Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast.
Brendan, stop it.
How are you doing that?
German expressionism?
The massacre.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
I give this one a solid seven.
0.4.
That was like their entirety.
Bang.
Barry, Jenny Ladd, Silla Black Tardis.
Shamble, bobble, dibble, dibble.
Oh, Nathan, you're the funny one.
Yes, I am.
Thank you.
No, forget this.
I out.
No, done.
You had to write that, didn't you?
I'm Nathan.
I'm James I'm Brendan.
I'm Josh.
Well, Catherine Tate's got the week off and the sunlight here is
poisonous, so we've decided to take a tour on a big space truck
with a bunch of daily mail readers across a diamond planet called
Midnight.
What could possibly go wrong?
Do it again?
Do we do it again with love?
Do we do it again?
Do it, do it again with love?
Hold him, holding, holding fast Never mind if it doesn't last Do
it, do it again.
Do it, do it again with love.
Josh, you haven't been here for our discussion of series four.
What's your feeling about it generally?
Series 4 is my secret favourite.
I think it's when everything really goes right and Russell's
hitting his stride.
But yeah, it's definitely one of my favourites.
When I think about all my favourite new series episodes, they're
usually in series 4.
And how about Midnight itself?
How do you feel about that?
Midnight is my 2nd favourite after turn left, which
chronologically hasn't happened, yeah, that's next week, but yeah
basically, Doctor Who has no money, but they managed to make it
work.
That's kind of what this episode is.
It feels like, oh, we've run out of money for the budget for the
season, so we may as well just put it all, put nothing into this
episode and see what works.
It's the opposite of time flight.
Do you know what I mean?
Like time flight. have no money and it's a mess.
Whereas this one, they have no money for it, but they took out as
an advantage, if that makes sense.
It's one of those things about having Russell as a showrunner
because he's so incredibly good at making television and he knows
what works.
And so what he's decided to do here is basically a play on one
set.
And he relies on the actors to do all the special effects.
I mean, it really is.
It's an episode maybe more than, you know, most Doctor Who
episodes that gets what you can do in 42 minutes.
It's really nearly perfect, I think.
Oh, I just had to agree.
I think this is one of my favourite Doctor Who stories of all
time.
Yes, absolutely.
It was funny.
Before I came down here, Rod said to me, what episode are you
doing?
And I said midnight.
He said, oh, that's so good.
It's really annoying.
But he's like, I can see it's good, but I never want to watch it
again.
Oh, it's so anxiety provoking, isn't it?
Yeah, I just spent, I rewatched it last night in preparation
podcast for once.
And, oh my god, I was just sitting on the edge of my seat going
even though I watched it a 1000000 times before, I just, I
couldn't turn away from the screen.
I was trying to write notes today.
I just couldn't turn away.
Yeah, I felt the same because I was trying to write notes as
well.
And then every time I just got distracted by just the drama of
it.
It's just so well written and every moment you're kind of on the
edge of your seat.
Yeah.
Yeah, it reminds me so much of rope.
The film by Hitchcock, because it's got that real-time element, but
also the time is compressed.
It's kind of like whenever the doctor gives a time call for how
much longer they have left on the bus, not that much time has
actually elapsed, but they're accelerating towards the ending.
I think initially, it's an hour before they're going to be rescued
and then a few minutes later, it's 50 minutes.
But it is still like an incredibly short amount of time.
It's not the usual Doctor Who thing where things go for a day or
we sleep for a night or, you know, something takes a long while to
happen.
It is just a very, very few hours.
And so it's got a sort of real dramatic unity to it.
Um, scene nine, which is the bulk of the episode. ran for 44
pages.
Wow.
And so they, for recording, they split it up into 9A, 9B, et
cetera, right through to 9K. And unusually for modern television
they actually had a full day's rehearsal, just the actors in a
hall, old school style because Alice Trout and the director and
Russell T. Davies went, because this is such an intimate setting
we actually want these actors to get to know each other a bit.
That's the thing that hits you in this episode is that the
characters have got to know each other.
Before the midnight creature gets into the bus, you know, there's
that kind of montage of them, you know, becoming friendly after
the doctors like destroyed the entertainment system.
They have to talk to each other.
They bond and then it, when it starts to turn, it's just so
shocking because you've got to know these characters in the last
sort of 10, 15 minutes and, well, it's probably actually less than
that.
And, and when they start to turn on each other and then they turn
on her and then they turn on the doctor, it is just gut
wrenching.
Do you think, though, I actually think that there's a good reason
to believe that the characters are a problem even before things
start to go wrong.
And let's talk about the characters because there's only a small
number of them.
And they're really well drawn.
This is a Russell script and so he's able to really kind of create
characters with just a few lines of dialogue.
You know, initially, I'm a little bit irritated by David Tennant
destroying the horrible entertainment system.
Because, I mean, it is horrible and it's a joke, but it's a sort
of boomerish, you know, everyone's got their heads stuck in their
phones, you know, shouldn't we just talk to one another?
And, you know, no one wants to do that.
You know, and the interesting thing is the doctor's faith in
humanity is what makes him think that talking to one another is
going to be the right thing to do.
And it kind of looks like it's working, but we've already seen, you
know, there's a little bit of sort of tension between Jethro and
Mr. and Mrs. Kane, you know, about who's paying for it.
Jethro doesn't want to sit next to them.
They're kind of disappointed when the entertainment system goes
down. everyone is getting ready to spend the trip in their own
world, you know, Professor Hobbs and DD are going to have earplugs
in.
You know, they're all being given individual juice boxes and stuff
like that.
The whole thing is set up for them to travel without interacting
with one another.
And then in that bit where the doctor goes from person to person.
You know, I think their flaws start to be revealed a bit.
The big floor that I think is sort of writ large at the beginning
is where Professor Hobbs is just nattering away and DD says
earplugs, please.
I really don't want to listen to him talk about the miners on
Peladon.
Thank you.
When he was dressing in royal drag.
That's right.
Of course, this is David Trouton.
Television's David Trouton.
I'm not even a real princess.
Don't worry, I am dead.
I was thinking, though, like, it's not just the human characters
whose, you see their flaws.
You also see the doctor's egotism is his because absolutely.
And I think that everyone, every single character you got to see
the worst of them, I really like that part of it.
Yeah, yeah.
Even the kind of arrogance of him deciding to just sort of take
over the bus make everyone talk to one another and then sort of
you know, go round from person to person.
That scene where Biff and Val are telling that really, really
terrible anecdote about the abstract pool and they're laughing
uproariously at things that aren't funny and clearly Val has heard
it 100s and 100s of times before.
Jethro's rolling his eyes.
Like it's so sort of fat Chino's dad jokey.
You know, it's it's appalling.
Like you're primed to kind of dislike those people.
And it turns out the reason that you dislike them is exactly, you
know, the character that they end up showing.
The thing is, that anecdote actually really makes me like them.
Because he, because he's not laughing at how silly the idea of an
abstract pool is.
He's laughing at himself that he actually thought the pool was
real.
Yeah, I just, I think the shamboni stuff's a bit racist, Brendan
actually.
Yeah, I suppose. yeah, yeah.
Yeah, with the lobes.
Mind you, you know, we have we have just had tenant being
incredibly racist to Banacafalata.
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Banana coffee latte.
Yes.
Oh, God, now I'm doing it.
I was madly in love with Jethro when I watched it on 1st broadcast
because, oh, how old I've been?
Maybe like 16, maybe 17?
And I loved my 2008 emo boy.
That was definitely my dream, man.
He becomes huge, of course.
He'll go on to be Merlin kind very, very soon after this.
And he is really great.
And there's a sense too, in which the narrative sympathises with
him a lot.
Like the doctor looks to him.
You know, there's a sense in which the doctor and his parents are
fighting over him to see who they approve of.
And the doctor's genuinely disappointed when Jethro kind of loses
his bottle and joins in with them.
Yeah, it strikes me that the only people the doctor is really
disappointed in are Jethro, of course, and DD.
Yeah, he's disappointed that he can't win the children over
because that's the thing.
You know things have gone south when the doctor can't appeal to
children.
It seems to be, it seems to be what that is saying to me anyway.
You know, he doesn't really expect to appeal to the adults.
It is really belittling of them and whatnot.
But he's never really belittling towards DD and Jethro.
Like even when he's saying, okay, Jethro, shut up.
It's more, no, no, Jethro not helping rather than Jethro, you
stupid idiot.
Yeah.
So the one character that we haven't mentioned is Sky Sylvestri
who is played by Leslie Sharp, who Russell had worked with before
because she plays Judith in the Second Coming.
And so the 2nd coming, she's the kind of female lead in the 2nd
coming, and the 2nd coming is, you know, the story of her kind of
dealing with the arrival of the 2nd coming of Christ in the form
of Christopher Eccleston.
And she plays a massive role.
She's the kind of main character, the person who actually ends up
being the one telling the story.
And she's clearly an incredible actor.
And so he's been waiting, I think, to give her something as
amazing as this.
Sky's an outsider, sort of straight away, isn't she?
She's a lesbian.
Well, yeah, so she's queer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So she's a lesbian, but she's also isolated, you know, and there's
a kind of heterosexuality to the other 2 pairings of people.
You know, you've got DD and Professor Hobbs.
We don't think they're on together, but it is a man and a woman in
a sort of subordinate position.
And then you've got the middle class family on the other side
she's on her own.
And when the doctor talks to her, the others aren't kind of
involved in that.
And she gets to explain that she is now on her own.
Like her wife has left her and moved to a distant galaxy.
I love that scene.
Yeah.
Yeah, because it's not, you know how, for a long time, queer
characters in fiction are written either as comic relief or noble
suffering AIDS victim.
Not lesbian characters so much, but that's the only paradigm you
could have.
And even in the late 2000s, that's still quite a prevalent thing.
Look at most career representation, television apart from things
written by Russell T. Davis.
And it's usually comic relief or somebody who's deeply sort of
damaged by a horrible thing that's happened to them.
It's kind of refreshing to have her just be a normal person whose
marriage has broken down.
But I do think the reason that he makes her a lesbian isn't just
for representation, it is also to kind of put her on the outside.
Yeah, to other.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So when the other characters gang up on her.
Do you know what I mean?
It has an added dimension.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
And plus I love that line about it being both beef and chicken.
That's so fantastic Bebop calf.
Sorry.
There's a lovely little bonding moment between them when he
destroys the sound system because she looks over and she notices
the Sonic screwdriver and notices everything switch off and then
she just looks at him and smiles and gets back to her book and
she's got like a proper dead tree book.
Yeah.
Whereas everyone else is gonna, you know, watch Betty Boop and
things like that.
That's not believable, books are dead already now.
This is 1000s of years in the past.
Dead media, like Blu-ray.
I'm literally looking at Nathan's Doctor Who, the collection Blu
ray box sets on the shelf.
Well, they're pretty except for the 3 Australian ones with the
giant ratings advancement.
I haven't opened them.
No, I'm sure they're great.
Your box is pristine.
And so your Blu-ray collections.
Sorry.
So when they turn on the doctor, Val says what, like an
immigrant?
You know, he says, oh, I'm just a traveller and she says, what
like an immigrant?
Let's, before we get on to what happens when the whole thing
breaks down and the characters are at each other's throats, let's
talk a little bit about the monster and the way that the monster
is presented.
Like, I think that the monster is so smart because, like, your 1st
rule of, like, you watch a lot of Doctor Who episodes and everyone
laughs at the cheap monster, and this was where they're never
going to show it.
So there was, you cut out that believability, the unbelievable
factor of it.
Whereas, like, I feel like midnight's one of those episodes you
could sit down with your family and you're not going to be
embarrassed by it.
It, I mean, because its ambitions kind of aren't, it doesn't sort
of strive to wow you with the special effect sequences.
I think it does have some nice special effect sequences, which
look a bit dated now, but basically what it's doing is, you know
music, acting, script actors, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Psychological suspense, thriller, audio play with visuals.
Yeah, and so the banging on the outside is genuinely properly
terrifying, and it's made that, I think, because the rules of
midnight have been established, you know, that it's not just that
there's no air out there.
It's that the sunlight is deadly.
And so nothing can possibly be outside.
And so Professor Hobbs's role for the whole sort of 1st part of it
is to reinforce those rules so that we know because it's a made-up
world.
You know, the rules could be anything.
But because you've got a professor in a cardigan telling you what
the rules are.
So when they're broken.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.
That's right.
And he continues to believe that there's nothing outside, even
once the monster rips the cabin off the bus, he's still protesting
that this can't possibly be happening.
There can't possibly be anything outside.
Yeah, yeah.
I was watching this, thinking in sort of trout in terms, he's the
intransigent base commander.
He's the intransigent bus.
Oh, I couldn't help myself.
That was fair.
That was worth the pain.
But yeah, he's the he's like the guy in the wheel in space saying
I don't like mysteries, so nothing strange is happening, Gemma.
You know?
That that that's his role.
And kind of DD is the voice of reason kind of saying, okay, it's
impossible, but it is happening.
So let's actually talk about what's in front of us rather than
just going, oh no, that can't possibly happen.
So there is that thing too, where, and I think this is Santa for
who says this, that even...
Take a drink, listener. that in a trout and kind of base under
siege story.
People's characters really consist in how competent they are and
what they think of the external threat.
And the reason that this is better than those base under siege
stories is that the characters are more interesting and that we
have something to say about, you know, kind of like about human
nature.
This has a really, really ambitious message, I think, this story.
And we will get to it when we talk about the way that they turn on
each other a little bit later.
It's a bit like Brexit, really.
Everything's like Brexit.
What don't I get a vote?
says Jethro.
A17.
No, you don't.
And that's why you're going to be in poverty.
I mean, something I found just visually interesting.
Now, obviously for production reasons, the Space Bus isn't full
you know, because we can't have that many characters, unless
you're orphan 55, But it's kind of like this is, you know, this is
one of the leisure planets, but there's no one else at the pool
with Donna.
There's only what, three, five, six, 7 passengers aboard this
space bus, I think, has seats for about 15, 16?
Yeah.
You know.
So there's there's already the impression that this is even even
for the fantastic far off future with 15 plate glass and X tonic
sunlight.
This is a slightly rundown holiday camp.
And I like that because that's a very British traditional thing as
well, you know.
The macro terror.
But yes, it's it's we're all happy here.
Everything's fine here.
You know, we're just going to sit here and we're going to watch
our cartoons or we're going to laze by the pool.
Nothing bad happens on this planet where, oh by the way, if a
window breaks, you're going to be turned to dust in 6 seconds.
The windows are 15 metres thick, though.
Well, just get Peter Capaldi to punch it all over time.
So what happens?
We see a movement.
So the bus stops and we meet Claude and Driver Joe. Oh, he's very
sweet.
He is very sweet. did like him at the time.
Joe's very pretty in his own way as well.
Yeah, well, yeah, we all are.
But even you did.
And so we just see something move outside.
It's heading towards the bus.
It seems to be going outside, sort of knocking on all of the kind
of bus surfaces.
It reminds me of.
What?
The twilight zone.
Oh, um, a terror at 50,000 feet.
Like the thing kind of pulling on the outside of the bus.
And it is able to kind of rip the front off.
So, and there's talk later that it's not, it doesn't have a body
or something like that.
Like, it's it's so brilliantly ill-defined.
And it really just does what the story needs it to do.
So we talked about the Weeping Angels and I said, they do what
they do so that the story blink works.
Here, the monster has to be a mystery because it doesn't really
work in any kind of sort of proper sense of, you know, writing a
TARDIS WIKEA entry on its various abilities or something.
But it is amazingly amazingly effective.
Imagine the top trumps for that.
I mean, I just wanted the action figure pack of, you know, listen
creature, Midnight Monster, and crafeus.
Wow, that would be cheap to produce. refuse this.
The thing is like, what does it do when it's not doing the plot?
Like what's its everyday life?
It gets up, goes to the shops, you know, it's a member of the...
Yeah, yeah. a member of the tennis club.
That sort of thing.
Like, that's exactly it.
It doesn't exist outside the confines of the story.
If the ball is your soul.
In a way, that ill-definedness is what makes it so scary.
It's like Freddy Krueger.
There's no rules to Freddy Krueger, except the one rule they have
to come up with to end each movie, but not in such a way that he
is permanently destroyed.
So it's kind of like at the end of this story.
The doctor speculates that whatever it is is still out there
because, of course, the sky's body may be destroyed when it goes
outside.
But that doesn't mean the creature is destroyed.
And so the doctor's like, I'm going to get this whole thing taken
off this planet.
But I do wonder with that ending.
It's like, you couldn't convince 5 people in a bus that you knew
what you were talking about.
Do you really think you're going to basically convince the mayor
from Jaws to take this place off?
You know, and we've seen it in Orphan 55.
And I pay out on Orphan 55, but one concept, I think it gets
brilliantly, is that this is an incredibly dangerous place, but
that means it's cheap and you can run a holiday business here.
So why would you move unless you were being devoured alive?
Yeah.
Both the remnants of humanity.
But in a sense, though, you know, one of the powers, one of the
doctor's superpowers is his knowledge of aliens, you know, like
he'll very frequently, even in a story where we're meeting someone
for the 1st time, the doctor will know who they are.
Here, that's taken away from him.
He has no idea, no more idea of what's going on than anyone else.
It's like you were saying earlier, Josh, with his arrogance.
Usually that is tempered by the companion.
There's that big bit where he just basically says, you lot need me
and you can just hear in the back of your head.
Donna then stepping forward and saying, he's right, he saved my
life so many times.
Why don't you listen to him?
Or taking him down a peg and making him look like an idiot.
Yeah, yeah, it's like...
Okay, scaring people now time, Lord.
But there's that moment where, like, he's like, oh, oh, what makes
you, you know, like, you're the boss of all of us, basically?
And he goes, because I'm clever and he goes, oh, I've gone too
far.
Yes.
And he's like, look on his face like, oh, I've lost them.
I just, you know, they're going to turn, they've turned, turning
on me and now I've just gone too far.
Yeah.
Well, the problem is he hasn't proved that he's clever because he
doesn't understand what's going on as well.
He's as clueless as everyone else.
So he can say he's clever and his egotism can do that, but you
need to prove it.
Yeah, and that whole outsider thing.
He and Sky Sylvestri are the only 2 people on the bus without
anyone to vouch for them.
You know, the family can vouch for each other.
The professor greatly underestimates DD, but in a way, that is
like her validation to the others, because the Kane parents, you
know, would obviously look down on DD, because of her age and
defer to the professor because he's older and he's the expert.
I think it's actually Biff who says, let's listen to the professor
he's the expert.
Yeah.
So it's an appeal to authority rather than an appeal to reason.
And in fact, the outsider status of the doctor and Sky are used
against them because the canes accuse them of conspiring, you
know.
And so the thing about this scene where they start tearing one
another apart and the doctor is kind of yelling at them.
The particular human evil here isn't just fear, but a particular
type of reaction to fear.
And I think it's embodied in the canes.
I think they're the worst people on the bus.
I mean, so you've got Mrs. Kane talking about immigrants.
You've got Mr. Kane.
You've got Biff, very sensitive to being called a coward and
wanting to do violence in order to prove his masculinity, right?
All of the stuff about, you know, when the doctor turns to them
and says, could you murder someone?
Could you push sky off the bus?
He says, you know, he says that he could, because he sees that as
a challenge to his masculinity.
The doctor's saying, could you be so lacking in compassion?
Could you bring yourself to murder someone?
And he goes, yes, you know, I'm a man.
I could do that.
With like Jethro, because he was younger and he was a bit more
sensitive.
He was really reluctant to be violent, and everyone kind of
convinced him to do so because he was like, well, this is what
everyone, this is what society says you have to be masculine.
So that's how I interpreted it as well.
Yeah, no, he's definitely pressured into it. and they're his
parents.
You know, that's his dad.
And they're definitely both pressuring him into behaving that
way.
And the doctor's disappointment in him is because he's given into
that.
You know, like he kind of knows better or doesn't want to do
that.
He's better than that, as the doctor would say.
But he gives in under the strain.
And as you were saying earlier, Josh. got that sort of goth
aesthetic, and this is the 1st time I've noticed he actually has
his fingernails painted, which...
Oh, an eyeliner and stuff.
An eyeliner, yeah.
And even more so in 2008, that marks him out as not a
stereotypical aspect of masculinity.
And when Skye's behaviour changes throughout the possession
process, he is the 1st to notice.
He notices sky sitting at the end by herself, and then he notices
that she is now synchronised.
And then he notices that she has stopped repeating everyone else
except the doctor.
He is, you're right, Josh, entirely sensitive not only to others
but to the situation and incredibly perceptive.
So in a way, DD kind of has the smarts and the knowledge, she
knows about the engines, she knows about the ship.
She knows about myths and legends, about goblins, whereas Jethro
is the more sensitive empathic person. and feeling and and he's
coded because he's coat of femme and goth.
He's coded as other.
Even if it's, you know, unlike Sky's character who's not coded as
queer, he's not coded as straight.
Well, I mean, he's very quickly put into sort of conflict with his
father.
You know, he won't sit with them, but, you know, he's quite happy
for them to pay for his ticket, Biff says, you know, like, like
he's taking that sort of masculine provider role.
And what about Val?
Like, maybe out of Biff, like, Biff is violent and, you know
trying to be masculine.
Valley's really, really quite horrible, I think.
And she's the one who actually says that she saw the thing pass
from Sky to the doctor and she repeats that several times and
bullies Jethro into admitting it as well.
And at the end when the situation's resolved, she says that she
knew all along.
Yeah, she's a coward.
Yeah, yeah.
But she, she will see what she needs to see in order to perform
the violence that she wants perform.
Yeah, yeah.
Val wants to see a manager basically.
Yeah, yeah.
She should have been called Karen.
Valley's short for Karen.
Let's talk about maybe the most impressive being in the episode
and that is the interplay between David Tennant and Leslie Sharp.
It is just stunning.
And this episode won several BAFTAs, scriptwriting, but also for
sound and editing.
Right.
And this time around was the 1st time I've watched it with
headphones.
And as the camera moves around the room, the sound mix between
Leslie Dunlop and whoever she's copying changes, it's so amazingly
good.
It is so incredible.
But the thing is sometimes the camera will be next to like, um, the
hostess, but you'll get Sky's audio in full.
Yes, I noticed that. deliberate.
It's deliberately offsetting and off-putting.
One of Doctor Who's Great Triumphs is doing horror without doing
blood and gore.
Yeah.
And this does that so well.
Like I was watching this in a perfectly well lit room in the
middle of the day and I had shivers up my spine.
So before she starts saying the things at the same time as them.
The thing that she's doing is the thing that your younger brother
does to really irritate you, that kind of repeating thing.
And it's clearly designed by Russell to be something that you can
do in the playground.
Do you all know how Russell pitched this episode to Phil
Collinson?
No.
Well, Russell said, pretty much said to Phil Collinson, ask me a
question, and Phil said, what did you have for lunch today?
And Russell said, what did you have for lunch today?
What are you doing?
Oh, oh, thing is, right?
So Phil gets it within 3 statements.
Russell kept going for 10 minutes. before Phil finally said, okay
I get it.
This is terrifying.
You know it took him 3 days to write the script.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a replacement for a script by Tom McRae. called Century House
which was set on a reality TV, like haunted house show, like most
haunted.
And they had to drop it because it was too close to Unicorn the
Wasp.
And he had to write the script in 3 days.
You know what the other inspirations were though?
But he was writing this.
Jeep as Creepers 2.
Oh yeah.
Actually, have seen it is good.
It's about a bus that gets stuck and is preyed upon by a monster.
And the other inspiration which Nathan will love is Dumok.
Oh, yes, I think I had heard that.
The Star Trek the Next Generation episode.
But literally only the radio times listing. which I don't have to
hand is something along the lines of the Enterprise must make 1st
contact with an alien race whose language is unintelligible.
And that was all Russell had to go on.
He's like, I don't want to watch the episode.
I don't want to be influenced.
But this is where Russell takes that idea.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, Star Trek writers take it into the idea of, oh, you know
they team up and kill a monster and there's peaceful contact
between these 2 racers.
Russell's like, I am going to tear apart a family. and destroy an
academic.
And you're going to like it.
No, it's superb. great.
That actually, you know what?
I said earlier, this episode annoys Rod, when we watched Star Trek
the Next Generation on Blu-ray, he refused to watch Darbok.
He's like, I will never watch that again.
I said, you watch the one which is the really racist planet of the
black people and you won't watch this?
No, no honour.
Code of honour.
You said, I can laugh at code of honour.
But yeah, it's like, well, I'm a language geek, so I'm watching
it.
You said you're watching it on your own.
Yeah, but it's just fascinating how 2 different writers can take
the same idea.
And especially Russell, who has that incredible side of darkness
that we've seen in queer as folk and Doctor Who and cucumber and
years and years, and, you know, writes about the optimism of the
future of humanity and Doctor Who, not unfettered optimism, but
optimism nonetheless. and gives us a story where basically there
is no optimism for humanity.
Do you think, like, I wonder whether it's because he's writing it
in 3 days, and so it's unfiltered Russell, because Russell, despite
we've said this before, but despite his big, giant, jolly
performance where everything's marvellous and wonderful, like we
saw him on all those Doctor Who confidentials, when you read the
writer's tale, for instance, you can see that there's a real kind
of bleak cynicism to his worldview.
Yeah, he's bleak as F. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Bleekers folk.
Oh, bleak as folk.
Very well, non-rendant.
That's how queer as folk podcast.
Bleak as folk.
Now it's so bleak as folk.
I mean, honestly, listener, if you decide to do a queers folk
podcast, totally take that time when we are never going to get to
it.
And then we'll sue you.
So that's absolutely here.
The human the human race is kind of horrible.
We're xenophobic.
We defer to authority.
There's all sorts of, you know, horrible issues with sort of toxic
performative masculinity.
We're easily frightened.
We lash out when we're frightened, we form coalitions.
All of those things that these people do.
It's basically 2016.
But it's now.
I mean, but it was then then, you know.
No, no, but it's...
He is bleak, isn't he?
And it's basically him going, humanity is a trash fire.
Humanity is a trash fire.
But there isn't even a moment of redemption.
So one of my favourite scenes in the whole thing is where they've
been through all of this and now they're stuck in the bus for the
rest of the hour and they've got nothing to say to one another and
Val does her little sort of self-justification thing and the
doctor doesn't even dignify it with a response.
Well, I was thinking about this story as well.
Like, it could have been set in the 1800s on a train and it still
would have been as relevant as it is in the far future because
humanity is always the same.
And I really love that.
Yeah, well, I think I think that that's what it aspires to do.
It does aspire to talk about humanity, not in a particular context
but generally what we like.
It's very interesting then that the final scene where Dr. and
Donna are talking, you know, if this was, say, a pertly story, you
would expect at the end for the brigadier to say, oh, you know
well, the monster almost got your doctor and the doctor say, well
no, actually, brigadier, it was humanity that almost got me, you
know.
But they leave that hanging for the audience to think about rather
than tell us what we should think of that situation.
It's quite obvious what Russell wants to present to us, but it's
just like the situation on the bus itself, it's messy and kind of
left as, okay, I've put this thing in the room, in the middle of
the room, this is a piece of art, you react to it how you like.
I'm not going to tell you what to think of this.
And, you know, really, I think Chris Chibnall, or even Stephen
Moffat would have had that last scene with the doctor and Donna
and the doctor railing against humanity and how could, how could
they have done this?
That was a new creature, et cetera, et cetera.
But instead, it's more personal and it's Donna expressing concern
for what has happened to the doctor.
I also think too that it riffs on a joke that's been done 3 times
by this point in Doctor Who, including in the Infinite Quest, where
the companion does an accent and the doctor goes, no, no, no, don't
do that.
I mean, we had that joke a few weeks ago also in Unicorn and the
Wasp.
And so here when Donna says Maltobaner, he does the no, no, no
don't do that.
And it's because, we said before, he's not equipped with any
knowledge.
So that's one superpower out of the way.
But the other thing is that his speech not only doesn't work, but
gets taken away from him.
Yeah, absolutely.
Like, the doctor's main weapon is words.
You know, all Doctor Who showrunners are like, the doctor doesn't
pick up a gun, he doesn't fire a bazooka at people.
He doesn't open a candidate, people.
His weapon is words, and the words are taken from him.
First of all, they're taken from him because they have no power
over these people who've never met him before.
And there's no human with him to justify him.
And then they're taken quite literally.
So I think maybe for a Doctor Who fan watching the show, one of
the most terrifying scenes is that incredibly directed scenes
where Sky Silvestri is standing up, she's in the middle of the
shot, her head is held high, and she's just playing those people
you know, terrifying them about the monster that she says in
habits, David Tennant's body, and he's just dragged along, fully
conscious, but unable to speak.
Like that seems to be the thing.
He's not controlled or possessed or anything by her.
He's just being made to repeat all of that sort of daily male fear
mongering that Sky Sylvestri is saying.
She's paralysed him.
He's paralysed because like that's the whole thing.
He can't move.
So he's powerless and has no voice either.
So, like, he's completely robbed of any agency.
And then, you know, like, you can believe that this character is
about to die.
Like, he's not.
It's Doctor Who.
Of course, he's not going to die.
Unless it's a season finale, it's about for a generator.
But you can totally believe if you had never watched a show before
if you had no idea about the main character, you could believe
that this as a horror movie, that he is going to die and that's
going to be the end of it.
He's not the one who gets them out of it.
No, no, it's, you know, it's kind of a throwback to Christopher
Eccleston, where Christopher Eccleston would often inspire someone
else to, who takes action.
And so, does he even do that?
Well, in a way, no, it's DD.
Like it's DD's observed what's happening and the hostess, you know
is convinced by that.
And so it is DeeDee who fixes the problem.
You know, Driver Joe's already called for rescue.
There's no doubt that they'll be rescued.
So it's the hostess and Didi that actually solved the problem and
the doctor doesn't do anything.
And they're clearly going to survive, and the only danger really
is that they'll start killing one another, and the doctor looks
like he's going to be the next victim.
Like, I feel like there's a lot to say.
Like, even with the final line being like the hostess, what's her
name?
That says a lot.
And it says a lot about like, the whole thing is about like
bigotry in every single way, classes and racism, the whole thing.
And I think with the hostess saving the day and no one knowing her
name said everything about humanity in that single moment.
Remember, too, that the canes are constantly telling her that her
job is to fix this.
So in the context of that fight, that's just them putting her down
and pulling rank on her with a customer.
But it turns out it is her job to fix it.
But also, Sky says that to us well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's your job to fix this.
So it's kind of poetic that at the end of the story.
It's that character, the character that's being treated like a
piece of crap.
For the entire episode, belittled, ignored, talked down to.
She's the one that saves the day.
She actually does her job.
By rising up and killing a customer.
Don't we all just want to?
We all worked in retail, haven't we?
The extraordinary thing I find about that scene is I was just
looking at the staging of it and when the creature overtakes the
doctor, it then asks the professor to help me up.
And, you know, at the time, of course, I thought, oh, that's just
you know, garnering sympathy, oh, look at me, I'm poor, I'm so
helpless.
You know, come and help me, please.
But then I notice that when she gets into the middle of everyone.
She hardly moves.
She just talks.
And I thought, 0 my God, she's gotten used to the speech.
Now she's getting used to the body.
Right.
And her 1st independent movement is when the doctor's about to be
thrown out, and she turns to face him and starts shouting, Malta
Benet.
And the great thing is, you then come to the doctor.
Malta, Ben, Alonze.
And in fact, it's that.
There's that wonderful thing where he's trying to be jolly to the
hostess and she is ignoring him.
Like she isn't interested in any of his French.
So when he tells her what animals he means, you know, she's
absolutely not interested, she says something sort of hilariously
dismissive, but it's her knowledge that that's the sort of thing
that he would say that makes it clear to her that Sky has stolen
his voice.
Because everyone, everyone knows in this, in this future of people
who want to chuck each other outside of space buses to be burned
to death in 6 seconds, nobody could possibly speak French.
No.
Well, we know from Star Trek, the next generation that people
French people in the future speak English.
Yeah, except to their dogs, apparently.
Well, we all know the doctor wouldn't be in the same train with
someone who's French.
We all saw twice upon a time he hates French people, apparently
so...
Why on?
Yeah.
Why on earth would you give that line to the doctor?
When there is a British soldier from 1913 who probably thinks that
standing right there?
And not to mention the doctor's, the 1st doctor's favourite
historical place is the French Revolution.
Yes.
But he didn't like their kitchen.
He has to draw a line somewhere.
Get me out of this place.
It's full of restaurants.
I don't think we're doing an episode on that because I don't think
it ever happened.
It didn't.
No.
We talked early about how the doctor turned all the technology off
and forced everyone to talk, but I feel like David Tennant's
doctor.
The reason why the audience loved him so much was because that he
would get along with anyone, despite who they were or anything.
He would always start a conversation with everybody and he seemed
like, oh, here's your bezy mate.
Whereas, you know, someone like Peter Capoldi, who I love, a lot
of people were like, oh, but he wouldn't even give me a hug.
Why would I want to hang out with this guy?
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, absolutely.
I'm imagining now Peter Cabaldi shutting off that entertainment
system and then when someone tries to start a conversation, no, I
wanted silence.
Thank you.
But no, you're right.
David Tennant.
Yeah, he kind of does that for selfish reasons, but when he says
no, I want to talk to you all, genuinely, I'm not here with
Donna.
New people.
Hi.
Yeah Who do you think is his favourite on the bus, Josh?
Jethro, because he's my favourite, and you can't go wrong with a
goth boy.
What can I say?
He's so pretty. quite quite right to it.
I mean, that's the thing.
I usually go for bigger and junkier, but there is something about
him.
There is.
There is something about he's just such a good actor.
Yes, that must be it.
Must be.
He's actually a really good actor as well.
You know, but especially that bit of, you know, the boss has
broken down in the middle of nowhere.
Oh, when he does sort of 666 and, you know, like he gets some sky
to repeat it, like he's being sort of scary and gothy and stuff.
Yeah, meta.
I actually get the impression during that whole sequence where the
doctor wants to chat to everyone on the bus, it's like he's
auditioning for who his companion is going to be this week.
So, you know, we've got DD who is brilliantly intelligent, but
sort of a bit trodden on and can only express her intelligence
when she's away from the professor.
We've got Jethro, who is jokey and says inappropriate things like
666 but is also incredibly intelligent.
And we've got Skye who has the traditional Doctor Who tragic
backstory trademark, you know.
But the 2 of them really hit it off.
Like, I think they properly hit it off and we talked about the
moment where, you know, she sees him disable the thing.
I like that little scene.
But it's also that, that, and that's, again, you know, she has
been set up and coded as this is your companion figure for the
week.
And then, you know, she's the one that he hits it off with.
Yes, she's one that he hits it off with.
She is endangered and he rushes straight to help her.
Yeah, and she she has a sympathetic backstory that makes you care
about her.
And then she's horribly murdered.
Like by this, by this bizarre alien creature.
And it's just horrible.
It's so horrible.
I love this story.
It's so horrible.
Well, there, listener, that's all we have time for this week.
We'll be back next week in a terrifyingly familiar parallel
universe to find out what happens when you don't turn left.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us at Flightthrough Entirety on Facebook
at FT podcast on Twitter, and on our website, FlightthroughEntirety
com, where you'll find links to our other podcasts, Bondfinger and
Jody into Terra.
Josh, where can people find you?
Yeah, you can find me on YouTube just as Josh Snares for more
Doctor Who, Oddity, boring stuff.
It's absolutely not boring at all.
It's really quite extraordinary.
So make sure you check it out.
It's definitely worth a look.
Until next time, when you go to the market this week, why not
sling the goblin men a few, Bob?
Their fruits are syrupy and delicious and redolent with a erotic
subtext.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Bye.
That was flight for entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Brendan
Jones, James Selwood, and Josh Snares.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, strings performance by Jane
Orberg, closing joke by Douglas Adams.
This episode, your Besie mate, was recorded on the 13th of
February 2020 and released on the 17th of May.
Information about package holidays on midnight can be found in the
leaflets, some sapphires and suffering on the most totally evil
place in the galaxy.
Val wants to see a manager basically.
You should have been called Karen.
Yes, that is short for Karen. cabal.
No, that's a Blake 7 name.
Never mind.
Oh, Carven?
Carbon?
Carbon.
Creed of the Cromen.
Oh no, don't say that.
We've had Conrad on the podcast.
And he's delightful. gorgeous.
This is all going in.
It really isn't.
Let's talk about maybe the most impressive thing in the episode
and that is the interplay between David Tennant and Leslie Sharp.
You were you were about to say Dunlop, weren't you?
I'll never tire of that.
I'm sorry.
When are we doing the happiness patrol podcast?
We've done it like 12 times.
Right after Casino Rale.
No, it's it is just stunning.