A Beneficent God

Hello and welcome back to the all-new, all-different weekly flight through entirety, the only Doctor Who podcast who's qualified to work on tailors. I'm Brendan. I'm Nathan I'm Todd. I'm a lovely swirling Basque skirt of bubble wrap for this. Careful, Richard, we may want to populate. Oh, dear, that's terrible. I just got it. We mean... It can only be time to travel into the far future, past the solar flares, turn right at Earth's moon, headed... Todds had to go on the helmet regulator. to go on the helmet regulator and we're heading at a dizzying speed towards space station Nerva. Mark in space. What do you think? Pile of crap, really, isn't it? Oh, yeah, definitely not. What were those 13.600000 viewers thinking? Crazy. Exactly. Was ITV on strike again? No, no. they weren't, were they? They weren't episode one. The whole thing is glorious, except I will criticise Noah's acting but we'll get back to that in a little while. Look, episode one is just 25 minutes of absolute of our favourite people. Glory. Yes, the 3 of them are just phenomenal. Three who rule. We, of course, get another point of view shot from the monster just like in the previous story, that's early on in the peace. But besides that, it's Tom, Liz, and Ian and a couple of voices. How long has it been since we've had just the regulars? Is it the Dylest one? You could argue mind robber. We do have the voice of Emirus James in that one. Well, you got the voice of Peter. You got the voice of Peter Tottenham. And Gladys. What's her name? Gladys Emanuel. No, that's not. She's fabulous. Gladys, the High Minister. Yes. She was born in 1894. That actress. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I totally looked her up. She's terrific. But I think you're right. I think it's very rarely happened before. Yeah, it's really just for this episode, mind robber episode one and Edge of Destruction. Doesn't this show us how to do a studio bound story? Claustrophobia is my flavour du jour. I'm just on the edge of my seat throughout that entire episode. The lighting. the sense. And you can understand why 9.4 tuned into episode one and 13.6 million, which becomes the highest rated episode of Doctor Who up to that and 5th of the week, which is actually the record for the entire run of the original series. Wow. But episode two, episode two. It was at as high as Web Planet? Higher. Really? The highest episode on Web Planet was 13.5. Amazing. And I think Billy's highest placed episode was 7th. What we have here, instead of people to interact with, and monsters at this point is the environment, like a hostile environment. And Tom obviously... But so you've got the fact that there's no air, you've got doors mysteriously opening and closing. You've got that sentinel thing that sort of fires, bolts at people and all that. The deadly tanning lamp. Yeah, and then you get you get Sarah involved in the, you know, the chronogenic process. And there's a kind of physicality to the environment, which Russell rips off in New Earth later where he gets some of the doctor and rose wet in the lift. You know what I mean? Harry loses his shoes. They go through it. They carry his shoes beautifully. It's so wonderful. Harry's so clumsy. He's been playing with the helmet regulator. He presses the button. He presses the button that gets Sarah trapped in the other room. He says he doesn't like sliding doors because he got his nose caught in one at Pompey Barracks. He was in the navy like at all. I just adore that. The whole sequence when they're underneath the table... You see their bottoms. Of course, yes, that's my abortion. But, you know, just talking about, you know, different things. It was such a good scene. They did it again in towns of wing China. Yes, this is true But I just like the way Holmes puts in, like the doctor just pulls out things out of his pockets. This time it's like the cricket ball, which just, you know, gets dusted. There's some lovely little lines here for nerdy lads like we were in science-y stuff. Okay, just when you're 8 or 9. Just the references to organic matter and didn't you find that? The science is quite nice and tight in this for a child. It's something that Holmes has always done. And you even do get it in robot, where the dialogue is vastly more sophisticated than when Terrence is the script than it is. So there's a lot of clever words. Well, we will get to that because there is. But, um... But he just writes cleverer, wittier dialogue. really nicely done. And he plays, he has a musician's ear for sound because he plays with the flow and the dip thongs and the alliterations and assonants and just the rhythms of toils lines, especially they're beautiful. Can we talk about that speech? The big, big, indomitable speech where he's in the cryogenic chamber. I think he does something different from any of his predecessors and something vastly different from pertweis. So if Perto is asked to make a speech about human beings, it's about how they can blow up the world and they probably will and make lovely cheese and very good wineries. But you know how he's always negative about human beings and their capacity for destruction and the weapons that they create and pollution and all of that. But here you get Tom saying how amazing humanity is. Human beings are quite my favourite species. that as well. It's a really young man doctor, isn't it? With all of the vigour of youth. The thing that never gets mentioned is that that's the important theme of this story. The thing that saves everyone in the end is Noah's humanity. Do you know what I mean? It's humanity that solves the problem here. We're up against this sort of terrible threat. So that speech isn't just giving Tom something to do. And obviously this story does that. Holmes very clearly is credited. They've thrown out John Lucarotti's script because no one can contact him on the boat on the Mediterranean. And also just the budget to make what he wrote would have taken up all the money in the whole series. Wasn't it some casino or something or no? No, no, that's coming up later. But, yeah, no, this one is fungi that invade, and there's 2 different kinds of fungi. There's the disembodied just bodies who do all the bluster work and then there's the floating heads, the cherubim and seraphim, who float about and do the intelligence thing and Tom dispatches them in episode 4 with a golf club. I kind of wish we'd seen that That sounds great. And season 16. He had also written each script with an individual title because he thought the Doctor Who still did that. So the title of the 1st episode, I think, was Puffball and the last episode where Tom dispatches them with a golf club was golf ball. So each episode was something bold. No, I think it would have been great. a totally different thing. They kept calling TARDIS TARDIS instead of the TARDIS. I like tar. Speaking of the Tartars, Harry walks out of the Tartar series, and you never see Harry inside the Tartars, an entire movie. No, you never do. You don't see the you don't see the TARDIS interior set this whole season. You don't see it. I like that, though. Yeah, you don't see it between Death of the Daleks's last time, see it. and we won't see it again until Planet of Evil. Can we get onto the theme that I was mentioning with Jacques La Khan and Hinchcliffe's go? He was a psychologist and psychiatrist and a French theoretician ontological threat of isolation and claustrophobia. So, and it was a deliberate port ploy of Henchcliff. He said, what's the day of sex Makina? What's the safety point? The whole reason that we've always felt safe with the doctor. He can always get back to the TARDIS, get rid of the TARDS. and isolate Sarah Don't. Give the children threats that children are absolutely terrified of. Children don't mind monsters as such. We kind of like the bogey man, the building. We know that everything else around us is safe, so therefore it doesn't pose a threat. Therefore, take away the front door to our house. And isolate us. Sarah is always getting in a position of claustrophobia and isolation and being separated. That terrifies children, being separated from the parents is according to Inchcliffe, and according to Lacan, the thing that will most terrify. And when she gets put into cryogenesis. Again, is she gonna get out of that? Do you really don't think she will, do you? And, you know, the doctor and Harry have to obviously rescue him. But Elizabeth Sutton's acting through that entire sequence. It's just so good when she gets put under it. Have you seen Silent Green? Is anyone here actually seen it? I was lucky enough to see it on the big screen at one of the film festivals. It is that scene entirely. But in that case, it's because of climate change and because of overpopulation. There's no food. People go to the big centre where there's the lovely music and are put to death. You know, in a way, exactly the same as that with the same music. Absolutely. So the audience watching that, it was a big film that had come out a couple of years. really thought Sarah wasn't going to get transported. She was gone. And of course, at this time, this laden herself was thinking that once her contract was up, she'd move on, because she had seen, this is actually the 3rd story made with Tom Baker because they made Sontaran experiment first. We'll talk more about that when we talk about Santarian experiment but she had seen how well Ian Martin and Tom Baker were getting on. She knew there was a new producer. So she started thinking, you know what, Barry cast me. The way she puts it was, I was Barry's girl. And I thought to myself, Philip is probably going to want to find his own girl. Ian's Ian is. He didn't fill them. And it did work out an awful lot, you know, Ian Walter. No, he did. Yeah, partially because of his diabetes and he had been... And the fact that he's just... Well, he had actually been... Until a few weeks before he got the part of Harry Sullivan, he'd been incredibly ill. He hadn't worked for over a year. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so he started compensating by being really into his fitness. Liz Laden says the last time she met him about a year before he died. He had become quite muscular. And she sort of thought to herself, I will include pictures to this. Well, she thought she sort of remembers thinking, you know, I know he's got his diabetes in his health problems. Is it healthy for someone to be this huge? And she tells the story about how he came around to see Sadie when she was a baby. And so you've got this huge Ian Martyr, completely unsure of how to hold a baby. And that was the last time she saw him and that's her biting memory. Isn't it great that they all gone on so well? And Tom and Ian were writing behind the scenes. So for this, so was this the story where she bonded with Tom? Is that? Well, she'd already bonded with Tom, but she was beginning to wonder if she was going to be a spare part. She said this to Hinchcliffe, didn't she? She said this to Hinchcliffe, who turned around and said, no, we think you're wonderful. Actually, we're not going to renew Ian because you and Tom are so good together. It's kind of weird, isn't it? Because the natural pairing in season 12 is Tom and Ian and Sarah gets to, but I guess Sarah is strong enough to hold her own plotline. Exactly. Exactly. It comes up time and time again. She is isolated from those 2 for a couple of episodes and then forced to be her normal resilient independent self, you know, and get herself out of property. Exactly. And she's putting jeopardy a lot more. I mean, I think a lot of times people think that this is the girly season of Sarah, but I think Sarah is off by herself in jeopardy. So she's actually in a lot more dire straits without the doctor. Yeah, she really should. But she's still as strong. Yeah, people say that this season isn't as strong for Sarah James feminism. But I think what this season does with the feminism of the character is. It shows it through action rather than through words, because season 11, there was a lot of talk about feminism and examples of Sarah being independent, whereas when Sarah's with Tom, she doesn't, she doesn't stand there saying, oh, girls are better than boys or girls are equal to boys. She just gets on with it with the possible exception of one scene in this story. Can I say that I'm not sure that that's true? And one of the things that is going to come up now that Bob Holmes has probably taken over in Philip Hinchcliffe has properly taken over the season started in earnest. I felt a bit anxious about the tone of this story and the subsequent stories of season 12 because Sarah is so frequently placed in just horrifying peril and tortured, like she's tortured several times. And I'm there going, why would she ever agree to get back in the Tartar? Why would she ever do that? You know, we've said before that we think that Sarah does a great job of brave and scared at the same time. Here, I think she's called upon to be scared a lot more than she has in the past. And, you know, scared in close-up and all of that sort of thing. And I actually think that that's a little bit problematic. The upside is the stakes are high. things are really scary. You know, the stories are really strong, but I think it has a detrimental effect on her character. See, I disagree because she's into it. Well, you kind of wonder, don't you? But it shows how strong her character is because she's facing far greater adversity than she's ever faced before, but she doesn't give up. She has one moment of panic in this story, which is turned into an quote unquote, hilarious tristies on the nature of you girls think you're tough, but really, which is all reverse psychology and, oh how we laughed. That, I think, is very problematic when she's in the tunnel and the doctor says, oh, you girls, you just lie there blubbing when there's real work to be done, which, of course, gets Sarah out swinging and fighting and she takes them. She slaps him. Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah, which is great. But in those later stories, which we'll talk about in more detail like in, Son Tarin experiment, when she is being tortured and in Genesis of the Daleks, when she's under this extreme agony, but her reaction is don't tell him anything, doctor, you know, don't don't pike. Yeah, don't tell him, Pike. But I think I think that's the duress you put your characters under cannot in itself strengthen or weaken them. the character's reactions to it. No, no, but I'm in the way the characters portrayed. you know what I mean? On a different level. It's not that Sarah is a weak character. I think that you're presenting this person who's being tortured weak to weak and gets to spend a lot of time being really, really frightened and upset and screaming and stuff. It doesn't hold for a true person. Yes, it just like it just makes her less real as a character. No, I don't think any other companion up to this point has had the terrible couple of weeks that Sarah... But you know, it hasn't happened to us. No, no, it had to happen. It is about. The journey we're about to embark about. really quite harrowing for all of them because, I mean, the doctor and Harry fall down a giant ravine. The doctor gets shot. Harry gets half eaten by a giant clown. Harry gets Harry gets porridge creeping up. Southwester. No, we need to we need to keep our powder dry for those toys. Can I talk theological? One of the things I think that lifts this story is the monster. And I think the we're, and even though they're kind of crappy and polystyrene and stuff. No, though, they're crappy. No, they are anyway. Why haven't we had a toy? Aldawar, if you're listening, Tony Bird and I demand a we're in 5 interaction for you. They're not as they're not as solid as I remember them too. They're terrible. Look, but fortunately they don't appear until episode four. And the little the little puppety ones that go on along the outside of the... But I think the grubs are pretty good. But the thing that really makes them frightening is this. There's a traditional argument for the existence of God that runs something like organisms fearfully and wonderfully made. They're incredibly complicated and that complexity can only be down to a created god being responsible for their existence. And the most famous statement of this was William Paley, who published in 1801. And he talks about the watchman, you know, the watch, you come across a watch on the beach. It's such a, you know, beautiful, perfect thing, you must conclude that a watchmaker is behind it. But in episode two, I think, Tom talks about the Yumen's wasp and compares the Wirren's life cycle to that. And there's another wasp, the Ichneuman wasp, which is very similar in that it lays its eggs in a paralysed body. So it stings an animal, like a grub or something. It lays its eggs in the grub and then the larvae eat their way out through the living grub so that the larvae have fresh meat to eat when they're hatched. And theologians in the 19th century, when they're kind of acquainted with this life cycle, begin to think, you know, along the opposite lines that a god, a good god, couldn't be responsible for the creation of an animal who's reproductive cycle was like that. And Darwin himself, who is losing his faith, talks about the Ichneumon Wasp, and how it's incompatible with the idea of a beneficent god. And that's the monster here. Do you know what I mean? The threat isn't, you know, that someone in a green fibreglass suit is going to come in with a ray gun and sort of threaten you and push you over. The threat is that you're going to be eaten alive, body and soul. And so we've had bases under siege before, but we've never, ever had a monster as utterly, and as you said before, just like onto logically terrifying as this. I'm terrified just after you're saying all of that. You know where this comes from, don't you? The J. McConnell 1962 paper on memory transference. is thought to be largely chemical. Chemically. So that's how they can eat dune's memory. There was a theory. It's the 962 paper memory transfer through cannibalism in planetarians, which has definitely got to be a must read. But the thinking was. And it's not just a one-off. It imbues so much SF and popular thinking. He chopped up earthworms. He taught them to run through a maze. He chopped them up, fed them to the next generation of earthworms who could traverse the maze. He said without any preponderance. They just got straight through. However, yeah, and it's I remember hearing about it at school. Yeah, I think I remember reading about it. Yeah. Furkey. No one's ever been able to repeat the experiment again. You tried at home, kids. This is no, please don't. This is Peter, don't call this. fine. But there is that thing of the threat is so intimate, but that seems to produce, and I love that Tom plays up the alieness. He loves that creature when he comes upon it. Look at the way... Look at the way he caresses its thorax. You're a very beautiful warrior. But yeah, he really is involved in this and Harry is kind of horrible, but Tom is just amazed by the entire process of it. In fact, one of the genes, I think, because of his reaction. One of the genius things about Tommy in this story is how much he's enjoying himself. particularly when he goes to do the gypsy eye brain thing. Thank you, God. It's something that is so different. in contrast to pertway in that he actually talks about this is going to be really dangerous and everything and this has to happen and then I'm the only one who can do it and he sort of smiles and he takes so much joy in the fact that he's about to do something that's absolutely so dangerous. And it does it without undermining it. He does it without making you feel safe. And Sarah says something like, but doctor, that's horribly dangerous. I know, 2 leads broken. We're talking about the upside of that, but the Tom doctor is actually the darkest doctor we've ever had, and we didn't cover this in robot, but watch that scene again with Todd's toy tank when it rolls up. We all get so bamboozled by the cuteness of the tank. We forget what Tom says. He knows what his disintegrated gun will do. He knows how the properties work and what's going to happen to the blokes inside the Tonka tank. And what does he do? He doesn't say brigadier, get them out, pull them out. He puts his bloody feet. Up on Bessie. She doesn't get many lines in this one either, top. Puts your feet. aggressively. Puts his feet up on the windscreen, puts his hands behind his head and watches the carnage that's about doing... He allows these boys to go to their doom. It's a very dark doctor, this one. And speaking of which... He's been telling the brigadier for 5 years. You can't just shoot at everything. And I think in this new inclination, he's just like, no, I've told you once. That's the most horrifying moment, and Tom keeps that horror up. And of course, in this story, all the male costars all get killed off. God, they do too, don't they? Yeah, we have our 2nd woman for the year. Oh, she's magnificent. Segway of three, Wendy Williams. Or as Tom Beck says, when... Did you know the character was written as a Haitian? She was meant to be a black Haitian. Because the voodoo concepts in the original, the walking zombie concepts, I should say, in the original script or much higher. In fact, there's a line in... it would be great if shipping black. It would be so interesting. Well, there is a line in Tom's speech where he says all colours all creeds, all differences. Thank you. Why couldn't we have Carmen Monroe back? Why couldn't we have had Faria back? She have been amazing as Vira. Not that Wendy's not. Oh, yeah. And she does these lovely lines of, oh, a joke. There was not much joke and laughter. I just love her. She's just glorious. I can just sit there and walk. gorgeous. But her. And what's wonderful is we've slightly gone back to Troughton in that. We've got our base under siege. We've got our intransigent base commander. Yes, it's here. Yes, yes, yes. We've already seen that his 2nd in command, Vira, is calm, she is capable. She knows exactly what she's doing. She listens to the doctor's reasoned arguments with an open mind. You know, she doesn't immediately trust the doctor, but John does distrust him just because he's a stranger. Whereas all the boys, well, the boys in charge, can't do that at all. Yeah, it's a very subtle performance too. And there's a moment where I think it is slightly too subtle, but she goes from very distant and cold and she doesn't sort of react to them. But don't forget that she gets the final moment of the episode. Yeah, that she's a little thing. smile. She smiles. You know, she really... Yes, yeah. She could have gone in the Tardis as well. She ate the chilli bag. On the commentary, which I think is Tom Liz Sladen and Philip Hinchcliffe. When that ending comes up. Tom just bursts out laughing and over the credits, they say, oh God, all 3 of them say, God, that's a wonderful final shot. That's amazing because she's going to go on and wake everyone up. That's great. They were all just raving and Phil Pinchcliffe's like, I forgot we did that. It's amazing. But in the meantime, and this is an artful segue into another topic, Todd. In the meantime, we learned that she's married to Noah. And she pair bonded, weren't they? Pair bonded. How romantic. Yeah, they had heterosexual marriage in the, you know, 100,000th century, whatever it is. So, there's about to be a few women who aren't here. But we do get these subtle reactions to Noah's dialogue all the way through. And that terrible, horrible confrontation scene where you've got mutant Noah covered in bubble wrap in episode three, which is cunt because it's, I mean, it's pretty horrible as it stands, but it must have been originally more horrible. Can we just outline that for the listener who might not? So what happened is this is the scene where Noah, his torso, half his head is covered in the weir and... Oh, it's actually great makeup. and yes, it's bubble wrap, but nobody knew what bubble wrap was. Moving on. Moving on. This is the scene where Noah accesses the we're in race memory to tell the doctor and Byra information about the wearer and he says things like they were in the darkness rushing through. The door closes, he drops his gun, virus says we are pair bonded for the new line. And it's a really kind of, it's a ropey... It's a really weird cut because Noah was meant to go on and become more and more ranting instead of saying the Wiranah, he starts saying, I am, we are, and the makeup. If you look at the makeup on his face, there is a weird join between the wear and half of the space and the human half because it was meant to break away and ooze. And they did that and they shot it. And his ranting hysteria and that breaking open, Philip Hinchcliffe deemed too horrific. Because Philip Hinchcliffe is now in complete charge of the program. And so they just decided to cut to Wendy Williams saying we were pair bonded for the new life together. So that awful scene ends with her announcing that the 2 of them were married. And it's such a shame we don't get to see that. No, really. I think it would have been. Do you, Wendy, take this giant insect to be your lovely husband? And I think if we're going to mention that. We have to mention the film-based successor to this story. We do. Alien. Alien. And we're okay to say that because Ridley Scott, who was actually lined up to design the Daleks back in 63 when he was for the BBC has later on acknowledged that this is a primary source for alien. And of course, you know, the alien gestation. It splits your whole body open and gets out. I love the design of destroying. Isn't Rogers from Ari Leach? I love their uniforms. The solar flares that they all wear. Yes, I do. It must be a Space 1999 with all this. made at the same time except with actors. Not quite yet. No, no, 1974. It was actually being filmed. It was in pre-production in 73, everything filmed in 74. Everything was filmed for the 1st season before they broadcast. It had a very long gestation period. And the 3 of the same folk, Ian Scoons and all the rest of it, but that's not to say that this influence. There are many precursors for that beautiful, clean, sterile, and invasive food. The white with the flashes of colour. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I actually think it looks better. Oh, yeah. And the cryogenic pods and all that, you know? Just down to the details of those little banks of information slots when they walk into the... That's what I call microphone. You just reminded me as a little boy, because this was on every year was sometimes repeated. I assumed that they were actually the cell banks. So you can mix up a cocktail of people instead of whatever kind you want. That's what a lot of people try and use some grinder for. It's like, know this, know that. What's that? I've got no idea. It's an app it's an app for coffee. Unlike all the supporting cars. I'll have a double deco flatte. I like all the supporting cast lights, Rogan, Libre, who does that sort of... The fallover backwards. Yeah, it's wonderful. And the working class bloke. Rogan, yeah, yeah. They even have working class whinges. I would have liked to stay on the earth like that. I like him. But I do have a problem with Noah's performance. Okay. I think it's too over them. He's too hysterical too quickly. Yes. He immediately panics because there's other people on board, where I think he's very good is where the wear and starts taking it over. No, I think that that's where he's terrible. And then, in fact, it's the cliffhanger to episode 2 where he pulls out the bubble wrap hand. And then he starts fighting with a, you know, like throwing himself across the set and it's too much. And the reason is that he's the one who saves them all. It's Noah that saves everyone and he does it out of his love for Vira. The last words that he says are goodbye to Vira. You know, he's a human being. He said, you know, he has no memory of the earth and all of that sort of thing. But it's not true. And Tom's already foreshadowed that it's humanity, you know, the greatness of humanity is, you know, on display in that room and it's the greatness of humanity that saves us. Clearly, he's an actor in his scene that he's got his hand wrapped in bubble wrap and he's decided that he's decided to kind of pitch his performance accordingly. But it would, I think, have been much, much better to have had something a little bit more subtle and a little bit more nuanced would have given more drama. I think it comes close to wrecking it. I want to disagree, but I'm really sympathetic to your argument. I kind of like the contrast of Noah with the coolness, the Marshall McClellan lines of what's hot and what's cool. He's the heat of the old earth. Everyone else is the cooler space. And I reckon that's where it was actually Kendall Moore, was it? was the actor? Kenneth Moore. Kenneth. Kenneth Moore was that... sorry, Kenton Moore. Kenton Moore. wish it was Kenneth Moore. Who, uh, we previously saw dumping his own dead body in the river which was forbidden. in Dalek Invaders, London. He's in the he's the Roman man who goes into the river. Wow. Which is a cinematic moment, referenced by the BFI and shown in their cinema reels of great moments of British cinema and TV, great filmmic moments of that scene of Kenton more daunting the body realise it was him. And he sacrifices himself in this story as well. See, the scene I really like. story all around for him, isn't it right? The scene I really like him in is where the weiron is starting to take him over before the physical manifestation and he says to Vira that the revivification must be stopped and she argues with him because June's still missing and he's got that wonderful line of, but I'm here. I'm due. No, you see, I think that that's more... Really not from Kansas. Fair enough. It's not it's not unpleasant to watch. Do you know what I mean? But I just can't help thinking. Fair enough. a puzzling creative choice. Let's say. Harry's a bit of a chauvinist at times. Oh, well, he's... Yeah, and he says like a member of the fair sex at the top of the totem pole. You see, though, I think I think that he's deliberately goading Sarah here because they've already established those 2 as a sort of brother and sister slightly bickering type of relationship in robot, when she's very early on, referred to him as, oh, you know you get your chance to be James Bond, and when they both get captured, she gets captured after him. And when they're thrown in the same cell, she just looks at him and goes, James Bond. Actually, we didn't mention that he actually made, he actually plays a piss week. Yes, yeah, right right down to the man from the ministry bowler hat. Yeah, which I, and that's definitely Terence, because, you know Terence and Mac Hulk wrote. I think 3 Avengers scripts together. I agree with you on the brother sister thing and it does shine through in other stories. I can't agree with you on this other points. Again, it is this thing where it's, you know, there are dozens of speaking parts in this season, 3 of which go to women. You know, like and going... But how strong are these women? Yeah, that's the thing. It doesn't really matter, though. Does it? I don't know. It doesn't, okay, it doesn't fully redress the balance. obviously. My goodness, you don't forget these women. No, I know, but that's because there's so few of them. Yeah, I think it's because... it falls down on equality of representation. But the supporting female characters who are there are all strong well-drawn character. who, yeah, who lead the narrative or lead their own narrative within the story, which is even more important. Spoiler alert, I hate batan. What a thing to say. I just thought I'd get it in there. That's a that's a next that's another story, though. That is, yes. Can't have 2 guest star women in the same story. It's like having 4 people doing a podcast. would it be? You know, I think that Sarah is very strong. You love her in this one don't you? I do. I love it. her idea that they use the transporter ship. The one that points that out. Yep. And her reaction to the doctor's death. again, she gets to do that. She does that an awful lot this year. and she did with pertly as well. She's always thinking he's clogged. Twice in Monster of Paladon. Are we referencing monster pell in my game? No, we have to. contractually obliged. It shows how Elizabeth Sladen grows her performance, so she goes because when it happens with pertly, she's almost inconsolable with grief. But in a way she's seen him die now. So when she thinks he's dead at the end of, at the end of this story, it's a, it's a very muted, very personal reaction. This is really aware of that, isn't she? Yeah, yeah. And I think it's a very deliberate choice. And, you know, Ian Marta comes over and this could be another opportunity for him to be chauvinistic, but he actually says, he the doctor, would want you to be brave. So he's acknowledging that Sarah is a brave person. He's not saying pull yourself together, you silly girl, or words to that effect. It's like he'd want you to be brave because I know you can be brave. I know you can be brave. Do you remember Liz talking about this story when you talked to her, Todd? at all? They mostly talked about boys. What the hell? Oh, dear, listen, help me now. No, I don't remember. I actually have to go back and watch the interview, like I mean because you're in the movie. It's a great interview. I would love to, if we could host that on the website because Todd is a brilliant. Do you have it? Can we get it on YouTube? I do have it. And most of our listeners are actually folk we don't know. Hello? We could talk we could talk to Damien and see if he minds us uploading bits of it? Listener, if you'd like to, you know, if you're interested in all of this stuff. Do mention us on your iTunes review when you say this. Can I just say like, like, the interview is not in my mind because as you're sitting there, you're going, oh, my goodness, I'm interviewing Elizabeth Slater. What the hell do I say? My heart is in my mouth. You're probably still concussed from walking into all those pills. Oh, yes. I've got some kind of stain on my shirt. I know I have. That's just the love of dribble. But it is a beautiful interview. And I mean, Liz never gave a bad interview, but Todd really brings some great stuff out of it. So if we could find it, it would be so nice to have those an adjunct to this podcast. Yeah, it's not a personal one, but when we get to Genesis of Daleks, I do have a funny interview story about Liz. Yes, please. Yeah. I mean, there's Ian and there's everyone else, but for me, Liz really does, she's the one I keep watching in this for the reaction shots and everyone else. It a Liz I keep looking at. You know what? I'm gonna come back to something you were saying, Nathan. And I think this is something we should look at over the course of this coming season. Oh, we will. As much as, as much as the 1st series of the new Doctor Who was about Rose's journey. I think this year is about Sarah's journey. Even more so than the season before where she was introduced for her coming season or even her last season. Yeah, what? Her horrendous journey into Jeopardy every other week. Yeah, I think I think it's important for the character, but we'll talk about that more at the end of the season. very Nietzsche and Nietzschean again, the triumph of her will, yeah. I love it. I love this story. It is spectacularly good, isn't it? There's nothing, there's not the T word in this for anything. No, nothing's tiresome. Hooray! We finally found one. Nathan likes a Doctor Who story. Oh, this is the 1st time as a little boy I ever saw the TARDIS in colour and I found out it was blue. I'd been drawing it. We've got a colour set that you shows you how old we all are. I'd been drawing it brown, which is not a euphemism. I had been drawing it brown. And I have a drawing still of myself climbing out of the TARDIS upended. And so I have to finally say, thank you, Stephen Moffat, for making my dreams come true, because that 1st scene with young Amelia, Pond, and Matt Smith climbing out of the TARDIS is the thing I'd drawn in 1976. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's blue. Thank you, dear listener. That's all the time we have this week for the Arking Space. We will be back next week, coming back down to Earth with the Santaran experiment. In the meantime, you can find us at FlightthroughEntirety.com flight through entirety on Facebook and iTunes, which has an interesting review mechanic you may want to try out and FTE podcast on Twitter. Until then, thank you very much for listening and good night. Good night. Good everyone. See you soon. You've been listening to Flat Your Entirety with Todd Beerby Nathan Bottomley, Brendan Jones and Richard Stone. This episode, a beneficent god, was recorded on the 14th of June. The next episode will be released on July 5. If Harry's speech patterns prove him to be aggressive, God knows what Noah would make of us. It's blue. So is just much like this podcast.