The Star Beast

[0:00]

Hello, dear listener, and welcome to the 2nd great and bountiful Human Empire, the only Doctor Who flash cast where you can hear the half baked opinions of the flight through entirety hosts on the latest episode from the new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new series of Doctor Who.

I'm Nathan.

I'm Todd.

I'm James I'm Peter.

I'm Simon.

And I'm a nasty cup of decaf ruining the last shot for this one.

So we have just watched this morning, The Starbeast, by Russell T. Davidson directed by Rachel Talalay, and I have to say that I'm pretty excited.

But let's just go round the horn and see how people feel about, I think we'll start with the overall science fiction plot, the hard SF plot that the episode presented us with today.

So let me start with Simon.

[01:00]

Are you a fan of Beat The Meep?

Well, I can't say I'm going to be, I can't say it's going to be on my watch list, but look, it was entertaining.

It drew me in.

I was engaged for 60 minutes.

So from that level, I can't complain.

It was actually better than I was fearing it might have been, but really, a lot of it's just quite silly, but that's okay.

I mean, I was sort of a bit concerned for you as this milestone approached, actually.

So I'm in a particularly, particularly after editing our episode on Heaven Set, which was just released a few hours ago.

Well, my comments in that still stand very much.

But look, look, look, I was warned. from people who in the know, I was warned it was basically, you know, RTD won on steroids and that's exactly what it was.

So I went in with that view and it's it's proven completely true.

But as I said, the one thing that it has going for it better than some of the other recent stuff we've had is that I wasn't looking at my watch Wandering.

[02:06]

Oh my god, when is this going to end?

was entertained.

It might be the 1st episode of Doctor Who that I haven't done that for in about 5 years, I think.

Richard.

Had you seen the Beep the Meep comic?

Did you know anything about this?

I actually got it about 3 feet from my bedhead because of course everything's exists in this moment of time, doesn't it, where we can just reach out and crawl through the dust to our childhoods?

I didn't think much of it then.

Honestly, Doctor Who Weekly, I thought, oh, it's about time this got better.

Um, I remember Iron Legion. was it part of that story or this no, that was another story.

Starbeast was its own story.

Look, it's exactly, it's exactly what Simon says.

You get what you're going to get on the cover and it's still a lot of fun and all of the fun is because of Catherine takes Catherine take.

Catherine takes, takes, and um, and her daughters, and they're just sublime.

And of course, Russell was going to find a way to turn this blot around and talk about organic plots.

[03:08]

So yes, absolutely won me over, even though I was feeling quite similar to Simon for that 1st part.

Um, what about you, Peter?

Yeah, you said hard sci-fi.

I'm not sure how hard sci-fi story can be when it's based on a comic strip from 1979.

Um, but I really enjoyed it.

I thought it was going to be RTD redux.

I'm not sure that what we've got coming is going to be, but I thought that this episode would be and I wasn't disappointed.

Um, I was kind of there with Donna.

You know, Donna, throughout is saying I had something lovely and it's gone.

I kind of felt that about the show over the last few years.

I kind of felt that the show that I was a fan of just wasn't exciting me very much anymore.

Um, and even though this episode I wouldn't lay any good, I wouldn't make any great claims for, um, it felt like the show that I love again.

So on that count, I give it 10 out of 10.

Todd.

[04:09]

I have to agree with Peter.

Like, I just felt this was a warm hug and I just relaxed into it and I haven't been relaxed into Doctor Who for some time.

I've always been on edge that it's not going to deliver, and this did deliver what I wanted it to, and I just, I just enjoyed it for what it was.

And it was funny and it was light and it was entertaining and there was just great character beats and it delivered what I wanted it too.

I think I think that it's very similar to his other season openers, isn't it?

That the actual kind of Doctor Who plot is reasonably disposable are not really what we're here for.

But that what we're really here for is to catch up with the nobles and see what this new doctor is doing.

And I think, like all of you, that's what sold it to me.

I had never seen or read the Starbeast.

I had a vague idea that Beep the Meep was a bad person and that so I wasn't at all surprised by the twist.

[05:16]

Have we ever known such as it was?

Have we ever known Miriam Margolis to ever disappoint on the, I want to use the C word on the, on the cantankerous stakes?

Yeah, that's right.

She's always given us great cantankerous.

It felt very much to me like partners in crime, but had the sort of Easter festive atmosphere of Planet of the Dead, I thought, and it was exactly what you needed.

It was just that kind of, If you were trying to attract back an audience who'd fallen away from Doctor Who, they were going to tune into that and think, I'm watching an old Dave and Tennon episode from the height of its powers.

It felt like that, and I think it was meant to feel like that.

Did we like at the very, very beginning, like with the voiceovers and the sort of the pre-credit sequence.

I almost wanted to hear Paul McGann's voice say that it was on my old planet Scaro that I finally, the master put on trial, whatever it would have been.

It was like, let's just had but better, obviously.

[06:17]

But it's kind of like, let's try and catch everyone who's just forgotten about this program for a while.

I thought it was a bit like a hostage video.

It reminded me.

It reminded me of, um, it reminded me of Harrison Ford reluctantly doing the voiceovers for um, Blade Runner.

And, and certainly, all of the stuff that Donna says is basically there in the episode.

Yeah, there was a little bit of sort of reluctance we have to do this to get people caught up, but it didn't feel like part of the episode.

I thought the interesting thing was the difference in picture quality between, you know, that 4K thing that we were seeing and the whatever the hell it was, the 480 P quotes that we were seeing as well.

What about you, James?

We didn't hear from you.

How did you feel about the episode?

I love the Starbeast?

Like, because it's ridiculous.

It's something that I thought until now could only be done.

[07:19]

As a comic strip.

And seeing this.

Just brought part of my childhood to life.

And it was a joy from beginning to end.

I'm not saying it was perfect.

But I really, really enjoyed it.

It's got that sort of, you know, new Star Trek thing of kind of going, let's go for a really deep cart and see if we can make something work from the kind of the most kind of obscure spinoff material and our challenge is to make it work on TV in 2023.

And I think they just about managed it.

I'm not quite sure about the Roth Warriors, although they did have names that became his head, which was pretty awesome.

I think that were the weakest point.

Yeah.

So, I mean, I would have thought that you would have appreciated how well spoken they were.

They were very gosh.

I did appreciate that.

Yes, they were very posh.

So marks for that, but low marks for their just they were men in rubber suits, which I thought we'd moved past.

[08:23]

Richard?

Oh, Simon, thank you. because we're all enjoying yours and Simon's Dulcets tonight, as you're the only ones that are speaking proper through proper mics.

There was one technical bang for all the OCD kids being one of them.

The 1st waspy mosquito green guard with red eyes, man, that would go the Roth.

I spoke, and it sounded as if it was Matt Smith dialling it in from Metabolis.

The voice was distant and sounded as if it came through the mask.

Did anyone else pick up on that?

No, it did feel like that.

I must all dash back and watch it all again.

It was almost as if something was let through, which can't be possible.

Look at the budget.

But yeah, no, I agree with the voices, but they look exactly like the drawings.

They really do.

Bit of a new complications situation.

There was also a moment I noticed on the 2nd watch through where someone walks across in shot in the power station.

[09:27]

Behind Shirley?

It's not Barriman.

That's Bat Smith.

All right, let's talk about the temple nobles or the noble temple, so all of them who have all come back with a brilliant edition. to the family.

How did you feel about them, Todd?

Sylvia was a delight.

God, she's absolute delight.

She had moments that I was just there going, you are an unsung hero of this.

I mean, obviously seeing Sean in action as well.

It was nice to have, you know, some backstory with him with what's going on.

And, um, and Rose had a lovely warmth about her.

And I thought that was, it was a, it was a nice way to integrate her story with the story.

I appreciated that very much.

She had a real glow.

And of course, I love...

Yeah, yeah.

[10:27]

And I love the fact that good old Kate Stewart is looking after.

That was lovely.

You love that too, don't you, Peter?

I liked the fact that even though what we wanted from this episode was the doctor and Donna and Donna's family reunited and we got that in spades.

Russell, being the genius years, of course, wasn't just content with that.

And so it is a subtly different dynamic.

Um, and I liked the fact, especially Sylvia.

Was not the Sylvia who we remembered.

The doctor basically told her off last time he saw her, maybe the 2nd last time he saw her, for not being supportive enough of Donna.

And I think you've seen that over all of these years, she's become more supportive of Donna.

She's had a few of those rough edges shorn off a little bit and just, the dynamic was warmer and more caring, and I really liked that.

I did like, though, that moment where Donna describes what it's like having a daughter and she grows up and she's this amazing wonderful woman.

[11:30]

And then she kind of says, isn't isn't it like that, Mum, you know?

So there was a lip still, Sylvia.

I want her to bowl for Britain with that 12 yard run up slap.

It's so good, wasn't it?

She spent the last 15 years making sure that Donna doesn't find out about the invasions that have happened in the meantime.

Yeah.

Well, that hilarious moment too at the beginning where she's down repacking the boxes, while the alien ship lands so she doesn't see it, where kind of for the 1st time ever, we actually get to see that happening rather than just her telling us about how she was hung over or underwater or whatever when the invasion happened last time.

It's kind of genius.

I thought that was pretty good.

Yeah, during Day of the Triffords, Donna would have been in hospital having eye surgery.

Exactly.

But I love the fact that Rose has got her online business, which ends up in all those little plush toys that are actually...

[12:36]

Who monsters?

monsters.

Oh, it was funny.

The wonderful thing with that is, is that the way that they're shot, when you initially see them, you don't realise they're adopted in monsters.

They're close enough and they're kind of fleetingly fleetingly seen that you they might trigger something in the back of your head and then when you come back and they do all the shots, like, you're like, wow, that's so cool.

So much fun.

Yeah.

I love to when the meep is sitting hiding in amongst them in a very ET kind of moment.

It's a great reference to ET.

And of course, beat the meat, the comic.

I'm not, I can't remember if there was a short end there like that.

I suspect that there was any actual comic, but the comic, of course, predated ET by 3 years.

Yes.

So it was a Doctor Who comic, was it?

Yeah, in Doctor Who weekly.

Indoctor Weekly, right.

So it's it's pre-frobisher.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[13:36]

Tom was still the doctor.

It was still a weekly black and white paper.

Yeah, and it did feature, like it did feature the 1st companion of colour.

Oh, that's right.

Sharon.

Yes, who becomes Rose in this?

I actually like too, how well the transgender thing was handled because, I mean, how do you make it clear to the audience that Rose is transgender and it's clear because the boys are taunting her and you get to see how much, you know, Donna will do to defend her daughter, which obviously plays in to her decisions at the climax of the episode.

But I thought the bit with Sylvia, saying that she wasn't quite sure how to deal with it, where she accidentally misgenders her, where she says, oh, you know, I get pronouns wrong, am I being sexist, if I say she's gorgeous, all of that stuff, where, like, I just thought that there was something about that, you know, Russell comes out very clearly uh, in favour of transgender people who are a pretty beleaguered group, I think, in Great Britain, but he doesn't go in all guns blazing.

[14:51]

You know, this is something that's happening on telly on Saturday night for families to watch, and I think that taking that approach and showing some understanding towards people who didn't know very much about it or didn't quite know how to react to it, I thought was really exactly the right thing to do.

Especially older people, I think, will be this generation.

Although I have to say those things with the boys on the bike, I thought, were an unusually hard-edged and effective scene for Doctor Who.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I'm inclined to agree with everything you've just said.

The only, I mean, I am splitting hairs a little bit, but I do like to do that, where Sylvia does misgender her, and in some respects, Donna kind of, I think, I mean, it's very subtle, but she's a bit too mean to her.

Like I think they also needed to be a bit more understanding for Sylvia, making coming to an adjustment as well.

And I think, there would, I think Donna was a little bit too harsh on her.

Although it sort of was over very quickly.

I mean, she kind of says, yes, she is gorgeous.

[15:51]

That's okay.

What you said was okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I didn't get that, Simon.

I just felt that writing Sylvia, the way he did was a very relatable move for people and I really liked it.

There's a lightness of touch to that.

Because, like you say, it's going out at 6.37 PM on a Saturday night and the audience is a mix of generations, a lot of people who are going to have those kind of struggles and it's about normalising it and and making it something which is just part of people's lives.

It's not scary.

It's just, it just is.

Yeah.

And let's not forget that this is going out on a Saturday night for strictly and strictly for just the last 2 years. has normalised having same-sex couples on the dancing on the dance floor.

Only in the last few years.

Only the last 2 years.

I think maybe last season was the 1st time.

And so I think for a Saturday night, you know, the British viewing public is becoming pretty liberal, actually.

[16:56]

What was what was nice about it was that Sylvia was shown to be being well intentioned.

And like you said, Peter, she's not quite, She's not quite the Sylvia that she was back in...

All those years ago.

Yeah.

Although I won't lie.

I would have loved to have seen the Sylvia return.

I love the subtle shading.

I love that Sylvia is just like women in my family that age and that Donna's old scars come straight to the surface and Donna makes it about Donna and the pain that she had from Sylvia as a child.

No, it's okay to praise a child, mom.

I really love the way she did that because that's exactly how it would happen.

And they're both standing there saying, we both adore Rose.

Yes, we do.

Okay, mum, let's unbox this inside that.

Yeah, it's perfect, Russell, writing.

And it's what he does really, really well.

When you look back at, I don't know if anyone's been listening to his old stuff on big finish, I listen to damaged goods and the one he wrote when he was, I think, 22 and sent into the BBC for, do you know that one?

[18:07]

Mind if the Hodea?

That's it.

I just listened to that.

Yeah.

I listened the other day.

It's got moments that are like this in that because he's always wanted to write, you know, he always loved writing the family drama.

I think it's note perfect.

Essentially, even though it's just a, you know, it's a adaptation of a cartoon, it's actually about something as well.

And I think that was kind of what we were missing for the last couple of years in Doctor Who.

However, decent the quality of the story or the writing.

It was really about something, and this just gives us the layers which we can enjoy as well.

So let's talk about like the new show.

So we have a new doctor, we have new titles, we have Murray back.

We've got new title music, just the kind of feel of the show.

I thought it was great having Murray back.

I really enjoyed the music within this.

I love the theme tune.

I love the new wrote me titles.

I loved having the middle 8 back.

No, I was going about that.

[19:07]

So yeah, so from that point of view, I was very happy.

Whose hair did you enjoy, Todd?

Jonas was fabulous.

Did David have a wig?

No, no, just hair of an idiot.

Yeah, yeah.

Lots of jail.

I will say that the line about his suit, like...

By the way, that suit that type should never be worn past 35.

Correct.

So mean, awesome.

But I don't know if I got a very big difference in David's performance.

I think other people may have got more.

When he had some big moments in there, I felt it was the David of old.

I think he was trying to do other stuff, but I guess I can't really make a full judgement on him.

But again, in the moment, I do enjoy him immensely.

[20:08]

It was kind of a subtle shading, the difference, and I think that's what we wanted.

We didn't want anything radically different.

This is about the doctor and Donna being reunited.

So to make those characters fundamentally different would have been a bit of a cheater of the audience, I think.

I like the bit about him saying twice that he loves someone.

Like I think he says he loves Donna and then he loves Will, and he kind of stops himself and says, oh, is that the sort of thing I say now?

And Shirley says, oh, prompts to Shirley too.

Is it Shirley?

Shirley Ann?

I don't know what we're calling her.

But Ruth Mayley.

Yeah, Shirley Ann, who is just tremendous.

And I want to go on record.

When the doctor says you've got weapons in that chair and she says, we all have, does that mean that Wilf will have weapons in his wheelchair in episode three?

I'm calling it.

I think that that's what that line means.

[21:09]

I think she was referencing Davro, so we did not open that point.

Oh, here we go.

Yeah, yeah, it's not.

But I liked her.

I thought it was a lovely performance and she got some really great moments there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And she's gonna be back, I think.

And I love the fact that unit was sort of in the background whether you saw the shot of the building or having her as a scientific advisor and the soldiers, having them there set up for the next wherever they're going with it.

Yeah, it was good.

Special shout out to Colonel Chan.

The incredibly hot soldier, the hero unit. the one who gets the one who gets possessed first.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, gorgeous.

It's got lovely eyes.

Very lovely.

They were all very protection.

They were.

They were all very As they should be.

As opportune A. Um, Simon.

What did you think?

Oh, well, look, it's, it's, it's what I was expecting in terms of its, it's that very, which is where the show's been going for a long time.

[22:12]

It's Disney slash Marvel universe.

It's all very polished.

I don't mean that saying that we don't want to be polished, but it all has a kind of a movie like feel to it that makes it all kind of ooze together as one continuous thing, especially with the soundscape, is all practically continuous behind it.

Uh, I do love, love though, the um, the new Tatis interior.

I mean, finally, we have a TARDIS interior, which feels, you know, faithful to the original at last.

Where have you been all my new year is like?

It's like all of the ones that were in Dwim as sort of concept art for the TARDIS if the show ever came back.

Do you know what I mean?

It was going to be a big Taurus, you know, with the thing in the middle.

Dark dimension, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

And the round things, we love the round things.

I mean it looks incredible.

Peter.

Yeah, so, I mean, I think you're saying that because of the fulness of roundles that were available.

It's not just the fulness of Randalls.

There's also the point Donna makes.

[23:13]

I hated the fact that, you know, the older TARDIS, particularly the RTD irritatuses felt dirty.

Like, I thought, like, God, I don't want to touch anything because they're all oily and grotty and everything.

And at least they kind of gradually became cleaner over time.

But this one feels like, you know, it's all gleaming white.

It's exactly what you want a TARDIS interior to be.

It was shot inside one of those old Macs.

You know, the little sort of round semicircle max with a monitor protecting problem?

It was gone inside that.

With the coloured background, with the coloured back.

It's the Bondi blue, yeah.

I just love all those, all the round ramps going everywhere.

Yeah, just...

David run around, you know, and go under the main level where the camera sort of follows around and he's distant.

Like it really sells the place.

One of the things, one of the things about, I don't know whether it's the lenses they're using or what they're doing with cameras, but there just seemed to be a real depth of field and there were night shots and we were in big spaces and it just sold the movie feel to me.

[24:16]

Like 50 minutes is at nighttime.

It's amazing, Todd.

Yeah, I agree.

I think Rachel's direction was brilliant with a lot of those action sequences down the street, but I think one of the greatest shots ever was the meep creeping past that sleeping man.

I just...

It was so good.

And the music drops out as all the music drops down as they do it.

The thing that I was thinking of with the opening titles, Simon, is that things happen when the music changes, which is a thing that has never achieved before.

Apart from the series 7B. I was really happy that the wonderful series 7B, except it's the credits that are still, to this day, the best credits of the new series.

But the, the, uh, the, look, yes, I think the credits were great.

They were rich.

They were interesting.

Things were happening, though, and more to the point, as you say, things were happening in time to the music, so it looks like they were done together.

[25:16]

One thing that disappointed me was the logo, just flies along, it appears as like it's a great big plaque in space, as opposed to somehow assembling, coming together.

I just, I mean, I know the diamond logo in, in, back in the day, kind of just, just down the, the time tunnel, but I expected, like you get, where, with all these number acclimations that we've been getting of the low, but.

Well, exactly. but in reverse.

Yeah, well at the end of episode five.

But there's been all these great animations of like the logo with glowing bits of the who and so on.

It looks fantastic.

And yet we just get this kind of flat plaque appearing in the middle of the opening credits.

So I went, oh, that's a bit disappointing, but you know, I'm fussy.

You can't win them more, Simon.

I really, I just loved it.

I loved that.

But we should be able to win them all.

We should be able to win them all.

Aspire to perfection, I say.

I did think of you, Simon, when I was watching those opening titles because it reminded me of the point.

I think you made way back in sort of series one or series 2 about how it looks like the the logo is designed from a completely different team from the title sequence itself.

[26:25]

It felt...

It felt like it was just kind of plonked in there.

There's a different render, doesn't really gel, like if there's some washers on it to make it look like it's moving through.

But I think, yeah, I think that was the one thing that disappointed me about those titles was that, It just didn't feel organic, that the 2 pieces of it.

Um, and doesn't have to be a diamond tunnel.

But maybe that would have worked.

I think it might have.

Or at least a part of a Darvin Tuttle.

Look, yeah, it's just the fact that it was a solid.

As I said, it's a single item of logo that just arrives rather than a logo made up of bits.

And I think, I think doing something like that.

I'm not saying it all needed to assemble or appear from the cloud background or whatever, but I just think that seemed to be a plonked on thing at the last minute.

Like they weren't sure when they designed the music and the titles.

They weren't sure what the logo was going to be yet.

That's what it's sort of wrecked of for me.

[27:26]

Simon, being a fan of Hinch Cliffera, I thought you would have enjoyed a bit of the plaque in space.

Oh my god.

I have no retort.

Was anyone else watching it on Disney Plus itself because I hope I can make adjust a setting on Disney Plus, but basically like 2 seconds into the end credits.

It decides to, of course, make it a picture in picture thing and you have to go back to it, which is the most annoying thing about streaming services.

I like the ones where you can turn that off and I shall investigate Disney+.

Otherwise, there'll be emails written.

Yes, write to your MP, for God's sake.

Please do assignment because yes, that got to me too.

I went, no, I don't want that in little box thing.

I want to see the whole.

Yeah, save us from that.

Start an online petition or something. using change.org.

How about that?

That seems terribly passionate.

All right.

Well, unless anyone has anything more to say.

I think we might wind this up.

Does anyone have any final statements, Richard?

I'm just back to the TARDIS set.

Did anyone else feel a pang of disappointment?

[28:28]

that Olivia Newton-John wasn't here to roller skate around that thing. since we seem to be stuck in 1979, 1980.

I really did feel like it was Kubrick doing Xanadu.

But that's no bad thing.

Todd?

I loved the map and I loved when the map turned and the teeth and the eyes and that I was just great and when you're going to eat you all, like, oh, one of them anyway.

I just thought it was great.

I was laughing my head off.

The return of puppet aliens, I think, is very, very much to be encouraged.

Peter.

Todd, did you enjoy the meat here?

Stop it, Peter.

Yes, I did.

It was luscious.

Simon?

Look, I just wonder whether starting the Disneyified version of the show with a stuffed animal as the, you know, villain or at least the cuddly thing in the villain was the right message that they were wanting to send.

And maybe it is going to be that sort of thing as we as we progress, like, you know, the action figure of the week, maybe.

[29:35]

That's the thing that sort of is a little alarm bell that's going off in my head.

Uh, I think that's really deliberate.

I think choosing a Marvel villain.

Yeah, there we go.

He's a Marvel villain.

Right.

DW always published.

By Marvel.

And Marvel was, yes. and it was written by people who worked for Marvel.

Yeah.

So it's a Marvel villain on Disney.

I think that's a lot of triple branding.

There's a lot of triple bluffing going on there, I think, as well, to try and make us think that this is what we're about to get.

That's what I'm hoping.

I think so too.

And I think next week is likely to be very different.

All right.

I have some things to plug before we go.

Flight through entirety is nearing the end of series 9 and next Sunday we'll be doing our Hellbent episode.

Startling Barbara Bain has just released its 2nd episode on Force of Life.

So fans of Kubrick and Prentice Hancock should both check that out.

[30:40]

And of course, as always, maximum power and untitled Star Trek project continue unabated.

James, you're probably going to go and press publish on that episode when we hang up here.

Is that right?

Possibly, possibly.

Well, I'm about 5 to midnight.

Yeah, one of those.

English people will still be awake by then.

And if I can just sort of plug something else, which I wouldn't normally plug it in this program, but there has been a crossover from my radio show where I speak to a classical musician or an actor or a director or something, because this last week on the show, the week of the anniversary, I was very happy to be joined by everyone's favourite companion, Katie Manning, and she was absolutely gorgeous, absolutely delightful.

The interview only does only cover a little bit of Doctor Who.

It is designed for a broader audience, but it's fascinating to hear about basically all the rest of her life.

So if you have any interest in that, you can find it by searching just in conversation, Katie Manning, and it should come up pretty high in your podcast.

[31:43]

And can I just say that if we hadn't had Miriam voicing Beep the Meep, wouldn't Katie have been amazing?

She'd have been amazing.

And she could have done all those voices as well.

And she does so many of the interview, I do.

Bet she does.

It does, Simon.

She does.

All right.

In that case, all that remains is for me to say.

Until next time, we'll be here on Mars with Chaucer and a robot shark.

Thank you very much for listening and good night.

See you later.

Good night.

Bye for now.

See you soon.

Vennings.