Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flightthrough Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast that 12 years later is still
completely terrified of backpacks.
I'm Nathan.
I'm James.
I'm Brendan.
Hello, I'm Joe. Well, this time it's David Tennant's week off
which is good because it turns out that the doctor is dead, but
there's no time for us to mourn as the world collapses into a
horrifying fascist dystopia, much like the plot of this week's
Doctor Who episode, turn left.
So, Joe, this is us hearing you for the first time on the
podcast.
Do you want to tell us how you feel generally about how series 4
has been going so far?
Um, I love it.
I, uh, those 1st 4 years of the new series are my favourite, um, to
this date and I think turn left.
What we're going to talk about sums up exactly why I love those
1st 4 years.
Um, I just think it's just the best solid run of Doctor Who
there's ever been.
Uh, Donner is amazing, obviously, um, following on from Amazing
Rose and Erasing Amazing Martha.
Uh, and yeah, um, it's, uh, you know, obviously midnight is
astonishing.
And you think nothing's going to get better than midnight, and
then turn left comes along the following week, and you think, ah
and anything, nothing's going to get better.
And then you see the next time trainer at the end of turn left and
you go, what did we do to deserve this amazing glorious piece of
television?
No, so I think it's just it's one of the most exciting periods in
Doctor Who there's literally ever been.
I think I would definitely agree with that.
And for me, and I think I've said this before on the podcast, that
this run of sort of 7 episodes from Unicorn and the Wasp through
to Journey's End is maybe the strongest run that the show has ever
done.
It's really something.
Yeah, no, yeah.
I mean, it just, I think it feels like it's the culmination of all
the world building Russell's done in torchwood and in the Sarah
Jane adventures and of course in Doctor Who and We've never had
that sense before and I don't think we ever really get it again of
all this stuff happening in the same universe and all these
amazingly detailed characters.
I mean, I know they're all about return left.
What Russell does so well in turn left is these characters like
Rocco and even Donna's mates in the pub just feel like real people
real three-dimensional people.
Um, which he does so well with just such a short amount of screen
time.
And so then to actually see in the next time trainer, Gwen and
Yanto and Sarah Jane and everything like that.
Um, There were characters who said that even longer to develop.
It's just so exciting and just seeing it all come together in one
story, you know, coming up in one story, um, following on from
this is just, yeah, it's so exciting.
Mind you, opening's a bit racist, Brendan.
Well, I think the opening scene on Shen Shen, which I believe in
the script is described as the China planet, Shen Shen, right.
I think it's a reference to Firefly.
Ah, yes.
Because Joss Whedon's thought with Firefly and Russell has gone on
record as saying he's a big fan of Joss's work.
Joss Windsor on Firefly is, you know, in the far future, the 2
dominant cultures are the English speaking culture and the Chinese
speaking culture and they kind of amalgamate and merge.
Only there are no Asian people in Firefly to speak of.
No, exactly.
It's a bit like Talons of Wing Chiangan.
Well, so we're already one up in that we actually have Asian
actors.
I mean, I was going to say, to me, it feels like going into, you
know, I live in London and you go into Chinatown.
Yeah. in London.
You know, China Planet. not racist.
That's where a lot of Chinese people live.
You know, I know what you mean.
At 1st when it came on, I was like, oh, is this something that
even now only, what are we, 10 years on that now might be seen as
racist?
But to me, it's no different from walking into Chinatown in London
you know?
It's it looks like Chinatown in Soho, you know, it's it's very
much that sort of vibe.
Is it racist or is it cultural appropriation?
Well, no, I don't think it's either of those.
And I, look, I think that there probably is, you know, that the
the sort of foreign, um, you know, fortune teller woman is like
that's sort of slightly awkward and we'll get onto that later.
But I remember at the time thinking we've had so many planets in
Doctor Who that are just inhabited by kind of Europeans and, you
know, that kind of thing that actually seeing another culture in
Doctor Who makes a change.
And I think that this is not the 1st time where Russell has kind
of conceived of the doctor's travel as like tourism.
So in the long game, for instance, he compares space travel or
time travel to popping over to France and using the wrong verbs
and things.
And so those opening scenes of the doctor and Donna walking
through a market really properly read like that, I think.
Yeah, I mean, I think Russell really emphasised, and I think it
was always, you know, I think in our heads, we always thought
about it in the old series, but I think what Russell really
emphasises is, Each week we see when they have a terrifying
adventure, what we don't see is all the brilliant stuff, an
exciting, fun places they visit in between each episode because
that would be boring television.
So, you know, nobody would stay with the doctor if you literally
had 13 weeks of the trauma that they go through.
What makes it worth it is A saving people, but B, in between all
those horrible things.
You get to have joy and get to, like you say, tourism.
Um, and I think the opening scene of turn left really shows that.
You've never seen Donna so relaxed than having such a great time.
Um, you know, because she's on holiday.
She's on this big holiday where occasionally, they do amazing
brilliant things to save the universe.
And I think there's a deliberate sort of visual similarity between
this market and the marketplace in Pompeii, because the
marketplace in Pompeii within 2 minutes. you know, they're in
trouble.
Whereas here we get a montage of them enjoying different things in
the market and when Donna is lured into the fortune teller's room
the doctor is obviously bartering about something.
And I tried to lip read him this time and he's holding some sort
of gourd and saying, this is clearly off.
Then he starts laughing.
So he's having a good time as well.
We've got Chippo Chung.
Yes, from Utopia.
From Chan from Utopia, though.
Well done, yeah.
But originally, apparently, she was going to be cast as the
character who became Rocco.
She was going to be someone Donna met after the disaster, who was
then put in the back of a truck and taken away because she wasn't
British.
Right.
But she was cast as the fortune teller instead.
And that may have informed, you know, the choice to make this the
China planet Shen Shen.
Yeah. did not know that.
While we're talking backstory, though, this story kind of existed
before we knew that Donna was coming back for series 4, at least
in sort of some sense, apparently, that there was some idea when
we were sort of throwing the idea of Penny around as the doctor's
new companion, that there would be, you know, what would it have
been like if she hadn't met the doctor?
And then suddenly we get Catherine Tate.
And it gives us an opportunity to do something really, really
quite amazing, that wouldn't have otherwise been possible because
now we get to see the doctor, um, the doctor dies at the end of
series 2 at the end of his his 1st series in The Runaway Bride.
And then we get to see him not there for this sort of long series
of different sort of Doctor Who events.
And I guess we've seen that.
I guess we saw it in Love and Monsters as well, where we get to
see Elton's sort of outside viewpoint of what's been happening to
Earth.
But here it's really, really amazing because those things are
given kind of real teeth.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, you've got sort of cute fat monsters and you've got some the
Titanic going to crash into into Buckingham Palace and all of
those things are fun, silly Doctor Who threats that are taken
seriously within the kind of programs they appear in.
But suddenly when they're actually allowed to follow through.
Like it's extraordinary.
Like, it's really quite something that you get a sort of version
of years and years, only it's caused by, you know, a giant
radioactive replica of the Titanic crashing into Buckingham
balance.
I think what really makes it work is, again, it's the characters
um, is, you know, bringing back Morgenstone from Smith and Jones
and things like that.
It's seeing that combined with how we all react to when bad stuff
happens.
It doesn't affect us personally, we kind of get on their own
lives.
You know, the bit where the new support talks about Sarah Jane
Smith dying and there's that gorgeous pitch of Liz Sladen. from
actually from a few years ago, it's not a publicity photo.
It's a gorgeous sort of photo where she's just in a pub or
something.
And that is literally the 1st line after we hear that is Sylvia
saying something about a whole punch because you get on with your
life.
And I think that really shows how we fall into that.
And I did got, I mean, it was amazing watching as an adult.
Imagine watching as a kid, it must have been mind blowing to go
Sarah Jane Smith just died and Donna's mom is talking about a hole
punch.
So it's Sarah Jane Smith, Sylvia, Donna.
It's all these characters that Russell has developed over
obviously Sarah was before, but he developed her, but it's all
these characters we've seen in different settings and they're all
coming together, but all, you know, rose coldly, coldly talking
about Jack and Gwen and Yanto dying, and the kids on the moon, you
know, it's just heartbreaking because it's saying to us, whenever
A terrible thing happens on the other side of the world or on the
moon, or, you know, down the road, whenever there's a car accident
you know, when even right at the end when Donna and Sylvia were
like, oh, something's happened on the road, oh, well, we better
turn left.
You know, not realising that it's actually Donna, who's there, it's
really Russell saying to us.
Every time something bad happens, there are people affected and
there are people that, if you had, you know, if your life had
taken a different journey, you might know that person that's just
died, you might know, you know, the person and so you would feel
that.
You wouldn't be talking about hole punches and food and things
like that.
I just think it's brilliant.
It's so clever and to actually take something like the adipose.
Which, you know, whether Trinity Wells says, what, 60000000 people
have died or something.
And Sylvia's face just decide, whatever, I don't care because
she's so broken by events.
But yeah, like you say, I think it's the genius of Russell is to
take the joy and silliness of partners of crime, adds Trinity
Wells, which is the campus singer's ever been in Doctor Who.
Um, put that in, have people in a fascist Britain watching that on
the telly and have the amazing Jacqueline King who plays Sylvia
just have this amazing expression on her face.
It's just taking all these things and turning it into this amazing
glorious piece of drama.
That shot where Donna comes in to talk to Sylvia and the focus
just stays on Sylvia and she's totally broken.
And it's Catherine doing most of the talking, but we just stay on
Jacqueline and, you know, we've seen her be so aggressive and
sharp tongued and clever.
And just it's over the course of the episode, as you say, Joe, we
see her slowly losing that gumption, losing that gumption, and
then, you know, and Graham Harper doesn't shy away from that.
He's like look at this woman's face.
Yeah.
Look at this humanity.
Because she's amazing.
But also it's like, even though this episode is all about Donna
and all about how important Donna is.
Yeah, we're being forced to confront something terrible happening
to someone who isn't us.
It's so Twilight Zony, the way it turns on Sylvia in that way, that
she was so dismissive of it earlier, but now she's in the middle
of it. just breaks her.
What it allows us to see as well is just what a three-dimensional
character Donner is.
Because Donna isn't a terrible person before she meets a doctor.
Donna's just a bit selfish, a bit broken down by life.
And, you know, Sylvia is absolutely right.
Donna wants to go and work at H.C.
Clemens because she wants to meet a rich man who will just sort
out her life for it.
She's just a bit selfish and uncaring about the world around it.
And what we actually see in this story is you see Donna.
Being broken by the events that are happening and then obviously
being terrified at the end and then just this amazing hero at the
end.
But what you see with her, I think with Sylvia, is you see her
Broken down, but when Sylvia absolutely break is broken, Donna
does try.
You know, so you, You go from these scenes of Donna, trying to
help her mum.
And then at the next time calling Rocco Mussolini.
You know, I think it just shows what an amazing developed
character Donna actually is that she's not just Selfish woman
whose life was changed by the doctor.
All that stuff is in her already and she's constantly trying, but
it just keeps breaking her down.
And, you know, by having Sylvia and Will.
As these really good characters around her.
It allows us.
I think again, that's what Russell's done brilliantly by
introducing the families to the show.
We see what has made the companions who they are and what they're
fighting against as well as what they actually are.
Yeah, I mean, in a few episodes time, we'll have the doctor
lecturing, Sylvia, about the way that she's treated Donna.
And here you've got, you know, the sort of comedy banter hectoring
that they do in the car where she's calling her madam and, you
know, talking down to her.
And then that scene that that Brendan mentioned is Sylvia's last
scene in the episode.
And she only says one word.
She does speak, and it's Donna in the background says something
like, I've always been a great disappointment to you, and she just
quietly says yes, and she just really means it.
Like, and that's so much more horrible and so much more
heartbreaking than all of the loud, noisy performative put downs
that we get normally from Sylvia and have been getting sort of all
the way through.
I think that seems brilliant.
And it's sort of bookends with the scene in partners in crime
where Don is sitting in the foreground, just staring into the
distance while Sylvia is cleaning up the kitchen, you know, that
sort of time lapse thing where Sylvia's just talking about how
disappointed she is in Donner and how kind of worthless and
useless she thinks Donna is.
And she does all that without us hating it.
Like, I don't think we ever dislike Sylvia, however mean she is to
Donna.
We love Donna, but Sylvia's fantastic.
I think Sylvia just wants, you know, it's actually that scene
where the doctor tells Sylvia.
He's right.
She should tell Donna that she's proud of her.
But at the same time, that's very easy for the doctor to say
because he's not living in a family and not living in the real
world.
Again, I think it's brilliant because I think, I assume that it's
deliberate that actually, well, we are on the doctor's side, it's
actually very easy for someone like the doctor to come in and say
that.
It's not easy when you're living day-to-day life.
Sylvia just wants the best for Donna.
Yeah, Sylvia's not perfect, but she wants the best of Donna and
Sylvia's been dealt the hard life, you know, especially when her
husband dies, you know, so and she's got her dad living with her
you know, Sylvia, you know, has a, I don't know how old Donna's
meant to be.
She's in her 30s, isn't she?
You know, Sylvia has an adult daughter living with her and her
elderly dad living with her.
You know, Sylvia's at the time of her life, but she should be, is
it the Wednesday girls?
She goes out with him partners in crime.
That should be Sylvia's life.
She should be out. enjoying her late middle age or her middle
age.
She shouldn't be, looking after this daughter who's a bit feckless
and an elderly grandad who just goes and sits on a hill and
watches the stars.
You know, actually, when you look at it from Sylvia's point of
view, she's got quite a, you know, just come on, family, give me
some cut me some slack.
Let me live my life.
So I actually very much can see Sylvia's point of view through a
lot of it.
I think also, I mean, yes, this, we, we've been talking quite a
lot about the darkness and the brokenness of these characters, but
then you still have moments until that sort of lasts 15 minutes
where these characters are actually still finding joy and love
from each other when they go on holiday because they, they win the
the raffle, they're actually enjoying themselves.
And Sylvia says to Donna, oh, your father would have loved this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah, yeah.
And, and, and, and you see, you can see that these characters
actually, these people really love each other.
And then there's that wonderful shot the next on Christmas morning
when Sylvia's made Wolf sleep on the cow.
Well, she's in bed.
She's in bed wearing that gorgeous red silk thing, eating
chocolate.
You know, I think getting out of bed till 10.
She deserves this.
You know, Sylvia should be out with the Wednesday girls every
night.
She should be having Christmas with an adult single jobless
daughter, you know, her dad.
Yeah.
Oh my god, Suzette's dead.
I just...
Neres is dead.
There's no loss.
I was once a...
It wasn't a convention, I don't think.
It was a sort of gathering of Dr. He fans.
There used to be a lot of Dr. get together and Just get very drunk
and play silly games and stuff and someone did do, I think, a
video or certainly acted it in front of us.
I think it might have been Paul Condon.
I've got a feeling it was Paul and um, it was him and somebody
else and they just did, did an impression, a sketch about Donna
and Sylvia remembering people who was dead.
You know, just it kept going on and on until the point Donna was
like, all right, let it go.
They're all dead.
We get it. everyone's there.
But I did think when you talk about the hope and the love.
There's the glorious moment where Donna goes screaming in to tell
them to stop singing.
And then the next shot of Sylvia just sat there trying so hard to
be part of this whole singing group.
And she just can't do it because she's not made that way.
She's quite introverted, I think.
She's not, she can't get on with strangers.
But she's trying so hard because Donovan Will for making her try.
And you just see a little bit of hope on her face.
And again, it's just about these characters. knocking each other
down, but also always building each other up.
I think they're very sort of, I don't think, you know, if Sylvia
and Donald were in another show and the doctor never came in.
What you would see is Sylvia knocking anybody out who slagged off
Donna.
Sylvia would absolutely defend on her to the hill.
She's just not going to say it to her face because she's not very
good with her emotions.
She'll be the 1st one to slag dollar off to her face, but the
moment she hears a neighbour doing it, Donna Sylvia will be
hitting her with a frying pan.
She would absolutely defend her daughter more than anyone in the
world, I think.
I think too, you get hints this series about how much she loves
Wolf too.
Like, you know, she bosses him around, won't let him have a webcam
you know, like sort of monsters him and orders him about.
But that bit in the poison sky where she's crying in his arms and
he's calling her my little girl.
Like, it's it's really, really beautiful.
It's so spectacular.
I mean, we had, we had 2 years with the tilers, um, and just one
year and a Christmas special, um, with the nobles, but I just
think they're so, you know, the relationships, I think it's like
what you said before, Joe, that it doesn't really take very much
time for Russell to create a character, just the way that he's
able to sketch out characters in a few lines of dialogue.
He doesn't even need dialogue at times.
I was the 1st one of the 1st jobs I had on the TV series or
related to the TV series was, um, I did the series 2 spinoff
websites, but I wrote Martha Jones is my space blog, which shows
how old.
Everything is now.
It's a MySpace block.
I think she was only...
I think I only read on MySpace was Tom, you know, from the MySpace
style.
So I wrote the officials, it meant I got to read the scripts
obviously, to get to know the character so that the MySpace blogs
would be up when the episode went out.
And the opening of Smith and Jones.
Russell creates that entire family, Martha's huge family, and
absolutely, within a minute of a basically a montage of people
having 2 or 3 lines.
I absolutely know everything about Martha's family.
I know.
I was able to write that MySpace page because it was just, Well
it's there.
It's there in 30 seconds a minute of television.
Russell has created.
Characters and a setup.
That are more developed than you might see after an hour of
television written by somebody else.
You know, I mean, that's the genius of what he does.
So we absolutely know who Martha is because we see these snapshots
of her family.
And it's the same with Donna.
We realise who Donna is, partly because Sylvia isn't the best mum
in the world, but she's trying because of Will, you know, I mean
Will, actually, although he's very lovely, what does Will actually
do to help his daughter or help his granddaughter, he doesn't
actually, you know, there are dimensions to all of them, which I
think are brilliant.
And again, it's why the turn left, the next time trader at the end
of turn left is just the most exciting thing in the world ever, not
because of the Daleks invading Earth, but because we're seeing all
these characters coming back from all these different things that
Russell has created.
Rose is back.
Yay.
Oh, is she?
Yeah.
Well, is she?
Is she doing the voice?
Is she doing the accent?
Is she doing the teeth?
Well, the teeth are new.
I think that she is amazing in this.
And she hasn't had any dialogue yet this year.
Am I right?
She's a peer.
She's appeared.
She has, um, she has said something to, no, she says something to
no, she doesn't say anything to Donna in partners in crime.
Yeah, no.
So she said no dialogue.
So this is her back and she's having to be the doctor.
And it turns out she's actually really good at it.
That's right.
Donna said something to her.
Yes.
Billy actually had trouble.
She said in interviews around the time.
She's like, I started reading script.
She had to watch herself.
She's like, I started reading the script and I don't know how to
play this person anymore.
So I went out and bought the 1st 2 series on TBD and watched to
learn and I realised, oh, but, oh, no, she wouldn't, if she's like
trying to save the world now, she wouldn't be like this and she
wouldn't be getting jealous of Lucy with the pinot rolls at the
party.
That's not who she is anymore.
Um, and, but she brings it.
Like she brings this this believable thing that this is still rose
and she's still a bit cheeky.
Yeah, but she is a lot more determined and a lot more driven and a
lot more focussed than she was previously.
And I remember at the time when we saw her in partners in crime, No
it had been announced she was returning this series.
So the shock of seeing Rose, to me at least, was the look on her
face, you know, and not knowing what that meant.
And I thought we might be in for evil rose, but we didn't we
didn't get that, thankfully, because anytime you think, oh, this
character might be evil, and if it ever comes true, it's like, well
that's very unsatisfying.
So one thing I love about Rose in the episode is actually how
detached she is.
Like you say about her having to take on the role of the doctor.
Um, This shows how much it shows on which he's developed and
changed because Rose, the old Rose, and Martha, or anyone like
that, the beginning of the episode would have gone up to Donna and
gone, okay, here's what's happening.
We can stop it now.
Rose knows Donna needs to die.
So she knows Donna needs to make that decision.
So she allows all this horribleness to happen.
And she keeps saying to Don, and when towards the end, she says to
Donna, you will come back. you know, you will find me again.
Um, it's just very, The bit where she talks about Jack, who
remember she loved Captain Jack, and she talks about Captain Jack
being taken to the Centaurin homeworld, and her face is just like
Yeah, this has to happen.
And I just think it's brilliant.
It's, it's, it's, quite cold and scary, but she knows what she has
to do.
And she only really, I feel, shows emotion.
That glorious moment towards the end where the heroic music is
playing and Donna's worked it all out.
All I need to do is go and argue with myself and isn't it
brilliant?
And the audience are thinking, yes, it's brilliant.
And then Billy Piper's face is just like, no, that's not what's
going to happen.
And that's when she really shows emotion and shows it on her face
and then she just said she's sorry.
It's just glorious.
It's so.
Doctor Who.
She is just Doctor Who in the story.
She responds to that thing about the argument where she says, wow
I'd really like to see that.
And that is a sort of very, very sort of rose thing to say.
Like you can really see that happening.
But it's that thing where almost like Donna kind of basically
knows the genre rules, you know, that if this timeline gets erased
you know, she'll live a happy life with the doctor, and she keeps
saying, I'm not going to die because I'll live on with the doctor
but of course that's not what's going to happen at all.
She is going to get hit by a drunk and we'll see her die.
Like, and then in a couple of weeks, she'll die again.
Yeah, but we kind of, you know, that's a thing that's really going
to happen.
Yeah.
And what I found when rewatching it was, although obviously I know
where it's going.
There is a moment where you do sit there and go.
Oh, perhaps that's what's going to happen.
Donna just needs to go and talk to Donna and Sylvia in the car and
say turn left.
And won't that be brilliant watching Donna argue with herself?
You want to watch that?
You're with Rose. you're sitting there going, I want to see that
And then just the music stopped as Rosie's face changes and you go
oh, that's not what's going to happen, is it?
No, that's thank you, Russell, for teasing us with that moment of
joy and then realising, no, you think it's been dark up until
now.
It's going to get even darker.
The thing I picked up on this time that I'd never picked up on
before, is that the reason that Rose knows that Donna is going to
die is because we're not necessarily seeing Rose in order.
Rose has already stood over Donna's body and said, tell him I said
bad wolf.
That's how she knows what to do.
You notice too that you also have rose by someone's side after
they hit by a car and waiting with them.
God, Russell's brilliant.
I never made that connection before.
That's so good.
That's brilliant.
Bad Wolf?
God, I remember Doctor Who magazine the week after that and every
word on the cover was replaced by Bad Boys.
And even the TARDIS, even where it's this police box on the Tartar
which has been sort of completely sacrosanct.
I mean, you had to step up from having it graffitied on the wall.
At the door side.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's just tremendous.
It's so great. so exciting.
And I think I was reading about time, sort of tat wood talking
about it, and grumbling about it, or something like that, you know
what's bad wolf meant to mean and all of that.
But I mean, it was so central to series one.
It's been mentioned over and over again And that moment is so
incredibly exciting, like so thrilling.
And can we mention Graham Harper?
Um, you know, like it was just shot after shot after shot.
The camera's sort of moving all the time.
We're seeing just bad wolf all over the place.
The music, you know, Murray's going crazy and it really is just
the most exciting thing possible, I think.
Yeah.
And I think that's more important than us necessarily knowing 100
what Bad Wolf means.
Oh, yes.
You know, that's so much more.
I mean, can't imagine being a, yeah, exactly.
Imagine being a kid watching that and going, bad wolf back from
the birds.
Because I mean, I found, because I didn't know anything about the
1st series when it was going out, when you gradually realised, well
watching the 1st series that Bad Wolf kept being mentioned, it was
just like, oh, this isn't, this isn't just new Doctor Who.
This is there's something going on.
There's a mystery.
And it kind of makes sense at the end.
And yeah, I mean, I don't know why Rose doesn't just say to Donna
Rose Tyler, telling Rose Tyler.
But you know, Rose likes the drama.
She's, she's like, more exciting in Miss Bad Wolf.
That'll be more exciting.
And you know, doctor at the end says, it's the end of the
universe.
Don't quite know how he's got that.
But um, He knows, you know, Bad Wolf before, Bad Wolf means Rose
is back and, you know, big, big, big stuff is happening.
I suppose if she'd said Rose Tyler, the doctor would have just
been, oh, right, she's come around for a chat.
It's like, okay, bad wolf.
Oh, okay.
Cloisterbell, red lighting, flames.
Oh, dear.
Yeah, I mean, the thing with Bad Wolf is, I think it makes enough
sense in its initial in series one here and later on in Day of the
Doctor.
I think the usage of the word makes enough sense and it gives fans
things to debate about, which is what we love.
I mean, look at the, regardless of what you think of the episodes
themselves, look at fan discussion after the Battle of Ranskorev
Colos and look at fan discussion after the timeless children, fans
love having something to speculate on, and it means this.
No, it means that.
And the whole thing is bad wolf kind of means whatever it needs to
mean within the plot and it's always, it's what links the doctor
and rose.
That's all you really need to know.
And as for why, you know, the lettering changes.
Look, I always took it as it's the Tartar saying, yeah, some bad
stuff's about to happen, but other people have said, no, the signs
physically change.
Yes, they can change because that's what she did.
She put Bad Wolf all over the universe the 1st time and she's done
it again somehow.
Maybe she did.
I don't care.
At the end of series one.
Maybe she did.
See, fans debating things.
So all the time and space at the same time.
That's true, actually.
Maybe she planted that there.
Yeah, after she, after she breached the hull of satellite 5 with
those letters she flung off into nowhere.
And nobody died.
Let's talk about the descent of Britain into a kind of fascist
dystopia.
Do you mean in the episode?
Yeah, I mean, in the episode during real life.
Yeah, you're not talking about the last...
We've been living in years and years at the moment, so...
Well, there's heaps of years and years in this, isn't there?
I mean, there's scenes in years and years where people are
billeted in people's houses after the flooding happens, people are
kind of forcibly billeted in each other's houses like we get
here.
And there is a sort of hilarious thing where something happens to
Rory Kinnear and he keeps turning left all the time.
And I just want to think that that's Russell mentioning this
episode title.
So this is the 1st draft of years and years.
The pilot.
Yeah, no, you see that, don't you?
it's an idea that's got stuck in his head.
Yeah.
Like, he did it in Doctor Who, and something chimed with him and
he felt that's something I want to come back to.
I wonder where there was there, there was some talk.
Was it in the writer style where there was some a torchwood idea
an idea that he thought, you know, because, I mean, I guess
there's also that a bit in children of earth where you've got the
government kind of devolving into fascism as well as a result of
the aliens.
Well, I think it's, I mean, certainly the take I get from turn
left, children of Earth, and then obviously years and years, um, is
that, Too many people over here.
It's not that people are necessarily racist or, you know
particularly right wing.
It's just they hear migrants.
They hear refugees and they think of people who are different to
us.
Um, you know, they think of these people have different cultures
different lives, different colour skin.
Therefore, they are different.
Therefore, we can slightly detach ourselves from their plight.
And I think what Russell is always doing and does it so
brilliantly in turn left is go, just one thing could happen and
that's us.
The, you know, the white working class middle class people in
Britain, one thing could happen, and that's us.
And so he's saying, you know, remember that those people who seem
different to us who are trying to escape Syria or wherever, which
we don't really understand.
But it's saying, those people are just us.
They are the normal people who live with their families and their
friends and wanting to just live their lives.
They're in this situation where they're fighting for life and
they're trying to escape.
Just take that into consideration that actually, and I think turn
left does it brilliantly is a bit where, um, Sylvia says we don't
even have the vote or something.
Yeah, you know, where nobody.
Just a couple of things could happen and you are nobody.
You no longer have, you know, a right to, to, to, to democracy.
And I think it's very terrifying.
And, you know, sadly, there are elements of it, you know, creeping
across the world at the moment, without getting too political.
You know, there are moments where you go, okay, yeah, no, that's
kind of happening.
No, get political.
I mean, years and years is not about the future, particularly.
It is about things happening to other people in distant countries
happening to a nice middle class family that we can easily
identify with.
I think, and you know, you know, financial collapse.
People, um, suffering in the gig economy, you know, people making
these sort of last stitch, desperate efforts to cross the sea to
get to somewhere where they can live.
All of those things are happening to people now.
But Russell makes them all happen to a single family who we know
and like.
And you've got that here with the nobles kind of in number 29 with
heaps and heaps of people, the merchandani family, and Rocco, and
all of those people all sort of shoved into this sort of tiny
terrace house.
It ties into, I think, what I was saying earlier on about Sylvia
talking about the whole punch.
Or Donna talking about food while the, you know, Smith and Jones
is happening.
It's the fact that actually the only way we can get on with our
lives. is to carry on living our lives.
You know, but I'm very aware that while we're sitting here
babbling about an episode of Doctor Who that's 10 years old.
There's people fighting for their lives elsewhere in the world, but
we can't, you can't constantly be, um, you've got to get on with
our own lives and and the, you know, the tiny things that actually
matter to us like a whole punch or food or talking about Doctor
Who.
We have to get on with our own lives, but I think what turn left
is doing is going, how very quickly you could be the person who
one minute is talking about stationary and the next minute has
nowhere to live, has no vote, has no friends left and is living
with people who then gets into a concentration camp.
You know, that can happen.
Um, and actually I find turn left. more satisfying and more
believable in a bizarre way, despite being science fiction, than
years and years, because in years and years, I felt it got a bit
melodramatic and it was just a bit everything is here, whereas
turn left.
I think I just watching it through the nobles, and seeing them go
through that in 45 minutes.
I think actually I found it much more heartbreaking and believable
let's say, than years and years.
That, um, the thing about sort of Donna being oblivious, you know
the, that she is berating her workmates and things while Royal
Hope hospitals on the moon, um, and stealing the whole punch and
you know, all that sort of stuff.
And she's sort of shouting and shouting and it's just that moment
where she sees Rocco Colosanto being... and she suddenly realises
what that means.
Like, it suddenly occurs to her to wonder, once, once Wilf kind of
you know, basically what's happening, then she's sort of running
after the truck demanding to know what's going on.
And there's there's a scene between the guy who plays Rocco and
between Wilf, where Rocco has been this big, jolly, fun character
who's everything's great.
We're all living together.
We love meeting nice new people.
And he's even putting that face on to Donna just before that
moment with Will as well.
But then when they, when they salute one another, his face, and
it's just the smallest movement, it's the slightest thing, and he
you can just see the fear because he knows where he's going.
And obviously he can't show that to his children or, you know, his
mother or whatever.
But it's, it's, like, it's terrifying and absolutely
heartbreaking.
I find that very relevant today as well because quite rightly
there's a lot of people, and especially you see it on Twitter, of
young people saying, listen to us young people, you know
especially when it comes to climate change and issues around race
and gender.
Um, but I think there's a very interesting point made where Wilf
and Rocco saluted each other is that also listen to old people.
Listen to people who know this has happened before and it will
happen again, not necessarily because of a time beetle, but things
like that will happen again.
And that's why you should listen to older people as well because
Donna doesn't realise.
Donna's blinkered.
She thinks Rocco's going off to do sewing in a nice camp.
I mean, he literally calls it a labour camp and Donna doesn't make
the connection.
She needs Will to make the connection for her because Will is
absolutely aware.
And the way Rocco is absolutely aware.
And Rocco trying to protect Donna is just, I mean, that was a bit
that really, I mean, I cried pretty much as soon as the episode
started when I 1st watched it and again today when I watched it
this morning.
But that scene is the one that makes me bore my eyes out because
again, it's Russell creating this character, Rocco, Rocco, could
have just been a normal bloke who, a normal Italian bloke who
lives in this house and then at the end, when he's getting taken
away, he could have been screaming at the world.
But to make him try and protect Donna from the truth, it's just
again, just that extra level of characterisation that he just
wouldn't get from another writer.
It's Russell doing that.
And it follows on from a scene where Donna, jokingly almost as an
insult causing Mussolini.
Donald is racist, absolutely horrifically racist towards him.
In a casual way, in the way that actually any one of us could well
be casually raised this, and then 5 minutes later, he's being
taken to a concentration camp where he's going to be killed.
You know, and Donna realises, I mean, just the level of
characterisation and things that are going on in every scene of
this story, I just think it's astonishing.
I've got something really random.
Okay, go on.
Rose and the Fortune Teller are wearing the same gold eyeshadow.
And given that it is such an unusual colour of gold, I wonder if
it's an indication that both of them are not quite in the right
world. time sensitive or apart.
Send tweet.
Yeah.
So there's a sense too in which this is kind of the reunification
of the sort of Russell cinematic universe at this point because
the, you know, we discover that the fortune teller is one of the
tricksters brigade and the trickstar is, of course, marvellously
from the Sarah Jane adventure.
Yeah, it's like the main villain for 3 seasons.
And also, then later in Torchwood Miracle Day, there's also
another of the tricksters, brigade, like it's in one of the
episodes where, like it's set in the 20s with Jack and his lover
and there's this creature that was supposed to kill the president
and change the timeline so the Nazis won the war.
Yeah, I mean, what rules I think by saying the Tricksters Brigade
is if you know Doctor Who and you know Sarah Jane adventures, you
know, oh, it's part of the Tricksters Brigade.
If you don't know it, you think it's like the Medusa Child.
It's just another thing in there, yeah.
And I think what he does brilliantly.
I mean, I remember on a Sarah Jane Adventures meeting, one thing
he said was, we can do any story, no matter whether it's been done
in Star Trek a 1000000 times.
What you need to remember is for children watching it, it'll be
the 1st time.
So turn left is sort of like a parallel universe story.
What would happen if something changed?
But what Russell does is, makes it a very simple, very quick, easy
sci-fi thing at the beginning and a sci-fi thing at the end.
All we need to know is what we find out at the end is the time
beetle feeds on time.
You know, it's such a basic, simple concept that allows the
audience, a family audience.
It allows my mum to watch this episode, not caring, particularly
why it's happening and, you know, Doctor Who says at the end, uh
Beetle feeds on time.
That's it.
But what my mum gets to do and what any normal non-geek person
like us gets to do is watch this episode and go, oh my god, and
they followed the emotional story and the drama and the characters
rather than worrying about the huge sci-fi concepts behind it.
And I just think again, it's just very clever.
It's making Doctor Who, making science fiction, very, very easy to
understand for mainstream viewers, which is why it became the huge
hit it did, because anybody can watch this and know absolutely
what's going on without caring about, you know, time vector
coordinates or something, you know.
On the time lords.
I mean, it's such a big hit too.
That Russell is able to kind of create a mythology just among the
people who have been watching it since 2005.
And so all of these references to Royal Hope Hospital, the
references to Sarah Jane and Clyde and Maria, you know, the, the
the torch with stuff, all of these callbacks to recent Doctor Who
episodes, you know, it's, it's wonderful how quickly he creates
enough of a world to have new fans who've never even, you know
heard of Eric Sayword.
Lucky, lucky, have something that they can really love and sort of
get into and have a sort of flash of recognition about.
The references to Royal Hope Hospital, to them, what the
references to Venom Grubs in Hometown was to us.
It's wonderful.
I mean, I love the fact you even get a flash of Henrix.
You get a flush of the headaches of the Christmas out.
Because again, it was that mythology in that world that he built
that it just, I love it.
I mean, I wrote a couple of Jackie Tyler short trips, actually, and
just came back and watching all that stuff and going, what can I
mention?
The Royal London Bank, you know, and, you know, the neighbours and
the friends and everything.
It's just brilliant.
It's such such a great universe.
And when you, you know, like you say, I mean, even I love that the
sexy soldier from Santaran stratagem is back.
Ah, the evil one.
Harris, yeah, the one who gets taken over.
I'm very happy.
Have we wanted to get Ross back?
Um, I did I did wonder that myself, and I got my complete history
out, and all all it says about casting Harris was, there was a
unit soldier in the script, and when Harris was cast in Santara
and experiment, he was cast in turn left at the same time.
So I think I think possibly he was casting the role before
Christian Cook recorded his performance because I think if it had
been after, they would have asked to get Christian Cook back
because, of course, he was more of an audience identification
figure in that story as Jenkins.
And we could have had this sort of thing where Jenkins is alive in
the parallel universe created when Donna turns right.
And we're choosing to, maybe that would have been just an
additional thing.
But I just realised someone we haven't mentioned yet.
Captain Aresa McGumbo.
Oh my goodness.
Who is amazing.
It's like, don't get me wrong.
I love when Kate Stewart turns up later on, but I have to confess
every unit story since then, since Planet of the Dead, I should
say.
It like, where's a reason my company?
bring her back for Big Finish, Joe. Give her own spinoff series.
I would love to, you know, I love her.
I think she's brilliant.
And again, just seeing her back.
I mean, it just shows the love and care that was going into Doctor
Who at that time of, That could just be another unit, Captain, but
it, you know, Russell presumably wrote it as her and said, look
try and get her back.
We want her back.
I want that soldier back.
I want Morgan Stern back from Smith and Jones, you know, want
these people back.
Because it's the world and it could be anybody else, but actually
by making it Morgan Stone, even if you don't remember him from
Smith and Jones, because it was, you know, what, a year ago, 2
years ago, even if you don't necessarily particularly remember
him.
When you actually, all it needs is one member of your family to be
watching it go, oh, he was Martha's mate in Smith and Jones, and
the rest of the family are like, oh, that's really exciting.
Um, you know, that's that, you know, even if you don't remember it
yourself, it creates this little buzz about it.
Um, So yeah, no, very happy to see her back and would love to see
her back again.
I miss her.
There's a couple of wolf moments.
I think are brilliant.
One is when he says, you're not going to make the world better by
shouting at it, which literally sums up Donna Oval's character
that Donna just shouts at things because she's constantly put down
and angry.
And when she's not shouting at the beginning of turn left, when
she's having a great time with the doctor, it really shows.
And that's why I think Turner especially works with Donna because
Rose and Martha already had hope before they met the doctor.
They had an idolism before they met the doctor.
Donna didn't.
Donna had no hope.
Her only hope was perhaps only a rich bloke, and that'd be my life
sorted.
Um, she had love and everything, but it was kind of battened down
behind.
There's nothing else out there.
So I'll just get on with it, marry a rich bloke and that's my life
sorted.
Rose and Martha always had aspirations to do a little bit more in
life.
So actually, one of the reasons turn left is so heartbreaking is
because it's Donna, because we're seeing, we risk seeing her
become who she was before.
Um, which obviously then has repercussions into episodes time when
she has everything taken away from her.
Turn left actually succeeds that because you sit there and goes
this is a woman who has gone on such a journey.
That woman who is having so much joy at the beginning of turn
left.
To see that woman become who she was before, quite this quite cold
selfish person before.
Um, but actually, I think, What's amazing, and I never noticed it
before, but I noticed its day is uh, Donna. goes to Rose, because
Rose says, you know, you will come back to me.
And Donna has already sorts, Rose, which is great.
Donna is already on a bit of a journey and going, that woman, who
I don't know, is going to be around here somewhere when the Atmos
stuff happens.
So she finds Rose and then Rose says to her, you'll come back to
me and Donna does go back to her.
And when I 1st watched it, I thought it was because Will says, oh
all the stars are going out.
I can't see the stars anymore.
And that's what makes Donna go to roads.
But actually there's a moment before that, which is brilliant.
I'd never picked up before and it's not overplayed.
But Donna says something, um, about her being selfish or something
like that.
Wolf doesn't answer because he's distracted by the stars.
And Donna says, you're meant to tell me I'm not like that.
And Wilf doesn't comfort her.
And it's such a small moment, but it shows just how Will whose
automatic response is to comfort Donna and hide her and protect
her.
At that moment, even Wolf, doesn't tear around to Donner and go, oh
everything's fine.
Will's just like, no time for your emotional journey right now
Donna, the stars are going out.
I think that's part of the reason.
For me anyway, now I've seen it again, just watching it again.
I've gone in my head, I'm like, that's the reason Donna goes and
finds Rose because her home grandfather.
She was expecting it from her mum.
When her mum says, yes, I am disappointed in you.
She knew that would come one day from Sylvia.
She would never expect Wolf to turn his back on her.
And it's underplayed, so it's not as brutal.
But it's the 1st time, she literally says, you're not, you're
meant to comfort me here and he doesn't.
He just talks about the stars going out.
And I think that's part of the reason she goes to Rose because
she's just like, if my grandad isn't going to comfort me, the
world is completely broken.
There's that thing where the script itself addresses Donna's
character, by having Rose tell Donna, why the doctor travelled
with her.
And it's he thinks you're brilliant and she comes back with I'm
useless.
No, I'm useless.
And it's not that travelling with a doctor has made her a better
person.
I don't think because right from partners in crime.
She's immediately angry about what happens to Stacy.
And then in Fires of Pompeii, she is so compassionate, you know
and Planet of the Ode, over and over again.
Like the big thing, the big surprise about Donna is a regular
character is how immediately compassionate she is and how much she
cares about other people.
But she kind of afford to be like that while Sylvia's at her and
while everyone's telling her how useless she is.
And the moment she's with the doctor, the doctor thinks she's
brilliant and that's what she's like.
And having seen that over the last few episodes, snapping back to
a version of Donna, who calls Rocco Mussolini and who shouts at
that woman.
Oh, the woman in the street in Leeds, who is yelling at them.
Fair of Duckwood.
Yes, yeah, that's right.
But again, just that tiny moment, she's yelling because the people
at number 29 missed a single mortgage payment and they've been
carted off to what, dead as prison or something or thrown out onto
the street to be homeless.
Just one line of just sort of tiny world building that, you know
the world is just much worse than you thought it was.
Something that occurred to me though, watching that.
You're absolutely right in terms of Donna, but Vera Duckworth
shouting about how the nice family at number 29 got kicked out.
They're not living in your house, are they, Vera?
You haven't taken them in.
Because, but she's being, Vera is being, I don't want southerners
living here.
You know, that's her point.
You know, I genuinely think that's the point of the scene is it's
her going.
Yeah, obviously it's just not looking after her neighbours who've
been kicked out, but she's also going, I don't want you lot coming
here in the way that Donald then says, you're Mussolini, and in
the way that they get, it's about tribalism, that we all, you know
that is except, you know, you see a lot in the world.
But again, I think, yes, Donna has that compassion.
But, Because real life is hard and I think, you know, real life is
hard.
You don't get to show that compassion.
Donna's concerns before she meets the doctor are.
I've got to find a job.
I've got to not live with my mum.
I've got to find a job.
And the way she sees it is the only way she can do it is by
finding a man.
Um, and Again, a bit like what we talked about earlier on with, you
know, talking about the whole punch while 2000 people die on the
moon.
It's that's what life is like.
You have to get on with your own life.
We all have to be quite selfish and get on with our own lives
because if you show, it's much easier for Donna and the doctor to
show compassion.
Donner to show compassion in Pompeii.
Because she's going to fly away at the end of it.
She's not trying to pay a mortgage.
She's not, you know, wondering where her next meal is coming from
or how she can pay her next mortgage payment.
I did think Russell explores all that stuff.
I think it's all there under the skin of just what a complicated
world we live in.
Well, it's, I mean, that's very true and not just, you know, when
there is world disaster or the Titanic has crashed into Buckingham
Palace, most people are only 2 or 3 paycheques away from poverty.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Like, if you lose your job and you cannot get your job and you
don't have a support network, you're on the street, certainly in
Australia and in the UK, within weeks, if you cannot find work.
Yeah, I mean, it's very unlikely, I will ever, ever get a mortgage
because I've not got a regular income because of my job being what
it is.
You know, Couple of twists in my life, I could be out on the
street quite easily.
It could happen.
And I think, you know, that the turn left is saying that all the
way through is going, Just think about other people.
You know, because it could be you.
Well, there, listen, that's all we have time for this week.
We'll be back next week for an emotional reunion with everyone
we've ever met, plus Daleks in the stolen Earth.
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
add FTE Podcast on Twitter, and on our website
FlightthroughEntirety.com, where you'll find links to our other
podcasts, Bondfinger, and Jody into Terra.
Joe, where can people find you?
In the pub.
James said.
But no, you could buy me on Twitter, uh, uh, Joe Litster, J-O-E, L
I-D-S-D-E-R, um, that's about it.
I'm on Instagram.
Um, yeah, if I me there.
Do anything particularly interesting on Twitter.
It's used to do cat videos and things, but you know, I'm there.
So until next time when you reach the Ealing Road, remember to
turn left.
After all, there are much worse things than city executives with
money who need the practice.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
That was Flight for Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Brendan
Jones, Joe Lidster, and James Selwood.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, Strings performance by Jane
Orberg.
This episode, just one thing, was recorded on the 8th of March
2020 and released on the 24th of May.
You know, when Billy Piper told me I had to run into a truck to
save the timeline, I just told her to sod off.
That was 2016 and it turns out that since then, everything's been
just fine.
That's it on that note.
Yes, for charity.
We're all going to die in poverty.
I know.
All right.
Thank you so much.
That has been just like really something.
That's been amazing.
So, and just having that kind of having a writer's insight into
character sort of thing.
That's been really true.
Yes, thank you.
Thank you.
I'm so glad that we spent that episode talking about Sylvia and
Donna mostly and less about, you know, time Beatles and Donna's
time anorak.
Yeah, Rod asked me if I owned the official Time Beetle backpack
and I had to tell them they didn't make one.
And he's like, I was actually being serious.
What do you mean they didn't make the time people?
I'm amazed they didn't make a time.
Oh, wait a minute, it wasn't Moffat's Doctor Who.
No, no.
I mean, I'd tell you, also, I just thought, one of my favourite
moments is, and again, it's what Russell does so brilliantly is
when Donna does get sent back, and she's in the wrong place, and
she realises she's half a mile away, and she's like, oh, the stake
I'm half a mile away.
That be my reaction.
My reaction would be, fine, I'll save the universe, old kill
myself.
You want me to throw myself into a truck to save the universe?
Absolutely.
I'm half a mile away.
I need to run half a mile to make this.
No, no, no.
It's kind of reminiscent of the whole, the ending of the hand of
fear.
It's like, this isn't Croydon.
Can you get anything wrong?