Hello, dear listener and welcome back to Fly Through Entirety, the
only Doctor Who podcast that's thin, fat, gay, and married, but
still somehow needs names as well.
I'm Nathan.
I'm James.
I'm Peter and I'm Adam.
Well, it's our last episode before we take an unexpected break, and
so it's time for everything to come to a head in a story stuffed
with monks, clerics, turfs, sontara nurses, lesbian lizard ladies
and the worst case of infant reflux ever seen on television.
So let's see if we can work out what the hell happens when a good
man goes to war.
So, Adam, we haven't actually seen you since RTD was running the
show.
I know.
How do you feel about the Moffat era generally?
Um, I love season one of Moffat.
So that's what season five?
and I love season 10.
And if you look at what he was doing, they're the only seasons he
wasn't also writing Sherlock.
I just don't think the man was very good at multitasking.
Because like this one we had this like this week, we've got this
weird break in the middle of the season, which it's like, oh, yeah
it's not on for 3 months.
See ya.
Have fun.
And that happened twice or maybe 3 times?
He did that a few times.
Yeah, so series 7 gets sort of broken over 2 years.
Like there's a much bigger season break next season.
And then there are years where the show's not on.
But this is kind of the 1st time and it is a break that is
occurring because he can't get the show out.
Is that correct?
I'm guessing it's either he hasn't written it in time.
The production was running slow.
I mean, you know, like Russell T. Davis obviously was very good at
going, I can only have 6 people and 2 sets without this falling
into a heap.
And so he was riding, you know, bottle shows like midnight and
things like that where it's like, oh, this can all just take place
in one room and where they can film something else at the same
time.
Whereas Moffatt's like, I need all of the actors who've ever been
in the show ever to be in this week.
Which is a lot of setup.
I think there might have been a certain element of preventative
kind of arrangements in there.
They might have realised that they just weren't going to hit it
and so they sort of put these plans into motion a couple of months
beforehand.
So it wasn't like a last minute thing where they think, we've just
got to stop the season.
They sort of planned for it, but yeah.
But, you know, you only plan for these things when you go, I can
see that this is not going to land where it's meant to land.
Also, they've moved into HD.
So the special effects take literally 4 times as long to render.
Like it's like, I know from someone who sits over there.
Um, like every now and again they get a call to go, can you render
this in 4K and he's like, well, there goes 2 days of just my
computer whirling around. making a rendering thing.
So yeah, it's that's obviously a problem.
But as much as I love the shocks and the surprises and the, oh
look, this funny turner phrase and this exciting thing that's
happening, I find that Moffatt very rarely lands anything.
In fact, I still think there are about 423 plot points in the air
like to this day.
From this entire run of episodes.
I'm like, that was a big thing.
What happened to that?
It's like, shush.
Pretend you never saw the crack of the wall again?
And it meant something completely different the next time it
turned up.
It's nothing, it's nothing that you thought it was.
Yeah, so I, from the, you know, Russell T. Davis would just tie
everything up in a bow every week just about.
And anything he was seeding through the show was, oh yeah, they
just mentioned Bad Wolf every week and now that's a big thing.
Oh, they mentioned Harold Saxon every week.
Whereas here we're expected to remember things from two, 3 months
prior the year before.
And when you get to the final Matt Smith episode, it's like, can
you please remember things from 7 years ago?
Like even Coronation Street doesn't ask you to remember something
from 7 years ago as a big plot point at the end.
Yeah.
Joanna Lumley will remind you that she was in Coronation Street in
1973.
Every chance she gets.
I mean, some people in Coronation Street died and then came back
as someone else entirely.
Tim Barlow, yeah.
But yeah, it's, although on the positive side, I love Matt Smith
with every fibre of my being, like just amazing performances, and
this episode in particular, like we get to see his fury just
suddenly turn into childlike glee, and he has this weird face
where he can look like an ancient old man and then a 10 year old
and I have huge admiration for him as an actor.
I just think he is doing incredible work.
And when you've seen, because you know, oh, maybe this was just a
fluke, you got some great scripts, you know, great dialogue that
he was able to perform, but having seen his performances and other
things, since you're like, oh, no, no, he's really good.
Whereas sometimes I feel like David Tennant is always David
Tennant.
Yeah.
Like he's just, you know, I'm always a little bit cheeky.
Look at me.
I think we have spent the last few episodes kind of saying that
about Matt Smith pretty much every week and certainly this week.
There are some extraordinary speeches that he gets to give.
And and we are kept waiting for him this week.
Like he, it's really quite extraordinary how long it takes before
he arrives.
And I think Stephen Moffat has a particular failure mode, and I
think it's in evidence here, which is that he relies on, um, he
relies on sort of very rightly things like, like sort of
flashbacks and and voiceovers and and all of that kind of thing.
The sort of thing that you would probably, once you're more
confident in the story that you're telling, that you would
probably kind of get rid of in favour of the story.
It's very rightly, I think, at the beginning.
And so here we have a story where there is a lot of incident.
But it's hard to say that it actually sort of coheres into an
actual story in some ways.
I think Stephen Moffatt lives or dies by his directors.
Like, having, I don't know if you've read Rachel Talley's blog
when she's talking about directing his scripts, but she kind of
points out that they, they're not very friendly to directors, like
she had to go through and pull things out to work out what she's
shooting.
It's all, you know, like if you've got a narrative-minded director
then you get a really strong narrative episode.
But if you've got a director who's just banking pretty pictures
then you just get this confusing mess of a show because it's like
he hasn't really pointed out where things are happening and why
they're happening.
So I think the reason there are so many strong directors in this
era is because they were necessary and the ones who are not very
strong narratively, you do just get like, oh, now this Spiderman
heads coming at me.
And this week we have a director who never comes back, is that
right?
This is the only time that this particular director.
Peter Hall.
He has done a Vera.
I know that much.
By the way, I'm starting the campaign for Brenda Blethin, it's the
new Doctor Who.
Ooh.
I'll add her to the list.
I like that idea a lot.
I think it's an oddly structured episode.
It's mostly setup and then not much climax.
The climax is kind of dealt with in about 5 minutes.
And then there's 10 minutes of downtime where Stephen kind of
vamps and then there's a twist.
It's quite an odd episode.
And I think what you were saying, Nathan, keeping the doctor out
of the action for 20 minutes, it does service the plot, but
actually it's a big part of the reason why I don't particularly
like this episode because I want to see the doctor.
Yeah, I have a friend who can't stand that last Freeman adjumen
season when the doctor's in the cage because he's like, well, I
don't want to watch a show about desiccated doctor.
I want to watch the actual doctor beating things instead of one of
his mates wandering around the world doing stuff.
The 20 minutes before the doctor arrives all about the doctor.
And there is an issue that a lot of people have with Moffat's era
in particular, which is that the doctor becomes a kind of fetish
object, like the doctor is now suddenly famous and everyone has
this sort of massive opinion of him.
And that's exactly what's happening in this episode.
He's being set up to be an incredibly frightening figure.
And the entire 1st half of the episode is about that.
And then there's a twist at the end about how that's a problem.
The fact that he is so frightening is what has caused the
abduction of Amy's baby and said all of this in motion, that in
some way, he's at fault.
And like I've said before, that Russell T. Davis creates a
universe for the doctor to operate in and is mostly interested in
kind of TV realistic characters.
So, you know, like soap characters, not real realism, but
television realism.
Whereas Moffatt's characters are programmatic.
They are sitcom characters in a way.
They behave in a way that we can predict and they behave in a way
that makes jokes about them sort of easier.
You know, we know how Amy's going to react to something.
We know how Raw is going to react.
And it makes sense for him to make the doctor, the centre because
he's telling Doctor Who stories and the doctor's the star of the
show.
And so what he's doing is he has a doctor, not a doctor that just
sort of wanders through the universe, but a doctor who has starred
in 100s and 100s of Doctor Who stories, in all of which he's kind
of blown the enemy up or something like that, he's defeated them
in part four.
And so his doctor is this mythic figure about whom stories are
told and who always sort of defeats people in the end.
It's the peak of doctor as legend, isn't it?
And I'm glad that I'm glad that Moffat does deal with that in a
story way, but to my mind, it's just never as interesting as when
the doctor's wandering minstrel when he just kind of turns up
somewhere and says, I'm the doctor and sort of sneaks his way into
a situation.
So if you take that to the 8th degree.
I mean, Moffat's characters only really exist as cyphers for the
storytelling to the point that with later companions, that as
Brenton has often pointed out, there are 3 different versions of
Clara. 3 main different versions of Clara, depending on which
season you're in.
And that's before you add in all of the little splinters.
And like, and that's supposed to be the same person, that main
character is supposed to be the same person, but she operates
completely differently because that's what the script needs her to
do.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
She has different jobs in different families.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, and and that's an approach that Doctor Who fans often don't
like because Doctor Who fans want to regard all of this stuff as
real events that happen to made up people and that all take place
in a sort of consistent world.
And Moffat aggressively dislikes that approach and actually kind
of deliberately fights against it.
And like, I think that's okay.
Like, I think, you know, a version of Doctor Who that's kind of
aware that it's a story and that it's not real and that plays with
narrative can be sort of terribly interesting.
But the one thing that I think you really lose is the ability to
kind of identify with and sympathise with the characters.
And that's not just because they're a bit unlikeable.
Like I really like Amy and Rory and River.
I love this crew.
I think they're really fun.
They're funny, they're witty, they're interesting.
But what the problem is that such terrible things happen to them
that they stop seeming like real people in any way.
A bit like Sarah Jane in season 12 and 13.
Yeah.
It's something like it's right there in the teaser as well, that
uncomfortable marriage of kind of Doctor Who's standard adventure
and optimism and then the reality of someone having their baby
torn from their arms.
And so I think you're right, Amy ceased being a real person.
Karen is still brilliant, but Amy's been held captive and sort of
forced to carry a baby to term, and yet her distress can't be
shown to viscerally.
So it's only kind of hinted at awkwardly in amid all her oncoming
storm guff about the doctor.
And it feels like such a reverse or on the past few seasons where
we've had, you know, huge overhauls to people's families, you know
that the end of doomsday is just like this devastating emotional
moment and you would think someone having their baby ripped out of
their arms.
Uh, never to be seen again, essentially, would be more distressing
than just being on the other side of a wall from someone you kind
of liked.
But no, this is treated like, oh, it's another inconvenience in
our day of inconveniences.
In fact, the doctor fixes Rose's family in doomsday.
You know, the big hole at the centre of Rose's family, the absence
of Pete, the death of her farmer, is fixed.
The doctor leaves that family better than when he found it.
Um, He, like, this is so awful.
And I just don't know why, why he thinks that it's okay.
And we'll look next week at how he tries to make up for it and he
also tries to make up for it in the season finale.
He does do things that try to make this okay.
But I just can't see how that's even possible because it's not
just the sort of the incredible body horror at the end of last
week's episode where you wake up pregnant with Francis Barber
looking down at your personal details.
And you're suddenly pregnant and you're giving birth, and then the
baby gets taken off you, and then the baby collapses into a pile
of sick, you know, while you're holding it in your arms.
And then the baby turns out to be that woman from ER.
Like, it's a very strange episode.
Very complicated.
You could have said giving birth in front of a turf, but...
She's so awful.
Part of me wonders if Moffat wasn't having a very good time in his
personal life because George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg have
spoken at length about the fact that they don't think Indiana
Jones and the Temple of Doom, which is one of my favourite films
is very successful.
They think it's too dark and it goes to places which aren't
appropriate because they weren't having a good time in their
personal lives.
So I wonder if there was something happening with Moffat where he
just kind of lost his filter over what would quite be appropriate
and what was a little bit over the line.
I think he was trying to do too much.
Like, you know, when Davis is running the show, there were 2 other
shows running concurrently.
Um, and Moffatt's really struggling to do this and Sherlock at the
same time.
Like, it's he's obviously missing deadlines all over the place.
It's things aren't going to plan.
It's, yeah.
And also, you know, where heading towards the 50th anniversary
which turned into some crazy nightmare of a situation.
But yeah, I just think he's not on top of, I think his writing is
like you were saying before earlier, Nathan, about the, you know
all the riderly things that you go, you would have changed at it
like later on.
I just don't think you ever got around to that 3rd draft.
I think he just never got around to, oh, this is actually terrible
with a voiceover.
Let's change it.
This is terrible with a flashback.
Let's fix it.
But he just didn't have time to go, I don't have time for another
draft.
This is this is how this episode is now.
Just go make it. got other things to do.
And he's such a brilliant writer that even when he delivers
something like this, which is a little bit disjointed and doesn't
quite have a real plot holding it together.
It's still full of great things.
And you think if he did get round to that 3rd draft, it would
probably be brilliant.
Yeah, there's a lot in what you're saying.
I have to say, even though it's probably having been in lockdown
since, you know, the dawn of time now.
Um, I, I actually had a tear at the end when, when River gives the
whole, you're my parents kind of bit and it's like, are you sure I
just wasn't, are you sure it wasn't a splatter of baby gunk?
It could have been baby gun.
It does smile.
Having said that, I have cried about 4 TV shows this week, so I
might be in some sort of emotional distress of my own.
Don't let me write Doctor Who this week.
I think the other problem is that so last year was all about Amy
Amy's decision between adulthood and childhood.
You know, do I become an adult and get married?
Or do I run away with my imaginary friend from childhood?
And the sort of synthesis at the end is actually, why not both?
And so that's what ends up happening.
But that arc, which we really liked, does make marriage an
important marker of adulthood for a woman.
And that's, I mean, it's true, but there's something kind of
slightly uncomfortable about that.
And then to kind of go into, which is a very television thing
isn't it?
That you have sex on your wedding night and then you're
immediately pregnant.
And then we age up the child.
Do you know what I mean?
So that it can continue to be in this television show.
Like, there's something uncomfortable about that.
It's not okay.
No, no, and and also just kind of making pregnancy so pregnancy
and childbirth.
So kind of weird and upsetting and alien, you know, that...
Well, also weirdly functional.
Like it's, it's just like, oh, you can do this in a cupboard with
a peephole. fine.
This is the man that gave us the John Hurt moment in coupling for
Jane's pregnancy.
Oh my god, yeah, yeah, yeah. that's right I had forgotten about
that.
And like I do think that coupling is important to kind of go back
and look at because his weird attitudes to women, I don't know.
I think it's just the perils of putting a heterosexual man in
charge of the show, I think, probably.
It shouldn't be permitted.
It has the same kind of awkward feeling as if Rachel from Friends
had gotten pregnant, but then Phoebe decided to steal the baby, and
then fallen on the subway tracks, and Rachel instead had taken one
of Ross's, but yeah, it's that kind of thing where you think this
doesn't work at all.
I'm not feeling this.
It doesn't fit the show.
Do you know what?
When you were talking about season one just now or season five
technically, but Moffat's 1st series.
The subtext of both of these series is we start with a little kid
or at even an infant, and then we see that the next time we see
them, they're hypersexualized and an adult.
So we've gone from little girl Amy to Amy the strippergram.
Yeah. like hypersexualized adult.
And then we've gone from this infant to River song who is
constantly trying to bone the doctor.
So it's like, what is what are you trying to say about children
and what happens to them in the blink of an eye?
It is a really, it's a troubling subtext through the whole
series.
He doesn't have any daughters, does he?
He's got kids, but yeah.
There probably is stuff playing on Mothat's mind about kind of
families and raising families.
And I think this goes back to what you were saying earlier, Adam
about time.
Moffat was a father and had a family.
And so his time is finite.
I have some sympathy for him.
And Russell D. Davis did make himself quite ill running all those
shows.
Like he was not in a good way by the end of all that.
Didn't he end up with pneumonia during the making of the
specials?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He was not okay.
No, there's a there's a really quite troubling scene in the
writer's heart where he talks about actually having a panic attack
during a signing.
You know, he really, really did drive himself into the ground.
And Moffatt is, as you said before, Adam, doing something more
ambitious than what Russell is doing.
Like, I love Russell's Doctor Who to death, I think it's the best
the program's ever been.
But if you were to complain that he made the same season 4 years
in a row, it would be pretty hard to kind of argue against that.
Whereas, whereas what Moffat's doing is, is more ambitious, and
this arc in particular is the most ambitious arc the show ever
attempts.
What about the arc?
What?
That is also ambitious.
It is very ambient.
There's a lot of balls in the air.
You know, there's a lot of things going on and a lot of moving
parts to kind of fit together and he does that sort of reasonably
well.
But yeah, it's clearly kind of getting out of hand, I think, at
this point.
It is really entertaining, like, all the way through.
Like, it's relentlessly entertaining.
Like that opening gambit with Rory in the centurion outfit for
reasons that can only be described as hilarious.
And then the exploding cyberfleet.
Although I will say that was another thing watching this episode
that reminded me of how Moffat minimised the shows legendary kind
of monsters and aliens. and made them kind of props, for want of a
bit of word.
Like ciphermen are only ever kind of props.
And didn't we just do that 9 episodes ago as well?
Essentially.
Yeah, that's absolutely right.
They're there for a throwaway line.
And it's a great throwaway line.
I mean, Rory stressed as a centurion because we're doing that
thing where we have Amy doing a voiceover to melody about someone
who's coming to save them and us thinking that that's the doctor
only to discover that she's talking about Rory.
And so he's dressed as a centurion because suddenly instead of the
lone censure and he's the last centurion, so that the he's the
last of his kind line works and becomes kind of ambiguous.
So it's, you know, you can see how he's sort of trying to get
there, but it is pretty great.
And, and it's nice to see Rory not operating in his sort of
standard nervous sitcom male role.
And but when he just sort of says, like, do you remember Sylvester
McCoy not flinching as he walks away from the tent exploding in
greatest show, Rory has what is admittedly like a giant CG
explosion happening behind him.
But just that, would you like me to repeat the question line?
is so great.
It's really, really, properly good.
Yeah, it just reminded me that Moffatt, like, used the Daleks as
set dressing.
Never a menace, really.
Um, except maybe a sign of the Daleks, where they're kind of
horrific and terrifying and always around the corner.
But yeah, like it, it's always like he's, it's taken the, the
tropes of the show and made them into, you know, oh, we have to
have a cyberman.
We'll just pop it in for 4 minutes and then we can move on.
We'll have a Silurian and she's a Victorian lesbian.
It's fine.
It is just real.
I don't understand the weird kind of like, 0 yeah, this is we're
having some cosplay on the stand.
I actually think that this is the 1st episode that renders the
Santarans completely unuseable from here on in.
I don't know how you can have them as monsters.
And I think Chibnell last year made the Siberian's completely
unuseable from here on in.
And so I actually don't mind that they're there and I think that
they are genuinely funny.
Like, I think Strax is hilarious and, you know, he's obviously
brought back over and over again because he is so incredibly good
and his shtick is really great.
I mean, he dies this episode, but that doesn't stop Moffatt
bringing him back.
It's like his 4th Santarian.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dan Starkey.
It's the 4th time he's playing different sometimes.
And he's great.
He's terrific.
Moffat does do that a lot.
Yeah, yeah.
He kills people off and then goes, oh, actually, I like that.
Yeah, they can just come back.
It's Doctor Who.
Let's get let's get Nadol back from wherever he went to.
He does it with Rory all the time.
Killed off Rory.
Oh no, I like him.
Let's bring that.
I love how practically 2 years later, they even did a pickup
prequel for the snowman where they explained why he wasn't dead
like they actually filmed a scene to explain why it wasn't dead.
And then thoughtfully left it out so that we didn't have to watch
it.
And I think Vastra and Jenny are really great as well.
And, you know, like he's, he, I think I remember him being made
aware that there were no queer characters in series 5 and so he
decides to include some queer characters here.
And I think in neither case are they at all successful?
So we had the fat, thin, gay married Anglicans.
And Moffat seemed...
Anglican Marines.
Yeah, Moffatt seems to think that gay Anglicans are in some way
unusual.
You know, like it's like he knows literally nothing about the
church at all.
It's lousy with gay organists and gay verges and all of that.
Like, I don't know why he thinks they would.
I don't know why he thinks they wouldn't need names.
It's very strange.
And of course, we bet, you know, one of them is killed or, you
know, beheaded.
As soon as anyone says they're gay in the Moffatt area, they are
gone.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a case of bury your gays head in a box.
Yeah, yeah.
And then you've got Jenny and Madame Vastra.
And like, I think they're really sort of fun, but I do think that
they are very much a sort of straight man's lesbian fantasy.
Especially when the tongue comes out.
The tongue joke.
It's like the tub joke is genuinely properly funny.
I do think it's funny.
But it is, you know, straight man writing lesbians.
Absolutely.
And like, this is the man who brought us lesbian spank Inferno as
an episode of coupling.
Do you know what I mean?
That was his character's favourite porn video.
Victorian, lizard, lesbians, Bank Inferno.
Is that something to do with Liz Shaw?
I mean, that's why he named it that.
The name of the video did come from Inferno. like he was inspired
by that and then developed it into a lesbian joke.
Private gentleman time imagining Petra and Liz, you know, in
during their off hours, maybe.
Maybe... in the Inferno nightclub with somebody who knows.
Oh, Lord.
Don't have grinding up on Polly.
The retrofitting of Vastra and Jenny is married.
Make those scenes where Jenny is clearly just a household servant
a little bit uncomfortable for me.
It's like, widely carry on this pretence when no one else is
around.
I always read it as they were in a relationship, even in this
episode, because there's that whole sort of thing.
Like, I mean, yes, they're married later.
Or like, does she refer to her wife in her wife in this episode?
No, no, but they're clearly boning.
Like they're clearly having sex because otherwise...
Well, they're having weird, doesn't work. tongue sex.
Yeah, yeah.
But only when her poison sack is empty.
Yeah.
I went too fast, sorry.
That is not too far at all.
But I think that I think Pete's right.
There is something weird about her still being an employee and
being a domestic employee and also is she like, does that imply
she's some sort of sex life?
Like, what is?
Yeah, there's nothing in that 1st scene of them where you sort of
think, you know, that you learn that there's more to it later on
but it just looks like employer and employee.
And you think no one else is around.
Is this just like your play?
this what you do?
Or is this or is this troubling power dynamics?
Is Jenny have like, no.
No agency at all.
She's into it.
She's totally Except for the one that got her the job.
So that is actually a really terrifically funny scene as well, I
think, you know.
And that's the other thing, that I think it's Santa who says that
Bob Holmes could write Doctor Who in his sleep, and we know that
because we've seen the results.
And it's true here with Moffatt that Moffatt can just vamp.
Like he can just spend 20 minutes kind of delaying the doctor's
arrival with all of this stuff and still make entertaining TV, I
think.
And I think it is, there is a point to it, of course, because
fetishising the doctor is a problem and becomes a problem.
And so we learn for the 2nd time, again, Peter, sort of 98
episodes ago, that the real issue here is that the doctor is
appears so powerful that the doctor defeats everyone in episode 4
so many 100s of times that he is the cause of all of this.
And he's presented as a frightening figure even to his allies in
those opening scenes where the TARDIS appears and we don't see
him.
And the Tartis appears as a threat.
He's calling in various debts.
And Dorium, actually, you know, he actually says, oh, you know, I
pity the people who the TARDIS is turning up and meeting right now
just before the TARDIS turns up and kind of takes him.
He's fantastic in that.
That's a delicious performance, isn't it?
He's so great.
I'm fat, I'm old.
I'm blue, you know.
I do like how they got Matt's stunt double to stand in for his
silhouette. silhouette.
It's a completely different haircut.
I was just like, like a little sort of cardboard cutout.
I mean, I do wonder if this is, you know, if this is Moffatt's
attempt to give Matt Smith a week off work.
You know, some parts of the episode have obviously been filmed
during other episodes.
Like, for instance, the, old mate, from Downton Abbey as the
pirate, like they would have just shot that on the day he was in.
There's no for him to come back and do that.
Because he doesn't interact with the rest of the story at all.
Yeah, he's not even in shot with anybody else.
No.
And the Danny Boy stuff is all voice, you know, it's all just kind
of ADR and footage from victory of the Daleks.
Like there's nothing new there at all.
I was going to say they recorded they actually thought ahead and
recorded that when they were recording victory of the Dale.
I think so.
But yeah, I did love that aspect of like, you know, because that's
something you always wished for when you were watching Doctor Who
as a kid.
It's like, oh, I wish, you know, the brigadier would just pop up
for like 2 minutes and go, yeah, yeah, it's all sorted.
But instead it's just, you know, like in time flight.
It's like, oh, just call unit and someone will sort it out.
It's like, we're not hiring Nick, that's cool.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, you see, I'm a big fan of the time monster.
And what would have made the time was to complete if it wasn't
Ruth, but it was actually Liz Shaw, who was up there at Cambridge
doing those things and she'd actually come back like, you know, a
season or 2 later and she interacted with the master.
That would have been brilliant.
And that's the kind of thing that we do get in modern Doctor Who.
Yeah.
I feel like this is a lot of fan service.
Yeah.
They'll just recast her with her daughter and get her to come back
and be turned into a Primord for big commercial.
That was a very strange episode.
So we wait 20 minutes for the doctor to come back.
And the doctor defeats the villains in the absolute most doctor
ish way possible by kind of, uh, like he's fun and silly when he
arrives.
Like the moment he arrives, he's being talked up as this big giant
terrifying threat.
And, you know, we pull the hood down and it's him and it's just
Matt Smith being a sort of big idiot, like he always is, which is
just kind of terribly delightful.
And then he creates tension between the monks and the clerics.
You know, like he gets, he sort of tricks them.
He gives that fantastic speech to Colonel Manton, which is just
Matt being sort of incredible.
So it's all Matt talking.
And then we get this announcement.
We've captured demons run without a shot fired.
Everyone leaves.
You know, all of that.
And so we get the doctor fetishized as this sort of horrible
threat, but then when he arrives, so we see the usual sort of fun
doctorary way of solving the problem.
And then you've got this kind of terribly awkward feeling because
there's still kind of 15 minutes of episode left.
And so this can't be, you know, this can't be him winning the
day.
Even in this episode, we're not going to spend 15 minutes spinning
our wheels and then having the TARDIS materialise.
There is something terribly Doctor Who-ish in the fact that the
doctor's army is made up of distractors and the random pirate
captains and their sons from Emmerdale, that feels right.
Because when Doctor Who does military, military is never very
interesting.
I think we talked about this, Adam, on the Santaran structure.
The way that unit is presented is not very fun. 70s unit works
because it's the lovely old brigadier and his friends.
Whereas when it becomes, you know, a crack operation with lorries
and swanky blackberries.
It's no fun.
And so in this episode, the doctor's army is comprised of fun
characters up against this kind of faceless religious army.
Yeah, and this army is quite boring.
Like even, oh, mate, Bucket, like we're meant to love her and
she's like, look, I've done some embroidery.
I met the doctor when I was a kid.
And now I'm going to pass away on some stairs.
Like, you kind of want to feel for her because she's written as a
character that you should feel for, but she's never really given
anything to do to care about.
Like, everyone sort of talks about her or talks to her in a way
it's like, oh, bless, you're here.
Oh, you met the doctor once.
How nice.
And then he has no idea who she is.
I think I actually really like that because if we are critiquing
the doctor as a character.
Like if we're saying that the doctor's a problem, having these
people die because of the doctor, this young woman who ends up in
this army just so she can meet the doctor again and the doctor
doesn't even remember her, and that's particularly gutting, I
think, because he pretends to remember her.
And for a 2nd you think, 0 yeah, he does.
He does.
And then she dies and it's like, who was that?
Like, that's kind of awful?
Like the doctor.
And that's one of the things that Moffat does is even Matt Smith's
doctor, who is sort of cuddly and silly and fun, is also kind of a
problem.
He's kind of unlikeable and a bit a bit dreadful.
And, you know, there's a sort of self-portrait aspect to that, I
think.
So I like that.
And the other thing that I like her in is in that scene with Karen
which I think is incredibly good, because the relationship between
them seems to change in some way, like line by line.
You know, there's that wonderful thing where she sort of comes in
and is sort of trying to apologise and you wonder whether Karen's
going to warm to that.
And she says, can I borrow your gun, which is almost impossible to
kind of understanding context, like what's happening?
And it's, you know, because I've got a feeling you're going to
keep talking.
And it's nice cold.
It's really, but by the end of it, she has accepted the gift and
has warm to her.
And I think I think the 2 of them work really, really well
together.
It's it's a good scene.
So, like, I can see what she's doing there, I think.
She's not just there to drop the clue, you know, for the, you know
the thing.
She is there.
I think.
I thought she was there to allow Moffatt to use that idea that
he'd come up with on Records, Doctor Who in 1995, that the name of
the doctor was what inspired the word doctor.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah, yeah, there's that.
And that, I think, is super telling as well.
You know, like the, we've had the master say that the doctor chose
his name because he's the person who makes people better.
And so to have the idea that in fact, no, for the people of the
gamma forest or whatever, the word doctor means a mighty warrior.
And River, doing that speech, you know, when you're a silly old
man and you left in the junkyard and all of that, she doesn't say
that.
But like when you 1st started out, you set out to explore the
universe and instead you've just been blowing bad guys up for like
32 seasons or whatever, look what you've turned into.
Like, you know, I think that's good.
I think that's interesting.
Yeah, I love all that stuff, but it's, yeah, there's just, I don't
know.
Like, it's one of those things where I feel like this episode is
less than the sum of its parts, because there's so many fun things
in it, and it's so entertaining, and you've got that emotional gut
punch at the end, and then you get to the end of it, and you're
like, did anything happen?
Other than a couple of, you know, ongoing plot points being a
vaguely resolved with, you know, who is River, which has been
going on for 3 years now, um, 4 years actually.
And then, oh, but where's the baby, what's happening next?
Like, where's what is going on with all this stuff?
We've still got the unresolved thing from episode one hanging over
our head.
Yeah.
And yeah, it feels like it's it's doing a lot to do nothing.
It reminds me of kind of 80s Doctor Who. like relentlessly
entertaining heaps of guest stars.
Amazing lighting, but who the fuck knows what happens in earth
shop, really.
You kind of get the feeling with this episode that it's really a
rearranging of chess pieces on a board to get them into the
position you need for the rest of the season.
And then you don't really use it until the last episode anyway.
Yeah.
I want to compare it to Planet of Fire.
Right.
Oh, yeah.
And Planet of Fire has to write out the Master has to introduce
Perry, has to write out a Chameleon has to write out Turlow.
And it doesn't quite function as a story because of that.
But I don't mind that.
Like, I actually think that the idea that the doctor has to have a
sort of complex adventure every week.
I think that's a problem and it's much, much more interesting to
do something, say, like Boomtown, right?
Where there isn't really a story there, but there's a lot of
character interaction and there's a central moral dilemma and
there's a theme and some interesting, funny stuff.
And so, while I don't think this is as successful as Boomtown at
all, like I'm not nearly.
I'm absolutely having that badland in it, so it can't be
successful.
Well, that's it.
By definition.
They're the rules But I'm not completely cross at it because it
doesn't actually manage to have a story in a way.
It feels to me like this is an arc condensed into an episode.
So all the things that happen in this episode without any real
linking story or themes to them. other things that feel like they
should be spread over a season or half a season to get to this
point.
Yeah.
And I mean, bringing all the, I guess, bringing all those people
back from previous episodes is trying to go, well, that's why they
were in that episode because they were really integral to this
one.
It's like, no, you've done it the wrong way around, right?
Each episode since the day of the moon has reiterated the arc
elements, but hasn't progressed them in any way.
So all that we've had are scenes reminding us that Amy knows the
doctor's going to die, that the doctor knows that Amy has some
weird quantum pregnancy that might be happening or might not be
happening.
We've had...
So we keep being reminded of those things.
And I think we decided that their presence in Curse of the Black
Spot actually caused proper problems with that story.
But they don't progress the arc at all.
So basically you've got the impossible astronaut that sets up all
of these kind of weird plot things.
You've got this which seems to have no function other than to
progress the bigger plot, but doesn't actually manage really to be
a story in itself.
And it, like, I think we might find that that continues next time
as well.
I think part of my distaste with this episode is because of it
felt like it was going somewhere amazing.
And then most of the exposition that relates to where this, where
this went after this is done kind of offscreen.
It's sort of like, oh, yeah, I was raised to be a psychopath.
I was like, okay.
And part of it is high expectations as well.
I'm used to Moffat delivering, damn it.
I'm used to him delivering all this arc stuff and telling a really
good story at the same time.
So when he doesn't, I'm like, come on.
I just find, yeah, I think he's just like, the ending is
emotionally satisfying, but I feel like narratively, it doesn't, it
doesn't satisfy.
Also, again, this is because future episodes kind of tear it apart
but we've had 3 really impactful deaths right here at the end.
And at least 2 of them turn up again in some form, even though one
is ahead in a box.
And one of them is an idiot nurse.
But, you know, like the only real death is the one character who
was not really well developed, except for one scene she had with
Amy.
So it's, Yeah, I feel like it's, I don't know, like, after the
death of the flight attendant in midnight, who you just go, Reiki
just doing an amazing job, like you really get a sense of her as a
character.
And so that sacrifice at the end of that episode is quite
impactful.
But here people are being killed left, right and centre and you're
like, oh, yeah.
Okay.
I also think too, that if the if the central thing of the story is
learning something about the doctor, that the doctor is a problem
in some way and that the doctor has caused this.
But we're not really in a position for the doctor to be able to
learn from that and do better in future because the story is about
him going to planets and saving them and blowing up bad guys.
And so this revelation is interesting to us in a way.
It gives us pause about whether the doctor is a good person or
not.
And that's something that he'll continue to develop.
But like, what does it, what does the doctor learn from this?
How is he going to mend his ways?
How can he possibly do that?
It's slightly meaningless, isn't it?
Like it's, again, it's all fun.
Like it is relentlessly fun all the way through.
Great gags, amazing, you know, big explosive moments, but then
it's, I don't know, it's, at the end, you feel like you've had too
much sugar and there have been no vegetables for dinner.
That's just dinner for me.
Well, the listener, that's all we have time for this week.
We'll be taking a short mid season break, but we'll be back soon
to continue the search from Melody Pond in Let's Kill Hitler.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us at flights for entirety on Facebook at
FTE podcast on Twitter and on our website, flightthroughentirety
com, where you'll find links to our other podcasts, Bondfinger
Jody interterra, and maximum power.
Adam, where can people find you?
Uh, just in my house, like everyone else.
Not allowed to leave.
I'm at Adam Richard on Twitter and Instagram.
Fabulous Adam Richard on Facebook, and you can listen to my Daily
Doctor Who podcast, which is Adam Richard has a theory, where I
do.
It was only 10 minutes a day.
Dont worry, I'm not gonna freak you out.
Well, until next time, remember that when someone tries to convert
you to their religion, it's usually a good idea to decline
politely.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
That was flight through entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Peter
Gritter, Adam, Richard, and James Selwood.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lam.
This episode, Lesbian Spank Inferno, was recorded on the 22nd of
August 2021 and released on the 24th of October.
It was nearly 3 months between the 1st broadcast of a good man
goes to war and let's kill Hitler, but we'll be back with you on
the 7th of November.
Before then, we'll have the television debut of Series 13 of
Doctor Who and the return of Jody into Terra a couple of days
later.
So go to JodyintoTera.com and subscribe now.
There have been no vegetables for dinner.
That's just dinner for me.
Add lollies for dinner again.
It's lockdown.
You're allowed to have anything.
I think that's an out.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, I think that's an ow.
That sounds like a summary.
Do you know what I mean?
I think that sounds like a thing to go out on.
Cool.
So, yeah.
Did you know, and I couldn't work this in at the time, because
there wasn't no space, you know what Peter Hall went on to direct
Nathan?
No.
It's a sin.
Wow.
The whole thing.
Yeah.
He directed the entire thing.
Yeah.
Wow.
You know what he started on?
Grange Hill.
Oh, bless.
Yay.
That sounds like a pretty natural trajectory for sort of an
English.
Surprisingly little emotional growth between those 2 things.
Oh, God.
Seriously.
Did anyone else really like the name Lorna Bucket?
It's Amy Pond?
I mean, it is just AB Pond.
It's another one of his...
Sherrytale names.
That's carrying... the puddle.
No.
But, you know, like as in, she's the one that delivers the thing
about the names being like water related.
She's a bucket.
It's a bucket.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, she, oh my god.
No, it's I think that that that's it. you know, anyway, the gamma
forest who gives a shit?
My head can enter as being the offspring of Charlie Bucket from
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Hyacinth Bucket.
Bouquet.
I decided the other day that Susan is Jenny's daughter.
Oh, brilliant.
That's canon.
So that the doctor never has to have sex.
Yeah, he's never had sex.
Excepting that night that lasts 24 years in the husband's room.
Jigsaw puzzles and stuff.
Look, I think she was perpetually randy, but you know, sorting
herself out. fiddling with his sonic screendriver.
And she's fiddling with hers. putting up shelves.
It has threesomes.
That was a trowel.
Hey, James, James, I'm sure you'll be able to tell me this.
Were they back at the paper mill?
Um, for which scenes?
Well, all of them, sort of.
No, no.
I don't think they were at a paper mill.
Like they were...
I do have it.
Yeah.
So...
The battlefield is a cement factory.
Excellent.
Like, you know, where they pick up tracks, yeah.
And then the Demon's Run is an a mega army hanger.
Like, um, yep.
And, and then the, the sort of subterranean bits of that are um, or
a power station in Newport.
What if it wasn't the paper mill?
I was going to say it was oddly missing it, you know, so painful.
I just wanted to be back there.
Ed Thomas is standing in front of that paper mill with a shotgun
and he won't let Pickwode anywhere near it.
You can't touch it.
That's it.
Ed Thomas had been eating out of his misery from leaving the
series and was now cast as Dorian.
We're all there.
I'll be there by the end of lockdown.
I tell you what.
I'll be there by the end of the podcast.
Did you know that Dorian was actually meant to be was actually
meant to be Captain Jack?
Really?
Yeah, Captain Jack was meant to be back.
But I think...
Miracle Day.
They also they also filmed a scene with Ud Sigma.
Like they filmed the scene with a Sigma and cut it for time.
Yeah, because the ud get a credit at the end.
Yeah, that's why the credits in the end.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's created by.
I was like, I don't remember an oo.
Yeah.
It was already, you know, all of Moffat's day poll figures, you
know, like pulled out of the cupboard.
Sorted with no cap.
And day Paul figures.
Oh, no, that's...
Well, that's what's...
Webber fear part three.
Don't talk about that.
I haven't got it yet.
I haven't ordered it.
I've only watched it.
You can come over and watch it at mine when I get received the Blu
ray. break lockdown to watch that. be illegal.
Mick Fuller would come around to my house.
All right.
Okay, here goes.
So let's do the outro.
Well, dear listener, that's all we have time for this week.