About His Manpain

God, I've missed doing these with you. Why have we waited 2.5 seasons, Brandon? I demand that we do one next year. That were my list of things. Let's do the doctor's daughter, darling. Well, I demand that. Yes, that's excellent. I think you would probably redeem that for me. James, the doctor's daughter, please. Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety. The only Doctor Who podcast to produce more than 185 episodes in just under 7 days. We're exhausted I'm Nathan. I'm Brendan. I'm Todd. And I'm a Hath. Stay away from the bathtop here. Well, before we launch into the triumphant home stretch of series four, let's take a quick pit stop at an old theatre to make time for Donna to do some counting, the doctor to do some gurning and for Martha to do some emoting and a drowning fish. Sorry, everyone, but it's time for you to meet the doctor's daughter. So, for me, this is really quite a complex and sensitive exploration of the futility of war. Is that how you feel about it, Todd? What are you talking about? I've never thought of it in those terms ever. Something about futility in there. Sorry, I'm still struggling with jetmag. I can't get my brain around that. There is a sense, I think, in which it kind of would quite like to be that. You've got 2 sides of sort of people who are being manufactured at scale in order to fight a kind of pointless war with each other. They are enemies of each other for no readily apparent reason. They're seeking something that's sort of mythological and absolutely not important. And, you know, when peace is made, the kind of leader of one of them can not cope with that and kind of refuses to allow it to happen. So there is a sense, I think, in which this actually attempts to be about something. Well, the doctor even references the Vietnam War when they discover the human command camp, if you like, in the theatre, he quips, oh, perhaps they're doing Miss Saigon. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That is quite good. Yeah, is good. And that is a choice. He's not saying perhaps they're doing any get your gun. He's not saying perhaps they're doing Oklahoma. He's not saying have a new Q. You know, he picks Miss Saigon because that is a musical about war. Yeah, with 1000s of Vietnamese children in rags swarming across the stage. And, you know, you could argue that war is always pointless, but a particularly pointless war and one of the 1st wars where a lot of the residents of the countries who were in Vietnam were saying actually, we probably shouldn't be doing this. So why is it so stupid then? Well, the tone is more Avenue Q. It's silly is the problem, but it's not silly enough to be entertaining. It's just it's kind of NAF. It's got ideas behind it, but then it doesn't execute any of them very well, but it also takes itself very seriously. There's not a lot of humour sort of endemic to the story in there. No. Yeah, I think I think you've hit on it there in that it's trying to do several things, including, it's trying to be the doctor's daughter thought bubble that Russell T. Davies had, and understandably, that's an irresistible idea, but it's also the Martha Trapped in space story. And those 2 things, as we see, are probably enough to fill an episode on their own. You put both of them together in an episode and neither is adequately explored. But I also think the problem is the stupid fish. I think that's like it is an absolute problem, the half are ridiculous. And they are ungainly, like they look stupid in profile. There's some decent sort of animatronics and stuff in the masks but there's whole scenes where there's no dialogue or just Martha's dialogue and everyone else is sort of standing around bubbling at each other. And it's absurd. Exactly. I mean, talk about a puzzling creative choice. Everybody's looking at me because I've gone very quiet, just burple at us. I like the Hath. Do you? Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, I quite like them too. They're quite cute. I like them as well. I think the only problem with the burbling is it's not subtitled. It would have been interesting, I think, to subtitle them for the audience because at the beginning, Martha doesn't understand them but suddenly she starts understanding them and she's able to talk to Peck. Yeah, and we don't know at what point there's no realisation or I don't think it's at all clear when she, you know, that she understands them, isn't it? Well, after most of them go off. Is she and Pecker looking at the map? And the way he responds to her, she then responds to him, you know it seems like, oh, that's outside, yeah. Well, there's just a bit of radiation. Oh yeah, I knew you'd come with me. You know, she is responding to what he's saying. And I looked into sort of cut material and whatnot because I thought maybe there was a line cut where for some reason the TARDIS can't translate them, but they give her a translator patch or whatever because there's that awesome bit where they're all like touching her and touching her. Exactly. And just, I, God, I love Freema. And isn't this episode just a show of Freema will give you 100 even when she's dealing with a script that asks her to do the most ridiculous thing. In fact, when Peck dies, she gives them much more than 100%. It's miserable, isn't it? So we talked last week or the last 2 weeks about the fact that we have Freeman back and we get her to play Evil Freeman. We don't get her to do any of the things that we really loved her for last year. And separate her from the doctor for most of those episodes. Yeah, that's right. And now, like in the cold open, she's immediately separated from them. She doesn't see them until the end. She has no one to kind of give her anything back. It's these people in these sort of preposterous masks that she's having to interact with the entire time. So she's carrying all of these scenes on her own in a plot that is completely disposable that could have been excised from the episode and we wouldn't have lost anything at all. It's really super thankless and they get her to flail about in the mud and stuff like that. After flailing about in the goo last story as well. Yeah, yeah. And she has to emote at a drowning fish, as I said, and she really goes over the top. But I just suspect that she was like super bored, you know? She gives it so much more than it deserves. And I just, you know, I hail her for that. I mean, you know, there's a fish drowning in front of you. Oh no. I mean, no, I mean, you know, does she feel guilt because she lured it out onto the surface and promised it, it would be okay. I don't know. She doesn't give us the opportunity to say that and she never refers to the fish again. And even if she did, it might not have understood her. It would have just nodded. It's a big waste of her. And the whole thing sort of screamed contractual obligation doesn't it? It's kind of like, we'll give you 7 episodes next year or 5 episodes or whatever. She does five, doesn't she? Five and 3 torchwood. Yeah, it will give you that many episodes, but it really doesn't matter what we do with you. You're just a kind of warm body standing in front of the camera. One of the things originally. when I watched this season was that I completely agree with you about Martha and her treatment and bringing her back, her 3 episodes for me were by far the weakest of the entire season. And I really despised the Santara episodes because I hated the uses of Santara and how bland unit was. And I didn't really like Martha, like very much originally either. And it was written by Helen Rayner, who wrote that appalling Dalek story the previous year. So we just had all these black marks. And so they were the worst episodes. So this episode was slightly better, right? Because she actually, well, it wasn't 2 episodes off since Terence basically, and it wasn't Helen Rayner. Of course, we've explored last series. and Helen's writing of that Dalek story, which I probably don't like as much as everybody else. But coming back to the Santarian one, like I actually said, look I'm going to give this a go, like, because I actually could see what she was trying to do with the Dalek one. And I love Freeman now. So, of course, it went from surprise, surprise people to the universe. Like it went from 5 out of 10 to suddenly 8 out of 10. I thought the 1st episode was fabulous, right? Except for the cliffhanger, which was just terrible. And the 2nd episode's not as good, but I still enjoy it. I probably would give it like a 7.25. So I was really concerned coming in watching this particular episode because I always thought it was one of the weakest 3 of the season. And I actually think it is the weakest episode of the entire year. But I still give it. Oh my goodness. 7 out of 10. I still I enjoy it, right? And I enjoy all the talking between the doctor and Donna about his past and his family and it actually, I think, gives an opportunity to explore that side of things and give it a bit of breath into the show, like to reiterate that he does have family, right? And what is he like with his 2 hearts and all that sort of stuff. And I actually, this time around, I thought there was actually a lot of talking about that. And I really like that part of the episode. And actually, I like the daughter as well. And the fact that we've got Martha and I really adored her, right this time around. I really love. I actually love all Peter. I actually really love her crying at that fish. I actually get enough. That sequence, she's giving it. You have to give it to her. But I actually really think she does a great job there. And so for me, it's performances of Freemer and obviously David and Georgia, in particular, who I and Catherine, that make me like this episode. Right. It's not old Rumble Bum. The whatever his name is the Cobb, General Cobblers, whatever who's appalling, and that whole plot. It's just a device. I think it's more of an explanation about the doctor and his relationships with family and educating the new fans of Doctor Who a bit about his history, that he does have a history. You see, Todd, I think therein lies the problem that Martha Freeman is actually giving a good performance in those scenes, but the episode doesn't deserve it. The episode doesn't deserve that emotional weight because it's too lightweight and too disposable. And I was saying earlier, it's NAF, but it's not NAF in a fun way like New Earth or Evolution of the Daleks, maybe. It's just disposable. I think, too, that the big problem with her performance in that scene is that it's a stupid drowning fish. who she's had a few scenes with and now it's, you know, the most affecting death that she's ever experienced while she's been with a doctor, apparently. Well, she was the last personality. Japan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it. She's been through much, much worse than that. It's just bathos, you know, like it just seemed bizarre and inappropriate. It's great anguish acting, but it just seemed to be wasted on the wrong topic. Unearned. But I don't mind if fish actually drowning because like it's got its own little bubbly source of liquid, which may not be the same as the liquid in that lake. And so when that glass shatters, then it's contaminated. And the glass does shatter, I did notice that this time, yeah. See, I have never noticed the glass shattering, and I was reading that during the dubbing stage. They're like, hold on, the fish drown. And Russell said, oh, well, just add in the glass breaking. And the thing is, I've never noticed it. I have actually always been with Tom. Like I know I've joined him with a fish drowning joke, but I've always been told in that that doesn't look like water. No, no. You know, that doesn't look like pure water. And the doctors told us before, you're 70% water. you can still drown. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But still, is a fish that drowns. See, I think the purpose of that scene in the plot, which makes it both a success and a big problem is that the point of it is to give Martha a definite reason to go home. Now, yeah, she's already engaged, but of course, this is a massive temptation to go on travelling. So they give her a really crappy episode. She decides she doesn't want to stay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She, you know, she has a horrible time in this episode and a creature sacrifices itself for her and she has to watch it die. And so she's like, no, that's it. I can't do this anymore. I want to go home. But the problem is, the subtext of that is Martha is no longer worthy to travel in the Tartars. And that's what I got watching this because she's not being Donner and being clever and figuring out the mystery. Like Martha's big contribution to the plot is that someone dies for her. Right. Again, I don't think that's the intention, but I think that's the problem with jamming these 2 plots together. It's not considered. I don't think it undermines her departure last year because she still leaves on her own terms and she still leaves to go to something positive and at the very end, there's this sort of bizarre moment where she looks at her engagement ring and goes, oh that's right, I'm engaged and then kind of walks off. I'm engaged to Lucifer, for God's sake. Why am I going after that tall streak of misery? So, Brendan, basically, are you saying that hell hath no fury like a woman's gone? Oh God. Sorry. I actually agree with both Nathan and Brendan in the sense that I think this fish dying for her is just a reinforcement of, you know all the deaths that she has seen and it's so pointless. Yeah, I just think that it just reinforces her decision that this is not for her anymore. And I don't see, I don't think it undermines her at all. I don't see that. No, in fact, there's that bit at the very beginning of the episode where both Donna and Martha Bond over this being the fun bit of the episode, they go out into the TARDIS and discover what the world's like, and that's really fun, and both of them appreciate it. I think their relationship, Donna, and Martha, throughout these 3 episodes, is actually great. I think it's really warm and lovely, and it would have been nice to have had another one where they actually got to team up separated from the doctor. I think that would have been nice They're both sort of in the companions club from the start, aren't they? They're kind of, even at the start of the Son Torrance, you party. They kind of embrace each other and recognise each other's kind of experience, even if it wasn't shared. It's like Rose and Sarah Jane after they got over their initial bump in school reunion. It's just, it is a lovely relationship. And I like at the end when they drop Martha back, how Martha and Donna walk off down the street leaving the doctor behind. That's great. I think it's a little bit of a shame the way the show has gone with kind of companions and casting and contracts and stuff that that's never happened again, that all of the companions from now on will leave for sort of stupid science fiction reasons. And so the doctor never ends up having a group of people on earth who know him, who like him. And I've always felt that Russell gets that right, you know, for those 1st 2 seasons, he has a group of people who know him. And I always felt that in the 80s, I mean, maybe even in the Colin Baker era, the fact that it's just the doctor and Perry, and they don't seem to know anyone else, and that always makes me feel a little bit sad, you know. Yeah, it's like, as to drag us into 2020 for a moment, as much as I have really enjoyed series 12 of Doctor Who, I do regret that we haven't spent as much time with the cons as I would have liked. Like we've had some great scenes with Sonya, but Naja and Hakeem have just been pushed off to one side and they're great. I would love to see more of Najia. Who knows? We literally have no idea what's going to happen to the companions at the end of this series. Yes, for once, you know. You know all of you at home, no. Yeah, by the time we've, yeah, we are recording this just before episode 9 goes out. And yeah, we don't know, and that's really exciting. But the other thing that made me think of that is, of course, this week, Chris Chibnall has said, of course I'd like to bring old characters back. And he specifically mentions Amy and Rory. And initially I rolled my eyes, because I've said before on the podcast, I don't really like Amy. But then I thought about cold blood, Hungry Earth, Power of 3 dinosaurs on a spaceship, and it's like, hold on. Chris Gibnall writes Amy as really likeable. Yeah, Amy and Rory. He does a great job of both of them. I also want to mention that he wants Tegan and or Ace back as well and I'm totally on board for both of those, but especially Tegan. Definitely. Definitely. One performance I really want to praise in this episode is actually David Tennant. Oh, I dislike him enormously in this. Ooh, okay. You see, what I like about it is when he's playing the emotional stuff about having lost his family, for once he actually underplays it to Donna. Like when he says to Donna, I was a father. He, you know, it's almost a murmur or a whisper. He actually says it quietly instead of the rage of a time lord. It's, you know, it's genuine pain. And then whenever Jenny does anything to impress him, he looks thrilled, but there's still this kind of furrowed brow of, no don't, don't, don't get attached. Don't do it. Don't do it. So there's one scene where he talks about the legacy of being a time law, that being a time lord isn't just about having a certain genetics or a certain parentage, that it's about being the heir to a sort of long legacy of things. And that's when he's being sort of super grandiose and stuff. And he's horribly dismissive of Jenny and her identity and her experience. And I just find that performance so slappable. despite the fact that Murray Gold does the little, this is galafray music in a really sort of light, soft, gentle kind of elegiac way. I think that's beautiful, but tenant's performance there really annoys me. He's super smug and unlikeable. But that is so when he does accept Jenny later in the episode. It's it's effective. I have always read that performance where he's being like really snug and horrid. He's being egotistical. He's making this about him and about his man pain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then Donna kind of says to him, well, you know, if she's got the 2 hearts and she's got the perspective of wanting to explore and she's got the questioning of why she's fighting. How is she different from you? Yeah, she doesn't need to have a big collar or be from the sort of Prydonian Academy or something. And that's what I love about this episode, that Donna takes him through this journey from that point that you don't like, right? to obviously the scene that you do, Brendan. And I love I love all that. That's what that's, for me, the real strength and the heart of this episode and seeing the doctor come to that realisation. I think his terrible pickup a Ghana name at the general, I never would over the top stuff at the end. Utterly awful. Or maybe his worst performance ever. There is an element there, I think, of what we were saying earlier about Freema, where he's giving it is all to compensate for something that really doesn't work and isn't earned on the page. Yeah. And although shots of Freema and Donna, looking shocked, when Jenny shot and looking shocked when the doctor does that, were recorded like 2 weeks later at a completely different exterior garden. They found another botanical garden somewhere in Cardiff. Some of the shooting days for this story were disrupted, mainly the stuff in the half encampment, because that was a civic hall outside which there was a protest about a closing primary school. So after all the half leave, the scenes with just half Peck, named after Gregory Peck. and Martha were recorded in a totally different location. that they had to like redress as best they could. And look, I couldn't tell. And I think Alice Troughton's direction helps that because when all the half are there, she actually kind of shoots it from Martha's perspective of it's very confusing, there's lots of movement around her, Freema, of course, I think is about 5 foot 6 and all the half are like 6 foot six. So she's surrounded by these gentle monsters, if you like. Look, one thing in this episode I can praise is the cinematography and the visual direction. That's not the performance direction because, yeah, you're right Todd, Cobb is dreadful. It is the most wooden performance of any spaceship stroke base commander since that narcoleptic old fossil in the arc. You know, I'm actually offended by the fact that they pick someone with an Irish accent to carry on this pointless war. And so it, don't you think it's gross? So it kind of takes whatever it was that went on in Ireland and turns it into 2 sides that have just been manufactured to hate one another for no reason at all. And they're continuing this wall. Well, isn't it? Like, I don't, I think it's about war generally, but I just think it's a miscalculation to give Cobb an Irish accent or to get him to use his Irish accent. I think it was a miscalculation to maybe cast that actor. It was a puzzling creative choice, as is his performance. His Wikipedia page says that he dedicated himself to the classical stage. Good luck with that. Just like Jenny Lair. I can only imagine that it was like bringing his audiences down so that more people wouldn't be exposed to his performances. Did they did they play Romeo and Juliet together? Romeo, my husband, my love. Why did you do it? Why, why? And he's got utterly awful teeth as well. I don't get it too. If those machines, the generators produce like generations generations and generations of young people. What happened? One of them had a fluff in its sprocket, and he, like, he, or does he know that we've only been fighting for a week? Or do they all like age really quickly? That's it. He's just 3 days old? I just, I just don't like that it's a 7 days since the start of the war. I just, you know, this is, this is, I just have a problem. And so please, Nathan and Brendan, I'm with you. stupid. And I'm the one who thinks that it's okay that the traffic jams in new, new, new, new, new, new, new, New York last for people's entire lifetimes because I think that's making a allegorical point. This thing for 7 days. Like, what the hell? how does it even work? Well, they've chosen 7 days to be a Genesis parable. Yeah sure. But I think, just logistically, a month. Just make it a month instead of 7 days. And in a month, you can conceivably have this degradation of knowledge, I think. Enough time that maybe a living memory has passed rather than days. But if we saw lots of people being killed, do you know what I mean? Like if it was a convincing war and people were going out and being killed in enormous numbers and they were having to manufacture lots of people to replace them, if there was any indication of that rather than we're hanging around a theatre in a ballroom and talking, what's you from Skins just kind of hanging around outside a cell dwarf? Yes, to his life. Joe Dempsey, yeah Joe Dempsey. Can I say he's got really bad skin in this episode? Yeah, well, they've got bad teeth, bad stuff. Listen to you. Send him all off to the clinic. But the other thing is, it doesn't make sense like 7 days. If we actually saw them ageing, like the people from the leisure hive, like really rapidly and dying. Then I could probably buy it. Or if waves and waves of them were being killed. And so we had, you know, um, 20 generations a day or whatever, um because the death hole had been so great. But, you know, they're all sort of hanging around in this sort of I mean, look at the map. It looks like a dungeons and dragons module, doesn't it? You know, like all of these rooms connected by corridors and things. And the locations, like what the hell is going on? I think that's a serious problem with this episode. I think it undermines the episode and it makes it look like student project in that it was a breakdown in production. They weren't able to find anywhere that looked suitable. And so you end up shooting in an old theatre. There's lines lampshading it everywhere when they turn up in the botanical gardens. Why does this look like a botanical garden here? They know it's a problem. And they've lampshaded it? But it goes back to that old problem that Ed Thomas just didn't build sets. He didn't build enough sets. This clearly needed to be something that was bespoke and instead they've they've just gone with whatever was to hand. Yeah, I mean, the script wants it to be a newly excavated colony. And instead, it's old buildings with like chandeliers and stuff like that. And, you know, down staircases with fading wallpaper and things of green gels everywhere. So the wallpapers faded in 7 days. They need to get a new contractor. It's ridiculous It needs to look like warriors of the deep, quite frankly, brightly lit and very stark and futury. Okay, I just say the Hatha, not a 1000000 miles away from those solurians. But I had forgotten that it was set in an old theatre. Like, and I wrote in my notes, oh, it looks like an old theatre. And of course, then it is an old theatre. And so, yeah, so Jenny at the end when she's sort of lying on that plinth is actually just put on a stage. And it looks bizarre. Yeah, it's like, why do that? You know, yeah, you're doing a service for her. It's like, but the thing is, this is also, this is also your basis where people have been living. It's an allegorical story, but it's not allegorical enough. I think you said earlier, Peter. It's a bit silly, but it's not actually silly enough. There's something to be said, like, if we look back at season 24. It's kind of like some people are taking it seriously and some people are not taking it seriously and that's where the disconnect happens. Here, there's no real excuse for that. No. I mean, this is the era of tone meetings. Yeah. You see, Brendan, you talk about season 24 and Paradise Towers in particular. I think that's quite instructive in that Paradise Towers clearly didn't have a tone meeting or a director who was keeping everyone on the same page, but what it did have was a recognisable world because they built that world in the studio. Paradise Towers and the sets look amazing. It would have looked really bad if they'd just gone to some backstreets and dressed them up and sure. Whereas, that's what this episode lacks. If they built some sets and given it a sense of place. None of these locations look like they're tied together. They go from an old theatre out to a quarry, to some staircases to I don't know, the inside of a paper mill or whatever, and they end up in the botanical gardens. It's just bizarre. The bloody paper mill again. how many times do we have to see this place? I also think, too, that there is a big problem at the end with the visuals and something that had never occurred to me before, that we actually go out onto the surface of the planet. And we see quite a fantastic shot where Peck and Martha see the sort of big ship thing from the outside and you've got the moons and you've got this desolate planet. And then at the very end, they do the terraforming thing, and the terraforming thing happens at the same time as kind of peace breaks out, and everyone's in dialogue, saying how beautiful the big swirly thing in that sort of set is. And that's the thing actually, that seems to have people make peace. They see a swirly cloud and lay down their gums rather than seeing the effects of it. But that's it. That's what you don't see. You don't see that world. turned into a beautiful paradise, and you absolutely have to see that for that to work. And all we get is a swirly thing and we get some light coming in through the windows of the theatre. And what we don't see is a new world created once these people are at peace. You know, it's bizarre and clearly they just didn't have the money for the sort of effect shot, but that effect shot is so important. It's, if the story is going to be about anything, it's got to be about that, they're fighting to achieve something and it turns out what they get isn't a weapon, but a way of recreating the world creating a beautiful, peaceful world and we just never see it. So rather than word peril, it's word safety. Yeah, that's it. Word victory. See, that's a big problem with the ending and you build up to this and you want the episode to be about something. And that just turns into that horrible collection of cliches where the doctor stops people who should just be shooting him because he's hoisting aloft their prized artefact, and then he smashes it and still no one does anything, and then they all lay down their weapons just because, and then someone decides shoot the doctor while someone else throws themselves in front of him going, no. Yeah, I was getting awful. I was getting some pretty serious Jackie Hill vibes from Megloss. Yes, because they make survibes. And do you know when Martha gets kidnapped at the startly episode? It's just like when Barbara gets kidnapped at the start of a crusade? And that is the only connection between those 2 episodes? I don't know, presumably, you know, with all this single parent genetic stuff going on, there's there's going to be some interbreeding. Like Richard and Joanna. Anyway. I could say, wouldn't it have been great if Donna was cloned? Can you imagine the Donna's daughter? That would have ended the war quick, smart. I think I saw a few of them at Gallifrey this week. joined forces against their common enemy, Nerris. By the way, yeah, they're a schizophrenian. She's a lesbian. Is she a lesbian? Well, I don't know, but she's either a lesbian or a single mum who? has used a turkey-based to produce her own offspring. So there you go. Neres. Yeah. The funny thing is, Doctor Who, the Complete History, refers to that as Neres fathering twins with a turkey-based. And I'm like, I'm not sure, that's the right verb. Maybe she paid a little visit to Morocco, like Patsy. It might be the case that the names of the clones come from their progenitor, because the forenamed soldiers we get aside from Jenny R, Cobb, Klein, Carter, and Cash. Maybe they're the sea generation. Like each generation, you know, has a different letter. That's why he doesn't like Jenny. She's jumped ahead. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We really haven't spent all that much time talking about Georgia Moffat, and she is the eponymous character in this episode. How do you think she does? I love her. I think she's got so much energy and and pizzazz and that backflip sequence through the lasers. It's just the most hilarious thing. Like, you know, compare that to Richard Herndl and Tegan. The frigging floor in the 5 doctors. Shuffle any old wear and this is like, you know, it's out of the field. It is as easy as pie. I just love it. It's like when Lady Christina comes down from the ceiling like Mission Impossible. next year. It's a great homage to an action movie. I love I love her. I actually really like the reaction to where Donna kind of looks at the doctor and goes, oh, you know, like I'd love to see you doing that. You know, this is a time lord thing. He said off you go. And she does actually listen to him. You know, like she does kind of earn her place in the TARDIS because she starts off as a soldier. She's there ready to shoot them with those terrible guns that have flames coming out the end for no reason, whether they're shooting or not. And then she decides, no, I'll pull a trick, you know, and escape in a sort of clever way. Yeah. Production information for why the guns like flash with that gas flame. It was to save on buying blanks. They're like, this is how we can economise. We can have a gas cylinder on each gun. It makes it look slightly futuristic. We don't need to do a laser and we don't need to do blanks. The backflip sequence was inspired by Britney Spears' toxic music video. Of course it was. That's how Britney Spears. But, you know, that in itself, as you say, Todd, was inspired by action movies. And while you may think, oh, well, you know, that's definitely a gymnast doing that. The final shot where Georgia Moffatt sort of flips back into screen. Georgia Moffatt does do that last cartwheel and backflip. You know, so she's, she gets it done. Sort of, they had a gymnast and a choreographer on set, and before the shot, the gymnast sort of said, well, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this, I can do this. And George Moff was like, well, I can do that. Well, work that is... You see, having her played the doctor's daughter, she's clearly not the 10th doctor's daughter. No, she's the 5th doctor. Yeah, I mean, that's an icky thought given real life. But, you know, I would have loved an in universe explanation for why she looks like the 5th doctor. It would have been utterly ludicrous. Really quite funny. Like, tenant removing his hand. So he's like, I think they only got genetic information from my 1st 5 incarnation. I would have given this episode a bit of a, you know, that sort of silly kick it needed. You aren't on board with her performance, Peter. I think it's fine. I think she's doing what Freema is doing and she's doing everything she can with material. I don't think the character is particularly well defined. She doesn't get a lot of doing doctor-ish things. We get a lot of Donna saying, see, she's like the doctor. I'd like to see more of that. I like to see her have a journey throughout the episode where she becomes less of a soldier and more of a thinker. I don't think we really do get that. I guess the closest thing is that scene that I just mentioned where she has the choice to shoot Cobb and decides to shoot the thing in the ceiling instead. Yeah, I mean, that is sort of one of the most obvious kind of iterations, though. like I would have liked to have seen more too. I think the character had a lot of scope to be interesting. I think she's a fine actress, but like the rest of the episode, I don't think it gets there. Weren't they supposed to kill her off at the end and wasn't it Stephen Moffatt? said to Russell keep her alive. And I kind of feel a bit cheated that, well, great, keep her alive but you know, bring her back. Well, I mean, I kind of, I'm never a big fan of bringing people back because I think it actually probably rarely works unless you've got a good 2nd idea for them. But I do like the scene at the end where she's in the shuttle and she says what she's going to do and she just lists the things that Donna said that the doctor does, you know, that he saves planets he fights monsters and she just gives that dialogue back and says that's what I'm off to do. So I like the idea that she's now in our imagination out there somewhere doing what the doctor does. And although we don't get to see her again, we do get to have that. And I think that is quite nice. I like that too. My heartaway sinks a little bit when someone says, oh, we'll recast her and bring her back or she's regenerated or whatever. And I just think, no, no, no. Let's not everything needs a big finish box set on it. Like not everything needs to be explored. And it's quite nice to have that little loose end because it's a hopeful and kind of optimistic loose end, I think. And I certainly think that killing her is just the most cliched and appalling thing imaginable. And she doesn't die saving anyone. She doesn't, do you know what I mean? Like it is just, oh, she needs to be dead. So we'll just get cob to shoot her. And like Cobb shoots her because he is a warrior who can't accept peace. So there is a proper point being made. But otherwise, like it's it's super random. Yeah, and Stephen Moffat's objection was exactly that. It's like killing her is the cliche, and it's there to reset the doctor's status quo. Because part of Stephen Greenhorn's brief for this script was based on an interview he gave about the Lazarus experiment. Because what he said in the interview was, this is my 1st time writing for Doctor Who, and he says, writing for Doctor Who is very different from writing for other drama, because in other drama, you want to give your central character an emotional journey, and you can't do that in Doctor Who because he has to stay the same. So you give the emotional journey to the companion. And Russell heard that and went, Actually, Stephen, that's a really good point. I want to give you a story where you give the doctor an emotional journey. Except that that emotional journey then ends at the end of the episode and we never speak of it again. Yeah. He's still right. Right, don't get me wrong. But I just want to praise David Tennant and Georgia Moffatt's performance in her death scene. pretty much because again, it's not tenants spitting in the master's face that we got last year. It's gentle and it's tender. We do have that really overacted. I'm the man who never would. It's not just the acting. That line of dialogue is absolute whippet. Do you know what I mean? It's terrible. As you always say, if the doctor picks up a gun? rewrite your script. But then wait, the thing I so love about that scene is after he's done all that big thing, he just comes down and sits next to Jenny's body and he doesn't say anything else. Yeah, it only, it's only a few seconds, but the speech is performative. It's him performing a speech and then he's like, now leave me the hell alone because everything is about her right now. And there's a sort of there's a grandiosity to the speech as well. It's like, I want you to base your society on how I behave right now when I pull the gun on the guy and then decide not to do it. And it kind of wrecks what's happened before, where they've all laid down their guns because, you know, the world has changed and become, you know, beautiful and blah, blah, blah, and they've discovered what they're all there for or whatever. I mean, it doesn't come off, but they have their own reason not to find their own reason to not be warriors and his tenet inserting himself into the middle of it. Yeah, and it highlights the passivity, I think, of those characters and that they follow whatever the script gives them. They say, oh, okay, well, let's, you know, stop fighting and, oh that's a good point. you make doctor, you know, have the blah, blah blah, blah. none of it is owned, none of it has any emotional weight to it. I also have a problem with the scene as well because there's no blood or anything like when she gets shot. And I know Russell didn't want to show anything like that, but I just have a problem that she sort of just clutches her chest and then you look back and there's never any indication she's ever been shot or the anything's gone through what she's wearing. And it just doesn't sell it for me. I just kind of go, that's if you're going to do that, you've got to direct it better than what it's direct. Todd wanted bits coming out like condo. Not at all. But a little hole in the t-shirt. Just something. And I just, and I just, it just, it's just rubbish. No, she looks like she's having a bit of a rest. Between scenes. waiting for a beauty treatment. You know, I was saying, like, I love doing these with you all, and often with Brendan, you actually make me love episodes more than what I initially thought. I think with this one, I'm liking it a little bit less. Does that mean that I've influenced? Yes, Peter, it's now a 6 to a seven. Look, I give this one a 6 as well. I think I think it's flawed, but I still enjoy watching it. You know, I get to that scene in the garden and I'm like, oh, it's almost the end of the episode. I didn't notice that time going by. I'm not sitting here feeling like this is a slog like I do with Planet of the Oude. You know, I find that episode quite difficult to get through and it's just that I like the doctor actually doing stuff in the plot but that's not for him. I also really respect Russell four, right? In series 3 and this was the case at the time. The Dalek 2 parter was heavily criticised. Lazarus experiment was heavily criticised. And that was a two-parter by Helen Rayner bringing back an old monster and a new monster with Stephen Greenhorn. Rather than Russell say, okay, well, I'll do the middle two-parter and I'll get Stephen Moffatt to do the episode immediately after. He, like, actually, no, everyone out there. These are 2 very talented writers, and you're going to have the same for them again next year, and you will like it. I mean, too. I'm mostly, I mostly like the Santaran 2-parter. It's fun, it's a bit of fluff. I like Colonel Mace. I like evil Martha. It's got cribbons. yeah It's got Jackie. Yeah, and this is a perfectly enjoyable 45 minutes if you don't think too hard about the world. Like, Brendan, I agree with you. Like, I'm going to be quite, well, I'm not surprised. I mean, David Tennon is not my favourite. doctor, but this season is, I think, my favourite season of New Who. And in terms of shows dipping below six. There's only, well, one in that category, which is this one, and everything else is like way above, and the back half of this season is just like, you know, from strengths and strengths or strength, and I love the 1st 3 stories. So, yeah, I just, yeah, it's quite incredible that this is my favourite season of New Who? What is it with them having terrible military characters? First of all, Colonel Mace, then general cobblers. They're all. I will give you this, Brandon. I don't think this episode is too boring. And boring is the number one crime. Yeah, yeah, I agree. It's like Orphan 55 this year. Like, it's my least favourite episode of this series, current series. It's probably my 2nd least favourite of the Jodies. It's just above Battle of Ranscore of Colos because it's fun. Yeah. And this episode is fun. It's like, you know, my worst David Tennon episode is Fear Her because it's not fun. It's boring. There long periods with nothing happening. You can't say that about the doctor's daughter. There's something happening every second. Just doesn't make sense. I wish it had been more fun. Yeah, I, for me, I think there's so much kind of ineptitude and so many cliches in the script and it is just a little bit of a mess. I'm not bored, but maybe I'm irritated. Well, the listener, that's just about as much as we can take this week. We'll be back next week to watch a vest perform drown in the unicorn and the wasp. 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 IntoTera. Brendan, is there anything you'd like to plug? Yes. So, it's 15 years since Doctor Who came back on our screens and on the anniversary of each episode. I am reviewing the relevant episode on my YouTube channel. So I'm in the midst of the Christopher Eccleston series at the moment, just giving my thoughts. And also, if you want to on Twitter or in a comment on the YouTube video. Please leave me your comments about next week's episode. As we're recording this ahead of time. I'm not quite sure where I'm up to, but just check out the channel and I will be reading some of them out in each review and kind of responding to them as well. So do please join me for that over on my YouTube channel, Brandy Bongos. Thank you. Brilliant. We'll have links to that in the show notes. Until next time, may you never experience dad shock. It's easy to avoid. Just ask any of us here on the podcast. Thank you very much for listening and good night. Good night. See you soon. Good night. That was Flight for Entirety, starring Todd Bilby, Nathan Bottomley, Peter Griffith, and Brendan Jones. Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, Strings performance by Jane Orberg. This episode about his man pain was recorded on the 22nd of February 2020 and released on the 19th of April. Stay tuned, of course, for the inevitable Big Finish Jenny box set comprising 6 story, starring Georgia Tennant, phoning it in as Jenny, with Michelle Collins as the War Briggs, and Ryan Sampson as loveable hat sidekick Glug. Hit the nail on the head in that the problem is with the design department. I think all the actors are pulling in the same direction, as opposed to season 24, where, you know, each story, there's someone who is not performing the same as everyone else, like Richard Briars. But even Cobb, who it's not a very interesting performance. Wait a sec. General cobblers. I'll see your woman die. a terrible thing. Nathan, that's no way to speak to Todd. I think I'm going to cry. What's the stupid name of this planet? Oh, it's miscellane. Vaseline. Vaseline. It's named after the wife of the emperor. Can I? Oh, Messalina. Is it Messalina? or is it Messalina? Yeah. Yeah, look, I finished that point about actors. I'll see your woman dies. We're not together. It's one of those ongoing... Yeah, yeah. You see, Brendan, I think that's really... Sorry, I'll start that again. You see, Brendan, that's really interesting because... We may as well just put a report in the middle of Pitt Street. I felt like that was a commentary on what I was going to say. I snoop a mouth and clue. You see, Brendan, you talk about season 24.