The Cappuccino Thing

[00:04]

I know for a fact that one of the reasons that Todd doesn't like this that much is because it doesn't have opening credits.

That's one of the reasons I absolutely love it.

I also think that's one of the best things about it, actually, is that it doesn't.

It breaks all that convention.

I actually kind of like that.

I think because this isn't really a Doctor Who episode in the sense of a normal Doctor Who episode.

It's an episode that in the story has been created by one of the characters out of footage available.

So we don't see what happens.

All we see is Rasmussen's version of what happened.

So this is created by him.

Well, evidently he couldn't find the opening title sequence on the cutting room. would be it.

Yeah, it's...

The 1st time I get worried is when I saw this episode and up popped Reese Shearsmith and I was like, oh, it's everyone's least favourite Patrick Trouton impersonator. you know, from the from the TV movie.

[01:09]

You know, because I really was like, it's a thankless job to be given the job of portraying one of the most charismatic character actors of all time in like 5 minutes in a movie, but still I was like, uh-oh, like what's going to happen?

For a 2nd there, I thought you were going to say, everyone's least favourite league of gentlemen.

I was like, oh, that's a bit hard.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

He's great in that.

I like the League of Gentlemen.

I mean, he's the last one to appear.

Obviously, we've had Mark Gatis over and over and over again at this and he's still got at least one appearance on camera left go.

And then we had Pemberton in silence in the library, didn't we?

So he was bound to turn up sooner or later, and to turn up in a Mark Gator script, given that Mark Gatis has written for him so much and knows what he can do.

All we need now is Jeremy Dyson to write an episode.

Yes. true.

The interesting thing about this is that it's way out of Gatus's wheelhouse, I think.

So Gatus can do horror, and that's a lot of what League of Gentlemen is.

[02:15]

It's kind of 3 people, 4 people who were brought up on Hammer horror and using those tropes and playing with them and things.

So that's definitely here.

But Gatus doesn't normally go for 38th century and stuff.

He's usually, you know, his nostalgia, isn't he?

He's the reasonably recent past.

Yeah, and he also is like, um, I think really referential to a certain section of Doctor Who, like the 3rd and 2nd doctor eras are his eras that he's referential too.

So it's interesting for him to do sort of a base under siege story with this one, but in his own way, and pull in the found footage element of it.

So, I mean, I think that's interesting.

And I also feel like, I don't know if you guys agree, but I also feel like he's doing a Stephen Moffatt impression in this story, right?

So like, I think he's deliberately kind of moving away from the type of stories he's written before to see if he can do it the way Stephen Moffatt does it, and we'll see how well that works out for him.

[03:21]

Yeah, well, the taking the taking of the mundane that Moffat is so good at that, which is a Doctor Who thing, but Moffat takes it to its kind of nth degree off and taking something like sleep from the corner of your eye and making that into the monster.

That's a very Moffat thing.

The other Moffat thing, I think, is the idea of a framing device that ends up interacting and becoming part of the narrative.

And so we're actually in the next room later in the episode when Rasmussen starts doing his decamera of monologue.

And so he's actually recording that while the episode's going on.

Did anyone see the Stephen Moffat Dracula thing, the three-part?

Yeah, because 2 of those 3 parts did exactly the same thing, where we have the story being narrated as a framing device and then the framing device ends up part of the narrative.

It's a classic Moffat theme.

So it's interesting to see him try to do that and especially also try to do it in, in a found footage format, which, from a horror point of view, is like one of the bleaker, You know, the reason why the, it's called found footage is it's, it's usually found after everybody involved in the story is dead, you know, and so, you know, the idea behind it is sort of to bring it to reclaim it and there's a certain degree of, um, of cynicism or not cynicism, a nihilism, I guess, to the, to those stories, which is an interesting thing to bring to Doctor Who, because fundamentally we watch the show to

[04:46]

watch the doctor win.

And so this is an interesting episode in that regard, or at least bold in what it's trying to do, I thought.

Because, of course, the other thing is that sort of Japanese horror thing, things like the ring as well, where you have a video that if you watch it, you're going to die.

And that's what this episode is, isn't it?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's, well, is it?

I mean, I don't know.

I think that part of the problem that I have with it is that like it starts off being something and then becomes something else and the thing that it winds up being is sort of not anywhere other in the story except in that epilogue, right?

So I don't know if you guys want to go through it from start to finish, but that's one of the things that I have trouble with at the end, where it's like the rules get completely, the Apple cart gets kicked over entirely based on what we thought we were watching.

And I'm not sure that it expends enough shoe leather to really make me buy it other than.

It's just sort of crammed full of narrative.

[05:50]

I didn't know, I can see what you're saying, that the rules do change, but that's sort of what's appealing for me in the sense that, you know, he starts by sort of saying, you don't want to watch this. basically.

You don't want to watch this.

It's awful.

And in that usual sort of way, things get worse and worse, the situations get worse and worse and worse.

And it is all quite chaotic.

And I think it's not meant to make perfect sense from that found footage way because, you know, we don't have everything covered because we've pieced this together from what's available.

And I think I like the fact that it comes across to me, not as a rule change, but as a twist in the end when we discovered that, well, actually, no, by watching this video, you've now been infected with the sleep dust.

I don't know, it's it all.

I mean, I'm not saying it's perfect, and I think there are some moments where it doesn't quite work, but I think it is certainly very gripping, entertaining.

I was completely with it the entire way through and on subsequent viewings as well.

See, my history with it is a little bit different because I remember we were chatting and it may have been during lockdown and we were all kind of chatting in a sort of FTE group and Brandon was saying how much he hated this.

[07:01]

This is one of his very, very, you know, it's down there with Black Orchid.

Yeah, he really, really strongly dislikes it.

And I thought, no, no, it can't be as bad as that.

And I've said before on the podcast that this season of Doctor Who is the one that I know least well.

The one that I'm least familiar with.

It gets released as we're really starting flights through entirety and I'm having to watch 40 episodes of Black and White Doctor Who a month.

And, you know, so I don't think I end up opening the Blu-ray box set when it arrives or whatever.

So I don't know this at all.

And I did watch it and I thought it was better than I expected.

But watching it this time, I had the same experience as you, Jeremy, I think that the twist doesn't land, that it's not, it's not telegraphed well enough.

And I think it's confusing at the end exactly what he's trying to do because there's also that feint that there's a monster in the box that's going to be sent to Triton and that's going to start infecting people some other way.

[08:05]

And then psych.

No, it's the episode you've been watching all along.

I just don't think he gets to land it quite so much.

And there are some direction things as well.

So forgive me if I'm wrong.

So this is where I think it makes an attempt to be about this.

So it's not completely a surprise that the, it's the episode that's the plan.

So he says, don't watch this at the beginning, just about immediately we hear the static that is the thing that's conveying the message.

And we hear it again and again, and there's no reason why we should hear it if it's just found footage.

Do you know what I mean?

It's one of those things that's hiding in plain sight.

It's like, well, he's editing this together.

What's the static?

Like, why?

Well, static is the better.

He's transmitted it from this.

The static is because he's transmitting it from a space station, which is falling into Neptune.

And so there's, there's, it's not like they've found a disc or a recording.

It's a transmission which is being interrupted by stuff.

[09:06]

Yeah, I don't think that's the way I was reading it.

I don't think that's bad at all.

It's there and then we get it reinterpreted.

That thing that you've heard over and over again in this episode that you just assumed was that is in fact the is in fact the message.

And then you get the clever thing where Clara only starts transmitting an image after she's been in the Morpheus box.

Morpheus machine.

And she does that almost immediately.

And then I think towards the end of the episode, we start to have things from our point of view transmitted to us.

So there is footage that is clearly not the POV of any of the characters in the scene, but it's also not the black and white footage that we're used to getting from the station.

And so we have started to be infected by the end of the episode.

It only starts to happen at the end.

You remember that scene where you see Clara's point of view and on the screen behind the doctor?

There's, you know, that image that she's seeing as well.

[10:09]

We get one of those scenes as well, where what we see is what's on the screen as well, and it doesn't seem to be from someone else.

So I think it does, like, it's not a twist that comes completely out of nowhere, but I do think it is a bit confusing and it doesn't seem to be like anything that the rest of the episode is about.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, look, it's a sort of a Je ne sais quoi for me because as I've sort of said sometimes before, there are episodes that you don't like and you find all these reasons why they're bad. there are episodes that you like and you excuse all the stuff that's wrong with it.

Yeah, because there's a je ne saisquoir about them that you just, for some reason, it speaks to you.

And that's what I get with this episode.

I'm prepared to acknowledge.

Well, actually, I'm prepared to sort of acknowledge what you've just said about the fact that the twist sort of comes out of nowhere. not telegraphed enough.

But I kind of like the fact that that's not telegraphed out of nowhere.

Now, I agree that in another episode I'd have said, oh, well, that's just ridiculous.

Theyve just made that up at the end and it's all horrible and they had no i- they had didn't know how to finish the episode.

[11:10]

I completely acknowledge that.

So I acknowledge that that's a bit of inconsistency that one might have, but I think that is masked by the fact that it is this chaotic found footage thing that you can get away with that kind of error in it.

And I think part of the thing that I like about it is the fact that you get to the end.

You're not entirely sure what you've just seen.

And I think that's part of the point.

So I think all of those things, you know, is it the monster in the Morpheus machine?

Is it the static on the video, putting it in the eye?

I think both things are true.

I think there is no one thing going on necessarily.

Well, that's the other thing about found footage, isn't it, that there's no director, and that's what makes this a little bit different.

Like found footage is just what's lying around.

Here we've got a very definite kind of, you know, an editor, someone who's telling a story for a particular purpose, but it is that thing, you know, that you don't have to have a neat story that hits all of the normal kind of script beards because it's found because it's an artefact rather than a, you know, like a Hollywood film or something.

[12:19]

Yeah, and it's interesting because my, when I 1st saw it, My relationship to this era of Doctor, it's my favourite era of New Doctor Who, is these seasons with Peter Capaldi, and I recognise there's a lot of issues that some people may have with it for sure.

I'm not sure that it's the most well constructed era, but I think it's my favourite.

And part of it is because I love that Stephen Moffatt starts it off going, I'm not sure why I'm doing this anymore.

So maybe the doctor shouldn't be sure why he's doing this anymore either, right?

And it becomes an arc of someone finding a reason why to keep going.

So I've watched it many times, but I've only before agreeing to do this podcast.

I'd only seen this episode once.

So that tells you that I legitimately just something about it.

And I think, Part of it was that, I just felt a couple of problems really affect my enjoyment of it.

The 1st is that I think found footage works primarily because of our of our investment in the characters.

[13:26]

And I think we'll probably talk about the supporting cast and the supporting characters of this, but they're very thinly drawn.

Um, even for a horror movie plot, right?

Um, and so it's hard to kind of get invested in it.

And the 2nd thing is, is that the unreliable narration of the whole narrative.

At the end, it's sort of, I think if you don't allow the audience to come along with you, and instead you're ahead of it, um, it can feel disingenuous or it can affect your suspension of disbelief.

And the 3rd thing, and those 2 things, I think, are minor, but the 3rd thing is, The fact of the monster itself is not.

It ain't great, you know, I mean, like, it's a, the mundane thing that he's transforming.

I think, needed another polish to get to a point where my suspension of disbelief can be maintained.

I don't have an answer for what this thing is that's better than what they give me and what they give me is not great to my mind.

[14:32]

I honestly don't know.

Is it called sleep dust?

Where you guys are?

Is that what it's called?

No, we just call it sleep.

It's just called sleep.

Okay, so yeah.

Sleep is something that we call, and we call it, but we also call it eye crusties or eye boogers.

And both of those things...

Yeah.

So, I mean, in North America, when when it was revealed what these creatures were, there was a lot of people that were like, hi, bookers, really?

That's what they are.

Like, you know, they're walking around and, I mean, there's a lot of heavy lifting scientific double talk that Doctor Who can do.

I'm not sure it can just say if you don't get enough sleep, the sleep in your eye becomes a monster that walks around. don't think it works.

I have to say, as someone who loudly defended both in the forest of the night and kill the moon last year, that I'm going to give the eye booger monsters a part.

But I do have to say that the reason that they even approach working is that they're in this rather than in some other story where the camera was a little bit more leisurely.

[15:45]

It is the fact that it's this sort of scrappy footage, all handheld and stuff, so you don't see them too much because they are a bit crummy.

And I think if they had been... standing still, you know, like in a well lit room. shot by a camera that wasn't swinging around all the time.

I think we would have been much less inclined to forgive them because they look preposterous and you know how there's that thing, the Doctor Who monster thing.

I think most recently we saw it with the Fisher King, but the classic moment of it is when those, the sea devils come out of the sea and they just look like actors with turtle hats on, you know, like, like, like, you know, whenever you're looking at Doctor Who Monster and you go, those holes at the top of its chest is where the actor is looking out, you know.

And so you hear, the monster's giant mouths that just look like they're sort of painted on these.

It's kind of...

My favourite thing about the sea devils is when they come out of the water and they're like, you can see water sluishing out of the gaps in the makeup and they're wearing that mesh outfit that looks like Belinda Carlisle's dress on a go-go's tour, you know, like, and it's just a weird, it's just a...

[16:59]

I't know how to feel looking at me.

They have to drill holes in the bottom of the masks to let the water out.

As the thing?

The heads kept floating off.

Yeah, that's fast.

Yeah.

So they do suffer a little bit from that, I think.

But I like the sound design of them because they sound like sound that I'm very familiar with, which is that it sounds like the noises that middle-aged men make when they're sort of sleeping or waking up or snoring and stuff.

And so I feel really seen by these particular boys.

It's a lot sort of... sort of stuff that growling.

I think that is pretty great.

It was all recorded by a sound guy who just watched Stephen Moffatt pick up a pencil that he dropped. is groaning and Scottish.

You know, this story has a really long and torturous evolution.

It was originally pitched as an idea, I believe, during the 2010 season development.

[18:06]

Gatus came up with this idea.

It was originally supposed to be a two-parter.

The 1st part would have been...

Probably fortunate.

I acknowledged that it was fortunate.

The 1st part would have been this kind of setup. without the found footage that came in later to try and make it work a bit better.

And then the 2nd part would have been seeing the aftermath or like another version of that would have been, if the other way around, which would have quite worked in this season.

And he actually did propose that initially.

Yeah, you'd come into it and then you'd go back and see how it happened when they were developing this season.

But because of the...

Under the light.

Under the light.

I've had it already before the flood episodes, Moffat said, no, you can't do that.

And that's how they arrived at the found footage.

I think it's probably preferable that we ended up where we did, although that idea, I think, could work as well.

But it's another example for me, a good example of how you make the 45 minute self-contained episode format of the show work.

[19:12]

It has the feeling of a short story rather than the feeling of a feature film which is being crunched into 45 minutes.

Although, I have to say that at exactly the halfway point, At the end of part two, we get the gravity, you know, the gravity shields.

Falling into Neptune, breaking down at exactly the point where the sand miners motive thing stopped working.

Keeps going.

And then later on we discover that Shearsmith's character only did that to provide an exciting bit in the middle of the episode to keep his victims watching.

He literally admits that it's only there for that reason.

And I think the impression that I get is that the signal in the episode only works if you've seen it enough.

And so that's why it's only towards the end of the episode that we start seeing things from our point of view.

And it's never made super clear, but again, you know, found footage and whatever.

[20:12]

I mean, is he off in the other room editing this whole damn thing?

Like, anyway, doesn't matter.

Look, how do you critiqued the perhaps poor realisation of the monsters?

I want to compliment the fantastic visualisation of Neptune and that sequence that you just mentioned of regardless of whether it's just made up for the sake of exciting bit in the episode or not, which they can't acknowledge.

But that's very meta actually to do it that way, isn't it?

But he has this wonderful sense of, and this is another reason why I like this episode.

It has this wonderful sense of we are so far away from the warmth of the sun.

The visualisation of Neptune that you get and you don't get a nice clear shot of it.

You just get a bit of it out of porthole window and it's all shaking, so you kind of have a really good look at it.

It just really makes me think of the fact that, you know, we are in the outer reaches of the solar system.

It is cold, it is dark.

There is no one anywhere to help.

We are on our own and I think that that's incredibly effective.

I really liked that Neptune idea like a lot.

[21:15]

And when he says it like right up front that this station is in orbit of Neptune.

That's super interesting.

I did go on TARDIS Wakia and I learned that the great catastrophe is supposed to be the earth's imminent catastrophic collision with the sun that Turlow mocks Tegan with at the beginning of Frontios.

And so perhaps we're all on the outskirts of the solar system at this point because remember, all of the people live on Triton, don't they?

But is it the 38?

century or something. isn't it?

Yeah, that's the problem.

It's not it's not late enough or whatever.

I think, I mean, it could be, it could be the solar flare thing because isn't Nerve a Beacon supposed to be the 20th century, late 29th, early 30th century, yeah.

There's a 1000000 things it could be.

But like, whatever, and he's super...

But who cares?

I mean, you know, the age about it.

There are many futures.

Yeah, yeah.

It's interesting, James, what you said about, like, you know, the how long Mark Gatis had been working on it because my initial thought was this felt very 1st draughty because there's a bunch of things that happen in it that I feel like come out of nowhere because he's painted himself into a corner.

[22:28]

So like the, the, the monster's not being able to see all of a sudden and the doctor revealing that.

That's something that wasn't really hinted at and now all of a sudden it's there.

But I think it's actually hearing what you say, it actually makes more sense now that probably he's worked on it a lot.

And he's put in everything that he likes about the idea.

And so there's just a lot going on in here.

Like normally there's like some late stage anti-capitalism commentary going on in there, which is always great, some anti-industry stuff.

There's, you know, um, genetic modification stuff is going on in there.

There's so much happening.

There's a weird sort of military commentary that's going on.

I'm sure we'll talk about, and there's all this stuff, and I think part of the problem is at the end, unless you really latch on to a good idea and follow it through.

There's just so much noise that it's hard to kind of take the one or 2 big themes, you know?

Yes, I think that's probably true.

I think possibly also it's because he couldn't make his original concepts work for various reasons either because he'd been stewing on it for a long time and it wasn't quite, you know, it wasn't quite coming together.

[23:41]

The original concept had these, it was much more about a satire of late stage capitalism.

There were 2 factions.

There were the Whiteys and the rips.

Does that nearly be in there?

Oh, the Whiteys and the ribs, yeah.

Yeah, the Whitey thing.

The wide awake thing does get in there, but the rip thing doesn't.

No, but doesn't doesn't...

Doesn't the leader say of Chopra that he's talking like a rib or something like that?

like I didn't quite get that. something like that.

Yeah, so that might have remained because he's the only one who hasn't used the thing.

It's not like data has to be quite like political in that way, is it?

Yeah, I think it's just, I mean, it's interesting that they, you know, the sleep thing, the whole point of, you know, only needing half an hour sleep every month or whatever the hell it is, is, you know, is a time is money thing.

Whereas it's kind of like, I mean, in the real world now.

I mean, what I wouldn't give to be able to only have to sleep half an hour, a night or something.

[24:44]

And I'm not saying how much more I'd get done in terms of my business.

I get, well, look at all this stuff I could watch. read these books.

It's interesting that they don't focus on what would be how leisure would change.

I think you're supposed to have the impression that it's more like a series of, you know, 80s advertising executives snorting Coke so that they can, you know, work all night to get their brief together.

Yeah.

But they do, they do hint at that because the commander is very positive on it and doesn't feel exploited and has that line where she says she enjoyed, like this is great for us. you know, all this sort of stuff.

So there is, I think, once again, I think there is like, it's not like there's a dearth of ideas, which, you know, to be honest, like some of Gaitas's stuff has been very, in the past, and I like his his stuff overall.

I think Crimson Horror is really great.

Not quite dead is great.

Um, But they tend to be less layered with huge ideas and more about a single idea that he wants to explore fully.

And this one feels much more like he's throwing everything that he can at this story.

[25:48]

And I feel like it's, it's one of his most ambitious ones.

And even though I don't like it, I'd rather have a big swing and a miss than people who don't swing at all and just kind of want to tell a standard Doctor Who story, whatever that is.

I mean, in one way, it positions itself, though, as a standard Doctor Who story, doesn't it?

I mean, that's what Rasmusen says about it at the end.

He says, you know, I've put some monsters in.

I've put some thrills.

There's a big climax at the end and then we all go off.

And in a way, there is something a little bit generic about what we end up with.

Not the found footage stuff, that is unique, and that is the thing that the show hasn't done before, but I did feel like the space corridors were all very kind of the sort of thing that we've seen before quite a lot.

And yeah, it's the kind of thing that you always end up comparing unfavourably to the impossible planet, you know, that the Impossible Planet is the place where we nail the base under siege by giving every character a really clear identity, making them all different from one another, characterising them really well in a way that maybe only Russell T. Davies can actually achieve.

[27:02]

Here, you've only got the 4 characters plus Erasmusen, and I think they're all a lot less interesting than those characters from Impossible Planet.

Oh, look, I entirely agree with you that those characters are not particularly interesting.

But in some respects, James, it surprises me that that is the backstory of the genesis of this episode because for me, if I was just guessing, I would have said they had an idea for what was going to be a fairly generic episode.

And they did all the found footage stuff as a way of making it more interesting.

That sounds like it something else.

Yeah, doesn't it?

Does it?

Well, so the found that you're saying the found footage wasn't in that original two-part idea.

No, it comes back later.

Well, there you go.

Well, okay, well, then my instinct is correct.

I'm sorry.

I slightly misinterpreted what you meant.

But I think that that for me kind of demonstrates this is a creativity.

[28:03]

Look, we're going to do a generic episode, but we're going to mask the generic nature of it by presenting it in a completely different way.

And in a way that we've never done before and we're never going to do it again.

Well, except when you think about 42, where 42 is, again, horrifyingly generic in a particularly cheap new way, and it has the, it's in real time, and so we're going to flash to a countdown clock or, you know, all the time.

So it's very similar, I think.

And I think likewise, the characters are not very well drawn, I think.

That that element of it gets forgotten in the in the process.

Yeah, I'm slightly worried about the woman who seems to be played by a woman of Chinese background.

She's supposed to be Japanese, but the joke is she's supposed to be Japanese, but she talks with a northern accent, which I think is, that's a bit of a gay to-sy thing, and I think it's a bit unfortunate, and I want to compare it to Belle, uh, in flux, remember, who is a woman of like Asian background who spoke with a really, really strong northern Irish accent.

[29:09]

That's a British thing.

Yeah, yeah.

People who are immigrants into Britain tend to adopt.

No, everyone in a really strong way. everyone does.

But in a way, it's almost like a thing.

It's like that's all he's come up with is she calls everyone pet and she speaks with a Northern accent and that's a character.

And then you've got, then you've got Bethany Black's character who, I think Tit is on the edge of being a little bit offensive.

So this is the 1st time we cast a transgender actor.

Bethany Black is very, very outspoken and knows her mind.

Do you know what I mean?

I don't think she's been tricked into doing this from all reports she loved being in Doctor Who and loved playing this part.

But I do think it is a little bit unfortunate, our 1st transgender actress cast as a weird sexless drone character who gets called it by, you know, at least one of the other characters.

And then you've got Chopper who's pretty, which I don't object to.

[30:09]

That's a perfectly valid characterisation. of a character.

He really is very...

Well cast from the script.

Yes, what's my character's motivation?

You're pretty.

Yeah, no, I love it.

More of that, please, Mr. Gay.

Yeah, and to go back to Bethany Black, too.

I mean, you know, it's a super unfortunate thing because she's othered throughout the entire story, right?

So, you know, it's an opportunity to cast the transactor for the 1st time in the show, which is wonderful, but you're casting them as an oddity, and she is a figure of debate and marginalisation.

And even the doc, it's kind of reminds me in a weird way of Wang Chiang.

Even the doctor implies that she's not very smart and that, you know, this is, you know, and like, doesn't stand up for her or any of that, nobody does, right?

And I don't think that this is an intentional thing.

I don't think that anybody wanted to create something that other the 1st transactor, but it does, and it feels very off-putting now.

[31:16]

And it's, it's, I think the thing that does make the episode sort of unpleasant. in an otherwise, I think, um, flawed but interesting episode.

Like, I think it's way more interesting than 42.

Yeah.

I don't know if it's as enjoyable for me as 42 because I think you can just kind of surf along 42's plot moments and not be bothered by it.

Nothing about it.

Yeah, but I like this one.

Well, yeah, no.

Yeah.

You know, David Tennant with his teeth saying burn with me.

I don't need to ever see that again.

Yeah, some proper teeth acting happening there.

And also, you know, I think that she's not given a moment to really redefine anybody's point of view.

I mean, Chopper does that on his own.

Do you know what I mean?

And she just sort of does the thing that she stated to do at the beginning, which is to be sort of a physical presence.

And that's a, it's just a real, real missed, like a real missed opportunity.

[32:19]

I think it has a reasonably nice ending.

Like, I do like the fact that at the end, she saves chopra, tells him he's pretty and for the 1st time he doesn't flinch away from it.

He smiles, you know, like, so there's some attempt to humanise her, but it's in the narrative, it's not any of the characters, and you're right.

It's not the doctor either.

Yeah, it's too little too late.

Yeah, well, that's, well, it's not, it's more the fact that the doctor does not treat them well.

And I think it comes back to what we sort of discussed before about these issues.

I mean, this transactor has been cast in this role.

The role wasn't created for a transactor per se, I presume.

It was just the fact that they decided that this person had the right look that they were after for whatever reason.

I mean, I know it's all sort of troubling and so on difficult, but he's so hard.

Because the character itself is not supposed to be a trans character.

It's just a character.

But the character is supposed to be a genetically created grunt person.

Like basically a dog's body. that, do I read that, right?

[33:20]

Or a soldier, right?

As soldier, like, but a grunt soldier?

basically cannon fodder, probably.

A foot soldier to basically follow waters and not basically have a revolution or anything like that.

So we don't, obviously, we don't explore all the issues around that. admittedly, because that's a whole other question to explore.

Maybe it's better not to even have such a such a creature.

I don't know.

Maybe is it just better just to have a member of the crew who is thick, who is, you know, a bit slow or whatever?

I don't know.

I mean, I think it is just another one of these sort of huge bucket load of ideas that's been thrown at this, as Jeremy said.

Look, we are about to get proper trans ramp in the show with Yasmin Finney, who was in Heartstopper, which was my pick of the week last week.

And I think Russell will be showing us how to do that properly.

And I think we'll see an improvement in just representation all around.

I think the people who are expecting the Chibnal era to be an anomaly are in for a horrible surprise, I think, when Russell comes back.

[34:24]

Yeah.

So I think it will be done right.

And like I said, Bethany Blake's not stupid.

She knew what she was doing and she liked the part and she was happy to play the role.

And so, you know, there's that at least, but, but I have to admit that I am still a little bit uncomfortable with how it turned out, but I do like that scene at the end.

And that is the closest that we get to any kind of characterisation is that she thinks that chopra is pretty and and chopra is pretty dismissive of and contentious of it and that's all we have.

You know, Peter said, Peter was here just now, and he said, it's like giving David Warner's character that Ultravox fandom thing, it's like just a sort of a bit of a limp shortcut for actually giving someone a character gives someone a notable characteristic, which makes them memorable.

My friend calls that the cappuccino thing, which it comes from a Will Smith movie called Enemy of the State, where he's obsessed with getting good coffee, like a good coffee maker.

[35:31]

There's a scene in the beginning where he's just angry about they don't have the right coffee maker in their house.

It doesn't have anything to do with the plot.

It, just a way of saying, here's a human being with like some sort of likes and dislike that you can maybe latch onto.

And he always points it out. oh, it's a cappuccino moment.

They made that guy like a baseball card collector and it's just it's just a shorthand, right?

it works or doesn't.

Yeah.

But when you compare it, like the one person that I think that that Russell does, remember in partners in crime, remember Stacy, Donna's interviewing Stacy and Stacy is a very definite person and like her death lands.

And, you know, it's the genius of making her having lost weight.

She's going to go and dump her boyfriend because she reckons she can do better now.

It's so awesome and it's so fun.

It's so well done.

It's funny and warm and humane and real. in a way that this isn't, you know.

Yes, but it's a very different tone.

It's a very different tone of an episode.

[36:32]

And he does it twice in that episode too, because Russell also creates that reporter character investigating the adipo stuff who's like a almost like Russell saying, hey, look, this would be typically the companion, but she's not going to be, but she's still going to be interesting, and it's just sort of, I always think like we have a really hard time because we've had 2 absolute geniuses of television, Russell and Moffatt work on it, and they can do stuff like that, especially character work with Davies.

He can do stuff in a 2nd that writers sweat over for months and months and months.

And so, it's sometimes not fair.

We've been spoiled, right?

You know, that that we have a writer that can do that.

So it's nice that he's coming back.

I mean, I'm sure you will have that thing where there is an episode which is, say, really, really well loved or really, really loathed by the general populace and you have the opposite view.

Now, sometimes you go, yeah, yeah, I get that it's a bit rubbish, but I just have a sauce buffer.

I love it because of this at the other.

[37:33]

This is actually an example of one which I think, you know, is to put it in sort of Todd's parlance is kind of a 7 out of 10, a reasonably solid episode.

But I was looking at some Dwim stuff.

And online, and this is like utterly despised.

Like this is often in like the bottom 20 of all time.

I mean, it's it's level with the on the list that I was looking at.

It's level with Kill the Moon and in the forest of the night.

Things like time lash, things like, you know, those sorts of episodes.

Yeah, exactly.

And that absolutely, I'm actually quite bewildered by that.

I can understand that people think, 0 yeah, it's a bit mediocre. doesn't work here.

It's a bit rubbish.

But to have it that far down that really surprises me.

I feel the same way.

I don't think it's that great, and I did think this time through that it was a bit less good than I thought it was previously thought it was.

See, I had the Todd experience.

Oh, did you?

Well, I don't think I'd really watch it more than once.

And I thought it deserved to be down there with time match.

[38:33]

I quite like things I quite like timelash.

Yeah, but you acknowledge rubbish.

No, no, no, no.

And I thought, oh, it was enjoyable, but it was kind of pants.

Watching it now.

I thought, this is this is quite good.

I quite enjoyed it.

But it is in many people's, like, bottom 2 or three.

It's like this and fear her, isn't it?

Yeah, for her, kill the moon.

I do think like, you know what's funny to me though?

Like, I would have said that before I watched it.

When you guys asked me about which stories I'd like to do, I put a bunch of like awesome stories and I'm like, heck, I'll even do sleep no more.

I'm such a fan of your show that I was just like, I'll just sleep no more.

And then, and then I, I, I instantly, when you came back and said, let's do sleep no more.

I'm like, come on, bottomly, screws me again. someone, too, you know, and that was me.

That was you.

That was awesome.

Thank you, James.

So then I sat down to watch it.

And I was like, you know what?

Like, apologies to Simon.

But I don't think it works, but even though it doesn't work, I still think that the stuff that he's trying.

[39:37]

Like, if I have to be forced to watch this or say Planet of the Dead, which I think cruises along just fine, but is really about nothing. you know, you know what I mean?

Like, it's really just a bust on a desert and it's so vanilla and safe.

You know, it's just, I would actually kind of rather watch this.

To me, the only thing that, that really keeps me from knocking it up to a 7 out of 10 is, is, uh, is the fact that the doctor kind of wobbles around and does some exposition and then leaves going, I'm missing something and I just feel like that's a bit odd.

Can I ask the question?

Do you guys think that this is a completely unreliable narrative?

Do you think that the point of this episode is what we see is not necessarily the adventure that was had?

Does it go that far as a story?

I don't think so. don't think so.

Yeah, it's an interesting way of doing it, but no, they didn't.

I think it would have been great if they did.

Yes, I agree. agree with that.

I think, you know, everything you're seeing is real.

[40:38]

Footage, but it's been edited together to mislead you, but in that sense, it's unreliable, but...

Not to the sort of the verboids kind of extent.

Yeah, no, not to that extent, no.

But I think that, like, I think in a way that's obviously an unanswerable question because all we have access to is the broadcast.

I also think that it's clear that the found footage thing is a late addition because it doesn't go anywhere.

Like, the fact now that Clara is transmitting.

Does that mean that she's been affected by this?

You know, she has...

Well, yes, because she's made the machine.

Yeah.

She's been in the machine, but does that mean that she's going to die, you know, or that she's going to start spouting eye booger men or something?

Like, what even is the outcome?

you know?

So that just seems to be just a thin layer on top of it, like a presentational layer.

The episode doesn't seem to be about the fact that it's found footage.

And so I think that there's just not enough there for that.

[41:40]

I don't think it's unreliable.

I think it is just weird directing it in a slightly different way.

They could have not sold that.

You know, instead of just not dealing with it at all.

They could have not solved that.

Had her dying from the Eyebooger transformation process in Face of Raven and so she's already on borrowed time and chooses to die.

Yeah, no, that would be terrible.

No, it would have been terrible.

The pained look on Simon's face every time someone says hi, booger is really just...

Yes, thank you for that piece of North American culture, but I think we'll revert this as an Australian-based podcast, so we're going to call it sleep, all right?

Well okay.

I'm just saying if this had been made in North American, in the 70s, Robert Holmes would have called it a death to the eye boogers or attack of the eye. would have been great.

Invasion of the eye.

Invasion of the eye. iBook is in space.

Oh, that beat.

Space Space Space Space.

[42:41]

Oh, that is great.

Where is they?

They should have said Space Museum.

Space restaurants, space, champagne, and space.

Oh, I don't know hats.

Yes, just the fact that it falls so flat.

The 3rd choice is so bad.

It's wonderful.

It's just awesome.

And then space pirates get sped immediately and she wins.

It's so good.

And from the podcast that brought you space reasons.

We're doing a show where there's space medicine, space surgeons, space crises.

Space, yeah, space crisis, in, in, like, 7 years.

Yeah, initially I wanted every episode of Maximum Power to space something. excellent.

Okay.

Let's talk about the end, though.

So the doctor says that he doesn't get something and he goes off and then the plan is to go to Triton and destroy all of the Morpheus pods.

So the story doesn't resolve because he never really finds out what's going on.

Is that right?

[43:42]

Yeah, that's effective.

Why does he think he doesn't know what's going on?

I think he's missed the signal.

That's what he's missed.

Yeah, he's missed the explanation by Rasmussen, which is done to camera, which basically says, well, actually, no, you know, I tricked you into this.

The signal is the thing that's converting the sleep in your eye.

Like, you know, I've been transmitting the signal.

The doctor doesn't get that bit thinks that the thing and the pod...

Yeah, is...

Is what's going to transmit...

And so he thinks he's solved that, but actually he's lost.

All those people on Driton are going to die.

No, but not only that, everyone watching this episode of Doctor Who is going to die.

Yeah.

And that's obviously the whole human race.

So this is one of the rare moments and it happens just from time to time in Doctor Who, where the audience is directly threatened by Watts on screen.

And so because we've watched this episode despite being told not to.

That means that all of us are inevitably going to die from watching this.

And I think of, do you remember the moment in the pirate planet where the pirate captain is going to materialise around earth?

[44:49]

And it's kind of like, but that's where I am.

You know, like when I was a kid.

You know?

And also in Dalek's master plan where in real time, the dialects are heading towards Earth and they're going to hit Earth, like on New Year's Day or whatever, when the next episode's broadcast.

And so just every so often, the audience gets threatened by what's happening on Doctor Who and here it is.

You watch this episode and this episode is the episode that kills you.

It's a pretty bold move starting an episode of Doctor Who saying, don't watch this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think that's really good because, like, I like those sort of weird corner cases and stuff, which we can't possibly follow up, but what has actually happened here is the doctor has failed to stop the broadcast.

And so everyone in the 38th century, all of humankind is, according to Rasmussen's plan, all going to die and the doctor didn't stop it.

And not only that, we're all going to die as well because we've watched the episode.

[45:50]

It'll be resolved at some time in the future.

This is like, you know, a different way around you'd have done the 2nd episode where because of something the doctor failed to do years ago, the human race is under threat, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So I don't mind that unquestioned thing, but also for some reason, I'm not thinking that, you know, everyone's going to dissolve into sleep dust monsters over the course of the next week.

For me, I sort of read it as a more this insidious thing, like the sleep dust monsters are living inside you now.

Like, it's, it's like, it's like aliens, uh, in the, the embryo has been planted in all these people and through the Morpheus machines and, and in some people, it will grow and manifest itself, but in other people, it won't, it'll lay dormant for dozens, 100s, 1000s of years, whatever it is.

That was kind of my chosen reading of it.

I don't know.

Gatus did sort of deliberately leave this on that kind of unresolved cliffhanger because he did think maybe I'll come back to this and we could do a sequel story where we deal with the aftermath of that.

[46:50]

But I actually don't want there to be.

I don't want there to be a resolution.

I think that's the whole point is that I mean, so thank goodness that we didn't.

I compared it when I to Brian when I we were watching it yesterday.

I compared it to Musk, End of Master Man, Draguara, where, you know, the doctor says, the doctor says, oh, the Mandragara helix will be back in lineman in 500 years, which and Sarah goes, but that's the end of the 20th century.

And he says, yes, that was an interesting century.

And the point is, we never see.

It's not like in season 15, there is then a 2nd Master of Mandrago story set in the late 20th century.

You don't need that.

It's just that kind of underlying threat that you've got.

Yeah, and I like story.

I mean, like, it does that in the impossible planet, Satan Pit, too, where they at the end where she says, what was it?

And he goes, I think we beat it and that's good enough for me, right?

And so I do like leaving that unresolved for sure.

And it is bold to start off an episode saying, don't watch this.

The only other person who's ever done that is Eric Sayword, I think, who's implied don't watch this with every story he wrote.

[47:54]

The thing that we haven't mentioned is one of the benefits of it being this found footage thing where so often people are looking down the camera, isn't it great when Capaldi looks into the camera, there's nothing quite like those eyes looking straight at you and talking.

I think that's just a great feature of the episode.

It's wonderful, isn't it?

Absolutely wonderful.

We didn't mention Peep show, which is a show that entirely does this where the camera is always a subjective view of one of the characters.

But yes, having Capaldi deliver the lines directly to camera is just tremendous because he's just so amazingly good.

Yes, so good.

And it's so, um, it's so funny too, because the dialogue's very utilitarian and very functional with everyone, even Rasmussen's narration, which I think is a little on the nose from time to time, but I think it's, he's, it's supposed to be, um, because he's painting a picture.

But the 2nd that Capaldi and Coleman are on screen. the level of banter that just kind of comes up and and there's just a 1000000 funny little jokes and a 1000000 moments that are just, it makes me happy to see them working together.

[49:03]

I just, when they're really sparking and they're not being too antagonistic, but they're working together, it's a great combination, those 2, because they just sparkle and he is great at both intimidating, but also playing with the other supporting characters of the scene.

So he never, like Tom, never dominates to the point where people don't look good.

He always makes them look better because of how much he's, you know, sparking off of them.

So anyways, I just, I couldn't talk enough about Capaldi.

This might be my only chance.

So this is what I'm going to say.

I think he's he's superb.

My, I think has always been that my biggest regret is that the episodes he's given or at least some of the characterisation of his doctor, I just, I just think are wasted.

I think as an actor, as a doctor, I think he's absolutely perfect casting.

I love him to bits.

But Matt Smith, for me, of the modern era is by far and away my favourite by light ears.

Yeah, I love him a lot too. and I think I spent the whole Matt Smith era of FDE saying that he was my favourite doctor.

[50:08]

He is pretty incredible.

Yeah.

I think the thing with Capaldi is that since he was cast, since he's been in it, I said, you know, he is probably one of the best actors to ever play the role.

But until I was rewatching the era for the podcast.

I didn't kind of cement the, actually, no, here's my favourite doctor in this in this role.

Like he is, he just gets it.

Yeah.

I mean, Matt Smith gets it in a different way, and I think that's just incredible.

Just the character contains multitudes, you know?

So, I mean, that's that's it's an actor proof part, right?

Yeah, I think so too.

As long as you bring something to it.

Um, it's just impossible to fail.

It really is.

I can't think of any actor and there have been actors of, uh, greater strength and lesser strength that have taken on the part, but honestly, it's, it's impossible to see, uh, someone who wouldn't get this part.

It's like getting Sherlock Holmes or something.

[51:10]

You know, you just are Hamlet.

You just like, I can grab hold of this.

There's too much to to hold on to to miss on it, you know?

Well, they listener, that's all the time we have for this week.

We'll be back next week to see how Rigsy has been getting on, In Face the Raven.

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 of our social media links, as well as links to our other podcasts, including startling Barbara Bain, maximum power, and untitled Star Trek project.

Until next time, may the gods look favourably upon you.

[52:13]

Thank you very much for listening and good night.

Good night.

Bye bye.

Good night.

That was Flight through Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Simon Moore, Jeremy Radick, and James Selwood, theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.

This episode, the cappuccino thing, was recorded on the 17th of September 2023, and released on the 12th of November.

Sleep no more isn't a particularly popular episode, but imagine if Gators are gone with his original idea.

A space station orbiting Neptune, where an evil corporation finds an alarming new way to monetise its employees' blue brakes.

So let's do, let's do, I'm Nathan, I'm James.

I'm Simon, I'm Jeremy.

And I'm Jeremy.

[53:14]

And I'm Jeremy.

That good.

People always forget the anime.

At the end.

Yeah, I even got Eric Stadnick to say at Som Erik in the...

Oh, I'm sure...

Pfizer Pompeii episode where we delivered it in Latin at the beginning.

I'm sure he needed no prompting whatsoever to do.

It's so funny.

I love Eric.

I do too.

So great.

We really need to get him back on.

He and I share a birthday.

I'm exactly 10 years older than him and we also share our birthday with Jenna Coleman and Russell T. Davis and Rose Tyler canonically, according to one of those early annuals that came out.

You know, like.

That sounds like a hell of a podcast.

And Jenna Coleman.

Yeah, imagine that.

Wow.

Russell on saying how marvellous everything is in general and saying how dreadful it was.

Yes.

[54:14]

Okay, all right.

So what we'll do, we'll do the intro and then we'll do the outro and then we can just talk.

The rule is, I don't know if you've noticed the rule, but the rule is that the guest on their 1st appearance on the show gets the title.

So, you know, no pressure.

Remember to say something funny.

It's not that we had last year.

It was Roman of Sherwood, which was fala centric energy.

I know, that's a tough one to beat.

That was pretty good.

I think I had sparking pubic merkins in Zygon invasion.

So I think that that probably has to be that's probably that one chosen, but I haven't chosen any time.

It's sad because my the only problem is that pubic merkin seems to me like...

It's a tortology.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. yeah hat on a hat.

You want the word pubic in there.

[55:15]

Okay.

All right.

It's got our rudest time. pubic weaves.

Rudest title is still kind of lingers.

Which I didn't know was rude.

I didn't even spot it.

They were all going, how come we got away with that?

Nathan let that through anyway.

Like, there's a song.

Yeah, there is a song.

Isn't it from, it's from like, not the 9 o'clock news or something.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's do this thing.

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight through Entirety, the only Doctor Who podcast that directly affects the sleep centres of your brain.

I'm Nathan.

I'm James.

I'm Simon.

I'm Jeremy.

What happened to the rest of the intro?

Oh, his his his notes haven't updated.

Oh, no.

[56:15]

While you're while you're looking them up.

My nephew's just finished 2020th in the Sydney Marathon with a time of 3 hours and 39 minutes.

That's something.

Out of how many people?

I don't know.

But he's 17, 2020 overall, 1775th out of 12,167 men.

That's pretty good.

That's pretty good.

That's top 10%.

No, top 15%, yeah.

Yeah, for him.

All right, I can't find that.

I'll have to record it later off something.

I'll just leave this set up and we'll be fine.

Like, would it be on your computer?

Could you just ask?

No, I wrote it.

I don't know.

Yeah, maybe it is.

Let me just check.

This happened last time as well, didn't it?

Like the recording, it didn't tell.

Yes, here it is.

Here it is.

Okay, here it goes.

Well, the Blair Witch project was about 15 years ago at this point, so it must be just about time for Doctor Who to use it as a source of inspiration.

[57:19]

Have you got something in your eye?

Let's find out as we discuss sleep no more.

All right.

And now we'll do the outro.

And again, good night in the same order.

Okay.

Well, dear listener, that's all the time we have for this.