the sixth doctor

This week, we head back to the planet Necros to revisit Doctor Who’s most entertaining funeral: we’re joined by healers, cosmeticians, mercenaries and a great, big bomb — but you should definitely avoid the canapés at the wake. This one’s certainly a revelation, a Revelation of the Daleks.

Buy the story!

Revelation of the Daleks was released on DVD in 2005/2006. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)

Notes and links

You can find a more conventional discussion of this story in Episode 105: Famous Miserable Bastard, released in March 2017.

Follow us

Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, James is @ohjamessellwood, Todd is @toddbeilby, Richard is @RichardLStone, and Peter isn’t on Twitter at all. Sad. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam, and the strings performance was by Jane Aubourg. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll turn up to your perpetual instatement picking our noses.

And more

You can find Jodie into Terror, our flashcast on Doctor Who’s most recent season, at jodieintoterror.com, at @JodieIntoTerror on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and wherever podcasts can be found.

Our James Bond commentary podcast is called Bondfinger, and you can find that at bondfinger.com, at @bondfingercast on Twitter, on Apple Podcasts, and everywhere else as well.

We’ve reached the end of Doctor Who’s longest era: an era in which every single story was a 14-episode epic about cannibalism and Gallifreyan jurisprudence. But, despite Eric Saward, there are still nice things to say.

Notes and links

Those of you not from Australia won’t understand our references to the only sitcom in Australian television history, Mother and Son, starring Garry McDonald as highly-strung botanist Arthur Bruchner.

Despite the much-criticised loveliness of his era of Doctor Who, even Russell T Davies can go horribly dark and cynical: fans of harrowing things will be deeply upset by Cucumber episode 6.

People who hate Colin’s coat, which is basically everyone, might be slightly less annoyed by this footage of Colin wearing a blue version of his costume.

Brendan nearly recommends Colin’s Doctor and Evelyn in the Big Finish audio Arrangements for War. But, you know, spoiler alert: you need to know a bit about Evelyn’s character to appreciate it. You might want to start with her first story The Marian Conspiracy.

Do you mind not standing on my chest? My hat’s on fire

Don’t forget to vote for the story you want us to cover in our upcoming Tom Baker commentary podcast. Click over to the shownotes for Episode 109 and make your choice. Voting will be closing soon.

Follow us!

Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Richard is @RichardLStone. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll damn with faint praise your entire era as the star of Doctor Who.

Bondfinger

Over on Bondfinger, we’ve now released our first commentary of the Pierce Brosnan’s era, the highly-regarded GoldenEye (1995).

Of course, you can still catch our commentaries on both films of the Timothy Dalton era.

We also have plenty of Rodgecasts online, and there are other Bonds available, as well. You can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.

This week, we look at a medium where Colin’s reputation as the Doctor is second to none. To that end, Nathan is only pretending to be evil, Brendan has two peglegs, Todd is having a hard time assembling some shelving, and Richard is just a shadow of his former self. It’s Colin Baker, in the Big Finish audio adventures!

Buy the stories!

The stories we discuss this week are all available for download from the Big Finish website.

• Jubilee, by Rob Shearman.
• Doctor Who and the Pirates, by Jacqueline Rayner.
• The One Doctor, by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman.
• The Brink of Death, by Nicholas Briggs, the final story in The Last Adventure box set.

Notes and links

Jubilee

Rob Shearman has written a number of Big Finish audios, and some books, including Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical and Everyone’s Just So Special. These are all available from his page on the Big Finish website.

Fans of upsetting and occasionally funny near-future dystopias will enjoy Black Mirror, which is available on Netflix.

As usual, Elizabeth Sandifer has an insighful take on this story, which Nathan is impressed by. Shearman himself comments on the article.

If you’re in the mood for a much more harrowing patriarchal dystopia, Hulu has recently made a brilliant TV adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

Doctor Who and the Pirates

This story was written by Jac Rayner, who has written a number of Doctor Who plays and novels. She also maintains a blog. [Or she did in 2017. Here in the distant future of 2024 the blog is but a memory and her hosting provider would love her to drop them a line.]

The One Doctor

Richard and Nathan both remember watching The Maths Show in primary school, which occasional featured a segment called Doctor Where, in which the Doctor and Sally-Anne explained concepts like scale and probability.

The hapless Fry drinks the emperor of the planet Trisol in the Futurama episode My Three Suns.

The Brink of Death

Michael Jayston starred in a dramatisation of Geoffrey Household’s 1939 novel, Rogue Male, in which a British ex-serviceman travels to Europe to assassinate the unnamed dictator of a major power. (Oh, okay, it’s probably Hitler.)

Those eyes

Don’t forget to vote for the story you want us to cover in our upcoming Tom Baker commentary podcast. Click over to the shownotes for Episode 109 and make your choice. Voting will be closing soon.

Follow us!

Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Richard is @RichardLStone. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll release our next episode in the form of a sung-through musical.

Bondfinger

Over on Bondfinger, we’ve just released our first commentary of the Pierce Brosnan’s era, the highly-regarded GoldenEye (1995).

Of course, you can still catch our commentaries on both films of the Timothy Dalton era.

We also have plenty of Rodgecasts online, and there are other Bonds available, as well. You can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.

Transported to a nightmarish world of the Valeyard’s creation, the Doctor finds himself unable to escape, because Eric Saward has stormed off, taking his script for Episode 14 with him.

This week, we bring you that script, performed by a troupe of talented and attractive young actors. What was the original ending for The Trial of a Time Lord? Tune in to Flight Through Entirety’s production of Time Inc. to find out.

Credits

The Doctor	Todd Beilby
Melanie	Brendan Jones
The Valeyard	Nathan Bottomley
The Inquisitor	Richard Stone
Glitz	Richard Stone
The Master	James Sellwood
Popplewick	Brendan Jones
Keeper of the Matrix	Todd Beilby

Special thanks to Dominic Glynn, who graciously permitted the use of his original soundtrack for The Ultimate Foe.

What are you, a comedian?

Normal service will be resumed next week with our Colin Baker Big Finish special, our second-last episode on the Colin Baker Era.

If you want to prepare for this episode, you should listen to these stories.

• Jubilee, by Rob Shearman.
• The One Doctor, by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman.
• Doctor Who and the Pirates, by Jacqueline Rayner.
• The Brink of Death, by Nicholas Briggs, the final story in The Last Adventure box set.

Vaguely bohemian

Don’t forget to vote for the story you want us to cover in our upcoming Tom Baker commentary podcast. Click over to last week’s shownotes and make your choice.

Follow us!

Fans of true facts about Doctor Who will enjoy our new Doctor Who Facts account on Twitter, which you can find at @FTEwhofacts.

Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Richard is @RichardLStone. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll end every episode from now on with a series-destroying cliffhanger.

Bondfinger

At the end of the week, we’ll be releasing our first Bondfinger commentary of the Pierce Brosnan era, on the videogame-inspiring GoldenEye (1995). You can still catch up on our recent commentaries on both films of the Timothy Dalton era.

Of course, we also have plenty of Rodgecasts online, and there are other Bonds available, as well. You can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.

And now it’s time for the Trial storyline to implode completely. Nathan turns out to be a distillation of all that is evil in Todd, and Brendan has just stormed out with the only copy of this episode’s script. It’s the last two episodes of The Trial of a Time Lord — The Ultimate Foe.

Buy the story!

For the last time, The Ultimate Foe was released as part of the Trial of a Time Lord box set in 2008/2009. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)

Just one link this week

So, here’s our weekly link to Eric Saward’s tell-all interview in Starburst.

Picks of the week

Brendan

Brendan recommends Matrix, by Robert Perry & Mike Tucker, a BBC Past Doctor Adventure which answers the seldom-asked question, So what’s the Valeyard up to these days?

Peri’s ultimate fate is explored by Nev Fountain in Big Finish audio Peri and the Piscon Paradox.

(Brendan also mentions in passing the New Adventures novel Bad Therapy, which features the Seventh Doctor and Peri, weirdly.)

Nathan

Nathan goes embarrassingly highbrow again, recommending the BBC1 comedy frock drama Decline and Fall, based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh.

Todd

Todd comes up with a couple of excitingly silly recommendations this week: the film Beauty and the Beast, and the CW teen drama Riverdale. More sensibly, he recommends any Big Finish audio starring Colin Baker and Bonnie Langford. And a final shout-out to Big Finish audio Wirrn Isle.

Carrot juice, carrot juice, carrot juice

This week, we say farewell to Colin on television, but here on the podcast we’re not willing to say goodbye yet. In two weeks’ time, we’ll be doing a very special episode on some of our favourite Colin Baker Big Finish audios.

If you want to prepare for this episode, here are the stories you should listen to.

• Jubilee, by Rob Shearman.
• The One Doctor, by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman.
• Doctor Who and the Pirates, by Jacqueline Rayner.
• The Brink of Death, by Nicholas Briggs, the final story in The Last Adventure box set.

All teeth and curls

Don’t forget to vote for the story you want us to cover in our upcoming Tom Baker commentary podcast. Click over to last week’s shownotes and make your choice.

Follow us!

Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Richard is @RichardLStone. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll string you along for fourteen weeks only to deliver something completely incoherent with a megabyte modem in it.

Bondfinger

We’re gearing up for another Bondfinger commentary podcast in the next couple of weeks: this time, it’s Pierce Brosnan’s first film as Bond, perennial fan favourite GoldenEye (1995) In the meantime, you can still catch up on our commentaries on both films of the Timothy Dalton era.

Of course, we also have plenty of Rodgecasts online, and there are other Bonds available, as well. You can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.

After the stressful events of last week, we’ve decided to treat ourselves to a luxury cruise. Brendan’s working out in a pink tracksuit, Todd’s playing Galaxian and terrorising the waitress, and Nathan’s hanging around the communications room with an axe. And, in order to protect a secret hidden on the space liner, one of us will become a murderer. And there are Vervoids, of course.

Buy the story!

Terror of the Vervoids was (again) released as part of the Trial of a Time Lord box set in 2008/2009. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)

Notes and links

Originally considered for this slot in the Trial was a story called Paradise 5, by P J Hammond. It has since been adapted for audio by Big Finish as part of its Lost Stories range.

Michael Craig, who is this story’s Beryl Reid, later went on to star as Dr William Sharp in the ABC drama series GP, set in a medical practice in inner-city Sydney.

This story has no Script Editor credit at all, because Eric Saward has ragequit the show. So let’s link to his pungent Starburst interview one more time.

Here’s are some future Colin Baker stories that the Doctor probably should have chosen to present as evidence instead: The Marian Conspiracy, Arrangements for War and The One Doctor. (More of which later.)

Bonnie Langford brings a dark past to her time on the show. She played Violet Elizabeth Bott in the Just William television series in 1976 and 1977. You can see some of her very early work here. (Don’t skip this one. You really need to click on that link.)

You can find a detailed account of Noël Coward’s cruel remarks about Bonnie Langford here, including another quip that we didn’t mention.

Sciencey murderer Doland is played by Malcolm Tierney, who played horrific northern Tory Patrick Woolton in the original British House of Cards (1990).

The Brink of Death

The Colin Baker Era is about to meet an untimely end, but Colin’s Sixth Doctor lives on very successfully in the Big Finish audios. So to round out our appreciation of the era, we’re planning a Very Special Episode in which we discuss some of Colin’s audio highlights.

If you want to prepare for this episode, here are the stories you should listen to.

• Jubilee, by Rob Shearman.
• The One Doctor, by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman.
• Doctor Who and the Pirates, by Jacqueline Rayner.
• The Brink of Death, by Nicholas Briggs, the final story in The Last Adventure box set.

He just likes to irritate people

There’s still time for you to vote for a Tom Baker story for the four of us to talk all over for our next commentary episode. Just pop over to last week’s shownotes and cast your vote.

Follow us!

Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Richard is @RichardLStone. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll break into your hotel bathroom while you’re out and fart copiously in the shower.

Bondfinger

Over on Bondfinger, we’ve already dusted off the Nintendo 64 in preparation for the Pierce Brosnan era. In the meantime, you can still catch up on our commentaries on both films of the Timothy Dalton era.

Of course, we also have plenty of Rodgecasts online, and there are other Bonds available, as well. You can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.

It’s been a few years now, so it’s time to cynically murder another one of the Doctor’s companions. Which is why we spend a lot of time talking about what’s great about this story. It’s episodes 5 to 8 of The Trial of a Time Lord — Mindwarp.

There’s Always a Choice

You’ve waited long enough: it’s time for you to vote for a Tom Baker story for our next commentary podcast. It’s just like the British General Election, only not horrendous.

Voting in the FTE Tom Baker commentary poll has now closed. In this poll, our listeners made a choice between The Hand of Fear , The Sun Makers, The Stones of Blood and The Horns of Nimon. The winner will be announced in Episode 115.

Buy the story!

Mindwarp was (unsurprisingly) released as part of the Trial of a Time Lord box set in 2008/2009. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)

Notes and links

Not much to say here, but Nathan makes a reference to Peri being “fridged”. You can find the TV Tropes entry on fridging here.

Moments later, he namechecks another trope when he talks about “lampshading” the convenient arrival of a new companion. It’s just tropes tropes tropes tropes tropes this week.

Follow us!

Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Richard is @RichardLStone. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll do something so horrifically cynical that it completely ruins the best TV show of your entire childhood.

Bondfinger

Over on Bondfinger, we’ve finally reached the end of the entire Timothy Dalton era, with our recently-released commentary on Licence to Kill. Fans of Timothy Dalton will also enjoy our commentary on The Living Daylights.

Of course, we also have plenty of Rodgecasts online, and there are other Bonds available, as well. You can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.

This week, Brendan, Nathan and Todd go for a lovely walk in a rain-drenched forest, only to find themselves dragged halfway across the galaxy by the Time Lords and placed on trial to answer for their crimes. It’s Parts 1 to 4 of the longest Doctor Who story ever — The Trial of a Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet.

Buy the story!

The Mysterious Planet was released as part of the Trial of a Time Lord box set in 2008/2009. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)

Notes and links

Trials and Tribulations is a 55-minute documentary covering the production problems that plagued the Colin Baker era, and the 1985 cancellation in particular. Do not miss this.

After leaving the show in 1986, Eric Saward gave an interview to Starburst magazine, in which he mounted an attack on John Nathan-Turner. It’s an eyewatering read.

In 1989, Jon Pertwee starred in a Doctor Who stage play called The Ultimate Adventure. During the run, Colin Baker took over in a somewhat less horrific version of his TV costume.

Fans of Mollie Sugden as Mrs Slocombe will undoubtedly enjoy watching her trapped on a spaceship in the year 2050 in BBC sitcom Come Back Mrs Noah (1977).

In this story, whiskerless youth Balazar is played by Adam Blackwood. Blackwood can also be seen playing Tok in Season 4 Blakes 7 episode Assassin, in which he is bidding on slaves at the behest of Natratof of Gourimpest. He also plays Barmy Fotheringay Phipps in various episodes of Jeeves and Wooster. Most surprisingly, he is the voice of James Bond himself in the 2001 videogame 007: Agent Under Fire. You can get an idea of what he’s like in this video on YouTube.

In a nearby parallel universe, Glitz and Dibber were played by French and Saunders. Which is as good an excuse as any to link to this video of the two of them playing extras on the set of Trial of a Time Lord. You can also see them in the BBC sitcom Girls on Top (1985).

Follow us!

Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Richard is @RichardLStone. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll keep interrupting your day to comment irritatingly on everything you’ve just been doing.

Bondfinger

Over on Bondfinger, we just released the first of a series of commentaries on the Timothy Dalton Bond film, in which we discuss The Living Daylights. We’ll be releasing our commentary on Licence to Kill next weekend.

Of course, we also have plenty of Rodgecasts online, and there are other Bonds available, as well. You can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.

The walls between realities were fairly porous back in 1986, which is why we find ourselves this week in a terrifying parallel universe where the Hiatus never happened, and the original plans for Season 23 actually came to fruition. Beware.

Buy the stories!

Here are the four stories that we spend most of our time discussing:

• The novel of Slipback was published in 1987, but it’s now out of print. It’s still available in its original form as an audiobook. (Audible US) (Audible UK) (Audible AU)
• The Nightmare Fair was first published as a novel in 1989, and is long since out of print. The Big Finish audio version was recorded in 2009.
• The Ultimate Evil was also published as a novel in 1989. It’s nearly impossible to find. Sadly, Big Finish have been unable to persuade Wally K. Daly to let them produce an audio version. Sorry, Brendan.
• Mission to Magnus was published as a novel in 1990. Like the rest of these books, it’s now out of print. The Big Finish audio version was recorded in 2009.

We also mention these Big Finish lost story adaptations:

• The Song of Megaptera by Pat Mills
• The Hollows of Time by Christopher H. Bidmead
• Point of Entry by Barbara Clegg and Marc Platt
• The Guardians of Prophecy by Johnny Byrne
• Power Play by Gary Hopkins
• The Macros by Ingrid Pitt and Tony Rudlin
• Paradise 5 by PJ Hammond & Andy Lane
• Leviathan by Brian & Paul Finch
• The First Sontarans by Andrew Smith

Todd’s dream Season 23

If you’re willing to let Todd into your head, why not try listening to his dream Season 23, the stories he wishes had been produced had the Hiatus never happened?

• The Nightmare Fair
• The Song of Megaptera
• Leviathan
• Slipback (US) (UK) (AU)
• The First Sontarans
• The Macros
• The Hollows of Time (possibly)

Notes and links

Fans of genuinely funny and brilliant radio comedy featuring wacky computers and morose robots will enjoy The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, particularly the first radio series. (Audible US) (Audible UK) (Audible AU)

Slipback’s two computer voices are played by Jane Carr, who plays bald Centauri alien Timov Moralli in a number of Babylon 5 episodes, including Soul Mates. She also plays Malcolm Reed’s mother on Enterprise. In that role, she actually has hair, which just goes to show how impressive her range is.

One of Slipback’s computer voices is hideously reminiscent of the presenter of the 1990s Australian children’s programme, Mulligrubs. Take a look here, if you dare.

Fans of the Planet of Women trope will enjoy the reference to the planet Cygnet XIV in the Star Trek episode Tomorrow is Yesterday, in which Captain Kirk is annoyed to find the Enterprise computer flirting with him after its overhaul at the hands of that planet’s engineers.

Whether you like it or not

We have only one (or four) stories left to cover in the Colin Baker era. And because we can’t bear to say goodbye to him so soon, we’re planning a Very Special Episode about some of Colin’s best Big Finish audios. To prepare for that episode, you might like to listen to these audio stories:

• Jubilee, by Rob Shearman.
• The One Doctor, by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman.
• Doctor Who and the Pirates, by Jacqueline Rayner.
• The Brink of Death, by Nicholas Briggs, which is the final story in The Last Adventure box set.

Follow us!

Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Richard is @RichardLStone. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll release a horrifying charity single berating you for failing to do so.

Bondfinger

Meanwhile, over at Bondfinger, we have finally arrived at the Rassilon Era, with Timothy Dalton’s first film as Bond, The Living Daylights.

Of course, we also have plenty of Rodgecasts online, and there are other Bonds available as well. You can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.

It’s the end of the season, so we decide to head over to Necros for a delicious meal of synthetic protein, which is at least more palatable than the rather pungent protein for sale on Delta Magna. Everyone on this planet seems to be getting on so well, and the direction is lovely, so this can only be Revelation of the Daleks.

And I voted against that, thank you very much

Our Pertwee Commentary poll is still open, so go to the shownotes for Episode 103 and make your voice heard. which Pertwee story do you want us to talk all over in an upcoming commentary episode?

Buy the story!

Revelation of the Daleks was released on DVD in 2005/2006. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)

Notes and links

Nathan identifies two well-chosen influences on this story. The first is last year’s The Caves of Androzani, which we talk about at length in Episode 97: Men Manning and Being Men at Each Other. The second is much better: Evelyn Waugh’s horrifically black satire of both American and English culture: The Loved One. Read it.

This episode, we hear Part II of Brendan’s anecdote about Colin Baker’s appearance on Blakes 7 in the brilliant Chris Boucher episode City at the Edge of the World.

Famously miserable bastard Clive Swift is horribly cruel to all of us in a DWM interview about his role in Doctor Who’s highest-rated episode Voyage of the Damned. Read it, and feel terribly bad about your love of Doctor Who, if you have one.

Picks of the week

Brendan

Brendan sneakily mentions his contribution to Hating to Love: Re-Evaluating the 52 Worst Doctor Who Stories of All Time. So buy that. But for him, the main course is Totally Tasteless: The life of John Nathan-Turner, a new edition of Richard Marson’s outrageous biography of the last producer of Doctor Who’s classic series.

Nathan

Nathan just can’t resist recommending a brutally insightful and totally negative review of the DVD release of the Two Doctors by genius polymath Dr Graham Nelson.

Among many other much more significant achievements, Nelson is responsible for a scathing review of Blakes 7 Series 3. He is also the creator of Inform, a computer language for authoring text adventures, based on a subtle and clever understanding of how natural language works. [The Blakes 7 DVD review is gone, apparently, forever, which is why that link doesn’t work.]

Todd

Todd just wants you all to watch Season 22 again. The sentimental old thing.

What are you, a comedian?

Colin may not have been a resounding success on television (quiet, Todd!), but he has gone on to be one of the most successful actors to play the role in the Big Finish audios. To celebrate this achievement, we’re planning to spend an upcoming episode discussing these Colin Baker Big Finish stories.

• Jubilee, by Rob Shearman.
• The One Doctor, by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman.
• Doctor Who and the Pirates, by Jacqueline Rayner.
• The Brink of Death, by Nicholas Briggs. This is the final part of The Last Adventure, a series of four linked hour-long adventures culminating in a spectacular regeneration scene, even better than the television version featuring Sylvester McCoy in an unconvincing wig.

(In spite of last week’s shownotes, we won’t be covering Criss-Cross, but it’s still very much worth listening to, apparently.)

Follow us!

Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Richard is @RichardLStone. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we might even gun down your secretary. And you know how difficult it is to find good secretaries.

Doctor Who in 10 Seconds

Post-production is well underway on the next few episodes of Doctor Who in Ten Seconds, which is terribly exciting. In the meantime, make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel, so that you are informed immediately when the new episodes becomes available.

Bondfinger

We have been completely unable to locate 007, who is probably off in Gibraltar or Bratislava or somewhere completely fictional like Isthmus or Oz or Narnia or something. And so our commentary on The Living Daylights (1987) has been unavoidably delayed.

In the meantime, we have a range of Rodgecasts online, and other Bonds are also available, of course. You can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.

Our vast Flight Through Entirety budget for this season has now run out completely, so this week we’re just hanging out in some dingy corridors listlessly rebelling against things for no reason. It’s here, it’s lame — it’s Timelash.

Welcome to voting cubicle three thirty

Our poll is still open: just head over to the shownotes for Episode 103 and cast your vote for the Pertwee story you would like us to ruin for you forever in an upcoming commentary episode. We’re in Australia here, so voting is compulsory.

Buy the story!

Timelash was released on DVD in 2007/2008. But you’d really be better of spending your money on plutonium and cigarettes (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)

Notes and links

Inspired by the events of this story, H. G. Wells will go on to create modern SF, probably, with classics like The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau and The Invisible Man, and with more terrible books like The Food of the Gods and In the Days of the Comet.

Fans of guest stars coming on to a science fiction programme and completely upstaging the lead will enjoy Colin Baker’s performance as Bayban in the Blakes 7 episode City at the Edge of the World.

At the start of the Virgin Missing Adventure Speed of Flight by Paul Leonard, the Doctor plans to take Jo Grant and Mike Yates to Karfel for an exciting adventure of some kind.

This story’s composer, Elizabeth Parker, was previously responsible for special sound on Blakes 7 from Season 2 onwards. She may have provided the music for Duel; she seems definitely to have provided the music for Gambit. She will go on to have resounding success with the music for David Attenborough’s The Living Planet.

How did we all react the last time the Loch Ness Monster appeared in Doctor Who? Listen to Episode 37: A Shaved Mr Snuffleupagus to find out.

Todd is horrified to learn that Brendan enjoyed Star Trek: The Next Generation bottle show Where Silence Has Lease.

In a nearby parallel universe where Timelash was never made, this week’s episode of Flight Through Entirety covers either Leviathan or The Song of the Space Whale.

And a very loud voice

We can’t get enough Colin Baker, of course, and so in an upcoming episode we plan to talk about some of his work for Big Finish.

If you want to prepare, here’s a list of the audios we plan to cover.

• Jubilee, by Rob Shearman
• The One Doctor, by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman
• Doctor Who and the Pirates, by Jacqueline Rayner
• Criss-Cross, by Matt Fitton

Follow us!

Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Richard is @RichardLStone. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll simply come and take the grain. Don’t make us come over there.

Doctor Who in 10 Seconds

Brendan has been hard at work in the studio this week, which means that it won’t be too long before we get to see another episode of Doctor Who in Ten Seconds. While you wait, you can still watch all of the previous episodes, in which Brendan summarises 51 Doctor Who stories in no more than 10 seconds each. Make sure you subscribe to his YouTube channel, so that you are informed immediately when the Season 8 episode becomes available.

Bondfinger

We were so gutted by Rodge’s wildly premature departure from the Bond franchise, that we’ve been unable to bring ourselves to watch his successor in the role. Is he any good?

But, our duty to Queen and Country compels us to continue, which means that Bondfinger will return with our commentary on The Living Daylights (1987).

In the meantime, we have a range of Rodgecasts online, and other Bonds are also available, of course. You can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.

This week, most of us are delighted to be served a delicious meal of lobsters, clams, and squid, brains in white sauce, two whole suckling pigs, a ham with figs, eight steaks, and Robert Holmes at his most cynical. Welcome back, Pat, for The Two Doctors.

Governor’s punch-in vote tonight

It’s time for you all to step up and vote for a story for us to cover in our upcoming Pertwee commentary episode. Please consider your vote carefully. These things can often go so horribly wrong.

Voting in the FTE Pertwee commentary poll has now closed. In this poll, our listeners made a choice between Spearhead from Space , The Mutants, The Two Doctors and Death to the Daleks. The winner, with 35% of the vote, was Death to the Daleks.

Buy the story!

The Two Doctors was released on DVD in 2003/2004. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)

Notes and links

Fans of tropes tropes tropes tropes tropes tropes will enjoy the way that Anita hints flamboyantly at the Final Girl trope. Fans of tropes generally will definitely enjoy TV Tropes, the Internet’s repository of all of the world’s tropes, apart from Word Peril and the Exposition Coma, obviously.

People who hate the Doctor’s costume in this era (we know who you are) will enjoy this CD cover that features the Doctor’s fabulous waistcoat from The Two Doctors, created by Deviant Artist Hisi79 for The Red House, one of the four audio stories that make up the Big Finish ultimate Sixth Doctor box set, The Last Adventure.

Richard Marsden has recently released a second edition of his biography of Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner. Now called Totally Tasteless: The Life of John Nathan-Turner, it includes a new chapter chronicling the drama that accompanied the first edition’s release. And it’s not available as an ebook, for no good reason.

Follow us!

Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Richard is @RichardLStone. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or our whining importunity will acidise your digestive juices. And who knows what you’ll do after that?

Bondfinger

Bondfinger will return with our first foray into the Timothy Dalton era (sploosh!) some time in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, we have a range of Rodgecasts online, and other Bonds are also available, of course. You can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.

None of us have slept for weeks, and our exposure to Twitter has taught us that technological progress must be resisted at all costs. So join in with us as we smash the machines and discuss The Mark of the Rani.

Buy the story!

The Mark of Rani was released on DVD in 2006. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)

Notes and links

Spy vs Spy was a long-running wordless comic strip which featured for decades in MAD Magazine.

Fans of period drama where the principals aren’t wearing the most horrific clothes possible will enjoy The Pallisers and When the Boat Comes In.

Brendan mentions Cornell, Day and Topping’s opinion on this story’s rubber trees in their Discontinuity Guide entry on this story.

Before taking on the role of the Doctor, Colin Baker was most famous for his role as Paul Merroney in The Brothers, which ran from 1972 to 1976, and also featured television’s fabulous Kate O’Mara.

Horrifically, Bic pens for women were actually a real thing. Here’s Ellen’s take on the topic.

For those of you who don’t live and breathe the history of Doctor Who, Michael Grade was Controller of BBC One in 1985. In February of that year, he announced that Doctor Who was cancelled; later on, he announced instead that it would be “rested” for eighteen months.

Brendan, who was basically born to find redemptive readings for the worst Doctor Who stories ever, is a major contributor to the newly-published, Hating to Love: Re-evaluating the 52 Worst Doctor Who Stories of All Time, which is available in all good bookstores everywhere. And on the Kindle.

Follow us!

Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Richard is @RichardLStone. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll OMG THE MASTER ACTUALLY KILLED A DOG IN THIS STORY. I JUST CAN’T EVEN.

Bondfinger

Bondfinger is back for the new year with our final Rodgecast, a commentary on A View to a Kill. We will be embarking on the sexy Welsh period of the Bond franchise as soon as we can possibly manage it.

A full range of Rodgecasts are also available, from Live and Let Die to Octopussy. Other Bonds are also available, of course. You can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.

Trapped in a futuristic dystopia run by crazed B-grade reality television stars, Brendan, Nathan and Todd attempt to take their mind off things by watching the remarkably vengeance-free Vengeance of Varos.

Buy the story!

Vengeance of Varos was originally released very early on: in 2001 in the UK, in 2002 in Australia, and in 2003 in the US. Mercifully, a special edition of the story was released in 2012. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)

Notes and links

Todd draws a deft comparison between this story and Gogglebox, a television programme on Channel 4 in which we get to watch various households watching various other television programmes. There’s an Australian version as well.

In Australia, this season of 45-minute episodes was broadcast in a 25-minute timeslot, which led to some horrifically bad cliffhangers. The worst of these will be horribly evident next week.

Nigel Kneale, creator of Quatermass and conservative grandpa angry about the way the nurses keep moving his pills, was the creator of The Year of the Sex Olympics, which depicts a future where the elites pacify the population with a steady diet of violence, pornography and reality television.

Owen Teale plays Maldak in this story, a guard with a truly regrettable 80s hairstyle. He will go on to appear in the Torchwood episode Countrycide, and in a popular television programme called Game of Thrones, which Nathan has never even heard of.

Despite his performance in this story, Jason Connery will go on to have a distinguished acting career. He stars in Robin of Sherwood Season 3 as fake replacement Robin Hood after the original Robin leaves the show/is shot to death by arrows. He also plays Ian Fleming in Spymaker: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming (1990).

Follow us!

Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Richard is @RichardLStone. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll vote on your behalf to prevent the painful execution of the monster in charge of your country’s government.

Bondfinger

Bondfinger is back for the new year with our final Rodgecast, a commentary on A View to a Kill. We will be embarking on the Bond franchise’s Rassilon Era in a few weeks’ time.

A full range of Rodgecasts are also available, from Live and Let Die to Octopussy. Other Bonds are also available, of course. You can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.

This week, Brendan, Nathan and Todd are back to review the Cybermen’s 1985 compilation album Attack of the Cybermen, in which the band revisit all their classic hits from the 1960s, including Another Planet (1966), Clever Clever Clever (1967), You Belong to Us (1967), Initiate Plan Three (1968) and perennial fan favourite It Has Been Agreed (1968). Not all of us appreciate the nostalgia.

Buy the story!

Attack of the Cybermen was released on DVD in 2009. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)

Notes and links

Doctor Who: The Complete History is a series of beautifully produced hardback books chronicling the entire history of the programme, from its first beginnings to the present day.

Brendan mentions an adorable photo of TV’s Starbucks Dirk Benedict and Katee Sackoff drinking Starbucks at Starbucks. Katee Sackoff’s current Twitter profile picture is equally adorable.

Brendan would just like to take this opportunity to plug the book Hating to Love: Re-evaluating the Worst 52 Doctor Who Stories of All Time, in which he tries to redeem, excuse or explain seven somewhat unloved Doctor Who stories. The book was edited by JR Southall, of Blue Box Podcast fame.

Follow us!

Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Richard is @RichardLStone. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll tell everyone about that nylon allergy you’ve been trying to keep secret.

Doctor Who in 10 Seconds

Every week, we remind you about Brendan’s brilliant video series Doctor Who in Ten Seconds, in which he summarises no less than 51 Doctor Who stories in no more than 10 seconds each. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you really should. And make sure you subscribe to his YouTube channel, so that you are informed immediately when the Season 8 episode becomes available.

Bondfinger

Bondfinger is back for the new year with our final Rodgecast, a commentary on A View to a Kill.

A full range of Rodgecasts are also available, from Live and Let Die to Octopussy. Other Bonds are also available, of course. You can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.

This week’s episode is mostly a series of increasingly angry rants. But The Twin Dilemma may just be the worst story in fifty years of Doctor Who.

Buy the story!

The Twin Dilemma was originally released on DVD in 2009/2010. It is the only Doctor Who DVD never to sell a single copy. Let’s see if we can keep that record intact. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK)

Notes and links

Less than a year ago, the code was finally cracked. You’ll be surprised to find out what Romulus and Remus were actually saying to each other during their game of equations.

This is Nathan. Nathan hasn’t seen The Shining (1980). Nathan is on a Doctor Who podcast. Nathan basically only has time to watch Doctor Who these days. Don’t be like Nathan.

Richard alludes to two novels by John Wyndham: Chocky, which involves a boy in psychic communication with a mysterious alien force, and The Midwich Cuckoos, which features an entire village of creepy alien twins.

Picks of the week

Brendan

In a totally free Big Finish audio, Fifth Doctor companions Peri and Erimem (don’t ask) encounter Seventh Doctor companions Ace and Hex (no idea). It’s The Veiled Leopard, written by Iain McLaughlin and Claire Bartlett, and directed by friend-of-the-podcast Gary Russell. Download it for free here.

Nathan

Nathan has just rewritten and relaunched an improved version of his website The Randomiser. The Randomiser allows you to choose a Doctor Who story completely at random, or to avoid particular Doctors, long stories, or stories with missing episodes. He is yet to implement a feature allowing you to avoid stories that are simply tiresome.

Todd

Todd picks two stories. A prequel to Warriors of the Deep called Doctor Who and the Silurians (which we discuss here), and a sequel called Bloodtide, a Big Finish audio in which Colin’s Doctor and Evelyn meet Charles Darwin and some Silurians on the Galápagos Islands.

Richard

Richard chooses no less than four stories. The first one is Cold Fusion. This is a recently-released Big Finish adaptation of a Virgin New Adventures novel by Lance Parkin, in which the Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric meet the Doctor, Roz and Chris on “an occupied ice planet” of some kind. Hoth, possibly. And the Doctor’s wife is there as well. No, not that one.

He also mentions three Big Finish audios. Two feature the Fifth Doctor, Peri and would-be Pharaoh Erimem: The Eye of the Scorpion and The Church and the Crown. The other features the Fifth Doctor and Peri encountering the Ice Warriors: Red Dawn.

Follow us!

Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Nathan is @nathanbottomley, Todd is @toddbeilby, and Richard is @RichardLStone. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @FTEpodcast.

We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on iTunes, or we’ll force you to wear an outfit so hideous that it nearly causes the cancellation of your favourite TV show.

Meanwhile, here’s something Brendan doesn’t like…

While you’re waiting for the latest episode of Doctor Who in Ten Seconds, why not listen to Brendan’s intemperate rant about the Big Finish story Nekromanteia, starring Peter Davison as the Doctor, with companions Peri and Erimem?

You can find the rant here. There may be swearing.

And don’t forget to subscribe to Doctor Who in Ten Seconds, so that you are informed immediately when the Season 8 episode becomes available.

Bondfinger

Bondfinger is back for the new year with our final Rodgecast, a commentary on A View to a Kill.

A full range of Rodgecasts are also available, from Live and Let Die to Octopussy. Other Bonds are also available, of course. You can keep up with all the Bondfinger news on Twitter and Facebook.