Hello, dear listeners, and welcome back to Flightthrough Entirety
the only Doctor Who podcast who expected something rather better
in the afterlife.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Todd, and, well, there's no other way to put this.
The ice warriors are not here and we're talking about terminus.
So, Stephen Gallagher's back, uh, the writer of Warrior's Gate
which I seem to recall, you know, we all kind of enjoy it, even
though it was a bit confusing, but it looks like this time he's
trying to write something a little more um, down to earth
straightforward, less mystical.
Uh, 1st impressions, gentlemen.
Well, it's terrible, isn't it?
That's shockingly bad. being unfair?
No, I loathe it.
Well, I've been really harsh, but I didn't have a break between
this and the previous 3 stories and it just did my head in when I
got to this.
You are kind of famous for not liking season 20.
Yeah.
But, you know, coming into this, I'm just missing monsters
Nathan.
Yeah, yeah.
I think that's a problem.
And there is, there is a high concept.
Warrior's Gate. had, you know, that intersection between universes
and this has a spaceship at the centre of the universe that causes
the universe to come into existence.
But that's actually not as interesting as it sounds on paper.
No, no.
And I think I think that is a bit of a problem.
My 1st problem with it is it confuses the whole event one thing
from last season because is it just me or was event one in Castro
Palva, the creation of a galaxy rather than a universe.
Are they just being terrination and throwing these words about
willy-nilly?
Like, you know, guardian of the solar system, which includes 500
planets.
No, it doesn't.
And people from various galaxies, you know, all over the place.
I think that was Bidmead being uncharacteristically careless
actually, because the idea that the universe is created by a
massive hydrogen in rush makes sense, sort of, in a way that it
doesn't make sense for the galaxy to be created that way.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, here, Event one makes more sense since the beginning of
the universe.
And I think, I think there is a reason that the concept kind of
falls on its face.
And for a start, the cliffhanger.
Is it the cliffhanger for episode three?
Yeah.
It is word peril.
Yeah, it's really bad word peril.
And we were talking about this a bit earlier, Brendan.
We were talking about the word peril cliffhanger in Arc of
Infinity, episode three.
Like it's a word peril cliffhanger where something uninteresting
is happening.
Omega controls the Matrix.
Who cares?
And what's the Matrix again?
Here the universe is going to be destroyed, but really that's all
that we get from that entire concept is just a word peril
cliffhanger in episode three.
And given that that whole crisis is pretty easily averted by Jojo
the dogfaced boy. you know with his dirty fingernails. pulling a
lever.
You know, it doesn't actually end up being of any interest at
all.
It's just something for Kari and the doctor to talk about
basically in their plot line.
Yeah, and I think, you know, we're kind of getting to it early in
this episode, but I was thinking to myself, what makes this story
not work?
And the thing is, I quite enjoy this story in a way, but it's one
of those ones where I look at it and go, I can see what you're
trying to do.
There were all sorts of production problems, which I'll go into in
a moment.
But you've got a story of 2 plot lines.
You've got a story of the Lazar disease, and NISA becoming
affected with the Lazar disease, um, figuring out there is a
better way to cure it, and spoiler alert, dealer, staying behind
in order to do that.
And then you've got the plot about terminus being at the exact
centre of the universe and having started the universe, Todd is
grimacing. having started the universe and possibly being the end
of the universe.
The big problem is, those plots have absolutely nothing to do with
one another.
Do you know, you're forgetting the 3rd plot, which people
criticise and rightly so.
Oh, yeah.
But I actually think it's the most successful of the plots.
And that is where Turlo and Tegan crawl around in subducting for
quite a long time.
And they even emerge from the ducting, I think, at some point in
episode 2 and then just go back into the ducting.
There is lots of ducting.
But there is actually a proper through line in that story because
it's about Tegan and Turlow becoming the doctor's 2 companions.
Yeah, exactly.
And the episode starts off with them wrangling in the TARDIS.
And it's like 5 minutes before the doctor appears or maybe even 7
minutes before the doctor appears.
We don't leave the TARDIS to go anywhere.
It's all about those 2 and the way that Tegan doesn't like
Turlow.
And then the 2 of them actually gradually start working together
really well, I think.
And the funny thing about that opening scene, I really enjoy that
opening scene, except, of course, for upper, it's the blue
switches.
It's like, yeah, we've got this mystical magical time machine.
You can break it down by pressing the blue switches.
It's basically easier to break the windows 10.
But, That scene between Tegan and Turlow, it's really well written
it's really well performed.
It's filler material by Eric Saywood.
So he can get it right.
I don't think it's well written, but I do think it is well
performed.
And I do think that it gives that whole plot, which is just
basically marking time.
It's not quite as bad as, you know, stuffing them in the TARDIS
with a delta wave augmentor for 4 episodes, but it is just kind of
giving them something to do. find it tedious.
Yeah.
I think they're great actors and they really do, they, they do
sell it.
But, you know, I think you can have a drinking game the number of
times that Tegan says Turlow in those tunnels.
And you know, she's very aggressive towards Turlo at the beginning
and so I can see that, you know, they're trying to bond, right?
And, you know, they're in Adrik's room.
Why do we have to go back to Edrick's room, we get the theme. in
the Tartars, again, how many stories have we in the since John
Nathan Turner has taken over?
Have we not actually been inside the TARDIS for an episode, like
within the story?
I think there's like, what?
Kinder, you don't see the interior and is it the leisure hive?
Is that it?
You know?
I think you might be right.
A friend of the podcast, Philip Edney just said, those scenes with
Mark and Janet, or should it say Tegan Eternal, he finds painful.
And I do, by the end of it, I'm just saying, get out of the bloody
ducting, you know?
It looks great on film.
But it's like, that's going on.
I'm going, oh, for goodness sake, this is just a diversion.
And then we've got these corridors of white or whatever.
Like, I'm over corridors.
I think we got from last episode.
So it's just doing my head in.
I just want, I'm taking this in a different direction.
I want monsters.
To me, this should have been the Dalek story, right?
And it should have been a diversion from this black guardian
trilogy.
Oh my god, I'm over the Black Guardian, like threatening Turlo
every other thing.
It's hollow threats.
And, you know, it would have been great to have a Dalek story here
where he actually had, you know, these horrible things in front of
him and he's got to, you know, we weave all his way out of it
without actually, that's the distraction rather than this where
we're trapped in a...
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, when they when they get out of the ducks in episode two.
I was relieved.
For context, dear listeners, I was actually ill this week and sat
down in one day and watched Terminus Enlightenment Kings demons to
get up to date and more on that story later.
We actually don't recommend that as a way of dealing with an
illness listeners at home.
Watching the king's demons.
Yeah, don't do that.
Well, you may be able to hear, dear listener.
My voice is still a couple of octaves deeper from shock.
But when they got out of those ducks the 1st time, I was palpably
relieved and then there's a bit of, look, beneath your feet and
it's like, oh, no, they're going back in the ducks again, because
you get that amazing bit when they get out of the ducks, where
Tegan punches a computer into submission.
Can we just have a moment?
You know, it's utterly stupid, but when you read it in a certain
way that Tegan is, as Janet Fielding puts it, Lucy in space, Lucy
from Peanuts in space. absolutely.
She is going to punch a computer into doing what she wants.
Pete does a fair amount of that to the TARDIS, so she may have
picked that up from him, I think.
She's so good in this.
I'm going to turn this into the sort of Tegan fan cast for a
second.
I really am enjoying her performance enormously in season 20.
Yes.
And there are a few scenes that I think are analogues of the
absolute Nadir of her performance, which is panicky idiot Tegan in
the TARDIS in Four to Doomsday, where the character is just being
hugely unimpressive and where Janet is bringing her worst panto
acting to bear on the show.
And here, you know, she is in a similar situation where she's got
to stop the liner from leaving in episode four, but she's kind of
she's a little bit panicky, but she's kind of self-possessed.
She's still a bit kind of bolshy, but she's a little bit
vulnerable.
Um, she gets some really nice acting in.
I love, there's a bit where Turlow says that he's so unfit and she
laughs at him.
Yeah, it's very sweet.
Yeah, there's that little bit where that he's talking about could
you kill someone, which is kind of, you know, like a stoned dorm
room at 3 AM kind of conversational topic, isn't it?
But it works really well.
Even though it's a kind of stupid scene.
I really, really like her performance.
What?
I particularly love them.
What I think Janet shows this season, is, you know, everyone kind
of quotes with Elizabeth Sladen, Barry Lett says that she could be
scared and braid at the same time.
Season 20, Tegan, and season 21 can be suspicious of Turlow, but a
warm character at the same time.
She's portraying multiple emotions at once, which are like, so
when she, you know, when she laughs with him, like, oh, and so
unfit.
She hasn't lost her distrust of him.
No.
But in that moment, they're in the situation together, you know
that kind of thing.
So it's not.
It's not like she is just performing it on one level.
You know, in the script, I don't trust her, like, they will feel I
will play every scene like I don't trust her.
No, she's playing it like a real human being.
In real life, it's incredibly hard to hold a grudge against a
person all the time.
If you if you then see them doing something human and fallible.
You feel, you feel, even if it's momentary, you feel some empathy
with that situation.
You're just saying that because you're incredibly sweet, Brendan
really.
The rest of us hold grudges, like, absolute Olympic marathon.
The thing is, look, I have grudges in my life, but each of those
people, I can think of a time when I've realised, actually, you
know, you are just a person and you are a combination of good
things and bad things just like the rest of us.
And I think that is what Janet brings to this.
Have you noticed, though, just to just to bring down the level a
bit.
Tegan and Turlo have the same haircut.
They've even got the spiky bit at the crown.
Have a look.
I think Janet wears it better to be honest with you.
Do you know, the other thing, have you noticed, is we're talking
about Tegan and Turlo crawling around in the dark, not the other 2
plot threads?
Well, yeah.
I think this might be a good time to talk about the production
difficulties with this story.
Okay.
So, um, it was envisioned as an all studio production with uh, the
traditional 2 days of 3 blocks, of 6 shooting days.
And then due to industrial action, they lost one shooting day
which is why we end up at Ealing for the scenes in the ducks
because JNT came to the director Mary Ridge and said, I secured
you a filming day and she went, well, I'll do the stuff in the
ducks there because they need to climb down, climb up, et cetera
et cetera.
Mary Ridge, of course, was hired because she had helmed half the
episodes of series D of Blake 7 or series 4 to the people who use
you know, proper counting methods.
Um, and JNT had been really impressed by her work on that.
Due to industrial action, they then lost another studio day.
So they were down to 4 studio days from six.
And Mary Ridge redid our shooting scripts and said to John Nathan
Turner, look, if you can get me an extra hour on the last studio
day, I can get everything done.
And he said, okay, fine, you've got your extra hour.
So this is, of course, BBC studios, lights usually go off at 10
unless you get approval from everyone.
The gaffer lighting director, absolutely everyone on the studio
floor to work that extra hour at 945.
Mary Ridge had 25 shots left to do.
So 25 shots in 75 minutes.
That includes set up getting the actors in position, quick
rehearsal and go.
She was confident she could get that done by 11.
At 9.45 p.m. on the last studio day, JNT was up in the gallery
with her and said you don't have the extra hour.
So, and she said, well, look, we're going to have to do pickups at
some point. he said yeah, fine.
So she decided, Okay, Quicksticks was the most important scene.
So she did a few more scenes and she did Niss's leaving soon.
But she said, we'll do it on the Tartar set.
And Peter and Sarah down on the floor are just saying, that makes
no sense.
Why would she come back to the Tartars to leave the Tartars with
an inter- um stable and Mary is like, we don't have time for
this?
Just get on the set and do it, so they weren't happy.
No one was happy.
And then as Nissa is saying in the console room, let us pass in
good faith.
The lights go out.
Oh, so they did actually start shooting the farewell scene in
the.
Yeah they did.
And what then had to happen was a pickup day had to be arranged
halfway through the filming of the king's demons.
So everyone went off to the after party after the original shoot
except for Mary Ridge because she was furious.
Yeah.
Like, JNT went to the after party.
Did she ever work on it again?
No, no, no, she well, I don't know if she was ever asked back, but
she did say that she wouldn't, even if she was.
But so, uh, a few scenes in the ship's uh, bridge and the leaving
scene in the ship's corridor, and I think one or 2 Tartar scenes
were recorded on that pickup day.
So they only have the liner set for that.
And the TARDIS, obviously.
Yeah, but also for the existing 2nd studio run, they had to put in
the liner sets as well.
And that's why Peter and Janet were.
So like, this doesn't make sense.
Can't we just record it?
It makes more sense to record it over there.
We're here.
We're right here.
So they had to put up the set again.
But 2 particularly notable shots that were recorded in that 2nd
block.
There's that bit where they figure out the route back to where
they think the TARDIS is and Nissa pulls out like a one centimetre
thick piece of paper and says, this is a map of the ship.
That's terrible.
It looks like it came out of canines now.
That printout.
Well, that close-up of Sarah Sutton.
The close-up in particular is pretty well shot.
That was a pickup.
And also, um, one of the veneer, the rather cute veneer who comes
into the bridge to get the hydromel.
Sigurd.
Yeah, Sigurd, the bittersweet taste of life.
That was a pickup.
So they didn't just have to get the regulars back.
They had to get some of the guest casts back.
Well, and they have to get Sarah Sutton back after she's...
Yeah, exactly.
And apparently the after party was just pretty much the 4 red
girls sitting around going, well, you're going to be back in a
month anyway.
Why are we, why are we here?
Yeah, but okay, that's all well and good and all those problems
but it still doesn't excuse the fact that I think that this is
boring.
Yeah, I mean, they were pretty horrific production problems on
season 17, but at least it manages to be funny and entertaining.
Yeah.
Can we talk about the plot with Nyssa?
Yeah.
So this 2nd plot with Nissa, I think is insulting and really
really unpleasant to watch.
And so she gets Laza's disease or they call it the Laza disease or
something like that, which means she gets a little bit of kind of
makeup on and stuff.
And then she just spends the entire time being pushed around and
going, no, no, no.
And then she gets chained up and then they pull her down and then
they chain her up again and they take her from place to place.
She does get to hit Jarvik.
What's his name in this?
his Val guard, his guard.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, she gets to clobber somewhat.
Yeah, yeah.
She's good at that.
That's the one moment of agency that she gets.
And the rest of the time she's just a pathetic victim.
Yeah, yeah.
I really dislike what she doesn't get to do in this story.
She gets a moment of, oh, when she's affected and no one sees a la
Barbara back in Planet of the Giants.
She gets to scream like one of her big screams this season at that
dog thing.
And it's like, it's like she does a great screen, but it's like
I'm not scared.
Why would she be scared, you know?
And I just, you know, she takes off her skirt, she's wearing
lingerie for no apparent reason.
I just think it's, it's such a shame, like this is her last story
and I just don't think she gets really to shine.
It would have been so easy to give her the chance to shine towards
the end of episode 4 where they're kind of wrapping it up.
She says I can synthesise hydromel and she was synthesising an
enzyme in episode one.
Yeah, yeah.
So they do set that up.
Why not get her to make the cure work?
Why not?
Because it doesn't kind of make sense that most people are cured.
That's what JoJo says.
He says that most people actually do get cured, but that doesn't
make sense from what we know.
And no one seems to know about a ship that takes the people who
have been cured away.
Yeah, yeah.
So she just gets cured by pure lottery.
Why can't she, with her knowledge of telebiogenesis, which she's
been working on?
Last chance to see. working on that for some time.
Why couldn't she use that knowledge, you know, order to make the
cure work so that she gets a hero moment?
And, you know, why, for instance, why does she even have to get
the disease?
You know, she could be brought onto terminus?
And then they suddenly go, hold on, you don't have the disease.
And she could say, what disease?
Let me investigate this for you.
You know, she doesn't have to be pushed from pillar to post.
Stephen Gallagher has this idea, it would seem if a companion has
to leave because he's given the responsibility twice to make
companions leave.
If a companion has to leave, they have to have some moral duty to
go on to.
So Romano goes on to free the slaves, and Nissa leaves to cure
this disease.
Yeah, but when that happens with Romana, Romana discovers that
situation by going among the people she's going to help. and
hearing their story.
Whereas, okay, yeah, Nissa goes among the people she's trying to
help.
But, again, there's no agency.
There's no choice.
But she doesn't know that she's trying to help them until she's
cured.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly, exactly.
No, it's terrible. isn't it?
And this time around when I was watching it, that bit where she's
taken away from cure and she says, no, there are others worse than
me.
It's like, okay, that comes across as her saying, no, don't put me
in the radiation chamber.
Put them in the radiation chamber.
It's a, I think they're not going for that.
They're going for the fact that she's saying, no, help other
people. triage, help other people first.
But it doesn't quite come across that way.
And I don't think it's Sarah Sutton's fault.
I mean, they are doing triage.
They're curing people who are likely to be curable.
Obviously one at a time because that's all the gum can do.
Like, I mean, I just think Nissu is so pathetic in this.
Like even when she's going, oh, please listen.
It's sort of like, I just want that Nissa back from Arc of
Infinity, you know?
Or even keeper of Tracan.
Well, you know, it's Johnny Byrne, writing for the character he
created.
Yeah.
I'm conflicted with her departure.
Part of me wants, she's been through so much.
You know, her whole planet is gone.
She's got no one.
Part of me wants her to find true love and be married off.
I mean, I've been talking about that all season.
Instead, she gets this life that's going to be hard, but it does
work for her, like, been this noble from Trunk, and there's a
through line there, I think, that actually it's actually like, in
the end, a really good thing, but I just seeing it sort of like, I
just wanted something more happier.
Yeah, I don't want her to spend the rest of her life around those
dismal sets.
It is... grim and horrible.
And, you know, we complained about the look in season 17, how it
was tired and and it was space corridors and on spaceships that
all tended to look the same.
And now the JNT era has reached that point where it is just boring
space corridors that all look the same.
The skulls are good I suppose.
I like the skulls appearing.
I like it when Tegan gets attacked by all the hands, you know, but
they're so scary.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 1st episode is terrifying.
Yeah, the TARDIS breaking up.
It's proper horror sci-fi, that 1st episode.
And you kind of get the impression that this is when Mary Ridge
thought she'd have more time.
You know, so there's a lot of care put into episode one.
There's some horrifying haircuts that come into episode one.
It's very 80s, isn't it?
This is as 80s as the show ever looks, I think, with Kari and
Olvir.
Yeah, can we talk about Lisa Goddard?
Lisa Skippy Goddard?
And those helmets and they have great boots and like capes and
stuff.
So they're clearly meant to be, well, they're raiders, aren't
they?
They're called Raiders, but they're terribly posh for kind of
space pirates and they both have terribly posh accents.
Well, there's been a galactic recession.
So it's kind of like in Planet of the Dead when Lady Christine
D'Souza is robbing museums, you know, they are actually from very
well off families, but there's been a recession, so they're
robbing stuff.
I was absolutely in love with her in Skippy and there was a
terrible sitcom called Yes, honestly, I think. sometime in the 70s
or 80s.
And I have only very vague memories of it, but she, she was the
female lead and the characters used to do monologues to camera
maybe at the beginning and the end and I just adored her.
I'm sure if I saw it now, I would find her, you know, unendurably
irritating, but I just think she's terrific and I love her in
this.
And it is another one of these things that you complain about, Todd
where we sideline the companions and have, you know, a pseudo
companion for the doctor for this story.
No, I mean, I think she's good.
The memory cheats.
I actually thought her and what's his name?
Oh, there.
I actually thought they got killed off.
So I actually sat watching this going.
They die now.
When did they die?
When do they die?
Like, I kept going, again, die, he's going to get killed now at
the end of this episode, she's going to die.
I don't know why.
I must be confusing it with a Blake 7 where there's some raiders
coming in when somebody dies but I just sat there the whole time
waiting for them to be killed off.
That would make her quite enjoyable, actually.
And speaking of who actually dies.
Who dies?
Yeah, no one does.
No one dies.
It's another.
We've got no deaths.
It's a disease thing which should be killing people, but no one
dies.
I am going insane that nobody is dying.
I'm getting really, really frightened sitting opposite you right
now, Tosh.
But I'm just saying, like, there's this peril, but it's not there
on the screen for me to be seen, you know?
And I had the same problem with snake dance last week.
The only people that died were the people that wanted to die, you
know?
just driving me mad.
The corridors, the non-dest, these, these, no monsters, although
if we get the monsters, they're not really that terrifying.
Jojo, the dog face boy is pretty terrifying.
You know, well, if you're going to have a story where no one dies
that's fine.
But it would be nice if someone said at the end, hey, you know
unlike every other day we come to work, no one's died today.
You know, put up that side one day since we've had one day, we've
landed somewhere and not killed someone doctor.
Yeah, I don't mind it, like if it was like one story per season
because then, you know, but it just seems to be this run of
not...
And then there's the veneer.
I don't remember any of their names.
I don't.
No, no.
I mean, I do like the last 10 minutes of the story.
I like the last 10 minutes when the Doctor Funny Meats everybody
and they start working together.
It's sort of like, well, this is the start of the story for me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I actually went, oh, oh, this is what I want.
They're going to work against the company and, you know, we could
actually have a situation like in that's Robert Holmes classic, the
Sunmakers.
Yeah.
But I just feel like it's all just...
We don't see it and just infuriates me.
I think that this is a problem and it's going to become
increasingly a problem.
And I remember noticing it when Colin Baker was the doctor the 1st
time through, is what the show is doing now increasingly, is
setting up a high concept location, dumping the doctor and his
companions in it, and they just wander around it and then it all
gets resolved in 10 minutes at the end.
And the usual wandering around or being captured and escaping or
just the story doesn't tend to develop.
Nothing new happens, that changes the game.
And I think that that's a problem.
And so the bit at the end is good because there's some kind of
development that's changing the premise and making it more
interesting.
And, you know, they see the, the, um, they see the power struggle
between Valgard and ELEC or whatever the hell he's called.
I can't remember his name.
Um, um, I rec.
This is like a train wreck.
Eric.
Eric, that's it.
He's scary looking too.
He's scary looking.
And he's a little action figure on his on his hat, which is
sweet.
He's camp and he's a bit arch.
You know, there's actually a bit of menace coming from him.
Yeah.
Maybe it's just the menace that you worry that he's going to put
something in your drink.
Yes, exactly.
And like boar, I think, it's a nice performance and he is sweet
but there's just too much of it and it doesn't really go
anywhere.
So he's the one who gets burnt and then delivers all the
exposition.
Like, I just, I remember watching it the 1st time through just
going, I don't care about you.
Just dine.
And the other one who's trying to kill them off.
And like, I think all the performances are fine.
Like I don't think anybody gives a really terrible performance in
this.
Yeah, yeah.
But I just don't care enough.
I'm just sit there going, I just want this over.
It's like all the character subplots were coming into a
conversation halfway through and we're having to play catch up.
Like with Boh, when we 1st meet Boh, He's muttering and slightly
mad.
You know, if we'd met him and he was explaining to someone what he
was going to do because all he says, all he says the 1st time we
see him is, the readings are too high.
Well, what readings?
Why is there being too high a problem?
What is in the dangers zone?
A forbidden zone, which has a tape across the floor and we're on
one side and we're fine.
Walk across the tape and we're going to die.
It's like when you used to have smoking sections in restaurants.
Yeah, you're all planes.
It's a little bit like the radiation that's pouring out of the
engine thing that prevents Olvair from moving an inch closer to
pick up his gun.
You know, it's all very silly.
But he doesn't even seem to get taken off.
Like, I mean, talk about peripheral vision.
Yeah, at, oh, I mean, I don't, I think Dominic Guard mostly gives
a good performance.
I don't have a problem with his episode one cliffhanger.
No, no, I think that's great.
You know, we're all going to die.
It's actually one of the few moments where someone gets
cliffhanger dialogue and I think pitches it exactly right.
And it's still a crash zoom of the doctor's face.
But I do think Dominic Guard is terrible in that scene when Nessa
gets taken, it turns around, oh, no, Nessa.
It's like what the hell?
Why do we have to have a crash zoom on Peter Davis's face?
He's, he is a great actor and I really like him as the doctor the
more I watch this, but the one criticism I have of his performance
is his resting cliffhanger phase, where he has, he shows
absolutely no emotion at all during the cliffhangers most of the
time. and it's really undramatic.
And I think it's something that Colin does better.
You know, where the camera zooms up his nose in, uh, Trial of a
time?
Yeah, yeah. over and over again.
Again, he's got, but at least he's performing, whereas, whereas we
do get, yeah, I'm going to call it resting cliffhanger face, that's
my new trobe.
Look, I just think the doctor, I'm not going to disagree that I
think that Peter Davidson is a good actor.
But what he's got to work with.
He's got to just make gold out of mud.
And in this, I just, you know, we haven't talked about it.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, in the background.
He's just there.
He's just there. you know?
And yes, he's got scenes where it's all tension and, you know, the
levers, you know, going to explode, is going to get, Zero and he
gets to do all of his little, you know, moment acting that you've
mentioned before, but it's still like, yeah, we'll say would likes
to put him in the background.
And Collins performance is big enough to overcome that.
I mean, he's still doing that to the doctor in season 22.
But because Colin is a bit more look at me than Pete is, he can
kind of overcome it a bit.
Well, in terms of cliffhangers, you know, there are documentaries
where Peter Davidson talks about cliffhanger acting and how he
finds it mildly embarrassing.
When Colin Baker talks about Cliffhanger acting, he says something
on the lines off, the thing is with Cliffhanger acting, you know
ordinarily if a character discovers something bad, they'll say, oh
no, Cliffhanger acting is, oh, no, and titles.
I think that's Collins acting generally, actually.
The thing is, you know, that's the difference in the Colin, when
we get to him.
He seems to get that Doctor Who is not reality, Doctor Who is
meant to be heightened.
And I don't think Peter.
I think Peter is, and this isn't a criticism. just an
observation.
I think he's trying to bring too much reality to an unreal
situation.
Do you know, I like him and I feel that he has a more definite
character than I expected before.
Yeah, me too. watching it.
I really, really like his doctor and I can now, I've maybe, I've
said this before, but I can now really appreciate that thing at
the end of time crash where kind of both Moffatt and Tennant
essentially, are saying you are my doctor. all these things that
you do.
And the running around thing in particular, which is something
that I don't think the doctor's ever done before and I love it.
I love Peter bounding through the sets at top speed.
I love his breathlessness.
I love his panic.
He has a sort of trout-nesque way of working really well when he's
panicked.
There are all these things I adore about him.
And something he does a lot more than I thought is the whole thing
of coming to a fork and making this big deal of, I should go that
way, but I want to go this way.
Yeah, yeah. over and over again.
But he makes it fresh every time.
You know, it's it's like Tom and the jelly babies.
Tom offering someone a jelly baby. never the same twice.
Yeah.
And Pete doing that whole thing.
He does have this way of presenting.
No, these are 2 completely new corridors, but I don't like that
one.
No, not bad.
Yeah, I don't want people to think I hate this story.
Certainly I think it is nowhere near as bad as Arc of Infinity.
Oh, well, what is?
I think because we have we have better ideas in this story.
But the problem is we have 2 central, quite big ideas, this
disease, this interplanetary interstellar disease, and the
possible end of the universe.
Neither of them are really fleshed out enough.
No.
Whereas, you know, Ark of Infinity barely had one idea.
There are still things I like about this.
I like ARAC, I like, I like Peter in it.
Sarah Sutton is given terrible material.
And I do have to wonder if maybe the direction is at fault as well
because, you know, Stephen Gallagher wrote Warrior's Gate, for
goodness sake.
But then again, bit me did say he had a lot of a hand in writing
that.
So maybe Stephen Gallagher doesn't write scripts as well as we
think.
I don't know.
Well, he didn't write the script.
He wrote, he wrote like a novelisation, and then Bidmead had to
then construct the script from that.
So, you know, that is a difference.
That is true.
And that's something I'm not going to criticise Eric's A word
for.
It's not Eric Saywood's job to write a script from the ground up
which he will do on a few occasions when writers don't quite come
through.
So I'm not going to criticise him for that.
If that's the case, you know, he's done the best he can do and
he's created a narrative that hangs together for 4 episodes.
If that's the case.
Just about.
But that's my criticism.
It hangs together for 4 episodes.
It's just another 4 episodes. hangs around 4 episodes.
You know, I think I really don't like Arc of Infinity, but I
really don't like this. different from you guys.
I just don't like it.
I just I'm just over it at this point.
Nathan, you've gone on and your admiration for Pete is admirable
but I don't see all the things that you've seen in the performance
and I just think he's too nice and that's something he comments
about.
He's just not the doctor for me.
And I say that to everybody with, you know, not a criticism.
I appreciate him so much more now.
Like, I'm really finding new things, and that's all great, but I'm
at this point going, you know, I just don't connect with you.
I expected to experience that this time, but I'm finding a lot to
like in his performance.
And we talk about the end scene.
So the final farewell scene.
We've alluded to it a little bit, but there's this wonderful
moment where Pete and Nissa are walking through the corridors, and
I think Nissa says, it'll be nice to see the TARDIS again, or
maybe the doctor says that.
Yeah, it'll be nice.
Yeah, and then this says, Antegan.
And the doctor says, kind of, oh, maybe or something.
Yeah, and there is something, he does this over and over again and
you talked about it at the end of Arc of Infinity.
But something that Pete does.
He's not mean to Tegan and he's often very nice to her, but he
constantly seems to just not really want her to be around or
something.
It's really funny.
He's terrific.
Yeah, it's quite well done.
And then they come around the corner and there's Tegan.
And the thing is, the doctor's 1st reaction is relief.
But then he says, hold on, I told you to stay in the TARD.
Yeah, it's like, I told you, stay locked in that box.
We're going to have an adventure.
And Nissa has to be the peacemaker and tell her you're happy to
see her.
Of course I'm happy to say, but she shouldn't have, that's a
shape.
We get more bloody character Vanessa in that in her final scene
than we did for the rest of the story because, you know, 1st she's
the peacemaker.
But then immediately she says she's leaving and as a viewer, a bit
of the subtext is, well, hold on, who's going to keep the doctor
and Tegan together at this point?
But, you know, for the lead up has been awful, Vanessa, to this
leaving scene.
But the 3 regulars just do so well in that scene.
It's genuine heartfelt emotion.
And coming back to something you said a couple of weeks ago, Todd
about how Peter Davidson's doctor, he's focussed on what he's
focussed on and that's all he's interested is. not interested in
anything else.
You know, he does, he's not terribly emotional.
He's kind of got too, he's kind of got a few emotional states.
He's got he's got static.
He's got annoyed and he's got stressed.
He doesn't have any other kind of emotion.
When Nissa says goodbye to him.
The way Davidson performs it, he doesn't have the emotional
capacity for this.
He's like, what is this?
I feeling.
He just kind of stands there stunned.
Yeah.
And it's a really good thing.
And but then you get Tegan and Nissa tearing up and it's a great
comparison.
It's really good to have the 2 women, I think, because Pete does
show a bit of affection when he discovers Nyssa again and they hug
and things, but he's not very demonstrative.
And so to have 2 women who we kind of know now.
And I love that scene.
I really, really like it.
It's so well performed.
It just shows how much they've wasted Sarah Sutton for the last
couple of years because she's really good in it.
And Tegan is really good in it.
And, you know, I do tear up a bit at companion leaving scenes and
you know, now that I'm sort of older and more jaded and have no
human emotions of any kind left.
I actually still found my cold, dead heart, you know, warming a
little bit in that scene.
I really liked it and I did have a little bit, you know, I think
the room might have been a bit dusty or something when I was
watching it.
Yeah, we get a theme again and it's...
We had Adrix same at the beginning and her theme here.
It's this closure, really, to a chapter in the show.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, really, with the exception of Tegan, who wasn't that
much of a crossover with the 4th doctor.
We've now.
The Adrik's gone.
This has gone, 4th doctor's gone.
You know, we've we've cut the gold.
And then it just sort of ends.
Yeah, yeah, we, we, I will not tell you again.
Kill the doctor.
But it's like that thing in deep breath and yeah, I know it from
experience.
You guys know it from experience.
You don't start with your biggest sanction.
It's like, do this or I'll kill you.
Oh, you didn't do it.
Well, if you don't do it next time, I'll definitely kill you
then.
He can't take the Black Guardian. seriously.
He doesn't flow through on his threats.
I was thinking exactly the same scene, actually.
It's exactly what...
But, but Valentine Dial has a great voice and he is a pretty
terrific villain.
We'll talk next week about my feelings about the Guardians
generally, but I do like that final scene delivered to camera with
you know, spittle flying from Valentine's mouth.
Is he utters these sort of great villainous threats?
I think it's really funny and it does, it is a great teaser for
next week.
It makes it very clear that we are actually going into the end
game of this plot just by looking at that scene.
I will say, regarding the Black Guardian, it was essentially
Stephen Gallagher, who designed the way the Black Guardian would
be used in this trilogy, because the 1st story for the Black
Guardian trilogy wasn't originally Mordered our Dead.
It was Song of the Space Whale.
Later made by Big Finish as Song of the Magaptra.
And Turlo was going to be one of the people living inside the
space whale, et cetera.
When that fell through, terminus was still in development.
Right.
And so Stephen Gallagher had the one page summary for Turlow and
in the one page summary.
It's like, you know, he's currently working for the Black Guardian
because XYZ.
And his take on it in his original pitch was all the way through
this story, because he had no idea what was going to come before
because there was no script, all the way through the story.
Turlo would be hearing a voice urging him to kill the doctor.
And it wasn't until that last scene that the Black Guardian would
actually appear and reveal himself.
Right.
But then when Modern Undead came in, Peter Grimway, it had sort of
from the very beginning, kind of said, here's the Black Guardian
you know, and Stephen Gallagher didn't mind, but he's just like
that's my interpretation, that would have actually been better
because you would have had some kind of tension about what Turlow
was up to.
And, you know, whether there was actually someone speaking to him
or whether he was disturbed.
You know, but it wasn't to be.
But that's not what we got.
That's not...
I think that's the best way to sub up terminus.
That's what we got.
Oh dear.
What is what is the doctor doing in the 1st 5 minutes of the
show?
Like, when he's not around, he suddenly runs from nowhere.
Like, well, you know, I just find it really bizarre he's not there
and it's everybody else.
And then we have the whole, then he's a great shot with that
chair.
Yes, isn't he terrific?
He leaps over the bed and hurls the chair at the closing door.
That shot took an hour.
I don't know why, but they just couldn't get it right.
See, she could have got back her hour that she lost at the end.
Exactly.
But, um, I think I think we've skipped over something very
important there.
A very important question.
What?
Well, the doctor doesn't seem to actually make any adjustments to
tune the scanner into Nissa and Tegan's room.
He just kind of flicks a switch.
No, he, there's a line of dialogue about how he's refocus.
There's a line of dialogue, but as is always, very important in
these situations.
Look at his hands.
So you reckon he's doing that quite a lot.
Yeah apparently.
During the week when I tweeted that I was watching these for my
sick bed, Johnny Boris, who's one of the writers for Big Finish
said, I'm going to watch Turbinus and tweet along.
And he tweeted about that scene.
Apparently in his new audio, The Waters of Amsterdam.
He provides an explanation as to how the doctor can do that so
quickly.
I haven't heard it yet, but ooh, Johnny.
Well, dear listener, that's all the time we have for terminus
thankfully, but, uh, I do like to be beside the seaside, which is
not where we're going to be for our next story of enlightenment.
Please do come back for that next week.
You can find us on FlightthroughEntirety.com, flight through
entirety on Facebook and iTunes and FTE podcast on Twitter, over
on Bondfinger.
We've recently released Moonre, as our commentary, and just
warning, it gets a bit insane towards the end.
You can find that at bondfinger.com.
Bondfinger on Facebook and iTunes and Bondfinger cast on Twitter.
And don't forget about Doctor Who in 10 seconds over on YouTube as
well.
You can find links for all of these in our show notes.
But until next week, may your silhouetted hell dog not be realised
by a giant manke gray suit.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
See you soon.
That was Flight Through Entirety with Todd BLB, Nathan Bottomley
and Brendan Jones.
Theme arrangement by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, Danger Zone, was recorded on July 31st, 2016.
The next episode will be released on September 18th.
What's that, Skip?
Nieces caught the Lazar's disease, so she's taken a sicky...
I was gonna talk about the gum, but don't kick a dog while he's
down.
Yeah.
You can talk about the gum, if you want.
Oh, Jojo.
What is there to say?
Big, fat, shuffling, unimpressive looking thing that Niza screams
at for no reason.
Yeah.
I think we'll let that sleeping dog lie.