Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight Through
Entirety.
The only Doctor Who podcast exploring an exciting new retail
opportunity right in the heart of the 5th moon of Cinda Callista.
I'm Nathan.
I am Brendan.
I'm Joe. And I'm Jack.
Well, we're nearing the end of the season now, so we've decided to
give Amy the week off and to spend some quality bro time with our
new flatmate TV's James Corden.
It's a week of football, heterosexuality, and neglecting the
housework as we discuss the lodger.
So, Joe, your English, why does everyone hate James Corden?
I've got absolutely no idea, because I think he's rather wonderful
and I thought he was rather wonderful in this episode, as well.
What you say to me, I mean, what did you think of James Gordon in
this?
I really like him.
I think he does a great job and I think he has great chemistry
with Matt.
I sometimes think of it, it's because he's, um, he's successful.
Like, he's he's somebody who started off in, uh, like doing sketch
shows and sitcoms and things like that.
Popped off to America and has made a fantastic career for
himself.
But in this episode, I thought he was absolutely brilliant.
I thought, uh, very, well, not charismatic, but very likeable, very
relatable and very funny.
He has a sort of every man shtick, I think, that works really
well.
You know, like he's not too attractive.
He's not too confident and that's exactly what the role needs, I
think.
And there's definitely a bit, the role requires James Corden to be
a bit of a good sport because they do make fun of him quite
relentlessly throughout the episode at various points in a very
affectionate way, but nonetheless, it's when they're calling him
like the sofa man and all that kind of stuff.
I actually think he plays the reaction to that absolutely
beautifully, you know, like, um, it could so easily have gone
wrong and we don't quite know, you know, how he's going to react
to the doctor because the doctor is so odd.
And when he says that you're starting to look like your sofa line
and Craig responds by laughing kind of and making it clear that
it's sort of, you know, slightly the wrong thing to say.
Um, yeah, I think I think they have a great chemistry together.
And of course, James Corden was just coming off the back of the
original run of Gavin and Stacy.
Yep. at this and, of course, also had Horn and Corden, the sketch
comedy show.
So getting him, I think he almost had the same profile as, say
getting Catherine Tate.
Yeah, it is a big sort of casting thing.
And we have had a few of those this year.
Yeah, yeah, we've had Sophie Okinito, we've had Miracial.
Yeah.
Um, just Olivia Coleman.
Olivia Coleman for 10 seconds, yeah.
Oh, what a waste of Olivia Coleman. 10 seconds of Olivia Coleman
coming soon to HBO.
It is nice to see like a guest act well spotlight here.
I think that is one of the weaknesses of this era, is occasionally
people like Arabella Weir and Bill Bailey and Olivia Coleman are
wasted on like tiny roles, whereas it's nice, you know, this is
James Gordon's episode, you know, and he gets another one as
well.
And should we mention Daisy Haggard as well?
Oh, marvellous.
I don't know that she's quite as big at that point.
But she would still be recognisable to the audience.
You know, it would be a matter of casual viewers tuning in would
go, oh, it's that bloke and that and that woman.
I know them.
I mean, I loved her since Psychoville, where she's like super
stupid and super evil.
And then she's in episodes where she plays the head of comedy at
that American TV network who doesn't get jokes and sort of never
laughs or anything.
And she's only quite amazing.
And of course, since then she's gone on to create back to life
which I just think is really terrific.
So she's a big catch, perhaps more in retrospect than at the
time.
And I think she's matched very perfectly against James Corden as
well.
Um, because especially in their opening scenes, um, together, after
you kind of get through the sort of sci-fi hook with the doctor
being dumped off, uh, on Earth, they build the kind of the, the
the history of their relationship and their kind of dynamic and
the kind of awkwardness about, they both feel the same way, but
they don't want to talk about.
They do that together so quickly before the doctor even shows up
at the doorstep.
It's they're brilliant together as well.
This is a doctor who doing a comedy sitcom.
So the chemistry has got to be there and it really is.
Like, I think from the very 1st scene, there's great chemistry
between those two.
And you have to want them to get together and you do.
Yeah.
I still say pizza booze telly all the time from this episode.
That's a thing that I do every week is go over to my friend
Robert's place and have pizza booze tally and it absolutely comes
from that.
And there's a real warmth to that.
And, and I just love, you know, how reluctant she is to go and see
her friend Melina because pizza boost Hell is so, you know, so
important to her.
And he's sort of disappointed when she says on the phone, oh, it's
nothing.
I just, you know, it's just Craig.
But both of them, so both of them are downplaying pizza booze
telly is an important thing to do, but both of them clearly
clearly love doing it and just love hanging out with each other.
Yeah, one of my favourite little things in that scene is when
James Cornen, he's got the pizza menu in his hand and he just
throws it away, like it means nothing.
He's like, oh, yeah, it's just, it's just pizza boots. doesn't
mean anything and he just like, he like throws it as far as away
as he can.
It's so sweet.
And particularly with those characters.
They feel really worn in, if that makes sense.
Like, uh, when, um, you know, the doorbell rings and Craig
realises that um, she's left her keys behind, that he says like
every, like every time, um, and there's just like all those little
things, like, it's the pizza booze and telly that they've clearly
been doing this for ages.
She's leaving her keys behind all the time.
There's the photo of them on the fridge, which is immediately
drawn attention to, and you just get a sense of how long they've
been friends for, which I think is really lovely.
Yeah, yeah.
And there's all these little moments in the episode where James
Corden does something nonchalantly to hide how he's really feeling
like throwing the pizza menu, and then there's just this little
flicker on his face of nobody throws a pizza menu to show.
Yeah, it's it's that moment from friends where Joey says, you
can't say you're breezy.
That negates the fact that you're breezy. he's doing that all the
way through.
And it's a rom-com, but it also has a sort of 1940s screwball kind
of mentality to the way Craig is written.
Like, you could imagine, say, Jerry Lewis or Donald O'Connor
playing this part.
Yeah.
Yeah, I, I think, I think it's really, it's really warm and really
lovely and the 2 of them bring, they bring that and they bring the
believability. to it.
And then, of course, that all gets steamrolled over once the
doctor arrives.
I'm guessing the reception must have been strong enough for this
episode because is it done?
It's the next season, isn't it?
They're back again, both of them.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Daisy Haggard just for a little bit, but James Gordon for a whole
episode.
Yeah, no, I can only imagine that Moffatt has just spoken to the
writer and said, do it again, you know, do it again next year.
And he does that. in a sort of surprisingly similar way, which
maybe we'll talk about when we get to it.
I still can't believe that there's a Doctor Who romantic sitcom in
the Moffatt era that's not written by Stephen Moffatt, given that
that's where he's come from.
They handed that to another writer.
Well, I think, you know, like, I think probably Roberts and
Moffatt have a pretty good relationship and Roberts is one of the
experienced writers that he's brought across this year.
And you can see that there are similarities thematically between
this story and season 5 as a whole because season 5, as we've said
many, many times over the last few episodes, is about a woman
running away from adulthood and avoiding her wedding.
And these 2 aren't, you know, avoiding getting married for quite
the same reasons.
They're just terribly clueless.
But it's the same sort of theme.
And then the following year, you know, there's a baby and that's
also uh, upsettingly part of the uh, the series 6 arc.
I think it's really interesting actually, now that you mention it
because you're right, the whole series is about Amy running away
from her own wedding.
Um, and then in this episode where she's not there, you've got
these 2 people who are kind of avoiding, uh, who are too nervous
to fall into the, into their relationship, but they don't run
away.
They do the opposite.
They stay exactly put.
Um, and just stay rooted.
They have all these dreams about maybe going somewhere.
Well, Sophie in particular, it talks about going elsewhere, but
she stays here.
Uh, and it's the complete opposite of Amy, where, you know, she
runs away the night before a wedding.
Yeah, I think I think that's the thing that's really well drawn
and it's obviously important for the science fiction plot, which
we're not going to get to for a long time because it's super
tedious.
But, um, you know, the idea that both of them are stuck where they
are. basically because they love one another.
So, um, Sophie is of no interest to the man upstairs at the
beginning of the story because she wants to be with Craig and she
says to the doctor, all my friends are here.
It'd be scary to go anywhere else and Craig famously can't see the
point of London and can't see the point of Paris or anything like
that.
He just wants to be where he is.
And it can't really explain why either.
The doctor actually kind of asks him and he just kind of goes, oh
it's comfortable.
It's nice.
Yeah, yeah.
When he says, I don't really see the point of London, he's sort of
swirling his wine around it.
I think that's another one of those moments where the interiority
of that is, what a bloody stupid statement.
It's on the train.
I can go there in an hour.
But that's what I'm what I love so much about the characterisation
of these two.
I realised as I was watching this for the for the podcast.
Every time Russell introduces a new companion at the at the top of
a season.
So Rose, Smith and Jones are partners in crime where he
reintroduces Donna, they're always juxtaposed with someone who's
not good enough to travel with the doctor because they're phased
by all the strange stuff.
So with Rose, it's Mickey, with Martha, it's her friend Julia, who
the doctor dismiss is saying leave her, she'll slow us down.
And then you've got Penny, the reporter, who's going to report
them for weirdness.
And here, instead, the writer goes, no, no, no, there is strength
in being comfortable.
So so long as you are truly comfortable in where you are.
So much so that, In an earlier draft of the script.
At the end, the doctor takes Craig and Sophie to see the Tartar
and offers them a trip and they say, nope, Craig actually says
I've got everything I need right here.
And at the beginning of the episode, we're sort of invited to
think, oh, that's really sad.
He doesn't want to go to Paris, he doesn't want to do this. want
to do that.
With that ending, it's like, no, no, you really do have everything
you want.
Yeah.
I mean, we do get the, I could see the point of Paris if you were
there with me.
Yeah, yeah.
There's a hint of there's a hint of expansion.
Yeah.
You know, but it's, it's all, it's also, it's like that moment in
Father's Day when Eccleston is talking to the married couple and
they're like, we're not important.
He's like, of course you're important.
But this actually backs it up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, it gives us enough time with these people.
And that's the other thing that I like about this an enormous
amount.
I think that Doctor Who.
You know, because of the way it started.
It was always an exciting adventure, we'd land on a planet or
there'd be aliens or whatever.
But in 45 minutes, you don't actually have to do that.
You could do something quite different.
And this comes close to it.
I think the power of 3 comes close to it.
Maybe, um, boom town, where we just kind of get to see what
they're doing when they're not really in an adventure.
And I think a lot of people dismiss those stories because the
adventure or the science fiction element of them is so
undercooked.
But I don't care.
I would like to see more of that.
And I think, um, like Morden Undead is a little bit like that.
And, you know, the 1st episode of Black Orchid is like that.
I think Planet of Fire is a bit like that.
You know, there's a little bit of time to breathe and just see
what the characters are doing when they're not being captured and
escaping and stuff.
And I certainly think you could afford to, you know, waste um, a
single episode a season letting that sort of thing happen.
Well, yeah, no, I find that especially interesting because I
haven't, um, rewatched the lodger in an incredibly long time.
I can't even remember the last time I saw it, but I do kind of
remember the 1st time I saw it when it went out on the air.
Um, and at that time, I was kind of, you know, I thought it was
fine.
I was like, oh, this is okay, but that was because I was like in
my early kind of teens and uh, I was all kind of, you know, when
you're, when you're in your teenage years and it's like, it's all
got to be sci-fi plotting.
It's all got to be. the sci-fi stuff I am here for.
Not that this kind of comedy romance angle.
And then, of course, many years later, when I, um, in here in 2021
when I watched it now, I was so delighted at how little the sci-fi
side of the story intrudes upon, uh, the character dynamic, uh, and
the fun of the story and the jokes as well.
If um, if you'd have told me at some point that there would be a
scene with the doctor playing football in the middle of an episode
I have no interest in football whatsoever.
I would have been like, that, that episode would not be for me.
I think it's my favourite scene in the entire episode.
It's so unrepresentative what Doctor Who normally is.
It absolutely should be cheering.
It's so lovely, that scene in the middle.
Like he's just embracing that life on earth and having so much
fun.
It clearly owes something to the scene from Black Orchard part one
which I really like as well, but it's better than that, because it
has a proper character point, because that's the other thing that
happens here is that the doctor arrives and he's super awkward and
super weird, but he is better at Craig's life than Craig is.
And so that scene is absolutely joyous.
Murray does his version of the doctor's hero theme of the 11th
doctor's hero theme, but a much more sort of fun and exciting
version of it.
And it's wonderful.
It's so, so enjoyable.
And I do also love that it is a nod to the fact that Matt Smith
was almost a professional.
Yeah.
And then had to retire at 16 from football because of a backing.
He is extremely good, isn't he?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, and um, in terms of Black Orchid watching this last night with
Rod, he turns to me and says, well, it's better than cricket.
You're a massive fan of Black Orchid, aren't you, Brendan?
I love Black Orchids, dear listener.
Go look for Brandy Bongo's 5 Bottom Doctor Who stories...
Enjoy in the show notes.
Thing is, it's my sister's favourite story.
Because she loves a good frock drama.
Yeah, well, and it's got lots of dancing and stuff.
It has a lot of time wasting in part one.
I think I remember saying that it was that was my favourite
episode of the season, the favourite single episode of the
season.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
As Todd said at the time, Tegan finds her character when she gets
drunk.
Yeah, yeah.
With Matt Smith's footballing as well.
I think something I picked up on as well because, you know, uh, I
mean, the doctor playing football was obviously an idea uh, that
was originally in the comic uh, that this was based off.
Um, and uh, but and Matt Smith happened to be a really good
footballer and they just kind of drew on one of the things he
loved to do when he was younger.
And I think they do that again with Peter Capaldi as well, whether
Moffat draws on the fact that Peter Capaldi was in a rock band.
So they make him play an electric guitar on a tank just to kind of
reference that part of his of his of his youth.
Yeah, well, I just think it's that whole scene is just
tremendously, tremendously fun.
And what's really fun about it.
There's a moment where he's lying on the ground after having
scored a goal and all the other guys like Sean and that run up and
kind of rub his belly or whatever. kind of there's a sort of just
a hilarious moment of male bonding, which is absolutely not very
doctor-ish.
No one rubbed John Pertuy's belly for the entire 5 years.
He is the doctor.
Well, as I understand the sport, that's that's actually offside.
Oh, okay.
I love that he's still wearing his jacket on the field.
Yes, yes, he turns he turns up in in the football, in the football
jersey and shorts, but with the jacket.
You remember I said that James Gordon, as Craig, was very
relatable and I found him the most relatable in that scene.
I was quite a podgy child, and I was squeezed into very um, small
football, uh, uniforms at, and God bless him.
He looks so cute, but that uniform was so small on him.
Like, it's his little belly was...
I, I, I just felt like that was me, aged about 8 years old.
There's that scene at the end where he's just standing there
completely forlorn because he hasn't had a very good game and his
little bellies there. was definitely me.
And his shorts look like a skirt.
Yeah, they?
Yeah, it looks like a netball skirt.
Yeah, because of the scribes.
Yeah, so and that's just kind of the beginning of where, you know
there's a bit of an arc.
And we haven't really talked about the doctor all that much yet.
And there's a little bit there where the doctor starts to kind of
take over Craig's life.
And I guess it starts with the football.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then is he having he horns in on their date?
Yep, where Craig is going to say that he loves Sophie, but he
actually wrecks it.
Yeah, he pops up behind from behind the sofa.
From behind the sofa.
Where the monsters can't get you.
Is he unaware of what he's doing?
Or is this just supposed to be kind of highlighting that this is
an alien and he doesn't quite understand human interaction?
Surely, because when they, uh, they, they ask him if he wants to
stay and they're clearly queueing at him, do not stay.
He says he says the fatal thing of saying, I don't mind.
And social niceties kick in.
So they go, well, okay, of course you can stay.
And I think it's genuinely adorable because he just doesn't pick
up on it.
Except, you know, everything that's led up to this scene makes us
think that the doctor doesn't understand what's going on among
human beings.
You know, he doesn't know how we greet one another these days.
He thinks that Sean is threatening to literally annihilate the
team next week.
Stephen Moffatt will steal for the day of the doctor and basically
just a rabbit.
And and then he doesn't get that cue about them leaving.
But it's in that conversation where he speaks to Sophie and you
think that he's saying something really terrible that he shouldn't
say, where he says, maybe you'll spend the rest of your life in a
call centre being just sort of slightly miserable or maybe a call
centres the best place for you.
And she gets angry at him and then he smiles.
And what he's done is intervene to try and get her to, to do, what
he does is the doctor-ish thing of inspiring someone to be
better.
You know, that's the doctor. hes the doctor because he makes you
better.
And we think that he doesn't understand that Craig is going to
react badly to that.
But it's very clear too that he knows that they both love each
other and they're not doing anything about it.
And it's that brilliant line where he says 6000000000 people
watching you 2 at work.
I'm starting to wonder where they all come from.
And so it's very clear that he knows that they should be a couple
but they're kind of hopeless together to add to that figure.
So it's curious because so much time is spent making the doctor
look weird.
But in fact, he's very much more insightful than both Craig and
Sophie about their relationship.
And this is why I really, really love the doctor's
characterisation in this particular story because obviously so
much of the comedy comes from the doctor. from it's seeming like
the doctor doesn't quite get it.
But, um, uh, it's one of the things I really, I think when it
works in the Moffat era, it works very well, which is they put a
lot of emphasis on how smart the doctor is.
And in there are some stories, and this is a really great example
of it, where the doctor's intelligence is really focussed on
people, and he gets to be smart about people.
Um, so he, um, you know, he doesn't understand all the social
cues.
He doesn't understand how a football game works, even though he's
inexplicably very talented at it, but he does notice that Craig is
fondling the keys.
And he has, he notices and he notices, you know, when, uh, you
know, he's gone up and down the stairs in a towel, which I'm sure
we'll talk a bit more about later.
But, um, he, he says to Sophie, you know, you've got 2 set, he
sets of keys to this house.
You must like it here too.
And he also later then says, like, you know, it's a big world.
So if you work out what's really keeping you here.
Yeah.
And it's one of the delightful things in this story where you get
the doctor in the kind of, he's still kind of in his usual
headspace of being in puzzle solving mode, but it's in a sitcom
way, his puzzle solving is directed on the people in the room.
And instead of it being like some kind of murder mystery or
something like that, it's just their social awkwardness, which is
why when, you know, he's like making the omelet and Craig's has
that wonderful line. like, I don't know why I'm telling you all
this.
It's like, oh, I've just got one of those faces.
People just start blurting up their plans to me.
Something I was struck by this time about the sort of cosiness of
the flat because the 1st time I'd seen this, I'd never seen spaced
with Simon Pegg and Jessica Hines.
Oh, yeah.
And watching it now.
Down to the colour scheme.
It's very much like Tim and Daisy's flat.
And now the thing is, with sort of space, Tim and Daisy are
pretending to be a couple and there is a sort of will they won't
they thing, but the whole point about it is, no, they're not going
to because they've actually got something better. than the
romances they've had before.
And here, Craig and Daisy are afraid of pursuing something better
in case it destroys what's there.
Yeah.
Which, you know, is incredibly sweet and incredibly relatable, but
it's one of those things where if you see your friends going
through that, you sort of go, just say it, just say something.
But when you go, you're going through it yourself.
You think, no, I can't possibly.
I can't possibly say, I can't, I can't, I can't.
It's um, oh, what's the word?
It's dramatic irony.
It's the dramatic irony of the situation in that the audience
knows because this is a television show for a family audience that
usually has happy endings that things will be fine.
Yeah.
But at the same time, they know if they were in that situation
they wouldn't be thinking that things would be fine.
And, you know, you don't you don't get the meat cute in real life
kind of thing.
Yeah, I remember, I think it's a quote from John Cleese, and he
was talking about, I think comedy, comedy in general, but farce in
particular, where he said, all of this looks really funny to us
but for the people inside of farce.
It's the worst day of their lives.
And similarly on a slightly less extreme sort of measure. in a
kind of more rom-comy kind of way.
It's not it's not quite the worst day of their lives, but it's the
it's one of the more awkward days of their lives.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, you know, I think that scene in the call centre, after, you
know, Craig's gone and touched the rot and the thing, I absolutely
love the scene with the doctor bringing in the breakfast and
reviving Craig and feeding him tea and he's like, you're
important.
So adorable.
Yeah.
The Charles and Diana wedding teapot.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which, according to the script, was already in there when Craig
moved in.
So it's not that Craig collects commemorative teapots.
It's that it got left behind.
I want to believe that he collects commemorative teapots.
But, you know, I think I think that then for Craig becomes that
John Cleese's worst day of his life because the doctor has gone
in.
He's found his sort of manifest over how to run the company better
and presented it and now he's getting rid of all Craig's clients
because he doesn't need them anymore.
I'm going to go back to that word relatable again because, uh, I've
worked in a cool sensor.
I have been that person and so the bit where the doctor basically
says, go away and hangs out the phone.
I was cheering in that moment.
I have been that person.
Oh yeah.
Rude Mr. Lang.
Please hold, I need to eat a biscuit.
Oh, I love that so much.
Also, can I just, can I just quickly say, I absolutely adore the
fact that Craig's boss has been like, oh, yes, it is, is the
doctor?
isn't he marvellous?
He went to the planning meeting and there's no explanation
provided as to how the doctor just sorted on in and went into, what
did he call it, like a platinum level meeting or something?
It's not addressed how he did it, but you don't need to know.
Um, and it's just so funny, especially when you see him sitting at
his desk.
I love when he's like blowing a raspberry down the telephone and
the CEO is just doing like that little, it's just doing that
thumbs up at him.
Him smiling in the background is just marvellous.
It's so great.
Even when he does that, you have to go on hold now, I'm eating a
biscuit.
The boss is still absolutely delighted with his performance.
Yes, if only we could all have that when we...
The funniest bit for me was like the mad, violent farce of the
doctor headbutting Craig in order to do like the contact moment
and deliver all that information to him.
And it wasn't even funny because of this episode.
I had flashbacks of like the 5 doctors and stories like that.
And I was thinking imagine if that was how they did it.
And you had all of the doctors smacking each other in their head.
Oh, that's that was a moment for me where I was like, oh, they
must be so happy with that joke because they're literally making
contact by headbutting.
Yeah, it's so funny.
I do remember Gallifrey bass back in the day with that moment to
add, and a big thread about, won't someone think of the children
who are now going to headbutt each other based on this episode?
Looking back on it, the doctor and Craig make it very clear that
this is an incredibly painful experience and my God, no one would
ever want to do this.
So I think they did think about that in terms of responsibility
and went, this is a very bad idea.
Don't do this at home, kids.
Yeah.
It plays out in that sort of mad, violent way, like an episode at
bottom does, you know?
And it is, it is really, really funny.
Yeah, yes.
So I think there are a lot of things like that contact has been
made thing that Gareth references.
You remember the time flow analogue in the time monster?
Yeah, and when he creates that.
When Pertwee creates that, Ruth says that it's a sort of terrible
bit of modern art.
And then we get the same thing here where the doctor creates that
sensor thing out of, you know, traffic cones and an umbrella and a
digital clock or whatever.
And, you know, the next scene he's in the bar.
I thought that was ridiculous enough in the Time Monster, you know
with a little cup of tea, you get on the top spinning around.
Yeah, but this was something else.
But I mean, the thing is that that was famously ridiculous in the
time monster, and there's no way that Gareth Roberts didn't love
that bit of the time monster, which is why he deliberately
references it.
And I think the doctor singing, um, La Donne Mobile, but like as
Tara, Boomdie, or whatever in the shower, has got to be a
reference to him sort of driving into the Inferno project or
whatever.
And you know, who's the only other doctor we've seen in the shower
John Pertley.
That's right.
So the whole thing is sort of chock full of things that we love
from earlier episodes of Doctor Who, in classic series, stuff
particularly, just done really confidently and really well, and in
the service of a story that's sort of genuinely funny, I think.
Yeah, and you mentioned the uh, with the time monster that it's
another character who points out that it looks like a terrible
piece of botanard.
Here that's even funnier because you have the doctor defending it
as a terrible piece of modern art.
That's right.
Ooh, it isn't.
It's pretty awful.
In terms of the bathroom scene, I remember again, the internet.
Oh, a little bit of a flutter.
With Matt Smith, with Matt Smith's chest running out.
I had a little bit of a flutter.
He's briefly naked, isn't he?
Because he drops the towel by mistake and has to scramble to pick
it up.
And then when he's speaking to Craig later, He covers his nipples
with his hand.
Like, that's a thing that we do.
Yeah.
It's very cute, but he's, he's skinny, but, you know, the curious
thing is, he's there, he's there in the towel, and, and, um, Daisy
comes in, and, like, he's, he's in a towel, half naked, and he
goes up to her and does, like, the little air kisses, like
completely, he doesn't care that he's...
He's so good.
I've got to say about Matt Smith in this episode because I'm not
always kind about Matt Smith.
This is a fantastic showcase for his doctor.
I think I think this shows him at his absolute best, where he's
dealing with people, where he's being funny and cute, where he's
not juggling, like, you know, a 100 plot lines at once.
It's all about Matt and Matt is gorgeous in this.
I don't think another doctor could have done this.
No.
Well, I'm funny you should say that because, you know, they kind
of do the do this version of the story again in the caretaker and
it's much less appealing.
Oh yeah, no, that's much nastier.
Yeah.
And even with the original comic strip version of this, with David
Tennant's doctor, it has it has a quite different ending because
it doesn't have as big an alien threat because, you know, it's a
one shot comic.
And what's really remarkable about the ending is, you know, again
during it, you've got the doctor's better at football than Mickey
and then he beats the pub trivia quiz machine repeatedly.
And then he reveals that all of his tinkering in Mickey's flat has
been to disguise the earth from an alien invasion.
So they just go by and he doesn't have to fight anyone.
And he spoils a date.
Mickey's trying to have with a girl called Gina.
He's playing a video game with Mickey and he doesn't play properly
by the rules and he wins anyway.
And Mickey kind of says to him, maybe people don't want you
impressing them all the time.
Maybe they just want to live their lives even if they're not quite
doing it right.
And the lesson the doctor learns there is when the TARDIS does
finally land and Rose isn't aware anything's been wrong.
It's only been a few seconds for her.
The doctor says, actually, I've got some repairs to do.
Why don't you go up and see Mickey by yourself and the last panel
is Mickey realising.
Oh my god, he did actually listen to me and he understands.
Right.
And it's very sweet and I don't think you could have done it here
just because, yes, Matt Smith's doctor isn't that kind of
grandstanding look. you know, thwarted an alien invasion from your
kitchen.
He's actually that more gentle figure who's goading Sophie, but
he's goading Sophie and saying, you can do this.
Whereas I think tenants doctor, he kind of does the same thing
with with Gina in the comic, but actually on television.
If he if he said to her, yeah, you're probably only good for a
call centre, he would have meant it.
Matt Smith plays this whole episode with like an air of innocence
doesn't he?
And like the sweetest smile on his face all the time.
If David Tennant had been in this, I think it would have been a
bit nastier, a bit more uncomfortable to watch.
He had, he had like sort of more of an acidic edge to him, didn't
he?
Whereas with Matt Smith.
I don't know, I just don't get any sense of callousness, even if
he knows what he's doing.
It's all in how he plays it.
I think sometimes there's an unpleasant edge to Matt Smith's
doctor.
Oh for sure.
But there is something very sweet about the way he seems to be
enjoying himself and underplaying it.
And there's something disarming about his lack of competence and
his lack of knowledge about human relationships, which David
Tennant's doctor doesn't have.
You know, David Tennant is very confident. and full of ego.
And so he just wouldn't have been a good fit for this.
And Capaldi, who does share Smith's awkwardness, has that nasty
edge.
So he wouldn't have fitted here at all.
The only person, I think, who could remotely do it. would be Jody
I think.
I mean, could you imagine?
Could you imagine Capaldius, the 3rd wheel here?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No.
Have you kissed yet?
Human humans do the kissing thing.
I don't.
David Tenner would have just gnashed his teeth and gone, get on
with it.
I kissed a girl well.
Well, I say a girl.
More of a trampoline in my in my in my friend's body.
Well, she wasn't always a trampoline.
Sorry, where was I?
But I made a point of reading the original comic as well before
coming on.
And although a lot of the jokes in the comic, uh, do transfer over
uh, into the into the episode, um, the type of joke that it is
just changes quite rapidly because it is because Tenet is very
cool, very confident and much more aware.
So it does feel, it's still quite earnest and sweet, but it is, you
know, the doctor impressing people and kind of upstaging Mickey
which we've seen several dozen times.
Um, and there is a slight undercurrent and unintended mean
spiritness in the comic, whereas here the doctor just has no
idea.
Um, and the joke is that the doctor doesn't even know how good he
is at most of these things.
Um, so there's not even a remote sense of malice to any of it or
even a sense, a desire to impress.
He just genuinely wants to be like, um, you know, a good friend, a
good, a good lodger, a good housemate and be helpful and
friendly.
Yeah, yeah.
I think he's also a little bit trying to prove to Amy that he can
be a normal bloke for 3 days.
Yeah.
We haven't talked much about Amy, but yes, the whole point of this
episode was if they had to follow the traditional structure of a
Dr. Light and companion light episode, they could do that.
But for some reason in this schedule, they didn't need a Dr. Light
episode this year.
So they came to the conclusion.
Actually, we can have a bit more Amy in the early drafts.
She had one scene at the beginning and one scene at the end.
But the reason we keep coming back to her is they're like, okay
well, we've already structured it, but she's not going to be here
but let's give Karen more to do.
Right.
Including, including sort of piloting the TARDS.
Yeah.
And wasn't this episode originally a backup script, um, in
production?
Yes, that's right.
So Stephen Moffat said to the writer, oh, look, why don't you
adapt the lodger?
And then like 6 months later, when it came time to do that, Moffatt
had completely forgotten he said that.
So there was another plot developed, which, you know, has never
really come to light what the details were.
And then it was decided, oh, no, we've got to.
Yeah, that that's not quite working.
Let's start developing the lodger.
And then the lodger actually replaced a script called Bigger on
the inside by Neil Gaiman.
Oh, because it was decided they didn't have the budget to make
that at that stage in the production and that became the doctor's
wife.
Yeah.
And I, um, think it's incredibly telling that, you know, because
you know, you've got Stephen Moffatt in his 1st year as the
showrunner and, um, you know, he's at this point, he's kind of the
scary writer in Doctor Who, but his background is in sitcom comedy
writing.
And I do think it's quite telling that when, you know, a script
falls through and he needs to reach for something else.
He does reach for a sitcom comedy script, essentially.
And that's the one he fills it with.
And you've already got Richard Curtis in this series as well.
So there's a very much Moffat leaning on his comedy chops when he
has to.
So, we haven't actually talked about the actual science fiction
element. in this story.
There's a reason for that.
It's not very good.
It's incredibly thin, isn't it?
Like unbelievably thin.
Much like one of the ears of the doctor's character reference.
It's purely ornamental.
I don't know.
I quite like the execution.
The execution of some of the scenes of the passer-bys coming past
and sort of the shadowy figure at the top of the stairs.
I was getting like echos of psycho of like this scary kind of
shadowy figure at the top of the stairs.
I did like the execution.
It just, I don't know, it kind of rubbed up with what was
happening elsewhere in the episode a bit awkwardly.
Because it's so dark, you think?
Uh, no, not because it was dark, just because, like, tonally it
was very different and sort of we weren't getting any more
information about that plot as the episode progressed.
So really, it's not until the end.
And even at the end, we don't really find out what it's all
about.
Like it's a it's a spaceship on top of the house, but it's
answered, it's answered later, isn't it?
In C series 6.
Yeah, so we will get it picked up again in the series opener and
we will be numb the wiser, in fact, after that.
Yeah, the doctor just says very Aikman Road, doesn't he?
And that's all that's really said about it.
Yeah, yeah, they use the same design.
I actually don't care.
Um, and I think that anything that was more complex or interesting
would take Vanderbilt's screen time away from Craig and Sophie.
So I do want it to be as thin as possible.
And so there are only 3 people who get lured upstairs.
Things play out the same way.
We discover there have been 17 people in total later.
But we only see 3 of them, including that sort of tragic walk of
shame woman who is coming home from the nightclub after having a
fight with her boyfriend or something, which is super relatable.
Well, yeah, that's right.
But it's also, it's actually quite upsetting because she's the 1st
person whom we see screaming and distressed and we get just get a
little shot of that.
And then there's the mousey woman who comes along later and we see
that from her as well.
Yeah, there was, there was intended to be one other person seen.
Um, uh, and that was a young man with a holiday brochure.
And that would have helped the doctor make the leap of logic as to
what the thing wanted.
Yeah, yeah.
But instead, you know, he sort of has, he has to do it himself in
a way.
Yeah, and in fact, the what the science fiction thing has to do is
it has to be at the service of the rom-com plot.
And so it is a spaceship with a Voyager style emergency crash
hologram.
Yeah.
And the, yeah.
And Matt Smith even says, I'm Troy Hanson of International Rescue
please state the nature of your emergency.
Yeah, yeah.
He's openly admitting to stealing it from Voyager.
Yeah, yeah.
And and it just wants someone who wants to go.
Yes.
Yeah.
Which I actually think is is actually a really smart little bit of
character plotting that it draws people in who want to leave
because it ties in with the kind of character work that's been the
actual subject of the episode.
I think it's quite neat that you don't get this random conclusion
that happened, this complicated sci-fi thing that has nothing to
do with the kind of the rest of the episode, but um, the threat is
based around drawing in people who want to leave and reminding the
2 characters why they want to stay and it's because they love each
other.
So I think the sci-fi elements tie in quite nicely with what the
rest of the episode's been about.
Well, I mean, the whole thing is resolved by Craig and Sophie
Kissing.
I mean, it's just brilliant, you know, like it couldn't possibly
be better.
What more satisfying conclusion can we have?
Kiss the girl.
It's so great.
I mean, no one's flicking the switches or rewiring.
It is a lovely moment, and it's a lovely moment here, and it's one
of those love conquers all, and this is like the 1st time it's
happened.
So it is very cute.
This would happen quite a lot in the future where it starts to get
a little try.
But as like the payoff for this episode.
I think as a one time sort of love conquers all ending.
It's marvellous.
Mm.
Yeah, no, but I mean, they kind of sell it because it's not quite
love conquers all, is it?
It's kind of like inertia conquers all.
You know, like, I'm going to stay here.
I'm not going to go and look after orangutans.
So it has no power over me.
And I actually think that that's kind of neat.
It does lead to the, to the, that final scene, which has lots of
like gooey squilchy kissing, the worst kind of kissing.
It's nasty to listen to.
But I'm glad they got there.
I'm glad they admitted how they feel.
Yeah.
I had to turn the volume down during the kissing.
It made me uncomfortable.
It was revolting.
And the thing is, if you watch the Doctor Who Confidential for one
of the Silurian episodes, I think it's cold blood, it's all about
the Foley artist and how she achieves the sounds.
So she, those sounds that, I highly doubt that's James Corden
and...
That's this poor woman, like, I don't know, sticking a handful
sticking a hand into a glove full of dishwashing liquid.
Give that woman a raise.
Oh my god.
I'm going to be thinking about that anytime I see an offscreen
stage kiss now.
You're welcome.
We should talk about Megloss.
Yes.
I think we should.
Why should we talk about Megloss, Brendan?
So this script was initially commissioned under the title Megloss
2.
And then colloquially referred to in the office as Mrs. Megloss
because the Avatar was going to be a little old lady who lived
above Craig, and that's how she was eliciting sympathy, because
she's a little old lady who needs help.
And the writer did publish an extract of the scripted issue of
Doctor Who magazine because he said, I want to make this clear.
People think I was joking.
No here it is.
Yeah.
So was Megalos supposed to be the villain in the spaceship?
Yeah, yeah, because the idea was, okay, we've got time distortion
and Meglos had chronic hysteresis sees, and we've got something
which can adopt form.
So it was changed into a hologram, but it's like Megloss can adopt
people's forms and it's looking for a new host.
But it then figures out, Megloss then figures out the doctor's
there and decides, oh, you know, I can get revenge on the doctor
and the extract published in Doctor Who magazine.
Does anyone else know about this?
Oh, I've read it.
It's so good.
Yeah, it's, it's like, um, it is I, Dr. Meglos, the last
Zolfathoran.
And the doctor says, I'm sorry, who?
The doctor just doesn't remember who Megloss is at all.
And no one watched Megloss.
And no one watch me.
That's probably why.
I've covered Meglosson say something nice.
So obviously no one watched it.
Wouldn't you?
Wouldn't you just kill to see how they would have realised Megloss
in 2000 whenever this was.
Like a CGI Megloss.
I'm there for that.
Yeah, yeah.
Part of the reason they didn't do it was the end of time had the
Vinvocce.
Ah.
Oh, really?
Yeah, that was part of the reason that scuppered it.
And you know, they were already like, we're bringing back this one
time villain from a not particularly well-regarded 1980 Doctor Who
story, and that just was the final nail in the coffin.
Well, I mean, they brought back Alpha Centuri in that Mark Gator
story.
So that's why they're above doing that.
I frankly find it utterly hysterical that between in the
transition between the specials and series 5, that Russell T. Davis
wasn't able to bring back the Daleks in the end of time, because
they were appearing in series 5, and Stephen Muffet wasn't able to
bring back Megloss because of the Vinvacci in the specials.
Wow, who do you think was inconvenienced worse?
Oh, Stephen Moffatt, for sure.
I have to say that I'm glad that Meg Loss isn't in it because I
think that it needs to be absolutely as thin as possible and not
distract us from the main game of this episode, which is Craig and
Sophie.
And so it's super rudimentary and I'm absolutely there for that.
In a way, in a way, using Meglos would have been like how briefly
Olivia Coleman appears.
Yeah.
You know?
And actually, God damn it.
Chipnell, are you listening?
I know you are.
Series 13.
Olivia Coleman is Meglos.
Megloss.
Oh my god.
Academy Award winner.
Olivia Coleman.
He is a cactus.
The role she was born for.
So this episode ends with a scene that really has nothing very
much to do with the rest of the episode and seems to be kind of
leading into the finale, but I think it's worth mentioning.
And we need to remember, I think, that Rory died just 2 weeks ago
and then in the last episode, Vincent mentions to Amy that Rory's
gone.
So as the viewing audience, we haven't had the chance to forget
this, how do we think this plays?
So, yeah, Amy discovering the ring in the TARDIS, which obviously
sparks a memory about Rory and then kind of guides into the
finale.
First of all, I was immediately struck at kind of how well done
that was.
And I do think as we're heading into like this 2 part finale, you
do need a reminder.
But I do, I think it's like an unfortunate thing about modern
television in that it is so serialised.
That you can't really just watch a single episode and this on its
own is a nice fluffy standalone episode.
But if I gave this to somebody to watch, like, you know, one of my
friends who never watched Doctor Who before, well, they'd be like
well, what was that all about?
What the hell did that have to do with the episode at large?
So I see the purpose of it.
I just think like for rewatching a single episode.
It's kind of a shame.
I do think though, that because modern TV is so serialised, we
kind of expect that to some degree.
And certainly it's only a couple of minutes compared to the, like
next year, um, a similar thing happens because, um, the sequel to
this is in the same position in the season, isn't it?
And that's a much weirder and less comprehensible ending than what
we get here.
I think it's a terrifying cliffhanger because what we have is the
possibility that Amy is going to remember that her, you know, pre
wedding jitters have got her boyfriend killed.
So, in context, and it's hard to remember what it was like at the
time.
In context, this was actually a really kind of shocking
conclusion.
Yeah, I remember it being a, oh, no moment.
Yeah.
Helped along by the fact that Karen Gillan is so facially
expressive.
Yeah, yeah, very much that.
She does, um, do, like the way she looks at the ring in this kind
of puzzled fear is really striking.
And the way it's filmed as well, and just those tight close-ups of
her, and the music especially is really chilly, where you've got
that kind of do, do, do, opposite these kind of low cello kind of
sounds.
I find it really spooked me actually.
I found it very ominous.
So it was very good.
And they use they use that same music, don't they?
in Pandora are open as she's rediscovering at the end of that
episode, so he kind of linked in too.
It's, I just want to say for a 2nd the score in general for this
episode and for this entire season.
I think this is like peak Doctor Who music in the new series.
Yeah, I have said before, I think that Murray sometimes just kind
of recycles the same old cues and gets a little bit, perhaps a
little bit complacent in the RTD era at some point, but he's
certainly trying to impress his new boss this season, I think.
And it is one of those cliffhangers that I love, which isn't like
moment of jeopardy have been done to death in Doctor Who.
It's one of those cliffhangers, which is like conceptual.
It's an ideas, cliffhanger.
So it's less about, oh, someone's in danger and more about, oh
where's the story going now?
And I really like those.
I think as I get older, I like those a lot more than I like the
you know, like the human nature family of blood, choose between so
and-so and so-and-so, this sort of underplayed subtle cliffhanger
is a lot more effective.
Well, dear listener, that's all.
We have time for this week.
We'll be back next week for some hilarious sitcom Quippery as we
hang around Stonehenge waiting until the Pandorica opens.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us at flight through entirety on Facebook
at FDE podcast on Twitter, and on our website
flightthroughentirety.com, where you'll find links to our other
podcasts, Bondfinger and Jody into Terra.
Jack, where can people find you online?
Um, so you can find me on Twitter if you're so inclined for some
reason uh, at uh, Shaq Janahan.
It's an injoke.
It will make sense to somebody out there.
Um, but you can also find, um, if you enjoyed Joe and I politely
interrupting uh, Brendan and Nathan at various points.
You can tune into our own podcast, which is, um, the Naimon be
praised, uh, which Joe and I, um, spend essentially nattering at
each other relentlessly and try to make each other laugh and
disagree with each other.
You can find us, and we've been very lucky to have Nathan on at
some and we would love to have any of the rest of the FTE team on
at some point as well.
You can find us on Twitter at at Naimon Podcast.
Just type the 91B praise or on Facebook as well.
And Joe, where can people find you?
Uh, right.
Well, it feels slightly egotistical to do so, but I have a 2nd
podcast out there called A Hamster with a Blunt Penknife.
I hope you get the reference.
And that is Doctor Who Coventaries.
It's me and one guest, a different guest each time, watching
through a Doctor Who story, and bantering, basically.
On Twitter, I am at Doc Oho, DOC OHO, but you may have heard of my
blog.coho reviews.
That's the reference to that.
But it's on every available platform, anchor, Spotify, Google
Podcasts.
And I have already had one of the hosts from today, Nathan
Bottomey, records 3 stories already, one of which which is out
already.
That's aliens of London and World War 3 where he, for an hour and
a half managed to convince the world that that was the best story
ever.
And I am going to be having um, Brendan, uh, my host here today, uh
on very soon to, um, it's a defensive time flight, isn't it
Brendan?
Even Arab.
Yes.
Love time flight.
Well, love is strong.
I am comfortable with time fly.
Well, comfortable.
Um, it's gonna be fun.
It's going to be fun.
And I feel I should just mention before we go, that we, we, we
consider ourselves your marketing team now because we literally
mentioned this podcast on every episode.
So you're welcome.
Oh, well, thank that is very much appreciated, chaps.
Thank you.
Well, in that case, all that remains is for me to say, until next
time, may you look less like your couch than we look like ours.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
I knew I shouldn't have worn this.
Good night.
That was Flight 3 entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Joe Ford
Brendan Jones and Jack Shanahan.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, relatable, was recorded on the 14th of March 2021
and released on the 23rd of May.
This episode is brought to you by Zencaster, the online podcasting
tool that lends you see a pixelated slideshow of your remote
guests, and occasionally hear some of the things they're saying.
Go to zencaster.com and use the offer code tiresome at checkout.
Hello?
Joe, are you there?
I'm here.
I think we've lost them.
Oh, okay, so so we can hear each other and they can't hear us.
That's that's bizarre.
Yeah.
Hello and welcome to the Noble Be Praised.
I'm Jack.
Welcome to a hamster for blump and night.
We shouldn't have done that. shameless.
They're going to have to cut that.
Are we back?
I don't know.
I can't hear them.
We can hear you.
You can't hear us.
We can hear you.
Wait, were you talking to me or to them?
Wait, can I can hear you, Joe, but Jack is offline.
Jack is not here anymore.
Oh, I can hear you.
I'm assuming both of us will.
Yeah, I can hear Jack.
I can hear Jack and I can hear you too.
That's who I can hear. can hear everybody.
You can hear Jack.
I can't...
Oh, I can't hear Nathan and Brendan.
Jack, can you refresh the browser?
Can you tell him to refresh the browser?
Will that keep his recording?
Uh...
Let's stop and start.
I feel as if I'm in a chronic hysteresis.