We’re on the run this week — skulking in shadows and eating chips while talking about the Master’s backstory and the deplorable state of British politics. Which is a normal Sunday for us, even when we’re not talking about The Sound of Drums.
Broken News was a six-episode comedy series shown on BBC Two in 2005, which recreated the experience of channel surfing across a range of 24-hour news channels while some weird and incomprehensible news story is breaking. We love it.
This week, we’re joined by TV’s Adam Richard to talk about Martha, the Master, Heather Locklear, Coronation Street and Russell’s original plans for the end of the season. And we also talk about a little Doctor Who episode that we like to call Utopia.
Notes and links
Scream of the Shalka was a Doctor Who story written by Paul Cornell and released by the BBC as a Flash animation in 2003. It starred Richard E Grant as the Doctor and Derek Jacobi as a weird robot version of the Master, who was kept captive in the Doctor’s TARDIS. It was released on DVD in 2013. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU).
Unlike so many Doctor Who YouTubers, Brendan loves Doctor Who. And what more proof of this do you need than his web series Say Something Nice, in which he goes through all of the lowest-rated Doctor Who episodes and says something nice about them. Bless him.
Another Master, Geoffrey Beevers, joins Tom Baker in a battle of terribly mellifluous voices in Big Finish’s Death Match, whose key scene Brendan recreates expertly during this episode.
And our final Master for the week is Alex Macqueen, who eventually reveals himself opposite Sylvester McCoy in the Big Finish story Dominion.
This week, we’re joined by Lizbeth Myles from Verity! podcast to discuss a terrifying romantic comedy about the brevity of human life. It’s called Blink. People seem to like it.
Notes and links
Nathan’s allusion to a Phrygian king at the start of the episode comes from a half-remembered story in Herodotus Book 2, in which the Egyptian king Psammetichus kept two children in isolation, believing that they would grow up speaking the oldest human language.
This episode’s conceit and the name Sally Sparrow were first used by Stephen Moffat in a story in the Doctor Who Annual 2006 called What I Did in My Christmas Holidays by Sally Sparrow. You can read it here.
And, of course, we never stop mentioning Stephen Moffat’s breakout TV show Coupling, which is essential viewing for Moffat fans (if somewhat problematic at times). Here’s what Elizabeth Sandifer had to say about it.
Simon, Todd and Nathan are still trapped in 1913, which is better, at least, than being trapped in chains, a collapsing galaxy, every mirror, or a scarecrow. With World War I on the horizon, all three of them await the answer to a single question: Will John Smith have the courage to leave the stage, so that the Doctor can confront The Family of Blood?
Notes and links
A group of scarecrows inflicted on the Doctor the horrifying fate of regenerating into Jon Pertwee in the 1969 Doctor Who comic The Night Walkers. The Fourth Doctor also met walking scarecrows in Tom Baker and Ian Marter’s Doctor Who movie treatment Doctor Who Meets Scratchman, novelised by James Goss in 2019.
When The Family of Blood was released in 2007, Harry Lloyd was playing Will Scarlett in the BBC’s Robin Hood (which also starred Patrick Troughton’s grandson Sam). He can be seen in this episode’s corresponding Doctor Who Confidential episode, looking very sweet and just ever-so-slightly stoned.
The Inner Light is a highly regarded episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, in which Captain Picard, in the blink of an eye, lives an entire life as a Californian hippie whose community is devastated by the effects of climate change.
Picks of the week
Todd
Wisely, Todd recommends watching Horror of Fang Rock. You could also listen to our Horror of Fang Rock episode, The Practical Problem with Leaving Someone Alive.
Simon
Simon recommends taking a look at Jessica Hynes in another role, in the BBC sitcom W1A, set in the BBC itself. It’s on Netflix in the US, probably, but not in Australia, where it used to be available on iView but isn’t any longer. In the UK, its on Amazon Prime Instant Video. Television is delightful in 2019, isn’t it?
Nathan
Of course, Nathan recommends Paul Cornell’s original novel. He thinks Chapter 8 is particularly good. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU).
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Well, the Doctor has been exiled to Earth again, but instead of hobnobbing with lizard men, he’s spending his time flirting with Matron and delivering incredibly tedious history lessons. There’s some indefensible name-dropping in this episode, including local radio star Simon Moore, but after all, that’s just Human Nature.
Buy the story!
You all have actual video of this episode on disc already, I imagine, so here are some links to Paul Cornell’s original Virgin New Adventure. It’s very good, and even better in places. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU).
Notes and links
In honour of Simon’s return to the podcast, here’s the TV Tropes entry for the KickTheDog trope, in which a villainous character confirms their villainy by doing something pointlessly cruel early on in the narrative.
It’s been a while since we mentioned that the entirety of Blakes 7 is available to watch for free on YouTube, so here’s a link to the episode Nathan mentions, Series 2 Episode 2, Shadow.
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 get you a detention by deliberately including several obscure Roman obscenities in your Latin prose composition homework.
This week, we hop aboard the SS Pentallian just in time for it to start plummeting into the heart of a blazing sun. And so while we wait for our inevitable incineration, we answer trivia questions about Bananarama, forget everyone’s names, throw shade on the Captain’s marriage, and spend far too much time crawling around the ship, gurning and gnashing our teeth. Fortunately, it’s all over in 42 minutes.
Notes and links
The 1972 film Solaris, based on Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 novel, features — spoiler alert! — a sentient ocean on an alien planet.
Fans of real-time narrative in cinema will also enjoy Run Lola Run (1998), Fail-Safe (1964), and The Set-Up (1949); United 93 (2006) is also good, but might be more difficult to enjoy.
Lis Sladen gets to do some much more enjoyable possessed-by-aliens acting in the third story of the first season of The Sarah Jane Adventures, Warriors of Kudlak.
And there’s coffee in that (sentient) nebula in the sixth episode of Star Trek: Voyager, The Cloud.
This week, we’re hosting our first ever black-tie function, and you’re all invited! Nathan’s scoffing all the canapés, Brendan keeps being mistaken for the waiter, and somewhere upstairs is a roaring and slavering Colin Neal, who will join us later — we hope — to discuss The Lazarus Experiment.
Guga Mbatha-Raw appeared in the Series 3 Black Mirror episode San Junipero. She also played Ophelia to Jude Law’s Hamlet in a production in the West End and on Broadway in 2009 — she is interviewed about it here.
This week, we discuss human nature, animatronic willies, easily avoidable deaths, and the ethics of cooking pork. Which is probably all just a way of distracting ourselves from the Evolution of the Daleks.
Notes and links
The script for this episode is clever enough to borrow from David Whitaker, the Doctor Who script editor who wrote the cleverest Dalek stories from the 1960s. To find out more about him, have a listen to our episode on Evil of the Daleks, which is Episode 13: Airwick Gatport.
James identifies one of the influences on this story as a period-appropriate adaptation of The Island of Dr Moreau called Island of Lost Souls (1932), starring Charles Laughton as Dr Moreau.
And last of all, our founder and dear friend Brendan has revived his YouTube channel and is producing huge quantities of fantastic content every day now. Please like and subscribe.
Picks of the week
James
James wants you to watch James Whale’s classic Universal film Frankenstein (1931), which is undoubtedly an influence on this story. After that, you should immediately go and watch Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Finally, you can round all that off with a read through Paul Magrs’s series of novels, the Brenda and Effie Mysteries, in which the Bride of Frankenstein, who now runs a B & B in Whitby, solves supernatural mysteries with her friend Effie. Audiobook versions are also available, some of which are brought to life by our very own Anne Reid, (Audible US) (Audible UK) (Audible AU)
Peter
Peter wants us to curl up on the sofa and re-visit Blood Harvest, a Virgin New Adventures novel by Terrance Dicks, and a sequel to his TV story State of Decay.
Richard
Richard wants only what’s best for us, and so he thinks we should all pour a small glass of whisky, draw the curtains, switch on the turntable and listen to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Because we should.
Nathan
Nathan was not allowed to pick Russell T Davies Years and Years again, even though it screens in Australia on SBS starting on 6 November. Instead, he wants you to read Eric Saward’s novelisation of Resurrection of the Daleks, which is every bit as good as you might expect.
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 force you to read our lengthy post on Gallifrey Base which explains in leaden detail that this episode has no idea about how DNA actually works.
Episode 168: A Long Tradition of Doctor Who Monsters That in Some Way Resemble Human Genitalia
· Recorded on Sunday 11 August 2019 · Duration 0:41:06
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This week, we learn that the mortal enemy of showtunes is capitalism, that the mortal enemy of some Doctor Who fans is fun, and that the mortal enemy of the Doctor has descended upon Depression-Era New York in an exciting new thematic guise. The show must go on, in spite of the Daleks in Manhattan.
Notes and links
The idea of the City as a hostile, inhuman place is found in Fritz Lang’s masterpiece of German expressionist cinema Metropolis (1927) and the terrifying version of 1980 depicted in Just Imagine (1930). Both of these are inspired by the looming monuments of architect Hugh Ferriss’s cityscapes.
On a lighter note, Busby Berkeley choreographed lavish dance number for both Broadway and Hollywood during the era of the earliest move musical. Take a look at some examples here.
Andrew Garfield’s big break wasn’t that superhero film at all: it was his film début, Boy A (2007).
It’s been some time since we did this, so here’s a link to El Sandifer’s discussion of this entire story on TARDIS Eruditorum.
This week, Brendan’s high on Honesty, James is driving naked, and Nathan can’t stop scratching himself for some reason, while special guest star Erik Stadnik brings some philosophy and literary criticism to our discussion of Gridlock.
Notes and links
Fans of David Tennant massively overplaying the Doctor’s enthusiasm will also enjoy his audiobook reading of The Stone Rose by Jacqueline Rayner. (Audible US) (Audible UK) (Audible AU)
The actor who plays Valerie in Gridlock and Bill’s foster mother Moira in Series 10 also had a small part in RTD’s series The Second Coming, which stars Christoper Eccleston in the title role and which is very definitely worth watching.
This week, we’re joined by Pete Lambert and Conrad Westmaas for a social history of Elizabethan England, a whirlwind tour of the life and works of Shakespeare, and some serious criticism of Martha’s taste in men. It’s Tuesday, so this must be Hamlet — it’s The Shakespeare Code.
Notes and links
Conrad has two recommendations for you. For a straightforward guide to Shakespeare’s life and works, see Emma Smith’s This is Shakespeare.
And we’re back! It’s a new year for Doctor Who, and there’s a new companion, with a new mother who will at some point slap him in the face. But until then, it’s all about a bunch of rhinos menacing a hospital on the moon, which is just the kind of premise literally any TV show would come up with. Welcome aboard, Smith and Jones.
Notes and links
It’s a scientific fact that San Junipero is the only episode of Black Mirror in existence which won’t reinforce your hatred of humanity in general and everyone in the world in particular. And Gugu Mbatha-Raw is spectacular in it. Watch it.
We will be mentioning Years and Years every week until we finally get to The Eleventh Hour. Anne Reid stars.
(Our Australian listeners should keep an eye on SBS, which has reportedly bought the series. Maybe.)
An exhaustive search has unearthed a copy of one of the Zovirax ads referenced in this episode.
The Judoon will return in The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 3 story Prisoner of the Judoon. They fit right in. (I miss that show. It’s great.)
We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or you’ll never see your daughter in Florida again. Unless you actually have a daughter in Florida, in which case please give her our love.
It’s Christmas in July and an apocalyptically hot day in London. Still, Nathan, James, Todd and Peter have been cordially invited to attend the wedding of that guy off EastEnders and the incomparable Catherine Tate. Things don’t go quite according to plan. It’s The Runaway Bride.
Follow us
Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, James is @ohjamessellwood, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Peter still can’t be persuaded to open a Twitter account. Very wise. 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.
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 163: That’s Not Even a Proper Commentary
· Recorded on Sunday 28 July 2019 · Duration 1:05:02
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This week, we head back to the planet Necros to revisit Doctor Who’s most entertaining funeral: we’re joined by healers, cosmeticians, mercenaries and a great, big bomb — but you should definitely avoid the canapés at the wake. This one’s certainly a revelation, a Revelation of the Daleks.
Buy the story!
Revelation of the Daleks was released on DVD in 2005/2006. (Amazon US) (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 162: Past Master at the Double Commentary
· Recorded on Sunday 9 June 2019 · Duration 1:33:22
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It’s the end of twenty-first century Doctor Who’s difficult second album, and the end of the entirety of the Piper Era, so we’ve decided to do this whole episode in our best fake London accents. Will we find more to talk about than just the Battle of the Teeth?
Notes and links
Late last year, Nathan and Todd were generously invited by David and Rob to appear on an episode of The Doctor Who Show called The Podcast of Decision, for some reason. Check it out.
Nathan mentions Johnny Spandrell’s reservations about School Reunion, but you can read about them yourself in his blog post on the episode. And while you’re on his blog Randomwhoness, you can also read his take on just about every other Doctor Who story as well.
Nathan appears with JR Southall on Starburst’s now-defunct podcast The Blue Box Podcast, which you can still find on Apple Podcasts. In that particular episode, Steven Moffat Versus the Antipodes, JR and his guests fail to talk about their favourite era of Doctor Who, and talk instead about the pros and cons of the Stephen Moffat era.
And for the second week in a row, James gushes about Big Finish’s Torchwood One series, starring Tracy-Ann Oberman and Gareth David-Lloyd.
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 storm into your favourite show and become more sexy and popular than anyone has ever been before. That’ll teach 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.
Episode 161: Probably in a Better Place Than When She Started
· Recorded on Sunday 19 May 2019 · Duration 1:03:52
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This week, the whole world will soon end in a fiery cataclysm, which has nothing much to do with the podcast, but is probably worth mentioning at this point. Meanwhile, robots from the 1960s are wrangling about something, while an iconic love story comes to a final end. For now. Welcome to Doomsday.
Notes and links
You can find Tracy-Ann Oberman on Twitter at @TracyAnnO. She’s fabulous.
We’ve mentioned Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials before: Russell borrows from it liberally for this season’s arc. It’s an incredible series of books, soon to become a BBC television series, starring James McAvoy and Lin-Manuel Miranda. There’s even a trailer for you to enjoy.
And, of course, our regular reminder that you should read RTD’s The Writer’s Tale, which is Russell’s own account of his time running Doctor Who. Amazingly honest and insightful. A must read.
Todd is firing up his Blu-Ray player to remind himself of his childhood fear of the Cybermen. It’s Revenge of the Cybermen, which we cover in Episode 36: A Sociopathic Child.
Richard
Richard’s characteristically highbrow suggestion is The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), directed by Michael Powell and starring Roger Livesey and Deborah Kerr, who plays no less than three separate love interests throughout the film. Winston Churchill hated it, so it is definitely well worth a look.
James
James suggests the two Big Finish box sets in the Torchwood One series — Before the Fall and Machines, starring Tracy-Ann Oberman and Gareth David-Lloyd.
Nathan
Nathan wants you to spend a few hours catching up on Randomwhoness — a blog in which our friend Johnny Spandrell watches the entirety of Doctor Who in a random order, managing to find exciting new takes on each story.
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 snatch you from your everyday life, whisk you around time and space, fall in love with you, and abandon you in a parallel universe with no one to care for you apart from a vastly improved version of your entire family. We’re kind of bastards really.
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 160: That Which Is Missing
· Recorded on Sunday 28 April 2019 · Duration 0:59:09
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This week, Nathan’s hiding in a sarcophagus, James is transfixed by a giant ball, Todd keeps trying to lure his workmates into the next office, and Richard just wishes Tracy-Ann Oberman would do a better job with her hair — while all around them, Cybermen are busily pressing themselves into the skin of the universe. Our flight through Series 2 is nearly at an end, so it’s time to face an entire Army of Ghosts.
Notes and links
As often happens, Nathan mentions El Sandifer’s blog, so it’s probably time we linked to it again. It’s at Eruditorum Press, where you can find her takes on the history of Doctor Who from the very beginning — she’s currently working her way through Series 10.
Doctor Who Meets Scratchman was a Doctor Who movie idea developed in the 1970s by Tom Baker: it would have guest starred Vincent Price and Twiggy. Last year it was released as a novelisation written by James Goss.
This will undoubtedly come up again, but Big Finish has released a series of stories set in the London branch of Torchwood before it was destroyed by the Cybermen. The first box set is called Torchwood One: Before the Fall.
Russell T Davies’s new series is currently screening on BBC One. It’s called Years and Years, it’s funny and heartwarming, and it deftly captures the daily feelings of impending catastrophe experienced by anyone unfortunate enough to have survived this far into late capitalism. Highly recommended.
Richard makes reference to the alarming fact that in Colony in Space, the head of IMC was originally going to be a leather-clad Susan Jameson, before this idea was vetoed by the BBC Head of Serials.
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 come around to your workplace and applaud condescendingly at you while your trying to catch a quick mid-afternoon nap.
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. We’re now out of James Bond films to comment on, we’re planning to keep going with other stuff, for some reason.
Episode 159: Granddad Prentis Hancock
· Recorded on Sunday 28 April 2019 · Duration 0:47:15
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This week, children are disappearing from the streets, while the people at number 20 are taking delivery of huge numbers of Derwent Lakeland pencils. It’s no wonder, really, that everyone around here seems to Fear Her.
Ghostwatch was a mockumentary about a haunted suburban house which was screened on Halloween 1992 to 11 million credulous BBC viewers. It led to thousands of complaints, and was blamed for the death of a teenage viewer. You can watch screenwriter Stephen Volk’s TEDx talk about it.
While we were recording this episode, Doctor Who fans were angry that the creators of the animated version of The Macra Terror had omitted a hilarious scene where the Doctor (Patrick Troughton) was neated up and re-shevelled by one of the Colony’s refreshment machines. For the record, we are now angry about a Judoon with a mohawk, and we plan to move on to something new next week.
Nathan mentions a film about a fevered child who finds herself trapped in fever dreams created by her own drawings. That film is Paperhouse (1988), and it’s available in HD on YouTube. So go and watch it — it’s terrifying. (It’s based on a somewhat less terrifying book called Marianne Dreams (1958) by Catherine Storr.
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.
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. We’re now out of James Bond films to comment on, we’re planning to keep going with other stuff: in fact, there will definitely be a new episode in the next day or two.
Episode 158: Most Punchable Moment
· Recorded on Sunday 10 March 2019 · Duration 0:59:23
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So we’d all meet up, every week, and we’d talk about the Doctor for a bit. But after a while, Bridget started cooking. Next thing you know, Mister Skinner started his readings, because he was writing his own novel. As time went on, we got to know each other better and better. Then it turned out that Bridget could play the piano, and I confessed my love of ELO. Next thing you know —
In this week’s Doctor Who–lite episode of Flight Through Entirety, Nathan, Brendan and Max Jelbart reminisce about our own experiences as members of LINDA, before tackling one of Doctor Who’s stranger, darker and madder episodes: Love & Monsters.
Notes and links
Watch Peter Capaldi writhe in embarrassment as Graham Norton confronts him with the evidence of his horrifically geeky past. Sigh. We don’t deserve him.
Capaldi also sends some fan art to Doctor Who comic artist Rachael Stott, who takes to Twitter to squee to the heavens, as well she might.
Nathan mentions his favourite Doctor Who commentary, in which RTD, Steven Moffat and David Tennant geek out about Forest of the Dead. I’m sure you’ll be able to find it lying around somewhere.
David Tennant takes a week off gurning to create one of the best episodes ever of Doctor Who Confidential — Do you remember the first time? — in which he interviews members of the cast and crew about their earliest experiences of Doctor Who. You can probably find a cut-down version of this on the Series 3 box set: it originally aired alongside fan favourite Blink.
As a child, Brendan read and re-read Cornell, Day and Topping’s Discontinuity Guide, which now forms part of the old BBC Cult Doctor Who website.
As a child, Max read and re-read Russell T Davies’s The Writer’s Tale, which inspired him to study screenwriting at university.
Way back in 2006, Brendan created two videos to play at the Doctor Who Club of Australia’s fan events celebrating Series 2. You can find them here and here. You can subscribe to Brendan’s YouTube channel here.
Star Trek: The Next Generation was a bit less generous and affectionate in its depiction of fans. Exhibit A: the Pakleds, and Exhibit B: Reg Barclay (who everyone secretly loves).
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. We’re now out of James Bond films to comment on, we’re planning to keep going with other stuff: in fact, there’s every chance of a new episode some time next week.
Episode 157: LINDA for Short
· Recorded on Saturday 9 February 2019 · Duration 1:25:47
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In this week’s earnest Radio National podcast episode, Nathan, Peter and Todd discuss religion, the concept of Satan, the nature of human evil, and a proposed Marxist reading of the plight of the Ood. Plus, an episode of a children’s science fiction series called The Satan Pit.
Notes and links
We mention a lot of tropes from the Hinchcliffe Era of Doctor Who, and so to brush up on this, you will probably want to listen to New to Who’s recent Hinchcliffe overview.
Further Hinchcliffe tropes are discussed in our episode on Pyramids of Mars, which also features a star turn from Gabriel Woolf as the Devil. Take a listen: it’s Episode 39: He’s Always a Villain.
And still more Hinchcliffe shenanigans abound in our Hand of Fear episode, which is called — fairly appropriately — Not Sufficiently Executed Enough.
And I found the video of that Very Special Episode of The Weakest Link which screened just before the début of Series 3 and starred David Tennant, John Barrowman, Camille Coduri, Noel Clarke and a bunch of guest stars from Series 2. You must watch this.
Peter recommends a satirical science fiction series on YouTube Premium — Weird City.
Nathan
And finally, Nathan recommends the Netflix series Russian Doll, which stars and was co-created by Natasha Lyonne from Orange is the New Black.
Follow us
Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Peter is too busy fomenting war against God to read any of your tweets. 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.
