Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flightthrough Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast now only available on audio just as a
way to hide our faces.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Todd, and I'm a graveyard full of castoffs horsemans with
something the Briggs proud of in there.
Well, last week, Stephen Moffat was doing his best to try and make
death scary.
This week, he's going to have much more success with Clara, the
doctor, and their wacky new neighbour, Missy.
Let's see what happens when 1000000000s of newly angry cybermen
join them in death in heaven.
So the doctors are lady now, apparently.
Oh.
Hmm, it's a thing.
What?
So, Clara, we get the opening credit scene.
Yeah, we don't have a reprise.
She just announces she's the doctor and then we go into the titles
with her attack eyebrows.
Does she just announce it?
Does she actually, is it Clara versus a cyberman?
Yeah, she says, you know, I'm really important to you.
I'm the doctor or something Yeah, yeah.
Didn't she do a frock rehearsal on the Orient Express?
Wasn't she saying, no, forgive me. she saying I'm the doctor on to
that lot as well?
No, I think she's a bit pushy.
So she does get to play the doctor in Flatline rather than Orin
Express because the doctor's in the TARDIS.
Professional podcaster here.
Oh really?
I just strolled my eyes.
Honestly, I just sit there going, oh, please.
And now we've put her eyes in the credits and she's before, you
know, Peter, and this is all going to, like, be resolved in about
2 minutes.
It's a set piece.
It is.
Like, I think a set piece is kind of okay though.
I'm not saying that it's not.
I like this episode.
I'm going to put my cards on the table here.
I think it's 8 out of 10.
Yes, listeners, I'm going to all my tropes.
But there are certain things that I do not like as much in this
episode of other moments, and that I find is a set piece which, you
know, is done for an effect, and I just kind of sit there going
thanks, but let's move on.
The thing is, I would argue that it's not debunked until cyber
Danny comes and gets her.
Because I was watching.
I remember watching that at the time and going, oh, well, they
could.
How do you mean?
She could be.
She could have a little locket with like Chancellor Flavia's ashes
in it. the flyer.
I, like, I don't think I ever thought it was really going to
happen, but it was credible to me that it could have been.
Todd is giving me the narrowest vision.
Todd and I are narrowing our eyes visibly at you, Brandon, for the
listener at home.
I'm not very clever.
Fair enough, but I just don't get it because it seems so obvious.
I just don't I just don't buy it.
Yeah, I didn't buy it.
To the point that I didn't actually notice it.
So I think that we've already had a lady master revealed.
How do we feel about that?
Oh, no, we will talk about that.
We already had a ladymaster last episode and so the lady doctor is
kind of like the next obvious step, but I think it is perhaps just
there so that it can be in the next time on Doctor Who trailer
which, you know, putting interesting things in the next time the
Doctor Who trailer is not something that every showrunner has done
and I think it's probably not a bad idea.
Yeah, and I think, and I have to go from memory here because the
next time trailers are not on the Blu-ray.
I think the line from that that makes it in there is Clara Oswald
never existed, which is a great line to put in that trailer.
And the thing is, for a bluff to stop yourself being murdered by
cybermen, it makes sense.
That's very interesting.
Both of you, because I have to say, I had the Z to minor Todd
experience for this.
I had the anti-matter black sludge.
I really didn't think it was as good as I first saw it.
It was a lot of tricks and tropes, and a lot of really underused
cast members, and the Danny Pink, are we up to that yet?
I might keep my power dry for that one.
But this is just a whole bag of very glossy and very impressive.
Yes, it's a gorgeous way to appease, or to please, I should say
transatlantic viewers and all the rest of it.
I just felt there was a lot of very late.
I don't want to say lazy, but Mr. Moffatt's very quick solutions
when he's got 2 other things to get out this week.
Yeah, I am the other Todd for this episode.
Yes.
Look, I think that it is less successful than last week, and I
think there's probably less there than initially meets the eye, and
I have to say that I'm not super on board with the resolution of
the soldier thing that we've been doing all season.
Are we up to that yet?
Well, yeah, it will come towards the end.
But there's a lot of fun to be had still, I think, and most of
that is with Michelle Gomez.
It's all with Michelle.
And in fact, I would actually say the heart and soul of this
episode and the life of this episode does sit squarely on her firm
Hebridesian shoulder pads.
And really is that the right way to finish a seasoned relying on
the one villain, but I look at the demons.
Oh, look at any of the other fantastic classic master series and
they were the some of their parts.
Whereas this one.
Well, let's not go into the parts in the bins and the parts in the
tin cans.
But, well, maybe we should.
It didn't feel right.
I did like the darkness of the end.
I did like there was no day or sex machina at the end at all, but
I also felt...
Again, how quickly did you write this?
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, look, he's clearly having an enormous amount of fun with
Missy and Missy's hugely successful, and we said last week that
she gets a good, solid, proper murder in each episode, and here
she gets two, and the murder of Osgood is spectacular.
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
It's spectacular.
I guess it is spectacular.
Like, it's something that I didn't think they would go with
because you've got Osgood and Kate Stewart there at the beginning
of the episode taking control of the situation, getting everybody
onto the plane as a set piece.
Wiki dialogue and then, obviously, the doctor's taken upstairs to
be president of everything, more on that in a second.
But having her talk to Osgood, I always felt that Osgood was sort
of set up much like a Sergeant Benton type character that you love
and nothing bad is going to happen.
So as that scene sort of unfolds and also too, the dialogue with
the doctor before that, with him, with Osgood sort of inviting her
on board.
You just know things are not going to Linda with a Y moment, is
that?
Yes, exactly, Nathan.
And so when that actually happens, like it's just like gut
wrenching and I don't think he necessarily ever expected to write
a Zygon 2 parter next season to bring back the character.
So I actually think the fan reaction to her death, which I think
was actually quite considerable.
Like, then sent his mind ticking, you know, how do we bring this
character back because she is so good.
But the fact that Missy is the queen of evil, as she says herself
and is completely nuts.
Bananas, completely bananas, you know, comment from the
galleries.
It makes that sequence, you realise like, you know, she's taking
no prisoners and it's not this thing of the classic series where
we're too scared to kill anybody.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Yeah, I think Moffatt said that the trouble with the master is
that they risk being cuddly because they're entertaining and so
they have to be murderous.
It's funny you should mention that about the Zygon 2 part because
he kills off Osgood because he did already have the Zygon story in
mind.
And in that story, he wanted the audience to doubt whether it's
Human Osgood or whether it's Zion Osgood or whether it matters.
And he was like in order to do that, I need to kill one of them.
Right.
And then he worked backwards from there.
That's cool, yeah.
Ingrid Oliver and Samuel Anderson, by the way, did not know their
characters were going to be killed off before they turned up the
read-through.
And Moffatt, it was interviewed at the read through.
I think the Doctor Who X-ray.
He says to the interviewer, there's Ingrid and Sam.
I've just killed them, so I better go say hello.
Um, But Capaldi and Rachel, Tallalei knew that Osgood was coming
back next season, but weren't allowed to tell Ingrid Oliver.
So, but you know, Ingrid and Sam, we're both like, we know our
contracts are up.
So and it's like, oh, what a shame, et cetera, et cetera.
I really love that entrance from Kate and Osgood.
And I know there are members of the paddle who are here and who
are not here who are not fond of Gemma Redgrave's performance, but
I think she is having so much fun in that 1st scene with the
cyberhead.
Hi, Kate Stewart, divorcee, mother of two, King Gardner.
She drops the cyberhead from the invasion or something just to
make the point.
And in Moffatt script.
It is a more modern cyberhead, but he's like, he describes the
damage to it so people don't think it's handles and during the
production designs of phase.
They're just like, well what's this a reference to?
And he's like, oh, it's a reference to the invasion like coming
down.
We can make one of those, Stephen.
Van Staten had one in the in the museum.
That actually raises a good point if I'm going to keep the
graveyard metaphors going.
I've got a question for everyone, bit on the higher meta level.
What is the point of this plot?
Messi is raising an army of corpses to be cyberfitted out, probably
the most brilliant concept the master's ever had, the most complex
as a present for a Scotch egg boyfriend?
Yeah, it doesn't...
That doesn't work.
And I think the people who say that Doctor Who should rein it in
and be less weird and less over the top and less dramatic, they're
almost always wrong.
But here she's raising everyone who's ever lived.
They've all been stored in her cyber drive, you know, the, in the
nether sphere, and their bodies are being converted or whatever is
left of their bodies is being converted into cyberman, and there's
going to be 1000s of them, and she sort of talks as if she's
taking over the planet, but then she's kind of raising an army for
the doctor to make some point.
So for the master to be the master, there's got to be a meta above
that.
There has to be a plan within a plan.
There always was, even if it's just a pathetic box with chameleon
behind the console.
But I'm not getting where this was going to go as a plot device.
Is she just saying you and I are alike.
Yes, I think so, but yeah.
But I think also the other thing, and it is lost in the denouement
and I think a line of dialogue would have fixed it, is at this
stage, she has only converted the dead into cybermen.
The next round of rain will also kill the living.
So she's kind of going, if you accept this army, no one else has
to die because these people are already dead and they can be
useful for you in liberating the Dalek slave camps.
She's like, I'm giving you this army of people who are already
dead so that you can enact peace on the universe.
Which...
Okay, that is clever.
Yeah.
You kind of go, the doctor will never go for that.
Oh, except maybe the doctor who just tells people that
everything's going to be fine, even though they're about to die
inside it are like, that doctor might.
And so I think it's effective in that way, but there's that line
of dialogue missing.
And I think also there's a line of dialogue that's missing in
that.
In Moffatt's conception, don't cremate me was always fake.
Yes, but it doesn't come across.
Yeah, because he doesn't want people to cremate themselves.
He wants to get those bodies in the 3W Institute so that he can
experiment on them.
And there is something about Moffat's conception of the Cyberman
which is different from Russell's and different from Kit Pedlers
which is they are corpses in armour.
Yes.
Yeah.
And that's very clear from the Pandorica Opens.
Remember when the face of the sidemen opens and there's a skull
inside and stuff like that.
So his isn't, you know, the brain and the shredded nervous system
inside a casing.
It's just a dead body in a casing.
And so his cybermen were always that.
And so it makes sense and it's a massive scale thing, but it
doesn't seem to be, look, the master's planes are never really
anything. are they?
Because when you think about what John Sims master does at the end
of series three.
He's taking over the world, why, you know, www.launch the
missiles.
Yeah, yeah.
It all seems to be sort of rather pointless in the end and maybe
that's the point of the master.
In the same way that the doctor is a flaneur and at about for no
other purpose than his own greed, for knowledge, self-advancements
perhaps, yes, there is the mirror of that.
That's what he says.
I mean, this is our conclusion is what is the doctor?
Is he a good man or not?
And his conclusion is, I'm not a good man.
I'm not a bad man.
I'm just an idiot with a box who wanders around seeing things.
He's a scholar with tech, and we know that unbound they do things
like the Manhattan Project.
So...
The doctor has always been a cypher for Doctor Who has always been
a cypher for what is going on in the here and now, culturally
politically and indeed scientifically.
So perhaps there are comments that Mr. Moffat was making on those
grounds, but I think it's really just don't trust Scotch bints.
Yes.
The other thing is that we get the soldier thing.
Okay, so the doctor again is very rude about soldiers.
He calls General Ahmed Manscout all the way through.
He is dismissive, but then there's the brigadier as the kind of
big exception.
And I'm not sure what's happening with the soldier thing, but it
seems to me that the doctor makes a speech about Danny at the end
of the episode, how love isn't a feeling or an emotion.
It's a promise, and that Danny, like his fellow soldiers, has
promised that we can all sleep safely, that we will be safe.
And that seems to be where that plot's leading.
The doctor discovers that he's been wrong about soldiers all
along.
And so he ends by saluting the brigadier and ends by showing some
respect or some regard for Danny.
And I think it's also a degree of self-forgiveness because Danny
identifies the doctor as an officer in this, again, when we have
Danny's flashback, after he realises what he's done, the dialogue
we hear is his commanding officer, barking at him, is their place
secure?
Danny report, like, you know, and it's underlining that the doctor
as an officer is asking Danny to do something that he's not
willing to do himself.
I mentioned last week how this story deals with themes of
forgiveness.
And I think the doctor, because we've just had the time war in Day
of the Doctor.
Yeah.
I think the doctor is still forgiving himself for his part in that
and that's been a part of this incarnation.
And that's part of his animosity towards Danny is that he actually
recognises something of himself.
And it's something that has led him to question whether he's a
good man.
And when does he 1st ask that question when he's just gotten
involved with the soldier who's fighting Daleks, Journey Blue.
Yeah.
You know?
But it's another thing of Doctor Who handling a very, very serious
issue, so it has to paint it in very, very broad strokes, like the
motivation of a soldier is to keep everyone safe.
Yeah, you know, which is Dan Dan the soldier man in.
Yes, exactly.
So that comes full circle.
Simon earlier this season was a little bit worried about the way
soldiers were being presented and kind of hostile to the idea that
they might be presented in a bad light.
I'm the opposite, I think.
I think this is a period in time where, you know, both England and
Australia and America as well, I guess, but they were always a bit
there, is trying to big up the role of soldier and make it
something that we respect.
It's, you know, a period in time where we start using the
Australian term diggers to describe people not who were soldiers
historically, but who are soldiers now.
And, you know, we send soldiers to Afghanistan.
And in the week of recording, we've discovered some of the
terrible, terrible things that led to, and it was never really
about keeping us safe in our beds.
That's not what that's about.
And so I think that this kind of fails in some way. that what
Moffatt's trying to say about soldiers just never coheres around
any particular idea.
There's just a thing that comes up and then we drop next year and
I don't know what it was for.
Obviously, listening to your discussions on FTA throughout the
year and certainly back in the caretaker and how I think it's, I
do think it's poorly handled.
And here I think, like when the doctor arrives towards the end and
Danny's there and he says PE very quietly.
And then they have their conversation that they have, which I
think is extraordinary active by both of them, and the doctor has
to face up to how he is.
Like Danny has pulled him up on him being the officer and that
sort of thing.
And then you get the whole saluting of the cyber brig, which is
set up quite early on through dialogue where Kate says that to the
doctor that the brigadier only wanted to be saluted once.
And then even at the end where he says, we'll make a maths teacher
out of PE yet.
Like, the brigadier became a math teacher.
Yeah, you know, and he's given it Danny away back from death.
And is that his way of apologising and seeing the good in Danny
and coming to terms with his own feelings about soldiers and that
sort of thing?
I think there's actually a lot in here that points to the doctors
I don't want to say redemption, but certainly coming realisation
that he has been on the wrong track with his attitude towards
soldiers and to Danny.
So yes, it's not fully successful, but I think within the episode
itself, I saw this for the 1st time.
Like I did not like this negative soldier thing the 1st time
through, but I actually saw an arc in this season and I actually
saw resolutions here and I had the Todd experience with
referencing myself.
You're a me.
Thank you.
I'm not repeating.
I had the experience of I detested. the cyberbrick thing. detested
it.
It brought a tear to my eye in this episode because I bought into
it.
I saw the picture of him.
Who else is going to save his daughter when she gets sucked out of
that plane in that just awful moment where I just sat there going
0 my god, I can't believe they've done that.
Yeah.
And knowing that Nicholas Courtney never really got any other, well
he was in the Sarah Jane Adventures for an episode, but the
brigadier was never brought back or with his passing, perhaps an
acknowledged the way you wanted it to, I actually really bought
into it this time.
And it's there.
Like it's never going to change.
So you either fight against it, like I fought against Delta and
the Bannerman for all these years or you all through time.
Or you lean into it.
And you find the good in it.
And that's what I think I found.
I don't know whether I've answered your question.
I think you're definitely right identifying that this is a source
of redemption for the doctor, the current doctor, and it's that
thing.
I posted it to the thread last night because I was so struck by
how well written that exchange was.
But it's like there's an exchange where the doctor is not going to
activate Danny's inhibitor because he says pain is a gift.
This is an important thing, without it, we can't feel the hurt
that we inflict.
And Danny says, are you telling me seriously that you can do that
because he's been playing it, as if he doesn't care about the
consequences of what he does to people.
And he says, yes, of course I know that.
Of course I know what I'm doing to people.
And Danny says, well, shame on you.
Like, that's worse.
If you didn't know how you were coming across, if you didn't know
what you were doing to people's lives, that would be bad, but the
fact that you do know, and that you feel the pain that you inflict
and you do it anyway, is a problem.
Just his acknowledgement that he does know that this isn't just
him being clueless.
He knows what he's doing.
I think it's extraordinary.
Didn't know what you just said?
Yeah, yeah.
I've just come to that conclusion.
Yeah.
It's also interesting with the promise of the soldier, as Danny
puts it, because we know that the impetus for Danny becoming a
soldier is Dan the soldier man little figure who doesn't have a
weapon and goes out and helps people.
And when Danny's trying to tell Clara, also in listen, that he did
important work as a soldier.
Well, he's talking about the welding.
So it's like he became a soldier to help people and he killed an
innocent child.
And now he can actually live to that promise of a soldier by
making sure people sleep safe in their beds.
So I think Moffat isn't necessarily talking about the evil that
can happen in war from soldiers of, quote unquote, outside.
But he's talking about perhaps soldiers didn't become soldiers
because they wanted to kill.
They wanted to help.
And I think possibly it's inconclusive because he's kind of going
possibly not his place and not Doctor Who's place to say it's good
or it's bad.
Yeah, but it's to say this is a reality that people are facing.
And I think there is something very, very powerful in that.
And I think we're left feeling uncomfortable and perhaps we ought
to be.
And, you know, Richard, you mentioned the transatlantic response.
And of course, the discussion about veterans and support for them
when they, when they come back from war is a big topic in America
it's become a bigger topic in Australia in the last 20 years as
well.
And yeah, I think I think possibly if we had come to some sort of
conclusion on that point in this episode, it would have been
weaker for it, I think.
I think that I have a problem, which is that I do want things to
be pat, like, and I think that there is a place for just exploring
a set of ideas and not necessarily coming to a conclusion.
I think maybe Doctor Who should err on the side of taking a
position, but sometimes it doesn't, and I guess that's fine.
We're dealing with concepts that the original series only ever
brushed against by happenstance coincidence.
And, you know, and in fact, didn't even acknowledge, and then by
the 80s, although Andrew Cartmel.
Yeah.
I mean, I guess the big thing is the end of Silurians, isn't it?
where the brigadier does a very... he does a very bad thing.
And the doctor acknowledges that, but the show needs to go on.
Yeah, other critics have said too.
I mean, this is really, was it Xander, who said this should have
been the end of the doctor should have just retired to a cottage
and made muffins with Delia Smith or something.
Grown begonias.
Yeah, well. actually joined the British rocket group.
That could have been interesting.
The funny thing is, I'm also thinking of the censorites and, you
know, yes, the human soldiers in that.
And Planet of the Daleks of all things.
And it's discussion of war and morality and courage and...
I mean, I don't have any conclusion to draw on that, but it's just
it's just interesting when Doctor Who brings up those points, like
bringing them up in the sensor, right?
The conclusion we have to make, and the censorites did it, and so
did Solurians, is these events are too large for moralising or for
capitulating against, or indeed, for a finale for, for a dio 6
Macuna end.
These are what they are.
These things happen and what is our response to this.
I think, but what makes this episode, maybe I'm having an N
Universe Todd experience again now because it feels to me that, yes
it's actually that moment and you highlighted it between Danny
Tinfoil, Danny and the doctor, where there is this exchange for
what can you do about it?
You just do your best in the moment. yes, you carry this.
Yes, you carry this.
What did the master do that was actually all that awful?
Well, yeah.
Well, yes, but, you know, and sort of tormented people in the
afterlife.
Like, I think the afterlife is hell.
Well, but I've got a whole list myself.
I'm actually more upset that Sanjeev Bucks and Chris Addison
didn't get more work because I love Chris Addison's civilisation
BBC Radio 4 series, if you've ever heard it with Jeffrey Watts
face from the Douglas Adams radio series.
It's one of the funniest things on radio you'll ever hear.
Addison is superb and he's perfect with them.
He just gone.
And Sanji, he's such a damn fan. came to the point of it's Captain
Scarlett.
That is so funny.
Oh my god, I love that exchange. all the way.
Yes, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And the doctor does the foxtrot with Sylvia Anderson.
And as you know, I got to meet Sylvia and I have a massive place
in my heart for Sylvia and all the things that were unfortunately
you know, went against her in life and career and I love that
woman so much and I was just a little moment again for us.
And again, Mr Moffatt does perfect little moments for all of us.
And I'm not dissing it.
I mean the whole Air Force one stuff was Bruce Willis level
entertainment.
Maybe it's just that from Doctor Who and thinking back to the
stories we've spoken of from the classic series.
We expect a moral conclusion.
Yeah.
And that's what we're not really given.
No.
So we get to see a fair amount of of Michelle, this episode, and
we did last episode too, and I just think we said last week that
it's her and Delgado vying for top role.
I think she very clearly is better than Delgado.
She's better served.
Yeah, yeah.
I think that's fair.
And because television's different and all of that.
I think Delgado would have got away with most of that.
No.
Well, Delgado gets...
But what he doesn't get to do is that murder, that fantastic thing
where you know that once Missy tells Osgood, that she's going to
kill her in a minute, that that's going to happen.
Like there's no way that that's not going to happen.
And Moffatt, who is an awful, dreadful person. says, like, it
makes her say all of these things.
It's so, and like, when the doctor sort of says something about
Osgood comes in and sort of knows as it's happened.
Like, I think he finds the glasses, doesn't he?
And she says, well, like, don't be so selfish.
I have to, you know, I'll miss her too.
You know.
And then she wants to go off in search of other friends of his to
kind of play with.
It's great.
And what makes that even worse is in the original draft.
That scene with Missy threatening her was intercut with the doctor
and Kate because the doctor has just said all the time in space?
to Osgood. and what Rachel Talale thought was that Jenna's
contract was up and Stephen Moffatt was sending her the 2nd
episode scene by scene to build up suspense.
And Rachel thought, oh, God, Ingrid.
It's going to be Ingrid next year.
Ingrid.
I love Ingrid and then...
Bang.
Because meanwhile, up in the meeting room on the plane, the doctor
basically comes in and says to Kate, I've just offered your
scientific advisor a job and Kate says, she's very valuable and
very well paid.
So good luck with that.
And so they both have a few lines of how much they love Osgood.
And then you cut back to her being disintegrated.
Yeah, it's so good.
It's just so terrific and it is absolutely something Delgado would
never have got the opportunity to do.
And Moffatt is super conscious that he has to make Missy evil, that
the risk is that the master is so much fun that we think.
I sure would have insisted upon that on...
That's right.
A few deaths every episode.
But Nathan, I totally agree with you.
And I think the fact that that all builds, and you get the whole
reveals about the woman in the shop.
Yeah, and the advert in deep breath.
Yeah.
And Michelle and Peter are just so extraordinary in that moment
because doesn't Clara call him on the phone?
Yes.
That's, and then having Kate just sucked out of a thing.
Like that whole sequence for that character of Missy is just
amazing.
She just, and she's totally, like, she's laughing and, you know, oh
just having the time of her life, like, because every, the pain
has just, like, been ripped apart around her and everything.
I'm sped away.
Like she holds these episodes together and brings something that
we never had before from this character.
I was a little bit disappointed with a master turning up at the
end of SpyFall part one.
And I thought it was too soon.
And I thought there wasn't enough of a buildup.
Also a complete negation of character arc.
Well, we get there and I think that's terrible or boring at
least.
Well, yeah.
But I think that Moffat was completely unable to prevent himself
from playing with that particular action figure. you know, and
that's why she's just back at the beginning of next year.
But also, you know, he did wait, three full series. before
bringing back the character.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
But then he has her back in the very next story after the
Christmas special because he just can't leave her alone because
she's so magnificently great.
It's a proper pertly year thing to do.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's true.
But can he get it for other things?
Like is she suddenly going off to do Sabrina or something like
that?
I don't know.
Because it's funny how she's in these 2 episodes and the 1st
episodes of next season and then we wait quite some time before
she's back.
And of course, we have that year off for Peter to have a surgery.
I mean, what that does mean is we're Matt Smith is robbed of
having a master.
And I remember at the time there were all these rumours that they
were going to cast an older character actor with Charles Dance
being heavily in the rumour mill.
I don't know if there was ever any basis of that, but of course he
was quite big in Game of Thrones at the time.
Yeah.
But again, here with Michelle Gomez, you have the thing of casting
opposite your doctor.
What's interesting about that is the character description
originally has her as a young woman in her 20s.
Oh, really?
And Michelle Gomez was offered the part of Miss Delfox.
In Time Heist.
Okay.
And was unavailable.
Great.
And pretty much she thought, oh, God, you know, I've had to turn
down Doctor Who.
What if they don't ask me to do anything again?
So she emailed Stephen and she said, look, I'm really sorry.
It was a great part.
I'm just already booked for this thing, but if you ever need a
razor cheekboned villainess for anything.
And Moffatt went, Missy doesn't have to be in her 20s.
Well, he went, she's got that smile.
There's that smile and there's a tiny snaggle teeth, like one
teeth has a little point on it.
I just think like her whole look is perfect and she's so like she
is just so tremendous.
Like, I think that she manages to be the opposite of Capoldi in a
sort of fantastic way.
So David Tennant has John Sim, who is his rival star of a science
fiction TV show, which is on at the time.
And they're both really gobby and they're both sort of really fun
and funny and fast and everything's very verbal.
And so they are very similar in many ways.
Whereas, of course, Missy is the doctor's opposite.
Like a perfectly crafted opposite.
She's mercurial.
She's, she's, um, bananas as she keeps.
And she's much more fun than him, and that's always the risk, isn't
it?
She's perfect, just absolutely perfect, I think.
And I think the visual 2 of her coming in is Mary Poppins. for
that last segment.
There's also just icing on the cake.
It's just delicious.
So it's very confusing what happens to her.
She's shot dead by the cyberman.
So the Cyberman makes the doctor not have to make the decision to
save Clara from making the thing.
Although spoiler alert, it's going to turn out to be an emergency
temporal shift or whatever.
Always.
You don't bring a character back just to kill them offline.
No, no, that's true. don't resent that at all.
I don't think you have to kill the master off each time he or she
appears so that they can just have mysteriously got out of it next
time.
That started in the 80s.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's absolutely Ainley, isn't it?
Yes.
There's the title.
Absolutely.
And you have to keep them coming back, so it's absolutely anly
returned.
I think this episode actually deals deftly with having a really
very downbeat ending and a kind of depressing end to the season.
Yeah, it doesn't really give you a pop, does it?
No, like, I mean, Danny is dead?
Yep.
The doctor doesn't find Galliframe.
He and Clara are parting their ways.
And still lying to one another.
It's all quite downbeat.
Do we often have that in a series finale?
Yes, we have horrible things happen, like, you know, to Donna or
whatever, but then there's then moments of where we're going to go
to.
I don't know.
It's it's this series.
Like, it's an uneasiness. we don't have a full conclusion.
We've got these dark things happening.
Paul Danny, what happens to Danny is one of the darkest things, I
think, in the history of the show in terms of a character, right?
And the relationship with Clara and the doctor and how headstrong
they are.
It's, I can see why this series, I'm, it may not be liked by a lot
of people, but I think it's quite an extraordinary series when you
watch all the different threads through.
And then, yeah, and they don't get it all correct.
It's imperfect, but I really enjoy watching it and seeing new
things and picking up and on what we're talking about today.
And as well as the extraordinary performances throughout this
episode.
Like Samuel Anderson, I just kudos to him.
I just think it's fantastic.
He actually holds this season together as the anti-Missy, doesn't
he?
I think he's really good.
I do think that turning him into a sort of stupid science fiction
robot at the end of the episode is a problem after the realism of
his death.
Yeah it is.
But I have, yeah, I have to say, like, given that he's limited to
showing just the basic features of his face at that point, his
performance is extraordinary and elevates, it's kind of funny.
I remember at the time there were certain visuals in this I
laughed at.
Not because they looked cheap, but just out of context, they were
silly.
And one of them was cyber brig, which I never had an angry problem
with, but I just thought Peter Capaldi staring at this I man and
this sideman staring wistfully back at him. just made me laugh.
And the other thing that made me laugh was Jenna Coleman hugging a
cyberman.
Yeah, yeah.
This time I was totally into it.
And I think it's possibly, I've only, I think before rewatching
the season for the podcast, I've only watched it twice.
So once on broadcast, once about a year later.
And I think possibly my laughter at those were discomfort and not
discomfort that it was bad ideas, but discomfort that it was kind
of dark.
But now I can sort of watch it and appreciate it.
Something I really love about Jenna and Sam's performances in
those bits are they're whispering to each other. you know, and
there is just so much emotion there.
And of course, so much pain from Samuel Anderson and something you
mentioned last week, Nathan, that you thought, if Danny was going
to die, it would be in some way Clara's fault.
Yeah.
But I think it not being her fault is even worse for them. you
know?
And there's that whole bit where Clara describes Danny's death as
boring.
And then when the doctor's falling out of the plane and Missy's
watching it on TV.
Missy says, oh, he's just going to be boring and go splat.
So they both describe death as boring, but Clara's saying it
because Danny was too good for that.
And Missy saying it because she wants the doctor to have a really
interesting death.
Yeah, yeah.
She accuses him of lacking style.
Lacking style.
And of course, it's the whole Roger Moore moment from Moonraker.
And Stephen Moffatt said, of course it's Roger Moore from
Moonraker.
And then we have to say goodbye to Chris Addison, unfortunately.
Permission to squeeze.
Which was amazing.
So I think that that ending is now is so bleak and so downbeat, but
Moffat absolutely is aware of that and doesn't leave us with
that.
And remember, we said last week that this season is running late
so it's only a few weeks till Christmas, and I don't think, yeah
we can't understand it until we think about last Christmas.
And so that's why Santa, who is Santa Claus, is able to break into
the closing credits and reassure us all that everything's going to
be all right.
That's right, this went out in November.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So Santa actually stops the closing credits.
Does his sort of thing saying, no, this is ridiculous.
I can't end like this.
This is terrible.
And then we go back to the closing credits and see Santa, Nick
Frost.
Like, then we see his credit. and the rest of the credits go on.
And I think that's brilliant.
I think it's Moffatt is not ending the season here.
This is kind of the cliffhanger where everything has gone wrong.
Danny is dead.
The doctor and Clara are never seeing one another again.
They've both lost something that they thought they had, and
they're both still lying to each other about it, and that will get
fixed in the real season finale, which is last Christmas.
Correct, Nathan.
You can't watch this series without Last Christmas.
That is actually the series finale.
Back to what Brendan was saying.
The doctor falling in the sky.
The music at that point is just phenomenal.
There's some just some great visuals.
When they take off Danny's face plate, just that makeup on
Samuel.
Yeah.
It's gorgeous, isn't it?
And his eyes, he plays it all through his eyes.
Like Billy Hartnell did, like all great actors do.
Joan Crawford through the eyes.
I think I'm just going over the one thing is that I just can't get
over the performances by everyone in this episode.
And the 1st time watching things through.
You drawn to Michelle because she dominates the screen.
You're drawn to Peter into Danny because they've got so much
dialogue of the one person, by about halfway through the episode
who has very little to say after that point, except for few bits
is Jenna.
And I watched her during all of their talking to each other about
you know, Mr. President and whatever.
And she is just phenomenal in the looks that she gives, you know
the subtlety there.
I just cannot underestimate how good I found her in this episode.
She's got a big info dump quite early on too, which I was just
saying, yeah, go for a girl, you know.
But after that point, she's got her moments, but everybody else is
sort of more to the fore, but just holding the cyberman, Danny, and
just being there.
She just is selling those scenes.
I would recommend to all listen as if to go back and watch this
and just watch her in that 2nd half of the episode, even with all
the other stuff going around.
I just think she is just incredible.
Yes, I agree.
I would like to say this, maybe this season is the adults, the
grownups, mum and dad.
Michelle and Peter doing their little thing over there and causing
all these problems and making a mess because they can't resolve
their relationship issues.
It's really all it is.
It's attention seeking on both of their parts.
But, but it's about the kids.
Danny and Clara.
You just made me think, Todd before, that there is a resolution to
this.
There is a moral core, and it is about sacrifice, and it is about
why have we just built how many 1000000 on the Senator for our own
Australian Anzac history here in Sydney and Hyde Park.
It's because of the notion of sacrifice.
It's the reversal of, as a little boy, um, Stephen Moffatt, like
us anyone in their 50s would have seen the, um, very popular at
the time.
Antoine de Saint, ex-upires Little Prince.
So there was a film of that in the early 70s, which we all saw as
children, and it's a book that's gone round and round.
And of course, in this case, it's the anti-version of that.
Danny's sacrifice is to say the little boy that died.
And by that little boy, the little Afghani boys, is perhaps, you
know, Danny's point of being alive now, and a good sacrifice must
be made to resume this in the, in the, in a way that, um, stories
like this, don't give us a resolution.
That is the only point of hope at the end that we're left with
this.
Oh, that and Nick Frost.
It's funny, isn't it, that last week the doctor said that he is
the friend that Clara absolutely deserves, and she doesn't she
doesn't kind of get Danny because he's too good for her in a way.
Yeah.
I do think, though, that closing scene in the cafe does have it
does have a little spark of hope, even if this had been Jenna's
last episode as originally intended.
By the time they're filming.
They've already decided she's staying for last Christmas, which
you know, that will be discussed when we get there.
But when the doctor thinks that Clara and Danny are together and
it's all worked out and when Clara thinks the doctor has found
Gallifrey, they are so happy for each other.
There's no snidiness.
There's no the doctor baiting her about Danny or her baiting him
about being king.
Like, it's a genuine suggestion.
You can go be king of the time, you know, and then they hug and
their faces fall and he's right.
It's a way of hiding your feelings.
And, oh, I'm welling up now.
Do you know, the hug is a that's a very television way of hiding
your feelings, though.
A TV writer says that because you get the over the shoulder shot
of each character.
So you can see what they really feel without the other character
doing it.
It's absolute old TV trick. and he's reinterpreting it here in a
really good way I think.
Yes, yeah.
Oh, totally.
And it's kind of like, if this had been Clara's last scene, it
would have been downbeat, but it would have actually been okay.
Yeah.
You know?
And...
I would have felt sad about it, but it's not like pure devastation
like Tegan's last scene or even Donna.
You know, Clara is still alive and she's helped Danny save this
little boy.
Yeah.
She's moving on, but she's also giving the doctor some sort of
closure to think that she's happy and everything's worked out for
her so he can go on with his and move on himself.
Because both of those are not real.
That's the problem.
Yeah, obviously Well, that's a depressing way to end the series
but not to worry.
We'll be back next week to clear up all the mess with our Series 8
retrospective.
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 Interterra, maximum power, and untitled Star Trek Project.
Until next time, go be a king or something.
A queen, whatever.
So long as it makes you happy.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
See you soon and keep digging for Britain.
Good night.
That was slight through entirety, starring Todd Bilby, Nathan
Bottomley, Brenda, Jones, and Richard Stone.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, absolutely Ainley, was recorded on the 4th of June
2023 and released on the 2nd of July.
As we near the end of our series 8 coverage, I'd like to thank
everyone who joined us, Adam Richard, Adrian Poon, Fiona Tomney
Pete Lambert, Hannah Cooper, Paul Neil, Si Hart, Stephen B, Matthew
Hounsell, and Kevin Bernard.
We'll see you next week.
Oh, bye.
I think that's the end of that season.
Oh, hope so.
I'm going to give myself 5 seconds and if I can't remember what I
was going to say.
I'm just gonna move on.
It was about Missy.
She sings, hey, Missy.
Casting.
She does sing.
She was originally called Misty, but it wasn't that.
Misty, really?
Misty.
Really?
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, I'm glad they just go there.
Was she mobile intelligent system interface or something?
Yeah, yeah.
MISI.
Was it something in the group?
Never mind.
No, it's all right.
Can't be a bit of tag.
Tag.
You'll think of it later.
Yeah, that's right.
When you're on their way home.
And another thing.
Well, we've talked about the reason Danny's death and what makes
the story actually work.
I do think it just, though, and it isn't very Moffatt.
This isn't necessarily what you might want to keep.
I just want to hear what you want to say.
Mr. Moffat's way of putting everything together very quickly in a
haphazard.
All his toys in the box, shake it up, see what comes out when you
tip it upside down.
It is his style and when it works, it works brilliantly.
You probably manage to convince me that it does work here.
But the reviews at the time also said, even the Guardian, who's
and, you know, the Guardian UK is uniquely positive.
Yeah, positive.
Still, this one still came in for criticism because of the plot
holes and inconsistencies and points of...
Yeah, I mean, that's Mr. Moffat's style.
I think that maybe all 3 Capaldi finales are pretty great.
And I'm not sure about how bent because I haven't seen it since
the, you know, the inevitable watching 12 months later when the
blue race come out.
And I'm keen to see, and I've obviously watched Heaven Sent just
any number of times because it's magnificent.
Yeah.
And then the series 101 is great too.
Like just incredible.
They're all great, but they're all very dark.
Even compared to the Matt Smith one.
Yeah, yeah, it could be very dark.
And so I can understand, it kind of leaves the audience, especially
I think, the general audience who aren't collecting the Blu-rays
and the action figures and, you know, the Roger, Robert
Terreleptal sculpture.
Yeah, I think it could be the bad taste in the mouth.
Something I was just thinking about with Danny's death is there's
a big finish audio where missy jokes that she once killed a big
finish audio.
There's a big finish audio where missy jokes that she once killed
a mass teacher with a milk float.
And it's clearly a reference to Danny.
But it's also the fact you then go, well, hold on.
The doctor and Clara only get involved because Danny was killed
and Missy does imply that she wanted them to find her.
Oh, so she kills her.
She kills Danny Pink with a milk she does.
I thought she might have run over the brigadier.
I thought that was the claim that she was making.
Well, it's got a reverse gear.
Well, well dressed, as John Pertwee, as Jones the milk, yeah, for
Green Death.
With that fake moustache.
With that fake, which Richard's wearing now.
We both.
Both doing it now.
All right.
I think we, what do you want?
That was really sweet.
Todd have another thing?
No, I was just gonna... no, it's okay.
Oh, say something.
Oh no, it's really boring.
It was just that...
An audience is 7.6 million. with an AI of 83, which means that it
was actually... well liked.
I mean, the Christmas special will have an AI of 82.
So, you know, that's still high too.
So that's still high too.
And that gets a bigger general audience, so it's impressive that
it gets that high.
Yeah, it does.
Yeah, everyone's watching it.
Yeah.
But not as much as previous Christmas specials.
This one is a bit more muted.
I really like, I'm looking forward to this.
I love last Christmas.
Oh, it's wonderful.
I'm going to watch it today.
I'm going to the home and do the ironing and watch it today. really
good.
But you know, I think this doesn't wrap everything up, as you
said.
But I think there are certain elements that are tied up with
storylines and so I find it, like we're uneasy about some things
and I think we're not used to that.
That's okay.
I think that's okay.
Yeah, yeah.
And that's a good thing.
Yeah.
And the thing is, I think, unlike other things, I have been uneasy
about it, Doctor, I think this is written to make you feel a bit
uneasy.
It's not a consequence of not thinking through the consequences of
what you're saying about a character.
Yeah.
I think things have been thought through to a level they need to
be and most questions that remain are questions deliberately put
in the mind of the viewer.
Yeah, yeah.
All right, I'm going to press stop.
Yeah, I'm sure we have an out somewhere there.