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This transcript was created on 2026-06-07 at 11:56:24

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Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to the 2nd great and bountiful Human Empire, the only Doctor Who flash cast that's still annoyed that Dugadoo didn't win Eurovision on Saturday.

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I'm Nathan.

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I'm Peter.

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I'm Simon, and I'm Todd.

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So we're here tonight to discuss the Interstellar Song contest by Juno Dawson, who previously wrote The Good Doctor, a Doctor Who spinoff novel featuring the 13th doctor, and a who related podcast called Redacted, so she's no stranger to writing Doctor Who, but this is her 1st actual proper Doctor Who, and directed by Ben A. Williams, who I can find out nothing about.

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This is his only episode of Doctor Who, and he has done some other telly.

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Has he directed Eurovision?

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And so what we're going to be doing 1st is we're going to go around the table and we are going to say what our Eurovision experience consists of and what we thought of this week's episode.

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And let's start with Simon.

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You mean our real Eurovision experience?

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Right.

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Well, I've been watching Eurovision for some decades now, and I've even been to a Eurovision, as has somebody else on this table who will get to that.

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So I was fortunate enough to go to the Lisbon, which one, which was, I think, was 2017.

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So yeah, I love it.

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I love the songs.

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I love the voting as well is always fabulous.

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Of course you do.

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And I think, of course I do.

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But I think the thing that Eurovision does, which I think I've mentioned on other things, maybe Blake 7 type podcasts, and it sort of shares it with Doctor Who as well, in that Eurovision is both quite calm and incredibly serious at the same time.

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Does this episode achieve that?

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I think it sort of does.

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I think its main floor for me is, look, just the main floor with this era, which I can't avoid, which is just the fact that I just find it far too lightweight and far too ephemeral for my liking.

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But having said that, look, I was entertained.

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It was fun.

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It ticked a lot of Eurovision boxes, whilst not alienating.

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I'd hope not alienating people who aren't really familiar with Eurovision.

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I mean, just, it's a song contest.

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I mean, what more do you need to know?

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So yeah, I mean, you know, sort of middling to okay would be my takeaway.

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Yeah, okay.

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What did you think, Peter?

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Oh, and what's your Eurovision experience?

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Well, I've never been to Eurovision, but I've watched religiously year in and year out, even though I don't think there's ever been a better winner than 1974.

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But, you know, that's another thing. scenes.

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I really quite liked this episode.

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Like, Simon, it's no secret that I haven't been on board with some of this era and kind of the way that the show's gone, but if you're going to do an episode like this, I think this hits all the right buttons and kind of was just wildly entertaining.

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And I have a soft spot in my heart for time and the Rani, and I think that's because it's a delicious blend of camp.

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I think putting the Rani and Eurovision into the same story is the campus thing possible and I was on board for it.

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Brilliant.

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And Todd, what about you?

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Well, we just want to say that what a wonderful show it was, and we've been to Eurovision and watched many years, and you look amazing, Nathan, and you've been a terrific host, and so the Bilby Effect have to, we have to give our points.

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Our 9.5 points go to the interstellar song contest.

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You were far too quick with that and didn't have enough rubbish, Todd.

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We also needed to interrupt you while you then paused and said, yes, yes.

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We're on a time frame, on a time schedule.

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I loved it.

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So I have to say that I have never watched Eurovision song contest and I've never been to it.

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And then your gay card.

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Yes, I have, however, been on a podcast episode in which we discussed Bang Bang a Boom, which is Doctor Who's previous foray into Eurovision territory.

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But, but I have to say that this is everything that I want Doctor Who to be.

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This is absolutely Russell doing, what it is that I love about the RTD era, and I was 100% on board with it.

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I just thought the mixture of menace and the politics, the spectacle, the engagement with media, the campness, the queerness of the whole thing, how it looked, just how exciting it was and just what a huge spectacle it was.

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This is why I'm here.

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It's an odd thing to say for someone who also enjoys the claws of Axos.

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But there we are.

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So I want to talk to those of you who watch Eurovision.

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How well do you think this recreated Eurovision just kind of visually, Simon?

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I think, look, it does, because it creates the arena feel.

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It creates the screaming jubilant fans field, especially like all the diversity in the crowd.

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It captures in that sort of futuristic doctor kind of way.

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Look, I don't think you can go much further than that without it getting to inside the beltway, with the voting and and, I mean, there is a list of injokes you could make that are a mile long that, look, I think it could have made more of.

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All it was really was using the Eurovision or the Interstellar Song contest thing as a backdrop and it was very much a backdrop.

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It wasn't really much about it, which is completely understandable.

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And I think that's all you can sort of really do.

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I really enjoyed the visual spectacle.

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But the one thing that was missing and which I thought would have elevated it quite a lot would have been a waspish commentary.

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You just needed 2 aliens doing a wasp commentary on the whole thing.

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Yeah.

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Actually, that's a good point.

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If there was a, if it cut away to a radio booth in one of the, in one of the broadcasting booths in one of the things.

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And maybe in that kind of, you know, Arak and Etta kind of way, they are, they never actually get involved with the rest of the story, they just commenting on the whole thing.

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That that would work.

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There you go.

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Well, I think that, you know, you're asking for a lot in an episode in the time frame.

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And I think that the whole staging of it is exactly like your revision and all the pods with all the contestants and all the screaming people and the cannons going off, I think it captured that arena and the feeling there admirably.

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And, you know, at some point you're not going to go into the voting and all that unless you decide to take the story in that direction and it wasn't going in that direction, you know?

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Apparently, the original premise was summarised as Die Hard at Eurovision.

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And I think that that's not quite what we went for. think that's a bit of a stretch.

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Yeah, and also I saw the 2013 entry, Josh Dubuvie from the UK.

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I saw someone diehard at Eurovision already.

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That happens.

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But certainly Eurovision is the backdrop and it is the status quo that we return to after the adventurers ended and the, you know, the problem has been solved.

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The villain has been defeated. and Eurovision reasserts itself at the very end which I thought was really terribly good.

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And I just think, you know, this is where all the money has gone as well.

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The Disney effects wall or the volume or wherever we're shooting these things.

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Like there are some shots where it's very apparent that there's some, you know, like a rows of extras around the stage, but and the rest of them are clearly just animated on the effects wall.

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But the effects will look so stunning.

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I mean, it looks so good that those scenes just look magnificent.

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I don't think the show has been a bigger spectacle than this.

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I thought it kind of, it leaned into the, for want of a better term, Disneyification of effects recently, where things look very glossy and very like other...

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That's right.

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And if you're going to have an episode like this, it suits that aesthetic, I think, in a way that something like the well or boom maybe doesn't.

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Yeah, I mean, I think boom, you know, has a very different aesthetic and, you know, every episode looks kind of wildly different.

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But just the sort of scale of the special effects, the fact that they were able to kind of credibly recreate such an enormous space.

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I thought was really quite, quite amazing.

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The other thing that I thought was really particularly good was the fact that there was a gay couple, one of whom was hugely into Eurovision and the other one who wasn't, and just the fact that, um, you know, the kind of gay fandom, the sort of 50 something Eurovision gay fandom that has some level of representation here on this podcast.

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Some.

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Can I say?

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No, but that's the thing.

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Can I say walking around Lisbon, which is not a big city.

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I mean, we, and I say we, as in our demographic, totally took that city over for that week.

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It was ridiculous.

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You would have thought that you were in the middle of some ridiculous gay pride event for the over 50s.

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Because the other thing I was going to say is I actually I actually think that the thing that doesn't quite ring true because do you know how much these tickets cost, Nathan?

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You do not, if one of, if one of the 2 of you aren't that into it, the other one just doesn't go.

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That's right.

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Although he did get the tickets.

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I got tickets because he was in, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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So he did that's how he got the posh tickets.

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Back to the private suite.

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Yeah, that's right.

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But someone also noted, of course, that it was the 250 something gays who got to see the Rani by generator as well.

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And having her walk off the stage after that and say, you know, out of the way, boys.

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I've got a date to catch.

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I just think was absolutely perfect as well.

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Well, let's not forget that this is the same Rani who had his her companion, Shag, in dimensions in time.

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And so she quite likes, she quite likes having a insequious man around.

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That's right Yeah, he's almost a 50-something these days.

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I would think.

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So let's talk a bit about our villains and their plot.

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So we have the Hellions who are represented by our main villain and Wynn.

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How do we think their plan worked or what did we think of the scale of it or what did we think of the villains themselves?

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I thought they were nicely drawn and I thought they had good motivation.

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I was all on board for it as it got explained about what happened to their planet and this corporation that had, you know, who was sponsoring the whole event, and I thought he was extremely good, especially at the end when he was sitting there just reacting to what was going on in the final song, and it was tragic at the same time, you know?

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I really liked them.

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You know, I didn't think they were OTT or underdrawn.

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That was Freddie Fox from the RTD series Cucumber from the mid-norties.

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Oh, and being very good in this, like he was in that. and I agree with Todd.

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I liked their liked the sobriety of their scenes.

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They didn't lean into the camp.

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He wasn't a camp villain. against a camp backdrop.

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I thought that was quite good.

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Yeah, um, I think giving him giving him the credit as being in cucumber, unbelievably undersells the magnificence of this actor.

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He is an extremely, extremely qualified actor.

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And the fact that, unfortunately, everybody's been talking about virtually everything else about the episode and not Freddie Fox, who is an incredible get as a guest star.

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He is top top draw and very, very impressive theatre credits.

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He's from an impeccable theatre family with Edward Foxes, his father, and he's his mother.

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And I thought he was brilliant.

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And he and his sidekick, I'm apologised for not remembering characters names and so on, but they do save the episode for me.

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He is actually taking it incredibly seriously in terms of what the character is, what the character is doing.

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And I think that's really, really good.

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Simon, you're right.

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I think he was a get along the lines of if they'd gotten like Luke or Harry Treadaway or maybe when they got Neil Patrick Harris years of that standard.

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Exactly, exactly.

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Yeah.

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Probably cheaper because he's a British actor, so therefore he is much cheaper than Hollywood actor, yes.

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I mean, the idea is, of course, that they aren't camp and they mustn't be camp.

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And so, you know, he's got the mullet.

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He's got a camoustache.

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He looks a bit grubby and stuff like that.

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So what you really have is the invasion of a camp space, by this terrible, credible villain, and then the reassertion of the camp space once he's been defeated.

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You know, so playing at cab is exactly the wrong thing to do.

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And of course, you've got Archie coming in later to play at camp, along with Anita, you know, at the end of the episode.

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So it would have been kind of a very bad call.

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People have.

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It would have been too much, even for you, Nathan, I suspect.

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But the contrast they needed to be the contrast.

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And that's what works so well.

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Yeah.

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I think I think 2 people mentioned that, of course, his plan is to do what the doctor was going to do in parting of the ways, which was to use a Delta Wave broadcast to wipe out 1000000s of people on Earth, 1000000s of Daleks on Earth, and then the doctor decides not to do that.

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But I think that Russell deliberately calls it the Delta way for that reason.

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And so that's one of the reasons why the doctor, I think, is reminded of, you know, his own planet, because he was in that position.

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So are you telling me that he was going to kill Nissa when you put a delta wave augmentator on ahead?

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was, yeah, yeah.

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It's a very low...

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It was an augment.

167
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It was an augmented deal.

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It makes all the difference.

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It's like the difference between dioxin and metadioxide.

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Yes, exactly.

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Yeah, like I thought he was really great.

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The scale of what he did was really extraordinary.

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And when we talk 30000000000 people, I mean, like the numbers are massive.

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And I think there's a good reason for that.

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And therefore meaningless.

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But it needs to be.

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If you're going to have all those cultures and all those planets, if there are 7000000000 people on Earth at the moment, you have to not buy that out to all the planets in the known galaxy or whatever, but who cares?

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it's a big number Well, I don't know if he did actually.

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Like it should have just been the 1000s of spectators who were there at Eurovision.

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That would have been a big enough get for me.

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Well, me too.

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I mean, that's one of the things that I find just, I mean, this is a much longer podcast to talk about that, but that's one of the many things that if K, if we're going to say 2 trillion.

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We are going to say 2 trillion. lets get on with it.

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But yeah, you're absolutely right. that and the fact that the 100 or 1000 people in the arena being sent off into the bubble or whatever the hell it is and then they can all get rescued, again, is a little bit tiresome.

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I think there are other ways of creating peril.

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If I dare I suggest that all this stuff, whether they're CGI people disappearing up into the sky, all the 200000000 people out there, it is still essentially merely word peril.

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And I think it doesn't really make me feel anything.

188
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Well, except WordPeril is when they just describe it.

189
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And what you saw was really...

190
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Well, they just described you.

191
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No, no, that's word peril, but we actually see the people lift off into space.

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And that looks pretty impressive.

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Like, I don't think that you can complain that that's just word peril.

194
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And also, I think Todd will agree on this.

195
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Some of them needed to die.

196
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We didn't want all of them to live.

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Yes.

198
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Thank you for that Peter.

199
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No, I'm going to say this.

200
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I was absolutely aghast when all those people said the roof went up and I thought it was extremely compelling visual and it really got me into totally different to you.

201
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It totally got me into the gravity of everything.

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The thing is this, the 10000000000 people, that's the thing that I didn't quite buy.

203
00:16:19.679 --> 00:16:25.320
And I thought, are you using that as a motivation for the doctor to get so angry and so, you know, just totally out of control.

204
00:16:25.320 --> 00:16:26.879
And that's part of the episode.

205
00:16:26.940 --> 00:16:36.899
I really didn't like how far that he went or the fact that Belinda didn't pull him up enough when she saw him at the end, that's where I wanted there to be something more.

206
00:16:36.960 --> 00:16:39.899
I thought, sure, he executed it absolutely brilliantly.

207
00:16:39.960 --> 00:16:43.200
But I just thought it went too far in that respect.

208
00:16:43.320 --> 00:16:55.740
So I think one of the reasons that the killing had to be this scale is that what we have is we have 2 approaches to the oppression of the planet Hellia.

209
00:16:55.799 --> 00:17:02.340
And one is to kill a lot of people and one is to make people aware some other way.

210
00:17:02.399 --> 00:17:04.500
And so there's 2 transmissions that happen.

211
00:17:04.559 --> 00:17:11.039
The Delta Wave transmission, and then the transmission of that song at the very end, that's sung by Cora.

212
00:17:11.099 --> 00:17:18.660
And I think that one of the things with Doctor Who villains is that often they are in the right.

213
00:17:18.720 --> 00:17:20.819
They have a point.

214
00:17:20.819 --> 00:17:30.539
And that's the true thing about the villain because the villain stands against the status quo and sometimes we need to stand against the status quo because often the status quo is bad, right?

215
00:17:30.599 --> 00:17:34.440
And so in this situation, what we have is 2 ways of dealing with it.

216
00:17:34.440 --> 00:17:48.660
If you just said that any level of political violence was wrong or any level of protest or inconvenience or something is wrong and what we should really do is sing songs in order to affect political change, I think that that would be a problem.

217
00:17:48.720 --> 00:17:56.579
And so you have to make him this sort of catastrophic mass murderer in order to justify the doctor's reaction to him.

218
00:17:56.640 --> 00:17:58.380
And my favourite moment.

219
00:17:58.500 --> 00:18:15.420
I think is where he starts weeping when he hears the song because it suggested to me that he'd really forgotten the oppression of his planet and the picture that that song painted and he was being reminded of it because he just got obsessed with his plan to kill a whole bunch of people at Eurovision.

220
00:18:15.480 --> 00:18:27.599
And so, like, I thought that the scale of it, you know, it literally makes kid a worse villain than kind of the daleks or, you know, I guess, you know, the scale of it.

221
00:18:27.660 --> 00:18:37.619
I guess Davros was going to destroy all of reality with a reality bomb and that's more than 30000000000 people, but, you know, just the scale of it, I think, was warranted for that reason.

222
00:18:37.680 --> 00:18:41.940
It sort of puts a kid on a level with Anthony Ainley and Lagopolis.

223
00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:43.440
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

224
00:18:43.500 --> 00:18:44.880
Entropy increases.

225
00:18:44.940 --> 00:18:47.460
I mean look, I don't think it really matters how big the number is.

226
00:18:47.519 --> 00:18:50.460
I mean, it's just a very Russell T. Davies thing to say 2 trillion.

227
00:18:50.579 --> 00:18:52.019
I mean that's just the kind of thing he does.

228
00:18:52.079 --> 00:18:54.960
He always magnifies things by 1000 because that's what he does.

229
00:18:55.019 --> 00:19:04.500
What I think was, you're absolutely right, Nathan, is that he'd remembering his, he's emotional, he's made emotional by the song because he has forgotten why he's been doing this.

230
00:19:04.559 --> 00:19:06.299
It has just become an act of revenge.

231
00:19:06.359 --> 00:19:15.960
I do, one of the things I do like about the episode is this message about the fact that there, there is revenge or there is a way to actually get change.

232
00:19:15.960 --> 00:19:26.279
And Cora is trying to achieve change, whereas all kid is trying to do is to avenge the, the, the crimes of the past.

233
00:19:26.339 --> 00:19:33.119
I think the whole thing is framed very shallowly is my main...

234
00:19:33.180 --> 00:19:40.859
No, but the whole thing in terms of the whole, the whole problem is so shallow that I'm sort of not really engaged by it.

235
00:19:40.920 --> 00:19:42.779
I'm just enjoying what's happening.

236
00:19:42.839 --> 00:19:49.799
But nevertheless, I think that's an important message that we come away with is that there is no, like even, even harming one person is one person too many.

237
00:19:49.859 --> 00:19:50.640
Possibly.

238
00:19:50.700 --> 00:19:51.960
No, not possibly, definitely.

239
00:19:52.019 --> 00:19:53.819
Yeah, I'm not convinced about that.

240
00:19:53.880 --> 00:19:57.180
I think that political violence is unthinkable until it's necessary.

241
00:19:57.240 --> 00:20:03.119
But the thing is, though, that she's inspired by them as well.

242
00:20:03.180 --> 00:20:04.380
Do you know what I mean?

243
00:20:04.440 --> 00:20:10.920
Because she's been hiding and not doing anything and he actually tells her, you know, Wynn says, what have you been doing?

244
00:20:10.980 --> 00:20:13.200
You've been doing nothing you've just been hiding.

245
00:20:13.259 --> 00:20:16.799
And so it's that that inspires her to do something as well.

246
00:20:16.859 --> 00:20:20.039
So it is a little bit more complicated, I think, than that.

247
00:20:20.099 --> 00:20:23.160
And that makes that song at the end so powerful.

248
00:20:23.160 --> 00:20:24.660
And her performance there.

249
00:20:24.720 --> 00:20:26.579
I just thought I was so moved, you know?

250
00:20:26.640 --> 00:20:33.720
I'm really grateful that Russell didn't write any lyrics for it because he's a terrible lyricist. dreadful.

251
00:20:33.779 --> 00:20:40.799
So it's like it's slightly bad that it's like aliens language or whatever, but she sings beautifully.

252
00:20:40.859 --> 00:20:44.640
It's really well done, and I think the montage of images is pretty great as well.

253
00:20:44.759 --> 00:20:49.140
I mean, he did write the lyrics, I think, for the Dugadoos, and I was on board for that.

254
00:20:50.220 --> 00:20:52.259
All the songs were great.

255
00:20:52.319 --> 00:20:54.180
They were all so Eurovision.

256
00:20:54.240 --> 00:21:03.240
Yeah, they were Eurovision because they had a balance between the Kitch songs and then you have Chorus Song, which is kind of a serious song and that is what you have at Eurovision.

257
00:21:03.299 --> 00:21:04.740
You do have the whole gamut there.

258
00:21:04.799 --> 00:21:13.619
Look, I can't get emotional at that final song is because they haven't set up a situation which makes me emotional because it's also one dimensional is my issue.

259
00:21:13.680 --> 00:21:14.279
Unfortunately.

260
00:21:14.339 --> 00:21:22.079
Freddie Fox's is doing his best to give it gravitas, which he does, but that doesn't make me weep.

261
00:21:22.079 --> 00:21:25.319
Can we talk about the doctor torturing him?

262
00:21:25.380 --> 00:21:28.799
Um, I don't think that's right.

263
00:21:28.859 --> 00:21:51.779
I think it's right if only if there is some kind of regret afterwards. consequence for that or regret and maybe it's going to come in the next 2 episodes. it better because if it doesn't, I think basically it makes him killing shockeye or throwing 2 guys into an acid bath in vengeance on Varos look very, very mild by comparison.

264
00:21:51.839 --> 00:21:54.180
He does kill Shockeye, though.

265
00:21:54.240 --> 00:21:56.400
And the 2 people in the acid, but he doesn't.

266
00:21:56.400 --> 00:22:00.119
Nevertheless, not with that kind of glee.

267
00:22:00.180 --> 00:22:07.440
The way it is portrayed is that he is almost getting a pleasure out of the electric shots that he's giving Kit, and I think we have a problem.

268
00:22:07.500 --> 00:22:12.119
Yes, and also when he's facing off Shockeye, Shockeye is trying to kill him at the same time.

269
00:22:12.180 --> 00:22:16.079
And so, whereas in this, it's, the doctor was, that's right.

270
00:22:16.140 --> 00:22:19.079
He was taking enjoyment out of basically getting his own revenge.

271
00:22:19.140 --> 00:22:20.640
That was my problem.

272
00:22:20.700 --> 00:22:21.480
Yeah.

273
00:22:21.539 --> 00:22:23.400
And I think, well, Russell does do that.

274
00:22:23.460 --> 00:22:25.380
Like Russell problematizes the doctor.

275
00:22:25.440 --> 00:22:28.259
Look at the doctor's reaction at the end of Family of Blood.

276
00:22:28.319 --> 00:22:41.519
Like, that just seems to be this extraordinary weird overreaction where he, you know, becomes this kind of mythic terror who wreaks horrific revenge on these aliens who are, you know, caught.

277
00:22:41.579 --> 00:22:42.420
They've been defeated.

278
00:22:42.480 --> 00:22:44.819
And Russell does do that.

279
00:22:44.880 --> 00:22:46.500
And I think, I think Moffatt does.

280
00:22:46.559 --> 00:22:47.940
So it's one of the things different there.

281
00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:49.140
Well, I don't know.

282
00:22:49.200 --> 00:22:51.059
It's differently betrayed in human nature.

283
00:22:51.119 --> 00:22:51.420
Yeah.

284
00:22:51.420 --> 00:22:52.619
Yeah.

285
00:22:52.680 --> 00:22:56.940
It is differently portrayed, but we're used to it now after all of this time.

286
00:22:57.000 --> 00:22:58.319
This is mine to it.

287
00:22:58.380 --> 00:22:59.099
Well, I'm used to it.

288
00:22:59.160 --> 00:23:00.599
I wasn't used to it watching that.

289
00:23:00.660 --> 00:23:01.799
That's not the doctor.

290
00:23:01.859 --> 00:23:03.240
Um, it was.

291
00:23:03.299 --> 00:23:10.079
I mean, you do get a hint of it at the end of Runaway Bride, where Donna has to tell the doctor, we can stop now.

292
00:23:10.140 --> 00:23:18.660
That's, but again, I know it shouldn't be different, but it is because you're talking about all of these monsters, these spiders.

293
00:23:18.720 --> 00:23:22.859
Here you're talking about torturing a single person.

294
00:23:22.859 --> 00:23:25.740
And I think the visual of that is very different.

295
00:23:25.799 --> 00:23:37.799
And also, I think that if you have the doctor inflicting pain on someone, it's no different for him going up and slapping someone in the face, which is, you know, you would equally sort of think, what are you doing?

296
00:23:37.859 --> 00:23:45.359
Whereas the mythic revenge, the mythic sort of punishments that he meets out at the end of family of blood, our mythic for a reason.

297
00:23:45.420 --> 00:23:48.180
It's someone who's trapped in a mirror.

298
00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:50.640
It's someone who's...

299
00:23:50.700 --> 00:23:54.359
Yeah, they're abstract punishments as opposed to actually causing pain somebody.

300
00:23:54.420 --> 00:23:55.200
Yeah.

301
00:23:55.200 --> 00:23:55.859
Yeah.

302
00:23:55.859 --> 00:23:57.000
All right.

303
00:23:57.059 --> 00:24:01.859
So, uh, this is the big moment though, and it is the end.

304
00:24:01.920 --> 00:24:05.759
So those of you who switched off the moment the closing credits came on.

305
00:24:05.819 --> 00:24:06.839
You're idiot.

306
00:24:06.900 --> 00:24:08.940
Yeah, you should really probably read that.

307
00:24:09.000 --> 00:24:11.460
You actually do that with television.

308
00:24:12.839 --> 00:24:19.259
So, Mrs. Fland is the last person to be rescued by Gary and Mike.

309
00:24:19.319 --> 00:24:33.119
Her twin brain stem has been frozen, which apparently is fatal for time, ladies, and she by generates in front of us, who didn't know or didn't think that Mrs. Flood was the Rani.

310
00:24:33.180 --> 00:24:34.980
I thought she was going to be Susan.

311
00:24:35.039 --> 00:24:37.079
Yeah, I assumed she was going to end up being Susan.

312
00:24:37.200 --> 00:24:38.579
I didn't really know.

313
00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:41.640
Like, I mean, I thought, okay, maybe they could go that way, who could it be?

314
00:24:41.700 --> 00:24:45.960
Maybe living in a dream world, but I just didn't know for sure.

315
00:24:46.079 --> 00:24:46.740
You know?

316
00:24:46.799 --> 00:24:55.200
Yeah, I theorised on this podcast that she had something to do with the pantheon because of her ability to step outside the kind of frame of the TV show.

317
00:24:55.259 --> 00:25:02.579
But season 8 taught us that sometimes the obvious solution to the mystery is the best one.

318
00:25:03.599 --> 00:25:11.940
And that's definitely, I think, what's happening here after years and years and years of, you know, every major female villain.

319
00:25:11.940 --> 00:25:14.759
Oh, my God.

320
00:25:14.819 --> 00:25:16.440
Ladies, actually.

321
00:25:16.500 --> 00:25:23.940
I looked up Archie Punjabi's IMDb and she's done an episode of Bojack Horseman and an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

322
00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:29.279
I don't think I've seen her in anything, so can anyone tell me what I should expect?

323
00:25:29.759 --> 00:25:33.839
Utter fabulousness in the good wife as Kalinda.

324
00:25:33.900 --> 00:25:34.859
Yeah.

325
00:25:34.859 --> 00:25:40.859
She's just got an incredibly great level of performance and I can see, I can see she's going to be great.

326
00:25:40.920 --> 00:25:44.700
She is, I think, a spectacular and perfect piece of casting for the Rani.

327
00:25:44.759 --> 00:25:46.140
She gets it I think.

328
00:25:46.259 --> 00:25:47.160
Yeah, she gets it.

329
00:25:47.220 --> 00:25:48.420
She looks great.

330
00:25:48.480 --> 00:25:49.740
She acts great.

331
00:25:49.799 --> 00:26:01.319
She sounds great, and we get to keep Mrs. Flood as well, and I like the fact that a previous incarnation of the Rani isn't quite as evil or scientific, you know, like the different incarnations of the doctor.

332
00:26:01.380 --> 00:26:03.480
So yeah, I'm all on board for it.

333
00:26:03.539 --> 00:26:05.339
Can I add something to you, child?

334
00:26:05.400 --> 00:26:06.420
When you said she looks great.

335
00:26:06.480 --> 00:26:07.200
She sounds great.

336
00:26:07.259 --> 00:26:09.599
Even better, she walks great.

337
00:26:09.660 --> 00:26:11.700
There's something...

338
00:26:11.759 --> 00:26:14.220
And her hair is to die for.

339
00:26:15.180 --> 00:26:24.000
Because she has she has to have perfectly contemporaneous hair for us to be to be the Rani, really, because that's what you sort of get with the KJ Mara, too.

340
00:26:24.119 --> 00:26:29.579
Can I very humbly fulfil my role and pour just one glass of cold water on all this?

341
00:26:29.640 --> 00:26:30.180
Yeah.

342
00:26:30.180 --> 00:26:33.960
And that is that, look, wonderful oaks are riding.

343
00:26:34.019 --> 00:26:34.980
Oh, great, wonderful.

344
00:26:35.039 --> 00:26:36.299
Fabulous casting.

345
00:26:36.359 --> 00:26:38.160
You know, I'll watch it and enjoy it.

346
00:26:38.220 --> 00:26:43.440
But I think it's all a bit back of the napkin sort of plotting here.

347
00:26:43.500 --> 00:26:53.940
Like, if we're going to say the Rani is not evil, but this amoral scientist person who's got a mission, everything that we've kind of seen of Mrs. Flood up to this point is just sort of nothing like that.

348
00:26:54.000 --> 00:27:00.000
And it's not because, you know, Derek Jacoby kind of way, you know, she's popped her consciousness into a watch.

349
00:27:00.059 --> 00:27:03.059
She's supposed to have been the Rani all along.

350
00:27:03.119 --> 00:27:10.319
And that's the only thing that's kind of a bit, it's one of those things where it's taking the piss a little bit too much as to what you can do with red herrings and so on.

351
00:27:10.380 --> 00:27:13.140
That's my glass of cold water, cold water.

352
00:27:13.200 --> 00:27:21.839
I think the Brani is actually really an a moral scientist thing, really shot its bolt in 1987, frankly.

353
00:27:22.380 --> 00:27:29.160
She was going to destroy the universe and take the earth back to the Cretaceous Age and like all of this.

354
00:27:29.220 --> 00:27:30.480
Because she's an amoral scientist.

355
00:27:30.720 --> 00:27:32.880
Because she wanted an outcome.

356
00:27:32.940 --> 00:27:33.599
She wasn't doing that.

357
00:27:33.599 --> 00:27:43.799
The master does that because he wants to see the spectacle of the earth being destroyed or whatever might happen on the time in the Rani planet for his name escapes me.

358
00:27:43.859 --> 00:27:46.859
The Kershaw, the Kershaw, the Kershaw, the Kershaw, all be dead.

359
00:27:46.920 --> 00:27:50.519
But the point is, she wants to do something in both of those stories.

360
00:27:50.579 --> 00:27:54.720
She wants to achieve something for her own ends rather than the destruction of the planet per se.

361
00:27:54.779 --> 00:27:59.220
I'm not sure that Doctor Who fans know what amoral means, to be honest.

362
00:27:59.279 --> 00:28:03.660
When you think of a lot of people, because you want to do a thing.

363
00:28:03.720 --> 00:28:05.160
That's not amoral, right?

364
00:28:05.220 --> 00:28:06.240
Okay.

365
00:28:06.299 --> 00:28:08.220
So, you know.

366
00:28:08.640 --> 00:28:16.920
Look, I'm just looking forward to seeing what happens in the next 2 episodes and I hope they can, you know, use her well and I'm looking forward to that.

367
00:28:17.099 --> 00:28:21.180
There's other things in this story that I think are sensational.

368
00:28:21.240 --> 00:28:29.099
I think Verada is just wonderful as Belinda and her absolute panic had been left by herself was just incredible.

369
00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:32.339
And then the other one is, of course, Carol Anne Ford.

370
00:28:32.400 --> 00:28:34.140
Like, I didn't see that coming at all.

371
00:28:34.200 --> 00:28:36.779
Yes, I'll be interested to see what that is.

372
00:28:36.839 --> 00:28:39.539
I mean, if there is a consequence to the doctor's behaviour.

373
00:28:39.599 --> 00:28:44.940
It's Carol Anne who's trying to kind of snap him out of it before, Belinda turns up.

374
00:28:45.000 --> 00:28:48.720
And so that seems to be the thing that like, what is she doing there?

375
00:28:48.779 --> 00:28:49.980
Or does she never come back?

376
00:28:50.039 --> 00:28:57.119
Is it just some weird, inexplicable thing where we had Carol Anne just a moment before the end so that we could finally get her in?

377
00:28:57.180 --> 00:28:57.660
Who knows?

378
00:28:57.720 --> 00:28:58.980
I hope so.

379
00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:03.900
I mean, Russell has been seeding this since the devil's chord.

380
00:29:03.960 --> 00:29:10.200
I think, you know, since her spotlight photo appeared on Capaldi's desk in series 10.

381
00:29:11.160 --> 00:29:16.079
We've been inevitably heading towards a rematch between the doctor and Susan.

382
00:29:16.140 --> 00:29:18.000
So we'll see how that pays out.

383
00:29:18.059 --> 00:29:19.859
I don't think rematch is the right way.

384
00:29:20.759 --> 00:29:33.779
The thing that I'm most looking forward to is just Mrs. Flood being Renfield. like she's essentially Renfield, and my theory is that she's the new Yurak.

385
00:29:34.140 --> 00:29:37.980
And so at some point, the Rani...

386
00:29:37.980 --> 00:29:44.819
The Rani will say, I have to leave Mrs. Flood behind, you know, Kel Domage after so many years.

387
00:29:44.880 --> 00:29:49.740
Um, and then, and then she'll kill Lorani in revenge.

388
00:29:49.799 --> 00:29:54.059
So that's my educated guess for how this plays out.

389
00:29:54.119 --> 00:29:56.339
But certainly that comedy beat at the end.

390
00:29:56.400 --> 00:30:03.420
Like, just having the runny appear and having her doing hilarious comedy with Anita Dobson was just a great way of introducing the character.

391
00:30:03.539 --> 00:30:17.039
My educated guess, and I am hoping that this will be to Simon's liking. than it turns out that Mrs. Flood has been breeding dinosaurs in that flat next to where Ruby Sunday lives and they all break out and one of them eats Susan. about that?

392
00:30:17.099 --> 00:30:19.380
Yes, we're trapped, you blundering woman.

393
00:30:21.660 --> 00:30:23.339
Oh boy.

394
00:30:23.400 --> 00:30:29.640
I just think Mrs. Flood will be treated so badly that she will actually turn on the Rani at some point.

395
00:30:29.759 --> 00:30:35.579
And I do hope that Susan is involved because we can't just have that one little sequence.

396
00:30:35.640 --> 00:30:38.579
Maybe she's out for revenge after being left with David.

397
00:30:40.799 --> 00:30:43.559
Maybe, maybe.

398
00:30:43.619 --> 00:30:44.460
All right.

399
00:30:44.519 --> 00:30:47.279
Well, in that case, I think we'll wind this up.

400
00:30:47.339 --> 00:30:51.299
I have a few things that I want to plug 500 year diaries.

401
00:30:51.420 --> 00:30:53.460
Season 2 continues unabated.

402
00:30:53.519 --> 00:31:06.180
We just released our episode on the Santarin experiment, and this week we'll be looking at the 2nd coming of the Mara in Snake Dance, or Snake Dance, I think I pronounce it the other day.

403
00:31:06.240 --> 00:31:08.339
I haven't quite worked in that. dance, dance.

404
00:31:08.460 --> 00:31:10.920
You didn't choir at school, were you?

405
00:31:10.980 --> 00:31:12.420
No, I was actually.

406
00:31:13.259 --> 00:31:19.559
You can keep up with us on Flightthrough Entirety.com, on Blue Sky, or at FT podcast on Mastodon.

407
00:31:19.619 --> 00:31:31.619
We just released an episode of Startling Barbara Bain with Space 1999's Weird Take on Planet of Evil, written by Doctor Who's very own Johnny Byrne in a matter.

408
00:31:31.799 --> 00:31:32.700
That should be a great one then.

409
00:31:32.759 --> 00:31:35.400
It's really terrible in Matter of Life and Death.

410
00:31:35.460 --> 00:31:37.079
Oh God.

411
00:31:37.619 --> 00:31:39.240
Yeah, yeah.

412
00:31:39.299 --> 00:31:41.220
He scripted it in season one.

413
00:31:41.279 --> 00:31:42.900
It's really quite a thing.

414
00:31:42.960 --> 00:31:54.359
And then, of course, there's Untitled Star Trek Project, and we just released an episode on a lower deck, season 5 episode called Fully dilated, and there's more of that to come.

415
00:31:54.420 --> 00:31:59.819
And I have something small to plug, if I may, because this is a Eurovision themed episode.

416
00:31:59.940 --> 00:32:03.240
I can report that last week on my radio show in conversation.

417
00:32:03.359 --> 00:32:09.839
I interviewed the one and only Michael Ball, who represented Britain in Eurovision in 1992 and came 2nd.

418
00:32:10.740 --> 00:32:19.380
And the one that he admits to in the interview is that he was kind of glad that he came 2nd because he didn't want the preamble to his name for evermore being Eurovision winner, Michael Ball.

419
00:32:19.440 --> 00:32:21.660
Instead he was a Eurovision runner-up.

420
00:32:21.720 --> 00:32:26.339
But I'm really proud of the interview. a really lovely guy and anyone who's a musical theatre fan should get along.

421
00:32:26.400 --> 00:32:29.700
So I find 2 MBS in conversation in your podcast app of choice.

422
00:32:29.759 --> 00:32:32.400
I think Sonia would have accepted that the following year.

423
00:32:32.460 --> 00:32:33.539
Yes.

424
00:32:33.539 --> 00:32:35.220
All right.

425
00:32:35.279 --> 00:32:37.079
Well I'll put a link to that in the show notes.

426
00:32:37.140 --> 00:32:37.980
All right.

427
00:32:38.039 --> 00:32:43.259
So in that case, all that remains is for me to say, until next time, let's battle begin.

428
00:32:43.319 --> 00:32:45.660
Thank you very much for listening and good night.

429
00:32:45.720 --> 00:32:46.859
Good night.

430
00:32:46.920 --> 00:32:49.319
Duzpoint. see you soon