It Takes You Away

[0:00]

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Jody into Terror, the only Doctor Who flash cast that can definitively tell you what it is that actually takes you away.

What is it, Todd?

Oh, good grief, you've asked that question.

Well, am I going to get taken away by answer?

shot.

Well, while Todd tries and works out the answer to that question.

I want to introduce you all to Colin, Colin Neal, who is longtime friend of the podcast appearing on it for the 1st time.

How are you, Colin?

I'm great.

Thank you for having me.

Oh, no, it's been great having you.

It's this is a very exciting new era in flight through entirety and Jody into Tara.

Um, uh, can I start by asking you what you thought of uh, of the episode?

I thought it was okay to quite good.

I think I'm probably not as enthusiastic about it as the Twitter verse at the moment, but I've watched it twice now and at the time, the thing that really struck me was Solaris.

[01:06]

It was trying to be Solaris, the Stanislav's Lem, uh, Tarkovsky film with a George Clooney, uh, and the original Russian one where a planet would bring people back from the dead. to kind of make friends with them.

And that sort of stuck out in my mind as, so I couldn't quite get over that because they were like, they were clearly doing that.

And also the mirror was very John Carpenter, Prince of Darkness.

I thought that would.

So I was a little bit thrown by some of the sort of homages they were doing or ideas that they were taking.

But, you know, I thought it was good that the main the main issues I have really is that they just didn't stop talking.

Like the doctor and it was just flat out.

It's like it could have been more suspenseful if they hadn't gone, oh, let me tell you about the soil here and it went my way out.

It's just like, no, just slow it down, give it some pace.

I don't care what the sheep are going to do in 2189. kind of do.

[02:08]

I thought you would.

I knew you would.

I kind of enjoyed that.

But and also, yeah, no, I totally agree with you on the stop talking, just do it.

Yeah, exactly.

You put another 8 minutes.

So, actually, do, don't, don't, sure don't tell.

Yeah.

No, it's um, it's good.

But it wasn't, it didn't blow me away.

I kind of felt, we knew Grace was going to come back somehow because we'd seen her in episode, you know, 3 or...

Yeah, one of those.

And they would do it in a good way.

And it, it, the episode to me had a couple of really good themes about it.

One was the way we treat people, we love to protect them. the way Eric was treating Hannah by protecting her, putting the speakers around the house, but then being very selfish in a sense and going off.

And that's very much what Salaris is about.

[03:08]

So it kind of did that for me.

And also, um, moving on as well.

I think they kind of reached this point, which we knew was going to happen where Ryan would accept him as grandad.

He would finish his cheese and pickle sandwich and then go, you know, talk to Grace and now I can move on.

But, you know, the, the, it just felt, again, with this whole season, I'm feeling, it's good, but it's not awesome.

And, um, don't get me started on the frog.

No, no, no.

We will get together, you should get to the frog.

I know you want to talk about the frog.

Brendan, frog.

Frog, love it.

Friend of the podcast, Alex Gibbs, a message me earlier to say, is this the greatest fan divide since Guns and Fox in the 80s?

Frog or the frog?

And well, yeah, but I think we should just rename it Guns and Frog, to be honest.

But yeah, I certainly see what Colin's saying about the plot borrowing from other areas.

[04:12]

Those 2 hadn't occurred to me.

The things that occurred to me as I was watching it were it.

Um Stranger Things.

Contact.

Yep, rainbow connection, obviously.

But also, and you know, because this is my shtick, the Nintendo Game Boy Game links Awakening, which is part of the Zelda series, in which this island you're on, you're working to discover what the mystery of the island is and you discover it is a dream within a creature about to be born.

And by saving the creature, everyone on the island ceases to exist.

And it's the 1st video game that ever made me cry.

And, um, I, I actually had a bit of a, um, a sob at the end of this episode when, when Ryan says grandad, and it was a scene that could have so easily been overplayed and overwrought with emotion, but instead it's, it's very quiet, which is true to both those characters, um, and, you know, it immediately is followed by a joke.

[05:19]

We're not, we're not being mawkish about this and it, I was having a conversation.

I think possibly with um, with you, Colin, on, on Sunday about, you know, with, with Clara's grief in season 9, it overtakes the whole series.

But Graham and Ryan's grief here, it is dealt with, and it is referred to, but they're also off exploring the universe, and I think it's been handled in a much better way here.

Um, I did not expect Grace.

No, I didn't either.

I thought I'd assumed that Gibma was lying about her being a recurring character.

And then when she appeared in arachnets, I thought, oh, well, that's it.

So I was surprised.

Yeah, um, if I could bring up the one thing I didn't like because yesterday I gave this a 10 out of 10, but then I thought about it.

Um, the anti-zone adds nothing to the plot except Jeopardy.

Yeah.

You know, um, it's so much so that I discovered today, there's another alien creature in the anti-zone, and his scenes were entirely cut for time, and it makes no difference to the plot, was there?

[06:27]

Yeah, it was the magma creature.

There were some shriven zars in there.

Todd, what made you cry?

I cried at the end with Graham and Ryan and it was really emotional and it was a great payoff from this season and the whole thing just intrigued me.

It was like Pete's episode a few weeks ago, I just kept wanting to know what, where it was going and where, and how it was going to be resolved, and surprise listeners.

I didn't hate the frog.

Actually, it was cheesy enough for me to actually just sit there and go, okay, I'm going to pay that one.

Um, and, um, you know, I could, I could have done without the doctor eating the soiled crap at the beginning.

I hate that stuff.

It just doesn't work.

But she was good throughout, and I thought that the young girl playing Hannah, the actual blind actress, was terrific.

It reminded me a bit of like the anti-zone just reminded me of a bit of Planet of Evil, like being on the edge of matter and anti-matter.

And I just kind of thought, oh, is this a concept, like a Bob Baker and Dave Martin, that actually kind of...

[07:33]

One extra idea we don't need.

Which they cut, obviously.

And then and the moths freak me out because I hate moths and so I was just like, oh.

My favourite bit, they eat Kevin Eldon and it's not very gory.

And then one of them comes out of his eye socket and you kind of think, oh, whoa.

Yeah, it's the 4th episode in a row that I've really that I've enjoyed and telling him enough, it's the 4th episode not written by Chris Chipnall.

That's all I can say.

Yes, yes, I agree with you there, Todd.

Um, so, uh, which one are you?

James.

Apparently Brandon.

Do you have an opinion?

No, King Jones.

King James.

Not King James.

Not non-union, Brendan, equivalent.

What do you think?

I really enjoyed it.

Um, I...

[08:34]

I totally agree.

Um, with the points that you made Todd about, um, the get on with it.

I think, you know, I remember I said that once in this podcast already.

There's a lot of speechifying in this season and it is kind of, it's, it's, that's one of the only problems I really have structurally with the show at the moment. is like, it's, it's an extra, what, like 20% longer than it used to be.

It should have the space to tell, you know, a more fleshed out story.

I think keep getting...

It's only 5 minutes longer, but it feels longer.

Yeah, it does.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, yes, I guess so.

But it just I find that I just find that's being frustrating me a little.

I think, you know, the solar track was such an important idea.

[09:36]

And it was just entirely outlined for us in one big ass speech from Jody.

And it stepped out to make the tea.

Well, but I mean, you know that, and, you know, the fact that she's its friend, like thematically that works tremendously well, but it was all just told to us. you know we didn't see it.

Yeah, it should have been introduced earlier and more and more organically into the plot.

And then off...

Because it's not helping Jody because she's just Basil exposition.

Yeah, I was going to say, do you think there's a problem with the way they're writing for Jody in the sense that they've overindexed on making her super doctorate.

And actually, it's reducing the ability for her to have range because she's just kind of going, you know, like this and this, listen, and I don't talk talk, talk.

Let me do this with my screwdriver.

And it's too much.

She can do better.

Reminds me of Matt Smith in his 1st season.

But Matt has a kind of like a way that Pete has of taking boring lines and doing something really interesting with them.

[10:38]

And like, I don't think Jody's quite found that yet.

I think she's super charismatic and I like her a lot.

But I'd like to see her given more to do emotionally.

I think.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

See, I'm going to disagree because I really enjoyed the exposition scene last night.

You know, I was aware that I was watching an exposition scene.

But I thought, I thought after the episode, okay, we really, with this kind of concept, we have 2 choices, we have Jody telling us all the frog telling us.

So I think I prefer Jodie.

But the other thing, I'm not telling us, you know, like, that's the other thing.

I had enough of not being told what things are over the last 6 years.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

I would rather have it laid out for me, but I think what Jody does bring to those features is the Elizabeth Slayton quality of 2 emotions at once.

Like when she says to Yaz, I'm really, really scared.

I can believe she is really, really scared and bloody excited. really, really scared.

[11:39]

You know.

Can you?

I don't.

No, not at all.

Oh okay.

I would like, I mean, I thought that there was some good writing in this where there was a subtext for a change.

And the one scene that I really liked was the frog thing, you know, where Graham and Ryan had both bought Grace a Frog, one Christmas because...

You would have a frog necklace.

Well, they don't, but it's because they don't talk to it.

Yeah, no, I think that's cute.

No, no.

You know, because they don't talk to one another.

They don't have a relationship.

And this is the episode where he finally calls.

Her grandad.

And that tells us that, and it's sort of a character thing, but it's not, and you had a bad relationship back then, you know, or whatever.

Yeah.

No, no, it's it's a good it's a good way of building up to that final moment of him calling a Graham grandad.

Yeah.

And you could see it coming a mile often, we've been signposting this from episode one.

Next week, fist pump.

[12:39]

I said that at the beginning.

We got the grandad.

I don't know whether we're going to get fist pump now after this week, but who knows?

Do you think that the 7 grandmothers or of the doctor mentions is a call back to the 7 original doctors in the original run?

Thus, her favourite is number five.

Anyway, I'm just saying it.

Maybe.

No, that's a good point.

That's a good point.

Yeah, they were all just Sylvester McCoy and John Pertie in drag, bringing little Jody Waker up.

Well, the other line was...

Doctor, what about reversing the polarity?

Yeah. my language.

Yeah, I loved that because it's it's a meta- it's a meta joke because, you know, it that's a Doctor Who thing.

But in terms of the series, in Doctor Who, we know that Star Trek is a TV show, Star Trek used reverse the polarity in a few episodes as an homage to Doctor Who, and that's where Yaz has picked it up.

[13:40]

It's just wonderfully vertical thing.

And it also got, yes, to actually have a moment because the other 2 had so many moments.

Oh, can I just tell you the other moment that I thought was great?

You know, the thing that the doctor draws on the wall about Eric, the message.

And then Eric comes back and he sees it and they don't say anything.

And so we're left.

We're allowed a space to think about what might be going on rather than just being told.

And I loved that because there is that thing where both Eric and Graham risk someone who's still alive in order to be with a fantasy version of the person that you've lost.

And like it has, and even the doctor does that and has to make the decision to go back to her friends rather than her sort of strange fantasy friend at the end.

And I'm not sure that was sort of fully sold.

But like it had a unity to it.

[14:41]

It had something to say in a way that the Saranga conundrum...

Or so many of the other previous...

Get me stuck.

Yeah, but it did have a little cartoon character, which it had in common with that.

Yeah, yeah, me too. frogs in the background.

Are they raining down?

Rod and I did both say at the end of this one though.

It's like, yes, frogs, wonderful, you know, quirky, interesting.

But I said, why couldn't it be Susan?

And he said, why couldn't it be Rose?

You know, why couldn't it be someone significant to the doctor?

Like the frog thing is well explained.

It was someone...

But don't you think?

But is Solar Tract really liked Grace.

So it gave her Grace's voice and it took the form of something that Grace loved.

Yeah.

You know, that's more genuine to the character than faking someone else, he kind of...

[15:45]

Yeah.

I like the fact I like the fact that it wasn't a former companion or something like that at first.

At 1st I thought, oh, no, I want to say like river or something like that just to give us a bit of, you know, fan whatever.

But then when I thought about it, I thought, no, it was the right decision.

Yeah, green puppet from...

It's never the wrong decision.

I, I, I take, I take your, I take your point.

It was no longer trying to trick her.

Yeah, yeah.

No, I thought that was that was super great.

But again, I just thought her being friends with the frog came out of the out of thin air a little bit.

Because she's like the frog.

It is that theme though, isn't it?

It's friendship, it's cooperation.

It's nonviolence that's that's massive in this season.

Yeah.

And I just hope it is subverted in the future.

I hope they twist some of that.

Such that you do get the emotional range with Jody when she does have to do something that she doesn't want to do.

Yeah.

When there are proper monsters. decision not to be violent not to take decisive action actually comes back and...

[16:49]

Yeah.

Like damages people.

I wanted the Optra.

Was it the menoptera in the in the moths?

The Venom Bros?

Yeah.

Venom, come on.

What are the what are the month for things?

What are they?

Yeah, flesh mops.

Yeah, why can there have been baby Minopra?

I thought they were really good.

I like them a lot.

And did they have 8 legs or did I dream that?

No, the rats had 6 legs, though.

The rat has 66 eggs.

And plus Kevin Eldon in latex, which would be the episode title if he's ribbons of the 7 stomachs.

I thought it was like a bad...

Oh, what's...

Oh, yeah, or the people from the Christmas invasion or...

Or Will freaking Wensus.

He's one of the pie people. who's really let himself go.

Or a bad, um, oh, it's on the tip of my tongue.

Reboss operation, that little guy that they talk to.

[17:50]

Oh, Binroe, Binroe.

Yeah, a bad a bad bin row.

I mean, I like the idea that that, again, the space between these 2 dimensions is a ridiculous fantasy world, you know, with goblins and things or trolls.

And we're in Norway, you know, like, which is where those things come from.

Like I thought at least the imagery was sort of consistent with where we were.

Quick shout out to how brilliant the show continues to look.

Yes, it does.

And Saguna canola again.

I think it was a bit, the score, the score was okay this week.

It wasn't as standout as before, but he's very good at, again, having this range of going purely electronic and in the background to something that's really in your face, like the Rosa score.

This I didn't really notice the score so much and it wasn't offensive, but got that title sequence.

It's coming the 1st thing you see.

It's like, I want to watch every 2nd of the title scene.

I love it so much because the music is spot on.

I have to sort of make sure I'm sitting in front of the TV. not eating dinner when that title sequence starts because you don't want to miss any of it.

[18:59]

No.

Yeah.

And it's like, like, I think you said this about... 6 episodes ago, Nathan, that it's like a 3D reimagining of the original title sequence.

And I love the way in the closing titles is out of focus as well.

The same thing really, and it still feels 3D. Yeah, I know they've nailed that.

It is, because there was this, some comments I think Stephen Moffatt made that it needs to look like Netflix now.

And I think he meant that in a very positive way, but I think it does.

I think it hits that bar for sure.

Let's hope, you know, there's a little bit more complexity, surprises to really top off the end of the season.

Does anyone have any closing statement?

Um, if I, if I may, something we've, you know, mentioned a few times, I watched, um, 9 weeks, is, um, you know, we're wondering if this extra time in the episodes, this extra 5 minutes is being well used, and I'm just thinking back to season 22 where they go to 45 minute episodes, but they have massive problems with the structure.

[20:06]

And yeah, this is something Eric Saywood said, you know, we're still treating episode one, like episode one, where it should be ending where episode 2 ends, and Eric Saywood has said, if we'd gone for another series of 45 minute episodes, we would have got the structure right.

And I think possibly that's what's happening here in that Cibnal, wrote for Torchwood, which was 45 minute episodes, wrote for Doctor Who, which was 45 minute episodes, life on Mars, et cetera.

So as much as, oh, we're going to have these longer things.

Everything is, you know, you can't turn a cruise ship on a dime.

Everything is still kind destructured for 45 minutes and then you come up with 5 minutes in between.

Um, and I think next year, hopefully the pacing will be sorted.

So you like to give him another crack of the whip to get it completely correct.

Yeah, I think so.

I mean, he wrote 3 seasons of Broadchurch that are exactly this format, 10, 50 minute episodes, you know, and I think it's his choice because he wants more time to explain everything to the viewers at home.

[21:10]

Todd, are you good?

I'm all good.

I can't wait for next week.

Yes.

One way or the other.

The episode is called, as I've said, the Battle of the Cat walked across my keyboard.

All right.

Okay, in that case.

We'll definitely be back for that next week.

I want to thank Colin for joining us tonight.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, it's been terrific having you here on the sofa in your pyjamas.

Thank you.

Thank you, Colin.

Thank you, darling.

We all are.

It's a little bit of a slumber party here tonight without, you know, anyway.

And what else do I have to say?

Oh, I know.

We have another podcast.

It's called Flight through Entirety, and we are on hiatus at the moment, but we have some exciting things coming, including...

Well, one of those.

We have a couple of commentaries coming and we are very soon going to be calling each other up and organising to meet and record our episodes on series 2.

[22:20]

So look out for that in the new year.

You can catch us on Flight through Entirety.com, Flight through Entirety on Apple Podcasts and at FTE podcast on Twitter.

And of course, we are Jody Interterterra.

So check us out here at Jody.

What's this podcast called, James?

Jodyintoterra.com?

We're not calling it that.

At Jodie interterra on Twitter and at Jodie interterra on Apple Podcasts, and we will see you next week for the exciting series finale.

And I guess that's all.

Thank you very much for listening a good night.

Do I say that on this one?

Yeah, just did.

Okay, all right.

Good night.

Bye, everyone.

All right.

See you guys.

Thank you for calling in.