Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flight through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast which lives merely to increase capital
and is allowed to live only insofar as the interest of the ruling
class requires it.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Peter.
I'm Simon.
And I'm Kate.
Well, this week we're being pursued by zombies while the people at
head office find lethal new ways of increasing our productivity.
Is it just a normal week at work or a dystopian Doctor Who satire
called oxygen?
I think I had a bit of a reverse todd experience on this one.
A reverse to experience.
And a reverse to experience.
You like it the first time round.
Stop experience.
No, I thought that this was going to be better than it was when I
just recently watched it.
It's Jamie Matheson, who I think is amazing, and I've liked all
his things.
I think I'm the only person on record to enjoy the girl who died.
I think it's fantastic.
I think basically, you know, everything that he's done has been
really good.
Um, and maybe it's not his fault.
But for some reason, and I'm trying to put my finger on it.
I hope we'll be able to do that in the next hour or so.
I'm not quite sure this worked for me.
I adore the entire season that has Bill and I have 2 favourites
and they are oxygen and extremers.
Oh, snap.
Yes.
Oxygen I love because it's like, it's like pure science fiction
something that you almost never get in Doctor Who.
And this is what the whole story is about.
Space is usually just a backdrop where, oh, look, we're on a
spaceship, yeah, whatever.
And we are not really interested in the fact that we're on a
spaceship, we're interested in whatever else is going on.
But this one starts with a speech about space wants to kill you.
If you go into space, space is incredibly dangerous and then it
proceeds to demonstrate this by repeatedly killing Bill.
And yeah, we get a big lecture at the start about how Bill will be
killed.
That tortured season 5 story.
They keep killing Bill.
It's a bit like that.
So, um, I love the fact that it is basically SF because of the
rarity of that in Doctor Who.
I mean, I love it when Doctor Who mixes science fiction with all
other genres as well.
For me, it's like getting a little chocolate.
Um, in that it doesn't have anything else in it.
It is just about spacesuits and vacuum and the vacuum of space.
I think that was the brief from Stephen Mothat that he just wanted
to make space dangerous again.
There'd be too much sort of mucking around in space.
And so he said to Jamie Matheson, so I interviewed Jamie Matheson
for Doctor Magazine about this episode and did the preview for
it.
And so that's why the opening is all preoccupied with Space is
Deadly.
Space wants to kill you.
And actually, Stephen Motha was the one who injected the idea that
the suits would be the villain, as it was originally just a sort
of a space zombie story, with zombies tramping around.
He said, no, let's make it the suits, the suits are the thing that
are animating these cadavers and are the enemy.
I guess I guess for me, the problem is that the production can't
quite do what the premise kind of needs it to do.
Because we start sort of with that opening scene with the couple
on the girder and you've got her sound isn't working and you've
got the body sort of rolling towards them and stuff like that.
And it looks like it's sort of promising gravity, I think.
And there was some talk about gravity, like trying to make, you
know, the film.
And I think that's quite well realised.
It's a great, in space, no one can hear you scream.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And in fact, it's quite good because there's a sort of fake out
scream and then there's his final scream leading into the into the
opening. we always love.
It's really good.
I think that is quite good But when we arrive, we're kind of
pretty immediately just in the usual space corridors.
And there's a really telling moment where Bill, who is always the
sort of genre busting character says, oh, you know, this is just
not really spicy.
And then she looks out a window.
And we don't see what she sees because obviously she's just
looking out a window.
Do you know what I mean?
But we get the big pull back, you know, with her face and then the
entirety of that station.
And so it makes fun of Star Trek explicitly.
Do you know what I mean?
With the whoosh whoosh doors and stuff.
Oh, yes.
But it's a little bit too like Star Trek.
And for a story where the premise is that oxygen has been rationed
that there's artificial scarcity of oxygen, it never looks like
that, because they've got invisible force fields on, because I
think what must have happened is the intention must have been that
they would wear the helmets all the time.
And then they realised that they realised that would be the top
never works.
No that would never work.
And you can see the helmets are designed.
They're much more transparent than a normal space helmet.
And I think they're designed to be as unobtrusive as possible.
They should have gone for that full sort of upturned fishbowl
effect.
Yeah, yeah, the moonbags, where they just had a pee.
Maybe the ones from terminus, but they don't actually seal around
the net.
Yes, for example.
Yeah, so and so they're just sort of wandering around talking as
usual and stuff.
And so it's not quite enough unlike other Doctor Who stories set
on spaceships, I think.
Do you feel that the lack of the helmet lends a kind of
vulnerability to the characters?
Yes, I do.
What about hair raising, even though you know they have the force
field?
They're walking around without the helmet and then they must put
the helmet on and of course it pays off in Bill's exciting journey
into vacuum.
It's funny, I did that this morning.
Just the living room.
How can that can be an exciting journey?
Like I guess so.
But I just think that because the lack of oxygen isn't sold to us
visually.
We're just told about it because it just looks like everyone's
wandering around with no helmets on talking to one another and
being able to hear one another and all of that.
Like there's just no visual evidence.
You know, straight away, oh, we've got artificial gravity.
Oh, we've got invisible force fields that keep the air in.
And so all of the really scary spaceness can't be realised and was
never going to be able to be realised.
I'm going to agree with Kate on that.
I think it's actually a little bit unnerving, the fact that
they're wandering around this Ellis environment and they don't
have physical helmet on and you think that at any point this could
turn off and all of a sudden they can't breathe.
I found that quite eerie.
I don't mind either way, actually, because I see what you're
saying, Nathan, but I also, I don't kind of get what you guys are
saying either, Kate and Peter, because it's like the web planet
where they go out with the jacket sock.
Like, it's just a kind of a conceit at the beginning and then you
kind of forget about it.
It's really...
Exactly.
We're never made we're never not made aware of the fact that
they're in this confined space station and there's a limited
supply of oxygen.
And I think that's the kind of the underlying thing.
I think the story, the episode has a series of other flaws, even
though it has that great promising staff, and I think there's much
of it which is really nicely made.
I know, Nathan, you're never a fan of the idea that, oh, this is a
very ordinary or poor episode.
I know let's make it better by making it longer.
But I actually think it could be.
War games.
I think that this is a case where it could work.
I don't mean just stretching it out to 2 episodes, but I'm never
excited by all the kind of breathless running through corridors.
It's like that does.
I mean, I want people talking urgently in corridors rather than
just running through corridors.
And there's no setup.
I don't feel there's enough of a setup.
Like, if it was an old style, the length of an old style 3 or 4
passer, and the doctor in Bill Nardo arrived on this space station
where there'd been a couple of deaths, and there was a couple of
malfunctions with the suits, and they didn't know what was going
on, but it was still basically a populated space station, and they
all started being picked off over the course of it.
And then in the last sort of 30, 40 minutes, you then get what is
effectively this episode, I'd have had much more engagement with
it.
I'd have cared.
My problem with it is I just don't care.
All this stuff is happening and I'm just not that interested.
It's a symptom of modern Doctor Who, isn't it?
They always cut off the 1st episode of an old 4 parter, and so you
arrive somewhere into events rather than at the start of the week
which can work really well sometimes, and there are some great
examples of that where it just is, you can do a 45 minute self
contained episode, and it works perfectly.
And I've said that, but this is just one of those ones where
because I haven't had that buildup with the characters.
I'm just not invested with what's going on.
The only one I was invested in was dah, Ren, oh, how...
Yes, which I've just racistly pronounced in.
We don't categorise people by the box.
So that was nice.
He's the 1st of 2 blue people this season.
And the other blue person is in World Enough and Time, and his
name is George, but pronounced in a space way. and spelled in a
space, right?
Has he got an apostrophe in it?
I really wish it had.
It's just got J's in it.
So they're kind of, and they're not human, I think, is the idea.
But that little moment, I think, is actually really wonderful
where Bill gets to be racist.
And then she goes, I'm sorry, I'm normally on the receiving end
and he can't understand why that would be.
I think that's just terrific.
Yeah, it's like it's like this Australian immigrant experience.
Like, you know, 1st of all, we're nasty about the Greeks and the
Italians.
Then we're nasty about the Vietnamese and Chinese and now we're
nasty about people of Middle Eastern Norwich. you know what I
mean?
It's that kind of thing.
It's when the new species comes or the new race comes along, all
the others are suddenly accepted.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. right.
They establishment.
That's the establishment.
Yes they've become the establishment.
They join in with us.
Yes, exactly.
And I love that they wait for a comedy beat till the end of that
scene for Nadal to throw in some of my best friends are blue.
No, it's better than that.
He says some of my best friends are blueish.
It's a nice way of viewing it.
Oh, it's so awkward.
I think that actually, I understand what everyone's saying. have
quite a high opinion of this episode.
I think it is dripping in atmosphere, which, you know, you
wouldn't think being in a vacuum, but yes, it is dripping in
atmosphere, and I think that is its own reward.
I think if you can set something up that has so much of an
unsettling feel to it.
Go for it.
Yeah, yeah, that can often sell something for me, but for some
reason, as I said, I just don't care.
Like, it's atmosphere for the sake of atmosphere. not feeling it.
Something I want to talk about is the skull.
The skull.
Oh, and the chalk.
Oh, the skull is an image that appears throughout this entire
episode in different ways.
We get the doctor drawing a skull on the board, right?
That's a big obvious skull, but those helmets that they're not
wearing, and in particular, the one that pops off the guy to
reveal that there's nobody inside the suit, that's a skull.
Bill is wearing a little skull patch that says, wow, next to it.
Wow.
Which is a little bit like saying, yeah, I'm excited.
Let's go to space as well, you know, where all the skulls are
because everybody dies.
The big moment in the cold open where Ivan sees the helmet just
sort of coming to shop.
Here's her scarf.
Yeah, so good.
And that just that image of the head or the dead head or whatever
just keeps picking up again and again all through it, which gave
me the creeps when I began to notice it.
When they go, oh no, they're going to vent all of the oxygen that
we've got out of the spaceship, we must run back to the TARDAS.
The shot is actually over the top of that helmet that's been
popped off the guy, as though to say death. is coming.
And I thought, that's jolly clever, isn't it?
It's such a good image as well.
They've been to this well before in Stephen Moffat's silence in
the library, which is skullheads in Spaces. yes, yes.
I want to compare it briefly to sleep no more. favourably, I
hope.
Unfavourably.
So one of the things that struck me, and it's a thing that Simon
said about sleep no more is the kind of strange world building
that sleep no more does.
And like we're around Neptune.
It seems to be like, perhaps we're moving out towards Pluto just
in time to do the sun.
And everything, like something has happened to the inner solar
system and people are awful.
Like we genetically engineer kind of soldier slaves and stuff and
just generally something has gone horribly wrong and it's subtle
world building.
And there's a word.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's, but there's, like there isn't any of that here.
No.
I think the world, and that's one of the reasons why I really like
sleep no more, even though it's not perfect over this, which is
not terrible, if I can put it in those terms, but sleep no more, I
think, does a much better job at creating a dystopian future.
And I think the dystopian future that's created in this episode
has far less depth.
It's far more trite in terms of the sort of the various anti
capitalist kind of mentions that are made.
It's a bit like, oh, really?
I mean, that's just, can we think a bit more about this and just
make it a bit more interesting if you want to sell that message?
Because that's not coming through.
Sleep no more does it so much better, I think.
And it has a sort of anti-capitalist message as well.
I mean, the problem is created by monetising work as sleeve.
Yes, I know.
But it doesn't, but for me, that doesn't irritate me in the same
way that this irritates me.
It just seems to be done much more interestingly and much more
cleverly.
And also, I think placing it around Neptune.
Some of those shots in Sleep No More. where, you know, there's a, I
think it's a breach, whatever, and you can see Neptune there.
It's when the station's starting to fall into Neptune at one point
I think.
So effective and so frightening.
And that's where you get that thing of space is there to kill
you.
You know, I feel that much more in sleep no more than I do in
oxygen.
The reason that I have a soft spot for sleep no more, even though
it's got snot monsters in it.
Um, and it's the science in it, science fiction is incredibly non
scientific.
So I sit there sort of drumming my fingers a bit.
But I love the future.
I like the kind of almost throwaway, quickly referenced world
building.
You know, I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.
And the fact that it is Neptune and not planet...
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
And that's what's missing here.
Yeah, this isn't anywhere.
They're mining somehow.
It's fine. mining some asteroid, could be astroid. could be
another solar system. doesn't matter.
And I don't think I don't think it's the fact that it's not
Neptune is the problem.
It's just the fact that I don't feel, I don't, I can't imagine
what the society is out there back on earth back in civilisation
which has created this situation where the company has made the
suits kill the workers.
Whereas I can in sleep no more, imagine what the rest of the
world.
What's happening in the universe?
And I know what you mean, because sleep and what, even though I
don't think it's a very good episode, ties into kind of a larger
arc of doctors, so to speak, of Doctor Who's future and like what
the future is like in the show, whereas this feels like a little
bit like its own thing and sort of a cul-de-sac, I think.
And that's because Margatus, as well, writes, sleep no more.
And he's concerned with that kind of thing.
It's like in Empress of Mars coming up where he takes care to kind
of weave that into a future which has the Galactic Federation and
Alpha Centauri.
Yeah, and I don't think every Doctor Who story needs to do that
because the reason that we've got that now is stories that didn't
do that.
Do you know what I mean?
So all of that's okay, I think.
But it is so thin.
And when it comes to the resolution.
I mean, if we could just go to head office and complain and that
would bring down capitalism, I don't know why we haven't done that
already, honestly.
All that, and that's what I'm sort of talking about is just so
inelegant.
It's like, for instance, the oxygen thing.
It doesn't make sense that the company would vent the oxygen, which
is a precious resource.
They would pump it back into their storage tanks.
They take it so that they can sell it.
It doesn't make sense that the company would kill the workers
because they're consuming oxygen.
They've only got so many breaths left or whatever it is.
It makes more sense, surely, if if they're just charged for it in
that sun makers kind of way, where, 0 my god, I'm just going to be
absolutely up to my eyeballs in debt because of the number of
breaths I've taken and I will never escape it.
And that's that's got a much...
I can't retire because I breathe too much.
Yes, sort of.
And I think there's something about that which is far more, I
think, the message that they want to tell, whereas this is just
kind of trite.
Oh, big companies are evil.
Ha ha ha.
It just kind of like, oh come on, we can do better than that.
A thing that doesn't make any sense is the reason that they want
to kill off the workers is that they've been unproductive.
Like they can't be productive because of things broken.
Because the conveyor's broken. doesn't make any sense at all.
They would be perfectly productive.
If the conveyor was working, Why would you kill off the... they're
killing off those guys because they're the next ship that's
coming.
Well, the next is going to it's surely got the conveyor repair.
Well, no, I assume they're sending the conveyor repair people.
I thought that they were just sending suits that didn't have to
consume oxygen.
Do you know what I mean?
Possibly.
Yes, maybe they've decided that.
But if you think about the way a company works.
I mean, for most of my adult life, and I'm fine, just a second, I
have been, you know, like, are you that old?
No, I just mean, like most people, I'm, you know, 2 missed
paycheques away from sort of starvation and homelessness.
Do you know what I mean?
Like most people.
Yeah, I'm fine.
But, but do you know what I mean?
Like, people live without... savings, you know, all of that sort
of thing.
And so the idea that finding a branch somewhere is unprofitable
and just closing it down does in fact does happen and does lead to
kind of misery and stuff like that.
And here, obviously, it sort of amped up.
And, you know, like I did a little bit of research.
How are they charging people for oxygen to do their job.
In New South Wales.
The only reason that, for instance, that it's government
regulation and union involvement, that means, for instance, that
retail workers don't have to pay for their own uniforms and that
we would have had that if there hadn't been some kind of
intervention.
And so, you know, the idea that that's a, the, that is the usual
Doctor Who thing where we heightened that and we, we turned it
into killing the workers. you know what I mean?
Because with 100s of years into the future and capitalism has got
worse and worse and we want to make a point in a sort of obvious
way.
And it also gives the doctor a resolution where he just makes the
base profitable or not profitable.
He makes destroying the best. destroying them.
Yeah, he makes killing them unprofitable.
That's right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I know what you're saying.
And you know, when you create a dystopian future.
Usually you're trying to make a comment on the present.
Yes, okay.
And whilst, yes, you know, companies are closing things here and
there from time to time and people lose jobs and that's all full
et cetera, et cetera.
But it's like the way they're doing it here isn't sort of, isn't
really talking to that in the way that I think it could be, if
that's what it's trying to do.
I think it's just it's just got a very simplistic notion and I'm
fine with the idea of, okay, we're creating this dystopian future
where capitalism has regressed to, you know, the way it was in the
19th century where workers were paid next to nothing and had to
pay for their own uniforms and had to work 18 hour days, whatever
it is.
I don't have a problem with that.
I just think it's to do with the elegance of how these things are
done and I think it's just so inelegant.
I think there's actually a better story that can be told with the
suits killing people, but I wonder whether we weren't actually
able to tell it when this was made and I can talk about that if
you like.
Go on.
Okay.
AI.
If this if this episode was made now, it would be because the
suits, it's like the paper clip thing.
You know, if you tell if you tell an AI to make as many paper
clips as it can, it ends up turning the entire earth into paper
clips, including all the humans, right?
It's that thing of, you know, you need to have a restraint on the
AI to say, well, don't kill any people and don't do this and don't
do that, et cetera, et cetera.
So in some respects, you could create an episode around the paper
clip problem where the suits have got AI in them to try and be
more efficient with the mining operation.
And at some point, the suits realise I'm going to be able to do
this a hell of a lot better and more efficiently if I don't have a
human to worry about because they have to take rests and they have
to sleep and they have to eat and so on like that.
And maybe you could have them in the company, the sort of company
not having bothered to insert the algorithm to the AI to, because
someone was bored that day or they forgot to, they knew about it
but they hadn't done anything about it, which actually would be a
far better commentary on current society in terms of companies
either wilfully or neglectfully making mistakes like that.
Oh, Simon, what you're describing is this.
They put humans into the suits.
At 1st it looks like the humans are the workers and the suits are
just helped for them. but they've got the AI.
Humans are training their AI to do their job.
Yes, the humans are the restraint.
Yes, yes, yes.
And so in the end, the AI finally works out how to mine an
asteroid and says, well, that's you, mate.
Sorry.
Exactly.
And that's...
That's a bad story.
Now I don't think we were thinking about that when this episode
was being made.
No, because this is actually very new.
AI is actually literally mentioned in the script.
We get asked what's the AI like and someone says it's as dumb as a
rock and then, well, can it learn?
Do you know what I mean?
So there is some sort of talk about that.
Like, I don't know quite what's happening with Bill where her suit
does its own thing, that sort of terrifying moment where it takes
her helmet off and she's saying, I'm not doing that.
And that's when I was thinking about this, actually, during that
sequence, because I thought that's the thing that's the most
frightening moment for me.
And then if I can just give a shout out to the sequence that
follows that, which is utterly brilliant.
I think.
Oh, that's good.
Incredible.
Absolutely incredible.
Full of 1st the blurry bit and then the moment where the doctor
turns around.
I just about fell off the sofa.
And the sound design, which is immaculate throughout this
episode.
Exactly, yeah.
Although I would have liked more silence.
Yes, me too.
Again, if you're trying to sell, there's that moment, even in the
opening thing where you're outside, you can hear Ellie speaking
inside her helmet and it's kind of you're trying to sell us that
there's no oxygen here.
And I know, I know I'm not an idiot, like I want spaceships to
whoosh through.
We all do.
But here, you know, it's so much the point of the episode is the
scarcity of oxygen and the deliberate artificial scarcity of
oxygen, which is used to up its price.
You know, the way that people in company towns had to buy things
from the company store. exactly.
You know, like all of that's so important to what the things
trying to say in the atmosphere, it's trying to create, and that's
just another thing where I think it falls down a bit.
It's me against the world here.
I agree with you.
I don't dislike it. as I was saying, last week in knock, knock.
Well, for me, I didn't think I made it clearly last week, but I
think now this is the 4th episode in a row, which is, for me, it's
fine.
Again, it's the 4th episode in a row, which is annoyingly slightly
less than fine, might be a better way of putting it because it
could be better with a little bit more thought and a little bit
more draft and there's so much effort that's gone into it and well
perhaps I'm like knock knock last week, which wasn't brilliantly
made.
We were talking about.
But this is obviously really well made and I've thought about that
but I don't think they've just thought about properly about the
episode, the story, the how does this actually work?
And I think that's what makes it unsatisfactory for me.
Yes, I think this is extremely well made.
This is Charles Palmer who did human nature.
And one of his tricks on human nature, the reason that human
nature looks so great is a lot of the effects are in camera.
So there's not a lot of kind of CGI there.
And I think the same, apart from the bits which are obviously have
to be CGI in this.
You get a lot of stuff which seems to be practically realised on
the set, and I think that lends it a real immediacy.
Space suits and things are very chunky and clunky and you really
need that feeling of hard metal.
That's right.
They are a bit rubbery, though, so the mag, so they?
But they're not a bit fakey.
It's funny.
All I could think about was 1st contact.
You know, we had like seven.
Like we have 7 years of Star Trek, The Next Generation, and no one
puts a spacesuit on as far as I...
So suddenly we're walking on the outside of the enterprise and we
have scenes, you know, Zed, and say walk on the deflected dish and
stuff like that.
And it's really good.
Like, that's actually really sort of terrific.
And Doctor Who has more space suits in it, of course, than Star
Trek did.
Do you miss the old baggy orange ones?
Yeah, bitch.
These were very crisp space suits in oxygen.
They look really like, you know, the Ferrari of spacesuits rather
than like you were wearing a huge orange bag.
I also like the thing where, you know, bizarrely, there are
practical lights inside the space helmet shining in the wearer's
face, which would be terrible.
I think...
You're real alive.
But it always looks so great.
You know, like how do they stop them fogging up?
That hilarious thing with not toll where Bill says what happens if
I throw up in my space helmet doing her usual thing.
And he just says colour and smell.
Colour and smell.
Can we talk about Nardole?
So this is the first time Nard Doll join?
Yes, actually gets to go too.
Yeah, because he's been the killjoy. been the person who's been
trying to prevent the doctor from going anywhere and clearly he's
just decided that he can't do that or something.
He just fails, doesn't he?
The doctor sends him off to Birmingham for British.
Chris.
I like his, he's kind of got a, 2 different faces going in this
story where there's the nardol who's going, ooh, all the time and
you know, panicking about things and worrying about things.
And, you know, we're going back to the TARDIS type of stuff.
But there's also the nardol who says very quietly, I'm a bit cross
with you, doctor.
And you actually think, oh, that's a bit frightening.
Yeah, this is where, yeah, and I remember the 1st time around.
This is, it was only about now that I started thinking, okay, this
is now working.
I can like this because I was annoyed by the kind of, this is just
one of those stupid comic relief characters.
I really liked his way of trying to get them back to the Tatas
which is a really not always.
It was absolutely perfect.
You know, it's nice and cosy.
It's nice Like, I thought that worked really well.
And it was him doing the companion.
Let's go back to Thitis, and then Bill agrees with him.
And he had always been at a remove from Bill.
You know, like he would always talk to the doctor when Bill was in
the room.
Almost as if she wasn't there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We see it in full flourish next week in Extremist where suddenly
Bill and Nardol have lots of scenes together and are friends and
it's a really great odd coupling.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And isn't that so much more rewarding when they've had a period of
not really being like that.
Like they're not just friends from day one.
Yeah they've grown together.
I think, like most comedians, Matt Lucas, his dramatic talents are
underused in Docsuit because he is mostly light relief as Nardol
but he can do a lot with his face.
And so that scene where Bill can't breathe and you're having all
of those sort of slow motion looks, but you get one big close-up
of him in his helmet looking at her with concern.
And it's an amazing shot.
It's completely written all over his face and that proves his
value, I think.
Comedians are often the best actors.
Yes.
It's an awful lot of examples of that, yeah.
See, Catherine Tate.
See Catherine Tate.
But see, also, I can't think of any other...
Robin Williams, for example, yeah, it's a very good example, yeah.
They're known for comedy at first.
And then suddenly they do that film and all that television and
you go, yes.
Because they're delivering dramatic performances, but being
funny.
Yeah.
And the thing about a successful comedian is they know about
timing and timing is underrated in dramatic performance as well.
And I think too often, especially in modern television, in film
everyone's especially in this kind of genre, everyone's just in a
rush to get their lines out.
We said it about David Suchet last episode.
He just knows exactly what and how to place words.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, we we kind of spoke about how Nadol doesn't really
fit properly into the sort of list of Doctor Who companions.
You know, he's not really quite...
He is in the opening credits, and he does travel with a doctor
more than once, and all of those.
Also, somewhere between a Sarah Kingdom and a Sergeant Benton.
Yeah, he's above Sergeant Benton, surely.
That means he's above Mike, yeah, it's right.
Oh, yes.
Yeah, yeah, definitely above.
I would have thought most people would be above my kids.
Oh okay.
Sorry, on top of my face.
He's no longer with a snerl's going to suit.
But delighted.
You know, he does get a proper kind of a rival.
We never see him agree to join the doctor.
All of that sort of, we start with this sort of pre-existing
relationship. that's been going on for decades, you know, like 50
70 years, we believe.
It's like, Mel, just without decades.
So I actually am really enjoying him being sort of brought in and
I do think it works really well. it works really well.
And, you know, like Moffatt kind of, you know, there's that story
where Hingcliffe kind of regrets getting rid of Harry at the end
of...
Oh, does he?
I didn't had that.
Yes, because that was his impetus.
And then he realised afterwards after all the episodes have been
completed.
Obviously they were scripting the next season.
He thought, oh, actually, they work really well and Ian Marty's
great.
Why didn't make it?
That his one big regret.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then, of course, you've got Amy and Rory, which again works so
well. works really well and is Moffatt wanting to recreate that
dynamic, I think. you know, which is why you've got the slightly
hapless Rory, you know, who's a little bit sort of fumbling.
He's the sort of person who might make a lunge for the helmet
regulator or something like that.
And so I think we're trying to do it here a little bit, you know
in a much weirder way.
And I think it works really well.
You're always complaining, Simon, that we... as always.
But do you know what I mean, though?
But specifically.
In this case, that we continually have a contemporary companion in
the Tartars for the entire ride.
Yes, exactly. series.
Here we don't for the 1st time.
Exactly.
And it's actually really quite fun.
Who'd have thought?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah.
And I tend to think by himself, it wouldn't work quite so well.
Oh, no, exactly.
100% You know, like the Velma staff.
That's great. great.
The Velma stuff is the most Doctor Whoey stuff, I think, in the
episode.
And one of the things about the episode is it is a little bit
gone.
Like it's a bit serious.
And so having him there to talk nonsense about Velma and having
it's a little bit like in sleep no more where you get the, the, uh
you know, the Sandman song.
It's a bit of whimsy, exactly.
Also pleasingly brings to mind Scooby-Doo.
I was thinking Chicago, the musical.
You would.
Different worlds.
It's true because is the last time that we had a non-human
companion, Turlow?
Oh.
Yes.
Not counting any big finish audios in the middle, yeah.
And they sort of bring the same thing.
I mean, obviously Turlo are not or are not similar characters, but
they bring that kind of that outside of perspective, weird spiky
reactions to things which you just don't get from human
companions.
Yeah, no, I think that works.
I mean, I know that you need the relatable companion, but I don't
believe that the companion needs to be from the present day and be
a human to be relatable.
That's to do with how a character is written rather than the fact
that they're from 2024 or 28, 24 or whatever.
Yeah, I mean, I think Zoe, for instance, is perfectly related.
I was just thinking, yes, absolutely.
Oh, Vicky even, you know, Dodo.
But also how much we love Romana, especially the 2nd Romana, yeah.
Yeah, I think the show wants to be a little bit more
contemporary.
It doesn't want cultural references like, you know, a flying
saucer with Batman at the controls.
Like it wants something...
It's a space rocket with...
Oh really?
Just listen to what he said. even better.
And so that's why we have the contemporary companion.
But, I mean, the doctor can just do that stuff anyway.
He was hung around earth in the early 21st century for a bit.
Thinking about not all.
Also, there's that fantastic final scene, and the script for the
episode is up online, officially up online.
So I went to have a read of that.
And what fascinated me was, okay, you get that very serious scene
between Nadal and the doctor and he's saying, you know, you
shouldn't have gone, you were supposed to go out the vault, da da
da da.
And the doctor has that cowed or crushed feeling and he says, I
can't look at you.
But the last line is not in the script.
So he says, I can't look at you.
I can't look at anything ever again.
And then they have added the big black screen and I'm still
blind.
And I'm, oh, my.
Oh, that's good.
Hair raising.
I actually was wondering watching it, whether because it's black
and because it's ADR, did they add it later?
I think they thought we have to make this absolutely clear, but
also that will frighten them.
Yeah, yeah.
That would have been the fear of God into the mess.
They actually had a black screen in the episode.
Yeah, it went.
Yeah, you never see him say, I'm blind.
I'm still blind.
So what do we think of that?
Like doing that to the doctor. think it's great.
Yeah, I think that is good.
And it's fantastic that it lasts beyond this episode.
If it didn't, it would just be a thing.
It doesn't really matter because we can just weigh the magic wand
and he's...
Bit of regeneration energy.
Dr. Crusher has returned us all to normal with her usual skill.
Is that Genesis?
Oh my god.
I like the doctor acting from a position of weakness.
And so I like it whenever it takes something right.
And this, I think, puddler reason I like it is that this has the
slightly desperate feel of a regeneration story.
Like things going wrong and big things happening to the doctor
that might not be taken back or in this case not taken back for a
while.
The one thing that I was a little bit underwhelmed by was the
treating of blindness as a terrible disability.
Oh my god, I'm still blind.
Ta-dum.
I think being Doc 2 and being the doctor, he could have
incorporated that a little bit more into the doctor's character
and shown him, okay, I've lost one of my senses.
This is now how I deal with things.
Other things take over.
It's not a disability that will scar you for life.
It's tricky, isn't it?
Oh no, that's a really good point.
If it was going to go on for much longer in the season, You'd want
to be him to be talking to some blind people in the story and
saying, well, how do you manage?
And they go, well, just like this.
We'll we'll teach you.
I think it's fair enough.
Like, I can see what you're saying, but I think it's possible to
get a bit overwrought about those sorts of concerns because...
Just a bit more cleverness, I think, in the way that the doctor
handled that.
Maybe, but it would still be if you...
He's very fatalistic about it.
I know, true.
But if you suddenly lost your sight or your hearing or a limb just
like that, you would be utterly devastated.
Yes, I would.
I'm not the doctor.
It's different.
I know, but I actually think the way he reacts is right because I
don't think it's not distress.
It's like we have a problem here because I'm going to take some
time to adjust to this and we've got Missy down at the bottom.
I think that was great.
I really liked the way that he handled it within the story.
I thought at the end, the fact that he was so like overwrought by
the fact that I'm still blind.
I didn't like that.
It felt like he hadn't actually acclimatised to that and wasn't
looking towards the future.
No, he hasn't acclimatised to it at this point, that he sued me
because it's only that point where, because during the story
they're thinking, oh, yes, we can fix it when we get back to the
Tartars.
It's the fact that I have so much responsibility and now I have
this disability.
Whatever happened to the lizard's eyes.
We never follow up on that later.
That's true, actually, yes, yes, yes. true.
They're still there.
I feel like to find out the best ways to think about this, to feel
about this is we'd have to actually phone up a few blind Doctor
Who fans and say, well, how did you respond to it?
How did you feel about it?
Was it maybe exciting that the doctor had to cope with being blind
for a couple of episodes or was it an insult or what were all the
different kinds of opinions that people had?
I have someone associated with radio who had very poor vision and
just recently in the last few months had an accident, which meant
that he lost his sight entirely.
Oh, damn.
And let's just say that even though he was, let's just say, barely
seeing before that, and then suddenly he can't, and there may yet
be something that can be done, and I think there's still some
hope.
But basically for, for, that was it, right?
And let's just say it is a massive shock and massive impact.
And I think that it takes a lot of adjustment.
Even if you're coming from a point of, I'm almost blind anyway, but
there is a big difference.
There was a big difference.
I think, as ever, you need Stephen Moth to write these things
really properly.
And in the next episode, extremists.
I think he handles the doctor's blindness extremely well.
The doctor goes through the story, doing doctorish things, and
being the doctor that we know and being clever, but being slightly
hamstrung by what's happened to him, being frustrated about that.
I think that sort of gets it rise.
It's a very strange choice.
It's such an odd thing to do.
It's something the Doctor Who really never does.
And in a way, it's like a subset, it's like a small scale version
of the season as a whole where this season tells a particular
story about a period in the doctor's life.
You know, like the unit era where, you know, the doctor's life
doesn't tend to have a shape.
He just goes from place to place to place to place.
You know, but here he stops for 70 years.
He lives in this thing he has a job to do.
It's preventing him from doing his usual staff.
And so there's a shape to this season, which is maybe the most
successful arc that the show has had in the modern era.
Wow.
I think.
I mean, I'm a huge fan of series three.
I think, you know, that thing where Mr. Saxon goes back from
episode 11 goes back into the middle of season 2 in the Tartars.
And so we've had references, like, I think that's wonderful.
Um, but I think, you know, like because it's like a, it's like a
Moffat short story, really, where he changes the premise of the
show subtly in an interesting way.
And so he's doing it here, even within the show, he's changing the
premise where the doctor is now blind for a few episodes.
And I think making him blind.
Like, why do we make him blind this story?
He doesn't need to be blind for this story, does?
Does he?
He doesn't need to be blind for it to work.
No.
It just demonstrating that he's sacrificed.
Sacrifice himself forbid about stakes. yeah Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. and ups the stakes.
If this is space and space is trying to kill you and we all just
stroll away and there's no sort of particular problem.
How do we feel about how compel the axe, or the doctor acts after
when they're in those last sequences where he's in the TARDIS and
we think the audience thinks everyone around him thinks that Nadal
has healed him, have sexed him.
Do we think that that reflects the movements and action of a blind
person, even if they're in an ultrafamiliar environment, which is
the Tartars console room?
Because it's really funny.
The 1st thing he says, oh, we're in the TARDIS, and obviously he
could tell that anyway.
Because the tartus goes blue, blue.
Yeah.
Oh, we're in the Titus.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But he kind of makes that point as if he wants them to think that
he's...
And he doesn't really look at anyone.
No.
No, you can see in his performance.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
The lizard eyes have failed.
Oh, no, I think it's a great performance.
I think Capaldi always delivers, and so he was never going to get
that terribly wrong.
Yeah, no, I'm just observing that.
That's a thing that he does, that it's subtle, but I think it is
there in that performance.
And maybe that's the thing too, where you sensed that this had a
kind of a generation story feel to it in that everything's going
wrong and the doctors having to make kind of quiet, he's having to
take sort of fairly drastic steps in order to keep bills safe.
And so there's a price that has to be paid.
That's right.
And we talked about it last week again in knock knock, the fact
that all of Bill's flatmate friends are killed and then come back
to life, which is like just such a cheat.
It feels like there's no stakes in someone dying.
Whereas it couldn't obviously kill Bill, although it does in this
episode, but doesn't.
And so the stakes that you take away is, okay, she didn't die, but
the doctor's still blind.
This has a lot of great dialogue as well.
Yes, you expect from Jane Matson.
It feels like Stephen Moffat script in the rapid fire dialogue.
My favourite line was too many rescue ships.
It's a 1st world problem.
Yes.
I loved, I can't remember the exact line, but when the doctor says
that, you know, he's got, they've got this problem and this
problem and this problem.
Can you imagine how smug he's going to be when he pulls this off?
Yeah.
Oh, mind is one of the problems.
What is the problem?
Yes, yes, yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. was nice.
That's kind of meta for the show, too.
That kind of sums that whole character up, I feel.
That's that doctor, right there.
Just an unfortunate. episode in terms of, for me, in terms of just
doesn't land.
It doesn't, doesn't, it's not polished.
There's something about that, the resolution, the rationale.
I just wanted another couple of drafts and I think that's common
problem with this season for me anyway.
Yeah, see, I'm not the same, like, I think thin ice is an absolute
top tier, Doctor Who episode and and a couple of people that I
spoke to since, because I was surprised to discover that.
And a couple of people that I've spoken to since then have said
yes, no, that's my favourite Capaldi.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, and it's Sarah Dollard, you know, it's going to be good and
it's the thing that we never got to see Capoli doing with Jenna
which is showing her around, introducing her to the premise of the
show.
And that's very much what thin ice does where, you know, at the
end of the episode she gets to be the doctor.
She gets to make the sort of decisions that the doctor has to make
including, you know, watching someone be killed and then moving on
you know, watching the doctor responsible for someone's death and
they're kind of moving on to solve the problem.
I think it's really sort of properly, seriously good, and it looks
amazing.
Um, this.
I love Matheson staff, but for me, it is the fact that I just
don't think it's more spacy than the other space things that we've
seen.
So you don't think it's more spacey.
So it hasn't fulfilled its really...
It's got to be more spicy.
And I think...
No, no, I mean more kind of rickety and we're just walking around
in the usual space corridors.
Is it kind of like thinking?
Is it 40, just playing things like 42 and there are other, when
they're in a grungy space station where there's kind of gas leaks
coming out of the side and all that kind of stuff and they're all
a bit sweaty?
Is that the sort of thing that you had in mind?
Like, it needs to be like...
Yeah, Impossible Planets doing it a little bit, but you know, where
Ed Thomas could have shot in a paper mill.
That's right.
Ed Thomas's paper mill.
That's what we needed.
No, I think I think we needed it to have more sort of space
hardware and look a little bit less like. explaining the design.
Yeah, in a way, but I also think that it's just something that the
show was never going to be able to afford, that space looks like
this in Doctor Who for a particular reason, and that is because
that's how it can be actually, you know, realised.
Yeah, I think I think that's made up for by that opening sequence
when they're outside, which I think is very well done, the
sequence where they're doing the spacewalk and builds, hasn't got
their helmet.
All those things.
I think maybe more conforming than we're in in our can space.
Don't say that.
But basically, I prepared, it's like, you know, when one watches
Doctor Who for, as long as we have one has to occasionally
overlook certain things.
Oh, sure.
And that's not something that the sets in this is not something
that I felt I was overlooking.
There were other aspects that I felt that I was overlooking at was
to do with the script and the plot rather than, or the plot rather
than the script, I should say.
Not the plot, the reason for being, I suppose.
Yeah.
Yeah. premise. premise.
That the word.
I mean, for me, it's television and I think it's super important
that the visual salad.
And now we can afford that more than we have been able to in the
past.
And, you know, we coined the term word peril for just, I think it
might have been that clear.
There are 1000s of them out.
Yeah, well, it's...
Where you were thinking about the cliffhanger to...
The entire universe could be destroyed.
That's episode three.
I don't know what a word parallel is, but that was exactly where
my mind went.
Oh, universe would be destroyed. yeah, right.
How do we up the stakes?
Yes, exactly.
I think we're going to fall into the heart of a black star at the
end of one of the...
Invasion of time.
That's where it comes from where there's one whole cliffhanger
which is just someone tells us that something bad is going
through.
And then Rodan goes and pulls the hand...
And so we get told about the oxygen scarcity, but I just wish we
could see it and I think it's important to tell it.
Oh, with the visuals as well.
I'm going to mostly disagree with both of you.
I think this is a dramatic, well told, eerie, incredibly well
mounted episode, which I think is a little bit on the nose with
its politics.
I'm going to agree with you, Simon, but I quite enjoy what it's
going to say, and I think Nathan, it's incredibly well made.
I actually don't get where you're coming from about it not being
well made.
I don't know that it's not well made, but it doesn't quite sell
what the script is.
Do we have that geography problem like we had last week with knock
knock, but I don't quite know which bits of the spaceship as we?
I recently guessed it on a podcast where we did Waters of Mars, and
I think Waters of Mars has some problems.
What is a Mars is one of those ones which has gotten less good the
further away it's gotten from me?
I'm not sure about that, but I do think that what it does do is
the geography of the base is extremely well established.
Really, really well.
Just the physical location.
And I think it does better zombies actually.
It does.
Although these zombies are pretty good.
Yeah, you actually help with that is when they have CGI or a
cutback to model work.
And the camera actually drifts in on the section that you're in
that helps you to place where you are.
Maybe, yes.
And sometimes if you're lacking that.
Yeah, they don't do that.
There are exterior establishing shots, but they don't, because
it's a circle.
It looks fantastic doesn't it?
360s.
Yes.
Quarters of Mars.
No, no, the space station, the Academy space station. little hint
of 2001 game.
Yes, yes.
A little hint.
I think you need to have a little, but what we, as we said before
what's missing is the silences to make it really 2001.
But again, I would have cared more if it had ever had about 25
minutes at the beginning of it, which allowed it for a bit more
world building and for us to get to know these people.
And to understand what's going on.
And I think that makes everything else more exciting.
Just running, running around and having crises does not in itself
make it exciting.
I need to care.
Not having that means you have to get the plot shorthand with like
you know, I'm pregnant, et cetera, et cetera.
Yes, exactly.
And of course, we're using what could be precious episode time
even though it's great by having that sequence at the bidding in
the lecture and having the sequence at the end where the doctor
proclaims that he's still blind, because you have those, which are
great bits, but the problem is then you're eating into the part
where they're actually on the space station, which would have
given you more time to be able to maybe do some of the things that
I have an issue with.
One of the things that sequence does, though, is the thing that I
like in the pilot, where it makes it look like time is passing
because we have short scenes that just maybe consist of a line of
dialogue or a look out the window. walking through the grounds
with the one punchline joke in it.
Yeah, I think that's really great.
And that's the thing that sold me on the pilot that puts the pilot
into sort of top tier territory is that it takes place over a year
and it has the same sort of beats as a kind of film dart.
It does.
And I really liked how we're getting the idea that the doctor
wants to go into space and that's something that's been building
for a while.
I think that's really good.
And the lecture.
What the lecture supposed to be about?
What's this got to do?
The crop rotation.
But space is really cool.
But like, I think, like, I really, really think that we could have
just had every episode starts with Peter Capaldi giving a lecture
about...
No, seriously, that would have been awesome.
That would have been absolutely awesome.
I think maybe it would be too cheesy, but I think I would have
won.
This week, black holes.
But, sir.
Oh my god.
But it works so well compared to like, I can't remember which one
they call.
Listen, which is the one where he starts with the...
Yeah, the tartars.
The blackboard, isn't it?
Yeah.
And then there's another one where he does it with who wrote
Beethoven's Fish.
Is that the same one?
No, that's before the flood. before the flood. before the flood.
See, I think that that's brilliant, listen, because in listen, he's
losing it to such a degree where he's talking to himself and
that's why he's talking.
It's not a monologue or something to camera like it is in before
the flood.
It's genuinely, he's now losing it to the degree where he's
talking to himself and so that's why we get to hear his thoughts.
But because Douglas McKinnon is so terrible.
He ruins it in all sorts of things. directed the Santarian
strategy.
I really like that story.
I do too.
I think it's a brilliant script, but I think it's ruined by
Douglas McKenna.
Slightly underdirected.
I agree.
Whenever they say Ganymede, does anyone just have the guy from...
Ganymede Beacon?
So why doesn't it all look swoosh and lovely like Never Beacon?
what I want to say.
It's not the 70s.
Oh, this is where the guy was sending that spaceship off to with
Michael Wisher on board.
Yeah, he was he was sending them off.
They're going to be bacon, which is this place?
to go and rescue them from spacesuits.
He was my brother.
Well, the episode talks about the true face of the universe being
when it asks for help, and the true face is our face when we
respond to that cry for help.
But that true face is the skull.
That's what the true face is the face of Beau.
I like your version better.
I love that bit, though.
I mean, I do love those lines of dialogue, you know, the... where
the doctor, he's the distress call and says that's my theme song.
Yeah, that's a theme too.
And then where she wants to leave and he says who we are is being
charged.
That's the other thing too.
Where he says, it's everyone's fault.
No, it's your fault.
The problem with the universe is everyone says it's not their
fault.
Everyone tries to kind of exculpate themselves or each other.
It's all right.
It wasn't your fault.
And he says, no, it is your fault.
Do something about it.
He does it a 2nd time in the episode because Nadal and Bill are
happy to run back to the TARNIS.
And he says, have, you know, do the math.
There's 4 people left alive.
Yes.
You hadn't thought about that. 40-36, yes.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, lady, sir, that's all the time we have for this week.
We'll be back next week to watch Bill's first date with Penny
taken unexpected turn in extremis.
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 grade and bountiful human empire.
Until next time, remember that it's all your fault, so what are
you going to do about it?
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Bye bye.
Ciao for now.
That was Flight for Entirety, starring Nathan Bottomley, Peter
Griffith, Simon Moore, and Kate Orman.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, Cowed and Crushed, was recorded on the 25th of
August 2024 and released on the 13th of October.
The average human being consumes about 780 grams of oxygen a day
which is clearly the reason I'm currently putting on so much
weight.
Time to cut down, I think.
Does this happen?
What, with paper in there?
No, no, what I'm thinking is, what I don't think is, there's that
bit at the end.
Maybe this is a tag.
There's a bit at the end where, um, the Bill hugs the doctor and
then Nardol goes in for a hug and he says, cuddle.
That happens again, doesn't it?
Yes, that's it.
That happens.
Does it happen in twice upon a time?
That's, I think, Nardol's last line.
Where they both hug the doctor.
He says cuddle and then they disappear.
The funny thing is that the subtitles on the Blu-ray get it
wrong.
I can't remember, but they don't say cartel.
Is it because of the Sonos?
you know, audio translated...
Right, they don't get it right.
But they say something funny.
It's just something odd.
I think it's another one of Matt Lucas's ad libs because we've
talked about that before.
In Dr. Mysterio, where he goes into the bedroom and he goes, ooh
elephant.
And then he sort of runs like, apparently that's that's an ad
lib.
And Capaldi, you know, who is um, uh, more classically trained.
Yes.
You know, I am getting kind of per twee trout and kind of...
But he says, you know, look, it's terribly funny, but like I'm not
expecting it at all sort of thing.
I'm going to say something about it.
But yeah, no, it just seemed to be like a weird, um, hilarious
Matt Lucas thing.
Is he even supposed to be in the shot?
He's just there suddenly.
Okay.