Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Talks to Jack Shanahan about his choice of Wild Blue Yonder

Transcript

Talks to Jack Shanahan about his choice of Wild Blue Yonder · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:23
  None. Hamster with a blunt pen knife
• 0:35
  for doing. Quicker, quicker, quicker.
• 0:40
  Hello and welcome to the 91 be praised.
• 0:44
  I'm Jack. And I am Joe, and welcome back
• 0:48
  to our Hamster with a Blunt Pen Knife, the commingling Doctor
• 0:54
  Who commentary podcast. Oh, this is like, how does Matt
• 1:00
  Smith describe the cracks and times Like 2 moments in space
• 1:03
  and time that should never touch press together?
• 1:08
  It feels this feels this feels almost incestuous, in a way.
• 1:13
  Oh Jack, you tempt. Me.
• 1:16
  Oh well, it's not the first time.
• 1:18
  If if anybody's listened to us on the larger episode of flight
• 1:21
  or entirety, then this has happened before.
• 1:25
  Do you know what in the optics we have recorded this year?
• 1:30
  But only one time, haven't we? We did Wedding or Riverside.
• 1:33
  Or did we do some nylons at the beginning of the year?
• 1:37
  We did do a couple of nylons at the beginning of the year.
• 1:39
  I cannot. I can't remember what we
• 1:42
  promised people we. Will be.
• 1:44
  Recording next? It's all lies.
• 1:48
  Yeah, yeah. I mean we have frequently done
• 1:51
  that where, you know, we've said this is what we're doing next
• 1:55
  week and then several months have passed or even one week has
• 1:58
  passed and we're like we changed our minds.
• 1:59
  We're now doing this instead. We did record 2 episodes about
• 2:06
  Catherine Tate's Donna, the Runaway Bride and turn left.
• 2:10
  We did. We're on brand for this one.
• 2:13
  I know, I know. We were anticipating the 5th,
• 2:16
  the 60th, I should say. And now here we are in the thick
• 2:19
  of it. And you know, as with this
• 2:24
  commingling that's happening. I I I guess I feel like I should
• 2:27
  say this is for the first time I'm I'm back on hamster yay.
• 2:31
  Well, no. We recorded the Wedding of River
• 2:34
  Song this year as well. Did we?
• 2:36
  Oh no, it's cut that out. Thing I told you is all lies,
• 2:40
  although talking of commingling that bit in in the tunnel in
• 2:44
  this where the two of them Co mingle, there's a lot of that
• 2:47
  going on with this as well. Yeah, I know, I know.
• 2:51
  It's it. This, this episode, Wild Blue
• 2:54
  Yonder. Oh, it's so much fun to get
• 2:57
  into. I love that they kept everything
• 2:59
  secret just for the just for having a just just for the fun
• 3:03
  of having it, having a secret to see if they could.
• 3:07
  My first question for you was Jack right?
• 3:09
  Is is that a good idea? Because it led to the most
• 3:14
  insane speculation about what this episode could be about, and
• 3:19
  ultimately, Russell said in an interview, No, no, we didn't say
• 3:23
  anything about that one, because it is good to keep it in Mr.
• 3:25
  Book Two, because on paper it sounds really boring.
• 3:29
  So we didn't want to, we didn't want to mark it a boring
• 3:31
  episode. I mean, I I mean, I am just like
• 3:36
  I'm not as on. I'm not as active on X formerly
• 3:40
  Twitter as I used to be. So I've avoided a lot of the
• 3:45
  most feverish speculation about the episode, although of course
• 3:48
  some of that filtered through. I think Russell C Davis
• 3:51
  described it as like, you know, the ghost of William Hartnell
• 3:54
  coming back riding on the back of a gum or something like that.
• 3:57
  I think that was his way of putting it.
• 3:59
  Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi. Reenactions of classic series
• 4:03
  sets that I was hearing it all, aye?
• 4:07
  I mean, I thought, I mean the principle of it.
• 4:10
  I thought it was, I think it's great.
• 4:12
  I love the idea of just going into a Doctor Who episode and
• 4:15
  they've kept everything about it secret.
• 4:19
  I I genuinely think that the, the, the, the, the, the reaction
• 4:24
  to it would happen if you did that at any point in Doctor Who.
• 4:30
  I think even if you did that outside of the 60s, if you did
• 4:33
  it in say, you know series 13, if you did that in Jerry
• 4:37
  Whitaker's final series. I think if you did that in the
• 4:39
  middle of the Capal the year, if you did it in any year of Doctor
• 4:42
  Who, you know the any everybody would go like, oh, you know,
• 4:46
  it's Gallifrey back. Is that why they're keeping it
• 4:48
  secret, is what? Are you talking about we learn
• 4:52
  Fuck All about Jodie Whitaker's episodes before they were aired?
• 4:56
  I know. Look at this golden age we now
• 4:58
  live in where we're. We know everything.
• 5:03
  Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, they do
• 5:06
  reference the flux in this. So maybe the secrecy was just a
• 5:09
  hallmark was just a was a throwback to the recently ended
• 5:13
  Whittaker era where we learnt nothing.
• 5:20
  Well we'll get there talking about that in this because
• 5:22
  that's a that is an important scene because it's basically
• 5:26
  saying no, we're not dismissing you, you power found a minor of
• 5:30
  like this. We're not dismissing what went
• 5:33
  down in those three years. We're going to take that baton
• 5:36
  and we're going to do something interesting with it.
• 5:37
  That's. Right.
• 5:40
  But fundamentally, no, I think it's fine.
• 5:43
  I think it's great that you have an episode of because you know
• 5:49
  that that's the experience everybody deep down in their
• 5:51
  hearts, really wants with Doctor Who.
• 5:53
  Everybody will always want to read a spoiler, but
• 5:57
  fundamentally I think people will always want to have that
• 6:00
  feeling, you know, when they're young and going into Doctor Who
• 6:03
  and not knowing what what's going to come next.
• 6:07
  I think the only way you get past the the, you know, it's, I
• 6:14
  don't know, it's shooting at work, snogging William Hartnell.
• 6:17
  I think the only the only way you're able to get past that
• 6:20
  kind of over over feverish speculation is just to do it
• 6:24
  more regularly. I'm a little bit turned on right
• 6:27
  now. Well, that's your problem and
• 6:32
  not mine. But the trouble is, right is
• 6:34
  what people were speculating about was basically what Big
• 6:37
  Finish bring out every other week.
• 6:39
  These days, all the Doctors come in together.
• 6:42
  The 10th Doctor and the 6th Doctor.
• 6:44
  I don't know, Vicky and Riversong.
• 6:46
  This was all the stuff that's being pitched.
• 6:48
  Oh, we're going to have this back.
• 6:49
  We're. Going to have that.
• 6:51
  What the mystery was Shrouding was almost completely original,
• 6:58
  mostly continuity free. Tight scripts like weird as our
• 7:04
  beard episode of Doctor Who of the lights, we haven't seen for
• 7:08
  quite some time. I'd say conceptually, as far
• 7:11
  back as it takes you away and then possibly beyond that to
• 7:15
  like listen or something like that.
• 7:19
  And that's so much better than just let's pull all these
• 7:23
  continuity elements out of a hat and put them in an anniversary
• 7:26
  special. I didn't expect this to be quite
• 7:30
  as scaled back as it was and and sort of slowly pace and
• 7:35
  atmospheric and as weird and unsettling as it was, but I
• 7:41
  thought it was wonderful for that.
• 7:43
  No, I had AI had a similar response like you know I I mean
• 7:48
  I was a little, I guess a little surprised that it didn't in any
• 7:53
  way because I I think of the three specials it will be the
• 7:58
  the most, the biggest outlier because.
• 8:02
  What the most divisive no. No, no, no, not divisive
• 8:05
  necessarily. But I think in terms of like
• 8:08
  packaging these as the, you know, 60th anniversary specials,
• 8:13
  it it's the least it it it's, it's kind of just a really good
• 8:16
  episode of Doctor Who. There's nothing, you know,
• 8:19
  commemorative of it. It's not really celebrating 60
• 8:23
  years of Doctor Who. It's not throwing in, you know,
• 8:27
  the Chamberleys out of nowhere, but.
• 8:31
  I would argue against that. It is celebrating Doctor Who by
• 8:34
  being a bloody good episode of Doctor Who.
• 8:37
  Oh, no, no, no. That.
• 8:38
  And that's what I was gonna I I was gonna, I was going to get to
• 8:41
  that. I was going to throw that line
• 8:42
  in myself as well. So I'm glad we're thinking along
• 8:45
  the same page. I think you can celebrate 60
• 8:47
  years of Doctor Who just by being a really good episode of
• 8:50
  Doctor Who. But, you know, it's not being a
• 8:53
  conventionally celebratory episode.
• 8:56
  You know, it's not tipping its hat to 60 years worth of
• 9:01
  continuity. But I think that's quite nice
• 9:04
  and I think it's really refreshing of it because you
• 9:07
  know what? What you really get with this
• 9:09
  episode, which I don't know how much you're going to get with
• 9:13
  next week, is you get a lot of time with Katherine, Che and
• 9:17
  David, and you get a whole 60, basically 60 minutes with them.
• 9:22
  And because, you know, I really, when I that trailer for The
• 9:26
  Giggle dropped earlier in the week, I was just like, Oh no, Oh
• 9:30
  no, we're already there. They're going to be gone again.
• 9:32
  It's been so nice just to hang out with them once more.
• 9:36
  And I think if you're watching these three episodes as a
• 9:42
  continuation of that story, as a continuation with those two, you
• 9:47
  know, tremendous leads, then you had to do something with like
• 9:51
  this episode. You had to do an episode that
• 9:54
  really capitalizes on that magic, those two, those two
• 9:59
  brings of the show and that chemistry that they have and
• 10:02
  that back and forth that they have and that that that you know
• 10:06
  that gravitas and that acting prowess they both bring to the
• 10:10
  part you've got to, you've got to do, how do I put this.
• 10:16
  You've got to give Catherine Tate something real to respond
• 10:19
  to that isn't. Oh my God, it's the Celestial
• 10:21
  Toy Maker. What was it?
• 10:24
  She said in What does she call Beat the Mate, Mad Paddington?
• 10:28
  Mad Paddington. He's on my wall here.
• 10:30
  Can you see him? I can see, I can see the me,
• 10:33
  which does make me happy. And like, you know, the Star
• 10:37
  Beast is pretty. It's kind of a celebratory
• 10:42
  episode for 60 years, but it's the people who will recognize
• 10:45
  that are a pretty niche, hardcore set of the fandom who,
• 10:50
  you know, are aware of Doctor Who and the Star Beast.
• 10:54
  It was. Do you know what I thought?
• 10:56
  It was great. It was safe though, wasn't it?
• 10:58
  It was basically like partners in crime again, a cute monster.
• 11:03
  Lots of laughs. Sort of a focus on Donna and her
• 11:06
  family. It was reminding the audience
• 11:10
  when Doctor Who was in the zeitgeist.
• 11:14
  Yeah, I mean I when I watched because I watched the Star Beast
• 11:20
  with my with my housemate with best friend Kayla, and as soon
• 11:25
  as we finished it, we literally did put Partners in crime on and
• 11:30
  it was really warm and lovely and it's like, Oh yeah, yeah,
• 11:34
  they are all kind of doing a riff on this kind of story,
• 11:40
  which in a good way, like you wouldn't want Doctor Who to be
• 11:46
  back in this in that particular register for too long, but it is
• 11:51
  really, you know, it's really warm and lovely for it to dip
• 11:54
  into that again. Well, well, like, you know,
• 11:56
  that's so rusty though as well, isn't it?
• 11:58
  To come back and do something sort of really obvious and then
• 12:02
  to follow that up with the least obvious thing you would imagine.
• 12:06
  And that is, you know, it's really like you the 1st 15
• 12:11
  minutes of this, you might test the audience patience a bit that
• 12:14
  are used to that, especially the TikTok generation that don't
• 12:17
  have the attention span of, you know, a minute to actually
• 12:20
  wander around this ship and do it.
• 12:22
  It's like the arc in space, isn't it?
• 12:23
  Wandering around a little bit, discovering the mysteries, just
• 12:27
  the regulars, no guest characters, no real.
• 12:31
  There's there's sort of suspense, but there's no real
• 12:34
  drama or tension. Yeah, it's Doctor Who in a
• 12:38
  register. And I said this because I
• 12:40
  watched it with Kayla as well in the morning after it came out.
• 12:45
  It is Doctor Who in a register, which you know it.
• 12:48
  I think it would be uncharitable to say that it doesn't sit in
• 12:52
  that often anymore, but it because you know, you still get,
• 12:58
  you know, Heaven Sent and Midnight are probably good
• 13:02
  examples of this kind of kind of tone.
• 13:08
  But it is Doctor Who doesn't really go for that kind of you
• 13:13
  know, you arrive in a place, you figure out the rules, you can't
• 13:19
  that kind of space exploration thing.
• 13:20
  It doesn't really do that anymore.
• 13:24
  It's a lot more like the Star Beast or or Skyfall, sorry
• 13:30
  Spyfall on a week to week basis than than this.
• 13:37
  So it is quite refreshing to get it in this, to see them trying
• 13:43
  to do this. I always love.
• 13:45
  I always love the show when it does this.
• 13:47
  What impressed me so much was how tight this script was.
• 13:49
  I think people don't think Russell can write particularly
• 13:53
  tight scripts. Great telly.
• 13:55
  But all of those mysteries that were seeded in those first 15
• 13:59
  minutes are then expanded on in the middle and then all answered
• 14:02
  in the end. So the whole thing comes
• 14:04
  together as like one big trap for these aliens.
• 14:08
  It's really, really cleverly dumb.
• 14:11
  I'm here's a question. Here's a question for you
• 14:13
  actually, because you know obviously you've written and
• 14:16
  recorded a lot of commentary on on on the on the new series in
• 14:23
  its ups and downs. And a sizeable chunk of the
• 14:27
  last, let's say, 15 years has been comparing say as the Steven
• 14:36
  Steven Moffat's tenure and Chris Chipnut's way to the Moffat to
• 14:40
  the Davis era in in in positive and less positive ways.
• 14:46
  How has it been for you? Kind of.
• 14:49
  And I know we're only two episodes in, kind of finding
• 14:54
  yourself back in in in Russell T Davis's era, Firstly, in a in an
• 14:59
  episode that could quite seamlessly slip into, let's say
• 15:03
  a series 5 of Catherine Tate and and David Tennant if they had
• 15:08
  stayed on, and then going into something completely different
• 15:11
  and completely new. How has that been for you?
• 15:14
  Wonderful. The the big difference 22.
• 15:19
  Actually two big differences between what we've just left
• 15:22
  and, you know, a massive chimney fan.
• 15:25
  I love the flux. I love Eve of the diox.
• 15:27
  I love power of the docks, of that whole last run apart from
• 15:29
  the Sea Devil, one which was a big yawn vest I really, really
• 15:32
  loved. So I wasn't coming to this
• 15:35
  expecting to go well. I hate that now.
• 15:37
  This is great. There's two things that Russell
• 15:39
  gets better than any of the others.
• 15:41
  Sense of humour. He makes me laugh more than the
• 15:44
  other. So I was laughing my way through
• 15:45
  the Star Beast in a way I haven't with Doctor Who for a
• 15:47
  long, long time and heart and he just can't help it.
• 15:52
  He just infuses his Doctor Who full of heart even.
• 15:56
  Sort of weird, nebulous horror piece like this is.
• 16:00
  It's just aching with heartfelt moments.
• 16:04
  So production wise, we've come on 15 years and you can really
• 16:11
  feel the difference between the last RTT era and this RTT era.
• 16:15
  But I think essentially the ingredients are the same.
• 16:20
  And I'm pleased because those ingredients in the first era was
• 16:25
  my favorite iteration of Doctor Whoever.
• 16:29
  So I'm thrilled that he's back. I'm thrilled that we've got
• 16:34
  these two incredible actors back.
• 16:37
  And I think it's such a savvy move between the sort of fluff
• 16:41
  of The Star Beast and what looks to be like a continuity fest of
• 16:46
  The Giggle and sort of, you know, high operatic drama to do
• 16:51
  this sort of locked room mystery and give Catherine Tate and
• 16:55
  David Tennant acting opportunities that they haven't
• 16:58
  had on the show before. That's such a smart move because
• 17:02
  it it justifies bringing them back beyond just bringing them
• 17:06
  back. Yeah, yeah.
• 17:09
  No, that's I I would agree with that entirely because yeah, I I
• 17:15
  don't think there's much point in bringing Catherine Tate and.
• 17:22
  Oh, bless you. Thank you.
• 17:26
  Oh, my goodness. Thank you.
• 17:28
  Yeah. I don't think there's much point
• 17:31
  in bringing them both. I said this a moment ago.
• 17:35
  I don't think there's much fun in bringing them both back if
• 17:36
  you're not going to make them act.
• 17:40
  And so giving them and giving them at least one episode where
• 17:43
  you know it's it's basically A2 hander split, split between four
• 17:51
  parts. That forehander?
• 17:52
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 17:55
  One of a. 4 The Forehander by between Sorry, a forehanded
• 18:00
  between two actors. Sorry, you were saying.
• 18:02
  Which is typically clever for us.
• 18:04
  Who knows? One of my favorite episodes of
• 18:06
  his first run is Midnight, which is a very, again, a tight
• 18:11
  script, very enclosed, very character focused and it's sort
• 18:17
  of the exploration and the the uses language in a really
• 18:24
  frightening way. This time he's basically telling
• 18:27
  another Midnight, but it's identity, which is the sort of
• 18:32
  the horror staple this time around.
• 18:34
  I've heard from some elements that, you know, oh, we're just
• 18:37
  doing doppelgangers. Yeah, well, we're doing
• 18:41
  doppelgangers in a really interesting way with truly
• 18:45
  compelling actors in the roles. Yeah, yeah, There's a lot of
• 18:49
  because you know, doppelgangers are one of the oldest sci-fi
• 18:53
  cliches and it's very hard to do anything that's truly
• 18:59
  interesting with them. And and there are a lot, lot,
• 19:03
  lots of bits in the direction. You know, when they're, you
• 19:09
  know, Catherine, Tate and David when the Doctor and Don are
• 19:13
  split up and that you know, the corridors are lit distinctly and
• 19:18
  not it not in the lazy way that it's done in like, I don't know,
• 19:21
  time heist where they just put different gels on the lens and
• 19:25
  they're in different corridor and they're in the same corridor
• 19:27
  but they're in different corridors and they have to to
• 19:33
  make that visual distinction. But when at some point you
• 19:36
  actually kind of lose track and you're just like, oh God, who's
• 19:39
  who? I don't actually know anymore
• 19:40
  and. It did.
• 19:41
  It did come to a point where, I mean, I know they keep sort of
• 19:44
  in moments. They keep telling you because
• 19:46
  they want to show off more great special effects, but then they
• 19:49
  contrive to have more reasons for them all to split up and
• 19:52
  come back. Together again, Yeah.
• 19:55
  And I don't know if because it evokes this, this particular
• 20:03
  episode evokes other things as well, but it does in terms of
• 20:09
  the kind of bottle episode things that it it evokes, it
• 20:14
  does kind of remind me of Midnight and Heaven Sent in some
• 20:19
  respects, you know, it's that isolating, isolating the
• 20:23
  characters with a limited cast. And as you say it does evoke
• 20:30
  midnight and it does evoke. But you know it's got that kind
• 20:33
  of strange set up. There's a little bit of the
• 20:37
  heavens and castle in here as well with the with the spaceship
• 20:41
  that changes its layout constantly and the rooms are
• 20:44
  constantly changing. There's a there's a hint of that
• 20:47
  but what I'm what I find most interesting and I don't I don't
• 20:50
  know if it's a conscious thing that Davis was was thinking of
• 20:54
  when he was writing this. But the thing that's always
• 20:56
  struck me about though about Midnight in Heaven sent as being
• 20:59
  these you know exemplar episodes of the show that you know
• 21:05
  everybody loves and everybody says these are these are two of
• 21:09
  the best episodes ever written. These are like the definitive
• 21:12
  experiment experimental episodes.
• 21:14
  They're both episodes that exclude the companion from the
• 21:17
  experiment. They're both episodes that
• 21:21
  actually sideline the companion more or less for the entirety of
• 21:25
  the episode. And then it's kind of all about
• 21:28
  how the Doctor explores the way responds and explores that
• 21:31
  world. And it's so I don't know if it's
• 21:34
  deliberate, but it is nice that you have got this big kind of
• 21:38
  strange and weird Doctor Who episode that does actually
• 21:43
  include the companion in it and does actually include them quite
• 21:46
  substantially in the plot and the and the resolution.
• 21:52
  Like in. Yeah, totally.
• 21:53
  Yeah. Well, in four I feel like they
• 21:56
  had turn left and mid or midnight and turn left
• 21:59
  back-to-back. Two Stone Cold classics, yeah,
• 22:03
  but in one it's the Doctor light episode and in the other is the
• 22:06
  Donna light episode. So I always felt like we were
• 22:09
  robbed like that really sort of off kilter episode with the two
• 22:13
  of them together and now that feels like it's finally been
• 22:16
  delivered. Yeah well and you know I might
• 22:21
  eat my words a little bit when you know in 20 years time we
• 22:24
  find out how difficult scheduling and producing these
• 22:30
  episodes were or how difficult and stressful and how strapped
• 22:34
  for cash they were making shooting out was first episode.
• 22:38
  But I think Doctor Who is in a position now and it was already,
• 22:44
  I think it was already reaching this position.
• 22:46
  You know Doctor Who always needs more money, but they were
• 22:50
  reaching a a a position with the with the with the budget that
• 22:55
  they had and the resources that they had in the caliber of of
• 23:03
  talent that they regularly attracted ever since the Davis
• 23:06
  series. Where you didn't need to do such
• 23:11
  a bold and experimental and striking episode as a as a
• 23:16
  production shoot scheduling gimmick.
• 23:19
  So you don't necessarily need to write Blink or Love and Monsters
• 23:25
  as an as an out for the fact that David Tennant or Catherine
• 23:31
  Tate aren't available for shooting in these periods.
• 23:33
  They can just do these episodes for the sake of doing them, like
• 23:39
  Heaven said. For example, Steven Moffat
• 23:41
  didn't really need to to write a Capaldi centric episode because
• 23:46
  of scheduling reasons. He just wanted to do that.
• 23:50
  And similarly with this, you know, Wild Blue Yonder has a
• 23:56
  budget that as big as anything at the show at least looks like
• 24:01
  it's had recently. So it's not, it's not accounting
• 24:05
  for some some complications in the shooting schedule.
• 24:09
  It's just 'cause we want to do this, we're not.
• 24:13
  We're going to remove all the actors, we're going to remove a
• 24:16
  whole cast just so we can concentrate on Catherine Tate
• 24:20
  and David Tennant just because we want to.
• 24:25
  What more excuse do you need? Do you know?
• 24:27
  I think they probably could churn out one Star Beast after
• 24:31
  another. One sort of very fun, fluffy
• 24:34
  piece of. But he's just too smart a writer
• 24:37
  to do that week in, week out, I think.
• 24:39
  And he's quoted as saying in Doctor Who magazine, One, that
• 24:41
  he had the two actors and he wanted to give them interesting
• 24:44
  things to do. But two, he's got this fantastic
• 24:48
  set up here at Bad Wolf Studios. You know, they've just done God,
• 24:51
  what was the other show they did?
• 24:53
  I always forget the name of it. Is dark material.
• 24:55
  Thank you very much, which looked absolutely you guys.
• 24:59
  I know we can pull off incredible things, so I want to
• 25:02
  push the production team to their limit.
• 25:04
  I want you know, special effects sequences that absolutely dazzle
• 25:08
  and surprise, and they do as well in this.
• 25:12
  Yeah, well, look, we should, we should.
• 25:13
  Probably go in in a minute. We should, we should.
• 25:16
  I will just say and I think that is something that that is you
• 25:21
  know with the announcement of this of the Disney Plus kind of
• 25:25
  partnership I think people have perhaps lost a little bit of
• 25:31
  perspective on the fact that you know Doctor Who on in the
• 25:36
  Whittaker era regardless of what you thought of the quality of
• 25:39
  story writing it consistently looks really good anyway.
• 25:45
  And now that the show has partnered with Bad Wolf Studios
• 25:52
  that was already a big bolster to his budget.
• 25:54
  I think probably its most substantial bolster to the
• 25:57
  budget. So even though there is a lot of
• 26:00
  additional Disney plus whatever money cutting coming in the the,
• 26:08
  the, the, the the up, the splashiness and the flashiness
• 26:13
  of the of the the new design and the new look at the show isn't
• 26:17
  entirely down to, you know, the Disney corporation coming in.
• 26:21
  It is the Bad Wolf Studios coming in first and having that
• 26:26
  money ready to go before anything to do with Disney
• 26:30
  became involved. I've got to be honest, I haven't
• 26:32
  seen anything from the Rusty Deer Ltd Two.
• 26:36
  Yeah, that looks anywhere near as expensive as Power of the
• 26:41
  Doctor. I might be proven wrong next
• 26:44
  week with the giggle. I think Power of the Doctor had
• 26:46
  an extreme amount of money poured into it by the BBC.
• 26:50
  But yeah, I'm still waiting. Yeah, we'll we'll have to wait
• 26:54
  and see. Well, maybe something will turn
• 26:55
  up in this in this particular episode that we didn't swap the
• 26:59
  first time round. Actually, can't say one last
• 27:01
  thing before we go in. Oh yeah.
• 27:03
  I think Rusty Davis read the Rob Shearman comic strip The Cruel
• 27:09
  Sea from Doctor Who magazine, which featured Jaws falling
• 27:14
  down, huge heads, people crawling into mouths, people
• 27:20
  melting into puddles. Weird, terrifying imagery, as
• 27:27
  you would imagine from Rob Shearman.
• 27:29
  If you just told me Rob Schuman have written this script, I'll
• 27:32
  actually wouldn't have been too surprised because it's very
• 27:34
  funny. It's very dark, but it's a bit
• 27:37
  sick as well and I really like that.
• 27:41
  Well, it's got all the ingredients for a pretty perfect
• 27:43
  episode of Doctor Who for you. Oh well, now we've determined
• 27:47
  it. Should we watch it?
• 27:49
  Oh, no, we shouldn't. We've already talked about that.
• 27:53
  It's good. Go watch it.
• 27:55
  What count is it? Go on.
• 27:57
  All right, three. 21 OK, so colour blind casting yay or nay?
• 28:05
  Yay, I feel like we've we've both had this conversation
• 28:10
  before. We have.
• 28:11
  I just wanted to ask the question.
• 28:15
  And I mean, clearly what Russell is doing is he's trying.
• 28:20
  He's deliberately trying to annoy all the people who should
• 28:23
  be annoyed by, you know, casting Isaac Newton as a as a man of
• 28:30
  Asian descent who is, I forget the X's name, Nate.
• 28:35
  I think it's Nathan, something who's also in.
• 28:37
  It's a sin and he's a wonderful actor and he's great there.
• 28:40
  Absolutely gorgeous as well. What more?
• 28:42
  Reason do you need? To cast him as Isaac Newton.
• 28:45
  Well, exactly. Exactly It is.
• 28:47
  Also, it is to piss off all the right people and also because
• 28:50
  he's very he's very hot and very attractive, so why not cast?
• 28:55
  You know what, right? I heard on another podcast this
• 28:57
  came up. Yeah, and the fellow is appalled
• 29:01
  that they've done colour blind casting.
• 29:03
  Yeah, and his Co host says to him, oh OK, but you're not
• 29:07
  bothered by the fact that Jesus is portrayed as a white man for
• 29:10
  the last however many years he goes, That don't bother you at
• 29:13
  all? Why does it bother you in this
• 29:15
  direction? And it all goes very quiet.
• 29:21
  Yeah, I can not. Many people have too many
• 29:24
  responses to that. No.
• 29:27
  Well done for ducking it yourself do.
• 29:29
  You know, when I was watching this episode for the first time
• 29:34
  I did, I lent over to Kayla and I was like, you know, Tom Baker
• 29:37
  is, in theory, somewhere in this tree ready to drop another
• 29:40
  apple. I told him to clear off out of
• 29:44
  the tree and explained it to him later at dinner.
• 29:48
  I mean this. I mean, this whole sequence is
• 29:50
  just. It's just for the incredible gag
• 29:53
  of the entirety of history being changed for the word Maverty,
• 29:59
  which is just. I do hope you can appreciate the
• 30:03
  maverty of the situation, Jack. Yeah, I I I genuinely, I think
• 30:09
  it's so funny that the seemingly the sole purpose of the secrets
• 30:14
  is just to change the word gravity to Bavity.
• 30:18
  It's so absurd, isn't it? And then it's tenets reaction
• 30:23
  when Tate says it later. Yeah and yeah, I I think, yeah,
• 30:31
  it has a few little payouts later.
• 30:33
  But also it is just so lovely to have a little.
• 30:38
  It is basically a silly little back and forth between Catherine
• 30:41
  Tate and David Tennant and the chemistry that they display
• 30:44
  doing the whole. I think the gravity of the
• 30:48
  situation it it is just lovely to see them do that.
• 30:55
  I was asked if how many stories you could actually schedule in
• 31:02
  in between these episodes with the 14th Doctor.
• 31:06
  Like how much life does he actually live?
• 31:08
  How many Big Finish adventures can you cram in?
• 31:11
  I did kind of say, well, you know, it's a bit unclear how
• 31:15
  long this trip between the Star Beast and Wild Blue Yonder
• 31:21
  takes, Like how many other little side mentions they have
• 31:24
  in between getting from one spot to the other, because clearly
• 31:27
  they're jumping through a bunch of different time periods before
• 31:30
  they get here. But I don't.
• 31:32
  I don't think you can. You can squeeze a whole
• 31:34
  companion in there. You know, Big Finish, Jack.
• 31:37
  They'll find a way somehow. If there's a gap, they'll fill
• 31:41
  it. Yeah.
• 31:44
  Oh, the design of this ship. Like, I know the CGI is very
• 31:48
  impressive when they go out into that enormous corridor.
• 31:51
  And I have heard that joke a couple of times this week about,
• 31:55
  oh, suddenly they've got amazing money.
• 31:57
  What do they do? They just make the biggest
• 31:59
  corridor ever in Doctor Who, which is true.
• 32:03
  But I do think the the, the actual physical sets that
• 32:07
  they've got and the lighting, you know, look at the walls are
• 32:10
  all rusty and that it's, it's got lots of atmosphere to it.
• 32:15
  Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of detailing in
• 32:17
  this episode which, you know, sometimes you might get that in
• 32:23
  another in another episode, sometimes you wouldn't, but it's
• 32:26
  certainly welcome to to see it here.
• 32:31
  And I say something about David Tennant, 15 years on, very, very
• 32:37
  briefly. Oh, sure, I think.
• 32:39
  I don't ever want to be accused of being ages, but I thought it
• 32:42
  was very pretty back in the day. He's fucking gorgeous.
• 32:46
  Now, 15 years later, with a few little crows feats around the
• 32:50
  eye, he looks absolutely gorgeous.
• 32:53
  Yes, he it must be said. The man has a you know, he is
• 32:57
  51. He has aged incredibly well.
• 32:59
  Unbelievable bastard. Oh, a little blue light.
• 33:07
  I and I love his costume. I think I actually love this
• 33:11
  version of his costume more than his original one, if I'm
• 33:14
  completely honest. You know, I loved his
• 33:16
  performance back in the day. I said to you off Mike.
• 33:18
  He's learnt a few tricks. 15 years later and he's still got
• 33:23
  those quirks of the 10th Doctor, but it is toned down a bit.
• 33:27
  There's more subtlety in the performance.
• 33:30
  Yeah, I I really, I've really enjoyed coming back to him
• 33:35
  because, you know, I've spent the last 15 years kind of being
• 33:40
  a counter contrary and kind of like.
• 33:42
  No, no, I think. Particular Paldi is the best
• 33:44
  Doctor, so it's actually been quite nice for me to come back
• 33:49
  and go like Oh yes, the the the person who is the most popular
• 33:52
  Doctor and the most beloved. Oh actually, yeah.
• 33:55
  No, I love him as well. I love him as much as anybody
• 33:57
  else and I do think the performance is is really quite
• 34:02
  lovely. I I know it's been a little bit
• 34:06
  a little bit controversial the the way the Star Beast resolved
• 34:10
  itself with all the Doctor Donna stuff.
• 34:13
  But I think, I think it's it's a really good idea to bring
• 34:19
  Catherine Tate and David Tennant back and I give them new things
• 34:22
  to do and let them progress the story rather than, you know,
• 34:25
  slipping them somewhere in between, like, you know, the
• 34:28
  Unicorn and the wasp and and the doctor's daughter or whatever.
• 34:33
  And then why are you? Explain how they both look a
• 34:35
  little bit older. You know it's.
• 34:36
  Like they both look a little bit older.
• 34:38
  But they always, they always had to resolve that Doctor Donna
• 34:42
  thing, didn't they? Like, I don't think people were
• 34:44
  ever going to be happy, but the fact that they managed to
• 34:47
  resolve it with a great message, I'm pissing so many people off.
• 34:50
  I was like, oh, Russell, you've answered to you, didn't I, that
• 34:54
  he's, he's learned what he can get away with now and Doctor Who
• 34:56
  is very tense to back in the day now we yeah, we've gone through
• 35:00
  Moffett, we've gone through Chibnall, they've both done
• 35:03
  bold, progressive things along the way and now he knows what he
• 35:07
  can do and he's just going for it.
• 35:09
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's it's a funny thing
• 35:13
  because you know anybody who was paying attention to anything
• 35:16
  Russell T Davis has been saying over the last few years was knew
• 35:21
  he was going to do stuff like this as soon as he came back.
• 35:24
  So all those people who are, like really surprised that you
• 35:26
  know, he's casting, he's doing a colour blind casting in history
• 35:32
  or he's, you know promoting transgender trans rights right
• 35:37
  off the bat in the first episode, they they just haven't
• 35:40
  been paying attention to what he what are his priorities now?
• 35:44
  But like, you know, I won't go too much down this rabbit hub,
• 35:47
  but normalizing things that are very normal for children, it's I
• 35:53
  think it's so refreshing. Yeah.
• 35:57
  Oh, sorry. I'm just looking at this bit
• 36:00
  with Doctor and Donna holding hands.
• 36:02
  Or, well, he kisses her, doesn't he?
• 36:04
  There's suddenly a little a bit of physical intimacy between the
• 36:07
  Doctor and the Companion again, which I really like.
• 36:10
  Oh, the hats, Jack, the hats. Oh yes, yes.
• 36:14
  Not heard since Cold War in 2013, ten years ago.
• 36:18
  And before that, the Crotons in 1969.
• 36:23
  God bless. See.
• 36:25
  See. This is a.
• 36:26
  Crazy show. Yeah, truly.
• 36:30
  But this is, this is the thing, you know, David Tennant has been
• 36:34
  on because, you know, there have been little bits throughout
• 36:37
  these two episodes where the 14th Doctor said, oh, I do this
• 36:41
  now, You know, I'm like this now where it's kind of like the the
• 36:45
  Doctor is wearing this new face again, but is remembering that,
• 36:50
  you know, the Doctor has been Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi and
• 36:55
  Jodie Whittaker in the time between and has experienced some
• 36:59
  growth and change in that time since last having this
• 37:03
  particular David Tennant face. So I think it's quite, I think
• 37:07
  it's quite nice. David Tennant was on a chat
• 37:09
  show. I think it was The One Show
• 37:11
  where he said was asked are you doing a different performance?
• 37:15
  And he's like, well, it's basically it's basically the
• 37:17
  same performance. There's not much point in me
• 37:20
  coming back if I'm going to do it completely different.
• 37:23
  But there are slight differences, and I think it's
• 37:26
  really nice to see those subtle differences that indicate how
• 37:30
  his doctor and his performance have grown.
• 37:34
  Oh really? I was utterly bewitched then by
• 37:37
  all of that corridor. Like like a wristwatch.
• 37:42
  You know, all the intricacies of a wristwatch turning and things
• 37:45
  Wheeling about God Almighty. Those effects are good.
• 37:48
  Yeah, and this this episode is, I found it really delightful
• 37:53
  because obviously you've got that little rim robot, Jimbo,
• 37:57
  which is a very Russell T Davis name.
• 38:00
  It's it's not too far removed from, you know, Gadget Gadget in
• 38:04
  Waters of Mars. I'll call him Fen's Law, you
• 38:06
  know. I mean so much so much of the
• 38:10
  the Alien set up here is so Russell T Davis, you've got the
• 38:14
  robot called Jimbo. You've got these strange
• 38:18
  sounding words like Fenn's Law and I don't know top loaf or
• 38:23
  whatever it is and the reveal that their numbers is very
• 38:29
  David. It reminded me of like the end
• 38:31
  of the world, where it's like, you know, we're in the year 4.4
• 38:33
  billion slash poles slash. But so far, right, we've had one
• 38:39
  clang outside the ship, so, but we don't know what that is.
• 38:43
  The robots here, frozen in space, We don't know what that
• 38:46
  is. They discover in a minute.
• 38:48
  The airlock door opened, but we don't know what that is.
• 38:51
  All the little pieces are being seeded throughout these scenes,
• 38:54
  which appears to be them just wandering around.
• 38:58
  Yeah, and the the robot is a is a great visual in and of itself
• 39:03
  of this robot that only moves on the on the ships, in the in the
• 39:08
  in the spaceships layout. And there's something quite
• 39:15
  delightfully satisfying that it it's revealed to be, you know, a
• 39:21
  bomb, a bomb activation mechanism.
• 39:26
  Sorry, no. No, no.
• 39:27
  Cool. Cool.
• 39:29
  I was, I was going to say, because you know, you know, and
• 39:32
  I think you'll relate to this very specifically.
• 39:36
  You know how, particularly in the Steven Moffat era where it
• 39:40
  would set up a mystery and the most, it would turn out the most
• 39:45
  obvious answer you thought of right off the bat.
• 39:48
  It would turn out to be that. But after all this great teasing
• 39:51
  and stretching it out that mystery isn't.
• 39:56
  Finding out that it is the most obvious answer isn't
• 39:58
  particularly satisfying. And this is a different example.
• 40:01
  This is all contained to one episode, but it I found it
• 40:03
  tremendously satisfying to be like, oh, it is just a bomb.
• 40:07
  It's just a, it's a, it's a, he says.
• 40:08
  It's a. Countdown, doesn't he?
• 40:10
  And he goes, Yeah, I'll say it was a countdown straight away.
• 40:13
  Yeah, yeah, I think. That's literally what I would
• 40:15
  say. Yeah, I I thought it was
• 40:18
  tremendously satisfying to find out that the most, you know, you
• 40:24
  have this really supposedly complicated mystery.
• 40:27
  And it does turn out to be an elaborate ruse for the most
• 40:31
  obvious solution, which is to blow the ship up I.
• 40:36
  And and that that kind of is, those are all old sort of
• 40:40
  science fiction tropes, aren't they?
• 40:41
  It's a countdown. It's a bomb.
• 40:42
  It's a trap. How it's executed is what is so
• 40:49
  stellar in that last half. And I was breathless by the end
• 40:53
  of this. Breathless in a way that I
• 40:54
  haven't been since like the end of Waters of Mars, You know,
• 40:58
  with that sort of mad pacing at the end.
• 41:01
  What I was going to say was I'm really bold enough to suggest
• 41:04
  that this the the audience wouldn't accept this 1st 15
• 41:12
  minutes if it wasn't 2 beloved characters and two very popular
• 41:18
  actors taking us through it. I think if it was lesser doctors
• 41:22
  and companions or less well known actors that haven't
• 41:27
  already won people over, I think it might be a problem.
• 41:33
  I think, I think you're probably right on that I could see this
• 41:42
  possibly being in Shooty Gatwa's first series as a way of really
• 41:47
  as a but as a more deliberate character study of these two
• 41:50
  characters that we you know him and Ruby and we don't really
• 41:53
  know who they are. I could see that being
• 41:56
  repurposed to as a get to know them episode.
• 42:00
  Well, we did this, we did this sort of thing in the first sort
• 42:03
  of 20 minutes of smile, didn't we?
• 42:07
  And people didn't have the patience for the day.
• 42:09
  We didn't really know Bill that well at that point.
• 42:12
  No matter what we think of him as a as a as an actor, he wasn't
• 42:16
  the most popular doctor with the general audience.
• 42:20
  And so, and people were just like a bit, well, I remember,
• 42:23
  you know, the the feedback from that at the end was it was a bit
• 42:26
  dull, yeah. But yeah, when it's written by
• 42:34
  Russell D Davis with Catherine Tate and David Jenner, well,
• 42:36
  that makes a well, the difference.
• 42:38
  Well, they just suddenly get lines like, well, let's go kick
• 42:41
  its ass then. Yeah.
• 42:46
  Oh, is this, is this the bit where the probe goes outside the
• 42:50
  ship and we see it like a like underwater with the light in the
• 42:54
  in the inky blackness? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 42:56
  Gorgeous, isn't it? It's it's the I think you can
• 43:01
  correct me on this. I think it's the best looking
• 43:03
  spaceship exterior like the outside of the spaceship since
• 43:09
  world enough in time, Oh yeah. The great lost commentary, Yeah.
• 43:17
  I I mean, it does. It is an obvious comparison just
• 43:21
  because both of those ships are so enormous and in their CGI
• 43:26
  renderings that they they invite obvious comparison.
• 43:29
  Which isn't to say that a lot of at.
• 43:31
  The end When it blows up, that is just stunning, that
• 43:35
  explosion. This is the This kind of scene
• 43:40
  is something that you wouldn't get in the Moffat or Chip Mill
• 43:45
  eras, where they're where, you know, you're just getting a
• 43:49
  description of what it means to be on the edge of the universe.
• 43:54
  It's that kind of slightly existential, abstract
• 43:59
  description that Russell C Davis is probably the best at writing.
• 44:04
  It's terrifying. It's what makes the, the what
• 44:07
  are they called this? The not we?
• 44:08
  No, the not things. The not things, yeah.
• 44:12
  It's what makes them so scary is they're so unknowable.
• 44:16
  All they can. Do is is mimic them because
• 44:19
  there's nothing of them that we could possibly comprehend if
• 44:23
  they don't mimic them. Yeah.
• 44:26
  And I think that later on they describe our universe as hot and
• 44:29
  boiling and they are the way. That's not about your shudder.
• 44:33
  Yeah. And it's, you know, there's no
• 44:37
  account of how they were created or where they come from.
• 44:40
  They just say they come from, you know, nothing.
• 44:43
  They drifted towards US. It was the coal of war, wasn't
• 44:48
  it? And conflicts.
• 44:49
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was being sent out.
• 44:52
  It's it's it's a little reminiscent of the impossible
• 44:57
  planet, you know, where you're describing you know a creature
• 45:05
  that cosmically speaking is analogous to the devil in a
• 45:10
  religious sense but is also beyond that.
• 45:14
  It's be he has that description of being beyond time and that I
• 45:18
  think that this kind of before time, sorry.
• 45:21
  And this kind of evokes that. Unbelievably, you know it is a
• 45:25
  riff on a scene in Underworld what we just saw because the
• 45:31
  Doctor looks out at the scanner at the beginning of Underworld
• 45:33
  to absolute blackness at the edge of the universe.
• 45:40
  I I I can safely say I don't know my underworld well enough
• 45:44
  to have made that connection, but I'm glad you did.
• 45:47
  One of the one of the joys of living with another Doctor Who
• 45:51
  fan is that he does ask me quirky Doctor Who questions
• 45:55
  quite a lot and one of his favorite games to play is which
• 45:58
  classic Doctor and companions could you see in this new series
• 46:02
  episode. And we do it all the time when
• 46:04
  we watch new series ones like we try and cast it with a classic
• 46:07
  Doctor and classic companions. And when he asked me that about
• 46:10
  this, I just said Tom and Liz straight away.
• 46:13
  Only Tom and Liz that at the absolute sort of height of
• 46:17
  popularity, Dr. and companion like Tennant and Tay, and just
• 46:22
  two very charismatic actors that could carry the sort of the
• 46:25
  silence of the 1st 15 minutes. And then two actors that I know
• 46:30
  can play evil as well. Oh, this guy.
• 46:34
  Sorry, that guy got me on broadcast as well.
• 46:37
  What, Licking the thing? Yeah, look at the thing you
• 46:41
  could also do if you were to be cheeky.
• 46:44
  You could also say David Tennant and Liz Slayden and just pair
• 46:49
  them up. You could.
• 46:51
  You could, Mark, said McCoy and Ace.
• 46:54
  Oh wait, McCoy, Sophie Aldrin and Sylvester McCoy act in this?
• 46:58
  Are you kidding me? Careful, you'll get those McCoy
• 47:03
  fans on us and they'll never go away.
• 47:06
  You know this pic now where they're split up, right?
• 47:08
  And that's when they're not. Things first come along.
• 47:11
  Yeah. I'm so stupid.
• 47:14
  I didn't realise. I thought we were just having
• 47:16
  the same. I didn't even notice the
• 47:18
  different lightings. And Mark's going, Oh my God, I'm
• 47:21
  like, what? What?
• 47:22
  And he's going, they're not talking to each other, they're
• 47:25
  talking to different people. I'm going, oh, they're not.
• 47:28
  And they took me about a minute to catch up.
• 47:30
  But because it's sort of done imperceptible, isn't it?
• 47:34
  Like they just come in and just start a conversation?
• 47:40
  Yeah, I I picked it up. As soon as David Tennant did
• 47:43
  that weird little Crouch that he did just then, I was like, oh,
• 47:46
  something's off. Look, I did.
• 47:48
  I did say to him when Donna came in and said to the doctor, the
• 47:53
  fake Donna said, I did what you said.
• 47:56
  It's just such a weird way. I was like, that's old.
• 48:00
  Yeah, I I, you know on a slightly different track I will
• 48:05
  say because it starts coming up. I think the reveal that the, you
• 48:11
  know because they make it they big make a big deal out of the
• 48:14
  airlock was open three years ago and and then something came in
• 48:19
  and they revealed that they were already on board and it was the
• 48:23
  the captain ejecting themselves into space.
• 48:26
  I thought that was properly clever, but we'll get to that
• 48:30
  when we get there. I like the fact that these
• 48:33
  horrible not things have been there the whole time we've been
• 48:36
  wandering around this ship. You know, we there is a scene in
• 48:40
  the corridor through the wall where clearly they're watching
• 48:44
  them. Yeah, yeah.
• 48:46
  And the This episode is particularly so good for the
• 48:52
  Doctor because you know it. It strips all of his advantages
• 48:57
  away, and it's a deliberate choice.
• 48:58
  The Sonic Screwdriver and the TARDIS go in one fell swoop.
• 49:01
  A bit like midnight. A little bit like Midnight and
• 49:06
  but and also, but what you're left with, once you you take the
• 49:11
  screwdriver and the TARDIS away, is you're left with the doctors
• 49:15
  and, you know, inhuman genius, level intelligence.
• 49:19
  And Russell finds a way of weaponizing that against the
• 49:24
  Doctor, in much the same way that he weaponizes the Doctor's
• 49:27
  charisma against him in Midnight.
• 49:30
  It's so funny, isn't it? That sequence later where we're
• 49:33
  where he's going. Don't think, oh, there's so many
• 49:36
  mysteries. I've got to think about them.
• 49:38
  Yeah, like can't stop himself. But and Russell T Davis?
• 49:42
  Yeah, Well, if. He's thinking about it.
• 49:44
  They're thinking about it. So they're learning the same
• 49:47
  information as that. God's so clever.
• 49:50
  It is very, it's very, very well done.
• 49:53
  And this and this little scene is great because, you know, it
• 49:57
  is just them, you know, listening to the Doctor and
• 50:00
  Donna talk and you and this is the kind of stuff that Davis is
• 50:04
  great at where you know, it is advancing the plot.
• 50:07
  You know the creatures are learning from them.
• 50:10
  But it's a great it's, but it's also disguised in a great
• 50:13
  character beat for both of them, where you've got Donna talking
• 50:17
  about her marriage and how happy and how nice it is, and about,
• 50:23
  you know, her family waiting for her to come back.
• 50:26
  And then you got the Doctor talking about waiting for the
• 50:28
  TARDIS. I think they're both little
• 50:31
  short stories that they tell. One about the family, one about
• 50:35
  the TARDIS. And anyone that says that
• 50:37
  Russell Davis can't write the sort of poetry that Moffat can
• 50:42
  write is best. Go watch these scenes because
• 50:46
  they are beautiful lines of dialogue they got.
• 50:51
  Yeah. Oh, do you know, I I thought
• 50:55
  Catherine Tate played the more sort of overtly evil moments
• 51:00
  better, but I thought David Tennant played being sinister
• 51:05
  better. Yeah, how actually, how do you
• 51:08
  think Catherine Tate has done diving back into the show?
• 51:11
  Because, you know, obviously it's been a while for David
• 51:13
  Tennant as well and they both obviously done Big Finish
• 51:16
  together. But David Tennant, you know, was
• 51:20
  in the show 10 years ago and Catherine Tate was in the show
• 51:24
  15 years ago. There is a slight difference.
• 51:27
  I think, I just think she's an incredible actress.
• 51:31
  And I think she just bounced back in the second she went.
• 51:34
  We've got our bloody Martian in the shed.
• 51:36
  I'm like, oh, she's back, baby. It's effectively the same
• 51:40
  Catherine Tate from The Runaway Bride.
• 51:43
  You know, they just got it right.
• 51:46
  Oh, those hands. Oh, that's horrible, isn't it?
• 51:49
  No, it's when he drags them along the floor and you can hear
• 51:52
  it going along the floor like, yeah.
• 51:55
  That's really that horrible skin sound.
• 51:59
  The director was very quick to say how incredible the double S
• 52:03
  of Tennant and Tate were because they had to do a lot of work
• 52:07
  without ever being seen, but a lot of sort of acting in these
• 52:12
  seats. It's it's also kind of
• 52:16
  incredible to to read, to remember that those are those
• 52:20
  limbs are actually proper. They're real.
• 52:23
  They're real. Which?
• 52:24
  Is which is. Which is it?
• 52:27
  Is one of those great things in Doctor Who where you just like
• 52:30
  What are these possibly going to What purpose do those pot you
• 52:33
  can't Oh. I see.
• 52:35
  I thought the jaw coming down was ridiculous in the way the
• 52:38
  rebel flesh was ridiculous, But then I think I was talking about
• 52:40
  the way he pulled it back in and it all just went effortlessly
• 52:43
  back in. I thought that, Yeah, I mean.
• 52:47
  Yeah, I mean it it it, it's very good because it is that uncanny
• 52:55
  valley kind of thing where it kind of looks a little silly,
• 52:59
  but it's so it's kind of real enough to be silly, but also not
• 53:05
  real enough to also be spooky at the same time.
• 53:09
  Jesus Christ, this scene where they're crawling down the
• 53:11
  corridor massive with their weird, distorted faces?
• 53:15
  Yeah. Who do you think?
• 53:16
  Who do you reckon looks scary? Who would you not want?
• 53:18
  Who? Would you?
• 53:19
  I think Donna's big mouth looks terrifying.
• 53:23
  It's like it reminds me if you remember that woman, that news
• 53:25
  reader in the Batman film, when she starts laughing and she got
• 53:28
  the big smile on her face. Oh yeah, yeah, it.
• 53:30
  Reminds me of that. And you can just tell.
• 53:35
  Go on. Sorry, Catherine Tate and David
• 53:38
  Turner were having the time of their life, just like crawling
• 53:41
  on all fours in front of a camera pulling odd faces.
• 53:45
  But they don't play it up, do they?
• 53:47
  They, they they, yeah, it must be fun playing evil.
• 53:52
  But they both. We've seen actors in Doctor Who
• 53:54
  play evil before and you know, Richard Breyers, it's somewhere
• 53:57
  in the stratosphere. It's all to the service of the
• 54:00
  story and the the atmosphere of the story.
• 54:05
  I mean that who would ever thought we'd get an image like
• 54:07
  that in Doctor Who? The two of them mushed together
• 54:09
  massive in this corridor as they walk towards them.
• 54:15
  Yeah, it feels like you just need a needle to prick them and
• 54:19
  they'll pop like hot air balloons or something.
• 54:22
  The way the the the sort of weirdness of the visuals, it is
• 54:26
  like a nightmare, isn't it, Where just everything is off
• 54:29
  kilter and twitchy and wrong? Yeah, I mean, I've regularly had
• 54:36
  this nightmare. I often wake up in a cold sweat
• 54:39
  in the morning going, oh, Catherine Tate and David Tennant
• 54:42
  were chasing me down a corridor, and then they grew too big and
• 54:45
  they had multiple joints in their legs.
• 54:48
  What I do think it was a savvy move as well, that the more they
• 54:52
  scare them then the more they can take on their forms.
• 54:56
  Because I was asking the question, well, why are they?
• 54:59
  Why are they menacing them so much?
• 55:02
  But I thought. I thought that was a that was a
• 55:04
  good answer. And it just means that we can
• 55:06
  then go all out horror, can't we?
• 55:09
  Yeah, I mean, there's a moment later on in the story where
• 55:15
  Davis is, is particularly good at this where he's able to keep
• 55:21
  up with the questions that the audience have.
• 55:26
  I I I think I'll point it out when I see it.
• 55:29
  But a good example of it is in the Star Beast when you know
• 55:31
  they're making their big escape from what are the what are the
• 55:36
  soldiers called again? The.
• 55:37
  The oh, the. Roth Warriors.
• 55:40
  The Roth. Warriors.
• 55:41
  That's right. And they're shooting the taxi
• 55:44
  cab and and nothing happened. And I was like wait a minute,
• 55:48
  how could that that not possibly damage the cab in any way
• 55:52
  whatsoever And then two seconds later, you know it's that silly
• 55:55
  caught. Caught at 14th Doctor holding
• 55:58
  court scene and he's like, did you notice that the cab received
• 56:02
  no damage whatsoever. He's like, oh and so yeah, Davis
• 56:05
  has a really great knack for keeping on track with what the
• 56:11
  what the audience is thinking, I reckon.
• 56:14
  He has a great way of convincing me that something terrible is
• 56:18
  about to happen when, and in the back of my head, I know he's
• 56:21
  never going to go that far. And there's a moment at the end
• 56:25
  of this where I was utterly convinced that we were going to
• 56:29
  lose real donor, even though I'm like, there's no way they'll
• 56:32
  have an evil doppelganger in the last one.
• 56:34
  It was so brilliantly paced, that climax, that I was
• 56:39
  convinced she was a goner. Yeah.
• 56:42
  And which isn't to say, you know, it's the first time that
• 56:46
  Doctor Who has, you know, attempted to push that idea
• 56:50
  that, you know, maybe the companion isn't will not be
• 56:54
  saved. Like, you know, even in deep
• 56:56
  breath, you know, there's that scene where the Clara doesn't
• 57:00
  think the Doctor's going to come back, and then obviously the
• 57:01
  Doctor comes back and saves her. But I don't think it it's so
• 57:05
  hinges on the quality of the writing and then the the quality
• 57:09
  of the performance. And Catherine take directions.
• 57:14
  Yeah. And and when all those things
• 57:16
  combined, they really do make you in spite of what your brain
• 57:20
  already knows which is then there's no way they can go that
• 57:23
  far. There's no way they can kill
• 57:25
  Donna. They do convince you, just for a
• 57:28
  second. For about 5 seconds I thought
• 57:31
  that the doppelganger was going to be in the last episode, and
• 57:35
  I'm like even 5 seconds to convince me of that.
• 57:38
  That's that means you've done your job.
• 57:41
  Yeah, and here and you know, here we get into all the clever,
• 57:44
  the very well written doppelganger stuff.
• 57:47
  Which is a trope of like genre television.
• 57:50
  Like I've seen this done an awful lot.
• 57:52
  Star Trek, The X-Files, they've all added pop at this.
• 57:55
  But because these doppelgangers are something we just can't
• 58:00
  understand, and because they can't understand us, there is
• 58:04
  something quite different about it.
• 58:07
  Yes, because they're not clones and they're not created, they
• 58:11
  just they're imitators. And Davis has written quite a
• 58:16
  few stories with these kind of with kind of mimic creatures.
• 58:19
  Midnight comes to mind but it kind of for some reason also
• 58:24
  kind of reminds me of Waters of Mars where you have these
• 58:28
  monsters that take on the guise of of of the of the base of the
• 58:34
  base operators and distorts them and and you know sprinkles up
• 58:41
  their mouths. So this is this is the kind of
• 58:43
  thing that he he has a good a good line in.
• 58:47
  I think he does conceptual horror really well when he when
• 58:51
  he goes there, but he doesn't go to that well too often because I
• 58:53
  don't think it would be special if he did, yeah.
• 58:57
  And what's Yeah, what's really great about Oh yeah, maybe we
• 59:04
  should talk about this. Oh, the flux and the timeless
• 59:09
  child. Yes, I do believe a lot of
• 59:12
  people thought that was going to be brushed under the carpet.
• 59:14
  Trust Russell to take something that I will even admit myself
• 59:18
  was the ramifications of those big ideas were not given
• 59:24
  adequate exploration during Chipnall's time.
• 59:28
  Trust him to pick up those ideas and say no, we're going to do
• 59:31
  something interesting with this. Yeah, and it's not a big thing.
• 59:36
  You know, my housemate, Kayla, she hasn't watched any Jodie
• 59:41
  Whittaker, so the flux stuff meant nothing to her.
• 59:45
  But she was still able to understand, understand what it
• 59:49
  was based on, how it was written emotionally for the Doctor.
• 59:55
  And it's taking those ideas and doing what Russell does, showing
• 59:59
  you the emotional impact of them.
• 1:00:01
  Yeah, yeah. It's not too dissimilar from the
• 1:00:03
  Doctor, from, you know, the End of the World, where you know
• 1:00:09
  you're talking about the Time War.
• 1:00:11
  This is this is his time war now, I think.
• 1:00:14
  It is. I mean, it is the the
• 1:00:16
  difference. It's the same kind of approach,
• 1:00:19
  the writing, but the difference is that the audience has seen
• 1:00:21
  it. We have the context as opposed
• 1:00:24
  to, but it is, it is very satisfying to get that kind of
• 1:00:30
  closure on it since, you know, it's not, it's not really an
• 1:00:35
  epilogue. It's not really a resolution to
• 1:00:37
  any of the mysteries from the from the Flux.
• 1:00:41
  But I think it is a really telling decision that, you know,
• 1:00:45
  Donna says I've seen everything in your head and she doesn't
• 1:00:49
  say, you know, I saw trans the law, I saw the hybrid, I saw the
• 1:00:53
  flux. She just they just go for the
• 1:00:56
  flux. But also as well, I think what
• 1:01:00
  this does, because I certainly don't think we're done with the
• 1:01:02
  timeless child stuff they explicitly say here.
• 1:01:05
  You're not from Gallifrey, so we are continuing that story.
• 1:01:10
  Oh my God, that's so weird. The way he scuttles about now
• 1:01:13
  with his head up his ass is so weird.
• 1:01:17
  It's sort of like it straggles that line between being comic
• 1:01:19
  and unsettling. Yeah, I don't like it.
• 1:01:24
  But sorry, yeah, I think a lot of people thought that all of
• 1:01:29
  that would just sort of be brushed aside quietly.
• 1:01:31
  What Russell has done is he's taken an era that I think some
• 1:01:34
  people would rather forget, and he has genuinely said no.
• 1:01:38
  That is a cornerstone of Doctor Who.
• 1:01:40
  There's the show pivoted at that point.
• 1:01:42
  Those are important events and those will remain important
• 1:01:47
  events. Well, yeah.
• 1:01:50
  And I think what he's doing it, he's taking what he wants away
• 1:01:55
  from it, which is, you know, the Doctor has been through a lot.
• 1:01:59
  And also the Doctor. We don't quite and we don't
• 1:02:03
  really know who the Doctor is anymore, which you know is
• 1:02:06
  stated in the in the Star Beast as well, where the 14th Doctor
• 1:02:09
  says, you know, I don't know who I am anymore.
• 1:02:13
  One thing I do know is that Ruby Sunday is an adopted character
• 1:02:18
  like her As a child she's adopted and I think her being
• 1:02:22
  adopted and the Doctor being adopted by Tecteun, that is
• 1:02:27
  going to be something that binds them.
• 1:02:29
  I'm convinced. I don't know it, but I think
• 1:02:31
  that's that's the angle he's going to take.
• 1:02:34
  Yeah. Also, I will say before we get
• 1:02:37
  too far away from the scenes we just saw, I really, really in
• 1:02:43
  loved On the first time I watched this.
• 1:02:45
  How, you know, the Doctor and Donna have completely different
• 1:02:50
  responses to the doppelgangers, where Donna realizes it's a it's
• 1:02:58
  a doppelganger by kind of going, well, you know, I said, you
• 1:03:02
  know, I knew this family member and this and that.
• 1:03:04
  And she just shatters the illusion just by throwing all
• 1:03:10
  this random useless trivia at it that it couldn't possibly know
• 1:03:15
  to kind of outfox it. Whereas the Doctor is so
• 1:03:18
  emotionally vulnerable and he falls for the trick, he falls
• 1:03:23
  for the for the doppelganger trick.
• 1:03:27
  And I thought it's it's great that, you know, you have Donna
• 1:03:30
  having a completely different way of solving it to the Doctor.
• 1:03:34
  But anyway, she walks into the room and she goes, look, I know
• 1:03:36
  this is a very strange situation, but I look really
• 1:03:39
  good. That's exactly what I would say,
• 1:03:41
  walking into that room. I do that I love as well.
• 1:03:45
  Catherine takes acting choice where she melts.
• 1:03:49
  So during that scene and she sort of goes, she lurches
• 1:03:53
  forward as if she's been sick. It's it's really gross, sort of
• 1:03:58
  grotesque, the way she holds her body and then she melts into
• 1:04:02
  that puddle and all the colours of her top are sort of melted
• 1:04:06
  into the puddle. It's.
• 1:04:08
  Yeah, like it's kind of a pain. Bucket knocked over.
• 1:04:12
  It's sick in a way that Doctor Who's not often sick.
• 1:04:16
  Yeah, yeah. And you're about to get the
• 1:04:20
  Halloween things as well. Oh yeah.
• 1:04:23
  I mean, look at her. Oh, she's down on the floor,
• 1:04:26
  counting all the grains of salt. Yeah, which is a bit, which is a
• 1:04:31
  bit like a horror movie in a way.
• 1:04:34
  And it's a nice thing that they kind of outwit them to buy
• 1:04:40
  themselves some time. It's a classic Doctor Who thing
• 1:04:42
  where it's like, all right, I've tricked you and now you need to
• 1:04:44
  give me, need to give me the answer because this is the
• 1:04:47
  amount of time I've managed to weasel out of you.
• 1:04:49
  But. One of the things that shows me
• 1:04:51
  just how far tenants come is he convinces them about that
• 1:04:55
  superstition. And when she goes down to do it,
• 1:04:58
  he sort of backs off like, surprise, Oh my God, she's
• 1:05:00
  actually doing it. But it's all done without any
• 1:05:03
  dialogue. It's all in his face of like,
• 1:05:05
  oh, yeah, OK, right. We're doing this.
• 1:05:08
  OK, It's great. Oh, you're noisy.
• 1:05:12
  Boiling universe like you said earlier.
• 1:05:15
  Yeah, yeah. Which is just one of those kind
• 1:05:17
  of descriptions that Russell C Davis is particularly good at
• 1:05:22
  that, that evocative stuff. It's the same sort of lines we
• 1:05:25
  had in waters of Mars, isn't it? When she's like we can have so
• 1:05:28
  much water and she's talking about, you know, being in a a
• 1:05:32
  liquid state. No, I guess we're just watching
• 1:05:40
  it now. Yeah, well, it's great, that's
• 1:05:42
  why. Oh, that was a great line as
• 1:05:45
  well. We love letters, don't travel
• 1:05:47
  very far, but all the war and the chaos does.
• 1:05:54
  Yeah, it's very, very, Davis. It's.
• 1:05:57
  Great dialogue. This isn't it.
• 1:06:00
  Yeah, It's one thing I'm quite interested in is because, you
• 1:06:03
  know, oh, that gag is so good. You did where you think it's
• 1:06:08
  going to, you know, bring them safety.
• 1:06:11
  But they actually just flip around again and.
• 1:06:13
  They actually say something like, oh, this is a bit
• 1:06:15
  embarrassing, Ron. Yeah, it reminds me a little bit
• 1:06:20
  of the sofa of reasonable comfort from The Curse of Fatal.
• 1:06:26
  There it. Reminded me of the fireplace and
• 1:06:30
  the girl in the fireplace. Oh, yes, yes, yes, you would.
• 1:06:33
  That's that's another good observation.
• 1:06:36
  This is the second episode in a row where the Doctor and Donna
• 1:06:40
  have been on the opposite side of a transparent sheet of glass
• 1:06:45
  that divides them. I.
• 1:06:46
  Wonder if that's going to occur again in the 3rd episode.
• 1:06:49
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. This certainly this time around,
• 1:06:55
  it's them both trapped on the other side.
• 1:06:57
  Who knows what the it's going to happen in the Giggle.
• 1:07:00
  I cannot stress this enough. They're back and forth and how
• 1:07:03
  they pace their dialogue together.
• 1:07:05
  It's like they finish each other's sentences.
• 1:07:08
  I don't think we've had anything else quite like it.
• 1:07:10
  This pair and I I do think there's been great pairings and
• 1:07:13
  great chemistry and all of that. Just two actors that are
• 1:07:17
  absolutely made for each other. Yeah, well, you know, both in
• 1:07:24
  2011, 2012, I, Catherine Tate and David Tennant both played
• 1:07:31
  Benedict and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing about
• 1:07:35
  Shakespeare. And that's, you know, a pairing
• 1:07:38
  that requires to lead, to have that kind of back and forth
• 1:07:43
  bantress, kind of cheeky, kind of bickering chemistry.
• 1:07:51
  And unsurprisingly, you know, it was, it was glitzy casting, but
• 1:07:56
  they both absolutely smashed it. You can watch that recording of
• 1:07:59
  them playing those two characters and you're just like,
• 1:08:01
  Oh yeah, yeah, these are two actors that are made for each
• 1:08:04
  other. And, you know, I think when the
• 1:08:07
  50th came around, you know, there was a lot of excitement
• 1:08:10
  about Billie Piper and Catherine, Sorry, Billie Piper
• 1:08:15
  and David Tennant being back. But it's not the same as as
• 1:08:18
  this. And it's borne through as well,
• 1:08:21
  because I've seen the reviews come in both from the fans and
• 1:08:24
  from, you know, the important people that write reviews, the
• 1:08:27
  papers. And you know, it has works,
• 1:08:31
  whether it's stunt casting or not.
• 1:08:32
  Bringing them back, it's worked true.
• 1:08:36
  Oh, this shot of the the spacesuit floating around the
• 1:08:39
  ship. Yeah.
• 1:08:43
  Very impossible planet, you know.
• 1:08:47
  I know, but also just how what a grim and really quite a
• 1:08:55
  distressing reveal that this noise hasn't been any kind of,
• 1:09:00
  you know, mechanical clue. It's actually just been the
• 1:09:05
  sound of a body hitting the going round and around forever
• 1:09:11
  for about 3 years. That's quite conceptually
• 1:09:15
  chilling, especially because you know, this is still, this is
• 1:09:19
  still family television. Yeah, I think this and and
• 1:09:23
  probably the giggle as well are going to push that to its to its
• 1:09:26
  edge. Yeah, well, I don't.
• 1:09:29
  I don't know what the giggle has in store for us, but I know
• 1:09:31
  Russell has said we oh, we've got some marionettes and we've
• 1:09:34
  got some puppets. So there's going to be that
• 1:09:37
  freaky, freaky shit coming up. The last time I heard a noise as
• 1:09:42
  as scary as that body hit the side of this ship was that
• 1:09:47
  banging on that shuttle craft at midnight.
• 1:09:50
  I know we keep talking about Midnight, but there are
• 1:09:53
  parallels. Yeah, it it is.
• 1:09:56
  It is probably worth saying that, you know, this is very,
• 1:09:59
  very different from this from from Midnight.
• 1:10:02
  It is. It is, you know, it evokes
• 1:10:06
  Midnight. Probably not deliberately, but
• 1:10:09
  it is a totally different. It's not.
• 1:10:11
  It's not a Midnight remake. It's.
• 1:10:13
  It's very much. The.
• 1:10:14
  Same thing, because the Enemy at Midnight doesn't turn out to be
• 1:10:18
  the the alien does it. It turns out to be the people.
• 1:10:22
  That's right, that's right. Whereas the monster you get here
• 1:10:28
  is it. It's it's midnight.
• 1:10:30
  It's midnight, but without all the people.
• 1:10:33
  Well, and more space as well, there's.
• 1:10:34
  So there's less claustrophobia in this.
• 1:10:37
  Yeah. There's an acting choice that
• 1:10:40
  Tenant makes. Now look at this psychotic gleam
• 1:10:43
  in his eye, where the doctor's thinking through all the answers
• 1:10:46
  and you can sort of feel the doppelganger getting all that
• 1:10:49
  information. Yeah, And as I said earlier, I
• 1:10:52
  think it's so clever that the more the Doctor thinks, the more
• 1:10:55
  the enemy knows. And it's it it it it it makes a
• 1:11:01
  point out of the thing that the Doctor is literally incapable of
• 1:11:07
  doing, which is not figuring it out.
• 1:11:10
  It turns out against him because if he if he does, then they
• 1:11:14
  lose. I I will say this did remind me
• 1:11:18
  of another Rusty Davis episode as well.
• 1:11:20
  Tooth and Claw. Where in that the house that
• 1:11:24
  they are in is a trap for the werewolf, and there are specific
• 1:11:28
  things that are to lead up to that telescope blasting it out
• 1:11:32
  of existence in the end. In the same way that this space
• 1:11:37
  station has been turned into a trap for those two, but you
• 1:11:41
  don't realise that both of them until the end where that's the
• 1:11:44
  foregone conclusion. Yeah, Oh yeah, Fenn's Law Collar
• 1:11:51
  spray, 1098. And as you say, you know, he
• 1:11:55
  goes like, oh, I said from the very beginning I wasn't
• 1:11:58
  Countdown. I just think now as well,
• 1:12:00
  everything now, just the furious pace of this as they're running
• 1:12:04
  down the corridor, The comedy of Donna getting to punch herself
• 1:12:08
  in the face, the way the doctor flings her over her shoulder.
• 1:12:12
  At that point, just everything about this now is just.
• 1:12:16
  I was so gripped and the bit when where we think Donna's
• 1:12:20
  going to die, I leapt out of my seat in a way I haven't for ages
• 1:12:24
  watching Doctor Who. Angry, but but you know, it is.
• 1:12:28
  It is at this moment where, to go back to our original
• 1:12:31
  question, I think this completely justifies the the
• 1:12:34
  secrecy around this episode. Because, you know, as Russell T
• 1:12:40
  Davis says, you know it is dead simple what this story is, if
• 1:12:44
  you're describing it. But reveal too much of it robs
• 1:12:51
  it, robs it of the joy of of watching it, which is to see
• 1:12:56
  this really simple idea explored in such detail.
• 1:13:01
  And how this script has been structured, so it starts off
• 1:13:05
  with basically 0 pace and it ends here with a just a furious
• 1:13:11
  pace, you know, so much excitement and the way it builds
• 1:13:15
  from that for that, yeah, it's. Brilliant.
• 1:13:18
  I'm sure Catherine Chase and David Taylor had great fun
• 1:13:22
  throwing their body double S around for this bit.
• 1:13:25
  What did she say? This is like therapy.
• 1:13:27
  I was like, oh, this is therapeutic.
• 1:13:28
  Oh. This is therapeutic.
• 1:13:30
  Bang. Oh, I'd love.
• 1:13:31
  To touch myself in the face just once, you know, just to shut me
• 1:13:34
  up. Look, yeah, I mean, you've got
• 1:13:37
  so much happening here as well. There's doppelgangers, there's
• 1:13:40
  the robot, there's the CGI of the of the corridor.
• 1:13:43
  Moving like this is pretty truly sort of testing what Doctor Who
• 1:13:48
  can do on television. And of course, you've got some
• 1:13:53
  slightly uncanny valley CGI that is kind of good and kind of bad
• 1:13:58
  at the same time. But what's to say that these
• 1:14:00
  creatures morphing in two versions of the Doctor and Donna
• 1:14:03
  wouldn't look a bit ropey? Well, yeah, exactly, exactly.
• 1:14:07
  That's that's what makes the the design of them so brilliant.
• 1:14:12
  Oh, this is great as well. It totally justifies having the
• 1:14:15
  hands on, doesn't it? That means there's no more
• 1:14:18
  hostile action. Back to film.
• 1:14:21
  It's so incredibly funny to have this weird wild blue Yonder.
• 1:14:27
  Oh, and the surfing thing? The real Back to the Future
• 1:14:30
  surfboard. Thing.
• 1:14:31
  He knows how to use the TARDIS in fun ways, doesn't he Like
• 1:14:36
  like sequence in Runaway bribe with the Taxi?
• 1:14:39
  Yeah, yeah. And that's.
• 1:14:41
  As I said, it's a little bit back to the future too with the
• 1:14:44
  hoverboards, but very fun. And this bit this bit is so good
• 1:14:49
  and I was so clever. Because I was convinced right up
• 1:14:51
  until the point where you see Donna's face in the TARDIS.
• 1:14:54
  Suddenly she walks towards the console and she with a bit of an
• 1:14:57
  A sinister look on her face. Yeah, but what?
• 1:15:01
  But it it again, this is this is such good writing where you know
• 1:15:06
  they've already told the the doppelgangers.
• 1:15:10
  The Doctor has already told them what they need to do, which is
• 1:15:12
  that, you know, human beings and living things in the universe
• 1:15:15
  can hold two completely contradictory thoughts at the
• 1:15:17
  same time. And then right at the end, it
• 1:15:20
  learns that trick. It learns to tell the Doctor
• 1:15:24
  it's just funny and which you know is a perfectly valid
• 1:15:28
  explanation. Whereas what Donna is doing is
• 1:15:30
  trying to come up with a a rational, plausible reason for
• 1:15:34
  why Miss Bean is funny. Oh, Catherine takes face here,
• 1:15:38
  where she thinks this is the moment where she's going to die.
• 1:15:42
  Yeah, yeah, you you like genuinely she's acting.
• 1:15:46
  Her acting is so good. You're really like, could they
• 1:15:49
  do it? Without a line of dialogue as
• 1:15:51
  well, that's not easy. And you don't even need to
• 1:15:55
  believe that they're going to follow up, but just the fact
• 1:15:58
  that they make you think it. She looks scared and she also
• 1:16:01
  looks at peace a little bit as well.
• 1:16:04
  Yeah. As I wonder if we all would if
• 1:16:07
  we were facing that moment of like, oh God, no, not now and
• 1:16:11
  then just like the. Last thing I'm ever going to
• 1:16:13
  hear is Fen's law. Oh, I love that comical sliding
• 1:16:18
  of the other. Yeah, yeah, you just you can
• 1:16:21
  just tell they're going to use this console room in such
• 1:16:24
  ridiculous ways. It's going to be great.
• 1:16:27
  Look at this explosion. 01 of the best ever look.
• 1:16:33
  Boom. Very satisfied.
• 1:16:37
  The last time we watched an explosion Jack in in a Doctor
• 1:16:40
  Who commentary for Nimon be praised was the end of The Horns
• 1:16:46
  of Nimon. When Skonos Power Complex went
• 1:16:50
  up in slow motion, all the egg boxes went up in the air.
• 1:16:52
  How have we come on since then? A little bit but not but not you
• 1:16:58
  know, let's not do 9 on a disservice. 1979 was a bump a
• 1:17:02
  year for for explosions. The.
• 1:17:05
  Halls of No Wonders why we're here at the 1st place, we've got
• 1:17:07
  a lot to thank you for. And what's kind of great about
• 1:17:12
  this scene? Like, you know, they do
• 1:17:14
  obviously have a big hug about what happened.
• 1:17:18
  But what is left unsaid is the doctor did not realize and left
• 1:17:24
  her behind, got very close to leaving her to die.
• 1:17:28
  And that's not they don't address that, I don't think.
• 1:17:32
  And just when you think you've been put through the emotional
• 1:17:34
  wringer enough, who should be outside the TARDIS in a minute?
• 1:17:39
  Yeah, and clearly what they're doing, just before we get to
• 1:17:42
  that, they're doing this. They're they're they're
• 1:17:45
  referencing the toy maker here, aren't they?
• 1:17:47
  They're referencing that you know, he's able to escape his
• 1:17:51
  Toy Maker dimension because invoking superstitions at the
• 1:17:55
  edge of the universe where the walls are thin, that's clearly
• 1:17:58
  setting up the, you know, the the the kind of magic that the
• 1:18:03
  toy maker operates on to let him in.
• 1:18:06
  So it appears this is this is the point where he escaped.
• 1:18:09
  I'm sure we'll learn about that in the next one, but by the time
• 1:18:12
  we land on Earth, he's already been up to his tricks.
• 1:18:15
  Yeah, I think it's kind of nice for Doctor Who to be to be so
• 1:18:20
  clearly like, you know, we're at this, the edge of the universe
• 1:18:24
  where, you know, evoke invoking magic can actually 'cause real
• 1:18:32
  magic to happen. Because we're so far on the
• 1:18:35
  fringe of what real science is that you can bring in this
• 1:18:40
  mystical trickster, toy, toy maker God into the world.
• 1:18:46
  I think that, I think that's a really delightful little bit of
• 1:18:48
  world building then, yes. Supernatural, Jack, Magic,
• 1:18:52
  Science, Magic, Science. Miss Hawthorne.
• 1:18:55
  Science. It always tends to assert itself
• 1:18:58
  eventually. Yeah, also this this scene is is
• 1:19:03
  great. It's very characterful without
• 1:19:06
  having a scene where David Tennant says, well, you know, I
• 1:19:10
  was in the Pandorica for a while and then Amy Pond died and then
• 1:19:14
  and then I was in love with Yasmin Khan for a little bit and
• 1:19:18
  recapping 15 years worth of television to to the audience
• 1:19:22
  and Donna Noble. Donna has the line.
• 1:19:25
  Again, it's a line that only Russell would write because it's
• 1:19:27
  simple, but it's evocative, he said.
• 1:19:30
  Donna says looking into your mind, it's like looking into a
• 1:19:32
  furnace. That's all you need, I think.
• 1:19:36
  I think Moffett would make it more poetic that line.
• 1:19:39
  Yeah, he would make a bit of a speech out of it.
• 1:19:42
  And Chibno, as you said, would give you every detail looking
• 1:19:47
  into your mind and that bit where you went to the night
• 1:19:50
  terrors, flat block, you know. Oh, here he is.
• 1:19:57
  It's what he sees. The doctor.
• 1:19:58
  The doctor goes, oh, who's right in the world now or something
• 1:20:02
  like that, doesn't it? It's the only film.
• 1:20:08
  It's the only scene he filmed, isn't it This.
• 1:20:10
  I know, and I know they had more written for him, but isn't it
• 1:20:14
  just just gorgeous that they they managed to get even this
• 1:20:18
  with him just so, so close to when he passed away?
• 1:20:21
  No. When he holds out his hands and
• 1:20:23
  he goes that face, yeah, how is it that Bernard Cribbins can do
• 1:20:28
  that sort of sort of reach into your heart like that, unlike
• 1:20:30
  anyone else? And you know, even though he's
• 1:20:34
  9093 here and in a wheelchair, he doesn't.
• 1:20:40
  The energy in his and charisma in his, in his glimpse of a
• 1:20:46
  performance, is still all there. It's still undiminished by, you
• 1:20:54
  know, 15 years passing. It's so we're so lucky to have
• 1:20:57
  him back. We really, really are, yeah.
• 1:21:00
  And I just saw Twitter artists and everyone was saying about,
• 1:21:04
  you know how much they love the episode, but the bulk of it was
• 1:21:07
  like and an equipment was back at the end.
• 1:21:11
  Yeah, yeah. And like, I don't think.
• 1:21:16
  I think Bernie Cribbins probably is the single most beloved thing
• 1:21:20
  in the show. I think everybody is like Bernie
• 1:21:24
  Cribbins. We love him to bits.
• 1:21:25
  Oh, how wonderful. Wasn't that good?
• 1:21:27
  How bloody good. And what a great segue into the
• 1:21:30
  next one as well. The reason why I think the next
• 1:21:32
  one is going to be really quite scary is because one is tying
• 1:21:37
  into something that really scares me anyway and that is
• 1:21:39
  people behaving irrationally. Violently.
• 1:21:42
  Oh, I know you're going to say puppets.
• 1:21:43
  That sort of crowd mentality. And secondly, he just blew up a
• 1:21:46
  plane at the end of that. Like that's quite adult for the
• 1:21:50
  end of a Doctor Who story. Yeah, I I mean, I will.
• 1:21:54
  I When I saw it the first time, I wasn't sure if we were going
• 1:21:57
  to see, you know that shot in the trailer of what's it?
• 1:22:04
  Oh, Neil Patrick Harris. When he does that like, creepy
• 1:22:07
  wave and he's got the top hat on on the bow tie.
• 1:22:10
  I thought he was going to do that little.
• 1:22:13
  But I guess they're saving all all of that goodness for next
• 1:22:16
  week. Yeah, sorry.
• 1:22:17
  This week, actually. You.
• 1:22:19
  Marry in it, pop it in it as well, and they are terrifying.
• 1:22:23
  Yeah, yeah, I and yeah, all that goodness to come.
• 1:22:27
  But what? What?
• 1:22:28
  What a, what a great thing to to give us.
• 1:22:31
  What a gift. Yeah, it's it's unique, isn't
• 1:22:34
  it? It feels truly unique and it's
• 1:22:38
  like we've we've had big continuity fests like Power of
• 1:22:42
  the Doctor and I think that's what's coming in the Giggle.
• 1:22:45
  We have had fun and fluffy adventures like the Starbase.
• 1:22:48
  I'm not sure. I feel like this is the unique
• 1:22:51
  one of the three. This is this is the for me.
• 1:22:53
  This is probably going to be the the the special of the specials.
• 1:22:57
  Yeah, because because you know you don't.
• 1:23:02
  You not to say, not to in any way describe it as ordinary,
• 1:23:07
  because it isn't. But you know when people say you
• 1:23:12
  know the Day of the Doctor is their favorite episode, or you
• 1:23:15
  know even Blink is their favorite episode, it that's not
• 1:23:18
  really what the show is like week in and week out.
• 1:23:21
  Whereas Wild Blue Yonder, even though it it is quite
• 1:23:26
  extraordinary and quite unique and quite different, it is
• 1:23:30
  probably a bit more representative of what the show
• 1:23:34
  is and can be. Spaceships and straps and
• 1:23:37
  countdowns and bombs and doppelgangers.
• 1:23:41
  But also really wonderful character stuff.
• 1:23:43
  Really wonderful, you know relationships and and and real
• 1:23:47
  emotions. So it is it is probably quite a
• 1:23:52
  great encapsulation of what the what the show because you know
• 1:23:58
  it probably what it does I think quite well is it.
• 1:24:03
  It is a little old school. It does have a bit of a it's
• 1:24:09
  approached I I know we talked a lot about midnight, but the the,
• 1:24:14
  the setup of it is very classic Doctor Who, you know, arriving
• 1:24:17
  on a spaceship and exploring and figuring out why, what's going
• 1:24:21
  on. It's actually, you know what it
• 1:24:23
  is? It's a Terry Nation part one.
• 1:24:25
  It's the Doctor and the companion landing.
• 1:24:27
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And not meeting many other
• 1:24:29
  people and a load of mysteries chalking up.
• 1:24:32
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
• 1:24:34
  It it, it, it had it, it tips its hat to that kind of
• 1:24:39
  storytelling. But it marries that with all the
• 1:24:45
  the great innovations that the with the biggest innovation that
• 1:24:48
  the the the revival has brought, which is you know, the character
• 1:24:53
  work and the depth of characterization and the depth
• 1:24:56
  of and the the quality of the acting that you get on the show.
• 1:25:01
  Now I've got to be careful with that.
• 1:25:03
  I'm not not to suggest that the classic series was poorly acted,
• 1:25:06
  but you are getting 2 performers at the absolute in in Prime in
• 1:25:14
  the prime of their their acting prowess, which seems to be every
• 1:25:19
  time they're on on screen together.
• 1:25:21
  What what it does with the tropes, which are well worn
• 1:25:26
  tropes, is something unexpected and unsettling with them, I
• 1:25:30
  think mostly because of the visuals.
• 1:25:33
  But the extraordinary thing it does is it just twists this
• 1:25:37
  whole thing into I'm going to be bold, one of the best
• 1:25:42
  performance pieces you're going to see in the entire run of
• 1:25:45
  Doctor Who, and for that you need, like you say, quality
• 1:25:49
  actors. And we've got them and they
• 1:25:51
  deliver. And that's why it's spectacular.
• 1:25:54
  Yeah. And and as far as I, as I'm
• 1:25:57
  aware and may, I might be a bit insulated, but I think the
• 1:26:01
  response to this episode has been really, really good, yeah.
• 1:26:06
  I did. I've seen a few outliers, but
• 1:26:08
  overall I think it's been overwhelming.
• 1:26:09
  Yeah, because I think the Star Beast, you know, was generally
• 1:26:13
  pretty well received, but there was plenty of discussion about
• 1:26:16
  all the. Things that did.
• 1:26:18
  Yes, probably for probably for worse.
• 1:26:22
  I would, I'd be more inclined to say.
• 1:26:24
  I think some of those people, not as many, have been banging
• 1:26:27
  on about the colour blind casting, but not as many.
• 1:26:32
  Oh yeah, Well, I I think at some point you've just got to realise
• 1:26:38
  this is just what the show is now and this is what it's doing.
• 1:26:41
  Ian Levy wonderfully said in one of his tweets.
• 1:26:43
  Obviously he's complaining about the cub line, glassing and how
• 1:26:46
  Rusty Davis, who he declared a hero when he heard he was coming
• 1:26:50
  back from Chris Chibnall, Now you know he's the worst thing
• 1:26:53
  that ever happens. He he only goes from zero out of
• 1:26:56
  10 to 10 out of 10. Ian Levy And that's his two
• 1:26:58
  scales. He wouldn't want it any other
• 1:27:00
  way. He said.
• 1:27:01
  I was really enjoying this until the colour blind casting.
• 1:27:04
  I'm like, but that's three seconds into the episode you
• 1:27:06
  enjoyed 3 seconds. What can Hey, can't a man just
• 1:27:11
  be happy with England 1666? It was a beautiful house, Jack.
• 1:27:17
  What a great year that was. Well, I know.
• 1:27:22
  Maverty was discovered. Oh dear.
• 1:27:25
  You know what? That man sucks all the maverty
• 1:27:27
  out of the room. That's his problem.
• 1:27:31
  I'm sure you want to go to bed as it is now an obscene hour.
• 1:27:34
  Would you please do me the honour?
• 1:27:36
  We can do this quickly of choosing 3 things that you would
• 1:27:39
  recommend about this episode. You go first.
• 1:27:41
  Me. Back to you.
• 1:27:43
  All right, in Lightning speed, Catherine Tate.
• 1:27:48
  David Tennant. Russell T Davis.
• 1:27:50
  But if I'm going to be less cheeky, I was.
• 1:27:53
  Going to say you've got to leave me something.
• 1:27:57
  I would say, oh a great mystery, a wonderful, wonderful character
• 1:28:05
  work and awesome special effects.
• 1:28:10
  OK, I'm going to say, because somebody we didn't mention
• 1:28:14
  throughout this is Murray Gold, who I think came back in the
• 1:28:18
  star beast, delivering all the cues I'm used to hearing from
• 1:28:21
  him in Series 4. Actually he does it right back
• 1:28:27
  here and he allows for a lot of silences and the music's very
• 1:28:31
  ambient. Dare I say he might have even
• 1:28:35
  learnt a couple of lessons from second Akanola, which was his,
• 1:28:39
  which was his beef in series 11 certainly was that sort of more
• 1:28:44
  ambient music and it works to the the benefit of this.
• 1:28:49
  My second thing is going to be the special effects sequence,
• 1:28:53
  specifically the one where she melts, just because I think it's
• 1:28:56
  a brilliant fusion of performance and special effects.
• 1:29:01
  But also it walks that fine line between being funny and weirdly
• 1:29:08
  quite gross and unsettling. So it's it's a brilliant scene.
• 1:29:12
  And finally, the last 10 minutes, which is as excited as
• 1:29:16
  I have been watching Doctor Who for many, many a year.
• 1:29:20
  And I was tricked into something I never should have been tricked
• 1:29:23
  into. But because he's a clever man,
• 1:29:25
  he made me feel as if I was going to lose my precious donor.
• 1:29:28
  And for that, he's a very bad man indeed.
• 1:29:32
  And we will never forgive him. No, until next week, We'll watch
• 1:29:35
  the giggle. Until next week, get rid of him.
• 1:29:37
  Get rid of this Davis guy. He's not doing any good.
• 1:29:40
  Too much wokeness, whatever that means.
• 1:29:44
  Whatever. Wow, Jack.
• 1:29:46
  This collaboration of the 9 Monbi Praise stroke hamster, a
• 1:29:51
  blunt penknife, has now come to an end.
• 1:29:52
  It will be released on both platforms, so take your choice.
• 1:29:56
  I'm sure we've got two different audiences, so whoever's at,
• 1:29:59
  yeah. Because there is no overlap
• 1:30:01
  whatsoever. There is some, but you know what
• 1:30:03
  a lot younger people listen to because I get the the ages stats
• 1:30:08
  and for Hamster it's mostly between 30 and 50, and for
• 1:30:12
  Naimon it's mostly between 20 and 40.
• 1:30:16
  Oh, there you go. Well, for the 20 something year
• 1:30:19
  olds out there, this one's for you.
• 1:30:22
  I just certainly hope that we can find time to record again
• 1:30:26
  very soon. Yeah, I think we should.
• 1:30:29
  It's it's we're we're not bad at this.
• 1:30:32
  We're still here. Simple.
• 1:30:33
  We've managed to keep going for over an hour.
• 1:30:35
  Should we? Should we?
• 1:30:36
  End in the So congratulatory Pardon.
• 1:30:38
  Oh, yes, yes. Sorry.
• 1:30:39
  I'll, I'll skip along. Sorry.
• 1:30:40
  Yeah, I see. I'm off my game.
• 1:30:44
  Wait, which one are we doing? Are we doing which?
• 1:30:47
  Let's end the nine one way. That's the more fun way to end
• 1:30:49
  the. The Nine One way That sounds
• 1:30:51
  like a great podcast. Oh no, wait.
• 1:30:52
  And then I'll put in my last line.
• 1:30:54
  I always put it on hamster. All right, all right.
• 1:30:57
  A3A2A1 the 9 the 9 won't be praised.
• 1:31:00
  Oh wow. And I'll cut it there.