Hello, dear listener and welcome back to Fly Through Entirety, the
only Doctor Who podcast.
Slightly more entertaining than spending 4 minutes knitting.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Brendan.
I'm James.
I'm Conrad.
Well, it's Paul McGann's 54th birthday and on BBC iPlayer, the
final episode of his era has just dropped.
So, who lives?
Who dies, and who is unexpectedly canonised?
Let's answer these questions as we discuss the day of the doctor
prequel, The Knights of the Doctor.
I'm struggling to remember where I was and what was happening when
I first watched this, and the big thing that I can't remember is
was I surprised by the Paul McGann reveal?
I got a text from somebody who was walking down the road and I
just got a text saying, have you seen the Dr. 2 thing?
And I was like, uh, no.
And he's like, go home now and watch it.
And when I saw it, and Paul was on there.
That was a shock.
Like a total shock.
So yeah, no even whispers of it here, I don't think.
What about you?
Do you remember?
James?
I think someone had ruined it for me.
Like, had literally gone, oh, so that Paul McGann mini said, I'm
like, what?
It was supposed to be released the day before. the anniversary and
they brought it forward by more than a week.
Uh, I believe, because it was about to be leaked.
Right.
And there was another minisode, like another prequel episode
called The Last... which I did watch today and it's super
forgettable.
We're getting to a podcast on that.
No, no, there's nothing there.
We'd have been over by now, I think.
So it's not very good.
But I think this is actually pretty amazing for like a weird pre
publicity throwaway thing that's just going to end up as a DVD
extra eventually.
I kind of like to think of it as the pre-credit scene for Dave the
Doctor.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Nice.
The funny thing is, I don't remember watching it at home, and I
think where I actually watched it was, um, I was out visiting my
parents, and my brother must have just come up from Melbourne
because we were in my parents' car coming back from the airport
and I think I saw a notification for it on Twitter.
And it was, and someone had retweeted it just saying, watch this
before you read the rest of Twitter. basically.
And so I'm like, okay, I'll just watch it in the car.
I've got my headphones.
And I watched it and got to the moment of probably not the one
you're expecting. rewound it, leaned over to my brother, gave him
a headphone and said, you have to watch this with me.
He was driving.
And we watched it.
And sort of we got to the end of it.
And he went, he went, Oh, that was John Hurt at the end.
And I'm like, and I'm like, yes, that was your takeaway.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, then he goes, who was the guy at the beginning?
Wow.
And I had a like Paul McGann.
From the Doctor Who movie.
Oh, he's looking good.
I didn't have a moustache.
No, not Peter Cushing. reanimated corpse of Peter Gushing.
Patient to look like Paul McGann.
Yes, that's right Eating in the novelisation of Day of the Doctor
Moffatt makes it clear that it is actually Peter Cushing in Rogue
One, who is a friend of the doctors, and the doctor told Peter
Cushing about his adventures, and they made a film of them.
And then he picked up Peter Cushing and transported him into the
future to star in a Star Wars film again. which I just think one
of my absolutely delight.
Oh, I think the true comedy.
No, no, seriously.
I haven't read it.
It's really good.
Isn't it written like out of order?
What he does?
It's Moffat, everything's out.
I mean, we might talk about this on tomorrow's episode, maybe.
But what he does is he narrates that scene in the tower with the 3
doctors in one room without resorting to any names for the doctors
like he doesn't do the the doctor 2 thing that Terence Deeks does
in the in the 3 doctors novelisation.
And he also tells that in chronological order in the order as they
happen to the doctor.
So 1st from Tenet's point of view, then from Smith, if you, then
from Hertz point of view, it's very, very cleverly done.
There's not that much scope for that sort of thing in this
episode.
But there's some fun Moffatt sitcom stuff, I think, some funny
lines.
Yeah, like how are we going to the back of the ship because the
front crashes first. think it through.
Like, yeah, we watched it tonight back to back with Dave the
Doctor before coming down for recording and that got a big laugh
from Rod.
I'm not sure about McGann's delivery of the Bring Me Some Knitting
line, but it is absolutely moffity, isn't it?
And it is the sort of thing that we had before.
I think the doctor says something about boiling an egg when he's
given 12 minutes to live in the Big Bang, doesn't he?
Something like that.
So it's the sort of thing that he's done before.
And I think there's a Douglas Adams line somewhere in one of the
hitchhiker's books where someone has like 10 minutes to live and
they're saying, oh, I can do loads of stuff.
And the one that just sticks in my head is run half a bath.
Yeah, yeah.
On the shooting script, they just call this Doctor Who, 50th
anniversary prequel.
But I think what's really going on here is this is a Brain of
Morpheus sequel, and that's what I'm absolutely here for.
That's one of the most, that's what that's equally to me as
exciting as all the new stuff.
It's like, 0 my god.
We're going back to calm.
Is there some like cultural critique in there as well?
Because, doesn't the doctor say something along the lines of, oh
this is the planet Khan.
You're the sisterhood of Khan, sisterhood of out of boredom or
something?
Yeah, the flame of other boredom.
Like the keepers of the flame of utter boredom.
Yeah.
So Tom does say something fairly similar about how their
immortality has caused them to stagnate and it's the sort of
source of all of their problems.
But I think, because this week, I mean, this episode and day of
the doctor, are all about bringing Gallifre back and healing the
big 16 year rift that we had in the show's history.
And so Gallifrey comes back, but before it comes back, we get Khan
again.
Yes, and who would have guessed?
It just wasn't on the list of things that we thought we would ever
see again.
It's kind of a pity, really, that the children in need special
from 2005, a.k.a.
Pudsy Cutaway, doesn't have the fan title officially, which was
born again, because Russell T. Davies suggested, oh, that could be
because this could be Khan again.
Yeah, kind of good.
Nice.
I came up with I was thinking a similar of what, like what I might
have called that.
And I came up with the man with 2 brains of Morbius or... or
sister act 2 wishful drinking to steal Carrie Fisher's beautiful
title for her autobiography.
I mean, they are great.
They're really, really superb.
He does bring them back once more, but goodness me, they're good.
Yeah, and I just, I find it interesting that Moffat would not be
the last Doctor Who showrunner to go back to the well of the brain
of Morbius to go, I want to reveal a heretofore unseen moment in
Doctor Who's history with a hidden incarnation here or there.
And it's kind of interesting that neither of those revelations are
specifically about Gallifrey.
They're about a place that's Gallifrey adjacent.
Yeah.
It's Gallifrey, but magic.
Yes, it is. but magic and Gallifray, but women as well.
Yeah.
I think it's exactly the right choice.
I think one of the thing about this that strikes me about this
episode is that the, I think the choices he's made.
The basic choices are really strong.
Like, you get the sense them often knows.
This is important stuff.
And this is where in a normal episode, he would pull something new
out.
He'll just make, you know, he'll go a 1000000000 years in the
future.
There's some thing and you just pull some sort of jokey thing out
of his bag.
But he knows that this is the sort of what's at stake here.
And I think the cisterhood of Khan is exactly the right choice.
And this was a perfect excuse to go back and rewatch Brain and
Morbius, which I did the other day.
And it really struck me how much of that is exactly right.
You know, and I'd sort of forgotten, like, um, you know, the
doctor sort of blithely says that Khan is like sort of virtually
neighbouring Gallifrey. you know, it's from my neck of the woods
pretty much, he says, you know, within a couple of 1000000000
years.
And the key thing, that the sisters say that the elixir, which I'd
forgotten, that the elixir of life is, is they shared it with the
Time Lords on rare occasions when there was some sort of
difficulty with regenerating a body.
I'm like, well, that's what this is.
You know, that's I think it's the right choice, I think.
And because it's the 50th anniversary going back into the
mythology, which is something that I normally hate is absolutely
the right thing to do.
And because it's done so well, the woman they have, her name's
Ohela, is she?
Yeah, she's a heila rather than a heka.
Ohika was the one who was left alive.
She probably is her, but she just forgot to spell it.
Oh, maybe she's got one of those signatures where it's in a very
hard...
I don't know.
She's been signing autographs for so long now.
It's just loose.
I can't remember her name.
Yeah, they just, look, they just never get it right at Starbucks
so she's just like, fine, I'm a healer now.
But I think she's tremendously good.
She is terrific.
And she absolutely deserves the comeback that she gets at the
beginning of series nine.
She's really, really properly good.
And at the end of series, no?
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
So this is Claire Higgins, who's like 6 time Olivier award winner
and she's sort of, you know, for stuff like Phaedra and Hecuba. she
can dash off grit, and I've seen, I've seen her in the theatre
doing this stuff, and it's just, it's all that Greek, you know
you'll know all this, Nathan, is a classicist, you know, it's like
it's, it's a whole different world, and they just have to manifest
just like massively elemental, you know, Titan forms of acting.
And so this for her is just like dusting off brush, cutting off a
little slice, a little shaving of that kind of talent for us.
But of course, what it does, it gives this enormous weight because
you, you know, she brings all of that to it.
So she's just amazing and it's crucially somebody who Paul would
very like would really relish playing against and clearly does.
So she's amazing.
She really, she really is.
And she does get hefty dialogue.
You know, there's a lot of exposition, but it's really elevated in
its tone and the stakes are so high.
I mean, it's an episode where she has to convince the doctor to
abandon his principles in order to fight a war that is destroying
the whole universe.
That line.
Her line about Cass, you know, the doctor says, Cass wanted to see
the universe and she says, she didn't miss much.
It's very nearly over.
It's so good and she delivers it so well.
Exactly that.
It's like, this is like, oh, that, you know, she's like, it's
already gone.
You missed it, love.
It's like blink and eye stuff, you know.
And, you know, you know, it's kind of an example of what, at the
time, a lot of fans accused Moffat of overcasting, and, you know
if you think of Olivia Coleman in the 11th hour or in at Crosby in
the 11th hour.
And interviews at the time, Stephen Moffatt sort of has an
apologetic tone about getting these big actors.
But since leaving the role of executive producer, what he's asked
about, he's like, no, you know, for a long time, I thought, yeah, I
wasted them.
And then I thought, no, no, I didn't waste them.
I got in a great actor who put in massive impact into a small part
of the episode and they enjoy doing it.
We enjoyed having them.
He's like, you know, you don't have to give the big actor a big
role.
And he's like, even, you know, you give a less experienced actor a
big role and let them shine in it as well.
And cast is played by Emma Campbell Jones, and I'm sure I've seen
her in other things, but I can't remember what.
And even then, you know, she's got a handful of lines and Stephen
Moffatt knows how to make her immediately companion material
because she kept her head and saved everyone else because she was
the only person who wasn't screaming.
Yeah.
And so welcome aboard is the doctor welcoming welcoming her onto
the Tartar as a new companion.
Yeah.
But she's also the indication that the Doctor Who universe is now
broken because she says absolutely not to going on this
adventure.
Everyone else goes, oh, my God, you're this magical time lord with
a box that's bigger on the inside than the outside.
She finds those 2 things out and she's like, absolutely not.
Yeah, that, I mean, that, that thing's a cliche, isn't it?
that everyone has to say it's bigger on the inside than the
outside. and that's a source of wonder.
And for her, it's a source of horror, like Moffatt makes it the
thing when she hears him say that.
That's the thing that causes her to reject him and slam the door
between them.
And I think that's a really, really good subversion of that.
Yeah, he even, as he sort of pulls a hand in hand, he goes, oh
come on, you know, like, come aboard, you'll love it.
You know, instantly.
He's just like, oh, they all do.
You know, it's just like, I think too, this is a week where we get
to see a bit more of the time war than we ever had.
And here we get to hear about it.
It's the background to this story and both cats and Ohealer.
Tell us about it.
And one of the things that I think is inevitable this week, if
we're going to see the time war, it needs to be, it needs to be
kind of made visible.
And whenever Russell describes the time war in dialogue, he does
it in a really sort of strange poetic way and things happen that
you can't even picture or understand.
Intangible.
It's amorphous.
Yeah, it's certainly incomprehensible.
And what Milford does is he really kind of just brings it down to
the sort of horrible space guns thing.
You know, the Time Lords have just been, you know, they've been
brought so low that they're just sort of firing big guns at people
and that sort of thing.
And like, I think you lose something.
I love Russell's version of the time war, but I think that Moffatt
has to make the change.
And of course, the other thing that he dumps, and we'll talk more
about this tomorrow, is the idea that the time lords were evil and
as evil as the Daleks.
You know, this is a conflict, but we're meant to think that Cass
is mistaken. about the doctor.
But in the end of time, part one and two.
The Time Lords are a worse threat than the Daleks, because they
want to kill everyone, essentially, at this point.
Apparently, this was all shot in sort of very, very much secrecy.
I think it was maybe a 2 day shoot, possibly even a one, and so
you know, Paul Bagan was whisked off to Cardiff. with a code name
for the production turned up and he's like, there was no costume
fitting.
They just had the costume there.
Somehow they had my measurements.
I don't know how that happened, but...
Just very small.
Yes, that's right.
Yeah.
No, like the 1st Doctor Who convention I went to with Rod, it was
Davidson, Colin Baker, Silv, and McGann, and Rob was like, oh, well
you know, I knew Peter and Colin were tall, and I knew Silv for
sure.
I didn't know Paul was short.
They hid that in the movie.
Yeah.
In an interview, when he was talking about his costume, Paul said
that he's one of his brothers.
He says, my brother reckoned I look like Frodo.
He's not wrong.
No.
The slightly shaggy hair in the little waistcoat.
I mean, it's a vast improvement, isn't it?
The telly movie has the doctor's look being like something
Americans would have enjoyed more than we would, I think.
I think the costume is not good in the movie and obviously that
wig.
I mean, he would just not have come back, would he have been
forced to wear that again?
That was just...
That was part of his gum contract, wasn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No wigs. written into all his contract.
So he's, I mean, I think he looks really good.
And he looks, you know, like he's aged well, hasn't he?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, he's I mean, he's 54 in this.
Um, and that's that's a good look.
Paul is really bloody handsome man.
If you see him in Witnall, especially the last, there's like a
last shot where he goes. he's all sort of smartened himself off to
go and sell out and all this kind of stuff.
And there's just a side profile of him when he puts on this fedora
hat.
And you just really see, he's a beautiful man.
I mean, he's a really, really good looking man and he's aged
incredibly well and I've seen him at 61 or 2 as he is now and he's
still, he's a fine looking man.
No 2 ways about it.
Yeah.
Yeah, and he does come back this week again.
Is he briefly in the five-ish doctor's reboot?
Yes, he is.
So this thing that we're about to experience this kind of week or
so of Doctor Who literally has every living doctor involved
doesn't it?
It's very generous, I think.
There's something really warm about it.
And I think, you know, if you tried to shovel everyone into the
same 70 minute special, it would have been just intolerable, but
instead just having a huge week of exciting Doctor Who things
happen where everyone gets to, you know, do their party piece at
some point is pretty gray.
Yeah, that's that's exactly it because, you know, in in the
special itself, you're going to have Matt and David, and
eventually Tom at the end, and John Hurt.
You've got Paul doing this, you've got Silv, Colin and Pete doing
the five-ish doctors reboot.
And even at the time, Eccleston gave an interview saying, I wish
everyone really well, I was offered it.
I declined, but, you know, it was all very respectful and there's
no animosity and I hope it all goes well.
So even though Eccleston didn't contribute to any of the stories.
He said, yep, they're in them and I'm really glad it's happening
and I was asked.
I also think there's something to terrifically generous about
giving Paul's doctor a regeneration scene and some final words and
all of that.
And it is, it just reminds you that Moffatt is just a full on fan
you know, like just a Doctor Who fan.
And that gap mattered, I think.
And, you know, in the in the day of the doctor, we'll get John
Hurt to Christopher Eccleston sort of regenerating as well.
So he's filling in those gaps as part of this bigger project of
kind of reclaiming classic Doctor Who and making it, you know
putting it on the same footing as the new show.
And so we ended last season with little appearances from all of
the doctors.
We will end the special with a big shot with all 12 of them.
We're going to get Gallifrey back properly.
All of those things are happening in order to kind of, in order to
heal that gap, I think.
And I think that's a really generous project to suddenly imbue
this show, which is at this point in its sort of 8th or ninth year
to give it an additional giant backstory that is really properly
part of it, you know, and and the other way around, you know, to
celebrate what brought us here, including the 1st 26 years of the
program.
I think it's really tremendous.
Yeah, and I think the fact that there's so much, like this is, it's
6 minutes and 50 seconds long. you know, that's so short, but it
does so much in a tiny spell, like exactly as you said, he just
gives us those things we need, a seeing Paul McGann and the 8th
doctor, seeing that regeneration, tying it all up, you know, with
some stuff at the time all there with this sort of shorthand
exactly the right shorthand of the science magic stuff of time
lords and the sisterhood.
It's like, I think it's really good.
I think this is one of his best stories and best scripts, I
honestly do.
Because it's very concise.
There is humour in there, but there isn't time for too much
trickery and stuff.
It's taking it seriously, but it's still fun. you know, That's
that's great.
And I think for some people, this is one of the, I mean, some
people have said that the 5-ish doctors reboot. is their favourite
anniversary thing.
And I think for some people this would have been, and probably
still is, their favourite bit when they think back to the
anniversary. some people's minds go to this.
And I think what you're saying, Nathan, is right.
I think they were very generous and I think whatever you're
wherever you are in the series, there is something for you in that
week. you know, there really is.
And on that as well, Conrad, with, you know, there's something
that can be a favourite for everyone.
Well, something Doctor Who fans love doing is ranking things.
Sorry, what did you say?
Ranking, ranking with an R.
But, you know, so it's like, oh, well, is day of the doctor 1st or
is night of the doctor 1st or is the five-ish doctor's reboot
first?
And I think maybe we found the purpose of the last day.
So everyone can... at the bottom.
Oh, okay, fair enough.
I have heard a rumour somewhere that the last day was concocted
between the night of the doctor being released early because of
the leak and the anniversary special because they're like, we need
to put out something as part of the promotional strategy.
Let's get some actors in and da da. don't know if that's true.
I don't know if that was always bland or what, but that could
certainly have been true.
Something I find so interesting about this is, of course, after
the telemovie, there were approximately 75 different continuities
for the 8th doctor.
So there was the Radio Times comic strip, the Doctor Who magazine
comic strip, the BBC books and Big Finish.
Yeah.
And this story basically decides, yeah, Big Finish is the one that
happened.
Yeah, now that was a moment, wasn't it?
That was one of the biggest things that came out of it.
It was just like, oh, wait, we're doing that now, aren't we?
And it's, I was trying to look back at how many times they've done
it.
And, you know, we're going to have to use the C word.
We have to talk about canon.
Like, you can't get through this.
I try as you might.
It's a made-up television program by stressed out writers just
trying to put a kid show out every so often.
It's you know.
But like, you know, it's that was a huge part of of what you heard
about it.
I think, like, you got to remember at the time, because it's so, I
think, another thing that 50s did was like, it really, we all got
used to, through the merchandise into publicity, we all got used
to seeing all the doctors in a row.
And when we just totally assume now, you know, we're used to
seeing the lineup.
But at the time, I mean, in, it was only in 2007 that the new
series acknowledged the 8th doctor when they put him in that
journal of impossible things of human nature.
I remember at the time, it was a huge...
Oh my god, okay, that does mean he actually exists.
We are talking about the TV movie now.
It's like, because we forget this now, but actually at the time
the Paul McGann doesn't count thing was really...
It's in queer as folk.
You remember that...
The whole plot hinges on Paul McGann doesn't count.
That's right.
That's right It nearly does, actually.
It's very close to the reason why he breaks up with Peter O'Brien
I think.
So that is a thing, isn't it?
And so what they've done, because that doctor had so little
television, and because he couldn't reflect back on an era, which
is sometimes the thing that we do before a regeneration happens, we
talk about the version of Doctor Who that McGann himself was
involved in.
So McGann doesn't act in the books or the comic streaps, his
images there, but the thing that he actually produced.
And so the companions that he had actually acted with before get
name checked.
And I think that's, again, there has sometimes been a sort of
defensiveness around big finish.
You know, big finish wasn't allowed to touch new series concepts
for a while and there were all kinds of rules about making sure
that it didn't kind of damage the brand or do anything to the
brand.
And here we have the parent show actually reaching out and
including big finish into its kind of orbit.
And I think I really, I think that's a really generous thing
again.
It is one of the most significant things that Moffat does, as
showrunner, is not just canonise Big Finish in the main show.
He also loosens the, the, the, hold that the BBC has on the
license for the new series, which is has, you know, whatever you
think of some of those new series box sets has been a good thing
for the show.
River song snogging Colin Baker.
I'm here for it.
Oh my god.
Oh my god. not sure I am.
Because it actually works.
Like, you think it won't work and it really does.
Also, I think it was during that week.
Well, within a week or two, Doctor Who magazine had a 50th, you
know, had a party for the 50th anniversary.
And I remember I was at the bar and this thing had just aired, I
think.
I think it might have been between night of the doctor and the day
of the doctor, but it was certainly in that week.
And I was chatting to somebody at the bar and you know what
rumours are like going around and that had just happened, so
people coming up to me going, oh, look, you're cannon, you're
Canada, which is very alarming.
I went to see a 3D screening of Day of the Doctor because they
released it at the cinema and I thought, you know what, I'd like
to go and see it in 3D. And I was just sitting in this dark and
drum and it sort of people were shuffling to the seats before me
somebody.
I don't know why he hissed at me in the dark, you cannon.
It's very annoying.
In a darkened cinema.
That's an alarming thing in Brighton.
That's an alarming thing to hiss anybody.
But, you know, people so people were coming up to me at the bar
and I was like, oh, my God, you know, this is fun.
We're chatting about it.
Somebody said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, Paul wanted to do that.
And I was like, hm, okay.
And there were just different rumours going around about how it
came about.
So I thought, I'd had a couple and I still thought, well, Moffatt's
on the other side of the room, I'm going to go and ask.
So it walked.
So just walked on the side of the half, right, this is my moment.
So I walked to the other side of the room, I tapped her on the
shoulder and said, oh, hi.
So you did tonight, the doctor thing, and you name loads of big
Finnish companions and like, I was one of them.
Like, how did that come about?
Like, you know, yeah, how did that come about?
And he just said, because we're very nice.
Exactly like that.
He really isn't, is he?
Thanks very much.
What was that?
He's not really very nice.
No, no.
Yeah, he said it in a, he said it exactly like that.
So I just walked by the bar and we'll never know.
So there you go.
There's an exclusive.
I always promised Nathan to come on with like a half baked sort of
peripheral showbist story and that was that one.
That's the one for this episode.
So, yeah, I think the other significant thing is worth saying is
that the name, like Kerry is that name which is, you know, plagued
with apostrophes and Z's all over the place.
It was originally called Quiz, KRIZ, until it was pointed out that
Quiz is the name of the dying insect mutt from the brain of
Rubius.
There we go.
No sisterhoods.
There's magic in this brew, I tell you.
It all ties back to the brain of Morbius.
There you go.
Bit of trivia.
We are sitting here with a Charlie Day conspiracy wall with a
picture of Joe Martin and George Galancio and Philip Hinchcliffe
in a funny wig and a healer and a heaker, same person.
He knows.
And actually, there is a moment in it when the doctor says it sees
a healer and he looks at it and goes, is that you?
Every time I rewatch it, I always think it's specifically
basically what I'm saying is that Zoheka.
That is full of...
That's absolutely her.
I know he says, oh, the sisterhood, but there's something in that
moment I've just decided that is whatever.
And here's another thing that I can't quite figure out.
The other thing, of course, that Moffatt knows about Brainer
Morbius, is that planes get other than planes, spaceships crash
you know, the Sargasso Sea sort of thing.
And I sort of, so I think in the brain of Morbius, it was the
sisterhood bringing those down to by making them crash to stop
people stealing the elixir or something.
I don't know.
I just couldn't remember who was doing that.
And in this story, I was like, why did it of all the places to
crash?
Like, is that, are we supposed to think that's a coincidence?
are they bringing the ship down to get the doctor there?
I don't know, because, I mean, this is just going into, this is
this is why it's a great choice to do something like this because
it precisely does this to us.
It turns all insane.
But like, you know, but just taking the story on face value, you
know, I think she says, oh, you know, we all knew in our bones
that one day he would return.
So it doesn't sound like it was them, which makes you wonder, and
Robert Holmes loved to do this and all this, you know, in 3
doctors, Brain of Morbius, 2 doctors, Mysterious Planet.
He always loved to have the Time Lords placing the doctor.
You know, he does start the brain in Morbius.
He's coming out raging at the time that's put him there.
So there you go.
There's a conspiracy thing there.
But like, just in terms of if we're going to play Doctor Who is
real, like, like, well, it's completely real.
I'm here, James.
I'm here. it's all fine So there we go. that's my that's my
thing.
I don't know.
So basically I'm having it.
In my head, I think the time lords crashed him there so that this
is could fit him and then put dual.
I don't know, does that even make sense?
Who knows?
It actually does.
It may have been Cardinal Alystra played by Jacqueline Pierce.
Yes, who I've never heard of.
Big Finish makes a big deal out of that.
And, you know, you see later in series 9 that they have been
working together.
I think the recreation of Khan that this episode does and it's got
just one set and one kind of Matte painting.
I think it's it looks really great.
Like it's the same colouring and stuff.
I mean, the great thing about Brain of Morbius is it looks like
BBC season of Shakespeare production.
Like there's really no attempt to make the sets look realistic at
all.
And that's fine.
I think it really works for the story, but just the colouring that
that exterior, you know, the exterior of the planet and just the
general kind of feel of it.
It's taking something that was a little bit low rent and a little
bit low effort and making it properly epic just for a couple of
seconds.
I love how fake that looks.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, it's so good.
It's great.
I love it.
I mean, I bought it hook line and sinker when I was a kid.
I still bought it now.
I did see, I did, I was looking online at, just trying to look at
like, look at Paul's costume and I found, there was a, there was
it was obviously some doctor at doctor exhibition.
I don't know if it was the doctor experience or what, but there is
a picture of McGann's night of the doctor costume. next to what
looks like Claire Higgins Ohela costume, but with one vital
difference.
She's wearing a hat and I'm not just talking a hat.
I'm talking the hat.
The Maran full on the MT, you described it as the Victoria Sponge
cake number.
I mean, I can put it.
I can put it in the chat here, but I don't know if that's going to
mess things up.
I don't know.
But there's a picture of that on there.
And I'm trying to look like, did you make that specially, or if
you just put the, have you still got the original one on there?
I'm choosing to believe it, Claire Higgins saw that and caused an
almighty stick and demanded that on no way in hell was she
wearing?
went completely postal.
The trailer was the Winnebago was shaking with fear, the windows
blew as she unleashed all this elemental fury that she wasn't
wearing that hat.
That's my story.
Yeah.
So there you go.
The mystery of the hat.
Maybe the set was so small that they couldn't, she couldn't wear
the hat without shooting off the set.
It is fine.
I will send a photograph of it Yes.
Sure.
That's one for the show notes.
I think also another thing worth mentioning is the actual, just
about the how the regeneration happens because it is exactly that
science and magic thing.
And I think it's perfect.
I think it's, I think it's exactly the right mixture to do.
And also it slightly gives you that, you know, in the TV movie, he
had that whole Frankenstein sequence.
It all has, which is, I think, is appropriate because it is this
kind of unnatural, you know, like thematically and it is this sort
of unnaturally extended life that regeneration is.
So I think Frankenstein is a good callback there.
And here, you know, he gets the, you know, the smoking.
Yeah, you know.
It's a magic post challenge in the palace.
A magic potion.
Which another, here's another thing.
Healer says, oh, I made, I took the liberty of preparing it
myself.
Like, so she so she might not have brought him there, but when she
was like doing the potions, it suggests that she knew this had to
happen.
This is when she wanted to make him happen.
And like, he has to drink this. this is the one he's got to
drink.
So Moffat Moffat later admitted that he had written that as it was
actually just sugar or, you know, like it was nothing was fake.
She just convinced the doctor he needed to be a warrior?
Yeah, he says it's lemonade and dry ice.
He says the amazing thing, which is he's the sort of thing I'm so
glad he put in the book and not on the TV.
That's exactly the thing he could have put in the TV show, which
is luckily absent from this 6 minutes.
When you were talking just now about the regeneration in the movie
I remember Clayton Hickman talking about that on a documentary
kind of going, you know, Silv is sitting there doing all the
facial expressions, you know, and his mouth is trying to eat his
own chin and what have you.
And then you fade it into Paul, who's just very slightly moving
his cheek muscles going, oh, must I?
Now flash forward, 17 years, and McGann is perfectly comfortable
going, Oh, oh, oh.
They'll pull it in later in post.
It's fine.
You know.
But it's funny, I show, because I can't see, because I've spent
weeks, you know, locked in a room with Paul McGann, you know
watching him act.
And so it's interesting.
I can't, I know he's good and I can see he's really good, but I
know how he's good.
I can see which lines like the knitting one.
Like, the lines he's less keen on, he'll throw away.
I can see which I can see what he's done.
I know what he's doing at every moment.
You see which muscles he's using?
Kind of, he's being operated from the back.
So, I showed it to my partner last night, who had seen it before
back in the day, and just said, Can you just look at this
objectively and tell me what you think of it?
And I particularly wanted, like, what do you think of him?
And he, you know, he just watched it through and just said, like
he's really good.
He goes, the 1st thing he said, he goes, he's very gentle.
And I was like, oh, okay, that's interesting.
He goes, yeah, he's very quiet.
And I was like, oh, okay.
He went, not like these two.
And he just pointed to the TV, which just had the still of Tennant
and Smith on there.
And I was like, oh, that's interesting actually because, you know
he's he's an interesting doctor because he's very different to all
the others.
Like he was probably, I mean, no, Davidson wasn't a character
actor, but typically Doctor Who had been a character actor and he
absolutely isn't.
He's a, I don't know, what do you call him?
But the perception of Paul, I think, especially with fans, and I
think it's why he's partly so loved by fans.
He's got this kind of credibility.
He's got this call about him.
He's sort of like not one of us.
He's he's not that crazy grandfather figure.
He's quite cool. you know, incredible.
But he's really good.
I think that's worth saying like he is and he's really good in
this.
I think he does, like he does a really good job and I think he's
why he sort of liked so much.
Also, he has the advantage of, or not the advantage, but not
having had much screen time.
We can all just project everything we like on him because he's
hardly, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Any, you know, whatever you think of the TV movie, we've never
actually seen him sort of tank in something or try desperately to
salvage something from terrible material or anything.
So, and also, and this bit I don't know.
Like, I think, I think, um, if I've got this right, like plan A
for the anniversary, which it was going to be, presumably, in an
ideal world, Eccleston Tennant and Smith, I'm guessing.
So, uh, Eccleston's out of the equation.
I don't know if this is true or not, but there was some, there was
the sort of common thing is like they wanted to have Paul instead
as the war doctor, but the BBC didn't feel he was big enough or
did they just wanted a big or different star.
So that's how they got John Hurt.
I don't know if that's true or not.
I think either way, if they, even if they had had Eccleston, like
Knight of the Doctor would have absolutely happened in an ideal
world, you'd have...
Yes, all of them generating into Eccleston, I think.
I remember when we 1st saw John Heard at the end of name of the
doctor, and I thought that one of the things that we lose is the
idea that one of our doctors, you know, one of the doctors that
we've watched on TV and loved did this terrible thing.
And instead it becomes a person that we've never heard of who did
that.
And I think, like, I think it works, and again, we'll talk more
about this tomorrow.
I think that John Hurt plays an important role.
He brings something to the role that wouldn't have been available
to Eccleston, I think.
But I do think that sort of dissociation's a little bit of a
shame.
And clearly, Moffatt, You know, Moffatt loves Russell's Doctor
Who.
It's very, very clear, and he constantly picks up on running gags
that Russell's introduced or plays with things that Russell hasn't
had the chance to kind of pick up on again.
But I don't think...
Well, Queen Elizabeth I. I'm thinking the fact that nothing
interesting happened this year, this Christmas in London, as far
as the doctor remembers, except that there was a giant cyber king
stopping all over the place.
You know, like, so there've been things that he picks up on.
But I don't think that he likes, what the doctor does, like making
the doctor kill all of the time lords is something that...
Yeah, he thinks that that was a bad call, I think.
And so I think part of the motivation for kind of healing that
rift this week is because he doesn't think the doctor would have
made that decision.
And so he uses his power as showrunner to make sure that he did.
Wealthy listener, that's all we have time for, for now.
We'll be back tomorrow to celebrate Doctor Who's 50th and 59th
birthdays at the same time, with two episodes of Flight Through
Entirety on the day of the doctor.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us at flights for 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 sitting at the front of the plane in the
event of a crash means that you die several seconds earlier, which
is more than made up for by the additional leg room.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Ta-ta.
Good night.
That was flight through entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley
Breeman, Jones, James Selwood, and Conrad Westmas.
Theme arrangements by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, not like these 2, was recorded on the 23rd of July
2022, and released on the 22nd of November.
We'll see you tomorrow, of course, but in the meantime, don't
forget to tune in to Disney Plus on the 22nd of November 2033 for
the 70th anniversary prequel, in which Jody Whittaker returns
unexpectedly to prevent Prime Minister for Lai Frishi Sunak from
crashing Starship UK into the heart of the sun.
I don't know where I'm going.
Now that it's big finish.
Cut that.
Sorry.
Everyone's got a time war series now.
Susan has a time war series now.
Wow, is there the war, Susan?
There's the war, Susan.
With the war, Susan's war, and she goes to enlist the help of the
censorites.
Of course she does.
I'm not joking That's a real genuine box set, and at this stage
it's likely to be William Russell's last contribution to Doctor
Who.
Wow.
The war, Susan. when you think about that.
Who plays the war, Susan?
Oh, it's still Carol Anne Ford?
No, you have to get some big ass.
That's the wars, Susan.
Agent doesn't know the memory of the word no.
It's always that thing with it's like John Heard.
It's like he was a fucking cartoon dragon on Merlin every Sunday
night.
Like, it's not that big a coup.
He'll do anything.
Yeah, well, that's the thing.
John Hurt said about doing Doctor Who.
He said, the weird thing about acting is the more successful you
are, the less people think you will do when he's like, if I'm
interested in the project and you're going to pay me because I
need to eat, of course I'll do it, you know, but he's like, you
know, you win a couple of awards and suddenly people think, oh, no
you don't want to do this thing.
I want to have fun.
I mean, he's going to be really good in it.
We just see a tiny reflection of him in the car.
Yeah, which I think is taken from an eye, Claudius, or from a BBC
Shakespeare.
Oh, crime and punishment.
I beg your pardon.
Thank you.
It's Paul McCann's hand, though, apparently.
So it's still Paul McGann.
He's just regenerated from the neck up, apparently.
It also says also available for hand monthly.
Is that true?
Do you know that from personal experience?
That sounds a bit wrong.
That's really wrong.
I kept all of your life.
I'm not even into this episode, Conrad.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
I didn't mean it like that.
Cut to the test card.
Just cut to the test card.