Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast that finds itself nostalgic for that
abandoned hospital.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Peter.
I'm Simon.
I'm Matthew.
Well, it's my 44th birthday, and it's time for the broadcast of
another Doctor Who episode.
Specifically written to occupy the all important position between
last week's episode and next week's episode.
All these corridors look the same to us on our journey to the
centre of the TARDAS.
The great thing about season four is it's brilliant, and you love
it, and you can watch it for five years.
But you couldn't watch it for 17.
Yeah.
So I think, well, the reason why I approve of Journey to the
centre of the TARDIS is it's an attempt to do something new.
They swing at the ball, you know, they knock a foul, but they're
trying.
And this is the difference between Doctor Who and Law and Order.
You're looking at a television show which is constantly trying to
do something new.
Yeah.
And I think this is, um, while I'll even defend the 1st half of
Kill the Moon.
I'll defend all of Kilamoon.
I think it's superb.
We'll get there It's trying to do something.
And unfortunately, the author, the writer of this particular
episode, he's made a few not great episodes, but they've all been
good ideas.
Yeah.
I have the suspicion that what tends to happen is a lot of Doctor
Who is written, they go into the showrunner's office and they get
to the end of the meeting and they say, well, that's a great 40
minutes of television.
In the last 2 minutes, how are you going to solve the problem of
the episode?
Yeah.
I've got an idea.
They can hit the reset button.
I appreciate what it's trying to do this episode.
I think I'm on board with the idea, but I don't think it works.
And I think that's because it comes off as less interesting than
it should be.
The TARDIS should be a place of wonder.
And here it's just not, it's enterprise space corridors.
And so it needed to be less of the pros and more of the poetic, I
think.
There are occasional attempts.
It reminds me, you know, that opening scene of Mask of Mandraga
where we just get a glimpse of the boot cupboard.
You know, we open the door and there's that sort of CSO'd, what is
it?
It's like some regency ballroom with a pair of...
Yeah, that's right.
And we see the pool, which just looks incredible.
We see, yeah, the library.
There's an amazing telescope thing in a sort of conservatory and
stuff.
There are some good visuals, but they're really very brief.
And I remember, I don't think I've watched this one all that often
but the room with the Eye of Harmony in it is vastly less
impressive than my memory of it was.
It's just a gantry with some chroma key.
Yeah.
Even it's okay.
It is okay.
I mean, can I take issue with the fact that I don't think the
visual is very impressive?
I think what we do get is a bit of a deficit of imagination in
bringing the Tartars to life, because if you're going to set a
story inside the Tartars, you want it to be fabulous and
fantastic.
You want to be surprised by what you see and you want it to be
whimsical, like the aforementioned enormous boot cupboard.
Whereas what we get is actually just space corridors.
They look like any Star Trek Voyage space corridors and they're
lit the same way.
They got the red alert lighting going on.
They've got bits of the wall sort of shattered over the, over the
corridor.
But the brief moments that we get of the library and the
observatory and the swimming pool are actually just kind of stock
standard Victoria slash Harry Potter designs.
There's nothing, there's nothing very Doctor Who about it.
Yeah, I mean, even though I have issue with most of the modern
versions of the console room, you know, I prefer the classic era.
Regardless of that, it doesn't look like anything else you've ever
seen.
Whereas you're right, the corridors just look like you could be
honest.
I keep thinking, oh, we're on the other people's spaceship, you
know, the brothers spaceship or something. you have to sort of
remember.
Oh, actually, no, this is supposed to be the Tartars.
And it needed to be done a lot more interestingly.
You're right.
More boot cupboards and fewer corridors.
Even though I love, you know, I loved wandering around the Tartis
in the classic series, whether it's Lagopolis or even bits of like
you know, when you're in the visitation and you go to see, you
know, Tegan Niss's bedroom and all that kind of stuff.
We kind of lived for that.
I live for that.
That season 18 thing where Romana has a bedroom and then Adric, the
following year has, you know, the bedroom set and Nissa and Tegan
have their bedroom and so on.
Like all of that is really fun.
I think the new series has kind of shied away from it because it
doesn't need the padding in quite the same way.
So we've had what, 2 stories that have had Tartus corridors in
them?
Yes.
It's just the doctor's wife and this.
Yeah, but you can't compare this to the doctor's wife.
No, you can't.
No, but I do think the doctor's wife corridors were also a low
point of that episode.
Yes, that's the least interesting point of the episode, but
there's less of them, so I kind of forgive it more.
But that's also the difference between this and the doctor's
wife.
The doctor's wife is let down by the same space corridors as this
episode is, but the doctor's wife's conception of the TARDIS has
that whimsical quality to it, which this doesn't.
This is a primarily technological vision of the TARDIS rather than
a lyrical one, I think.
I think, though, you know, it does operate on a kind of magical
principle in some senses.
At least there's that sense where the TARDIS does have an opinion
about Clara, we're building on the stuff that we say.
So do I. Pretty much the same opinion, I think.
And we have that thing of her creating versions of the console
room in order to keep the people safe.
And I also think that weird architectural configuration thing
which is like a tree, it reminds me.
Yeah, I think it is.
It reminded me a little bit of that sort of cherry tree and flux
that Tech Taun was hanging around underneath.
But I thought that was an attempt to make the technology of the
Tartars seems strange.
And she does react to it.
So the TARDIS is still kind of personified.
There are some visually striking moments in this episode, so that
room really works, that Christmas tree architectural configuration
room, and also the exploded engine is obviously a very arresting
image.
So there are stabs at it.
I just, I think they're approaching it from the wrong angle.
It needs to be cloister rooms and referring back to the invasion
of time that you mentioned in the intro, Nathan.
I know that it was pilloried at the time and since.
But if we're going to visit the inside of the TARDIS.
I want exposed brickwork and old hospital corridors and things
which have been repurposed on an apparently random basis.
I think that's more interesting than space corridors.
I thought it was striking, actually, and I actually rewound it
slightly to make sure I hadn't missed something, just about the
1st door that Clara goes to after the opening credits, is a wooden
door surrounded by stone that leads into the library, and I did
like that.
And I guess the cloister room in Lagopolis, which is pretty great
because it's, you know, it's fibreglass subbing in for stone, but
it's still got the roundels in the, like there's something fun
about it.
Where were the roundlers in this episode, Nathan?
Where were the roundors?
my constant question.
I mean, are the space corridors, I mean, is Piquo designing this?
So the space corridors do take elements from that lower outside
section.
Oh, it's consistent with the console room.
Set, but it's just doesn't feel tartacy is the problem.
No, it doesn't.
They're too small.
Like they're not.
They are too short.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I can't imagine, you know, Tom Baker not hitting his head on the
kind of the doorways and things.
But again, it goes back to Star Trek because it has like on the
enterprise in Next Generation.
It has those angled sections of corridors.
So nothing is ever very long.
All you have is a section of corridor, which then planes away to
the right and you can't see what's beyond it.
And it's a bit bog standard.
And cheap and cheap.
Was this the cheap episode, quote unquote?
we know?
don't know.
It definitely looks like it was an attempt to be the cheap
episode.
Yeah.
Sometimes they tend a cheap episode and it backfires.
It's really expensive.
Carnival of monsters.
Was that supposed to be cheap?
So maybe the TARDIS doesn't come off all that well, what do we
think of the 3 guest stars?
Oh, the 3 guest stars, um, the good attempts, the characterisation
is incredibly all over the place.
I mean, your brother's just been brutally murdered and you've
heard him scream and you don't care.
Yet your other brother is slightly injured and you're suddenly
desperately unhappy about it.
Why don't you care that your brother's just been brutally murdered
and you've heard him being brutally murdered.
Yeah.
I think, like, I think Gregory is pretty good, and he's the main
brother.
The older one is giving a very strange performance.
And I think Tricky is okay.
But I mean, what's the arc?
What do they learn?
Well, nothing because there's a reset match?
That's right.
That's true.
No, they all retain, everyone retains some impression of what's
happening.
And we'll come to that, I think, because that might be important.
But at the beginning, we see a photo of the family and it's torn
and it's the father and the 2 brothers and Tricky's been torn out
of the photo because they're doing this elaborate stupid prank.
And then when we go back, he doesn't quite say, oh, actually, sorry
about all that Android thing that's sort of a bit crap.
So he doesn't do that, but the photo isn't torn and Tricky's in
the photo and Gregor is a little bit kinder to him.
But it's never actually specified that they're not still pranking
him.
No, no, it's not.
No, it's actually quite clear that they are.
Yeah, yeah.
But there is a line, the doctor's line about having a shred of
decency.
Gregor actually says that line himself.
So I guess he's learned something from it.
But it is like it's just weird and implausible, isn't it?
Like you trick someone into believing they're an android.
Like what, what, how are we supposed to feel about that?
Is that a good thing, a bad thing?
Well, it's an incredibly cruel thing to have done.
But he's had an accident and his eyes have been replaced and he's
lost his memory, which I don't know, it must be a thing that can
happen when you're in a space accident.
And they decided we're going to pretend you're an Android and for
some reason because he really has lost his memory completely.
He accepts this.
And yes, he obviously has organic bits, you know, the actual, that
sort of rubbish.
It is just this sort of incredibly cruel thing.
But I think it's just a substitute for the character that's being
bullied all their life or everything that we remember.
And I think we're supposed to, and I feel like from, you know, that
that's the audience surrogate character, at least for a certain
style of fan, which I associate myself with.
And so I actually quite strongly identified with Tricky and really
felt for him and the sort of the journey that happens.
And I think afterwards, you know, when we're in the new present
after the reset button.
Yes, they're still ribbing him back being an Android, but he knows
that he isn't an Android, if you know what I mean.
Like it's sort of, it's like it's become a joke rather than a
bullying thing.
And, you know, and he is the most interesting one.
I mean, you know, as you said, Gregor is kind of the generic nasty
leader guy.
The other brother is the one I have got the names around the right
way, haven't they?
That's the problem.
I can't even remember which name to use.
Yeah, I think that's a problem too, isn't it?
Bram's name is used in dialogue once, I think.
Bram's the one who gets killed.
No, yeah, yeah, the older Dumber one.
Yeah, but it's funny because of that.
And what you said, Matthew, about them not really reacting to that
I sort of forget that he's actually a brother.
I thought that there are 2 brothers and there's this other bloke
that they've got.
You know what I mean?
Like this other employee, who's the grunt?
Yeah.
I remember when you said space accident earlier, I think that's
the problem in that they're a bit space characterish.
They don't act like normal people.
It's completely wonderful.
Like family would act.
And it is an incredibly cruel thing that they've done tricky, and
yet they don't actually seem to be that sad about it when they're
called on it.
It is perfectly consistent with a lot of the many brother families
that I met.
I know, like the bullying is perfectly consistent with, you know
my cousins.
There's 4 of them.
I could see them doing that to the youngest brother.
The problem is, of course, it is incredibly cruel, and it is
consistent with the Middle Brothers character that, you know, he's
he wants to be the captain, but he's just being overlooked, and so
he's done this thing.
The problem, I think, is the single line about that accident.
It comes at the end of the episode.
It's very quickly moved on.
So you don't really get the sense through the episode of the
character building and the reasons for it.
It's just a lot of the problems with this episode are exposition
rather than communication.
But it comes back to that thing, which I often repeat, is that I
don't think you can successfully do those kind of developed, or at
least the kind of development that you're looking for, Nathan
they're in a 45 minute episode when you've got all this stuff
going on.
I think to really feel like that there's been a journey, it needs
to be told over a longer time frame. generally.
Sometimes it can work, but too often it's thrown in like this and
therefore it sort of feels a bit unsatisfying.
Yeah.
I think, look, there isn't a lot going on in this episode.
You know, they wander around some corridors and then hit a button
and then stop.
You know, there's not a lot happening.
And the, like, doing a better job of riding the brothers would
have helped, I think, and all.
There's not going on, but there's not a lot going on urgently is
the problem.
And because all the scenes are played with this sort of heightened
urgency, it means that we're kind of doing all this marking time
from a character point of view.
Yeah, which is understandable and fine.
But I think the thing with tricky, which is great.
You know, he is the younger brother and they've cast an actor who
is smaller than the others and more boyish looking than the
others.
And, you know, you know, dad said, you were always the smart one.
You were always the one he left the ship to you and so on like
that.
And I think there is something about the younger brother, younger
child, being the one that's actually grows up to be the leader of
them.
You know, the episode's not saying anything very deep, but it does
have something basic to say about the fact that Tricky, who is
being presented as an android, is actually the most human and the
most emotional amongst them. is trying to say something.
It's just not going very deep.
Yeah, I think the episode has a significant problem with law of
conservation of detail.
It's trying to say a lot.
Like, I watched this again last night, and then the 1st 26 minutes
it's fine, Clara, and there's a lot going on.
And the next 26 minutes, it's, ozotardis is about to explode, how
do we stop that?
And there's too many plot points.
Too many plot points.
When you add in the eyes and the characterisations in the ship and
all the rest of it, You're right.
It does not have enough time to deal with all that sufficiently.
The other problem is the sense of urgency.
Like, at the very start, Clara opens a door that's on fire and
that has no purpose in the episode, except to demonstrate that
Clara is one an idiot.
And two, you know, there's a real threat here, but it's, and three
she has the superhuman ability to outrun fireballs.
Well, yeah, she is the primary character.
She's immune.
Walks through fire, you know, that kind of thing.
And the total inconsistency about how dangerous the eye of harmony
is.
It goes from being, oh, if you're in here for more than a few
moments, your skin will blister and peel to, oh, well, you can be
in here for minutes.
Yeah.
Yeah, they didn't think that one through.
You like the fact that now every TARDIS has its own eye of harmony
rather than it being a single eye of harmony, wherever it is under
the monoptagon or somewhere.
I thought it was, I thought that's the one that Omega collapses.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, but it's actually in that big kind of...
It's the eye of harmony.
Under that...
I think we've had a few eyes of high school thing.
Yes, yes.
Crystal.
Well...
It's wood.
But then there's The Eye of Harmony in the Tardis in the telly
movie, and that's where that idea comes from.
Of course.
Yes, yes, yes.
So it's already it's already happened.
But, I mean, back in the day, in the 60s, 70s, whatever.
The idea of there being a collapsing star in the heart of every
TARTIS would have been too far-fetched. whilst obviously it's sort
of too far-fetched.
Now, we have a greater conception of the true size of the universe
and how, you know, one race capturing a few black holes here and
there is nothing compared to the mass of the universe.
I do like the idea.
I think there's something that's when that sort of magical
conception of how the TARDIS works.
You know, there's a dying star fuelling each one.
Like, if it can be more preposterous and less, like, it has a warp
drive or something like that or, you know, tacky on things.
That's all very boring.
But if it can be a little bit more lyrical.
I think that it should definitely.
But also it gives a sense of how much energy is required to power
this thing.
And, you know, it's like a Dyson sphere.
You know, it's taking the entire output of a collapsing slash
exploding star.
No, it's nice.
It's the midi-chlorian effect, isn't it?
You don't want things explained too much.
It just works.
Yeah.
I have a problem with the casting.
Right?
So, for most of its run, Doctor Who just cast white actors and
often white male actors.
Yes, yeah, very frequently. and here, again, we have another story
where there's only one woman and it's Clara.
But here we've cast 3 brothers.
They're all black actors, but I think that there is a bit of an
issue about sensitivity around who you cast to do what.
And so if you're casting 3 brothers who carjack the TARDIS.
I don't know.
It worries me a little bit that this is something that happens
going forward where the show is kind of going, oh, we are
colourblind casting and all of that's very good, but then they
don't kind of realise the implications or the stereotypes that
they might inadvertently be perpetuating with the sort of casting
that they do.
And I think maybe this once it doesn't constitute a pattern, but
like in the next season, we will get a bit more of that, I think.
And I think it might be a problem.
Yeah, look, I'm very sympathetic to it.
The view or the thought.
I'm The reason why I'm not sort of 100% on board with it.
I recognise that it's a potential problem, but I also recognise
that there's an awful lot of people cast, you know, in Doctor Who
in the modern era who are people of colour or women or whatever
and there's much more diverse.
So it makes up for the fact, otherwise we need to sort of end up
with 3 white brothers.
Or maybe make one of them a sister at least.
And that could have worked.
Maybe the Android could have been assistant, quite unquote tricky
could have been a sister.
But I don't know, I get what you're saying, but I think it's
because they're not, I mean, they're operating what is effectively
an independent business.
They're not slaves.
They're not they're not beholden to some large evil intergalactic
corporation.
They've got their own autonomy.
And yes, there is something a bit dodgy in some of the practises
they're doing. you know, crossing legal boundaries.
I think saying that they're carjacking the TARDIS is probably a
bit much.
Maybe, maybe.
I think there is one particular scene where I found it super
awkward and that's Matt being white and as posh as humanly
possible, kind of ordering them around like they're not very smart
and...
But that's the doctor, though.
Yeah, yeah, I know.
But you've got to, it's still kind of looks bad.
Yeah, it's not a massive problem, I don't think.
But it's a slight problem.
It's a problem of optics and it's problem of not thinking through
to the very end result of what you're putting on screen, I think.
And like you say, it will, it's not a pattern and no one thinks
that there's any kind of wrong agenda here or anything like that.
But it will sort of, when we come on in a couple of seasons time
to Rigsy in Flatline.
I think that's where it starts to become more of a problem because
as far as I'm aware, that character was written to be was written
colourblind.
Like there's no there's no indication in the script that you
should be a particular race or anything.
And yet he was cast black and you think, why?
Because he's graffiti artist?
Yeah, yeah.
It's difficult for us to talk about this because we're all wise.
But we have, like, have had some experience of representation in
Doctor Who, where we would kind of try and grab the little crumbs
that we had.
Oh, you know, Harrison Chase is gay.
And then you sort of become aware of when, you know, gay people or
lesbians or just generally queer people appear in Doctor Who and
how they're treated and things.
Brutally murdered over the soup.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I think generally, Doctor Who has done, even in the modern
era, even under Davies and Moffatt and Chipnall, there's been very
little gate mail representation, and generally the gay men don't
tend to survive the episode.
But you kind of think...
A lot of people don't survive...
Well, that's true.
You know what I mean?
This is what I suppose what I'm saying as well, is that if you, I
mean, you know, Harrison Chase, you know, being red is gay.
I mean, having the villain being gay in that era and even now is
quite a normal thing.
You know, gay people either get brutally killed or they die of age
or they're the villain, right?
And even, you know, you could argue that Count Scarlione sort of
reads a bit gay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, you know, any gay man would have that would have...
Oh, his wife is very discreet.
Exactly. would have her as a wife.
But, you know, I mean, I, I, look, thinking of the representation
thing, you know, I don't necessarily get tired of the arch gay
villain, you know?
No, I love it.
And I don't get...
No, I just I merely aspire to that.
I merely aspire.
Please.
You know, and so it's kind of like, does that mean you can't cast
a black person as a graffiti artist?
Can't cast a black person, someone who's doing a card?
you know what I mean?
But this is the problem with which I find with the kind of the
discussion more broadly is that if you're going to have proper
diverse casting, it means that sometimes, and even often when
you've got the key central characters being the doctor and
companion, these people are going to play roles which historically
have been their stereotype.
Yes, no, absolutely you're right.
And I think the benefits of casting 3 actors of colour in this
episode far outweigh whatever, you know, you might look at and say
well, you know, that can be a bit awkward sometimes.
And I think we probably moved beyond in representation, the idea
that to take the example of gay men on screen, where the gay man
used to be the villain or the AIDS victim or whatever, we've moved
far enough forward in representation that the gay man can actually
be everything and all of those things and doesn't have to be the
virtuous best friend or the comedy sidekick or whatever.
And so, I think it's a transitional issue.
Do you know what I mean?
Eventually, once if, you know, we do gain proper amounts of
diversity and, you know, you've seen the last few years of Doctor
Who improved both in front of and behind the camera enormously in
that respect, then I think maybe we could be a bit more relaxed
about it.
But I just think maybe at this point it's something that we need
to kind of think about a little bit.
You're talking about the point where this was being made.
Yeah, maybe, I mean, even then, I think there was still lots of, I
mean, I'm not going to do an account because I don't know, but and
I'm sure it would be unfavourable to people of colour and so on
but because it would be too low or too many kind of stereotypical
roles, but nevertheless, I still think even at this point, I think
it's not an issue and it's an accident.
And I get what you're saying, Peter, that sometimes, you know
they're not thinking through, um, they haven't thought through how
it might end up on screen at the end of the day when you've got a
complete program.
But I still think at the end of the day, I'd much rather see 3
black actors cast in this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
In these home.
The not.
And I think that's where the discussion starts to become unhelpful
because if you've got to 2nd guess the situation so much, that I
think actually becomes a big problem in terms of actually
achieving that representation because they're 2nd guessing
themselves too much.
You know, the casting gets so wound up in it that they can't just
cast people.
And I think I'd like to think that they've moved to a point where
they're just casting people.
And I think it's been like that for quite a while.
No, I agree with you. 100% on board with what you're saying.
It's a very slight tone deafness.
It is not a reason not to do it.
I think this would be a worse episode if it was 3 White Brothers.
Sure.
I do think, though, that with series 7 and 8, we do get fairly
close to a pattern, there is quite a bit of carelessness and we
will get to that when we talk about it next year, I think.
And you're right, what you said before.
A single incident is not a pattern.
But there are, and there are, you know, people, but one would hope
an overarching view of the casting.
But it is possible to get, and I do recognise that maybe we do
step over a line in the coming years, but even then, I suppose
what I'm saying is I'm prepared to forgive that, and I'm prepared
to understand that rather than criticise it, if you know.
It's because it's coming from a good place.
It's coming from a desire to increase the representation of people
of colour on screen and dog too.
That a good thing.
Or just television more broadly.
And we've had do have and will continue to have lots of
sympathetic hero characters who are people of colour, queer
whatever minority we're talking about.
There is a distinct like of Asian characters within Doctor Who
still.
Yes, there's South Asian in the new series.
There was one episode.
I can't remember which episode it was, but the Indian Space
Command was.
Dinosaurs on a spaceship.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But very little East Asian.
Yeah.
Very little East Asian.
But that's a reflection of the population makeup of the UK
remember?
If the program was being made here, you'd have a lot of East Asian
faces and probably fewer African faces because of, you know, the
mix of the population in Australia, you know, it is what it is.
That is actually the piece of the diversity puzzle in Doctor Who
which is sort of missing.
We've discussed various weaknesses of the episode.
I think one of the main weaknesses is that it is all just
disjointed.
It's a series of set pieces or moments, which don't necessarily
string together for me in a way that's satisfying.
And you've got weird things like, you know, the big kaplunk roads
that shove in and, you know, threaten to take Tricky's arm off.
I mean, what the hell was that about?
I couldn't even work that out.
So something was failing and then Yeah, so the rods were going to
expand or explode or something.
It's explained because I have the advantage of watching this late
last night.
I watched it yesterday and I still don't understand.
It doesn't make sense.
The doctor says all of the fuel is emptied out of the tank.
What happens when the fuel rods are left exposed, they expand and
explode?
They shatter.
The idea is somehow there is, it's like a nuclear reactor and
there's fuel rods being blown out of the engine which they're
under and that's what's going to the walls.
But then that's completely contradicted in the next 2 scenes.
So it's just in trying to find the opportunity for the scene
you're talking about.
Yes, yes. and that's my criticism.
It's like Sigourney Weaver in Galaxy Quest when they have to go
through the great big hammer things that are going, and, you know
Sigourney Weaver says, this doesn't make any sense.
It's that referential thing that you have things like this in
Doctor Who or Star Trek, whatever, which I just, that actually
makes no logical sense as to how this machine.
I mean, I know the tarnis is a fantastical and wonderful and
magical machine, but these great big rods coming in does not for
me match that.
So episode 2 of the new series reminded me so much of Galaxy Quest
because you've got the doctor running through giant bags.
Oh, yes, yes.
Yes, yes, yes. to press the button.
There you go.
Turn the thing off.
Yes.
Why is this Doctor Who thing to do?
And I thought it made for some really good visuals.
And I definitely jumped more than once when the things went
through the wall.
I thought it had gone through his arm, but what happens?
How does it trap his arm?
No, it just holds his arm.
Holds him arm.
He's in pain because he's not gone through his arm.
Okay, yeah.
But I think that's the problem what we were talking about earlier
Simon.
No, it goes through him.
No, no, I don't think it does because there's no blunt or
anything.
But it doesn't have an injury.
But no, because he said, cut my arm off.
Yeah, yeah, the whole thing.
No, I think it's like a sort of 87 hours or whatever it was
called.
It's like that guy who got trapped, the rock climber guy who had
to cut his own arm off to his back.
I think that's what the...
Because he doesn't seem to be wounded.
He just seems to be in pain and it never gets mentioned again.
Do you know what I mean?
Like he's just sort of holding it vaguely in the next scene, but
that's about it.
I think it goes back to what we were saying earlier, that it's
been a bit reverse engineered.
They need some peril and so they're going to have some things
flying through the walls that are dangerous.
Inventive peril.
And so they then talked about the fact that the TARDIS has fuel
rods and they're empty and you sort of think this isn't the
enterprise.
Yeah, no, exactly.
That's why it was just not Dr. Huey in terms of, I mean, great big
fans in the end of the world.
Yes.
They were keeping it cool.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Unless we forget that in the end of the world, Rose is also
trapped in a room where there's bits of sunlight coming through
spearing through the window at her.
Yes, but we're going for, obviously, a surreal style of story
where, you know, the architectural configuration of the TARDIS is
spontaneously changing.
You've got these ghost states of people in slightly different
console rooms or time streams or whatever the hell it is.
Those kind of things need to have internal logic for them to work
so you can kind of follow what's going on.
And I think they need to be sort of well-directed, which is harder
when you're dealing with a lot of identical looking corridors.
Yeah.
So I suppose mine. when you have a good director.
It's not well directed, is it?
No, I think it's, well, it's not, it's just covered.
And even then I don't even know whether it's covered because
sometimes you're kind of going, you're not sure whether it's a
trick of the, oh, where, you know, she's turned a corner and the
whole thing's changed or whether it's just a bit of direction
that's not quite... hasn't got quite right.
Yeah, and for me, it sort of is on the wrong side of the line of
making logical sense.
It's not terrible.
It's not a total mess, but it's just slightly on the wrong side of
that.
I can understand how all this is actually working in a way that
doesn't require me to kind of retcon everything in my head.
I'm also not convinced we need the zombie creatures.
It would have been...
I think we need monsters.
I do think we need more.
Well, no, I think that's the floor.
I think someone has said we need monsters.
And like the kaplunk rods.
That's what's been inserted into the thing.
And I don't know whether that actually for me adds to the peril.
It makes no sense.
It's your future states that have been somehow destroyed by the
the idea is that they've been crispied by the Eye of Harmony.
Yeah.
But then they're running around the TARDIS trying to attack you.
No, if they'd been running around the Tartars like seeking help
and you could clearly get this idea that they were seeking help
then maybe it would make sense, but they're just there for the
peril. out of focus is zombie monster things that are chasing.
I mean, I think they are invented peril, but I think we need it.
Otherwise the episode would be so empty.
No, because, I mean, the problem is we just had the haunted house
episode with Hyde, but if we pretend that that episode didn't
happen.
I think this episode would be so much better if it was done like a
haunted house episode, that it was a bit slower, a bit more creepy
a bit darker, like basically more like the TARDIS is, you know
rather than kind of exploding everywhere, it's run out of power
and it's dark and quiet and all that sort of thing rather than
noisy, loud.
Absolutely right.
I think if you're going to do which kind of episode, that's what
you want.
Yes, and the scene which does work for that, the one scene which
works is the one where Clara is in the library and the creature
comes in behind her and she's hiding behind the bookcase that sort
of springs out from behind.
I think that works quite well, but it's an isolated instance.
Is the problem that we're doing this in a story that's basically
about we finally go into other rooms in the TARDIS.
And if it had been more like the invasion of time, where some
other story is going on, and incidentally we end up wandering
around the Tartars, that that might have been better.
So he would have had peril.
That was organic rather than peril that was just kind of a bit
silly, which is not, you know, it's not unknown as a phenomenon in
Doctor Who.
But it's one of those points I like to come back to, is that
episodes one likes, for some reason, one gravitates too. there
will be things wrong with them and inexplicably one can forgive
them.
And then there are episodes that you don't particularly like, which
are, in other ways, flawless.
And for some reason, you dismiss those things as, oh, well, you
know, but that's just generic and blah, blah, blah.
There is always a je ne sais quoi.
And I think that that's what's missing from this episode is the je
ne sais quoi that makes it special.
The mistake was to go for the monsters because that was the
imperative from the BBC.
There shall always be monsters.
I think it would have been much better if it had been the edge of
destruction.
And it had been the conflict between the characters and the
doctor.
And he does that brilliant speech of, oh, I've set the self
destruct, you have to save Clara.
Otherwise, we're all dying, which is very Matt Smith, and he
really acts brilliantly in this.
There's some scenes there where he's just standing in the
background and he, the camera loves him and he's really acting
with his face.
But I think you miss the opportunity to have the conflict between
the characters, evolve the characters, drive the plot, and there's
a point at the end where you're now discussing the impossible girl
plot.
And Clara says, oh, you're scaring me now more than anything else
in the TARDIS, but she doesn't really act like it.
And there is the ability there for Matt Smith to be truly
terrifying.
And there could have been that kind of thing where, you know, the
question comes up, who are you, Clara?
And now Clara's worried about doctor and she runs off and she gets
herself into peril and blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think this was shot quite early on and they don't quite have a
handle on Clara yet.
And so she's a little bit generic in this episode.
And so those scenes with her, if you'd had Amy doing them or, you
know, a really good companion like Donna or someone like that, they
would have been quite magnetic, but she's just not quite there
enough on screen to lead those scenes.
It's a strange choice, I think.
So we have these revelations about Clara.
And they happen in this time loop episode where maybe they're
forgotten, but we can't be sure because we know that the Van Balen
boys have learned from this episode sort of sticks.
But having the doctor, you know, Well the doctor remembers it
all.
Yeah, does he?
Oh, yes.
That's my interpretation at the end.
He remembers everything.
So the doctor knows that Clara's not evil and not trying to
infiltrate his time or whatever.
He knows that she's, for some other reason, there are multiple
Claras listed in his history.
I mean, we had the reveal in Hyde that she's just a normal
person.
That's what Emma tells the doctor at the end of Hyde.
And it is that thing where Moffatt just goes for the obvious
answer to the mystery is the correct one.
And because mysteries are fun but the reveals are often a bit
disappointing.
And, you know, I think this sort of works.
Like I don't mind it.
It does mean that we are approaching Clara as a bit of an enigma
and to have that happen in a season where the later episodes are
being shot earlier when she doesn't have much of a handle on what
she's going to be like.
I think it is a problem for the character.
And it's a bit for to doomsday.
Not quite as bad.
Well, that would be an achievement.
Past the sodium.
I think she's a bit of a peril monkey in this episode, Clara.
She exists just to, you know, go up and open doors, which clearly
shouldn't be opened and then outrun the fireball.
And so there's not much to hang on the character, but also, and I
will return to this point, this is the start of a problematic
quality for Clara's character, and that is violent, aggressive
Clara.
So there is a scene in this where she hits the doctor multiple
times and it's not fun.
She's doing it because she's angry and she's quite an aggressive
character and I think it's a problem and will return to that.
I actually like that hit, I have to say.
Yeah, she punches him in the shoulder.
I don't think that tips over the, it doesn't just yet, but she's
clearly doing it because she's angry.
She's lashing out.
She's angry because she's angry.
That's the only reason.
And the doctor recoils from it.
And she's not sorry about it.
And she will become increasingly verbally and physically
aggressive, culminating in the line.
Say that again, and I'll slap you so hard, you'll regenerate, and
I find a problematic quality with her character.
Moffatt does sometimes have cracks about the doctor where he's so
irritating that people punch him in the face.
You know, like people will say, oh, and before they left, you know
did they smack you in the head or anything like that?
Like Moffatt is aware that his doctor is irritating and sometimes
expresses it through comedy lines, not like the one you mentioned
but through comedy kind of hilarious lines.
This I thought was kind of givable.
I think the dogs are probably Matt's doctor probably deserves a
casual punch in the shoulders.
And also what you're sort of complaining about there is fair
enough, but it's also kind of where they're taking the Capaldi
doctor as well as being a less pleasant person to be around in
some regards.
Yeah, that's true.
And I think, you know, Moffat finds it charming.
He finds it charming when sort of perky, pixie dream girls kind of
you know, take it out on the league character for being annoying.
And it works with river because rivers played with that knowing
kind of charm, whereas I don't think it works with Clara.
I think for better or for worse, Jenna is playing it too real.
And I find it quite uncomfortable.
A little less coupling and a little more drama.
We've kind of talked about the reset button, but the reset button
thing for me is, I mean, you know, it's not the first time Doctor
Who or other programs have done these sorts of things, but it's
very difficult to do well.
It always ends up being a little bit unsatisfying for me.
It is a cheat.
And I think, like a lot of the other things we've talked about
like the zombie creatures and the, for me, the client rods and
those sorts of things, I think there are too many lazy decisions
and that's just another one of them.
It's like the easy way.
Oh, we just need to, how are we going to get out of this?
Oh we'll just press a button and we'll go back to the way it was.
It's not quite that because the button is there in the 1st
iteration the 1st time through.
So that thing appears on the floor and I remember thinking at the
time, how did that get there and being slightly surprised that it
hadn't been addressed?
It looks like Clara's picking up like a grenade of some sort.
Yes, you think it's related to what the brothers have done?
Yeah, yeah.
And then we go all the way through and then he finds that moment
in the timeline of the console bursts through, gives the button
and dies in the process.
Is he not disintegrated in the thing?
Like, like, he seems, yeah. yeah, yeah.
And it's picked up from her dialogue where she says, isn't there a
big friendly button?
And so the doctor gets that thing, which has turned up in the
console room earlier, writes big friendly button on it, gives it
to her, and then presses the button.
I think, you know, if you're gonna have a reset button, that's
cleverer than most.
And it is clearly explained that he picks it up, the remote for
the magnet scoop or whatever it is, from their pockets.
Like he's just randomly picking their pockets as he arrives.
Yeah.
So it is all very well explained, but it is kind of terrible that
that is the solution.
Like Simon says, it's slightly lazy, even though technically it
works.
It's a slightly lazy decision.
Yeah.
I think, though, that this is such a sort of high concept, kind of
science fiction episode sort of show that it kind of makes sense.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it makes sense, but there's just too much of
it and too much of the other things in the episode, which is kind
of the easy way out.
It doesn't feel like anyone's really trying to create, like they
think they, they think they've got the idea of the journey to the
centre of the TARDIS.
They've got this Jules Verne title that they're throwing in and 0
my god, that's the episode.
We've done it. everyone, we've done it.
Let's go for lunch Let's go for lunch.
Yes.
And dude has to go off and write the episode and throws up this
stuff and, you know, who knows what the rationality is.
It's that kind of, you know, it's that two-thirds, three-quarter
mark of the season episode, which kind of is just a space.
Space filler is too cruel a word because it's more than that.
Is it kind of the that'll do slot?
Yes, it's the that'll do slot.
I think it's the and it's a that'll do episode.
More so than some of the other that'll do episodes.
I kind of disagree.
Okay, because the thing about the 3 stories that he's written.
They're all kind of high concept.
So that's curse of the black spot.
Curse of the black spot.
Journey to the centre of the TARDIS and time heights.
They're all big concepts.
I just don't think they'd land as well as they could.
I think there's definitely some shortcuts and tropes used in it
that are there to get them over the line because they weren't show
how to resolve things and they needed too much peril because they
thought the concept was a bit thin.
I do suspect this one has, it does have that air of um, a script
that really needed either to be junked or rewritten.
It's one of those ones that commits the sin that I don't like it
to commit in that.
It's a great potential that is wasted.
As you said, at the beginning, Nathan, we all loved Tegan and
Nissa's bedroom in the visitation and all these other places.
You know, we love the invasion of time, even though it was a
hospital.
We love the goblins.
We're close to it.
Love Lagopolos.
And, you know, I even like, you know, attack assignment where he's
tinkering with a bit neuron. you know, all that sort of stuff.
Great.
And for me, it just does not fulfil what it could have been if I
if I kind of was able to provide one paragraph to the writer to
say, look, can you do it like this?
And that would have...
The title completely oversells and underdelivers.
There you go.
That's it.
I have to say, though, that in this most Star Trek Voyager of
episodes, kind of with the Red Alert, lights and the corridors and
the bits and that.
I mean, of course we're going to have a reset button.
Well, be listener, that's all we have time for this week.
We'll be back next week to welcome Emma Peel to the Doctor Who
family in the Crimson Horror.
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.
Until next time, remember that it's probably time you stopped
pulling that prank where you convince your sister-in-law that
she's actually a toaster.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Bye for now.
Au voir.
That was Flight through Entirety.
Sorry, Nathan Bottleley, Peter Griffiths, Matthew Hounsell and
Simon Moore.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, the law of conservation of detail was recorded on
the 19th of June 2022 and released on the 2nd of October.
Here at FDE publishing, we would like to announce the imminent
release of Nathan and Brendan's big book of the time war, in which
the authors reveal all their favourite time war moments, and which
at 500 fully illustrated pages, still manages to be shorter than
the TARDIS Wakia entry.
I was wondering whether the reset button is like this kind of
thing so that they can have the big revelation speech, but don't
have to do any of the consequences on it.
When I looked up, looked up yesterday.
I'm preparing my notes.
One of the reviews said that it sped the arc, the season arc
forward only to have it then ripped away from you again.
Yeah.
So the audience is being told this, but the character isn't.
But you see, but it's weird.
This is why I'm saying that the doctor remembers it all because
he's a timeline.
He remembers through all this kind of crap.
Whereas Clara, with Clara, the humans have a vague sense of it.
You know, in these time loopy kind of reset episodes, the
characters almost always retain something from the bit that's been
erased from their existence.
But so what we get is the opportunity for the doctor to yell at
Clara is to say, what are you, what are you, what's business, and
for her to deny it all.
And for them, the luxury.
Yeah, we never have to follow that up.
We just know now that the doctor knows what we know, which is the
fact that, yes, she's just a normal human being.
And the fact that we've already seen Clara twice before, well
what's that?
And like it was the same in Hyde, you know, like, so we didn't
have any reference to it in Cold War, maybe?
No, Cold War was just an episode from that point.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's a moment where Clara opens a book conveniently at the
right spot about the timeline.
And then at the end of the day.
Who wrote that book?
Davros?
Timothy Dalton?
Who wrote that book?
It doesn't matter.
But the Tarnus opens the book for it, one could argue.
It's book of the time war.
But isn't that just a representation of what the TARDIS knows
about the time war?
You know, like it's that that's a kind of metaphorical space?
And so I'm okay with that.
No one has to have written it.
But that's it.
I'd forgotten, and it was the thing we had mentioned, that she
knows secrets about him, including his name, and then he's trying
to find out secrets about her and we have this sort of thing, and
then it just gets wiped.
So, but her knowledge of him gets wiped as well and I don't know.
It seems, it looks like it's they're trying to create the link to
the name of doctor. at the end of the thing.
But it all kind of, it all gets erased by just the reset button.
And you left you're left kind of in this point where, yes, the
doctor and the audience all know that Clara's not this evil being
now will move on.
But why did you need that in the 1st place?
Yeah.
I'm going to take next week.
Crimson R.
It's got nothing about the...
No, I can't remember.
I can't either.
I don't think I've seen it. isn't it okay?
Isn't the Crimson and Horror the Great Intelligence?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Is it the Great Intelligence is that appeared, is it?
No, I can't remember.
Yeah, isn't it the great intelligence that's driving there?
Mr. Sweeney?
It's Mr. Sweet.
Mr. Sweet.
The king of the... the name of the doctor.
But in defence of the reset thing because, you see, where I think
the reset thing does work is at the end of episodes like the Big
Bang and Wedding of River song, that has a reset, but it's
different.
It's more clever.
It's interesting.
It feels less like, 0 gosh, is that the time?
You know, it's because you've been on a journey with the
characters to that research as opposed to it just ending the
plot.
That's there it is.
And, you know, that's unfortunately, when you're trying to cram
all this into 44.5 minutes or whatever it is, it's often it's not
going to work.
All right, I think we'll wind up.
That's probably a tag.
Yeah.
Cool.
Excellent.
Oh, and you've already done the outro.
And we've already done the outro, so we're done.