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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
But they're also playing it for laughs as well.
They're not playing.
I think John.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.