Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Jack Shanahan (in person) about his choice of Boom

Transcript

Talks to Jack Shanahan (in person) about his choice of Boom · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:23
  None. Hamster with a blunt penlight
• 0:35
  for doing. Quicker, quicker, quicker.
• 0:41
  Hello and welcome to the 91 be praised.
• 0:43
  I'm Jack. And I'm Joe.
• 0:45
  And you might be noticing the audio quality is particularly
• 0:48
  crisp at the moment. Where?
• 0:49
  Is that? Jack Well, it's certainly not
• 0:51
  because of any tech savvy on our part.
• 0:52
  It's actually, it's actually because we are in person.
• 0:56
  We're in the same room. Hi.
• 0:58
  What's that line? Do you remember when in Return
• 1:01
  of Doctor Mysterio, when the they think they've got the
• 1:04
  doctor on the monitor, they're looking and he just turns out to
• 1:05
  be, He's like I'm coming from. Live in person and I'll tell you
• 1:09
  what, it is really on the phone, you know?
• 1:11
  Yeah, Jack, whoever left that review saying take Jack
• 1:14
  out-of-the-box, he's finally out-of-the-box and in my house.
• 1:18
  For one day, for one day only, then we're going to, we're going
• 1:21
  to put him back in his little toilet, Pandorica, you know?
• 1:24
  Jack, you've come all the way to England.
• 1:26
  I have, madman. Why would you do such a thing?
• 1:29
  I know I've. Been to stay at this I.
• 1:30
  Know I stayed away for nearly ten years.
• 1:34
  It's gone to rack and ruin and you chose to come back now.
• 1:36
  Exactly, exactly. I literally got into the country
• 1:39
  the day an election was announced.
• 1:40
  So I was like, oh wow, what a what a time to be alive.
• 1:43
  Have you had a nice break? And, and you know what, it's
• 1:46
  been a pretty good time. I was here for a very, a very
• 1:49
  big do as my cousin's wedding, which is loads of fun.
• 1:53
  And then I was over in Spain for about a week, jumping between a
• 1:59
  few different places, Sulo Bilbao and and then I went to
• 2:02
  Andorra, which is, which is not part of Spain.
• 2:05
  It's its own tiny, tiny little country.
• 2:07
  But yeah, I got back to the UK a couple of days ago and I am
• 2:12
  desperately cramming in as many catch UPS as I can.
• 2:16
  It was a bit of. Cramming in we had a whole day,
• 2:18
  We've had a day and 1/2. I know, I know.
• 2:21
  I was really pleased with my savvy scheduling there.
• 2:25
  We did manage to stay up until 2:30 the first night.
• 2:27
  I know it was like a sugar rush. Just talking about Yeah and
• 2:31
  doing exactly how we knew. Usually podcast we started off
• 2:34
  on one conversation and then ended up somewhere else.
• 2:38
  Yeah. Except the difference was, is
• 2:39
  that usually when we do that and usually when we're doing it at
• 2:42
  that time, it usually gets late, quite late for one of us.
• 2:46
  And it's usually like the middle of the night for one of us, as
• 2:49
  opposed to this instance where we were both the next.
• 2:52
  Still, it was the middle of the night.
• 2:53
  Yeah, that's right. I remember you're like, you
• 2:54
  should probably go to bed, Jack, you stop me after this anecdote.
• 2:57
  And I was like, oh, yeah. No, no, we, oh, it's 2:00 in the
• 3:00
  morning. I just remember when you got off
• 3:02
  the train and I'm like, my God, he's in.
• 3:04
  Three DI know he's not flat on a screen.
• 3:06
  Anymore. He's not this tiny little man
• 3:08
  with the with the little bobble head.
• 3:10
  Well, it has been absolutely wonderful.
• 3:12
  Oh, thank you. Proof conclusive that we can
• 3:16
  talk for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours
• 3:19
  wherever we. Are yeah, yeah.
• 3:20
  Without lag, stretch, stretching it out.
• 3:22
  Oh. My gosh, that wonderful movie
• 3:24
  yesterday. Yeah, we did.
• 3:25
  Amadeus. Amadeus.
• 3:26
  Yeah, Great film. Not just been Doctor Who folks,
• 3:28
  it's been culture as well. I know, I know.
• 3:31
  Although that said, I have spent a decent chunk of the last 24
• 3:35
  hours and a bit just admiring this room.
• 3:39
  Look at this look. It's bodies.
• 3:41
  Oh my God. Look, it's it's, it's the
• 3:44
  doctor. Trap.
• 3:45
  It's a tiny, tiny room packed with lots of Doctor Who.
• 3:51
  And then, but we, you know, we also watched some good Doctor
• 3:53
  Who in that time. We watched Robots of Death,
• 3:55
  which I'd never seen before. We watched Power of the Doctor.
• 3:59
  That's right, And we also watched the Robots of Death
• 4:01
  special feature featuring Russell Hunter being very rude
• 4:05
  to everybody on the. No, he just, oh, you know, at
• 4:09
  first I thought, why are we watching this feature?
• 4:13
  I think that frequently when mark was special features on
• 4:15
  you. Know I I was just like, it was
• 4:17
  the panopticon gallery from like 2000 and I was sitting there
• 4:20
  going, why? What are we doing?
• 4:22
  It's like the only person who really remembers this story,
• 4:25
  this episode at all is Louise Jameson.
• 4:29
  And then suddenly, what's his name?
• 4:31
  Who is it? Russell, I think it's Russell
• 4:32
  Hunter. Yeah, yeah.
• 4:34
  And he's. Very funny.
• 4:35
  Yeah. Yeah, he's.
• 4:35
  Worth the B was worth the price of admission alone.
• 4:37
  He was like he was just setting cigarettes off on stage and
• 4:42
  talking about how if he was a woman he would be hugely
• 4:45
  attracted to Tom Baker. Oh, and we watched one other
• 4:48
  thing as well, didn't we? Did we episode one of the new
• 4:52
  Celestial Toy Maker? We did animation.
• 4:55
  Oh, we did. I forgot about.
• 4:56
  That honestly, I felt as if I had Ian Levine in apoplectic
• 5:00
  sitting there watching. I know you were.
• 5:02
  You were. My blood spoiling, I was a
• 5:05
  little perplexed by some of the choices.
• 5:12
  Choices. Yeah, I think so.
• 5:16
  You know, I was quite I was quite taken with the the
• 5:18
  imagination of the they rendered the the celestial toy room in
• 5:23
  that. You're slightly left taken by
• 5:25
  the imagination of the special feature of the Doctor Who escape
• 5:29
  room. Yeah, I think I did.
• 5:33
  Perhaps a little wasp, especially crack when I don't
• 5:37
  know. Lisa Bauman.
• 5:38
  Who was it? It was Lisa Bauman.
• 5:40
  Maureen O'Brien and Peter Perve. That's right.
• 5:43
  When you know they're still on this triangle puzzle and 10.
• 5:47
  Minutes later, they've only got 17 minutes.
• 5:49
  I. Think I did go who's this for
• 5:52
  That's. What you said out loud.
• 5:54
  I did. Imagine this special feature is.
• 5:56
  For like just it just again, it just, it just beguiled me.
• 6:01
  So yeah, no, it's been aside from us.
• 6:04
  Wait, do we actually see? No, we didn't see the end of it,
• 6:06
  did we? Didn't know, do we?
• 6:08
  Do we know if they got out? No, no idea.
• 6:10
  They might still be there now I. Think I said to you I'll I'll
• 6:12
  put this back on one day when I'm very bored and I've got
• 6:15
  nothing else to do. I see, and you'll probably get
• 6:17
  up to be that exact point and then drop out of it again so you
• 6:20
  will never know if they got out. But I shall be bored today.
• 6:24
  Oh yeah? Why's that?
• 6:25
  Shanahan because we have selected, yeah, this is, you
• 6:29
  know, this potentially the one time we were commentary in
• 6:33
  person. I hope it's not the only time,
• 6:35
  but for now it will be. Well, what the hell?
• 6:39
  The great responsibility fell on your shoulders.
• 6:42
  Again, I throughout this, this entire day and a bit, I have
• 6:46
  just been forced to make choices.
• 6:48
  I've been like, oh, what do you want to watch Joe?
• 6:50
  You've done pretty. Well, actually.
• 6:51
  Yeah. Thank you.
• 6:52
  Thank you. Thank.
• 6:53
  You or would you have to choose which table to Yeah, in the
• 6:56
  restaurant. You did take about a minute to
• 6:58
  decide, but you did get there. It was. 30 seconds.
• 7:03
  Anyway, people don't want to hear about me choosing where to
• 7:06
  sit to eat fish and chips. Oh, they're here for.
• 7:08
  One that's right. That's right.
• 7:10
  Oh, no, no, no, no. My.
• 7:11
  Let's let's about the episode more about the fish.
• 7:14
  Well, what did you choose? Well, so we were.
• 7:17
  So it's about just after 8:00 in the morning.
• 7:22
  So we've both only just woken up and.
• 7:26
  Doing pretty well on. Those, yeah, I thought, and I
• 7:30
  think we would, we we kind of decided to do one of the
• 7:36
  shooting at work episodes and we're originally going to do all
• 7:39
  of them at once, but because I have a train to catch at 10:00.
• 7:42
  That's right. I do have a tendency to run off
• 7:45
  the mouth a bit, don't we? Yeah, we do.
• 7:46
  We do. So since I suspected we probably
• 7:49
  wouldn't be able to get through all the episodes of the season 2
• 7:52
  days, I was like, why don't we just single in on one?
• 7:56
  And then Joe was like, well, what do you want to do?
• 7:58
  Do you want to do 73 yards? Do you want to do Boom or do you
• 8:00
  want to do Rogue? Because you've done dot and
• 8:03
  Bubble quite recently, haven't? You bubble, Yeah.
• 8:05
  And then all the others, yeah. And I was, I was really puzzled
• 8:09
  by what to go for and I was nearly going to go with 73 yards
• 8:14
  because I do think it's quite good.
• 8:18
  And but it was then then just had a snap moment of realizing,
• 8:21
  Oh, I don't think I've actually we've actually talked about or
• 8:25
  suddenly I haven't talked about shoot a gap well either on a
• 8:27
  podcast because I was thinking really so good in that I
• 8:30
  actually wouldn't be saying much about shooting either.
• 8:32
  And I was like, let's go with boom.
• 8:34
  If we did seven in four yards, you'd have two scenes to talk
• 8:36
  about. Shoot to get of about 30 seconds
• 8:39
  in length. That's right.
• 8:40
  It's like, look at that. Really.
• 8:41
  Look at that really orange coat of his.
• 8:44
  Where's this one as well? It's just packed.
• 8:46
  Absolutely packed. Call it what you want,
• 8:49
  Substance, messaging. It's got a lot to say.
• 8:52
  That's right. That's right.
• 8:54
  I I feel. Like, it's one of Stephen
• 8:55
  Moffitt's angriest scripts that he's ever written, I think.
• 8:58
  So it does it does remind me a little bit of some of those
• 9:03
  stories, like I guess Dark Water would be one of them in the just
• 9:09
  in the way it kind of presents quite a graphic idea.
• 9:13
  But has the Doctor have quite a, quite a strong reaction to it,
• 9:17
  like in Dark War Teeth, like it's a con.
• 9:19
  This, this death morgue, you know, this afterlife thing.
• 9:22
  It's a, it's a con. It's a racket.
• 9:26
  But, and one thing I just find so impressive about this is, you
• 9:31
  know, it's obviously deliberate in space babies and in the
• 9:35
  Devil's Court. He's just running around so
• 9:37
  much. He's doing so much.
• 9:39
  And then Moffett comes in, as ever, with like a unit.
• 9:43
  No, that's forced him to stand still and just talk.
• 9:47
  I know, which I do think is a pretty nice idea, which is like,
• 9:52
  you know, the one thing the doctor, the doctor always does
• 9:55
  is is run. He's always running.
• 9:57
  And then once you take that away from him, you can use restricted
• 10:01
  him a lot, but what he can still do is talk and talk is one of
• 10:05
  his big weapons, so. I think this is all you know.
• 10:08
  We see a lot of acting from duty in the first three episodes.
• 10:11
  Oh yeah, yeah. But this is the biggest
• 10:13
  challenge I think, for him as an actor.
• 10:16
  Yeah, yeah. And I think he's talked about,
• 10:19
  well, he did say he ended up with one glute that was
• 10:21
  substantially stronger than the other one.
• 10:23
  So both looking pretty impressive from where I'm
• 10:25
  sitting. Yeah, that's right.
• 10:28
  And he's also said, yeah, I think he he was asked like what
• 10:32
  his favorite episode of the season was.
• 10:33
  And yeah, and to much to my own surprise, actually, he said
• 10:36
  boom. And I think it was precisely for
• 10:37
  the reasons that you know. I can get that though.
• 10:40
  I mean, this is basically about him.
• 10:41
  Yeah, and he did. And he did pretty much say that,
• 10:44
  you know, because it was only basically shot in one location.
• 10:46
  It's pretty much a play because, you know, they, they're, they're
• 10:50
  just in the one place. So they, they, I think they were
• 10:53
  able to shoot quite in, quite in in order basically.
• 10:57
  I could be wrong, somebody fact checked me.
• 11:00
  So interesting as well when you watch on the Doctor Who
• 11:02
  confidential of them making that set and then putting in the wall
• 11:07
  and all of that. So this is one of the most
• 11:08
  technically complicated Doctor Who episodes ever.
• 11:12
  They said in Doctor Who Magazine, there was three ways
• 11:15
  they could have done the ending in this, you know, when you've
• 11:16
  got all of the, the space around them, the planetscape.
• 11:21
  One was that they would do a classic host style fake
• 11:25
  backdrops. And that was genuinely
• 11:27
  considered that they would just have like back clothes and and
• 11:31
  just do it like go for it. Like it really is a play.
• 11:35
  And so that was one option. The second option was to go on
• 11:38
  location and to do it and then just mat something in to have a
• 11:42
  quarry about something. And then the third option, the
• 11:45
  most expensive of all, was to build their own version of the
• 11:49
  wall at Bad Wolf to use for this and future.
• 11:53
  And in the end, they just, they went for the wall.
• 11:56
  They said basically they wanted it to look as visually arresting
• 11:59
  as it possibly could. And I think they they got there
• 12:02
  actually. Yeah.
• 12:03
  And there's a bit on the Envision commentary, which has
• 12:07
  Russell and Stephen in it. There's a bit where I think, you
• 12:10
  know, this is one of those episodes where it looks like a
• 12:14
  bottle episode because, you know, the Doctor stays in one
• 12:16
  place and nobody really leaves the crater.
• 12:19
  And, you know, they're talking about this LED wall that they've
• 12:22
  built and, and the detail and the set and the, and the depth
• 12:26
  of the crater that they're standing in which and yeah,
• 12:30
  there's no such thing as a cheap episode Doctor Who anymore.
• 12:33
  There was a tweet I saw that I found really funny, which was
• 12:35
  somebody saying like, Doctor Who's now got enough money to
• 12:37
  start building its own quarries. What they said.
• 12:40
  I promise you we'll go into the episode in a minute.
• 12:43
  But at least we're on topic. You do have a train to catch,
• 12:45
  after all, at some point today. The bit at the beginning, you
• 12:49
  know where they're outside of the where the doctor is.
• 12:53
  You know where they're in the camp, the the base.
• 12:55
  Yeah, which is, that's on. That's built up against the Bad
• 12:58
  Wolf first. Took them like 3 weeks or
• 13:01
  something to build just. I know.
• 13:03
  Just that for a couple of tiny scenes.
• 13:07
  The amount of detail that anyone saying there's no money on the
• 13:10
  screen in this new Disney version.
• 13:11
  No, no, no, dead wrong. And even in this, you know, even
• 13:15
  what shall we go in? Should we watch this?
• 13:17
  Yeah, yeah, we probably should, shouldn't we?
• 13:19
  Okey, dokey. I mean, there's a million things
• 13:21
  to talk about, but we've got 45 minutes.
• 13:23
  All right, let's obviously let's just talk faster.
• 13:26
  My gosh. Yeah.
• 13:27
  Is it possible? If we if we talk like McCoy,
• 13:34
  dinosaurs from the edge of time. What?
• 13:36
  I wanted to count us out. And your best Celeste McCoy, go
• 13:41
  on, go. On.
• 13:43
  You can do it. We will overload in 321.
• 13:50
  It'll over loud. Oh The Who?
• 13:53
  Diverse. The Who?
• 13:54
  Diverse. That's right.
• 13:55
  Look at that. I that's CGI fire, right?
• 13:59
  That's not fire industry. I don't think so that that they
• 14:04
  would really be putting the Hectors in perils like, all
• 14:06
  right, put a blindfold on, off you go.
• 14:07
  It's a long pre title, so isn't. It it is and Oh.
• 14:13
  Bloody Children, Moffett. Yeah, well, there is that bit in
• 14:19
  the writer's tale where I think Davis says to Ben Cook that a
• 14:26
  Moffat is always writing about being a dad, and it's still true
• 14:30
  because he's like episodes all about parent power and do.
• 14:33
  You think there is a truth that some of this is like a best of
• 14:38
  Steven Moffett? There are some familiar things.
• 14:41
  Yeah, there are a lot of familiar ideas, but it doesn't
• 14:46
  feel like, do you know, you know how to listen?
• 14:49
  At the time a lot of people were like, oh, this is all the the
• 14:52
  the familiar Moffat things about time and and and monsters.
• 14:57
  Beguilingly dumb though. That, well, this is the thing,
• 15:00
  it's like it's a lot of things that he's done, but done in a
• 15:05
  fairly fresh way. And I think it's the same here
• 15:07
  in Boom. Personally, I think it also
• 15:09
  makes a bit of a difference that he's been away for so long
• 15:13
  because it doesn't mean that, you know, you've had several
• 15:16
  episodes of Davis, you've had a whole run of Chris Chipnall
• 15:19
  stories. And so his style, kind of his
• 15:22
  way of writing, pops out a little bit more again.
• 15:25
  Apparently he pitched it to Russell T that, you know, the
• 15:28
  doctor steps on a bomb and is there for the whole episode.
• 15:31
  Yeah, Rust 30 seconds later, write it, you know, Yes, do
• 15:34
  that. Yeah, and it was all inspired by
• 15:36
  that bit from Genesis of the Daleks where?
• 15:39
  Oh, with Harry, Yeah, on the landline.
• 15:40
  And it's like, what have we just kept him there?
• 15:42
  They get their own Harry Doctor moment in this day, which is
• 15:45
  wonderful. What I really like as well is
• 15:47
  obviously we've had a lot of frivolity in space babies and
• 15:51
  the devil's called, and this just opens up on a terrifying
• 15:55
  battlefield with these horrible hospital robots going around
• 15:59
  clearly at a very the tone shift.
• 16:01
  It's like a massive rug pull, isn't it?
• 16:04
  After the sort of the lightness of the.
• 16:05
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And which is what I think one of
• 16:09
  the good things that you get from this particular season of
• 16:13
  stories where you do get quite a variety in the tones that you're
• 16:17
  getting. Yeah.
• 16:18
  Yeah. But it feels like a real
• 16:20
  conscious effort to give you all kinds of different flavors.
• 16:23
  Like you've got kind of a madcap adventure, a mad caper and space
• 16:28
  babies, which is meant to show you, like, just how out there
• 16:31
  the show can be. Devil's Chord is that take it
• 16:35
  dial up, like as big and as colorful and as magical as the
• 16:38
  show can be, and then you come to this, which is kind of as
• 16:42
  close to hard sci-fi as the show has been recently.
• 16:45
  And despite the fact that we've lauded how this looks, we
• 16:50
  certainly will. Like you could do this in
• 16:53
  Classic who I think, I think you could do A2 parter and then have
• 16:57
  any of those classic doctors step on a landmine and have the
• 17:00
  whole story set around that with just all the world building
• 17:03
  being done in one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 17:05
  That's what they did. There was a really actually
• 17:07
  there's a tweet, a thread I saw on Twitter, which was like how
• 17:10
  the other doctors would respond if they stepped on the mine and
• 17:13
  it was and but there was send that to me.
• 17:15
  Yeah, it was all very funny. Like I think the the only one I
• 17:18
  remember is the War Doctor one where it was like the War Doctor
• 17:20
  would let the mine go on. Off and kill him.
• 17:25
  Don't call me doctor. Boom.
• 17:27
  Oh my God, The the lies going around the bomb.
• 17:32
  That's such a great suspense technique because.
• 17:34
  Yeah, because it's really quick. My God, it's Susan Twist.
• 17:37
  I know my favorite thing is on the Envision commentary, Russell
• 17:41
  says no, no, no. We just don't have enough
• 17:42
  actors. We just, and we like her.
• 17:44
  We just kept asking her back and he's like, yeah, there's
• 17:46
  nothing. We know.
• 17:47
  We know you've seen. I know you've seen.
• 17:50
  I mean, that's the sort of thing that Moffett would have done.
• 17:52
  Yeah, just lie. Well, no, because do you
• 17:54
  remember, like in Series 7A, with the light bulbs flashing in
• 17:57
  every episode, just some rando potential, you know, the other
• 18:01
  light bulbs flashing in Amy Ponds?
• 18:04
  And then there was one in a town called Mercy's when everyone's
• 18:06
  going. Oh, my God, those flickering
• 18:08
  light bulbs. That's definitely a thing that
• 18:10
  it wasn't. It was just Moffett being
• 18:11
  naughty. And I should have done that with
• 18:14
  Susan Twist. Yeah.
• 18:15
  No, it's just the same actress. Yeah.
• 18:16
  There's nothing going on here. Oh my God, this is so this, this
• 18:21
  is where we're heading. No, no, this person is too
• 18:24
  damaged. Unfortunately, they are no
• 18:26
  longer going to be a useful society.
• 18:30
  It's it's a much better because I remember when he did twice
• 18:34
  upon a time he Moffat, what kind of wanted to bring in villain
• 18:40
  villain guard as a nice kind of full circle thing because it
• 18:43
  ties it back in with his first two.
• 18:45
  Stories. And, and the result was you, I
• 18:50
  think we just went to a moon and Daleks and Rusty was there.
• 18:53
  And this is much more interesting with actually
• 18:56
  exploring what the villain guard weapons company actually is.
• 19:00
  Oh, and then you've got this great shot where Shooty just
• 19:03
  bursts out the door, which they spend a lot of time talking
• 19:06
  about how that this was all done in camera, where they really,
• 19:09
  yeah, they put up the LED screen, they integrated the,
• 19:12
  the, the TARDIS set into the LED screen.
• 19:15
  So there's no, you know, I don't think there's much composition
• 19:20
  integration. It's actually just them walking
• 19:22
  out and and that's the screen there, at least as I understand
• 19:25
  it. I could be wrong.
• 19:26
  It looks faggot. Look at that with him running
• 19:28
  from the market, that from above.
• 19:30
  I did, you know, it was surprisingly, I quite like this
• 19:33
  outfit. I did go.
• 19:34
  I could wear this. Oh I love the fact that he's
• 19:37
  wearing new outfits. I know as well.
• 19:39
  It's like he's doing that. Finally.
• 19:41
  We're not doing a fucking uniform anymore, Yeah.
• 19:43
  Yeah, which all which every doctor has ran into, but it's
• 19:48
  really fun. I remember she got was saying
• 19:50
  that, you know, with his costume designer, he originally landed
• 19:53
  on something much more classically doctorish.
• 19:56
  And they were like, why don't we do something a bit different?
• 19:58
  And then that's where we started getting all these.
• 20:00
  Crazy these fun costumes of his. I'll mind you that one in 73
• 20:04
  yards is just him in a jacket. But.
• 20:05
  Yeah, but people are going like, well, he should dress eccentric.
• 20:09
  Why I I think we we learnt in late 80s that actually.
• 20:14
  That can go too far. I'm wacky, you know?
• 20:19
  There are lots of. Always singing, the sailors cry.
• 20:22
  Yeah, which, as it turned out, was was not deliberate.
• 20:25
  Oh, really? It was actually just a
• 20:26
  coincidence. He just chose that song and
• 20:28
  they're like, this is the Troughton song.
• 20:29
  He's like, Oh yeah. So for me, the next 10 minutes
• 20:34
  is the best of this episode. It's just the Doctor and Ruby,
• 20:38
  The Doctor on the mine and then figuring out what the Mine's all
• 20:41
  about. Him explaining about the
• 20:43
  technology and the war, her refusing to to not help him, You
• 20:49
  know, him being really angry about that.
• 20:50
  But he can't really be due to. I love all the characterization.
• 20:54
  I think it's the best stuff they've been given this year so
• 20:56
  far together. Yeah.
• 21:00
  And, and it's, and the, the dialogues really crisp and
• 21:05
  sharp. And, you know, it's like when he
• 21:06
  says, yeah, in a moment he'll go like, I'm just getting my Zen on
• 21:09
  my landmine Zen. And it's, it's just there's a
• 21:12
  punchiness to it. And it's really good because I
• 21:17
  think when they said Moffat was coming back, I think everybody
• 21:20
  kind of assumed it would be some kind of complex time travel
• 21:24
  story, and it's actually a really simple premise.
• 21:27
  Completely linear. Thank you, Steven Moffett.
• 21:31
  You can't do it. I've been asking for this for
• 21:34
  years. And it was because I know the
• 21:37
  word they said they kept using for this episode was like tense
• 21:42
  and thriller. And they were kind of going for
• 21:44
  like. Suspense word of.
• 21:45
  You yeah, yeah, like a like a Hitchcock movie.
• 21:48
  And you can kind of see that they're really going for that.
• 21:51
  Hitchcock could have done this. I mean the effects would have
• 21:54
  been different, but put this in black and white.
• 21:56
  Get a great couple of actors in the in the roles.
• 21:59
  Yeah, yeah. What was that?
• 22:00
  What's that? If you were to do this as like a
• 22:02
  William Hartnell, like four part, I'm just picturing that
• 22:05
  famous title was like next week the death of Doctor Who.
• 22:08
  I would have William, William Russell and William Hartnell win
• 22:12
  this any day. Oh, William Russell.
• 22:15
  I know beautiful man. And again, something I really
• 22:21
  love about Shooty's performance in this is that you know, you've
• 22:26
  seen him be wild and, and and fun and, and full of full of
• 22:31
  energy, but this strips it right back where he like he needs to
• 22:38
  button everything down. I know, I know I'm, and I'm
• 22:41
  speaking to an actor when I say this, but he, he just has to
• 22:45
  act, doesn't he? Or, or react, you know, where he
• 22:49
  can't use his body, he cannot express himself with his body at
• 22:53
  all. So it's all coming from his
• 22:54
  voice, basically. And a bit of his and his and a
• 22:57
  bit of his face. So like this bit here where
• 23:00
  where he realized is just how close the mine is to going.
• 23:04
  On. And you can see in his eyes,
• 23:06
  like the kind of oh God, oh shit.
• 23:09
  But also him going well, that kind of doctor optimism of,
• 23:13
  well, it could be two fingers or it could be one fingers.
• 23:16
  And you've got to have a doctorate companion in Saint
• 23:19
  Patico for this scene to work. And they've only had, what,
• 23:22
  three stories? Together, I know.
• 23:24
  Point and I want to say a word for Millie Gibson, as you
• 23:27
  should. I lauded in a couple of the
• 23:31
  other commentaries this year, but I just think she's turned
• 23:33
  her hand to every tone that's been asked of her.
• 23:36
  When you watch this and then you watch 73 yards, there's such
• 23:39
  assured performances. She's 18 years old.
• 23:42
  I know, I know. As I said, it's not fair.
• 23:44
  I don't like. I don't like you, bitch.
• 23:49
  How can how can they have it all?
• 23:53
  But yeah, it's yeah. So she gives a terrific
• 23:56
  performance. And, you know, early on I was
• 23:59
  seeing people. I think it was before 73 yards
• 24:01
  came along. There were a lot of people
• 24:02
  going, you know, she hasn't been given that much.
• 24:05
  She's doing really well for what she's been given.
• 24:08
  And then I think Boom came along, but more specifically,
• 24:12
  sometimes 3 yards. And then everybody's like, oh,
• 24:14
  she's she's great. They made that lovely decision
• 24:17
  in 73 yards not to slap her face.
• 24:19
  Latex. When they aged around, they just
• 24:22
  put some glasses on there, which I thought was so refreshing
• 24:24
  because you know what, I'm 40 and I don't look that different
• 24:28
  from when I was 25. You know, well, I thought I was
• 24:30
  smart because they were doing like, you know, basically the
• 24:33
  Clark Kent thing in Superman where, you know, they don't,
• 24:36
  they just make him put a pair of glasses on and then and then let
• 24:40
  the actor fill in the blanks. Oh, look.
• 24:43
  At these Yeah, yeah. Villain guard Automatic weapon.
• 24:46
  Systems The Hoovers. Vacuum drones zoom, hoovering up
• 24:52
  the smoke so nobody can choke to death before they're killed.
• 24:55
  They're. Safely shot.
• 24:58
  So can you please give a reading on Oh, look at that.
• 25:03
  So that's the wall, isn't it? Yeah, that must be visual
• 25:05
  effects shot of the planets. Can you please give a reading on
• 25:09
  the the sort of war angle here and the exploitation of people
• 25:17
  in order to drive profit and technology?
• 25:19
  I well, that kind of, I think that kind of idea would be
• 25:24
  topical at any time, but it's particularly topical at the
• 25:28
  moment when you have, you know, weapons being sent all over the
• 25:31
  world. But the whole the.
• 25:34
  Most, I mean, it was a weapons. Weapons.
• 25:37
  Oh, no, Mark was saying the other day, wasn't he, that
• 25:39
  there's no weapons just up the road here, Yeah.
• 25:41
  Yeah. I hope you feel safe, Here it
• 25:43
  is. It was hard.
• 25:45
  It was hard to make a joke after that.
• 25:49
  But the the thing that really jumps out to me about this is
• 25:54
  that it's actually quite muffetty.
• 25:57
  It's quite classically Muffetty in the sense of it's they they
• 26:03
  talk about the, the, the Villingard algorithm and how and
• 26:08
  basically how it's making them fight a war.
• 26:10
  So they die enough to buy more chilling, which is chilling.
• 26:15
  But it is a classic Moffat trope of, you know, technology doing
• 26:20
  what it's meant to do in the wrong way that hurts people,
• 26:23
  which is, you know, that's the that's the girl, that's the girl
• 26:26
  in the fireplace. That's empty child.
• 26:28
  That's John. John.
• 26:30
  Yeah. And it pops up elsewhere where
• 26:32
  he's perpetually fascinated by technology working in a way that
• 26:38
  does not help people. But this is probably the most
• 26:42
  venomous iteration of that idea, where it is pointed at something
• 26:46
  as horrible as the arms industry.
• 26:48
  When you have the doctor being that angry about it, you know
• 26:52
  he's the mouthpiece for for the message here.
• 26:56
  And he's vicious, isn't he? About it, which I love.
• 27:02
  Because it, and it is really, I think it is, I think the the
• 27:06
  placement of the story is quite good because you it's not too
• 27:10
  dissimilar from from series 10. You know, you have, you get
• 27:15
  introduced and you have like thin ice and and then you get
• 27:21
  into oxygen and you have that dip Into Darkness well after
• 27:24
  like the gentlest, warmest introduction of the doctor being
• 27:28
  your best. Friend, it's fairly common,
• 27:29
  isn't it? Yeah, it's a good idea as well.
• 27:31
  I think it's good to start on a light note and then, yeah,
• 27:34
  sorry, he just said, yeah, Ruby, I forbid this.
• 27:36
  And she went, yeah, good luck with that.
• 27:37
  Good luck with that. Man, she's she knows her mind.
• 27:40
  And it's a good sequence because he keeps going back to the LED
• 27:43
  Roomba and seeing the light flickering as his anxiety spike.
• 27:49
  Where they sing the song together and he's going to,
• 27:52
  she's going to hand over the thing.
• 27:53
  It's so suspenseful. Yeah, like this is.
• 27:56
  You are brave and you are wonderful, he says to her.
• 27:59
  And. I forgive you for being
• 28:01
  incredibly stupid. Which is and then, and then, and
• 28:05
  then he takes and then she takes a step towards him.
• 28:07
  It's like a fantastic. Look at the look in his eye.
• 28:14
  Yeah, listener, you should. You should see what we're
• 28:17
  seeing. Shout out.
• 28:21
  Oh, I think his reaction shots in this are fabulous.
• 28:23
  The bit where she's short and he just sort of lets out this
• 28:26
  guttural very quick, like, oh, it's absolutely gutting.
• 28:31
  And this bit's so good as well because, you know, it is him
• 28:33
  kind of, he's under such pressure that they're like the
• 28:36
  cuddly kind of best friend, naughty schoolboy kind of thing
• 28:40
  has disappeared. And you see the kind of like the
• 28:41
  ancient Time Lord who's like trying to command the situation
• 28:46
  as best he can, but also when she goes, you know, you're
• 28:48
  standing on a landmine and he's trying to be all Time Lordy.
• 28:52
  And then and then she makes that joke and they're still, they're
• 28:56
  still friends. That, that the speed with which
• 29:00
  this dialogue is going back and forth, back and forth, back and
• 29:02
  forth, like they're not threatened by it, the two
• 29:06
  actors. No, no, no, they really run for.
• 29:09
  Her, they say. She clicks her fingers and.
• 29:10
  Yeah, because she needs a beat, but.
• 29:14
  On a wing gone with the same. There has been a lot more, there
• 29:18
  has been a lot more shooty singing this year than I was
• 29:21
  expecting. He does it in, he sings it.
• 29:26
  He's do you do some singing in? It was called Devil's Chord.
• 29:29
  Oh, he sings. There's always A twist.
• 29:31
  There's always. A twist, of course, of course.
• 29:33
  And then there, then there's boom.
• 29:35
  I think he did it. He did.
• 29:36
  He sung a little bit in Rogue. Oh and that's this bit was as
• 29:42
  soon as they shift his weight and then it keeps spiking anyway
• 29:45
  because his adrenaline is spiking.
• 29:48
  You're, you're always aware he's in danger.
• 29:50
  You're, you know. And, and it's getting ever, ever
• 29:55
  closer to death. And also I, I don't think I
• 29:58
  actually said the, the, the urn, I guess of a person who's been
• 30:04
  crushed. It's horrible.
• 30:05
  It is horrible. Is it made of their remains?
• 30:07
  I think so, because I think you can see an eyeball.
• 30:09
  Yeah. And there's, it's sort of, it's
• 30:11
  like sinews, isn't? It, yeah, yeah.
• 30:14
  And it's that again. That's a very kind of that feels
• 30:16
  like something that would belong in like Dark Water or something.
• 30:22
  But I don't think, I think this is very dark, but I don't think
• 30:25
  this ever tips over an edge like I think dark water does in
• 30:29
  places. Oh, OK, Now I've got another
• 30:33
  question for you now, because here here is this man with a dog
• 30:36
  collar on. And I've got a very good friend,
• 30:40
  Daniel Knight, who's a Christian, who really, really
• 30:44
  objected to this episode for the things they said about faith and
• 30:47
  religion. And he said that, you know, he
• 30:53
  thought it was dramatic. He thought it was well acted.
• 30:55
  And all of this he goes, why are we suddenly excluding religion
• 31:00
  and religious people from Doctor Who?
• 31:02
  Do you think that's fair? I can understand where that
• 31:06
  comes from. That's not necessarily how I
• 31:09
  read it. I kind of read it as the doctor
• 31:13
  taking a swipe at because, you know, he's he, what we, the
• 31:17
  people he's addressing here. It's, it's, it's the Anglican
• 31:20
  Marines. It's faith as an organization
• 31:24
  and as a military organization. So he's addressing it's, I don't
• 31:29
  know. For me, it didn't feel too
• 31:31
  dissimilar from the way you might see someone criticize
• 31:34
  organized religion as opposed to personal faith, which was where
• 31:38
  I came from. But I think the dog collar is a
• 31:41
  deliberate choice. It's presented like the church.
• 31:45
  I think that's. Because we know Russell's
• 31:48
  opinion on religion, he's very anti religion.
• 31:51
  He's not anti faith because we've seen gridlock and things
• 31:54
  like that, you know, where he can explore faith brilliantly.
• 31:57
  But I do think he's got some angry things to say about
• 32:01
  religion. And I, I do wonder and I'm, I'm
• 32:05
  all for, you know, promoting wonderful things like trans and
• 32:10
  gays and all of this that they're doing in the series.
• 32:15
  I do wonder if this is maybe a step out of that by saying, you
• 32:21
  know, yeah, all those things. Fabulous.
• 32:23
  This is the only sort of religious reading we've had this
• 32:26
  season, and it is critical. But but then again, at the very
• 32:30
  end of the episode, and it's funny, I think Moffatt was asked
• 32:34
  about this after the episode went out where because where he
• 32:37
  was kind of going like, well, the Doctor's actually a bit of a
• 32:39
  hypocrite. And that's kind of what I
• 32:40
  intended, where he's criticising blind faith and which extends
• 32:47
  into a criticism, I guess, of faith.
• 32:51
  But at the very end of the episode, he he tells, he tells
• 32:58
  them to keep the faith. And he actually by the end of
• 33:02
  the episode, he's not, he's not bully, you know, he's not
• 33:06
  putting down their faith. He actually, he actually tells
• 33:08
  them to keep it. Like, I think it comes down to
• 33:13
  how he treats Eddie. I'm sure we'll get into it
• 33:16
  later, but how he treats the girl, the little girl about her
• 33:19
  dad, who he's, she says, you know, he's in heaven and I'll
• 33:23
  meet him later. And he doesn't do anything to to
• 33:26
  to criticize her faith or criticize her belief.
• 33:29
  I, I, I do for me it it, it's something about I.
• 33:34
  Think it's more nuanced than just a criticism?
• 33:36
  I think so, but I can I'm but I can understand where that comes
• 33:40
  from. Just kind of tuning back into
• 33:43
  the episode, I actually quite liked the sequence because I was
• 33:46
  like it. It really felt like, what can we
• 33:49
  do to make the the doctor situation worth Oh no, he's
• 33:52
  holding the dead remains of a little girl's father and.
• 33:57
  Always trust a kid to ruin something that's.
• 33:59
  Right, you can always trust a child to ruin a Doctor Who.
• 34:01
  Episode about kids on TV, do you know?
• 34:03
  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I do find a reaction at
• 34:06
  the end of this episode about her dad being dead very old.
• 34:09
  It is. It is, yes.
• 34:10
  As I said, I'm sure we'll get into that.
• 34:13
  It's like, oh, how lovely. Oh, and then now we get to the
• 34:17
  doctor being turned into. AI am the bomb.
• 34:21
  I am the bomb. And baby, I know how I look, he
• 34:24
  says. At some point, that's right.
• 34:28
  I'm happening, yeah. Mark, his veins are made out of
• 34:31
  fire, isn't it? Oh.
• 34:32
  Yeah, yeah, Blue Fire and I think he's ah, here it is Monday
• 34:40
  going turning up and there's like how can we.
• 34:42
  Commander Maxill was that I see on the rise.
• 34:45
  Yeah, that would be funny if it's like I am in Commander
• 34:50
  Maxill reporting for duty. Well, it's the same thing
• 34:53
  though, isn't it? Because.
• 34:54
  Oh, no, because she doesn't shoot it, does she?
• 34:56
  The man does. Yeah, I think she should have
• 34:58
  done it, just like Maxwell did with Peter Davidson in Arkham
• 35:01
  Infinity. I've come to kill you and become
• 35:03
  your successor. Yeah, I, I always thought it was
• 35:06
  really funny how she she'll go on to say just shoot me a little
• 35:10
  bit, shoot me a little bit in the arm, just always like that
• 35:14
  line. Like, I think she's very good in
• 35:17
  this, but there's nothing here that screams companion to me.
• 35:21
  But then I felt the same about Free Regiment in Army of Ghosts.
• 35:24
  You know she was right, but. Did you feel the same about you
• 35:27
  saw Karen Gillan doing her like prophecy the.
• 35:30
  Prophecy and they go. That's mother Civil iron.
• 35:34
  Yeah, no, the best one ever was obviously Colin, you know.
• 35:38
  Oh yeah. Is it not without due in
• 35:40
  consideration that this decision has been made?
• 35:43
  You couldn't take your eyes off. Him.
• 35:44
  That's right. That's right, with his big
• 35:45
  plume. Oh, where's Morelda?
• 35:48
  Yeah, yeah, he named that hat. He went round making chicken
• 35:51
  noises. Yeah, he went round sort of
• 35:53
  touching. This I do know, this I do know
• 35:58
  he should give that to shoot that shoot gap.
• 36:00
  Where could wear that hat? You can always trust someone to
• 36:02
  ring at the wrong time, can't you?
• 36:05
  This. You know, I often tell people,
• 36:08
  boom, I stepped on a landmine once and all people kept doing
• 36:12
  was ringing me going, Jack, you're supposed to be.
• 36:15
  You were supposed to be in 15 minutes ago.
• 36:16
  I can't. I stepped on my mind.
• 36:18
  Yeah. Oh, and I was going to give a me
• 36:19
  reading on that. Yeah, you're just about to come
• 36:22
  and then the phone goes off. Yeah, there you.
• 36:24
  Puts you right off. And then you have to start all
• 36:26
  over again. Sorry I had to get something
• 36:28
  rude in there. I.
• 36:29
  I was waiting for it. I I.
• 36:33
  Like those green sights here. Normally it's red, isn't it?
• 36:36
  Yeah, the the laser on him. Yeah, just make it a little bit
• 36:39
  sci-fi. Well.
• 36:40
  Yeah, but also as well, he sort of really picks out in the in
• 36:43
  the dark too. Yeah, because it is quite a
• 36:46
  washed. Oh, was that?
• 36:49
  Sentient Mardi go. Are you people fucking stupid?
• 36:53
  Yeah. Is that, is that a reference to
• 36:55
  the witch fight? Oh.
• 36:56
  Absolutely lovely girls. They were all women, weren't
• 36:59
  they? That's right.
• 37:02
  This is the thing though I was trying to say earlier was that
• 37:05
  you do after a couple of episodes, the warmest,
• 37:08
  cuddliest, most fun doctor. You then get like some proper
• 37:15
  righteous anger from Shooty GAT where at things like capitalism
• 37:20
  and the arms industry and I guess a form of militarized
• 37:26
  privatization of hospitals. They don't like fans, you know?
• 37:30
  The old Doctor Who's gone too woke?
• 37:32
  Say it, you know. It shouldn't be for this sort of
• 37:34
  messaging. Have you been paying attention?
• 37:37
  Did you watch the Green Death invasion of dinosaurs, you know?
• 37:40
  Patrols. Jesus Christ, we've been doing
• 37:42
  this for fucking decades. Yeah.
• 37:44
  Yeah, imagine if they read some of the EDA.
• 37:46
  'S Oh, good grief, yeah. Give them interference.
• 37:50
  In fact, Gareth Roberts had a go at organised religion in Tragedy
• 37:53
  Day. But we've done all this stuff
• 37:55
  before. This is not.
• 37:56
  I mean, I don't mean that in a bad way.
• 38:01
  Oh no, she shut his arm. I do.
• 38:06
  You know, one thing I love about Susan Twist is I almost feel
• 38:09
  like Rusty is making a point because I don't think there are
• 38:12
  strong enough roles for older actresses anymore.
• 38:16
  Now, obviously a lot of people on the screen are young and
• 38:18
  pretty and, you know, I think that's probably a prerequisite
• 38:22
  now is that you're you're, I think you might say this to me
• 38:25
  the other day that you're, you know, you're sexy and.
• 38:28
  You're a big name, yeah. But with Susan Twist, they've
• 38:32
  hired in. They could have hired in a
• 38:33
  younger actress to play that role.
• 38:35
  They've tried hired in an older. Act like a missus Della Fox or
• 38:39
  yeah. And but they and then they've
• 38:41
  given her all these various diverse roles throughout the
• 38:43
  season to show look at what older women can do.
• 38:45
  Well, not even in this series. She's was there in Wild Blue
• 38:48
  Yonder. Exactly.
• 38:50
  And I think she'd be fabulous in the.
• 38:51
  Last two I it's quite interesting actually.
• 38:54
  It's the this whole episode, aside from when the snow drops,
• 38:58
  it's quite disconnected. Yeah, it's.
• 39:01
  Such a great visual marker for the arc.
• 39:06
  It's a it's I think it's and you can correct me if I'm wrong.
• 39:11
  It feels like the the strongest recurring visual motif of an
• 39:16
  arcs probably since like the cracks in the wall where you
• 39:19
  just see the cracks and then whereas here you're just the
• 39:22
  snow drops instead of being like a, you know, a word tease like
• 39:26
  high, like hybrid or. You know, they said they were
• 39:28
  going to go for a sort of more fantasy LED Doctor Who.
• 39:31
  That's just such a lovely way of doing that, I think.
• 39:34
  And, and when you see the snow inside spaceships and things
• 39:37
  like that. Yeah, yeah.
• 39:38
  Oh, that was the final shot of space babies, wasn't it?
• 39:40
  Yeah, yeah. And the and it interests me how
• 39:47
  I guess worked up some people got about Russell T Davis thing
• 39:51
  about the sci-fi rules being relaxed to allow a bit more
• 39:54
  fancy. We're doing something new.
• 39:56
  Well, that's the thing. And I.
• 39:58
  Think if it did do that in five. Well, This is why I found really
• 40:01
  interesting because Davis was talking about how he's relaxed
• 40:05
  the rules and to let. Wild and new things come in and
• 40:10
  let the show kind of be more science fantasy when it wants to
• 40:15
  be, but still. But yes.
• 40:17
  But it's not to say that can't do like traditional like this.
• 40:20
  Is as garners this season has got.
• 40:22
  I guess this is Eric's award. It's all guns and my
• 40:26
  battlefields and corpses and OMG I love when I first watched
• 40:31
  this. I literally went when Ruby got
• 40:33
  shot and then she goes down that hill in slow motion about 15
• 40:37
  times. Yeah, that's how I want to go,
• 40:39
  honestly. She looks a little bit like I
• 40:42
  was. Her outfit reminds me just in
• 40:44
  the colours. It reminds me of Rose in Bad
• 40:48
  Wolf. Parting of the way is that kind
• 40:50
  of red blazer in the the black trousers and the blonde hair.
• 40:52
  I think he likes a certain type of girl.
• 40:54
  Rusty Davis. Yeah.
• 40:56
  Ruby Rose Blonde. Yeah, well, then you got Donna,
• 41:00
  then you got Martha. There's there's there's there's
• 41:04
  differences. But yeah, she does.
• 41:08
  And again I just. I was so, I mean, I knew she
• 41:10
  wasn't dead, but it was sort of executed in such a compelling
• 41:15
  way. For a second I was like, Oh my
• 41:16
  God. It is.
• 41:18
  It is just funny that the. Oh, she goes, who's my next of
• 41:21
  kin? I know.
• 41:22
  That's really sad. She's trying.
• 41:25
  The. Snow.
• 41:28
  And doesn't the the screen on the the the the hospital say
• 41:34
  she's like something like 3000 million years old or whatever?
• 41:42
  There's something very creepy about.
• 41:44
  We watched Robots of Death, yes. Then I was talking about the
• 41:46
  sort of the very flat, Yeah, the way that Susan Twist play and
• 41:50
  that that robot and so dispassionately sort of orders
• 41:55
  people's peak. But also I love the fact that
• 41:59
  those hospital robots are so shit.
• 42:01
  Yeah, they absolutely look like they've come out of Terminus or
• 42:04
  something like that, the way they bump across that.
• 42:06
  Well, it's funny on the, I think on the Envision commentary,
• 42:09
  Moffat was growing. So yeah, they look a little bit
• 42:13
  mysterious planet. Oh it.
• 42:15
  Does it? Does or or Paradise or Paradise
• 42:19
  towers? Yeah, with that kind of that
• 42:22
  kind of like. Still got some space for these
• 42:24
  camp robots, haven't we? Yeah, that's right.
• 42:26
  Long may it continue. You've got this.
• 42:32
  Oh no, we're watching now. Yeah.
• 42:33
  Oh, don't. Don't ever let that happen.
• 42:39
  She said earlier you could take up half this planet.
• 42:44
  Doesn't show you that he's that explosive now.
• 42:46
  Yeah, it's, it's funny actually. The Doctor renders himself in,
• 42:50
  in quite an, an abstract way. He refers to himself as a
• 42:54
  complicated, complicated space-time event, which is true.
• 42:58
  And I think in his first ever Doctor Who story, which is
• 43:01
  continuity errors, that little short story of it, right.
• 43:04
  He he's referred to throughout it as the CTSE, the complicated
• 43:09
  space-time event, like just sweeping and causing trouble.
• 43:13
  It forgets nothing. No, no, there's callbacks to
• 43:15
  everything like he was he like there's a callback to like
• 43:17
  magician's apprentice in this with the the moon and the
• 43:20
  president's wife, the Anglican marines.
• 43:23
  There's a lot of stuff to to his his.
• 43:27
  If he can't dive into his own continuity, but Terrance Dix
• 43:31
  when he was mining his old TV stories and his books like, you
• 43:34
  know, steal from the best. And if you're the best, steal
• 43:37
  from yourself. It was interesting.
• 43:38
  It was interesting actually, Moffat said.
• 43:42
  Because, you know, you'll notice his name on the executive
• 43:44
  producers credit. He gets an exec producer credit.
• 43:47
  For this or for the whole season?
• 43:49
  For this, for this episode in particular, where he and he said
• 43:51
  that Russell and Julie Gardner, Jane Tratt, they were all very
• 43:57
  conscious that he'd run the show.
• 43:59
  So they actually stepped back and allowed him to basically
• 44:03
  more or less run the show for that episode.
• 44:06
  We didn't know that. Yeah.
• 44:07
  Yeah. OK.
• 44:09
  Basically kind of out of respect to him and he there was a funny
• 44:12
  moment, but. They've done the same with
• 44:14
  Shibnall. Then how do you suggest?
• 44:15
  I, I imagine they would, but there was a funny moment.
• 44:18
  Moffat was describing where they were at the read through and
• 44:22
  they were talking about like an effect that they were doing.
• 44:25
  And but Moffat was going, oh, no, no, no, we can just pull out
• 44:28
  of that, out of the budget. He was like doing classic
• 44:30
  showrunner things. He was like, oh, we we can pull
• 44:32
  that money out of a later episode and then him suddenly
• 44:35
  go, actually, I don't know what what else is.
• 44:38
  I don't know if I can pull the money out of a latest story.
• 44:40
  Stephen, have you seen the script for dot and Bubble?
• 44:43
  There's a lot of special effect shots in it.
• 44:45
  We can't pull any money. Oh, I love this where he's still
• 44:49
  it's very muppety, where he's still trying to need to talk to
• 44:52
  the companion. He's and then, you know, do you
• 44:53
  get get get it you. Declared war on an empty.
• 44:57
  Planet which is, which is a real kind of classic Moffat rug pull
• 45:04
  of like, you know, the enemy that you can't see, You know,
• 45:07
  it's actually not there. We were talking yesterday about
• 45:11
  something that you're going to be doing soon, but about telling
• 45:15
  stories in a very simple way in one location, but unpeeling the
• 45:20
  narrative with surprises like an onion.
• 45:22
  Yeah, this is doing exactly that.
• 45:24
  We're in one place, but it's managing to tell a huge story by
• 45:29
  by lots of surprises that dropped throughout the episode.
• 45:32
  Yeah, and this is. Probably the biggest one of all,
• 45:34
  isn't it? It's you're not fighting
• 45:35
  anybody. There's no aliens here.
• 45:37
  Yeah, and it's you've actually just been fighting your own
• 45:39
  hardware. Your own hardware has been
• 45:41
  killing you to make more money. And here comes the bit.
• 45:47
  Now you need proof, Faith Gal, which is such a great read of
• 45:53
  that line. I don't know.
• 45:55
  There are just moments throughout Shooty's performance
• 46:00
  that you know you just literally would never get.
• 46:02
  You'd never get a line read like that from any of the other
• 46:04
  doctors, I don't think. Oh, I I thought that quite a few
• 46:07
  times this season, nobody else would play it quite as sexy,
• 46:12
  quite as charismatic, quite as silly and.
• 46:17
  Yeah. Almost like, oh God, this is
• 46:19
  going to sound a bit troubling. Quite as St. as shoot he can,
• 46:23
  you know. I think the thing I think the
• 46:28
  thing I particularly like about him in this episode is he shows
• 46:32
  he can kind of play the Moffat version of the Doctor, which is
• 46:35
  a bit more spiky and a bit meaner and has a bit more of a
• 46:39
  sharper edge to him. Not to say that he doesn't under
• 46:41
  Russell, but you know, he's a bit he he, he sometimes has a
• 46:46
  bit of a put down to him where he'll he'll insult insult
• 46:49
  people. Look in his eye, Jesus.
• 46:55
  Oh, and this is classic. Do your teeth.
• 46:58
  Yeah, do your teeth it's another.
• 47:00
  Well, the kiss kiss is a bit like the recorded message that I
• 47:04
  can't remember the woman's name. The one, the one who dies in
• 47:07
  silence in the library. Oh yeah, I miss miss
• 47:10
  Evangelista. Yeah, I can't remember what she
• 47:12
  says, but it keeps repeating. Ice cream.
• 47:14
  Is it ice cream? Something like that, yeah.
• 47:19
  And this is like a a classic in thing of when he transmits, is
• 47:27
  it Veda into the dad into the into the computer.
• 47:31
  And so and it's also. Interesting, this was my biggest
• 47:33
  objection to this. Love fucking conquers all again.
• 47:37
  I which which is what it. Is it's very Disney, it's very
• 47:40
  own brand, but I. I think they actually get away
• 47:43
  with it. You know, I'm a bit, I get a bit
• 47:47
  of a toothache when they do this as well.
• 47:49
  When they do the sugar of it, it's.
• 47:50
  Certainly not as bad as, say, closing times ending or night
• 47:54
  terrors. No.
• 47:56
  It's not as cloying. Well, yeah, I but it is the
• 48:02
  closing time thing. You know, he's been turned into
• 48:04
  an AI which is not too dissimilar from you've been
• 48:07
  converted into a Cyberman. And it's your you love your
• 48:10
  child. Sure, you'll find a way.
• 48:13
  I think that's the point where that argument of OK, this is the
• 48:17
  best of Steven Moffett actually holds some way.
• 48:23
  I but. Maybe he's perfecting it a
• 48:25
  little bit. Yeah.
• 48:26
  Well, I think the difference is here is that the thing, I think
• 48:30
  the thing that really annoyed people about the closing time
• 48:33
  ending, I mean, you might just object to all of it, but it was
• 48:37
  particularly that really James Corden's love for his son can
• 48:40
  beat the cyber men. Whereas you know it, it works a
• 48:44
  little bit better here because it doesn't.
• 48:46
  It's not against one of the great villains.
• 48:48
  It's just against. It's just against some machine
• 48:51
  with Susan Twist's face. On it and it's sophisticated
• 48:54
  technology you know as well. And you know, and you know it,
• 48:57
  it transferred it the, the, the nice bit of visual language
• 49:01
  there was that, you know, he uploads itself into the Doctor.
• 49:03
  You see the lines going through the Doctor's eyes and the Doctor
• 49:06
  uploads it into the robot. And you never know something.
• 49:11
  This is a bit sad. My other objection was, and this
• 49:14
  sort of does land in the performances is I just don't
• 49:17
  think there's enough time to sketch out all these guest
• 49:20
  characters. I think you're probably right.
• 49:22
  In the way Muffy can at his best.
• 49:24
  Yeah, yeah, because they've done the whole tattoo thing with posh
• 49:28
  grain, which is meant to be cute.
• 49:31
  It doesn't I. Think there's beats?
• 49:33
  You know there's enough there to hang the episode on, but you'll
• 49:37
  never remember these guest characters as the most
• 49:39
  compelling people in. I think Monday, you know the her
• 49:44
  response to it sells it. Yeah, yeah.
• 49:47
  And the acting? Definitely.
• 49:48
  Yeah, yeah. And there's, as you say, there's
• 49:49
  enough of it there to to make it work.
• 49:52
  It doesn't feel too paper thin, but it's not It's not like it
• 49:57
  wasn't a total gut punch for me. The compensation is all of those
• 50:02
  sophisticated messages. In this episode, it's the scenes
• 50:05
  between the. Doctors, it's the ideas.
• 50:08
  Well, that's Moffett, right? I mean, I'm not saying he can't
• 50:11
  do emotion, but that's not usually his, like, biggest
• 50:17
  focus, is it? He's an ideas man.
• 50:19
  Oh, look at all these robots. I know I did feel oldest and I
• 50:22
  do. I do love the the thoughts and
• 50:24
  prayers thing. It's because it really gets at
• 50:27
  the futility and perhaps the offensiveness of that phrase in
• 50:33
  some in some respects. Well, that's very Moffett as
• 50:35
  well, isn't it? Taking a phrase and giving it
• 50:37
  several meanings. Yeah.
• 50:41
  Oh no, that little girl look. Oh God, can't you just step on
• 50:45
  one mind at the end of the episode?
• 50:47
  I know I, well, you know, if we want Doctor Who to continue, you
• 50:53
  know. Killing off children was a step
• 50:55
  too far, but I've done it, Haven't they?
• 50:58
  Have they? Yeah.
• 50:59
  Finoise. That kid fell under the.
• 51:01
  Oh yeah. It went straight through the ice
• 51:02
  and died. Now, if you're going to murder
• 51:06
  any child, it should be Angie and Arty, really.
• 51:09
  But you know, I feel like based on what you're saying, I feel
• 51:11
  like you would have really enjoyed The Beast Below a lot
• 51:14
  more if they actually followed through on eating the children.
• 51:16
  Oh, definitely. Yes, please.
• 51:18
  Yes. They're actually.
• 51:20
  I'm not an advocate for child murder, but on television, I
• 51:23
  don't object to it too much, you know?
• 51:27
  Oh, here we go. I mean that that is a good line.
• 51:30
  If you you, if you're not the selected target of this mine,
• 51:33
  please stand clear. Very politely it says that.
• 51:40
  Oh my word, we got a countdown at the end, which is always
• 51:43
  great for suspense. Yeah, yeah, again, I I think the
• 51:47
  episode does a really good job of mining its premise, if you'll
• 51:51
  excuse the pun there. Oh Dick, what in terms of?
• 51:54
  Of just like the doctors on a mine.
• 51:56
  Yeah, definitely, definitely. And there's so many sort of
• 52:00
  fraught moments, that bit where the the kid comes running at him
• 52:03
  and Ruby has to tackle her a bit, where they're handing over
• 52:07
  the thing to shift the weight. Also just as an aside, I think
• 52:12
  it the director, it's Julie Julianne Robinson.
• 52:15
  I think her performance, sorry, her direction.
• 52:18
  She's because she also directed space babies, didn't she?
• 52:21
  Which I think is really well directed.
• 52:23
  Yeah, no, but at like the range she has to direct these two
• 52:27
  polar opposite stories and and she really clearly understands
• 52:32
  how to ratchet up the tension. I forget his name, but I do
• 52:35
  think the stand out director of this season so far has been the
• 52:38
  one who did 73 yards and dot bubble.
• 52:40
  Yeah, just because he had two very oddball episodes.
• 52:44
  I know and fairly light on firstly the Doctor and then the
• 52:48
  Doctor and and Ruby in dot and Bubble.
• 52:53
  So it's they're basically quite contain like.
• 52:57
  You know, you know, when you think about a new Who episodes
• 53:00
  and like, you'll get like a visual aesthetic in your head
• 53:02
  straight away. When I think of dot Bubble, I
• 53:04
  just see those pastel colours and that ball round her head.
• 53:09
  And then when I think of 73 yards, it's all that, you know,
• 53:12
  gorgeous countryside, that woman in the background haunting.
• 53:17
  Oh, and this is this is a lovely moment because you get it's very
• 53:23
  the Doctor running his mouth off and saying a billion funny
• 53:26
  things at the same time. And then you got the drums thing
• 53:30
  that she's about to do, which again, it's so fun.
• 53:34
  You just wanna be in the room with him.
• 53:35
  I think we really needed some danger at this point as well.
• 53:40
  And it's it's great because you there was a headline I saw of
• 53:44
  one of the newspapers saying that Shooty Gatwa is like his
• 53:47
  energy is and his physicality is his biggest strength and that
• 53:50
  the episode straightjacketed him and completely restrained him
• 53:54
  from being what's made him such a good doctor.
• 53:57
  But I think it, I think it works a treat.
• 53:59
  And I think it the release of that way, you know, he can step
• 54:01
  off. The money just bursts forward
• 54:03
  like that. But if you watch him in sex
• 54:05
  education, oh gosh, that is beautiful.
• 54:09
  Isn't it? That the so it's the planet with
• 54:12
  the rings around it that they're looking at that.
• 54:15
  I mean, look how effects have come on from that shadow up the
• 54:19
  wall in the chase. My God, look out into the
• 54:21
  distance. Things have come on a bit.
• 54:25
  I love, I love the way he sells that one of like he takes a deep
• 54:27
  breath, like, right, all right, we're done, let's go.
• 54:30
  The abruptness of it, which is similar to how it's played in in
• 54:34
  Rogue later, but then they make a moment out of stopping and
• 54:38
  hugging. This is very old.
• 54:40
  I'm so sorry about your dad's supplies.
• 54:42
  Oh, why are you sorry? Yeah, I suppose, if you have
• 54:45
  faith. Yeah, yeah, with.
• 54:49
  My mum did she she thought she was going to a better place and
• 54:52
  it brought her a lot of comfort. Maybe it's a performance of the
• 54:55
  kid. Yeah, like if you, you know, if
• 54:58
  you had was Caitlin Blackwood or something?
• 55:03
  Who? Oh, she yeah.
• 55:05
  But you can't hold every child after against that standard.
• 55:08
  There's one every now and again which absolutely nails him.
• 55:13
  I remember your review of Nightmare of Silver just began
• 55:14
  with one of the I think he was just like, I hate you.
• 55:17
  What did? She say I'm bored.
• 55:23
  Again, I feel like I've talked a lot.
• 55:25
  I don't. Again, I just feel I Millie
• 55:29
  Gibson, I just love her. I just think she's great.
• 55:31
  What a good actor. I wasn't expecting a lot.
• 55:34
  I don't know why. I don't know why.
• 55:36
  I think there are a few people who are a bit like that about
• 55:38
  her. They're just like, oh, I think.
• 55:39
  Well, I just thought, oh, we're doing Rose again.
• 55:41
  OK, how boring. And she has just blown my socks
• 55:45
  off in every single episode. And she together as well.
• 55:48
  They just have a lovely I. I always point out the bit where
• 55:51
  they go in one door in the devil's court and out the other
• 55:55
  dress for the 60s and it's just that there.
• 55:58
  It's just them, full of life and energy and charisma and fun.
• 56:03
  Yeah, and I I think there's with these two actors who clearly if
• 56:07
  you watch any interview, they do, they get along like a house
• 56:10
  on fire and. He's very tactile with her,
• 56:12
  isn't it? Yeah, really.
• 56:13
  Lovely and I love that they, you know, clearly it is it is
• 56:20
  clearly this thing of like, you know, he's clearly he's the
• 56:22
  doctor. She's a a a young a young person
• 56:26
  who's shouldn't be as equal, but they don't play that power and
• 56:30
  balance. She does feel like his friend.
• 56:32
  And, you know, he, she, he wants her to be there.
• 56:35
  And they feel like that. I love the mischief that exists
• 56:39
  between them and they're coming here and the warmth and.
• 56:43
  Just said dying defines us. That's such a powerful line.
• 56:48
  Funnily enough, there's a line here that was like.
• 56:51
  Very Ben Kenobi. It is a bit, isn't it?
• 56:54
  I hadn't thought about that. There's a line that Moffat that
• 56:58
  wrote just here, which was snow isn't snow until it falls, which
• 57:03
  was actually a line he he said in the lockdown tweet longs.
• 57:06
  It's like I wrote that for A Christmas Carol and I didn't
• 57:09
  include it and I always regretted it.
• 57:10
  I didn't put it. So I think there, I think him
• 57:14
  doing all these longs he can tick off, Yeah, and just go like
• 57:16
  that was really. Good.
• 57:17
  How? How did they do that?
• 57:20
  Why did they? Do that.
• 57:22
  Oh, and Speaking of snow, actually, incidentally, there it
• 57:25
  is. And that is the episode that was
• 57:28
  Boom. I I don't think it's any slight
• 57:32
  on Boom to say that. I don't think it's the strongest
• 57:38
  of the season, no, because it's been such a strong season, Yeah,
• 57:41
  yeah. But it is still a.
• 57:42
  Strong episode I think so I I wouldn't put it up as one of his
• 57:47
  absolute all timers, but I do think but that that is in itself
• 57:52
  isn't a slight of boom. I think it's I think it's really
• 57:54
  good. I think it's a really good
• 57:56
  episode, but it is also, I think from, you know, for you it's
• 58:00
  basically been the whole series. For me, it's from the Devil's
• 58:03
  Court onward. I think it's been.
• 58:04
  Space babies phobic? Yeah, I think it's been in a
• 58:09
  quite a strong run of episodes. You must be delighted.
• 58:13
  Ever since the Capelli era ended, you've been having a
• 58:15
  great time. Well, I even liked a lot of that
• 58:18
  as well. You know, that's true.
• 58:20
  It's I had more issue with this Matt Smith's run.
• 58:23
  That's that is true. I think the best thing this
• 58:27
  episode does is, is, is, is that sort of jarring tone change.
• 58:33
  And I think we needed it. I think we needed the suspense
• 58:36
  and the drama, and we needed just to see what these two could
• 58:40
  do. Yeah.
• 58:41
  When pulled away from all of sort of the glitz and the style
• 58:45
  and everything and they absolutely do it.
• 58:48
  They perform it brilliantly. Yeah, I think I said this
• 58:50
  earlier. It, it is that the part of the
• 58:52
  thing they really liked about the the actors liked about it
• 58:55
  was because it felt like a play. And and you can kind of see that
• 59:00
  in the performances where it is just for especially that first
• 59:05
  quarter to half of the episode. It is just them talking to each
• 59:09
  other and trying to cut like deal with him being stuck on a
• 59:15
  bomb. And then they're kinda and like
• 59:19
  they're still funny, they still got and they're still really
• 59:22
  good jokes and fun lines in there.
• 59:24
  But it's like it's just trying to them to clearly trying to
• 59:28
  release the tension a little bit to keep the doctor calm, to keep
• 59:31
  him, you know, in control. So I think I think it's a really
• 59:41
  great showcase for not just them as individual actors, because I
• 59:45
  think you get instances of that throughout the season of them
• 59:48
  individually being quite good. But it's it's a real a real
• 59:53
  showcase for them as an act, as as a pair and then, you know,
• 59:58
  developing they're dynamic as a pet under the most stressful.
• 1:00:01
  So anyway. Given where the season goes
• 1:00:04
  next, like you say, well, we have a Doctor Light, then a
• 1:00:07
  Doctor and Ruby Light. We needed this more than ever.
• 1:00:10
  We needed to see how they interact.
• 1:00:12
  Yeah, and and and Rogue, you know it it like it is different,
• 1:00:17
  but. They're separated for a lot of
• 1:00:19
  that as. Well, they are.
• 1:00:20
  They're separated for a lot of that.
• 1:00:21
  They have two different plot lines and tonally, I think by
• 1:00:25
  the time you get there to get to Rogue, it it's not that it's not
• 1:00:30
  that it's in it's in a similar. It's not that it's doing the
• 1:00:33
  same thing as earlier. It's not.
• 1:00:35
  But they are in a, a, a more familiar rhythm there where
• 1:00:39
  it's, it's them, you know, going through history and having fun,
• 1:00:43
  which is great to see. But it is it is also nice to to
• 1:00:48
  see the see something like this. Break it out after boom 73 yards
• 1:00:53
  and Don bubble, which are three like unique.
• 1:00:57
  There's nothing else in Doctor Who like those three episodes
• 1:00:59
  when you get something like Rogue, which is running around a
• 1:01:03
  country house, very seats of Doom, which is bird people, very
• 1:01:08
  twin dilemma, you know, which is a fun sort of romantic romp in
• 1:01:13
  fabulous ballrooms. And we get a lot of that in go
• 1:01:16
  on the. Fireplace.
• 1:01:17
  Go on the fireplace. That's right.
• 1:01:19
  It's so weird and it is and it's absolutely lavish and full of
• 1:01:23
  money and witty in it and all of those things we love and a good
• 1:01:26
  adventure story and funny. I kind of came away from that
• 1:01:30
  which had so much to offer after all the other three going, that
• 1:01:34
  was all right. It's in any other circumstances
• 1:01:38
  that have been in the middle of a chimney season, it'll be like,
• 1:01:41
  my God, how incredible. You know I.
• 1:01:44
  I am honestly I I thought not to start talking about a completely
• 1:01:49
  different episode, but you know, we are in the overtime now.
• 1:01:52
  I thought Rogue was one of the most just purely enjoyable.
• 1:01:56
  It was jolly, yeah. Episodes I'd seen in a while
• 1:01:59
  not. Like stand out like the last
• 1:02:01
  three. Yeah, I guess I I thought it was
• 1:02:04
  still I'll I'll have to rewatch and see how I feel, but I really
• 1:02:08
  I I quite like again. I I'll just say again, I think
• 1:02:11
  this has been such a excellent run of stories.
• 1:02:14
  My favorite bit was Ruby doing the dance battle to poke Face.
• 1:02:18
  I laughed my head off swinging back around to boom.
• 1:02:22
  I was really mad. People aren't going to believe
• 1:02:24
  this. I was so excited that Stephen
• 1:02:26
  Moffitt was coming back to Doctor Who because I think he
• 1:02:29
  does his best work usually under Russell.
• 1:02:32
  Now, I don't think this is this to the quality of the best that
• 1:02:37
  he did in RTD One. I don't think so, but a Steven
• 1:02:40
  Moffett episode is always a cut above what pretty much any guest
• 1:02:44
  writer is ever going to give you, I think.
• 1:02:47
  And I think this has some really dark and complex things to say,
• 1:02:53
  which is going to get some people angry, get some people
• 1:02:56
  punch in the air, but get people talking.
• 1:02:58
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that that's worth doing
• 1:03:02
  as well. My only real complaints are the
• 1:03:06
  kids and the schmucksy ending. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:10
  And it is and it and it is true to those style of endings.
• 1:03:14
  It does happen, but. That's his.
• 1:03:16
  You know that is his way, right? And, and again, at this point,
• 1:03:20
  it's kind of like you see those things and it's just like, it's
• 1:03:23
  just the way he writes. It's just the what what he wants
• 1:03:26
  to write. So.
• 1:03:27
  The trade off is is you get a a chance for the regulars to give
• 1:03:31
  astonishing performances. You get astonishing, witty,
• 1:03:35
  intelligent dialogue. You know, you get an episode
• 1:03:39
  packed full of suspense. If I've got to put up with that
• 1:03:41
  bullshit ending to have those things, well, I'm not going to
• 1:03:45
  complain too. Much And by the way, and and you
• 1:03:48
  know, next week Millie's going to have the worst time of her
• 1:03:51
  life. That's right.
• 1:03:52
  Oh, bless her heart. OK, let's just cover that very
• 1:03:55
  quickly. Do you know what the the theme
• 1:03:58
  of of her being abandoned by everybody throughout that
• 1:04:01
  episode so haunting isn't? It.
• 1:04:03
  Yeah, yeah. When?
• 1:04:04
  She's when she's the old woman on the bed and she goes,
• 1:04:06
  everybody left me eventually. Yeah, that, that bit, you know,
• 1:04:10
  in the hospital where the old woman's there and and turns
• 1:04:13
  around in the dark, the lights are going on and off.
• 1:04:15
  It's like the most horror movie thing Doctor Who's done in
• 1:04:18
  years. Me and Mark were grabbing hold
• 1:04:19
  of each other, absolutely terrified.
• 1:04:21
  I know I was pretty. Spooked out as well.
• 1:04:22
  I was like, God, I'm and then I got to the end of it and was
• 1:04:25
  completely baffled. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:27
  We were like. What?
• 1:04:29
  But then Mark was, I want to watch it again.
• 1:04:31
  I was like, oh right, let's do that.
• 1:04:33
  Yeah, yeah. And and I think I then went
• 1:04:36
  straight to a wedding after that.
• 1:04:39
  A very grand wedding as well. Indeed.
• 1:04:41
  Indeed. Your own rogue Fair, yeah.
• 1:04:45
  But yeah, no, I think, yeah, I just, again, the reason why I
• 1:04:49
  picked this story was just because you get such a great
• 1:04:53
  showing of Shooty and Millie and yeah, I think they dazzle in
• 1:04:58
  this, you know, and they've dazzled throughout, I think, but
• 1:05:01
  in here, I think. It's this is this is their best
• 1:05:05
  episode of the season I. Think because I don't and you
• 1:05:09
  know, there are obviously places where they're more fun and more
• 1:05:12
  energetic and and bursting with joy.
• 1:05:16
  But I something like, you know, when literally all that's
• 1:05:22
  happening is the doctor is moving a leg.
• 1:05:24
  That's literally the only thing that's happening, and yet you
• 1:05:27
  get that tension with the finger snapping.
• 1:05:31
  There's something about putting 2 characters in an intense
• 1:05:33
  situation where they are facing death, that's where you see
• 1:05:37
  their true colours and and what the relationship is we've.
• 1:05:40
  Actually said. And then of course, right in the
• 1:05:42
  middle that you've got Verada as well.
• 1:05:44
  New companion? Yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:46
  And is it Verada Sethu? Is that how you say?
• 1:05:48
  It I believe so. I I could be wrong though.
• 1:05:51
  Who's? Like, I'll have seen a very
• 1:05:52
  small video of her imperial dress running out of what looks
• 1:05:56
  like an American diner. Yeah, Absolutely Fabulous, might
• 1:05:59
  I say. I'm sure, yeah.
• 1:06:01
  And if you've seen her, it's quite interesting actually,
• 1:06:04
  because the the main reason I know know her and know I'm sure
• 1:06:12
  many people know her from is the Star Wars show and or have.
• 1:06:16
  You seen it any good? It's really good.
• 1:06:17
  It's fantastic. I know Nathan raves about it all
• 1:06:20
  the time. What does he know?
• 1:06:24
  And yeah, and yeah, it's a very, it's a very self serious spy
• 1:06:29
  thriller and and then in here and boom, she plays quite a
• 1:06:34
  severe character as well. So it's quite interesting.
• 1:06:36
  She she's a really, really good actor.
• 1:06:38
  Be nice to see I do something live.
• 1:06:39
  Yeah, which is the, which is the thing I'm most interested to see
• 1:06:42
  is to see. And of course, as soon as this
• 1:06:46
  went out, like with, you know, Oswin Oswald, hilarious that
• 1:06:52
  Moffett has got to do this twice in his career.
• 1:06:55
  But, you know, I think Russell put out a statement going like,
• 1:06:58
  you know, oh, is it a, you know, is it a twist?
• 1:07:01
  Is it a time thing? Stay tuned, as J&T would say.
• 1:07:06
  Yeah, yeah, stay tuned. That's right from the great big
• 1:07:08
  Welshman. But yeah, it's I'm, I, I am
• 1:07:15
  actually quite intrigued to see how they bring her into the
• 1:07:17
  series. I have my suspicion is she she
• 1:07:19
  actually has nothing to do with. Monday it's just or just like,
• 1:07:23
  oh, a throwaway. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:25
  What was it? Oh, yeah.
• 1:07:26
  I think my cousin Adeolai was in Torchwood Tower when the side
• 1:07:30
  men took over. That's what Martha said, wasn't
• 1:07:32
  it? That's right.
• 1:07:33
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:07:34
  And cheeky. You know, it might be something
• 1:07:36
  like that. Or maybe they're going to do,
• 1:07:39
  they won't do a Clara Oswald. What?
• 1:07:40
  Do you think they just saw the actress in this and went, oh
• 1:07:42
  man, she's amazing, let's have her in?
• 1:07:44
  I wouldn't be, to be honest. I won't be surprised.
• 1:07:46
  I do think she puts a in AI think the whole most of the
• 1:07:51
  guest cast puts in a great a great turn here and I but I
• 1:07:58
  think Verada in particular really shows that she's got like
• 1:08:04
  that emotional range to play, you know, something as rapid and
• 1:08:10
  strange as my the person who had a crush on me is dead and now
• 1:08:13
  I'm talking to his AI ghost. It would be remiss of me not to
• 1:08:17
  say as well that actually this idea has been done before in
• 1:08:22
  Doctor Who. The whole idea of a war that
• 1:08:25
  isn't a war which is just sort of a tech arms race for profit.
• 1:08:31
  And that is Johnny Morris's The Tomorrow Winders is one of his
• 1:08:34
  many vignettes in that story that they go to a planet where
• 1:08:37
  people are having sort of calipers and all this.
• 1:08:40
  They've been turned proto Sireman and the big twist is
• 1:08:43
  like, you're not fighting anybody.
• 1:08:46
  And it's exactly the same. Now I know Johnny Morris and
• 1:08:49
  Stephen Moffett are good mates so I'm sure somewhere in the
• 1:08:53
  back of his head. Maybe, maybe good or.
• 1:08:55
  Yeah, but he does his own thing with it.
• 1:08:57
  Right. Well, nobody's reading books
• 1:08:59
  anyway. They won't end anyway. 2003.
• 1:09:02
  The series was coming back soon, you know.
• 1:09:04
  And even the kind of imagery of the battlefield, it evokes some.
• 1:09:10
  Yeah, the thing it reminded me the most of was actually the
• 1:09:13
  opening, the opening and closing of Magician's Apprentice.
• 1:09:19
  Because, you know, you've got Davros.
• 1:09:20
  Such a nice time till you mention.
• 1:09:22
  That I, which is, you know, it's it's a.
• 1:09:25
  Great opening though, those hands.
• 1:09:26
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. With the eyes.
• 1:09:28
  And it's basically, you know, treating it like Davros is on a
• 1:09:33
  is on a minefield. So it feels like he's he's and
• 1:09:38
  you know that that the the magician's apprentice.
• 1:09:41
  That's actually probably a good an interesting parallel because
• 1:09:45
  that's another story, which is fashion an entire two parter,
• 1:09:50
  which is fashion out of a small bit of genesis of the Daleks
• 1:09:55
  because the whole the whole story comp is basically.
• 1:09:58
  Influential. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:00
  It's like people like that one. I haven't seen it, have you?
• 1:10:03
  No. Well, not recently, but yeah,
• 1:10:05
  that one's obviously built around the doctor's question of
• 1:10:08
  if somebody saw the future, pointed out a child, would you
• 1:10:11
  kill that child? And then you've got this one,
• 1:10:13
  which is built out of Harry. I've stepped on a landmark.
• 1:10:16
  Interesting. You should make the comparison
• 1:10:18
  with that. Who passed out, which I have a
• 1:10:20
  lot of issues with. It's so full of diversions.
• 1:10:25
  It's so bloated. It's so like it takes 30 minutes
• 1:10:30
  to get to Scaro. It's 30 minutes of vamping.
• 1:10:34
  But this is so focused in comparison, you know what I
• 1:10:37
  mean? It's like one location there.
• 1:10:39
  It's all over the bloody universe again in the 1st 10
• 1:10:41
  minutes. And it's so interesting to see
• 1:10:44
  whether Steven Moffat really zeroes in on a good idea and
• 1:10:48
  just goes to town with it. I love it.
• 1:10:51
  Yeah, well, that was the other thing that really caught me.
• 1:10:54
  Well, not caught me off guard, but one of the things that
• 1:10:57
  Moffat loves doing is obviously his zippy openers, which I think
• 1:11:02
  you said this the best example of this is like a the time of
• 1:11:06
  Angels. I think Pandora might be the
• 1:11:08
  best one. That's only because that does
• 1:11:10
  the double whammy of doing the same thing as time as Angels but
• 1:11:13
  also revisiting everywhere in the season.
• 1:11:15
  That's right. Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:16
  Brilliant. I think it got very tired by the
• 1:11:19
  time we got to because of The Apprentice.
• 1:11:21
  Because because they did it. Yeah.
• 1:11:23
  Yeah. Because that that was his
• 1:11:26
  calling card essentially for most 2 parters and most
• 1:11:28
  openings. But it's interesting because but
• 1:11:31
  and it is because such a hallmark of his style, like even
• 1:11:34
  in a really stripped back piece, like listen, you know, the
• 1:11:40
  opening is him, you know, going around all the time, It's
• 1:11:43
  probably. I think that's what I was a bit
• 1:11:44
  taken about when this started and it was just two people
• 1:11:47
  walking across the minefield. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's the only
• 1:11:50
  probably the closest opening I can think of that it reminds me
• 1:11:52
  of is actually something like Head and Scent, where the doctor
• 1:11:54
  just arrives in the location and starts exploring.
• 1:11:57
  I get a one location focus. Yeah, the drama.
• 1:12:01
  And there's some, and Moffat has said in kind of various behind
• 1:12:06
  the scenes things that he'd actually had written a
• 1:12:09
  completely different opening that went on for like 10 pages
• 1:12:12
  or something. And then he actually just cut
• 1:12:14
  all the pages like, because I think it was with the Doctor,
• 1:12:16
  Millie and the TARDIS, and they were just having a, a right, a,
• 1:12:19
  you know, a right old yarn. He's like, actually.
• 1:12:21
  Get to the point. Yeah, he's like, actually, we
• 1:12:22
  need to. We need to get to the landmine.
• 1:12:24
  We need to get there. And establish all those
• 1:12:26
  characters at the start. That's the most character they
• 1:12:29
  get in this. Pretty much with what's his
• 1:12:32
  name, Carson, who immediately blows up.
• 1:12:35
  Poor guy. Well.
• 1:12:37
  Happens to the best of us. Before we out this episode,
• 1:12:39
  Jack, there's only two really we haven't spoken about.
• 1:12:42
  Just very quickly. Devil's called.
• 1:12:45
  Oh, I've loved it. Oh.
• 1:12:46
  It's fabulous. I thought it was.
• 1:12:47
  I thought it was wonderful. I thought it was.
• 1:12:49
  Great. The last five minutes of some of
• 1:12:51
  my favorite Doctor Who of all time.
• 1:12:52
  Oh, really? Oh, I.
• 1:12:53
  Love the song, you know me, I love a musical.
• 1:12:55
  I I love it. I hate I love a good song and
• 1:12:57
  dance too. I didn't think the song was
• 1:12:59
  great but I but. The choreography, the chore was
• 1:13:02
  amazing. Yeah, a bit where they go across
• 1:13:04
  the the crossing and it's a piano.
• 1:13:07
  Yeah, it's wonderful. And I think people pointed out
• 1:13:11
  the the tune of it is actually an arpeggio.
• 1:13:15
  So they're like May maybe it's has something to do with because
• 1:13:20
  that episode's teasing the one who waits and all these little
• 1:13:23
  ark things as well. So who knows, there might be
• 1:13:26
  something in there. But yeah, I love Devil's Chord.
• 1:13:28
  I thought it was great to see because clearly that that that
• 1:13:32
  story in particular feels like like a comic strip in Russell T
• 1:13:36
  Davis head, he's talked about how he loves drawing stories
• 1:13:40
  and. Doesn't play by the rules.
• 1:13:42
  All those winking to cameras. Yeah, yeah, I think the moment
• 1:13:45
  for me was and probably says a lot about me.
• 1:13:49
  It wasn't when Jinx Monsoon extracts the song from the the
• 1:13:55
  musician's heart and then eats it.
• 1:13:57
  It was then, which was insane and ridiculous.
• 1:14:00
  And apparently the the music chords were a practical effect.
• 1:14:03
  Oh really? Oh yeah, I loved all of.
• 1:14:05
  That and but it was when she, you know, wraps it all up in the
• 1:14:08
  the conductor's baton and then eats it and then hiccups her a
• 1:14:12
  music note, which I thought was absolutely.
• 1:14:16
  Catchy. I loved Ruby Sunday when she was
• 1:14:19
  up in the air with the notes around her tying her up and then
• 1:14:25
  Oh my God, I thought, this is great.
• 1:14:28
  And there's another song in her heart.
• 1:14:29
  I, I loved it. I thought it was I I had a
• 1:14:32
  thoroughly good time with with the Devil's Chord.
• 1:14:36
  I just thought it's star wise. Yeah, it's just one of the.
• 1:14:40
  Best and and Russell said he he was reading about the apparent
• 1:14:45
  legend of the, of the church banning the Devil's Court.
• 1:14:51
  And it's like, well, as soon as you hear something called the
• 1:14:53
  Devil's Court, that's a Doctor Who episode.
• 1:14:55
  And well finally then what is your extreme issues with space
• 1:14:59
  babies may I ask? A fabulous R shaped spaceship
• 1:15:02
  propelled by far. I Well, how much time do we have
• 1:15:05
  left not. Long.
• 1:15:10
  You know, contrary to how I think a lot of people felt, I
• 1:15:12
  really liked the beginning. I really I actually thought the
• 1:15:15
  exposition dump was handled in a surprisingly neat way.
• 1:15:18
  It's made possibly do people different different strokes for
• 1:15:22
  different folks. People will some people think it
• 1:15:24
  was too much information dumped all at once.
• 1:15:26
  I thought it was the doctor kind of going like this is me.
• 1:15:31
  This is the new me. I don't hold secrets.
• 1:15:33
  I this is all you need to know about me.
• 1:15:35
  Here's my deal. And they.
• 1:15:37
  This reading of when she went where's, where's your planet?
• 1:15:40
  It just went gone. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right next to
• 1:15:43
  the jukebox, I think. And, and I thought it was, I've
• 1:15:47
  said this to you elsewhere. I thought it was really, really
• 1:15:51
  neat writing to parallel the Doctor and Ruby's emotional,
• 1:16:00
  their relationship with their, with their, with their past
• 1:16:03
  together. I thought it was really neat for
• 1:16:05
  Russell to kind of take the the timeless child kind of ark and
• 1:16:11
  revelation and kind of strip out all the the sci-fi, yeah, the
• 1:16:15
  techno Babble of it like the heart.
• 1:16:16
  Yeah, yeah. Of the division and and the
• 1:16:20
  founding of Gallifrey and strip it down to what?
• 1:16:23
  To it's emotional core. And this is, and I know this is
• 1:16:25
  what Chimnall intended it to be, which is the revelation is that
• 1:16:29
  the doctors and come from where they think they are an orphan or
• 1:16:33
  you know, they are maybe not even orphan's probably the wrong
• 1:16:35
  word, but a foundling. And I thought I was.
• 1:16:37
  Just so good at getting to the heart.
• 1:16:39
  Yeah, yeah. And I think quickly, yeah.
• 1:16:41
  And I think Russell clearly saw the the core of the idea that
• 1:16:44
  Chipnall wants to convey. And Chipnall has talked and
• 1:16:46
  interviews happened, hasn't he about and going that's that's
• 1:16:50
  the emotional beat that I want to play.
• 1:16:51
  And I think it's. So it was worth doing.
• 1:16:55
  Yeah. Yeah, I still like how it's
• 1:16:58
  presented. Yeah, in the previous.
• 1:17:00
  I'll see. I'll see how this plays out
• 1:17:02
  before I make that judgement call.
• 1:17:03
  But also all that I thought was great.
• 1:17:06
  I thought everything on the spaceship.
• 1:17:11
  Yeah, on paper, it all works for me fine.
• 1:17:15
  When I watched it, I just. I just struggled with it.
• 1:17:17
  I I I'm really. Sorry, you're going to go back
• 1:17:20
  to that one often. I might be a grower.
• 1:17:22
  I don't see a bit like a. Monster made out of bogeys.
• 1:17:26
  Why would what? I think that their little nose
• 1:17:30
  is blown and then the tissues go down.
• 1:17:32
  All the bogeys are down there. See this, I mean, this is the
• 1:17:38
  thing. I think the mechanics of the
• 1:17:39
  story are all play by the rules and set up and reveal and make
• 1:17:45
  sense. It just didn't connect with me.
• 1:17:48
  But aside from that and Church, and we haven't talked about
• 1:17:53
  Church of Ruby Rd. Well.
• 1:17:55
  It's fabulous. Yeah, I thought was good fun
• 1:17:56
  song. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:58
  Oh yeah, the goblin. Song The Goblin King The Goblin
• 1:18:00
  King Well. It's good.
• 1:18:04
  To meet you. Great.
• 1:18:05
  Big thing. It's good to see you're having a
• 1:18:08
  fun day. Meet my friend.
• 1:18:10
  She's Ruby Sunday. Yeah, it was great.
• 1:18:13
  That was lovely. Welcome.
• 1:18:16
  Yeah. I thought Church Ruby Rd.
• 1:18:18
  Huge fun. Bit weird at the end, but.
• 1:18:23
  Muted. Yeah, muted reasons and yeah,
• 1:18:28
  but yeah, ultimately had a, had a, had a good fun time with it.
• 1:18:32
  And things a bit where Davina McCall almost gets crashed by a
• 1:18:35
  Christmas tree is the funniest thing that's ever happened in
• 1:18:38
  Doctor Who and. I actually, and you know, I know
• 1:18:43
  there's been some commentary about Ruby's family and people
• 1:18:47
  going, oh, you know, they're not really as developed as the
• 1:18:50
  Tylers. They're not.
• 1:18:52
  What two episodes so far? But then time.
• 1:18:55
  But then people also going, well, you know, we spent a lot
• 1:18:57
  more time with Jackie Tyler and, and the and the Jones and and
• 1:19:01
  the nobles at this point in the series than we had with than we
• 1:19:06
  had with Ruby's family. The end of the second season and
• 1:19:11
  then we'll make the call. You you wouldn't be so forgiving
• 1:19:14
  of of a Moffat family back in the day that's.
• 1:19:16
  Because there were no fucking. Do you remember who the hell
• 1:19:21
  were Amy Paul's parents? I don't remember that little fat
• 1:19:24
  man who walked in in one scene. I think, I think you're, I think
• 1:19:26
  he was only ever. Referred Bill's mum.
• 1:19:28
  She was vile. Yeah, what?
• 1:19:31
  You had Clara's Nan. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:19:34
  Clara's nan. You didn't have a bloody name.
• 1:19:36
  He. Just wasn't doing that, was he?
• 1:19:38
  No, I but yeah, I, I think, I think yeah, I, I I've really
• 1:19:48
  enjoyed everything to do with MO most.
• 1:19:51
  I've really had a good time with shooting get worse so far.
• 1:19:53
  I think after a seas, sorry, an era that you didn't connect with
• 1:19:58
  so well, I think Doctor Who's got his claw back into you
• 1:20:02
  again. It has.
• 1:20:03
  It has been, it's been interesting for me to think
• 1:20:06
  about this, actually. And you know, we're again, we're
• 1:20:08
  in overtime. Jack's yammering on.
• 1:20:10
  All right, time to swap over to something.
• 1:20:12
  Else just have to have a very quick shower, that's all.
• 1:20:15
  Go on. The thing that I found find
• 1:20:19
  really just that, you know, I, I've talked to, you know, how
• 1:20:21
  the Whittaker era didn't entirely connect with me and it
• 1:20:25
  wasn't an era of the show that I love.
• 1:20:27
  You know, I watched all of it, but I didn't.
• 1:20:28
  We did laugh watching Power of the Doctor yesterday.
• 1:20:30
  We did. We had a good time.
• 1:20:31
  I. Would like to go into the
• 1:20:33
  TARDIS. Just anything to do with Janet
• 1:20:36
  Field. Oh my God.
• 1:20:37
  Children. I got in yes.
• 1:20:42
  But the thing that I found really interesting is I was
• 1:20:45
  thinking about it is I stepped, took a step, one step back from
• 1:20:50
  the show. It was actually kind of nice to
• 1:20:51
  kind of recharge my enthusiasm for the show when it came back,
• 1:20:56
  when it came back with Judy Gatowa.
• 1:20:57
  And which I feel like it's perhaps sometimes it's healthy
• 1:21:00
  to for to for the show totally to do, to present it, to do an
• 1:21:04
  era that's like, this isn't really for me.
• 1:21:06
  Anymore. I did that with Moffett, didn't
• 1:21:07
  I? Yeah.
• 1:21:08
  Which, you know, I was back on board again.
• 1:21:09
  Yeah. That's right.
• 1:21:10
  And but that's very much, you know, that's couching on the
• 1:21:15
  assumption that fans never make, which is that it's not what it
• 1:21:20
  used to be. That's all right.
• 1:21:21
  It'll be better later. Never mind.
• 1:21:23
  Yeah, don't worry, it'll be better again soon.
• 1:21:25
  You've. Only got wait 2 minutes.
• 1:21:27
  Yeah, there'll be a new showrunner.
• 1:21:28
  And they'll be like, oh God, this is the I've been watching
• 1:21:31
  since 1963. This is the worst version of the
• 1:21:34
  show ever. Even you said that you know
• 1:21:36
  you'd be interested to go back and watch the Whiz career and
• 1:21:39
  now and just and now it's not the the show and just watch it
• 1:21:43
  on its own merits. Yeah, I don't like, don't get me
• 1:21:46
  wrong, I don't, I don't expect to do a full 180.
• 1:21:49
  Although I have heard people that have I've met, I've heard
• 1:21:51
  podcasts that have gone back and watched series 11 and said, OK,
• 1:21:56
  I missed a lot in in when I first watched this on the time
• 1:22:00
  Lash. They didn't watch through.
• 1:22:02
  Yeah, totally revolutionize their opinion.
• 1:22:05
  Don't just count it. All right.
• 1:22:07
  Well, you wagging my your finger at me and my face here, so I'll,
• 1:22:10
  I'll, I'll this will be my. It won't happen, but I think you
• 1:22:14
  might see more than you I think. So I think so, anyway.
• 1:22:17
  That would be my homework anyway.
• 1:22:19
  Doctor Who's back? Listen, we should wrap this up
• 1:22:23
  if you do have a train to catch today, yes, well, let me just
• 1:22:27
  say one what a delight to see you in person.
• 1:22:29
  Thank you. Same to you.
• 1:22:31
  And two, what a fabulous episode to talk about.
• 1:22:33
  I know. And actually, we can sign this
• 1:22:35
  episode off actually saying it at the exact same time without
• 1:22:38
  sinking we. Still won't be able to do it.
• 1:22:40
  I bet we can. What I will say is, obviously
• 1:22:44
  Nimon has been on a long, a long gap year and there are busy
• 1:22:50
  things coming up for both of us. But I'm sure at some point in
• 1:22:54
  the future, this is always here, this podcast, and you will hear
• 1:22:57
  our voices again. Yeah.
• 1:22:59
  Maybe with me back in the toilet again, but.
• 1:23:04
  Get back where you belong. Oh no, return to you to go under
• 1:23:08
  the bridge, troll. Oh God, let's do.
• 1:23:11
  It all right A3A 2A1. Oh, wait.
• 1:23:14
  What? How do we end?
• 1:23:15
  I've forgotten you. What?
• 1:23:16
  Oh, no, I remember. I remember.
• 1:23:19
  I. Did try to do it again, Price,
• 1:23:23
  Yeah. It's been that long.
• 1:23:25
  Wow. Oh my.
• 1:23:26
  God, I've recorded 800 hamsters in that time.
• 1:23:29
  Yeah. What kind of excuse you call
• 1:23:30
  that? OK, 321 the. 91 be praised.
• 1:23:38
  That's the best one yet. Later, bye.