Episode 197 · The Waters of Mars · Saturday 21 November 2020
This month, Brendan’s got his hand stuck up a robot, and Nathan is preparing a roast dinner made entirely of carrots and prions, when they are unexpectedly joined by those travellers in space and time known only as Pete Lambert and Conrad Westmaas. The conversation soon turns to accents, zombies and specious moral dilemmas: this is, after all, The Waters of Mars.
And finally, for those of you with pure hearts or strong stomachs, here’s David Tennant in 2008, accepting his award for Outstanding Drama Performance and announcing his resignation from Doctor Who.
Our James Bond commentary podcast is called Bondfinger, and you can find that at bondfinger.com, at @bondfingercast on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and everywhere else as well. Our recent tribute to Kate O’Mara, the Kate O’Marathon, was interrupted by the death of Diana Rigg, whose tribute may in turn be interrupted by a tribute to the late Sean Connery. 2020 hasn’t really worked out all that well, has it?
Episode 197: Fix or Flux
· Recorded on Sunday 11 October 2020 · Download (78.2 MB)
Episode 196 · Planet of the Dead · Sunday 20 September 2020
It’s Easter 2009, and here we are, huddling in a bus with Michelle Ryan and friend-of-the-podcast Simon Moore on the desert planet San Helios, with the sun in our eyes, hope in our hearts and a hundred billion dead people in our hair. It’s the first special episode of David Tennant’s final year: welcome to the Planet of the Dead.
Notes and links
Planet of the Dead was in some ways inspired by Gareth Roberts’s first Virgin New Adventure novel The Highest Science, which was first published in February 1993.
Transport nerds like James will be keen to learn more about the route followed by the 200 bus in our own non-Doctor Who universe.
Although Big Finish is yet to release its series of box sets starring Noma Dumezmeni as Erisa Magambo, Michelle Ryan’s Lady Christina is now an official Big Finish property, with a box set of her own released in August 2018.
The best source of background information about the 2009 specials is of course Russell T Davies’s own account of their production, The Writer’s Tale. The section on this episode is particuarly harrowing.
And finally, the banterous relationship between the Doctor and Lady Christina is inspired by a similar relationship between Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn in Charade (1963).
Our James Bond commentary podcast is called Bondfinger, and you can find that at bondfinger.com, at @bondfingercast on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and everywhere else as well. We are all still shaken by the death of Dame Diana Rigg, and will soon be releasing the first of a series of commentaries in which we go on and on about how much we loved her.
Episode 196: Big Finish, Call Me Now
· Recorded on Friday 4 September 2020 · Download (62.1 MB)
Episode 195 · The Happiness Patrol · Sunday 23 August 2020
This week, Thatcherism, marshmallows and contractual obligation collide as we fulfil a promise made late in 2017 to record a commentary on one of Doctor Who’s angriest and most revolutionary stories, The Happiness Patrol.
Buy the story!
The Happiness Patrol was released on DVD in 2012. In the US, it was released on its own (Amazon US), while in the UK and Australia, it was inexplicably released as part of the Ace Adventures box set, along with Dragonfire (Amazon UK).
Our James Bond commentary podcast is called Bondfinger, and you can find that at bondfinger.com, at @bondfingercast on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and everywhere else as well.
Episode 195: Welcome to the Kandy Kommentary
· Recorded on Sunday 19 July 2020 · Download (77.2 MB)
Episode 194 · The Next Doctor · Saturday 25 July 2020
It’s Christmas in July, and an amnesiac Todd is cosplaying as Colin Baker while his missing son Brendan is slaving away in a workhouse somewhere. Meanwhile, Richard is frocked up and ready to take over the British Empire, as usual, while Nathan is wearing a brass N95 mask and a gorilla suit and dreaming of summer days spent frolicking in the forests of the planet Tara. Pass us the eggnog, someone: it’s time to meet The Next Doctor.
We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll upstage you at your next family Christmas by pretending to be a much more bombastic and somewhat less annoying version of you.
Our James Bond commentary podcast is called Bondfinger, and you can find that at bondfinger.com, at @bondfingercast on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and everywhere else as well. We’ve finished our Honor Blackman tribute season, and before embarking on our impending Kate O’Marathon, we recently spent a lovely 50 minutes admiring Joanna Lumley as Purdey in an episode of The New Avengers.
Episode 194: Mr Cole, Mr Scoones, Mr Fetch and Mr Commentary
· Recorded on Friday 19 June 2020 · Download (62.1 MB)
Episode 193 · Series 4 Retrospective · Sunday 14 June 2020
This week, we look back on Series 4 and consider some of the unanswered questions from the last thirteen weeks of Flight Through Entirety. Is Series 4 the best ever series of New Who? Sylvia Noble: threat or menace? What is the best story of the season, and why is it Midnight? And, as always, who or what should we snog, marry and avoid?
Notes and links
James mentions Donna’s solo return to the world of Doctor Who in the Big Finish box set Kidnapped!, which also stars Jacqueline King. Big Finish has also released an adventure with the Doctor and Donna that features Sir Bernard Cribbins as Wilf: it’s called No Place.
TV’s Sylvia Noble, Jacqueline King, stars as the Good Witch of the North in the Big Finish adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which also stars the extremely pretty and excitingly named Dan Bottomley as the Scarecrow. No relation.
Our James Bond commentary podcast is called Bondfinger, and you can find that at bondfinger.com, at @bondfingercast on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and everywhere else as well. In our most recent episode, we again commemorate Honor Blackman by watching her appearance as Ronald Allen’s wife in an episode of Patrick McGoohan’s Danger Man called ColonelRodriguez.
Episode 193: Dalek Caan Saves the Day
· Recorded on Sunday 3 May 2020 · Download (74.1 MB)
This week, all four of us gather in the Console Room to tow the podcast home after a particularly trying week. It’s time for our journey to end, in — er — Journey’s End.
Notes and links
Perennial FTE punching bag Dodo Chaplet contracts syphilis — or at least an alien sex virus — in Daniel O’Mahony’s Virgin Missing Adventure The Man in the Velvet Mask.
During the Doctor’s year off in 2009, the 456 arrive on Earth to kidnap millions of children and are thwarted by Torchwood, without the assistance of Martha or Mickey. Despite this, Children of Earth is just about the best thing produced in Doctor Who’s modern era. If you haven’t seen it, you definitely should.
After the traditional transporter accident, Troi finds herself with two Will Rikers in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Second Chances, and somehow fails to take the obvious course of action.
Picks of the week
James
James wants you to watch The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, which is episodes 5 and 6 of Series 3 of The Sarah Jane Adventures, and which includes the last scenes David Tennant filmed at the Doctor before his final regular episodes were broadcast at the end of 2009. It features the Trickster and Nigel Havers, only one of whom is trying to marry Sarah.
Peter
Peter recommends War of the Worlds, a Fox co-production from 2019, which features Ty Tennant, the son of Georgia and David Tennant, previously seen in his grandfather’s Doctor Who fiftieth anniversary special, The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot.
Todd
Todd wants to take us a bit highbrow this week, with the sensational Netflix series, Tiger King, which for many of us was the way we celebrated the beginning of our endless COVID lockdown. Very much worth a look.
Nathan
Taking the opportunity to retreat into his own childhood, Nathan suggests that you read Tove Jansson’s Moomin books, which range from charming and whimsical to elegiac and character-driven. Recommended.
We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll rudely push your ex-girlfriend across the room in an unsubtle attempt to hit on your ex-boyfriend. You really have quite the complicated love life, don’t you?
Our James Bond commentary podcast is called Bondfinger, and you can find that at bondfinger.com, at @bondfingercast on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and everywhere else as well. In our most recent episode, we again commemorate Honor Blackman by watching her appearance as Ronald Allen’s wife in an episode of Patrick McGoohan’s Danger Man called Colonel Rodriguez.
Episode 192: Why He Wins
· Recorded on Monday 13 April 2020 · Download (63.2 MB)
Episode 191 · The Stolen Earth · Sunday 31 May 2020
This week, Nathan, James, Todd and Peter sit in our separate homes, longing for an invasion where the aliens order us all to congregate in the street together. Which is what happens, of course, in The Stolen Earth.
Notes and links
We’ve mentioned this over and over again, but for an account of how this season and its finale came to be, there’s no better place to go than Russell T Davies and Ben Cook’s The Writer’s Tale: The Final Chapter. It’s illustrated with cartoons by RTD himself, including his original conception of the Shadow Proclamation, and his headcanon explanation of Harriet Jones’s daring escape from the Daleks. An absolute must-read.
Our James Bond commentary podcast is called Bondfinger, and you can find that at bondfinger.com, at @bondfingercast on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and everywhere else as well. In our most recent episode, we again commemorate Honor Blackman by watching her appearance as Ronald Allen’s wife in an episode of Patrick McGoohan’s Danger Man called Colonel Rodriguez.
Episode 191: Mr Smith’s Fanfare Is Diegetic
· Recorded on Monday 13 April 2020 · Download (56.3 MB)
This week, we’re joined by TV’s Joe Lidster, to discuss one of our favourite Doctor Who episodes while the world around us devolves into fascism and the universe collapses into nothingness. I guess that’s what happens when you fail to Turn Left.
Notes and links
We spend a lot of time talking about Years and Years, which is Russell’s latest iteration of the story of society’s impeding collapse, and which we first mentioned way back in Episode 159. If you haven’t seen it, you must. If you’re worried that it’s too bleak, it is, but it’s funny and heartwarming as well.
Our James Bond commentary podcast is called Bondfinger, and you can find that at bondfinger.com, at @bondfingercast on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and everywhere else as well. In our most recent episode, we commemorate Honor Blackman by talking all the way through her appearance alongside Roger Moore in an episode of The Saint called The Arrow of God.
Episode 190: Just One Thing
· Recorded on Sunday 8 March 2020 · Download (58.3 MB)
Remember tourism? Sure, you would always end up on a crappy bus full of middle-class English holidaymakers who wanted to kill you, and there was always the imminent threat of alien attack, but at least it got you out of the house. Which is why this week we decided to catch up with Doctor Who YouTuberJosh Snares for a weekend getaway on the planet Midnight.
Notes and links
Russell T Davies’s script for Midnight is no longer available on thewriterstale.com, but it can still be found here. (It doesn’t have a title yet, and it’s still called Episode 8.)
In her essay on Fury from the Deep, El Sandifer explains that in a trad base-under-siege story, characterisation tends to focus on the competence of the characters rather than on anything more human and interesting.
The Midnight Entity™ (sigh) reminds James and Brendan of the creature from The Twilight Zone episode Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. (Which starred William Shatner, excitingly.)
Our James Bond commentary podcast is called Bondfinger, and you can find that at bondfinger.com, at @bondfingercast on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and everywhere else as well. In our most recent episode, we commemorate Honor Blackman by talking all the way through her appearance alongside Roger Moore in an episode of The Saint called The Arrow of God.
Episode 189: Your Bezzie Mate
· Recorded on Thursday 13 February 2020 · Download (49.3 MB)
Episode 188 · Forest of the Dead · Sunday 10 May 2020
This week, we’re joined again by rockstar Doctor Who blogger Johnny Spandrell, for just under an hour of conversation and fruitless dieting in a VR environment. It’s the start — and the end — of a beautiful friendship, in Forest of the Dead.
Carole Lombard and Clark Gable do a number of films together, but their big romcom is called No Man of Her Own (1932).
Just by sheer coincidence, Kenny Phillips meets an Irish girl, who he falls in love with, loses and then nearly meets again in two episodes of Press Gang, Season 2’s Love and the Junior Gazette and Season 3’s Chance is a Fine Thing.
Miss Evangelista’s exciting new look owes more than a little to Picasso’s Weeping Woman series. One of the series, belonging to the National Gallery of Victoria, was stolen in 1986.
Picks of the week
Johnny
For some mysterious reason, Johnny wants you to read the Wikipedia entry on Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveller’s Wife. I suppose the reason will somehow become clear to you as you read it.
Peter
Peter wants you to rewatch The Tomb of the Cybermen to see a prototype of Mr Lux in the character of Betty Kaftan. He also wants you to watch the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Relics to see the prototype of someone saved in a transporter buffer for many years. And finally, he wants you read the New Series Target Novelisations Rose by Russell T Davies and The Day of the Doctor by Steven Moffat, two writers whose relationship is characterised by warmth and cameraderie. (In fact, by the most amazing coincidence, the most recent issue of Doctor Who Magazine has them interviewing each other, and the warmth of their relationship is very much evident there.)
As usual, Nathan suggests that you read the TARDIS Eruditorum entry on this story, which is actually a 100,000-word history of the first 50 years of Doctor Who. It’s an amazing piece of work.
Johnny’s magnum opus is his blog Random Whoness, in which he goes through every single story from the first thirty-seven series of Doctor Who, in random order, and manages something surprisingly new and insightful about each one. It’s like Flight Through Entirety, only random and less tiresome.
