Tried and True Tropes

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety the only Doctor Who podcast operated by miniaturised cross people. I'm Nathan. I'm James. I'm Simon and I'm Kevin. Well, it's been a few weeks since the doctor started his search for Melody Pond, and so I guess it's time to check in on his progress. And while we're at it, we've got a time machine, a Zoom call, and a deadly pandemic. So what the hell? Let's kill Hitler. Kevin, you are on record saying that, um, this is one of your favourite series, am I right? It's my absolute favourite series. Hands down. It's massive comfort spot. I love the ambition. I don't love every episode in it, but to me, the best Doctor Who series. Don't have to have every episode not get out of the park. They have to have an overall energy and overall ambition, an overall sense of meaning to them that I vibe with, and this one really hits the spot for me. How do you feel it sort of fits into the season then in that sense? This episode? Yeah. I mean, I think it's exactly what's needed after a couple months away and an episode as big as a good man goes to war. It's just fun. It's cosy. It reminds you of why you love every single one of these characters. Even while it shows river, especially in a totally different way. And I just think it's a wonderful opener and a wonderful time. Certainly with casual fans I interact with, they usually regard this very well because it's just a very, very fun time. Just witticisms off the charts. I think we found last week that Goodman goes to war, we sort of found that a little bit strange just because there were a lot of elements and arc things that were happening, but that in a way it didn't seem to cohere quite into a story. Oh, I rewatched it this morning and loved it. So I'm going to have to disagree there. I actually found that I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would on the rewatch. And again, it is that thing where Moffatt's just, you know, like able to do things with dialogue that are just extraordinary. And that's definitely on show here. I think this is as funny as Doctor Who has ever been, I think. And I think also that it does have things to say about kind of Doctor Who as a show. And that was definitely the case last week, but there's some stuff like that in here today as well. Shall we start with the opening? Oh, I'm a big fan of that scene. So when I 1st watched this, you know, tiny little teenager thinking I know everything. I just see this red sports car race up through the crop circle which is itself, you know, amazing visual, great way to say, we're back. And I just thought, oh, it's river. Hell yeah. And someone else steps out, who's not river? And I'm like, That seems like a river thing to do. Yeah, I actually think she's incredibly well cast in that personification that she has. does ooze river. Like, it's completely consistent with the person we already know. It's amazing how confident Moffatt is to hide it in plain sight as well. You know, we're off hunting formality. And this time, things reverse from the season opener for series 6 where the doctor is trying to attract Rory and Amy's attention by doing ridiculous things through history. And now they're trying to attract the doctor's attention by doing something big and showy that makes it into the paper. And so having them actually arrive in the middle of the crop circle and the doctor has already seen it, the moment that they finish, he gets out with a newspaper that is yellowed. So it's a really old copy of tomorrow's newspaper. And we get to look at it before we notice the line across the crop circle, which we didn't see. And that the 2nd that they noticed that. The 2nd that Rory notices it in the paper. We hear the sound of the car actually arriving to make it. And people kind of complain that Moffatt leans into time travel too heavily and, you know, has things happening in the wrong order and stuff like that. But when it's as enjoyable as this, how can you possibly complain? It is very cleverly done and the good open. I want my show to be less interesting please. Too much fun. Yeah, less camp, sexy women. Less of that. We don't need that in the wrong. Why do people say that it leans into the time travel team? I don't get that because it's part of the cleverness. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think, you know, for most of the show's history, the Tartars has just been the thing that gets you into the story and... Yeah, yeah. And sometimes in the 80s, the TARDIS actually starts to be a part of the thing and we'll get travels in the TARDIS inside stories you know, which is actually a sort of a new thing once it starts happening in the show's history. And now you have Moffat, who, you know, we talked about in a Christmas carol, he uses the TARDIS to create a flashback so that the thing that's functionally a flashback in the story is actually happening in real time. Moffatt's default mode for storytelling is telling things out of order. He does it all the way through coupling, for instance. And now he has the TARDIS, which lets him do it even more. And I just think it works incredibly well. And speaking of his default mode of coupling. That's all over here because his other default mode is to be glib and silly as hell. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So now he's got the cheapest way ever to just throw time travel in for a joke and he runs with it. Yeah. Like, is this is this the 1st time he's done a comedy episode? Well, look, I think that probably there are episodes like Amy's choice last year that had incredibly funny dialogue all the way through and were written by a sitcom writer, like Simon Nye, but it's not in any sense a comedy episode. So I think this is probably as comedic as he's gone, but certainly even... the 1st full-blown one, yeah. But even last week, there was just hilarious dialogue all the way through. And I actually find myself the Don. Yes. Well, I actually find myself writing notes as I'm watching the episode, but then eventually with a Moffat episode, I'm just sort of copying and pasting whole kind of tracks of dialogue from the transcript into my notes so that I don't forget them because he is a sitcom writer. It's actually a great thing to have a sitcom writer in charge of the show when he's as clever and as sympathetic to Doctor Who, I think, as Stephen Moffatt is. Did you recognise what the car was? is that? It's a prince reference. It's a little red Corvette. That scene, that seems actually the last scene that was filmed for this series. It was filmed about 2 months after the rest of the series had wrapped because they needed to wait for the corn to get to the right height. I thought it was. Yeah, well that would make sense. I was imagining Teresa May running across it, you know, and constantly interrupting filming and perhaps that was the problem. Oh, one more thing about the opener. How great does Matt's new coat look? I feel like everyone forgets the green coat exists, but it looks wonderful. Yeah, you see, this is for me is when they start introducing that coat. See, I like the neatness of the original outfit. I find, and we get this later when Clara joins, where he starts to become that Paul McGann-esque kind of Edwardian sort of outfit. I hit the purple. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am such a fan. I am such a fan of his original outfit. They did nail it, yeah. I just feel it. I feel it just goes downhill. Every alteration they make is a bad one for me. Fair. So, yeah, then we go into this sort of comedy flashback and it's got real kind of ab fab vibes. Do you remember the scene in series one of Abfab where Patsy and Eddie and a 3rd guy are being sort of hauled up before the before the principal? Yes, of course. And, you know, they're young. Like, I think that the kids here, and we already have Caitlin Blackwood available to play Amy with her sort of new Amy hair, and so that's okay. And now we have a new Rory and we have another Mel's. And all of them, I think, are really good. Like child actors are always a potential problem, but I'm not embarrassed by any of these. And then all of them sort of playing sort of slightly young versions of themselves as well, I think, is just terrifically great. Not being middle-aged at that point helps. It's just they're written really well as kids. You don't always get great kid writing, but you get here where like, for example, Mel's and Amy talking about why Mel's is always in trouble and she's like, you're almost in trouble as much as the boys. And she's like, what about you? I count as a boy. That's that's how kids talk. It's great. I just love they they don't tell Rory that the hide and seek is over or like whatever, like that sort of horribly dismissive. I feel so sorry for the fact that she assumes that he's gay for their entire childhoods because he's motherly in love with her and following her around. And not looking at any other girls. So a fun thing for that for me is it never says he never showed interest in any guys, just that the only woman he ever showed in Justin was Amy. there's room to play there. Do we think this is partly solving the rather unfortunate problem at the end of a good man goes to war where we realise that Amy and Rory miss out on the chance to raise their daughter, and that's sort of retrospectively solved by the, well, actually they grew up at the same time as their daughter. So that's sort of okay. I don't think it makes up for it, but do you think that's supposed to be saying that? I don't think it's trying to make up for it, but it's trying to be a version of it, yeah. Oh, I mean, Moffat has gone on record as saying that exactly why he wrote it that way, was to try and lessen the, you know, horror the impact of what had happened at the end of the midseason finale. The other thing I was going to ask about that was, do we feel that time has been rewritten? Do we feel that? You know, there's that reference to the fact that you weren't at the wedding? Wait, you weren't at the wedding? Where have you been all this time? And it's like, oh, I've always been here. I don't like weddings and so on like that. I mean, it's an episode called Let's Kill Hitler. I think it's pretty much outright, just flouncing into the room and saying, we're just changing everything. It's fun. Roll with it. You're gonna have a good time. No, no, I don't mean, no, I don't mean changing everything from the point of view of, you know, the writers changing the history of the show. I mean, from the point of view of, you know, rivers, abduction or melodies, abduction, in story, in story rewriting it, rewriting history. I 100% believe that's how it is, yeah. Yep, yep. See, I kind of would have loved it if Mel's had always been a minor character in the series the last year and a half . And then it's revealed that actually she's their daughter as well. That would have been kind of good. That would have required too much forethought, right? Yeah, I think this is being sort of done on the fly in a way. I actually think that one of the things that Moffat does, and he very clearly does it to the doctor, but he also does it to Amy and Rory here by introducing a best friend that we've never heard of is that he is separating the show from the lies of the characters. So when we were watching Doctor Who, classic Doctor Who as children, we just assumed that the doctor was a person to whom all these things were happening in a sequence. And that sort of continues into the RTD era where the doctor kind of seems to age a year every season, as if these were all things that were just happening to the doctor in order. And Moffat is very keen to stop doing that. And to say, no, what you're seeing are adventures with this character in it, what this show isn't seeking to portray is the life of this character. And so we get the jump of several 100 years at the beginning of the series. We get him spending longer on the planet Christmas than he'd been adventuring for, like literally ever. You know, where he'd see the introduction of John Hurts doctor. And here, we have a new character who's been massively important to Rory and Amy, but just hasn't come up because they were busy being on adventures. And I think that that's actually really cool. And none of us were complaining about Wilf not being at Donna's wedding. So it has happened before. Oh, fair enough. I just I just want to spin off, though, on the insertion. They did these tie-in books around the time the series came out called The Brilliant Book, just for series 5 and six. And one of the things they did with this, they just have like little short fiction segments tying into each story that aired. So for this one, you get to see Amy, Rory, and Mel's report cards from grade school. The best thing. Do you think that, I mean, the reason he did that was so that Big Finish had plenty of space to slot whole box. I'm sure that wasn't a considerable... There was a very cute Doctor Who magazine comics sending off Amy and Rory about them as kids with Mel's. That was a really nice thing to see. I think it's a really fun period to play in that this episode just throws in for 10 minutes and then moves on from. So it is obviously partly being done to make up for the loss of the baby. And there are other things later in the season that we'll do that as well. In fact, even the reveal at the end of a good man goes to war, that the baby is here standing in front of you. She's river. She's someone you like, who's smart and wonderful at turns out that your baby grows up to be a sort of fantastic woman. You know, that's some kind of reassurance. That means the baby's going to be okay. But I do think that it doesn't actually successfully make up for it. And we've talked before about the way that Moffatt's companions end up going through really kind of terrible things. And I think this is one of them. I think that what happens to Amy, I think, is actually too big and kind of too awful for the show to actually properly accommodate and so it actually just has to kind of sail past it in a way. And so Amy will get to get her revenge on Madame Cavarian in the finale in what is a pretty satisfying way, and she does get this sort of fun comedy sequence with Mel's. But there's no real sense in which the show is equipped to kind of deal with what happens to her. And I don't know whether that's a problem or not. Look, to be fair, I wish it hadn't have gone there, I think they could have done it differently and I think it's not handled as well as it might have been, but it's not a deal breaker for me. I didn't come away feeling that, oh, this is absolutely terrible. I'm never watching the show again. You know, I mean, there are always things that you go, oh, you know, maybe not, but I ran with it once it happened and I was fine. I'm much less fine with other aspects that happen than this. So for me and for other people I've talked to who really relate to Amy and this story, the fact that it's sort of bigger than the show can ever actually heal or resolve is the plus. Like, you don't just put a band-aid on trauma. It doesn't go away. It just sort of simmers. And I think one of the best things about Amy Pond is a character. From the beginning, she's set up as a character who has baggage and walls it off. So by function of her character, you can have it just simmer under and burst out in unrelated moments like it does. And I think throughout the back half of this series and episodes like the girl who waited or the god complex is there. And it's very explicitly there, and the Wedding of River Song, and Asylum of the Daleks later. For me, that's why it works, because it's part of her, it's not her whole life. She never going to be redefined by it, but it's always part of her and she's living on with it, and there are little things, little steps taken to try and make things better, but they don't fix it and they never pretend it does. I think too, it's just a kind of function of Doctor Who. Like the Doctor Who companion, he's going to be constantly put through all kinds of trauma that if it happened to a real person would be an absolute deal breaker. But the show just kind of has to let it go. Because if you're going to have fun adventures in peril, you're going to have characters put through things that ordinarily they wouldn't tolerate or that they would kind of collapse in the face of or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, and never do again. go home and say, I'm leaving this. I understand this for a moment longer. I mean, why did Perry stay? Why? Yeah, well, we asked the question, why did Sarah get in the TARDIS at the end of Terror of the Zygons after, you know, that terrible time she had in series 12? Like it's unthinkable. But Moffat leans into that in a big way in like series 7, B, 8, and 9. like where, you know, like we'll talk about that in in a USO's time, but he does lead into that and he does examine that in quite a big way with Clara. I mean, you know, he's never losing sight of the fact that these are not people, they are television characters, and he's writing interesting things to happen to them. And it's a little bit different from the RTD approach, but not light years away from the RTD approach, where RTD is trying to write characters who are a little bit kind of more like the characters that you see on soap operas. But I mean, even if you if you look at a soap opera, any given character on a soap opera, would be kind of quivering in a corner in a state of learned helplessness after all of the sort of constant trauma and things that they have undergone as well. You know, Well, maybe we should get that. Yeah, I mean, having to run a pub and deal with ghosts from another universe. Yes, exactly. Peggy Mitchell. So, let's talk about Hitler. It's tasteless, but I love it. We learn quite early on that Mel's is obsessed with the doctor and she keeps getting in trouble in class for mentioning the doctor and she says that a key reason for Hitler's rise to power is that the doctor wasn't there to stop him. And so that is something that she's been thinking of. So the moment that she meets the doctor, she threatens him with a gun and says, let's go back and stop Hitler, right? Now that's a super click baby title and it was absolutely foregrounded at the end of the previous episode and at the launch of the of this 2nd half of the series. Why why are we killing Hitler in this episode? Why does she want to kill Hitler? Because it's the ultimate one of the ultimate time travel paradox things. You know, if you're going to go back and change history in a meaningful way, the 1st thing that people say is, let's go back and kill Hitler, let's stop Hitler from doing all these terrible things. I mean, you're not going to say, you're not going to say let's kill Stalin or let's kill Pol Pot, or let's kill any other number of evil dictators who, you know, cause death and destruction. Hitler is beyond the archetype of this. And so it's like doing the Titanic episode. Everyone's kind of waiting for it. Well, in fact, she says that the Titanic sinks because the doctor wasn't there to save it as well in that sense. I mean, I think also there is a degree to which you can read it as Mel's trying to fish out what the doctor's boundaries are and what his morals are because she's been growing up being told one version of him trained to want to kill him, but she says out right up front. She wanted to get to know him first. before she then murders him. So I think it works there. And I also think it works like we were talking about. This episode is presumably rewriting things and leading with a title like that primes the audience did expect. That is going to kind of be about writing things. even if it does kind of, you know, shove the main one into a cupboard, which, thank God it does. It's not equipped to deal with him. Yeah, and I think that this is the show absolutely acknowledging that. I think this is the show saying, actually, we can't do Hitler. Back in the days of the new adventures. Paul Cornell said that he thought that the 7th doctor was the only person who had the kind of moral depth to kind of appear in a concentration camp or something like that, or to be put in a story with the Holocaust. And I just think that that was an absolutely preposterous thing to say. And like, with all due respect, ridiculously. And I don't know whether he would agree with that now. That was a very long time ago. And we had a big, you know, we were super excited about the 7th doctor because he was, he did seem to be more kind of morally complex than his predecessors. But the fact is that the show can't do it. The show can't possibly handle it. And so when we go back to kill Hitler, what we end up doing is making some jokes, you know, getting Rory to punch him in the face getting Rory to say the words shut up, Hitler, which is so great. And then... Literally punching a Nazi in the face. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and the put Hitler in the cupboard over there again is also really funny. But what it's basically saying is we actually can't do this. The story doesn't actually need to be set in Berlin in 1938 at all. It could be anywhere. But I do think that it's making the point that we can't do Hitler will just put him in the cupboard over there. The other plus to being set in that time is you get a whole bunch of innocent, supposedly innocent people, that river can totally terrorise without anyone feeling even the slightest bit bad about it. I don't think you need to have Hitler there and put him in a cupboard just to demonstrate that we can't do Hitler. I think you demonstrate not doing Hitler by not doing Hitler. It is kind of, would have been my preference because I think what we end up with is a situation where it trivialises, um, it all. And I know we're not venturing into the absolute darkest of the dark of the Nazi era, but I just think that it, and as you say, it doesn't need to be set there. It could be set anywhere. There is nothing about Berlin in 1938, which is relevant in any way to the story. It's just there basically for effect. A fun effect. Yes, absolutely. But I think what we end up with is this kind of, It becomes too much like this light entertainment. It's just all, it's it's a lower, low. It's, it's, as I was saying, it's springtime for Hitler, it's JoJo Rabbit. It's something that's not really got any kind of gravity to it. And I get that you want Dr. to be entertaining, and I want Dr. to be entertaining, but I feel that the kind of entertaining that this episode does in this setting is, um, it's just very unfortunate, and it's just not the program that, that, that I think it should be. and can be. I think, though, what is interesting is that there is someone else who wants to kill Hitler. And that is the Tess Elector. And so what we have, right, is the show acknowledging that it can't deal with something like Hitler, that the reason that bad things happen in human history and the doctor doesn't stop them is because the doctor's not real, he's made up. And so he can't stop any of those things, right? But the test selector, which is also made up, thinks it can. And the test selector is the TARDIS. They have discovered time travel. They are smaller on the inside than the outside. It has a chameleon circuit that allows it to change shape. It travels from place to place in order to punish bad guys. It literally does what the Tartars does. But it thinks it can handle Hitler. I think one of the differences is it has a Star Trek bridge. Having a Star Trek Bridge means it thinks it can take on serious topics without being equipped for it. not be the serious sci-fi drama, not moral parables. with a captain in a chair. And you get that fantastic line, you know, I'd ask you who you thought you were, but I think I think I already know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's obvious. Yeah, like that's fantastic. I can almost forgive the, I, we, we can't do let's kill Hitler because of the wonderful lines you get. Like, I've got a banging in my head. I think that's Hitler in the cupboard. doesn't make it better. Oh, unquestionably, there's great lines and it plays all of that beautifully and there are so many great funny things. I just don't think it's Doctor Who is my is my issues. It's a marvel. Marvel film is what it is. I do think there's one place where it really does fall flat on its face too, much as I adore the episode where they say, there's a worse war criminal than Hitler here. It's River song. Yeah. That is a fundamentally misguided line to include. The episode would have been fine without it. Mistakes were made. I think, I think, though, that is a very deliberate callback to the previous episode, kind of, it's a feint to make you think they're talking about the doctor because the Titus is arriving and you've just had this whole plot line where, you know, a baby has been turned to sick because you're trying to, you know, like you're trying to kill the doctor. Not the fluid I would have said. And so like that whole thing, it was a setup. I mean, yeah, like the line is terrible. I think that the test selector is actually really pretty fantastic in all sorts of ways. It's 1st appearance. So it's taking on the appearance of, you know, one of the officers who's then going to go into Hitler's office and kind of attack Hitler or whatever. And just the fact that it comes face to face with the officer and the 1st scary thing it does is just grow to be as tall as him. You know, like it's nothing like super weird or spacey or anything like that. It just does something physically weird and impossible. That's incredibly unsettling. And just Harriet. Like, I just think Harriet is absolutely fabulous. Like, when she runs up to eyeball it out the window, she's the art department, she wants to get the skin colour, right? It's so good. It's so funny. It's very funny Do you like the, um... the fact that the test selected can do everything apart from glasses. Well, that's the other thing. Your motorbike? Yes, we can do a motorbike with moving parts, but it can't do a pair of glasses. No, because it actually says let's keep this simple. We won't do anything detachable. So they can detach things. And the main reason, of course, that it takes the glasses off is that you kind of imagine that it's going to do what the T 1000 does in in Terminator 2 and kind of like poke his head in or something like that, but it just takes the glasses off him and puts them on. like in a way that is super menacing. Yeah, the effect of the tessellator changing shape is much more interesting than it might have been with all of the, it is like a whole of tiles, hence the names, as opposed to, as opposed to it being some goobly mess that sort of morphs into the new shape. It's a lovely effect. It also has one of my favourite parts of the story once you get inside of it and meet the antibodies, which I think are genuinely one of the least appreciated but most wonderful monsters in Doctor Who history. Every single moment with them fills me with deep joy. You will feel a tingling sensation and then death. Please stand still whilst your existence has ended or something like that. I mean, I know it's a screwball comedy episode, but I mean, if we were if one were to be making it more seriously, you'd you wouldn't have them say any of that stuff, it'd be far more creepy and they'd just be sort of, you know, approaching silently. But to make it that, again, the fun Marvel universe, the antibody jellyfish things need to, you know, proclaim what they're about to do in this kind of weird way. I mean, I think that's Doctor Who. Oh, I don't know whether it's always Doctor Who. I think that that comes and goes, that sort of thing. Depending on whether they're going for that. I think I think Doctor Who Monsters have always kind of walked a line between silly and scary where there's an element of camp. There's an element of playground catchphrases. They're, their, their score for kids, and there's always an element of, it's kind of silly, and that's kind of why we love it to it. I think. No, you see, I think the silliness. Do you think that that's deliberate in the new series? Yes, exactly, James. It's deliberately done in a new series because I think in the original series, it is all, well, in the main, trying to be more serious and it's silly when it's failing to do that. And so the new series, the style of the new series, is it's run with that, um, by bringing the silliness in as a as a Nintendo aspect of it. And you're right, they've always had catchphrases, but not deliberately so. I mean, not, you know, the catchphrases have been, should we say, a little less subtle nowadays, they do a catchphrase because they want a catchphrase. It's just a different way of doing. Yeah, they're lampshading it. Like the new series lampshades. I'd say the classic series did too. I mean, you don't put Hartnell in the Dalek in the space museum because you want it to be taken seriously. Yeah, I actually think it's a function of when we were watching it. I actually think that the creators of the show were kind of aware that their monsters did kind of walk the line between funny and silly and that silly wasn't a failure mode. I think silly was often what they were kind of going for. And I certainly think that Bob Holmes' approach is often that. Like Bob Holmes is often kind of aiming for sort of camp nonsense and hitting it rather than aiming for serious terror and failing to hit it. Oh, I don't think it was aiming for serious terror. And you're right, there are a lot of moments, whether it's heartland, the Dalek in the Space Museum, or what, but it's just a different, and yeah, and I will accept that it is a function of when, when, when we're watching it. But I still think, as James is saying, they lampshaded a little bit more in the new series compared to in the old twos. Yes, of course, there are moments of camp. Deliberate, deliberate stupidity, yeah. Deliberate campness. I think the show, the new series is based on the reception of the old series, more than it is on the actual old series itself. So how did we watch the old series? Let's replicate that rather than how what was the old series actually like and replicate that. And I think that that's fine because, you know, the new series is written in full knowledge of the things that everyone remembers fondly about the old series. Yeah, I mean, but that's why or remembers fondly about what they wish the old series might have had. That's why you have Dalek versusylum in the end, you know, the 2nd season. You know, that is all about that. Well, that's why you have the Titanic and a kind of a Titanic popping up because that's everyone was waiting for that story in the 1st in the 1st original run. So, was anyone surprised, I'm talking about the first time round um, 10 years ago, when Mel regenerates into Alex Kingston? Oh, yep. I mean, like I said, I expected it to be river from the start, but the recasting through me and I at that point stopped thinking about it as a possibility. So when it hits, it's like, oh. I think that's the brilliance of it, isn't it? So we have already learned. We've already learned that melody is river, so we do know that. We know the character is called Mel's, and it is the usual Moffat thing of hiding the solution to the mystery in plain sight. Who is Missy? Guess what? She's the master. Who else could it possibly be? And yet it does actually come as a surprise. We know that the doctor's hunting for melody. We know that river is melody, and yet when river actually turns up we're surprised to see her. And I think that that's actually pretty good. I have to say, though, that clearly we're characterising river quite differently, the river that we know is older, and in silence in the library, she's as old as she's ever going to get. And so this is young river. And so she is very different. And I don't quite know how to feel about how girly she is. So there's that line when Mel's is regenerating where she says shut up, dad. focussing on a dress size and then and then you get River kind of running out of the room to check something and it's clearly her arse. Like, she clearly checks her butt and then comes back... I honestly think it's the best post-regeneration scene for that reason. entirely Jodie had done it. If Ali Jo did look down and said, wow, there's a lot going on down there. Matt Smith, if Matt Smith had looked down and said that, that would have been a lot of fun too. No, he's a bit skinny, so it would be more, there's not a lot going on down there. So yeah, it does sort of play into sort of Moffatt's stereotype gender essentialism thing that he is always kind of being hit for and is certainly a massive feature of coupling. Um, but it's hard not to enjoy it for just being incredibly fun even though it's, it trivialised as a, I guess we know that that's not all that there is to river and it is just a sort of post regeneration excitement with a new body, I think. I think it also helps that Alex Kingston sort of plays the character in this episode is just like a sort of naughty rebellious teen the whole time. It's a totally different performance. I've never really picked up on just how different it is before, but she's having a lot of fun playing a snotty kid. But she's just, she's just regenerated from basically being a snot 18. So, like, that is a natural progression. But also the character of River Song. He's very fashion conscious. She's always looking spectacular in whatever she wears, whether she's, you know, sabotaging an alien spaceship in high heels or whether whatever it is she's doing, even when she's in a uniform she looks fantastic. Regenerating is like putting on another set of clothes for a time lord, surely. So, and a surprising set of clothes. A set of clothes that you don't know what they're going to be like. And it's like, 0 my god, this is so fantastic. I've got this and that, I've got that. And the comedy with the doctor is always like discovering, oh my god, the chin's huge or the nose is huge. Oh my god, what's this? There's always the joke about looking in the mirror going, 0 my god, what's that? Whereas it's great that with the females who regenerate, whether it's Ramada or River song, they're always looking at how fabulous they are, because let's face it, they are. Well, except that bit where Romana's a fish person. It is that thing about the, you know, the female timelords, see well, that the time or 2 are predominantly female, seem to have much more control over the regeneration and the male ones do. For the men, it's all a chaotic nightmare and they're traumatised afterwards, whereas both Romana and River song, go through these generations and are totally invigorated by the process. I think the doctors just crap at it. I know a lot of trans women who really love that. Great. And and then we get the shopping, like going shopping. And that, like, you actually think you're in Berlin. You know, it's one of the world centres of fashion. She's literally going to go to the shops, but instead there she is in the Temple of Peace in Cardiff, like with machine guns, you know, threatening all these horrible, horrible sort of Nazi people that thing where Rory and Amy sort of turn up on a motorcycle going, where on earth do we find river? And then all of these people run out of a restaurant in their underwear and oh, there she is. It's so good. I mean it is just so terrifically funny. is very funny. Speaking of so terrifically funny, how we get there is incredible with the very Sherlocky. I switched the weapon and back and forth clever montage because it's just so knowingly ridiculous. You get that amazing shot of Alex Kingston looking royally ticked off holding a banana. It's wonderful. It's the 2nd time, of course, too, that the doctor has substituted a banana for a gun in Moffat story because Christopher Eckleston does it to Captain Jack way, way, way back in series one. He probably forgot he did it. Let's be real. No, it's Moffat. He's going back to his tried and true tropes. It's his thing. And of course, we have missed out in getting to this point, we have missed out one of the perhaps funniest lines is when River comes out with being about going to a gay gypsy ber mitzvah. For the disabled. It's just beautiful. confident same. I didn't give up. I mentioned last week that one of my history teacher colleagues had a screen cap of that on the wall of her classroom, not a particular Doctor Who fan, but absolutely adored that line. And it's even the, oh, the Fuhrer is a bit rubbish, or what is it? The 3rd rider's rubbish. a bit rubbish. I think or kill the Furrer. Who's with me? So good. It's one of those lines that transcends the show it came from and just goes viral on the strength of itself. I definitely saw that line all over the place after the episode aired. that good. There's that whole bit before that where he references the graduate as well. Oh, yeah, the moment she's that she's older. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She lifts her leg. You know, like Mrs. Robinson. It's absolutely. But somehow he's forgotten the graduate from the series opener because clearly he knows the plot there. He's forgotten in about 7 episodes. So, one of the most wonderful and impactful scenes to me in this episode is the scene where the doctors and the TARDIS speaking to the voice interface, and it comes out after, you know, some shockingly wonderful callbacks to the last couple companions little Amy. And it's just so dry but so touching with the, uh, I mean, for, for a start, it's just funny. You'll be dead in 32 minutes, just keeps escalating perfectly, but it never really loses track of the emotion in the scene and it really gets me. I have to be uncharacteristically, uh, curmudgeonly about this, but I actually find that whole end a little bit overwrought, and it's and it's the 1st time I think that I'm not totally sold on Matt's performance choices, or whether it's that I just don't want to watch sort of prolonged scenes of him crying out in pain or something like that. Like, I just, I just find that that's the bit where I kind of that's the bit where I kind of check out a little bit and I'm no longer kind of fully on board with the episode. And I don't know if it's the script or exactly what's happening there, but it's, it's, you know, Doctor Who always kind of changes tone. you know what I mean? Like it pivots from comedy to tragedy and all sorts of things all the time and that's one of the things that we really like about it. But for me, I don't think that those that final scene quite lands. Do you think it just goes on too long? Maybe. In terms of all the... Yeah, agony and pain part. Maybe, I mean, there's funny things about it. You know, like there are properly funny things about it. And I do like the interaction with the test selector and stuff. But I just think, you know, the, it just, it all gets a little bit weepy over a death that we know isn't real and I, I don't know. But I suppose it needs to build to the bit where Rivers giving her regenerations to the doctor. So... I mean, for me, it's rushed anyway, that sequence. And so maybe they're just trying to create enough of enough of a rationale for that. You're right. I don't think it's particularly good, but um, Uh, I suppose they're trying to build. I really like how it ties into the overall idea in the episode of changing history and interfering with things because the whole plot arc of the series is we saw the doctor die. We know when it's going to happen. We're wondering how to get out of it. And then it just decides to throw a wrench in it and kill them early. And to see how the characters react to that. I think it's really satisfying in that way because you know, you know, in both cases, the doctor's going to get out of it, but by throwing an extra one in, it sort of gives you a chance to explore a different reaction from everybody. I think it really is meaningful for River as a character to see that happen early, given that's the true trajectory, we know she's always been on. And I think it works for how the characters bounce off of it. I think it's a good antidote to what happened last episode because last episode we kind of come to the conclusion that the doctor is actually a bad man, a good man who goes to war is Rory, and the doctor is a terrifying force who has, by his behaviour, caused this problem to occur, that people are stealing his friend's baby to use against him as a weapon because they're terrified of him. And here, the question is asked, is the doctor a good man or not? Is the doctor worth saving? and a river is the one who answers yes and is kind of prepared to do that at a particular cost. So, you know, the fact that that she kills him and then he rescues her from the test selector and just allows himself to die. I think that that actually works. I think there's just something about the tone of it that I don't like. I mean, I'm not a fan of the whole, uh, trying to paint the doctor as some ultimate evil in the universe or at least evil. I mean, yes, it's all great to say, you know, your evil is my good kind of thing. Um, that aspect of it always works, but but I just think that the series started to go down this, um, unfortunate path where we start to question whether the doctor is actually a good man, you know, he is self evidently a very good man. Now we can question and wonder about some of the things that he's done and some of the consequences of his actions and their unfortunate outcomes that may spring from that, but I think that it crosses a line into sort of suggesting that his motivations are impure. Don't you think it does that or not? I personally don't. To me, I feel like the idea of the criticism of him in a good man goes to war and other series within Moffatt and outside. Davies was doing a lot of the same thing was, I feel like it's more questioning the idea of mythologising the doctor than it is questioning the doctor as a character themselves. Like the doctor is clearly the protagonist. They're clearly fundamentally good, even if they make mistakes. But also, this is a TV show with flaws. And we see some of those flaws in some of the episodes. We see the doctor abandoning people. We see a lot of that. And the instinct of the new series is to respond to those gaps and say, well, what do we make of those? Yeah. Yeah, and this is a man that like he, he's a good man, he's trying to do good in the universe, but quite often he has to take actions which are, terrible to achieve that, you know, wiping out alien races. Like changing people's lives to suit his ends. to save other people. Like, they, like, he, he is making these choices, which are, you know, are morally questionable. For what he thinks for the right reasons. So I think I don't think that's an overreach, like the questioning that they keep coming back to in this era, am I a good man? I think that's a good character beat. It's saying, you know, he actually does have some interiority. Yeah, that these, I think that, I think that Kevin nails it, these things that happen that just because it's a sort of adventure genre program, where we defeat villains at the end and where the you know, companions leave when their contract runs out, what happens if all of that's happening in a real world to a real character, what does that make that character? There is a problem in that, and we say this in our last episode. The doctor can't really learn from that because he's still going to be in a genre program of that kind. So we're not going to see some great reformation where he decides to not do that anymore. But it does make it interesting. And I do think it's telling that in a few seasons time when the show really kind of abandons that idea, I do think it suffers as a result. One of the other things that kind of disappoints me a bit about this episode is, I feel like it rushes through what could have been a really interesting story of Mel's becoming river and the woman who attempts to kill the doctor or does kill a doctor. I think that it all happens so fast, and it's a wasted opportunity there. I think it would have been much more interesting for those events to happen, but to have been split across, say, just say 3 episodes you know half a season apart from each other. Now, maybe that stretches the river song thing out too much and it would have been too self-indulgent, but I just feel it's too quick. I agree. I mean, I love this series. I'm on the record saying it's my favourite as I did at the top of this. I do think we could have used more of Mel's. We could have used more of that. And I'm still disappointed we never got a story of River and Mel's interacting together. We can do 2 doctors. Why not 2 rivers? I mean, Big Finish kind of did it, but they wiggled out of it. It was good though. There's so many opportunities there. This episode sets up more good ideas than it has time to spend with. And that's a bit of a shame, but I prefer Doctor Who with having too many ideas to give full focus to all of them than to not having the ideas in the 1st place. Oh, it's being dull is the ultimate crime. Well, dear listener, that's all we have time for this week. You'll be back next week for a very middle class excursion to one of England's most scenic housing estates in night terrors. In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts and you can keep up with us at Flightthrough Entirety on Facebook at FTE podcast on Twitter, and on our website FlightthroughEntirety.com, where you'll find links to our other podcasts, Bondfinger, Jody InterTara, maximum power, and untitled Star Trek Project. Kevin, where can people find you? Well, I am still tweeting embarrassing tweets away at Scribble Script on Twitter. I am so sorry for any of you who follow me already, but please follow me if you don't. And at some point, I will be announcing the, uh, well, I'll be sharing the link to buy the faction paradox book, which I'm writing a short story for. I just sent off the 2nd draft this week. And so hopefully progress will happen on that soon. I do not know the mines behind it. I just know I'm feeling kind of proud of what I did. Until next time, remember that it is normal to experience fear during your incineration. Please remain calm and thank you very much for listening and good night. Good death. See you soon. Good night. That was Flight 3 entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Kevin Bernard, Simon Moore and James Selwood. Theme arrangement by Cameron Lann. This episode, Tried and True Tropes, was recorded on the 22nd of August 2021 and released on the 7th of November. As you heard me suggest me a seconds ago, we have just released a new commentary podcast called Untitled Star Trek Project, in which friend of the podcast Joe Ford and I watch and discuss a randomly chosen episode from any Star Trek series. You can find it at Untitled Star Trek Project.com or wherever good podcasts can be found. I think that's the out. Yeah. No, I think that's the app. What do you reckon? Yes, yes, that is the out. Like, you know, it seemed the very end with the professor at Lunar University. That's actually a reference to a short story he wrote for Declog 3. The mid 90s. I love that fact. Mm, Professor Candy. Yes. Actually, the character, the character was also in Paul Cornell's. Oh no, it isn't the 1st Bernie Summerfield, the whole. I think is the 1st one. And that character spends the entire story as a panto drag queen which is, I think, a very important fact. It said like the 1st episode with Chris in the new adventures, the 1st book where he's like been body grafted into a big giant teddy bear. This is the 2nd this is the 2nd this is the 2nd episode in a row where Moffat's plundered his ideas from his from his childhood. And to this day, isn't Professor Candy the only character to graduate from the tie-in books and comics and stuff to the TV show? Well, Nathan didn't make it across. from Human Nature in the TV show. I was so I was so integral to the book of human nature. You're never speaking of people. That I didn't make it into the actual thing, ever. Okay. All right. Well, we'll do an outro and Kevin, I'll do the, where can people find you and you can plug something? All right. Whatever you like. Okay, here goes. Is it night terrors next? I think it's Night Terrace next. Yes it is. Yes, I am so sorry for you. I'm so glad I don't have to do it. Wealthy listener, that's all we have time for this week.