Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flightthrough Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast on Constant Alert against the threat
of Shark Attack.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Todd.
I'm James.
And my knee, my name's Tegan Javanka.
I'd like to speak to the pilot.
Oh my God, Peter.
Well, we mostly took 2016 off after using up all the ideas we had
for the show, but now we're back for one last year and taking the
opportunity to make a completely fresh start.
So let's see how that goes as we discuss the pilot.
It was interesting listening to you last episode about the fact
that Nardal was put into that Christmas special and wasn't going
to be there because I can't believe that this would have just been
his introduction in sort of in the background doing things.
Like it's a bit of a nothingness, really.
And so I just can't imagine, like, I know he's not around a lot
because we've got to introduce Bill.
Yeah.
And she has to have 3 or 4 episodes because she's a one and done
companion. we know that coming into this?
I think we suspected that.
Yeah.
But it's just interesting seeing this introduction of Bill and the
sort of the beats that Stephen plays in this compared to other
companions that have been introduced over the last 6 or 7 years
because, like we had an Adol last week, he was suddenly just
there.
Yeah.
And if I look back at the last, maybe the last 4 episodes, like we
had the end of Clara, which was exhausting, but that dynamic had
been in the show for 3 years, and she'd been around.
So, and then we had River, and that was a different dynamic with
the Capaldi doctor showing different aspects of him.
And then we had Nadol last week.
And it's the only male Tartars team we've had since the keeper of
Trark and really.
I mean, yeah, we had Planet of Fire, but Turlo was out and Perry
was coming in.
And now we've got a different dynamic again, having to introduce
another companion, and we're just used to a certain rhythm and
there's certain beats in this where I kind of think, oh, I don't
know if I like that, but it's just a different flavour.
If you go back, look, even Clara wasn't introduced the normal
way.
Like, suddenly the doctor was after her.
You look at Amy.
We had young Amy first.
Look at Donna, like she was coming back, finding the doctor.
The last time we had a true companion who just sort of appeared on
the scene, was in fact with Martha.
And then all Doctor Who companions are sort of these high concept
people that just automatically, like people die and they just
accept it.
Whereas with Bill with this, over, and I'm sort of going ahead
with these episodes, she's just got a different kind of rhythm and
a different energy.
And, you know, in the 3rd episode she's really going to question
death.
But even here, it's like, you know, Dr. Watt, and all this, a
kitchen, I like sci-fi.
There's certain things where I kind of think, oh, is that
working?
And the whole rhythm of Peter Capaldi, like we've had, as I said, 4
different episodes with him having to play the doctor slightly
differently, and now he's getting written, as you mentioned, last
week, much more like Matt Smith, which I didn't pick up on.
And so I just find this episode really intriguing to see how that
rhythm plays out through the episode and her introduction and
everybody's slightly quirky between the doctor and Nardol.
Sorry to sort of monopolise this.
No, no, exactly what you mean.
This feels like Moffat, I think, has been freed up a little bit
because he's starting off his 6th series, a showrunner, and he's
essentially doing the same thing that he's had to do on which
Russell had to do many times, which is introduce an earthbound
companion.
He just adopts a really relaxed way of doing it.
And so Bill's 1st scene is almost like a casting scene.
He comes in and is cast by the doctor.
Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's almost as if that actually could have been her audition piece
in a way.
Yeah, absolutely.
Although probably her audition piece was that terrible friend from
the future.
But let's not go there just yet.
I think it's really nice that she's just a fairly normal person.
She's not one of these superhero companions who kind of like
blunders or fumbles their way into the Tartars.
She just kind of appears and the doctor is interested in her
rather than her being interested in the doctor.
He sort of takes her under his wing and has seen that she has
potential and just sort of wants to play with that.
And it's a really nice introduction for a new companion.
I think relaxed is the right way of putting it.
So that scene is really very unusual.
So the pre-credit scene is entirely just the one scene, and it
opens with that very kind of symmetrical shot, you know, of the 2
doors with the desk in between them.
We just hear the clock ticking, and then we just have this
dialogue, and it is a piece that's written to introduce these 2
actors and show us how they work together.
They're not meeting for the 1st time.
They both know one another.
So we never see the meat for the 1st time.
He's seen her in the lectures and has formed an opinion about
her.
She's been to the lectures and has formed an opinion about him.
We've got some jobs to do in this scene.
We need to reveal that Bill is a lesbian.
We need to reveal the doctor's new job and that the doctor's been
there for a long period of time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
All of that stuff we need to introduce, and it's done incredibly
well, and it's done in a way that's funny.
And I think the Dr. Watt thing at the end before we go into the
opening credits is that Moffatt is going to use Bill to kind of
undermine the doctor a little bit.
So the doctor has a tendency to be a bit pompous, and because
she's not really on board, she's not like the perfect companion
the way that Clara was, she's not born to be the doctor's
companion, almost, you know, from childhood, the way that Amy
was.
She's just a person that he mad.
And without all that high concept stuff without having the doctor
having gone back into her past to see her as a child or anything
like that, none of that, it's just a person that she met.
And so he's doing something new.
And I think it works incredibly well.
And there's the thing we go into the, after the opening credits, we
go into a lecture, and the doctor's giving a lecture about time
and he's saying that time, the passage of time is an illusion, that
time doesn't really pass when you're watching a movie, movies are
a series of still pictures, and that events, you know, that events
don't just sort of go in order, and that's the doctor commenting
on the way this is being told, because this story actually is more
than a year, isn't it?
Like we see Christmas.
We see summer.
Yeah, change of seasons.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
All of that stuff.
So, so what we get, instead of the usual thing, we get the
relationship between the doctor and build developing over months
and months, and we get just these little bits and pieces, these
little vignettes.
And it's not really until about 20 minutes into the episode that
it starts to be a normal Doctor Who episode.
It's like a biopic, you know, when you, you, you see a film that
someone's, someone's life and it just has little bits and pieces
from their life.
I guess the moment that I saw it really was just that scene where
she comes into the doctor's study and she sees that the Christmas
rug is now under the TARDIS and she comments on it and then we're
out.
Like, then we're out.
There's certain ways of storytelling.
Doctor Who does it sometimes and things like turn left and 73
yards where you just drop in on someone's life every so often just
to catch up on what's happened to them.
And this way of introducing a new companion is a really
interesting way of doing it because normally a companion has to
kind of jump into the doctor's life and accept so much and it sort
of begs belief a little bit, whereas the gentle way that Bill gets
to know him introduces us to this new format quite gently as
well.
And I really like that.
It's a very peaceful opening episode, which isn't trying to dance
on the head of a pen and do too much and be too crazy.
It's just saying, okay, we know what Doctor Who is.
We've done this before.
Let's have a nice solid stately doctor 2 episode.
Yeah, I think I think the beginning of it.
The way that it's told differently from a normal Doctor Who
episode actually bumps this up in my estimation.
This puts it among the best episodes that Moffatt has done.
Because what Moffatt's doing is another formal experiment, and he
does it with the 11th hour, right from his 1st episode, where it's
like, okay, I have to create this show Abinitio, you know, like
new, everyone's been watching it kind of thing, so they kind of
know what the deal is, but I've got a completely new cast and I've
got to introduce it.
I'm going to put the doctor on the back foot and I'm going to have
him save the world in 45 minutes without the title, so the Sonic
screwdriver.
Here he's doing the same thing.
He's saying, all right, let's pretend no one's watched this before
and I'm introducing the entire concept of Doctor Who for the 1st
time.
And so that's how he does it.
So it starts very, very differently.
It starts a little bit like an unearthly child where we're in an
educational institution and, you know, only this time it's the
teacher that's kind of unearthly.
Do you think he had charter on his mind a little bit when he was
writing this?
A little bit.
I mean, we have a picture of Susan on the desk. you know.
So we're introducing the whole concept, again, from the
beginning.
And I think just doing that.
Like, I'm so, I'm so on board with doing things in Doctor Who that
we haven't done before.
And you mentioned 73 yards, Peter, but this is like that as well
but it's much less high concept.
This is a way that you tell stories all the time on television, but
Doctor Who never does it, and it's great to see it try.
It feels like the introduction to sort of a miniseries on Netflix
does it?
Where they introduce the characters.
I also think it plays into the fact that Moffat probably, you've
always said that Moffat rebels against what he's done previously.
He probably felt the need to get away from a high concept
companion.
He had them with both Amy and Clara.
And so when he introduces Bill.
He probably recognised that he had to do the same thing that Joe
Grant did for the 3rd doctor, and he needed a companion, who just
warms the doctor up, and she does that constantly throughout this
episode and the season.
And she plays into that quirky kind of companion that we see every
so often, like Joe, like Dodo, like Romana 2, who just kind of
jolly their doctor up a little bit.
And I think that's such a nice thing to do for this whole season.
They kind of puncture their pomposity.
Yeah.
And it works because this has, like, Capaldi has absolutely nailed
it by now.
This is one of the best sustained performances as the doctor ever
this season.
Do you remember how Christopher Eccleston's doctor went back in
time and gave Billy Piper a bike for Christmas when she was 12.
Red bike for Christmas when you were driving.
Is that the empty child?
Yeah, yeah, that's Moffat.
Here, that wonderful moment, that incredible Christmas where she
comes, she brings the rug.
There's that hilarious line where he says, I didn't get you
anything and she says, well, it didn't cost very much.
But then he gets her something.
He goes back in time, takes photos of her mother after she says
she's got no photos of her mother, and in the very next scene we
see, her going through the photos and weeping, and we see the
photos, and obviously that will play into a terrible episode later
in the season.
But then she goes back into his study and the TARDIS has moved. the
rugs under the TARDIS, and clearly it's under the TARDIS because
he's moved the TARDIS to go back in time and visit the mother.
And it doesn't go anywhere.
Like we see her see what might be the doctor in the background, you
know, in the mirror taking the photo, but she never says anything
and it never comes up again.
And no conclusions drawn from it because that's how the story's
being told at the moment.
It's those shots.
Remember when the sort of the field of view pulls back and we see
a series of images, steel images from different points of time in
the narrative.
That's how the narrative's being told at this point.
I would have liked to have been party to that scene where the
doctor just turned up to Bill's mother and said, I'm just going to
take some photos of you.
I'm very impressed by this discussion because listeners, I work on
a much simpler level, which has nice intro sequence.
What's going on with Susan and shot very differently, but you've
just articulated everything that I kind of encapsulated in my just
lemme gas has gone from a 7.5 to a 7.75.
It's actually solidified, isn't it?
eight?
So it's actually gone up in my estimations.
But everything that you're saying is totally true.
And I think it's a testament to Stephen Moffat that 6 seasons in, 7
years or whatever.
He can still do this, whereas I think other people struggle.
Well, because he's not relying on it being a puzzle box.
This is incredibly straightforward.
It's very, very straightforward.
There's no kind of twists or loops.
There's no things that, you know, initially means something and
then later means something else.
He's allowed the episode to be funny.
Like there's some really great funny lines.
It's properly scary in all sorts of ways.
This guy, the director who is called Lawrence Goff.
What's he directed before?
So maybe Whitney Houston's I want to dance with him.
No, he all he's done for Doctor Who is this and smile, and he did
friend from the future.
Oh, well, that's one black mark against him.
Yeah, so that came out to introduce Bill. that was introducing
Bill, it came out like earlier in the year.
Cup.
Yeah, it was World Cup, wasn't it?
Yeah.
It's not very good.
It is.
When Moffatt writes the pilot, he actually kind of almost includes
that scene with the Daleks and the Movellans in order to kind of
make that scene canon.
But in fact, there's a moment where, like, Bill says, what is it?
And the doctor says it's a dalek and she says, what's that?
And the doctor says, oh, you know, it doesn't matter.
It just a dalek.
And in the episode that we see she smiles, and all I can think of
is that brilliant line in the opening scene where the doctor says
when most people encounter something they don't understand, they
frown, but you smile.
And that's, you know, that's actually better than what we see in
Friend from the Future, which is a bit too much, I think.
That friend from the future thing. was so appalling that I was so
put off by the character.
And I just kind of thought, oh, no.
And and then we were hearing like, oh, Nadols had to be introduced
because she's not very good and all this sort of stuff.
So I was on the back foot, you know, to begin with, has sort of
proved me wrong that you're not terrible, right?
But in fact, not always written in because Matt Lucas contacts him
and says, I really enjoyed working with you.
Can I be in more?
And so they, he asked to be written back in a bit of a Catherine
Tate situation.
Well, I can't believe that because he gave up other work to be in
Doctor Who.
He gave up on a pilot in America to be indoct.
Look, gave up on a pilot, shoot the pilot.
I think that's incredible because like I can't imagine this season
without him.
Yeah.
And the fact that how he is actually used, as I said, in these 1st
few episodes giving space for Bill, and then that team just sort
of takes off mid-season.
The reason I think that Friend from the Future doesn't work is
that it picks up on one particular aspect of Bill's character
which is quite funny in the context of the episode, the fact that
she's very literal.
And it just kind of focusses on that without any of the warming up
and the introduction to the character.
So she seems like a bit weird and a bit of an idiot in Friend from
the Future.
I think this episode kind of teeters on the edge of that a little
bit.
It goes to that well too often.
Yeah.
Like the Dr. Watt thing is brilliant.
Like that's perfect because that is what you would say.
And it just reminds you of the Christmas invasion, you know
tenants 1st episode.
We go into the credits with Jackie saying Doctor Who.
So having her say Dr. Watt and then going into the Doctor Who
title sequence, I think is kind of perfect.
But it takes too long, I think, for her to realise, you know, Nadol
and the doctor kind of are both going, wow, it's taking a long
time to get to.
It's bigger on the inside than the outside, isn't it?
As if she's a bit dim.
And of course, she absolutely isn't and makes it clear that she's
not.
And once she knows what's going on.
She asks a whole heap of really sort of pertinent questions.
There's that introduction, which I think really works well, but
visually, but makes her look like an idiot, which is she's at the
door talking about how they're trapped or the, or whatever they're
in the room.
And the camera pulls back and we see that she's actually in a
small part of a very large black space.
And then the lights come on.
That's really great, but it does, I think, it does make her look a
bit stupid.
I guess that's what I was saying earlier about the fact that
sometimes the beats in this kind of they're not the wrong beats
but they're a bit uncomfortable.
Like Dr. Watt is an uncomfortable thing because you're used to
Doctor Who, rather than Dr. Watt.
And that's another example of that.
So there's points in this where it's sort of like, what is that
dynamic?
What is that actual relationship, the energy, the energy is
different.
She brings a different energy, and we're not used to it, and it's
not a wrong energy.
It's just playing different notes.
And when you get into it, and as it builds in the next few
episodes up to knock, knock, where I really think it's like
working so well by then, it's absolutely brilliant, and you can
see what a wonderful companion she is for this doctor. and what a
great dynamic they have.
You can see that the, the, her puncturing his pomposity thing most
clearly in that 1st scene in the TARDIS, because you've got Murray
there, bizarrely using River Songs theme for some reason, we're in
the TARDIS, we've got the River Song theme, and the doctor's
making this sort of big pompous statement, and then the music goes
away for when Bill says it's like a kitchen, and the same thing
happens.
He does this, you know, this can take you anywhere in time and
space, blah, blah, blah.
Murray is going crazy.
And then she says, can I use the toilet?
And like that's a little bit of a kind of low hanging fruit that's
a little bit easy, that line.
And I did spend the time on the Movellan spaceship kind of worried
for her because she didn't seem to actually get the chance to go
to the toilet at that point.
Maybe she did and they just didn't mention it.
Maybe she went in Australia.
Maybe that's friend from the future part two.
No, I think if you're going to make companion goofy, they've got
to be funny and Moffat weirdly misses a couple of opportunities
here.
The kitchen remark is just weird.
The TARDIS doesn't look like the kitchen.
So why does she say it looks like a kitchen?
It needed a better punchline to that.
Yeah, yeah.
There is one piece of dialogue, which I think is absolutely superb
and it is in the bathroom at the thing in Sydney, which, and I
don't want to compromise Simon's Opsec, but it's really close to
where he lives, isn't it?
When they come to Sydney, they land on Simon's doorstep.
But there is no cafe there.
No, I know.
I know.
Like, I'm sorry, that's one of the things that irritates me about
mini TV shows when they put in things that aren't there.
They're just housing, Stephen.
Geography is always wrong in TV shows.
It's all fun.
But she says to the doctor, can I ask you a personal question?
And he says no.
And then she says, can I anyway?
And he says, yes.
Which I think is surprisingly funny for something so simple.
Yeah, like I think she is smart.
She does come off as smart and she kind of knows what she's doing
but it does risk making her look stupid, some of that.
Yeah.
But the time we get to the next episode, the 1st time for the next
episode, with them in smile.
Yeah, there's just an obvious chemistry there that's working so
well.
I love the fact that she gets to work with a Dalek contract, really
um, obliged to have a Dalek in the season and we get the
Mavellins.
Like, I just think that's so funny.
Stunningly true to June Hudson's original design.
Yeah.
So what's really good about this is we're around about halfway
through before it turns into a Doctor Who episode.
So it is an episode about Bill at University.
Oh, can I just say St.
Luke's University and Luke, who writes more of the New Testament
than anyone else, anyone else by words?
He writes 2 books, but they're quite long, he is famously a doctor
a physician, and so it's clearly named for that reason.
So it's a story about her at St.
Luke's University and her meeting Heather and that sort of
relationship and stuff and only turns into a Doctor Who episode
around about halfway through.
Maybe the moment it turns into a Doctor Who episode is that
brilliant moment where she's at the window talking about what
she's seen and she looks down and there's Capaldi running outside
the window and she turns around and the chair is still spinning
and we get the doctor's music and stuff and then it turns into a
Doctor Who episode.
So it takes a while.
That's where you get the fabulous line.
Why do you run like that, like a penguin with itself on fire?
Well, Armando Unucci said, you can't put anything funnier on
television than Peter Capaldi running.
And I think that's definitely true.
Pearl Mackey's also quite funny when she runs.
She all armed.
She is, isn't she?
Particularly at the end where she sort of arrives at the puddle.
Do you know what I mean?
And the doctor's been there and she's sort of kind of tired.
She does run it in a funny way too, doesn't she?
I like this episode becomes Doctor Who when they realise they've
got to escape in the TARDIS.
There is nothing more Doctor Who than that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
But it's doing a lot of work, like, you know, up to that point
too.
With, you know, having the doctor at the university, having the
vault introduced and them checking on that.
So there's that sort of mystery going on with the doctor and
Nardol, and then she's following him and all that sort of stuff.
It also introduces Moira.
Like it gives us a little bit of background to Bill.
Like we know that her mother's died and so she's being looked
after by Moira.
Moira is played by Jennifer Hennessy, who we last saw in Gridlock
as Valerie.
I knew I'd seen her somewhere else before.
Yeah, yeah.
Your cat mother.
She is really horrible.
And there's a there's a real attempt... casually horrible. just
sort of brittle and not very nice to be around.
Again, there's a brilliant line that where she gives Bill money
for Christmas.
And then she's looking in the mirror, the clothing that Bill's
bought her, and she says, I hope you haven't spent too much money
on this, and Bill says, like, looks at the money she's bought and
says, no, I think this will cover it. which I think is so brutal.
But the one where she goes to the bar and, you know, like, oh, I
just need some me time and stuff.
And so she's a little bit, she's kind of horrible and selfish.
She's like Jackie, but with no charm or charisma at all.
Does she go on?
Is she in it much for the rest of the season?
seen one more episode, is she?
Is she an extremist?
She's in the Pyramids trilogy.
Right, okay.
She one of the monks, yeah.
I thought she was going to be in more, really.
But then again, Stephen's not really interested in exploring.
No.
Yeah, you know, she never finds out that her foster daughter is
dead.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's just there to reflect an aspect of Bill's slush. not
meant to be a character in her own right.
No, that's fair enough.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
The other character we have is Heather.
She is astonishingly beautiful.
I think.
And her smile is really something.
There's that smile.
Yeah, yeah.
So there's that scene, the last time that they meet before she
gets captured by the puddle.
Um, and it's...
And it's summer, isn't it?
And we see that shot later where she just turns to Bill and
smiles.
And I didn't realise I watched this twice in preparation for this
recording and once this morning.
I only really realised this morning that we hear this kind of
whooshing sound of her being sucked into the puddle.
So when Bill kind of rounds the corner.
She no longer there.
But it's that last smile.
And it worried me a little bit as I was watching it because
there's that scene, the 1st scene just before Bill runs upstairs
into the doctor's study.
It's outside its night and they're there facing one another and
she's repeating.
Yeah, yeah.
And Bill says you're dead.
So I'm there wondering, well, spoiler alert, how does she come in
in the final episode and kind of rescue her?
How is that in any way a satisfying ending?
But that smile happens enough for zombie Heather.
We see her smile a couple of times.
And even when they say goodbye to one another, the actress just
lets there be a little bit of actual heather, you know, kind of
play on her face that you believe that it's going to be okay.
Well, it's because it's believable that she's regaining her
humanity, as in her humanity is resurfacing slowly throughout that
episode, and you see glints of it when she wants to take her away
and then they say goodbye, that you believe that she's spent all
the intervening, potentially aeons because when is that season
finale set?
Yeah.
Um, becoming Heather again?
Heather again.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I think like there's that moment where she appears.
There's a really beautiful shot.
You know, on the planet in the future, 23000000 years in the
future where we're on the planet with the weird wavy kind of...
They've gone to that quarry with the big sort of headstone up the
top in the background.
Yeah, yeah.
And there's a shot from the side where she's emerging from the
puddle and you can see the reflection of her face.
You know, it's a really kind of beautiful shot.
But when she sees Bill.
She smiles in recognition and she's pleased to see her.
And then, you know, she grabs her face and tries to pull her in
the water and that's all horrible.
But there's just enough of her there, I think.
And I also think just the moment they 1st made in the bar is great
where they just sort of stop and stand in front of one another and
they look at each other like I buy.
It's quite nice because they've made eye contact, then Bill makes
a move and Heather's already making a move.
So they've obviously just tried to cross each other's parts.
Yeah, it's lovely.
Yeah.
I guess this is one of the aspects of the episode for me, which is
less satisfying with the puddle and it's home motivation, the fact
that it's come to earth, and then it's choosing heather.
And then it's not totally evil.
Like Heather's initially like the pilot and appears to be evil
like with, you know, the jump scares with all the water in the
bathroom and all the chasing and that sort of thing.
Like, it's like, what is its motivation, why her?
Yes, I think it's great that we get all these smiles because then
you can retrofit the story back.
It's sort of like to me, has he gone and written the conclusion of
the season knowing where that's going and going, well, then how do
I get her out of being killed, spoiler alert?
But now I need to fit it back into this story.
So I guess I was just kind of going, does this make sense in my
head and the clogs that are turning and that sort of thing.
And I can see everything that you're saying, but at the same time
kind of think, well, why, except that we want Bill to live?
Yeah, I mean, he had he had the idea of her being saved at the end
whilst he was writing this story by Heather.
Yeah, it's not retrofitted.
It actually kind of inspires the ending of this episode.
I guess I just want more of an explanation.
Like, I always want more of an explanation, but then when I do get
an explanation, am I satisfied, is it just too much technobabble
you know, so sometimes it's better, less is more.
Maybe you just don't like characters who are a bit wet.
So.
So, twice the doctor talks about things rhyming.
So there's one time where Bill says you were supposed to give a
lecture on quantum physics, but instead you talked about poetry
and he says, well, they're the same thing they rhyme.
And Nardol asks the doctor how he can possibly be teaching Bill
everything and he says, well, because everything rhymes.
And I wonder whether that's an allusion to the fact that a lot of
the stuff that the sort of silly sci-fi plot covers has been
covered by the show before.
So the use of water, pouring off people, and puddles and things
obviously comes from waters of Mars, zombies, water zombies, which
worked incredibly well in waters of water.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I think it works really well. here.
And then the other thing is, of course, the lodger, where you've
got the Silencers TARDIS, is looking for someone who wants to
leave so that it can pilot it away and it decides on Sophie
remember?
So Sophie is going to be the pilot to take that TARDIS away.
It's looking for a pilot and it keeps killing all of those people
because they don't, you know, they don't work.
In a way, it's sort of shorthand because it's stuff that we've
seen before, it rhymes with something that we already know.
And your reflection, you never see what you look like.
Well, that's so Moffat.
That's absolutely Moffat.
And just think about it.
You're standing next to someone looking in the mirror. someone you
know You and someone else are standing next to each other looking
in the mirror.
That person always looks weird.
Yeah?
The person, your friend who's looking in the mirror with you kind
of looks weird because although that's the version of their face
that they're most familiar with.
It's the version of their face that you nearly never see because
it's flipped horizontally.
And so playing with that, I think, is really brilliant.
It's really moffety.
And I also think the shot, the way that it shot as if the puddle
is like a massive hollow under the, under the ground, that it's a
window up into the sort of upper world and there's a big void
underneath with Nicholas Briggs underneath going, pilot acquired
you know?
I tell you what, those effects have come on since TNG skin of
evil.
Well, I think that I think that looks really good.
And so the idea is that it's what a liquid spaceship that shape
shifts.
It's kind of like whatever we need to make this happen. fuel and
now it's a bit old.
Yeah, yeah.
Then why does it have the Dalek ship scorch marks?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Again, something we've borrowed.
So before this episode, did Mothite just watch like Tear of the
Autons, Remembrance of the Daleks, the Lodger?
I know what I'll do.
Yeah, well, I mean, because it's the sort of thing that it's like
Boomtown.
Remember how Boomtown is not at all a Doctor Who story maybe until
the last sort of 10 minutes and it has the thinnest possible
science fiction plot.
You know, it's like Annette Badland's going to blow up Cardiff and
surf off into space, you know, or something.
I've actually seen it.
Oh, I've got a vision right there.
And here, it is a very, very thin science fiction plot, but what
it does is it gives us the chance to gradually introduce Bill to
what the Tartars can do.
And one of the funniest lines, I think, is where Bill goes, oh my
god, is it a, have we travelled in time?
And the doctor says, no, we're just in Australia.
And so, you know, like it shows us what Doctor Who can do.
We can travel in time and space.
It introduces us to the Daleks, which I think is absolutely
brilliant.
Doesn't he say now we've travelled in time?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now we've travelled.
Well, in fact, well, they travel in time because the quarry is
23000000 years in the future.
So yes, it travels in time as well.
And we go and fight monsters as well.
So it introduces the show to her.
You know, in sort of 3 stages, I think, at the end.
But that, but that again is playing with our expectations.
We're so used to certain beats like that automatically with a new
companion, we're going to go through time and space to begin with
but initially we just changed location.
Yeah, actually change time.
So that's another thing where you kind of go, oh, that's a bit of
a different energy, a bit different vibe.
Well, in fact, normally a new companion's 1st story is set
entirely on earth.
Yeah, what it's actually doing what we see, the traditional
Russell T. Davis introduction to a season over a course of 3 or 4
episodes, you know, future past, back on Earth.
All in one goat.
Yeah, yeah.
In fact, we're going to the past.
The Dalek Mobel and War, presumably, is taking place around 1980
or something.
So we're going back into the past.
Or maybe it's the John Peel theory that, you know, Genesis of the
Daleks takes place in 1831 or something like that.
Like, it's some...
There are some things that are so stupid.
The only thing we were missing was a phone call back to that shrew
of a foster mother.
Yeah, yeah, she is terrible.
I thought this might be an 8.5. to horses, listeners.
I love listening to you talk yourself up.
No, no, no.
I think this is good, but you've just highlighted some real
strength of this episode, not only in performance, but in terms of
writing and what Stephen can actually do.
And again, this got an audience appreciation of 83.
And the better Capoldis often get like 8384 and it was seen by
6.68 million, the highest rate at episode of the season.
But it's a really good episode to come in on.
And there's so many strengths here with the team and the writing
and the direction and to give a different vibe of the season.
This is what we're going to be going with.
There's some red herrings, like, you know, would we get the
Movellins back?
Would Susan be coming back?
I found that really the shot of the focus on both River and Susan
I find quite interesting.
Yeah, it's hard to know what they're doing, isn't it?
Reverend Susan have a moment in that episode.
He looks at her.
He looks at the Susan photo when Bill asks why he's interviewing
her.
And I think that he is interviewing her to be someone who goes off
in the TARDIS with him.
Absolutely.
So what we learn, and there's a mystery, isn't it?
Like, we're kind of very familiar with it now, but we don't know
what's in the vault at the moment, and we know that he's pledged
to look after the vault and that he's been here for 50, 70 years
or something at this university looking after the vault.
And we don't know what's there.
And he's promised Nardol, and he's clearly tasked Nardol to kind
of keep him honest because he knows what he's like.
And so Nadol is a little bit older now, and he doesn't play it
quite as goofy and fun as he did in the Christmas special.
Does other people feel like that?
They actually had a conversation about that, Matt, said to
Stephen.
I think we need to tone this down.
We need to flesh him out because over the course of this season, if
we play, if I play it that way, that, you're going to hate that
character by the end of the season.
So he is kind of telling the doctor, like he tells the doctor that
he can't sort of go anyway, the doctor has to reassure him that
things going to be okay, that the psychic paper will kind of
inform them if someone breaches the vault, you know, the doctor
has to establish, like we go down to the vault, don't we, to
establish that, um, Heather's not after what's in the vault.
So one of the weird things about Nadal then is that Nadal is, I
think, the 2nd longest companion to be with the doctor by
duration.
He's been with him clearly for the entire time that the doctor's
been at St.
Luke's University.
So at least 70 years, the Nardol that we saw in The Return of Dr
Mysterio is much younger and much sillier and much more fun.
This one is creaking a bit, isn't it?
Yeah, this one's creaking in, which I just think is so funny
that's it. dropping his knots on the floor.
We don't see where he kicks it under the rug and nothing gets said
again because we're where Bill's point of view.
That's just for us.
You know, how did he get to be a person rather than just ahead?
Which is how he left?
He's doing that same smile for Bill that Matt Lucas does in Little
Britain in the sketch where the guy comes in and asks for
impossible books in the bookstore.
Yeah, kind of like just smiles at him, kind of...
It's really funny, isn't it?
Because she has this sort of look with the creaky noise of his arm
and he just sort of looks sort of weirdly passionate.
It sort of well played.
So he's the 2nd longest companion.
He's been with the doctor for at least 70 years, possibly Romana
travels with a doctor for that long, but we don't know.
And who's the longest serving companion?
Is it his closest predecessor handles?
Yes, it's handled.
He's with 100s and 100s of years.
My hand has just gone to my head, as you said this, because I
never really thought about that.
Thank God it wasn't that other squishy thing from last week.
I would have thought his longest serving companion was the veil
from...
Does they count as a companion?
There's a line in there, like about it being a companion.
A podcast and companion of death.
I think it was probably Dodo, or maybe that just felt the
longest.
But back to what you were saying about Nadol.
Yes, he's got a bit more gravity here and you see that throughout
play throughout the season and that character development is
something that I think plays really well into the show and always
does.
And I think that's a really good thing.
As James was saying, like, the fact that Matt Lucas could discuss
this with Stephen and Stephen could take it on board and actually
run with it really does work well because at the moment he's not
really annoyed by Nadal.
Like, you know, at the end of the season, like, you know, when
your day couldn't get any worse or whatever he happens to say.
It's just interesting seeing that dynamic and the way in which I
always love it in a show where you have a comedic character who
you just think does comedy, but then when the going gets tough
they get tough.
It a bit like Jackie. like you think she's whatever.
But when they're going, it's tough, she is there.
And this is the same with my adult.
That's the great thing about Nut, although he is a very competent
character.
He's weird and quirky, but he drives the plot. in a couple of
places in the season.
He was flying the Tartars last week, remember?
and he went to 12th century, Constantinople and ruled wisely for a
little while and stuff.
Like, he's sort of competent, although there is that thing where
you know, he's given the Sonic screwdriver to destroy all the
panels and I think Bill says something like, uh, you know, are we
safe?
And he says, well, I think that's down to Nardol, so probably not
you know?
He does that Pat Troughton thing from the invasion where things
blow up behind him and he runs down the corridor going, Oh, hoo.
He really does, doesn't he?
He even runs a bit like him.
Like, the sort of, oh, my, my pants are on fire.
So I think that's really good.
And I think also something that's not done enough is the show is
given a shape and a narrative by the Pertoy era.
So something happens to the doctor that changes the premise of the
show.
And so for years he's working on earth with unit and then he's he
sort of gradually goes back into space and sort of rejects unit.
And so mostly the show is just the doctor travels in time and
space except for those kind of 5 years or whatever in the middle
here, Moffatt has done a similar thing.
He said, now the doctor has been here for 70 years and he is now a
teacher at a university.
And we go back to that.
That's the premise of the show.
That's the doctor's job.
He doesn't travel in time and space. so much.
He's based here.
And there's a little bit of that in Russell's early stuff where
you know, he hangs around the power state with Jackie and and, you
know, Rose's family and things.
And Russell's doing it a little bit now in the most recent series
where you've got unit and you've got, you know, some people that
the doctor knows and stuff.
But here I think that giving the show a shape and changing its
premise is something that should be done more often, I think.
And it's interesting how similar it is, and the doctor has a home
base.
He has a goofy but competent new companion.
He has sort of a brigadier figure to spa with and to keep him on
track and he also has a master in close proximity.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I think I would have liked to have seen more of that throughout
this season.
I know I'm jumping ahead.
It sets it up here, but then how much of it do we actually get?
And I think I would have liked more.
And I think it comes back to how long we have companions for these
days.
I would have loved to have seen this introduction in this team in
half of last season, get all the introductory stuff out of the way
and then have them fully within this season.
I think in knew who, often for me anyway, one season is not enough
with a companion, but sometimes 2 seasons is too much.
It's almost like you need 18 months, but there's never an easy way
to separate that out or actually make that work in terms of the
beats of a season and how all that works.
I mean, if you look back at classic Doctor Who, many companions
really are in the show for just over a year or span 2 series, even
if they don't do the complete 2 series.
And even the earlier companions, you know, if you look at Susan
Vicki, Steve, Ben Polly, Victoria, Zoe, all do about 40 episodes
or thereabouts, like just over a season, and that's a good
amount.
And so here, I guess the one thing is that he introduces all this
stuff, which is great, but it's sort of like I want a little bit
more with this crew.
I want another 3 or 4 episodes of them.
But I think that's a good thing, though.
Do you know what I mean?
There's 2 times you can stop doing something, and that is before
everyone's sick of it, and after everyone's sick.
Welcome to Clara series 9.
Yeah, yeah. flights are entirety, to be honest.
But...
But here I think, you know, the fact that you've got this new
companion, you've given the show a whole new shape.
It's still able to tell the sort of stories that it really does
anyway.
And it does leave us wanting more.
You asked earlier, Todd, whether we knew that Bill was a one and
done companion, and I'm pretty sure that we definitely did, because
we do know at this point that Chibnil's taking over.
We know that Moffatt has agreed to do a year because Chibnall's
not ready. been persuaded to stay.
He's been persuaded to stay.
I think it works really well because Moffatt doesn't have a whole
heap of balls in the air.
Everything's kind of been resolved.
There's a little reference to Clara, which I think is really
effective at the end of the episode.
You know, which is when the doctor is persuaded not to do the
memory wipe on Bill and we get Clara's music.
Bill says, how would you feel if this happened to you?
And just for a 2nd we get Clara's music.
But that's the only kind of callback to anything that we've had
earlier.
That is also so nice because they've set up Bill as being a
spaniel who likes sci-fi.
And so she just knows that the mind wipe is coming.
I know what a mind wipe looks like.
I also love that great line earlier in the episode.
I know you're not much of a sci-fi.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's so good.
Yeah, so I don't know.
The new shape that the show gets at this point is something that
I'm really, really in favour of.
And I think by clearing the decks, by doing a new thing, by
raining it in a bit, he knows that he doesn't have seasons to kind
of follow up on staff, he doesn't want to set up too much for his
successor.
So it's a sort of constrained thing.
Yeah, he just goes in with a mission to make a season, a good
season of Doctor Who.
Yeah, and I think he really mostly manages.
I haven't gone as far ahead in my rewatching as you, Todd.
I am up to I've got to watch smile after this, actually, after we
record this.
So I'm not ahead at all.
And I do know that there are some episodes coming up that I'm not
hugely enamoured with, but what I do like is this version of the
show.
I think it's really interesting that you say that because, like
I'm much Empress of Mars.
I've watched that.
And seeing the dynamic of this crew, as I was saying, I would
really love them to have been in earlier.
But reflecting on the journey that we've had so far with the
Capaldi doctor, last year I was so surprised and how much of that
season I liked and how strong I thought it was, we were just
exhausted by the Clarodynamic in that last run of 4 or 5
episodes.
But then seeing the Capaldi doctrine and his evolution over these
seasons, how much I've actually enjoyed it to get to this point
with Peter.
And as you said earlier, he's just nailing it.
I know this is your favourite version of his doctor.
I really love last year.
I really like the balance between the narkiness and the comedy
perhaps a bit more than I thought I would, right?
But just seeing him go through the 3 stages of per twee, the 3
stages.
No, no, I... 5 stages of grief.
The 3 stages of perchway, there's 3 stages of Colin as well.
Here is like the 3rd stage, and I cannot express how wonderful I
think Peter Capaldi is in this role, and no matter what he's given
the dynamics, what he brings to the show, just underpins
everything so much.
He is just so good and and just seeing him work out that chemistry
with Pearl through this episode and the next few is beautiful to
watch.
I've bored people many, many times.
You have, James, it's true.
I know, yes.
I'm trying not to do it now, Peter.
Can you tell?
I love series 10 of Doctor Who.
It is my favourite series of the modern era.
Wow.
And I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's because of Capaldi.
Capaldi is my favourite doctor.
Yep.
I would have said modern doctor, but I think he's actually my
favourite doctor because he's never short of brilliant, despite
the stories around him often.
Often the show he's in can be quite, quite messy or lopsided, but
he always lifts every scene he's in, even when it's an overritten
script or a plot that's not quite shelling.
He is always brilliant in this role.
Like, I hear you in this.
Like, it's a Tom Baker thing where he will lift anything, any
scene that he's in and I'm with you because Peter is my favourite
doctor of the new series as well.
But I don't, like, I'm 9 episodes into this season, but I don't
think it's as strong as the previous two.
Like, that's, like, it's very consistent, but there's nothing that
I've loved like I've loved in the previous too, and nothing guests
that I've loathed as I've loathed as well.
But it's an interesting season because I think there is so much
great character stuff and performances.
But there's some stories where it's like, like, it's not quite at
the heights that I've experienced over the last couple of years.
It's really a juxtaposition which I'm sort of struggling with at
this point.
But this season also has a great ensemble cast.
Yeah.
Yeah, he's great in it.
Matt is great in it.
Fantastic.
And then you bring in Missy.
Yeah, on top of it, there's icing on the cake. it really it really
does work.
I think Paldi's so on point here and the entire episode is just
sort of simple and elegant.
And it's interesting that Motha was clearing the decks for
Chipnall, because I think this kind of episode is what Chipnall
was aiming for.
Chipnell so often just wants to go for a simple and elegant
story.
And totally, he often gets it quite right.
Pacing, he often gets wrong and it's almost never written as well
as you want it to be.
But this is the template.
This is what Doctor Who should have been going forwards and it's a
pity that we didn't get this from the next couple of years.
Well, in fact, what's kind of odd is that both Moffatt in his
final season and then Russell in his 1st new season are trying to
clear the decks are trying to change what Doctor Who can do and
are trying not to rely too heavily on stuff that it's done in the
past, are trying to kind of open it up and do new things.
And, you know, I guess that's a showrunner's role.
But it's pretty wild seeing Moffatt do it in his 6 season as the
showrunner after he's already the person who's written more Doctor
Who than anyone else ever and he's still finding kind of new ways
of doing it and new approaches to take.
I think it's it's pretty great.
Well, El Isra, that's all the time we've got for this week.
We'll be back next week to learn how the young people are
communicating these days in smile.
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 our social media links, as well as links to
all of our other podcasts, including our other Doctor Who podcasts
500-year diary, and the 2nd great and bountiful Human Empire.
Until next time, remember, you can always have both beauty and
chips.
We're doing it now.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
See you soon.
Ta-ta.
Good nights.
That was Flight for Entirety.
Sorry, Todby, it'll be Nathan Bottomley, Peter Griffiths and James
Selwood.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, Just a Person, was recorded on the 28th of July 2024
and released on the 15th of September.
Time for your occasional reminder that flights or entirety doesn't
end with its closing theme music.
Stay tuned after this announcement to hear, among other things
Todd's final score for this episode, and we'll see you next week.
Oh, right.
End of it.
So what we did mention was that Moffat again.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, as we talked about.
We didn't talk that much about gender politics in, um, uh
Mysterio.
We talked a little bit about it, but it's that kind of idea that
you know, he's the perfect man because he actually does some
housework for a change or whatever.
Do you know what I mean?
Because he's a hot geek.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But like here, where the original idea was that it was a man, you
know, that Bill, the whole reason that Bill is made a lesbian, and
that's a big deal.
She's, you know, Clara's bisexual, but she's sort of bisexual and
quietly bisexual.
Yeah, but it's also in a way that like men fight straight men find
attractive.
Do you know what I mean?
It's the thought of, of, you know, pretty Jenna Coleman snogging a
girl.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And whereas Bill is like, like, Bill, Bill's look is very, very
contemporary, isn't it?
Like the way that she looks.
We see lots of hairstyles, these episodes.
She got the big eyebrows and all of that sort of thing, the
clothes she's wearing are really, really superfessional and really
kind of now.
She's really kind of modern.
She's not like, she's not model.
She's not like Jenna.
Do you know what I mean?
Or Karen, who are these sort of sort of, you know, models and
stuff like that.
She's a beautiful woman, but not in the same way as those two.
It's a warm beauty, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And she's queer.
Do you know what I mean?
Like the character's queer, but she's only queer by accident.
She's only queer because Moffatt couldn't get the pilot to work if
the guy was a man because the man pursuing her, like stalking her
through time and space.
My favourite, my favourite anecdote, my favourite thing about this
entire season of Doctor Who, is that is outside of it, which is
that playing Bill and playing a strong, independent, queer
character, made Pearl, realised she was queer.
Yeah, yeah.
Just in the last few months, there were photos from Pearl Mackey's
wedding and she marries these sort of terribly beautiful women, the
2 of them just look unbelievably glamorous and adorable at the
wedding.
And so you've got, and you've got Matt Lucas, who's gay, you know
like, have we had that before?
Do you know what I mean?
Have we had out gay people in the regular cast in Doctor Who?
Mikey Yates?
Yeah, that's about it.
Was he out at that time?
Well, probably.
Yeah, yeah.
John Barriman, I guess.
I know what you're saying here.
Like you know, this is the 1st representation.
Yeah.
The full representation that we're not shying away from or trying
to get, you know, around.
And even if it comes to by accident, as often with Steven Moffin's
things, he then fully embraces it and moves forward with it.
That opening scene where she tells the story about fatting, the
woman, like the woman who is, and like, I'm there going, do we do
this?
Because you know you Russell's got his problem with fat people
because he himself is a large man.
Do you know what I mean?
And he's gay and there's all of that sort of body stuff.
And so you've got her talking about fatting this woman.
And but the way that she ends, like I was kind of worried about
that.
And it's clearly there to establish that she's queer straight
away.
That's how we know and it's in the 1st scene.
And even we kind of admit that it's there for that reason because
the doctor says, what's that got to do with why you come to my
lectures and she says, I don't really know.
I just hope something would defend.
Like, so she's just telling that story for no reason except
because we need to know she's queer for the Heather romance to
work, but also because that's the character.
But the thing about the fat thing is where she says beauty or
chips.
I like chips.
She likes chips.
So you know, that's good.
And then when we see her later, she kind of beautiful.
She's a, you know, she's a...
English woman, you know, with pale skin, but she's large.
And the 2 of them wink at one another and smile and we kind of go
yeah, like whatever, she's fat, but she enjoys chips and so do I
and we're totally into that.
So like I kind of like that.
Weird phrasing in that scene, though, where she says, you looked
at her and it was immediate perversion.
Perversion.
And she's talking in the 3rd person about herself.
But I think it's perving.
I think she's using perversion as a comedy novelisation, but it
also it almost reads as if you looked at her as in the doctor
looked at her.
The 1st time I watched it, kind of came in the car.
Is she accusing him?
No, no, no.
And then the next couple of lines say, like, elaborate on that.
But it just, it's weirdly phrased.
I mean, I really like that.
And using the word fatted, I fatted her as well is pretty funny.
Like, that's a funny scene.
That's a properly funny scene.
God, just those words, I pass it on.
Every time it comes on, I kind of go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm sure that there, like, I'm a fat person and I wasn't
offended.
That doesn't matter.
You feel free to be offended by that scene, if you like.
But I think there's a warmth to it.
And that warmth is absolutely solved by the scene where she comes
up later and gets some chips from Bill and the 2 of the week at
one another and smile.
I think it's wonderful.
Well she doesn't make it into a negative thing.
No, no, no.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Beauty or chips.
I gave her lots of chips.
I gave her a couple, but she's not judging.
Yeah, yeah, yes.
It is such a shame that Bill is one and done because friend of the
podcast and good friend of mine, Matt Jones, said that if he'd
been showrunner, which, let's face it, is not beyond the realm of
possibility.
If he'd come in after Moffa, the one thing he would have said was
ooh, let's keep Bill, because the possibility of Bill being a
lesbian and falling in love with the 1st female doctor was this
character who she'd known and respected and suddenly was someone
who she could fall in love with would have been such an
interesting arc for that 1st season.
Wow.
We going to be cancelled by the year teen people.
Don't worry about that.
I think it's great that Stephen can embrace as a straight man.
And he's made missteps in the past.
Of course.
Yeah, yeah.
And he learns from that.
And I think that's a brilliant thing.
So have you seen, have you seen Douglas is cancelled?
No not yet.
It's worth seeing.
I think it's really worth seeing.
And it is another one where you kind of think, oh, what's he
doing?
I'm not quite sure I'm worried by this. worried by where it's
going.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm still only halfway through because I was like, it was so
compelling.
I had to stop.
Yeah, you want to save it.
I watched it. binged it all in one day.
It is kind of set up as a, oh, like, and promoted by ITV as being
a, sorry, by sky.
Not that this is going the episode, is it?
As being a cancel culture TV show, but it's not.
It's much more.
It tells you why we have to have cancel culture, essentially.
It is, I think it's really good.
And it is, again, Moffatt learning. do you know what I mean?
Like, like a straight man, already aware that he's a problem right
back from joking apart, and learning and developing and stuff, and
just having, like, just introducing our 1st queer, regular
explicitly queer regular, uh, you know, apart from Jack, who's
just in a bunch of episodes.
I think he's pretty great and he's a milestone, I think.
And another reason why, you know, this episode might get an 8.5.
Who knows what I'm going to say next?
I'm totally giving it like a really high mark.
I think it's an absolutely top tier episode.
It really is a great start to the season.
And actually, when they did that recent Doctor Who magazine poll
of all of the stories, it came quite highly.
Oh, good.
So no one knew.
No one knew what fandom thought of Peter Quality 0 in context and
suddenly they realised they liked it a lot.
I love how Moffat originally was going to call this a star in her
eye and then went, oh, I'm repeaching the show. going to lean into
calling it the pilot.
Well, actually, it was Mark Gatis going, are you really going to
call it that?
him going, oh, I don't know.
Stars in their eyes.
Yeah, exactly.