Hello, dear listener and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast powered by the macro transmission of a
K-filter wavelength in a self-replicating energy Blindfold
Matrix.
And also, of course, by love.
I'm Nathan.
I'm James.
I'm Peter.
And I'm Todd.
Well, turns out David Tennant didn't regenerate quite as we
expected, and so it's time for him to take his 18 month victory
lap, which will begin with a lot of people standing around talking
in rooms until Bad Wolfmark 2 turns up.
It's funny and thrilling and only slightly problematic.
It's journeys end.
Todd, were you disappointed by the final outcome of the
regeneration here?
Um...
Yes and no?
Like, I mean, if David had regenerated. fine, you know?
But of course, you couldn't really for story reasons and
contracts.
And the fact that you get to use the cutoff hand from the
Christmas invasion as a plot point, which has been, you know
circling this whole series since the end of season one and
Torchwood, I just think it's hilarious that something that Russell
throws in as like showing how regeneration works, something
different.
Um, And he never knows why he uses it, does these things.
He just does them and then it works out to be, well, here we go.
We can use it right here as to why he can syphon off his
regeneration energy and still look like he looks and that's the
brilliance of Russell T. Davies in terms of why he does what he
does.
It's also something that Moffatt does, isn't it?
When Moffat comes back to this in time of the doctor.
And he gets the doctor to explain why he regenerated into
himself.
And the explanation he gives is, you know, I had a sort of vanity
thing going.
And it is that, that's how tenant react.
And so both of them are able to find things in Doctor Who's
history, things that are lying around and repurpose them and find
new things to do with them.
And we talked last week so much about Russell's creative process
and he's clearly doing that here.
I'd forgotten that the hand is on the set of torchwood, like right
from the beginning.
Isn't it in the 1st episode?
And all of this season, it's been lying around in plain sight in
the Tartars.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's tremendous.
It's so great.
Such a clever thing.
And of course, the way regeneration is, he could make up anything
for, you know, to make it have any effect that he wants it to have
really.
I mean, it is the signalling, I think, in this episode that the
plot mechanics are going to start taking over, which makes it
slightly less joyous than last week, but still utterly joyous.
Well, I mean, the 1st real joyous moment is the resolution of
Sarah James Cliffhanger, where we get the 2 missing pieces, who
weren't here last week, and that's Jackie and Mickey.
Smiths had to stick together.
And less than less than just Jackie, but Jackie with a massive
gun.
We've talked previously about Russell thinking in comic strip
terms.
And I was talking to friend of the podcast, Stuart Manning about
this, and the fact that everyone's toting a gun, and his view was
that Russell likes a big comic strip image.
You know, he's a cartoonist.
We've talked about that.
And there's that fab pre-credit shot of Rose appearing in the
street last week with the gum strapped over her shoulder, and
that's the full page final frame image.
But Russell being Russell has to undercut that and then does it
with Jackie because that's hilarious.
It's such a joyous moment.
Less joyous, perhaps, is the way in which Gwen and Leanto get out
of their predicament with a time lock program that Tosh is working
on, so now she can manipulate time and energy fields, and it's one
of these things that perhaps you're alluded to, is that this week
I think we get a lot more scientific mumbo jumbo to get out of
things throughout the episode, which makes it slightly less joyous
for me at certain times where I kind of think, 0 my goodness, what
are we going on with now?
Does that really make any sense?
Obviously, the counterpoint is all the lovely relationships and
things that go on.
But I do struggle a bit with some of that stuff in this episode.
And who knew as well that Tosh could not handle a space piggy, but
she could stop time.
I actually think that Torchwood is a little bit underserved in
this.
And it is nice to have Gwen and Yanto in it, but they don't get
very much to do.
I do like the scene where Gwen is attacking a Dalek with a machine
gun.
That's fantastic.
And I like the scene where she goes up and sort of pokes one of
the bullets and stuff.
That's all sort of very fun, but then it is very, definitely
lampshaded.
No, we're stuck in here for the duration and we're not going to be
doing anything.
Do you know what it reminded me of?
The scenes from Shada that were used in the 5 doctors.
Ah, yeah.
They're caught in a time loop.
They can't interact with the rest of the story. we'd come back and
they were punching down the cam.
We're spotted the answer.
We're going to stick and Gwen laid out with a BFG.
Well, you know, like, I think that Camille Kajuri sort of made the
point that she doesn't get that much to do in this episode and
like there are a lot of moving parts.
There are a lot of people and everyone gets great character
moments, but they don't all get great plot moments, I think.
And I'm okay with that.
Like I would sooner, like I would never say, Russell, you needed
to have fewer guest stars and give each of them a more interesting
arc.
That's not what this is for.
And so just seeing Yanto, having him do a few great lines, having
Gwen, you know, fire a big gun, all of those things are absolutely
worth seeing, and I don't care if those characters don't get that
much to do.
In a lot of ways, Jackie gets more to do than a lot of the other
characters she gets put in, you know, potential peril.
Yeah.
Like, there's the whole scene where she's about to get fairy
dusted and...
Well, with Gita from EastEnders.
Yes.
Can I just say as well, sorry, James, just on that point.
Geeta, I think, from EastEnders is like Elton from Love and
Monsters.
The doctor is woven through her life because not only is she there
with Sarah on board that dalek ship, about to be disintegrated, but
in 1993, the 6th doctor in ace visited her clothes store in Walsh
coincidence.
Sorry, James.
There's that.
And, well, you know, Elton was actually supposed to come back in
this story too.
Actually, that reminds me.
Like how?
But, but it's that bit, James, it's not just, you know, her
getting to have part of the action, but it's her getting to have a
character moment because you remember that they're all herded into
this big room where they're testing the reality bomb, which
doesn't seem to be a bomb.
It seems to be a ray, but like whatever.
And they're sort of all there, and they're all going to be
disintegrated, and Jack and Mickey and Jackie are going to escape
and the reason that Jackie doesn't go with them is that Gita has
had a little bit of a turn and she's panicking and the Daleks are
threatening her, and Jackie helped her, you know, like he's kind
to her.
And then when Jackie realises that she's going to abandon her and
can't do anything about it, she says, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.
Like for a 2nd she becomes the doctor.
Even Jackie, you know, who is the butt of all of the jokes and who
everyone sort of makes fun of for being sort of trivial or
incompetent or whatever.
Like even Jackie has learned to be like the doctor.
It's a great point that you just made there.
Again, I find it.
I guess the mechanics of it is something that I get hung up on.
Like she's got this big yellow button to push.
Why does it suddenly just deposit her on the other side of that
door with Mickey?
Why doesn't it send her back to wherever?
To the other universe or whatever.
I mean, I know because the plot requires it to be there.
Yeah.
They're using that to teleport around here, aren't they?
And that's how they get them up off Earth.
They get Sarah up with the Daleks, don't they?
With the teleport.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I mean, that's how they sort of get them around, I guess.
The plotting logistics are secondary to what this episode is, which
is the event, it's the reunion.
And so the fact that Davros is just building a bomb is pretty
pedestrian.
I mean, that's Doctor Who boilerplates.
And, hey, do you think you got the idea from Kara in Revelation of
the Dialects?
What are you going to do, Davris?
I'm going to build a bomb, a bomb, a great big bomb.
But also the logic of it doesn't work.
That's rare for Russell.
The logic, if that doesn't work, because it's a bomb that will
supposedly wipe out all other dimensions except for the Daleks.
But if you think about other dimensions, there will be other
dimensions there where the Daleks have built this bomb and the
doctor hasn't been able to stop them, and so they will have
decinated it and wiped out all dimensions.
There is that issue about possible and actual worlds, which is, yes
it doesn't sort of quite work if you think of those worlds as
possibilities, but somehow able to interact with one another.
There's a whole sort of kind of philosophy that deals with things
like probabilities and might and should by positing imaginary
possible worlds.
I think these have to be a different kind of world than that for
this to work.
I think the reality bomb is a great idea, and it's absolutely
Russell Techno Babble in that it does exactly what it says on the
tin.
It's a bomb that blows up reality.
You know what I mean?
Mum is not sitting next to you on the couch saying, what's a
reality bomb, right?
Like, it's all just very clear what it is.
And I think as well that it is the payoff of that conversation
that Davros has with the doctor in Genesis of the Daleks, about
wiping everything out.
And I read about time, uh, before recording this, and they mention
dialogue, even in destiny of the Daleks, where Davros talks about
creating weaponry that will destroy all mass that it encounters.
And so Davros has always wanted to destroy everything.
And so, you know, we bring him back, what's he doing?
He's destroying everything.
Yeah, it totally works.
I get I get what you're saying.
For me, it's the weakest thing where my grand plan is just to
destroy everything.
I don't I don't know.
I just...
No, no.
It's not subtle, you know.
You know, we get reality bomb, time lock.
What do we have?
we've got the Osterhagen key.
I love that name.
Osterhagen.
It's like ice cream.
It's an anagram of Earth's Gone.
There you go.
How many brain cells did they use up on that one?
And again, in this episode, like last episode, we had misdirection
with Jack saying, oh, Martha's down, right?
So to try and make you think that she's dead when she uses Project
Indigo.
Here with the TARDIS going into the core of the Dalek crucible.
You know, it's misdirection that it's going to be torn apart.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
I mean, we know we know that neither of those things are going to
happen.
We know that Martha's not going to be killed and the TARDIS is not
going to be destroyed.
And we know that Donna's not going to be killed by something that
happens early in the episode.
But it's classic Russell misdirection with saying something and
the characters believing one thing, but we know that it's not what
it appears to be.
Can I just say the Darnit crucible?
It always reminds me that it's situated between Altos and Zeos.
Like I just always look at it and I always think that it is the
shadows spaceship in the middle of that.
That's what's controlling it.
It's mentalis.
Mentalis is in charge of the Dalek fleet.
Maybe that means that the shadow proclamation is actually the
shadows proclamation.
I think as well, talking about Martha.
We've seen throughout this season that she's been a little bit
short-changed in kind of the things that she's been given to do.
She's been brought back and then not really rewarded the audience
much, and the recurring problem happens here as well, because
Martha's brought back as part of the, as part of the team.
But then she has very little connection to the main action and no
relationship to speak of with the doctor.
So it's a little bit like when Harry was brought back in the
Android invasion.
You've got the familiar face, but they're not doing the things
that you want them to do.
She's there in practice, but not spirit.
She kind of rattles around unit HQ spouting generic lines and then
goes off into the D plot with the Hagendars key.
And that's it.
But, but she gets to go to Germany and we get to hear Daleks in
German.
And then she gets that moment with Rose when she gets to say, oh
he found you.
Is that the lines?
Yeah, I love that line.
And that payoff is just amazing.
It gets my heart every single time when she says that.
And she's the one that sort of is being warm and fuzzy after Rose
has been a thoroughly old cow like in the previous episode.
Whereas here, it then gives Rose the impetus to say, oh, she's
good or whatever, right?
A change of tune.
Like it's actually quite nice to see that Martha effects rose.
And it's also fixing a problem at the heart of the program in this
era, and that is how badly Martha was treated.
And Martha goes, you know, like Martha just says, he found you.
I'm, you know, she's happy for Rose, she's not resentful.
You can see that the character has moved on.
She's over the doctor and that's some that's some character
growth.
Something that she wasn't really given in her own season.
It's a it's a nice a nice character B. Yeah, and I mean, Freema's
doing everything that she can with it, I think.
It's just, I can't shake the feeling all throughout this season
and especially in this episode, that she's the B team.
She's not given kind of the big scenes with the doctor, which Rose
and Donneget.
She shuffled off a little bit, like the spinoffs are, and it's
just a little bit of a shame.
I guess the price that you pay for having so many guest characters
is that not every one of them gets to do everything.
I do think that Martha's sort of competence and things is really
interesting and the way that Donna's criticism of what the doctor
has done to Martha gets followed up here.
So remember in the Santarin stratagem, where Donna actually sort
of tells the doctor off for the fact that Martha is now a soldier
in unit.
And we learn, in fact, that Martha's role is a bit more
complicated than that.
But that's at the heart of what's being said here, I think, in
this episode.
So you get 2 groups of companions.
You get Martha and then you get Sarah, Jack and Jackie and Mickey
but basically Sarah and Jack, isn't it?
Both come up with a plan.
And their plan is to blow everything up.
And, and, and Donna and the other doctor come up with a plan and
what's their plan to kind of rush at Davros with a big gun?
Is it to blow everything up?
Yeah, yeah.
Everybody seems to be blowing everything up.
Davros is blowing everything up.
Sarah Jane's got that emerald crystal thing to blow everything up
with.
Martha's going to blow everything up and then they've got the ray
gun to blow up.
And also Davros and the Daleks are going to blow everything up.
Hooray.
But so, and so that means that the doctor's companions are more
like the Daleks than they are like the doctor.
And remember the doctor's reaction of horror when he discovers
what Jack and Sarah and Martha are all intending to do.
But do you think, though, that that's actually, that's also
selling the fact that these characters have all experienced the
Daleks, or at least the lead characters that are making those
decisions, know how much of a threat the Daleks are, and so they
are willing to go that far?
Oh yeah, no, sure.
It's a case of they wouldn't do this, but it's this or the
universe.
And it helps sell the threat.
Do you know what I mean?
Because, I mean, basically by this point, we're all on the
crucible, which is just a couple of sets where we're all standing
around talking to one another over video conferences. you know
what I mean?
cement factory or something, isn't it?
Another of Ed Thomas's old cement factories.
And all of that's sort of quite fun, but it is a little bit kind
of static, I think.
And so there's a lot of sort of word peril. standing around in a
cement factory.
Yeah, that's right.
I think this is definitely Russell lampshading what the arc that
he's given, a lot of these characters.
But I have to say, I'm not entirely on board with it because
really, every character who Russell is introduced has ended up
being a bit gun tooting.
So what Davros says, it's an element of self-criticism is actually
correct.
You can't imagine in the old series that you would have brought
back old companions and suddenly they would be hard bitten kind of
gunslingers, you know, Polly or Joe. Exactly.
Dodo would sit on the reality bomb and detonate it by accident
after giving everyone syphilis. forgotten that.
But I'm not entirely on board with those trajectories.
I do wonder why it was done.
I mean, Mickey, for instance, at this stage has just morphed into
Noel Clark.
There's very little of original Mickey left.
It's now Noel Clark.
There's even that comment about beefcake, isn't there?
When does Jack hug him and say something about it?
Cheesecake beef.
I want to see, I want to see a big finish spinoff series called
Smith and Jones with Mickey Smith and Martha Jones.
Yeah, I think it'd be great.
It's clearly where they're heading at the end.
We'll get to that, but I'm amazed they haven't got there yet.
Should I say it 3 times?
I think it's Russell making the episode about something when it
doesn't necessarily have to be.
The whole point of this, like we were talking about last week, is
that it's event television.
This is Russell overlaying kind of something character on top of
it.
And I'm, I, I like that.
That fine.
I'm just not sure we had to end up here.
Except, though, that what is the doctor's solution in contrast to
this?
So the doctor's companions come up with will blow up the crucible
or will blow up the world or will Russia Davros with a big gun?
And what is the solution to the Daleks in this situation?
And the solution is, and Donna gets to do it, because it's
metacrisis Donna, at this point, she gets to run in and she
defeats the daleks by making them ridiculous and by being funny.
So she comes out, she's super verbal.
And that thing about, you know, like Donna's a bit dim and can't
point out Germany on a map or whatever.
Thank goodness.
Martha was able to point out Germany on map.
Exactly.
And then suddenly Catherine Tate comes out and she is every bit as
smart and as verbal as David Tennant.
She is unbelievable at that moment.
It's such a tremendous performance.
And she solves the problem by typing because she's a temp and we
learned that she types at 100 words per minute in the last
episode.
And so she solves the problem by being incredibly funny and fun to
watch and by typing and by making the Daleks go round and round in
circles.
Let's make them go this way and they even give her a big knob that
she can turn to make the Darlies go one direction or another
direction.
And so the solution for Doctor Who isn't, you have a big gun or
you have a big bomb or something like that, and that's how you
win.
You win by being more fun than the villains, by being smarter and
more compelling to watch.
And so, this time, I think for the 1st time, I saw what the point
of all that character stuff was.
I thought it was there just to give Tenet the opportunity to pull
a pouty face and feel sorry for himself, you know, oh, I'm
terrible me.
I'm turning all my companions into weapons.
But in fact, it's about who the doctor is and why he wins.
At the most basic level, and it's perfect.
If everyone's tuning in.
They need to know that that's what the doctor's about.
I do have to say that I think that Julian's performances, Del Bros
in this episode is just extraordinary, and the lines that he gets
to say to the doctor, Some of the, the fact that Davros, and this
is in the writing, gets to recognise Sarah Jane, like impossible
that face after all these years.
That is just brilliant, and it's such a payoff. for all of us who
have known her for this long that she's elevated that status that
he actually recognises.
The moment a 1000 fanboys read to reach for the cleanness.
But it's so good, isn't it?
It doesn't ruin anything.
It's appalling and it gets gives both of them a chance to act and
it lifts Sarah into a more mythic status.
I mean, she's already the lead of her own program.
She gets to use the Sonic lipstick at one point, you know, but now
she's entered into this sort of, you know, she has a relationship
with someone who has mythic status, the creator of the Daleks and
someone who was involved in the time war and all of that weird
time war kind of language, you know, Davros was there.
I think in the old series, companions didn't get mythic status.
They might have been there, sort of important stories, but the
series was not about being mythic.
It was just episodic adventures.
Whereas the new series has elevated the doctor to being mythic and
elevating Sarah alongside him is very fishing.
It's wonderful.
I was like the fact that Davros is now in a league of villains
where he gets to call the companion Ms. Tyler rather than Rose.
That goes a long way.
You know, this story could have been even longer than the 65
minute slot.
There's a lot of cuts.
Yeah.
Like, initially, we had an explanation of how you grow a TARDIS
but, um, you know, the doctor was supposed to give the metacrisis
doctor some corals so he could grow his own TARDIS and fly around
the alternate universe.
Um, And there was a scene as the TARDIS materialises at the end of
it, the episode where Donna hears it and has a moment of of
remembrance.
And then, and then, and then sort of forgets and turns around and
goes back to a conversation on the phone.
Um, This episode is so full and then, you know, like, but there
was so much more that they actually had to trim out of it.
There's there's like maybe 10 minutes of footage that was probably
on the cutting room floor.
But for those, I don't mind those ones being cut.
Sometimes I think those things actually help an episode much
better.
Going back to Dabros and his performance and what he gets to do.
I mean, the fact that he talks about the doctor's soul being
revealed and you take ordinary people and fashion them into
weapons, I know you didn't particularly like that, Peter, but I
actually think it ties in really well with everything that
Russell's tried to do.
And then we get that, how many people have died in your name
flashback sequence, from the new series, like going back to series
one.
And it's so affecting.
I think that, again, it's not the sort of thing that you would put
up within anything other than a sort of big giant, you know, final
finale for the era.
It is a little bit indulgent.
I think it's inexcusable that Adric is not there.
Well, we don't care.
That's really the reason, Catarina.
But it is great to see.
I mean, it is sort of really fun.
So Dave Tennant gets to do 2 roles in this episode.
His normal doctor, his newly regenerated, in love with myself
doctor, and um, the doctor with one heart, who's half human or
maybe not, but does go oi, oi, oi, a bit.
What do you think of his performance as the doctor in blue?
David Turner's always been a lesser performance in blue, I'm just
putting it out there.
What are you saying about series three?
I like this idea, and I think that it ties into what I said before
about the story's doing about the doctor's character.
So just as Donna gets to be very doctor-ish, the doctor gets to be
sort of very Donna-ish, and that's sort of reinforcing the idea
that they're the same in all sorts of ways, which the season has
been doing ever since partners in crime.
And it gives the chance for 2 performers who really like one
another and have been working closely together for, what, 9 months
or whatever to do their best impersonations to each other.
Yeah, yeah, I think they do it really well.
I think both of them do it like tremendously well.
I think there's a reason why they give the meta crisis doctor, a
kind of Eccleston style jumper under his suit.
Um, like, I think that that's sort of, that's sort of clear
because what happens, you know, Donna comes out and is making the
Dalek spin around and be silly and fun, and then the metacrisis
doctor comes and has them all destroyed, you know, gets them all
killed.
And our doctor is super angry about that.
He doesn't like that at all and, you know, calls that doctor on, on
that and then, you know, ends up exiling him as a result.
He can't be allowed to stay.
But that's the doctor and Tennant will say this later in the
episode.
That's the doctor that we 1st met, the doctor who had wiped out
all the daleks. who needs a rose to heal him in some ways.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So, you know, there's a lot of sort of fun business around those
the 2 doctors sort of thing.
Darlik Khan calls him like the threefold doctor or something.
It's like...
The threefold man, and that's Donna.
The doctor and the metacrisis doctor all get to be the doctor sort
of here.
So he's the threefold man.
And so so we get to see the journey that that Doctor Who has been
on since the beginning of series one, you know, we back to that
doctor.
Yeah.
Makes sense.
And Jack gets a joke.
Yes.
What does he say?
He's distracted or thinking of some improper thoughts about, I
can't remember the line of dialogue, but it does sound like he
wants to have sex with all 3 of them.
My dreams have all come true.
I personally think it would have been completed if Jack had hit on
Dalek Khan.
Can you imagine that little scene?
What do we think of Dalek Khan?
Oh, Dalek Khan's amazing.
I mean, it's a really great vocal performance from Nick Briggs.
And like, I like the conception of it as well.
Like, both Rose and Martha have met Dalek Khan?
Yes.
And I think Martha may mention Dalek Khan by name because she
knows that Dalek Khan is kind of the only survivor of the cult of
Scaro, as far as she's concerned, the only surviving Dalek, I
think.
So she knows about him as well.
The doctor says you've met him before.
Yeah, yeah, to Rose.
That's right Yeah.
I like how he can make prophecy.
Yeah.
Like everybody else can make prophecies as well.
But one thing I did pick up this time is the fact that he fell
through like his temporal shift, took him to the time war to get
Davros out of that situation, which I never really had picked up
on before.
So it was quite interesting.
I love the way Nick delivers that line where he says, I...
It's so fun, isn't it?
And he, I reckon they sell that he can do prophecies because of
the weird relationship he's had with time. he's gone into this odd
space-time event.
And but then the fact that he flew back into the time war, rescued
Davros so he could use Davros to destroy all the Daleks.
Yes.
I have to say that I think about time is right about this.
It is one hell of a baroque plan.
So he rescues Davros.
And Davros then creates 100s of 1000s of Daleks so that Dalek Khan
can destroy them all, you know, because they're bad, it does seem
like he could have just stopped before step one of that plan.
And back out without saving... right.
And everything would have been fine.
It was just so he could get the last giggle.
Yeah, look, I'm not sure that that revelation quite works.
It was Dalek Khan, who'd realised that we were all bad.
You know, the 2nd cult of Scaro guy just sort of suddenly say
actually, Daleks are not such a great idea.
Without him, we wouldn't have that incredible prop and that
amazing puppet and the incredible performance.
And he pre-steals John Hurtz lines from Day with the Doctor.
Yes.
He says no more, doesn't he?
He sees the Daleks and says no more.
And I have to think that Moffat told that because he, I think he
loves Russell's Doctor Who.
And that story is a response to Russell's Doctor Who, the day of
the Doctor, is very much about how Russell had brought the show
back.
Oh yeah, totally.
So I think that's deliberate.
I'm going to, I'm going to believe that anyway.
And it fits still so, because the cult of Scaro were meant to be
the thinkers.
And so you had Dalek Sec, who was thinking of one way of
progressing the Dalek race.
This is Dalek Khan, who's been through all that, thinking about
where is this going to end up and coming to really the only
conclusion that he could?
Of course, the image which these episodes of building 2 is all of
our favourites standing around the TARDIS console triumphantly.
It's just irresistible.
Um, and I've read criticisms of, you know, how can the TARDIS too
the Earth home and things like that?
And I mean, who cares?
Kill the Moon, I think, is criticised correctly for its ridiculous
science, because it's in service to an equally stupid plot, and
that's the reason no one likes technobabble.
But here we don't care because the science is dodgy because it's
not important.
The emotional payoff is all we care about here.
And that image of everyone triumphantly working together and
having a laugh and, you know, basically ending the plot on a
positive note is all we need.
No, no, not you, Jackie.
Oh my god, I love that so much. just stay there.
That scene is filled with beauty because you've got Jackie who's
laughing about that.
She takes it in good humour and she giggles with the others.
You got Martha looking directly down the camera when she does her
thing.
She's inviting the audience in.
It's great.
And and the wonderful thing where um, I think Jack is hugging
Sarah, and Donna just pushes Sarah out of the way.
Shot goes in. flying across the console room.
It's so good.
It's Donna's little comment, Jack, I think you're the best.
Yes, you're doing a very good job.
But I just love the fact that it's a new thing to the TARDIS that
it's supposed to have all these people operating it to make it fly
correctly.
It's just, it's just a lovely new element and and, and in that
also, Rose and the doctor get to talk to Gwen Cooper and, and are
you from an old Cardiff family, like just a little nugget in there
back to series one?
That's a new adventures reference, isn't it?
I think Gareth Roberts invents the idea that the TARDIS should
have more than you should have 6 pilots.
So it had been in the new adventures, but here's what I think is
interesting is that set is deliberately huge, when it's 1st
introduced, and it's deliberately huge in order to make it clear
how lonely the doctor is.
You know, the doctor is by himself in this massive cavernous space
and travelling all the way on his own.
And in that scene, that's a response to that idea, isn't it?
The room is now full of people laughing and enjoying themselves
people who love the doctor and who the doctor loves.
They give Sarah that wonderful line.
You know, you act like such a lonely man, but you've got the
biggest family in the universe.
It's so good.
I cry for the last 10 minutes of this episode.
Yeah, he hasn't created soldiers.
He's created family.
Yeah.
And all the fireworks are spontaneous fireworks around the world.
And Worth returns to proper police.
And that's the joy, Doctor Who, that humour that...
But yes, the towing, the towing the earth back is perfect.
And it happens for plot and emotional reasons.
They use the magnetron to return the other...
I think they literally call it the magnetron.
They use the magnitron to return the other 26 planets and guess
which planet is left.
You know, it has to be Earth so that we can tow it home
ourselves.
It's glory.
Is Magatron not the thing that Ian and Barbara came across in the
Skaro jungle?
the Magnodon.
No, it's what the time lord is used to move the earth and its
entire constellation across the galaxy.
Magnetron?
Yeah.
Just wonderful.
It's such a great scene.
And it's that thing.
There seems to be this sort of constant fear of Doctor Who going
too big and being too exciting.
No, you know, we can't have the Tartars towing the earth back into
its proper place because that's too much fun and simply too
exciting.
And the TARDIS can't do that because even though it's completely
made up, I know exactly how it works, you know, like it's it's a
terrible instinct, I think.
That's why I'm not Showrunner.
Oh boy.
And then you get all those farewells.
Outside the Tartars, with Sarah, um, And Mickey, saying goodbye to
Jackie as well inside, you know?
Yeah. and and the whole Martha, Jack, and Mickey thing.
I just had tears watching it, you know?
Um, I can't, were they all going to be in tortured?
Was that the plan?
Certainly Mickey was, wasn't he, James?
I think they all were in Children of Earth, yeah.
Yeah, there was there was a plan behind that, yeah.
I think it didn't happen because that's when Noel's career really
takes off in a huge way.
Like, isn't it?
Like he'd had some success with, um, kidulthood.
And then, and then like he was incredibly busy.
So that's why that didn't happen, I believe.
And does Chibnell poach Martha for Law and Order UK, which is why
we get the lowest character in children of Earth?
Like, I think I think Martha would have done that.
So that was that was the idea of that.
But I love that we got a chance to see Mickey and Jackie properly
interacting as well because I think this is a thing about this
episode, Nathan, you don't see Mickey and Rose at all.
They barely share a line.
It's all Mickey and Jackie.
But that's the important relationships.
Yes, isn't it?
It's so important.
Remember how lost Jackie is without Mickey in Love and Monsters.
Like, obviously, she misses Rose.
Because Rose is away, but she's lost Mickey kind of permanently at
that point.
And, you know, she tells Elton about him.
And even the where's Mickey question that Jackie asks at the end
of the age of steel when Mickey doesn't come back, and their
relationship in aliens of London and World War 3, where they go
from this antagonism to being really close.
You know, where where Mickey says to Jackie stopped me, you know
like I won't send these missiles towards Rose and the Doctor, if
you stop me, you know, they're there together.
And that relationship, I think, is absolutely underestimated.
The beginning of Christmas invasion, you know, like all of it.
And they share Doctor Who's 1st cliffhanger of the new era
together.
And let's not forget, they've come a long way since that entire
year when Jackie accused Mickey of murdering Rose.
The fact that he says, I'm going to miss you more than anyone.
Yeah.
And he means Rose.
Yeah.
It's just brilliant.
And then Jackie just gets one of the most fantastic lines, bloody
Norway.
So after we drop everyone off, we're in Bad Wolf Bay, right?
And that, for me, like my favourite line from Jackie there is
where she calls the doctor a plum because she tricks him into
thinking that the baby that she was pregnant with in doomsday, that
she named him the doctor.
And then he believes her and then she makes fun of it, which is
just wonderful.
You know, that's what Don has been doing all season.
And of course, Jackie can do it.
After he got the upper hand in the Tartars console room, she gets
to make fun of him.
You know, he might be good at Tartars consoles, but she's much
better at people than he is.
That's true What do we think of that scene?
The final resolution with the Rose and the other doctor?
Billy Piper hated it, didn't she?
Because she'd been lumbered with an inferior, an inferior copy of
the doctor.
I mean, saying she hated it, maybe overstating a little bit, but
she's definitely on record saying she didn't feel it.
She didn't.
It felt like Rose had had sloppy seconds.
Yeah, but she, um, she felt that it wasn't, it wasn't right for
the character.
It was a disservice to the character of Rose and of the doctor and
their relationship that, you know, she got palmed off with this
broken, sort of 2nd hand, poorly copied version.
We talked earlier in this episode about the fact that Rose does
rescue the doctor in some ways like she did with Eccleston back at
the beginning of the series.
But it felt to me a little bit, like Rose had had her agency
removed, but the doctor sort of deciding what she needed and what
was right for her.
Um, almost like sort of Susan, you know, 50 years earlier.
He's very into that this season.
He does it to Donna as well.
We'll get to that.
But I think, you know, like it's not entirely clear.
I guess that Rose and Jackie have to go back to the parallel world
whereas before they were trapped, this time we have a choice, but
only for a short period of time.
And they have to go back because that's where Tony and Pete are
where home is now.
Yeah, that's where that's where they live.
So it's not quite, I think the job, I think the problem is the
doctor just assuming that it's Rose's job to fix him, you know
that a woman's job is partly to fix a broken man, you know.
And I'm not sure that's all that good.
That's very Moffat conception of a woman's role, isn't it?
Well, I don't know.
I think Moffat's been unfair, James.
I think that Moffatt's ideas about men and women are more complex
than that and that he's more likely to critique.
I'm just being a bit, he's more likely to critique that position.
Todd, what do you think about it?
At the time, I was okay.
Like, what are you going to do with this other doctor?
And it was sort of a resolution.
Um, she gets a doctor of sorts and I don't hate it.
I know, particularly love it.
It's a resolution to her character.
What else is her character going to do?
Is she going to reject her mother and that world and stay on this
world and travel with the doctor, but she can't because she's off
being famous and doing other things.
So, we have to come up with something that's half reasonable.
And, I think it's at least half reasonable and I'm okay with
that.
If she does get a doctor who can say that he loves her, even
though for some reason...
Because Doctor Who can never say that.
I don't know why we don't show that on screen because that would
have been surprising.
I think they sort of shied back.
I mean, there's no way.
There's no other way of reading that whispering into her ear.
So why not just say it?
You know, Yeah, no, I...
And if he'd said it, then it would have really made a clear
distinction between the doctor. rather than having to whisper
sweet nothings.
I think it would have been perfect.
In fact, I think it would have sold it. lot more.
Yeah.
I just think that doomsday is so easy to understand.
It's like 2 people who can't be together for whatever reason.
And that's what happens all the time.
Whereas what exactly is going on?
This is just like when you break up with your boyfriend and spend
some time apart and then there's an identical version of that
boyfriend who comes back and lives with you or something.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, it's just got no real world analogue. impossible to
understand how you would feel about that.
So what do you do with it?
You can understand doomsday but I can't understand these.
It could be like Troy and the 2 Rikers on...
Star Trek, the next generation.
Second chances.
I think it's a problem with Rose coming back.
I mean, obviously Rose had to come back because she's an intrinsic
member of the team.
Billy Piper was so popular. totally get that.
But the character story was complete with Doomsday.
And so you've got to bring it back and resolve it in a different
way, which doesn't work as well.
No.
It might have been a better idea not to go back to Bad Wolf Bay.
Do you know what I mean?
Just, I don't know. somehow making it more different because it
just seems like a slightly weird and overly complex version of the
end of doomsday.
And also on a production level, Bad Wolfbade doesn't look nearly
as good because last time it was shot in the middle of winter and
this time it's shot in the middle of summer.
So is that that could be read in a way as being a positive thing.
You know, like the weather is good because it's a more positive
ending for the character.
She's not heartbroken stuck in another universe.
She's in another universe with a copy of the doctor.
Yeah, but also just looks like a beach in Cardiff now.
And so, I guess...
We need to talk about the very end and what happens to Donna.
I'm not on board with the normal reading of this, I think.
I am a lot less negative towards the doctor's actions here than
some people are.
See, I think you're wrong.
It's a violation.
He steals her agency and then kills her.
I've not forgiven Russell.
I've still not forgiven Russell.
But he has to for plot reasons.
She is going to die if he doesn't.
That she could choose to die.
And she would have chosen to die.
But you see, I think you do intervene in people's decisions to
die.
I think that's precisely what you do.
When someone is choosing to die.
You do intervene in it.
And I also think too, that both the doctor and Donna know what the
consequences are.
Do you know what I mean?
Like both of them know what's going to happen.
Both of them know what the doctor can do.
And this isn't a situation where someone more powerful is imposing
there. their wishes on someone else because the 2 of them are
equal and that's what the whole episode's been about.
Like, I don't want to be in a position where I say she could have
fought back. if she didn't want it to happen.
Um, because that's that's bad.
There's actually in one of those deleted scenes, there is actually
a line, it's really on the nose line where she says, like the
doctor, the doctor and Donna travelling through the universe
together forever as equals, and that's what he needs, an equal.
I think that it's more complex than that, and I don't think that
what the doctor does is obviously wrong.
Because he doesn't want to do it.
He doesn't do it for his own satisfaction.
He doesn't do it because he's going to benefit from it.
He does it for her.
Um, and I think, you know, that that in a situation where someone
is, I don't know, it's complicated and I guess it's meant to be
complicated.
I don't think it's obviously wrong.
I think you intervene when someone is trying to kill themselves
ordinarily.
He's doing it to save her pain.
She she knows what the situation is and she knows that this is the
only recourse, otherwise she'll die, but it's too painful to take
that step because she knows what she's going to lose.
So, it's euthanasia.
Yeah, but that's different, I think.
That is different.
And we don't think of euthanasia as acceptable in every
circumstance.
Do you know what I mean?
And we certainly wouldn't want someone who was suffering from
depression to rock up to dignitas and get themselves off.
You know, like it's not, it's, it's just not 100% clear that the
doctor's doing something terribly wrong.
But then we see the consequences of it.
And the consequences of it are so brutal to watch. so painful.
Oh, and the way that Sylvia and Wolf react, Sylvia does not
forgive him.
She tells him to get out. twice.
Yeah, you've killed my daughter.
You know, like, and Will says, she doesn't say that, but Will says
she was better when she was with you.
And there's this whole sort of, I mean, the character is dead.
She's dead.
Well, no, she isn't though.
I think that's wrong because she's there.
She's alive and breathing.
She's the same Donna that we 1st met.
And remember that that donor isn't that terrible.
And that's, you know, the choice that the script makes in order to
play up the doctor's loss and Donna's loss is to make her super
trivial.
Like she's having these sort of dumb phone conversations and stuff
like that.
And we see her just ignoring the doctor and that's super painful
to watch as well.
But she's alive.
And just because Dalek Khan says that one of the faithful
companions will die.
Well, that was kind of a fake out and he's a Dalek.
We can't trust him.
That's right, and characters don't exist in limbo, just because
she is regressed, being regressed to the point she was in Runaway
Bride doesn't mean that she's now not going to go on and learn and
become a better person and have a better Sylvia and a more kind of
understanding wolf, you know, of what she's been through to kind
of guide her and influence her.
And we'll see when she comes back in the end of time, that she is
a less trivial, less boisterous version of herself.
She has developed.
She just hasn't developed in necessarily the way that we saw and
enjoyed.
We'll get that to that in about 6 months time.
And I agree with you, Peter.
I think, although we have the loss of this character, and there is
really no choice to be made, um, There's the potential that she
can grow and she can learn and she can become a better person, may
not be the same person that she ended up being with the doctor, but
there is that potential there.
I mean, it's absolutely heartbreaking and very affecting and, and
you know, as it was happening, like, I always think back to my
reaction to Janie and Zoe at the end of, um, the war games, and in
particular, not to lessen Zoe's time with the doctor, but in
particular, Janie, who has come, his growth has been amazing.
He will never remember Victoria, probably the closest relationship
he had with anybody, and as a child, as a teenager, whenever that
was one of the most affecting things ever.
Like for me, I was so just totally and utterly devastated by that
and the same feeling with this year.
And yet as an adult, you think about Jamie.
You think, yes, that's terribly sad, but you also think he had
that capacity to grow, and he had that capacity to care, and you
just know that he's going to go on and have a different, but
equally fulfilling life because that's who he is.
Or gets killed on a battlefield.
No.
The doctor saved him.
But I love the fact that both through this awful event, Sylvia has
grown and will grow and her character will change and she will be
a better mother and a better daughter.
And Wolf is always as he was even more so with more heart.
And if that's a positive out of takeout of this, then that's what
I take out of it.
And I'm so glad, James, that in 6 months' time we get to see Donna
again, and we can see some sort of positive rather than just being
left at this point where, you know, for her anyway.
It's it's not a good place.
At this point, remember that we were going to have a scene where
Donna heard the Tartar steam materialise and she sort of
recognises it or seems to be struggling to remember what it is or
something, but then dismisses it.
And I think they discuss it on the commentary.
It might be Julian Russell on the commentary for this story.
And I remember thinking at the time that would have been so much
better.
I would have been so much happier if we'd had that scene.
But their instinct is right because it cheats, it undercuts the
real loss, I think.
You're looking for consolation and you don't want it.
Agreed.
I think, I think, with, you know, like, I mean, this is all, it's
all made up.
You can make your own rules.
I mean, I agree that, you know, what he does to her saves her life
and she can grow and become a different person.
I don't disagree with that.
But it's a made up story.
I just want Catherine Tate to travel through time and space with
the doctor forever.
Like that.
Didn't they not, didn't they not even ask her about doing another
season?
They just assumed that she didn't want to come back or something
like that?
What, like with the Christmas special?
It was the fact that they were going onto the specials, yeah.
But, but you see, the reason that it hits us so hard is it's
imagine if you didn't know about the doctor.
Imagine, you know, if you had to stop travelling, you know, like
I'm coming to your place, James, and I am, um, I'm going to
firebomb your Doctor Who DVD collection, uh, and you'll never...
And you'll never, ever...
You'll never be able to watch Doctor Who ever again.
And that's what it is.
Do you know what I mean?
It's like for us, you know, the journey that we've had travelling
with a doctor ever since we were 10 or whatever that's been so
important to us that we've loved so much and we've derived so much
pleasure from.
And Donna gets kicked out of that and doesn't even remember it.
And so for us, it's the worst conceivable thing that could happen
to anyone.
But she actually manages still to live a full rich and satisfying
life in spite of that.
It goes back to what we were saying last week about this being an
immersive audience experience.
He invites the audience in because it does make you reflect on the
fact that Doctor is such a big part of our lives and your social
networks and whatever, that without it, it would just be an
emptier and sorrier existence, and that's what poor Donner is
consigned to.
All right, it's time for picks of the week. and I'm going to start
with you, James.
Well, my pick of the week this week is the fabulous series 3 Sarah
Jane Adventure story, the wedding of Sarah Jane Smith.
Oh, I love, I love the Sarah Chain Adventures.
I possibly more than the show it evolved out of.
It's just so joyous and I wish I had been a child when it was
broadcast.
I was, you know, 20 years too old.
Um, at the time, but it's just fantastic.
You get tenant coming back, sort of, as, you know, in a victory
lap to stop her making a terrible decision.
Um, Nigel Havers is her, her fiance.
It's just fantastic.
And, you know, you get you the annual evil plot by the trickster.
Um, and it's got Zenya Merton, um, Pingcho from Marco Polo in it.
It's fantastic.
Todd, your face.
Was that your choice, Todd?
No, my choice was stolen.
By the episode, I will listen to of FTE this morning when I was
walking around, so I can't recommend Avenue 5 enough.
So somebody else, please come up with another pick while I
scramble around here to find something.
Okay.
Peter.
So my pick of the week is the UK US co-production of War of the
Worlds, which has just come out, not to be confused with the Pete
Harness 3-part version, which was set contemporary to the novel
but a new version.
It's like 8 or 10 episodes, um, and it's set in the current day.
And I think it's quite fitting because we've just seen a war of
the world since the stolen earthen journey's end.
Um, It's a bit of a slow burn, so it's not for you if you're
looking for action and adventure, but, um, It's got a lot of
atmosphere.
It's got sort of interesting aliens that aren't really what you'd
expect them to be, and it also stars in one of the leading roles
Thai Tennant, who is the son of David Tennant and Georgia Moffat.
So there we go.
All wrapped up.
Well, my pick of the week. is the Netflix series Tiger King.
Because it always ends in a cliffhanger, and you can just recast
it with everybody from Doctor Who, and, you know, there's a lot of
people with really bad teeth.
So, you know, um, The big book of British smiles.
Billy Piper, you know, you can she could be Carol, and you can
cast whoever else you want in any of the other roles.
I'm only 3 episodes in, but the cliffhangers are wonderful.
Yes, it was huge old Tiger King, I think.
And I really liked it.
And I want, I want to thank you, Todd, for taking it a little bit
highbrow after our previous choices.
So my one is one from childhood and I don't know if I've
recommended this ever before.
But I'm in a sort of kind of mood where I'm not keen to challenge
myself with anything new.
And so I've been reading these books and they are children's books
essentially, by Finnish author Tova Jansen, who died in 2001.
It's a series of 9 books.
They're the movement books, and they were written from sort of
1945 to 1970.
And they're about little trolls that sort of live in Finland, and
they have a sort of family and stuff like that.
There's a TV show that James is thinking of right now, I think.
Yeah, no, they just made a new adaptation of it. sort of Jennifer
Saunders and Matt Berry and all sorts of really fun people.
I really adore them.
They're sort of whimsical and sort of sweet, but they were kind of
my introduction to literary fiction.
So the very early ones are all about sort of escaping from floods
and comets and magic and sort of strange things.
But later books become very introspective and nothing very much
happens, but characters all sort of sit around sort of agonising
about things.
And even as a child, I thought that those were superior and more
interesting than the more adventurous ones.
But now I recognise that that is actually my introduction to sort
of literary fiction.
So they're intellectual wambles.
Maybe.
I was going to say, Nathan, with introspective trolls.
It's a surprise you don't like the Bleak 7 episode animals.
Well, that's all we have time for this week.
We'll be back next week to clean up the mess we've made over the
last 13 weeks with our Series 4 retrospective.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us at Flight for Entirety on Facebook, at
FTE Podcast on Twitter, and on our website, FlightthroughEntirety
com, where you'll find links to our other podcasts, Bondfinger and
Jody Interterra.
Until next time, if a skinny man with sideburns tries to touch on
the face, you have our permission to slap him.
It's for your own protection.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Bye-bye.
See you soon.
That was Flight 3 Entirety, starting Todd, B, B, Nathan Bottomley
Peter Griffith, and James Selwood.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, Strings performance by Jane
Orberg.
This episode, why he wins, was recorded on the 13th of April 2020
and released on the 7th of June.
Well, with one more episode until the end of our series 4 coverage
it's time to thank all the lovely people who joined us on the sofa
this series.
Eric Stadnick, Adam Richard, Max Gelbart, Johnny Spandrel, Josh
Snares, and Joe Lidstar.
I think we finished it there, do you think?
Well, what about Will saying goodbye?
Have we got anything to say about that, though?
Well, I mean, he looks up at the sky, you know, I look up the sky
and I think of you and I think, again, it breaks your heart and
then even with the doctor and the TARDIS looking around, it's not
like this comedy ending that we've had the last 3 years where he
goes, what, what, what, or whatever.
Because they cut that out.
Yeah, yeah.
It's got to be cyber.
Well, they filmed it, but they cut it.
Yeah, which might pell Ben convinced Russell not to include, and
it was the right instinct.
Again, it goes back to these choices that they make, these cuts
are actually the right decision.
And then you get him come back and be his companion for 2 episodes
at the end of his tenure. getting Bernard Crippens as a Doctor Who
companion, again, after like, what, 40 something years is
amazing.
And Russell has said that there's a version of the end of time in
his head where Donna would have played a much larger role.
And I remember hearing about that and thinking, why couldn't we
have had that?
I wanted more Donna.
But actually, the fact that she's a bit of a supporting character
in that and she's not playing an integral role underscores the
loss that we feel here.
You do get more of her and that's nice, but it doesn't undo
anything that's here.
And just a final word on Catherine Tate as well.
Strangely, I didn't truly get, until I was rewatching this episode
how much of a star that she is.
She carries important scenes like the TARDIS destruction and, you
know, the whole climax aboard the Dalek ship.
You only need her in shot.
She's all you watch.
She's a star.
So Doctor Who had 2 genuine leads this series.
And I think the only time that's ever happened is maybe Tom Baker
and Elizabeth Slaton, maybe, and William Hartnell and William
Russell.
I don't think Gogtu has ever had co-leads before.
And that's what she brought to the show.
What do you say about Jacqueline Hill?
No.
Leeds, William Martin William Russell.
Yeah.
Much as I love Jackie.
Alright, that could be the tag, actually.
Because I do like to go out on the, on the, um, Meaningful state.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Feel free to cut any of my blood.
No, no, I feel free to cut everyone's body. not going to be this
episode at all.
No way.
You needed to, they needed to be the counterpoint about the, about
the thing.
Do you know what I mean?
There needed to be that needed to be said, I think.
Let's do pics of the week.
All right, it's time for picks of the week. and I'm going to start
with you, Jane.