Crossed That off the Whiteboard

[00:36]

Hello, De Lister, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety, the only Doctor Who podcast that also functions as a subbranch of the Helen Rainer Fan Club.

I'm chapter vice president.

I'm Nathan.

I'm James I'm Peter.

And I'm Adam.

Well, we're back on Planet Earth in the present day and it looks like we're just in time to foil a terrible attack from some alien war potatoes.

But in order to do that, 1st we'll need to find out a bit more about the Santarin strategy.

Okay, so this is an early season 2 passer in the RTD era, which means that, what, everyone hates it.

Is that the rule?

I think it is the rule.

Is that the rule?

So what hang on, refresh my memory.

We've had the oh, with the farting aliens.

[01:36]

Yeah, which was new and fresh.

Which I adore.

Amazing.

And, you know, manages to be about the Iraq war and sort of neoliberalism killing us all.

That whole 1st RTD season is like layered with double meanings.

And then he just was, I don't have time to write subtext anymore. 13 episodes of a show to pump out.

No, it is because it's the thing that's been on his shelf.

Yeah, such a long time.

And so that story is incredible, I think.

And you never know where it's going to go.

It's absolutely fresh.

But people hate it because it's got farting aliens.

With zips in there.

Yeah, yeah, and they want Doctor Who to be serious.

And isn't wonderfully directed by Keith Bow and that...

No, who insisted on...

I mean, I think now, in hindsight, his insistence on having rubber suits as opposed to the CGI aliens was correct, because the CGI aliens are a little...

But no one knows how to shoot it.

You know, like they had Graham Harper on the shelf.

They could have got him out to do it.

[02:37]

But, you know, they didn't.

And then the following year we have Rise of the Cybermen Age of Steel.

Oh, that was the 2nd season one.

Yeah.

And of course, that has a lot to say because it is the Saideman.

Simon have a storied history in Doctor Who, and so you can look at where they came from and what they mean.

There's a lot in there.

Russell reinvents them.

You know, he gives some fabulous kind of parallel world acting, like Liz Shaw got in Inferno, but instead gives it to Camille Kajuri, which is unbelievably great.

She's hilarious.

We kill the Prime Minister of Great Britain for the 2nd year in a row.

So it really has quite a lot going for it.

And then last year we had Helen Rainer do...

Oh, the Daleks in the Daleks.

That looks better in the rearview mirror, doesn't it?

So, again, that's really not very well liked, but I think that we decided last year that had a reasonable amount going for it, at least in the kind of...

[03:41]

It's called Andrew Garfield.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, that's right.

There's a lot of good ingredients in Daleks in Manhattan.

And I think maybe it's a story of 2 halves.

The 1st episode's actually pretty good. 2nd episode's actually pretty bad.

You liked the Daleks a lot.

That was that too part.

It was Richard's favourite one of that season.

Yeah, just because of the setting and the musical numbers and Tallula and all of that.

And the gorgeous sort of art deco aesthetic.

Yeah, yeah. there's, you know, there's sewers.

When Doctor Who is in sewers, it's always good fun.

That's right.

Pick faith aliens.

Aesthetic counts for a lot.

What's missing this year?

Aesthetic of any kind.

So we're in one of sort of Ed Thomas's factories, this time subbing out as a factory rather than a sort of alien spaceship.

Like, I don't think this one is well liked.

And like I'm kind of reluctant to say that it's got nothing going for it, but it is a little bit...

It's like a piece of celery that looks really nice.

[04:43]

And you pick it up and you go, this is a bit limp.

And then you put it on your lapel.

You could put it into Bloody Mary and hope no one bit into it and discovered that it was limp.

You put it on your lapel, like you wouldn't put a limp one there.

It would be obvious that it was limp.

They dip throughout the early 80s.

Oh, I know.

But I think just went limp under the hot studio lights.

I'm sure the 1st take, it looked amazing.

So this is the return of subtext to the Flight to Entirety after a long absence.

And I think that's the problem is that this isn't particularly well liked, but it's not particularly anything.

No, I don't hate it.

They don't love it.

And in fact, I was speaking to friend of the podcast, Stuart Manning about this story because I couldn't quite nail down what I thought about it.

And he said that he thinks it's what detractors of RTD's era think the era was, even though it wasn't.

[05:51]

Yeah See, the other thing that you get is that people say that it's like a Sarah Jane Adventures episode, and you've got, you know, the Loop.

Like that's an insult.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sarah Jane Adventures was the best.

They had a cliffhanger every 2nd episode.

It's, it was the best idea ever.

It's really, really fun too.

And like there were times I think that it was more fun than the parent show.

And it was really kind of inventive, but it's kind of go to was there's a sort of consumer electronics device or some kind of thing that is suspicious.

We have to go to the factory where it's created to investigate and we discover that, uh, yeah, that it's alien.

Or, or, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it's terror of the autons every week.

Yeah, or the invasion.

Yeah, a problem for me.

I love that too.

What was the name of that juice in the opening Sarah Jane?

Yeah, bubble shot?

Bubble shot?

But your man, Torrens invade via bubble shot.

So like, I don't think that that's a terrible story to do.

[06:54]

And it's the 2nd one this year because we've had adipose industries pills in the 1st episode.

So we are going sort of back to it.

But I kind of get the idea that we want a variety of things.

You know, the reason that a Doctor Who movie never works is because there's just one of it.

Yes.

And Doctor Who goes over 13 weeks and each of the weeks has a kind of different tone.

And so, you know, I think it's right to have this sort of story up front, but I just think this one is perhaps not very well done.

I think, you know what?

This is one of those, and it happens a lot with, you know, Star Wars movies now or Marvel movies where sometimes all you can see is the whiteboard in the office with all of the dot points on it. and you're like, could you not have been a bit more creative with the list?

Like, I want Martha, and I want some young guru that's got a website, and I'll need unit, and I'll need Santarans, and a scary GPS.

Oh, and maybe make the muffler on your car, be diddly.

[07:56]

Yeah, I want all of that and Donna's parents.

And also, like, and once you've written all those things, you're like, well, there's no room.

Oh, and clones, we need clones.

Yeah.

Yeah.

In the original version of the draft outline of the story, whole of the factory was clones.

Yes, I read that.

And then they became hypnotised.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, that bit, for this episode, and we'll talk next week about the poison sky and what that has to say.

It actually edges close to actually being about something for a 2nd and then shies away from it.

And it's the usual thing where Donna is horrified by an army raid on a factory to check kind of illegal aliens working in the factory.

And so she goes to a kind of reflexive, compassionate and sort of left wing response to what's going on.

And then Martha interviews that guy, who is from Poland, I guess.

[08:59]

So it's almost like they're, yeah, like you say, they're edging towards trying to comment on something and they're not doing anything about it.

No.

So is the idea that we're thinking about the way that people who are brought in on particular visas or who are here illegally are kind of forced to are kind of dehumanised.

Although, I mean, was this this would have been after Poland entered the EU.

Yeah, yeah.

They're allowed.

They're allowed.

They're allowed to wander over and do what they feel like.

But not as far as Brexeter is there.

No, and now they're not allowed.

Yeah, yeah.

So they're dehumanised for the sake of, you know, because they aren't able to access their rights or something.

But that's basically 2 scenes and I'm really stretching it a bit.

Yeah, they just crossed that off the whiteboard and gone, right, that seems in there, we're done.

But I think that's the problem when we were talking earlier about the fact that we've already done this type of story this season with partners in crime.

There's a Russell formula and it's why people think the Russell seasons are like this.

Russell gets it right every time because he can do it.

[10:00]

He brings lightness and he can look at that kind of whiteboard and assemble things and make everything organic to each other.

I think whenever other writers tries to do it.

It doesn't work, which is why Helen, and I'm not having a particular go at her, couldn't quite get it to happen last year on the Dalek 2 parter.

It doesn't happen here, and it doesn't happen when Chris... ultimate irony that the script editor of the show is the one whose scripts need the most editing and no one has bothered to do that.

Like these 2 episodes.

Someone should have gone.

Do we know that, though?

Well, I mean, he had a pass at it.

Russell rewrote it, but like if you got rid of the whole Radigan business and his weird red hoodie cult, which adds nothing to the episode, other than a gurning, annoying performance, by someone who's older than a child actor, but not behaving like one.

Uh, like it does nothing.

All he's there for is to be a sacrificial lamb in the next episode.

So he does he has no function in this episode whatsoever.

[11:03]

He's literally a plot device.

Yeah, he's a he's a McGuffin.

Human McGuffin.

Like, are we saying something about startup culture or something?

No.

No, you know, like it's too kind of...

Did he invent the Atmos?

Is that is that what's going on?

Like that is barely mentioned.

Yeah, there's like a one... at the factory.

Like if that's his business.

Why isn't he there?

And also, can someone clarify for me what the link was between the GPS and the Atmos?

Yeah.

That was a last minute thing, apparently, in the script.

It was always meant to be about the emissions. and then they went, Russell was like, oh, I've always had this idea about a deadly GPS.

Let's have it be a package.

That thing, right, at the start, this is your final destination.

I mean, that smacked very much of a Bob Baker and Dave Martin.

Let's make up the slogan and then craft a plotter.

And this is this is saying so much.

That works better.

That works better in SpyFall.

Yes.

Although the opening scene is great.

[12:04]

Like, even Murray Gold, who sometimes, you know, gives me the creeping heebie-jeebies, is channelling Bernard Herman in this beautiful opening moment where the car is driving towards the water and she kind of, it's like you're like, 0 my god, this is great.

This is going to be a really good episode.

This is...

We know a mansion.

Yeah, it's in purple for some reason.

Yes, I know, and everyone's got a red hoodie.

Like it's really evocative.

Like you think, oh, something creepy is happening here.

Something amazing is going to happen in this episode.

And then none of it plays out.

Like, it all just sort of goes, eh, though, for an episode that's so saturated in colour. very beige.

Well, see, this is my thing.

I know a lot of people like to blame Helen Rayner for the writing, but I actually think it's Douglas McKinnon, who is one of those bloodless directors the show has ever had.

Like, it's kind of like the only scene that is really interesting is, uh, is in the next episode.

[13:05]

But, you know, I tried to watch his good omens, which I found frustratingly annoying and indulgent, like just letting people do whatever they felt like.

It's almost like he turns the cameras on and wanders away and says, yeah, yeah, they'll sort that out and we'll fix it in the edit.

Like, I feel like he's not actually there. as a director.

I think that there is at least one sequence here where I think that the actors are really killing it and that is Donna's return home.

Oh, yeah.

But you've got 3 amazing actors.

Like, you don't need a director for those three.

No.

And I think that that's absolutely the best thing about this episode.

And the way it starts, you know, one of the things that happens all the time, and it doesn't seem to affect tenant's performance the way it should.

But Donna's role is to puncture the doctor.

So whenever the doctor does, you know, like a big, a big moment.

Her job is to kind of bring him down to earth.

[14:07]

That moment where she says she's going home.

Yes.

And he's gone, like, you were the best thing.

You stopped it.

It's like, like he goes over and she just lets him.

Yeah, yeah, carry on being properly tenant and Russell T. Davis. creeping little smile.

Yes.

Oh, I was just going home.

Yeah, it's her reaction where she slowly just, you know, it becomes clear that she's just letting him do this.

And it's like the show is parroting what has been happening for the last 3 years.

Like it's going, let's let's let's upend our own paradigm.

Well, it's the same thing at the very beginning where Martha and Donna 1st meet and the doctor wants them to fight and they refuse. to.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And she calls him a prawn and then she calls him a dumbo when it's time to go home.

And then she goes home and that, like even that sort of really cheesy walking down the street looking at people going past with little flashbacks to the emotional moments that she's had over the past few episodes.

[15:10]

But then, I mean, then you get the whole thing where she stops, like she sees her grandfather and and then he's just like waving his arms going, he's so excited that she's come home.

She runs like a 10 year old.

She's so excited.

And then they hug it like, I just well up every time I watch it.

But see, that's the thing.

I think McKinnon's good at those kinds of scenes, but you give him anything with, you know, science fiction drama or dynamism.

Yeah, and he's like, yeah, I don't know. all of those scenes with Donna's family are complete boilerplate.

Yeah.

I think everything that's warm and good about them is all brought by the performances.

Otherwise, it's just by numbers.

I mean, I like I've got to think that Russell pays particular attention to those scenes in his passover because he's done this incredible reinvention of Donna, which I don't think gets enough credit.

Like he really, really reworks the character quite seriously in order to make her a going concern.

[16:12]

And so properly characterising the family based on what Sylvia's like in Runaway bride.

But also like the, you know, they were also hamstrung, but turned it to their advantage by the fact that her dad was meant to be in a filmed scene. these 2 episodes were written with her father, you know, in jeopardy in the car.

So having to recast that as the grandfather, you know, make it a different kind of situation.

Like that could have been a disaster.

Like just getting someone to the last minute and but instead you get Bernard Cribbins, who's incredible.

Well, you see, Russell has to make her into a person rather than a Christmas draw.

And can I also say, I think that would have actually been better if it had been reversed.

The fact that Cuddly Wolf is trapped inside the car and everyone's going a bit crazy about it is kind of like the obvious choice.

It would have been much better if Sylvia was trapped in the car and Wolf ends up saving the day.

That just feels more organic to me.

Oh, but I just, I love like, Sylvia wielding a hammer.

Yeah, I agree.

[17:13]

Jackie King attacking your car.

I'm sure Russ...

I'm on board with Jackie.

I'm sure Russell said this at some point in an interview that as soon as he got the image of her wielding that hammer that like it was sold for him.

It was like, no, she has to be, she has to smash the windscreen.

Although it is really frustrating as a cliffhanger for this episode because the whole time you're like, why doesn't someone break the bloody window?

You're going to wait a whole week to say Jackie Kington?

Do we not think, though, that as wonderful as she is all the time, these episodes are a little bit regressive for Donna?

She doesn't achieve anything?

She's sidelined in the plot.

And next week when we come to that, we'll find out that actually she's very tentative about doing things that she should be confident with by now.

So it feels like a backward step for me.

Oh, okay.

I felt that too when I was watching.

But they were getting ahead of ourselves, so that is next week.

But even this week, she doesn't do much.

[18:14]

She gets to be super temp, which is sort of standard Donna stuff.

But why hang?

I really actually find that frustrating that they have to draw attention to it?

Why not just have her be intelligent?

Why do you have, yeah, and clever and sort of, you know, have sort that out?

Like, you know she worked in an office.

You don't have to hang a hang a lantern on a train.

Oh, I kind of thing.

I like that, though, because it's that thing of like, just because your job to you feels like, oh, I just turn up and I just work in the secretarial thing, like that's, you know, I don't really do anything important.

It's like, no, no, no, that is an important job and you know things about a business that no one else would know.

And she's good at it.

And because we had Lance in Runaway Bride talking about how stupid she was, how she couldn't find Germany on a map or whatever.

You flavour of Pringle.

You have to make her smart.

She's totally smart.

She's she's smart in all ways.

She's emotionally smart, intellectually smart.

[19:15]

She just plays up the fact that she's not.

And I don't think this episode helped her very much.

I mean, we all know that she went off into the office to get a man. came back and found the details that she needed.

As we all do, yeah.

She probably found one in there and still found the details.

She's a very busy girl.

Although with that guy that Martha had finished interviewing, probably still sitting in the corner with a very quick heart rate.

I mean, opportunity.

I'd never made the comlish.

I never made the connection that she ends up working in an office, the next major role.

By the way, talking of Martha, who we've ignored.

Much like Helen Rayner.

So, she's engaged to the, you know, Lucifer.

[20:16]

But then doesn't she end up married to Mickey?

Did we ever...

We never saw what happened with Lucifer and the engagement.

Like, this is just an untold Martha story.

I believe the fact that she ended up married to Mickey was meant to be tied up with Mickey's appearance in Torchwood, which never happened.

Oh, and also the fact that they'd met at the end of this season.

Oh, in the... when she had the Osterhagen key.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Well done.

That was good.

I just call it the anagram.

I just remember it being such a big thing.

I was like, what is it?

What is it?

I'm like, oh, it's a button.

It sounds like an ice cream dog.

I've got Osterhagen for everyone.

It's a German vanetta.

I love how Helen Andor Russell has the temerity to actually have Martha phoning in her performance in her 1st scene.

Yeah, exactly.

Literally.

Bringing you back down to her.

It's so, it's so, you know, like cold open acting.

[21:19]

Like she's saying it like it's about to lead into the opening credit.

It's like no one talks like that.

Like she can see it flying towards her through the sky.

We loved Martha last year.

I think her performance is generally really good.

And they're bringing her back for 5 episodes this year for kind of, I don't know, consolation.

She's also done 3 tortures.

So she's had, you know, a decent 8 weeks.

But by the end of Russell's sort of era as the showrunner on, you know, these 3 shows, she's been in another 9 episodes after being sacked.

So they're bringing it back.

Well, let's say let go.

But they're not doing any of the things with her character that we like.

Yeah.

She's sort of very quickly kind of sidelined and then evil.

She's back to dialects in Manhattan, Martha.

Remember, we talked about the fact that Martha gets very little to do.

She's just generic companion throughout those episodes after 3 episodes of being really quite strong and well written and she's back to being a plot function here.

[22:20]

So is Donna in this episode as well.

Like, Donna barely has a plot function.

Like, she finds a folder and then goes to a CFM.

And that's that's shocking after you've just had Pompeii.

And Oud, like where this character has...

And you foreshadowing that something's happening to her, like there's important things going on.

And you've really seen her sort of chops, I guess.

You've really seen her become a sort of more...

Why?

Why bring in old mate, new Benton?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I can see the wisdom of that.

I mean, he's pretty.

Well, you know, they did have a gay cast.

I recently watched him in that Agatha Christie where he replaced the rapist from Gossip Girl.

He's no good.

I think, I mean, he's not required to do very much in this apart from Be Pretty and he does that fantastic well.

So that's Ross Jenkins.

And I think they had the character's name.

[23:22]

They had been going to bring him back for turn left.

But he wasn't available.

And that would have been kind of perfect.

Which is why they kill him off.

Yeah.

No, but I think they would have killed him off, but had him still alive in the turn left version of reality to make the decision about switching back.

The time tracks more interesting because we would have been switching them back to a time when Ross was dead.

And I'm not suggesting that they would have.

Poor Donna, how many times does she have to give up an entire life?

Yeah, yeah, yeah Well, I mean, to go and get back on the TARDIS.

The reason for that, though, is that Russell doesn't rewrite Moffat and Russell realises that they've both written the same story in a while. why they have to shove midnight in between.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which was apparently meant to be earlier in the season.

I think that slot was meant to be, yes.

Because, yeah, midnight, because the appearance of Rose in the next episode was originally meant to happen earlier and they're like, oh, we're going to have to jam her in somewhere else.

Yeah, yeah.

[24:22]

That team was shot before midnight during turn lamp.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Can we talk a little bit more about Martha?

Because I think bring her back was a big thing for the kids.

They would have loved seeing that, but she's given no agency in this story.

She's just kind of brought back.

They have a scene with her and the doctor and Donna, and then she's kind of sent off on her own storyline and has very little interaction with the regulars thereafter.

So what she has, that conversation that she has with Donna, I think, is very good.

Yeah, I would have watched an episode of that.

Yep.

I also think that leaving her, because she has the best kind of leaving scene in the new series, I think, where she just goes on her own terms.

And we're going to see her again.

We don't have to sort of trap her in the past or, you know, in a parallel universe or, you know, send her off to live in a puddle with a sort of space lesbian or something.

We can just, do you know what I mean?

She just, she just goes back to her life and we can see her again.

And I really love it.

It's kind of like they're doing all the things that fans wish to happen with Sarah Jane back in the day.

Yeah.

Like, it's like, oh, imagine if, you know, the doctor and Leila went back to...

[25:26]

And there was Sarah Jane still hanging out with the unit.

Yeah, doing business.

Like Sarah Jane, Elizabeth Sleden doesn't free management do a great job of being kind of casually evil.

Yeah.

Anytime Sarah was taken over or a duplicate. you know, you were there for it.

Same with Freema.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

She does some great kind of eye rolling and kind of exasperation and stuff.

She presses and like no one else ever has, I think.

That whole, I mean, that, again, we're drifting into the 2nd episode, but that is part of the editing process that needed to be gotten rid of, that whole ongoing narrative with sending the bombs.

Like, it's already established that they can't affect the spaceship.

So what's the point?

What's the point of turning them off?

And then there's just a weird line of justification later on.

And I, it's like, this is a, this is a single episode that somehow managed to blow out to a double episode.

There's a weird thing where there's some reference made to her pressing N.

[26:33]

But she's pressing a big button that says no.

And I just wonder whether, like, it's like we thought it was going to be a blackberry, but it ends up being a big screen or something and no one kind of...

Yeah, it's, yeah, no, for, yeah, it is hard to know what that's doing.

Because once you, once you stop at once, all you need to do is say we can't fire them again or whatever for some reason.

Instead, it's like, oh, I've gotta give Martha something else to do.

Evil Martha's got to have another job.

And that would have been structurally better for the plot as well if it had been, she'd taken control of it. you know, using the Sontarin's technology and the codes and they they realise they can't fire them and then it's like, what do we do now?

Do something more interesting.

Like, it's just literally so she has the occasional scene whilst she's doing nothing else for the plot, just pressing a button so you kind of know, you like, hey, yeah, there's still some nuclear weapons.

You know what?

[27:33]

Strip out that, strip out Radigan and his weird red hoodie academy, and have pretty new Benton sacrifice himself at the end for the doctor.

Like, you've cut half, half, like one whole episode out.

Everything's fine.

I'm sure we're going to miss out on Jackie King breaking a window with them.

But I'd be happy to sacrifice that for more linear storytelling.

Apparently, I think we discussed this last week.

The Oud story, Russell had initially considered making it a two-part.

Oh, yeah.

There was there's plenty of meat in that for 2 episodes.

This one?

No, as the episode 452 parter.

Particularly as an answer to the Impossible Planet 2 party.

You know, you have 2 parts on the Oud, now have 2 parts kind of freeing them.

You have to bring Ida back?

Yeah, yeah.

And it has something political to say.

Like, it's actually about something.

And of course, this is the problem with this episode.

I don't think it's about anything, even though it makes pretence of being about something.

[28:42]

You know what we haven't mentioned?

It's DeSontara.

They're in the title.

The whole reason that it was a two-parter.

We've got a returning monster.

Same with the cybermen.

It's like we've got a returning monster.

We're going have a double episode to really make everyone excited.

Also, that's, from the reality point of view why you do a two-parter, is because one episode finances one of the plastic heads and the next episode finances the other rubber head, so you can have 2 son torants talking instead of a bunch of helmets.

Like the jadoon.

So, so, I think that this proves once and for all that the Son Torrance don't work and that they're a dumb idea.

You know what?

This, I think, was the, this feels like the impetus for Stephen Moffatt and Big Finish both going, you know what?

They've cast comedians, and they've not given them anything funny to do.

Let's make the Santarans funny.

And they were always funny.

Yeah, Robert Holmes writes them is extremely entertaining.

[29:45]

Maybe not on the nose funny like they are here.

But it's what differentiates them from other monsters. their pomposity. funny.

And the thing is that, and this is Sandafar.

The thing is that Holmes doesn't create the Santaran so much as create links.

And so in the Time Warrior, the doctor is the scientific advisor to a military organisation.

Then he goes back in time and meets this sort of alien who's a scientific advisor to a warlord.

And links is a really, really good character and he's really funny and the interaction between him and David Dacre's character who is called Iron Gron.

Like all of that stuff is like super, super funny.

And the Cliffhanger to episode one, where he takes the helmet off and the head is the same shape as the helmet.

That's genuinely meant to be funny, surely.

So I think they work and then I don't think they ever work again.

[30:48]

You know, you've got the same actor back in a in the Santarian experiment, like in a sort of sort of needlessly nasty.

That's bothering.

I kind of like that it's needlessly nasty, though. funny.

Well, season is so needlessly nasty. love it.

Yeah, it is good.

No, it is good, but it is kind of ooh.

So I don't think they work there.

I think they're sort of shockingly terrible in the invasion of time.

They're wasted.

Um, and then you've got the Santarans being a part of another checklist story in the 2 doctors.

I think the Santarans are wonderfully good in the 2 doctors.

Do you love a?

No, no.

Oh, you do?

Oh, okay.

I'm like, no, you can't be serious.

I don't like the mask. in the 2 doctors.

No, there's a lot of problems.

They cast far too tall and so they're not, but I think the characters are actually what style is based on because they're military buffoons.

And that's Robert Holmes again returning to their pomposity and making them funny.

And that's the template for these Santarans.

[31:49]

I think Sontarans and the 2 doctors are great. the best part of the story.

I think part of the problem here is that like Russell is trying to make a commentary on the military and make them heroic while making the doctor at odds with the military and he's also heroic. and then you've got the bad military, which is the Santarans, but he's trying so hard not to say that being in the service is a bad thing that the Santarans don't necessarily do anything military.

Like the, and it's constantly said, this isn't like this on Torrance.

This isn't like this on Torrance at all.

This isn't like the song.

Well they're mine and you get someone else.

It doesn't make any sense at all.

You get those scenes where they lock the rifles of the people who are fighting them, which is about the most uncourageous thing that you do, is turning your enemy into someone who can't fight back.

And yet, Son Torans seem to find that good.

So that wouldn't matter.

But then the excitement of being shot.

Like, oh, yes.

[32:50]

This is a war.

But it is that thing.

That's the big problem.

They are sort of trying to say something about the military.

And you can see, for instance, you know, the doctor is cross with Colonel Mason a bit of a dick to Colonel Mays. and you have the you have Martha calling him out on that and saying that her job is to be here to try and make the military better.

And you get her saying, you know, we're not here to check your immigration status to little Polish guy and all of that.

So she's trying to be the nice face of it.

But because the Sonterans have been shoehorned into this weird Atmos GPS plot, that they don't really work with, the whole kind of parallel is completely undermined.

And I guess, you know, next week we get scenes of them shooting each other and maybe that's where it kind of...

That just feels like another, you know, Russell's trying to remake his favourite episodes.

Like, oh, he's remade Spearhead from space.

And now he's trying to remake the invasion slash to reveal it on slash anything with unit. attacking a factory.

[33:57]

There's definitely a point there to be made about kind of military and an attempt to contrast the doctor with units with Son Torrens.

But then that gets lost because the doctor is so needlessly antagonistic with unit.

He's really nasty to the characters.

Like basically telling them off all the time.

Whereas the Pertwee doctor, for instance, was much more dry about, you know, oh, we're going to blow something up again, Brigadier, whereas the doctor is actually just not a very nice person in those scenes.

But is that...

Is that more a limitation of tenant just going, I am ebullient or angry.

I have no, there's, there's no shades of gray with tenants.

Well, you see, I think David's always trying 110% to bring something to it.

But sometimes he's ill served.

And he's all served here.

There's nothing really to work with.

There's no subtext.

No.

No.

No.

So I think that this is kind of the death knell for the Santarians as a kind of credible threat.

Like, you can't imagine there being a Sonteran episode from here on in.

[34:57]

But you know what?

They did such great work with the design of their spaceship and how their hilarious spherical spaceships from the 70s managed to slot into the little bump holes on the...

And it itself is a big ground sphere with sort of pointy things on it.

The design.

The set, the interior set is shocking people again.

Like, what the hell are those sort of prism things, you know, the boxes hanging off the ceiling?

Oh, no, I like this.

One tarin's taste in light decorations.

It's super 70s.

Like, it's like...

I find the blueness of them kind of distracting.

It's like why are they blue?

Was it that's that's Russell T. Davis that?

Yeah, why not?

No, they are with her costume.

They all coloured that colour.

But don't you think it's because the Jadoon came in last year and they were wearing things that we at the time...

Thought were a bit sort of like, I mean, you know, they're taller and it's a little bit more sort of fetish, Folsom Street.

[35:59]

Oh, yeah, that skirt thing.

Yeah, yeah.

And did you do like better Son Torans than the Son Torans?

Yeah.

But there is there is a Russell T. Davis thing of like, I want kids to be able to draw them and making them bright blue is like, yes, I can draw their weird brown heads and their bright blue necks.

And we haven't mentioned the creative hire that is sontahha.

Oh dear.

Where they're doing the Harker.

Santahaka.

Yeah, yeah.

The Space Harker.

It's appropriation.

This is a, this is another thing that I'm, like, we were talking about, like, Santaran's meat are meant to be funny. obviously cast Mike from the young ones because they're like, well, they're going to be funny.

Like, Santarans are funny.

We'll cast a couple of funny actors to play this on Taraans.

And then Helen Rayner gives them nothing to do.

But also, you know, I've read that Russell T. Davis book where he rewrites everyone's script.

So he also gave them nothing to do.

In the rewrite.

Chris Ryan there does give wonderful Santar and side eye.

[37:00]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

His performance is great.

Like, rolling his R's like a crazy person.

Like, I'm in the military.

And Dan Starkey is amazingly kind of low-key.

I had to kind of, you know, he's little sort of cute gap 2 thing going, which is very sweet, but he's nothing at all like, come distracts.

Oh, yeah, his tracks is insanely stupid.

Yeah.

It's a...

I love...

I mean I love that performance.

If you're going to have Son Torrens, let's let's do strikes.

That's kind of better.

To give them this story because we ended up...

Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, like I think that Chris Ryan got to be funny in Mind Warp.

Oh, yeah.

Which is pretty much the same performance.

Oh yeah.

No, no, I don't think...

But mind warp didn't feel like it was, it warranted the kind of over the topness that, I mean, you, why are you going to fight with Brian Blessard?

take an opposing view.

Oh, Brian, blessings there.

Oh, less there's more here.

[38:01]

But I mean, you know, what's he going to do?

He's sort of trapped in a sort of giant rubber slant kind of stuff.

Yeah.

I mean, it's like, because if you watch the young ones, He's gone, oh, I'm surrounded by 3 huge giant hams.

My instinct as an actor is to downplay now.

I'm just saying instinct he brought to absolutely fabulous.

Yeah, yeah, say, exactly.

Well, because he's up against 3 giant hands.

Yeah, 3 giant hams.

So he's like, I'll just, I'm going to have these hilariously written lines and I'm going to deliver them as if they're not funny.

And which kind of makes them even funnier.

Like we had to do, someone did the young ones is a topic on hard quiz.

And so I ended up watching a lot of it and going, oh, his performance is actually really like, he's got some of the best lines in the show and he's just underplaying them so beautifully so that by the 3rd or 4th watching, like, you know, people obsessively watch things like the young ones.

You're like, oh, his lines are really funny, but because he's not showboating like everyone else, you get the time to kind of really chew over them.

[39:08]

So yeah, it's, in this one, I feel like he's, he's been given all this dialogue and he's overselling it and it's like, you've got nothing to work with, mate.

I'm sorry I can't agree with that.

At least the new series, Kevin Lindsay.

Kevin Lindsay makes links.

Yes, magnetic.

I think that Chris Ryan does the same with style.

Every scene that Stahl is in, you're looking at him.

And he does a really great job of the character, which I think on the page is actually not up to much.

That's what I mean.

Like he's really, he's chewing through the scenery.

But like he's got nothing to work with.

Like, it's like, it's almost like they've cast him and they've gone, he's going to be great and it's like, we don't, we don't need to write anything for him.

Yeah, but it would be nice. for him to have better dialogue.

Well, that very long scene, a very long interminable scene where the 2 unit soldiers are confronted by style when they find the coffins with the liquid in them.

And he's very funny in that.

You know, I must reach you a 7 out of 10.

Okay, he says, he's Todd, then.

[40:08]

And he's great.

And the rest of that scene is really internally dull, but you put him into it and it comes live.

Oh, and the, oh, mate, in the bath.

Like, again, a whole plot line that we could have probably done without.

Yeah, so I think...

If you got rid of fake Martha, you'd have a, like, you'd have a nice decent single part episode.

So we want to do cloning because that's a thing that Santarans do, even though it's only ever been done in dialogue before.

So it's like, well, let's show them doing cloning to make them have some interesting feature or something.

But again, it is just kind of.

But that's the, that's like the weird thing where they go, okay, we're going to have the people in the factory be hypnotised, like the, the scientists in the Time Warrior instead of B clones because we don't want to pull the tag on the fact that this entire plot in the 2nd episode turns out to be about making clones.

Yeah.

But will make one clone.

But the hypnotism goes nowhere.

[41:09]

The cloning goes nowhere and you're left with nothing.

Yeah.

It's almost like you're saying this plot is half baked.

Some might say like a potato.

Like a potato.

Underdone potato.

I suppose it's better baked than mash.

I'd rather if it was roasted.

That's what happened to Styre at the end of...

Mashed potato.

Can I also say, did anyone else raise an eyebrow when, sorry, I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself, but Stahl says, we have the doctor's TARDIS.

The 1st time we've ever had a time travel machine.

And you think, well, you really did muck up your invasion of gala friends.

Also, they travel in time.

Like that's part of their whole thing.

And also, like them being kept out of the time war was weird.

Like, I didn't understand what that line was about.

Yeah, the greatest war in history and we weren't invited.

I hate how they ruin Bob Holmes's thorax joke.

Oh yeah.

So that is clearly, oh, look, Elise Layton has tits.

Do you know what I mean?

The thorax is a different construction.

[42:10]

And I think it's sort of played like Kevin Lindsay has got his hand on her neck as if that's her thorax because we didn't want to kind of make that subtext very obvious.

And then we throw away the thorax line here by, you know, Dan Starkey gets to say it and it's kind of dumb and no one gets why that joke's funny, I think.

Why was the season 12 production team shying away from Menace?

Slayton at that point.

I don't know.

Not like they didn't, like, before and after that, like, 2 more seasons.

Well, she was it was her 1st story and she was meant to be the women's lib character.

So they're like, well, let's not grab her on the boot.

That was their one concession towards his liberation.

Yeah, it was a version.

She's got a job and we won't grab her on the boob.

That's our women's liberation.

Why are the Santarin sexist here?

Star is constantly talking about how terrible women are or this is a thing fit only for women or, you know, like why are they sexist?

Well, I think that's, again, the military thing coming in, but I feel like the, I don't know, you've got female military officers, but that felt like a direction choice or a casting choice as opposed to anything being written.

[43:22]

Oh, except for the kiss at the end of the next episode.

But how much more interesting if they'd both been women?

Yeah.

If it had been Mike Yates kissing the brigadier at the end of the day.

He's introduced to female Santarin.

I mean how interesting would that have been?

I have to think there's so many jokes about that, having there?

Or am I just thinking of big finish where they talked about it?

I think that's big finish.

It's always gags about females on Torres.

But I have to think there's something going on there because it's a female writer.

I don't think you'd be defaulting to that with someone like Helen at the helm.

So it's meant to be making a point, which is, I don't know, not appearing.

Is it just throwing another sort of nasty characteristic at our alien?

So we feel less bad when they get blown up next week.

You kind of read the original kind of joke.

Yeah, or line.

Um, as the, the, the, the, is not necessarily being misogynist.

They just don't understand.

Well, they don't have one.

Because that's their clients.

And that would have been a much more interesting way of playing that.

[44:25]

Yeah, no, I think he even says, does he say you have a sort of 2 gender system and it's very inefficient and you should get rid of it or something?

Like he doesn't even know about sex?

But style has sort of bracing opinions about the inferiority of women for no reason at all.

Just seems very strange.

Maybe links made a report on Meg the serving wench and they take it.

Although all that time he had Sarah chained up.

It's yeah, I don't know.

It's there's a lot of stuff to like in this episode.

Like, there are some fun things, but...

But in spite of the story.

Yeah, like, you know, David Tennant gets kind of pushed to the side a little bit, so we don't have to see too much of him gurning and carrying on, but it's still, but you know, I think that's a bad thing for the episode because as much as David's not one of my favourite doctors.

He was incredibly popular.

Any episode where you're pushing your leading man who the audience loves to the side, you've got to question that.

[45:26]

Yeah.

He was very popular.

And Donna...

Well, Donna, I loved and she, you know, no one gets anything to do.

This episode.

And like all the guy that's that they've brought in is, you know, the faux brigadier.

You're like, why?

Let's talk about him next week.

I've got lots to say Well, eliter, it looks like we're going to be trapped in this car for the next week, but we should be free by Sunday in time to contend with the poison sky.

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, Flightthrough Entirety.com, where you'll find links to our other podcasts, Bondfinger, and Jody into Terror.

[46:36]

Where can people find you, Adam?

Uh, Adamritchard.com.au.

There you go.

Everything goes there.

Brilliant.

So until next time, please try and get some sleep.

Working 24 hours a day is clearly very bad for the heart.

Thank you very much for listening and good night.

Good night.

See ya.

Good night.

That was Flight through Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Peter Griffiths, Adam Richard, and James Selwood.

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

This episode, crossed that off the whiteboard, was recorded on the 8th of February 2020 and released on the 5th of April.

If you're in lockdown, join us later this month for our simultaneous viewing of the Santaran stratagem.

Time to coincide with the 12th anniversary of its 1st broadcast.

We'll be tweeting on the hashtag, which one was this again?

Okay, let's end, like, but with that lead into next week, because we are going to struggle to fill an episode.

[47:38]

No, we're not.

Alright.

Okay.

Let me close it.

That was really...

Yeah.

It's the negative we've ever been, I think.

Well, negative for a while.

We have been negative before.

I yelled about the massacre.

You should have heard it.

Because I tend to love everything.

So do I, but I just, I don't know.

It's the disappointment of boredom It's like, why didn't you do something with this?

Put their mic up, just in case it ends up being tagged.

It's the disappointment of boredom.

You sort of sit there and think, there's plenty here.

Why didn't you do something?

I've been on board for that.

I wouldn't just want to do the ironing to it.

I'd want to sit and watch it, but this is the ultimate do the ironing episode.

Yeah.

All right, let me do an outro and then we'll do the next thing.

Well, dear listener, it looks like we're going to be trapped in this car for the next week.