Hello, dear, listener, and welcome back to Flight through
Entirety.
The only Doctor Who podcast whose name is a promise we've made
which is why it looks like, will be doing this for the rest of our
lives.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Todd.
And I'm Simon.
Well, we've got catchphrases, nursery rhymes, low effort fairytale
monsters, non-chronological storytelling, a mystery solved by
reevaluating the semantics of a sentence, a phone call that goes
wrong, people springing back to life, and a startlingly upsetting
new rule about time travel.
And everyone seems to be unhealthily obsessed with the personal
details of our titular character.
So, who is the doctor?
Let's find out as we discuss the name of the doctor.
I have to say that I don't hate this episode, but I do think...
Well I don't know.
Well, we're a Doctor Who podcast.
Yeah, we hate territory.
It is Moffat vamping though for 45 minutes, isn't it?
Yes, it is basically a mission to the unknown to the 50th
anniversary Dalek Master Plan.
Basically, but I think it works for that.
It is not a traditional end of season finale, and it's fair enough
to criticise it for that.
But I think it manages to lead us into the 50th anniversary
without being needlessly cheesy or too self-indulgent and yeah, I
really, really, really like it.
I really like it too.
I just like to say, but it is very different.
It just sort of just happens.
Like, I mean, it just starts and you'll suddenly, well, I'm swept
away by all the 1st Dr. Clara stuff and her seeing all the
different incarnations of the doctor.
Listeners, do you like my voice today?
It's going to be like this throughout the entire podcast.
How many packets have you smoked yesterday?
Like all those clips of the doctors.
I was talking to Brendan earlier and I said, Colin is the only
one.
You don't actually have, they shut off.
They mustn't been able to find one in all of his clips.
There must be some reason why.
Everybody else gets a moment with old footage of Clara.
Do you know what I mean?
I think the choice of clips is very strange, and there may be a
technical reason for it.
Like having pertwee from the 5 doctors or, you know, refusing to
just completely memory hole arc of infinity.
Like, those are very strange choices.
And also that weird cliffhanger from Dragonfire as well.
It is odd.
And there must have been some sort of technical reasons for it.
Yeah, it's basically just a hangover from Stephen Moffatt's
original script idea where he essentially does write new scenes
for all the doctors to be in.
And so Colin was meant to be seen at the sparking control panel of
a spaceship.
Right.
You know?
And Silv was meant to be seen hanging from a girder over a
battlefield like that Doctor Who magazine cover that one time.
Right, right.
And so that eventually gets translated to the clip from Dragonfire
where he's doing the same thing.
And yeah, I think it's entirely budgetary.
Like as much as this is the lead into the 50th anniversary, it is
also the tail end of the season.
It's not the last episode produced, which I believe is the Crimson
Horror, but it is towards the end of the season, and Matt and
Jenna were being pulled to do reshoots for previous episodes and
were going out to do pre-shoots for the following episodes.
So everyone's being pulled pulled from Poletta Post.
But I remember at the time watching this and when Hartnell
appeared, listener, this is the actual noise I made.
I'd like to apologise to any of the dogs.
Then when the Arc of Infinity Clip came up, I just went, oh
really?
That's what we're choosing?
And in that discussion I was having with Todd earlier, thinking, oh
you know, why have they chosen 2 bits from the 5 doctors?
And it's like, well, at the time, one of the big 5 doctors, big
claims to fame was they had all the original film.
And of course, you know, if you've got the original film, it's
easier to drop new elements into it.
But even then...
And they can rescan at high res.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like even then, um, and something that's totally blinking
you'll miss it is before the 2nd doctor runs past her in, I think
it's Florida.
I think it's stock footage of Florida, you get a figure in a green
coat running past her and it's McGann.
And it's like 3 frames of McGann.
Again, in the original script, she's meant to be on these
windswept cliffs and she looks over at another cliff and there is
a green coated figure writhing in pain in the distance and
starting to glow.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
I think it's a matter of Stephen Moffatt has this great ambition
and then the visual effects of the department, like, we've given
you flying bikes.
We've given you like this giant puppet in a forest a couple of
weeks ago.
We still, look, we still got to do Diana Riggs makeup.
Can we just can we just save some money, please?
We don't see Paul, do we?
We just see his card.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
We see 3 frames of his coat.
Anyway, we go back to the leaf.
That's the pre-credit sequence, so it's sort of, we think it's all
about the impossible girl.
I mentioned to you earlier, Nathan, that I wanted this to be
called, the Impossible Girl, but it does start off being about the
Impossible Girl, but it takes a, you know, a right hand turn and
ends up somewhere different.
I guess this is being told in chronological order because her
existence inside the doctor's timeline turns out to have pre
happened as a result of things that happen in this episode.
And so we start with that.
And we've got the, I don't know where I am thing from Bells of
St.
John, which tips us off that the great intelligence is going to be
involved.
And I guess we must have known that given that he does turn up in
that episode.
Yeah.
Well, even even that, the flashback to the leaf and her falling
through the vortex and what have you, in Moffatt's original script
she's in a cottage by the sea.
There's a photo of the Maitlands.
There's a photo of the doctor, but she's looking out of the
windows and seeing all the previous doctors and she then gets the
last line into the credits of whatever Madame Vastra tells you, do
not go to Transalore.
Q credits.
Right.
And, um, there's no documented reason why Moffatt moved away from
that, but perhaps he kind of went, we're already getting a bit
weird and he wanted to save it for the Zygon inversion.
Yeah.
Trends are law.
It's a great space name, isn't it?
I think it's a properly good space name, like Andrazani or
Galafre.
It's a really skilful space name.
It has a Z in it, but it sounds like a word.
It does sound like a word.
And one of the things that I really, really like about trendzolore
is that it sort of mythicizes the doctor's death.
Like, we know the doctor is going to die because everyone dies and
he says that himself.
And of course, because he's a time traveller.
If we learn nothing else from Revelation of the Daleks, We know
that the doctor has to be buried somewhere.
And so Trezilore is like an ending.
You know, the doctor's story now starts at Gallifrey and ends at
Trezalore.
And I think that's great.
And it's a really moffety thing to take something that we sort of
know or that we kind of must know about.
But to make it explicit to make it happen.
And so I think trends of law is a good name and I do think that
setting this at trends of law is a great idea.
There's also just, for me anyway, there is a symmetry because
trendzolore and galafray. the same stresses on the same syllables
and they're both kind of silly space names, but also they roll off
the tongue.
Yeah.
You know, it's not...
Ranscorav cola.
I was trying to reach for something...
See, I can't even inform those sounds.
Yes, it's not something you have to force you out to do strange
things.
Because I was like, Zita Minor. like, no, that's actually quite a
good space now. into minor is quite a good space name.
Yeah.
But no, yeah, yeah, it's no Ren Score, of course.
Even at the time, I'm like, does this place have a relation to
Gallifrey?
And I believe there was a consideration to make, oh, wait
Trezalore is Galafrey, a revelation later when Matt Smith was
possibly doing another season, but they dropped that.
You know, so his defensive trends law would take on a whole new
meaning when he discovered actually it's, I did rescue Gallivre
but no one on Gallivre remembers and they think it's called trends
law.
Is Transalore Retcon in time of the doctor?
Does it end up not happening?
I'd say so because he doesn't die.
Yeah.
So I think that I think that Trendzilord doesn't end up
happening.
And it is that thing because like I have been very critical of
giving the doctor backstory.
And in fact, I listened to our timeless children, Jody into Tara
episode yesterday, and I said that I was very angry at the
introduction of new backstory for the doctor in the War Games
episode 10.
And I said that I thought it ruined the mystery of the character
and really threatened the integrity of the program.
Now, here we do have that backstory, but the backstory is kind of
loose and inserting Clara into it doesn't really change anything
very much.
And I do like that scene where Clara's there saying, no, you know
go and take the other TARDIS.
It's going to be much better.
I think that's adorable.
Yes.
And the fact that we see that scene happen and we don't know what
it means when she says you're going to make a terrible mistake and
then we see it happen again later.
You're taking the wrong TARDIS, not that you're leaving at all.
Like, that's a scene that we knew always happened, was the doctor
stealing the TARDIS.
And so starting the episode with that, I think, is pretty damn
great.
But I don't think it spoils anything.
And I think, like I was on a podcast reasonably recently called
Pull to Open, and they have a standard thing that they do every
episode, which is where is Clara in this episode?
Like, where's Wally?
Well, we were going to do that with who is chameleon in this
episode rapidly lost.
Who is Chameleon?
So that, like, that is a fun thing.
But it doesn't sort of spoil anything, I think.
It just, you know, it's in this episode.
You aren't watching Doctor Who thinking, I wonder where Clara is
really, which is the point of the joke, I think.
Yes.
There was a plan.
Yeah.
There was a plan when, and I'm jumping. jumping to the end here
but there was a plan when Clara was describing what she had seen
she said, I saw Amy Pond in the Pandoraca, and we were going to
cut to Amy Pond in the Pandoraca, and her falling out, and Clara
was going to be standing in the background, and she was going to
see, I saw you killed at Lake Salencio, and we were going to see a
clip of that because in both those instances, there's a crew
member in the background.
Really?
And in Stephen Moffat script, it's like, can we make it look like
Clara by cutting to a close-up?
And I wonder if someone just said, Stephen.
Just let it go, darling.
Because, look, I've just mentioned those things and seen 3 very
surprised pair of eyes from professional Doctor Who podcasters.
We haven't noticed, even in 10 years, we haven't noticed.
Let's go back to the beginning.
The whole setup with this, with the whole conference call.
Yeah.
It just sort of just happens, you know?
I mean, yes, we have the Whispermen thing, but the fact that Jenny
forgets to lock the front door.
They haven't they haven't necessarily haven't seen the Whispermen
or anything like that.
Like, that's a normal Doctor Who thing where there's some sort of
threat and we need to, you know, we're in dire straits, lock the
doors, let's get the conference call going.
Instead, we're just doing it, and they're just suddenly then
around.
Yeah.
It's a very Moffat thing is the phone call.
And you might remember that there are episodes of press gang, which
depend on phone calls as an idea or answer machine messages or all
sorts of things.
It's something that Moffatt is obsessed with.
And so to have this thing where we're absorbed in this scene.
We're kind of forgetting the setup that they're all unconscious in
sort of different rooms in different time periods.
And then suddenly the world that we've forgotten is happening
outside, sort of intrudes on the phone call and has, you know, like
has an effect on the phone call.
And I think that is terrifically good.
I love the scene with Strax where he goes to Glasgow on the
weekends and just sort of beats the crap out of people.
And I'm glad that Moffatt made that joke rather than anyone else.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's a bit like RTD was allowed to make jokes about
Cardiff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Even that conference call scene with the outside world influencing
the conference call was going to be set up in a joke.
Halfway through one of his lines, Strax was going to suddenly
clutch his head and shout, thank you, Archie, that will do.
So like Archie is still beating him with his face in the real
world.
I just love the best line is, you know, not the one with the
enormous head.
The way he says the word hair.
You know, he doesn't even really know what it is.
Oh, I thought you said it's enormous head.
I know, but later on when he's corrected and told that it's her
hair.
He just says the word hair.
And I mean, my favourite part of that whole scene is I just didn't
realise you were a woman and the look on Ripper's face is just, I
don't have a body.
I will find a body. will kill you.
Yes, delightfully hurt expression as well, slightly hurt.
And so this is the end, isn't it?
This is chronologically the last time that we see river, and she
will be back, obviously, for the Christmas special in, what, 2
years time or something.
But that set before she goes to the library, isn't it?
the, you know, the night before she goes off to the library.
So this is after he's uploaded her at the end of silence in the
library.
So this is, and this is a farewell to her as a character, I
think.
And because she's so closely associated with Matt Smith's doctor
you know, Tennant gets one story with Capoldi gets one story with
her.
I think we needed this.
This is his last regular episode. and so we need the chance to say
goodbye to river I think.
Yeah, and it's also nice that we do get a little bit of her after
she's been uploaded to the internet so that we know that she's
doing okay and she's still having a wonderful time and getting
into mischief and so on rather than just walking off to that big
house in the country, whatever it was. looking after those
horrible children.
Yes.
As opposed to Clara.
Yeah, never mind.
Yeah, and that kiss, the kiss between Matt and River is a proper
kiss.
It's the only problem.
I think so.
Remember we get the last kiss in the day of the moon where Matt
drops her off home and she kisses him and he's surprised because
that's never happened before and she's aware that that's their
last kiss, but they get to have a proper proper kiss.
And I also like the fact that, um, that Moffatt doesn't care about
what her status is.
Like, she's just an actor in the room with Matt.
It doesn't matter if she's an uploaded cyber ghost or who cares?
They have to kiss because it's good buy.
Yeah, we have to kind of do that properly.
And I thought that was really, really nice.
There was no kind of Matt spitting or looking surprised or
anything like that.
I think he initiates it, doesn't he?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's really good.
It's properly good, I think.
And including last night when I rewatched this.
I just sob my heart out when he says it would hurt.
Yeah, yeah.
Because, you know, we, with Matt's talk to, we're always like, oh
you know, he doesn't understand human emotion, and it's just in
that moment, it's like, oh, no, no, he totally gets it.
Yeah.
Um, and even at the beginning of the episode when he's explaining
to Clara what trends the law is.
And, you know, he's been, he's been his usual self since the
beginning with the blind man's buff and doesn't it?
Yeah, the little dalek.
And there's like the 2nd Trezilora is mentioned.
He is suddenly a 1000 years old and crushed on the sofa.
So affected at that moment, isn't he?
It's really moving.
Seeing him cry like that is amazing, I think.
And just Clara's reaction to it, but just seeing him cry properly
without sort of grandstanding or anything like that.
It's not a big, you know, tenant chewing the scenery kind of, you
know, I'm too young to go or whatever.
Yes.
It's it's great.
It's really sort of underplayed, but it's properly affecting just
seeing the doctor like that.
And something I've noticed rewatching the season this time is by
the time we get to this point, the doctor trusts Clara, and, you
know, it was kind of everything was going fine until Hyde, and
then you've got Journey to the centre of the Tartars, where he
rounds on her, like, who are you?
What are you?
But by this point, like every time she asks him a question.
He answers her, like, what's trendzilor?
Who's river song, et cetera.
He like, he definitely trusts her.
And then she follows him to the TARDIS and he tells her more.
And when he says to her, is there any point telling you not to
come?
In Moffatt's original script, she looks to the TARDIS doors, they
slam and she turns around and says all girls together.
And it's like now the TARDIS trusts her as well.
And I'm kind of sad we got rid of that because we never really
resolve the Tartars not liking her. this season.
That's true Yeah, it's it's funny because this story basically has
no new supporting characters.
Like you've got Andrew and Fabian in, sorry, I should say Andro
Archaeoptrics and Fabian Drabatralunda in the TARDIS repair yard.
You've got Clarence.
Clarence.
And um, Archie and the little boy who's not Thomas Thomas hadn't
been cast yet, unfortunately.
Um, I think I said way back with the Big Bang that Moffatt does
introspective character finales, and this is probably the 2nd most
introspective.
I don't think you can get much more introspective than heaven
sent.
Yeah, this is this is incredibly introspective because it's about
the character of the doctor.
And I think I didn't like that at the time, but I like it a bit
more now.
I mean, it is vamping, isn't it?
He's got all of his semi-regulars together.
There's no new people and we're just doing things with them that
they would ordinarily do.
And the sets are what, the house where we've seen Clara before all
season, Madame Vastra's house, and then just these various dark
spaces that are created in the studio that are kind of hard to
imagine, these just strange spaces.
So, trends of law, you know, near the doctor's tomb, inside the
doctor's timeline for the final scene.
And so there's something sombre about it that fits the idea that
this is an episode about the doctor kind of encountering his death
as a kind of fact that happens.
Something else that I find foreboding, even though it's very
subtle, is, I mean, it's one thing to say that, you know, the
TARDIS doesn't want to go to Translore.
It can't go to trends law.
You know, it's not allowed to, isn't it?
Cross his time stream and have the, you know, the console blowing
up and all the rest of it.
And, you know, they end up in all but around the planet, and then
he literally turns off the gravity so that they can fall down to
the planet.
And it's just that lovely moment where he exits and he puts his
hand up to the cracked glass pane.
And the way he says, oops, in this very, I've really done a bad
thing and I'm really going further.
That actually says a whole lot more than than all the other kind
of carrying on.
I think.
It's just really subtle and I really like it.
And the giant TARDIS has that same window cracked.
Yeah, so when we see the doctor's tomb.
And again, that's such a genius idea, an absolute Moffat genius
idea that when a TARDIS is dying, all of the bigger on the
insideness leaks out into the real world.
And it's so logical. so clever.
It's so clever.
And it also has a sort of a logic to it.
And there's no technobabble there.
It's just it's just elegantly simple.
And none of us ever thought of it.
No, exactly right.
It's an absolute classic Moffat thing.
And it creates this sort of really weird visual where you've got a
massive TARDIS where it's massive in 2 dimensions, but not in the
3rd dimension.
It sort of seems to be thinner.
Like, it's, it's weird and foreboding and absolutely what you want
the doctors tombed to look like, I think.
It's really, really good.
It's a, slightly better, I think, probably than the previous
attempt at the doctor's, the doctor's grave.
Less poly starring. revelation.
Yeah, where all that polystyrene falls on Colin.
I mean, it's a great shot.
I think it's a good story as well.
But that, yeah, it's doing it's doing kind of melancholy in 2
different ways.
You've got the darkness of trends of law, but then you've got the
quiet snowscape of whatever that planet's called.
Necros.
There we go, of course. should know that.
Why have I forgotten that?
We could have done with Mr. Copper in a wig.
Yeah, yeah.
No, that would have just added something to it.
I really like how Transalores realised, too, that there's no
attempt to be realistic about it, and there's a scene, I think
quite early on, where the 2 of them are walking, and it's clearly
just back projection, isn't it?
They're just walking in front of a screen that's showing the
clouds and sky in the background and just how sombre and bleak and
kind of miserable everything is.
And you get this massive universe spanning cataclysm where the
doctors are raised and everyone that he saved is now no longer
saved and all of the stars are going out.
And uh, you know, it's the sort of cataclysm the show has done
before.
But it kind of works that that is only experienced by this small
group of people who are standing around on trends or outside the
doctor's tomb.
I like it.
You know what disappointed me?
A couple of things.
One, we don't hear the doctor's name because River whispers it and
we don't hear it.
We get told that, oh, yes, the doctors told me all about you by
Clara, like, you know, like, so he's just mentioned River
offscreen, which is one of those tropes that I can't stand, but
I'm sure he's having a go at all of us who are like that.
No, I'm just being silly, Simon.
And what was the other thing?
Oh, yes, the grades. you know, we get rivers grape.
Well, where's dodoes and Catarinas and mattress, you know?
That's how all of the ones that are, you know?
But I love all the river stuff, all the intercutting with river
with Clara talking, but the doctor's dialogue at the same time and
the lead up to the tomb in that is all just so delicious.
And that's why the revelations that he was able to see her all
along. is so great that they're having this conversation behind
his back about him.
She's prompting Clara and all of that sort of thing, but it just
turns out the doctor just knew all of that and wasn't letting on.
Doesn't he stop her from slapping him too?
Yes.
Yeah, that's when she realises he can hear her.
He can hear her.
Yes.
It was a great moment because, you know, she slapped him before, so
you know..
I also love that Vastra Jenny and Strax get a lot to do that's
based on their individual characters.
They're not just there to be people to share the dialogue around.
You know what I mean?
Like Jenny is the cautious sceptic, even before they go into all
this.
Vastra is brash and brave and Strax gets to say things like when
he's getting his heart squeezed through his chest.
I think I've got him on the runzer.
So great.
He's really like, why did you give in?
Yeah, he's really terrific.
And then the fantastic camera work when Jenny disappears, like
she's behind Vestra and the camera is just moving very gently to
focus on Vestra.
And it's literally a 2 seconds after Jenny is obscured that Vast
returns around.
And so there is some kind of special effects work going on there.
I don't think it's just Catherine Stewart walking out of shot.
But if it's Catherine's, you're walking out of shot behind like a
digital mat, you know.
It's still so well done.
And Niamh McIntosh in that scene when Jenny disappears and she has
to kill Strax is just astonishing.
Yeah, so she is very, very good in this, in this episode.
I'm not a huge fan of those three, but I actually think this is
possibly when they're at their best.
I'm surprised just watching how important they are to the sort of
end of Matt Smith. era.
And I do like them.
I think that Dan Starkey is hilarious and just all of those silly
lines about, you know, pools of acid and various types of grenades
and stuff and not being able to tell the sex of anything, like all
of that, that's just kind of sitcom shtick.
But Moffatt is very good at that sort of thing.
And I think it absolutely has a place in Doctor Who.
And one thing that I can praise Chris Chibnell for is that I
didn't think that the Santarans were a going concern after Strax
had made them so ridiculous.
And he managed to bring them back in a good way and keep them
funny without minimising their threat in any way. phrases you
rarely hear.
I've always liked the 3 of them.
And I think it's a shame that they just have one more episode
after this.
Like I would have liked a couple more because I really do think
they work well with the doctor regardless of who it is.
Yeah, I think they're kind of like unit, aren't they, in robot, you
know, like we just get them back once more so that we're all okay
about the new doctor.
And so that Clara has someone to talk to about the new doctor.
I always thought it was a shame when the doctor regenerated and
like no one kind of witnessed it, like peed into Colin.
Like no one's really there to kind of know anything about that
apart from Perry because there's no larger context that the show
has at the time.
Whereas, you know, when Eggleston regenerates into tenant, it
affects a range of people and we get to see a number of people who
knew that doctor reacting to it. and I think that, you know, that's
clearly what's happening when we get perjury for the 1st time when
we get Tom Baker for the 1st time.
You know, it's it's more fun, I think, to have that regeneration
happened with more witnesses.
And so I think they're perfect for that.
And look, they're clearly part of his toy box, you know, they're
his go to things.
I've got an important episode.
The doctor needs to have friends.
Who are they going to be?
What do you think of the role of the great intelligence in all of
this?
And it's arc in this season?
It suddenly is very quite powerful, isn't it?
Like it's gotten more powerful or am I just off on a tangent?
I don't know.
I think there seem to be an attempt to make the web, the web of
fear is the internet, the worldwide web, and you have the great
intelligence living in there, and he's seen on computer screens
and stuff like that, and all of that seems to make good sense.
Um, Elle Sandifer has a hilarious crack about how Richard E. Grant
is absolutely phoning it in and that that's what the character
needs, like a, uh, a, you know, like a good, well-known top tier
actor completely phoning it in to play the great intelligence
works really well.
And so he does that underbite thing, you know, the way that he
sort of holds his mouth and stuff like that.
I think he's really good.
But it turns out he's not really that important, is he?
And he's just there.
He's very 2nd tier in so far as it's just like, yeah, no, I'm sick
of being foiled by the doctor.
I'm just gonna sort of kill myself now and take the doctor with
me.
And that's thwarted in like all of, you know, 2 minutes anyway.
But, you know, but is he from like the future or is, like, because
like, is he with Bastra and Jenny and Strax in their conference
call or is it just the Whispermen?
He only turns up later, doesn't he?
Yeah, he turns up on Transalore and I guess this is where he
dies.
And so it means that Pat Troughton has now thwarted him twice and
then he obviously gets Miss Kislett or whatever and does something
in the 21st century as well.
I mean, he is just that snow, isn't he?
Isn't he just the psychic snow?
interacting with Dr. Simeon and creating a weird version of Dr
Simeon?
Well, effectively, it's Dr. Simeon's childhood angst creating the
great intelligent that sort of feeds on it.
I mean, who knows?
Maybe, you know, the great intelligence dropping into the doctor's
timeline is why the abominable snowman and the web of fear happen
at all. you know, rather than, it's like that, that's, that's
that's.
Yeah, rather than the other way around.
Although he does give the great intelligence the idea of attacking
the underground, I think, inadvertently by giving him that
lunchbox in the snowman, which has the map of the underground on
it.
I really like it because again, the great intelligence has no
backstory in the classic era, and Moffatt gives it a backstory
that is every bit as weird and mysterious as no backstory at all.
Yes.
Like, he's not, uh, you know, he's not a disembodied alien from
the planet Zolve or anything.
Yes, exactly.
It's, yeah.
I think it's handled.
Well, I really like the way it's done.
I don't think it detracts from the original by explaining too
much.
It just, you know, provides a nice little origin story.
And as I sort of said, you could kind of argue that the great
intelligence creates itself by dropping into the doctor's timeline
and whether it's when it's chasing Clara or when Clara's chasing
you know, it does go back to Victoria, London.
It does go back to the 1960s whenever it is.
So it kind of, it never did actually get created.
It's just constantly going round and round, if you know what I
mean.
In time.
Yeah, well, something this story establishes is time travel is
possible in dreams.
Yeah.
And if you only have intelligence.
If you are only mental energy, then time travel, I think, is
possible for you as well.
So, as you say, Simon, the great intelligence probably has no
beginning and no ending.
It simply is.
Something watching this time, I kind of, I kind of went, you know
when he rips his face off and disappears and another whisper man
steps up, I kind of went, well, what's that then?
But at the same time, it's like, well, in the 2 Trouton stories
he's basically making golems.
Yeah.
You know, so the whisper men are just, they're just golem. just 18
inhabit any one of them because he's intelligence.
Yeah exactly.
As for Richard E. Grant phoning it in.
I've heard that accusation with Scream at the Shalka as well.
But I think it's actually just Richard E. Grant's acting style in
that facially.
He doesn't tend to do much.
It's all in the voice and the intensity.
Yeah.
And it's like, even if you look at something, I think the 1st
thing I ever saw in was a drama called Jack and Sarah, where he
was a recently bereaved single father.
And even there, and you know, that was a very emotional film.
Facially, it's all under control except for the eyes and the
voice.
Maybe you're right.
And I, that's how I see this performance.
You know, when he's saying things like, you know, the doctor will
have many names, the storm, the valiard, again, dear listener.
No, I agree with you, Brendan, that was a great moment.
Yeah.
And but it's just like the intense, the intensity in his voice is
kind of, I'm doing the universe a favour.
Look at all these grades.
And a villain is always more interesting when it's not just, ha ha
ha, you defeated me, so I'm going to jump into your timeline and
kill you.
He's actually like no, I've got a point here.
Um, but I'm glad that the plot doesn't labour that.
Yeah, because you've got him saying he killed all these people and
you've got all the doctor's friends saying, well, actually, mate
he's done all this good, and I'm saying that, and I'm dead, says
River.
I mean, yeah, I don't buy the Richard E. Grant phoning it in
thing.
I think that his acting style and a lot of stuff is he throws
lines away.
The performance is always very, very small and subtle and and
realistic's not quite the right word, but it's just the lines are
said as if he's just thought of them rather than them being
performed.
Yeah, I think it works really well for the great intelligence
because the great intelligence is a bit nothing, really.
I mean, it hasn't had lots of dialogue or anything before in the
60s, does it?
Am I misremembering?
No, it's just Web of Fear 6, really.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, and Samovar, yes.
Samovar.
You know, why does he go after an old friend of the doctors?
Ah, abominable snowmen.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, it all works.
They'll be able to something there, somewhere?
Yeah, see?
Yeah.
And of course, you know, it's obviously, is this the point at
which they know that they have web of fear back, but haven't
announced it yet?
Well, that's what we discussed during the snowman.
And we kind of thought that, yes.
They know, I mean, they all know.
I mean, Moffatt knows.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And so you just bring the great intelligence back so that this is
an old adventure with the great intelligence in it, which is sort
of being released for the 1st time in forever.
I will say that the usage of the great intelligence in this season
brings to light a really weird thing.
A friend of the podcast, Andy Frankham, who is the head of the
Lethbridge Stewart novels, is partially responsible for managing
the characters and creations of the Hazman and Lincoln.
Right.
And whenever the BBC used the Great Intelligence and the Brigadier
70% of the time, 90% of the time, they don't credit Hazman Lincoln
until Andy or I think it's um Hannah Hazman is the co-manager
until they contact the BBC and say, guys, I don't know if they get
paid or get paid very much, the estate.
But it's just like, the end of this episode has Santarans created
by Robert Holmes.
Silurian's created by Malcolm Hulk.
And it's like, but you've got the great intelligence there, which
is not a BBC creation.
It's, it's just, it's very strange that the creations of these 2
writers, which, you know, people who look back at the Trout Nearer
you know, when there were kids watching it, it was going out and
they're like, oh my god, you know, the yeti stories, that's where
it was at. and that's where the brigadier came from.
So it's like there's 2 iconic parts of Doctor Who's history and
the BBC's just like, oh, you know, we'll credit Terry Nation and
we'll credit Kit Pedler and Jerry Davis said, we'll credit Brian
Hales when the ice Warriors turn up, but they just forget that
Hazman and Lincoln exists.
And it's kind of like the whole feud with the dominators was ages
ago.
And almost everyone involved is dead, you know, get over it.
It's just an odd thing.
Yeah.
We resolve the Great Intelligent Arc, and then Clara's just an
ordinary girl.
She said so all along, and she, of course, puts herself into the
doctor's timeline to save him, and then we go in a different
direction, you know, like her story is done.
The intelligence story is done, but the doctor story is far from
done.
Yeah, and I think, you know, I think that that's a pretty good
resolution of the mystery and I think it's the right time to do
that and clear the decks for her to just be the doctor's companion
because she plays an absolutely crucial role in Day of the
Doctor.
She's terribly important.
And just seeing them get back together at the beginning of day of
the doctor is wonderful.
Like, it's so great.
And she has, I think, this season, and we've said this before
suffered enormously from the arc and from recording episodes out
of order.
There's no real consistency to the way the character is written.
It's all kind of tied together because you've got Jenna's
performance, but the character isn't really working at this
point.
And so retooling the character, giving her some backstory, all of
that sort of thing that's going to happen over the next few
episodes.
I think ends up working really quite well.
I think you're really right.
The Cold War and the High, the characters are nothingness.
And then last week's Nightmare in Silver.
It's like she's next year's character.
She's a completely different character virtually, I think, every
other episode she's in this year.
I think she's good in Crimson Horror.
I think which is filmed quite late.
Yeah, yeah, it's filmed after this.
Terrible hair.
Terrible.
I'm sorry.
Just one thing of that story that really gets to me is the bun on
top of her head. just hate it.
Oh, I tell you what, I was so relieved when she came back into the
present day at the end of that episode and she had her own hair
back, but I've only just realised why I felt like that.
I have to say, I didn't know that, you know, I've never read up
much about the production of the new era, and so I didn't know
that this particular block was filmed so totally out of sequence.
And I wasn't spotsing it particularly, maybe because I just
forgive not very much companion characterisation as, well, that's
Doctor Who. that's, you know, that's, that's just what we get
sometimes, but I, I, I wonder how much you're kind of seeing it
because, you know, how, how out of order it's recorded.
Like the way, you know, I can see how in Fort Doomsday, doctor has
no character at all because I know that that was shot first. you
know what I mean?
Yeah.
No, I agree with you, Simon.
I certainly went into this back home of the season knowing when
things were shot and it kind of went, oh, great character, great
character.
Oh nothingness, nothingness.
So I was sort of looking out for it, you know, in various episodes
to see to what extent in my mind at least, you know, where that
character was at.
Yeah.
But I mean, Simon's right in the sense that in the classic era
sometimes you would have a like one paragraph description of who
the character is or whatever.
She's a computer programmer from Peace Potty.
Yes, she knew.
But basically it's just the actor's performance that ties it all
together and everyone's just written as a companion.
And I think that the new series improves upon that by having
actual characters in the Tartars who have their own personalities
and things like that.
But this does seem like a kind of throwback, in a way.
Totally.
And I guess the one thing that at the time disappointed me was the
fact that I actually wanted her to be something more than just, I'm
just an ordinary girl.
I actually thought it was building up to something big
revelation.
But that would have been just NAF, right?
So coming back to it, I actually like it a lot more now and think
yeah, you made the right decisions.
That's why once again, dear list is, I'm not sure enough.
Look, I'm 100% on the fact that it's the right decision that she
is actually just an ordinary person, but what makes her
extraordinary is that she makes the decision to go into the
doctor's timeline to save him and therefore that creates all these
paradoxes and her appearing all throughout his history.
That's more interesting because it's a normal person who's done
this.
A regular person has made this leap and done this rather than she
was some magical thing and she was actually a space alien that was
you know, given to her father via leaf or whatever it was. you
know what I mean?
Like, it's much more interesting that she's much more relatable as
a result.
Exactly.
And I think also because the character is written thinly, and I'm
not saying that it's necessarily a bad thing.
Because the character is written thinly, more people in the
audience can imagine themselves as that character.
So they can imagine that they're the normal person.
And it's like, this is Doctor Who's 50th year and this story is
asking the question, would you split yourself throughout the
doctor's history to save the doctor as a fan, as a viewer.
And I can imagine there are, there are a lot of children at home
watching that and realising how much they empathise with Clara
without even realising necessarily that that's the reason.
Part of the reason I love Clara in this season, and Nathan alluded
to it earlier, and I said it back on Bells of St.
John.
She's Mel.
Because she is a fantastic actress who has gone on to great
accolades like Bonnie Langford with hardly any character on paper
and yet when she is on screen as the character.
She is just magnetic and fun to watch and fun to be around.
But if this had been her last story.
It gets a far more satisfying and reasonable and understandable
exit going out of the show.
And part of Mel being so thinly written is that when Mel arrives
on the scene, she already instinctively trusts the doctor and he
instinctively trusts her, so we get all that out of the way and we
have that right from the bells of St.
John.
Now, not necessarily from Clara, but, you know, the doctor sitting
out on the driveway in front of the Tartars, and she's like, am I
safe now?
And he's like, yes, and you always will be.
Are you just going to sit there and keep an eye on me.
Yes, I am.
It's just it's a really sweet.
And the funny thing is, Matt then starts to distrust her while she
is building her trust in him until they hit a crux point.
And the last 3 episodes after journey to the centre of the TARDIS
they are a total team with complete faith in one another.
And that is exemplified in that last bit where he's saying, no
don't go in there, don't go in there, and she's just asking more
and more questions of, but if I do, this happens, and he's like
yes, but don't.
But if I do, this happens.
Yes, but don't.
And then Rivers telling her not to go in there and she's basically
like, well, now I know it's a good idea.
And I also think this year, this back and off of this season is
when Matt's character is the most thinly written.
And we talked about it with rings of Akatan, like, yeah, that's
not a speech for the script. that speech for Matt Smith, because
you know Matt Smith can deliver that speech.
And I think just the chemistry of Matt and Jenna together gets us
over the line of the thin character writing.
Yeah.
It was a bit of a problem last week too, with the doctor and Mr
Clever, where it was just like, let's give Matt a big thing to
perform.
And it doesn't work quite as well as the approach of just giving
him normal things.
Yeah, and I think also he was stuck in a bit of a Ken Dodd
situation of going, they'll tell me.
They'll tell me if it's too much.
Yep.
It never happened.
So let's talk about the final scene then.
So somehow she's still alive and the doctor finds her in this
weird space, that's his timeline, and all I could think of was
like the end of Rocky Horror, you know, where Brad and Janet are
crawling around on their hands and knees in that sort of smoke, you
know, the with the dry ice all over the floor.
It's all that sort of thing.
Where does she land?
In the doctor's timeline.
Yeah, I know, I know, like whatever.
It's that bit in the invisible enemy when they're in the doctor's
brain.
I don't have to say, I'm going...
But without the nucleus of the swamp.
But it's in a place which is just full of the doctor, I guess.
And so we get a way of introducing John Hurt's character.
Lots of rushing coats past.
Yeah, yeah.
A particularly, particularly chunky William Hartnall.
Yeah.
Like if you freeze frame it.
Which you obviously did.
And, you know, when I say junkie, I kind of mean it as a
compliment.
Like he looks like a rugby player.
Well, much like the original.
I mean, if he brains you with a rock, you'll know about it. another
FTE revelation.
Me liking rugby players.
Everyone does that.
No, I thought Chunky William Hartnell.
Sorry.
I'm having too much title.
I'm having too much medication.
Sorry.
And I guess this is another reinterpretation thing.
So earlier on, it was like, the doctor has a secret.
He will take to his grave. and it has been discovered and it
refers to the grave, right?
And here we've been sitting with the title, the name of the doctor
and it becomes a plot point in so far as the doctor needs to say
his name to open his tomb, so everyone can go in, and River has
somehow found out the doctor's name.
Although I don't think he really told her at the wedding.
Well, when he said he told her.
He was actually, look at my eye.
Look, I've got a little me in there.
But, you know, maybe he then said, oh, and by the way, I'm Greg.
Gordon.
Yeah.
Um, so...
But the name of the doctor, really kind of means the title of the
doctor.
The name of the doctor, the name that he's given himself, not his
birth name or anything like that.
But the name that he gave himself because of who he is.
He's the doctor.
He makes people better.
And so this is, I guess, a way of introducing the idea of the war
doctor because that's going to be what the day of the doctor is
about.
Yeah.
And these scenes were filmed at the same time as Day of the
Doctor.
So the shooting script for the name of the doctor ended with
goodbye, sweetie.
Oh, okay.
And that was the last bit, and they're like, we know we have to
film this later because whoever we're getting at that time, they
didn't know they were getting John Hurst, like whoever we're
getting will be filmed with name of the doctor.
And I think Stephen Moffat was still holding out hope for Chris or
Paul.
Right.
For Paul?
Paul.
Yeah, because when Chris said no, he did try to get Paul and the
BBC kind of said, oh, no.
Well, I thought that was the case.
I thought it wasn't Paul's decisions.
I thought they just went, no, the BBC said, right?
Because there's 2 schools of thought, and they're not necessarily
mutually exclusive.
Either. he wasn't the doctor for long enough in the public eye to
be recognisable or unlike John Hurt.
But here's the thing.
Here's the thing.
Or they viewed the TV movie as a failure and wouldn't link it to
that.
So Moffatt was just like, well, Chris won't do it.
What if I get a big name actor who's never been the doctor
before?
And they're like, well, it depends how big the name is.
They managed to get John Hurt and the BBC are like, okay.
I mean, he played a CGI dragon in Merlin.
He's not that big a cow.
Exactly.
I guess he's I mean, he's big, but not that big.
Like, is it kind of big, you know?
Yeah, but that's how we get a knight of the doctor.
It was a consolation to Paul because Stephen had been talking to
him and then had to come to him and say the BBC don't want you.
Right.
Which, you know, she's pretty a pretty horrible thing to have to
say to an actor and, you know, kudos to Paul for them turning
around and saying, yeah, fine, I'll come in and do a 7 minute
thing on the website.
Yeah, brilliant.
So what was your feeling at the time?
when he turns around and says introduced and it says introducing
John Hurt as the doctor.
I think it's magnificent.
I think it's an absolutely incredible moment.
And it is kind of funny because normally an introducing credit
means it's their 1st go at anything, isn't it?
Yes, this is their film debut. their TV debut, yeah.
But, I mean, this is John Hurt's Doctor Who debut.
I think it's an amazing moment and it is a moment where the
credits kind of appear in the show where the show itself is kind
of telling us what it's doing now with this actor.
And if the show is telling us that that's really the doctor, then
we kind of have to believe it.
You know, the things that are said in the in the credits are
real.
It was so +and wonderful.
Now, I have to say something, child, just before you just before
you start talking to, I have to say, I have to fill it in for the
listener that because I'm doing this remotely, I'm seeing my 3 co
hosts on the sofa in a row.
Nathan is leaning forward and as Nathan was saying that Todd was
making so many faces and shaking his head.
So I now want to hear what was going on in your brain, Todd.
It was a beautiful visual.
It was the most beautiful visual.
I love it.
Wow.
And I still don't particularly like it.
Who is John Hurt?
That's what went in my head.
Like, I heard the name, obviously, in the British public and other
people.
He is much bigger actor than what I had ever known.
I had only ever known that he was in, what, Alien?
Yeah.
And that's, and I, and I, sue me.
I've never seen that movie, right?
And so it was just sort of like, and the whole idea, I mean, we'd
heard rumours that, you know, Eccleston's not doing it coming up
with this other incarnation, and I was just like, oh, yeah, right
really.
So it is a moment, which I do now enjoy, right?
Because I think having obviously seen...
Todd experience.
He's actually really good, obviously.
And I actually think...
Well, I'll talk more of it at another time, but the getting around
Eccleston is actually very clever.
But I still go, oh, John Hurt?
Who?
I'm sorry, I just wanted...
I mean, I mean, I'm not going to say, oh, give me Tom Cruise or
something like that.
Do you know what I mean?
But I'm just saying...
I mean, I don't think I don't think anyone could have probably
impressed me, really.
I mean, I don't know.
I mean, who would you expect, you know, but just from saying, John
Hurt?
Is that John going, oh, what?
I will say, Nathan, one day Aunt Malik is going to turn up and
punch you in the face.
But Nathan, I am really, really touched that you just find so much
joy. in that like at the time and now and forever.
Like your positivity is absolutely wonderful.
And, you know, I'm not saying that I missed negative, but, you
know, I do like it.
I do like it.
And it does throw a punch, but I mean, I was familiar with John
Hurt from, you know, I Claudius and things like that, and I knew
him as a great British character actor.
When he turns around, it's like, well, A, finally, John Hurts in
Doctor Who, which is great.
He is I wasn't trying to diminish him by suggesting he wasn't that
big before.
What I meant was he's not exactly a Hollywood name.
He's not a movie star.
He's not Tom Cruise, as you just said, Todd. not someone mega
big.
But I was so delighted that it was someone who I saw as a quality
actor.
And given that he he is quite stagey in his performance.
Like, you know, he's got the whole RSC thing going on in
deliveries, which always, for me, suits the Doctor Who style.
It's harking back to those, you know, BBC period dramas.
But it was just that moment where it was like, yes, they've
actually done this.
They've actually thought, you know, because the program was off
the air for that block of time, there was no completely clean
thing between McGann and Eccleston, anything might have happened
in that period, you know, numbering the doctors or something that
we as fans do.
I think it was an opportunity that there's a gap there that you
could do something like this.
And no, I thought it was a great way of having a kind of a one-off
casting for the doctor to do that.
And, you know, my jaw hit the hit the floor when he turned around
was great.
He's not credited as the war doctor in this, is he?
No, in the time of the doctor, the little McGann thing.
He's credited as the wool doctor.
Oh, is that where that comes from?
Right, right.
Yeah.
Yeah, he is just the doctor in this.
And it's kind of weird.
Merchandise that appears around this time.
I think his action figure credits him as the other doctor.
So it looks like right up until November.
There's decisions being made of what do we call him?
I'm with you, Simon, in that.
I was familiar with his work and it was kind of like he turns
around and my jaw half dropped introducing John Hurt as the doctor
that's when it dropped. that's what I mean.
Yes, that's the full drop is as doctor.
That's what I'm talking about.
John Hurt is great.
Yeah, but not, you know, 0 my God, John Hurt.
Yeah, but is that blurring of the credits with the actual
television show, which I think I have a problem with?
That's the sort of thing I like where the show reminds you that
it's a television show.
And so those levels, kind of, interplay with one another.
And I'm always kind of a big fan of that.
And I'm not that invested in the show creating a coherent world.
And I know for a fact that Stephen Moffatt isn't either.
Otherwise he wouldn't have written all of those things.
And look, if you want to create a coherent world, at some point
that doctor, because we're in the doctor's brain, don't forget, at
some point that doctor has visited London and someone said, you
look like that bloke from Alien, John Hurst.
So he's like, in the doctor's mind.
He's like, I'm John Hurt as the doctor.
Hi.
He's diagetic.
It's diagetic.
Both Matt and Jenna conceive that writing next to his head when he
turns around.
So, you know, later on when Jenna's like, so who was that?
She's asking, is he the doctor or is he John Hurt?
Because I thought John Hurt was an actor and he got his stomach
exploded and then he got his stomach exploded again in that Mel
Brooks movie?
And then he was Winston.
Yeah, 1994.
Yeah, in 1994.
The concept of bringing in an extra doctor was described to me by
someone who at the time before it happened, who this is this
person must have been aware of what it was, but it was described
to him as the most misbegotten idea in the history of Doctor Who.
And that's an idea that I completely reject, I have to say.
I reject it too.
I just want to say that.
I think it's actually a very clever idea.
Yeah.
And, you know, it's been done again and we will discuss that more
in like 5 years time.
In due course.
But when it is done again, it is, again, one of the best ideas
that era does.
Yeah.
You know.
It's never a bad idea to do new things with the character so long
as you're adding mystery and not taking it away.
Yeah.
And I think in both instances, now, now, and in the future with a
timeless child.
It does it in a way which doesn't require you to completely have
to retcon the entire program.
Given the fact that, you know, he says that, you know, this guy is
not really the doctor because he doesn't, he's not, doesn't take
on the name of the doctor because he doesn't deserve it because he
did this terrible thing, right?
So I don't, in my brain, I do not think of him as the doctor.
And likewise, there's whatever happens, you know, Pre Hartnell is
kind of like, well, that's sort of like almost like a different
whole different cycle of life.
So you can still have, you can still have the series up to this
point without it being demolished by this new revelation.
Well, then, listener, that's all we have time for this week.
We'll be back next week to wrap up the last two years in our
Series 7 retrospective.
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 FDE 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 conference calls are only
productive and enjoyable if you get someone to bludgeon you
unconscious beforehand.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
See you soon.
Bye bye.
That was Flight Through Entirety, starring Todd Bilby, Nathan
Bottomley, Brandon Jones and Simon Moore.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lam.
This episode, full of the doctor, was recorded on the 26th of June
2022 and released on the 23rd of October.
Fans of this sort of thing will also enjoy maximum power, which
returns this week with a very special episode, an interview with
Doctor Who and Blake 7 director, Michael Lee Bryant.
Check out maximumpowerpodcast.com for the details.
I think...
Yeah, I think that's it.
Yeah, I think that's good.
And you've done the outro already.
And I've done the outro already.
Are you good?
Yes, I'm good. revelation of the...
I think it's called Chunky William Hartnell.
Yeah, yeah, I think it's absolutely called chunky William Hardle.
The one thing that I'd observe on the chunky one type thing is, I
mean, it doesn't, this doesn't have to go in or anything, is that
I know, you know, you're never going to be able to get the body
language right, but it's, it's, it's like it's worse than Terry
Walsh, all these, you know, people strolling around as, as, as
Colin everything. you know what I mean?
It's so obviously not the same people.
It's, it's, it's...
It's when Patrick Trouton's running and he runs and then you cut
to him running and it's a different running motion like it's much
slower.
Yeah, it's wrong.
It just wrong.
Like, you know, surely there are enough fans out there who can do
accurate body impersonations.
You just, you know, put a call out on Facebook and get them all in
and to audition.
I mean, what's it?
Who is it?
What's his face?
John Colshaw.
No.
What's the other one?
The pretty one.
Oh, Jacob Dudman.
The newer one, the newer one that's doing all the all the
impersonations.
Yeah, but that's vocal impersonations.
We need, you know, the physical impersonation.
Someone who could do the physical thing.
Yeah, yeah.
The only other thing I'd sort of add, just a sort of a funnier
side, is you know, how you're saying that, you know, that you use
they use 2 clips from the 5 doctors, one, but they both put we in
trout and from the 5 doctors.
It's like back in the old days, you know, in the 80s.
That's all we knew. all.
Well, no, but also it's the fact that, you know, internally, you
know, the production office probably had to pay this stupid sum of
money to the archive to extract a tape that they could then use.
And so it was going to be cheaper if they just got the 5 doctors
and they could grab everyone from there.
It's like that's why you got the same blue pizza clips appearing
again and again and again is because it's like, oh, let's just
grab the, you know, the 1970s.
You don't have to pay extra for someone to crawl through the tapes
because we don't have anyone on staff who's sad enough to just
automatically know when all these sequences happened.
That doesn't count.
Okay.
I, no, I might.
I have the dog scratching at the door.
Yes.
And so we might leave you to get on with.
So I'm pressing stop.
Yeah, if you can just send me...