Hello, D listener, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety, the
only Doctor Who podcast that feels like this flight has been going
on for years and years.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Todd.
I'm Peter.
And I'm Simon.
Well, it's a rare moment of science fiction in Doctor Who this
week, as the Doctor and Bill learn a valuable lesson about
gravitational time dilation.
But here, there are much more terrible lessons to be learned
lessons about who Missy is and about who we are as human beings
when things are in crisis.
It's time at last for the genesis of the cybermen, in world enough
and time.
This is another one, another Moffat finale that I remember on
first viewing, being really stressed by.
The last one was dark water, which I just found really kind of
upsetting, and then this just the incredible urgency that you feel
the entire time.
It's really extremely good, I think.
It's gruelling, I think.
It's gruelling in terms of the story being told, and it's grim in
its aesthetic.
You know, the dark spaceship corridors and the 50s style NHS
hospital that Bill ends up in.
It's all very foreboding.
Yeah, it's got great atmosphere.
Yes, it's exactly the kind of doctor who I like.
It just doesn't less up on that.
It's just it's really, really strong all the way through.
And I think also visually, it does also help to try and explain
the situation with the spacecraft moving away from the black hole
you know, the different levels, the different things that are on
different levels that you'll see more of next week.
And so I think it's actually properly put together and properly
thought through how this is going to work.
Not to mention all the clever moving about in time itself, like
you know, flashbacks and flash forwards and so on like that.
I think that works very well.
And when we're getting those early sequences where the 3 of them
are at the top and Bill is at the bottom, the way that passage of
time is expressed is so clever, but also so harrowing and so
upsetting for Bill, who's at the bottom watching an eyebrow raised
slowly over the course of months, you know?
Yeah, it's something that Moffat can do and very few other people
can is to marry a strong sci-fi idea to actual emotions and
characters that we love.
That's not an accident that he can do that.
That's incredible talent.
Utterly brilliant from the get go.
That whole sequence with Missy coming out of the target.
Isn't it just, it's just delicious.
When she was talking about exposition and comic relief, I fully
expected Sarah Jane and Harry to come out of the times, kind of.
That's just brilliant.
That's a brilliant love, as well as the whole thing, Doctor Who
and what do you mean, it's his name?
and she says, look at the screen.
And then they cut to all the screens.
It's very cleverly done It's, I mean, that is just absolute superb
Moffat trolly that in his last episode.
I think he does know, obviously, at this point that he is doing
twice upon a time, because, of course, we start with a scene that
leads straight into twice upon a time.
But in his last kind of regular episode for the show, he canonises
the idea that the doctor's name is Doctor Who. and that he chose
it in order to be mysterious.
And then he dropped it because he thought it was too on the nose.
And given that that's kind of the history of the thing.
And given...
And we all spent our childhood going, no, no, no, it's not Doctor
Who.
You know, he would be called Doctor Who on TV or in newspaper
articles or something.
He was always referred to as Doctor Who by people who weren't us.
And we knew that he was the doctor.
And so Moffatt just on the way out the door just takes the
opportunity to troll us.
Even proving Peter Davis on the end credits of Castravalva part
one incorrect.
Yes.
That's a good thing.
You know, it's funny.
We did an episode a couple of weeks ago and like Missy was just in
at the end.
That was the Empress of Mars.
And then obviously I watched The Eaters of Light, where again, she
is in the Tartars at the end.
And I really at the time wanted to see in a complete episode with
this team that they get out of, like, you know, where they go to
the planet, they have to escape, et cetera, the whole 4 of them.
But if we'd done that, this 1st sequence would be in that episode
rather than here, right?
So what do you do here?
So it actually now on reflection and watching these episodes
through.
I just think it's it's just so delicious that it's here at the
beginning of this.
They're just setting everything up so well.
And of course, we subsequently demonstrate that having 3
companions, which is effectively the setup you'd be talking about
is at least one too many, and that's yet to be reproven.
I don't know, though, because I think Barbara Ian and Vicky work.
Yes, but that's because we have 7 episode stories and things like
that.
Possibly.
But I have to say, not possibly.
Let's see how it goes next season.
Yeah, no, I know it doesn't go well next season and I know it
doesn't go well in the 80s, but I don't know that it's a bad idea
necessarily.
And certainly I think Nadol, Missy, Bill and this doctor would
have been spectacular as a...
Yeah, which of them do you want to cut?
Yeah.
No, you don't want to cut any of them.
But my point being, the format of the way the stories are told
needs to be different to the way it's being told in the 21st
century for that team to work.
I think what is funny is having the doctor in the Tartars eating
crisps.
Yes, yes, of watching them do an episode.
Exactly.
This is a trick where he offers a jelly baby to that child next
episode.
It should have been one of those Chris.
Yes, actually.
It also shows Missy, I mean, I know we've waxed lyrical over her
and she is amazing in every scene and every episode that she's in
but she's so good and so watchful because she's so funny.
And we haven't had another master who's been as funny as her
except maybe Delgado.
And in both of those instances, you can see them not just being a
match for the doctor, but they are alternate doctors, which is, of
course, what this episode is playing with.
You can fully see them as the lead in the show with just a couple
of tweaks.
Yeah.
I think that's absolutely right.
We had that with John Sim as well.
You know, we just plucked someone out of a nearby science fiction
program on TV and made him the master, someone who had proven that
they can be an alternative lead.
And in fact, you do get that in the next episode as well where
like, isn't that what we always wanted?
What a shame we do that in the 70s.
We could have Martin Landau as the Martin.
That would have been bad.
I mean, the thing about this episode is that while it's bleak and
miserable and really, really quite stressful to watch, it actually
manages to be incredibly funny.
And it's funny in these scenes with Missy, obviously, at the
beginning.
And then later on when we get Mr. Razor introduced, he's really
funny.
Yes, he has. good lines and he just thrown away.
It's as if he's being written by Douglas Adams, I think. you know
stuff about the tea.
Yeah, the tea, which will distract from the horrors to come.
And she goes, what's the horrors to come?
And he goes mostly the tea.
Remember also the fact that you drink it while it's hot because
the pain will...
Distract from the flavour.
Yeah, all of that stuff, like, you know, that wittering on about
tea is classic Douglas Adams.
It's like the, you know, one lump or two, you know, sugar.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's also classic Doctor Who.
Doctor has always had a fixation with tea. and I like it.
Yes, both of them.
The Englishness itself.
But it's also classic Doctor Who in the sense that everything
that's going on is so foreboning and horrific, but the best Doctor
Who has the comedy written into it into the character.
And that's what I like.
Exactly.
And that's the thing that I think too often the modern era tends
to get wrong, especially RTD is that basically it's not about the
comedy.
The comedy is the stuff that happens around the edges, which
allows you to get through these fairly grim situations.
Because obviously if it was all deadly serious, it would be
unbearable.
It would be awful.
It would not be this program.
It'd be true horror.
Whereas you've got these horrific things going on and yet you've
got all these characters making likes of it, including the
doctor.
I mean, to some extent.
It's your example, Nathan.
You love the horror of Fang rock.
In fact, is it your favourite classic series story?
It's not, but it's up there and it's one of my favourite
portrayals of the doctor.
Yeah, this goes to exactly the same well in that both of them are
fairly bleak material and both of them are hilariously funny in
places. places, yes.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, here, I guess the best illustration of that is that
scene where Bill is exploring the hospital ward, where the people
who have undergone conversion are, and that absolutely, like
absolutely moffety thing, where, you know, they're saying pain
pain, pain repeatedly, and there's the thing on top of the IV that
turns the volume down.
And you assume at 1st it's just giving them more medication.
No, but it's not.
Yeah, that's right.
That's what you think.
It's a control on the top of the thing that dispenses the pain
medication we imagine.
And then she goes to the 2nd one and he's saying, kill me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. so dark.
When I watched this in 2017, the 1st time, I watched it alone and
my housemate Bex came home and Bex has, you know, a lot of
interest in Doctor Who, even though she's not a fervent fan.
And I replayed that scene and showed it to her and she, being a
writer, just went, that's very good.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
But then that's when we see Razor, you know, like he turns up and
just goes, T, you know, like at a kind of surprising and
inappropriate moment.
Do we twig that that's John Sims master at that point?
I did not at all.
I did not, but of course, in one of the great mysteries of modern
Doctor Who, they had announced it months before, and no one can
quite work out why they did it.
And it was in the trailer. he was in the trailer. was sort of like
well, he's coming back.
And so I went into this going, well, he hasn't appeared yet.
And so I was wanting to see, like I was there going, who's he
going to be?
And Razor turned up.
And it didn't twig.
And it didn't tweak because it was one, the performance.
And two, the prosthetic that he wears around his head actually
changes the shape of his head.
And that's the thing.
He's not just a moustache.
His round hair.
Yes, he's around the head.
Yes, it's a bit like in...
If I just go off the track for a moment in Deep Space 9 where they
have a character called Torra Ziel, and it's paid by one actress
Cy Battan, and then the 2nd actress, Tracy Middendorf, has the
same prosthetic.
Like, and so you don't realise that somebody different, like this
is sort of in reverse until the performance starts.
I have to say that I did twig and it was the smile.
It was absolutely John Sims smile.
Even though he has prosthetic teeth, I knew it was him.
And then, of course, you can hear the voice, you know, it is sort
of clearly him.
I think I think that him in the sound of drums, he's not quite
there yet.
And I think there are some takes that perhaps needed some
reconsideration where he doesn't quite get it.
But here I think he's magnificent.
And for both episodes I think he's really very good here.
Yeah, he's amazing.
And I think with Razor, I didn't take for a long time because then
I forgot, like, at some point, tweak back into my head, oh, the
master's supposed to be in this.
And you know, when he's walking down the corridor and he's master
of disguise or whatever.
It's around that time that I went, oh, oh, you know, that's him.
But I've watched a lot of YouTube reactors, right?
And some of them have no idea.
And so when that reveal happens at the end of the story, Like
they're, these YouTube reactors expressions are just glorious.
I think it just is a wonderful job.
Just a wonderful. would have been an amazing revelation if we
hadn't been primed to expect a surprise.
He does extremely well. have a couple of thoughts on this.
I think, I mean, one, I think the master is probably looking into
the mirror and congratulating himself on the best makeup job since
Khalid.
Where's the green ooze?
What about the portray?
I mean, the poor tree is amazing.
Don't for a moment, don't think it's Anthony Ainley, but...
What's the other?
Back to the glory days.
But also I think, yes, the performance is better, I think, in this
story.
And I think the characterisation is better.
And I think because John Simon is an excellent actor.
There's something to be said for the thing that we always say that
a master reflects their doctor.
And so I think he's looked at this and said, I've got to lose some
of the manic energy because that's not Peter Capaldi's doctor.
It will look out of sync up against that.
I know it's, I'm jumping ahead here to the next episode, but
having both Michelle Gomez and Peter Poldi, they give a different
energy, right?
And so I certainly think in that episode, he's reflecting that
energy as opposed to David Tennant's energy.
But here it's him and Bill for most of it, and it's for so long.
Like it's for 10 years or whatever it is.
Like, you're thinking, like, if you think back to his master back
in season three, like he played a long game for a year, but he
could barely contain himself when things happened.
Like, you know, 5 minutes of whatever, and then he'd have to
reveal it.
Here, he has to play a really long game.
And I really like that.
Also, more evidence, my theory that the master should always have
a companion.
Yeah.
Yes, that works.
I mean, my observation is that I think he is so much better in
these 2 episodes because of the material, because of the director
because of the tone, the kind of the way the material is informing
the tone of the performance.
And I think that's why the RTD end of the series 3 and then the
end of time stuff is a completely different tone to this.
And so it is Hamier.
I don't think it's just the fact that he's acting against David
Tennant.
Because he's not, because actually he's barely acting against
Peter Capaldi in either of these 2 episodes.
He's mainly acting with either Bill or with the missy.
Maybe not, but I think there is that element to it, like, you
know.
Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I'm just making the observation that I think that the direction
not just the director, racial tellalay, but the direction of the
show, the artistic direction, that comes from the top of the
team.
And I think that's what he is feeding on and why we're getting
such a better performance, as well as the fact that the dialogue
is so much clever and all these lines about tea and all the...
And it's a dark...
Yeah.
Yeah, and he's not asked to kind of do what you might call sort of
silly or stupid things.
Now, I didn't tweak, but I'm one of those people, like, and Brian
says all the time, like, he'll see a trailer or a film, and he'll
say that he's always waiting for certain shots to appear in the
film and knows when they don't because sometimes, you know, they
use a different edit or something.
It's like it just disappears from my mind.
Like, yes, even though the last shot of the trailer from the
previous week was John Sims saying, give us a kiss.
I completely forget that when I'm then watching the episode, even
though it's John Sim.
So I have a theory about why the performance is so different, and
I think one reason is that since John Sim appeared as the master
the rift between the classic series and the new series has to some
degree been healed.
Mostly by Day of the Doctor, that's its explicit aim, and we've
reclaimed the series.
We're not reacting against the old series anymore.
We're seeing ourselves as continuing it.
And so this master, John Sims master is not just the master who
faced off against David Tennant, but he is the master.
He has a goatee.
He's much more saturnine.
He's still horrible.
Like he's still fabulously horrible, but he's here not just
because of fan wank.
It's not like the 2 doctors where we had such a lovely time with
Pat Trouton that we invited him back a couple of years later
dangerous and dangerous ground, mentioning 2 doctors in fan wank
and the same sentence to me.
Oh, really?
It does have fun.
You know, a lot of fan work, get it.
But here the reason is that what we're doing is externalising and
personifying, the whole thing that we've watched Missy do all
season, which is wrestle with who she was, and try to decide
whether she's going to continue to be the master or not.
And so what we do is we bring back a traditional master, a
traditional generic master to represent that idea and have her
interactions with him, show us how she feels.
And I think, and there's more of this next week, but it obviously
occurs at the end here. that that's incredibly well done, and that
the fact that we spent all season not certain of whether she was
bunging it on or not, whether it was a devious plan or not.
And you and I, Simon, over a few episodes this season have kind of
had different takes on it.
Whereas I'm fairly certain that Michelle is playing it for real
and you're wanting it to kind of be a ploy and it turns out it's
both.
Yeah, no, that's that's the way I'm feeling in those earlier
episodes because you're not sure.
I think you're thinking I'm thinking it is a ploy.
But I think that the demonstration in these 2 episodes is it
Israel and she's genuinely torn and conflict.
Yeah, yeah. wants to do.
It builds to that. no bizarre flip-flopping. actually a really
well-done, gentle progression of the character.
But just going back to sort of John Simmons, a sort of generic
master.
I think, yes, I think you're absolutely right that that's part of
the reason this story works is because you have what could be a
generic master, but I think that really undersells John Sims
ability and how he was, for, to my mind, and I know we differ on
this, but to my mind, really misused and poorly served by those
early years.
Misdirected rather than miscast.
Exactly. misdirected, miswritten for, mis scripted.
It just misfired for me.
That's just my view of the master.
I mean, and I'm not entirely sure whether it takes until day of
the doctor to for us to heal the rift between the original series
and the new series.
I think we're already doing that during the David Tenant era.
I think as soon I think as soon as the series comes back, I think
it's series one that they're doing that, because they're going, oh
no, we can't be associated with this silly program from the 20th
century, and by the time they realise, when it's realised it's a
huge success, then they lean into it.
Otherwise, you wouldn't have every season stuff coming back.
And let's not forget that in Utopia, when the master is revealed
we've got sound bites from Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley.
As soon as that sort of stuff starts happening, that's when the
rifter has been healed.
But we do reject a traditional master in that episode. we actually
have.
Derek Jacoby saying if the doctor can be young and annoying, then
I can as well.
I can't remember what that line is.
It's something like that.
Yeah, yeah.
If the doctor can be...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that's how it went.
Do you know what I mean?
It's just nothing to do with being young. has to do with how he's
written.
Like, like I said, you want, you want, you know, the master works
with, for me, Missy and Sasha Duan one as well, and certainly the
Roger Delgado one because the master is always more sophisticated
more elegant, better dressed, more, do you know what I mean?
Always the one that, you know, when you arrive, they're the ones
who've already insinuated themselves into the hierarchy because
they've, you know, wheedled their way in.
Seduced Galea.
Exactly. all that sort of stuff.
And that for me is, and I know that's kind of what the Johns does
too arguably, because he become as prime minister after all. you
know what I mean?
Like it's just a treatment of the character. that's why I think
John Simmons miserved in that earlier iteration of him.
But anyway.
I mean, those words that you used about sort of better dressed and
everything.
It struck me during this episode that the version of the master
that John Simm is channelling the most is Eric Roberts.
Oh, okay.
Really?
Eric Roberts has that same kind of urbanity, the same kind of
delicious enjoyment of what he's doing. dressing for the occasion
dressing for the occasion.
Absolutely.
And it meant that I got a new appreciation for Eric Roberts did in
the role.
Oh, I think Eric Roberts was great in the role, but, you know
there is, I think, partly because of that wonderful line and the
amount of expression and purpose in it, of this is an ambulance.
You know what I mean?
That's the that for me, in that kind of line and that tone and
frustration, that is the master.
It's the ultimate why am I surrounded by this?
Also, don't forget, oh Bruce, you're sick.
Thank you.
Yes, exactly.
And that's the kind of, that's, I think, um, so you can see a line
between that Eric Roberts performance and the John Sim performance
in series three.
But then it just, for me, it's gone off the track.
It's gone off where I'd want to be.
And I think they made a good decision in the writing.
You could easily have had John Simms master as an alias, say, the
doctor performing the surgeries in the hospital.
But they don't, they give him this weird and wacky character with
an odd accent and someone who would never in a 1000000 years think
that the master was disguising themselves as.
Yes, except we will find out next week that he was.
He was the king of the world.
That wasn't that doctor in the conversion theatre.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There was one behind it, was that the idea?
No, no.
So we learned that he took over that floor, ruled like a king.
Everyone rebelled against him, and then he had to go into hiding
in disguise, just like at the end of time part.
Because that's the thing that happens to him all the time.
I think the one thing just before we finish with the master and
John Simm.
I think that, you see, the one regret that if it were a
traditional four-part story, we've missed the opportunity for him
to have an anagram is his name, credits of the 1st episode.
The absolute horror of Bill being shot through the chest.
Like, that moment is just one of the most horrific things that
I've ever seen in Doctor Who at the time and even rewatching it.
I'm just there going, oh my goodness, hey, looking through her
chest, like you're just there going, how did they let this go out
all that time?
All the unbelieving faces?
Yeah, the extended dread of keeping the camera away from that for
so long when you know what's happened.
Well, I think what's great is we get that.
And then we flash back to the plan.
So we didn't need that scene because it was very clear what the
plan was that had been explained to us.
But this is the doctor trying to convince Bill of the plan and
really struggling.
I don't want to say we don't, didn't need it.
I think, yes, you're right, we didn't need it from a ruthless
storytelling, but we do need it from an emotional point of view.
Absolutely.
So cleverly done.
And so cleverly done that it's clearly over the course of days, if
not weeks, because they're in different locations, picking up of
the conversation, They're in different outfits, doing different
things.
The thing he does all the time in this season.
Exactly.
And I love it.
It's like going back to what one of the things that makes the
pilot so...
Yeah, well, I totally agree with you.
Like just the conversations in the kitchen, you know, she scares
me. you know, you won't get me killed, like it all just builds to
that and having all of that in there, you just, they're going, you
felt this bill and look where we're at.
Like, this is just awful.
It actually manages somehow to make that big hole through her
chest even worse because we flash back to her, anticipating it
being scared of it, trying to get the doctor to reassure her that
it won't happen.
All of that sort of stuff and it happens anyway.
Although to be fair, she doesn't get shot through the chest
because of something missy's done.
You know, Missy doesn't need to be there for that to happen.
No.
In fact, what I think is actually really brilliant about that
scene, and I don't think I've ever heard anyone mention it, is
that that guy's called George.
By the way, we had Darren in oxygen.
The blue people always have just English names that are spelled
weirdly.
They all sound like ancillary characters from bewitched.
Yeah, right.
He's terrified and he is going to shoot Bill and the doctor comes
in and gives one of his check my CV speeches.
You know, I am going to save you, you know, everyone on this ship
in in just a little while and you'll look back and you'll go, you
know.
Yeah, all of that sort of stuff.
Like he's doing, he's absolute.
I'm a hero and I will undoubtedly save everyone and win the day
because I'm the doctor and that's what I do.
In a story where he just ends saying, actually this almost never
works.
I've got nothing to do.
I'm going to be dead soon.
I'm not going to be able to save anyone in any lasting way, but I
still have to do it.
And I think that's incredible.
I think that's amazing.
Because Moffat, maybe more than anyone else has done the scene
where he tells the Vashta Narada to just check some of the target
books on the shelves.
Basically, yeah, yeah, yeah. which is actually the one part of one
of the very few parts of his style of writing, which I dislike.
Yes, yeah.
But here he is critiquing it.
Yeah.
I did think it missed a slight trick.
I really like what's on screen by not having missy step up and do
that as part of her...
Dr. Spiel as part of her Dr. Spiel, and failing and feeling the
impact of that herself as part of her journey.
Yeah.
Although I do think that given that the 2nd episode is called the
Doctor Falls, we have to give him somewhere to fall from, and
that's absolutely the place that he falls from.
And as both masters will points out, they were there when he's
fallen before.
What do we think about that in relation to the bury your gays
trope?
Yeah, and there's also, well, there's also issues with, uh, you
know, people have talked about issues with black people as well
being shot.
Do you know what I mean?
It's our 1st black companion for a while and she gets shot in the
chest and stuff.
And like, I think Moffatt's careful to make someone blue do that
rather than someone white.
Like, I think that that's actually deliberate and thought
through.
And I also think that one of the things that Moffat does is he's
brutally cruel. to all of the companions, like all of them.
Amy, Clara, Rory, like all of them have horrific things happen to
them, and so it happens to Bill as well.
And even though it's horrific, we're not left hanging for very
long.
Like those people come in almost immediately and say we're going
to repair her and we're not going to bring her back, we're only
given just a few seconds to kind of, well, there's the flashback
and we're kind of living with it for a few minutes, but basically
after it happens, within seconds, we're being told she's being
taken away to get fixed.
And it's not brutal or able to be dismissed.
Bill's not being shot because she's black or a lesbian.
It's because she's an amazing character and Motha wants to do
terrible things to his amazing characters.
Yeah.
Yes, I just character whom we love.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think that kind of thing, if it's referred to as bury your gaze
kind of thing.
I haven't heard that as the expression before, I think that's not
a thing anymore.
I think that's something that used to happen.
I mean, maybe I've been to enough films, like the gay and lesbian
film festival, which end with the happy romance being torn apart
because one of the gays is killed.
It is a real, it is a real thing which happens and which happened
throughout film and TV where the gay characters were not allowed
to have a happy ending.
I don't think this satisfies that because I think Mothat's more
than aware of that.
But you know, it is a thing.
And he does give her a happy ending.
He does.
Exactly. with Stargirl.
Yeah, yeah.
Happy lesbian ending.
Exactly.
But do you think it's convenient, like, the hole in the chest, like
sort of works with the whole chest plate thing. the fact that the
people down below have time is going quicker, so, but their
technology obviously links back to what's here.
So the phaser has to make that particular hole in the chest as
opposed to a general thing and then you have the horror of when
she wakes up and she's going like that on the blade.
And we all know.
There's that moment where she says, I haven't been game to look at
it.
You know, like Razor says, how's your new heart?
You know, it's very shiny. you can pull it off.
It's pretty great.
I think it's it's perfect.
Do you know what I mean?
Because we've had the dialogue where the doctor has said it's your
most important organ and you've only got one of them.
There's no backup.
So he said that in order to kind of anticipate that, even though
we only hear it after we've seen that.
I'd suggest that her lungs, stomach and large intestine have also
been destroyed.
Yeah, I mean, apparently we could have seen that.
Fortunately, we don't have to think about it too much because it
is very kind of insane.
It's the death becomes her special affair.
Yes, yes, yes.
You have to imagine that Simon pulling out the intestine, saying
these are full of chips.
I mean, but it even has sort of a glowy thing around it so there's
no blood or brawl.
Yes, it's all men. yes The energy weapon.
The energy weapon has cauterised the word.
It's a similar kind of shock, as in 90s Star Trek, when they turn
up the phases to maximum.
They just shoot people, they evaporate them.
Yeah, yeah, like they burn up into cinders.
We don't have to clean up then.
Exactly.
No dust on the floor.
Can I just talk about the sci fi element of the way the whole
story can work, which is the black hole, and the fact that the
gravity at the top of the shift means that time is moving much
slower than the bottom of the ship.
It's so refreshing to have those kind of concepts, and I have no
idea how correctly it's used, but it's so wonderful to have those
kind of concepts coming back into the show and explained so well
by both the razor at the bottom and the doctor at the top. don't
you think Yeah, and Rachel Tallerlay and Stephen Moffat both sell
it in incredibly well.
We said that thing a few episodes ago about the fact in oxygen
about the fact that the special effect shots have to be
sympathetic to the storytelling to tell you where you are.
Obviously, we are told we're at the top of the ship, the bottom
ship, but that initial special effects shot where it's going
through the ship and you're seeing each of the floors, it places
everything into context.
And they're sideways because you can see that they're flawed
perfect storytelling.
Yeah.
I mean, Russell was the one who kind of brought verticality to
Doctor Who, which he does in the end of the world, but he does
kind of over and over again by having us go up and down in what is
a flat studio.
So adding an extra dimension to Doctor Who, which has historically
been kind of flat.
And then here he does.
Just underworld thing.
You just change, you just change the number on the panel.
I think we've done that before.
And so here.
Basically, this 2 parter has a control room, a farm, and the
hospital floor.
Like it has 3 places, but they're all linked together in this sort
of weird space that's been created.
And it's a space where time passes differently at one end from
another, which enables Moffatt to do the thing which he does, which
is making the flashbacks real and making the switching from one
narrative thread to another real.
So I think we saw this in a Christmas carol, where everything
happens in chronological order, but there are flashbacks.
Like we flash back to Kasran Sardic's use.
Even though there aren't any flashbacks in that story, they're all
happening in real time.
Tartis links them together.
That's right.
So what he does is he uses time travel to get his narrative things
to happen.
Yeah.
And when they're watching it on TV.
I mean, the genius about it is that that environment, that
hospital environment, which you pegged as kind of 1950s.
Yes, it's the fold.
Yeah, and the style and just the look of it.
Just that idea of sort of grim NHS hospitals.
Yeah, they're just sort of like limewashed hospital rooms and, you
know...
Yes, exactly.
Or the tiles on the wall.
Like, you know.
I mean, that's kind of the world that the cider men came into in
1966.
Exactly that world.
And they're watching the screen, which is has visible lines on it
and is in black and white and is visibly distorted.
That's what the experience of watching Doctor Who was like.
In fact, the screen's a bit larger.
Yes, but give them that.
But essentially, we are watching the birth of the cyberman. you
know what I mean?
and we're having...
And the reception's a bit crappy.
But the birth of the cybermen takes place in an environment, in
the same environment into which the cybermen were actually born in
1966.
And I think that's absolutely brilliant.
And it also explains the different environments, doesn't it?
Because time has been passing so quickly downstairs, everything is
falling to pieces because even though it was a brand new spaceship
it's not brand new at the end at the bottom end anymore.
No, it's, it's, and it's had all the fumes of the rocket, uh, go
into it and so on.
I think there's kind of an urban class thing that he is drawing
there.
He's not leaning to it very much, but it is that, you know, people
basically living in, in a city environment's being choked by fumes
and smog, et cetera, et cetera.
But what struck me is that even though it's a very different story
from spare parts, the big finish audio that does the origin of the
Sidemen, the setting is the same.
Yeah, it's sort of a grim, dark, stone industrial world with a
steel sky above it.
But spare parts is kind of set in England in the 1950s as well.
Right, right.
You know, that it has that very mid-20th century kind of post
world war 2 just come off rationing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. like scarcity and stuff.
And there's a kind of, I mean, there is a kind of mid-20th century
English socialism kind of feel to what's going on in spare parts
as well.
And that's what he's grabbed here.
I mean, I think I think this has a fair claim to being the best
Cyberman story, and that's not a hugely difficult feat, to be
fair.
There's an invasion, which is not really a sign that story.
To be honest.
But, um...
Cyberman stories usually aren't quite silent.
To have Cyberman.
And it's the best telling of the genesis of the Cyberman, I
think.
What I love is the fact that you can just put this into the
history of Doctor Who, like, you know, you can see that Mondas, you
know, they've had to send this ship out because they're all dying
and this is one way to try and get help or whatever they're doing
their version of the ark.
Yes.
Basically, yes.
And, you know, they obviously end up in the 10th planet, but here
they're evolving on their planet into cybermen.
Here, they're evolving as well, down below, and you go outside
into that 50s horror, and it's so well realised.
Like, it really is.
And I hadn't really picked up on it before, even like, you know, I
think it's above the theatre where it says like the time at the
top of the ship under the bottom of the ship.
And I hadn't picked that up before.
Like, you know, and just having all of this natural evolution that
there's still evolving in 2 different places and it's still
heading to the same point, you know, it just enthrals me and draws
me in.
The thing I love that, the doctor's line, maybe it's the next
episode where he says that wherever humans are, Sargeman will
inevitably be born, which is kind of a great fudge of we've had
many different Genesis of the Sidemen stories.
I haven't actually listened to spare parts and I keep saying I
really, really should.
So I can't compare it.
It is one of the best.
So how does it treat the rationale for why they're turning
themselves into cybermen?
Well, because Mondas is travelling through interstellar space.
Yes.
And so the atmosphere is frozen and they're all living below and
they're just getting sick. getting sicker.
Yeah, and Jenna from Bleak 7 is turning them into Cybermen.
Oh, is she?
Good on her.
Docman Allen, yeah.
If I can, you know, I love this episode.
Okay.
And I love the 2 parts together, but watching them again, I
thought this at the time when they were on, but watching them
again, it just takes a few directional choices, which I think, wow
it could have been so much better if it had done something else.
The downside, I feel, with this episode is, and I love having the
genesis of the sidemen, because they're all sick and they're all
ill and this needs to happen, which is not what you get in the
series 2, the genesis of the time, which is, for me, very, very
trite and lightweight by comparison.
Yes.
In this, there's a reason.
Yes, people are sick.
They are dying, they need replacement.
What I think is unfortunate is that there is nothing in the role
of the doctor and the nurse that is in any way sympathetic or in
any way conflicted by what they're doing.
What you want is, rather than, you know, the doctor, the surgeon
doing the surgery is effectively a kind of effectively moustache
twirling.
He's comically evil in a way which does not, for me, suit the tone
of the rest of the episode.
Likewise, the nurse, the, the, you know, the big fat, chubby, nurse
ratchet kind of figure.
It's kind of, again, a very cardboard, unfortunate choice for a
story and episode which is in every other way, not cardboard.
Oh, no, I think they are both marvellously well cast.
But imagine the story.
Imagine the story.
And this only works if what we have as the 1st part is actually
the whole story because in that thing that happens sort of after
series six.
You don't really get 2 part stories.
You get an episode followed by another episode which cliffhangers
into.
You know what I mean?
So the next episode is effectively a different story. which is
like the sequel.
And one of the things we lack in the modern era is we get so
rarely is the ancillary character, the supporting cast member who
you really empathise with, who you really are barracking for and
you're incredibly involved with.
Now, if you make the surgeon and the nurse more three-dimensional
and say that look, we have no choice.
We have to do this for you because if we don't, you will die.
Rather than, wow, your time has come.
We're going to turn you into silent.
And that's just like, oh, we've we've ran our reversion to that
trope.
Well, I mean, I think, though, that the environment that Bill
finds herself in is hyper real and like it's not a space
environment.
It is 1950s hospital, even though it's people from another planet
and all of that sort of thing.
And it's the thing that Doctor Who does now and probably didn't
really much do in the classic era.
And they are, I think, part of the horror, the nurse who comes and
turns the volume down on everyone. and the surgeon.
There's so much of the horror is that horrible surgery.
It's not a space surgery.
It's not like the Biow Foundation.
Like all the medical...
The gleaming futuristic medical technology on board.
Flashing light, flashing lights, computer screens with gold.
I would have loved to see him come and turn the volume down on the
nucleus.
But my point is still that, yes, no, I do get all that.
I understand all that, but I think my point is no one's going to
willingly, willingly turn themselves into assignment.
You're only going to do that.
You know, it's not like you say, oh, I think I'll go out today and
get an artificial heart installed.
You only do that is because you've got heart disease and you need
to have that done.
But where I think it does get it right is then when the assertion
says, oh, but you know, I know it's painful, but we've developed
this thing now that will mean that you won't.
Or at least you won't care. which is terribly gruesome.
But again, it's that thing.
So for me, the evolution, that early evolution, the sidement, is
because, 0 my god, we're disease, we're dying.
We need to replace bits of our body.
Oh my god, this hurts.
What can we do?
Oh, we can. can give you this to make it better.
Oh my god, we've now got to replace this and that's actually
making me go crazy because I just can't deal with it anymore.
Okay, well, the only solution to that is to take your emotions
away because otherwise you'll just go crazy.
And do you know what I mean?
Like, for me, that's the kind of, I really wanted to see that as
an evolutionary development rather than, and was doing that so
well, until then suddenly at the end, it just said, oh, well, we
haven't got time to do the rest, so we'll just go straight to the
thing.
So I imagine what it would have been like at the 2nd episode.
I do broadly agree with you.
That would have been nice.
I also think there's quite a nice thing in making the doctor and
the nurse a little bit faceless. so they're just part of the
horror.
I do agree with that.
I also think that that line, which takes the place a lot of that
kind of story evolution, where the doctor in the hospital says to
Bill in a surprisingly chip away.
Oh yes, we've got something for that now.
It won't make you stop feeling pain, but it will make you stop
caring about it.
It's just an absolutely chilling line.
It is a chilling line.
And he is jolly.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, he is a sort of like a jolly white professional guy with a
posh voice who I think, you know, like seems to be trying to kind
of jolly her along.
Like he's not like he is super evil and stuff like that.
But, like, I think what has happened is that we've reached the
point already.
Like we don't quite arrive early enough for any of that because
we're now at the point where the cybermen are making other people
into cybermen.
We send Cyberman up the lift in order to harvest people.
Yeah.
They're walking wounded.
They've got bits of themselves.
No, she's the first one.
I mean, she's the 1st full cyberman.
The Bill Potts that we see is the 1st person.
It's the 1st time we see a full cyberman outfit.
And it's her.
So she gets to be the 1st cyberman of this iteration of cyberman.
Why wasn't she voiced by David Banks?
Well, she was still voiced by Nick Briggs. for God's sake.
I mean, what do you want?
But, I don't know, variety.
And one of the things, too, that I don't think, I mean, we haven't
mentioned, but is obviously front of mind for everyone is the
incredible formal constraint, again, that where Moffatt sets
himself a challenge and the challenge is make the ridiculous
cyberman, the ridiculous cyberman.
We think they're great.
I do anyway, and I know you do too, Pete, at the side. in the 10th
planet.
Can they be made to work on telly in 2017?
And it turns out that they can be made to work even better on
telly in 2017.
And that's amazing, I think.
The one disappointment is that they reverts to the kind of the age
of steel style stomping stomping like the sound when she...
Yeah, yeah.
I think that's unfortunate because, and this is where I think
again, you know, that that 2006 iteration of the cyberman gets it
so wrong and then it continues to be wrong from then on, apart
from this, is that the cyberman are not steel, they're not metal
they're plastic.
The whole point is it's about the replacement of body parts, which
are going to be malleable, are going to be flexible.
It's not a suit of armour.
And that's one of the reasons why the, I think the 10th planet
sidemen work so well is because I know that they're put together
in 1966 on the smell of an oly rag with bits of ping-pong walls or
whatever the hell it is and so on.
But in some respects, that sells the concept of them so well
because these people are desperate.
They've had to use anything to replace bits of their body.
And I think the slight refreshing of that look for this episode, um
while still keeping the fact that, right, they've got a stocking
on their head because basically that's artificial skin.
They've put like this kind of hash on them. like burn exactly like
burns victims.
They've got artificial eyes.
There is still a body inside that is able to open their mouth and
the artificial sound comes out of their open mouth.
They actually, you know, they're not articulating it, but it's
coming out because there is a computer.
Well, we see it because they've got the computer that they press
the button on.
Exactly.
They're pressing the button on.
The fact that they've got these.
I mean, in 1966, they're just the artist's hands.
But we've kind of slightly updated that to have like effectively
fairly grotty latex gloves that don't even fitting quite properly
over their thing as artificial skin.
I think the reason for that is so that you don't have Bill's
hands.
Do you know what I mean?
with her manicured fingernails and things.
Well, I assume.
I mean, is it is it the actress in the Sidemen scene?
Oh, no, because it's taller.
Exactly.
But that's that's also Y too.
But also, I think it's actually pretty horrific because it's not
it's not, you know, as going back to that thing you were saying.
It's not kind of like a super spacy thing with people in tunics
and everything like that and white walls and...
And it's not it's not cricket glove spray paint.
No, that's getting wet to the past, yeah.
There's no getting away from the fact that it makes the sidemen
infinitely more interesting in concepts and to look at.
They're not just silver monsters walking around.
They're back to being the walking wounded who have this awful
uncanny valley look to them.
Yes.
And the show threw that away pretty quickly in the classic
series.
And, you know, 4 stories.
Yeah, although they've still got the idea, and even through to
like the 80s side, and you've still got kind of a flexible metal
you know, obviously it's just spray painted silver, but you know
what I mean?
Rather than what you get in the naughties and teens, which is
where you get effectively like the suit of armour with just the
knee joints and the elbow joints.
Yeah, I mean, the reason that we have the suit of armour is
because it's protecting them against their emotions.
Yeah, I know.
It's fine.
I get that idea.
No, right?
That's not, you know, yeah, no.
It's, it's, it's the whole point is that they are replaced
replacements to their boys, and I think that is much better
communicated in something that looks like a 10th planet site.
Yeah, I agree. does with what they become, which is basically
effectively just androids.
We could talk about the voice all day long.
Yeah.
But I remember Roy Skelton in one of the DVD extras back in the
day, talking about doing the voice.
And I think the way the voice worked really well back then, even
though it's a bit when you 1st hear it, you go, what are they
doing?
But then you kind of lean into it, and I think that they do it a
little bit, but they could do it more now.
Yes.
They could have done it more for this, is the fact that it is like
you know, you're pressing a keyboard.
It is Stephen Hawkings in terms of, you know, you've typed the
thing out on your pad.
And the computer is just reading it out in a very random way
because it is taking time on some of the way. you know what I
mean?
And that's the kind of thing that I think they got so right in 66
and I think it actually could have been lent into a little bit
more in this.
Maybe it would affect people out too much because it would, it's
very freaky.
They do it in spare parts and it works incredibly.
Right, in fact, Simon, that was so good. trying to say.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Crowl or Tara.
Yes, yes, yes.
And the fact that those 1st cybermen have names, because they are
still, they were people, whereas this whole thing, and this
episode, unfortunately, leans into it a little bit too, that we
get, you know, all they're doing is they're mass producing
cybermen.
It loses the concept of them being having having been at some
point individuals.
Okay, we get one or 2 of them being individuals, but it's just, I
think the beauty of the original cybern still struggles to be seen
sometimes.
And there's also something to be said for context because we
learned from something quite modern under that if you want to
bring the brigadier back, it doesn't work to bring back a
character and strip them of all of their context and plug them
into kind of a multicoloured 80 story.
The sidemen here, the 10 planet sidemen work because of the grim
backdrop.
They fit in.
The aesthetic is all correct.
All I can say is this.
A Mondacian cyberman?
A Chalosian cyber?
Yes.
Of Organian cyber?
An attack of the Cyberman.
Attack the cyberman cyberman.
Sorry, I've been waiting to say that.
Really interesting discussion there, Simon.
Like, your perspective on that whole backstory, and obviously for
time, we couldn't do it for the actual feeling that they were
going for it, and certainly I think that it could have been, we
didn't see it because it's already happened, and you know, all
those people lining up outside.
They've just, you know, they know they have to go through that
process, but you've made a lot of good points, but I don't think
it attracts on the episode happening like that at all.
I understand what you're saying.
Yeah, that's why I was saying it. it's only a 9.8 out of 10.
It's 120 out of 10.
One of my favourite moments from the series 2 cybermen's stories
is all of the population of London, just marching into Battersea
Power Station, to be, yeah, to be sawn up and turned into
cybermen.
But that's why it's just dicky.
Do you know what I mean?
I know that's kind of awesome.
But this, do you know what I mean?
Like that site of, and there's more of it next week, I think, where
there's more fire and stuff in the sky and it looks more
terrifying.
And it just turns into this sort of, you know, Hieronymus Bosch
sort of hellscape in which everyone's turning into a cyberman.
And that's my point.
At the risk of harping on your acid, I don't want to see people
being marched into Battersea Power Station.
I want to see people limping of their own accord into Battersea
Power Station because they have no choice.
I mean, that kind of is what you get here.
Exactly.
And that's what you get here a bit more.
You get, they're being led. being kind of chaperoned by the partly
converted cybermen, but they've kind of realised they're all
outside, they're sick, they're dying, and they're holding off as
long as they can.
And then a day, they wake up one day and go, stuff it.
I have to do this.
Let around by impassive Nurse Ratchet, who probably thinks she's
doing them a favour.
The horror of everything building towards the end of the episode
and the end of the episode, like the reveal that this is Bill, at
the same time as Missy and the master, you know, reveal, and then
for Nardo and the doctor to be standing there and Missy comes in
you met the ex.
Yeah, and the look on Peter's face is just sublime.
But then the whole buildup too.
I waited.
I waited for you, which the doctor placed in her mind as she was
led away at the beginning of the episode.
And then that whole, the camera shot into the eye socket and the
tear and all that.
Like, it's just, it's really one of the darkest things Doctor
Who's ever done, I think.
Gruesome.
And I think too, Russell made the right decision to say the
sidemen could look like anything, but they must have the teardrop
which 1st appears in...
The invasion, I think, where...
And the teardrop is clearly just there so that the actors can see
out of the mask, right?
Like, that's why the teardrops there are.
You'll find that the teardrops are in the wheel in space because
the actors inside are going, what am I doing in this rubbish?
And so that becomes a thing because for Russell, the horror of the
sidemen is that they have had something done to them that's so
horrible that they have to have their emotions wiped or controlled
or suppressed.
And so they have that teardrop representing it.
And here you have the cybermen, the original cybermen that don't
have the teardrop, but the teardrop comes back for that final
shot.
So the teardrop comes out of the eye, in the spot where it appears
in the other cyberman, and, of course, it prefigures how Bill gets
out of all of this as well.
This is so clever and dark and well written and well made.
We didn't know what we had.
Yeah, so it's like this, we're going up.
It is, if I could just summarise that, it is clever.
It is elegant and it is beautifully put together and I think those
3 things only happen.
They don't happen every week.
And sometimes you get 2 of the three.
But I think absolute thing.
And just because I'm not on the next episode, I just think it does
go, it becomes a different story, which is fine, which is also
very good and interesting and wonderful in exploring something
else.
I wish it hadn't.
I wish we'd have had kind of like a 90 minutes of the genesis of
the cyberman.
Well, that's all the time we have for this week.
We'll be back next week to stand with the doctor in the doctor
falls.
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, though we cannot make our son stand still, yet we
will make him run.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
See you soon.
Good night.
Bye for now.
That was Flight Through Entirety, starring Todby, Nathan Bottomley
Peter Griffiths, and Simon Moore, theme arrangement by Cameron
Lamb.
This episode, Check My CV, was recorded on the 3rd of November
2024 and released on the 24th of November.
Of course, if we'd had gravitational time dilation back in the
1980s, Terror of the Vervoids would have been 283 episodes long.
But I think that that might have been quite a good thing.
But I absolutely am carried through that next episode by John Sim
and...
I'm absolutely carried through by John Simmons, Michelle Gomez.
I think their scenes together are absolutely spectacular and some
of the best two-handed scenes in the program and particularly the
scene where their Capaldi is arguing with them about, you know
this is this is what this is how it works.
This is what I do.
And, you know, Michelle, you know, Missy then saying, isn't this
what we always wanted to John Sims master?
And I just think it wraps up the whole missy 3 years of missy
basically. so beautifully.
Well, Simon, now we've got nothing to talk about next episode.
We can cut all that.
Exactly.
Go the tag of next week's episode.
I can come down in one of your heart little bubbles.
They inspired a long time ago.