Everyone’s So Damn Special

[00:36]

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Fly Through Entirety, the only Doctor Who podcast that just can't get 2 whole series completed in the time allotted and has to content itself with one.

I'm Nathan.

I'm Brendan.

I'm Todd.

I'm Peter.

Well, we've travelled from Scaro all the way to Transalore, and on the way we've experienced new kinds of Dalek, history's slowest alien invasion, some heartbreaking farewells, the return of a justly forgotten enemy, several different types of Jenna Coleman, ghosts, carjackers, Neil Gaiman on a bad day, Dame Diana Rigg, in all her glory, some old doctors we loved, and another old doctor that we've never even heard of before.

So it's time to take stock and make sense of the last 2 years, which is why it's also time for our series 7 retrospective.

[01:50]

Hello, listeners, and welcome to our retrospective.

I'm always start with the hard hitting questions here.

So Nathan, Brendan, Peter.

Snog Marrier Void.

Oswin Oswald, Clara Oswald, or Clara Oswald.

Avoid all.

Wow.

I think I would have to snog Victorian Clara Oswald because she seems like a lot of fun.

I would marry modern day Clara Oswald, but specifically the series 7 version before she gets Grim Dark.

And I suppose I'm avoiding Oswald Oswald because she will shoot me in the face.

I would marry Oswald Oswald because she can cook and she's good with computers.

So we could bond over that.

I would avoid Victorian Clara Oswald just to be contrary.

Really?

Because everyone loves her so much and I would snog our Clara Oswald because she has snogged Jane Austen, so I would just be 2 steps away from snogging Jane Austen myself.

[02:57]

You got to be careful of snogging Victorians because their teeth might let them down.

I would like to start here and now a movement to rechristen Victorian Clara as Beryl.

Yes.

Which was the character's original name.

And in early drafts of Cold War, she's still called Beryl.

That was my grandmother's name.

Yeah, Stephen Moffat's got to hide it.

It's his mother-in-law's name.

Well, I would marry Beryl.

I'm avoiding the Dalek, Clara, because she would shoot me in the face and I will snog modern day Clara, because she's been in a snog box.

So there you go.

There you go, yeah.

All right.

So there's a number of questions from our listeners.

And I just want to read a few of these because they're all on the same sort of page.

So, Rod who?

Arsis, does Series 7 work as a cohesive poll with consistent themes slash arc, or is it better regarded as 2 distinctly separate seasons?

[03:59]

Fraser Gregory, champion of the damned, at Felix Fraser, says, given the big gap in the middle and the change in companion, Tartar's interior, the doctor's outfit, an overall story arc that takes place from the snowman onwards, would this be considered series 7 and 8 rather than 7 A and 7 B?

I'm not finished.

The next two, Joey at Doco Ho.

Was this the point where Stephen Moffat's workload was too much, and he took his eye off the ball this series.

And Stephen Alexander says, are things going terribly wrong behind the scenes and does this show on screen?

We've got a lot of changes in directions after this year, like two-part stories or one-part story, story arcs, individual blockbuster episodes?

What do you think about this or are they just cosmetic?

All right.

Two different series?

It is a single series, but it is definitely a series of 2 halves.

[04:59]

So you have the 1st half of the series, which is finishing up the Amy and Rory trauma and, you know, ends in a horrible way and, you know, the doctor goes into seclusion and whatnot.

And the following 2nd half is the doctor learning to have farm again.

And yeah, in a way, it's a story of it's a story of a breakup and then a recovery from that breakup and learning to trust and what have you.

And as much as I think journey to the centre of the TARDIS is one of the worst Doctor Who stories ever made, it does have that climactic moment where the doctor actually starts to trust Clara and then it's entirely erased.

Well, entirely, because we do remember it later.

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

But yeah, it's dealing with the fallout of the silence arc and then bring the doctor down and then bring the doctor back up again.

You can watch it and you can see that things are not going as smoothly behind the scenes as they have been for the last 6 series.

[06:02]

I think that 7A is vastly better than 7B. Agreed.

And I think it's because we have the 3 regulars together who we've had for 2 previous years who work incredibly well together.

I think that there's maturity to the relationship between the doctor and Amy, which we've watched develop over 2.5 years.

And I think that 1st half is actually incredibly strong.

And even Chris Chibnell, whom I criticise sort of fairly frequently.

There's a jar.

Yeah, there is.

It's full to burst.

But I think he produces some of his best work.

I think that the power of 3 is spectacular despite the production problems.

I think to that, I've said this before, that Moffatt reacts against his previous season.

And so his 1st season is what if a Davey season only by Moffat?

[07:06]

The 2nd series is let's swap the beginning and end around and do something as moffity as sort of possible.

And here he's reacting against that.

It's almost like, I don't know, series 5 and 6 were good and he's going to react against it by not being quite as good.

Certainly, the serialisation thing is present in both halves and different in both halves, but much lighter than what we've had before.

And I think it's just a little bit less ambitious and I'd be lying if I denied that I was a bit bored by series 7 B. Peter.

A couple of things.

I think it does feel like 2 separate seasons.

And as we've pointed out, it's because the 2nd half is weaker than the first.

I think production wise, because the episodes were made in such a different order, it might have felt more like a cohesive whole, whereas this very definitely has 2 sides to it.

I also think we missed 2 partters.

[08:06]

And so there's no stories which have any real weight to them.

A lot of episodes feel a little bit lightweight and a little bit ephemeral.

And so you reach the end and you think, well, that was a season of episodes.

I do think the Amy and Rory stuff is much stronger than the Clara stuff, but I think that could just be a factor of there not being that many strong episodes in the 2nd half of the season.

It's like Cold War is sort of perfectly reasonable.

There's nothing sort of massively wrong with it, but it's hard to imagine anyone putting it in their top 10 and it is not particularly memorable.

I don't know.

I think there is a big problem too, where you can kind of sense him spinning his wheels until the 50th anniversary comes along, and so it's a combination of Sherlock, I suppose, and the 50th anniversary where he just kind of takes his eye off the ball for a bit.

It's also that poorly defined arc with Clara.

It's a good idea to make her the impossible girl.

It's a nice mystery to set up, but then he doesn't really structure it in the way that the season arc must resist making an archoke.

[09:09]

It's not really the way that a season arc works because as we said with series 6, he just kind of sets up the mystery and then revisits the mystery every so often rather than moving it forward in certain percent.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, yep, yep, the pregnancy test is still up on the screen.

Exactly.

Clara is still an impossible goal.

Yeah.

I think another problem that makes the 2nd half of the series feel thinner is that the 1st half of the series is all about Amy and Rory's relationship.

And as you say, Nathan, we've had time to get to know them, so it's meaningful.

And in the 2nd half of the series, Stephen Moffatt has said, I can explore Clara as a character and what motivates her as a person, her conflicts, her dreams, et cetera.

Or I can explore the mystery.

And he chooses almost exclusively to explore the mystery.

Like bells and rings of acaten go into her sort of backstory and her motivation.

And then after that, they kind of go, okay, that's done now.

And I think that is what makes it feel so much thinner.

[10:11]

And the reason it's entertaining at all, I think, is down to Jenna Coleman's talent as an actor and also her chemistry with Matt Smith. because they clearly adore each other.

I think, in a sort of Tom and Liz Sladen kind of way.

You know, they bounce off each other and part of that is dialogue, of course, but the rhythm they get into, especially in things like Cold War, where they have the whole pyramids of Miles conversation about how time can be changed, how many times have we heard that?

Basically every time there's a new assistant.

And yet there, because Clara's sort of sitting up in her chair and looking around and, and, and, sort of being almost bird-like.

There's a new energy there that I think is the most successful part of that back half.

Well, it's interesting listening to all of your opinions.

Yeah, it's definitely, it's the one season.

It's like season 14 where you've got Sarah Jane's stuff in 1976 and then the BBC build, the 2nd half with Leela as a new season.

[11:16]

Again, I agree with all the things that you're saying about the Clara arc.

You know, it's light on in that 1st half.

He does introduce it.

There's that link there.

I would have loved Clara to have turned up at the end of a town called Mercy in a stagecoach just having missed the doctor.

You know, just something just to sort of link that a bit more.

And obviously, as Nathan, you've been saying, you know, we've been with Amy and Rory for so long that the exploration of their relationship and we know that their time on the show is ending and those episodes are so strong in that 1st half.

And in the 2nd half, I think the unfortunate thing is that we do have, as she was saying, Brendan, we've got turposodes that do explore Clara and that arc, and then he sort of leaves it till the end and a journey to the centre of the TARDIS, which just has that reset.

And I think the problem is then none of the other episodes deal with that.

So it seems light on.

And I certainly think having Cold War and hide back to back isn't great, you know, because they're the 1st ones that she recorded it as Clara and the character is really not there.

[12:22]

It's what Jenna is doing.

I think one of those needed to go and we needed to have a journey to the centre of the TARDIS.

And another episode where I think that should have explored that Arkmore, have another Clara turn up or have the great intelligence again.

I think Crimson Horror does work because you've got the link to the whole gang that are there, right?

So that does work.

But unfortunately, you've got the ending of things like hide, of Journey to the centre of the TARDIS.

Cold War is, I think, light on, and then you've got nightmare in silver, which I think is just appalling, right?

Towards the end of like at the end, which dragged this 2nd part of the season down.

So there are good episodes, but back to what we were saying or what the questions are asking.

Stephen is doing other things.

So his episodes deal with things, and there's only really one episode journey to the centre of the TARDIS, and it deals with Clara, and he had some, obviously, work on rings, but the other ones don't.

And you've got other writers doing double shits.

You've got Chris Chibnell, who does a great job on both episodes.

One is better than the other.

[13:22]

I would say power of the 3 is the weaker one of the two.

They're both good.

But they're both good.

You've got Neil Cross, who delivers, I think, I really like rings, it does fall apart towards the end, and I think Hyde is good, but again, I find the ending and that sort of negates and it's very generic.

Like, it's good to a point, but I just find it, well, you know, it's good enough.

Yeah.

And then you've got Mark Gators, who gives us a fantastic episode and then you get Cold War, which should work better than what it does, but I just find it very generic.

Yeah.

So he's actually spooning out to other people to do writers he can trust.

And I actually think it's maybe 2 individual writers that let him down and he can't go and rescue those scripts to the same degree.

There's a thing there about the storytelling.

It's what one of our listeners was picking up on whether it's Stephen is too thinly stretched.

That was Joe, friend of the podcast.

Joe. Oh, lovely Joe. Okay.

The storytelling in this season doesn't quite match. previous seasons, I think.

It's quite chaotic in some scenes.

[14:24]

There's a lot of scenes where it's the opposite of clear pacing and action.

Like things just happen and people are shouting and there's things going on.

And I actually can't follow what's happening.

I'm thinking of scenes from Cold War, quite a bit of nightmare in silver, um, and some of dinosaurs on a spaceship where it's just sound and fury.

And I think this really needed to go back to the drawing board, this scene, to work out what's happening because you can't bamboozle your viewers like this.

Stephen was heading in this direction, I think, but it really becomes a problem, I think, in the 2nd half of this season.

I think there is a thing where the arc storytelling in the Moffat era is different from the arc storytelling in the Davies era.

So the Davies era is all about basically, you know, Daleks or the master or the cyberman.

You know, his arcs are structured around who the big villain is for the series that he's introducing.

Whereas Moffatts are structured around the characters.

So it's Amy avoiding her wedding, Amy's pregnancy and her relationship with River and so on.

[15:29]

And series 7 is about Amy and Rory ageing out of their relationship with the doctor, kind of outgrowing him.

And eventually, Amy making a decision to follow Rory at the exclusion of the doctor.

And so there's a big mistake in 7B of having a science fiction arc who is the impossible girl rather than, should I say, a space reason?

A science fiction arc, which isn't a character arc.

And so he deliberately prioritises the mystery of Clara instead of the character of Clara.

And while that was okay in the classic series, it doesn't work in modern television.

And so that 2nd half of the season ends up just not really being about anything interesting.

And in terms of the classic series, you can have both because you had both with Ace.

It wasn't anywhere near as refined as we would get with Russell T. Davies because they were always up against the clock, but basically they decide we're going to develop ace as a character and we're going to put these hints in and then we're going to do a story that explains that actually she's been manipulated, her bloodline's been manipulated since birth.

[16:42]

But because we know who AC is as a character and we've seen her overcome fears and overcome adversity and express outrage at things she finds injust.

We really care about that revelation.

Whereas I feel like the only reason I care about what Clara is doing in the name of the doctor is because I just really like how Jenna Coleman is playing the character.

It's a bit like, you know, I always say I love Mel.

Really, I love Bonnie Langford because Mel is not a character on television.

Mel is a slightly sedate version of Bonnie Langford.

Yeah, what are you talking about?

She's a computer programmer.

That's a whole sentence near me.

But it is interesting, I think, that with Clara.

Like, she's just an ordinary girl in the end.

I don't know, interesting is quite the word.

I wanted it to be something more, and I kind of feel because it's so light on in episodes, you kind of, I kind of wanted more of a payoff.

Obviously, he goes in a different direction with a brand new doctor we've never seen and that's where it's headed for obvious reasons, but I just kind of always felt like it was built up and I just wanted something more from it.

[17:50]

And I also do think with going back to the character, like with Amy and Rory, we get their daughter, River.

We get Rory's father, Brian, in the 1st half of the season.

You've got a real family there.

With Clara, you get Artie and Angie Maitland and her parents, Dave and Ellie Oswald, are literally just brushed over.

Yeah, well, one of them's dead.

And, you know, there is something to explore there.

You know, she's someone who's been bereaved. and she's someone who has plans to go somewhere, but has put them on hold because because I think of that bereavement, because Angie and Artie have lost their mother, she's in there, in the place of their mother, we see her interacting with Mary, in Rings of Acherton.

We see her interacting with the kids in Bells of St.

John and in Nightmare and Silver, but that doesn't go anywhere and heaps of the stories aren't about that at all.

[18:51]

And maybe that sort of character background isn't the sort of thing that's productive of new story ideas.

But there is an attempt to make her character have some definite characteristics and some background, but it doesn't go anywhere and many of the stories completely ignore it.

And that's a pretty generic soapy idea.

Yeah, yeah.

But I just think if they did, if they had explored that more after those 1st 2 episodes that she's in, then I just think if we'd had another episode or 2 that had more gravitas in the 2nd half of the season and linking that to the, to the arc that's there, I think it would have lifted this 2nd half of the series more and you wouldn't come away just thinking, well, there's a run of episodes and there's, there's a link between everything and it's all resolved.

Yeah.

In fact, the problem is that the solution to the mystery is that she's completely ordinary and that's kind of boring and it's revealed to us in episode four.

I think we know it's high.

Well, yeah, we are told that in hype.

[19:53]

But in typical Moffatt fashion, the series then spends the next 3 episodes going, or is she?

I was like, no, she actually is.

Well, I think it's typical of Moffatt to just reveal it's the most obvious answer.

It's like that's why Hyde is such an ordinary episode.

Because I really like Hyde.

Something I said last week, which is a positive about Clara being, and I hesitate to use the word thin, but perhaps underdeveloped character, is that the audience can imprint on her.

Yeah.

So it means in the name of the doctor, the fan at home, the viewer can imagine themselves stepping into save the doctor, which it's an idea that was used in the earliest video games. video game protagonists didn't have characters early on.

And even at Nintendo in the legend of Zelda series, which is hugely famous, they still don't give Link, who's ostensibly the protagonist much character, and they're like, we don't write dialogue for Link, because when other characters are talking to him, we want you at home talking to the screen about what you would do, it doesn't impact the game, but it draws you in.

[21:01]

Yeah.

And to me, that's one of the strengths of this early version of Clara is that she could be anyone and she is ordinary at the end.

And something I'd complained about for Amy and Amy and Rory was, you know, all this stuff happens to them and everyone's so damn special as the old thing goes, and, you know, that goes back to Donna as well.

Whereas the thing that's special about Clara is actually a McGuffin, and Clara herself is just an ordinary person who, at a moment of extreme crisis, does a noble thing that saves the doctor.

Also, with the earlier versions of Clara as well.

Like both of them, like Victorian Clara, of course, you know, is dragged off the cloud and whatnot, so it doesn't have as much agency in it, but Oswin absolutely says, well, no, if I can't be rescued, then I'm going to help you escape and I'm going to blow all this up and I'm going to make it.

So the Daleks don't know who you are, which was going to be very interesting for the show going forward.

I'm sure. that device works quite well.

Like the sci-fi device of why Clara is throughout the doctor's history is actually quite neat.

[22:07]

It just lacks an emotional payoff.

And so there's nothing for the viewer to hang on and sort of feel invested in, I don't think.

I feel at the end of the season, like when she goes through all of his time stream.

We don't see that enough during the season.

Like, and that's what I would have liked more of a payoff, which is why I keep going back to having her appear as a different Clara a number of times, not just the ones that we've seen, like even in the same episode with modern day Clara, I think that would have been interesting, like it could have been more than what it was.

It's funny that he doesn't send Clara back to the Russell T. Davis here to rescue Eccleston or Tenant.

Isn't that odd?

It just occurred to me.

It would have been so much easier to drop her into the place.

That's right.

On Todd's point, you know, one of the Russian sailors, he, you know, he's got a picture of his girlfriend in his wallet.

That could have been Jenna Coleman.

Out on the Rings of Akaten, when they leave, someone could have turned around in the market, it could have been Jenna Coleman with pointy ears. trim me inside that glass pyramid.

[23:18]

What makes you think she wasn't?

But no, that's, you know, that's very true, Brendan.

Yeah, like little things like that would just add more depth and resonance to this art. and I think it would help.

Must not make a joke about the artist.

Do you remember in time of the doctor where Clara describes herself as a bossy control freak.

And I remember being shocked and it's kind of like, oh, so that's what we're going for with this character because there's no sign of that at all.

Only in Nightmare in Silver.

She's a different character.

That's where she's bossy, right?

Right.

Then we've got Hyde and Cold War where the character doesn't have the same character either, right?

So there's all these different things happening.

It's Jenna's performance that brings it all together.

But nightmare in soap is the one thing where that's showing where it's going to go.

Bob Gilby asks this question.

Hey, is Clara is Clara's story done?

Should she have ended her time with the name of the doctor?

[24:18]

No, I don't think so.

I mean, I think Clara stays for a bit longer than most of us would like, and I can understand why because I think Jenna's very good and I think she's particularly good with Capaldi.

So I can see why he doesn't kind of say no, dear, you know, you've had your thing, don't come back after last Christmas.

Like, I can understand that.

And Moffatt manages to keep the companions for longer than Davies managers.

So I'm happy that she goes on and I think that she gets quite a good story arc in series 8, except for one very crucial episode. that kind of triangle between her and Capoldi and Danny and her having to kind of balance having a relationship with both of them in this sort of strange way.

I think there's some real energy and interest to that.

And so I think she is served well by series 8 and I would be sorry not to have her in.

[25:19]

I think Clara, as we know her, should have left at the end of name of the doctor or time of the doctor, but faced with either bringing in a new character or doing something with Clara and sort of bringing her qualities like you were saying, Brendan, that she doesn't really have so far so the audience can imprint on her.

Faced with that, Stephen decides to tackle the character and I think turns her into a slightly different Clara next season, but a much better character.

So no, she shouldn't have left.

And she's got a crucial job in the 50th anniversary special as well.

And that needs to be a character that we know who knows the doctor.

And with David Dr. and I won't say much about this, but that's when she really starts to me to feel like a fully fleshed out character.

And I'm thinking particularly of the scene where the doors unlocked, you could have got out any time.

And she just bursts into, they're like, how did you do that?

Doors unlocked.

And also, like, you know, tenant flirting with her and she's just looking at him like, you're doing this now?

[26:24]

No, I agree with you all.

I think that, yes, you should have stayed and I think the next couple of episodes show why. and where that takes the character, whether you like it or not.

Yes, she probably did overstay her time, but I think having another year with her and certainly Matt's decision to leave, I think it's the right decision to keep Clara on and keep Gener on.

Yeah, her time should not have ended at this point.

The thing that Moffatt does at the beginning of his run, which is start the show with no characters that we have even met before.

We've got a new doctor and new companions and new everything.

That's something that should only be attempted, I think, in very special circumstances, and Moffatt absolutely nails it in the 11th hour.

But if you can have some people to ease the transition, you should.

And so she does need to be there for the regeneration, I think.

That's why it makes Clara and Rose quite special characters in the Doctor Who Canon because you're an important companion if you're there to witness a regeneration and deal with the new doctor and they both get that function.

[27:33]

Or you're Perry.

Perry, absolutely.

Ben and Polly.

Yeah.

I mean, look, don't forget that Nicola Bryant wrote like a 7 page backstory for Perry and why she's travelling with the doctor because her deceased father looks like Peter Davison and then JNT's like, oh, that's wonderful.

By the way, Peter's leaving.

So your father's getting a face leave.

Your mom's getting a face.

And the great thing about Nicola, is she then pivots and goes, well, right, then the reason Perry stays is because the doctor saved her life and she needs to return the favour and that's going to work out so... much like Clara.

Anyway.

Talking of companions leaving.

Another listener question from our good friend Eric Stadnick.

In my head, Cannon, Rivers' book tells a false story about Amy and Rory.

In my reality, the ponds end up having a miserable existence in the past, and river lies to the doctor, happy.

It's called marriage, et cetera.

I just find the ending to pat otherwise, thoughts.

[28:34]

I'm just thinking I can imagine that in Eric's voice.

That's I can just imagine that I can hear the disdain in your voice, Eric.

That's fantastic I think that I, look, I said this so many times before.

I really just wanted them to age out and I wanted the relationship to end the way that the relationship with Martha ended and I would have liked that.

I think it would have worked thematically with the idea that, you know, the 1st series is about Amy's marriage.

The 2nd series is about parenthood and growing up and the 3rd series is more about just growing up in ordinary life.

So I would have liked that better.

I can see that they do something more heartbreaking than that because it's TV drama, you know, bad things happen to people.

I am still ambiguous about the ending, but if anything, I want it to be better than what we get rather than worse.

[29:35]

So I'm still worried that they don't have access to Wi-Fi or probably indoor plumbing or God knows what.

To live through the depression.

Garlics in Manhattan.

That'd be quite fun, though.

Having a microwave oven for so many years.

Grief.

What would I do without it?

it?

Brendan, didn't you have a different sequence of episodes for series 7 A at some point?

Yeah, yeah.

I thought to myself that I would personally start series 7, A, with dinosaurs on a spaceship.

And so, you know, you still get the landing around them and Brian comes along and what have you, but the doctor can tell throughout that something's up with Amy and Rory what's going on, right?

And at the end, Lancetardis back, drops Brian out and says, you two, over here now, what's going on?

And they tell him, you know, we're going to get a separation.

He's like, absolutely not, takes off again and you have a town called Mercy.

And so he's kidnapped them.

They're Ian and Barbara for a few episodes.

Then you have Asylum of the Daleks, because I always felt the problem with Asylum of the Daleks, is you had no buildup to the separation and the tension and what have you, and it was all resolved in one episode.

[30:43]

Then, celebration, you know, let's go to New York for your 2nd honeymoon.

Angels in Manhattan.

They almost get separated the way that happens at the end and the doctor's like, well, this is terrible.

I'm taking you home, takes them home and you have the power of three.

They've been away for a year.

All these cubes have appeared, blah, blah, blah.

And at the end of that, when you have the discussion and Brian says, no, no, no, they can go with you if they want.

Amy and Rory then say, actually, doctor, like you say, Nathan, maybe...

Yeah, make it a proper mature choice because, you know, it is a mature choice and it is absolutely beautiful that Amy chooses to be with Rory.

But to make it that exclusionary, for me, cheapens the choice.

Because the choice to say, doctor, we know you can come back at any time, but please don't, is a more mature choice and it's more heartbreaking, but I suppose it's more heartbreaking from an adult perspective and the children at home, and we need to remember Doctor Who is a show that needs to be understandable by 5 to 12 year olds as well as by people who were 5 to 12 year olds when Sylvester McCoy was on.

[31:51]

For the children, they need it to be, no, this is definite.

This is final rather than just cerebral.

So I understand the way they did it that way.

But when I put those in that order, I feel more satisfied.

I think in Doctor Who, the thing is, though, the problem with what I wanted to happen with what you wanted to happen is the decision to say, actually, Doctor, don't come back.

That's terrible.

Who's going to do that?

It's the wrong decision.

It's always the wrong decision because travelling with the doctor is great.

And that's what we want to do forever.

And so they lose our sympathy a bit, don't they?

Yeah.

But it's also a problem that the series almost goes there twice and does it very well.

It doesn't, the God complex, and then it does it in the power of three, and both times it feels right.

So then to come back a 3rd time and have a space reason. that they can't travel with, the doctor feels like a bit of a cheese.

It is a space reason, but it is also a definite decision and it's a different decision than we see Amy make at the very beginning, which is Rory, not the doctor.

[32:53]

And even though that's a foregone conclusion from Amy's choice onward.

I can see why that's how we end that relationship.

And, you know, it's the saying that love and commitment is a decision you make every day.

So it is okay to have Amy reiterate that that is her choice.

And I'm a lot less angry about series 7 A now than I was 10 years ago when it was on.

And angry is perhaps too strong a word, but I sat there after the 5 episodes and I just went, but, but, but, there's ferries.

Is it not a headspin to think that asylum of the Daleks is as distant now as the horns of Nymon was from survival.

Oh my god.

Thank you for that little bit of...

I now feel really ancient.

Really ancient, qualitatively as well.

I like all that you're saying, you know?

I think in the new series.

It's very hard to have that choice to walk away from the doctor in modern television and everybody's going to travel with a doctor forever and like you, Brendan, I was not happy the 1st time through with those choices.

[34:00]

I like your order of things.

A lot, but I could totally understand why they've gone for that and there has to be a definite out.

Yeah.

It's a problem with the show, isn't it?

Once the doctor regains control of the Tartars, there's no reason why companions should ever leave at all or why they should never see him again.

And we have to make up reasons like, you know, David Tennant's doctors a bit horrible.

So he just never went back to see anyone or whatever.

The other side of that is I notice on like Doctor Who Facebook groups and whatnot, people who came to Doctor Who with the new series discovering the old series and watching things like the chase and going, hold on, why do they need to take another ship?

Why can't the doctor just take them home?

I was like, because controlling the Tatars is a new thing.

And yeah, really, the doctor really properly gains control of the time is in the 80s.

Yeah, yeah.

And so when Davison's companions leave, it's a definitive, no, no, no, this is my choice and I'm going, when Perry leaves, it's no one's choice.

When Mel leaves, it's contract roulette.

[35:02]

And the plan for Ace leaving was going to be a mutual choice between her and the doctor.

You know, each time, yeah, it has to be a choice rather than just the sort of 60s and 70s companions where it's like, well, this is the best I'm going to get.

It's the new console, isn't it?

It's the 5 doctors console.

Suddenly, the Tartis works.

Yeah, yeah.

It's funny to think like the 1st time he actually intentionally tries to go anywhere is the moon base.

Okay, that's the first, and he fails.

He's trying to go to Mars, isn't he?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I think it's time for a smoke marrying void.

So, um, here's one for you, Brendan.

Stock Mary avoid.

Isaac?

That's Ben Browder.

Okay.

John Riddell, Rupert Graves.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, Professor Alec Palmer, Doug Ray Scott.

Right.

He gets the 3 most handsome men in the entire series.

[36:04]

Why is that?

Am I going to be snogging a...

I can tell you now, darling. mutant or something?

You're going to be snogging Mr. Sweet.

I can guarantee it.

You've got Doreen.

Okay, so that was Riddell, Isaac and Dugray Scott.

Alec Palmer.

Ah, right, I am going to marry Ben Browder.

I'm going to marry Isaac.

Because Ben Brown is hilarious.

And hot.

And hot.

I'm definitely going to snog do Grace Scott, though.

He's been on the side.

He was going to be Wolverine before Hugh Jackman.

But he chose to do Mission Impossible 2 instead.

How did that work?

Because he chose to do hide.

Batgirl.

Which means I'm somewhat reluctantly avoiding Rupert Graves.

You know, it's not, it's not a kind of, I hate him.

It's just there has to be a 3rd place.

He's a bit sexist.

And yeah, he is a bit sexist and also, I don't do well in warm weather.

[37:07]

So, you know, at least, at least with Isaac in Mercy.

It's a dry heat.

Yeah.

So I should be okay.

So there you go.

I thought Rupert Gray would have made a great doctor back in the day.

Yeah, I really, really like him.

Yeah, he's really charming, isn't he?

Totally.

So on that point, Snog Mario, void Nathan.

Queen Nefatiti, Emma Greyling, or Ms. Kislet.

Oh, you've got a good selection.

Oh, I would marry Miss Kisler.

Like, she's fabulous.

That's Celia Imory and her son is in Star Trek.

Oh, so she's got a badge.

I could fan girl.

Look, like Celia Imory is in Star Wars.

Her son is a regular on Star Trek prodigy.

I would just be fangirly 24 hours a day, so I am absolutely marrying Miss Kisler.

Um, I'm going to snog uh, Emma Greyling because I think she's really, I think she's fabulous.

I think she's actually the best thing about that episode and she is, of course, tremendous in an adventure in Spain and time.

[38:10]

So, quick snog for her.

And I'll avoid Nefertiti because, you know, modern television aside, I don't know, I'm not convinced that oral hygiene was all that great 2000 years ago.

Yeah, hope a teeth don't let her down.

Speaking of which, Peter, Snog, marry and void.

Grandfather, the crooked man, or a time zombie.

It's not grandfather.

Just because it would be a new experience for me.

I would avoid the time zombies because, I mean, they are quite hot, but I would avoid them.

And who was the other one?

The crooked man.

Oh, definitely marry the crooked man because, you know, you wouldn't have to lie straight in bed.

I was going to put in Mr. Sweet, but you spoiled.

You know me too well, you know, not too well.

One of the things I found really interesting is how much of a reboot goes on in the Christmas episode.

We've got the doctor with a new costume.

We've got a brand new credit sequence and we've got a brand new console room.

[39:15]

And I think it's, you know, if you're going to do it, you're going to do it, then set things up for the following year, you've got a big audience, you can introduce all of those things.

But also looking at this season, the monsters from the past.

Like, I just went through, and I just, and like, we've got Daleks and Cybermen, and Ice Warriors, and the Great Intelligence, and we've got Osontarin in there as well.

It's just interesting to see, I think, how much is sort of leading up to the 50th.

It could go back to what we were saying earlier about whether this is one season or actually 2 very distinct seasons.

There's an aesthetic thing there.

And so that's why 7B feels quite different from 7A. Yeah, yeah.

I think the great intelligence, you know, we talked about how Russell introduces the doctor's big enemies in order, and so we get the Daleks, then the Cyberman, then the master, and then we get, what, Davros and maybe the Santar and Tereleptals.

It's like the first, second, 3rd and 4th doctors.

Yeah.

We've just had the big discovery of the web of fear.

[40:20]

And so the great intelligence who is not a very interesting villain, I think, in the 60s.

Like Moffatt makes him interesting and gives us someone to play him who's just terrific at it.

And also the yeti never really worked.

I mean, you know, the 2 stories are good, but the yeti are funny.

They're not very scary.

And so I think slightly transforming them into the snowmen works. look more malevolent.

They're spectacular, aren't they?

Because they are funny. cartoon villains.

Yeah.

I think where the great intelligence sort of falls down a bit for me because I love the abominable snowmen.

And part of what makes that work is that Panba Sambivar is an old friend of the doctor.

And something we're critical of in a story like Meglos, is you have Zaster, who's an old friend of the doctor and does it in the sort of way they do in monkey, like, oh, yes, hello, old friend kind of thing.

Whereas the scenes with the doctor and Pavma Sambova in Abominable Smamen.

[41:23]

You do get this sense of regret and what have you.

Um, Simeon isn't really a character before he gets taken over.

He's like a kid.

And so there's, there's no kind of emotional connection there for me.

Like, even in the web of fear when you discover spoiler alert, folks, for a story from 1968.

Even when you discover that Staff Sergeant Arnold is the vessel for the great intelligence.

He's been like the funny staff sergeant and, you know, a bit loveably gruff and like William Hartnall in all of his army roles.

So that has weight as well, because we're led to believe it's going to be Harold Chorley, and we all hate Harold Chorley, who's, you know, just a bit of a dick.

And so, you know, you're like, yeah, yeah, well, he's going to get his comeuppance and then you find out it's a character you actually like.

And I think it's something we discussed last week in that there's been some accusation that Richard E. Grant is phoning his performance in, but it's like, even when Richard E. Grant is phoning a performance in, He's Richard E. Grant.

And he said, incredibly entertaining.

Does he never not phone a performer?

[42:26]

That's the thing.

Like, we've talked about how Clara as a character is undeveloped.

The great intelligence as a character is undeveloped, and I'm actually going to disagree with Peter a bit here about the yeti in that I watched this season back and I'm like, they've got the great intelligence and the yeti, and they bring back the less interesting one.

But then again, with the yeti.

If you look back at something like downtime in the 90s, which for those of you who don't know was an officially licensed fan film using characters such as the Brigadier, Sarah Jane Smith, Victoria, and the Yeti, and has them wandering around a university campus.

Yeah, that doesn't work.

So changing them into snowmen is absolutely the right thing to do.

They're very off their time, I think.

They're very off their time.

But then, you know, you get the whispermen in the last episode.

It's like, what are the whispermen?

Well, they can rip off their face and turn into Richard E. Grant.

Okay, but what are they?

They can rip off their face and turn it.

So, yeah, it is nonetheless entertaining, but I was just thinking about the great intelligence last night.

[43:27]

It's like there's no emotional connection there.

Even in the bells of St.

John, in one line of dialogue at the end, Celia Emory gives us an emotional connection to that character once we realised what's happened to her and that she was taken as a little girl and can't remember anything.

And I think for me, what would have redressed that is if after, you know, Clara had jumped into the doctor's timeline and gotten rid of the great intelligence, we cut back to the snowman and we see 10-year-old Dr. Simeon, and he never hears a voice from the fountain.

Oh yeah.

You know, so Clara hasn't just saved the doctor.

Save Simeon and saved Miss Kisler.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think what sort of happens this year with Moffat is he is so busy that he's still producing perfectly entertaining television.

And it's kind of that old saying of even bad Doctor Who is something we love.

And this isn't bad Doctor Who.

It's just Doctor Who that doesn't quite finish drawing the shapes.

[44:29]

You know, it's kind of like, here you go.

Yep, that's a perfectly entertaining 45 minutes.

Oh, but what about this character?

Oh, um, died on the way back to their home planet.

You know, it's fine.

It might be the problem with series 7 B in a nutshell.

None of it's particularly bad. but some of it is quite tedious.

I think some of it is particularly bad.

I think 2 of them are.

I think 2 of them are and they're probably the same too.

I think nightmare in silver is terrible.

And I don't think it's Neil Gaiman's fault.

I think it's the director.

It's just shockingly poorly directed in a way that Gaiman had no right to expect given who directed his previous episode.

And I think that I just think Journey to the centre of the TARDIS is super boring and slightly inadvertently racist.

That's why we said on podcast.

It's a failure of imagination as well, taking something as wonderful and abstract as the TARDIS and just turning it into a machine with corridors.

Yeah, yeah.

And Hyde is terribly boring.

That's the problem.

[45:30]

It is so dull.

How can you take all of those elements and not make something interesting out of it?

See, I find nightmare and silver boring.

Like 10 minutes in, I just wanted to turn it off.

Like, I thought, start and I thought, oh, this is going well and then suddenly I just lost complete interest and I was just over it.

Well, I just think it's overlit and badly directed and just not atmospheric at all.

It relies on being about nightmares, you know, like childhood fears and is not at all scary because everything's, you know, lit to buggery and the whole thing is just kind of terrible.

I just want to say something in defence of the actors playing Ang Giannati.

I watch them and I can recognisably see them as children, you know, and auntie's whole soft-spoken thing.

I think auntie's adorable, actually.

Artie's adorable.

There were children in my family like that when my nieces and nephews were younger, you know.

And Angie feels like she's straight out of the Sarah Jane adventures and, you know, there's nothing wrong with that.

And yet, I do not like those characters anywhere near as much as, say, um, Caitlin Blackwood as young Amelia.

[46:36]

Whereas I would say the amount that Angie and RT are given to do is more than Amelia is given to do.

You know, they're tasked with delivering more emotions and more plot information, and I think they nail it.

So I don't, I think, as you say, Nathan, it comes down to the direction, because I've heard those 2 lambasted quite a bit, and I kind of watch them and I go, I don't think it's the actor's fault.

You know, I think that Cyril and Lily are better served than Angie and Archie.

Yeah, yeah.

I think they're both reasonably good.

I think Artie's probably better.

But I think they're fine.

Everybody keeps looking, you know, because you know how much he hates children as a school teacher.

As a school teacher.

And as an officiato of the new who?

I just really despise the small children in the show most of the time.

Look, I think they're adequate.

I just think they're poorly written at times and certainly in that nightmare and silver thing.

There's no reason why Artie shouldn't have been completely taken over.

Do you know what I mean?

[47:36]

We're just traumatising the children at home.

No, but I'm just saying like we've just gone with a cybermite and it's just a little problem and that's convenient for the plot and it's like really, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's because it's not 1992 written by David A. McKinty.

That's the only reason he's not hideously murdered kind of thing.

I was just thinking, though, the whole bloody thing with Nightmare and Silver is, oh, you know, if you don't take us on a trip in space, we're going to tell dad that you were in 1899.

I was like, what?

That was quite funny.

Yeah, I actually kind of like that.

And what's dad going to do about it?

Exactly, you know, and it's kind of like Kyro can just go, yeah, that's my grandma.

Look, there is a painting, a self-portrait in a gallery in Barcelona that looks like me with a Santa Claus beard.

Oh, I've seen that.

You posted it?

I've posted that.

I'll give it to Nathan to put in the show notes.

And yeah, I don't think that this going was my ancestor.

I just think that, you know, you've got a certain amount of gasica in you and sometimes it comes out in roughly the same shape.

[48:42]

Like for me, and the other thing with nightmare in silver is the doctor agrees to take children anywhere in the TARDIS?

Has he seen the show?

But I mean, the thing is, though, that the idea of Doctor Who is that idea of, you know, Victorian children's literature of being transported to a magical place.

And so taking children to visit something in the TARDIS is absolutely what it should be doing.

And the hilarious thing about the children blackmailing Clara.

I just think that's a really fun and novel way of getting them on board.

They're just a modern day John and John.

Whatever happened to John and Gillian.

They, um, they got rapid soap opera ageing thing and then he leaves them at the University of Zebedee.

Should have been a case of the space syphilis.

Speaking of things which have a mysteriously poor reputation, in all those episodes we're talking about, which didn't like this season, we didn't mention the Rings of Akatan, I'm a bit mystified by how much that episode is loathed because although it's not good, it's kind of charming, but it's not the worst episode this season.

[49:58]

Yeah, it's thought of as being one of the worst episodes of all time.

I don't even think it's the worst episode by that writer this season.

Yeah.

When we were discussing it.

I made the point that I really loathed it at the time, the whole singing thing and the child and everything like that.

And I really, and when I came back to it, I found so much more in there that was related to perhaps Clara and the ongoing plot, which we liked, but we did sort of say the resolution had its problems.

And yeah, I'm with you.

Like, I think people do need to revisit that episode.

I think it's actually a good episode.

I think it's actually quite solid.

So, you know, since we're talking about that, in terms of this whole series.

What are the episodes for you that are potentially your favourite or best and what is the worst?

It's got to be a town called Mercia.

It's got to be the best episode.

And, you know, that might be a problem.

That's what we're identifying with the whole series because it's not one of the big episodes.

It's not one of the arc episodes.

It's not an important episode for the show.

It's just a really good standalone episode.

[50:59]

Yeah, yeah, I would say that would be the best of the series for sure.

And I think probably the worst.

Like, I think Hyde is boring and doesn't go anywhere.

I think maybe nightmare in silver is the worst.

It's certainly the worst executed.

Absolutely.

It's the worst, you know, it's a reasonable script and possibly a good script that's just completely butchered by poor production.

Brendan?

Um, My my favourite, I want to give an honourable mention to the power of three.

Yeah, it's good.

Which, you know, if we were just going on scripts, that would probably be my favourite, but given that Diana Rigg is in the Crimson Horror, and Rachel Sterling, that pips it, and that becomes my favourite, Matt Smith.

And, you know, one of the most criticised...

It's my favourite Matt Smith episode.

It's really great.

And, you know, one of the most criticised moments in that is, you know, when the doctor kisses Jenny and what have you.

[52:02]

And I have to say, in the novelisation, Mark Gatis addresses that because the novelisation is narrated by Jenny.

Oh wow.

Yeah, and pretty much the moment happens and Jenny's like, well, you know, of course I like the doctor and he's my friend and whatnot, but I needed to make it very clear to him that he can't just go kissing people, especially not married women.

So I hit him.

And even watching that scene.

It's like, it happens, and he immediately gets struck across the face and says, sorry, I was a bit excited.

So that's my favourite from this season, The Crimson Horror.

The bottom for me is Journey to the Centre of the Tartars.

And again, it's between that and Nightmare and Silver, but Nightmare and Silver has some genuinely funny moments.

It also has some funny moments you're not meant to be laughing at.

Mr. Clever.

But the thing is, Jenna is really hilarious in some bits.

Like, the script basically asks her to become a general and I get the feeling that Jenna...

Yeah.

I get the feeling that Jenna Coleman kind of also went, what?

[53:03]

Why am I?

Okay.

And so like she'll give an order and it'll be followed and she'll just have this look of surprise on her face like, oh, okay, all right.

Cannons here.

And we're going to stand here by Mr. Winky's world of pleasure.

And da, da, da, da, da.

So, yeah, it's journey to the centre of the Tartars because it doesn't have any of those moments for me.

It has the wonderful scene with Dr. and Clary in the exploded engine room, which is more of the abstract stuff I wanted to see in this episode.

Yeah, I wanted brick walls.

I wanted the invasion of time.

I'm not joking Yeah, absolutely No, no, no.

And, you know, then wander from brick walls into a park and then wander from a park into an underground station, you know. boot cupboard.

Yeah.

I think, you know, if you'd asked me this question 2 or 3 years ago, Asylum of the Daleks. probably would have been on the worst list, but I've really softened on that, because one of my big problems with it was what I felt was the unbelievability of Amy and Rory split, and I expressed that online at Twitter at one and some fans who are women got in touch via that and kind of respectfully explain, well, actually, this is what infertility feels like, and this is what makes you feel like.

[54:15]

And this woman wasn't having a go at me by any means, but she's just like, you know, you may not understand this perspective.

And so I have a new respect for that episode that I didn't have before.

It's interesting, interesting because like that's one of the episodes.

I had a problem with originally, but I actually really quite...

I think it's good.

I think it's a really solid episode.

I think it's one of the strongest.

It's the strongest.

A town called Mercy, I think, is up there for me and the Crimson Horror, but my favourite is the snowman.

But those...

Oh, I forgot the snowman, but those 3 are my standouts of the season, definitely the Stoneman is one of my most favourite things ever.

Crimson horror, I just think, is stunning except for Jenna Coleman's hair, which is just utterly awful, utterly, utterly awful in that episode.

And the nightmare in silver is just woeful, but I have problems with journey to the centre of the TARDIS, and I also have problems with Cold War in terms of I just get bored by it.

We've been talking about, obviously, those episodes, but also guest cast, of which you've, of course, mentioned Diana Rigg, who was fantastic.

[55:18]

What other guest stars this season for you, you know, stand out?

Stephen Burkoff, but I'm not sure that's exactly.

Wait, wait.

A compliment.

Wait, I've got a listener question.

Nathan Botomley says, who is the worst guest star in the history of the show?

Sorry, in the history of the new series and why is it Stephen Burkock?

He's the he's actual real-life villain, Stephen.

Jack Drew.

It's such a shame.

I mean, Chibl can't really pull off endings.

So I imagine that what we were going to get was only going to be marginally better than what we did get, but what we did get was very bad.

I just find it so astonishing that, you know, they couldn't have popped down the old Vic and said, you know, who's appearing this week?

Patrick Stewart, do you want to come do 2 days on this?

I'm just astonished that they didn't just replace him, but they must have just been so up against it.

[56:23]

And yet they would have had to have made at a time where Matt, Karen, Arthur, and Mark Williams were all available and what have you.

But my God, for it to go that wrong and for them not to be able to write them out is just extraordinary.

But even so, I didn't know anything was wrong until like 3 years later when I read about it and it didn't feel like there was anything wrong.

Like, it felt kind of weird that he just disappeared.

But, you know, I'm used to Star Trek having ancient ships with holograms.

I didn't feel like there was anything wrong per se.

I just thought it was poorly executed at the end and just rushed like that's what I thought.

Like I didn't think there was a big saga behind it.

I just think giving everyone a heart attack was like a massively bad idea.

And it's like for half an hour and then they stopped the signal and everyone's fine.

That's right.

I think this season suffers a little bit in that it doesn't have a lot of great performances. has a lot of good performances, but nothing that really stands out.

So I would have to go for the only one that did for me, which Sager and Scarborough.

Car checks.

[57:24]

He's my favourite as well.

I mean, diner rig is superb, but yeah, Adrian Scarborough is amazingly good in that episode.

And on the other end, the spectrum, Tams and Althwheat in Nightmare and Silver.

So casting gone wrong.

Yeah, yeah, it's another Michelle Collins.

Who is she?

Let's not go nuts.

Who is?

She's the blonde leader of the platoon.

Oh, you think she's that bad?

Okay.

Well, she's not helped by the script, obviously.

But there's so many.

I just think, like, you've got Ben Browder, who I think is fantastic.

We have a Graves, Doug Ray Scott.

Mark Williams, as Brian, is just phenomenal.

Richard E. Grant, whatever you may think you've got Liam Cunningham as Captain Zukov or whatever it is in that episode, David Warner, Tobias Menzies, Diner Rig, obviously, and Rachel Sterling, Miss Kislet.

I think you've got a lot of actually, and let's not forget David Bradley as Solomon, right?

[58:25]

I think you've actually got quite a lot of big names throughout.

Actually, the casting is good.

Maybe it's just the characters.

I mean, Cold War really is trying to kind of lift a boring script by overcasting all of the roles.

And I remember I did say at the time, like coming back into it.

I felt like David Warner was underused, but watching the episode is like, no, actually, like he's given some really good, sweet character moments and having seen David Warner interviewed, he has commented, you know, of course I love playing villains because I love working, but he's like things that say, hey, come in and don't be a villain.

Just be, you know, just be an ordinary person.

He's like, actually I quite like those.

One person I want to give a shout out to because I feel he elevates a pretty poor script is Warwick Davies as the emperor in Nightmare in Silver.

And I just love how he's always trying to give away the emperorship to someone.

Like his last time in the episode.

Do you want to be emperor?

No, sir.

No, he's good.

And who's the other guy in that that's the...

Jason Watkins?

Jason Watkins?

He's also very good, but unfortunately, that whole script is just...

[59:26]

Well, he's wasted by that.

I genuinely don't think it's a script though.

I think that the script could have been good if we'd got Richard Clark back or someone competent.

And to do it.

I just don't like the Mr. Clever thing and having to do all of that.

It just doesn't work for me.

But yeah, again, I think had he been directed rather than them just saying, oh, he's the lead, let him do whatever he wants.

Yeah, yeah.

I think, you know, that would have improved that.

I have to have problems with any science fiction thing where there's in someone's person's head and they have to do multiple things.

I just really dislike it anything that I watch.

Wouldn't you love to see the offspring of Mr. Sweet and Mr. Clever. think I've seen something like that. maple fool.

Peter, I have to give you another dog, Mary.

I feel very, very poor about the first one.

Josh O'Connor, James Norton, or Charlie Anson.

[1:00:28]

Do you know who these characters are?

Please tell me.

There are 3 of the sailors on the ship in the submarine whose names I cannot pronounce.

I've got them written here, but I just can't pronounce them, but they all.

I think I know which 3 they are.

You don't have to answer.

No, no, no, no.

I would snog and marry Josh Charles.

Is Josh Charles?

Josh O'Connor.

Josh O'Connor, who plays...

Charles.

Charles Charles in one of my favourite films, Dead Pelts.

Yeah, Josh O'Connor, who plays Prince Charles and is in Cold War.

I would snog and marry him.

And so therefore, because I'm that kind of guy, I would have to avoid the others.

Yes.

I've got their Russian names here, but I just can't pronounce them.

Sorry, listeners, it's just not going to happen.

Let's just talk about a few people that are very important in this season. and your thoughts on them.

Karen Gillan.

Oh terrific.

Just tremendous. as good as ever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Her hair's fantastic and I have a complete new appreciation of her talent.

Yeah, I think they give her more things to do, like the breakup and like the final departure and stuff.

[1:01:32]

I think she's extremely good.

After Darvel?

as reliable as ever and get some really good moments of quiet emotion.

And I also really like in a town called Mercy, their conflict when, you know, the doctor goes out to face the guns.

Amy wants to go with him and Rory's like, absolutely not.

Well, they're on different sides of the debate about what to do about Carla James as well.

Yeah, yeah.

And I like that the argument between them isn't resolved, but it also doesn't become a massive wedge. you know neither of them do something stupid because of it.

No, I think it's just a way that the writer can explore the idea that they're 2 valid possible approaches.

Yeah, and also it does give rise to my favourite Dr. Rory scene from dinosaurs on a spaceship with the kiss and then the slap income.

Oh yeah, and all the scenes between Arthur and Mark Williams.

Yeah, even like, dad, you don't have to sit there watching the cube.

The doctor has told me to watch this queue.

That's what I'm going to do.

Brian's log.

You're not calling it Brian's log.

[1:02:33]

I always say it.

I think Arthur is an unsung hero on the show and I will miss him terribly.

Alex Kingston.

Oh, I just think she's always great.

And I think that she's absolutely superb at the end of series 7 A with the Angels take Manhattan.

I also think that she lifts what is a, you know, scrape that basically consists of Moffatt vamping for 45.

So let's get her in.

She's got a big head and she's really funny.

I just weep when the doctor says I can always, I can always hear you.

Yeah, that's, I just, in floods.

And, you know, Matt's doing the line, of course, but it's Alex's face.

And I've been listening to the diary of a river song recently and she is just so she loves the character so much and it comes through the performance.

Yeah, she's as reliable as ever.

I think the character is pretty well done by the end of this season, but then I'm proved wrong.

[1:03:38]

Yeah, she comes back for a superb code, doesn't she?

Yeah.

Niamh Macintosh.

I like her a lot, in fact, as Madame Vastra, and there's, I don't know.

I don't know quite what it is because she's completely different, obviously, from what she plays as a layer in the in the Sillyrian 2 parter.

Is she different from Restak?

Yeah, thankfully for the same reason.

Yeah, I think she's wonderful.

Really, really great.

There's a kind of dignity.

And sort of she's intimidatingly serious and proper. she's very good.

I love that she has the Scottish accent.

Like we have a music with a Scottish accent because why not?

But I also love because something that happens a lot with when people are writing aliens is, the 1st thing they do is remove humour, like aliens don't get humour, whereas Madame Vastra is seriously funny and saki and charming.

[1:04:39]

She's not an alien.

She's of this planet.

That's true. that's true.

I'm using alien in the sense of different.

Madame Vestra?

Bit tiresome.

I really like her, but I actually, I like she liked Jenny Moore.

Is it Catherine Stewart?

Catherine Stewart.

Catherine Stewart, I think she's great all the time.

I think she's the unsung hero, all the overlooked part of that trailer.

I mean, Dan Starkey, I think is just hilarious.

Silence, girl.

I think Dan Starkey is so funny. and and the Santarans, we with him are used much better than Russell T. And it's sort of like what, perhaps, if I go to Star Trek, what the Ferengi were to DS9 as they were to TNG.

Oh, yeah.

And I never thought they would be able to do anything better with the Santarins after Dan.

I thought this is the way the Santarians are going.

I think he's great, but back to Catherine, you guys, Nathan.

[1:05:42]

Yeah, I think she is really good, and I do think that I really like the Pardon Oster gang, and I think that they are generally used.

Well, it's my usual thing where if the doctor has no friends, I feel a bit sad about that, you know, in this era, given that we're not creating a world full of Harriet Jones and Jackie and Sylvia and Fran, Sarah, things, Neres, Annalise, Clive, all of those people that the doctor knows, given that we're not going to do that, giving them those friends and it's absolutely moffity, that they should be to Doctor Who monsters and a person all doing sort of jokes and stuff.

I think that's perfect.

So I'm on board with all of them.

I just wish they had more episodes, Brendan.

Yeah.

I think that Jenny, she's the glue that makes that trio work.

Like if it was a Solurian, a Sontara, and a Zygon, or walk into a bar.

Exactly.

It sounds like a joke.

[1:06:42]

But, you know, much like the doctor and companion relationship and it works better when the companion is a recognisable human.

I think having Jenny there is what grounds those 2 and makes it believable that Vastra can be running around in a veil and Strax is, you know, just has a funny shaped head, but at least he's in a suit and she's the respectable face of the organisation.

Are they the Dr. Bill and Nardo?

Is that what's happening there?

Yeah, yeah.

Like not all Strax.

And yeah, and Jenny's Bill.

Yeah, yeah.

She's a lesbian?

Yeah that's right.

All right, our series 7, Jenny Laird Award nominations.

Oh, went through to me.

Because you're going to just be awful about it.

Jenny?

bit tiresome.

Nathan has his lawyers on standby. use that once more.

And strikes?

Ah, strikes is quite fun.

Yeah.

Can't hate strikes.

Strax is great.

[1:07:43]

Just to shout out in terms of Strakes, one of Dan Starkey's best performances out of makeup is in good omens.

Oh.

Where, um, so you've got Crowley, played by David Tennant, and you've got Michael Sheen playing Azira Fail, and...

That's TV's house.

TV's house. that's right Not Hugh Laurie.

No.

But at one point, they have a falling out, you know, one's an angel, one's a devil.

So Zyrafel, the Angel is walking away and David Tennant is shouting, Angel, come with me.

Angel, Angel, and then drives off and Dan Starkey walks past Zara Fail and says, oh, he's not worth it, love.

And I was laughing so hard at the line.

And then went, oh my god, it stands talking.

I was like, gay.

Alright.

Series 7 Jenny Laird award nominations.

I think it has to be whoever the hell directed Nightmare and Silver.

[1:08:45]

It's a one off.

He doesn't direct again.

It is like an extraordinary production failure for the new series, which even terrible episodes tend to be kind of competently done, but I think this is really, really properly bad.

And it was a mistake to do that to Neil Gaiman, because Neil Gaiman wrote one of the most highly regarded scripts for series 6 and it was produced beautifully.

And this is, you know, an extraordinary writer who is just given someone kind of terrible to turn his script into reality.

And I still think that there was a salvageable episode that the script isn't the problem.

I thought you were going to go down the road of another guest star.

Oh, who?

Stephen Burkoff.

Or your other favourite, Gemma Redgrave, is Kate Stewart, who you reckon phones it in all the time. find it in.

I will go specifically, and I have nothing against David Warner at all for the character of Professor Kreshenko who annoys the hell out of me.

[1:09:54]

He is a character tick in search of a character.

So giving him that thing of loving 80s pop music.

I mean, fine, that's hook, but that is the entire character and it annoys me.

But 80s pop music and he chooses Ultravox, who, I have to say, I've never even heard of.

He's on a submarine.

Why wasn't he singing The Tide is High?

For me, it's Stephen Thompson, writer of Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, and also writer of Curse of the Black Spot.

Yeah.

But also writer of Time Heist.

That's true.

You know, 3rd time lucky.

Absolutely, I love Time Heist.

Th time's the charm, yes.

Yes.

You're given a gift of remaking, basically remaking, as you say, Peter, the last 2 episodes of the invasion of time, but with a modern budget.

And that's what you write.

And I've, you know, I've read up the development of the script.

It's not a matter of the budget was massively cut or anything like that.

There were budget cuts as there always are, but yeah, it's just space corridors and a library that's actually a library, you know, and it's the eye of harmony.

[1:11:03]

It's like, well, why does it look like a star instead of a black hole.

It's just basic stuff like that.

And because I love the edge of destruction and the invasion of time, it's like, I should not be disappointed by the 50th anniversary update of those concepts, in my opinion.

So yeah, it's Stephen Thompson.

And look, I'm glad he gets it right next year.

Todd?

Well, for me, it has to be, whoever did Clara's hair.

It's in horror.

I just hate it so much and they obviously come back and do a shield of hair in her episode with that cat lion creature as well.

That bun on the top of the... woman who lived?

Yeah.

Yeah, I just yeah, I just hate her hair in that.

And also I will also give it to the nightmare in silver, which I just think is woeful on many levels, more than just direction, I'm sorry to say.

All right.

Well, from bad to best.

What is the Bonnie Langford Award?

Michael Pickwode for that wonderful new console room.

[1:12:05]

It looks beautiful.

I enjoy everything that's set inside it.

And it sort of, it harks back to the original beautiful TARDIS while not copying it.

I think he just does a sterling job. isn't it fantastic?

Right from the get go, the whole lighting and everything.

It just, it's just a rush, you know, I just love it.

I think that is the best Tardis console room.

I go with the original, but yeah, it's pretty close.

Yeah.

I like all the editions that they put in with the capaldi.

Like all the sort of bookshelves and all that.

I think that's just enhances it even more.

But that whole basic thing is great.

Brendan?

I do want to give a shout out to Jenna Coleman because I just love watching her on screen, but I don't usually think it's quite right to pick a specific regular.

So I'm going to say Mark Williams.

Yeah.

Because, you know, he has been a dramatic actor before this for many years, but of course, I'm most familiar with him as Peterson from Red Dwarf, for God's sake.

And then he comes into this and he's he's funny and he's silly and he's charming and he's dramatic and emotive and he's all the things and it's such a shame that the epilogue that Chris Chibnell wrote PS, which is a very good script, never got filmed.

[1:13:23]

And I think this is a shame too, that he wasn't introduced earlier because he's that good.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Where was he at the wedding?

Yeah, Spanish fluey.

Snorged Bernard Cribbons.

Nathan?

I am going to give it to Mark Gaitis because I think that Gaitis has got a very definite wheelhouse and he usually does an okay job, but I think that the Unquiet Dead is a spectacularly good script from him in series one.

And since then, he hasn't done anything that equals it until Crimson Horror, which is absolutely the sort of thing that he should be writing.

And I just think it's really terrifically fun.

So he's getting it for that.

And if you want to extend that a little bit beyond this season, an adventure in space and time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He has a really good year.

Yes, he does have a really good year.

He does introduce like reintroduce the Ice Warriors and changes their concept.

[1:14:27]

We haven't really talked about that. like I don't really like it.

Well, I think that there's a sort of stupid problem with the Ice Warriors, because the costumes in the 60s are so terrible.

You can't tell where the lizard begins and the armour ends.

That's just my everyday problem.

Yeah, well, that's right.

And like normal people aren't worried by that.

But Mark Gators has to bring it back and make it absolutely clear which is which and why and now they're cyborgs and like I just couldn't possibly care less.

And they have those little tiny claws, like, you know, do anything.

They look like the dalek claw that comes out from under the cloak in the Daleks.

Yeah, and when the series ignores all that and just makes the mice Warriors and the Empress of Mars, looks pretty good.

It's better. better.

My Bunny Langford goes jointly to Amy's hair.

I'm on a hair thing.

And Alice the Maid from the snowman. because she's just a wonderful character. just gets to scream and scream and scream and I think it's brilliant.

[1:15:28]

I'm the lizard woman of paternostero and this is my wife.

She has guests to scream and scream and scream and she gets the Bonnie Langford award.

As always, we end with, you know, where are you at with the next little thing, which is the specials and the end of the Matt Smith era.

One of our listeners sent this in.

Richard Stonewall.

Is it possible that almost everyone was too busy to remember that this was the 50th anniversary, and that is why everyone forgot to cast Katie Manning?

She was probably busy.

Um, I do think it was one of the periods where Katie Manning was living in Australia, possibly, but yes, it's a definite oversight that we don't have any returning companions this year.

Now, of course, we have lost Liz already, but that's the perfect time to bring in Katie Manning or Sarah Sutton or Bonnie Langford.

[1:16:33]

Jackie Lane.

Jackie Lane.

Lane.

Why not?

Would have been a different spin on Tasha Lem.

I mean, Jackie Lane would have been great instead of that Irish Romulan woman that got in.

I mean, Jackie Lane does give the best performance of the Doctor Who live event. that's true She's like, I'm in France and I'm too good to come back and talk to you about this.

I'm gonna puff on a cigarette now.

And in fact, Dodo was the original impossible girl with that ever changing accent.

See, I got an archoke in.

Well, I'm just imagining now Jenna Cole, but sitting in a country house and like from the back you've got Dodo and Jenna leaning over and saying, you know, it's really nice here.

You should stay.

Why couldn't we bring back the visions or whatever they're called?

Maybe he did.

There's actually, yeah, there's a Visian in every episode. played by Jenna Coleman.

The end of the Matt Smith era and the specials, I have a lot of warmth for what's coming up and I think it's actually executed very well.

[1:17:37]

I just wish there was more Matt Smith.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There almost was.

Like, he was in discussions to stay on for another year.

The BBC even made an announcement where they all but confirmed he was staying on for another year, but it was worded as Matt Smith is very much looking forward to series 8.

Not Matt Smith is looking forward to working on Sarah.

He wants to watch it.

He sits at home and watches it on Saturday night.

And, you know, I think there are some things in the following series that were written for Matt Smith that take on a very different tone when you have an older actor playing the role, such as the caretaker, where the love triangle aspect would have been played for comedy with Matt Smith.

Whereas it's just freaking nasty with Cabaldi.

I guess the one thing I should have said, and I haven't done in this, is Matt Smith.

Your thoughts on Matt Smith this year?

I think that we've said this over the last few weeks, which is that Matt is a little bit unmoored without Arthur and Karen and that the writers are occasionally getting Matt Smith to do Matt Smith things instead of just getting him to do things in a Matt Smith way.

[1:18:45]

And I think the absolute culmination of all of that is those fairly difficult to watch scenes in nightmare in silver.

It's a very good sum of that.

And I actually think they rectify that in the next 2 stories where he's actually given much better material and is so much better and is not spinning on his wheels.

No, but Thisis Moffatt giving it his full attention.

And so he's absolutely doing the best he can for the 50th anniversary and to send Matt off.

Absolutely.

And it's Matt, you know, Matt, no matter what they ask him to do, never lets you down.

And I think is one of the few doctors that you're really bereft to see go.

I mean, you're excited about the future.

You're always excited about a new doctor, but I really did want another season with him.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's kind of like as great as David Tennant was.

When he goes, it's like, you know, this is actually a good time for you to go because you've had such a breadth of material and whatnot.

And Matt Smith, I think, has the same breadth of material, but I still want to see more from him.

[1:19:46]

This season for him feels like Tom Baker in season 16 and 17 in that, yes, he is off the rails, but I think a lot of people sort of say with Tom in the Graham Williams era in that, he's off the rails and he doesn't care about the show anymore.

It's like he's off the rails, but he absolutely cares about the show.

And when you look at Matt Smith here, you get, yeah, he is like throwing himself around in Nightmare and Silver and whatnot.

And then the following week in name of the doctor, he cries at its proper ugly crying and speaking in a hoarse whisper and what have you.

But then, you know, you've got the ring tobacca 10 as well, where he's making the big shouty speech.

But then when he gives Clara back her ring, it's just this really quiet figure, they wanted to say thank you and he's absolutely thinking about the performance and sometimes it is perhaps too big.

But he is still always capable of bringing it down to that low level that I think is what in the audition. surprised Stephen Moffat and made him suddenly go, oh, bloody hell, I want to cast someone in their 40s and I'm now casting the youngest doctor of all time.

[1:20:52]

It's because he has that quality to suddenly feel the weight of a 1000 years.

And he's still bringing that in some of the best times he brings that here.

Yeah, and even in amidst all the problems.

He still, as I think we said on the episode, delivers probably his best performance in a town called Mercy.

Well, dear listener, that's all we have time for for now.

We'll be back at the end of November for a massive week of 50th anniversary celebrations, starting all the way back in 1963 with an adventure in space and time.

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.

[1:22:08]

Until next time, remember to give yourself some proper thinking time when deciding whether to snog, marry, or avoid.

Thank you very much for listening and good night.

Good night.

See you soon.

Good night.

That was Flight through Entirety.

Todd Bilby, Nathan Bottleley, Peter Griffiths, and Brendan Jones.

Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.

This episode, everyone's so damn special, was recorded on the 17th of July 2022 and released on the 30th of October.

That's the end of our Series 7 coverage, and so I'd like to thank everyone who joined us on the sofa of reasonable comfort this year.

Fiona Tolney, Stephen B, Adam Richard, Kevin Bernard, Jack Shanahan, Mark McManus, Syhart, Pete Lambert, Corey McMahon, and Matthew Hansel.

We'll see you next month.

I think that's where, um, in the second half of the season, because he's got his hand in so many different things.

He doesn't have time to reflect on that stuff.

[1:23:10]

Yeah.

And he can deliver something that's very good, but he doesn't have time to do that reform and to actually go, no, I need to do that.

I think...

There was a bit of that last year as well, wasn't there?

Like, you know, those sort of undercooked episodes around the finale and the mid-season finale.

But isn't isn't this where?

Sherlock's really taking off like these years?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I think it really is putting a lot of effort into the 50th.

And there's all problems around the 50th, isn't there?

No one's contractor.

Jenna Coleman is the only actor contracted.

When they when they finish shooting name of the doctor.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matt's not there.

Yeah, we've tried to get Eggleston, but no one ever talks about the fact that Matt put off other work and delayed his move to Hollywood as a favour to Stephen.

Right.

He wasn't contracted.

He just did it because Stephen asked.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And and didn't he also, like, in that, um, maybe not in the, in the last scene of name of the doctor, but hadn't he hurt his back and there was meant to be a bit, there was apparently meant to be a bit more of an action scene there.

[1:24:13]

But it's kind of like, yeah, you know, the doctor's stumbling around because he's in his own psych.

Like, no, the doctor's stumbling around because Matt Smith can't stand up.

Isn't that the same thing that happened to Peter Capaldi?

You know, they had the same name.

They all injure it.

Because Tenon?

heard his back, remember?

Like, that's the whole thing.

It's just...

With Capone...

Yeah, with Capaldi as well, he also runs like 2 marathons a year.

So it was a little bit doctor.

I runs like a penguin.

I would love to see Cavaldi run.

Could have got a whole commentary.

It was Armano Yanucci who said that you can't put anything funnier on television than Peter Capaldi running.

So Malcolm Tucker's running out by the bins at the back in the final episode in the thick of it.

It's so good.

Reading up on some of the script developments, and I can't specifically remember, but there are some lines, I think, in the bells of St.

John, which, you know, are kind of sexista, ha, ha, women jokes, and the complete history just notes.

Stephen Moffatt decided to remove this line.

[1:25:15]

So it's very clear that when he's writing these, it's just kind, not exactly stream of consciousness, but he's deciding, I'll cut stuff out later.

And I think sometimes he just hasn't caught stuff, but really should be caught.

When you crack jokes sometimes, you go for the lowest common denominator, and if you have your time, you think, oh, no, actually, because, you know, it's the nature of humour.

But also, you know, in Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, where Bram cuts away a bit of the console, I like to think that that's the bit that Jody's hanging onto, which comes apart and chucks her out the door and twice upon a time.

Oh, that's the other Ginny leader ward, making that one of those the brother, the brothers think that he's an android?

Oh, God, so appalling. dumb.

Like, you know, it's, it's clearly Steve, Steve Thompson has gone, you know, the twist is always this person we thought was human was an Android.

What if we do it the other way round and no one says, this is why you don't.

What does he eat?

Nuts.

Dumb, isn't it?

[1:26:15]

Plug himself in?

You know, it might work if he was the only one.

You know, and he's like the brother of Theseus.

They've just been replaced.

But, you know, no, I'm still thinking human who thinks he's an Android.

No, Android who thinks he's a human.

What the fuck?

dumb shit.

Dumb.

All right.

I'm going to press stop because we were swearing now.