of 6 foot.
Quite burly.
Sees me wearing, I think Doctor Who shirt, Doctor Who badge.
I'm not sure.
He's just like, oh, are you a Doctor Who fan?
I said, yes.
And he said, the old one or the new one?
I said, oh, both.
He's like, I really like the new one.
I'm like, oh, okay.
He said, and you know what?
They need to bring back Martha.
Martha was, so I've got this, you know, 3 foot across. 6 foot tall
guy extolling how?
Martha was the companion the doctor needed.
He didn't need someone else to just tell him how brilliant he
was.
No, he needed someone to snap him out of it.
And, you know, be his friend no matter what.
And that's who Martha is.
She gets stuck in 1969 and works in a shop.
Now, she doesn't, she doesn't just take it.
She complains about it, but she sticks by him.
And he said, I've got the leather jacket.
I've got the red leather jacket.
I found it in a market in my size.
It's a woman's leather jacket, but it looks good on me.
I just thought because I always liked Martha, but that gave me an
idea that, you know, of course, Doctor Who fans were in our sphere
and we hear people say, oh, you know, like no one likes the space
pirates kind of thing.
No one likes this.
The Time Monster gang you did at the beginning, Nathan, you know
people will say no one likes a Time Monster.
Well, I think it's pretty fair to say all 3 of us really like the
time monster and not in an ironic way.
I know.
Yeah, I do feel like there's there's quite a, if you admit to
liking the Time Monster, Then suddenly a lot of people come out of
the woodwork and are like, yeah, it's a good one.
I like, yes, yeah, I feel, yeah, admit the Doctor Who stories that
you, you like, unless it's monster pelodon, in which case, you
should keep that to yourself.
That's terrible.
Oh, God, I'm gatekeep.
I'm so sorry.
I'm sorry.
But I mean, Martha has that status, doesn't she?
Like, she's in series 2, which everyone, you know, really
remembers, and then series 4, which went incredibly well.
But Freemer is, you know, really something and I really love
series 3 as well.
Yeah, the problem is it's supposed to the one I most love of RTDs
and it's the one that makes me angry.
Because I want the season.
What I should really do is get is rip DVDs for all the episodes
and just cut out the little bits that I find that are just too
much.
And then I will have a beautiful season.
It's just, 0 man, I get so teed off at the end of it, when the
sound of drums, she has some of the greatest companion scenes of
all time with her coming down to the earth.
I'm coming back and walking away into this terrifying dystopia of
little human balls that her entire world has become.
And she walks around the world for a year.
Basically trying to convince people that the doctor's absurd plan
is going to work and she does it.
And what does she get at the end?
She's like, you know what?
I was good.
Does the doctor agree with her?
Does the doctor say anything lovely to her?
No, he just sort of stands there like an utter chump and I want
to...
Bad things to happen to him at that moment?
How dare you let Arthur walk away without telling her how
brilliant she is?
Gosh, I, oh, I, Still, still not happy.
Still not happy.
In fact, let me continue the strands a little further.
Not 5 or 6 episodes into the next season.
We get the, some Taran 2 parter, where the doctor thinks for a
moment that Donna's, Donna's going to leave him when she actually
just wants to pop off home and see her dad and grandfather, and
he's into this big speech about, oh, you were brilliant.
I love you so much.
You're so great.
Oh, please don't go.
It going to be terrible without you.
It's like, you haven't even been with her for half a season.
She hasn't done very much at all.
And Martha, Martha spent a year of her life with the world
destroyed, her family could be murdered at any moment.
And you say nothing to her.
I mean, seriously, geez, what's wrong with you, man?
What is wrong with you, doctor?
And this is why.
I have some issues with the 10th doctor.
Some very well-balanced kept under the roof issues that I don't
let out very often.
All of that sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
Thank you.
I like invalidated.
It makes me feel that my unreasonableness is, you know, is
reasonable really, quietly, quietly reasonable.
Yeah, we fans all have our one thing which a lot of other fans
don't get until we describe it as the way you've described it.
I know people go, ah, for me, it's black org.
But I shan't go into that again here, you know, we've got a time
limit.
Yeah, it just sucks me it's been it's been 10 years and I still am
so pissed off.
It's like, what do you need?
I get over it.
We need 17 box sets from Big Finish to rectify this, quite
frankly.
I think that's what we need.
But my my thinking has always been, it would have been so good to
have the family of blood, human nature, 2 parter, as the 1st 2
parter, because that's kind of the emotional crescendo of their
relationship, and it's kind of the, her feelings are acknowledged
and it's kind of like it's not going to happen, but we've reached
a state of equilibrium with it.
But it takes us too long to get there.
Yeah.
Yeah, and so as such, sort of the brilliance of Freemer's
performance has to get through this sort of pining that the script
asks her to do.
I think by now, like by this point in the season, though, like the
doctor trusts her.
And we spoke last week about, there's just a couple of times where
the doctor properly thanks her for all that she's been through
during that two-parter, and it shouldn't come as as much of a
relief as it does.
Yeah.
But earlier in the season where he's being alternately sort of
standoffish and showboating, he wouldn't have trusted her in quite
the same way, not because she didn't deserve it, because obviously
you know, she saves his life in the 1st episode, but just for that
sort of rather ill considered doctor art to work at all.
It does need, I think, to come later in the season.
Yes.
I do love it in this one when she, when Billy is confused by the
doctor's explanation and Martha just says, oh, just nod when he
stops for breath.
In fact, one of the things about Stephen Moffatt is he tends not
to participate in any of that sort of stuff and he didn't really
do it in his season 2 episode, like that big kind of towering love
affair that goes all the way through season 2 Moffatt really isn't
having a bar of it.
And here there's just much more sort of screwball comedy in the
way that the 2 of them interact, like the 2 the 2 scenes we get
with them together.
Yeah, yeah.
And tenants on fire, he gets some really brilliant dialogue
there.
That thing about hens.
I've learned to avoid ends.
I think he's just hilarious. funny and kind of horrible.
One of the things I'd forgotten.
Did he just suggest?
I had to... a quicker you wait and pop subtitles.
I was like, oh, my God, how can I not remember?
And in that last scene, I love the fact that it kind of harks back
to just not when he pauses for breath.
Martha's the one who has to keep him on task.
Well, and Martha's really enjoying travelling with a doctor at
this point too.
That wonderful line about going to the moon landing 4 times.
We went 4 times.
And I love her delivery.
Whenever she's not being a very good girl who's doing all the
emotional labour for everyone else.
When she gets to be funny or slightly naughty.
She's wonderful at it.
She's so terrific.
Yeah, and she was happy there, which is like, oh, yeah, so we get
to see why you travel with a doctor in one line and here.
This is the reason why 42, not the greatest episode ever, but I
still really love it. because the doctor and Martha and their
relationship is perfect in it in every way.
There is no mention of putting Martha down.
There is no pining from Martha.
There is just this really gorgeous teamworky thing going on with a
little bit of snark, and the god, the level of trust is so
beautiful.
When Martha gets trapped away in the duda, and the doctor's saying
you know, I will get you and her yelling at him, and it's just, you
feel it there.
He cares about her.
He cares about her in a way that's not then undercut by him being
a bit of an ass 2 scenes later.
And then when she tries to save him with the burning thing and
it's like, why?
I could have had a whole season with this relationship just or
have resolved the thing as you suggested.
That'd be brilliant.
That's a great solution.
Why didn't they do that?
I mean, it might have been because they didn't want to break up
the pinnacle run of human nature through sound of drums or if
you're being very generous last of the time lords, which I still
see as peak, peak RTD.
That's the that's the top bit.
Um, despite, as I said, cutting cutting out the lot of things.
Oh, it's so frustrating.
How dare they?
How dare they felt?
They're completely to my wishes.
See, it's funny with Stephen Moffatt writing this one and, you
know, not presenting that element of the unrequited love element
because I do remember an interview with Stephen Moffatt.
And I think it was about coupling.
And it was at the time when coupling was being labelled as the UK
version of Friends because it was 3 men and 3 women and, you know
they met in a pub instead of a coffee shop.
And he responded with the greatest of respect.
I don't like that comparison because he said at the centre of my
show.
There is a couple who gets together in episode one and the show is
about their relationship and the people around their
relationship.
Friends seems to be about a will they won't they thing about a
couple who takes several years to get together and then are on the
rocks and he's like, I just find that so unrealistic.
I do not think they would have had these feelings for each other
without without the discussion coming up very early on.
That doesn't happen in real life.
And when that does happen, that's not a healthy situation.
Yeah, he's absolutely right.
Yeah, and so, I mean, I don't want to put word in words in Stephen
Moffatt's mouth, but, you know, maybe he was uncomfortable with
that.
Maybe he could, maybe he felt he didn't want to just try and
address that in 2 scenes of this episode.
But then again, we've just had human nature, which was a
resolution.
It goes on, but there's a resolution.
But it does mean that when Larry says in that final scene, look, is
it getting in the way of other things?
It's a very upfront thing to say, but it's a natural human thing
to say of, I think no, I think we need to talk about this.
We're not we're not just going to sit at each other and make eyes
across the room.
We're 2 adults.
Let's talk about our feelings kind of thing.
And everyone in this episode.
All the adults talk about their feelings like Kathy wants to tell
Sally she's had a good life and she's been happy and...
She wants to tell Larry that she hates him.
But, you know, it's these 4 adults being faced with the fact that
if they're not honest about their emotions now, like time could
take away the opportunity, I suppose.
Well, dear listener, that's all we have time for this week.
We'll be back next week to talk about Russell T. Davey's favourite
Blake 7 episode, Utopia.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcast and
you can keep up with us at FlightthroughEntirety.com, flights
through entirety on Facebook and at FTE podcast on Twitter.
You can also find our series 11 flashcast, Jody IntoTara at
JodyintoTara.com and at Jody IntoTara on Twitter and our James
Bond Commentary Podcast Bondfinger at bondfinger.com at bondfinger
on Facebook and at bondfingercast on Twitter.
Liz, where can people find you?
They can find me at Verge Podcast, which I can only remember for
the Twitter for, Verge Podcast.
You could Google it.
Please Google all these things because I don't know the addresses
or Twitter handles offhand.
And you can find me on Hammerhouse, a podcast.
Um, Verities Doctor Who.
Hammer is discussing all the Hammer Horror movies from Quick Mass
Experiment through to the Devil Daughter with Paul Cornell.
He's written for Doctor Who.
I am just throwing that out there because, you know, we sometimes
do a Doctor Who jokes.
Hey, hey.
We try not to very often.
We try to remember that it's not a Doctor Who podcast.
Even though Peter Gushing's in a lot of them.
Yeah, we try to do that on Bond Finger as well.
Never works, never ever works.
Yay.
Oh, glad.
Oh, glad never.
Glad other people have that problem.
All right.
So until next time, may you have more meat cutes in your life than
Sally Sparrow has in a single episode.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
That was Flight 3 Entirety, starring Nathan Bodley, Brendan Jones
and Elizabeth Miles.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, Strings performance by Jane or
Berg.
This episode, Flirting Wittily, was recorded on the 25th of August
2019 and released on the 17th of November.
Don't tell Stephen, Dan, or Colin this, but we've hidden an Easter
egg in a recent episode of New to Who.
If you play it backwards, you can hear Richard and Todd having a
lively disagreement about German expressionism.
Well, we will talk more about this, I think, probably in our last
of the Time Lords episode, because I feel strongly that Martha
gets the chance to come and critique the way that she's been
treated.
Like, she doesn't just sort of slink off into the night or
anything.
And it's that moment in the episode where she comes back into the
Tartars.
And she tells him.
Yeah.
Yeah. still annoyed about it.
But yes, I'm glad she came back in and said that.
And I know that there are other fans with what I can, it's, God, a
perfectly reasonable perspective of they found that moment very
empowering and that moment really spoke to them and how they felt
and the sense of them being stuck in bad relationships and having
the strength to say what you felt and to walk away from it and
that really matters to them.
But obviously there's not my perspective.
That's not what I want.
I want my identification figure to be treated with love and joy.
But, you know, that's a perfectly a valid way of looking at it
too.
It's just, um, it's just not pandering to my preferences, um, which
means it's bad.
No, no, that's how Doctor Who works.
Yes, yeah.
If it's not for me, then it's not for the fans.
So it's not good.
Yeah.
I am the representative of the majority of fandom, so damn well
better people I want.
But I actually had a point I was going to hear and I've completely
forgotten what it is.
So I shall I shall end it there.
My continuing ranting at that, why is Martha not treated properly
by the doctor?
So cruel.
Cruel and harsh.
I have feelings.
Brilliant.
I'm sorry.
No, that's good.
Particularly since, you know, you're here for one episode of the
season and the more people that we can hear about this because
it's super problematic.
I think it is super problematic.
Do you want a crappy relationship to be the lens through which
like the 2 main characters in the show?
Do you know what I mean?
And the thing is, it's depending on your perspective and who you
are as a viewer, it can jump the other way as well.
Instead of being like me and like, why are you being so awful to
the person that I really like and judging the doctor.
And this is why I often don't enjoy the 10th doctor because I'm so
often reminded of, you are mean to someone I like.
Um, you can jump the other way where you're more attached to the
10th doctor and are like, I don't like this pining person who's
come along and is pining all the time and they should just get
over it, which, um, yeah, which makes them dislike Martha, for
terrible reasons, because obviously the doctor is in the wrong, but
still, it's, um, it's, it's, it's not good either way, and I don't
I don't, I, yeah.
I really, I really am just very upset. that I'm still upset about
it this much.
It's like, I keep them suppressed these feelings.
I mean, I think you're absolutely right.
And I think it's part of the reason that the 10th doctor and Donna
works so well together.
Not just because I think the scripts are very good next year, but
you know, in David Tennant's 1st season, the Doctor and Rose's
relationship is deliberately written as uncomfortable for a
viewer.
You know, we're meant to find them a bit arrogant and a bit
cocky.
Yeah.
And then this relationship is written in the way, the way you've
just described as well, which is a bit a bit, it's a bit tough to
watch.
And then you get Catherine Tate coming along and there's the
mission statement right up front that...
We're not doing any of that stuff.
Yeah, we're not doing any of that.
I don't think he's ever said it, but I think there was an
understanding during the making of season 3 series 3 that they've
taken this in the wrong...
Not even, I don't think there's anything fundamentally wrong with
the idea, but just the execution and the way they've done it and
the pacing of it.
It just goes wrong.
Yeah.
But then by the time season 4 comes around, it's too late.
I will forgive you 10th doctor.
You're stuck in the judgy pale forever.
And then the episode that's meant to be Martha in space just
becomes about, you know, Freema Adjumen having to crawl around in
a muddy pit while Catherine Tate figures out some dates.
And a fish drown.
And the pounders, the fish drowns.
I don't know.
I haven't seen it for so long.
Is that good or not still?
I mean, like, see, Galaxy Prio again?
That's nice.
And there's a really cute woman where they sort of surround her
and like poke her curiously, as an expression on her face is just
adorable.
Um, but yeah, that was uh, I love her turning torchwood, though
really enjoyed that.
And the way that Captain Jack was like, the way Captain Jack and
Martha were, that's more what I wanted.
Their relationship in torture was perfect.
This suddenly made me...
She really elevated torchwood for me.
So much so.
I didn't finish season one of Torture.
I started again with season 2 and I just stopped watching after
Martha left.
Like I watched one episode after she left and just went, And then
I did watch Children of Earth, but yeah, that's it.
Yeah, you made a wise decision.
But yeah, she really brought a missing heart to the series.
Yeah, everyone sort of hates each other.
She really felt like she fitted in as well, surprisingly well.
And I think it really...
And the vibe between her and Jack was just, 0 man, it was so
relaxing.
It was just so gorgeous to have a character I love in an
environment where she was being treated with the respect that she
deserved.
And yeah, I like to relax watching television shows.
I don't like to feel tenseisted.
Whereas the next thing coming from that will hurt someone.
At this point, James would come in and say, when are we doing the
torchwood podcast?
Yes.
Well, the thing is, we did the Torchwood podcast, but then we
reconned him.
Okay, again, I remember it.
No, that's right.
All right.
So I will do our closing thing and I will stop midway through it
at some point to swear.
Okay.
Well, you're prepping that, something.
We we, um, Liz, we recorded the Lazarus experiment earlier this
evening.
And I've just realised that this season has the 1st 2 parter by
Helen Rainer, followed by a script by Stephen Greenhorn, neither
of which are very fondly remembered, and then next season has the
1st 2 parter written by Helen Rainer, followed by a script by
Stephen Greenhorn, neither of which are fondly remembered.
What's greenhorns?
The doctor's daughter.
Yeah, where the fish trap.
Fish traps. is bloody amazing in that scene, my dear, but the fish
drowns.
I know, but like she's having to do acting. opposite the fish. so
bad In a dirty, smelly, muddy quarry.
We'll give David and Catherine some, we'll give them the things to
do, the Doctor Who things.
I want you to moan at a drowned fish.
Well, that's the thing.
Russell T. Gap is in the writer's tale when he's planning this.
He's like, this is going to be the Martha in, but this is going to
be the Martha in Space Story.
Like I've promised Freema a lost in space thing where, you know
Martha has to be really reliable and the doctor and Donna have to
get her back and then 2 weeks later he says to he says to Ben Cook
oh no, I thought of the words the doctor's daughter and now we
have to do it.
And the only slot we've got is Martha in space, so I have to put
them together.
Freema, I'm so sorry.
Oh my god.
That's appalling.
It's like, yeah, yeah, Russell, you're not too sorry to put
midnight on the shelf, are you?
That was very good though.
Yes, that's true.
Okay.
I was just about to read the intro again.
That's not do that.
Okay.
Well, dear listener, that's all we have time for this week.