The Earth has once again fallen under the thrall of some wizened cadaverous monsters, who demand our love, our loyalty, and our uncritical acceptance of the Great Monk theory of history. And the only way to throw off their yoke is with a lot of laborious exposition. It’s The Lie of the Land.

Simon quotes from the Yes, Prime Minister episode The Bishop’s Gambit (1986), which discusses the Church of England’s dual roles as a religion and as “part of the rich social fabric of this country”.

The Doctor’s broadcasts from a ship somewhere outside the five-mile limit inevitably remind several of us of an episode of The Goodies called Radio Goodies (1970), in which the trio broadcast a pirate radio station into the UK from international waters, satirising real-world events chronicled in the Richard Curtis film The Boat That Rocked (2009).

We’ve mentioned it before: Doctor Who: The Complete History is a ninety-volume book series covering the series from 1963 to 2017, which means that this episode comes up in Volume 88. The books themselves were beautifully produced, but the series is also available digitally.

Nathan is on Bluesky at @nathanbottomley.bsky.social, Brendan is at @retrobrendo.bsky.social, and James is at @ohjamessellwood.bsky.social. Simon is on X at @simonmoore72. The Flight Through Entirety theme was arranged by Cameron Lam.

You can follow Flight Through Entirety on Mastodon and Bluesky, as well as on X and Facebook. Our website is at flightthroughentirety.com. Please consider rating or reviewing us on Apple Podcasts, or we’ll keep goading you until you shoot us with a big gun, and then — yeah, I’ve got nothing. I was hoping something would develop.

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.

Last week, Brendan and Bjay’s gaming podcast The Bjay BJ Game Show released their latest episode, in which they discuss Lost in Play (2022), a point-and-click adventure set in the imagination of two young children.

Brendan, Richard and Steven also recently released another episode of their Avengers podcast The Three Handed Game. It’s the first episode of their triptych The Pop Explosion, covering a monochrome Emma Peel episode called Death at Bargain Prices, in which Steed and Mrs Peel go undercover in a London department store and discover a plot to blow up much of the city.

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 roared with laughter as Marina Sirtis turned fabulously evil in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called Man of the People.