Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast that just makes things up to pass the
time while other people are talking.
I'm Nathan.
I'm James.
And I'm a Khaled supreme lasagna that needs a good damn pricking
for this episode.
I'm the allegedly fabulous set of Richard.
Oh, Adam.
Well, we met the new doctor properly a week ago, mere moments
before he roughed up a tramp and pushed a guy out the window.
But is he a good man?
Let's try to find out as we follow him into the Dalek.
Well, James and I have turned up, both of us, embarrassingly, in
Raquel Welsh's white latex bikini.
Fantastic voyage for that.
And annoyingly, one of us wears it better than the other, and I'm
not saying who.
Sorry, Richard.
So I'm very sad there wasn't a Donald Pleasance in this episode.
I wanted someone to be banging on the door going, Yeah, no only a
good point.
No one sabotages it, do they?
No, that's actually a good point.
I don't know whether we want to start off by saying whether we
love this or not and maybe let's just work up the way that we get
there.
But that's a very good point.
Structurally.
I mean, we all saw fantastic voyage.
As little kids on Bill Collins.
A deadly antibodies.
They're also...
I live through that era. still doing it.
But the whole thing of, do you remember that?
The score, that amazing drum score that was very Dalek invasion of
Earth and the boom, boom, boom, boom, the very $6000000 man.
This is a really serious movie about science and Recca Welsh's
jug.
And that fabulous little speed racer submarine shit that, you know
I mean...
She was a serious scientist who'd been shrunken them.
You know, this was her breakout career move.
Hi, Jenna.
How's it going?
But yeah, that cast.
The reason that film worked.
And yes, we need to add that Robbie Schumann and Fantastic Voyage
is probably the 2 big influences.
Yeah.
But I maybe shouldn't say that I possibly think this is the best
Dalek story now of the whole era, whereas the 1st time I watched
it, I did not offer bits.
Well, you had the Todd experience.
Not personally.
I have, he's a married man now, but I have, I've got to say that I
can really see what they're doing and I want to hear what everyone
else is.
So there is an explicit reference, isn't there, at a fantastic
void?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, because I think it probably says.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He says that'd make a fantastic movie.
It's not quite as good as his alien gag this coming Christmas, but
it isn't too bad.
Yeah.
You know what?
I watched, for my podcast, I watched Journey to the Centre of the
Tartars, which I enjoyed way more than I expected to.
Okay.
Um, because once I became unburdened by who Clara was meant to be
and whatever her story was, and this is like, like, this is what
is this, Clara 4.0 or 5.0, like, this is a new Clara.
Now she's a school teacher all of a sudden.
Yeah.
And the same with this one.
Now that I'm unburdened by whatever's meant to be going on with
Clara.
What is this overarching story that we're never told.
So we get to the end of Clara's story and we're like, I still
don't know who she was meant to be.
And once that's gone, I got to enjoy the rest of it.
Yeah.
Because I feel like a lot of the Moffat stories were trying to
tell this ongoing storyline that never finished that he never got
to the end of or would just abandon and start something else.
And once you get rid of that, once you ignore that part of it, it's
like, oh, there's a nice little adventure going on here.
I get a real kind of Tom and Liz in season 12. vibe where it's the
hips, isn't it?
I mean, she'll start dressing like Sarah and she's got the same
accent.
But she works better with Capaldi, I think, than she does.
Yeah, much better.
So it's interesting you say that because the script was written
with Tom as a placeholder doctor, they had not cast.
What?
Capaldi, when Phil Forbid is writing this story, he hadn't been
told who the new doctor was.
They hadn't cast a new doctor.
So he wrote it picturing Tom Baker.
And he'd already been writing Sarah Jane adventures for so long.
Yeah, yeah.
So he obviously had, you know, Liz Slayton in his head and like
well, whoever the companion is, it can be Sarah.
Yeah, and she is supposed to be a Sarah Jane Smith analogue.
Yeah, a shot of it.
Adam probably knows.
You know, Clara is Lou Slatin's middle name.
That's why he chose it, yeah.
So there is something sort of very distinctive about this doctor
and I think we're coming to a thing that's going to happen
throughout the beginning of the season, where the show kind of
wants to interrogate who the doctor is.
And either it's doing a very clever job of coming at it different
ways in each episode or it's making a sort of massive hash of it
and doing something completely different every episode for no sort
of particular reason.
But here, we sort of start with the doctor, asking Clara, if he's
a good man, and the hint that he might not be a good man, sort of
comes halfway through, but until then, he's prickly and difficult
and that mostly just comes across in these sort of outrageously
fantastic quips and put downs that he does.
Do you think Moffat on some level was trying to go, look, I don't
think the 6th doctor was a bad idea.
I can do it better.
Yeah.
I'm really glad you raised that because that was my reading the
whole 1st episode and thinking, I don't think it's working here
either.
This 2nd episode, yeah, it kind of softens a bit.
Also, I think the questioning kind of throws the 1st episode into
relief.
It makes you go, oh, okay, so you know you've been a dickhead.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean, the big moment, I think, isn't so much roughing up
the tramp and pushing the guy out the window.
Both of which are strongly implied.
Miss Slater's husband.
How awkward.
Yeah, yeah.
How meta and how died.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it's when he abandons Clara.
And leaves her to the half-faced man.
And that's softened by the fact that we learn that Clara expects
him still to be there and he is, when she reaches back for him.
But still, it's a, it's a problem.
Shades of Clara, isn't it?
Here, I think the big problem is the moment where he goes, oh, well
I've been proved right, the Dalek's evil.
We're all just going to stand around and die while I kind of feel
miserable about it.
Well, no, enjoy being smug about being right, you know.
And that's when she slaps him.
But, but the rest of the time it's just these quips and I think
it's, like, Phil Ford is funny.
But Moffatt's a sitcom writer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he is absolutely, you know, making sure that Capaldi has funny
things to say after his turn is sort of Malcolm Tucker.
Yeah, and that, you know, that was his last big role, I guess
before this, is like he's known throughout the UK. the, you know
the man with the foulest mouth on television.
And now he's going to be in children's television.
It's like, whoa.
But I mean, I just can't get over the line.
You know, where poor old Ross gets hoovered up and dumped in the
thing and someone says, is Ross here in this pile of sort of human
soup and he says, he's the top layer, if anyone wants to say a few
words, which I just think is so brutal and so funny.
Like just tremendously great.
And also that moment where he makes him have the pill and they're
like, I thought that was going to save him.
He goes, no, no, no, he was doomed.
I just wanted to know where he was going.
Great, isn't it?
And all the stuff about like the 2nd time he turns up with Clara
on the Aristotle and he doesn't really know who anyone is.
Like he might be the same person as before, the general.
I think he's her uncle, but I might have just made that up while
they were talking in order to pass the time.
Even though she calls him uncle 17 times.
That's right Like all of that stuff is so great.
And he starts calling him Uncle stupid over the radio.
Like I think that stuff is really, really great.
And also it's kind of serving a purpose for the ongoing storyline
which is we've just met Danny Pink, who's a soldier, and it's like
showing the doctor's absolute animosity and horror of soldiers.
So it's kind of like it's it's doing double duty.
It's being fun.
It's being enjoyable, but also it's a huge character moment that
feeds into why Clara keeps him secret for so long.
Yeah.
Which is, I think, is really deftly handled.
Although I kind of feel like it comes out of nowhere a little
bit.
Like the doctor's antipathy towards soldiers is really laid on
very thick here and it's not necessarily something we've had
before.
And especially given that, you know, Capaldi's the 1st person
since Pertwig, to have gray hair on the TARDIS, and he's spent a
lot of time with soldiers.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What did Mike friendly?
What did Mike Yates do?
Mike Gates has done something horrible.
Yeah.
It's an interesting point.
I don't want to, because it was just one of the things I wanted to
ask all 3 of you.
Watching this again, and like, Adam, it's the 1st time I've
watched it since broadcast.
Bad fan, bad fan. it didn't really work for me. at the time.
And now I'm just saying, okay, you've really not strayed far from
Malcolm Tucker.
And I also mean stylistically performance wise, the actor's
tricks.
Have we said tropes yet?
No. someone else say it.
But I wonder if that's a safety thing.
I wonder if they're just sort of easing if that's a look.
Let's just default to this and then the Colin Baker scenario that
Adam mentioned that we'll work into making you.
It relies a lot on a committed audience, which they now know they
have after the 50th anniversary.
Yeah, yeah.
They are relying on goodwill after the 50th anniversary.
I think it's something that's always been in Moffat's head.
And I think the thing is that the 11th doctor is not a good person
in all sorts of ways.
Oh, but doesn't he veil it well?
He does.
Charming.
He's charming.
It's very southern counties.
Well, yeah.
Super posh.
You know, we've got the self-hatred thing with the Dreamlord in
Amy's choice, which gets sort of hinted at and never brought up
again.
The presages this doctorate.
Well, yeah, and then you get him keeping secrets, you know, we get
him keeping secrets about Amy's pregnancy and about the crack in
the wall.
We get him inviting everyone to see him shot dead by Lake Silencio
hilariously.
Like, he's kind of mean and he is a bit of a problem.
And even as far back as Russell, the doctor's a problem.
You think about the 1st episode or about Jackie's speech in Army
of Ghosts.
So the doctor's potentially a problem or potentially a bad
influence.
And Moffatt always has this because, I mean, his 1st sitcom is
joking apart.
And joking apart is basically an autobiographical sitcom about how
he ruined his 1st marriage.
And we go from him blaming his wife for infidelity when it becomes
clear that the reason that she's with someone else is that he's
just insufferable.
So Moffatt has this sort of thing where I'm the smartest person in
the room, but I'm also a bit awful and he brings that to both of
his doctors.
And I think, so Capaldi, that's, I think, where Capaldi's thing
comes from.
It's not just Malcolm Tucker, but it is Moffatt's conception of
the character and Moffatt sort of self-inserting himself.
I think also one of the problems with Capaldi is, like you were
saying, he was very Malcolm Tucker in this series, and I think
they worked out how to write for him until he gets that big speech
in the Zygon 2 partter.
Yeah, they're like, oh, he's great at a monologue.
And it's like, why is it taking you like a year and a half to work
out how to write for this character?
Then series 10.
It's just like a speech a week and they're all incredible.
But they should have known he was gracious to monologue had they
watched the thick of it.
Like, sure, that model was full of swearing.
Yeah, this is a fanboy homage to thick of it.
I want to know if Armando Ianucci had watched this one because I'm
sure the ship is named after Onassis.
I mean, we've got the same poor engineer lying on the floor of the
TARDIS swearing exactly the same way.
It just doesn't happen to be too lorry that she's swearing at, but
it's so avenue five.
Except the sets.
Oh, I want to talk about the direction as well, but I'll let you
guys about the direction of this episode.
So it's Ben Wheatley and the set shoes. that's what actually made
it flat for me.
Oh, I kind of like some of, like, I like the way the Daleks have
been directed.
I think Wheatley has gone.
I'm going to blow up a lot of Daleks is going to look incredible.
So a lot of those action scenes are actually radio controlled 12
inches.
No.
I like this.
Yes.
I got one of those for free when I took myself on a Doctor Who
trip to Cardiff.
It gave me like a remote control dalek.
And I was like, how am I meant to get this back to Australia?
I had to buy a suitcase and tickle them out without all the bits
dropping on.
Stop talking after about 3 weeks.
The ice stalk popped out.
No, the ice stalks remain kind of intact.
That's actually what the listeners wanted.
How's the eye stalk going?
It's bit droopy.
So I got real Resurrection of the Daleks vibe from that.
And I hate resurrection.
But I thought it was done really well.
And I thought that they were really scary.
And I thought, you know, the corridors are kind of dressed.
It's not just an abandoned hospital that they've just sort of
bunged some cameras in and told everyone to sort of a mose in
front of.
And there's that scene where Uncle Stupid and his mates are all
sort of lined up to watch the Dalek cut through the metal door in
you know, the traditional time honoured fashion.
But it's all it's all sort of the set's all dressed with kind of
future space hospital things.
That's an MOD facility.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh okay.
But it gives it a scale.
It means you can run through it.
It means you can have a lots of interesting things.
Yeah, I mean, I kind of miss the Dalek backgrounds that were all
the same burnished metal and stuff that they were.
And the cardboard darling.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Originally in the 1st draft of the scripts, there was only one
Dalek.
They didn't have... all of the sequence.
Yeah, like he was just David Dalek.
We're going to the Dalek.
Well, Phil Ford had been writing, you know, Sarah Jane Adventure
so he'd probably gone, oh, I probably got 2 sets.
At some point, he went, oh, this might be unfavourably compared to
Dalek.
I think I'll add in the invasion of the ship at the end.
It is very, very dalek, isn't it?
Robert Sheman, darling.
Yeah, so it even has that line, there's a callback to it.
Like, I think an explicit callback to it. because you have this
comparison of the doctor and the dalek, which is at the centre of
Rob Shearman's story.
And in Dalek, the Dalek says to the doctor, you would make a good
dalek.
And here I think the Dalek says to the doctor, you are a good
dalek.
Capaldi says that the Dalek isn't a good Dalek, but his reply is
that, well, you are.
I think the Dalek actually says, I am not a good Dalek.
You are a good darling.
That's right.
Yeah.
Yeah, so it is sort of very deliberately that.
And we've got this sort of central question about, is the doctor a
good person?
And I'm not sure. that it properly pays off either.
So I think it takes the doctor into a place that's sort of that's
beyond what at least this script and possibly the show can kind of
manage because you get him giving up.
He has to be slapped by Clara before he moves into action.
And then the whole thing is solved, not by the fact that the
doctor has a sense of the beauty and the wonder of the universe
but because the doctor really hates the Daleks and has defined
himself against the Daleks ever since his 1st trip to Scaro.
So at the end of it, Clara says, I don't know if you're a good man
but I think you try to be.
And I kind of just got the feeling that that was a little bit too
pat, and I don't know what he does, that gives her that
impression.
You know, the whole placement of Clara in this episode feels
forced.
Like, it's like, oh, we want to set up this thing with her and
Danny Pink falling in love and get that sorted out.
And so the doctor's going to leave what is a dramatically exciting
moment to then go back to Cohill, pick her up and take her back
into the narrative.
Like it's a weird...
She feels kind of out of place from there on in.
And I know we're meant to, you know, she's the co-star of the show
that's been a co-headlining show for ever since 2005.
But it just feels like the weirdest thing in the world.
Like wasn't there an easier way of doing that without having to
leave and then come back.
And you're like, I don't know.
And Moffatt does that a lot where it feels like he breaks the
dramatic tension by using the TARDIS in an almost magical way. that
you kind of go, oh, I feel like you've just pulled the plug on all
the tension that we were building up.
Because he papers over it, doesn't he, by doing it in flashbacks?
So the doctor appears to pick her up and then we see the
conclusion of the scene, you know, what happens after the doctor
you know, meets the dalek or whatever.
He does seem to Moffatt does seem to see women more as Advent
calendar treats, doesn't it?
And you don't quite know what you're going to eat day because it's
going to be radically different from the day before.
I think we're getting a little window into Mr. Moffat's own home
life.
I think we might be before.
I mean, here it's the usual thing where the doctor is kind of
being useless and the reason that Clara needs to be there is to be
the grown-up in the situation, I guess, to be his carer.
So he doesn't have to.
Which is one of my favourite lines.
So he goes, I don't want to say assistant, which is kind of like
what they've been called for.
Yeah. time immemorial.
At least she's the one who says care.
Like, because you're a crazy old man and he's the subject.
Okay, so why don't you?
Later on they decide they're not even going to call them
companions.
Yeah.
They say friends.
Because companion sounds like code for, you know, the policeman
the policeman says an aliens of London.
Was this a sexual relationship?
Escort or?
I've been reading a lot of Agatha Christie.
And you're like, oh, you're looking after a maiden aunt.
Yeah.
Do you remember the shock when McCoy's doctor referred to Ace, my
friend Ace?
It was a revelation.
Tom says she's my best friend.
Yes, Sarah.
Not 2nd best friend.
That would be K9, I think.
I mean, while we're on the subject of Clara, let's talk about the
romcom that is slowly breaking out over the course of the season.
Oh, Danny Pink on my giant television.
He is a pretty man, isn't he?
pretty Yeah.
His voice is more plummy than I remember it.
I thought he was a bit more rough, but no, he's very posh.
R rough.
Yeah, right or rough.
That's a slightly growly voice, though.
There is a little bit of kind of, I'm, you know, I think he's
beautiful.
But when he's ordering the cadets around, I'm like, oh, this are
we in a World War one?
Are we in the trenches?
No, because he wouldn't be an officer.
No, I know that.
It's perfect, though, because it is, and it's going to happen
throughout the season.
Moffat was a teacher and his 1st thing is press gang obviously
said in a school.
And he knows about teachers.
And so everything that he does when he portrays Clara as a teacher
which starts in day of the doctor.
Because she's a new character, all of us.
Yes, that's right.
We better give her something, another new father.
Another mother, even though her mother was dead.
Oh no, that was Linda, the wicked stepmother.
Was that who that was?
Yeah, yeah.
Does she have an...
I'm terrible that I don't want to see the crackers It's his
attempt to do Annalise or Neres.
But it just ends up Clara fur combination, doesn't it?
I just feel like it's soup.
I had no idea.
Yeah, her family feel like, yeah, that's pantsuit.
So that thing where Danny is with the kids.
And he does that sort of really cheesy dad joke about, you know
what are you children?
And the kid goes, yes, sir.
And he goes, you know, I suppose you think you're funny, Fleming.
And it says, yes, sir.
And his response is, yeah, so do I. You're dismissed.
And so he kind of gets it.
And there is that scene, which is very sort of heavy handedly
exposition, you know, about how he's killed civilians and we
become aware of that.
But that just rings really true to me.
Like that does seem like the way a classroom behaves.
Yeah, like the unthinking way that children behave.
No, because the other children are shocked by the question or even
a little bit annoyed by it.
And then the kid himself. is shocked by the response and everyone
goes quiet.
It makes me think of that 1st episode of Beautiful People where
the kid asks the teacher and says, who does your hair miss the
council?
The counsellor.
So great.
And I'm like, oh, that's right.
British children are.
But even the stuff, even the stuff in the staff room rings true
and can we just sort of pour one out for the headmaster who is
going to be horrifically killed?
episode of class later on?
I forgot about class.
Yeah, yeah, same headmaster.
Yeah, it is.
It is.
Bleak.
I think he's in Day of the Doctor, isn't he?
Or is he?
I can't remember.
But so he introduces them here.
But I think all of that stuff really works very well.
And in fact, this is the 1st episode.
So we get the 1st interaction between Clara and Danny goes away
into a classroom and bangs his head on the table.
Very sitcom.
And you're very Moffat.
Very Moffat.
And intercutting between that interaction and then the
consequences.
And then he'll do the same thing from Clara's direction, in listen
where Clara stuffs up their 1st date and we get to intercut
between her reaction to that and it happening in real time.
So it's a thing that he does.
It is, that's why Moffatt, I think, gets the co-writing credit on
some.
Yeah, I think he was writing all the ongoing storylines and the
other writers were writing the half hour action series.
It's interesting, though.
They had initially in the early draft of the scripts been
intending for the characters to already be dating.
Oh, okay.
And so you would have lost all of that fabulous sort of sitcom.
Oh, no, you need to meet cute.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was the right decision to... to actually show them meeting.
But it completely...
I love it and I think it's great, but it's it comes weirdly out of
nowhere when you're in the middle of a thrust of what is an
exciting Doctor Who episode.
Like there's a Dalek that's been revealed.
Oh my god, what are we going to do?
We're going to shrink people and stick them in the Dalek and then
I know we're going to go back and have some school hijinks now.
And then come back and be excited again.
And it's like, no.
Like there's no ads in this show.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's the point.
I was thinking when you were saying that before.
Is he, is this metoriting for these generation that has an iPad
and a phone and a TV at the same time?
And they don't mind the jump cutting because I find it really
distracting.
Yeah, maybe he's been watching so many YouTube videos, people
talking about his shows, that he's gone, oh yeah, people don't
care.
Like people don't care if there's jump cuts in the middle of a
sentence.
And maybe the under 30s don't.
Maybe.
But, I mean, once the once Clara turns up on the Aristotle, we're
pretty much just there on the Aristotle.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the only episodes, like I haven't watched all the way through
the season again, but the only episode...
Well, I have but not for a while.
The only episodes, I think, where we really focus on that is
listen, which is taking place during their 1st date and then going
to various other places, sort of, and then the caretaker, which is
obviously where the whole thing kind of comes to a head.
The moment of Missy also was a delight.
Like, anytime I see Michelle Gomez.
I just I melt.
And directed by Rachel Talele.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, so she did she do all of the missy scenes to observe another
summer.
She didn't.
Ben Wheatley wasn't available to do the scenes in deep breath and
in into the Dalek and so she just took his notes and did them.
I'm really sad he didn't get to do any more Doctor Who.
Like he only did these 2 and then went off and made high rise.
Ah, okay.
Like he, but yeah, I, I just think, because so many of the
directors in the Moffat era don't understand story.
And he obviously has a real handle on the cut and thrust of how
this works, as does Talalay.
Like she's great.
You're right.
Direction is excellent on this and it was actually set design.
Oh, the set design is dull.
It's just so white.
And coming from that background myself, I always notice.
I thought, I'll be back in the 80s, it's so white.
But it's so many levels.
But it's because the script says hospital and hospital says
white.
And I don't understand why it was a hospital ship that had become
a warship.
Like I kind of felt like that was something they were trying to
labour.
I think it's so that they have a reason to have the shrinking
device on board.
But also an excuse to have the 1st T and Aristotle will be the Red
Cross.
Yeah, and it just it just all felt like excuses.
Like, you know, there's there are a lot of excuses in this episode
for like, oh, let's have an excuse to have weird, like, eyeballs
shooting at us in the corridor.
They're antibodies.
What do you think of the inside of the Dalek?
It's weird.
It was weirdly Star Trekian.
Very, thank you.
It was very TNG.
Oh, I'm not going to be unkind and say enterprise, but it was very
tangent.
But I've got to say this time around, and I thought it was flat at
the time, but this time around paying attention.
I can really see, especially when you look into its bowels.
And Matt Berry would say, that's a great shot for that budget.
I'm really impressed.
I think Clara crawling up and pressing all the buttons.
Yeah, that was an impressive. like dynamic bit of work.
That's the power station.
I mean, the way that they sort of, you know, Matt in the Dalek
balls and sort of grills and stuff and give it a kind of sort of
verticality, which I think they sell.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I think just using those design elements and, you know, it
enables them to create sort of what seem like quite large spaces.
But also, like, again, sometimes I feel like Moffat just gets a
bit lazy and goes, oh, you know what was really good in the 2nd
episode of Matt Smith is everyone fell down a pipe into a bowl of
poo.
Oh, we'll do it again.
Because that's a good character moment.
People falling in a bucket of poo.
It's the 2nd episode as well.
Second episode.
Well, I think Russell does it in New Earth, which is tenant, 2nd
episode.
And I think it is something about just breaking out of the studio
a bit.
Like if everyone's in a big puddle.
You know, then we're not, then we're not in, we're not in the
studio.
I got to tell you, filming when you're wet is the most terrific
thing in the world.
I just, I spent my entire 2nd watch through, just working out how
damp they were at each point.
And he does say the thing where we're going through this heated
you know, like a decontamination tunnel and it's hot.
So to justify the fact that, because he looks, he looks like an
insane old man.
He goes hair all sticking up in all these horns and stuff.
It's like he's just washed your cat.
And you've got Clara talking about just what a crazy old man he is
as well at the same time.
I think that's really great.
But just gradually everything's sort of very neat and clean to the
point where I was surprised that Clara even bothered to change
clothes.
It's very Rick and Morty, that sure.
Yeah, it really is.
I'm just 2 months out of the Pasolini festival.
So any discussion of Salo is still really redolent when I watch
this.
It's just like the practicalities of filming something like that
is it's like, okay, we're going to set up for a wide shot now.
And it's taken you all day to do like 5 or 6 minutes of a show and
someone has to come and apply more wet.
So you're just sitting there.
It's like, we're just going to spray, you know, with water.
It's like I've been damp all day.
Thanks.
I just can't wait to be more damp.
Moisturise.
You spend the whole day wet.
It is gross.
And I regret ever writing. rain into my TV show.
But do you why do you think they do it here?
Like, I think is it?
I think because it's easy.
It's like it's a funny moment.
Kids are going to laugh because they're in poo.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, it's implied that it's poo.
It's dalek poo.
It's just, you know, what do kids love more than anything is pull
my finger.
He's going to really lean into that next year for the Dalek 2
partner.
The sewers are revolting in that.
It's all a bit you can't do that on television.
Yeah, yeah.
Slime.
It's marked.
It's just, it's, it's a guffaw moment for a 10 year old.
It's like, ah, they're covered in poo.
I mean, I still think Capaldi's line in that is absolutely genius
though.
It's so brutal and so cruel.
Oh, yeah.
That's the other thing I find weird.
It's like these moments of very low humour in, you know, we've
fallen into a bucket of poo.
And then these really grown up very cynical jokes.
Like, I love that they're brought in Phil Ford, who's been writing
a kids' show for the last 4 or 5 years and tried to make something
that's a bit more accessible because Moffatt had, you know, gone
off the reservation and had started writing the most grown-up
science fiction ever.
And it was like people were enjoying it, but I feel like if you
were a kid, it's just confusing.
It makes no sense.
And here it's like, oh, no, let's get back to the things that kids
love, which is falling in a bucket of poo and shrinking people and
injecting them in.
Like, you know, when I was a kid, that's fantastic for you, which
is amazing.
Like you love all that stuff.
And so it's got all these big, silly, crazy science fiction ideas
that kids love.
But then this kind of nasty, cynical dialogue and you're like, and
it's, you know, it's almost like it's set at a school just to go
oh, yeah, no, it's a kids show.
But I mean, I guess that's pretty close to what Doctor Who should
be doing, isn't it?
So it's the juxtaposition of the everyday life with something
alien and operating on several levels, you know, Tom's thing, Tom's
old speech about how the kids are watching this and saying, isn't
this wonderful?
And the older brothers, they're laughing at it and the parents are
loving it as well.
And so having, you know, very broad humour and very obvious things
and then combining it with this sort of meditation on whether the
doctor's a hero or not.
That comes back to what Adam was saying.
It's just clicked for me.
That all works. when the centrifuge, the hub has charisma and
charm and you adore him.
And I think that's the problem in the 1st part of this season.
Maybe the rating figures reflected at Jameson.
But we are not... still quite high at this point.
Yeah, but we're not being allowed to, and I get it.
It's Tucker in an undertaker's coat, but do we love him?
Is he a good man means, do we adore you yet?
Tom, it was, we adored him from the 1st moment he called Harry
imbassy.
Yes, and skipped and did all.
It's only qualified.
Indeed.
I miss it. miss all that.
And maybe actually having more of Danny Pink earlier on in the
sort of in the alpha Mickey Smith kind of role might have
alleviated that.
But when the doctor is working against or his own charm offensive
It's quite hard to hug the show, isn't it, in the same way.
So I think that we have this sort of weird situation where sort of
2 episodes after Clara's told the time lords off for not loving
the doctor.
And then 2 episodes later, she can't say whether he's a good man
or not.
I think, I mean, I think there is that, and I guess we just sort
of assume the doctor's a different person now that Capoldi's been
cast and, you know, all previous bets are off.
I don't know.
Like as an adult now, I actually really like this doctor.
And I guess the bit where I'm not on board is the bit where he has
to be slapped into kind of behaving properly.
But, you know, we get the contrast between the way that he reacts
to Ross's death by throwing him the battery and then just letting
him get killed and then the way he responds to Gretchen's death
where she nobly sacrifices herself.
And he promises to name something amazing after her.
Like, he's really on board by the end of the episode.
I think that's what they're trying to do, not just with this
episode, but with his character.
They're trying to do that Colin Baker type portrayal, but soften
him through the series and earn, earn, like, earn him the right to
call ins off the doctor again, I guess, is probably, you know, a
basic way of looking at it.
And by the time you get to series 10, like he is a much more
likeable character, you do go on a journey with this character, but
are they laying it on too thick here?
I think also maybe that was kind of the intention of the, the war
doctor was meant to be a prickly kind of nasty doctor, but John
Hurt just plays it with, he's so cuddly.
Such.
You're just like, I want to love you.
I want to watch all of these episodes that we never saw.
What a delight.
Yeah, he's adorable.
That scene with him and Jenna.
It's so great.
He's very sweet.
Yeah, I, like, there is some discourse around the Capoldi doctor's
portrayal and one of the writers of the series suggests that they
weren't going into it with any intention of doing that.
Just as I think Collins claimed that, you know, the layers of the
onion were going to be peeled back and we would discover the Colin
was lovely, there's no way anyone in the production or right, like
Saywood's not coming up with that as a long-term theme is not
going to happen.
And so there are characters that never meet the doctor.
It was basically Colin saying, I was hoping that they would.
Yeah.
So I don't think they were doing that.
I do think that they were going to have a Doctor Who was a bit
more kind of Tom in horror fang rock. which is an absolutely valid
way of being the doctor and a way of being the doctor that I
really like.
And so having a doctor who's not sentimental and is a bit rude in
the way that he, I mean, that thing about, I must have been making
that up to pass the time while other people were talking.
That's Tom, isn't it?
Tom not reading the pages of the script that he's not in.
You know.
So I think that that's what we're going for, and I think that's
quite good, but I think that probably the beginning of the season
goes at it from so many different directions.
I mean, next week, we're going to have the is the doctor a hero
thing and that's going to be much lighter and fluffier than this
version.
And also that weird jealousy that he's got going.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I also, I think I see what you're saying about that, but it kind
of, it still makes no sense of him going and getting Clara.
Like, just that action makes no sense of this character in this
episode.
It's like like, yes, he's got those coffee cups.
But like when was the last time the doctor actually finished
anything he meant to start?
Yeah.
That's just, it's just weird that he goes and gets her and brings
her back.
It just felt like a really strange...
With the coffee.
That he's forgotten and remembers in the middle of a Dalek
adventure, he has to get the coffee he forgot from 3 weeks ago.
Yeah, he hasn't seen her since Deep Breath.
He's sent off for coffee after deep breath ends, I think.
Yeah.
So like the last thing she's had, last interaction she's had with
him was Matt Smith ringing her up on the phone.
Yeah.
And now he's just turned up and dragged her inside a dale.
Also, there's that kind of almost a callback to Clara Jane's
leaving.
Like I saw you 3 weeks ago in Glasgow.
Yes.
And fortunately, Moffatt is allowed to write the line.
Glasgow, that's dead in a ditch. which is yet another thing about
Glasgow that he's another way he's dissed Glasgow in the last few
episodes.
Look, it's a little plate class, guy.
So, there is a sort of parallel, isn't there, where the doctor
materialises around Journey Blue and rescues her from death, and
then Gretchen gets rescued from death or she's dead, but then
she's rescued by Missy.
But I mean, then obviously the sort of being parallel, isn't it?
Between Danny and the doctor.
So they're not just being set up to oppose one another by the
doctor's sudden antipathy towards soldiers.
We're setting up the question of what their heroism entails.
Yeah.
I feel like sometimes Moffatt just has like a little bag on his
table with, you know, storylines in it, which is doctor appears
and saves someone, like, because it's night of the doctor again.
Yeah, turning up and just saving some random person from a Dalek
attack.
Fridge magnet script drive.
It kind of feels like that sometimes.
It's like, oh, I need to make a Doctor Who episode, but I really
want to write this romantic comedy about Clara and Danny Pink, but
I've got to do some Dalek thing because I've contractually
obligated to put them in once a year.
So they've really missed a trick, they're not having one of those
magnet games, which has elements of Doctor Who scripts and you
make your own Doctor Who script on the fridge.
And submitted to Big Finish.
As a whole box set.
Maybe that's how they do it.
Trinity Wells.
The further adventures.
I should say it 3 times.
There's no way Nick Briggs listens to this.
They did do one.
Nathan making a joke once in this about Trinity Wells having her
own big finish.
I was like, oh, hilarious.
And I was listening to, I think it's a Captain Jackbox set and she
has a whole episode.
What?
It really does.
Just say it 3 times.
The new suite has got her own show.
I think that this is like Moffat's most RTD season.
And Moffat can't do soap opera characters the way that Russell
can.
But Moffatt can do sitcom dialogue.
And so he just puts those 2 into a romantic comedy.
And I think at the end of the series, that doesn't quite work
because, you know, horrible tragedy happens in episode 11 spoilers
which doesn't fit into the romantic comedy genre at all.
It's horrible.
But I think he does quite a good job of the romantic comedy and I
think that there is quite a lot of mileage out of it.
I think that setting it up this way isn't a bad idea.
I feel like the characters now belong somewhere and operating in a
world and I didn't feel like that about series 7. at all, you
know.
Again, like I said earlier, I, I, once I unhook myself from what
is going on with Clara, who she meant to be, like what is this
ongoing storyline?
Also, I feel like apparently when Capaldi was cast, he said, I
don't want any storylines that are hanging over. from before.
Like, he, like, as I think Moffat had intended to drag that crack
in the wall thing all the way through to the end, which is why
that final Matt Smith episode feels like 17 episodes jammed into
one because he had kind of been given this edict of, I want a
fresh page other than carrying over Clara.
But like, but also Clara's ongoing storyline has stopped and she's
starting. she a new person.
Yes, she's a new character, the same face.
The only thing that's left over is the woman who gives Clara the
number which she phones at the beginning of Els of St.
John, which gets referenced in time high.
Yeah, in a way, that's like the master reaching back.
Yes.
The way this season is pulled together with all of this chaos is
to have whatever that Game of Thrones tic-tac-toe thing is, the
chaotics, Adam is Michelle Gomez.
Well, Missy and Michelle Gomez, as we know, are the same person.
And to have her reach back complain to the Smith era or to reach
forward, we are totally on board with that.
And we actually need that level of chaos, and I would say that
this doctor actually requires it in the same way that Pertwi's
doctor just really needed a big brandy balloon to get his fingers
around and high roger.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
No, I think that's right.
I think that's the thing that makes this work.
We had series 7, which, you know, had 2 arcs, but was kind of
apologising for both of them and one of them wasn't very good.
And this one is, let's have the rom-com, which is something that
Moffat can write, and let's have Michelle Gomez because she's
incredibly great.
And I think, you know, as most of these seasons have been suffer
from Sherlock also being made at the same time.
Yeah, yeah, you know, I feel like someone's right off the ball.
As you, I'm sure you'll all discussed.
We talked about metabilist.
Well, dear listener, that's all we have time for this week.
We'll be back next week to rob from the rich and give to filthy
people with bad teeth in Robot of Sherwood.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us at flights or 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 interterra, maximum power, and untitled Star Trek project.
Adam, where can people find you?
Uh, in the toilet at the pub?
No.
Richard on Twitter.
Or my podcast, Adam Richard has a theory, and me, I am a memoir
the meaning of the meaning of Mariah Carey.
That's my favourite.
Until next time, remember that you must keep breathing normally
during the podcast listening process.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Bye.
That was Flight Through Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Adam
Richard, James Selwood, and Richard Stone.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, animosity and horror was recorded on the 8th of
January 2023 and released on the 23rd of April.
For those of you who prefer your social media with a bit less
racism and transphobia, flight through entirety now has a mastodon
account, which you can check out at FDE podcast at mastodon
online.
See you there.
My theory is that John Pert, we can't pronounce planet names
correctly.
Because, so, of course, it's Spiriton, and per tweet pronounces it
spired on, so he's just got money.
Do we have it out?
I think we probably have an hour.
What do you think?
And we're 56.
I think that's...
Plus, you went to the tour.
No, I didn't.
That was Peter has arrived.
Yeah, I think we're done Yeah, cool.
Yeah, yeah, because I've already recorded the outro.
All I need to...
Anything?
Any more facts we need?
I don't know, right?
Like 7.29 million?
That's not bad.
Which wasn't much less than the previous week.
Deep breath.
Yeah.
No, everyone stops watching Doctor Who around about episode 6 or
seven.
The original edits.
Yeah, had Rusty going up to the Dalek saucer. and blowing them all
up.
And they went, no, let's cut that out.
So we can bring him back at the end of Christmas.
Yeah, I feel like, yeah.
I wanted I wanted a 3rd rusty.
Like, it's weird that Rusty just turns up one more time.
Well, it's just because he had nothing.
That's him riding a completely on fumes.
He's got nothing.
Nothing in the team.
He's emptied his bag of magnets. that 10 minute speech of
Capaldi's where he's hurling himself around the set.
Only children can know your name.
Christ.
Capaldi mansplains to Jodie Whittaker how to play the doctor when
she comes on.
There's, I, we had to watch that episode like months early and had
it had no special effects and Mark gave it wrestling with a green
balloon.
Like, one of the goodies being attacked by a gerbil.
Quite a delight.
There's the title.
Ad Kitten Kong.
All right, I'm gonna...
And that's the title.