Hello, D listener, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety.
The only Doctor Who podcast, whose life doesn't make any sense.
But whose does?
I'm Nathan.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Todd, and I'm your plastic groom who's fun to be with now with
multiple marital attachments.
Well, the stars have never existed.
The universe has been destroyed and it's been a long time since we
could get away with ending an episode with a brief shot of some
scary floor tiles.
So what the hell could possibly happen next?
Let's find out as we discuss the Big Bang.
So, one of our listeners, Nick H, at Heisenberg Pod, ask us this
question.
Please explain the season ending 2 parter.
I do not get it at all.
That's because he lives in an uncertainty principle.
Well, on that note, Nathan, please explain.
Okay, I'm going to do it in 30, no, I'm not going to do it.
I can have a go.
So Gossini and Udozo wrote and directed last week's episode
including the Cleopatra, please.
It really was.
And this week's one is more Warner Brothers.
As Scribble comedy.
It actually feels like Myrna Loy and William Powell and Carol
Lombardo, because it's me and I'm on the podcast.
But, you know, this is what we talk about.
But you can see the pace and the direction.
Moffatt's really playing with his film, his film history and
everything he loves in his box of delights.
I get a real sapphire and steel vibe from it.
Yeah.
But I was awake for this one.
It's shorter.
Yeah, funnier, but it takes place in a sort of eccentric space.
I mean, we'll talk about the opening a little bit later, but most
of the stuff in that museum happens in a world where the rules
don't normally apply.
And the way that Moffat achieves this is by inventing the total
what is it?
Not the total perspective.
The total event collapsed.
You remember Matt was a complex space-time event in Time of
Angels.
And now we've got perfect, perfect. you know, better than bidmead
techno babble here, total event collapse does what it says on the
tin.
But basically what it means is that rules don't apply.
And so we exist in this sort of weird world that is sort of our
world.
But it's a world where there's no stars, where there's no sun
where history is gradually unhappening around them.
And all of that sort of strange time thing and the emphasis on
historical artefacts and stuff seems to me classic sapphire and
steel.
I feel it's classic Douglas Adams.
There's a lot of Douglas Adams.
I actually feel that Moffat is in his own manic manner, which is
always more frenetic than Adam's even at his at his most
Parisian.
Adams was never quite as frenetic as this, as this storytelling is
but I really do feel it's his thinking, who's been the best story
writer?
I felt this is more of picking these last 2 episodes.
We've been picking over the history of Doctor Who for the
Christmas box best bits.
We certainly saw that last week with all the sort of, you know, day
poll mini figures sort of collected at the end.
I mean, the Adams thing.
Moffatt owes a lot to Adams because Adams does the puzzle box plot
with time travel, and not so much in Doctor Who, but certainly in
Dirk Gently's holistic detective agency, which is absolutely
constructed like that, where a whole heap of inexplicable events
happen.
And then there's time travel and they're sort of explained and
plus jokes.
And also the rebooting the universe out of a small amount of
matter that was in the Pandora car seems to me like the total
perspective vortex extrapolating the universe. to fairy coat.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so I think when Nick's asking sort of what happens.
It's exactly that.
It's kind of like ghostlight in that everything you need to know
about what is happening in this episode happens in an info dump in
one scene.
It's the scene just before the doctor gets shot by the Dalek, where
when he explains inside the Pandora, all these molecules from the
beginning of the universe, we've seen that the light from the
Pandoraca revives things.
So let's just turn it up to 11. actually surprised they didn't use
that line.
But I do have to wonder then what made all the styles blow up in
the 1st place.
Well, that's a total event collapse.
Okay.
In the dictionary, Brandon.
The stars.
Not the planets.
Well, no, because Earth survives, but I suppose where the stars
exploding at every point in their history.
They probably never generated planets.
A lot of planets. point in history.
Yeah, but they're an anomaly. at the eye of the storm.
So the only reason the earth exists, the earth couldn't have
existed in this reality, but the only reason it exists is because
it did exist.
And it's the eye of the storm and it's magic.
You see, there are enough kind of space reasons given for the
people who want there to be some sort of coherent scientific thing
that they can hang their hat on.
But basically, this works on the logic of a fairy tale, and it
works with magic, and that's how the story is resolved.
It's funny that like Rory says, no, not getting it.
And I actually, as I said there, I went, well, me finally getting
it 11 years later.
Like all the answers are there or he set everything up and whether
you like the space reasons or buy them or whatever for somebody
like me who wants everything answered, they are there, but you've
just got to accept some of them are more magic science and I think
it's your perspective on what you think science fiction or Doctor
Who actually is.
Yeah, I I had canon that the reason the stars exploded is because
the TARDIS exploded and the TARDIS has been everywhere in the
universe.
So if it's exploding at every point in the universe, the Tatars
blew up all the stars.
Yeah, well I think that's clear that that's what's happening.
Although I will...
I will say that watching it this time through is the 1st time I
understood why, when River opens the TARDIS doors, there's a block
of concrete in front of them, because the doctor says the TARDIS
has sealed off the control room and river in a pocket dimension.
Ah, made of concrete and put her in a time loop.
So at the point of the explosion, she loops back a few seconds so
she never gets blown up, but the rest of the TARDIS does.
And it's like, okay, no, I can accept that.
But again, magic.
Magic I think.
Hashtag space reason.
So we begin?
Yeah. 1894 years later, so with young Amy, am I correct?
Yeah, so it's Little Amelia.
In fact, the 1st shot there is the 1st shot of series five.
So what happens here, I think, is that Amy gets a do over.
We see what happens when she runs off with her imaginary friend
the night before her wedding, it ends in catastrophe.
It ends with the universe blowing up.
That be a salutary list.
Wayward girl.
When you're an adult, nothing good happens after midnight.
Sorry, turn left.
Yeah, or before midnight, really.
But now she gets a do over, right?
The doctor never comes.
And so she does that prayer and she goes up to the window
expecting the doctor to be there, but instead of hearing the sort
of wheezing, groaning sound, all we hear is the sound of the
wind.
And so this is a world where the doctor never came for her.
And because of that, it's a world that has no stars and no magic
you know, and she's trying to hold on to that because that's Amy.
But instead she lives in a much bleaker and more desolate world
where the doctor never shows up.
Mind you, he turns up 4 minutes in because he can't help himself.
And needs to invite her to the museum.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Her aunt gives up on her in that, you know?
Yes.
Yeah.
You know, Lost Child Museum?
Well, whatever.
I'll go back tomorrow. she'll be there.
It reminds me of this short film I saw when I was a kid, and I
don't know if it was like a public service announcement or
something, but brother and sister get locked overnight in a
supermarket and they have to eat the frozen food and what have
you.
And it was Australian.
I remember it was Australian.
But I remember as a kid going, hasn't their mum or dad like called
up and said, I last saw them in the supermarket.
Can someone go in and law?
Yeah, they've cracked open a couple of bottles of red, I would
think.
But yeah, enjoying the quiet.
Yeah, Aunt Sharon's clearly like, Quiet night.
No little ginger talking about stars.
I can live with this.
Also, I think too, it's an answer to the kind of objection that
the doctor's sort of driven her mad in the original timeline
because she's visiting all those psychologists and biting them and
stuff like that.
That's the thing that still happens in this version where the
doctor doesn't show.
Maybe not as much.
She seems quite cool and collected, and she follows the procedure
and she, I mean, all she ever does is I'm thirsty.
It's not really difficult for an 11 year old.
It all.
No, I think just Auntie Sharon is a cow.
Yeah, yeah, that's it, yeah.
We don't see her again, do we?
She burn very brightly?
She is at the wedding.
She's at the wedding. at the wedding, right at the back.
But, you know, we need us.
In this pre-credits teaser, obviously, we've got post-chit notes
and the soda stolen and stick around pond and all of that's going
to come back later on in the episode.
Again, it's front loading it.
It's a puzzle box because we open the Pandorica expecting to see
the doctor inside and it's Amy and she says, all right, kid, this
is where it gets complicated.
And it's already fairly complicated.
Like we've seen clearly the doctor has snatched her drink.
We know that the doctors left the notes.
It's the red pen from the lodger.
It's all sort of this sort of careful, complex setup where we
don't see the reasons for any of the things that happen.
And then we end with this sort of big surprise that can't possibly
be true.
And then he will go back after the credits, which don't come in
until sort of 7.5 minutes again and give us every reason for all
of those things that happen.
It's also Stephen doing what he does now with 2 partters where you
just don't have a direct continuation like what Russell would or
classic Doctor Who.
You know, he throws us in at some and those answers are going to
happen at some point through the episode, he's going to explain
what's going on, but you're sort of thrown by where you're at and
what's actually going on.
Did you guys think it was going to be Amy even when she touched
the Pandora?
No.
No, absolutely.
Not originally, no, no.
And that was a lovely, lovely bit.
Although you are, I mean, it's all predicated, isn't it?
Oh, she has to live.
How will she live?
Put her in the fridge.
Yeah.
I mean, it's a great surprise and sort of very deliberately that.
Or a disappointment.
Depending on your position as the viewer.
Is that too much?
And then we go 1894 years previously, with Rory talking to dead
Amy, and a ridiculous miracle happens.
I think I said this last week and I just want to reiterate.
I don't know what it is, but somehow Stephen Moffat manages to
write. a man shooting his girlfriend in the stomach and not have
it be utterly horrific.
It is disturbing and upsetting, but I think...
I think, though, even last week, because it's so ridiculous, like
Rory shoots Amy, then the doctor gets locked in a box, then the
entire universe explodes.
Then we pull out to reveal all the stars exploding.
I think at that point you go, well, obviously they're going to get
out of this.
This isn't series nine.
See, I can see Tom having huge fun with this, but I can see David
Tennant just being quite cross with it all. wouldn't have been...
But it is quite fun, I think.
Like, you're comparing to Douglas Adams and the humour and the wit
of Stephen Moffat to give you answers, but to have that in there
so that you're not disturbed by the fact that Rory has shot Amy in
the stomach and the doctor coming back with the fez and the mop
and all of that ridiculousness and you're sort of chuckling away
what's going on and that I think is marvellous.
It is a moment of great despair, though, isn't it?
And I think that's, of course, Arthur Darville really carries the
scene.
Oh, yes.
I don't think it would have worked if it was anyone else in the
car.
And immediately when we hit that despair, something ridiculous
happens.
And the one thing I had never noticed before is that he appears 3
times and the 1st time he has the mop and the fairs.
The 2nd time he doesn't have the mop, I didn't actually notice
that before, and it's one of those sort of continuity errors.
You know, you might have thought it was a continuity error.
Except when we replay it from the other end.
You see him deliberately putting the mop down so that he doesn't
appear with the mop in the 2nd thing.
And all of that is setting us up for the moment where the doctor
is going to jump back in time and appear and then die.
And so when that happens, we're already primed to be aware that
things happen to the doctor in this episode in the wrong order.
And so it's gently set up for us, I think.
The same way that last week, Rory coming back, which we thought
was the point of all that talk about, if you can remember
something, it can come back.
Rory comes back and we think, okay, we understand that.
And so when the doctor comes back at the end of this episode, we're
already primed to understand how that works.
I like all of the dialogue with Rory about the nestines.
And there's quite a lot of explanations there about him, you know
being more than just an esteem duplicate.
And it's stuff that I missed the 1st time around.
I think I keep saying it when you come back to Stephen Margaret
episodes, you can keep coming back and finding new stuff year
after year after year.
There's density like there is with atoms writing as well.
Yeah, there's things.
I don't think he's as fun.
Well, he is fun.
He is as fun and he certainly has a manic quality more so than
Douglas Adams, surprisingly.
But I don't know that his complexity is as fluid.
And Adam's story.
You can't, you can see, it's perfectly whole.
There's really no other way this could have gone within its own
tenets, but when you look at a Moffatt thing, I'm thinking, you're
writing this at 4 in the morning, aren't you?
And you're really, and the adrenaline's a lot of fun, but you're
really just edging it.
I think the paradox probably is.
Douglas Adams seems to write character 1st and then sees what
weird stuff he can fit in around that.
Whereas Stephen Moffat, I think, is very much a plot 1st writer.
He wants the plot to make as much sense as possible.
And then he inserts the characters into it.
So whereas Douglas Adams, if you like, is coming up with the theme
park ride first, whereas Stephen Moffatt's going, yes, but what
are the engineering tolerances of the roller coaster?
I mean, Moffat's characters are very clearly drawn.
Like you know how Amy and Rory and the doctor are going to react
to things. but that doesn't make them realistic.
No.
Oh, goodness.
Well, it's it's some, the Sarah Jane principle, again, if these
characters were realistic, they would stay home, they would not be
putting up with this week after week, especially next year.
What would Harry and Sarah have done in a similar situation?
Well, I mean, I think the thing is that there's much less whimsy
in season 12, it's really sort of gruelling and bleak and sort of
horrendous and kind of realistic sort of action adventure
realistic in that it's sort of drawing from Nazism and stuff like
that all the way through.
And so when we did season 12 and we were all on it together, I
think.
We kept observing just how awful this is and how are these people
going through this and why did Sarah get back on board the TARDIS
at the end of Terror of the Zygons?
Why doesn't she sort of punch him in the face and run screaming
away from him?
Which is the big difference because in this one they actually do
like each other.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, it seriously, I think Harry would have gone to make
a cup of tea for 2000 years.
Just leave it.
Talking about that point of 2000 years, I think that's just a
beautiful moment, I just love, I had tears the 1st time through.
I still get emotional when it talks about him guarding that and
the night of the blitz or whatever and he's not been seen.
I just, I adore that.
But then again, I adore Rory and Arthur Darville.
I mean, it's his penance for shooting, Amy, isn't it?
Like he has to be, in order to still be a good guy.
He has to kind of go through that.
But again, it's sort of very well told in the 2 time period.
So we see it being set up, being decided in 102 AD, and then we
hear Nicholas Briggs telling us, I'm assuming it's Nicholas Briggs
telling us all about it in the museum 1900 years later. getting so
many little windows into the Moffatt virtue, own home life. be
screwed.
It is amazing how it takes Rory 1900 years to go, you know what?
Maybe I'll get rid of the skirt.
Hey, maybe I'll get some modern clothes.
I thought they were plastic, which is a way to stay in.
Bold vision of the future and it never needs ironing.
But here at the museum, we've got Amy and Amelia, they get to hug
each other or hold each other's hands.
Isn't there some sort of effect that's supposed to happen with
that?
Lenovich limitation effect, but total event collapse, I'm afraid
trumps it.
Yeah, that's my thing as well.
But the Sonic screwdrivers do spark when they touch each other.
But that is 2000 years ago.
So maybe 2000 years later, the universe is so small. that the
Blinovic limitation effect doesn't happen anymore.
Yes, maybe that's it.
I mean, they don't annihilate each other. don't annihilate each
other.
No reapers appear.
They don't, you know, short out and kill a bunch of immortals and
give Nicholas Courtney a nervous breakdown.
No none of that.
Did you notice the doctor's advice to Rory, which is stay away
from radio signals when they come because they'll make him
suffocate Katie Manning?
It's very subtle.
I noticed it this time and I went, 0 my goodness, that's such a
nod.
He just says radio signals, doesn't he?
There's nothing.
Heaton radio signals. radio signals.
And then he says, and stay out of.
And it could have been a duel factory. anything.
And then when he appears in the present, he says the word
trouble.
So, you know, again, we've got that idea that the events are
playing out over 2 time streams, absolutely rammed home so that
you don't miss what's going on.
There's a couple of moments around here.
Matt's look or the doctor's look on his face as Amy and Rory
continue to kiss and hug is just hilarious.
Breathe.
I love Amy's little Amelia's take on it too.
He's definitely, it's one of those lovely moments, and there's
many of them in these 2 episodes where you can see the doctor is
the 11 year old person watching the events of these so-called
adults and just finding it all.
Very untidy.
That drink is, of course, circular.
It's a paradox.
Like the reason that she needs a drink and asks for one is that he
took it away in the teaser and she wouldn't have been thirsty if
he hadn't done that.
So there's no actual reason for that to happen.
And that is just stuck in there by Moffatt because he can.
Like, there's no doubt that he knows that that's what he's doing
clever clogs.
I just say like a, and I'll say it, oh, man. a walking cliche.
I really disliked it the 1st time around.
Yes, you're so clever that the doctor appears, you know, because
the doctor appears in the past to get himself out of the Pandora
then, oh, look, I've lost the plot.
I'm sorry, but do you know what I'm saying?
the fact that he has to come back from the future to get himself
out of the past, but in the past.
Oh, I just still can't explain it.
I just, it does my head in.
And I'm just struggling to explain any of it that right now and I
don't know how Nathan's going to even edit back.
But I do think it's very clever and it works wonderfully well and
I think you can get away with it once.
Yeah.
And I think this is a great moment.
It is a great moment.
I really do enjoy it even though my head just has my head in.
Look, I mean, he doesn't reach for it all that often and like a
normal, a normal sort of non-event episode will happen sort of in
a linear way and won't have the doctor sort of nipping back to fix
things, sort of Bill and Ted style in order to get out of
something and maybe that would be tedious.
But certainly it's, I think it's fun when it does happen here.
Oh yeah.
And how good does the Paradigm Dalek look in stone?
Isn't it lovely?
And we've not seen that finish yet.
Have we?
brand new one.
That's right.
I'm looking forward to...
Well, we've had bronze.
Yep, and we've had do co...
Now we've got.
Yes, what?
I can't wait for barnacles on their bottom for the seafaring
episodes to come out next year.
Well, that one that came out of the river in Dale Convasion of
Earth.
That's probably got barnacles.
Barnacles on its bottom.
But it's very nice to have a Dalek in the season finale because
you know, we have to keep up that tradition as much as we possibly
can, you know, even though we had a few where they haven't been
there, but, you know, more finales.
Well, I was actually initially disappointed by this episode.
I had the Todd experience.
Because back in the day, yeah. title.
Hot experience.
It's only good things, man.
I've got to say, I did too.
I just thought it was messy and you're pulling all the strings out
and it just felt like the 11 hour panic attack that you've got a
script due.
And when Russell did it, because we've seen this a lot in the last
however many years we've been doing this show.
Russell was doing it constantly.
Maybe there was something that Brendan said in this Douglas Adams
style and that the characters always came 1st and in this one it's
plot.
So even though we're familiar with them and we and we do love the
people that are in it and that's what saves it.
It's not the impetus for the action.
So in any of the Russell fantasy acres, because they are that big
it's about the character and what's happening with the characters
1st and foremost.
I still think the best one is the Dalek 2-parter at the end of
Eccleston's 1st only series, that really makes it all work.
Yeah, maybe that's why you weren't so captivated.
It's not actually.
The reason is that I was after a big dumb spectacle and
instead...
I did.
And instead, I had 4 people talking in a museum.
I promised a big bang.
Yes, exactly. in the title.
And so even though the universe has been destroyed, like really
comprehensively.
I mean, it's a bigger end of episode 12 catastrophe than we've
ever had.
Suddenly we're all just sort of standing around talking.
But that's what Stephen Muffet does.
He doesn't do the big, huge spectacles in these episodes.
He brings it back to his core cast and you tend to have less
periphery cast around and other things going on.
But I actually do think this is his season.
This is what has been in his head for a very long time and I do
think that it is actually very well constructed and plotted out.
And again, to harp on.
It's like going back and rereading the novel and coming up with
new or seeing all the answers for the 1st time or seeing answers
that were already there in plain sight, but you missed them
because you were concentrating on other things and expecting had
other expectations, perhaps.
Yeah.
I remember watching this in 2010.
And the scene where Amelia disappears.
I remember my exact thought was, this is the introspective
finale.
Yeah.
So all of Russell's finales, as you say, it's big bangs, the world
is coming to an end.
There's things flying in the sky shooting lasers, whereas Stephen
Moffat, I think, makes a conscious decision of, I'm sure I could
do more of the same.
I'm sure I could do that, but it's going to invite comparison
anyway to what the last 4 series have been.
I am going to do something that is harder to directly compare.
And I'm still going to have the big universal stakes.
And, you know, he does 6 season finales.
And I would say 4 of them are this kind of introspective focussing
on the lead characters and their relationships with each other
with a very small guest cast.
Now, here, because in the last episode, we had a bunch of Romans
and this episode, we've got a wedding.
It's not as noticeable as some of his later ones, but it's still
noticeable.
And for me, I was watching that, and I kind of went, oh, okay, it's
not going to be a big alien invasion story, but I can accept that
because it's consciously making that decision and it doesn't, it
doesn't feel like Stephen Moffat going, oh, no, I can't do that
because eventually he will do that and it'll be good.
But it's more Stephen Moffatt going, I'm a fan.
I know what fans are like.
If I try and do Russell's thing, people will either Gallifrey Base
will be split asunder by people saying that Moffatt did it better
or Russell did it better and I'll have to close it down for a few
days again.
So rather than that, I'm going to do something that plays to my
strengths and do something that focusses on basically my 3
regulars and my recurring character River song.
So the other thing is that all of Davey's finales, once the big
dumb spectacle is over, have a big character moment, and often
that's because we've got a cast change or whatever at the end, but
it's things calm down a bit, and then we have time to see where
the characters all are as a result.
Whereas this one, you know, we talk about the plot being the most
important thing here.
But in many ways, the most important thing is Amy.
And I've been saying this all year.
This is the story where Amy decides to accept being an adult.
And I haven't said this before, you know, the idea of a woman
getting married as a the most important sign of adulthood is
obviously a problem.
But, yes. the sort of problem that is only going to get worse next
year, I think.
But in any case, she accepts her adulthood and then says no
actually, that's not enough.
I want childhood as well and calls the doctor back into
existence.
And so that's the point of this.
And Moffatt's finales are much, much more centred around the
characters.
And what's happening to the characters, even if they are sort of
science fiction, things like the hybrid or being turned into a
Spiderman or something like that, something very serious centres
the story on the characters in a way that, you know, Daleks invade
Canary Wharf isn't about any of the characters, particularly.
But I guess with all the Russell finales, there is like, you know
there's somebody leaving every year in a different way and that
happens right at the end after that big spectacle.
It's always been writing dark, hasn't it?
He's always been writing, it's a sin. ever since Queer as Folk.
I just thought it was fun and jolly because it was Doctor Who.
No, really wasn't.
No, no.
Nothing this nice ever happens to people in Russell's universe.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is actually nice.
Yeah, people are happy, Russell.
Go on to nice lives.
Russell.
In, in, in regards to people leaving sort of once a year, now
having the complete RTD era and the complete Moffat irritable back
on.
As a producer who decides the cast.
Russell is actually quite ruthless.
Because series one, obviously Christopher Eccleston leaves, so
Billy Piper has to stay on, but they did film an ending where Rose
died and they did plan another ending where Rose left.
Then Rose leaves at the end of series too.
Freema is contracted for half of series four, but they decide the
character's not working so writer out of Doctor Who and have her
as a have her as a guest role elsewhere.
And Catherine Tate.
They wrote her out without even asking whether she would have
continued because they realised they were having so much fun, but
they're like, oh, we've already written her out.
But then afterwards they said to her, oh, we would have loved you
to stay on.
She's like, of course I would have stayed on.
Why didn't you ask me?
So Russell kind of goes, okay, no, I have my unit of the companion
story that is being told and then you're out.
Whereas twice.
Moffatt has his companions, writes a perfect ending for them, but
then the actor wants to stay on.
So he's like, oh, okay.
On you go, arguably to their detriment.
Yeah.
Um, But I've noticed a symmetry to this episode surrounding the
companions.
So the story starts with Amelia slash Amy.
Then Rory is in the story, then the doctor is in the story, then
river, then river disappears, and the doctor is going back through
his timeline, and then we end on Amy and Rory, and then the last
shot of the episode before the TARDIS flies off into the opening
title sequence, which is amazing.
Is Amy looking up?
It's got this pyramid structure.
But is it digetic?
Well, something I did notice that's digetic in that symmetry. is
when Amelia disappears in the foyer of the museum.
Rory runs down the stairs shouting, Amelia, Amelia.
Then the doctor from the future appears at the top of the stairs
falls down.
They run upstairs, do all the thing.
When they come back down, the dying doctor is gone, and Rory runs
down the stairs screaming doctor, doctor.
Right, right.
It's very nice.
And I think Arthur Darvel even faces left, then faces right in
both occasions.
See, that is how clever Stephen Moffatt is, and you don't always
see that until somebody like yourself points it out and you think
0 my goodness.
Absolute Uber fan child.
I just say something at this point.
I do get annoyed with Matt Smith having to talk into the ear of
that very bad doctor double.
Like it just takes me out of that moment every single time.
I go, that is not Matt Smith.
The hair is all wrong.
That's Edward Watts's bum from Edmund Warwick.
Well, have you seen the guy in the Doctor Who Confidential who's
Matt Smith's double?
No.
He's like twice his age.
Everyone is twice.
That's true.
But yeah, he's he's Matt Smith's stunt double.
He did the horse riding.
Oh, like...
He kicked all the goals.
Harsh but fair.
And Caitlin Blackwood, but we don't.
That's why Matt needed to use time double next year.
That's you if you ever go into television front of camera.
What, me, Caitlin Blackwood?
We've seen you do the frog.
Actually, who wants to see right in, dear listener, if you want to
see Brendan do Amelia Pond.
It's a thing, now say it 3 times quick.
He's doing it.
You doing it now, aren't you, though?
You're doing it now. wearing it now.
So, after we get rid of the dead fake Dr. Deadwood.
Oh no, that's Russell.
We go up to the roof.
And I didn't pick it that the sun was going to be...
We haven't had river.
We get that wonderful lime or what sort of time do you call this
when the doctor actually appears in the time?
Yeah, yeah.
He says, hi, honey, I'm home.
I mean, and that's the thing too.
The mystery of who River is.
Could she possibly be the doctor's wife?
Guess what?
You know?
Yeah.
And that's the Moffat approach.
Missy is the master.
Like, who else could she be?
He just, these mysteries are not fun to resolve.
And so he resolves them in the most obvious way.
Could have been the Mistress Romana.
Yes, please.
But this is the thing. is Paul Cornell talking to Stephen Moffat
now because this is, we've done it.
We've said it so many times before, haven't we?
This is Benny.
Yes.
I mean, really, really is Benny to the point that why do we need a
river salt?
I just listened to an episode of Doctor Who, the Writer's Room
where they did Timeworm Revelation, and they were constantly
drawing parallels between Cornell and Moffatt's concerns.
Styles, actually.
Yeah, yeah.
And they were friends and, you know, they got to know each other
over the writing. cats when they passed each other now.
Did they go to Tavern together and stuff?
Yeah, they did.
They knew each other for a while.
And so a lot of the staff that Moffatt does is stuff that Cornell
did during the wilderness years as well.
Yeah, very, well, you can see this is, I was actually going to say
I'm really enjoying these lovely fanfic productions that the BBC
is kindly donating cash to the last few years.
This just feels like another one of them.
This is honestly all the lads who were, and it is mostly lads we
really need to say to the point that it'd be nice to see a lady
writers.
Yeah, more than maybe once.
It is something that Moffatt became very conscious of towards the
end of his time and went to some lengths to try and rectify.
And then I think Chibnall has taken that even further by hiring
more female directors and writers than sort of ever before.
Yeah, even in the 90s, we had a Kate Orman, didn't we?
We did.
Getting increasingly annoyed with each passing novel that she was
the only woman writing for the range and her about the author's
action.
What even has Kate Orban is still the only woman to have written a
new adventure, drums, fingers.
I think that's on the back of sleep.
I can see I can see that Moffatt's right, rubbing his hands
together, just as Russell did right.
Now we can do everything at once.
So does that, is that the sense that you're getting from this
episode?
All my Christmases at once.
Well, I mean, the new adventures did do the time things.
You know, the doctor going back, there are a few new adventures
that end with the doctor going back to put things in place so
that...
See Brendan's probably read them more recently than the rest of
us.
Oh, I'm stuck on the pit at the moment.
But at the... we call it.
That's a big.
That's meals.
We just did the hands deal with them.
We just did the hands.
I think I ever got through that.
No, terrible.
I'm thinking of just putting it down so I can move on to deceit, I
think, is next.
I didn't finish it either.
You will have the same experience with deceit. fair enough.
I can't remember who it's doing, but I will send you the link
Nathan.
There has just been a fan production of The Pit released.
So I may I may just listen to that because it's going to be better
than the novel.
Well, yeah.
Can I bring things back to the roof?
Yeah.
Yes.
Because the doctor and river obviously get out of the TARDIS with
the time vortex manipulator.
So she's up there with Amy and the plastic centurion.
Her parents, right?
Yeah.
Which, sorry.
Spoiler alert.
But it's like, at this point in time, Alex Kingston wouldn't have
known.
I wonder if Moffatt knew.
Maybe he knew.
I don't know, it always annoys me a little that you never get any
sort of subtle thing where she'll give a slight look or something
knowing that they are her parents.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, I mean, if you if you told the actress, it would, of course
then influence her performance, but I just kind of sometimes feel
like that river's ability to completely not give anything away is
just too good an act.
Yeah.
But, you know, she does get to say what in the name of sanity have
you got on your head?
I love that.
Well, and that miss... love.
Oh, the fairs is so great, but it is that thing where she's his
wife and he's an idiot and she doesn't want him to look like an
idiot.
And so she puts a stop to him.
Like, both of the women, like, doesn't Amy take the fez and throw
it in the air so that River can shoot it.
And then that will happen at the beginning of next year with the
Stetson as well.
She's constantly intervening to stop her husband looking like an
idiot in public.
And it's the most wifely thing that I can kind of imagine.
On the topic of whether Alex Kingston, new or not, in Babylon 5
which, of course, Nathan, you've never heard of.
Yeah, what is it?
Of course, that had a five-year story arc, but the actors were
never informed of what the story arc was because the writer JMS
said, if you know that your character will eventually lead to the
downfall of your civilisation.
You might play that early on.
And the whole point of your character is they think they're doing
the right thing and it leads them down this dark path.
This is Hellenic theatre.
Wow, isn't it?
Gods cannot divulge.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I think that gods have been canine because he's the day of
six.
Canis X-Machina.
I am your daughter.
I have your what?
Can you imagine John Leeson in these things?
Max Kingston.
He wouldn't, it'd be fantastic.
I think it would be literally no different at all.
Dr. Bank's fault.
Messi.
I am K man.
Oh, Nathan, we're not going to do any...
I'm going to leave it up to the 2 professionals.
But the other thing about whether Moffat knew at this point is he
has since said the title, The Big Bang, is a direct reference to
this is the night that Melody was conceived.
Oh, I really did not want to know.
But no, he said he said he when he was thinking of a title, he
came up with that title thinking of Amy and Rory's honeymoon
rather than Big Bang 2 and then he remembered, oh, I've got the
Big Bang 2 in the script.
I thought that the party was a big bang as well, and that was a
sort of a double meaning.
A nice reading.
Yeah.
It's absolutely a sitcom relationship, isn't it?
They get married and then have sex and then she gets pregnant
immediately.
You know, it's classic sort of collapsing of time.
WandaVision, isn't it?
And and, you know, the thing where you come back next season and
the baby is like, you know, can talk and stuff like that.
Like again, absolute sort of sitcom staff.
And they've avoided the awkward point where they have to put Karen
Gillan in a lab coat with tools that she never uses despite the
fact she's an end.
Oh, sorry, that's Voyager.
I like that we keep looping back to the roof just like it's the
episode.
Well, that is the fulcrum point of the episode. still hasn't had
his roof moment.
Go on.
What are you talking about?
We keep coming back to the roof.
Well, we're now going to go down from the roof.
Okay, did we work out why the TARDIS has taken 16000000000 years
to explode?
Because it's all happening at the same time.
It's 3 points in history.
Yeah.
According to the quantum field, exists all at once.
Also, much like this point. space reasons.
And I just listened to the hollows of time this week by
Christopher Hamilton bid mead, which has a quantum gravity engine
but it's basically just space reasons.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, this is...
I've never come on this podcast, you know.
I mean, this has been medium.
This is like the collapse of the architecture in Castra Valva. as
castravalva folds in on itself.
And it's also like that eccentric space in Warrior's Gate.
So there's a very sort of mid median feel to this and that's
that's a good thing.
But unlike Bidmead, Moffat acknowledges that essentially this is
just magic that you can recreate things that have been lost
through memory and so on.
You know, the reason Rory comes back not as a plastic auton is
because Amy really loved him and remembered him very well.
Magic is just science unexplained.
Well, no magic is manipulating symbols in order to manipulate
reality.
We've actually got to Oprah now.
No, I'm serious.
We've actually got to new age.
I don't know how hippie woo-woo Moffatt really is.
I suspect he isn't, but all of this contemplation is the new age
spiritualism, the Ecart Toll, the things we don't tend to talk
about on the podcast.
Everything you've just talked about is how they discuss, how the
new age, and it's a big thing and a lot of people are into it now
not just a little, not just a little fringe thing anymore, but you
know, New York Times bestsellers.
Yeah, and Carol, Miss, and all of those folk, they talk about the
quantum field as being everything relevant and everything
happening at once, and that is why wish fulfilment.
And there's a lot.
A lot of people have done it, made a lot out of, if you believe in
it, hard enough, and you push yourself. you truly pursue it.
It will come to you.
And if you like to surf and turf in that order.
But it's also the logic of narrative where you can use words and
manipulate symbols in order to create a world and make events
happen.
And Moffatt is all about story.
And as a storyteller, he has the power to bring something back
that's been forgotten.
And I think.
Is it the doctor?
It's, no, it's, it's Amy realises that the doctor was trying to
get her to sort of bring him back into being through her words at
the wedding.
And that's absolutely magic.
That's conjuring, you know.
But let's go back to the roof.
So we've gone up the ladder to the roof, but now we're coming back
down and it's river versus the Dalek, which I just adore that
scene.
Like it's sort of a parallel to the doctor, you know, look me up
you know.
Yeah, yeah, see Mercy with the Dalek.
And then, of course, Amy and Rory discover that the doctor is not
lying on the steps and River says, well, the doctor lies.
Rule one.
So we're coming back to something that Stephen's been setting up
for some time.
Can we talk about the confrontation with the dalek though?
Sure.
It's amazingly well shot.
So you've got Dutch angles, you've got the camera moving in on
both of them.
And it is clearly intended to set up the themes of the next season
by having her just kill a dalek and cold blood.
And, you know, shooting Daleks, I think, is a fine thing to do.
You know, it seems perfectly moral to me.
But here, it is a sign that she's a bit of a psychopath.
And she taunts it.
She torments it.
It's the gloating.
It's not necessarily the act of killing Dalek itself because...
She's the doctor in this one.
Yeah, well, but the Dalek has killed her husband just now.
I mean, you know, like has shot him dead.
And so, you know, I'd be annoyed.
Back to Greek theatre again, aren't we?
Yeah, she's allowed to take revenge.
It's proper.
But we get down to the Pandorica.
And I love the way Matt, the lighting and how he shot while he's
in that.
Yeah, lovely bluey green.
Doesn't he look like Prince Philip?
He really does.
Like not right now.
But, you know, just the whole conversations down there
explanations like, you know, to Pandora, a restoration field
powered by an exploding TARDIS at every point in history and, and
you know, talking to Amy about, you know, the girl who waited and
bringing back all, you know, talking to her about the mum and dad
you know, I lost my mum and dad.
There's just so much richness in the explanations and what's going
on.
It's pulling everything together, unless you may not agree with
me.
No, no.
I think the really interesting moment is the moment that Amy
realises for the 1st time that she doesn't know what happened to
her parents.
And because it's never come up in the narrative, we assume that
there's a real story that we don't know about.
But that's not how narrative works.
There's no real world.
There's no fact of the matter.
And so the fact that it's never been mentioned what happened to
her parents ends up being a sign that no one actually knows.
And we've seen the crack in her wall, suck people up. and no one
remembers them right back in sort of episode five.
And so that's where we discover what happened to Amy's parents.
But it's Moffatt does this all the time.
And in a way that I think annoys people who love the universe.
You know, there's an imagined universe that's consistent in which
all these stories take place.
Moffatt absolutely not only doesn't care about that, but is its
active enemy.
I think he's meta-ing the doctor and the construction of the last
30 years of something of Doctor Who in that you just keep
forgetting your own past obliquely and very quickly.
Yeah.
I also think calling the doctor back into existence is what
they've been doing for the last five, 6 years.
How generous of the BBC to find so much fan fiction.
Because that's all this is to me, really.
I have to say it out bad.
When someone says, do you want to talk to who I got?
Oh, yes, I just watched Seeds of Doom the other day.
What?
That is doctor.
The way Matt underplays that scene.
He does, doesn't he?
is beautiful.
It's tempting to make the joke that Tennant would have done it
with lots of teeth breathing and what have you.
But Tennant was capable of underplaying things, like in gridlock
when he's talking about galafray, but even that is kind of
heightened compared to what Matt Smith is doing here.
Matt Smith here, he's talking about sacrificing himself to save
Amy's parents, whom he has never met, plus the universe, plus the
universe.
But there's no...
I could have done so much more.
There's no I don't want to go.
There is, this is the right thing to do and I'm the only one
capable of doing it and you're going to have a wonderful life.
It's also like that 12 minute speech earlier on, you know, if 12
minutes left to live.
You can do a lot in 12 minutes, very short bath.
You know, like there's no there's no kind of mopey weepiness about
all of that.
It's refreshing.
We're about 17 minutes or something like that from the end of the
episode, and, you know, everything's resolved and back to normal.
So the plot has ended in a sense, but the story hasn't ended.
And so the next 7 minutes we rewind through the doctor's life, but
it's not really the doctor's life that we rewind through, is that
it's Amy's story.
Yeah.
And it's the story of this season.
And he explicitly says actually, I'm popping off before we get to
the end of time part two.
Thanks.
No fares.
But then we go back to the forest in flesh and stone with that
particular scene, that seemed out of place at the time or not as
avid fans would know.
And we go back, obviously, to, I mean, this house the night she
waited for the doctor.
And he came and he actually came and put it to bed.
And that is the scene that makes me ugly cry.
Every time when he puts her to bed and tells her a story and then
says, I don't belong here anymore.
I'm going to go.
It's so beautifully done.
And it's played.
It's absolutely played.
Like, this is his last speech before he goes.
But we later discover there's another meaning to that story
because he tells the story of the Tartars and it does the most
clever thing with it, I think.
Which is?
Well, you know, there's something old, something new. something
borrowed, something blue, that old wedding thing, as Rory calls
it.
You know, we all know that.
And applying that to the Tartars is so perfect and I don't know of
anyone having done it before.
No, it's so obvious when you see it.
And that's that's what's so good about Moffat at his best.
I think.
And so obvious when you, when you see it, but you would never have
thought it.
No, self.
Yeah.
That last bit where Matt is talking to young Amelia and says like
we're all stories in the end and then says, you know, daft old man
who stole a magic box.
I think that's the 1st time I knew who that it's actually really
vocalised, that he stole a box, you know?
Yeah, like universe law.
Because we've been highlighting Billy Harton all season, haven't
we?
As in going back to origins.
This is the 1st time in the series, possibly since 5 doctors, that
we've had 1st doctor explicitly shown on screen and because I'm
talking about his library card.
Oh, yeah.
Just assume everybody's.
Just goes back and watches that constantly.
I do.
I got a heart leap.
You and I talked about this Todd back in the day when that was 1st
on 2000 and whatever this is.
And she's like, oh, he's really made me feel, oh, yeah.
Okay, so yeah, it's definitely an origency.
Yeah.
And just the borrowing.
I mean, that was something that the doctor used to say, but I
don't think has said in the new series about the Tartars, and so
it was always something borrowed.
Yeah, and he even then says to Amelia, and therefore us, did I
ever tell you I stole it?
I was always gonna return it.
You know?
So it's Moffatt does all these knowing winks to the audience.
By the time we get to Capaldi, like Capaldi actually delivers a
fair chunk of dialogue down, the camera in a couple of episodes
but it's fine by then because we know that that's what this era
does.
The doctor will occasionally tell the companion things that he's
directly telling us.
Yeah.
I think the scene ends beautifully as well when he decides to go
into the crack and we don't see him do it.
We just see it's a shadow play on the wall.
You see the light coming from the crack and then you see Matt sort
of figure heading towards it.
And it would have looked stupid if you'd seen it, but that
actually looks really beautiful, I think.
And then we look at the, once he does that, we look at the window
and the stars are all back. stars are all back.
Yeah.
And the world is at rights and we get to see Amy's mum and tiny
little dad for a few scenes and they're never, they're not, Steve's
not interested in exploring them ever again.
So this is their moment to shine.
Yes, it was my little one moment of having a mother in this whole
season and you know how much I love that.
Do you think she's good?
She's a little bit like Amy with her husband, you know, your
father made the breakfast so you can tip it out the window if it's
an atrocity.
I just think it's tremendous.
Could we have had a whole series next year with them in the
background as doting grandparents?
I mean, who knows?
Yeah, I mean, they would have worked.
Brian Williams works quite well as a father in Series 7.
Yeah.
We've got Toby Haynes directing.
We like.
What else has he done?
He done Sherlock and being human in Black Mirror.
So yeah, it's very, and something's called Jonathan Strange and Dr
Narell, which I love the book.
I didn't, haven't seen it as a, as a telling show.
It's Peter Harness, a Doctor Who's Peter Harness, who writes it.
What do we think about the direction of this one?
Oh, I think it's stunning.
I think it's very tight, and it's very, and you all touched on
it.
It's a really difficult piece to direct successfully.
Yeah, well, it is for people speaking in a museum. you know, for
people, 4.5 people and a dalek, chatting in a museum.
It's tough to make interesting.
Yeah, and you've got the same scenes repeated in different
sequences, so you need to film them at the same time and make sure
that all the angles and perspectives all work that editing
sequence.
Script editor Lindsay Alford has no entry on Wiki or anything
else.
I'm considering that Lindsay probably compressed.
Quantum singularity. the season.
I will say regarding the direction.
I wasn't going to bring this up because it's a bit of a nitpick.
But at around 13 minutes and 35 seconds, when, around, around that
when Amy is doing the sort of height comparison with Amelia, there
is actually a person.
Ooh, just in the right of shot who realises the camera has pulled
out and gets out of the way.
And I did think, is it security guard Rory, but with Amy's eyeline
she would have seen him.
It's a member of the crew. who, unfortunately, and they could have
digitally painted them out.
Like, it's literally just the cameras pulling back their, like, a
fingers width into the screen as you're looking at the screen and
then they go, oh.
So, do you think it's the person with a clipboard in Earthshock
doing a set tour?
Yeah, it's Val McRriman.
Yeah.
Oh, I'm on camera again.
But look, yes, aside from that, Toby Haynes does this very
deftly.
He was a Doctor Who fan.
He had a subscription to Doctor Who magazine.
Yeah, and, you know, he did all the wonderful stuff in Stonehenge
last week and, of course, Foamhenge, just down the road.
I like how some of the stuff in the wedding is actually filmed
like, you know, with River slowly walking past the windows
although I still don't get how she's there to give the diary, so
she remembers the doctor as well.
Is that just a space reason?
collapse. total event collapse.
And the book is blank.
It's empty.
And I love, again, it's just a moment of absolute magic where
she's crying and we had this in Vincent and we had it last week
where Amy is crying because there's someone who's not here who she
doesn't even properly remember.
But at the same time, he makes, he makes a joke out of it, like
you know, happy Mrs. Rory.
No, I'm sad.
Great.
You know, you just like, you go, you know, you're affected and
then you've got a bit of witticism.
But maybe it's the whole thing that, you know, Amy remembers the
doctrine when he comes back into existence, then river from the
future knows what's going on, so she comes back to make it happen
just perform to make it happen, another loopy thing.
I don't know.
It's grasping at straw.
It happens because it looks fantastic.
And there's the slow motion, like the tear drops, you know, so
it's absolutely magic.
You know, magic uses blood and tears and things that represent
things.
You know, it's her tear falls onto something that represents the
TARDIS that represents the doctor's absence from the story.
All of those things happen and that's when she gets up and gives
her speech.
And her speech is absolutely superb.
It's only then that we get something old, something new, something
borrowed, something blue, isn't it?
And then she yells at him.
So good.
Like she gets up to go on about her imaginary friend.
Aunt Sharon's there rolling her eyes, you know, the mum is not
this again.
Yeah, I was plastic.
You know, you get you get to see the bow tie and the...
Yes, yeah, little shots of things that remind her of him.
And I mean, the doctor did exist as the raggedy man as her
imaginary friend. in this version of reality.
It's just that he wasn't real.
What do you think about, like, Amy saying you made definitely kiss
the bride?
Like, do you like that line?
Oh yes, I do.
Yeah, okay.
See, I don't.
Oh, come on, just give it up, girl, you know?
But no, you're married now.
And like he makes it quite clear.
No, that's I'll leave that up to Mr. Pond and now it's Mr. Pond
and like we're always like so complicit and it's, you know, you're
talking about, you know, it's all about getting married, but in
the end, he's taking on her name.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because she's the star.
It's her name in the credits at the beginning at the moment.
Arthur Darville's not in them.
This is the diary of a fangirl, is it?
If Billy Piper had been playing it.
It's rather than a call girl.
But it's so wonderful.
It's so wonderful.
That sort of thing is it doesn't work like that because, you know
the doctor doesn't understand things like pregnancy or football or
anything like that.
It doesn't work like that, doctor.
He just goes, yeah, it does.
And he goes, yeah, it does.
You know, and so all of that stuff about having a snog in the
bushes with Matt or you may definitely kiss the bride.
Like there's no doubt, though, that it's Rory.
She's absolutely in love with Rory and she's just being kind of
slightly sexually aggressive in a funny way.
And so it post-me too, that sort of comedy sexual aggression, you
know, it's a little bit less problematic coming from a woman.
But I do think in terms of Moffatt's, you know, 90s rom-com sitcom
background, it's fun.
It's intended to be fun.
I don't think that we're supposed to think that Amy will cheat on
her husband or anything like that.
We never imagined that for a second.
No, no, I mean, I do agree.
I just, I don't know.
I just kind of think, oh, I'm kind of with you, Todd, in that, just
by the time we get here, we've done this joke.
Yeah.
We've done this joke several times over the season.
Except that she does want to have sex with him at the end of
Legenstone.
Yes, that's true.
Yes.
I don't I don't think you'd necessarily show evolution by doing
the same joke again and say, oh, but this time we're kidding.
You know what I mean?
That's gross.
Oh dear.
I mean, it's a minor.
It's a minor blip.
And the fact the matter is, Matt's response to it is hilarious.
Yeah.
And Rose response to the comment later.
It's my wedding, I can do what I want.
Our wedding.
I like how he's brushing his teeth, but he's dressed for the
wedding.
Like, he completely gets dressed, puts his tie on, his being, his
little corsage thing, and then decides, oh, I better brush my
teeth, I think.
To be honest, when I brush my teeth in the morning, I'm usually
fully dressed as well.
Because I hate brushing my teeth, so I always put it off.
But I would get it down my front.
Oh, well, that's the thing.
I sort of, I sort of, I sort of, you can't see me listening, but
I'm jutting my chin forward.
I sort of lean forward like that.
That's why morning suits and dinner jackets have little bibs
little.
That's the toothpaste.
That's why they're white. and shiny.
In the end, the doctor only came for the damn thing.
It's so good.
And his dancing is hilarious. with the kids. boys dancing.
He just works so well with children like Matt just has that energy
with them.
But then you get that, but then you take that to the TARDIS, like
like with River and his conversation.
Did you dance?
You know?
Yeah, yeah.
And that, are you married?
Are you asking?
Yes.
Well, the yes, yes, yes. enigmatic thing that we had, you know, at
the end of flesh and stone, where the doctor asked River, can I
trust you?
And her response is, if you like, which I think is wonderful.
And here she literally just gives nothing at all away, but it is
absolutely 100% clear that the only possible non-stupid resolution
to this mystery is yes, she is the doctor's wife.
So, we're now, in the TARDIS, off on new adventures with Amy and
Rory, they, well, they appear, like, from their wedding, and do we
have something about the silence?
I'm quite confused.
Yeah, so the doctor's like, we still don't know why the Tardos
exploded.
It's something to do with the silence, the silence out there, and
now I need to get the phone.
Yeah.
So we do get we do get that in season comedy moment.
You know, there's a Egyptian goddess loose on the own express in
space, and I fully expected that's what we were going to get for
Christmas.
Yeah, yeah.
Yep, yep.
I think we end up getting something a lot better.
It is, it's, again, a sort of funny sitcom line to emphasise
they're off on new adventures.
But the bit that I like is the moment when they say this is time
to say goodbye because she's married.
Her story is finished.
She is like Vicki or Leila or Susan.
Once a woman knows, she's dead.
Yeah, or Joe. You have to leave the series once you're married.
And Stephen subverts that.
And this is also the 1st time where Rory willingly participates.
And so they both go out.
You know, she goes out to say goodbye.
Yes, it's time to say goodbye, but it's time to say goodbye to
Ledworth and it is that usual thing of having people say things
that mean something different from what we expect.
So we are sort of tricked for a moment into thinking that this is
goodbye.
But of course, it's not goodbye to the thing that we thought it
was.
And thanks to Russell, we have come to expect that the companion
leaves in episode 13.
Yeah.
Especially if they have something to leave too.
Like, you know, Martha leaves to look after her family.
Amy and Rory are married.
They're going to go off and have some boring children.
But no, they're still going to fly off into time and space.
They might not be boring.
They just might be a puddle of stick on the floor, but more of
that next year.
Sorry.
Yes, it doesn't go world.
No, it's a bit of a disaster.
But I just think that this is an absolute high point.
We get the hero music coming in at the very end.
It's really, truly exciting and satisfying.
And it is that thing you said before, Richard, where every
previous season finale has been sort of bleak and terrible in some
kind of way and to have this go out on such a high note with the
story resolved and something very, very exciting over the
horizon.
I think it's one of Doctor Who's absolute high points ever.
The last chapter of this novel.
Yeah.
Yes. of this particular novel and it's leaving on a positive
because we're going to come back in the sequel.
The sequel novel, more adventures of this TARDIS team.
Of the Tomorrow people.
But it never has been like that, has it?
The season has never been. might not be again.
As you no, I don't think it ever will be again.
It's unified and it says something.
What did it get, 6.70000 viewers, audience appreciation of, I
think, the highest, 89 or something?
Okay, I'm sounding like dot, but not as informed.
It also, because I think I was at the World Con this year.
I remember getting, Yeah, I was.
This is to the 2011 Hugo Awards presentation, which they have at
World Conage year.
This one won.
This script won for, I think it's short performance drama, but it
won the, it, Hugo's a big deals.
Yeah, it won the Hugo for best short dramatic presentation.
It's it's really something.
I just think it's very cleverly written.
It brings everything from this season to a, well, most things to a
conclusion that, you know, there's still a few things that need to
be answered next season, but the majority of Amy's journey to this
point, there have been answers for, and it's deeply satisfying.
I don't know if for Nick, whether we've actually explained.
Well enough so that, you know, he...
Maybe, maybe Nick, you've and listeners, you get it a bit more.
I get it a bit more, but then I don't.
So I think that's what it's supposed to be.
Maybe the explanation was the confusion we all had along the way.
Okay, so it is part two of a two part story, which means pics of
the week.
Todd.
Well, I think that I should go with a deeply satisfying season
finale that alludes to a marriage and it's just going to conclude
a season just so wonderfully, like the whole plot lines for the
whole season.
So I'm going with the invasion of time.
I thought so.
From my favourite season of the 1970.
Brace yourself for the box set.
So please go and watch the invasion of time and then come and
watch this and tell me which is better.
Yeah, watch it twice.
I actually love the invite.
I do too.
I could have nominated the Armageddon factor, but, you know
besides Mary Tam, it's a slog.
We like our listeners.
Right.
My pick of the week is also marriage related, but it's marriage.
It's great.
I've just done it for a year.
I might keep going.
No, the what I'm picking, it's something we started watching
recently.
Rod saw it back when it was originally on, and this is my 1st time
watching it, and it shows what might have happened to Amy and
Rory.
Had they decided to stay in Leadworth and have 2 boring children?
And I think Richard is going to like this recommendation.
It's butterflies featuring Wendy Craig and Jeffrey Palmer.
Carla Lane.
Yeah.
Now, I am only halfway through season one.
And I have no idea what happens with the relationships that Rhea
the lead, is forming both in her family and outside.
Hello, Leonard.
I haven't seen this since it was on.
No, me either, but I did watch it.
Yeah.
So I'm only halfway through season one and I will say, especially
for a modern audience expecting a sitcom, there is some, there is
some confronting language in there and concepts, but it is done
with a certain lightness of touch.
It also has very young Nicholas Lyndhurst as one of her sons, one
of her painfully thin sons, because it's 1978.
Oh, wait, just on the Prince and the Pauper.
If you ever saw that one.
He's a good actor right from the word go.
I think it's on Britbox if you want to see it.
Yes.
So butterflies.
For me, if you like exploding things and time out of sequence and
marriages that you hope will go right, but you expect they won't
I'm really enjoying Disney's the right stuff.
I know shock horror.
It's Mad Men in space and it even has some of the same actors, but
it's beautifully done, beautifully written, and it doesn't pull
punches.
So it's the Thunderbirds crew, as in Scott, John, Alan, Gordon, and
Virgil, but they're actually the mercury astronauts.
And considering these are based on real persons and they're only
recently deceased.
It goes over the complexity, as I said, it's, it's, it's, um
madmen with rockets.
So it doesn't pull punches with people with real people's history
but it's very interesting and it doesn't paint Werner von Braun in
anything but a truthful and historically accurate light.
It gets quite dark. really, really enjoying that.
And I also grabbed Doctor Who season 8 Blu-ray off Nathan's shelf
because I just think everyone should have one.
Well, I'm going to pick something.
I guess we've had sort of rom-com things happening.
I'm going to pick a show called Love Victor, which I don't think
I've mentioned before.
So you might remember Love Simon was a film in which a sort of
well-off white kid who was gay, came out to his parents and
nothing really bad happened and then he got a boyfriend and the
whole thing ended.
I really liked it.
It was a good rom-com.
It was sort of fun and sweet and it was unusual to have just a gay
rom-com that isn't about being gay necessarily.
But people observed at the time that it was very wise and very
kind of middle class and stuff.
And so there is a sequel TV series.
It was originally going to be Disney, but they had a little bit of
stage fright about it, and then it was released by Hulu, and it is
about a kid who arrives in Atlanta after moving from Texas.
His family is Hispanic, they're working class or sort of kind of
working class, and he has a much sort of rougher time, and it's
slower, it's more complicated.
It's got a lovely cast of characters.
And I'm a bit of a sucker for TV shows set in schools just because
you know, I'm a schoolteacher and it's, again, nice to have a
romantic comedy that centres on sort of gay concerns.
It's fun.
I really, really enjoyed it. it's quite moving in places as well.
Well, new listener, that's all we have time for this week.
We'll be back next week to revel in what might be Doctor Who's
most coherent season ever in our Series 5 retrospective.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us at Flightthrough Entirety on Facebook
at FTE podcast on Twitter, and on our website
FlightthroughEntirety.com, where you'll find links to our other
podcasts, Bondfinger and Jody into Terror.
Until next time, if something can be remembered, it can come
back.
So close your eyes, wish really hard, and one day, maybe, we can
all sit down together and watch Zenia Merton dancing in Marco Polo
part three.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
I'm manifesting my house keys.
Good night.
See you soon Good, baby.
That was Flight through Entirety, starring Todd Building, Nathan
Bottomley, Brendan Jones and Richard Stone.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, the Todd experience, was recorded on the 16th of May
2021, and released on the 6th of June.
Nothing is more ridiculous or miraculous than the continued love
and support. we received from our listeners.
So this week I'd like to thank Liam McNicholas, who has been
releasing incredible artwork every week to accompany our series 5
episodes.
Check him out on Twitter at Liam McNicholas.
There'll be a link in this week's show notes.
I don't know why it only says I have 2 hours and 4 minutes left on
the, for recording.
And you've just cleared the card.
And I've just cleared the entire card.
We're not gonna go for 2 hours and 4 minutes, are we?
No, okay, good.
All right.
I've got Vincent and the doctor to put out.
Which means listening to it again.
Our title this week, by the way, is balancing the darkness, which
I think is pretty good.
Yes.
Given the rule that it has to be the guest on their 1st
appearance.
Okay.
So everyone say something funny and compete for the title of this
week's one.
We've already decided the title for the one that we recorded last
week is Space Reasons because I'm desperate to get space reasons
to happen.
Yes, we must do that this way.
It was Peter.
Peter.
And I just think space reasons are so much better than like, we're
talking about stupid science fiction reasons, but space reasons is
much funnier because it's like space corridors.
Space Reasons is something you can imagine being set in lower
decks.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Tana, what's caused with virus?
space reasons.
Well, I mean, I can actually literally hear it happening in Blake
Severn series A. my degree, my degree in space critical theory.
All right.
Yeah, it works for me too.
All right, should we get started?
So I'm going to throw it to Todd at the beginning.
I mean, Todd's going to just start talking at the beginning rather
than me throwing to him.
I watched this last night.
Yes.
And a week ago and before that.
Okay.
So Nathan Brendan told Richard the traditional order.
Yeah.
There we go.
Okay.
Hello, D-listener, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety.