Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flightthrough Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast with a PhD in cheesemaking or
something.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Peter.
I'm Conrad, and I'm Cy.
Well, last week's holiday on Appalapuccia, wasn't as relaxing as
we expected.
And so here we are in every grimy English hotel you've ever stayed
in with rooms packed full of our darkest fears, and something
large, hairy and muscular stalking the corridors, who we find
ourselves weirdly compelled to worship.
It's time for us to explore the god complex.
With that greasy breakfast buffet?
So, Cy, how have you been enjoying series 6 so far?
It's an interesting season, isn't it?
It's all over the place.
There's some really, really great episodes and some absolute
stinkers in there as well.
Um, yeah, it's so up and down, particularly after coming off the
back of series 5, which was so brilliant all the way through.
This one, you never know what to expect.
And so you've got the low points of the curse of the black spot
which I think is one of the serious low points of Doctor Who in
general, and then got the high points like the Doctor's Wife and
this episode, which I think is near on perfect.
You know, so I think this season's going to be in X-Files for the
1st time since Doctor Who came back in 2005 in that, the
standalone episodes are better than the Arc episodes.
You know, I do like the opening 2 parter, and I like the wedding
of River song, but this season, the standouts for me are this
episode, the girl who waited and the doctor's wife.
So, I think those kind of middle arc episodes, and let's include
the dreadful gangers in that as well for its ending.
I think they weighed the season down.
So this is good.
Well, absolutely.
It rises so high, but it falls so low.
Yeah, I think I'm the same.
I much prefer the standalone stories than the arc ones, especially
in this in this series.
And also I read that this was originally supposed to be in series
5, which would have been interesting.
I read that in like a black archive and I was just intrigued that
the idea originally came up sort of for series 5.
And I think that...
I would surprise Chicken remember it if you read it in the Black
Archive.
I know.
It was interesting, but like I feel like it belongs, it would
belong really nice in series 5 because it has got that fairy tale
feel to it, but I definitely prefer the self-enclosed stories and
find them more successful than the arc, which, you know, I think I
think the arc that runs through series 5, just like, oh, what's
the crack in Amy's wall?
is fine.
But this is the one where I can't really follow the ark and I'm
not sort of interested in revisiting it much.
So I love the fact that this is, apart from a bolt on at the end.
This is a self-enclosed story and I love those.
In fact, we've been a little bit light on the arc lately.
The early episodes of series 6 constantly had to remind us that
the doctor was going to die and constantly had to remind us that
Amy was pregnant.
And I think that in some ways, the intrusion of the arc actually
affected some episodes negatively.
Like, curse of the black spot, I think, suffers from all of the
things that we had to stick in there to get it in the 1st half of
the series.
And so this is a more interesting version of the arc because
Moffat's arcs aren't always about sort of cracks in the wall or
key phrases or anything like that.
They tend to be character arcs as well.
And I think that this really does a very good job of that.
So it's not just as a brilliant, self-contained episode.
It is also kind of an interesting waypoint, I guess, in Amy and
Rory's story.
Yeah, I'm surprised by how little Amy and Rory featured in the
episode actually, because it's important for them.
Yeah, it's tangentially about them, really, particularly it's
about Amy and the doctor's relationship and Rory's relationship
again, with the 2 of them.
But it's not at the forefront of the episode at all, is it?
And I think the reason for that is the character of Rita.
And I think she is, you know, one of the best guest characters
we've had all season and maybe so far in the Moffatt era, she's so
charming.
Like the actor herself is just absolutely as charming as hell.
And they...
She's so good, Nathan, that it makes that little bit about Amy
you're fired a little bit too close to her.
And then the doctor does his little call me sign thing as well.
I'm joking, but no seriously, call me.
But I mean, I think that that's the point because it's Rita, who
is an absolutely solid candidate for a companion.
She has all of the characteristics that you expect a companion to
show, you know, like Martha, I guess, at the beginning of series
3.
She's independent.
She's clever, she has leadership abilities.
She's not super impressed by the doctor, but there's a spark.
And he offers her all of time in space.
He explicitly makes that offer.
And we have that moment where Rory says, you know, every time I
see the doctor kind of getting pally with someone, I want to
notify their next of kin.
And that's the point, isn't it?
That because of that thing that happens to Rita, that's why the
doctor drops Amy off because the parallel between them is so
uncomfortable.
And...
I guess Widhouse covers this a bit in Vampires of Venice, do you
remember the speech that Rory gives to the doctor?
about how the doctor's dangerous because people try to impress him
and then put themselves in danger.
And, you know, Windhouse picks that up here, I think.
Yeah, it's quite nice.
It's him riffing on himself, and it's also him riffing on, I think
Stephen Moffat has touched on the doctor as kind of icon, which
fits into the God complex in episodes like Good Man Goes to War.
I mean, Russell did it as well in sort of more overt ways and
things like the Wars of Mars and maybe midnight.
You know, the whole I'm clever routine that the doctor has.
And I think this is another riff on the doctor being that kind of
iconic galaxy spanning figure that we saw in a good man goes to
war, but kind of understanding the repercussions of it.
I think one of the episodes downsides, one of its few downsides is
that like night terrors, it makes Amy and Rory a bit redundant in
the storytelling and reinforces that 2 companions is maybe too
many, but also you've got Rita there and while she was fulfilling
that very valuable plot and thematic function.
She is just kind of better.
And she says, she's super charming and incredibly magnetic.
Like, you can't take your eyes off her when she's in any scene.
She really has got it, you know.
And also seeing this as well.
I haven't actually watched a Matt Smith story for a long time.
I don't know why.
And the 2nd I saw him, just like, he's the 1st shot you get at him
is just looking down, you know, this silly hair flopping forward
this big face excited about his off words out.
And the 2nd I saw him, I just beamed and I was like, oh my god
I've missed you so much.
You're so brilliant.
He's hysterical.
And I know, and there's so many bits in here.
And again, talk about not being able to take your eyes off him.
I mean he's just magic.
I know, Nathan, you said that this contains one of your favourite
map moments or you've got a new favourite map moments and I'm
going to see if I can guess what it is because I've got loads.
Like, I loved a bit when Ren Rita sort of says, oh, the rooms have
got things in them.
And he just goes, things.
Hello.
Yeah, he just does this really silly kind of...
I love that.
And there's a moment when she's talking to him and he just gargles
his tea and you know that that's that's a mat, that's a mattsness
thing.
His tea drinking. it's amazing.
No one drinks tea like that.
But it's so watchable.
He licks the cup.
And then halfway through shit in the middle of a sentence.
He just throws his head back and gargles the tea.
And the other...
That could be what it is.
Have I got it yet, Nathan?
I got it.
I've got one watch.
I got one more.
I got one more gun.
Is another bit, which I absolutely love right at the end when, when
when, when, well, I'm sure talk about the end later, but when Rory
gets presented with his dream car, and he's like, it's my
favourite car, how did you know?
And he goes, because you showed me a picture of it once, that's my
favourite car.
And he does this wonderful impression of Rory.
I just love that.
Like it's really good.
So that's my go because those are my 3 moments, sort of comedic
moments of him.
I've missed it, haven't I, that you've got another one in there?
No, I do have another one.
I did like the cheese plant, his reaction to the cheese plant, but
just that wasn't it.
But just generally his delight about the hotel, like just how into
it he is.
And that moment with things where he goes, things hello.
It's kind of like, you know, I really like things.
They're my hobby or something.
Like, it's so good.
Yeah, exactly.
And he's sort of trying to impress her in that moment.
Like, he's literally picked up the 1st thing she said to you, there
are things.
He's like, oh, I'm good at this.
I love things.
Hello.
He's like, he's really magnetically drawn to her as well.
He's trying to impress her immediately.
He sees her.
But yeah, so that, I mean, you know, that's the biggest, that just
watching this again, like he just, he is bloody fantastic.
And for somebody like Matt Smith is, and you see him in real life
and how he presents himself and the kind of things he's drawn to
Matt Smith is a very cool person, you know, he, the way he dress
he's always prides himself on how he, how he looks, and even when
he's, you know, you see, you've sort of pat through the shots at
him just smoking a fag or whatever, he always just looks
effortlessly cool.
And for him to throw that all away and be this total dork.
You know, he's such an act of gener, like huge generosity and, you
know, the fact he can't, he's totally useless with talking to
people, but especially girls.
I was like, that's got to be the absolute opposite of Matt Smith, I
think, is truly wonderful.
I always, always loves seeing him and this is just a joy.
So many doctors who channel themselves for the part, but you get
the impression that matters just channelling a very small specific
part of himself.
Yes, yeah, yeah.
Definitely.
I mean, it's it's his line readings as well that always get me.
Like there's, there are 2 moments that I, I am noted down.
There's the, oh, look at you.
You are beautiful.
He says when he sees the minotor for the 1st time, and also that
we're going to catch ourselves a monster.
And he's just, he just plays it so brilliantly and you're just
caught up with him and his excitement in those moments all the
time.
He's superb.
So my moment is when he is confronting David Williams' character
and he talks to him about the cowardice and how sneaky and kind of
passive aggressive it is.
And I've spoken before about how much I like Matt's doctor when
he's angry and underplaying it, but he's not even really properly
angry and he's, he's not...
I'm struggling to find the word, but he seems to be he seems to be
sort of genial.
You know, it's not threatening.
The lines are, but his he's just absolutely underplaying it.
And it ends with him sort of, you know, he touches his shoulder.
He claps him on the shoulder and says, brilliant, we agree, as if
that wasn't an agreement that had been kind of extracted just by
force.
You know, that the doctor had had in a way threatened him, but
without in any way playing it as a threat.
It's it's amazing.
He's so good.
Like, I love the zaniness and the awkwardness of Matt Smith, but
what I like most of all is that he'll do something that you would
just never, ever expect.
And eventually they start to go, oh, let's give Matt Smith say any
things to do his zany, but I think it's better when they give him
just normal things to do and then let him do them however he
wants.
Yeah, he's a real mixture of like incredibly instinctive and
incredibly sophisticated.
He, you know, he'll just let himself be really free and then just
find the one right choice that's absolutely that unpacks the whole
thing.
I mean, I'm going to go straight, sort of, almost at the heart of
it, in one of Matt's moments.
They've sort of run away from the monster.
They've hidden themselves in in a room.
And the doctor is there at the peephole, you know, where you look
out into the corridor and he wants to see it.
And this is, I think this, I don't know if it's in the script or
whether it's a map moment, but it almost doesn't matter because
just the way he does it.
As he looks from Amy, to the, he says, I have to see, and he just
gives her this smile before he goes to look at it.
It's this like, and it's, there's so, it's so truthful, there's a
1000000 moments in that.
There's the sort of, there's the joy of doing it.
There's the him saying to Amy, I'm going to do this thing.
Isn't it exciting?
He also wants to see her reaction.
It's just, there's a 1000000 things going on in that spark.
And, and also, I think that moment of that pleasure of looking at
something that you shouldn't want to look at, is the heart of the
entire story.
And almost, the whole story is in that 12nd that he might have
just done off the cuff, like incredibly sophisticated actor.
But, you know, maybe that was his 5th taking.
It would have been a totally different thing he'd have done.
He's a wonder, you know, like it really is.
He's a wonder.
It struck me while watching it, that, do you remember when the
underwater menace 2 was returned?
and there's so much Patrick Troughton business on screen in that
episode, which you just don't realise if you're listening to an
audio or whatever?
And I think the comparisons between Matt Smith's doctor and the
2nd doctor are a little bit over-egged, but they both have that
ability to be frivolous and funny and undeplayed and then just
turn on steel at the moments where you need to.
Um, and it works for me.
It's great.
Yeah.
And what you were saying, Nathan, it occurs to me that that moment
when he's talking to Gibbons, and also it has to be said, who
gives brilliant reactions in that moment, if that's slightly told
off, and yeah, I know, we're all right.
What?
Yeah, okay.
You know, that terrifying thing, there's that slight, there is a
threat in there, but it's very, very subtle because when someone
you know, that slight feeling, you know, you remember, like when
someone does kind of, you know, clap their arm on your shoulder
and go, we're all right, aren't we?
You're like, okay, and it's slightly threatening, but it's chummy
and it's, it's a 1000000 things at once.
It's very, very, he's just brilliant.
Sorry, that's why that was it.
That sounds brilliant.
That's what I put my next.
That's actually what it says.
Let's talk about the look, as well, before we get into the story.
We had Nick Curran last week. for the girl who waited, and he will
be back next year for what?
Asylum of the Daleks and Angels take Manhattan.
And then I think they give him day of the doctor.
Is that right?
I think that this is absolutely incredibly directed.
Like, it's amazingly good.
And maybe even better than last week, I think.
Yeah, I think I think from the 1st second.
It's just incredibly rich.
You know, he sets his stage out incredibly.
You see just the weird looking down a staircase, a square
staircase, not all slightly rotates, sort of like a vault, like a
bit of a Doctor Who vortex moment, and then you see there's just
the shots and the CCTV and these empty corridors and the music
just plays, you know, it's like putting the needle on the record
and it's very much setting out the stage that we've all turned up
to see because we're all, you know, and I hate from that from the
1st get go, he's very much in control of this place and then later
on he can just play and and twist and do 1000000 things with it.
But from the word go, you're in his space and you just have to
kind of deal with it.
It's masterfully done.
And it's just the flashes of text on the screen as well with the
praise him flashing up, which is really unsettling, but really
cool as well.
And you're wondering what the hell this is all about.
What what is this?
Why is this happening?
And the flash frames and the jump cuts between people's reactions
in the rapture and things like that and the changes of
expressions.
He's worked so hard to get something really different on screen.
Such a good storytelling director.
I think the visual style of this and the girl who waited make the
episodes, they could have, dare I say it, been a little bit
ordinary in other hands, but he just tells the story with such
flair.
All those lovely fisheye kind of shallow focussed close-ups.
And there was a shot which really appealed to me because it's done
in essentially one take.
I mean, I think it's edited together subliminally, but looks like
one take.
The reveal of Joe, the character Joe slumped against the wall, dead
when they find him.
It's just a bit of camera trickery, which pulls from the distance
where people are crossing into the close-up of the doctor's feet
and then just pans up to find Joe against the wall.
And it's a really lovely shot.
There's another lovely shot when they find Howie.
Do you remember that?
and Howie is just quite small in the shot.
It's almost as if he's there by accident and we're just interested
in going down the corridor.
And the obvious thing to do would be to have then Matt enter that
shop, but he doesn't, you know, we can't, and he enters from
another direction.
But it's just how he's just been kind of left behind and forgotten
like it increases the pathos enormously.
And it just makes his presence there seem, you know, incidental.
It's it's so good.
Even the way, like when you're doing the minor tour points of
viewshot, the camera's like way up at the top of the of the
corridor because because he's so tall. you know, like it's it's
just tremendous.
The other 2 things that I think are really good.
There's finding Lucy's police notebook and having the doctor read
that and hearing Lucy's voice and sort of seeing the text and
seeing her sort of all in the same shot, which I think, you know
it would have been deadly dull to have Matt just read it out, and
it would have been kind of cheesy to sort of flashback and have
Lucy reading it out.
And so just having the doctor evoke this woman by, you know
reading her words, I think is beautifully done.
Yeah, oh, and the fact that they're both out of sync as well.
And they're not reading it together just works so well.
It's just a tiny touch, but it's just flair. absolute flair.
And as well as the way he, you know, he's got lots to play with
these corridors because they, you know, contract and expand and
there's that brilliant line where she's like, this hotel could be
you know, it changes.
I could be 50 miles away by now.
That's just wonderful.
And he, you absolutely believe that because the way he stretches
and contracts and confuses you with like basically one corridor.
But he also does sort of time as well.
Like, when you said, Nathan, with the monster starts very high
up.
But when he comes into the attack, it just speeds up his journey
he just goes, he just whizzes along the corridor to its victim.
But then there's another moment, a key moment where Rita faces
that the monster and it just seems is all, I think it sort of
happens in slow-mo.
It does happen in slow motion, where she, in on the monitor, just
turns around this sort of little girl turning around to this big
to the resignation to face this thing and he just slows it for the
last few frames.
And that's, so he's increased, like he really uses the elasticity
of the place beautifully.
And at the same time, he knows when to pull back and just leave
well enough alone.
So one of the most affecting shots in the episode, I found, was
just the high shot of the 3 victims laid out on what looks like an
altar, sort of Howie and Rita and the other character, and I just
found it very sad in its simplicity, and he holds the shot.
The shot is held longer than you might otherwise think.
And it's really poignant.
It's great storytelling.
There's also a, there's also a real peace as well.
There's a moment after a lot of, you know, very heightened stuff
has happened.
They're just forced to moment of peace where the doctor talks to
Rory, he just sort of comes up and it's a bit of like, all right
how are you doing?
You've done your room, and it's very conversational.
And meanwhile, Amy, you just see her from somewhere else, just
quietly resetting the goldfish bowl.
And it's there's a moment of real peace where they're all just
sort of having a breather and just resetting themselves in the
story.
It's a real, like, the way he paces it. is beautiful.
Yeah, and there's the um, 2 shots that worked for me really well.
There's the bit in the salon where you see the minotaur through
the running water on the um, on the water feature.
I know my hairdresser doesn't have a water feature.
But that was just beautiful because you can't quite make it out
but you can see enough to get a general idea of what the monster
looks like.
That was perfect.
And it was also the shot after Rita's died, and after the doctor
has had his moment of smashing all the all the cutlery around, and
the 4 characters who were left are all sat in the in the booths in
the restaurant, and it's just one long shot looking down across
the mall, and they're all doing something different, but it all it
just was just beautifully done.
I'm all in favour of the shoddy little booth.
It is saying something about the characters too.
Like they all sat at those booths.
They're all quite distant from one another.
None of them are facing each other.
They're all facing the same direction.
It's kind of like they haven't anything to offer one another in
this situation.
It's really, it's really something.
And and that scene in the in the beauty salon.
Haran uses reflections quite a lot and he used them in the girl
who waited in order to engineer a scene where old Amy and young
Amy are speaking to one another, but their faces are both in
shot.
And here you have a scene where the Minotaur and the doctor are in
the same place, like one is reflected over the face of the other.
And there's 2 speeches, aren't there?
that the Minotaur gives, that would clearly apply both to the
Minotaur and the doctor.
So that's a moment where the doctor is being identified with the
monotor and Haran has them in the same shot there.
And he also makes it clear that you've met your room.
Like he does this twice, I think, where the person is reflected in
the glass that has the number of the room.
So Amy's face is visible when it's room 7 and then we open the
door and see that her greatest fear is being abandoned by the
doctor and then we do it again with the doctor.
And just that stuff is, everything is sort of so rich and
interesting and thoughtful and just, yeah, just interesting to
look at.
It's very very good.
I think the basis of all this.
It has to be said, like Stephen Moffatt's brief, you know, this
was his his brief to attribute you, was to say, I want a hotel, a
labyrinth.
They're trapped in a labyrinth hotel.
So he and Moffatt has a fantastic instinct for what makes things
frightening.
You know, gas masks children or statues that come to life.
You know, he's got a very good as a starting point.
And a hotel is a brilliant starting point for a Doctor Who story
and we've never really had one or they've never really done it as
fully as this.
And I think that's that does just that idea does an awful lot of
work.
And, you know, hotels are instantly he'd have gone, oh, a scary
hotel and it brings you the obvious references of, you know, the
shining and stuff like that.
But it doesn't, it's a very Doctor Who idea because it's all magic
doors and corridors.
It feels quite Dr. Huey. we sort of feel like, 0 yeah, this is
right.
And then once you've got the idea of, which presumably Toby
brought in, was like, oh, there's a scary thing in each room, then
you're really cooking, you know, like, and hotel, hotel is a
really interesting place because it's an artificial place.
It's an adult place and I think that's really important.
Like, you, you go, you, if you think about hotels, they're just so
bloody odd.
Like you only go there to sort of do business or do business.
You know, you go there to, you know, and there's, I just got me
thinking about hotels and Nathan, you were talking to Ellie about
like, you know, weird and wonderful hotels, and we've all had
their weird experiences because they're just weird.
And also, depending on what kind of hotels you go to.
They're really just the principal thing there is just a bed to
sort of sleep in or read Doctor Who magazine in. you know, like
it's a very, and when you go in there, you get this kind of, I
mean, it's very exciting going to hotel because you're like, ooh
you know, I've got this little private bubble and privacy is
absolutely what you're there for.
And you think, oh, I can do anything on my holiday or for whatever
reason, I'm in that hotel.
But when you come out, you just see all of those doors with all
these other possibilities and privacies in there.
And so you get this kind of infinite amount of kind of private
adult desire to kind of wonder what's behind that.
And that's so rich.
It's like, you know, it inevitably, you know, I think as a selling
point, the one where it's a hotel and there's something scary
behind every door is why we turn up.
You know, we could, there's, there's lots of things at play here.
There's the hotel, you get, you get the, the mythical stuff that
Toby Witt has think is really interesting to bring to it.
But for me, I think the real why we're all here is to see what's
behind everyone else's doors or to see what's your own.
And I think inevitably you do ask yourself what's behind, you know
yours.
And I think that's a sort of nice game to play at home.
I think as well, Tebby House has a really good stir, like it
really stirs you up.
It's actually very, very disturbing.
And they slightly fudge what's behind the door because we all, they
actually say, what's behind the door?
Oh, it's bad dreams and just for the 1st half of it, I think all
that anyone has said is behind that, no one said it's your darkest
fear.
Everyone's just, I think for the 1st half they've just said, oh
it's bad dreams.
That doesn't quite cover it.
You know, there's all sorts of things behind there, right?
Because they can't really show your deepest, darkest desire
because that is unshowable.
And if you ask yourself the question, you'll probably sort of say
little phobia you've got.
You won't really say what your deepest, darkest fear is.
And I think it's just summed up really, really, really brilliantly
by in the 1st line in the pre-credits thing where he says, you
know, you don't know what's going to be in your room until you see
it and then you realise it could never have been anything else.
I think that's brilliant.
Because if you do play that game and go, what's behind mine?
You'll come up with something, your standard phobia or something
or a trauma or an embarrassment, but you won't really come up with
your deepest darker spheres because you can never really know it.
And it's because it's so it's really deeply stirring that
psychological pot, which for I think on a Saturday night is really
rich.
Conrad, I think you're right in that, like, corridors are the
fundamental of Doctor Who, and hotels are just full of corridors
and so it's weird that we haven't had an episode set in a hotel
before.
Um, I also think it was probably a little bit sad with the
changing running order that this and night terrors was so close
together because night terrors does that similar thing of that
moffity thing of taking sort of an everyday location and making it
weird and other.
It might have worked better in the 1st half of the season.
Also, could just make sure they understood you properly.
When you get your copy of Doctor magazine, You take it to a hotel
and read it with as much privacy as possible.
Yeah, I need it.
I need it.
I just need to feel that.
I need to be honest.
I got a different room for every issue.
We don't get to see what's in Amy's room.
She sees it.
We don't see it at first, and then it's only later when they sort
of hide in there.
And we don't get to see what's in the doctor's room at all.
And I think it's very clear despite what might happen later that
the doctor's in his room.
And I think for it to work, that's what it has to be.
And so his line is, oh, yes, of course, who else would it be?
And in the context of the story, he's his own fear because the
things that he says to Amy about himself are all true, that he's a
vain man who brings people along with him because he likes being
admired and he puts them at risk.
And this is the thing I think that's underappreciated about the
11th doctor is that he's not always a very nice person.
He seems lovely.
He's good with kids, all of that sort of thing.
But there is a complexity to the character.
And I think, you know, he's the one who has the god complex in
dialogue, isn't he?
I mean, this is the god complex in the sense that it's inhabited
by a thing that compels you to worship it.
But Rita accuses him of having a god complex.
And it's very clear that he undergoes some kind of understanding
that he's been doing the wrong thing and that he has to put a stop
to her.
It's interesting that it's called out by Rita and then by the
Minotaur at the end.
They both have clocked his basic character in a way that Amy and
Rory have been almost blinded to Rory less so than Amy, but again
the story in some ways is about the doctor breaking Amy's faith in
him and letting her go.
And then he doesn't let her go because he keeps coming back for
her after that.
But though, I think their relationship is different from what it
has been before.
I think that it's possible to overread something that is being
thrown together over a period of months and stuff like that, and
they're not always as careful as they might be to seed character
development into these stories, but certainly the fact that from
here on in, the doctor drops into her life and takes her on
adventures rather than her just tailing along behind him all the
time.
You know, like I think that this is a good transition between
those phases of the character, where she's not scared of waiting
for him anymore.
Her biggest fear was being sat there being forced to wait for the
doctor.
And after this, she's no longer afraid to do that, and she can
live her life with Rory in a house and just wait for the doctor to
come back whenever he does.
And Stephen will carry that on with the next companions as well.
I mean, spoilers, Clara and Bill both have a home base and then
they go off for adventures with the doctor.
They're not trailing around after him.
That's true, isn't it?
So maybe he stopped doing it until he turned into Jody and then
forgot.
But it's also, isn't it, the transition when the doctor calls her
Amy Williams, rather than Amy Pond, and it's that transition where
she's with Rory, and that should be her focus and her life.
And suddenly that changes the whole dynamic. is like the doctors
realised, oh, hang on, something is not right in this
relationship.
We need to fix this.
I'm going to buy them a house and a car and champagne and
everything will be great and off you go, you have your life and
I'll drop in from time to time and it'll be fine.
And she started work on Monday as a geography teacher.
Calling her Amy Williams is also rejecting her role as like the
heroin in a fairy tale as well.
Remember when the doctor hears her name, Amelia Pond sounds like
the name in a fairy tale.
And then he gives her the name Amelia Williams, which she's
already said, sounds like like Melody Williams sounds like a
geography teacher.
Hasn't she complained about that last name?
And so it is just an ordinary human name and she's going to end
the story leading a sort of ordinary life.
That's still got, you know, fun, weird, wacky adventures in it and
stuff.
We're not going to be bored watching it next year, but, uh, yeah
it marks a real transition and maybe a, maybe a more fundamental
transition in the, in Moffatt's conception of the character.
Yeah, do you think it would be best for Amy and Rory's story to
finish here or do you like them coming back for 7 A and all those
adventures afterwards?
The triumph at the end of series five, and I said this over and
over again, was that Amy was rejecting adulthood in favour of
childhood and then at the end she was able to have both.
And I wanted to still have both.
So I don't think that leaving her here is the right thing.
I like what happens next year.
I have a big problem with their final episode, which will
obviously get to when we get there. like with how that story
ends.
I think it's deeply unsatisfying.
So I do think this is a good transition rather than a good
potential stopping point.
I think I'm quite, to be honest, I think I've got to sort of
confess, I'm quite old-fashioned, and I think I like my companion
leavings, like I like my generations, only used in direst
emergencies.
I don't, like it's something that's very traumatic and very
special.
I went through, like, my 1st companion leaving with Sarah Jane, and
my 1st doctor leaving was Tom Baker, both of which were deeply
traumatic.
But like, well, not traumatic, but they were really big.
And so like I just am wired to want that weight to it.
So I don't really like sort of dropping people off, saying goodbye
bringing them back, killing them, bringing them back.
And then, and this, this, I have to sort of say that this is, For
me, this sort of series is where Doctor Who starts to break up for
me as a, you know, I go into a phase where I don't really, I sort
of, you know, Steve Moffatt's here, I like, I really like series
five.
I really like series 10 and everything else in the middle kind of
lost me and this is where it starts to break up for me.
So I'm, I'm, And as a viewer, I generally sort of lose my thread a
bit, I kind of need to know.
I'm quite simple.
I just need to know who's in the tires.
I don't that I can't keep up next week if they're driving.
But yeah, and I think it's legitimate.
I think this becomes a legitimate concern and as the leavings and
dyings and coming back accelerate to a point where I really can't
follow it and I also don't care.
You know, like it's, um, it's a group, it has to be said, it's a
great leaving scene and the, uh, the, just the chemistry between
those 3 is ridiculous.
I mean, the whole scene is beautifully played and and Karen Gillon
whose acting has come up hugely, you know, she's clearly coming
with a lot of personalities. has always been a hugely likeable
person, but, you know, she's said her acting in the 1st one to
where she is now, with Matt Smith just leaning up against a car
having a little joke about washing up and they kind of giggle and
when he goes back into Target, he just gives that silly, awkward
way before he goes and she just laughs.
It's heartbreakingly beautiful and you, in that moment, like I
don't know that they knew the difference between what they were
playing, how much they loved each other.
It is so deeply beautiful.
So it's beautiful.
Well, I don't generally like the Levington Cummings back.
It's beautifully played by those three.
The chemistry is off the scale.
Definitely.
It's so beautifully done.
I mean, I cry.
My 1st leaving scene was also Sarah leaving and I was 10.
It was a repeat on the ABC and I was inconsolable.
And I cry even now during this scene, even though I know they'll
be back briefly next week.
And I think it's, it is underplayed, like it's not overwrought at
all and there's no bad blood or anything.
And even when the doctor says, you know, I'm leaving you behind
because the possibility is that I, you know, you're still
breathing and I might be standing over your broken body, but even
those lines, which are pretty hefty.
He kind of tosses off.
It's not overwrought.
Like it's not mawkish or anything.
It's still light, but it's still sort of incredibly moving and
there's even comedy.
There's a gorgeous bit where Amy tells Rory to go back into the
house and give her 2 minutes.
And Rory tries to do that, but he's distracted by the car.
And he can...
He's kind of trying to decide whether to just stay and stroke the
car or admire the car or do what Amy has said.
It's wonderful.
I think pardon the reason it packs a punch is that he's not saying
goodbye to them for space reasons.
He's saying goodbye to them for real emotional reasons, and that
probably feeds into Nathan, your disaffection for their leaving
next year in that that is for space reasons.
Yeah.
There are 2 things that I really liked.
First, that it was the doctor's choice and not the companion's
choice, which is something we don't see very often.
And the doctor realising that he wants to save his friends and the
best way to save them is to give them their life back.
And also that he doesn't say goodbye to Rory.
It happened.
Rory goes into the house and he doesn't say a word to him.
It's all about him and Amy just for that moment, which I think
says quite a lot about the doctor.
Yeah, but it's also, it's a very believable in that sort of blokey
relationship.
He's given him the car and he knows what an idiot Rory is and Rory
would be glued to the car.
He was like, he's done his bit, you know, and they had their
moment of like, look, I don't care what you say to her, but can I
just keep the car?
and he's like, yeah, sure.
You know, it's like this.
Yeah, they're so believable that there's, you know, the 3 of them
as actors and characters are just, I mean, they're real goals.
They're one of the one of the best teams.
You need a little factor. one heart men at Torchwood, so she could
say, oh, I didn't realise you travelled with their husbands.
And also, we're going right back to the beginning where he's just
like, they're in this hotel and he says, you need to have
arrived.
And he's like, this is really exciting.
Amy, Beaky, let's do this.
And he's like, I have no idea whether, you know, I'm sure it's in
the script, but like, you don't really know.
Because I easily could have been a map edition or something that
you, but you know they love those moments, you know.
Like when he kisses him in that in dinosaurs in the spaceship, he
just grabs him and kisses him and they both have a bit moment.
It's like, it's it's really great.
You know, they really sort of roll with all of that sort of
stuff.
And, you know, Amy does too.
Karen does too.
They're such a natural team.
Matt's chemistry with Arthur is really not commented on as much as
he's chemistry with Amy, but it's all there.
They have that great scene earlier on where the doctor's kind of
trying to work out the nature of what's going on here and talking
about Rory not believing in anything.
You know, and it is, there is a surprising amount of exposition
here, but you don't feel like there is.
You know, Rita comes in. 1st person that we meet.
Rita comes in and explains things after we've had a scene where
Matt explains things and now Matt and Rory are kind of there
working things out.
And again, it's just sort of so understated and so interesting.
They're looking at the at the photographs and all of that sort of
thing.
And there's that beautiful scene where Rory eulogises Howie.
How he had overcome that stammer, and not every kind of victory
has to be saving the universe.
And it's Rory, you know, he's a nurse.
It's grounded.
Rory's ready to have victories that aren't about saving the
universe.
And is it that scene where Rory talks about the time when we were
on the TARDIS and the doctor calls him out for using the past
tense?
Yeah, that's so good, isn't it?
It's so subtle and you don't notice it the 1st time until the
doctor mentions it.
It's just, yeah, really, really brilliant and lovely piece of
writing.
And poor old Howie, who's so great. played by the exceptionally
attractive Dimitri Leonidas.
And, yeah, he's so good.
And, you know, his night his nightmare is a room full of the only
ways Essex.
So, you know, mine too.
But they're mocking him for his stammer.
And, you know, for being a nerd as well.
They're mocking him for being a Star Trek fan, you know.
Which fair enough.
This is why I turn up to a story, and I remain fascinated by
this.
It's, like, it's, um, and I think it's such a...
I can tell this is a very strong idea, because I'm more interested
in the hotel and the rooms than I am about the, uh, The giant
monster man, which is very much my bag, half man, half beast, in a
leather leather kilt, chosen down a corridor.
I mean, boo-hoo, you know, it's fabulous.
The minor thing is fine, but it's really not the...
I'm so fascinated by the, the, The other time, because there's
there's, they set up the, you know, the god complex thing and you
get the mirroring of the minus draw and the doctor and all, and
that story of, of saviours and all that stuff.
But I think the thing I can't get past that's so strong is the
people's relationship where they're with their own fears.
And, um, this, there becomes this theme of surrender, like of, I
think, I think the most genuinely disturbing thing.
And you touched an earlier site, is those shots where you see the
person about to, you know, in their in their rapture and you get
those jump cuts of them crying and screaming and then just
particularly with Rita, just like giggling in total kind of
drooling ecstasy.
And those moments are so disturbing because that is sort of
despite all our lovely stories, we tell ourselves, that is what's
going on, you know, in the hind brain at all times.
And to actually see that on screen, on is incredibly disturbing
and unsettling and jump cutting between those, we'll fry our
brains a bit and touch that sort of lizard brain at the back of us
that's terrified.
And I think the scary thing is, and it touches him with a doctor's
god complex and try, I can't say these people, because they keep
wandering and drawn to these things, you know, and like we want to
look with the doctor saying, I have to see it.
And every night, people sort of unloosing their bonds running
towards this creature when Amy sees it and when she's sort of been
got, and she started praising it, when she turns around, her look
is what my look would be if I saw that thing, which is, you know
come and get me big boy. you know that should have been the title
of this episode.
But, you know, like, but the real film, why the doctor can't keep
travelling. what we're act, you know, there's what we're told, and
then what we're actually seeing on screen is the doctor in a hotel
and all his friends keep just wandering off and opening their
doors and drawn towards this, you know, and it's a deeply
psychological thing.
And it's all in the mix, and he uses those references, you know
when the doctor looks through that thing, you get that shot from
Psycho, you have the eye peering through it.
The pleasure of looking at it.
Um, it's just, it's the, the horror of, that we've all got inside
a somewhere of just wanting to surrender, the sort of death drive
you know, stuff.
And that is, that's really underneath it.
And I can't really get over that.
I think that's what draws me to this story so much.
And even though the fears are, you know, not watered down, but
they're made nice and broad, so we can all, you know, someone, when
I was a kid, the sort of like the PE thing would have been like, oh
yeah, that's the worst thing I can think of.
Um, you know, and it's, I'm just so drawn to that and it's, um
Yeah, the compulsion towards something awful and unknowable.
I just obsessed with it.
And so for me, the kind of the appeal is that Victorian freak
show.
There's a different thing behind each door, the sort of, you know
at 1st I was like, oh, now, how many minor tour stories of the
doctors, you know, it's Doctor Who Done, and there's been a good
few of them, but it's not, the mythical thing isn't really the
most interesting thing to the story.
It's definitely that menagerie of fears, you know, it's carnival
of monsters and, you know, mind dropper and the fantasy factory in
the ultimate foe, that bit where Mel goes in.
He's like, don't go through that dragon fire scream close to the
door again.
You know, like, I love those moments.
And it's like, it's just all those possibilities and that's what
doctors like. you know, Doctor Who is a little sort of Doctor
Who.
The whole episode is like Doctor Who in 11 building.
On one level, it is kind of like you're just being stalked by a
monster through corridors and there's horrors behind doors.
That's very dog too.
But like you say, Conrad, it's also about how you process those
fears and how your brain works with them and the visual grammar of
the episode really highlights that.
And I think gives it, like, really helps with that extra level.
Definitely.
And then also you've got the character of Gibbis, which is, who is
like all about, you know, he's just there to surrender, his
purpose in life is to surrender to oppressors and stuff.
And it's like, it's, that's, that's a whole nother thread that
isn't really, They didn't sort of talk about it explicitly to the
story, but to me, that's what this story is about, is, but, you
know, we can all take, we all got our own rooms.
You know, we'll all take something different from it.
I'm wondering whether it's trying to say something about faith as
well.
I mean, the fact that Rita is explicitly religious and comes up
with a kind of theological response, like her initial kind of
assessment of what's going on is that she's in hell and she's
consoling herself that she has tried to live well in accordance
with her religious beliefs.
So she is explicitly said to be Muslim and a religious Muslim, I
think.
And the doctor has been, you know, since, what, since New Earth
the doctor has been kind of called things like the lonely god.
Um, And then the giant David Tennant arrogance at the end of his
incarnation in waters of Mars and all of that sort of thing, that
the doctor risks behaving like a god.
And the important thing that this story has to say, I think, is
that God is a terrible thing. that the desire to surrender to
something sort of ultimately terrifying and unknowable is a bad
thing.
When Rita says that the doctor has a god complex, she's
criticising him.
And sort of God himself is depicted as someone who is a bit sick
of being worshipped and actually wants out, you know, it ends with
kind of God's dissolution in a way and a dissolution of the whole
world that he's created.
So I don't know, I don't know.
There is something there about faith, and I'm not sure if I'm
reading it in a plausible way.
I think you are, but I think some of that does get muddled.
I think for me, and I know, and I watched it straight, like, so I
haven't seen it rages, and so I just switched the lights off and
just like, I'm just going to watch this straight through, and I've
had the sense that that moment sorry that you, you pulled up, which
I think is an incredibly strong moment of where he says, we're
going to catch ourselves a monster or whatever it is.
He says that moment.
And I remember after I was thinking that, that feel.
I bet that's a 3rd of the way through or a halfway through and it
is literally 22 minutes in and that's a classic episode dot 2
cliff. hang a moment.
And I think everything in that 1st episode, I think it's the
mystery and all that kind of stuff, all that stuff I love, the, you
know, all fear and the monster stuff and the buildup, which is so
good.
I think that bit's perfect.
And I think from the bathroom spa moment, which for some reason in
my head, I imagine, this must be the centre of the maze
misremembering anything, like all my mythology.
But then I was like, mirrors, is that something I got mixed up
with the Medusa?
But I think from then things do start to get muddled and I think
it really falls apart, you know, when the hotel kind of breaks
down and you see the, you know, whatever's behind it.
And the explanations that come afterwards are extremely muddled.
And I've sort of listened.
I didn't understand it. 1st time every time I've watched it, I've
never really figured out.
So what happened here?
And I, even this time I had to pause every time Matt Smith said
something to write down.
So wait.
And if I've got this right, and I'm just going to go straight to
all the mess in the muddle here and see what you figure it out.
But like, so these, this creature, distant relation, distant
cousin to the 9 ones.
I love it when monsters are cousins.
Oh my God, I love I can just imagine there's crappy Silurians and
you know, and whatever.
Yeah.
Oh, God, it's his birthday.
And the family parties.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
You go to Ixan's birthday.
Oh, no, it's really...
I love it.
So like, they're distant Coke cousins of the Naimons.
They set themselves up as gods to be worshipped until the
inhabitants one day overthrow them and become put them in a
bonkers prison.
So I was like, okay, they overthrew this thing, they put it in a
prison.
And they put it in a prison where it could be kept alive through
beaming people in and feeding off their fears.
And I'm just like, Okay, but like it takes a long time, it took me
a lot of watches and pauses to just put that explanation together
and it doesn't really make sense.
It doesn't make sense dramatically.
It's like this monster that we're all scared of is like, we're
very quickly aware that it's a night. beautiful and it's nice and
the moment he starts translating, you know, what's that you say?
You know, it's like, you know it's sympathetic and I think even
visually, like when the hotel breaks down and you see all this
digital stuff behind it.
That space doesn't make sense at all.
And there's a, there's one moment where it's not just the CGI, the
actual visual composition of what this room is supposed to be is
just garbage.
It's like there's a tron floor, there's a couple of like lousy
console things.
There's a cup.
Yeah, basically, isn't it?
And there's a couple of portholes in the floor.
There's a spotlight on the monster.
The TARDIS over there.
And at one point they start putting in these kind of weird, you
can't even make out what they are, these kind of a bit of a
spatial, a bit of that.
It doesn't make the visually it doesn't make sense and I think
it's because...
It's an inherent problem in fantasy stories is how you get out of
it, you know, it's like in Beauty and the Beast.
Does anyone really like it when he turns back into the prince, is
anyone pleased to see the prince?
Like, no, it always just feels like a shame.
You know, like all when Dorothy goes back from her fabulous
adventure in the city with amazing new friends, back to Hicksville
with her inbred cousins.
That's not really...
So there's a problem with fantasy stories.
How do you get them back without it spoiling the fun?
And I think also there's something's not quite thought through.
This is a prison. like, okay, this hotel is really a space
prison.
You know, hotels are buildings with corridors with lots of doors
behind them.
Prisons are buildings with corridors, lots of doors behind them.
It does, it's something, I think, I think, Nathan, I think some
thematically, some of the things are confusing.
So I think deep down that I think there's, It's not quite fully
it's not fully, it's a few drafts off.
Yeah, I think I think trying to come up with any sort of coherent
reading of it stumbles at the fact that it wants to have your
greatest fears in the rooms.
And so the doctor concludes that it's a monster that lives off
fear, but weirdhouse doesn't want to do that.
He wants to make it about faith.
And so there's a lot of sort of connective tissue that has to be
built in order for a story about a hotel that contains your
greatest fears to somehow be about faith.
And it has to be about faith in order to do the character job that
it does and all of that.
And in a way, in a way, insisting that we come away with an
explanation of everything might be the problem.
You know, it is that any explanation of this is going to be
stupid.
Like, it's a stupid idea.
Why build it?
It's like, you know, why just kill it.
Do you know what I mean?
Like just kill the thing.
You know, she was trying to, I was literally trying to think, it's
like, well, I'm going really light.
I really not happy then. he was like, okay, what would you have
done, clever clubs?
What?
what it in the old days?
Well, the doctor 2 story?
I was like, I think I'd like to sort of blown it up and run away.
That was my amazing quick, set the timer.
And they run through the door.
They all leap.
There's a big explosion like, phew. off we go.
So that's me writing up to.
It's like, it's very, but making you right. the only thing to do
is just stop it.
It's like, it's very hard to bolt this reason on the end.
You know, the whole idea, the whole, it just, like, you remember
there was a series of sort of not sufficiently executed enough
monsters and stuff, you know, people like Eldrad and sort of, yeah
it's kind of like that.
They could have just killed the Minotaur rather than imprisoning
him in this sort of giant weird holodeck.
And yes, obviously it doesn't make any sense.
And that's not a problem for Doctor Who, except if we're going to
spend the running time trying to justify it, which is kind of
tedious.
But also, Doctor Who has never investigated faith and the
collision between faith and religion with any interesting
outcomes.
It's just not that kind of show.
I think the closest we ever got was the Satan Pit, where the
doctor and I talk about the nature of faith, and she says, it's
the devil, is the things that men do, and the doctor says that
religion is, I don't believe we've seen everything.
And that's the kind of open-ended kind of outcome that you need
when you're looking in an episode at what faith is about.
You're bound to not come away with very satisfying answers in Dr
Day.
Well, me listener, that's all we have time for this week.
We'll be back next week to stock up on lamps and vegetables in
closing time.
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 Interterterra, maximum power, and
untitled Star Trek project.
Until next time.
Praise him.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
That was Flight Through Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Peter
Griffith, Siheart and Conrad Westness, theme arrangement by
Cameron Lamb.
This episode, something really different on screen, was recorded
on the 5th of September 2021 and released on the 28th of
November.
Spinoff idea for this episode, hotel manager King Minos, John
Cleese, runs a hotel in Johanna. with his wife, Safei, Prunella
Scales, and her son, the beast, Marak Anton, who constantly
exasperates his stepfather, by eating the guests, and smashing all
the crockery.
That could even be an hour now that you've killed the
conversation.
It's gonna be the absolute definitive statements that well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Is there anyone who feels that anything that they wanted to say
has not been said?
Yes, I do.
There's 2 things.
Go on.
Okay, 1st of all, I'm really pleased they didn't do this in series
5 because Michael Pickwode got to design the set.
Well spotted.
And the set design is absolutely spot on.
It is exactly what an 80s UK hotel looked like from the flowery
Axminster carpet to the flowery floral wallpaper that's very
pale.
The corridors that go on forever.
It's an absolute masterpiece of design.
He is so good.
How dire would it have been with paper mill something, something?
Exactly.
They imprisoned him in a in a paper meal that contained all of
your darkest fears.
And watching the, because I watched the confidential episode about
it all as well.
And it is literally just 2 corridor sets.
Yeah.
But it feels like it's so expansive because of the way it's shot
all the way through.
It's, yeah, he's so brilliant.
He just brings it.
It's helped by by Harran.
Like there's that scene where the doctor's running after Rita and
we go through all of those corridors that all seem to sort of
ramify off one another in these sort of strange ways, but like I
was never in any doubt that it was any more than just one
corridor.
No.
It's a perfect corridor.
It really is.
And also, he's such a lesser designer would have gone, oh, Ryan
80s hotel and run out and bought lots of Athena things and made it
very neon and whatever, but he, you know, Michael Pittwood knows
that an 80s hotel looks like is left over from the 50s, 60s, 40.
And it's, it's, actually, I did have a question on that.
It's just like, what, what, why a 1980s hotel?
I mean, I'm not asking that of the people who built the prison
because they've clearly got their own reasons for doing everything
but like, like, apart from maybe the shining reference, but like
what, what, I mean, I think obviously putting things in a period
does enclose it off into a little bubble.
So it does that.
But some of the 80s thing, I was like, I'm just not quite sure
what it did.
It gave you a Rubik's cube, which, you know, it's brilliant.
You see one minute unsolved.
And there's a few look in magazines there and a bit of a rouche
curtain, but I didn't know, I just didn't, I was like, why 1980s
hotel, I suppose, why not?
I think it's the series being meta.
I think they just wanted to look exactly like the hotel that the
cast stated when they were filming.
Do you know what I think it is?
I remember when the 80s started and I was like 11 or whatever and
you know, the 70s for a long time where the decade that Star
forgot and the 80s was sort of really, you know, new and modern
and fabulous and neon, as you said, Conrad.
But there is something just deeply miserable about it.
And you know, like if you're staying in a hotel in England in 2010
and it hasn't been renovated for 30 years, that's what it's going
to look like.
There's a sort of, it's, it fits in with Rita's idea that she's in
hell.
Like this is what hell is like, you know, it's chintzy.
That is true.
Also, maybe it was 1980s to make the clown feel at home who's
played by this actor, Damon Jeffrey, who is Dave, the bloke who is
washing his car in survival before he got on my game. seats of
people.
Oh, your dinner's on the table. home for tea.
Don't talk to the clown.
He got whizzed off to the hotel.
That's why an 80s hotel.
There we go.
I was going to say, and the other thing I wanted to mention was
just how perfect Murray Gold's music is for this episode as well.
Because he's on autopilot, a lot of the time in this period, I
feel, after the heights of series 5.
But he is so good.
The sort of Musak that plays through the hotel is really good and
the score for the Minotaur and the Rapture moments are so just
yeah, it's really, really lovely work.
Yeah, that moment, I think, you're right, when that moment where I
think, particularly when Rita is the most the most serious loss
that we see, that we almost have to switch off because we can't
see it, the music sounds like like sort of very high pitched
choral, but almost backwards.
It's really odd and terribly sad and Yeah, brilliant.
I'm just a little tired of enemies that don't talk like the
nestines and the devil in the Satan pit.
I would have loved the Minotaur to come out with. finally, you
understand, doctor.
It's actually, it's actually a little bit unusual to have, you
know, like a growly monster that the doctor can translate, but
that we can't understand as the audience.
That's not something that they've done all that much of.
No. like the hat, isn't it?
Yeah, the hat.
That's right, Hath.
We should go out on the surface.
Where you can drown.
All right.
I think that's our tag.
All right.
I'll do the outro.
Well, dear listener, that's all we have time for this week.