The Time on Him

[00:40]

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety, the only Doctor Who podcast that's been flogging the same old shtick now for nearly a billion years.

I'm Nathan.

I'm James.

I'm Simon.

And I'm Rob.

Well, everyone else has been given the week off, and so this week it's just Capaldi, Moffatt, Gold, and Talalay here to show us exactly what they're capable of.

Let's work out what that is as we discuss heaven sent.

[01:48]

So, this is Moffat kind of operating on hard mode, isn't it?

This is him showing us what he can do, as he's on the way out the door.

Yes.

Yeah.

In fact, you know, 1st of all, thanks for having me on, by the way, because there's been really a great podcast to kind of get me through the pandemic and stuff.

But what I'm going to do.

I'm going to mention Sandepa straight off the bat, because, um, Sandra says about this one, that, um, it's a conscious exercise in being brilliant on Moffatt's part, rather than having to be brilliant because of production difficulties.

It's, it's him kind of, you know, giving a, like a wilful demonstration of his kind of craft and his talent at a point where he's kind of, he's leaving the show and he's kind of saying the last things he's got to say about Doctor Who.

And someone, I hadn't seen this, I think, since broadcast.

So I kind of, it was a kind of surprise and a reminder of all the, uh, you know, Moffatt's fondness for voiceover and hero moments.

[02:53]

And this is an episode of voiceover and hero moments, really.

So, uh, but yeah, I think it's Moffatt saying, you know, I'm leaving soon.

I kind of know I am.

And this is how terrific I can be.

They've convinced me to stay. hasn't happened yet.

So I think it's more about that than it is about grief.

And we'll talk a little bit more about grief, but I think that it is essentially a formal exercise.

And so the constraints that he's placed on himself.

He's allowing himself a few seconds of Jenna actually speaking, but otherwise there's no one else who has any lines and there's only Capaldi and the veil.

There's no timey whiminess, everything happens in chronological order, however much it might not seem like that, everything happens in chronological order.

[03:55]

And that's a constraint.

I think that he places on himself because he's so well known for all of that sort of thing.

There might be any timing, why I mean it's in the way that this story unfolds from that point of view, but I think there's a great big bit of timey why menace, the fact that it takes 4.5000000 years, whatever it is, to unfold.

I think that's the thing that is the most gut wrenching thing about the entire episode is just the unimaginable amount of time that you think is passed.

And I think he is using time, but in a different way to how he's used it before.

Yeah.

So we think that he's come straight from Trap Street at the beginning of the episode, but it has in fact already been 7000 years.

Yes.

But we're given hints of that because you see, you're given hints that you can see when you watch it for the 2nd time.

But when you're watching it for the 1st time, you do think he's come straight from Trap Street.

I think it's so beautiful.

And you just assume that, you know, things like the drying clothes on the rack in that room are just there because, you know, oh, we were in this weird castle that rotates.

So of course there's going to be a spare set of the doctor's costume.

[04:55]

One imagines that the very 1st time he's what he just goes around the rest of it in his underwear or something.

All wet clothes.

Well, no, he has to leave the wet clothes.

Hanging there for the next for the 2nd one to go.

Yeah, I hadn't thought of that.

We don't need to think about that.

It doesn't need to be a time loop for him to do the same thing each time as well because he is the same person in the same circumstance.

Starting in the same way, exactly the same things.

Is it exactly the same stimuli?

So it's not unreasonable.

He'll actually just keep doing exactly the same thing ever again.

Have you had the experience editing yourself on a podcast where you go, I wish I'd said this and then you hear yourself saying it immediately on the recording?

No, because I always said it.

No, it's all right.

Not quite true.

No, I haven't, but yeah, you do sort of imagine it comes to you as you're listening to it, yes.

Because you're the same person reacting to the same stimulus.

Yes.

And so you do the same thing.

And so you have him repeating this thing, not because it's a time loop, but because he's doing it again in the same circumstances.

[06:00]

So it's actually an interesting study in how, would we make the same choices if presented with exactly the same situations with exactly the same knowledge that we had, would we just do the same thing again?

We are to believe that over the course of 4.5000000 years, he never deviates from that.

There is a reason, though, and we'll get to that in a minute.

Yeah, well, I was just kind of thinking about that as I was watching it this time because, you know, the skulls pile up, et cetera, et cetera. microchanges do occur.

So, you know, if Jurassic Park has taught us anything.

It's the really, really there would be changes because of chaos theory, but, you know, that doesn't matter.

So Moffat's actually gone on record as saying that there was a different set of clothes at some and that the doctor skipped a loop and accidentally didn't pick up the clothes and then they were stuck in that loop.

That's when it starts repeating constantly. in his head cannon as the writer.

Right.

Yeah.

So the 1st few times might have been slightly different than sort of settles into a group.

[07:01]

Because it becomes clear that he's conscious of it.

By the end of the loop, he's in a situation where he remembers the previous loop.

Yeah, like as he's worked out that he has to have done it.

No, he remembers there's like there is a moment there where he remembers as he's about to be touched by the veil.

He remembers everything and it touches his face.

And so that last sort of, you know, the crawl up the stairs to to sacrifice himself to be, like, reincarnated, to come back and do it again.

He, at that moment, that's when he realises too late, to affect any change, apart from getting back upstairs, to start again.

And in some respects, he needs to be aware of it, that he's done it so many times because subsequently, you know, he hasn't just said that, well, actually, you know, whilst a version of me has been doing this for the last 45000000 years, I've only been doing it for the last 24 hours or however long he is in that castle.

[08:04]

Whereas it's quite clear in the subsequent episode, he remembers the 4.5 1000000 years.

He remembers the rep in summer form.

The other bit of change, of course, and at the risk of starting at the end, and moving back to the beginning, is, of course, that sequence of dialogue that he has at the end as he's smashing through the diamond wall.

Gradually that speech.

It gets longer and longer each time he does it.

And I think that's just a beautiful way of showing the stretch of time.

It's just fantastic.

Fabulous, isn't it?

So we get that speech, the one hell of a bird speech. but it takes 1000000000s of years for it to get to the end of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And of course, it must be one hell of a bird and that's the moment that he kind of breaks through.

It's like, it's astonishing.

I think it really is astonishing.

There is the word puzzle box.

The word puzzle box appears in the script, just as it appears in City of Death.

It's Moffat's thing he's known for is writing these puzzle box scripts.

[09:05]

These scripts where a whole heap of disparate things seem to happen.

Something happens and we reinterpret what we've already seen and everything sort of clicks into place.

And he's definitely doing that here.

And so the plot of the episode is a puzzle every bit as much as the sort of clockwork castle that Capaldi finds himself trapped in.

Can I just say what an incredibly brave choice this was to make in the 1st place.

We've never had an episode which has been just the doctor as a monologue for the entire thing.

And I know that, as you said, there's a line from Clara or whatever, but effectively, it's a 45 minute monologue.

How easily that could have fallen flat.

And I think it is worth noting that I think Capaldi is probably the only doctor who would have been able to successfully do this.

Yes, I think Matt Smith would have been very good, and I think Tom, before he goes off the reservation in the back half of his era, would also have been good.

Neither of them would have matched this performance.

[10:05]

And I think I can't imagine any of the other doctors even getting to 50%.

He is one of, if not, the best actor to ever play this role.

I think also partly other than the fact he is one of the greatest actors who've ever played the role.

It's an old man's story. to convey the weight of, you know, unthinkable amounts of time, 1000000000s of years and stuff, but in human terms, you know, Peter Capaldi is, you can see the time on him, you know, and he's a man who can convey the weight of, you know, in human terms, relatable terms, decades of experience, pain, regret, the rest of it.

And I think that's another thing that makes it a story that feels utterly tailored to him.

Yeah, I don't think Matt Smith could have done it in the same way because as humans watching humans, it wouldn't have worked the way it works with Capaldi.

Things like the visual staff.

Like, I think Matt Smith plays convincingly as an old man in a way.

[11:08]

An old man in a young man's body.

But he just doesn't look like it, you know, at all.

And just, you know, here we have something that's not just a one man show.

We also have, you know, Murray Gold, and we have Rachel Talalay, and she is doing an incredible job.

And so she's the one who gives us that face.

We see his face so much and it conveys all of those things in a way that no one else's could have, I think.

And she's the one who also prevents the creature from being too clearly displayed, um, even when it's filling the frame, it's sort of slightly out of focus because it's standing behind the doctor or you're seeing it from behind the doctor's head or something.

So it's the best way to shoot those kind of monsters to make sure that they, you know, they're quite sure what you're looking at.

You couldn't you wouldn't be able to successfully draw a picture of it afterwards because you never feel like you really got a proper look at it.

It's not the Fisher King.

For example.

It needed a horror director to direct it and she is very good at that.

[12:13]

Yeah, yeah.

And she has a wonderful in this story, a control of point of view.

It's incredibly subjective when we 1st arrive.

And then just the, the, the brilliant shock choices of when to divulge in visual information the doctor can't see and when to keep it utterly from his point of view.

And yeah, and I think it's a gift for horror that does it.

But yeah, yeah, it's incredible.

But isn't it wonderful too, Rob, the way, you know, we have the television screen showing what the creature can see and how, you know, the doctor works out.

Oh, yes, that's actually what the creatures see, so he can work out where the creature is and so on.

Someone like Rachel Talais is so careful in making sure we have all of the visual information that we need to be completely sure of what's going on.

Confused as to what's going on in a different way, but in terms of knowing how things relate to each other and what we're supposed to be paying attention to, she is quite the genius and head and shoulders above many of the other Doctor Who directors.

It's that 1st sequence where the camera is all kind of slightly rolling in the same direction, like every shot, has the same kind of camera movement, and it's a sort of very gentle rotation, and you see the static on the TV screen, which is what appears when the creature has been destroyed, like when it disappears, and we have the fly, the close-up of the fly, the static.

[13:37]

And the fly is such an incredible detail because, you know, things that are shot in studios don't have those.

No, you know, a fly puts it in a real space.

It's like, you know, in New Earth, where Russell Drenches, Tenants, and Billy Piper.

Decontamination biscuit.

Yeah, in order to put them in a real world, you know, cover them in water.

It's less of a studio set if everyone's having sort of liquid port all over them.

Here we have flies.

And all I could think, this is so bad.

All I could think of is how insects have improved in how they're realised in Doctor Who since Nightmare of Eden.

I think you're going to say the Green Dead.

Do you remember that thing that flies out of the projection?

Yes, oh, it's Romana?

Just like, is that a fly?

What is that?

It's a space fly.

And because everything's about death.

Everything there is about there.

The flies, it's like rotting flesh.

Yeah, well that's what she is.

That's like that description.

[14:38]

Oh, so that thing is called the veil.

It's plucked from the doctor's nightmares and it's an old woman who whose body was left outside.

So, you know, in the heat.

It was really hot and it started to smell and they wrapped her in veils.

Capaldi has a monologue about it.

So it's a thing that he remembers from his childhood, a nightmare from his childhood that's been realised and put into the confession dial with him.

And so it's explicitly about death and decay.

And it's great how the flies then become the harbinger of the veil.

You don't need to see the veil to know it's that it can't be far away now.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's really brilliant, isn't it?

It's just, a kind of thing that not many people would have thought to do, I think.

I mean, it may very well be in the script, of course, but it's not just what's in the script. is how the script is realised.

And I think full credit to Murray for, and I suspect this is the director being clear about what she wants.

But his music is so appropriate for what's going on.

[15:39]

There's nothing bombastic when there shouldn't be.

It's so gentle. and just goes to show the kind of music he could be providing in other episodes.

I mean, I think the, you know, the strings.

Is it cellos and things like cellos and double bases and all of that.

And there's like the veil has a theme.

The whole place has a thing.

And we only hear the doctor's hero theme when he starts telling the story, the brother's grim story.

And, you know, that obviously leads up to the hell of a bird thing, but it is also the doctor stopping and doing something very doctor-ish for the 1st time or, you know, he's just telling a story.

The brothers Grim were on his darts team.

You know, like it's such a, such a normal Doctor Who thing to do.

And that's when we get to hear Capaldi's hero theme as he's taking those steps towards what he does to get through the Asbantium space wall. thing, yeah.

I love the Sherlock aspect, which we 1st see when he's, you know, falling when he's jumped out of the through the window, having thrown the chair through.

[16:45]

We see him in the TARDIS console room, working it all out in what is, whatever, the 7 odd seconds or something that takes me four.

He goes to his mind palace.

It's just mind palace.

Exactly.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Exactly.

And we can sort of imagine that, but it is also very, it is very suggestive of Sherlock, the way, you know, oh, that's why he threw the chair through the window because he wanted to work out how far it was going to fall.

And all the other aspects about that is.

It's so beautifully done and you can sort of imagine that happening in all the other situations where the doctor is frantically working things out.

In fact, the really, really interesting thing is because this is not just, look, what a great actor I've cast as the doctor.

It is, and let's be fair, Moffatt saying, look how incredibly clever I am.

And so there's all these details like dropping the eyeglass dropping the petal on the lily, all of which then get reinterpreted as part of him working out what the environment is like, how long it is before he's likely to fall, what the gravity is like, all of that sort of stuff.

And so all of these little details are then reinterpreted as part of the doctor being clever.

[17:48]

But that's Moffatt's normal trick, isn't it?

Yes.

He includes details and then we learn what they were important.

Yeah.

But the other thing is, though, that it's all done.

It's not just that.

It's also the fact that then it's all executed so just beautifully. whilst it is him showing off and how clever he is.

And then, you know, Capaldi's showing off about how great an accurate is and talent showing off how great a director she is, you don't get a sense that anyone's actually showing off, they're just naturally brilliant.

And I think that's just such a rare commodity.

I think they're showing off Oh, no, I'm not saying, no, they're showing off.

They can.

But they can, but they're showing off successfully in that, you know, the worst thing is when someone shows off and it doesn't quite work.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, or you have a character pointing out how clever that was.

Yeah, but they don't do that.

There you go.

Well, that's that maybe that's the fortunate thing about not having any other characters.

Yeah, well, I mean, but the thing about Para is that she wouldn't tell the doctor how clever.

Yeah, none of the best companions would, I think.

[18:57]

Going back to what you guys were talking about in the horror aspects of it, There are so many sort of horror tropes.

There's that word that are sort of littered throughout it that has just handled so well, you know, the shock of the door opening and then something, the creature's there and the flies coming and never quite sure what's happening next norts around the next corner.

Those things, which are all textbook techniques in the horror genre, are all used so well and so successfully, and you never feel like, oh, this is cliche, oh, they're just doing this.

And I think it could have so easily been that.

It could have so easily been tiresome.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I was wrecking my brains because this episode has always reminded me of something.

Obviously, texture, they actually mentioned it's the Brothers Grimm's The Shepherd Boy.

And Moffatt's always been had, I think, for Dark Fairy Tale.

But this is always reminded me of something else because it feels it's, yes, it's wildly original and all that, but it feels within a tradition and I've been trying to rack my brains as to what it reminds me of and how it works on me.

And I don't even know if I've kind of got to the bottom of other things it's like, but one of them, I think, is the Shawshank Redemption because it's really, it's the story of an escape tunnel being dug.

[20:06]

It doesn't work for me either as a story about grief in any way.

And technically it's incredible, but the way it does affect me emotionally is simply that kind of indefatigable hope and perseverance thing, which Shawshank does. which, you know, in which in the whole big revelation about this, No, no, no, this is linear and the doctor is just not giving up.

That's, for me, where the emotional heft of it comes and what makes it emotional is literally his perseverance.

So I think actually, yeah, it's, yeah, it's Shawshank.

I think that this kind of rings bells for me about.

Yeah, it's interesting you say that.

I'm actually, now you mentioned Shawshank, I entirely agree.

And I agree also that I don't see it about grief, or at least that's not what I'm getting when I'm watching it.

I entirely agree with you.

It's that hope. that perseverance.

It's scraping that little bit off each time so that in 6 months, 12 months, we'll be able to escape from this prison, you know, stretch it out, obviously, to 1000000000s of years.

Yeah, it's interesting because grief is talked to, not about grief.

[21:08]

Grief is talked about a lot.

Grief is the subject of discussion, but it's not the theme of it.

The theme is about, you know, I'm going to, you know, keeping going, not giving up, solving the problem.

Oh, man, not necessarily about grief, just about sort of, I mean, sheer bastard kind of stubbornness through this really trying situation.

I wouldn't necessarily say stubbornness, actually, if I may, James.

I'd almost say it's the perseverance.

It's the will to keep going, never be defeated.

Stubbornness implies that, well, I'm just going to keep doing this and I don't care what anybody else thinks.

He still, he keeps doing it because he needs to.

He knows that Clara needs him to do this to get out of here so that he can then save her, et cetera.

Do you know what I mean?

So yeah, I get what you're saying, but I actually don't know whether it's stubbornness.

So Moffat says that the best scene in heaven's sand is the scene in Hellbent where the doctor and Clara are talking about this in the Matrix underbasement thing. and the close to room, yeah.

[22:13]

Yeah, it's an incredible scene.

And the reason is that we suddenly get this radically reinterpreted in a way that we didn't understand because the doctor says that he knew all along who had captured him and he knew what the situation was.

And so the only way to get to the people who had captured him, who were the time lords was to persist and persist and persist and persist, and then he would get into an extraction chamber, and he would be able to save Clara's life.

And Clara is absolutely horrified by that.

Like, cannot believe that he's gone to those lengths.

It's been 4.5 1000000000 years, get over it.

Yes, that's exactly what she says.

Get over it.

And that's the thing.

The research doesn't work properly as a metaphor for grief is...

There's the one line about grief, I think, in the in the show is where the doctor says the day that someone dies isn't the worst day.

[23:14]

At least you've got something to do.

And that sounds like a flip moffatism.

That's the sort of Moffat thing that's all the time.

In fact, but that's actually true.

It's actually entirely...

It goes on to say, it's all the days later.

Yeah. when they're still dead.

And that's not really true.

Because however great a loss is.

You do eventually get over it.

And you don't ever completely get over it.

There's a scar.

There are tender spots.

There are moments where you think of it again, but you get over it, you know.

And so the doctor's kind of weird self-indulgent thing, like Clara is there to take him down a peg and say, this is ridiculous.

You should have just let me die.

Yeah, but it is that thing, while there's life, there's hope, while there's hope, there's life, you could say, because he knows that if he keeps going, there's a chance to save it, or he believes, if he keeps going, there's a chance to save it.

[24:14]

You know, the healing process with grief starts because you know they are ever coming back and he's not actually in that spot.

You learn to live.

It is true.

Yeah, exactly.

He doesn't need to learn to live with it because he still thinks that he can do something about it.

But, I mean, the thing is that Clara will be horrified.

Like she tears up that he, because he's put himself through so much pain, you know, for her, which is something that she absolutely doesn't want.

So is it more less about that?

Not worth it.

So is this story less about grief and more about denial then?

Well, it's partly about how stupid men are, you know, which is a theme in the... that's the next episode.

But that's a theme in the Moffat era.

But it is also about how clever the doctor is.

And so, yeah, you get those scenes.

I always want the doctor to be funnier than the villains and that's why he wins.

You, Simon, always wants him to be cleverer than the villain.

Exactly.

Yeah, he is clever.

Exactly.

Whilst he's so funny.

He is still funny.

And that's when I think I like the tone of it because it strikes.

[25:17]

I mean, yeah, it is on the darker side.

I don't say that all Doctor Who episodes need to be quite this bleak, but the fact that it's so well written and well performed.

You've got, it sets for me exactly the right tone for Doctor Who in that you've got, everything is completely serious.

In terms of the situation is completely serious.

But the doctor can still have these wonderful, beautiful one liners that provide these lighter moments.

And I think that rather than those lighter moments being, the raison d'etre for the episode.

What I was going to say about the loss thing.

I mean, as the doctor says, you know, you're doing everything on the day of the DSA, you know, organising the funeral, et cetera, et cetera.

And then when the funeral's over and everybody's gone and you've received all the flowers, the sympathy flowers, and they're just sitting there and they're slowly rotting, and suddenly nobody calls you.

Everyone stops calling you.

And I think that's it's something that's an observation that's been made to me about funerals.

It's almost the hardest part is when everyone goes away.

Yeah. and thinks that, well, that was that done. to the next thing.

And I think that's explored here.

Yeah.

I mean, there might be something about, you know, um, uh, man search for meaning by Victor Frankel?

[26:21]

you know, the guy, he survived, he was one member of his family survived the survived Auschwitz, and it's a very, it's a very short book.

It's really good.

But he kind of talks about, you know, the importance of one of the things that, you know, the important thing is in life is meaning's more important than, you know, will to power, all the sex drive, all, you know, Nietzsche and Freud and stuff, and he, you know, meaning is the most important thing, and the contemplation of those you love is the important thing to get you through things as terrible as the camps.

And so maybe, I think kind of grief is talked about, but I think it's the contemplation of Clara that keeps him going through this insane, endless suffering to get through the other side.

Yes, I just, so just oddly, grief is the thing that's talked about, but it's actually the contemplation of Clara, the way that, you know, when you lose people you love, they don't go away.

They're just you'll never ever see them again, but they're still kind of there.

And that's the stuff that gets you through the horribleness of what most of life, to be honest.

[27:23]

Yeah, so I kind of think it's possibly more, even though the episode doesn't say this, it's about the contemplation of those you love who aren't there anymore that can get you through punching through a Diamond Mountain.

It's funny, isn't it?

We do see the 1st time he accidentally says Clara's name.

The way, the way the doctor in the rescue accidentally says Susan's name.

You see him do that for the 1st time, but that just develops into a full-blown conversation with her.

And it's a conversation initially with her back, then with her at the blackboard, and then finally with her actually speaking to him.

Yeah, actually, just on a technical level where you do have your lead actor, essentially talking to himself for 54 minutes, there are so many brilliant devices employed to make that utterly justifiable.

But, you know, it's everything Moffatt's ever done.

[28:24]

But initially it's the talking to the darkness because he's probably being listened to.

So, yeah, he can just talk to the castle, to his unseen enemies, whether singular or plural, then he's got his mind palaced, then he's got Clara, you know, it's just all the, all these great ways of, um, yeah, just justifying what could have died on its arse.

There's even that great line where he breaks the 4th wall and says, oh, yes.

I work well with an audience or something along those lines.

Yeah, I'm nothing without an audience.

And he just looks at the camera.

And glances of camera. fantastic.

And that's all you need.

And it's so good.

So good.

It's like a, it's like watching a stage show.

Yeah, yeah.

A stage show without an interval.

Like, I mean, obviously, it wouldn't really work, but that's what it reminds me of, because it's so, when you see those really good one-man shows that are so engaging and you're just hanging off every word that the actor is saying, it's, it's, it's, what I was reminded of in watching this, again, and I don't watch this very often, but, um, just watching it for this.

[29:30]

I was just, I was worried, I'd think, oh yes, that was very good.

But I was equally, if not more blown away than when I 1st saw it and subsequent viewers.

Each time a little more.

Maybe.

I mean, I always loved this story.

I loved it from the moment I 1st saw it, I was blown away.

But every time I watch it, I find something more to enjoy or to be surprised by.

There are all these little moments throughout it that you don't quite catch the 1st or 2nd or 3rd time.

These nuances in what he does or the way it's directed.

What I was astounded was how early we finished the first time through, that there's quite a lot of the episode to go, and then the episode speeds up and has this weird deconstructed way of continuing to tell the same story, which I think is really remarkable.

[30:34]

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, my my stomach rises in my in my chest when he's reciting off longer and longer and longer time frames.

You just feel sick at this thought that it's just going on for such a long period of time.

And the way it speeds up, like each time you come to that statement where it's 7000 years, 12,000 years, one, you know, whatever, whatever numbers are. the editing is faster and faster and faster as we get through it and the way you also then get the building of that, the last sequence at the end about the bird being built in a way almost word by word.

It is not quite word by word, but it's almost word by word, but in a way that you can still perfectly understand what he's saying.

It's not just a random sequence, it's a word, it's glued together.

It is so clever and there is so much time, I suspect, has been spent on that 2 minute, 3 minute sequence with how long it is. remarkable.

And it's still edited.

Like, like, it was, it was, they gave it a longer episode running time and they still had to cut it because they didn't have enough room in the schedule for, for everything.

[31:43]

There are whole scenes that were excised.

Is it the best edited bit of Doctor Who, necessarily the best edited?

Bit of who ever?

I was actually surprised how late in the telling, because I'd forgotten how late in the telling we kind of, you know, the revelation comes and what's actually going on.

And it's funny on rewatches.

Um, I mean, what you left, what you're left with from your 1st watching is just kind of the emotional whack of it.

And then when you actually go back and study, the pacing, the structure, and the rest of it, the actual shape of these things.

And so this was only my 2nd watch, but it was, um, knowing having seen it before, albeit, what, 10 years ago, something like that.

How do you only watch this twice?

I'm just a terrible Doctor Who fan, James.

I probably only watched 3 maximum 4 times and it would be one of my favourites ever.

I've watched this quite a lot I think.

I think the surprising bit is the bit in the middle where nothing very much is happening where he's settled into a kind of rhythm.

[32:44]

He knows how much time he has 58 minutes.

You know what I mean?

When he ready is, yeah.

If he runs.

It's like 84 minutes at the most.

And he's looking for numbers.

He's eating soup for the 1st time.

He will be doing that again next week.

And all of that, that sort of very strange thing.

Which...

Like, he makes an accommodation.

There's time for sleep, he says, and work and stuff.

That actually is a little bit like Moffatt is writing about grief, I think.

You know, there's sleep and work and stuff, but every 85 minutes. you're reminded there's the veil, you know, like, so perhaps even even though very little of the dialogue is about grief, if encounters with the veil are about that, then maybe there's hints of it in there, right?

He claims it's not.

But also he has also gone on record, I believe, is saying it was a direct response to the criticisms he got for the lack of emotional depth in the middle of series 6 with the baby spew kidnap hotline.

[33:55]

Which, yeah, like you just kind of had to move on to the next the next episode. because it was in the middle of a season and that's how you deal with it.

And he went, oh, I want to deep deeper into the emotional kind of responses of the lead character, to losing his best friend.

Yeah.

I mean, he has always been capable, I think, of, you know, while being clever, and while being less interested in guest characters and one-off characters and stuff than Russell is, most of this season is things happening to people we know, he has been capable of moving us, I think.

I still think, like the end of the Big Bang, where Amy stands up at the wedding and demands that the doctor show up.

You know, like all of that stuff, that the doctor sitting by her bed by Amelia's bed and saying goodbye to her.

All of that and stuff, he's absolutely capable of creating emotional scenes.

He does it devastatingly well.

And sometimes, you know, he uses his reveals in order to do that in order to sort of pack an emotional punch.

[35:02]

I think he is very good at that stuff.

But, like, what I like about this is that we don't land on the side that the doctor lands on because, because this is a classic fridging in some ways, isn't it?

Like you have a female character who dies and the principal interest that we have in that is the man's reaction, right?

And so then you have Clara coming back and making it not a fridging because Clara is the focus of hell bent.

She is the one listening to the doctor's story.

You know, she's the one who goes off, steals a Tartisan, goes off to explore the world.

She's the main character of that, and she's the one who says no.

And she says it in Face the Raven.

She says, you're gonna do some stupid things because you're a massive idiot.

Don't do them.

Don't do them in my name.

And then he does anyway.

Well, he doesn't really because he doesn't kill anyone.

[36:03]

Like he's really furious.

He's going to tear up Trap Street and all sorts of things and he doesn't do anything like that.

So it's the usual Moffat thing of taking what looks like is going to be a sort of terrible story, you know, Santa goes on about the possible rape revenge story that we're going to get in a good man goes to war and that we don't get.

We get a different story and the same things happening here.

It looks like it's going to be a fridging and it absolutely isn't.

It's a fridging followed by a thoring.

Yeah.

Do you know one of the sequences that I, one of the just the lines of dialogue that I found most devastating about it in it was, I can't remember the exact time frame, but after he's zapped by the creature in the 1st time, that we see that, in this completely calm voice, he says, I worked out that in my current condition, it'll take me a day and a half crawl back up to the top of the tower, that was just awful.

[37:05]

But he also says, and I think I've got a day and a half left as well. because there's that thing, it's just awful.

Moffat helps himself to some time-lord law for people who care about those things, right?

And so it takes time lords a long time to die.

And then we get the funny line.

That's why they like to go home and die among their people because they won't bury them to, you know, like, and so we get a gag, you know, and...

Yeah, exactly, yeah.

But it's the same as Bob Holmes going, why would the brigadier come to the cottage hospital?

I know, let's say the doctor has 2 hearts, you know?

Like, you just make the thing up for the purposes of the story.

Here's some time lord stuff.

But there's something very elegant about him saying that because every cell of the Time Lord's body, he's desperately trying to regenerate.

Yeah.

But don't you remember that the Daleks were like that as well?

The daleks were functionally immortal in The Witch is Familiar.

They can't be killed because they're so desperate to live.

So it's another thing that he's done sort of before.

You mentioned Santa for before, Rob, but one of the funniest things.

[38:07]

The one of the funniest things she says about this is it's a story about grumpy, grey-haired Scotsman doing the same things over and over and over again.

And so it's the sort of thing that Stephen Moffatt is likely to write after being the Doctor Who writer who has written more Doctor Who than any other one in history.

Is it his the writer's tale?

For now.

It's me.

I'm doing the thing again, there'll be a radical reversal and it will all be tiny, whiny, and you'll be devastated.

Youll laugh, you'll cry.

And he's been doing that for so long.

He's been doing it since, well, Chris for fatal death, really.

Exactly.

And so it's the sort of thing that he writes as part of his farewell tour.

And, and, you know, Capoldi's doctor's always been a bit more forty, I think.

Yeah, it's interesting because, um, And I'm the least qualified person here to suggest this because, you know, watch it once and then, you know, that's I'm kind of largely done.

[39:07]

But, um, But with the 11th doctor, who he, he, he has River Song pitch the idea of the Moffatt doctor to the 10th doctor in Science of Library, Forest of the Dead, and what, so the, his idea of what the, this, and this is, must been his idea of the doctor since he started thinking about what his doctor would be like, and that's the Matt Smith doctor.

But then, uh, Peter Powley's doctor, um, is kind of, unlike Tenant, who was just a continuation, ten is a continuation of nine, but 12 is definitely not a continuation of that kind of his plan A of what his kind of, you know, his his doctor would be like.

So how this doctor is Moffat, really. in a way, in a way that the 11th doctor is a doctor is not.

So yeah, that totally stands up.

This is Moffat as much as it is the doctor, I think.

I think I think the reason that his 1st doctor is a child, though, is a child, how old is he?

[40:11]

12 Rivers says.

Anyway. face of a 12-year-old, I think.

Um, is because one of the things that he's always, you know, that his male characters have often done is be giant children, you know, that and so we kind of make that real in the personality of the of the doctor and, you know, it's telling that the closest thing he has to a sexual partner is significantly older and more experienced than him.

So, I mean, there are elements of Moffatt there in that, you know, the smartest man in the room and like a slightly bad guy as well.

Like so much of what Moffatt writes has been about whether he's a, you know, it's not just the 12th doctor who wonders whether he's a good man or not. like right back from joking apart, where Moffatt writes a sitcom about the breakdown of his 1st marriage.

And it looks like the reason that the marriage broke down is because she cheated on him, but it becomes clear throughout the series that it broke down because he's just insufferable. to be around.

[41:17]

So I kind of think that that both of Russell's doctors are Russell in some way, everything's marvellous and wonderful, but there's a kind of deep cynicism underneath that you rarely get to see that tenants doctor is a performance in silence in the library.

Remember, there's a moment where River's able to get him to just cut it out for a 2nd and then he's back on and he's being the doctor.

It's a performance.

Whereas from off of the doctor is a thing you aspire to be, I think, and he even the doctor himself aspires to be that and falls short of it.

He doesn't wear the velvet jacket next week because he's not.

Not the doctor. not the doctor.

Well, not feeling like the doctor or something.

The other thing about this episode is that, um, it's the doctor, although he's got an audience, he doesn't.

[42:19]

This is the doctor unguarded.

You know, there's no one to there is no one to perform to.

Other than to himself, really, you know, because, you know, it's it's an incredibly internal peace, and he's got the veil, who's the only other real tangible person there.

But this is the, this is the Dr. Sands audience despite all the, the artifice of it.

So this is this is the doctor unguarded, uh, in a way that you won't get him unguarded in a, I don't know, in a based under siege story, for example.

It's the implication, though, in the next episode, the time loads we're watching every single 2nd of that for 4500000000 years.

Oh, no, that shoots my, that shoots that completely out of water.

Good point.

Actually, yeah, because yeah, oh, yeah, because if they are, if they are.

They're aware of what is what he was saying.

I think he assumes he's being watched, yeah.

Yeah, except except that the only time, like the veil is in a way, the only actual tangible audience that he has.

After he gives that opening speech, if you think because she's dead, I'm weak, you know, that speech, after that, he is basically talking to himself.

[43:22]

He's talking to himself or to Clara inside the Tartars, all of that sort of thing.

And then the big doctor-ish moment where he tells the story and starts to name drop historical figures, he's saying it to the veil, isn't he?

He's telling that...

He's telling the sort of...

He's telling what his plan is.

Is the veil their camera?

The veil is the cameraman.

I mean, the veil is the camera.

You can see him.

Oh, and it's on the camera is on the telly.

Yeah.

And also when he, because he does, he does turn up a galfer at the end and give the message to the boy, you know, tell them I came the long way around.

So actually, yeah, I think you might be right, James, there is a way of reading this where you could say, you know, apart from the stuff in his mind palace.

Everything else is an act of intimidation towards the timeboards.

You've put the wrong guy in the bottle, you know.

There's one thing you never put in a trap.

Isn't the great, isn't the long way round line a great throwback to the girl in the fireplace?

Yeah.

Well, and it is, in fact, the season ends with Clara saying she'll go back to Galafray, to be put packet.

[44:25]

The long way around, the long way around.

And of course, it's referenced in Day of the Doctor as well.

Yeah, yeah, and he is, and this is him.

This is him going home the long way around, but to smash stuff up. you know.

Yeah, yeah.

I can't overstate my reaction to this episode, and it's brilliance, mainly because of its tone, and it's something that I've mentioned many times on this podcast, and to anyone who will listen at other times, about the lot, yeah, a lot of my issue with. yes exactly.

A lot of my issue with, certainly the, well, a lot of the modern era, but also, particularly the Russell era, which is what I'm kind of dreading returning, is a sort of a levity which is a superficiality about so much, it's too great a percentage of the storyline, the acting, the performances and the dialogue is at a superficial level.

It feels superficial.

This, I'm not saying that every Doctor Who episode should be as dark and serious as this one is, but it's, I think it is worth saying that this is a great example, as was things like blink or midnight.

[45:32]

Or, you know, the girl in the fireplace.

They're great examples of what I believe the show could be, and everyone we know raves and raves about those episodes.

And yet why are those few and far between rather than the staple?

Instead, the staple is, and I think what's going to happen in the coming years, is the staple is silly runarounds with, you know, goofy over the top performances where, yes, there's some fun and it's all entertaining.

I can't deny that, but it's just so fluffy.

Why isn't it more likely?

I'm not, as I said, not every episode can be like this, and you certainly can't, you need a buildup to get to an episode like this, but there's just so much trash.

Well, I don't think it's trash.

I think and I don't think Doctor Who has ever really...

Well, trash is not fair. sorry, trash is not fair.

Trash is not fair.

I just don't think Doctor Who has ever been like that.

I think that's...

What you're talking about in the dawn of time back in the day. at any point has it been like that?

[46:33]

Yeah, of course it's been exactly like that.

Look at look at the look at the period from from 1970 to 1978.

Um, you know, 1977.

That period is exactly like that.

You've got the seriousness.

I mean, just thinking of something like Terror of the Zygons or the Green Death or whatever.

Yes, there's great.

There's some funny lines of dialogue in there, which lighten it up, but otherwise it's a, it's a serious story.

I think this is a function of how old we were when we...

No, no, I don't think it is, because then why isn't it?

Then why is it that I can go back and watch something else that I might have enjoyed and think, 0 my god, that's rubbish.

Whereas I can go back and watch something I tear of those items, which I saw when I was 7 or 8 years old for the 1st time.

And still think, wow, this is moody, this is great.

This is this is got a flavour. silly and preposterous.

No, no, but that's the thing.

I think that that's where I think we disagree, is that, is that, yes, of course it's silly and preposterous, isn't it?

There are these slimy monsters living under Loch Ness, and they can duplicate themselves into human form, blah, blah, blah.

Obviously that's ridiculous.

[47:34]

But they're also playing it for laughs as well.

They're not playing.

I think John.

They are not playing.

They are not playing.

The bagpipe practice next door.

Yeah.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah, but that's a funny line of dialogue.

That's a lighter moment in something that otherwise is being.

Well, that's her taking the phone learning that Harry's been shot.

And Harry's been shot.

Exactly.

But you know what I mean?

Like, and I think that that's, that's, it's a regrettable decision for me that they've just, they decided when they brought the show back to basically lean into the silliness and say, yes, the whole situation with Doctor Who is preposterous.

So let's not try and pretend otherwise because, you know, we want to be taken seriously as a television program.

If we think that the program, you know, we'll just be those nerdy, geeky Doctor Who fans back in the 70s and 80s who treated this, sometimes poorly made television show, desperately, seriously, when everybody else in the world was laughing at it, and I think they're still traumatised by being laughed at when they were a kid for liking Doctor Who.

[48:34]

I think that's sad.

Well, let me just say, I think that this season more than any other season of the new series actually does more or less what you want.

Yeah, well, the Moffatt era generally does.

The Moffat is like the inverse for me of the RTD era, the Moffat era is tonally, much, much more what I want, apart from the occasional backslide.

And the backslides get worse, I think, as the progressors.

I think the Matt Smith area particularly represents that tone that I'm going for.

When it comes back and people find out it's frothy and silly and a bit clunky in places, they're going to be surprised, but it's like, well, no, it twas ever thus.

But I don't think I've got the emotional stamina for heaven sent every week.

Oh, I agree with that.

They don't have to be haven't seen, no.

Yeah.

But, um, yeah, but I, I, I like the froth.

I do stand by in my statement that I think Stephen Moffat is craft-wise, the finest writer who have ever written the Doctor Who.

[49:39]

I think I don't love it when he's in when he's in charge of the boat, though.

Um, because I kind of find just, um, uh, there was a, there was a point in the Matt Smith era when I realised, oh, this series that I'm now watching is kind of a Shaggy Dog story in that it's not, it's not going anywhere, really.

What I did like about the Russell T. Davis era was the sense of graduation from series to series where you clear the board, then you bring back the Daleks, then you bring back the master, then, you know, there is some sense, there is some sense of escalation. natural escalation to it.

But with Moffatira, again, he is the finest writer to have written for Doctor Who, but there is kind of, yeah, does have a certain habit of kind of having all these wonderful little payoffs, detail and details and character payoffs.

But then with the kind of the larger kind of season sized or whatever, archtype payoffs, a habit of over-promising and under delivering, just in terms of, this is giving a sense of direction of where this series is going.

[50:43]

Like, the end of the day of the doctor, I thought it was going to be, you know, Doctor Who would become the search for Califre, um, then it doesn't.

And now we have now we have the hybrid.

Well, that's four and a half CVDs.

We'll never get back.

We gonna head off now, but we'll see you next week for the final denouement in Hellbends.

In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts, and you can keep up with us on our website, flight throughentirety.com, where you'll find all 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, sometimes it's best to just buy some lilies. and a sympathy card.

[51:47]

Thank you very much for listening and good night.

Good night.

Bye bye.

See you.

That was Flight Through Entirety, starring Nathan Modernly, Simon Moore, James Selwood, and Robert Valentine.

Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.

This episode, The Time on Him, was recorded on the 12th of November 2023 and released on the 26th of November.

This episode is being released mere hours after the first of the Doctor Who anniversary specials, and in a few hours' time, will be releasing the first episode of our new Doctor Who Flashcast, the second great and bountiful human empire.

To listen to the episode, and for more information, check us out at the 2nd Great and BountifulHuman Empire.com.

Now, just with the title, um, I, I, I kind of think that Hellbent Heaven sent is far in the wrong order.

Yeah, it, yeah, no, Hellbent Heaven sent, just as 2 titles, just as an, and as a mnemonic, just work way back.

[52:52]

I always forget what they're called because heaven, heaven sent hell bent is not a natural. not the natural way to it's not the right way around.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, as titles.

Just yeah.

Hellbet heaven sent.

I would never ever forget that.

But yeah, they're the wrong way around.

But also, you can ask, is it?

This is also Hellbent.

He's hell bent on getting out.

He's held that he's having sense.

In the next episode.

Exactly.

Like, yeah.

I love that line about hell.

I'm not afraid of hell. just heaven for bad people.

Heaven forbad.

That sounds great.

I think before we finish up, there's another great line that we haven't touched on and that's he's finally run out of corridor.

Yeah, yeah, yeah That is a perfect summary of that.

A perfect sort of meta summary of the entire show.

Can I just do a particular shout out for Rachel Tallalay, though, before we finish up and I know her name has been mentioned many times on this podcast before as one of the best Doctor Who directors of the modern era and therefore ever.

But I didn't know, and I don't know whether this has been discussed before and I've just not, I've just been asleep when I've been listening to the podcast back.

[53:58]

But I didn't realise that she had effectively been sent to direct a prison in the United States for a 3rd her 3rd film, which was a flop, right?

Oh, okay.

As sometimes these things are tank girl.

T Girl.

Yeah, I remember that.

And there's a great book that my husband pointed out to me yesterday that he's just literally been reading called Women versus Hollywood.

Oh, wow. by Helena O'Hara.

And I know that this is not a 2nd episode and so we're not allowed to give recommendations, but I'm going to.

I don't care.

Because it is a new, it is a new book.

And it's basically just a book about the fact that male directors get forgiven for their failures, you know, they go to direct jail and they're not allowed to make anything for 12 months, but then they come back and they and they can do their next project.

Whereas Hollywood is littered with all of these women who, you know, they make stuff and then there's a failure as these things happen.

And then basically that's the end of their career or it takes them years and years and years and years and years.

Who directed Hurt Locker?

[54:59]

Catherine Bigelow.

Yes, Catherine Bigelow had the same thing happen to her.

She was like, I think 7 years or something between 2 features because one was not as successful as it might have been.

And so it's just an interesting way about an interesting book about how gender still plays an important role in opportunities in Hollywood.

So look it up.

It actually destroyed her career.

It destroyed her career.

Like, I mean, Tango is not a bad film.

It flopped, but it's not a bad film.

It might not be into everybody's taste.

But that destroyed her film career.

She doesn't work in film anymore.

She's a very successful and sought after television director, but she's never really been able to break back into film in Hollywood.

Yes.

And it's just, yes, exactly.

But although, I mean, I'm sure if she decided, I mean, she changed career track to TV because they would have her and she was sick of trying.

The other, who knows, she could probably, I suspect she could probably now try and make a feature film.

So it's not the fact that they can never go back.

It's the fact that it'll take a lot longer for them to be allowed to have another go.

[56:01]

The interesting thing, though, is in this book, Doctor Who is explicitly name checked as one of the best things she's done on television.

And I think that's great that we are in the top. tier of her creative output.

Yeah.

And that's the out.

I think that's definitely the out, don't you?

Yeah, so great.

She's just now.

Next year, but enough in time.

But also the 2nd episode, Hellbent, yes, which should be called Heaven Sent.

Hellbent.

Hellbent, I think, is a weaker story, but it is still gripping and incredible all the way through because of her.

I was thinking about that this morning when I was watching.

I was thinking, yeah, with a less good director, that episode would be middling to slightly painful.

And instead, even though there are things that I don't like about it from a script point of view, I think as a production, it is fantastic.

And it's her.

Like her.

Early scene, which, you know, that's the Shaggy Dog story.

You know, the time where the man came and he forced the president to resign without even getting up.

[57:04]

Yes, you know, his chair.

And, you know, people keep coming and see him and there's all these Western, like it's so weird.

And like partly it's just because Capoldi's telling the story to Clara.

The doctors tell like the story to Clara and they're in Nevada and so the whole thing looks like a Western.

Yes, yes, yes.

Otherwise known as Spain, I suspect.

California Spain.

California Spain.

Yeah, I think Nevada is probably in the Canary Islands.

Yeah, Nevada is definitely Spain.

Yeah, they're all the same. obviously it's just over the next hill.

I think they're just down the road from truth or consequences.

Oh, probably.

Also a real place.

Yes.

We looked it up.

You know what you could do?

Well, you could put all of the non- like episode talk after as the tag for like half an hour.

The longest tag.

The tag is longer than the episode.

Well, I was very disappointed about the poor length of tag, I think, in the last episode.

It was only like 2 minutes, as opposed to 5 minutes.

What was it?

I can't remember.

It was... what did you put out last week?

[58:06]

I got inversions.

What did we talk about?

I can even remember.

I can't remember.

Sometimes someone says, Actually, the episode maybe.

And sometimes someone, sometimes people start talking about their personal lives in like a, do you know what I mean?

Like, that's often the tag is, uh, someone complaining about something or...

Something in their lives.

Yeah, that's right.

It's kind of like, all right, we'll cut that there then.

Yeah.