Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast that has a pointed stick here and
isn't afraid to use it.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Todd.
I'm Simon.
And I'm your smelly old uncle's canary in a dodge and car hurtling
20 feet through fear and faeces for this one.
Well, the doctor's moral conundrum continues this week as he
wrestles with the possibility that rescuing a child on a
battlefield is morally necessary, even if the child is a bit whiny
and has a very dirty face.
But let's take a look at the moral issues he tramples over on the
way as we continue last week's fun in the witches familiar.
So I think that last week, when we were talking about this, I
discovered what's really happening here, and I want to share my
theory with a whole new audience.
So buckle up.
I think the doctor is ashamed for abandoning he's ashamed about
abandoning Davros on the battlefield. so the pre-credit sequence
is happening in time.
It's not a flashback.
He's the 1st thing that happens in the episode.
Then he thinks that Davros knows about it.
And because he's ashamed of it, he goes to see Davros and has
decided that if it's a trap, he's not going to do anything about
it.
Then he goes back and we see him go back in this episode.
And from Davros's point of view, that always happens.
So he goes back, saves the kid, introduces the concept of mercy to
the Daleks in that way.
And that was always Davros's experience.
So Davros called him back because he remembers that the doctor
saved him as a little boy and he wants to get the doctor to admit
that compassion like that is a bad idea.
I have a slightly alternative view.
Which is sort of like that.
But I think it's one of those things that it's rather like in a
Christmas carol, as time is rewritten, that has a sort of a
gradual flow on a flex through time.
So the original thing is the doctor abandons the child Davros and
he is absolutely worried, then that that is what has actually set
the Daleks in train.
Yeah.
He's been abandoned in this minefield and it wasn't rescued.
Like someone was there and could have rescued him and didn't.
And so that basically set Davros on the pathway of evil.
And it's only then when we get to the present, the now present
where there is a mercy moment.
And that's kind of the 2nd thing, because the doctor only goes
back and rescues Davros after this story.
Yes.
And so basically that's the effect of that flowing through that
kind of afterthought, then flowing through and kind of making the
current time stream work.
Yeah, I think that's I think that's the same thing.
So at the end of last week's episode, when Colony Saft picks them
up in the shuttle, he explains to Clara who Davros is and says, how
scared would you have to be to put every one of your people into a
tank?
You know, Davros made the Daleks, but who made Davros, and he
means him.
So, this is, in many ways, Genesis of the Daleks.
This is his genesis of the Daleks.
And of course, it's done in a completely moffety way.
Protogenesis.
Yeah, Genesis of Dabro.
Yeah, yeah.
And one of the things we picked up last week was that the Dalek in
the Big Bang begs for mercy from River Song.
Correct.
Yeah, and we all think, why is a Dalek begging for mercy?
They don't know the word pissy.
We know that, that's canonical.
How come they know it's near synonym mercy?
And it turns out that many years later we haven't answered that
question.
He does play the long game.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I think also he goes back and sees what he's done and then
kind of thinks of things to do with that.
Stephen has spent a lot of time writing this one.
I had a Todd experience.
With this one.
I did enjoy it the 1st time.
It's much, much more interesting the 2nd time around and you need
to watch.
I love TV that expects you to pay attention.
Yeah.
And of course, when Missy's on, he holds all his powder for when
Missy's on screen and that's when you get, oh, and also with Peter
and Julian, but that's when you get the, the exposition and the
old points and the little secrets and who is her daughter?
I mean, there's a lot, there is a lot, there is a lot to unpack
and unfold here, and lots of mirrors within mirrors and lots of
literary and theatre references, which I will talk to you with
when you get up to.
Yeah, I think it's tremendous.
I think you had a tight experience as well, Todd.
As always.
Sounds a bit wrong, doesn't it, when you say that?
Having the experience right now, what happens with the Sonic?
Does the Sonic get left with Davros?
Yes.
So he just puts it in a cupboard for all those years.
Is that right in a box?
Yes.
I don't think we need to think about it too much, but yes.
I think it's in one of those little slots in his chair next to the
hypodermic. fondling it in episode one.
But he only has that revelation now, not...
Yeah, so he remembers.
I don't think.
I mean, obviously he doesn't remember the doctor.
So he never sees the TARDIS in Genesis of the Daleks because
despite what the LP says, TARDIS is not there.
So he never sees that.
The doctor never calls himself the doctor in the rescue attempt at
the beginning of episode one. called the rescue.
And so and so he doesn't put 2 and 2 together, I think, until
later.
And remember, it's only Ronson that confiscates the Sonic
Scrooge.
Yeah, so he never sees that.
I don't think it gets, it's always in that plastic little plastic
box on nonsense bears.
Where they retrieve it later.
Where they retrieve it later, too.
Which later.
He doesn't have his sonic screwdriver when he's talking to Davros
at all.
Yeah, if you knew the future and blah, blah, blah.
The tiny pressure on my thumb speech.
Sonic.
And that's why he creates the Sonic sunglasses because he doesn't
have his Sonic screwdriver.
I think too, Moffat gets sick of stuff that he's been doing a lot
and, you know, he constantly...
Like people.
And I think the Sonic Sunglasses are pretty great because they
kind of fit with this outfit, this more kind of trashy version of
the magician's costume from last season with the hoodie and stuff
and with the Fender Stratocaster and things.
And it's a little bit more kind of, he's not quite a boomer
Capaldi, or is he?
But it is, yeah, but he, you know, like it's a kind of old...
He is a boomer.
No, he's top end of Gen X, isn't he?
No, Gen X starts with both pigs. because he was 13 when he was
writing in.
We're mid-Gen X. Yeah, okay.
Gen X goes to about 7980.
Okay.
Yeah, but do you remember we saw Capoldi?
Yes.
And he and Moffat.
Capaldi Moffat and Ingrid Oliver were there.
It was a Doctor Who event in about the 51st season.
Yeah, yeah.
Because Australia.
And someone got up and said to Stephen Moffatt that everyone hates
the Sonic sunglasses.
And Stephen Moffatt said, no, that's ridiculous.
And it means that anyone who has a pair of sunglasses can play at
being the doctor.
And that's absolutely, you know, Moffatt is very, very aware of
the effect that the show has on children and how children take it
and how he took it as a child.
And I think the Sonic sunglasses are great.
And obviously they work very well next year in the sort of monk, 3
Carter, too.
Listeners, just and Nathan, everybody in this room, just to
reference myself yet again.
My experience.
Yes.
The 1st time round was I wasn't enamoured with the sunglasses or
the riding in on the tank tank or the Qatar.
But I love it now.
Right?
I love it.
I know I'm going back to the previous episode.
I love so much of that episode.
I just love how the cold open.
I love the fact that Kate has a new offsider Jay, who's going to
appear later on in the season, I love the fact that Missy and
Clara have to find, well, get to the doctor and and then they're
all together, like, and that spark is wonderful for those
sequences.
And I love, I love the guitar, the fact that in 2 episodes time
they squander the opportunity to keep a guitar theme rather than
this tinny one that we've got.
They could have kept that.
And I love the guitar later in the season and the whole reveal of
Scaro.
Like, I love all that in all the buildup in that 1st episode.
I'm not so enamoured with the whole extermination of Clara and
Missy.
I do feel like it's like Stephen's gone in this episode and said
well, I need to explain why it was exterminated and vaporised at
the end of last season.
So I'm going to have them shot here so that I can then explain it
in the cold open.
You know, there's this reverse engineering of stuff, you know?
And I feel a lot of that in this episode, you've just discussed
some really great things that I never really thought about like in
terms of where the doctor was and coming back to Ross.
And I think that's so clever and all the mercy stuff.
But I do feel in this episode like we're reverse engineering some
things, like we have to introduce the age of dalek so we can, and
he does that all the time.
He introduces some new concept early in the episode, which comes
into play.
Well, that's the law of the conservation of information, isn't
it?
It's the 2nd law, which means the more explanation you put in, the
less you get out of it.
You know, we need that get out of jail free card.
And so the Missy Clara stuff in this episode is just, isn't it
delicious?
It is fantastic, but I do feel like some of the doctor Davostov is
marking time, like, really?
Because I thought that was all very G.K. Chesterton and very
Cathgar-S. I like all the 1st stuff where he dumps Davros out of
his chair.
Like, I think...
Well, who does?
brilliant.
I just think later on, I just think they're not playing for time
but I do find it like, you know, Izzy lying and, you know, it just
goes on and on and on.
Like for me anyway.
Yeah, no, I find those sequences longer than they need to be.
Did Stephen suddenly say, I want I want Michelle to say the
bitches back.
Like, is that his catalyst for this episode?
You know where he got it from?
Dynasty?
Joan Collins line.
Oh, it's what they use.
She didn't say it, but it's what they used back in the 80s.
It's what's on the TV week cover kind of thing.
Exactly.
It's what Aaron spelling used to say that, you know, they're
renewed. and it's now a classic line.
Don't you wish that Missy had actually been called Mercy?
No.
We did have the villainess called Mercy. in the next doctor.
We did.
I guess what I delete that from my mind.
I guess what I was trying to say is that this is this is a great
episode and I think all the Missy Clara stuff is wonderful and
there's wonderful moments, but I actually enjoyed the 1st episode
a little bit more than this one.
That's just me.
I probably agree with you there.
I enjoy the 1st one a bit more than the 2nd one.
I think the 2nd one, I don't want to use the word plods because
that would be unfair, but it is not as dynamic, perhaps.
Well, I mean, you've but that's because you have 4 characters.
Exactly.
And in fact, what I noted yesterday morning when I was watching it
that the end credits, there's not very many casts. as you say.
But look, I, I, I, very busy, and I certainly enjoyed it more than
the first.
Yes, I really enjoy this.
I certainly enjoyed it more than when it was on 10 or so years ago
when I thought it was kind of fine.
And there's so much good stuff in it.
It is brilliant.
And, you know, Michelle Gomez steals absolutely every scene.
She's even enhanced her ability to just throw these little lines
away and make them so memorable as a result.
But I just think the whole thing is a little bit random and a
little bit kind of, I wish it had gone a slightly different way.
Having said that, I think it's really entertaining, but
unfulfilling, if I can put it that way.
Do you know what I think?
I'm going to say the opposite of what people say all the time
about new Doctor Who.
I think this would be better as a single partter because I think
basically it has the structure of a short story.
And so all of the kind of lead up, all of the kind of faffing that
gets us here in episode one, which is terribly enjoyable and gives
it a bit of scale and stuff.
I think that could go away and that we just have an encounter with
Davros that ends with the doctor leaving and abandoning him and
then interaction between the doctor and Danfrost, and then we have
another encounter where the doctor is inspired to go back and save
him.
And we have Tom Baker's dialogue in the last episode about, you
know, a dictator that would destroy 1000000s of lives.
Could you then kill that child?
And so that conundrum gets played out.
And I think that that works well, but I think that it demands
something a little bit tighter, you know, a bit closer focus.
I entirely agree.
And that's, I think, my main thing is one of my main issues, even
though there's lots of great fun stuff in the 1st episode, and I
do actually like the tank bit much more than I did the 1st time
around.
And I love the Missy and Spain or wherever the hell she is.
The whole sequence there. brilliant.
And, you know, it's a dramatic open with all of the planes
stopping in midair, but none of that has anything to do with the
rest of the story.
And whilst I like the sense of epic where you go from place to
place and the story moves and evolves.
This doesn't feel like it's doing that.
It's just here's a whole lot of stuff.
Oh, and now here's this episode that I actually wanted to do.
So I agree with that.
I really like both of your observations.
That's really a great point, Nathan.
Everything could be one episode, but we're now repeating what
we've done with Matt Smith.
The 2nd season of the next doctor is a two-part story.
And we're trying to introduce the confession dial, the hybrid.
We want to play with Missy, Michelle's not going to be back for
ages.
You know, there's a whole melting pot of stuff.
And what you were saying, Simon, in this episode, there's only
those characters.
I'm gonna borrow from the publicity of the season, same old, same
old, you know.
Does it feel exciting and new?
Like, I think later in the season, the Zygon 2 parter is also the
same old same old, where in the 2nd part, because Clara is the
villain.
You only have the same characters. that doesn't feel new, right?
And it's something that, as I've been watching this season.
I really enjoyed so much of this, like even the dud episode, and
you may not know what that one is.
But it just doesn't feel fresh.
Like he's trying to do something fresh.
But there's something I'm just, maybe it's not this story, but
there's something that I'm just finding that isn't quite reaching
out to the masses.
It is much more looking at us as fans, I feel.
That's exactly what I felt too, but I loved it for that and the
introspection and that this season is about looking inwards and
hybridisation.
He tells you what he's going to do.
There's the hybridisation of Clara Osmond and Daleks, which you've
seen into the Dalek and it's properly exposed when she's in the
Dolgin cart.
There's Missy and the doctor, Davros and the doctor.
Well, he's can we have compassion without experiencing that which
compassion must exist with.
You cannot perform an act of compassion, without the act of, shall
we say, violence and whatever is going on here.
I would say actually indifference.
What did Hannah Arent said, the root of all evil is banality, when
she was talking about the Nuremberg trials.
There's even notes to that.
There's notes to so many films and so many texts and there's a lot
of stoicism.
He's actually quoting Marcus Aurelius in some of the literal
moments between Dar Ross.
Can't say it any other way.
And um, It's just like, yes, yes, the mirroring of what is good
and what is, we're not good and how am I a good man?
And it's even explicitly stated.
I love how Davros mirrors into the Dalek class last season. you
know, are you a good doctor?
Yeah, but he says he asks himself, is he a good man?
I think none of that lands quite as well as the incredible
conversation between Davros and Tom Baker's doctor, which inspires
this episode. which I just think is incredible.
And it's actually very rare for me to say, here is something that
the classic series nailed and that actually hasn't been surpassed
in this episode.
Yeah, just to extend on what was being said before about what Todd
you were saying about the fact that some of those scenes drag.
I think that's just it.
It was a single scene.
A long scene, but a single scene.
I think the problem here is we keep coming back to them chatting
and it's just come on, get on with it.
It doesn't quite have the focus that that other one does.
And so that other scene, which is about power.
And what you can do with power.
And of course, the could I then kill this child isn't part of a
conversation with Davros, is it?
Is it?
Well, there are 2 conversations later with Sarah.
Oh, of course it is.
Yeah.
So the conversations that they have, you know, the tiny pressure
on my thumb.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, you all be.
Yeah, that's in our minds.
But also, I mean, my big bugbear, of course, is sound design.
And one of the things that that scene does so well is the fact
that it's quiet for most of it, apart from when you gradually get
the incidental music kind of encroaching at the end.
Whereas, of course, everything now has to be loud and forceful in
terms of the music.
Are you loving the torture porn?
Really, if he'd had Liz Slatin, you know, if Russell hadn't
brought back Liz and Stephen Moffatt had, this is what we would
have been seeing.
And it's not that far off what Philip Hinchcliffe was doing to
Sarah Jane anyway.
Oh, no, but it's much better because Missy's doing it.
Shot opens up with the rotating.
And then it turns out she's tighter upside down.
But don't forget who is the...
No, it's not.
I want to keep saying it's Brian Miller who's ghost script writing
but it's not.
It's Brian Minchin.
But it's just glorious, isn't it?
I should also add the bitch's back is actually off Elton John's 74
album, Caribou.
It's where it actually actually comes from, yeah.
Just to extend what you were saying, Richard, about it becoming a
bit more introspective.
That for me at the time, I was an alarm bell, and I'm sure we'll
come to the discussion of ratings later.
But I question whether that sort of style of writing, which has
been encroaching more into the series since the 50th anniversary
particularly, rather than being introspective within the current
season or the current seasons, we're now being more introspective
into the 50-year history of the show.
Danger, danger, danger.
It's exactly where the show started going wrong.
Danger, Ian Levine.
Yeah, no, and I think whilst that's something you can do at the
end of a season, I really worry with opening a season, which is
something which is exploring, I know it's doing more than just
exploring one scene from a story that was 30 years earlier, 40
years earlier, 30 years earlier, 40 years earlier.
Nearly 40 years earlier.
You know, I worry.
I think that that needs to be taken into consideration.
I think it also opens with that scene, which is another analysis
of the doctor's character, but I actually think that works
amazingly well.
So that's the missy, telling the flashback, where Tom Baker is the
doctor briefly, and then we just set along Capoli.
And just say, well, we've got it.
We got him.
And it does 2 jobs.
I think it is a really good assessment of the doctor's character.
The doctor wins because he just doesn't envisage himself losing.
Oh, that's great, yeah.
It's the advice that he gives Davros at the beginning where he
says, forget about the 1000, think about the one.
All you need is one chance in a 1000, but it also, at the same
time, does the job of explaining what happened to Missy in death
in heaven and explaining what happened to Clara and Missy in the
previous episode.
And also, I think, rather brilliantly, may hear it always possible
that anyone in Doctor Who who's been shot by a laser beam can then
be brought back because it was a teleport.
Yes, but we saw that in like Bad Wolf.
Yeah, yeah, bad wolf.
That's actually, I thought of Bad Wolf more before I thought of
until it then came back to be when I was watching the previous
episode.
I was thinking more of Bad Wolf than it being, you know, a way of
explaining Missy.
But what we didn't see was the little pile of zanium on the floor
which we saw in Bad War.
That is true, yes, yes.
I'm quite happy to talk about ratings right now.
When are you not?
But it's interesting.
There is a step down, isn't there?
There is.
6.500000 for last week.
That by far is the lowest opener.
Mostly openers are like 8000000 or more or about that throughout
the entire... time of year is it?
It's mid-September.
Right.
And so like last year, last year, last season.
Although last year started slightly earlier.
Right.
August, I think, yeah.
Very early.
Yeah.
But this week falls to 5.7.
Okay?
And, I mean, the AIs are still very good. 84 and 83 very similar
to what they were getting last year.
And the whole season is hovering around that 6 million, like
either just under or just over.
But that is a step down from previous where basically most of the
season tends to be over 7 or just under 7.
So it's a good 1000000 plus 10000 to a 1000000 and a half less on
average for most of the year.
And the overnight, like this week's overnight was only 3.71.
So suddenly 2000000 more.
So there's a big shift in the audience.
There is a big shift in the way people are watching, which I think
there are a few steps in that.
And I don't think it's fully reflected in how the ratings are
calculated yet, you know, with streaming and iPlayer and all
that's not added in.
I mean, the 2015 World Cup rugby is on and there's a number of
major matches.
Now, I'm not saying that's going to influence things greatly, like
you might get, you know, some television sets in a house not
getting turned on, but there is like a 1000000 less people
easily.
I mean, the weather is so important over there.
Because, you know, as you're heading into autumn and still in
September, even into October, you can have these still gloriously
late afternoons.
And what wins the show on 630 or 7 o'clock or something?
I mean, you know, that's also a factor in people not watching it.
But also, doesn't this, doesn't the series?
my concern is that you'd expect a gradual increase in the figures
at this time of the year as you get together into November and so
on.
It bounces around a bit for this season.
Like it does pick up to 6.5 , but then it drops back down to 5.6
and then it's back up to six.
So there's really not much movement, but by about half a 1000000
throughout the entire season.
What's interesting looking at the figures that I have here.
The percentage of audience is generally, either the low to mid 20s
like 25%, 22%, that's one of the lowest ones, this week was only
22.9.
But if you look back in the history of things, Doctor Who was
around 30%.
That's the percentage of people watching television at that
moment.
That's correct.
And if you go back, it's usually the high 20s to mid-30s.
Yeah, so that is the more meaningful figure in some ways.
So there is there is the change here.
Sorry to get bogged down with that.
No, no.
I mean, I just kind of wonder whether it is that introspective
thing. and whether it's 2 partters.
I mean, part of the problem with two-parters is, if you miss
episode one, you might not tune into episode two, but they
always...
No, that's true.
But the fact that episode one this year is down by a million plus
is significant.
And I think that is this lag from the 50th.
Let me discuss this, you know, the hangover from that.
The fact that people can now tune out.
There's the same old, same old trailer, you know?
Do you think it's also that we've got someone with Dar Ross's own
face, as it's pointed out?
I honestly do think part of that 1000000 is the not the young, not
we, saying, oh, tell me, look at that.
Well, I want to look at that.
General sort of people going, we're used to having young pretty
doctor.
Yes, you know?
Really?
That's the...
Yeah, I mean, I'm less inclined to think that, but I can see it.
I think that's how casual views.
I was wanting Stephen Moffatt to put a paper bag over Dear Peter's
face and have him smoke underneath it just as Michael did in
Genesis of Catholics between takes.
We get a couple, see, daff put a paper bag of everything.
He did get the cup of tea.
It was very Denny Kay. always do that in Britain when he was on
stage.
Everyone hated it.
There are lots of those twee moments.
I actually think it's cost, really, it's just ageism.
It may be ages.
Scripts are so interesting.
They look beautiful.
It looks gorgeous.
Do you not agree?
It just looks I agree. looks gorgeous, but I don't think the
scripts are interesting to a general audience.
They require...
We always have something sort of fun and light and set on earth
pretty much as our 1st episode.
If it's not set on earth, it's like set on new earth or something
like that, you know, the Russell approach.
I'm just concentrating on the new character, we don't have that
this year.
Concentrating on the new character, doing something fun and light
and relatable and something that, you know, your mum can watch.
Whereas this, I think, isn't that?
It's too dark, yeah.
In fact, a friend in Britain, because actually, that's right.
I was actually in Britain when this was on.
We were on Monday there and that's right.
And I remember a British friend saying it had gone far too far
with Daros having been pulled out of the chair at the beginning of
this episode and basically writhing on the ground with his, you
know, nothing on his bottom half.
Basically, he felt that that was a bit too gross for the purposes
of the audience.
It's interesting because when I was watching it this time, I kind
of, that moment sort of stuck with me and I went, I just kind of
went, that is quite nasty.
I bet there are people who see the doctor pulling Davros out of
his wheelchair and then driving off with it.
And his Davros like, screw it.
Oh, yes, he did.
I wouldn't care.
But it does seem very bad.
And also, yeah, basically, and also him, the doctor being in the
chair as well.
There's something slightly icky about that in terms of, yeah, if
Matt Smith or David Tennant had done it, would we be batting an
eyelid?
my question.
Well, I still would be, yeah.
I don't think it's a capaldi thing.
I think it is funny and I think it is clever at work. dark
though.
Yeah, but when he says, this is clearly the place on Scaro best
defended against Daleks.
I think that that's actually quite a good thought.
Yeah, I mean, I think the case for a fluffy opener is perfectly
understandable and perfectly fine.
But one of my favourites, I think, my favourite opener would be
the Impossible Astronaut 2 parter, I think it is, it does
everything that I want Doctor Who to do, and I think it is also
accessible to it. the regular audience.
Exactly.
Massive scale. and that's the one that feels like this is what I
want Doctor Who to be.
But it's also said on Earth, which I think is much more relatable
than some other planet.
And you've also got the doctor being killed off quite early.
So there's this hook about, Oh, there's an immediate hook.
And there's also lots of just fun hanging out with River and Rory
and Amy and the doctor and those are characters that we know well
and that we generally like, I think.
And you've got these other characters and you've got a sort of a
sense of epic what's going to happen and you've got the silence
which is just so superb.
So anyway, point being that this does not do that.
Yes, it's entertaining and all that, but I don't think it speaks
to the general audience the same way.
And I don't think there's a substitute.
Like, I can't think of anything else this season that you could
have brought forward to do that job because it's all a little bit
dark and a little bit slow because we're all doing 2 parters all
the time.
Am I right?
My memory of this.
I don't think the two-parter thing is necessarily the issue, hence
the impossible astronaut example.
Yeah.
The impossible astronaut works because you've got the hook as
Todgers said.
This has a sort of a hook, I suppose, because you've got the
Davros thing.
But at the same time, yeah, I know the general audience.
You're almost certain they're going to know who Davros is.
Yeah, well, the most famous.
Yes, absolutely.
And that show, you know, journey's end, you stole an earthen
journey's end rated its socks off and he's from the very heyday of
the show.
Yeah.
That got me like having Davros in that cold open, having Skaro
like all that stuff in that for this episode really saying to me
but is that as a Doctor Who fan of many years, as opposed to, like
it's hard to know, really, without talking to someone in the
general public.
Now, we're having this conversation, which seems to be poo-pooing
this episode.
And I just want to say that's not the case.
I really love I really like this a lot.
This is an 8.4, right?
The whole story overall.
Where did it lose a .1?
Because last episode was 8.5 and this is 8.3 because it gets
bogged out.
Oh, the whole story is 8.4.
Yeah that's right.
But I'm just saying, yes, keep laughing, Nathan.
Like next week, the next 2 part, 8.9.
Where am I pulling this out from?
I'm just damn, you know?
I wonder, I think what you've said, been very interesting about
ratings and the viewers and how people take this on, and I wonder
if it's a cultural or forgive the term millennial way of viewing
or experiencing, because I'm thinking of the traditional writers
using characters.
Not just Agatha Christie mudgering Allingham.
Anyway, when a writer progresses with, as Stephen Moffat has done
over so many seasons, it's the natural state to become
introspective with your character after exploring the outer world
what is left.
Again, it's very stoic.
So we come back in and we write of our response to our experiences
of previous novels.
And for the long-term viewer.
I would think that would be inviting, but it is how people watch.
And with what Simon and Todd is saying, perhaps people at this
stage, Todd, you probably know more about this, are watching on
devices individually rather than on TV or as a family.
I'm not sure how it still works in the UK.
But I found this more intriguing and inviting because of the
invitation to come into the characters.
Yeah, I don't think the issue is necessarily that you've got
episodes that require you to have seen the previous episode and
the story because that's how people are watching television more
and more, whether they're crushing up.
You know, you commit, you are, you're either going to watch a
season or something or you're not.
You're not just going to watch a random episode of it as a rule
right?
Even if it's on broadcast television, because you've got iPlayer
and all that kind of stuff.
I'm not talking about the fact it's 2 part in the fact that it's
referencing each other episode or even an episode from the
previous season.
It's the fact that it's kind of trying to too deeply reference the
whole arc of the program or at least it's reaching back too far
into the depths of history to open the season with.
That's my observation.
There are loads of people that don't watch the original series.
Yeah, 0 yeah, I think so too.
I mean, I think the reason that we like this is because it's doing
precisely what you say.
This is a single, you know, 45 minute story that has 4 characters
all of whom have been in the show for a long time, even Clara
who's the most recent arrival.
I mean, you've got the doctor, Davros, and the master who've all
been in it since, you know, it began all the 1970s or whatever.
So we like it.
But what I think is that it just doesn't have enough fun, shiny
things happening.
It all looks a bit bleak, it's a little bit lacking in incident.
It's a lot of people standing around and talking, which, again
talking urgently. that we like.
No, the lighter moments are all missy.
The light, all the fun is missy and Clara.
And missy's lines.
Yeah, yeah Pushing it down the ears.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
The smile where she says get in. and then she has this wonderful
smile.
I want a pointy stick. make your own No, she gets rid of that the
dalek with her...
Yeah, yes.
Stopping around and just poking it.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, when she talks about the TARDIS last week and says that it's
the dog's unmentionable to then start stroking the dog.
Derrick Beamler.
But it's the dwarf star alloy brooch, isn't it, where she's
poking?
I'm poking How could she lift that thing?
How heavy would it be?
works out.
Did you know that?
A certain bit that I loved and watching her face because she's not
actually delivering anything at this moment is in that climax
scene where basically Capaldi's destroying them all by saying, you
know, the sewers are revolting and all that sort of stuff.
And she's just watching him do it and loving it and that's
actually where they bond.
Because she is, that is what she does, but she obviously is more
evil, whereas he's actually doing exactly what she wants to do.
Yeah.
Well, he's that imp, you know, he's the imp who falls out of the
sky and tears down your world.
The master's got to love that.
Exactly.
And that's the part of the doctor that the master associates with
yeah.
I love how she does poke Davros in the eye.
Yes, it is.
Like, she says she was going to scratch his eye out last week.
The doctor said that, you know, he was his arch enemy.
And so she does actually follow through.
Talking of eyes.
Now, everybody.
Listen to me. listen to me.
You need to all close your eyes now.
In the next 10,000 years.
And then the conjunctivitis that you would have, you're trying to
open them back.
Yes, yes.
Like, I mean, it's very emotive and you really see into Davros's
song.
Like those eyes are so striking.
So you're accusing Dr. not being realistic.
Do we close our eyes and then open them?
I don't know at the time.
I'm quite happy with it.
Well, that was the regenerative energy, wasn't it, that Irish...
Oh, okay.
Well, so really he's been, I, look, also, Julian Bleach is only
slightly more terrifying out of costume, is in, if you've ever
seen him.
It's forever though, changed the way I can look at that mask.
Yeah, seeing the dead eye sockets and then suddenly seeing the
dead eye sockets open with the blue light at the top.
It's like, oh, now suddenly it's a man in a mask.
So, yeah, we'd always just assumed his eyes were burnt out, which
was what was the most terrific thing about that.
About the original...
Terry Malloy mask, which looks much more like that's what's going
on.
I...
How do you feel?
Well, like, it's a very moffety thing.
It's, you know, this is something that you know Well, I'm going to
reinterpret it and let's see what happens.
We have it with the doctor leaving Galafray gets reinterpreted.
It's kind of like, yes, the canonical reason is he was bored.
And we have Davros pointing out, well, actually, that doesn't
really work, does it?
Why do you keep running then?
No one runs that far or that fast because of boredom.
Here, we're just reevaluating Davros.
It turns out Davros can see.
And remember that he can't open his eyes the next morning and
whether he's bunging it on in order to get the regeneration energy
who can tell at this point.
But the idea is that it's effortful and painful and, you know, his
eyes are still there, but they don't kind of work.
This is as much speaking of hybrids. hybridisation of Genesis of
the Daleks and curse of fatal death as it is anything else. running
down corridors and plummeting through, as I've mentioned, in the
opening of plummeting through the graveyard sewers.
Yes.
I really do wonder why he didn't bring Jonathan Price back in a
cameo.
Just in a reflection, just in one of those doorways, the lift
doors.
He's missing from Doctor Who.
He's missing from all of our lives.
I would have liked missy to just pass a piece of polished stain of
steel in the Dalek city and just seen Jonathan Price's face
staring back at her say, that's Canon.
He could have been in the Dr. Falls.
Oh, but I'm quite serious.
I think Mr. Moffat is pulling because of...
Forgive the cesspit analogies, but pulling everything he's done
that he most loves and throwing it back at us as a pizza supreme
saying, what do you want to do with this kids?
He does love that, doesn't he?
He's quite that exponential style of writing that he does.
So are you liking the eyes or not?
I think that it does successfully generate pity for Davros, which
is what he's going for at that point.
And I do like the little moment.
It's digetic in Brendan...
But I also like the moment where they are on the same side
together, even though later we discover they're not really, but
that is kind of nice.
Like, like, you buy Davros being sincere because he's happy for
the doctor, for kind of Nazism reasons, you know, everyone needs
iPhone needs home soil and a race, you know, like, and so he's
happy for the doctor, but he expresses it in kind of, like, Nazi
kind of terms.
Rent talks about this in the Eichmann trial, you know, her or her
book on Speer, the great journalist who documented the neural.
Did anyone see child, what was it called?
The Nuremberg trial in the 1962 film?
No, it's called trial at Newenberg.
Thank you.
Have you seen it?
Yes.
Years and years ago.
This makes Missy Judy Garland, I think. that one.
Don't remember that one.
It's got it's got everyone in it.
But there's that very subtle play of, I mean, they don't, I don't
know how well they're carried off.
I haven't seen it since, you know, but that thing of who is the
inquisitor.
It's very the prisoner.
Leo McCern and Patrick McGuin as Capaldi and Bleach in this and
the duality, I feel like.
I mean, it's actually a very simple concept and it goes back.
It's Roman, isn't it?
This dialogue of who is actually the better man.
But when we start looking at R our morals and our ethics. actually
defined as the same thing.
And when we separate them, do we not create artificial
descriptions of ourselves or artificial monickers of ourselves
which then separate us even further from our truth and what is our
truth?
There's some really high concept in this, which is probably why
casual viewers would go.
Well, I think I think it kind of rejects any overarching theory of
morality too.
Yeah, just asks you to question it.
Yeah, yeah, because I think eventually the doctor says, I am just
a guy who travels around and on a good day.
I'm the doctor.
And he's the doctor when he does a good thing.
And, you know, we've talked about Doctor Who rejecting
utilitarianism, in a sense, if you wanted to reduce the amount of
suffering in the universe, you leave Davros to die on the
battlefield, which is what the doctor does.
But the doctor then becomes the sort of person who abandons a
child to die on the battlefield, and that's a problem.
And in fact, he finds a way of, you know, it's what the doctor was
supposed to do in Genesis of the Daleks, which was either of their
creation or affect their evolution, so they become less aggressive
creatures.
You see?
Yeah, you know it off my heart.
We all do.
Well, we know 60 minutes enough.
And that's what he does.
He goes back and introduces the idea of mercy into the Dalek
vocabulary.
And as I said before, it's a near synonym of the word that Davros
eliminated from their vocabulary.
And so he goes back to bring more mercy and compassion into the
universe in a kind of weird hope that that will spread or that
that will have good consequences and it does.
And I think that's interesting and that's what this is doing.
That's how I think this is relitigating the ideas in Genesis of
the Daleks, but in a vastly different type of story.
It's interesting.
The one thing that's not really negated in that theory is the
notion in Genesis of the Daleks in that the wires speech about
some things will be better with the Daleks future worlds will
become allies just because of their fear of the Daleks.
So basically the notion of just preventing their creation at all
is actually possibly not the best solution.
And that's not actually touched on.
No, no.
I mean, it can't be done, can it?
You know?
No, no, of course.
But I don't know.
I know what you're saying, but yeah, nah.
We've talked about Genesis of the Dialects.
We haven't talked about is the dark.
Oh, isn't it exciting?
Or the dead planet or the mutants or whatever we were supposed to
call it.
Although they're the wrong colour.
No, no, but the city itself. isn't it beautiful?
so beautiful.
It's very TV 21.
Yes, yes.
Well, no, but I think there were 2 model versions of the Dialect
City and the 1st one was rejected or something.
It's Jerry Bentham's the beginning.
Oh, is it actually more like the original model?
Well, it's kind of a mixture between the two, but it's more like
the, it's more like the one that appears.
But it's a television version, not the film version, definitely.
Yeah.
And I love the angle doors.
Oh, yes.
And the doors that come down in a circle and stuff.
And I talked last week about the Dalek control room, which is a
bit more massive than anything we see in the Daleks.
But it does have an excitingly Sir Ken Adam slanted roof, which...
The 20 something degrees and the 7 degrees.
Is this the 1st time I had an epiphany as a fanboy, you just take
it all on board?
Why did I never get Womp Womp?
Is the heart of the Daleks and the meaning of the Daleks and it's
been right there since episode 5 of Doctor Who.
It's what Moffat does, though, isn't it?
Like he creates.
He takes this thing that has been in Doctor Who and then gives it
gives it an interpretation.
Maybe they just left on the parking brakes as well.
Okay, that.
You know, I love that.
Like, especially Missy saying, like, the cyberman suppress
emotion.
Yes, the Daleks channel it.
Isn't that gorgeous?
It is.
You've never really thought about that in your head before
perhaps.
Product differentiation between...
But that's it.
So they say exterminate because they're recharging their weapons.
Yeah, the expression of that hatred recharges the weapons for
them.
I think it's really great.
Yeah, that whole thing, that whole thing where she gets put where
Clara gets put in the dalek, like Ian Chesterton is, you know
before her.
Yeah, that's true.
Ian doesn't get the little probes into his...
No.
Which is why that dialect can't sort of properly speak, but it's
very crowded. just the way you talk.
You know, you're different from me. comes out as exterminate.
I love you, comes out as exterminate.
It's so good.
Yeah, I buy that for some of them, but I, yeah.
Well, you know, it's very brightly.
Yes, exactly.
Mr. Moffatt has been married a long time.
But it leads up to the final scene with Clara in that Dalek.
The doctor and Missy saying, oh, you know, Clara's dead.
This is the one that killed her. the tension that you feel at that
point in time.
I love how the doctor just tells her to run as well.
It's, you know, that's his that's his response.
You know, she's tried to trick him into killing Clara.
And he just says Ron and she kind of realises, yes, actually, I
better.
What happens to her at the end?
She ends up there with the Daleks and that's it, really.
Yes. as I recall.
What does she say?
She says something.
She's surrounded by Daleks.
And she said, I've just had a very clever idea.
What is her idea?
to be continued.
Well, it's that usual thing that you have to do with the master
now.
Well, you always kind of had to do in the 80s, which has just put
them in an impossible situation and then forget about it.
Yes, I mean, whether it's her.
Hurtling into the distant parts or distant future or whatever
happens to him and the Rani or he ends up with the axons, you know
surrounded by the axons, being attacked by the people of Castra
Valver, whom he created.
For example, yes.
As it all collapses around.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. love that.
No, you need that sort of thing.
And I prefer the ones that are like that rather than the ones
where he gets, you know, burnt to a crisp within the planet of
fire.
Yeah, that was a bit of a problem.
Oh, yes.
Well, no, but in terms of like you want to, you need the little
window out, yes.
I do like the doctor saying to Deveros, moron.
Sewers.
Two words.
So, I mean, what is that?
There's a sort of Marxist revolution at the end.
The sewers are revolting, the lower orders are rising up through
the thing and killing everyone, which again is a very kind of
Moffatt thing, and I guess it gets him to do the revolting
partner.
Yeah.
But the doctor has to use his regeneration energy a bit of it to
you know, and suddenly it's a trap.
I don't like when they use the regeneration energy for things like
this.
I think it diminishes the regenerations.
Well, he's small.
Like when the 17th doctor is really small.
Now we'll know why.
Because he says I'll be shorter or I'll lose an arm or something.
No, I get I wasn't getting awful.
I don't know.
I just kind of like the regeneration energy for regenerations.
I just kind of think, well, we can just turn it on and off as we
need to.
Yeah, exactly.
And just use this little bit.
Get out of jail free card.
I don't know.
It's just something, one little thing that doesn't kind of sit
with me. sort of like, well, I need a way to destroy the city and
thus this is my get out of jail free card by having introduced the
old Daleks in the sewers and then the energy's going to go...
And back to my point about reverse engineering the pot.
Yeah, well, like the stuff about how the Daleks don't ever die
like their genetically engineered not to be able to die and they
just turn into sort of living sentient sludge down in the bottom
of the thing.
Like that's kind of revolting, but it is absolutely reverse
engineering so that regenerating them all gets them to come alive
and kill everyone, which obviously they don't because the Daleks
will be back.
I do like the fact that Missy gets to sort of save the day a bit
by shooting colony salve.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Is that how you manage his name?
Yes, I can quite work it out.
South, South, South.
South.
He's from South London.
I was going to say, yeah.
Yeah.
Very, very effective, though.
I mean, obviously he's more in the 1st episode than the second, but
the snake thing is really, really well.
Really nice, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. quite, maybe.
Yeah.
I still don't like levitating Daleks.
I mean, basically, the show has become so paranoid or it's got
it's got this, what's, what's the word?
Like, um, post-traumatic stress disorder or something for the fact
that Daleks couldn't go upstairs until remembrance of the Daleks
and it's been desperately trying to make up for it ever since.
Although I do actually like those exterior shots of the Dalek City
with just like swarms of dialects around like that.
That's what I'm talking about.
That I don't like that.
It's like, it's too...
I think it's the kind of thing that, okay, we need to get Daleks
upstairs and they need to be able to levitate and fly.
But like it is in Dalek, it should be kind of something that
requires, it sort of suggests it's almost...
They have to say elevate before they do it.
Or it's an effort.
It requires a lot of energy.
You won't do it when you have to.
So when they're on the planet, their home planet, they're just
around the corridor.
Well, they're not just flying around going, whee.
Yes, and where's the trans-solar discs, thank you.
Yeah, you need a little disc or something.
It's just like, you know, let's just get over the fact.
Yes, the whole point is that they, you know, their design is so
beautiful.
I don't want to worry about the fact that they can't go upstairs.
I actually thought that the flying cyberman at the end of last
season were worse.
I really didn't like that.
Yes.
I agree with you.
But these are very bad.
But what is not very bad.
It is the use of the head system.
Oh, yeah, they have different.
So it's not the hostile action displacement system, which moves
the TARDIS.
It's the hostile action.
Dispersal system, which spreads the tongue around the place, like
in front of you.
There's all these little Easter eggs in.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it is just like a throwaway line that's a gag that we enjoy
and it's a fabulous special effect and stuff and, you know, deals
with the destroying the TARDIS thing that we had to have for some
reason at the end of episode one.
It looks good.
Yeah.
Even I accept that.
It did look great.
That effect of it, you know, sort of swooping in and really
materialising around.
But there's so much in the series about how indestructible the
TARDIS is that you know that whenever it's destroyed.
It'll be fun.
Again, I do love Missy say never believe a man about a vehicle.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Yes, please.
Oh, just sit here.
She's got so many wonderful lines.
It's just it just, that whole performance just overshadows so much
of what else is going on.
You know what I mean?
The fact Julian Beach is just wonderful as Deveros.
And the stuff that Peter Capaldi is doing against him is at all
his little moments, all of Peter's little moments are just are
just beautiful.
And again, I'll go back to Jenna Coleman, who I just think is just
a tremendous actress.
But when I walk away from this now, it's still all the missy stuff
that just sings.
She's so good.
Just so tremendous.
And it's absolutely telling that for the three, you know, the
moment that he invents her, there's never a year that he doesn't
have her back.
And he absolutely makes a kind of 4th regular character. in series
10.
And she's stronger in this 2 part than she is in... dark water
one.
I do think it's a shame that the fact that we've got the
confession dial and her and Davros talking about the hybrid in
this, they're not back at the end of the season sort of to sort of
bookend it.
Like, you know, they're not involved with any of that.
It's sort of, um, other people um, coming along.
Yeah, I think that's a bit of a shame.
But we'll get to that when we get to it.
So, it is the 2nd part of a two parter, and that means the long
awaited return of picks of the week.
Do you want to start us off, Simon?
I can do that.
I don't think this has been mentioned before, but this is really
lovely 2021 science fiction film called After Yang, which is sort
of very small scale. stars Colin Farrell, and it's basically set
in one of those kind of non-determined, not too distant futures
where we have sentient androids.
And the Androids, they're not services per se, but they're members
of your household.
There is a suggestion that there aren't very many children or at
least, you know, you only have a single child, but to keep them
company, you then get an Android as another sibling.
So Yang is the kind of like the older teenage brother.
No.
But it's all very mixed race.
Like, like, it's an adoptive child from China or something.
I mean, I won't go into that, that sort of detail, but it's just a
very quiet, beautiful film, because Yang, has a terrible
malfunction and is effectively is dying or is dead.
As far as an Android goes, and it's about the family coming to
terms with the fact that Yang is no longer going to be with them
and what are they going to do and what do you do with the body of
this Android and so on like that?
It's just really, really beautiful.
And again, it's one of those kind of, I wouldn't say dystopian
futures, but just kind of like a future where everyone kind of
leaves in these very closed communities and it's, it's, it's very
quiet, as I, as I say.
That sounds really lovely.
Todd?
I guess my pick of the week is the reality television show
Hunted.
Oh, which I'm watching at the moment where you've got to hand in
all of your devices and then you're on the run from the Victorian
hunters.
You're in Victoria and they've got all your social media and
you've got to stay, they're out to get you.
And can you survive?
And so they're using CCT footage and bugging your phones and all
sorts of things and I just find it absolutely compelling.
There's 10 teams of 2 and the hunters have a headquarters and I'm
just loving it.
So it's not the Victorian police hunting you.
No, no, no. in Victoria.
Right.
And it's, yeah, there's a UK series that you can find the UK
version, but I really love the Australian version.
But what the idea is that you're supposed to be.
You're on the run.
You're the fugitives?
But are you all working together as fugitives?
You're all individual.
You're just a pair?
A pair.
And it's a question of you've got to be the last one found
basically.
You've got to get to the extraction point to win the money. right?
After 21 days.
So they're on your tail and yeah, I just find it fascinating how
they go about hunting you down with the social networks and CCT
footage and just the luck that some of the hunters have.
And I'm never on the side of the actual fugitives.
I always want the hunters to get the people.
Are they awful?
No, no, no.
Like some of them are really good, but others are quite annoying.
I think they can outrun the hunters and they just do things that
that's find it fascinating what they use in terms of technology.
It's all about being in the 21st century.
Can you actually stay hidden?
Yes, so because they use, oh, I see what you mean.
They use other people's social media.
They use the close circuit television to be able to find, oh, they
were in, you know, yeah.
There's obviously constraints with the series where they actually
have to hand in their devices.
So it's, you know, it's fascinating.
Yeah, no, I find... glimpse into the near future.
Our near future, probably.
Well, yeah.
Our actual president.
Well, yeah, if you're living in certain other parts of the world
yes, right now.
I was going to be all sort of medium brow and say anything that
Gita, Serene, actually, ever wrote, which you can just find
anywhere really, but, um, you know, the, like the piece on Spear.
Oh, indeed, judgement at Nuremberg. go home and watch that again.
Sure, it's on YouTube.
But, um, I'd also quite like to watch Once Upon a Time and Fallout
again, the last 2 episodes of The Prisoner, because the dialogues
and the camera angles are very close, when, when Leo McCurn is
hunched in his globe chair and McGoon is sort of running about and
there's a, see?
Because I know I know Mr. Moffatt's a fan.
Yeah, there's so much in this, so much good stuff in this.
And getting to push Clara down a well.
Brilliant.
Nathan, what's your pick of the week?
So I'm going to go sort of pop culture. going to pick Star Trek
Strange New Worlds.
It, as we're recording, is about to finish its 2nd season.
And I have been doing the Star Trek podcast with Joe. And during
that time, I've actually found myself liking 90s Star Trek
considerably less than I did at the time.
And I think Stranger Worlds is the best kind of Star Trek show
since the original to just be a bunch of people on a mission on a
starship.
Everyone is much more relaxed, people are charming.
There's lots of women in the cast rather than just two.
It's really just fun and enjoyable and it embraces everything that
it means to be Star Trek, which means it's not all just space
problems.
Sometimes it's just absurd and ridiculous.
And there've been some really, really great episodes this season
culminating in this week's musical episode.
We had that one, okay.
I think Peter described it as the true heir to the original series
whereas now that you see this, you realised what 10G was not
doing.
I think that TNG...
I think TNG has a bit of sort of post-traumatic stress disorder
from its 1st 2 seasons and then it clamps down very much on what
it's prepared to do.
And so it is a bit samey and a little bit visually uninteresting.
And it's because of the sort of weird...
Reflective of the period.
Yeah, yeah. production styles and so on.
But it's so desperate to avoid the failures of the 1st 2 years.
Yes.
It does raise the floor consistent of...
I preferred the words I prefer the word embarrassment.
Oh, yeah, no, catastrophes.
It raises the floor considerably, but the ceiling doesn't go.
That's a great expression.
Well, they listener, that's over time we have for this wheel.
We'll be back next week to watch ghosts wandering around a
submarine or something in under the lake.
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 all our social media links, as well as
links to our other podcasts, Bondfinger, Jody interterra, maximum
power, and untitled Star Trek project.
Until next time, remember that it's a prudent idea to put your
relatives into the 2nd least expensive aged care facility.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
See you soon.
Bye for now.
And good then.
That was Flight Through Entirety, starring Todd Bealby, Nathan
Bottomley, Simon Moore, and Richard Stone.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, a very busy Barnaby Edwards, was recorded on the 6th
of August 2023 and released on the 24th of September.
Listeners are reminded that although the word mercy does appear in
the Dalek databanks, there is still, of course, no entry for the
word gullible.
Yeah, so the other thing is, I don't know what social media things
are going to exist either. you know what I mean?
Oh, in terms of X. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm not saying X. Are we on threads there?
Yeah.
No, no, it doesn't even have to make it.
I'm on friends.
Isn't that Twitter?
I don't read them very much.
Twitter without... without quite so many Nazis.
I just...
But it's another...
I noticed something.
I'm like, it's already posted 24 hours ago and no one's going to
care if I responded.
Is it owned by Facebook?
Yes, it's Instagram.
It got 1000000 sign-ups in the 1st week.
Because it's not, blah, blah.
Yeah, yeah.
And because Twitter was shit itself that weekend.
All right. let's have a look at it.
Okay.
More the same.