Lowbrow–Highbrow

[00:36]

Hello, dear listener and welcome back to Flight for Entirety, the only Doctor Who podcast that did it in the library with Roger and the Footman.

They were surprisingly disinhibited.

I'm Nathan.

I'm Brendan.

I'm Peter.

I'm Max.

So, Lady Clemency Edison and the honourable Hugh Kirbishley requests the pleasure of your company for cocktails on the lawn, followed by a comedy vest perform killing spree in the form of an Agatha Christie mystery.

Keep a close eye on your valuables, everyone.

It's the unicorn and the wasp.

So, Max, you're back with us this week.

But we haven't heard what you have thought about series 4 so far.

Yeah, I've, it's been, it's been delightful kind of going back and rewatching it because this was, I think I've spoken on the podcast before about these 3 years, particularly from series 2 to series 4, kind of the, the point in my sort of childhood adoration of the show that is sort of richest in my memory, I think.

[01:42]

And it's sort of most coloured with like, like memories of sort of like acting out the episodes in the playground and all that kind of stuff.

And I think, I think series 4 sort of rewatching it as sort of like refired all these memories that I had, which were just, I think, and I'm sure you've spoken about it too, but before, but, but the show at its sort of most popular and its sort of greater saturation point, um, and I, I've just sort of found that going back over the episodes, I've, I've just sort of had such a wonderful time going back and rewatching them and, and, and, refinding those, those memories of just, of just being So obsessed with the show with my friends and, um, Because I think they were airing on Sunday nights at

this point in this series.

And I remember then coming back at Monday or the start of the school week and it being all you would talk about for just the entirety of the day, um, and everyone getting excited about the next time trailers.

And it was just, and this was also just then, I have a, I have a brother who's like 9 years older than me, and he would, he would occasionally pirate episodes onto like sort of DVDs in a really 2008 kind of way.

[02:48]

So I would occasionally get sort of advanced copies of them.

So I would occasionally know more than my friends and I would sort of laud it over them in a really like pretentious kind of annoying sort of 12 year old way.

But I am...

That's how you know that you're a true fan.

So that's been, that's been, I, I, and so rewatching all the series four.

I've had these sort of wonderful, wonderful, sort of personal memories come back and just the, I think the quality of the series, again, is just held up so, so wonderfully.

I'm I'm just continually delighted by Donanoble and I just think it's, she's just, she's just spectacular.

And that's sort of been my. yeah, yeah.

So I've sort of, I'm going concurrently with these episodes, so I've just got up to Unicorn and the Wasp, and I'm just having such a wonderful time.

Yeah.

Brilliant.

I think that this is going to be a theme of the rest of our series 4 run, but my hot take is that this is the 1st of a run of 7 episodes of Doctor Who that is probably unparallelled in quality in the history of the show.

[03:54]

Or at the very least, it's, you know, my favourite run of Doctor Who stories.

Yeah, they kind of all flapper, no slapper, aren't they?

Yeah, absolutely.

Controversial.

When this was 1st on this episode, I did not get it at all.

Like, I came away from this the 1st time ago, and I sort of moaned and shook my head through the flashbacks and all the title drops and what have you.

And for about 2 or 3 years afterwards, I'm like, this is a 6 out of 10.

Wow.

I'm like, no, I don't, I don't like.

And then I rewatch.

I think it was my big rewatch with Robert around like 2013 to 2015 where I watched this again and went, what was I thinking?

This is genius.

This is, you know, I don't know.

I must have been through a rough breakup that week or something.

But also, Brendan, I can understand that original reaction from you because the last time Doctor Who did drinks outside a manor house on a terrace.

[04:59]

You loved it so much.

Yeah, I mean at least it's a nice day in this one.

At least she let her child go out into the world and, you know, rub them, lock him in the attic and admittedly both of them end up killing a bunch of people.

So...

Who's right and who's wrong?

So this is our 4th celebrity historical, I guess, since it comes back.

We've done one a year.

And this is the 3rd celebrity historical with a famous ricer.

So Gareth did the Shakespeare code, what, last year?

And obviously we had Mark Gatis doing Charles Dickens in the very, what, 3rd episode?

It does get Queen Victoria.

Yes, although less of a literary figure than a sort of Augusta.

Queen and Empress of India.

Oh, wow, this werewolf can only murder me.

Tarah.

[06:01]

I wasn't a massive fan of the Shakespeare code.

I liked it well enough, but I did think it had a very, very superficial take on Shakespeare.

And, you know, that was really all it was intended to do.

I do think that the comedy thing here just works tremendously well though, with Agatha Christie.

These stories are kind of more superficial.

They don't have the sort of historical weight that Shakespeare does.

So you can afford to be a bit more fun with it.

You know?

It's not a smug either, I don't think.

I think also like the kind of famish glee sort of comes across a lot more genuinely in this episode, maybe.

And maybe that's also the construction of the episode and how Agatha fits into it, but it is such a sort of meta.

It's such of a meta, um, episode in, in how Agatha Christie is a proponent in a, in a story that's surrounded by people who all know they're in a sort of Agatha Christie story they know Agatha Christie. been reading Agatha Christie.

[07:03]

And everyone's kind of, everyone's kind of making jokes on this, on the same level, and then you've got the doctor and Donna that are sort of operating on another meta level on top of it, and it just sort of creates this.

I think in comparison to the Shakespeare code, I think there's an excitement to be telling this story that really comes across and is sort of contagious as well.

What do we think of the way that Gareth kind of justifies it?

I mean, Mark Gators didn't have to, you know, lampshade the fact that we were meeting Charles Dickens in a situation near Christmas where there are a lot of ghosts around.

Here, um, Gareth Roberts actually kind of pokes fun at the fact that Noah noticed how sort of weird that was in the unquiet dead and goes to sort of extraordinary hand wavy lengths in order to justify why Agatha Christie finds herself in an Agatha Christie mystery.

I think that's the sort of thing where Buffy couldn't have got away with doing a musical episode in season one.

Yeah, okay.

So the Unquiet Dead has to be very po-faced and very serious about the fact that it's dickens and ghosts and Christmas and just have a couple of sly references to it without lampshading it massively.

[08:13]

Whereas here, Gareth Roberts' original concept for the script was humourous, but nowhere near as broadly comic as it ends up being.

It was actually Russell who said, no, no, no, we want this as an out and out comedy pastiche.

Right.

And it was Russell pushing him.

So perhaps putting that comment in was kind of Garrett's way of saying, if this doesn't work, you know, we are aware.

But it's also Doctor Who has that confidence.

As you were saying earlier, Max, you know, this is when it was totally riding high and everyone was talking about it, even if they weren't watching it.

They were talking about it.

You know, of course, comparing ratings from 10 years ago to ratings now isn't particularly fair, but if we look at audience share, the tenant episodes were getting close to a 40% audience share, the Whittaker episodes and the Capaldi episodes get between 20 and 25, which is still respectable.

But when you consider that's respectable, and then you look at this 40% audience share almost.

It is riding height.

[09:15]

So it's not exactly an apology to bring up, oh yeah, this is a bit silly, but it's saying to the audience, look, we respect you enough to know that you've seen Joan Hickson.

You've seen Geraldine McEwan.

You've seen David Soucher.

We know that you know that we know that this is a bit weird.

But as you were saying, Brendan, there's also a sense that the series is so confident now, it can kind of get away with anything that they can sort of, they can put anything on the screen and people would watch.

And so they just go for it.

A drowning fish.

And I think that confidence, like, speaking to your point, Nathan, about the upcoming run of episodes.

I think that confidence, like, it's kind of, it exudes out in sort of almost every aspect of this episode.

And I think just like even, like, I remember in the writer's tale, Russell, you can read Russell's like initial series 4 document that he sent out to, I think, all the production, or maybe just sort of the production heads, I think.

[10:25]

And this episode is sort of like, and it kind of changes a little bit as it goes along, but there are these tent pulse throughout, um, the series that sort of stay sort of remarkably, remarkably close to what, um, what eventuates like on screen.

And if I'm remembering correctly, I think this one's always episode seven.

Gareth Roberts and it's sort of just like, yeah, it's just Agatha Christie, we're just going to go nuts.

And I remember there's also an email, there's an email maybe 2 months later, which is just him sort of stressing, stressing about another script, but he's saying, I'm putting it off by just cramming more Agatha Christie puns into this one.

So.

Isn't it interesting that the one pun that they don't make is the man in the brown suit because, you know, who is the man in the brown suit?

I actually have to confess that I'm not much of a sort of Christy file, and I've read a couple of her books and I've seen a couple of movies based on them and things.

There was a reasonably recent run of 3 or 4 adaptations of Agatha Christie books on television by sort of female writers and directors, which I thought was really quite extraordinary, and I'll fling them in the show notes if I can somehow find them again.

[11:33]

And so I'd seen those.

But so a lot of this kind of, for me, the effect of it just relies on the fact that Agatha Christie has been pastiched over and over again.

And perhaps never more in Doctor Who than in Robots of Death, which is, I think, um, El Xander points out, that Asimov's robot detective was in the sort of hard-boiled kind of film noir sort of genre.

And so robots of death was kind of, well, we can do that only with an Agatha Christie sensibility.

Hence the design of the sand miner and everything.

And don't forget, Pip and Jane, we can do that with plant creatures.

Yeah, yeah, yeah And everyone has a secret, you know.

And I think that's what's really wonderful about this, the secrets that everyone has.

And perhaps that wonderful, wonderful comedy scene, perhaps the most deliberate sort of comedy scene where the doctor and Christy are interviewing everyone and we discovered their secrets, you know, Lady Edison's, you know, are drunk and and the colonel is leafing through pornography and and, you know, even the thing where the flashbacks, are kind of interacted with by the characters, you know, Dave flashbacks in Flash.

[12:56]

Yeah, yeah, David Tennant calls the colonel out of the inset flashback and then again out of the other flashback or Lady Edison narrating a previous scene that the doctor was in.

And you see, the flashback which the doctor has to Charlemagne was actually a flashback to a text story that was on the BBC website in 2008 called The Lonely Computer, written by my lovely old pal, Rupert Late, who's sadly no longer with us.

Wow.

And so it's actually a flashback to something, which was never seen on screen and was now made canon.

That's brilliant.

It's so perfect too, as a sort of silly Doctor Who premise.

You know, Charlemagne gets kidnapped by a computer. because of course he does.

At this point, you know, we had a long-running Marple series.

We had a long-running Poirot series.

Agatha Christie's other main characters who hadn't really had their own series a little bit.

[13:58]

They had a little bit of a series.

Tommy and Tuppence.

Right.

And then they would get made about 8 years later with David Williams and Jessica Rain, who was Verity Lambert.

And do you know who Jessica Rain is married to?

Reverend Golightly.

Oh my goodness.

I did not know that.

Do you know who Sasha Dawan is dating?

Me?

Angeli Mohindra.

Really?

Oh, wow, what a pretty couple.

What a pretty couple.

Yeah, I thought it was me too.

That's a shame.

What?

We need to get back to him and talk to him about.

Somebody posted a shirtless picture of him the other day and well, look, my baby is due in about 9 months.

While we're on that subject.

Actually, Brandon.

Topless Sasha to one?

Well, let's say representation.

We, um, we, weirdly, and I'm going to open the kimono for a second.

We're recording this while series 12 is still airing.

[15:00]

So we're from a recent past where we have no idea what the timeless child is.

But we have just had what I think is the best gay male representation in Doctor Who Today in Praxis.

And I think at the time I said that everyone sort of assumes there are a lot of gay men in Doctor Who because Russell and Gareth and all of that, but there aren't really.

And here we get Roger and the footman, Davenport.

You're saying the footman was being Roger.

Are you here?

I don't think the explicit tag counts for 1920 swang.

Sorry.

What do we think of it?

I mean, it is just kind of played for laughs, I think.

Or is it?

Um, look, there is a bit of commentary there because the family clearly no, because there's that little quip, you know, there's no children in this house and there's not bloody likely to be.

[16:01]

Oh, I love how quickly Donna spots it as well.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, who'd have guessed that Donald would be a massive fag hagger?

But it's also Donna who then gives us that bit of commentary when Roger is killed and Donna walks in the room and she says, oh, that poor footman.

So you know she's been off talking to the footman and you know that no one else is.

And she says, he can't even mourn Roger.

This is more like the Middle Ages.

And yeah, it's it's a very clever succinct way of kind of raising, oh, you know, yeah, we're having this jolly hockey 6 time, but there is there is prejudice in this age as well.

And we've played this relationship for laughs, but there is this serious side to it.

And of course, the idea of silent mourning in the queer community, especially in the 80s and 90s with the AIDS HIV epidemic and governments saying basically, well, these people shouldn't be mourned why you mourning.

[17:01]

They, you know, they deserve this horrible disease.

And I think certainly for Russell. you know, looking back at his stuff with Queera's folk and him talking about his clubbing days in the 90s, I don't think that is a coincidence.

I think that is not necessarily a reference, but just the kind of thing of the, you know, the more times change.

The more they stay the same.

I think it serves a narrative purpose as well because it foreshadows the disgrace of Lady Edison.

So her alcoholism is played for laughs in the flashback scene, but it becomes clear that the reason that she drinks is because she she got pregnant before she was married.

She was forced to carry the child to term and then give it up and never, ever see it again.

All through her life, she's carried on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so you have Roberts critiquing the kind of sexual morality of the 1920s.

And like, I don't want to go into great detail about Roberts over the last few years, but here at least he is, you know, he's contemplative.

[18:15]

Well, yeah, yeah, he's being thoughtful and and thinking about the the way that, you know, queer people and women were harmed by sort of traditional sexual morality.

Yeah.

And even when Agatha Christie turns up at the party and Lady Edison's 1st question to her is, where's your husband?

Yeah.

Where she's the, you know, Agatha Christie's a guest of honour and it still wears your husband.

And of course, he's off having a wonderful time. with this new woman he's just met.

Whereas Agatha has to go to this party while she is in rage and especially enraged by arrogant men.

Like the 2nd the doctor's like, oh, isn't this wonderful?

She like, no, it's not bloody wonderful.

Someone's dead.

That's great.

Yes, it is.

And he's properly counted.

Agatha is carrying on.

Exactly.

The thing is, I love how cowed he is because he does immediately rein it in.

You know, it's not trying to make Queen Victoria say whether she's amused or not.

He kind of goes, okay, no, I'm not gonna going to push this and I'm not going to treat her like an amusement park kind of thing.

[19:19]

He's probably embarrassed, I think, by being called out.

The doctor is always in awe of kind of great creative figures, isn't he?

They always put him in his place.

Well, because he's being written by writers.

Just to tell back to what we were saying about sort of the gay relationship in this episode as well.

I think it's slightly problematic, I think, that Roger dies in the narrative.

I mean, obviously that is a well-worn trope and it's not being lampshaded here.

It's just because everyone is dying.

They're being picked off.

But Lady Edison's reaction to that is far too muted, I think.

It takes away credibility from the character in that she just does carry on and you don't really see her grieving.

She sort of sits in a corner looking a bit sad.

Oh, she does.

Her initial reaction is, you know, is very good. comes away 2 seconds later.

Yeah, yeah.

It's kind of a Doctor Who thing.

Like deaths, you know, should land more in Doctor Who than they do, but since there are so many deaths in a given Doctor Who episode, you know, it would be the morning show, wouldn't it?

[20:23]

Like everyone would just be grieving all the time.

It'd be series nine.

I think maybe it should have been Davenport who died, but then that brings up its own problems of kind, you know, classism and things like that.

Yeah.

And you wouldn't have gone.

I mean, the death is played for very broad comedy with the face in the soup and the big knife in the back and stuff and it's very silly.

I actually think there's, I think it might almost be a problem of just, because I think the script is, like, impressively nuanced in terms of how much it packs into a 45 minute episode.

Like, like, like we were all saying, like it functions as this pretty, a sort of a properly detailed kind of murder mystery and and, and giving, giving sort of a cast of abouts of 8, 9 characters all this, a secret and then, and then sort of largely sort of balancing all their interactions really skilfully.

I think, I think occasionally there is, you just get that, the outcome of that kind of squeeze to just, and most of the times I think it's successful, and, um, and I think maybe just, yeah, sometimes those, like, emotional beats maybe don't line with the strength that you'd want just because there's just so much, they'll sort of, there's so much machinery going on underneath it, I think.

[21:32]

You're right.

And it's not the tone of the episode.

It's not what the episode is going for.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So, do you know what really happened with Agatha Christie?

No.

So it's not as big a mystery as Gareth says.

Apparently she was discovered in that Harrogate hotel partying, having checked in under the name of her husband's mistress.

Shaded by Agatha Chris.

I wish we'd seen that.

I was a little bit disappointed to see sort of Fenella Woolgar with a sort of stunned look on her face standing next to the sign of the sort of unimaginatively named Harrogate Hotel. you know, whereas really she was just sort of partying on. which I just think is so superb.

Do you know, there's those, in the deleted scenes, you can see the original, I think, I think there was like a sort of abridging narrative of Agatha, like old Agatha in on her deathbed.

[22:34]

Yeah.

I'm so glad they dropped that.

Yeah, they're pretty weird.

But, but it's, what I wish, I wish we'd had the bridging, uh, the bridging narrative of her just checking into the, uh, checking into the party would have been fantastic.

That was...

So did they have Fanella Woolgar in ageing makeup or did they have someone else playing all day?

They had someone else, right?

It was another actress and so the pre-titles was going to be Agatha Christie in this aged care home in the 70s. tossing and turning in a nightmare and screaming, doctor.

And that would go into the titles.

And then the original last scene was the doctor and Donna coming to visit her and Agatha saying, I've just remembered.

And the doctor showing her the book from the year 5 billion.

Oh, okay.

But to be honest, the actress playing old Agatha is really bad.

I hear they got it back for Orphan 55.

Shout out for you, Todd.

And also friend of the podcast, Pete.

[23:42]

You know, we were talking earlier about the fact that Russell had some input into this.

What strikes me about this script is how unfiltered Gareth it is.

I mean, it's so, it's so charming and kind of fun, which Gareth is, like I've known Gareth for many years and he's charming and witty and urbane.

And this script is just very him.

I don't see Russell's voice in the script much at all.

Do you know what it reminds me of?

You know, when Paul Cornell talks about human nature and sending scripts back to Russell and Russell saying, actually, no, put more of the novel in, make it more like what you wrote originally, um, you know, I think that that given the subject matter and given the tone that Gareth is exactly the right person to do it, he was always the one who wrote the sort of witty, uh, kind of trope aware, new adventures novels.

In fact, there were huge runs of the new adventures novels that were utterly unreadable but would have a Gareth, you know, one in the middle.

[24:45]

That's right, they saw a lowbrow highbrow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

And so I mean, he's perfect for this.

Thing about the scene, where the doctor's poisoned.

So the scene where he's poisoned and he goes down to the kitchen for the antidote.

Ginger beer.

Ginger...

Harvey Wallbanger, you know, and like it's so urgent that he gets sold that when Donna sort of fails to do the mime, he actually spends a few lines criticising her rather than just saying the word salt.

And that whole thing is just, like, it's not only funny, but it's perfectly tailored for the 2 actors as well.

Which is extraordinary when you consider this is the 1st episode Catherine Tate filmed for this series.

I forgot that.

And don't both of them just look overjoyed throughout the whole thing.

They both look so happy to be there.

Yeah.

I mean, later on in the season, tenant will start to look very freckly, like later on in the filming.

Apparently, uh, I have heard that all the night shoots on partners in crime, David just, during the production period, never really recovered from, like he never recovered the tiredness and the sleep.

[25:56]

And there is kind of a division in this series.

I'm a few episodes ahead in my watch at the moment.

I'm watching midnight.

Just his skin looks horrid.

Whereas here he looks like fresh as a daisy.

But yeah, so the 1st seeing Catherine filmed, obviously, after Runaway Bride is the scene where they actually walk out of the TARDIS.

Wow.

And I like to think that's why we never get this hair again.

I'm thinking someone looked at the rushes and kind of went, oh, no.

No we don't want that.

Possibly Catherine herself.

Like, apparently Catherine was very conscious of how she looked on screen and would communicate with the directors and the designers.

Not in a demanding way, but just kind of, oh no, I think I would look better in this or I would think I would look.

It's also why we never got the Catherine Tate bride action figure.

Wow, okay.

Because apparently Catherine thought she looked a bit big.

She looked at it and thought, is that an auton from Rose?

It is kind of funny. because she is older than Tennant?

[27:01]

Yes.

And so the 1st regular companion to be older than the doctor?

Yes.

And, I mean, she isn't cast necessarily as someone for the dads, you know, so you've got how do we dress this middle-aged female companion.

We've never had, you know, a companion this age.

And I think she looks fantastic.

Do you know what I mean?

The clothes that they have are in...

And you already see, that kind of makes sense because in early in the series, we've noticed just how incredibly compassionate she is, the big surprising thing is that you get Catherine Tate in and she is the most caring and compassionate companion, you know, and the one who is most angered by injustice and unfairness and things.

And you get that here.

And so it turns out it's for the 1st time.

I think it also explains the sort of some of the scenes where I think her broad performance doesn't pay off.

[28:07]

And in particular, it's that very long scene in the accusing parlour.

Oh my god, I love that performance.

Oh my god.

She's stopping her face the entire time.

It's fantastic That's us at home watching the last 10 minutes of Poirot.

I totally got, that's what that was.

Cohesia killer.

I also, I love, I love this, and there's some little, there's some little, just, just cutaways to her reactions when I think, um, I think the doctor says towards the end, murder at vicars rage, and then her look of just disdain at him.

Yeah, just fantastic.

And that utterly charming scene where she's exploring the bedroom by herself.

Oh, so good.

Yeah.

And it's always a challenge for any actor if you're in a scene by yourself to make the words work and make it not just, this is television.

So I must continue to speak.

So you know that something is happening and nothing is wrong with your set.

[29:07]

And she does it so very well.

And she does the scared of monsters thing really well.

Acting to nothing.

Well, you know, no one does a better walking down a corridor, looking into the middle distance performance than Catherine Tate.

Just incredible.

I mean, in that scene, she does call out and she calls out for the doctor, but she actually escapes from the vest perform herself. without any help from him.

And she does it by being clever.

And it's another thing that they junk from the runaway bride, where you have Lance, you know, saying she couldn't find Germany on a map.

She is clever as well.

So there has been like a sort of careful rewriting of her character and it looks like that's right from the 1st episode they shoot.

And on that topic of her intelligence and her compassion.

When Agatha Christie is despairing that she can't solve this mystery.

And Donna goes out to talk to her and brings up the fact that her husband has left her, which she's not meant to know about.

[30:12]

It's kind of a parallel to that scene in Rise of the Cybermen, also directed by Graham Harper, where Rose is talking to Jackie.

But the difference there is Rose, of course, has a personal stake in this and is basically saying take him back, take him back.

Whereas Donna's just like, yeah, that's really horrid, you know?

Oh, you poor thing.

Yeah, that is, and it's more about just affirming what Agatha is saying and affirming Agatha rather than playing any of her own agenda.

Yeah.

I think she's on that exact point.

I think she's what makes her so successful and and like we've been saying clearly from the 1st shooting block as well.

She's sort of, she's sort of the mate that you wanted to travel around in space and time with.

She's sort of the person that she just seems like.

And her, and this is her.

I think this is Catherine Tate, like just has sort of natural charm coming through as well a lot of the time.

But it's just, yeah, her sort of compassion and then her ability to listen to Agatha and take on board what she's saying and sort of gently nudge her in an encouraging way, but in a way that you feel like she's being sort of a genuine friend to people and she's looking out for people.

[31:19]

And I think when she, and that, and that, I think reaches a really interesting point when she, when she ultimately, um, so when she throws the Firestone into the lake and, and I think her line is, I couldn't help myself or I couldn't help myself either.

And I just, I think there's, there's something really lovely and nuanced in, in the way she's written here, even in those scenes that she is sort of being the surrogant audience at home and, um, she's sort of doing a lot in the service of the narrative, but she's also just coming across as just such a, a sort of magnetic personality that you can see the doctor just sort of just travelling with for years because she's just, she's just such a great mate that sort of, and also like holds him accountable when he, you know, makes a terrible pun or when he, or when he, like earlier in the series, even

when he sort of, at that end of the Fire of Pompeii, that scene as well.

Like, she's just, she's just so magnetic in that way, I think.

Yeah.

This is my theory of why Donna is such a successful companion.

Well, she's the archetype, really.

[32:20]

She and Sarah Jane share the same thing in that they're an analogue of the show itself.

They're smart, they're compassionate, they're empathetic and witty.

They can be broad sometimes.

They can be subtle sometimes.

And I think it's the reason she's so successful, is that she captures Russell's Doctor Who, you know, it's alchemy.

She captures Russell's Doctor Who in one character.

And of course, she's played by Catherine Tate.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The other companion, I would throw into that comparison as well.

I mean, actually, more than one.

But I would also say Clara, specifically in series eight.

I think that's the only time Clara really works and it's because, again, she is keeping the doctor in check, just as we as the audience do, with early Capaldi, where he's being, you know, objectionable and rude.

Clara's the one who turns around and says, no, we don't act like that.

That's not what we do.

She's teaching him how to be the doctor again.

She's also Moffatt's version of Doctor Who and a character that Moffatt's been writing ever since press gang, you know?

[33:25]

So she is a sort of distilled version of that Moffatt who kind of energy, I think.

Can we go back to something that I had completely forgotten about?

Why is Graham Harper directing this?

I think it might have just been scheduled lottery, but I mean, Graham previously has had all of those kind of big budget kind of action stories because that plays to his strengths.

But then he's given Planets of Theude, which is a character piece, and Unicorn and the Wasp, which is an historical comedy, and he does fabulously on both.

He is just an amazing director.

It's really perfect, isn't it?

And I've said before, I think that, you know, Harper stands out extraordinarily in the 80s because he's just streets ahead of everyone else.

And then in the new series, he's a bit ahead of everyone else.

But I think I've probably undersold him because he just gets this completely right.

[34:27]

Yeah, and there's just some amazing moments like the Dolly Zoom on Felicity Kendall when she realises that her son is the vicar and a wasp.

Yeah.

Hold on, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

Oh my God, that has to be a thing.

Surely, surely.

And things like the the view of the monster, like the segmented thing, so we know it's an insect even before we see it, that lovely high screen shot right at the start when the car's arriving outside.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or even the shot of the shadow of the lead piping come down.

I think he's so skilled at finding these moments that just stick in your head and there's like these little visuals from this episode that I just, I think I've just in my head permanently. makes me think, you know, if Arc of Infinity had been made as a deliberate comedy.

[35:28]

The whole impulse laser line would now be a classic.

Exactly.

Still sort of a classic.

What are you doing with that lead piping?

What do you think, I'm sure?

That is my favourite line in the same time.

I say, what are you doing with that lead piping is just, I think it's gold.

I said that Sasha just the other day.

See, I think this is white.

This episode looks so brilliant because it looks like it doesn't have the budget of some of the other episodes.

It doesn't need the budget.

And yet Graham brings such a visual flair to it.

It looks a 1000000 bucks.

Yeah, I mean, it's a, you know, it's a truism to talk about the BBC doing period staff, you know, but this is the thing that 100s and 100s of hours of this sort of TV come out every year, perhaps without a giant CG wasp in it.

And it looks fantastic.

Even just the fact that, you know, the opening scene is set at a cocktail party on the lawn.

You know, like that is more expensive than setting it inside a room and stuff and it's sunny and great and we get introduced to just this incredible cast as well.

[36:38]

And Donna drinks sidecars.

I love a side.

On the direction.

I think something, Graham does, that's very clever, is obviously where cribbing left, right, and centre from Agatha Christie adaptations.

But the Dolly Zoom, of course, made famous in Jaws.

And the death of Miss Chandrakala is straight out of the omen.

Oh, wow, okay.

It's shot.

It shot in exactly the same way as the spire killing Patrick Trouton.

Even right down to, the actress playing this Chandra Khala does the same had gestures at the same kind of scream.

It's a very deliberate crib and, you know, if you've only seen those movies like once and you're not a big movie Afficionado, your subconscious will just go, oh, this comes from something of very high quality.

Yeah.

Whereas if you are a bit more of a film buff and you're able to pick out those antecedents.

You go, oh, yeah, so I say I'm what you're doing, yeah.

[37:39]

I'm going to enjoy my port and cigar.

You're very clever Mr. Harper.

It actually reminds me a bit of Edgar Wright's kind of style.

Like, there's like a real, there's a real sort of, um, an enthusiasm on using sort of like, or embracing sort of tropes, but also sort of having a real, like, relish and glee with them and sort of, and them being sort of, like, obviously serving the script super well, but, but there is, like you said, there is that opportunity that if you recognise it, it just enhances your enjoyment of it further.

Agatha says to the doctor at one point, um, you talk quite like Edward Lear.

And I think that's Gareth as well.

Yeah, his writing is like Edward Lear.

Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we have finally got Felicity Kendall on Doctor Who.

Hooray.

Yes, completely completing the goods.

[38:40]

So we've had Richard Briars.

Yes.

And Richard Briers will turn up in Torchwood as well or has just turned up in Torchwood season two before this.

But yes, Felicity Goddamn Kendall.

Yeah, yeah.

It's really good too, to have her sort of playing against type in a way.

Like the, she is so sort of wholesome as Barbara Good.

So having her sort of secretly alcoholic and things, you know, like burping after her flashback because she's just been drinking and things, is sort of terribly, terribly funny.

And then Christopher Benjamin, who, you know, he was such a large middle-aged man way back in, um, even in, inferno, that it's kind of surprising to see him still sort of up and about in 2008. fairly unchanged as well.

He's looking he's looking pretty healthy there.

The thing is, Felicity Kendall had just come off playing in Rosemary and time.

Oh, which is a mystery solving gardener with Pantheras.

[39:41]

Delightful.

I can't remember if she's rosemary or time.

And then, of course, this bit of casting is more interesting in retrospect and it's Felicity Jones.

Star Wars is Felicity Jones.

Andy, we're going to take someone who's going to be very famous next year and cast them this year.

It's amazing how he does that.

He's got an incredible track record of doing it.

But he makes a very clever decision, though, of not casting her as someone you would necessarily desperately want to see as a companion and whose name would be brought up again and again every time they would cast a companion, Carrie Mulligan.

But now who is now far too big to do Doctor Who.

Whereas Jenna Coleman, later on, would have the good sense to be in Captain America before she did Doctor Who.

So, is she in Captain America?

She's Bucky Barnes' date in the 1940s.

So Karen Gillan trajectory, but backwards.

She has like 2 lights.

I love Felicity Jones in this. she's fantastic.

All right, then.

[40:42]

That's such a wonderfully sort of, you know, mannered performance, isn't it?

It's like, I'm completely dropping the accent and going all comedy working class.

Like it doesn't convince for a second, but it's absolutely not supposed to.

It's so fun Yeah.

And of course, as one of the footmen, Sandy McDonald, David Tennant's dad.

Oh yeah.

I think he's serving drinks at the party at the start.

He is, I think he's in the 1st like the 1st panning shot.

I think it's him.

Can we talk about David for a moment?

Yeah.

I think this is one of David's best performances.

He's very light.

He's very fun.

He's channelling the 5th doctor with his kind of specs and with his over-the-top enthusiasm for things.

And I think the doctor works really well at the heart of this story because he's Poirot.

And if you think about Poirot's trait.

He is kind of eccentric, but establishment.

He's overly obsessed with his appearance.

[41:44]

I mean, who does that remind you of?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think we've talked about it just briefly before, but in that sort of wonderful, like, physical comedy scene with the poison.

I think I think he's, I think he's actually really often, I, I know we've talked a bit on the podcast before about him occasionally in sort of the Hammier moments, being a bit great, but I think that it's, I think he's fantastic in that scene.

And I think he's just, and I think maybe there is that excitement about, um, Catherine and David working sort of for the, like, meeting again and working on this 1st episode again, but there's just such a, I think that's it.

I think there's a nimbleness to his performance that, that, that maybe is, I think, is quite refreshing to see and and I think he's, um, yeah, just some of the delivery of that.

I think he's, yeah, what his delivery of the camptown races is just...

I think that's his funniest moment of in Doctor Who.

I think that just the, as he's getting eaten away by Sinai, he's just, oh, Countdown races.

[42:45]

You're kidding.

It does make me wonder if our sort of occasional problem with Tenet mugging it a bit for the camera is possibly because his other 2 companions he's had up till this point.

Billy and Freema play them quite naturalistically.

Like no one ever gives a full naturalistic performance in Doctor Who, I would argue because of the heightened nature of it, but because they are as close to naturalistic as possible.

His performance looks so much bigger.

Catherine comes in and is giving the same kind of performance as tenant.

And so, yeah, I don't know that he's necessarily changed all that much, but just, because you've got the 2 of them together, and particularly because she's so, she's a bit more effortless with the comedy than tenant is, because that's her background.

Richard's not here today, of course, but he has always said about Catherine Tate, if you want someone to give good drama, hire a comedian.

[43:50]

And I think she, perhaps she doesn't necessarily bring out the best intenant, but it's like a flavour pairing.

Yeah, yeah.

I think they work tremendously well together.

And I think the 10th doctor is suited to jolly japes like this because he doesn't have to be big and strong, you know, grandstanding and making sort of big speeches.

He's just enjoying himself and so is David.

You know how I said that this is uh, the beginning of a run of 7 episodes that I think uh, really amazing.

One of the things that I think, is amazing about this particular run, is the different textures and different tones of all of the episodes as well.

And we are going to go into something that is going to be very big, um, and we've got episodes like midnight and turn left and the finale coming up, which will be hugely emotional.

And there'll be comedy, but it won't be the focus, and some of them will be, you know, quite upsetting and difficult.

[44:56]

And so I think, as you said, Max, this is perfect at this point in the season to do something as fun and comic and enjoyable as this.

I think it works tremendously well.

It's like a clearing of the palate.

Yeah.

Well, there listener, we've decided to slip away before Agatha Christie's wild party really kicks off.

Instead, we might just curl up in a shady corner somewhere with a very good book.

We'll see you next week for silence in the library.

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

[46:07]

Until next time, don't touch the soup.

It's full of pipperine and I think they might have found a dead body in it.

Thank you very much for listening and good night.

Good night.

Good night.

Good night.

That was Flight for Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Peter Griffiths, Max Gel Barton, Brendan Jones.

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

This episode, Lowbrow Highbrow, was recorded on the 15th of February 2020 and released on the 26th of April.

As is, of course, well known, Dame Agatha Christie passed away on the 12th of January 1976, which means that she died without ever finding out if Sarah Jane Smith would get her eyesight back.

Makes you think.

That's a good out I think.

Yeah, I think that probably is a good hour.

What do you think?

Max, is there anything that you wanted to cover that we didn't get to?

No, it's just sort of a vague.

There was this...

[47:08]

I have a point of I was just going to mention about like sort of how the shape of like where this falls in the shape of series 4 and how sort of the shape of each series is is been sort of identical to each other, but it was kind of a very vague ephemeral point that I don't think is actually that interesting.

So forget that.

I once admitted on when I was guessing on a podcast that RTD does make the same series 4 times in a row.

Moffatt makes it once.

No, Moffat kind of lurches from, God knows what, to God knows what.

He doesn't know what he's doing.

Each season he's reacting against the previous season, I think.

With the previous one.

Yeah, whereas Russell...

Well, because I think what the unicorn, what I've noticed with watching the unicorn and wasp was that there's this sort of and I think it's what Moffin Moffat tries to correct in series 6 where of this sense of like a sort of mid-series kind of slump, but I was going to say that I think the unicorn and the wasp, particularly after last week is this is this beautiful like pop of champagne in the middle of the, in the middle of the series that I think is actually almost what he's been almost what each series.

[48:15]

I mean, the 1st series kind of avoids it with Dalek a little bit.

You've got like the midseries kind of tempole thing.

But I think, um, but I think particularly reacted against last year, there's this real, I think the Unicorn the Wasp is exactly what they need in the middle of a series like this, if it's 13 episodes.

I think it's something that is just, like sort of, I think, I think something that is just a, and I think Amy's choice does it again in series 5, like something that is just sort of really funny and witty, but kind of just an incredibly quality episode just in the middle of the run, I think is, I think that's what makes this also such a joy.

Yeah.

Just wait a second.

I think we can probably, Alfie's crying outside the door, but we just let him in.

Oh, okay.

Just close it all.

Good boy.

Good boy.

Sit down, mate.

Sit.

Okay.

I actually think...

What's up?

I say one thing?

Yep.

So Agatha Christie.

Just her work was known for its language.

So kind of simple language and colourful descriptions which then gave way to kind of pace and lots of dialogue and her prolific quality.

[49:21]

I mean, in the Doctor Who world, who do we know who resembles that?

Terrence Sticks?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's our Agatha Christie.

Yeah, just sort of solid.

Super.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And you absolutely don't have to include this, but the colour for monsters this season is purple.

Yes.

Because the Santarans have purple lights everywhere.

They do.

The Hatha purple.

The best perform pink is purple.

There's a bit of purple in the library.

But yeah, I just, I just noticed watching this, it's like, oh, the colour, the colour for monsters is purple.

Are you sure there are any Vince just you can get a job lot of gels?

Yeah, almost.

All right, let's try the outro.

But, I mean, where I really noticed it was the vicars flashback scene.

Yeah, he's going bizz.

And yeah, you know, they just shine a purple light in his face, but also, like, those guys are robbing the church in the dead of night.

It's streaming sunlight from the outside, Mr. Harper.

[50:25]

Maybe it's summer.

I always just assume that in Britain, you know, I've seen Carnival of Monsters.

And when Agatha runs out of the room with the gem towards the end, sort of freeze frame it and go by frame by frame, there's a really weird jump cut.

They've used 2 different takes of her running out the door.

Really?

Yeah, yeah.

Or they've they've lost a few frames there somehow.

I'm not, I'm not mentioning that as the main part of the podcast because that is just pedantry.

Okay, Alfie.

Alfie won't sexually molest you because he's not Coco.

Oh, boy.

And he has been on the podcast before.

Yeah, I'll give him a hug so he doesn't he doesn't whinge and ruin you. a good boy.

Oh, okay, let's see.

Did we talk about?

Oh, sorry.

I was just, is it worth, um, just with, what's the name of it?

Tom.

What's his Tom Goodman Hill?

Is that the Reverend?

Yes.

Is that the reverend actor?

Yeah.

Oh, I was just going to say that his his his commitment to the to the reveal buzzing.

I'm actually a monster moment, I think, sells what it must be a hard, a hard thing to say.

[51:31]

I think is...

I think that was a big ask of an actor.

It's a big us.

It's really funny.

He's good.

I think he's good.

I think he's, I think he takes...

So he also goes on to be a lead role in humans.

Did you see humans?

No, I didn't.

No.

No I didn't know that.

And he is amazing in that and really kind of subtle.

Yeah, it's entirely different performance, but yeah, it's great.

I love that season 4 trailer.

I remember the season 4 trailer coming up in season 4 and it's it ends with just a vicar sitting on a couch going, well, this really has been a most entertaining.

Go back to what we were saying earlier.

This is a series that can get away with it.

So great.

So great.