Safe for Now

Flight Through Entirety: A Doctor Who Podcast

I’m not trying to win. I’m not doing this because I want to beat someone, or because I hate someone, or because I want to blame someone. It’s not because it’s fun and God knows it’s not because it’s easy. It’s not even because it works, because it hardly ever does. I do what I do because it’s right! Because it’s decent! And above all, it’s kind. It’s just that. Just kind.

On a quiet farm on a distant spaceship, the Doctor makes his last stand. Because that’s what he always does. It’s The Doctor Falls.

Notes and links

Nathan compares the Missy/Master dynamic to a similar situation found in the late Star Trek: The Next Generation episode Second Chances, in which we meet a transporter clone of Commander Riker who is still in love with Deanna Troi, while his original version has long since moved on from that relationship. (We are yet to cover this one on Untitled Star Trek Project.)

He also compares the Missy/Master hug to a similar one from the Blakes 7 episode Traitor, in which Servalan snogs a character called Leitz, who is blackmailing her, and then stabs him in the back of the neck with a plastic crystal thing. We will talk more about this during our coverage of Blakes 7 Series D on Maximum Power, which starts just three weeks from today.

In The World Shapers (1987), a Doctor Who Magazine comic strip written by Grant Morrison, it is established that the Mondasian Cybermen were descended from the Voord from The Keys of Marinus.

Bill’s final speech to the unconscious Doctor at the end of this episode seems to allude to a similar speech from Moffat’s first Doctor Who story, The Curse of Fatal Death (1999), in which the Doctor’s companion Emma (Julia Sawalha) says “Doctor, listen to me. You can’t die, you’re too nice, too brave, too kind and far, far too silly. You’re like Father Christmas, the Wizard of Oz, Scooby Doo. And I love you very much. And we all need you, and you simply cannot die.” You can — and should — watch The Curse of Fatal Death on YouTube.

Picks of the Week

Todd

Todd recommends the Special Edition of The Happiness Patrol, which restores many deleted scenes and adds some clever and sympathetically designed new special effects. It’s available on the Season 25 box set of Doctor Who: The Collection. (Amazon UK) (Amazon US) (Amazon AU)

Peter

Peter recommends the Surgeons of Horror podcast series on Doctor Who, The Horror of Who, which has featured Brendan, Peter and Nathan. In the episode Hartnell’s Horror Part 4: The Cybermen, Peter explains what makes the Cybermen from The Tenth Planet so brilliant and effective.

Brendan

Brendan recommends George Sheard’s reimagining of these two episodes as a 1960s Doctor Who story as Genesis of the Cybermen: World Enough and Time Noir. Check out the trailer here.

Nathan

Nathan recommends our other Doctor Who podcast, 500 Year Diary, which will be taking over from Flight Through Entirety for a few years while FTE takes a well-earned break. In our first season, New Beginnings, we discussed six episodes in Doctor Who and its spinoffs, where a show is making a new or fresh start. We’ll be back with a second season early in 2025. Like and subscribe.

Follow us

Nathan is on Bluesky at @nathanbottomley.com, Brendan is at @retrobrendo.bsky.social and Todd is at @toddbeilby.bsky.social. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam.

You can follow Flight Through Entirety on Bluesky, as well as on Mastodon, X and Facebook. Our website is at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on Apple Podcasts, or we’ll break your heart, but in a funny way.

And more

You can find links to all of the podcasts we’re involved in on our podcasts page. But here’s a summary of where we’re up to right now.

500 Year Diary is our latest new Doctor Who podcast, going back through the history of the show and examining new themes and ideas. Its first season came out early this year, under the title New Beginnings. Check it out. It will be back for a second season early in 2025.

The Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire has broadcast our hot takes on every new episode of Doctor Who since November last year, and it will be back again in 2025 for Season 2.

And finally there’s our Star Trek commentary podcast, Untitled Star Trek Project, featuring Nathan and friend-of-the-podcast Joe Ford. This week, we enjoyed a widely-reviled episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine called Ferengi Love Songs.