Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight Through
Entirety.
The only Doctor Who podcast with no memory at all of anything
that's happened in the last 5 years.
I'm Nathan.
I'm James.
I'm Peter.
And I'm Simon.
Well, it's time for Clara's 2nd date with Danny, and this time
it's the doctor's turn to come along and ruin everything.
And so now we're in the most secure bank in the universe with
literally no idea of how we got here or what we're supposed to do
next.
It's Ocean's 4 with a couple of horny pachyderms in time heist.
So, again, here we are in sort of part five of Is the Doctor a
good person or not?
And here we're getting our fifth iteration of that idea, and it's
different each time.
Boring manufactured character never goes anywhere.
Do you think?
Yeah.
I mean, I think it is a very moffity thing and it's very central
to the way the doctor has been portrayed by Moffatt even during
the Smith era.
Here, I guess we get the sort of self-hatred thing, don't we?
The doctor hates the architect, and that's how the doctor works
out that he's the architect because the doctor hates himself.
Is that how he works out?
Yeah, yeah.
Do you remember the speech at the very end where he talks about
how he's manipulative and arrogant and he thinks he's smarter than
everyone in the room and the sort of penny starts to drop?
Yes.
Yeah.
But that's not self-hatred per se. just him recognising that he's
all of those things.
But that's how he knows that he hates the architect, the architect
him because he's all the things that the doctor hates about
himself.
I guess.
The self-hatred line is lampshaded.
Yeah.
But other than that, this is fairly straightforward, I think.
I mean, in a good way, I think.
I think it's 3rd time lucky for Stephen Thompson.
He previously gave us Doctor Who's Pirate movie and then Doctor
Who's Expedition movie, and neither of them really progressed
beyond the actual premise.
There was no development of it.
This, I think, is quite a good keeper movie.
And it's really the 1st time the Doctor Who's done it.
Which one's the expedition movie?
Journey to the centre of the Tartars.
Oh, right, I see.
Yeah, I think, like, it is a sort of caper, and I think Douglas
McKinnon thinks it's a caper.
He's trying to do all of these little sort of guy Richie ticks and
stuff like that.
But I guess the big difference between this heist and a normal TV
heist is that in a normal TV heist, we see the action take place
twice.
So we have the plan, which is explained as a voiceover while we
see it going right.
Perfectly correct.
And then we see it again where it goes wrong at the crucial
moment.
Or more frequently.
More crucial moments, lots of crucial.
Yes, yeah, it goes wrong and they save it.
Yeah, that's right.
But then it goes catastrophically wrong. at some point.
Here, we don't have that and they don't know what they're doing.
Look, I mean, I think that this is a very good episode, which is
very entertaining, but I think it is, as you kind of allude to
there.
I think it is actually slightly wasted because I think given that
it's a time heist, You could actually be actually doing it twice
using time traveller as a result.
I think it's saved to be really good by a really good production
and really good performances because I think it doesn't actually
quite land at the end.
I want kind of more out of it, even though I really enjoy it and I
love it.
I think we get, you know, the kind of reverse where we actually do
see Capaldi turn up, presumably in his TARDIS, although that's not
made explicit, and putting all the cases everywhere.
I mean, that sort of 7th doctor, New Adventure, sort of way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And also keeper movies rise and fall on the quality of their
characters.
And I think this episode, and also listened last week, were the
1st ones which felt like they were tailored towards Capaldi's
character.
It wouldn't have worked quite so well with Matt Smith.
I just don't think it would have been entertaining without that
mercurial capaldi quality, but also the 2 guest performance and
their characters are really quite engaging in a way that it put me
in the mind of ghost monument, which we'll come to in X number of
years, where you have the same thing of like the Tartars team and
2 characters added on and they're doing some kind of trip or
quest.
And those characters were utterly forgettable in their
characterisation and their performances.
Whereas here, you really want to spend more time with Sire and
Sabre.
Yeah.
So science, Jonathan Bailey.
If you put each other.
Yeah, yeah.
He gets better himself to this.
He gets to have sex with Phoebe Wallerbridge in series 2 of
Broadchurch.
And he gets to have sex with me in about 3 years.
So actually, I think what's kind of delightful is.
Obviously in Bridgerton, you know, it's an American TV production
in which he has to take his shirt off.
And so he is absolutely shredded.
But here he's got a little bit of sort of pudgy puppy fats in his
face.
I think he's adorable.
He still is poured into that leather suit quite beautifully.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I think he looks great.
I'm not objecting at all I think he's...
I haven't.
And then say, bro, I kept, if I looked away from the screen, I
think she just sounds like exactly like Jenny, you know, Faster
and Jenny.
She's got the same accent.
She's got the same kind of voice.
And so I kept hearing Jenny whenever I saw her.
I think they're both really good.
And they make that transition well from the start of the episode
where you don't know if they're friend or foe. just been thrown
together and they're a bit hostile towards the end of the episode
in that last scene where it's really quite nice.
You think, I could go with this extended TARDS team.
It's actually really fun, isn't it?
So they are kind of designed to fit into the plot.
And I think the sort of telling moment is where we get 2
consecutive scenes of them talking, delivering the exposition
that's needed to explain what it is they're being paid with.
And so I think we get the scene between Clara and Cy where he
talks about deleting his family.
And then immediately after that, we get Sabre and the doctor
talking about how she can't have a relationship, because...
Because she always ends up looking like them.
That standard rogue from X-Men, kind of.
Yeah, it's a little bit something.
But it's also used to see the looking at into your own eyes
thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the self-hatred thing.
Yeah, that they bring in with Carabraxos and Mrs. Delfox.
Yeah.
And the doctor.
And the doctor and the architect.
Yeah, yeah.
But that's a little bit rightly.
It's a little bit kind of not something anyone would actually ever
say.
Yeah, and you can sort of follow the threads of the plot being put
together, you know.
We could highlight this thematically.
It's like, uh-huh.
Yeah, yeah.
But I think that where those characters do come into their own is
that extended sequence, at the end, which is super unusual for
Doctor Who, and we've had a doctor now for a few episodes who is
really brusque and not very good with people and a bit obnoxious
having these sort of scenes of joking and eating Chinese food with
sabra and psy in the TARDIS, which I think is lovely.
And like super unusual in any era, I think.
And kind of, those scenes are usually quite annoying where you
have, you know, the team together at the end.
Someone cracks a not very funny joke and everyone else laughs
themselves silly over it, but it suits the end of a caper movie
because it's all about the one between those characters where they
work together.
We're getting a gang together.
Yeah exactly.
Another trip getting the gang back together.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I'm getting vibes of Peter Davison standing around with
everyone else in the store at the end of the Awakening going on
about TV.
Exactly about the awakening.
Only this bit's entertaining.
I really love the start, the precredit sequence.
And we had it last week as well.
We listen where it's a slightly different start to an episode.
You know, the bit of opening credits, which turns into the tumble
dryer and, yeah, giving a bit of a monologue.
I quite like stylistically how where they were going with these.
And then I was kind of disappointed that they didn't kind of keep
going because I think it was a really nice new way of doing the 45
minute episodes.
Also, interestingly, they used the sting from series one to four
the beginning of the titles.
Oh, really?
No reason.
For no reason.
It only improved it.
No, if only they had for the rest of the series.
Like that sting works really well there.
And they also did it on robots of Sherwood. as well.
Yes.
So wonder why they accidentally used, probably.
Well, I mean, we've just had a whole episode, which is largely
about the rom-com subplot of the season.
So listen takes place entirely during Danny and Clara's 1st date.
And I've said before, uh, this season that I like the rom-com
sunplot because I think it's funny.
I think it's something that Moffa can do really well.
It gives Clara something normal to do rather than be the
impossible girl.
She just gets to be a person and she kind of gets to be a
character in chalk or press gang or something like that.
You know, something that Moffa can ride in his sleep.
And, you know, that's clearly the reason he keeps getting these
writing co-credits because of that.
And so here we have the doctor just giving a Florana speech, isn't
he?
to her while he's sort of staring into the tumble dryer, looking
at her under things, I guess.
And this is the 2nd date, which he interrupts.
I think what's really terrifically good is the way that he picks
up the phone from the TARDIS and then suddenly he screams and puts
down a memory worm.
And that's a very Moffat thing as well, isn't it?
Using the memory worm to explain the jump from one place to
another and why we haven't seen the action.
Yeah, like...
We're experiencing the missing time that they've experienced.
Yeah, like what happens with the silence, right?
Yeah, same kind of thing.
Same kind of thing.
It's very, very cleverly done.
And it gets you straight into it.
It's a great way of doing it.
But I think even if the story were longer, I think you'd still do
that, because you don't want to have it all happen twice.
Well, we do want to happen at all and happen twice, but any
different way.
Yeah.
And visually, the jump cut really works.
Yeah, and the direction as a whole really works.
And, you know, we said Stephen Thompson, it might be 3rd time
lucky.
Douglas McKinnon, I was not swept away by his 1st efforts on the
show, which was the Santaran 2-parter from series 4.
I thought that was a bit ham fisted, actually, but he is director
who comes good as he goes along, and this is expertly done, I
think.
So he he has done the Santaran 2 Pada, he does Power of 3 and Cold
War.
He did listen last week, and maybe that story's kind of worst
feature, I think, is probably McKinnon's direction.
But he does flatline later, which is also good, I think.
He's kind of hit and miss, but when he hits, he hits.
Yeah.
I mean, he's helped long here.
There's some unmissable things that you would have to do if you
were any kind of director and you're directing Doctor Who's heist
episode, but he gets them all right.
Maybe because in this, he's got a lot of references in from other
films, the Asians films, particularly. to go to, whereas when he's
doing some of those early things like this and Taranti part, he
doesn't really know what's going on, how do I do this?
How do I cover this?
And that's why it kind of all looks a bit crappy.
It's a shorthand that is known in in production in filmmaking that
you can go to with a heist movie.
Exactly, but you can get these beats.
Yeah, but we need to do those beats.
Otherwise it isn't doing what we want it to do.
Yeah, exactly.
The tone meeting is evident on Shantar and two-paso.
It's like, what tone are they going for?
We're not sure. never made clear.
Whereas here, it's absolutely evident from the outset what you
should be going for.
I heard that Steve Thompson decided to do a monster that was a
practical effect, and I think that the teller is a pretty good
costume.
Although it doesn't.
From a man in a rubber suit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And sort of articulated and things, you know, there's a lot of
animatronics or puppetry going on there.
It's got mandral feet.
Yes, particularly in the final scene where it goes off with Mrs
Teller. you know, into the wilderness.
They've both got mandal feet.
It's a bit heteronormatively reductive.
Well, she is given she her pronouns in the script.
So I'm going to go with that.
Her name is Penn.
It's pen and pen.
Terrible.
The little tails that they have.
Yeah, they do.
I think the tales are there to cover their butt cracks, actually.
Modesty.
That's right.
But I think that's really good.
And then that enables the bank to be a little bit more impressive
except that it's not, but the lobby is...
The lobby sets the scene and because it's not one CGI shot.
You know, it's not nightmare in silver, where you're setting up an
entire fairground, then you go into a corner of the studio. because
they actually spend some time there and you do get a lot of shots
and it's very nicely lit.
That's all you really need.
Then they can descend into the usual tunnels and vault, which was
part of the millennium stadium or whatever.
Yeah.
The bits outside the bank in the big forecourt.
That's rolled D Plus.
All right.
Where, sorry?
The big plaza, like public square, where the torch tower, the
tower, the water tower.
Yeah, that's the square outside torchwood.
With a lot of CTI around.
A lot of green screens, GGI around it to cover it up, but
that's...
Suppose they just find an open space and then CGI, all the crap
around it that they do.
Yeah, they just hang up giant green screens around the square.
Because, I mean, that final scene too, where the doctor and Clara
drop Mr. and Mrs. Taylor off at the end. doesn't for a 2nd look
like they're actually there, but it's still very well done.
Oh, it's very well done.
Yes, yeah.
Yeah, sort of fairy tale landscape.
I want to know where Mr. and Mrs. Teller are going to get all
their food because then they feed off all that mental energy of
other creatures.
I don't know, but they were kind of exhausted by all of that.
I mean, that was the kind of idea is that it's part of the way
that we sell that Madame Carabrak sauce has been sort of torturing
him is by making him upset that he has to listen to all of that
noise.
And so now it's just the 2 of them together.
Right, yes, yeah.
Like they may feed off mental energy, but she's been forcing him
to use his food source to kill people.
Another example of that sort of flattened head that we saw in
Bells of St.
John. and silence in the library.
It's like, let's do that effect again.
Yeah, he gets really into that because he does it in Husbands of
River song and then again in the following episode, I think, too.
So he's constantly doing sort of CGI heads.
And notice that I think there's 4 people on the screen.
There's the guy who gets attacked by the teller in the lobby and
then we see a screen with him and and 2 of them have shaved heads
in order to make that read more clearly.
Watch out, Nathan and James.
This is why this is why you're keeping your hair.
That can't be used for that kind of effect.
But going back to the heist movie thing, the other thing that
makes it a sort of real heist movie is that, you know, in the
oceans films, you know, when they're robbing a casino or whatever
the hell it is, and George Clooney is telling you about all the
stuff that they have to get through, there's always these
ridiculously over the top security measures, bizarre security
measures that they have to get through.
And we do have that with the breathing thing and the DNA.
Yeah, you get incinerated if you...
And the special skills, you know, like everyone in the... brings a
particular thing, yes.
Yeah, yeah.
So we have Sabra disguising herself as a white guy.
And it's kind of actually funny.
You know, he's this sort of very straight laced looking grey
haired person about Capaldi's age.
He looks like Capaldi.
But he looks much less kind of, like, Capaldi still manages to
look like the doctor, you know, hair of an idiot in context with
someone else in the same shot as him sort of roughly the same
age.
Again, I think we're continuing to with giving Capaldi really sort
of fantastic dismissive lines.
There's that thing where they're all sort of terrified. going to
be blown up in the room and Clara points out, you know, if we let
the bomb off in here, we'll all be killed or whatever.
And he says something about pessimism and, you know, kind of
wrecking the group's morale and stuff.
Like, I think all of that works really well with Capoldi, and I'm
not finding that that portrayal of the character is tiresome or
needs retooling.
No, it's great.
I think the stuff which is a little bit greeting on that is where
I don't know if there's some residual channelling of Malcolm
Tucker in there, but in the scene where the doctor is putting it
all together, and he has that line shut up, shutterty up, up, up.
It's a little bit.
Oh, come on.
That's tiny, whiny.
But it is...
That's more that's more Moffat than than...
It is, but it's Moffat doing Malcolm Tucker.
It is, yeah, yeah.
Well, I think isn't isn't the kind of the promise of Capaldi
wasn't it kind of being a bit Malcolm Tucker anyway?
He's a bit aggressive and, you know, telling people to shut up.
And then D shut up when he wants them to speak.
Well, I did like that.
I love that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You D shut up.
Yes.
I do.
But I love I love the throwaway insults because they're not really
they're not, they're not overly cutting.
They're not they're not too cutting.
They're just really rapid fire quips and I do think they work
really, really well.
I actually don't mind.
I find myself this time through not really minding the insults
about Clara's appearance.
And it's partly, I think, because Clara knows she's hot. you know
and she's looking at her own bum and stuff like that.
You know, Capaldi doesn't respond to the outfit that she turns up
in... why he's taller.
Why is your face coloured in?
Is this the episode undermining her in any way?
No, because he looks like an idiot. a joke against you.
Yes, exactly.
You know, we had that joke with Matt Smith who couldn't tell that
Amy was pregnant in Amy's choice.
He didn't know what that was.
And so we just have that with Capaldi.
And I think you kind of need something like that.
Like, I think that's partly motivated from a desire not to have
any kind of sexual attraction between them.
It makes it clear that nothing's going to go on.
Yeah.
So it's a nice refreshing change from that sort of tenant era.
But also it's just easy laughs.
I mean, it's the same trick that Moffat does with Stracts.
The thing that makes Strax funny is he's completely blithe to
everything about him.
He can't tell if Clara is a girl or a boy.
Yeah, can't tell if she's wearing a hat or a coat.
The one with the not the one with the enormous head.
It is all sort of reminiscent of the, you're a very beautiful
woman problem.
Yes, I think that that's the genesis of it actually.
Yeah, yeah.
It had been long enough since I watched this that I actually
forgot the twist.
Yes, me too.
And so...
Yeah, well, I think it's a reasonable twist, and we have had it
before.
I don't mean the twist, the doctor's the architect.
I did remember that and I remember that he'd organised it, although
perhaps not quite to what extent he'd done it, but it's the
shredders, the molecular shredders.
And I actually genuinely, this time for a little while thought
that Sabre had been killed.
Yeah.
And that's the other point in the episode where the, is the doctor
a good person thing comes up because I think the doctor's quite
reasonable to round on Cy and tell him we're not going to worry
about Sabra's death right now because we need to do this thing in
order to stay alive ourselves.
And it's certainly a thing that I can imagine Tom's doctor
saying.
It doesn't seem too excessive or too callous.
Olympian detachment.
Yeah, but it's also...
We don't have time for this now.
It's not the afterwards.
It's the beforehand.
It's the if we assume that the character genuinely believes that
this is effectively a suicide pill because the fate you are about
to suffer is worse than killing yourself right now.
It was that that I was a bit worried about the way he hands at the
thing and, you know, the exit strategy and so on.
I found that a bit.
I'd like to think that he actually knows that this is actually a
teleport or strongly suspects that this is a teleport.
The same thing in Into the Dalek, where that other soldier gets
vaporised.
A couple of them get vaporised by the antibodies.
And the doctor doesn't in advance, the doctor doesn't seem to care
about it.
I think that is different to afterwards saying, we can't deal with
this now, we need to move on.
Yeah, yeah.
Although, I mean, he does in Into the Dart.
He does say he was dead already.
There was nothing I could do about it.
And then in the second, the 2nd time he's there, actually
comforting her and reassuring her that he's going to make her
sacrifice worthwhile.
And that's the flip in that episode.
Here, I think that's the bit where Cy kind of gets terribly cross
and tells him off and stuff like that.
But I don't think he's being that much of a problem here.
No, and it's like any early doctor story.
We can look at the example of robot with Tom, we were talking
about just a moment ago.
Everything's a bit over-egged.
They're coming in a bit strong on everything and then they sort
out what works and it settles down.
So that element of Capaldi stays all the way through.
And I'm thinking of the moment in thin ice where Bill tells him
off because the guy's being dragged into the ice and he's got the
Sonic and he makes the guy believe that if he can just chuck him
the Sonic, maybe he can save him.
But after he's like, no, there was no saving him.
I just didn't want to lose the sonic.
I quite like that.
That's good.
So it does stay, doesn't it?
That does stay all the way through.
And I like that as well.
I think there's hints of it with Eccleston too, where the Rose
Eccleston relationship, you know, Rose is supposed to bring the
sort of human caring and the doctor has a more alien detached view
on things.
So it's not without precedent in Doctor Who.
It's a pragmatism that the character has, but also a lack of time
to waste in these situations with the humankindness.
Yeah, which it sells the I'm not even remotely human.
Yeah.
But it's always the doctor sees the big picture and the
companion's always seeing the micro picture.
Yeah, I mean, I'm just trying to kind of work out how this is
different from, and this has come up before, but how is this
different from Colin, for instance, because they try and make the
doctor unlikeable deliberately in that era, but I don't think they
do it as skilfully or carefully.
I take issue with that premise.
I don't think they're ever trying to make Colin Baker's doctor
unlikeable.
What they're trying to make him is spiky, which is the same as
what they're doing.
Yeah.
Yeah, sort of... a slightly misbegotten idea of that that's what
Hartnell was like when in fact Hartnell was nothing like that.
Cuddly, as we know.
Well, that's not true, actually.
He was like that at times He was cuddly at times.
Yeah, but was also going to throw them off the ship and, you know
was going to, you know, kill the caveman with a rock.
Well, that 80s conception of, you know, the doctor used to be
edging.
We want to get back to that is all taken from Hartnell in the 1st
couple of episodes before he's warmed up to Ian and Barbara, and
we see that actually he does like these humans.
Yeah.
So it's all taken from that initial harsh thing, which they lose
in the program very quickly because it doesn't quite work.
And I think in the colon era and here, they lose those really
rough edges quite quickly because they recognise, again, it
doesn't work.
You need a softer form of that to be acceptable.
I think too, that the writing is different as well because Capolda
gets given really, really funny lines.
Like Capaldi is funny and those lines are well written.
Molfat's conception of it, not Anthony Stevens.
Yeah, that's right Yeah, yeah.
I think that's where it falls down slightly in the Colin Baker era
is that the lines aren't as clever or funny.
But nevertheless, I still, and I still maintain to this day, I was
still absolutely loving that portrayal in 985, 6, et cetera
absolutely adoring it.
So I think it's an excuse that's added later as to why the era was
less successful or, in fact, why the program had been cancelled
which, of course, was for completely other reasons.
I agree.
And in this instance, it's a question of a very talented writer
like Moffat, recognising that perhaps it's gone a little bit too
far and pulling it back to somewhere, which is good.
Whereas when they try to do that in the 80s when they try to make
Colin all cuddly and lose the abrasive edge completely in season
23, the characterisation goes off the cliff.
Yes, it's terrible.
It looks like it's an overcorrection in a way.
Yeah.
I mean, I would have said the starkest difference between those 2
characterisations, the doctors, that you don't make a Capaldi
strangle Clara.
Yeah.
Why not?
We ask...
He does leave her to the machinations of the Clockwork Man.
Yeah, yeah, that's a striking moment.
That is effectively the same moment.
Yeah, but done, done better done.
Well, because the thing is that Clara knows it turns out that the
doctor or is very certain that the doctor hasn't abandoned her.
She doesn't think the doctor's abandoned her and she reaches her
hand back and guess what?
The doctor was there.
She doesn't believe he would.
But we do, but that sort of thing happens all throughout, you know
the history of this program and other programs where for a moment
you're supposed to be led to believe that the hero has turned
evil.
You know, I mean, for God's sake, the doctor, one of the latter
episodes of the war games, the cliffhanger is that he's basically
handed them all over to the war. you know.
And it's a cliffhanger.
I mean, do we really seriously believe the doctor has changed to
be evil?
I mean, no, of course not.
And so it's just a story thing, you know.
I think like the version of Tom's doctor in Horror Fang Rock is
the one that I keep mentioning, where he's utterly unsympathetic
and utterly unsentimental, because he has a job as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yes.
Yeah, I can imagine Capaldi delivering the, you know, there's a
monster outside and by morning we may all be deadline with that
big smile at the end.
Like, I think that that's absolutely something that a very good
version of the program has managed to do successfully.
And so I don't think it was a mistake for Moffatt to go back and
try and do it again.
No, and it's not an easy progression through this season as well.
It kind of bobs up and down.
It's not like they start strong and then get it right, because as
we'll see from next week's episode, which might be the worst
iteration, like this version of the Capoldi Doctor.
They're still flailing around a little bit.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean, each episode has done this differently in a
different way and some things get tried, which never get tried
again.
And different right, a different directed day.
And, you know, they perhaps realise after the fact, oh, actually
we did, that didn't quite work, but it only looks bad in the edit
suite, and it's too late to do anything about it.
It's a nice refreshing change though.
I mean, when you have a program which changes the lead actor all
the time and changing the character of the lead actor all the time
I think it is refreshing and it's something that they definitely
needed to do because after you had slightly irascible Eccleston
you have the kind of the, you know, thinks you're so hot, tenant
kind of doctor, then you have the public school boy, Matt Smith, I
think this is a perfect next doctor from that.
Yeah, and I still think he has lots of things in common with Matt
Smith's doctor because, as I've said, over and over again, you
know, both of Russell's doctors are Russell and both of Moffatt's
doctors are Moffatt, you know, the smartest man in the room, but
possibly a horrible person or someone who suspects that he's a
horrible person.
This man in the room and Scottish.
Scottish.
See, that's the other Colin Baker thing, isn't it?
It's like J&T cast himself.
And Moffatt casts himself as well, which is why I think he ups his
game with the witty dialogue as well. funny, isn't it, how J&T
casts Davison, who is the opposite of what J&T is.
And Matt Smith, in many ways, is kind of opposite what Moffatt
is.
And then they just go, oh, well, let's have to be me.
What does that say about Chipnall?
But going back to the twist at the end, or twist, the various
twists in that final sequence, I still feel unsatisfied with the
way it resolves.
I want more.
I think they could have been more.
Yes, it is all very noble for it to all be about rescuing the
Teller and Mrs. Teller, but I think there's more there that could
have been utilised in this concept.
I think what the issue is, is that we don't know what led Mrs
Carabraxos to have a change of heart, that too.
Where does that come from?
Is it meant to just be old age?
Yeah, sort of.
Yeah.
Oh, shout out to the ageing makeup too, which I think is actually
not too bad.
It was actually pretty good.
But that's what Keely Hawes looks like.
So it's the earlier scenes that are a makeup.
So Keely Hawes is fantastic, obviously, really great.
This is the program that made me like Keeley Hawes.
I never liked her previously.
I thought she gave no, well, like I came after.
She gave a series of cold, unlikeable performances in characters
that shouldn't have been that.
So I'm thinking of ashes to ashes.
I'm thinking of that awful reboot of upstairs downstairs that the
BBC did where she was the lady of the manor and utterly unlikeable
whereas the character was written to be likeable, but for some
reason was this ice queen in the hands of Keeley Hawes.
But come to this, she finally channels her inner diva, and from
this onwards, I've liked every performance she's ever given.
I actually like Madame Carabraxos more than I like Mrs. Del Fox, I
have to say.
And Mrs. Delfox seemed to me to just be a kind of retread of Miss
Foster.
Oh, for partner, he crying.
Yeah, yeah.
Even down to the glasses and things.
And she does a sort of Helen A feeding Fifi moment with the teller
as well.
She doesn't really interact with the teller at all as Mrs
Carabraxos.
She talks about him, but we don't see it.
And so there's no kind of hint about why it is she has this change
of heart on her deathbed.
And I also think too, like people think that Moffat is less
political than Russell, and I don't think that that's true.
And Capaldi will go on to be in things like oxygen and thin ice.
And here we have the richest woman in the galaxy and the most
secure bank in the universe or whatever.
And still there's no politics, no real discussion of anything like
that.
And maybe that's not what we're doing here, but given that there's
not much else going on, I just kind of feel that there is
something missing from the end from the end there.
I mean, in terms of the policies of it, I think it's something
that you can kind of bring your own conclusions too, when you
watch it, I think the problem with some of those other instances
of politics that come to the program a bit later, the thin ice and
oxygen, there is so heavy handed, it is so heavy handed.
It's pathetic.
It's much better to just kind of do a gentle thing and gentle...
Isn't your favourite story of the dream death?
Yeah, exactly.
No, but it's not.
It's handled with more subtlety.
The whole point of it, you're supposed to tell it through
allegories and through through parallels and so on like that.
And I think that's what you can be doing in something like this
one.
I think I'm quite happy that this episode is not actually about
anything other than just trying to do a good keeper.
I like that.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
But I still needed more twists at the end.
Or still something. just needed more.
Yeah, I mean, it's still Stephen Thompson.
And like I was saying about those earlier episodes, which was just
one premise, which was undeveloped.
This is one premise which is partially developed.
Yeah.
Going back to Kelly Hall's performance, though.
I mean, there is a, it's nice that there's a meaningful difference
between her. and her is the underling.
And in fact, the Calibraxus performance does feel like she's
playing a bit more of a real person, whereas the assistant does
seem like I was thinking, oh, she's very cardboard.
Well, she's cardboard because she's a client.
So that does work.
But I am sort of sick of these cartoony characters.
You know, the women all dressed up with the sort of severe hair
and the big glasses and walking also precisely.
It is all quite one dimensional.
Well, yeah, and I think they're kind of accusing the counterfeit
guy of being naughty and, you know, going down to feed the tailor
like, the chief caretaker going downstairs and feeding Cryagnon.
Like all of that stuff seems a little bit played.
Exactly at this point.
That's the word for it.
I want to see, I want to see reasons for the villainy.
I don't want to see just cardboard villainies.
Yeah.
Whereas actually Carobraxos performance where she's actually
really quite into it.
Like it seems to be a much, much more natural performance. and she
seems much more charming.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's what you want.
Yeah, exactly.
And that's natural just knocked up a bit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
We haven't talked about the hardware going into this sort of the
retro hardware going into size head.
Oh, my God, a lot of USPA.
Yes, he used the AI for it. which is great.
I mean, I know it should all be Wi-Fi or something, but it does
make it so much more, you know, gritty, doesn't it?
It looks like at one point he's upgrading his max memory
capacity.
Yeah, yeah.
I've done that actually.
That's a... no, no.
Yeah, I mean, all of that stuff is sort of terribly cute, I
think.
Yeah, it's very retro traditional elements of this story.
So all of that's quite fun, but also in the mounting of it, which
is pretty good.
You have that hoary old Blake 7 thing of we're on a different
level because it's a different colour.
I really like.
There's not a great big kind of 7 behind little sinks, you know
being on what level they're going to.
I was just expecting Gan to die any minute.
Yeah, yeah.
Surfland was going to slap Travis.
I paid good money to see Cy on that jungle gym.
So I actually think that that part of the episode is visually a
bit dull.
So we've had the sort of very impressive lobby upstairs and even
that sort of room that you go into to get your case delivered is
actually sort of quite nice or whatever.
But then I was just getting very sort of 90s red dwarf vibes, you
know, and we're in a factory with various gels and stuff.
It's all shot in the same place that 42 was shot.
Yeah, yeah, the underworld of smile.
Yeah, it's just pipes with a bit of dry ice.
It's like a classic series story where, you know, all the big
location filming and stuff is all in episode one and then there's
been an episode two.
The time you get to episode three, they're just in the 3 sets in
the studio.
Most of this is filmed in an ex-electronics factory.
Okay.
Maybe that's where they got all the tech for science.
Yeah, I just found it lying around the ground.
Ooh, we can make a great costume out of these.
Exactly.
Yeah, so I think that that's a little bit tedious and a bit cheap
looking, I think.
You've got the same.
Generic.
Yeah.
Whereas, I think that the, like once we go into the vault and we
start getting the goodies for Si and Sabre, you know, in the, in
the things, that looks really great, you know, and then where we
finally meet Mrs. Carabraxos is pretty great.
I don't know whether the word is lazy or unimaginative, but it's
one of those 2 things, which is why I think we end up with the
that in between part being so...
And it's just the gels as well.
Super 90s, isn't it?
Yeah, it is, we have a boring set.
Let's try and make it look more interesting by making everything
yellow.
And you don't really get a sense of place.
You don't get any sense of where you are.
And I think that's the failing of the direction there is that, say
in pressure point in Blake 7, at least you, it's supposed to be
and that, I'm not saying that's great, by any means, but it is
it's supposed to, it's Blake 7.
Of course it's good.
But at least that's showing the descent through different levels
through the colour.
In this, there's like, it's that sense of place is lost.
There's no indication that these are different levels.
They're just different coloured corridors, possibly on the same
floor, possibly flaws away from each other.
You don't really know what's going on.
It's a mess.
No, there's no sense of where you are within the complex.
And even the script does that.
Let's split up for space reason.
That's the title of the episode.
Which is good.
I mean, we weren't missing a line to lampshader.
You needed Ms. Dell Fox to say something like guards to red level
guards to red level.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Actually, what's missing is a crappy model shot where the camera
pans down to the next bit or something.
It's like a revelation of the Darl.
Yes, yes, yes.
Well, given that he's doing those sorts of wipes and strange
things to go in between scenes because he's being Guy Ritchie.
That would have worked actually quite well if we went down and saw
them on another floor.
Yeah, then you could have had that sort of little caption. do not
adjust just set.
All we needed was a voiceover going, Tarkis.
I mean, I do really like it.
I think we are being quite negative at this moment, but I am
thoroughly entertained by it.
I think there's a lot.
Well, no, we are talking more negatively than positively just
because, you know, we're picking up on those floors that because
we want it to be better.
I think too, in the context of the season.
Like last week, we've been really kind of astoundingly
experimental.
And this week being so Trad is that, well, maybe it's not Trad.
It's not really Trad.
It's quite, the program's never done this.
Yeah, yeah, that's true.
And it's not just the show's never done a heist, even though it
hasn't.
It hasn't done the thing where we wake up having lost our memory
and we have to work out what's happening.
Well, it comes in horror kind of uses the same sorts of parts in a
way.
So we have, in the 45 minute era, we have kind of trial these
sorts of how do we get to into the story quickly methods.
At other times, it's devices which I find become very tiring, like
you know, using things like the psychic paper and so on to get
through doors and get to make sure episode one is only actually
the 1st 2 minutes of the episode.
Yeah, the doctor doesn't use the psychic paper too. very
refreshing.
He uses his eyebrows, doesn't he?
to immediately command their respect.
Yes, and there's actually very little Sonic screwdriver magic
wand.
Yeah, yeah. as well, which makes it feel feel like it's a bit
different.
No, I'm all for doing different things like this.
Yeah, and I think it might be a mistake to try to overlay more on
this episode than is there.
I think it just sets out to be an action. to be what it is.
Yeah, and we should appreciate a lot.
I do.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, are we enjoying the thing which kind of started in the
Matt Smith era, where the companions aren't actually travelling
with the doctor.
The companions are people that the doctor just goes and picks up
to then do this week's episode.
I actually really, really like that.
I think it will come into its own next week.
I think the opening sequence of next week is that done just
spectacularly.
It was like the power of three.
Yeah, yeah.
But I do kind of like that, and particularly since we've gone back
to the conception of the doctor as the crazy old man who gets you
into scrapes.
I think that works really well.
He just turns up at an inconvenient time like Uncle Arthur. causes
mayhem and then leaves.
Yes, it's the Rick and Morty concern.
Yeah.
But also, it's taking you back to sort of the unit era where you
got the idea that Joe and Sarah had home lives and professional
lives and weren't actually with the doctor every moment.
They'd have days or weeks, but they just come in and do their job
before the doctor spirited them away to.
Yes, but the doctor was there...
Yeah, but the difference is the doctor was there too. in the Joe
Granty or at least.
Well, he wasn't there when Sarah was selling it to Percy, you
know?
No, she had a life.
She was doing that's true.
That is true, actually.
No, it's that beginning of Planet of the Spiders, actually, which
is...
But the doctor is at unit HQ.
The doctor is in the offworld at this time.
That's, I think, the difference that we're experiencing here.
But I like, I like the change.
I don't mind it.
I don't want it to go on forever, but it's a nice difference.
And like the calories, you know, the calories you consume with
guitar, just don't count.
Well, in fact, last week couldn't have happened without that
because, you know, last week we see the doctor going kind of crazy
because Clara's not around and sort of having to go and fetch her
in order to kind of participate in his mad nonsense.
But it only works as well because the doctor can operate the
charters perfectly.
Yeah, which most of the time.
Yeah, which is now the show.
Which is out of the show.
Yeah.
He doesn't just, you know, I can take you anywhere you went. where
do you want to go?
And it's never like, oh, sorry, I missed Heathrow Airport by 300
years.
Yeah, sometimes that, but not very often.
Yeah, not very often.
Only when the plot requires it.
Exactly.
Well, but usually there's actually an excuse as to why, like
there's some temporal disturbance with why the TARDIS has been
thrown off course, blah, blah, blah, isn't there?
Sure, that's just because she wants to take him there this week.
Exactly.
Well, isn't that what they use in the... in this episode where, oh
no, we can't use the TARDIS because of the solar storm or
whatever.
Okay, thank you.
In fact, that works really well.
I was surprised by how well the plot fits together because I'm
still there going, but can this be right, given what we know?
And then we see the doctor who obviously has the Tartars because
we don't have the storm. and sets it all up. before the storm
happens.
Yeah, after they do the heist.
Yeah, it's all quite new.
The storm being the thing that causes the plot to work.
That's a clever plot beat.
Well, they Lucille, that's all we have time for this week.
We'll be back next week for television's most upsetting love
triangle in the Caretaker.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us on our website, Flightthroughentirety
com, where you'll find links to our accounts on Facebook, Twitter
and Mastodon, as well as links to our other podcast, Bondfinger
Jody Intetera, Maximum Power, and Untitled Star Trek Project.
Until next time, remember that hatred is just self-hatred directed
at other people, which is much more fun, really.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
See you soon.
That was Flight through Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Peter
Griffith, Simon Moore, and James Selwood.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, Mr. and Mrs. Teller, was recorded on the 8th of
January 2023 and released on the 14th of May.
After the recent destruction of the Bank of Carabraxos, FDE
worldwide would like to announce its new investment account
specifically designed for the discerning Doctor Who fan, and
backed by a diversified and profitable portfolio of Argonite
Maconite, Jethric, Spectrox, Madronite 15, leucanol, vervoids, and
gravel.
Why is there so little to say about?
There's nothing to it, really.
Because it's just a high speed.
Yeah, it doesn't have many pretensions.
And, you know, like even the ongoing saga of what's the doctor
like?
We haven't seem to be having a break from that this week as well.
It's thin, but in a good way, like Cassandra.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't know.
We haven't recorded, uh, listen yet, and I think listen is much
better.
Far out.
It's good.
It's a bit trippy, listen.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like a short story.
It's not like a Doctor Who episode.
It's more of the sort of thing that I want.
It's like, no, no, don't just do a four-part episode crammed into
a thing, do a 40.
Well, exactly.
TV show.
And that's what you get in in listening in this.
And in something like into Darlic as well.
Use the length and structure to tell.
To tell the right story, the right length, with the right plot
beats.
But part of me wonders if the fact that you get very slightly
generic stories like this is a reaction to the fact that as Moffat
goes on, he becomes more experimental in his own storytelling.
So you get episodes like this, and you'll get something like
heaven sent. next year and even that final two-parter in series 10
world and oftentimes when the doctor falls.
And so it's almost like you can't have world enough and time in
the doctor falls if you don't have the Empress of Mars before it
listens impact is heightened by the fact that you then return to
familiar territory.
On both sides of it.
They're fairly straightforward stories.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I was surprised by how impressed by that I was because I
hadn't even chosen to go back and rewatch it.
Listen.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I remember loving it at the time.
It's not the bit.
It's not as good as, you know, some of the other comparable
episodes, whether it's, you know, the doctor's wife or blink or
the girl in the fireplace.
It's not as quite up to that level, but it is very, very good.
That scene where like she's trying to have the 2nd go at her date
and an astronaut walks into the...
Yes, yes.
What's happening here?
There was just one thing that was really missing from this.
I really needed a, this message for self-destruct in 5 seconds.
I mean, I did realise it.
You're right.
Well, that's more kind of get smart than Mission Impossible.
It's more mission impossible than nations.
That's true.
There's more mission improbable.
That's good name from Emerson.
All right, I think we done.
What do you think?
I think that we have an hour at some point, I think.