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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.