The Goldilocks Zone

[00:40]

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety, the only Doctor Who podcast that remembers with considerable fondness are Jadun Platoon upon the moon.

I'm Nathan.

I'm Brendan.

I'm Simon.

I'm Colin.

Well, we've got 45 minutes also to make a decision, and those spider bacteria are starting to scratch pretty hard at the walls.

So what do you all think?

Should we or shouldn't we kill the moon?

I have to just come out straight away and say that I think this one is pretty great.

[01:46]

Yes.

I'd agree with that assessment.

Okay.

I'm less in agreement, but my problems with it are many.

A lot of people like to criticise this episode purely for the concept that the moon is an egg, whereas I actually think that's, there's nothing particularly wrong with that.

I just think everything else is actually what's wrong with this episode.

Well, let's let's go back to the beginning of the episode because I think that that's super telling, and I've always sort of said that the teasers where you say what the episode is about, and particularly the last couple of seconds of the teaser are the most important thing, that that's when you establish what your episode's going to be about.

And so here we, as the Doctor Who audience, are being addressed by Clara, who is on a television screen, who tells us that we have 45 minutes to make a decision about, you know, and it's a trolly problem sort of decision.

[02:50]

And so this is very much an episode that is interrogating us.

And I don't think it's interrogating us purely, you know, do we let the trolly roll over the fat man or whatever.

Like, I don't think it's essentially about being a trolly problem.

But I do think it's about Doctor Who itself.

And do we want more Doctor Who or not, essentially, is the question that we're being asked.

Can you explain that?

Yeah, I think so.

So when we arrive, we arrive in the middle of the 21st century.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's kind of like the seeds of death, isn't it?

Like, in fact, there's sort of seeds of death references, I think.

Unfortunately, it's nothing like the seeds of death, but do go.

You know, like, remember the doctor lands in a museum that's full of spaceships?

And there's that hilarious thing that Lunwig says about how the space shuttle therein had its back soared off so that kids could play, play inside it and that it was taken out of the museum and stuff.

[03:58]

So it's a world that has stopped caring about space in a world that's stopped looking up.

And Lunvig also says quite early on that what you do with aliens is blow them up.

It's alien, if it's alien, that's what you do with aliens, isn't it?

And so there's a really solid rejection of everything that we care about in Doctor Who.

There's space things and aliens and all of that sort of thing, and we've rejected that, and we've looked down, and we are obsessed with, you know, survival and the misery of sort of everyday life.

And we get to make a decision.

And I think the decision that we make is more Doctor Who.

And because that decision gets made.

Capola gets that incredible speech at the end about what humanity goes on to do and that it stretches all through the galaxy and all through time.

And that's our reward for making that decision.

That's what we get to have if we opt for more Doctor Who, I think.

[05:01]

And it's kind of like the situation of trusting the alien.

Because a line that was cut from the episode is part of Lundwig's argument is this egg was laid in the Goldilocks zone with a ready food source nearby.

That's how nature works.

Right.

And so, you know, in a way, that makes her argument more compelling, and it makes a rejection of that argument more compelling, and it sort of harks back to, um, I think it's the, yeah, the 3rd doctor who says at one point, intelligence and cruelty don't go together.

You know, if something means you harm, it's going to advertise the fact.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, it's a real shame, actually, that line was cut because one of the things that we were thinking when we watched it again yesterday was that where do creatures lay their eggs?

They lay them near the kind of creature that lays them to then abandon the egg, right?

Generally speaking, not always, but mostly the eggs are laid near a ready food supply or sometimes in a ready food supply.

[06:01]

So in some respects, if it is about the sort of a trolly problem episode, then I think things like that needed to be more spelt out as what is the potential threat of this creature hatching just here and does it come down and swoop down onto earth and devour everything in its path?

I think Nathan, that interpretation that you've given it is a lovely one.

I would like to suggest that it is an incredibly generous one for an episode, which I think is just generally a couple of good ideas.

Yes, but as kind of thrown together in a way that it doesn't all go together and work.

And if any of the elements in it were explored better, or at least more logically with each other, I think you'd actually have something there.

But there are so many bits that aren't just, they're not just thrown together.

They're actually fighting with each other sometimes, and then there are whole other parts of it, which I read as just being, if not lazy, then, well, we just haven't had time to probably think that through and probably work out how that's going to go.

[07:08]

And so this is just it and we'll just feel this and it'll be great.

As I said, it's much more than the overall concept that is wrong with this.

And we'll explore those in due course because I can't, I can't possibly listen.

Interesting.

I feel it hangs together pretty well.

I feel it's, I've had the extreme Todd experience here.

I've gone from, I thought the egg was stupid when I 1st saw this.

And the last 3 times I've watched this.

It's grown on me every single time, and I think it's because, um, and I think obviously people have the problem with it because the egg is kind of stupid and because, you know, the bacteria, things are stupid and and lots of other things.

But it's a really good, in the same way that the Forest of the Night is, by doing something that's really poignant to really, really make a point.

And this is about saying that, you know, democracy is stupid. you know, turn off all your turn off all your lights.

By the way, the earth only spins, you know, in 24 hours, not 45 minutes, but whatever, you know?

[08:12]

It was only going to be New York and London voting, I think.

Bl bloody gerrymandering.

Western Europe and the Eastern United States was all that mattered.

But I just, I really like the way it talks of this concept of making a choice that is unfair, and there's a lot of discussion about it.

And I think that's what Doctor Who is.

And I really, and I've toyed between, was the doctor right to leave them.

And for a while, I thought up until like 2 hours ago.

I kind of thought, no, he shouldn't have done that.

And now I'm like, yeah, it really is up to them.

You know, this is a decision for the human race, but it is kind of balanced with this, you know, the doctor being a sort of petulant man, trying to make a and with huge stakes.

But I just, I just love the way it plays out.

I love the way it works and especially with the coder back in the TARDIS.

I think it really like forest of the night is there to make a point around democracy, about climate change and ignoring climate change and sort of the value of life.

[09:17]

And this is this is great Doctor Who, in my opinion.

I think what's happening is that there's an aesthetic decision being asked diverse.

And the way that Capaldi puts it is, do you want the moon to be a corpse?

Circling...

Looking up like lighting up at the nice guy.

You look up and see what you've done.

Do you want to reject something new and exciting and strange in favour of concentrating on just everyday sort of mundane things?

And so in a way, it's an aesthetic decision.

I mean, it's a moral decision as well, but it's not quite a trolly problem.

It is what sort of people do we want to be?

It's like a, it's not virtual ethics either.

But there's something more complicated about it.

Just to go back to a couple of things, Colin said, I mean, I was looking for the Todd experience.

For a lot of these episodes.

Well, I saw them.

I saw them when they went out.

I saw them when the Blu-ray was released, you know, 9 or 12 months later or whatever it was, and I actually have not seen most of these episodes since then.

[10:25]

So you're talking about 8 or 9 years or whatever it is.

And I was ready to reappraise this.

Absolutely 100% ready.

You know, I was blinded by the moon is an egg thing the 1st time round and thinking, oh, that's a bit dumb and I don't know whether how that works.

And I get what you're saying, Nathan, about all that, my point is, yes, that may be what's going on and that is what they're trying to do, but they're failing.

And it all is a bit rubbish.

It's all very well to say there are some good things in this episode, but if they're not executed well, you just end up with a bit of crap, really.

For example, just going back to the democracy thing actually that Cole said, which I thought was quite an interesting thing.

One thing that most true democracy, such as Australia and Britain and so on have, is that we're not democracy.

No, no.

What we are is we're liberal democracies, right?

Because what a pure democracy is, a pure democracy actually allows mob rule.

It allows everyone in Western Europe and the Eastern United States to turn their lights off to decide whether this creature in the sky will be summarily executed through no fault of its own.

[11:33]

Whereas in the liberal democracy, we have institutions and processes, which means that you can't have a majority infringe the rights of a minority.

At least that's the idea.

Obviously, it's imperfect, but that's the kind of thing.

So it's a bit kind of cheesy and childish to say that, oh, well, you know, 3000000000 people or whatever it is, have voted to kill this creature and we're going to ignore them because actually that's the right thing to do.

I don't necessarily think it's about that.

But what I would say is that we're not given the opportunity to really understand and feel stressed out about this decision which they're trying to make.

In some respects, having that pre-credit sequence, which I get what you're saying is kind of trying to set up the whole episode, but it almost actually ruins what the decision is that we've got to, it has to come later.

It'd be better if the decision kind of just unfolded rather than it being previewed in the pre-credit sequence.

Also, the guest cast, such as they are, are so woefully inadequately written that I just don't care.

[12:33]

I didn't even know this woman's name in terms of the character name.

I haven't seen the episode 3 times.

Yeah, she says it once.

She says it.

She said it once.

Well, okay, but that's a bit weird because it means I don't even know who you are.

Let's leave aside that the actress is not, dear, I suggest, is not playing it very well.

She's got this kind of tide, weary thing, but there's kind of...

No, I think it's like, it's kind of like, I can't get her.

I'm not empathising with her.

And if I'm not empathising with her.

How can I sympathise with her wish to kill the creature?

Because unless you can present both sides as a realistic choice.

It's all a bit childish.

The whole thing is always presented that the only decision we can come out of this is to let the creature live and to potentially risk all life on earth.

And because that's the only really proper decision that's ever presented, we can't really appreciate the potential of the other. you know what I mean?

[13:34]

Yeah, except that it's not real, you know, and so, and so in a sense.

No, no, no, that's true.

This is the point.

And so everything we watch on television is fake Nathan.

So in terms of what we're television drama.

So what that thing at the beginning does is it sets up a 45 minute period in which we get to make that decision as viewers, and we get to decide...

Yeah, but we do.

And what we're not deciding, what we're not deciding whether all of humanity gets destroyed in 2049 because we know going in that that's not going to happen because we know how Doctor Who works, right?

And so what decision we're being asked to make, and the decision that is invited of us is the decision to embrace something new and exciting to take a risk to, uh, you know, the world of 2049 is so miserable and so dismal and so sort of soulfully presented in a very, you know, like very quickly, and I think, through, I think far too quickly, and I just don't get that.

[14:39]

I just don't get that.

Yeah, but it's 45 minutes.

Like, it's not a three-parter, but I think, you know, through Hermione Norris' performance as well.

It's really conveyed.

And so we're we're rejecting that world in favour of something bigger and more generous and more exciting and more trusting, I think.

Yeah, could I, could I pose a question on this?

Would we would we find Hermione Norris more fleshed out if she was in a red tango wig and complaining that she'd been kept waiting?

Six hours?

No, it's interesting.

I think I'm missing that reference.

We're...

I'm a feral reader in the shock.

Oh, I see.

She is playing barrel.

Okay.

It is an interesting point you raise about the characterisation of the astronauts because that's sort of a casualty of the scripting process because sort of the 2 main thrusts of the episode we're going to be the lead astronaut's journey as well as the conflict between the doctor and Clara at the end.

[15:44]

And they changed an element of the lead astronaut's character in that the lead astronaut was going to be a black woman called Blinovich. who was Courtney Blinovich, shortly.

Yeah.

However...

And there's a Blenovic line left in there somewhere.

Yeah, that court, Ian grows up, becomes president of the United States, marries a bloke called Blenovic, et cetera.

And, like, this episode was also going to explain the Blenovich limitation effect and blah, blah, blah.

But Steve, Stephen Moffin sort of said much danger.

Stephen Moffatt sort of said, no, no, the conflict between Dr. and Clara is more interesting, but we can certainly say that Courtney is going to be very important in the future.

Just, you know, we don't need a time paradox thrown in there as well.

Well, I mean, she's important in that she's one of the 3 women who make this decision as well.

And she gets to be the 1st woman on the moon.

And she gets to kill the spider.

I too.

Sprayed a spider with cleaning food.

Yeah, yeah, judging an episode for what they cut out of it doesn't doesn't come up much for me.

[16:49]

But, I mean, what it is doing, like, I just think that those astronauts aren't doing anything much more than just presenting us with this sort of miserable, desperate, you know, like it's a space shuttle full of nuclear bombs.

You know, like we're inclined to reject that as an aesthetic.

And did you notice, though, that Duke, one of the astronauts is Tony Osoba, who was in Dragonfire and Destiny of the Daleks.

Oh, and to the Daleks.

That's right.

He's Cracker.

He was one of the guards.

He's Krakower.

So he's the other one who wants to rebel against Kane along with Patricia Quinn.

No, how old do you think I am, Cracker?

That one.

Yeah.

So, like, I think that it is all going in one direction.

It presents this sort of miserable dystopia and asks us to choose something better.

And I think that the democracy thing is a little bit of a red herring as well because the real people making the decision here aren't the pretend people of 2049, they're us.

[17:52]

Clara speaking to us in that opening scene and giving us 45 minutes to make the decision.

And so I guess it's an, it's a story about the aesthetics of Doctor Who and what its values are.

Yeah, yeah. and that's great.

I have to reject the premise of what you're saying, not because I'm disagreeing with what you're saying. trying to do.

I'm saying that you, I mean, you said that, oh, they can present this dystopian future in a couple of lines.

It's like, no they can't.

For me, they do not do that, right?

Okay.

So, okay, just a second.

So they don't do that.

You're saying the actress who plays whatever that woman's name is, um, that character's name is, is great.

No, she is not, right?

So did you have to understand that it's a fundamental disagreement rather than, you know, I'm not disagreeing with you that it's about this and it's about that.

I'm just saying, yes, it is about all these things.

That doesn't make it good.

It only makes it a good idea that is then poorly executed, right?

Paul executed in the scripting.

[18:53]

Obviously it's beautifully made.

But, I mean, even, even, even when, I mean, I don't want to get too into the weeds too much because, you know, I mean, but this is the thing, like when you, when you've decided you don't like an episode, you then start complaining about all this stuff in it, which if it was in an episode, you really like, you just brush off and say, oh, that doesn't matter.

Oh that's fine, da da da.

But just little things like the fact that they call these spidery things, unicellular organisms.

Well, that is not a unisellor organism.

Yeah, true.

That's a big organisms, which Capoli can't even pronounce.

So they're bacteria.

But he says, yeah, but he says that unicellular, that someone says they are unicellular.

Now, a single cell is not capable of producing something like that.

You know, so that is like, that is my, an accident between the script and the, and the visual design, right?

Believing that to one common doctor who does that all the time, right?

But then there are other things like the fact that you don't need the thing, the creature to lay its own egg at the end, right?

You just have...

No, you don't, because there are many, you know, the program is so obsessed with, you can't rewrite history, not just one line, even though we rewrite history all the time when it suits us.

[19:59]

And, you know, you know, and just those few throwaway lines of Capaldi.

What if it's a hologram?

what it's rebuilt?

What if all these things?

A special effect.

It kind of doesn't matter.

It would have just been nicer and cleaner.

If the thing had a catched out of its egg and fled away.

But as I say, this is, these are minor, actually minor things compared with the certain fundamental things that just aren't gelling for me when I watch it.

I just keep, I keep going, yeah, but what about this?

What about that?

And if you're breaking the suspension of disbelief that kills it.

There's your point. if you're watching Doctor Who on television.

What are you believing?

What do you need to do?

But even but a good Doctor Who's episode or story, your disbelief is suspended.

You go along with what you're watching.

And if something breaks that, if something breaks that, it just ruins the entire thing.

It's just a fact.

I mean, you know that.

No, no, I don't.

Colin.

Colin.

I would like I would like to mediate.

Look, it took me a few goes to realise that this was a very dystopian kind of future where the earth had kind of been destroyed by all these gravitational waves and the tides.

[21:07]

And that's covered, I think, very well in dialogue.

But as Simon, I think you might be right, that they could have done a little bit more, right?

Uh, either through dialogue or showing the earth kind of underwater in lots of places, maybe.

So well-placed CGI of the Opera House underwater or something.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, and I sat there. certainly through the 1st viewings going, well, obviously these aren't bacteria don't make cobwebs and all this kind of stuff.

And then I thought, and then I thought, he's, he's being analogous about it.

He's saying he's trying, he either he knows what's going on or he has a pretty good idea, which is a very doctorary thing.

And he's saying, well, you know, these are like bacteria, or, you know, this is like an eggshell or, you know, all these things.

And so it can folks that are much more, perhaps into hardcore sci-fi, you know, where in the expanse of ship, spends 10 minutes slowing down, the, the, the, or 10 hours, you know, 10 days, you know?

[22:11]

that you want it to make a little bit more a little bit more sense and to make it believable.

But I think with this episode when, and it is a bit of a shock when the thing hatches and what and what it is, uh, because it is clearly ludicrous.

But I've got over that in a sense because I think it doesn't matter.

There's a little bit of a reset switch.

I like the way we don't actually see much of the creature because I think that would have detracted from the whole point of what it was trying to do and trying to say.

But I think it's a great episode.

It's full of witty dialogue.

It's full of JNT references.

It's full of a really great build up to what is.

No hanky-banky.

No, exactly.

No, throwing up a no-hacky hanky.

It's hilarious. those vortex manipulators.

It's so well written.

I think.

I think it's great.

It's my 2nd favourite Peter Harness story.

Oh, my God.

There's only three.

Well, then this is my 3rd favourite.

[23:11]

Let's be positive people.

I'm going to say, I'm getting the impression from this conversation, that this is one of those stories that's an ultimate gun versus frock, and it's like, if you want to enjoy it on a frock level, It's all there.

But if you want to enjoy it on a gun level, i.e. the expanse school of science fiction and, you know, real kind of, let's base this in real science.

If you want to enjoy it on that level, not having that in there gets in the way.

And I'm not saying you can't enjoy the frock elements while questioning that, but I think whether that matters or not to you is how much you can sort of go, okay, the science in this is complete bobbins.

And I think it's, if I, if I can sort of flash forward, actually flash back a bit.

There are a lot of people who don't like RTD style of storytelling because they say it's too frock in places.

And some people don't like Stephen Moffatt because he's too gun in places.

But they also have frock and gun in there as well.

But it's just occurred to me, sort of, listening to argument, counter argument.

[24:13]

It's like, okay, these are the sticking points.

Yeah, I am I love a good frock episode and I love a good gun episode.

The problem with this is that, and I think this is another point I wanted to make, and I think you've expressed it quite well there, Brandon, or at least expressed it for me in a way that maybe you weren't intending to, which is that it fails at being gun because it mucks up a lot of the signs.

Not because the space shuttle can't possibly land in a vacuum on a body which is basically now got the mass of the earth, right?

It fails.

But the problem is it is setting itself up, like visually at the beginning in those early sequences, to be a gun episode.

Oh, this is all going to be a bit more dry and sci-fi and, you know, da da da da.

And yet, there are frocky sort of elements of it.

But the problem is that the 2 the 2 halves are fighting each other.

And for me, that creates a disjointed thing.

And I go back and I know, Nathan, you love to mock the suspension of disbelief thing, because you say, you think it's all, you say it's all made up, so it doesn't actually matter.

[25:16]

But it does in that, you know, you can watch something like the happiness patrol, which is, you know, very frock.

And it all works.

It all works within itself.

And so you are you are introduced to this environment and you believe it or at least, you know, I choose to believe it for the 75 odd minutes that I'm watching it.

In case of Avengers, honey. gun.

And again, you believe it for the 100 or so minutes that you're watching that.

Whereas this has got a little bit of this and a little bit of that and it's like, well, we're not quite sure which one's going to dominate.

And by the time you get to the frocky part, you've kind of thinking, well, actually, I thought I was watching a gun episode, that just means that I've kind of, it's broken the link, and now all I'm doing is picking holes in all of the stuff, which I think is, I think, totally. you know what I mean?

But I mean, the thing is, the gun bit at the beginning, the fact that we landing in a boring space shuttle full of nuclear weapons and it all looks like, like that's partly undermined by how crummy the astronauts are.

But it is also what we're supposed to be rejecting.

What we reject is a type of show where it's all, you know, blowing things up and kind of miserable and dystopian.

[26:24]

And what the show wants us to accept is a world where a dragon can burst out of the sky and we can all celebrate that and that changes our lives. you know, And I get, yeah, I get that.

So I don't think there's a disjuncture between the, like, it starts gun and then for some inexplicable reason becomes frock later because it loses its way.

I think that's a very deliberate choice that what we're rejecting at the beginning is that miserable type of science fiction and that miserable conception of the world.

And we're given a world that's enchanted in a sort of weird and surprising way.

I think then there needs to be a more of a spinning on a dime.

I think I think if what you're saying is what the intention is.

And I, and I, may I gently suggest that I think everything that you're loving about it is actually an accident rather than the intention.

I d that coming.

I really seriously doubt that.

I think Peter Harness is, and his other doctor who makes it very clear he's a skilled writer and he knows what he's doing, I think.

[27:26]

And he knows a lot of Doctor Who.

Like, there's all anarch in space enough at the beginning.

You know, and there's no way he doesn't know that a big spider can't be a bacterium.

You know, that that is laying his cards on the table and saying this is the kind of science you're getting from this because this is Doctor Who.

Can I say that, hey, has actually been quoted as saying, I don't worry about the science when I'm writing the script.

That's up to the script.

Okay, fine. cavalier attitude, science of, I'm just going to write this.

No, no, no, no, no, fine.

Then I think what it is then is a failure of the production to fully express that in a way which a viewer can absorb in the way that you're intending it.

You think it's intended.

That's my problem.

I think that's clearly there, though.

Yeah, the thing is, I think, though, and the thing is, this episode is very polarising, and the 2 points you're arguing are very common, and I think what happens is when it takes that turn, a bunch of people aren't ready for that turn and go off in another direction, and that's not a failure of their understanding of the episode, and I don't think it's a failure of the writing.

[28:41]

I just think it's no episode is going to be right for everyone.

Like people are always amazed when I hate Black Orchard.

It had come up at some point.

People are always amazed what I hate Black Orchid, but I don't sit there going, I don't see why anyone likes this.

I'm just like, yeah, I understand that my viewpoint is not the majority, but I just can't go along with that.

I mean, I think the very clear turning point is where we press the button, isn't it?

We press the button.

We press the button.

We press the cancel.

Immediately we hear the TARDIS noise and then we're taken by the doctor to see the consequences of that decision.

And so I think that that's we've rejected.

We've rejected that dystopia and here's where we are.

And so I think, like, I think it is a very, very clear inflection and it's, you know, bigged up in the music and the whole thing.

I don't want to suggest, Brendan, that I think you're stupid for liking this episode.

I think that's fantastic.

I didn't think he was, and I wasn't suggesting that you thought I was.

[29:41]

I enjoy, I enjoy the crotons, but you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's...

But I thought it was polarising because of the fact that there's a body of people who just can't deal with the moon is an egg bit of it.

And that kind of ruins the whole thing for them and they can't possibly look at it seriously.

But, you know, why are they objecting it to it in the same reasons I am.

No, I think that it is a bit too far.

And, you know, we had the same discussion about gridlock where we had people in traffic jams for decades on end. 40 years, whatever, yeah.

Yeah. which is something that really happens.

And here I think it was the moon.

And I think there's a fantastic bit where they kind of realised that the dragon laying an egg, bigger than itself, is something that we really just not going to be able to realise at all.

So we'll just look up in the mood and be back and that'll all be fine.

We'll just paper over in dialogue.

I actually have a thing about that that I've been dying to say for like 9 years.

[30:44]

And that is, okay, so for one thing with the whole egg thing, an egg does not increase in mass as the creature grows inside it.

No, scientifically. a law of conservation of mass.

Where does all that mass come from?

So, yeah.

Also, this creature lays an egg bigger than itself.

This creature is dimensionally transcendental, and we know that the TARDIS can adjust its mass based on its dimensions.

Uh, go.

This creature has a dimensionally transcendental cloaker.

Ah, I'm more worried about why we can hear the moon cracking as it flies away.

You see, no one objects to that. super unscientific.

Well, I would have, but I would have worried that you would just think I was even sillier than you think I am.

Colin, can you remember what it is JMS says about sound in space in Babylon 5?

I don't...

I'm sorry.

Basically he says, it just depends where the microphone is.

Like, if you put it in the middle of the explosion, you're here.

[31:45]

Yes, you're in a spaceship.

Oh, yeah, no, I love space sequences.

They are deathly silent because they're terribly effective.

And also, I don't mind space sequences when you can hear the thing.

It's just horses for courses.

This is what I'm saying.

I don't mind.

Again, it comes back to the suspension of disbelief.

You just go along with what you're watching because it's working within the context.

I mean, leave aside the fact that a creature which is minutes old is already sexually mature and can lay what one assumes is a fertilised egg instantly.

It doesn't, but the point is, it doesn't matter.

That's true.

Yes, exactly.

The point is, it doesn't that sort of stuff doesn't matter.

And my issue with it is at a more kind of, I just just, it's just not working for me altogether, not because I have a fundamental disagreement with the structure of the moon or any other science element of it.

Actually, that's a point.

But if you're going to say, so if the writer's going to say, I don't really care about the science when I'm writing, and that's perfectly fine, because he's wanting to write an engaging and interesting story, and the actors are there to try and act that and hopefully the production team are there to, you know, create that all together.

[32:48]

But that's what I suppose I'm saying is I think there could have been a little bit less realism in the way maybe everything else is presented, and I think the whole thing would have maybe gelled a little bit better as a result, if it had have been a little bit more cartoony, the moon surface is a bit too realistic.

The space, they're trying to be all spacy and hardcore sci-fi with the airlock and the oxygen and all that sort of stuff.

And doing that and presenting it in that way, again, makes me feel like I'm watching something which is going to be much more straightforward, much more dry.

And then what doesn't turn out to be that, I think when the way it turns on a dime, as you say, where they press the abort button and go off.

It's all too fast.

It all happens too quickly and I'm going, I sorry, what am I watching now?

What's happening?

I think that it's because we watched so much classic Doctor Who that this looks particularly realistic, to be honest.

I was watching it.

I think the choice of Lanzarote is a kind of location to recreate the moon is great, but all I'm seeing is Lanzarote with sort of like a starry sky painted at the top of the frame.

[33:55]

Or a special effect.

Yeah.

I remember going on holiday to Lanzarote as they were broadcasting Planet of Fire.

I've never forgiven my parents.

You didn't have a Jason King. forgiven to your parents.

I want to watch it, not go there.

You're sliding down the Shale Mountain going, this isn't any fun at all.

You're going, come on, Chameleon, show me the real you.

Um, what do we think about, um, Courtney and the way she's treated, and is she a companion?

I know you hate that question.

Yes, of course she's a companion.

She travelled in the TARDIS.

Yeah.

I...

She's in 2 episodes as well.

She had four, four, four.

Yeah, she's even in deep breath.

Yeah, me on deep breath.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I think she actually gets more appearances in the show than Jenna Coleman got before she got in the times.

[35:03]

I really like her as a character.

And the funny thing is, like having been a teacher in the UK in her 1st 2 appearances, I'm like, oh, yes, I had students like you.

And then sort of in the caretaker.

I'm like, actually, no, you know, you're a bit spiky.

You're a bit cheeky, but you're clever.

And then in this where she's so empathetic and scared but brave at the same time.

I really like her.

And I think the actress does a great job of conveying her character.

In terms of how the doctor treats her, they cut out some, they cut out a bit where he actually gets the psychic paper back from her, but it's still only showing that he's over 18.

Oh, really?

And he turns at court and he says...

What have you done with it?

You've broken it It's covered in sticky stuff, i.e. Psycho.

Thank God that didn't make it.

Whilst I haven't had a todd experience with the episode.

I have had a t experience with her.

I actually think she's great and really good.

[36:05]

And I actually like the sort of throwaway line because it's gone and you missed it in the beginning where Capaldi says, you know, what's a Courtney Woods?

What is Courtney Woods?

She was great last week.

I think she's really good.

I was super worried because I spent a lot of last week's episode being embarrassed by how horrible the doctor was being to people who aren't Jenna.

And like, I'm kind of happy for the doctor to be kind of...

Well, because yeah, that.

But, like, I'm happy for him to be mean to Clara because Clara can take it.

You know, she can more than take it.

She doesn't care.

So it doesn't upset anyone.

And he is rude to her.

Like, he tells her to shut up.

He, you know, like he's rude to her, but he is absolutely concerned for her welfare.

Like, and when she's in danger, he doesn't do any of that sort of stuff that he did in Into the Dalek and kind of ignore it or whatever.

He's seriously, and I think, I think he calms down actually, probably after the caretaker.

I think he's at his worst in the caretaker and from here on in, he settles down a bit.

[37:07]

That feeling of her not feeling special than making her feel like she's not special, is quite like meeting Jenna Coleman for a photo shoot.

He is very, very similar experience.

Sorry.

I actually think that that's a bit crummy, actually, because it's kind of, you know, this thing, how young people need to be reassured and need to be told they're special and if you don't tell them that you're kind of, you know, ruining them forever and stuff like that.

I actually thought that was a little bit weak and you would think that someone like Courtney would just go, well, actually, sod you then, if you don't think I'm special.

Who cares?

But the thing is, that's the whole thing, that she has all this bravado and all this front, but actually she is a sensitive and thinking person.

And when she's talking about the doctor saying she's not special.

That speech she makes at the beginning.

Like, you know, you kicked a hole in the side of my head and then you just walked off.

[38:08]

That's what impresses the doctor.

The doctor goes, oh, no, the reason you're upset is you actually want to know more.

And that's a thing a lot of teenagers go through of this period of not wanting to externally show that they care, but actually caring a lot.

And what's the doctor going through right now?

He doesn't want to show that he cares when he actually cares a lot.

That plays out in a horrendous way at the end of this episode.

I'm not saying horrendous in execution.

I'm saying, oh my god, he does a horrendous thing.

For the right reasons.

For a right reason, possibly.

Yeah.

But I, like I think she's really good.

I really liked the thing where Clara says, why don't you just call me Clara?

and she says, no, actually, I think I'm calling you miss, miss, which is pretty great.

Yeah.

That's what I call Jetta Coleman.

The other thing was when the lead astronaut was older Courtney, when she 1st sees Clara, she says, oh my god, Mrs. Pink.

[39:11]

And then she mentions, oh, I went to Cole Hill school and you were one of the governors, blah, blah, blah.

But then when they call mission control.

Mission control says, oh my god, this is pink.

And Clara's just like, what the hell?

How many people do I teach?

So one of the big problems, and it was particularly a problem in the United States, after this episode came out, was the idea that it was an anti-abortion allegory or that it had an anti-abortion message.

And I think probably most of that comes from the language that they're using around the dragon thing when it's still not hatched.

And so Courtney calls it a baby and says it hasn't even been born yet.

Clara refers to it as a life.

You know, we're going to kill a life.

And so all of that stuff, I think, resonated in America more than it probably did in England.

[40:15]

Was intended to, I suspect.

Yeah.

I think it's unlikely to be that.

I just can't see how it's about that.

And what we have is, in fact, 3 women in a room with a man who has made himself absent getting to make this decision.

It's not, you know, the kind of thing where it's various conservative politicians making that decision for women.

It just seems to me to be not commensurate, like not relevant.

Yeah.

I've seen some stuff where people read things as being anti-abortion because a woman is pregnant and decides to have the child.

Like, it's like, no, no, that's the whole point is that you can choose what to do.

And if anything, I think it's a very long boat, very long bow to draw, and I think they've got some issues over there that they need to think about separately.

It's a doctor episode.

Yeah, I think Sandifer actually writes that there's no mother whose bodily autonomy is being threatened.

[41:15]

So, you know, it's not about that.

And also, I think the moment where it's definitively not about that, because, you know, Clara's saying it's a life, Courtney's saying it's a baby that hasn't been born and Lunvik says, what if it comes out and kills us all?

And that's not a sentence that's regularly part of the abortion to pain.

You know, it's like this is this is the moment where, no, it's about an alien creature.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And also, yeah, I don't think there's any sort of proponents of abortion who are suggesting that an abortion should proceed when the mother is in labour.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And the baby is brought to term.

Like it's just odd.

And the funny thing is, like, no one then mentions the line the doctor has, which is we went back to Berlin in 1937 and you didn't ask me to pop out and kill Hitler.

And it's like, this thing is baby space dragon Hitler.

Maybe.

It's not going to be very good at art.

That's going to be a problem.

The other thing that Santa says is, if there had been some women among the creatives that that might have been something that they would have picked up on, and perhaps we might have been able to be a bit more careful about that, but it doesn't seem to me to be about that or, you know, analogous to that in any way.

[42:28]

And certainly I think harnesses said that he wasn't intending anything of the kind.

Yeah, he yeah.

He's actually said, if I was going to have done that, I would have been a lot more careful and subtle.

Yeah, yeah.

Even allowing for all that, I think that drawing that inference from this is still drawing an incredibly long bow and I think it's it's being grossly unfair to the to the material to suggest that that's even a thing. think that's right.

So, decision is made.

Moon is an egg, moon is hatched, moon lays egg. doctor tells astronaut to walk 2500 miles to NASA. drops Courtney off for double geography and you know, I don't know what's more terrifying what she's been through or double geography. and then has, you know, a nice pleasant discussion with Clara.

It was going to end with them having a picnic on the beach, by the way.

[43:29]

But instead we get this.

I think it's incredibly well acted by Jenna.

I think she's amazing in it absolutely.

She's properly good, isn't she?

Nails out.

She's an incredible actor.

She really is.

She's, um, it's such a heightened moment and it's building, it's all building to, especially to next week and the, the season finale of just like her going from, I'm trying to be your carer to, you really don't care about anyone properly, do you?

And I'm done with this.

And it's, and it's almost repeated at the start of dark water, I think, with the keys and all the, all this thing.

Yeah.

It's really, it's, it's really well set up and it's, it's a great way of, and I just love the Danny Pink bit at the end where he goes, you can't leave someone while you're angry like that.

You've got to do it when you're calm and that sets up the Orient Express one so well.

It's a great ending considering what's happened.

[44:29]

I mean, it is set up at the end of the last episode where Danny gets her to promise that if the doctor puts her in a position that is too much for her, that she should tell him and then tell Danny himself.

And so that's her doing that.

But I just think, like, it's a big kind of melodramatic speech, but there's a real proper TV kind of reality to the emotion she brings to it.

She's really, really good.

She's really good.

And I think the dialogue is good too.

Yeah.

All the dialogue is great.

I think it's a spectacular sequence.

I think she is better than, you know, anything we've seen in Doctor Who to this point.

My only issue is that I just wish that the 40 odd minutes that were before it were a different episode because it does.

No, no, no, it doesn't fortunately pollute my ability to appreciate her anger because I'm there being perplexed and this is what's going on here?

[45:32]

This is a bit crap and this is rubbish.

And so I'm not getting the payoff that you guys are getting because I haven't had the experience for the previous 40 minutes that you guys have had.

But I still recognise that that is awesome.

I remember Peter saying to me once that he really had issue with when she says, uh, say that again or whatever.

I'll slap you so hard, you'll regenerate. which he didn't say where it was from and I couldn't remember where it was from either.

But then when I saw it yesterday, I went, oh, that's right. from this.

But that line perfectly works.

Yeah, I think in this context because she is so cross.

And she has got, you know, she is able to whack a punch at this moment, which will be so hard that it'll basically force him to regenerate.

I think that's actually a really well-placed line, actually.

Yeah, me too.

There's a line that was cut, which I think would have slowed it down, and I think it was right to cut it, but I'd just like to read it for the listeners now, where Clara sort of further explains her anger, saying before my mum died, when I was a little girl.

She said to me, it doesn't matter where I was in the jungle or the desert or on the moon.

[46:34]

However lost I might feel, I'd never really be lost because she'd always be there.

She'd always come and find me, which ties back to rings her back at 10.

And then she died.

And then it was the doctor who started coming to find me.

I thought she'd sent him, and then he died, and he came back as something different.

Wow.

Which, you know, would have really cut another sort of cutting moment to the heart there.

But I'm glad they lost it because I think it would have been hard to maintain her intensity because all of her lines are very short, very sharp, but she's getting the point across while the doctor's babbling in his usual way to diffuse tension.

She's getting her point across really well and there's a moment where he realises, no, she's really properly angry.

And Peter Copaldi's doctor looks absolutely lost for the 1st time.

And like the bravado goes and he's like, no, no, no, that was me respecting you.

That was me giving you the choice.

And it's, it's almost like it makes, it makes it a little bit disappointing to me because watching it this time, I'm like, well, his whole speech of this isn't my earthwhile, but.

[47:41]

He could have taken her to one side and said, Clara, a human needs to make this decision.

If I make it for you, it's always going to be me coming to save the human race.

The humans need to, and you know, that is a way he could have been respecting her, but that doesn't create the drama, and I appreciate the drama we get because it's so well acted.

And, um, yeah, we wouldn't have this brilliant moment and it wouldn't develop the relationship in the same way.

So it would have been a damp squib.

I understand why it doesn't happen, but it's another of those moments where this could have been solved by talking like adults.

I think there's a problem with the actual, there's a problem with the show at this point, which is that everything is so determined, and we know the history of everything.

And so you can't set anything in 2049 and credibly have the doctor not know what's going to happen.

And so when the doctor says there's a gray area and I just can't tell and I need not to be here.

[48:46]

It's so hand wavy and so kind of unconvincing.

And and it's the same problem that I have with Waters of Mars, where the doctor isn't allowed to save people because he doesn't want to contradict their Wikipedia pages or something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's not real.

There's no real moral imperative there.

And so, you know, like he obviously makes the decision that it should be them.

He expects her to be great.

Like he does, I think, expect her to be grateful.

So I'm a little bit like you, Simon, whereas I think this is a good episode.

I think that the reason that the doctor can't be there just even to watch them doesn't properly land, I think, but that doesn't undermine that scene, particularly for me, because just the truth of her acting.

And I do think too, that the big speech about my mother and stuff like that, that's a screenwriter's thing and I don't think it would have helped.

[49:50]

And I think what does work there is you can imagine someone, you can just about, imagine someone saying that sort of stuff in that sort of context.

I never been a big fan of the, the, the key moments in time and all that sort of stuff where there's waters of Mars and this.

I just find it just, we just, I just don't care.

Don't worry about it.

Sometimes we're allowed to change history and sometimes we're not.

I don't need to constantly explain to me when it's okay and when it's not.

And oh, oh, because, you know, the moon is in conjunction with this, that means it's okay for us to try and change history or now I can't do it.

It's over you over to you or as I said, you know, okay, so the moon in this version of the future, the moon stops existing in 20149.

Do you know what I mean?

No, it's back. frigging story.

You know?

The egg base is set 20 years after this.

Yeah, yeah.

I know, but that's a different future.

I mean, how many different 2070s have we've already seen multiple futures.

It's, you know, how many different kinds of ways have the Daleks invaded the earth in the 22nd century, you know?

Why does nobody on Bowiebase, Wang, go, oh, yeah, I remember where the moon hatched.

[50:54]

Okay.

And the doctor's just like, I'm dealing with enough things right now.

I am the time Lord victorious, but I'm not dealing with the moon as an egg.

Do you know my biggest reservation about this?

And I think I was wrong, but my biggest reservation about this episode originally was that I thought it actually did some of the stuff that already happens in Waters of Mars.

So remember that humanity goes off into space and it's Adelaide's granddaughter or something.

And, you know, Adelaide goes into space because the Daleks invade in the stolen earth and then humanity reaches out to the stars and then it turns out that it's, you know, a descendant of hers.

It's the 1st person to do faster than light travel or something, and that's how humanity goes into space, and that's what makes what happens on Bowie Bay so important.

So I thought that we'd kind of trod that ground a little bit before.

And come to think of it, we've had a lot of it recently because we had Adelaide Brooks granddaughter.

[51:55]

We've had the child of Dugres, Scott, and Jessica Rain in Hyde.

We've had awesome pink and now we've got the, well, the actions of Lundwig.

It's not specifically, it's going to be your relatives or your relatives, except you, Courtney, you get to be present.

You know.

One thing I do love about when the doctor's going on about, oh, humanity is going to go out and do this.

He seems to be very, there's a mix of emotion there.

And it sort of, it sort of, again, reminds me of Tom Baker saying, you know, humanity spreading out like a wave or a disease.

Oh, disease, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, and because the story's been about, is humanity going to be a race of murderers or a race that waits for science to happen and sees what happened next, there does seem to be a melancholia there, which I really appreciate.

It's a much subtler Tom Baker era reference and we get in the 1st scene, which I thought was too bad.

The way he closes his eyes on the beach and slowly breathes in, and I thought, and I don't usually have thoughts like this, it's like he's reconciled the different timelines and the different futures, which was the gray area, and now he can see it clearly that everything's going to be okay.

[53:07]

Yeah, I think that's absolutely that.

He's doing some weird time or thing.

And I actually quite like that.

I don't mind that at all I think that's really, really great.

And how else are you going to do it?

You're not going to have a voiceover from like Vig's granddaughter?

or something?

Timothy Dalton.

That's just going to make the episode first.

So, you see, it is possible.

It is more small.

But I was just going to say that the program is often, like you're saying, in Waters of Mars and in seeds of death as well, has rejected this idea of, you know, we have enough.

We've we've seen far enough.

We don't need to see any further and the program has always rejected that it's always wanted us to strive to go to the next peak to push on and further and further and higher.

And I think that's a great positive.

And I'm very, very grateful that at least that is the moral of the story, one of the morals of the story, such as it is that we get.

Yeah.

There's that miserable speech that Lundvig gives about going up into space and discovering that everything is dead, that everything out here is dead, and that we just inhabit the skin of a planet.

[54:16]

And one of the things that makes that resonate is that that's actually true.

You know, that's the real world in which we find ourselves.

Yeah, yeah, but I think, you know, in all likelihood.

So what we're being invited to accept is the weird, insane, overpopulated, sort of daft universe of Doctor Who as the alternative.

Well, Elissa, that's all we have time for this week.

We'll be back next week for some champagne, soft jazz, and inevitable certain death in Mummy on the Orient Express.

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 podcasts, Bondfinger, Jody Interterterra, maximum power, and untitled Star Trek project.

[55:34]

Until next time, take the stabilisers off your bike and make a good decision.

Thank you very much for listening and good night.

Patronising?

Get, good night.

Please just kill me.

That was Flight through Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Brendan Jones, Simon Moore, and Colin Neal.

Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.

This episode, the Goldilocks Zone, was recorded on the 29th of January 2023 and released on the 28th of May.

Of course, if Peter Capoli had stayed for a 4th season, he would have discovered that many other things were actually completely different things, but Mars is a bar, obviously, and the Himalayas are a walls Vienetta, and that the sun is a massive cylinder 5 light years long, which revolves in such a way that we only ever get to see one end.

Have you gone bananas, Clara?

Great impersonation.

[56:35]

I'm glad you did.

That was really good. not even come close to that.

The way he says that lie.

He comes in and goes, the moon's an egg.

And he's so excited.

Clara looks at him and goes, what?

And like she double takes?

It's so tremendous.

It's so much fun.

And that, just the joy in that moment for him, like how excited he is about that.

I just think is absolutely wonderful.

And I think, because you have to read it as Peter Capoldi being excited about it just as much as the doctor is, I think.

I love it So good.

So good.

All right, that's it.

Right?

I think we're done.

I think we're done.

I think yeah.