Episode 147 · The Christmas Invasion · Monday 24 December 2018
It’s a Christmas miracle! Flight Through Entirety starts an exciting Christmas tradition by nogging up, sitting down and talking all the way through a Doctor Who Christmas special — David Tennant’s début episode, The Christmas Invasion.
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 barge into your flat on Christmas Eve and litter the place with handsome Scotsmen. It’s not much of a threat, but, you know, it’s Christmas.
Jodie into Terror
Jodie Whittaker isn’t part of the Christmas festivities this year, but she’ll be back just as we’re nursing our hangovers on New Year’s Day 2019.
And so Jodie into Terror will be back as well, with our incandescently hot take on her first New Year’s Day special, Resolution, which we’ll be releasing soon after the episode airs. You can keep up with all the Jodie into Terror news at our website, on Apple Podcasts, and on Twitter at @JodieIntoTerror.
Episode 146 · Enlightenment · Sunday 16 December 2018
This week, we take a break from our break between series of New Who to deliver our long-awaited commentary on a popular story from the Davison Era. Friend of the podcast Colin Neal joins all of us as we leave our howling void and race around the planet Venus in the hope of achieving Enlightenment.
Buy the story!
Enlightenment was released on DVD in 1992/1993. In the US, it was released on its own, I think, but it’s completely unavailable on Amazon. Still, you can just buy it as part of the Black Guardian Trilogy box set (Amazon US), which is how it was released in the UK and Australia (Amazon UK).
While we’ve been on our break, Doctor Who has finished its latest season, which means that there are now ten episodes of our flashcast Jodie into Terror, where we think deeply about each new episode for a couple of hours before inflicting our ill-considered opinions on a largely indifferent world. You can find Jodie into Terror at jodieintoterror.com, @JodieIntoTerror on Twitter, and on Apple Podcasts.
Episode 145 · The Christopher Eccleston Retrospective · Sunday 25 November 2018
We’ve reached the end of the first year of twenty-first century Who, and it’s time to say goodbye to Christopher Eccleston, the only Doctor whose nose has magic powers, and one of an increasing number of Doctors with northern accents. Turns out, we liked him.
Notes and links
Richard compares the Reapers to vortisaurs — creatures from the time vortex introduced in the first ever Eighth Doctor Big Finish audio adventure Storm Warning, in which he meets India Fisher’s Charley Pollard, who is totally canon. My mum said so.
In a recent New Yorker article, composer and pianist Ethan Iverson talks about the history of the music of Doctor Who. It’s a great, well-informed take, even if Iverson is less of a fan of Murray Gold than we are.
Dedicated Albion Hospital medic Richard Wilson’s autobiography is called Believe It!. It exists only in the form of a radio series. David Tennant is in it.
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 recommend that new Doctor Who fans should ignore your series of the show, and start watching at the point when the gobby new guy takes over from you.
Jodie into Terror
There’s three episodes left of this season of Jodie into Terror, in which we foolishly broadcast our ill-considered opinions about each new episode of Series 11 of Doctor Who. Last week, we chatted about Kerblam!; we’ll be back this Tuesday with our thoughts on Episode 8. You can find Jodie into Terror at jodieintoterror.com, @JodieIntoTerror on Twitter, and on Apple Podcasts.
Episode 144 · The Parting of the Ways · Saturday 17 November 2018
This week, our flight reaches the end of first series of twenty-first century Who, which means that we spend most of the time talking about Daleks and kissing, while everyone else dies. It’s The Parting of the Ways.
Notes and links
Now that the Daleks are here, we should direct you again to the TV Century 21 Dalek comic strips, which were published from 1965 to 1967, and featured more Daleks than the TV series could ever afford. You can find a lot of them here.
Nathan mentions a commentary on Forest of the Dead starring Russell T Davies, Steven Moffat and David Tennant. It’s absolutely worth a listen — it was released soon after the announcement that Moffat would be taking over from Russell, and before David Tennant’s departure was announced.
Picks of the week
James
James suggests that we work up to the outbreak of the Last Great Time War, by listening to Series 6 of Big Finish’s Gallifrey series.
Todd
Todd reminisces fondly of a time before the Daleks appeared in groups bigger than four, and recommends watching Death to the Daleks.
Richard
Last week, Richard talked about Marina Warner‘s writing about mythology and fairy tales. This week, he suggests that you pick up a copy of Signs and Wonders, a book of her essays on a wide range of cultural topics.
Todd again
Todd remembers that he promised to pick Billie Piper’s 2000 album Day and Night. So he does that.
Nathan
Nathan fails to come up with an impressively interesting pick, and just decides to plug Jodie into Terror instead.
Every week on Jodie into Terror we dispense steaming hot takes on the latest episode of Series 11. Last week, we were lucky enough to get the opportunity to chat about Demons of the Punjab; we’ll be back this Tuesday with our thoughts on Episode 7. You can find Jodie into Terror at jodieintoterror.com, @JodieIntoTerror on Twitter, and on Apple Podcasts.
This week, James is evicted for smashing a camera, Todd is racking his brains to remember what a goffle is, Richard is trying to shed that Oklahoma farmboy look, and Nathan is wondering where the hell everyone else has got to. We’re live on channel 44,000, which means it’s time to take on the Bad Wolf.
Notes and Links
Nathan dimly remembers Bernard King judging amateur musical performances on Pot of Gold, a lovely competitive reality show from Australia in the 1970s. You can catch some of his work here.
Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces introduced the monomyth to millions of genre fans and spawned hundreds of Star Wars critiques on YouTube. Here Richard mentions Marina Warner, a writer and academic who writes about myth, monsters and fairy tales.
Nisha Nayer was the first female actor to appear in both classic and new Doctor Who: she was a Kang in Paradise Towers, and the Female Programmer in Bad Wolf. The first actor to appear in both series was William Thomas, the fainting undertaker in Resurrection of the Daleks and the scientist killed by Margaret in Boom Town. He will go on to play the father of Gwen Cooper in Torchwood.
According to the Anne Droid, the 15-10 barric fields were not discovered by physicist San Hazeldine. This may be a reference to 1980s three-hit wonder Hazell Dean, but I’m hoping it’s a reference to attractive English actor and composer, Sam Hazeldine.
The TV Century 21 Dalek comic strips were published from 1965 to 1967, and featured Dalek saucers much like the ones that are now standard in the new series. You can find a lot of them here.
Every week on Jodie into Terror we call one another up to discuss the latest episode of Series 11. Last week, we ignored the ominous chomping sounds outside in order to discuss The Tsuranga Conundrum; we’ll be back this Tuesday with a discussion of Episode 6. You can find Jodie into Terror at jodieintoterror.com, @JodieIntoTerror on Twitter, and on Apple Podcasts.
This week, Nathan, Todd and Peter relax in a café just by Cardiff Bay and reminisce about that one time we had to run away naked from a scary guy with massive tusks. And we also find time to chat about Boom Town.
Notes and Links
We get so absorbed in our discussion of the story, that we basically forget to discuss tropes and Terileptils and German Expressionism. So no links this week.
Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley and Todd is @toddbeilby. Peter is simply nowhere to be found. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam, and the strings performance was by Jane Aubourg. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast.
Over on Bondfinger, we have commentary podcasts on every single James Bond film. If you don’t know where to start, we can recommend our most deeply absurd commentary on a famously absurd Bond film — Moonraker.
Episode 141 · The Doctor Dances · Sunday 28 October 2018
This week, Nathan, Brendan and Richard take some time off from running around bomb craters in Central London to talk about sex, death and the terrifying prospect of Life After Eccleston. Still, we get through it all unharmed and alive: it is, after all, The Doctor Dances.
Notes and Links
Brendan mentions an article in Kotaku by Heather Alexander, in which she complains that queer characters in video games too often fall victim to the Bury Your Gays trope.
Picks of the Week
Brendan
Brendan’s first pick is the first in a series of fan-made audios called The Ninth Doctor Adventures — Cold Open, which is set before the start of Series 1.
Richard
Richard recommends Mrs. Miniver (1942), directed by William Wyler and starring Greer Garson, in which a middle class family living in an English village live through the outbreak and first few months of World War II.
He also mentions Fires Were Started (1943) in which civilian firefighters in London try to protect an explosive factory, The Next of Kin (1942), which depicts the terrible consequences when a gossipy housewife is overheard by a Nazi spy, and finally Their Finest (2016), in which Strawberry Fields from Quantum of Solace gets a job as a secretary working for a film production company making propaganda films during the Blitz.
Brendan again
And then Brendan is back with an original production by Big Finish — ATA Girl, which tells the story of the women who flew aircraft in the Air Transport Auxiliary during World War II. It was created and directed by our very own Louise Jameson, and both Richard and Brendan really recommend it.
Nathan
Less interestingly, Nathan recommends the four new Target novelisations which were released this year: Rose, The Christmas Invasion, The Day of the Doctor and Twice Upon a Time.
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 basically tell everyone about the under-the-table arrangement you have with the butcher to maintain your supply of pork.
Episode 140 · The Empty Child · Sunday 21 October 2018
This week, Brendan, Richard and Nathan are cowering in the Anderson shelter in the backyard, listening to the sirens and wondering what on earth happened to that nice little tow-headed lad from number seventeen. Turn off your mobile phones and keep your hands and feet inside the light field — it’s The Empty Child.
Notes and links
Reference is of course made to several of Steven Moffat’s shows: the surpassingly brilliant Press Gang — when are we doing the Press Gang podcast? — and Coupling, which is not Moffat’s first attempt at sex comedy (see also Joking Apart, or don’t), but is definitely his most successful.
Fans of things with Daleks in them will enjoy Dark Eyes, another Big Finish box set extravaganza starring Paul McGann and some people, and some mutants in bonded polycarbide armour. It’s good, apparently.
Richard refers to John Boorman’s 1987 film Hope and Glory about a nine-year-old boy’s experience of growing up in London during the Blitz.
Big Finish again. Brendan refers to Joe Lidster’s The Siege of Big Ben, a Short Trips release read by Camille Coduri. He also mentions Erasure, which makes a cheeky reference to the original unfilmable script The Killer Cats of Gin-Seng, a story ultimately replaced by The Invasion of Time.
Episode 139 · Father’s Day · Sunday 14 October 2018
This week, Nathan, James and Special Guest Star Dan from New to Who sit around in a circle to discuss our feelings of loss, our anxieties about our parents’ love, and all our deep-seated fears for the future. It’s our way of celebrating Father’s Day.
(Sorry about the sound quality on this one. Nathan sat the mixer board right next to the gravitic anomaliser and shorted out the time differential.)
Notes and links
Timewyrm: Revelation was Paul Cornell’s first Doctor Who novel and the third novel in the Virgin New Adventures series. It doesn’t have anything much in common with the plot of Father’s Day, but it certainly shares its concern with love and sacrifice and forgiveness.
Sapphire & Steel was a science fiction (?) series on ITV, starring Joanna Lumley and David MacCallum as strange supernatural forces who investigate and correct weird time anomalies like the ones in this story. It’s slow, but it’s often very weird and upsetting.
Good news, everyone. The entirety of the 1995 miniseries Steven King’s The Langoliers is available for you to watch on YouTube. It’s like Father’s Day, but without any of the distractly competent writing or direction. More about it here.
Follow us!
Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley and James is @ohjamessellwood. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam, and the strings performance was by Jane Aubourg. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast. And you can find increasingly rare facts about Doctor Who at @FTEwhofacts.
Daniel is one of the hosts of the New to Who podcast, which discusses Classic Doctor Who stories and introduces the Classic series to new fans. You can follow New to Who on Twitter at @NewToWhoPodcast.
Flight Through Entirety can also be found on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll wait out the front of the church at the next wedding you attend and berate you mercilessly about your terrible life choices.
Jodie into Terror
We also have a new Doctor Who podcast project called Jodie into Terror. Every Tuesday night, after watching the new episode of Doctor Who Series 11, we’ll have a brief chat about our first impressions, and then release the audio afterwards. That’s at jodieintoterror.com and on Twitter at @JodieIntoTerror. If you’re from the near future, it will also be available on Apple Podcasts.
Bondfinger
Over on Bondfinger, we’ve recorded our last James Bond commentary for now, and we’ll be releasing it in the next couple of days. But we have commentaries for all of the previous Bond films, as well as for some weird things that aren’t proper Bond films at all.
Episode 138 · The Long Game · Sunday 7 October 2018
This week, Todd is fiddling with the central heating, Nathan is stuck among the rafters roaring incoherently, and friend-of-the-podcast Peter Griffiths is using the wrong verbs and kissing complete strangers. Welcome to the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire — it’s The Long Game.
Notes and links
According to Dr Elizabeth Sandifer, Davies did submit a version of The Long Game to the Doctor Who production office, only to have it rejected by Script Editor Andrew Cartmel. So there you go.
Genre fans who have not watched Simon Pegg and Doctor Who guest stars Jessica Hynes and Nick Frost in Spaced (1999–2001) really should give it a go. It’s a sitcom that’s hyper-aware of what we like to call genre tropes, and it’s really very funny and sweet.
Bleak House (2005) was Andrew Davies adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel, which ran for 15 30-minute episodes in late 2005, and starred Anna Maxwell Martin, as well as Doctor Who alumna Carey Mulligan, as well as Torchwood’s Burn Gorman, Gillian Anderson and Charles Dance. Not everyone was very happy about it.
Who gave Dodo syphilis? It was Daniel O’Mahony, author of the Virgin Missing Adventure novel The Man in the Velvet Mask, in which the Doctor and Dodo meet the Marquis de Sade in an alternative version of post-Revolutionary Paris. Avoid. Or better still, read El Sandifer’s take.
Follow us!
Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Peter can only be followed in real life. But he will call the police. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam, and the strings performance was by Jane Aubourg. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast. And you can find increasingly rare facts about Doctor Who at @FTEwhofacts.
Over on Bondfinger, we are coming ever closer to recording and releasing our commentary on the utterly forgettable SPECTRE (2015). Until we get there, please consider checking out our commentaries on the DanielCraigera, thePierceBrosnanera or the TimothyDalton era.
