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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Or a monoid, as we've learned from Todd.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
Good night.
See you soon.