Hello, dear Lister, and welcome back to Flight through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast with compelling science fiction
reasons to stand around watching while your house burns down.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Pete.
I'm Conrad Well, we're 40000000 miles away from home.
Some of us are starting to get upsettingly moist, and it looks
like only Doctor Who can save us now.
So while we wait for him to get round to that.
Let's discuss the 2nd Doctor Who special of 2009, The Waters of
Mars.
I just want to start off this story by saying that these specials
are a personal affront to me, personally, because the year I moved
to the bloody UK is the 1st year, we don't have a season of Doctor
Who.
Seven months.
It's been 7 months since the last episode.
That's the longest it's ever been since the hiatus.
It's painful, anguish.
Yeah, yeah.
We talked last time, I think, about how we felt like we were
promised a sort of fuller season of specials than we eventually
got.
Is that right?
Does anyone else remember that?
We were talking out, you know, incomplete ignorance last time?
I remember reading that we nearly didn't get this one because of
the financial crash, Woolworths stopping selling CD singles, and
then going bankrupt, and so to entertain not being able to get
extra money from Woolworths to top up the Doctor Who budget, like
they had been doing, apparently, for like a few years running
along.
So that, yeah, the collapse of the CD singles market, nearly lost
as another episode of Doctor Who.
We nearly had Shada, part two.
And that by now we'd be getting it re-released with puppets and
things instead.
But it made it.
They made it somehow.
What is that mysterious dripping sound?
So is this the best Mars-based special of the 2009 series?
think it might be.
Yeah, I think he's got the edge.
Yeah.
Actually, actually, generally, this is this is the one people, if
you have a conversation with people generally, You talk about the
year of specials and everyone goes, oh, yeah, water's Mars was
great and it does seem to come up as the champion of it.
Is that was that accurate?
Yeah, I remember at the time, it's funny, at the time I was, I was
dating a non-Doctor Who fan, and I think, I think, um, I tried to
show him Arc in space, um, because I was going to show him Cursor
Fenrick, actually, and, um, he was German, and like a week before
I was going to show him Cursor Fenrick, he got really annoyed with
how obsessed with World War 2 British media was.
So I'm like, oh, okay, not that one.
So I showed him mark in space instead and he wasn't terribly
impressed, but he was impressed by Waters of Mars.
He's like, oh, you know, that was that was serious and good drama
and nice dilemma and da da. said, do you want to watch it
Christmas?
No.
You did say that and not.
It'll all be over by Christmas.
You didn't say that.
That would be less good.
And Nathan, can you go back and edit where we all gasped and
tutted when Brendan said he was dating a non-fan?
That would sound really judgemental, obviously, when it goes out
outrageous.
That's why that's why most of the series season was pulled when we
heard, you know, you were dating somebody, you wasn't into it.
We were like, no, no, no, no, you can't have them coming over here
and taking our season. precious Doctor Who who rationed it.
We're going totally against the international flavour of water's
Mars now.
Well, that is actually super striking this time.
It is that sort of trout and era, moon-based style sort of
international team of people only with ladies.
Yeah, yeah, well, you know, um, Wheel in Space had Tanya Lernov
and Gemma Corwin and Donald Sumter in a tanning booth.
With one exception, this time they're not doing the accents. which
is, although I thought, when I 1st watched it, I was like, what is
it with this problem that Doctor Who has at the moment, whenever
there's a young American emotions in it, their accents are
completely unconvincing.
And then I go and Google them and half the time it turns out they
actually are American.
And that really blew my mind because I thought I spent the whole
of this watching, I think, in that accent that Roman's doing.
It's not really American.
Why couldn't they get a proper American?
And then he says that, yeah, he's from Michigan.
No, I know nothing.
Yuri's accent seems to be genuine.
Peter O'Brien, as we know from neighbours in the late 80s.
I have to say on this rewatch, he's a lot less hot in this than I
did think in 2009.
And part of it is because for about the 1st half of the episode it
looks like he's wearing a really bad toupee, but it's like, no
that's just his hand.
Yeah, that's Israel.
Are they still getting into grips with HD and clothes and makeup?
It's a bit brutal sometimes.
David Tennant's got a sort of blue glow in some scenes that seems
to actually be coming out of his skin rather than the lighting.
I think Steffy drops the accent at some point.
There's at least one sort of line that she shouts across the main
room to the doctor and it's super kind of posh.
It's not.
Yeah.
Well, I didn't realise until I was reading my Doctor Who, the
complete history. afterwards that she's meant to be German.
Same here.
I straight up thought she was Swedish or Danish.
I think the actress is German, so maybe they were asking her to
picture it, but a bit less German.
I know, but bit more German.
It could be like that situation with the Terminator where Arnold
Schwarzenegger offered to dub the Terminator himself in German.
Ah, for the German market.
And the German distributor says, no, he's Austrian.
He sounds like a farmer.
One of the things about this, I think, is that it manages to pull
off the trick that the impossible planet pulls off by having a
cast that you really get to know, I think, quite well.
And, you know, not with gimmicks or anything like that, but just
with, well, I guess part of the thing is this theme of home and
family and children.
And so we open, you know, with Adelaide talking to her daughter
and the granddaughter who we will later find is so important, is
actually on the call as well.
And, you know, we see Yuri talking to his brother on a sort of old
recording and stuff like that.
And then when Steffy, um, you know, is about to be hit by the
water, she turns on the screen and starts talking to her
children.
And so just by giving them family relationships, by having all of
the characters call each other by their 1st names, and by sort of
delineating relationships among all of the characters really
really quickly, I think that this does, you know, the best job
since the impossible planet of creating a crew that we're inclined
to care about.
Russell C.
Davis is great at that.
You know, just get sketching characters in, yeah, passing phone
call or passing comment.
He's he's a genius at that.
There are glorious little titbits to be found.
If you go, if you pause it on their screen bios.
You know, when it'll fash it up on screen, their date of death
which is a really nice dramatic thing anyway.
But if you pause it, you find out amazing things like Mia was the
1st person to successfully cultivate asparagus in Martian soil on
Earth, and that's what got her place there.
Every character should have something like that.
The doctor is a Dr. Tarak is an Olympic medallist, et cetera, et
cetera.
I reckon Russell's written them.
Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if I'm friend of the podcast.
Joe Lidster has written it because he did a lot of the web content
for Russell's era.
Ah, yeah.
Yeah, right.
And it's lovely that in 100 years in the future.
The BBC website has reverted nostalgically to a fairly similar
template to the one it had in the early 2000s, including a click
here for print version button, which, yeah, I paused it.
Well, that's a 3D printer, you see by 2059.
Yeah, you get to 3D print your own copy of Yuri. by just clicking
on a simple link. perfect.
If he can just up his game about the hilarious anecdotes from his
brother.
Is it of his brother and his husband?
And he tells his story.
I'm like, I'm really dying to know.
And he tells the most boring story.
I was like, he's like, oh, he's always spending money on things.
I'm like, oh, okay.
But, you know, that's good though.
That is that kind of mundane, you know, everyday chat.
It's also Russell sort of foregoing the chance to do a gag.
Like, I can't imagine Stephen Moffatt writing a scene like that
where there wasn't like an incredibly unexpected and hilarious
gag.
And Russell isn't going for the gag.
He's just going for a kind of naturalism sort of thing.
So, you know, yeah.
And something that hit a bit different when I was watching that
scene this time is you have a Russian man and his husband.
Yeah.
And I sort of thought back and I thought, hold on, you know, the
sort of anti-gay crackdown in Russia, I know what's happening
while I was living in the UK, but looking back in the years
leading up to 2009 was when Moscow Pride started to be banned.
Right.
So, you know, Russell saying, look, in 60 years, we've casually
got Russian men with husbands and, you know, they have money
troubles, just like any other couple.
There's Russell actually wrote the brothers full speech in English
and then had it translated into Russian.
And it turns out the way that Yuri's brother discovered it was
because he was using the brothers account.
He's like, hold on, where's this $400 come from?
And this one, nothing, it's nothing.
No, it's $400 and another.
And that's apparently what he's saying in the court.
I love the look on Maggie's face as she's lurching up behind him.
She deserves all the awards for converted to monster acting that
we've got going.
She's clearly studied this very well and she's absolutely nailed
it.
And having her eyes not go quite as monstery as the others.
It's mentioned as well, I think, that she's a bit more human than
the others.
So she's able to be a bit more conniving and calculating, whereas
the others are more primal.
And I love the way she goes for every shot.
She's working in the camera.
In earlier versions of the script.
She was, she was speaking with the voice of the flood.
But as the writing process went along, and this had a very
tortured writing process.
But as the writing process went along, they're like, actually, no
let's not have them speak at all.
Let's have them be completely otherworldly.
Let's have them scream, which immediately makes me think of
hemobores.
Um, but yeah, Scream of Wars.
But yeah, just make them so...
Aliens that live on screams.
We've not done that, have we?
We've done the opposite, but we've not.
Big finish, big finish, big finish.
Commission recommissioned recommission.
Yeah, that's got to have that's got to have Mel in it.
And it's got to be called down.
Don't scream.
Whatever you do, don't scream.
Yeah, it's the sort of the opposite of fury from the deep.
Yeah.
Do you think it's deliberate?
There's the line in there, someone says, don't even drink.
And that's that's a deliberate blink reference.
What do we think of the monsters?
We've already talked about Maggie's performance, but we get Andy
and Tarik very quickly turned into sort of scary lumbering
monsters.
How do we think they work?
It's really interesting. as I always say on any podcast I do.
I'm basically indoct for the monsters.
This is what I turn up for, really.
And it's interesting.
I mean, the reason Maggie, they actually had, you know, they wrote
in that line of, oh, she's closer to human because she's this, that
and the other, but um, it was a toning down thing because they
would, they, There's a lot on this story and it keep coming up
about just toning it down and raining it in, both in terms of the
production and the story.
And that was one thing that they were really unsure about.
And Russell's is like, they're 2 like zombies.
The white eyes are just too freaky.
He was actually going to take all the white contacts out.
But they'd already shot Andy and Tarik.
So they did, but on on the close-ups for her, They just decided to
remove the white contact and write a lineup.
And they're terrifying.
It did sound like a line that had been written up in order to get
rid of contact lenses. like it did sort of sound. like that's what
they were trying to do.
And they're super effective.
And I know initially they were talking CGI, you know, with some
sort of like the abyss, you know, that kind of CGI water tentacle
type vibe.
And there was still talk of like full prosthetics, some sort of
water troll or something.
So they looked at various options and I think they, I mean, it's
really effective.
I mean, they're really horrible to look at.
I think it's one of those things.
It's just very hard for anyone to look at that and not go just
sort of be slightly repulsed.
They're terrifying.
They're really really scary.
And although they are slightly zombie-like.
Those boys can run and, you know, full points to Elsa Burke for
getting that run in unison and they're really, it's a really
powerful when you see these runners who are really good at running
and it looks like they're just a long tracks. their core is just
like going on one straight line.
They've absolutely got that run, fantastic.
So they move really well.
I think they're just super, super effective.
I think too, that just having water pouring off them all the time
and having them wet all the time.
You know, it's not easy or straightforward to have sort of wet
people and people who are sort of, you know, constantly wet.
And so it's really kind of remarkable looking and it's just super
simple.
It's a little bit like, um, the way that, you know, the H2O scoop
in in Smith and Jones, where it's just rain falling upwards.
It's a very, very sort of simple thing.
Um, I just think having them wet and having them just dripping
with water and pouring water sort of all the time is, you know
really imaginative and effective as well.
In the grand tradition of alien, which, of course, used, and we
can say this because it was officially used in a movie, used KY
jelly on the alien to make it look really sort of viscous and
fluidy, this production, of course, uses hair gel.
Oh really?
That's how they sort of look sticky and glistening.
Hair gel.
Mike explains Peter O'Brien's hair.
Okay.
That's where the shell went.
Okay.
I want to attend doctor's greatest weaknesses, of course.
But it's not trembling with emotion.
Has to be said, his head does look astonishingly good at this.
It does really look good and I'm not, yes, it's great.
Andy is played by Alan Roscoe, who has been a long time monster
performer in the RTD era all the way back to.
He was the lead auton.
Oh wow.
So it's kind of like if you've got a principal monster in these
1st 4.5 years of new Doctor Who, it's Alan Ruscoe or Paul Casey
pretty much.
And one, they knew he'd be able to put up with the prosthetics, but
two, they were also like, yeah, let's give him the speaking part.
Go on.
Well, they're nearing the end.
There's not going to be much of a chance.
This is like, this does have that real feel of being the last
proper normal episode before we go off into mad finale zone, I
guess, because this could drop at any point, but as a story in its
own structure, but it's like, yeah, getting a lot of the old gang
back and getting Gray Harper to direct this.
This is his last one, isn't it?
So far.
And um, having, I think Russell C.
Davis has probably in the back of his mind had a, had a checklist
all this time of all the, all this uh, Doctor Who formats he wants
to do.
And he finally decided to do a proper, pure historical.
And that's what we've got here.
It just happens to be, it's basically a remake of the massacre.
If you just replace the water with Catholics.
And sort of David Tennant is being Stephen Taylor, the actual lead
character of the massacre.
And yeah, there's not much else.
And Adelaide is, no, she's not dodo.
Okay, I haven't thought this through entirely.
But it's just a bit of a vibe.
Because he was never going to do a straightforward base
understiege.
You were just talking there.
You've just unlocked a memory that's been lurking my head.
I hadn't realised, I read it.
I was like, this rings a bell, and I remember, I went to a Doctor
Who convention way back in, like, way back in the day, and I
remember, there was a car, I was in a car, sorry, this is me
trying to piece together this memory and in the front.
This is it's sort of show busy.
In this car there was so Nicholas Courtney is in this car.
He's not driving the car, but Nicholas Nick Courtney is in the
car.
So I'm in a car with Nick Courtney, so this is already a good
story.
And I'm next step, but also in the car is a girl from, I'm sorry, I
don't know her name.
She was in Doomsday for a Spitnikov playing, there's a flash to
like Tokyo and everyone's crazy about the ghosts or something, and
there's a couple of girls, all sort of like schoolgirls, all
giggling, saying, oh, the ghosts of the latest trend and all that
stuff.
She was at a convention not knowing what she was doing there.
And I was sat next to Alan Russco and we were having this
conversation and he was actually talking about, he'd done all
these monsters and he was now just deciding whether it was time to
just sort of say no to the monsters and just stick out for an
acting part.
So I'm really glad he got this.
That was a lot.
I think he was ushering it in a theatre at the time.
I'm sorry, this is scraps.
This is like tape.
This is tape this is tape unspooling from a sort of theatrical
riddled brain. so I'm so sorry.
That's my story, Alan Ruscoe.
Good evening.
Yeah.
Still gazing at a pocket watch.
This anecdote comes back to you.
I'm sorry.
Sorry, that was terrible.
Feel free to cut that out, but I have nothing, but that's a nug.
It's like a sort of showbiz furball.
I've just coughed up but there you go.
I'm really, really glad that Alan got a chance to do that on Doc
2.
I think that's brilliant because he was looking at the time to do
because he's, and I've got, I've read down a list because I said
I'm obsessed with monsters.
So he played autons, tree. one of those beautiful trees from the
world, one of those beautiful monsters we ever saw.
Slyhen, the Android, and Trini.
So I think maybe he may have been felt up by John Barrman's, there
may be a lawsuit.
And a clown in Sarah Jane, and then finally Andy in the flood.
So good old, so, you know, well done, Alan.
And the monster performers really, you know, they just don't get
enough credit.
They're just superb.
And, you know, it must be galling to be on the screen all the time
and hired so much and no one really recognises you, but the good
thing about Doctor Who is that they do get to go.
I'm stopping to walk up to me on monster dessert soon.
I'll see you.
And in this one, they get some of the best monster effects as well
with the BBC.
Well you know, Trouton had the foam machine and like, but now
we've got the BBC puke machine that they've been using on Little
Britain for the vomiting old ladies to get, which I think is now
being, and if one thing, I wonder if there was a meeting where, you
know, there's, okay, so we've got this water spurting out of
them.
Should they do the noise?
Should they like?
I think it's probably wise not to.
Yeah, I'll dispose.
It would be a bit less mysterious.
I adore the scene when they're on the roof and CG water is just
sort of pouring out if they're open mouths.
I think it's like not convincing for a second, but I absolutely do
not care.
It's like it's like Doctor Who has moved to HD and we've got to
have one special effect per episode where we haven't quite got
back.
So, you know, the bus cricket bat into the stingray last episode
and then because I was watching one going, yeah, this is really
great CG for the bass.
Yeah, and this is great.
And oh, no, no.
No, don't do that.
Don't do that.
It is incredible, CG for the bass.
Oh my goodness, it looks great.
Yeah, like so many beauty shots of that.
Yeah.
Especially the explosion.
What about the robot?
Gadget gadget.
But it's sort of deliberately, isn't it?
Like, it's meant to have been built by a teenager.
He says he does it, yeah.
It feels like it was going to be something that we're going to do
a bit more width because it's given a lot of buildup in the doctor
saying he doesn't 1st of all, he says he doesn't like robots, but
actually he's like, I don't like humans that design smart ass
robots.
But then he's like, 0 no, I still don't like comedy robots.
And then he's like, I love comedy robots.
And it's kind of like, I suppose...
I would have liked Gadget to somehow have a little personality
because he's obviously meant to be Johnny 5.
Russell T. Davies suggested him because he just seen Wally and
loved it.
Right.
So, but then again, you know, we're given no reason to believe
Gadget has any personality or autonomy or whatever. is a little
bit of a shame.
I like, I mean, I like having a silly robot because otherwise this
is kind of alien or whatever.
Like for it to be Doctor Who, you know, we need a silly robot.
And it doesn't shy away from using the silly robot to, you know
twice get them out of trouble and in fact to kind of save the day
at the end.
Yeah.
And I have to say, Graham Harper's being a bit cheeky when he 1st
uses Gadget to get him out of trouble because Tenant sort of
crouches down out of shot and the next shot of Roman is shot from
pretty much between his legs looking up and him going, what?
It's really cheeky.
And I refuse to believe Graham doesn't know what he's doing.
In terms of innuendo, not necessarily in terms of anything Graham
may or may not get up to in his private life.
I'm also a massive fan of the trail of fire afterwards as well.
Like, it is absolutely cartoonish and absolutely different. not
realistic science.
Well, that's interesting because like I think like a lot of this
story, like the monsters, whatever, like it works.
Russell said he wanted the robot to be funny, annoying, and Disney
and it's tick, tick, tick. absolutely is those things.
And but I read a review after it was The Guardian, and they said
oh, you know, the only thing I didn't like was that bloody robot
and it wrote quite an interesting thing.
He said, maybe it was a bit of a relief for the children, but who
cares about them?
It's not really for them. is it?
And that's the end of the review.
And it's it's kind of a good point, as in, it does what they
intended to do.
It's completely in place for Doctor Who, a ratly old robot, and he
even refers to K9, but totally in this story, it does something
about it.
I don't know, like, it, there's a lot in this story that does
exactly what they wanted to do, but it still feels unsettling and
there's a lot of, you know, do, there's a lot of tonal and
thematic. contradictions in this story hugely.
But yeah, I sort of gadget sort of encapsulates what I feel about
this story.
It completely does exactly what they want to do.
I just don't know if I like it, is that like it's the right choice
but I don't kind of, Like it.
It's weird.
And coming back to it, it was less dark, just less visually dark
than I had remembered from when I when I watched it.
The station is actually a really bright, and obviously there's the
really dark themes building, and then we'll get to the ending when
we get to it, of course, but at that point, the 1st scenes
establishing scenes where the doctor just arrives and announces
that he's the doctor and they pretty much, it is pretty much like
oh, yeah, we're a base, we're under siege.
Your Doctor Who?
Right.
Yeah, you better stay here and help us even though he doesn't want
to.
It's like everyone apart from him wants him to be the doctor in a
bass under siege story.
And that tension's there without it being made super dark and
super gritty and no, this is a really dark one.
So it's unsettling rather than being absolutely terrifying from
the off, I thought.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, Russell said, um, said, uh, it's, there's, there's a
lot of talk about it. story you can only do once.
You know, he said it's like a like a total base under siege, but
within that format, it's going absolutely mad.
And he says, this story has a lot of, it says it put, this story
has a lot of stresses and strains in it or, you know, which I
think is, that's, that's really interesting.
And there is a lot.
This story is barely managing to contain itself.
It's like it's got that weight of the series becoming about this
one character's complete dominance.
And how can this, how can the show cope when one character is as
dominant as that over the entire history of the show?
And his name's David Tennant, and he's playing the doctor.
And the doctor is also the most powerful, and he's done what Tom
Baker never did and had a run of stories with no companion, because
and, and, and at the time, that was annoying me so much.
And looking back, I'm like, okay, yeah, they were actually doing
that deliberately and playing with it.
But at the time I was, I was, I was, why is this show about the
awesomeness of the doctor now?
I don't want that.
But then, but then this does.
Well, this sort of addresses it.
And then next week doesn't, but it's right in the heart of this
episode.
So, I mean, we've already had the show talking about what happens
when the doctor doesn't have a companion in that 2nd Christmas
special.
So as early as that.
And so this is the only, this story can only be done if there
isn't a companion, because you would have Donna sort of puncturing
him or telling him what to do or telling him to rein it in or
something like that.
Or he would be embarrassed to behave like that in front of, you
know, Rose or Martha.
And I love the way Adelaide just isn't remotely impressed by his
shtick and doesn't even see it as her role to improve him in a way
that Donna did.
And I guess I wondered why they had that tension between Adelaide
and Ed, and like, which is touched on right in his last words, as
maybe having had, he says, you never could forgive me. is like, I
think it's his last words, which is to just leave us to ponder.
But, um, you know, maybe he left her cat out or something when
they when they were launching.
Um, he, um, but she's clean and she's not impressed by flashy
guys.
And so she's, and that sets her up as not being remotely, uh
impressed by the doctor's antics.
And her performance, what I love about her performance in this is
the way that every scene, her disdain for him, just grows, oh, it
starts out as wariness and then it becomes disdain.
And, and so she, um, um, she's absolutely on a path to that final
scene, right from the beginning is, is Lindsay Duncan.
And I think I know Helen Mirren was been put down as being the 1st
choice.
And that's why she's not Russian because Helen, is that I read
that stuff because Helen Mirren was a Russian in 2010.
They're like, oh, we better change this character and not have a
Russian anymore. and then that just stayed even when they got
Lindsay Duncan.
But I couldn't imagine anyone doing it better than Lindsay Duncan
does.
She's one of the best guest styles we've ever had.
And I don't, I don't like, do people still debate whether she
counts as a companion just because her name's in the credits?
I mean, she's not.
She's someone who the doctor fleetingly tries to screw up her
destiny and fails.
That doesn't make her a companion, does it?
Yeah.
Asteroid's not a companion.
Yeah, she doesn't take any of the boxes.
Katerina is, but...
She is absolutely incredible.
And um, you know, I remember seeing her in Rome where she played
um, Brutus's mother, um, and she was amazing in that.
And then she's in that black mirror episode where she's Rory
Kinnear's kind of chief of staff or something.
Yeah, you know.
She's Rory Kinnears, Peter Capaldi.
Yeah, and she is absolutely superb in that as well.
That's a deeply upsetting episode, but everyone's playing it so
incredibly straight and she's absolutely just marvellous in it.
I hadn't seen Rome when this 1st was broadcast, but now having
seen Rome, when the doctor says to Adelaide, imagine you were in
Pompeii, I laugh.
It's quite extraordinary how that amazing sequence where the
doctor's walking away from the base and the comms are still open.
And we've had earlier lines where basically the comms are open.
You know, they don't have private comms channels, so they have to
keep it clear.
But, you know, I find I found myself thinking, why is he still
listening?
And then I remembered with a year before this, we've had silence
in the library where it's like, can we just switch Mrs
Evangelistra off and it's like, no, show some respect.
If you have left people to die, you are going to listen to their
last words.
And I think that's the idea here.
And the extraordinary thing is, almost shot for shot, Daenerys
Targaryen in the final episode of Game of Thrones, or 2nd last
episode, has a similar kind of moment of, I'm hearing this stuff
and I'm saying no.
And that seems to be influenced by this.
I'd be interested to know, if anyone knows of any antecedents to
this, where a character just kind of does the the no more thing
because, you know, as much as it gives tenant an opportunity to
gnash his teeth.
I can always appreciate that buildup with this version of the
character who, you know, we see when Rose has her face stolen and
when he's drowning the Raknors, that he's never actually far away
from going too far.
And not having the companion here, he doesn't, usually it's the
companion who says, but why can't we change history and he turns
around and says, but well, the laws of time, et cetera, et
cetera.
He doesn't, it's not that he doesn't have someone to, to say that
to him.
He's got no reason to say it.
Yeah.
So it's kind of like he's probably in his in his head.
He's going, okay, this is the moment where I have to explain why I
can't change.
There's no one here.
Why?
Actually, you know what?
You know what?
And that whole bit inside there reminds me of another thing from
my childhood, um, there's an old anime called the genie family, um
from, I think, the 60s or 70s, um, late 60s.
And when I was a kid, it was redubbed as a show called Bob in a
Bottle.
And it was about these genies and you have Bob, who was summoned
by sneezing, and you had his daughter Yawna, who was summoned by
yawning.
They obviously ran out of names.
How did you summon his father?
I can't say because...
But I remember the last episode because unlike, say, a lot of
American or British animation.
Japanese animes would finish.
They would have a last episode.
And in the last episode, basically genies after they've been in
service for a certain period of time, have to go back to the genie
world for a 1000 years, but they can only do that if they're back
in their bottle.
So his family, his human family that he lives with conspire, you
know, we're not going to sneeze, we're not going to yawn over.
And these sort of Rube Goldberg things happen.
Like time is influencing things around Bowie Base.
This Rube Goldberg kind of stuff happens to make the father sneeze
and to make the kid yawn.
And the kid is screaming at the end, no comeback, come back, come
back as the bottle and his friends fly off.
And that was the end of the show.
And I saw that at 10.
Wow.
And I was traumatised for weeks.
And this creates the same feeling that time is kind of going, no
doctor, this is a terrible idea.
Stop.
And it's not time being cruel.
You know, it's time going.
Actually, this is going to eventually lead to all this good things
that you've already told us about.
Stop screwing it up.
So we come to the point which is the thing that I really seriously
don't like about the episode.
Um, and, and it's, it's really the reason why I planted the dead
edges this one out for me.
It is the fact that the doctor doesn't have a proper reason not to
save these people.
And the doctor is someone who has always disregarded rules and
prioritised people's welfare and safety over obedience to rules.
And there isn't really such a thing as a fixed point in time.
And so we have a made up science fiction moral principle and I
find it impossible to identify in any way with the moral dilemma
that the doctor finds himself in.
And so, and the fact that we don't have anyone to explain it to.
And so all we get are the pages from the BBC News website saying
what will happen.
Um, It just, it, It doesn't work for me, I think.
And we talked about this in our Fires of Pompeii episode, that
there is a problem with Doctor Who in history, and a thing that
wrecks many, many historical stories is the fact that the doctor
can't change history.
And that's a terrible imposition which heaps of, you know
producers have avoided in the past by just not doing historicals
or whatever.
So you have the doctor and he can't do anything.
We're imposing that restriction.
As you said before, Pete, we're imposing that restriction of
having a historical but setting it in the future and saying that
this is something that the doctor can't change.
And it's not entirely clear to me whether whether it is just a
moral constraint or it is a sort of time related constraint.
What you were saying before, Brendan, if the doctor tries.
There's a line saying that if the doctor tries to change this, he
ends up responsible for causing it to happen as happened in
Pompeii, but that doesn't seem to be quite what happens here.
And so him agonising over that decision, just, it doesn't quite
work for me, I think.
Oh, the show's always tried to have it both ways and particularly
in this era with the idea of some one week, someone will say
there's no such thing as little people and everybody's important
and then the next week it's, uh, oh, well, yeah. like in yeah, in
Pfiz of Pompeii. why don't he save those people because Donna
cried to stop Donna crying.
He didn't save their next door neighbours or the cleaners and it
was like because she Yeah, that you, I guess it just doesn't, it
won't work if we dig too, too deep into that or why he didn't just
take everyone from Bower Base and fly them off into space and let
them run a space freezer centre together and just tell everyone.
They could have gone to the planet Kolkakron and kept the gravis
company.
And yet, while viewing it, I find, I still find that more
satisfying than what we get than the, you know, the time mods are
all hiding in a bottle, pretending to be dead and sort of work
around the, the, um, that does, and everybody lives work around, I
suppose.
Yeah.
Maybe I was, I was, I was brutalised by Eric Saywood when I was a
when I was a...
We all were.
I think it comes in the fact that, you know, time travel is a
paradox and so you're going to end up in a point where you do have
to gloss over it because it just doesn't, it just doesn't work.
You cannot think that too far.
So I think I think it's just rooted in that.
And I think the program is now so popular and so successful that
the actual production of the program and the story itself is
becoming so married, as Pete said, David Tennant and the doctor is
hard to distinguish either of them now, who we're celebrating and
worshipping.
And so...
Basically, he should have regenerated the end of Journey's end.
That was the end of the 10th doctor.
It's the best ending. could possibly have.
So we're on borrowed time.
So we've already pushed way beyond.
We've sort of stepped outside the program and we're stretching it
and pushing it.
And Russell did say, you know, this program has stresses and
strange.
It pushes and it tests you.
So this is a program about, Too much of a good thing. and going
too far and the program itself has gone too fast.
So this story has gone way too far.
He shouldn't even be here. should have regenerated.
So it is pushing that that paradox thing we normally gloss over by
either fix or flux.
We've now kind of pushed beyond that.
So yeah, everything in it.
It's like this story does everything they wanted it to do.
It's just like, should they have done it?
is sort of the question.
And even, and it's seeded right throughout the story.
I mean, the whole story is waters on Mars.
It's about humanity trying to find water.
Well, you got it.
You found water, your cup runneth over.
You know, it's just like, it says, yeah, too much of a good thing
and it's, it's, every level of this story is just about going too
far.
And it's a really successful, I think, an accurate, uh, well-built
intentional story of what happens when you go too far, whether you
go too far in a monster effect, or, you know, all of these
things.
And just the question is whether you should or shouldn't.
And it's really clever because actually that's, you know, the form
and content marry up to this philosophical question of like, should
you go, how much of a good thing should you have?
Um, So I think that's why it breaks.
I think it's, you like, so I can see why you don't like it.
So you're like, no, no, no, this has just gone too far and it's
like, yeah, that's what they were doing.
Is that a good thing or not?
Should they have done?
Do they have the right?
But I also I also sort of expect Russell to create a sort of moral
dilemma that I can in some way sympathise with, you know?
You know the end of Journey's End where Rose gets dumped back in
her parallel universe with a cloned copy of her soulmate and
heart's desire?
And you kind of think, I have literally no way of knowing how to
feel about this.
You know what I mean?
Like, I don't know.
Why is that good?
It's impossible to tell.
Do you know what I mean?
And I think I think even Russell himself in the writer's Tale
might say something about his sort of dissatisfaction with that.
Here, it's kind of like, I don't know what the analogue is.
Do you know what I mean?
Shouldn't I really be rooting for the doctor to just say, oh, you
know, screw it, I'm saving these people, you know, whatever.
It's kind of his Tom, it's his Tom Baker with holding the key to
time moment, isn't it?
Maybe.
Uh, that's what it reminds me of.
The, um, there's that split 2nd where Tom does his goofy face and
says he could rule the entire universe.
So actually maybe we shouldn't have bothered having this season at
all.
But there's an arc.
But he's going to go around saving people he's not allowed to
save.
Do you know what I mean?
That doesn't seem all that threatening or out of control.
And it's certainly basically what he does every story.
But he's got the added pressure now of some random woman on a bus
telling him someone would knock 4 times.
That would freak me out.
I mean, I also think for a long-term viewer seeing this, we're
invited to empathise with Adelaide.
So when, you know, the doctor is controlling gadget and and, and
again, showing his teeth and what have you.
And we're kind of getting Murraygold's triumph music playing, but
then we cut to Lindsay Duncan, just shaking her head, going, no.
So that it's for, you know, for once it's not Marigold's music
telling us how to feel.
It's an actual performance telling us how to play.
But I think the other thing for a long-term viewer is way back in
series one, when Rose saves Pete from the car, she actually says
to the doctor, so it's okay when we go to other times and places
and save people, but not when it's me saving my dad.
And this is kind of a further comment on that conversation and to
kind of show us the consequences of that because When Pete is
saved and he's not meant to be saved, he sacrifices himself for
the greater good.
In a more tangible way than we see Adelaide here because, you know
there's no immediate threat to Adelaide's survival.
The threat is 50 years down the line when her daughter does or
does not take, you know, the Enterprise NXO one on a mission and
hit the Zin deal.
Sorry, watch lower deck one.
But to me, and I think it's because I'm a bit more canon obsessed
than you are, Nathan.
I do enjoy the moral dilemma here and I can buy into it.
But it makes me kind of feel this story the way I feel about, 1st
of all, the caves of Andrazani.
And it's, it's, and as Russell says about this, you can't do this
every week.
No, you could not have this story every week.
It would be too bleak and too depressing.
The other thing that makes me think of is earth shock because a
lot of this story doesn't really make sense on a 2nd viewing.
You know, it's kind of like the rocket blows up and Maggie goes
and screams at the iceberg and it starts breaking up as well.
And it's like, okay, so what's the plan here now, you've lost the
rocket, actually?
Like, I don't care. love that scene.
Don't get me wrong.
But this is the thing.
On 1st viewing, I'm like, yeah, yeah, scream at that ice and break
it.
Okay.
But yeah, this time around, we were all hoping for a little green
claw to come out, weren't we?
green pincer.
Actually, yeah, there is that there is kind of that scene earlier
where it's like the doctor saying, you know, there used to be
Martians here, did they?
Are we going to see them?
No.
Give it a few years.
Gatus will bring them back.
I love the flashback to Adelaide as a child looking at the Dalek.
Yes, which is kind of, I think, reconditioned and lifted from
Battlestar Galactica.
Not a child element, but without wanting to spoil a Battlestar
Galactica.
There a bit in Battles, I go back to where someone looks something
that's about to kill them in the eye and then it goes away and it
turns out to be their destiny. being the factor.
And watching that now, I think, oh, for a kid who had watched, all
right, it wasn't actually, it wasn't all that long ago.
But if you were a kid who'd watched Journey's End.
And then a little while later, you're watching this.
It's uh, it must be, it must have sort of put them in her shoes of
flashing back to that story from, from the, from the previous
season.
But I just really like that.
I think too, the fact that it's set only 50 years in the future
when the kid who you're talking about, Pete, can still expect to
be alive.
I think that's that's actually really terribly cool.
And so one of the things that does work for me is linking what's
happening here to what happens to the future of humanity.
You know, like I don't care about cannon, whatever.
But I love the idea that, you know, we start with Bowie base one
and then a couple of generations down the line, we're doing light
speed and then we're heading out into the galaxy and it gives
Russell a chance to put his Russell spin on that, that that is the
result of, um, you know, human ingenuity and people being inspired
and all sorts of things like that.
And that an extraordinary woman who's so obviously an
extraordinary person, when we see her in action, that she's kind
of the start of all that.
That's it's really interesting.
I think it depends on what you think about humanity, whether
that's a good thing or not.
Like, I personally think, you know, this, okay, here we go.
But, I mean, actually, pro or anti, non-balance.
Well, frankly, Amanti, I actually think the real, you know, this
race, you know, obviously the earth is getting is, you know, we've
we've destroyed that and it's now sort of the race against time.
It's, oh, can we colonise other planets?
You know, can we make life sustainable so humans can go on?
And I sort of think the race is the other way.
I just think, come on, it's time, like Earth has had its time, most
people, we people have had our time.
I think the worst thing that happened is that we go spreading it
spreading out everywhere.
And it's touched on in this. is like, you know, she she refers to
the Adelaide refers to the oil wars and and the humans on the
verge of extinction.
Yeah.
Yeah, humanity's on the verge of extinction.
And again, it's a story.
It's starting in 2020. starting in 2020.
Yeah, yeah.
She said 40 years.
And guess what, boys and girls?
Right here, right now, it's oil wars.
Let's do it.
But again, it's that theme of things going too far and living past
their time and it's like, should they or not?
And, and yeah, humanity, where the...
You know, like, uh, Nathan, you say you feel, you know, what, of
course, there's no question here.
Of course you save them.
Of course you save, you know, mind you, then again, it's a weird
loop because if you save them, then you actually stop the human
race in a way because it's a granddaughter that goes out and saves
them.
So I would say in this case, yes, save them short term.
No, don't save the humans long term.
But this is, but this very much depends on, this depends on where
you're coming from in your life choice is an emotional state.
So it's kind of, but it does have that, you know, that the whole
the setting of the botanic gardens in Wales they use, those
biodomes just make you think of silent running, that, you know, the
movie of just them trying to keep a little garden of Eden going
way past, you know, when it should.
So yeah, this question of whether humanity should keep going or
not.
Should be saved or not is, yeah.
It does put it square in your lap.
Well, I don't know that I want to leave in a universe where the
invisible enemy didn't happen.
So.
And this, and this takes me back. mean, 2009.
It was just like the sort of tail end of the whole cool Britannia
era where you could stick Union Jacks on things and they made you
think of Kitch 60s revivalism rather than hating foreigners and it
was a nice little period.
And having the bass lames after David Bowie was good.
Little ties to David Bowie there, Bowie ties are cool, I think.
Oh dear.
I'd written that one down.
It was funnier in my head as well.
Just going back to the Dalek briefly, and as we said, like a shout
out to all these sort of sets, the graves they're dancing on in
terms of like the base being the sort of control centre of the
base is the old torchwood hub that they blew up last last season.
It's all based on that now.
It's now Bowie Bay.
And of course, Sarah Jane's attic, of course, was the attic she
was looking out on, which is so it's got this very weird sort of
thing to it.
At the time, I remember that dale came in.
Because I think, I think Pete you said earlier, like where I was
with this show is like, I have had enough of this.
And so when the diet turned up, I was like, this just feels like a
continuity reference too far.
And it's funny, David's tenant said that he felt it was very bold
to have a reference to Journey's end.
He's like, wow, that's a really bold reference.
I was like, wow, stick around for the next 10 years.
But then Russell Russell's like, well, no, actually, we were
getting over 100 million.
Yeah, people are going to remember it.
Yeah.
And it's yeah, it's...
It to me, it all just comes down to this thing is, is...
And also, I think I've been more forgiving watching it this time
around because of course, the show itself, going this far, doing
this extra lap. was like, I kind of see, I totally see why they
did it.
It's so insanely popular.
I mean, I watched, I just rewatched the, when Dave Tennant was
announcing his leaving, which I found nauseating at the time.
And if you watch it now, it's pretty for long.
So it was the, and that just, like, briefly, it's national
television awards, 2008.
He winning award round standing drama performance.
He can't be there, of course, because he's in the middle of what
was in theatrical industries known as Space Hamlet, because it had
Patrick Stewart and David Tennant in it.
And he's there and he's got and he's in the interval of giving his
award-winning Hamlet, just giving this simultaneously, accepting
his outstanding drama award and handing in his resignation and
announcing his resignation.
It's kind of crazy.
And just to make it even more insane, he's got 2 of his mates from
the production dressed in royal guards behind him.
So it looks like a royal dress.
And if you hear a very gold on a little caffio.
I mean, it may as well be, at least it would drown out the sound
of the screaming girls and it's like, it's really, no, it's
genuinely remarkable.
I was like, I don't know who was on the guest list for that
national TV awards, but honestly, the tickets are like, it's a 3rd
daughter's in there.
It's like, it's really big like rock star screaming when he's on
kid shouting out.
We love you, David, and it's like the 2nd he appears, everyone's
screaming.
And when he says, oh, but then I will be back, but it's going to
be my last, you know, the sound of a 1000000 girls' hearts
breaking around boobing and, you know, it's easy to forget how
insanely popular this show was and how successful they were and
how Russell must have felt and how David must have felt.
And of course, the BBC would have just gone more, more, more.
The question was at the time, could Doctor Who survive without
David Tennant?
Now that all drove me nuts at the time because he is genuinely, I'm
not being contrarian about this, but he's genuinely my least
favourite doctor, genuinely.
Like, so, but I watching this time, I was like, no, I mean, I can
totally see why they went too far in inverted commas.
They were absolute like gadget.
They were driving this car.
They were like, solid, we're going on this thing.
Let's put the foot down and burn everything.
So I can totally see why they did it.
It's just a question of whether they should have done or not.
To my taste, to just say, I would have loved it to end at
Journey's end.
I think the runaway bride.
I think you need someone to stop you and that shot of him
destroying a monster.
I got it.
I totally got it.
I know we know what happens when he goes too far.
Seen he's going to stop you.
So I didn't really need to see this personally.
But it is worth saying that most people wanted to see this and
much, much more.
And yeah, when it came to, I don't want to go, I remember I was
shouting at the screen like Patty Stone.
Oh for God's sake, just die.
Is Todd here?
Oh, dear.
Yeah.
Oh, yikes.
And then, of course, he comes back in the anniversary and says, I
don't want to go.
And now he's back as a Time Lord victorious, and I'm stepping away
from that there.
So, broadly speaking, like generously, it's like this whole, you
know, should this whole thing have happened?
should Should this?
I mean, it's really clever, the way they've married this story to
what was going on in the production of, and going on in Doctor
Who?
Should Doctor Who go this far?
Um, I, it can.
They do it well. well?
I personally wouldn't have didn't want them to do it.
I didn't need this victory lab, but...
It depends on your point of view, I guess.
I have to say that the other thing that I dislike about this
episode is the opportunities it gives David to do teeth acting and
hair acting and like I just find him really quite obnoxious at the
end of this.
Like really, really unlikeable.
And I do think the one thing that he does is he's still tries to
do the sort of funny doctor thing. you know, as part of that
performance.
When he comes in and he's all sort of hubris and ordering people
around and teeth and shouting and stuff, there's still Doctor Who
he lines that would be fun in another context but aren't.
Yeah, but my aversion to it has really reduced over the years, I
think, because now I see, I see him doing all that in this and I
think, okay, he's, he's being the addict who's hitting another
dose and another dose of being the doctor and it's not giving him
the high and it's driving him to distraction and he's almost
trying to, trying to fake it.
Like, you know, the bit, so when he turns around and does go back
to the base after Steffy's died, because he's like, okay, now
she's dead.
I'll go back and the rest of them are safe.
It's possibly a stupid accident, wandering up and down the
Danube.
He goes back and he's like, yeah, I'm here.
I'm gonna save you.
And it always annoyed me when he did that.
Because again, Doctor Who isn't a superhero.
And I don't want the entire population of the earth to worship
him.
He should be slipping away quietly.
But that's not that's the opposite of what this era was doing.
But so when he does do that and it doesn't work for him and he
just completely fails.
I, I, I, I kind of think, I, I don't know, there's a degree of
it's, it's like his, his, like Pertwe's vanity coming back at the
end to get him in Planet of the Spiders, I guess.
Um, And fancy's the wrong word. you know what I mean?
The idea the doctor's, well, his vanity and his quest for
knowledge in Planet of the Spiders.
And for the 10th doctor, it's this idea that he is a superhero and
a god that does ultimately stop working for him.
But then how much that actually comes into play in the actual
regeneration story is another matter.
But as a pre-finale story.
I like what it does with that, yeah.
Look, like Caves of Andrewzani.
I think it's a wonderful piece of drama.
And I think objectively, it's the best of the specials, but I
still much prefer watching Planet of the Dead.
Planet of the Dead is still my favourite because it's fun.
End of time, started life as one episode, got stretched into 2 and
really shouldn't have been.
Um, whereas, whereas this, I'm just like, oh, yes, this is very
worthy.
This is very worthy.
Can I start having fun?
And in fact, the doctor says what his mission is. is, you know, the
doctor, doctor fun, you know, and well, it ties him with him
failing.
Yeah, yeah.
No, he completely fails to do that.
And I guess that conception of the doctor.
Yeah, it's it's deliberate, isn't it?
Like, you know, Russell knows that we're not going to be having
fun accompanying the doctor by the end of this episode.
It's very clever.
But I grow weary and we get it in the Moffat era as well, where
being the doctor is this sort of terrible burden and you know, like
maybe I'll just kill myself or whatever.
Do you know what I mean?
Like I just, I dislike that enormously.
And I like that.
Am I having a good arc?
But it's like the doctor being sad or the doctor being lonely.
Do you know what I mean?
All of that's great.
I thought, you know, it gave the doctor some interiority that he
kind of lacks more often than not in the in the classic series.
But the doctor being Batman, you know, where he's a superhero, but
only because terrible things have happened to him and he's having
a miserable time.
Can I just say, as a big fan of Batman 1966, not all Batman's.
I'm just going to say that.
See, I was actually going to point at you, Conrad, which is fun on
audio.
I picked it up.
Because shortly before we reconnected, I watched all of Batman
66.
And then while you were watching all of Batman 66, I was getting
your opinions on it as well.
And it's like, yeah, actually, Batman doesn't, you, just because
you've been through those traumatic events doesn't mean you have
to be grim, dark and horrible.
But there are several times where the Adam West, Bruce Wayne, talks
as much as he could in the 60s about Batman's tragic past, but
specifically kind of says, that's why I do this charitable work.
That's why I help these people.
That's why I do this.
Without big overblown, I am the lord of time and they and the laws
of time will obey me, et cetera.
Which does fit, which does fit the character, and at least at the
end of this, the plot immediately repudiates that and says, no
this is a terrible idea, and we're not, we're not going to go down
this path for at least another 11 years when we will do a
multimedia spectacular based on it.
It is ahead on.
It's a head-on confrontation of it rather than just doing it, I
think.
Yeah.
To me too, I think it is just the plot that makes him that calms
him down rather than anything better than that.
And I think that having Adelaide shoot herself in the face
offscreen is not what I want very much for Doctor Who, and, you
know, like, I think it's probably something that you would never
do now.
Well, I think it's part of the breaking of the format.
Yeah.
It's, they're taking it to a logical and horrible conclusion.
And, you know, the basic thing they're breaking, 1st of all, is
the doctor says people because, 1st of all, he says, well, no, I'm
not going to save you.
But then it's like, I'm going to save you, but it'll be bad.
But it'll be, not only will it be bad, I'm doing it for me.
Because as soon as everyone falls out of the Tartars, he's like
well, is no one going to thank me?
Yeah, right.
You know, I'm doing it.
I'm doing it for me And then the final thing is, you know, the one
person the doctor really wanted to say, because he pretty much
says he doesn't care about Yuri and Mia. and he doesn't care about
gadget.
Oh, gadgets lost your signal.
Oh, well.
The one person he cares about kind of goes, actually, no, you're
not, you're not in charge of me because when Adelaide sets that
bomb, She is saying, I do this to save the earth and to save my
family.
And the doctor takes that away from her and she kind of goes, no.
Yeah.
You see, I don't buy that either.
Do you know what I mean?
She's just shooting herself because David Tennant's been a massive
dick.
Like, um, or how I've liked most of the 2 previous people.
All sharp objects removed my house in 2009.
You know, put away those teeth.
But it is like, that's the thing.
It is her absolutely.
Yeah, she is in charge of her destiny.
And, and, and she sees that, um, and, and every look on her face
throughout the whole episode is Lindsay Duncan built building up
to that moment.
So that when you when you 1st watch it, it's a massive shock and
when you rewatch it, she's absolutely building a path to it.
And I think if it had the original ending of him just letting her
live and then feeling a bit worried and guilty about it
afterwards.
I mean, because that's what it's for, isn't it?
despite within the episode, it's to enable him to have that.
Oh my god, what have I done?
And they're rather over the top crash soon.
And then there's a there's the crash zoom on him and the what have
I done face?
And then it flashes back to him hearing what she just said 20
seconds ago.
You hear it.
It's a different cake.
I think so.
Because that is that's possibly the only thing that I would say is
a directorial slip.
I don't know why he's having a flashback to something that he just
heard to say 20 seconds earlier.
Yeah, we were right there watching.
But, um, It's all for that punch.
I also think it's cheating because somehow bringing her back to
Earth and having her inspire Susie in person after having escaped
from Mars, that won't work.
That'll wreck human history.
But having Susie and her mother come over to Adelaide's house one
day and find her sort of face down, you know, on the on the living
room floor with a pool of blood brown ahead.
But that is going to. inspire.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, it's just we're making the rules up at this point, whatever.
I agree that's another thing that doesn't that doesn't quite
work.
Oh, the Reaper's turned up a letter.
The reaper's turned up.
I think maybe maybe there's a two-way com link.
Video link, and the daughter and granddaughter have been watching
all of these events, and as soon as Lindsay Dunk, grandma comes
home, they shoot her.
They were waiting.
They've been watching it.
Big David Tenant fans. no, you've got to go.
No, maybe not.
But it's weird though. it's like, again, it's worth saying, you
know, that is an extreme moment in Doctor Who.
It does break the program.
It feels outside the program.
It feels odd at the time.
You know, thank goodness this thing wasn't the, it was gives me a
Christmas special, originally called Red Christmas, which is a
great title.
But, um, it's good, like, it was, it was reaching to be a bullet
an old school pistol because deliberately, they wanted, Yeah, they
were, I mean, deliberately with the whole Bowie base thing, they
wanted it to be very NASA, very Star Trek, but kind of
believable.
So they actually didn't want too many whiz-bangy things.
They actually didn't want laser guns, but the producer, again, one
of the many, many things they turned down in this, they're like, no
no, no, no, we are not having anyone shooting themselves with a
real gun.
There'll be a laser zap.
So it turns out that the, in fact, the person when you watch the
production of this thing, the person who keeps turning down the
monsters will keeps turning down there so it keeps turning down
that.
Even a huge stunt when there's that explosion.
David was like, I'm doing this explosure.
I'm doing this huge stunt and doing this huge stunt and they were
like, no, I'm not having that.
The when he says like the doctor should have someone to stop you.
It appears to be Nicky Wilson, the producer.
He seems to every turn.
She seems to be like toning it down, but it is a, that's a very
extraordinary moment.
It does feel that just feels too far.
It feels too much. to me.
They do it again, they do it really well.
They justify it within the story.
It's a question of should they do it?
In fact, I've got a moral question.
I've got a moral dilemma for you all.
Let's say we go back to Roast Lock Base 2009, let's say, 2008, when
they're saying, okay, we've done Journeys End.
This is amazing.
David's going off.
He's doing Hamlet, but he might get some time off.
What do we do?
Do we pull a plug or should we go, you know, and the BBC really
wants us to do it?
They're throwing money at us.
Do you go back and stop them from making an extra year or do you
let them do it?
Come on, there's the 4 of us.
Weve got to go back and we've got to make the decision.
I agree with you, Conrad.
I think that these don't work really well.
And I think that Doctor Who as specials doesn't work really well.
I like a season, I think making us wait 7 months for this and then
having this be the thing that we have for the next month or so
before we see the next thing.
I don't think any of them work particularly well.
But I love Doctor Who that fails in various ways.
And, you know, we're going to get 4 episodes of FTE out of it.
So I'm absolutely here.
Wow.
I think I think you're both mad.
I think you're both mad and deranged and must be stopped because
because this kept the momentum going and it did it did do when
Moffatt was on the verge of launching his new sort of more very
fairy tale version and that's not a majority of word for me.
I've got lots of other pejorative words from Moffitt, but that's
not one.
And this new completely different style of Doctor Who was coming.
And so to have these episodes where Russell T. Davis did
everything in different directions to 200%, kept it very much in
the public, I kept it really live and meant that from the 2nd from
Tennant's actual departure to Matt Smith's arrival.
It only a few weeks.
It's only about, it's only about 10 weeks or something, isn't it
between the end of the tenant era and the 11th hour going out.
And I think without that, you have one of these 18 months gaps
that we've now got used to where just loses momentum from the
public eye completely.
Unless it's filled with Time Lord Victorious with lots of pictures
of David Tennant and, you know, with in hero poses, with
explosions.
So don't worry, he's got us covered for quite some time.
Brendan, it's all down.
So, so, so, Pete, you're saying in this rose lock scenario, you're
going to let them keep going.
Yep.
Okay, so me and so, okay.
Brendan, it's all done to you, mate.
What are you, you get the casting vote.
What?
I'm I'm going to play weather people.
I'm going to say let them keep going for much the same reason as
Pete does because these run of specials, it's, and we've seen this
from Russell's subsequent work.
Russell T. Davies has quite a dark streak and he's been keeping a
lot of it at bay in Doctor Who.
And this is the moment where instead he goes, okay, we know we've
got a definite out.
We know that the program will go on beyond us.
Let's experiment.
And Planet of the Dead is pretty Trad, you know, and pretty fun
with it.
Waters of Mars.
It breaks the show in such a way that they know that even though
they've got 2 more episodes to do, they're not going to do this
again.
End of time is a spectacular failure.
And I mean that in terms of it is an impressive spectacle, it has
good performances from Tennant and SIM and Bernard Crippens and
pretty much everyone.
And, you know, Tim, the Sexiest Bond alive, Timothy Dalton.
I know.
But it doesn't work.
Shackable Barooza is the next bowl.
Philip Latham.
Hang on, where does he wrestle on?
Sorry.
He's wrestle on.
I thought you was dark embarrassing.
We can do them both.
We could do both.
It's well, it's okay now.
According to Chris Chip, they're the same person. sure.
It means that when Matt Smith avoids crashing into Big Ben and we
have that beautiful 1st year with him and Karen Gillen, if, you
know, if that had come off the back of series four, it just would
have felt like more of the same.
The specials give us a chance to kind of go...
It's kind of like the doctor saying, the ice Warriors live here
you know, yeah, we're not going to show you them, though.
This is what Doctor Who could be.
Don't worry, we're not going to do that.
I don't, I mean, I love series 5, but I think I might have loved
it a little bit less if I hadn't been a bit a bit turned off by
waters of miles on the end of time.
So we are deadlocked.
So we didlock, but, blah, blah, blah.
This whole episode when it aired, there's a tribute, of course, at
the end, the special is dedicated to Barry Letts.
Now if anybody can get it and break this stalemate and have an
opinion on it, we're like, what would Barry do?
But what would he think?
That's the big one.
Yeah, I mean, the Barry, let's hear it is spectacular and lovely
in all sorts of ways.
But it's not that wildly experimental, though, is it?
Yeah, he would, he would be saying...
What would he be saying?
I think he'd be with you, Conrad, to be honest.
Because, you know, he very, very early on got hauled over the
coals for being too scary and actually agreed and kind of went
okay, we'll pull it back a bit.
And, you know, did so, but still managed to make scary Doctor Who
with a strong moral direction because he often spoke about the
morality of the program and how the doctor doesn't do certain
things and, you know, he's the man who never would carry a gun
unless you're an ogre on or a dinosaur.
You know, but certainly.
You know, is the only other instance of suicide by gun in Doctor
Who image of the fender.
Hmm.
Maybe.
Um, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I think I think we'll, I think we'll get one in the Capaldi
era.
I think there might be one in Mummy on the Orient Express, but
previously, I think it's something Dr. was definitely shied away
from.
Yeah, of course, we had Donna blowing herself up a few weeks ago
with her suicide vest.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, there's been a lot of people blow themselves up to, you
know, sacrifice themselves for others and stuff.
But I do think that the gun to the head thing is just a little bit
kind of, you know, and she's not under threat.
Nothing's going to happen to her if she if she doesn't do it.
And so I just think, you know, yeah, it's unfortunate.
Well, that's all we have time for, for now.
We'll be back in the next few weeks to see what the Noble family
has been getting up to in the end of time part one.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us at flights for entirety on Facebook, at
FTE podcast on Twitter, and on our website, flights
throughentirety.com, where you'll find links to our other podcasts
Bondfinger and Jody into Terror.
Pete, where can people find you?
Uh, I'm Prof underscore quite a mess on Twitter and I'll crop up
sometimes on the lovely Trap one underscore podcast.
And Conrad, where can people find you?
Yeah, you can also find me on Twitter at Hair of the Hound
underscore, and like Pete, I'm often on the trap one podcast.
So until next time, Remember that the very best way to lose a few
pounds is to condense all your oxygen membranes.
I'm doing it now.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
This never would have happened to Matt Damon.
That was Flight 3 Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Brendan
Jones, Pete Lambert, and Conrad Westmas.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb, Strings performance by Jane
Orberg.
This episode, Fix Or Flux, was recorded on the 11th of October
2020 and released on the 21st of November.
Well, I don't know about you, but I'm planning to nip back in time
to 1987 and persuade Bonnie Langford to stay on for another
season.
See you when I get back.
What do we wanna do?
I don't think we can go back to talking about things.
Should we wind it up?
Yeah.
Oh, God.
I just got a in that for my boss.
I'm presuming I'm presuming this is probably going to be the tag.
So something I noticed, which is totally frivolous.
When Lindsay Duncan's name comes up.
Lindsay and Duncan are not aligned with each other.
I hope someone got fired for that.
And someone's done...
They had to go back and edit it.
You can't bloody... not paying that much.
And because it's my last episode of the RTD era, not on the end of
time.
I'd just like to say for the last time, the end credits vortex is
not centred and it really annoys me.
They could do it in 1974.
What's your excuse, milk?
What do you call yourselves?
Wow.
I didn't realise they'd been eating you away if it was 2005.
Brandon, you've been doing this for way too long.
No one should have this much power.
I am the lord of peppermint chocolate.
Will obey me.
It'll stay off my goddamn hips.
This is a shame that Adelaide didn't stay around for a couple more
days.
She could have watched the 96th anniversary, special of Doctor Who
on BBC One on the 23rd, 21, whatever it was.
Rod did rightly point out this morning that it would actually be
his centenary because he was born in 1959.
Wow.
He also said, well, as credits were rolling.
Well, that was just stupid, wasn't it?
Like, why was it stupid?
He said, well, I told you when we watched it last time.
I said, darling, that was 2015.
Can you just explain it to me again?
And he's like, The science in Doctor Who. needs to be sensible
because the science of the ship itself is not.
So everything else needs to be sensible around it.
You can accept the ship, but everything else needs to follow the
rules.
And, you know, I thought he was going to talk about time or time
paradoxes.
And he's like, they would not be able to produce that much water
in that little time to get through the base.
They were creating water.
He's like, I get that they're creating water.
But 1st of all, what from?
But he's like, secondly, it's it's 10 feet of what, whatever it is
there's lots of lines about it. 10 feet of concrete that we
brought here without being able to pack a couple of bikes.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, I was constantly worried about how they built it.
You know, it did seem like they would have burnt up, you know, I
don't know, half of the Western Hemisphere to just get there
anyway.
All right, should we do the thing?
We'll do the outro.
I'll go, shall I throw to you and do you want to plug something or
something?