Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight for Entirety, the
only Doctor Who podcast that really does know how to snack.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Peter.
And I'm Jack.
Well, Christmas comes round again every year, but a final farewell
is something that can only ever happen once, or 2 or 3 times.
So now it's time for River Songs last, last night in the Husbands
of River Song.
So how about that Ramon?
My God.
He's pretty.
He is pretty.
So he is in the survivors that stars.
That's him.
Raveo.
Did not know where he was from.
Yeah.
I knew him.
Oh, yes, okay.
Yeah, he was attractive in survivors.
He was really great.
I remember his one line when he talked about what he most missed
about the before time was his laptop, and I kind of thought, that's
exactly what I would say as well.
Laptops, how can we podcast?
Exactly.
This is a really kind of funny episode in that the bulk of it is
overshadowed by the last 10 minutes.
And I'm going to call on us to do something formally complicated
which is we're not going to talk about the last 10 minutes until
the very end.
How about that?
No, I think it's easier to do that because as you say, it is such
a marked shift when it happens.
So yeah, I can do that.
The one thing I am going to say is that I recently saw the last 10
minutes on YouTube, and I think I sort of pre-cried before
pressing the play button.
But then when I think back on it, I always kind of find it hard to
remember what actually happened in the 45 minutes leading up to
it.
Turns out quite a lot.
Yeah.
A few jokes.
Some action?
Recycled set?
A bit of romantic comedy.
Yep, yep.
I mean, Moffat.
This is this is really what he's done the 2nd year in a row with
Capaldi, which is that we've had a sort of fairly bleak season
finale and then followed it up just a couple of weeks later with
some fun.
And last Christmas was really very great and properly scary and
stuff, but was also just fun and warm and solved many of the
problems that existed at the end of series 8.
Does this do the same thing?
I think that's very right, because particularly in series 8, I
think there was an eagerness to capture the darkness that, you
know, Peter Capaldi has demonstrated he can bring to the role.
And kind of everybody assumed he would bring.
He does come from a very strong comedy background with a very high
pedigree and it's quite a Serbic comedy.
Um, but it's really nice to um, uh, see him do something that's
quite charming and sweet and romantic, which I don't think you've
really seen from him up until this point.
Yeah, I love what Peter Capaldi's given to do in this because by
forgetting Clara, It relieves him a lot of the baggage of the last
2 series, and that's not a veiled insult at Jenna Coleman, who's
brilliant, or even at the character, because the character's
really great as well, but it seems like Stephen Moffat has kind of
gone, well, what would the doctor be like if he hadn't met Clara?
And he's still got a bit of the irascibility, you know, the bit
with the reindeer antlers.
Because the TARDIS knows what's happened, so the TARDIS is trying
to cheer him apart.
I love the description of it as a holodramatic antlers.
Yes.
Maybe the Tarlist just knows he's going to be a bit horny this
episode.
I think possibly the moment where the character of the doctor
gives into the comedy of the situation is after they've teleported
out and fallen down and hydroflex is in the bag yelling at them
and he just starts laughing and Rivers's like, it's not funny.
And he's like, we're being threatened by a bag.
Well, he actually says I haven't laughed for a long time.
Yeah, that's true.
And I mean, it doesn't, doesn't, maybe it's in deep breath as
early as deep breath where Clara tells him not to smile.
Because, you know, I'll tell you when to smile.
Because he's smile, he's a bit scary. has the line where he says
don't look in the mirror.
It's fury.
So that is a fun thing to see, but he still gets to be irascible
but in a more comedy way.
Like, I think we get it right.
I think Carol singers will be criticised.
Criticised. absolutely.
Absolutely.
Very warm irascibility.
Yeah.
Poor Carol.
Even that really early moment where he just sort of half turns to
Matt Lucas and says, do you still really think I'm a surgeon?
So great.
No, but doesn't he say, this might be an alarming question.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Don't make puddles.
Dont make puddle.
You might need a mop.
Because Moffatt is at hard a sitcom rider.
And even when he's doing Doctor Who, it's most serious, you know
the characters that he creates are sitcom characters who behave in
predictable ways, they're well characterised, we know how they're
going to respond to things and that's part of the fun and
subverting that or playing with that or reinforcing it is what he
does.
And 2 of the principal roles here.
You have Matt Lucas, a comedian, and Greg Davies, a comedian.
You know, but Matt Lucas playing it a little bit for laughs, but
not, it's kind of weird.
You know, he's not winking at the audience.
This character is just a bit silly.
And Greg Davies is sort of, you know, from the Graham Crowden
school of villainy, that I have no problem with that whatsoever.
Yeah.
No, he's perfect at Christmas, I think.
And I also think too, there was a time where people said we're
really kind of out of ideas as far as Christmas is concerned.
And I think that this gets it completely right.
It's literally on the planet Zog, isn't it?
Like it's, you know, 2 name kind of vaguely Latinate planet in the
54th century or something Christmas day.
Like we just literally don't care where it is.
And, and, you know, we have sort of Christmas decorations and
stuff and we have the spaceship that looks like a Christmas bauble
and we have snow and stuff and I think that's kind of all you
need.
I think the only person from the actual planet, which all we know
is in the future and it's a human colony.
We just get the surgeon who turns up and then we never see him
again.
I think that's the only person on the planet we see. other than
Matt Lucas.
Yeah, yeah.
We literally don't care, do we?
No, no, actually, I was one of those people who was complaining
that every 13th episode of Doctor Who was about Christmas.
But around about the time of the snowmen, I think Stephen got it
right where Doctor 2 stopped doing Christmas on Christmas Day and
just did a Christmassy feeling.
Obviously, last Christmas accepted because that had actual Santa
Claus in it.
But the snowman and this, they feel right for Christmas without
being about Christmas.
Yeah, I guess the snowman has the advantage of being sort of set
in Victorian times where most of our Christmas iconography comes
from...
Yeah, here we're in the 54th century.
That seems less Christmassy on the face of it.
But it's just sort of terrific that it happens.
I'm really, you know, we're releasing this on Christmas Day and
the Christmas special is back and I'm really happy about that.
I think it is a great thing.
And it makes Doctor Who big, I think.
Jack, how old were you when you saw this?
Ooh, we're coming out with the big questions, are we?
You can fudge it a little if you want.
I was in university if that makes people feel a little better.
Okay, fine.
I was just wondering how, you know, kids, like the teenagers would
have responded to something, which is essentially a love story.
It's a romance.
And in its early segments, it's a screwball romance.
But as with all screwball comedies, the romance is at the heart of
it and that's sort of what gives way.
I remember really enjoying it.
I think I was in my 2nd year of uni and I really love series 9.
I love the darkness in it, particularly at the end of it.
I loved Heavensend and Hellbent as well.
And I remember finding it a really wonderful reprieve.
I think for me, um, I, I, been enjoying Stephen Moffat in this
very serious big thesis statement register where he's coming up
with these very big statements about what the show is and what the
show can be and what it could be.
And it's really quite nice to see him kind of, not retreat
entirely into his comfort zone, but he's in a much more familiar
register of like, it's essentially a series of romantically linked
sketches.
It's a lot of farcical scenarios.
They barter the head of a dead king to his own servants.
The whole premise of the multiple husbands is kind of very space
sitcoming as well.
Don't forget the falling through the floor.
Falling through the floor.
It's all very frothy and very silly and very witty, and there are
lots of little clever jokes throughout it, and it is very much
guided by that romantic chemistry that Alex Kingston, Peter
Capaldi have.
I remember finding it really nice to see the show embrace that
because up until this point, there had been this kind of anti
romantic streak in the doctor, like overcompensating for the David
Tennant and Matt Smith year.
So it was quite nice to see him in this much cosier, cuter
register.
I think wasn't there that quote that Stephen Moffatt emails
Russell T. Davis saying he'd got Alex Kingston and Peter Capaldi
for a special and he said, oh, think of it, the sex storm that's
coming.
Good advice always.
It is really wonderful, isn't it?
We'll get there, but they never actually kiss, but the romance
stuff is really good, and it's actually the one really sort of
heartbreaking thing.
We still not talking about the last 10 minutes.
Because what we get here is something that we never get to see, and
it's a very strange depiction of what rivers, life is like
because...
So we learn here that she's 200 years old.
We know that we go straight from here to the story that she tells
the 10th doctor when she's sort of chained herself to the wall or
whatever in silence in the library in Forest of the Dead.
So we know it's it's the end coming.
And what doesn't seem to have happened is that the doctor doesn't
seem to have made her better. that when the doctor's not there, her
life is sort of weird and kind of a bit bad, you know, she's
marrying people in order to get diamonds off them.
She, you know, hires a surgeon to sort of scoop all the brains out
of Greg Davies head and stuff.
Like, it does seem strange.
Yeah.
I really like this depiction because we got hints of it in the
Matt Smith era if Matt Smith was in the other room.
You know, she, that's when, you know, she makes a Dalek beg for
mercy or shoots all the silence and says to Rory, don't tell him
indoors, basically.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And just the sort of anguished look on Peter Capaldi's face when
she's going through all this.
And I think it's then a bit of a strange choice where, you know
she originally explains she's getting the diamond because it was
stolen from other people and she's going to return it, but then
she's just going to sell it.
And I think I think maybe we needed another twist there where
she's like, and then I'll give the money to the people.
What do they need a diamond for?
you know.
But that being said, I think the uncomfortableness is kind of a
bit more true to the character.
Yeah.
Because, you know, she is a trained assassin.
And I think it's the game that the episode is playing in the 1st
half because it, the 1st half of the, well, most of the episode is
built on the idea that we're seeing the bits of Rivers life that
the doctor doesn't see because she doesn't know he's there.
And it kind of posits this idea that that river song has secretly
been stringing the doctor along the entire time.
And like, you know, she says, you know, there's the joke about him
being damsel, because he needs a lot of rescuing. when there's
that bit a little bit later where she says he's nobody special but
terribly useful every once in a while.
And it does feel, in some way, a kind of response to a line of
criticism to the character of her song, which is that her life is
entirely built around the doctor and she's entirely codependent
and he is the centre of her life.
And this kind of flips that a little bit to be like, no, actually
he's the help.
He, you know, he helps me do the things I want to do.
And he kind of gets away thinking, oh, she's a lovely, kind
beautiful person.
I love the idea that she is constantly sneaking into the Tartars
taking it away.
Oh, yeah.
Just dropping it back.
And the doctor never finds out about it.
And even that thing where the doctor says, well, what if he found
out about it now, you know?
And that also gives us the opportunity to do that incredible thing
where he goes in there and properly does the bigger on the inside
of the outside speech, how he thinks it should always be done.
And that was so good.
Finally, it's my turn.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, it's, you know, like everyone is aware that everyone writing
the companion's 1st scene in the TARDIS has to do it and has to
find a way of doing it.
And, you know, you have Donna who sees the inside of the Tartars
1st and comments on how small it is outside and you have Martha
saying it's made of wood and you have that wonderful scene with
Rose.
Like there are so many ways of doing it, but it's a thing that you
have to do.
And so having the doctor know that rule as well.
And actually, it makes up the fact that River, to my knowledge, has
never had that scene.
We've never seen that.
And also, it's that twist on the companion thing that the new
series does where travelling with the doctor makes you a better
person.
It makes River a better person when she's with him, but is she a
better person when she's not with him?
I really like that.
Yeah.
And the one thing I will quickly say on that joke is that it is
one of those scenes and one of those jokes that you think, how has
this never been done before?
It's such a fun idea.
But the great button on it is that he does his grandstanding and
he does his little speech and then River pulls open a panel that
reveals a whole cabinet of alcohol that he's never seen before.
Or the button, he says you might want to press that button and she
says it clears the weight tank.
Oh, on deck seven.
Yeah.
Yeah, and he's like, best to avoid decks.
Does he know anyway?
He leaves the brakes on.
So good.
I think my favourite line in that speech from Capaldi, and I'm not
going to get it verbatim, but it's like, the laws of Euclidean
geometry have been scribbled on, torn up, and then snogged to
death.
He's been practising it in the mirror.
That bit where River is saying, like, she's just using the doctor
the big finish audios kind of play with that, and she'd started
making them already at this point.
Alex Kingston thought after, um, name of the doctor.
She's like, well, that's it.
Like, I've done death, I've done post-death, not going to invite
me back again.
So she started making these with Big Finish.
And one of the recurring themes in the big finish plays is people
trying to get at the doctor and her convincing them he's not as
important as they think he is.
Right.
And, you know, it all culminates in that beautiful speech she
gives about, you know, you don't expect the stars themselves to
love your back.
It's so good, isn't it?
Because...
And because she's starting to say the thing. because it's a sitcom
and because it relies on her having insufficient information.
And so she's saying all this stuff about there's no way he is
stupid or sentimental enough to be here right now just because I
need rescuing.
And it becomes clear that all that stuff that she said about the
doctor and why the doctor's not important and how the doctors are
occasionally useful is all defensive because she thinks that the
doctor doesn't really love her.
And she's wrong about it.
She's wrong.
Yeah, it's written all over Peter Capaldi's face.
It's quite beautiful.
I feel like it's the kind of performance.
That as good as Matt Smith is, he could never give that kind of
performance simply because of age and personal lived experience.
And, you know, Peter Capaldi's doctor has that big chunky ring on
his wedding finger because he refuses to take off his real-life
wedding ring.
Didn't we see the close-up of it in his announcement video?
Yes, exactly.
You know, and so Peter Capaldi is a massive romantic and there's
that video of him being told at a convention that he's a silver
fox and having to ask the interviewer what a silver fox is.
And getting terribly embarrassed to say, well, I think my wife
must think so.
And he looks at her the way we all want someone to look at us.
And it's one of the things where her relationship with Matt Smith
Rivers's relationship was always played for laughs because there
was the age difference.
And they've shied away from giving the 12th doctor any of that
kind of sexual chemistry with his companions just because of the
age difference again.
In fact, early on they were making some icky jokes about old man
and how old he is, which just didn't really fly.
But here they're able to move that on from being a screwball
comedy to being an actual romance, just because he and Alex
Kingston look age appropriate, look right together, and have that
level of sophistication, where they can actually play it as a
proper romance..
River has that line where she's like, hush, mummy and daddy are
talking, which, which, which, I imagine works a lot better with
Peter Capaldi than Matt Smith?
Although that would be funny with him.
Oh, my comedy cutaway.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mummy and 2nd husband at all.
So I think Ramon's only the husband just to justify the plural, I
think.
I think we want just more than 2 husbands if it's going to be
called husbands of River Song.
Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
So now we have three.
And also, you know, it's a matter of if Ramon's around, you're
going to, yeah, yeah.
That scene where, like, he's reacting to them kissing and kind of
you know, dismissing kissing is something where there's not a sort
of lot of variety.
You just the one thing.
That's really great.
And he, you know, just his constant reaction to her extra
husbands.
I guess maybe the extra husbands are, like, a kind of symbol or a
you know, an epitome of this weird different life that she leads
that he's completely unaware of.
Even the gag at the end before the opening credits where he says, I
think I'm going to need a bigger flow track.
Which again is super brilliant because everyone was doing flow
charts of how the relationship between the doctor and river
intersects, you know, throughout the different episodes.
But it's also a reflection of that.
She's married to the doctor and the doctor is all different
people.
So she's had multiple husbands.
She just, yeah.
Yeah, I do think one of the really nice details about the husbands
of River song in particular.
Because, you know, by this point, River song's timeline on
television alone is so complicated and so nonlinear that it is
hard to keep track of.
And the episode is constructed, it's very conscious of where this
falls in rivers, personal timeline, and it does kind of, uh
position it through a lot of very careful lines of dialogue, but
it doesn't, it also doesn't get bogged down too much in, you know
the last time we met, we did this, we did that, uh, it does
because you were in Manhattan, you're about to go here, and it
tips its hat to where she will be going back too.
In fact, there's a line very, very early on when he 1st meets her
and doesn't even know who she is because she's wearing the cow and
he says new suit, new hair car, which is a quote from Forest of
the Dead.
And I wondered why that came in.
And I guess it comes in because then she gets to react to his
actual suit when when the date happens at the end of the episode.
But it does for those of us who are watching, put it in a
particular place straight away, I think.
Yeah, yeah.
I think the detail, uh, that mo, which is, it's very Stephen
Moffat, um, but again, not to, not to jump ahead too much, but
right at the end, uh, Alex Kingston just says, do you remember
that time there were 2 of you, which is a reference to uh, one of
the series 6 minisodes, I think.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Good night last night.
Bad night.
Yeah.
Yeah, from the DVD.
Yeah, so this is, and she alludes to it.
I mean, the script alludes to the fact that they've occasionally
arranged dates on durelium before, but the doctor's cancelled.
And, you know, Moffatt is an inveterate recycler of his own staff
and his own ideas and, you know, Sally Sparrow, for instance, is
perhaps the most obvious example of that.
And so he's not going to not do something because he's done it in
a DVD extra. particularly because when he does this, it's so
amazingly good.
Yeah.
Is it worth talking about how, I don't know how much we want to
talk about this, how this was originally going to be Stephen
Moffat's intended last episode?
So we have been talking about that over the last few episodes of
series 9 that this is him winding up the River song Arc and
actually kind of going out where he comes in because when Silence
of the Library and Forest of the Dead go out, we know that he's
the next showrunner.
Yeah, already.
And so that's kind of the start of his era.
And obviously it's the start of his era because we're getting that
picture from River of what the doctor is going to be like in the
Matt Smith era and the Capoli era.
And so he is very definitely winding up something that needed to
be properly finalised and kind of closing the circle, I think.
And so this is his kind of victory round, isn't it?
You know, with heaven sent and then hell bent, you know, following
up his triumphing day of the doctor, both in the Zygon episode and
in the season finale, and now just coming back for a romantic
comedy, which is also where his career starts.
And it's also from a sort of writing and production point of view
Chris Chibnell has already been approached as his successor.
So Stephen Moffat has gone, okay, Gallifre's back, and we know
where it is.
Clara has left the show.
We've wrapped up the river song story.
Here is your blank palette.
Yeah.
And then, of course, he has dinner with Chris Chibnall.
And so the BBC have already sounded out Chris Chibnall, and he
says, yes, I'd love to take over when Stephen finishes.
Didn't tell him when Stephen was finishing.
So he has dinner with Chris Gentleman says, so can you take over
for Sirius 10?
And Chris Chipnell says, I'm making Broadchurch season three?
That's when everyone involved kind of goes, oh, maybe we should
have confirmed schedules with each other.
But even without that, there was going to be a break.
Capaldi injures his knee during the Zygon 2 parter and has to go
in for surgery, which I think puts him out of filming for 8
months.
So there was always going to be a long gap anyway, but I think it
was more that it was going to be a year rather than a year and a
half .
Yeah.
I mean, this is the longest gap between episodes in New Who, is it
not?
Up until this point.
Yeah.
Yeah, 365 days between the same mysterio.
Yeah.
Yeah, and it does affect series 10 because series 10 can't really
do anything.
I mean, he's gotten our doll and he's got messy still to do stuff
with. and they get an arc and they get to be kind of concluded in
a sort of satisfactory way.
So there's that.
But in a way, I think there's something interesting coming up
about how Moffatt works when he doesn't have this sort of big plan
and this massive toy box and stuff.
And it actually, I think, probably has an interesting effect on
what he produces.
Yeah.
I do think it's kind of darkly humourous how many times Stephen
Moffatt tries to leave because, you know, originally he was like
I'll do 3 seasons and then, you know, day of the doctor comes
along and all the contractual issues and Matt Smith may be staying
for series 8 and maybe not.
And then when Matt Smith decides to go, Moffatt's like, well, I
can't have someone who's like, I know how difficult it is to start
totally fresh.
I'll stay on for one more year.
Oh, God, we've got Peter Capaldi. stay on.
And then he's going to leave with last Christmas.
And, oh, Jenna's staying on.
I'd better stay on rather than really a 1000000000 years over a
1000000000 years.
There is a venerable tradition in Doctor Who of the producer being
persuaded to stay.
Yes.
I think my favourite version of that story was, I think they had
wrapped on series 10, uh, or were close to, and uh, he was like
all right, I'm done.
We're finished with series 10, I'm done.
And I think he was at a BBC party and they go up into him and say
Chris doesn't want to do the Christmas special. he's like, what do
you mean he doesn't want to do the Christmas special?
And then he's like, all right, give me 2 more glasses of red wine
and I'll convince Peter to stay on too.
Let's talk a little bit about the ship, which is called, I think
Harmony and Redemption. and the villains that we have.
So the villains are called 3 random nouns that don't seem to have
anything to do with anything.
The shoal of the Winter Harmony.
There's 2 definite articles in there.
Okay, it's not the harmony of the Winter Shoal.
No, I'm pretty sure it's the shoal of the winter harmony.
Impossible to tell.
They do come back, actually.
Immediately.
Yeah.
Yeah. and and then never again.
Like, I thought they were setting up a Chris Gibnall thing.
Right, right.
You know, but no, I think I think Moffatt learns with the
spoonheads that you can do CG with people's heads.
Yeah, that's what they remind me of.
And you could do weird head stuff.
And that moment where the guy reaches into his own head.
So the guy who comes up to her scratch.
So gooey.
Yeah, everything is gooey and then the thing that he pulls out is
really gooey and so River has to put a napkin under it in order to
take it.
And Capaldi's going, I wouldn't do that in a restaurant.
I don't know what that means.
Does he mean that he...
It's unhygienic.
Oh, I thought it might mean someone thinks there's raw meat
somewhere.
If there wasn't before, there is no.
It's great.
That guy does that stupid voice, though.
Yeah.
I think he's got scratch?
He's called scratch.
Yeah, yeah.
And he's got a really sort of weird and definite look, but as you
alluded to before, Brendan, it is Mancini's restaurant, isn't it?
From Deep Bread.
Yes.
And we have the moment where we look around and discover that
they're all scratch, you know.
So he is, as we said before, recycling his own ideas a little
bit.
But of course, he's not the best villain in the scene.
The best villain in the scene is the splendidly camp concierge.
Hemmy.
Oh, Fleming.
Fleming.
Yeah, Fleming.
He is amazing.
That dialogue.
There's something because it's not just that she wants to murder
Hydro flags.
It's also that she seems to be sort of hanging around with the
most evil people in existence.
And I think one of the reasons they're evil is just for plot
reasons, so we don't have to save them at the end.
You know, so we're quite happy with them crashing on Derelium and
everyone's dead and we don't have to kind of worry about that.
So I think there's a very simple sort of say Wadi and we don't
need them anymore, but we give a moral reason for kind of killing
them.
Yeah, I think the doctor actually says he has a line at the end
where he's like, oh, and I think if anybody on board that ship
probably wasn't worth saving anyway.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He says it to Alphonse at the end.
But he also says it to River.
He says there's not one person on the ship who is worth you and
she says the same thing to him.
But, you know, these are very evil people.
And the way that Fleming is described as evil is sort of sort of
weirdly racist in a way, because it's to do with the way that, you
know, his species reproduces.
It's that just tremendous, you know, how are the twins of, very
well, still digesting their mother.
It was a lovely service.
Yeah, so good.
Like all of that stuff is really funny and they're really sort of
gross and horrible.
Basically, every villain this episode is just some kind of ick.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And we have that dialogue, which is just ludicrously over the top
you know, even the people who are serving the dinner have to have
lots of confirmed slaughters, so we don't have to worry about
that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's not like platform one.
Do you know what I mean?
Where all the rich come and then there are poor people who we have
to sort of care about.
We hate all of them.
They're all murderers.
They're all bad, and so we can kill them all at the end.
And that's just the nice people.
And there's that great line where River says something like, you
know, en-suites are reserved for planet burners, do try the fish.
So much fun.
Well, we all know Jim the Fish.
That's the other thing.
We do get the scene where we synchronise diaries, sort of, don't
we?
But it's it's Fleming going around just reading it out.
And apparently there was a film with a crash of the Byzantium.
Which, uh, would have been great.
Yeah.
I'm Angels.
But it is when they are in the in the dining room, and they have
that little scene at the table where the episode begins to
signpost that the tone is slightly shifting. because you do have
that moment.
And again, it's one of those Stephen Moffatt things that is like
you know, a very pithy and beautiful in a very concise way where
she mentions that her diary, you know, is almost out and the man
who gave her the diary is the kind of person who knew how many
pages you would need in a diary.
Because it does the thing that Moffat always does, which is he
fixes it.
We think the story is going to have a bad ending and he finds a
way to fix it.
And the way that he does that in the 1st story that we see River
Song in is by having the doctor in the future.
Give River the Sonic screwdriver.
And use it to save her so that she can be uploaded to the virtual
reality that's at the heart of the planet.
And, obviously, we see that moving into place gear.
But he does more, I think, to fix it, doesn't he?
So we get the dialogue saying that river is 200 years old.
So we, this isn't a life tragically cut short.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Um, and also we have had in, I think it was let's kill Hitler.
She makes a comment that she can make like minor alterations to
her physical appearance.
Like, you know, I'll knock off a few years over a few decades and
keep people confused or something like that.
Yeah, that's my philosophy.
You do it so well, darling.
Yes, yes.
And I think also where the doctor starts to fix it is once he
realises that river was bluffing with all that stuff about him not
being important, there's no further judgement of her actions.
Because she doesn't have a TARDIS, she has to make her way in the
universe.
And...
Regardless of her reasons for why she's married Hydroflex and
whatnot, he is a genocidal maniac.
But I mean, I mean, the thing.
There's no way to talk about Stephen Fry.
But I think the thing is that the doctor realises that he has
allowed River to believe that he doesn't love her.
Yes.
And so it's down to him, you know.
So that final 10 minutes is him making up for it.
Isn't it?
You know, yeah, so he takes the diamond, he convinces Alphonse to
build the restaurant.
He then tries to get a preservation. okay, well, in 4 years, he's
like, oh, fine then.
I'll come I'll come back.
It's such a splendidly moffat thing leading into that.
We've never had the action sequence before, where the doctrine
companion leap into the TARDIS and shut the doors on a crash
that's about to happen.
Feel it inside, and then move on in time to, they open the doors.
There's nothing there.
They set something in train.
He just like moves to lever very slightly.
You get very slight tartis wheezing and groaning.
He opens the doors again, and you're aware, you think you will
be.
And it's really nice.
It's really Stephen Moffati leading into a very quiet Stephen
Moffatt moment.
It reminds me a little bit of the beginning of Hellbent, where we
have that story where different groups of people come to the
doctor until the doctor manages to overthrow the government.
It like a short story.
Like it has an absolute short story structure.
So that 10 minutes at the end is almost something separate.
And you can imagine him just writing that.
But that's the final night that they have.
Oh, and I think, Brendan, you're quite right.
Just talking about that sequence, I love the idea of the doctor
just giving somebody the most valuable diamond in the universe.
He just says restaurant.
It's a restaurant to happen.
But I think you are right, because there's that bit where, you
know, the Tartar goes haywires and it lands and he picks up the
diamond and kind of, she mutters to himself, marry the diamond, and
he makes that choice to end his story with her.
And there's all throughout the entire Moffat era.
There's always been this through line of the doctor will do
anything to even in this story, he's, you know, he will do
anything to avoid endings, and then he makes the choice himself to
proactively and decisively end the story with the woman he loves.
But then that final line is just unbelievable and it's Moffat
doing what he always does, that her last night is 24 years long
and that they will spend those 24 years together.
Watching this last night and leading up to that scene, I thought
to myself, I'm so glad that we don't do these Christmas episodes
as commentaries anymore because no one needs to hear me ugly cry
and sob for the next 20 minutes.
That ending always destroys me.
It is so, it is so beautiful.
It's from like the scene earlier with her thinking she doesn't
love him.
That gets me.
But what was it last night?
I think it was it was from, it was from the moment where she's
saying, you know, you always change things.
You can always, and he, and he's playing it like, no, no, tomorrow
morning, you're off to the library.
And that's a recurrent theme this season with Clara and Face the
Raven.
Yes, but but it's so good because she says you always do
something.
Tell me how I'm going to get out of this.
And by that point, he's already scanned her with the screwdriver.
And I think I only properly registered that this time through.
I've watched this over and over again.
But, you know, he gives it the screwdriver.
And we get the silence in the library music from Murray at that
point.
Clem Murray.
Yeah, yeah.
And then he sort of waves at her like an idiot. that's him
scanning her for the purposes of uploading her.
So he has already found a way out.
He clocked that.
I never noticed that.
And then, of course, he's already thought of a way of getting out
of it because it's 24 years.
It's not the last night.
She doesn't have to go off to the library in 8 hours.
She's got 24 years and she's spending them with him.
Yep, Yep, absolutely.
And something else I love about this scene is it sort of, it
repurposes a bit from Mummy on the Orient Express when Clara's
trying to talk about how she feels about ending their friendship
and he's like, can I talk about the stars now, please?
And River keeps trying to talk to him about change it, change it
change it, and he's explaining how the music is made.
Yeah, you know.
And the difference being that, you know, she doesn't try to stop
him.
But the thing we, I think we sometimes forget about river issues.
She is basically human with Time Lord element.
She's not a time lord.
She has real feelings and real emotions.
However, she might try to mask them to protect herself.
And Alex Kingston plays that vulnerability so beautifully.
And even though it would have been breaking the rules, as it
were.
I do deeply regret that we never got a story with her with Jodie
Whittaker.
Yeah.
I mean, I do think that this closes the loop and we can't have her
back. totally.
And and then the other thing that I think is really good is that
it's a story, isn't it?
And we end with, and they all lived happily ever after. and we
have river reinterpreting that for us because as a human.
She knows that happily ever after doesn't mean forever because
there's never forever.
You know, everything ends at some point.
It's not something the doctor would understand, but it's something
that she understands.
And 24 years with the person you love is more than is granted to
many of us, I think.
Yeah, yeah, I've been on dates that felt like they lasted 24 years
and they weren't as beautiful and romantic.
I can tell you that.
But it is such a beautiful bit of writing where that ending
couples itself thematically a little bit with last Christmas, the
doctor invokes, you know, every Christmas is last Christmas, and
that for a moment, it looks like it's suggesting the doctor took
kind of the wrong meaning from that in this kind of grim way.
And then and then Rivard says, you know, that has the wonderful
line of, you know, happily ever after, doesn't mean forever.
It just means time.
Little time.
And it's just, oh, it's gorgeous. beautifully written.
And again, it's a recurrent theme this season.
Like we were saying earlier with Clara and Face the Raven.
Clara gets the long way round, so does River.
Yeah.
Well, new listener, that's all the time we have for now.
We'll be back for Christmas in July and the return of Dr
Mysterio.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us on our website, flightthroughentirety
com, where you'll find all our social media links, as well as
links to our other podcasts, including the 2nd great and bountiful
Human Empire, Startling Barbara Bain, Maximum Power, and Untitled
Star Trek Project.
Now say it well drunk.
I am drunk.
Until next time, remember that when the wind stands fair and the
night is perfect.
When you least expect it, but always when you need it the most
we'll be here, saying how tiresome it all is.
Thank you very much for listening, and good night.
Good night.
That was Flight through Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Peter
Griffiths, Brendan Jones, and Jack Shanahan.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lann.
This episode, he finds a way to fix it, was recorded on the 6th of
December 2023 and released on Christmas Day.
FTE won't be back until Christmas in July next year.
But we will be back before then in a newly bigenerated form as 500
year diary, with new people, new ideas, and new takes on the world
of Doctor Who.
We look forward to seeing you there, and have a Merry Christmas.
Oh, I'm gonna cry now.
Like, it is the thing where I literally pre-cry, and there are a
few TV things that even thinking about them will make me cry.
I'm not going to mention Jurassic Bark.
Yep.
But this, like, and it was this sort of thing I hadn't seen it for
ages, I knew it was coming up, like someone posted a link on
Facebook or something and I followed it, and I just thought, this
is kind of the best thing ever.
He's really good.
And writing romance is just his absolute thing.
While I realise you will never watch Babylon 5 and don't even know
what that is.
What are you doing the Babylon 5 podcast?
Yeah, don't even say that.
There is a character in that who basically at one point is killed
and then revived.
And because there is a prophecy surrounding him, he knows he has
20 years to live.
And that's it.
Well, what about what about Captain Pike?
Well, yes, similar, similar, similar kind of thing.
And so the last episode of the series is set 20 years after
everything else, and it's about him preparing for his death.
And there is a similarly... a couple of sort of bookended moments
with him and his wife realising that the end is now.
And it involves a sunset.
I think there are some similar shots here.
So Douglas McKinnon may have seen it.
Yeah, it was a bit for 90s sci-fi.
Sorry.
There he is.
And it's just like, oh, gels.
Gels.
I'm coming to the conclusion.
Okay.
Have you seen good omens?
I've seen the 1st 2 episodes.
Okay.
And it did seem, it did, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Someone told them to lay off the journey.
Maybe someone had just watched the Santaran stratagem and said
never again.
But he is doing it again years later.
Purple gel.
He single-handedly ruins listen because he doesn't understand the
script.
Makes me so gross. we finished?
He had a big Christmas that year because he did this.
He did Husbands of River Song, and he did the Sherlock Victorian
special that went out not long after.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That was a Christmas special, wasn't it?
I thought it was a New Year's, but I got big Robbie.
I think it was New Year's special.
Yeah.
Which we know are inferior to Christmas specialty in every way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you, Christian.
If you do want to cut that bit about Douglas McKinnon, I'll just
say.
So it wouldn't surprise me if Douglas McKinnon had seen the finale
of Babylon 5.
And also, doesn't he use a lot of?
I think God wants us to say this.
Look, as Katie Manning would say.
I'd love to see the cut of this where it's shot like time heist.
Just in a deep green gel.
Yeah, yeah.
It shot like a pressure point.
Exactly.
Time Heist follows the Blake 7 rule.
You can shoot on the same set and pretends it's a different level
as long as you change the gel.
Works for Wild Blue yonder.
Yeah.
Well, that's true.
Yes, wild green yonder in places. green on it, yeah.
God, that was good.
Wasn't it great?
thinking about it.
Loved it.
Yes.
Amazing.
I was I did the a commentary with Joe for it.
Yeah, this morning.
And there's so many times already.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, I was trying to schedule that with Joe and he was, I was
like, can we do Sunday?
Anytime where I don't have work the next morning.
And he's like, no, it has to go out this week.
I was like, you know what?
Fine.
It's a good episode.
I'll do it Every block of time you tried to put in, he said, no
I'm doing untitled stuff.
But I was watching it just going, oh, God.
I kind of just want to watch this.
Yeah, so good.
It is so terrific.
Yeah.
Yeah, they've been both good, I think.
Yes, yes.
And I look, I can't see the last one dropping the ball.
No, I can't.
Oh, neither Christmas, from what I've heard.
Okay.
Oh, good.
But then again, Gemma Redgrave's back, so...
I'm emoting in the corner.
Yeah, yeah.
Anyway.
All right, well, we might finish up in that case.