Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight to Entirety, the
only Doctor Who podcast that spends increasing amounts of time
standing in the kitchen wondering what we came in here for.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Todd.
I'm Maxwell.
Well, it's the 1st episode of a new season, so it's time to
celebrate with the show's most upsetting picnic since those
awkward ones with the Dr. Perry and Shara's Jack on Andrazani
Minor.
Someone has killed the doctor, so let's see if we can work out who
the hell it is in the Impossible Astronaut.
So, Maxwell, you're new to the podcast.
So, I was wondering, um, what are your overall feelings about
series 6?
I think there's a few episodes that are a bit middling, but
overall, I love the whole arc.
Am I allowed to be a bit vague about that or can I talk broadly
about spoilers and stuff?
Whatever you like.
So the fact that we, this is, to me, the river song season.
I think the twist in the mid-season was brilliant.
I think the setup was great.
I love the suspense.
Um, I think there was one aspect of her identity that could have
been handled better, but overall, I thought this is really great.
And for me, I consider this to be the quote unquote American
season because of the shooting locations largely.
And, um, I think just where we were at in Doctor Who history with
how it got so big in America at the time, them shooting in New
York, them shooting in Utah.
I think that was kind of maybe to cater sort of, not to cater, but
to, um, maybe as a little bit of a nod to their American audience
which I don't think, as Americans were ever deserving of such
respect.
I feel about America in many ways how the doctor feels about
leaving Gallifry.
It's the planet I left because they were a bunch of jerks and I
will only go back to indulge them every now and then with my
presence.
Um, But no, I actually thought that this was a really, the fact
that they were using locales that they had never done before
shooting on site in America.
Really adding a cinematic feel that at that point in the reboot, we
hadn't seen yet, just have those broad, just landscape shots of
Utah, which are just like, just you could just put a spoon in
them.
It just, they're just so dense and beautiful and gorgeous, just
delicious.
Uh, it was all really amazing and just very interesting to see
what the, um, the doctor who take on a very particular, very
pivotal point of American history and really American identity.
Just that was really interesting to see.
Yeah, so we're a long way away from Lime Grove.
This is really quite amazing looking TV, I think.
Yeah, yeah, as as Maxwell says, the, the, what, I suppose, would
have been drone shots flying through, um, I think we're in the
Valley of the Kings in Utah for this filming was.
Valley of the gods, I beg your pardon.
Yeah, sorry, Valley of the Kings is, uh, same hemisphere.
No, different.
Anyway, my geography is terrible.
But yeah, we get these sweeping shots through.
And I kind of think, oh, you don't get that in Wales.
It's like, well, why haven't they gone up the mountains again?
Where's the, it's because Alan Jones is out there, isn't it?
But yeah, it's a statement of intent that, okay, last year we
started in this little sleepy village in Ledworth.
This year, we're in America, but we're not sort of a plate shot of
San Francisco and then the rest is filmed in Vancouver, which is
what we had in 1996.
We are in America.
This is so recognisably America.
We finally got here after, what, 25 years of trying.
Yes, it's certainly not planet of spiders.
I was going to say it's our 1st time shooting on location in
America since the chase.
Okay, no.
So maybe we go to the beginning of the episode because one of the
things that I really enjoyed about last year was just the kind of
team, that Moffat had assembled, and the team that in particular
you saw in his 22 part stories, the doctor, Amy, Rory, and River.
And so we spend a little bit of time kind of reestablishing who
they are and kind of gathering them together.
It's a little bit like, you know, the opening moments of a heist
movie.
Yeah, it does have that feel to it.
Uh, I loved how it just kind of sets off with the doctor's
ridiculous antics throughout history.
It's really got a frenetic energy right from the get-go, which is
kind of different than the start of the previous season, which his
bread had said, was sort of a sleepy village.
Like, this is, like, it's a bang and we're off from the start.
Um, it was really good to get reacquainted with Amy, who, um, I
liked in this, uh, despite her get her constant gaslighting of
Rory. which is a huge problem that no one ever talks about.
And just, of course, you know, Alex Kingston is River is a delight
from the start when she comes on screen and they're like, she's
doing the thing again.
She's packing.
Like, they know that she's so confident she's gonna bust out of a
storm cage prison and just, you know, go in her merry way.
And yeah, just the way they introduced everything with her
shooting the doctor Stetson off, you know, Amy being just like
angry and ha, we have to do it and Roy just being along for the
ride.
It was it was good to see that cast together again.
And of course, the doctor in his mysterious cowboy hat was pretty
great.
Yeah, but he's naked under some lady's skirt as well.
It's a very different show from the Russell T. Games era.
Well, I think we said that last year Moffatt kind of brought sex
to the show in a way that hadn't really ever been done before.
And that is going to sort of be a theme of this season.
I just want to reiterate how much that thing where river shoots
the doctor's hats off is the clearest evidence we've ever had that
she is his wife and she doesn't want him to look like an idiot in
public and because he is a massive idiot whenever he chooses some
sort of ridiculously inappropriate head where she deals with it
summarily, which I think is just absolutely marvellous.
On the topic of that and the whole, the whole sex and marriage
thing.
I think at this point, Matt Smith is still very much playing the
sexual and romance stuff like the doctor has heard of sex once.
He read it in the back of a book.
He thinks it might be a kind of serial, but he's not entirely
sure.
But people seem to have a lot of fun with it.
So he'll give it a go.
It's a different take than Tenant, because Tenant was sort of
quite sexually confident. or at least sort of gave the, you know
the impression of being sexually confident, even though that's
sometimes sort of punctured, I think.
But I think that perhaps Moffatt's a new kind of foray intersex
for the show would have been a bit more problematic had the doctor
not played it so completely clueless.
I mean, having having tenants doctor up a lady skirt naked would
have been utterly utterly unthinkable and unacceptable, I think.
Yeah, yeah, it's like you can actually believe that Matt Smith's
doctor has a perfectly innocent explanation for this.
But I do like how they're bringing the team back together again.
I mean, this is really the 1st time that we've had the same team.
Opening a season as has been involved with the previous, every
other season.
There's been at least one change, or we're bringing a new team
into it.
So, Stephen's got to find a way to, um, We don't have new people.
We've got the same cast, you know.
And he needs to put the mystery front and centre and get them all
sort of involved.
Why is this happening, you know?
I think too, that with what Maxwell said before, about this sort
of new American focus, that he's really doing what you should do
with episode one of any series, which is kind of reestablish what
the show is about and reintroduce everyone.
And I think that that's why we see Amy and Rory at home, you know
so that we can actually see them in context.
They're not travelling with the doctor like they were when we last
saw them at Christmas.
We get to see them sort of domestically being married.
We get to see river in storm cage escaping again.
We get reintroduced to everyone.
And I think the show's job.
I have this sort of thing.
I have this thing where series 2 episode one is my favourite
episode of any show.
And this is series two, episode one of... specifically.
No, because it has 2 jobs, doesn't it?
It introduces the show to someone who's tuning in for the 1st time
reestablishes what the show is about, and then shows us what new
directions we're going to take it in.
And I think that this is a really, really good series 2, episode
one for all of those reasons.
Yeah.
Also, I do like how they establish that it's been some time since
Amy and Rory have seen the doctor, which I thought was an
important narrative point to make.
Um, and yeah, it does sort of, if you had never seen an episode of
Doctor Who before, I'm sure you're going to have sort of whiplash
questions at the start because everything is just moving around so
quickly.
But you kind of get the idea that, oh, these are 2 human friends
of this time travelling, presumably alien, who's, you know
traipsing throughout history.
And here's also this mysterious woman that's also somehow, you
know, clearly a sci-fi setting that's also related to the doctor
and they all know each other, and it's all about time travel, and
they haven't seen him for a while, and clearly he's aged a bit.
So it does kind of reintroduce everything.
And also they talk about the time lords too.
Yeah, very briefly in a very in a very digestible way where
they're like, this is his race.
They're time travellers.
They can regenerate.
This is how they work.
And it all sets up so much.
So even if the viewer has never seen an episode of Doctor Who or
is maybe a casual, I guess is the word I would use.
They understand every mechanic by the end of this episode.
And I'm kind of just realising that now.
And I think it's brilliant.
Good writing.
It's the scene where they're sinking their diaries as well, which
is played for laughs in all sorts of ways, but it also sort of
sets up the difference between our doctorate.
How old is he?
103?
Yeah, yeah.
1103.
That's right.
And the earlier doctor that we met before, but because Rory hasn't
seen this and Amy has, back in the Angels two-parter last season
she gets to explain to Rory in a completely organic way about the
sinking the diary scene that's happening and that's funny as
well.
Jim the Fish is in it.
Who's Jim the Fish?
I choose to believe he is from the same species as the blowfish in
torched in torchwood.
Season two, episode one, which is one of the few episodes of
Torchwood season 2 I've seen because I lost interest.
Anyway, isn't he a half?
Don't you think he's a half?
He could be a half.
That's what I was thinking.
You've got to be careful of water though.
Yeah, yeah, they drown.
It's crazy.
I also think that the Easter Island joke is absolutely superb.
Just irresistible.
And the 1st of many jokes about Matt's weird head that Moffat
makes throughout. like a Moai statue.
He does.
He really does.
Oh, God, that's funny.
I'll discuss this more next week, but that was actually meant to
have a strong payoff in the 2nd episode that was cut at the
scripting stage for time.
So I will talk more about that next week.
So, we're having a picnic.
By a lake.
Yeah, yeah, a very upsetting picnic.
This, I really like the pacing here too, because up until the
picnic, everything is just us getting to know the characters and
spending time with them.
And I think we liked doing that last year.
So having the opportunity to do that this year is really
something.
And you've got, you know, the doctor, not sure whether he's ever
drunk wine before and doing the wine thing that he did in the
lodger last year where he sort of spits it out and thinks it, you
know, tasted more like the gums.
I mean, all of that stuff is just so wonderful and funny.
And then it just takes this sort of hugely, horribly unexpected
turn, I think.
What also has that brief moment of just sheer WTFness where Amy
looks askance to the distance and you just see this really creepy
kind of slender man-esque shadow, um, because of the way that the
sun is positioned, you just kind of see the outline of the silence
and there's this weird noise and she's like, what's that?
And she looked away and she's like, oh, I, what?
What?
And you're just like, what, it's this, It's like 2 seconds of just
really tone shift in a creepy way where you're not sure what's
going on, but you already know that maybe this picnic isn't going
to end with everyone brings out the fruit salad and wraps up and
goes home.
Something really uncanny is gonna happen.
It's a good idea too, because I think, you know, it's quite some
distance into the episode that we 1st actually see the silence
properly.
And so doing this now, I think, is the right thing to do, and it
sets the entire thing up, doesn't it?
We get to see what they look like and we get the sort of weird
mystery of why Amy can't remember it.
And it's not that she's, you know, in another Doctor Who story.
You can imagine her just sort of dismissing it because, you know
we're showing it, but we don't want them to get involved in the
plot yet or something, but it is actually a thing that's properly
happening in story.
Yeah, those 1st few times people see a silence and then say, oh
it's nothing.
It's almost played like they, they, not that they've forgotten
what they've seen, but oh, no, no, it must be a trick of the light
kind of thing.
And you're left wondering until, you know, Amy actually spells it
out midway through the episode, you're left wondering, oh, why
aren't they saying what they've seen?
But I, Stefan, is really quite old school, Doctor Who?
Where you as a viewer are working that out before the characters
so you actually feel cleverer than them and I like that sort of
thing, um, in particular.
I think it's a Moffat thing.
I do think that one of the things about the complexity of
Moffatt's script is that sometimes they make you feel clever.
I mean, sometimes they make you feel, oh my god, how can I have
never thought of that?
And that's a frequent kind of response as well.
But I think we said this in our last episode about the Christmas
carol, that there's a level of complexity in the scripts that is
nevertheless all kind of carefully telegraphed and all sort of
explained for you.
While at the same time.
He is kind of relying on your attention as well.
There's a reluctance to just sort of sit there and spell things
out for you, I think.
How did we feel about um, the really upsetting moment.
I was upset.
I remember watching it and I think I was 21, 22 at the time, and I
knew enough that there hadn't been any hullabaloo about a doctor
replacing him, so I knew he wasn't going to regenerate.
And I knew he wasn't going to die.
But I think that was okay because I, or I knew they weren't going
to write him off because that's kind of hard to write off your
title character.
Um, I guess that would beg a lot of interesting questions about
where the series would head after.
But I was very curious to see how he was going to get out of his
own death, how he was going to fake his own death, which is kind
of what I thought was happening.
I think there's a sort of, uh, there are particular fans who get
very cross about this and say it's a cheat.
Oh, God.
Let's hear from one of them.
No, I was kind of like, oh, that's interesting.
I mean, there's clearly a payoff that's going to happen here.
He's obviously not permanently dead.
I mean, you know, oh, Kared Gillett is acting for the gods.
Oh my god. super upset, which apparently she was really upset.
Like, when that happened. according to some of the script notes
I've read, which, I mean, I would be too, I guess.
What do you think, Todd?
It's shading.
Oh, it's, I don't know.
It's, uh...
The fact that He's been killed off and you know that they have to
get out of it some way.
It's sort of like, well, you know, come.
I sit there going, well, okay, come on, so.
And I'm rolling my eyes now, listeners, but it's sort of like, I'm
just weighing, you know, how are you going to set that up?
How you can get out of that?
You've got to be really clever.
Oh, please don't be something so obvious, like, you know, at some
point.
Um, in the season, and so I don't know, at the time, it didn't sit
well with me, right?
Um, But Stephen does a very different thing from Russell. we've
seen the science, we've got the doctor's death.
Later in this episode, Amy's pregnant or be, you know, so he's
setting up everything.
Um, All the mysteries for the season, whereas, of course, Russell
introduces things, words, you know, throughout.
And so it's a very different way of doing stuff.
I also think too, like at the time, coming off the season finale
and uh, the Christmas special, which I just consider like, you
know, through the most awesome episodes is ever written, plus the
angels one before that and uh, the 11th hour.
And now in retrospect, um, the whale episode, like, I just think
they're all stunning.
So, you know, coming back to this, I'm not a big fan of this
season.
Like, I was not a big fan of when it all played out and I still
haven't got problems with stuff further along down the track.
Um, So, you know, when that happened, it was a huge shock.
Yes, certainly.
And I'm going, 0 my goodness, but at the same time, my head's
going, 0 yeah, well, how are you going to get out of this one?
you know, like, I don't know, like, you're not going to kill off
the main character.
So what?
you know?
Come up with some spacy waste you time you whimy thing, Stephen
you know?
That's the sort of attitude I took.
Yeah.
I think I'm about halfway between the 2 of you in that.
I watched that scene.
I was living in the UK at the time and so there was a huge, huge
buzz, you know, the doctor was coming back plus at that time we
knew it was going to be a split season and there were people going
oh my god, you know, this is horrible.
Who should always be a 3 month run and blah, blah, blah.
Whereas a lot of other people were like, well, this is what
American television is doing.
You know, they have a midseason finale.
So it was this idea of we've got this event run of 6 or 7
episodes.
Foreshadowing dear listener.
But I remember the buzz around this scene at the time.
And I think I fall slightly in the middle in that.
I kind of went, okay, they're going to come up with some solution
for this, but I actually looked forward to what the puzzle box
was.
Yeah.
And to be quite honest with you, I'm not going to say too much
about the end of the season, but when we got there, I only figured
it out about 3 seconds before it actually happened on screen.
So in retrospect.
I think it's a really well constructed mystery.
As for fake out regenerations.
We've had, I think, three.
So we've got the stolen earth, we've got this one, and we've got
the lie of the land.
I think this is the 2nd most effective.
Well, because it doesn't feel like a fake out.
For me, it was just, oh, shoot, he's been killed because that's
just the natural process.
And it also kind of, it drops the kind of for the new audience, the
idea that the doctor can regenerate, which they do explain.
So it's like, why is he glowing?
That's why.
Yeah.
And we need that for the final scene next week as well.
Like, we need people to know what that is for the final C next
week. a really good point.
Look, we'll get to the lie of the land one in a few years, but I
think it is one of the most offensive things that the show has
ever done.
Whereas I'm totally on board with the other two.
Oh, don't get me started on the stuff they did to Bill.
I think it's so problematic.
God bless Pro Macky.
Yeah, whatever.
I will be talking next week about how Stephen Moffat treats his
queer characters, but that's a discussion for next week.
Coming back to this.
I think it's really engaging, and I really do like it, you know?
I had problems with the end of the season coming back to this.
Like, you know, they've got to try and match things up and I have
a few issues there.
And of course, you know, the whole with the storyline and the fact
that spoiler without going into it, she's got to, you know, play a
certain role here, you know, and pretend that she doesn't know
what's going on.
Does she do that though?
Because she actually, as the, I think I'm just going to put my
cards on the table, you're going to get spoilers for the season
arc, if you're listening, it happened 10 years ago, all right?
Okay.
Darth Vader's Luke Skywalker's father by that's right.
That guy in disguise who just turned up at Ithaca's Odysseus
okay?
So, um, She she actually goes to shoot the astronaut.
So the astronaut comes out of a thing.
The doctor goes down to speak.
It's all happening in long shot and we only become really
interested.
Like, that's how we see the shot.
It's Toby Haynes directing, isn't it?
Which is, uh, and he did Christmas Carol?
Yep.
And he's really incredible.
I don't think we raved about him in our Christmas carol episode.
So I want to... cinematography is phenomenal.
Unbelievable.
Paul, 2 episode.
And so having that conversation happen a long shot until, you know
the astronaut shoots the doctor, I think, is a brilliant choice.
We're completely seeing it from everyone else's point of view.
River goes up and shoots the astronaut a couple of times and then
says, oh, yes, of course, right?
So she makes it clear that she knows what's going on.
It doesn't, still doesn't explain why she runs up and shoots the
astronaut, mind you, but whatever.
But there are hints in the script, at least, that she knows more
about the astronaut than she's kind of letting on.
Or she realises it that as she's shooting.
Yeah, maybe it's some other astronaut coming out of Lake
Silencio.
That scene, though, is just it's so brilliant because it almost
feels natural in a way because it's like you're just sitting at a
picnic. wait, is that an is that an astronaut coming out of a
lake?
What the hell is going on?
And the doctor's like, okay, I'll just go check it out.
And they're like, what's he doing?
Like, what's going?
Oh, my God.
Oh my god.
And it's just like, it's really, that's, I think, why it's so
unnerving is because it's played so naturally.
Like, it's if you, your friends were just chilling and something
weird happened in the distance.
Someone went to go check it out and then that, like, you know, like
that person in the astronauts too just killed your friends.
You freaked out too.
Like, what is going on?
so bizarre. terrifying.
And the school underneath that moment, until the doctor starts
regenerating, is so, it's so low frequency and really quiet.
And, you know, something that Marigold is sometimes criticised for
is sort of the bombast and the emotional drive of the music.
But here, it's just underscored slowly, almost subconsciously
building tension until you get to that moment.
Plus, of course, we have a shot, which is a croup from Lagopolis
for, you know, the, for those of us who were there, who were there
in the 80s.
I was barely there in the 80s.
When I 1st saw that shot, the 1st thing I think is Adrick looking
up at the doctor and the watcher on the bridge.
And lookopolis.
Oh, yeah.
It does have that weird, like, that distance, something weird
eries going on.
Yeah, and the doctor goes to talk to the Yeah, I just remembering
that.
Because it's been a while since I've seen that episode.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I think at the time, that led to a lot of speculation online
of, is the doctor in the suit?
Is this a hint from Stephen Moffat and Toby Haynes that it's the
doctor in the suit?
It's pretty amazing, isn't it?
Because that's 2 mysteries that we're not going to get resolved
for a while.
How does the doctor get out of this and who is in the suit?
If you're paying very close attention, you might conclude that
it's river, because we already know, I think, from the Angels 2
part of that river kills the doctor.
You know, we know how Moffatt's mysteries work in some ways.
Often it's just the mystery is fun.
The tease is fun, but he doesn't tend to come up with a very
stupid answer.
You know, Missy's not the Rani.
She's the master.
You know.
Yes, spoiler alert, river is the doctor's wife.
Like all of those mysteries are sort of super obvious.
And we have the mystery set up in the Angels 2 part of it.
The reason that Rivers in Stormcage is because she has killed
someone, and that someone is a good man, and I think that we're
already on board with the idea that it's the doctor.
So probably in the kind of heat of the moment, no one went, oh
that's river then, because because of what you said about the
scene, I think, Maxwell, you know, you're not sitting there sort
of analytically trying to sort of do the puzzle.
You're too busy kind of feeling viscerally what all these people
are going through because it's played so well.
It is played so well.
I think Karen is absolutely extraordinary.
And for me to say that, coming off my previous comments about her
you know, is something.
But, um, you know, the whole burning of the body and the
beautifully filmed and that haunting music over the top of all of
that.
And also, the way he uses Rory, who sort of, you know, is a little
bit more detached from the doctor, who is the one that has to, you
know, burn the body and do all that sort of stuff because Amy is
incapable and of course, River has to look after her.
Like, it's just, um, I just think that whole sequence is actually
quite stunning.
So, um, a man turns up in a pickup truck, and it's W.
Morgan Shepherd, who is, uh, or rather was, he's no longer with us
an actor with very long pedigree, including science fiction, anyone
who hasn't seen his turn in Babylon 5, Soul Hunter, it's a
masterclass in something.
Um, But yeah, here he is playing, um, not exactly alongside his
son who'll appear later in the episode.
Mark Shepard.
But the thing that astonished me when I was researching this is
they're both English.
Really?
Everything I've seen with them. has been with an American accent.
And so I thought they were American.
I don't think there was a single American in any episode of the X
Files.
I'm just putting it out there.
I think it was all English people doing the accent.
It's absolutely astounding.
Wasn't Morgan Shepard, Mark Shepard's suggestion?
Yeah.
I think so.
They originally going to put prosthetics on him, which are used to
actually a really great effect with a different character, but no
he suggested using his father as the older version of him.
It is a great American accent.
I thought he was American because I actually didn't know who that
was at first.
And then I was like, oh, it's the voiceover guy from Civilisation
5.
But like, I mean, Mark Shepard as well, just, you know, a titan of
sci-fi has been in Firefly.
He's been, I think, supernatural.
He's been in almost everything and he does alternate between using
a British accent and an American accent from what I've heard. he's
great at both.
Yeah.
And Morgan Shepard is there to deliver the kind of line of
dialogue, which I think is a bit weird, and I'm not quite sure why
it's there, which is the one where he says, no, it's not a clone.
It's not a, you know, um, robot replica.
It is a robot replica, spoilers.
Um, you know, it's, it's the doctor, he's very definitely dead.
And I wonder what that's for.
It's for the audience.
So when we're all, we're already sitting on the sofa going, um, you
know, maybe it's a robot replica.
Maybe there's a gravity pocket at the bottom, maybe it's this
maybe it's a hologram, maybe it's that.
And this character actor who we've seen in Star Trek and Babylon 5
and murder she wrote and all those sorts of things comes in and
says, no, no, no, definitely dead.
And it's to say to the audience, no, no, no, definitely dead.
But we know he's not definitely dead.
We as cynical adults are looking for the way out.
Oh, no, I don't think you need to be a cynical adult.
I think anyone a child watching it.
No frustrating.
Because Moffatt knows how storytelling works.
You know, Moffat knows that what we are now waiting for is the
kind of reinstatement of the doctor.
And we get that, but we get it in sort of a slightly
unsatisfactory way.
We're now waiting for the rest of the season for the other shoe to
drop.
How does the doctor get out of it on Lake Silencio and we know
that he will.
We don't, we know that, you know, he's not going to say, all right
the rest of the show now takes place in the 195 years between, you
know, this doctor and the other doctor.
Like, we know that that's not going to be the solution.
So we know that he has to be getting out of it.
But it's also Stephen, knowing Doctor Who fans.
And so by stating this, it's sort of like pushing us in a
different direction away from the obvious.
Yeah, I guess that's true.
I guess that's true.
Yeah.
And I think it's, it's all, it's also, in, in terms of Stephen
Moffatt's scripts, most of the time when he's being sort of very
clever and the reveal comes later, the reveal is almost like, well
I told you this already, it's just that I was drawing attention in
one place when I was telling you the solution in another place.
So, like who river is and in this case, Canton says, that is most
definitely the doctor.
Yeah, because the doctors told him to say that and the doctor
lies.
I keep telling you this.
You know?
And so you do feel clever when you figure it out.
And if you don't figure it out, you're then able to look back over
the clues and go, oh, right.
Yeah, I get that.
And as such, it's a very cleverly put together mystery because it
invites you, like an Agatha Christie to kind of go, okay, what do
I think of the evidence?
And, you know, they've got the scene where David Souche says, okay
Hastings, gather everyone together.
We've been watching a lot of Poirot here at home and usually Rod
will then pause it and turn to me and say, right, what do you
think?
Because Rod's read the books and seen these before.
What a partner thing to tell.
That's like me and Sean watching Doctor.
So what he thinks going to happen?
But the thing is, it's really satisfying when you get it right.
Or even when you get it half right.
Because a lot of the time, I'll either get the murderer or the
motive right, but rarely both together.
I should also mention that the astronaut came out as an action
figure in 2 different types, and you didn't know which type you
got until you bought it because the visor was down.
So in one of them, you had the little girl.
And in the other one, spoiler alert, you had Alex Kingston. hate
that.
That's so weird.
Did you buy like 12 of them until you got one of each?
I only got the little girl.
I've only got the girl.
And I do have an Alex Kingston from science in the library.
I need to get another Alex Kingston from the Pandora Opens, and
then I need to get a 2nd one because I've actually figured out.
Oh, I'm really sorry for this deal this night.
I have actually figured out I got a spare pirate planet Romana
which if I repaint it, can look like the denim river song from
this episode, so I need a spare river song, head, to one, to
transplant onto, um, Did you just have a realisation of how
absolutely insane.
That sounded midway through your sentence.
Yeah.
It was like I was looking, I need a reverse song called.
And then you look down like, oh, oh, this is what I've become.
Okay, Asio, if you just listen to 5 seconds of the podcast, listen
to that bit.
Oh, baby, we got the FBI and AC on this because of my ass.
There is so much happening in this episode because then we go to
the cafe, which we're going to revisit at some point in the
future.
The most American Welsh diner that's ever...
Would you like to talk more about?
It's, well, it's just so interesting because like, you know, coming
from America, everything is just a facimile of other people's
cultures, like, let's go to a Chinese restaurant that has like
dragons on the wall and like jade and it's like, oh, this is like
a hyper real version of China, which it isn't.
And so to see that, my quote unquote culture represented.
It's like, oh, there's your Elvis on the wall, there's your guns
there's your Marilyn Monroe.
There's your kind of old timey jukebox. like, this is, like, it's
it's creepy.
It's like, if I was like put in some sort of like space odyssey
2001, that ending where he's in that weird mansion created by the
um, the aliens, that for Americans. into a diner and they're like
hello?
That's what it felt like.
It was just like, oh, this is like, they really trying to drive
the point home that this is the US.
Although probably Cardiff at this point.
I won't, they can't have.
But here, you know, again, uh, River is again saying, who does the
doctor trust the most?
and and then the doctor walks in, the younger version, you're
going, what's going on?
We're setting up the fact that he is like 200 years younger.
And then, of course, we get what we need in virtually every tenure
of the doctor is is a slap in the face.
It's fantastically great how angry Alex Kingston is.
And also how much she expects him to pull this sort of crap.
Like, she's not surprised that he's done it.
She thinks it's worse than he usually does, but sort of, you know
this is cold even for you.
This is the sort of thing that you do, but this is even worse than
sort of anything.
And we are going to spend this season talking about how Moffatt
mistreats the regulars.
But what the doctor puts Amy through. in that in that scene on the
beach is just incredible, just so kind of upsetting and terrible.
Perhaps perhaps Amy's performance is too good.
It makes it too upsetting.
Yeah, I've, I've long, I've long sort of said, like, I have
problems with Amy as a character, but that's how I know that Karen
Gillon is such a good actress because I love Karen Gillon.
You know, and I have a bit of a problem with Amy.
It's like, well, if I like you as a person as much as I've seen of
you, um, but, oh, there's, there's parts about your character, I
don't like, you, you know, you must be playing that character well
sort of thing.
Um, incidentally, and look, this could be announced by the time we
release this podcast.
There are rumours, dear listener, that Karen Gillen will play Mara
Jade in the Star Wars universe.
But that could be.
I thought you were going to say the 14th doctor.
No, no, that's Jennifer Saunders.
But no, there are rumours, but also I think those rumours might be
because people in fan circles can't think of another red-haired
actress who can fight.
So take that with a grain of salt.
Wow.
Bonnie Langston.
Do we think that's just a different incoronation of river?
I thought about that.
Oh my god, that is that's cannon.
And when Psycho down that rabbit hole.
When the Rani dresses up as Mel, what does she do?
She slaps the doctor. in character.
Not a coincidence.
Can I just say I love Karen or Amy's hair?
in this episode.
I'm all about the hair people, but you know, I really think this
helps her out this season is her, the way she starts.
Yeah.
It's so important.
This whole episode. discussion.
Absolutely beautiful.
Yeah, and, you know, foreshadowing sort of later this season when
it's revealed that Amy has a modelling career, when she's on earth
it's totally believable and in keeping with the character and sort
of a powerful thing to do with Amy as a character because, you
know, we've had, we've had Donna and we've had Martha and we've
had Rose all with different sort of ideals, but, you know, looking
out beyond where they are.
Whereas Amy's like, no, no, I'm going to be a model and I'm going
to make a success of this and I'm going to have fun with it and
I'm going to be fabulous.
And she is.
And cheers.
She trusts the doctor.
Because this is a conversation they have as they go in the TARDIS
which is sort of the next little bit of sequence.
Yeah.
And again, you know, we have a scene that reinforces and explains
the mystery.
We're supposed to be wondering what happened to the doctor.
And so we have that incredible scene where they're sort of
conspiring under the, you know, in the sort of area under the
console, which is one of my favourite parts of that set.
And one of the best things about that particular set, is that sort
of whole area under the glass floor.
And, you know, the doctor's sort of annoyed because no one's
admiring him when he sort of sticks his head down to complain.
But we get all of that stuff, all of that stuff about the
different characters' attitudes to the doctor, but it's also there
I think, just to reinforce the kind of mystery and the dilemma and
the fact that all of them have to keep this huge secret from the
doctor.
It's interesting because, of course, River, again, is reinforcing
you know, um, that the doctor's death doesn't frighten me or
mine.
There is a far worse day coming to me, you know, all that dialogue
there.
You can see, um, obviously, the differences in Rory's and Amy's
reactions to that.
I do find it, well, the fact that the doctor can't hear what's
going on in underneath.
Surely he should be this suspicious and be like at the door trying
to find like on the floor trying to find out what's going on.
I mean, you know, it's just been me, but yeah, it's very classic
series.
I heard them over talking.
Except when you're not allowed to.
It's the Dalek who comes around the corner looking straight at you
and very quickly writes its eye stalk.
The thing that bothered me about that scene was, at one point, the
doctor's like, okay, so what's going on?
You've gotten this letter saying something about 1969 in space.
Um, and he's like, okay, so this is where this is where what we
would do.
We would do this.
We would do this. you know, we would pinpoint that it's 1969.
And now we're going to go somewhere else.
And they're like, wait, what are you talking about?
Why aren't we going to go investigate the thing?
You love investigating the thing.
And he goes, a mysterious summons from someone we don't know.
Do you really think I'm just going to walk into that?
And I'm sitting there watching this going, that's not true, Ellen.
You absolutely would.
You do it all the time.
So why not now?
And like, what is the reluctance to Chen, come on.
But the reluctance really is that he knows that they're keeping a
secret from him.
He doesn't trust them and he is just going to take them all home.
And the way Matt plays that. is so incredibly great because it
starts with him doing his usual sort of bubbly thing.
You know, you go home, make babies, you know, I'm taking you to
prison.
I've got a hilarious biplane knitting lesson that I need to go
to.
Like, he's being funny.
And he just becomes so incredibly menacing.
Like he is so cold and hostile to them without overplaying it in
any way.
And it's the that thing that he does.
He's so mercurial, but also, and I've said this, you know, all
throughout the last season.
Just the way that he plays menace is so low key and so much more
menacing.
So I really like that because I think, actually, Maxwell, that do
you think I would respond to a mysterious signal and just walk
into things and then he's, then he kind of implies no.
I think that wrong foots us.
I think we're going, yeah, actually, like, I think that's quite
deliberate because of course he does that.
And a 2nd later he does do it.
Like once Amy reassures him that she's trustworthy.
He's straight to the mysterious summons.
Of course he is.
But he stops just to make it clear to them that he absolutely
knows that they're hiding something important from him and that
he's not willing to put up with it.
Yeah, I think that whole thing of hiding something is what makes
the difference because usually when he goes blundering into a
situation like this, He has absolute confidence in the people
around him.
But in this instance, I feel like he almost plays it with an air
of betrayal.
Not necessarily... that he thinks they are leading him into a trap
but it's kind of like he has just rebooted the universe, saved
Rory and Amy's marriage.
He's constantly breaking river out of prison to take her to
parties.
And he's like, and I'm sorry, this is how you treat me.
You know, that's the air.
It's it's disappointment and hurt is what I kind of get from like
when he flops down into the chair and puts a hand to his temple.
And then and then it's the disappointment of having to explain why
he feels why he feels that way.
And as you say, it's so menacing and I actually well up a bit when
Amy says fish fingers and custard because we also know that that's
a slightly painful memory for Amy because even though that's the
day her life changed forever and it was the most wonderful day of
her life, it also led to 14 years of believing she was insane.
And everyone...
No, sorry, she didn't believe she was insane, but everyone around
her did.
And, you know, the doctor acknowledges waiter this season that he
kind of screwed up her life.
But he also, I mean, that's the day that he doesn't come.
Although I guess he's fixed that.
He does turn up that day and put it to bed and stuff like that.
So maybe that didn't happen.
Who can tell?
series 5 is very complicated.
There is somewhere where he does go, and he does arrive, and
that's in the Oval Office, you know?
I mean, it's very brave of them to decide to actually involve US
president and having to cast somebody to look like that and behave
like President Nixon, you know, and to try and get that
performance credible enough for us to believe.
Don't you think?
And he kills it.
So Maxwell, who does it better?
Doctor Who or Futurama?
I actually have to give it to Doctor Who.
And what's so interesting is I looked up that actor whose last
name is Milligan, I believe.
Stuart Milligan?
Yes.
He, who I didn't realise was also the president in Wonder Woman
1984 as Reagan.
And apparently he's just, apparently that's his thing.
He played Eisenhower.
Like that's his thing. the go-to guy to be any president.
He's like a shapeshifter.
It could be any kind of weird, lopsided, southern accent, mediocre
white guy.
Probably couldn't do a convincing Obama, and let's not see him
die.
That's his role.
And, you know, they put prosthetics on him.
And he killed it, and it was really unsettling, kind of how much
he how Nixon-esque he was.
But, um, you know, what I love about the setting of 1969 is just
how much it, like, I think for a British person watching this
unless they have a really good grasp on American history, which
they might, the metaphors, the symbolism, everything in this
episode is so evocative of the mood, the tone, and the aesthetics
of 1969.
Um, So, just to kind of, geez, a point of reference, 1969
thematically is very reflective of sort of how America looks
today.
It was a time of incredible social upheaval.
It was really, you know, I think it's been sugar coated where we
think, oh, it's the hippies.
It's this. civil rights movement, which of course, that's all
there.
But no one was having a good time.
Like, it was really terrible.
I mean, like there was assassinations of major political leaders
like every other week.
And I don't think the rest of the world often when they think
about America in the 60s sees how just terrible that time was.
And, um, it's really, with a whole FBI being in the background.
This is a point in history where we just had the red scare.
So we had McCarthyism.
We had sort of you know, sort of monitoring our own civilians.
And this is also the point in history where I think a lot of
Americans, especially the younger generation, of course, all
became boomers who are, you know, destroying everything.
Um, they kind of woke up and said, you know what, something's not
right here.
And this was the 1st time you sort of had dissent in America
against America and the response to that was as you could expect
the FBI to just go even harder.
And so that's why they kind of are this looming presence in the
background.
And while the silence themselves kind of have that men in black
FBI suit to them, because this is a period of you're being
watched.
There is a conspiracy behind your back.
I mean, and even Nixon is, says, I don't trust the FBI.
And I think that kind of goes to show how much at this point in
history.
We had sort of lost the plot and how this was a time of paranoia.
And, you know, the other stuff, the other thing that's looming in
the background of all this as well is this was the time period
where UFOs and aliens in Roswell were a big part of the American
pop cultural identity, like B movies.
And the silence themselves are very evocative of a gray alien.
I know they're supposed to be based off of Edvard Milk's The
Scream, but they look very much like those Roswell aliens that
just kind of show up and put the whammy on you and take you aboard
their spaceship.
And they have also that men in black luck of these like weird
mysterious, you know, maybe they're aliens, maybe they're humans
they show up.
They erase their memory and then they leave.
And that's all there in the symbolism there.
And um, I was really interested by how nuanced Nixon was in this.
Because when you look at history and you look at the start of his
term, he's only, I think, 7 months, 6 months in office at this
point, it's been less than a year, and he, and when Nixon came in
he did very much have that kind of peacemaker attitude where he's
like, look, we are in an intense period of American history.
I know there's a conservative thing happening.
There's a liberal thing happening.
I'm here to kind of unite everyone and I want to put my best foot
forward.
We're going to, you know, we're going to go to the moon.
It's going to be great.
This is going to be the new America.
And it's so interesting to see how that's really reflective in a
character who, looking back, is not a slime ball at all, really, in
this whole, 2 over the dead, of course, the next few episodes, he's
actually quite benevolent, and he's a little bit of a grouch. a
little bit, you know, doddering, but he helps them every step of
the way for the most part.
And that when you look back in history, Nixon, you know, at the
start of things kind of was, you know, kind of that good guy.
And then, of course, how much he fell and became this really
odious, like, proto Trump figure.
It's, you know, terrifying, but it's interesting how they captured
Nixon at that time in history as he would have been perceived as
more of a benevolent figure with the shades of paranoia that would
eventually lead him down the track to being terrible and
overstepping every bound.
The conversation that the doctor and river have about Nixon in the
TARDIS, I think, is really great.
And one of the reasons it's great is in the context of last year
where we had cuddly Winston Churchill, which, you know, I thought
was a massive problem with victory of the Daleks.
I thought that whitewashing Churchill was a very bad thing.
We do whitewash Jefferson slightly in this episode, I have to
say.
The doctor describes him as a sort of splendid chap or something
like that, which is a bit upsetting.
But I quite like the argument that River and the doctor have, where
River has this sort of nuanced take on what Nixon is like, and the
doctor gets grumpy with her for it, and she accuses him of being a
hippie and he accuses her of being an archeologist.
And I think that that gets it.
The thing about Nixon is he's so he is kind of genial, isn't he?
And he really, next episode when he interacts with those
scientists.
He's actually really very charming.
Which was kind of part of his tactic in many ways.
I think he was a little bit of a flatterer.
I think that's kind of how he got what he wanted.
And, you know, it's what's so interesting is like how much of that
was authentic.
Like he was just that kind of person and how much was him just
sort of, you know, kissing, kissing people on the cheek in one
moment and then going behind their back and trying to have them
secretly arrested or wiretapped in the other.
Like, I don't have a high opinion as someone who is an American
citizen trying to be an Australian citizen trying to be both.
Um, I don't really have a high opinion of Nixon.
I find him to be incredibly evil.
I thought he was sort of set the ground for all the stuff that
Trump got away with.
I think he is the proto Trump.
But I do see where, I think a lot of, a lot of that evil was
acquired with power, whereas I think with Trump, it was just
always there.
I think maybe Nixon probably not a great guy to begin with, but at
least trying to do the right thing.
And then, of course, the paranoia just completely took over.
He was always afraid of losing power.
He wiretapped everyone.
He did all these illegal shady things.
Well, what's interesting is that he doesn't do that at first.
And I wonder if maybe that the whole idea of these crazy events
happening, the silence, all this creepy sci-fi stuff, that's in
universe, the explanation for why Nixon goes down that path
because he's just had this crazy experience where he now feels
like he has to be monitoring everything because the silence are
always watching.
It's a tipping point for him.
Yeah, and it takes place in 1969, so we never get the, um, the
infamous 18.5 minutes, the missing 18.5 from the Watergate tapes.
That's always like a big mystery of like what was on those tapes.
I wish they had talked about that more, but there was no way they
could have fit that in there because it was, you know, that's, I
think, 5 years after this takes place.
And in a way, had they included that, that's what the story would
have been about.
Oh, absolutely.
The silence being on those tapes.
Yeah.
Whereas Stephen Moffatt's starting point for this was he came up
with the idea of the silent because he thought, okay, I want a
monster that explains why you hear your floorboards creak at
night.
That was his starting point.
So Stephen Moffatt says the reason the story is set in America is
he thought, we haven't been to America.
Let's see if we can do this.
So it's sort of the city of death thing.
We haven't been to Paris.
Let's see if we can do a story in Paris.
However, according to Piers Wenger, the other executive producer
it was exactly because the show had been such a success in America
over series 4 and 5.
And so let's keep that momentum going.
And the great thing is, Doctor of the Complete History puts that
quote by Stephen Moffatt saying, oh no, we're not trying to court
America.
It's just that we haven't been there before.
Straight away, you've got Piers Wunga saying, yes, of course we're
trying to court America.
Yeah, isn't that wonderful?
But after Moffat came up with that, he's like, okay, well, if
we're going to America, let's make it about the space race.
Let's make it about landing on the moon.
Yeah, this is great.
Let's see who the president was then.
Oh my god, it's Nixon.
I have to include Nixon.
And that was his kind of thought.
And then it was just this serendipity, according to Moffatt, of
Nixon is obsessed with secrecy and recording people and he does
refer to the missing 18 minutes.
So he was he was aware of that, but as you say, Max can't really
include it in the story unless it's like a coder at the end.
So he sort of hints at it with some of the things the doctor says
to Nixon.
And yeah, it's just one of these things where Moffatt comes up
with a very intricate idea, but then realises that other stuff
that can link into it and he brings that in, which sort of, I
think Moffatt is a little more spontaneous than some people give
him credit for.
Like people think he constructs these intricate puzzle boxes, so
everything's planned from go to woe and, you know, there's no room
for any improvisation.
It's like you read him talking about his writing and he absolutely
will be writing a script and then decide, actually, what do I want
to have happen in this moment?
I want to have this character.
We'll find out if the actor is available later.
And there, it's kind of weird.
This story does give us that air of planning, but also an air of
spontaneity, you know, in things like, um, He could have landed
the TARDIS down the corridor, but instead he's like, I got to land
it in the Oval Office.
Oh, but if I landed in the Oval Office, a bunch of men will run in
with guns, how do I delay that by a minute?
Oh, the TARDIS can turn invisible.
Yeah, did that back in Patrick Trout and we can give it some
justification.
And you get that great bit where every setting the doctor makes
River just, no, no, it's like this.
Are you touching something?
No, no, absolutely not.
It's a very Romana thing to do.
Yes.
Except Romana would tell him, no, this.
I actually think that that scene is unbelievably brilliantly
funny.
Like from the moment that they kind of land invisibly and and she
does all of that sort of stuff to the incredible kind of discovery
of Matt standing in the Oval Office taking notes and and then just
sort of, yeah, waving his hand to say, you know, no, no, you just
keep going, don't mind me.
And then him slamming into the tartars and fork.
You know, and you know, then, you know, the legs, the nose, Mrs
Robinson.
Oh, I hate you so much.
And the fact too, that the doctor knows that River's doing it.
Like he actually says, have you got the scanner working after he's
declared that it doesn't work when we're invisible.
He knows that.
And when she says in the Tartars, I hate you, he knows that she
said that because he says, no, you don't.
It's so good.
Mrs. Robinson.
Chemistry.
So good.
Yeah, it's it's so funny.
Like, Stephen has the knack of just being able to put um, humourous
spin on a serious situation, like that, um, The doctor, you know
could be shot by in the Oval Office and, uh, It's interesting.
I don't, I, it always sits uneasy with me in terms of when you
start to involve historical figures that you kind of know, like
more recent.
Like, I actually like Doctor Who avoiding that a lot of the time
rather than actually um, having something like Nixon.
Because I think you run the risk of falling flat.
So at the time, I was very much like, oh, is this a good idea?
But I think it's watching it this time through.
I really, really thoroughly enjoyed.
The performance of Nixon and what they're doing and what you've
said maximum as well.
Um, but everything's intercut with humour, and um, and then, of
course, when we get that poor woman, Joy, who gets exploded in the
in the bathroom, like with her Star Trek alien and all of that.
But, um, I love that.
It's such such secretary energy from Droy.
I love that.
I love her performance.
I just, you know, and the fact that Amy's clever enough to record
things as well on the phone.
And but I'm so sad that, you know, she got exploded.
That scene was what cemented the silence for me because of a very
particular real life moment that happened when I was watching that
scene.
So just to set the setting.
It was the end of term.
I was, I think I was my partner.
I might have been by myself, and I was, just for reasons I won't
bore you with, I was off campus in kind of an annex, um, dorm room
that was a cottage in Amherst, Massachusetts, and most of the
people had gone home for semester.
So I was in this old creaky house, literally next to Emily
Dickinson's homestead.
I kid you not And I was watching this and I think there was either
a storm or there was something going on with my laptop where the
battery wasn't working where I'd forgot to plug it in.
It was one of those things.
But we were watching, I was watching this.
And the moment where the silence bugs out and it has that creepy
mouth. almost like an anus.
It's really upsetting.
Um, and it like shoots the lightning out in the peak of that, my
power went off.
And I was in the dark.
And I was just like, ha.
So that's why I remembered this episode very clearly because that
was not a fun time for me at all.
It's utterly terrifying, isn't it?
Just amazingly frightening.
And then when Amy says, you know, you didn't have to kill her.
Why did you kill her?
and it responds and it says its 1st word joy.
And it's just like, holy crap, what do you mean?
And then it just turns out to be the lady's name.
But it is really, really terrifying.
They're properly scary, I think, in a way.
Like, I think they're more scary than the, um, than the angels
even.
I'm gonna go there.
I think, you know, there's something disgusting about the sort of
the whatever KY jelly they're smearing over the rubber masks and
gloves.
You know, the noises they make.
There's all sorts of clicking sounds that they make.
Just the slowness of their movements, the disgusting giant turkey
hands.
And their mouths. so upsetting.
But you have to give it to Stephen, you know, for the angels and
now these guys, you know, rather than necessarily relying on old
the Daleks again or the cybermen or whatever, you know, that's a
big call.
I think he's more confident in creating sort of iconic Doctor Who
monsters than Russell is.
You know, it's like, oh, it's a person with a rhinoceros head.
It's a person with a cat head.
Like it's a person with a fly head.
You know, like he sort of, he does that.
And that's all fine and that's fun and like he's not trying to
create iconic Doctor Who monsters, I think.
But Moffat does too, I think, of the most striking and interesting
monsters.
And look, I mean, in a way, the silence are just the opposite of
the angels in that you have to keep looking at them otherwise, you
can't see them anymore.
You know, they're not monsters that you.
Well, no, in fact, are they the same?
You have to keep looking at them otherwise they get you.
Yeah, you have to kind of keep looking at them.
Yeah, yeah.
I think the difference is and what makes them scarier is that when
you're looking at a weeping angel, you're safe.
When you are only in danger from a silent when you look at it.
Well, except that when they're when you're not looking at it.
Oh yeah, no, you're right.
But when you're not looking at it, you could be carrying out the
weird post-hypnotic suggestion things, you know, you're still
under their control.
That's true.
Which they didn't really play with that as much as they could
have.
With the silence, you know, kind of putting the hypnosis on them.
That just seemed to be kind of like the doctor's MO.
Well, other than, of course, the guy, the fellow, the next episode
but I just didn't seem that, that, that, it took for, took a while
for that to click for me, that that's what they were doing.
I think when we see more of the silence next week, it'll become
more relevant.
I think.
Yeah.
If I could just say 11 thing about joy before we move on.
First of all, I just love the actress is giving a performance
which is clearly I'm in Doctor Who for 3 lines and then I get a
death.
She is having the time of her life as she's doing that death
scene.
And also her name is Nancy Baldwin.
No relation.
Is she American or British?
I don't even know that much to be honest with you.
But yeah.
Because she was doing that accent that's so it feels like a put on
but it also like is like, oh, no, she's from Yonkers.
She's your aunt from Yonkers.
She brings cookies over.
She was at your bar mitzvah.
Like, that's kind of the vibe I got from her.
It's very period as well, that accent.
Do you know what I mean?
It is very kind of 1960s.
Is she Frenchy?
From Greece?
Oh, that's great.
She was born in New York.
So there you go.
There you go.
Oh she's authentic.
And she's in Mamma Mia, so you know she can't sing.
But of course, you know, that scene again with her, you know, Amy's
feeling sick in the restroom.
We know that she's pregnant.
You know, we're reinforcing you. you can only remember you while
we sue you.
By taking the photo, there's important information there. counting
towards, you know, the buildup of the monsters and the season
mystery before we now move on to obviously investigating the
warehouse in Florida where the little astronaut girl actually is.
Friend of the podcast, Joe Ford, was saying that he thinks that
that final scene is very slow, and we do spend quite a lot of time
in the warehouse.
But my feeling is that quite a lot is going on, and, you know, that
it's, it's got a lot of atmosphere as well.
I rewatched these episodes with friend of the podcast, Matt H.
And he struck on something very interesting, which is those scenes
there's all that smoke and gunge in those warehouse scenes.
And that sort of makes it feel lived in, gives it depth of field
and the lighting is mostly from underneath.
So it casts interesting shadows on the face.
It's very axe files, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Again, that very creepy, unique American sci-fi motif going on in
the background.
And so I guess what's our job in in this warehouse scene.
What are we trying to do here?
Look, there is so much going on, you know, you, you know, Canton
gets to, to, um, travelling the TARDIS and Rory gets to do the
explanation, you know, about, about that.
You've also got, you know, the investigation of the alien
technology in the suit.
There's lots of flirting between River and the doctor, and Rory
gets to spend some time with River as well.
Um, and, you know, building up the whole mystery, you know, with
you know, the investigating of the tunnels and noticing that
they're really old and and river, like also saying, like, I know
him more, he knows me less, the worst day is coming.
There's just so much building of, of information.
Like for everybody, like for the audience.
Um, so I think it's like reinforcing all these different things
from the pregnancy to what's going on with the spacesuit to, to, to
rivers, foreboding, you know?
We also get the payoff of the weird spaceship in the lodger, which
I remember being at the tie being like, okay, well, why was this
never addressed, knowing that the silence thing was still going to
be an ongoing arc the next season.
And we finally get to see, oh, that's them.
And it kind of hammers home how sinister they are because it's
like, oh, they really have been being built up to these creatures
for a while then.
I didn't even realise that maximum at all until I watched this and
I went, hang on, the penny clicked.
Like, you know, this was in the lodger.
They've got a hand in that, you know, I had no idea.
Like I just thought, oh, they just reused a step.
Why have they reused this for?
I think they have just reused to say it.
But and I don't think that it was in any way intentional.
I don't think that that mystery was introduced in the lodger with
the intention of paying it off later.
But am I wrong, Brendan?
I have to disagree with you there because there is a bit in the
lodger where, um, when they go in, there's there's obviously dead
bodies on the floor, which you don't properly see because they
hadn't designed the silence yet, but when the doctor's talking to
Amy, He's like, I've got no clue whose ship it was, there was no
one in there.
And there's just, it's, and at the time, I don't recall anyone
going, but hold on, there was a body in there.
That's good.
I'd forgotten about the body.
I don't think I ever saw a body there.
So that's not a continuity thing.
That's actually foreshadowing.
Yeah, I think so.
I think so.
And yeah, I believe it is a bit of foreshadowing, which if you
miss it, It doesn't detract.
But if you draw that connection, it can be made.
I don't think it's something explicit.
Like, you know, it's not something that TARDIS Wiki says is
definitely the case kind of thing, but it's something that fans
can argue about because of course Stephen Moffatt, you know, he
was a fan.
He was writing in the Virgin novels era where it's like every bit
of continuity must be explained with something that happened on
ancient Galifrey with the Pythia.
So he knows that fans like arguing about this sort of thing and
make podcasts about it.
So that's his gift.
His gift tools.
Can I say that I think that that speech of Rivers, the speech that
River gives to Rory, is amazingly great.
And it's nothing that we don't know about already.
I think that maybe for a returning audience, the full explanation
of the way that River and the doctor's relationship works is
necessary, but it also works on its own terms and it's paid off
just amazingly beautifully next week.
I think it's really good.
It doesn't need to be there.
It is a purely kind of character thing.
It's purely there to give Alex Kingston the chance to do some real
proper acting.
And I just think it's magnificent.
Because quite often she's been quite...
River's quite flippant and evasive and doing the one-liners, but
to have actually sort of state some fairly serious stuff, like, you
know, without sort of taking that overly humourous, sort of
deflecting sort of line. you know, it's very powerful.
Um, and also just the investigation of all those tunnels with all
the silence as well.
It's very creepy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I just love the kind of all clear thing that happens sort of
repeatedly.
So it's like, you know, they just turn out...
It's like the get out of the house moment, to the audience. like
no, don't.
They can't do anything.
And that's what makes them so frightening.
The way they huddle together too, there's something like super
gross about how there's a sort of quality of them all sort of
touching and yeah, like huddled together.
There's no strau-esque.
Yeah, yeah.
So I guess to go back to what you're saying, Nathan.
I think this whole warehouse sequence is just to reinforce so many
different points throughout the episode for the new audience.
As well as the old.
Yeah, I think the Amy's pregnancy thing, which is very odd.
Um, and we will talk about that all year, but, you know, very, very
early on the doctor says to Amy, you've put on a few pounds, and
that's just like a little kind of inappropriate thing that the
doctor says because he's an idiot.
And then she's sick and that's absolutely universal television
shorthand for she's pregnant.
That's the only reason a woman's ever sick on TV.
And so we know, but there's also an ambiguity about that too
because the silent in the bathroom told Amy to tell the doctor
something.
Is that what the silent wanted Amy to tell the doctor?
Oh, I think...
Did she say I have to tell the doctor because I have to warn him
that there is something bigger going on here than just, um, Nixon
being Nixon.
Maybe, but the silence says, tell the doctor, the thing that he
knows and the thing that he can't know, or something, the thing he
doesn't know and the thing he can't know, I can't remember the
dialogue exactly, but I mean, there's some ambiguity.
I think that we're supposed to think that her telling the doctor
so urgently, like the thing is coming to kill them.
Do you know what I mean?
you know, and she still has to tell the doctor that she's pregnant
and it's, is it the silent making her do that?
So what is there, and I have a lot of issues with the silence in
the later half of the season, which I think actually undercuts how
frightening they are because it makes them feel less frightening
when you discover they're kind of a subordinate race, really.
Um, I was under of the understanding that the silent snow, they
can't kill the doctor in this time period.
So really everything they're doing is just to kind of ensure the
plan goes along smoothly at this point that the doctor will still
die in 2011.
Are they conscious of the fact that they're trying to undo that
plan?
Like, I mean, do they share a brain across the time stream?
Like, do they, you know, their silence in 2011, just kind of
giving, like, texting the silence anxiety scene and being like, oh
heads up, they come in.
No, they just remember it from then.
So it's just a lot of, now I don't want to say plot hole because I
think that's a little bit, that's not fair, but there's something
going on here that I don't really understand.
That's not clicking for me.
I think that it is a fairly typical feature of Moffat's mysteries
that sometimes he doesn't want you to push too hard on them.
I think that's actually what it goes.
Yeah, it's a paradox.
You know, it's are the silence doing this because of something the
doctor's done or is the doctor acting because the silence are
doing this.
And later on, Moffat will do a story where it's like, okay, no
we're going to address that this is about a paradox with Peter
Capaldi under the lake and before the flood.
And the response to that range is from, oh my god, it's so clever
which is sort of how I look at the story, 2 people going, oh my
god, that's so prosaic that you're actually explaining what the
paradox is.
So I, yeah, I think, I think, as you say, this is more for wanting
you not to push too hard, not because he's afraid the whole thing
is going to fall over, but because he's kind of, I think Moffatt's
saying, that's that's not the thing that matters.
The thing that matters is the adventure and whatnot.
But I think he's also going, if you really think it matters, though
I look forward to your book of fan writings about it, I look
forward to your discontinuity guide, because he's very much a
Terence Dix kind of writer in that way in that he Moffatt loves
the imagination of fans and he gives fans plenty of sort of
playground to play in with his ideas by not nailing everything
down.
And there are a lot of things to criticise Moffat 4 and how he
relates to characters, say, who are women or who are queer.
But at the same time, I do think he's a writer who listens to fan
feedback because things that are criticised in one season, you can
see him trying to address in the following season, not always
successfully, but I think because he is such a fan himself and was
a fan at a time when the show was at its height then when it was
off, and now he's writing for it at its height again.
Even though I think around this time he removed himself from
social media, because, you know, people were sending him, uh
disgusting messages, basically.
Um, you know, then...
Yeah, there's there, you know, there's literary criticism, and
then there's being an answer.
But I always get the impression watching Moffat subsequent season
it's like, okay, somehow you have heard what people were
criticising from a point of view of, I love what you're doing, but
can you do more of this?
And even though there are elements of this story arc, I don't
enjoy the season-long story arc.
It is so intricately plotted that I respect the craft of it.
And that starts here.
And I agree with you then. completely.
Um, And so I guess that leads us into the cliffhanger.
With, you know, everything in slow motion, Amy, you know, I'm
pregnant, an astronaut, raising an arm and uh, and then Amy
grabbing a gun and screaming and shooting at a small girl in an
astronaut's.
Where did she learn how to shoot a gun?
She's British.
Remember that moment in the Oval Office where the doctor only
realises that he's under threat from being shot when someone calls
out their Americans?
Okay, so what just go?
So dark about that is that this was before the big mass school
shootings happened so you could still make jokes about that and
they were funny.
Now it's just like, oh.
It was not funny anymore.
That's a little funny What do we feel about the cliffhanger?
Amy shoots a little girl in the face.
How do we feel about that?
I'm for it, spoiler alert.
Oh, yeah.
So you're 4 little girls being shot in the field.
So that's now recorded.
She wasn't quite sure what she was doing.
She had it coming.
No, I'm fine with it.
I'm fine with them.
You know, Amy picking up a gun and trying to solve the situation.
I mean, Rory and River have their cliffhanger.
It's all, you know, I have to say that I can't remember Orion and
Rivers Cliffhanger.
What's happening to them?
Are they struggling to escape the silence?
They're in, they're in the silent ship and um, Rivers fiddling
with the controls and Rory, and she's like, Rory, watch the door
and he watches the door and he keeps getting, seeing the silence
getting closer.
And then when he turns to tell River, It's like, no, it's fine.
And then he turns around and gets scared and no, it's fine.
And then on the 3rd time, River is giving some techno babble and
there's a flash of light behind her and she says, Rory, and it
cuts away.
Oh, wow, okay.
So that's their cliffhanger.
Actually, no, I know what I think.
I thought at the time, Stephen's greater than the mould.
We haven't had a cliffhanger 2 parter at the beginning of the
season from this point forward in the show.
We won't have that same structure that we've had for the last 5
seasons in terms of, you know, opening episode, early 2 parter
late, uh, mid 2 parter, late 2 parter, that's never here ever
again.
He's now doing his own thing.
It's completely different.
That's part of what I was thinking.
And I think, I think the tone of this is vastly different from any
previous opener too.
Like, I think he's breaking the mould already, just right from the
very beginning, by making it this sort of massive world-spanning
you know, serious-ish Doctor Who serious epic, you know, instead
of little fat people kind of, you know, wandering along the
streets and stuff, you know, fun and light.
It's not that at all.
Russell T Davies pushed the envelope by making comments on
society.
You know what I mean?
And they were big sweeping things.
So the adipose with the little fat people was about the weight
loss industry and body image and what have you, but packaged in
such a way that you can just enjoy a nice little romp with little
fat blobs.
Whereas Stephen Moffat pushes the envelope in a very personal
manner.
Amy has just said she's pregnant.
She's going to have a child and then she shoots a child.
Same child, actually it turns out.
Same here.
Small world.
But yeah, it's kind of like Moffat Moffat will push the envelope
by saying, yeah, these are your heroes.
Look at them doing something really questionable and let's talk
about that.
Whereas Russell will say, look at the world doing something really
questionable.
Turn left.
World War 3 and he says, let's talk about the world.
Whereas Stephen Moffatt says, let's talk about our characters.
And there's strengths and weaknesses to both approaches, but last
year was Stephen doing Russell.
He does Russell's format at the, as you say, Todd, this year, it's
Stephen Moffatt goes, well, why can't we have a two-parter to
open?
Let's have a two-part.
We've already established who these people are.
We'll have a quick montage at the beginning telling everyone who
they are again and then we are off and we are having a full
blooded 90 minute adventure.
But also, you know, he's posed all these questions like the
doctor's deaths, Amy's pregnant, silence, worst day for a river to
come, and yet we're still not going to get any resolution in this
episode.
So you know, you've still got to come back next week.
No, and I don't think she and so for the record, the way I
interpret it seems, I don't think she was cognisant that it was a
little girl.
I think everything was kind of happening at once.
And then when she shot the gun, That's when she realised, oh, it's
a little girl and it was too late.
Of course, it's, you know, not too late as we find out.
But.
Yeah, yeah.
And again, great acting from Karen in that moment, just sort of
face acting.
We've joked on the podcast before, you know, watching Billy
Piper.
The game is to pick what part of her face is biggest in each
shot.
And with Karen, it's always the eye. those amazing eyes and she
can act so well with them.
Like she is so expressive that she can tell you the character's
mood without a single word.
Yeah, good for her.
Well, maybe, sir, that's all.
We have time for this week.
We'll be back next week for an episode of a different show all
together in Day of the Moon.
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 FT Podcast on Twitter, and on our website
flightsthroughentirety.com, where you'll find links to our other
podcasts, Bondfinger and Jody Interterra.
So, Maxwell, where can people find you?
So for a podcast called Relic, the Lost Treasure podcast, which
you can just Google, it's on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, everything
if you want to connect with me online, I'm really overly active
arguably too active on Twitter, and that's just at Lost Treasure
Pod.
I'm also streaming every Final Fantasy known to Man on Twitch and
you could find me there at Treasure Hunter Maxwell.
Until next time, if you run into Jim the Fish, remember to give
him a big sloppy kiss from Brendan and me.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Blub, blah.
See you soon.
Bye.
That was Flight through entirety, Star and Todd Bilby, Nathan
Bottomley, Maxwell Covialo and Brendan Jones.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, Shades of Paranoia, was recorded on the 1st of
August 2021 and released on the 12th of September.
Fans of listening to the friends and hosts of this podcast talking
about ropey BBC science fiction series will also enjoy maximum
power, an exciting new podcast about Blake 7, which will be
launching on the 19th of this month.
That's at maximumpowerpodcast.com and at maximumpowerpod on
Twitter.
I think that we've gotten out.
Do you know what I mean?
And I think that I'm going to, I might rearrange some things and
move Tods thing to the end.
But I think that we've got an out.
We've gone quite long, like it's an hour and a half .
I thought that we would struggle to talk for 50 minutes about this
episode because it is kind of a bit linear, but there's a lot
going on.
So let's take a quick break.
Do you want to do an outro?
Oh, I never remember that.
And I've only done how many episodes of this.
Let me do an outro.
Jesus Christ.
What are we up to, 214?
This is episode 216.
Oh there you go.
To be fair to me, I've only been doing the outro since episode
132.
Yeah, still a baby.
When did you when did you start?
With Doctor Who?
At the very, very beginning.
So with the... on Earth, the child.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, so I was the primary host for all of the classic series.
Um, and then with the new series, Nathan took over as primary host
and I do about half of them now.
Oh my gosh.
Since 2014.
Yeah.
It's a labour of love.
All right, here goes.