Level of Ambiguity

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight for Entirety, the only Doctor Who podcast set entirely underneath your bed. You really need to clean up under here. It's revolting. I'm Nathan. I'm Brendan. I'm Simon. And I'm Fiona. Well, the last time the doctor got bored in the TARDIS, he came up with the excellent plan of shaving his head, but this time he's gone looking for the invisible monster that's lurking behind you throughout your entire life. Only to find himself both ruining and saving Clara's date, as well as creating both Danny and himself. This is about to get a bit complicated, so listen. So I have actually been hanging out to find out the answer to this question, Fiona. Did you have the Todd experience watching this episode? I had a positive taught experience. So, um, not the, well, no, actually, no. I've forgotten which way round it works with tonic. It's usually that he hated it the 1st time round. No, I actually didn't hate it the 1st time round. I remember enjoying it the 1st time round, but I literally haven't watched it in years, so I was really sort of coming into it with nearly fresh eyes and I loved it. Like it wasn't perfect, but it's up there. It's one of those ones which I never really thought about again and we're getting into the era of Doctor Who, where we were doing flights through entirety as well. Yeah. It just meant that we didn't do a lot of rewatching of new stuff or at least I didn't. Yeah, I think, like, the post-credits blooper for our time meddler episode has us talking about the missy reveal. just happened the day before. So, yeah, I mean, season eight, I think I can safely say I've only watched 3 times. Except for now rewatching it for the podcast is my 4th time. Yeah, that's my experience as well. A lot of these, virtually all of these I haven't seen since they were on. Well, not to mention to that one. You watch them when they're on, then you watch them when the Blu ray comes out and then that goes on the shelf and then you never speak of it again. So I was really keen to see whether I still really loved it because I really loved it when I saw it 10 or so years ago. And I have to say it met exceeded even the expectations that I had. So yeah. I have always thought that having 45 minute episodes of Doctor Who means that you can do something other than just roughly hit the beats of a four-part Doctor Who story. You don't have to have an adventure every week and things like things like Love and Monsters and Boomtown that sort of break the format by not just having a Doctor Who adventure, I think are pretty great. And I think that's that's what Moffatt's doing here. This is much more like a short story than it is like a Doctor Who adventure. Yeah. I mean, I've sort of made that point before that I actually think when the new series does try to hit all the notes of a four-part story within a self-contained 45 minute episode. Most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time it sort of fails or it leaves you wanting more. It's just dissatisfying. Whereas this is a great example of, like the ones you mentioned, of writing an episode which is designed for the format that the show now is. It's a little vignette. It doesn't really talk about, I mean, yes, it sort of links a little bit with a Danny arc of the season, but broadly speaking, it is almost entirely self-contained. Yeah, I mean, we've been talking about that drink since episode two, haven't we? And now we finally see it. And so this is their 1st date. And the fact that that's kind of the environment within which all of this is happening, it's a little bit like time of the doctor where Clara's having a Christmas while the doctor's off doing sort of crazy adventures. And here we have the same thing, basically, this is their date and why it goes wrong. And in the meantime, we're doing all of this very, very odd stuff I think. Yeah, it's it's the right kind of timey whiminess. I think it's really, really cleverly done. Yeah, I agree with both of you so far. I think it's one of those. Well, I think it's one of those outsiders, thinking outside the box, um, episodes where it's just it, like you said, it's a story. It's not just formulaic. And you have that bit of the timey whiminess, but not enough that it's sort of, you like what the hell is going on kind of thing. Later on, don't ask me to fully explain the Danny Pink art because you can might need to explain that to me offline because it still fries my brain. I'm not entirely sure if it was properly resolved if, and if it ever did make sense, but um, yeah, I, I am confused. I admit to that. But I'd forgotten just how good Peter Capaldi is as well. and Jenna and just how well they both work together and bounce off each other and just how strong they are. There's definitely a lot of chemistry and they're both incredibly talented at their profession and I think Todd going harking back to Todd. He would definitely prove of Jenna's hair in this story. Yeah. Something I'm finding rewatching this 1st season of Capaldi is there's a lot more of a twinkle to him than I remember. Like, I remember him being really grumpy in his 1st season, and that's certainly there. But I got something totally new out of the 3 mirrors scene this time. Like, he's not being mean when he's asking about the 3 mirrors. He's genuinely confused. And there is some cut lines from the end of this scene where he's trying to persuade it to come on an adventure. And it sort of puts the, you've already taken your makeup line into context because after he says that and she refuses again, he says, you can come with me and have an adventure, you can sit here not having a date, which one is it? And she gets up and she says, I think underneath all this, you're trying to be nice. And I think from his perspective, he is because there's no nothing in these lines that couldn't be said by Matt Smith. He would just put a different spin on it. That's exactly, yeah. what I was thinking. And the same with the mirrors thing. You could absolutely put Matt Smith delivering those same lines and he would get away with that. And one of the things I found watching Capaldi was, I think he is a mesh of some of my favourite doctors, like there's a lot of Tom Baker in this story. There's definitely a lot of Matt Smith. And there's little elements of Sylvester at his best where he's just being a bit sort of manipulative and the, the, sort of the borderline edge of like, um, is this, this is just not nice. Yeah, so there's lots of, um, I was thinking like, you know, my other favourite doctor is, um, Peter Davidson. I'm thinking, could I see Peter Davidson in any of these things? I actually would have loved to have seen Peter Davidson written into a story that was a bit more off the beat like this. I could see him absolutely having that conversation with Tegan like say, if it was Tegan coming back and she was doing something in her personal life, him just going like, like, this is not important. Just come with me. I could absolutely see them doing that, but not a lot of the other things. I just drink no. Yeah, so it just proves that saying something in a Scottish accent suddenly makes it offensive. I'm just imagining now, with that, Davidson's doctor saying to Tegan, it's, well, it's all right. You haven't even done your hair, and she's got that big kind of rat's nest. She had... She's like, it doesn't just look like this. I spent hours doing that. I actually think the 3 mirrors line is so well done because it leads to the call back at the end of the episode. So when he sees the 3 mirrors. He goes, why can't you just turn your head? And that's a pretty funny line. Then we get Clara and Danny talking about Courtney and Courtney saying she can't concentrate on her work. Yeah, her face is too wide. And then later those 2 lines get combined in the perfect callback where Capaldi says her face is really wide. She needs 3 mirrors. It's so good. Yeah. And having, you know, someone who is well known in Britain for starring in a situation comedy, being written by a situation comedy writer who cut his teeth on romantic comedy means that this is absolutely the centre of what Moffatt is able to do. And this is the cheap episode. How many times does Moffat give himself an episode that's not, you know, the finale or the opener or whatever? This is like the beast below. It's like, what can I do in the middle of the series in a really cheap, otherwise unimportant episode? Moffatt did say in Doctor Who magazine that this, he assigned himself this episode to prove he was still a writer. Yeah, interesting. You know, give himself a series of limitations. And it was even more limited than his original script. Because in the original script, all the doctor's soliloquy at the beginning was actually in this library archive that he took Clara to later. And when he was redrafting the script, Douglas McKinnon said, well if you want to save money, let's just put it in the Tartars. And the other cost-saving measure was they did like location recies for the barn. And after about a week, Michael Pickwode said, I've still got the barn in storage. Like, I've got the shed in the shed. Why didn't why didn't you ask? So it ends up being even cheaper than it was originally considered. But it just goes to show, you know, you can have those limitations of budget and time and whatnot, and they can come up with something so brilliant. If it's a matter of knowing how to best utilise those limitations. And I think it, I think it's just, it sets a standard right from that opening sequence, the pre-credit sequence, which is a monologue. You know you're going to be watching something, which is quite different from a normal episode and it's done so well. And it's not like you sort of gradually discover like 5 or 10 minutes in that, oh, this episode's going to be a bit of a weird one or a different one. You know that from the pre-credit sequence and it's just so brilliantly done. And it's the thing that Moffatt usually does, which is giving an in-story reason for the type of storytelling he's decided to do. So the fact, for instance, in a Christmas carol that the flashbacks to Catherine's childhood happen because the doctor has a time machine and he can go back there. Here, we have a monologue because the doctor has been on his own too long. He's going a little bit crazy. I mean, Clara says, how long have you been travelling on your own for, and he's theorising about why people talk aloud when there's no one else. there. so clever. One answer to that question is because they're doing the introductory monologue. But the other one is that there's some thing that accompanies you at all times and he wants to investigate it. Yeah. How did you actually find watching that introductory monologue? Because I actually found a little bit. I always felt a bit uncomfortable watching it. I just the way that, uh, I guess it's was, the delivery is very aggressive and sort of, Yeah, I was sort of always like, oh, I'm not sure if I like this doctor in this moment. And then the bit under the water with the fish, that sort of brought back a little bit of the comedy side of it, you know, like with the video. But the start, it was sort of like a bit. I'm not sure if I quite like this. It's just that little bit too intense, a bit aggressive, a bit unlikeable. But for the rest of the episode, I was absolutely on board. I didn't have any of those moments at all. No, I didn't feel that that it was too aggressive. I thought it was kind of direct. Like he really wants to know, he's trying to work it out. Why are things like this? I really love I really really love that sequence. I think that if this episode has flaws, and I do think it has some I think they're almost all Douglas McKinnon's fault. And so I think that opening sequence is not as scary as it should be. And I think the sequence at night in the bass in the future, he just pulls out his big box of gels and, you know, there's that line about mood lighting, but in fact, everything's dramatically overlit and that needs to be nighttime, I think, according to the script. It's nighttime. It should be under lit. So I think there are some directorial choices that don't quite work and I do think that that we don't get the sense. I think that the desire to give a monologue to camera is being emphasised when we also need to be learning that the doctor's actually losing it a bit and he's starting to fear his own shadow. And that works thematically, doesn't it? Because Clara discovers that the doctor has always been frightened. We need to see a hint of that here and we don't. He's a bit too imperious in that scene, I think. Yeah, I think it may have been more effective. If he was sort of being a bit funny with it, like he's riffing on the idea, but then the chalk disappears, you know, for horror, you need that falling action. You know, you need, oh my god, there's there's a sound. Oh, it's just a bus pulling up. It's not the it's not the leopard about to leap out and attack me. Yeah, so I think you're right, Fiona. I think, and this is a problem I have with Capaldi in this 1st series in that sometimes they go for the obvious direction of we've cast an older actor after a series of younger actors. We're going to make him grumpy and imperious. We're making him pixie like is more interesting. Yeah, um, that was another thing I really noticed in this season is I think this is the season definitely where I think I like him the most. For reasons like that. I feel in this one. He's not sort of so much a grumpy old man as he's just still, An older man, so he's not sort of of the same generation as, say, oh say Matt, you know, he's very much like, even though he's played as a very much an ancient character, especially towards the end. He is very much on the outside, like a real hipster, sort of like um, good looking guy. This one, like he's still actually like a good looking man, but he's like an older man, not an old man. And I think, and this is actually my favourite hair for him, which most people like him with more hair. I think later, I think it's just more in character with the personality just being a little bit more prickly kind of thing whereas later it just becomes almost a little bit try hard, like it sort of, I think later, it sort of gets towards, sometimes it's just sort of like it's almost trying to do the pert wee buffon, but not quite putting it off. Yes, it's like over the top doctorate. It's exactly the same reason I don't like Matt Smith's later costume. They're sort of leaning into those things that kind of failed in Doctor Who the 1st time round. It's the hair of an idiot thing, which is a Moffat line. That's how Liz Hen recognises them. But I was really, I mean, having not, as we just discussed earlier having not seen any of these episodes for a decade, I was really curious to see, so what do I think of Capaldi's performance because we were all talking at the time about, oh, is he too gruff? Is he too angry, is he too aggressive, et cetera, et cetera? And I found myself very pleasantly surprised that it's actually, it actually does pull back most of the time, uh, and I think the times it doesn't are yet to come, but most of the time it does pull back uh, and is is still on the twinkly side of nasty, if I can put it that way. I think that it's into the Dalek, isn't it? Where he is kind of a bit too brutal for some people. That's what Todd said, for instance. Whereas I actually think the great thing about those lines when he's being awful is that those lines are incredibly funny. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dual's knowledge of the arc has been thought of their digest digestion annotated yes. Yes, but exactly. I mean, you know, all those sorts of black humour has been throughout the program. Oh, yeah. And the other thing that's happening too, this season is that each episode seems to come at the idea of whether the doctor's a hero or not in a completely different kind of way. And so this time we're also investigating the doctor as a hero, but we're looking at it in quite a different way. And I think we're starting to draw the parallel that happened in episode two, between the doctor and Danny, in time for their big confrontation in a couple of weeks' time. And here we get to see both Danny and the doctor kind of being created by Clara in the same episode. Yes, exactly. Something I also found interesting about that having, you know watched all of Clara and remembering what happens to her. There's the do as you're told. comes up from both the doctor and Clara in this, and Clara with Rupert is like beat for beat, the doctor meeting Amelia. Like, you know, talking about fear and being scared and it's like oh, well, there's nothing to be scared of. And then something sits on the bed or the crack white and it's like, you know, when adults tell you everything's going to be fine and you know that they're like, well, everything's going to be fine. Yeah. But Jenna is so wonderful in those scenes. As is young Remy Gooding, who this is his only television. Really? He, at the same time, was in Matilda in the West End. But it looks like he didn't do much theatre and no television after this, which is a shame. He's a great actor. He's really good in this I think. No I think he's really good. But how scary is that scene where they're under the bed and there's just like the weight on, because you don't expect that to happen. I sort of, even when I was rewatching it, I expected to like something to either be under the bed or something to come and like poke them under the bed, but that's the last thing you expect is something to actually be on the bed. And like, it's properly, properly scary. Like you could easily have that like put into an adult sort of horror movie, a similar concept and like make it really, really scary. I think McKinnon actually gets that scene right. That's really his kind of best moment in the episode. And it's not just the visuals with the kind of vaguely out of focus thing in the background and making sure that it does move like a small child. Like it absolutely moves like a kid under the blanket. But it's also the sound, I think. And he gets the sound right both here and in the big scary scene at the end of the universe too, where I think he successfully creates some jump scares just through the use of sound. Yeah, no, the use of sound, especially in the end of the universe sequence is absolutely fantastic. It's interesting. I actually don't find the shape under the blanket to be good. Like, the whole point is that this thing is completely unseen or virtually completely unseen. Sometimes you see it out of the corner if you're right. And when we see it at other times where we see something that's out of focus and shadow, we like when it comes up and stands behind them when they're standing at the window, not looking at it. I think that's the good representation of it. But when it kind of feels like it's this solid shape under the bedclothes, I get what you're saying that, oh, it's like the shape of a small child, it moves like a small child. So it does sort of, it does make sense, but I just wish that we didn't see this big lump under the bedclothes. I wish it had been more kind of, is it actually there or is it to sort of... What's interesting about this scene is many moons ago. I recorded a podcast with J.R. Southall, and I don't know if it was his podcast or we were guesting on another one, but J.R. and I got into quite a heated debate as to whether there was a creature or whether it just was one of the other kids in the orphanage. And I'm on the creature side of things. And JR was like, no, the whole point of the story is there isn't a creature. And we were just going back and forth like that. Oh, what are the stories that there is a creature? Well, is... That's the thing. Watching this time, I was more like, oh, no, no, it is deliberately ambiguous and reading up on Stephen Moffat's writing process. He's like, I don't I don't know what the answer is. I'm not telling you. So, you know, that's fair enough. But interestingly enough, the real life person under there is Kieran Shah who we recently saw on Bondfinger in Bull'seye as a mob boss. Oh my god. So the thing is with Moffat is there is no fact of the matter because all there is is the TV show. It's not representing something that goes on in the world. So there's no answer to the question and that's deliberate. I think that we do discover there's a creature, but I think that that creature is fear or something like that because, you know Stephen Moffat has always said the Doctor Who takes place under your bed, right? And he reuses things that he's used before. So we had the clockwork droid under the bed and girl in the fireplace. We had the thing in the corner of your eye in the 11th hour. We've had the Vashtanarada, which are, you know, monsters that live in the shadows and exist everywhere. And so that's Moffat's thing. Moffat is about the scares, those indefinable scares that take place when you're alone or when you're not paying close attention and so on. And here he's absolutely doing that. This is the kind of thing, it's what causes you to feel that way. What causes those everyday feelings. And then the episode largely just ends up being about fear. I was going to say midnight as well. Midnight is Russell T. It's not actually a Stephen Mothman. But he's stealing from the... Yeah, well, absolutely. And I'm a huge fan of midnight, I think that is outstanding. And the scene, especially in the spaceship later on, is very similar to the premise of the night. Yes. And also Blair Witch Project, that movie. There's a lot of elements to that, the fact that you never actually see something, but you're really scared by what is happening off screen. Um, I think we've got, uh, I'm sorry, to hark back to the body under the blanket as such. But I think one of the weaknesses is that from our viewer perspective is where it's not quite clear whether the size of the person or thing under the blanket is a child size or an adult size. Because see, if it was obvious it was a child, then you would say oh, maybe it is another kid playing a joke. But my on the rewatch, my initial thing was like, when's Clara going to say, oh, doctor, like say it's the doctor, like mucking about and playing a joke? Like, expect the doctor to sort of pull back the blanket and say ha ha, how funny am I? Um which doesn't, of course, happen. So I think that's maybe a weakness is you're not quite sure how big the object is. Especially when, you know, the doctor has just nicked poor Reg's coffee. God, that's funny. That is so brilliant. And I noticed 2 weird things about that scene. So, one, when the doctor's talking about the coffee and he's about to nick it, if you listen to the music, it sounds remarkably like the teleport effect from Nerva Beacon, which is really, really weird. But also, I looked up the actor who plays Reg, who is Robert Goodman. Because really there's only 2 guest actors in this, there's Robert Goodman and Remy Gooding. Oh my god, there's the same initials. But he actually had a bunch of uncredited roles in the classic series. Starting off with being a mandrel in the nightmare of Eden. Yes, me. But, you know, then he's then he's aboard the starliner in full circle. He's on Gallifray. Arc of Infinity. Well, that was forgettable for him. Yeah, party get an enlightenment. Wow. Good. Yep. And he's in terror of the verboids. It just says Loder. I choose to believe he's the one who almost throws Bonnie Langford in the pulverizer. Yes, let's hope. So he totally deserves his coffee. Well, who says you can't make it a career out of being an extra. Yes. He's really great. And it's the doctor also being kind of super short story, doctor just sort of turning up, saying a few enigmatic things, stealing a coffee. And again, that's terrifically well directed. We talked last week about the spoon suddenly coming into shot when the doctors in the Tartars before he uses them to fight Robin Hood. Here, he's just walking along and then the coffee cup comes into shop. So tremendous. It also kind of reminds me of Incursive Fenrick, Paul Perkins is patrolling and the doctor startles him, but he's just like, A's in the dark watching. Perkins looks around like, is this even scripted? What's going on? I think that stuff, where he's insulting her appearance. We've sort of said this before actually works really well because she's not offended by it. Yeah, it's exactly because she just knows that he's an idiot. Yes, that's right. And there's that bit where he drops her off at the date the 2nd time. Oh, the 1st time he drops her off at the date and she sees herself leaving and admires her own backside and he doesn't see her and she's not at all phased by that. Yes. So yeah, let's talk about the date because this is Moffat doing what he did in Into the Dalek. So you remember that we have the 1st interaction between Danny and Clara keeps being intercart with him, you know, bitterly regretting not having properly asked her out and, you know, finding a classroom to bang his head on the table and stuff like that. And which is just the life of a teacher. Oh, more of that later. But that date, the way that we intercut in this sort of very press gangway, we intercut between her coming home after the dates failed and us watching the date slowly fail. And I think that that's absolutely brilliant and sort of terribly funny. And he manages to tie it into the theme of the thing as well. Yes, very clever. After the discovery about fear, she's able to go back and fix the date and make sure that it happens properly after it fails twice. Yes, but then an astronaut comes in. I don't know that the, I don't know that the date actually succeeds the 2nd time round. It just fails differently. No, no, but I mean, then she goes over to his place at the end and we actually get the date succeeding. But also, don't you love the fact that daddy says when he sits down, what did you do with your jacket? You had a jacket. It's like it's like Brian when we're watching a film. He'll spot all those kind of continuity eras. Like, the actress was wearing a jacket before. Well, he actually spots it in into the Dalek as well because she goes into the stationary cupboard or whatever, goes on an adventure with a doctor, falls in a lot of goo, changes her outfit then comes out, and he says you've changed clothes. We already know that he can spot that. And of course, in a couple of weeks time, that's going to be a massive comedy bit at the beginning of the episode in one of my favourite sequences of the entire series. But I really like it. I think this comes up sort of next week as well with Time Heist. We're leaning back into this idea that the doctor's not so much asexual, but the fact that he just doesn't understand human sexuality, he doesn't understand the ridiculously over the top mating rituals, which we're getting. It goes back to that sort of the classic series if the doctor kind of not really understanding. know, you're a very beautiful woman probably. Whereas, so it moves away from that kind of Russell T era, and, you know, it spills over to the Matt Smith era as the doctor being a kind of an actual sexual character or a character with a sexuality. Well, remember that you've got Matt Smith is a bit like that as well, and he can't tell that Amy's pregnant, for instance. He can't tell the name he's pregnant? No, but he can still, he still develops what is quite clearly a magic attachment with River. You cannot imagine Capaldi doing this despite what happens, you know. He will, though. Yeah, but I just like seeing that song, you know, the doctor is an alien, you know, and we're a different species. He's not going to understand us. Capaldi with Clara. Like, I just love the sort of interaction, like, it is that sort of bit of that grumpiness, and he can be like quite hard on her but one of the things that he's very strong about is there's so much going on in his eyes and on his face all the time without him opening his mouth, you don't so much see in this episode, but it's throughout sort of his time with Clara. He has a special I love Clara look that he'll kind of give her when he she's not looking, so she never gets to see it. We only get to see it, but it just shows without him saying a word how much he absolutely does love her. And I love the fact that it is. It's a very much. He loves her, but he's not interested in getting into her pants in any way, shape or form, like it's completely non-sexual, which is why, you know, in that later, Matt Smith thing with the whole skirt too type thing was, which has a bit got a bit icky. Um, because yeah, it's absolutely like he just loves her. And that gets played out sort of at the end of the season where he just, you know, has the line. We won't talk about that spoilers, but it comes to, it comes out later in their episodes together. Yeah. You sort of pick up on the fact that Capaldi has an incredibly expressive face, not just in the eyebrows, but all parts of his face. There a lot of character there, and he doesn't use it. Whilst you sometimes use it in a slight aestagia way than where otherwise you used to from other actors, It never feels over the top. It never feels like he's cheering the scenery. It's sort of very much like Tom. Tom has this incredibly expressive face, which you can do so much with without overdoing it either. It's something that actually reminds me of Hartnell and Barbara in that, I think, sort of after the edge of destruction, when Barbara tells him what an utter bastard he is, he actually starts to adore her. And, you know, it's even when he, even after they have their shouting match of the Aztecs, he's immediately giving her a hug and saying, I understand what you're trying to do, et cetera. And of all things. Strangely, it also reminds me of the relationship between Neelix and Captain Janeway on Voyager. It's like once once the very ill-advised relationship with Kess is no longer there, whenever, if you watch it, whenever Neelix and Janeway have a scene, especially where it's just the 2 of them there's this look of adoration and admiration on Ethan Phillips's face, which culminates in like the 2nd last episode of Voyager where Neelix leaves, and there's a wonderful quiet scene between the 2 of them talking about how much they've developed in each other's company. And it is a new direction for the show to go in because of course you know, we had rose and the doctor being in love. We had the unrequited thing with Martha. We had the just mates thing with Donna. We had sort of Amy's very highly charged sexuality. And then we had, as you say, Fiona, the slightly uncomfortable thing with Matt Smith and Clara, where, you know, he's stalking her all her life because he thinks she's a weapon, but also she's wearing a skirt that's just a bit too. No, don't say that. Whereas yet, now we get this a really great and interesting and multifaceted relationship and I actually found out this little story about filming the date scene where he drops her off again. The night before, a woman and her children had just stumbled across the filming, and her children were big fans of the program including her five-year-old daughter, Roxanne, who was autistic and had been very concerned since the regeneration because she loved Matt Smith's doctor, and she was worried the doctor wouldn't want to have adventures with her anymore. So when they had stumbled across the filming, it was the night before in the restaurant, so Capaldi wasn't there and the production team kind of said to, well, look, um, you might want to come back tomorrow if you can. So when they did, they brought the family through and took them to meet Peter and Jenna. So in her Dalek costume, Roxanne was met on Tuesday night by Douglas McKinnon, who took the family to meet Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman, Peter Capaldi showed her a photo on his phone of himself with Matt and Jenna filming the regeneration and said to her, look, Matt and Jenna have said it's okay for me to be the doctor. So I hope you think it will be okay for me to be the doctor too. And I mean, isn't that sweet? That was, you know, that was off Peter's own bat. But he does that. That's the other thing about Peter Capoldi as the doctor. Part of the job is to be an ambassador. And I think people, people like David Tennant was superb at it. Jody Whittaker was extremely good at it. was superb as well. But Capaldi doesn't get enough praise for his warmth and generosity and all of that. I remember seeing him at one of those Comic-Con, whatever they're called things that we've been to once or twice, and we were in the queue of photographs, and there was sort of a family with quite young kids that were getting the photograph with Capaldi, and the little kid was obviously very little. And he, when he, the photographer was about to be taken and he said, wait, wait. and he knelt down to be with the little kid holding out the Sonic screwdriver to make the kid the centre of attention. It was like, and Brian and I just turned to each other and said he's good. He knows what he's doing. And this is one of 100s of photographs being taken in this in rapid succession and he cared about every single one of them. I mean, we thought we had it good when David Tennant was the doctor and he would crack jokes about monoids. on the commentary tracks. But, I mean, Capaldi's a whole other level, I think, like that. I must listen to his comic. I actually met Peter at the same convention. Simon was at and he was just an absolute gentleman, really sweet and kind and he genuinely cared that my experience meeting him was a +one and I saw that same evidence that everybody. Um, the other example I've seen of that was at the Excel one for the 50th where I met Matt Smith. And you could, it was quite clear that he was exhausted and it was massive crowds, really long day and every time a young child came up to have a photo with him, he would just go into character and just put so much energy in and just be the doctor for them. And I was just like, just for that moment, I said you have my heart forever. Like it was just, um, that's the sort of thing money can't buy. Obviously, the Moffat thing of having an astronaut walk into the restaurant while you're on a date is only made more moffity by the fact that it's Samuel Anderson in the spacesuit. Yes. And you said before, Fiona, about Awson Pink, and where does he come from? So he's clearly Danny and Clara's great, great, great or great great grandson, something like that. Was it about 100 years in grand, right? Great grandson because he says that the soldier toy is an heirloom from my grandmother. Well, my great grandmother used to tell stories about time travel. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So at this point, Danny's not dead. And so the future, uh... Spoiler alert, David. And they do have sex pretty much immediately once the credits start rolling, we think, in this episode. Who can blame them? No, we're both incredibly good looking young people. So I think that that's it. We're not going to judge, but also I think too, it's, I mean Moffat must have been already aware of what he was going to do with Danny in episode 11. So he's throwing us off the scent, I think, or making that more shocking and surprising. Or possibly just not caring that that's an inconsistency. Yeah, well, there's that too. And it is a timey whimey thing at the moment. They're both alive. one possible future. Exactly. And, you know, we've brought back a companion's boyfriend from the dead before several times because we like half a dog. It could happen again. But as you've sort of said, Nathan, before. I mean, it would kind of implied before. I don't want anything like that to get in the way of a really good story. I really got back into the story. I don't think it matters. as I said there are many possible futures. Time can be rewritten. And so that soldier is important because the soldier, there's that moment where they're with Rupert and Rupert says that that toy is broken, it doesn't even have a gun. And Clara, describing the doctor, says he's so brave that he doesn't even need a gun. And so that's identified with the doctor, but it's also identified with Danny because that's where Danny gets his name from. And there's that hilarious throwaway line in the TARDIS where the doctor says, oh, I just gave him a dream about being Dan the soldier man. And you've got Janet kind of absolutely horrified by the fact that he had being a soldier was his fault and his idea. And that comes back to something you were saying, Fiona, in that Clara head desks onto the console and the doctor is beside himself with worry. But the 2nd she looks at him again, his face goes new. But when she can't see him, he's like, oh, my God, are you all right? What's happened? What's happened? The other brilliant thing about that scene is the doctor, you know constantly going, you know, don't lie to the child and Clara, shut up. sit down. And there was another line, almost ripped straight from coupling there where Clara turns around and says to the doctor, doctor, sit on it until it stops talking. And the doctor sits down for a 2nd and then goes, I just got that. That's really, really good. Can I just touch on the performance that we have there as awesome Pink and how well done it is that he manages to create a completely separate character who is effectively supposed to be the same descendant of the main character who's playing very, very nice and there's a lot of exhaustion in that performance and a lot of fear and internal conflict. It's really, really suddenly done. And going back to something you were saying earlier about, into the Dalek, Nathan, where, you know, he's quite callous and whatnot. He does kind of force Orson into telling him a little bit more about, you know, there's something outside. But when Mawson says, don't make me stay here another night, the doctor puts him in the TARDIS. You know, he doesn't make Orson live through the night again in order to satisfy his curiosity, which it is an improvement of the character, and it doesn't take Clara saying to him, oh, can't you see he's upset, et cetera, et cetera. Samuel Anderson quite enjoyed playing both parts and at his photo shoot for Awson Pink, he said, I look like Tom Jones. Yeah In that spaceship, we get that scene, then, with the doctor and Clara outside, while Awson's inside, and she asked the doctor for an explanation, and he says, what sort of explanation do you want? And she says a reassuring one. And then for the rest of... like myself cheaply from... It's brilliant moment. So good. But the thing is that that allows Moffatt to give a non supernatural, non-monstery explanation for literally everything that's happening. And I think part of the problem with the direction here is that it's overlit, it's all gels. I mean, you have that mood lighting line. Do you have mood lighting now, doctor? Because frankly, the accent is already a big part. It should be more ambiguous, I think. Because it is very directed as if there is definitely something outside knocking on the door. And you've got the doctor's reassuring explanation, which needs to be plausible for the thing to work. And I think that's the problem is that the direction doesn't capture the ambiguity of the child under the blanket well enough and it makes this a little bit too, obviously. It's quite interesting, your observations, because I was never watching it thinking that there was a possibility that actually it's just our imagination. It's just things that go bump in the night. Because that is the conclusion that the episode reaches, I think. The conclusion that there's nothing there? Oh, see, I don't get that reading at all. I get the reading that, like the creatures in midnight, like the Vastinarata, there are these things, these creatures, and they are ever present. from the beginning of time to the end of the universe and they're just there. and we don't really interact with them. But also I think what's sort of clear about it is that they frighten us, but they will never harm us sort of thing. Yeah. Because you have Clara going back to the doctor as a frightened child and her recognising that the doctor is always frightened even though he doesn't let on about it. And so this is an episode where his fear has got out of control and it's led him to create this monster. And what she does at the end is she teaches the doctor to be brave. And so I think, I don't think that the episode has to come down on either side. I think for it to work, both sides need to be plausible. Yeah. And it's nearly there. Like, both times we're scared. We get alternative explanations. Oh, it's just the kid from next door under the blanket or it's a monster. Oh, it's just atmospheric differential shorting out the like a pressure equalisation or something or it's a monster. And both of those, I think, need to be equally plausible, because I think that that's what the episode's going for. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough, but I don't think it, I don't think it ends up, or at least that maybe... Even if that's where Stephen Moffatt, the writer is going for, it's not what the director's going for. I think the directors decided that these things are real. And it's very interesting that because we've got different interpretations about whether these things are real or whether they're not or whether it's supposed to be ambiguous. I don't notice the what you're calling the bad lighting choices in the, you know, end of the universe spaceship, space, whatever it is. It's quite fascinating that I'm not seeing that as a problem because I'm taking a different conclusion from the episode. I think it's just him breaking out the same gels that he uses yes. If you're under a good thing. But, you know, had that been dark instead of really just blue, that would have been more atmospheric. Yeah, see, well, it's the ship's night mode. Yes, exactly. Crew was supposed to be asleep. Yeah, it's fun. Like, I come down on the side of there is a monster, but I also definitely see that there's an explanation that there's not a monster. And so the doctor, the conclusion they come to at the end of the episode is, even if there is a monster, it just wants to be around us. Yes, it isn't harmless. It doesn't want to harvest. And it's like, you know, they're not breaking into not trying to get into the ship to hurt Orson. They're trying to get into the ship because they have always kept humans company and now there are no more humans and what are they going to do? Because they're all off as little spheres buzzing about. near utopia. Except I think that when the doctor talks about something that has accompanied you all your life, the episode comes up with the answer, that's your fear. Yes. Yeah. The fear is the thing that's accompanied you all your life. And fear is the central idea of the episode. And so I think it, I think that it spoils it a bit if there's very definitely nothing to be afraid of and we're all just making it up. And if there very definitely is something to be afraid of. I think that spoils it. I think that's why the ambiguity needs to be there. Okay, okay. I'll pay that the ambiguity. Well, there should be a great level of ambiguity. Fine. I still think it works even without that. But maybe it's the episode's not really about fear, it's about courage. And it's about, it's about sort of moving past the fear. And that's why, you know, the sequence with Clara and holding the doctor's ankle as a child, which is quite terrifying, actually. That would be terrifying. I mean, if someone reached out, I mean, basically you'd be, you know, you'd be a mess for the rest of your life. But the really properly clever thing about that. The really properly clever thing about that, I think, is that Clara realises just as she grabs his ankle that this is the doctor having that dream. Yes. She asks the doctor, Did you have that dream and he refuses to answer? When she gets distracted, she's 1st distracted by Danny and so they land just after he has that dream as a child, then she gets distracted by the doctor. She's also been thinking about the doctor. And so the next place we land is where the doctor is about to have that dream. And there's a beautiful bit of direction. You know, we get the 3 people, the 3 random people. You never have this in Doctor Who because you have to cast someone and create a set and all of that sort of thing. There's 3 people all having the dream. A little girl in the past, an older woman and a boy. And the way the camera moves out from under the bed to see to follow the, like it follows the hand as it comes out. It's really well done. And so there's that moment where Clara grabs the doctor's ankle to stop him from getting up and seeing the TARDIS or seeing her and then realises, holy crap, this is me, making him have that dream. I'm the cause for this entire thing. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brilliant. And also, you know, every other hand that's ever done is one of Clara's splinters. Well, there you go. She's under In fact, it's Clara under the blanket. That was where my thoughts were going earlier because when you were saying about the interpretation of it, you've actually all come up with 3 separate theories, I guess. So Brendan's sort of like in the middle of you. But that was what I was thinking with the, um, this old the spinter. One piece is harking back to the name of the doctor where Clara becomes this significant person in the doctor's life. And when I 1st watched that, I was like, okay, where's the comeback from this? Like, she's obviously, she's really going to become the most important companion ever. And closer to him, really than River song. If she's gone through his time stream, she would really know him better than anybody ever has. And so this is the fact that from now on, she's also showing that she's shaping, having its, you know, these significant moments where she has actually shaped the person he is, significantly, I think, is that little bit of that thing to just say she's not just an ordinary girl. She is someone a bit very special. Like she's the one who gives him the line fear makes companions of us all, which appears at the end of, is it the Daleks or is it... It's during an unearthly child. They're in the cave of skulls. Okay, so she gives him that line. And, you know, like, just 2 weeks ago, we were talking about the doctor meeting the Daleks for the 1st time and becoming the doctor for the 1st time. This is Moffatt starting to get interested in the beginning of the series and we saw the doctor and Susan stealing the TARDIS and things in name of the doctor. I think part of the thing is that Moffat does look at the doctor's origins, but in a way that still leaves them alone. So he doesn't change anything or fill anything in. He doesn't make it any less mysterious than it already is, but he is fiddling around the edges of that. And I think that that's the right approach to take Chris Chibnall. Yes, I like to say... What you just said about Clara, Fiona, reminded me of a discussion I had at the time with friend of the podcast, Anson, where we were discussing how Clara's characterisation had changed between seasons, and that's something we've discussed on the show before and Anson at the time had a very interesting theory, because he had brought up to me, we don't see how the doctor and Clara escaped from the doctor's timeline. You know, they're trying to get out the name of the doctor, and then all of a sudden they're... And Anson had a theory that during series 8, it would be revealed that this is actually a different version of Clara. Which would make it very interesting if, you know, because if she's the same version of Clara, she's already massively influenced the doctor's timeline. But if this is a new version of Clara, this is her influence of the doctor's time. Now, obviously, it didn't end up being that. But it is such an interesting thing that she's still doing it. Yeah, and I do think it's such a lovely scene, especially when she tells him he can't go out and see where they are. And then she hug attacks him. Yes. I don't do hugging. I don't take orders and she just gives him an order and he does take it. He doesn't. And the same with the hug attack. He's saying, I don't want to be hugged, but at the same time, he's not fighting her off too because he does love her. And he does appreciate that, yeah, he's appreciating the hug. And he's always scared. Like we now know that he's always scared as well. I think, I think, though, if you're looking at this era of Doctor Who as part of an ongoing story about a single individual and stuff, then you kind of think, well, Clara's had more to do with the doctor's origins than anyone else. But I think that it's just because she's the companion when he comes up with these ideas and it is the companions in a way that make the doctor, the doctor. I mean, if you look back at the very beginning of the show, like Ian calls him doctor or Barbara calls him doctor before anyone else does and he becomes the doctor over the course of that run of 13 episodes at the beginning of the show, partly because of Barbara and Ian, or very largely because of them. So the companions do create the doctor, I think. Yeah. And especially because Clara has emphatically stated at this point I'm his carer. Yeah, yes, indeed. We do have that, uh, the thing that I was worried about at the time when we were watching it and the sort of, uh, picked up on now, which is this, this, the poor choice of how they deal with Danny being a soldier, Danny being uh, ex-military. Clara has a somewhat negative reaction to it during the date, which is one of the reasons why the date starts to go wrong because she puts her foot in it asking about it, what he'd done as a soldier. It's odd because, you know, Austin Pink is an astronaut who are traditionally part of the military. is the very strong suggestion that he's part of the military as well. So I think the way this series, the particular, this particular series, addresses the military addresses Danny's role in the military is incredibly ill judged, and I should become very cross about it as a series moves forward. Yeah, it was Stephen Moffat addressing a hot button topic because I was, no, I was just back from the UK when this series went out but around 2012, you had a lot of soldiers coming back to the UK from Afghanistan and getting out of the military and there was actually a big push. Oh, retrain them as teachers to address the teacher shortage. And so, you know, I think it's Moffatt picking up on that, but also not knowing any soldiers and not knowing any soldiers who became teachers. But it's not being a teacher. It's about being treating him as if the, well, the doctor and others treating him that he's either a savage or an idiot or totally. Or worse. It's a big problem. Like it's a criminal, basically. Yeah, it's even more addressing a hot button topic, but apparently not researching or talking to anyone actually involved. But to be fair, Stephen Moffatt is also writing Danny's lines. So it's not just writing the doctor and Clara being suspicious about people being soldiers. The pushback, which comes from Danny, because the thing that Clara puts a foot in it with is by saying, you know, when you say, I could kill Courtney, that really means something. Yes. And then we cut back to her kind of reaction to having fluff the day and then they're already in the middle of an argument where he's saying, no, I was there saving people. I was digging well. Absolutely. And it's fine here. It's later. Oh yeah. Yeah, it's going to be a problem. Maybe because basically what I'm uncomfortable with is not that Danny has a comeback. It's a very good comeback. It's the fact that our heroes take this view and in some respects one of the heroes never sheds that view throughout the season, the main hero, in fact. Very unfortunate, very unfortunate choice. Look, I think the one thing that you can't get past with this episode is that it's all done incredibly elegantly. Even if you, you know, want the lighting to be turned down or change some places. It's all done so cleverly, as was pointed out, there is, the guest cast is microscopic. And you're drawn into it from the very 1st moment, you're on the edge of your seat. You stop breathing. It does everything that you want an episode to do. Well, that's all we have time for this week. We'll be back next week. either to overthrow capitalism, or to have a bit of a romp in the galaxy's biggest bank in time heist. In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts and you can keep up with us on our website, flightforentirety.com where you'll find links to our accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Mastodon, as well as links to our other podcasts, Bondfinger, Jody Intetera, Maximum Power, and Untitled Star Trek Project. Until next time, remember that fear makes companions of us all. Thank you very much for listening and good night. I want my blankie. Good night. Bye for now. Good night. That was Flight through Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley Brandon Jones, Simon Moore, and Fiona Tomney. Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb. This episode, level of ambiguity, was recorded on the 15th of January 2023 and released on the 7th of May. If you have been affected by issues arising in this program, we recommend breaking up the space under your bed, but really after checking it carefully for Clockwork Monsters and perky bisexual English teachers. Yeah, okay. I think we can now. Is anyone, are you frozen again, Fiona? She's frozen again. Yeah. The Clara Danny date is just basically the 1st 3 episodes of coupling, though. Yeah, oh, no, no, no. Yeah, that's why he's doing that. Oh, yeah, it's the right thing. But it's a way... She'll come back Yeah. Did she come back because she has to ask to join again, doesn't she? Ow. Will it? I think that um... Wait, I'm going to restart. Oh no, no. Hooray. So, Fiona, we've only got 2 minutes left, which means that we've been recording for 80 minutes, so I think we're probably... I think we've got enough. That was great. That was really good. Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you. Is there anything for you? Is there anything you wanted to say you didn't get a chance to say and we can drop it back in wherever appropriate? Oh, not really, but while I've got you guys online. I just wanted to say that one of my favourite Peter Capaldi moments is actually when he's standing in the balloon at the end of Deep Breath. And I still don't know whether or not he pushed the Clockwork man over. But I think that's one of his strongest performances is that look on his face without saying a word. That's my favourite moment and I, yeah. We landed on he did push him out. I reckon he did too. Because he did beat up the tramp. He did beat up Mrs. Elizabeth Slade. Tramp his watch. But he was so clearly lying. Mr. Elizabeth Slater. I will say, Fiona, with that with that great shot where he looks up at the camera, I seem to recall like the, you know, the BBC drama in late 2014 trailer. That's the shot that leads it off with original British drama plastered over Capaldi. It just a well-placed looking down the barrel of the lens sparingly is can be very, very effective. Yeah, it's a bit like... What about when the doctor looks at the camera and goes, even the Sonic screwdriver won't get me out of his head? Yes, not that one. I think I think that's not on my list of funds that were successful. I will also I think if Clara is saying, and remember at the end. Yeah, that's so good. And everything this cold open of this episode does well or badly is entirely forgiven for me with Thumb Before the Flood and the who wrote Beethoven's fifth. Yeah, you know, because they do that again for that. It's like, you know, a time traveller goes back to meet Beethoven but no one's ever heard of him. So he becomes Beethoven. Yes. Yes. Yeah, we dodged a bullet. I mean, we... When Weird House didn't become Showrunner, but we did take another bullet. I think I think the corpse is... It's got loads of bullets in it. Yeah, keep that. It's about like the 7th doctor didn't die from the bullet wound. He died from botched open heart surgery. Yes, exactly. We've got less than a minute and it's going to kick us off this call. Sure. Love to see you. Thank you. Oh, she's gone. Now we can't even say goodbye. Well, you can open up a Facebook chat. Is she there? I could call her on Facebook. Yeah, do that.