Hello, dear listen, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast that firmly believes we'd have a much
better show if every cliffhanger was resolved by Sylvia Noble
swinging an axe.
I'm Nathan.
I'm James.
I'm Peter.
I'm Adam.
Well, we've been stuck in this Peugeot 307 for a week now and it's
starting to smell like an Australian summer in here.
The air's unbreathable, the visibility's non-existent, and we're
all going to suffocate from the fuse.
Welcome to the Poison Sky.
It was really, really resonant watching it this time.
And this episode perhaps drives to be about something.
Yes.
Yeah.
And it's about cars and emissions.
So we're told last week that Atmos causes cars to have 0 carbon
emissions.
Which is exciting.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, that'd be a thing.
You know, the original suggestion was that Atmos was originally
supposed to be a chimney.
Oh, yeah, a chimney attachment.
That would be great. cars with chimneys on them.
Is that what it is?
Oh, okay.
For your chimney.
Yeah, so it's just going to be for upper middle class people.
Right.
And their chimneys.
That worked.
Right, right.
They hadn't been bricked up. hadn't been bricked up and had a gas
heater installed in them.
Oh my god.
Russell T. Davis. where does he live I genuinely thought it was
cars with chimneys and I was absolutely on board.
I would love it if it was about Eleanor of Aquitaine installing
chimneys in all of her castles because she was the 1st one to do
it because it was new technology back then and she lived in the
south of France in like the 1100s and when she had to go off and
be the queen in Paris.
She was like, it's freezing here.
And if you look at any of her castles, especially there's like 3
fireplaces in the main room.
So that will be in series 13.
That's one of Gibnall's historicals.
Yeah, going to Eleanor Aquitaine and her amazing interior
decorating.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Only the most interesting parts of history visited.
I'll be posting this clip to Vinay Patel.
You're right.
I love that episode.
And I think the best thing about it is that even though we have
this sort of cliffhanger where, in fact, it turns out, oh, well
maybe Wilf is in danger because he's locked in a car with a fumes
but it doesn't.
But he just gets in there when it starts behaving badly, which is
why?
Why?
Because you go to move it off the street.
Well, he says he's going to move it off the street, but why is it
on the street?
Anyway.
Surely you don't want to move your poison and missing car inside.
Will's behaviour in this episode is very reminiscent of Sylvester
McCloy climbing over a cliff to make an actual cliffhanger that
doesn't need to happen.
Yeah, I think that's right.
But there is that great final shot.
I do think the final shot of the doctor with his back to us
turning around looking over his shoulder as the smoke sort of
swirls in a sort of suburban street. completely defeated, has no
idea how...
It's good.
I think that's a nice... because he's got a great silhouette.
Yeah, tenet in the big coat.
Like, it looks good in a smoke filled street.
And Russell's someone who has said before that one of the
important things is to give the doctor a silhouette.
Yeah, because he's a cartoonist.
Like, he draws him very simple shapes.
Like, you know, in his head, I'm sure it's everything is in big
bold colours and big, square, blocky shapes.
Yeah, it's the opening titles of the Souess McCoy.
Yeah.
But, you know, that sort of supersaturated colour palette that you
get in the RTD era.
A bit more than Moffat.
And you can see it in the next doctor.
There's a scene that's kind of shot like a torchwood episode.
And Russell in the commentary says, no, you know, that's not
really our house style for Doctor Who.
We have much steadyer cameras and much more kind of saturated
colours.
Hence all the all the purple. stuff here.
Is that the one they shot an HD, but then didn't finish an HD?
Because the next one was broadcast in HD.
So I reckon they would have been using the HD cameras and then
gone, oh, the effects shots have to be SD because they are 4 times
more expensive to render 4 times higher.
Yeah that would be right.
And there's a lot of effects in that episode.
And it doesn't go out in HD, Planet of the Dead is the 1st one
that...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I reckon they've shot it in HD and been doing all the bells and
whistles and trick, because you, one of the problems with, um, I
remember like, uh, Kev Carline, who directed Wentworth and Outland
my show, was talking to me when he was doing McLeod's Daughters.
They wanted McLeod's daughters to be done in HD way back when, but
it had all the problems of videotape and all of the problems of
film, like too much definition and too difficult to fiddle about
with.
So they just went, let's just shoot McLeod's daughters in 16
millimetre.
Well, and it looks amazing.
Yeah.
You know, I think there are two big problems with Atmos in this
episode.
One is on a writing level and one's on a production level.
I think it's not a functionally dramatic situation, having Atmos
because even before you consider the science of it, People would
have to be unconscious for there to be any real damage.
And so even though they unleash it at the cliffhanger, it actually
takes most of episode 2 for it to do any harm.
And so you've got people wandering around it.
You've got unit soldiers just standing around.
There's the occasional cough, and so the peril is nil.
Except that that's the peril that we experience this summer.
You know, it's gradually going up to 80%.
People are being told to stay indoors.
People are avoiding urban areas where they're in cars.
And we get these numbers being quoted.
You know, it is going to go up to 80% and it starts to kill people
in Tokyo, for instance.
So I actually don't mind that because I think that that threat is
more like the threat that it's trying to talk about.
Also, there are older viewers in that audience who would have, as
children, experienced the great smog.
Oh, the murderous smog that killed the secretary in the crown.
That's the only episode of the crown that I've seen.
Isn't that the same smog that Ian ventures out of in Doctor Who
and the Daleks novelisation?
Yeah.
Oil P Super.
Well, you see, I think that's good.
I mean, that's a good point, although it's a retroactive thing
being applied to it.
But it's still word peril.
We don't see anyone actually in danger.
We don't see anyone.
Again, it's it's all down to the performances, but Sylvia and Wilf
trying to put the towels at the door and he's he's putting the
windows and they're trying to seal the house up and it's like they
make it palpable, those two, because they're such great
performers.
But no one else in the episode seems to give 2 hoots.
It's like, no, the cars have gone funny.
That scene, though, I think that scene is so great.
And I have to think it's Russell because Sylvia is so prickly and
so unlikeable and she's really mean to Will and like bosses him
around and stuff all the time.
But here, he calls her my little girl and hugs her while she
cries.
It's so good.
It's like the old couple on the Titanic who are hugging in the
bed.
It's like the, you know, when Stephanie Forrester from Bold and
the Beautiful, has been left by Robert Wagner and the Towering
Inferno like it is.
It's just one of those.
It's like a disaster movie moment where you just have those tiny
little moments to go, well, we're now going to illustrate how
terrible it is because we can't show everyone freaking out.
Let's show a couple of decent actors freaking out.
Which is really nice.
I'm on board with this.
But functionally, that is the problem again, with the production
the production should be a wall of fog.
Oh, yeah.
It should be the web from the web of fair.
It should be something which makes you feel like this is
encroaching on their world, whereas actually it just looks like a
little bit of mist fluting around.
And this is why I think Douglas McKinnon was not a good choice for
a director because like a director with enough Nouse would go
let's not go outside.
Like, I know it's cars, but let's do everything inside with bits
of fog and just completely opaque windows.
Well, like in that episode of The Crown, you know, where the fog
is really, really thick. really, really oppressive.
Yeah.
Because it's all shot indoors.
It's too expensive to put old cars on the street.
That's right.
And there are, you know, the news footage. thing which they do
which is a thing that I really like in the RTD era.
He 1st does it, doesn't he, in the 2nd coming.
In order to give it a sort of global scale.
And they have a shot of Sydney Harbour.
And there's a little bit of fog and you kind of think, wow, that
would have actually counted as quite a nice day this summer in
Sydney. man, it's been a horrific.
But that day that it was raining and still, I couldn't breathe
because it was smoky.
That was the freakiest experience I've ever heard.
And the rain was great.
It was great, right?
sludge pouring of the sky.
Well, your car ended up covered in just sort of like dirt.
Like, it wasn't even ash.
Like there was also dirt from the outback. like the topsoil.
And I was worried that I was going to get chlamydia of the lungs
from breathing in all those burnt koalas.
How did you get chlamydia?
I like this.
It was the koala.
It was smoked koala.
Barbeque.
Did anyone notice as well that on that map that unit had showing
sort of the outbreaks of Atmos?
No New Zealand?
New Guinea doesn't appear to have many cars.
Well, it's all coder, isn't it?
There's no row.
They're mostly cheap.
Or is that a commentary on the social... whether they can't afford
atmos.
Exactly, exactly.
Or they've all gone fully electric.
They're like way in the future.
Actually, I think there was a modern day iteration of that old
classic series trope where you have a needle, which is slowly
climbing to 100 or whatever, and someone's going to blow up.
But while it's on screen for 2 seconds, It's clearly covered half
of the space it needs to.
How do we ramp up the drama?
Push the needle along, love.
Shout out a bigger number.
Put the needle on it.
Oh, Danny.
Maybe it is only something that works in retrospect, but one of
the weird things about watching this Doctor Who from 10 years ago
is that they mentioned climate change kind of over and over
again.
You know what is freaking me out is like the, so at the moment, I'm
being inundated by La Trolls, who are all saying, Doctor Who's
terrible now, it's just constantly shoving environmental messages
down my throat and I'm like, dude, it's been doing that since the
60s.
That's not just a 2020 thing.
Planet of Giant.
Planet of Giants.
Planet of the giant?
The giants?
Sorry. that now is the time.
We need to have environmental messages thrust down other...
I know, because we've been ignoring them for the last 50 years.
Trolls are very anxious about their throats, though.
Yeah, I know.
Someone did, I wrote a tweet the other day saying, you know, being
somewhat ironic, saying that when Doctor Who is going to have an
environmental message, do we need a trigger warning for for the
conservative cold loving snowflakes?
What show have you been watching for the last 55 years?
Don't watch science fiction?
It's about progressiveness.
Go and watch a Western.
They're not progressive at all.
They're shoot people.
Well, I mean, that's, you know, that's the difference between sort
of science fiction and science sort of fantasy.
Yeah.
So, so...
Space opera.
Sorry.
You know, Star Wars is not really science fiction.
No, it has it has knights, but swords.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Space dragons.
It's a good and evil story.
But like because...
It's a Western.
Yes, a space western.
Because of its dominance in our sort of collective...
Yeah, unconsciousness, unconsciousness, over the last 40 years.
People think that that's science fiction.
Well, I mean, I mean, Doctor Who is barely science fiction, but it
does do the science fiction thing of using its nonsense to try and
address something.
And what we were complaining about last week is a kind of failure
to do that last week didn't seem to be about anything.
Here it is at least trying to address something.
And then the resolution at the end is people stop using their cars
and the world's a nicer place.
You know, Sylvia's happy for the 1st time ever.
And it's because people aren't using their cars and it's lovely
outdoors, you know?
But that's not going to last.
Well, I'll revisit that idea in the forest of the night, weren't
they?
Oh, yes.
Hooray.
One of the things that I've loved about these 2 episodes has been
the barest dimension of the 80s.
Like, Donna almost putting a dint in the 80s, uh, with the
TARDIS.
It's like, well someone did.
Maybe that's what caused the unit dating.
Well, that, I mean, that's it, he goes, oh, yeah, I worked for
unit in the 70s or the 80s.
It's a bit muddy.
Is this is this Russell trying to gently massage retroactively the
bizarre dating that goes on?
I mean, you know what?
The whole problem is modern undead.
That is the... which was meant to be Ian.
Not the brigadier.
You can tell, okay?
Not that Russell could talk.
I mean, his version of Doctor Who was always set one year in the
future after mid-series one.
That's what that's what those unit things do in the 60s, isn't
it?
I absolutely don't care because the unit stories didn't happen.
They were just things on television.
And so if they happened at any point, they happened when they were
on television.
And, you know, it does a near future thing because it's doing that
sort of 60s style spi-fi stuff in the invasion and things.
And so I think what Russell's doing is saying, chill the hell
out.
You know, like the 70s, the 80s, I'm playing with you now.
It's not going to be ever resolved.
I get that it's a concern to some people.
The thing that they did, do you remember in Star Trek where they
talked about the Klingons appearance changing?
Oh, yes.
Absolutely the best thing possible, which is to have wharf look a
bit sheepish and say we do not like to talk about it.
That is all you ever needed, and it was brilliant, but of course
then in enterprise, when you had a fan running the show and it was
being made for fans, they had to do a whole 2 passer all about...
What happened to the Mars bars stuck to their head?
meatloaf. absolutely terrible.
Imagine what would happen if they ever brought wharf into Picard
and we had to deal with the Klingons in Discovery.
It's, yeah. that's confronting But I think the dent in the 80s is
just a reference to Thatcher, surely.
Well, yes.
Possibly.
Don't you think?
Or is it the clothing, the hair.
Either way, those jackets that could turn into a backpack.
Smash hits magazine, whatever it was.
The thing is, and I think this is one of the things that works
about this story and it's probably Russell sort of, and Russell's
great with chucking in references to the past without weighing
down Doctor Who most of the time.
You know, you've got these little sort of in jokes, the thorax.
The thorax.
Does that one is probably the one that lands the least well.
Yes.
But the whole mispronunciation...
Oh, great.
And we know the backstory, don't we?
Yeah.
So Kevin Lindsay's Australian.
And Holmes intended it to be pronounced sauntering, but he's the
one who goes, no, it's on time.
I'm a bloody sontan.
I'm from the bloody planet, I should know.
It's funny you say that because we had in reference to Santarans
in Outland, which, uh, so it's just, um, it's Christina New's
character talking about one of the other lesbians because they've
had the fight with the lesbians.
She's gone, you know her.
She looks like Santara.
And but Christina new kept saying sauntering and we have to have
to kept saying, no, it's from Doctor Who, it's Santara.
So an Australian pronounced it as Saunterin. made me go, how true
is this story?
Was he laying on the accent when he was living in London going...
All of this talk is triggering me with metabolis 3.
So can we talk about the portrayal of unit in this story?
Yes.
I think it's meant to look very high take and impressive
especially with that 1st Martha go, go, go scene where the lorries
are rolling in.
You've got all the soldiers in black with their red berries.
And I think by the end of the story, they end up looking as
ridiculous and homespun as 70s units.
Yeah.
I mean, there's that thing in dialogue about how it was all, it's
now all very high tech and it used to be very homespun, but...
I mean, we talked a little bit about this last week, but I'm...
Just getting the truck from International Electromatics from...
Does not a high tech make.
And then obviously filming it in a building which is 3 times the
size.
I know it's where they go in the truck and I'm like, have they got
TARDIS technology?
I almost thought the sort of watching a bunch of soldiers directed
by Dougie Canfield running around the Guinness factory felt more
like a crack international organisation.
Again, I think it's a failure of direction.
Like the scenes where they're fighting with the Santarans and all
shooting at one another.
It's like occasionally you can see what's going on.
I mean, having all the smog there means you can cut down on the
number of actors you're shooting at.
Unfortunately, we got the wrong Douglas.
Can we also talk about the fact that there was a great opportunity
in this story, which is entirely missed to introduce some new semi
regular characters who would have been really fun to see interact
with the doctor.
So you've got basically a brigadier surrogate.
You've got a sergeant Benton surrogate in Lovely Ross.
The brigadier that they've got in, who was it?
Colonel Mace's, that is, yeah.
Yeah, that's his name. makes absolutely no impact at all.
No.
Zero I would have rather have Bambera back.
Yeah.
And she's not the best actor in the world, but I would have been
happy to see her again.
Or the character whose name I forget who shows up 1st in turn
left.
Oh, yeah.
Who's brilliant?
Yeah, she's really good.
Is she the one that's implanted of the Dead?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, why didn't we get hurt?
Or do you think it's because this guy is so ineffectual.
That they get someone a little bit more.
They've gone, let's get it.
I mean, it's not a great performance, I have to say.
But he doesn't have anything to work with.
There's no character there.
And you think, surely this should have been one of the driving
forces of this script.
You're bringing back the return of unit. unit was about the people
have a character who relates to Martha and the doctor and who you
want to spend time with.
Fill it with character rather than plot.
Which is what actually your Moffatt pulls that off much better
much better.
Like, you know, he goes, and he only has 2 people in unit.
And one of them is absolutely phoning it in.
But because...
But because of who she is, she's phoning it in really quite well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, she's absolutely sort of visibly uninterested in what's
going on, I think.
But that conception of unit is great.
And then do we add Rebecca Front to unit later and various other
things.
Like it becomes, you know, women, which is kind of critical.
I'm was frustrated with that Rebecca front.
I get frustrated with a lot of the Moffatt guest stars because
it's like, and I think it's starting to happen now with Gymnals
like, we've got this person.
It's like, great. give them something to do What are we gonna
what's it?
Oh, yeah, there's only 2 pages for them.
They're all they're all info dumping.
It's like David Warner on the submarine.
Yeah, what's that called?
Cold War.
Why?
Why have you got David Warner?
Why have you wasted David Warner on being obsessed with Ultravox?
I actually like that.
That's the only good bit in the whole thing.
It's like why is he there?
Like, yeah, no, it's, again, McKinnon.
Yeah.
Cold War.
Yeah.
See, this is the 2nd time we've done this.
I mean, battlefield, for all of the fact that it's maligned and
it's maligned much more than it should be, does what this story
does and then reintroduces a new unit.
And it manages to populate the story with interesting characters
like Bambera, Zabegnyev, and Pilate Lavelle.
You know, people who you actually want to spend time with.
Yeah, and when Lavell is killed.
Yeah, it matters.
It's gutting.
Well, because the brigadier and her have spent something like 3
weeks in a helicopter on the way from sort of London, and so
they've really got to know one.
That is a long helicopter.
How could you miss the lesson of Battlefield, which is bring in
characters who will relate to your characters.
They're ready-made friends for the doctor.
How do muck that up?
Yeah, but I think that was, you know, they've insisted on having
Martha.
So it's like, well, she's got a character already.
Not that they use her in the SM. so much in these episodes.
And yeah, and may, look, maybe this is one of the failings of
Rainer as a writer, like not creating interesting characters, but
equally, I think it's McKinnon as a director, like not
understanding how to direct a decent performance.
Like, you know, the only time you get interesting characters in
this characters who have been created before.
Sylvia Wilf, Donna.
I mean, right.
Rayna did okay last year with the characters in the Dalek 2
parter.
That was one of the things we said, wasn't it, Nathan?
That the characters were one of the standout points.
But it may just be because those are not this soldier, this
soldier, this soldier, this soldier, but showgirl, you know, poor
guy, wise man, you know, like you've got a whole different set of
things to do.
And then you, the actors inhabited.
But maybe part of that is that, you know, she's writing
caricatures, not characters.
And because you're right. this soldier, this soldier, this soldier
this soldier.
How do you differentiate that?
Well, easily.
You go like, well, this soldier likes football.
That soldier is into cake baking.
Like, you know, you just give them character.
You give them things to talk about.
But because you've got so many things to tick off your whiteboard
checklist.
You don't have time for that.
And in fact, there's that kiss between Price and Mace at the very
end, which I think is really cool and the reaction to it is
great.
They're sort of slightly embarrassed or whatever.
But who cares?
All she's done is a countdown.
I know.
She's had little...
Corporal Bell had better dialogue back in the...
Corporal Bell.
Don't we miss the days of Corporal Bell, Mike Yeats, facing off
against, you know, 3 Daleks in Bessie?
You know, apparently Jenkins was named after that line in the
demon.
Oh, yeah.
Sorry, in the demons?
How are we gonna pronounce that?
like you do the Latin?
Yeah, we...
Pertuy changes his mind halfway through the episode.
Also, someone was telling me that, like, Latin, like, so there's
no agreed pronunciation, like, I think it might have been even a
John Lecaro, where it said, like, if depending which private
school you went to, is how you pronounce things in Latin.
So in the 19th century, people speaking Latin to each other from
different European countries couldn't understand one another.
But there is a kind of standard pronunciation agreed on here.
And when David Tennant says what I would say was Dawn I Noby's
Parkam, he does church Latin version of that.
So that's Donna Noble's name was always a Christmas joke, wasn't
it?
For Runaway Bride.
And then it just sort of sticks, but it gets referenced here.
And I actually quite like, um, we had reservations about this
scene last week because Donna's too scared or something or too
unsure of her own competence, but remember the scene where, yeah
the scene where she's talking to the doctor on the phone and going
out and disabling the teleport or whatever or re-enabling it.
I think part of the problem with that scene, like, yes, she should
have more agency and she shouldn't be that scared.
But on paper and in, and what has been verbal in this episode is
that the Santarians are an absolutely ruthless, terrifying race of
people.
Like the doctor has been on about that.
Like you can't kill them with bullets, you can't shoot nuclear
weapons at them.
They are the most vicious fighters in the universe.
So that's been said, but it's all been tell don't show, which is a
sin in television.
Word peril.
Yeah.
And we haven't seen them do anything other than throw shade at a
teenager that runs a website.
That's been the worst thing they did last week Well, they did
shoot 2 guys in the leg.
It is exactly the opposite of what they're supposed to be.
Yeah, they should be horrific, you know, martial creatures and
they're so like writing wise, of course she should be more
reticent than anything else she's done.
But because we haven't seen anything, any evidence of their
horrific behaviour, it feels unsatisfying that she's not prepared
to go out there, but she's been told.
Well, absolutely.
But also, there is one scene, I think, in this episode where it is
quite nasty, and it's the scene where the unit soldiers are
massacred, and that's a setup for later on when they fight back.
But it really is quite nasty.
You see, a lot of people screaming and dying.
And that's unusual for Russell's Doctor Who.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, just unusual for unit in general, because unit episodes
generally no one can shoot straight.
Yeah.
On either side.
But that would have worked if Donna had been in those scenes or
experienced those scenes, but there's a disconnect there, like
she's heard a lot, but she hasn't seen it.
If she had witnessed these people being massacred, her fear would
have been justified.
Also, Dan Rosti firsthand.
Also, the internal logic of the episode is bad because it starts
with her flying the Tartars.
It's like, oh, I'm good at this now.
And then it ends with her being afraid to leave the target. you're
like, well, you've written yourself in a circle there.
So clearly the flying the TARDIS thing is added.
I'm saying that's Russell, and that it's part of the ongoing arc
to make the doctor and Donna the same.
And so it is just there for that reason, don't you think?
And you have the doctor saying, I can't believe you're doing
this.
That plot with Donna, I think, gets maybe 2 points.
And one is the phone call when she calls Wilf and Sylvia.
And Sylvia's 1st instinct is to put her down.
Yeah, you know, accuse her of being too smart and all of that.
And then she catches herself and it's like a proper supportive
phone call.
But her 1st instinct is to be nasty to Donna, and I think that
characterisation and giving Donna that relationship with her
mother is another part of like recreating her character to be
something interesting enough to hold 13 episodes.
Do you think there's a contrast?
It's not particularly well drawn, but there's contrast there
between the doctor building Donner up.
You can do this.
You can fly tires, you're all brilliant.
And then she speaks to her mum and her mum brings her back again.
I think that's good.
And then I do think the other one is just that bit at the end
where she says they've seen me and just her performance there.
I think is really good.
I'm very excited.
You know, the big finish of doing a Donna box set.
I want to know when big finish are going to do a box set about the
American news reader because she's in so many of these roses.
She should have her own box set.
Surely.
Trinity Wells Reports.
Just say it twice more, James, and you'll get it.
Do you want me to?
No.
How about we have a unit box set with our unit characters from
this story?
Oh, I hate to listen to that. you imagine?
You don't even have to watch.
Just listen.
What was that thing that Josh Snares posted the other day?
Oh, um... of Martha and Malpha.
And apparently Martha's doing a box set.
I know, I saw there was a thing the other day.
You know how they find these things out because idiots put it on
their CB months before.
And yeah, someone has is in the Toclophane stories.
Oh, it's going to be all about Martha Wandering the World, telling
her story.
I mean, there'd been 4 books of that.
Now they're going to...
And that's, that's a, well, that could probably work quite well
going to in audio.
Yeah.
And look, I mean, I love Freema.
She's great.
Not well used this season.
No.
But she was great in Series 3.
She has had a very successful career since.
She's a good actor.
And you know, that might be at the heart of the biggest
disappointment about this story, is that Martha is really good.
And Martha was important to the audience and then she's brought
back and laid low that they don't do a lot with her.
I mean, as much as I hate the storyline with FO Martha pressing
the button over and over.
That scene where she talks to herself is glorious.
Like technically that is a difficult scene to play because you are
talking to someone who's not there.
Like you can't even play off the person, like it's a stand-in
obviously.
But she plays both of those characters in such distinctly
different ways that you do go, oh, this is this clone Martha is
sad at what she's had to do and the life that she's been given.
And the other Martha is like, it is a really beautiful, beautiful
moment.
And you get to see Freema Adjumen doing something that she's not
been allowed to do in the whole rest of her time on the show, which
is act.
She'll get kind of acting moments next week, but they'll be
stupid.
So you have to think that that scene is kind of let's give Freeman
something, you know, like something to do.
I mean, the fact, the fact that, you know, I mean, you're going to
talk about this next week.
But the fact that she manages to carry half an episode talking to
a bubble machine is incredible.
Like anyone else could have made that as stupid as it looks, but
she endows it with a lot more gravitas than it actually needs.
Same as when she's being shot off into the sun.
Yeah.
But 42.
Like, she's so good in those in that episode that you're just like
this could have been the worst thing that ever happened in this
show and she drags it back down to a level that it is not as dumb
as it looks.
Yeah.
But I have to think that someone on the production team hates her
because he or she's like covered in KY.
Next week she's flailing about in mud.
She's got ageing makeup on torchwood this season.
Like, she really, it's...
It's not that anyone hates her.
It's because they know she can do it.
Like, I'm friends with Kimberly Cooper, who used to be on Home and
Away, and she went through a period where I think she was a
lesbian.
She was possibly raped and held by terrorists, like all within the
space of about 8 weeks.
And I was like, why do they keep making you do this?
And she's like, because the other richest can't.
It's like they write a storyline for, say, you know, Bet can't
write Nee Hewitt.
And then they go, oh, she actually can't do this.
And whereas with Freeman, it's like, yeah, let's put her through
the ringer because she can do it.
Like, we can trust her to do this.
Like she's a decent actor and we can just throw anything at her
and she's like, yep. mud.
I'm in.
I mean, I can do mud.
Let's not forget the greatest indignity foisted upon her wearing
that brown jacket for episodes on end.
I love watching that.
Can we talk about another fine acting performance?
Luke.
Everyone hates Luke, don't they?
Are they right?
Yeah.
Luke Brannagan.
Did you say Brannigan?
Yeah.
No, Ratican.
No, I call him Brattigan, right?
He's like a 12 year old.
I keep money to call him Terence for some reason.
It's the playwright.
Taron's ready.
Well, Radigan's like a recycled name because that was the original
name of the foster...
Oh, yeah, yeah.
She was originally misreading it.
Well, in the script, she was misreading.
Right.
It's a pointless character.
It's a thoughtless performance.
It's like why the Santarans were even, you know, lowering
themselves to spend time with him, let alone join in whatever this
mysterious plan is.
And so he has a chip on his shoulder because he's very smart and
people were mean to him and it causes him to behave in a way that
is just absolutely incomprehensible.
Oh my god, the running terrible joke about the Atmos system.
It can't be system, because the Astanstra system.
Yeah, people who go crazy about the ATM machine.
Yeah, yeah.
And I wrote a thing for hard quiz about DC comics because DC
stands for detective comics.
So it's technically detective comics comics.
In fact, it's just a normal thing that happens in English all the
time.
But it's also like David Tennant correcting his use of was instead
of were, which, as far as I'm concerned, is perfectly reasonable
English and shut up.
Yeah, I get...
No, it's not. point of that scene, but it's kind of witless the
way it...
Well, yeah, yeah.
But, well, it's a script written by a script editor.
Yeah.
So, of course, it's about, oh, well, I'm going to write a scene
about all the things I've had to correct from all these scripts
over the years, so, my lord, the things that are in these scripts
are terrible.
It's the thing where you mistake levels of formality for
correctness and incorrectness. just annoys me enormously.
And the script itself makes it clear that his reaction is stupid
because he surrounded himself by geniuses, who he...
Yes.
Reggie.
Yes, yeah.
This weird cult that is later.
He thinks that they're going to be Ruth and Adam in invasion of
the dinosaur.
It's a far better story.
I know.
Like the Golden Dawn thing is fascinating.
But what is he doing?
No, so he thinks that they're going to stand there and watch their
families all suffocate and then happily go off with him to join
his carefully worked out breeding program.
And like, it's not really played for laughs or anything like
that.
It's super weird.
And what's with this breeding programming?
He's evidently a gay.
Well, he's breeding them.
There's a strange lapse of logic here because in the 1st episode
1st scene when they're throwing out that journalist, they look
brainwashed or something.
They look like his private army.
They don't have any emotional faces.
And yet in this episode, they just look like normal people who've
been standing at their benches in a laboratory developing ion
drives or whatever.
Yeah, we don't even get their own laboratories.
They're all just in adjacent tables.
Some of them have got test tubes.
That's fine, yeah.
But suddenly they're real people going, what the hell are you
doing?
And the 2 don't mesh up.
No, no.
I mean, it's almost, again, I'm going to blame a director who goes
oh yeah, there's hypnotised people in this episode, so you're all
hypnotised.
Like not having read the entire script or not having it in his
because part of a director's job is to know the entire script
backwards and forwards and to know how one scene relates to
another, even if you're filming completely out of order.
So he should know that these are not the same hypnotised people as
work at the factory.
But maybe that wasn't spelled out enough in this group.
So he's the Peter Moffatt of the...
Well, he does go on to direct things like listen.
Yeah.
Again, the monster popping up from the bed.
How was that an imaginary monster?
Let's not talk about this.
I think Radikan is a difficult character to get on board with
because no one likes a boy genius.
No one learned the Wesley Crusher lesson at the Adrick.
Well, absolutely.
Oh my god, he's that drink.
He's sort of smug and he's ratty.
Why is he American?
Do you think it's just startup culture?
Like it's kind of like he invented a search engine so he's
American for some reason?
Why?
Why can't I?
Why wouldn't?
Why has he gone to England?
Like, he, that guy's not American, is he?
He's British.
He's doing an accent.
Not well.
Well, you know who he is?
He's the fictional forerunner to that guy, Martin Schrelli.
I think his name.
Yeah, who took over the company and like, which made a
toxoplasmosis drug and then hiked up the price by 1500% or
something and said, well, my investors expect to return and was
basically the most hated man.
And he was the one who bought the Wu-Tang Clan album that he was
only one copy of.
Yes.
Yes, yes.
Is he in jail now?
He's in jail on it.
Hooray.
So he was someone who was smug and annoying and ratty faced and
you know, thought that they were better than everybody else.
And so that's the kind of character we're going for here.
However, having said that, I remember not being particularly sold
on Ryan Sampson's performance and I am now.
I think he is doing by far the best job you could do with that
character.
He's annoying and he's abrasive and he's vulnerable and it is a
weird choice of accent, but I quite like it because it makes the
character more annoying.
And I think no one could have done better with that character.
But it does feel like we said yesterday, or yesterday, last
episode, the last week, last week, when it's like a Sarah Jane
Adventures character, like it's too broad.
Yeah, but I think sometimes some of the underplaying that we get
elsewhere, some of the forgettable characters elsewhere in this
story, that's a worse sin.
I think than what Radican does, probably.
Yeah, I think the story would be much worse off without his
performance because he brings a much naked colour. a failure of
direction.
It's like he should have been reined in.
Some of the others should have been encouraged to, you know, jump
in with both feet and it's instead we just get this weird, Oh yeah
whatever you're doing on the day will be fine.
I think if he was reined in, then he would completely disappear in
the scenes against David Tennant.
Surely he's having a competition with Chris Ryan.
Chris Ryan and David Tennant.
I'm surprised there's any scenery left.
Well, see, I actually don't think he's that over the top.
I really don't.
I think he's doing what the character is calling for him to do
which is a big ask of any actor.
But I think he's actually pitching those scenes quite well because
a defining aspect of this character is meant to be that he thinks
he's cleverer than anyone else and gets extremely agitated if
someone points out that he's not.
So when things start to get away from his control, he just becomes
petulant child.
I'm not sure that was a great idea at the scripting stage, but you
can't put it on Ryan.
I think he does well.
And also, he's in plebs, as Grumio.
And he is fantastic.
He's really good in...
He's in a couple of big finishes and he's really good in that.
He's great at comedy.
Yeah, he's a good actor.
It's just, this is a thankless, as you say, a thankless role and
it's a nightmare of a character.
It's just not like he's too annoying to be like this is the thing
that annoys me in this episode is like everyone is painted in such
broad strokes that we get nothing.
I think it was a strange character to go for at the conceptual
stage.
Maybe something better would have been a Donald Trump Jr.
You need someone who's got militaristic entitled tendencies who
would see something like the Santarians as a key to power.
Yeah, yeah. like a venture capitalist.
Listen to this, Donald Trump Jr.
He is very rarely linked to the factory.
Like, I don't see like the unit go to the factory to investigate
this machine, which supposedly has something to do with him.
He maybe invented it.
Who knows?
But we never get that connection.
Like we never have the what ties them together apart from that
scene with a journalist right at the start.
Yeah.
And then we never hear from him being involved at all.
Next thing, he's trying to go to another planet and he's hanging
out with some tyrants.
There's a single line from general style about we only needed you
for the Atmos technology.
That's it.
That's like literally the script just ties them together but going
yeah, he created this thing and they used him.
Yeah.
And, and you know, that that collection of geniuses that were
going to another planet, the Santarans just expected to just shoot
them all on arrival.
So what even is that?
Like what's going on here?
Again, it's, it's, listen to how evil we are.
We're not going to do anything evil, but listen to how evil we're
thinking of being.
But also, given they're supposed to be sort of honourable in
battle.
How is that honourable in battle to shoot?
Oh, no, there's so many mentions of them being dishonourable some
Tyrons in this.
Like, I feel like, now this is a big finish story we need to do is
this dishonourable bunch of...
It's not torrents who's split up from the main faction and they're
being chased around the universe for being not properly Santarin.
There was a flaw in their cloning.
It may have made them slide.
All right, it's the 2nd episode of a two-parter, and that means
picks of the week.
So James, do you have something for us?
Yeah, so my pick of the week is, I think it's probably one of the
better cleverer comedies that the BBC has made in the last 10 or
so years.
It's a Jessica Hines created, written and starring comedy.
It was based?
No.
She was still Stevenson.
It was on BBC 4.
Okay And it's Up the Women.
Oh, okay.
Which takes the women's suffrage movement and makes it into quite
a sort of witty little comedy.
Get out. and it has Ryan Sampson in it playing a very effete sort
of suitor to one of to one of the young ladies. and it's just
fantastic.
It also has Rebecca Front in it.
Ah, and Nick Pepperdine.
So, yeah, find it and watch it.
They only lasted 9 episodes, they made a 3 episode, 1st season, a
6 episode, 2nd season.
And then that was it.
That's what they do in England generally.
Like Doctor Who is an outlier.
Really?
Like, for doing more than 4 episodes.
And most drama is no more than six.
Yeah.
Maybe it should have ended at episode 13.
How about that?
We would have finished this by now.
Yeah, but you've been done.
Adam, do you have a pic of the week?
I watched a thing on Netflix called The Stranger, which is based
on a Harlan Coben book.
Not to be confused with The Stranger, which is on my view at the
moment.
Yeah, the old Australian tilted Doctor Who.
Also, not to be confused with Bill Baggs, the Stranger.
Or the Colin.
Yes, the Colin Baker. version.
No, it's a handy title to have.
It's produced by Nicolas Schindler, who is the red production
company.
I've done like years and years. all that kind of thing.
And I feel like Netflix have contacted her and gone, we want to do
a broad church.
And so it like they have thrown some money at actors.
It's Richard Armitage, um, Hannah John Cayman, is that a name?
you know, from the wasp and the Ant-man.
She's the stranger.
Jennifer Saunders is in it. won me over at that.
This is O'Brien from downtown.
The Morax.
Like, it is just like, oh, Sean Dooley's in it.
Like it is just a roll call of amazing British actors.
This sounds wonderful.
How have I not heard of this?
And it is like it's, I think it's 8 episodes.
And each one, the end of each episode is like the end of an
episode of Broadchurch where you're like, no.
I have to watch the next one.
And then you'll get to the end and you'll be like, if this was an
American show, I would have called bullshit 4 episodes ago because
there are too many coincidences.
Too many things that tie into each other and you're like, how is
this not, like, that was the plot hole and now that, like, but it
is because it's British, it is so compelling.
Anthony Head is in it.
Like you just get to the end of it and you're like, that was
terrible and amazing all at the same time.
I love, it's, it is a proper binge watch show.
Like you can't stop watching once you got to the end of it.
I don't want to watch the next one.
I had a conversation with a writer recently about why am I
reticent to watch a movie, but I will happily watch 8 episodes of
a TV show and she goes, because a TV show doesn't ask you for 2.5
hours.
A TV show only asks you for an hour.
If you choose to spend another hour, that's your choice and then
another hour and then another hour.
Which is why you only get, what is it, like, 7 seconds before a
streaming service flips over to the next episode?
Oh, no, I've turned that off on all of them.
Oh, okay.
I've turned, like, I have to consciously press the button to go
onto the next one.
Like, it's my choice to go on to the next one.
Like, I can't deal with skipping ahead and missing the credits.
I love an opening question. lost whole weekends.
I'm not sure that that model fits all.
I mean, there's an episode coming up next week at Doc 2, which I
think asks for 2.5 hours.
And it's only 50 minutes long.
And has some very questionable...
Human relations behind the scenes.
So, Peter.
My pics of the week are going to be short and sweet.
One is the horror of Fang Rock. fan, favourite, because you know
that if Russell had stayed for 15 series, then the Rootens would
have been the big comeback in the early 2 passer.
Maybe we got one this week with Colonel Mace.
I'm not entirely sure.
I thought when Jody Whittaker ran up to the lighthouse the other
day, there was going to be a root on it.
I was thinking maybe it will be, I could recommend Elite, which is
a Spanish school-based series on Netflix where you go behind the
scenes of this very rich and impressive academy and it's filled
with lots of beautiful people with lots of machinations and sex.
And I mean, how would that have improved the Ratican Academy?
I don't know.
Yeah, more banging.
Not with Luke Rattigan.
I don't know, it's not unpretty.
No, no, no.
So my pick of the week is Armando Yanucci's new show, which is
called Avenue 5.
It stars Hugh Laurie, and it has Rebecca Front in it, which we
were required to mention her.
Yep, she's fabulous.
Tragically applied.
Yep.
And you know how Star Trek is kind of very 60s is this sort of
great liberal project.
It's sort of multicultural route to explore the stars and stuff.
It's got a very sort of Kennedy era vibe.
This has a very kind of 2020 vibe where everything's being run by
absolute morons and there's a massive disaster that we sort of
galaxy accident that we can't agree on and all sorts of things.
And so it is, um, you know, the TV show starring a bunch of people
on a spaceship that is made for us now in 2020.
I do love that Americans make utopian science fiction and the
Brits make dystopians.
Why is it called Avenue Five?
It's the name of the ship, but I don't know why.
I don't know.
Is it a 5th Avenue reference or something?
There's some, there are critiques of capitalism in it, obviously
because, of course, someone on 5th Avenue.
Yeah, I'm not quite sure.
Maybe I'll find out.
But it's very good.
And if you like Inucci, and of course, you do.
I can suggest definitely checking it out.
Well there we go.
I'm there for 2 new series this week.
Brilliant.
Don't hate me for the stranger.
It is wonderful and terrible all at the same time.
Well, Elvisra, that's all.
We got time for this week.
The TARDIS is completely out of control, but we're sure we'll be
back next week in time to watch a fish drown in the doctor's
daughter.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us at flight through entirety on Facebook
at FTE podcast on Twitter, and on our website
FlightthroughEntirety.com, where you'll find links to our other
podcasts, Bondfinger, and Jody into Tara.
Adam, where can people find you?
At Adam Richard on Twitter and Instagram, Fabulous Adam Richard on
Facebook, Adam Richard.com.au.
Until next time, maybe leave the car at home.
Remember that when the levels reach 80% density, we're all going
to die.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
That was Flight for Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Peter
Griffiths, Adam Richard and James Selwood.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, Strings performance by Jane
Orberg.
This episode, this soldier, this soldier, this soldier, this
soldier, was recorded on the 8th of February 2020, and released on
the 12th of April.
Here at FDE, we'd like to apologise that the two-month lag between
recording and release means that for most of this series, we are
at least one global apocalypse behind.
We hope, at least, that you enjoy the break.
I'm Nathan.
I'm James.
Oh, what?
No, I thought I was...
No, you're the guest.
You're and Adam Richard as Adam.
I was just going to...
I was going clockwise.
No one can see the room.
Let's do it again.
I'm Nathan.
I'm James.
I'm Adam.
And I'm not. not what I am.
I think we just go with that.
All right, I've dropped the recording. who are you again?
Well, we've been stuck in this Peugeot 307 for a week.