Hello, dear Lisa, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety, the
only Doctor Who podcast compelled to take a break for a few weeks
by the sheer power of narrative inevitability.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Todd.
I'm Simon.
I'm Kevin.
Well, the new girl already stole their Thunder way back in episode
one, and so Amy and Rory Williams now have no choice but to leave
us for good at the end of episode five.
It's an unavoidable, ineluctable, fixed point in time.
It's the Angels Take Manhattan.
Can I start by making a controversial claim that the people who
avoid spoilers completely who don't watch any trailers who try and
avoid news about the show are going to have had a really difficult
time understanding what the hell is going on in this episode?
Why do you say that?
Because the episode is so much about the inevitability of Amy and
Rory leaving.
Yes.
Oh, fair enough, but it is kind of signposted throughout the
episodes of the season.
Yeah.
I mean, it's literally an episode where the doctor reads spoilers
that he's about to lose his companions and flips out.
Yeah, yeah.
There is a sort of sense in which when the show is being made very
carefully.
The sort of parotext, the things like the press releases the
announcements, trailers and so on, are an important part of the
process of understanding how the show works.
And we've already seen that this year, I think, with Asylum of the
Daleks, where the new girl unexpectedly turns up.
And if you hadn't had the news that Jenna Coleman was going to be
taking over next year, I think you would have been pretty confused
as to what was going on there as well.
No, I don't think so.
I think that still works beautifully because the way she turns to
the camera at the end and says, and remember, it still works if
you don't know what's coming.
Yeah, but it isn't. read the press releases and read all the
blurbs.
I actually watched it with people who hadn't and hadn't heard of
her and I was just sort of gibbering for about 2 minutes before I
could actually explain what was going on.
It was a pretty incredible experience watching it that way.
I think it's a bonus to actually know that she's coming. think it
adds to it.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
But you can still work with that.
Yeah, that's true.
You'd have to be in a complete cave to not know anything.
I mean, I know I did.
I know this is a slight jab.
In my original attempt to how to watch the new series when it came
back.
But by now, that had long fallen out the window.
They prove it to be impossible.
Thank you for that, clarif. 2005, 2005 was very different, a
different place to 20 whenever this was 2012.
And certainly now.
And right from the very beginning, we get this equivalence being
drawn between this episode and a sort of, I guess it's a a sort of
noir-ish, hard-boiled detective novel of some kind.
The genre of noir is itself just kind of window dressing, there's
not really an easy name, it needs to be noir, but the book itself
is just very Amy, very Moffat, because her whole story is sort of
bookended as a fairy tale.
Of course, the end of her story is going to be all about a book
ending.
Yeah, yeah.
And so at some point we actually see the table of contents, and
the 1st chapter is called the dying detective, and we actually get
that 1st chapter before the opening credits.
And in fact, the last thing that gets typed on the screen, because
we've got Nick Curran back and he's doing really sort of clever
visual things.
And so the voiceover isn't being accompanied by someone typing.
And the last thing that's typed is the chapter title.
Yeah, and I actually had a thought about that one because I was
watching that thinking to myself, is this the 1st new series
companion departure story where the companion doesn't appear in
the pre-titles?
It's not about them, but I sort of noticed at the end, we cut back
to those typewriter enter cuts and it's Amy typing it.
So actually she is hanging over it.
It's just in a very different way from previous ones.
Yeah, that's right.
But I mean, we have rose as a narrator at the beginning of Army of
Ghosts saying that we're about to hear the story of how she died
and obviously Russell kind of, you know, punts on that or
whatever.
But that's just terrible, though.
Yeah, it is a bit terrible.
I mean, I love it.
I love it.
It's melodramatic.
It makes no sense.
I love it.
It's over the top.
It's too self-referential.
Oh my god, you love me so much and you're going to be so
devastated when I'm out of the program and I'm going to trick you
for the next hour and a half that, you know, I actually die and
that's what all the, you know, media is about that I'm going to be
I'm going to die.
And you're going to be so sad because you all love me.
You love me so much.
Whereas, whereas this is, this has got a word that Russell doesn't
understand called subtle.
Well I don't know that it does.
I mean it has a book in it. all subtle.
Come on, it's got the statue of Liberty.
You know, everybody's got to turn away from the Statue of Liberty
at the ones.
Yes, I love it.
It's only about 8000000 people that need to look away.
I think that's sort of the thing that hangs over pretty much all
the companion departures to this point, though, and doctor
departures too, just kind of the sense that you are going to miss
me so much.
So we are going to go big and emotional and just let you grieve
with the characters.
And that, to me, is kind of the point of a big departure story.
So I always love when they go all out to just try and make me cry
and hit me over the head with emotions because that's what I'm
feeling anyway if they've done the job right to make me care about
the character.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
So you do their job right by making us care about the character.
Not tell us, you should care about me, or you do care about me.
That's my issue with me.
You mean, just telling Yaz, she's the most important person we've
ever met?
Is not enough?
Not really.
No way.
Anyway, that's in the future.
But I mean, this isn't subtle.
We have someone narrating. this episode.
Part of this episode is us watching the episode get written.
And one of the characters has a book in his pocket, which is the
story of the episode.
So this is self-referential as it's possible to get, I think.
Oh, from that point of view, yes.
Yeah, you know, I won't.
Don't you think it's a bit of a nod to a target novelisation?
Oh, yeah. think so. absolutely absolutely.
Please tell me one of the chapters is called Escape today.
It really is, isn't it?
That, that particularly the shot of the, um, of the table of
contents is absolutely a target novelisation.
And Moffatt is someone who knows and love the target novelisations
and even has the opportunity to write one himself, which is
absolutely extraordinary.
Which one's that?
The day of the doctor.
It's a really, really, really good novelisation.
It's just as smug and self-congratulatory as you would expect.
You can see him going, oh, this is pros.
I don't know pros.
I'm going to 2nd guess every choice and make it like 900 times
more complicated than a meat speed.
Because he's Moffat, it's clever anyway, and he gets away with it
but...
Absolutely great.
And we've already talked about Nick Curran, and there is an
incredible amount of atmosphere here, as always.
Oh my god, yeah.
It's absolutely a beautiful episode.
I mean, he has a lot of fun with the noir stuff in the front half
which makes it so much more than the window dressing it could have
been.
And then when he has to switch on a dime, just make it the
operatic emotional fireworks.
He does.
I mean, Karen and Arthur just give such good performances that
he's drawing out of them and every shot is just quite beautiful.
Like the scene of Amy and Rory jumping off that roof is just stuck
with me ever since.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, we'll get to that, but I think that that is an
extraordinary scene, a really, really, very good scene.
He's an incredibly well crafted episode.
It all it all looks so nice.
It all feels consistent.
And it's all, it's not just a few nods to the film noir genre.
You know, the whole the whole narration of the typing. very Sam
Spade. drag net. all that in his 40s era.
And the fact they go back to the 30s as well.
It's all consistent.
I think that that visual style does continue right the way through
even to the virtually the very end.
So after the credits, we go straight into New York.
Yeah.
I mean, it's such a beautiful setting in the park, and, you know
once Doctor Who couldn't go far from BBC television studios, but
now we're so big that we are here with this cast.
What a difference it is from the last time they went to New York
where they just, you got a couple plate shots and went, okay, we're
done. lets grab a bunch of British actors and tell them to do the
anchor.
Yeah.
I actually kind of think because Dalek's in Manhattan, which we
actually quite liked, I have to say.
Not me Most of us actually quite liked, I must say.
That should always have been called the Daleks Take Manhattan.
And so this is kind of Moffatt saying, actually, you just watch me
in charge of this show. do a story set in New York and I'll show
you how it's done because it's amazing.
I mean, there's a very sort of crummy dad core musical choice.
Yeah.
So good.
Very much we have a straight man in charge of the show now.
So we'll have Sting rather than Britney or Scissor Sisters.
It's just so 11th doctor to play just the corniest possible
musical choice.
Oh, I'm an idiot.
I mean, of course, you could just see him dancing like disco or
something like that. just be terrible and he'll be having the time
of his life.
But it does work because he's an Englishman.
I like that too. on about, he's that the posh public schoolboy.
And so it works that he's the Englishman.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I think that's fair.
That opening scene is really terrific.
And I like the fact that we don't catch them in the middle of an
adventure that we actually just get to have hang time with them.
Yeah, and these companions have had the longest run in the new
series.
Yeah.
And I think that this TARDIS team is one of the most iconic teams
in the new series.
I love them enormously.
And I've always loved hanging out with them.
And so going out with them and River for the final episode is so
great.
And just, there's that follow-up.
You know, in Power of three.
We mentioned this last week.
In power of three.
They get a phone call.
Amy gets a phone call from the optician saying that her reading
glasses are ready.
And now she's wearing them.
And we've had all this talk about how they've been ageing out of a
relationship with a doctor.
The childhood friend and adulthood is definitely here.
And so having the doctor say, oh, you know, I don't like those
glasses, they make your eyes look liny.
And then she takes the glasses off and he's sort of horrified to
discover.
I mean, that's the really beautiful thing about this script.
Even when you're just doing hang time with the characters.
Every line is doing so much work in so many different directions.
The characters for the relationships, for the themes.
It's so tight and so economical.
I'm just, I was watching this episode and just blown away by how
efficient a script it is.
I forgot just how tight doctor who could be.
The note that I made about it actually was that it feels like
you're watching a 2 parter.
It feels has that epic feel.
And as you said, it's economical and yet it can all be done in 45
minutes.
It's amazing.
Yeah. without feeling rushed.
That was sort of the big theory they were trying to prove with
this series, isn't it?
They suddenly ditch the serialisation, ditch the 2 partners.
This is the 1st companion departure to this point in the new
series that is a one-parter.
And I remember going into it at the time thinking, oh, but they're
my favourites.
I'm so sad that they only get one part when everyone else got 2 to
say goodbye.
And then it makes every 2nd count.
Yeah, yeah, it's really quite extraordinary, isn't it?
And it's really quite quick that we get into the idea that there's
an inevitability here.
The moment that, like, Rory goes off to get coffee, mainly to
avoid having to tell Amy that, yes, she, yeah, that's right.
And the doctor rips out the last page of the book. ending.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
You know, and intercut with Rory and the little cherubs.
Walking through the park.
You know, it is, as you said, so efficient and every single line.
Like, you know, I hate endings.
It's foreshadowing what's about to happen.
It's just so clever.
So he gets taken back in time by the angels, which is a thing that
they weren't doing in their last proper appearance.
They were just kind of snapping people's necks and stuff, weren't
they?
And here the angels...
When the angels 1st appear, they're about the brevity of life and
about how quickly death comes.
And that's why they're weeping angels because they're the statues
that appear on a tombstone.
That's why the episode's called blink, not just because you can't
blink in front of the angels, but because you blink and suddenly
you're old.
Suddenly life has.
What happened to my, where did my life?
Yeah, yeah. when Lewis Mahoney is looking at his hands and saying
I suddenly have old man hands.
When did that happen?
Here, I think the angels are a complex thing about inevitability
about the way that this story itself is constrained to end with
the departure of Amy and Rory, that no matter what happens, no
matter what they do, no matter what they try in order to get out
of it.
And, you know, right at the end it looks like they have got out of
it, there's no way for this to end without them leaving.
It's got a sort of an all good things come to an end feel to it.
The end of TNG, all good things.
Yes, it's all transient and life is short and, you know, all good
things must come to an end, but there's a melancholy about it that
runs through the hole.
But it's not that necessarily an unpleasant melancholy, I feel.
Even though, of course, they're flung back to 1930, whatever, I
can ever see them again.
Even despite that, I still feel throughout the rest of it when
you're heading towards the inevitability of their departure.
Your melancholic about it, but you're sort of fine with it too.
I know.
I've spent a lot of time in this season's episode saying that I
wanted their story to end with them ageing out of the relationship
and saying to the doctor, look, we're not going to come back with
you now.
We have this home.
We're older, we have our friends.
I have a job, I have responsibilities, and that's where we're
heading, isn't it, in last week's episode in power of three.
And I thought that that would be a good ending partly because I'm
not a big fan of space reasons endings and up to this point, I
always thought Martha's was the best ending, the fact that she
just ends on her own terms.
And this is a very definite space reasons ending.
Yes.
But I'm actually much happier with it than I thought because their
departure leaves such a gap in the program that it actually does
violence to the show's premise, in the sense that the doctor can
go anywhere in time and space, but he's not allowed to go back and
see Amy and Rory.
And that's actually true.
We can't now have an episode with Amy and Rory in it because
they're not under contract anymore.
It doesn't stop others.
No, no, but, you know, there's that real sense in which, you know
we talked about contract roulette.
Andrew Hodson's contract roulette, that the companion will just
leave wherever they happen to be in the last story that the actor
is contracted for, which is why Mel goes off with Sablon Glitz at
the end of Dragonfire.
Or Dodo goes to the country.
Or Leila suddenly falls in.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Dodo's lucky she at least made it to Earth.
But here there is something that the show can't do again.
It can never ever recapture the feeling of hanging out with Amy
Rory and River ever again.
There's one place that the show can never go.
And so making that real within the programs world itself, I think
is really good, even though I feel a bit anxious about that
limitation.
Can't they just get on a boat and like travel to London or
something like that?
Actually, I actually thought that you'd be more angry about the
fact that they don't have Wi-Fi and mobile.
Yeah, no, I'm pissed off with that.
That's awful.
That's surprised that you're worried about the fact that they say
just because they say something can't possibly happen in Doctor
Who.
It doesn't mean that later that just changed their mind to do it
anyway.
Yeah.
I think what it comes down to is, uh, it's less just that New York
is the timeline is messed up, but the fact that, again, it's about
books and about endings in paratext.
The parotext and the text itself is, we've read that Amy and Roy
never see the doctor again.
Therefore, they never see the doctor again.
Even if the doctor manages to get back into New York, we know that
doesn't happen.
And I think that was partially the request of Karen Gillan, right?
A lot of this episode was crafted from what she wanted, which was
like, I want to go out definitively.
I want weeping angels.
Oh, okay.
Those are the big pieces.
At least I remember something about that.
I also think the really definite thing that needs to happen and
which does happen is that she needs to make a final choice between
Rory and the doctor.
And that's what it's about, yeah.
Yeah, and it's good that that actually does happen in the end.
In fact, the doctor's a bit horrible in that scene because he kind
of lies to Amy.
So Amy says, will I go back to where Rory is if the angel touches
me and the doctor says no.
And River, who loves her parents and knows how much more important
Rory is to Amy than the doctor is, says, no, no, just go, you go.
And I got the impression that the doctor wasn't saying, no, you
won't.
It's like, we don't know. you could end up anywhere Yeah, yeah.
And you're ever saying take a chance, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. he is trying to discourage her from going.
Because there's too big a risk, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
No, because he wants her and is happy to have her even if she
doesn't get to have Rory.
It's consistent with a doctor at the end of the chase, saying that
he doesn't want to eat in bar.
Yeah, because it's too big a risk.
Well, because he's selfish and he's a man child, you know.
And that's basically all he gets to do in this episode.
He's kind of impotent the whole episode.
Everyone else's actions drive the pot while he just tries to beg
them not to do them.
Yeah.
But it's also consistent with when Amy and Rory jump off the
building.
He calls out after Amy.
He says nothing about Rory at all.
Like Rory's always, well, in my head anyway, always like a
secondary thought after Amy.
But back to what you're saying, like, with the doctor saying no to
River, like, you know, Shishona knows that Amy will go back to
Rory, if we go back to the beginning where Rory gets taken, it's
very convenient that he suddenly just, it just happens to go to
Melody Malone.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, it's very efficient and very convenient, right?
Because we've got a one-part story, not a two-part story.
Exactly.
It's storytelling logic.
It's a story rather than a series of events that happen to
imaginary people, and that's Moffatt's approach all the time.
So he couldn't go back to somewhere that didn't have some kind of
relevance to him, I think.
Of course.
Yeah.
Yes, the space reasons would be rivers tracking him or something
tracking the time anomalies or whatever.
River knows all the space reasons.
Or the fact that they are father and daughter.
So time is dragging him towards her, do you know what I mean?
Yeah, he's a cause of her.
You know, they're linked.
But I just love the way the doctor reads Hollow River.
And then it's like, there he is.
Speaking of the Rory River dynamic, I think this episode's really
one thing that makes it special for me is it's the one time we
really get to see Amy Rory and River as an actual family, knowing
where they stand with each other, and you get a lot of little
moments with that, just little beats, like, there's the one moment
where, uh, the doctor and River have the fight about the wrist
breaking, and Amy immediately chooses Riverside and goes after her
instead of after the doctor, where in past, she would always stand
with the doctor.
Like, there's that sense of growth away from the doctor into her
family that I really love.
Even at the very end where she says to a river to be a good girl
and to look after the doctor for her, you know, that's her being
mum.
But it's also the 1st episode where the doctor and river are
unambiguously husband and wife as well.
And so the interesting thing about this episode is you have 2
married couples and you get to see these 2 marriage relationships
driving the way that they behave.
And there's even that the line about creating the future
together.
Changing the future, that's called marriage, and it's applied to
both of them marriages, like to both relationships.
I think it's terribly good.
I mean, people always talk about drama being driven by triangles
and um, Kitfoil and all that.
This is such an episode where you can see Moffatt's sitcom
experience with that, just coming to full force.
It's not a sitcom episode by any means, but you can see that focus
on contrasting relationships, contrasting dynamics building the
drama at every turn.
It works really well.
Yeah.
I've said over and over again that Moffat's sitcom experience is
an absolute asset to writing Doctor Who, because Doctor Who is
melodrama, and it requires characters that are well-defined.
We know how Rory is going to react.
We know how Amy's going to react.
We know how river's going to react.
We know them as people, and they behave in predictable ways, and
then the thing is to bounce them off each other and see what you
discover.
So absolutely, I think just the strength of these characters
they're so well drawn.
We know them so well that putting them together in these different
situations and having them behave in response to various things is
absolutely what we want to see.
It's a real strength.
I agree.
Shall we talk about the angels?
Yes, let's.
You were talking earlier about how they're sort of, in blank, they
are very much one thing, the inevitability of time and age, and
then, and they're two-parter with the doctor and Amy.
It's very a different thing.
They're more the aliens approach where they are the evil monsters
who kill you.
And this is, I feel I feel like quite consciously, I know in the
asylum of the Daleks podcast, you were talking about how Moffatt
always reacts to what he did previously and tweaks in response.
I think he looked back at the Angels 2 parter in the series 5 and
went, okay, I've gone a bit far from what they originally started
with.
Let's go back and explore the original ideas I didn't really get
into.
So like their plot of the battery farm is very much their original
concept is taken further.
All the different statues are very much just the end of blank, but
taken further.
It's going back to its roots and then just saying, okay, what if
we explore that avenue now?
There's that sense of constraint.
You know, like once you, at the beginning of blink, once Sally
receives the letter from Kathy saying that she's lived a long life
then that's it, we know that Kathy can't be rescued because we
already know how this ends.
So that idea of inevitability of narrative inevitability is
already present in blink.
And, you know, it's the same thing with the Lewis Mahoney
character.
Pretty Billy Shipton.
Yeah, yeah.
When they end up in the graveyard after trying to land in New York
in 1938.
And then Amy reads ahead, like once we know what's coming, it's
fixed.
You know, you're going to break something.
Like we know that's going to happen.
And then we also, we, as the audience, see the grave of Rory
Arthur Williams, just the headstone.
So again, but to what you're saying, it's an inevitability that
it's going to happen and there's no way out of it.
And it adds to the, I don't know, the foreboding or the dread or
the inevitability of this episode.
I think that's just a wonderful sequence in that graveyard.
I never thought, why are they in this graveyard, you know, what is
it?
You know?
And then, of course, everything Stephen does is for an absolute
reason.
Well, he says there's some causal relationship or something that's
perhaps bringing them there.
And we see the gravestone the 1st time.
At the end of the scene, the 1st time they're in that graveyard
and we see it just with Rory's name on it.
It doesn't have Amelia on it, yeah.
Oh, okay.
He hasn't panned out.
Yeah, yeah.
But it is clever.
So for us, we've read it. know that it has to end this way.
And the other terribly clever thing is they finally take the idea
of a angel statue to its inevitable place of you see them all the
time in graveyards.
So you see that looming over the graveyard and every shot and
you're like, is that an angel or are they just playing with the
imagery?
And of course it turns out to be an angel, but it leaves you with
just enough doubt.
I also think that the cherubs are incredibly gray.
And they're heaps different.
We do hear the sound of beating wings in Murray's music for the
angels in blink, but I don't think we have sort of diagetic
beating wings.
And here we do.
So we have little flapping wings and giggling and stuff.
And it's completely different from the angels who have no voice in
blink.
We don't hear from them at all.
It's so disturbing.
And I just, I mean, the sequence where that one blows out the
match.
Fantastic.
So good.
Very unsettling.
Yeah.
I mean, that's the thing with Moffat.
He never lets himself get bored with a monster.
He has to keep trying a new trick out with them.
And so that this episode is just, I mean, he doesn't necessarily
extend out the new trick beyond where to be welcome, but the
cherubs are a great single scene menace where you get that scene
in the cellar, you just get to go get in, pay off the idea of just
how creepy they are, get right out.
Rory's been zapped away.
It's great.
I think too, that you 2 were dissing the idea that the Statue of
Liberty could be an angel.
But I have to say, how could you not do that?
You said it in New York, there's a giant, giant statue there.
I wasn't dissing it.
I actually think it's fantastic.
It's one of those things where it doesn't have to make sense
because it's too much fun not to do it.
Yeah.
No, no, that's where, unfortunately, the breaks the formats for
me.
I think you can make the Statue of Liberty and Angel, but I don't
think you can make the Statue of Liberty and Angel the way they
did it.
Oh, so good.
That step too far for me, I'm afraid.
It's a shame.
How good is Arthur Darfel's delivery of?
I always wanted to see the Statue of Liberty.
I guess she got impatient.
When Ghana is doing the voiceover at the very beginning, we get a
shot of the Statue of Liberty in situ as he's describing the
statues.
And so it's not supposed to be a surprise.
It's supposed to be inevitable as well.
And Moffatt knows full well that it's impossible for the Statue of
Liberty to get there unobserved.
He actually describes New York or refers to New York. as the city
that never sleeps.
Like it's in the dialogue.
So he doesn't care.
He just and he's aware that it's just too incredible a visual to
allow something like narrative plausibility to ruin it.
I mean, he did have an explanation though, didn't he?
It was something about the angels had such complete control over
the city at that point.
They could just direct people to look away.
I mean, sure.
It would be so boring if they actually said that in the episode.
Who cares?
Oh, right, I see what you made, right?
Yes, yes.
It would be boring if they did that on the inside. absolutely
right.
Sorry, I agree with Nathan.
I just love the fact that he does say it's a city that never
sleeps and, well, here it is.
So if you can't deal with that in your brain, like all the time
travel logic of me, well, bad luck. just have to live with it.
It's probably more relevant to the story than the Chrysler
building being in completely the wrong place most of the time.
It's like it's like they're down at the bottom end of Manhattan
and the Chrysler Building seems to only be about 6 or 7 blocks
away.
Yeah, but it's like every hotel room in France has the Eiffel
Tower.
Yeah, yeah.
Maybe the Chrysler Building's just also an angel.
Yeah, just moves about the city, depending on the time of night.
And of course, we've got Grail's Angel, which is all up in locked
up in chains, screaming. screaming that the others can hear.
Like, I just find that really creepy.
Yeah, it's super terrifying, isn't it?
He's quite good, I think.
I don't think he's as scary in the show as he is on paper.
I think he's probably meant to be scarier than he ends up being.
The bloke with the house.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I think he's actually probably the weakest, weakest point of
the whole episode, actually.
I don't find the performance, particularly compelling.
Yeah, maybe that's the problem.
And possibly because he's just so much less good than everybody
else.
Yeah.
And he's unconscious for all the best bits as well.
It's kind of like, oh, he's fainted, he'll be fine.
And we don't need to have him in this scene.
And where do all of his guards go?
And, you know, they do just leave the door open so all the angels
can get in and deal with them, I guess.
I mean, he's just a plot contrivance and a genre fixture to get
the characters from A to B and get the stylings in place.
And I think that works for it.
You're absolutely right.
He's not the best performance in it.
He's not very memorable.
But I like how the characters respond to him.
Rivers, tete a tete with him or whatever you want to call it, where
she faces off with him is great.
Yes, absolutely.
It's great seeing her pre-husbands of her her song in her middle
of one of her adventures.
Yeah.
You know, we've in the past talked about how indebted morphities
to Douglas Adams, and there is that wonderful moment where he nips
back in time to China, to get Yowza written on the vase. fake.
And it is exactly the same thing that happens in Dirk Gently's
holistic detective agency where Chronotis nips off in the middle
of a high table dinner to go back in time to get someone to bake a
salt cellar from the table into a pot that he has with him.
So in order to do a magic trick where he makes...
And it's exactly the same thing. going back in time to find the
guy who created the bit of porcelain or whatever, uh, in order to
send a message in order to make it possible for him to land.
But isn't that such a wonderfully clever use of the format in a
way that, you know, as we're recording, this legend of the sea
devils is but a week old.
And it does it really terribly when the doctor and Yaz go back to
is it Yaz?
Yes, go back to the ship and see the past.
To see the past briefly just for a bit of exposition.
In the defensive legend of the sea devils.
Careful with it, in terms of limitations with Moffatt's era.
That's all we see of China.
That's it.
We get a quick one scene gag and then we're back to the white
people.
That's one thing I have to give to Chipnell.
He does better than that. that's true.
But in terms of using it in an interesting, in an interesting
way.
It's so much interesting fun.
No contest.
Yes.
And if I can just extend on that, generally speaking, the timey
whiminess of this episode, and I know that the timey whiminess was
always a criticism back in the day of the Moffat era, people were
whinging about the fact that, oh, it's so confusing, no, no one's
going to understand it.
There's all these going back and forth in time.
I remember that, I don't know how real that was, or whether it was
just a couple of people having a whinge, but I found it so well
done in this episode, at least.
Everything fits together.
It all means what it needs to mean, and there are no sort of
bizarre internal contradictions.
It doesn't create any at least.
Simon I am not a couple of people.
I'm referring to you.
I mean, I meant, you know, the great unwashed.
I also watch.
Indeed.
So I can't have possibly been referring to you.
Oh no, look, I have various episodes where it does do my head in
but in this particular one.
It's just absolutely perfect in all of the jumps around.
I mean, I do wonder like, you know, again, when Rory does get sent
to the key.
Like he's actually not in the building.
He's outside.
And so I kind of go, oh, so he's drawn into it.
Do you know what I mean?
Like I kind of go, why aren't you just right at the steps?
Yeah.
You know?
I mean, that's a minor thing.
That's definitely a visual storytelling moment where it's just
it's more compelling in a sort of nightmare dream sequence image
where you see the scary building and you go inside and you go see
what's inside.
Like, I don't know why there's a little girl in the window
covering her eyes.
Who is that?
What is she doing?
I don't know.
But it's great visual.
That is an incredible location, isn't it?
So we get it at the beginning.
And so we know what's in store for Rory before we find it out
because we've had Ghana go in there and there's that wonderful
moment, isn't there, where he picks up his wallet?
Like, where...
Yeah, yeah.
So his hat, the hat and jacket that he's wearing are hung up.
Like he's actually wearing them, but they're hung up in the
hallway of that apartment and then he goes into the pocket and
gets his wallet out, which is exactly the same as the wallet that
he's currently carrying, only much older.
So we don't need to get that actor in sort of crappy ageing
makeup.
We know that that's him in there.
And so when we see Rory going in there, in a scene that looks the
same as the scene at the beginning before the credits, we know
that that's what's in store for him as well. crappy ageing
makeup?
Yeah.
Yeah, they're not feeling the bed, isn't it?
It is.
It's not Ghana in the bed.
There's a different actor playing old Ghana.
Yeah, yeah, we know that.
Yeah, it is definitely Raring.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
But it is such a horrifying thought.
It's different to, you know, travelling time and meeting an older
or younger version than yourself.
It is quite a horrific thought to go to a point in time where
you're watching yourself die from old age.
It's quite sombre and unsettling for me.
And not only that, knowing it's a life of torment living up to
that trapped in one room.
That is just, and there's nothing you can do to escape.
That is just deeply disturbing.
And that smile on the angel at that point too is just horrific.
I think what's really good and what's really terrifying is that we
discover that he's been in that room because is it the doctor who
says because he was happy to see you or surprise to see you and
that's how we know he hasn't seen Amy for 40 years or whatever.
Yeah.
It's really bleak.
It's horrible.
But that's the extension of what going back to what was being said
earlier. extending to the ages, because in blink, some of these
people are flung back in time and then seem to live very rich and
fulfilled life.
Yeah.
And have families and have relationships.
Yeah, Kathy and Billy. have a wonderful relationship.
She makes the best of it.
Whereas here, your life is effectively over and you, but you just
got to serve out the time.
Because it's a battery phone. that's awful Yes, that's awful.
And can I just say how much more effective is that than the
episode more recently that totally contradicts this, which is the
angels touching you twice, just killing you.
I mean, that works as a cheap way out.
But how much more existentially terrifying is it to see this where
they control every moment of your life from birth to death?
don't need to kill you.
They've got you where they want you and can just keep you there.
That's just, that disturbs me a lot more than turning into
boulders.
Yeah, yeah, that is super terrifying, I think.
And there is a real horrible bleakness to the story, which I think
is magnificent.
You know, we we talk about all the foreshadowing and all the sort
of impending fear that we have just watching this and knowing that
it has to end with their final departure.
But the whole setup of just a building, a horrible building that's
under control of the angels, where you just get repeatedly sent
back in time so that the angels can feed off you until you die.
And there's just such a delicate touch to the details of it.
Like, how good a name is Winter Key?
That has stuck with me since I 1st saw the episode.
It's like Russell and Moffatt have a way of just throwing words
together where it's just immediate poetry that just launches
itself in your head.
I love that.
It really good, isn't it?
It's really good.
Just the winter idea.
It's so brilliant.
Yeah.
Yeah, things coming to an end.
Yeah.
Exactly.
And so that scene at the top of the building where Rory decides to
kill himself rather than go through that 40 years and he's been
told that there are space reasons why that will put an end to
the...
No, he's worked out the space reasons.
Yeah, yeah, okay.
Yeah.
But if he he has to, this will prevent that future from
happening.
And just the fact that he can't really do it, and she can't push
him, and the solution has to be that they get up there together
and hold hands and go down together.
It's so good.
And I was absolutely bawling my eyes out.
Even though I've seen this so many times.
It's so affecting.
I was basically coding the lines back of the actors and I was
still crying. the performances of Arthur and Karen have never been
better I just think they are absolutely stunning, yeah. in that
moment.
Well, actually throughout this entire episode, the 4 of them are
just absolutely brilliant.
And in particular, I think Alex Kingston gets, we overlook Alex a
lot, but she is just sublime in every delivery.
I mean, the whole relationship with the doctor, like, I just love
the way Matt Smith, or the 11th doctor, just before he sees River
like he looks, checks the hair, the breath, the bowtie, and all
that.
You know?
We think he's checking for radiation and oxygen content.
And it's not, do I look acceptable because my wife's going to be
here?
And then and just the conversations they have.
Like together are just, oh, there's just a dynamic a spark there
that just, you know, it's coming to an end.
It's amazing that that worked out as well as it did, isn't it?
Because Alex Kingston is obviously cast for a David Tennant
story.
And then, you know, she's in the 1st story that Matt ever shoots
and they absolutely click immediately.
It's surprising.
It's almost like Elizabeth Slade and Tom B. Yeah, yeah.
You have to keep remembering, oh, that's right.
No, she was actually cast to be with John Pertwee.
And yet the relationship is just extraordinary.
Yeah, I mean, that story is basically the story of the 11th doctor
whatever big finish might do.
And the 2 of them just work magnificently well together.
And particularly the fact that she is, you know, overtly sexy and
confident and he is kind of inept and fumbling and not good at any
of that sort of stuff at all.
It works so terrifically well.
It's definitely a, I think, I mean, I look back at this as the
sort of the golden age of the modern show.
Yeah, maybe I do too.
Only no, I do.
And I think, especially in terms of popularity.
This was the peak, especially internationally.
This is when people in the US started really getting into this
show.
This storyline, this doctor, this team.
That was Doctor Who at its biggest.
And I think, especially because the 50th was coming up, and
especially because the next run that becomes a bit more
difficult.
This is really sort of an apex moment and it's saying goodbye to
so much of what's been making the show work.
I mean, that's part of why I cry on top of just how good it is.
Just watching that come to an end is a lot.
Yeah.
I might say something controversial here.
This is the peak for Matt Smith for me.
I've been watching the 2nd half of the season.
I don't want to say he's going through the motions, but I do find
in the 2nd half of the season.
He's spinning on his heels a lot more and having to do a lot more
heavy lifting because he doesn't have this team around him.
Like there's something to do with the character.
This is what I'm discovering.
I just really think that this is the peak for me for him after
this.
I think this is controversial going into going ahead, but I don't
quite like him as much.
Maybe it's the characters.
Yeah, see, I mean, I originally thought the peak as the end of the
last season, but now having to watch these last five.
I mean, obviously, you know, the Doctor, the Widow, and the
Wardrobe is a terrible Nadir of the show. are actually much better
than and hold together much better than I thought.
But my memory was from here and I haven't yet watched the rest of
the season.
My memory was from here, his performance starts to become almost
like a parody of itself.
Yeah.
And all the things that made it great are still there, but they're
you're kind of right, they're not quite there in the same way.
And I think it's because he's not bouncing off the same people.
Great as Jenna is, and she's superb, we've already said that, but
it's not just that.
It's also the way the episodes, I think, are.
Yeah Don't get me wrong.
I think he's absolutely brilliant.
But I mean, we got tired of tenant in that last little bit of the
run, right?
When we're watching it.
Well, no, no, no.
We had criticisms, but in particular it was heightened towards the
end.
You know, you look at you look perhaps at John Perchby in the
classic, you can see that he's tired towards you.
And so phoning it in a bit.
But here it's just everything is working on, you compare
everything to this, right?
That's what I'm trying to say.
And his dynamic with Alex Kingston is, as I, well, I'm just back
to it again.
It just works so well.
And she will be missed.
And it's great that she is, you know, in one more episode, but
it's like such a closure.
Everything is getting close.
So you're mourning for that, yeah, as well as Amy and Rory.
I can only agree.
Matt is my all-time favourite doctor.
I think he's one of the best people to ever be in the role.
And I think in the next half of the series, he just sort of loses
the map.
I think you can tell the actor, Matt Smith, the man is lonely.
He misses his friends and he feels lost.
And I don't think he ever quite builds that rapport with Jenna.
I think either he needed to leave around the same time as the
pawns or he needed to stay another series to get his bearings
again because leaving after this awkward half series just sort of
leaves him going from the show at a point when it feels like the
show's already moved on past him and it's an awkward feeling.
I think the season 11 analogy is the right one where you have all
of these people who Pertwee has been bouncing off, you know, Katie
and Roger have gone and he's a bit at sea and he doesn't quite
know what to do.
And I think I noticed as soon as Rings of Ackerton that his big
giant speech seems to have been written as a speech for Matt to do
Matt things in.
And it's much better, I think, to give Matt just things to do and
then see what interesting things he does with them.
Great.
And yes, the writing, the writing starts to be trying to write for
the quirks.
Yeah. and the quirks just coming out of his performance.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
We do digress.
One thing I wanted to say, and we've been talking about this
earlier. is all about the fact that Stephen came up with this
plotline where the doctor was sort of deleting himself from
history.
And again, it's touched on here when he's talking to River and she
says, turns out the person I killed never exists.
Never exist.
And I just noticed that like this time too.
I went, okay, so he's still been deleted from history, but when
are we going to drop that?
Still, it's still...
Pretty much from here on.
Yeah.
I actually think there are a few things in the 2nd half that pick
up on that.
I mean, that would be going into a different episode, but I mean
one of the musical cues from name of the doctor is called I am
Information to throw that out there.
I love that exchange because then River then turns around and says
didn't you used to be someone?
That's great.
Oh, there's so many good lines in it and the delivery of the
most.
Yeah. beautiful thrown away.
As I said before about when we're doing the Angels 2 parter is the
beauty of so many of those great lines, you see, they're just
thrown away.
Yeah, yeah. full subtle light and they're not, they're not chewed
on. which is what a previous doctor might have done.
That's true.
And Matt's performance going back to it.
When he sees Amelia's last farewell and how angry he gets.
It's, I think, just perfectly pitched and delivered.
It's not for David Tennant over the top scenario.
It affects you so much seeing him so affected.
Speaking of over the top and perfectly delivered, I think the
music on this episode is absolutely phenomenal.
Like, that's something I really miss about Murray Gold.
When it came to a big dramatic episode like this, he would
suddenly throw in a number of new motifs and new themes you hadn't
heard before and really hit them home.
Like, that piece about, um, Amy and Rory on the roof.
It's been teased throughout series 7, but it comes to the full 4
here and it's just an astonishing piece.
Yeah, yeah, I was listening to that last night, actually.
I think, you know, there have been times when Murray has phoned it
in a bit, but when he's inspired and when he's pushed, I mean
there's so much history, like among all of these characters, and
they all have their own motifs, the doctor, Amy, and River have
their own musical themes.
And so there's things that he can do with those which aren't sort
of really available at other times in the show's history, I
think.
Yeah, I mean, I've said in the past that I'm not a huge fan of
Murray Gold.
I will absolutely acknowledge that he's capable of some excellent
work.
I think his problem is not necessarily his fault in that he's
doing absolutely every episode.
And therefore, there are things that are less good about it and
there's no variety.
I think this is one of his best scores and I think the snowman
which we'll do next, is even better.
I think it's one of the most beautiful scores he's done.
I wonder how much it's got to do with a director.
We've said that this director is a particularly good director.
I think maybe he's just one of those people who needs to be pushed
or directed or whatever the word.
I don't know how that relationship works in the modern duration of
the show. and how much of the musical choices are Moffatt's
direction, the showrunner's direction versus the director's
direction.
But yeah, definitely.
I think from this, I suspect it's the director.
Yeah, I suspect it's not Moffatt.
I think that one of the reasons that Moffat goes with Murray is
just that this isn't an element of the production that he has a
strong opinion about.
And so... changing other things, and this is something.
Yeah, that's right.
And, you know, we get a whole new group of themes when he comes in
and we get that incredible music for the 11th doctor.
So it does renew itself a beard and it leaves some old themes
behind, but I just think that that's not Moffatt's forte, I
think.
Well, speaking of dead, so Amy and Rory sit up in the graveyard.
It's quite a comic sort of like, just to sit up.
I like the fact that there's near their grave.
Yeah. into a sequence where the inevitable happens, but the whole
TARDIS, you know, is all, isn't it on fire?
isn't he putting it out?
Am I incorrect?
Yeah, that's when he 1st lands in the graveyard for the 1st time.
But the 2nd, like that final scene, I think.
And, you know, it's nearly sort of 7 minutes from the end, it's
quite a long distance from the end.
There's quite a bit of wrapping up to happen at the end of the
story.
And I think, you know, Moffat has learned to judge how much can go
into 40 minutes or 35 minutes and allows himself enough time to
see the character's reactions.
And I think maybe the most shocking thing about the ending is how
completely Rory and Amy are erased from the story at the moment
that they're taken back in time.
And we do get that finale.
We do get the afterward in the book, the page that the doctor is
torn out and left behind.
So we are sort of reassured, but we don't get to see their
response.
We don't get to see their reunion and we don't get to see that
scene where the doctor goes to Brian and explains what's
happened.
And I think that's kind of the right choice.
I think that we do need to be a bit bereft, by their departure, and
we do need to feel that it was traumatic.
And my preferred option that I mentioned before, which is just
they age out of the relationship and ask the doctor to stop coming
around quite so much, is nowhere near as good as the ending where
they're just yanked from us unexpectedly by...
It's like, it's, you know, the bit where Jackie Hill gets shot by
the um, the guy on the floor in their glass.
Or, like, suddenly Rory gets shot by a layer or whoever the hell
that is at the end of the Silurians too, partner, and it is that.
It's kind of like, oh, everything's good.
The episode's over.
Oh, whoops. you know, off they go.
I mean, the especially great thing about that is because you have
2 companions leaving, you can be extra cruel with Rory, he's sort
of the supporting companion anyway, and it's about Amy's
relationship to him, and just yank him out.
We never see him again.
Like mid-sentence pretty much.
And then you can have Amy react to that.
I know a lot of people are sad that Bory didn't get a goodbye, but
it is kind of Amy's story at the end of the day.
And I think having both of them means you kind of get to have it
both ways there.
Kevin, I completely and totally agree with you because I'm a huge
Rory fan as opposed to an Amy fan.
So it's like, oh, yes, he's got the short end of the stick again
but it's, that doesn't worry me.
Like that's totally his relationship with the doctor and how the
character has been treated over time.
And also, there's a bit of a fake out because he, they walk to the
Tartars, right?
And you think, okay, they're going to get away.
And then he makes the decision to be drawn back to the grave, to
look at it, and then, boom, that's it.
He's gone.
So it's a causal link.
His disappearance is caused by him spotting the result of his
disappearance.
It's another weird circular time thing as usual.
But it's inevitable.
You know, that's where the episode's supposed to end.
And I think Moffatt sometimes kind of expects us to forget, you
know, it's like, oh, okay, it's all over.
We're good.
And then suddenly it is actually surprising when Rory gets taken
and it shouldn't be.
We've known from the very beginning that this is the end of their
story and there's no escape from it.
Yeah, true.
Look, I mean, I'm really into minds, possibly more minds
actually.
There are so many different ways you could do this.
Maybe another choice might have been, and I'm not saying this is
better or worse, but you could have had while the doctor is
reading the final page, you get a, you know, mute shots of Rory
having just been flung back in time, being incredibly upset, and
then looks up, and then there's Amy arrived as well, and they run
and embrace each other.
You know, just as a kind of a little softening of, but are you
right, it's kind of more final.
The fact they're just gone.
Yeah.
Going back to the original thing about how they leave and, you
know, I was so wanting them to be, you know, to decide, I think
we've had enough now.
We've got to get on with this or whatever, whatever the reason
is.
And Martha is, again, my one of my preferred departures because
there's a difference between that and the contract roulette thing
right?
Obviously, contract roulette is unfortunate.
Whereas I think the problem with most of the companion departures
or too many of the companion departures in the modern era are not
under their own agency.
They lose their agency when they, the choice has been taken away
from them.
I know that where the characters were moving to that place of
deciding that it's time to move on.
But the final choice has been taken away.
And I know that that makes for a great story.
I'm into...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It makes such a great story and such a powerful ending.
But it is just disappointing for me that this sort of thing keeps
happening.
Yeah, I think I feel the same way.
I do like being gutted though.
Like I like being upset by that departure because that's the right
response.
And the ageing out ending, that alternate ending is good in all
sorts of ways, but we're robbed of it in a horrible way.
And of course, then the doctor has the sads for the next episode
which is super important, I suppose.
Like I said, I like being forced to grieve with the characters in
real time.
It helps me take it a lot easier once the characters are gone
because I have had my moment to let it all out and be traumatised
and it kind of lets you process that in the same time as the
doctor, which I think is really well done.
You get that sense of loss and then you get a couple moments to
heal, which I think, I think it's the right choice, especially for
a team as beloved as this one.
It's interesting because I'd been complaining so much about this
ending leading up to this end.
Yeah, yeah.
Like I really liked the fact that they made choices to let them go
at the end of last season.
But in the end, you know, I'm actually quite okay with what's
happened here, right here and now.
I do give, you're looking at my notes.
I want to know what score you give it.
Nine out of 10.
I think it's great.
Well, listen, that's all we have time for during this half of the
year.
We'll be back for a wintry Christmas in July with the snowman.
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 Interterra, maximum power, and untitled
Star Trek project.
Kevin, where can people find you?
Well, mostly, I am tweeting inane and kind of miserable thoughts
right now, given the current state of the TV show, but that's at
Scribble Script, and I've also been, you know, contributing to
various things.
There's the, uh, 12th doctor fan audios on YouTube, which I've
been less involved with lately, but have been a lot of fun to work
on, but they think they're about halfway through their series
now.
I've been doing some stuff on the new adventures as part of an
ensemble group for the TARDIS scene.
And that faction paradox short.
I keep threatening people with is, I think, finally almost out.
I don't know a date on that yet.
Until next time, remember, everything has got to end.
Sometime, otherwise nothing would ever get started.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
See you soon.
Bye for now.
Good night.
That was Flight Through Entirety, starring Todd BLB, Nathan
Bottomley, Kevin Bernard and Simon Moore.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, River Knows All the Space Reasons, was recorded on
the 24th of April 2022, and released on the 8th of May.
You've just heard that we're taking a few weeks off before the
Christmas special and that we'll be doing the rest of series 7
later in the year.
So next time you feel like complaining about Moffat and Shipnell
not releasing enough, Doctor Who.
Remember that with all the resources of FTE studios behind us, even
flight through entirety came in with a reduced episode count in
2022.
Nine out of 10.
I think it's great.
I think that's where you ended.
I think that's where the TARDIS takeoff comes in.
What do you reckon?
I should say, and that's why I give this 9 out of 10.
So what time do we have people arriving?
1130 for Peter?
Peter's going to be here and then it's just us.
It's just 4 of us.
Yeah, cool.
So we'll move and stuff.
So, Kevin, we might let you go.
Is that all right?