Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Flight Through Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast, which provides you with something
like a neutral environment, an isolated space cut off from the
rest of the universe, especially if you're trying to get a drink
past 3 a.m. I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Todd, and I'm the last remnants of the Hadron Collider for
this episode.
Are you sure you haven't got a typo there, Richard?
Because we're caught in a web and we can't get out.
It's Castra Valva.
Oh, Nathan, you've been looking forward to this so much.
It's really terrible.
Like, I haven't really been looking forward to the 80s, which is
why the most recent Doctor Who story I've seen is Castra Valver.
I haven't been looking ahead.
I have to steal myself to get to Fort to Doomsday.
And, you know, I've had a pretty high opinion of Crispidmead.
I think, you know, Lagopolis while sort of flawed and plotless is
a great culmination of a really great season. bloodless.
It's my life.
But this is the 1st story of a new doctor.
It's really important and it's the 1st new doctor for 7 years.
It's crucial that this comes off. he just comes up with something
flawed and plotless again.
Where's Project 4G when you need it?
I don't know what that is.
Brendan.
Oh, well, I was just going to say.
Flanagan and McCulloch, who wrote Megalos last year.
And underneath the Archers.
Oh no, that's Flanagan and Alan.
We're commissioned to write the 5th doctor's debut story. initially
known as Project 4G, later Project Zita Sigma.
And it was gripping already, isn't it?
It was going to be a parable for the Cold War.
It was going to be 2 worlds on the brink of nuclear MAD, nuclear
short destruction.
Just thinking back to how much Todd enjoyed the Armageddon fact.
Oh dear god, no.
So essentially it was going to be the Armageddon factor, but with
the master instead of the marshal.
And for whatever reason, the script was deemed unacceptable.
You deemed it unacceptable.
I believe it was actually Anthony Root.
Oh, one of the few good things he probably did.
Well, come back to him later.
Now, the thing is, they did give it as much chance as possible
because when the scripts for Project Z to Sigma ran into trouble
that's when we had this creative choice switcher may have puzzled
some hint, dear listener, to record the 1st 5th Doctor Stories out
of order.
And indeed, they were recorded 2341.
So that was always the intention, even when this was a project
Zita sigma.
But yeah, Project Zita Sigma fell by the wayside, and so
Christopher Hamilton Bidmead, roughly refreshed by now from his
duty as a script editor. was asked to come up with another story.
Wow, I always thought it was Project Zita Minor.
So I've lived for 30 years going, oh, they're going to go back
there.
Salamar, you wanted it for Shinsky.
I think we need to say, though, that this is by the greatest
director of all time, Fiona Cumming.
And she also worked on the Highlanders and the Mutants.
So there's really nothing not to love about newscoming.
Well I don't think she's that good.
No, there are more than 2 shots that I think are pretty good.
I really like the shot where Tegan is looking through the open
door of the ambulance of the Keys.
I think that's really terrifically fun.
There is some beautiful...
You know, I've watched a few of hers now and Fiona, and I think
she's got the intent.
She wants to give you the feel, but I don't always think that it
pulls off on Doctor Who's budget, you know?
Certainly, what happens in season 19 is a giant disappointment, I
think.
And part of it is that it's just visually not as interesting as
season 18 had been.
And it's not just that it's, you know, now we're a year into it.
Season 19 is the same old look.
I actually think the look gets worse that it just gets more
pedestrian and less inventive this season.
And I think the same thing happens with the scripts.
I think, you know, Bidmeat had been telling a continuous story
ever since full circle and had done a great job of it.
Now, no one really knows what direction we're heading in or what
we're doing.
And so, again, I think the quality falls off.
But here it is kind of inexcusable, that the story faps around for
something like 2 episodes, just like Lagopolis did, without really
giving us a threat.
I mean, you've got the master, but he's terrible, instantly, he's
jumped the shard.
Well, yeah, the master is always that point of Noll field.
I think other people called it Brisbane, didn't they?
But hearing all of these stories.
But the 1st 2 or 3 episodes I really loved, and I love the visual
styling, and I love the direction, and I love the score, and I
love that for once, we don't go to another planet or someone
else's idea of a science fiction story.
We go inside a picture book.
This is probably the greatest and most beautiful thing Doctor Who
has done since the mind roller, but it takes children into a
book.
In this case, Graham McDonald's wall panelling of MCS's drawings.
But, you know, cash for valve, there is actually one of his
drawings.
I was so excited as a boy that this was taking me into Edwardian
fantasy in the way that Arthur Rackham's drawings.
There's a whole period of beautiful etchings done by English
artists of children's books, such as the I Nesbit ones.
And it's parallel really nicely in the styling with Esher.
And this honestly just feels like we're inside a lovely picture
book until they press the Quantil button.
I think you mean George McDonald rather than BBC head of cereals
Graham McDonald.
Did I say grand?
No, no, Graham McDonald's?
Head of cereals, Graham McDonald. had an issue of print on his, and
apparently...
And Bidmead said it was him who saw it and Nathan Turner says it
was I who saw it.
It was Nathan Turner Woods.
Plus, plus Bidmead says that the reason he based a whole story
around Asia Prince is.
Apparently John Nathan Turner would walk out of meetings with
Graham McDonald saying, oh God, that picture makes my eyes hurt.
I really hate it.
So bit me went, right.
I'm gonna write you a story about this.
Can I defend the 1st 2 episodes?
Please, please do.
You're amongst friends.
Because I really enjoy those.
And maybe it's my memory as a child.
This was when I constantly watched as a child.
But as an adult, something I really appreciated about it. something
we talked about 2 weeks ago.
I say 2 weeks ago, hopeful that I haven't taken another week off
editing, dear listeners.
But something we said 2 weeks ago is, you know, we've got so many
characters they don't get a chance to shine with Matthew
Waterhouse in Anthony Amy's Dungeon and Peter Davis and Comatose.
The 1st 2 episodes are all about Tegan and Nissa and they're
solving problems and they're being proactive.
But also, what's very interesting is it presents the 2 mentalities
of the characters.
Like when Nissa, at the beginning of episode 2, says, all we can
do is close the scanner, which I think is a very powerful moment.
But it's actually Tegan that says, well, no, there's more we can
do.
Maybe we can fly the thing.
I'm not saying it's perfect by any means, but it gives us a much
better idea of these 2 characters than in Legopolis.
And that may also be a result of recording it right in the middle
of the season when they already have a grip on their characters.
But I quite like that we have the 2 female leads leading the show
while the 2 male leads are incapacitated.
I was wondering whether it passed the Bechdel test, but I think
they're talking about the doctor so much that probably doesn't.
That's true.
No, I agree with you.
I do like the fact that they're given, Tegan, we don't really know
you know, we're only beginning to find out about her.
And it's a nice opportunity for them to take the lead.
You know, Adric is effectively sidelined.
And I think that's part of the problem with your season is having
the 3 companions.
What do you do with them?
And Adrik does really well when he's sidelined.
He uses a bot device here and it does kind of work.
He does come into his own in this episode.
Yeah you can tell.
The blue box boy, the Matthew Waterhouse autobiography suggests
that anyone who's seen Castro Valver will know whether Matthew
himself dresses to the left or the right. dresses away from the
window.
What do you think of Janet's performance?
There's nowhere to go after that.
Janet.
Yes, Janet.
I love Janet.
It's really interesting because I think everything's been recorded
out of order with 4 to Doomsday, then visitation, Kinder, and then
this.
And I think her performances in those other 3 are very unsubtle.
This is the 1st time I think she gets a handle on light and shade
in the character. don't think it's perfect.
I think in the latter episodes.
Unfortunately, Tegan is hysterical over losing the 0 cabinet every
5 seconds and, you know, goes into her bolshy sort of mode that
she does do.
But she's better in this.
This is the 1st time that I feel that she's improving.
Yeah, yeah, she will be horrible next week.
There is that big. week after every week after that.
There's a bit when they're climbing up to Castra Valver and she's
tired and the 2 of them are talking and she's really raining it in
and giving a sort of subtle performance.
Well, and that's quite surprising because Fiona Cumming really had
to find those shots because Janet Fielding, I don't know about now
but then was absolutely terrified of heights, even being 5 or 6
feet off the ground.
She was finding really difficult.
So Fiona Cumming sort of says that, you know, directing it, I had
to go for very low angles, but Janet gives a great performance
despite the fact she was terrified of what we were doing.
I adored Janet as a kid.
I really did.
And me too, my mother too, didn't she?
I did, but now having watched this season, I find the 1st 4
stories very difficult.
It's not until she's given alcohol in...
She's like, she's funny and from that point forward.
That's true From that point forward, I enjoy her performance
because she manages to find the moments to pick when she can be a
bit more caddy a bit more narky, you know?
Tegan's written very one note, but she manages to find that light
and shape.
Here, it's the transition story because it's the 4th one
recorded.
And I think there are good moments and there's sort of terrible
children's TV overacting, really.
She is 2 personalities in search of an author, isn't she?
For this.
And she gets Anthony Root, and Eric Saywood.
Yeah, that's wonderful.
What a dynamic, do I?
But the girl's struggling along in that. isn't it interesting that
we get an actual proper, what your test that Nathan, that you
quote?
It makes a test of 2 women talking to each other about something
other than a man almost happens here, although they tend to be
talking about the doctor a lot, don't they?
They do do the hydrogen in rush conversation and that kind of
thing.
And the wonderful index file conversation and the nature of
recursion.
You still quote that. a beautiful line.
It feels like Douglas Adams has just popped his head in.
As Patrick Troughton does in episode three.
Did you know that?
Pat Trouton was on the set standing in for Peter in that scene
where, because he just came to visit and say hello on the day, when
he when the doctor gets his marbles back.
And you know who the child is who teaches Peter to count?
It's Carolyn John's niece.
Oh, really?
Whisker John.
We own...
That's the noise the curtains make.
This is the story that really brings together the new era.
And as a boy, I just loved it, but I did love it mostly for them
can we say meta?
because it's not a troll.
Yes.
The fact that we're inside a children's storybook.
And there are a few stories in this season that actually get what
Peter's doctor is about.
Do you remember how he'd be playing the character and it wasn't
like Tristan but Brave.
And that actually came from it, a child riding into Blue Peter
when they were saying, what will the new doctor be like?
Because like you were just saying, it's 7 years since we've seen a
face.
We did just have the 4 faces of Doctor Who.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Wanted to show an episode of All Creatures Great.
No, I think that...
If you don't blink at the end.
I actually like all the stuff inside the TARDIS quite a lot.
It looks beautiful, doesn't it?
The 1st time.
Well, what as a kid it did.
Now I think, oh, they're reusing that and that's it.
That's the end of the studio there.
It's a little bit cheaper, but I think it's only the leisure
height that we haven't seen the TARDIS interior, is it?
In the J and T era.
And I think there's very few stories where we don't actually see
the tidest interior after, you know, the early 70s where you never
see it at all.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now it's, we're going to see it.
He's domesticating the crew, isn't he?
Yeah, and it will it will become unnecessarily fetishized, if you
like, that we have to see the inside of the TARDIS to get the
story going rather than the ship just lands, which we will see
much later in the series, thanks to Andrew Cartmel, but we're
getting way ahead of ourselves.
You know, you get born, yes, is he?
Later on, it kind of feels like it gets to the point where they go
oh, well, we have to have a Tana scene.
Oh, well, the Tata scene will have to be 2 minutes long then.
Oh, but we can't we don't have any plot information yet.
Oh, we'll just have everyone bitching at each other in front
inside the time.
It's like trying to write season one of Next Generation's trick
isn't it?
Yes.
Everyone needs everyone needs their 30 seconds of fame.
I do like P-shake.
Yeah, I like it.
I like him in this a lot.
I like him wandering around the TARDIS and the doctor talking
about past companions.
I think the whole finding the cricketing thing is very twee, I
hate the costume.
They look awful.
And I really hate the hat, you know, every time every time he puts
the hat on in any of the stories, it's like, just ditch the hat.
Ditch the hair.
I just...
He is very bald for a 29-year-old, but he has terrible hair.
Richard just looks straight at me.
I'm not 29 anymore, but I did have this one.
This little hair when I was 29.
Thanks for pointing it out, mate.
And they're actually quite, really impressed by Peter Davidson.
I commented in the past couple of podcasts how this is just the
dregs era for me and I really hated him as the doctor.
But the one thing watching him is an energy in these 1st 4 stories
and including this, that I really like about, yeah, I just feel
like he's trying so hard.
Later in the season, I think Denny suddenly decides to give up
acting for a year and a half .
But I do think that he's in there really finding his way or
whatever.
I just think this could have been recorded 1st and he would have
been fine.
I just think that no one knows what he's supposed to be doing, and
it's so crucial to establish that in this 1st story.
So he's got post-regeneration, whatever.
Stress disorder.
Yeah, and he has that for a month.
You know, like we've got 4 episodes.
I think it's Tegan.
I think they're just sinking with each other.
To be fair, he has it for 9 days.
Because of course we've moved away from Saturday nights now.
We now have the broadcast Monday, Tuesday.
I have to remember that in future.
You said Monday, Tuesday, Monday, Wednesday, this season?
It varied.
So I believe I could be wrong, so please correct me if I am Todd.
Monday, Tuesday.
Started Monday.
I've got it Monday, Tuesday.
I believe I do believe in Wales in some areas it was Monday
Wednesday.
I believe in Wales, but I've never been anywhere.
So you are correct.
It is it is back to back.
Yeah.
I think next season might they might go to Monday, Wednesday.
Now, this is a good point to ask what we all thought about that.
It didn't really affect us in Australia.
We saw this right after episode 4 of Legopolis. less than 24 hours
later.
And I think hearing was still weekly as well.
It was.
It was a Tuesday, Wednesday night, I have it etched on my little
frontal lobes at the time running home from school to see it.
But this has been argued that, you know, Saturday afternoon tea
time, sacrosanct for Dr. Basil Brush, and the generation game
which at one point, that Bruce Forsyte thing, you know, the man
whose dual could open tin can, just like swiping, that was seen by
a 3rd of the entire British population.
But the ratings, you're the ratings, man.
Well, of course, I spoke about last season being an absolute, like
Maya of desolation.
So straight away, 9100000 viewers tuned into episode one.
Like, that's higher than everything last season. you know, the
highest rating last season, and it was 8.3. and I mentioned like
you know, very few percent, you've got about 7 million.
So there's immediate effect, and it charts at 54, and the 2nd
episode's down a bit, but the last 2 episodes, 10.2 and 10.4.
That's pretty cool. and they're both in the top top 50.
Dr. Zendeen in the top 50s since season 17.
And 10.4 is the highest rated John Nathan Turner episode.
Wow.
So obviously it was a good move.
And it was actually directly linked to the poor ratings on
Saturday night.
That's right So, yeah, Graham McDonald and then David Reid, who
replaced him around this time, were able to look at season 18 and
say, look, this is obviously quality television.
It's not that it's bad that people aren't watching.
Oh, they did say that.
Did they?
Obviously.
They didn't they didn't watch make loss.
But, you know, they were able to they were able to look it and go
you know, it's not the program that's at fault. lets try it in a
different time.
And look what happens.
Well, actually, like this season, half the episodes this season
are inside the top 15, right?
And there's only 3 that place outside the top 70, as opposed to
last year, where only 3 got in the top 70.
So there's this big shift and the average rating for the season is
9000000 and there's a lot of episodes touching that 9.5 to 10
million.
Do you know where the season is by the end?
Yes, I do.
The last episode of the season is the lowest rated episode of the
season at 8.one.
See, that's not so bad, is it?
Yeah, that, you know, that's that's still really amazing, quite
frankly.
Especially...
Time flight episode four.
Yeah, you know, were they not watching the previous three?
But, you know, episode one of Time Flight gets 10000000 and 26th
which is the highest placed John Nathan Turner episode.
Oh, because that's because they're tuning in. what they wanted to
see what happened next.
And they squander they squander that.
I mean we'll get to that.
But this whole season is like, you know, lots of episodes are like
in the high 8s into the 9s and placing, you know, between 40 and
60s.
It's very much like what Doctor Who was in the middle Tom and John
building.
So it's sort of like there's an audience that's come back to see.
And is Pete responsible for that?
Because Pete is a big name.
Yeah, style vehicle.
I think so.
I think a lot of the all creatures, great and small, and it's a
piece of tuning in to see...
And love for Lydia and sink or swim, were they on at the same time
right now?
Well, sink or swim would proceed Doctor Who.
Okay.
But he was doing 2 other shows concurrently with this, which is
why they were mucking things around in order as well.
Well, yeah, it's why he didn't debut until January 1982.
It was specifically because the BBC didn't want more than one
program featuring him broadcast at a time.
Because they had to send Janet to New York to learn Sterner's love
ski method so that her crankiness could be convincing. paid off.
Matthew went as well but he just got drunk.
I know I'm hijacking the conversation a bit because, you know
I...
I'm just doing this story for this season, but, you know, last
season we talked about how good it was, right?
And how bad the ratings were.
This season, the ratings have lifted for the whole season.
And I don't think it's as good a season.
And going into 20, you lose 2000000 viewers between 19 and 20.
And is that then a reaction to what goes on in the writing season
is the fact that we've got more viewers this season.
Not only Pete, but the fact the writing last year and what was
going on, the freshness.
I don't know.
It does seem to be just a complete lack of interesting what the
audience might find appealing.
And so lots and lots of conversations about, You know, I don't
think that recursion thing is all that great.
I think a lot of standing around in the TARDIS talking.
Like why is no one ever menaced by monsters?
Why does the doctor, the new doctor not get a hero moment at all?
He doesn't solve anything.
You think about Chris invasion.
That's true.
Tenant gets, he's asleep for most of the thing.
It is almost an homage to this story, isn't it?
But then they actually put on the Wincy at pyjamas and make him do
something.
So he defeats the Santas really early, so we get to see what he's
like before, you know, his final big hero moment, which is like
nearly an hour, and it's really late.
Whereas here, the doctor really doesn't do anything.
He spends his entire time being carried around.
He does those inexplicable impersonations of Troughton and Hart
and all better than Herndel.
Oh, they good.
They're not bad, but why are we doing them?
Who are we doing that for?
And those references to Vicki and Joe. Like, that's so sort of
Doctor Who monster book.
Because even they've been sitting there with his rotary file
cracking them off that they say that one.
Say that one.
Nathan, is it that problem that it's pandering to fans and the
general words tuning in, might be going, why are they talking
about this?
Like Pat, in his 1st story, gets the Daleks.
Pete gets architecture.
Like, it's really, it's just normal.
Dutch tricky mushroom architecture. that can't exist.
You've pinpointed something is that where are the monsters?
And it's something that I'm going...
How are you?
She'll hit you with a Mara stick.
Sorry, go on tour.
But where are the monsters?
And it's going to be something that when I come back next season
where are the monsters?
It's, I think it's the ergon next season, to be fair.
Oh, dear listener.
And it looks good kill.
Insert ergon field threat.
But there's no there's no threat.
I mean, there's a threat, but there's no tangible. a conceptual
threat.
But that's a lovely thing.
Everything we've seen now is a complete reverse.
Peter's playing vulnerable vanilla beige milkshake with a raspy
ripple stream through it.
It's, you know, everything is the reverse of what we've had, and
it's the same way that, no, I love the inclusivity of the story
and we haven't got into the psychobabble stuff yet, have we?
But all the literary conceits, but being inside a story inside a
story is a really beautiful thing.
And it's easy to watch a show from outside and see it as a
television program.
But we've all said this isn't just a television program.
That is lovely.
If it's not, if it's not, if it's not, then the majority of the
next 13 stories.
Because that's the thing, the mind robber is so good because it's
them followed up with the invasion and the seeds of death and the
crow, you know, it's them followed up by monsters.
Whereas we get Castra Valva, which is very conceptual.
We get 4 to Doomsday, which is a Billy Hart story?
Exactly.
It's a heartful story, but it's very conceptual.
It does have monsters, but they just kind of sit around.
We get Kinder, which is great and it has monsters, but they're
monsters of the mind.
We get visitation and earth shark, which are more traditional
monster stories.
Terrible traditional monster stories.
I enjoy...
Oh, this is going to be a polarising era.
Dear listener, yes.
And I don't want anyone to get me wrong because I developed a new
appreciation of this era when I was watching it back through again
with Rod.
Peter Davidson, and I'm sorry if you're listening, Peter, but I
don't think you are.
Peter Davidson was my least favourite doctor by a long, long way.
I found him boring primarily and bored.
I can't...
That's my.
I'm on the same wavelength.
But rewatching him in context.
He has lots of little subtleties to his performance, which I think
the production are working against because they want to avoid
comedy, which is a, it's a big mistake.
That's where it falls down.
I think we're going to start seeing, so Todd won't be here for
this too, just as Janet picks up, Peter starts to just leave his
gloves on the desk here.
I think he starts being bored.
All the lovely little MacGyver moments with his bits of string
which is a terry nation invention.
And I'm not stringed, but listener.
Bill Oddie that invented the...
And of course, Spike Milligan invented 2 pieces of string.
He did.
We should put that out at the end anyway.
Sorry.
Something I don't like about this story is the fact that, um, okay
we say we get out of the Tartars and then we're on some lovely
location work and the girls are running around and then they're
running away from these...
Losing their trousers.
They're running away from these warrior people. right?
But they don't need to if they just took off their helmets and
went, look, we're here to help you.
We can see you in the tapestry.
Like it's just this fake out thing.
It's like delaying, getting into castra valver and I'm just, I
just sit there going, oh, we're just padding it.
Like, to me, there's 3 episodes in here stretch to four. in 4
reckon this day.
There's been 2 stretch before.
I'm trying to be generous.
In Ford of Doomsday.
Like, I really like the 1st couple of episodes and then it's like
well, we're stretching it to four.
In Kinder, I think that there's only 3 episodes stretch to four
with the worst stuff for the hangings for the whole season.
No.
I think I think that is the worst story for the companions of the
season.
I'm not going to be here.
I love kinder, but I'm going to agree with you.
I mean, it's not great for Sarah.
No, terrible.
Well, she's asleep.
Janet's asleep.
Even though she's having something in the mind, she's actually
asleep for over an episode, and Andrew's one moment trying to do
something good and one minute utterly crap, it's like he can't
write.
Suspended in his crappy.
Oh, it's the writing of the content.
A very harsh critique on their acting.
I mean, it's got Mary Morris, who I think is 10 out of 10 in every
single scene, which is just unbelievable.
And one of the best number 2s ever. in the prisoner. in the
prisoner.
It's no Ella Fitzgerald reference.
But I get I'm side shacked, but so obvious to me, it's like we're
padding to get to Castravalva, and then when we're in Castravalva
What happens?
Michael Sheard.
I know, in a pink dress.
I do like that.
The owner puts the guys in dresses and she does that again in
snake dance.
Yes, yes, yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
First our 1st cross gender costuming producer since the arc.
Yes, and of course, we have Shardavan, who is obviously set up to
be the master.
And the thing is, and the Ali...
Sorry, Neil Toyne actually gives an excellent performance as the
portrait.
You kind of fooled the 1st time around.
When you were a little boy, did you know it was a time?
No, I had no idea.
I was 13 and I didn't know.
I had no idea.
And the shock when he suddenly just begins to lift. was phenomenal
he can act.
Rod forgot.
When we were watching it again, it was, it was when he was looking
at the 0 cabinet that Roger said, hold on.
Hop.
Oh.
No.
Yes, he's the master.
It was an amazing moment.
It still works.
I just think his best performances in Doctor Who.
Tremus?
And the portrayed where he's not playing the master.
But I have no idea.
I don't understand the plan.
Like, so he's got he's got this.
Oh, don't go there.
There's been one plan.
I mean, it's so stupid.
Look, you know, he creates this event with Event one, but just in
case that doesn't work.
He's already got Adric to send them to Castra Valver and put all
that stuff in the, so he's already anticipating the event one
thing's not going to work.
And he's got his backup plan.
Then he goes back in time.
You know, he creates all these people somehow.
Like, I don't know how I know very little about telebiogenes.
Hooray!
And, you know, then there's some kind of giant, like, what's he
meant to do?
Like, is the doctor to be trapped in castra valver while it
shrinks?
Is he just going to hit him with a stick when he finds him there?
Like what's going on?
Can I make a suggestion in one of my usual continuity?
Explanation in inverted commas?
Make it making stuff up is what it is.
So the master has a plan behind that plan that would have been
enjoyed to spring.
So let's just assume that he just has Castrovalva.
He's just invented this sort of European sunny villa on top of a
hill where the men run around in dresses, and he suddenly got
Matthew Waterhouse in pyjamas, and his 1st thought is to take him
to this little Spanish style villa where the men run around in
dresses and tie him to a wall.
I think the fact that the doctor escapes and can just be lured
there.
That's just a bonus.
This was the master's holiday.
It's a great time to think about this.
I actually just came up with it.
I think it works.
I agree completely with that.
As he grips his remote with one hand and his cherry picker with
the other and up he rises to meet Adric.
The hard on power line.
Let me filter the touch.
I agree with you, Nathan.
He's escaped from Trark, and then he's gone off to, what's that
planet?
Logopolis with the, what were they doing?
What was their thing?
The block transfer computation?
Is he using block transfer computation?
through Edric's computations in the Star Wars to create this trap
within a trap within a trap?
But which makes no actual... no So he, but he goes back, he says
later that he's going to go back in time and created.
It's clearly his 2nd plan.
But, I mean, why doesn't he just poison the doctor's drink, you
know, or something?
Like the doctor has this drink. you know, like, what the hell is
going on?
Well, Russell had to reckon the whole thing, didn't he?
He had drums in his head and he's crazy.
Well, he's standing around in a very shortened pair of Bernard
Horsfall's pyjamas.
Having his pigskin struck repeatedly.
I love the bit where the cast of albums tear off his pyjamas at
the end.
Oh, I was referring to his drum in my brain.
But yes.
See, I told you, it's a gay holiday.
Hello?
Pride Grand Canaria.
Sorry.
I mean, wait, it's so easy to pick the things that we don't like
but did you get that sense of, I don't want to say sense of
suspension, but I expect I'll get a...
But there's that sense of dread within the realm of a child's
dream.
So the dread is always illogical and unspoken, and it's a very
dream-like threat when you've got the, the castor of elements
hunting with what looks like upturned bird bars on their heads. for
no good reason, revealing, but that's what dream fear does.
There is no logical sequence. to the ostensible thread.
And I think that that actually just lends to this.
I was taken back to being pre-teenage when I was watching this.
It felt like being a small child again.
Now, it's quite a clever thing for Fiona coming to have achieved.
I just think it's the wrong story for the 1st story. the 1st story
really?
That's all.
I think that he needs to prove to the audience that he is capable
of facing up to something.
I think that the regeneration trauma thing is always a bad idea
and it means that we don't get to see what he's going to be like.
And there's just no threat.
He doesn't do anything.
He doesn't resolve the situation.
And I just think it's a massive misfire.
I think that you need something giant and epic, like, power of the
Daleks or all.
We've seen that before and we've done that.
I would counter with that this is perhaps one of the greatest
literary conceit stories of Doctor Who of all time.
It is actually that good.
It's, if you look at it, in the way that we always do, in the way
that many, you know, many of the, of our friends do, as this is
being not just a TV episode, something inside.
It's one of the 1st times the Doctor Who does magic realism.
This is actually a Jorge Louis Borges story in such as the
circular ruins in labyrinths, and that story starts with, in the
dream of the man who was dreaming the dreamt man awoke.
Now, the idea of wheels within wheels, with ideas and thoughts
within thoughts, and the person within a person within a person is
exactly what we're seeing.
This is a hatching.
This is a chrysalis doctor.
We saw him.
He was covered in cobwebs.
And that conceit of this butterfly like doctoral, gossenery and
wistful, with a very difficult birth, is a really beautiful
thing.
There are so many literary trumps in this.
Couldn't you convey that idea in a story that was actually
entertaining?
I don't know what to watch.
But I don't know that it doesn't do that.
My watching back in 1982 was that I felt that.
And my friends felt the same way.
So I'm sure, I'm sure that if you look at this, and again, Doctor
Who has to be seen on several levels, because we just look at it
as a bland TV show, we were there with all the other fans who say
oh, I can't, oh, so many casual viewers.
You say, well, I don't really think I like Doctor Who.
I haven't looked at it, have you?
I'm actually with Richard on this one. literally.
My only disappointment in the story is the doctor's lack of
involvement in the resolution.
Now, he does, in a way, inspire Shardavan, but Shardavan already
have his suspicions.
That being said, Charaman sacrifices, a beautiful moment with a
beautiful death line.
You made this man of evil, but we are free.
Yeah, but then he's got a big sort of skirty ass flying through
the air into the bing.
It's all undermined.
I believe that's Derek Ware doing that stuff.
It is too.
Yeah.
But yeah, that is literally my only problem with this story.
What about the master?
No, no, I think he's fine.
You know, I think the scheme's a bit bonkers, but I can look past
that. increasingly Baroque and stupid.
It's a great, we're not repeating it.
We're not repeating episode titles.
Stop trying to make it happen.
I like the intent and I get what you're saying about the themes
and the ideas behind it.
I personally think it now looks quite cheap.
The square is very small.
I wanted to see inside the library and that sort of thing. and I
feel that it runs out of story in Castroval, but I actually like
these other characters and I wanted to find out more about them
and that they're just there for a moment or two.
You know, they, Fiona's trying to do that shot. you know, with all
the mirrors and that sort of thing.
It doesn't work at all.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I do love who says that wretched square again?
Is that a Tegan line?
That's like a Tegan one.
That works really well when they're running down the stairs into
the square.
There's no special effects.
It's just, you know, anything.
Yeah, I drive like it's really well.
It looks terrible.
It should be in our imagination.
I like it, you know, I give it a seven, 7.5 , but I don't love
it.
Right?
And I guess that's a line that I'm going to keep on repeating.
Well, I don't know what's going to be, you know, I don't think
you're going to be saying it.
Not about season 20.
No, I don't like it.
I just don't like it.
And of course, Pete then puts this celery on, which apparently is
not real. virtual salary and he replaces it with more virtual
salary and enlightenment.
That's why it never wilts.
He's holding it together with block transfer computation.
Just doing a few scenes in his off moments.
Keep your celery go.
You know, like the Sonic screwdriver in Day of the Doctor.
So can I just say the audiobook of this is really good?
Who reads that?
So it's read by Pete.
So Bidmead himself reads, as you might have guessed, Bidmead
himself reads Legopolis, and you kind of think that would be
really terrible, except he's got a great voice, so it sounds
really good.
But they get paid to read Castro Valver, and Castro Valver is very
good.
You would expect from Bidmead that it's a bit self-important and
wordy and a little bit pedantic, but it is really quite good.
And Pete does the most note perfect for the anly impersonation.
It's absolutely incredible you've got to listen to it.
He does Tegan.
Well, we can, yes.
But he's the alien is just so funny.
And it's hard to imagine that he wasn't doing hilarious comedy
impersonations.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm sure there was quite a bit of that.
How did they get on?
Like, I've never heard anything about how Pete got on with Anthony
and Anthony got on with the most of the cars.
Apparently Amy was quite reserved and very cool and private, but
then he had a very dark sense of humour, and that's why, again, why
JNT said he hired him after working with him on the Palaces.
It's the Colin Baker's syndrome of making people laugh.
But I think he he, because he was quite sensitive and fragile in
that way, and he wasn't out, at least as far as I know, is not
publicly.
So they were, what do you remember?
Um, I have heard that he and Pete had a good professional
relationship, but weren't great friends outside of it.
As I understand it, he and Colin got on very well.
And he and Sylvester got on okay as well.
So yeah, I mean, I think I think with Pete and Anthony, it was
just A, it was a, it was a professional relationship.
And I would say he works better with Peter than he does with Colin
in my opinion.
As for Sylvester, we'll discuss that when we get there.
I think it's a terrible misconception of what the character should
be.
I think I think only is struggling with that as well.
So you've got to build the master needs to be the doctor's
opposite.
He's a doctor, isn't he?
Well, we've said this before.
He's got to be he's got to threaten to be more interesting than
the doctor.
He's got to threaten to be the star of the show.
And that's what sound of drums does really well.
I think Claws of Axos does that really well.
Sea devils, yeah, beautifully.
But in all of those too, like, you know, the master is the prime
minister, or he's whatever, the vicar or whatever.
Whereas here, and in for the next few stories, he just plays dress
up. yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. with not terribly interesting
characters, you know.
But lovely frogs.
Lovely frogs.
But, I mean, so the conception of the master, he's just a fool in
a beard who comes up with overly complicated plants is not the
doctor's opposite.
And it's sort of terrible moral shorthand because he doesn't need
any motivation or anything interesting going on.
Yeah, and here it's just going to be evil.
And here at the end, you know, he's trapped inside his own
creation, like, you know, so that he's got to escape from.
He'll be fine.
You know, they can burn him up before our very eyes and he'll be
fine.
I mean, it's stupid.
And I think that undermines the character that he's always put in
these situations in the end that he's got to escape from for the
next time.
Yeah, not only that, but we've now had 2 stories running where his
objective is to kill the doctor.
Yeah.
You know, in Lagopolis, he also wanted to hold the universe to
ransom, but he wanted to embarrass the doctor while he did that.
And it's like, yeah, with the Delgado master, embarrassing or
killing the doctor was always just a side effect.
It was a side plan.
It was, I'll go after the doctor if he goes after me.
But in an assassin, he just wants to kill the doctor, doesn't he?
Yeah, so I suppose that's really where it starts.
I think from that moment where Robert Holmes redefines the
character is this one that's just got meglomania going after the
doctor.
There's a big problem.
Yeah.
One of my favourite moments is what she is when he's drawing on
the blackboard and he realises that the house is in 4 points.
That blew me away at four.
It is good, and it's great.
That's what I mean by literary conceit.
I mean, that is the story inside the, in the, and getting into
these people's heads.
It's the growth of realisation.
It's coming, this story is about the coming of consciousness.
This is the chrysalis becoming the man.
And just as these Ativars of people are discovering humanity and
that even a story character can have moral integrity is a
beautiful thing.
Yeah, that's what I love about Chardonn's end.
Yeah.
In those moments, you know, I think are great.
And I think this era, there are so many, in so many episodes
there's a moment that I really love.
Yes, yes.
And then there's like dregs you've got to get through.
And then there's a moment That's like life, isn't it?
Well, dear listeners, as the city folds up into paper behind us, we
rock it off into space to try and get Tegan back for her flight in
time at Heath Row.
That was in 10 seconds or less.
Don't forget to check out our website at FlightthroughEntirety.com
flight through entirety on Facebook and iTunes and FTE podcast on
Twitter.
We do also have our YouTube series now, Doctor Who in 10 seconds.
Thank you, Richard.
And over on Bondfinger, we've recently released our commentary for
The Man with the Golden Gun and all Bond films preceding that as
well.
So do check that out.
We haven't recorded it yet, but it's bound to be terrible.
Until next week, May, none of you get drunk before you have to
film them, throw up behind a tree.
Thank you very much for listening a good night.
Good night.
See you soon.
Heave home.
That was Flight Joy Entirety with Todd Beelby, Nate for Bodily
Brenda Jones, Richard Stone, theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, I know very little about telebiogenesis, was
recorded on the 15th of May 2016.
The next episode will be released on the 19th of June.
If you would enjoy a holiday, strap to a wall on a small planet of
the Finalogs series, just send a stamped, self addressed envelope
to Neil Toyne, Leon Tyne, or James Stoker.
Okay, that's good.
Brilliant comedy outro.
Uh, okay.
So...
This podcast.
So when's this episode going out?