Big Finish, Call Me Now

Hello, dear listener and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety the only Doctor Who podcast that still hasn't recovered from being smashed in the face by that shipping container in Dubai. I'm Nathan. I'm James. I'm Todd. I'm Simon. Well, Doctor Who's 2009 series is looking extremely promising with a new companion, exciting guest stars, thrilling location work, and our 3rd ominous prophecy in as many years. Let's see how it all kicks off in the 1st episode of the new series, Planet of the Dead. So at one level, this really does kind of operate as the 1st episode of the new series, do we think? Yes, it would operate like that more so if Christina stayed at the end of it, though. Because that's what you feel it's leading to. Yeah, yeah. It does that thing that the previous season openers do, which is introduce a new companion with a reasonably light and kind of thin plot and sort of generally, you know, sort of a comedy tone, and then it kind of takes a turn at the end. But it's not quite the comedy tone that those other 2 are, in what sense? Well, it's much darker. It's much more gripping than, say, Smith and Jones is or partners in crime, which I'm not saying they're bad, but this is, I think this is deliberately setting out to be a chilling suspenseful story in ways that I think that those other ones aren't, don't you think? No, I think this has got this, they're trying to make a, the way I see this and maybe it's the HD thing. They're trying to make this spectacular. which they achieve with. No? I think it is spectacular. Yeah, yeah. I think they're making... But I think, yeah, yeah. I'm not sorry. saying it isn't spectacular, but this is being made to be a spectacle to be incredibly impressive visually to grab the audience. It's filming. Maybe that's linked to the fact that it's the 1st one that's in HD but it's certainly the 1st one that is filmmic in this way, which you see a lot more of as you move through the Matt Smith era. And certainly, by the time you get to Capaldi, They really do start to feel like feature films the way they're made. No? Yeah, I think so. But I'm interested in following up the thing about whether it's dark and ominous. What do you think, Todd? Maybe at the end. I don't know if it's Dark Anonymous any more so than the previous 2 season openers necessarily have been. I mean, people still die, 100000000000 people. Well, I guess that is dark ominous. I guess that is dark. Like, you know, the fact that the sand is dead people and lots of them. But I don't necessarily feel like through most of it that it's suddenly ominous. I mean, unless you're talking about Carmen, who has the low-level cycle ability, make prophecies. No, I'm not saying that there is no lightness of touch. I am not saying that there's no humour in it, but you'd have to say that there's more darkness. There's more suspense, there's more chilling, there's more these things flying down. The oncoming storm sort of thing. Yeah. I'm not even talking about the Carmen prophecy prophecies either. I actually think, though, it is very clear early on that the only death is going to be the bus driver. and the reason for that, the absolute thing that tells you that that's the case, is that speech that David Tennant gives, or not a speech. The scene where David Tennant interrogates everyone about what they're going home to on the bus. So we're kind of leaping ahead, but there's what I think is a very rustly scene, and what I think is a great scene in some ways although I have some reservations about it, where the doctor determines that no one else is going to die, and then he asks everyone what they're going home to, and they're going home to chops and gravy or to Tina. Lovely domestic, small scales. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like in Father's Day. Yes. In fact, he's exactly the same as Father's Day. Yeah, and I mean, he's sort of done it before. And Moffatt will take it up as well. And I think from that point on, we know that no one else is going to die that they're all going to be fine. Don't we? Oh, I'm not saying you don't. I mean, I don't, I suppose I don't watch it like that. They all got horribly killed because the bus got vaporised just before the doctor and Christina flee the scene or something. That would have been perfectly fine as well. But, I mean, that... Yeah, exactly. It's actually different treatment of the bus. Oh, but don't you think the bus travel is a bit better done compared to Delta and the Benamit? Only slightly better. But don't you think that the that sort of that celebration of the ordinary, which, as you said, they did in Father's Day in Moffatt doesn't get, Moffatt doesn't, and it sort of is... I mean, it's all very nice, but do we really care? Does it sort of come across as a bit twee and forced? I think that Tennant doesn't pull it off at the end, and I think he is so patronising about it. But what it does do, there's a couple of times where Christina is a bit abashed, and we'll talk about Christina a bit more later, but she's kind of a little bit abashed by that. You know, she's taken control and she's being sort of the posh aristocratic girl who's in charge. Do you think the reason why Tenant is not so great with this episode is because he'd forgotten how to do the accent? No. No, no. Like he actually, he had been in Hamlet for like 9 months before this and he came back on session and was like, I can't remember how to do the accent. It's funny. I didn't pick a difference. Did you pick a difference? interesting. It's a bit more, it's a bit more Dick Van Dyke. think. So, so he's, he's not, he's not, look, he's never that sort of naturalistic, and I just think that he doesn't sell the reaction to it. He's a little bit too kind of, you know, these little people who like chop. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, pets, yeah. But I think it's super effective because I think all of the other actors are incredibly great. And particularly the woman who plays Angela, who's crying at that and the doctors had to calm her down. And then she talks about like her daughter and her husband who she's going home to. And that's a really nice moment. I love the thing about Nathan who he's he's lost his job and he's just going home to watch telly because he hasn't got any money. That's fine. He'll end up on casualty. Yeah, does he? Well, and Daniel Kaluya, who will end up being an international film star. Eating your best actor. nomination. So, I was about to say, yes, yes. The other actors aren't quite good. And so I think that's good. And that is Russell's Doctor Who. And that is the people at home watching, you know, that. Yeah, but this is why I sort of question that motivation. And it's not just Russell, as you said, it's the entire, it comes up in modern Doctor Who. It's like, I don't watch Doctor Who to, to, to, aspire towards going home and having chops and gravy. you know what I mean? I mean, I know you want to be the ordinary person who's, you know flung to the other side of the galaxy to Dubai to have this adventure. But I want them to kind of be exhilarated by that rather than completely petrified. that the show was being made for then, the show was being made for that family audience. It was being made for mainstream audience. It is a thing to do it. Like Doctor Who, and we're getting ahead of ourselves here, stopped being that accessible when it started being made for us again. Sometime in the early 2010s. And I love that era of the show. But it's no longer a family show. It's a sci-fi show that's being broadcast at 7 PM on a Saturday night. I'm not denying that it's a deliberate choice. I'm just saying that that's all very nice, but that's not my show. That's not the show that I grew up loving. That's that's the show. That's the show trying to be popular, which I know is ultimately designed. We all want to be popular. No, no, no, but just because well, no, but just because something's incredibly popular, it doesn't make it good. No, but I do think that what that enables is it enables a wider range of people to kind of access it. And I think part of what Doctor Who does in this era is reenchant the world that we find ourselves in. And so we end up living in a world that Doctor Who is sort of touched in a way. And so when you walk past the wheelie bins in the street, you don't touch the top of them. You know, well, it's like, it's like that part we quote about the yeti on the luan tooting bet. Yeah, it's taking normal and making it... But interesting, you talk about the wheelie bean and the yeti on the loo and tooting beck. One of the other boy, the one who's lost your job. whatever his name is, he is the one, I think he mentions. Oh, remember last? the planet's in the sky and all that sort of stuff because we're now in the universe of the Doctor Who universe where that all actually has happened. You don't get this reset where, oh, you know, don't you remember the Etis in the underground and the Loch Des monster? you know, where you live in this, because it does create a problem. It does create a problem where everyone remembers that these other things happen because it makes them, you should think more credulous. It should make them more credulous to what happens next. But we live in a world where we watch those things on telly, so they happened. you know what I mean? Like, so those things... No, I'm talking about the artistic choice. But that's what I'm saying. I'm saying that having Doctor Who set in a recognisable world with people from just normal TV shows on it makes it into something that then reenchants our world. And so every time we walk past Battersea Power Station or look at Big Ben, or walk past a Wheelie Bin, or see a council van sort of digging up the road, we think of things that have happened in Doctor Who. And so I think that what it does is enchant our world, and I think there is something of that in the per to era, but it's not quite the same thing. And one of the things that I love about this series, the domestic. And I do think that that scene may be a little bit, you know, maybe doesn't come off and maybe a bit over-agged. But I'm prepared to give it a pass because it's a sort of special. For me, the issue is not bringing it to domestic bringing it to the ordinary and making the ordinary because you're not making the chops and gravy into something nasty. You're just saying these people were going home to have chops and gravy or West Kelly, which is absolutely fine. I actually see it also as the fact that it's a primitive or clumsy attempt to try and give these people character in the bus. The people in the bus really don't have a lot of character. The character they do have is very one dimensional and it's one dimensional because of things like this, things like those conversations, making them think, oh, yes, we've given them a character now. He's unemployed. He's alone. He's this, she's missing his husband. But he isn't that in 3 days. But isn't that modern television? Like, isn't isn't that, isn't that like, you know, we've only got an hour to do this? talking about we've only got an hour to do this. It's not about how long the show is. It's how well it's written. But I think that is good writing to be able to, to give all that shit to those characters within the space of one scene so that we can then move on to the story and, and so, I just think that, that that is good writing. And last year we had characters in a bus again, right? But they were trapped in that bus for a whole time. You had more time to be with them here. They're going outside of the bus and it's a necessity of the story because you've got other characters that you've got to deal with to get back to where you're going to. It's very economical. I also think that characterisation isn't what we're necessarily going for here. Because this is an action adventure thing and that there are character pieces in Doctor Who, but we don't get that every week. And sometimes we do get sort of subtle, complex characters. Sometimes we get the luxury of meeting a character and getting to know them over a series of years. But all we're doing here is sketching in enough of these people's lives so that we kind of care about. Because we don't have a lot of time. And I think that that actually does that. And I do think that that's what, that's what makes it a bit less anxiety-provoking for the people at home because I do think that someone clued into the kind of genre tropes will realise that once we know that about them in this era of Doctor Who, they're going to be fine, that Doctor Who isn't going to do that to us, you know on a funny Easter special. But we've had a lot, we've had a lot last year of horrible things happen to people that we, we love like Donna, and this is not about that. This is, we've got to focus on Lady Christina and the doctor moving on from Donna and this is supposed to be a lighthearted adventure. Like, I'm okay with the fact that the characters are not necessarily going to be the most in-depth things and are light and are lightly sketched. I'm not saying that they're supposed to be in depth. I'm just saying that that was an attempt to tick a box. It's like... It's about the same as Mel being a computer programmer from Peace Pottage. That was the extent of Mel's character, really. And that's basically what these characters are. I'm not saying that, it's an observation more about, um, about the fact that they've put that in to make us try, to think that that will make us care about them. And what I'm saying is it does not make me care about them. Well, you're a monster. I am. I'm glad we've got that sort. I'd like to talk about Lady Christina and the performance of Michelle Ryan. Yeah, what do you think? I'm Invicuous. Yeah, okay. I absolutely adore her. I adore her in things that she's been in Bionic Woman. That's a terrible series, but she was great in that, and I really adore her in this. And the relationship with the doctor, at times, I think works really well, and other times perhaps it might seem a little bit off, but I think you're sort of comparing to what's gone before with Donna. And I really like it as we were talking previously, Nathan, and you were saying like this is like a season 5 opener. That never really was. And I never thought of it like that until you had mentioned that. And so, um, it's really interesting seeing her performance and where it goes throughout the episode and how she takes control and but it also is also a bit like those 90s companions that we never really had where they're just this high concept where she's like she's not lower middle, upper class. She's upper, upper class and that's a, and she's a thief and it's all very sort of sketchy and, and perhaps, would it really work if we had a whole series? I like to think that she's, she, you know, she's rebelling against her evil stepfather and stepsister, the nasmiths, who we're going to see later in the season. And no, I really enjoy her throughout this entire, Brooke. So she is loosely based on Rain Creevy, the companion that Cartmore wanted to replace Ace with. So there's a scene and all they say, isn't it? that she was trying to break into a safe and there was going to be the big action scene where she descends from the thing like we see in the cold open here. And then she opens the safe and Sylvester McCoy's inside saying what took you so long. What kept you? Yeah. And that was the entire country. And that would be that was the entire concept. That would have been a pre-credited sequence. Had they had them in those days? Yeah, ask Big Finish. Oh, right. Did they do that to them? But don't you love the pre-credit sequence with her? Yeah, absolutely. whole, like, especially impossible and it's stupid. What is that, that gold thing with the little hand? Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yeah. and Mission Impossible. We have one of those things in my house, the little cat that waves and it makes a noise. And so it's ticking at the same at exactly the same rate as my heartbeats, actually. It's terrifying. the other way around. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, rageous the cat. But that is terrifically kind of fun. And her getting on the bus and not knowing what an oyster card is. I still call opal cards, lobster cards, actually, like that's still a thing from that. And I think all of that is terrifically wonderful. And it's the thing that you said, Tom, that this is a high concept companion of the kind that we haven't had since the 1980s. And so that's what we always had in the 1980s. It's Adrik. He's a mathematical genius, and he's from the planet Alzarius, and he heals very quickly, and he walks like a duck. That's right. And, you know, Nissa and all of those people are sort of high concept characters that, you know, Doctor Who, when it comes back to science, actually that doesn't work. What we really need is someone who is an identifiable kind of TV character. And, you know, Martha's allowed to be middle class because she's black and Don is allowed to be middle class because, you know, her whole family's kind of miserable in some way. Well, I think she's allowed to be middle class because she's working at a job which her family thinks is beneath her or beneath a family. So that has a connection. Do you think she's a bit of a throwback to Romana? Yeah. Oh, yeah. And the lady thing... yeah. I was going to say, like, she reminds me, the performance is a bit Mary Tam-esque. Like, I think she's gorgeous. The performance is Mary Tamish, but don't you think the lines themselves are what Lala says? Like, it's just the band, there's a particular, there's a pace of the banter, and it's almost like David Tennant is, the inner fanboy of David Tennant is playing playing against Ramana. I'd be really interested to know how much of this script was written by Gareth Roberts in the 1st pass and how much was written by... I mean, you can tell the scene that we were talking before is just pure Russell, isn't it? And I think Russell does a passover the dialogue sort of generally which is what he normally did. Do we know what the histories of this, why they're both credited? So there's basically this story? is inspired by, but not based on the highest science. Which has a train. A tube train goes through a 40 and flicker, one of those terrible sort of... And they're known by their number, like they're terrible aliens and they're called number something or other, but it's the 518 to Clapham or something, you know, like I can't remember. So like that, that Russell loved that idea in that story of this tube train just going through a wormhole and ending up on an alien planet and went, but we'll turn it into a bus because it got fun. And, you know, we can have a bit where it flies around and, um, Oh and originally it was supposed to feature the Chelonians as well. Instead of the Tritivors. Yeah, but they decided that maybe sticking someone in a giant turtle costume in the middle of a desert in Dubai would kill them. Oh, I thought they were, you mean they were worried? worried about how that would look at the end of the day. I'm thinking it's like the fake crawl in power of crawl. Well, can I say that I think that this also owes an enormous amount to the haunts of Nymon? I agree. Yeah. Oh, of course it does. At the moment, those creatures had destroyed everything and we're going to go through the wormhole. I just thought... They even almost say something like the great journey of life or something like that. Well, the insect creatures did. No, the doctor calls something like that. Because of their lifecycle. Yeah. there is a sort of oblique reference and there were rumours in the press at the time of the press, the fan press at the time that the Naimon were coming back. Because the bits of the story had leaked out. Thank gosh, they didn't. Can I ask about you was touched on earlier about the fact that Christina sort of takes charge. when they when they worked out where they are, they need to do something and she says, we need to appoint a leader, right, off I go. Now, you kind of mentioned that you thought it was a, you know trying to suggest she was an aristocrat. See, I read that as that they were just trying to flip the whole thing around because usually the doctor will just stand up and everyone will listen to the doctor. Whereas they're trying to say, well, they don't just have to listen to the man. No. But I think she does a great job of doing it. But I think that she assumes that she's in charge because she's posh. And the other thing that she does, which I think is marvellous, is she's the 1st person in the new series, to think that the doctor is a weird thing to call someone and keeps asking him what his last name is and all of that and makes fun of the fact that he's called the doctor. And that's something that, you know, Moffatt does later. But that happens for the 1st time here. And I do think it is, like, the lord and lady thing. Like the idea of an aristocratic cat burglar is so high concept and so different from anything that you get to see on EastEnders or indeed, you know, on any other sort of non-genre TV show. Depends on episode of EastEnders, surely. Well, maybe. But she is a high concept character like him. They're both, you know, absolutely ostentatiously fictional characters. They're lords and ladies. When the doctor says Alonzy, she replies to him in French. That's brilliant. No one's ever done that before. And of course she knows French because she's terribly hosh. And I do think that the script really, really wants them to be a better match than any of the previous companions. They have to be kind of made for one another. And so there's all this talk about them being couples. You know, the doctor's the 1st one to say, we make a good couple and she says, we're not any sort of couple or something like that. And there is that sort of thing where it really, really desperately tries to match them up in a way that I'm not sure the 2 of them sell completely, but they sell it well enough, I think. But I do agree with you. I think they sell it pretty well. I don't think it's perfect, but I think if you'd had 4 or 5 adventures with them, then I think it would have been, yeah, they would have settled.. I think it would have settled and you really, really would have found a groove. Like I would have really loved to have seen that. I mean, that is what in practice in the classic era happens to high concept characters. You know, you introduce a character with this sort of huge backstory and then guess what? It doesn't matter because it's all down to the actor's performance in any case. I mean, could Mary Tam. Yeah, you know, as great as Romano isn't her 1st story, by that 3rd story in. It's sort of like, you know, she's taken her year of sabbatical and it's all fine, you know? She's so magnificent It is, I don't think Christina and Tennant would have done this. And I think it would have worked really well for Tennant, but maybe it's because Donna was already doing this to Tennant, where Donna's job was to deflate Tennant and make him look ridiculous. And Mary Tam's job, I think, was to give the doctor someone to act like a naughty boy against. You know, she was more competent than him. And so the doctor got to be slightly rebellious. He didn't have to be the person in authority. He could be the naughty person who was slightly less competent. And that works really well for him. So I don't think it would ever have quite settled down to be like Mary and Tom. But I do think that she has a great deal of charm. So the other thing that's happening here, apart from being a 1st episode, is it is a special, and the 1st in a series of specials where we're not going to have very much Doctor Who. How do we feel it functions as the 1st of what ends up being a sort of kind of disappointingly spare series of specials in a way? Oh, I'm always a bit apprehensive about using the word specials because in your head it sort of means that everything has to have some sort of unique element or elevate in some sort of way. And I don't necessarily think that this does it, you know, and we don't have enough of them. You know, it's literally 2 episodes and then the finale of Tenet you really need 4 or five. Um, and some maybe through line a bit more than what potentially that there is. I think it looks spectacular. That's for certain, but, and I think that's one of the reasons why I never considered it to be one of the greatest things ever because it wasn't one of the greatest things ever, like in terms of a special. But rewatching and I really like this a lot. I just enjoy it. Of this year, I think this is my favourite story. of the specials of the 3 stories, essentially. Yeah, like, because it, it's fun and yes, it's dark, but it, in places, but it, it sort of whips along. There's there's some joy in there. Like the characters are obviously getting on with each other. The cast, although they're sparsely sort of drawn, are likeable and, and, you know, you feel for them. Whereas waters of Mars is just unrelentingly dark and end of time is a mess. Yeah. Well, of course, this is the 1st special that's not special, quite unquote. Which has nothing to do with Christmas. Yeah. I mean, Voyage of the Dam is quite dark. I mean, voice of dam is actually very dark, right? But this one is a sort of a, is an in between. like it's part special. It's got the festive elements like, you know, the cold open, you know, that's very festive and fun and everything. But then it's got this, well, it's not Christmas, so we're going to go into this after you get all the fun stuff. Then it gets into this very dark sort of, or much more suspensible. Dark is not quite the word. I don't want to use dark for me is what I'm not what I was trying to say before. suspenseful. Like, it's trying to be gripping. Really like, 0 my god, I can't breathe because, you know, almost got to happen. sort of thing. But I think one of the reasons why it is a bit of a disappointment or at least the specials are a bit of a disappointment, is Nathan what you were kind of suggesting, which is that we were, I sure we were promised more than... Yes, I've seen to remember that. Yeah, there were definitely at least one. It was supposed to be one at, you know, I mean, there's this and then like Waters of Mars is like November or something, isn't it? Yeah, Halloween, right? Well, okay, right. I'm sure there was supposed to be at least one other, if not 2 more. I would have loved to have seen 3 stories with Christina. That would have been nice to do 3 sort of things, beginning, middle and end, and then go dark and conclude. And we don't get that. So I can see where you're coming from. Is it your favourite of these specials? Favourite is such a difficult word when it comes to these specials but yes, no, it's not. Waters of Mars would be. See, I'm recently watched one of us as Mars, and I think it's absolutely stunning, but it's absolutely relentless and awful in so many ways, whereas this was just so much joyous to watch. So there's there's 2 sides of the corner. And I think that's why, you know, when you say, when we talk about the, the name special being problematic with these, to me, the word special fits this story more because it's an actual, it's a it's more of a, it's a bit more celebrity. It might be an Easter, you know, it's not Christmas. There's not all that sort of, you know, like dressing around it but it fits the bill to me more. I expect a special to be kind of fun and jolly. I don't expect it to be, everybody dies, and then you save a character. And then she kills herself. Spoiler alert. That's for another podcast I actually found the thing that struck me most when I was rewatching this last night is the amount of audience reaction on screen. The amount of times that the doctor is applauded or that some character is applauded for something, that there are surrogate audience members like a, like a laugh track in a sitcom. Because there is something sort of fun and celebratory about it. And I think that that's terribly fun. I think a flying bus comes through the wormhole and flies around and knocks a stingray in the arse and everyone's applauding and I think that's really actually quite fun. But it is celebratory because it's the 200th story or something isn't it? That's the whole point of the 200 pounds. Depending on how you're counting. That's what I realised when watching it. So yes, the 200 is a reference to the fact that this is supposed to be Doctor Who's 200 story. Depends how you count trial of a time Lord. And charter, I imagine. As always. Mission to the unknown. And as a transport nerd, and as somebody who lived in London for a while, what really got to me was that the number 200 bus does not go in anywhere near Victoria. Of course it doesn't. Halfway across the city. It goes through Wimbledon. It's nowhere near Victoria. Well, there is in the cafe at Curabili with that view of the opera house that Peter Capaldi sees. We learn to live with this kind of thing. The other thing that we have, that is kind of an audience identification thing, is that there's an explicit Doctor Who fan in the cast. Lee Evans playing Malcolm Taylor, who is an absolute Doctor Who fan. And this is something that, again, Moffat will bring back with Ingrid Oliver's character in unit. But we have someone who has read all of the files and there is that gorgeous moment where the doctor says, oh, what's your favourite? Is it the giant robots? Yes, brilliant. Yes, yes. And so I think that we, as the audience are sort of somehow present here or represented. Yeah, I mean, it is breaking the 4th wall, like, like, um, what's his face and greatest show in the galaxy, you know, um, I'm sure they're not as good as there used to be, but I'm still terribly interested, but, you know, there are lots of throwback. It is supposed to be a fan. It's supposed to be supposed to be one of us. I just think, though, that he's way too over the top goofy and in a way that Ingor Oliver isn't. There's a bit of fan fun there without it. I think I think this performance and the whole character is just it takes it off the reservation for me. I think that he probably overplays it as well. And I think that's kind of excusable. Um, but there are bits of it. And certainly the I love you. I love you, I love you thing, like perhaps crosses the line for me a little bit. Yeah, it's that that's over the top to do, whether it's the applauding, whether it's the brigadier substitute, having the same sort of reaction. They're so in awe of the doctor. And it's all lovely and it's a choice. I'm not saying this is wrong from a story point of view, because it's a choice of how are we going to do this? Doctor's been around for decades unit. Of course, the people at unit are going to know who he is, one would think. But I just find that it takes away the, the spontaneity, it all just feels like, oh, please give me a brag. It's just too much. It's very interesting because when I 1st watched it. All these people were online praising his performance and how wonderful it was and I could, I was just sitting there watching it going, this is so over the top. It is taking me out of it. It is just too much. I do not like it. Now, having watched it again, I can see why he's making these choices because the brigadier substitute. Can we not curl her the brigadier substitute when she is so incredibly great? She is just the brigadier. We're not going to call her the brigadier substitute. Captain Arissa Magambo. Orissa Magumbo is phenomenal, but she has to be the dark to his light in the scenes on earth because she's the one trying to stop the doctor coming through. And so he's got to be the ying to her yang. And so he, but I think he takes it too far. I still think he takes it too far, but I can see now having watched it again, where he's actually coming from. I think she's utterly phenomenal. After her performance last year. And to come back for this, it's almost like if we'd had the full series, we could have had unit with her, and it's such a shame moving forward that she does not appear again, and we decade Stuart, who, I'm sorry, is a bit of a wet fish at times for me. She's another one taking a sabbatical from acting. I would agree, but that's the story for another time. I think this captain is the best captain throughout the entire new series and it's such a shame that we never got to see more of her. And it would have been great to see unit this year with the doctor and Christina and a flying bus, get rid of Lee Evans, recast him with Ingrid Oliver, have the Nay Smiths in the background. I've got the whole series planned. finish. Call me now. But I totally agree with you, Simon, that I think his performance is too much. So, should we do it now? Magumbo, Magumbo, Magumbo, there. It's a big finish series. Oh, is that how it works? Oh, I say it 3 times quickly. Right. She, there's one moment. So she doesn't do much comedy and she is kind of the sort of serious character, but the moment where she's on the phone to the doctor and she salutes and he goes, did you salute? And she does such a fabulous comedy no. And it's a beautifully sort of sweet comedy reaction. And the other thing that I really like is she pulls the gun on Malcolm. And Malcolm actually openly disobeys an order from a commanding officer. And when the doctor wins anyway, She is back on his side. She realises that he made the right decision and her call was wrong. I have a slightly different take with that. I actually think that I love her reaction there. I think it's very brigadier-ish. And I kind of think that you really needed to have another character in between, like another general person above her telling her and Malcolm what to do. I just think it would have rung more true because I kind of feel one moment she's just saying, no, shut it before he gets through and next moment she's smiling as if to say she's been on his side the whole time. And it's the one bit in the writing that I kind of get a little bit annoyed with the character through arc for her. Yeah, I can do you understand what I'm saying? I can see what you're saying. I think that's just an error in how it was not so much played, but how it was put together. Maybe the editing, maybe this, because, you know, there's the old commanding officer thing. you know, they are there. She has to make the hard choices and that means at the end of the day, she has to do it. But, I mean, the whole thing is obviously set up to be, you know the demons, the other side of the heat barrier, right? I mean, the whole thing's often quite transparent like that. And that's why I think, I mean, it's all, it's great to kind of reference the past and everything like that. But I think that's where they then take that and they take the eccentricities of what the brigade is doing and saying in the demons and what Osgood is saying and doing in the demons. And everything's kind of magnified times 100 for this purpose. Yeah, but again, it's it's the sort of family special with, you know, an intended broad audience and stuff like that. So like I'm happy for it to be sort of magnified like that. And certainly, I think that she is absolutely spectacular in a completely different context to turn left. She works wonderfully in turn left, which is perhaps one of the bleakest Doctor Who episodes ever. And then she works in a really fun romp like this one. Well, just compare her to those 2 Gormless fools back in that Santaran 2-parter. Like, I mean, she's just so much better and I just wish that we had had more of her. No, I agree, I think I think it's an unfortunate. That's why I wish that this was part one of two, not because we see what happens to her next, but because I wanted to know more about what was going on during these moments. Except that that's the point. And I think the point of the end of this episode is that the doctor has been so hurt by what happened to Donna, which he's been reminded of in dialogue where Christina calls him Spaceman. He's been so hurt by what happened last year that he refuses to have a season of Doctor Who this year. And so there's an in story reason. There's a diagetic reason for not having a series 5 in 2009 is that the doctor refuses to take Christina on board and so we can't have a series. And I really, really like that. I think that's terribly cool. And the doctor seems horrible. I mean, you know, she's being arrested. She's there saying, I want to have fun. I want to do this all the time. I'm like you, we're perfect together, and we're denied that, and that kind of hurts, and it should. It's kind of like the telly movie with Grace not going with a doctor. You come with me. It's the same. There's not going to be a series of Doctor Who with Paul McGann because, well, because Grace Holloway decides she's not going to the doctor. her fault. It's her fault. Thank goodness. But, you know, Christina could never go with the doctor because she kisses the doctor and everybody claps. It's a kiss of death the moment you kiss the doctor straight up. When I was watching it the 1st time, I imagined there was a kind of almost a haze code kind of thing going on when she arrives, you know, she wants to go with the doctor. She was about to go with the doctor, but no, she can't do that because she's going to be arrested because she is after all a criminal, which we kind of forget because she's so lovely. And so she's therefore not allowed to travel with the doctor. But then, of course, he then... to being a criminal as well. Yes, and the whole thing's overturned anyway. He basically helps her escape. It's a lovely moment where you think, oh, the story's not going to let us have her travel because of that, because she's a criminal. But then she gets to escape on a bus and have a big finish series so it's fine. It's, I think that is wonderful too. I am a little bit less convinced by the CG bus, and I don't think high definition does it very many favours, but let's be ambitious rather than cautious, I think. And I do think that that end is a perfect end. And there's a real wrongness to him refusing to take her on board. There's a real wrongness to him allowing her to get arrested and it's uncomfortable and then it's very quickly overturned and it should be. So speaking of that ending, the DI in the story. D.I. McMillan, um, is played by Adam James, who is one of David Turn's oldest friends, and his godfather was John Pertwee. Oh there we go. Is this a small one? No, I was wondering, is it, is it because Tenant gets the lap of honour where he gets to have all these friends in, in the childhood part of thing? Possibly. But, yeah, no, I just... Which is not very sweet. I thought that was sweet. But going back to your point about the CG bus and everything, this story is really strapped full time. I think they decided very late in the day that they were going to film an HD and they didn't quite have the budget. And also they kept losing location days. So there was a sandstorm after they arrived in Dubai. So they lost a 3rd of the filming schedule. And there was the stuff where the bus was destroyed in transit as well. So they lost time trying to deal with that as well. This story is just under the pump the entire time. I think it's ambitious, but it doesn't quite make it because the whole thing was made within a week of broadcast. Like they only... Yeah, like it was, and you know, that quite often happened in the new series, but not to the extent that it did with this one. I think all the filming in the sand looks fantastic, despite all of what you've just said. I think the ant aliens with their, and claw thing are a bit budget. But do you know what I love is actually, which is surprisingly unpretentious is when the doctor talks to them in the insect language. And I thought, well, actually, that was really well done and he didn't look like a Pratt doing it. Do you know what I mean? Because usually when they do that, like, you know, the eyebrows and spearhead from space, it looks a bit dicky. Whereas this is looks actually really good. Well, I think it's clearly written with David Tendon in mind given his triumph with the Jadoon language, you know, at the end of the last season. I think they get him to do things that are verbal because he's, you know, incredibly skilled at that. And I kind of think it's quite a good way of having sort of 2 characters that you don't, I don't know, you can just get Paul Casey and Rari Mears in, and you don't have to cast any actors and you know, just have them wear rubber heads and sort of gesticulate and stuff. And they can get, they can get killed off and eaten in it very quickly. very quickly and I think that's where the CGI stuff looks a little bit ropey there. And, and, but, you know, you get that whole sequence with Christina going down, you know, the big tube and the big red button, like it's always great to have David Tennant's story with a big red button. I think that is so great. And even though I had watched it like a week ago and then I watched it last night, I had forgotten that she is clever enough to press the big red button on the way back up to trap the sort of stingray down below. And in fact, every single human character on that bus does a clever thing or contributes in some way. Even Angela, who's crying, knows that you can get through the unit phone tree menu by repeatedly pressing zero. Everyone contributes in some way to the solution and everyone kind of knows what's going on in a way. So there is something sort of rather fun about how incredibly competent she is and how sort of, you know, everyone else is a bit helpless and a bit hopeless, but they're not completely useless and I do kind of like that. Well, the boys make themselves useful by digging the bus out. Yeah, no, no, but Barclay can fix the, you know, engine and stuff like that. But you know that what all that is a reference to. Flight of the Phoenix. It's a book made into a film and then remade recently, and it's well, a book about the plane crashes in the Sahara, and then one of the survivor says he's an airplane designer, and they can make a flyable plane out of the wreckage of the old plane, and that's how they, with the survivor. So it's actually, it's pretty clear it's a direct reference to that. Oh, no, and I think in the writer's tale, RTD admits to that. like that being inspiration. Yeah, as well as like Indiana Jones, the fly, obviously. And the relationship between the doctrine, Christina, is based on Sherard, the Carrie Grant, Audrey Hepburn film. where the 2 characters are basically incredibly witty to each other and then have to run for their lives. Yes, okay. In most of modern Doctor Who. And they literally have to run from that spaceship back to the bus. I mean, through those sand dunes. I mean, how tough would that be? I mean, we only see a little bit of it, but when it cut to that I'm thinking, 0 my goodness, that would just be horrendous. Hard on the calves. horrendous. I had they thought they'd been walking for half a day. How did they get back so quickly? Well, there is a little bit about that, though, when they leave them to dig out the bus and do all that. And they go, well, you know, you people dig out the bus, but we're going to do something interesting and walk up to this dune. they're the posh people. They're the posh people, yes. You know, and then at the end, the doctor sentences Nathan and Barclay to death by saying beat some privates in unit because we know that they never survive, right? red shirts. Oh, but these ones are going back to have chips and gravy or whatever it is. So they will survive. There is that moment right at the very end where Lou and Carmen come to say goodbye to the doctor and the doctor screws up his face and does his worst, Dick Van Dyke accent goes, oh, chips and gravy, lovely. And that's all I've learned about you and it's really, it's super off-putting. And perhaps there's something deliberate about that because, of course, we get the prophecy. So that's her deliberately... I like to think that's her, okay, stop patronising me. You get it dicey. That's it That's it. How do we feel about our 3rd prophecy for in as many years? In many years, there's many weeks. Like, I mean, so we had Yana, didn't we? We had, you are not alone, and then we had, everyone's gonna die saying all these stuff, but then we had, then we had the, the point he made and we had the, what was the next? The woman in the, the blonde-headed woman in the um, to Donna, who wasn't the, at the shadow proclamation. It's sort of like, this is now the trope that Russell T. Davies is everybody has got some sort of psychic ability, like low level psychability, like every other episode. Going back to Gwyneth. Yeah, I guess so. I think it's slightly problematic because it has to be like a black woman with a sort of, you know, West Indian accent. That's my problem. I was wondering whether that was going to be brought up because it's problematic. She's not, you know, she's quite clearly an immigrant. She's, you know, West Indian. It's that witch doctor sort of thing. It's the same with Chupo Chung in turn left where she's, you know she's clearly foreign and she's a sort of soothsayer or fortune teller or something. And it is unfortunate. And there is always this sort of weird tension between representation, and it's like, yes, you know, it's nice that we have black characters, and then we have more than one set of black characters on the bus, but one set has to be... Yeah, it's... Yes, but if she was Miss Hawthorne, you wouldn't, that night, you could, she was kind of some kind of mystic sort of strange woman from a country village. But having said that, all they needed to do was have her with a more standard British accent rather than an English 2nd language type accent, whatever it's supposed to be. I think that's the thing that kind of maybe tips it over to the edge, at least in the modern era, I think. I think so too. Yeah. But I do like them. And I do, there's that moment where Lou talks about them winning the lottery twice a week and Lady Christina sneers. you know, oh you don't look very rich. And then, and then she's kind of really properly abashed by his response where he says no, but we win £10 every, you know, twice a week and she's kind of ashamed for being so horrible. So I do, I do like them a lot. But like is another prophecy cheating? The thing I have against the prophecy is not that we've had them before in the show, but it's just that it's the beginning of the great long goodbye, which is irritating. So, so you don't, so you don't want, he will not full times at all. See, I wouldn't mind it if it had been seeded a bit earlier. Oh no, that would be worse. I think if it's seeded, it's seeded at the end of Waters of Mars. It's like... But see, to me, that's useless because then it's like literally the next episode. And so why bother even having it? And so here I just kind of think it's been shoehorned in because we need to have some sort of link. I think that what it does do, like what it actually properly does is foster audience engagement in the sense that we're wondering what he will knock 4 times means, and it is brought up again, I think, for us in the end of time. And I do think that it's a surprise when it comes. Like we've kind of forgotten about it. We'll get there, but we've kind of forgotten about it when he finally does knock 4 times and then we realise what it is. And I think that's a good moment and maybe the prophecy is worth that. Okay. So now in discussing with this with you. Perhaps that is a point of view that I hadn't considered the fact that it does add some gravitas to the end of this episode. Yeah. I can see it from a publicity point of view that it's established out there that Tennant is leaving. Let's sort of foreshadow it, et cetera, et cetera. It's just, from my point of view, I'm kind of sick of the thing that we've gotten into the habit of ever since even Colin Baker where it's almost like the doctor spends his entire 1st season having just regenerated and his entire last season about to regenerate. And when they're only doing 3 years or 3 seasons, it's kind of like the whole thing becomes about regeneration. That's the only thing that I get a bit. Oh, God, can we just be the doctor and then regenerate into the next one? I think, though, that regeneration is still super dodgy as a concept. In the sense that had Eccleston not, you know, had his tantrum and decided to leave, we probably wouldn't have had it. Russell did say he doesn't want to talk about regeneration. He doesn't want that to be a thing. He just kind of wants the cast to happen. But then, of course, it has to happen. But it's a super dodgy idea. The 1st time it happens. And it's kind of slightly crap. And and so you have to sell it to the audience. And now you have David Tennant, who is by any standard, just an incredibly successful doctor, whom everyone is going to miss, and whose departure the show might not survive. And so I think you have to properly build up to her. So would you have preferred a recasting of somebody's hands halfway through this? No, no, no. Look, I think regeneration is a thing, you know, some people say yes, it's the most genius idea that ever happened, and if no one had come up with it, we wouldn't have the show now, but it's not what gets decided at the end of the 10th planet in any sense. It's just like, and now the role of the doctor will be played by Patrick Troughton, and we're not going to explain it, and if you want to know why, then you can just... No, no, if I may say the reason why it's regarded as genius is because then what they would have done is they would have cast another old grey-haired man to basically play precisely the same role. What they did, the genius was that they changed the character in the process. And I think that's what people are talking. Yeah, rather than rather than me in story mechanics of it. You just cast a new person. Yeah, entirely. Yeah, because it allows you to completely retool the show every 3 or 4 or 5 or 7 years. Yeah, and that refreshes it in a way. Sure. But I think that that's a given for us, but I don't think it's a given that it works in a show in 2009. or whatever. And so I do think that there's it's necessary to kind of shepherd the audience along. I don't know about that because even when the show comes back in 2005. Yes, they have to reeducate people or educate people as to what the show is, but it's established that different actors or actresses play the role of a doctor. It's part of the thing. I know, but the question is, are people going to switch off after it happens? Not can they accept it as an in-story element, but are they going to say? don't care anymore Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And so I do think that kind of properly celebrating what tenant's done. And to be fair, it's kind of 5 minutes at the end of this episode and then it's that horrific two. Well, it's not horrific, but that... Interesting too, partner at the end of the year. So, you know, like I'm prepared to give them that. Maybe I'm changing my mind as we speak. I just felt that it came out of the blue. And but I can see why you got to link these things and the audience to expect some sort of, I think there's an expectation of having some sort of linking to a season, right? Or a series of things like this, and that's its tenuous link. Um, I don't think there's a, there's not a win-win situation with it. Yeah, you know, there's positives and negatives for and against it. Just another cute unit thing is, along with the reference, the giant robot, is the, I don't believe it, guns that work. Yeah. It's just that beautiful. I mean, it's almost like that battlefield reference where, you know, he says a, you know, Teflon coached bullet or whatever it is that'll go through a dalek, you know. Finally, they... I actually like to imagine Russell going, 0 my god. So we're going to let 3 of the stingrays into London. What on earth am I going to do to solve that problem? And then suddenly going, oh, wait, everyone has guns. you know they could just shoot it. For me, one of the most joyous things about this, and going back to it being specialist, the fact that Christina's this thief, and she's stolen this magnificent jewel, or this cup that is worth a gazillion dollars, and then towards the end of the episode, you know, the doctor takes it and she's saying, well, don't just, you know, don't do anything to it, and then he just gets the hammer and goes, whack, and the whole cup is just like, I just think that's wonderful. I agree, but isn't it great too, because it goes to that Doctor Who thing of everything has its time, everything dies, and it's okay for things to have a finite duration, because we know, we can go back in time and still enjoy that duration. We can go back and enjoy Charles Dickens. you know we can bring him back to life. And so it's almost like the doctor doesn't have the same view of an antique object. Even though in City of Death, he's worried about the Louis Can's chair. It's that thing that if it's this, we needed to survive bash, bash bash. That is hilarious, isn't it? I think it's the back gold object is of less worth than all of the people on the past. Yes. And that's obviously what's happening. My favourite thing about that scene is the doctor starts to describe, I need a metal. It's malleable, it's ductile, and you kind of go, I see where this is going. You know, it's so terrific. And even the little joke with Daniel Kaluya coming in with his sort of fake watch and stuff, you know, offering his fake not actually gold watch. It's so cute. He's terrific. He'll go places, I think. The story is very well made. There's lots of tension. There's lovely choices of shots. There's great dialogue. But for me, where it's not as successful as it might have been. It's completely linear. The characters on the bus, as I've said before, they're just plot cyphers. They're there to dig the bus out and each of them provides their own little way of doing that. There's just no complexity in it. Now, perhaps the calls back to the earth could have been more meaningful. Maybe something needed to be happening on Earth. Maybe some of the stingray creatures had already made through maybe just the one or 2 and there were these cries of people, oh my god, there's one of them's already gotten through, or someone on earth who was sending out the signal, maybe even unwittingly. To open up the wormhole and unit were already tracking that part of the thing. And that's how they got involved, right? It's all monster menace. Now that's fine. But I can't recall any other stories. Certainly no classic era stories where the threat is so completely uncomplex and one dimensional. And is that why I don't feel like watching it again? I loved watching it. I enjoyed it, but I didn't go, oh, I want to say that again. And it's not because it was bad, because it wasn't. It's just because there's nothing else to it. Now, when the universe was less than half its present size. And there was no new who. We dutifully read all the interviews in the production team where they would say, they had no money, so we had to come up with brilliant stories to engage the viewer without being able to rely on Wizbang special effects to create a spectacle. And we'd all nod sagely in agreement. Yes, yes, Barry, you're absolutely right. But I think they were right. And I think Planet of the Dead does prove the point. When they were planning this one out, I think it's pretty obvious that they sat down and said, right, we're going to make a really gripping, suspenseful story that we'll have everyone on the edge of their seats. Now, because they could afford to make the episode properly, in glorious HD, even if it was the HD came later, and go to Dubai and all that. I wonder if that's where that conversation ends. Now contrast that with them sitting down and saying, hmm, we're only going to be able to afford to make 3 of those stingrays, and 2 of them are going to look a bit dicey, and the bus is going to be parked in a quarry and chroma. Is that when they say, right, we need to find something else to distract the viewer from that? What else is there? I mean, even compare this to new series stories like midnight which I know is a completely different kind of story because it's a close knit story. But you could argue that it's a similar setup with a voiceless monster outside the bus. But I think that really is gripping. And it's not going for spectacle. The characters were well formed, not just cyphers for the action. One relies on the acting, and the other relies on the CGI in a fabulous location. And I think the best Doctor Who is always going to be the former not the latter. So I think the problem is that this is happening outside the context of a season, and I don't think the Doctor Who's job is to always do the same thing every week. And I think it's absolutely in Doctor Who's remit to be spectacular looking, right? And so I think that in the context of a season, starting with something uncomplicated, whose job is to introduce a bunch of characters and relationships. That's exactly what the show always does. There's nothing particularly complex about Smith and Jones. There's nothing particularly complex about what's going on in partners in crime. And so this is doing that, partly as a feint, but also because it's one of the things that Doctor Who, I think, can legitimately do. But the thing that I think makes it disappointing for some people is that it's not followed up next week by something else and something of a different kind. And that's why I think specials, in a way, are absolutely not the natural fit for Doctor Who. I think movies aren't the natural fit for Doctor Who, because the job of Doctor Who is to do something this week that we didn't do last week. Well, that's all we have time for now. We'll be back in the next few weeks to create a lot of unnecessary work for the editors of space Wikipedia in the waters of Mars. In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts and you can keep up with us at flights through entirety on Facebook, at FTE podcast on Twitter, and on our website, flights through entirety.com, where you'll find links to our other podcasts, Bondfinger, and Jody into Terror. Until next time, always remember to floss and disinfect extremely thoroughly, before and after making out with a Tritivore. Thank you very much for listening and good night. Good night. See you soon. Bye for now. That was Flight for Entirety, starring Todd Bealby, Nathan Bottomley, Simon Moore, and James Selwood. Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, Strings performance by Jane Orberg. This episode, Big Finish Call Me Now, was recorded on the 4th of September 2020 and released on the 20th of September. As soon as intergalactic travel gets back to normal, why not reward yourself with a relaxing holiday on San Helios, where you can enjoy its sunny weather, its breathtaking vistas, and its long prison sentences for homosexual activity. Isn't that a good out? I think that's probably good out. I mean, I could go, I could. Well, you can always edit together in different order. I think you've both got valid points. You know, I think if there had been something next week, maybe they would have made different story decisions in this episode. Perhaps as a reflection of the complexities and things that went through last year, and the fact that Russell is probably exhausted at the end of his time, that might be also a reason why the story is quite linear in nature, you know? So, I think there is all sorts of different reasons why it is what it is, and I can understand why people would be disappointed with that linear nature, but I can understand why it's been written like this. And I've enjoyed it so much more this time. I just don't know why Simon thinks classic Doctor Who stories were that complex, for God's sake. I joking. So, you know... So, you know, I have to give this one an 8 out of 10. I thought it was 7 out of 10. No, we're 7 out of 10 originally. Oh, I see, listen to the show. We've talked, we've talked him up. No, no, no. I would have given it 7 before. Right. Yeah, like when I watched it again, I've revised my opinion and my opinion has gone up. On my opinion, it's certainly gone up. It makes me wish there had been more stories with them and I think that's a good thing to be left wanting more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, CS Lewis said, there are 2 times to stop doing something before everyone's sick of it. And afterwards. Oh, that was our tag, by the way.