Hello, dear listener and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast that wouldn't even be mildly surprised
by a sudden Dalek invasion right now.
Bring it on 2020.
I'm Nathan.
I'm James.
I'm pizza.
And I'm Todd.
Well, it's the end of the world, which is now an honoured
tradition at this time of year, but it's the end of the world like
you've never seen it before.
Every spinoff, every companion, and nearly every mum turn up to
say goodbye to David Tennant's doctor 18 months too early.
It's an all singing, all dancing apocalyptic extravaganza.
It's the stolen earth.
So, we hit Earth running.
We've come straight from the end of the previous episode, and we
land in a street where the, what, the last ever milkman in Britain
is delivering milk.
It's milk delivered these days.
Cotton.
I think it's very definitely, you know, just an attempt to do sort
of suburban normality, but all I could think of was John Pertley
driving the float for his old dad.
I think Russell missed a Mr. Comeback there for all Jones the
Hill.
I just got survival.
I was expecting a Kitling to kidnap that Norman at any second.
Yes, of course.
I'd forgotten the milkman in survival.
I think that this is a really, really well structured scene.
I think it's brilliant.
I mean, the entire precredit sequence is just, I mean, could you
ask for anything more perfect than that?
Yeah.
So it starts with the milkman?
And then we get, you know, the doctor and Donna arriving, we get
earth disappearing from underneath them, and then we get these
sort of 2 plot threads, 3 plot threads, don't we?
The 2 spinoffs and Martha.
Martha starts it off.
Yeah.
And then we go to Captain Jack and and them in Torchwood, then to
Sarah Jane, and then back to Wilfrid and Sylvia.
They always want the women.
Yep.
And then Rose with her big gun.
I mean, and she gets to look up at the sky and we get to see, you
know, gazillion planets and it's the Marvel's crossover event we
never knew we wanted or needed, you know?
It's incredible.
It is sort of the, it's the story of Doctor Who, isn't it?
It's Doctor Who, the spinoffs, and Martha.
Don't worry, big things will make one for her soon.
Well, I think the amazingly clever thing about it is that it's
circular, that every one of the little inset scenes have a
character being encouraged to look at the sky, but we don't get to
see what's in the sky until Rose turns up and we see it from the
milkman's point of view.
So we start an end on the milkman and on that massive reveal, which
is just, it's bonkers.
I mean, it is unbelievable, you know, to have the earth moved out
of position.
I mean, there's a lot of competition.
You know, every single series finale has been huge and has had to
sort of outdo the previous one.
And I think at the time people expressed sort of reservations
about that or thought it was tiresome or whatever, but I'm
absolutely on board with it.
You know, make it huge and and they do.
It's it's mental.
It's fantastic.
It's the Doctor Who cinematic universe coming together.
And Russell's ahead of his time on this.
He's sort of assembled the whole team and he throws in everything
else.
He throws in.
We've got Harriet Jones and Davros and the Daleks and the most
seismic event in the Doctor Who universe, which is a
regeneration.
We've got all that to come in this episode.
And you know it's special just from the pre-credits teaser and
from those endless names swooping past in the opening titles.
It's wildly confident.
And I think only a series and a writer at the top of their game
could even attempt to pull this off.
I agree, and over the course of these 2 episodes, Every single
semi-regular character is basically either in it or name checked.
Yeah.
And the fact it says volumes, the fact that they can get back all
these people back to the show and they're willing to come back and
do these episodes when obviously some of them have very busy
schedules.
So I think it's amazing.
Yes, and this show made stars of these people.
That's why they're busy.
Well, also, I mean, Rose is almost not in it.
They had scheduling issues.
They had to move the schedule about quite a lot because she was on
her honeymoon when this was due to be filmed.
And they almost had to rewrite her out of it.
In fact, I think she got married while Russell was writing one of
these episodes and Russell actually bailed on her wedding because
the writing of it was so sort of enormously complex and Russell
was reaching the end of 4 years of just an incredible amount of
work.
And he got sick as well.
So, yeah, he skipped out of the wedding and something else as
well.
Like a holiday with his husband or something?
Like he had to cancel everything like at the last minute to get
this finished.
Do you know, I'll be a little bit controversial and say that I
think if Rose had been written out of this, it might have made it
a better story, and that's not a judgement.
That's no judgement on Billy at all.
I love Rose.
I love Billy and it's great to see them back.
But Rose's story was in some ways completed, and I think this
diminishes the character a little bit.
I think we'll get onto that next week because I agree with you a
little bit, but I do like the fact that in this episode, Rose is
sidelined, and she discovers that since she's gone, the doctor has
built up this huge network of people who, you know, love him and
care about him, and she's on the outer.
That Zoom call that they have.
Her reaction to Martha.
Who are you?
Well, it's good to see that she hasn't changed a tune.
She's still a stroppy little silk-centered so-and-so.
But it's all done with humour and I think that's so great, is that
is that she, she is building up this antagonism towards Martha in
a lot of the things that she says.
So I think, um, who she, you know, former companion to the doctor
or so was I, like things like that.
I think there's a payoff next week when they do finally meet.
Yeah.
And this episode is just, I'm just going to put on the table now.
These three, the 3 episodes, this, the 3rd episode in a row, which
I would give more than 10 out of 10 to, like from midnight, turn
left in this, are just, I don't think they're surpassed in classic
or new who.
I was talking 10.2, 10.2, did you turn it up to 11.?
No, no, it's 11 out of 10.
These 3 episodes, honestly, that's how I feel.
And I just think it's just extraordinary.
All the buildup through this, then you're wanting rose to meet.
Obviously, meet the doctor.
You know that's not going to happen until, you know, the bitter
end.
Oh, it's just the anticipation.
And everybody's slowly meeting each other.
Yeah.
Well, that was always the thing that we fantasised about as kids
as well.
And I think there were new adventures that kind of touched on this
the idea that there were people on earth, you know, living at the
same time, who had travelled with the doctor, and we imagine them
kind of meeting one another.
And here it gets to happen, you know, that because it's modern TV
rather than classic Doctor Who, where such a thing just would
never have been possible.
Like, I guess we get the brigadier back in Morden Undead.
But by then, sort of Doctor Who's eating itself a bit.
Here you have people who are invited back for sort of guest roles
and we love it.
We love it.
And the thing that Russell has done.
The thing, the big triumph of these 4 years is to take a show that
fights against the creation of a coherent world, a show where
every episode is said in a different time and place, where every
episode has a different tone.
And it creates a coherent world, not by bringing the cybermen back
to do their greatest hits or by constantly referencing previous
stories, but by having these characters.
You know, a whole cast of characters.
The doctor has a group of friends who are all really well drawn
who we really like.
Um, and we get to see them slowly coming together in his absence.
And in a way, it's like the Christmas invasion only on a small
scale because, you know, the Christmas invasion sidelines the
doctor and relies on the fact that we have Harriet Jones and
Jackie and Mickey and Rose and that we love them and care about
them and enjoy watching them.
And we're willing to wait for the doctor to turn up.
And so, you know, the doctor's role in this episode is really sort
of fairly minimal, isn't it?
It was a kind of journey to the shadow proclamation, which is
maybe the least successful part of the episode.
Yeah, I think he had a much, much bigger scale thing in mind for
the shadow proclamation.
To me, like he, when I was reading the writer's tale, the list
goes on and on and on.
He wanted to bring back every CG monster they'd ever created and
get all the prosthetics out as well.
Um, and he was going to bring back Baby Margaret Slithine.
So there is actually a big cartoon that he does of his version of
the shadow proclamation because he's a very skilled cartoonist.
And so he draws that version of the shadow proclamation and it's
included in the writer's tale.
It's really great.
And so that was going to be huge and it does end up being a little
bit crab.
Um, well, yeah, yeah, I would agree that it, because what you get
you should get, the woman with the red eyes and her offsider who
likes to have visions of the future or a trope that he uses next
year where everybody can talk about what's going to happen to a
certain character or situations, and then you've got the Judune in
the background, and you know, what's the, what's the name of the
woman in charge of the shadow proclamation?
I think her name is Madge Proclamation?
I think her name is the Shadow Architect.
No, she's Magic Proclamation.
Otherwise known as frizzy white hair, what's her name?
From a long line of matches.
Madge is actually not so bad.
And I do enjoy that scene where the dog's not good either.
No, no.
But that scene where the doctor and Donna, and particularly Donna
work out what's going on.
So they've detected like 24 missing planets or 23 missing
planets.
And Donna, because she's clever, remember, works out, you know
what the missing planets are.
And then we see the doctor work out what they're for.
And her line, her line about I'm a human and I'm just as important
as a time lord is super important to the plot as well.
No, I like all the, the, all the froth. should I say, like, you
know, if you're having copy, all the, all the icing, like, you
know, talking about all these planets that we've seen, like, or
not seeing like the adipose breeding planet, the Lost Moon of
Poosh.
They talk about Calufrax Minor.
Yeah, I mean, that's just wonderful.
And then, you know, relating things to the bees.
And so although the doctor is somewhat obviously sidelined, um, A
lot of the dialogue I actually really enjoy in those scenes, like
there's sprinkling of things that just make you smile or there's
payoff, you know?
Yeah, even if that woman at the end declares that she's, that they
have, they're going to declare, well, right across the universe
and then what does she do?
Just sit there and do nothing because they never turn up.
Yeah, keep your frizzy white hair on, match.
I actually think that that's the doctor rejecting the role that he
had in the time war that we're about to sort of see the time war
start again and the doctor puts a stop to it.
Like he just says, nope, I'm not going to do that.
And that's important for next episode, you know, the way that this
story resolves itself, involves a rejection of that kind of thing
but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
And it's also not a grandstanding moment.
So, the 10th doctor. just says, I'm just going to go over here
now.
And that's how he gets out of it.
We also get Donna's side eye when the doctor speaks Jadoon.
That, worth the price of entry alone.
Let's see another... another wonderful comic moment.
I think Doctor Who is at its best when, when you have, when it's
so, there's so much comedy within so much action, you know, that
is the joy of Doctor Who, unlike other things that take themselves
so seriously, it's the comedy in these situations that are dire
absolutely.
And that's absolutely Russell's strength.
He can just pivot between sort of drama and comedy and tragedy and
farce just like that.
He's so clever at it. he does it so well.
And a lot of the reason that we love the characters is because
they're funny.
I think it may be the single biggest difference between the 3rd
series and the 4th is that you have Martha, who's perfectly good
character, but she doesn't bring a lot of comedy, whereas Donna
does and it just elevates things slightly.
Yeah.
So I think this story clearly has one aim.
And that's just to be event television.
Um, the point is that it's an event.
It doesn't set out to be the best piece of doc whoever, regardless
of whether it turns out to be or not.
The only equivalence I can think of in the history of the show are
the 5 doctors and maybe the Dalek invasion of Earth, they set out
to be events for the audience.
And I think you could only do it at this point with the show like
an apex of popularity.
You need kind of an enthusiastic receptive audience to be able to
deliver this to them.
You need them to be active participants.
And an audience that has been sort of properly watching it for all
of this time, or at least aware of it, even if you'd kind of
dipped in and out, even if you weren't a committed fan, you would
know about Rose and Martha and Donna, and they would have been on
the telly and there are news stories about them.
You've got Bernard Cribbons, you know, you've got mums, all of
these minor characters that people remember, you know, Harriet
Jones is huge in a Christmas special, which was watched by, you
know, how many people, 10000000 people or whatever.
You just can't do it otherwise.
And if you compare it, I think the 5 doctors is the nearest
equivalent.
And if you compare it to the 5 doctors, you know, Liz Shaw is in
it or whatever and kind of like we love Liz Shaw, but frankly, who
cares?
Whereas this has earned the right to do all of this stuff.
And all of the little kids who are watching Sarah Jane adventures
get to see Luke and Sarah Jane, they get that, they get that
moment, the 1st moment when it's made clear that Mr. Smith's
fanfare is diagetic, that it can be heard by the people in the
room and isn't just added in post-production.
It's so great.
It's okay.
And the people who are watching Torchwood get to see, you know
after that horrible, horrible finale where Tosh and Owen are
killed.
Now you get them back in a sort of fun, silly Doctor Who story
with Yanto doing jokes and all of that sort of thing.
It's hilarious that you compare it to the 5 doctors because, like
I mean, who would who would be the Richard Herndel character, like
I kind of think, they could have got Billy Piper.
Maybe they could have got the doctor's daughter back for that
role.
Do you know what I mean?
That's true.
Well, they could have just recast it with Sonya.
I think the relationship with the audience is key to these
episodes, and you talk about sort of kids watching and having, you
know, these kids would have had like action figures which they
would have brought and they would have put characters together.
They would have had Donna and Rose and Jack, having a scene
together, or they would have had Rose hang out with Wilf and
Sylvia, and we get all of that here.
We get that kind of mixing up for the characters.
Well, Russell actually described his creative process with this
story as, I wanted this to be something the kids would play in the
playground.
I wanted this to be a crossover that a child would make with their
action figures.
Did he say that?
Oh, okay, I haven't read that.
But yeah, no, you definitely get that.
But all the characters get their moments.
Like, having Liz Sladen react to exterminate first, I think, is
just marvellous, because it's for us classic fans, we know this
but for the new people watching it as well.
It's like, oh, she knows about them.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, it just ties in little plot points like that, you know?
The doctor says someone tried to move the earth once before.
Like, it's a throwaway line, but, you know, I thought it was Dalek
invasion of earth, but Peter, you were saying before that you
thought it was more the mysterious planet, like, you know?
Well, that was the 1st thing that occurred to me.
I mean, it makes sense to be Daleks in context of the story.
In fact, we get the Dalek music before the opening credits, before
we know that the Daleks are involved.
We get the Dalek music when we see the shot of the planets for the
1st time.
Let's talk about the Daleks because, I mean, this is the best that
they've ever been, I think, and they haven't been as good as this
since then, ever.
So you get Dalek sources, you know, attacking New York, flying
down Broadway, you know.
Exterminate, tortured.
Were they fans?
They're also fans.
Russell wanted to destroy New York in one of the scripts.
In one of the, in one of the drafts of the script, Russell was
planning to destroy New York, but then went, maybe that'll stuff
up um, series 5 for Moffatt.
But also perhaps, given that this is 2008, it's perhaps not in the
best possible taste.
But you can see why they do it because he's already established
that New York is a city that gets rebuilt and rebuilt and rebuilt
you know, and that exists as a kind of symbol of humanity for
1000000000s of years.
So you can sort of tell that he's toying with it and that's
clearly why Martha's there because New York is important.
Yeah, it's such a shame, however, that, like, you don't have
familiar unit characters there to be killed off, like that fool
who's in charge of units back in the two-parter earlier in the
season.
I mean, Colonel Mace.
Yeah, because...
Deserve to be exterminated.
Well, in fact, they get someone much better and much more
interesting to play the lead in unit and that scene with Martha
where she's on the phone to Jack.
It's just wonderful.
She's on the phone to Jack.
She's been in Torchwood for a few episodes.
He makes a sort of sly reference, voice of a nightingale, is a
reference to series 2 of Torchwood, where she does, what, 3
episodes?
And having him talk to her while she's sort of making this
decision, having general, whatever his name is, kind of, say, you
answer to me, you don't answer to torchwood, having Jack begging
her not to use the indigo project.
All of that stuff.
There's such a scale to it and it is just what we would have
wished would happen. you know, has that got to be a joke of
Russell's calling it the indigo project because it was salvaged
from Santaran hardware.
And for some inexplicable reason, that 2 potter is bathed in
purple light.
That was deliberate, yes.
I think it's amazing having the Daleks involved in seeing
everyone's reaction to them because it's a reminder of just how
woven into the fabric of Doctor Who that the Daleks are.
So Sarah was there at their creation.
Jack was killed by them.
Martha's thinking back to her terrifying encounter with a dalek
kloac or in a pinstripe suit.
The individual reactions to the Dalek voice are superb because
they're the audience reaction.
It's every time you have a 1st night with the Daleks and the old
series.
It's every time you know that they're coming back for a season
finale in the new series.
Yeah.
People were complaining at the time that there were too many
Daleks.
We have Daleks in 3 out of 4 of Russell series finales.
And I just kind of think that's like saying like too much
chocolate or, you know, like too many martinis.
It's absurd.
You know, you're watching Doctor Who.
There's daleks in it.
Remember those long stretches where we had no Daleks at all.
And sure, you know, that allowed people to explore and do other
things, but the show hasn't been short of creativity for the last
4 years.
And the Daleks here are magnificent.
And they take so many cues from Dalek Invasion of Earth, don't
they?
Even catchphrases.
The descendants.
Yes, the males, the females, the descendants, you know, we are the
masters of earth.
All of that stuff. just classic 60s Daleks only on a massive
budget.
It's so good.
And on that level, I mean, the most meta that the story could
possibly be, having Wilf fighting the Daleks after having fought
them on the big screen in the 60s.
You know that was actually a suggestion.
The paint gun scene was a suggestion by Bernard Cribben's to
Russell. saying, you know, I think would be great if I got to
shoot a Dalek because there was a reference, like he wanted a
reference to his original story.
And then he ad-lived that line about swapping the BFG with Rose as
well.
But also my vision is not impaired.
Yes, so good.
So brilliant.
And even just the look of it, because you think he's he's done it
and then, you know, the paint sort of bubbles off and starts sort
of dropping away.
Like it just looks so good.
It's the garlic's reactions.
It's their relationships with each character.
Even Harriet Jones.
They have a relationship with Harriet Jones, former PM.
Yes, we know who you are.
I must have written that at 3 o'clock in the morning, chortling
away to himself.
And they, there's, there is a sort of slight crap homespunness to
the Daleks.
They're definitely aliens conceived of in the 1960s by Terry
Nation.
And the show doesn't hide away from that.
You know, Dalek in series one, tried to create them, recreate them
as a credible threat, you know, as something really, truly
terrifying.
And so the script upgrades the Daleks there.
But once you have sort of 200 ships and 1000s of Daleks, they can
afford to be a bit cheesy and sort of lean into the show's
history.
And I just think it's wonderful.
Dialects do not accept human apologies.
You know, it's so good.
And attack pattern seven.
Remember Dialect Attack pattern 7?
There's that family that refuses to stay out on the street that
wants to go back into the house and the guy throws a brick and the
family all goes inside and they go Dalek attack pattern 7.
And Dalek Attack Patent 7 is clearly just 3 Dalek standing in a
line.
And then and then they blow up the house.
And it's so great.
It's so superb.
But I like the fact that he adds a new element to it, which, of
course, is the creator, Davros.
And I have to wonder at the time, what knew who fans actually
thought of the person in the shadows, what is this person in the
shadows and then actually seeing it for the 1st time, you know
with no reference really to it.
For us, it's like, you know, we know who that is. and 0 my
goodness, what a performance.
But with no previous reference isn't an element that adds to the
story for people who've only known knew who.
It's just a question.
So there's a, there's an oblique reference to Davros in Dalek, and
I think there's an oblique reference in the Dalek 2 parter in
series 3 as well, to, you know, them having a creator and so on.
And so maybe knew who people have that.
But remember that Davros, I think, is huge.
He's one of the mythic things that Classic Doctor Who created.
He's rooted in popular culture, along with the Daleks, the Sidemen
and the Master.
It's those 3 and Davros from the original series.
And we've said this before.
He introduces Russell reintroduces the Daleks in series one, the
Cybermen in series 2, the Master in series 3, and Davros in series
4.
And so he brings to New Who all of that mythology.
Not all at once.
It's not the opening speech of the TV movie.
He holds his fire and brings them out in order. so that knew who
owns it as much as we do.
I did just question at the time whether certain people would
actually know what that is.
You know, obviously there's so much other fanfare going on.
It doesn't matter if one element doesn't quite work for somebody
but it's just something that has always been a question in my
mind.
I think it, the dialogue makes it very clear eventually that, you
know, who Davros is.
And so having him, this mysterious, shadowy, dalek like figure
with that fabulous music from Murray.
Um, like I think that that works on its own terms.
And he's very physically distinctive, I think, Davrell.
So even if people hadn't watched the show and didn't really know
who he was, they would recognise the image of him.
I mean, he's not the macra.
They, um, you know, they they were going to approach Terry Malloy
to return at one point.
And also, they, they didn't, they didn't give him a name in the
well, they called him Dave Ross in the script.
Yeah, they were calling him Dave, I think, on set, you know, just
to sort of hide the fact that it was Stavrost coming back.
I think that Julian Bleach is the best Davros.
Because.
My cool issue is turning in his grave.
I think Michael Wisher is very good.
But the mask is nowhere near as good as the mask that bleach
gets.
And so that means that Bleach gets to give like a proper
performance.
And what he nails is the 2 registers that Davros has, the sort of
quiet, thoughtful, menacing sort of register and the sort of huge
shouty register as well.
And because he's, he's got a better mask, we can see inside his
mouth, his face is more mobile.
I know, yeah, yeah.
And we sort of had them, didn't we, with Michael Wisher, but...
They were just an HST.
Sorry, Michael.
The big book of British smiles.
I like to think of the 2nd registrar of Dan Ross's voice as being
his branded burglaration.
Yeah, well, I mean, they, you know, I think that remembrance of
the Daleks makes a very, very clear parallel between Hitler on
television during the Second World War and and, you know, Davros
the way that he shouts as well.
I'm sorry, I've been mispronouncing that.
It should be Dar Ross.
Dar Ross.
Dar Ross is coming.
We'll talk more about him next week because I think that as we
discover his plan and, you know, when we get him interacting with
the doctor in person, I think we get to see how genuinely good he
is.
It's interesting how all of these separate sort of plot prints
come together.
With the doctor and Donna being in the TARDIS and the trail stops
dead, the Medusa Cascade, and the doctor sort of gives up.
It's a bit like Colin Baker in Venice on Varos, really.
Yeah, he's out of Zeiton 7.
He doesn't know what to do next.
Maybe Donna could have brought him the TARDIS manual and that
would have set off a, you know, wonderful plot thread.
I'm not sure that that works that scene because the doctor, you
know, but I guess we want to make it clear just how sort of truly
defeated he feels or how big the thread is.
And it also, of course, gives Catherine Tate the chance to sort of
act against him while he's not doing anything.
And of course, she's as magnificent as she always is.
Yeah, it's building the scale of the thread, isn't it?
Yes, it is.
But that whole moment meant, you know, you then get Harriet Jones
coming in, you get the subway network, you get, you know, all that
comedy stuff.
She wouldn't let me have a webcam because they're naughty.
I mean, that is just one of the most hilarious things ever.
Rose going off, but, you know, Martha.
And having the flashback with Martha, you know, with her mum.
I mean, you came home at the end of the world, you came back to
me.
Thanks, Francine.
It's always about you Still a much more mellow version of Francine
than we've seen.
That's true.
Yeah, that's true.
I mean, I like her a lot more.
I still don't love her.
But it's great to have that, you know.
And and and I love the fact that the subwave network was created
by the Mr. Copper Foundation going back to the Christmas special
like it's a subtle little tie in, but it's a payoff for everybody
who's been watching to go, oh.
You know, Russell was actually planning to bring back the famous
miserable bastard in this episode.
Yes, it was a very begrudging corporation.
He was going to bring back Russell Toby as a companion for this
story as well.
Really?
Yeah.
I mean, he will get to bring Russell Tovey back at the end of next
year or, you know, but he was really throwing everything he could
possibly throw at the script and working around availability and
and just kind of what was practical, you know, in sort of 2
inflated episodes.
But James, what I love is the fact that Russell does have all
these ideas.
It's about bringing back all these things and he'll, he'll do a
draft or whatever, and then something will not practically work
and realise, no, no, no, that's not right, or, or that's not going
to work in this instance, or it's just serendipity, that they
can't be brought back, and it sort of all just works out
beautifully. for him.
Like there's just something magical about this time on the show
where decisions are made, whether they be 2 or 3 years ago and
they're all paying off now and he makes decisions in scripts or
people aren't available and it just works out, you know?
You know, Todd Talent will win out in the end.
Russell is just supremely talented and makes it look easy.
Yeah.
I think it's really well worth going back to the writer's tale and
rereading the sections on this because all of this, just seeing
him creates and winnow ideas and and reject things and and be
sorry that things don't work out and stuff.
Just having that incredible access to his creative process is
really, really interesting, I think.
I think also you can underestimate the amount of creativity and
wit is needed to pull off a story like this.
I mean, it's television before it's time with kind of crossover
universes and characters coming back and everything.
J and T had a sense of this kind of thing way back in the 80s, but
he didn't really have the wit to pull it off or more importantly
the audience goodwill, I think, to pull it off.
The only point where he ever really successfully made event TV
like this was Earthshock.
And I think that's because that was part of his only genuinely
successful season of Doctor Who.
So, many writers and many showrunners could have attempted this.
I think very few could have pulled it off.
Yeah, I don't think we, you know, like I think, um, Stephen
Moffatt is a supremely talented writer, and you know, someone that
we're very lucky to have had in charge of the show for so long.
He's written more Doctor Who on screen than anyone else at all.
But this is not what he's interested in.
And it's not playing to his wheelhouse.
And for me, I've said before so many times that I feel sad about a
version of Doctor Who that's just the doctor and a companion and
they have no friends and they don't exist in a world.
And Russell has just made something so spectacular that the show
hasn't properly attempted again, maybe a little bit in the tubinal
era, to try and give the show a sort of earthbound context.
And I think that that's what the show needs.
It's like the unit era, only writ large.
Absolutely.
Doctor Who has family and the audience or willing participants in
that.
We're all part of the family.
Yeah It's like fandom, actually, but it's extended to the general
viewership.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, that was it.
They all got invited in to enjoy our thing.
And people who are down on Russell for being populist, I think
miss the fact that that was the point.
It was inviting everybody in.
It was a Saturday night family drama on a mainstream broadcast
channel.
It needs to be populous entertainment.
And that's the point that, Although I really love a lot of what
Moffatt did.
He's making it for the fans after series 5, it's being made for
the fans.
And, you know, Chipwell attempted to do that again in series 11
but, you know, probably went too far.
And then went completely in the opposite direction the next
season.
I think there is a midpoint to be chartered there.
I mean, I understand that there are arguments from some people who
say that Russell was too populist.
I don't necessarily agree with that, but I understand where it's
coming from.
I think there's a midpoint to be chartered, and I think Moffatt
did actually get that quite right for a couple of seasons.
But there's no denying Russell's instincts here.
His instincts are correct.
And also when he decides to kill off one of our um, semi-regulars
in Harriet Jones, um, there has to be some sort of price to pay.
You know, he's not going to kill off certain people at this point
in time.
And to have it be her and not see it, but hear it, you know, the
way it's written is and structured is just brilliant.
Like, you can feel it. about that.
No, no, no, Russia's not dead.
She dropped through a trap door and escaped on a motorbike.
Russell secretly thinks that he he, the fun thing about Russell's
approach to the show is that he's a fan of his own version of
Doctor Who in a way that we are.
And so he makes jokes about Chancellor Flavia.
And he has this theory.
I think, again, in the writer's tale, isn't there a cartoon of
Harriet Jones escaping the Taleks?
So he's engaged with it on that same level.
Obviously, Harriet Jones dies and in part as penance for her
destruction of the secret acts at Christmas day.
But, you know, Russell is still having fun with his own show.
But he's left it, he's left it so that you, you know, they say
exterminate.
She could escape, right?
Like if you wanted to bring her back now, like some showrunner
could say, well, she actually did escape.
It's a bit like a milk. was teleported where it last minute.
It's a bit like Melrose place where they kill off Kimberly
offscreen and then she comes back half a season later with a wig
and a big scar.
Like, I mean, it's that sort of thing that he just knows when to
leave things open enough that if you wanted to, Big Finish could
come in and do 15 box sets of Harriet Jones.
You know, they probably will if they can get Penelope Wilton.
And James, you said she might have been teleported away. did this
not remind you?
There was just enough wiggle room to have server land in the
teleport in terminal, you know?
Oh, yes.
So, of course, with her extermination, the subwave network is
transferred to Torchwood, um, We're all talking to the doctor at
this point, aren't we?
We're all about to talk to the doctor.
Yeah.
And that call goes through.
And that's just a glorious moment when they're all on their phones
you know, trying to get the signal through to the doctor and then
they're all appearing and all, who's that?
and all.
I mean, let's just get that one front on shot of Gwen typing away
at the thing, which is used about 5 different times.
But when the doctor finally comes in on the Zoom call, like it is
it's so great and he's so excited to see them all and so
incredibly happy.
And my favourite thing, and it comes up again next week, is that
of course, the thing that we all know about Jack is that he hits
on people all the time.
So he hits on Chanto.
He hits on Martha in Utopia when he comes back.
He hits on Sarah in this call and Sarah really likes it.
Like she.
Ooh, she's, you know, sort of quite flattered, but he doesn't hit
on Donna because Donna hits on him.
Like Donna is going, who's that?
and pointing to the screen and kind of doing sort of hilarious
comedy, sort of sexy face on the call, and she will do that next
week.
Jack never hits on Donna because Donna is more sexually confident
and more outgoing than Jack.
And then, of course, some good old, you know, the doctor in that
moment as well, of course, is sad that that Rose is not there. and
then and then something's coming through and you think, oh, could
it be, but you know it's going to be Darrox?
And I'm so and I'm so glad that Sarah even gets to react to to
just that, that, you know?
It's little touches like that, that make the writing so good that
she gets that moment in the midst of everything else.
And of course, we'll have the utter fangasm pay off to that next
week.
But I mean, think about the 5 doctors.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, in the 5 doctors, at the very end, on the top floor of the
tower, They're all there and like the brigadier is there and all
of these people who should be surprised to see one another and who
never react to one another at all.
But Russell doesn't let that happen here.
And so having Sarah react, recognise Davros.
And, you know, he decides that he has to make them interact in
some way, just as you said before, Todd, where it's Sarah who gets
to hear about the Daleks 1st because, you know, she met them twice
and met them in this incredible story from the 1970s and then
having her respond to Davros's voice and having Davros recognise
her later.
It's so good.
I mean, it's so good.
Without weighing it down.
It didn't have to weigh it down.
It didn't have to be something that you had to read a whole heap
of Peter Haning coffee table books to understand.
I just love the fact that, yes, the classic series fans.
It's there.
But it's also a way of saying to you who fans.
Well, come on, you need to come and watch some of these old
stories.
It's very subtle and I really love the fact that that's there.
And Russell knows his audience.
He knows how to pick and choose.
And so he's not referring to, you know, the leisure hive or Meglos
who's referring to possibly the most famous story from the
original run, Genesis of the Daleks.
So even the wider viewership is going to have some awareness of
this fact, I think.
Yeah, and, you know, we've already heard about Sarah travelling
with a doctor.
We had her give her laundry list of things that she'd encountered
during her time with him.
So even if you've only watched the new series.
You're not going to be surprised that Sarah recognises the Daleks
and Sarah recognises Davros's voice.
And of course, all of that then runs into, you know, the doctor
having a bit of a confrontation with Davros, but then it's like
you know, I've only got one thing to say to you.
Bye.
So David said it.
It's so cool.
And, and, and, and it then just sets off the chain of events to
the cliffhanger with everybody in peril.
I just think this cliffhanger is unbelievably great.
Amazing Yeah.
Like possibly the best one ever, but certainly up there.
And so the, very early on in the episode, like in that sort of 1st
scene in the Tardis, um, where Donna says, but I know everything's
terrible, but Rose's coming back isn't that good.
And you see David Tennant, and for a 2nd you wonder whether he's
going to say, that's not important, it's all too dangerous or
whatever, but he just is so genuine.
You know, like Tenet is so artificial in his performance so
often.
But here he's just genuinely excited that he's going to see Rose
again and it's beautiful.
It's so lovely.
And again, Donna gets this incredible role in that scene where she
appears and the doctor's back is to her and Donna sees her 1st and
she smiles in this subtle way.
Totally.
And, you know, when she says, ask her yourself.
Like, you know, the emotion in that, and you can just, I just, you
know, feel waves of emotion go over my whole person every time I
watch that combined with Murray's music and that whole run, like
and the looks, and it's just this payoff.
Julie Gardner's talked about that, the fact that the doctor
running towards Rose is so big and romantic, the full on pelt that
he sort of puts on.
And it's the 1st thing that him and Rose ever do together is hold
hands and run.
You know, running is what they do and it was what their
relationship was about.
You know, like many people I sometimes found rose and Tennant kind
of irritating together in series 2.
And I think that was partly by design.
I think you know, Russell intended it.
So I wasn't one of those people who sort of ship the doctor and
rose in a sort of tumbler kind of way.
But nevertheless, I'm absolutely sold by the romance of that run.
And just, of course, a dalek comes and shoots in.
Of course, that happens.
Russell whipping the rug out from underneath us.
Yeah.
But I love the fact that it's not a full on extermination.
It's a brush past, like, you know, Yeah, it hits one of his
hearts.
And even the, when they come together, like when they, you know
he's lying on the ground, she's speaking to him and it's like, hi
yes, I've been busy.
You know, like the conversation.
He's so normal and so.
I like your dental world. beautiful, you know.
New teeth.
I think that whole sequence from the TARDIS touching down outside
the church through the end of the episode is one of the most
perfect stretches of Doctor Who ever.
It's beautifully written, it's beautifully performed, but let's
not lose sight of how... marshalled it is by Graham Harper.
This story could have spun out of control so easily, and Graham
Harper keeps it all perfectly in sync.
He is fantastic.
Like, he is the perfect man for the job, especially in the TARDIS
when the TARDIS needs to have fire, for God knows what reason
coming up, you know, when they're trying to get back.
You know, he does that so well.
And thank God it's not, is it Douglas McKinnon?
He directed the Santantu part.
Thank God he's not him because he's like the...
He's that folk of series 4.
And I think you mentioned previously, James, or somebody did.
He's like the Peter Moffatt of classics.
We don't want him.
Graham Harper is the right man for the job, and at every point in
this, he just, he just chooses the right shots, the right angles
the right performances.
And it's such a good script, but I think moving so seamlessly
between so many plot elements is so much harder than it looks.
It could have easily come off as a little bit of a mess, and yet
it absolutely doesn't.
Perhaps the one thing I will say here at the end is that
intercutting between all of the cliffhangers with torture would
under attack, Sarah James seems to be getting exterminated for
quite some time in her car.
It's the one thing that I kind of go, okay, okay, they're just
gonna keep on saying that for 5 minutes whilst other things
happen.
I can live with that.
I think you have to do that in the cliffhanger.
Like it's a good practice, I think, for all of the plot threads to
come to a head at the same time.
And they did it in their very, very 1st ever Keith Poke directed
cliffhanger.
Let's just have a bit of comparing critras between that and this.
Yeah, but I mean, even that, you know, it's a Russell script and a
really great Russell script and, you know, it doesn't quite come
off, but it's the right instinct and he does that here.
So having Sarah confronted by the Daleks and Torchwood about to be
attacked by the Daleks and so on, like all of this stuff happening
at the same time is great.
I think Graham is just a confident, supremely confident
directory.
He knows what he's doing.
And so he knows when to pull out his bag of tricks, but he knows
when to get out of away as well.
Yeah.
Well, you know, that's the thing that's most striking about the
difference between his stuff in the 80s and his stuff in the new
series.
The stuff in the 80s is so stylised.
And so artfully directed and stands out so much from everything
else around it.
Whereas, you know, he does use tricks, there are all sorts of fun
silly things that he does in the unicorn and the wasp that no one
else has ever done in the new show, but he really just stands out
because he's confident and competent and not because he's trying
sort of to do auntie moves with the camera so much.
So the other thing, the most incredible thing.
We're at a point, I think, do we know David's leaving at the end
of next year?
So we didn't know what was going to happen?
It was announced at the NTAs, wasn't it?
Yes, he announced at the NTAs, which was in October of that year
so about 4 months later.
So we do know by the time the next doctor is airing, but we don't
know it yet.
Yes.
We do know that Russell is leaving and that Moffatt is taking
over.
Yes.
So we have to be wondering what's going to happen with Tennant, I
think, at this point.
And so this cliffhanger, which is not just the doctor in peril
because he's not, actually, he's regenerating, he's going to be
fine.
We know that he's going to be fine.
The cliffhanger is a cliffhanger because it puts us in peril in a
way.
Like it's affecting us.
What is going to happen next?
What is going to happen to David Tennant's doctor, who we adore.
What's going to happen now?
He's breaking the rules of regeneration.
Of course, there are no rules, but in our head, canon.
There are rules, like you just don't have the doctor exterminated
and regenerating unless he's actually regenerating into a new
person.
We're going to find something out next week.
But at this point, some of us on this podcast, probably me, are
enraged that this is happening the 1st time round.
How dare you do this with your generation?
You're wasting it if he's going to come back.
Regenerating a bathroom, destroying it.
This is absolutely appalling, but it's absolutely the best thing
and the most wonderful thing coming back to it and watching it.
It's just divine.
You know how sometimes people say it's just a massive pity that we
know when the doctor's leaving and we've never seen a Doctor Who
story in the new series where we haven't known that the doctor's
going to regenerate at the end and who the doctor's going to
regenerate into.
Like, that just never happens and can't possibly ever happen again
because they announce the casting of a new doctor.
It's a big story.
It's part of the whole program's paratext, is this discussion of
who's going to play the doctor next and when they're leaving and
when they're joining.
And so we can't have that again.
But we get it here.
You know, we get a surprise regeneration, and it's absolutely
unbelievable.
And when Moffat tries that trick again in his last season.
It's horrible.
But here it's just so spectacular.
It's just unimaginable And it's, there's no, like he cuts the
thing right in the middle of the regeneration.
It's not coming, it's not going to be thwarted.
He's standing there in the TARDIS with the light pouring out of
every orifice.
You know, we, there's no stopping it now.
We know it's happening and then it goes.
No next time trailer either.
No, that's right.
Do you think that's him making up for the fact that Eccleston
ruined... 2nd bite at the cherry.
Yeah.
So like, you know, like initially, you know, when they realised
Eccleston wasn't returning, it was going to be a complete
surprise.
They weren't going to announce tenant.
He was just going to become him at the end of series one and it
was leaked.
Yeah, they almost pulled it off.
The series was actually airing before it got leaked.
So they came close.
Well, in fact, it got leaked, you know, between episodes one and
two, didn't it?
Yeah.
It goes back, I think, to what I was saying earlier about the fact
that the audience is complicit in this.
I don't think he can just throw in a regeneration like Mothat did
in his last year and have it work.
It has to be a big audience moment, which there, and between the
stolen earth and journey's end in the UK, where I was living at
the time, with the Regeneration Cliffhanger.
Doctor Who was everywhere.
The not we were talking about it in the office.
There were endless news reports and interviews and TV discussion
analysis.
It was the genuine TV event that they tried to make it.
Yeah, it's just unthinkable, isn't it?
Wonderful.
Yeah, it's it's spectacular and I think this cliffhanger is is
just astounding and the whole episode is just a culmination of the
past weeks and the past 4 years and it really is just brilliant
television.
Well, that's all we have time for this week.
We'll be back next week for the first episode of the David
Morrissey era, apparently, in Journey's End.
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 FTE podcast on Twitter and on our website, FlightthroughEntirety
com, where you'll find links to our other podcasts, Bondfinger and
Jody into Terra.
Until next time, remember to look after the bees.
Without them, the doctor won't be able to save us from the coming
apocalypse.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
See you soon.
That was Flight 3 Entirety, starring Todd, Billby, Nathan
Bottomley, Peter Griffith, St.
James, Selwood.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, Strings performance by Jane
Orberg.
This episode, Mr. Smith's fanfare is digetic, was recorded on the
13th of April 2020 and released on the 31st of May.
If you normally hit stop on your iPhone at this point in the
podcast, you're missing out on several minutes of top quality
content every week.
So stay tuned now and you'll hear Peter and Nathan make an
alarming admission.
Okay, let's end it there, do you think?
Yeah.
That was good.
I didn't get to throw in my big character development surprise.
Ah, what was it?
Give me a tag.
Okay.
So talking about unexpected character development.
Wilf is a Tory.
I, well, so years, seen from years and years.
So I read, um, I read um, about times entry on this before we did
it. and they read it, and I think they read it wrong.
I think they read it that Jackie's a Tory.
And so when Wilford admits to voting for labour, her response is
no, you didn't.
But remember that scene in years and years where everyone goes to
the polls for the general election and Russell Toby's character
votes conservative after being sort of super sort of liberal and
terribly annoying and stuff.
So I think it's a little sort of anticipation of that.
I think that maybe he did what he did.
Well, you see, I think their reading of it.
Again, I agree with you.
I can because he looks very chastened when Jack says that.
So this is my thinking.
So he says he voted for Harriet Jones, who was definitely Labour
because she was one of Blair's babes.
Sylvia Schuszim, says he did not.
So that means he voted Tory.
And I mean, that's no great surprise since he lives in Chiswick
which is a conservative hotspot in the borough of Britain
Nyworth.
It's just about conceivable that he voted 3rd party, like Lib Demo
or something.
But if Harriet did win in a landslide, the Lib Dem vote must have
collapsed.
Ergo, Wilf is a suburban toy.
Horrifying.
I'll never...
I'm totally fine with that.
Because that scene is hilarious.
Really funny, isn't it?
You did not.
Like, whatever she says it, it's very good.
So good.
Well, they're so good. like when the line you referenced earlier
Todd, where, you know, they always want the women.
She could have reused her line.
I know why you came to earth, Dafros.
You think you'll meet a woman.
That just reminds me of that...
That episode of AbFab, um, where Patsy is playing boobarella.
She came to earth to save womankind for herself.
I love Boober.
I do too.
All right, here goes.