Everyone Is Now Sporting a Beard

Hello, Nilissa, and welcome back to Flight through Entirety. The only Doctor Who podcast still standing around wondering where the boatswain got to. I'm Nathan. I'm James. I'm Todd. And I'm Robert Picardo as Lily Cole in a crunchy, soggy, crimply nighty for this one. You really are. hospital night to your fat, yeah. Well, Pirates of the Caribbean was a huge hit just 7 years ago, and so it's time for Doctor Who to do what it does best. Cash in on a massive craze long after everyone else has well and truly moved on. So let's check in on Hugh Bonneville and his crew of scurvy bearded lads while we're all trying to avoid catching the curse of the black spots. I loved the smugglers. How about you? Yeah, no, I think the smugglers... I'm kind of serious. This feels like a reboot of Billy's last one, which is a favourite of this podcast, if you go back and listen to our recording. Yeah, so it was probably not deadly bored by it. It's sort of a prequel to it, isn't it? I'm blowing my powder early, but I honestly feel that, Okay, let's see what do we all feel about this one? I think that it doesn't quite deserve the bad reputation that it has until about 30 minutes in when it all goes horribly wrong. What about you, Todd? I think it deserves the bad reputation. And from 30 minutes in, it's pretty obvious it just falls collapses in upon itself. And I have problems with some of the casting as well, including Hugh Bonavill and Oscar Lloyd. Goodness. James. I think you're all wrong. No, no, no. I remember this being terrible. And I was pleasantly whelmed. I wasn't overwhelmed. I wasn't underwhelmed, I was whelmed. You just pushed through it. I think that's the wrong podcast, shit. The reason I mention the smugglers, it's just, I feel this is a perfect trout and bolly and pen. See what I did there? This is a perfect early trout and vehicle. And the only thing that lets it down is hasty. I suspect, hasty rewriting and looking for an hour. But the beginning of it, I think, is lovely, and Hugh Bonnable. Oh my god. I think, I mean, I'm going to put my cards on the table and think that Hugh Bonneville should basically be in everything. He is... He's the best reactive actor. We paid a fortune for a major star to react to Glad Rap hanging in. In the studio. Acting is just... reacting. I think it's horrible and it's such a wicked waste of a talent. Yeah, yeah, I mean, he's got a sort of good, I don't know. I don't agree with Todd about Bonneville or Lloyd. I think uh, the boy. Toby is actually really quite subtle and seems to know what he's doing. And according to Peter, He had a fantastic turn in Emmerdale being pulled through a hedge. So it clearly didn't affect his future career, except he doesn't seem to have worked since 2017. But if the dear listener decides to Google some images, they'll see that he has cheekbones that you could actually cut yourself on I think. He's turned into a handsome young man. See, I knew him from Emmerdale because he was in there just prior and I was watching it at the time and Amanda Donahue was his mother and he had unfortunate storylines, the hedge storyline and getting kicked in the head by a horse. But you know, he was... He was the youngest of the family. There were much bigger things going on. So he got, you know, the more tame sort of storylines. I actually think is very good, and I think Hugh is very good as well, but I just think they're just too nice for pirates, you know and when I think Lee Ross is actually doing, and the other members are doing much more down and dirty sort of pirating, and they're just sort of the upper crust of the pirating. Do you know what I mean? Like, I just kind of think there's something a little bit amiss there that that's what I was trying to say earlier on. I like that he plays a gentleman pirate. This is very Robert Louis Stevenson's kidnapped. The Smugglers was Dr. we talked about Dr. Sin and Moonfleets. It had its own antecedents. I love that when Doctor Who does current hits. It doesn't go to Pirates of the Caribbean. It goes to the literary antecedent of 100 years, something years ago. which is, I think, very cute. But yeah, he's a gentleman pirate, and when he discovers his son there, as Lee Ross's character says, oh, no, he's gone solved. So we can believe that he was a cutthroat R and a stabby type person. How good is Amy in Captain Pirate drag? She looks gorgeous. I actually think that that might be the best thing about it is that wonderful scene where Amy's in Pirate Drag. She looks up after finding the cutlass. Obviously they've locked all the cutlasses away so they don't sort of injure one another by mistake or anything. And then she sort of looks up at the wall and there's a pirate outfit hanging there and she sort of thinks, all right, I'll have that. And suddenly she's swinging from the yard arm and stuff and she thinks she's doing a really fantastic job. Like she thinks she's being incredibly threatening without realising, of course, that they're terrified of literally the slightest Nick at all. I think that that's absolutely really fun and I would have loved more of that. And that's part of the problem, I think, is that all the really fun piracy stuff like making Matt Smith walk the plank, you know having Amy swinging off the rigging and stuff, all of that stuff basically goes away really, really quickly. And we end up just sort of wandering around the pirate ship for quite a lot of time. Do you think uh, Karen in the Pirate Trag is the reason why Disney thought it was a good idea to reboot um, Pirates of the Caribbean with her a few years ago? Could be. Maybe. Did we know that Disney cast's purely on visuals? Yeah. And she is, she is sort of properly good in this, I think, you know, I'm always astounded watching her by how kind of subtle she is, and there'll be more of that next week where I think she puts in an amazing performance. But here I think she is just kind of solidly reliable. I think she's really good. And in fact, I think we'll get to this at the end, she's a little bit too good for the material in places and that can cause a problem. I agree with you, Nathan. I think she's, she does a really great job. throughout this. And I also love... I also love Arthur Darvel's acting when he's under the influence of the siren, like in that sequence. It's so good. So delicious. He leaves the cast in reactive acting. Yes. If only there was something for them all to react to. Monitor reacts to hanging glad rap on a south stage. At the cheapest fan production reboot of caretaker. This really is, this really is Voyager on the holodeck, isn't it? We should mention the smugglers, actually, while we were talking about it as being the first casting and speaking part of an actor of colour in Doctor Who. And so it's nice to see a mirror of things that happened then and happening again in this one. I like, I like the 1st 3 quarters of this a lot more than I thought I did. And Richard, I do agree with. I do agree with you all. Like, I mean, I'm being rather, you know, blunt and harsh, but, you know, I was quite, I was, yeah, it is my job. It's my contract. But I was enjoying the 1st 20 minutes, but then I just got more and more annoyed as it went to the conclusion and then it just sort of, I just kind of, just, everything began to irritate me, you know? Yeah, I think so. Look, I do want to talk about that a little bit later, but I also just kind of want to talk a bit about the good bits before we all kind of start tearing into it. I have to say that I think, you know, having Matt unable to kind of communicate with them properly because he keeps wanting to talk about senses and things, that that's kind of adorable. I like the little bit of jockeying for position between the doctor and Captain Avery, about who's the proper captain. I think it's sort of adorable the way that that pirate disappears and Matt kind of catches his hat before it hits the ground and now he's wearing the guy's pirate at. Like all of that stuff is actually really quite good. There's plenty of good stuff going on. There's a little life lesson in this for young people. And it really struck me this time. It's when, as you just said it, when the doctor hands over the standard controlled and says, oh, Captain, what do we do now? Which is actually a dangerous thing because we know the doctor knows everything. Can you imagine Tom doing that? Again, this is why it feels like a Pat Trouton story. It reminds me a little bit, too, of like, you know, I think there's some beautiful visuals with the with the pirate ship becalmed and the siren coming out of the water. Reminds me a little bit of like the highlanders with the ship sort of in that where there bends in the water and that sort of thing. That very memorable scene, which we don't get to see of Ben in a wet shirt, sort of coming out of the water. They better do that justice when they reanimated in, you know 2045. They had better. Yeah, I don't know. It seems to have been something that was possible like a long time ago and possible on a Doctor Who budget, you know, as early as the chase to have a ship in water that you can shoot on. And I think it is very effective here. Lake El Street. Right, right, right. Right. Well, I mean, it's a great choice and it does give us some good visuals. The sheep is terribly convincing. The scene later on where they finally stop being becalmed and run into a storm is tremendously good and quite exciting. There's a great bit of sort of piratory in that. I think it was a good choice for a Doctor Who story. And I think that pirates are just reliably, terribly fun. So I'm absolutely on board with it. The problem is, I think, that far too early, they sort of switch from pirates to space corridors and, you know, that's where everything goes wrong. I would have found it more interesting visually. And maybe, I think, I feel like they ran out of time with this one. But it went through some structural changes, but it visually the pirate void or the alternate ship in the mirror universe should have all had goatees and beards, and it's been an evil version. No, sorry, that's Star Trek, isn't it? But just if they've gone with the liquid motif or just gone with something that was very surreal. I feel it's just let down by the budget crash and that terrible year 12 version of Voyager Caretaker. you see in the, I mean seriously. And you've got Hugh Bonnable wandering about looking astonished at Gurneys and floating slabs. It's not good. No. No. So how do we feel about our siren, our stroppy homicidal mermaid as the doctor calls her? I think she's absolutely beautiful. Like, I love the change of colours from green to red and all of that and her song and there's some beautiful moments, but you know does it really make much sense that, you know, she goes homicidal on them and and like, and even at the end with, you know, trying to get the permission to, to let them be cured or whatever, or whatever, even I'm not convinced by that whole plot either. See, I'm kind of glad they didn't get Lily Cole to act because have you seen the imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus? No? Not good. No, she's not an actor, but she was one of the highest paid, the 10 highest paid models of the year before in the UK. It was it was a massive coup getting her publicity wise. But yeah, it shouldn't, we shouldn't have gone to such a static realm. If it had been something of a mystery. If rather than the holographic doctor from Voyager, if we'd actually had a little bit of, well, what if what's happening here? If, say, the aliens existed in a liquid environment, and they weren't exactly just put into a make do sick bay, and there was some, I don't know how visually you would do that. But, as I say, if you just truncated that last half or quarter into a smaller moment. But I guess that's the point. This is a very thin premise, isn't it? Yeah. And I think the bit early on where we're trying to discover what's going on. So the problem is set up immediately in the teaser, which is just largely played for laughs, I think, where poor old McGrath kind of slightly nicks his hand or whatever and suddenly he goes outside and he's completely disappeared. And then you have the doctor coming along to try and solve it. And the doctor comes up with a sort of series of theories. I think there's 4 theories that he presents that are just disproved. And even though that doesn't go anywhere or do anything, it's a nice change from a Doctor Who turns up and immediately knows what's going on and is just able to say, you know, this is from the planet Zog, and I know how it works and all of that, we actually see him doing what the doctor used to do a lot more frequently, I think, which is to try and work out what the rules are. And so he comes up with a theory it's falsified. He has to come up with another theory and so on. And I think that that's actually quite good. And I also like the idea that suddenly it's reflective surfaces that are the danger. Initially, we think it's water and then we find out it's any sort of reflective surfaces at all and having them hide in the powder room where there's the powder room. The armoury, the arsenal, where there's no protective services. All of that's actually sort of quite interesting and that develops and that's how the plot propels itself. I believe that pirates have a powder room. They are very, they are very pretty pirates. They do have bad teeth. I think there is quite a lot of bad. Another nod to the heart no era, yes. But they do have a big manicurist. They have lovely beards, don't they? I would have liked the final moment. to continue from Dave the Moon. where everyone is now sporting a beard. That's right Matt turns around and Amy and Rory have beards. Yeah, so all of that is quite good. And there are some sort of decent jump scares as well. So, you know, like, I think, I think for a while we're doing okay here, at what point does it go wrong? For me, they're just little things that begin to sort of add up like, you know, I just find, And I started to be so negative. I just I really do. I'm so sorry. Like, the goal, like all the pirate treasure reminds me of the treasure from the ultimate foe that, um, Anthony Amy tries to bribe bits with. It looks like fake sort of pantomime stuff. Do you know what I mean? And then, you know, suddenly Hugh Bonneville is so cuddly and he's in the TARDIS and also accepting and does that really stick? you know what I mean? And then, like, we find his son and he's supposed to be hiding away for, I don't know how long, but it's like, surely he would have been discovered before then. Like, there's just, for me, there's little tiny things that, Just begin to add up. And then, of course, when they do get taken, and we know that, of course, Lee Ross's character gets taken, but we don't see that happen because of the having to re-edit the episode, because it was moved in the sequence of the season and have the eye passionating in. That always irritates me, that the fact that we don't see that. I mean, I know that I just find it a very Star Trek Voyager thing. You might all disagree with me, but there's these little things that just begin to just, for me, just slowly sort of add up to the point then when we are in Star Trek Voyager holodeck with the doctor, that by the end when we have to watch, Rory died, again and I think the really appalling attempts at reviving him, and it's not Karen's fault. It's the way it's shot and just totally unconvincing that whole CPR sequence. That really just irritates me. Like, totally. Like, I really, that just, well, sorry, I'm just, you know, that whole sequence just really just, is the icing on the cake for me as, as the whole thing collapses in upon itself towards the end. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm going to get much worse than that, Todd. no need to apologise. The, the, I think that you identified earlier on, Todd, something that is a problem in the episode, and that is the Hugh Bonneville learns a valuable lesson about the importance of fatherhood, is such a sort of weird anachronistic and kind of cheesy and trite character arc for him. You know, like he learns that, um, it's very important to look after his son, he tries to throw away the treasure to kind of protect him from the siren. He can't bring himself to throw away that cheesy, fake looking crown. And then he loses his son. It's all just incredibly kind of tedious and kind of played. It's it's, there's nothing really very interesting about it. So I think that's a problem. I think that going to the TARDIS in the middle of the episode kills it. Very much so. But it is, it is that thing. It's that thing where it seems to be marking time. We've run out of pirate things to do, so are you going to do this? I had the same experience with my Lego pirate ship after I built it and very quickly it descended into sodomy and after that there wasn't much else to do until he brought in the Ghostbusters. I mean. I mean, so there's that. There is, there is that. And there's some kind of character development going on there in that tartar scene, but the whole point of the episode is just that sort of the piratiness of it. And so that's not there. You take the least pirate pirate out of the plot for a while so that they can hang around the TARDIS in a way that doesn't go anywhere. Like it doesn't seem to develop the plot any further. It does just seem to be marking time and I just think it's probably a mistake. And then there's the disappearance of Lee Ross. Now, James, you didn't notice that. Is that right? Yeah, look, I just, um, I thought that she was just a really efficient killer mermaid. Like, she just killed him between cuts. Yeah And that's clearly what happened. But we're left in the arsenal with him threatening them. There's conflict between him and Toby, and then suddenly the next time we come back, he's gone. So there was something happening there, some kind of conflict which looked like it was set up as being important, and then it disappears completely. And they've clearly edited it because Mulligan's disappearance was sort of similar or something, and I think James, maybe you even kind of thought that that was Lee Ross disappearing through the door. But in any case, it was sacrificed for the overall plot arc right? And so what's gone into this episode, when it's moved up, it's exchanged with night terrors in the running order. Am I right about that? Yes. And so it is now a pre-gangers episode. And so we have to have the eye patch lady appearing to kind of continue with that plot thread, but that doesn't take very long. That's about 30 seconds probably. That's right. I timed it. Like I went, this is a 22nd scene. It doesn't, like, you know, it's seen such a feeble excuse. But what else goes on at the end of the episode is a bit longer where we have an ending to this episode that is essentially there for the people who have forgotten how last week's episode ended because last week's episode ended exactly the same way. With Amy and Rory going, oh, we mustn't tell the doctor that we saw him die. And the doctor looking at his screen going, we can't tell Amy that she is and simultaneously isn't pregnant. And that's exactly how the previous episode ended. And next week we're going to pick up with a scene where Amy and Rory discussed the fact that they saw the doctor die. I just don't see that that scene, which is clearly what ate up the running time that saw Lee Ross edited out. I don't know why that's there. you know. Lee Ross, he is absolutely the best player in this. He's great number. Johnny Spandrel, guest of the podcast, and possible friend of the podcast. Mentioned this in his in his random Hoonist thing when he talks about the jumping of the editing to fit in, um, you know, this anodyne plot line. It's meant to be jigging us up, isn't it, for every single week but I'm actually finding it a bit trying to drive a mini moke when you've never tried a manual gearbox before. I just keep getting stuck and I don't care. And that's my real problem with the season. I know we'll probably get to this further on, but yeah, is she pregnant? Is she not pregnant? I don't know that things that are so personal to the characters really work in this situation. It's too big an event to make such lightness of. Yeah, I think that we will definitely be getting onto that too probably. at the, you know, at the end of this sort of 1st half of the season at the kind of mid-season cliffhanger. But I agree with you exactly, Richard. I think that's the problem with that plot. But, you know, people complain that the plot is too complicated but here we have a situation where we're seeing things that we've seen before and I don't know why we have to see them again. We won't get Madame Cavaria next week, but she will reappear in the gangers 2 parter, I think. Am I right? I can't remember. But we just didn't need it. And it wrecks the episode to some degree, I think. Can you explain something to me? When the doctor realises what's going on with the siren and they all cut themselves simultaneously? They all get taken. All 3 of them. Why don't they all get put into like on the beds and everything like that? What's the, can you, like, everybody else seems to be connected to it and unconscious, but they're not. Yes, yeah. Okay. So, all right. The very, very 1st time I think that we've had a medical device out of control, instead of a villain, is in the vastly superior empty child doctor dances. Although Vira goes a bit AWOL on Nertha Beacon. And that, everyone agrees that that story is absolutely tremendous. But you don't actually need to push very hard before realising that the Chula ambulances, medical technology and the nano genes are really just doing whatever it is that we need in order to get the plot to work. In order for us to get to that big climax at the end, where Nancy tells Jamie, that she's his mother, right? The only other reason the Chula ambulance behaves like that is so that we can get creepy gas mask monsters. So it's analysed human beings. It's decided because it's really not very good that this thing made out of rubber and metal is part of a normal functioning human being and that it goes rewriting people so that they're all like that. And none of that makes any sense. You get away with that once, I think. And here, what we have is a medical AI that's out of control that does whatever it needs to do to look like a spooky, stroppy homicidal mermaid in the 1st half of the story, and then to suddenly unexpectedly reveal itself to be a medical device at the end. And the other thing about that is that who cares? We have no villain now. We have nothing to overcome. We found out that it's a medical thing. We sign a form and then we escape. And so it's so undramatic and so, so tedious and it has absolutely nothing to do with the piratry in the 1st half of the episode except the captain does get to fly the ship at the end. I mean, obviously he's just a genius at space technology. That's kind of what the scene in the TARDIS was for, wasn't it? It's like my ship and your ship aren't that different. The astrolabe, you know, the all of that. I get it, but I don't care. just don't care. Yeah. Yeah. A very slim premise is taken at 90 degrees and shoved down a space corridor and then we left with the results. You know, I think it's, I think it's, um, Xander, who sort of makes the point that in underworld, the Golden Fleece is guarded by a dragon, you know, like a worm or something like that. And when the doctor meets the version of that in underworld, the exciting science fiction version of that in underworld, it's actually vastly less interesting than a dragon because it's just a sort of CSO tunnel that he floats up. You know, the invisible dragon, so we don't have to pay to realise them. They're terrible, you know. And I think that that's what we get here. We're promised pirates and we get space corridors and we don't just get space corridors. We get the cheapest, most low effort space corridors that the show has done in an incredibly long time. They might as well have just been in like one of Ed Thomas's warehouses. I think they may as well. They may as well have been in, you know, a spaceship from season 17. Like they're poor and they're cheap and they're visually... is exactly the same, yeah. They should be trapped in hyperspace forever. But the stones of blood pulls that off so much better. Yes, yes, exactly. That spaceship is visually interesting in a way that this is not in any way. You're doing a top ramp, Nathan. No, sorry. No, not at all. Not at all. You know, this is like a 5 out of 10 to a six. Like, this is bad. bad news and this is not my least favourite episode of the season. I was wondering when we get your rating. It says beautiful directorial talent in the beginning, the lovely shot of the TARDIS materialising as a reflection in the water. It's just gorgeous. There's some really lovely visual moments. And then you realise that the problem is that we're making a television series that's got to be crammed into a certain time slot and made in a certain order and we lose what makes it work. See, you know, all of the below deck scenes are actually in studio at upper boat. That that's not the ship. Yes. Right. I mean, I think they look great. I mean, they look tremendous. That, the set for the, uh, what we are now calling the powder room um, is is stunning and detailed, the set of Avery's quarters looks great. You know, all of that stuff is incredibly good, but they decide to throw it all away. They're not confident enough to make it the setting for an entire episode. It's like Jody's 2nd episode. It looks parts of this look absolutely stunning, but that does not save a story. Do you know what I mean? No. But imagine if the spaceship had looked like the spaceship in the Saranga conundrum, you know, that if it had been a real contrast to what we've what we'd seen, but instead it's just lit with the same sort of greeny colour palette and stuff like that, it's it's boring. It's just visually dull. And cheap as hell. I'm still going with the liquid environment thing. I want the threat to have been proper, not just ostensible because it's the podcast that we use ostensible every episode. I would have liked, maybe they'd have to transmogrify into liquid form. So that they do in die in a way. I don't know how you get the doctor and Amy out of that and Rory but it doesn't really matter. But the idea of the alien, just being in a space set. With, with focussing. Yeah, exactly. I would have liked that there is some sacrifice in changing over to that other world. And no, and they do fly, maybe they fly around in a big, in an universe in, they have to give up their bodies. It becomes a little bit, a little bit woo woo, a little bit sad, a little bit, yeah, because the fact that they're still pirates in the same gear on a space bridge. Yeah. But again, that would have been great. That would have been more fun if it had been gleaming white futuristic corridors, but you have sort of scurvy, filthy pirates you know. Yeah, yeah, you've got pirates kind of flying the enterprise around the galaxy. That would have been actually a lot more fun. But instead, you've got them in the same grungy ass corridors that they were in on the spaceship who cares, you know, it's just not that interesting. I don't just say it. Like, I mean, if this hadn't kept its same position in the season and not had to go like the re-edits, like coming after quite a strong two-parter to begin with, maybe we might think a little bit more of it, like if it had been placed a bit later on in the season, like, you know, rather than here, it's wedged between what I think is a good 2 partner and the doctor's wife, which I adore right? So for me, it's sort of, there's a bit of that going on too, I have to say. Yeah. The other thing too, Nathan, you were saying, and you've said a number of times, like, you know, from this point forward, like the writers are now writing for Matt Smith, and they're purposely writing eccentric things for him to do, and I'm really beginning to pick up on it in this episode, like ultra-accentive, lots of throwaway lines and asides, and this is something that I'm seeing a lot more, and I think early on in the episode it works really well. Later on, there's that whole alien bogies joke, which I just think falls completely flat for me. It's another thing that really just gets to me and I just kind of think, oh, really? Like that, probably think it's the best thing ever. But, you know. Do you know who sells that is Karen? So when he wipes his hand on Karen's jacket and she does this look which is like, this is literally the kind of crap I have to put up with from this idiot all the time. Like, it's really quite subtle, but it's perfect. She absolutely makes that joke work. But I agree, the alien bogies thing. It's like bumpy wumpy a couple of weeks ago. Like, it is, I think, leaning too much into that sort of stuff whereas the genius of Matt is the spin that he gives on new things that you give him to do. And so he is starting maybe at this point to become a little bit of an impression of himself. I'm going to say, I, and it's not a bad thing. I do agree with you. That's the one thing that I picked up on a number of episodes this season. I know I'm jumping ahead, but I just began to notice it more and stuff like that. And this was the 1st time I kind of thought, oh, That's what you're doing. This is, I don't want to say this is the David Tenant shtick. It's like, this is your default, you know? And I'm sorry to sort of be putting it into this episode because I think Matt's great and I really love him as the doctor, but it's just something that I observed. Can I have another rant about that horrible CPR scene and having like, Rory lying there dead in the TARDIS? Like, they then transport him from the Sick Bay into the Tartars just so we can do that there, like, for no apparent reason. It just annoys me so much. It's just like we don't know how to end this and this is what we're going to do. It's utterly pretend drama. There's no drama here at all. So the doctor doesn't do it and doesn't cure him for literally no reason at all. It's just so that we get Amy to do it. He's standing there kind of biting his fingernails and stuff, not doing anything. You know, like in a few years time, he'll be replacing Ram's leg in the 1st episode of class, you know, or Nardol's whole body. Like, it's clear the doctor could have done this, but doesn't, and that's just so that we can have Amy do some acting for this scene. And there's no drama to it. We know that Rory's not going to die. Of course, it's not going to die. Everything's going to be okay. No, it doesn't matter. It's absolute, it's the simulacrum of drama. It's utterly pretend. There's no stakes. Everyone's overwrought. Karen's acting her socks off in a scene that doesn't matter in any way. I think it's dreadful. Oh my god, it's the lockdown of Doctor Who. You know, like to be fair, they couldn't have filmed that scene on one of those beds because they would have shaken too much. Like, they gave, they gave the actors. a direction on those beds that please don't move too much and don't breathe too heavily because it would set up this sort of swaying motion of of the beds on the wires. It would have been more dramatic. That's the most movement you've seen in the 2nd half of the episode. Like a 70s executive desk toy with all the little crunch forks bouncing and fixed up. Exactly. We needed a Vivian Fay in this. We needed like, you know, Lee Ross to actually be silver and be between both the ship and the spaceship or something. I don't know, not the stupid buddy hologram. I agree. It needed a villain. It needed something to overcome. Basically all that happened is they made a guess that everyone was being kept alive before they realised that she was a medical device. They appear and there's no threat. There's nothing to overcome. There's nothing clever to do. There is no one to defeat. Like, I just think that it makes for a dull story. And they're trying to do something dramatic at the end, but it's so meretricious and so kind of specious that no one cares. Like, how could you possibly care? I think it's a great shame. I think it is a great shame because there's some great stuff early on, but it all just craters spectacularly at the end. But you know what, for me, is the worst thing is the fact that, you know, I like this episode more than the Gangers episode and Night Terrace. you know, it's for me, it's not the worst of the season and but last year we had some problems with a number of episodes one I'll write off. But ending stuck, or there were minor things. This, you know, it's so right, Nathan. It just, this just craters. Like, a lot of us didn't like the ending of, say, victory of the Daleks, which is diffusing a bomb, you know, it's a little bit similar. You've got someone lying there and we're trying to kind of make them better or whatever. But there are kind of, there are interesting things there. You know, there's some character stuff there. There's some stuff about, you know, grief and hurt and identity and it's all very kind of thin and underdone, but there is at least something going on there, which is very different from this which is just Rory's going to die, and Amy really doesn't want him to. And that's absolutely in no way interesting, I think. Yeah, no, I agree. Like, I mean, the 1st time through that ending of victory at the Daleks really irritated me. But coming back to it, I actually like it a lot more, whereas coming back to this, it just irritates me more. Well, listen, that's all we have time for this week. We'll be back next week for our regular meeting of the Suran Jones Appreciation Society in the Doctor's Wife. 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 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, remember that nothing is more important than family, apart from your collection of Blu-ray box sets and day pole figurines. Thank you very much for listening and good night. Good night. See you soon. Keep your water wings on. That was Flight Through Entirety. Sorry, Todd Building, Nathan Bottomley, James Selwood, and Richard Stone. Theme arrangement by Cameron Lan. This episode, everyone is now sporting a beard was recorded on the 8th of August 2021 and released on the 26th of September. If any of you know how to get in touch with Tenaya Miller's people can you please DM me? There's a fantastic new job opportunity opening up in 2023, and I think she'd be just perfect for it. Do you think we've got an out there? We're at 45 minutes. I don't think we need to do, like, an hour long episode of this like we did for the Impossible. doesn't deserve it. Did you know that, I mean, this, the plot of this is inspired by an actual mermaid story from Cornwall. Who cares? And it turned out it was a seal. It was a seal all along that was kidnapping the pirates. James, that could go at the beginning. Do you know anything more about it? Um, It's a Cornish legend, um, The Mermaid of Zenor, or Xenor, or Castria. No, um... It's obviously a very... No, I mean, that's a different... That's all I've got. I don't think that's of much use to the episode. Yeah, it's all right. It's a tag. All right. I'm going to do the out track. There you go. Look, what a sweet, precious angel. Until she suffocates you in your sleep. Yeah, well, that's cats. All right, here goes. Well, dear listener, that's all we have time for this week.