The Ghost Monument

[0:00]

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Jody Interterterra, the only Doctor Who Flash cast, Under Attack from Giant Genetically Engineered Bandages.

We've all watched the episode this week.

And so we'll go around and find out what everyone thought.

Let some, let's start with Brendan.

Hi, so, um, yeah, this is an interesting one, isn't it?

Because...

I'm trying to decide whether to give it a 6 or a 7 out of 10 and I think it's going to be a 7, but I have to say if I were to give a one word review of this episode, it would be underwhelming.

Ooh.

Um, I just, I just kind of felt, It was very bare bones.

Um, you know, we kind of moved from peril to peril, but none of them really felt like a massively dangerous situation.

And I was talking to, um, a friend of the podcast, Matt H today.

[01:04]

And we kind of came to the conclusion that it's, It's actually because this one, we kind of felt, would work better as a 2 parter, and you would have more time to build up the threat and what have you.

But I think what saves it for me. and does probably make it a 7 rather than a 6 is the character interactions.

Yeah.

And so, you know, last week we had to establish all the regulars, but we still had a couple of minor characters.

This week is stripped down even further.

There's only 3 supporting characters, one of which Ellen, played by Art Malik, only appears in 2 scenes.

So the rest of the time where with, um, was it, um, Efro, Esto, Epso, and Armstrong, yes?

No, Angstrom. you know like a measurement of very, very small distances.

Yeah, yeah.

So yeah, so we got to see the our league characters interacting with each other and interacting with these 2 guest cast.

[02:09]

Um, Something that I think happened, and this goes back to something Todd said last week, I really hope they do something interesting with Yaz soon because right now she's Nissa.

Yeah, yeah.

She's nice.

She's nice.

She and she is clearly a very talented actress.

I'm not.

I'm not taking anything away from Mandate Gill, but I just got to the end of the episode.

I'm like, what did, what, what, what, what did Yaz?

What did Yaz do this week?

She had a, you know, she had a nice conversation with Angstrom.

But I'm going to accentuate the positive.

Jody continues to be really, really impressive.

Um, I saw someone on Twitter say today that one of the things they really like about Jody's doctor is that, you know, the 10th doctor in the 11th doctor would go on about, oh, you know, I'm the smartest person in the room before they did anything.

Whereas in this episode, Jody manages to Crashlander spacecraft while keeping everyone alive and um, figure out what the what the danger is before she tells anyone how clever she is.

[03:22]

Show don't tell.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, she still says, oh, by the way, I'm clever, but it's it, she's not volunteering it the way that tenant would do.

She, it's kind of, I think it's Angstrom saying, but how do you know that?

Oh, did I not mention?

I'm really clever.

It makes the other, the other, the last few doctors really sound quite arrogant.

Yeah, no.

They're super obnoxious.

What did what did you think, Todd?

I'll phrase it like this.

The newly regenerated 5th doctor in Yoohoo manages to take control of the spaceship and crash made it on a pretty, a planet full of, a lot of stand and danger on the surface, and decides that it's better to probably go underground, but does end up sort of meeting some Android.

Oh, I mean robot that she didn't know was there.

She tells her good companion, Nissa, Brandon.

Oh, yes, as we know.

But she's completely forgotten about her, which in fact is very true.

[04:25]

And Yaz appears to be okay with that for most of the episode, but she does get to reminisce about her father and do what she does best.

Investigate, scientific lab slash garage.

Meanwhile, Ad Drake, or should I say, uh, Ryan decides that he's going to act like a petulant teenager and not take anybody's advice.

Except, of course, the doctor tries to build a bridge to him, but he decides that he's going to try and save the day by putting himself into some alien technology or at least his arm.

And does that go very well?

Well, maybe it does.

Maybe it doesn't.

Meanwhile, sorry.

Meanwhile, Keegan, oh, I meant Graham, decides to wear some really, uh, uh, funky, um, Glasses or outfits that he didn't sketch and appear to have come out of nowhere.

But is taking the advice of Aunt Vanessa to be pucky and strong and actually be the character that I like the most, but lots of good advice and great one liners.

[05:33]

Um, only to discover that, of course, at the end of the day, that behind everything is the evil, that killed, um, killed, um, and that evil being, of course, either, um, well, who was it, Khalid?

Oh, no, sorry, Dipple Treeve.

Oh no, I meant Kim Shaw.

But in the end, everything worked out because they do get back to the Tartars.

Because after all, that's where it all began.

Oh, I can't tell whether you liked it or not.

Okay, continue these all the season.

I was just trying to, the moment that, um, the doctor said, I've forgotten about you to Yaz.

I just went, oh my god, it's Nissa, please, and so, Brendan, you touched on that point really well.

Look, yeah.

I thought I just thought, wow.

This episode is usually one of the most beautiful episode that I've never seen in doctor.

I really, and as the doctor said, we're better as a team.

[06:35]

And as a team, all their team at moment.

I thought works from India.

Individually, I think, at the moment, there are weaknesses.

Um, I enjoyed this much more than last week and I certainly give it an 8 out of 10, but the story, storyline is very linear and so I kind of think that, you know, repeated viewings that may not hold up and I'd like to have a storyline that both of these storylines have been quite linear for me.

Um, I like the whole idea of having the space race and all that sort of thing.

Um, but the urgency.

I don't know if there's an urgency, I think having the longer episode, you have action sequences and then you have sort of lulls in the action, but you get those character moments.

And I really like the incidental music this week.

Again, it was very old school who, and it allowed you to listen to dialogue and thought I really actually enjoyed it a lot.

Oh, good. excellent.

I'm gonna move on to James.

[07:38]

See, the reasons that you're not sure about it, Todd.

I think actually the reasons why I quite enjoyed it.

Just so different from what we've been getting for the last 5 or 6 years because um, there isn't that frantic pace.

It has room to, you know, spend with the incidental characters.

Um, And you get to actually flesh them out, more you get to, um, some great performances from the guest cast.

Oh, yeah, I think they were all brilliant.

I mean, I totally agree.

Look, most of the casting of the last 2 episodes has been really impressive.

Still Andy Pryor, isn't it?

I think so.

He hasn't left.

Yeah, yeah.

No, it's still Andy Pryor.

And, look, no, I also, the music is just beautiful.

So it's so very different from, again, I think it's just because it's so fresh.

Everything is just so new and everything you expect having watched this for like the last, yeah, well, your entire life.

[08:46]

On and off over, you know, 35, 40, almost 15 year period.

Shut up. for some of us.

At least it seems like that sometimes, especially in the last few years.

Um, it's, it's just so fresh and um, the, the, the, Incidental music is just, so atmosphere, it's atmospheric, I think, is, is why I really like it.

It's sort of just, almost you don't notice it's there a lot of the time and occasionally it just swells up in the mix and um, there's just this, this, the, the music, the, um, the way that, It seems to be being pitched at the moment is, there's just so much hope. in, like, in, in, like it just feels like it's gained this sort of sense of optimism that has been, you know, kind of missing.

[09:51]

Like, I mean, I really liked the Capaldi years and I enjoyed it as a fan, but it was very dark and I don't think particularly welcoming if you didn't know what the hell was going on.

Um, yeah, I think that's, I think that that's exactly right.

And I think that the figures have sort of shown that.

Um, I guess that I want to say that the 1st time that I watched this, I thought that it was really very thin, and I try to imagine doing a 45 minute episode, a 45 minute episode of Flight through Entirety, on this episode and thought, I don't think it can be done.

I don't think that there's really enough going on.

So, yeah, so I was a little bit disappointed.

I thought it was sort of super linear.

I thought that the message that we're all better, if we work together was kind of banal, and, you know, like I just, I miss the weirdness and the hyper reality of Doctor Who.

[10:56]

And, um, you know, it seemed sort of not gun exactly, but it seems to have broken the gunfrock dichotomy by being super serious, um, and, but not being like super sort of fun and clever and stuff.

And, you know, like I was a bit worried.

And I've just watched it again tonight, and I have to say that I enjoyed it a great deal more.

Um, because I think that the, that, you know, the teamwork thing is a bit trite, but it does land really well and all of the characters, I, you know, um, occupy sort of different areas in relationship to that idea, you know, particularly Epso and um, and Angstrom, but also the regulars too, and the doctor as well.

So I thought that worked really well.

I think the show looks absolutely amazing, and I found my 2nd watch really, very enjoyable.

I'm a little bit worried, I have to say.

[11:56]

How do we feel a console?

Oh, we have to talk about the TARDIS.

Thumbs up, Todd.

No, I'm not giving a thumbs up.

I'm giving a sideways thumb at the moment.

I like the door coming in.

The whole console area reminds me a bit of like Krypton Superman.

I actually wanted...

I actually wanted to go, um, old school retro like Hartnall Troughton, um, very much so because I really loved Capaldi Tardis, so, and I looked very cramped, but, but the jury's still out for me.

I'll wait till we see how it feels.

It'll be nice to see other directors handle it, actually, because I thought it, it seemed like a massive space, but, you know, there's those sort of columns in the main sort of console area which make me wonder, you know, how we're going to shoot it. certainly, I thought it was shot really well.

And her reaction to it was amazing.

What did you think, Brendan?

Well, Richard can't be with us tonight, but I just received a text from him saying, make sure you mention the Himalayan rock salt crystal. and then a word I can't mention on the podcast to describe the central area.

[13:07]

Um, look, I, I like the idea of the design and I like the crystal idea because, you know, we had the coral and then we had the sort of kitty, kitty bang, bang tartis.

And then we had the submarine. kind of tartars.

The only thing is, from a shot composition point of view, those, those stanchions, those sort of supports around the console, they're really, really close to it.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, it seems very crammed.

Yeah, like, Um, yeah, I feel it wasn't terribly well shot because we got that wonderful bit at the end where there's a custard cream dispenser.

Which...

Recognise that.

I didn't even see that, but I couldn't look at what it was.

But I found out what that is because they're putting special features up on on the, on the, don't forget to subscribe to the official Doctor Who YouTube channel channel.

But what it is, the designer just pulled Jody aside one day and said, can't tell you why, but what's your favourite biscuit?

[14:10]

And so the custard cream is Jodie Whitaker's favourite biscuit.

And I really quite like that, but...

Yeah, I'm interested to see more of the set and see them in, see them in the set more.

Yeah.

A bugbear.

A bugbear I kind of have, though, right, is that with the Matt Smith set, Well, even with the Eccleston tenant set, you know, the Sonic Screwdriver was designed to have the same kind of cracked ceramic effect as the console.

The Matt Smith sonic, um, the emitter tip was designed to look like the glass sculpture in the central column.

And now with Jody's TARDIS, it appears that the console has been designed to match the crystal at the end of her Sonic, but the Sonic doesn't come from the TARDIS. this time.

Okay, that was the cyberman telling us that our time was up.

I forgot that I'd changed the timer ending sound.

[15:11]

Sorry, man.

Hang on, want to read that.

I read that as because she uses it to tempt the TARDIS back.

It feeds the Sonic screwdriver and and, you know, it's a time machine.

So you can travel back in its own timeline and reconstruct itself along the same lines as her sonic screwdriver.

Okay, fine.

Yep, we can head cannon, anything. 10 out of 10.

I do like the little spinning crystal tartar.

Yeah, that's...

Yeah, they're going to sell a sponge for them.

Yep.

I'm sorry, Todd, what was that?

What do we think of the opening title?

Oh, I like them in that they are off putting in a way that the original was.

So it's really hard to sort of cast your back to 1963, but it was the 1st bit of electronic music that a lot of people heard and it had these inexplicable shapes and was like nothing at all on television and people were scared of it.

[16:14]

Little kids were scared of it.

I can just about imagine kids being scared of these opening titles.

I think they're and the music distorts and that kind of thing.

They're off putting.

And I actually quite like them.

I, look, I really, I really liked the opening titles, the only problem I have with them is the treatment on the logo.

It looks muddy and like it, there's not enough, it doesn't pop enough.

I don't know.

We've come out of our long national nightmare of the Moffat logo.

Yeah, for God's sake.

It reminded me of the treatment on the Eccleston series.

Like, yeah, it didn't...

There was not enough contrast between the logo and the vortex.

It just kind of, it's there, then it kind of flies at the screen and, and yeah.

And it's over too soon.

I think we're done unless there's an emergency remark that Todd wants to make.

I'm not sold on Jody.

Oh, I think that's all we have time?

[17:16]

No, really.

We have.

All right. you know, yeah.

Yeah.

Another thing.

CDBC, kids television and I'm up and down and it's Peter Davidson all over again for me.

You see, I think I think?

Yeah.

I mean, people always say that Peter Davidson's the nice doctor, but I can't get that at all.

I think Jody is the nicest doctor that we've had.

Sometimes Pat is nice in the way that Jody is nice.

Pete's always exasperated with everyone.

He's constantly annoying.

We might wind that up there.

Okay, so Apple Podcast is yet to approve us, but if you want to listen to this on your phone in your poker hatcher of choice, just go to Jodyintaterterra.com and click on subscribe on your device and with a bit of luck, your podcatcher will be clever enough to realise it's a podcast feed and we'll open it there.

[18:19]

We'll let you know once it's available.

We'll be back exactly a week from now with the next episode, which I'm not going to give you the title of because potential spoilers.

Make sure that you also check out Flight through Entirety at FlightthroughEntirety.com.

And that's really what I have to say.

Should I say thank you very much for listening and good night.

Yes Okay.

Good night.

Bye.

Good night.

I don't think any of us even said the ghost monument, you know.

Could I?

Whoops.