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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.