Hello, dear listen, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety.
The only Doctor Who podcast, still annoyed about John Pertwee's
complete inability to correctly pronounce the name Metabolus 3.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Corey.
I'm Pete.
And I'm sorry.
Well, nothing's more terrifying than love, and this week we've got
it in spades.
Alec loves Emma.
Clara and the doctor need one another and the crooked man wants to
do unspeakable things to the crooked lady immediately after this
week's credits role.
So the only question left to answer is do we love this season's
haunted house episode, hide.
So can someone answer this question for me?
Why is it called hide?
That is the bigger question than Doctor Who, which the season goes
on and on about.
Because you can't run, because you've got a thick one.
I don't know.
So, yeah, so firstly, is it a verb or is it the noun meaning the
skin of an animal?
I guess that's probably it.
But there's no one to hide from because it turns out everyone's
lovely.
Maybe you can't hide from love.
There we go. you old romantic Pete.
Do you know, I actually think you're pretty close to the market
Pete.
I think this is about people who are hiding from their feelings
and hiding from themselves, I think.
I mean, Alec, I think, is hiding from himself and his past and
what happened during the war.
So I think that's where for me, the title rests.
I think there's that moment too, where Emma very, very nearly gets
Alec to admit that he has feelings for her or something.
Like there's that bit where she moves her hand towards him.
And then when he doesn't react, she has to kind of withdraw it in
this embarrassed way and we're all sort of super awkward for a
moment.
Maybe that's it.
Maybe it is about hiding your feelings.
It's, it's odd.
There is something going on here, I think, but I just am not sure
how clear it is.
It seems to me that you've got a few couples.
You have Alec and Emma, you have the doctor and Clara, who have
sort of secrets from each other, and you have the strange 2 aliens
that we discover were in love all along.
But I'm not sure that we go anywhere with it.
It does seem to be kind of resonant.
It does tie the whole thing together a bit.
But I don't know whether it says anything in particular.
Is the story saying that there's a parallel between Emma and Alec
and the doctor and Clara?
And if that is the case, I'm not sure it quite works, I think.
There's just the slightest hint when Emma is talking to Clara
about the doctor that Clara might have some feelings for the
doctor or some interest in the doctor, but it's not taken any
further.
Yeah, it's teasing us with that, I think.
She warns her off.
She says he's got nice in his heart in what I thought was actually
quite good. gave me unquiet dead vibes for a 2nd with Gwen and, you
know, the doctor and the big bad wolf and stuff.
And there's a twist within.
I like the twist within the twist, there's a twist, the right word
towards the end, where it's just a development, not a twist.
Sorry, someone put putting it out on Twitter the other day, but
people always say twist when they actually mean development and
now I'm paranoid.
But, um, uh, it is revealed or that, that she, um, she doesn't
answer.
So the doctor's like, ah, actually, I've come here to find out all
about Clara.
And then our empath friend pretty much lies to him and doesn't
because she doesn't trust him.
She doesn't think he's trustworthy.
So she just says Clara's just an ordinary girl, which either she's
a rubbish empath and is telling the truth or she's a good empath
and is lying.
Isn't she telling the truth?
guess.
I think I thought she came across like she was telling the truth
there, that actually there isn't anything mysterious or unusual
about Clara.
It's sort of the destiny that is different.
So, but Clara herself is just an ordinary person, although she's
not necessarily written as anyone who's at all ordinary in any way
whatsoever, particularly in this episode, but maybe we'll come
back to that.
Yeah.
I tend to agree that that Emma is telling the truth, that I
actually don't think that, um, as far as Clara is concerned, she's
anything but an ordinary, ordinary young woman.
So yes, we'll, we find it, find out the truth of that later on in
the season, of course.
It's the Moffat thing of hiding the solution to the mystery in
plain sight.
It turns out that the mystery was what it always had to be.
Missy was always going to be the master.
And here we get the solution to the problem that the doctor is
trying to solve in this episode, that there's nothing
extraordinary about Clara.
She's clever, she's brave, but she isn't anything else.
And the doctor doesn't believe her because he's had the experience
of seeing her diet, Christmas and all of that sort of thing.
But as far as Clara herself is concerned.
In fact, this is, is this her 1st episode, is this Jenna's 1st
episode?
Yes, of course.
Yeah.
Like before even the snowmen, right?
Yes, it is.
Oh, right.
Daleks, obviously. before the snowman.
Yep.
And I think she is really generic here.
I think there's, we said last week, there's a kind of Sarah
Janeness to her performance where it's just the plucky young gal
who is mostly defined by the actor's performance and she doesn't
really have anything by way of backstory here at all.
Yeah, I've got it down as like just at this point, and I'm casting
my mind back to watching it at this point.
I was getting frustrated that she was just this perfectly
companion shaped thing that I didn't have a connection to.
And I was enjoying the mystery at the same time as thinking, I
don't know how they're going to wreck on her into being a
believable real person, having started out with her being not
that.
And for me, they never really did.
It never quite, that's why Clara never landed with me.
I think this is looking back from now, because at the time it was
like she's going through all the motions of being a perfect
companion, but it's not built on anything.
And you can explore that, but then it's like a retcon when it gets
put in and maybe she's got grandparents, maybe she's posh, maybe
she's from Blackpool, because that doesn't matter in terms of what
Clara is there to be, that there's an emotional cost to that, I
guess, in terms of investment in the character.
I must confess, I'm a really lazy Doctor Who fan.
And I just wanted her to be.
I just wanted to be a companion.
I just want her to be, I just wanted to be a companion without
this sort of crazy mystery that never really, for me, is
satisfying.
I just, yeah, I just wanted her to be a companion.
I just wanted to be Sarah Jane Smith.
So, you know, not literally Sarah Jane Smith, obviously, but to
function in that way, so we could just get on with the stories
that's how I felt about it.
I think that we have something about the way that Moffatt
approaches companions, which is different from the way that
Russell approaches them, which is different from the way the
classic series did.
And what happened with Russell was that they were kind of well
rounded TV people.
So they weren't really the sort of person that you would actually
meet, but they were the sort of person that you would see on TV in
other shows.
So it was easy to know how they would react and you could do fun
things with them because they were sort of very clearly defined.
And then Moffatt wants to do something a bit more high concept
with his 1st companion.
And so he does that with Amy and really kind of binds the whole
doctor's personality with Amy and then suddenly Amy's gone.
I think the doctors did a bit of a loose end.
And so you've got what is essentially a classic series companion
comes in who's just a person who, you know, is plucky and faces
the monsters and helps and wanders off or doesn't wander off last
week, actually.
And that's really all we have.
But the doctor thinks it's a weird, timey, whimey companion that
he's got.
He thinks he's got a Moffat style companion.
But in reality, all he's got is just a normal classic series
companion.
And I think it's telling that Moffatt then dumps that whole idea
completely for Bill and she's just a person.
Yeah, exactly.
It's really odd, I find.
Chris, she's written very generically, but she's also written
really oddly at times. the moment where she says, I'm not happy.
It's like she's never felt anything at all other than happiness in
her life, and she's read about feelings, and suddenly she's got
this weird, really strange feeling for the 1st time ever, like, oh
what is this?
I don't understand this.
And then you've got the cup of tea moment, which is very
definitely a Sarah Jane Smith callback where no alcohol or cup of
tea is going to solve everything.
It's a good murder one.
Exactly.
You know, and it's just that trying to make her ordinary, but also
just it doesn't quite work because the writing is just all over
the place for her.
You're dead right.
There's moments where they feel like there's then Steed and Mrs
Peel vibe to it, sort of junior.
And then it's like, oh, are they flirting?
And that plays it nicely. the bit at the end where he puts his arm
around her and then suddenly pulls away, but it's like also, will
they, won't they?
has been done a lot in Doctor Who, by this point, and I'm quite
happy for it to just be they won't and just get on with the
stories.
But, but they, but they work with it and they're trying to.
I read somewhere that they, the original script, they tone the way
it was originally written.
They said that Clara seemed too bitchy, and so they toned that
down to make her less so.
Deal Cross himself said that he'd turn that down because he'd only
based it on her appearance in asylum, where she's much more sort
of prickly, I guess, or, you know, Quippy.
I mean, the way she, I mean, she just functions like an ordinary
companion, doesn't she, in the stories?
And she knows she's a companion, doesn't she?
Yeah, that's the thing.
It's a very knowing performance and I think that's what sort of
almost alienates you from her because it's like she knows almost
that she's in a TV show and they're visiting a haunted house and
all the tropes are going to be there.
We've got a thundery, rainy evening for a start, right from the
beginning, right through to the morning where the sun comes back
out, and it's, it's exactly what you'd expect, and she is
performing in exactly the way you'd expect, and she knows she's
performing in exactly the way.
I don't know if that's from Jenna Coleman or from the script, but
it doesn't always come across as very likeable.
I think it's the script.
I mean, some of the dialogue she's saddled with, it's, um, yeah
you can see very quickly they work out that's not going to work
for the rest of the season if we keep, keep giving her words like
that.
I mean, I did write one down, if you'll indulge me, where she says
whiskey is the 11th most disgusting thing ever invented.
I mean, who says, who says that?
Not being a whiskey drinker.
I don't know, but I'll take a word on it, that's for sure.
Yeah, and it's funny because you can see it's a note.
It almost okay. was made to think she's the sort of person who has
lists of things like that.
That would be a quirk, that would be an interesting quirk.
And it's just forgotten.
It's a glimpse of a real odd person, which would be interesting
except it nothing hangs on it.
And she hates Carlisle.
I think the Carlisle joke.
Oh, yes, Paul Mark McManus, friend of the podcast, who lives in
Carlisle. felt for him there.
That's a bit desperate, that line.
That's a, let's just insert place name here for, because we want a
punchline for what's the opposite of place.
I had literally no idea what that could possibly mean.
And yeah, I remember loads of online debate about it.
Does everyone in the UK hate Carlisle?
No, not really.
It's quite near Blackpool, and she's from Blackpool, so I guess
they were going for a local rivalry.
I have not that near, an hour and a half away, but it's babies
ever going for a regional rivalry thing, like they do with Dan
from Liverpool slagging off Manchester.
I just remember that joke being done much better with a lead stamp
the big Leeds stamp, you know.
Look, I mean, Moffatt wants to write sitcom characters because he
writes comedy dialogue and he wants characters to be witty and so
he does throw jokes in and he will sometimes let character slide
for the sake of a joke.
And I don't know that that's always a bad instinct to give into.
Sometimes I think the line is sort of worth it.
But, you know, this is this is Neil Cross's 1st script for the
show and he is asked to do Rings of Ackerton on the strength of
this, I think.
Obviously, they haven't shot that yet.
And I don't know that either of his scripts is particularly
successful despite the fact that he is a very successful and
highly regarded TV writer.
Is that fair?
I think that's fair because, I mean, I think I've watched it 4
times, and when the closer you look, um, the more the shortcomings
in the dialogue and the writing are revealed.
I mean, one of the strengths of the episode is that it's a chamber
piece and that this small ensemble cast, the actors, it's the
casting and the way it's directed that really lift it up from
perhaps possibly a mediocre script, I think.
I mean, the actors are just doing a fantastic job and they all
come together brilliantly in it.
And the way it's been shot and edited, the way it's lit
particularly, both in the house, but also in the pocket universe
forest.
I just think that's what really makes this episode a success.
Yeah, I think, um, Doug Gray Scott and Jessica Rain are doing a
lot of heavy lifting to bring something to their characters that
aren't there on the page, and they are doing a lot of work sort of
in their body language, particularly when they're in the scenes
together, um, and they're playing it very close, and you can see
the tension in it.
There isn't necessarily there in the script.
I think they're doing great work there.
Yeah, she's and Jessica Rain is on my list of future doctors and
was, in this episode, I did kind of end up wishing that she, she
was the companion.
She just has that, she's got an edge to her and obviously her
verity Lambert is a spectacular creation a few years after this.
But yet, so, and this, so Hyde and Rings are my favourite, this is
my favourite episode of this season, and Rings is my least
favourite.
So I'm not, I can't make a complete even judgement on the
scripting in that sense because they pressed different buttons in
different ways.
But this definitely, I think this is my favourite next time
trailer of the season.
I'll tell you that, at the end of Cold War, when this, like, we're
in a haunted house next week, there's wood panelling, there's
candles, it's got a sapphire and steel vibe.
I think I'd just done a sapphire and steel rewatch, and that got
me really stoked for this episode, and it didn't blow me away
entirely on landing, but it still, because we don't hadn't had a
proper haunted house for a while.
Is this New Who's 1st haunted house?
I'm forgetting something massive, aren't I?
No, we had one last year, didn't we?
Is the council estate in um night terrors of haunted house?
And certainly the haunted house.
The dolls house is a haunted house.
Yeah, of course, yeah.
Yeah.
I've erased that from my memory, Nathan.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Oh, you are on that one.
That's right.
Also the children's home in day of the moon as well with the
thunder and yeah.
So this is, but this is our 1st sort of retro straight down the
line.
It's literally an old big old haunted house in the countryside one
for a long time and it's nice to have them running with that.
The, um, the, the lightning sound effect seemed a bit, was it like
being deliberately cheesy?
I'm not sure it is the same one off that.
There's a there was a sound effect, LP from the BBC, real death
and horror sound effects, and I used it in school plays when I was
a teenager, and it would still, and I recognised that lightning
bolt and that wolf howl.
And then it is not that lightning bolt in this one, but it is
right through any BBC thing up to the 90s.
It's the same wolf howl and the same clap of thunder that was on
this record that came out in the 60s.
It's amazing.
The standard issue, BBC sound effects record that they've gone to
for the...
Yeah, but no, but with this one they have.
Maybe because we're in HD now.
But it did look, yeah.
We don't see a lightning bolt going across the sky.
We just see the outside of the house with a light flashing on it
which is a bit, has it gone a bit more with that, but I'm, but I
still, I'm, I'm loving the vibe.
I'm loving the vibe.
I get real image of the Fendal vibes from it.
And one of the things that I enjoyed watching it this time was
seeing something that you could easily imagine them doing in the
70s on Doctor Who, but with, you know, decent lighting and a, you
know, expanded budget and things like that.
And I think it's deliberately set in 1976 for that reason.
And it also has the kind of tension killing trip to the TARDIS in
episode three. you know, in both stories.
And like I have to say that I don't object that much to that
sequence, but it is odd.
We complained with curse of the black spot, among other things
that the doctor and Captain Avery just head off to the TARDIS to
do some exposition and kind of low-level character work when we're
expecting piratry to be going on.
And I do think it's a kind of a shame that we lose the haunted
house for just, you know, appearing over and over and again in the
same place for some reason.
It is odd.
Well, I can see why they put that into the episode.
I think because there's something really fundamental missing in
the haunted house sequences.
And that's the fact that the doctor doesn't go and check out a
well stocked larder with cheese and wine.
And there isn't an old lady.
We need a witchy old lady.
That's the one.
Maybe she's in charge of stocking the larder with the wine, yeah.
Well, in fact, we don't have a ghost.
Like, it is a haunted house where there's no ghost and the ghost
is in fact from the future rather than from the past and is
someone who's experiencing distress, but hasn't actually died.
So I think that the episode sort of leans into the haunted house
tropes and kind of images as much as possible in order to sell
that surprise, that contrast turns out it's not a ghost after
all.
So it has to be super ghosty with, you know, writing on the wall
in cold spots and a mysterious hand and all of that sort of
thing.
How did she do the help me?
Yeah, she actually doesn't that up.
This is not the 1st time that that sort of thing has happened to
Doctor Who.
We just rolling with it.
Ghost reasons.
Ghost.
Yeah, but even more powerful than space reasons are usually
explained by space reasons, very hastily at the end of episode
four.
Shall we talk about Interstellar?
The Christopher Nolan film?
Oh, yes, okay, yeah.
Go for it.
Because I think this is where this episode falls down, and that's
the idea that time in the pocket universe operates at a different
speed to our universe.
And I think the doctor says that 3 minutes in the pocket universe
equates to several 100000 years. in our universe.
And yet when he goes in there and he, he rescues Hiller, where I, I
mean, after rewatching it, I guess they're there for not more than
about 3 minutes, but, um, it feels like he's there for a whole lot
longer and yet time in our universe doesn't really change at all.
Yes, I think the...
Yes, I think there's something about the narrative.
Do you know what I mean?
once we have the doctor there while all of our other characters
are somewhere else, we can't do that anymore.
And he will actually, and Moffatt will successfully do something
similar in world enough in time where he has one character
experiencing time at a different rate from everyone else in a way
that just about works.
But I sort of understood that her whole experience was like 3
minutes, but she seems to have been there at the beginning.
Oh, I guess that's, you know.
Yeah, because otherwise, at the end, she'd be like, oh, it's no
big deal, actually.
I was only there for 2 minutes.
I mean, thanks for the rest of me.
Honestly, I've spent longer in a lift, you know.
Quite pinned down what her experience.
Yeah.
And there's a lot of realisation moments.
Of course.
I've been such a fool.
It's obviously not the monster's not trying to eat everybody.
It's just in love because that's the theme of this episode.
The doctor just realises that, doesn't it?
Which, again, that's what happens in this show a lot, but it's
always a bit risky when you try to just carry it. in that way.
Or have I missed an egg right there though?
Why is it there?
It's really odd, isn't it?
Because we don't resolve it either.
Like, it's kind of like that new plot thing gets introduced right
at the end after everything else is resolved, and then it doesn't
get resolved itself.
We just stop midway through.
And I liked that ending.
I think more Doctor Who should end like that.
I don't think it should be, you know, the usual thing where we
don't say goodbye and the TARDIS disappears or whatever.
I quite like it finishing in the middle of the action.
It's a bit like I'm a bit like the end of Pirate Planet episode
four.
Oh, I'd be like, shock as well.
Beryl Reeds floating around in an escape pod.
It's just like, no, we'll get back there.
I'm just, I guess I'm just cold of heart because I just don't, I
just don't know why it's there and it undermines the rest of the
episode, really.
And I just, um, it just reminded me of Time Heist, of course, which
is to come.
I'm surprised it didn't cut to an image of the monsters walking
off into the distance holding claws or whatever it is they'd
hold.
Well, they only made one, I think would be the answer to that.
Well, yeah, and I mean, I've probably whined before about romance
being the last thing I want in Doctor Who, because it's everywhere
and it's not, but, and so the reason I, I, I, one of the things I
do, I like about this story, is it, it does stuff that normally
annoys me, but it doesn't annoy me as much as it normally does
because of a lot of the other stuff that it's coming in with.
Uh, does, does, does carry it in a way that it sometimes doesn't.
And yeah, and I keep going back to remembering at this point, yeah
the doctor's awareness of the sexiness of Clara is just something
that's handled.
I mean, very differently to the same thing with Amy.
But it's still, it's always skirting a difficult area when, and
the idea that Emma is in sort of almost inevitably in love with
the professor who she looks up to, it's a bit of a, I don't know
that, that an assistant will always, it's, so Sherlock is going on
at the same time as this, obviously, and I'm already annoyed at
this point by the way Sherlock Scott, the simpering woman who's in
love with him, in the same way that we later get Osgood, who's in
in love and all klutzsy around the doctor.
And that's a real motif of these 2 shows that was getting on my
nerd at this point.
Sorry.
And I started out, this was, this was me listing things I like
about this story and now I've gone off on one, which is not, and
it's not, it's not a main line of it.
It's just, but it is a thread through it.
Yeah.
I actually like the way that that romance is resolved because
there is all this kind of slightly irritating.
Will they, won't they, about it?
And then the doctor just comes in and says, oh, he's healer, she's
your great, great, great, great, great, great. that's both of you
right?
So go off and make it. you know.
Yeah, and he lands the joke.
That's the thing, that's that's one of those things that's on a
knife edge.
Matt Smith's, you know, but you already knew that.
Oh, you didn't?
That little moment really works and does it very nicely, which if
that had just not been quite like that.
It could have been a big old clunk, I think.
Yeah, that's his doctor in a nutshell, isn't it?
That's the kind of thing he does and does brilliantly.
I'm getting a real kind of, I'm getting a real sense that Matt's
performance is starting to run out at this point.
And there's a lot of stuff that I still like, like a lot of
stuff.
I love his stupid reaction with his hands.
You know, where Clara says, you don't need to hold my hand.
And then he kind of looks at his hands and then goes, I'm not
holding your hand and then he kind of waves him about and stuff.
And like, I think that's really funny.
I think there's still some really funny physical awkwardness, but
he's not surprising me with what he's doing quite so much
anymore.
And yeah, it is that thing where they start to write crazy Matt
Smith things for Matt Smith to do instead of writing things and
then letting Matt Smith do Matt Smith things with them.
And I'm also just getting a kind of pertwe in series 11 kind of
feel where all his playmates are gone and now he's just kind of
waiting for the 50th to happen.
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
I think this is where we get those criticisms of Matt coming in
where he's just doing it by the numbers.
He's a quirky doctor.
He's being written as quirky and he does his stick.
So he does the spinning around on the spot.
He does the hands waving all over the place.
He does that.
I'm a bit weird. and this is all a bit strange and kooky when he's
on the mysterious other time.
All of those things.
We've seen him do better before.
It's like he's not quite engaged with the material here.
And I do wonder whether he's uneasy because he's just, this is the
1st one without Matt and Karen. other than the Christmas
specials.
He's got a new companion in.
Maybe he doesn't know what the dynamic is going to be.
And if they're going to work together well.
And I think there's a feeling of trepidation in a lot of the
scenes with the doctor and Clara, where neither of the 2 of them
quite know how to play with each other, if you see what I mean, and
how the scenes are going to go and how to do this yet.
Yeah, I mean, I think the, the, um, the journey of the 11th doctor
is, is so closely linked to that of uh, the ponds, or more
specifically Amy, that when Amy and Rory leave, I think his
emotional arc is done.
I mean, the 11th doctor is done.
He's ready.
And I totally agree with you, Nathan.
It feels like 7A is Pertweis season 10 and 7B is season 11, for
sure.
It's almost as if he's trying to create an imaginative backstory
for Clara because all there is is she's someone he met, you know
whereas he was his previous companion's imaginary childhood friend
and he just doesn't have that role.
And later on it'll get bigger and whatever and then we'll forget
it and do something else.
But there is something a little bit sort of clutching at straws
that he's doing that is reflected in where we are with the show
right now, I think.
Yep.
And yet you're absolutely right, Nathan, there are moments of
brilliance.
The moment I'd noted down was, you were the only mystery worth
solving.
And she plays it with such almost sadness.
But also, is it that Clara is the mystery worth solving, or is it
the human race is the mystery worth solving, and you don't know.
But he plays that sort of nicely enigmatically.
Yeah, it's clear that Clara takes it one way and that we as the
audience take it a different way.
And it is the 11th doctor lying to his companions about why
they're there.
You know, Amy's there in series 5 because of the crack in her wall
in series 6.
He doesn't tell her that she's pregnant.
He doesn't say why he went to the gangers factory, that weird
factory in the monastery. going there to find out about gangers
because he already knows Amy is one.
And then here, you know, he's come to see Emma, not the haunted
house because he wants to know who Clara is.
And that consistent thing about Matt is where he seems really
jolly and lovely, but he's actually a bit of a liar and a bit
manipulative in a way that isn't reflected in his performance
particularly.
He never seems that he's being devious.
I kind of like that.
And I have a thing where I want my doctors to be a bit unlikeable
and Matt just gets there, I think.
But he also does the alien doctor really brilliantly.
He still manages to really capture that quality of the 11th
doctor.
I mean, when Emma says, will it hurt?
And he says, no, yes, probably a bit, well, quite a lot, et
cetera.
You know, I just, I just think that's great, the way he plays
that.
Yeah, he doesn't overdo it.
You're right.
In amongst the Matt's silliness, there are still those sort of
essential length doctor qualities there, which is great to see.
I guess because there's no villain, he doesn't get to do angry and
Matt angry is my absolutely favourite thing. because you never
know how he's going to do it and sometimes he does it just
remarkably well.
But this is an episode with no villain and turns out, no threat.
That's good, I guess.
Is that good?
I think that's probably good.
It's different.
Yeah, it's true, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, we don't want to be that predictable.
Yeah, yeah.
It's nice for a change.
I guess so.
Yeah.
But yeah.
If there was just an old witch lady living in a house next door.
That was just elevated for you.
Then we're in the...
Yeah, then wouldn't be tough here.
What do we think about Clara's relationship with the TARDIS, which
obviously is going to be explored a lot more next week, but this
one.
The thing with the TARDIS suddenly doing talking to her.
I was a little bit...
In fact, I remember the roller coaster. why does that suddenly
come from?
How can I companion?
Bang on the TARDIS door?
and then the TARDIS suddenly starts talking to them after all
these years?
I hate that.
And then 2 seconds later, she's in the TARDIS and flying, and the
way that it's shot, with her just clinging onto a thing, and it's
all, everything's just spinning around.
I was like, okay, no, I like this now.
That's way of doing that.
So we have had the TARDIS's voice interface before in Let's Kill
Hitler. and it appears as little Caitlin Blackwood.
Like after trying a few other recent new series companions on.
Yes, of course, I'd forgotten that.
And we have had that before.
And there is that thing, there is something about Clara's
character where the person that she loves and trusts is her and
that's like a dig at her and it turns out that's kind of where we
end up going with a character, I think.
So that actually works quite well.
Yes it does.
Somehow I have forgotten that part of Let's kill Hitler
completely.
Okay, yeah.
I do like let me in, you grumpy old cow.
Yeah, yes.
That's a thing that we've had before too, isn't it?
The TARDIS kind of got stressed about Jack because Jack had been
sort of rendered a fixed point in time or something by Rose at the
end of series one.
And so obviously the Tartars can sense what's going to happen to
Clara in the finale of this of this season, I guess.
And yeah, because she's not a normal person, is she?
I mean, she's sort of...
She is now, but she won't be later.
And I mean, that's actually the, you know, what I think is the
best, most satisfying arc in new series, Doctor Who is series 3.
And it is just because John Sim gets in the TARDIS in episode 11
and then travels back in time to the end of series 2 and then
starts appearing in all of the episodes sort of.
And I think that's really great.
It's a low hanging fruit when you've got a time machine in the
show.
You can do that sort of quite easily, and I think that works
really well.
So I don't I kind of don't mind this.
I like the idea that even though we are given the answer to the
mystery by Emma.
There is still something going on that we aren't aware of.
And of course, we've seen Asylum of Daleks and the snowmen as
well.
So, can we talk about Village of the Angels?
And you might wonder about this, but we've got a November setting
in a spooky kind of haunted house where they're doing experiments
into the unknown.
We've got a war hero who's a bit lost and hasn't found his place
in the world.
We've got using someone's odd psychic powers to do these
experiments and a village on the edge of the world.
Oh, yeah, I hadn't thought about that cliff thing that surrounds
the pocket universe is also in Village of the Angels.
Oh, you're talking you're talking a chibnil story, aren't you?
That's right.
I am.
Yeah.
It's a complete remix of this adventure that I hadn't noticed
until I watched Hyde again.
I think Angels does it better, but because it's because it's got a
threat.
I think it probably does, actually.
Because it's got more of a threat.
The threat is real.
Yeah, other than, I mean, the biggest threat in this, ultimately
is that the doctor might go on to sing the racist versus of let's
do it, which fortunately he doesn't do.
We just, we just get the nice jelly one before he starts listing
all the ethnicities of the world in the different ways in which
they do it, which is not Cold Porter's finest hour.
Yeah.
No.
We just get as far as fleas and I think it's the time to stop
right there.
Yeah, I mean, I think Village of the Angels is a problem because
it doesn't end up being a story because it has that cliffhanger
and then sort of never comes back from it.
And so it's not a story that has any kind of resolution.
I think within flux.
It's one of the 2 strongest episodes, I think.
But I guess once we've done Hyde, there's nothing particularly
surprising in Village of the Angels, although it does get some
points for having the psychometrograph thing draw an angel.
I thought that was pretty great.
Squiggly lines, basically. things doing squiggly lines in the
past.
And it's showing it, and this is the heritage of the stone tape
and the potential equator map.
Yes, crossover, which was in early drafts before copyright issues
were pointed out, I think.
Yeah, and Nigel Neal famously hated Doctor Who.
So there's no way his estate would ever give them...
The character of Koitsamass, wouldn't they?
Doctor Who's about frightening children.
He wants to write about, he wants to unsettle adults.
I think is the quote.
Yeah, I think, like Xander has this thing about how, basically
Quatumass is a bit reactionary.
You know, the that it's sort of foreigners and young people and
stuff where the threat is located and Doctor Who is the opposite
of that.
And so perhaps it's just as well that Professor Quademass isn't in
this one.
Imagine him discovering that there's no threat.
Nothing to see here.
In our head cannons.
Where do the monsters that aren't really monsters end up?
Because, yeah, if this was Quaitamas, It would turn out that they
were actually infesting humanity since the dawn of time and we'd
all explode or something.
I think the doctor takes them to the planet of Kolkron again.
Yeah, everyone's there.
Everyone says a big party going on.
Yeah, yeah.
And the Grand Serpent's on Culcacron homes. absolutely.
Not many people know that.
If it was the stone tape, then that means Jessica Rain is playing
Jane Asher's character from the stone tape, and Jane Asher, of
course, is a canonical Susan Foreman from the BBC's, whatever
happened to Susan Foreman.
So there's a link there to, I like the idea of the actress who
played Verity Lambert playing a character who's inspired by a
character who was played by an actress.
Oh, sorry, I lost, yeah, something like that, right?
I just like that.
She's Sarah Jane's replacement in whatever happened to she is.
Well, it's basically an infinite universe.
She is such a good actress.
Yeah.
And cake decorator too, which, I mean, what more could you want?
Well, dear listener, that's all we have time for this week.
We'll be back next week to learn a valuable moral lesson about not
convincing your little brother he's a robot or something in
journey to the centre of the TARDIS.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us at Flightthrough Entirety on Facebook
at FTE Podcast on Twitter, and on our website
FlightthroughEntirety.com, where you'll find links to our other
podcasts, Bondfinger, Jody Interterterra, Maximum Power, and
Untitled Star Trek Project.
Corey, where can people find you?
I don't have a Twitter account.
I must be the only one here who doesn't have one, but you can find
me on Instagram at McMahon Corey.
And Pete, where can people find you?
I'm currently Severity Lambert, which has suddenly become my, how
was that available?
Nobody, that's the ultimate drag name on Twitter.
And I have a habit of popping up on podcasts, I'm afraid.
Which will very soon be the new series of maximum power, a Blake 7
podcast of which you may have heard.
And Si, where can people find you?
You can find me on Twitter, I'm at Psy underscore Heart.
And you can also hear me on the new series of Maximum Power and
many other Doctor Who podcasts.
Until next time, remember that I'm still a grown up and there's
actually no need to keep holding my hand.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Bye bye.
That was Flightthrough Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Siheart
Pete Lambert, and Corey McMahon.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, Ghost Reasons, was recorded on the 12th of June 2022
and released on the 25th of September.
Most people don't know this, but many of Terry Nation scripts also
had romantic endings that were changed in editing.
Imagine if we'd seen Android Sarah and Android Harry plugging in
together, Battan and Severn walking off hand in hand into a
radioactive sunset, or Susan staying behind on Earth with someone
she actually had sexual chemistry with.
That could be an owl.
I've killed the podcast.
Absolutely ultimate incoherent.
Just go out on Jane Asher and her cake.
It's an incoherent ramble that could break any podcast.
That thing, in that Sarah Jane, in the in the Sarah Jane
Adventures thing, kind of, she's a villain because she's replaced
Sarah Jane, and, you know, she's made a choice, and she's the
choice is for her to live in Sarah Jane to die, and so she's bad.
But there's that moment where she just says, it's my birthday.
And I just...
It's so heartbreaking.
She's so good.
And Sarah says, when Sarah says you weren't meant to live, and
she's like, well, do you mean I wasn't meant to live?
It's like, that's, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
It's all of that time book too, which I really hate.
You know, that we have a moral responsibility to ensure that time
goes the way that it goes.
It's just like the most miserable, centrist, you know, like...
They just quote.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's it.
Oh, dear.
It's the one thing about Rosa that I don't like is that um, is
that the doctor doesn't plant a bomb in the Alabama State House
and then just give the governor one chance and then he says no and
then he gets the shit blown out of it.
That would be the other one. would improve that episode.
Yeah, of course, could at least do a happiness patrol and murder
his pet.
That would be the next best.
Yeah, yeah.
He gets to find his dog.
Oh no, we can't do that.
I'm still upset about Mark of the Rani and obviously 7000000000
dogs at the end of Flux.