Hello, day listener, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast that's always been able to imagine
being a forest.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Pete.
And I'm Mark.
Well, it's Christmas Day, which means it's time for turkey, eggnog
and admitting to all your friends and relatives that you faked
your death 2 years ago just to avoid them.
And it's also time to strip mine another literary Christmas
classic.
It's the doctor, the widow, and the wardrobe.
All right, I'm gonna ask people a question.
Are people familiar with the lion, the witch and the wardrobe?
Over here?
Definitely of my age, I think.
Yeah, it was a book that it was every school child raid.
And that's pre-BBC 90s adaptation.
So, yeah, what about you, Mark?
Annoyingly, younger demographic than me.
Was it something that was on your radar, pre-TV as well?
Yeah, absolutely.
It was definitely probably red, red at school.
So it's not even just something that was big for our age group, but
was like a set text or whatever.
And then I was probably exactly the right age for the BBC
adaptation, which I probably even saw Tom Baker in before I
watched any Doctor Who.
I was probably that kind of age.
It was probably the 1st thing I ever saw him in.
Yeah, so he plays paddle glum in the silver chair, I think.
I vaguely remember that adaptation.
Did you ever see that?
I did.
I saw a little bit of it.
I wasn't that much into it, and I think I either must never
recognise Tom Baker or I didn't see the silver chair.
The funny thing was, I remember at high school because I was a
little swat, I was often in the English department book room
fetching the books and there was every book in the series in there
and I knew it as a book series.
I think, though, I was most familiar with the young ones sketch
where the white queen offers Vivian Turkish delight.
Um, but the funny thing is, like, the books were in there in the
English department bookroom, we never learned any of the books in
any year.
I was at high school.
I don't remember any of my friends mentioning it. either.
So I think those books had like been in there before us and were
just not used for ages.
So it was always his mythical thing.
I think there were a huge thing to that wartime generation, the
people who were evacuated, especially because that's sort of where
the setting of it starts.
And so, yeah, there's that sort of handed down from parents to
children aspect to it here as well.
All of whom, however, would know, checking from the publishing
date in the front page, that it's not out of copyright yet.
And I wonder at what point that dropped into the writer's mind
while creating this particular Doctor Who episode that he couldn't
quite do.
How do I do a Charles Dickens on this one?
these movies.
Yeah, maybe we make it a bit less wardrobey and a bit less liony
to avoid setting alarm bells ringing in that department.
It sort of strikes me that it's not the sort of thing that Stephen
Moffatt would have a lot of sympathy for, and he absolutely
doesn't do anything beyond just a very, very kind of superficial
use of some of its imagery, really.
I mean, so the wartime evacuation to a big house in the country
the Christmas setting, the sort of wintry setting of the planet.
But otherwise, it's really nothing at all, like, the source
material, unlike last year, where basically, he just did a version
of a Christmas Carol crossed with a Disney movie.
Here he's kind of left with less to do with the source material.
Early on in FTE's run, and I don't know if people remember this
because it was a long time ago.
I mentioned that C.S. Lewis was on my enemies list.
I think he was probably a terrible person.
And I have a bit of a loathing for the line, the winch and the
wardrobe.
And I think part of the thing is that I think Aslan is a terrible
bully.
And C.S. Lewis sort of co-ops people's feelings about Jesus
sacrifice and sort of tries to attach them to his sort of rather
horrible cartoon line.
And so I'm always sort of quite cross with him about that.
And, you know, there's obviously a lot of sexism and racism in
Narnia.
It has been sort of well rehearsed, I think. women drivers.
Well, Stephen Moffat.
We'll get there.
Well, Stephen Moffatt has said was, you know, he read it as a
child as well.
And as a child, any Christian imagery and algorithm just went
straight over his head.
Yeah.
So rather than going for a direct adaptation, which, yes, may
indeed have been to do with the fact it's still in copyright
because it was only published in 1950.
As, you know, as well as that, he was sort of writing it from his
childhood memory.
And I think that's why you get the sort of crib notes version of
you have something vaguely wardrobe shaped.
And it's like, the whole title is a lie, right?
Yeah, so there is no wardrobe.
There is no wardrobe.
There is no widow.
And the doctor is hardly referred to as the doctor throughout the
whole story.
He's the caretaker.
Yeah.
Yes, it is another nerd baiting title, I think.
He does, he refers to the TARDIS's wardrobe, doesn't he?
It doesn't cover it.
I don't know.
Crew barring it in a bit.
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely the Christian stuff sailed over my head when I
was a kid watching and reading this as well and I'm sure it wasn't
any part of the teaching about it either.
But I think the evacuee side of it, I think I remember was what
was the lesson, like that this is what happened, that kids were
taken from big cities to houses in the country that could
accommodate them and stuff because there's other, I think it's
wrong.
Tom's Midnight Garden or the Secret Garden.
There's other books like that that you read as a kid, aren't there
about evacuees and stuff?
So it's quite a quite an evocative thing, I think.
And the 2 girls in Curse of Fenrich, obviously.
Yes.
Evil in that hat.
It's actually a refreshing change, I think, to have a Christmas
special that's not sort of said in the present day.
And so obviously, once again, we're getting Moffatt taking a
different sort of tack.
I mean, the next doctor was set in Victorian times.
And here, though, we have a 2nd World War story and I think that
it actually works really well.
That mid-20th century thing is great.
And I think it suits Claire Skinner as well.
Yeah, and that's fascinating because she's such a big star at this
point.
The night before this went out, she has the outnumbered Christmas
special, which is the biggest comedy show on TV of the period
where she plays middle class mum with her 3 kids in the modern
day.
And so yeah, it was really Claire Skinner's Christmas on BBC One
this year.
And I thought, yeah, and this story, it felt like a real palate
cleanser after the whole everything of the previous year of like
how complex and how many different, how many things can be bunged
into one Doctor Who story.
Oh, if only we knew. previous year.
But and this year, the female league doesn't get locked in a
fridge while men do the ethics and has to come out and sing as a
sad song once in a while.
So I do like her having a more a much more front and centred role
as the female lead of this story.
Are we going to have a companion discussion because she gets her
name in the credits.
I think that's, but so does Kylie, is Kylie a companion.
So does John Sim.
Yeah.
Cribben's count.
We've got a new we have a new category in our collection now, don't
we?
light in Ghost Light. of a big, someone who's big enough to get
their name in the opening credits, but too big to actually come
back to do this day and day out unless they're as awesome as
Catherine Tate.
There we go.
That's the name of that category of person I've just invented.
Sure, the acronym will be marvellous.
It is a cast made up of a lot of people known for comedy, isn't
it?
So class can, like, say, massively best known for outnumbered
Alexander Armstrong at this point, best known for Armstrong and
Miller.
And as you say, where she's been cast as the mum, being best known
for playing the much harassed mum in outnumbered.
I'm sorry, another one of the famous sketches is the World War II
pilots sketch.
So I assumed that this was like a sort of a shorthand for casual
viewers because, you know, the whole idea that more people watch
talk to on Christmas Day that don't normally watch it.
But I read in the complete history that Andy Pryor hadn't realised
that that he just cast it. knowing yet.
Armstrong just has that vibe.
In fact, both of them have sort of good Doctor Who pedigrees.
So Claire Skinner was married to Charles Palmer at one point, who
directed Doctor Who and is the son of Jeffrey Palmer.
Alexander Armstrong, of course, hangs out behind Sarah Jane's
attic.
Oh, Peter Tottenham style. not having to rehearse anything as Mr
Smith.
There's a moment in his final scene where he's up in the, he goes
up in the attic and he just looks around and it's almost like, yeah
maybe I could be at home in an attic, like, in a big old house one
day.
Just sort of verbally.
Because, of course, I think also, between series 5 and six, you
had Matt Smith on Sarah Jane Adventures as well. with Liz and
Katie.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. written by Russell T. Davis for the only time, I
think.
And Alexandra, I'm sure it's technically been in Doctor Who
because he's in the stallen earth journeys end of crossover, isn't
he, as well?
Oh, yes, of course, yes.
And then we have 3 other people who are sort of well known for
comedy, former Doctor Who, unbound actor Arabella Weir, is here
Bill Bailey, who is a very vocal Doctor Who fan, I think, appears
here for the 1st time, and we also have Paul Bazley, who I didn't
know, but he has, you know, like a massive IMDb page, and has
never not worked.
So he must have been a fairly familiar phase.
Bill Bailey is one of those brilliant people for Doctor Who fandom
exports, like to the normal people.
He tells Dr. New Joke in stadiums with 20,000 people in them and
everyone laughs.
He's got that knack.
It's an amazing thing to house.
And it's a really small role.
I know people, that's the sort of role where people can say, oh
it's a, you know, it's a month that big.
I think he's become even bigger since then. why wasn't he given a
massive role?
But if he's available and you've got a small role, you would just
jump, wouldn't you?
and it's Christmas.
And yeah, Arabella Weir is brilliant in this and it does sort of
heal some of the wounds of that horrifically frightening
conceptually.
I mean, horrifically frightening big finish where she plays the
1st female doctor, who has turned into a woman because the doctor
committed suicide and that's the time lord punishment for it, and
she's an alcoholic who jokes about boobs all the time because
she's a woman.
And I didn't get to the end actually.
Maybe, maybe, maybe it twists in God.
Anyway, lovely to see her anyway. 2 doors down.
Which is one of the biggest sitcoms.
Well, it's not because it should be.
It's a niche sitcom. you ever see it, track it down.
She's the female lead in that, along with stink from Flux, is one
of the stars of that too.
The 2 people who aren't Bill Bailey, so Arabella Weir and Paul
Bailey are playing Billis and Wenger, who were named for departing
executive producers Beth Willis.
Oh my god.
Piers Wenger.
Which makes me think that Droxel is Stephen Moffat constantly
turning around to his other executive producers like, will you
focus, please?
And if that's the case, Beth Willis was probably constantly
tapping Stephen on the shoulder and saying, um, so are we going to
address the fact that Amy is going through massive trauma?
Or do you think women just bounce back from this, Stephen?
All that stuff about a visual.
You know, it's a bad visual. you know, pointing a gun at Claire
Skinner on Christmas Day.
I actually think that that scene is surprisingly funny.
Moffatt can write clever sitcom dialogue, but this episode has
kind of the feel of him being a bit tapped out, to be honest, but
I do think that's funny.
I think it's surprising how little comedy business Arabella Weir
gets to do, but in a way, just thematically with how this episode
works and will definitely come to that.
She is the one who's not an idiot because she's a woman.
And she's really quite sympathetic.
I think she plays it really well, like the way that she is careful
with Claire Skinner's feelings.
Do you know what I've forgotten her character's name?
Is she Madge?
Marjorie?
Madge Madge.
You got imagine Reg.
Imagine Reg, of course you do.
I give you into Marge, as in Simpsons, and it's not.
It's much like neighbours. they great?
Yes.
And they're all great 1940s names.
Or 30s.
Because there's a bit of a bit of a haze over when this is set
isn't it?
Because it starts before the war, and then we get a caption saying
3 years later, but then the telegram with his death on only says
like 1941 or something, you know, I'm not quite sure which German
city is on his way back from obliterating.
But we have to pin it down on some, in a plane that apparently
hadn't been invented then, the Lancaster bomber didn't come along
to the lake.
But that's.
That's getting too picky.
For God's sake, have a sharing.
We've leapt into the main story, of course.
There's that bit, I'm going to get this out of my system, because
I'm going to find this very difficult to say, but the beginning
bit, with getting a whole, here's your expectation of a Russell T
Davis Christmas special.
We're on a spaceship, everything's blowing up.
And just blowing it all up in the 1st 30 odd seconds is clever.
There we go.
I said it.
I've said Moffett is clever.
I've done it for a long time.
And I, yeah, I've got it out my system.
Because that is a really fun way of starting it off and play with
their expectations.
The doctor plummeting through space, his hair bellowing in the
wind as he manages to put on a spacesuit and which has a
reversible helmet somehow.
We'll just have to sort of roll with that because it makes it
funny when he lands.
Yeah, I think it also is so that Madge obviously doesn't recognise
him when he turns up 3 years later.
So she's never seen his face.
And there are sort of some jokes to be had, I think.
Like that 1st scene is actually really rather charming and good at
establishing what's going on here and certainly establishing her
character.
Yeah, I miss Roger Moore too with that bit.
Yeah.
Going through the sky.
It's how didn't bellow.
It was much more secure.
Get real gone.
That's what occurred to me that it seemed to be homaging a lot of
films that we used to be on at Christmas when I was younger, saw
the Star Wars opening, the sort of the moonraker, like you say, the
Roger Moore chasing the parachute.
And then when he crashes away, it's almost like Superman, isn't
it?
sort of like crashing into a field in sort of countryside
location.
So these were, you know, before in the UK we had sort of sky moves
and things like that, the big movies they were put on over
Christmas, so it's quite evocative in that way as well, I think.
Oh, I think Russell's mind that before, hasn't he?
I mean, Voyage of the Damned is a sort of Poseidon adventure.
Homage, I think.
Yeah, and it does kind of, but it makes me less worried about why
we don't get Christmas specials anymore because they really had
done them all over the course of, there's more to come yet as we
go through this era.
The Muffet era.
But they couldn't just keep doing that year in year out or doing
the opposite of it, which you can also do, but there comes a point
where it's like, how much more Christmas you can Doctor Who be.
In fact, the only thing they haven't done, which I really want, is
Doctor Who does Gremlins, because that's my thing.
That's an open door.
Russell D. Davis if you're listening.
Well, Wizard versus Aliens did Gremlins in very early episode.
And it's particularly good, I think.
You could do a Christmas special with a bunch of patings.
Oh, eating London for things that ate London.
Russell, call us.
The tings of comfort and joy.
We 3 patings of...
Meeting Madge, her 1st scene with her son, little miniadric.
It's fantastically concise and great.
And the way she burbles all the stuff about, and there was a
spaceman or possibly an angel.
That's it.
You know this person.
You know this woman. and you like her.
I think everyone would like, and she's just immediately a loveable
and real person, which is a very hard thing to land, and that's
good writing and really good acting to do that.
Yeah, the little kid, he's doing exactly what he's been asked to
do.
I mean, and it's quite funny that what's he doing in the garden
agriculture, like, it immediately made me think of 4 to Doomsday
and Adric saying, pass the sodium chloride.
I'm a child genius and that's how we speak.
I actually think that that it's super adorable because she gives
this sort of big flustered explanation that Cyril is supposed to
give Reg when he arrives and Cyril just says she's out.
And I think that's terribly cute.
And I also think characterising Lily as a bit of an idiot because
she thinks that all of Cyril's big words are just made up.
She doesn't think they're real words at all.
And she's not going to be fooled by him into thinking they are.
You're just saying things.
Something I love so much about those scenes is, you know, when
we've gone back to roughly this period in history in modern Doctor
Who, the empty child, the idiot's lantern, the colours are all
quite muted because we always think of the past in muted colour
because it was either in black and white or CPR or very early
colour systems, but I love how vibrant and vivid the colours are
and they don't even go for the tempting option of they're vibrant
and vivid in 1938, but then in 194 when everything's terrible
everything's kind of dark and gloomy.
It's like, no, the house they go to is still incredibly colourful
possibly because the doctors come in and fixed all these faults.
I love that thing.
It works normally.
Oh, well, that's a fault. fix that.
So let's talk about that.
So we 1st meet the doctor again out of the suit when he sort of
turns up at Uncle Thing's house.
Big V.
Uncle Digby from their Grey Uncle.
They snuck that in from line, the witch and the wardrobe, past the
copyright people.
And who's in a sanatorium in...
No, I think he's in aged care facility or something like that.
That's the idea.
In Battersea.
He's in the dog's home.
He's Digby the biggest dog in the world.
And so this part of Matt's performance is something that I'm not
actually totally on board with.
And I'm a massive fan of man.
He is, as I've said many times, my favourite doctor, but I start
to suspect that rather than giving him interesting things to do
that he spins and does in a really sort of remarkably interesting
way, here, we're just relying on him being a bit zany, and I think
it's probably a little bit too much.
Maybe it's Christmas and we can get away with it, but I'm not a
massive fan of him in these scenes.
The bit with the dancing chairs has gone down in Lambert family
law, as I was watching with my assembled nephews, nieces and
whatnot, and the chairs all started dancing around, and Murray
Gold is throwing an orchestra at you, telling you how funny it
is.
And I just, and I just went, oh, Jesus, effing.
At which point the doctor goes, I know.
No, I'm doing that. and then he keeps doing that again and again
and it just, yeah, it tips him into overly zainly smug zone, which
doesn't land right with me.
Whereas earlier, like the bit with picking the lock in the police
box that they thought was the TARDIS, there's a bit of funny
business there with Claire Turner.
And the music stops, it's just a funny moment.
And so that was laugh out loud, funny for me, but later, when I've
got an orchestra yelling at me that I ought to be laughing or
having any other emotional response, it actually deadens the
response that I have to the drama.
But I know that's just a matter of tone.
People would draw that line in different places.
I do want to shout out for the use of like what is clearly stop
motion.
Like, it's, uh, it looks incredibly cheesy, and I'm absolutely on
board with that, given that, you know, given that it's Christmas
it really looks aggressively silly, and there's no way that that's
not what they're going for.
I think there's also some kind of narrative confusion at this
point.
Because, so the doctor says to Madge, at the end of that 1st
meeting, if you ever need me, just make a wish, and the kids make
a wish, don't they, just before they go to Uncle Digby's, I think
at the end of an early scene, when we already know that the father
is dead, and she's not telling them, right?
And so it's not clear that the doctor knows what's going on with
the family.
Is it?
No, I don't think he knows.
I think as they pull the wishbone apart.
Madge closes her eyes and makes a wish sort of silently then, and
we know that the doctor is passing by between the earth and the
moon because it's, you know, through the telescope sort of thing.
So I think that's what he picks up on.
But I think, and I agree about his performance being very broad
and zany in this episode, in the way that Christmas episodes have
to choose is that bit broader for, you know, people are only
tuning on Christmas Day.
But I do think the scene where Madge tells him that Reg just
died.
He plays that brilliantly and I really, really like that scene and
I read it, that that is him learning what the situation is.
I think everything up to that point, he's just thought, right, I
just want to give these people a great Christmas because I owe
them for saving him 3 years prior.
I wonder whether it would have worked better, though, if he knew
or we knew that he knew and he's trying to distract them from it.
And certainly, I think that scene that you mentioned, Mark, is
absolutely superb.
And the speech that he gives, where he says, where he tells Madge
why she's shouting at the children, and she's shouting at them
because she knows and they don't, and she can't bear to watch them
being happy when they're going to be sad later.
And so what's the point of them being happy now and the doctor
says it's because they're going to be sad later.
And it's one of those things, you know, like, I don't know.
Stephen Moffat is able to write dialogue for the doctor, a man who
can't tell whether a woman is pregnant or not just by looking at
her, that is incredibly wise and insightful.
And I think that that's actually really quite a beautiful speech.
Yeah, that lands, that really lands perfectly that bit.
I didn't really get you.
Because Doctor Who, for me and for a lot of people, gets you
through some very difficult times as well.
It is that it's pure escapism that, you know, as a kid and
everything.
So I think that ties in beautifully with that with these kids, you
know, they're about to go through something horrific and he can be
there to distract them like that.
Yeah, I mean, after I watched the episode this morning, I sent a
message to the FTE group chat saying, guess how many times I cried
during the doctor, the widow, and the wardrobe.
The answer will not surprise you.
Um, but that's the 1st scene I cry in, and, you know, having seen
Doctor Who as many times as I have, most of it multiple times
that's the scene where I am full-blown, eyes scrunched up, can't
see the television, crying, and that speech by Matt about not
being able to be happy because you know how sad they're going to
be or how sad you're going to be.
I thought, 0 my god, that's depression for a lot of people.
That's how depression hits for a lot of people.
If they already have it and they experience a happy emotion.
It'll suddenly be forestalled by, well, what's the point?
I'm not going to feel like this in a couple of hours.
And it's like, well that's the point.
You know, you can remember that.
In terms of what he's doing for the family, watching this off the
back of series 6.
Even though Amy Rory and River all come out at the end of it and
they're all alive, the doctor still has let a family down, that
he's really close to, and I kind of see this as his atonement, and
that's bookended at the end when he says to Madge that he can't go
see them, and she's like, well, I don't care about your excuses.
You're going, young man.
I agree with you, Mark, that I think he knows something is wrong
but he doesn't know what.
So he's just going to turn up and give them the best Christmas
possible.
But of course, being the Matt Smith doctor who doesn't quite
understand how humans work.
He just throws everything at it humanly possible, just everything
at the problem.
But then he finds out the exact nature of the problem.
And he pulls back on the smugness after that.
And sort of when Lily comes up to see him, he doesn't do sort of
grandiose, grandstanding or whatever, he's just, oh, you know
that's that, how can you fix a wardrobe?
have you seen how I dress?
I think too, perhaps then.
There is something about Matt Smith's doctor that is kind of
Stephen Moffat's picture of what men are like, right?
So he's a man child.
He likes being bossed around by strong women, as perhaps does
Stephen Moffat.
And here he doesn't know when to stop.
And he's not particularly good at judging or helping other people
with their emotions.
And so he just goes gets out of hand here.
And that has to be being contrasted with Claire Skinner as the
mother because all of this stuff will eventually be about
motherhood and how important the role of the mother is.
And so the father, who, you know, Matt Smith standing in for in
this sort of situation, is an idiot who does kind of big
grandstandy gestures and stuff, but doesn't really understand the
emotional complexity of what's going on and isn't properly able to
look after them.
The 11th doctor is the sort of the poshist.
Well, they're all, obviously, they're all old doctors, they're all
new doctors.
He's definitely the posh. he's got that air of being the public
schoolboy who didn't get expelled, whereas I think the 3rd the 3rd
doctor being in a in a posh public school and began getting
expelled out as pert we was, seems more more credible.
But I do find it, watching Matt Smith's doctor now, uh, after
having seen him as a young Prince Philip in the crown, is where
where he has to, always tones down the poshunist a little bit to
be Prince Philip.
I just I just see him giving the amazing lines like when he sees
meets Princess Margaret's fiancee and said, I thought he was a
crap.
I can't get that out of my head now when I see the 11th knock.
But yes, the doctor's recklessness that sets in motion, the
situation, isn't it?
Which is already done before he knows what the situation is with
the family.
And I suppose you don't know whether he's still going to go ahead
with it because he's the wires and the cables.
He's tinkering with, sort of alert him to the fact that the little
boy's gone through.
But you don't know whether he's planning something different at
that point or still going to go ahead with taking them to the
planet.
Which isn't called Narnia.
What's that called?
Well, it's not named, is it?
It's nanny a business.
That's why they're in the lamp.
Oh, there is a lamp post, isn't it?
I love the little lampost glimpse that we get, right at the end
where the doctor comes looks out of the tower. and he looks up to
the sky and we see there is an outdoor lamp outside that tower
that's in the exact style of the Narnia lamp post, which is a very
nice little touch there.
Aren't we on an Andrazani?
Well, Bill Bailey Etau are from Andrasani Major.
But we don't, we don't know where this, where this planet's from.
It's probably the 4th moon of Andrasani major or something.
It's the planet from Galaxy 4.
Okay.
Named planet.
Yeah, just 200 years earlier. 200 years of planting forests and
they're melting them.
With acid rain sprayed from space.
Now, as someone whose favourite story often gets criticised for
being unsubtle in its environmental message, I think this one's
pretty unsubtle as well as Orphan 55.
I actually have giant tanks of acid spraying onto your trees
really does make that point.
But I'm on board for that.
And of course, we get that lovely bit, the lovely, what's the word
resonance when the stars are coming out of the trees because death
is raining from the skies, so the stars are all evacuating and it
ties up nicely with the kids being evacuees themselves at the
beginning. a nice, a nice wrap up of beginning to end.
Yeah, yeah. um I remember at the time, my visceral reaction to
this was that there's no moustache twirling villain, you know
there's certainly, I'd say the Andrazani tree loppers are
antagonists, but they're not villains and they're kind of bumbling
and incompetent at what have you.
And the Wooden King and Wooden Queen aren't villains.
And, you know, we find that out.
And yeah, you can argue the corporation doing the acid rain, our
villains, but they're not involved in the story.
Who the villain is is not important.
It's all about saving the tree spirits and saving the Arwells.
And I think that's really lovely.
I've said before that I'm not a big fan of a Christmas carol just
because of the sort of time manipulation and whatnot.
But I acknowledge it's a very clever piece of writing and very
well acted.
This, I feel like because the doctor is more open and more honest
about what is happening than Madge's actions and heroism. resonate
a lot more.
And it feels like a far more triumphant ending than a Christmas
carol does, despite the fact that involves...
Well, I was about to say it involves fewer people, but it also
involves a planet full of like little Magara. floating off and
being rescued.
I love at the end, the doctor says, well, they've migrated to a
higher plane of, I don't know, they just float off into space or
something. doesn't matter.
It's pretty much what happened to them.
Although Madge does get the line and a little setting my teeth on
edge moment, which happened a few times in this era.
Madge turns to someone else as the script is happening to her and
says, oh, this is all really rather clever.
An autorial note to self that accidentally got her name written in
front of it.
I have to say that I enjoyed the complexity of series CX even if I
think there were significant lapses in taste from time to time.
And so I actually found this one just a little bit empty.
And it's because I'm a massive fan of a Christmas carol.
I think it's extraordinary and really clever and very moving.
Whereas I think...
It's very linear for a Moffat.
There is one thing where something at the end of the episode
causes something to happen right at the beginning of the episode.
So there is at least one little bit that's out of chronological
order, but after the sort of riotous successes of series 6, it
just seemed a little bit spare and just a little bit simple.
And even the fact that the aliens sort of don't have their own
voices and barely speak.
And so it is...
I mean, at Christmas the rules are different, aren't they?
It doesn't really have to be a Doctor Who adventure as such, it
can be a sort of short story, which is almost what this is.
And the doctor also operates under different principles at
Christmas.
So last year he went back and interfered with someone's past in a
way that he would never do otherwise, but it's Christmas and he
got the idea from Charles Dickens.
And here the doctor can be called upon by making a wish because
he's essentially kind of magical.
And like, I think that's okay.
I do think that's okay, but it just seemed to lack incident and
stuff like that.
I was on board with the loss and triumphant return of Reg as sort
of really good, proper emotional moments, but the rest of it
didn't really wow me.
It's kind of a palate cleanser, isn't it?
After that previous year of completely insane over the top jumble
of things all going on.
And I could see why they went for that.
Yeah.
But I was kind of like, I don't know.
I'd get right.
Hoping is the wrong word to use.
I'm just going to say in my mind's eye, there was a version of
this that ends with the reapers arriving to collect reg.
That would be the more gremlins.
But I mean, he never dies. like she doesn't change time.
What had always happened was that he had followed her when she had
gone back in the past to the 20th of December and that's why he
went missing because he went forward to Christmas Day.
He took a shortcut, which they say in the dialogue.
So time hasn't been changed.
It's just happened in the wrong order, I think.
Yeah, I wonder what happened to the rest of his crew.
I just...
Yeah, where were I?
It got dark out there.
We thought we were never going to make it back and I was really
hungry.
They were way, although, they were weighing me down.
Well, one of them is injured, aren't they?
So I think the other one is tending to the injured man.
That's Yeah.
Oh okay.
There are a bunch of sort of scene trims.
And in one of those, as Reg and Badger reuniting on the lawn, the
hatch pops open at the top of the bomber and the co-pilot pops it
out.
Sir, what, in fact, is happening.
And I think they cut it because Alexander Armstrong's reply is
very twee, which is, I told you, we're home for Christmas.
Check on headless.
And, you know, I think that's the kind of thing you can just
assume that after a bit of a snog, they went, oh, crap, I've got a
man with a ruptured spleen, because someone call a hospital.
I felt exactly the same way as you, Nathan, that, because I
unashamedly love Stephen Moffatt and the complexity and the
cleverness and everything that Pete hates about it.
So yeah, I found the same as this one.
It's very, it's very linear, straightforward A to B sort of
story.
And I think I, to be honest, tend to sort of probably miss it out
and rewatches a little bit as well because it's not essential in
any way.
And, uh, and and also I think a little bit, because my dad died
when I was 9 and it reminds me a little bit of that as well, I
think, you know, my mum sort of, you know, doing her best at that
and, you know, trying to sort of feel that gap.
So it's, uh, yeah, I think same as you, Brendan, very emotional
watch at times, you know, in various scenes.
I think those bits really, really land.
I'm really pleased to watch it again, actually, for after so long
because it's, I did really enjoy it this time, whereas I'd kind of
dismissed it a little bit, I think, in the past.
I think Moffat is constantly reacting against himself as well.
And so next year, he will do none of the complexity really that
characterise series 6 or even five.
And that's a thing he kind of staggers back and forth from year to
year from one extreme to another, reacting against things he did
in the previous season in a way where Russell has a very
consistent vision for what Doctor Who is.
Moffatt is a bit more experimental, I think, which is why
sometimes he falls over spectacularly.
But when he hits it, you know, it's really quite amazing.
Yeah, I think things land here.
Yeah.
Something I totally love about Siri 6 is how Moffatt and the other
writers at Moffatt chooses write about families.
And there's a lot of stories about fathers in the season leading
up to that.
Avery, there's Alex in Night Terrors, and there's Craig, of
course.
And now we get a story about a mother.
And what's so often the case in sitcoms is the mother's the
sensible one and the father's the fun one.
And we do get that set up, as you were saying, at the beginning of
this, Nathan, but it then settles.
And the thing that annoys me about that kind of setup is it's
implied that the mother is only strong because the father is
foolish.
Whereas here, both parents are incredibly decent, upstanding and
kind people, and their kindness and link to each other is what
brings them together in the end, and I am choking up a bit.
Um, I think that what appeals to me about this story so much is
just sort of how pure it is in, we're giving you a very happy
story.
And then at the end, it's like, no, we're still giving you a very
happy story, you know, this isn't, we've done all this, but
there's still heartbreaking, the world was like, no, for once.
We're going to bring everything back together at the end.
And then, of course, Madge returns the favour to the doctor by
saying, well, go see your family, you idiot.
I have one reservation about it.
And it is based on what you just said, Brendan, about the way it
characterises men and women.
And Pete, you already alluded to the lady driver thing. redeem
itself?
Yeah. she cries to get her own way and then she crashes a car, she
crashes a giant thing, but then in the end she saves a day by
flying a giant ping-pong ball through the already pre-rendered
opening title sequence, which is very interesting.
And I proved that that's what we want, that's that's nice. a nice
touch.
Yeah, I can't decide whether that is a self-redeeming thing
because it does those 3 things and the 3rd one's the twist. don't
know.
I mean, she pulls a gun on them.
I think that's pretty cool.
Like, they think it's just the wool.
And she gets some fantastic lines.
I love the bit right at the end where she says to one of the kids
something like this was bound to happen.
That is one of the funniest slides of the lot.
I'll try and park my my inner script, Karen, kicks in whenever I
want to go back to this era. you know, like, um, as soon as the
end credits, I think all fans have it to a certain extent, and
some people make a career out of it, but like as soon as the end
credits start rolling, you're like, oh, I want to speak to the
script editor, that was not, I did not order a red herring.
I demand to speak to the manager of this episode.
And actually, you've got to just roll with it and love it for what
it is.
The thing I think you're going to talk about was the backstory
that Reg followed Madge home until she sort of relented, which is
a reprise of blink, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
The lady that gets sent back in time just gets stalked into
submission.
Yeah, because Moffatt is a sort of romantic slash sex comedy
writer.
He sort of leans into that trope and obviously the persistent man
is part of that.
But also I think the manchild or the man is an idiot and the woman
as, you know, she's strong and she's able to look after the
children and she can hold an entire forest inside her because of
her great strength.
In a way.
Obviously, that's a tribute to motherhood, but in a way, also it's
and that's why you change the nappies while I'm watching
television.
You know, like it, it just strikes me as a little bit of a
problem.
And with the, with the, you know, he followed me home everyday
thing, you can so easily fix that if the doctor says, oh, bit
creepy.
And she responds, yes, I know.
I had to walk past him 7 times.
It makes it clear that, no, no, no.
I made him do that.
I wanted him to do that.
You know, but at the same time, that is what men did in the in the
20s and 30s, you know.
It just would have been nice if there was a comment there or even
Lily saying, well, I'm not going to do that.
You know, just to kind of say she's going to be, by the time she's
an adult, it's going to be the cusp of the 60s and, you know.
I mean, the reason that Bill is a lesbian, isn't it, is because
Moffatt, when he was riding the pilot, wanted to have these sort
of love interest that pursues Bill, and he's realised by that
point that actually that's really quite creepy, and if we make her
heather, then it won't have those sort of unpleasant
associations.
So Moffatt does learn from this stuff.
But yeah, this is the 2nd time he's deployed that trope and
looking at it in 2021, it does look like a bit of a problem.
Particularly in the tiny montage that we glimpse, he's stalking it
through woodland as well.
He's a fendoline.
Honestly, if you cut the words human newwominy from this episode
it becomes one of my favourites.
That's like, it just, that knocked me off my chair.
There's science, Y and C, and humany Wuminy, isn't there that, yeah
it's...
And we have had bumpy wumpy, I think, at some point in series 6
and I really, really dislike it.
It's not quite as bad as squeaky bum time in the Hungry Earth or
Cold Blood, one of those.
But those things, I think, are a bit unfortunate.
And I think Matt can get away with silly words and sort of posh
nursery speak and all of that sort of thing, but I think that's
too much.
Hmm.
Something I remembered was that humany womeny was the last line of
the episode.
Like, I remember the doctor realising he's crying and saying
huminy wominy.
And I'm so glad I had that memory wrong because I think I just
think it's so much more effective that the doctor doesn't say
anything.
Like it's it's all just a physical acting choice.
And, you know, for me, in terms of sentimentality, that ending is
up there with, and they lived happily from the husbands of River
Song.
I really, really think that final scene is pitched incredibly
well.
Yep.
I was super happy to see Amy and Rory at Christmas.
I think we knew at that point they were going to be back.
But having this story have an effect on the doctor, like the
Christmas invasion, has a doctor who previously didn't do domestic
stuff going home and spending Christmas with Jackie and Rose, which
is one of the highlights of the show's history for me, frankly.
So having them come back.
And having Amy...
Like Amy is, she's doing a Peter Capaldi, she's going to squirt
Christmas carollers with the... and just having them stare at one
another and refuse to make the 1st move and that doesn't matter
because they're so perfectly in sync that they just kind of go for
it at exactly the same time and her laughter at him and all of
that is just it's just terrifically well done.
There's a prequel to this one as well, so-called prequel that I'd
forgotten about that.
I just found on the disc when I was watching this where it's set
on the spaceship at the start just before we joined the events
where he's got his hand on a button and he's saying as soon as I
let go this.
The ship's going to start to blow up and he's phoning Amy in the
TARDIS saying, I'll give you the coordinates. you can come and
pick me up and he goes, oh no, actually, you're not there anymore
are you?
And you haven't been there for a while.
So that sort of bookends the, you know, the Amy stuff a little bit
and highlights that he's actually missing her and thinking about
it.
But I don't think you really miss anything from that.
So how does it hang?
The previous episode ends with him.
I'm going to go dark.
I'm going to lurk in the shadows.
I got too big, which I was, I cheered.
And then, then, he just sort of changes his mind and comes back
and why was it important that he, to him, that they thought he was
dead.
And then he just changes his mind and it's like, oh, okay.
Actually, yeah, it's Christmas.
I'll just not bother doing that anymore.
I don't think it's important.
They thought they were dead, but they'd stopped travelling with
him already in the God complex and had the, you know, he'd bought
them the house and the car and everything.
I thought, oh, you got the impression you just thought, well, their
travels had naturally come to a close and then he was going to go
off and do his new stuff.
He doesn't know that Rivers told them he's not dead, does he?
Amy reveals that to him at that point.
It's a very nice moment, but just let me think, well, why did he
do it then?
I think the reason is that he did originally die in episode one
and then that information was sort of widely known.
Like the test selector had that information.
And the changes he makes in Wedding of River song are very
minimal.
So he does a change that's consistent with what everyone knows, and
so it doesn't break the timeline, whereas River makes a big change
that does break the timeline.
And so he has to come out of it being known to be dead so that
river still goes to prison, blah, blah, blah, you know, the whole
thing.
And so I think that that's why he goes dark.
But I also think that the show generally has a problem oscillating
between whether the doctor's famous or not.
You might remember at the end of World War 3, the doctor gives
Mickey a CD ROM that has a computer virus on it that's going to
delete him from everyone's database so no one knows who he is on
earth anymore.
And now he, the doctor's going dark.
In the very next episode after this, he will wipe his records from
the Daleks database and they won't know who he is.
And I think it's a weird thing because the universe is big.
Time is big.
The doctor can always turn up and no one knows who he or she is
and that doesn't seem weird or surprising to anyone in the
audience.
So, you know, why is it a problem?
The idea that the doctor's famous works because he's been around
for 50 years and blown up lots of people and stuff.
So he can be famous, but he doesn't have to be famous everywhere.
Yeah, because there was like this sort of phase, lasted about 10
years, of the series where that fundamental awesomeness of the
doctor and the effect that that awesomeness has on everyone the
doctor meets and the doctor's celebrity, just, it's always an
element of the show, but it seemed to get right to the front
during the Russell T. Davis Moffatt eras.
Um, and and now, now with, with the gyminal era, it's a different
kind of mythos obsession.
But they try to do this palate cleansing thing of let's clear the
decks. nobody knowing who the doctor is.
And those are the stories.
I love it when the doctor has to prove that the doctor is someone
worth trusting, but to the characters they meet and that sort of
thing.
And if it's just, if it's just, oh, the doctor, I'm just going to
say my name and the monsters run away.
That was fun the 1st time it was done in silence in the library
1st time it was sort of done in this way.
But when it becomes a really regular prop beat of almost every
episode.
I'm like, this isn't adventures in space and time of the type that
I'm looking for.
Probably done the same about Sherlock Holmes, probably, when he
becomes famous.
I could complain about that too.
Conan Doyle did all right despite despite my opinions.
I think it's the show just kind of going meta on a particular
level, you know, that as viewers, we've been watching the doctor
for 50 years do this all the time.
And the show has interrogated that both at the end of series 5 and
the end of series 6 where the monsters gang up on him because he's
so terrifying and destructive.
And that's a true picture of the doctor that the audience had.
And so for us, he's like that.
And so that kind of leaks into the reality of the program, which
is a pretty contentious term when you're talking about the
moffeteer, aren't you?
I think also with the whole Amy and Rory thing, in Let's Kill
Hitler, he views Amy before she met him as the only person he
hasn't screwed up.
And he sort of acknowledges on some level that every time he comes
back into Amy's life, things get worse for her.
So when he leaves her, as you said, Mark, he buys them the house
he buys them the car, and he's like, I'm giving you every
opportunity, and I want you safe, and that's why you can't travel
with me anymore.
And I think that's the reason he's staying away because he sees
himself as their bad luck charm.
And...
I love that when he turns up, there is no recrimination beyond a
spray in the face with a water pistol and they're like, come in
for Christmas dinner.
He's like, what are you talking about?
You weren't expecting me.
And they're like, we always put out a placing for you.
Just in case.
And, you know, they're putting out milk and bickies for Santa.
You know what I mean?
Um, and flashing forward a bit.
I so wish this was the last appearance of Amy and Rory.
It's so lovely and so perfect.
And then you can start the following season with the doctor, having
made peace with them and, you know, everything's good and
everything's fine and kind of weird timiness, we're now in like, I
think I think someone figured out that the power of 3 has to take
place after day of the doctor because of all the time jobs because
it's been 2 years.
Yeah.
And, you know, then there's like a, I think, something like a
three-year time jump during Power of three.
There's literally no reason to believe that Moffat isn't doing
that just to annoy the people who edit TARDIS we care.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, it's for the next edition of the discontinuity guy.
Paul Cornell's like, I'm not touching that with a barge pole.
I get real work now.
And I think having a water pistol moment immediately before a
scene where the doctor is probably seen to be crying is a nice
little touch to, oh, look, if you can't handle this, you can just
say that it was the water pistol and he's thinking about crying.
If Time Lord Tears are too upsetting for you, then I'm giving you
an out here.
I mean, he has cried before and he visibly cries, you know, in
doctor's wife and so on, but the happy cry, which he thought was a
human, a weird human thing, a very sort of sweet human thing.
And so obviously it is because he's half human that he does that.
Well, the listener, that's all we have time for this year.
We'll be back in 2022 to talk to you about Doctor Who Series 7.
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.
Mark, where can people find you online?
I am on Twitter as at Quark McMullis, and you can find me on the
Trot One podcast, along with Pete, uh, Saiha, Conrad, uh, other
people that you've heard on Flight Throntoti, and some other
brilliant people.
I know maximum power.
And Pete, where can people find you?
Yeah, hi, I'm underscore quite a mess on Twitter and a roving
podcast.
For some reason, people keep letting me go on podcasts, so I'll
turn up whatever I'm invited to because it's lovely to speak to
intelligent, lovely people about fun TV programs.
Until next time, remember, you're not dead and a happy New Year.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
That was flight through entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley
Brendan Jones, Pete Lambert, and Mark McManus.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, Digby, the biggest dog in the world, was recorded on
the 12th of December 2021 and released on Christmas Day.
Thank you to all of you for your time, your attention, your
support, and your friendship this year.
Enjoy the holiday season, and we look forward to joining you again
in 2022.
Yeah.
The looms malfunctioned on the table.
Well, got, I mean, I can't wait for Big Finishers series that's
teased in this, the war looms.
The war-master.
The newspaper headline, yeah.
The war looms.
Two neo genetic material.
Crazy Fields.
See your soul.
Give us an arm.
The only thing I've got is, did 12-year-old girls really say, oh
my God, a lot in 1941 because Lily does it.
She's about 3 times.
She's a profane.
I like her.
The doctor's quite rude to her.
Well, in in a cup part of the script, he actually calls her stupid
because she's poo-pooing his brilliant ideas.
And reading a lot.
But does he get does he get a comeback on it, that it's actually
she turns out to be right?
Because she does with the stars.
She's saying, yeah, look at the stars.
Yeah, of course there's stars.
Stupid girl.
Yeah, but I mean, then it's like he's weak and she's strong.
Is that the payoff?
Yeah But that I, um, Stephen Moffat wrote, wrote this at the end
of a 4 month stint where he didn't have a day off and there's
loads of cut lines from the script where the, where Madge and the
doctor are just awful to the children.
And it's like sort of one line in every 10 survives.
Muppet hasn't said this, but I think it's very much, you know, some
one of the scriptenders is going through and going, Jesus Christ.
Is this a comedy?
You know, I think that we've entered the tag season of our episode
now because I detected an out earlier on and I think that this
might be it.
So, um, what do you think?
Cool.
Is anyone bursting to say anything that wasn't addressed?
You persuaded me to like it a bit more than I did.
Hey, that's my function.
I think the only thing I read about a bit of sort of background on
this was that the wooden king came from a dream that Stephen
Moffatt had where he was a super...
Yeah, he was a superstitious child who thought that if he if he
accidentally slept facing the wall that something bad would happen
and he woke up one morning, thought he woke up facing the wall and
he turned around, there's a wooden king in his room.
So that sort of, uh, and it made me think that sort of magical
thinking creeps into the episode a little bit, doesn't it?
Because Madge says, if you read about the war, it's going to
happen.
It's going to bring it on and then the whole thing about making
the wish with the wishbone and all that type of stuff, which, um
it's not as bad as when the doctor does it in the next Christmas
specialties, uh, trying to make a deal with the universe, which is
just Noel Edmunds crap and I don't think should be, uh, should be
really something that the doctor's doing at the time.
I think it was Oprah, you know, like...
There's your episode title for next year's Christmas special
already in the now.
I can be the 1st person to prename another episode.
We had cheated and done that a bunch of time, mostly for space
reasons.
Yeah.
I love those, we didn't talk about how good those costumes are.
I think they look really good.
Yeah.
The wooden king and queen.
Yeah, one of them spot the queen is Paul Casey.
Yeah.
And look, if it's a matter of, you know, you attract your
nightmares, look, I can have a nightmare about Spencer Wilding
being at the foot of my bed.
The wooden king. and praise him, the minor tour.
Oh, wow, we love the monitor.
He's fit, isn't he?
I think those costumes are very excited about the moment.
I think those costumes are at the doctor experience in Cardiff as
well, and they look really impressive in real life as well. really
striking.
And what is Harry Hausen models, but full size?
Yeah, yeah.
And what is, I presume, CG for the facial movement is incredibly
well integrated.
Yeah, they're not linking, right?
Yeah, it must be CG.
Yeah.
All right, what do you think?
I think we've got a thing.
Sounds like an episode.
That was really fun.
I was wondering whether I was a bit FTE down because it like it
takes me like, you know, like I've spent literally all day, like
sort of 6 hours listening to this all go on about wedding of river
song. and um, We managed to get Todd up from a 7.5 to a 9 during
the course of that.
So, uh, that thing.
Yeah, I know.
I've put evidence in the tag where he says this was a 7.5 for me
and then at the end of it, he said it was a nine.
Wow.
Yeah.
Excellent.
Yeah.
This isn't for this episode.
I'm not going to remumerate.
I like it's all right. all right. very nice moments.
Watching this episode and watching Matt Smith with the 2
children.
I'm just kind of going, why have they not given Jody Whittaker any
scenes with children?
You know, everyone has had scenes with children.
Because of all the heymail I send them.
Hey, children being a doctor.
These are the least the 2 least annoying children in the entire
mafia era.
I reckon more and more annoying every time.
Toby, I think, is really good in Curse of the Black Spot, I think
but he's older, like he's at 14 or something.
I think he's pretty good.
Yeah, the one saying literally, sorry.
The other colour ends up, maybe.
No.
Sorry, Mark, yeah.
You go.
You go, Mark.
The actor playing Lily here is 19 as well.
I think that's why she's quite, she's quite self-assured and stuff
yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
But, but, but, Pete, but, Pete, orphan 55, Jody doesn't even get
any scenes with the kid in that.
You know, the kid...
Yeah, but at least he's got stupid hair and actually saves the day
rather than just simpering.
So good.
All right.
I think we're done.
I think that was very...
So we can stop recording.
But do you want to do an outro perhaps?
Do you want to finish the episode?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is nearly my 100th episode, right, that I've run.
I still can't remember.
Episode 230.
So that's nearly 100.
It's like 98.
I can't remember.
Fortunately, always someone who knows what they're doing.
Jesus Christ I'm sure I had a hilarious joke too that no one would
have heard.
All right, let's try it.
Right.
Well, the listener, that's all we have time for this year.