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Hamster Book Club - Lux by James Goss (featuring Michael Mills) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:00
  It was their 20 somethings episode, 20 something episodes
• 0:04
  of rambling about Clade and N forms and Skull children and
• 0:09
  Merlin. No way for grown-ups to behave
• 0:13
  really. Talking about tatty old tie in
• 0:16
  books that were, let's be honest, either for children or
• 0:20
  the less intelligent sort of adult.
• 0:23
  But this time they've got actual proper review copies.
• 0:27
  Like a proper podcast. They were basically Kermode and
• 0:31
  Mayo now, only without the skiffle or the laughterlift.
• 0:34
  So arguably even better. True, it was mainly because
• 0:40
  they've been so nice about the giggle.
• 0:42
  Michael doubted they'd be getting any Lethbridge Stewart
• 0:45
  ARC's anytime soon. But that was how it worked,
• 0:47
  right? You were nice to the content
• 0:49
  creators, they were nice to you, and it all ended up in a large
• 0:53
  language model anyway. And what was more, Michael had
• 0:58
  had an idea for the intro. Michael thought it was a very
• 1:02
  funny idea. You know, Joe, we could get
• 1:06
  James to record it, he suggested, hoping to remove some
• 1:09
  of the obvious egotism from the idea.
• 1:11
  He's got a lovely reading voice. Joe winced ever so slightly.
• 1:18
  A bit mean. If he's not on the episode, fuck
• 1:21
  him, said Michael. Ken used to do the intros.
• 1:27
  Ken didn't do the intros anymore.
• 1:30
  Joe wouldn't tell him why Michael felt vaguely threatened
• 1:35
  by James. He liked his place as the clever
• 1:38
  one on the podcast, and it was probably a threat not just to
• 1:42
  his and Joe's dynamic, but his entire sense of self to
• 1:45
  acknowledge that he was merely cleverer than the people he
• 1:48
  chose to hang around with. That was the great thing about
• 1:51
  Doctor Who fandom. Also, it suddenly occurred to
• 1:55
  him that James would probably decide to make him sound like a
• 1:57
  bit part from The Green Death while delivering Joe's lines in
• 2:01
  a rough approximation of the 10th Doctor as interpreted by
• 2:04
  Sophie Aldridge. But it was too late to unsuggest
• 2:07
  his suggestion now. Well, stick it in the group chat
• 2:11
  and we'll see what he says. Joe threw up his hands, fiddled
• 2:14
  with something off screen, and gave him a little stare.
• 2:17
  Right. Anyway, I'll be chatting all
• 2:19
  night. Shall we start?
• 2:21
  I can have you out of here by 9:30.
• 2:22
  Ten tops. Yep.
• 2:24
  No, hang on. Michael adjusted the pile of
• 2:26
  books in front of him. He didn't want it to be too
• 2:29
  painful to talk closely into the mic, balanced semi confidently
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  atop them all three volumes of Lance Parkins A history plus a
• 2:36
  Social history of the railway station, plus Arnold
• 2:39
  Schwarzenegger's autobiography, usually just about did it right.
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  He bet Mark Kermode had clever books.
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  OK Joe, ready, he said. Alonzi, I beg your pardon?
• 2:52
  Count me in. Was it all a bit self indulgent?
• 2:57
  Probably too late now. 321 Hamster Book Club, the Doctor
• 3:08
  Who Novel Review Podcast with Joe Ford and Michael Mills, and
• 3:15
  introducing James Lark as the one whose bit has just finished.
• 3:32
  I'm Mr. Joe. I'm gay.
• 3:34
  I shy five times a day. I dress to slay.
• 3:38
  Yes, I'm Mr. Joe. I'm gay.
• 3:44
  And I'm Michael, and I'm none of those things.
• 3:47
  Hello, Michael. Hello, Joe.
• 3:50
  How does it feel to be sort of in this meta universe, the way
• 3:54
  we've just been introduced there, you know?
• 3:57
  Oh, I feel alive, Joe. I feel like I'm a real boy.
• 4:00
  That's right. I'm starting to wonder, you
• 4:01
  know, if actually we're not real because of that and just a
• 4:05
  diseased part of well, you wrote it so your mind.
• 4:10
  I am. I am myself.
• 4:12
  I am figment of my own imagination.
• 4:15
  That would mean that you created me though in your mind
• 4:18
  somewhere. Oh, is that more boring for me
• 4:21
  or for you? Oh.
• 4:22
  Very boring for you, I'm afraid. Welcome back to the Hamster Book
• 4:27
  Club. My name is Joe Ford.
• 4:29
  As James told you earlier, I am here with the delectable Mr.
• 4:33
  Michael Mills. Michael, we had some really
• 4:35
  exciting things to talk about this week.
• 4:37
  And why is that? Oh, this is so exciting.
• 4:40
  So regular listeners will recall that the end of our last episode
• 4:45
  on The Adventures Before, which some of you may have heard yet.
• 4:48
  Is it just on Patreon at the moment?
• 4:49
  Who cares? Is it the adventures before?
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  The Avengers. Before pretty soon.
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  Pretty soon, at the end of which we promised that our next book
• 4:57
  would be The Blood Cell by James Goss.
• 4:59
  What? What?
• 4:59
  That? No, no, we're upstate.
• 5:02
  We've changed our minds. We've changed our minds.
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  No, we are doing Lux by James Goss.
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  Excuse me, Lux isn't out yet. Michael, I know this because the
• 5:13
  publication is in about two months.
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  How? Yeah, we've got certain advance
• 5:20
  copies. We're going to be totally cool
• 5:21
  about it. We're going to be chill.
• 5:22
  Do you think, like, finally, you know, just razor sharp opinions
• 5:27
  have gone into the ether and these authors are like, we need
• 5:30
  to know what they think of the books even before they come out?
• 5:33
  Yes, yes, absolutely. I think, I think every Doctor
• 5:35
  Who novelist's sense of self worth rests on what goes through
• 5:40
  these two microphones. No, your microphone, not mine.
• 5:44
  Good grief. They're the only razor sharp
• 5:46
  opinions that come out of this podcast very kindly.
• 5:50
  James Goss, who we will be doing an interview with tomorrow,
• 5:54
  we're going to bring them out together, has sent us a copy of
• 5:58
  Lux and advanced copy. Well, before we go into talking
• 6:00
  about the book, which I thoroughly enjoyed, I'll say as
• 6:04
  a little spoiler to start off with, what did you think of the
• 6:08
  episode? I I liked it.
• 6:11
  I was a big fan of it. It had the vibe of an under
• 6:16
  considered Doctor Who magazine comic strip from somewhere
• 6:20
  around 1998. And I said that on Blue Sky when
• 6:23
  it was first on and Eddie Robson correctly suggested that there
• 6:28
  would have been 2 pages by Roger Language in there as well.
• 6:30
  Which when they go into the cartoon which thinks is perfect,
• 6:33
  but do you know what I mean? It's got that it's got that sort
• 6:35
  of 20th century setting, it's got that kind of genre bending,
• 6:41
  medium bending aesthetic that you can you can imagine it's you
• 6:45
  know, it's it's there like it's there in things like when I say
• 6:50
  the autonomy bug, but also, I suppose even more so things like
• 6:55
  what's the one James Larks always going on about the.
• 6:58
  Glorious dead. The glorious dead.
• 7:00
  Thank you. No fan.
• 7:01
  Me. Yeah.
• 7:02
  The Glorious. Garrity, I think that one was.
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  It was, yes. Did he do all of the?
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  So there's the wonderful bit in that where the Doctor is falling
• 7:11
  through the Omniverse and different realities and is
• 7:14
  taking on different. Forms splits, doesn't it?
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  And it's all the different ones. Marvel, doctor.
• 7:19
  Sherlock Holmes, Doctor. Peanuts, Doctor.
• 7:22
  Peanuts the Rani is in. Yes, absolutely.
• 7:25
  Finally, you should mention her. Transformers Doctors in that,
• 7:29
  yeah, this is this is a Doctor Who TV episode that that really
• 7:34
  splits the sides of the panel, doesn't it?
• 7:37
  Yes. Now I have to say, I thought it
• 7:40
  was a technical masterpiece. I think if all of all the RTD 2
• 7:46
  episodes, I think this might be the one where we're seeing the
• 7:48
  money the most because making an animated character that jumps
• 7:53
  out into real life, you know, situations and then taking our
• 7:58
  characters and animated, that is not cheap to do to the quality
• 8:03
  that they did within that episode, right?
• 8:06
  No, absolutely not. And I think one way you see the
• 8:09
  money, but also where you see that additional money helping
• 8:13
  them tell a story they wouldn't have approached otherwise.
• 8:16
  Because I think very wisely, they would not have tried this
• 8:18
  if they if they couldn't have done it well.
• 8:20
  Michael, all they could afford and fear her was that scribble
• 8:23
  coming out the garage. Oh yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 8:27
  And that little boy going off the page, the little crayon boy,
• 8:30
  that was it. But I did think as well, I
• 8:32
  thought it was a very nice, simple, and it was a simple
• 8:36
  story, right? They land, there's a mystery,
• 8:39
  people have gone missing. The cartoon jumps out the
• 8:41
  screen, they become cartoons, they meet the fans, we'll talk
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  about that, and then they defeat the gods.
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  The end. All within 40 minutes.
• 8:51
  It's a very linear story and really easy to follow, but as
• 8:55
  like a first step into the Doctor Who universe for Belinda,
• 9:01
  I thought it was very useful the story to to the the very
• 9:05
  delicate way that Rusty Davis handled the racism of the time.
• 9:10
  I kept wondering why is this set at 4:00 AM and then that scene
• 9:12
  here And I was like, OK, that's why this is set at 4:00 AM.
• 9:15
  And that even that just setting it at 4:00 AM makes a point,
• 9:18
  right? So I thought that was really
• 9:21
  great as well. That my big issue, and I'm
• 9:24
  pleased to say that James Goss has moved over My issue with
• 9:28
  this was that interminable 5 minute scene in the middle with
• 9:34
  the fans when they come out of the TV.
• 9:36
  Partly because I know every one of those fans and I avoid them
• 9:40
  like the plague. So I certainly don't want them
• 9:42
  within a Doctor Who episode. Partly because it was so on the
• 9:45
  nose. Some of that dialogue, you know,
• 9:47
  and I can handle a lot of saccharine, but that was sugary
• 9:52
  sweet and partly because then we forgot about the mystery and we
• 9:56
  forgot about the story for 5 minutes, which meant the pacing
• 10:00
  was completely thrown. So that was my only real issue.
• 10:04
  Apart from that, I thought it was really entertaining.
• 10:06
  Yeah, yeah. And we should touch on the fan
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  scene as well, because I think that is part of why Lux has
• 10:13
  appeared. Surprisingly.
• 10:15
  Don't load down some people's lists of the episodes from the
• 10:18
  series. I think not everyone, but I'd
• 10:21
  say in a lot of cases, I think it's it's the reaction to that
• 10:23
  scene. I don't, I don't hate it.
• 10:25
  I don't, you know, it doesn't hurt me in the way that I think
• 10:30
  it hurts some. People in the middle.
• 10:31
  Yeah, I do hate it, but I think my problem with it is as you
• 10:36
  sort of, you know, you got towards, it's a bit of a non
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  sequitur. It doesn't really fit into the
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  rest of the episode. It feels like, oh, well, what if
• 10:42
  we have the Doctor go into a cartoon?
• 10:43
  Or what if we then have him come out into the real world?
• 10:46
  And first of all, I think there is a whole story and one that I
• 10:50
  think Doctor Who should be brave enough to tell at some point of
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  the Doctor confronting his own fictional reality.
• 10:55
  Spin off of, as we like to talk about here, have gone there a
• 11:00
  number of times in the past. We had Conundrum by Steve Lyons
• 11:03
  where Ace is mocked and attacked by her own.
• 11:07
  By the new adventures. By the new adventures and Dragon
• 11:10
  Fire. And then she jumps out of the
• 11:12
  chapter and goes, no, I'm not having this.
• 11:13
  And there that she's gone into the next chapter.
• 11:16
  Yeah, exactly. And the stuff in Voyager isn't
• 11:19
  there about the Doctor stepping out of the panels and running
• 11:21
  around and it feels like do. You remember Legend of the
• 11:24
  Cybermen? I was going to say Legend of the
• 11:26
  Cybermen, not the not the only Big Finish audio in which
• 11:30
  someone wakes up in the recording studio being addressed
• 11:32
  by the actor's name. You know this and.
• 11:35
  I thought that was really clever, like the.
• 11:37
  Legend. It is fun.
• 11:38
  It is fun. It does Legend Simon Does get
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  does get matter in an interesting way within the land
• 11:43
  of fiction with people trying to categorise the story and things
• 11:48
  like that. And even but even within TV
• 11:51
  Doctor Who, we've sort of done this before and we've done it in
• 11:55
  different forms. We've had whiz kids, we've had
• 11:58
  Linda, we've had Ozgood. And this time it is just the
• 12:01
  fans and I you know, I hate to say it's tired, but it is it is
• 12:05
  a little bit Russell T Davis, Garth Merenghi.
• 12:08
  I know writers who you subtext and they're all cowards at
• 12:11
  times. But, and I I do get why some
• 12:14
  people might not like being presented in that way, because
• 12:16
  with kids, Linda Osgood, they all get to be part of the.
• 12:19
  Adventure in one way or another. Yeah, 100%.
• 12:23
  And also, if you're a fan of something, and if you're a fan
• 12:26
  of Doctor Who or sci-fi or fantasy, you've had the piss
• 12:31
  taken out of you at some point, right?
• 12:33
  And so I think a little bit when people start to sort of present
• 12:36
  you back to yourself, like, oh, you're all sat around with your
• 12:39
  Sonic screwdrivers and your and your Tom Baker scarves and it's
• 12:42
  the entirety of your life, I realise.
• 12:44
  Michael, I can smell the smell from here, if I'm honest.
• 12:48
  I, I, I realise this is that this may sound like special
• 12:51
  pleading from two men who are on a podcast talking about Doctor
• 12:54
  Who books, but hey, I'm gonna carry.
• 12:56
  On oh, out of print Doctor Who books that no one cares about
• 13:00
  anymore, this is finally relevant.
• 13:03
  This isn't even imprint. Yeah, what we've jumped, we've
• 13:06
  jumped out the screen here with this one.
• 13:08
  So I but I do get why people might might have their heckles,
• 13:10
  right. I don't actually think it's that
• 13:12
  cruel or unkind. I think it's kindly meant.
• 13:13
  And that's the main thing. My my issue is that it just, as
• 13:16
  you say, sits there in the middle of the episode, doesn't
• 13:19
  actually tie into the themes or the peril of the story.
• 13:23
  And I think there is, there is a really interesting idea here of
• 13:27
  wanting to become of either Pinocchio the, the, the pretend
• 13:31
  boy, wanting to become the real boy of the God, wanting to
• 13:34
  become mortal and to feel the sun on his face and all the rest
• 13:37
  of it. And the fact that if you're
• 13:38
  brave enough, you could confront the fact that you, well, this is
• 13:41
  a story with fictional characters in it.
• 13:44
  Brave's the wrong word. But it's not, it's just not
• 13:47
  where the story goes. It just feels like there was
• 13:50
  this idea, it would be fun and we'll do it and sort of sod the
• 13:53
  rest of the story, and you're kind of waiting for the rest of
• 13:56
  the story for that to become relevant again, and it doesn't.
• 13:59
  I have two issues of what that scene is doing there as well.
• 14:02
  I promise we'll get to the book. And that one is, you know, a
• 14:06
  friend of mine said, well, that seems absolutely vital because
• 14:08
  they tell Belinda how to save the day.
• 14:12
  I went, well, is she so stupid that she can't figure out the
• 14:14
  strike in a match and burn in that film?
• 14:16
  Like I, I thought she was a very competent woman.
• 14:19
  She shouldn't leave Doctor Who fans to do it.
• 14:21
  And then the other reading is, well, no, she's there to see
• 14:25
  just how adored the doctor is and how loved he is.
• 14:28
  And then she's on board with him after that.
• 14:30
  But surely the doctor should just do things and she should
• 14:33
  see that and and she should sort of learn throughout the
• 14:36
  adventures how amazing it is without somebody going, Oh, he's
• 14:39
  wonderful. Look how he brings everybody
• 14:41
  together. And and a third thing is that
• 14:45
  just the dialogue is so on the nose.
• 14:47
  It's so obvious. All that stuff about blink being
• 14:50
  the best episode and oh, please, I was just rolling my eyes the
• 14:53
  whole time going, Oh God, I don't want any non fans.
• 14:57
  I I know watching this. Just please let me let it just
• 15:00
  be Doctor Who fans. But I will say very, very
• 15:04
  cleverly to sort of jump towards the book, I thought James Goss
• 15:12
  starting with the fans and then having a tea break a third in.
• 15:18
  And then we have that scene in the middle and then the scene
• 15:21
  with them at the end meant that they are part of this entire
• 15:26
  story. And then watching it is kind of
• 15:29
  the point. It's the framing device to the
• 15:31
  entire story. So it's not just a surprise in
• 15:33
  the middle that stops the plot. It's something we're sort of
• 15:37
  following all the way along. And because James Goss is James
• 15:40
  Goss, he manages to characterize those people with a little more
• 15:45
  depth than you can do with a 5 minute vignette.
• 15:48
  So you start to understand the relationships that are there and
• 15:52
  how this is all a bit of a procedure for these people.
• 15:55
  And then as the story goes on, they realise, no, this isn't
• 15:59
  just something we do, this isn't just a ritual.
• 16:01
  We are friends and we love doing this.
• 16:03
  And it just felt like just a natural progression of that
• 16:06
  story rather than just this jammed in the middle of the
• 16:10
  story. Hello listeners.
• 16:15
  It's your kindly Uncle Michael here.
• 16:17
  As Joe just sort of intimated, there are going to be some
• 16:21
  spoilers here for a book that you haven't read yet and had the
• 16:24
  opportunity to read. And for that we apologize.
• 16:26
  So very helpfully, whenever we think listening back to this,
• 16:31
  we're getting a bit close to a spoiler, you're going to hear
• 16:33
  this sound. I missed a ring, a Ding.
• 16:37
  I make my heart go sing. Or something similar.
• 16:42
  We apologise for that, but it's for your own good.
• 16:44
  Anyway, back to the story. Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers.
• 16:50
  What was I'll say then. Oh yeah, Well, I'll throw it to
• 16:52
  you. I mean, do you think, let's talk
• 16:54
  about that framing device and does it work better or was it
• 16:57
  just more extraneous scenes for you that you didn't need?
• 17:02
  No, I think it works. As I said, my main issue with it
• 17:06
  in the TV store is that it is a non sequitur.
• 17:08
  And what James Goss does in the book very cleverly is to
• 17:14
  alleviate that feeling a bit by by pulling it out and wrapping
• 17:17
  it around the story. And so the fans fittingly serve
• 17:22
  a sort of coric function on the action, commenting on it, and
• 17:25
  they are moved and they are changed by it as well.
• 17:27
  And a thing that's a bit disappointing about that, about
• 17:33
  that seen on screen, is that it has the sort of fairly obvious
• 17:38
  and flags up, but it's obvious. That doesn't mean it's OK of
• 17:42
  we're not real. You are.
• 17:44
  But you think no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, because we know
• 17:47
  the fans are the real ones and how and where have they come
• 17:50
  from. And actually, that doesn't make
• 17:52
  sense. What the more interesting thing
• 17:54
  is, which I think what James was very smartly does here is makes
• 17:58
  it more ambiguous. So yes, they think they're
• 18:01
  fictional, but all the way through they're also the ones
• 18:04
  paying attention to the story. So you get that much more
• 18:07
  interesting kind of, you know, who is the dreamer and who is
• 18:10
  the dream sort of structure to it as well, which works works
• 18:14
  really well And I think helps with a lot of what James Goss
• 18:18
  does in the book, which is as best novelizations do, taking
• 18:24
  those ideas and those themes that are in the book and really
• 18:26
  drawing them out. So it also fits into that whole
• 18:28
  idea of wanting to become real and the sense there's also a
• 18:34
  kind of parallel between them and Lux slash Mr. Ring a Ding in
• 18:38
  it where this sense that he has observed others, he has observed
• 18:46
  Mr. Reginald Pie. It's Mr. Reginald Pie.
• 18:49
  It's always Mr. Reginald Pie in the book, which is a nice little
• 18:52
  touch. And he's seen him, he's seen his
• 18:56
  life, he's seen his home movies and he understands that it's
• 19:00
  important, but he doesn't feel any of it.
• 19:01
  And then that's contrasted with when we first introduced to the
• 19:04
  cinema at the very start. It's the sense of it's a place
• 19:07
  of it's almost church like place that's made quite clear that
• 19:10
  it's a place of sort of communal worship of transcendence and
• 19:13
  communal experience where we can feel all these things that we're
• 19:17
  not feeling right now. And that's, you know, that's the
• 19:20
  sort of what art's all about, right?
• 19:22
  And the fans, in the way that they're not on screen, become a
• 19:28
  part of the the theme of the story.
• 19:34
  I also think that, forgive me, James Goss's meta jokes are
• 19:41
  better than Russell T Davis's because he makes loads and loads
• 19:45
  of them and I won't spoil them all, but I will just say like
• 19:48
  James isn't above ripping the piss out of himself.
• 19:51
  The writer of the giggle I hear is going to be writing the Lux
• 19:55
  novelization. Then Lizzie thought that was all
• 19:57
  right, but not that great, and she certainly didn't save her
• 20:00
  space on the shelf for it. And there were sort of lines
• 20:03
  like that. And you know the bit where Mr.
• 20:05
  Ringerding in the episode? Drags them into the cartoon,
• 20:09
  they go, what I say, oh, it was all a bit children in need.
• 20:12
  And there was just like great jokes like, well, there was a
• 20:14
  wonderful line about the brilliant book of Doctor Who.
• 20:17
  She's got 4 copies, one for herself and three just in case
• 20:21
  she sees the gleam in the eye of somebody who might be a fan to
• 20:24
  borrow it. James Girls also says though of
• 20:27
  the group they weren't a podcast or a religion.
• 20:30
  No, this was important. And I just like to say fuck you
• 20:32
  too. Yeah, screw you, James.
• 20:36
  But I just, I really did like as well how especially in that
• 20:39
  opening scene, you know, where they sort of press play on their
• 20:43
  remote and then we go into the book was that the relationships
• 20:48
  were weren't perfect. I thought in the section in the
• 20:51
  middle, they were just sort of a load of how do I say this nicely
• 20:56
  eccentrics that all just loved each other, you know,
• 21:00
  undisputedly. Whereas James paints a picture
• 21:02
  that they are just sort of misfits that have found
• 21:04
  themselves together of habit. And I just found that so much
• 21:08
  more believable because I do think fans do find each other,
• 21:13
  not as like rejects from the social groups.
• 21:16
  But there is there is an element of that, right?
• 21:19
  That you were the ones on the sidelines and you do find each
• 21:22
  other and you have this shared love of something and you just
• 21:25
  throw yourselves into that. It's it's the Linda thing.
• 21:28
  It is the Linda thing and it's also the thing of there's
• 21:31
  they're sort of commenting on each other as well and the
• 21:34
  things that they find not perfect about each other and the
• 21:37
  the behaviours of each other. They're a little bit annoying as
• 21:40
  there's a great reference to one of them leaving 6 minute voice
• 21:43
  notes that sometimes made the group chat a bit heavy.
• 21:46
  Weather. Which I, we all know that
• 21:48
  person, you know, frankly, it isn't me.
• 21:51
  I mean, I did quite like the the tea break as well where one of
• 21:54
  them goes. I mean, come on, this episode is
• 21:56
  really trope aware. They're making jokes about a
• 21:59
  haunted cinema, for God's sakes. You know, Oh yeah, so the bit
• 22:02
  one of them says that one of the others of not having enjoyed
• 22:07
  Legend of the Sea Devils because they weren't paying attention
• 22:10
  properly. And there's and.
• 22:11
  That's something of you, you know.
• 22:13
  That's such a fan reaction, isn't it?
• 22:15
  Sort of, no. There's nothing wrong with the
• 22:17
  program. You'll just it's all explained
• 22:18
  there. You see, the reason that we have
• 22:20
  that scene with the fans is so that Belinda knows how to set
• 22:22
  fire to flammable materials. There's that one person, nothing
• 22:26
  Sleeping The More is the best episode of season 9.
• 22:29
  I mean, it did win the Strictly and just watch it.
• 22:32
  None of you get it, none of you understand it.
• 22:34
  You have heard Strictly come hamster, right?
• 22:39
  I've heard it when others have been when I've been involved in
• 22:42
  the recordings. Fair enough.
• 22:45
  That's absolutely fair enough. OK, well, then let's push away
• 22:49
  from the fans, although we'll come back to that middle scene
• 22:52
  when we get there. What would you like to cover?
• 22:54
  Do you want to cover the Doctor and Belinda?
• 22:56
  Do you want to cover the mystery, the fabulous depiction
• 23:00
  of the cinema? I just love how he depicts that
• 23:02
  in his or Lux himself. Should we start with the cinema?
• 23:09
  Because something that I really love and you've got to be
• 23:13
  careful, I always think when we're talking about
• 23:15
  novelisations to make sure that we're talking about the book and
• 23:17
  not the TV episode. Although of course the 2 are
• 23:20
  related. I think there's a tendency of
• 23:27
  people to talk about Lux as a sort of companion piece to The
• 23:31
  Devil's Chord. And I can see it.
• 23:34
  I can see how it makes sense that The Devil's Chord is a God
• 23:36
  of music. This is a God of quote UN quote
• 23:38
  light. But cinema is how it's
• 23:41
  presented. An alarming way of making these
• 23:44
  comparisons. A lot you know of things that I
• 23:47
  have said in the past continue. Well, I think it is, and I don't
• 23:52
  necessarily disagree. And I see how one ends up there.
• 23:56
  I would also argue that something is common between them
• 23:58
  on television is that Russell T Davis, as a writer, it strikes
• 24:04
  me, is often much more interested in ideas and
• 24:09
  symbolism of things and what? Narrative structure and things
• 24:13
  like that. Well, less so necessarily than
• 24:16
  narrative structure. I think he he often works
• 24:18
  metaphorically. Klaxon.
• 24:20
  We're going to quote John Higgs's Exterminate, Regenerate
• 24:23
  again, where he says all all together.
• 24:25
  Now, Russell D Davis's stories often work symbolically more
• 24:29
  than they work logically, which is true.
• 24:32
  Go and read that book if you're not already.
• 24:33
  Do you think he's created a sort of universe now where
• 24:37
  occasionally he can get away with that because the the rules
• 24:41
  of the universe have been bent slightly?
• 24:45
  Yeah. And it's, that's not, that's not
• 24:46
  what my issue is with it at all. I think that's fine.
• 24:50
  What my issue is is almost on a sort of script level, almost on
• 24:52
  a writing level, he's, he is peculiarly uninterested in the
• 24:59
  substance of the thing He's talking about the praxis of it.
• 25:01
  You know, of, of music, of cinema, like in the Devil's
• 25:05
  Chords, as I mentioned when I was on Strictly.
• 25:08
  So I did listen to that one. He doesn't have anything to say
• 25:11
  about The Beatles other than they were good at music.
• 25:15
  And he doesn't really have to say anything about about the
• 25:17
  construction of music or how it works.
• 25:19
  It's it's all the symbols. It's what it can mean to people.
• 25:21
  And that's that's fine one. Thing I learned that they
• 25:25
  weren't 4 falls from Liverpool. Moving on.
• 25:32
  I tell you what, there isn't. There is absolutely no evidence
• 25:35
  in this TV episode that Russell T Davis or Murray Gold has
• 25:39
  developed lyrical ability since in series one, although I did, I
• 25:44
  did. For start of the episodes,
• 25:45
  anything to go by? Well I don't think there's a bit
• 25:48
  of a there's a bit of a sub tweet from James Goss isn't
• 25:50
  there? When in the book it says after
• 25:51
  Mr. Ring a Ding song for the first time.
• 25:53
  Even with a small orchestra giving it their all, it wasn't
• 25:56
  much of a song. Yeah, really made me laugh
• 26:00
  almost as much as the pit where Lizzy goes, does her hero speech
• 26:04
  and then goes oh, I hope Murray Gold scores the hell out of this
• 26:08
  bit. But yeah, so so as in the
• 26:12
  devil's chord where which is not terribly interested in actual
• 26:16
  the composition of music, the making of music as evidenced in
• 26:18
  those terrible lyrics. Lux, I think gets away with it a
• 26:23
  bit more in terms because it's talking about the experience of
• 26:27
  cinema more than it's talking about the the medium of cinema,
• 26:32
  if that makes sense. And I think some of that is
• 26:34
  carried through here. But I think James Goss is also
• 26:36
  willing to get stuck into more of, of cinema itself of the
• 26:40
  time. There is a slightly, there's
• 26:41
  just like oddness that this is a 1950s set film story that makes
• 26:45
  the effort to then bring a character in from the 1930s
• 26:49
  because it's talking about cinema symbolically.
• 26:51
  So it's bringing in the 1950s picture house.
• 26:54
  But it wants the the flasher world of bounciness cartoons of
• 26:58
  the 1930s, Betty Boop and all the rest of them.
• 27:01
  Which is which is fine. It doesn't bother you while
• 27:03
  you're watching it. And it's easy enough, as the TV
• 27:05
  episode does, to give a very simple explanation that he's
• 27:07
  just sticking on an old cartoon. Fine.
• 27:10
  But here we do get a bit more. Yeah, James Ross does sort of
• 27:13
  fill in that whole in things, if you like, with actual
• 27:17
  instructions of research, release, understanding.
• 27:19
  So we do get those references coming in to explain how this
• 27:23
  fits into actual cinema of the period.
• 27:26
  Not in a big way, not in a heavy-handed way, not a not a
• 27:29
  boom. Here is my Halliwell's film
• 27:31
  guide. But also, like, with one with a
• 27:34
  couple of lines, right, he really managed to capture what
• 27:38
  cinema meant to the people going.
• 27:40
  So he said that's what they all came for, a little glow of
• 27:43
  light. So the darkness would light
• 27:46
  lighten just a little. And I'm like, yeah, I get it.
• 27:49
  I get it. And, you know, and he even
• 27:51
  characterizes the people that vanish.
• 27:54
  He gives them a couple of lines, all of them that Tommy Lee
• 27:57
  always gave the correct change. He was a good American boy, you
• 28:00
  know that. The mum brought her son as a
• 28:03
  treat and he smiled at her and that made her day better because
• 28:07
  she at least she'd got this right.
• 28:09
  Little pinpricks of character. I'm like, Oh my God, I'm seeing
• 28:13
  who these people are now. They're not just victims in the
• 28:15
  story. I love, I love that line about
• 28:18
  the mum. At least she'd got that one
• 28:20
  thing right. Weren't you quite amused by the
• 28:23
  you know, when luck starts talking?
• 28:25
  And I know the only people that were allowed to address them in
• 28:28
  person was the president and Alfred Hitchcock.
• 28:31
  Yeah, who the he is? Mr. Alfred Hitchcock, Mr. Alfred
• 28:36
  Hitchcock Presents and all the rest of it.
• 28:38
  Yes, it's, but it's but it's great though, isn't it?
• 28:40
  So we get, we get the fact the president used to appear in news
• 28:43
  reels there we get Alfred Hitchcock.
• 28:45
  We get references to Casablanca, The Thin Man, Mickey Mouse,
• 28:49
  Popeye, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, John Wayne, Betty
• 28:52
  Grable, North by Northwest. There's a great bit where they
• 28:56
  make reference to William Castle's shock tricks, which is
• 28:59
  a great one. Do you know William Castle Joe?
• 29:02
  He was AB movie director, producer in the 1950s and 60s
• 29:07
  and I think a bit beyond as well.
• 29:08
  It was involved actually in quite a lot of impressive stuff
• 29:10
  in cinema. But the thing that he's sort of
• 29:12
  best popularly remembered for was in the 50s and 60's, the
• 29:16
  sort of gimmicks to get people in to see his films.
• 29:20
  So there would be things that would be happening within the
• 29:23
  auditorium at certain points. So there was.
• 29:27
  Yeah, it was. Things now.
• 29:29
  It was well it's not that far away When you see those adverts
• 29:32
  for what is it, you know, 4D where your your chair moves
• 29:36
  about and this spray smells in your face.
• 29:37
  Spit coming all over you in the movies, you know?
• 29:40
  Yeah. All that sort.
• 29:41
  But he'd do things like he'd have, you know, glow in the dark
• 29:45
  skeletons flying around the auditorium at key moments or one
• 29:49
  of his one of his films just before the Denu more.
• 29:54
  There would be a pause and they would offer anybody who was too
• 29:56
  scared to watch the final. Scene.
• 29:59
  Could leave now. You never got no put it on, put
• 30:02
  it on. Well, most famously, the one he
• 30:04
  did was the Tingler, which was, pardon, the Tingler.
• 30:08
  Yeah, not, not one of your sorts of movies, Joe.
• 30:11
  What? Was it?
• 30:14
  Well, the film itself is much less well remembered than the
• 30:17
  gimmick. I think the film itself has got
• 30:19
  something to do with an alien that attaches itself to people's
• 30:22
  spines or something like that. Very planet spiders.
• 30:26
  But the gimmick was that certain chairs in certain auditoriums
• 30:32
  would be wired up with motors so that they would give you a cat's
• 30:38
  ferry. But it was either a rumble or a
• 30:40
  small electric shock at key moments.
• 30:43
  Yeah, can you feel the tingler or something like that?
• 30:46
  Was the tagline. Or just random chairs.
• 30:50
  Yeah, although random. But then of course people found
• 30:52
  out and so they would try and get the chairs.
• 30:54
  Oh. My God, that's genius, isn't it?
• 30:57
  And also, I mean, a great reference to throw in here that
• 31:00
  does connect this to the period very nicely.
• 31:02
  And also, I'm going to say it now, no copyright on this.
• 31:04
  Anyone take it and run with it if you want it.
• 31:06
  That would be a great jumping off point for a whole Doctor Who
• 31:09
  story. But as well, whilst we're
• 31:13
  talking about the cinema, I really liked the fact that he
• 31:16
  goes to town a bit with the description of the exterior.
• 31:20
  So he describes it. He goes as close to a rocket
• 31:22
  ship or a sports car as a cinema could be.
• 31:25
  A little palace of dreams right there on the seashore.
• 31:28
  So evocative. And then when they're inside,
• 31:31
  Belinda's like, oh, red floors, red ceilings, red stairs.
• 31:36
  It's a little like being inside a mouth, she thinks at one
• 31:39
  point. I don't know.
• 31:40
  I just think he gets the descriptions on point.
• 31:43
  He makes the setting mean something.
• 31:46
  Yeah, he, he, as we said with the giggle, he is very good at
• 31:52
  taking the stories and exploding them, you know, just really
• 31:58
  pulling everything out. Brevity, right?
• 32:00
  With economy, this is 180 pages. There's no complicated language
• 32:05
  in here, but I just feel like every character, every setting,
• 32:08
  every incident that was in the TV episode is just given a
• 32:13
  couple of layers. Yeah, yeah, it's not much more.
• 32:17
  It doesn't need to be much more, but just a few extra lines to
• 32:19
  sketch them in to to give them depth.
• 32:23
  And it's why you're reading it as a book, right?
• 32:24
  Why would you just want to read the script?
• 32:26
  Well, some people like to do that, but you're reading it as a
• 32:29
  book, so you experience it within that medium and you get
• 32:32
  something more from it. Yeah, yeah, no, 100%.
• 32:36
  Speaking of comparisons to the Giggle, those who've read it
• 32:41
  will remember that there's a great fun had there with Choose
• 32:43
  Your own Adventure style gimmicks, William.
• 32:47
  Castleton, weren't you? You had a little dialogue with
• 32:49
  James Goss at one point. Well, I'll tell you what if the
• 32:54
  if the formatting in the giggle was a precursor, this time it's
• 32:57
  war. Now you know, it does apologise
• 33:00
  to Steve Cole right at the start of the book.
• 33:03
  Steve Cole, My sincerest apologies.
• 33:06
  What the hell does that mean? Well.
• 33:09
  If you are, get if and when you get your hands on a copy of this
• 33:12
  book. Do not spoil it for yourself by
• 33:14
  skipping forwards. And now I will say this now,
• 33:18
  spoiler spoiler spoiler. Skip forward 3 minutes if you
• 33:23
  don't want to hear this because it is a joy to experience.
• 33:27
  OK, go. Mr. Ringerding breaks the pros
• 33:33
  and comes out at you. So, so last time.
• 33:36
  There he is, the massive lad, you say to yourself.
• 33:40
  So it's not in the giggle. We have the the great conceit of
• 33:47
  the toy maker being revealed as the omniscient narrator, but
• 33:51
  you're not just it's not an admission rate.
• 33:52
  It's the actual villain, the God and he.
• 33:55
  Continues to say it's me and. We get the fake title page of
• 34:02
  the toy maker. Oh yes.
• 34:06
  Oh, the tricks that book did. It was.
• 34:08
  Joy wasn't. It it was joyful.
• 34:12
  And so here continuing that idea, which I think goes back
• 34:16
  in, in art and literature and drama, you know, Lord knows how
• 34:21
  far, but the gods can break the 4th wall.
• 34:24
  But that's just one of the things they do that that's how
• 34:26
  you show that they are transcendent, which is why it
• 34:30
  was a bit odd that Mrs. Flog didn't turn out to be a God.
• 34:33
  But let's not that's for another podcast.
• 34:36
  And so we start that here with sort of a little bit of standard
• 34:40
  fun in Doctor Who books of just the fonts changing when when Mr.
• 34:44
  Ringer Ding is singing. So oh, yes, it's music, it's
• 34:47
  power. It's breaking the font.
• 34:49
  It's breaking. Yeah, that's nice.
• 34:50
  But you know, I read Prisoner of the Daleks where we had
• 34:52
  exterminates in the Dalek font, you know?
• 34:55
  I did say to you, didn't I before we even this has got to
• 34:59
  have a picture in it somewhere, Mr. Ring, a Ding has got to
• 35:02
  appear at some point in this book.
• 35:05
  But and as a as a picture, but even I didn't expect the amount
• 35:10
  that we got. No, it did, because when he
• 35:12
  appears, bam, there he is on the page in all his shit eating
• 35:16
  glory. And not just him, Michael.
• 35:19
  No, no. Suddenly.
• 35:20
  I mean, Steve Gold's going. What's this?
• 35:22
  You want me to have 100,000 copies of this book printed with
• 35:28
  20 pages of fucking photographs in the middle of the Doctor and
• 35:32
  Belinda being dragged into cartoons and then pulled out
• 35:35
  again and turned into CGI? All right, we'll do it.
• 35:39
  Can we have a bit more of that Disney money though please?
• 35:44
  Incidentally, the cover's rather gorgeous, isn't it?
• 35:46
  With the with the cover as the changing face of Doctor Who
• 35:51
  panel says, the cover of this book depicts the 15th Doctor
• 35:56
  when he was turned into a cartoon by a God, which it's
• 35:59
  lovely little tensions detail, but I thought you'd like the cut
• 36:02
  it takes. I thought you'd like the cover.
• 36:03
  No, doesn't it? It's, you know, you get the tone
• 36:06
  from the off. Oh, yes, this is a James Goss
• 36:07
  book, isn't it? We're going to have.
• 36:09
  To me, you thought I'd like the cover.
• 36:11
  I thought you'd like the cover because it's a little bit The
• 36:13
  Crooked World and it seems to me.
• 36:15
  The Crooked World cover Jesus Christ.
• 36:18
  Well, I'm just thinking because judging by the episode lists
• 36:21
  that I see, every second episode of this that I'm not on is a
• 36:24
  version of The Crooked World. Oh.
• 36:26
  Really. Oh, good grief.
• 36:30
  I will say though, like, I, I do think that whole middle section,
• 36:34
  it was just like inspired to start telling this.
• 36:37
  It's like Jim Mortimer's campaign.
• 36:40
  Suddenly the book is being told in a completely different way
• 36:43
  for about 20 pages. And, you know, because their
• 36:45
  pictures are skipped through those bits really fast.
• 36:49
  But he does add an extra scene, which I thought was inspired
• 36:56
  because he he wants to do what's on the screen and give you that
• 36:59
  because it was, you know, some of the best moments on the
• 37:01
  screen. So he gives you that in the
• 37:03
  book. And then he adds A scripted
• 37:06
  scene. So they're trying to escape from
• 37:08
  the film world and he does a scripted scene where Mr. Ringer
• 37:14
  Ding very cleverly puts them in long shot so they can't reach
• 37:18
  the top and pull the frames down to get out.
• 37:21
  And Belinda, in a moment of realization that she's just the
• 37:24
  most beautiful creature in all creation, demands a close up so
• 37:28
  she can do it and grab it. And that, I just thought was
• 37:31
  genius. It's good stuff, isn't it?
• 37:35
  There's AI, can't remember if it's in ATV episode, but there
• 37:37
  is a Who Framed Roger Rabbit reference in here.
• 37:40
  And I know it kills the budget and I know that film was
• 37:43
  state-of-the-art at the time, but oh, that's the stuff where
• 37:47
  it works, right? That's the stuff where it comes
• 37:49
  through, the stuff about, I mean, the bit where the Doctor
• 37:55
  Belinda have to share their trauma so they can get extra
• 37:58
  dimensions. Which?
• 38:00
  It would be funny if it weren't a Russell T Davis script where
• 38:03
  people just sometimes talk like that anyway.
• 38:06
  I know. I was like, how's this any
• 38:07
  different from the norm? You know, I am the last of
• 38:10
  Gallifrey. Yes.
• 38:12
  Oh my God, I'm CGI. Oh, it's great.
• 38:16
  But I, I, I do think like he wanted to do something on the
• 38:20
  page that was as sort of visually witty and clever as
• 38:25
  what you got on the screen as well.
• 38:26
  And I thought that scripted scene was, I mean, you would
• 38:29
  give Belinda a close up, right, Michael?
• 38:32
  Respectfully. Well, I mean, you see her in
• 38:35
  that dress. My God, even I was on the turn.
• 38:40
  Oh, God, Her. Her and Jenna Coleman.
• 38:42
  You're Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's all the
• 38:44
  companions I like the least. They're the sexiest ones, you
• 38:46
  know? That's why I like them the
• 38:48
  least. Welcome to Joe's therapy
• 38:51
  sessions. They will be talking about his
• 38:52
  relationship with women. They made me so confused.
• 39:00
  OK, well, look, I've just mentioned Belinda.
• 39:02
  I think maybe that's a good segue.
• 39:04
  In talking about Belinda. At this point, I don't really
• 39:08
  want us to focus too much about where she's been or where she's
• 39:12
  going because we have opinions about that, but just where she
• 39:15
  is in this book and how it's depicted.
• 39:18
  It's the second story, it's Belinda's second story.
• 39:20
  And as many writers of 21st century Doctor Who have
• 39:24
  realised, the the companion second story is as important, if
• 39:29
  not more important than the first.
• 39:31
  Because this is the one where their relationship with the
• 39:33
  Doctor actually bed stand. This is the point where they OK
• 39:37
  special case with Belinda, but where they're, they're making
• 39:39
  for the first time the realisation that they are
• 39:41
  travelling with this person. They're not just this is where
• 39:44
  they this is where they stop being just another supporting
• 39:48
  character of the week. And the book does a really nice
• 39:51
  job of capturing that moment for Belinda here, I think.
• 39:56
  I thought we got quite a bit of back story here that I found
• 40:00
  quite impressive because it was sort of vacant elsewhere in the
• 40:03
  series. So the line Belinda did her job
• 40:06
  for people and sometimes in spite of them really rung true.
• 40:11
  The fact that you know when they bounce off May the 24th.
• 40:15
  Every time that happens, Belinda's getting memories of
• 40:17
  her past and her future sort of knocked around her brain.
• 40:20
  So we're getting a bit of back story about who she was.
• 40:23
  And I think we see Omo's barbershop, don't we?
• 40:26
  Yeah, there's a bit of story in the engine in there, yeah.
• 40:28
  Which was quite nice. There's a whole load of stuff
• 40:30
  about her mum and dad's. He's a taxi driver, she's a
• 40:33
  violinist. They sing in a skiffle band.
• 40:36
  Was that end of the episode? I can't remember.
• 40:38
  Oh, don't test me on that sort of thing, Joe, Not on Mike.
• 40:41
  Sorry, sorry. Well I mean it says if it wasn't
• 40:46
  the episode. The line is he loves grabbing a
• 40:48
  microphone. OK, he's awful, but it makes me
• 40:50
  laugh so much. I swear he was supposed to sing
• 40:52
  at the end of this season. I think a lot of things were
• 40:55
  meant to happen at the end of this season, Joe.
• 40:58
  No, I know. But of course.
• 41:01
  But there's also things that she doesn't think about.
• 41:04
  So when she realises that she needs to have permission to talk
• 41:09
  to somebody in the cafe because of her skin colour, that comes
• 41:13
  as quite a shock to her because it's something she's never
• 41:14
  considered in modern day. Life Well, but and I think James
• 41:17
  Goss adds in a note here that is very intelligent or you know, in
• 41:22
  terms of being as we've said before, you know 2 white guys as
• 41:26
  one of those white guys, it made me you know, think more deeply
• 41:30
  about it as well, which is. He adds in a a nice little note
• 41:33
  that of course this isn't the first time in her life she's
• 41:35
  encountered racism. You know, she may be from the
• 41:37
  21st century and it may not be the same as it is in 1950s
• 41:40
  America, but but you know she's she's a non white person in the
• 41:44
  modern day. She has encountered racism but
• 41:46
  draws attention to the different form that the racism takes and
• 41:50
  how how shocking that that that's the shock.
• 41:53
  I think there's a line about this isn't someone's dementia
• 41:57
  affected grandparent who the family are looking mortified by
• 42:00
  the behaviour of this is this is overt and this is structured and
• 42:03
  this is this is how the state is treating her.
• 42:07
  Do you know who she reminds me of?
• 42:08
  Belinda in this book in particular, but in the early
• 42:12
  episodes, she really reminds me of Angie Kapoor, a career woman
• 42:16
  who's been dragged out of her life unwillingly, who's
• 42:19
  desperate to get home, who's sassy as hell, who's willing to
• 42:23
  stand up to the doctor. I, I think this comparison is
• 42:26
  that, I mean, Jesus Christ, he goes, I'm going to call it the
• 42:29
  Vindicator. And her immediate thought is,
• 42:31
  yeah, sure. Feel your boots.
• 42:33
  She's so direct. She's really funny.
• 42:37
  Yeah, I mean, it's it's a good point, isn't it?
• 42:38
  And I know comparing anyone to Anji Kapoor is high praise.
• 42:42
  For me. Yes, absolutely.
• 42:44
  And let's not forget, of course, as we also know from the giggle
• 42:48
  by James Goss, Anji Kapoor, drinking buddy of Kate
• 42:51
  Lethbridge Stuart these days. She's a millionaire and she you
• 42:56
  know, so of course she only drinks for the best.
• 42:58
  Of course she is. She committed massive fraud
• 43:01
  through the use of time travel. She.
• 43:04
  Did. No, but you're right that he
• 43:07
  doesn't that she doesn't take the Doctor shit, which I think
• 43:11
  is something that we, you know, God bless him.
• 43:15
  It's something that every former Doctor Who companion actor likes
• 43:19
  to say. Oh, well, my character, she
• 43:21
  wasn't just one of the screamers.
• 43:24
  She wasn't she And that oh Russell T Davis said every every
• 43:31
  proposal for ATV series in in Britain says of the lead she
• 43:36
  doesn't suffer fools gladly. But there's a difference between
• 43:40
  just saying that and actually making that a part of the
• 43:43
  character because what people just tend to mean is she was a
• 43:45
  confident woman. What I think is interesting
• 43:51
  about that presentation of Belinda here and what is
• 43:53
  interesting about the presentation of Angie Kapoor in
• 43:55
  the BBC books is they make a virtue and something interesting
• 43:59
  out of the point that these people have not chosen to be
• 44:04
  with the Doctor. They're dislocated, yeah.
• 44:06
  They're dislocated and they didn't, they didn't, you know,
• 44:10
  run through Saint David's Market in Cardiff into the open doors
• 44:13
  of the TARDIS. They ended up there by
• 44:15
  circumstance and done poorly. That can just end up with when
• 44:21
  you're going to get me back to Heathrow Airport.
• 44:24
  I mean, there wasn't a bit of that with Belinda and I just
• 44:26
  before, if I'm honest. There was, there was, and I'm
• 44:29
  not saying they're free of it, but when it's good, it does mean
• 44:32
  you have someone who isn't hero worshipping the Doctor Who, who,
• 44:37
  who does have who is able to have a more human reaction to
• 44:43
  to, as you say, the dislocation of being in different times and
• 44:46
  space of needing something to come back.
• 44:47
  I know we weren't going to talk about where it ends up and I
• 44:51
  don't think we should, but I would just like to chip in.
• 44:53
  The idea that Belinda was a single mum who needed to get
• 44:56
  home the whole time is a way more interesting storyline for
• 45:01
  her. Just been the original story.
• 45:02
  Yeah, absolutely. Than what we actually got
• 45:04
  because it speaks to that point of this is great, this is
• 45:07
  fantastic, but I do I there are other things for me that I have
• 45:12
  to balance all this against. That's that's, you know, that's
• 45:14
  conflict, Joe. I also think as well that
• 45:18
  looking at the season as a whole, this is potentially
• 45:23
  Belinda's best episode in terms of her active involvement in the
• 45:28
  story. She's there in the cafe, being a
• 45:32
  sympathetic presence. She's there at the doctor's side
• 45:35
  when they jump into the cartoon. They're figuring out the world
• 45:37
  together. She makes the relationship with
• 45:40
  what's a fellow's name, Mr. Pie and.
• 45:43
  Mr. Reginald Pie. She's the one.
• 45:45
  She's the one that literally saves the day at the end by
• 45:48
  getting through to him. So I think the rest of the
• 45:52
  season was not this kind to her character in terms of incident
• 45:56
  of the time. She was just ditched out of the
• 45:58
  episodes. But I really liked as well how
• 46:02
  the book had her reasoning, this very bizarre life that she was
• 46:07
  struck in. So she comes out the TARDIS and
• 46:10
  she's in the 50s, right, Clearly in America.
• 46:14
  And she tries to think of plausible ways the TARDIS might
• 46:17
  have moved without it being time travel.
• 46:19
  So she starts thinking things like, oh, maybe somebody just
• 46:22
  wheeled them here, you know, and it's a fate or something.
• 46:25
  And then she comes to the conclusion that irritatingly,
• 46:28
  the simplest explanation that it is a time machine is the most
• 46:32
  ridiculous and the most plausible as well, you know?
• 46:36
  But she's she she figures out her relationship with the Doctor
• 46:40
  as well throughout this book. And I really appreciated that
• 46:44
  too, because there was so much happening in the story in the
• 46:47
  episode. It like it just moves and moves
• 46:48
  and moves. They're always running that.
• 46:50
  There wasn't really time to to delve into that.
• 46:55
  Yeah. No, it's, it's really well done.
• 46:59
  I would have liked to have seen more of this Belinda.
• 47:03
  I would have liked to have seen more of this person who is here
• 47:06
  because they have been made to be, not because they have chosen
• 47:10
  it. And so they are, they are
• 47:12
  reasoning it out. They're trying to problem solve.
• 47:14
  They're trying to get out of the situation, do what they want to
• 47:17
  do. I do have some issues with where
• 47:21
  it goes in terms of the fact that after they've met the fans,
• 47:25
  what that builds to is showing Belinda that she can trust the
• 47:29
  Doctor because all of these fictional factual people believe
• 47:34
  in her. And there is the line where it
• 47:36
  says, oh, it's a bit Galaxy Quest or it's so Galaxy Quest,
• 47:40
  which, yeah, All right, Russell, that is what we were thinking,
• 47:42
  but shut up. But the thing about Galaxy Quest
• 47:47
  is I've never known anyone watch Galaxy Quest and not enjoy it.
• 47:52
  So you, you treat it's. Wonderful.
• 47:55
  I'm a Star Trek fan, come on. But that is the most realistic
• 47:59
  the picture of Shatner I've ever seen.
• 48:01
  But even if you don't like Star Trek, it's just A and I know
• 48:05
  friends who don't don't know Star Trek at all.
• 48:10
  And when I've told them the plot of Galaxy Quest, a group of
• 48:14
  actors from an old sci-fi show are abducted by aliens who have
• 48:18
  mistaken them for their characters and want them to save
• 48:21
  the day. They're like that is a effing
• 48:23
  brilliant plot. You know which bits kill me,
• 48:26
  right? It's the two bits with the kid,
• 48:28
  the one bit where the shat the substitute.
• 48:31
  Tim Allen's character has a go at him at the convention.
• 48:34
  His hero says to him, oh, none of it's real, for God's sakes,
• 48:38
  you're pathetic. And his whole world is just
• 48:40
  crushed in one moment. And then the bit at the end
• 48:43
  where he comes over the community and goes, hi, Kate,
• 48:46
  it's all real. And he goes, I knew it.
• 48:49
  I knew it was all real. It's just pitched perfectly
• 48:54
  between mockery and affection. It's just perfect.
• 48:58
  By Grabthon's Hammer Water Savings.
• 49:03
  Oh, Alan Rickman, man. I've got one job to do here.
• 49:08
  It's stupid, but I'm going to do anyway.
• 49:10
  We could do a whole podcast on. Galaxy, what are these chompers
• 49:12
  doing in the middle of this ship?
• 49:14
  Whoever wrote this episodes a bloody stupid idiot.
• 49:18
  More of this on a Patreon episode at some point, I have no
• 49:21
  doubt. But in relation to this, what is
• 49:24
  great about Galaxy Quest is that we the the whole story is about
• 49:30
  the relationship between the characters and the actors and
• 49:32
  those people coming to embody what was seen there.
• 49:34
  And that we can be an ideal and that we can be better, but that
• 49:37
  we need those ideals to to give us a, a light to guide us there.
• 49:42
  What the problem with what happens in Lux in the TV
• 49:46
  episode? And the book does it better, but
• 49:48
  it's not completely free of it, because ultimately these
• 49:51
  novelisations can expand and they can interpolate, but they
• 49:55
  can't really change. Chain to the narrative though,
• 49:58
  aren't they? Chain as Grace Jones once saying
• 50:01
  they're chain to the narrative is that there is no show.
• 50:08
  It is all just tell. And I know that's, you know,
• 50:12
  baby's first narrative criticism, right?
• 50:15
  But at the same time, it is true.
• 50:16
  It is true that Belinda ends up believing in the doctor because
• 50:20
  a load of people tell her she should, and in that moment,
• 50:26
  although it's very well done here, I love the bit where I
• 50:30
  love the bit sidebar where Belinda is just staring at a
• 50:33
  Matt Smith mug and he's going. But I've seen him in House of
• 50:36
  the Dragon. Yes, I said the matter jokes for
• 50:40
  good. Which I think means that in the
• 50:43
  Doctor Who universe, Matt Smith was cast in Sherlock.
• 50:47
  Oh head cannon, that makes sense.
• 50:54
  It should be because he's a phenomenal hero and she just
• 50:59
  sees that, right? The her eyes just open because
• 51:02
  of what he does in the story. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 51:05
  She, you know, have that scene by all means, but then have the
• 51:08
  doctor go on to prove it. Like, OK, all these people, all
• 51:11
  these people love you, that's great.
• 51:12
  But they also think you're fictional.
• 51:14
  So how much am I going to stand by their judgement?
• 51:17
  And I'm just like, there's so much, there's so much that you
• 51:20
  could do with the Doctor realising he's a fictional
• 51:24
  character there. You're right.
• 51:25
  There is a whole story to tell there.
• 51:27
  And I'm just like, well, where does that leave the Doctor?
• 51:29
  What does he think about all this?
• 51:31
  Like, and I know it's, it's done, although the whole thing
• 51:34
  was like an illusion, but I don't know, it's just weird.
• 51:37
  It's it's weird, that whole scene.
• 51:40
  Yeah, and I, I, I do like what James Goss does with it.
• 51:45
  You know what it is, Michael? What's that?
• 51:47
  It's dug or do it's self consciously clever.
• 51:50
  Clever. Yes, it's self consciously
• 51:54
  kitchy isn't it? So look at what we're doing God
• 51:58
  lol. One of the reasons I do think it
• 52:00
  is a lot better in the book and I do think it is a lot better in
• 52:03
  the book. I think there's more to those
• 52:04
  scenes. I think they have more substance
• 52:07
  to them. I think we learn more about
• 52:08
  those characters. I think their relationship to
• 52:10
  the plot and more importantly the the arc of the story is
• 52:14
  clearer. I just think, and James Goss
• 52:19
  clearly shows that he has a better understanding of being a
• 52:21
  Doctor Who fan than Russell T Davis does, who I don't think,
• 52:24
  as far as I'm aware, was ever, you know, he's famously loved
• 52:28
  Doctor Who magazine, bought every big finish.
• 52:30
  You know, really, Dave got all those dialects on the shelves.
• 52:33
  But you don't think like, you know, you never went to the
• 52:37
  Fitzroy, you know, You know, I don't know if he went to many
• 52:40
  conventions. He's not organizing Target book
• 52:43
  days. No, I mean Russell T Davies is
• 52:45
  not putting in references to the lair of the zombie supremo in
• 52:49
  his. Love that, love that, love that
• 52:51
  James. Garcy never forgot.
• 52:53
  It was the devil goblins from Neptune in the giggle.
• 52:56
  It's the zombie supremo here. And he knows which we are in
• 53:00
  deep. So we're like, yes.
• 53:03
  He knows full well who's reading these books.
• 53:07
  I think as well, though, there is just time to sit with these
• 53:12
  characters more. And I want to give you a really
• 53:14
  good example of growth within a scene of of Belinda, where she
• 53:20
  goes from, she goes from. Thanks.
• 53:24
  Thanks, Belinda, for thanks for treating me.
• 53:26
  Sorry. Thanks for treating me almost
• 53:28
  like a human being when she realises, you know, she's
• 53:32
  facing, how did she describe it? Unfiltered mundane racism.
• 53:36
  And then at the end of that scene, she thinks she was
• 53:41
  Belinda decided basically a kind woman who didn't realise she was
• 53:44
  on the wrong side of history and it was just over there and it
• 53:47
  didn't involve her. And that's all within one scene,
• 53:50
  you know? And that's the sort of growth I
• 53:52
  would have loved to have seen on telly.
• 53:55
  And I think that's the sort of growth you got with companions
• 53:57
  in RTD One. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 54:01
  No, I, I think you're right as well.
• 54:04
  I think she's well served here. I'd say someone else who's well
• 54:08
  served, and that is that's Mr. Ringer Ding himself.
• 54:13
  I do you know what I it really reminded me of something you
• 54:17
  said in the strictly come hamster 10th Doctor special when
• 54:21
  I was reading this, the thing you said about sort of the
• 54:25
  unknowable, the powerful forces sort of outside that are just
• 54:30
  out of reach. And I think within the episode
• 54:32
  you get a. Glimpse.
• 54:34
  Of that with Lux, but with a book, I, I, you almost come to
• 54:41
  understand what it is like to be the God of light and what that
• 54:45
  is like being brought into existence.
• 54:48
  But I just, I genuinely thought he was sort of thinking in a, in
• 54:53
  an omnipotent sort of a way. I thought it was really
• 54:56
  impressive how Lux was depicted. Yeah, Yeah.
• 55:00
  I think you're right and I think he's the God of light and it's
• 55:07
  in the book reminds the reader as a sort of evidence of his
• 55:13
  power that if he is the the personification of that
• 55:19
  fundamental wave particle, we've not made-up our minds, have we,
• 55:25
  of the centrality of that to our experience because of course it
• 55:29
  is, you know, not light, light, light is everything that sounds
• 55:31
  like a stupid thing to say, but how that is reflected in
• 55:34
  language. And you know, James Goss is a
• 55:35
  writer who who enjoys language and structure and story.
• 55:39
  You know, that comes across in that sort of very contains very
• 55:43
  controlled, quite dryly whimsical way of writing.
• 55:48
  He has which which I really love.
• 55:50
  I, I find it very enjoyable to read, but through that interest
• 55:55
  and fixation on language uses all those ways in which light
• 55:59
  appears. So there's a reference to
• 56:01
  something being a trick of the light, but light is capped up.
• 56:05
  You say like, oh gosh, yes, and there's a reference.
• 56:10
  That's all the power of it as well that the they watch when
• 56:14
  they watch the footage of the atom bomb tests and the atom
• 56:17
  bomb is referred to the the light at the end of the
• 56:20
  universe. Another great story title just
• 56:22
  waiting to be scooped up from the floor there I think.
• 56:25
  Nick Briggs is paying attention. Watch out, all right?
• 56:28
  And you know, Mr. Reed says, you know, light comes from the start
• 56:31
  of the universe, silly. This idea of of he is a a
• 56:37
  fundamental forces. He is a gods.
• 56:39
  The gods shape things and control them.
• 56:42
  And it is always tricky when Doctor Who or Star Trek or
• 56:45
  whatever says we're going to face a God because how do you,
• 56:48
  how do you convey that? And in the Giggle and here James
• 56:51
  Goss does a really good job of explaining why a God is
• 56:55
  different to an alien affecting to be a God, right?
• 57:00
  Because I think he does it in three lines, Michael, 3 lines
• 57:03
  which are highlighted. Yeah.
• 57:05
  So this is so simple, but it's the word tantalizing is in the
• 57:09
  sentence, but it is tantalizing. Lux had never been alive.
• 57:13
  He had just been light, but living was such a tantalizing
• 57:17
  prospect. Just that.
• 57:18
  That's enough for me. Yeah, and that's, you know, we
• 57:22
  talked about the gods of the oldest stories there are when we
• 57:25
  talked about the giggle and that idea that just as humans may
• 57:29
  seek immortality, gods can be tempted with mortality.
• 57:33
  Right. And God's Becoming Mortal is one
• 57:36
  of the oldest stories there is. And how they will fuck about
• 57:40
  with us, well, we're down here quite literally Zeus, it is
• 57:45
  wonderful. And the way that he captures
• 57:47
  that within the books, in the giggle, it was the toy maker
• 57:50
  literally taking control of the narrative.
• 57:52
  And as we've said in Lux, it's Lux literally breaking the
• 57:56
  medium. So I'm going to take you out of
• 57:58
  a book and I'm going to turn you into a photo novel.
• 58:02
  It's so wonderful. What did you think of dogs and
• 58:05
  gods, or the exact opposite? Dogs are born looking for
• 58:08
  someone to love. Gods are born looking to be
• 58:11
  loved again. That's just so simple.
• 58:14
  Oh, and I thought of you when I read this bit.
• 58:16
  This sounds like something that you would say Pantheon.
• 58:19
  It was a lovely word, immediately evoking columns and
• 58:22
  pillars, ancient Fortis and hefty adulterers in Tokas.
• 58:28
  Oh, very flattered. Do you think that's that's quite
• 58:30
  witty, though. I would say something like that
• 58:32
  Pantheon, of course, means place of all the gods.
• 58:36
  It's the it's the etymological inverse of Pandemonium, which is
• 58:42
  place of all the demons. And I do think there's a novel
• 58:46
  or a big finish when this when RTT 2 is dead and cold on the
• 58:51
  floor and we're picking over the corpses for someone to do the
• 58:54
  the demons, aren't they? Credit to Chibbers as well.
• 58:59
  I'm just going to throw him a bone ear because he was the
• 59:02
  first person that thought up the pantheon of gods, wasn't he?
• 59:05
  And can you hear me? And started naming some of them.
• 59:08
  Do you imagine for a moment I have remembered anything that
• 59:13
  deep from a Chris Chippenhall script?
• 59:15
  Yes, you've remembered this. Are you ready?
• 59:18
  And I wasn't air Hostess in the 1980s.
• 59:22
  I bet you remember that bit. That's the best impression
• 59:25
  you've done in the whole history of this podcast.
• 59:26
  Thank. You what did you think of this?
• 59:29
  So you know the bit where he's coming out of the cinema, he's
• 59:32
  growing, he's sucking away at all the Doctors regeneration
• 59:35
  energy. And Goss describes it as Lux
• 59:38
  brought his benedictions to all. He stretched the hand out into
• 59:42
  the night, stroking the mountains, dipping fingers into
• 59:45
  the ocean, getting ready to hug the world.
• 59:49
  That's great. Yeah, he does it really, really
• 59:52
  nicely. And as he, as he grows beyond
• 59:55
  the deep spoiler territory here, sorry, Mr. Rigidin's been going
• 59:58
  off no end, I'm sure. As he grows beyond the earth and
• 1:00:02
  beyond the solar system and he feels the colds again, the colds
• 1:00:05
  of the voids, and it terrifies him.
• 1:00:08
  And there's, oh, there will be another star along in a minute.
• 1:00:11
  I'm sure. It's just the scale of it.
• 1:00:13
  But as I say that, it makes me realize, of course, that's
• 1:00:15
  that's reaching back to the giggle as well, isn't it?
• 1:00:17
  This idea that the gods are drawn to humanity, to the
• 1:00:22
  living, because that's where the heat is.
• 1:00:23
  That's where the light. That's where what is happening
• 1:00:25
  in the world, in the universe, I should say, rather it is.
• 1:00:29
  But they are scared of the cold that where they are, there is
• 1:00:32
  nothing else. Do you remember that brilliant
• 1:00:34
  bit in the Giggle where the toy maker talks about rebuilding the
• 1:00:38
  his toy room and that he puts up the walls and the wallpaper?
• 1:00:42
  But the cold would always creep through and, and that's what Lux
• 1:00:46
  has got here too. It's a brilliant idea that the
• 1:00:50
  gods are fleeing to humanity. But I think ultimately what Goss
• 1:00:56
  does is he takes hold of something that was a brilliant
• 1:01:00
  visual quirk in the episode and creates A genuinely terrifying
• 1:01:07
  force for the doctor to defeat. In the book, are they really get
• 1:01:11
  a sense of the that, you know, the the horror of Lux?
• 1:01:15
  But I did in the book, I I got a real sense that this was an
• 1:01:18
  uncontrollable force of light and it's a coming for us.
• 1:01:24
  Yes, yeah. And you feel, you feel sorry for
• 1:01:27
  him at points that he, as we mentioned earlier on that he he
• 1:01:33
  can see the importance of love and a feeling and of a small
• 1:01:37
  life, but he can't feel it that he needs to steal that he needs
• 1:01:41
  to take that in. And there there is, there is a
• 1:01:45
  reference to the doctrine Blinder being the most alive
• 1:01:48
  people he'd ever encountered. And I just wish 20 years on from
• 1:01:51
  Rose, we'd just stop asserting that kind of thing.
• 1:01:54
  It was tired when Captain Jack said it about Gwen.
• 1:01:57
  And that was 2006 or whatever it was.
• 1:02:00
  But that's aside that I, he kind of actually just embodies that
• 1:02:06
  within the story of the idea of regeneration as a lot as light
• 1:02:10
  that, you know, builds life, builds bodies.
• 1:02:13
  And you think, well, that is what it is.
• 1:02:14
  If we're going to deal with things symbolically, that's the
• 1:02:16
  symbolism right there. And let's not forget pretty much
• 1:02:19
  crucifies the Doctor in the episode if we're talking about
• 1:02:22
  God's imagery. Right in the episode as well.
• 1:02:24
  Wasn't it like that? That was a brilliant set piece,
• 1:02:28
  but you really get the sense that every life to come is being
• 1:02:32
  torn out of the Doctor in the book.
• 1:02:35
  Yeah, yeah, it's it's really great.
• 1:02:38
  I really like it. I mean, I'm just I do like the
• 1:02:40
  TV episode. I've been quite critical of it
• 1:02:42
  up so now, but I just think the book, the the book is that
• 1:02:46
  second draft. The book is that expansion.
• 1:02:48
  The book is going into all of the things.
• 1:02:49
  And it's one thing to do that 20 years after it was on TV and
• 1:02:55
  you've been rung up by the BBC to see if in your retirement
• 1:02:57
  you'd like to earn some extra money writing up your old
• 1:03:00
  scripts. But I mean, it's another thing
• 1:03:02
  to do that before it's even been broadcast presumably.
• 1:03:07
  Michael, I want to ask you about a man somewhere between a male
• 1:03:11
  model and a supply teacher. You know, whose face screams of
• 1:03:15
  irreverent fun. I believe he's called the
• 1:03:18
  Doctor. We haven't mentioned him yet.
• 1:03:20
  Oh yeah, him. The 15th Doctor has played by
• 1:03:24
  Shooty Gatwa, depicted on the cover of this book.
• 1:03:27
  Would he be turned to a cartoon by God?
• 1:03:29
  Apparently, Michael. He glanced at the console, a
• 1:03:32
  wine critic swigging Vimto. Yeah, Shootie Cat was the 15th
• 1:03:41
  Doctor. Shootie Cat, a hugely
• 1:03:43
  charismatic actor. Doesn't need to be said.
• 1:03:46
  It's been said many times, but I'm going to say again, screw
• 1:03:48
  you as the Doctor. It it it's almost too close to
• 1:03:56
  be making to be making, you know, considered calls on it.
• 1:03:59
  I know there are plenty of other doctors where in my opinions
• 1:04:00
  have changed, especially those I maybe had more slightly more
• 1:04:03
  critical views of. I just slightly worried by the
• 1:04:09
  end of his tenure that he's a very, he's a very, you know,
• 1:04:13
  he's a very for, for actor. You know, the emotions are all
• 1:04:16
  out there. It's, it's big.
• 1:04:17
  It's shown to you and he does it and he does it well.
• 1:04:20
  With the character of the Doctor, though, I, I always feel
• 1:04:25
  that there needs to be something you're not quite seeing.
• 1:04:27
  That the truth of the Doctor is that he is, he's a folk hero, as
• 1:04:34
  John Higgs again has said. That there is an archetype of
• 1:04:38
  the Doctor that we never see. That all of these individual
• 1:04:41
  doctors are facets and expressions of and the truth
• 1:04:44
  lies somewhere beyond them, between them all.
• 1:04:46
  And that, that even they can't know themselves for that reason.
• 1:04:49
  That's the that's the true mystery of a Time Lord.
• 1:04:54
  And something we love McCoy so much.
• 1:04:56
  I mean, McCoy is the most obvious example of it,
• 1:04:59
  especially in the books, which is what we're here to talk about
• 1:05:01
  people the most obvious example of that.
• 1:05:03
  But I think you see in almost all the other doctors as well to
• 1:05:06
  some level, the idea that's just they're keeping something from
• 1:05:09
  you our or that they're a slight awkward fit.
• 1:05:12
  Even in some of the more outwardly human Doctors, like
• 1:05:17
  Jodie Whittaker as the 13th Doctor.
• 1:05:18
  I think even there you get this sense that she's a bit awkward
• 1:05:23
  because she's not very good at being a human because she isn't
• 1:05:26
  a human. I'm.
• 1:05:27
  Sorry. It was a sense that she couldn't
• 1:05:29
  give everything. Not that she didn't want to.
• 1:05:31
  She couldn't. Yeah, yeah, I'm.
• 1:05:34
  In the reality war really isn't it?
• 1:05:36
  Yeah, that I'm an awkward fit. Like, you know, I need to say, I
• 1:05:40
  need to tell. I should tell, yes, that you
• 1:05:42
  never do. I mean, great line, best line in
• 1:05:44
  the episode. But at the same time I was
• 1:05:46
  thinking, but that's why the 13th Doctor was more
• 1:05:50
  interesting, isn't it? And I do slightly worry that
• 1:05:52
  even across 2 series, I was just there wasn't any mystery to the
• 1:05:57
  15th Doctor anymore. He is, as James Corey Smith said
• 1:06:00
  in his excellent Psychic Paper newsletter, in union terms, the
• 1:06:04
  best integrated of the Doctors. But do.
• 1:06:09
  You know where I got it, I got what you're talking about there
• 1:06:12
  in one episode, just that there was there was more to know and
• 1:06:19
  and there was potential in exploring that and that's in the
• 1:06:22
  story in the engine. Yeah.
• 1:06:24
  Yes, but then I just got the feeling with the story in the
• 1:06:26
  engine, there was a whole universe that I hadn't explored
• 1:06:29
  yet, you know? Yeah, such an exciting story and
• 1:06:33
  hopefully we'll cover it on the main line.
• 1:06:35
  Best as well by a mile, right? Shooting cameras?
• 1:06:38
  Best by a mile. Yeah, and he's given the most
• 1:06:40
  interesting stuff to do. But I think in think in a lot of
• 1:06:42
  the rest of it, I just don't I, I, I just don't see that in most
• 1:06:47
  of the other stories that he got and.
• 1:06:50
  This is the occasional line of dialogue, like there's one here
• 1:06:53
  where he says don't think you're better than history babes, your
• 1:06:57
  Weld is burning. So all those old hatreds are
• 1:07:00
  waking up. Everything that happens happens
• 1:07:01
  again. So I get the feeling like he
• 1:07:03
  knows more than he's showing. They show so much.
• 1:07:09
  There are there are no secrets with how he's feeling.
• 1:07:13
  He, he's called this just being cruel.
• 1:07:15
  I'll be saying he's not. So at times he's less Doctor Who
• 1:07:17
  and more Doctor That Guy. You know what?
• 1:07:19
  He would be right. You remember that?
• 1:07:21
  That outrageously wonderful moment in Dark Water where Clara
• 1:07:27
  betrays the Doctor and finally, finally, he says how he feels.
• 1:07:32
  Do you think betraying me would stop me helping you?
• 1:07:36
  And you're just like, oh, because he's held back all year
• 1:07:40
  basically. And so it's wonderful.
• 1:07:42
  It would be the opposite. Wish you to get whilst Dr. He'd
• 1:07:45
  be giving a giving, a giving. And the twist at the end would
• 1:07:47
  be I don't care that much actually.
• 1:07:49
  You know, that would be the surprise.
• 1:07:51
  Actually, that was how he treated Millie in the last one,
• 1:07:54
  so fair enough. Does anyone think that the end
• 1:07:58
  of Doomsday would have been better if Rose had said I love
• 1:08:02
  you and the Doctor had gone I love you?
• 1:08:05
  No, no, no, no. But I do think what this episode
• 1:08:12
  needs and what this book needs is a charismatic, confident
• 1:08:18
  hero, and Shooty Cat was got that in spades, you know, in the
• 1:08:23
  episode and on the page. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no arguments.
• 1:08:28
  And it's and it's it's it's not a criticism of anyone story.
• 1:08:32
  And I think with this being your, I don't want to say bread
• 1:08:35
  and butter Doctor Who, but this is your, this, this is your, you
• 1:08:41
  know, 100% proof Doctor Who, right?
• 1:08:44
  This is this is Doctor Who. Bam, here we go.
• 1:08:46
  You want some Doctor Who. Here it is.
• 1:08:48
  Enjoy it. It's and you need those episodes
• 1:08:51
  that do return to sort of what it feels the heart of the the
• 1:08:54
  series should be of the juxtaposition of the
• 1:08:57
  implications of time travel, of humans being introduced to the
• 1:09:01
  fantastic. And especially when it's the
• 1:09:04
  story about Belinda finding her place with the Doctor.
• 1:09:10
  Again, it's less of a problem here than it is in in many other
• 1:09:13
  episodes. Naming no names, a reality war.
• 1:09:18
  So it's fine. It's fine.
• 1:09:20
  He's well captured. He comes across, I think, you
• 1:09:22
  know, they're going to be many more books for him.
• 1:09:23
  And I think it's doubtless that there will be.
• 1:09:26
  And I think it's good news that he seems to be quite easy to
• 1:09:28
  capture on paper. Or James Goss makes it look
• 1:09:31
  easy. No, I I think when I like with
• 1:09:35
  the old books, I always thought Hartnell Collin and certainly
• 1:09:41
  like David Tennant and Matt Smith, they were very easy to
• 1:09:44
  capture in prose because they were such extrovert doctors.
• 1:09:48
  You know, they they they saw a leap from the page because it's
• 1:09:52
  really easy to get their very loud quirks across to the
• 1:09:56
  audience. And I think shooty Gatwas that
• 1:09:58
  as well. Like I could see him in every
• 1:10:01
  but you know, there was a few moments here where I was like,
• 1:10:04
  oh, that's really nice. Like the wonderful, wonderful
• 1:10:06
  bit where it just goes, Oh, that feeling in your stomach, that's
• 1:10:11
  what happens when the Doctor looks at you.
• 1:10:13
  That, to me, said more about what the fans were feeling when
• 1:10:17
  the Doctor steps into their world than anything in the
• 1:10:19
  episode. And I did really love the bit
• 1:10:24
  where he described the Doctor was good at hugs.
• 1:10:28
  More than that, he communicated through them.
• 1:10:31
  I thought that was a really nice explanation of I hate the hugs,
• 1:10:35
  there's too many of them, but he's just that sort of bloke you
• 1:10:38
  know, that's going to throw himself at you.
• 1:10:40
  He's a hugger. He's a hugger.
• 1:10:42
  My favorite doctor moment in the whole thing, and I can't believe
• 1:10:45
  I've not mentioned it up to now, is is in the fan scene where
• 1:10:48
  Hassan is talking to him about the he's got the vinyl
• 1:10:51
  soundtracks to the Doctor Who stories and the doctors
• 1:10:55
  interested in his viral collection.
• 1:10:57
  She's like, oh wow, amazing. And then he asks him, have you
• 1:10:59
  got any Miles Davis and Sands? Like, no.
• 1:11:02
  And the doctor just a bit disappointed.
• 1:11:04
  I don't know what to say to you then.
• 1:11:06
  Even better than that Michael was.
• 1:11:09
  He flicked through the Spotify Wrapped of his deaths, mostly
• 1:11:13
  friends crowding around the odd cackling maniac with a gun.
• 1:11:16
  Recently, though, he had made some quite good speeches.
• 1:11:20
  James Goss, I'll see you all right?
• 1:11:22
  But the thing that I loved about the Miles Davis line is it's
• 1:11:28
  that thing that Kim Newman said about Nigel Neil in his book on
• 1:11:31
  Quite a Mass and The Pit, where he talks about the programmes
• 1:11:35
  that Nigel Neil did like and the programmes he didn't like.
• 1:11:38
  And he says, regardless, he said, if you're sort of person
• 1:11:40
  who's reading a book about Nigel Neil, chances are Nigel Neil
• 1:11:43
  didn't like the things you liked.
• 1:11:45
  And I just thought it's a briefing of if the Doctor met
• 1:11:47
  Doctor Who fans, he's not going to be unkind to them, but he's
• 1:11:51
  not going to be into Doctor Who, you know?
• 1:11:56
  So I'm going to see how into Doctor Who you are right now
• 1:12:00
  when I read this line out to you, OK?
• 1:12:03
  She threw herself around the doctor in a hug that could
• 1:12:07
  squeeze a charged vacuum appointment.
• 1:12:11
  I know what a charged vacuum. Appointment.
• 1:12:16
  Well, look, let's, let's let's summarize this because we've
• 1:12:19
  sort of spoken about all the nuts and bolts of this story.
• 1:12:23
  If you've got any extra notes that you want to discuss, say
• 1:12:26
  your piece now and then just give me because we're, I'm being
• 1:12:30
  extremely positive about this book.
• 1:12:31
  I raced for it in like 2 days. An effortless read that really
• 1:12:36
  genuinely enhanced the episode. And I will go back to the
• 1:12:40
  episode now with all of these sort of extra treasures and
• 1:12:44
  watch it in a in with like different eyes.
• 1:12:47
  So so like any notes and your favorite thing about the book,
• 1:12:51
  let's say? It'll be the Rani it was always
• 1:12:57
  definitely going to be the Rani it never was.
• 1:13:01
  Now, do you remember how Goss kept in that bit that was
• 1:13:05
  excised from the episode in the giggle about Lakersha and the
• 1:13:09
  Rani? He was setting it all out,
• 1:13:11
  wasn't he? For when she was going to appear
• 1:13:12
  in the church on Ruby Rd. I think we know who's been
• 1:13:15
  telling this story. Anything else?
• 1:13:20
  Oh, what about this? He was just telling her about
• 1:13:23
  the times he'd been trapped in the land of fiction.
• 1:13:25
  Or it's more boring. Sister realm, the land of
• 1:13:28
  diction. The times he'd been kept in the
• 1:13:32
  trapped in the land of fiction. Oh.
• 1:13:35
  Oh, You don't think that's where this was going, did you?
• 1:13:38
  No. No, no, no, no.
• 1:13:39
  But I mean no big finish. Wonder when it was called the
• 1:13:42
  Reality War? I did wonder if that's where the
• 1:13:44
  season was going. I mean, they've brought back
• 1:13:46
  Suitek and the Suitek and the Rani.
• 1:13:48
  Nothing is a mad fan theory anymore, is it?
• 1:13:53
  But yes, well, no. The reason I mention it is
• 1:13:55
  because the Times suggests that, you know, maybe some thought is
• 1:13:59
  being given to Big Finish. However, sadly, brace yourself
• 1:14:03
  on page 67, a singing cartoon. This was new.
• 1:14:09
  The crooked world erasure, I think.
• 1:14:12
  Outrageous Goth cancelled. What would you ask Doctor Who if
• 1:14:18
  he stepped out of your television?
• 1:14:20
  Because Lizzie wants to ask if regeneration actually does hurt.
• 1:14:23
  Because sometimes it seems like it does and sometimes it seems
• 1:14:26
  like it doesn't, and she sort of wants to tell her mutuals on the
• 1:14:29
  socials what the reality is. What would you ask?
• 1:14:33
  Probably if he was finding the whole situation as embarrassing
• 1:14:36
  as I was. I'd sort of go, you know, did
• 1:14:41
  you ever feel like wearing one of those shower curtains on
• 1:14:43
  dolkis, something like that? You know, that's quite a deep
• 1:14:47
  cut. OK.
• 1:14:48
  Well then overall. Overall, I really enjoyed this,
• 1:14:52
  but I think James Goss is is more than a safe pair of hands.
• 1:14:56
  I think he's an he's become a name that when I see it on a
• 1:14:59
  Doctor Who book now, I'm excited.
• 1:15:01
  I think if we hadn't got a copy, copy this very kindly, you know,
• 1:15:04
  by James himself. I'd I'd gone out and got this
• 1:15:07
  definitely it was the one that I was thinking, yes, I want to
• 1:15:10
  read that book. I think one of the dangers with
• 1:15:16
  the targets, the novelisations is where's the surprise?
• 1:15:21
  You know, novelisations originally there before you had
• 1:15:24
  videotapes, before you had your Brit boxes in your I players
• 1:15:28
  near Disney Pluses as a way of reliving it.
• 1:15:30
  All right. And there's no point doing an
• 1:15:32
  authorisation like that anymore. And I certainly don't think it
• 1:15:36
  would be a wise use of anyone's time or money.
• 1:15:42
  So you can expand, you can enjoy it, you know, contrasted to say
• 1:15:45
  the Star Beast novelisation, which was which was great.
• 1:15:47
  And I love the Star Beast novelisation, but it's the sort
• 1:15:50
  of Virgin Missing Adventures version where you get the story
• 1:15:53
  and you get the sort of expansions of the bit more of
• 1:15:54
  the world. James Goss surprises me in the
• 1:15:56
  ways he chooses to tell the stories.
• 1:15:58
  And I was excited that he'd got Lux because all of this, you
• 1:16:01
  know, we've not said it because it's so obvious, but it's worth
• 1:16:04
  stating. He was asked to novelize the
• 1:16:07
  story in which the whole hook is that a cartoon character is
• 1:16:11
  dancing around the screen. How the blinking heck do you
• 1:16:15
  novelize that? That just isn't, Oh my God, a
• 1:16:18
  cartoon character was dancing around in front of him.
• 1:16:20
  And he does it admirably, to the point where you almost forget
• 1:16:23
  what a challenge that is. I can't remember who it was that
• 1:16:25
  told me it may have been you, but it was certainly somebody in
• 1:16:29
  the circle, obviously that who did the novelization of Wild
• 1:16:34
  Blue Yonder, Mark Morris, that he had a bit of a a gripe.
• 1:16:39
  You know, he was happy to write a target.
• 1:16:40
  It was, you know, it was going to be his bestseller, but the he
• 1:16:44
  was told no, stick to the script and write that.
• 1:16:47
  And then he read Gosses when that came out.
• 1:16:49
  He's like, well, what the hell is this?
• 1:16:51
  He got to do puzzles and fun things with narrative and bloody
• 1:16:55
  fonts and all sorts. And I think I wonder if this pup
• 1:17:01
  was passed around the higher ups, you know, before it was
• 1:17:04
  published and they just said that he's got to do Lux.
• 1:17:07
  Like, look what he did with a giggle.
• 1:17:09
  He's got to do, he will do something spectacular with this.
• 1:17:13
  And like the best part of Lux is that middle section, right?
• 1:17:17
  Not the geeks. It's in and out of cartoons and
• 1:17:20
  all of that sort of wonderfully imaginative visual trickery.
• 1:17:24
  And the fact that this is the only target book that has a 20
• 1:17:29
  page photo novel in the middle of it where all of that is just
• 1:17:32
  there for you to hold in your hands and look at for as long as
• 1:17:35
  you want, I mean, that's just wonderful.
• 1:17:39
  So in a way, it's not a surprise that that's there.
• 1:17:42
  And in a way, the bit left out of the base made me scream with
• 1:17:47
  delight. More James Goss, please.
• 1:17:52
  Yeah, well, I'll, I'll very quickly say that obviously, you
• 1:17:55
  know, you sent me a message recently going, gosh, you've
• 1:17:57
  exhausted all the Goss, you've done it all because I have done
• 1:18:02
  Dead of Winter and that was told as a series of letters and
• 1:18:05
  accounts. So again, a really interesting
• 1:18:07
  way of telling a story. We're going to do the blood cell
• 1:18:10
  in the future. That's all done first person
• 1:18:12
  from one person's point of view. Really unusual way of telling a
• 1:18:16
  Doctor Who story. Very successful, I think.
• 1:18:19
  I mean, the giggle, where do you start?
• 1:18:20
  We've sort of talked about it already, but the games he has
• 1:18:22
  with that and then this as well with that middle section, I just
• 1:18:26
  don't think he thinks literally, does he?
• 1:18:29
  He's a sideways thinker. Yeah.
• 1:18:32
  No, I think he, I think you're right.
• 1:18:34
  I think he approaches the stories side on and he's able to
• 1:18:42
  really nicely. I'm really AP considering, you
• 1:18:44
  know, from what I understand the circumstances in which almost
• 1:18:47
  any licensed tie in fiction is written, which is pretty
• 1:18:51
  demanding in terms of time and rewrites and all the rest of it.
• 1:18:54
  And getting anything down in those circumstances is something
• 1:18:57
  that endlessly impresses me, quite frankly.
• 1:19:00
  But that you can do that in such a way that you have a story
• 1:19:05
  this, this glorious, this different, that will stand the
• 1:19:08
  test of time. That feels like it's in the same
• 1:19:11
  category of targets as a, you know, a battlefield or
• 1:19:15
  remembrance of the Daleks or of the Romans, you know, that were
• 1:19:19
  written years later. And this is before they've even
• 1:19:21
  been broadcast. It's had no time to settle in
• 1:19:23
  his head. And he had more developed
• 1:19:25
  thoughts about Lux by the time he's writing this than I do now.
• 1:19:28
  And I've had way longer to think about it.
• 1:19:30
  I don't mean this to it as an insult to the books I'm going to
• 1:19:33
  mention, but I can't imagine in 10 years time people are, you
• 1:19:38
  know, the novelisation of space babies.
• 1:19:40
  It's going to stick in anyone's head.
• 1:19:42
  But people will still remember the giggle and they will still
• 1:19:45
  remember Lux for lots of different reasons.
• 1:19:48
  Michael, can I ask you one last question before we out?
• 1:19:51
  Please do. Nothing to do with the book at
• 1:19:53
  all, Nothing to do with James Goss.
• 1:19:55
  No, I'm just really want to ask the question, What's your
• 1:19:58
  favorite cartoon? If you just got to recommend
• 1:20:02
  like a cartoon, it could be anything.
• 1:20:03
  It could be like an adult anime cartoon, something you watched
• 1:20:06
  when you were younger. Where's your heart?
• 1:20:09
  That's a good question. That's a good question, Joe.
• 1:20:11
  And I'm I'm probably going to have missed something very
• 1:20:15
  obvious here. I mean, you can look at if you
• 1:20:18
  want to go all the way back sort of around the time we're talking
• 1:20:21
  here, some of those Superman cartoons from the 30s and 40s
• 1:20:26
  are just beautiful pieces of, of art, you know, like moving
• 1:20:31
  masterpieces on the screen. You can't believe how gorgeous
• 1:20:34
  they are as he's fighting mechanical men and the rest of
• 1:20:36
  it. I could if I, if I had to choose
• 1:20:39
  one. I mean, it's, it's obvious to
• 1:20:41
  say something from Studio Ghibli, right?
• 1:20:43
  But I do, I do love my neighbor to Toro.
• 1:20:47
  I've. Watched that two weeks ago.
• 1:20:49
  Oh, it doesn't it break your heart every single time.
• 1:20:53
  It's just. Such an easy watch man.
• 1:20:55
  I didn't care about the story, I was just entranced by the art.
• 1:21:00
  I I think there's something wonderful about my neighbor
• 1:21:02
  tutorial he said of one of the most celebrated animated films
• 1:21:06
  of all time, which is that and with my Studio Ghibli, that it
• 1:21:11
  does that thing that animation allows you to do of suspending
• 1:21:15
  the nature of reality, which is you can have the realistic and
• 1:21:20
  the fantastical existing side by side in the same frame semi on
• 1:21:24
  questions, because you don't have to worry about does the CGI
• 1:21:31
  creature make sense next to the real person.
• 1:21:33
  You can, you can write the rules of reality and the frames of it.
• 1:21:39
  And it's a gorgeous movie and it's it's, it's such an easy
• 1:21:43
  watch and it, but there are such emotional depths to it, you
• 1:21:47
  know? And it has, it has a lot to say
• 1:21:48
  about. And in that it's because it has
• 1:21:51
  stuff to say about the nature of childhood and adulthood and
• 1:21:54
  childhood as seen from the perspective of adulthood and
• 1:21:56
  vice versa. Right.
• 1:21:58
  It's enormously deep. And it is.
• 1:22:00
  It's utterly heartbreaking as well at times.
• 1:22:03
  Yeah. Glorious.
• 1:22:04
  I'm can I add one in as well because mine's also a Ghibli and
• 1:22:09
  it totally floored me when I watched it.
• 1:22:11
  My ex partner said oh oh cartoon, oh I was, my heart was
• 1:22:17
  racing buddy and I couldn't believe how involved I was by
• 1:22:20
  the characters. Call me by your name.
• 1:22:23
  Have you seen that one? I haven't, no.
• 1:22:25
  Oh my God, I'll have to get hold of it for you.
• 1:22:28
  It is gorgeous. Very it's starts off as a sort
• 1:22:32
  of very funny body swap story, and then so you realize they're
• 1:22:37
  in different time zones and something terrible's are coming.
• 1:22:40
  And I won't tell you any more than that, but it leads to a
• 1:22:43
  spectacularly emotional climax. Call me by your name.
• 1:22:48
  Yeah, that's the film in which Timothy Chalamet and Armie
• 1:22:52
  Hammer play 17 year olds and 24 year.
• 1:22:56
  Olds the name wrong. Romantic relationships.
• 1:22:58
  It's just called your name. Oh, not the one.
• 1:23:01
  Your name? Yeah, that's right.
• 1:23:02
  Oh sorry, I thought it was called Call Me by your name.
• 1:23:05
  Another little trip into Joe's psyche, there for the rest of
• 1:23:08
  us. I also like Thundercats when I
• 1:23:10
  was a kid as well, but that's another time.
• 1:23:13
  Michael, thank you very much. I mean, we were quite honoured,
• 1:23:16
  weren't we, to get these review copies.
• 1:23:18
  It was lovely to do it. Where on earth are we heading
• 1:23:21
  next? Obviously we're not doing a
• 1:23:22
  blood cell now because we don't want to exhaust our gossip.
• 1:23:28
  Well, fittingly for having been speaking about cinema for so
• 1:23:35
  long, I'm very pleased to say that the Hamster Book Club will
• 1:23:40
  return with Trading Futures by Lance Parkin I.
• 1:23:46
  Was like, where's he going with this and I forgot Oh yeah, I'm
• 1:23:49
  actually 2/3 through that right now I'm.
• 1:23:51
  It's a James Bond joke, you idiot.
• 1:23:53
  How many James Bond bloody references are you going to put
• 1:23:56
  in this episode that I won't understand?
• 1:23:59
  Oh come come, Mr. Ford, you enjoy talking about at the old
• 1:24:01
  time books just as much as I do. And dear listener, yeah, as a a
• 1:24:07
  small teaser of the on descension I shall be getting in
• 1:24:10
  this episode. Yeah, he had the nerve to
• 1:24:13
  message me and say is this going to be another clade situation
• 1:24:17
  with the race of monsters called the on here, which is rhino
• 1:24:21
  backwards you cheeky cunt. Honestly.
• 1:24:26
  On with on which note, thanks for having me on Joe.
• 1:24:31
  Well, thanks for reading it. And how do we act out in a
• 1:24:33
  cartoonish sort of way? Oh.
• 1:24:36
  That's all folks. I'm Mr. Ring.
• 1:24:39
  I Ding. I make your heart bell sing.
• 1:24:41
  Please don't make me laugh. Just take my autograph now.
• 1:24:45
  Take my jokes, my lovely folks, because I know just one thing
• 1:24:49
  for I am here. Oh yes, I'm Mr. Ring A Ding.