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Strictly Come Hamster - Series 12 · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:35
  Welcome back to Strictly Come Hamster.
• 0:37
  I am one of your hosts today and in my usual style of preparing
• 0:43
  Soddle for this podcast, I will immediately hand you over to my
• 0:47
  Co host, Mr. Rod Brown, who knows all the rules and
• 0:50
  everything. He's basically my podcast wife.
• 0:52
  Over to you, Rod. Podcast wife or podcast
• 0:54
  secretary? I'm not sure which.
• 0:57
  Perform both adeptly. I have to.
• 0:59
  Say thank you thank you. But yeah, don't reveal too much.
• 1:02
  Yeah it's good to be back and we're doing we're back into
• 1:05
  modern series who I think last time we certainly set a few cats
• 1:09
  amongst the pigeons with our season 18 review which.
• 1:12
  I've attracted quite. A bit of comment online.
• 1:15
  So tonight we're courting more controversy with a series which
• 1:19
  I'm sure we won't have different views on at all.
• 1:22
  It's Jodie Whittaker's second series as The Doctor Series 12.
• 1:26
  So yeah. And again, of course, we're
• 1:28
  joined by two very special guests tonight who are going to
• 1:31
  help us decide which story is going to lift that much sought
• 1:34
  after, the cushion, glitter ball and who's being sent home to
• 1:37
  Peas Pottage. So let's welcome today's guests.
• 1:40
  Dylan, would you like to introduce yourself?
• 1:42
  Hello, I'm Dylan, Jodie Whittaker fanboy season 12 Stan
• 1:47
  and host of the podcast Doctor Who Too Hot for TV.
• 1:50
  Welcome, I'm David. Hello, I'm David Gillespie Pratt
• 1:54
  and I'm the unknown element in this conversation because I have
• 1:58
  deliberately kept my views on this season to myself, so I'm
• 2:03
  ready to see how this goes. David's been teasing us for days
• 2:08
  with refusing to say what his feelings are.
• 2:11
  I think we're all playing our cards a little bit close to
• 2:13
  chest, but David has been completely zipped up so we've
• 2:16
  got no idea where he's going tonight.
• 2:18
  I've got a feeling, you know, I've got to sort of predict
• 2:20
  this, that he's going to be one of those cheeky gifts that's
• 2:23
  really contrary. So all the accepted sort of
• 2:26
  classics or highlights of this season, he's going to height.
• 2:30
  Yeah, there's loads of them. There's tons of them and all the
• 2:34
  ones that no one likes. He's got a champion.
• 2:37
  Oh. I think you might be
• 2:39
  disappointed. Or surprised that's.
• 2:43
  Fine. Now, so before we get into the
• 2:45
  story, should we just start a we've been actually inundated
• 2:49
  with people's opinions, opinions online?
• 2:51
  Who knew? Should we just look at a couple
• 2:54
  of them before we get into the panel's thoughts?
• 2:58
  Luke Malloy, because you loved this stuff.
• 3:01
  Please can I read out Luke Malloy's comments on season 12?
• 3:05
  Yes. OK, so Luke Malloy has to say,
• 3:08
  Not one new idea in the entire season.
• 3:11
  A TARDIS team with no reason to travel with each other, Stories
• 3:15
  fluctuating between bad, boring, and brainless.
• 3:18
  Whittaker was a miscast lead, A choice that fails to make any of
• 3:22
  the show work stale and aimless. The worst season?
• 3:26
  Grim. Uninspiring.
• 3:28
  I'm confident. TV Splurge.
• 3:31
  And that was the end of strictly come up stuff.
• 3:36
  Something we need to say anymore?
• 3:38
  I'd like you to read out, Jim. Allenby's comment please.
• 3:41
  I'm going to force myself to read out Jim Allenby, who said
• 3:44
  series 12 is nearly perfect. It's where Jodie really finds
• 3:48
  her feat 13 and Sasha's master is one of the show's great
• 3:52
  pairings. Each story brings something to
• 3:54
  the table and like it or loathe it and I love it.
• 3:57
  The timeless children gave the show an injection of something
• 4:00
  new. Johnny Morris says very
• 4:02
  succinctly. It was better than Series 11.
• 4:05
  You can take that in a number of different ways, Ross says.
• 4:09
  The pros, cinematography, music production design, Bradley
• 4:13
  Walsh, Sasha Dewan, the Doctor and the tux, fugitive of the
• 4:16
  Judoon. But the cons?
• 4:18
  Unresolved storylines, unresolved and pointless
• 4:21
  characters, all other companions, and the Doctor's
• 4:23
  dialogue. James Lark says I found series
• 4:27
  11 admirable in many ways, but lacklustre, so 12 took me by
• 4:31
  surprise. Fun, funny, Much better looking
• 4:34
  than the previous year. It's main floor is substituting
• 4:37
  narrative with revelations, which creates an artificial
• 4:40
  sense of drama but doesn't build story.
• 4:43
  Jason Thompson said overall this season is hugely significant and
• 4:47
  pulled out some great surprises, but still seems disjointed and
• 4:50
  poorly conceived. Completely ignoring the whole
• 4:53
  Missy arc and bringing back The Master was a misstep.
• 4:55
  Surely just a line or two could have been added.
• 4:58
  So it's a big season, but bitty and poorly put together and the
• 5:02
  best episodes are the ones that stand on their own.
• 5:05
  Sorry, Jason, I love you. But why are people so bloody
• 5:07
  obsessed with knowing this master chronology like it's that
• 5:11
  important We Doctor Who? Fans.
• 5:14
  Yeah, but the, the the whole, and I'm sure we'll get us into
• 5:16
  this, but the whole thing that the Master does is show up at
• 5:18
  completely reset every time. And they go, oh, how did you
• 5:22
  escape from so and so like, that is the cliche.
• 5:24
  And boy, does this season stick to some cliches, Chris.
• 5:28
  Curtis says better than the previous one.
• 5:31
  Had some nice ideas and plot beats, but never really
• 5:34
  executed. 45 minutes is not enough time for a hoop plot with
• 5:38
  multiple companions. The Doctor's role was weakened
• 5:40
  to fit them. Look how effective Joe Martin is
• 5:43
  as the Doctor without companions.
• 5:45
  I also feel that this series struggled tonally because of the
• 5:47
  insistence of jumping time zones and places.
• 5:51
  It happened quite a lot this season and it was an attempt to
• 5:53
  create drama. Instead it just Jarred and
• 5:56
  confused things. And finally for this batch,
• 5:59
  Simon Hart said. Personally, I rather like it.
• 6:02
  Lovely, varied settings. Some highs in fugitive and
• 6:05
  praxis. Yes, it's great.
• 6:07
  Spy Fall is a really exciting start.
• 6:10
  Can you hear me? Is a really different and great
• 6:12
  story. And I have no problem with the
• 6:13
  children, timeless children either.
• 6:16
  So that's some views from the Ham fan.
• 6:19
  Should we go in and see what? I guess Then yeah.
• 6:21
  We've got to start with David, haven't we?
• 6:23
  He's, he's, he's, This is just a.
• 6:26
  Sort of general overview of the C channel.
• 6:28
  With you. OK, so I will be on.
• 6:31
  I haven't watched Series 12 since broadcast until about two
• 6:34
  weeks ago, and as I shared a Facebook post from my memories
• 6:39
  four years ago, which is about four years since.
• 6:41
  Or from 55 which I hated. And and I was one of those I it.
• 6:47
  I've watched Doctor Who since I was about 10.
• 6:49
  This is the close. It was the closest I got to
• 6:52
  tapping out because it was just what the hell is going on.
• 6:56
  I liked by four part one. And then we'll come on to what I
• 7:00
  made of Part 2. So when this came out, when Rods
• 7:05
  got in touch and said do you want to do Series 12, I was on
• 7:07
  the verge of saying I'm washing my hair that night, No, I can't
• 7:10
  do it because partly because it's like I don't know if I've
• 7:13
  got anything good to say about it because it was a series at
• 7:15
  the time I just didn't enjoy. So I went back and and went back
• 7:19
  with low expectation. And partly because I see
• 7:22
  sometimes some very passionate people saying it's the best
• 7:25
  ever. And I was thinking this is for
• 7:27
  me, it's like this is the worst ever.
• 7:28
  So the more people get passionate, the more contrary I
• 7:30
  was getting. So it's like the more I didn't
• 7:33
  want to watch it, the more people told me that I should.
• 7:35
  And I enjoyed it a lot more second time round than I did
• 7:40
  first. I think judging it on its own
• 7:42
  merits rather than what I thought it should be and what
• 7:46
  came after and everything. So it is a gorgeous season.
• 7:50
  I think it's got some the best visuals of the revived series.
• 7:54
  I think the direction at times is incredibly good, same as a
• 7:58
  lot of production design my my issues.
• 8:02
  Some of the dialogue is horrible and clunky and there's a weird
• 8:07
  thing that I noticed this time round and it's because somebody
• 8:09
  pointed it out once you once you spot it, you can't not spot it.
• 8:13
  It's all these extra lines of exposition that have been added
• 8:17
  to describe things that we're actually seeing on screen at
• 8:19
  times. Like, we've got a big finished
• 8:21
  script that they've filmed. So there's the.
• 8:23
  That's exactly what. I've written down that's in my
• 8:26
  notes. There's a bit, the two bits that
• 8:28
  stick out. There's one in fugitive where
• 8:30
  the the tractor beam is taking the TARDIS aboard the Juju ship
• 8:33
  and they've dubbed in a line saying they've got us an
• 8:35
  attractor beam they're taking us about.
• 8:36
  Yes, we can see that. And the other one is the
• 8:38
  Siberian leaving Shelley and you've got Yas going, it's the
• 8:41
  Siberian, it's leaving him. Yes, we know we can see it.
• 8:45
  So the the the those those, those are, those are my niggles.
• 8:47
  That's the kind of where I sit. But you said you were 10 years
• 8:50
  old. You first started watching
• 8:51
  Doctor Who. Yes.
• 8:53
  Whereabouts was that? What was your first sort of
• 8:55
  story? That's a tough one.
• 8:56
  When did I? I think I became a fan with The
• 8:58
  Planet of The Planet of the Daleks repeats.
• 9:01
  Because I was just thinking about that line in Laguppe Show.
• 9:03
  He was the Doctor all the time. Doctor Who's always got
• 9:06
  expository lines in it. Look at the Steven Moffitt
• 9:09
  script. They're absolutely crammed full
• 9:11
  of expository lines. It's just a lot wittier and
• 9:13
  that's why he gets away with it. And and I think because the this
• 9:18
  the because some of the rest of the dialogue just doesn't it's
• 9:21
  quite functional. And the The thing is that
• 9:23
  Moffett, I'm trying not to say judge it in comparison to other
• 9:27
  things. Let's say I want to look at it
• 9:29
  on its own judge it on its own merits.
• 9:33
  And I think sometimes The thing is Moffett's dialogue was clever
• 9:35
  but I always felt Steven Moffett was trying to write slogans for
• 9:38
  T-shirts and lines for trailers then writing sometimes good
• 9:42
  dialogue. I think of the three modern
• 9:43
  Shogun as Russell's kind of got that good balance between
• 9:46
  something quotable, but actually something that works as
• 9:49
  dialogue. So I think yes, it's a bit more
• 9:52
  natural it's less showy, showy than Moffat's dialogue but at
• 9:55
  times it's just a bit clumsy. But I I, you know I I wrote more
• 10:00
  positive notes than I expected and I've got you know, it's not
• 10:03
  all they're not all for the bin. So I've got some some for some
• 10:07
  positive reviews coming up. Yeah, look.
• 10:09
  Well, I suppose I've sort of had an opposite.
• 10:13
  I mean, I didn't, I should say I didn't come to this and go, oh,
• 10:15
  actually, I don't like it this time.
• 10:16
  But in terms of coming to the first time around, I didn't like
• 10:20
  series 11 when it went out. I didn't dislike it.
• 10:23
  I just thought it was all a bit flat.
• 10:25
  I've since revised that opinion quite a lot and love it once
• 10:28
  you've sort of got used to the change of tone and the change of
• 10:32
  pace and what it's trying to do, and also when it ceases to
• 10:35
  become the most important bit of Doctor Who because it's the
• 10:37
  brand new episode, you can just sort of take it as it comes.
• 10:41
  So I went into this season with very low expectations when I
• 10:44
  first watched it, and I thought it was a riot from start to
• 10:48
  finish. You know how everybody goes now,
• 10:50
  Doctor Who's back. That's what I felt like after
• 10:53
  not having my ups and downs with the Moffett era.
• 10:57
  But I just thought it was the best, the Doctor Who's ever been
• 11:00
  when it was broadcast. And there's still some of it
• 11:03
  that I think absolutely there's one episode I will point out in
• 11:07
  here that I think is the best episode of the new series and
• 11:11
  probably not the one you expect. It's not all from 55.
• 11:14
  I know you may have told me this.
• 11:16
  I think I know. But I just thought, I think I
• 11:19
  think it's got some fantastic scripts.
• 11:21
  I do I will concede that perhaps exposition isn't his strong
• 11:25
  point in terms of how he delivers it.
• 11:27
  But also remembering that this is you know on a on this is sort
• 11:31
  of high concept sci-fi for a family audience on a Saturday,
• 11:34
  sometime on a Sunday, sorry. Sometimes you have to, sometimes
• 11:38
  you have to over explain in a way that you know when Moffett
• 11:41
  was putting it out at half eight when it was trying to be a high
• 11:44
  end drama. You don't necessarily need to do
• 11:46
  that. But I think visually, visually
• 11:48
  special effects, the direction, the set design, the location
• 11:52
  choice, the epic nature of time zones and countries and worlds
• 11:56
  and planets. I think it's the biggest and
• 11:58
  best Doctor Who has ever looked and that sort of runs throughout
• 12:01
  the whole era for me. And as I often remark offline, I
• 12:05
  think it's a shame that that's been lost.
• 12:07
  And Doctor Who suddenly looks a lot cheaper and a lot less
• 12:09
  ambitious because of it. So this is the man.
• 12:13
  Who gave Starbeast a review? 2 out of 10.
• 12:19
  What a disgrace. Shall I tell you what I think,
• 12:23
  Joe? So we get the negative out of
• 12:24
  the way before the positive. Yeah, go for it.
• 12:26
  I've got that. I don't hate the the Chipno era,
• 12:30
  so I'm going to put my cards on the table to start with.
• 12:31
  I'm not going to be waving placards.
• 12:33
  My father Ted. Not my kind of thing, but I have
• 12:36
  problems with it. It just doesn't fire me up the
• 12:38
  same way that other areas have done, and I think there's kind
• 12:41
  of three reasons for that. One of them is I think the
• 12:45
  Tribunal era has got a lack of consistency of tone and I think
• 12:48
  of all the other areas adopted, Whether it's let, whether it's
• 12:51
  Hinch clip, whether it's a Cartmell era, there's a
• 12:54
  consistency to the way they're delivering stories.
• 12:57
  You think about the modern era, Russell's big bold sci-fi ideas,
• 13:00
  there's loads of heart, loads of humour, lots of characters.
• 13:04
  Steven Moffett, much more focused on story, timey, wimey,
• 13:07
  intricate plotting. I just don't get what chibnall
• 13:11
  shtick is, because each of his three seasons are so very, very
• 13:16
  different. I just don't get what he's
• 13:19
  aiming at as a whole. What's he trying to do with
• 13:21
  Doctor Who? And sometimes that makes me feel
• 13:24
  that the the whole is less than the sum of its parts.
• 13:27
  It just feels a bit empty, a bit directionless, a bit visionless.
• 13:31
  I mean, I'll give you a really silly example, but it's kind of
• 13:33
  symptomatic of what I mean. So the opening of the show, we
• 13:36
  sometimes get the opening music. We sometimes don't.
• 13:39
  We sometimes get a cold opener. We sometimes don't.
• 13:43
  And that might be because various stories fit in.
• 13:45
  But the feeling to me as a viewer is you just don't really
• 13:48
  quite know what you're doing. You don't know what you're going
• 13:51
  for. It chops and changes too much.
• 13:53
  That isn't that consistency. And that's not all stories need
• 13:57
  to be the same. Because I look up, let's pick
• 13:59
  RTD in his first run. You get a slew of different
• 14:02
  types of stories, but there is a consistency.
• 14:05
  You know, that's Russell's vision of Doctor Who, and I
• 14:08
  don't get that feeling across the whole of the tenure from
• 14:10
  Chipnall. So that's one of my kind of big
• 14:13
  bugs with him. The second one, ironically these
• 14:16
  guys have already picked up is the horrible dialogue at times.
• 14:20
  One, you're right is very, very exposition.
• 14:22
  I pulled one line out from Orphan 55.
• 14:25
  The doctor arrives and says, oh, when she arrives in the in the
• 14:29
  hospital in 14th century century Syria, she says Biz maritime,
• 14:34
  that means sick place. This must be one of the oldest
• 14:37
  hospitals in the world. Of course, Islamic physicians
• 14:41
  were known for the enlightened ways they treated people with
• 14:44
  mental health problems. How is that?
• 14:46
  Dialogue, that is the most. That is a sound educational fact
• 14:51
  for the children. What you got to remember there's
• 14:53
  that Moffett forgot there were kids watching and didn't explain
• 14:56
  anything or deliver any factual information.
• 14:59
  It was all a load of Gus. And I could imagine William
• 15:01
  Hartnell saying that line too. And he's the governor.
• 15:03
  You can't fuck with him. You.
• 15:05
  I don't think he was in like mental Health prime.
• 15:08
  Hang on, hang on. In the toy medal, he has a whole
• 15:10
  sequence standing there on his own figuring out where he is.
• 15:14
  And he's like, ah, yes, and then William, the Congress was coming
• 15:16
  over there, which means it must be 1066.
• 15:19
  But Joe, we're not in 1965 anymore.
• 15:22
  No Boston pity Doctor Who was amazing back then.
• 15:25
  So I think the Expeditionary dialogue is horrible.
• 15:28
  I also hate what he does to Jodie, and this is what I feel
• 15:32
  he he burdens Jodie's doctor a little bit.
• 15:34
  He gives her the kind of quirky, so-called humorous dialogue, and
• 15:38
  it doesn't land. I mean, I quoted a previous
• 15:41
  podcast when she said, oh, serious tax skills.
• 15:44
  That's about with AZ. Like what?
• 15:47
  And in all from 55, it's just, she says to Kane.
• 15:50
  Oh, I could have made you out of a box of crayons and a tin of
• 15:54
  spam. I know so many people.
• 15:56
  That's their favorite line of dialogue in the new series.
• 15:58
  What does that mean? Is that supposed to be funny?
• 16:00
  It's. Yes, it's the sort of bollocks
• 16:02
  Matt Smith came out with every week.
• 16:04
  Oh, get out of here. Come on, we.
• 16:07
  We had, we had in the Steven Moffett era that the Doctor not
• 16:10
  knowing what a woman was or what make up was and things like
• 16:13
  that. It's like, oh, I don't hear
• 16:15
  what's the table. I've never been upstairs before.
• 16:18
  Oh no, no. The humorous dialogue and the
• 16:21
  exposition dialogue is horrible. And I'm also, I'm going to get
• 16:25
  these guys shouting at me. The third reason I don't
• 16:27
  necessarily commit with this season as much is the
• 16:30
  companions. I think 3 companions is just too
• 16:33
  much. We'll go through this series.
• 16:36
  There are so many times Graham and Ryan, It's always Ryan,
• 16:40
  Graham and Ryan, or Yas and Ryan are just stood in the
• 16:43
  background, smiling gormlessly at the camera as their pans
• 16:46
  round them. They have so little to do.
• 16:49
  One companion, you know, it's great.
• 16:51
  It would have been great if it just been Yaz and the Doctor.
• 16:54
  It'd been really nice to see two women front and central.
• 16:57
  It works really well. I think in flux where you've got
• 16:59
  Dan and Yaz. They work really well, but three
• 17:02
  is just too much. So those are some of our
• 17:04
  problems. Having said that, in series 12,
• 17:07
  I do think Shibnall is starting to shape out what he wants to
• 17:10
  do. And I do think there are some
• 17:12
  big and bold and interesting ideas in this series.
• 17:16
  So I will be saying some positive things.
• 17:18
  I did notice they're rewatching it, how many times he's
• 17:21
  repeating RTD in this series. So we've got the Master hiding
• 17:25
  behind that apparently sympathetic character.
• 17:27
  We've got the destruction of Gallifrey.
• 17:30
  We've got celebrity historicals. We've got Captain Jack, We've
• 17:33
  got prophecies, lots of prophecies.
• 17:35
  We've got the Chameleon Arch coming back, we've got Cybermen
• 17:39
  coming back, We've got an emotionally damaged Dr. and
• 17:42
  we've even got a surprise enemy popping up at the end and the
• 17:44
  Doctor going what, what, what into the Christmas cliffhanger.
• 17:49
  So a lot of RTD. And the final irony is there's
• 17:52
  also quite a bit of season 23, which obviously, as we are,
• 17:56
  Christian was famous for going on TV and berating.
• 17:59
  So we have Orphan 55 copying mimicking mysterious planet with
• 18:04
  the Earth based underground station, and we even have a
• 18:07
  morally dubious alternative version of the Doctor a la the
• 18:11
  Valliard. Was, he said in that interview.
• 18:15
  There wasn't much to it. Was there there?
• 18:16
  Wasn't much to it, which is the perfect summary of the tribunal
• 18:20
  era. I don't think we can criticize
• 18:23
  Doctor Who for repeating itself, because at least half of those
• 18:25
  RTD isms were also repeated from other periods of Doctor Who.
• 18:30
  Doctor Who is famous for recycling itself.
• 18:32
  And wasn't it Steven Moffett that basically said, the only
• 18:35
  two reveals you've got in Doctor Who are it's the Master or it's
• 18:39
  another Doctor. So there you go, I.
• 18:42
  Was noticing that list you just did detail.
• 18:45
  There were all ideas that Moffett dealt with as well.
• 18:47
  And anyone who starts saying John Hurt was an original idea
• 18:50
  that is basically the Valley art again.
• 18:52
  So it's it's all been done before, yeah.
• 18:55
  Yeah, it's just it's just squeezed into a short number of
• 18:58
  episodes. Joe, let's turn to you because
• 19:02
  I'm sure you need to be a beam of positivity.
• 19:04
  Well, my first reason is the inconsistency of tone, which I
• 19:08
  really love in this era, because I feel like there's a horrible,
• 19:12
  smug sense of sitcomness about the Steven Moffett era was
• 19:16
  suddenly we're in in an era where you can go from something
• 19:19
  like a dark historical like Punjab to, you know, an
• 19:24
  interesting take on Amazon in the future in what was that
• 19:27
  called again? Kablam to the absolute, you
• 19:31
  know, weirdness of it takes you away.
• 19:33
  I feel like it's Doctor Who distilled to jump from one thing
• 19:36
  to One of my favorite seasons in the classic series is Season 3,
• 19:39
  and it's all over the place tonally.
• 19:41
  And it's amazing. Doctor Who can cope with all of
• 19:44
  these tones and it should be doing different things.
• 19:47
  My second reason is the dialogue, because I I got really
• 19:51
  annoyed with all those fucking jokes in the past era.
• 19:54
  They were so annoying. Nobody spoke like a person.
• 19:57
  Suddenly the dialogue's come down to a more naturalistic
• 20:01
  level and I'm actually hearing words that people might actually
• 20:04
  say in my life. So suddenly I can start
• 20:06
  believing in the companions again.
• 20:08
  And they're not, you know, these mad plot devices from the Dawn
• 20:10
  of time or whatever Riversong and Clara and all that bunch
• 20:13
  were. I think this is a really
• 20:16
  expensive looking season. It's probably as close as Doctor
• 20:18
  Who got to sort of looking like a movie in it's time.
• 20:21
  And I think Dylan's right. I think our host power of the
• 20:24
  Doctor, the show does look cheaper than it did, which
• 20:27
  really surprises me with all that Mickey Mouse money being
• 20:30
  poured in. It's a hugely ambitious year as
• 20:32
  well. Most importantly of all, what I
• 20:35
  love about 12 is it delivers promises at the beginning of the
• 20:39
  season, the destruction of Gallifrey, big secrets coming,
• 20:43
  and then it delivers on those promises at the end of the
• 20:46
  season in a way that so many of those arcs we've had before
• 20:50
  failed dismally. You might not like the answers,
• 20:53
  but it actually says we're going to give you this, and then it
• 20:56
  gives you this, and it does it through a series of surprises.
• 21:00
  The roof Doctor and things like that, you know.
• 21:03
  So I actually think props to Chibnall for actually having a
• 21:06
  robust arc that starts with a promise and ends up with some
• 21:11
  delivery. And I just like the diversity of
• 21:14
  the season as well. I've just made a small list of
• 21:16
  where where this season sort of goes through where the bomb,
• 21:19
  pastiche, whatever. Sylvester McCoy, pastiche.
• 21:22
  As we'll get into later with you all from 55, you've got an
• 21:27
  intriguing glimpse at history, a contemporary thriller, an
• 21:30
  environmental chiller, dark fantasy, a literary horror, and
• 21:35
  then a sort of a tough, a ballsy science fiction story in
• 21:39
  essentially the side Men before a sort of mythos explosion at
• 21:43
  the end of the season. And it weaves through all of
• 21:45
  those. It's a really, really ambitious
• 21:48
  year. It looks amazing.
• 21:50
  I'm like Dylan. I watched this and gobbled it
• 21:52
  up, and I don't think I gave a single episode lesson 8 out of
• 21:55
  10 when I reviewed them at the time.
• 21:56
  I loved it then and I love it now.
• 21:59
  So, as you can tell, we've got quite a.
• 22:01
  Quite a right. Views on this podcast Tonight we
• 22:04
  should make the individual stories quite interesting.
• 22:07
  Should we go back and finish the car?
• 22:09
  The overall comments before we get into the individual stores
• 22:13
  and. Let's see what these idiots
• 22:16
  think, shall we? Come on.
• 22:17
  No, Dave Rennie said Season 12 is a much more ambitious season
• 22:22
  after the gentle Season 11. Sorry Dave, you're not an idiot
• 22:25
  really Darren Lit, Randall says. I was surprised how gripped I
• 22:29
  was by Spyful Part One. But then Part 2 happened and I
• 22:32
  thought the series dire until Haunting of Villa Diadati turned
• 22:35
  up. Series 11 had moments, but with
• 22:37
  this my enjoyment a regular knew who was at an all time low.
• 22:42
  Jeff C said. I'm going with all of it as the
• 22:44
  best, predictably but unashamedly.
• 22:47
  Oh God, Jeff. Michael Storm feels a bit of an
• 22:50
  uneven mess, with plenty of set ups that never get satisfactory
• 22:54
  resolution. Both of Chibnall's two parties
• 22:57
  have promising part ones, but go terribly pear shaped in Part 2,
• 23:00
  while the season has a more defined arc, not really put
• 23:03
  together well, with Jack turning up to essentially give
• 23:06
  exposition once again. It's the episode written by the
• 23:09
  guest writers, which are the highlights aside from Orphan 55.
• 23:14
  Obviously, Chris Hogman said. A much stronger season, Second
• 23:17
  season for Jody Master Surprise and Spy Fall.
• 23:21
  The She Must Be the Rani discourse in Fugitive and
• 23:24
  Haunting, having one of my favorite Cybermen stories for
• 23:27
  years. Even the weak stories such as
• 23:29
  Ben Fogels, Mum yelling for Benny had charm.
• 23:33
  I kind of get the direction the shows going into, especially
• 23:36
  leading into flux. I did think though, that Ryan
• 23:39
  was superfluous to a lot of the plots.
• 23:41
  So pretty though Craig Williams says.
• 23:44
  I think it speaks volumes that there are episodes in this
• 23:47
  season I've never re watched much preferred the previous
• 23:50
  year. Rushed dummy said.
• 23:52
  After a very solid season, 1112 is a roller coaster with massive
• 23:56
  highs and some lows. Stephen Rhodes my least favorite
• 24:00
  of Jodi seasons but still love lots of it, particularly the
• 24:03
  final three. After seeing Flux, I thought
• 24:05
  this season might have made a better six parter comprising of
• 24:08
  all the timeless child, Fugitive, Dr., Sideman and
• 24:11
  Master Stuff. Andy Parkinson says.
• 24:14
  I can't think there's a story I particularly dislike, but I
• 24:17
  can't think of any that really excites me.
• 24:19
  I think Series 11 and Flux are much better Jody Seasons.
• 24:23
  I think with anxiety has been contrary.
• 24:26
  I can't think of a single episode.
• 24:28
  Was it of a 13 episode I don't like?
• 24:30
  I think he means 12, right? Yeah, we got Joe and Sasha and
• 24:34
  Ryan in a suit, which didn't offend my eyes.
• 24:37
  Alien, the big talking bird, said what I would consider the
• 24:40
  most polarising run of the triple area.
• 24:43
  It features some of the best episodes and some of the
• 24:45
  absolute worst. We're nearly there, folks.
• 24:47
  Don't worry electronic Dan. My favourites are Villa de Adati
• 24:50
  and Nikola Tesla. Worst the Orphan 55 and the
• 24:53
  timeless children not. Unsurprisingly, I usually don't
• 24:56
  like season finales. James H said this is a
• 25:00
  stormingly good season, showcasing the wide variety of
• 25:03
  stories the Doctor Who can produce, the reveal of the
• 25:05
  Master, the Gate Kiss in the TARDIS, the Expansion of Law,
• 25:09
  The References and The Fugitive. Dr. absolutely loved it all.
• 25:14
  Not really. Midge Europe says weakest
• 25:18
  Whittaker season. It's very lovely.
• 25:20
  Or hate it, isn't it? Hate is Spy Forge.
• 25:22
  You're doing works, but only because of the twist.
• 25:24
  So probably doesn't stand a rewatch.
• 25:26
  I know it does. The finale, the finale was a
• 25:28
  mess. Can't think of an episode worth
• 25:30
  seeing again? Season 11 felt fresh, so
• 25:33
  Chipmel's decision to splurge on continuity feels retrograde.
• 25:38
  Paul Smyth said a mixed bag with some episodes I never want to
• 25:41
  experience again. Controversially, my favorite is
• 25:44
  Ascension of the Cyberman. However, it's followed by
• 25:47
  Timeless Children. Not good.
• 25:49
  And finally, S Jam can't answer. It's stopped me watching.
• 25:55
  What a lovely place to we're on to the individual stories we're
• 25:58
  on to round one. So we've got eight stories
• 26:01
  because we're putting the two, two passes together as one.
• 26:03
  So we're each going to cover two stories.
• 26:05
  Let's start with Argue. Let's start with David, because
• 26:08
  we are all so intrigued. You're you're on the edge of
• 26:11
  your seat so I I made I made a little list going I know you're
• 26:15
  going to pick you're going to ask us to pick one.
• 26:16
  I thought I'm going to I'm going to put down the ones I want to
• 26:19
  do. So I'm going to, I'm going to
• 26:21
  stop positively. I'm going to start with Fugitive
• 26:23
  of the Jadoo, which let me just find my notes because I thought
• 26:29
  I'd, I'd prepare, I'd do this properly.
• 26:30
  So yeah, this it's a tough one to judge, kind of knowing what
• 26:33
  it reveals and what comes later. And I know a lot of people kind
• 26:37
  of like they don't do much with the Fugitive Dr. They kind of
• 26:40
  drop this revelation and she just ends up sort of popping up
• 26:42
  a couple of times and there's no definitive answers.
• 26:45
  But it's like I'm going to look at this kind of as an as an
• 26:48
  episode in its own right. And when I was sitting watching
• 26:52
  it last week, I just normally I get easily distracted.
• 26:55
  You know, you're either on your phone or what For the majority
• 26:58
  of this episode, I was blued to this and this one of the few of
• 27:02
  the season that really got me properly watching.
• 27:05
  So first reason for saving this one is Joe Martin.
• 27:09
  And I think Joe Martin is kind of been the revelation of this
• 27:12
  series and the Chipmelier in terms of actors they've found
• 27:15
  who've just delivered great performances and she delivers
• 27:19
  about 3 separate performances in this story.
• 27:22
  You've got the initial likeable Ruth as a human kind of doing
• 27:26
  her thing, trying to get people on her tour.
• 27:29
  And isn't she charming? Isn't she lovely?
• 27:31
  And then you get her when she's scared and there's clearly
• 27:34
  something going on. She just sells it.
• 27:36
  And then when she turns and they've had that fight scene in
• 27:38
  the church, the cathedral, wherever it was, and again, that
• 27:42
  just felt really well done. She was selling it.
• 27:45
  But the best bit of the whole episode for me was the scene
• 27:48
  between Joe and Jodie in the car, where I think that was
• 27:52
  actually some of Jodie's best work in this season as well.
• 27:55
  Because how to put it that she's up against someone who's
• 27:58
  delivering a good performance and that causes her to raise her
• 28:01
  performance as well? Because just going back to Rod's
• 28:04
  point before about some of the fam, some of them are not the
• 28:09
  best in terms of performance and I don't think always they bring
• 28:12
  out the best in Jodie. The guest stars are the ones who
• 28:14
  bring out her best performances in this season and I think
• 28:17
  that's Joe Martin as Ruth. So that's my first reason for
• 28:21
  keeping it. Second, is that it?
• 28:24
  The reveal for me was that the plot twist of The Fugitive Dr.
• 28:29
  was a genuine shock. And in this day and age you can
• 28:33
  very rarely do a genuine plot twist.
• 28:36
  And even the bi generation and everything that had kind of been
• 28:40
  leaked and some of the stuff that timeless children that had
• 28:42
  been leaked. But certainly from my trolls of
• 28:45
  the Internet and everything. The fugitive was not something I
• 28:49
  knew was coming up. It was sort of spoiled for me
• 28:52
  because I didn't watch this episode live because we were on
• 28:55
  holiday at the time we were that particular night we were up in
• 28:59
  Kilda Observatory doing a night in the Dark Sky park.
• 29:02
  So as soon as we started driving back to a hotel and my phone
• 29:04
  goes back into connection all these people are texting me
• 29:06
  saying Oh my God, have you seen Doctor Who tonight and go no I
• 29:09
  haven't. I've been I've been we've been
• 29:11
  out stargazing haven't seen a thing.
• 29:12
  So the the the twist was was ruined.
• 29:14
  I knew it was coming before I got a chance to see the episode,
• 29:17
  which was a bit of a shame because I I was robbed of that,
• 29:21
  that sense of, Oh my God, are they actually doing this?
• 29:24
  But they had the balls to do it. And I think what was even
• 29:28
  better, I'm not a fan of Jack as a character.
• 29:30
  But the fact that they went and got him back in, I think as a as
• 29:34
  a diversion because that had leaked and I was, I was left
• 29:37
  kind of thinking, have they leaked this deliberately as a
• 29:40
  bit of a oh, the big twist in Fugitive of the Judoonis, Jack's
• 29:43
  in it. Well actually, no, there's that.
• 29:44
  So there's actually a plot twist and there was some proper
• 29:47
  sleight of hand to throw people off the Seine.
• 29:49
  So I think there are times where obviously in the publicity and
• 29:53
  everything in the Chibnall era where they're not giving
• 29:55
  anything away that doesn't help with the publicity of your
• 29:57
  series. But sometimes when you've got a
• 29:59
  really good twist and a really good surprise, it works.
• 30:03
  And I think it works to this episode's benefit and it's still
• 30:06
  works even though you know it's coming.
• 30:08
  I think it's structured really quite nicely and I think it's
• 30:10
  written really well. I love the direction in this.
• 30:13
  I think there was a real sense throughout after the sort of
• 30:17
  jokey sort of 10 minutes this was building to something.
• 30:19
  So it's sort of tying into the twist.
• 30:20
  You know something's coming. You know this isn't just going
• 30:24
  to be a reveal of a character. It's like the the direction is
• 30:28
  really selling. This is something big and it's
• 30:31
  down to Jodie's performance, how it's how it's shot, the music.
• 30:36
  When they get to the lighthouse, there's that real purple sense
• 30:38
  of this is significant. So.
• 30:41
  It is a bit of a shame that Joe Martin is wasted after this and
• 30:45
  we don't get more of her on screen because I think she was
• 30:48
  absolutely fantastic. It is a shame that the, you
• 30:52
  know, we talk about the crowded TARDIS, the FAM get completely
• 30:55
  totally sidelined after about 20 minutes.
• 30:57
  They go off with Jack and they're all together.
• 31:00
  And basically anytime they cut back to those scenes, like, no,
• 31:02
  no, I want to go back to the other story.
• 31:04
  And I think for three of your regulars to kind of siphon them
• 31:07
  off into a plot line that, you know, even the return of Jack
• 31:11
  isn't as interesting as what's going on over here, that's a bit
• 31:14
  of a shame. But this was really, this was
• 31:17
  refreshing. If the if the whole season was
• 31:19
  of this standard, I wouldn't have a problem.
• 31:21
  But this is probably one. It's not my favorite of the
• 31:23
  season, but it's up there. Should we go to the comments
• 31:26
  before we go into? Yeah, let's do it.
• 31:28
  Response. So James Lark said a strong
• 31:31
  start gives way to a series of, oh look moments which for me
• 31:35
  didn't stand up to scrutiny as they were happening, let alone
• 31:38
  on reflection. Fans were clearly delighted, but
• 31:41
  goodness knows what casual viewers made of it.
• 31:44
  Or is this where casual viewers just gave up?
• 31:46
  It's the modern equivalent of Arc of Infinities.
• 31:49
  Omega Controls The Matrix. It doesn't matter how dramatic
• 31:53
  you make it look or sound, anyone not invested is bound to
• 31:56
  respond with a hearty. So what with a fan hat on.
• 32:00
  I forgive it entirely for one reason, which is that it gives
• 32:03
  us Joe Martin. On the other hand, it's
• 32:05
  definitely a mistake to make a series of Doctor Who where
• 32:08
  there's suddenly a more interesting and mysterious Dr.
• 32:11
  than your actual lead. Nonsense.
• 32:15
  Objective. Yeah, totally.
• 32:16
  Well it always isn't it? Let's be honest.
• 32:18
  Jason Thompson. A pivotal episode of course, but
• 32:22
  the B plot with the companions has nothing whatsoever to do
• 32:25
  with the episode itself and instead a set up for the end
• 32:28
  bringing back Jack just to talk about the upcoming episode.
• 32:31
  He won't even be in frustratingly, things are set up
• 32:34
  and then discarded. Why is Gatt?
• 32:37
  He likes his details, Jason. He likes them all ticked
• 32:39
  properly. Why is Gatt sending the jejune
• 32:41
  after the doctor? Maybe we'll find out when we
• 32:44
  come back to her at the end of the season with the Doctor in
• 32:46
  prison. Or maybe she'll be broken out of
• 32:48
  prison and that will never be mentioned again.
• 32:51
  Melvin Penner said there's been no episode of Doctor Who that
• 32:54
  I've watched more times than the week of transmission than
• 32:57
  Fugitive. I watched it eight times that
• 33:00
  week. My jaw still hurts from hitting
• 33:02
  the floor of Joan Martin's shocking revelation.
• 33:05
  She was an absolute powerhouse as the Doctor from moment one.
• 33:09
  Eight times. I don't think I've ever watched.
• 33:11
  Have you guys ever watched an episode?
• 33:12
  More than eight times the week of transmission.
• 33:15
  The nine week of transmission. Living Fraser Gregory.
• 33:19
  Oh, here we go. Contrary Mary.
• 33:21
  Come on, Fraser, Gregory says Least favorite is the Fugitive
• 33:24
  of the Judoon. Smoke and mirrors.
• 33:26
  It doesn't stand up for a rewatch and delivers a very
• 33:28
  unpleasant Dr. I love Fraser. He just goes the opposite every
• 33:33
  time, doesn't he? You've got to get attention
• 33:35
  somehow, haven't you, Mike? Come on.
• 33:38
  Jack Coyer says this goes down thanks to the finale.
• 33:41
  Jo Martin does a terrific job with every second of screen time
• 33:44
  she can muster through this era. However, I wish I had a
• 33:47
  chameleon arc. Who could remove the most
• 33:49
  painful comedy of the era? A bakery guy who likes Ruth I?
• 33:53
  Love that. I love that guy.
• 33:55
  He's terrible. Gareth Bowley.
• 33:57
  I like it. I like it terrible, yeah.
• 34:00
  Most chip does comedy. It is terrible, but I still love
• 34:03
  it. Easy.
• 34:04
  New Gareth Bowley doesn't go anywhere beyond shoehorning in a
• 34:10
  new dog self. Plus, especially bad, this
• 34:12
  incarnation upstages the current one.
• 34:15
  Not the mind probes. There's one word.
• 34:17
  Wow. Chris Curtis Love fugitive for
• 34:20
  its boldness and almost RTD shocks but then falls down and.
• 34:24
  Big Orange Michael says best of the series is Fugitive.
• 34:28
  It felt epic when I first watched.
• 34:30
  Right, So David's made a good champion for this episode.
• 34:35
  Dylan, are you on board or not? I'm absolutely on board,
• 34:40
  unsurprisingly. The first thing I want to
• 34:43
  mention realistically, and it's quite a minor thing, but it's
• 34:47
  set in Gloucester. And this is just indicative of
• 34:51
  what this show, of this era of the show does, of not just
• 34:54
  giving us London or Cardiff or Cardiff being London and every
• 34:58
  episode that they land on the planet Earth and beyond,
• 35:01
  wondering where it's going to be.
• 35:03
  So just to have it set in Gloucester, it's just another
• 35:06
  little tick. And seeing that you do wander
• 35:09
  around a duck pond and things like that, it's just, you know,
• 35:13
  the antithesis, it's it's peak Doctor Who.
• 35:15
  For me, it's peak Doctor Who. The second thing is the
• 35:18
  division. I love it.
• 35:20
  It's giving in Gallifrey, in Gallifrey in history, a darker
• 35:24
  side getting away from that arc of Infinity thing of people
• 35:27
  hanging around what looks like an advertising agency in the 80s
• 35:30
  in big collars. The Doctor as a Time Lord agent
• 35:34
  is something that if you're somebody like me who's obsessed
• 35:37
  with and sort of extended universe media that you're, you
• 35:42
  know, that's something that's been seeded before.
• 35:44
  And to see it on television, I think it is really exciting,
• 35:48
  even if we only get a little bit of it.
• 35:50
  And it really makes the Time Law Society feel like a layered one
• 35:54
  and not just a bunch of bickering old old men and women.
• 35:57
  And then the. 3rd Just Captain Jack.
• 35:59
  And his return and his interaction with Graham.
• 36:02
  I know it was a short lived return because John Barrowman's
• 36:04
  a very naughty boy, but I just, it was, it was great to see him
• 36:09
  again. And you know, there's a lot of
• 36:12
  people go, Oh well, he's only there to deliver a plot point,
• 36:15
  but that's fine. He's only there to deliver a
• 36:17
  message. And people go, well, it should
• 36:18
  have been seeded and played off later, but Jack is delivering a
• 36:22
  message of something the Doctor shouldn't do and the Doctor goes
• 36:25
  against the advice. So you can say that he's sort of
• 36:27
  ripped out of that timeline essentially because he's there
• 36:30
  to go, you need to go, you need to go the right way with this.
• 36:32
  And he's probably dead somewhere as a big face in in that version
• 36:35
  of the universe anyway. So having that in this episode
• 36:39
  means that when the Side Man turns up in Dear Darty, there's
• 36:43
  already way behind him turning up in Dear Darty.
• 36:46
  It works. I I also think a lot of Doctor
• 36:49
  Who fans are guilty of two things.
• 36:52
  Number one, only watching Doctor Who and programmes from the
• 36:56
  1970s and 80s and not watching modern television.
• 37:00
  And two, worrying about casual viewers as if people aren't used
• 37:04
  to tuning in week by week to ATV show and going oh, I I need to I
• 37:08
  see last week's episode before I watched the new one.
• 37:10
  Who just dips in and out of ATV show anymore.
• 37:13
  You watch it all. You might not watch it all on
• 37:15
  transmission. You might watch it a year later
• 37:17
  or six months later or two months later.
• 37:19
  So the idea that a casual viewers going I don't know what
• 37:22
  that doctor is or I don't know who that character is or what
• 37:25
  they're meant to be doing there or what it or TuneIn in a few
• 37:27
  weeks ago why is everyone so worried about a lone Cyberman?
• 37:30
  Everybody watches every episode. Why were you looking at the
• 37:33
  three of us when you detailed what a Doctor Who fan was then?
• 37:38
  I was looking at the three of you because you're the three
• 37:40
  people I can look. At.
• 37:42
  Fair enough. I, and you know I say this, that
• 37:45
  if you couldn't see this image of Jodie Whitaker behind me, you
• 37:47
  would see DVD shelves full of network and Hammer horror films
• 37:50
  and old ITC shows. So don't I am just as guilty of
• 37:54
  watching lots of old television too.
• 37:56
  But you know, I, I, I watch the odd modern television show
• 37:59
  myself, you know? And and the complete collection
• 38:02
  of Myth Makers, which I'll never stop going on about, is my
• 38:05
  favorite thing in your collection.
• 38:08
  So I go next Joe, so that it builds up some sense of tension
• 38:11
  whether this is going to go through or?
• 38:12
  Not oh, keep going. I've scored it.
• 38:14
  Go on. Well, I'm not going to put this
• 38:18
  one through, I'm. Going.
• 38:19
  To whatever this one is off to peace postage for me.
• 38:23
  So the first third of it I think is horrible.
• 38:28
  I'd forgotten quite how horrible the first third of it is.
• 38:31
  It feels so children's ITV. It's Just Awful is worse than
• 38:37
  the Sarah Jane prisoner of the Judoon.
• 38:39
  It's got that same vibe, but a much cheaper and more childlike
• 38:43
  version of it. For the first third, we
• 38:45
  established Ruth. We know she's nice because she
• 38:48
  talks to Swans. She's called one of them
• 38:50
  Freddie, so she must be nice. She says hello to little
• 38:54
  children and old ladies. She's really nice.
• 38:58
  Her husband, Lee, he's very naughty.
• 39:00
  He's very mysterious because he keeps looking at the camera in a
• 39:04
  very mysterious. Way.
• 39:06
  And the worst bit is when the Doctor goes into the flat and
• 39:08
  brings out the box and he says, oh, I've never seen that box
• 39:12
  before. And the look I.
• 39:14
  Don't think the person was quite like that.
• 39:17
  It was quite that bad, and the Doctor doesn't even twig.
• 39:21
  So there's no surprise when it turns out that Ruth is in fact
• 39:24
  The Fugitive The Judoon invading in air quotes Gloucester.
• 39:28
  I've never seen a more half hearted invasion in my life.
• 39:31
  Ellen just mentioned wandering around Duckpots.
• 39:34
  That's it. Where's the terrible?
• 39:36
  But they're not. They're not invading, are they?
• 39:38
  They've just come to do a job to pick someone.
• 39:40
  Up. I don't think you was paying
• 39:42
  attention. To this population, be slightly
• 39:45
  concerned. If safe rhinos turned up,
• 39:47
  they're stood there, generally chatting to them, showing them
• 39:49
  their paperwork. It's it's called Fugitive of the
• 39:52
  Digital not Invasion. Thank you.
• 39:57
  Oh, all is Alan Jesus. Wow, he's my.
• 40:02
  Favorite. Carrot.
• 40:04
  All is Alan and his dossier. It is awful.
• 40:08
  And then when he meets her to do what's he saying?
• 40:10
  Watch it, you big lunk. That's really realistic
• 40:14
  dialogue, isn't it? I'll have you.
• 40:16
  No, Rod. I am always Joe at my work, you
• 40:19
  know. So you are careful what you're
• 40:21
  saying. I I I think sometimes Doctor Who
• 40:25
  fans forget that the Earth has been invaded at approximately 4
• 40:29
  billion times by now. So the the fact that someone's a
• 40:32
  bit nonplussed when giant rhinos show up isn't necessarily a
• 40:37
  shock, You know, it's very in keeping with the universe that
• 40:40
  the Doctor Who exists in. Watch it, you big a lunk.
• 40:46
  Oh, right. So that's one reason I just hate
• 40:48
  the beginning. Second one, ironically, because
• 40:52
  just given it as a plus, is Captain Jack.
• 40:54
  He is super cringey in this episode with his dyed hair.
• 40:58
  Ryan calls him cheesy about three times and he's not wrong.
• 41:02
  What does he give us? He gives us half baked
• 41:04
  prophecies. Oh, I'm losing signal.
• 41:06
  I can only tell you. Beware the lone Cyberman.
• 41:09
  Why did he just say what's going on?
• 41:11
  How? Many times do we have half baked
• 41:14
  prophecies in. Yeah, you've all moaned about
• 41:16
  them. And now?
• 41:18
  Yeah, now we like them now. Exactly.
• 41:20
  Contrary buggers. Oh, so this is supposed to be a
• 41:24
  game changing episode? We spent time with Captain Jack
• 41:26
  talking about a future episode where actually what he said
• 41:29
  doesn't make any difference at all.
• 41:31
  Because the Doctor. Well, we'll come on to Dilla
• 41:33
  Dilla Dotty later on, but and what Jack says has no bearing on
• 41:37
  what the Doctor does whatsoever. And personally, I just don't
• 41:40
  think John Barrowman's style fits this version of Doctor Who.
• 41:43
  He looks a little bit out of it. And then finally, the
• 41:46
  revelations. It's difficult to judge them at
• 41:49
  this stage because this is only part of a much bigger picture.
• 41:52
  And yes, at the time I was aghast when we found the Barry
• 41:56
  TARDIS and Ruth Doctor came forward.
• 41:59
  I thought, Oh my God, this is really bold, this big, this is
• 42:02
  different. But I think we've got to kind of
• 42:04
  park what we think of all that till we come to the finale
• 42:07
  because we don't really get that much payoff for it here.
• 42:10
  And my big problem with this is once we've left the beach, it
• 42:14
  becomes very, very static. These big revelations are just
• 42:18
  on both the Tardis or on the Judoon ship with people talking.
• 42:22
  We're not seeing anything. We're not feeling it.
• 42:24
  I'm going to reference a Moffett episode, so Joe, put your
• 42:28
  fingers in your ears in Name of the Doctor.
• 42:30
  When Clara's black story is revealed, we see all the clips
• 42:35
  of her interacting with previous Doctors.
• 42:37
  We get to see it. We feel it.
• 42:39
  It's grand, it's dramatic. We see it and feel it.
• 42:41
  Here, we've just got three people stood in a room talking.
• 42:44
  It's very, very static and it just doesn't sell it.
• 42:48
  And after all these big revelations, they go into the
• 42:51
  TARDIS and what's the Doctor say?
• 42:52
  Oh, there's a switch buzzing. Let's go off on another jolly
• 42:55
  adventure. Come on, everyone.
• 42:57
  It's the it's the equivalent of time flight.
• 43:00
  We just forget everything that's just happened and go off on the
• 43:03
  next adventure. So at this stage, the
• 43:05
  revelations don't work for me and I'm junking it.
• 43:09
  Doctor Who does always go off on another adventure no matter
• 43:12
  what's just happened though, doesn't it?
• 43:14
  That, that is, that is what the show does.
• 43:15
  Do you remember Amy's coming, baby?
• 43:18
  You know, if that all of a sudden, How?
• 43:20
  To actually tell us we're going to do that if we just end it.
• 43:23
  It hang, it hangs a hat on it. It kind of acknowledges that
• 43:26
  yeah we are going to just distract.
• 43:27
  But the one, the one thing I liked about that last scene and
• 43:29
  it was apart from the the confrontation with a fan where
• 43:33
  somebody was killing the the the atmosphere in that scene not
• 43:36
  mentioning named Ryan who you might discover is I am not a fan
• 43:40
  of the one thing that they did he is.
• 43:42
  Pretty though he is pretty. That's all you say.
• 43:45
  But so so is a nice tree and it's about as wooden the the
• 43:51
  Doctor actually tells them what's happened.
• 43:54
  Because what frustrated me with some of the stuff later on in
• 43:58
  flux knowing is that the doctors not being very open about
• 44:02
  hunting down the division hall and actually you think, oh she
• 44:05
  she didn't tell them about caliphates.
• 44:07
  So the fact that she actually ignores that rule of drama of
• 44:10
  characters don't tell for the characters what's going on, It's
• 44:13
  like, oh, she actually, I forgot, she does actually tell
• 44:15
  them. I suggest you do.
• 44:17
  Not really quite refreshing. I suggest you don't watch the
• 44:19
  Sylvester McCoy era then. All right, There he sits on a
• 44:22
  lot of secrets, that fella. Come on then, Joe, you big lunk.
• 44:26
  Tell us what you think. It's one, of course, moment.
• 44:29
  Of course, this is the one episode of the year I'm going to
• 44:32
  junk. No, I'm lying.
• 44:35
  I'll just sit here for suspense. No, I think David's right.
• 44:39
  I think the way this is structured is brilliant and in
• 44:42
  fact it's a triple whammy, isn't it?
• 44:43
  Because it's that you do back in Or maybe that's the surprise.
• 44:46
  No, it's Captain Jackie and maybe that's the surprise and
• 44:49
  then the surprise actually turns out to be.
• 44:51
  So in terms of structure, I think this is really well done.
• 44:54
  My first real reason is the first sort of third of the
• 44:57
  episode, which no, I'm not going to be that contrary, although I
• 45:01
  do think it's light and summary and we're doing contemporary
• 45:05
  Earth in a really fun way. I don't think it's anywhere near
• 45:08
  as CBBC as you're suggesting. If I'm honest, I think, I think
• 45:12
  it's. It's got some nice witty lines,
• 45:13
  isn't it? The roof doctor.
• 45:15
  The roof doctor. Now can I ask you?
• 45:18
  Because, Dylan, you didn't really say what you thought of
• 45:20
  the roof doctor. What do you think of the roof,
• 45:21
  Doctor? I mean, I'm going to be very
• 45:23
  contrary here. I no, I don't hate her.
• 45:26
  I think that Joe Martin is fantastic as Ruth, but she gives
• 45:31
  me nothing in her 11 minutes of screen time.
• 45:34
  But it's hard. To do it in that much screen
• 45:35
  time isn't? It what?
• 45:36
  What? What?
• 45:37
  What? What I mean is there's nothing
• 45:39
  about her as the Doctor or as the roof as Ruth to say she is
• 45:44
  the sort of actor that should be cast as Doctor Who.
• 45:48
  And I'm not saying she can't do it.
• 45:50
  I'm just saying she she doesn't get enough time as the Doctor.
• 45:53
  So I'm just sort of stood there going and it kind of works
• 45:56
  because it's an earlier version of the Doctor we think.
• 45:59
  But I I I do, I I like her as a concept.
• 46:03
  But Joe Martin hasn't done anything to prove to me that she
• 46:07
  is up there with a Jodie Whittaker or a Peter Capaldi or
• 46:11
  a William Hartnell that has that that same.
• 46:13
  I don't want to use the word gravitas because it's no
• 46:16
  overviews were but that that certain energy that just the
• 46:19
  actors playing the Doctor always seem to bring to the part.
• 46:22
  But that is not the problem of Judoon.
• 46:25
  That is the problem of later on. And when the BBC finally
• 46:28
  released that Let Big Finish release that Fugitive Dr. Box
• 46:32
  set, we can see what she what she might have really been like
• 46:35
  as the Doctor. It's I think Jodie Whitaker's
• 46:37
  already a pretty incredible doctor.
• 46:38
  But I agree with David. Suddenly, when Jodie's up
• 46:42
  against Joe Martin, those scenes in Natalia say sizzle.
• 46:46
  They're really witty. The timing's excellent.
• 46:48
  It's like watching the best of the three Doctors, the two
• 46:50
  doctors, the five doctors combined.
• 46:52
  I could have done with a couple of stories of the two of them,
• 46:56
  actually. I feel like John Hurt gets a
• 46:58
  pass because we went on like a character arc within a single
• 47:02
  episode, whereas we just sort of get these little vignettes of
• 47:05
  Joe Martin and it ain't really enough.
• 47:07
  But I'm intrigued. I'm enticed.
• 47:10
  I just wish we'd got a bit more later.
• 47:12
  I love that you're doing in this as well.
• 47:13
  I think Nicholas Briggs, who has been overused in the new series,
• 47:17
  that's a really fun performance as the what's his name?
• 47:20
  He's got the name of the Doctor Who fan.
• 47:22
  Paul. Condo.
• 47:24
  Condo. It's it's Paul Condo, isn't it?
• 47:26
  Yeah, he's really fun, I think until he gets his horn ripped
• 47:30
  off by Joe Martin. I'm not sure what that it's all
• 47:32
  about, actually. Suddenly she's suddenly she's
• 47:35
  got super strength. It's just disgracing.
• 47:37
  It's just disgracing the judoon. But she's she's a she's a
• 47:40
  soldier, isn't she? Just before she turns into
• 47:42
  William Hartnell and becomes a decrepit old man?
• 47:45
  She's, she's, she's a super. Scrubbing people's homes, Yeah,
• 47:48
  and yanking them. The the thing about the
• 47:51
  companions being shunted off to the side?
• 47:53
  Yeah, it's a bit of a problem. But I like all the fun
• 47:55
  interaction with Jack, and I like the fact that Jack's pretty
• 47:58
  much thinks every single person he meets is the Doctor because
• 48:01
  he doesn't actually meet the Doctor in this episode.
• 48:03
  I do think dropping the exposition that the thing about
• 48:06
  the lone Simon in the middle of the season was a good idea
• 48:09
  because it does allow us to prepare for the shocks at the
• 48:12
  end of the season. Whoever said this was well
• 48:15
  directed, this is superbly directed.
• 48:17
  That sequence outside the lighthouse as she's climbing up
• 48:21
  and the cameras going around, you got all the beach in the
• 48:23
  background. I mean, it just looks gorgeous.
• 48:26
  Sis her digging up the TARDIS. It's imagery you never forget.
• 48:31
  Yeah, I think. Police box though, Joe.
• 48:32
  Oh. I don't care about that
• 48:33
  nonsense, honestly. Because the TARDIS has always
• 48:36
  been a police box. And then at some point it takes
• 48:39
  its old school form and then Hartnell takes it and it goes
• 48:41
  and gets stuck in the police box form again.
• 48:44
  It'll all be explained in the big finished box.
• 48:46
  Set that. Girl's.
• 48:47
  Going to love. I'm not that person.
• 48:49
  I probably won't. Odds are I'm not that person
• 48:52
  that needs to box everything in into one big story like that.
• 48:55
  So I don't care why it's a TARDIS.
• 48:56
  It's the TARDIS. She's the Doctor.
• 48:59
  That's an amazing shock and it rocked fandom at the time.
• 49:02
  I can remember Twitter exploding after this episode, and it
• 49:06
  completely justifies Chibnall's judicious use of marketing.
• 49:10
  By not throwing every twist in every trailer, it meant that on
• 49:14
  the day, like Sasha Dwan's master in Spy Fall, you got the
• 49:17
  shock, you jumped out of your seat, You were really excited.
• 49:21
  I think that's all the excuse you need to put a bit of a
• 49:23
  blanket of secrecy over the series coming out.
• 49:26
  I think it's confident. I think it's fun, brilliantly
• 49:28
  acted, brilliantly directed. Of course it's going through.
• 49:31
  It's a Season 12 classic. So fugitive is true.
• 49:35
  So we're on to our second story. Dylan, your pick.
• 49:38
  I'm going to pick. Praxeus or Praxeus, whatever you
• 49:42
  want to call it. And I said earlier I was going
• 49:45
  to champion something because possibly the greatest single,
• 49:49
  and by single I mean single episode of Doctor Who, as in
• 49:53
  something that nails the format. No.
• 49:56
  Nails Doctor Who is exactly what I think it should be, and that
• 50:00
  is Praxis. I think it's.
• 50:02
  Invited Dylan on. This man's a fool.
• 50:06
  I think it's a perfect script. I think it looks better than
• 50:10
  anything we've seen in Doctor Who before or since.
• 50:13
  I think it's it's basically the plot of Quetta, Mass told in a
• 50:16
  in a new and exciting way. Somebody give Pete McKay Quetta
• 50:20
  Mass remake. In fact somebody give Pete McKay
• 50:22
  the Doctor Who series because he is the he is the showrunner that
• 50:26
  that I want. It's got tension.
• 50:28
  It's got horror. It's got these that you know the
• 50:30
  threat of the birds, the most amazing V effects.
• 50:33
  All the characters get something to do.
• 50:36
  All the characters that are introduced like the fam, the the
• 50:40
  two new characters in it, the three or four new characters,
• 50:43
  they all get beginning, middle and ends of their stories and
• 50:46
  their plots. So my first point is just that I
• 50:49
  think it's the single greatest episode of of of Doctor Who.
• 50:53
  I'm so just go for it. Like the next one is just the
• 50:56
  direction. It's top tier.
• 50:58
  Jamie Magna Stone will come back again and again.
• 51:01
  And you know, there's just so many exciting choices.
• 51:04
  You know, we go from the spaceship coming into orbit to
• 51:06
  bottles crashing on the floor in a supermarket.
• 51:09
  There's drone work, the colour palette is off the chain, the
• 51:11
  lighting looks better than anything else on British
• 51:14
  television. It is a masterpiece of direction
• 51:17
  and Doctor Who has never looked as good as it will do in that
• 51:20
  episode. And then the third thing is just
• 51:23
  the representation. The gay couple that's never
• 51:25
  mentioned that they're gay. The different current countries
• 51:29
  that are our support caster from and the different origins of
• 51:32
  them, It's just a bunch of humans affected by a global
• 51:35
  threat that it doesn't matter where they're from, who they
• 51:39
  are, what their sexuality is. They're just there.
• 51:42
  And it's a beautiful love story at the heart of it, and a love
• 51:46
  story with a troubled relationship because
• 51:49
  relationships have their ups and downs and it's not because
• 51:51
  they're gay and it's really hard being gay or whatever.
• 51:53
  It's just a lovely happy of a story between those two
• 51:58
  characters. Within that, Dylan the the
• 52:00
  amount of positive masculinity, which is a term I've learnt this
• 52:03
  week, is astonishing for for television.
• 52:08
  I just don't think we see enough of it.
• 52:09
  And the sequence between Graham and the Running Man from the Big
• 52:13
  Finish covers. I'll forget his name, but he's
• 52:15
  the one who's always running on the covers.
• 52:17
  Warren Green, thank you. Oh, so hot you're.
• 52:21
  Not supposed to be speaking yet. Oh, sorry.
• 52:23
  I'm so sorry. Back in your box, get back in.
• 52:24
  Your box. Sorry, I agree with you.
• 52:26
  How hard, right? Well, that's spoiled that one,
• 52:29
  hasn't it? All the tension straight out the
• 52:31
  window. But I've got different reasons,
• 52:33
  so don't worry. Fucking of cold waters for Joe
• 52:37
  Ford. Shall we go to the comments?
• 52:41
  I'll go first this time, shall I?
• 52:42
  Go for it. Jason Thompson says my favorite
• 52:45
  I think stands on its own nicely addresses a topical concern
• 52:49
  without beating you over the head with it.
• 52:51
  It pretty much does what the 70s all ton stories did, centering
• 52:54
  an alien threat around a real issue, around overuse of plastic
• 52:58
  and ends well. Michael Storm said Praxius falls
• 53:01
  into second place, though I'm not sure about the voice over.
• 53:05
  No, not the mine. Probe.
• 53:06
  Superb like a virgin. New adventure.
• 53:08
  Oh. Daniel Rawnsley said least favor
• 53:11
  of the season is Praxius, but only because I haven't really
• 53:14
  felt compelled to visit revisitors since first viewing.
• 53:17
  There's still some lovely stuff in there.
• 53:18
  Jack Coya A relief to split the fan up for a bit so they're not
• 53:22
  hanging on each other's coattails.
• 53:23
  I appreciate that we've worked out how to wrap a positive
• 53:26
  social message within an engaging sci-fi conceit.
• 53:30
  Excellent effects prosthetics on those infected by Praxeus.
• 53:34
  Well, Quinn said. Praxeus is so well, shocked some
• 53:37
  of those early scenes are stunning Some of the best
• 53:39
  cinematography in the program. And finally, who gives a flux an
• 53:43
  underrated gem? Only one negative comment there.
• 53:46
  David, should we go to you? So when I was doing these, I was
• 53:49
  trying to, you know, do the what am I keeping, what am I binning?
• 53:52
  And next to Praxeus, I've put on the fence because there were
• 53:57
  bits of this that I really liked and there were bits of it that I
• 54:01
  didn't. So kind of under my prose, I've
• 54:05
  got, you know, good topical concept and it's in.
• 54:08
  Somebody said that in the comments.
• 54:09
  It feels like it's weaved through the story.
• 54:11
  I think it's got a message, but the story is the message better
• 54:14
  than what Orphan 55 does, which it felt very grafted on rather
• 54:20
  than actually part of the story. It's one of the few, it's got
• 54:25
  that globe trusting concept that the Sierra loves, but it
• 54:27
  actually is to its benefit. I think it it it helps tell the
• 54:32
  story. It sounds really just copying
• 54:34
  everybody out. A very genuine gay couple and
• 54:36
  not. Sensationalized.
• 54:38
  But I I think as a gay man and everything, just to see it not
• 54:41
  being an issue and in a show like Doctor Who is a it is a big
• 54:45
  deal. And the fact it's not commented
• 54:46
  upon, it is. They're very as normal as you
• 54:49
  can be while you're infected. The nailing virus to come, all
• 54:51
  the TARDIS. But.
• 54:53
  It's still Doctor Who, David. Still Doctor Who?
• 54:55
  No. One backs an eyelid and I think
• 54:57
  that that that that's to it's credit location, it looks great.
• 55:02
  I think all the stuff on the beach looks fantastic.
• 55:04
  The effect of the birds and everything is good and the the
• 55:07
  the effect of practice itself I think is one of the it's a
• 55:12
  fantastic visual effect and I think it's one of those sort of
• 55:15
  strongest of the series because it's quite subtle in some
• 55:17
  respects. On my con side is again, there's
• 55:21
  that that that overuse of expositional dialer, the whole
• 55:23
  thing with the bird in the backpack where I think Ryan says
• 55:26
  something like it's he puts out and say it's that bird I, you
• 55:29
  know, it's like again, we know we've seen it, just it it's
• 55:33
  reiterating something we saw 30 seconds ago.
• 55:35
  It's a bit like watching the dialects in colour, where we're
• 55:37
  having flashbacks to something we saw 30 seconds ago.
• 55:39
  It's because they assume you know you're on your phone like
• 55:41
  you said you were throughout most of the season, so they
• 55:43
  were. Keep repeating it just in case
• 55:45
  you haven't got that. Short of attention span and
• 55:47
  there's that thing that and and I think I touched this we did
• 55:51
  smile. There are times when you think
• 55:53
  the writer hasn't been at school for 20 years because like you
• 55:56
  do, you do dissection going. I don't think they've done
• 55:59
  dissection in schools for about 25 years.
• 56:03
  But it just it it just, I don't know why, it just really bugged
• 56:06
  me going this, yeah. And then Ryan goes and does it.
• 56:10
  I mean, you've just got to cut it in half really.
• 56:12
  Yeah. And see what's inside and.
• 56:15
  There's some really odd emotional beats towards the end
• 56:17
  so I can't remember the characters names which is
• 56:19
  terrible. But the the two vloggers and her
• 56:22
  friend is that, you know her friend has died.
• 56:24
  It's already tried and then by the end of she's already trying
• 56:26
  to recruit halfway. She's trying to recruit Yas and
• 56:28
  then she's trying to recruit the other two.
• 56:30
  It's like, but your friend, your friend, your travelling
• 56:32
  companion, your close personal friend has just had a horrible,
• 56:34
  horrible death and it's like Oh well I'm going to recruit some
• 56:37
  more people and I don't know I just considering that what this
• 56:40
  series goes for is being more grounded and being kind of more.
• 56:45
  It just doesn't feel emotionally true in the same way that that
• 56:48
  the relationship between the two guys felt a bit more grounded
• 56:51
  and real. Did you not seen a bit?
• 56:53
  You know where she took her to the beach and it was all covered
• 56:55
  in rubbish and that was just to distract her because she had a
• 56:58
  knife behind her but she couldn't bear her.
• 57:00
  She was going to stab her in the back the second she was
• 57:02
  distracted. It's it's it's in the.
• 57:04
  It'll be in the novelization. You know when the topic book
• 57:06
  comes out, they'll fill some of those things in and the the the
• 57:11
  guy who goes out on the beach and gets killed before the birds
• 57:14
  attack and they'll run to the top.
• 57:15
  Do they actually ever acknowledge his death?
• 57:17
  There's a lot going on, you know, I think.
• 57:19
  He just can do. I think he just gets forgotten.
• 57:22
  It's like he's he's kind of no rushing to the TARDIS and off
• 57:25
  they go. So it's like no pause for, you
• 57:27
  know, reacting to character has been killed off.
• 57:30
  Suki is a villain, is bloody wet.
• 57:34
  There are some fantastic villains in this season that
• 57:36
  this is compared to some of the previous areas even the Moffett
• 57:41
  era. This this has got this is a this
• 57:42
  is a series. Series 12 has given some great
• 57:45
  villains with some great over the top brilliant performances.
• 57:48
  This is not one of them. When when she died, I think I
• 57:52
  was like thank God for that so and and and while it's not the
• 57:59
  only story guilty event but like I said I was just looking at it.
• 58:02
  I was on merits sort of hand waving.
• 58:04
  The Doctor cures the virus and the the TARDIS cures the virus
• 58:07
  and then it sort of. I sometimes love when Doctor Who
• 58:10
  and the Doctor's doing something that's not just clever but not
• 58:12
  just clever because they've told us that the Doctor's doing
• 58:14
  something clever and sometimes it doesn't matter when they
• 58:16
  don't do that. But I think there are times in
• 58:19
  this series most in this where we have to just we're told the
• 58:22
  Doctor's doing something clever or the TARDIS is doing something
• 58:25
  clever rather than oh they're actually seeing it and
• 58:28
  understanding it. So I now have to pick which side
• 58:30
  of the fence I'm going to put down.
• 58:33
  And I'm. I'm going to, I'm going to bin
• 58:35
  it. This was a story what all all
• 58:42
  those positive things and there's some great positive
• 58:44
  stuff in it. I think about 2/3 of the way
• 58:47
  through. And this because when I was
• 58:49
  preparing for this, I wrote all the stories out and I kind of
• 58:51
  predicted what I thought was going to be the definite keeps
• 58:53
  and the definite one, and I genuinely really enjoyed this
• 58:57
  last time round. It was one of the things that I
• 58:59
  genuinely thought this was good. I'm going to enjoy that again
• 59:01
  and I just felt about 3035 minutes in.
• 59:05
  My attention was starting to wander and I'm starting to get
• 59:07
  just a little bit bored and I'm going OK, I can't really, if if
• 59:11
  I'm starting to get a bit bored can I then say, say I did
• 59:14
  genuinely want to save it. So the fact I'm on the fence and
• 59:17
  the fact it has lots of good stuff in it, but just not
• 59:20
  enough. Oh yeah, I'll go next.
• 59:23
  I'll give you the casting vote on this one.
• 59:26
  I think obviously it's staying through for all the reasons
• 59:29
  Dylan said, For all the positive reasons, David said.
• 59:31
  I don't think anyone's stressed enough just how important the
• 59:34
  environmental message is in this and just how vivid the imagery
• 59:38
  is, so that that a shot of the Gaia in the water with all the
• 59:43
  rubbish swirling around it and that beat.
• 59:45
  I watched this and I thought, what absurd images.
• 59:48
  They're not going to get an environmental message in my head
• 59:51
  looking at stupid images like that.
• 59:53
  Then I Googled it and realized it was all real and realized how
• 59:57
  out of touch I was and actually went out and I started recycling
• 1:00:00
  properly after watching this episode.
• 1:00:01
  So it had the right effect on me, and I'm hoping it did on
• 1:00:04
  others as well. I love Jodie Whittaker's Dr. as
• 1:00:07
  a scientist and it's something they lean into all the time and
• 1:00:10
  she loves doing the science and this, and it's something that we
• 1:00:12
  don't see the Doctor doing enough in the new series.
• 1:00:16
  She does come across as a bit of a sort of know it all brain box,
• 1:00:19
  but I quite like that as well. And it's the only Doctor Who
• 1:00:22
  episode to ever give me an erection.
• 1:00:25
  And for that point alone, I mean, it's the hottest gay kiss
• 1:00:28
  you're ever going to see in Doctor Whoever.
• 1:00:31
  And it's in the TARDIS, which I love for going there and making
• 1:00:36
  that so positive in the wake of showing it as, like Dylan said,
• 1:00:39
  a flawed relationship. Because I feel sometimes like
• 1:00:43
  gay relationships. It's even like the, you know,
• 1:00:45
  the annoying neighbours or something like that.
• 1:00:47
  It's always done in a really sort of sitcoming way.
• 1:00:49
  They're actually portrayed as a real, genuine couple that love
• 1:00:52
  each other. The stories anchored around
• 1:00:55
  them, they're both beautiful. And then they get that bit at
• 1:00:58
  the end where they snog in the tie.
• 1:01:00
  Oh, bravo, Chris. Chip N Do you think that was the
• 1:01:03
  point the Doctor decided to get a mattress in the TARDIS
• 1:01:05
  console? I think so.
• 1:01:07
  There was some heavy scissoring going on after.
• 1:01:10
  That I'll tell you well. They didn't look surprised when
• 1:01:13
  they landed on that mattress, did they?
• 1:01:16
  They've been there before. Oh, and just just another note
• 1:01:19
  for the direction of this ends. Like I don't think Doctors ever
• 1:01:22
  look better than Serious 12. It really and and this is shot
• 1:01:26
  like a movie. This is Doctor Who as a movie
• 1:01:28
  and they pull it off brilliantly.
• 1:01:30
  So yeah, I'm keeping. It so it's one each.
• 1:01:33
  So I've got the casting vote on this one so axis he's obviously
• 1:01:38
  going through woo all I will say, I can't believe you've all
• 1:01:44
  missed the elephant in the room. You're all saying how brilliant
• 1:01:46
  it looks. No ones mentioned that fucking
• 1:01:49
  bird that looks worse than the cat in survival.
• 1:01:52
  We see it twice with his little head turning around.
• 1:01:55
  Looking is a terrible. Shock.
• 1:01:58
  We're all looking at Warren Green, that's why.
• 1:02:00
  That's true. That's aside.
• 1:02:02
  I mean, yeah, you've probably between you've covered a lot of
• 1:02:04
  the positive things I was going to say.
• 1:02:06
  Surprisingly, I'm starting off with it's got a gay relationship
• 1:02:09
  at its heart. I think it's it's it's a story
• 1:02:12
  where there's a real heart to it and that has been missing quite
• 1:02:15
  a lot in Chibnall. I think it's great that we get a
• 1:02:19
  real positive relationship. It's a gay relationship, as
• 1:02:23
  everyone said it already. It's not full of all coming out
• 1:02:26
  angst or AIDS drama. It's just a normal loving
• 1:02:30
  relationship, which is really, really positive to see.
• 1:02:33
  I didn't think they were going to go that start with because
• 1:02:35
  you weren't quite sure on the relationship between the two of
• 1:02:38
  them. And I kept thinking, no, they're
• 1:02:40
  both too butched and too alpha to be a couple.
• 1:02:42
  They're not going to do this because like you said, Joe,
• 1:02:45
  usually. Made it heart rod.
• 1:02:46
  They were so. I'm agreeing.
• 1:02:48
  I'm agreeing with you, Joe, but I just didn't think they would
• 1:02:50
  do that for, oh, they're going to cop out and they're going to
• 1:02:52
  be brothers. I can't have been the only
• 1:02:54
  person with a cushion in my lap watching that episode.
• 1:02:58
  I love the fact that Graham goes to talk to Jake on the beach and
• 1:03:01
  has a conversation with him about their relationship.
• 1:03:04
  I think that's, again, we're talking about kind of positive
• 1:03:06
  messaging, but done in a subtle way, and that's really subtly
• 1:03:10
  done. He's an older man, different
• 1:03:11
  generation, yet he's sitting down talking to Jake really
• 1:03:15
  openly and happily about the relations have been giving him
• 1:03:18
  positive, supportive messaging. I think that's great.
• 1:03:22
  I do think it's a little bit odd when they come into the targets
• 1:03:24
  at the end and the two of them are snogging that the rest of
• 1:03:27
  the fam are literally stood 2 meters in front of them, just
• 1:03:30
  staring at them and smiling. So maybe Joe, you weren't the
• 1:03:33
  only one with your action during that.
• 1:03:36
  They were definitely taking that in.
• 1:03:38
  But that relationship I think just gives the episode his heart
• 1:03:41
  and and makes us care for it. There are some logical gaps in
• 1:03:45
  this story because it is very, very busy, possibly a bit
• 1:03:48
  overstuffed. I mean, I understand they may go
• 1:03:50
  a line about the alien spaceship that came down, knocked Adam's
• 1:03:55
  ship off course. Then why they take him and why
• 1:03:58
  they experience and why they take him to Hong Kong when
• 1:04:01
  they've got a lab set up in Madagascar.
• 1:04:04
  Don't really get all of that, but it's globetrotting and it
• 1:04:07
  looks good. But once I love the use of the
• 1:04:10
  farm in this, I think they. I think I'm a sucker for stories
• 1:04:13
  where they're already in place and they're all in place at the
• 1:04:15
  beginning of this. They've all got their own story.
• 1:04:18
  Yas particularly has got quite a lot of agency and takes command
• 1:04:21
  of one of the investigations. I think he's got one of the
• 1:04:24
  funniest jokes in the series where Graham and Yas are
• 1:04:27
  investigating and he's holding the scanner and says oh, if the
• 1:04:31
  signals coming from that door and she just turns it around and
• 1:04:35
  is Oh no the signals coming from that door, that was very funny,
• 1:04:39
  very subtle. I think that's when the film are
• 1:04:41
  working really well. It is ridiculous that the Doctor
• 1:04:46
  only speaks to 1 character and she turns out to be the baddie.
• 1:04:49
  Particularly when we're going all the way across the world and
• 1:04:52
  the Doctor just happen happens to stumble across the one badly.
• 1:04:56
  But you know it's busy and as you've all said directions,
• 1:05:00
  fantastic. It's absolutely stunning.
• 1:05:03
  Looks beautiful, so yeah, I'm keeping it in.
• 1:05:06
  That's two for two, isn't it? It's. 2 for two.
• 1:05:08
  Wow. There's a shock, Joe.
• 1:05:10
  You're to pick one. Well, I'm going to do my one
• 1:05:14
  that I want to boot out, and that is I'm doing this as one on
• 1:05:19
  my ascension of the Sidemen and the Timeless Children.
• 1:05:22
  They are one. You're kicking it out.
• 1:05:24
  I'm kicking it out, yeah, for one reason really.
• 1:05:28
  I really, really love ascension of the sidemen.
• 1:05:30
  I like so much about it. I think for once we've got like
• 1:05:34
  pure desperation as we're running away from the sidemen.
• 1:05:37
  It's such a linear story of people on the run, and it's
• 1:05:41
  directed brilliantly. It's acted brilliantly.
• 1:05:43
  I really believe they're in a a tense situation, and I love
• 1:05:47
  Jodie getting pissed at the beginning of essentially the
• 1:05:50
  assignment as well. We don't see enough of that and
• 1:05:53
  she does it brilliantly and it delivers on the side men in
• 1:05:56
  pretty much every way. Although care what you say about
• 1:05:58
  those floating heads coming down, Bloo, Bloo blooing
• 1:06:01
  everybody, I think that's Cat in an episode that's widely very
• 1:06:05
  serious. It's sort of a bit silly and I
• 1:06:08
  do like it, but again, it's filmed brilliantly.
• 1:06:09
  All those POV shots and the devastation.
• 1:06:12
  Is that Magna Stone again? Dylan.
• 1:06:14
  It is. It is, yeah.
• 1:06:15
  Yeah, it. Looks incredible.
• 1:06:17
  So pretty much like a nine out of 10 for attention to the side
• 1:06:21
  men, unfortunately, the timeless children.
• 1:06:25
  Now, I like the revelations. I like what it does to Doctor
• 1:06:28
  Who, Dylan, and I've talked about this extensively on
• 1:06:30
  Hamster. I like the direction it takes to
• 1:06:33
  show I don't think it contradicts anything that we've
• 1:06:35
  seen before. I think it's bold and it's
• 1:06:38
  ambitious and it sort of shook the ground in the way that even
• 1:06:42
  like Day of the Doctor with the War Doctor didn't.
• 1:06:46
  What I don't like is how it's delivered.
• 1:06:48
  I do not like that 20 minute PowerPoint presentation that the
• 1:06:52
  Master gives the Doctor pulling the Doctor out of the story for
• 1:06:56
  20 minutes in the finale. It's a weird thing that happens
• 1:06:59
  a lot in finales in the new series.
• 1:07:01
  The Doctors sort of taken away and and not given much to do.
• 1:07:05
  It happened in last of the time laws as well.
• 1:07:08
  Yeah and the the special effects during that sequence are
• 1:07:11
  amazing. But I just think it's a really
• 1:07:13
  unengaging way instead of, I don't know finding some way of
• 1:07:16
  taking us back there and showing us we're told and it's just the
• 1:07:20
  biggest Royal TV show don't tell and it's a lot of telling for a
• 1:07:23
  long time and I'd really dislike the oh I'm going to sacrifice
• 1:07:29
  myself bit at the end as well. I I just think that's always the
• 1:07:33
  laziest way to end a story. So many Doctor stories end that
• 1:07:36
  way. When Coach Charmers space name
• 1:07:39
  turned up and when oh I'm an old man, I've lived all of my life,
• 1:07:45
  you know it's nearing an end and gets lines like this.
• 1:07:48
  There's only one way this episode could possibly end and I
• 1:07:52
  wouldn't even write off the Timeless Children.
• 1:07:53
  I think the cyber laws are pretty incredible.
• 1:07:57
  It's a brilliant idea and they come back in power of the Doctor
• 1:08:01
  in a superb set piece. I think Sasha Dawan is
• 1:08:04
  incredible in that episode, but I think it is ill structured,
• 1:08:08
  It's poorly delivered and I think some of the reaction
• 1:08:14
  against this episode could have been smoothed out had it been
• 1:08:19
  delivered in a more engaging way.
• 1:08:22
  And so that's the only reason why I am going to remove
• 1:08:27
  ascension of assignment and assignment children.
• 1:08:30
  Didn't see that one coming. Shall we go to the comments?
• 1:08:35
  Oh, do we have to? Paul Quinn, who never minces his
• 1:08:39
  word said ignore the bed wetters pissing in their Tom Baker
• 1:08:43
  bedsets. Fugitive Dr. and the Timeless
• 1:08:46
  Children are a brilliant idea. The Doctor discovers the truth
• 1:08:50
  of their origin is problematic as it's not active, rather than
• 1:08:53
  the Master makes the discovery and tells the tale.
• 1:08:57
  Melvin Pena Finally, whether folks like it or not, the
• 1:09:00
  Timeless Children did change the law of Doctor Who for the
• 1:09:03
  foreseeable future. RTD Two has domesticated it and
• 1:09:07
  made it less lawish, at least here at the start of the Gatwa
• 1:09:11
  era, just calling him an orphan, which was a very canny move.
• 1:09:14
  Daniel Romsley says Fugitive for the Judoon and the Timeless
• 1:09:17
  Children are probably chibbers, ballsiest and boldest moves on
• 1:09:20
  the show. The storytelling itself is a
• 1:09:22
  little bit clumsy, but I like them both.
• 1:09:24
  Yes, even the masters. Inelegant but superbly acted
• 1:09:28
  PowerPoint presentation. James Anference After this
• 1:09:31
  landed, I lost all interest in revisiting the season
• 1:09:34
  whatsoever. I appreciate the time.
• 1:09:36
  This children works for a lot of people, particularly younger
• 1:09:38
  fans, but I fundamentally dislike making the Doctor more
• 1:09:42
  than a Time Lord God like being. For me, it adds an unnecessary
• 1:09:45
  mystical element to the character that detracts from the
• 1:09:48
  Doctor's relatability. Yes, they're alien, but I find
• 1:09:51
  the Doctor more relatable as a Standard Time Lord who wanted
• 1:09:54
  more and became a renegade. This is more relevant to A Queer
• 1:09:58
  Reading, but again, I really do respect everybody's opinion on
• 1:10:01
  the episode, and I appreciate that it hits home for many
• 1:10:04
  people. Jason Thompson said Ashad is a
• 1:10:07
  superb creation, but at some point in the final episode
• 1:10:10
  there's no further use for him. So the Master just zaps him and
• 1:10:13
  he's reduced to a deadly weapon, which was itself only mentioned
• 1:10:16
  for the first time seconds before he got zapped.
• 1:10:20
  Michael Storm has delivered a dissertation.
• 1:10:22
  While I am not 100% keen on the idea of the timeless child, the
• 1:10:26
  manner of how the story is delivered is truly atrocious.
• 1:10:29
  Oh, we're we're one. Having the Master in prison the
• 1:10:32
  Doctor and give her a PowerPoint presentation.
• 1:10:36
  Matrix star was just plain bad. At best it is just lazy
• 1:10:39
  exposition info dump with pictures.
• 1:10:41
  At worst it robs the Doctor of agency and drama.
• 1:10:44
  Why isn't she uncovering this while finding about the Fugitive
• 1:10:47
  Dr. Or why has the Master single handedly killed every Time Lord
• 1:10:51
  and shifted their bodies into cryo storage?
• 1:10:54
  The Fugitive Dr. would make a more logical sense between the
• 1:10:56
  Second and Third Doctors, legitimising season 6B.
• 1:11:01
  Instead, we have the Home Bargains take on the Cartmill
• 1:11:03
  Master Plan and Lung Barrow, the Chip Coin.
• 1:11:07
  Says, not fond of its concept or execution, but if people enjoy
• 1:11:11
  it, more power to them. My least favorite hair.
• 1:11:14
  Well, Dylan. I'm just going to say there is
• 1:11:16
  no confirmation of where the Ruth Doctor sits and Chris
• 1:11:19
  Chibnall says he knows, but it has never been revealed.
• 1:11:22
  It's Doctor Who fans that assume that it's a preheartenal Dr. It
• 1:11:26
  could still be that season 6B. Did you say did you do Jack Jack
• 1:11:31
  Hoyers? Yes.
• 1:11:33
  Oh no, not the mind probe, says the Doctor in Ireland.
• 1:11:36
  Very dark, very brutal. And finally, Chris Curtis has
• 1:11:40
  some great ideas with the Cyber Men in the last part was spoiled
• 1:11:43
  with the whole destroyed Gallifrey box.
• 1:11:47
  OK, so fairly mixed bag. So panel, are we going to be won
• 1:11:50
  over, I'm convinced by Joe. Are we chucking it or are we
• 1:11:53
  keeping it? That's come to Dylan.
• 1:11:56
  I'm keeping it for three reasons.
• 1:12:00
  Number one, this is something the Doctor Who doesn't do
• 1:12:02
  enough, or it hasn't done well enough.
• 1:12:04
  This is Doctor Who as an action film.
• 1:12:06
  It's vast armies of Cybermen. It's the fallout from the cyber
• 1:12:10
  war. It's huge spaceships done
• 1:12:12
  without any terrible fringing Ross T Davis.
• 1:12:15
  It's cyber graveyards. It's spaceships over Gallifrey.
• 1:12:18
  And just the way Ashad walks into the opening of that
• 1:12:22
  battlefield with the sort of the fire and the smoke.
• 1:12:26
  It's just Doctor Who again I come back to has never looked or
• 1:12:29
  tried to be as big and as epic as as it does here.
• 1:12:33
  The second thing is obviously the the time this child reveal I
• 1:12:37
  I don't quite get the PowerPoint side of things because you were
• 1:12:40
  talking earlier Rod for instance about you know how they just
• 1:12:45
  tell you what's going on in fugitive here.
• 1:12:48
  They are literally showing you every single thing.
• 1:12:52
  It's just got a bit of a voice over.
• 1:12:54
  I'm I'm reminded of the end of time where you know Rascal on
• 1:12:57
  just pops up to tell you what everybody's doing.
• 1:12:59
  So you know it's it's it is a similar trick that's been used
• 1:13:01
  before. And I think the time this child
• 1:13:05
  reveal is needed. It's a response to the biggest
• 1:13:08
  issue that the Moffett era has in that essentially Moffett
• 1:13:10
  answers the question Doctor Who. And it also answers the question
• 1:13:14
  why the Doctor left Gallifrey. The Doctor now has a vast
• 1:13:17
  mystery. There's nothing to say they're a
• 1:13:18
  God. There's that, you know.
• 1:13:20
  There's nothing to say they're a God at all.
• 1:13:21
  There are an orphan child of another race who can regenerate
• 1:13:24
  the Time Lords went or tete when but we'll have a bit of that.
• 1:13:28
  But you know the Doctor was was basically tortured as a child
• 1:13:32
  for a long long time by the sounds of it.
• 1:13:35
  And it's a mystery that we can I'm sure the show will pick up
• 1:13:38
  on again at certain points and drop at other points.
• 1:13:40
  But it just keeps the show fresh.
• 1:13:42
  And within the pantheon of modern television and modern
• 1:13:45
  sci-fi shows and fancy show fantasy shows, you need a law.
• 1:13:48
  I don't think it's good enough to just jump from story to story
• 1:13:51
  to week with with nothing to build that universe up and build
• 1:13:55
  your main character up to who needs to be a question and has
• 1:14:00
  having a law running in the back of it.
• 1:14:02
  And I think that's what it does. I think you need a law now.
• 1:14:05
  I think that's what the audience needs now in order to engage and
• 1:14:08
  stick with a show. I don't know if it was a problem
• 1:14:10
  during the classic series, but yeah.
• 1:14:12
  No, no, that's what. I mean, the language of fandom
• 1:14:14
  now is law, isn't it? Yeah, exactly.
• 1:14:16
  And across all the shows that that that you get, it didn't
• 1:14:20
  need it in the classic series. It was enough for them to turn
• 1:14:22
  around three years into the show and go, We need to change our
• 1:14:25
  lead actor. We should probably add something
• 1:14:26
  to the law regeneration. Oh, we need to do it again.
• 1:14:29
  How about we introduce the Time Lords?
• 1:14:31
  It's a seismic shift as such as those, but except it has more
• 1:14:35
  repercussions in some respect because it's more likely to be
• 1:14:37
  delved into than just being a plot point as it was.
• 1:14:41
  And my final thing that I want to talk about is Chris
• 1:14:44
  Chibnall's massive balls. Because literally or
• 1:14:48
  metaphorically, I don't know what they look like personally,
• 1:14:52
  but they'll. Send you some pictures.
• 1:14:54
  I'm sure he's got big, big kahunas.
• 1:14:57
  I mean the the balls to make the Morbius doctors officially
• 1:15:01
  cannon on television, to use the words Sheboggans on 21st century
• 1:15:08
  television. To have the.
• 1:15:10
  Punch the air moment where the Doctor Who music plays in a
• 1:15:13
  montage of clips of Doctor Who and she basically kicks the
• 1:15:17
  Matrix's ass with it. I think, and I think again,
• 1:15:22
  Doctor Who fans get worried about the casual viewer, but
• 1:15:25
  actually it's all there and it's all explained and five, 5
• 1:15:29
  million people sat there going, I understand what this is.
• 1:15:32
  And 1000 Doctor Who fans went no, no.
• 1:15:35
  What will the casual viewer think?
• 1:15:38
  I think you'll find it was 4.69 Dylan but.
• 1:15:43
  I was more than more than, well, nothing.
• 1:15:45
  Time, though, wasn't it? Same AI as Ruby Rd. though.
• 1:15:50
  Strange. Oh hey, you're so convincing.
• 1:15:53
  Can I change my mind? This I'm consigning to the bin
• 1:16:01
  and for very similar reasons to Joe I thought part one was
• 1:16:04
  fantastic. I I thought it was a really good
• 1:16:07
  strong start. It was the the doom laden
• 1:16:10
  atmosphere. I think I was comparing it to
• 1:16:13
  Wild Enough in Time and Dark or you know, there's a run of
• 1:16:17
  penultimate episodes of finale episodes which are bloody bleak
• 1:16:22
  and I think this is one of them. It's not an episode I think I'd
• 1:16:25
  put on for fun because it's just the atmosphere is so well done
• 1:16:29
  at times that it's like this is not fun to watch because it's
• 1:16:32
  just quite grim. The pre titles for one of the
• 1:16:36
  few episodes, this series that actually has a pre title
• 1:16:38
  sequence is really good. The kind of that the the
• 1:16:41
  wreckage and then you slowly go into the Cyberman's eye and then
• 1:16:44
  we get that is visually just one of the most arty pieces in this
• 1:16:48
  season and probably in the modern series.
• 1:16:51
  Yeah, and some fantastic production values.
• 1:16:55
  However, I've written the PowerPoint presentation that is
• 1:16:59
  literally my words. It's the PowerPoint
• 1:17:00
  presentation. It's not.
• 1:17:02
  As long as I remember I remembered it being
• 1:17:05
  interminable. It was.
• 1:17:06
  It was probably only in chunks, about 5 minutes broken up.
• 1:17:10
  I thought it was just one huge extended sequence from memory.
• 1:17:13
  It wasn't. It wasn't as interminable, but
• 1:17:18
  the whole thing. It's just the master explaining.
• 1:17:21
  And yes, we've got the visuals, but basically we've got Tektu
• 1:17:24
  Yun as an actor with no, hardly any dialogue, just kind of
• 1:17:27
  staring off into the middle distance half the time.
• 1:17:30
  While while the Master at times it's visually impressive, lots
• 1:17:33
  of times it's visually boring because it's not redoing
• 1:17:36
  anything. Then the island stuff, which the
• 1:17:40
  island stuff in in essential segment is really stylish.
• 1:17:44
  But at no point correct me, if I'm Mr. Remembering in that
• 1:17:48
  first episode, do they actually stress that the Doctor is
• 1:17:50
  seeing? These memories, That's the point
• 1:17:53
  of it though. I think that's the point of it.
• 1:17:55
  But. Then they have a line because
• 1:17:56
  then they have that line where she goes.
• 1:17:58
  Those memories of Ireland, which on the subtitles that I've got
• 1:18:01
  on iTunes kept saying Ireland is in ISLAND instead of Ireland.
• 1:18:05
  The country which I just thought just took kept taking me out of
• 1:18:07
  the moment but it's like oh so she was sick.
• 1:18:09
  So the IT just felt really disconnected.
• 1:18:11
  And the only time where there was a sense that she would
• 1:18:13
  experience those memories was at the end when they saw the clock
• 1:18:16
  with a division on it. So it felt.
• 1:18:18
  But while they looked great and I I got what they were doing, it
• 1:18:21
  just felt a bit disconnected. The other bit that I thought
• 1:18:26
  this needed this is, this is a story about the Doctor's
• 1:18:28
  identity and finally come to terms at the end with the the
• 1:18:32
  kind of you know who you are, you are the Doctor.
• 1:18:34
  And what this story needed was an I am the Doctor moment and
• 1:18:38
  not, I'm sorry to say, an explosion of stock footage to
• 1:18:41
  break out of the Matrix. It needed something in the
• 1:18:45
  writing, dare I say, almost a bit of a Muffet thing of it
• 1:18:48
  needed something where the Doctor proved and won the day
• 1:18:52
  and demonstrated her identity as the Doctor.
• 1:18:54
  There are, and you know, there are many sort of fan wanky ways
• 1:18:57
  you, you know, that could have been done.
• 1:18:58
  But you know, at the heart of it, the cyber Lords, they've got
• 1:19:02
  regeneration energy. That's where that's come from,
• 1:19:05
  the Doctor originally. And they could have done
• 1:19:06
  something with that. They could have deferred to her
• 1:19:08
  as kind of the ultimate cyber leader or something or
• 1:19:11
  something. I've come up with so many
• 1:19:12
  different kind of ideas because that's what fans do.
• 1:19:15
  But instead she just sort of breaks out and then Kusharmas
• 1:19:19
  turns up and you've got a bomb. And it's like this needed
• 1:19:23
  something. If you're going to do The
• 1:19:25
  Timeless Child, if you're going to have this, you can have these
• 1:19:26
  revelations. You need something to draw it
• 1:19:29
  all back together. And actually at the end, if the
• 1:19:32
  Doctor's having this sort of identity crisis, then it needs
• 1:19:37
  something more. And I felt that was lacking.
• 1:19:39
  And finally the the fam being a bit they've got scenes, it's not
• 1:19:46
  like they're not present. They have that scene.
• 1:19:48
  They get to Gala friends, like, yes, we're going to go and
• 1:19:50
  rescue the Doctor and they don't need to because she's already
• 1:19:52
  broken out and it's like, so you've set this up and and I was
• 1:19:56
  like going oh, I don't maybe they do break her out.
• 1:19:57
  I can't quite remember. That would have been really good
• 1:19:59
  because it brings the idea that the the idea of fan family and
• 1:20:02
  bring them together and they're the ones that help her save the
• 1:20:04
  day. But they don't really bring very
• 1:20:08
  much to the the second-half of the episode.
• 1:20:10
  And yes, they're doing something.
• 1:20:13
  Yes, they have some nice character moments, but they
• 1:20:15
  could have done so much more with them and actually again,
• 1:20:18
  weave the fam into the resolution of the story.
• 1:20:22
  So the second-half of it, and I can say ascension right, but
• 1:20:26
  timeless child, I have no issue with the Timeless child of the
• 1:20:29
  Revelation. I want to make that clear.
• 1:20:31
  I just think it could have been done so much better.
• 1:20:34
  So that is why I'm going to pin it do.
• 1:20:37
  You know, it's such a shame that I didn't let someone else take
• 1:20:39
  the Timeless Children, because listening to every point you
• 1:20:42
  were making there, I had a counterpoint to make as to why
• 1:20:46
  those things were great. And now I wish I'd gone the
• 1:20:48
  other way with the Timeless Children and I didn't, and I'm
• 1:20:50
  stuck in a position I'm in. But never mind.
• 1:20:53
  You projected it, Joe, and it's now one each a piece.
• 1:20:56
  So yet again, for the second time this evening, I've got the
• 1:20:59
  casting vote and it's the Timeless Children and it's
• 1:21:03
  Chipnall. And I'm going to keep her.
• 1:21:08
  Excuse me? Joe chokes.
• 1:21:10
  This is a bigger twist than Fugitive of the Jadine when this
• 1:21:13
  was The Joe Martin Show. The very idea that on this
• 1:21:17
  episode, I rejected it and you'll keep.
• 1:21:19
  Reporting it. I know what the hell is going
• 1:21:21
  on. I actually really like it and
• 1:21:23
  it's grown on me over. I haven't watched it that many
• 1:21:26
  times, but it's definitely grown on me every time I have watched
• 1:21:29
  it. You've covered a lot of reasons.
• 1:21:31
  I like it. And Ascension, you're absolutely
• 1:21:34
  right, is really gritty. It feels real.
• 1:21:37
  There's a lot of kind of reality missing from the Tribunal area
• 1:21:40
  and this, the beginning of this, feels absolutely real.
• 1:21:43
  I love the fact that FAM have turned up.
• 1:21:45
  No, not the Hedge Joe, but the rest of the rest of that scene
• 1:21:49
  start with feels really gritty. I mean, the Doctor and Co turn
• 1:21:53
  up within two minutes. Two of the seven humans they've
• 1:21:55
  turned up to save are dead on the floor.
• 1:21:59
  That feels real. It's got.
• 1:22:00
  They're never going to get a book.
• 1:22:02
  A good back story. I don't know.
• 1:22:03
  Yeah, never mind. Chipmel can't do characters
• 1:22:06
  anyway, so it's fine. I love the fact that they bring
• 1:22:10
  weapons that kind of plunder from Doctor Who history.
• 1:22:13
  So one of the one of the weapons is an emotion inhibitor to run
• 1:22:16
  back to the kind of cyber Cyber 1 sprays out gold.
• 1:22:20
  That's nice that for the fans, but it's a nice little nice
• 1:22:24
  little trick. You're right, Joe, the Doctor is
• 1:22:26
  really angry here. She's determined to say to her
• 1:22:28
  friends, and it feels much more real for her.
• 1:22:30
  This is what I want from this doctor.
• 1:22:32
  When she's strong and powerful, not throwing out lines about
• 1:22:36
  spam and crayons, this feels this feels real and tangible.
• 1:22:40
  She's great here, then has a confrontation with Ashad where
• 1:22:44
  he's a hologram. How many times does Joe does
• 1:22:46
  Doctor face holograms? By the way, she faces hologram
• 1:22:49
  dialects, hologram cycle, and hologram masters.
• 1:22:52
  They're definitely in there. I'm not quite sure why she.
• 1:22:54
  Acts them all brilliantly though, doesn't she?
• 1:22:56
  Have a great confrontation, and I think Ashad is a real palpable
• 1:23:02
  menace throughout the first episode and a half.
• 1:23:05
  Yes, he gets destroyed very quickly, but in a way my reading
• 1:23:08
  from that is The Master is even a bigger threat than Ashad.
• 1:23:12
  Yes, he dispatches him immediately because he's a bit
• 1:23:14
  of a loom and I like that. And the Master kind of was on
• 1:23:18
  the way, hoping that Ashad would kill him, which is quite
• 1:23:21
  interesting and must have got a little bit of a death wish going
• 1:23:23
  on, but does feel very bleak. They skate the planet in a
• 1:23:28
  spaceship, they go into a space field full of dead Cybermen
• 1:23:31
  hitting the spaceship. That's really quite belief.
• 1:23:34
  That's quite unusual for this period of Doctor, and it creates
• 1:23:36
  a real sense of tension. And that cuts with the sight
• 1:23:40
  scenes that we see in Ireland, which otherwise could be very
• 1:23:42
  much a kind of Sunday evening gentle call the midwife type
• 1:23:47
  drama. But I think, I think the tension
• 1:23:49
  that you've got on the rest of it intercuts with Ireland and
• 1:23:52
  makes you realise there's something more going on here.
• 1:23:55
  For those two sit to sit side to side, I think that works very
• 1:23:58
  well. Second reason why I like it is I
• 1:24:01
  actually like the revelations. I think it's interesting.
• 1:24:04
  It's big, it's bold. It's kind of what I wanted from
• 1:24:06
  Chip and not that specifically, but I wanted him to do something
• 1:24:09
  that he grabbed it by his balls and said this is my take on
• 1:24:13
  Doctor Who and I think he's giving it here.
• 1:24:15
  It doesn't all work, but you know, kudos to him for doing
• 1:24:19
  something different and something we weren't expecting.
• 1:24:23
  You can read that it fits with the whole of Doctor Who
• 1:24:25
  continuity. You know, it doesn't invalidate
• 1:24:28
  anything that's already done, particularly I think the car or
• 1:24:30
  Master Plan where they were saying the Doctor was the other.
• 1:24:33
  Well, if the Doctors from another race, they certainly
• 1:24:35
  were the other. So I like that it, you know, it
• 1:24:39
  talks about why 13 regenerations were set for the time laws.
• 1:24:43
  So it feeds into all that law. So fans, fans are being kept
• 1:24:46
  happy whilst giving them something new, which I think is
• 1:24:49
  quite good. And we talked about, you know,
• 1:24:51
  we set it up for another showrunner to do what they want
• 1:24:54
  with him. We've already seen Russell
• 1:24:55
  starting to run with it. So I say good for Chipnall for
• 1:24:58
  doing that. And lastly, my point on this is
• 1:25:02
  I think the doctor master relationship here is really
• 1:25:04
  interesting. That one is an excellent master.
• 1:25:08
  Personally, I'm not convinced that we needed the mask back
• 1:25:10
  again so quickly, but we've got him.
• 1:25:13
  And I'm glad it's Sasha Wank because I think he gives a
• 1:25:16
  fantastic performance. I love that relationship.
• 1:25:18
  I love the fact that he's so embittered that the Doctor is
• 1:25:21
  special and different, that he's prepared to blow up Gallifrey
• 1:25:25
  just because the Time Lords hid the truth.
• 1:25:27
  He's so angry about that, and I'd say he's got a bit of a
• 1:25:30
  death wish. He hopes the Doctor does press
• 1:25:32
  the button at the end and destroy them all with the death
• 1:25:34
  particle. So yeah, I think there's a lot
• 1:25:36
  of good stuff in here. It's to you.
• 1:25:38
  It's different. It's bold, it's gritty.
• 1:25:40
  I'm giving it a pass and it's going through unbelievable by
• 1:25:45
  you throwing us out, Joe Forward.
• 1:25:46
  I know, Joe. We've talked about Chipnall's
• 1:25:48
  ball so much, right? Depending on where people fall,
• 1:25:51
  whether they love him as a writer or hate him, they're
• 1:25:53
  going to be envisioning, aren't they tiniest or massifest balls
• 1:25:56
  you've ever seen. In your life you should go to
• 1:25:59
  run a pole on me well. Any Doctor Who writers suffer
• 1:26:02
  this sort of indignity, you know?
• 1:26:04
  Well, he's so divisive, surely he's got one massive ball and
• 1:26:07
  one tiny ball. Just to be different.
• 1:26:11
  It is true. Right, it's my turn.
• 1:26:15
  So I've been far too positive. Everything's gone through.
• 1:26:19
  I don't. Know I through our fugitive, but
• 1:26:22
  so far the otherwise I've been positive so I need to bring a
• 1:26:25
  bit of contrary enough to the proceedings.
• 1:26:28
  So I am going to go with Spyfall and I'm chucking Spyfall out.
• 1:26:34
  So I think part one is fantastic.
• 1:26:38
  So similar to Joe with The Timeless Children and Ascension,
• 1:26:40
  I think part one of Spy 4 is great.
• 1:26:43
  It's consistent. It's Doctor Who's take on James
• 1:26:45
  Bond. We've got every trapping of
• 1:26:47
  James Bond possible. We've got roulette wheels, we've
• 1:26:50
  got car chases, we've got gorgeous overseas locations.
• 1:26:54
  We've got breaking into locations.
• 1:26:58
  We've got everything you could possibly want.
• 1:27:00
  We've even got the tuxedo, we've got sea, we've got spies being
• 1:27:04
  murdered. You've got really strong villain
• 1:27:07
  in Barton and the Kasarvans. Yeah, I think it's a great,
• 1:27:10
  great Part one, but it falls down in Part 2 with the
• 1:27:14
  structure. I think the structure goes
• 1:27:16
  horribly, horribly wrong. So I feel that Tribunal's trying
• 1:27:20
  to do a bit of a Moffett here by going somewhere different in
• 1:27:22
  Part 2. So we get a trip to the 19th
• 1:27:25
  century and a trip to the 20th century.
• 1:27:27
  And to me they are just pure padding to the main story.
• 1:27:31
  So why is Ada Lovelace in there from the 19th century?
• 1:27:35
  Well, we're told she's there because the Southern want to
• 1:27:38
  track people who have developed computers.
• 1:27:40
  That makes no sense with what we get at the end of the story.
• 1:27:45
  They're in league with the tech giants in the 21st century.
• 1:27:48
  Why do they need to know who invented a computer in the 19th
• 1:27:51
  century? There's absolutely no relevance
• 1:27:54
  to that whatsoever. And then in the 20th century we
• 1:27:57
  get the inclusion of World War 2.
• 1:27:59
  That's even more spurious because they just stop off along
• 1:28:02
  the way and it's just serendipity.
• 1:28:04
  They just happen to bump into someone who's a spy.
• 1:28:07
  Because that's the theme of the episode.
• 1:28:10
  Makes no sense at all, just pure padding.
• 1:28:12
  I also think the addition of the Master here is a bit pointless,
• 1:28:16
  but we need 3 villains. We've got the Kosarven, we've
• 1:28:18
  got Barton, and now we've got the Master as well.
• 1:28:21
  And when we sideline Barton and the Kasarovan for most second
• 1:28:26
  episode, why have we got 3 villains?
• 1:28:28
  There's just too much going on. And at the end, two of them just
• 1:28:31
  run away. They're scared of the Doctor.
• 1:28:33
  They literally just run. The Barton just runs off stage,
• 1:28:36
  get my car, the Kasarovan run away because they find out the
• 1:28:40
  Master was planning to double cross them.
• 1:28:41
  Even though we've been told very clearly they have their own plan
• 1:28:44
  for intergalactic domination, We never find out what that is.
• 1:28:48
  They just disappear. Or a bit convenient.
• 1:28:52
  And then also at the very end, in the last 10 minutes, we get
• 1:28:54
  this whole discourse about data privacy from Barton.
• 1:28:58
  That's very left field. And again, is that what
• 1:29:00
  Chibnall's trying to tell us? It's just one plot, strand too
• 1:29:03
  many, so there's so much wasted opportunity in that structure.
• 1:29:07
  If we ditched the whole 19th and 20th century, carried on with
• 1:29:10
  the spy setting. We've got Yaz's family, for
• 1:29:13
  crying out loud. We see them in throwaway scenes,
• 1:29:15
  which is just terrible. Shobna Gallata, her mum, is a
• 1:29:19
  brilliant actress. I want to see more of her and
• 1:29:21
  she's just stitched in absolute pointless scene.
• 1:29:24
  Stephen Fry and Lenny Henry wasted, well literally in
• 1:29:27
  Stephen Fry's case with a bullet.
• 1:29:31
  So we just get the plot just goes to hell in the second
• 1:29:34
  episode. It feels different, makes no
• 1:29:37
  sense. So structure is my first point.
• 1:29:39
  My second point is there's a lot of bad taste going on in this
• 1:29:42
  episode. So the Doctor's mind wipe, for
• 1:29:45
  example, of Ada and Noah at the end, Nothing is quite bad taste.
• 1:29:49
  She's never done it before, apart from maybe the Doctor
• 1:29:53
  wiping Donna's mind, but that was because Donna was dying.
• 1:29:56
  It was the only way he could say his friend.
• 1:29:58
  Whereas here the Doctor just willingly wipes everybody's
• 1:30:02
  mind. That's never happened in Doctor
• 1:30:03
  Who before. Feels very odd and quite forced
• 1:30:06
  and quite invasive. Don't like that.
• 1:30:09
  I really don't like the Master in a Nazi uniform.
• 1:30:12
  That just feels wrong to have quite a cartoony.
• 1:30:17
  Joe No, Joe. No, no.
• 1:30:20
  No. In a Nazi uniform, it's the
• 1:30:22
  other time. No.
• 1:30:24
  No, no. I'll finish that.
• 1:30:26
  No. I already said it in the episode
• 1:30:29
  we did. Dylan, don't worry in.
• 1:30:31
  The uniform I'll give you in A Nazi uniform?
• 1:30:34
  No. It's still a uniform.
• 1:30:38
  We kept Barton killing his own mother just to show that he's a
• 1:30:41
  baddie. Little bit in bad taste, right?
• 1:30:44
  But this is, and this is the big bit that really pisses me off
• 1:30:47
  about this episode. And I'm genuinely affronted by
• 1:30:49
  this by this. So we include Noor in the AT
• 1:30:53
  Calm within this episode. Who's the spy in World War 2?
• 1:30:58
  You know, she's a real life person.
• 1:31:00
  I've read quite a lot about World War 2 and the SOE Special
• 1:31:04
  Operations executive who ran spying.
• 1:31:06
  So Nora was an incredibly brave woman who aided the French
• 1:31:11
  Resistance. She was betrayed, she was
• 1:31:13
  captured and she was sent to Dachau concentration camp where
• 1:31:17
  she was executed before the end of the war.
• 1:31:19
  She was incredible and incredibly brave and had an
• 1:31:24
  incredibly tragic ending. So to include her and not
• 1:31:28
  respect her in the way that, for example, we respected Rosa last
• 1:31:32
  season, we treated her with dignity and respect and looked
• 1:31:35
  to her story quite rightfully. So we should do.
• 1:31:39
  If we're going to include in a story, then we ought to afford
• 1:31:43
  her the same dignity and respect.
• 1:31:46
  And just to throw her away and just treat her as a character
• 1:31:49
  because she's a spy, I think is is quite insulting to her.
• 1:31:53
  Can I interject, just for a second, because I know for a
• 1:31:57
  fact that her death was supposed to be included in this episode.
• 1:32:02
  It was supposed to be a pivotal moment in this episode.
• 1:32:05
  And but essentially his script editors producers whatever said
• 1:32:09
  you cannot do this, you cannot put this in.
• 1:32:13
  It's utterly tasteless. So I think you were going to get
• 1:32:16
  what you wanted. And he he basically, his hands
• 1:32:18
  were tied. But we don't even tell her
• 1:32:20
  story. I mean, she's just a generic spy
• 1:32:24
  in the setting we see. We don't really.
• 1:32:26
  I don't understand the whole point of that sub point.
• 1:32:28
  I'm picking a real person who has a set as a fascinating,
• 1:32:34
  brave, and tragic story and treating it so lightly and throw
• 1:32:38
  away I think is reprehensible. And I'm genuinely affronted on
• 1:32:43
  that story for that inclusion. So that really brings this
• 1:32:46
  episode down for me. And then third reason, if there
• 1:32:49
  wasn't enough, we pull the sofa of reasonable comfortness from
• 1:32:54
  because the fatal death we don't do it once, we do it twice.
• 1:32:58
  So we get the aeroplane escape because at the end of the
• 1:33:01
  episode the Doctor goes back and plants all the seeds so the
• 1:33:05
  companion can say it it's as bad as Rowan Atkinson falling into
• 1:33:09
  the sewers. But then the Doctor does it
• 1:33:11
  again. At the end of the episode we
• 1:33:13
  find out, oh, the Doctor runs in, She saves the day because
• 1:33:16
  she's reprogrammed the Silver Lady.
• 1:33:19
  That invalidate every single Doctor Who story because at the
• 1:33:22
  very end the Doctor could say, oh, I nipped back in time and I
• 1:33:25
  changed it all. It's just Jodie's smarter than
• 1:33:29
  all the rest none of them thought about.
• 1:33:31
  It cheap, cheap, cheap and easy. And then on a lighter note,
• 1:33:35
  because I've got annoyed by this episode.
• 1:33:37
  So on a much like, really, I couldn't tell.
• 1:33:41
  The other reason why I don't like this is because it ruins
• 1:33:44
  one of cinema's greatest jokes. So Sasha Dewan says that he's
• 1:33:49
  called. Oh, because C calls him that.
• 1:33:51
  Because when he sees him, he says, oh God right, that ruins
• 1:33:55
  the best joke in Carry On Spying where Charles Hawtrey says he's
• 1:34:00
  been called. His code name is OOO and Kent
• 1:34:03
  Williams says, why do they call you that?
• 1:34:06
  Charles Hawtrey says. Because when they see me, they
• 1:34:08
  go, oh oh oh, I forgot, Ruined, ruined by.
• 1:34:15
  Sasha Duan You think that's a bad joke?
• 1:34:19
  It's a far better joke, I've. Got a feeling you're not keen on
• 1:34:23
  this episode? Sorry.
• 1:34:25
  Did I or was I? Did I not make that clear
• 1:34:27
  enough? It's out.
• 1:34:29
  Oh. Yeah, it's not.
• 1:34:30
  Not yet, it's not. No, we need to do the comments.
• 1:34:33
  First Oh yeah, of course. Before you go on your high
• 1:34:37
  horse, do you want to go first, Joe?
• 1:34:40
  Yeah, yes, Jack Hoyer. Prefer part one, but Part 2
• 1:34:44
  still has stuff to excite. A rip roaring start to the
• 1:34:48
  season. Yes, it is great work from Sasha
• 1:34:50
  Deward who had me fooled personally and good for Jodie as
• 1:34:54
  well. Pleased that all the regulars
• 1:34:55
  get something to do. The one aspect this series
• 1:34:59
  improves for me. The Big Talking Bird said.
• 1:35:02
  Spy Fall is easily my second favorite season opener of all
• 1:35:05
  new Who beaten only by the pilot.
• 1:35:08
  Oh, there you go Paul Quinn. The second part is mostly
• 1:35:11
  incomprehensible over plotted shite, which is a real shame as
• 1:35:16
  Duan is brilliant. And that's the end of this
• 1:35:18
  episode. Craig Williams says the Masters
• 1:35:22
  reveal is probably my favorite moment in the season, although
• 1:35:25
  it's undermined by the but you're a really good runner.
• 1:35:28
  I read it in your file line that comes out of nowhere.
• 1:35:31
  It should have been a fact that we were Privy to for us to
• 1:35:33
  realise at the same time as the Doctor.
• 1:35:36
  Gareth Bailey Best is Spyfall, The Master Reveal, Soft Shoe
• 1:35:39
  Shuffle Gag plus great score. God the music is out of this
• 1:35:44
  world in this episode. Chris Hogman says I hate Graham
• 1:35:47
  Shooty Shoes, but that's a personal.
• 1:35:50
  Thing no one could agree on anything.
• 1:35:52
  Dave Rennie Spyfall is my favorite, although Part 2 is
• 1:35:56
  very hard to follow. Right.
• 1:35:58
  So have I convinced you? Or are you going to be fools and
• 1:36:03
  put this one through? Joe, you've you've spoilt it
• 1:36:06
  already, so you go first. Oh, I love it.
• 1:36:09
  I absolutely love it. This might be my favorite start
• 1:36:13
  of the season, and that's as a whole.
• 1:36:15
  I just think it's gorgeous. I think the reason why the Noor
• 1:36:20
  Khan's in there is for that amazing sequence where you have
• 1:36:23
  Josie Noor Khan and Ada Lovelace standing in front of the window
• 1:36:28
  as the place burns outside and you have these three powerful
• 1:36:32
  incredible women front and centre in Doctor Who coming
• 1:36:36
  together to solve the problem. Who of whom have got nothing to
• 1:36:40
  do with them? Doesn't matter.
• 1:36:41
  They're amazing women. It's it's a statement to make,
• 1:36:44
  and it's worth making. But the Teresa whilst you're
• 1:36:46
  after. Celebrating.
• 1:36:48
  Oh, even better if she was there too.
• 1:36:51
  Even better, lady. Diana, let's get them all in
• 1:36:54
  there. Come on.
• 1:36:54
  You know what? Celebrating women in history is
• 1:36:58
  something this era does spectacularly well.
• 1:37:01
  It's something that the Mafia era would never afford to do in
• 1:37:03
  a new year. That's all I'm saying.
• 1:37:06
  I'm. I'm shutting off I.
• 1:37:07
  Think it's done perfectly. Respectfully.
• 1:37:09
  Sasha Dewan. I loved him in The Timeless
• 1:37:12
  Children and I didn't really get to say that because I was
• 1:37:14
  building a defence against it. But his performance is oh so
• 1:37:18
  likeable. I loved him instantly.
• 1:37:20
  I loved his interaction with everybody.
• 1:37:21
  I was completely fooled. No clue.
• 1:37:24
  When the reveal came at the end of the episode, I jumped out of
• 1:37:27
  my seat in a way I haven't done since the macro were revealed in
• 1:37:31
  Gridlock. That's how excited I was.
• 1:37:33
  Even the Utopia reveal didn't get me as excited as this is the
• 1:37:37
  best master reveal ever. I think his performance in that
• 1:37:41
  scene, the way he goes from being very amiable to utterly
• 1:37:43
  fucking psychotic. It's a master class in acting
• 1:37:47
  and how to turn it on a dime. And it's in a situation of
• 1:37:50
  extreme peril as well. So it's one of the best master
• 1:37:53
  reveals. It's one of the best
• 1:37:54
  cliffhangers of all time. The the play calumeting down as
• 1:37:59
  we go. Oh, it's amazing.
• 1:38:00
  It's so dynamic, so brilliantly done.
• 1:38:05
  I like Part 2. I like to jump in about.
• 1:38:08
  I don't need every single T cross and every I dotted.
• 1:38:12
  I just want to have a good time and I'm having a good time.
• 1:38:15
  This is put together with such confidence, with such energy,
• 1:38:18
  with good humour. I love that soft, soft shoe
• 1:38:21
  shuffle joke, which I can't say clearly.
• 1:38:24
  The companions are drifting off to the side a little bit.
• 1:38:27
  I'll accept that, but that's just because there's so much
• 1:38:29
  other good stuff going on. Why are there 3 lots of villains
• 1:38:32
  in this? Because all three lots of
• 1:38:33
  villains are fucking brilliant, that's why.
• 1:38:36
  Why is the Master given the prominence at the end and the
• 1:38:39
  others are ditched to the side for exactly the same reason as
• 1:38:41
  you said in the centre of the Simon and Timeless Children.
• 1:38:44
  Somewhere more powerful has come along and taken centre stage and
• 1:38:47
  sort of brushed them aside. I'm here now and here's the arc
• 1:38:50
  for the season and our bloody destroyed Gallifrey.
• 1:38:53
  Ha ha ha, go and solve that one. It's amazingly good.
• 1:38:57
  What a mission statement for the start of the season.
• 1:39:00
  This globe trotting, exciting, confident, funny, full of great
• 1:39:05
  set pieces. Brilliant acting, I mean as a
• 1:39:09
  New Year's Day special. There was no movie they could
• 1:39:11
  put on that day that was better than this.
• 1:39:13
  I was utterly thrilled from beginning to end.
• 1:39:16
  I know I wax lyrical a lot, but do we do a commentary in this?
• 1:39:19
  You know how much I love this. I just thought it was the
• 1:39:22
  perfect foot to get it. After the sort of calmer, more
• 1:39:27
  reflective series 11, to jump into 12 with so much energy and
• 1:39:32
  excitement, I just thought it was a wonderful thing to
• 1:39:35
  experience. I love it.
• 1:39:36
  Let's go answering. Unsurprisingly, I love it.
• 1:39:40
  I do think it's got some problems in that second episode,
• 1:39:44
  but I think it's such an awesome ride that you that that it
• 1:39:48
  doesn't matter that it doesn't all quite fit together for me.
• 1:39:51
  My, my, my sort of three points are very obvious ones about the
• 1:39:55
  first one being the Timeless Child.
• 1:39:56
  I love how a throwaway point from the first season is
• 1:40:01
  suddenly made a major plot point for this season, showing that
• 1:40:03
  Chibnall did know what he was doing.
• 1:40:05
  And I'm reliably informed from one of the writers in the Doctor
• 1:40:09
  Who writers room for the series 11, that that was one of the
• 1:40:12
  first ideas that was come up with the Timeless Child.
• 1:40:14
  So it had been. It wasn't just, oh, we'll do
• 1:40:17
  something with that. And also within that the Masters
• 1:40:21
  destruction of Gallifrey and everybody goes what he destroyed
• 1:40:24
  Gallifrey. We don't need Gallifrey at full
• 1:40:27
  functioning in Doctor Who. This is a much more interesting
• 1:40:30
  way to destroy Gallifrey, because Gallifrey is there.
• 1:40:33
  We go to it in this episode, we go to it in the finale.
• 1:40:35
  Gallifrey is not destroyed. The Master went insane and ran
• 1:40:38
  riot through the capital, and I hope to see Time Lord refugees
• 1:40:43
  showing up at some point. Are there other cities on
• 1:40:45
  Gallifrey or is it just that one?
• 1:40:47
  Who knows? But the idea that someone's
• 1:40:49
  decimated this society is a really exciting one, and one
• 1:40:53
  that I hope is delved into in the future.
• 1:40:55
  I'm only going to echo what Joe said on the Master reveal.
• 1:40:58
  It's brilliantly played, brilliantly handled.
• 1:41:00
  The way Sasha's eyes change when he goes for when he's rumbled
• 1:41:03
  and he goes from oh to the Master.
• 1:41:05
  The tissue compression gets a mention for the first time in
• 1:41:09
  decades. The Wicked Witch of the West
• 1:41:11
  lines. Brilliant.
• 1:41:12
  So I don't still don't know why people are confused about where
• 1:41:14
  this Master is in the chronology, because it's very
• 1:41:17
  the Wicked Wist, which of the West is very much what Missy
• 1:41:20
  was. And I just like the way he
• 1:41:22
  shouts at the end of that episode.
• 1:41:24
  He's terrified. And even though we know it's the
• 1:41:27
  first episode of the series, so not everybody's going to die, I
• 1:41:30
  still go, how are they going to get out of this cliffhanger,
• 1:41:35
  which is how you get out of most cliffhangers in Doctor Who?
• 1:41:37
  But you know what? I'd rather have you know, in a
• 1:41:39
  bit of the end where Jody goes, all right, I'm going to laminate
• 1:41:42
  these things and put them up. And we actually see her doing
• 1:41:44
  it. And the cheats you got in the
• 1:41:45
  Muffet's time, where he just beamed in with a broom and a
• 1:41:49
  bucket on his head and you're like, well, how the hell did we
• 1:41:51
  get here? Like, I'd rather explain to us
• 1:41:53
  how it happened. Absolutely.
• 1:41:55
  And my final point is just the relationship between the Master
• 1:41:59
  of the Doctor, especially that talk on the Tower in Part 2.
• 1:42:03
  How? Did I forget that deal?
• 1:42:06
  One of the lazy criticisms that is aimed at the Jodie Whittaker
• 1:42:10
  Doctor is that she doesn't get a big Doctor moments.
• 1:42:13
  It's because Chris Chibnall and Jodie Whittaker aren't doing big
• 1:42:15
  Doctor moments, but she gets plenty of Doctor moments that
• 1:42:18
  are big for her character and as you mentioned before about her
• 1:42:20
  having great people to play off. Those two playing against each
• 1:42:24
  other are absolute fire and people get a little bit funny
• 1:42:28
  about that. Her removing the perception
• 1:42:30
  filter on the Master and leaving him with Nazis.
• 1:42:33
  But we are talking about the Master here.
• 1:42:35
  It's like I I appreciate that Leaving somebody with, you know,
• 1:42:40
  brown coloured skin with Nazis may not be the dumb thing, but
• 1:42:44
  it's still the master who's an evil motherfucker.
• 1:42:46
  It's and and also like we know that the Mass and the Doctor
• 1:42:50
  don't operate on a human level. The Nazis are nothing to them,
• 1:42:53
  just like like it's a game that they play and have been playing
• 1:42:57
  for years and years and years. So I don't, I don't really see
• 1:42:59
  it as problematic and I think it's a wonderful scene between 2
• 1:43:02
  brilliant actors. So it's going through because
• 1:43:05
  it's got two pluses, David. Unfortunately, your boat is
• 1:43:08
  superfluous, but we want to hear it anyway.
• 1:43:10
  I've not heard David's voice for too long.
• 1:43:12
  David, make this well. Well I love being superfluous
• 1:43:16
  You know that there's some dare happens superfluous.
• 1:43:20
  I will, I will. And The thing is, Rod your
• 1:43:23
  reasons echoed mine almost word for word particularly the the
• 1:43:27
  the Norkhan stuff. I I I don't know.
• 1:43:30
  So in a previous job I used to work in an archive.
• 1:43:32
  We did a lot of stuff on Norkhan.
• 1:43:34
  So I was quite aware of Norkhan's story going in.
• 1:43:36
  So I was kind of going and going OK, what what are they going to
• 1:43:40
  do with this? Because it is a it's a tough
• 1:43:42
  story to tell and they yeah, it's not told the whole thing of
• 1:43:48
  whether or not they'd I I did try to find some concrete more
• 1:43:53
  proof of what they'd actually filmed as an ending.
• 1:43:56
  Because I know the the the actress said I've shot my death
• 1:43:59
  scene. I've filmed my death scene, but
• 1:44:02
  I couldn't find any more detail. I don't know if there is
• 1:44:04
  actually anything I've heard that actually confirmed they
• 1:44:06
  shot scenes at Dachau or not. And the fact that it was even
• 1:44:10
  considered for a fun frivolous New Year's Day fun week a happy
• 1:44:15
  go lucky adventure for Doctor Who.
• 1:44:16
  That that that's we talk about Chibnall's balls that is that
• 1:44:20
  that would have been a misstep and I think by taking that out
• 1:44:24
  you you leave a character that needed more probably would
• 1:44:29
  deserve a story in her own right.
• 1:44:30
  But then you get to this difficult thing of when you've
• 1:44:33
  got a character who's the eventual end is at a
• 1:44:36
  concentration camp where they are executed and there are
• 1:44:39
  various different accounts of what happened to Norcon at
• 1:44:41
  Dachau. You know she ends up dead either
• 1:44:44
  way. But there are varying degrees
• 1:44:46
  which have how get worse depending on which one you read
• 1:44:49
  in a in a family friendly action adventure.
• 1:44:52
  Is this the sort of story we tell?
• 1:44:53
  Because then you start to get to the whole thing of in the Doctor
• 1:44:56
  universe, obviously Second World War happened, the Holocaust
• 1:44:59
  happened. And then you get the question
• 1:45:00
  of, well, why doesn't the Doctor do something about it?
• 1:45:04
  Because obviously they exist. And it it, the classic series
• 1:45:08
  completely sidestepped by that by not doing anything with Nazis
• 1:45:11
  pretty much for 26 years. As soon as you start dealing
• 1:45:14
  with these things, you get the question of, well, why can't you
• 1:45:17
  do something? Oh, because they're fixed point
• 1:45:18
  in time or whatever. And I think then the Doctor does
• 1:45:22
  a speech about fascists and the fascists never win.
• 1:45:24
  Tanuk Khan then wipes an Emory and then says to her good luck
• 1:45:28
  and it's like is is that the right?
• 1:45:31
  Is that right? Even a even a Tennant style?
• 1:45:33
  I'm so sorry. Or just an acknowledgement of
• 1:45:35
  this character's eventual fate, even in the even briefly in the
• 1:45:38
  dialogue, would have been something.
• 1:45:40
  But I just felt that that Beauchamp, I don't know, that
• 1:45:44
  really annoyed me there because it's like you're not doing the
• 1:45:49
  real life character justice. So they really that was my
• 1:45:53
  thing. The Bill and Ted moment, I know
• 1:45:55
  it was Toby Haydock said about the bill and Ted moments as
• 1:45:57
  well. The stuff with the plane, we
• 1:45:59
  don't see the silver lady in the sabotage, but we do see her with
• 1:46:01
  a laminator. So it's like you're going to
• 1:46:04
  show us that, but not actually the resolution to the plot.
• 1:46:06
  It's. Not enough time.
• 1:46:08
  Not enough time, but we have got time for a laminator.
• 1:46:13
  So yeah. And there's a couple of bits
• 1:46:15
  where I just thought, is something been cut?
• 1:46:17
  Because then at the start of the story the doctor's talking about
• 1:46:19
  oh, as if she knows who they are and if we're supposed to know
• 1:46:23
  who they are because it's like, oh, your your man horizon scan
• 1:46:27
  and like, have I missed something?
• 1:46:28
  I've rewound it a couple of times ago.
• 1:46:29
  Have I missed a bit of dialogue here?
• 1:46:31
  Because it's it feels like we're expected to.
• 1:46:33
  So I felt like there was a. Bit like asthma when twin
• 1:46:36
  dilemma or you know Magellan in time Lash or I could think of or
• 1:46:41
  Todka Travers in terror. The verve voice you're.
• 1:46:43
  Not comparing it to great stories there I.
• 1:46:47
  Most certainly am. How dare you?
• 1:46:49
  But, but in those instances I never got the sense that
• 1:46:51
  something was missing. But there it definitely felt
• 1:46:54
  that there was a piece of dialogue or part of a scene that
• 1:46:56
  probably got lost in the edit and it made it just a bit
• 1:46:59
  disjointed. What I will say about the the
• 1:47:03
  dropping of the perception filter and the reveal the
• 1:47:05
  master, because I know there's a lot of discourse about that and
• 1:47:09
  and I agree with. I don't think that is is as bad
• 1:47:15
  as people make out because I don't think the intent behind it
• 1:47:19
  was what people think it is. You know, the painting of this
• 1:47:22
  Doctor is racist. This Doctor is using is
• 1:47:24
  weaponizing. I I mean this is such a diverse
• 1:47:29
  period of the show. This is a show that's embracing
• 1:47:31
  diversity and cultural diversity and so on.
• 1:47:34
  I don't believe the intent of Chibwell here was to do anything
• 1:47:36
  like that. I think it can be viewed like
• 1:47:39
  that. But then, you know we look at
• 1:47:42
  things like Tanzu, Wang, Chang and we look at intent.
• 1:47:45
  Was there racist intent back then?
• 1:47:47
  Possibly not in terms of the casting.
• 1:47:48
  That was just the dumb thing. I don't think there was intent
• 1:47:51
  to do anything controversial that I think it may well be.
• 1:47:54
  The scene was written before Sasha was cast and then it was
• 1:47:57
  like they might not have changed.
• 1:47:58
  So I don't think that's has gone through.
• 1:48:01
  There's a lot of good stuff in it.
• 1:48:03
  It was written before it was cast.
• 1:48:04
  It was confirmed. And that was, that was something
• 1:48:07
  that I've I felt like if that had been a Caucasian master, we
• 1:48:12
  wouldn't be having that conversation at all, because
• 1:48:14
  it's still spies in in Nazi Germany and occupied France
• 1:48:18
  would not have had a happy end. That's what happened to Noah
• 1:48:20
  Khan, you know, the the fate, regardless of skin colour, was
• 1:48:24
  going to be quite damning. There was a lot of stuff in
• 1:48:27
  this. I did like, I did like part one.
• 1:48:29
  I like the Bond pastiches. Although I do wonder if Chipmel
• 1:48:32
  had watched basically Octopussy and and Skyfall and that's about
• 1:48:35
  it, because you've got the tone of of Skyfall, but then all of a
• 1:48:38
  sudden you've got the, the, the gadgets of the Roger Moore era.
• 1:48:40
  So it's like you haven't watched Bond for a while.
• 1:48:42
  I don't. Know.
• 1:48:44
  Come on. But I think the tone of it was
• 1:48:46
  like the scene between Sasha and Mandeep in the casino and I
• 1:48:50
  thought that was great. I thought that was one of the
• 1:48:52
  best because I I wasn't struck gas in series 11 and I was going
• 1:48:55
  if they'd given her more stuff like that because those two
• 1:48:57
  together, that short scene was great.
• 1:49:00
  Whether you know it was challenging what you know about
• 1:49:02
  the duct and of course knowing now obviously the truth, we now
• 1:49:05
  know what that scene's about. But it's like she was.
• 1:49:08
  She is definitely the strongest of the farm and she's definitely
• 1:49:11
  starting to shine through this. But yeah, I think just some of
• 1:49:15
  the historical stuff with no can't.
• 1:49:17
  I just, I can't get on board with.
• 1:49:19
  Well, we're outvoted, unfortunately.
• 1:49:21
  Wish I hadn't picked her now. Also, yeah, one last point in
• 1:49:24
  its favour. This is the hottest cast in
• 1:49:26
  Doctor Who of all time. Jodie Whisker looks so hot in
• 1:49:30
  her tux and Sasha Dwan's in there and toes and Coles in
• 1:49:34
  there. I mean, I could go on.
• 1:49:35
  They're just beautiful. Graham in his shoes.
• 1:49:38
  Oh, Bradley Walsh. You know, for an older man, he's
• 1:49:41
  gorgeous. OK, 2nd buckets of cold water
• 1:49:45
  for Mr. Ford, Right. Well, all four so far going
• 1:49:49
  through. Yeah, it's do you know what only
• 1:49:54
  one of those has been me and Dylan putting it through.
• 1:49:58
  Yeah, we like a mix of opinions on this podcast, right?
• 1:50:04
  We're round again for the 2nd batch of four, which we'll
• 1:50:07
  probably have to speed up a bit. You see how long we've talked in
• 1:50:09
  the. First round Dylan, would you
• 1:50:11
  like to pick your second choice for good or bad?
• 1:50:15
  I'm going to pick one for bad here, and it was a tough one,
• 1:50:21
  and I'll be honest with you, I only really have one point, but
• 1:50:26
  I feel like I couldn't put everything through.
• 1:50:28
  So I'm going to pick Nikola Tesla's Night of Terrors.
• 1:50:33
  Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror is fine.
• 1:50:36
  It's a fine Doctor Who story. It's a very RTD celebrity run
• 1:50:41
  around, you know, celebrity historical run around.
• 1:50:44
  But I have the same problem with it as I have with Victory of the
• 1:50:49
  Daleks, in that when you pick someone from history, you know
• 1:50:54
  there's often going to be things about those, those characters or
• 1:50:57
  those people that do not stand up by today's standards.
• 1:51:01
  And then you go and have a fun romp with them and Nikhil Tesla
• 1:51:06
  was into eugenics. And I don't think you can have a
• 1:51:09
  fun Doctor Who run romp romp with someone who's like oh if
• 1:51:14
  you got a birth defect which would probably kill you.
• 1:51:18
  It just it doesn't it doesn't work for me.
• 1:51:21
  And I know, and I feel the same about everyone when Churchill
• 1:51:24
  shows up as well. So I it's fine.
• 1:51:27
  The rest of the episode if I'm perfectly honest, is a bit
• 1:51:30
  lackluster for me, Looks great. Some great moments.
• 1:51:33
  If I've got some you know, other points.
• 1:51:35
  The monster doesn't show up soon enough.
• 1:51:37
  The make up is a bit dodgy, but it's just like, what were you
• 1:51:41
  thinking picking that? And maybe if you want to go,
• 1:51:44
  maybe it's something the show could explore if they've done it
• 1:51:46
  properly, but instead they chose to do a fun romp with somebody
• 1:51:50
  who. Isn't eugenics so?
• 1:51:52
  There we go. That is my point.
• 1:51:54
  It is astonishing, isn't it, that an era that does Van Gogh
• 1:51:58
  so well can do Churchill so badly, and an era that does Rosa
• 1:52:03
  Parks so well can do nickel and. It's not like it's secret.
• 1:52:07
  It's on the Wikipedia article, yeah.
• 1:52:11
  OK, so Nikola Tesla is proposed as throwing out.
• 1:52:16
  Should we go to the comments, Joe?
• 1:52:17
  I'm going to let you go 1st and there's a reason for this, so
• 1:52:20
  you go first. Dave Ruddy says a wonderful
• 1:52:22
  performance by Is it because you can't pronounce his name?
• 1:52:25
  That's the one. Gran Visenjic, how did you?
• 1:52:30
  Say it than I would have done. Bella's How did you say it?
• 1:52:33
  Yeah, I'm not going to do that. OK, by a wonderful performance
• 1:52:36
  by Gran and another example of Chipnall's Strength of the
• 1:52:40
  Historicals. Jason Thompson says a well made
• 1:52:43
  episode with a Corker of a plot and decent aliens, soured
• 1:52:46
  massively by the sanitisation of Tesla as a misunderstood genius
• 1:52:50
  just trying to make the world a better place for the benefits of
• 1:52:53
  all. And the complete failure to even
• 1:52:55
  acknowledge that he was a deeply unpleasant person, with some
• 1:52:58
  disturbing ideas about eugenics and his views on women, would
• 1:53:01
  not have disposed him to respond well to the doctor.
• 1:53:03
  Hang on, I'm just going to do a master style anagram of Jason
• 1:53:07
  Thompson's name. Oh, Dylan Reese.
• 1:53:09
  There it is, Jack Coyer says. Still no bad Jodie historical,
• 1:53:13
  yet good to see. Two fantastic guest stars in
• 1:53:17
  Goran Goran and Angeli Mahindra grown up Rani.
• 1:53:22
  Both elevate their material. Some of the most fun this era
• 1:53:24
  has. You can't go wrong with some
• 1:53:26
  good electrocution deaths. I couldn't get that out.
• 1:53:29
  Sorry. Eugenics.
• 1:53:31
  No, not the mind, probe said. That's a proper delta.
• 1:53:34
  Love that one. Who gives a flux?
• 1:53:36
  Tesla's episode is not my favorite.
• 1:53:39
  Actually, I think it's the dud of the season.
• 1:53:41
  And Graham Ward says don't really have a story I don't like
• 1:53:44
  in this season, but I learnt Nick a little, but I learnt
• 1:53:48
  Tesla was into eugenics recently so that one can go a.
• 1:53:53
  Lot of people have got issues with eugenics, don't they?
• 1:53:57
  I wonder why that is. I wonder.
• 1:53:58
  Why that don't you David your response?
• 1:54:03
  This is, this is I I think I actually am going to be
• 1:54:06
  surprising people because I would.
• 1:54:07
  I had originally thought I'd keep this, but the Tesla stuff
• 1:54:12
  is hard to ignore, and the truth of Tesla's hard to ignore.
• 1:54:15
  And if I'm sitting here talking about historical accuracy in
• 1:54:18
  terms of honouring people's characters, then you know I've
• 1:54:21
  got to stick true to my word. I can't be a contradictory
• 1:54:23
  Doctor Who fan. Or can I?
• 1:54:26
  Rest of us are. I will say that at the when it
• 1:54:30
  went out, I enjoyed it at the time because it was the IT was
• 1:54:33
  the episode that sort of pulled me back in after Spy for Part 2
• 1:54:37
  and all from 55, which nearly caused me to sort of tap out
• 1:54:40
  watching Doctor Who. I, you know, I enjoyed it as a
• 1:54:42
  45 minute romp. I didn't really know much about
• 1:54:45
  Tesla at the time and the episode didn't really tell me
• 1:54:47
  very much. So obviously you learn this
• 1:54:49
  stuff afterwards and it does kind of sour some of the
• 1:54:52
  positive points. I like the queen of the Scythra.
• 1:54:56
  I thought at first I was I the only person who thought it was a
• 1:54:59
  Rachnos? Yeah, no, I did too.
• 1:55:02
  I thought it was very similar. It was similar in look, similar
• 1:55:05
  in performance and even down to the the dialogue, sentence
• 1:55:10
  construction and so on. So when it was revealed, it
• 1:55:12
  wasn't, it was a bit oh, I thought, but I thought Angela
• 1:55:15
  Mahindra chewing the scenery at times, but entertainingly so.
• 1:55:19
  I mean, she's definitely one of the high points.
• 1:55:22
  You know, to bring back a slightly camp monster was great
• 1:55:26
  and it was just really enjoyable.
• 1:55:28
  But it was a nice traditional straightforward Doctor Who story
• 1:55:32
  and that's what kind of brought me back in going, OK, you can
• 1:55:33
  still tell stories that I can just watch and don't maybe want
• 1:55:37
  to know my own arm off, which I had with Orphan 55.
• 1:55:41
  But it is kind of difficult to reconcile you know this lovable
• 1:55:46
  I mean not lovable but this likeable character with Tesla
• 1:55:49
  with who they are the other and this is another episode.
• 1:55:52
  I felt there was an odd edit as well because all of a sudden
• 1:55:56
  they're in the fact they're in the warehouse at the start and
• 1:55:58
  all of a sudden they're on a train and then they have this
• 1:56:00
  whole this whole loaded dialogue and then the end of scene the
• 1:56:03
  doctor saying saw about this lab then the lab has not been
• 1:56:06
  mentioned anywhere else in the scene.
• 1:56:08
  So it's like we again sometimes, yes, we have previous stories
• 1:56:12
  where things are kind of dropped in dot things for the past we're
• 1:56:14
  talking about, you know, people they've met before and so on.
• 1:56:17
  But if has a view, I'm looking going, have I missed a line of
• 1:56:21
  dialogue? Has something been cut Then
• 1:56:24
  something's not quite working. And I think that felt quite
• 1:56:27
  obvious, but so where am I going to fall on the side of the
• 1:56:31
  fence? I'm going to, I'm going to be in
• 1:56:33
  it. I'm trying to be positive and
• 1:56:34
  this would would have been a save, but I think the points
• 1:56:37
  about Tesla can't really ignore that.
• 1:56:40
  And it's like, is this a character that we should be
• 1:56:42
  doing a story about unless we make their eugenics part of the
• 1:56:45
  story? Well, I'm binning this one as
• 1:56:48
  well. So this one's going.
• 1:56:49
  It's the first one to go. Yeah, I think the whole Tesla
• 1:56:52
  Edison thing. Obviously there's the eugenic
• 1:56:55
  side. And you know, we just, we
• 1:56:56
  really, really glorify Tesla in this episode too.
• 1:57:01
  I don't think a celebrity historical has ever glorified
• 1:57:05
  anyone quite as strongly as this.
• 1:57:08
  It's very, very sugary in its depiction, even to the extent
• 1:57:12
  that we find given in story reason for why he claimed to be
• 1:57:16
  hearing messages from Mars, which is quite odd that we're
• 1:57:19
  excusing some of his slightly more out there theories.
• 1:57:24
  But it's quite, it's quite pan. So I find Edison very they're
• 1:57:28
  just too broad, the two of them. Edison is bad.
• 1:57:32
  Tesla is good. I mean, the fact that when the
• 1:57:34
  doctor first meets Edison, he immediately tells the story
• 1:57:37
  about how he exploited Tesla. You know, I'd expect him to be
• 1:57:40
  stroking his beard and rubbing his hands together.
• 1:57:43
  You know who offers that straight away?
• 1:57:45
  It just feels it feels overly simplistic.
• 1:57:49
  And as everyone said, the eugenics thing makes that even
• 1:57:52
  worse. The Skithra.
• 1:57:54
  Similar to you, David. I thought it was too similar to
• 1:57:57
  to the racknots. Even the fact that we've got
• 1:57:59
  spaceship overhead which gets fired upon, got to trouble the
• 1:58:03
  rack filing the queen with the CGI Skithra.
• 1:58:07
  Because they're two, they seem to be two very, very different
• 1:58:10
  creatures, even though it's the same race.
• 1:58:12
  That's a little bit odd, and I've also got a problem
• 1:58:15
  reconciling with very campy performance with the rest of the
• 1:58:18
  story, which is very far away from camp.
• 1:58:20
  Doesn't quite sit very well together.
• 1:58:22
  Apart from the fact obviously they're making this big thematic
• 1:58:26
  link between the Scithra Scavengers and Edison is a
• 1:58:30
  scavenger of other people's ideas, which is very, very
• 1:58:34
  laboured and very heavily laid on.
• 1:58:37
  And then finally, I'm just going to mention the TARDIS team.
• 1:58:39
  Last time we were in historic America we had a story about
• 1:58:43
  race in Rosa and here not that far away in years.
• 1:58:49
  But Yaz and Ryan and even the Doctor as a woman are happily
• 1:58:53
  walking around America and there's absolutely no mention of
• 1:58:57
  race politics whatsoever. It feels a little bit
• 1:59:01
  uncomfortable with what's gone on before because this is a good
• 1:59:03
  old fashioned romp and that wasn't so.
• 1:59:06
  I find that a bit contradictory too.
• 1:59:08
  So I'm. I'm binning Tesla as well.
• 1:59:11
  Joe, you're superfluous this time, but go for it.
• 1:59:14
  I am never superfluous. How dare you?
• 1:59:18
  I'm hoping I'm going to change all your minds now.
• 1:59:20
  No, I won't. I feel sad for the three of you,
• 1:59:22
  though only the second time ever in Doctor Who's history.
• 1:59:25
  A woman has both written and directed Doctor Who and you.
• 1:59:29
  Three men universally panned their episodes.
• 1:59:32
  Shame on you. It's because we're such, you
• 1:59:35
  know, virile heterosexuals. Why?
• 1:59:38
  Yeah, excuse me, Dylan has just got engaged to a woman.
• 1:59:41
  But congratulations, by the way. Thank you very much.
• 1:59:47
  I've seen my fair share of penises, so it's fine.
• 1:59:49
  It was we were going to talk about.
• 1:59:52
  That. I was in his lap a few weeks
• 1:59:56
  ago. Oh, sorry.
• 1:59:56
  Let's go back. Oh my God.
• 1:59:59
  I hope your missus don't listen to this.
• 2:00:01
  She's fine. She knows.
• 2:00:01
  She knows my sorted history. Fair enough.
• 2:00:05
  I don't really care about historical accuracy.
• 2:00:08
  I care about whether I'm having a good time watching a Doctor
• 2:00:11
  Who episode, because this isn't a piece of history.
• 2:00:14
  It's a fun piece of television to watch.
• 2:00:16
  There wasn't scorpions running around the street back in the
• 2:00:19
  day, so I don't really care that they are missing some of the the
• 2:00:24
  edgier details of this man's character.
• 2:00:26
  I just care scene to scene. I'm having fun with a Doctor Who
• 2:00:29
  episode I'm going to. Remind you of this, Joe, When we
• 2:00:31
  come to Churchill in the Moffett era, I'm mentally banking this
• 2:00:35
  conversation. Yeah, but I wasn't having fun
• 2:00:37
  scene to scene in that. That's just shit all around.
• 2:00:41
  This is really fun. It's a fun, tasty, witty,
• 2:00:46
  clever. It looks brilliant.
• 2:00:48
  I mean, this looks astonishingly good.
• 2:00:50
  It opens up on that shot of Niagara Falls.
• 2:00:52
  It ends with a RE enactment of historical New York with awesome
• 2:00:57
  CGI scorpions chasing Yas down the street.
• 2:01:00
  I mean, it just looks fabulous this It's got a sequence on a
• 2:01:04
  train and I'm a boy. I love a sequence on a train.
• 2:01:07
  I don't know why. It's another great turn for
• 2:01:09
  Jodie Whitaker as well. Well, who gets to be the
• 2:01:12
  scientist again and and work with other scientists and so
• 2:01:15
  they're leaning in that but she's really funny in this as
• 2:01:17
  well and I don't know why, but every time she puts goggles on,
• 2:01:20
  I just think she's she looks so cute and she's wearing goggles
• 2:01:24
  in the climax. This needs to go through for the
• 2:01:28
  pure reason that the way to stop deadly scorpions coming after
• 2:01:33
  you is to throw a bread basket in their way, which is very,
• 2:01:37
  very funny. You know, like you make good
• 2:01:39
  points about how this has been written and what is not in it,
• 2:01:43
  but what is in it is perfectly entertaining to watch.
• 2:01:47
  I think it's good solid meat and potatoes.
• 2:01:49
  Doctor Who In a season that makes good solid meat and
• 2:01:53
  potatoes, Doctor Who look exceptional.
• 2:01:56
  So that's why I would put it in. Well, you're out voted.
• 2:01:58
  Joe Tesla is the first to fall. Do his.
• 2:02:02
  So David, we're back to your second choice.
• 2:02:04
  Right. I'm I'm going to be positive
• 2:02:05
  again because I've I've kicked loads out and I've given this
• 2:02:08
  season a bit of kicking. So I'm going to do something
• 2:02:11
  positive and I'm going to keep the haunting of Villa Deodati,
• 2:02:14
  which I think is for me best episode of the season and
• 2:02:18
  possibly the best episode of the era.
• 2:02:20
  I think the app, it has got some genuinely creepy and effective
• 2:02:26
  atmosphere. You know, it's spooky.
• 2:02:29
  It's a ghost story. You've got ghosts in the in the
• 2:02:32
  background, kind of hidden in the shadow.
• 2:02:34
  There's a couple of moments that are genuinely unsettling and
• 2:02:38
  even that, that's watching it, knowing some of the stuff is
• 2:02:40
  coming. What you're watching it with,
• 2:02:42
  you know, turning the lights out and watching it at night and you
• 2:02:45
  know the the lightning flashes and all of a sudden there's a
• 2:02:47
  figure in the background and there's a point where the door
• 2:02:49
  closes and you know something's going to be there and it's
• 2:02:52
  there. But even then it's still just
• 2:02:54
  gives you a moment. So it is genuinely unsettling at
• 2:02:59
  times and that just shows how well directed it is.
• 2:03:02
  As I said, what's your best watched in the dark?
• 2:03:04
  Second Reason is a shat. So again, another really good
• 2:03:10
  creation for the season, another villain, and presents a proper
• 2:03:15
  palpable threat. But you know the the number of
• 2:03:18
  times when you've got monsters, where do they feel like they're
• 2:03:20
  genuinely a threat to the Doctor and the Companions and everyone
• 2:03:23
  else? Goes ashad definitely does is a
• 2:03:25
  force of nature, you know? It just can't be.
• 2:03:28
  You can't be stopped. And probably the one of the best
• 2:03:31
  scenes of the episode is scene where Mary Mary Shelley
• 2:03:34
  confronts Ashad and it completely subverts your
• 2:03:38
  expectation because you think she's appealing to the man
• 2:03:42
  behind the machine. And for a second you think, oh,
• 2:03:45
  maybe she's going to breakthrough to him and you're
• 2:03:46
  going to convince him to be, you know, and he's not because he
• 2:03:51
  was a, he was a monster before he was a Cyberman, you know, And
• 2:03:55
  that is a chilling moment and it is just really, really
• 2:03:59
  effective. Third Point is the Doctors
• 2:04:02
  taking down of the fam. And I think that scene I've made
• 2:04:06
  no secret. I don't think the fact they're
• 2:04:08
  not my favorite set of companions.
• 2:04:09
  I find them a little bit bland. I think that I understand what
• 2:04:14
  they were going for. I know that they we're not
• 2:04:16
  having these special time altering companions that we had
• 2:04:19
  with the Muffet ear and everything.
• 2:04:21
  I get them into be more down to earth and everything but I do
• 2:04:23
  find them just a bit boring at times.
• 2:04:25
  But this story makes almost a point of that.
• 2:04:29
  And it's not just when they have that scene where they have the
• 2:04:31
  argument and the this, but this command structure isn't flat,
• 2:04:35
  it's mountainous. And she challenges them and what
• 2:04:37
  do they say in retort to that? What's their clever comebacks?
• 2:04:41
  They don't say a word and it's like you've just you've
• 2:04:44
  basically taken down your friends.
• 2:04:46
  You have basically taken them down a peg or two.
• 2:04:48
  And OK, I'm agreeing. I'm kind of on her side with
• 2:04:50
  that, but it's really it's it's and Jodi, it's again one of
• 2:04:56
  Jodi's highlights. I think when she's angry, when
• 2:04:58
  she's got that sort of fury, that's what holds my attention.
• 2:05:02
  There was a scene in Timeless Children where she basically
• 2:05:04
  throws the masters to the floor, but in almost rage.
• 2:05:08
  That was great and I wish we'd seen a bit more of that at
• 2:05:11
  times. So I think it definitely.
• 2:05:13
  And then there's so much more stuff.
• 2:05:14
  I think it's actually a really well written story.
• 2:05:17
  I think it ties nicely into the story arcs that they've got.
• 2:05:19
  So they've already set up. The lone Cyberman turns up and
• 2:05:23
  is a proper threat in the Siberian, which is just the bit
• 2:05:26
  you know, it's effectively, it's a Mac guffin.
• 2:05:27
  It doesn't really matter what it is, but it's nicely done.
• 2:05:32
  I'm just just going to check that I've got anything else
• 2:05:33
  written down. Now that's that's the main
• 2:05:35
  thing. I think there's also a nice
• 2:05:37
  little twist that the ghost that Graham sees, they don't resolve,
• 2:05:41
  and normally I would get annoyed by that, but I wasn't there.
• 2:05:45
  I actually quite like that They've deliberately left
• 2:05:47
  something in, just completely random and unanswered, and it's
• 2:05:50
  really well done. So yeah, they're the three
• 2:05:54
  reasons for keeping it. But it is for me, that's in a
• 2:05:57
  series that I have been quite critical on and have been quite
• 2:05:59
  harsh on. That's the top.
• 2:06:00
  Brilliant. So our comments on the haunting
• 2:06:03
  of Villa Diadati, the best of the season, says Paul Quinn.
• 2:06:06
  Ashad is one of the best creations of new and old home.
• 2:06:10
  Michael Storm says best of best episode of the season, without a
• 2:06:13
  doubt the haunting of Villa Diadati, with Jodi given some
• 2:06:16
  meaty material More agency. Ashad is a great and memorable
• 2:06:20
  villain. Byron is characterized more like
• 2:06:22
  a man rather than the perceived image of a man.
• 2:06:26
  Melvin Pennis as a former academic and scholar of the
• 2:06:29
  Romantic era. The haunting of Villa Delia
• 2:06:31
  Dotti activated literally every pleasure centre in May.
• 2:06:35
  Joe, have you had literally every pleasure centre in you?
• 2:06:37
  Aspect that. Was your inspire for, I think.
• 2:06:42
  Most every time the Byron Shelley circle is presented in
• 2:06:46
  media, the actors are way too old.
• 2:06:48
  Props to Andy Pryor for age appropriate casting.
• 2:06:52
  No, not the mind probe says, astonishingly awesome.
• 2:06:55
  And Jack Coyus is terrific. Best of the series?
• 2:06:58
  Maybe. The era.
• 2:06:59
  The scooby-doo, Cold open moment.
• 2:07:01
  Actual comedy in the chibnal era.
• 2:07:03
  Excellent performance from Mary Shelley.
• 2:07:05
  Jodie is fantastic, particularly the team speech and her Ashad
• 2:07:08
  face off. Love Graham's ghosts.
• 2:07:11
  OK, so an impassioned plea from David.
• 2:07:15
  I'm going to jump in first on this one, and I am going to
• 2:07:18
  agree with David. I think there's a hell of a lot
• 2:07:21
  going on here in the period is really well established right
• 2:07:25
  from the off in the previous episode, which was can you hear
• 2:07:28
  me? We were in 14th century Syria
• 2:07:30
  and everyone was talking in contemporary language here right
• 2:07:34
  from the off. We've got a much more poetic
• 2:07:36
  Georgian language of the era. And I think that really helps
• 2:07:38
  set the tone. The house looks absolutely
• 2:07:40
  beautiful. It's almost a character in its
• 2:07:42
  own right. We all know how good the BBC is,
• 2:07:44
  appearance, drama, and I think the fact that it's lit by
• 2:07:48
  candles and by flames looks beautifully, really atmospheric.
• 2:07:52
  We get lots of external shots of the house alone, very much based
• 2:07:56
  on the siege and the weather. Yes, it's cliche to have
• 2:07:59
  downpouring rain and wind blowing the shutters in and
• 2:08:02
  Thunder and lightning, but my God, it really sets the tone.
• 2:08:05
  And you've noticed the difference.
• 2:08:06
  When you get our flashback to Shelly and the bright sunshine
• 2:08:09
  outdoors, you suddenly realise how dark the rest of the story
• 2:08:12
  is, how well that's working. I think the atmosphere is really
• 2:08:16
  helped by all the poltergeist activity.
• 2:08:19
  You mentioned David the the maid and the young girl that Graham
• 2:08:21
  sees. They're so creepy.
• 2:08:23
  And you're right, it's great that we don't get an answer for
• 2:08:25
  them. Some of the house reconfiguring
• 2:08:28
  itself, like Castro, modern day Castro, Valva.
• 2:08:31
  But it's done really simply. It's not done with big tricky
• 2:08:33
  effects, they're just cuts. So it's quite disturbing you're
• 2:08:36
  wondering what's going on. But again, I think from a
• 2:08:39
  directorial point of view, it works really well.
• 2:08:42
  And the distant image of the glowing figure again looks very
• 2:08:46
  ominous. Such great atmosphere, I think.
• 2:08:48
  Jodie, Jodie, this is a great, great episode for us.
• 2:08:51
  She gets to be light and playful when the threat arrives.
• 2:08:55
  She's totally serious, totally determined.
• 2:08:57
  She's angry. She doesn't want to lose anyone
• 2:08:59
  else to Cyberman, obviously. We're guessing referencing back
• 2:09:02
  to Bill, possibly also back to Adric, but she probably wasn't
• 2:09:05
  cross about Adric confrontation with Ashad.
• 2:09:09
  She gets a couple of those. There's the one in the upstairs
• 2:09:11
  room, beautiful direction where we see Ashad sweeping away the
• 2:09:14
  furniture. And then you just see the doctor
• 2:09:16
  sat on the bed in the background and she stands and comes to
• 2:09:20
  confront Ashad. You're right, Dave.
• 2:09:21
  I like you. I like it when she gets angry.
• 2:09:24
  I like it when she gets across. I think it works really well.
• 2:09:27
  You're right. The confrontation with the
• 2:09:28
  family is blistering. I don't like though.
• 2:09:31
  The one thing I don't like about what they do with their
• 2:09:33
  character is that she shows Shelley his death, which is a
• 2:09:37
  little bit inconsistent given what we've just been talking
• 2:09:39
  about. Spyfall, where she wipes
• 2:09:40
  people's memories. Here she actually leaves someone
• 2:09:43
  with the memory of how they die with foreknowledge, which is a
• 2:09:46
  little bit odd, but let's work past that one.
• 2:09:50
  Ashad, as you said, is brilliant.
• 2:09:52
  I think it's a great example of where you've got fantastic
• 2:09:54
  costume design, brilliant actor, good writing, creates a really
• 2:09:58
  memorable villain. If you think what else we've had
• 2:10:00
  in the series, Tim Shaw, Jack Robertson and Ashad, really, is
• 2:10:05
  there any competition? He's fantastic.
• 2:10:07
  He's completely brutal. He kills the Butler.
• 2:10:10
  He snaps the maid's neck without second thought.
• 2:10:12
  Really horrible scene picks up the baby.
• 2:10:14
  You genuinely think he's going to kill the baby.
• 2:10:17
  Yeah, he's a great, great monster.
• 2:10:18
  And it was great to see more of them in the following two.
• 2:10:21
  And I'm going to pick a fourth point for this because I really
• 2:10:23
  like this episode comedy. I slagged off Comedy Bones
• 2:10:28
  earlier on. I think there's some lovely
• 2:10:30
  comedy here. The juxtaposition when the fan
• 2:10:33
  walk in. Expect to see these great
• 2:10:35
  writers, the zenith of their creative genius and they're all
• 2:10:39
  playing parlor games on the floor.
• 2:10:41
  I love the Butler's world we're in as every time he sees young
• 2:10:44
  Fox, who just in the background, raising his eyes, sighing.
• 2:10:48
  I think he's very funny and. You're basically the Butler of
• 2:10:52
  the chimney wearer, aren't you? Exactly.
• 2:10:54
  And who doesn't love Graham? Looking for a toilet?
• 2:10:57
  I mean, come to yeah, Bradley Ross doesn't get enough kudos
• 2:11:02
  just for playing the every man wandering around the house
• 2:11:05
  looking for a low. Great.
• 2:11:07
  So yeah, for me this is staying in.
• 2:11:09
  Gord Dillard. This is one that's ultimately
• 2:11:13
  I'm going to put through, but I'm really on the fence about
• 2:11:15
  because I just, I really resent when Doctor Who resorts to what
• 2:11:21
  we fans call gothic horror, which apparently just means set
• 2:11:24
  at night in the 1800s. And I there's a few too many
• 2:11:30
  cliches for me here, and actually I prefer my historical
• 2:11:33
  characters speaking in modern day.
• 2:11:35
  I don't need, you know, Regency language and whatever era,
• 2:11:39
  Georgian, whatever era it's in, I don't need it.
• 2:11:42
  Just talk to me properly. What I can't not put it through
• 2:11:46
  because you know, I I find the story treads water until Ashad
• 2:11:52
  shows up, but when he does show up, it's brilliant.
• 2:11:54
  I want more of that house being weird and trapping people and
• 2:11:57
  and doing weird things. So I'm putting it through for
• 2:12:00
  Ashad who's a vicious, complex character that does something
• 2:12:04
  new with the side and then after they've become foot soldiers for
• 2:12:07
  so long, I like at the end and that the doctor sacrifices the
• 2:12:11
  future essentially to save one person.
• 2:12:14
  It's a very doctor moment and I like that Byron as his
• 2:12:18
  personality and his relationship with women, it doesn't
• 2:12:20
  romanticize him. He's a bit of a cunt and they
• 2:12:23
  all realise it by the end. They're all all the supporting
• 2:12:26
  characters are people with con complex relationships with each
• 2:12:29
  other and the cast in general. So I I can't not put it through,
• 2:12:34
  but it is very low in my rankings of this season.
• 2:12:37
  Well, I get it. Because I remember when we did
• 2:12:39
  Village of the Angels, which in the Flux, which is another
• 2:12:42
  Maxine Autist episode and another massively popular
• 2:12:45
  episode. But it is almost like in the DNA
• 2:12:47
  of Doctor Who fans that the 2nd we head back to Hinchcliffe, we
• 2:12:51
  all get a fucking hard on don't we I But this is fantastic.
• 2:12:56
  Let's not lie. And I'm very pleased to say,
• 2:12:58
  gentlemen, you've all put through the 4th episode that was
• 2:13:01
  written and directed by a woman. So well done on that Scott.
• 2:13:05
  The third one is can you hear me?
• 2:13:07
  Which I believe is also a woman woman.
• 2:13:10
  Three scenes. As to why I'm putting it
• 2:13:12
  through, I'll be very succinct because you've all been very
• 2:13:14
  detailed. The exposition scene at the
• 2:13:17
  beginning where they're all dancing, that's how you do it,
• 2:13:20
  Chipnall. They literally come in.
• 2:13:22
  It's a fun scene where they're all dancing, they're all
• 2:13:24
  gossiping. So there's a reason for them to
• 2:13:26
  be giving all that information out, and in less than a minute
• 2:13:30
  you know everything you need to about those characters.
• 2:13:33
  It's beautifully done. The scene that Rob talks about,
• 2:13:37
  about a shad picking up the baby, I was genuinely on the
• 2:13:41
  edge of my seat with my hands over my mouth like this,
• 2:13:43
  thinking that is he going to kill a baby in Doctor Who?
• 2:13:47
  Because, you know, Moffett did it, so maybe we'll go there.
• 2:13:49
  Although that was just goo. It was so suspenseful.
• 2:13:53
  That scene, and the third scene I just adore, is right at the
• 2:13:56
  end. It's a poem, a celebration of
• 2:14:00
  the 13th Doctor, beautifully written and beautifully filmed,
• 2:14:04
  with a gorgeous final close up on her face as a celebration of
• 2:14:07
  Jodi's wonderful. All the other reasons you said.
• 2:14:11
  I mean, it's an absolute classic.
• 2:14:12
  Yeah, it's going through. OK.
• 2:14:14
  So 5 out of 6 so far. OK, so we're left with two.
• 2:14:20
  I'm going to go next, Joe, because I want to be Mr.
• 2:14:22
  conventionally again. So we've got, Can You Hear Me
• 2:14:26
  and Orphan 55, Can you imagine which one I'm going to pay?
• 2:14:31
  Orphan 55. It's got to be Orphan 55.
• 2:14:34
  Now I listen to your podcast with Paul Quinn.
• 2:14:38
  So I need to say one thing from the off I have no problem
• 2:14:43
  whatsoever with the environmental message in this
• 2:14:46
  episode. I don't even mind how it's
• 2:14:48
  delivered. I watch Jon Poe with Doctor Who
• 2:14:51
  and I get these long speeches about the devastation that man
• 2:14:56
  is doing to the planet pretty much every other week in
• 2:14:58
  pertway. Yes, T VS moved on since then,
• 2:15:01
  but personally I don't mind. It's ironic that in the UK we've
• 2:15:06
  just gone through a period where we did a drama on ITV in the new
• 2:15:10
  year about Post Office scandal, which is a national scandal been
• 2:15:14
  going on for 20 years now. And the difference that drama
• 2:15:19
  has made to the country and to politics is incredible.
• 2:15:23
  It's really made dramatic change.
• 2:15:26
  People have been reading about this scandal for, well, easily
• 2:15:29
  15 years and since journalists picked it up and no one's really
• 2:15:33
  kind of understood it, but put it in a drama where people can
• 2:15:36
  empathize with characters and they see what's going on and my
• 2:15:39
  God, people are outraged. So yeah, TV drama, there is a
• 2:15:43
  place for delivering hard messaging and I'm perfectly
• 2:15:47
  happy for Doctor Who doing that. So that's my starting gambit.
• 2:15:53
  Apart from that though, the episode is shite.
• 2:15:56
  So that stuff. I don't even know where to begin
• 2:16:00
  with this one. Let's start with the plotting.
• 2:16:03
  This is possibly the most generic, bland plot I've ever
• 2:16:08
  seen Doctor Who do, it feels like.
• 2:16:10
  Have you never watched Smile then.
• 2:16:13
  This is million times worse. It feels like it's a story from
• 2:16:17
  an old annual written by someone who read A1 paragraph summary of
• 2:16:20
  what Doctor Who is but never saw it.
• 2:16:23
  I mean, I don't want to give too much away, but Ed Home's
• 2:16:26
  previous story, It Takes you away.
• 2:16:29
  I think it's fantastic. I don't want to preempt a fourth
• 2:16:31
  thing, but everyone will have forgotten that by the time we
• 2:16:33
  get to series 11. But this is just dire in the
• 2:16:38
  extreme. It's very much a base on the
• 2:16:40
  siege story, but that siege starts within 4 minutes of the
• 2:16:44
  episode. We do not get time.
• 2:16:47
  We start with our TARDIS scene, then we're down on the planet
• 2:16:50
  and we're straight into the siege.
• 2:16:51
  We don't get any time to understand the set up or the
• 2:16:54
  characters. We're straight into the drama.
• 2:16:57
  So how am I going to feel about anything if I don't know what
• 2:17:00
  anything is? Hang on, you don't understand
• 2:17:02
  the set up. It's a holiday camp that's made
• 2:17:04
  perfectly clear. You don't understand the
• 2:17:06
  characters. There's a security woman.
• 2:17:07
  There's the squirrels that runs. The place there's.
• 2:17:11
  No, Vilma and Benny that are on holiday, they've all been,
• 2:17:16
  they've all been established and so is the saying.
• 2:17:18
  Within 4 minutes. No they haven't.
• 2:17:20
  We got guest cars. They're dressed like extras from
• 2:17:23
  the Victoria Wood parody or the Lenny Henry parody.
• 2:17:26
  Hyphen 3, the pantomime bloody dog with the Brahmi accent.
• 2:17:30
  God save us. Oh I love us.
• 2:17:32
  I love her father and a son with green hair.
• 2:17:35
  Oh, that's really out there. Oh my God.
• 2:17:39
  Then we get the monsters. They are the worst variety of
• 2:17:41
  monster. They look lovely before you.
• 2:17:44
  Your jaw drops. Well, they're lumbering latex
• 2:17:47
  Joe. They have no personality, no
• 2:17:49
  plan. They are literally just mindless
• 2:17:52
  Marauding did. You miss the boy.
• 2:17:56
  It's empty. There's nothing to it.
• 2:17:58
  They're. Supposed to be savages?
• 2:18:01
  Based on the siege, roaring monsters come in, they run
• 2:18:04
  around. Why do they go outside?
• 2:18:06
  It's an escape into danger. To quote Good Aunt Terrance,
• 2:18:09
  just to create jeopardy and peril.
• 2:18:11
  They all get on the bus. Why?
• 2:18:13
  God knows how, but anyway they do.
• 2:18:15
  They run around to. Go after Benny.
• 2:18:18
  Oh, who cares about Benny? And how does the Doctor, Silly,
• 2:18:24
  realize she can mind meld with the dregs?
• 2:18:27
  She goes up to mind what? How, When, How?
• 2:18:30
  They're savages. You've just said to me, Joe,
• 2:18:32
  they're savages. She happily walks up to him and
• 2:18:34
  mind melts with him. She wasn't like starstrate.
• 2:18:37
  That's the trouble. She reads his mind and she sees
• 2:18:39
  things that happened in modern day Earth.
• 2:18:41
  Well, if you read my mind, I can't tell you what was
• 2:18:43
  happening to homo sapiens in caveman times.
• 2:18:46
  Have you ever had your mind read?
• 2:18:48
  You don't know. You don't know.
• 2:18:49
  Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
• 2:18:50
  Don't knock it till you tried it.
• 2:18:51
  This feels like a flawed argument to me.
• 2:18:54
  Talking about bland generic stories, this story has four yes
• 2:19:00
  4 noble self sacrifices, 1 isn't enough, 2 isn't enough, 1
• 2:19:05
  character even self sacrificed and self twice.
• 2:19:08
  For Christ sake, there are 4 self sacrifices and then we end
• 2:19:12
  with an explosion or whoopee do. We've got the plot twist which
• 2:19:16
  is mysterious planet and that's not even good enough to do the
• 2:19:20
  underground. We now have to labour that point
• 2:19:22
  with a made in China sign on the furniture just in case we didn't
• 2:19:26
  quite get it first time round. Horrible.
• 2:19:29
  So the plotting is abysmal. Then we get the characters.
• 2:19:33
  These are the blandest set of caricatures I've ever seen in a
• 2:19:37
  simple story. A daughter, mother, a father,
• 2:19:40
  son. We don't get any time to spend
• 2:19:43
  with them. So this great revelation that
• 2:19:45
  Kane is Bella's mother who gives a fuck?
• 2:19:48
  I don't know who these people are.
• 2:19:49
  I've never met them. I don't care.
• 2:19:51
  I've never heard you swear so much in an episode.
• 2:19:54
  Vilma Vilma, My God, the Jenny lad of the Modern Series.
• 2:19:59
  We're getting him back. God, I mean she just Benny.
• 2:20:05
  But no wonder has become a meme. It's embarrassing.
• 2:20:09
  Nevi and Silas have green hair. They talk about the fact we have
• 2:20:12
  green hair. Oh it's the same colour as our
• 2:20:15
  hair. Yet we can see that and it's
• 2:20:17
  shits have stopped going on about.
• 2:20:19
  And I say one thing, no, you can't.
• 2:20:21
  You say that they're all really unmemorable.
• 2:20:23
  But if you ask anyone, anyone, about the woman who says Benny,
• 2:20:28
  everyone will remember her. And everybody, they don't
• 2:20:32
  matter. You said I'm, you said I'm
• 2:20:34
  memorable and that's not a memorable.
• 2:20:36
  Yas and Graham wasted yet again. At least Ryan gets to flirt a
• 2:20:40
  bit, but oh God, direction, right direction is the other
• 2:20:44
  thing that I don't get in this They land on tranquillity.
• 2:20:47
  Graham reacts as though it's a paradise.
• 2:20:49
  All we see is a bland concrete Piazza.
• 2:20:53
  And Graham's going on as though this greatest thing in the
• 2:20:55
  world. Clearly he likes concrete.
• 2:21:00
  The first attack, the doctor issues a tunnel and warns them
• 2:21:03
  all of this attack. Yas and Graham come walking
• 2:21:05
  towards a 5 minutes later as though they're on a Sunday
• 2:21:08
  afternoon stroll. He's always overreacting.
• 2:21:11
  Completely destroy any tension whatsoever, we're told Orphan
• 2:21:14
  55's barren. There's bleed trees popping up
• 2:21:17
  everywhere. Something happened with the
• 2:21:18
  location shoot, because there are no dregs on location.
• 2:21:22
  We talk about them. We hear them.
• 2:21:23
  You don't see them. They're green, screened in a
• 2:21:25
  little bit later. Fabulous CGI Vistas of the on
• 2:21:28
  location. Yeah, not with the bus, there
• 2:21:30
  aren't. I was wondering if you can see.
• 2:21:32
  In this episode, do you know? Oh, it is the worst, blandest,
• 2:21:37
  most generic thing I've seen in my life.
• 2:21:39
  And funnily enough, for that reason I'm doing it.
• 2:21:43
  I I thought you were going to keep it.
• 2:21:44
  I don't know what. Yeah, I'm really surprised by.
• 2:21:46
  Your I was waiting for your butt.
• 2:21:50
  I beg your pardon, shall we go to the comment?
• 2:21:53
  Oh, I think we should, yeah. Play that No, there you go.
• 2:21:57
  Fraser Gregory says Best is often 55 Wickedly funny script,
• 2:22:02
  non-stop plot that also delivers an important message.
• 2:22:06
  Daniel Knight is correct. Worst is often 55.
• 2:22:10
  A reasonable story ruined by poor direction, such as not
• 2:22:14
  realizing someone's screeching Benny 37 times in 40 minutes,
• 2:22:18
  would be extremely irritating. See, Daniel Knight knew who the
• 2:22:22
  characters were, didn't he? Paul Quinn, esteemed gentleman,
• 2:22:26
  says 155 is brilliant. The height towards it is
• 2:22:30
  entirely disproportionate and I suspect it was partly contrived
• 2:22:33
  by people desperate to stop the environmental message.
• 2:22:36
  The final speech may be unnecessary to the plot as the
• 2:22:39
  message is clear, but it's a crucial message.
• 2:22:43
  Keep the message been the other 44 minutes.
• 2:22:45
  Michael Storm says the weakest by far is Orphan 55, which is
• 2:22:49
  manages to be unoriginal, dull and full of some of the worst
• 2:22:52
  dialogue exchanges ever committed to screen.
• 2:22:55
  It's somewhat amusing that Chipmel famously went on
• 2:22:58
  national TV, slagging off trial at the time.
• 2:23:00
  Lord then rips off part of it in his own era.
• 2:23:04
  That kawaii, it's only all over the place.
• 2:23:06
  I feel bad for it. This needed a stronger hand over
• 2:23:09
  it. Possibly some RTD or season 24
• 2:23:11
  camp production value. There's a lot of camp in this,
• 2:23:14
  Jack, and ironically preferred preferred the Billy stuff to
• 2:23:19
  most. That felt like what the story
• 2:23:21
  actually wanted to be. The ending is a miss.
• 2:23:25
  No, not the mind probe says Orphan 55 is a cracker.
• 2:23:28
  Aliens meets the 7th Doctor. Vibes again like a virgin.
• 2:23:31
  New adventure? Big Orange Michael.
• 2:23:34
  Worst is Bloody hell. Best, worst.
• 2:23:36
  Best. Worst.
• 2:23:37
  Worst is all from 55. Makes the cardinal sin of being
• 2:23:40
  dull and having tedious supporting characters who I
• 2:23:43
  wasn't invested in. So when they're all eliminated,
• 2:23:45
  I wasn't concerned. Guess what's coming next?
• 2:23:48
  Well, Joe, you can read the next one.
• 2:23:50
  Graham War says Orphan 55 is best.
• 2:23:53
  It speeds, especially if you're a car where we're a fan.
• 2:23:57
  Joe's laughing because he knows I've saved the best comment till
• 2:24:00
  last, which is from Palin, the Big Talking bird.
• 2:24:03
  And Palin says dog shite. So I think I've probably made my
• 2:24:08
  feelings on this reasonably clear.
• 2:24:11
  So. The only time I thought you were
• 2:24:13
  going to have a heart attack more was when you talked about
• 2:24:16
  Lagopolis. David, would you like to
• 2:24:19
  respond? What's wrong with Lacopoulos?
• 2:24:22
  Oh, you'll have to listen to the episodes coming out next week,
• 2:24:24
  all right. Oh, is it?
• 2:24:28
  Do I love it or do I hate it? I hated it.
• 2:24:31
  And as I as I said four years ago to this day when I first
• 2:24:36
  watched it, I I there's a there's a gift I sometimes use
• 2:24:40
  which is from Blackout's Christmas Carol where he just
• 2:24:43
  slowly applause and just says utter crap.
• 2:24:45
  And I think for me that just sums up this it it it is one of
• 2:24:50
  the low points. I appreciate the people enjoy
• 2:24:54
  it. I appreciate people love it, but
• 2:24:55
  I am not one of them and I can't.
• 2:24:58
  And Rod, you've kind of covered a lot of the points that I made.
• 2:25:01
  I think there's just far too much going on.
• 2:25:03
  The characters are memorable but for the wrong reasons.
• 2:25:07
  Again, some strange about I think there may well have been
• 2:25:09
  some production issues on location because Benny's fate is
• 2:25:13
  off screen and then described to us in this in a very odd way.
• 2:25:19
  Kane relays it. So we've gone to the story.
• 2:25:21
  He's made this whole point of taking us out there.
• 2:25:23
  We hear his voice and everything and then it's just kind of
• 2:25:26
  almost thrown away and it does feel like something has got.
• 2:25:31
  I think when we were doing Underworld, it's like I remember
• 2:25:34
  making the point that sometimes things can go wrong and they can
• 2:25:39
  become a production. Issues can become apparent on
• 2:25:41
  screen and often 55 I felt like something hadn't gone right in
• 2:25:45
  production and I think it's one of the few times where I it to
• 2:25:48
  me it just felt that it was seeping through to the store.
• 2:25:51
  Plenty of other Doctor Who stories have trouble
• 2:25:53
  productions, but it's not apparent.
• 2:25:54
  This for me was one of them. We don't know.
• 2:25:56
  I could be completely wrong, but it definitely something felt to
• 2:26:00
  miss. But my one of my main reasons
• 2:26:02
  for for chucking it is the Belle Kane story.
• 2:26:07
  Because are we meant to at the end, within the whole thing with
• 2:26:10
  a thumb sucking? Are we meant to feel sorry for
• 2:26:12
  her at the end? She said that she's the cause of
• 2:26:15
  like. All.
• 2:26:15
  Of this she, you know, and because she's got, you know,
• 2:26:19
  these these parental issues and if she'd for example been an
• 2:26:23
  environmentalist and that had actually been the reason for
• 2:26:25
  doing it. Bit similar to Kablam
• 2:26:27
  potentially. But you could have still
• 2:26:29
  actually seeded that whole the orphan planets, they should be
• 2:26:33
  left alone. These are the planets that have
• 2:26:35
  been destroyed by humanity. We shouldn't be building holiday
• 2:26:39
  camps on the Moray, but instead you get this old mother daughter
• 2:26:43
  thing and then it's like, are we supposed to like her?
• 2:26:45
  We're supposed to be sorry for her?
• 2:26:48
  Because I didn't. And I was, you know, I was kind
• 2:26:50
  of willing for her to get killed.
• 2:26:51
  I'm sorry. It's myself, David.
• 2:26:52
  I was watching her. And you know, I think she's
• 2:26:57
  meant to have this bit of this romance subplot with Ryan, which
• 2:27:00
  just doesn't work because he's so boring.
• 2:27:05
  He's very hot though, yeah, but he doesn't have to deliver a
• 2:27:08
  line. There are times he.
• 2:27:10
  Does he does? Yeah, badly.
• 2:27:13
  No, go and watch that scene in Resolution in the cafe.
• 2:27:16
  He can act. No, the not all.
• 2:27:19
  There are times it was like, Are you sure you don't want to take
• 2:27:21
  that scene again? There are some there.
• 2:27:24
  Frankly, he gives some of the worst line readings.
• 2:27:26
  What about I think Jackie Lane gives better line ratings than
• 2:27:30
  he does. I'm sorry.
• 2:27:31
  I think he's one of the worst performed companions ever.
• 2:27:35
  I've said it. I've gone out there and said
• 2:27:36
  that I'm probably going to get kind.
• 2:27:38
  Of disagreeing. How interesting.
• 2:27:40
  Bring back Dodo, I say. Yeah.
• 2:27:42
  So a lot of the reasons to bid it have been said.
• 2:27:47
  I can't really add anything more to it.
• 2:27:49
  I've got a problem with the environmental message.
• 2:27:52
  I think it's it's important and everything.
• 2:27:53
  I just think it could have been written more effectively into
• 2:27:55
  the plot than it is. I think.
• 2:27:57
  I don't think it's as well integrated as it could be.
• 2:28:01
  Hello. I love this story.
• 2:28:04
  I literally went online after it thinking, God, that was great.
• 2:28:09
  Anybody who loves classic Doctor Who must surely have loved that,
• 2:28:12
  because that was a prime slice of classic classic series Doctor
• 2:28:15
  Who. And I I genuinely thought this
• 2:28:19
  episode had killed somebody. So positive points.
• 2:28:24
  It reminds me a lot of the McCoy era, which is my favorite era of
• 2:28:26
  the classic series. It's, you know, it's aliens set
• 2:28:30
  in Butlins with pensioners and furries.
• 2:28:33
  Only Doctor Who would bring along the pensioner.
• 2:28:36
  It's funny. It's scary.
• 2:28:38
  There's lovely character moments for Ryan.
• 2:28:40
  I know that the performer, the lady that says Benny isn't the
• 2:28:44
  greatest actor, but that doesn't bother me that Doctor Who is
• 2:28:48
  littered in the new series and the old with dodgy performances
• 2:28:51
  and at least I think this one spawned a meme or two.
• 2:28:54
  And I think, you know a lot of people criticise the sort of
• 2:28:57
  green hair and the and the the the dog woman but it doesn't it
• 2:29:04
  she comes across as a furry to me.
• 2:29:05
  She doesn't come across as like someone that that's her race.
• 2:29:08
  And also I'm all here as a a Brummy myself for brummy
• 2:29:12
  representation on screen because Doctor Who's never been to
• 2:29:15
  Birmingham, there's never any Brummies in it.
• 2:29:17
  So I'll, I'll take it where I can get it.
• 2:29:19
  Thank you very much. You've got to, you've got to
• 2:29:21
  introduce these characters in broad strokes because we're
• 2:29:23
  telling a quick story. We haven't got time to have 10
• 2:29:26
  minutes to get to know these people.
• 2:29:27
  Green air, father, son, dog, person, or whatever she is.
• 2:29:31
  That's enough. That's enough personality that
• 2:29:33
  anybody needs, right? I love the design of the dregs.
• 2:29:38
  I know it's an obvious one, but they're a very scary Doctor Who
• 2:29:42
  monster, even if they are lumbering latex and they have
• 2:29:44
  that terrifying roar. And thirdly, I think there's a
• 2:29:48
  great tension and pace to it as and especially as things start
• 2:29:51
  to go West. It's a perfect build, build up
• 2:29:54
  before we really realise what's going on.
• 2:29:56
  I think the pacing is bang on for the story.
• 2:29:59
  I've realised I've made a mistake doing this.
• 2:30:01
  One I should We'll let you pick this thing, Joe and then David
• 2:30:03
  and I want to check this out. Tactically, I was always going
• 2:30:06
  to choose. Can you hear me?
• 2:30:07
  So this was going through, don't you worry, you got to play the
• 2:30:11
  game this. Is a stitch up.
• 2:30:12
  I don't know. You chose it.
• 2:30:16
  Of course it's going through. I've just done a very long
• 2:30:18
  commentary on it and I adore it. I like the fact it doesn't play
• 2:30:21
  by the rules. It makes you think we're staying
• 2:30:23
  inside and then we go outside. It makes you think we're going
• 2:30:26
  to kill all the right people and then we kill all the wrong
• 2:30:29
  people. The lovely old woman and the
• 2:30:30
  squirrel. It makes you think that we're
• 2:30:33
  going to get a resolution to the story and we in the end it
• 2:30:36
  becomes a matter of survival. We just have to get out of here.
• 2:30:39
  Just getting back to the TARDIS is a win in this story because
• 2:30:42
  the situation is so desperate. Those dregs are so horrific, you
• 2:30:47
  know, they are literally tearing people apart.
• 2:30:49
  It's horrible. It's like a it's a survival
• 2:30:51
  movie in Doctor Who done in 45 minutes.
• 2:30:54
  You know that sequence of all the dregs coming in on the
• 2:30:57
  holiday camp, there's hundreds of thousands of them.
• 2:30:59
  They're never going to come out of this alive if they don't get
• 2:31:01
  away and the rest of those characters don't get away.
• 2:31:04
  So we know they're all dead. I think the message is brilliant
• 2:31:08
  at the end. I think the fact that Jodie
• 2:31:09
  Whisker is literally staring at the camera and saying you stupid
• 2:31:13
  fuckers, you're not doing the right thing.
• 2:31:15
  It's something we need to hear. And I do think the people that
• 2:31:17
  object to that message are perhaps people are doing the
• 2:31:20
  right things right now and that's why they don't like it.
• 2:31:23
  Oh, it's just sexist assholes. I don't know one or the other,
• 2:31:27
  but I disagree about the direction.
• 2:31:28
  I think this is brilliantly directed.
• 2:31:30
  The money's on the screen. Again, the location work is
• 2:31:33
  fantastic. The interiors are fantastic.
• 2:31:36
  Yeah, the the CGI is brilliant. The action sequences are great.
• 2:31:41
  Like, there's so much going on here.
• 2:31:42
  There's so much good stuff here. I think the sequence with Ryan
• 2:31:46
  and the the vending machine is really funny.
• 2:31:50
  Plays up to both toes and Coles and Jodie Whitaker's strengths.
• 2:31:53
  I think it's very funny. Yeah.
• 2:31:55
  I I couldn't disagree with the two of you more.
• 2:31:58
  I really disagree about Toes and Karl.
• 2:32:00
  I think he's going to go on and have an amazing career.
• 2:32:03
  But we haven't heard much of Pearl Mackey since series 10.
• 2:32:05
  But we will hear a lot from Toes and Karl post Doctor Who, I
• 2:32:09
  think. Yeah, all from 55 is through to
• 2:32:13
  round two. Do you know, do you know what
• 2:32:15
  never gets mentioned about Orphan 55?
• 2:32:17
  People talk about Doctor Who not doing enough side with that.
• 2:32:20
  It's set in an alternative timeline.
• 2:32:21
  It's set in an alternative universe, essentially, and
• 2:32:24
  people don't talk enough about how it's a very much a sidestep
• 2:32:27
  story rather than something set in linear time.
• 2:32:30
  I just wanted to throw that out there.
• 2:32:31
  And it's got a super bleak ending as well of of her saying
• 2:32:34
  get it right, otherwise that's what you're going to become.
• 2:32:37
  And then we cut to the dreg so we know we don't make the right
• 2:32:40
  choices. It's a really cynical view of
• 2:32:41
  humanity. And in years to come, when
• 2:32:43
  society and humanity are saved, they'll they'll cite the end of
• 2:32:47
  Orphan 55 as the moment that we all got up and took notice.
• 2:32:52
  Now what we'll do is they'll say no wonder we didn't pick up this
• 2:32:55
  message because it was buried in 45 minutes of utter shite.
• 2:32:59
  And so we missed the environmental message.
• 2:33:01
  Utter. Utter shite.
• 2:33:03
  Singer Benny. Utter shite that's made it
• 2:33:05
  through to round two. Right, Joe, last one of the
• 2:33:10
  evening. Can you hear me?
• 2:33:12
  Yeah, after. That last one.
• 2:33:13
  Really interesting episode. I'm putting it through obviously
• 2:33:18
  because I said there was only one I wasn't.
• 2:33:20
  I think the fact that Doctor Who grabs hold of mental health and
• 2:33:24
  pulls it apart in such interesting ways is great.
• 2:33:27
  Giving each of the regulars another character to interact
• 2:33:30
  with and tell those stories is great.
• 2:33:32
  Ryan and his friend showing a man dealing with depression is
• 2:33:37
  really vital because I think that's something that is still
• 2:33:40
  considered a bit shameful in society today.
• 2:33:42
  So it's so great to put that front and centre, despite the
• 2:33:45
  fact David of that line reading I've got chips though that he
• 2:33:50
  says when he goes in. I love Yasi's storyline with the
• 2:33:54
  police woman back story for Yas at last.
• 2:33:56
  We could probably should have done with this in series 11, but
• 2:34:00
  I'm really pleased it comes here in series 12.
• 2:34:02
  Makes sense as to why she was the police officer and sort of,
• 2:34:05
  while we while we see her doubting herself all the time as
• 2:34:08
  well. Fabulous stuff.
• 2:34:10
  I forgot what the third one is. That's probably not a good sign,
• 2:34:12
  is it? What's the third mental health
• 2:34:14
  plot in this? Well, Graham with his concern.
• 2:34:17
  Oh, of course. How could I forget that?
• 2:34:20
  And that scene at the end, The contentious scene at the end
• 2:34:23
  where the doctor, because of her social anxiety, cannot comfort
• 2:34:28
  Graham in the way that she probably should.
• 2:34:32
  And I understand why people have an issue with that scene.
• 2:34:35
  And I understand why people don't have an issue with that
• 2:34:37
  scene. I don't because I've seen that
• 2:34:39
  awkwardness in people when I've dealt with like my mum dying of
• 2:34:42
  cancer and stuff like that. People are awkward around those
• 2:34:44
  subjects. I think that was done
• 2:34:47
  deliberately to get people talking about it, whether they
• 2:34:51
  like it or they don't. It put it in the air and people
• 2:34:53
  are talking about, you know, social awkwardness around tough
• 2:34:57
  conversations. Yeah, it's doing really, really
• 2:34:59
  thoughtful things. So I love that whole part of the
• 2:35:01
  story, the mental health part of the story, and I love the 1st
• 2:35:05
  2/3 of the evil gods from the Dawn of Time storyline with the
• 2:35:11
  creepiest fucking scenes you're ever going to see in your life.
• 2:35:14
  But that man turning up in, I mean, if I woke up in the middle
• 2:35:17
  of the night and that fella was at the end of my bed with his
• 2:35:19
  fingers hanging off, coming towards Zellen.
• 2:35:23
  Zellen space name. Yeah, really scary stuff.
• 2:35:27
  And leaning into that sort of dark fantasy.
• 2:35:30
  The Dobbs who doesn't do too often.
• 2:35:32
  And I think it works there. I think it works on the space
• 2:35:35
  station, which has got like really interesting design to it.
• 2:35:39
  I like it when we then go onto the streets and they're pulling
• 2:35:42
  all. It's a bit like the Nightmare
• 2:35:43
  Man from Sarah Jane Adventures. They're pulling all the sort of
• 2:35:45
  nightmares out of people. The conclusion lets that down
• 2:35:49
  terribly. But for 2/3 of it, I'll give it
• 2:35:52
  a pass, because for 2/3 of it, it's really rather effective
• 2:35:55
  indeed. And we've got another, you know,
• 2:35:57
  evil gods from the dawn of time to go with the the list, you
• 2:36:00
  know, in the book of lists or wherever that's going to turn up
• 2:36:02
  next. Oh, Dylan, you Are you going to
• 2:36:04
  say something then? No, it wasn't stored.
• 2:36:09
  And finally, I absolutely adore the animated sequence.
• 2:36:12
  We get to tell their back story. I think that's visually really
• 2:36:17
  arresting and something the Doctor Who should do more of.
• 2:36:20
  I don't see it very often. I think I've seen it in a Marvel
• 2:36:22
  movie and maybe one other time. But yeah, really interesting way
• 2:36:27
  to instead of just giving us back story, which a lot of
• 2:36:31
  Doctor Who does, to to do it in such a a visually interesting
• 2:36:34
  way is great. So yeah, for all those reasons,
• 2:36:36
  a good message, interesting villains, and a weird looking
• 2:36:40
  story, I think it's vastly underrated this one it's going
• 2:36:44
  through. Brilliant.
• 2:36:46
  Let's go to our final set of comments.
• 2:36:48
  So Crash Dummy, said Yaz's story, and Can You Hear Me?
• 2:36:50
  Is so tangible. Depression and suicidal thoughts
• 2:36:53
  don't always have an explanation on obvious signs and tiny things
• 2:36:57
  can be the light that leads you out of the dark.
• 2:37:00
  Police Woman Saving Yaz an act of kindness from a stranger
• 2:37:04
  gives a lovely explanation as both to her chosen career and
• 2:37:08
  why she responds to the doctor in the way she does.
• 2:37:10
  A kind take charge figure who saves people.
• 2:37:13
  Of course Yaz would fall in love with the Doctor.
• 2:37:16
  Paul Quinn Genuinely unnerving and makes fascinating use of the
• 2:37:20
  myth. Jason Thompson says deserves
• 2:37:22
  point in placing a different typical subject, but rather like
• 2:37:26
  heaven sent, very thing that makes interesting and powerful
• 2:37:29
  episode massively reduces the rewatch desire.
• 2:37:32
  Jack Coyer Why was this not a season 11 story?
• 2:37:35
  Could Yas have used some of Could Yas have used some of her
• 2:37:39
  best scenes earlier? Is it useful to give Ryan
• 2:37:42
  hobbies 90% of the way for his era?
• 2:37:45
  Has the Zellen finger scene been bested for scares in Doctor Who
• 2:37:48
  history? Will these questions never
• 2:37:51
  cease? Melvin Pinner says I love when
• 2:37:54
  the Chippewa era breaks with convention.
• 2:37:56
  Nina Shabaraki's animated segments and Can You Hear Me?
• 2:37:59
  Is brilliant and weird and very Doctor Who pushing the
• 2:38:02
  boundaries of what Doctor Who is and can do.
• 2:38:06
  Michael Storm A more experimental episode in many
• 2:38:08
  ways, with slow building of dread running throughout.
• 2:38:11
  For me, this is the third best of the season, knocked down a
• 2:38:13
  few spots due to some strange writing decisions.
• 2:38:16
  And finally, no, not the mind probe says amazing, brave, bold
• 2:38:20
  and beautiful. So brave, bold and beautiful.
• 2:38:24
  Is that David or Dylan? Both of them.
• 2:38:27
  Let's go with both of them. Let's be polite, David.
• 2:38:30
  Shall we go over to you first for your thoughts.
• 2:38:32
  Are you? This is the.
• 2:38:34
  Other one, this is the other one I came out on the fence with
• 2:38:36
  because there's a lot in this that I liked.
• 2:38:39
  But there's A and I and I think Joe, your point, I think the 1st
• 2:38:43
  30 minutes is fantastic and then as soon as Zealand and Rokaya
• 2:38:48
  get down to earth I think the sort of the energy kind of goes
• 2:38:53
  out of it. They get defeated far too
• 2:38:54
  easily, especially as he is. He is phenomenally good as a
• 2:38:59
  it's another villain. As I was saying before, there's
• 2:39:01
  some really great villains in this season.
• 2:39:02
  He's another one and I just feel that they're that it's resolved
• 2:39:07
  just a little bit too easily and that's a real shame.
• 2:39:11
  The direction at times is actually unsettling.
• 2:39:15
  There's a couple of points. The shots are deliberately I
• 2:39:19
  think, framed slightly weirdly. So there's a there's a scene of,
• 2:39:24
  I think it's with Ryan where he's slightly off centre of so
• 2:39:27
  normally he'd be sent and there's lots of little touches
• 2:39:30
  like that that just add to that sense of unease.
• 2:39:33
  Things just don't feel quite right.
• 2:39:35
  So I think there's some very, you know, it's not just directed
• 2:39:38
  as in nice panic shots. I think there's some very clever
• 2:39:41
  choices on shot construction that just don't, you know, they
• 2:39:45
  they they don't look quite right and I think that's deliberate.
• 2:39:49
  I think that's to really make you feel unsettled and it's so
• 2:39:52
  effective. Animation, OK, I think if you're
• 2:39:55
  going to do PowerPoint presentation, this is how you do
• 2:39:59
  it. It's it's shorter, it's visually
• 2:40:03
  really interesting and it gets that story across really well.
• 2:40:06
  So I'm not against exposition, exposition info dump told by
• 2:40:10
  character. It's just if you do it in an
• 2:40:12
  interesting way and you do it fairly briefly.
• 2:40:15
  If I was to drop a pot, a pot, a portion store, I would drop the
• 2:40:18
  whole Aleppo bit. I think if you'd actually made
• 2:40:21
  the focus on just the three members of the FAM and really
• 2:40:25
  just spent a little bit more time with their stories, that
• 2:40:28
  would have been much more effective.
• 2:40:30
  I don't think the the stuff with Aleppo, Adam.
• 2:40:35
  I think it would have been much better as a bit more focused on
• 2:40:37
  our main characters and really given them time to shine.
• 2:40:39
  That scene, that scene at the end, I've written literally and
• 2:40:43
  I'm not sure about it. I think you're right.
• 2:40:44
  I think it is designed to stimulate conversation, debate.
• 2:40:48
  Had I watched this last year, I probably would have come out of
• 2:40:51
  it thinking, OK, I see what they're trying to do.
• 2:40:54
  In the last 12 months I have been in that conversation, I've
• 2:40:58
  been in the doctor's position in that conversation, being on the
• 2:41:01
  receiving end not once but twice last year with family members
• 2:41:04
  dealing with cancer. And I've you end up thinking
• 2:41:09
  about your reactions. You think about how how do you
• 2:41:11
  react in the right way, what do you do, how you do the right
• 2:41:13
  thing. I I find that quite a tough
• 2:41:15
  scene. I find that quite a tough scene
• 2:41:17
  and and I dislike the selfishness of the doctor in
• 2:41:21
  that scene. But then that's because I have
• 2:41:22
  had the same, that same reaction and so is it.
• 2:41:27
  I don't like it because it's shining a light on something for
• 2:41:30
  myself. So if it's meant to trigger a
• 2:41:35
  conversation, it's done a good job.
• 2:41:37
  But yeah, I'm, I'm not sure about it, but I'll keep it in.
• 2:41:43
  I think it is what I I think I wrote there.
• 2:41:46
  It's a very special episode of Doctor Who in terms of, you
• 2:41:49
  know, it's dealing with serious issues and it had a helpline at
• 2:41:53
  the end and, you know, it could so easily have gone in the wrong
• 2:41:57
  way. But it's telling some important
• 2:41:58
  stories and I think it's got an important message behind it.
• 2:42:00
  So I will vote to keep that. I'm coming off the fence in
• 2:42:03
  favour. Hello.
• 2:42:06
  Can I just ask the panel A question?
• 2:42:08
  First of all, not that I want to elongate this too long, but a
• 2:42:13
  lot of the criticism about that cancer scene and you've covered
• 2:42:16
  all the all the major points that I would I would cover as
• 2:42:19
  well. But a lot of the time it's like
• 2:42:22
  no other doctor would respond like that.
• 2:42:24
  Do we think that's true? Because I can't see the Capaldi
• 2:42:28
  Dr. the Matt Smith Dr. We. We like, do we think there's a
• 2:42:32
  Doctor Who would respond in quote, UN quote the right way.
• 2:42:36
  Oh, good question. Davison No, he didn't really
• 2:42:39
  have personal conversations, so he.
• 2:42:41
  Ignores anything personal. Do you know what I'm going to go
• 2:42:43
  on the and say Trouton, Because that scene between Trout and
• 2:42:47
  Victorian tomb of the Sidemen, he shows he can be really
• 2:42:50
  empathetic. So maybe Trouten?
• 2:42:53
  I think Cannon probably would, but it might be a bit cliched.
• 2:42:56
  I'm so sorry, but I think Tennon would have some empathy.
• 2:43:00
  And actually I'd say Matt Smith would have some empathy as well.
• 2:43:03
  But you're right, it's probably it's probably the minority
• 2:43:06
  rather than majority. I think Perk, we would probably
• 2:43:09
  come out with some. He would probably come out with
• 2:43:10
  a speech and he'd probably tell some tale from, you know, his
• 2:43:13
  childhood, I think. Make it all about him.
• 2:43:16
  Make it about him. But I think he wouldn't admit to
• 2:43:19
  not saying the right words. He would try saying the right
• 2:43:21
  words. He'd have a speech about
• 2:43:22
  courage, but yeah, it it I don't think there's a right way to
• 2:43:27
  respond in those conversations. I'll be concerned that Matt
• 2:43:30
  Smith would sort of bring it down to a level, you know, say
• 2:43:34
  Ellie, Willie or something like that, You know, some stupid term
• 2:43:37
  that would really take the piss out of it.
• 2:43:40
  I can actually see Hartnell doing it.
• 2:43:42
  Hartnell's very slow. I think he can think in the way
• 2:43:45
  that he behaves with Vicky, yeah.
• 2:43:47
  It's like, pull yourself together, child, Come along,
• 2:43:49
  let's have some adventures. That's kind of open the question
• 2:43:53
  of if a character and Doctor Who's got cancer, can't the
• 2:43:55
  Doctor just take either aid you do what she did in practice and
• 2:43:58
  use the TARDIS to come up with a cure, or just take you to the
• 2:44:01
  Bio Foundation in the year 5000? Yes.
• 2:44:05
  You know it's one of the things that as soon as the show starts
• 2:44:07
  to ask, ask those sorts of questions then you have to come
• 2:44:10
  up with an in universe explanation of OK Graham well if
• 2:44:13
  you if you you're worried about the cancer, don't worry we'll
• 2:44:16
  pop forward. We'll see, Professor Marius.
• 2:44:18
  He he'll sort you out. I think that's why so, so much
• 2:44:21
  Doctor Who is so bloody. But now you know, I don't want
• 2:44:24
  to go near these areas because they're a bit faulty and more
• 2:44:27
  you deep. You sort of the the premise of
• 2:44:29
  Doctor Who is you sort of had to you almost click an inset
• 2:44:33
  universe like reset for a button at the end of every episode.
• 2:44:37
  It's very rare, rare that you can that it doesn't all fit
• 2:44:40
  together, does it? You know, it just, it just
• 2:44:42
  can't. And I'm not just talking about
• 2:44:44
  unit dating. I'm talking about even the
• 2:44:46
  morals of the show change from almost episode to episode.
• 2:44:51
  But there we go. So anyway, I'm going to put it
• 2:44:53
  through I I won't labour the points too much about mental
• 2:44:57
  health, but that is one of the reasons I chose it.
• 2:44:59
  And it's because it deals with the mental health of the
• 2:45:01
  regulars who never get any character development apparently
• 2:45:04
  or anything to do. And there's multiple times in
• 2:45:06
  the season where they do and to the way it handles it visually
• 2:45:10
  as well, from you know there's that scene of Ryan in the fire
• 2:45:14
  and the return of Grace that the chat at the end and Tybo talking
• 2:45:18
  about his depression stuff, stuff like that.
• 2:45:19
  So I just think it's it's brilliantly handled.
• 2:45:22
  I want to talk about the location choices and the and
• 2:45:25
  design which sort of meld into one.
• 2:45:26
  Here you get the TARDIS landing outside that beautiful brutalist
• 2:45:30
  architecture in Sheffield. The interiors of the flats
• 2:45:33
  really feel like they're you know, he's living in some flat
• 2:45:37
  that hasn't been renovated since the 70s, but it's still quite
• 2:45:39
  beautiful. The spaceship design, I think
• 2:45:41
  all that stuff looks great. I'm just and again, I keep
• 2:45:46
  coming back to this epic nature of things.
• 2:45:48
  It's set over multiple time periods and then seeing Zellen
• 2:45:51
  walking through English streets and it uses much like a lot of
• 2:45:54
  the area, using a lot of space and time because it's a show all
• 2:45:58
  about space and time rather than, I don't know, just being
• 2:46:01
  set in a corridor, for instance. OK, so I'm superfluous this time
• 2:46:05
  around, but I was going to put this through as well.
• 2:46:08
  I think it's really interesting. Bold episode.
• 2:46:13
  I'm really glad they tackled the whole mental health issue I
• 2:46:16
  wrote as Dan Zelling talks about the cruelty of humanity's own
• 2:46:20
  minds towards themselves. The fear, the doubt, the endless
• 2:46:23
  voices telling themselves they're incapable and unworthy.
• 2:46:26
  It's quite poetic. I really like it.
• 2:46:29
  Obviously they're just talking about nightmares there, but what
• 2:46:32
  they do authorially is then extend nightmares to show that
• 2:46:36
  actually if nightmares aren't dealt with and that doubt and
• 2:46:39
  that fear and that self loathing that can turn into a mental
• 2:46:42
  health crisis. And I think it's really
• 2:46:45
  interesting and bold step to do that.
• 2:46:48
  I like the fact that obviously they offer one of the solutions
• 2:46:51
  which not a pat solution, but one of the solutions is kind of
• 2:46:55
  talking therapies and they deal with it quite lightly as
• 2:46:58
  focuses, it's the Doctor Who story, but there's enough there
• 2:47:01
  to show that they're suggesting that, you know, talking and
• 2:47:04
  talking therapies is is a positive way forward.
• 2:47:07
  So you get Yas talking to the police woman, you know, it's not
• 2:47:11
  a magic wand by any means, but talking is the beginning and the
• 2:47:14
  first step on a road. And I think that's lovely that
• 2:47:17
  we get that with Yas. That's why I don't like the
• 2:47:20
  scene with the doctor, because if we're trying to say talking
• 2:47:23
  therapies are a positive way forward, I think the doctor kind
• 2:47:27
  of lets the side down a little bit.
• 2:47:29
  So I'm a bit disappointed on that one.
• 2:47:30
  But for me that that bit doesn't work, whereas the rest of it
• 2:47:33
  does. I suppose, I suppose if talking
• 2:47:36
  therapies are the way forward, it does just go that some people
• 2:47:39
  can't talk about it and it is good to say that I think.
• 2:47:43
  It it is, But on the reverse side, if we're trying to give an
• 2:47:47
  uneducated audience a positive message, maybe that's a bit too
• 2:47:51
  nuanced. Personally, I would have hit
• 2:47:53
  them over the head a little bit more plump like, but hey, horses
• 2:47:56
  for courses. I think the scene of Yas taking
• 2:48:00
  the 50 P coin back to the policewoman is really moving.
• 2:48:04
  It's one of the genuinely moving scenes in in Chipmel's area
• 2:48:08
  because it's it's real. I think that's excellently done.
• 2:48:13
  So yeah, the whole mental health stuff I think is fantastic.
• 2:48:16
  Focus on companions positively. We see all their fittings and
• 2:48:19
  insecurities, which I think is, you know, great and does help
• 2:48:22
  flesh them out a little bit. Bradley Walsh, I'm going to give
• 2:48:25
  a call out to as well because I think just his effortless charm
• 2:48:28
  creates pathos and likeability. Ryan I'm disappointed in a way
• 2:48:34
  that he sees the end of Autumn 55 because, you know, he's dealt
• 2:48:37
  with his dyspractices, dealt with a, you know, a bad
• 2:48:41
  relationship with his father, the death of his mother, the
• 2:48:43
  death of his grandmother. And those in the context of this
• 2:48:46
  episode, I think would have been more powerful and more
• 2:48:49
  consistent rather than seeing the effects of Orphan 55.
• 2:48:53
  But what we do see, I suppose paves a good way for for his
• 2:48:57
  exit. He's saying he wants to spend
• 2:48:59
  more time with his friends at home, so that's actually leading
• 2:49:02
  up to his exit in, what, 3-4 episodes.
• 2:49:05
  And then, as we've rightly said as well, really strong villain
• 2:49:08
  Ian Gelder is fantastic as zelling.
• 2:49:11
  Yeah, I think you've covered everything else.
• 2:49:13
  They're very easily imprisoned, but they're a good strong
• 2:49:15
  villain up there with the Eternals and Guardians and Toy
• 2:49:18
  Maker. So yeah, for all those reasons,
• 2:49:20
  I'm putting it through. When when I moved to London in
• 2:49:23
  2005, in every bar in Soho there was an older gay man who was,
• 2:49:29
  like Zealand, standing there by himself.
• 2:49:32
  There's always one in a soda. As well.
• 2:49:35
  Sitting there waiting for the youngins to get desperate.
• 2:49:38
  The question is, Dylan was there.
• 2:49:39
  One stood at the end of your bed.
• 2:49:43
  Wait, it's a finger? Yeah.
• 2:49:45
  I think I've still got one in me so.
• 2:49:48
  We're going to move now into round two.
• 2:49:50
  We've only lost one Storey out of eight, which is pretty
• 2:49:54
  remarkable for a special season. We've got 7 left in the
• 2:49:57
  randomizer, so let's just go for it.
• 2:50:01
  So we have got Orphan 55 or Awful 55 as it probably should
• 2:50:07
  be known. Awesome 55.
• 2:50:10
  That's going up against. Can you hear me?
• 2:50:13
  OK. Can you hear?
• 2:50:15
  Me for me. Can you hear me?
• 2:50:16
  Yeah, unanimous. 4 for four? Thank God for that.
• 2:50:21
  I had AI had AI Had a feeling we're going to end up being 5050
• 2:50:24
  throughout, so thank goodness you.
• 2:50:27
  Have I was universal right So another one falls.
• 2:50:30
  So we have Can you hear me again?
• 2:50:35
  And Can You Hear me Is up against Axios.
• 2:50:42
  I didn't want this one. Praxius for me.
• 2:50:46
  Sorry, sorry, sorry. I'll just jump for it.
• 2:50:49
  Praxius for me. But you did say it was the
• 2:50:52
  single best episode. So you've got the best, the best
• 2:50:54
  single episode, a single. Episode I think, Can you hear
• 2:50:59
  me? Is a more important episode.
• 2:51:01
  So can you hear me for me? I think can you hear me?
• 2:51:04
  Because there's I enjoyed more in that early practice.
• 2:51:09
  And I'm going for Can you hear me too because.
• 2:51:10
  I've been mentioning that. Story is, yeah, it's got more
• 2:51:14
  gravitas and weight to it. So praxis 4 sometimes.
• 2:51:18
  Sorry. Dylan, right.
• 2:51:21
  We said we cracked through these on this.
• 2:51:23
  So we are now on to can you hear me again rightly?
• 2:51:29
  My fault hasn't even come up yet.
• 2:51:31
  It'll probably come up now. And that is against the timeless
• 2:51:34
  children. So can you hear me?
• 2:51:37
  Timeless Children, David. I'm sticking with.
• 2:51:42
  Can you hear me? Still on I think I've got to go.
• 2:51:46
  Can you hear me as well? Just because you're right, it is
• 2:51:48
  a more important episode. And yeah.
• 2:51:52
  Yeah, 3 for three. Can you hear me?
• 2:51:55
  OK, I'm quite pleased about that because I'm let off the hook.
• 2:51:57
  So I've gone haunting again. Haunting of Villa, Dear Dotty
• 2:52:03
  comes up again. Fugitive with the Doom.
• 2:52:10
  Be a darty. David. 02 Villa did that one.
• 2:52:21
  It's like. Yeah, I've got to go Villa as
• 2:52:24
  well. Though Villa is true.
• 2:52:27
  So fugitive, that just said fugitive, didn't I?
• 2:52:31
  Yeah, yeah, Fugitive goes right. We're down to the final three.
• 2:52:36
  Spyful Boo, Can you hear me? And Villa?
• 2:52:40
  Oh, what an interesting 3. Now can you hear me, Spyful?
• 2:52:51
  Spyful. Can you hear me?
• 2:52:55
  Can you hear me? Can you hear me?
• 2:53:03
  Don't tell me. Don't hear me.
• 2:53:05
  He's going to win you. Can you hear me?
• 2:53:08
  Haunting. Haunting.
• 2:53:16
  Can you hear me? Can you hear me?
• 2:53:26
  Can you hear me? Yeah, we have an interesting
• 2:53:31
  winner. Wow.
• 2:53:33
  See that one coming in a million years?
• 2:53:36
  Well, haunting wins all the poles.
• 2:53:39
  Yeah, I do like haunting, but I just think, can you hear me?
• 2:53:42
  He's got something. Yeah, it's just it's a very
• 2:53:47
  unusual episode and it's a very important episode.
• 2:53:50
  So I think I I think it's great. And I'll say before we out, I'm
• 2:53:55
  very pleased because we took on a contentious season and despite
• 2:54:01
  some big complaints, that was 2/3 positive.
• 2:54:06
  And I think that's a good thing to put out for Series 12.
• 2:54:09
  I was also surprised with how many of the viewer comments were
• 2:54:12
  positive as well, and not always in the places you expected them
• 2:54:15
  to be. You were very polarised.
• 2:54:18
  Like you said, there was lots of best and worst.
• 2:54:20
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 2:54:22
  Middling ground. It's a it's a divisive year.
• 2:54:25
  I can kind of see why it's a divisive year.
• 2:54:27
  But I I came through this. This is the second time I've
• 2:54:30
  watched it beginning to end. I can I I enjoyed it more and I
• 2:54:35
  if you'd asked me two weeks ago is this a series that will grow
• 2:54:38
  in popularity over time, I would have just I would have told you
• 2:54:40
  to piss off. I I I think it will.
• 2:54:44
  I think some of these stories will age well.
• 2:54:49
  I think like we did smile last week and I'm really enjoying
• 2:54:53
  that. And then watching it back going,
• 2:54:56
  it's fine. And it's like, will some of
• 2:54:58
  those big hitters from before, are they going to, are they
• 2:55:02
  going to stay up there in the polls or are they going to start
• 2:55:04
  to drop? And are some of these going to
• 2:55:07
  rise? I mean I don't I I, I is all
• 2:55:10
  from 55 going to become is it going to become one of those
• 2:55:14
  Kind of a bit like some people are with things like twin
• 2:55:16
  dilemma and everything just people or time flight where
• 2:55:18
  there's going to champion saying yes you know it's got problems
• 2:55:20
  but my God it's great. I think fandom might be kinder
• 2:55:26
  in the long run. I think if some people just got
• 2:55:29
  over themselves and just maybe watched some of it because I
• 2:55:31
  think there's there are people who just will not touch it.
• 2:55:35
  It is the fact that it is divisive, proving that it's
• 2:55:38
  doing something right, that it's not doing what Doctor Who
• 2:55:41
  normally does, that is pushing buttons, that is more ambitious
• 2:55:44
  than usual, that is daring to be different.
• 2:55:47
  I'm wondering if all four of those things are true.
• 2:55:50
  Yeah, I think so. And also Orphan 55 is going to
• 2:55:54
  have a deadly assassin sort of turn around one day.
• 2:55:59
  It will be seen as one of the greatest stories.
• 2:56:02
  But it came all. It came at the bottom this time.
• 2:56:04
  Around It really won't tell. It really won't, right?
• 2:56:10
  Well, we have a clear winner and talking of divisive seasons,
• 2:56:13
  next season we're going to cover won't be divisive at all.
• 2:56:16
  Is season 22 including The Twin Dilemma, which is really
• 2:56:21
  annoying People like Fraser Gregory?
• 2:56:23
  That's. Proving the most divisive
• 2:56:25
  decision of all, yeah. It is, isn't it?
• 2:56:26
  Who knew that will, I'm sure, prove equally contentious.
• 2:56:30
  So thank you to David and Dylan for giving sterling views and
• 2:56:35
  opinions on tonight's episodes. Gentlemen, would you like to
• 2:56:38
  tell us where people can find you on social media?
• 2:56:40
  And is there anything you'd like to promote?
• 2:56:42
  Let's start with David. You can find me on Twitter for
• 2:56:47
  X. Formerly Twitter I I was on a
• 2:56:50
  training course today and every time they had to mention X that
• 2:56:54
  they always followed it with formerly Twitter and it just got
• 2:56:56
  to the point that it was just borderline ridiculous.
• 2:56:59
  You can find me on You find me on there.
• 2:57:01
  I'm at Pi 1883 if you like Doctor Who camera scripts.
• 2:57:06
  Normally I'll be sharing some fantastic experts from those and
• 2:57:10
  promoting my YouTube channel, which is looking into mostly
• 2:57:14
  mysteries and things we don't know from Missing Stories.
• 2:57:17
  And I am working on my next video at the minute, which is
• 2:57:21
  looking at the rehearsal script of episode one of Macro Terror,
• 2:57:25
  which somebody sent me. So this is actually the script
• 2:57:28
  before they started recording. So there's some interesting bits
• 2:57:31
  and pieces in there that hopefully it will be of
• 2:57:34
  interest. If you want to have a have a
• 2:57:37
  sort of different look at Doctor Who, go find this YouTube
• 2:57:41
  channel. What's it called again?
• 2:57:43
  Your YouTube Channel. The links on my my Twitter
• 2:57:46
  profile. I can never remember my YouTube
• 2:57:48
  channel. You've got to get better at
• 2:57:49
  marketing this thing all. Right.
• 2:57:50
  You do better at marketing. It's a cheap.
• 2:57:52
  It's not my job. Put it, put it on the tweets
• 2:57:55
  when we put this out, all right. It's fantastic though, that it's
• 2:57:59
  really detailed, lots of information and oh, I'm about to
• 2:58:04
  say you're better than somebody else and I won't say that
• 2:58:06
  somebody else is doing something.
• 2:58:09
  No, it's fantastic though. Go and look at it.
• 2:58:10
  It's brilliant. It.
• 2:58:12
  Is wonderful. When our Myth Makers 1 comes
• 2:58:14
  out, there's something I found couple of things that we found
• 2:58:17
  out there that was quite interesting, particularly about
• 2:58:22
  Vicky's leaving scene and a potential parallel to the
• 2:58:25
  rescue. You tease.
• 2:58:27
  That's exciting. Fantastic and Dylan?
• 2:58:31
  You can find me, Dylan does who on X, formerly Twitter.
• 2:58:35
  And I do a podcast called Too Hot for TV where we look at
• 2:58:39
  everything Doctor Who related. That is not the television show.
• 2:58:42
  So it's every new Adventures, Missing Adventures, BBV, you
• 2:58:48
  know, Weetabix, Cards, anything that is not the television show.
• 2:58:53
  We will cover it. And yes, we're we're putting out
• 2:58:57
  episodes all the time, apparently, even though I said I
• 2:58:59
  was going to cut down. There's no dipsy won't plum to
• 2:59:02
  even grown time to die, no when to die.
• 2:59:06
  What's it called? When to die?
• 2:59:08
  When to die? Listening to that, I wanted to
• 2:59:10
  go and watch it just to. See is it is.
• 2:59:12
  It. Isn't bad as you made it so it.
• 2:59:15
  Was a good work. OK.
• 2:59:20
  So it reminds for us just to thank you guys for helping us
• 2:59:24
  out tonight and for us just to say to everyone thanks for
• 2:59:28
  listening and come on Joe, it's thank you.
• 2:59:32
  Good night and. Listening.
• 2:59:36
  Good night. See you later.
• 2:59:39
  Good night. The.