Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to the 2nd great and
bountiful Human Empire, the only Doctor Who Flashcast, really
looking forward to just giving up work and having Colonel
Ibrahim's babies.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Brendan.
I'm James and I'm Todd.
So we are here to talk about Wishworld, which is episode 7 of the
current series.
I have completely failed to look up who the director is, but
that's perfectly fine, and it is written, of course, by Russell T
Davies.
And we are going to start this week by talking about the woman of
the hour, Archie Punjabi as the Rani, and frankly, also Anita
Dobson as the Rani.
How do we think the Rani or Ranis acquitted themselves this week?
Todd.
They were just superb.
But Nathan?
Would I lie?
No, I wouldn't.
Oh god, she was so glamorous and Anita had just such wonderful
lines.
I was just enthralled with them both in every scene they were in.
I think it was really great.
I was expecting it needed to be a little bit more Renfield-y, but
she was actually really sort of rather glamorous in that
pantsuit.
I thought she looked pretty great.
What did you think, James?
I really loved um, her bitching to herself as though she goes
about her business in the, in the bone palace, you know, oh, do
this, cut my toenails.
Make a sandwich. rah, rah, rah, rah.
So it is implied, I think, that Mrs. Flaty is cutting the Randy's
toenails.
Is that right?
That's what we're supposed to understand.
Snip bloody sniff, she says.
What did you think, Brendan?
Yes, I thought they were both wonderful.
I was worried after last week that the Anita Dobson Rani would
become sort of weirdly obsequious the way she appears to be last
week.
But in fact, it's just kind of continuing her character of, oh
well, I'm just a sweet little old lady, but I will actually mess
you up.
I'll cut you.
I pretend to be really nice to you because you get a bit of that
steel when she's like, well, actually, in a way, you're my child.
Uh, which is glorious and um, Archie also absolutely amazing.
My concern for the Rani, and we all know that Rani is near and
dear to my heart.
My concern for the Rani was it was just going to be Missy 2.0.
Yeah.
And I was worried it was going in that direction, but I think
importantly, Russell has remembered that the Rani is perfectly
happy to tell the doctor her plan, but not because she wants to be
friends again or she wants to impress him or whatever.
It's, I'm going to tell you my plan and then kill you just so you
know how clever I am and that is spot on.
Yeah, I agree with Brendan.
Like, I think on both counts, I think Anita, it was really good
that she kept that character.
I wish she, I still wish she'd spoken to the camera once or twice
that I'm missing that.
I'm missing that.
But yeah, Serani seemed to still, like, she's got a plan.
She's got she's something going on.
It's not, she's just out to kill the doctor, like so many other
people are, you know, there was a big complex thing happening
there.
So, yeah.
In fact, her plan seems to be very similar to what her plan is in
time in the Rani, which is she converts to Planet in order to
create this sort of big cosmic cataclysm of some kind.
And, you know, there's sort of power involved and stuff.
And I think it's very clear what she's doing and why.
And we'll talk a little bit more about that later.
But, you know, she's in what looks like laboratory.
You know, it has those seeker people and all of that.
She's monitoring the levels of doubt that are occurring on the
planet.
And so it is very similar, I think, to time in the Rani.
And I also think too, she doesn't do what Kate does in time in the
Rani, and I love what Kate does in time in the Rani.
She doesn't really overplay it.
She's arch and funny, but she's not scenery chewing in quite the
way that Kate is there.
And, you know, we didn't need another missy.
I think that that was it.
Once, you know, you kind of wonder, well, we've had Missy, do we
really need the Rani?
And I think that I think that Archie makes this Rani different
enough for her to be worth having.
I'm really enjoying it.
I really like her a lot.
I'd just like to know how many time brains she has on her
computer.
They're probably all still left over from dimensions in time.
I did love that little snippet of dimensions in time.
Yes, in the flashback.
Yes.
It's canon.
Everything's canon, but it's canon.
And let's talk about the world that she's created.
What I thought was really clever was that the Rani doesn't want to
take over the world.
Like, that's very much not her deal.
And so if the world's going to be taken over, she gets Conrad to
do it.
And so we've got Wishworld, and I think the whole season's been
kind of heading towards this where Wishworld is an alternative far
right reality, and here it is a place where gender roles are
really heavily policed and enforced, and a place where disability
is shunned and disabled people are overlooked.
The interesting thing is that this seems really timely for both
England and the UK, even though this episode was finished a year
ago.
How do we think about this?
I like the look, that 50s look that they've gone for.
I kind of wish they would keep that look for the unit set going
forward.
With the wood panels.
Oh my god.
It's so, you know, it makes it feel like traditional unit.
If they'd had the money back in, back in the 70s, they would have
had a vaulted wood panelled hangar of a building.
I think it looks very much like Pleasantville or WandaVision, one
of those sort of, you know, movies or shows.
And so I actually like the aesthetic of it very much.
Gemma Redgrave described it as kind of like unit meets Madman.
Oh, yeah, fair enough.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I particularly like that we've got Verada back in that lovely sort
of golden rod like she was wearing in Lux.
And of course, that was said in the 1950s.
So I think that's deliberate choice, you know, given that that
story also talked about segregation and the people on the edges of
polite society.
It's interesting because I love the idea that the world is so
superficial that doubting it makes it start to disappear.
Yeah.
I think that that's very deliberate, isn't it?
And, you know, the Rani doesn't want the world to be taken over by
al-right fascists.
That's not what she's interested in.
That's Conrad's bag.
What she wants is to create the doubt that overthrows the world.
And I think the way that that's depicted is really kind of
amazing.
So, like, it's not super clear from the 1st time you watch it, but
the fact that they start to use the word slip for that phenomenon
where things fall through the table where the coffee cup falls
through the table onto the ground.
And then the 2nd time I watch it, I notice that the bins outside
all have the word slip on them and that Mel's one is entirely just
full of those carbs.
So despite the fact that everyone looks like they're on board and
everyone loves Conrad and everyone trusts Conrad, everyone has a
bin full of these broken cups.
And that's what the women are tracking what those strange people
are tracking.
And then, of course, when the world is destroyed by doubt, what do
we see is we see buildings falling through the surface of the
earth.
So it's the same visual thing.
I mean it's so well done.
It's such an inventive way to destroy the world, but it's just
consistent with this idea that your doubt makes your coffee cup
fall through a solid table.
It's pretty amazing.
You know, I like the fact that they said like the world couldn't
sustain itself.
So there's all these inconsistencies, and you know, Ruby can
remember the doctor and Shirley can remember things and she's got
the iPad or the tech or whatever, you know, all these things just
don't make quite sense and, and, The 1st time I was watching it.
I missed a lot of that stuff.
Like I had a lot of doubts about the episode and I felt quite
disconnected from it and it was a 2nd time through.
I picked up so much more and I could actually see what was really
going on and I actually thought was very clever.
Yeah, I mean, I really like that, and it's not at all what you
expect. like ordinarily.
I mean, think about kind of the last time that Doctor Who did this
was really the lie of the land, don't you think?
where we arrive in a world that's been taken over by the monks, but
that's much more straightforwardly about the monks' desire for
control, and the Rani is doing something completely different
here.
And although Varada wasn't front and centre per se.
My goodness, that scene with her running into the forest and just
screaming was just incredible.
Like, it's kind of the 1st hint that the doubts are kind of
universal, you know, like she goes out and screams after she
experiences the thing where she can't remember Poppy being born
and she has that conversation with her mother and her auntie.
But it just seems like the buildup that everyone is kind of living
like this, that Mel has a bin full of broken coffee cups, that the
inconsistencies of the world are bothering Belinda so much that
she has to run into the forest and scream.
Like it's pretty well told and kind of, um, it doesn't beat you
over the head with it, you know?
Like, so the reason that Ruby remembers is because, of course
she's experienced the future before in 73 yards, even though
that's a future that never ended up happening or whatever, but we
see those little flashes of her through the future, which is
pretty great.
Which is very good.
And so that's why she remembers.
And then she meets Shirley, and that scene there with all of those
people with disabilities that are living in that sort of tent city
that little camp.
And it's just terrifically well done, I think, and it really kind
of pays off having Shirley, and there's a bit of fun banter and
stuff, like it's not treated too seriously.
You know, Ruby makes a joke about not being disabled, but she
could be taller.
And then just like, Shirley tells her off for being ablest as a
joke a little bit later.
And like, it's, it's, but it makes a proper point about disability
because disability is kind of like that in our world.
You know, it doesn't take a wish world for people to walk past
disable people or try not to think about them.
And I thought that that was, that was interesting.
Given that we have a wish world that isn't primarily focussed on
racism, which I think is the most kind of visible feature of the
various right wing fascisms that we're currently enjoying.
I believe you just mispronounced the word enduring.
Yeah.
What surprised me, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that
one of Conrad's friends in episode 4 was a lesbian?
And, and now, like, the, like, the ginger one wasn't, didn't she
have a girlfriend in that scene or am I misreading or
misremembering that scene?
And so that's pretty, if that's the case, I could be wrong.
But I thought I picked that up at the 1st time I watched it.
It's kind of insidious that what did he think of those friends if
the world he has created is homophobic.
So I didn't pick that up the 1st time really in that episode, so
I'd have to go back and watch it.
I mean, I could, I could be Miss Mirambury.
Maybe they were just friends having chat, but I thought they were
more intimate.
And look, much like turfs don't seem to understand that trans men
exist.
A lot of homophobes don't have a problem with lesbians.
Well this is true.
Or rather, they have certain thoughts about lesbians that are
incredibly problematic and thus think, yes, more of this, please
but for the wrong reasons.
Yeah.
That moment was something that we could never have seen in Doctor
Who before because we have a Doctor Who is just so clearly queer.
And, you know, just that moment where he says that Colonel Ibrahim
is a beautiful man, which is absolutely something that you would
say without a 2nd's thought, even to a straight guy who you are
friends with.
Like, and then just that terrifying response where not only, it's
not that homosexuality is illegal, it's unthinkable in this
context.
It's impossible to even name in this world.
And I think too, having Conrad reading from a book that looks like
a 1st edition Harry Potter book, um, written by IM formerly.
Did you notice?
Which, you know, like again, you know, it's a beloved children's
storyteller telling this story about the strict enforcement of
gender norms.
What I also kind of found really quite challenging about that
scene is that the relationship between the doctrine Colonel
Ibrahim has been set up to be quite flirty, for the entire run so
far.
They have a kind of, you know, cheeky little sort of flirty banter
thing going on.
So when he does that, you're like, oh, that's normal and then when
he turns, it's like, oh, this character is not who we think he is
anymore.
There's even the hint that what prompts Belinda to report the
doctor is when the doctor says he saw the guy on the television
and he liked him and then we smash to her calling the
authorities.
And that's Rogue, of course, Jonathan Groff is back.
And I think, you know, it looks like this era is coming towards
its end and so we aren't going to get the chance to revisit him
and so that might be a final farewell.
I did love that video that was shared on social media of um, they'd
recorded him during rogue and then played live his green screen
into the read-through of, of this episode.
And and so, yeah, the script is just written as a man appears on
the television.
And then Russell goes, huge, Jonathan Graff. everybody just
squeals.
And Millie just kind of gasps and starts kind of tearing up.
It's so sweet.
That's nice.
I thought he looked terrible.
He did really look...
I mean...
It was filmed like last thing at night on a night shoot.
Yeah, he did.
He didn't really get I love you out properly either at the end.
Look, it looks terrible, but Barry Letts would have been very
pleased with it.
He would.
Exactly.
He would have died to get it looking that good.
I did notice some fringing.
Where's my CSO kitchen?
All right.
Well, speaking of Barry Letts, I guess the next thing to talk
about is, of course, next episode's possibly returning, villain
and that is Omega.
What do we think of the plan to resurrect Omega at this point
Todd?
Oh my god.
My initial reaction was, are you kidding me?
Like, I mean, you just keep mining and mining the history of the
show.
It's the 1st time I was true.
I just kind of thought, people are just going to go, what hell is
this?
We've got the last of the timelines.
Now we've got the 1st time lord, whatever.
Look, I'm actually all in.
Bring it on.
I think this is the thing, right?
So Doctor Who, 20 years ago when it's brought back, was very
clearly and very specifically made to be as broad and as
successful as possible.
It is now turned into a similar kind of thing in the IP space as
Star Wars or Star Trek or, you know, the Marvel movies, like to
use another Disney related example, and they are so heavy on
continuity.
So I don't, I mean, I, I can forgive it that because it has been
made for that sort of audience.
Now, it's being made for the fan audience.
As long as they bring back that original mask and not the one, the
marketing kid.
Not Ian Collier's rubber mask.
But I mean, Russell has always done this and we've observed this
lots of times.
Season one is the Dalek season 2 is the Cyberman season 3 is the
master.
Season 4 is the Son Tarans and Davros.
You know, he brings things back from the old show.
But now he's bringing them back into a world where everything is
visible on iPlayer and nearly everything.
And so Omega, I think, is right for it.
And I do think that just description of him as the 1st time, Lord
the 1st and most terrible time, Lord.
That's really enough, isn't it?
Absolutely.
You know, I think for any new viewer, the Rani who has that
wonderful loan of, and this isn't dust exposition.
Um, but, you know, she, she gives us Omega's crib sheet without
having to go into, you know, you saved Gallifrey from him twice
and here he is in the red corner.
You know, she actually sets him up as this awesome figure.
I find it very interesting that it's only used archival audio.
So if they if they cast a new actor, they haven't revealed that
yet.
So it uses it does use Stephen Thorne.
It doesn't use Ian Collier, apparently, according to Tartus Wikia
but it uses Daniel Brocklebank, who has played him for Big
Finish.
Um, and it's using a big finish, which apparently is the 1st time
that's happened.
I think we've set him up well for next week, whether he appears or
whether he is just a McGuffin.
I am wondering if he's just going to be a McGuffin.
Brendan, I do agree with you.
Like, I mean, maybe she won't find what she's looking for.
Maybe it'll just be the hand of Omega.
We all know what that is.
Yep, yep.
I think it's very clear why she's doing it and it's basically
narrated in Conrad's telling of the story.
Uh, you know, it's explained why it is that she's calling on
Omega.
And I'm not going to kind of make it explicit in case people
haven't picked it up and don't want to hear, you know, me blurting
it out.
But I think the question won't be, are we going to find Omega at
all?
I don't think we could do this setup and then discover that Omega
wasn't important.
I think the question is, does the doctor successfully prevent him
from appearing?
And so we may see him or we may not.
The doctor might be successful in preventing his kind of arrival.
I kind of want to see him as some sort of astral being made up of
bits of the broken earth.
Like, remake that mask out of the shard in the Eiffel Tower. like
that a lot.
I do think that we do have to see that mask, though, don't you?
I think that if he is going to appear and then we're going to
dismiss him before he finally manifests himself or whatever.
I think we do definitely want to see the original mask and that
the weird thing that they chose to go with for Arc of Infinity.
We can just forget that ever happened, I think.
Maybe maybe they get Peter Davison in and put Rice Crispies on his
face and he, he tears the mask off.
So long as we don't see what's underneath the original mask.
Like nothing.
Stephen Thorn with a blue cloth bag over his head.
I've actually been thinking, Russell is just mad enough. to cast
Peter Davidson as Omega, right?
Because in the 3 doctors Omega's body is destroyed, the last time
we see him, he's mostly played by Peter Davidson and a little bit
by Ian Collier with Rice Krispies on his face, but Peter
Davidson's still with us, Ian Collier isn't.
And I reckon Davison would be up to it.
Like Davidson plays a good villain.
Oh yeah, he'd be awesome.
He's terrific.
Well, if next week is the last roll of the die, then you know why
not be all in, you know?
Yes.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I don't think there's any point going out on a half
measure.
Make it huge.
I mean, when he left the 1st time, you know, we had that
cliffhanger where everyone on earth becomes the master in the most
just absurdly bonkers cliffhanger in the show's history, and then
we have, you know, the time lords appear and Gallifrey rolling
into our sky and all of this sort of huge stuff that we never
expected we would ever see again.
Like I do think that his instinct will be to just go completely
mad and given that he killed just about the entire universe last
year.
He's got to kind of top that in some way.
So I'm expecting big and loud and wonderfully fun.
I'm wondering on the returning doctor's front with a having 2
Ranis is an excuse to bring back tenant.
And where is he during all?
It's a possibility.
He's probably making a sandwich. cutting Shooty's toenails.
He's just a doctor.
And finally, we have the cliffhanger.
And I've only made one Zelda reference on one of our podcast
before.
But I was getting very definite divine beast, Varna Boras, vibes
from that balcony, and particularly at plummeting towards Earth.
We didn't talk about those bone monsters or anything.
They were amazing.
Yeah, they were so great.
The ones doing all the data stuff.
I thought they were.
No, no, the giant bone creatures.
Who were there for no reason.
You know, hopefully they're there for a reason next week.
No, because they fall through the earth with the buildings. they're
gone I think they're just there because they look cool.
And because they're unbelievable and it'll make people doubt
more.
Yep, that's a good point.
Like the world is bonkers to make people doubt.
Yes, that's brilliant.
Clearly, right.
Clearly what's happening.
I also have the perspective that the Rani loves dinosaurs.
So she wants to have dinosaurs, but dinosaurs eat a lot, but bone
dinosaurs don't.
She gets the dinosaurs and she doesn't have to beat them.
Well, I mean, sometimes sores.
Not baby T- rexes that have been knocked over by the doctor
fiddling with the tartars.
So the doctor plummets to his apparent death saying that poppy is
real.
That was interesting that he kept on fixating on that line. like
that was so emphasised.
And I couldn't quite work out what was going on.
I think at that point, we just had Archie doing the biggest info
jump ever in the history of the show about air frame and Tartuses
and 2 hearts and everything, and I was just all in for all of
that.
But yes, I just didn't know what that actually meant.
Pop is real.
Also, how did she get there?
Like from from a, from baby station far, far in the future.
Well, I'm guessing the one of the Rani's kidnapped her for some
reason.
But she isn't the kind of baby that that we saw on in space babies
like she is a proper baby and like she's really great.
I think she's really funny in this, so she keeps saying no and
stuff and and like I think she's kind of adorable.
But we do see her reaction, like for some reason we see her lying
in bed at some point as the world's collapsing and then later we
see her in her grandmother's arms as the building sinks into the
earth.
And so the fact that she's real.
She's not a result of the wishes and the wish world can't see her
you know, or something, you know, she's not the doctor's
daughter.
I've got a theory.
It's Jenny.
That's Richard's theory.
Jenny Ladd.
Yes.
Jenny from Dalek Invasion of Earth.
All the jennies.
And this theory just came to me this afternoon.
In the 3 doctors.
We fall into an unreal world where wishes can come true, and the
only thing that is unaffected, and is thus real, is the doctor's
recorder.
What if Poppy hasn't been properly processed into this world?
And so she'll explode at the end.
I don't I don't really want that to happen.
The unknown, I don't want that to happen either, even though I
dislike space, baby.
I dislike those babies, but I draw the line at blowing them up.
Yeah.
An exploding space space.
How did we get here?
Brendan, what's your theory?
Like an income on.
Like, you're up to what, the space museum on the series too?
So I haven't I haven't done every story this season.
So the connection to the space museum. 1st of all, we have
creatures wandering through this world, but not being a part of it
and importantly, not leaving footprints.
So there's that.
And we also have a gang of rebels who by their own admission
aren't probably the best people to do this, but they're all we've
got, damn it, until a Doctor Who companion comes along to help
them.
They have a normal number of eyebrows, though.
I want next episode for Ruby to scream.
Revolution.
I want the next episode, Susan Foreman, Mel to have a showdown
with the Rani, because if that doesn't happen, I'm going to be
really irritated.
And just more fabulous from both the Ranis, really.
What if Mrs. Fard and Mel turn up in a scene and they're both
wearing the same outfit?
That would be very funny.
And I'd also like Belinda to get a bit more proper time too
because I think, you know, this could be her last goal of the
time.
And I think that the one big weakness of this episode is we don't
really get to see the doctor and Belinda playing their normal
roles and that's kind of what we want and we don't see the doctor
confronting the Rani really properly.
We are marking time in this alternative world that we know isn't
real.
So I did kind of miss the doctor and Belinda a bit.
This is sort of really ominous bit at the very end, of course
where they push her out over the threshold and she disappears from
reality.
Yeah.
I'm not wanting to criticise something that hasn't happened yet
and that is the upcoming war between the land and the sea
spinoff.
And I'm don't get me wrong.
I looking forward to it.
But I realised today that if those 5 episodes had gone to Doctor
Who, we could have had another Christmas special definitely for
this year and another 2 episodes for each of shooty seasons, you
know, and but at the same time, I'm really looking forward to the
war between the land and the sea, because I like this unit team.
I like Raffle Toby.
I like Goo Goo and Bartha Raw.
But it was just a thought that occurred to me today.
So, you know, if that had been the case, given Shushi's schedule
in the making of these 2 seasons, they would have been Dr. Light
episodes, probably.
True.
And you know, and you know what?
Building on what you just said, James, maybe that's the reason we
got this spinoff, that it's like, we have 26 slots, but we only
have shooting for this many episodes.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, possibly.
And that explains why despite having a much bigger budget and, you
know, Disney involved, why they're short seasons.
Does anyone have anything else?
I want to see Mel dressed in leather with studs?
Yes, fair, fair.
And just to go back to that idea of, like, the runny dressing up
as companions.
Mrs. Flood has been doing that all along and people picked up on
it, like she's dressed as Clara.
She's dressed as Rory.
She's dressed as the 1st Romana.
This is just something the Rani does now.
Thank you, Kate.
I guess I've already touched on what I want to see, but I wouldn't
mind Mrs. Flood escaping to see another day.
Or the Rani, either one of them, depending on what happens.
I just hope that it can wrap things up in a satisfactory way.
I'm not giving a score to this week because I kind of find that
really hard because this is all set up and where is it going from
here and we'll see what happens, you know?
Yeah.
All right, in that case, I've got some things to plug. 500-year
diary series 2 just released its episode on Snake Dance on Sunday
and this Sunday it's going to be the 2nd coming of the Silurians
and the Sea Devils in Warriors of the Deep.
And there is a possibility of some further Rani related content
sometime in the near future.
So you can keep up with us on flightthroughentirety.com on Blue
Sky, or at FDE podcast on Mastodon.
Brendan, do you have anything to plan?
So this coming weekend, we'll be releasing the next episode of the
three-handed game on the Tara King classic spoof of the prisoner.
Wish you were here.
Which is thematically absolutely on point.
And of course, finally, untitled Star Trek project.
We just watched the series finale of Lower Decks, which is called
the New Next Generation, and there is a terrible Voyager episode
sometime in our future.
So head over to untitled Star Trek project.com to find that.
And so I guess all that remains is for me to say, until next time
it's good night from me, and it's good night from her.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Ta-ta.
See you soon.