Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Michael Mills about Joe's choice of Lucky Day

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Talks to Michael Mills about Joe's choice of Lucky Day · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:01
  Where are they? I don't know.
• 0:03
  Their readings are closed. Got those civilians inside.
• 0:05
  OK, There's two of them. At least.
• 0:07
  They've got my friend. I want the shriek alive.
• 0:09
  We need to understand how they got here.
• 0:12
  Want some ghostings at 0? None of this makes sense.
• 0:14
  Just give me that Eyes on set weapon system.
• 0:24
  Get behind us now. Repair to fire.
• 0:35
  Wait a minute, they're not shriek.
• 0:45
  Got you, you idiots. I would do boss.
• 0:59
  Nailed it. Comrade, what's he talking
• 1:03
  about? Comrade, what are they talking
• 1:09
  about? What the hell is going on?
• 1:12
  We're a think tank exposing the lies perpetuated by Unit by you,
• 1:21
  and we're live streaming, so don't get trigger out of me.
• 1:25
  This is so funny. I've had to listen to your
• 1:29
  stories for weeks now and up with your insecurity and vanity,
• 1:34
  listen to your tedious piano solos and get smothered in lip
• 1:38
  gloss. It has been, I'm sure, getting
• 1:42
  to know you, and now it's all worth it.
• 1:49
  Welcome back to our hamster with a blunt pen knife.
• 1:52
  I nearly said the Hamster Book Club because that's where you
• 1:56
  normally are. The Doctor Who Commentary
• 2:00
  podcast. Hello, Michael.
• 2:03
  Hello, Joe. Are you already confused?
• 2:06
  As confused as the listeners are.
• 2:08
  You have done a few of these now, right?
• 2:10
  Yeah, I have. I've earnt my place here.
• 2:12
  We've done dot and bubble and seven to three yards.
• 2:15
  I've I was on the very first strictly come hamster or have
• 2:18
  you no young man? You've done two or three of
• 2:20
  those now and over 20 book clubs as well.
• 2:24
  You are a mainstay of this podcast.
• 2:27
  Oh gosh, we should probably stop at some point.
• 2:28
  Will. You stop saying that please,
• 2:30
  every time we record now. Please, please, he has my
• 2:34
  family. They're not coming out the
• 2:38
  cupboard all right. I'm live streaming right now,
• 2:41
  though. Michael.
• 2:44
  Last year we covered two of the best episodes.
• 2:49
  I think we'll agree. Dot and Bubble and 73 Yards.
• 2:54
  Certainly that's what we came to the conclusion of on the
• 2:56
  Strictly Come Hamster. And this year I requested that
• 3:00
  you do Lucky Day, which is my favorite episode of the second
• 3:05
  year, for you to get one and story in the engine, which I
• 3:09
  believe might be your favorite of the second year.
• 3:13
  Yes, it's very much my favorite, but I shall hold back all the
• 3:17
  reasons why until we've a recorded that episode and BI
• 3:21
  have gone through a lot of plays that I feel I have to have
• 3:25
  consumed before I can comment on that.
• 3:27
  We better put aside a few hours for that one then.
• 3:30
  I mean, I will say no one's come at me about lucky day.
• 3:33
  The amount of fucking people that have come at me about oh,
• 3:36
  can I do story in here? No, it's already taken, I'm
• 3:38
  afraid. Very popular.
• 3:40
  Everyone wants to talk about that one poor lucky day.
• 3:45
  Poor lucky day. Why?
• 3:46
  Why do you think no one's come to you about it, Joe?
• 3:49
  Well, to be honest with you, no one's come at me with for any of
• 3:51
  the other episodes except Story in the Engine.
• 3:55
  I think maybe because Story in the Engine is probably the most
• 3:57
  original episode of the year, certainly the most substantial
• 4:02
  in terms of discussing the content with him.
• 4:05
  Yes, it's the deepest. I think we're all going to be
• 4:07
  thinking about the story in the engine for many years to come.
• 4:11
  Whereas Lucky Day and certainly the Instella Song Contest have
• 4:16
  muddy politics within them that I think people are going to
• 4:20
  steal well clear of, you know, in fear of, you know, their
• 4:23
  politics emerging within the podcast.
• 4:25
  But I have to say, hand on heart, this was my favorite
• 4:31
  first watch of Series 2, primarily because I am a huge I
• 4:38
  love deconstructing television, and I've done a lot of it.
• 4:42
  So things don't surprise me very often because I've gotten so
• 4:45
  used to the tricks and when they're sort of constructing A
• 4:49
  narrative to build to A twist, and the twist in the middle of
• 4:54
  lucky day. Spoiler everybody because we're
• 4:57
  going to be talking about it absolutely floored me.
• 5:01
  I didn't see it coming from a mile off and the fact that Pete
• 5:04
  Mctoy waited 20 minutes so he he wasted half of his episode
• 5:11
  effectively setting up that moment.
• 5:15
  I jumped out of my seat at the one time this year I jumped out
• 5:18
  of my seat and went no way sit down for good sakes.
• 5:23
  It's over the top. It absolutely floored me and
• 5:26
  then from that point on I think this just sprints to its
• 5:31
  conclusion with one amazing scene after another.
• 5:34
  Tell me I'm wrong. No, I think I think you're
• 5:37
  right. But it's worth saying these last
• 5:41
  two series, the variety of Doctor Who that we've had in
• 5:46
  them is astonishing. And I, I, I think for, for all
• 5:49
  its strengths, all its weaknesses, I think Russell T
• 5:51
  Davis is to be applauded for just how he wanted to get out
• 5:54
  and show how wildly varied Doctor Who can be because of
• 5:58
  its, its format. You know you're not trying to
• 6:00
  find your way back to the Alpha Quadrant or something where it's
• 6:03
  going to be the same boring aliens every single week, or
• 6:06
  even just staying in one. Stop throwing shade on Star Trek
• 6:09
  every week now, please. I mean, that would have been a
• 6:11
  much fairer criticism of Deep Space 9 than Voyager, to be
• 6:14
  fairness, if you're saying the same thing every week.
• 6:16
  But you, you stick your hand in and you pluck out three episodes
• 6:20
  at random from the last two series, right?
• 6:22
  You know Lux? Space babies.
• 6:25
  Space babies, the well lucky day, 73 yards.
• 6:30
  It's it's every one of those feels like it could be from a
• 6:33
  different era of Doctor Who that you could have so many different
• 6:36
  Ponds. I do wonder if that's a strength
• 6:38
  and a weakness, though. It's a massive strength because
• 6:40
  it shows you all that. I'm wondering if that Disney
• 6:42
  audience that they were hoping to capture are like, well, what
• 6:45
  the hell is this show, you know? Well, they're used to something
• 6:48
  like Stranger Things with the same characters every week, the
• 6:51
  same settings and an arc, and suddenly, yeah, we're doing this
• 6:56
  wildly, wildly. Yeah, we're doing Bridgeton one
• 6:59
  week, you know, and we're doing also good comparison with The
• 7:04
  Whale. Come on, give me a film, Mr. I
• 7:08
  know lots of things outside of Doctor Who.
• 7:10
  Well, all right. Well, I wouldn't say films.
• 7:15
  The Whale makes me think much more of the works of Stephen
• 7:18
  King. I think Russell D Davis has long
• 7:20
  proclaimed himself to be a fan of Stephen King, and I think
• 7:22
  that is his most Stephen King episode.
• 7:26
  I know you were looking at me there thinking, yeah, you're
• 7:28
  going to say the Impossible Planet, aren't you?
• 7:31
  You're going to say because they've got holes in the floor,
• 7:33
  Joe, they. Do both have holes in the floor?
• 7:36
  All right, Yes. So variety, sorry, Please
• 7:41
  continue. Yeah, I don't even mean it could
• 7:44
  be a strength of weakness There is if you asked me what how
• 7:46
  would I define this era of Doctor Who, I think that would
• 7:49
  be harder than say almost any other era.
• 7:53
  And that's partly because of the time hasn't come and and set in
• 7:57
  and yet for us to get that distance on it.
• 8:00
  Anthology series have been spoken about a lot in reference
• 8:06
  to to this era. People like to talk about Black
• 8:09
  Mirror because it's another show they've watched, but there's
• 8:13
  plenty of other anthology series out there and actually, although
• 8:16
  their stories tend to be very very, they do tend to be
• 8:19
  recognisable commonalities of tone across the episodes.
• 8:23
  To make up for that, if you watched 2 random episodes of The
• 8:26
  Twilight Zone, they would have different actors, probably
• 8:28
  different settings probably, maybe even slightly different
• 8:31
  genres, probably, But you would be able to tell who are both
• 8:34
  episodes of The Twilight Zone. Now obviously we have recurring
• 8:37
  characters here, and you could probably guess it was Doctor
• 8:39
  Who. But the difference between a 73
• 8:43
  Yards and a dot and Bubble and a two episodes right next to each
• 8:47
  other is is is vast. Lucky die in the story in the
• 8:51
  engine. Yeah, no, 100%.
• 8:55
  So maybe, I don't know, this is sort of reading the tea leaves,
• 8:58
  although from everything we understand within the modern
• 9:01
  television context as those who are better informed of such
• 9:05
  things that we tell us, Doctor Who has actually done quite well
• 9:08
  in terms of viewing figures. Whatever the issues are, it's
• 9:10
  not actually how many people are watching.
• 9:13
  It I don't want to say telling me, but I'm going to say telling
• 9:17
  me my three favorite episodes of the shooting.
• 9:20
  At what era are 73 Yards, dot and Bubble and Lucky Day Now?
• 9:26
  It's not because they are Doctor Light episodes, because I think
• 9:30
  there are very good Doctor Heavy episodes within this era, but
• 9:37
  primarily have two really strong.
• 9:40
  You've got MIDI Gibson doing 2 episodes and Callie Cook doing 1
• 9:45
  and just like absolutely shining in those episodes.
• 9:49
  They're brilliant showcases. I think Millie for me is the
• 9:55
  stand out performer of RCD 2 and that snuck up on me because I
• 10:01
  was a bit unsure during the Church of Ruby Road.
• 10:05
  And then the more time I spent with her, the more she grew into
• 10:08
  the role, the more they gave her to do.
• 10:11
  I just think the more she delivered.
• 10:14
  Yeah, I I know what you mean. It snuck up on me too.
• 10:16
  But I would agree with that assessment.
• 10:17
  When the door opens in Wish World and she's there and you
• 10:20
  go, oh hello. I'm not sure what I think about
• 10:24
  all that stuff with the baby in the last episode of The Reality
• 10:27
  War, but Millie gives us conviction when she's trying to
• 10:31
  convince everybody that the baby existed.
• 10:33
  Fantastic. Yeah, that and that is not easy
• 10:37
  stuff because you have to remember this.
• 10:38
  You know, most actors do not train to do science fiction,
• 10:41
  right? Some of the stuff that's thrown
• 10:42
  at you, it's why some of them don't like doing it.
• 10:43
  It's why lots of actors don't like doing green screen, right?
• 10:46
  Because they want to do, they want to do naturalism, they want
• 10:49
  to do realistic. But she's fantastic at at
• 10:52
  finding the reality in these fantastical moments, the the the
• 10:57
  truth for to use a terrible, terrible word, the emotional
• 11:01
  truth for that character in that moment that she has just seen
• 11:05
  someone's baby erased from time. OK, Joe, Joe, can you just give
• 11:08
  us you've seen it's a baby that didn't exist.
• 11:12
  You don't fully understand how it came into existence.
• 11:14
  There's these two people who are sort of maybe sort of having
• 11:17
  some sort of platonic hookup at the same time, OK.
• 11:19
  And that baby you're realizing going on no longer exists.
• 11:22
  And can you give us Nerjo and go?
• 11:24
  And you're sort of being left out of the loop as well.
• 11:27
  They're both treating you and can't have a cold way go.
• 11:29
  I'll probably do it the Catherine Tate way.
• 11:31
  You know there was a baby in that cot.
• 11:35
  That's how I would love. I would love to see, I would
• 11:38
  love to see Catherine Tate do almost any Ruby Sunday.
• 11:43
  She'd be wonderful, but Millie's so young she honest to God she
• 11:49
  doesn't have to deliver stuff this good.
• 11:52
  She was right in thinking that she was.
• 11:55
  She was only if she was barely bored when Rose was broadcast.
• 12:00
  Yeah, she really fancies Matt Smith.
• 12:02
  I know that. She mentions that a few times in
• 12:04
  the interview. In fact, she says quite a lot.
• 12:06
  I wish I'd been Matt Smith's companion, but what I will say
• 12:12
  is she's given a really interesting opportunity within
• 12:15
  this episode because they sort of Askew what Chris Chibner went
• 12:19
  for in Power of the Doctor. And that is when the companions
• 12:22
  stop travelling with the Doctor, they're sort of absorbed into
• 12:26
  this therapy group and they all look after her.
• 12:29
  For some reason, Rupee's been excluded from that, and so the
• 12:34
  whole PTSD after travelling with the Doctor angle, I don't think
• 12:39
  it's ever really been covered before, not like this.
• 12:43
  I think that's a really interesting approach because
• 12:45
  let's face it, these Doctor Who commanders, especially in the
• 12:48
  new series, they go for a lot. Yeah, they do.
• 12:54
  And it's one of the things that I found to compare it to Chris
• 12:57
  Chibnall. Although Dan's exit has been
• 13:01
  mocked, it was quite, quite liked that someone might
• 13:03
  actually go. You know what?
• 13:04
  I don't want to do this anymore. It's a bit too much.
• 13:07
  It's also what conversely, didn't work about Graham and
• 13:10
  Ryan's exit. Where you go, they're basically
• 13:12
  living the same lives that they were before they joined the
• 13:15
  doctor. So wasn't that all worth sorry?
• 13:18
  Doc, my contract's up. I've got to go.
• 13:22
  Yeah, I mean, much has been said since it was on about the idea
• 13:25
  that Ruby, this is this is an exploration of Ruby's PTSD,
• 13:29
  which I think is it's you can just hear it's one of those
• 13:31
  facts. This is going to attach itself
• 13:34
  to the episode forever. More like Paradise Towers is
• 13:36
  high rise and the others, they're just things that we take
• 13:40
  to be true. And I don't mean to say it's not
• 13:42
  true, but I think you can. That suggests there is a
• 13:45
  deliberateness to that point in the episode that I don't think
• 13:49
  is there when you watch it. I think it's much that more
• 13:51
  subtly got across in the episode that already a lot of people's
• 13:54
  readings are suggesting that it's almost there in what is not
• 13:58
  said as much as what is said. You don't have scenes of her
• 14:02
  tearing her hair out or having having flashbacks to the snot
• 14:07
  monster coming to kill her or anything like that being strung
• 14:11
  up by musical notes. It's there in the fact that she
• 14:15
  takes this opportunity to talk about what happened to her on a
• 14:17
  podcast because she can't talk about.
• 14:19
  I think that's an odd thing to do, isn't it?
• 14:21
  Do you think? Well, but no one's asked you any
• 14:22
  of these questions before now? I think it is very nicely done.
• 14:26
  I think it's not a criticism of this episode.
• 14:29
  I think one thing that is very conspicuous when you have her
• 14:31
  back in Series 2 is the one thing the show has absolutely
• 14:36
  decided not to address is the fact the Doctor just dumps her
• 14:39
  at the end of Series 1, which is such an odd no.
• 14:43
  She chose to go, didn't she? She sort of said they need me.
• 14:46
  I need to be with my family. I mean, yeah, maybe a little bit
• 14:51
  dumps. Are more at the end of series 2
• 14:53
  I think. You may want.
• 14:55
  To say goodbye. But you know, she might have
• 14:58
  hoped that you would come back a bit, right?
• 15:02
  But no, I think it's that I think I think it is done.
• 15:04
  What I mean by that is not a criticism to say I think people
• 15:06
  are wrong when they say it's about PTSDI.
• 15:08
  Just mean I think you can already get readings of it, that
• 15:10
  it is somehow a sort of statement episode about that.
• 15:14
  And it isn't. It's done through Millie
• 15:15
  Gibson's very excellent performance and through Pete
• 15:18
  Mcteague's very well judged script.
• 15:21
  It's there in the gaps between. It's in the things she doesn't
• 15:24
  say. It for me it was less that you
• 15:28
  are there'll still be plenty to talk about what we press play.
• 15:30
  For me, it was less the the sort of the things she had to say,
• 15:34
  and it was more in moments like when the twist hits and one of
• 15:39
  the guys in the monster costume comes up behind her and goes Boo
• 15:41
  and she really just jumps into herself.
• 15:43
  Like she is terrified of her own shadow now because she knows
• 15:48
  there's a world of monsters out there.
• 15:50
  That's the sort of stuff that she plays so well here.
• 15:53
  She does and it's and for the show it's quite a It's a point
• 16:00
  I'm surprised they've not made before because we're all old
• 16:03
  enough to remember the Virgin New Adventure days and the BBC
• 16:06
  books Days of the Wilderness. Years where no one was allowed
• 16:09
  to be happy. Companions would probably be
• 16:12
  killed or the values that have a miserable time.
• 16:14
  One of the Brief Encounters younger listeners may want to
• 16:19
  know that there was a series of short stories that ran in Doctor
• 16:21
  Who magazine in the 90s called Brief Encounters, which were one
• 16:24
  page short stories generally about character from 1973 story
• 16:32
  meets character from 1967 story and they realise in the last
• 16:37
  paragraph who they HR. But there's at least one of
• 16:41
  those that's about Dodo's life years after being in the TARDIS.
• 16:46
  And it's there's no plot to this story at all.
• 16:48
  It's just about how miserable Dodo is.
• 16:52
  And, and I think because of that, there's been an
• 16:56
  understandable and probably correct correction in modern
• 17:00
  Doctor Who to show that travelling with the Doctor
• 17:02
  improves your life, that it empowers you.
• 17:04
  That especially with RTD, there's a slight element of if
• 17:06
  he's using you, he couldn't bring it out, which does get
• 17:11
  tiresome, but it's probably a positive thing to say.
• 17:12
  It's good, but it is maybe slightly overdue a moment where
• 17:17
  it's been back 20 years to stop and go.
• 17:19
  But it probably does fuck you up a little bit, right?
• 17:23
  Well, she literally says, doesn't she?
• 17:24
  I've fought gods and monsters, you know, for real.
• 17:29
  And and yeah, that really has messed me up.
• 17:31
  But the episode still goes to great pains to show she has a
• 17:34
  really great family unit around her and lots of support and
• 17:38
  Kate, you know, offering her help at the end of the episode
• 17:41
  and stuff like that. But it's just basically it's the
• 17:44
  Sarah Jane Smith thing without all the soap opera of trying to
• 17:48
  navigate your life once you're no longer travelling in the
• 17:52
  Sardis. And yeah, I just think there was
• 17:55
  a maturity to our real adeptness in her characterization in this
• 18:00
  script. It really made me miss Millie.
• 18:03
  Like, I, I, yeah. That that Season 3 that we we
• 18:08
  kind of has been hinted might have been with the Doctor,
• 18:11
  Belinda and Ruby could have been truly fantastic.
• 18:16
  Yeah, because some of the tragedy of this episode, if I do
• 18:19
  have one issue with this episode and I do like this episode, it's
• 18:23
  the fact that it comes where it does halfway through series 2.
• 18:25
  I think you could do a version of this, especially no longer
• 18:27
  series somewhere about if you imagine like an old school 13
• 18:31
  episode series somewhere around episode 8, right.
• 18:34
  We do a story where maybe we've had a doctor.
• 18:38
  Maybe this counterbalance is a turn left and midnight style.
• 18:41
  We've had a doctor heavy story beforehand because.
• 18:44
  Oh, you know, Ruby's back on Earth for a bit and then we
• 18:46
  catch up with her and where it's going.
• 18:49
  And I think it would have been nice to have that story there
• 18:51
  because I think within the plot of the of Series 2 that we can't
• 18:56
  get back to Earth. And then we get to see Earth for
• 18:58
  a bit. And it doesn't really apparently
• 18:59
  have anything to do with the central mystery.
• 19:01
  I think is a bit of a bum though, especially in eight
• 19:03
  episodes. I think having 8 episodes and
• 19:07
  for four of them were on Earth on the day we can't visit or
• 19:10
  around the day we can't visit. I think it I think it, I don't
• 19:13
  think it works. I think it, it's a bit it, it
• 19:16
  hits a dull note with a melody that the series is trying to
• 19:18
  make. But I also think, you know,
• 19:22
  she's a Grant Morrison phrase. The hole in things with this
• 19:24
  right is with series 2, and we'll probably talk about this
• 19:27
  in other episodes. Better is Varada Sethiu and
• 19:30
  Belinda Chandra, which is that I, I think my my first draft of
• 19:37
  history is that the treatment of that character in Series 2 is
• 19:39
  terrible and the resolution actively problematic.
• 19:43
  But for for when I said it was an actress, just terrific.
• 19:48
  Actress. Yeah.
• 19:50
  And she never gets a spotlight. She never she.
• 19:53
  Never gets this episode, does she?
• 19:55
  Yes, this episode Millie got 73 yards in the first series, right
• 19:59
  and she doesn't get an episode. And so I think that's that's
• 20:03
  also a slight problem with Lucky that it's biggest problem is
• 20:05
  that it's here is that it's here.
• 20:06
  It's where it is. I think it's a very good episode
• 20:10
  in its own terms. My biggest issue, right, 5 more
• 20:14
  minutes and I'm going to press play.
• 20:15
  My biggest issue, because I could just keep talking about
• 20:18
  this with you is, and I did have an issue this time, is that due
• 20:23
  to the consequence of waiting to land.
• 20:26
  The twist when he does means the second-half of the episode is a
• 20:30
  little rushed and there's some really tasty ideas in that
• 20:35
  second-half that are dealt with in 5 minutes.
• 20:39
  So the whole thing about unit coming under fire politically,
• 20:43
  economically, I want to see some of that.
• 20:47
  I want to see Kate Stewart in parliament, you know, arguing
• 20:51
  her case. And I was like, oh, there's some
• 20:53
  really great stuff you could do with this.
• 20:54
  But rightly, the focus is on the characters.
• 20:58
  So Ruby and Comrade, and it just keeps coming back to them
• 21:01
  because that is the through line throughout this entire story.
• 21:05
  I've just said the name Comrade. Do you want to go there quickly?
• 21:11
  Yeah. Should we go quickly to Conrad,
• 21:12
  or which Conrad do we want to talk about?
• 21:15
  Oh, he's so lovely at the start, isn't he?
• 21:18
  I mean, I would have been bewitched.
• 21:23
  Yeah, I mean, he is. He's a really dislikable
• 21:29
  villain. He like genuinely dislikable.
• 21:33
  I was quite glad in some ways that we ended up doing this
• 21:37
  commentary so that I went back and rewatched Lucky Day again
• 21:40
  and I really enjoyed it because I have a suspicion that if I had
• 21:44
  not been provoked to, I would not have watched Lucky Day again
• 21:46
  for quite a long time. And I think because I found,
• 21:49
  because it's brilliant writing, but I found it so uncomfortably
• 21:57
  relevant and city and such a a vicious satire of things that
• 22:07
  are very current at the times. And I've seen this from other
• 22:08
  people. They say it's brilliant writing,
• 22:10
  It's fantastic Ross to Davis, but I I get enough of that in my
• 22:13
  life that I don't want to see it in Doctor Who and I do get them.
• 22:16
  I don't want to go so far as to say that I think it was wrong.
• 22:18
  Student doctor. I think it's a very good
• 22:19
  episode. But you know, it's sort of the
• 22:22
  anti battlefield, right? I can't imagine putting it on
• 22:24
  when I'm ill or in it's like I've never seen Schindler's
• 22:30
  list. I've never seen Schindler's
• 22:32
  list. And the reason is I've there's
• 22:33
  never been a time where I've sat down.
• 22:34
  I thought, Oh, do you know what I want to watch now?
• 22:36
  Schindler's List and obviously it's a very different story, but
• 22:42
  I do want to that. That's right.
• 22:44
  This is Russell T Davis in in dot and bubble mode in It's a
• 22:48
  sin mode in Angry Russell T Davis, who's a very good writer.
• 22:53
  This is what I expected from his era far more often.
• 22:57
  What you got in dot and bubble, what you got in this.
• 22:59
  And he only chose it a couple of times a season to do it and to
• 23:04
  entertain us the rest of the time, as he should.
• 23:06
  But I did expect a pit more of this.
• 23:09
  Yeah, Children of Earth, to name another one.
• 23:12
  Yeah, absolutely. And I think a lot of that comes
• 23:14
  down to the recognisability of comrade as a villain because he
• 23:19
  sort one of the other clever things about it is that he's he
• 23:23
  isn't just person A under a pseudonym, right?
• 23:28
  He is a parody of a, of a group of men.
• 23:35
  They are largely, not entirely, but largely men within the
• 23:37
  modern world. So you can see elements of the
• 23:41
  of, of, of the conspiracy theorist in there, not naming
• 23:44
  any names. You can see lots of the sort of
• 23:46
  manosphere influence in there to an extent as well.
• 23:48
  And how toxic all that is. You can definitely see things
• 23:51
  about populist politicians in there as well.
• 23:53
  But he's, I don't want to name any one person because he isn't
• 23:56
  any one person. He is A and I think you'd
• 24:00
  probably reduce the episode if you started to try and pin it
• 24:02
  down in that way because you just argue against it.
• 24:04
  But there are commonalities there, right?
• 24:05
  It's it's that element of bullshit.
• 24:10
  And bullshit is different to lying, because bullshit is I
• 24:17
  don't particularly care about what the truth is.
• 24:20
  I want to be. I just want to convince and for
• 24:22
  my own ends and that idea of just asking questions, Dutch
• 24:28
  asking questions. And this goes into really deep
• 24:30
  into that sort of of conspiracies thinking.
• 24:34
  Why do people buy into conspiracy theories?
• 24:37
  And this is 1 of this is an observation as old as the hills.
• 24:40
  There's a lot of reasons why people do it.
• 24:43
  And I think Conrad encapsulate, encapsulates, but also is shown
• 24:47
  to be manipulating a lot of them.
• 24:49
  And I think it's very good that we never actually get the moment
• 24:52
  where Conrad turns around. He goes, well, my dear doctor,
• 24:55
  of course I don't believe a word of it, but these fools do you
• 24:59
  because he's sort of semi convincing himself the whole
• 25:01
  time as well. Because that's the purpose.
• 25:03
  A bullshitter doesn't care if they're telling the truth or
• 25:05
  lie. It's whether you believe them
• 25:07
  and. Why that moment we're against
• 25:08
  the Doctor at the end? It's just so great where he just
• 25:11
  laughs in his face in one of the Doctor's grand speeches and
• 25:15
  goes, I'm not impressed and I don't believe in your view of
• 25:18
  things, Like you just can't be reasoned with.
• 25:22
  Because we're not either there's a reason that he returns to the
• 25:24
  season finale that's called the reality war.
• 25:26
  And I was a bit disappointed that actually the series finale
• 25:29
  didn't make more of that idea that we already have those those
• 25:34
  battling conceptions of reality. But what that final scene does
• 25:37
  as well is is that it's exposes the fact that none of it is ever
• 25:41
  actually about the truth. There is the point where
• 25:43
  repeatedly, Conrad's lies and hypocrisies are pointed out to
• 25:48
  him, but he doesn't care, because that's not the purpose
• 25:51
  of this. The purpose of this is not to be
• 25:52
  coherent. It is to offer a dissenting
• 25:56
  view. It is to offer a obvious I was
• 25:59
  going to say the obvious thing about conspiracy theories is
• 26:01
  that there is something vaguely reassuring about them, right?
• 26:04
  The idea that you can see through that there is a truth to
• 26:06
  be found, not that everything is messy.
• 26:09
  That's why it's a conspiracy, right?
• 26:11
  Regardless of what you're talking about, the idea that
• 26:13
  there is something that is deliberately being done here.
• 26:15
  It's also about, you know, why is it happened so much in the
• 26:17
  social media age. And very explicitly, he is a
• 26:20
  product of social media and exploiter of social media.
• 26:22
  Conrad gets where he is through podcasts through it's also not
• 26:28
  called TikTok, but what we essentially take to be TikTok,
• 26:30
  right? And that's because we live in a
• 26:36
  ever larger and more in connect interconnected world, but one in
• 26:39
  which we are therefore ever more aware of our distance from the
• 26:43
  factors that affect us. Right.
• 26:46
  This was I was reading a book a couple of years ago from the
• 26:49
  late 80s called Electronic Pirates, the DIY Crime of the
• 26:53
  Century, which among many other things was talking about towards
• 26:57
  the end about at the dawn of the sort of modern digital age in
• 27:02
  the late 80s. Saying looking ahead and saying
• 27:05
  we cannot imagine now the effect that personal computers and the
• 27:11
  and internets will have. They will record them then are
• 27:14
  going to have effect are going to have on society because of
• 27:16
  their ability to connect people at the bottom of the traditional
• 27:19
  communication pyramids. You know, time was stuff was
• 27:21
  communicated outwards from various hubs and we all look to
• 27:24
  those for senses of truth and we could rebel against them, but we
• 27:26
  knew where they were through social media and the rest of it.
• 27:28
  We all now talk directly to each other all the time and there is
• 27:32
  so much noise. And yes, within that you get
• 27:34
  bubbles that allow you to shape your own reality.
• 27:36
  But we lose a sense of a coordinating point.
• 27:38
  So at the same time, people are fully aware, people know what
• 27:41
  what Keir Starmer is think is saying every minute of every
• 27:44
  day. We we can follow live feeds
• 27:46
  about what's going on with Donald Trump all the time.
• 27:51
  We can watch things being debated.
• 27:53
  We have people giving running commentaries all the time about
• 27:55
  things. And yet is our ability to affect
• 27:57
  any of those noise so much noise, and yet are we?
• 28:02
  All we can do is add to the noise We do not really.
• 28:04
  Have any greater? Don't we?
• 28:06
  We just. Consume it.
• 28:08
  And so we sort of have these kind of parasocial relationships
• 28:11
  with people and things, while our actual ability to affect the
• 28:15
  leaves of power are not much change from where they once
• 28:17
  were, right? And so one of the things that a
• 28:19
  modern conspiracy theorist, a modern social media influencer
• 28:23
  in the Conrad mold can do is to give you a false sense that you
• 28:30
  have some greater agency and some greater control, that you
• 28:33
  are the ones who are going to bring people down.
• 28:35
  And hey, maybe they can do. And you know, I'm, I'm not going
• 28:38
  to sit here and say there haven't been positives from
• 28:40
  social media and their ability to to galvanized people need to
• 28:43
  action. But at the same time, they're
• 28:45
  also a fermenting space for legitimizing people's fringe
• 28:48
  beliefs and extreme beliefs that allow people to adopt these sets
• 28:56
  of beliefs about themselves and their relationships with others
• 28:59
  to create a reality tunnel that is shared between people and
• 29:02
  will be endlessly reinforced. That is about expressing
• 29:07
  frustration with systems that is born of an increasing awareness
• 29:12
  of the lack of agency given to an individual person, and yet it
• 29:16
  is exploited and is often not particularly guided or focused
• 29:21
  on where it should be and a general suspicion of things.
• 29:24
  You know, the effect that the effect the Internet has had on
• 29:26
  populist politics is is is obviously vast.
• 29:30
  And I think it's fairly see what that is.
• 29:31
  And all of that is in the character of Conrad in that
• 29:34
  fairly short space of no. A Conrad, right?
• 29:36
  Everyone watching this episode knows somebody online who is
• 29:40
  Conrad. Everyone's seen a Facebook post
• 29:43
  from someone saying oh, about, you know, this is this is a very
• 29:47
  post COVID story. Although COVID obviously isn't
• 29:50
  mentioned, there isn't anything in there about it.
• 29:52
  That distrust of science, right? Of what?
• 29:56
  Look at the evidence people, these constant exhortations to
• 30:01
  the truth and also post Brexit in a British in a British
• 30:04
  context as well as well. That thing as well of the
• 30:06
  radicalization of that anti establishment feeling that is
• 30:10
  directed towards traditional institutions.
• 30:12
  You know the bit where he the bit where Conrad explicitly says
• 30:16
  I don't take orders from traitors.
• 30:18
  That's not a line born out of nothing in recent British
• 30:22
  political discourse, right? And yeah, right.
• 30:25
  And yeah, what these people tend to do is they'll take a seed of
• 30:30
  something that is there for it. You said anti establishment
• 30:34
  there. Yeah, the question of why
• 30:39
  shouldn't unit be held to account is probably a valid one,
• 30:44
  right? But when, when you go about it
• 30:48
  in the way that he does, it's really destructive.
• 30:52
  But there is a germ of, yeah, why shouldn't he asked that
• 30:56
  question, you know, and, and the way all the kids will jump in
• 31:00
  and go, you know, yeah, Unit, we want to know the truth.
• 31:03
  And suddenly questions have been asked politically and
• 31:06
  financially. Got it.
• 31:07
  It's so, so interesting on a on a purely performative level
• 31:11
  though, yeah. I can't remember the fellow's
• 31:14
  name replaced Comrade, but God he's so great.
• 31:17
  I think this is the best sort of twist turn since Sasha Dwan is
• 31:22
  by fault and they both did exactly the same thing with me.
• 31:26
  Completely convinced me that they were one person and then
• 31:31
  turn that on a dime and became absolute monsters.
• 31:36
  Really, really effectively. Yeah, what?
• 31:39
  He's not doing that. When you watch it back, you
• 31:42
  realise what he is is not doing at any point.
• 31:48
  Jonah Howard King is the name of the actor.
• 31:51
  I salute you, Sir. What what Jonah Howard King is
• 31:56
  doing in those in that first half of the episode is he's not
• 32:01
  doing the thing that it would be very easy for an actor to do of
• 32:05
  you do see it sometimes with characters.
• 32:06
  You've got to sort of have the twist reveal of the sudden kind
• 32:09
  of Agatha Christie. You're a damn it all Poirot.
• 32:14
  I've adopted it. It's the Michelin web sketch,
• 32:16
  isn't it about I've done the guilty voice.
• 32:18
  Now he you watch it back knowing who's going to be and you can
• 32:23
  see he's performing it as someone who is bullshitting the
• 32:27
  whole way through. He's lying, he's smug, he's
• 32:29
  playing a part. He's not just playing innocent
• 32:31
  Conrad, who's genuinely innocent, Although then suddenly
• 32:34
  I'm villainous Conrad. It's it's a very well judged
• 32:39
  performance. He doesn't change.
• 32:41
  But you're as in terms of the person who he is, but your view
• 32:44
  of him does. And you suddenly go, Oh yeah,
• 32:47
  you were a lying bastard the whole time, weren't you?
• 32:50
  And Pete Mctoy, I mean, the script is in on it from the
• 32:54
  first scene, the scene of the kid getting the 50P and you're
• 32:59
  just like RK, the kids meets the Doctor Who grew up.
• 33:02
  It's absolutely convincing you of what sort of Doctor Who story
• 33:05
  This is going to be a bit like Love and Monsters.
• 33:07
  You even get a scene a bit like Love and Monsters where he goes
• 33:11
  into that warehouse, you know, and they're chasing the monster
• 33:14
  about. And you might even think for a
• 33:15
  second, oh, it's just going to be a lazy rewrite of that.
• 33:18
  We've seen a bit of rewriting of old 2 episodes this year.
• 33:21
  Maybe we're doing that. And then the sort of the romance
• 33:25
  kicks in and they've got genuine chemistry, Ruby and comrade.
• 33:29
  So you're sucked into that. And they, he brings in the the
• 33:33
  family, you know, the two mums and the grandmother and they're
• 33:36
  all making jokes about him. Look at him on Instagram with
• 33:38
  his top off. And there's just so many little
• 33:41
  tricks in the script to convince you that that person is
• 33:45
  authentic, that when he cocks his head during that scene when
• 33:49
  unit comes to the village, oh man, the rug was pulled.
• 33:55
  Well, of course, because the other thing that the episode is
• 33:57
  doing that it will be very easy to lose sight of as frankly 2
• 34:01
  blokes is, is also that he's an abusive boyfriend.
• 34:05
  It's certainly an emotionally abusive boyfriend that you are
• 34:08
  given no reason to think that his and Ruby's relationship is
• 34:11
  anything other than sexual at this point.
• 34:14
  And and emotional, obviously, but you know, they're at it,
• 34:17
  right? But he's exploiting her.
• 34:19
  And that's clearly one of those unspoken things that's going on
• 34:21
  in the episode is he has had no compunction in going that far
• 34:26
  with her. And maybe we're watching it,
• 34:27
  we'll get into a bit more some specific instances of the way in
• 34:31
  which some of what he does operates.
• 34:32
  But he is he is very cool to he has exploited her.
• 34:37
  He does not view her as a full and valid person in the way that
• 34:46
  one needs to in a relationship, but which, you know, sadly is
• 34:50
  alter recognizable from the real world.
• 34:53
  And I think to show a renewed maturity from RTD one to RTD 2,
• 35:01
  the sequence where Conrad, it literally spells out, you know,
• 35:04
  oh, Ruby's Sunday, you know, is that name even real?
• 35:08
  I had to kiss that bloody lip gloss.
• 35:11
  And he just tears her apart right in a couple of sentences.
• 35:15
  And it is basically a replay of the runaway bride when Lance
• 35:19
  says to Donna and he pulls her apart.
• 35:21
  But Ruby's been seen to be so fragile already that oh man,
• 35:26
  like your heart just goes out for her in that moment.
• 35:29
  Yeah, and she, and she's not the she isn't the the the the Lance
• 35:35
  scene is effective because the whole way through we have of the
• 35:39
  runaway bride, we have in that first instance come to see Donna
• 35:42
  or something of a cartoon character.
• 35:43
  She's bigger, she's a loudmouth, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 35:46
  And then Oh my God. But then you get the scene where
• 35:49
  someone actually says that and says you're really annoying.
• 35:53
  You are so dumb, you are so thick.
• 35:55
  And you said no, she is, she is a real person like and I think
• 36:00
  your sort of challenge as the audience in that moment as well.
• 36:02
  It is different with Ruby, where we care about Ruby and we know
• 36:05
  how vulnerable she is. Basically says that she's
• 36:07
  pathetic. Oh my God.
• 36:09
  Well, should we go watch this thing?
• 36:11
  Let's let's actually watch it, yeah.
• 36:12
  I mean, we could just keep talking, but what?
• 36:14
  Do you want to count us in? Are you ready?
• 36:17
  Yep. So 321 go.
• 36:23
  Go. Do you think they'll keep Do you
• 36:26
  think they'll keep the universe logo for Billy?
• 36:29
  Well, I mean, is that a Disney thing or is that ABBC thing?
• 36:34
  I don't know. Here we go, 2007.
• 36:38
  In case anyone's knees weren't aching enough, a little fact
• 36:41
  here is that the time jump between this scene and the
• 36:46
  present day is the same as between Father's Day and the
• 36:50
  present day horseback. I'm visibly aging before your
• 36:56
  eyes, right? Now Cardiff University there,
• 36:58
  Cardiff University recognize that that little alleyway very
• 37:01
  well. It's the same bit.
• 37:02
  When and. Me.
• 37:04
  It's the same place that Margaret Slavine, they fiddled
• 37:07
  about with her, her teleport, all those years ago in boom
• 37:11
  time. Why did Ross T Davies not want
• 37:15
  the Doctor to have a gun shaped device and then have him go
• 37:18
  around with a gun shaped device the whole of the second season?
• 37:23
  It's not to question. Five times the size of the Sonic
• 37:26
  screwdriver. I was baffling, isn't it?
• 37:29
  Oh look, there's your favorite Belinda.
• 37:31
  Yeah, she is. She's yes.
• 37:32
  There she is. Respectfully.
• 37:34
  It's a very nice outfit. Isn't Young Conrad a good match?
• 37:40
  Yes, fantastic. And there's a very interesting
• 37:44
  moment in a second, isn't there, with his mother when she smacks
• 37:48
  him and she's got the alcohol in her hand and it is almost making
• 37:52
  a suggestion that some of this might be nurture.
• 37:59
  Well, and then there's that. I think we're all still trying
• 38:02
  to work out what we thought of the reality war.
• 38:04
  But that the brilliant moment in the reality war where Rupi says
• 38:08
  you never mentioned your dad. Oh.
• 38:11
  Boy, no. And the other brilliant moment
• 38:12
  where she just said, you know what?
• 38:14
  I want you to be happy. Even after all this.
• 38:17
  It shows Ruby to be the bigger person.
• 38:20
  Yeah, and it's interesting that and it is worth, although that's
• 38:22
  from the reality of what it is worth talking about here in
• 38:24
  terms of how Conrad is going to be presented in this episode, is
• 38:28
  that Russell T Davis wants his villains and especially his real
• 38:32
  world villains to be monstrous and hypocrites.
• 38:35
  And he wants you to see that he's not he has not got any time
• 38:38
  here for saying, oh, well, you know, maybe there's maybe maybe
• 38:43
  there's some nice about them. Maybe he goes home and looks
• 38:45
  like and pets his dog or something that they are shown to
• 38:47
  be monstrous. They're shown to be hypocrites.
• 38:48
  It's it's Roger app Willem in in 73 yards all over again.
• 38:54
  And and and what he is implied to have been doing.
• 38:57
  You know, he wants you to show that these people are nasty and
• 39:00
  horrible in the way they are. But being Russell T Davis, he
• 39:04
  also wants to say, but they're like that for a reason.
• 39:10
  They're not nice people. But no one is born that way.
• 39:14
  And so I do think Conrad's ultimate resolution in the
• 39:17
  reality war of if he was just allowed to be happy, he would be
• 39:20
  a better person. And he was working in a pot wash
• 39:23
  in a restaurant. And that's his happiness.
• 39:25
  It's so mundane, but it's, you know, it's not in the limelight
• 39:29
  like this, No. And up height.
• 39:33
  What is it called Lucky day? Well.
• 39:36
  Because the doctor goes, here's 50P, this is your lucky day.
• 39:39
  I don't know. That's it.
• 39:42
  You tell me why. I don't know.
• 39:45
  It's not like the. Point you're genuinely asking.
• 39:47
  It's not a rhetorical question. Yeah, I don't know.
• 39:49
  I just, it struck me though. I just thought I'm probably
• 39:51
  missing something, but I thought it just struck me as a slightly
• 39:53
  more tenuous title. I was sort of wanting it to have
• 39:56
  a kind of double meaning when you know the truth.
• 40:00
  I want to say as well that like the two the commentaries we did
• 40:05
  last year, the two commentaries we're doing for this year are
• 40:08
  both sterlingly directed as well.
• 40:12
  This is Peter Hall that gave us A Good Man Goes to War.
• 40:15
  That's his only previous Doctor Who credit.
• 40:19
  And whatever I might think of, a Good Man Goes to War.
• 40:22
  Visually, it's pretty damn good. It's a very nice, it's a very
• 40:25
  nice looking episode here. This scene you mentioned
• 40:29
  earlier, he sort of gets the kind of run through of love and
• 40:32
  monsters, but also with the mannequins there.
• 40:35
  You've got deliberate callbacks to the way this is the way we
• 40:39
  introduce normal people to the Doctor's world, right?
• 40:42
  Even the supermarket setting kind of evokes Henriks and
• 40:45
  stuff. I'm pretty sure actually, I
• 40:46
  can't remember the name of it, but there's some sign here where
• 40:49
  this is meant to be the same shop where Donna says she got
• 40:51
  her wedding dress from in the one or eight one.
• 40:53
  It. All.
• 40:56
  Links up, you know, in R2D's universe.
• 40:58
  Full marks whoever spotted that. But although we haven't got
• 41:02
  Suitek back in it, or the Toy Maker, or the Rani or Omega as
• 41:07
  much as any of those episodes, this is one that is assuming an
• 41:12
  audience knowledge and familiarity with Doctor Who and
• 41:15
  its tropes and its conventions. Which is almost the opposite of
• 41:17
  RTD. One right at the start where
• 41:19
  we're introducing Doctor Who entirely naturally.
• 41:22
  And criticisms we made of the Chibnal era occasionally, which
• 41:27
  is that it's sort of acted like no one had been watching Doctor
• 41:30
  Who up till now. Whereas this era is fully aware
• 41:36
  for all that's trying to reach a larger audience, it's fully
• 41:38
  aware that people either have watched Doctor Who or have the
• 41:41
  capacity to go back and watch Doctor Who.
• 41:43
  And in this scene, it is. It's, you're right.
• 41:45
  It's exploiting it to set up a false premise.
• 41:47
  So much of what our conception of who Conrad is and who he's
• 41:52
  going to be is set up by what we think those characters are
• 41:57
  within the specific shape of Doctor Who.
• 41:59
  To show how much sort of incessant noise is around
• 42:02
  online, one of the theories I heard espoused about the
• 42:06
  mannequins in this scene is that Pete Mcti that wanted the Autons
• 42:10
  in Praxias because that was about plastic and chippers went
• 42:15
  no, no, no. We've got dark side men, the
• 42:17
  Master, all sorts of things, and we can't have the Autons as
• 42:19
  well. It's got a bit over the top that
• 42:22
  finally was going to get, I think it was Dylan Reece
• 42:24
  actually, that said that. You know, I'm not saying he's
• 42:27
  Conrad or anything, but you know, he does spread a lot of
• 42:31
  bullshit. There's an interesting there
• 42:33
  though if this is in conversation with Love and
• 42:36
  Monsters, which I think you can definitely read it as being
• 42:38
  though if you can compare and contrast Conrad and Elton.
• 42:44
  Have you seen this woman? Literally, there's a Have you
• 42:47
  seen this woman in the Monsters, isn't there?
• 42:51
  Elton wants to be seen by the sort of wants to be seen by the
• 42:54
  doctor, and the doctor sees him and spots him and engages with
• 42:57
  him and what Conrad is hiding from him the whole time.
• 43:00
  He doesn't want to be seen. He wants to hide from him.
• 43:02
  He doesn't kind of want to know the truth.
• 43:05
  I think this is. Going going to all the people
• 43:08
  listening to the they didn't need to shoot this stuff.
• 43:10
  No. And the fact that they're all
• 43:12
  doing school trip to unit, that's amazing.
• 43:15
  And also is a little bit of visual story saying though,
• 43:17
  because what are the interesting things here is that of course
• 43:20
  unit is very public in this world and.
• 43:25
  What makes you say that? Like enormous glass behemoth
• 43:28
  tower in the middle of central London.
• 43:31
  Well, but I did but also, but there's there is the kind of
• 43:35
  visual suggestion of that, but they then need to show that
• 43:42
  narratively, right? They need to show that society
• 43:44
  knows what unit is, and actually just having a little school trip
• 43:46
  going through the lobby is it tells you about its place in the
• 43:50
  world in a way that actually just the literal slab of glass
• 43:54
  doesn't. I have to say that you know the
• 43:58
  pre titles where Millie pops up there saying hi, my name is Ruby
• 44:02
  Sunday. Oh man, I was so glad to see her
• 44:05
  back. I don't know.
• 44:07
  I, I, I I have an enormous affection for this character
• 44:11
  now. You mentioned you mentioned
• 44:15
  Dylan Rees 1 little thing that occurred to me about this whole
• 44:18
  series, and maybe it's the increased budget is how much of
• 44:22
  it reminded me in the best possible way of wilderness years
• 44:27
  stuff of spin off fiction from those days.
• 44:29
  So Lux had the sort of vague air of a under regarded Doctor Who
• 44:34
  magazine comic strip from somewhere around 1998.
• 44:37
  And the well is very much of a piece with 10 little aliens and
• 44:40
  the rest of it. And this there's a little bit of
• 44:43
  it that occasionally just feels like a BBV where they've managed
• 44:47
  to get the rights to Ruby and no other characters.
• 44:52
  The Ruby And what? What should we call comrade?
• 44:54
  As a fake doctor, you know, oh, the direction of this scene.
• 44:59
  Now can we just talk about this, where the camera pans around the
• 45:02
  cafe and you see the shriek going over the wall and then
• 45:06
  coming in the door. Really interesting.
• 45:16
  And we have those little shots of everyone listening to the
• 45:19
  podcast, and it's an interesting little choice there that they've
• 45:24
  all got those little smirks on their face, which at the first
• 45:27
  time, you're like, oh, everyone's so supportive, this
• 45:29
  is so lovely. And you watch it again.
• 45:30
  You think, no, no, no, they're laughing at her.
• 45:34
  So they all know, do they? I don't know, like this is one
• 45:37
  of those ones as well. When you start pulling at the
• 45:39
  thread, you're like, doesn't this make sense?
• 45:41
  Like who was in on it in the village?
• 45:44
  Was the guy in the pub in in it? Because the lights are flashing,
• 45:46
  but there's no monsters there, you know, You know you have to
• 45:50
  start, so go on. Did Ruby never listen to her
• 45:53
  boyfriend's? I mean I can say this now, my
• 45:56
  wife is not listening to this so.
• 45:58
  So actually the answer is no, Ruby has not listened to her
• 46:01
  boyfriend's podcast. He probably asked her loads of
• 46:03
  times as well. Well, I figured that his podcast
• 46:07
  to this point was this and the whole thing, the podcast was to
• 46:12
  draw unit out into the open. The whole thing that even the
• 46:15
  podcast was a massive ploy to get to that point.
• 46:18
  Except that you people clearly know something, because there's
• 46:21
  the point made about the Unit chap who we saw listening to it
• 46:24
  that he's already a bit of a conspiracy nut.
• 46:26
  He has a subscription. He has a subscription to LB on
• 46:28
  TV. Oh OK, just a fact that it's
• 46:33
  think tank though. Michael from Robot.
• 46:35
  Bloody think tank. But it's interesting though,
• 46:38
  isn't that it's an interesting, it's a fun little call back
• 46:41
  because it is sort of recontextualizing the same idea
• 46:46
  for a different era, right? People who think they understand
• 46:49
  things better and are anti establishment.
• 46:51
  In the 1970s, that's a sort of paramilitary group.
• 46:55
  And in the 20 twenties, it's an online movement of conspiracy
• 47:04
  theorists. There's just a sort of, it's a
• 47:06
  little interesting nod to how some of these thoughts and
• 47:10
  behaviours and views are not new, but the ways in which they
• 47:13
  express themselves are. But you could do a 1990s version
• 47:17
  of this as well where think tank was a think tank was people on
• 47:21
  the Internet. Oh, I love, I love, love, love
• 47:27
  these scenes with Carla and her grandmother.
• 47:30
  I feel like this is a nice pay off after the disappointments of
• 47:33
  Empire of Death that we get to go back to these characters and
• 47:36
  they're just happy. And isn't it nice to have a
• 47:40
  Carla story which she doesn't descend her daughter?
• 47:43
  Don't worry, there's another one coming.
• 47:46
  The third time's a charm. It's almost biblical.
• 47:49
  It's almost biblical, isn't it? I shall deny thee 4 times.
• 47:52
  She's got a look on her face every time she portrays her
• 47:56
  daughter. I've seen the memes going
• 47:58
  around. Oh, I love Cherry.
• 48:00
  Don't you like she? She was the point of her.
• 48:04
  She's a sarin bedroom, have a cup of tea.
• 48:06
  But she does bring a bit of colour and humour to all those
• 48:09
  things. Oh you, you give it 15 years and
• 48:12
  Big Finish will have made sure that cherry sundae has met the
• 48:15
  Crotons and the Mandrills. And the mandrills, That sounds
• 48:21
  terrific. Is this supposed to be recalling
• 48:24
  Lucky Day? Because there was a shot for
• 48:26
  sure in in a bar just like this in Lucky Day. 73 yards, this is.
• 48:31
  Lucky day, of course. Thank you very much.
• 48:33
  Thank you. I'm glad you're paying
• 48:34
  attention. No, I thought, I thought the
• 48:36
  same thing. I, I, I mean, but you know,
• 48:40
  let's be honest, people take, people take different boyfriends
• 48:42
  to the same bar, right? This.
• 48:45
  Yeah, you caught me out. This is this is the one odd
• 48:49
  directorial choice. All of these POV, straight to
• 48:53
  camera. So we go back and forth from
• 48:55
  Ruby to Comrade, and they're staring straight at us as if
• 48:58
  we're the other person. It's very disconcerting to be
• 49:01
  part of this conversation so intimately.
• 49:05
  But I think it's meant to be though, isn't it?
• 49:07
  That's the point, right? You're meant.
• 49:08
  I think even here he's trying to make it a little bit
• 49:13
  disconcerting that there is an element of it, what's quite a
• 49:19
  sort of important conversation, low level important conversation
• 49:23
  of where you're asking questions about the exes to shoot it in
• 49:28
  that confrontational way, to make it uncomfortable.
• 49:30
  And importantly there, it's only at the start of the end that we
• 49:32
  get the two shots of them together and that gives a very
• 49:35
  different feeling to the whole thing.
• 49:36
  So they're a couple, they're together.
• 49:38
  Why look there, The taxi lights flashing on and off.
• 49:41
  I think that's supposed to be a sign that the shriek is nearby,
• 49:44
  but but there is no shriek now, so who's flashing that taxi
• 49:49
  light? Shut up, that's who.
• 49:55
  You didn't think about that, did you?
• 49:56
  I. Didn't write this episode.
• 49:59
  We get to see yes, explain yourself, so no, We get to see
• 50:04
  that Shriek is perfectly safe in a unit cell.
• 50:09
  Maybe there's a different? There we go.
• 50:10
  It's the first taste of her lip gloss.
• 50:15
  It's so convincingly done. And then straight to the
• 50:18
  photograph on the fridge. They've clearly been, you know,
• 50:21
  together for a little while. The family are loving the fact
• 50:25
  that she's so happy, the quick mention of, you know, she hasn't
• 50:28
  mentioned the doctor in a while, as if she was for quite a bit.
• 50:32
  And now, finally, she's found somebody.
• 50:34
  She's taking her attention away from him.
• 50:39
  This is another thing I've mentioned before on this
• 50:42
  podcast, how I'm slightly annoyed by the Sundays flats
• 50:44
  because it's it's just a classic example of why accept that these
• 50:49
  are really fashionable kitchens now these mid century ones,
• 50:52
  there's a name for them as well and they're turning up Ruddy
• 50:55
  everywhere. That's all a yellow colour.
• 50:57
  Not the colour, but the design. It's it's yellow cupboards and a
• 51:02
  red oven. I mean, come on, I'm not exactly
• 51:05
  a design expert, but I could do better than that.
• 51:10
  So who flashes the bus sign in a minute then?
• 51:15
  Must be the IT must be the people she's working for.
• 51:17
  One slight criticism of this first half is you're right, it
• 51:20
  does It's it's it's to the benefit of the of the
• 51:24
  revelation, but then the detriment of the payoff.
• 51:27
  So much of the episode is spent on the set up but.
• 51:30
  But I think that's the point, right?
• 51:32
  It needs to keep, it needs to convince us.
• 51:35
  So he leaves it to the last possible moment for that twist
• 51:38
  to hit. Yeah, yeah, I think you're
• 51:41
  probably right. A slight issue is that I don't
• 51:44
  what you don't have here is the dot and bubble thing of watching
• 51:47
  these bits and that back now you're not going.
• 51:49
  Oh, it all makes a different terrible type of sense.
• 51:53
  Sparky's electrics, that's who's doing it is mate.
• 51:55
  That's the clue is mate, we're such idiots is mate's an
• 51:58
  electrician. Oh, OK, fair enough.
• 52:00
  Now watch a comrade now when she's at the bar with a friend
• 52:05
  and he's looking a bit smug with his mates, as if he's saying
• 52:08
  right, we're going to do it in a minute, guys, OK, There's just
• 52:11
  enough in his performance there for me to think, yeah, yeah.
• 52:14
  Yeah, Alfie here is played by Paul Jericho, who, if there's
• 52:18
  any nerds listening, will recognise as the Castellan from
• 52:21
  Arkham Infinity and The Five Doctors.
• 52:23
  Yeah. Not the mind probe.
• 52:25
  Not the mind bro I. Didn't know that was Paul
• 52:28
  Jericho. You think do you think RTD got
• 52:31
  it? Do you think RTD asked him to
• 52:33
  say that? Now I've got another question to
• 52:36
  ask you. Why is it that Kate Lethbridge
• 52:38
  Stewart seems to be our absolute best in these Ruby centric
• 52:42
  episodes? Because she had a fabulous
• 52:44
  moment in 73 yards. Well, because, well, because as
• 52:48
  we just found out, she's getting rails on the sly by a hunky guy
• 52:52
  on a regular basis, so. Beautiful.
• 52:56
  You would she's. Having a great time.
• 52:57
  Apologies to any listeners who took against the use of the word
• 53:00
  railed. What's Mel up to right now?
• 53:02
  Does she say Mel's on the other side of the world?
• 53:05
  Isn't she Sydney Harbour? Yeah, she's in Geneva.
• 53:09
  OK. Do you know what, Michael?
• 53:13
  They're getting some money out of this unit set, aren't they?
• 53:16
  It's a good it's a good set though, in fairness.
• 53:18
  I did love it as well when I know there's another episode but
• 53:21
  all that wood panelling they put into it for Wish World, it did
• 53:25
  feel like a different set. I do rather like Kate as well as
• 53:30
  this sort of maternal character that looks after all the bloody
• 53:35
  cast off and strays from the doctor's adventures sometimes.
• 53:41
  I think we're all your children. Oh, shut up.
• 53:44
  How old? I never think that.
• 53:46
  Strings please. I like this set, but I was
• 53:52
  hoping we were going to get to see a bit.
• 53:53
  Actually, it was my wife who said this.
• 53:55
  We were watching it. Oh, we're going to see that set
• 53:57
  again, aren't we? And we never did.
• 53:59
  Well, I think we might see a bit more of it in the war between
• 54:02
  the land and the sea, you know. Ah, yes, and I suspect this is
• 54:05
  we've not yet seen it. Obviously.
• 54:07
  I suspect if we to watch this again in a year's time, this is
• 54:10
  going to feel like this is going to be to dwarp in the land and
• 54:14
  the sea as turn left is to years and years, right.
• 54:18
  It's going to be like, Oh yeah, that was the the first run
• 54:20
  through a quick pace. It's worth mentioning as well
• 54:24
  just what a terrific bit of design those monsters are.
• 54:29
  And you know, obviously it's, it's mostly CGI.
• 54:33
  I just, I don't know, I like how they sort of crawl.
• 54:35
  They're in the they're just in the in the distance of a shore,
• 54:39
  aren't they? With the red eyes.
• 54:40
  It's such a it's such a hard brief as well, because they have
• 54:45
  to be a monster that can be realistically recreated as a man
• 54:48
  in a suit, and yet you're going to have to make them not look
• 54:53
  like a man in a suit. There's only one bit where they
• 54:57
  are clearly CGI, but they're supposed to be the men in the
• 55:00
  suit and I'm like, how the hell did they perform that stunt in
• 55:03
  those suits? Did you see the bit on
• 55:06
  Unleashed? What they were saying about how
• 55:08
  they very cleverly did the thing of having both the real shriek
• 55:14
  and the freak the fake shriek. No.
• 55:17
  So they did. It was they got the one team to
• 55:19
  make up the maquette of the real Shriek.
• 55:22
  And then they got tougher. Chapin gave him just a a quick
• 55:27
  look at it and then told him to go away and make his version of
• 55:31
  it. So he ended up with something
• 55:32
  that was meant to be as if you've just seen it, you know?
• 55:35
  Well, all I'll say is, is, is I was very convinced when they
• 55:38
  were crouched over and then they suddenly stand up.
• 55:42
  You know, even then I was like, oh, that's a very unusual way
• 55:46
  for those monsters to behave. And everybody's like,
• 55:48
  something's wrong. I was like, what's going on?
• 55:50
  What is actually happening right now?
• 55:52
  I. Mean it's always a risk it is a
• 55:54
  little bit of a risk for Doctor Who to say didn't you realize
• 55:57
  they were men in suits would I like but a lot of the monsters
• 56:01
  look like. Pretty good suits what?
• 56:02
  Until they're not and then they're just rubber mouse?
• 56:06
  I mean is this woman in on it as well who just come in the pub
• 56:09
  with her dog or did they just scare her with the rubber suits?
• 56:13
  I mean the logic, the Lord, we have to, we have to say the
• 56:16
  logic doesn't hold together. No, but it was still a great
• 56:21
  twist because you really think as well when the helicopter
• 56:25
  comes shooting in and the music's heroic and you're like,
• 56:28
  oh, units here to save the day. And that the second I literally
• 56:32
  went, oh shit, was when all the iPhones came out and live
• 56:37
  streaming. You can see Kate on there.
• 56:38
  Go and get that camera off me. I was like, Oh my God, where is
• 56:42
  this going? It was so nice.
• 56:46
  It was so nice to be flawed, but it was also so nice to be then
• 56:50
  very uncertain what the hell this episode was because I was
• 56:53
  so sure I knew. Yes, that's it, isn't it?
• 56:56
  It's that sort of I, I'm not sure I knew where this this
• 57:00
  episode was going, but I had a sense of what type of episode it
• 57:03
  was and suddenly it's not that anymore.
• 57:06
  I even saw something online where somebody posted a picture
• 57:10
  of Conrad from the publicity. And when, If you break her
• 57:13
  heart, I'll kill you, Conrad. And I've sort of, I was either
• 57:17
  villain and I started watching it.
• 57:19
  No, I was totally, totally convinced.
• 57:23
  But a fact as well that the whole trap is to convince Ruby
• 57:29
  and to humiliate her. It's just so awful, isn't it?
• 57:36
  Yeah, yeah. They have they, they don't.
• 57:37
  They just don't care who they're hurting.
• 57:40
  No, there's so much can and again, I think that that speaks
• 57:43
  to some of the real world examples of this, the contempt
• 57:45
  that they hold other people in the the anti expert sentiment.
• 57:51
  We saw this, you know, again, I keep saying this is post Brexit,
• 57:54
  post COVID, but we saw a lot of that in Brexit, in Brexit, we
• 57:57
  don't need experts anymore. We saw some of that in COVID,
• 58:00
  right? People who were literally
• 58:01
  putting their lives on the line to help and save others being
• 58:05
  criticized, being not just being criticized, being accused of
• 58:08
  being liars and being accused of attacking people and being told
• 58:11
  they should be ashamed of themselves.
• 58:13
  And 1, you know, Once Upon a time this was this was, you
• 58:16
  know, this was lunatic fringes on the Internet saying that Buzz
• 58:20
  Aldrin was lying about going to the moon.
• 58:22
  And now it's people in in live time attacking people who are
• 58:27
  actually doing good. There where Ruby was.
• 58:29
  There with the weapon and trying to comfort herself by saying
• 58:33
  this is what the doctor would do and all of this year and being
• 58:35
  really proactive about going after the monster.
• 58:38
  That's the sort of stuff I wanted to see Belinda doing in
• 58:41
  these middle episodes, you know? I wanted her to be proactive
• 58:44
  like that. It's a shame.
• 58:49
  It's a shame, yeah. Yeah, it is.
• 58:53
  It is. I do love the.
• 58:56
  The. Cliche of going.
• 58:57
  To a Devil's End esque village as well to film all of this?
• 59:01
  Well, again, that's the point, isn't it?
• 59:03
  They, and of course within the story, they are deliberately
• 59:09
  setting up exactly the sort of situation that unit would come
• 59:11
  into. So they are playing on devil's
• 59:14
  end right there, that bit there. Look where they.
• 59:17
  Jumped up onto the car. That would have been pretty
• 59:20
  tricky to do in a rubber suit. OK, here we go.
• 59:26
  And even then, even at this point, I was like, yeah, yeah,
• 59:28
  yeah. OK.
• 59:29
  So Unit's going to come in. Comrade's going to meet Unit.
• 59:33
  You know I had no. Idea.
• 59:37
  Well, I think. What you think is because he
• 59:38
  didn't take the serum? You'll think this is going to
• 59:40
  have some kind of long term impact for Conrad, right?
• 59:43
  And it's going to be about the tragedy of Ruby losing him
• 59:46
  because because he could, didn't, because the doctor
• 59:49
  couldn't save him. And that's going to put a strain
• 59:51
  on the relationship. And I think that's probably
• 59:53
  vaguely where your head's going. It's only where mine was going
• 59:56
  at this point. This scene though this.
• 59:59
  Had to be the scene that was just directed perfectly, didn't
• 1:00:03
  it? And the way the camera then just
• 1:00:06
  slowly goes over Ruby's shoulder to comrade and he goes nailed
• 1:00:11
  it. So great.
• 1:00:16
  My God. Well, I like the fact that they
• 1:00:19
  even look at each other. Before they stand up, right,
• 1:00:22
  You're, you're, you're allowing some, you're showing stuff that
• 1:00:25
  you would normally deliberately not show when you're shooting
• 1:00:29
  this stuff. I was like, what's going?
• 1:00:31
  On I don't understand. Oh, here we go.
• 1:00:38
  Here we go. It's just that salt.
• 1:00:42
  Here on the head. Yeah.
• 1:00:46
  Suddenly all the phones are out. On the ego.
• 1:00:50
  That he is suddenly exuding and did you notice there is I mean
• 1:00:58
  you. You.
• 1:00:58
  I don't know how much of A geek you are, but the music subtly
• 1:01:02
  riffed the think tank theme from Robot Maori.
• 1:01:06
  Missed that? It's like the robot.
• 1:01:08
  Theme where the robot's attacking people in that story,
• 1:01:12
  I think there was a thing I missed at the time, but someone
• 1:01:13
  told me. That there had been a quote UN
• 1:01:15
  quote leak before this series that there would be a sequel to
• 1:01:18
  Robot in it. I wonder, I wonder what those
• 1:01:22
  people thought of this. Were they waiting for the K2 to
• 1:01:26
  come lumbering over the houses? But like this is.
• 1:01:31
  Exactly it. All these people walking around
• 1:01:33
  with their their phones in real life.
• 1:01:35
  Yeah, putting this stuff straight online that they're
• 1:01:37
  saying they just don't care about the damage they can do, do
• 1:01:40
  they? They just want to be known as
• 1:01:42
  the person that's revealing the truth.
• 1:01:46
  Revealing the truth while. Also, the hypocrisy and the
• 1:01:50
  holes in that argument are there to be seen, right?
• 1:01:53
  You, you don't defeat conspiracy theorists or populists by
• 1:01:58
  pointing out the hypocrisy of their lives, right?
• 1:02:01
  That doesn't matter anymore. It's, it's, it's about a reality
• 1:02:03
  tunnel. It's about a way of
• 1:02:04
  understanding the world. It's not about the coherence of
• 1:02:06
  the arguments because you can tell people there's any number
• 1:02:09
  of reasons that the moon is real, that the Earth isn't flat,
• 1:02:13
  and some people will still believe it.
• 1:02:14
  And right here you can see like we, they're saying alien, alien
• 1:02:17
  invasions are faked. Look, we faked one, and the
• 1:02:21
  people who were meant to know about it reacted to it.
• 1:02:23
  You know, the argument doesn't work.
• 1:02:24
  But I think that's part of the satire here.
• 1:02:27
  This one's collecting benefits. Michael Well, that's to the
• 1:02:31
  point, isn't it? Of I think.
• 1:02:33
  That's here. It's the same as the same as
• 1:02:35
  what we saw in in in dot and bubble and 73 yards.
• 1:02:39
  Russell T Davis has to make these people be.
• 1:02:42
  He has to show you that they're nasty, right?
• 1:02:44
  These people are not misguided. These are not people who he has,
• 1:02:48
  well, you know, honest disagreements with these people
• 1:02:53
  are malign, but. You remember what I said about
• 1:02:57
  the seas? Yeah.
• 1:02:58
  I have heard people in my life see people in mobility scooters
• 1:03:02
  and things like that and say, oh, I bet they're claiming.
• 1:03:04
  I bet they're not working. You know, it's taking hold of
• 1:03:07
  something that's there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:10
  And again, it is. Very similar to dot and bubble
• 1:03:12
  that where the sort of the the twist, the twist there relies on
• 1:03:18
  the unlikelihood of very real racism coming in.
• 1:03:21
  By the way, can we just talk about the the the right wing
• 1:03:24
  pipeline that Trinity Wells has gone down over the course of
• 1:03:27
  Doctor Who? But even there, even there,
• 1:03:31
  there's a really well judged bit.
• 1:03:33
  Of satire where you know fascism on the streets of Britain
• 1:03:36
  tonight, which is just so perfect for the way in which we
• 1:03:40
  who do not live in the US have to watch the way in which U.S.
• 1:03:43
  media kind of misappropriates the politics and events in other
• 1:03:46
  situations purely for AUS domestic audience and set up
• 1:03:51
  right. I mean, some of the BS that's
• 1:03:52
  being said about the BBC on by the White House right now, you
• 1:03:57
  know, and it's, and it's exactly this sort of thing also as well
• 1:04:01
  the the nerve. Of having a show which in real
• 1:04:05
  life is publicised by The One Show featuring The One Show
• 1:04:09
  showing Conrad talking about this stuff.
• 1:04:11
  I mean, this is all getting very meta.
• 1:04:13
  I mean, I didn't actually. I don't.
• 1:04:15
  Actually believe that The One Show would have him on in this
• 1:04:18
  situation like that. No, unless he was, you know,
• 1:04:21
  unless he was massive. Who knows that that bit did?
• 1:04:24
  Yeah, they don't have real. You know, and look at all this.
• 1:04:29
  Noise, now all these. Bloody kids and there's an
• 1:04:32
  enemy. The emojis are flying.
• 1:04:35
  Bits of bits of this are almost what I think we.
• 1:04:37
  Thought dot and bubble were going to be.
• 1:04:42
  Unit lies. Unit Spies.
• 1:04:44
  Michael, yeah, it's worth pointing out though, that we are
• 1:04:47
  also. Getting here that the Doctor Who
• 1:04:49
  universe is no longer our universe, something that Russell
• 1:04:52
  T Davis kind of worked towards in RTD one Steven Moffett got
• 1:04:56
  rid of Chris Chippel had no time for.
• 1:04:58
  But Russell T Davis has brought right back is the idea that the
• 1:05:00
  people in the Doctor Who universe in the present day are
• 1:05:04
  existing in a kind of parallel reality that is affected by
• 1:05:07
  what's come up to now in in the Doctor Who universe, it is
• 1:05:10
  controversial to say aliens don't exist.
• 1:05:14
  And of course, he's using that Twilight Zone style, dot and
• 1:05:17
  bubble style to comment on our world, that it is a reality one
• 1:05:23
  step to the left. But it's worth pausing for a
• 1:05:25
  moment that that the Doctor Who universe is here explicitly both
• 1:05:29
  and not our is is both our universe and not our universe in
• 1:05:34
  quite important respects. This is all the stuff I could
• 1:05:38
  have done with more. Of and I'm hoping we get a bit
• 1:05:40
  of it in the spin off in those five episodes, unit under fire.
• 1:05:45
  But now like this just races. Now you you know, as a few
• 1:05:48
  mentions about unit having to account for itself.
• 1:05:51
  Then suddenly this man who we've never seen before is letting
• 1:05:55
  comrade into the building. Comrade is suddenly upset.
• 1:05:58
  You know what I mean? It's like bam bam bam bam bam
• 1:06:01
  very very fast, whereas I could learn a whole episode of this.
• 1:06:06
  It reminds me a little bit of Big Finish's.
• 1:06:08
  Very first Unit Audio series from back in 2005, right around
• 1:06:12
  the time the Doctor Who was coming back that was all about
• 1:06:14
  units actions being questioned and being replaced with other
• 1:06:18
  organisations. I was trying to think if it had
• 1:06:20
  ever been done before on the. TV, but I don't think beyond the
• 1:06:23
  Doctor being a total asshole to everyone at UNIT in the Sontaran
• 1:06:27
  2 part, I don't think it ever had been before.
• 1:06:30
  No, I mean the sort of tension between.
• 1:06:32
  The Doctor and UNIT and who and what they represent has recurred
• 1:06:37
  at points in different forms. We've we've had it there a
• 1:06:41
  little bit what Doctor and the Silurians first and most
• 1:06:44
  obviously, you know, the Brigadier can't take the risks
• 1:06:46
  the Doctor does. But it's even though things like
• 1:06:48
  battlefield a little bit with that sort of depiction of the
• 1:06:53
  Brigadier being the imperfect replacement for the Doctor, the
• 1:06:56
  guy who's there when the Doctor isn't around.
• 1:06:58
  And it does extend, but it feels like it's coming through as a
• 1:07:02
  really big continuing theme at this stage.
• 1:07:06
  And as you say, I think we'll pick it up again blot hole as
• 1:07:09
  soon as they suddenly. Look at this man Jordan Langs,
• 1:07:12
  you know, Biog. Oh, he listens to controversial
• 1:07:16
  podcasts. You know, he reads a lot of
• 1:07:18
  subversive literature. Was none of this into screening
• 1:07:21
  when he got the job at UNIT? Yeah, yeah, in, in the same
• 1:07:25
  scenes where? We're saying Conrad didn't get
• 1:07:27
  in because we didn't like his vibes.
• 1:07:28
  Like Oh yeah, we missed that. This guy was a complete nut job.
• 1:07:31
  Ohh. But I bloody love the line that
• 1:07:32
  Shirley says. When when Kate goes you know
• 1:07:35
  what I said about you after and Shirley goes offer in a
• 1:07:37
  compliment that's very good. She does get the odd singer.
• 1:07:43
  But I don't really care that none of this makes sense because
• 1:07:46
  this scene where he comes in now, I mean, the bit where Kate
• 1:07:50
  says to him, you know, you shot a man to get up here and he
• 1:07:54
  goes, well, maybe I didn't shoot him.
• 1:07:56
  Maybe he was an actor. Maybe he never existed at all.
• 1:08:00
  It's just throwing out one like insane theory after another.
• 1:08:06
  We don't care about the truth. That's what I'm saying.
• 1:08:09
  It's the it's we live in the age.
• 1:08:10
  Of bullshit. And that's that's what he is.
• 1:08:14
  An embodiment. To what end?
• 1:08:16
  What to what end? Are what are these people trying
• 1:08:18
  to achieve? Personal glory.
• 1:08:22
  That's what it's all about. It's attention.
• 1:08:24
  Ego. Yeah.
• 1:08:27
  Wow, they're popular. Is it because?
• 1:08:29
  We're in the age of the celebrity and everyone wants
• 1:08:31
  their slice of the pie. I mean, I think.
• 1:08:35
  It's I think it's the age of. It's what social media is
• 1:08:38
  enabled to a large extent, although it's the the roots of
• 1:08:41
  it, of course, go back much further than social media where
• 1:08:43
  everyone's shouting at each other.
• 1:08:44
  People want to be the loudest voice that everyone listens to,
• 1:08:46
  right? It's people.
• 1:08:47
  It's, it's, it's shouting on High Park Corner, it's the Forum
• 1:08:50
  in Rome. It's the, it's the, it's the
• 1:08:52
  dark side of the global village, right?
• 1:08:57
  And what happens when your 5 minutes of fame are over?
• 1:09:02
  You just vanish into obscurity. And the next loud.
• 1:09:04
  Voice comes along. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:07
  And they have to be more. Radical and more different and
• 1:09:09
  more controversial. Oh, Michael, you don't.
• 1:09:12
  Paint a very. Very bright future.
• 1:09:17
  Should we just pull the plug on? Social.
• 1:09:19
  Media. Well, This is why I did.
• 1:09:21
  I did. Think I might not watch Lucky
• 1:09:23
  Day again. I'm glad I did.
• 1:09:24
  I think it's very good television.
• 1:09:25
  But it's not. It's not comfort, Doctor Who is
• 1:09:27
  it? It's enabling.
• 1:09:29
  Insane. Egomania.
• 1:09:34
  I'm talking about myself. There, you know.
• 1:09:37
  Yes. How many episodes of this?
• 1:09:38
  Have you done all right? All right, you've been on quite.
• 1:09:41
  A few, you know, I do. I do like the line there that.
• 1:09:48
  From from Conrad. That, I think, sort of sums up
• 1:09:51
  the character as well of You think you're so superior and
• 1:09:54
  then follows it up with I want a confession, you think you're so
• 1:09:59
  superior. I am the one who's acting.
• 1:10:00
  Superior, but it doesn't matter. It's all broadcast, you know,
• 1:10:03
  You don't have to listen to yourself here.
• 1:10:06
  Look at the other people, like maybe he was an actor, maybe
• 1:10:09
  you. Shot him.
• 1:10:10
  Oh boy, I was when I saw the title.
• 1:10:14
  Of the finale, it was called the Reality War.
• 1:10:16
  I was really hoping that we were going to pick up on this.
• 1:10:19
  He was this was kind of going to be supercharged through through
• 1:10:23
  the magic and the actual much more explicitly sci-fi and
• 1:10:26
  fantasy elements that aren't in this episode.
• 1:10:27
  I thought, yes, we're going to take this to the next level.
• 1:10:30
  Maybe Daleks be in it and I don't really see this.
• 1:10:33
  Comrade in those last two episodes?
• 1:10:36
  Not really. He's very passive.
• 1:10:40
  Yeah, Yeah, I know what you. Mean it's that isn't the comrade
• 1:10:45
  that storms unit. With a machine gun, you know the
• 1:10:48
  teeth aren't there, are they? No.
• 1:10:51
  What until he's? Holding the gun on Ruby, but
• 1:10:54
  then he's suddenly this comrade again whilst he's been sort of
• 1:10:58
  like, oh, give me a hug. And he adopts and you know, this
• 1:11:00
  is so hard. Oh, this whole sequence with the
• 1:11:06
  the. Is it shriek?
• 1:11:08
  Is that shriek? I think it's called Shriek.
• 1:11:12
  It's the noise it makes and it's name.
• 1:11:16
  I mean, it's Gemma. Redgrave is.
• 1:11:19
  Fantastic in this scene. Oh, and let's let's not miss
• 1:11:23
  now. Kate Stewart at this stage an
• 1:11:26
  actual proper mainstay of Doctor Who in the way that in the way
• 1:11:30
  obviously with Big Finish now everyone's got retirement funds.
• 1:11:33
  When did she first appear? 3 But what?
• 1:11:36
  Year that was 2012, so she's been here for. 13 years now with
• 1:11:41
  with not many, many breaks. You know, there's a little bit
• 1:11:45
  in the chip null era, but it's not that long.
• 1:11:47
  I I am of the opinion. That she's just gone better and
• 1:11:50
  better. She's gone along.
• 1:11:51
  I mean, she gets the worst line sometimes now.
• 1:11:54
  You said to them earlier, although the one where she got
• 1:11:58
  turned into ashes, that was the zinger of a lion as well, wasn't
• 1:12:01
  it? Well, then she's got, she's got
• 1:12:02
  huge range as well that. Character can be has been put
• 1:12:06
  into so many different situations and tones and stuff.
• 1:12:08
  You know, she's doing all this. But she she was also, let's not
• 1:12:11
  forget a couple of years ago spinning around that very same
• 1:12:14
  set with the toy makers of the Spice Girls and doing it
• 1:12:16
  wonderfully. He's Oh yeah, you remember the
• 1:12:19
  one you love. Oh.
• 1:12:20
  I love Davina. Yeah, this bit, all right.
• 1:12:25
  When, you know, he's absolutely suddenly he's a fucking coward.
• 1:12:28
  He's terrified that he's going to get hurt the second the
• 1:12:31
  monster is down. When Ruby, brilliant, brilliant
• 1:12:34
  Ruby just grabs the Taser and takes it down.
• 1:12:37
  He's straight up going, well, your special effects are getting
• 1:12:40
  better. For fuck's sake, comrade.
• 1:12:44
  Because that's the point of this.
• 1:12:46
  He is. An asshole there is no, there is
• 1:12:50
  no redemption from him here in the reality war.
• 1:12:53
  He gets that because he has he could.
• 1:12:55
  If he were happy, he would be an entirely different person.
• 1:12:58
  I think that's sort of the tragedy of the character.
• 1:13:01
  But there's no there's no point where you just convince him that
• 1:13:04
  he's right. Isn't this sad or atmospheric
• 1:13:07
  when they turn the? Lights down.
• 1:13:09
  That generally happens. Well, it's the same.
• 1:13:11
  Well, you were still. Doing it as well, you know when
• 1:13:13
  they it. Was so white.
• 1:13:15
  And then at the end of this, when all the lights are really
• 1:13:17
  low, it looks great. It's so Moody.
• 1:13:20
  Is this a revelation to you? When you were still dating, did
• 1:13:23
  you bring? Your dates back and just have
• 1:13:25
  all the lights on full beam to create a bit of atmosphere.
• 1:13:27
  Michael, will you look at my face?
• 1:13:29
  Of course I did. I.
• 1:13:30
  Had to see every part of my beauty.
• 1:13:34
  I love these monsters. So much.
• 1:13:36
  I mean, I just. Love a sort of gargoyle as well.
• 1:13:39
  I remember there was a publicity issue of of that creature on a
• 1:13:42
  wall in sort of silhouette with just the red eyes.
• 1:13:45
  And I'm thinking at the time, oh, that's going to be the
• 1:13:47
  really scary monster for this year.
• 1:13:49
  I don't think it probably is. I can't think of a better
• 1:13:54
  creature design this year. Well, and it works well as a
• 1:13:56
  sort of plot element not being the.
• 1:13:58
  Main threat because it can just be bestial and animalistic and
• 1:14:02
  actually violent in a way that it it wouldn't work for the
• 1:14:06
  monster to be if it were the focus of the episode.
• 1:14:08
  But as a threat it's quite tortured.
• 1:14:10
  It's a little bit weevily and like all good Doctor Who
• 1:14:14
  monsters. It's got very simple hooks, you
• 1:14:16
  know, it spits on you and it comes back for you a year later.
• 1:14:19
  Nice and simple. And the lights flash when it's
• 1:14:22
  nearby. Great.
• 1:14:23
  So we've got a, a tale that they're nearby.
• 1:14:26
  Yeah. Perfect.
• 1:14:27
  Interesting as well actually say Torchwood there is a degree to
• 1:14:29
  it's now. That Russell Davis doesn't have
• 1:14:31
  tortured anymore. He's or doesn't need tortured
• 1:14:33
  anymore. A lot of what was going on in
• 1:14:35
  Torchwood has sort of been reabsorbed back into Doctor Who
• 1:14:38
  proper. Lucky Day is much more like an
• 1:14:40
  episode of Torchwood than it is in terms of what it actually
• 1:14:44
  ends up doing and how it does it than it actually is.
• 1:14:47
  Love and monsters, right? Are you suggesting that Billie
• 1:14:49
  Piper may come up against the? Sex gas creature next season?
• 1:14:54
  No, of course I'm not. As written by Chris Chibnall.
• 1:14:57
  Like day. 10 That was a truly bad episode.
• 1:15:01
  I can't believe the monster literally bites a chunk out of
• 1:15:04
  his arm. That's so great.
• 1:15:09
  I mean. That that shot there, yeah.
• 1:15:11
  Of the units I. Mean that is just the most
• 1:15:13
  marvel thing I've ever seen Oh units at this stage I mean unit
• 1:15:17
  and. This is interesting point,
• 1:15:19
  right. A lot of what we're seeing here
• 1:15:21
  and we suspect we'll see more of in the water than as I see when
• 1:15:23
  you see UNIT without the doctor around and you're reminded that
• 1:15:26
  UNIT is a military organization and that means but that means in
• 1:15:30
  2025. I think what UNIT means and
• 1:15:34
  therefore represents when you take, when you want to examine
• 1:15:36
  it is different to its original conception.
• 1:15:38
  Because UNIT like SHIELD, like UNCLE, like SPECTRUM, like all
• 1:15:43
  the rest of them, all those acronym international
• 1:15:46
  organisations, they're going to save us all.
• 1:15:48
  You know, they were born in the 60s.
• 1:15:49
  They were created at a time of optimism regarding international
• 1:15:54
  cooperation, right? You'd had post nuclear test ban
• 1:15:57
  treaty where everything had kind of simmered down a bit between
• 1:16:00
  the US and Russia. If you want to go back to Robot,
• 1:16:03
  there's the line from the Brigadier that everyone draws on
• 1:16:06
  when they talk about UNIT dating, about the old Cold War
• 1:16:08
  days. But there's a John Le Carre
• 1:16:10
  novel from the 70s, I think it's The Honourable Schoolboy, where
• 1:16:13
  someone refers to the Cold War as being passed.
• 1:16:15
  I think that was not necessarily widespread, but there were some
• 1:16:19
  people who when they talked about the Cold War, they meant
• 1:16:21
  the 50s, you know, when, when it felt like the bomb might be
• 1:16:24
  about to drop. And so I think units like all
• 1:16:27
  those other ones we've mentioned, like Shields, they
• 1:16:30
  kind of, they represented a recognition of our shared
• 1:16:34
  interests and of humanity's need to come together.
• 1:16:36
  They were sorted. Odd.
• 1:16:37
  This seems odd now when you talk about a sort of international
• 1:16:39
  military organization, but they were sort of an image in a, in a
• 1:16:45
  world that have been very militarized for a long time of
• 1:16:48
  optimism, of cooperation. But of course, we don't live in
• 1:16:51
  that world anymore. We live in a world in which
• 1:16:53
  military action is happening in Western Europe once again, in
• 1:16:56
  which in which formerly friendly countries are threatening to
• 1:17:00
  invade each other, in which China might be about to launch
• 1:17:02
  an attack on Taiwan. Right.
• 1:17:04
  And it's interesting that unit actually kind of largely
• 1:17:09
  disappeared during the 1980s when the Cold War came back up
• 1:17:12
  again. And I don't know if this was
• 1:17:13
  deliberate or subconscious, but in a time where militarism meant
• 1:17:17
  a threat to your lived lives, once again unit disappeared.
• 1:17:21
  And I think now we live in this more complex era of rearmament.
• 1:17:24
  It's interesting that Units nature has become more complex
• 1:17:28
  again. Didn't Marvel do that as well?
• 1:17:31
  Though where? Is it is Shield the big
• 1:17:34
  organization and that where the people, you know, wanted to
• 1:17:39
  scrutinize it and turned against it?
• 1:17:42
  Yeah. It's a really interesting idea.
• 1:17:44
  I mean, I think if this was real, people would want answers,
• 1:17:47
  you know? You know, I don't think UNIT
• 1:17:49
  could exist in its ivory tower without answering a few
• 1:17:52
  questions. Oh, boy, this scene in the
• 1:17:55
  TARDIS. I think this might.
• 1:17:59
  Be 1 of shooties best scenes. It is very good.
• 1:18:03
  It's also, I think where we get because.
• 1:18:04
  He's here so briefly we get quite a good view of the shriek
• 1:18:07
  here is very good in terms of we get quite a pure.
• 1:18:11
  Depiction of I think how Russell.
• 1:18:12
  D Davis tends to depict the doctor.
• 1:18:14
  Whether it's a conscious decision or very thought out, I
• 1:18:17
  think it's definitely an emergent idea of the.
• 1:18:20
  Doctor, which is he views the Doctor as.
• 1:18:22
  Being a sort of deliberate warrior.
• 1:18:26
  You know the. Shooty cat with Doctor The David
• 1:18:28
  Tennant Doctor very much view. Themselves as sort of.
• 1:18:34
  Righteous at points and. All the way through, you know.
• 1:18:37
  When the doctor punishes the family of blood and the rest of
• 1:18:40
  it, we don't think it's good, but it's.
• 1:18:43
  What he does right, he is an. Avenging Angel and all the rest
• 1:18:46
  of it which is interesting to contrast as a Moffett who a lot
• 1:18:49
  of that is about the Doctor reluctantly and perhaps sadly
• 1:18:53
  seeing that he has become a warrior in the eyes of others
• 1:18:55
  and that not big something he's comfortable with the 15th Doctor
• 1:18:59
  is very comfortable condemning and Ross because I think Russell
• 1:19:01
  T Davis is very comfortable condemning people right he as
• 1:19:04
  we've said a few Times Now he doesn't feel the need to give
• 1:19:07
  Conrad any excuses I thought Conrad was going to crumble when
• 1:19:12
  the. Doctor says you're going to die,
• 1:19:14
  you know, unmourned and completely forgotten.
• 1:19:18
  So when he just smiled, yeah, that was another moment that got
• 1:19:21
  me. I also think as well, this is
• 1:19:23
  shooting at his most contained as well.
• 1:19:27
  Yeah, yeah, he's usually grandscap standing.
• 1:19:29
  Whatever he's doing. He's usually that a huge
• 1:19:33
  presence in the room. He's actually just holding
• 1:19:35
  himself still and just, you know, just giving us the words
• 1:19:41
  and so much of where the doctor's.
• 1:19:44
  Power comes from, but especially under Russell T Davis is about
• 1:19:47
  his charisma, his ability to enforce himself on a situation,
• 1:19:52
  which is, we've said this before, The Doctors, written by
• 1:19:54
  Rossy Davis is, for better and worse, a bit of a Dick.
• 1:19:58
  You watch something like The Impossible Planet where he just
• 1:20:00
  walks in and everyone just kind of accepts him because he's so
• 1:20:03
  full of toxic masculine energy. But here he's up against someone
• 1:20:07
  else who has toxic masculine energy.
• 1:20:08
  That's what he did. That's what he made the master a
• 1:20:10
  threat. Ross Davis said very.
• 1:20:12
  Explicitly, one of the things when he brought the Master back
• 1:20:14
  was he gave him all the best jokes because that takes the
• 1:20:17
  power away from the Doctor. And I think that is why Conrad
• 1:20:19
  doesn't back down here, because he is willing to be every bit of
• 1:20:23
  a Dick as the Doctor. I don't accept your reality is
• 1:20:26
  the key line of the whole episode, isn't it?
• 1:20:28
  In terms of what it's talking about?
• 1:20:30
  It doesn't matter what you tell me is true.
• 1:20:32
  It doesn't matter what you tell me is doesn't, it doesn't work
• 1:20:37
  about my arguments or it's provably false because I don't
• 1:20:40
  accept your reality. Put me back in my prison and get
• 1:20:45
  off. My world and it was it was Mr.
• 1:20:49
  James Lark who. Pointed out to us that that's a
• 1:20:51
  quote from Battlefield where the Brigadier says to destroy get
• 1:20:54
  off my world and look. Ty is a massive fan of that.
• 1:21:00
  Season he's on the behind the sofas yeah and I think in an
• 1:21:04
  issue is the bad. Penny, look.
• 1:21:07
  Mrs. Flood, I was going to say in an episode where we have been
• 1:21:12
  questioning. Unit and throwing stuff around
• 1:21:14
  it does sort of again force you to confront that.
• 1:21:18
  Kind of line between. Militarism and quite extreme
• 1:21:23
  political views, right? It does.
• 1:21:26
  It does, you know. Mark was appalled.
• 1:21:28
  Every time Mrs. Flood turned up he goes Oh my God, why is she
• 1:21:32
  just spoiling the episode? Oh look, next time.
• 1:21:34
  Trailer for story in the Engine. That looks good.
• 1:21:37
  This looks very exciting. It looks like Belinda.
• 1:21:39
  'S going to have lots to do. In that one, yay Belinda.
• 1:21:44
  Well, look, Michael. Now you may have forgotten, but
• 1:21:49
  we do in fact have to do our free fabulous things to
• 1:21:53
  recommend Lucky Day to anybody who might be listening to us.
• 1:21:56
  And you're very popular, so that's probably quite a few
• 1:21:59
  people. Should we go you, me, you, me
• 1:22:02
  and do our three? Yes, let's do that, then I'm
• 1:22:05
  prepared. For this, aren't you?
• 1:22:08
  Pardon. You're unprepared for this,
• 1:22:10
  aren't you? Oh, I'm, I'm like Han Solo.
• 1:22:13
  I just fall. Backwards into situations and
• 1:22:16
  style it out. You're ready for anything #1.
• 1:22:20
  Reason first, reason rather. That you should watch Lucky Day
• 1:22:24
  is because it is a story that in an era of Doctor Who that is in
• 1:22:31
  the most explicit, deliberate and confident conversation with
• 1:22:36
  all its past selves as an ongoing way of doing Doctor Who,
• 1:22:42
  it does it in a way that is understated but exploiting your
• 1:22:48
  your expectations. Similar to how dot.
• 1:22:53
  And Bubble Twist landed because you didn't expect Doctor Who to
• 1:22:57
  be doing that story. In that context, Lucky Day is
• 1:23:01
  doing a very clever thing in its first half of exploiting
• 1:23:06
  familiar stuff about Doctor Who to mislead you into the type of
• 1:23:09
  Doctor Who's. If this was the first Doctor Who
• 1:23:11
  story you ever saw, it wouldn't be as effective.
• 1:23:14
  But because you think you know who Conrad's going to be,
• 1:23:16
  because you think you know what meeting the Doctor does to
• 1:23:19
  people and how it's the defining moment, and it is the defining
• 1:23:21
  moment of his life. It's his lucky day.
• 1:23:26
  And then completely. Wrong foots you and I think.
• 1:23:29
  In an era where sometimes it has just been, look, it's Omega or
• 1:23:32
  hey, somebody mentioned Susan, I think it is interesting to have
• 1:23:36
  a sort of really well integrated approach to, OK, our audience
• 1:23:40
  knows Doctor Who, let's do something with that.
• 1:23:44
  Look, Tai is a doctor. Who fan?
• 1:23:47
  So he knows exactly who is going to be watching this, and he
• 1:23:51
  knows how to position this script to lead you up the wrong
• 1:23:56
  path, where you'd be going. Oh, yeah, it's going to be this.
• 1:23:59
  Oh, yeah, I see what we're doing here.
• 1:24:01
  You know, very, very cleverly. My first thing is going to be,
• 1:24:05
  and I don't think I've ever chosen this as one of my
• 1:24:07
  fabulous things. Kate Lefred Stewart, who I think
• 1:24:11
  is rather delightful in this episode.
• 1:24:12
  You're right. I think that the unit that you
• 1:24:15
  get when the doctor isn't around is very different to the unit
• 1:24:19
  that you get when he is. It's it's weirdly sort of less
• 1:24:22
  fantasy. It feels a bit more gritty.
• 1:24:25
  It feels a bit more militaristic, but what I love
• 1:24:29
  about Kate in this episode is that moment of where she goes
• 1:24:33
  too far and you're left questioning whether she was
• 1:24:38
  going to let that bloody monster tear him apart or not.
• 1:24:41
  Because even those closest to her aren't sure, and Ruby feels
• 1:24:46
  compelled to step in and stop it before it happens.
• 1:24:49
  But does she goes too far, though?
• 1:24:51
  The doctor's not here and. Someone has to resolve this
• 1:24:53
  situation and ultimately it's Kate's actions that do.
• 1:24:56
  And that is in again, and I think money, if we may go on to
• 1:24:59
  my second reason is to follow on from that UNIT.
• 1:25:03
  I think, I don't know, I've got no particular insight, but I
• 1:25:06
  think if you want to prepare yourself for the war between the
• 1:25:08
  land and the sea, I suspect you're going to see a lot more
• 1:25:10
  of this problematizing of UNIT of if the doctor's not here, if
• 1:25:14
  the the magic man isn't here to pull the trick out-of-the-box,
• 1:25:18
  you've got this military force that will respond to things in
• 1:25:21
  military ways. And the uncomfortable thing
• 1:25:23
  about what Kate does is it does resolve the situation.
• 1:25:27
  They have become tortured, haven't they?
• 1:25:30
  That's where. We were in Children of Earth.
• 1:25:35
  What is it? Gwen says.
• 1:25:37
  About the doctor in that speech, sometimes, sometimes I think he
• 1:25:43
  can't bear. To look at us, something like
• 1:25:46
  that, that's how you're Welsh. You listen to me, Jack.
• 1:25:48
  Harkness, you are Welsh. I can't say that.
• 1:25:51
  My second thing is, again, I'll say it, my favorite thing of the
• 1:25:56
  RTT to era is Millie Gibson. Just effortlessly likeable, but
• 1:26:02
  also given some really interesting stuff to play here.
• 1:26:07
  I like the fact that she stars this episode slightly damaged
• 1:26:11
  and ends this episode far more damage than she was at the
• 1:26:15
  beginning. Because this entire trap
• 1:26:20
  involves pulling the wall over her eyes in a really, really
• 1:26:25
  unpleasant way. And that doesn't work if our
• 1:26:30
  heart doesn't go out for the companion.
• 1:26:33
  And I think Millie has a way of showing a vulnerability and a
• 1:26:38
  sensitivity that is just, oh, I just want to give her a big hug,
• 1:26:43
  you know, especially at the end. And I love, I love at the end
• 1:26:47
  where Kate very gently says to her, she goes, I'm going to go
• 1:26:51
  off and think about all of this stuff.
• 1:26:55
  And Kate says, well, when you're ready, I'm here to talk to you.
• 1:26:59
  So there is light at the end of the tunnel.
• 1:27:02
  Fuck me. She goes through the ringer
• 1:27:04
  here. And yeah, I really feel for her.
• 1:27:06
  I I really feel for her in a way that I really felt for Belinda,
• 1:27:12
  if I'm brutally honest. Yeah.
• 1:27:14
  Yeah. Which is.
• 1:27:15
  Which is no criticism of Rola Sit, who was.
• 1:27:17
  Who was an ex? No, just as we've said, she's
• 1:27:19
  just not giving the material. Minnie Gibson may be very
• 1:27:24
  likeable. My 3rd and final.
• 1:27:25
  Reason is going to be someone who is very unlikeable, and
• 1:27:28
  that's going to be Jonah Howard King as Conrad who.
• 1:27:30
  I think Doctor Who as sort of geek culture in general has gone
• 1:27:36
  through a period of the frenemies and the lovable
• 1:27:39
  enemies and and the missy's and spy masters and all the rest of
• 1:27:43
  it. I think it's incredible to have
• 1:27:45
  a villain who is deliberately so unlikable, who is so
• 1:27:49
  uncomfortable to see, who make make me feel so uncomfortable
• 1:27:52
  and so angry about what they were doing.
• 1:27:55
  And I think he does it so well. That look of smugness that just
• 1:27:59
  comes across his head with that tilt and never really leaves for
• 1:28:04
  the rest of the episode. I think possibly one of the most
• 1:28:09
  genuinely dislikable shits in Doctor Who and I really hate
• 1:28:15
  myself for believing him in the. First half of the episode, yeah,
• 1:28:19
  yeah, that's why. That's why.
• 1:28:21
  Right and must be loving every second of.
• 1:28:24
  You know, pulling our alarm on a string?
• 1:28:27
  Yeah, well, my last thing then. Is I think.
• 1:28:31
  An unsung contributor to Doctor Who and that is Pete Mctie.
• 1:28:35
  And I can absolutely see why he has been given these, you know,
• 1:28:39
  5 episodes. That's unusual, right?
• 1:28:43
  Children of Earth was a series of writers.
• 1:28:45
  Russell's not in there at all. He's literally been handed his
• 1:28:48
  own spin off and said run with it.
• 1:28:51
  I think he's given us three very different scripts for Doctor
• 1:28:55
  Who. Whatever you think about the
• 1:28:57
  politics of Kablam, I think it's a very fun, very quirky sort of
• 1:29:02
  McCoy esque adventure. Praxias huge, expensive
• 1:29:07
  globetrotting environmental message with the hottest gay
• 1:29:11
  drama you're ever going to see in Doctor Who.
• 1:29:13
  Piss off Rogue you boring twat. And here I think this is his
• 1:29:19
  best script to date. Yeah, telling character drama in
• 1:29:26
  the first half and then a scathing take on the the horrors
• 1:29:34
  of social media in the same half.
• 1:29:37
  I just think this is a really confidence route.
• 1:29:39
  I think the dialogue is on point.
• 1:29:42
  I think the structure of this is extremely clever.
• 1:29:45
  There's very few people that watch this that I read about
• 1:29:49
  afterwards that weren't surprised by that middle twist.
• 1:29:52
  So he got the majority of the audience.
• 1:29:55
  He's got something to say as well, but he suddenly doesn't
• 1:29:59
  give us any easy answers. He just presents the terror
• 1:30:04
  that's out there and then leaves us thinking about it afterwards.
• 1:30:08
  Yeah, I think, I think he's a really, really strong writer.
• 1:30:11
  And hey, if there's a showrunner's position available
• 1:30:16
  in the future, I mean, I have been sort of advocating for a
• 1:30:19
  non Doctor Who fan because I think maybe the show, we need
• 1:30:23
  our new Andrew Cartmel to come in, you know, someone who's not
• 1:30:26
  a new to Doctor Who of the past and is willing to kick it into
• 1:30:30
  the future. I saw you smile then when I said
• 1:30:33
  that, yes, you finally convinced me of the joys of the Sylvester
• 1:30:36
  McCoy era. But I I do think I do think Peek
• 1:30:41
  Matai would have an interesting take on the show.
• 1:30:44
  But this is a fucking good script.
• 1:30:46
  If there are plot holes in here, I think they are a worthy
• 1:30:50
  sacrifice for the really terrific moments in this script.
• 1:30:55
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you could have lost some of
• 1:30:57
  the effect if. You worry too much about it, and
• 1:30:59
  I think the point is most people only watch these things once.
• 1:31:01
  And do they jump out at you and bother you while you're watching
• 1:31:04
  it the first time? The answer is no, of course they
• 1:31:05
  don't. And I think because it's got a
• 1:31:07
  twist halfway through the second time you're watching it, you
• 1:31:09
  can't help but watch it with a, with much more of a sort of
• 1:31:12
  critical eye to did that twist work?
• 1:31:14
  So no, it's not a problem. I think it's fantastic.
• 1:31:16
  And if there is more Doctor Who, if Doctor Who has a future, I
• 1:31:19
  suspect we're going to look back on this as perhaps an important
• 1:31:23
  episode. I mean, you can't, you certainly
• 1:31:25
  can't accuse. This season of being
• 1:31:28
  predictable, you know, like most of the elements of this episode
• 1:31:31
  are in the reality War unit. Ruby, Comrade Mrs. Flood, you
• 1:31:36
  know, it's all there. How we got from here to there, I
• 1:31:41
  have no idea because they are literally alternative universes
• 1:31:47
  apart. But that's Rusty Davis for you
• 1:31:51
  and Michael. Where are we going next?
• 1:31:53
  Well, you've already told people we've at some point.
• 1:31:55
  Say it again. Well, we're going to watch the
• 1:31:57
  neck the. Next episode show.
• 1:32:00
  We're going to do the story and the engine, you know, I've got a
• 1:32:05
  sneaky suspicion, you know. This might be your favorite
• 1:32:08
  episode of the entire RTD 2 era. Oh, I have to give it some.
• 1:32:13
  Thought but you might well. Be right.
• 1:32:15
  It's certainly the one that I was, I was the most impressed by
• 1:32:18
  watching it and the one war, I could just feel.
• 1:32:22
  I could feel the depths of meaning.
• 1:32:24
  Opening up. Below it's got that you
• 1:32:26
  mentioned Andrew Cartmel. It has that feeling of of a
• 1:32:29
  ghost light, of a of a cursive Fenrick of so many stories of
• 1:32:34
  his era, of just the ideas go deep here, and just a very.
• 1:32:40
  Pleasing feeling we haven't done this before.
• 1:32:44
  Isn't that fantastic after 60 something?
• 1:32:47
  Years. It's so rare.
• 1:32:51
  Well, look, until we head to the Barber shop and have a haircut.
• 1:32:56
  Yeah, I mean, yours is slightly longer than mine, but it suits
• 1:33:00
  you. It suits you.
• 1:33:01
  Thank you very much for your time.
• 1:33:03
  Now get to your keyboard and start spreading angry
• 1:33:06
  disinformation about this podcast, I thought we could say,
• 1:33:09
  and start playing. None.