Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight through Entirety
Chan, the only Doctor Who podcast with Perfect Malcasarian manners
though.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Adam.
Chan and I'm a self-secreting double malted Frappuccino for this
one, dough.
Well, the stars have gone out.
The galaxies have collapsed in humanity's only hope lies, as
always, with Derek Jacoby.
Will we go gentle into that good night, or will we find a way to
reach utopia?
It's amazing what you can double bank, isn't it?
Because this, I, well, I don't think I'm being too controversial
to say, is marvellous and visually great and a wonderful script
and was double banked with 42.
Ah, which, as we heard a few weeks ago.
I enjoyed a great deal better than a lot of the other everyone
else. in like 42 because it's very straightforward.
That's one of my issues with everything since the reboot is the
self-knowingness of them all.
Like, that's my, that's one of the only problems I have with
utopia is that, and it's with, you know, I think most of the Davis
and and Moffat era is there's a moment where they're running and
it's like, oh, I've missed this.
It's like, don't draw attention to the boring bits.
Like, no one runs for because they're enjoying it.
You're running away from monster people.
He's had a whole season of torture, though, you see, I think
probably what he's missing.
Yeah, just being in a cave, being depressed.
Having to put up with Bern Gorman's grimacing.
Yeah, yeah.
Dodging the payloads from Mefanwi, the pterodactyl.
But I think I think you're right, Brendan, in that, it does look
amazing and it is, you know, Graham Harper again.
How is he double banking it?
Is he in 2 places at once?
I believe they shot a little bit of stuff for 42.
Then shot most of Utopia, then shot most of 42 and then...
So they were just all in the same silo.
Yeah, yeah, kind of thing.
They could have shut a, like, because everyone, like, there's that
very long scene where they're talking to John Barrowman through a
door, and so that could all be done.
Well, we're off making 42, yeah. tenants off yelling through
another door.
Well, Freeman's stuck in another door.
There's a lot of looking through portholes.
And the thing is, there's a lot of times where you have a close-up
of someone's hands on a control.
Oh, yeah.
It is actually at the location for 42 because it was that old sort
of factory works thing, particularly any close-up of freema.
Any close-up of Martha's hand.
He's a hand double because Freema was off shooting actual dialogue
and things.
Wow, they're so clever, aren't they?
That's a 2nd ID who is insanely doing scheduling.
That's hard work.
Maybe the 3rd AD. I can't remember who does the schedule.
But I used to hate them.
I'd always be bringing them going, I have to go to work.
I've gotta go to the radio.
What are you doing, putting me on at this hour?
I suppose we have to talk about the episode.
I thought we were doing quite well.
We don't have to.
Do we talk about how none of the story makes any sense?
Well, this is Doctor Who.
I think we more or less kind of resigned to that.
But like it feels like it's trying to do so many things with the
stories that have come before that are leading up to it and the
stories that it's about to spin off into, that this one in itself
goes.
Look, we're just going tread water for a little minute.
This is why I stopped playing with my action figures.
This is the entire dramatist person that you're talking about, the
entire drama talking of this episode because they all stand about
and it's a polished balloon.
It looks gorgeous, but they just end up doing my dinner with Andre
addressing each other in a circle. and yeah, look, I think there's
the thing, it's actually a pyramid, isn't it?
You've got Saint Derek Jacoby in the puffy pirate shirt and just
oh, he's emoting now, so if you'll just stand back and admire it
hearing the drums.
He's hearing the drums.
No one breathes for the entire week shoots.
It all purple face.
Jack wasn't acting.
It was not apoplexy.
Oh, I'm on the set with Dame Derek.
But he had played the master before, had he not?
Derek Checkerby in the cartoon.
Yeah, in Scream of the Shark, which we never covered.
Oh, we should do it now.
Yeah.
It's about all that buying a friend of the podcast, Paul Cornell
so it's very good.
It is very good.
I would say Richard E. Grant has never heard of Doctor Who despite
having been in it.
Has no interest in it.
And again, and it shows.
Yeah, yeah.
But everyone else is very good.
I kind of like his disaffected.
I really don't care what's going on performance, even as the great
intelligence.
It's like, yeah, I don't really care.
It makes him more menacing.
It reminds me of when I used to be obsessed with, if you're a
terrible actor, You're very good at playing a villain because you
can seem completely emotionless about things that you should have
some kind of inkling about, which is why Heather Locklear was so
good in Melrose Plan.
But it's true.
It's like really, like anyone who doesn't care about what they're
doing.
Heather bloody long.
Heather Locklear.
She has no idea.
I have distinct memories of watching this.
I watched it in Cardiff.
Oh, wow.
I was in, I went on holidays from a radio job and took myself off
to Carter for a Doctor Who holiday and I got a Dalek in my hotel
room.
It was some special deal.
It's like a remote control one.
It's the Death to the Daleks one.
Oh, right.
It's awesome.
And so, yeah, I was sitting there on the Saturday night going, oh
my God, I'm finally going to see Doctor Who when it goes out.
Like, because it was, you know, a couple of years before Ivy
started doing that.
I was like, 0 my god, I'm in.
I'm in Cardiff.
I watching Doctor Who.
And I had suspected that Jacoby might be playing the master, but
the way they kind of tease it down in the episode, I was like, is
it going to be a future doctor?
Yeah.
Is it the valleyard or something?
Puffy sleeves, yeah.
Yeah, he sort of dresses like a classic series.
Yes.
He has the voice and the slightly camp.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I think that I had been unable to avoid spoilers.
So I was pretty sure that he was going to be the master.
Yeah, with fans.
But I remember watching it as well at the time.
And for me, the big shock wasn't the master thing so much as the
way that it ends up tying into what's been going on.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I do think that one of the genius things about series 3 is
that the arc is so simple, and it is just that the villain in
episode 11 steals the TARDIS and travels back in time to kind of
the beginning of series 2.
And that's why he's been appearing ever since what Love and
Monsters is our 1st reference to Harold Saxon.
And I think the simplicity of that is really good.
I also think that this does an amazing job of bringing a whole
sort of heap of stuff in from earlier on in the season and
things.
And we talked in our human nature episode about the decision that
Russell made to turn the cricket ball thing from the novel of
human nature.
Yeah, and that was a big surprise as well.
And I love that moment.
You know, we've talked a lot about David Tennant's acting, but I
do really like that moment where he, you know, is kind of stunned
and trying to deny that it's actually happening.
And then he's shouting at Martha, you know, has he noticed it?
Has he noticed it now?
I think all of that sort of stuff is pretty good.
And I'm actually on board for occasional Doctor Who story that is
a little bit less of an adventure in itself.
Oh, look, I love a base under siege. my favourite ones.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I mean, this is as thin as possible, isn't it?
I mean, it is super thin.
But you know, for me, it's all kind of atmosphere. and then
setting up for the 2 part finale.
Now, I don't want to derail anything that you're going to be
talking about in the next few weeks.
But I believe still to this day that Davis had the finale of this
in mind for Rose.
Oh, because we're meant to be caring about these people who have
been debased, like Martha's family, and we've barely gotten to
know them.
But if they were people we'd been with for the last 3 years, you'd
be like, oh, how awful, how, you know, I don't want to see Jackie
in that position.
That's just the worst thing.
Also, Jackie betraying Rose would have been much more powerful.
You are so spot on with this because we forget what a dark little
bugger how Russell can actually be.
He loves doing horrible, horrible things to people he's creative.
And also, like, it makes more sense for Rose to spend a year
walking around the planet whispering the doctor's name.
Instead of, instead of Martha, who really is just a bit jacked off
because old mate was blonde.
Yeah, yeah.
I think that, as well, you've got that, the hubris thing in series
two, you know, that the doctor and Rose are sort of massively
unlikeable, and you're waiting for the other shooter drop.
And it sort of, I guess, drops in doomsday, but it's clear, I
think, that he had more in mind.
Yeah, it was kind of just blindsided by Billy's departure, I think
and had to change it.
I, yeah, I had never considered it, but I think you're really onto
something.
And this is the other shoe dropping for me because the face of
Bo's message, you are not alone, was written for the end of New
Earth. with a view to it paying off at the end of that series and
then he pushed it back a year.
So, yeah, I hadn't I had never considered that.
Yeah, it just, there's, because when, you know, you see all of
Martha's family and I was like, I don't really care that they've
been turned into hideous monsters.
Like, it's, you know, I don't like, let them clean the tables.
Except I actually really love Francine.
And I'm a massive fan of all 3 RTD mums.
And my my dream convention is mom con.
With all 3 of them.
I, I once got an audiobook just because, uh, Joe, and I was
reading it.
She has the most beautiful, mellifluous voice.
Like it is spectacular.
And it is, it was a terrible book.
It was one of those, you know, the African crime stories. detective
ladies detective agencies.
Number one ladies detectivate. reads those.
Right.
Oh, cool.
Yeah, well, we'll see more of her next week, but I think that I
think that does that sounds right, doesn't it?
Like just from a, like from my, from my own writing, like I'm like
ah, because this is, this is one thing that you kind of forget
about TV production is that there are so many things that, that a
writer has to just take on board.
Like, you know, everyone complains about the last season of Game
of Thrones.
And everyone's like, well, they should they should do it with
competent writers, like, these writers are very competent, but
they had the option of playing that story out over another 7
seasons with different actors because Leonard Hetty was being paid
a 1000000 and a half dollars to sit in a window, drink a glass of
wine.
Or you try and tie it all up while you can still afford these
people who are quite becoming more and more expensive.
I mean, I think that that's what makes serialised television so
interesting because things are being thrown at the people who are
riding and they're having to deal with production things.
Oh, family tree.
Yeah, and through this dreary problem.
Enterprise season 4, isn't it?
But if you get the fans on board, I really did like that thing.
It's one of the few bits of trick I actually liked because, oh
look, saliency and interlinking and plots and puzzles that ROCD
ish fan boy brains can follow and make fun with.
And maybe in a way, Martha is designed to kind of fit that role in
a different way because we've seen Martha.
In human nature, you know, spend a few months, um, serving the
doctor or helping him out or whatever.
And so the idea that she would do that.
And Martha has been set up as someone who is selfless and who
really loves her family.
And so he kind of shorthands all of that stuff to still kind of
make it work, I think.
There is...
I mean, we're talking about everything but utopia.
It is very problematic, the fact that the only black family he has
he puts all of them in servant positions.
I was just going to say...
I would pay rubies and tips to have Francine as my waitress
because that would be Algonkin level, bitch.
She's out the back spitting in your food.
Oh, yeah, no, she exactly.
Nothing so prosaic.
No, no, no, the poison would be very slow accent.
Very slow.
Yeah, you would feel it only after your bank accounts had been
completely drowned.
I had draw her.
But yes, it's the big thing.
Because Russell is John Cimbwall in this case.
He's, I think, in these nicest aspect.
He's Jacobi.
Have you heard Jacobi on the big finishes, by the way?
Yes.
Oh my god, the one, the master of...
Yes.
Oh, that is probably the best thing, big finish. in about 5
years.
Thank you.
And so is he playing Jana in that?
No, he plays, like, it's, it doesn't quite make sense.
Look, it's very silly, but he's he's the war master.
Basically, he's the master before he gets turned back into a
baby.
Right, okay.
Okay.
And he's malevolent and he's awful and he hates people and he's
manipulative and it's amazing.
He's Russell.
He's Russell's Jungian Shadow.
I think everything that Russell wants to do as in really what you
said about Martha's family, which is just no one will do it.
I mean, Russell would be looking at Wing Chang.
I will just list appalling thing anyone could have ever done in a
Welsh accent.
And he'd be, you know, it's always this is really terrible, but
underneath he's going, oh, that's so evil.
Well, and Russell's naughty.
I mean, look at this.
You know, you have a setup here, utopia, which is kind of really
resonant and sort of, we talked about this in gridlock, where it
creates a world that doesn't really work on its own terms, but the
sort of comments on the human condition, you know, that you've got
people living their lives, sort of creating a community, suffering
you know, there's a material reality around that sort of refugee
camp thing, even though it's just in sort of some corridor in a
glass section.
And it looks like it's been entirely made out of leftover sets
from some blitz drama.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I love the mid-20th century look of everyone's clothes.
Yeah, it's nearly terrific.
And, you know, the doctor says, you always come back to their So
it's like, you know, we have nothing, but we're going to make sure
it's the aesthetic we like.
It is weird, though, because it does, like, they've gone.
Okay, it's what says refugees to us in the war, in the tube.
Yeah, yeah, waiting for the bombs to drop.
There we go.
That's the look we're going.
I think that's perfectly reasonable.
I mean, they could have all been wearing sort of glittering space
outfits or something, which would have been very bad.
Oh, wouldn't it have been wonderful?
Oh, Garrow beam.
In his Davros wheelchair. the end.
But and then you've got them searching for utopia.
You know, they know that they're all about to die.
They know that they're all mortal and they're trying to find some
mythical way out of it.
And, you know, the doctor's wandering through the refugee camp
going on about how indomitable they all are, you know, borrowing
Tom's lines.
But what he's going to do to those people next week.
Oh, yeah.
You know, like it is so bleak and so brutal.
And that's what Russell always does, you know, on the, you know, on
confidential and on the commentaries, everything's lovely and
marvellous and, you know, isn't it great and wonderful?
But he's so cynical and kind of so horrible and I really like
that.
We've had years and years of it.
Yeah.
The fact that, you know, he gives you a character as delightful as
Chen, though, who is, you know, you love just because she's forced
to do this weird way of speaking, which she says is polite.
And the joy she takes in not doing it.
And you're like, oh, she's great.
Oh, she's dead.
But even doing it with Yana as well, who has, he's got a couple of
really beautiful speeches, and there is that, the one where he's
tearing up and saying, you know, there were stories of time travel
in the old days and stuff, or when he's doing the exposition thing
about what utopia is, and it's, you know, it's the Derek Jacoby
voice and all of that.
And the doctor really likes him.
He's really smart.
He's he is like a version of the doctor.
And so we like him as well.
And so turning him into the master too, is, again, just a sort of
bit of a gut.
There are so many like, there are so many great moments in this
show that the rest of the story is looking to accommodate.
Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like the scene with Captain Jack and, you know, not turning into
ash, like the poor man in the spacesuit.
Yeah, yeah.
Like that is a great scene.
Like they playing off each other amazingly well and it is and it's
one of those scenes where you're like, oh, I feel like that's the
script.
Oh, no, no, this master thing is the script.
And it's almost like everything else has been just sort of weirdly
stitched on.
It reminds future kind.
Well, they wandered in from the, wandered in from the planet
Cephlon or whatever. or something.
It reminds me a little bit of, you know, Grim Wade's things like
Mordred on Dead or Planet of Fire in particular, which has really
kind of not much plot.
Yeah, there's nothing.
But it's all about Turlow and Chameleon and the master and getting
all of the characters where they need to be in order for Caves of
Andrazani to happen.
And, you know, I think I would like Doctor Who to be occasionally
a little bit more like that.
I'm kind of, you know, over just series of self-contained
adventures that don't kind of, I like a self-contained adventure.
I was more tired of this kind of thing by the time we got to the
end of the Moffat era.
Like, it was great when Davis was doing it because he would just
pepper it through.
He'd have like, here's an individual adventure.
Like this episode, you know, can stand vaguely alone without all
the ongoing stuff.
But, you know, the, it's just, you know, towards the end of the
Moffat era, it was like the, the adventure seemed to be, you never
they never finished.
Like they kind of gone halfway through and it's like, oh, now
we're going on to the continuing story that's been going on for
the last 4 episodes and we, I'm not going to explain how I got out
of that. why not?
Oh, just because that's what I do.
But yeah, I kind of, I personally have been enjoying a story that
finishes.
See, the structure of this one and the next 2 episodes coming up
remind me of the Seeds of Doom.
Because you've got those 1st 2 episodes in Antarctica, which just
exists to show you how dangerous the monster is.
Yeah.
And what this episode does is it tells you that the master could
be like the doctor if he wasn't evil.
You know, it's shorthand for that, but it also tells the younger
audience where Captain Jack has been because Barriman really
stressed at the time in interviews, he said, no, we explained
where Jack's been, you don't have to go watch Torchwood, and if
and he's like, if you are a child, don't don't watch me and talk
to it.
And Barriman has always said Captain Jack is a different character
in Doctor Who than he is in Torture.
He like, I play him differently.
I put a different emphasis on because Doctor Who's for Children
Torchwood is for horny 15 year olds.
Sorry, adults.
That, that, that old.
He came and went.
You know, I actually remember being relieved when Jack turned up
in this and how lovely and fun he was because he just wasn't that
at all in Torchwood.
To be all feel the same way.
I only like Barrowman in doctor.
Yeah, and and all of those things, you know, what's, we forget
that this actually clears up some of the things, the questions
about Jack raised in Tortwood series.
Like, how did he even get there?
How come we have flashbacks to him in World War one?
How did that even happen?
And it just explains it in a couple of throwaway lines.
It absolutely doesn't matter.
And then we get on with some running around and, you know, teeth
and having an adventure and stuff.
Also, the other thing about Captain Jack turning up is that, I
mean, they still try and shoehorn it in, but this ongoing
narrative of Martha feeling 2nd best to Rose, which sometimes I
feel like her character was written just to be her entire
character is not Rose.
Like there's nothing else to her, but not Rose.
And it's frustrating.
It must have been frustrating for Freeman, the actor, because it's
like, well, what am I, what am I playing?
I'm just playing someone who's, yeah, the underheader Locklear?
Whoever whoever's in the mean cast cast right at the bottom just
looking up at all the pink.
Yeah.
Yeah, like it, I hate it when, not just characters, but people in
life define themselves by what they're, what they're not or what
they don't like.
Because I do stuff for YouTube.
I don't do nearly enough stuff for YouTube.
No, you probably do too much.
But this is the thing.
The most viewed Doctor Who videos are the things that are like, you
know, Jodie Whitaker murdered my childhood.
Oh, man.
And they keep turning up and I'm like, I don't want to watch
these.
Why does YouTube think I care about this?
Yeah, and it's like, one day I was curious.
And I clicked through to one of these channels and thought, have
you put up a single video about something you like?
No.
No, it's all about something you don't like.
You can't create something from a negative.
Yeah, yeah.
And Liz Miles was talking about this last week.
It's like Martha has her own character, but it's constantly buried
under this, not Rose.
Yeah, I think I think they're walking it back here a little bit
too, because they they give her, you know, like, like I think that
Freeman does the sort of sassy, exasperated comedy thing quite
well.
And so her reaction to discovering that Rose was blonde, you know
that's kind of funny.
And and making Jack have the same experience with the doctor as
she has.
So you are in love with him as well.
And I think that sort of makes it more fun and takes the sting out
of it a little bit.
But also, Martha, it works brilliantly when she's not with the
doctor.
Like when she's with Shakespeare, when she's with Chanto.
Like, these are great moments.
And I know...
Yes, from him.
Yes, like when and when she's, you know, being shut off into the
sun.
Like, she's great without the doctor, but when she's, I don't know
if it was a thing with her and tenant, or it was just Davis unable
to write those as a, as a pairing, which he got so right with uh
Catherine Tate's Donna.
But it was just, yeah, the unrequited love is just boring and
annoying.
And it's one of the reasons I don't like Charlie in the in the
finish.
Because I'm like, just get over it.
Like, he's right there. either make a move or get out.
But yeah, it is it is frustrating because she is a great character
and she's a great actor and she has great moments, but as soon as
you stick her next attendant, it's she becomes like part of the
wallpaper.
I think that's why we've felt, what is the right term?
I'm not going to even throw a value judgement into it, but why we
haven't valued famous performance so much in this and accepted
wisdom has not.
And oh, she's not quite the level of an actor as...
She's a great actor.
Yeah, I just, yeah, actually.
Yeah, she's just pushing the chamber pot uphill.
Yes.
We're not going to let those handles go, are we?
I hope not.
But like her performance in human nature is amazing because so
much of it is about, you know, being out of time being in a place
where she has had all of her power taken away from her as a her
colour is forefront.
Yes.
And, you know, she's a doctor.
Like she's a trained doctor.
She's, yeah, she's not an idiot as a character.
So, yeah, I think I think Davis just ended up writing himself into
a hole with that character.
And she bore the brunt of that.
We'll certainly see some like on the screen back peddling at the
beginning of next season.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And, I mean, the rumour I heard at the time.
And this has never been substantiated, was that Freema was signed
for a year and a half .
And that's why we get here in 3 episodes of Torchwood.
And 3 episodes mid next season.
And in the finale next season as well, she does fine.
Yes, of course.
And one of those 3 episodes, mid next season is terrible.
Terrible.
Well, it just fails in everything it sets out.
Poor Georgia Moffatt.
She still has a career.
I'm not laying it at Georgia Moffat's feet at Georgia Tennant
now.
Yes, that's true.
That's another one where she's acting with a character who can't
speak.
She's doing all the heavy lifting and she's great.
The compelling scenes.
I mean, you know, at the end of this season, she says to the
doctor she'll be back.
You know, they already definitely intend for her to turn up a few
times in series four.
What do we think about John Sims?
We'll talk more of him next week, obviously.
He's insane and I kind of love it.
So what we have, I think, is the lead actor from the other big
science fiction television program coming in and threatening to
take over as lead actor of this show.
And in 2 episodes time, he will, I think, have successfully done
that.
And it's the 1st time I think that the master, since, you know
since his introduction in Tariff the Autons, has actually been
sort of properly rethought, and it's where they've worked out what
he's for.
And the job of the master is to threaten to be more fun than the
doctor and more interesting than the doctor.
And, you know, the doctors thing with villains normally is that
he's more fun than them.
And so, you know, the villains are hidebound or boring or limited
or have no sense of humour, and the doctor is, by contrast, someone
that we want to spend time with.
And what the master has to do.
The master has to plausibly be someone who could be the star of
the show.
Yeah, I want to ask you, do you believe it's another Dark Russell
which I think is a title on itself, that he is performance coding
David Tennant's Stick.
Oh, yeah. actually ramping that up and said, quiet to John.
Just take the piss out of danger.
Exactly.
Oh, no, absolutely.
I feel that too, because I thought, you're being very naughty here
and I like it.
Yeah.
Yeah, because, I mean, look, all of John Sims appearances in the
role have been very, like, even when he comes back for the end of
the Capaldi thing and is spends most of it doing an insane accent
and it's like, yeah, take the Scottish and ramp it up to Eastern
Europe.
Put on your eye, shadow, dear.
They take it to some like a hot level, don't they, with Tony
Curtis doing Greg or the Hungarian Bartler?
But it's also because he's usually such a, he doesn't play big
crazy parts normally.
He's normally quite internal.
So seeing him be this physical and this, you know, vocal and and
energetic is really peculiar, but amazing.
Yeah.
Something Russell said for the 1st 2 years of Doctor Who, when
Evovery was asked about the master, he's like, no, no, the doctors
have asked the time lies.
I've got no interest in bringing back Master.
Look, he wasn't very well handled in the past and da- da.
When on confidential with Simmy, he's like, of course, I was going
to bring back the past.
But what he said was, I didn't know how to write for him until I
realised he's totally insane.
Like, like you said, Adam, he's totally insane.
He's a psychopath, possibly a sociopath.
Now I know how to write for him.
But also the conscious reflection.
And we've talked about this before, that Delgado was a reflection
of pertwig.
Yeah, he's Pertuy only foreign.
He's urbane, pretty.
Yeah.
Claus of Axos, I think, is the story where the doctor is really
quite irritating and very dull and the master is actually really
rather lovely and, you know, he's working with unit and all of
that.
And you actually kind of want to watch the master rather than
watching Pertu in that story.
And I think that Sim gets that.
Yeah.
And another master actor who's gotten that in recent years is
Jeffrey Beavers acting on audio with Tom Baker.
Oh, yeah, they're good.
Yeah, because they both have mellifluous voices.
Yeah, both all voice and very little else.
I just listened to Death Match.
I'm way behind on the Tom Baker audience.
But yeah, it's got Jeffrey Beaver's in it and he's running this
sort of death watch thing from Blake 7 kind of thing.
There's no one called Tarrant, unfortunately.
Well, sad.
But there's a bit where they're in the master's private box
looking over the arena and there's already been established
there's a bowl of figs and Tom just gives this big speech about
how pointless it is.
Oh I give up.
Can I have a fig or don't you give a fig?
And Jeffrey Beaver's just, I don't give a thing.
I also loved Alex McQueen up against...
McCoy.
Yes.
That is a spectacular pairing.
Also, when he's pretending to be the doctor for the 1st, you know
4 or 5 episodes he's in the show is wonderful.
Hello you.
I like I did not pick that twist.
No.
And if before anyone out there complains about spoilers, this was
like 2011, we're out we're outside the statute of limitations.
But playing the, you know, Carmen Miranda hat of free.
Jacoby, again, you're just talking about master of colours.
And one of my favourite things of big finishes, the behind the
scenes when they've all been chortling the Sirah all afternoon and
sit down.
Jack Jack Billings, I just said, darling, is this the campus thing
any of us have ever done?
I mean, well, here's this if it wasn't, if it isn't just coming.
Look at us.
And he, as he said, he always loves it.
And he never pictures it below that.
Yeah.
That's the, the effective thing about him in this as well, is when
he opens the watch, it is an immediate change.
And because he's been so dodtery and almost Peter Cushing in the
60s films up until that point, when he turns.
And that kind of moment of fury when he's saying to Chanto, like
didn't you ever think?
And then to top it all off, after Chentho kills him, he rails
against being killed by a girl.
So we're like, okay, not only are you evil, you're sexist.
But I mean, he is racist, an insect.
But he's old school, you know, like he reads like a classic series
doctor or like a classic series master.
And so, you know, the sexism thing is the same trick that Moffatt
pulls on the 1st doctor in that terrible twice upon a time.
Yeah, it's like arguably more effective here because we're playing
with an archetype rather than playing with an established
character.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And of course, it's been sort of well rehearsed that when he opens
the watch or when he's listening to the watch, you hear.
Ainley's laugh and who's, I think it's from the demons, isn't it?
Delgado.
Yeah, you speaking to us well. willing to give your power to me.
Yeah, which is really, I mean, that's really to mine something
cackling.
Teeth clacking.
And it is very sweet of them to include Ainley, who I think is
probably pretty terrible as the master.
Oh, no, he's great because he's, he is like the same as all the
masters.
He is the perfect foil. for Davison's doctor, who is a little bit
useless.
And so as the master, he's a little bit useless.
Did you get the feeling with Ainley that he was playing it for
real, or at least attempting to, and nobody else on set was doing
that.
Yeah, because, I mean, John Nathan Turner turned it into dancing
with the stars with a plot.
I'm just saying outfits.
Yeah, I mean, the thing the thing with Ainley is Sylvester McCoy
has said, anything I only cared about 2 things, cricket and
playing the master.
Yeah.
And when he wasn't on set playing the master, he was off listening
to his wireless, listening to the cricket.
And so Silver's like, he was the most terrifying man I've ever
worked with.
It's wonderful.
Yeah, and Aldred said the same thing.
He actually was disturbing to be close too because there was that
dissonance.
And the wig, obviously.
The well, the wig.
Who are we talking about now?
On one of the new Blu-ray sets. the season 18 set.
There's a little bit of convention footage of him.
And he's still got a bit of a sardonic edge to him, but it was
also clear how much he enjoyed being around fans.
Like he was telling this little anecdote about being a master and
then he slipped into the master boy.
I think I've said before that one of the great glories of the
Castra Valver audiobook is Peter Davison's Anthony Alien
impression, which had clearly been honed over years and years of
working with him.
It's spectacular.
It's absolutely perfect.
We're back onto gnashing of teeth, aren't we?
Well, something I really appreciate about this is tenants gnashing
of teeth has actually worked into the narrative by having them
arrive at the gate and having to show their teeth.
It's a nice nod back to Billy Piper.
Yes, I mean, yeah, if she'd been in the scene, we wouldn't have
been able to see anything.
Those future kind.
And we were sort of wondering why they were here.
I think that they're borrowed pretty much directly from terminal
aren't they?
The final episode of Blake 7 series 3?
Where they're what humanity evolves into?
And one of the, you know, the bleak thing about that episode, which
I think we all remember with great fondness.
I remember seeing it for the 1st time, I think when it was being
broadcast.
And so you have the liberator destroyed. you have them trapped.
We know now, or we're told at least that Blake is dead, um, that
Servoland saw him buried.
So the whole thing's gone to hell, but we're now trapped on a
planet where it's not just our heroes that have gone to hell, but
the entire human race is going to evolve into this.
And so at the end of the world.
And one of the things that I think this episode does really well
is that sense of a universe that's winding down.
Um, and the sort of savagery that, that, you know, humanity kind
of eventually...
It's very, um, end of the Roman Empire, barbarians at the gate
kind of, you know, repeating itself again.
And the same with the humanity in the tube trying to, you know
survive against the Hun bombings.
It's very much like the end is coming and we are holding out hope
for who knows what.
And I just found it weird that it seemed like they were being
attacked by an amateur dramatic society.
I think they'd, they'd clearly cast people who brought their own
piercings.
Yeah, like if you look closely, a lot of people aren't wearing the
prosthetic teeth, they just have really shockingly bad teeth.
But yeah, Paul Mark Davies, who's the lead future kind, and we'll
be the trickster in Sarah James.
Yeah, he was a regular monster.
Yeah, he had to have magnetic piercings or whatnot.
There's another guy who's part of the future kind, big bald bloke
I think.
All the piercings are his own.
And he was cut specifically because he had piercing. had all these
piercings.
It was it's the it's the very tidy hair that the main guy has.
I'm just like, couldn't you have stuck some dreads on it?
or something?
Like did the budget hair budget run out that week?
Or did he have to run down and be in the other episode?
They're kind of like the goth kids in South Park, aren't they?
Like, you know, it does just feel like dress up.
It just, like, on a weird kind of level.
It feels like, you know, if the utopians or the people seeking
utopia, uh, in the blitz, they're they're boomers down in the
tunnels, and these are punks.
This is the new generation coming to take television away from
it.
Like it's a weird kind of look that it has, but it's, it just
feels very strange because it looks like there's, you know, here
we are in the 40s in, you know, in these tunnels and then we've
got the 70s coming to, Yeah, you know, rip it all away.
I don't know why those were chosen for the looks because that's
not in the script.
So it just ends up being weirdly kind of reactionary.
Yeah.
It's obviously a weird production design decision that no one's
made deliberately, but it feels very peculiar to look at.
Like it is a, because yeah, it's, they're obviously just cyphers
for both things.
Like they're just like, oh, yes, this is the end of humanity and
this is, you know, the teeth people.
And it's never really explained what happened to the
conglomeration.
Like that.
Yeah, it just went...
Well, but I think that that's a point too, where when the doctors
ask to explain, he just says, it's time, and the idea is that time
eventually kills all of us, including the whole universe.
And so I think just it provides us a way of seeing that, where we
get a, you know, an actual scene where they get to talk about.
As opposed to Lookopolis, where it's like, yeah, the entropy's
over there.
I was just gonna say, with the planet, Mel Casero, in the 1st year
Russell said, we're not going to any alien planets because we
don't just want to use a quarry.
We've now had 3 alien planets.
And they're all quarries.
Yeah.
You know, there's a there's a field in New Earth, but then there's
crop tour, which is a quarry.
And then there's Malcasero, which is a quarry.
I have to say that it's a really good quarry.
I mean, they Welsh quarries are much better than Macquarry.
I don't have Gareth Thomas flouncing around in the first
starters.
Oh, well, although it looks like, you know, that Jana's wearing
one of his old shirts.
Although obviously they'd have to take it in a little.
I think it's the night shoot.
I think it's the fact they can afford a night shoot in a way that
they could rarely do on classic Doctor Who.
They're so tedious.
Like, whenever I, yeah.
Like, because you start work at sunset and then you finish at
sunrise and it is not for like a week to do a half hour episode
and this would be a fortnight probably.
But so yeah, it's...
It's not good for anyone.
And they've dressed it as well.
They just haven't done a quarry.
Like there's that very flimsy gate. keeping with a padlock.
Keeping...
To be fair, there are some other kinds of defences that do get
switched off and then immediately the future kind break the
padlock and get in.
But the whole look of it, you know, in the big trucks and all of
that sort of thing.
And I do like the idea that they don't really particularly sort of
code it as far future. that that's a decision that the show's been
making since it came back that it's going to look dated anyway.
So let's make it look recognisable.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
As opposed to, that's all, wear a silver jumpsuit.
Yeah, yeah.
Really miss the padded shoulders and wedgies.
I know.
Stephen Moffatt will be along soon.
You'll be fine.
I want the nappy uniforms of the team that staff in seats of
death.
Oh, now you're talking.
I was thinking of the space crew from the web, but what's that 1st
season Blake 7 thing where they've just got these broom handles
and they just poke the portal seaweed.
Yes, SVSV7 Yeah, yeah.
That's SB 7.
Miles Fothergill.
And would, wouldn't he?
And Wyatt Earp.
You know, attack.
But I kind of like, you know, Doctor Who hasn't always been crazy
silver jumpsuits, we had the robots of death, crazy, you know, over
the top lunacy. and the whatever they were wearing in the
vervoids.
That was very 80s active wares.
Civilisation, really.
That's right.
It's what we've got now.
It is the future because we're all wearing crimpling jumpsuits.
It's not what I want.
On a black man.
I wish.
I just think Janet looks like she's working at boots or
something.
Well, that's how she got access to the drugs to kill everyone
because Janet is the killer.
I like Utopia in spite of itself.
Like there's so much that just doesn't work, but I feel like
there's so many good parts of it, that it, that the coat hanger of
a story has some nice clothes on it.
I think for me, it has that sort of sense of there's a kind of
melancholy about it and I think Graham Harper directs it really
well.
I think Murray's using sort of some pretty old music cues from
elsewhere in the season, but they are used pretty effectively.
I do like the way that the master is conceived of in the way that
he's presented musically as well.
And I guess I'm sort of up for an episode that marks time while a
bunch of stuff happens for a while.
I don't mind that.
Well, there, listener, that's all we have time for is wait.
The master is now Prime Minister of Great Britain, much to
everyone's relief, I imagine.
So we'll check in on how he's getting one next week in the sound
of drums.
The fun thing is, at this stage, we have no idea who the prime
minister of Great Britain is going to be when this goes out.
It's too unalumn.
It's Ruth Davidson.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us at Flight 3 Entirety on Facebook at
FDE podcast on Twitter and on our website, flight through Entirety
com, where you'll find links to our other podcasts, Bondfinger and
Jody into Terror.
Adam, where can people find you?
Adamricard.com.
Excellent.
That was easy.
All right.
Until next time.
May you find a utopia that hasn't been devised by Russell T
Davis.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Bye.
Good then.
That was Flight through Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley
Brendan, Jones, Richard Stone, and Adam Richard.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, strength performance by Jane
Alberg.
This episode on the set with Dame Derek Jacoby, was recorded on
the 8th of September 2019 and released on the 24th of November.
Here at FDE, we celebrated Doctor Who Day by nipping back in time
50 years, and deleting the Celestial Toymaker part 4.
So, next time we catch up, drinks are on you.
I think he had made it known that it had been a longtime
ambition.
It used to appear on Doctor Who and Coronation Street. has he
achieved the Coronation Street one?
He has not.
Has he come into Xena Sharples?
Long lost it.
Because I really want to.
Oh, yeah.
Well, you know Maureen Lippman, who we talked about last time I
was on this show, is now in Coronation Street.
No.
So 3 times it's a big finish spinoff.
And isn't Phil Collinson now producing Coronation Street?
Oh, he was for a while.
Has he gone back?
don't know.
Because he was in charge of it during the 50th anniversary when
the tram fell off the aqueduct into the shop.
In a devastating live episode.
It was honoured by Skyfall.
Why does that make me think of that episode of South Park when a
scriptwriting department gets their plots from a bunch of dew
gongs in a pool with words written on balls?
like, Oh, they were mad. off the bridge. into the shop.
No, it was a live episode.
So they had to, it had to be all dramatic. the one before the tram
falls off the bridge into the shop and then it was a lot of is old
mate going to be pulled out from under the tram in time.
Everything's a Brexit metaphor.
The 50th is a long, it was like, oh, it was the 50th anniversary.
Like it was ages ago.
The Doctor Who one.
It was like 2012, I think.
Gosh.
So yeah, Collinson might have gone back.
Maybe he's the EP now.
Who knows?
Well, on that topic, Derek Jacoby actually grabbed Phil Collins
and while he was shooting on the TARTA set and said, what a
fantastic set.
Do you watch Coronation Street?
Because don't you reckon the TARDIS is like the knicker factory?
It's got gantries and everything and it never used to be that
big.
What is a sauce pot, isn't it?
The knicker factory has grown substantially over time.
Underworld, it's called.
Underworld.
Oh, God.
How did we get onto coronation?
We all indoors.
Diana Daws and Alan Lake used to hold naughty parties there and
there, didn't they?
Oh, yes. in the underworld.
Underwear world, yeah, underwear world.
It all comes back to Diana Dawes and Alan.
Like, they're going to be our arc words for next season.
They're the Saxon.
It actually means that our last episode next season can't be
broadcast.
So but he had played the master before, had he not?