Nathan, James, Peter and Simon come to in a bare darkened room full of mid-range sound recording equipment with no memory at all of how they got there, only to find — to their horror — that they have agreed to podcast about our next Doctor Who episode, Time Heist.
Notes and links
In a discussion of this very straightforward episode, there’s nothing specifically intertextual or in need of explanatory notes. So you get the week off this week. Or, if you like, you could listen to Untitled Star Trek Project’s take on Star Trek’s take on the heist movie, Deep Space Nine’s Badda-Bing Badda-Bang.
About all those baffling Blake’s 7 references ten minutes from the end: a pivotal Blake’s 7 episode, Pressure Point, featured a long descent into a space base where each level was identical apart from the colour of the gel used in the lighting of the set. You can hear more about that in the episode of Maximum Power which deals with it — Project Managing His Adventures.
You can find Jodie into Terror, our flashcast on the entirety of the Whittaker Era of Doctor Who, at jodieintoterror.com, at @JodieIntoTerror on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and wherever podcasts can be found. We’ll be back with a new flashcast on the second Russell T Davies era in November.
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 can also be heard on the Blakes 7 podcast Maximum Power, which has completed its coverage of the first half of the show’s entire run. Recording is continuing on schedule, and our coverage of Series C should be ready for you later in the year.
There’s also our Star Trek commentary podcast, Untitled Star Trek Project, featuring Nathan and friend-of-the-podcast Joe Ford. In our most recent episode, we welcomed Seven of Nine to the Voyager family in the two-part season finale/season opener, Scorpion.
Episode 257: Mr and Mrs Teller
· Recorded on Sunday 8 January 2023 · Download (48.5 MB)
This week, we’re joined under the Doctor’s bed by Fiona Tomney, to discuss whether monsters are real or imaginary or both, and to squee repeatedly over the Capaldi performance. It’s Listen.
Notes and links
We don’t actually talk about the Missy Reveal in our episode on The Time Meddler. The Missy Reveal at the end of Dark Water was first broadcast the day before the release of Flight Through EntiretyEpisode 13, Airwick Gatport, which means that the Capaldi Era was broadcast into a world where Flight Through Entirety was still discussing Doctor Who from the 1960s.
The Blair Witch Project (1999) was a found-footage style horror movie that was absolutely huge at the time of its release. Like Listen, it hints at the monster repeatedly without ever really showing it on screen.
You can find Jodie into Terror, our flashcast on the entirety of the Whittaker Era of Doctor Who, at jodieintoterror.com, at @JodieIntoTerror on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and wherever podcasts can be found. We’ll be back with a new flashcast on the second Russell T Davies era in November.
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 can also be heard on the Blakes 7 podcast Maximum Power, which has completed its coverage of the first half of the show. Plans are already well underway for our coverage of Series C later in the year, probably.
There’s also our Star Trek commentary podcast, Untitled Star Trek Project, featuring Nathan and friend-of-the-podcast Joe Ford. In our most recent episode, we tracked the terrifying personal journey of Kira Nerys from beloved terrorist to hidebound administrator in the Series 1 Deep Space Nine episode Progress.
Episode 256: Level of Ambiguity
· Recorded on Sunday 15 January 2023 · Download (61.2 MB)
Episode 255 · Robot of Sherwood · Sunday 30 April 2023
This week, Nathan, Richard, Todd and Adrian Phoon leave the peasants of Worksop to their mud-eating and get together to ask themselves the questions Is the Doctor as big a hero as Robin Hood? and Is Robin Hood even real?, only to come up with some very surprising answers. It’s Robot of Sherwood.
Notes and links
There have been any number of film versions of Robin Hood, which is part of the point, but Richard is mostly reminded of the 1938 film The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn as Robin, directed by Michael Curtiz, with an Oscar-winning score by Erich Wolfgang Korngold.
Errol Flynn didn’t go to Scots College in Sydney, Nathan: it was Sydney Church of England Grammar School, commonly known as Shore. He claimed to have been expelled from Shore for having sex with one of the ladies who worked in the laundry.
Star Trek: The Next Generation did its fantasy Robin Hood episode in its triumphant fourth season. It guest starred John DeLancie as Q and was called Qpid.
Here is an article in The Guardian from 2014, reporting the cuts made to this episode because of the beheading of two American journalists by members of Islamic State.
We spend some time talking about Ben Miller’s career. He’s one half of Armstrong and Miller, of course, as well as doing two series of Death in Paradise. Paul Cornell’s Primeval episode which featured Miller hunting a dinosaur was called Traitor Revealed.
You can find Jodie into Terror, our flashcast on the entirety of the Whittaker Era of Doctor Who, at jodieintoterror.com, at @JodieIntoTerror on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and wherever podcasts can be found. We’ll be back with a new flashcast on the second Russell T Davies era in November.
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 can also be heard on the Blakes 7 podcast Maximum Power, which has completed its coverage of the first half of the show. Plans are already well underway for our coverage of Series C later in the year, probably.
There’s also our Star Trek commentary podcast, Untitled Star Trek Project, featuring Nathan and friend-of-the-podcast Joe Ford. In our most recent episode, we watched another episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds — this time, the delightful fantasy romp The Elysian Kingdom. There are new episodes out every Friday.
And finally, Brendan and his friend Bjay have joined forces to play and review videogames on The Bjay BJ Game Show. Take a listen: it’s funny, well-informed and completely enjoyable.
Episode 255: Phallocentric Energy
· Recorded on Sunday 8 January 2023 · Download (52.2 MB)
Episode 254 · Into the Dalek · Sunday 23 April 2023
This week, we’re joined by Adam Richard, shrunk to a microscopic size, and sent on a mission consisting mostly of ruthless moral self-examination. Meanwhile, somewhere else completely, a romcom is taking place. It’s Into the Dalek.
Notes and links
Some of us are old enough to remember the constant television repeats of Fantastic Voyage (1966), in which a small submarine and its crew are shrunk to microscopic size to remove a blood clot from the brain of a scientist who is defecting to the West. The glamorous catsuited assistant to the crew’s chief scientist is played by a young Raquel Welch.
Richard identifies as the chief influences on this episode Fantastic Voyage and Rob Shearman’s Doctor Who episode Dalek. (Which we discuss on Episode 137, To Mainsplain Aliens.)
Of course, Peter Capaldi was most well known for his role in Armando Ianucci’s political comedy series The Thick of It, in which he played Malcolm Tucker, the Prime Minister’s sweary and frankly terrifying political enforcer. Ianucci will go on to create Veep, in which Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays the hapless Vice President of the United States, and Avenue 5, starring Hugh Laurie as the captain of a luxury space cruiser which goes catastrophically off course.
Moffat’s first sitcom Joking Apart has been mentioned before on the podcast. Its main character also discovers how terrible he is as a person during the course of the first series.
Class was a short-lived and ill-fated Doctor Who spinoff, written by Patrick Ness and set at Coal Hill Academy. Peter Capaldi appears as the Doctor in Episode 1, and the season itself is broadcast between Series 9 and Series 10 of Doctor Who. It is cancelled after the first eight-episode run.
Trinity Wells, the American newsreader during the first RTD era, does have her very own Big Finish story: Driving Miss Wells by James Goss, which is part of the second Lives of Captain Jack box set, released in 2019.
You can find Jodie into Terror, our flashcast on the entirety of the Whittaker Era of Doctor Who, at jodieintoterror.com, at @JodieIntoTerror on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and wherever podcasts can be found. We’ll be back with a new flashcast on the second Russell T Davies era in November.
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 can also be heard on the Blakes 7 podcast Maximum Power, which has completed its coverage of the first half of the show. Plans are already well underway for our coverage of Series C later in the year, probably.
And finally, there’s our Star Trek commentary podcast, Untitled Star Trek Project, featuring Nathan and friend-of-the-podcast Joe Ford. We’ll be back with a new episode this coming Friday, but while you’re waiting for that, you can still catch our most recent episode, in which Joe and Nathan got together in person for the first time ever to watch the notorious Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Justice.
Episode 254: Animosity and Horror
· Recorded on Sunday 8 January 2023 · Download (52.2 MB)
After half a lifetime of waiting, the time has come for Peter Capaldi to finally take on the role he was born to play. But is twenty-first century Who ready for this spiky and unpredictable leading man and his sexy and unhinged mortal enemy? We’re about to find out — but first, let’s take a Deep Breath.
The new title sequence was based closely on a concept created in 2013 by digital artist Billy Hanshaw, which quickly garnered hundreds of thousands of views and was spotted by Steven Moffat, who said it was the “only new title idea I’d seen since 1963”. You can read the story of its creation in Connor Johnston’s interview with Billy Hanshaw at Doctor Who TV.
So. Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben, is 97.5 metres tall, while a Tyrannosaurus rex standing upright is, we think, only about 5 metres tall. But in November 2022, paleontologists Jordan Mallon and David Hone suggested that the largest T. rex could have been 70% larger than the largest specimen we have now, and it could have weighed about 15 tonnes. Which suggests that Madam Vastra knew what she was talking about.
You can find Jodie into Terror, our flashcast on the entirety of the Whittaker Era of Doctor Who, at jodieintoterror.com, at @JodieIntoTerror on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and wherever podcasts can be found. We’ll be back with a new flashcast on the second Russell T Davies era in November.
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 can also be heard on the Blakes 7 podcast Maximum Power, which has completed its coverage of the first half of the show. We’ll be back again for Series C later in the year, probably.
And finally, there’s our Star Trek commentary podcast, Untitled Star Trek Project, featuring Nathan and friend-of-the-podcast Joe Ford. We’ve been taking a break for the last few weeks, but in our most recent episode, Joe and Nathan got together in person for the first time ever to watch the notorious Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Justice.
Episode 253: A Peter Capaldi–Shaped Time Tunnel
· Recorded on Sunday 11 December 2022 · Download (67.9 MB)
Episode 252 · The Matt Smith Retrospective · Sunday 1 January 2023
From Amy’s imaginary friend to the Hero of Trenzalore, Matt Smith spent four years and more than a few centuries as the Doctor. So now that he’s gone, how do we think he did?
Nathan claims to enjoy the idea that the Doctor is a somewhat problematic figure rather than just a traveller or a simple hero. Not everyone agrees, however. In this article in The Atlantic, Ted B Kissell complains that Matt Smith’s Doctor, is in many ways, a fairly terrible person.
As we said last week, Steven Moffat’s actual quote was that Matt Smith is like “Patrick Moore in the body of an underwear model”.
None of us seem to know anything about the ratings here, but The Day of the Doctor was apparently the highest rated drama for the year on the BBC, with 12.8 million viewers and an additional 3.2 million views on iPlayer. On BBC America, it had an audience of 2.8 million viewers, which was the highest rating ever received on the channel. (This, and more information about the special can be found on its TARDIS Fandom page.)
You can find Jodie into Terror, our flashcast on the entirety of the Whittaker Era of Doctor Who, at jodieintoterror.com, at @JodieIntoTerror on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and wherever podcasts can be found. We’ll be back with a new flashcast on the second Russell T Davies era in November 2023.
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 watched a very silly film called Bullseye!, starring Roger Moore and Michael Cain.
We can also be heard on the Blakes 7 podcast Maximum Power, which is currently covering Series B of the show. In this week’s episode, Terry Nation makes a triumphant return to the show in Countdown.
And finally, there’s our Star Trek commentary podcast, Untitled Star Trek Project, featuring Nathan and friend-of-the-podcast Joe Ford. This week, we watched an episode of the Star Trek cartoon Lower Decks called Mugato, Gumato, in which the crew of the USS Cerritos rescue some rightly unloved space animals from the Original Series who have been captured by Ferengi criminals.
Episode 252: Comedy to High Drama
· Recorded on Sunday 11 December 2022 · Download (83.5 MB)
Episode 251 · The Time of the Doctor · Sunday 25 December 2022
Doctor, listen to me. You can’t die, you’re too — you’re too nice, too brave, too kind and far, far too silly. You’re like Father Christmas, the Wizard of Oz, Scooby Doo. And I love you very much. And we all need you, and you simply cannot die.
While Clara undergoes a gruelling Christmas lunch with her family, on Trenzalore, in a town called Christmas, the Doctor is doing what he has always done — protecting, defending and being far, far too silly. Goodbye, Matt Smith — it’s The Time of the Doctor.
Notes and links
The Doctor’s longest running companion, faithful Cyberhead Handles, is voiced by Kayvan Novak, an English comedian who plays ancient vampire Nandor the Relentless in What We Do in the Shadows. Worth a watch.
Even before the fiftieth anniversary, it was widely reported that Matt Smith would be wearing a wig in his final episode as the Doctor. Here’s an article from September 2013 on Digital Spy.
Steven Moffat’s exact quote was that Matt Smith is like “Patrick Moore in the body of an underwear model”.
And finally, it’s Matt Smith’s Doctor who tells Clyde Langer that Time Lords can regenerate 507 times in the Sarah Jane Adventures story Death of the Doctor.
You can find Jodie into Terror, our flashcast on the Whittaker Era of Doctor Who, at jodieintoterror.com, at @JodieIntoTerror on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and wherever podcasts can be found. We’ll be back with a new flashcast on the second Russell T Davies era in November 2023.
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 watched a very silly film called Bullseye!, starring Roger Moore and Michael Cain.
We can also be heard on the Blakes 7 podcast Maximum Power, which is currently covering Series B of the show. In this week’s episode, we find ourselves staring lovingly into the eyes of our cousins in Hostage.
Episode 250 · The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot · Sunday 27 November 2022
After a whole week of anniversary celebrations on Flight Through Entirety, it’s time for us to acknowledge how ridiculous it all is, and who better to take charge of that than our very own Peter Davison, who lovingly chronicles his own utterly fictional attempts to shoehorn himself into the Anniversary Special in The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot.
Watch the episode!
The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot was a special feature on various DVD and Blu-ray releases of The Day of the Doctor, of course, but it’s still available to watch on the BBC website. So have at it!
Notes and links
Peter Davison’s first foray into Doctor Who-related sketch comedy formed part of BBC Two’s Doctor Who night in 1999: a sketch called The Kidnappers, in which he starred with Doctor Who’s very own Mark Gatiss and David Walliams. It’s a special feature on the DVD release of An Unearthly Child, and it’s still available to watch on YouTube.
You can find Jodie into Terror, our flashcast on the Whittaker Era of Doctor Who, at jodieintoterror.com, at @JodieIntoTerror on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and wherever podcasts can be found. We’ll be back with a new flashcast on the second Russell T Davies era in November 2023.
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 can also be heard on the Blakes 7 podcast Maximum Power, which a few weeks ago started its coverage of Series B of the show. In this week’s episode, we find ourselves on the very esge of the Galaxy in Horizon.
And finally, there’s our Star Trek commentary podcast, Untitled Star Trek Project, featuring Nathan and friend-of-the-podcast Joe Ford. This week, Nathan isn’t angry so much as disappointed with perennial Deep Space Nine fan favourite The Siege of AR-558.
Episode 250: Petering Out
· Recorded on Sunday 2 October 2022 · Download (36.7 MB)
Episode 249 · The Day of the Doctor, Panel 2 · Wednesday 23 November 2022
The original FTE team has already spent an hour discussing The Day of the Doctor, but it wouldn’t be a fiftieth anniversary celebration without James, Peter and Simon on the couch toasting everyone’s health. There will be cocktails, as we convene just one more time to discuss The Day of the Doctor.
Notes and links
You’ve already had your fair share of notes and links today, so we’re just doing one this episode — the 1976 edition of Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke’s book The Making of Doctor Who, which was the source for Terrance’s famous description of the Doctor, a description that is quoted in this episode — “He is impulsive, idealistic, ready to risk his life for a worthy cause. He hates tyranny and oppression and anything that is anti-life. He never gives in and he never gives up, however overwhelming the odds against him. The Doctor believes in good and fights evil. Though often caught up in violent situations, he is a man of peace. He is never cruel or cowardly. In fact, to put it simply, the Doctor is a hero.” Happy birthday, Doctor!
You can find Jodie into Terror, our flashcast on the Whittaker Era of Doctor Who, at jodieintoterror.com, at @JodieIntoTerror on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and wherever podcasts can be found. We’ll be back with a new flashcast on the second Russell T Davies era in November 2023.
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 can also be heard on the Blakes 7 podcast Maximum Power, which a few weeks ago started its coverage of Series B of the show. This week’s episode: Chris Boucher’s Weapon.
And finally, there’s our Star Trek commentary podcast, Untitled Star Trek Project, featuring Nathan and friend-of-the-podcast Joe Ford. We’ve been having a short break to give us the chance to rest on our laurels after our first year of podcasting. Today, we’re recommending our coverage of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Episode 249: It’s No Arc of Infinity
· Recorded on Sunday 24 July 2022 · Download (66.4 MB)
Episode 248 · The Day of the Doctor, Panel 1 · Wednesday 23 November 2022
To celebrate Doctor Who’s fiftieth and fifty-ninth anniversaries, Brendan, Nathan, Richard and Todd are reunited at last for the first of two panels discussing The Day of the Doctor. We squealed, we laughed, we wept, we injured Brendan, and we spent quite a bit of time fangirling about Ingrid Oliver. Happy birthday, everyone!
Notes and links
First off, a special anniversary mention of El Sandifer, whose essay on The Day of the Doctor discusses its role on healing the breach between the Classic and New Series of Doctor Who.
Two Doctor Who novelisations alluded to this week: firstly, again, Steven Moffat’s novelisation of The Day of the Doctor (2018), and Russell T Davies’s novelistaion of Rose (also 2018), which depicts the Last Great Time War in weird and unfilmable ways.
As a man dedicated to recycling, Moffat has used the resolution of The Day of the Doctor in a Children in Need special in 2007 called Time Crash. We discussed it (of course) in Episode 178, Remember Who We Were.
Nathan’s vague memory of a French ambassador visiting a 65-year-old Queen Elizabeth I and remarking on the poor state of her teeth is largely correct. You can read about this meeting here.
This is Ingrid Oliver’s first appearance on the show as Dr Petronella Osgood, and so we spend a lot of time talking about how great she is. Richard mentions her role as Penthesilea in ElvenQuest, a Radio 4 comedy series starring Stephen Mangan, as well as her roles in another Radio 4 comedy series, The Penny Dreadfuls Present…. Brendan mentions her appearance as Osgood in The Lonely Assassins, a videogame featuring the Weeping Angels, first released in 2021 and available on just about every platform imaginable. And, for our viewers who are in the UK or who know how to operate a VPN, you can see a brief excerpt from the episode of Watson & Oliver where Ingrid learns that she’s been shortlisted to play the next James Bond.
You can find Jodie into Terror, our flashcast on the Whittaker Era of Doctor Who, at jodieintoterror.com, at @JodieIntoTerror on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and wherever podcasts can be found. We’ll be back with a new flashcast on the second Russell T Davies era in November 2023.
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 watched in awe as Roger Moore and Tony Curtis solved the mystery of The Long Goodbye.
We can also be heard on the Blakes 7 podcast Maximum Power, which a few weeks ago started its coverage of Series B of the show. This week’s episode: Chris Boucher’s Weapon, starring The Talons of Weng-Chiang’s John Bennett in a largely non-racist role.
And finally, there’s our Star Trek commentary podcast, Untitled Star Trek Project, featuring Nathan and friend-of-the-podcast Joe Ford. We’ve been having a short break to give us the chance to rest on our laurels after our first year of podcasting. Today, we’re recommending our coverage of Star Trek: Discovery.
Episode 248: The Glue That Holds Everything Together
· Recorded on Sunday 24 July 2022 · Download (68.6 MB)
