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.
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.