A Perfect Crucible

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Flights for Entirety, the only Doctor Who podcast that knows what we like. I'm Nathan. I am Brendan. And I'm John. And I'm the TARDIS telepathic circuits lip syncing for their life for this one. Well, this week it's 27.5 years since survival part 3 was broadcast, a time just longer than the entirety of the classic series. And this week, Ronan Monroe returns to the program. Let's see what she does in a story about darkness, light, and the ravages of time. It's the eaters of light. So, I have to say that I was excited to hear that Ronan Monroe was back writing for the program after so long. How did you feel, John, about survival when you 1st saw it? Oh, so what, survival was a slightly weird one for me? Because I, the 1st time I ever saw it, well, I didn't really see it. It was a long time getting to the episode because, you know, it was back in 89 and we had a very old knackered video recorder. And so recorded it, but it didn't really give me any of the pictures. I could just hear it. I only heard the soundtrack of episode one because I was away, for whatever reason, episode one record. I had no idea what was happening. And so this was before I play our account or anything like that. So I had to try and vaguely figure out what the plot was. It was like listening to those crappy 2nd grade recordings of the missing episodes we always used to do in the 80s and 90s anyways where you were vaguely listening in and going, I think I can just about hear Patrick Troughton. But, you know, yeah, and I, so I remember like tuning into episode 2 where they'd landed on another planet and being absolutely baffled. Um, but I mean, I, I, I think survival is um, is, is a really lovely piece of work. It's, um, it's got so much going on. I mean, I think there are, it's a bit of a shame in a way that it's called survival and instead of cat flap, because whilst cat flap is a tiny bit sillier and a bit less matching the tone of the story because survival does feel like the tone. Survival is a bit too, obviously, for me, stating the theme. Um, it's right at the top. Got to go. Hey, the story's about survivor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone mentioned survivor. you keep going, yeah yeah, I've got that. I think I know what you're saying. Yeah, it reminded me of seeing the Oscar winning crash film. Uh, where, where one of the reasons I, I, the 1st time I'd seen that I didn't hate it as much as everyone seems to hate it, but the beginning of that is literally, you know, Don Cheadle explaining the metaphor of the title in the monologue, uh, which is not an exaggeration. That is what it is. And yeah, again, there's something about that. We go, 0 gosh, no. But it's, I think survival, it's never one that people talk about. I think it's, um, obviously up against you, you know, a story people really adoring Fenrick and uh, the famously odd and quirky actual last recorded story in Ghostlight. Battlefield is one that people are less scared of, but they talk about it. So it sort of sits in the middle as being just solid. And filled with interesting ideas and interesting characters. And at the same time, it's also the story that effectively brought the Doc Universe, Lisa Baumann. So, um, that counts for a hell of a lot. Let's be honest here, because that is, there's so much that came from that. But I think it's, I think it's a really good story, particularly as, um, It works about as well as a final story that wasn't intended to be a final story can be, I would say. I think it's a really good bit of writing and Red Monroe is amazing. It's very surprising to know that that wasn't intended to be or that there wasn't an inkling that that would be the case. It feels like the closure story, not just for a season but for a series. And I don't just mean the tag scene. It's a perfect place to close. Yeah, no, I had that sort of feeling of something ending all throughout episode three, I think. But what it also does, I mean, she was a young playwright at the time whom Andrew Cartmel had asked. And I think that the idea was that Stephen Moffat had always wanted her to come back, but I think had assumed that because she was so successful and because it was something she'd done such a long time ago, that she might not be willing to do it. And there's a real sense where survival is a kind of proper playwright getting their hands on the program. And I think the way the production works helps as well. The fact that it's all shot on location gives it a sort of level of realism, we go to housing estates. In fact, we kind of do the sort of thing that will be done regularly when the show comes back in 2005. It's as if the kind of level of realism in the depiction of the world that, you know, Ace comes from is something that she sort of that she brings to the program and then that Russell brings back. It's kind of interesting how this script came about and how Stephen Moffatt did finally ask Ronan Monroe to contribute to the program and it was he and Russell were at a literary award festival in Scotland and saw Ronan Monroe across the room and basically just ran over to her and started talking to her about squeezing. at her in fan voice. Pretty much to the point that, according to Rona, she thought they were just very erudite, charming fans. And then towards the end of the conversation, realised that Stephen and Russell, her new friends were Stephen Moffat and Russell T. Davies. And that then led to Stephen saying, would you like to do another one? And she said, yes, please. Not realising she's a totes fan. Yes. Of course she would have been or she wouldn't have written it in the 1st place. Did you meet her, John? I think I've met her once in passing, which was at the Gallifrey Convention in LA. Um, where we, we, we had, I was asked to sort of share a panel about the theatre. And, um, and I started off the, this, uh, panel about the theatre to say. Okay, thank you for coming, everyone, to this talk about working in the theatre in the UK. And if you want to know what it's like to be hugely successful and hugely talented in the theatre in the UK. Go and see Ronan Monrose panel, which is happening at the same time in a different room. Because this was the most successful theatre person and she wasn't on the panel. She was doing something else. And so yeah, I'd had a chance to speak to her there. I was reminded weirdly, the other kind of nominal encounter I've had with it was a few weeks, well, not with her, but about her, was and it reminds me pretty much of what Brenda just said. Um, I was at a, the big Finnish anniversary party where they had like for 25 years of doctorate at big finish. And there was a girl there who works reception at the sound house where we do most of the recordings and she was sort of quite young and Scottish, she was an actor and she'd done this. I think, you know, gone to drama school and she said, phrase got to go, oh, yeah, I did a play in my final year that was by Ronan Monroe, who no one in England's ever heard of. And it just went, wow, you've just said that sentence in precisely the wrong room. I feel you can like look around a big borderline anyone in this entire room. And I think I like picking the most random. I thought, well, I'll just pick whoever's next to me, which hasn't happened, turned up to be Nicholas Briggs at that point. Go ahead and see. just turn right away. Oh, it's Nick. And I said, Nick, Rowan Monroe, and then he just rattled off some Rowan Monroe packs. This is just, you know, it's basically the same thing. You know, Raya Monroe has a certain legendary place in the hearts of Dr. E Fans. So, my feeling is that the Aders of Light isn't necessarily one that is thought of a lot either, and it's in a strange position isn't it? Because it's the last regular episode of Capoldi's run and of Moffatt's run. And there is a kind of, I don't know, is there a feeling, a sort of feeling of things just coming to an end and closing down? I guess the way that there was with survival. But I have to say that the things that I liked about survival are things that I like about Edus of Lied. And I guess, I guess it's the fact that she doesn't come to either of them as a science fiction writer, but just as a writer. And so, so survival works on the logic of, you know, like a Narnia story or something, you know, there's a magical world that you're transported to where maybe the struggles in your life or things are kind of rareified and made kind of real or more important or more kind of allegorical or something more representative. And then here you have a sort of just so story, isn't it? It's like an aetiological myth that explains where, like at one level, it just explains, you know, the ghosts and the singing and stuff that gets heard on that hill, but it also explains, you know where crows get their cawing sound from. And so there's a framing story that's all about that with characters who don't meet the doctor and interacting with the plot. And there is also a magical door to another world, isn't there? With sort of strange time things and stuff exactly like you would see in a Narnia book or in a, in sort of children's fantasy literature. Yeah, and Rona, for Doctor Who gets that Doctor Who should always be watched by and accessible to children. So she focusses both of her stories on young people. you know, and this one especially, because the young people are all that's left and there is a, there's the sort of the anti-war speech in both stories and here it's even more poignant because it's the doctor talking to children. It feels very YA, doesn't it? I don't know if John's written any of that. I've got friends that do It felt like one of Scott Westefeld's books, the Uglies and the Pretties and the New York Times bestseller. used to live around the corner. Anyway, he did the same thing. And everyone's a child of William Golding, aren't we? And that we place young people in a setting that without adults where adults would be expected and then watch the Malay. I think Golding did it 1st and best. So when I look at Scott's books and then I looked at this, I thought of him, again, in the way that you just watch the character and the personalities of these embryos, Capaldi beautifully says, find their metal in their form. And it's, I love this in good YA. And I love this in Doctor Who, the very rare occasion that it does it. I can really only think of this one actually, and then you'd, oh no, there's a few moments. Stephen Moffatt does it well too. But the child, you see the adult in the child and you see just how seriously truthful and present children actually are, and we're reminded of the moral core, let alone the ethical one of the absolute truth in children and how they're actually much better than we are. In so many ways. And within 45 minutes, I'd forgotten how good this story was and how nuanced and layered and how funny and how very Scottish. But just those moments with perfect casting and how it is a little bit grease, the musical, when you've got Bill pretending to be kind of the same age as the other kids around. I'm 29? certainly not. It gets very Joan on Lumley. But we will read that she is the same age as the as the ninth division and as the as the Celtic tribes. Beautiful things. In fact, there is a moment, I think, where she realises that she's older than them. And it is when Lucia says that he's 18 and then suddenly she says all right, I'm the grown up here. I need to take charge. And she, there is a sort of moment where she seems to feel for them. And it's funny, you know, it only occurs to me now that the main characters, the main human characters in survival are all children as well. And I think the difference is the 27 years that passed since we watched survival when we 1st watched Eaters of Light and even sort of further than that. You know, they weren't young people, they were just people, you know, Mitch and Shreila and all of those people. They were just our age or my age anyway when I was watching it a bit younger. But these kids, they really look convincingly like kids in a way that doesn't happen all that often. I think they really, really worked. Those young boys, like Simon and Cornelius and things just look ridiculously young. I looked up how old. Well, because I'm slightly thrown in terms of like accepting them all as kids through one slightly unfortunate coincidence of timing which is at the moment I'm watching series one of slow horses. I've heard that's beautiful. What do you think? Yeah, it's I'm loving it. I realised that I kind of like my my diet was dark, but with a very silly sense of human written by British writers, British comedy writer. So like that in succession. That's I love that. But obviously the slight problem is that our lead loveable centurion in this is the is the psycho far right kid. Uh, in series one of slow horses, which episode slightly makes me kind of, I don't trust him. It's gonna come at you with an axe any second. And so I was kind of curious because I was curious as to how old he was. And I think he's 33 at the moment. And so precisely when this was made is what, seven, 8 years ago, is that right? I'm trying to figure out the math of it. Yeah, 2017. Yeah, so it places them around about, so that, yeah, telling you so that place is in about 26, doesn't it? So when he's recording it. So that's the same age as Pearl. I think. Yeah, or more or less. To be fair, he still looks like a child now, even in this like older one. He looks ridiculously young. which is going to be great for casting for him. But, um, but also it's actually, it's always quite nice when you see somebody like that where it's such a different part in terms of everything about it and it's quite nice. Every now and then you meet someone you kind of reminded their actors because there is a degree to which now people are slightly boxed into playing the same thing and it's really good to see someone where they've got that sort of range. It's like saying, um, is it Phil? Dunphy out of Ted Lasso. Um, who plays the sort of the little Pudleyan striker in that. and he, is he Geordie? I can't remember. And, uh, and then he, but he's just like posh RP when he's taking around and it's really, it's really disconcerting because you now sort of expect everyone to just be sounding exactly like they sound in the 1st thing you see them in. Yeah, I was recently watching a Graham Norton interview with Henry Cavill publicising a DC film and Tom Holland publicising a Marvel film, and of course, neither of them sound like Clark Kent or Peter Parker. Yeah, yeah. I'm really impressed by the cast in this one. And especially for me, it's like the Picts look even younger than the Romans. But I think the actors playing car and band are both, I think one's 18, one's 20. The actress playing car, Rebecca Benson already had a big series under her belt and was talking to her parents, but telling them, oh yeah, I'm going off to do this other thing for the BBC. No, no, it's not Doctor Who. Because she knew they'd be terribly excited and want to know everything, you know. So we've got a really experienced, talented, young and vital cast. She is so magnificent. That thing where there's a moment where Bill turns up and hears her and she's saying something about honouring her parents and stuff like that and there's a little indulgent smile from Bill, who doesn't quite know what's going on yet, and then she approaches and realises that she's honouring her parents who are dead and that, you know, things are much more sombre than she sort of thought they were. But she is still sort of smiling indulgently. And then Car gets up and just screams at her in the most sort of demented actress way possible, like absolutely throwing herself into it in the most amazing way, imaginable, just screaming and running at her in a way that's absolutely, truly terrifying. Like, she's so good. And of course, she gets to give the big speech about the Romans. And it's a speech that, you know, is hugely important, I think, to our understanding of what's going on in the story. you know, she could equally be talking about the monsters as well. you know, the monsters that are going to swarm out and eat the sun and the stars and things. But it starts with the Romans, and of course, it's a speech by Tacitus, from Tacitus as Agricola, and it's a speech put into the mouth of the 1st Caledonian character that we actually have heard of. So this is a battle that takes place in about 83 or 84. Tacitus is writing about it in the 90s. The character's called Kalgakus, and he obviously speaks for much longer than she does because it's, you know, a Roman historical monograph. He gets to go on for sort of chapter and chapter, but she basically gives the cliff notes of it. And of course, that, quote, they make a desert and they call it peace, is terribly famous, maybe one of Tacitus's most famous sayings. So she gets to, you know, she's a few decades later, isn't she? I think the ninth legion disappears in the early 2nd century, like 11, 17 or something. So she's a bit later, but she is quoting Tacitus and sort of very very famous for Bear in what is a pretty spectacular speech. One of the reasons I know this is that I was actually teaching that text to my year 12 Latin extension class and when she started talking like that, I said, wait, I'm sure that I've heard this before, what's going on. So it was as I was teaching it in 2017 that I 1st heard deliver that speech. I've read the novelisation in preparation for this podcast. I thought about that, but then I don't have a copy of it. I slightly lost track of which novelisations I've gotten read. So it's sort of slightly tricksy to get into ahead of that. Yeah, I'm in that position at the moment because I've got 2 of the 3 tenant special novelisations and every time I'm in the bookshop I'm like, I've forgotten which one don't I have? But no, it's it's quite interesting because A lot of what Ronan Monroe adds is backstory for car. Also, she kind of just reinstates a lot of what had to get cut out for budget. So for instance, when Bill 1st runs away, She's meant to fall into a river to get away from the creature and the river carries her to the cave and obviously someone in the production office said, or she can fall down a hole. But I think 2 of the biggest things it adds is it adds sort of car guarding at the thing and hearing the coming battle, it shows us the battle, which, of course, Doctor Who. I mean, Game of Thrones could barely afford to do that battle, let alone Doctor Who, and it shows Carl's thought process with letting the creature out, et cetera, et cetera. But a big thing it adds is Lucius is in a relationship with one of the other boys. Oh, okay. And it sort of built, and so instead of having the whole bill thing going up our way, only like girls and all the legionnaires going, oh, right, yes, we know what that is. Yeah, we know. Okay, that's fine. Instead of having that, it has this whole relationship budding between these 2 and then, of course, Sextus sacrifices himself to save the rest of it. Or the rest of the baggage handlers before the story. But also, like, the doctor and Bill's whole argument about the legion is actually really quite bitter. Oh, like instead of yeah, instead of being this fun light opening of, I know, I know, I know. No, I know, and I'm going down here and I'm going to bring back a Roman and the doctor's like, well, I'm going to go over here and find a pile of corpses. And it's like, really? They both manage it, don't they actually? Yeah, yeah. that the thing I liked was that they both achieve what they set up to achieve. Yeah, it just really shocked me to the point that I hadn't seen this episode since 2017. So I decided I'm going to read the book 1st and then watch the TV version. I'm reading those 1st few pages. I'm like, it wasn't like this on telly, and thankfully it wasn't because I don't think you could just get that level of anger between Pearl and Peter. It doesn't work with the tone of the rest of the story anyway. There's one or 2 moments where you sort of think that the dialogue is kind of pre-cuddly Capoldi from season 10. And so it's just possible that she wrote this without fully knowing exactly where things were going. Isn't our doll in it and our dolls in the novelisation? No dolls in the novelisation. Yeah. Because, I mean, it is that sort of tone that we've kind of reached where it is, you know, they're ribbing each other and it's a little bit more friendly and stuff. Why isn't a doll in his dressing gown? Because the argument between the doctor and Bill has dragged him away from the box set he was about to watch?. There is a, there is a faint sense with it that it does feel slightly like the, it's a tiny bit crow body noddle. that, because it doesn't really do anything apart from just stand there and say uh, funny lines and it would, in terms of that structure of, yeah the bill goes off, to look one thing, the doctor goes off to look for the other. It's kind of a bit, it feels like that works better if it's just one on one on one. So I feel it probably was written initially as one on one in that in those initial stages where Nodo wasn't going to be in every episode before they decided. I mean, don't get me wrong. I enjoy all of the asides in all of the bits, but you can sort of also, it feels like you're not always going to go off with one of them and leave the other one to fend for themselves. He should go with Bill. But it goes to the doctor because it makes more plot sense for him to go with the doctor so you get the things like the time slippage stuff. Um, you can illustrate that. Yeah, so yeah, I think we can see the behind the scenes mechanics there, if you know about them, if you're looking for them, but then, you know, I don't I've only thought of that really now. I didn't think of that when I was watching it. It's only when you're like trying to sit back and analyse it, which is an example, I think of these things being done well. Um, because, you know, I'm always very aware. I've talked about this, things live away, if you're writing something that isn't, I think, borderline anything other than a novel. Uh, you don't get to write in the perfect crucible where you can just write whatever the hell you want. Yeah. You have to be aware of other factors and change things. So it's like, you know, in particular if you're dealing with actors and schedules and as you say, like being washed down the stream. Um, And that isn't, isn't in itself a problem because that's just how writing works. It should be hard to notice it and particularly when you're watching it. And I think that there's an example of being integrated well is that you don't really notice when you're watching it, then that's the thing. only if you know about it afterwards and you're analysing it and you go, oh, that was probably added in afterwards wasn't it? Because it doesn't really change or do anything other than like giving some funny lines here and there and everywhere because it's been integrated well enough and written well enough that you don't really mind. I guess, I guess maybe the most obvious be it is where Capaldi's gone for 2 days and he comes back expecting our doll to have done something about Bill, but obviously we can't have any progress on that front. And so we just get a throwaway line of, oh, you know, we tried to look, but then we stopped or whatever. I think she's been lost and that's perhaps the bit that is where it's kind of most obvious. But yeah, I mean, one of the reasons that I love television so much is that the writers don't get to do everything that they want to do and sometimes they have to do something inventive to come up with a solution for a weird problem that's imposed on them from the outside. Yeah. Straints are a really good generator of creativity, I think. Yeah, I mean, I mean, with Doctor Who, you know, you've got cast members turning over all the time, you've got, you know regeneration, you've got people arriving and leaving and all of that stuff really works. I mean, we've already talked quite a bit about how the departure of Jenna and the introduction of of Pearl has given Moffatt and the writers something really interesting to do, a real proper shot in the arm at the end of this year, I think. On the topic of Matt Lucas's not all. We can talk more about this later, but the missy scenes at the end were added when the running order of episodes was changed. And so a lot of sort of funny lines were cut. And I think my possibly my favourite funny line of nardoles that was lost was at the moment where the picks catch up to them outside the cairn, and they all gather round Nardol with their swords and whatnot. Nadol was to say, no, please don't. I'm allergic to swords, spears, knives, anything pointy, really. And I just read that and I'm like, one, that's a villa line. Yeah, just reading through the complete history and it's like, this line was cut. and every 3rd line is a joke from Matt Lucas. I think the thing that's retained is actually really interesting because it's that weird thing where he's clearly been telling the Picts all of the stories of the great nautical mysteries of history. And he tells the story of the Mary Celeste, where the Ezemodon ambassador has come down and eaten the entire crew, because that's how his people communicate with one another. And I think, you know, in a story where the real proper villains like the proper actual monsters are going to swarm out and eat the sun and the stars and things, having a story where someone has just sort of choose their way through the entire crew of the Mary Celeste is a pretty fun kind of commentary on that. I think. And I'm sure we can find ways of nominally screwing the continuity of that with the chase if we really want to. I don't want to. Well, they, I mean, they only jumped off and then they got back on. Then they got back on. They got eaten by, I think. In fact, I think it's probably a slightly less harrowing phase for the poor people on the Mary Celeste rather than being chased by Daleks and that woman with the baby doing a hilarious comedy jump into the water and stuff. Dennis Chenery with a BBC Press on beer. I also think like one of the interesting things about it. I've spent, I've spent all day editing our episode on the pyramid at the end of the world and that's why Peter Harness and Moffatt and there's a lot going on and there's some complex plotting and things, you know, depend very closely on each other and there's all sorts of things going on. And what I think is interesting here is that they've given Ronan Monroe essentially 37 minutes because the missy scene at the end takes 5 minutes. And she tells a story in that time that has a framing device and in which we really are just coming in at the very end, I think. And one of the things that she does is she just writes something appropriate for the amount of time that she has, just the simplicity of it. You know, the 2 of them splitting up, each of the meeting, uh, you know, one of the factions, which is sort of classic part one behaviour, I guess, then getting together, then persuading everyone to work together and then seeing off the monster in a way where there's no particular kind of reversal or nothing particularly unexpected happens, you know? Yeah, it's relatively straightforward. It might be why I don't think it sits terribly strongly in the memory for people. Um, not, not to say it's bad, but it's that thing where I, I've uh an inclination that, there's something to feel like it hits, it probably is like the shorter, the length, the higher the concept. I think that's why it's suffered in the reception. I think you got an audience appreciation of 81, didn't it, at the time, but only a 30.3 rate on success in other ways. But this is how you structure successful YA, and knowing how well Monroe writes, and looking at the structure of this again, compared to the stories around it. I can see why it's a little archipelago of its own. And I am thinking of William Golding when I say that. It's how you do structure good success, you know, successful young adult fiction, and you plot it in a linear way, but then you throw a whole lot of emotional curveballs. And that's exactly what she's done. So the monster is, you know, the grown up version of Vicky's mate Sandy. He'll follow you around the room and make suggestions. And, um, well, it wasn't. There's nothing really surprising in all of this. And other than the way it was spun, and the beautiful way the young actors were interposed against each other. All I remembered from this, the 1st viewing, when I watched them all just once, was the scene in the cave between the Roman kids and the picked kids. And again, it's the most striking scene in this for me as well. Lots of shades, and it's not just the name car, lots of shades of unearthly child, bro. I really wish Eileen Way had been around to just simply be hovering around in the background sketching on the walls, you know making Philip Clark excited, all those sorts of things, you know we needed an icon, didn't we? We needed a gay icon in this one. Funny you should say that because up until about draft five, there was a grandmother who had also survived because she hadn't gone off to fight. And, you know, the latest warrior who had burst out of the can and said, you know, I need someone else to take over, had been her lover 60 years ago. But yeah, she was exiled. She also doesn't appear in the novelisation. So there you go. There shall be no fire. except they said there must be. Because as I understand it, the normalisations can't veer away too far from what was transmitted. I think they've still got to basically the same story, but yeah they're allowed to expand, but not change, I think, or something like that. Yeah, I can't remember the details. Yeah, that might explain why a lot of her changes are either from earlier versions of the script or embellishing on the backstory rather than changing the narrative. And it's possible if the old woman didn't last many drafts if she didn't get, you know, quite as much development as the other elements in the story. And by the time she had a finished story, there was nowhere to put her. Oh, yeah. But there was that idea that we were going to see someone who had been in there fighting for just, you know, minutes of their own time and a whole lifetime of everyone else's. Yes. So the monster itself is actually a thing called the Pictish Beast which is a creature that is seen all the time in those sort of picked-ish carvings. And we actually do see it. It's visible on some of the, you know, the prop ones that are there as part of the can, particularly towards the end. And then in the last scene where Judy and her brother are there. We see that there is actually a picture of the kids, you know, a carving of the kids fighting this beast. But if you look it up, the Pictnish Beast, it's got a Wikipedia page, there's lots and lots of images and stuff. And so she's taken a creature from mythology that I think we know nothing else about. You know, it's a quadruped of some kind. It doesn't seem to be a dragon or anything. And it looks very much like the monster that we see. Giving it a Google. As we speak. I had a, I, guts were rumbling away. It wasn't just the threat of all that deep fried Scottishness when this came on. First and 2nd time that there must be much darker lines of Scottishness in the law to this. So you just confirmed another one of them. Like the picked carvings. And she's right, Monroe was right, and she's had, I really hoped they'd get that right. And they did. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because we've got the thing, which is the sort of same trick that we have at the beginning of the end of time, part one, where we get to see the TARDIS carved into, you know, the stone in the same way that it's in the stained glass we know of the church. Glorious reappearance of Roberta Tovey after so many years hovering behind a monolith. I think it's her. I mean, we haven't seen a sense of you. Tragically, no. Rona does say when she's describing the Picts that the actors must use Scottish accents, but not city Scottish accents. Somewhere on the intelligible side of Doric is her description. So not Dundee. Have you ever been to Dundee? Have you heard them? John, have you ever heard them? Yeah, I think I have been to Dundee. Yeah. I don't think I went out much, though. I was in a play. It's like eating an entire fruitcake covered in alcohol. They can't, it's unintelligible completely. Brian Cox, you know, the actor who is in succession whenever he's interviewed and actually does his own accent. You can just say, what? What? He's an ood, isn't he? Yes, yes. Brian Cox player. Grandaddy Ood in time. God, so we don't. The voice only. That was a coup. It was the physicist Brian Cox in the makeup. No, I'm actually talking about the Hector. So while we're speaking about the language, of course, suddenly we get the same discovery that we get in Mask of Man Dragara, only this time Pearl realises she is speaking Latin because the boy can understand her. It's Simon, I think, the boy at the beginning. And she works out because again, her character is incredibly genre savvy, she can spot a mind wipe. You know, when she sees one in the pilot. And so she works out without needing to be told that it's the doctor and the telepathic circuits of the tarnis and things that makes them intelligible to one another. And so there's even a reference to the boys speaking Latin, but they just sound like they're English and then car and band speaking with Scottish accents and their language being whatever the hell they're talking, isn't it? I think Pearl doesn't even know what language they'd be speaking at this point. Yeah. And another Matt Lucas line is cut there when everyone's saying, so you sound like you're speaking English. You sound like you're speaking English. No, it's meant to look very puzzles and say, what's English? Yeah, yeah, yeah So, and so that we then find out for the past 10 episodes, Nardo's been speaking Marinian or something. But then there's a little thing where she takes it further where they hear each other talking and they realise that they're all children and on one level it's the doctor says that he experiences everyone like that when he hears people speaking, everyone sounds like a child. But here it's this situation where, you know, they're enemies who've slaughtered one another, essentially, and they just see one another and hear one another speak, and suddenly they realise that they're just children. And Capaldi gets another speech, which I think may be better than the speech at the end of the Zygon inversion about not having a war about growing up because he does it in about 2 lines beautifully written by Ron Monroe. And I think also because his scenes with the picks, especially even though there is some of the grumpiness there, it's written and performed with a lot more compassion than we're necessarily used to. there's a bit in the novel where this basically four-year old keeps coming up and say, well, I, you know, I can scare, I can scare the creature, and I can do this, and I can do this, and finally the doctor says, right, you go hide behind that rock, and you scream because he won't be able to tell where that's coming from, and that's the scariest thing when you hear a screaming, you don't know where it's coming from. And the kid runs off behind the rock and the doctor just goes delusional. But, you know, even so it's that whole thing of, I'm going to give everyone a job to do. I'm gonna come clean and say, I didn't think much of this one at all when I first watched it. And there was a particular scene where my brain just went. I'm jumping off. I'm no longer on board, and I don't know what it was watching it again. It's all very clear, but it's after the doctor has left the can and going looking for Bill and he just walks into the middle of a forest and car is walking the other way and just part of me went oh, so they're just both walking in the forest at this specific time to have this conversation. I'm like, this is like the worst parts of Silver Nemesis. But it now actually it makes perfect sense. I think it's lovely. The ending, originally I found mawkish, but I actually now find it really moving, where they do decide to work together. And it's not a matter of, you know, the pick saying, you know, we forgive you for invading our land. It's a matter of we can all do something right here. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in a way, the monsters are something just sort of bigger and worse than the Romans, but are essentially doing what the Romans themselves did. And we had car tell us that. But these kids have seen everything around them destroyed as a result. And so there's nothing sort of political or ideological about them working together and there is something about them understanding each other. And I do think the best bit of that is Lucius looking back. at Bill as he sort of heads into the into the rift thing. I think that's really sweet and, you know, he's not going off just to sacrifice himself. He does have a cheeky grin as well. I think it's very sweet. Yeah, I think it's uh, it's good to have one of those endings where you can often end up with the sort of the self-sacrificial ending. Uh, the person got in there going, oh, I'm going to fling myself into this. It felt, um, very earned in this, and it felt like it served a, a grander person, not least because it isn't just one person doing it. Uh, you know, atoning for crimes. It's not really about that in this version of it, is it? It's about sort of a shared humanity more than anything else, I suppose. is that they're doing it together because they are basically, in effect, the same, that's found out they're the same because they can speak the same language at each other and it's you know, it's a unification thing. It's not even, yeah, it feels weird to slightly call it a sacrifice in a way because it's if anything a moment of, you know actual triumph, really. It's actually funny, and we'll talk about it in a minute that missy comments on it. Like she kind of, she's been watching it. Remember, she's been watching it on telly while they've all been you know, out there and she actually says something about how the sort of big self-sacrifice at the end isn't to your usual standard. And the doctor comes back and says, no, it wasn't that. And there was music as well. And I think that's really great. I love to learn about the memory. Yeah, the fact that the musicians go in there to defeat the monsters as well. And then the musicians are what Bill hears as she gets into the TARDIS and then what, 2000 years later, 2 years. Yeah, but it's over years. Yeah, when she when she goes to the can. And I don't have a slash next to Ken. It's wonderful actually how it's the music that Matt Lucas's character is already roundly dissed for being worse than jazz great. One of the best lines. There's some great lines. So Moffat helps himself to 5 minutes of the ending. How do we feel about that? Yeah, so this came about because originally the running order was lie of the land, Eaters of Light, Empress of Mars, where Missy comes to rescue everyone, which leads into world enough and time. Right. And I don't know exactly why they swapped it, but it was probably to avoid having a bunch of earthbound episodes in a row. And it may have been a scheduling thing. I think Charles Palmer does this one and he shot some earlier episodes. I got the impression that it may have had something to do. Possibly that as well. Yeah. Yeah. As for the material itself, it's very good, I'm only sorry it came at the expense of some of the funnier gags in the episode. Do we know that they were Monroe's gags or were they Moffat's gags? From what I can see, Moffatt's main contribution to the script is actually the discussion about sexuality. No, I didn't know that I did not expect. Now, Moffat didn't write it, but he briefed Monroe on, you know, we do like, because Moffat does one of the great queer baiting things this season of he says he's never going to talk about Bill being a lesbian and then he can't stop. Yeah, it's wonderful. Although he doesn't actually use the word. No, no, he doesn't use the word. But no, he never does. Yeah, but I gather Moffat said to Rona, I'd like a scene sort of shaped like this to talk about Bill's character and Rona then writes it. It's a lovely scene. It is pretty great, isn't it? Because in her 1st Doctor Who story 27 years earlier. There's all this kind of sublimated sort of sapphic energy and the moon and all of that sort of stuff. There is the relationship between Kara. Oh my goodness, Kara and Kara, Kara and Ace, you know, so there's there's sort of all these queer subtexts, I think, available in survival. And then 27 years later, she gets to write more explicitly about you know, a woman who fancies only other women. And I think that is pretty great. I think, um, there's something of a, a, a, a, B in my bonnet about a certain degree of representation because I kept watching TV shows where a character's uh, sexuality uh, was only ever alluded to if it became a plot point. So, um, or actually the better way of putting it is that, um, if it was like an ensemble show and the characters go, if it got to being their episode, it felt like they were only allowed a story about homophobia or coming out. Yeah, exactly. miserable. And that annoys me. going to go, well, a straight character can have a story about anything. But if you're a gay character, these are the only things you're allowed. So I think when Moffat's not really addressing sexuality. It's mainly in that sense. It's never really kind of making it an issue plot. No. uh, but becau, but then sometimes it'll just come up in conversation, natural, and I found that writing very sort of, um diverse-ish characters, uh, in audio sometimes, but just, you know even if you don't do with big finish. Yeah, every, yeah, in particular, I've noticed it with Rebecca Root's character, Tanya, is trans, uh, that you kind of go and go to go, well, you won't mention it that often. And then I think I've written maybe like 4 episodes and it turns up in the dialogue in 3 of them. Yeah, it worked really well, John. Oh, thank you. I hope to, but it was one thing to be that sense ago. It's never going to be about that, but then every now and then there's a moment where it comes up where it's relevant for her to mention it and it feels silly not to. Well, she didn't have the pope and penny in her front room though did she? Yeah, yeah. Or the, what is it? The Secretary General of the United Nations. Which is really great. Well, she works for Torchwood. What happened? In fact, one of the things that has to be done in that very, very 1st scene between the doctor and Bill in the pilot is that we need to mention that she's a lesbian. And the way that it's done is by her telling that story about giving the extra chips to the attractive girl when she's serving her in the university cafeteria and then how she gets fat. And then she says, I don't know where I was going with that story. Like the story is clearly only there. So that she can tell the doctor that she's a lesbian. But then she says, I don't know where I was going with that story. I guess I thought something would turn up, which I think is actually really pretty great. To get back to, well, the question, the question you actually asked about Missy. The thing is, Missy doesn't know where all the doctors' lessons are going. Yeah. But then we do get this bit at the end. where she does start to accept, oh, maybe I'm having an emotion. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. So I watch this again today with Rod, and Rod's only 2 comments where popcorn doesn't pop that quickly. And, um, But his other thing, when the credits rolled is more missy, more missy, I want Missy to come back. She's the best we've had since Delgado. Oh, yeah. And I think that's the thing. This is a few minutes of rewrites, basically. And you would never know because Michelle and Peter are so good. And, you know, Pearl and Matt as well. But Pearl and Matt mostly just get to go, what's she doing here? What's she doing? What's she doing? And Bill is beautifully defensive about what appears to be, oh you're using a woman just to tidy up the place, are you? But then there's that wonderful, all those glorious moments where Michelle just turns around and gives that Joan Crawford side down and you think, she could kill you all in. Just out of boredom. I think I think my favourite moments are the way that rather than saying, you know, Missy's turning good now, the doctor says something about how it might be time for you and me to be friends again, like putting it that way. Yeah, that was a really good life, yeah. Yeah, and are you really buy it, I think, you know, just from the way it's played? And, you know, when she she actually goes to touch him and he steps back a little bit. And I just thought all of that was tremendously good. And then I do like the other one where she suggests maybe it's just a devious plan and wouldn't that be easier? You know, like, I think, I think probably people at this point weren't sold on Missy's redemption, and it's happened a few episodes earlier, hasn't it? It's in the lie of the land, where we see her cry for the 1st time and talk about the names of the people that she's killed. And I think by having her joke with him about it being a devious plan and how much easier that would be. Anyone kind of remotely literate will realise, well, then it's not a devious plan at this point. that's something that's really genuinely happening And that's interesting. And obviously, it leads into what's going to happen next week. But it's a great moment, just beautifully played by Michelle, I think, and by Peter. they're superb. They're dynamically opposed together, aren't they? That whole yin yang yin thing that they do. Sometimes it's difficult to tell them apart or tell them apart especially when they're whirling about each other. No, it is. Which one's which? And I mean, I mean that digetically, Brendan, one. The shadow and the light. I can very much see Capaldi's doctor be utterly tempted and capable to do anything that Missy will do. He just would never do it. He chooses not to. She just doesn't have those boundaries, but they're so alike. They should have just ended up marrying each other at the end of the show. It's almost there. Actually, no, no, because the mistress is always the fun one, isn't she? these stories. So yeah, I get I get it. I just realised that's why she's called Missy. It's not mistress. She's the she's the libidinous mistress to to Capaldi's doctor whereas Clara is the is the granddaughter slash. Oh, let's get a bit non-eatable about this. Yep. That's where I'm going to, that's where I'm going to stick. I'm going to stick my de bevoir right there, my little fridge magnet right there. I think, uh, it did really remind me of how, how well Moffat wrote The Master, if we, if we can refer to Missy as the master in those terms. I think he's probably the best. And of the showrunners. And it is pretty much just the showrun as you might, the master in the news series as far as I'm aware at the top of my head. I can't think of many instances of other people think, unless it's like literally just cameos. Um, And it does feel the most like an actual character to me. Um, and that's, I suppose, why, um, yeah, there's the suggestion best in Delgado, because it really is about a bit more than just being evil cackling maniac. Even though, you know, Michelle Gibbs great evil cackling maniac. Actually, I suppose that's one of the other reasons that I think it's interesting in terms of what we were saying earlier about the sense of a slightly potentially grumpier Reed, of Capaldi, and I'm very much reminded of having written for Michelle, to play Missy on a few occasions where you have no idea what you're going to get. Even if just the actual like the material on the page is clear and relatively straightforward, she will come in and do something absolutely barking out because she does her own little spin on it. She's amazing. Do you think exactly what you want it to be? She's like that when you've sat next to her, hasn't you, haven't you John? I've seen her on comic con stuff. She's terrifying. In the best way. glorious. Yeah. But she is exactly what you want that woman to be. Director's nightmare. Does she extemporised? Does she admit? No, not in this. No, I think she pretty much does the lines, but you've no idea where they're going to go and it can be like all over the shop in the best possible way. Well, that's all the time we have this wave. We'll be back next week for something much scarier and more upsetting than usual in world enough and time. 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, for God's sake, go outside and get some vitamin D Thank you very much for listening and good night. Good night. Good night. Good Bennings. That was Flight 3 Entirety, sorry, Nathan Bottomley, John Dorney Brendan Jones, and Richard Stone. Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb. This episode, a perfect crucible, was recorded on the 27th of October 2024 and released on the 17th of November. If Death by Scotland is a complete and total absence of any kind of sunlight, perhaps Death by Australia is being repeatedly struck on the head by dopey and ill advised attempts to regulate the Internet. Write to your MP. I just bought three instantly, and one of them happened to be your Death World, and I was, I was so, it was so lovely. Katie, having so much fun. Yeah, I had... You should like it. really works. It really worked. Yeah, I had a fun time with that. Um, Yeah. Some of it is, some people have said some things about, uh, how some of it is out of period because there's things like the Cloister Bell and stuff like that in there. They would say that though, wouldn't they? Yeah, but here's the thing. the thing. because a good chunk of that 1st episode was salvage from a script that couldn't be done. So I managed to think, oh, actually, I can use some of this somewhere else. And I thought, the lines are good enough. I'll keep them. I don't really mind the fact that they're not, they wouldn't have said that in the 70s. So, yeah. Doesn't matter. I'm trying to think. Now, a quick one for me and Brendan, before we all properly start because I'll forget being the ADHD little thing I currently am. Please, more Avengers. Oh, yeah, I, at the moment, I don't seem to be any more plans. We're really hopeful because that's frustrating. I know we thought they weren't. It's not studio York. Anal, is it? No, I think it's just sales. I don't think it sells massively well. They do that well. Oh, okay. I think they did it. Well, enough. to like keep doing them for a while, but then not enough to actually, you know, it's a bit of a frustration because there was always something like a little nice little gig per year. It's really sweet one. And everybody just works so well in them. Yeah, I think I think so too. I mean, I'd love to do more with Beth Chalmers as Kathy Gale because Brendan and I were saying that's, what did you think Brendan? Oh, just amazing. Well, just what I just said. She took my breath away, like that 1st scene. I kill a gorilla. You know, is just like perfectly pitched. There was there was a moment when we were discussing who could play Mrs. Peel. where David Richardson said, oh, what have you thought, what about, I don't know. Um, Beth Chalmers. And I just went, no, because if we ever do Kathy Gale, she's Kathy Gale. Because there's no other choice. She's, she, she basically is on a black man in most senses, you know, you know, you know, even down to the fact she's a boxer. She's an actual fighter, so, you know, she could kick the crap out of me like on a black one, could she knock someone out? Yeah. But yeah, that was that was always fun. Olivia is charming. It's more of the, it's much more of the feel of a comic book or a younger Emma, but she's just superb and I love, I love everyone in it and I love your writing in it. I think it's the best stuff you've done for them. I had a lovely time with it. I love doing the kind of the style and the humour and yeah. And it's just, it's one word, especially the lost ones. Yeah, although they were fun. and I really, really love them. I listen to them still. I had a genuinely unique experience and I think it's quite hard in our modern world to have a unique experience. which was when I was invited to the BFI to watch the Recovered Tunnel of Fear, after having written an adaptation just from the Telesnaps and being so wrong. It's ridiculous. It's weird, but like, I think I talked about this in the DVDs where anytime I, there was a 50-50 binary choice, I went for the other one. And whatever they, so, for example, at the end, he's like got the matches in, it's whether they are genuine or exploding cigarettes and it's really unclear to whether they genuinely are or not. And I went, no, it's a bluff. And then in TV, no, they actually are. think it's things like that. And there are whole subplots in there that you can't tell of that. And it really emphasised how little we know about those episodes and about how much of it is. And I found this with one of the other episodes as well, there was um, When I had to write, where there is a character listed in the radio Times cast billing, who is not mentioning the synopsis, and someone who's mentioned the synopsis, who is not mentioning the radio Times cast billing, going, I don't understand what any of this means. And it's always just going to be like absolute guess what. But it was really weird just seeing the filmed version of it. It felt like somebody had taken the script I'd written, taken it back in time and adapted it for television in the 60s. Uh, and I just kept getting distracted by the fact he's got like uh, the extras include Nikki Henson and, um, and what's his name? Is it Julian Holloway? Yeah. Really? Oh, okay. The guy out of survival. Which is which is a useful link for what we're talking about today isn't it, I suppose? you know, yeah, the guy who's like the army guy. in that is one of the extras in the background. Apes of other things. Yeah, he's one of the war-coms in the background, him and Nicky Hanson. And I just kept trying to remember their names going, which one is it? And I think I was having exactly the same thought. I go. Is it Jillian all about? Is it that? So I couldn't quite focus on the story. Yeah. Brilliant. So when was that discovered? Oh, it was about... I mean, 2018 or something like that? Oh, okay. Because it was just... I mean, I think it was literally 6 months after our version came out. So the most quickly redundant big finish thing ever. I know which one in a way was going, I'm delighted because like seeing any more of those is, and I'd say it's also probably easily the best one are the ones from the 1st series that exist. Yeah. What a shame we never got the bananas one. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, God. Unbelievable. I'd forgotten the banana So it's a good audio. Yeah it's fun. What is really good in it? Yeah. God yeah.