Good Smugness

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight through Entirety the only Doctor Who podcast armed with projectile acid fish and ready to use them. After all, it's Christmas. I'm Nathan. I'm Todd. I'm Peter. And I'm Simon. Well, it's Mr. Moffat's 3rd Christmas special, which means it's time for Victorian, England, and a doctor with a massive case of the post-poned sads. We'll our new manic pixie dream girl be enough to bring him back to life. Let's find out in the snowman. So, as I just said, we're back in Victorian England, which sort of seems to be the kind of natural place. And I think that's probably where all our Christmas iconography comes from. So even if we're in Sardic Town, it's still kind of Victorian England at Christmas and I think it works tremendously well. I kind of got sick of every 14th episode of Doctor Who being about Christmas. So I like that we've diversified in the Mothat era, and it's not necessarily about Christmas. It's just about the trappings of Christmas. Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I think that having a Christmas special is super important for Doctor Who and for its visibility, for it being an event every year. And so I'm happy with the fact that we have a lot of Christmases after 26 years of what, one Christmas. And even then, it's not really that Christmas. Almost the time warrior. But it just looks tremendous. It's exactly what the BBC can do really well out of just opening a cupboard. Yeah, essentially. There's great locations, though. Like really good locations. Including that empty square where the ladder comes down from the TARDIS. just a beautiful large empty Victorian square. Yeah, and you see parks like that in London. It seems really, really convincing I think. But the house and all of that sort of stuff. The pond, everything just looks tremendous, I think. There's a feeling from classic Doctor Who that this feels like classic Doctor Who, but actually, classic Doctor Who quite rarely visited Victorian London, but it sort of harks back to that, and I think it might be because so much of it was filmed during kind of winter location days and things like that. It just, it feels nostalgic and it feels warm at the same time. So it's just perfect for a Christmas special. But you have, like, in Classic 2, a lot of big old Victorian houses that they visit in some of the most iconic episodes. So I think that's where you get that nostalgia for it from. Look, I absolutely adore this Christmas special. I think it's probably my favourite. You know, Christmas Carol technically is absolutely brilliant and can't be beaten, but I get tired watching it because of the time stuff, whereas this is a much more straightforward A to B to see the Zed story. And I just can relax and enjoy the comedy and enjoy the sadness and enjoy every performance in it. I think my favourite children. They do bring that up. I actually do think they are 2 of the better child actors. As, you know, listeners know, I really don't like children actors in Doctor Who at all, but they're not too bad. No, it's the maid that's having a very bad day in the house when she sees her screaming, you know? There is a woman with my wife and Strax and there's snowmen and she's just hysterical and she faints. Like, that's the stuff in Doctor 2 that I absolutely love. Do you know that she had a descendant who worked in a guesthouse north of London when Donna and Will? And Sylvia stayed there? What, she just points? She does points and repeats the same thing over and over. But it's those little characters. that make it for me, you know just having something like that, which is totally, like, I mean, it didn't have to be like that, but it just adds to it. Sorry, I'm totally not where we wanted to start, I know. No, no. What I like. You know, I love the Russell T. Davis era because it created a world for the doctor to live in. And there are a lot of people. You know, by the time we reach Journey's end, the TARDIS is sort of stuffed with people that we've got to know for the past for years. And for me, Doctor Who feels a bit lonely when the doctor's friendless, one of the things that I dislike about the kind of late say word era is that the doctor doesn't seem to have any, well as male, I guess, but he doesn't... He doesn't seem to have any friends. He doesn't need to. He doesn't belong anywhere. And one of the things that makes the Pertuy era such great comfort viewing is that there's a large regular cast. And here, even though Moffatt hasn't tried to create a world for his show to take place in, he's managed to create enough memorable characters whom he's able to bring back. And I think Vastra, Jenny, and Strax, who have just been imported from what a good man goes to war, are just tremendously good. It's quite funny because when we're watching that for the 1st time we actually, 10 years ago, we were actually both sort of thinking wait a minute, who are these people? Where were we from? But then, of course, you know, they're from a good man goes. Well, but even then here, it's like they've been around forever. Yeah. Someone, I agree. It totally interesting. Like they just suddenly they're, they're the new team and you just accept them and they are funny and they are clever and they work so well with Matt and with Jenner, I think. And of course, they're going to come back in 2 more episodes in this 2nd half of the season. I really... Part of me is disappointed that they're not in more episodes overall. You know, I just think they just, um, I was talking in the large episode about the fact that I felt that Matt goes a bit off the boil in the 2nd half of the season, but the episodes where he does work really well, uh, with these 3 or four. It's like the new team because he doesn't have to carry everything and he can share the load and have different moments and show different sides to the doctor. And it is quite incredible to think that I just accept them and they're just so brilliant in the episode and it's like they've always been there. I'm going to lay my cards on the table and say I don't like them very much. Okay. I think they're fine. Like, they're not terrible. but the shtick wears thin very quickly. It hasn't worn thin in this episode. They're good in this episode, but it will be very much a case of diminishing returns as they come back and do the same old lines and the same old scenes. However, I do like the fact that the doctor has a ready-made family or group of friends in this episode because it underscores the fact that he's retired from the world and he's even keeping them at arm's length. If he didn't have them, it would just be the doctor moping around like, you know, episode one of the deadly assassin or something. Yeah, no, I do agree with you on the points that they're not characters that I am fond of later, but I think they make a strong entrance or proper entrance here. Isn't part of the point, though, that, you know, that, yes, the doctor has sort of retired from his inventuring in solving, you know. I think you were going to say retired from acting. No, he hasn't done that. We retired from all that and they're trying to fill the gap. Yeah, so I think that's why it works as well. And it's a nice counterpoint because the doctor, in the loss of Amy and Rory, has become this kind of recluse who, you know doesn't know his place in the world or has lost his place in the world, whereas Madame Vastra and Jenny in particular kind of give you an image of a successful partnership that works in that world. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, they are explicitly connected to homes and Watson. And so Simeon, so Richard E. Grant's character says you do realise that Dr. Doyle is turning your adventures into crummy pulp fiction in the Strand magazine or whatever. And that's terrific. That is tremendously wonderful. And of course we know that Moffatt is a massive Sherlock Holmes fan. How do we know that? I have no idea. But isn't it great when we get that musical sting? When the doctor puts on the Sherlock Holmes outfit? A bit of Sherlock music. It's very... But it's also the moment that you know that Clara is going to be a great companion is when she deduces from the fact that the doctor brings the umbrella that he's accepted her and wanted her to come along with him. And that's very different from the way that Amy gets chosen. Like Amy is the 1st person, that the doctor sees when he turns up as Matt Smith, and she's funny and self-possessed and not hugely impressed by him and all of those wonderful things, whereas this is a companion who is going to be like the doctor for good or ill. And that's kind of why she's been chosen. She's as smart as him. She thinks the way that he does. And she's almost set up as a Lullaward Romana, just not being the time lady thing. Yeah, well, in fact, you know, Romana has different personas because she's a time lady. And here, Jenna's character has lots of different personas, but they're all playing by Jen to have lots of dinner. Well, yeah. No, I kind of meant. In name of the doctor. but yes. Now here she has 2 separate personas. Yeah, she does, doesn't she? Barmaid and governess. Yeah. And she kind of had 2 personas back in the 1st episode. Dalek and Osmond. Entertainment Officer. This is my favourite version of Clara. Yeah, I can see why. I am not as down on Clara as some of us are, and I do think that she has sort of considerable charisma, which is able in some senses to kind of paper over the weird way that her character is introduced. But I do like this one a lot. And it is because she's just able to stand up to the doctor more or less straight away. But it's a weird thing because barmaid Clara, I think, is the most generically approachable character. We all know that kind of, you know, perky barmaid from Victorian London, from Oliver Twist, kind of, you know, leading a sin song. We like that, whereas when she becomes governess Clara, she actually takes on a lot more of the mannerisms that I don't like from later Clara. Right, yeah. She has the posh accent and the smugness. She has like a great hair butt. I'm sorry, it all comes back to her hair. Her hair looks absolutely brilliant. Sorry, Simon is grimacing. No, no, I'm not. I was grimacing at the Peter's suggestion that he doesn't like the smugness because I think it's good smugness. There's bad smugness and good smugness. Simon, that's coming from someone who's very smug. Obviously. Yeah, so it has to be taken without under consideration. But nevertheless, I actually quite like the governess, Clara, very much. Yeah, it's not terrible. But the barmaid Clara, like at the beginning, you know, when the doctor walks passed in his hat, isn't it like a... He pulls off hats like no other doctor. Yeah. And you notice he's not wearing his bow tie. This is another situation in asylum of the Daleks. Remember how straightening his bow tie was the thing that he did when he solved. Was he superpower? Yeah, with superpower. He does it once he solved Amy and Rory's marriage. Right. And that he looks into the camera and straightens his bow eye. He, the bow tie, is associated with his heroic persona. He's not wearing it at the beginning. And then he says, does he have a line, Simon? It's something like I can't remember when I put that back on. But I, it's interesting because when the whole sequence where he he's looking at himself in the mirror and he can't remember when he put the bai tie on, I hadn't even noticed that he didn't was wearing it before. So it was quite a clever, a clever thing to show. And he does that whole Bill Nye routine. You know... Exactly. Like, I mean, Clara says like it's cooler. Yes. And he misses... And it is the whole Bill Knight thing. It made me sort of like, oh, quite. I got quite emotional when that sort of happened, you know? It has happened before, actually. You remember in a Christmas carol where Kazran Sardik starts wearing a bow tie, when he's a friend of the doctor. And then when he finally rejects him, he stops wearing it. So the boat's high, I think, it's so funny, isn't it? Because it's a weird choice. It's clearly just been brought in because whether this story is true or not, and I have my doubts because Matt liked Tomb of the Cyberman and wanted to have the Bow Tie. And so that was his kind of take on it. But Moffin actually gives it a symbolic meaning as things go on. Yeah, Nathan, it's hilarious because, like, if you hadn't chosen that, we wouldn't have all these moments. Yeah, yeah, he takes it. He runs with it and he makes it something that brings out so emotions in us all. Yeah, well, that's when Matt leaves. He drops the bow tie to the floor of the tartars. And then the 11th hour when he moves through the images of the other doctor, he's adjusting the bow tie, he's become the doctor. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's really fun isn't it? And it is just one of those things that Moffatt does. It's not planned. It's discovered, I think, as the show goes on. Yeah, because originally it's just this quirky thing. You know, people don't wear bow ties in the modern era outside of you know, tuxedos and even when they do wear a tuxedo, they're often not wearing it. And it's certainly not a one that you tie yourself and turning that into a motif does actually become a sort of a logical progression, given the fact that it's unusual. And it's always a balance of things. I don't think you could have put Capaldi in a bow tie because Capaldi, as an essence, is too doctor-ish. And so if you add a bow tie to it, it all looks a bit over egged whereas Matt is not a likely doctor before you see him. And so putting the bow tie on stamps him as the doctor. Yeah. Yeah. And also because he's so young, it's like, you know, bow ties being associated as a person. Yeah, and so it's an anachronism and that's why it works. Yeah, he's sort of dressed in a sort of 1950s way up until this point, isn't he? Like a teacher in a school in the 1950s. And this is the point where we won't see his old costume again, I think, or that he won't wear it regularly. Yeah. I will miss it. Yeah, me too. I think the shorter coach is so many of the doctors wear these long coats and it became a thing of, you know... It was the 80s. I mean, just basically every doctor in the 80s until McCoy came along. Well, from Tom, really. So it's the mid 70s. So, um, and it's only so it's only really pert wheat and McCoy that wear the short jackets in the old series. And so that for me was so refreshing. It makes him move so much faster and the silhouette is very distinctive. And I think it was disappointing for me when they went to the longcoat outside of just a Victorian episode like this. And that's the thing that I love too, which harks back to the heart and the era, where they're actually changing clothes. I love this, the fact that he's wearing a full-on Victorian with the hat and everything rather than just swanning around in his normal outfit. So it'll match the action figure. That suits him so much. Sorry to return. It does. No, no, it does. It actually works really, really well. It's a doctorate outfit in the Victorian era. Yeah. And he's wearing Amy's glasses too. Yeah, yeah. I didn't pick that. Yeah. In fact, there's even a kind of moment where he's aware that they're Amy's glasses. Isn't isn't that when he's in the Tartars that we're not seeing when he's talking to Vestra? Yeah, yeah, there's some reference to Amy because there's there's pond, isn't there? Yes, I will get to that, the word pond. And I think he refers or he looks at the glasses at that point because as we said over the last few episodes, in power of three the optician calls them up to say that Amy's reading glasses are ready. She's wearing them in the next episode and they get passed on to Matt Smith, who actually discovers that reading is much better with them. puts them on and goes, oh, wow, this is a lot better. And now he's just sort of wearing them regularly. It's the thing that is left behind. And although Amy and Rory, Amy and Rory don't, do they get mentioned by name? I don't know that they do. I think they know, only pond. Only pond. But we know that that's why the doctors retreated. And there's something beautifully fairy tale about him living on a cloud. Gorgeous. It looks so good that the spiral staircase, like Jack going up the beanstalk. Yeah, it's really great. But isn't doesn't her theme come in at that point too, that her beautiful Clara's theme. Yeah, as she's walking up the 1st time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, it's so nice. He's done it. And even though it's ridiculous. It works, especially in the context of the Christmas episode nature. It's like, you know, all of the close-ups of the snowflakes and so on. you know it's just nice. Another example of actually Marigold being good, and I don't know whether it, again, this is the director kind of pushing him, but I think his music in this episode is very, very strong, and that's coming from someone who's not a huge fan of him. I think getting properly to play with this new theme, you know invigorates him a bit, the way he always rises to a theme, doesn't he? And Clara's theme is very, very good and very distinctive. Talking of themes, just going back a bit to the beginning, we haven't mentioned the opening credits yet, which for me, no, well opening credits are important. They are. Very important. No, no, I was laughing because I knew we'd get here. Ah, right. But before we get to them, we've got things in that pre-credit sequence, we've got the doctor Doctor Who joke that Stephen seems to be bringing in quite a lot. We've got the great intelligence, right, on the carriage or whatever. And then, of course, it cuts into the new intro. Yes, which is the best opening credits of the modern era. Okay. Counterpoint. It's the worst opening credits of the modern era. Fascinating. Can I meet you halfway? I do quite like it, but it's a bit like the mill threw up in a kaleidoscope. Yeah, it's kind of, it's not saying anything. It doesn't seem to go in any direction. Oh I disagree. Like, it's quite 80s-ish. Yeah. Yes. Actually, no, it's because the reason why, okay, the reason why I love it so much. is that I think it's the one that's most authentic to the original show whilst also being a modern update. The other thing that I love about it is, I think it's the only opening credits where what's happening on the screen. actually marries with the music or vice versa. Okay. The thing that drove me nuts when those credits 1st rolled in 2005 and one of my biggest disappointments was the fact that, 0 my god it's like someone did the music and someone put the credits together and they didn't put it together until they put the episodes together. It's the moment, isn't it, where the camera turns around the TARDIS? The TARDIS moves. It doesn't match anything in the world. That's the thing that's the most jarring about that. Even the updated, when you come to the Matt Smith credits, even that's kind of a bit lazy, the way you got the clouds. I mean, I like them, but it's, you know, the TARDIS going through the clouds, it doesn't match the music in a way that it should where the beats, where the strong moments of the music. And again, when we get to the Capaldi credits, again, it's like completely disconnected with what's going on in the music. But these titles take you on a journey, like the Sylvester McCoy ones did, for instance, which I like because it's visual interest whereas the Capaldi credits may have a stronger motif, but they're just less interesting. that's true. I just think it's just, let's not talk about Chris Chipnell coughing up in England. Oh, no, I think that's like a oily puddle. I think... Isn't he eating blotters? I think my thing is that it's just a whole bunch of crazy crap happening. Yeah, yeah. And it doesn't seem like to go here. I love the fact that his face appears here. That is what got to me. Yes, and subtly. That's yeah. Again, I don't want to dwell on that too much because that's not the only reason I love them, but I think that just added beautifully to it. One of the most disappointing things for me is moving forward that you only get them in this 2nd half series and that's it. I kind of thought moving forward into Capaldi, it'd be like a season 11 to 12 transition where you'd still have them with an updated face. eyebrows. But yes, they're just... Well, like season 11 onto 12. Yeah. Well, can I just conjecture here, and it is educated conjecture that this was meant to be a soft reboot for the show with new TARDIS, new credits, new music. And I don't think that Moffat was expecting that Matt was going to leave. Yeah. stay for one more year. That's right. Yeah, at least one more movie, yeah. Can I say, though, that this TARDIS, this new TARDIS, which we see for the 1st time, is perhaps the best hardest set in the show's rhyme. Yeah, that's interesting. I'm surprised because I entirely agree with you on that. And the reason I love it is because it's getting away from the grunge and the organicness and moving towards something that actually resembles for me the original show. It effortlessly evokes the original wild being different. And it does it by sort of being mostly white and lit well, but that beautiful blue, which I prefer to the capald yellow. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I quite like what they do to it in the Capaldi era. And I'm glad that they don't change it completely, but it's also super interesting. There's just lots of practical lights in it. There's things that actually move around. It's interesting. It's got different levels. There's different places to shoot. And the switches seem timeless. You know what I mean? not those 80s kind of microprocessor switches and they're not kind of bits of kitchen sink and stuff like that, but they just work. I think that the bits of kitchen sink, the taps and the things on Matt's 1st console are a bit too bad. A bit too much, yes. 100%. Well, my 2 cents is that I absolutely adore the Capaldi version right? Because I love all the stuff around the outside, all the bookshelves. I think that's brilliant. I do take your point, the blue lighting is probably better than the yellow lighting, but it's just that the moment you go into that TARDIS because they've hidden it. right? He's been sitting down reading a book. And then the whole thing is spinning and the lights and then it's just a hero shot of the episode. It's another high point in this which is why I just adore it. And he actually turns out the lights in the TARDIS when he leaves just so he can turn them on for dramatic effect when Clara comes in. It's pick word, isn't it? Yeah, it's so good. That's genius. Yeah, he really is very good. And I remember an interview with Moffatt, where Moffatt said, where Moffatt kind of contradicts himself, where the original kind of whimsical Tardar said that Matt started with was to reflect the sort of fairy tale. It was a sort of Charlie and the chocolate factory thing, you know aesthetic. And he's saying, no, no, no, it's a time and space machine, and it should look like that, which was kind of the opposite of what he said before. And I think it just feeds into my theory of Moffatt constantly reacting against the thing that he did previously. I think it's stunning. But I love it that it's from the roof rather than built up from underneath. Yeah, that's right. I mean, that was the strong point of the 1st Matt Smith TARDIS, was the glass floor and that area underneath where he got to wear goggles and kind of fiddle with things. There's a thing coming down from the top. does hark back to the very, very original, like an earthly child where you have this great big thing above the console. I don't know how quickly that gets lost or destroyed or the roof thing. Yeah, the roofing. Because what it's doing is it's saying, this is not a set. Because you used to sets having walls with no root because that's where the lighting grid is. And having a sense of a roof or something coming down from above does make it feel like it's more of a complete space. That object that with the sort of concentric circles and stuff is referenced in Matt Smith's 1st TARDIS. Yes. So that element of the bracardi. I think it just executed so much better. Yes, so good. It is really great. And of course, it's there to tell the story of how the doctor's feeling as well, which is why it's moodily lit in blue and all of that kind of thing. It takes its cue from the rest of the episode, which is lit very practically in shots and given a deep blue grade. It's just gorgeous and so the console looks like the rest of the episode. Yeah, yeah. And so the doctor's miserable and he's kind of retired from not just investigating things, but also saving people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's just sort of uninterested in the world and he explains it by saying that the universe keeps doing this to me. I keep saving the universe and the universe doesn't care, I think he said. Yes, the universe doesn't care. Yeah. That's what I've learned. Yeah. What do you want doctor applause? You know, what I think is the best thing about that. There is some, there's something that this story has to say about men and women, and it's Moffatt, so that's inevitable, but the 2 people who are doing the doctor's job, who have taken over when he is too busy having feels up in his cloud, those are women being a snowflake. It's the 2 women who are undertaking his job. And then when Clara comes in and Vastra interviews her in a scene that I think is just tremendously clever. When Vastra says he doesn't care. He's not kind, you know, whatever. And she just says back to her words, like says the word words because Vastra has said that words are full of lies, and that's why you're only allowed to say one at a time. And then when she says he doesn't want to be hurt anymore. Her response is, man. You know, it's the doctor having a big suk and having lots of man kind. You might as spoil a water sign. I might as well have worn a sign saying manic pixie dream. The only objection I have to that sequence and I think it's a great sequence is it's that introduction or the continuation of this idea of, you know, trying to paint the doctor as, oh, no, he's not kind. you know, he's an alien. He's not actually a nice person, you know, which I am always uncomfortable with because I think, you know, for 98% of the program, we see this very kind, compassionate person. Yes, alien and yes, sometimes his values are a little bit different, you know, and all that sort of stuff. But I don't like that when they say that he's unkind. I agree with you. And I don't think it works most of the time, but I do think it works for Matt Smith's doctor who is so charming and, you know breaks out into the smile so readily that it offers you a nice counterpoint, whereas, you know, you can't do it, as we'll see with the Capaldi doctor, because he's more brittle. and so you don't want to go there. You know, he's not kind or he's not acting kind sometimes either. I do like that sequence with Vestra. I love the fact that she is not drinking red wine. Yes, What is the other drink? Whatever, that happens to be. It's blood, isn't it? Doesn't she eat someone at the beginning of, is it the Crimson Horror or deep breath? No, because she's getting a good man goes to war. That's it. Because she, because she says she comes back there, she found the murderer. How did you find him? Yes. Grizzly or something? Grizzly or something? Speaking of things tasting bad, the doctor kissing stracks on the forehead and then licking his lips in disgust is one of the best Matt Smith moment. Yes, yes, yes. But one of the best moments also is the memory worm at the beginning distracts the carriage. I think it's hilarious. I mean, it's so obvious, but so irritable. It is. You're right. But it again is Clara doesn't run away. They're trying to get the memory worm in order to wipe her memory of ever having matched it off. and watch too men be incompetent. Yes, that's exactly the thing. And there is a thing here, and it's, you talk about the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. So the idea of the manic pixie dream girl is that there's a male character who has the sads and then a zany girl comes along whose job is to lift him out of it. And she is absolutely a classic manic pixie dream girl. It's a term that was coined by Nathan Raven who used to write for the AV club and he's now a critic on his own site, Nathan Raven's happy place, and he's very cool, but he came up with that formulation. And Elizabeth Town, wasn't it? I can't remember actually. I think it was Kirsten Dunst. Right, right. And I think that's actually slightly a problem with the show is that the emotional labour has to be done by a woman, that a man can sit up there in his cloud not caring about anyone not wanting to do anything, being absorbed in his own thoughts, and then a woman comes along and kind of fixes him. And it is something that Moffatt always does. The women are more competent than the man. And given that male incompetence is a time worn strategy for getting out of your share of the housework and all of that kind of thing or doing emotional labour or doing child rearing or all of that. I'm no good at that. I know about that, Nathan. We'll have to ask your suspiciously intimate other. It's that. You know, Latimer does it. Pretty Colonel Latimer or General Latimer or something, the children are not my area. I need you a woman to deal with them. And Moffat always does that. and it looks like it's being complimentary to women because women are more competent, more able more bossy, more intelligent, less stupid than man, but it is, I just can never escape the idea. It means that the women are doing more work. right. I mean, I think it's partly a function of the show in the companion will always be there to service the character of the doctor in some ways. And the doctor's usually male, and the companion is usually female. And so Motho reacts against that by making the companion quirky and fun and have equal status. But you're just locked into the structure of the program. I think that's probably right. But the worm is funny. I'm sorry, I think I've been run over by a cab and then... I mean, that is comedy gold, right? And Clara's just standing there looking, going, 0 my goodness. But again, it's one of these things where Stephen Morford introduces that thing early on and you think it's a throwaway thing and later on it comes back to bite in the pot, you don't see it coming that you know that Richard E. Grant is going to grab the worm. And it's just a throwaway line that, you know, let it bite you and you'll lose decades. Decades, yeah. It's so clever, isn't it? And that's how Moffatt does exposition. He actually has a really memorable comedy bit that we don't know at the time has the additional job of introducing the memory worm as a way of resolving. And that's what makes it so clever and so engaging because there's nothing like getting the payoff of that later because without that it's just a bit of silliness. Yeah. But silliness is great. I see this is fine. It's the silliness with the extra thing. It balances it out. Yeah, I think memory worm for new companion. Memory worm seeded through the doctor's past. Tom would have loved that. Tom would have loved that. memory worm and a cabbage on his shoulder. It's such a great crummy puppet as well. It's just awesome. It's great. That's great. It was really good. So we haven't talked about the great intelligence very much. And here, the great intelligence, who was a mysterious force back in the 1960s, is now given an absolute solid specific origin story. Yes, how we feel. I think it's really nicely done. It's, I love, often origin stories are a bit rubbish. But I actually thought that it was so nicely done that it's basically grown out of this lonely boy's emotions and it feeds into the show because, you know, you know, part of the demographic of Doctor Who view is at least, you know, when we were children, is we are that boy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love the fact that he explains it so delicately, like, you know, low telepathic field and then isn't there like a lunchbox with the London underground? Like it's feeding into all of that, but pointing out how ridiculous it actually is, but loving it at the same time. Yeah, so the doctor actually gives the great intelligence the idea of putting yeti in the underground in this episode. Doesn't Jenny or somebody say... or Vastral, Jenny say something about how could the London Underground be a strategic weakness? Yeah. I mean, I'm not quite on board with the intelligence being reduced in dialogue to the level of Meglos or the Borad, you know incompetent, invading the underground, even though we know it was incompetent. But I really do like it. I think it is a good origin story. And I think that the snowmen are a really good modern iteration of the yeti. always looked a bit stupid. Yeah, the snowmen don't. They kind of they have the silhouette and the fierceness, but they don't look silly. They have shark's teeth, don't they? that work really well. And the snowflake, that's a little... I love it. But yeah, no, I didn't think about that, the fact that they're sort of like the yeti because I love the fact that at the end you think the intelligence is defeated, right? Because he's dead, but then it's grown bigger than Simeon and winter is coming. I just love the fact that he's referencing Game of Thrones with Game of Thrones. Game train started by now. Oh yeah, it's a big phenomenon by now. really growing. So I really love that fact. But, I mean, obviously, next episode we're going to get the great intelligence again, and I kind of wish that we'd get it a bit, I would have liked it one more time during that 2nd half of the season. Well, that's just me perhaps thinking that maybe we need an episode with the edge somewhere down the track. Well, I sort of picked it straight away only because of the fact that it's, you know, the snowman. Like, it's abominable. Yeah. So I thought it was a deliberate play on that. And it clearly was. Yeah, but I like the little touches, like the sphere that he's putting the snow into that's kind of holding the greatest television is a sphere. Who knew that the Greece Intelligence lived in one of those things that scrambles the lotto. It's great, isn't it? I forgot that it comes back in the bells of St. John. But isn't it refreshing that the doctor at the end still can't quite remember the great injunction? Yeah, it's vaguely familiar. Where have I heard that? Because, of course, it's like so long ago in my history. Yeah, Clara, to slap him and say the episode's called The Snowmen. So how? Oh, can I just say something, by the way? Saul Metzstein, who does such a great job on this episode. I mean, I think the last thing he did was a town called Mercy and we raved about his direction in that. He is actually the 2nd assistant director on a 2017 film called The Snowman. 6% on rotten tomatoes. Hurry and watch it. 6% as high as them, my goodness. What else does he direct after these two? He does the name of the doctor and one other. Yeah, but he doesn't come back after series 7. He's only, he only directs episodes in series seven. He also directed dinosaurs on a spaceship, for instance. Oh, no, I thought that was good too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe he does the Crimson horror. I think that's other thing. Oh, yeah, well that's great. So he only does episodes with Jenny. I love Jenny. It means that we introduce Ian McCallen. as the voice of the Great Intelligence, and we give the Great Intelligence a human aspect which is Richard E. Grant, who we always felt should have been in Doctor Who at some point, but... Well, he was he was the animated doctor. Like, he was kind of, he was the animated ninth doctor. And he is in curse of fatal death for about 2 minutes. Yeah, yeah. But it's so funny. He's sort of almost the doctor, but not. But if you're going to make him the doctor, you make him a villain. Absolutely. Especially because as Richard D. Grant has aged, he has become more sinister looking. Yes, he's no longer lick the mirror handsome. Like the mirror handsome. He does that. that underbite thing that he has. Like, he's got this strange way of delivering his lines as the greatest. He's a bit too clenched, perhaps, but what I think of is the way that the Mara is explained in snake dance, which gives it a sort of weird space explanation without ruining it without destroying its kind of underlying mythic nature. I think that's perhaps one of the best examples of bringing back a monster and doing something different with it. And I think this does a very good job of that as well. Snake Dance is also a Mara origin story. Yeah, that's what I mean. And it also has a Punch and Judy show in it. It does. There you go. Stephen Mauve had just watched Snake Dance somewhere, I know. And even the idea of just sentient snow is very, very simple and doesn't need a lot of explanation or work. silly. It's not sentient. It's sentient. It's empathic or something. I can't remember something. Yeah. But it imitates, it mirrors what it sees around it. And that's incredibly simple. And yet it underlies a whole heap of phenomena, including the scary ice governess and I love it, but I love all of that. Like, you know, the ponder still frozen over and she fell in there and she died. And like the 1st time through when I watched it, I didn't pick up a lot of that, like it was only in subsequent viewings that I realised how much that was connected with little lines and I just love how he's outside with his no making device, you know, the ring. That's great. It's like a Dyson snowmaker. But also, like the fact that Clara's expecting the doctor to come upstairs and then it's the ice governess and they've got to defeat her and break her apart and she keeps on humming. And I love the fact that, you know, Digby or whatever saw a dead cow, you know? I think that's a great line. Great, aren't they? But it's so sort of a bit gruesome the way, you know, the governors, the previous governors had fallen into the lake and it froze, she drowned and it froze over. I mean, it's quite actually a bit gruesome. But that's kind of Victorian. You know, that sort of weird macabre. Yes, yes, exactly. Absolutely. absolutely absolutely. And the girl is having bad dreams and yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, again, we have that idea that we see the snowman appear because Clara is remembering them from before and we have... Is that frame? Yeah, so Franny is dreaming about the governess being angry and Simeon is aware that we have ice that has learnt to imitate her body and we have the psychic stuff coming from Franny's dreams which is going to animate the governess. And so it all works really tightly. It all is explained without giving us laborious explanation. Overexplaining. It works thematically as well. It's one of the reasons that, you know, you've got to love Stephen's writing because even in a nice Christmas romp like this there's things happening. So the great intelligence and Simeon are both kind of analogues for the doctor in the story because the great intelligence goes back and basically corrupts a child to become its vessel and do what it wants. And the doctor's been doing that all season and basically all doctor. So, you know, he thought nothing about playing around in Amy Pond's childhood as Amelia. In the Rings of Akatan, he'll do that to Clara. He'll go back and sort of, you know, have a play around with her past. He did it with Kasran Sardik now that I'm thinking about it. And then you get Simeon as well. And Simeon is a lonely boy, and the doctor, he'll, Stephen will explicitly return to that and listen and show the doctor as a lonely boy, who grew up to be a bad person. And it's been shown many times in the new series, that the doctor needs people around him to temper him and make him a good person. And so he's just playing them both off against the doctor. And so this stuff happening under the surface in a jolly Christmas romp. It's really interesting you talking about Simeon being a young boy and then we see him like being the older man and dying being killed off. I don't actually feel sorry for him at all. Like, I mean, I guess we're supposed to. It's actually the 1st episode of Clara's run with Miss Kisman. That the one that gets to me because she's taken over by the great intelligence and at the end, she's a little girl with her voice. That's the one that affects me every time I watch it. It is a bit similar, isn't it? Like he's kind of losing some decades of his memory by being bitten by the worm and ends up being taken over by the great intelligence. I actually think the title has more than one meaning. And the snowmen are the doctor and Simeon, because we have this idea where the weather reflects the emotions that the characters are experiencing. And so it's the family weeping over the death of Clara that turns into rain, that washes away the snow. At the beginning of the episode, the doctor is trying not to feel anything. He's not feeling curiosity or kindness, he's walled himself up from human contact because he doesn't want to be hurt again. So he's frozen as well. And then you get the little boy who is scared of the other children, who doesn't want to have anything to do with them, who creates this imaginary friend that just reflects that loneliness back to him. And he physically becomes frozen. doesn't he? When the great intelligence takes over his body. He's frozen. We have a scene where the doctor is frozen as well by the great intelligence. And so in a way, the snowmen are Simeon and the doctor, as much as they are, the sort of hilarious comedy snowmen that appear. And all of this at 650 on Christmas Day. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, is the fact that the Great Intelligence come back, and that there's a reference to the, specifically the web of fear, rather than the probable snowman. What is known, and this is a question, about the fact that the recovery of the web of fear was known but not public at the time that this was made. I mean, it certainly would have been playing on Stephen's mind. Because he was one of the people who knew about it. Who knew about it? Yeah, yeah. And so, because this season originally was kind of a reaction against 6 and so we don't have the complex serialisation that we had in 6 and those sort of interlocking elements and everything was going to be a movie of the week. But in spite of that, you know, unable to help himself, I mean there is a character arc with Amy and Rory and the doctor in the 1st half of the season. And then there are 2 elements, I think, in the 2nd half, which is the great intelligence. So he's chosen to have a sort of miniarch about the great intelligence because perhaps he's aware that the web of fear is back. And as far as I recall, the snowmen were shot very late in the run so very close to transmission. Right, okay. And, and of course, who is Clara is the other one. And it's interesting that. So Russell kills Kylie on Christmas Day. which is a bit of a downer. And and Moffatt kills Jenna, again, on Christmas Day. Not so much of a downer. Well, but it is that... We should have seen it coming because the moment Clara kisses the doctor, you know it's certain doom. It's actually a little bit kind of horrible, I think. And so what defeats the snowman? What thaws the world that this story is in is the grief over the loss of someone, their their governess? And the doctor is experiencing grief over the loss of Amy and Rory but his way of dealing with it has been to kind of shut himself away from everything and to try and not feel it. And so it's actually feeling grief that kind of resolves the story. But there is something, like we've got a manic pixie dream girl getting fridged, you know, now she's killed. Do you, when she's lying on the snow, having just fallen and the way the camera comes across her. For me, it's very reminiscent of a classic series regeneration. Okay. Yes, you're right. And giving her sort of, I mean, I don't know where that's liberal. That's probably just the way you know, a director will shoot someone who's dying. Because I said, that is one of the most beautiful moments of the episode where they just hear the thud because obviously you don't want to see it. She's lying there. The camera tracks in on her. Even the thud though is the thud is quite graphic. And then the doctor, when Vastra says, he's coming for her and the TARS materialise around it. That's a beautiful sequence. Really? Really nice. Quite tear joking. I just wanted her to live. Like all throughout the episode. I don't know. Like, I mean, I think my memory cheats. Like, I don't know if I expected her to die. Like when she kissed the doctor, I thought that was concerning. And of course, then they were up in the TARDIS and he gives it the key and it's sort of like, well, this is too quick. know. Whenever the doctor is inviting someone aboard. That's it. Yeah, that's for them. Yeah, Linda with a Y. Red flags. Yeah, yeah. You know, and then to be pulled out of the TARDIS in that slow motion sequence. I mean, it's all rather gorgeous, but I can understand it's bleak. The bleakness of it all. If I can just pick up on that thing about handing the key over regardless of whether it's a red flag for you, it's almost like communicating something that is unspoken in the show, you know, why does someone, why does this person become a companion and not that person? You know, I never know why I only know who. I think it's that thing that we know a companion when we see one. You know what I mean? Well, I do think there is that moment where she draws the conclusion about the umbrella. Why has the doctor brought the umbrella with him and she does a homes style deduction? And so she's similar enough to him. There are moments like that going right back to Rose where the doctor looks at Rose after she says something particularly perceptive and says, that's very good. It's like this little movement. The students. The autons must be students. Yeah. I mean, I think they should have run with the doctor's companion just becomes the 1st person that he sees because then we would have had Sir Wester McCoy with the runny. would have been awesome. Well, she was dressed as man. We had a few episodes of it. Series 26 finale. You mean you're not Mel? It's a sequence on the roof with the governess after them when she falls on top of the doctor and that whole exchange of dialogue and just more Jenna delivers. Just throughout this entire episode, I just loved her so much more than Amy. I'm going back to my original run and thoughts. I didn't like Amy that much. And quite often, what happens with me is that if I haven't liked something, then the next one, the next person that comes along is like fantastic. Well, it's like Peter Davidson, Colin Colin. Like, there's that. So, you know, that transition is hard. But for me, she just, throughout this entire episode, one of the joys is the fact that it's not, at the time, it's not Amy. Now, obviously I've come to love Amy so much more in Rory, but I still love the fact that it's fresh and new because we've had 2.5 years ago. you know? And then she gets to die. Do you think we expect her to die because Oswald died in Asylum of the Darlings? I didn't. I thought she was just going to be whisked off in the Tartars. And it just seemed unlikely that we would have a character from not the present day as a companion. Yeah, but maybe that's what I was hoping. Yeah. Certainly people were saying that. would have liked that. And Clara's very contemporary. She doesn't use like barmaid Clara. She doesn't use contemporary language, but in her attitudes and the way that she works things out. She's contemporary. And she's not Victoria. Yeah, and she's not so far in the past that she can't understand new technology. I think that's the thing that I just wanted to have a companion that was from the past, you know? Because when Madame Vastra is interviewing her to be the next companion, actually. Basically, it's not whether, you know, she knows what the internet is. It's whether her brain is open to concepts, new concepts and ideas. That's basically what Master is doing. Yeah, that would have been amazing if that was Jenna Coleman's actual audition with Stephen Mothad saying, why do you want this role? One word. Jenna Coleman going, salary. Yes, exactly. mortgage. Career. It does go on to be Queen Victoria's. Yeah, yeah. She does. So I guess then what happens is that the doctor is animated by the mystery? He's withdrawn from 2 things, hasn't he? He's withdrawn from solving the problem and he's withdrawn from saving the day. And we see him go back to solving the problem when he does that ridiculous Sherlock Holmes thing, where he's super terrible at being Sherlock Holmes. And now he's also discovered that there's a problem. The day has been saved, but it was kind of saved by Clara and the family. But now he has this mystery that's kind of animating him. And I guess the death of Clara, in the 19th century is kind of softened by our view of the Clara, who we now know, is going to be the doctor's companion for the rest of the season. But I love all the flashback dialogue, like, run you, Clipper boy remember, and then cut into the to him at the grave, which, again has Osmond, Clara Osmond Oswald, which is explained, I know. It's so paper thin that I just dislike it intensely. And then, of course, cutting to a more modern Clara in that same position, again. conveniently so, but the universe is conspiring to put her in that position and them into that position, which I which I just love all that sort of, yeah, the threads that are there that are binding that sort of together. Yeah, even though I don't like the fact that she died in this episode at the time, I was thinking, oh, like when we just picked up the companion from this point, you need the 3rd Clara for it to work at the end of the season. It's not a pattern if it's just happened once before. Yes, exactly. You need the 3 of them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and Malford is so often criticised about killing off his companions and then bringing them back. Why not come up with an in universe reason? Yeah, exactly. I would have actually liked to have seen a Clara turn up in the Wild West, like as they leave, like in a stagecoach, just to just to have a link to what happens later on in the season. And that one, because the Asylum of the Daleks and the snowman Clara are our versions of Clara that don't remember the doctor whereas you could have that one in, you know, a town called Mercy turn up at the stagecoach just as they're leaving and she's one that actually knows who the doctor is running up going, doctor wait. Belt out the chorus to the last chance. Maybe that's something that he was trying to avoid, even though there are those mini arcs and mini character developments. What you don't get in this season is all of these endless sort of at the end of the episode, some reference to the ongoing plot. I think that's possibly what he was trying to avoid. Yeah, so he's reacting to what he did like. Yes, yes, yes, again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The one thing that I was a bit disappointed about was the fact that Vastra just gets knocked out in one second. Yeah, I would have liked to have seen her do more fighting. Well, just do a bit more. I mean, she has her one sequence, but then that's about it, really for her. anyway, that's a minor thing. I just think that this episode, and I link it to the 1st half of the season, is that the 5 episodes we've seen previously, it's all building, and although I think the power of 3 is slightly weaker than the rest, but I think Angels is great. I just love this even more and it's sort of like the anticipation for the 2nd half of the season and sort of like, it's only going to get better, but I could be massively let down, like, like, could you? I have been watching ahead and, but you know, you run that risk of then saying you wanted to keep getting better and better and you know that there's only, you know, so far episodes can go. I mean, compared to the patchiness of series 6. This has been a remarkable return for. This is a really solid run. 2012 is a pretty good year for Doctor Who, I think. All 6 episodes. Yeah. Well, hey, listener, that's all we have time for, for now. We'll be back soon with the second half of Series 7 in the Bells of St. John. 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 Intertera, Maximum Power, and Untitled Star Trek Project. Until next time, run, you clever boy, and remember. Thank you very much for listening and good night. See you soon. Good night. Bye bye. That was Flight Through Entirety, starring Todd, we'll be Nathan Bottomley, Peter Grifferson, Simon Moore. Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb. This episode, good smugness, was recorded on the 24th of April 2022 and released on the 25th of July. Simon Moore and Peter Griffiths will be returning in the next season of FTE Playhouses, Holmes and Watson in The Mystery of the People who Don't Like the Partagnoster Game very much for some reason, available from all of the least discriminating audiobook services. Merry Christmas, everyone. That's it. What do you think? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I had a line about, I only had a line about the fact that the Mary Poppins routine, I thought, was nicely done, but not too overplayed. I thought that was lovely. I think Mary Poppins is better when she comes back in series eight. Far out. She's so good And it's smaller on the inside. don't like that line smaller on the outside. whatever. smaller on the outside. I do like it when the staircase is taller on the inside. Yeah, that's fair. Do you know, they use that as the promotional image. You know, each episode was meant to be a movie. And so I had one big hero image. The image is the doctor and Clara clinging to that ladder on the cloud. It's amazing. So good, isn't it? It's so beautiful. Yeah I mean, it's... So where are we, where are we putting it in Christmas specials? Moffin writes 10. This is one of my top ones. Hey, right, 10 Christmas movies. seasons are all spread out. I'm going to put this at number 3. So a Christmas Carol. Number two. Christmas Carol's 2 for you. No, time of the doctor. Absolutely, yeah. I'm a doctor. not like that at first. No, I love it. Really? It took time to work out what, what's going on? And I still think there are ways you could improve the script. Yes, to give it a little bit more coherence, but I like it a lot. Yeah, yeah. I probably put this one at three. fractionally behind time of the doctor. But a Christmas carol's just still going to be deep. streets ahead of everything just because it's phenomenal. Do you know, I secretly like the Return of Dr. Mysterio, even though it's a terrible Christmas special. That's actually fun. I think last Christmas is magnificently. Christmas is magnificent. I put this, I put this near the top. Like I think I like a... I think I prefer to watch it. over a Christmas carol um because of the work I have to do with that. I also love Voyage of the Damned every single time. It's got highly and it's Russell and all of that. And you doesn't want to hit a bum nose at Christmas. You don't want... sorry, Brendan, the doctor, the widow and the wardrobe. and you don't want the end of time part one. No. Well, at the end of time, part one's not really a Christmas special. coincidentally on Christmas, isn't it? I'm really surprised how much you... Guys are into time of the doctor as a Christmas special. I guess I haven't got up to that watching yet. So I'm going to be really interested to see what I do think of it as a Christmas sort of special. I think it's the 2nd best Matt Smith story. Really? Wow. Yeah. I mean, it's also, for me, the circumstances under which I watched it and I'll go into this more detail. I think I won the episode. I was we were in Poland. And because it was the Brian didn't want to watch it on an iPad but I thought, no, no, no, because I didn't want to be spoiled by how the document was. I thought, no, no, no, on, on, I think it was Boxing Day. Well, maybe it was, yeah, it would have been Boxing Day. I was in the hotel, you know, we had a kind of siesta cocktail hour and I was sitting on the bed watching it on an iPad mini with headphones in completely enclosed in the cold with like, you know Krakov outside was quite magical for me. And I think the circumstances in how you watch an episode, I think cannot be under stated in terms of how you enjoy it. I was under complete duress for the Doctor the widow of the wardrobe. And that was just watching and I didn't need any other. I watched the very last Christmas special, which was twice upon a time. In the 1st class lounge at Dubai Airport at 3 o'clock in the morning and I've never watched it again since and I really hated it. But I am almost certain that that's because I was sleep deprived that in this sort of weird liminal space between one place and another. One universe and another. I think that was also a real flex that you managed to get. Yeah, yeah. Well, he didn't crack off, all right? You see, I quite like... There's a lovely hotel on the main square too. It was beautiful. And it was so suited. But no, but yeah, that would have ruined it for me because you're in this, yeah, foreign space. foreign space, not like being in a foreign country, but yeah, as you say, it's like interstitial time 0 room. The gap between now and now. You expect a Gundan to come in and start. Although at least you wouldn't have paid. Did you have people constantly interrupting you wanting to give you food and drinks? No, no, no, no, because it's basically dessert. Basically dessert. But stupidly brightly linked. everybody puts that episode down. I don't think it's as bad as everybody says. It probably is better than I think, but it is. Yeah, I quite like it. But there's just one problem. That's the characterisation of the 1st doctor, but that's another time. Oh, it's kind of what happens even when you get a genius like Stephen Motha when he's forced to carve 5 minutes off the end of the last episode and whip it up into something. That's right. Yes, yes. a bit rough. All right, I'm going to stop. That might be a tag, actually, because I do like that conversation about Christmas. Okay, specials, you think? This context is very important. 100%