Hello, dear Lister, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast where the Fat just walks away.
And we're back.
I'm Nathan.
I'm James.
I'm Todd, and I'm Peter, and I've travelled a long way to find
obesity on this scale.
I hate you so much.
I'm thin and beauty.
So it's been a couple of months since we killed Kylie and narrowly
avoided crashing the Titanic into the royal family, so it's time
for a return to business as usual.
A new companion, a new family and a new small to medium enterprise
to undermine and ultimately explode.
It's the 1st episode of RTD's last Doctor Who series.
It's partners in crime.
So, let's start with Donna, I think.
Peter, how did you feel when you first heard that Donna was coming
back for an entire season?
Well, I was actually spoil it on this fact very early.
I think, um, yeah, maybe just after series 3 had finished
recording, um, and a friend rang me up and said, you'll never
guess what.
Catherine Tate is back and she's going to be the regular for the
entire season.
I was like, 0 my god, and we both sort of, you know, combusted on
the spot.
But I knew that they would do something interesting with her.
I knew that she wouldn't be quite the same Donna that we'd seen in
runaway bride.
There'd be more facets tour and more elements and they delivered
on that in spades.
How did you feel, Todd?
I was concerned.
Yeah.
Because I hadn't really liked her very much initially, in her 1st
appearance, well, certainly for about 20 minutes of the episode
she shouted her way through it, and then she got better.
So when it was announced.
I was like, okay, we'll see where this goes.
Um, I mean, I wasn't totally against it, but I was, you know
concerned.
And James?
Um, oh, I was, I was really excited.
I love Catherine Tate.
I've loved everything she's ever done.
Um, uh, she is just fantastic and, And she's a bloody good
actress.
I think it is the biggest companion casting announcement since
Bonnie Langford, and maybe those are the 2 big ones.
Maybe since Jackie Lane.
Maybe since Jackie Lane and Bonnie Langford.
And it was criticised in the in the press at the time for being
stunt casting that they were chucking her back in there because
they were trying to broaden the appeal of the show.
What a terrible thing to do.
Oh, that's crazy.
It was like, how very terrible. television.
I mean, yeah, let's try and broaden the appeal.
But yeah, so now you're like, it is great casting.
If you can get her back.
By all accounts, she loved working on the show.
I think she just loved working with David Tennant.
Isn't that the story?
Palpable chemistry on screen.
And they've been friends ever since.
Yeah.
And you can see it when they sort of did press appearances
together and the way that they would fire back and forth and kind
of bounce off each other.
It was just delightful.
I don't think I seriously believed it because I just thought she
was too big.
Her show was still going on, so it meant, you know, months living
in Cardiff, not doing the show, doing nothing other than Doctor
Who.
And she's really, really funny in the commentaries.
Remember the podcast commentaries that they were making it this
time?
been releasing on the BBC website.
Like the Santaran 2 parter and everything where she's just
completely clueless about production, but Ishi.
Yeah, yeah.
I think it's I think it's actually, you know, a bit.
But she makes the claim that she thought that Doctor Who always
just had Daleks in it.
Like she seems to have not known anything about Doctor Who, you
know, really.
But it is incredible.
And I think what you said earlier, Todd, where she's big and
shouty for 20 minutes in Runaway Bride, but then it's a much, much
more interesting performance.
I think it's one of those things where comics often make the best
dramatic actors and actresses.
And in the back of my mind.
That's what I was thinking, that that's where we're going to go
with this and she had the potential to be the most sensational
thing ever.
And she was the most sensational thing ever.
I think that's the thing, is that to be a good comedian, you
really do need to understand drama.
Yeah.
Like, you need to understand timing, which is very important in
drama.
You need to understand how to carry an audience.
And she came up, what, around the same time slightly before the
Little Britain boys.
She was doing stand-up.
Um, they, didn't they kind of rip her off for Vicky Pollard in a
way?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, that's not for here.
Um, you know, she earned her, her um, her stand-up, her comedy
chops and has pivoted quite well into other roles.
She turned up in the office a few years later.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, doing a character.
The Unreal Office.
The wrong one, the one that is being remade again by NBC
apparently.
I think they're not my companion crowd, the ones who are like, oh
she's just going to ruin the show and be over the top.
It shows a certain lack of imagination of what Russell would be
able to do with a character like that played by an actress like
that.
So people who are just like, oh, she's just going to be terrible.
She's just going to be terrible and pretty much hung on to that.
They're a very small minority.
And can I say, when I was doing the big polls for Doctor Who
magazine, Donna came 2nd in the companion polls both times.
So this was up to 8 years after she left the show, 2nd only to
Elizabeth Slayton.
It's funny too, because the show, the new show, introduces Sarah
Jane Smith, and Donna Noble as regulars in the same way.
So they're investigating something, because they know that that's
what the doctor would do.
And so Sarah Jane Smith turns up in school reunion at the school.
And here, um, Donna turns up at Adipose Industries because they
know that the infiltrating an organisation that has some alien
involvement is the sort of thing that the doctor would do.
And the most interesting thing I think about the way that she's
introduced is that she's positioned as the doctor's counterpart.
She's the same as the doctor.
She's his partner in crime.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But she's more she's clever and more competent because she manages
to infiltrate without having to break doors down and that sort of
thing.
She's setting technology.
She just, yeah, she just...
Oh, yes, do, do.
So yeah, so she actually looks a lot more professional. than he
does.
She doesn't need psychic paper or a sonic scrutiny.
But she does have psychic paper.
The funny thing about it is, she's clearly, it's clear in that
wonderful scene, which we'll talk about later, that scene with
Sylvia, that she's got a job in health and safety, has got an ID
quit the job 2 days later, and she's seen flashing the ID in
exactly the same way as the doctor very quickly with a couple of
fingers over it.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's health and safety.
Like they both pose as health and safety.
And they're both infiltrating the same organisation at exactly the
same pace and doing the same thing.
I'm not entirely sure that those scenes early on quite work, and I
think it's James Strong's fault, because there are only a few
scenes where it's very clear what their relationship spatially is
to one another.
And the script is clearly written in such a way that they're
supposed to keep missing one another, just by a hair.
But it's never very quite clear where spatially they are in
relation to one another.
They had such trouble filming that they kept stuffing up the
timing and it took all night to get about 3 seconds of, I mean, I'm
exaggerating there, but like they, all of that popping up, popping
down stuff.
They kept they kept stuffing it up and they had to reshoot and
reshoot and reshoot.
James, just do it as a split screen and they'd edit it later.
But that is the bit that works.
The bit where they're going up and down popping over the over the
cubicle partitions and just missing one another.
That's all wonderful.
But when they approach the building, it's not clear. like it looks
initially like they're walking towards one another and then it's
not clear, like they're clearly going to different sides of the
building.
There's another scene later at night where they're at that sort of
intersection and they walk.
Which I do like because the last shot pays that off quite well.
Yeah.
So she's the doctor straight away.
And and that is obviously feeding into the arc this year, the Dr
Donna, which won't be actually sort of mentioned by name for
another 2 episodes.
It's like the way they're constantly mistaken for a married
couple.
The idea that they, that they have this sort of very, very close
relationship, which ends up being a real kind of timey, whimey
thing.
Which other people pick up on immediately?
Yeah, yeah.
I have to say as well, it's really nice, the fact that Donna's
investigating this, like Sarah Jane did, is very indicative of the
change in her character because old Donna, you know, new flavour
of Pringle, text me, text me, Donna, would have been all over the
adipose tablet.
She would have been one of the 1st customers.
She would have been there, swept up in the craze, whereas New
Donna, who's sort of investigating and interrogating things and
wants to change her life, is more interested by what is this and
what's behind it rather than it supposedly does this.
Which is what makes her ultimate fate.
So devastating.
Of course, yeah.
That she goes back to.
Yeah, that like, you know, meeting the doctor made her a better
person.
Yeah.
And the fact that she basically dies at the end of the season is
just horrific.
I still haven't forgiven Russell for it.
Spoiler.
Yeah, yeah.
So, can we talk about Donna and her mum?
Because I think the introduction of Will, and I think everyone's
probably familiar with the story of the fact that it was meant to
be Donna's dad from Runaway Brides, but sadly, the actor was very
ill and passed away. not long after.
And so they brought in Bernard Cribbens and made him her grandad.
Um, that scene on the hill between them really warms Donna up.
It allows her to kind of come back down to earth and gives her a
few more facets because of his obvious love for her.
Um, but her mum, uh, that scene in the kitchen, that very well
shot scene where Donna's just sitting there staring into space and
her mother's this whirl of activity kind of moving around her. um
and she's haranguing her.
And she's really mean.
Like everything that she says, she sort of pokes her face into
Donna's and really gets up in her business.
And you think, yeah, this is dreadful.
You can see why Donna previously hasn't had any ambitions.
She's been ground down by kind of everyday bullying.
Although I like the intention of that scene.
I actually don't like the way it shot because Sylvia just seems to
be, um, cleaning the same 3 spots all the time.
Don't you think Sylvia might do that?
I don't know.
I just, every time I watch it, I just go, can you, can you do
something different?
You can be putting things away in the cupboard?
But I just don't like the way it's shot.
Hermogadons just kicked in.
I think it's a good way of indicating that this is what happens to
Donna all the time.
So she's just sitting there like...
A time lapse of weeks.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, it is clearly not meant to be a time lapse of weeks, but
it does give the impression that this is how Sylvia treats her.
I think Sylvia is incredibly good and she's already good in
Runaway Bride.
Yeah, it's amazing because last season, you get off a bit on the
wrong foot with Francine, she's a much harsher character, but
coming back to this, I still warmed Sylvia, even though she's
nagging away.
And I think that's an interesting difference.
And I like the fact that we then sort of go to Donna on the Hill
talking to her, her grandfather and she's so much calmer and
there's just a warmth there.
And I think at that moment, you know, the character is that
different and there's a completely new side to her.
And so by that time, I'm completely on board.
Yeah, yeah.
I think that that seems a little bit on the nose in places.
Like, Donna's given.
You seem to be drifting.
Yeah, it's all just a little bit kind of too obvious, but just the
warmth between the 2 characters.
It's not just the fact that Wilf loves Donna, that sells Donna to
us.
It's that Donna loves Wilf as well.
And the 2 of them have this little oasis outside where they can
escape being nagged by Sylvia because Sylvia nags Wilf as well.
Like, she's all over Wilf too.
I think we discover later that she won't let him have a webcam.
You know, she's...
Later on, she's sort of bustling him out the door and telling him
to get outside with his thermos and things.
And, you know, she's his daughter. but she sort of bosses him
around and kind of doesn't really respect him.
I love the family dynamic.
And it's the thing that Russell does so incredibly well.
I mean, you know, that's what Russell brings to the show.
I've been missing that ever since.
Yeah, I think, you know, Chipnell has learned from the best and
has certainly attempted to do that with Yaz's family, with some
success, I think, but they're just not in it enough.
Yeah, they're not in enough.
I think Yaz's mum is played by an actress who could deliver if she
was given some material.
Pilate.
But I think Jackie King playing Sylvia.
She's responsible for a lot of that Walt.
She really manages to convey the fact that this is not a mean
woman at her heart, that she just acts cruelly and doesn't even
realise it.
Yeah, is that relationship.
We do get to see her out on the town with the Wednesday girls and
she's there. person.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And she's wonderful in that too.
And it's a return of having the family menaced by the aliens, which
is great.
I have always read the way that she behaves post Runaway bride
as.
This is like she's nastier in series 4 at the beginning than she
is in Runner Boy Bride.
And I think that's, I read that as her husband's died.
She's, yeah, gone through trauma. and she's putting on this sort
of angry face because that's the way she's getting through the
day.
I agree with you.
And but also to say, you know, he's gone and you got to live your
life and what are you doing?
Yeah.
It's it's kind of funny, isn't it?
Because the seams show a little bit.
They don't talk about the death of Jeff until later in the
season.
It does get a mention and obviously it's mentioned in the end of
time part 2 in a scene which just never fails to make me bore my
eyes out.
Oh, lovely.
I won't dwell or not here or we'll be a mess.
But when Wilf says, you know, you've had a difficult year to Donna
it's that funny old Christmas and poor old what's his name, Lance
but not, and plus your dad died, because they aren't rewriting the
script at this point, they're just getting him in to kind of
reshoot those scenes.
And maybe it might have been worth saying something like that
early on.
I don't think it, I don't think it's a problem.
I think for us who've seen her before and the dad we can read into
that.
Yeah, yeah.
But also, I read that as, because at the time I had not read that
he had died. until after I'd seen the episode.
I read that as, oh, the character's gone, but they're not talking
about it because they're being very British and avoiding dealing
with the emotion.
Yeah, yes.
So I think it works either way.
Yeah.
Like, it could be that they're just avoiding talking about that
because it's just too hard for them to cope with because he has
just died.
And those are the scenes that that actor did.
Like those were actually shot, weren't they?
They exist, they might be...
They're on the extras.
Yeah, yeah.
I think there's something unsaid there maybe as well.
When Donna's explaining to the doctor and she says, you know, I
was going to go off and enjoy life, I was going to go and run
around the pyramids barefoot, is what she's not saying, the fact
that she started to do that, but then had to come home because her
father was ill.
I mean she's just not addressing that at all.
I mean, it works.
It does work in a way, and it is, again, Russell's just incredible
insight into people, because that's how resolutions work, isn't
it?
We all kind of say this year I'm going to do this.
This year I'm going to, you know, lose a kilogram every evening
this year.
You know, I've got a little tablet.
This year I'm going to exercise this year.
I'm going to be nicer to the dog, you know, all of those things
and then life takes over and it doesn't happen.
Wait, you're going to be nicer to your dog.
Yeah, no it's not possible.
I think two, you know, there is that change in the way that Donna
is portrayed, where she doesn't do quite so much shoutiness, you
know, in the other plot, in the non-family plot, in the proper
sort of science fiction-y plot.
Uh, she is sort of just much cleverer.
And that was the thing that Lance said, you know, she couldn't
find Germany on a map.
But she is clever and she's good with people and they've obviously
given her an environment that she's used to.
She's a temp, so here she is infiltrating an office.
Um, And I guess the big moment at the end is where the doctor
realises that he and Donna are the same, you know, he needs 2 of
these tablets in order to defeat Matron Foster's dastardly plan
but he doesn't have one and he thinks that everyone's going to
die.
But of course, Donna has one for exactly the same reason that he
has one because they're the same, you know, and together they are
you know, they're given a photo defeat, whom they can only defeat
together.
Yeah, because they've done the same thing.
I love that shot too, when the camera pulls in and out and they
move back and forward.
Yeah, the Hitchcock shot.
Yeah. it's a bit leisurely isn't it?
Do you know what I mean?
A 1000000 people are dying, but Donna gets to kind of make a big
point.
Doesn't she even pause 3 seconds looking pleased with the self
proportionate?
And even, even, even the pull Zoom is leisurely.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Very kind of...
They've only got so much track.
Yeah, they couldn't do that too quickly.
They'd go flying into the back of the studio.
Exactly, take an eye out of Phil Collinson.
The other thing that they introduce.
And it is sort of there in the runaway bride, but I think it's
going to be Donna's biggest feature for the entire season is how
compassionate she is.
How incredibly deeply she feels for other people.
And we will talk more about this next week and the week after, but
it comes up over and over again.
And it's in that scene with Stacy, which I just think is so
great.
So the doctor and Donna, of course, go and interview someone who's
taking the pills.
Their plan to infiltrate is exactly identical.
The doctor goes to see Sir Roger, who doesn't seem to be
particularly fat, but maybe he's been taking the pills for a
while.
Well, he, a kilo a day.
He must have been on it for like 30 days at least.
Because he's very thin.
He is very thin.
And then she goes and sees Stacy.
And it's so such a rustly thing to have the detail that Stacy, who
is still fat and still like not conventionally attractive, and
wearing kind of daggy makeup and stuff.
I think she looks fabulous.
But um, and she's not going on a date.
She hasn't decided.
I've lost all this weight.
I'm gonna go and get myself a man now.
It's like I've lost all this weight.
I'm going to dump this guy and get someone better.
But Donna assumes that.
It's so good.
And Stacy is wonderful.
That whole scene is so real.
Well, it's what Russell does best.
I mean, those 2 characters, they're drafted in like 3 or 4 lines
and you totally know them in their entire lives.
But also something that Russell does a lot, which is...
Well, there's that, yes.
But making you love a character in a few lines and then horribly
murdering.
Yeah, yeah.
Can we also talk just as a little addendum about the 2 people in
the call centre for adipos wearing their headsets because Russell
always does this.
He loves casting, attractive young people working in call centres
with headsets and things on, who then interact with the regulars
and one of them will always fancy the doctor.
There's actually there's a line in there that's almost almost a
reference to Paradise Towers.
Really?
When, you know, UB Health, RB safety.
Okay?
He says, oh, that's against paragraph 9, subsection C.
That is that's actually quite a saucy come on, isn't it?
It's like, is she, is she, are they going to time what another
arm?
Is that what she has in mind?
And then, of course, you know, he has to come back to her.
But it is cute how cute those 2 people are.
And, you know, again, it works.
They're slightly different from one another in exactly the way
they approach the tone of their approach, but basically they're
doing the same thing.
It's a real throwback to army of ghosts with Adiola and her 2 cute
sidekicks.
Yes, yeah.
We all know what happened to them.
But it's so sad that Stacy gets horribly killed.
And like that whole scene when it's all happening is that adipose
are coming out and thinking, oh my goodness.
And then, it appears, and you can't help but love it.
Yeah, it's Russell doing that incredible pivot that he does from
sadness to comedy because they're funny.
And just the one, the one that's in the sink, like that, that's
kind of pushes open the casement window and then just drops out
the window after sort of waving goodbye.
Well, if the happiness patrol taught us anything.
It's the happiness and sadness are 2 sides of the same choice.
But it's just so cute from the, from the waving at fat to the
skipping, to the sliding down, tooth, tooth bang, just sliding
down on the, the, the cab.
To getting run over by the cab.
Do you think?
Do you think that when they came up with massive for Lord of the
Rings, they thought that one day that it was going to be used to
anime, tiny little fat creature?
Yeah, yeah.
So massive is like a software package that enables you to create
crowd scenes.
And so it was used in Lord of the Rings to create all the orcs and
all of that sort of thing.
And here.
So we've never had quite so many little monsters and things kind
of walking around in the street.
And you can see that they're all slightly different from one
another.
They all move differently.
They all look the same, but just creating a sort of convincing
milling crowd of things.
And that's the 1st time Doctor Who uses that, we've had CGI
creatures before, but not sort of quite so many of...
Yeah, yeah.
And, and like Russell based them, didn't he, on, there was an ad
for like a breath freshener or something that had tiny animated
like a little animated donut and a little animated slice of pizza
that sort of skipped along and they were sort of supposed to be
cute, but were actually somehow really rather horrific.
He claims he based them on the Pillsby doughboy.
Oh, okay, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
But I mean, they're just, they're tremendously great, aren't
they?
And it's nice that they're not a threat to...
I don't buy a lot of Doctor Who merchandise in terms of like some
people go for little Doctor Who figurines and stuff and I just, it
just doesn't interest me.
But I bought an adipose.
Oh, well, yes.
The only thing I've got, which one?
The latex one, the fluffy one or the glow in the dark one.
Well, it's getting a little bit personal, James.
Why not all pushy toy?
There was one which was like a stress ball.
Because maybe that's stressful material?
Yeah, yeah.
So there's 2 other characters I'd like to talk about.
One is Penny and one is Miss Foster.
So if we go with Penny first, apparently Russell had planned a
companion called Penny, when he didn't know that, um, Catherine
Tate was going to come back.
And so we've got an investigative journalist here called Penny
who's probably not the same character as probably what's left of
what he developed.
But I just think it's hilarious that she keeps getting tied up all
the time and discovered.
And I just, I just laugh.
I don't know when everything happens to her.
I just think you poor sad woman.
So Russell's idea of the next companion was always going to be
that she was older and that there wouldn't be a romantic
relationship between the doctor and the companion.
That was always going to be the thing.
She was going to be in her 30s.
I think in the writer's tale, Russell imagined that if it wasn't
the BBC, she would be smoking, she would have recently had a
relationship breakup, I think.
And so it was going to be a little bit more kind of adult.
And she described her as strong-willed in the vein of Donna
Noble.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, well, this sounds like surrogate for Donna, doesn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So, Penny.
And there's a sort of feint, isn't there, where we think that Miss
Foster has twigged that Donna has infiltrated adipose industries
and she keeps talking about she and we'll wait and we'll get her
and all of that sort of thing.
And then Donna's hidden in the toilet, where she has that
fantastic conversation with Sylvia over the phone.
She's hidden in the toilet and then Miss Foster and her attractive
bodyguard and her 2nd even more attractive bodyguard come in.
And we think that Don has been rumbled and Donna thinks that she's
been rumbled.
But it turns out that Penny's been hiding in the loo, just sort of
2 or 3 cubicles are.
It's almost as if the casting director was gay.
I like the fact that because Donna was whispering on the phone
that Penny 2 cubicles away didn't know she was there.
Well, she was whispering.
Also, did you notice?
On the back of the door and in the toilets, there's actually a
sign for the restaurant her mother's eating him.
Oh, really?
Okay.
Okay, okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Whoops.
The little one down the bottom saying, PS, the stars are going
out.
And did you notice the bees?
Ah, yeah, we get the bees.
So what do we have?
Let's do a checklist.
What do we have of the sort of arc concepts here?
We have the doctor and Donna are the same, which is not as
explicit as it becomes later, but it's the thrust of the episode.
We have the bees.
He talks about the shadow proclamation.
The shadow proclamation.
Adipose 3 has gone... has disappeared, a planet has gone missing.
And it's quite funny, actually, because it talks about the 1st
family losing one of their breeding planets.
And then she says, but I don't go into the politics of it as if
they've lost it in some kind of border dispute.
Yeah, to sort of throw you off the scent in a way.
And then, of course, you've got the big reveal, the end of the
episode, which was successfully kept hidden at the time.
So how did they do that, Peter?
They edited that scene out of the previews that were shown to the
press.
Also, it was filmed a lot later.
It was filmed with turn left.
Was?
Yes.
Okay.
So that's where Donna is dropping the keys in the bin, which again
I think is just wonderful in a little low-key way that she can
torment Sylvia in revenge.
Make your fish around in the garden.
She had to buy new car because the bins had been empty.
It's good that Rose doesn't get any lines because I think she was
probably still working in those dentures.
She looks very weird.
It is a sort of odd shot, but I do like it and the music is sort
of particularly good.
And then having her walk away and vanish as she walks away.
And it's got a real resonance.
If you're not expecting Rose to turn up, that is a massive shock.
No, I certainly remember being shocked by it.
Yeah, chills.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you kind of you caught your breath, didn't you?
It's one of the better reveals of...
And it's wonderfully shot because the hold on in close-up on the
back of her head.
You are there calculating in real time going, is that, is that?
And then she turns it is.
It's funny, it's hard to believe that Russell didn't go into this
knowing that this would be his final full season because so many
things happen this year, you know, that make you think that he's
kind of rounding everything off.
Does he know at this stage that he's not doing a season next
year?
I think he probably does because wasn't Stephen Moth that approach
to take over in early 2008.
So they would have still been shooting the season.
Yeah, they were prepping series 5 from, was it, like early to mid
2008.
They'd actually started pre-production on the 5th series whilst
they were filming series 4.
And then, you know, gave him an extra year to do it.
Yeah.
So, like, which is why they spaced out the, the special 5 episodes
over the following year.
It's the longest production run of the new series still, isn't
it?
Like, from the beginning, before which of the damned to the next
doctor.
Yeah.
Well, actually, no, isn't it all the way through to the end of
time?
I, no, I, I may be wrong, but I think that there's a big break
between um, the next doctor and Planet of Fair, because I think
that's when David Tennant is um, Hamlet.
Yeah.
And is he still deciding whether to stay at that point or is
he...
Yes.
Stephen Moffatt talks about the fact that he had discussions with
David, and David, who had decided to go with Russell, was wavering
and thinking, maybe I will come back for one more season, and
Stephen had plans to make season five, David's last season, and we
have just had to have made minor tweaks to the arc to make it
work.
Right, right.
At 2346, the greatest comic moment in the history of Doctor Who
occurs.
I know where you're going with this.
Obviously, it's the doctor and Donna discovering each other across
from the windows and mouthing their whole conversation.
At the time, it was...
I took my breath away.
It took my breath away, and I just couldn't stop laughing.
And that is old, Donna.
That's big old, loud donner, isn't it?
But they, you know, it's engineered in such a way that she can't
actually be loud because she can't be hurt, but she's doing these
big, you know, reactions.
They actually add-libbed that on the day.
Really?
I mean, it was planned for them to do that interaction, but
they're not sticking to the script at all.
I love her.
I read it on the internet and her miming the internet by doing
sort of exaggerated typewriter thing.
Like a massive muppety gaping faces.
And she says, no.
She just holds it far beyond what any normal human would.
It's amazing.
And the doctor's reaction is super weird as well.
It's kind of like, he's not really that excited.
Oh, hurricane.
We talked a little bit last year about how David Tennant's kind of
blazing performance sometimes overshadowed Freemaragements.
I don't think there's any danger of that.
Actually, in some ways, her being quite a strong willed actor
levels him out a bit.
He actually brings his performance down because she is so animated
and so front in the scene that he actually steps back and lets her
play quite a lot.
I don't completely agree with you Not all the time, but I actually
think that you're right in that he lets her play, but I then think
it does have impacts during the season as I've been watching that
his performance that we always think about all of his teeth, gnarly
and all of his over the top stuff, which I remember is really
front and centre this season.
It gets worse as the season goes along, in my opinion.
I seem to remember getting sick of some of his ticks.
That thing where he glues his tongue to the roof of his mouth when
he's speaking and just a few other things, which I just kind of
think, you know, those things are a bit tiresome.
And I have heard people suggest that it's a bit of a vicious
circle that they or a sort of positive feedback loop that they
outbig each other a little bit.
But I do think that they work well together and you're not going
to get a restrained performance from tenant as the doctor.
His shtick is that he'll do that occasionally in moments of great
emotion, but mostly he's being big and it is even in story.
It's a performance.
You know, the doctor is a mask.
The doctor is a performance, and it's tenant that kind of
introduces that.
And so having these sort of 2 big characters.
I just think they're really enjoyable to watch and so maybe I
don't care.
Super enjoyable.
Yeah, I find tenet irritating.
I've said this before from time to time.
But watching this season watching ahead, I haven't got quite to
the end yet.
But I am finding watching the 2 of them together really, really
quite enjoyable.
It's so great that they hold it to like 20 minutes into the
episode because it just pays off in spades.
You just want them to be together.
And of course, they're stopped by recognising that Miss Foster has
caught on.
And I think she gives a wonderful performance as Supernanny.
Well, in fact, there's that Donna is in the middle of pulling a
face when she notices, when she notices Miss Foster, and she just
holds that look.
And you're left sort of going, how long?
They actually been watching them at this conversation.
And you can see the performance working there because a little bit
earlier when Donna catches sight of the doctor.
They're both focussed on what Miss Foster is doing.
There's no need for them just to take a look around.
And so Catherine Tate does this thing where she does just a, oh
I'm bored now, kind of glance askew, and that's where she notices
the doctor.
That's great.
He's like, let's talk about Miss Foster then.
She has a sonic device.
She does.
And when you put 2 sonic devices together.
Hilarity ensures.
It's it's kind of funny.
We've probably forgotten the super nanny because that's 10, 11
years ago now.
But the super nanny had those black rimmed glasses.
Do you remember the show?
Yeah.
Yeah, um, I think I was living in the UK at the time series 4 was
on.
Yeah, no, I was living in the UK at the time, so I had seen Super
Danny on television.
So I got out here.
It was on out here and it was huge.
I didn't have Foxtell.
Right.
Super Nanny was big.
And I used to love it because, you know, I don't have children and
it used to make me feel really great about that.
And I was in a position where I could side with the children and
it was sort of painfully obvious to me that their poor behaviour
was always the result of the parents' bad parenting.
And then one of those genres of reality TV that I really like is
where someone nice comes in and helps people kind of deal with a
horrific situation.
And so Marie Kondo and perhaps, you know, nothing more than queer
eye, which is just 5 sweet, lovely men come in and help you fix
your life.
I just love that genre of TV.
So I was a bit of a fan of the super nanny.
Russell was deliberately referencing that.
I think he described the characters cross between Supernanny and
Ava Perron.
Well, when she puts her arms up, like to be taken away and
then...
And then her wily coyote moment.
Oh my god.
And she, she, Sarah Lancashire said, I kind of saw her as an evil
version of Mary Poppins.
Yeah.
No, it's fantastic.
I, like, I think she's one of the best one-off villain
characters.
It's a very Sarah Jane villain, isn't it?
Like that sort of woman with her sort of hair tied back and
glasses or?
Who's the villain in time heist, Miss Del Fox, who has her law?
Kelly Hawes.
Yeah, yeah.
And Celia Immery in The Bells of St.
John.
It's a thing that we go back to, isn't it?
A strict woman.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But she is the best.
I mean, Sarah Lancashire is great.
I mean, she was very famous from Coronation Street playing a very
popular character.
And she's brilliant.
And, you know, just like she's very thin compared to everybody
else.
And did anyone else catch the line where she says she's the
adipose's wet nurse.
Yes, so she's breastfeeding the adipose.
Is that what that means?
Oh, no.
I didn't just notice that.
Oh, that's terrible.
I like, um, two, it's that RTD thing where it's not alien races
that are evil, so much as sort of individual members of a
species.
So this is the adipose 1st family.
So they're sort of royal.
So obviously they're evil.
And here they are sort of seeding our planet.
And then the other thing is too, every spaceship in the RTD era is
sort of dramatically different looking.
And here they've just gone for close encounters of the 3rd kind.
With the noise and everything.
I really think it's nice that this foster is an evil too.
At the end, she just doesn't want them to interfere with her
plan.
And so when she's being drawn up before her wily coyote, drop to
earth, she says to the doctor and Donna, oh, I really hope we
won't meet again.
It's quite palsy, really, now that she's got what she wanted.
Well, except that she does try and kill a 1000000 people at one.
But she was just doing her job.
Oh, and that's where you lose the right to even talk to me, James.
I don't agree with that.
But yeah, I mean, it's and that's a deliberate thing as well.
It's like, she doesn't see herself as evil because she is just
doing her job and no we're not going to mention the Nazis.
A little pasta no genesis never hurt anybody.
It doesn't hurt.
Just pop out of existence.
And also, who wouldn't kill a 1000000 people for that degree of
weight loss.
Well, in fact, I think that they really do.
Um, like the bit where the doctor says Actually, it's not a bad
plan.
Like, you know, imagine if she come to earth and said, I actually
have these diet pills and I promise not to kill you and make sick
adipose.
I would have been fabulous.
I'd have been right on it.
And of course, it comes back later in the season as well, where
well, in turn left, where Titanic crashes into London destroys the
south of England.
And so the adipose Target America, and 60000000 people die.
Yeah, yeah.
So, so we do see that her plan is horrifically evil and the doctor
has to stop it, but we don't really hate her because she's sort of
rather camp and sort of fabulous, I think.
Let's talk about the scene where the doctor and Donna in that sort
of cradle, the cleaning.
The window cleaning cradle.
Yeah, yeah.
Because that's when we see her with her Sonic Divine.
And it is that kind of thing where the doctor says, it'll be fine
because she won't have a sonic device and then she would cut to
her wielding her Sonic device.
And stuffing up all the continuity as well.
Oh, why?
That shot keeps accidentally being flipped either in post
production or because they kept forgetting which way they were
shooting.
So, um, between shots, the why that she's cut flips.
Oh, really?
And also the Sonic screwdriver keeps swapping sort of which way is
oriented in David's mouth.
It is a great scene.
Russell talks about it in the writer's tale, doesn't he?
Because he says, this, we're going to be filming, and I'm writing
a script where there's a lot of detailed action and not that much
dialogue, which is something that Doctor Who hasn't been able to
manage much before, I don't like the end of that scene.
Oh, which end?
Well, when Donna's hanging on for an eternity.
I mean, she's got the best grip and arms.
Like she should be plummeting to her death by the time the doctor
gets down and then there's a cheek to get her actually into the
window.
That is a terrible cheat.
That scene.
It's so terrible.
Like she's hanging.
He's like one floor too low down or something.
And so he's grabbing her by her calves and it's kind of like, she
lets go.
How does she not plummet to a dick?
She's got incredibly strong. calm.
So he's got great upper body strength and he really doesn't.
Such a thin, thin man.
Do you remember that scene from the original Crystal Reeves
Superman movie where he gets Lois Lane, which is falling and he
says, don't worry, I've got you and she says, you've got me.
Who's got you?
Yes.
I mean, I think they try and give Donna something to hang on to
that's sort of more substantial than just a robe.
So to try and justify the fact that she's left hanging there for a
long time.
But that would cut your hands up.
But it is, it's just a sort of, it's like a piece of metal that
doesn't seem to be sharp.
So it does give her a sort of substantial thing to hang on to, but
keep on justifying it.
I'm sorry, I don't buy it for a second. mine is one point. for me
for this episode.
But it does give her time to yell about how much she hates the
doctor and to kind of regret doing what she's doing.
And it's wonderful that just a 2nd later once she's in the
building.
All of that's gone and she's, you know, back on board and having
sort of fun adventures.
And that's, that's the kind of moment when you see that, the way
that she behaved previously in the runaway bride, at least the way
they're reconning it now, because she's a continuing character.
That was all a front.
That was all an armour that she put up against the world because
it had hurt her a lot.
Yeah, so maybe the runaway bride, you know, the end of the runaway
bride promises some changes for Donna, doesn't it?
Like she's she's going to become the doctor.
She's going to travel.
And so bringing her back is a little bit of a disappointment in a
way.
But she is still a better person already.
And she's fully prepared.
I mean, that boot in the car.
The hat box. love that line.
So great, isn't it?
And the doctor looks so miserable.
You remember that scene, that awful scene in the 2 doctors, where
the doctor kind of comes into the TARDIS and he's doing his sort
of arm waving kind of blowviating thing that he does.
And then, and then Perry trudges into the Tartar's mind, carrying
all of his crap, all of his fishing gear.
And here it's reversed, you know, the doctor has all of this
baggage and he looks utterly miserable.
In fact, maybe too miserable.
This is the 2nd time in 2 seasons.
The doctors looked a little bit miserable taking someone on board
the TARDIS in a pack alley in Cardiff.
Sorry, London.
This has been a really interesting discussion because I've watched
this episode a number of times over the years and this was the
hardest episode for me to watch this entire season.
Wow.
I found it not as funny and I wasn't as connected.
And you may recall that a few episodes ago, I dare to suggest that
last season's opener might, I might like it more than this.
That was your reaction then too, Peter.
And you were wrong.
It's really interesting because I have this vision in my head that
RTD is sitting having his typewriter having his glass of
Chardonnay, much like the canine and company increditors, right?
So for this one, he's starting typing away and he gets a phone
call, he hears his sports out of the end of the phone going, hello
governor.
It's Billy Piper here.
I can do the season.
And he goes, huzzah.
This is fantastic.
So he takes a swig of his wine and then he gets another phone
call.
Oh, hello, it's Catherine Tate here.
I can do the whole season.
Oh, huzzah.
He takes another swig of the of the wine and the stomach rumbles
and he goes, oh my goodness, the fat just walks away and he starts
typing and it's all, you know, one draft.
Here it is.
Boom.
He's had the family before.
Last season.
It's like, okay, so he starts off with the Chardonnay and the
typewriter and it's like, okay.
Now, I've got to come up with a companion that is clever and funny
but not rose and everybody's going to love.
I've got to make sure that the doctor likes her, but is also, um
missing rose still, and he has to be clever and funny, um, and, oh
I need a villain as well that is going to be funny but threatening
and it's like page after page, and the sweat is coming off, and
he's having more and more drinks, and I've got to introduce a
whole new family, like a whole new family.
And so by the end of it, it's like, you know, with Sarah Jane
running, it's completely sweat. sweaters everywhere, the wine
bottle's emptied.
He's got a stack of papers next to him.
It's like draft 23.
So I've got this image in my head that there was so much work that
had to be done at the beginning of last season.
So that script to balance all of those elements out. whereas here
I've got this image that it's just, oh, no, Catherine can just
make that up on the spot and they can just workshop that and so I
kind of got the feeling that it was a much sparser sort of script
and as opposed to last year that was so heavily packed impacted.
But of course, yet again, talking here, and certainly earlier in
our conversation, I was really, really amazed at what you were
talking about in terms of all the characters with Sylvia and Wilf
and all that sort of thing.
And so I actually came away a little bit disappointed when I
watched this, but again, now talking.
It's like, it's gone back up to a 9 again.
Like, it's, but I think both of them are equally as good.
I like both of them as much now.
This is fun.
Last year had a lot of other things that it needed to do.
It was harder, I think, because it is the 1st change in regular
cast apart from, I guess, Eccleston and Tenet.
But the 1st new entirely new character that he has to introduce in
an opener, and it just might not have worked.
And here he's got an established character.
He still has to do a lot of work in order to make her more than
just a one-off character.
But that's the thing.
Like, she is returning.
We're already familiar with her. and passingly familiar with her
mother and would have been with her father.
And we are with her grandfather as well.
So the script doesn't have to do as much heavy lifting because
you're already, if you're a regular viewer.
And Doctor Who is, you know, I mean, that that Christmas special
Voyage of the Damned, like, is the highest rated story of the
modern era.
So, chances are, if you're watching Doctor Who, with Catherine
Tate returning, and this is her grandfather, you've already seen
that character.
Yeah, there are 4000000 viewers more watching Voyage of the Dam
than there are watching this.
This is still very good rating for a season opener.
It's still top 10.
But I just, I do love the fact that you have got Donna talking to
the doctor too at the end about Rose and about Martha, and the
doctor even concedes.
Well, she fancied me. don't like that line.
But then there's then he kind of makes up for it by admitting I
destroyed half her life.
Yeah, yeah.
He's actually kind of gone. oh I was a bastard.
Well, it kind of works, too, because Donna is absolutely not
impressed because the doctor goes, you know, she fancied me as if
we're going to think that that's cool or something.
She's like, oh, there must be something wrong with her.
That's right.
So she relentlessly refuses to be impressed by that.
I think that's kind of cool.
And then you get the, I just want to mate line.
And I doesn't quite work on it.
Yeah, it doesn't quite work for me.
And I think partly it's because Catherine Tate over enunciates the
word 2 when she says it in return.
So no one would say, I just want to mate.
Do you know what I mean?
So I think that that's a bad line reading.
But I just think the whole thing's too on the nose.
I think, actually, the problem is with David Tennant's delivery
because he delivered it as I just want to mate. then she wouldn't
have had to have over enunciated it to make a joke.
Yeah, you should have said, I just want a mate.
But I think that's also true sometimes when you get too strong and
well-known actors, like, does the director do enough to actually
step in?
Yeah, that's a possibility too.
And so we've already criticised a few aspects to his direction.
Sorry, James, because I actually think he does...
I think you did very well James.
Oh, listeners.
It's episode one of series four.
Help me now.
But yes, I think there are some aspects in this episode where I
think the director gets it wrong and it may be because of the
actual having to deal with 2 big personalities who are in the lead
and not being able to say, well, no, we need to do it a different
way.
You know, they may have done it several times. don't know.
I also think too, it's a little bit too tell, don't show.
You know, it's a little bit too much directed at the audience.
It's not something those 2 would say to one another.
It's happening because Russell wants to tell the people at home
that we're not going to have that love affair that really, we
decided halfway through series 3 was not such a great idea and
began walking back.
And so now, you know, so by the way, people at home, you know
Donna's not...
No hanky-panky in the tar.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And what you were saying, Todd, as well, about directors not
stepping in with big personalities.
You could also say that maybe Julie or Phil might have flagged
that up to Russell and said, yeah, that doesn't quite work, but
just let it through.
Yeah, that's a possibility.
I'm sorry, we're hopping on a bit about James Strong's direction.
I also have a problem with the fact that Donna pulls up her car
and then the Tartar seems to land like 12nd later and she doesn't
hear anything.
Like, so it's engineering. that as well.
I mean, that's another thing too, though.
That's another wonderful thing about the doctor and Donna being
the same.
You know, that they both turn up within seconds of each other in
blue vehicles in a particular alley.
You know, it's very cute.
And Donna actually notices it too.
Do you think Rose went over to the bin and fished out the TARDIS
key?
I was just going to say, I mean, we have harped on a little bit
about his direction, but by no means is this poorly directed?
It is a really great story.
And I think it really perhaps is summed up in the final moments
when the doctor asked Donna where she wants to go, and you kind of
you know, people might say, oh, past the future, and then you see
that she's going to see a grandfather, and it gets to me every
single time, and I think it sums up the change in character and
the warmth and the family atmosphere and the payoffs that you want
to have for the rest of the season.
Yeah, it's lovely, isn't it?
And ending on Bernie Cribbon's dancing as well in the in the
vegetable patch.
You've got that sort of, is there like a double punch of emotion?
You get rose come back and then you see them flying over and
waving too many.
Like, I well up.
Yeah, that's lovely.
It's just, it's gorgeous, isn't it?
It's like that sets up the rest of the season because you've got
this sort of joy. to these characters who are just friends.
They're just friends.
The whole episode is just like a joyous, light, screwball comedy.
How could you not love it?
Well, dear listener, that's all we've got time for this week.
We'll be back next week for a Latin lesson, a moral dilemma, and
some proleptically familiar faces in the fires of Pompeii.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us at Flight Through Entirety on Facebook
at FTE 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.
Until next time, remember the true secret of lasting weight loss.
No exercise, no diet, and no pain.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
See you soon.
Good night.
That was Flight Through Entirety, starring Todd Bealby, Nathan
Bottomley, Peter Griffiths and James Selwood, theme arrangement by
Cameron Lamb, Strings performance by Jane Orberg.
This episode, for exactly the same reason, was recorded on the 1st
of February 2020 and released on the 15th of March.
Fans who think that Sylvia was cruel to Bandwilf from having a
webcam should on no account visit onlyfans.com slash Skiffleman
which we will not be linking to in the show notes.
Q music, Q music, that'll be Donna's theme.
Was that all right?
Yes.
I was wondering whether to foley footsteps in.
The fat just walks away.
Okay.
You know, they destroyed a small to medium enterprise in
yesterday's enterprise.
I did.
When are we doing the yesterday's Enterprise podcast?
Oh, anytime. several times.
So, let's start with Donna, I think.