The Magic Mavic Chen Principle

[00:36]

Hello, Dennis, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety, the only Doctor Who podcast that doesn't focus on gossip about imaginary people.

I'm Nathan.

I'm Simon.

I'm Todd, and I think I'm that hilarious one about the eye patch again.

Well, the doctor's death has been clumsily averted, and as a result, the universe is about to undergo a total narrative collapse.

So I've got just enough time to say that this is our episode about the wedding of River song.

[01:36]

I have a feeling that this is a controversial finale.

How so?

I don't think that it's widely liked.

Am I right?

Simon?

Well, I'm not in touch with what the general fan populists think.

I just sort of for my own opinions, but I thought at the time, it was brilliant.

Perhaps not quite as strong as the Pandorica opens to Parta that finished off the last season, but I was totally on board, but I thought it was interesting and it was exciting.

It was witty, and it wrapped everything up, including the kind of the River song story in quite a delightful way.

What an interesting opinion.

Nathan?

Unlike Simon, I was a big fan of the big dumb and loud RTD finales.

I think they're great and they were always, you know, very emotional and really fun and sort of fan servicey and just huge and enjoyable.

And so I think I found this one a little bit, a little bit low key.

[02:40]

So I'm not entirely sure that I was on board with it at the time, but I am a big fan of it now.

Richard, 1st time I saw it, I think Todd and I might have been as one, and I'm interested to know what you're going to think.

This time I loved it, and I can see all the antecedents, and you can see that Stephen Moffat has been to a world con or two.

There's lots of the SF speculative fiction.

There's David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas in all time being contemporaneous.

There's lovely nods to Bogokovs, isn't it?

The master and margarita with Jockhanan with the soothsayer on the floor and just, I just loved...

I loved this.

I really did.

I really, really, really wasn't prepared to.

What about you, Tom?

Well, surprise, surprise, Nathan, at the time, I wasn't that enraptured with this.

I think because it was the 1st time we've had a season finale that's only like one episode as opposed to a two-parter.

[03:43]

And I think that, and the whole narrative is slightly different from what we've had before, especially with all the flashback stuff that the doctor's saying.

And I've never been that enamoured with this hole.

The doctor dies in the 1st episode and then just waiting for the conclusion, like, how do we get out of it?

And there's some fairly, in my opinion, obvious things that Stephen sets up, especially in like last time, because we have to know about the test selector, because that's going to be our get out of jail free car.

But having said that, and you know my feelings on the middle to episodes of the season, which I really do not light the whole Mel's thing and the conclusion of the previous episode, I watched it again yesterday.

I haven't watched it for about 2 months, and I didn't look at my notes, and I just actually really enjoyed it, and I thought, I was actually giving us answers because I, because I didn't think there were answers to things, and I was prepared to come in today and say, he's not giving us answers to this, and this doesn't make sense, and this doesn't make sense.

[04:46]

And I went, oh, it's only taken me 10 years to find these answers.

And then I look back at my notes from 2 months ago and I gave it an 8 to a 9 out of 10 and saying he's giving us answers.

So I've completely changed my mind.

It's funny because for me with a test selector coming back, it sort of goes some way to redeeming let's kill Hitler as an acceptable episode because it all ends up being okay at the end.

There's a reason for it.

Simon, we're on the same page with that, you know?

I actually really do like the test selector now.

At the time, I just didn't.

But yeah, it can only be redeemed so far.

Let's just speak.

Oh, absolutely.

But you know what I'm saying.

Like, you know, actually, it raises it from a zero.

Yes, it does.

Also, we're talking about the 3 problem children in the family, aren't we?

So the youngest of this episode and then the middle children in the middle of the season.

The more you spend time with them and the more that you simply observe them, the fonder you will become of them.

You will become more forgiving.

[05:47]

They're like your dogs, aren't they?

So.

For me, I think this does exhibit a lot of the sort of normal Moffat tropes, but sort of deployed rather differently.

I think this is the 1st time this particular trope has been deployed in Doctor Who.

And he does it in 2 out of the 3 episodes of Dracula, which is that the episode is a story being told by one of the characters, and that lasts to about halfway through the episode, and then the story invades the world of the storytelling.

And so the story then continues in the world where the story was being told.

I love that sort of thing.

Don't you think that sort of, and I've written it down.

Like, to me, that's sort of like, if we're going to do this as a two-parter, that change of narrative is where the cliffhanger should be.

Amy comes in and sort of defends them against the silence.

And there are some really fun things about those scenes where the doctor is telling the episode to Winston Churchill.

[06:53]

And there's one moment where Churchill interrupts and says that it's too silly.

Like this, you know, we're going from place to place, from world to world.

We're seeing all of these sort of different space people and the whole thing is ridiculous.

And so he steps in to complain about that.

And because the story's being told, you know, it's how did time break or whatever.

The fact that it's sort of a slightly preposterous story is kind of okay, I think, because the doctor's telling it.

And so all of that beginning stuff, which is just sort of ridiculous and overblown and really funny and sort of Moffatt just doing space comedy.

I think works really well in that context.

And then the 2nd thing is that we're assuming that in the bits where we see the story that the doctor is telling that what's just happening is that the doctor speaking and Winston Churchill is listening, and when we come back, sort of suddenly they're in a different room and he's continuing to tell the story in a different room.

[08:00]

And what we discover is, in fact, no, they can't remember those bits because they're being attacked by the silence while the doctor's telling the story.

And it's that trick that he does in Forest of the Dead, where the cuts from scene to scene are really happening.

They're not just television things.

It's that Donna can't remember the things that happen in between the scenes.

And so it's all that stuff about memory and storytelling and things that he really likes and he's absolutely kind of playing with it really expertly here, I think.

Yeah, it's also the timey whimey on steroids.

I mean, it's obviously preposterous that, you know, it's always 502 p.m. on the 22nd of April or whatever it is.

And yet they recognise a passage of time because Churchill has thrown the doctor into the tower several times already, you know, last time.

So it's almost like they're on a kind of a, it's like a fusion between a time loop and the stasis that they're talking about.

But you know, you don't need to think about that too hard.

It still, I think, works beautifully narratively.

[09:00]

But I agree with what you're saying, but for some reason, the sort of the silliness is hidden from me.

I don't see it as silly.

I just see it is incredibly clever.

And I'm drawn into that so much.

And I'm captivated.

As each shot, as he goes to, from playing chess to, you know, going to the bar and being the test selector and all that sort of stuff.

I'm absolutely captivated the entire time wondering how the hell this is going to resolve.

It's just fantastic.

Definitely feel that Mr. Moffat has been hanging around at conventions.

Don't forget, they won this year to 2011, 2012 for Doctor's Wife, the Hugo and Popular.

And I think I was at Welcon that year.

Anyway.

Um, but the whole thing of speculative fiction being all time suspended and everything happening at once was a really big trope is the word of collibriums at the time.

And you can really see that Stephen Moffat is a reader before he was a writer.

And even probably before he was a fan, because yes, this stuff, I think we've all noted it on 1st viewing, I was incensed with irritation.

[10:03]

I was flamingly tard-es, you know, how I saw this.

It was just, oh, too easy.

I can see what you did there.

There's your trick.

There's your deck of cards.

There's your flags of all nations.

So you were irritated because you felt you were seeing through it or because you felt it was inadequately explaining.

I'm just curious about that initial from both of you, why it was so terrible the 1st time round.

Because there was a thin layer of observative writing over the narrative, which I always felt as a long-term fan and a long-term reader is disrespective of the characters that you've built, that you're putting a meta construct and being very clever.

You're being Jerry Anderson.

You're being a puppeteer.

I want to see the narrative driven by the character's responses to incidents, not the toy robot that comes out of the Marvel Studios or whatever it is.

I hated the Tesla.

Whereas now I just think, oh, you're lampooning that and you're giving it heart.

Point for, I guess I'm trying to say is Stephen Moffatt has put heart into what he's writing here and has definitely respected what he's doing.

[11:10]

I want to talk later about the character development of the, um, I don't want to call them companions of the people that travel with him because, you know, I think that went on too long, but the disrespect that was given to Amy that we all felt watching this maybe in 2011 that was a really nasty taste.

I'm kind of better with now simply because of Karen Gillan's expert momentary reactions.

And I'm not sure if the narrative has given the character the respect, but it's certainly more respectful watching at this time around this difficult child. 4th time around.

What do you think, Todd?

Oh, look, I'm not that Dean.

Yes, I'm much more surface, and it's sort of like, you know, people picnicking the park with pterodactyls.

Just is ridiculous because you're going to be eaten and then they suddenly get up and scream.

Like, is it like news at 502 or whatever the time is?

Like, you know, this week little Johnny got taken.

Do you know what I mean?

And so, and then it's like you suddenly jump from place to place and you don't see that journey and if I go back to, um, a good man goes to war, I expect you to get the journey to find Amy, but instead, Stephen's not interested in that, it's like we're there, right?

[12:21]

And in the next episode, it's like, well, suddenly we're not going to go and find the baby, the baby's going to find us.

It's not the story he wants to tell us.

And so here it's the same thing where I just kind of think, oh, you're just jumping, you're not showing me.

I don't feel it's earned. suddenly just, like, suddenly we're at the bar and then we're in the place where all the skulls are.

And so that's what annoyed me at the time.

So it's almost like you're more interested in all the bit that we've missed than the destination.

And I think that's very old school of me, like original Doctor Who, where you see that journey.

And so, and so, but I'm saying that's at that time.

Like now when I was watching it with the whole narrative and the flashback thing, I appreciate it so much more.

Perhaps I'm not as enamoured as you, but, you know, all the creepy stuff with the skulls and the live chess and all of that is actually I actually find that really enjoyable.

And Dorian and all of his stuff, like, you know, when Stephen has a character that he likes, then he'll bring them back, you know, and he'll find a way.

And I really like that whole sequence immensely so.

[13:21]

And with it, with Churchill, I just love, and I do love all the characters that you see, like, from the Salarian guy to, you know, Romans on the street.

And Dickens on TV, on the sofa.

You know, I like...

Oh my god, that's good.

Well, because he did a Christmas carol last year.

I mean, is that Dickens talking about his Doctor Who Christmas special?

It's so fun.

The 1st one brought back from...

Yeah, RTD Zera, isn't it?

But you came back.

I think.

Yeah, yeah.

But to go back to what you were saying, it's like, it is the summation of the River song story and these 2 years.

Like he's bringing all these things back from last season as well up to this point.

And I really do appreciate it so much more.

And, you know, you know the stuff that's happening with the silence and eventually you do get that them all on the roof, which is just freaky, you know.

And then you get that moment where we have the call about the brigadier passing.

And I really, I really find that very affecting.

Like, I actually think Stephen is trying to give a nod to things that have happened in real life, you know?

[14:25]

Yeah, I mean, I recognise why they did that and it's very important, but I, I wish, I don't know, it just felt a little bit, because it didn't, it didn't relate it all to anything else which was going on.

And I understand why, obviously, but they wanted to pay tribute and that's lovely, but I'm sure it was successful.

It is a turning point though, because it is the moment where the doctor stops his farewell tour and decides to go to Utah to die. true, actually.

And he's just said time hasn't laid a hand on me.

And then he gets that news and then he goes, actually, I just have to do this.

And I think it's important for the story and for the art for us to remember that that is the Doctor Who is killed in episode one, that Canton Everett, Delaware the 3rd, was telling the truth, and the doctor is really dead, and so he's going to his death.

And we observe that at the end of closing time.

He's preparing.

He gets the hat, he gets the envelopes.

He's all sort of ready to go.

[15:26]

And that also is the fun thing, and we'll get to it at the end is the way that he gets out of it.

For me, all of those narrative devices and staff fight against having sympathy for the characters.

And this is something that we observed when we were talking about a good man goes to war, which again is full of sort of flashbacks and tricks and stuff.

But I think that Moffatt is still capable of producing real emotion despite that.

And I think the brigadier thing, which, you know, is easy mode because we all loved Nick Courtney, and we were all kind of sad that he'd left.

Um, you know, like I think that there is real proper genuine emotion there.

Yeah, no, I felt that um, and at the risk of revisiting old arguments, it's for me, it's actually the experience that I had the negative experience that I had about the RTD finales.

I found that there was no emotion.

I found it was all just whiz bang spectacle stuff, you know, 10000000 Daleks flying through the air, et cetera.

And I, despite what you just said, I do actually think that I was emotionally involved in the characters in Wedding of a song.

[16:33]

So it's interesting that it just had different reactions to the same material.

I mean, I think I was as well, and I think Amy as Richard kind of foreshadowed has actually sort of quite a good story going, and I think it does go some way to trying to clear up the mess that was created by a good man goes to war and all of that sort of horrible mistreatment of Amy and, you know, the abduction of her baby and all of that sort of thing.

And we observed in our let's kill Hitler episode that he's doing something about that.

He's trying to make that okay and he doesn't do it all that successfully.

But I do think getting her to kill Madame Cavari and these...

Many of us felt you might be happy.

Somehow.

As the turf was laid very clean and flat, leading to this event.

I think one of the things that I always I think one of the things that I always struggle with is that there is so much going on in Stevens writing in episodes, and to take it all in with his witty dialogue and trying to sort of 2nd guess him in your own head and take in what's going on, that I often miss a lot of stuff, and or it doesn't resonate with me at the time, like, you know, the brigadier thing or, well, you know, the whole, the way in which it was structured.

[17:55]

So, you know, coming back to it, you know, 10 years later is actually really good because then I appreciate it so much more.

It's almost like the cartinal era, um, which was uh, difficult to watch the 1st time because they're so jam-packed with stuff and um, and sometimes thanks to sort of poor sound design, you couldn't even hear some of the dialogue go slight in particular.

It's all rattled off, a chats of rate, even, even though I love it.

And the same thing with the Moffatt episodes or at least these ones, there's so much jam-packed in that it rewards subsequent viewing in a way that I think earlier episodes in the new era.

Don't, but that's partly because that's what they were needing to do at the time.

They were seeking a broad audience.

So that's all understandable.

For me, like my understanding is like, you know, when they're revisiting the 1st episode where River shoots the doctor in the astronaut suit, I had completely blanked the fact that, you know, both of these things are happening at the one time, we get to see the consequences of her shooting the doctor for the season.

But at the same time, this whole alternative history or the whole alternative thing is happening with the doctor being a soothsayer, you know, at 502.

[19:01]

And I never picked that up on that.

So for me, that was a huge sort of flaw in the whole storytelling. and going, what is this?

Like, I mean, is this all just happening in this one split 2nd right now.

I never realised that it's actually a point in time where we, the audience, only saw one side of what's happening, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

And so he does this 3 times, I think, in the episode.

So we have seen the events of episode one, and then the doctor tells the story of a set of events that lead up to the events of episode one, right?

And we get to see more of it and we sort of understand it slightly better.

Then Amy comes into the narrative and we see another set of events that lead up to the events of episode one that reinterpret it in some way, that change our attitude to it.

And then at the end of the episode, We've already seen the doctor interact with the test selector and the test selector say, um, if there's anything that we can do for you, just let us know.

[20:08]

And the doctor looks sad and leaves the scene.

Then we revisit that scene and see how it really ends, which is him saying, oh, actually, I think you can probably help here.

And so it's that sort of narrative trick of showing us the same events, but giving them different meanings and different outcomes.

And I just think it's really terrific.

I think it's terribly clever.

And the reason why it's terrific is because you can still watch, you can go back and watch the Impossible Astronaut where you get shot. and it all still works Yes.

I hate it when these sorts of things happen and it's like, oh, well, actually, no, you didn't show us the right way before.

And you showed us something which was a deliberate red herring, a red herring, to the extent that it was just a complete lie.

Do you know what I mean?

And whereas this treats it completely consistently.

Now, whether that was designed when they were producing the impossible astronaut, I don't know.

I don't know whether he's managed to retcorn all this as a way of getting out of this situation.

[21:08]

It's really interesting your perspective on that because that's the thing that I struggle with most is the fact that we have that sequence at the lake and then we have it again here and I just feel like it's a longer sequence here than what we saw there, the timing and his hair is curled under slightly differently.

And then later on, and there's chromer key.

And then later on in the episode with River Song, when she says, he told me his name, but he actually says, look into my eye, but when you watch that, it's like one word there, but then it's a few more words and the timing's not the same.

And so both of those sequences, like because the timing's different, does my head in and I kind of think, well, is it reconning it in, or how does that work in the fact that in one instance, we see him talking to that thing for like 10 seconds and then the next time it seems to be like a like a 42nd conversation and then the same later on.

And so that's where that's where my irritation with some of the things.

Please help me.

Well, remember an Impossible Astronaut.

We are seeing that conversation from a very long distance away from the point of view of the doctor's companions at the picnic, right?

[22:13]

And so maybe sort of time is compressed or whatever.

But I think that that showing us different aspects of those events is what Moffatt is trying to do and because it's TV, you know, things get alighted or protracted a little bit and that's kind of fine.

What I think also is that the 1st version of it that we see in this episode, where river intervenes actually kind of happens after the doctor's already fixed it.

Like the doctor fixes the problem when he has that chat with a test selector. comes up with an idea of how to solve the problem.

So when River says, actually, I'm not going to shoot you, I'm not going to do it, she's actually solving a problem the doctor's already solved.

And that's why he's so cross with her for trying to get him out of this because he's already got himself out of it by this point.

And that's the kind of fun thing, that in fact, the resolution of the episode happens off screen early on in the episode.

[23:20]

And so when we actually find out the doctor's not dead.

It's actually this sort of fabulous throwaway line at the end of the episode.

I mean, we weren't going to see it.

Remember that Amy still thinks that the doctor's dead when River turns up after crawling out of the wreck of the Byzantium in Time of Angels.

That whole conversation is, yes, Simon, it is it is actually joyous, you know, to think that, you know, where they are in their timelines and all the all the acting that she has to do.

Let's give a song to sort of, you know, not recognise people, et cetera, and situations.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a bit of a recon.

But I do love just the tone of it, you know, like she's sitting there having a glass of wine.

And is it, I think, mummy's going to need another drink.

But actually, there is one thing that I think they have made an unfortunate error is because maybe it's just different characters' views of the same situation, but doesn't the doctor say that, or Madame Cavarian say that you're not even going to remember killing me, which is why she doesn't remember when she's standing there when she's at the picnic. her future self is at the picnic watching the doctor be killed by an earlier version of her.

[24:29]

She doesn't remember that.

But then at the drinks at the end, she says she was pretending not to remember shooting the doctor.

And I kind of wish, well, that's just a little inconsistency, but you know, these things happen.

I do think, though, where Amy says that she remembers killing Madame Cavarian, and to be fair to Amy, all she does is put the eyedrive back on her and let the silence kill her.

She doesn't shoot it with a big gun, she just lets her fall into her own trap.

She remembers that and River says, well, in an alternative timeline, you know, space reasons, it didn't really happen.

And she says no, I remember it.

Therefore, it happened.

And that's how these stories work.

Because we've watched that happen, it happened.

If later on we get space reasons that say, well, that never happened, that doesn't matter because that's what we saw.

And it's, you know, those sort of mad fans who say, oh, you know, we need to retcon the last Jedi out of existence.

[25:34]

It's kind of like, well, we all sat and watched it in the cinema.

I don't know what you're gonna do about that. none of them ever visited the space music.

Honestly.

But what Amy but Amy's point is, I was capable of doing that and I did it and that's the thing that's upsetting her.

She's proven that she's capable of murder.

Well, also extenuating something.

Oh, absolutely.

Oh, no.

One thing we haven't touched on is the eyedrive itself.

Isn't it great that there's a sort of what you would call a science fiction or a space reason for why Madame Cavarian is wearing an eye patch aside from being evil?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And why, when we turned around, they were all wearing eye patches. right here.

It's a lovely It's a lovely...

It's a not dream inferno, isn't it?

It has to be a nod to inferno.

You know, I hadn't realised that, of course, that is what he does.

So yes, it's probably is tied into the cheeky thing.

But Madame Clarion.

What's her motivation?

Like, it just seems that she's evil and she wants to take the baby and I still don't get why she's in charge and why she's the one doing it.

[26:39]

I still don't get that to this day.

No, and you never will.

It's never really sort of that.

No, because it's established that the silence isn't a race.

It's a religious culture. you know, And so she's part of that religious cult.

So for whatever reason, she's she's bought into the big lie that the doctor needs to be killed.

And so she's, you know, a pawn in that in that plan, even though she, well, she is a pawn in the plan because she believes she's in charge, but as is proven at the end, as with all of our best humanoid villains that we've had throughout the decades, they get their comeuppance because the people they're in league with end up destroying them.

See, I thought Simon was going to say all organised religion.

No, it's the Magic Mavic Chen principle, isn't it?

She enjoys her work.

The human who collaborates with the Daleks always ends up being external.

[27:44]

Yeah, you've justified it, but it still doesn't sit quite right with me.

I still just don't feel it.

And, you know, that's one of the few little niggly things I've had.

I mean, I think she's great.

I think she's played well, but I just kind of felt like I wanted a bit more of her backstory or just something to set her up more as the supervillain type thing.

And I just, um, I'm not very satisfied with that aspect, but I mean, when you've got so many other things that you've got a recon resolve, make better after various other episodes, you know?

There's only so much on that list that Stephen can get perfect.

And, you know, yeah.

I'll completely acknowledge that, um, her motivation for being evil is not as strong as it might be, but, you know, that's my head cannon to justify it to myself to not prevent me from enjoying it, I guess.

Yeah, yeah.

You don't need much motivation other than the fun of it, do you?

No, she's a psychopath in magenta lipstick.

[28:46]

That's pretty much and amazing heels.

But then we also have the obverse of that.

We have hell in high heels and we all want to meet her, don't we?

So there's a nice little flip side of the of the Janus coin with River and with Madden.

I want to say Cavorkian, but that's the doctor.

That's right The guy who has sits the Ethanasia.

What do you feel about the editing and direction of this?

Because I don't think this would have worked at all if we hadn't had the levels of care that had been put into cutting this?

Well, Jeremy Webb directs this?

What else has he done?

Curse of the Black Spot.

Oh, God.

And I bashed...

Oh god, this is another episode I have to defend, isn't it?

That's interesting.

Of course, this, I felt, was really tight and went really well in that we've discussed.

Yes, we have. going back there.

But I think we mostly, I think we mostly talk script and design problems when it came to curse of the black spot.

And, you know, I thought that the piracy stuff at the very beginning looks great, you know, and is very well done.

[29:53]

And here, like...

Yes, yes, exactly. none of them have eye patch.

I was about to say that.

Do any of them do any of the pirates have I?

He's made up for it.

That's it.

Madame Cavarian does appear. she slide in at that one, I don't know.

Yeah, yeah.

I think that the look of this is terrifically fun.

I absolutely adore that opening scene where everything is happening at once, and I acknowledge that it makes absolutely no sense at all, and it is just a series of ridiculous gags.

But I do love the bizarre cars, you know, like with...

Carried by balloons, because when did that happen in history?

I don't know. just before.

But, you know, there's a whole lot of British writing and SF writing at the time that is doing exactly what you're seeing on the screen.

It's very chronic.

It's like with the pyramids and the train's going through it.

It's like area 52, which is great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Isn't that great?

But it's Stephen's imagination, and I think it goes back to him being a writer and writer of books and storytelling and all that sort of stuff.

[30:57]

And it's very, I don't know if I want to say new adventures, but it's a different kind of storytelling than perhaps what Russell does, you know?

And a whole different kind of narrative and you either really love it or it does your head in.

Yeah, yeah.

Isn't it funny that with all history smooshed together, you only have the iconic leaders.

So you have you have Winston Churchill, you obviously have JFK, because I think he was a victim of hallucinogenic lipstick. and you have Cleopatra.

You know, a terrible woman or something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But, you know, you don't have, you know, you don't have Gordon Brown there at the same time as Mr. Churchill.

Jimmy Callahan.

Jimmy Callahan But the fun thing is that last year we also had a total event collapse.

And that was a much more sombre affair at the end of the series in The Big Bang.

History was just disappearing and leaving this sort of emptiness in its way.

It was sad.

Yeah, it was really sort of sombre.

And so he is doing the same thing.

Something has gone wrong with time, you know, whatever.

[31:58]

But instead, the results are funny and sort of visual and and there's gags and all of that sort of thing.

And, you know, there's a Silurian doctor and and, you know, space cars and steam trains driving through the Gherkin and all of that.

Like it's just fun and funny and light.

And I think that that's not what we expected.

I think we were primed by RTD's era to have a silly comedy episode that introduced the new cast at the beginning and then a big 2 parter that whatever Simon says has massive kind of emotional resonance and lots of Dalek shooting.

And the departure of somebody that we love in a horrible way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So whereas this, what we're getting.

He tipped the season upside down.

Yeah, and this is nothing like an RTD opener, but it is fun and it is kind of playing with everything he's set up.

[33:00]

And the death of the doctor was this sort of big sombre thing and it becomes the occasion for a whole bunch of gags and sort of narrative playfulness instead of what we expected.

But just to expand on that point, and this is why I sort of struggle with articulating it, because I think there is a je ne sais quoi about any Doctor Who that we love or hate.

Sometimes you just love it and sometimes you just hate it and you just can't find the reason.

And for some reason, even though I acknowledge that a lot of it's played for laughs and it's funny and it's, you know, for some reason, I'm drawn to this in a way that I'm not drawn to the way Russell did it.

Now, I don't know, maybe it's actually David Tennant.

I have the problem with rather than Russell.

Who knows?

But for some reason, the way it's done here, and I can't quite put my finger on it.

Maybe just, maybe it just comes back to the fact that I'm loving how it all ties together because the gags, all the gags about history being schmushed together.

It all works together.

It all makes sense rather than just being a series of gangs.

Maybe I don't know.

[34:01]

I completely acknowledge that I'm being a little bit inconsistent.

But I do love just expanding too.

On the fact that the season's turned upside down.

You start with a two-parter and you've only got a single episode at the end to resolve it.

And I think maybe that's also something that I love, maybe.

The fact that the season starts with that oomph, that weighty, that meaningful double episode, and then it ends with a kind of a bit of a runaround, but pays off all the stuff that was brought up at the beginning.

I'd never thought of it like that.

I'd never thought of it like that.

I'm just not that deep.

But I think you've made some really great points there about the whole structure of the season in this episode.

And I also love that.

I love the way in which the regulars are used, you know?

I think, again, Captain Williams is so dedicated to Amy, but he doesn't has no idea really what's going on, but he'll still do it anyway.

I love the sketch.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The sketch of like Rory being this incredibly attractive guy.

[35:03]

Because it's totally but it's totally consistent with the way the relationship is set up, you know, you know, not right back to the 11th hour, not him, the attractive one.

It's a young Val Kilmer.

Oh, is that right?

I think he looks great in that outfit, like when the actual sketch comes down, actually, I actually really do like...

She did the online Tegan Jabanka draw your own man.

They went to the same school.

Yes, she's a very good draft woman.

Title.

But I love the way also the doctor talks to him about, you know, you were Mr. Hottiness.

It's like...

You haven't done sex.

You haven't done this before.

Rory so good in this.

The underplay.

Yeah.

Sotto voce, just the steady bass note through the whole piece and then you've got all these high notes.

It's actually getting quite symphonic, isn't it?

wonderful plays of light and dark.

[36:05]

He doesn't do his sort of usual awkward, sort of, uncomfortable, anxious sort of thing.

He even does Butch eye patch.

He's trying to do that.

But doesn't that change after the ganger Amy dissolves to nothing?

It doesn't he sort of he becomes less awkward and a bit more driven?

Maybe, but I do think here, he's not playing it for comedy at all, although he is, you know, straight man to Matt in that scene that we just talked about.

But he gets to be the soldier.

He gets to be the person who waited.

And she does ask him out.

Like she does ask him out and it is this sort of thing where this is a relationship.

Orders him out.

But it's a relationship that's going to happen in every parallel universe.

Universe, yes, yes, yeah.

I think one of the joys of this, for me, has been Karen Gillan, who, as I have said, listeners a 1000 times over, I despised so much back at the time and just enjoying her performance so much more and seeing what she does.

[37:07]

And I still don't think she's the greatest thing since slicespread.

But I really think that she's very good and I just love the character in this and the fact that she's remembering and she's sort of the dog, you know when he's fluffing about in the train and, oh, you know, you've got to remember and she obviously does and just her facial expressions and all that, the way she delivers those lines is delicious.

And picking up the squashy, they're the very tartars. gestures.

But also then going into, like, obviously, you know, you took my baby and how she can suddenly go quite sassy and quite like we were, like, which is, which took me about a surprise because...

Thinking of river and looking at her parents, like you, you know how some people are like, you know, seeing their parents who they are and that sort of thing. and I've never really felt that river was anything like Amy or Rory, but in that moment, as sort of like, okay.

I can see where you get it from and well, she says, you know, she gets it from me.

[38:10]

And so that was a moment that I really enjoyed this time through.

I kind of thought, okay, there's the spark, all the connection between the mother and the daughter, which, of course, they, the mother-in-law.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is another great gagling.

But yeah, and Karen looks spectacular.

Her hair looks spectacular.

Back to the hair, you know?

spectacular.

I agree.

Her hair in this season and next season is probably why I really like it now.

No, it's true.

It's why I love Clara in season 7 and then I kind of like her in season 8, but in season 9, that short hair is just terrible.

So it's like it's the hair thing.

That scene where she says, you know, where do you think River got it from or whatever?

And and you've got Madame Cavarian saying you don't want to disappoint your doctor, you know, the doctor wouldn't want you to do this and they're sort of trying to do that.

And we think maybe that's going to work for a second.

And then she says, you know, one other thing about the doctor, you know what the doctor is, like not here.

[39:15]

And so he never finds out that she's done that.

And I think that she should have done that and I think it goes some way to kind of addressing the narrative problem we had before with the abduction of the baby.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We actually thought that the doctor and Rory were going to do that at the beginning of a good man goes to war.

You know, we think the men are now out to rescue their...

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the damsel isn't in distress and she gets to kill the person who did this to her and I'm so excited by that. love that scene.

Revenge. would have rescued her.

Yeah.

Yeah, I do like a good villain there. treated it well, but I would have, yeah, because this is not the right time.

You still have to, I would give you the grace note of doom to think, you know, dark place.

So it's not necessarily a kind thing.

It's just the right thing.

So she dies here in this abortive timeline, right?

[40:17]

Yeah.

But does that mean she's still out there in the real timeline?

I didn't think of that.

Well, we saw her die.

Therefore, she's dead.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, unless Moffatt later decides she's a great character and wants to bring her back for space reasons and then he'll do it, like he does Dodorium and Stracts and just everyone that he kills off and kind of goes actually I kind of liked them. have them again.

I haven't talked about Dorum or the truncation of character.

He's feeling funny.

He's great.

He really works.

I didn't think so 1st viewing at all.

Oh, really?

TikTok and I were pretty much on the same page.

No, he's great in this.

You know, he's such a fun character to deliver all those witty lines and say something but say nothing at the same time. you know what I mean?

Yeah.

[41:17]

We've also got the wedding.

A river song?

Ah, yes.

Up on the roof.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, you know, like, I think it's, it's not a bad scene and the doctor agrees to it what?

So that he can...

Why is he going to it?

Because it's the title of the episode?

Yes.

I suspect so.

Well, because they don't need to be married to Kiss because it's when they come into contact in that Lenovic limitation effect kind of thing that then time, the clock keeps going and then therefore they can go through the events of the 22nd of April or whatever it is.

But yeah, you're right.

There's actually no reason why they need to get married.

They talk about the contract, although she is marrying the simulacra robot thing.

Yes, the doctor's in there.

Well, he's in there, though, controlling it.

Yeah.

So the doctor lies and says, I just told you my name and we know that River knows the doctor's name from Silence in the library.

And so we assume that that's the truth, but he isn't telling her his name at all. telling her, I mean, yeah, yeah, look into my eye.

[42:25]

And I think that's sort of kind of fun.

So I don't think the wedding is actually, like, it's a, what did we call it?

A nerd baiting title?

It's just like a doctor's wife.

Yeah, it's not the best thing in the episode.

But can I ask a question now?

So everything's built up that river kills the doctor and she's in prison for killing the doctor, but in my head, it's like, well, she kills the doctor in a suit that only the Tesla lettic can see, but does the whole universe know that she kills the doctor?

Like, this is a issue that I have going on in this story because I kind of felt like it's been built up that she kills a good man, which is the doctor and the whole universe would know and it'd be a big spectacle, but I kind of think only the doctor, the test selector and her know it.

And so why is she in prison?

Well, I think, though, that what has to happen is for time to remain the same and for them not to rewrite the timeline.

There's a problem here.

So because she was already in prison the 1st time for killing the doctor when she actually did kill the doctor.

[43:31]

When the doctor fixes this, he can't change it very much.

River changes it by discharging her weapon and refusing to shoot the doctor and everything goes to hell.

The doctor changes it more subtly by turning up as the doctor in a doctor suit and then dying and getting burned and all of that sort of thing.

So he doesn't change anything.

But I think that Moffatt can't have had all of this in mind back in series 5 when he put River in prison for killing the doctor, which is very clear.

He'd work it out later.

Yeah, he was going to work it out later.

And so he has to do this thing where he makes it okay that she goes to prison despite not actually killing him because he takes her out all the time to things and, you know, she keeps escaping and she's not unhappy about being in prison because she can get out whenever she wants.

And, you know, she's packing.

We've already seen her packing, you know, and we will see more of that as well.

So look, like he does the best he can with what he's established already, but you can, I think, see some of the rough spots, I think.

[44:40]

The working.

Yeah I think you can.

Two things.

If I can just loop back to having the wedding at all, I think whilst the fact that it's not necessary for the plot to work, it is the nice rounding out of the, you know, river and the doctor, uh, longtime, you know, soulmates, uh, without it being the end of the season where the last 10 minutes of the episode is some great big wedding where they're all there.

Yeah, you know, and you have tracks and, you know, the, the, the, exactly.

They're all there, you know, to avoids that kind of rubbish while still underscoring the importance of this relationship.

I wondered at the time, and I was reminded of it. when I watched this again last night.

Whether Moffatt was considering changing the direction of the show after this point, a bit, because up until now in the new era, particularly, the doctor is this completely famous person, everyone knows who he is.

Oh my god, he saved our civilisation, he's a legend here, he's legend there, he's, you know, enemy of the Daleks, all that sort of stuff.

[45:41]

And by saying at the end, when I think Dorian asks him and he says, I'm just going to lie low for a while, partly to make the reason, you know, that Rivers goes to jail at Tetra, Tetra, at work.

But I was wondering whether they were thinking about taking all of that Doctor Fame out of the picture and just having him go and arrive somewhere and no one knows who the hell he is and he doesn't know anything and it kind of returning to that level of mystery.

And I was a little bit disappointed that that isn't what then eventuated the following year.

Do you see what you see what I'm trying to say?

Yeah, he tries to actually fix it again, in Asylum of the Daleks, by wiping himself out of the Daleks data.

But it never goes anywhere.

It was like, there was a moment at the end of the 5 doctors as well when I was 11 and I wondered whether they were going to go back to a different era where he says, after all, that's how it all.

You know, you're deliberately going on the run from your own people in a rack and the old apartheid. after all that's how it all started.

And that was like, lovely parallel.

I thought that too in 1983 that, oh, they're going to rest the series.

Yeah.

Not that they're going to arrest the series, but they're going to the whole thing about him being kind of the timelord sending him on missions from time to time and, you know, Gallifray with its comfy sofas and all that sort of stuff.

[46:50]

It was a way of kind of erasing all that and starting again.

And I thought that maybe this idea that the doctor's not really dead, but the universe thinks he's dead was a way to start again.

Yeah, a soft a soft reboot.

No, I completely agree with you.

I was on the same page thinking, oh, so they're just going to dial it back and, and, well, you'd said it all, really.

Yeah.

And every franchise has to do it.

DC does it all the time. you know, literally all the time.

Yeah, because after so many years, you build up so much stuff.

It's understandable that the doctor goes from planet to planet and it's recognised because he's done all this stuff. you know, 55 odd years worth of stuff.

Yeah, it starts to ruin the show.

I would have loved a season 22 that did what Simon is saying. would have really loved to have seen that.

Yeah, and I think Peter would have really loved to have performed that, yeah.

At the end of the episode, obviously, says a lot of things to the doctor.

[47:54]

Like, it's all waiting for you.

You know, trends are all, fall of the 11th, and the question hidden in plain sight.

The question you've been running from all your life, you know, Doctor Who.

And it's setting up so many things that we can now see, obviously, in retrospect of where things are going with all of these things.

And the music at that and Matt's performance are just brilliant.

I just love all of that.

It excites me, right?

was thrilling.

And it's obvious that, you know, he's been running from this question all of his life.

Doctor Who?

And I was just thinking, my God, he's probably spoken to Chris Chipnall and said, well, when you take over, you can answer that question.

You've been running from all of your life, right?

Who are you really?

Unfortunately, Todd, time can be rewritten.

And Simon, I hope to hell it will be.

So I think that one of the things that Moffat does is makes his mysteries very obvious.

And so we knew almost immediately that the doctor and River were married.

Amy guessed it.

[48:54]

We knew that she guessed right.

It became very clear from the way that they interacted, that that was what their relationship is.

Even here, the doctor says, hi, honey, I'm home.

And River says, what sort of time do you call this?

And he'll do the same thing with Missy?

Um, you know, that Missy was going to be the master. otherwise.

It would have just been stupid and who would have cared?

What the answer is.

Here the mystery is the 1st question that was ever asked.

And it's asked in the opening titles of an unearthly child, just as Doctor Who begins.

And that's what the reference is.

I think, you know, the question from before the beginning of time or whatever.

And Mr. Chibnell, I would have been really happy never knowing the answer to that.

Well, I don't think we get the answer to that, though.

You know, like the doctor used to be from the planet Gallifrey and now he's from a completely different planet and who cares, you know, like whatever.

Like, I never think that that actually properly pays off.

[49:58]

And I think he's being super clever.

He knows that you can't answer it.

And for all the tinkering that Moffat does with the doctor's origins and stuff.

He leaves the show intact.

He doesn't do anything. that makes us kind of really reinterpret the show as it's happened so far.

But I wasn't looking for that question, Doctor Who, to be answered.

I was seeing it as a reset to say, remember, that's why we're all here.

We don't really know who he is.

And not saying that, oh, you know, we'll all answer it for the 50th or something. you know, we all knew that we were moving towards that when we saw this in 2011.

But, you know, as you were saying earlier, like it's a conclusion to the whole river, who she is and all that sort of thing.

And even as a conclusion to Amy and Rory, it would have been nice, you know, this is a conclusion to everything.

You know, they know he's alive, they're back on earth with their lives.

They've got their daughter there.

It's all nicely wrapped up.

They've left 2 episodes earlier.

It would have been quite satisfied.

If that was it, if that was it for Amy and Rory.

Did we need them to come back at Christmas?

And then do we need them for another 5 episodes?

Well, only because the story mechanics of what he wants to perhaps do next season dictate it.

[51:01]

But if this had been it for them, it would have been, I think, a beautiful way to end it on a positive on so many levels.

I agree.

And I think that's a mistake that the modern version of the show has made several times by not allowing a character to leave when it would have been most satisfying.

And I know there are all sorts of reasons for that.

Yeah, I mean, let's be fair, it is Moffat really more than RTD.

Like RTD sort of churned through the cast sort of fairly quickly, but Moffatt keeps Amy and Clara on for a very long time each.

And you can see why, like he likes them.

He likes the characters and stuff.

They still want to do it.

Let's keep them.

The chemistry is...

Well, it's something nice, you know, looking back into history and seeing those long running companions, whether it's Joe or Sarah or Tegan.

They're the anchors of the various areas of the show.

And I think that's that's fine.

No, I mean, they all do it, whether it's Rose coming back.

Mickey comes back like leaving Mickey in the parallel universe would have been just such a lovely kind of such a sad departure.

[52:03]

They're both guilty as far as I'm concerned.

But this would have just been a lovely ending.

I would have really felt very satisfied.

Now, the other thing about Amy and Rory.

I don't know whether this has been brought up in an earlier podcast episode, but from the doctor's timeline, they are his longest serving companions, because there's what, 200 odd years between the 2 versions of the doctor that we see in the impossible astronaut.

No.

The doctor spends like a 1000 years on the planet Christmas.

And so Clara is...

Sorry, to this point.

You're absolutely right.

But that so he does it again later.

But you see what I'm saying?

there's this 200-year period where the doctor, I mean, who knows, he's off visiting other people and having other whole other companions that Big Finish can do audio adventures with.

But I'm also wondering whether that also does the river thing because I'm also thinking that that solves the river relationship or expands on the river relationship, effectively they're in a relationship for 250 odd years, or 250 odd years of the doctor's timeline.

You've got, um, when the future doctor meets at the beginning of the Impossible Astronaut, the diary comparison with River, they're all up to date.

[53:12]

They're talking about, you know, what was the fish thing?

Jim the fish?

Jim the Fish and all that sort of stuff.

And so I think there's this richness.

It sort of adds to the fact that there's this richness of their relationship, which we never see, and that's happened either before or after the logic, probably before the logic.

The thing that Moffat does is he, up until this point, the doctor's life has been depicted in the show, right?

We just see him go on a series of adventures, we assume, broadly speaking, that what happens to him is what we see on screen.

Moffat takes that away.

And so Matt Smith is the longest living regeneration of the doctor because he spends all that time on Christmas that we don't see.

We don't see him during the 200 years.

Well, except for the very end of them.

You know, so now what we see is we still see adventures, the doctor going on adventures, but it's explicit that what we see is a subset of what's happening.

And so think about Capoldi, who has been at the university for 50 years or something before we join him when he meets Bill in series 10.

[54:14]

Like, that's something that he does, that neither Russell or Nor, the classic series ever did, I think.

What an interesting and positive discussion.

I certainly came in today not thinking that that was necessarily going to be the case.

And it's now solidified in my head that this is a 9 out of...

Well, see, you agree with me, because I'd probably say 9 as well.

I know, and I was hitching towards an eight.

Here we go.

Richard, I want to be special, but nine.

Look, I think the episode caps off one of the best seasons of the modern era.

And I tried to think about this, whether I liked the last season or this one more.

And for me, it's actually difficult to separate them.

I know it's, you know, heresy, but I haven't actually given every episode of Mark and then applied an overall average to the whole thing, but I'm sort of thinking about gut instinct.

They both contain some of the best episodes the show's ever produced.

And yes, they both have weaker episodes, but I think the 2 of them together represent for me, the golden era of the 21st century version of the show.

Like the 5 episode run from the Pandora opens through today, the moon, with a Christmas carol in the middle.

[55:18]

Now that's probably for me, the best run of episodes, the show, the modern show's ever produced.

It's also interesting clever.

I'm just was totally engaged by.

And I think, I'm afraid for me, the Moffat era starts to decline from this point on.

Well, Mr., that's all we have time for this week, and for this season, we'll be back next week to try and make sensible this in our series 6 retrospective.

In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts, and you can keep up with us at flights for entirety on Facebook, at FTE podcast on Twitter, and on our website, Flightthrough Entirety.com, where you'll find links to our other podcasts, Bondfinger, Jody Interterterra, Maximum Power, and Untitled Star Trek project.

[56:30]

Until next time, remember that people think their memories are bad, but their memories are fine.

The past is really like that.

Thank you very much for listening and good night.

Good night.

See you soon.

Good night.

That was Flight Through Entirety, starring Todd Bealby, Nathan Bottomley, Simon Moore and Richard Stone.

Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.

This episode, the Magic Mavic Chen principle, was recorded on the 24th of October 2021 and released on the 12th of December.

Make sure to tune in next week when we use narrative trickery to reveal that episode 21 of Flight Through Entirety never happened, that episode 67 to 78 take place in an alternative universe and that James's participation in the 1st 112 episodes was wiped from your memory because there was some silence lurking in the corner of Brendan's living room.

Okay, say something hilarious, because this could be the tag.

That could be the tag.

[57:31]

It could be the tag.

All right.

7.5 out of 10 better than I remember it.

Yeah, I actually think it's pretty good, I have to say.

Oh, God, don't tell me I'm going to be saying how fantastically awesome it was and everyone's going to be going, oh, it's okay.

No, I really like it.

I loved it from the moment I saw it.

Jesus.

This is one of the best episodes of the new era.

No.

I hate it.

Oh wow.

Tot and I were right on the same page.

Oh God, okay.

Here we go again.

Here we go again.

So tiresome.

I'm sorry.

I am excited about this because I will have to do less fixing the sound.

Not you.

Everyone.

Does everyone put a remote?

We can have more over, over talking.

I can eliminate a little bit of that, but not much because we all leak into each other's microphones.

[58:32]

So we do we do record on different tracks.

Right.

But it does leak.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, let me try this.