Spyfall, Part Two

[0:00]

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Jody Into Terror, the only Doctor Who flash cast that finds itself mysteriously unable to remember the last few hours.

It's probably just the gin.

I'm Nathan.

I'm James.

I'm Brendan.

And I'm not at all a Stranger Things under garden of, I don't know what looks like a big ad for follicular challenged conditioner.

That whole thing just looked like a massive scalp.

We did actually talk about that last week.

And disappointingly it wasn't.

Do not use head and shoulders on your liver.

So, um, we are sort of just a couple of days after watching Spy Fall part two.

And therefore a bit drunk. and therefore a bit drunk, obviously.

And we're all in the same room together, which is kind of nice.

It only happened a couple of times last season, if more than once, I don't know.

So let's just talk about what we thought.

[01:00]

I went last last time, so I'm going to go 1st this time.

I thought it was pretty good.

I certainly thought it was a step up from series 11, but I do have to confess that I haven't the faintest idea what the master, Mr. Barton, or the Vord were after, like what their plan was.

But I'm prepared to just roll with that.

And certainly, I enjoyed Sasha DeWan's performance enormously.

Aren't they all Imelda Staunton covered in my last silver wrap?

Because she's got the same hat that she wears in Vera.

I know they're all going to end up being backstreet abortionists. dot com. worst boy band ever.

Is that other podcast?

I think it might be.

James, have you started the timer, by the way?

Okay, good.

All right.

So James, that's all I'm going to say, James. to completely to rally what I was about to say.

[02:01]

Look, I really enjoyed it.

I actually, you know what it reminded me of.

The way that Moffatt used to do his two-parters, where the whole thing would flip on a knife edge and you'd get a completely different plot, even though it was a 2nd part of a two-parter.

And I actually really enjoyed that.

I think I found myself enjoying last week's plot more than this week's.

Oh, no, no, I did.

I found myself enjoying last of the time lords, but wasn't that what it was?

But no, I liked the fact that they took the plot and flipped it because it kept things interesting and different and fresh.

I preferred...

A gentle listener who's as drunk as I am.

How did they flip the plot?

I think rather than doing that sort of spy, pastige, like Bond kind of went away.

And it became this sort of weird, like we split the plot between, I guess, I guess that...

[03:05]

Well, no, no.

Well, yes, yeah, it was kind of last of the time.

It was also sort of a bond, actually...

Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it was that as well.

Because the fam are all wearing tuxedos and sort of being chased and hiding and not eating chips and doing a sort of slightly less interesting tread of that scene. for the dearth of chips.

Immediately over the chips.

I did like how Yaz looked like she'd dressed up to perform on Strictly Come Dancing.

Yes, look, I had a moment where I noticed jazz on screen as well. was lovely, wasn't it?

Why is my favourite person still not freaking on screen?

I thought she got a bit to do this week.

Maybe I'm just plaintive.

She got more to do in F1.

But she wasn't totally pushed into the background this week, even though she doesn't get a gadget.

No.

That was disappointing, especially.

The thing is, especially if the other 2 were a bit rubbish with their gadgets, which, you know, even though they managed to steal a car, Graham was a bit rubbish with the laser shoe, which is fine.

I love the laser shoe.

A little nod to Don Adams.

I think it was a very boy thing, you know, like they were both sort of silly boys.

[04:10]

Sorry to overtalk.

It was Marine Boy.

Do you remember the jets in his shoe for the, I know, that's really only for Colin Neal, who's the only other person who's always me?

Hello, Colin.

Hello, Colin.

No, you really are.

But yeah, it wouldn't have been great, Brendan, if they had given her something and she just intuitively known exactly how to use it straight away because she's more intelligent than the other two.

I like capable. on the phone call.

Yes, that's true.

And actually, come to think of it, that's kind of her gadget that she knows they're going to be listening in and she knows that because Ryan and Graham are almost the only family each other has.

They, you know, they're not going to call like Aaron, for instance, despite the fact there's some been some repairing in the relationship.

No, far more believable for her to call, but for that to be part of the trick.

If you don't mind me jumping, jumping in.

Not at all.

And the thing is, I like that they don't then realise, of course, Barton's going to use this to hunt us down because they're not spies.

[05:11]

I don't see that this story, these episodes had to have the same title.

I think I would have liked to call this on the doctor's Secret Service.

I wanted to call it...

I wanted to call it doctor Pussy, but that would have been wrong.

Oh, dear.

Bad.

Octo Doctois?

Stop it at once, shame.

But yeah, I love It's not rude.

I'm not the one who's pussy.

I'd just like to throw out there though.

I think the plot.

I think the plot.

Of course, I'm here.

I think the plot of these 2 hours holds together better than the plot of the last 3 James Bond films.

Ooh, not a high.

Actually, not all controversial.

But the thing is, as much as, you know, we ditch the spy trapping trappings for the 1st half.

We get them back in the 2nd half.

Yes.

And I love, I love the doctor picking up Ada and Eniat Khan.

No, nor any car.

Sorry, nor Iniak Khan.

I beg your pardon.

[06:11]

Um, And yeah, I just, I loved the chemistry between those three.

Some people on Twitter have suggested.

Actually, there's kind of more chemistry between these 3 than the regular 4 and it's like...

Did you see that thing that someone did on Twitter when they read it?

she was like, are we being replaced?

And just cut out the middle.

But this was so much fun.

Like, I know I enjoyed last year, but last year was very sedate and I think it was very sedate, whereas this is completely action-packed, but it's not like they've changed everyone's characterisations.

You know, it's not like watching an early episode of Star Trek Next Gen and then watching one from the last series and it's a completely different show.

It's still recognisably the same show.

You can see where we've got to this point.

But it's just last year was satisfying.

This is so much more satisfying for me.

And we're only 2 Eps in.

So I noticed the thing I noticed particularly in that scene where they're stealing the car, that one of the things that Chibnell does is unnecessary, unnecessarily narrate the action.

[07:16]

Thank you as if he's Shakespeare.

And so, well, actually, as actually, as if he's one of those goz, whatever, yellow bounded school footnotes.

But, but, and he started to laugh.

Because it's a bit obvious.

So last week, there were 2 occasions where someone narrated the action and the other person said, yes, character, I can see that.

Today, I mean, in this episode, it was Graham.

It was it was Ryan.

Don't tell him the plan, right?

And Ryan's only telling them the plan so that we know what the plan is.

It did for...

Yes, it did feel as if the the gloves were off, but the the rubber gloves were properly slicked for the operation.

It's less William Shakespeare and more...

Billy Wackle dagger.

Okay, stop that at once.

I don't know who that is.

What we haven't talked about yet is the other plot. talked a little bit about some Graham Yaz and Ryan being off on their own sort of side plot.

[08:19]

As they ought to be.

Actually, I quite like this pairing and then giving the doctor a sort of temporary sort of fam.

How do we think that that strand of the plot went particularly since that's Australian with Sasha Dewan in it?

I quite liked it, but, again, there's that whole narrating the plot thing where the doctor has to explain to her what he is.

Instead of that happening naturally through dialogue.

It's.

Oh, you're, you know, a Lovelace. bloody, bloody, bloody blood.

Inputum, inputum.

And then she does it again.

Well, couldn't we have just found that out?

And I would have thought that with previous showrunners, that would have been done, but it's...

I mean, I actually really like the fact that he's taken these 2 sort of unsung.

I mean, I knew about Ada Lovelace, you know, she has a programming language named after her.

She's like a big deal.

I didn't know about Noor Khan at all.

They're minor diz for the plot.

[09:22]

I just felt that she was a bolton.

And when we finally do get Babbage and Ada Lovelace in a Doctor Who episode, which I've been longing for.

I mean, as you know, the NAs did similar with the 8th doctor.

Yeah, Babb just been in it, hasn't he?

Yeah, yeah. and Lovelace as well.

And of course, Alan Turing and the cheering test.

Well, there was a picture of Turing, wasn't there?

Yes, there was.

And a picture of Steve Wozniak, apparently.

I do love that they're...

Kathy Griffinson.

I do love that they've chosen unsung important women.

Yeah, and a Muslim woman, like a Muslim woman who was a hero of the Second World War.

It was a little bit upsetting to learn afterwards that that a few months later, Khan ended up in Dakau and then dead.

Well, I remember when her when her casting was leaked.

I think I think it was on the actress's resume.

And that's how a lot of people find out about casting news because of course actors have to list jobs on their resume in order to get more jobs.

[10:25]

Um, but I remember there was all this handwringing and consternation of, oh, this is going to be the, this is going to be the historical celebrity episode and they're going to have the execution and it's going to be Yaz, you can't rescue your great auntie because she's also a kind.

But I remember someone on gallipery base pointing out, you do realise that Khan is actually quite a common name.

You know, it's like the equivalent of Smith or Jones.

Yeah, just put on a pair of comedy rubber breasts and launch yourself into a Star Trek.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's it.

Or just be Bernadette Cumberbatch and you can do calm as well.

Really hoping you were going to say Bernadette Peters, because it's almost the same performance.

I want to talk, please, if we can about the casting of the major villain, the major anti-doctor, because we haven't talked about that yet.

So we talked a little bit about it last week.

But you weren't here, of course.

No, what I was doing. waxing, probably.

But now I'm waning.

I really wasn't happy and it felt, it just didn't feel like a good fit.

[11:27]

There's nothing wrong with the actor, but these things are ensemble pieces, and this is a very tight ensemble piece.

And I just wasn't feeling it.

You're too nice a person to be playing this person.

Whereas Michelle, as an actor, whereas Michelle Gomez convinces me of her worth in everything she ever does because she only ever plays Michelle Gomez.

It's like the nicest person ever.

But her shadow is very much...

But her comedy persona is dark.

Well, I've just seen Sabrina.

Nah.

But anyway, no, it's the Gomez show.

But those last moments when we talk about the burning of gala free.

I thought, no, you are an actor with gravitas and you are holding this point.

I'm really disappointed.

He wasn't played by a womb man because I really would have liked.

I just would have liked a mirror, and we've talked about this before, as Nathan famously says on this spot, and other podcasts, that the master is always the doctor in apotheo in the darker apotheosis, but has to be a little bit a little bit more watchable, a little bit more attractive, a little bit more meretricious, if you like.

[12:33]

And I'm not getting that with this...

That's not how I feel about him.

I actually really like him.

But you're dirty man.

Well, I Well, I do think he's super attractive.

Don't ask Peter.

But I think he and Jody were incredibly strong in those scenes together and I think that that's the best acting that Jody's done because she hasn't had to be angry.

She hasn't actually hadn't...

No.

And the expression is my family again.

Is that what she calls it?

Her expression of contempt and her refusal to let the master win, even when she knelt before him and called him master.

I thought it was fantastic.

And then the scene on top of the Eiffel Tower was amazingly good.

And so I like the 2 of them together.

Ada, can I just say, I completely disapprove of Ada, you know, shooting the master with a machine.

[13:35]

Oh, she got him.

She got him. you know, well, yeah, exactly.

And then threw a grenade at him.

But I quite liked with that whole Neil thing.

The doctor sounds less angry and enraged than she does bored.

It's like, are we doing this again?

No, yeah, she won't give him a win.

She just won't give him a win.

I like that. like that a lot.

You know what, though?

Something Richard said that hadn't occurred to me before is something the master always tries to be, and you've mentioned this before, Nathan, is more fun than the doctor.

And Sasha's master is not, he's fun in a couple of places, but he was giving me real Heath Ledger as the Joker kind of energy in that every joke is actually just, I want to skin you alive right now, Lenny Henry, but I, oh, I need you.

You know how it is.

Which makes him really scary. appealing to what?

I mean, scary and in a believable way that, you know, when even when John Sim was playing the insane master, that's 15 minutes, everybody.

[14:40]

Okay.

Even when we had that master who was supposed to be completely unhinged.

I believe this master, would, you know, would kill anybody and he does.

He just zaps people left, right, and centre.

That one where the woman's sort of relieved that she's, you know, she said, no, I didn't move and then he kills her anyway.

Look, we are going to get back to discussing the master again in 2025 when we do this episode, this on flight through entirety.

But I do want to just very quickly end by doing a little quick chat around about poor old Lenny Henry this episode.

Yes.

Or as we call it, the dearth of Dawn Fringe.

Fantastic.

Yeah, he just didn't win it for me.

I think he did very well last week. was great last week.

I think that line, did I mention it last week where Jody says, I'm very difficult to get rid of and he just smiles and goes, are you?

[15:41]

Yeah, and I think he wins that confrontation.

Also, the darkness of he just kills his mother.

Yeah, but what?

Okay.

Like, what for?

Because then the fam turn up and it's like they're being set up for her to be like the empty child or whatever.

I think I think something not necessarily was filmed and cut, but I think something was cut in scripts there to show us what these human hard drives would look like.

He was going to, he was using her to store his bootleg MP3 collection.

Like in that scene, the dialogue was cut.

Oh, nebulous.

No, no, it was like expectations.

It was fish, live show. an ugly expectations.

When are we doing the bleak expectations of doing it now?

I keep saying we can only do a podcast with big Harry can be funny at that, frankly.

Just didn't invite some Tom Allen onto the podcast.

I don't see a problem with that.

Tom Allen in bleak expectations.

I'm right here.

Because he does a really bitchy thing on radio 4, which is not for this, but go on.

[16:44]

Keep going.

He's he's pip.

He's pip bim.

I have no idea.

Yeah, marvellous.

Tom Allen is not actually very nice.

Have you heard that one?

I've seen, no, haven't, but I've seen I've seen bleak expectations recorded live and slightly flirted with Tom Allen in the foyer.

Also, you were looking in the 2nd row, and so you were like bashing around.

I just... while we're bashing eyelids.

I'm trying to remember Yaz's family, but I just had this thing that I wanted one of Yaz's family members to have been also been playing the master.

And it's not the same.

Sonya was the master.

I just want the facelift thing.

I just wanted that to be written.

I didn't, they don't have to be the same character and it probably wouldn't have worked, but I just don't feel, um, Jody is being, or the doctor is being equalled.

But I did like the awful business of her kneeling, I was going to refer to, and having to call a man master.

That was interesting.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think the script is conscious of that.

And that is an expression of his evil, that he, that he would do, that he would demand this of a woman.

[17:46]

You know, that, that's, I think.

He even calls her love in that really dismissive way.

Yeah, yeah.

Can't hear you, love.

Yeah.

So, I guess the final thing to talk about is how do we feel about Gallifre, have we entered a new era of the show where each alternate showrunner will destroy Gallifre and then resurrect Gallifre?

In a couple of years time, will Pete McTie bring Galiframe?

We've entered the Nathan era, where Gallifrey is tidally dead. and cannot be referred to other than its ashen waste and form.

I'm actually quite glad to see it go.

Yeah, I hate it.

Well, they didn't do anything with it when they brought it back.

This is the thing, right?

And I was saying this to a friend of mine.

It's just like, he was really annoyed.

Oh, you know, he's blown it up again and what for?

I'm like, because Gallifrey has not been interesting since the deadly assassin.

And every showrunner diminishes Gallifrey Burger?

[18:46]

How very dare you?

I really liked those beige surfers.

Invasion of time.

Look, I'm not saying I don't enjoy invasion.

John Tyrant tripping over pool furniture.

I'm not saying I don't enjoy invasion of time and the trial of a time lord and the 5 doctors and the 3 doctors cough.

Arc of Infinity got made.

But I'm just saying...

Gallifrey is more interesting when it's been fridged.

Yeah.

I, I mean, I think probably Moffat, when, like at the end, when he brings it back, it looks like we're refocusing the show to be the quest for Gallifrey.

There was even a board game called...

But it looked like rather than the doctor being a sort of, you know, lonely wanderer, he had a goal that at some point he'd find his home.

And then we never followed that up, really.

It gets a sort of brief mention the following episode and then then, oh, it turns out it was here all along.

And so it doesn't actually matter.

What I worry about is giving Chris Chibnall the keys to rewriting history of the timelords, to be honest.

[19:50]

Because I think Moffatt got accused a lot of wanting to kind of rewrite the doctor's background, but he always did it in a way that basically left the show intact and it didn't actually matter.

I wonder whether this revelation is going to be everything that we might hope it would be.

I would like to think is the cart more master plan, coming to fruition favourite.

Yaz is going to become a time lord?

No, looms are real.

That's the line.

And the doctor's the other.

There have always been looms.

All right.

This is getting far, far too silly for words.

Unless anyone has an absolute, you know, urgent, what do we call it?

sort of closing statement.

We might wind up.

So we will be back next week.

Obviously, you can hear us at flight through entirety and we have all of our sort of coverage of series 3 in the can.

[20:52]

And we will be back, obviously, this time next week for, I'm not going to say the title of the episode, but I'm going to spoil things by saying it's written by Ed Heim.

So I'm quite excited by that.

It's a remake of the leisure height.

It is.

At least from the trailer.

I'll try to make it properly this time.

So until next time, let's have a moment of silence for all the plastic sofas that perished in the master's destruction of gala frame.

So hoping for Andrew to take one last stand. we're done.

Thank you very much for listening and good night.

Go look up a walk to work with Whittaker on YouTube.

Oh yes, absolutely.

We don't need to hear that, Richard.