The Icy Moral High Ground

[00:36]

Hello, Deliter, and welcome back to Flightthrough Entirety, the only Doctor Who podcast with three settings, standard comedy classic and something relaxing for the gentleman after a stressful day.

I'm Nathan.

I'm James.

I'm Todd, and I'm a mouthful of instant pot noodle outpourings of latex gimp masked suffering and redemption for this one.

Brilliant.

Well, we've rinsed the blood off our togas, and now we're headed off into the distant future, a world where humanity has transcended money, imperialism, and the exploitation of the working classes, which is why we have absolutely nothing to fear on the planet of the oud.

For Star Trek Picard.

[01:37]

Bootsphere.

It is the Udsphere.

It's wonderful, isn't it, that Russell has decided that the way that aliens work is?

If they're from neighbouring planets, they're vaguely similar to one another.

So, that's a rotten bree.

I guess.

So, so, Rexakorofalapatorius and Clom are right next to one another.

And I have to think that the alien Vord and the Kassavan would have to have been from neighbouring planets if Chris Chibnell had the same idea.

Or at least neighbouring university, at least neighbouring universes.

Since Chibnell has lots of RTDs ideas anyway.

I'm sure that we'll see it.

Promulgation of this and the non too distant, but that's for Jody, isn't it?

It really is.

So how do we feel about this episode?

I think Doctor Who is bit too woke now?

Yeah that's it.

Why is it suddenly all political and up in your face?

Never used to be like this.

Never at all.

I was thinking when was there ever a moment when Sarah Jane was faced with, but I don't think we, we, Well, no, it's more of a Joe Grant moment, actually, to look at slavery, and I don't think we've seen a companion be quite so in the doctor's face.

[02:47]

Again, we all, it's just lovely having Catherine Tate, but hello, listener, isn't it really?

I've forgotten how I never hadn't forgotten how good this was, but it's just that it's so fresh each time you watch it.

But she's the Barbara of this period for me.

Yeah.

I have a moment where I well up.

And that is her 1st interaction with the oud that's been shot that's sort of dying.

And it sort of menaces them and does the red eye rabbit thing and she's frightened and she's initially, she calls it an it, you know, and she's initially apprehensive of it.

And then it dies and she goes down and she strokes its head and she calls it sweetheart.

And it's that incredible compassion that we've talked about in the last 2 episodes.

As the doctor is telling her to be careful as well.

He's like, be careful.

No, like her compassion overwhelms her sense of self-preservation for something that's just almost attacked her.

Yeah, I think it's just, I think it's just beautiful.

[03:48]

I was a bit apprehensive, Todd, because I believed for some reason that you were very keen to do this episode and I thought that you probably don't like it very much.

Initially, Nathan, back in the day.

Here we go.

I always liked it.

Oh okay.

I've always liked it.

But I didn't think it was as good as the 1st 2 episodes of the season.

And on my rewatch, I like it probably slightly more than the 1st 2 episodes of the season, which I'm already giving 9s to.

I really was astounded by this.

And it's it's so many things.

It's Catherine Tate in particular, but the whole story just sang to me really, and I really just enjoyed it.

Richard used the word fresh.

It was much fresher.

I think I've seen the 1st 2 episodes so many times because I really adore them.

And so this is one that I haven't rewatched as much.

And so it was like probably the episode that improved the most for me in this entire season that I've been watching.

[04:52]

What do you attribute that to, do you think?

Maybe really paying attention to the storyline and what is actually going on.

Catherine Tate in particular.

And the relationship with David Tennant in this, I think, is brilliant.

And there's so many little moments that, again, with the story, season arcs, you know, from mentioning things like the bees disappearing, to them getting mistaken for the married couple, the Dr. Donna, we get like the sense sphere, there's all that throughout as well, and addressing what the oud are, essentially, slave race.

And really feeling compassion for them. with their brains in their hands and that sort of thing.

I just really adored this.

The fact that Donna, again, going back to her compassion and her intelligence, Donna is the one that points out to Mr. Halpin, that, of course, they're peaceful.

[05:52]

They're born with a brain in their hands.

They have to be nice to people.

They have to try, you know, they have to trust people.

I didn't see it as a brain.

I think it's a single... think it's a single genus race, I think.

And I thought, look, it's a great metaphor for being a boy at school and a school of full of other boys.

I mean, you're clutching your truth and your hope and your hands constantly, aren't you?

I haven't seen a metaphor.

Well it's not even a metaphor.

It actually just it is.

It's signify of slavery.

I'm thinking the Romans.

I'm trying to think of the antecedents in Doctor Who, where I've had this.

We don't we don't, you know, there are enslaved people in the Romans, but there's no real sort of critique of slavery.

Doctor Who has done exploitation and the doctor coming in and freeing people from exploitation.

Maybe, you know, before the savages, but the savages is the one that...

[06:54]

Yeah, and all that top of the pop's face paint.

And I'm also thinking what the character of Tegan would have done in this situation, and I can really see some nice heartening back to perhaps one of the other favourite periods for Keith, the writer, and whoever else were involved, because I can see there's a lot of 80s themes in this as well.

So it's the corporates, isn't it?

that are particularly 80s.

And so Doctor Who was very much aware of the change of neoliberalism.

The Thatcher apparent.

See, I always read it as more analogous to one of those mid-pertwe stories, like, you know, the mutants?

Like the IMC colony and space kind of thing, you know, these big companies who have taken over space and they have no accountability.

Well, it does. throughout the history of Doctor Who, but it really starts in that kind of woke 70s.

Mac Hulk.

Yeah, it's Malcolm Hulk story.

[07:55]

It is Malcolm Hol story.

Well, it is in the sense that it is absolutely not communist, but sort of Marxist in its kind of analysis that these are an exploited class of people.

And that it's wrong.

Like it definitely comes down on that.

They're as collective for goodness' sake.

Yeah, it couldn't be.

And they're in mal gray uniforms.

It couldn't be more obvious.

Yeah, yeah.

And the gulag.

Yeah.

It's interesting.

I think that this is Russell choosing to go back and repair a problem with the impossible planet.

And when we talked about the Impossible Planet. was really just implausible, wasn't it?

The implausible planet.

I said at the time that the oud were right to rise up against the people who are oppressing them.

And when they go around and start killing people at the base, those people who we really cared about and liked, you know, that it wasn't actually the wrong thing for the to do.

[08:57]

And having the devil be the person who inspires them to rebel to revolution is really telling because the thing about the devil is he opposes the status quo.

Especially in the modern way that the devil is interpreted in a lot of popular fiction and television.

Now, the devil is written in a lot of, in a lot of modern television as being chaos, not necessarily evil, burn your soul kind of character.

Look at Lucifer.

Look at to a lesser extent, the chilling adventures of Sabrina.

That is how the devil is written now.

The is greyer way.

The career of Olivia Coleman.

She's got a pact.

Do you know what?

Also, I'd like to throw in terms of the traditional meaning and it goes back a long time of taro card.

I think it's card 15.

The devil is of the choosing of our own choosing to be bound to that which does not serve us.

[10:03]

So the binding of self into servitude, which can in fact be turned over, if we so choose.

I mean, the traditional Christian story of the devil is that he is an angel who rises up against God, that he is revolutionary and it's pride.

You know, he wants to replace God.

But it is the idea that there's an oppressive overlord whom he wants to overthrow and will probably see stuff about that in series 3 of his dark materials when we eventually come to that.

But having the devil inspire them is less interesting, I think, than what happens this time.

Look, I, in hindsight, especially in, in looking at their introductory story, through the lens of this one, having the devil be controlling them is actually a disservice to those characters.

Yeah, I would have liked to have seen the story where they were just rising up because they were oppressed.

[11:08]

Yeah.

That, to me, is more interesting.

It's why I find this story more interesting and more like it has something to say.

I think that impossible planet isn't interested in the politics.

And it inadvertently makes that political point, you know, and it's a problem.

Don't you feel at the end of the impossible planet that the doctor has kind of...

Yeah, yeah.

And he makes that decision to save Billy instead of to save sort of 24 ude.

Should have saved the 24-ud.

It's not a decision we would have necessarily enjoyed, I think. the trolly problem.

Yeah, yeah.

Do you save one buck tooth girl from Essex?

Would you save 24 slaves?

Which would you rather kiss?

There is that gorgeous shot of the Ud going down on a fallen soldier, gentlemen.

And I'm thinking, oh, this is this is getting very, very um, galaxy quest.

It's bit Cthulhu, isn't it?

[12:10]

It's very Catholic without the wings, which I also do like, yes.

There's lots of nods.

Russell always has a nod.

Getting back to Impossible Planet.

Ida Scott was supposed to be returning this story as well.

Initially, she was going to play a major role in the show.

She was going to come back.

She's going to be investigating the abuses against the Oud by the corporation.

Right.

And that disappeared in the writing process.

Yeah, I mean, Dr. Rider, I guess, is sort of playing that role.

Who does he work for?

So is he with Friends of the Oude?

I love that.

It's a classic 70s per tweet name for a political group, isn't it?

Oh, well, I actually thought it was a very Bob Holmes sort of thing.

Yes, the friends of Delta Magna.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But there's friends of the earth, I think, in frontier in space, I think.

[13:13]

Oh is it?

I can't remember.

But it is a very sort of classic Doctor Who thing.

What is Keith Temple, is it, who wrote this episode?

What has he written?

Does anybody know?

He's never written any other episodes, has he?

He hasn't really done much since.

He wrote an episode of River City the next year, but he worked on Doc Martin on a terrible late 90s, early 2000s kids show called Biker Grove, which was set in Newcastle.

It was on that terrible.

Well, it gave us Anton Deck, so, well, you'd be the judge.

He worked a lot on EastEnders.

Crossroads?

I always find it interesting that, you know, sometimes we have these one-off writers and I always think, well, how did they get the gig and what have they done and that sort of thing?

And it's interesting that he's actually got this very political episode to address the things that you've been discussing?

It must have been kind of something that Russell gave him to do, though, because I think that Russell must have been conscious that there was a problem with the slave race.

[14:18]

And it's a weird thing too, because Rose actually comments on, you know, humans don't need slaves.

Why do we have slaves?

And she's not happy about it.

But then the other shoe never drops.

Fair enough.

I think you're right.

I mean, it is something that Russell loved giving people shopping lists.

And the JNT of the show.

With this, he said, you know, like Ice Planet, who'd let's deal with the slavery.

Right.

Okay.

And again, I think, you know, getting back to what we were saying about before about it being a Mac Hulk script.

I think it was on the commentary for the episode, Keith Temple talked about how his initial drafts, he was unconsciously writing it as a 6 part classic series story.

It flows like that.

But for a 45 minute slot.

Do you know what he wrote just before this and what reason he got the job?

He did that thing.

[15:19]

I want to call it layer cake, but he did that thing called, oh god, what's it called?

Angel Cake.

And it's got Rita Tushingham, who was in, was she in Taste of Honey?

She's in a lot of those great 60s things.

She was one of the great Northern Lasses of the 60s, and another lass called Sarah Lancashire, whom we know, some other shows such as Doctor Who.

But the thing was, the conceit was the Virgin Mary appears in the icing of a cake.

And he said, it's all these visions of weeping statues that I wanted to put into Doctor Who.

So yes, we're looking at you, Moffat.

But he said that in 2006, and I'm thinking, oh, that's right, actually on the money, isn't it?

Now, he writes with great irony and sensitivity in a lot of things.

And he's got a book that came out in 2010 called It's Behind You, which I think we all need to go and have a look at.

No, I like his writing.

I like the cleanness of it.

I like that he gives the right people deaths in the right way.

I enjoyed the depths in this one.

It's funny, isn't it?

Because I did too.

And I thought I thought of you, Todd, actually.

Oh, oh, get out.

You enjoyed the deaths in this story, Todd?

[16:22]

I did not enjoy the death of Dr. Ryder, who I thought was there to help, and then he just gets pushed into the brain and, well, I don't know.

Drowned, eaten, whatever it happened.

Like I kind of thought, well, that's a shame.

I mean, I did enjoy the death of Salana.

Yeah.

And it's a, she's a very interesting character, and it's one of the reasons why I really like this story is because I actually think she's really good, and she sells all of that PR stuff, like it's the, you know, that she does with all of the clients, even when things are going to hell.

Oh, yes, that's just, you know, our fire drill or whatever she says.

And you honestly think that she's going to go with the doctor and be on the side of it. good. we're like, we're used to, and then she makes a choice in a decision.

And that has ramifications for her.

It's such a great scene too, isn't it?

Because she critiques us in a way.

It's that wonderful thing where one of them, either Donna or the doctor, I suspect it's Donna says, do people here know how you're treating the oo?

[17:29]

Well, yeah, she says, you've got to tell the people back home, basically.

Like, if they knew what was going on, they'd do something to stop it.

And she says, they know, they don't ask, they know, they don't ask, and that's the same thing.

They don't care to know. how the ouda treat.

And then there's that point that Donna makes, you know, human beings don't need slaves.

We don't have slaves and the doctor says, who made your clothes?

Yeah, and again, I think that's really interesting and sort of more interesting than it appears because it's the point where the script is explicitly kind of linking itself to our economic situation.

So this is a sort of fantasy world with sort of alien squidhead slaves, but it's by linking it to the fact that we live in a world where all of the things that we buy are produced by people who are being exploited.

[18:32]

And the example is clothes, maybe the go-to thing now is our consumer electronics or like Amazon, you know, perhaps Doctor Who might take a stab at critiquing the employment practises of Amazon.

And then Donna rejects it.

You know, Donna is the one who goes up and questions that oud and asks it if it's okay with being enslaved.

She doesn't like the slavery thing.

But when the doctor says to her, who made your clothes, she pushes back and rejects it?

And the doctor kind of goes, oh, all right, fair enough. he doesn't sort of push the point.

It's hard to know what that is because that doesn't reflect well on Donna, who we like as a person.

Are you sure?

I think she's saying she's part of a capitalist net.

She was unemployed when she met the doctor.

So she's really no different from those persons working overseas.

[19:32]

It's just that she happens historically to have been in a place that had a more effective empire more recently.

But don't you think that that's an excuse that we make?

Do you know what I mean?

It's that thing where we sort of say, um, we're not complicit in this because we're oppressed by capitalism as well.

And that's certainly true, but we're not emiserated by capitalism to the extent that other people are.

And so we're able to say, well, I don't have slaves, which is precisely what she says.

So I'm okay.

And she pushes back at the doctor.

I think it's interesting.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, I don't think there's anything definite to say about it, but I do think it's a really interesting moment.

But I think a lot of the audience might be thinking that as well.

And I think it gets people thinking about what actually is happening in the world around them.

And I think once Donna would never even thought about that.

And the fact that she pushes back means that she does have a point of view and that maybe she's going to reflect on this and certainly how she reacts throughout the rest of the episode from what she sees and when they start singing and she wants it to stop and the tears, I think it's, I think it's great for us to see.

[20:42]

And for those people who perhaps said, oh, yes, she's right.

Yeah.

I think, I think that's it, isn't it?

She's not quite ready to learn that she's part of a system that emiserates other people just as much as the people in the 42nd century are.

And that kind of anticipates that scene where she hears that song, the song of the oud, and she's weeping, but she says, please take it away.

I can't handle it.

Can't bear it.

You know, I can't bear it.

And that doesn't read as cowardice, I don't think.

You know, I think that just reads as really kind of boundless compassion.

But there's a level at which the horror that the oud experience is so great that it's too much for us to think about.

And maybe that's our problem.

We can't every time we buy something.

We can't think about what's happening.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[21:42]

And like maybe we should.

Maybe we're cowards, maybe we're complicit.

But we can't, you know, we just can't.

But that makes her more human.

Like, the fact that she reacts in that way actually makes her more accessible to the audience. because that is the reaction that most of us have.

On a daily basis, we just shut ourselves off on that because to admit it on an ongoing basis is just too much.

And that is one of the reasons why coming back to this rewatch, discovering this and really thinking about it, whereas the 1st time I was probably quite dismissive and just didn't want to take that in.

Yeah, it's, it's, it is amazingly good.

And it is very, very straightforwardly just a story of a revolution that happens one day.

I really like the linear plotting in this.

It's very organic.

And that's why it feels so 70s.

Well, it does.

Except it would have been stretched out to 4 episodes.

I'd be quite happy with the old format for this season.

Probably get a big chase with the claw in the thing too, don't we?

[22:47]

We get the fun pier.

The doctor today is playing the role of a sort of fluffy Pokemon or something. plays his own character options mini figure, doesn't it?

Doesn't that guy just say I've always wanted to do this or something like that?

Actually, he's the weakest link in this story.

I don't think his performance is that good I think he's fabulously unlikeable too.

And the eyes are doing it the whole way.

And that's got great face.

Yeah, yeah.

And then the comeuppance he gets where he is planning to gas all ewed, and then they gas him.

He gets what's coming to him. did like that.

Do you know, that reminds me of, there is one other place in the script where it's linked to the present day, and that is that he refers to the Ud as livestock, and they have to gas the infected livestock, and then it's compared to, it's the foot and mouth solution, and that's said in the dialogue as well.

And so suddenly, as well, the oud become our food animals, and it's not pushed, but the fact is that we live in a world where I think I've heard something like 560000000 animals a year are killed for us to eat, and those animals are kept in appalling conditions, and they don't want to be killed.

[24:07]

They fight back against us when we try and catch and kill them, that there's an absolute kind of moral horror, that underpins our everyday life.

And I'm not vegetarian.

I'm not planning to become vegetarian.

But, but the misery that we inflict on the world just as, just to stay alive and, and it's hinted at in that bit of dialogue.

I ate plant-based fake chicken this week.

And it was fine.

I just thought I'd throw that on and take the icy moral behind.

I think it's a healthy vegetarian diet for all of us from now on.

Thanks, Colin.

And because I ate it, I had to tell everyone.

That's it.

I want to know how they, who makes the pyjamas and what do they eat?

It looks very cold and I haven't seen their shoes.

I have a lot of questions about this episode, Russell.

I don't understand.

But I like their icy bridges.

I'm pretty sure that other oud make the oud clothes.

[25:08]

I think that's almost it.

But how?

Because you're always holding your brains in your hand.

Oh no, because they've been lobotomised.

No, no, no, but natural lube.

No, okay, yeah, yeah.

What do they do?

I think they get lobotomised and then have to make their own clothes.

What's a natural udo when they're doing a washing up or hanging out, you know, hanging out the washing?

That really funny thing.

Oh, I've met people. they pop it back into their mouths.

It's that really weird thing where the doctor says there can't be a slave race because nothing could evolve to be a slave race, but I'm fairly certain nothing could evolve to have half of its brain in its hands. you know, like that seems like uh, I think that wouldn't happen. pop it back in.

Maybe they do Like we do when it's cold.

Maybe it's just that it's because it's so cold there. we've just answered our own question I think actually that whole thing came from a conversation that David had with Russell.

Oh, David Tennant.

Like, he actually was like...

[26:12]

In between things.

Oh, I just had an HR Geiger vision of her just projecting them across the set and the one that annoyed her and stealing an Ud brain.

But he had conversations with him.

I'm sure I read this somewhere that he'd had conversations with Russell about, well, how couldn't a slave race evolve naturally?

Yeah, yeah, okay.

Such fans.

Well, he was.

He was.

He certainly was.

So Mr. Kess gets a good death.

The ud buyers also get some good deaths.

I think we spoke a couple of weeks ago about having, you know, these attractive sort of extra people that come in just to do like one scene and they're like in the office or whatever, but here they're talking about.

I actually just love that whole scene of how horrifying and also ridiculous at the same time, the whole, you know, you can get your ood with this, that, and the other.

[27:19]

And then, oh, it changes colour.

It's more filled you.

So there's a humiliation of the ude involved there because not only are they just turned into commodities and sold as slaves, but they're also humiliated along the way.

Yeah, they're mocked and derided.

So the option where it can do Homer Simpson or the option where it can sort of seduce you after a day's work or whatever. you.

It's like horrifying and hilarious at the same time as long as it's not happened to you.

And that scene where she's introducing the Ude and talking about the great conditions that they're kept in.

So Solana is doing the sales pitch at the same time as Commander Kess is chasing a runaway oud and then planning to kill them all.

Well, but but it's a scene where people are running with machine guns after an oud that's running away and that oud ends up cowering, terrified in a corner, you know, surrounded by those drums while she's talking about how they're educated and looked after and all of that kind of thing.

[28:27]

It's really kind of sort of super obvious and maybe a bit, maybe a bit on the nose, but...

I love that juxtaposition.

Yeah, it is, it is great.

It's worth mentioning that we have Graham Harper back this week.

It is worth mentioning.

Yes, he loves doing all of his, you know, big shotgun sequences and then there's fire going in the background and explosions.

Yeah, it does have this style that seems to come up time and time.

He has been remaking, uh, Anjazani and Revelation of the Diet ever since, really, hasn't he?

But this is the one where men with guns.

You know, this is a big man with guns.

It's the Ducky Campfield of the 21st century. until recently.

I mean, Doctor Who doesn't do men with guns very much and having people shot dead.

New who doesn't have scenes very often where someone gets out a gun and shoots someone else.

And having them, like, it's clearly a deliberate choice to have them as machine guns because that makes them seem more violent.

[29:28]

But all of the scenes where the oud are shot, the oud are not in shot when they're shot.

Like, yeah, you shoot off camera at Ud who are sort of over somewhere else.

But there is a huge amount of that here.

But that, I mean, that's partly because you don't need to say it.

You know they're dead.

But also there's the edict from Russell at the time that you should not see blood on Doctor Who.

Yeah, which kind of has disappeared over time, because he very firmly placed it as a family tea time show.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I think I think that they take it as far as they can.

This is the most gun episode.

Well, getting to that.

The scene at the end of the episode where Mr. Halpen becomes an ood. had to be reshot because it was too horrific.

Too horrific.

It was pretty horrific. horrific enough now.

Initially, it was filmed front on.

Right.

Um, with like his face falling away, I believe, and and, and it was, it was kind of a bit like Kane.

[30:32]

I was going to say, everyone forgotten Ice World.

That far away.

Maybe that planet's next door.

But they redid it.

And it's not Tim McKenery in that final version of the shot.

It's his face mattered on to Paul Cosey.

Almost certainly.

I mean, Paul Casey was playing...

Yes.

But they basically had to, they redid it from the side. because that was more acceptable than the original shop.

It's still super gross because he's coughing up tentacles.

But imagine, that you find that difficult to watch.

Imagine how difficult it was to watch, but they had to change it. in postproduction.

Everything off his scalp.

Yeah, yeah.

It's very clever, you know, throughout as he's drinking his hair tonic.

It's just terrific to think about.

And as you realise, as you realise at the same time, he does as well.

[31:33]

Yeah, I'm not, I'm not, I want to see a nude pash.

Just two.

I'm not super sold by that scene because he can't speak properly and his face is going all red and it's all just a little bit too cartoonish at that point.

Too sudden as well.

He should have been coughing up blood and being quite ill throughout the episode.

Well, his hair is falling out and that kind of does it because, you know, like the whole thing about him going bald is the way of saying that he's turning into it.

Yeah, and then you get the, they lampshade that by having the line from the doctor where he says, you know, the, the, his vicinity to the brain has accelerated the process..

And certainly with the levels being turned down as well.

Yeah.

What do we think the circle thing does?

I feel the circle thing is going back to my old Mark's notes from university that we're actually still nodding.

[32:37]

Oh, and it's also the, you know, you know, the collective.

But it's also nodding to a lot of um, popular, which is now popular, of Vedic and Buddhist and Eastern type wise men religious thing of the circle of life.

Oh, beat back on the Lion King.

The loco. and the spiders.

Yeah, that as well.

I mean, you know, it's like Barry Letts is in the room.

So there's 2 things, I think, that sort of happened.

Like it prevents collective action, doesn't it?

Like, which is what you were saying, like, it prevents the Ud from regarding themselves as a collective and from taking action in order to overthrow their oppressors.

I think it's telling that once the Ud kind of do the collective action, then what they do is broadcast that song to everyone.

So like the song that Donna had heard.

Is the song of sorrow and exclusion and impression separation.

[33:38]

It's a song of separation and then we get, oh my goodness, we're back to William Blake.

We have the songs of, we songs of innocence and experience, but this is, this is the final book.

So it's the song of, it's not triumph.

It's collective acknowledgement.

So what do they hear?

Like, a Welsh football choir?

I mean, why do they stop oppressing the oud then, all of a sudden?

Yes, why is that?

Do we all just get woke?

Well, it's a bit to work, isn't it?

The name of that song on the soundtrack is song of freedom.

And it's, yeah, I mean, that's obviously how we're supposed to read it.

But I guess, you know, like, well, how do we go back to oppressing the area, like the company's fallen.

No, it's exactly what you said.

It's the song of where we're all meant to get We're even including globalisation and climate challenge in this episode because there's a song of when everybody wakes up and stops exploiting the environment and each other.

So, so the Ud Sigma earlier on when he's asked about freedom, or is it, is it Ud Sigma, who gets asked about freedom and he says he doesn't understand the concept?

[34:45]

And then suddenly, he's lying.

But suddenly every human on earth hears the oudes elation at being free and they can no longer continue oppressing them.

I guess.

I mean, it's sort of a fantasy thing because we're quite happy to continue oppressing people kind of all the time and we know that they have the same interiority as we do.

I mean, it costs you come back to the later anyway.

Like, so you see that they are still free.

They haven't been reappressed.

Yeah.

In fact, the Oudes huge role in the end of time.

So they come back and they're big.

And for a while, like Russell kind of wants them to replace the time lords in a way in that they have some awareness of something breaking through or some bad thing happening, like, you know, that there's...

Guardians or something.

I think your song must end soon.

Yes.

So they foreshadow, no, this Dr. Donna, you'll never be forgotten or something so much like that.

Your song must end soon.

[35:46]

But they are time sensitive in some way.

They can see.

Yeah, they can sense that something is coming. that's the end of the season.

Or it's the end of tenants, tenants live.

Yeah, yeah.

You can read it either way.

And it's a red herring for the end of the season because he gets shot by a dalek.

It's supposed to read that as, oh, he might actually die at the end of this season instead of 5 episodes later.

But there is, there's the oud in his final scene who is singing him back into the TARDIS before he regenerates.

And I think that that makes this story, which is just a little standalone that you could kind of easily skip.

It makes it much more central to the era.

And since it's a story of overthrowing oppression, that becomes an important, you know, that's Russell telling us this is what he thinks is important in Doctor Who.

To him, that's the heart of the show.

That's what the show is about.

[36:46]

It's about this character who comes into the world, whether it's, you know, owls or an alien planets, and makes things better.

And then that's taken by Stephen and and run with the whole, you know, the whole reason he chose his name. was because he makes people better.

But also then it becomes, well, he actually inspired the name doctor.

And so it's this whole kind of thing, which is really central to that sort of 1st, you know, what, 12, 13 years, the new series, is really stuck on this.

And I think it kind of comes in in a big way in this season and in this story is when it actually starts to really come to the fall.

[37:48]

Todd, take us somewhere else.

I like the big rocket at the beginning.

Thank you, Todd.

I was so excited to see Hartnell Rockets.

And I always, they're always, and you know, Vicky's always talking about rockets and rocket ships and we get to see one and it's totes flash Gordon, and it's also totes a bit new Thunderbirds. very, very warm.

And it's also just a recolorized version of the implausible planet one. red, not yellow.

And it impresses Donna Greatly.

It does.

It's a Ferrari.

We can see where she's kind of a dirty girl.

It's longer than it is wine.

It is actually, it is actually the same model.

No, of course it is.

Same G model.

Yeah, just recoloured it.

Which one is that?

Is that Thunderbird 2?

That's Thunderbird 3.

Thunderbird 3 has that.

Although, of course, as we know, is everyone is interested in rocketry and such things is going to be chilling.

Well, it doesn't work.

You need foreigner cells, because you have three, the thing will spin pretty much as it's spinning in this episode, but slowly, no rockets need to have 2 or 4 outriggers.

[38:49]

Flying buttresses, like Diana Rick.

When it lands there in the background, I always think of the master's arrival in my colonic.

For me, the entire Oud operations thing just reminds me of the Xeroc fruit processing plant in that series 4 episode of Blake 7.

Yes.

When are we doing the Blake Stewart podcast?

It looks like we're doing it now.

That still sounds fresh.

It's gold.

It's gold, by the way, I think, starring Rory Kinnear's slightly less famous Father Roy.

Yeah.

At the beginning.

I also really like...

The fact that they mentioned that it's real snow.

At last, because we've had all these Christmas specials where it's like, oh, we think it's snow, but it's burning sickerax.

Obviously, it's fake snow.

But also it was filmed in August in one of the hottest weeks of that year.

[39:52]

Certainly that final scene where Donna's saying goodbye.

She looks visibly uncomfortable in that sort of big kind of fur jacket that she's...

But it's sort of lightly sprayed grass.

It looks like Antarctica from the Seeds of Doom.

And it's just that those shots, you know, the plate shots or whatever they are, the CG shots, which are fantastic, like beautifully designed.

But then there's a little bit of grass sprayed white kind of matted into this sort of beautiful, beautiful artwork.

I think all of that stuff is fun and they really go to town on the fake snow, all the railings are painted in it, like every sort of available service.

Still not happy because the oud should be hairy.

Oh, because it's so cold.

They should be Tarin wood beasts.

Shouldn't they, Tom?

Maybe they run really hot.

Maybe they maybe.

Look, I think if they're born with their brains in their hands or bets are off as far as their biology's concerned.

They'd be hopeless at group tennis.

[40:55]

Terribly confusing.

Catherine Tate's the one that shone for me in this one.

And as you say, Esher Darker?

Yeah, it's really just because she was so very much the reason these models exist and the way that we've all acquired our mobile telephonic devices is because people like this have sold it to us, if it's okay.

Yeah.

She is, of course, in Attack of the Clones.

Is she?

Yeah, she plays one of the queens of Naboo.

I dont know if it's the one who.

Is it the one who's horribly murdered on the platform in the 1st...

No, no.

I think it's an actual proper queen.

Like it's when we meet Queen Amadala's replacement queen on Nabu and it's her.

And she's a mating?

She's, look, no, probably more than Natalie Portman is, but that's not saying much.

So she's she's in that.

But she is incredibly good and she really is kind of central to so much of it.

[42:01]

She plays a sort of easily overlooked role, but she's perhaps the most important guest cast member.

I agree.

And she looks glamorous to... outfit.

Black outfit with the with the dress and everything is wonderful.

And it's going back to the point you made earlier, Todd, about how we expect her to, because we know how Doctor Who works, we expect her to be a character that turns against her employers because what they're doing is wrong and we expect that.

We expect that's Doctor Who archetype.

We expect that to occur and where it doesn't, it wrongfoots you.

And then you get a wonderful scene where she gets her comeuppance, like, and and and people die in this in this episode in a really appropriate way.

She actually orders some of the to shoot the oo.

Do you know what I mean?

[43:02]

Like she she makes her decision and then really leans into it.

And so she becomes, you know, well and truly deserving of the death.

And that's the fun thing about when the oud rise up and start killing people.

The people deserve it.

And so it's actually really sort of rather satisfying. is a Malcolm Hulk story.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, I've got one question.

Do the events of this story play out any differently if the doctor and Donna are not present?

No.

I don't think so.

It's a Colin Baker story.

Why are you looking at me?

Because you like Colin.

As do I. Big finish.

It's a good question, Nathan.

I'm trying to think.

Well, Dr. Writer have been got into Warehouse 15.

Yeah, so if they hadn't got in.

So the doctor switches off the circle.

He also switches off the little the little Lego bombs.

[44:03]

He's the only one that remembers to do that.

Yes, they would have just carelessly forgot.

Yes, there is always a moment.

He's the trikster, all that he's actually, I'm Sylvester McCoy is the fool in Lear. the one that's working on the backgrounds.

Oh gosh, we're back to Kinder.

That's the thing though. the enslaved people have the revolution and save themselves.

And it would have been less satisfying if David Tennant had just come in and overthrown it, that they had their own agency, that with Dr. Ryder's help, Like Dr. Ryder lowers the, you know, intensity of the circle so that the oud start to get red eye and start to rebel.

But basically the oo do it, but maybe that's the right decision.

Yeah, there would have been slightly more explosions and slightly more deaths without the doctor there.

So he's really fiddling around the edges.

He's not driving the plot.

He's a proper 60s doctor again.

[45:04]

We get confused because we expect the doctor to always be pert we on, but really, and actually Davidson was doing it as well, but really the 60s doctors would have would have fitted very nicely into this.

So essentially, when the oud say, thank you very much for saving us, and you're wonderful, and you'll never be forgotten, they were just being polite.

Well, dear, listen, we've travelled to the past and the future, and so it's time to fire up our satnavs and head back to Earth to see how Martha's getting on.

We'll see you next week for another perennial fan favourite, the Son Taran stratagem.

[46:05]

In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts, and you can keep up with us at Flightthrough Entirety on Facebook, at FTE podcast on Twitter, and on our website, FlightthroughEntirety.com, where you'll find links to our other podcasts, Bondfinger, and Jody into Terror.

Until next time, remember that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.

But not to worry, we're certain that everything will turn out just fine.

Thank you very much for listening, and good night.

Good night.

See you soon.

I want to go, but yes, good night.

That was Flight Through Entirety, starring Todd B, it'll be Nathan Bottomley, James Selwood, and Richard Stone.

Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, Strings performance by Jane Orberg.

This episode, the Icy Moral High Ground, was recorded on the 1st of February 2020 and released on the 29th of March.

Flight through Entirety makes no profit and runs as an Anaco syndicalist community.

[47:07]

It is organic, non-toxic, and cruelty free, except for the occasional completely unwarranted remark about Billy Piper's teeth.

How are we going?

Do we have any closing statements?

I'll just say something fresh about it, but well, it's a very simple linear story.

So really, yeah, it's a bit of a.

We have seen it before.

But it's saved by performances and by the very slick direction.

I think it just, it's the simplicity of it.

It is just, you know, these are oppressed and they rise up and do it.

Okay, I've got one.

Which is what it should be.

You should have actually filmed before the season opener as well.

I think this is the tag.

Okay, I've got one question.