The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos

[0:00]

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Jody Interterterra, the only Doctor Who flash cast that just wishes people would stop sticking these things on our faces.

We're here.

Uh, we have just watched the final episode uh, of series 11 of Doctor Who, the Battle of Raxacorrico Falapatorius.

And, oh, really?

So I'm on Twitter, call it the Battle of Rascal of Megloss.

What did you call it the other day?

The Battle of the Cat walked across my keyboard.

But I did steal that, I think, from someone.

So how do we feel about this?

We've got Peter here with us?

Um, uh, Peter, do you want to just give us a little quick uh, quick praise?

No, you're pulling a face.

Well, it wasn't the worst chipmol script of the season.

But, you know, these things are relative.

It's like saying that it's not the worst piece of broccoli that you're eating. still broccoli.

I like broccoli.

[01:01]

Yeah, broccoli's good.

Shut up.

Oh, you know, some people like some people like Christian Bull's writing.

You need more fibre, Peter.

Yes, I've been told.

Yeah, it felt very A to B to C.

I didn't really get a lot from and it didn't feel particularly climactic.

I would have settled for Dennis Spooner's dramatic W at this point.

That's frank but fair.

What did you think, Brendan?

Um, I thought it was brilliant.

Oh, really?

Okay.

I really, really enjoyed it.

Um, I've, you know, I've, I've said a few times, um, during Jody and Terror, overall, I quite like the simplicity of this season and the cleanness.

Um, it has left some stuff to be desired for me, but um, I thought it was a strong episode.

It's certainly not.

[02:01]

The same kind of finale we've had for the last 10 years.

But I think it, I think it's stronger for it because it does bring a lot of character threads to a head in a really satisfying way.

And um, something I was, uh, something I was thinking about, Nathan, something you criticise Eric Saywood for way, way back in Resurrection of Daleks, is, you know, if your script hinges it on the fact of, will the doctor use this gum to shoot this person in the head, you've written the wrong script.

And we're almost given that choice at the end of this story, like, will the doctor sacrifice the 2 ups to save planet Earth?

and the doctor actually says, well, no, that's not an acceptable option, so I need to come up with something else.

Yeah.

I mean, that's the doctor's standard approach to the trolly problem, isn't it?

There has to be another way to get out of this.

Yeah, but, you know, I've been saying I want the doctor to face an impossible choice and then, you know, have to deal with that.

[03:03]

Christian will pull the rug out from under me and I realised in that moment, no way, I don't want that.

I do want the doctor to come up with a piece for as possible solution and, you know, way back with David Tennant when Davro says, oh, you know, doctor, you've created this situation, how many people have died for you.

You know, we get 20 minutes of David Tennant's hair quivering with emotion, well, Murray Gold, you know, has a torrent affair with the with the string section.

But here, instead, when, when um, Tim Shaw says, Doctor, you know, this is your fault.

She just turns around and goes, yeah, well, I'm going to stop you then.

Like, I'm not going to accept that it's my fault, but it's still my job to stop you.

So bye.

I really liked those 2 undercuttings of my expectations.

I have to say that I was disappointed by the 2nd one.

I thought that, you know, the problem for me this season is the morality is just so simplistic, you know, um, and, you know, there's no sort of, like, I don't know.

[04:06]

Um, the arcs annoyed me particularly, that these were religious maniacs that had destroyed 5 planets and, you know...

Yeah, because they felt slightly bad about it towards the end.

There's no consequences it's not even addressed.

And, you know, she gets out of the trolly problem by pulling the magical plot solving things off her forehead.

And, you know, that could have been exciting as well, but what happens here and Yaz get a bit of a headache and then we're kind of, you know, back on our way.

I have to say that I was I was a bit disappointed with this one.

I thought it was very anticlimactic and I thought the character work was really by the numbers.

So I think we'd all been predicting the fist bump in episode 10 since about episode 2 and the air it came right on schedule.

And I just didn't believe for a 2nd that that, you know, there wasn't any tension about whether Graham was going to kill Tim.

Just as there was never any tension about whether Pete was going to shoot Davros in the face.

[05:07]

It just wasn't ever going to happen.

Todd.

Sorry.

Well, Nathan, I think you've taken said a lot of what I was going to say, especially about the headache thing.

Like it was tell, don't show, which is what James has been saying for so many of these episodes.

We need show, don't tell.

Look, I thought Tim Shaw, as a villain, was actually much better than the 1st episode.

I think that's something that I did enjoy.

I thought the music was lovely and it was beautifully shot.

Bradley Walsh is my father best thing in the show by a mile.

That scene where he pulls up the doctor and says what he's going to do.

He was fantastic and Jodie was fine, but she didn't blow me away in that moment.

I felt that she likes substance and was superficial and I just kind of went, really?

But then, but then a few moments later, she's talking about Wellington's in the water and all those, that was hilarious and all her little side things.

I think are great.

Um, uh, so, uh, um, you know, the title, I think it's possibly the worst ever.

[06:12]

A right mouthful that's totally unmemorable.

The other describes wasn't even something we even witnessed on screen.

It feels like a placeholder title that never got changed.

So, I don't know.

It was it was all a bit average.

And that's nothing wrong with that some of the time, but that seems to what we get from Chris all of the time.

And to me, I think that's a problem.

Look, 6 out of 10.

I like parts.

And where was Yaz?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, she didn't get she never gets to solve anything.

You know, she's smart, but she just sort of sits back while the doctor explains what the solution's going to be, and it really was a flick the switch and dispel Sutex solution, wasn't it?

We'll wire a whole bunch of people up and then sort of press a button and it'll be fixed.

And it stole, you know, completely from the pirate planet.

The word peril, the earth word peril.

I did like the fact that the shrunken planets were inside the key to time.

I loved how they how they seem to be whirling around.

[07:14]

I thought that they were great props, you know, that they were like whirling and whirling because I thought they might have been flesh moths that had found their way in from last week's, bro.

Maybe they are.

They probably just got them and repainted them black.

I mean, Nathan had told what you were saying about the simplistic morality is true.

And I think that the fact that those things work is entirely down to Bradley Walsh.

He just sort of underplays Graham's melancholy and his kind of futility without grace.

And so even though you're left disappointed that he really takes the action that everyone expected him to take, and anything would have been preferable, it would have been preferable if he'd killed Tim Shaw and then hidden it, or Ryan had killed Tim Shaw and he decided to keep it from the doctor, I think the fact that those scenes work are entirely down to him.

Yeah.

It was, I thought, you know, like it was the only plot that anyone had this year.

[08:14]

Well, you know, I would have liked to have seen more about how Ryan felt, you know, like how Ryan had felt about Grace.

There wasn't that much about that, you know, this episode.

I thought Ryan was wonderful.

Like everything that Ryan did, this episode was really, really good.

Yes, he was.

I will agree with you.

Really nice performance by him.

Yeah, I think he's like really underappreciated.

I keep hearing how great Bradley is and clearly he's great, but I love Ryan's performance.

But it's a one-two combo.

They are fantastic.

They really are a great team.

All in all, like the main cast is all very strong.

Even if they're not given much to do or much character development.

I mean you're right.

Like the only person that's really got any character development or story arc this season is Graham.

Yeah.

But I mean, it's Doctor Who, right?

You know, like we went for years and years with no character arcs and no sort of character development and stuff.

And I'd be struggling to say, you know, you couldn't, you know, you would have to torture me to get me to say that, you know, Rose had a real character development.

[09:24]

Like she appeared, you know, she had relationships with other characters and stuff and then she left, you know, and that's been the new series.

But I had kind of thought with the reduced episode count and with Chibnall, who'd written Broadchurch, you know, who seemed to be setting up a really, you know, interesting character arc in the 1st episode, that we get the occasional mention of it, but I don't know.

What about the timeless child thing from episode 2 with those ribbon creatures?

I mean, that wasn't even addressed like, I thought that was going to be something.

Maybe that's season two.

In episode two, you know, different creatures, didn't they say something about the doctor?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, what I'm saying is maybe that's maybe that's next season.

I mean, or maybe it's just, you know.

Well, it's okay.

Do you know what I mean?

It doesn't have to all be paid off.

Yeah, nothing it doesn't all have, yeah.

Yeah, the timeless child is awesome pink.

Now, I mean, the thing is, like, Yaz is terribly underused at the end of the story, but I love how she was used in the 1st half in that she is the person who is sent with the amnesiac to sort of soothe his troubled brow and keep an eye on him.

[10:39]

Because I said back in the Saranga conundrum, oh, they gave Yaz a gun.

Of course they gave Yaz a gun, she's a police officer.

But if Yaz's only characteristic, as a police officer, is she can use guns.

Then, That's not as interesting as, okay, yeah, this is a police officer.

That means she's going to be good with someone facing trauma.

And that is why Yaz is paired up with that character.

It, it, but certainly in the conclusion, it's kind of like, you know, Ryan and Graham are facing off against Tim Shaw, the doctor is doing Technobabbley things, and Grace is staring at, um, not Grace.

Yaz is staring at Cal Yfrax in the key to join.

Yeah.

It felt, it felt really badly uneven, but I thought in the 1st half, um, I thought in the 1st half, she'd been very well used, and yeah, I've seen people online saying, oh, yeah, the Graham thing, he was never going to, He was never going to shoot.

It's like, well, no, but I know what chocolate taste like, but I'm still going to enjoy it when I get it.

You know, it's still a payoff and as you say, Peter, it works because of Bradley Walsh.

[11:42]

And Rod and I both cracked up laughing with, I only show him the foot to shut him up.

Don't tell doctor.

It was a little bit, you know, like our giant killer villain who's there in 2 episodes and gets mentioned in a, in, you know, a third.

That's how he dispose of him. you know.

Yeah, because the thing is, he's he's not actually that powerful.

He's only powerful because he's a bully.

Yeah.

And as and as for the whole idea that, oh, well, doctor, you created the situation.

I do wish we'd had a line there from Jody saying, okay, so you turned up on this planet.

You decided to make a weapon.

Not, you didn't decide to make a ship to get you home.

You didn't decide.

I'm going to go off to a pleasure planet.

You decided to make a weapon.

I gave you a choice.

I think that line should have been in there because really that's what it is.

I think also, it's kind of, in keeping with, with the fact that he is a bit of a rubbish villain, he, they, they made fun of him from the very beginning that, like, he was rubbish.

[12:44]

Yeah, calling from Tim Shaw.

But I mean, lampshading a rubbish villain is not quite as good as not having a rubbish villain.

Yes, true.

But he was the least rubbish of all the rubbish villains this season.

Yeah.

I thought I agree with Todd.

I thought he was more impressive this time, and there's one moment where, you know, Graham's got his big gun, and he says, you know, my wife died because of you and he just says, good, which I thought was great.

You know, that was that was a nice moment.

Yeah, yeah.

And he looked amazing.

I thought he looked really good.

I did love the heart and reference at the very end of the...

What heart or effort?

Go forward in all your beliefs.

No, like, you have to travel with hope.

Yeah.

Stay warm.

What's the question?

You have to travel with understanding as well as hope.

Yeah.

I mean, there was a, there was a lot of deliberate, sort of, bit subtle.

Well, I mean, I think that this is an attempt to sort of bring the show back to that era.

[13:50]

You know, I think we've said this before.

But I think that in the context of 2018 that there are problems with doing that.

It needs to be more complex.

Yeah, yeah.

It's very a lot of this season has been ethical, ethical parable, hasn't it?

Well, and problematic ethical parables, though, you know, like the doctor's thing about not shooting people, like her argument to Graham was because I won't be your friend anymore, you know, like, and what's her reaction to the 5 planets?

Remember Tom like spitting and barely remembering his lines in the pirate planet about an analogous situation.

She doesn't get given anything like that.

She never gets, you know, and I understand that, you know, the previous doctors were all kind of arrogant priaks to one, sort of to one degree or another, and they've moved away from it, Doctor Who is so certain of herself.

[14:50]

And, you know, there's good things to be said for that.

But I just feel like the show's kind of a little bit unmoored ethically.

What's that?

What's that?

That's that's the Megara.

It's the white guardian.

It's trying to get through trying to get through the interference.

That's who's in the New Year's special.

It's White Guardian.

Have we all been in my wicker chair now, Mr. Lashifra?

Have we all seen the have we all seen the trailer?

We're not going to talk.

Yeah.

I don't think we'll talk about the trailer, but I do want a meme to start happening where we see Graham say, does it have a name and then people show various like band draws and Oscar botchabee and things.

Teresa May.

Teresa May.

Or a monoid, as we've learned from Todd.

[15:51]

Weren't you the source of the idea that Teresa May is a monoid?

Oh, I don't know.

I thought she was a gastropod.

What's his name?

Or anti-circus in a wig.

Oh, dear.

So is there anything else anyone's sort of busting to say, I guess?

Well, let me just say that I didn't particularly like this episode, but I understand the need for a more straightforward story.

I think that the show did get too complex over the over the Stephen Moffatt era.

The expression is too up its own arms.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think, you know, we did need to straighten it out a little bit, but I think you need you need more plot.

You need traditional reverses and reveals and I just I don't really feel that we're getting them in a lot of Christmas scripts. gone too far in the other direction.

I think I think too, there's too much exposition.

Like just too much.

And for a little while, I thought, we're going back to a situation where the doctor doesn't know everything, but we don't seem to be doing that.

[16:54]

We had the giant info dump about the solar track last week.

And then we had, you know, this terrible info dump about the arcs and then her talking her way out of the entire situation.

You know, it's, I think if that works against the simplicity.

That makes it a little bit too like that French and Saunders sketch on the, you know, the, all talking about, you know, the ninth the Congress of a ninth planet and all of that sort of thing.

It's all just sort of, I think that's tiresome.

I think we can do things that are simple, but could be surprising from time to time.

I would love to be surprised, I think.

I have nothing more to add.

That was a rather sombre.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think, I think, you know, if we, I, if we went back and gave her, I'm hoping that we're going to see her against something that's just unambiguously evil, where she gets to be a little bit more kind of, have a little bit more of a weighty interaction, you know.

[18:02]

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm thinking that behind the scenes, um, Chipnell and Jody have been signed on for 3 to 4 theory, so Chipnell has said, right, I'm I'm giving it.

I'm giving it a 3 year story arc. and I think, I think next year we'll, I, I, I do want more complexity, but, I've watched this season and kind of dodged it for what it is, just like I've tried not to judge the Moffatt era by RTD standards. and for what it is, I have loved it.

Um, my average score across the 10 episodes is um 8.2 It's um up there for me with uh Eccleston's 1st series, series 4 um series 5 and series 8.

I'm I'm a bit more.

I'm a bit more reticent about the series than you, Brendan, but I tend, I've been trying to go into it with a similar sort of open mind and trying to let go of that baggage and I think that actually has been that I've enjoyed it a lot more than I possibly would have if I'd been expecting...

[19:13]

Yeah.

I... all RTDs sort of style of writing.

I think I've said before, but maybe not on the podcast that I'm really wary of being a Hinchcliffe fan who is angry once RTD comes along, you know, like, and I certainly recognise that these things that I don't much care for are the results of deliberate aesthetic choices rather than, you know, being clueless about what to do.

And, you know, like you look at the polls on the Doctor Who fan club page, the Australian Doctor Who fan club of Australia page, lots of people are really positive.

Lots of people have got a lot out of it.

People are watching the hell out of it in Britain. you know, it's and in America.

Like it is going very well.

And I think the straightforwardness of it is, you know, yeah, well, I think that's very much.

And stop being made for us.

It's been being made for us for too long.

Yeah.

I mean, but I think RTD easier. wasn't made for us.

[20:13]

No, and it was cleverer than this.

But Moffat, certainly after series 5 is making.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I've tried to keep an open mind and I can see all the changes and see why they've made them and some things they're pulled off very well.

But I can't, you know, there's episodes that I've enjoyed.

But I've just been disappointed in so many of Chib North episodes.

So for me, the season, the half the season has been a disappointment.

Jody has not lived up to my expectations.

Perhaps I set a benchmark far too high.

Bradley Walsh has been a highlight.

I'm questioning whether I'm only watching the show out of long-term loyalty for the show.

I'm not necessarily wanting to come back next week and watch it.

So, um, I don't want to I don't want to alarm you, but it's not on next week.

Next week we can watch the Pirate Planet.

[21:14]

We watched it this week.

Oh, dear.

All right.

Well, dear.

All right.

Well, look, that's all we have time for.

But thank you to everyone for joining us.

Tonight, Richard tried to be here, but the Skype gods weren't smiling on him, I'm afraid.

But we will, well, in fact, you will hear him, this Sunday, where we'll be releasing our enlightenment commentary, which...

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Our enlightenment commentary with special guest star Colin Neal, who you will remember from last week's Jodie Intaterra.

So keep an eye out on that.

That's Flightthrough Entirety.com, Flight through Entirety on Facebook and Apple Podcasts and at FTE podcast on Twitter.

And unless anyone has anything very urgent to say, I'm going to say, thank you very much for listening and good night.

[22:15]

Good night.

Good night.

Good night.

See you soon.