Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Hamster Book Club - The Last Dodo by Jacqueline Rayner (featuring Gareth Bowley, Dan Pinn & David Gillespie-Pratt)

Transcript

Hamster Book Club - The Last Dodo by Jacqueline Rayner (featuring Gareth Bowley, Dan Pinn & David Gillespie-Pratt) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:02
  Mauritius, 1681. The grunting things had killed
• 0:07
  her baby. It wasn't the first time they
• 0:11
  killed her first baby. 230 moons earlier, before it had even been
• 0:17
  born, their trampling feet destroyed everything in their
• 0:22
  paths, and babies all around had succumbed to the same casually
• 0:27
  cruel fate. She couldn't remember a time
• 0:31
  before the grunting things had come to her home, but even over
• 0:35
  her own relatively short life they had become greater and
• 0:38
  greater in number, while her own kind had become fewer and fewer.
• 0:44
  The grunting things ate their food and had many, many babies
• 0:47
  of their own, which would grow up to kill more babies and eat
• 0:51
  more food now. In desperation, her kind had
• 0:57
  left the home that she somehow knew had once been theirs alone
• 1:01
  and travelled to a small sandy spot which was separated from
• 1:04
  the grunting things by water. They thought they were safe, but
• 1:12
  still they were all old. There were no more babies, and
• 1:22
  one day Death visited again. Not the grunting things this
• 1:26
  time. Death was taller, more
• 1:28
  colourful, more varied in its shrieks and shouts.
• 1:31
  Death waited till the water was low, as it sometimes was, and
• 1:35
  came at them from their old home.
• 1:37
  At first she stood around watching, not knowing what was
• 1:40
  happening, not knowing what these new creatures were.
• 1:44
  And then suddenly the Death bringing animals ran at them,
• 1:48
  and too late she realized that she must run too.
• 1:50
  She ran, They all ran, but more of the tall things appeared
• 1:54
  behind them. One of the creatures grabbed her
• 1:56
  mate and he cried out in fear. She hurried towards him,
• 1:58
  desperate to help but not knowing how.
• 2:02
  Others came forward to help too. The colourful creatures took
• 2:06
  them all, all but her. Her escape was sheer luck.
• 2:10
  The tall things near her grabbed her fellows and none had room
• 2:13
  left to take her. She was the only one who slipped
• 2:16
  away. Still she lingered for a second,
• 2:20
  thinking of the mate with whom she had stayed for so many
• 2:23
  moons, always hoping that more children would come eventually.
• 2:26
  But once more she detected his cry.
• 2:28
  I knew it was the last she would ever hear of him.
• 2:33
  All around, the tall things were hitting her fellows with bows
• 2:36
  from the dark trees, and the noises they made were like those
• 2:40
  of her baby as it fell beneath the feet of the grunting things.
• 2:44
  She was so scared she ran. She ran and ran past the tall
• 2:49
  things, past the places she knew well, till there was nothing but
• 2:53
  water before her and she could run.
• 2:55
  No longer slowing, she took another step or two forward but
• 3:02
  retreated quickly. As the brine washed her feet she
• 3:07
  turned hope against hope to see a companion.
• 3:09
  There was nothing but sand stretching out all around, and
• 3:13
  the occasional pigeon fluttering round the occasional tree.
• 3:17
  Had her kind of been able to fly like that pigeon, perhaps death
• 3:21
  would not have claimed them. She felt a hollow resentment of
• 3:25
  what might have been. For a few minutes she waited.
• 3:29
  Then she raised her head. Caution battled for a moment
• 3:34
  with the terrible fear of being alone, and then finally she let
• 3:38
  out a cry of desperation, A plea for any other of her kind to
• 3:43
  find her, save her from this fear, this dreadful isolation.
• 3:50
  But there were no others to hear.
• 3:53
  And then more tall ones arrived, two of them, their bodies the
• 3:57
  colour of the leaves behind which the pigeon was now
• 4:00
  perching. She had not seen them approach.
• 4:02
  Perhaps they too had swooped down from the sky.
• 4:05
  She was tired, so tired and scared and hopeless, but still
• 4:10
  she tried to run and it was no good.
• 4:13
  The leaf animals were both calm and fast and seemed to be in
• 4:16
  front of her whatever way she turned and suddenly she felt
• 4:20
  pressure around her waist and she was raised from the ground.
• 4:24
  This was it. This was when she went the same
• 4:26
  way as her babies and her mate. But she didn't give up.
• 4:29
  She desperately tried to turn her head, knowing her giant
• 4:33
  beat, hooked and shot was her greatest weapon against those
• 4:36
  soft, fleshy creatures. Had she been less scared, she
• 4:42
  might have realized the difference between the gentle,
• 4:45
  soothing voices these creatures made and the harsh, cruel cries
• 4:48
  of the death dealers. But fear had consumed her.
• 4:51
  Now one creature said. There's no need to be scared,
• 4:56
  the other creature said. We're not going to hurt you, the
• 5:00
  first said. I'm sorry.
• 5:02
  I'm so sorry about what's happened, but at least we can
• 5:05
  save you. He lifted a small square device
• 5:09
  that wasn't like nothing she'd ever seen before and held it
• 5:12
  before her. And the last of the dodos knew
• 5:14
  nothing else for 400 years. Welcome, dear listeners and book
• 5:25
  enthusiasts to the Hamster Book Club.
• 5:28
  Tonight we're going high brow as we ponder the fate of the
• 5:31
  flightless bird that was last seen in the 17th century.
• 5:35
  Yes, we'll be discussing Jacqueline Rayner's The Last
• 5:38
  Dodo. I'm Gareth Boli and joining me
• 5:41
  on this excursion through the artifacts of this tale we have
• 5:45
  is the dinosaur determination of Dan Pin, the gorilla like
• 5:50
  strength of David Gillespie Pratt and the chief Dodo
• 5:55
  himself, Joe Ford. Gentlemen welcome.
• 5:59
  Quack, quack. I don't know.
• 6:02
  I know it's a grill it makes, but here we go.
• 6:04
  I mean, I do have a foul, so it's appropriate.
• 6:09
  How are we all this evening? Hot.
• 6:14
  It's very warm. Slightly it's it's cooler here
• 6:18
  tonight. It's more bearable than it was
• 6:20
  yesterday where it was just horrible.
• 6:23
  I was in London on Saturday and it was 30°.
• 6:28
  I honestly felt like I had some aggressor in the oven.
• 6:31
  I don't do the hot weather. Not hot weather, me is.
• 6:35
  Anyone else curious about what Dam's drinking?
• 6:37
  It's such an unusual colour. It's a weird flavour of vimpto
• 6:44
  it so it's I think it's blood orange with with a a hint of
• 6:49
  citrus in. There.
• 6:52
  Yeah, it does. It does look very exotic, but it
• 6:55
  but it isn't. It's just vimpto.
• 6:56
  It's. Just a hint of citrus.
• 6:59
  Yes, that's what it says on the bottle.
• 7:02
  All taste notes for it. Oh my God, Gareth is having
• 7:05
  squash. It's perfect for this book.
• 7:10
  So as we're going to start on this voyage of discovery, and
• 7:15
  the book itself deals with the Motlow Museum of the Last Ones,
• 7:19
  let's kick off with our first question, which is to you
• 7:23
  gentlemen, what's your favorite museum you've ever visited?
• 7:27
  And let's start with Dan. Let's start off with you.
• 7:31
  Yeah. So I mean, this, this was, this
• 7:35
  was, I think we were saying this in our chats that some of some
• 7:38
  of these questions were quite difficult because, because it's,
• 7:42
  I've been to lots of museums. I love the VNA.
• 7:45
  I've got loads of happy memories of visiting the British Museum
• 7:49
  with my mum. I really love the, the, the, the
• 7:53
  National Museum in Cardiff as well.
• 7:55
  I always go there whenever I go to Cardiff, but I'm going quite
• 8:00
  small scale and I'm going to the Museum of Somerset which which
• 8:05
  is based in Taunton. So it's got lots of like
• 8:08
  obviously Natural History from that region.
• 8:12
  It's also an area that's very proud of its involvement in like
• 8:16
  the Civil War and the Monmouth Rebellion.
• 8:20
  But briefly it hosted Adventures in Time and Space, 60 years of
• 8:27
  Doctor Who art, which it moved there after it finished in
• 8:32
  Weston Super And I just so happened to be in Taunton with
• 8:39
  my, my big sister because that's where she lives.
• 8:42
  And we were walking past and I go, let's go in.
• 8:45
  So we went in and I gave her her own guided tour of all of that
• 8:50
  beautiful Doctor Who artwork. And even some of the, some of
• 8:55
  the staff followed, followed us as well around as well.
• 8:57
  So, so, yeah, that's my, my favorite museum.
• 9:01
  I I think it's, it's lovely. Anyhow, it's set in a castle
• 9:04
  and, and all this kind of stuff. But but it, it was such a lovely
• 9:08
  day I had with my sister that time.
• 9:11
  So, Dad. What was the best piece there?
• 9:14
  That is, that is an even harder question than picking what my
• 9:16
  favorite museum was, because did they have the witch?
• 9:19
  Mark cover. You know witch Mark Catch
• 9:22
  Cradle. You know that beautiful cover
• 9:24
  with the TARDIS and the Unicorn? Yeah, I mean there was some, I
• 9:30
  mean obviously it had like Chris Achilleos ones, it had Jeff
• 9:36
  Cummins and all that sort of thing as well.
• 9:38
  And, and and what was good? Was it just target books?
• 9:41
  It like you say, it was like the new adventures because Jeff
• 9:45
  Cummins did a few of those as well.
• 9:49
  But I, I think I would probably have to go for Alastair
• 9:55
  Pearson's cover for Ghost. Like, I really love that one.
• 9:59
  It's it's just so it's just beautiful, the colours and
• 10:02
  composition, Yeah. You know what they didn't have?
• 10:05
  They didn't have the cover for Shakedown because Dylan Reece
• 10:08
  has got the original cover art on his wall.
• 10:13
  No, that is the maddest cover ever in it.
• 10:16
  It's just got the back of the doctor's head.
• 10:20
  They're back. You know, we could do a hustle
• 10:28
  style raid on Dylan's house. You know, the three of us,
• 10:32
  that's four of us, Sorry. And someone come in through the
• 10:34
  roof. Do the montage.
• 10:36
  Yeah, with the Shakedown soundtrack, yeah.
• 10:42
  Nice. And nobody, nobody would suspect
• 10:44
  us because who would record our plan of the crime on a podcast
• 10:47
  and then put it out, you know? Sheer lunacy.
• 10:51
  I mean, it's a double bluff. Who would do?
• 10:53
  That I think we both know that I won't be editing that bit out.
• 10:57
  I'm terrible at that. Go on then, Joe, what's your
• 11:01
  favorite museum? I am, I think, the opposite of
• 11:04
  everybody else. I don't really like museums very
• 11:07
  much, and it's because I was taken to too many very boring
• 11:11
  museums as a child with my school and I'm told reliably by
• 11:15
  my behalf I'm missing out on many, many amazing museums.
• 11:19
  He wants to take me to the Science Museum in London.
• 11:22
  I can't think of anything more boring, but I'm willing to be
• 11:25
  proven wrong. So it is Hamster.
• 11:29
  I did go to the Sex Museum in Amsterdam.
• 11:31
  That was pretty amazing. They had an enormous sculpture
• 11:34
  of a penis which was very impressive.
• 11:38
  But my favorite museum I've been to in the last 10 years is the
• 11:41
  Doctor Who Museum at Allenby, near where Fraser is.
• 11:46
  And it's so impressive because it's somebody's house.
• 11:49
  And he's done like a massive conversion to to open it out.
• 11:53
  And you go down like these, they're thin corridors, but it
• 11:57
  goes sort of on and around. And he's done it with such
• 12:00
  atmospheric lighting and he's been able to gather the most
• 12:05
  incredible, incredible amount of Doctor Who props.
• 12:08
  You know, we had a like a whole tetrap, the whole of the Dome,
• 12:11
  you know, like a verboid head. He just had the most.
• 12:14
  But he likes it brilliantly. So you and he's got sort of
• 12:18
  sound effects and voices and that as you're going around.
• 12:20
  So it's like a proper immersive Doctor Who experience done by
• 12:26
  like a proper fan, you know, someone who's in ball steep.
• 12:29
  So yeah, the Museum at Allenby is my choice.
• 12:34
  And David, over to you. What about what's your favorite
• 12:36
  place? I'm, I've let the side down
• 12:38
  slightly, but I never, have never been to that Doctor
• 12:41
  museum, even though it's probably only about half an
• 12:44
  hour's drive from my mum's house and we're up there frequently
• 12:46
  enough. So you've got Doctor exhibition
• 12:49
  in the Northeast and I haven't been.
• 12:50
  It's like, that's a bad fan. There's time.
• 12:53
  There's time. There's always time.
• 12:56
  Yeah. Museums, I I'm a bit with you,
• 13:00
  Joe, sometimes is that somebody who's I'm into history.
• 13:02
  I love all that sort of stuff. I love all the bits and pieces.
• 13:05
  But sometimes I can find museums quite dull.
• 13:09
  And I actually struggle more with art galleries because it
• 13:12
  just does absolutely nothing for me.
• 13:13
  You know, it's like there's a picture, there's another
• 13:14
  picture. Oh look, there's AI.
• 13:16
  Can't imagine anything worse. But I have been to some really
• 13:21
  interesting ones, the in Bruges, that the Chocolate Museum, quite
• 13:26
  like that one, and there's some good ones in Newcastle.
• 13:30
  The Hancock Museum. There was always some touring
• 13:32
  exhibitions coming in to the Star Trek exhibition came in in
• 13:35
  the 90s. That was always good fun.
• 13:38
  But of the recent ones, I think one of the best ones there were
• 13:43
  two. We went to Stockholm last year
• 13:45
  and of course you go to the ABBA Museum, which was great, but it
• 13:49
  was just ridiculously full of tourists kind of under foot in
• 13:53
  your way. But not far from the ABBA Museum
• 13:56
  is the museum on what's called the Vasa Museum.
• 14:01
  And it is basically, it contains I think a 17th century ship that
• 14:05
  was recovered from Stockholm harbour.
• 14:07
  Basically this ship, Vasa was built to be this big example of
• 14:12
  Swedish might on the seas. And it launched, got about 10
• 14:19
  minutes into the dock, there was a gust of wind and it fell over
• 14:24
  and sunk. And I can't help but think
• 14:28
  going, there's a Doctor Who story in there somewhere, this
• 14:31
  mighty warship, because it was really badly designed and top
• 14:35
  heavy. And they left the gun ports
• 14:36
  open, sunk by a gust of wind in the 1st 10 minutes or something
• 14:41
  ever since it launched. And it was there, it was sunk.
• 14:43
  It was in the Bay. They dredged it, stuck it in a
• 14:45
  museum and you can walk around the whole thing and it's it's
• 14:49
  basically the centrepiece of the museum is the warship itself.
• 14:52
  You can't go on it, which is really disappointing because you
• 14:54
  know, it'd be great to go on it and play pirates like, you know,
• 14:57
  Curse of the Black Spot, just maybe a bit more convincing.
• 15:00
  But it's just such an epic. It's huge.
• 15:03
  It's a massive sight. And yes, there is a picture of
• 15:07
  me standing next to one of the anchors, which led to, you know,
• 15:10
  a clearly obvious pun. But that was great.
• 15:15
  It's one of the few times where it's like this, this is a
• 15:17
  museum, but this is something different.
• 15:19
  This is something that grabs your attention.
• 15:21
  The other one was we were, we went to Oslo and they had the
• 15:25
  ski museum sounds quite dry, no pun intended.
• 15:29
  But they had a ski jump at the top.
• 15:32
  So you can climb. You go in the lift, you go to
• 15:33
  where they have this old ski jump and you're at the top and
• 15:35
  you're like, thank God I'm not, I'm going down in the lift and
• 15:38
  not going down the jump because I'm not great with heights.
• 15:41
  But yeah, sometimes the weird and wonderful or different
• 15:43
  museums are fun, but the standard ones you had as a kid
• 15:47
  would look at something in a cabinet probably do with that.
• 15:51
  Did anyone go to the Willy Wonka Experience?
• 15:54
  That was a Museum of sorts, wasn't it?
• 15:57
  Of sorts. It was a bit shaped by all
• 16:02
  accounts, that. Poor woman who's.
• 16:05
  Well, she's got a great career now though.
• 16:08
  Hasn't she? She should be very.
• 16:10
  Well. I have a quick museum question
• 16:13
  because we're all fans of at the same age.
• 16:15
  We grew up, you know, Doctor Who videos in the 90's, the years
• 16:18
  videos who dragged their families to the Museum of the
• 16:22
  Moving Image where they have a permanent Doctor Who exhibit.
• 16:25
  Because I did and there was nothing left.
• 16:29
  By the time we got there it was just a Dalek, The Dalek you do
• 16:32
  the voice in and I think a prop. But the big exhibition thing
• 16:36
  that they showed on the videos was gone.
• 16:38
  Oh, I used to say beat you cock to the giant robot it.
• 16:42
  Did. With the nice like it had like a
• 16:49
  living room set with like a child beacon behind the behind
• 16:54
  the sofa is that is that. I don't remember, I just was so
• 16:58
  excited to see the monsters at that age.
• 17:00
  But you remember when you come out of the Doctor Who experience
• 17:03
  and I had all the Daleks and the monsters and even those shitty
• 17:07
  ones from Slink. Them all were amazing.
• 17:10
  I never made it to the experience.
• 17:15
  I went to the Ills Court 1 before the experience came, but
• 17:18
  I never got to the experience. Gather all of our Doctor Who
• 17:22
  props together and try and rustle one up for you.
• 17:26
  Yeah, I just immersed myself in a shell for a while and pretend
• 17:30
  I'm smaller walking between things.
• 17:33
  For me, I, I, I struggled with this question even though I set
• 17:36
  it myself because I do tend to visit a lot of lot of museums
• 17:40
  and a lot of different things. So much so that even turned to
• 17:43
  my wife yesterday and said, I'm not sure how I'm going to answer
• 17:46
  this question. I'm going to sound like a right
• 17:47
  fool having said this in the first place.
• 17:50
  And I said, what do you think of this one, this one, this one,
• 17:51
  this one. And she went, well, what about
• 17:53
  this one, this one, this one, this one.
• 17:54
  I'm like, you're not supposed to be giving me more paired this
• 17:58
  down. I came close to putting in
• 18:01
  Caernarfon Castle that we went to last year.
• 18:03
  There's a wonderful military museum within the walls of the
• 18:05
  castle. However, because we were running
• 18:08
  low on time for the car park, me and my son had to race through
• 18:12
  it literally to the wars, the end, because you didn't know how
• 18:14
  far it was to get to the exit because you kind of walked
• 18:16
  through all the battlements. Obviously, technically I want to
• 18:20
  throw out Barnsley Museum, which is where I live, because I have
• 18:23
  a wonderful exhibit permanently within the City Hall.
• 18:26
  But I am going to go with my heart on this one.
• 18:29
  And it was going to be the London Film Museum that used to
• 18:32
  be based in Covent Garden. I think it's closed now, and I
• 18:37
  visited it in 2014 when the Bond in Motion exhibits were there
• 18:42
  and they had about 16 to 17 Bond vehicles from the films and all
• 18:45
  sorts of props on display in there.
• 18:49
  And wonderful though it was to walk around all those vehicles,
• 18:52
  you know? And so you must see my personal
• 18:53
  favorite, the Living Daylights, Aston Martin with the skis on
• 18:56
  the side. My son, who is an absolute
• 19:00
  petrol head even now, and at that time I think he was only
• 19:03
  three, was absolutely mesmerized by this tiny little toy BMW in
• 19:08
  the middle with a video display that put on a constant loop.
• 19:13
  The scene from Tomorrow Never Dies where the car shoots out of
• 19:17
  the car park and flies into a navy's rent a car.
• 19:20
  We couldn't drag him away from it.
• 19:22
  Do you know how many times I had to play Tomorrow Never Dies?
• 19:24
  Just that one little bit for him to be able to watch it.
• 19:27
  And even when we went around the corner, you know, the, he wasn't
• 19:31
  so much bothered about the cars that were intact.
• 19:33
  He was more fascinated by the Quantum of Solace Aston Martin,
• 19:36
  that's completely Swiss cheese down the side and the, you know,
• 19:40
  the Guinness World break it world record-breaking Aston
• 19:43
  Martin that rolls where you can just see that the the wheel just
• 19:46
  completely buckled underneath. Fascinated by those, not so much
• 19:49
  bothered about the others, but it was an absolutely wonderful
• 19:52
  thing. And yes, we did buy a photo in
• 19:54
  the end dressed in tuxedos. And I still have that memory
• 19:57
  today. And it is a very warm and fuzzy
• 19:59
  memory and I like it a lot. That was a lovely diverse
• 20:03
  museums, weren't they? Well, if I'm, if I'm, if I'm
• 20:07
  honest, well, part of the reason why I picked the question was
• 20:08
  because I can find out what other museums are actually out
• 20:11
  there. So you know there there is,
• 20:14
  there is a dual purpose to the questions.
• 20:17
  All depends what you're interested in because one that
• 20:19
  nearly made the cupboard didn't the There's the London Transport
• 20:23
  Museum what was worth the go but the depot where they store a lot
• 20:26
  of the stuff that they put in. They do tours as well and if
• 20:30
  you're into London transport or anything like that, the depot
• 20:34
  tour's really interesting because it's basically all the
• 20:37
  they're all slightly knackered. They're not preserved or
• 20:39
  pristine at times, but it's really interesting.
• 20:41
  I find it interesting, but then I live with somebody who loves
• 20:45
  that stuff. Did the Chocolate museum have a
• 20:48
  huge chocolate river that they were churning up?
• 20:51
  Sadly. No, but it did have the light
• 20:54
  bulb. It did have the light bulb
• 20:57
  exhibition, so you could go and get the history of the light
• 21:00
  bulb after you've been to see the chocolate museum.
• 21:03
  That chocolate museum full of people for a tourist, for our
• 21:06
  kids. Light bulb museum dead.
• 21:11
  Not very illuminating then. Oh well.
• 21:15
  I'm so, so sorry. You should be.
• 21:18
  I'm so sorry. Moving on.
• 21:25
  Moving on. The last dodo, so opening
• 21:30
  question for this one is did we find it?
• 21:32
  Do we like it, or do we want the bird to just go away?
• 21:36
  So let's start with David. Oh, we've had a run of some
• 21:41
  really good books and it continues with this one.
• 21:46
  I, I really liked this. I I have gone on record, I have
• 21:49
  said, I said in my top 10 new series adventures, a range I
• 21:54
  don't know very well. I gave up after the first three.
• 21:57
  I was angry at Doctor Pham and so the fact they went very young
• 22:02
  adults in those early books, I just tuned out.
• 22:06
  So the I've not read many since and the last one I did was the
• 22:10
  Dalek Generation. So the idea that.
• 22:13
  We were going back into this range.
• 22:16
  Didn't didn't necessarily fill with confidence, but it was
• 22:20
  because we had that conversation about writers who'd write for
• 22:23
  the series and we mentioned Jacqueline Rayner and she wrote
• 22:26
  some really good books for BBC Eight Doctor range Earthworld.
• 22:30
  I think it's a fantastic book. So and you guys read about it as
• 22:34
  well. So I thought, OK, well, this,
• 22:36
  this could be promising and it's such an easy read.
• 22:41
  And I don't mean that in a derogatory way or anything like
• 22:44
  that. It's it's obviously aimed at a
• 22:47
  slightly younger audience, but I think it that's one of its
• 22:49
  strengths. I think it is really accessible.
• 22:52
  It's really, I think this is going to sound like another
• 22:55
  backhanded compliment. It's really straightforward.
• 22:57
  It's got a nice linear plot, but it's got something to say and
• 23:01
  it's got messages and it's got Shades of Grey as well.
• 23:07
  I really like, I, I liked it, you know, Jacqueline Rayner, a
• 23:10
  reliable author. And this book itself is a bit of
• 23:14
  a relic of a lost time because this is 2007, you know,
• 23:20
  comparing Doctor Who, where it is then to where it is now.
• 23:24
  You know, where are we now? 23rd of June?
• 23:26
  It's been, what, three, 3 1/2 weeks since the finale?
• 23:29
  The show's in kind of limbo. No, no, it's what's going on.
• 23:32
  This is a book from where you couldn't move for Doctor Who,
• 23:37
  Doctor merchandise, the moving at six books a year.
• 23:40
  And what's just really interesting, you go to the back
• 23:43
  pages and certainly the copy I've got and they're promoting
• 23:46
  all the other books from the range that have come out.
• 23:48
  And it's starring Christopher Eccleston and Billy Piper.
• 23:50
  It's not just his a book. It's they're they're selling the
• 23:53
  TV series while selling the books as well.
• 23:55
  And even says, you know, starring Fremont Adgeman and
• 23:57
  David Tennant. It's like it's all tied in
• 24:00
  together. And it's it's this big publicity
• 24:02
  blitz that's going on with the series.
• 24:03
  So it it feels like a thing from a lost time almost, although it
• 24:09
  is X number of years ago. Well, let's not think about how
• 24:12
  long ago this book came out, but I really liked it, and it was
• 24:15
  really nice to read a Martha book because there's nowhere
• 24:18
  near enough Martha out there. I think she's an underutilised
• 24:22
  character in Doctor of Fiction, so hurray for the last.
• 24:26
  Dodo, I say, you know I I did a. Little bit of digging and asked
• 24:31
  a few questions because I had been told either this or the
• 24:34
  Stone Rose, the 2 Jacqueline Rayner or two of the Jacqueline
• 24:38
  Rayner NSA's are the highest selling Doctor Who books of all
• 24:42
  time, including the targets and everything.
• 24:45
  It's this one. This is This is the single most
• 24:48
  sold Doctor Who book of all time.
• 24:51
  And I think it deserves to be. It's what, you know, sometimes
• 24:53
  when you hear these things, that was the best selling book and
• 24:55
  you're like, oh, that one. But yeah, I think that's well
• 24:59
  deserved. By the right audience, right by
• 25:01
  the kids. It's it's targeting the right
• 25:04
  people. It's you know it.
• 25:06
  I'm not the target audience necessary for this book.
• 25:08
  I'm a Doctor Who finds I probably am.
• 25:09
  But this is aimed at a teenage audience and that's where it
• 25:14
  pitches it to. And that's what I think works.
• 25:16
  And that actually gives it a maturity as well, because it's
• 25:19
  not doing we, we talked about maturity in Doctor Who book
• 25:23
  maturity. David, I'm not buying that
• 25:25
  anyone on this call as older than 8 years old.
• 25:27
  All right. No.
• 25:30
  I'm looking at you, Dad Pin. All right.
• 25:35
  Never grow up. Never grow up, it's a trap.
• 25:38
  But. Yeah, and, and she strikes it
• 25:42
  really well. And the, you know, the
• 25:44
  dialogue's quite nice, engaging. It's not showy as well.
• 25:47
  It may not be the most quotable book in the world, but it's not
• 25:50
  trying to be. It's it's just trying to be a
• 25:53
  bloody good Doctor Who story, and it succeeds at that.
• 25:57
  Very positive start then. So, Dan, are you going to
• 26:01
  continue this veil of positivity?
• 26:04
  I don't think I'm going to be quite as positive as as David
• 26:08
  because I think I went on a bit of a roller coaster reading this
• 26:14
  because I think, I think you guys had started it a little bit
• 26:18
  earlier than me because I think I probably started it last week,
• 26:22
  I think. And initially I was really
• 26:26
  struggling with it and really struggling a bit.
• 26:30
  But I, but I think it's, it's probably it's more to do with
• 26:34
  the fact that it is aimed at a much younger, younger audience
• 26:40
  than than what perhaps it was, you know, the 8th, the 8th
• 26:43
  doctor range and the the past doctors that was obviously aimed
• 26:48
  at people like us. Whereas this, this was OK with
• 26:53
  the kids are on board now let's get them interested into reading
• 26:57
  Doctor Who books. So, so, and that's not to say I,
• 27:01
  I bought, I bought, I hoovered these up when, when they came
• 27:04
  out because I seem to remember Tesco's every, every because,
• 27:09
  because obviously they came out in batches of three Tesco's
• 27:13
  always did, you know, 3 for two on these.
• 27:17
  So, so I, I, I used to just, yeah, buy them up.
• 27:22
  So, so I remember reading this back in the day and, and I, I
• 27:26
  remember enjoying it more back then than I initially did this
• 27:30
  time round, which is weird. But as I got into it, it does
• 27:37
  have something to say. And, and I think it, it, it kind
• 27:43
  of adheres to that, that original concept that that
• 27:46
  Doctor Who had back in the, in the in the 60s to, to educate
• 27:51
  and to inform children. When I think it's got a really,
• 27:55
  really important message that, that initially I wasn't quite
• 28:00
  getting because I was kind of like bogged down with the, the
• 28:04
  target S nature of it, I suppose.
• 28:07
  And, and I think coming off the back of reading Bad Therapy,
• 28:12
  which was a very adult Doctor Who book in, in a lot of ways, I
• 28:16
  think it was a bit of, a bit of a culture shock.
• 28:19
  But I, I think once I got past like the initial 60 or 70 pages,
• 28:23
  I, I kind of, I kind of got into the groove and, and I started,
• 28:28
  started to enjoy it. So, so yeah, I, I, I think after
• 28:33
  a bumpy start, by the end of it, I was like, Oh yeah, that was
• 28:38
  good. I enjoyed that.
• 28:41
  So, Joe, where do you sit on this seesaw of compliments for
• 28:45
  the last odo? Well, I get David's point of
• 28:48
  view totally, because I had a blast with it, but I also get
• 28:52
  Dan's point of view because this is such a contrast to bad
• 28:56
  therapy. It is a lot simpler written.
• 29:00
  The characterisation is there, but it is, you know, it's less
• 29:05
  substantial. What surprised me about this,
• 29:09
  This time I just remember this being like a a skip along.
• 29:13
  Very fun with the ice spider entries in it.
• 29:17
  Bit like a Blue Peter competition of extinct species.
• 29:20
  Martha going around the universe.
• 29:22
  What surprised me was how moved I was by it.
• 29:26
  This time I didn't. I don't expect that from an NSA.
• 29:30
  And I think Jacqueline Rayner did a genius thing by having not
• 29:37
  just the extracts of the ice spider thing that explained why
• 29:41
  these species died out. And nine times out of 10, as
• 29:45
  we'll get into, it was us, it was humanity that did it.
• 29:48
  We are the worst monsters on this planet, clearly.
• 29:53
  But just that really simple thing of detailing the list that
• 29:56
  was getting bigger and bigger as the book went on.
• 29:59
  And then the one of the last pages is a whole page of extinct
• 30:03
  species that we've learned how they they were wiped out.
• 30:08
  And I just walked away thinking that was really, really funny.
• 30:11
  Oh my God, we're just the worst. So it was sort of bittersweet,
• 30:17
  But I think that's what she's doing.
• 30:19
  And if these books are looking to educate children, and I think
• 30:23
  the best NS as do that. Borrow Time tells that about,
• 30:26
  you know, interest. Touched by an Angel does that
• 30:29
  about grief. This does that about how we are
• 30:33
  the most brutal predators on the planet.
• 30:36
  I think it's really effective on that, on that level.
• 30:40
  I was really surprised at how much has moved me.
• 30:44
  But it was just great film. I've I've got loads of quotes,
• 30:49
  lots of witty lines for me. Well, for me, I, I, I kind of, I
• 30:59
  kind of fall into two camps of it because this book I actually
• 31:02
  read two years ago for the first time fully enough.
• 31:06
  Joe, it's your fault. I got into the hamster book
• 31:09
  clubs and I. Suddenly realized I was do you
• 31:13
  and. It must have been about four or
• 31:17
  five episodes in when I've looked at the Date Eater when I
• 31:19
  originally rated this on Goodreads.
• 31:23
  But I bought the 1st 12 books of the original New Who Run and
• 31:28
  wanted to sling them across the room.
• 31:32
  Because similar to what Dan was saying, I spent the best part of
• 31:37
  15 years getting used to the new adventures, the EDAS, the PDAs,
• 31:41
  and suddenly we were effectively binning off the classic series.
• 31:45
  Almost in terms of getting rid of the PDAs.
• 31:47
  Which isn't going to make me feel any better.
• 31:50
  Never mind then that the books stylistically appeared down from
• 31:54
  what they were before, but yet the price was nearly double or a
• 31:59
  couple of quid more, something like that.
• 32:02
  And and I could never, I still never got over the Edas being
• 32:06
  slightly more expensive than the New Adventures when Doctor Room
• 32:09
  magazine reported they would be cheaper than the New Adventures.
• 32:11
  And I'm still carrying that chip on my shoulder to this day.
• 32:15
  But when I listen to Joe's Book Club and I listen to other
• 32:17
  people talk about the books that made me say, well, actually, am
• 32:21
  I cutting my own nose off to spite my face here?
• 32:23
  Because there are authors in amongst this range that have
• 32:25
  enjoyed their works in the past. Paul Mars, people like that.
• 32:28
  Where I'm like, well, actually I might be doing them a disservice
• 32:31
  by not getting into these properly.
• 32:34
  And this one, The Last Dodo, was the my first foray back into the
• 32:40
  New Who adventures, and my Goodreads rating at the time,
• 32:43
  two years ago, was five stars. Now I will say, based on what
• 32:51
  we've been doing up to now, every reread I've had, there's
• 32:55
  generally been a star taken off with bad therapy.
• 33:00
  I went from 5:00 to 4:00. My mind's gone, but oh, time,
• 33:05
  time of your life. With this, however, it remained
• 33:11
  at 5 stars. Oh my word, even I wouldn't give
• 33:14
  this five stars. Again, I I can't fault it
• 33:19
  really. As a story from beginning to end
• 33:21
  it's a cracking yarn. It's got a little bit of mystery
• 33:23
  about it, which I quite like. And I must admit, up to the last
• 33:28
  10 pages, I was in four-star territory, and it's the last 10
• 33:32
  pages that swung me the other way and maybe see it in a whole
• 33:36
  different light. So yeah, yeah, I, I So yeah, I
• 33:40
  really like this one. Always feel like with that
• 33:43
  ending she went, do you know how how didn't that she explain how
• 33:45
  the museum came about? OK, let's do it.
• 33:49
  But you know, it does feel integrated but.
• 33:51
  Yeah, it feels so poignant as well at the end and kind of
• 33:53
  swings the focus a little bit as to how it's all been set.
• 33:56
  And when you look at it, you're like, Oh, no, that seems really
• 33:58
  obvious, but it sort of contextualizes it all.
• 34:02
  But we might get ahead of ourselves.
• 34:04
  So let's let's have another question.
• 34:07
  So how does the concept of the Museum of the Last Ones, you
• 34:11
  know, planet size collection of the last specimens of extinct
• 34:15
  species enhance the story's exploration of extinction and
• 34:20
  preservation? Let's go to Joe first.
• 34:27
  I mean, I think it's so a wonderful idea that the
• 34:31
  Cottlicept is a species isn't extinct if one single member
• 34:35
  from that planet is sort of trapped in amber as such a great
• 34:40
  idea. And she she gives her sort of
• 34:42
  scant because we only really go to the Earth part mostly.
• 34:45
  But she talks about great monorails that take you across
• 34:49
  the planet and there's like an ocean or something, isn't there,
• 34:51
  where all the ocean species hang out from all those planets.
• 34:55
  So there there is sort of detail about the rest of it.
• 34:59
  Do you know what? I thought the scenes in the
• 35:03
  museum were the weakest part of the book, and I'll tell you for
• 35:06
  why, because I felt all of those characters apart from Eve were
• 35:12
  very scantily characterized. And I could have done with I
• 35:17
  they all just felt like the same person to me, but except one was
• 35:21
  evil and the rest weren't. But they all sort of felt like
• 35:24
  people in jumpsuits that go about their job.
• 35:27
  But the I mean the keys of Mariners idea of having that
• 35:32
  thing round your finger that you push the button and off you go
• 35:35
  to another extinct species, gold.
• 35:37
  Because that means we get to go to various times and see some
• 35:42
  really atrocious things that are happening, like the rhino with
• 35:47
  his horn ripped off the woman who's buying the the coat made
• 35:53
  out of the fur, you know, the exclusive coat from an extinct
• 35:56
  species and all of this. So the actual, the museum, it
• 36:01
  created a method to go to. A lot of you said it was linear,
• 36:06
  David, but it did sort of jump about the different settings and
• 36:09
  things like that. You know, Jesus Christ, we're in
• 36:11
  a supermarket at one point running around a supermarket
• 36:14
  with a dodo in a trolley. I mean, wonderful.
• 36:18
  So as a method of exploring the theme, I thought it was, it was
• 36:22
  ingenious. And the last 10 pages really
• 36:26
  you're right, contextualises the whole thing and explains
• 36:31
  plausibly how that planet size museum came to be so very
• 36:36
  satisfying overall. Are just those earthers man.
• 36:40
  God, they were dull. David, over to you with that
• 36:46
  one. I.
• 36:47
  Mean Joe, did you not feel sympathy when Tommy got injured
• 36:51
  and was nearly dying and Martha was trying to save his life?
• 36:54
  Did you not feel tinge of compassion or anything for that?
• 36:58
  Blomy again? Was he the one bitten on the
• 36:59
  bottom? He was the one bitten, the he he
• 37:02
  was he was one of the bland ciphers.
• 37:05
  As much as I was kind of praising the book, I can't
• 37:07
  disagree with the fact that the guest cast are one of the things
• 37:13
  I really liked about this is it. It felt like it could be ATV
• 37:17
  episode of the big budget and it felt very much like.
• 37:20
  So the fact that you only see certain parts of the museum felt
• 37:24
  very much like, I can picture them doing it in those regular
• 37:27
  locations that they use in Cardiff.
• 37:29
  Walking down just cheap. Yeah.
• 37:32
  They just move some of the exhibits around, put maybe a
• 37:34
  plant in a different place and you know, oh, there's another
• 37:36
  one CGI effect, you know, So the fact that you don't see all the
• 37:40
  other worlds, which in other books they probably would have
• 37:43
  gone to town of let's go to all these habitats.
• 37:45
  I said no, let's keep it quite contained.
• 37:47
  And I think because if you're a kid reading this book, it's kind
• 37:52
  of evocative of sort of museums that they've been taken round.
• 37:54
  So it's not this weird other world.
• 37:57
  You think it feels very. I've been here, in fact, reading
• 38:00
  some of it when they're walking around going, I think I've been
• 38:03
  to probably some of these museums.
• 38:04
  And I wonder whether that was deliberate as part of she's
• 38:07
  selling that message of, you know, this is real going.
• 38:10
  This is something that can happen because these extinct
• 38:12
  species are happening. So I thought some of that was
• 38:17
  clever and I mean, don't try to work out if it's got all these
• 38:22
  extinct species going on. Everything is how big and how
• 38:24
  vast and how monumental. And then when Martha accident
• 38:29
  accidentally ejects all the animals into space and they talk
• 38:33
  about the numbers, all those numbers, it's just massive
• 38:37
  numbers, which again, you know, these are how many species are
• 38:41
  extinct and those are just the earth creatures.
• 38:45
  But there's a bit, and I, I hope I haven't misread this because I
• 38:47
  thought it was really clever is they talk about the Daleks very
• 38:49
  briefly. And it's almost like they hang a
• 38:51
  hat under the fact of like, but we always do these stories where
• 38:54
  there's one last start. So why isn't, is that?
• 38:56
  And, and they kind of go well, because it keeps changing and
• 38:59
  it's kind of impossible to. So it's just a nice little
• 39:01
  acknowledgement of Dalek continuities.
• 39:04
  Bollocks. And also we don't really want to
• 39:07
  deal with, you know, other Doctor Who species.
• 39:10
  If you're doing this now, they'd probably have about 5 pages on
• 39:13
  why Meg Loss isn't there. She does mention though, David
• 39:17
  that there is sections on refuses to Varos Raxako court.
• 39:22
  I can't say it. Can someone say it?
• 39:26
  Thank you. And best of all, Tara.
• 39:29
  That means there's a Tara would be somewhere on that planet.
• 39:32
  I I've been waiting to mention it.
• 39:34
  I'll do it now. Before I went into this going
• 39:36
  This is a Jacqueline Rainer book.
• 39:38
  I am looking for plenty of First Doctor references.
• 39:42
  We had them. I'm looking for a monoid.
• 39:45
  We've got one. I'm looking for any reference to
• 39:49
  the alien delegates, Admission to the unknown.
• 39:51
  I think we get Salvation and Bayes and we get Dorothea.
• 39:58
  And what I love about Dorothea is that she doesn't explain it.
• 40:03
  We know what it is, we all know what it is.
• 40:05
  But if you're a teenager reading this book, it's just the name
• 40:09
  the doctors come up with, and that is how I think.
• 40:12
  That's the best way to do some of these continuity things.
• 40:14
  It makes sense if you know it. The references to the Monoids
• 40:17
  installation and Bayos, we get them.
• 40:19
  As soon as it was there, I was punched in the air.
• 40:20
  When I saw one of those, I was like, to the kids reading it,
• 40:23
  it's just another space name. And I think that's where that
• 40:26
  works. And I think that works really
• 40:27
  well. But I was not disappointed.
• 40:29
  I thought she cannot pass up the opportunity to not reference
• 40:32
  some of her favorite Doctor Who things in this book, and they're
• 40:35
  there and I was delighted. I was also delighted to a
• 40:39
  reference to Jelly blobs. Fucking Jelly blobs.
• 40:46
  In a tiny, whiny way, because because this came out before.
• 40:50
  Way before. Clearly we know what Nick Briggs
• 40:52
  was reading when he wanted some inspiration.
• 40:54
  So he basically he took Jelly BLOB, Jelly blobs and it's.
• 40:58
  The only time he's not, he's not taken deaf to the Daleks for
• 41:01
  inspiration. And if sorry, I'm being mean.
• 41:06
  How about you, Dan? How did you feel about the
• 41:08
  museum? Yeah, I, I really liked that.
• 41:17
  The way we're kind of introduced to it is that, you know, Martha
• 41:21
  asked the Doctor whether she can go to a zoo.
• 41:24
  And, and because, because we've got like lots of sections where
• 41:29
  we're kind of hearing Martha's point of view, aren't we?
• 41:33
  Her, her internal monologue and, and she feels like she's
• 41:38
  offended the, the Doctor in some way.
• 41:41
  And, and he, he was there, you know, sort of when, when she
• 41:44
  quizzed him about it, he, you know, he was sort of saying
• 41:47
  that, you know, how would you feel being being trapped in a,
• 41:51
  in a cage? And, and I think that that
• 41:54
  because I, I haven't, I went the, I went to Chester Zoo a
• 41:59
  couple years ago and that was the first time I've been to a
• 42:03
  zoo for, for a long, long time. And it's really weird.
• 42:08
  Going as a kid is something that is really quite exciting.
• 42:12
  You get to see all of these lovely animals that, that, you
• 42:16
  know, exotic and, and endangered and all this sort of stuff.
• 42:22
  But then when you go as an adult, it's your your
• 42:26
  perspective is very, very different.
• 42:28
  And you think, oh, these enclosures aren't very big and
• 42:32
  you can see the poor lions kind of pacing up and down because
• 42:37
  they've got very little space. So I think it was really good
• 42:42
  from that point of view of yes, these sort of things are good
• 42:47
  because it is a way of like, you know, they're breeding
• 42:51
  programmes to make sure that species survive and all this
• 42:54
  sort of thing. But it's not these animals
• 42:57
  natural habitats. And I think that was a really
• 43:00
  good way of kind of introducing it because when, when they're
• 43:07
  when they're first step out the TARDIS and they see the dodo
• 43:13
  Marfa's she said, I think it's, I can't remember how it was
• 43:16
  exactly described in the book, but it but it's, you know, she
• 43:19
  can tell that, that, that the animal is still alive, but but
• 43:25
  suspended And, and that was sad. And, and I and I think it's,
• 43:30
  it's really, I think that was really, really, really clever.
• 43:34
  And, and also, I think also, I'm sorry, I'm, I'm jumping about a
• 43:37
  bit here, but to, to kind of bookend the, the entire book
• 43:42
  with the poor dodo running for its life and becoming the last
• 43:50
  dodo. And, and, and you get all of
• 43:53
  the, I suppose the internal workings of that dodo.
• 43:56
  And that is really quite moving because, because that was the
• 43:59
  thing I read that and I thought, oh, I'm in for a treat here.
• 44:02
  And then all of a sudden it kind of it fell away and got a bit
• 44:05
  kiddified. But then then we kind of picked
• 44:08
  that up again that that, you know, because the dodo then
• 44:12
  taken, I suppose, back, back in time a little bit and and is no
• 44:17
  longer the last of its species again.
• 44:20
  That's really, really beautiful. And I think that really it
• 44:23
  really tugs on the heart, heartstrings.
• 44:26
  And I, and I think that that that is the, the key to this
• 44:30
  book is, is that I think Jacqueline Rayner was really,
• 44:33
  really clever to do. That.
• 44:35
  And, and I think it is a really, it's a really important message,
• 44:40
  a really educational message to, to kids to let's look after,
• 44:44
  look after what we've got. Keep, keep, you know, you know,
• 44:47
  don't, don't, don't be Dicks like, like all of the, the, the
• 44:51
  past generations of humanity and, and let's look after what
• 44:56
  we've got. And I, yeah, I just think
• 44:58
  Jacqueline Rayner does that bit of this book really, really
• 45:01
  well. You know, and, and, and I think
• 45:06
  I think David's kind of alluded to it as well, that it's not
• 45:10
  done in a, in a, in a complicated way.
• 45:13
  It's done in a, it's laid out very straightforward, very
• 45:18
  clear, but but it really, it really hits you in the in the
• 45:22
  heart where it needs to, needs to go to, to make these kids
• 45:25
  better than what the previous generations have been.
• 45:29
  Don't you think choosing A dodo was just so savvy as well?
• 45:32
  Because they're so ridiculous, right?
• 45:34
  You just see a dodo and laugh your head off, wouldn't you?
• 45:36
  But to make that a victim at a start and then just free to be
• 45:42
  with his own kind at the end, Oh man, I loved it.
• 45:46
  I loved that part. Be a ride in a shopping trolley
• 45:48
  of. Course.
• 45:51
  Which is a wonderfully Doctor Who thing.
• 45:53
  I think what I I, it was interesting.
• 45:55
  I just I want to talk about fingers now and obviously one of
• 45:58
  the main, I did that on purpose just to get reaction from Joe.
• 46:03
  Obviously one of the criticisms of the most recent series is the
• 46:06
  kind of the finger wagging that goes on.
• 46:08
  They're kind of telling the audience off and the lecturing.
• 46:12
  But this this book has an element of that as well.
• 46:17
  But I didn't mind it. I wasn't sitting there going I
• 46:20
  feel like I'm getting told off or even though he has got a
• 46:22
  message about hunting species to extinction and the the horrors
• 46:26
  that man has perpetrated towards nature and so on.
• 46:31
  But for I've been trying to put my finger on why in the most
• 46:34
  recent TV episodes, whenever they stopped to kind of say and
• 46:38
  grave, grave robbing is bad and cultural procreation by the
• 46:42
  sirens and all these things where they just seem to stop the
• 46:44
  story to kind of tell the thing. I didn't feel that.
• 46:48
  Here it's, it's because it isn't dictatorial, I don't think.
• 46:51
  I think it just states the fact this is what's happened.
• 46:54
  You don't realise how many species have been made extinct
• 46:57
  over the years. And I'm very gently going to
• 47:00
  tell you the reasons why. And it's hunting and it's
• 47:03
  destroying their habitats and it's medicine and it's fur coats
• 47:08
  and it's and just as that's all spelt out to you, you don't need
• 47:10
  someone to go, well that's wrong.
• 47:12
  You know that, you know that's wrong.
• 47:14
  It's hideous. And I think there's Shades of
• 47:17
  Grey in it, not obviously Shades of Grey saying isn't it right?
• 47:20
  But when they debate, then discuss how to deal with the
• 47:23
  last of the species. And it's not, you know, the
• 47:26
  Doctor doesn't just come up with a solution And that's, well,
• 47:29
  that's the solution, but it's a cheat.
• 47:30
  But it's interesting that Martha has views, she talks about zoos
• 47:35
  and things like that. And it's not, he's not
• 47:37
  condemning her and the, and the author's not condemning her.
• 47:40
  It's kind of just asking her to question and challenge and I
• 47:44
  think there's lots of that. It's not this is how you should
• 47:46
  think. It's Are you sure?
• 47:49
  Let's just stop and think about that.
• 47:50
  And I think having that list, I think that ice buy list is
• 47:53
  genius in that as you say, a keep and who's last on that
• 47:56
  list. Well, it's Martha, technically.
• 48:00
  But she because she wins. Second last is the best 1
• 48:04
  though. Second last is humanity itself,
• 48:09
  who only gets 2 points. I hope at the Time Lords, My
• 48:13
  God. Well, Gareth, what did you think
• 48:14
  of this one overall? In terms in terms of the museum
• 48:18
  concept, similar to David, it's it's, it's a concept that you
• 48:21
  can very much see being done in the doldrums of Cardiff Stadium
• 48:26
  of how it looks and just a few, a few sheets over boxes.
• 48:30
  So you can't necessarily see what's there and we can just
• 48:32
  move that boxing sheet around. So it was very, very easy to get
• 48:36
  into in terms of the of the museum itself.
• 48:40
  And this is where I think it becomes a bit not conflicted as
• 48:43
  such, but there's almost on, on the face value of it.
• 48:48
  And this is before you get to the last 10 pages of it.
• 48:51
  It does feel like a very altruistic thing to do to
• 48:55
  actually preserve these things and put them in place so they
• 48:58
  are preserved for posterity knowing that they're not going
• 49:01
  to survive based on known events.
• 49:04
  But you know that that is that is a very laudable thing to do.
• 49:08
  The ethical question then crops up, which obviously you get the
• 49:14
  doctor sort of rallying towards some of that later on about
• 49:18
  should you do it? You know, I often think about
• 49:20
  these to be a programme on TV, Big Cat Week and I think it must
• 49:24
  have been Series 2 where they had a mother and her cub and was
• 49:31
  it 2 Cubs? I can't remember anywhere.
• 49:33
  There's one cub. And basically overnight they cut
• 49:36
  back to the live footage and there's just the cub on its own
• 49:41
  and the guys filming it basically saying we can't
• 49:43
  interfere now. Mum's been attacked and we can't
• 49:46
  get involved. It it, it's got to fend for
• 49:51
  itself. And, and I think there were even
• 49:53
  outcries at that time about about this and.
• 49:57
  It's the same in all those documentaries, isn't it, where
• 50:00
  they're you see animals falling out of nests and you see, you
• 50:04
  know, deer being attacked by tigers and they don't get
• 50:07
  involved. They just drone footage it and
• 50:09
  put it all together for us to enjoy stroke, be horrified by.
• 50:15
  But I always say every time, why didn't why didn't they step in?
• 50:21
  Yeah. You know, here you've got
• 50:24
  Activity where they are effectively stepping in.
• 50:28
  It's unfortunate what we learn about the nature of what's
• 50:31
  happening to them subsequent to that, that becomes a problem.
• 50:35
  But it's not just the preservation of the creatures.
• 50:37
  There's a story about these creatures.
• 50:40
  It's a story about why they're extinct, keeping in the
• 50:42
  consciousness of what's happened here.
• 50:45
  And in some ways, it's absolutely heartbreaking that
• 50:49
  all these years in the future, we never learn.
• 50:53
  We just don't. So it's almost a Museum of
• 50:56
  futility of things that could never be avoided, had never been
• 51:00
  avoided. And so I think I think that
• 51:04
  creates a very interesting, like I say, dilemma around extinction
• 51:07
  and preservation. And again, coming to the point,
• 51:09
  it's not preachy about it. You know, we, we, we, we're
• 51:13
  given a creature here that none of us in our living memory has
• 51:17
  ever seen a dodo unless you're going to tell me something
• 51:19
  differently. And so it's, it's sort of
• 51:22
  presented to us of something we can't really have a concept of
• 51:28
  other than in the stories that we've been told.
• 51:31
  So we're already distanced from that.
• 51:33
  It's not like they've stuck on something like a rare species of
• 51:36
  rhino that's been driven down or a rare tiger or something like
• 51:40
  that. But, you know, is at the point
• 51:41
  of extinction and we might have just teetered over to the edge
• 51:44
  of it because then it becomes a problem for us to deal with.
• 51:48
  I sound like I'm really getting really getting into this
• 51:50
  actually. And I'm not an animal person.
• 51:53
  I see, I am an animal person. I watched a Blue Peter special
• 51:55
  not so long ago where they were talking about how many extinct
• 51:59
  species there are now. And that we are still trying
• 52:04
  these bloody things to extinction just because we're
• 52:07
  taking over so much of the planet, so many of the
• 52:09
  resources, you know, those wildfires that we start that
• 52:14
  literally takes out a whole ecosystem.
• 52:16
  Sorry, I realised this has become an environmental lecture
• 52:19
  of the sort we're trying to avoid.
• 52:22
  So, yeah, so I like the museum concept.
• 52:23
  I like the music, and I love the fact that I and I keep coming
• 52:27
  back to this. The last 10 pages shows you the
• 52:30
  noble effort that it came from. It's not just someone throwing a
• 52:34
  bit of cash around going, yeah, I want to have a nice museum,
• 52:37
  you know, get rid of some of that and let's just have
• 52:40
  something for people to come in and make a bit of money.
• 52:41
  No, no, no. It's from a very, very
• 52:44
  altruistic sense of preservation, first and
• 52:46
  foremost. And I really, really.
• 52:48
  That's why I say I got one over by the last 10 pages.
• 52:52
  Openly admit to it. A short circuited and suddenly
• 52:55
  decided, well, I'm going to destroy those planets to make
• 52:59
  sure I do have the last of each species and never mind it's
• 53:02
  unpreserving one, but I'll blow up the rest.
• 53:05
  Well, Speaking of which, the next question that I've got is
• 53:08
  how well does the mystery of the stolen specimens hold up?
• 53:11
  And were you satisfied with the reveal of Frank and Eve's
• 53:13
  machinations? How's.
• 53:15
  Frank again. He was the one.
• 53:17
  That's the other plan. He's the one that's in it for
• 53:20
  the money. The only reason I know who he he
• 53:23
  is is, yeah, he was the villain, the initial villain.
• 53:26
  And also he goes, duh. Quite a lot.
• 53:29
  Throughout the book, and that is his only.
• 53:32
  That's his only characteristic. Well, duh.
• 53:36
  His comeuppance is amazing. Yeah.
• 53:41
  Oh, who was you asking? Sorry.
• 53:42
  You do? Oh.
• 53:43
  No, don't go to me first. Well, given I couldn't remember
• 53:47
  who Frank was, that's a bit of a pickle.
• 53:50
  I did love Eve, though. I thought she was great.
• 53:53
  And you know that gleam in her eye when she realized, Oh my
• 53:56
  God, the species I've been looking for all this time, The
• 54:00
  last of the Time Lords is in my grasp.
• 54:03
  And the Doctors thrown him. And there was a a wonderful
• 54:06
  moment of characterization for the Doctor, Who's generally
• 54:10
  David Tennant on speed throughout this book.
• 54:12
  You know, all energy and hand waving, talking really fast to
• 54:16
  distract people. It was absolutely David Tennant
• 54:18
  on TV. But the bit where I've just read
• 54:22
  it out, there was a time once when I was caged.
• 54:24
  You'd think I'd forgive them for what they did so long ago, but I
• 54:27
  can't. I was a Time Lord in exile.
• 54:30
  Or was I an animal in a zoo? I just thought, oh, right, it's
• 54:34
  pointed. I don't know if the kids will
• 54:36
  get that, but I do. But oh, sorry.
• 54:44
  Don't go on, Joe. I you said there about the last
• 54:49
  10 pages. The thing I really, really liked
• 54:51
  about the last 10 pages, I love the dodo going off.
• 54:54
  I love the reason why the museum came to be.
• 54:58
  I don't often like it when you don't like the Star Trek vision
• 55:01
  of the future, the ideal vision of the future.
• 55:04
  Like very often I'm like, really?
• 55:05
  It just isn't what people are like.
• 55:07
  So why are we pretending that we're going to be in that
• 55:09
  enlightened in the future? I swear we're going in the other
• 55:12
  direction, unfortunately. Well, this had an idea at the
• 55:15
  end of it where I was like, I know that will never be.
• 55:19
  But after you've just spelled out that all of these species
• 55:22
  have been driven to extinction, the idea of a planet sized
• 55:25
  museum with all of that DNA in it where they could bring those
• 55:30
  species back to life and allow them to thrive.
• 55:33
  I love that idea. I just love it.
• 55:35
  I like to think that's the ark, you know, from the William
• 55:37
  Hartnell story with all those that great big ark.
• 55:42
  Yeah. That was beautiful.
• 55:45
  So, Dan, how do you feel about Frank and Eve?
• 55:48
  Yeah, I, I, I, I, I think this kind of is a little bit watered
• 56:00
  down because because obviously we're we're aiming at a younger,
• 56:04
  younger audience. So like the bit where they kind
• 56:09
  of the, the, the, the, the, the game of who, who is the villain
• 56:14
  is rumbled by the, the handkerchief, isn't it the, with
• 56:19
  the dinosaurs on it And it, and it's quite obviously not going
• 56:22
  to be Tommy who was the one who had the handkerchief previously,
• 56:28
  you know, because, because that is very, very obvious and a
• 56:31
  very, very obvious red herring. So, so I, I kind of, I kind of
• 56:36
  you, you know, I mean, as a kid, would I have been clued up
• 56:42
  enough to kind of work that out? I, I don't know.
• 56:44
  But as an adult it was like, Oh yeah, that's very, very obvious.
• 56:47
  It's also quite obvious that he isn't the brains behind the, the
• 56:53
  entire thing. But I, but I, but also I, I, I
• 57:01
  think like, I do love the fact that he gets his just desserts
• 57:05
  because, because that's, that's, that's the good thing.
• 57:08
  Because like you've got Eve who is doing something bad and doing
• 57:15
  something wrong, but has come at it from an angle where was
• 57:22
  trying to do the right thing at first, whereas Frank, he is just
• 57:28
  in it to line his own pockets. It's basically a scam to kind of
• 57:32
  make money out of these, you know, these last and, and I
• 57:38
  think that that's awful. You know, we where we get the
• 57:41
  bit with the, the rhino with it's with it's horn cut off.
• 57:46
  We then meet the lady that that has turned the the zebra thing
• 57:53
  into a into a coat. And that's all because he wants
• 57:57
  to make money out of this situation.
• 57:59
  So it is it's absolutely delightful that he he meets his
• 58:03
  comeuppance by by Dorothea the dodo rolling, rolling the the
• 58:10
  bomb into his bag because she thinks it's an egg and and and
• 58:14
  off he goes and blows up and and I think that's really, really
• 58:17
  good. So I do like the fact that we've
• 58:20
  got these two villains. 11 is, is out for for their own, their
• 58:24
  own ends, you know, basically to to make money.
• 58:27
  Whereas whereas the eve, the the brains behind it all, she was
• 58:32
  trying to do something good. She was trying to do something
• 58:36
  that that made sure that these species endured, but but has
• 58:40
  just gone wrong somewhere down the line.
• 58:43
  And, and that's, you know, then we're into this whole additional
• 58:47
  plot of her trying to blow up the earth to, to stop any more
• 58:52
  species becoming extinct. And, and her having to, it's,
• 58:56
  it's almost, it kind of reminded me of ghost light light in, in
• 59:00
  ghost light. You know, he's, he's, he's made
• 59:03
  his catalog, but because of evolution, that catalog is
• 59:07
  permanently out of date. And, and, and that's the
• 59:10
  scenario we've got here with Eve, that her museum can never
• 59:16
  be where it, you know, it can never be the last of the last
• 59:20
  because there's always something else becoming extinct.
• 59:24
  So it's a yes. I thought that was quite, quite
• 59:26
  good. She's.
• 59:27
  Got Martha. She absolutely has like the
• 59:30
  impetus to destroy the Earth. Because I've got 1, you know.
• 59:35
  Got a human, got a Time Lords. Yeah, you think though as well,
• 59:38
  like because we've seen like and learn about so many extinct
• 59:41
  species. I was like, OK, so is this the
• 59:43
  end game? Every single species will be
• 59:46
  extinct in the end, which you know may happen in the future.
• 59:52
  How about you, David? Are you a fan of Frank and mad
• 59:56
  about Eve? Think the problem with Eve is I
• 1:00:03
  was expecting her to turn bad because of the blurb on the back
• 1:00:07
  cover, which says can the doctor solve the mystery before the
• 1:00:10
  museum's curator adds the last of the time walls to her
• 1:00:13
  collection? Well, I wonder, I wonder how
• 1:00:16
  she's going to as soon as Frank started being all Vernice and
• 1:00:20
  clearly not the boss, it's like it's Eve.
• 1:00:22
  It's going to be somebody we've met because they're kind of
• 1:00:25
  building it. It's going to be a twist, as you
• 1:00:27
  say. It's not going to be Tommy or
• 1:00:28
  Celia, you know, I mean, that would have Simeon's character
• 1:00:31
  called Celia. Now I'm now starting to doubt
• 1:00:33
  myself. It had to be Eve.
• 1:00:36
  And it's not the worst twist in the world.
• 1:00:40
  It's just as soon as it happens, you're like, yeah.
• 1:00:43
  And also the fact that it was built up on the back cover, I
• 1:00:45
  was like, oh, she's going to capture the last of the time.
• 1:00:47
  It's. She does it straight away.
• 1:00:48
  And then he's kind of out within a couple of chapters, even
• 1:00:52
  though so is the entire animal population of Earth floating out
• 1:00:55
  into time and space. So it's not exactly, you know, a
• 1:00:58
  quick fix, but what was interesting when they do the
• 1:01:02
  reveal one, she's an Android and then they're kind of who
• 1:01:06
  programmed the Android and why it's like it's basically AI gone
• 1:01:10
  wrong. It's A twist that Stephen Moffat
• 1:01:12
  would probably be quite proud of.
• 1:01:13
  It's not she wasn't made to be evil or whatever.
• 1:01:18
  It's taken the order maybe a little too literally and done
• 1:01:23
  that. What I thought was interesting
• 1:01:26
  as well with Frank, apart from the fact he was a bit once he's
• 1:01:29
  reels me a villain, he's like, ha ha, I'm a villain now I'm
• 1:01:32
  just going to be turning my mustache.
• 1:01:33
  And is that one of the things and I when I start going on to
• 1:01:38
  these plot points, I go, I hope I've interpreted this correctly,
• 1:01:41
  otherwise I'm going to sound really stupid.
• 1:01:42
  Is the fact the reason why you start to kill the animals was
• 1:01:45
  because there wasn't time to be patient.
• 1:01:47
  They had the orders to meet and that's a wonderful comment that
• 1:01:52
  not only is he they're taking the clones and the selling stuff
• 1:01:55
  on, is that also because they've got time pressures that having
• 1:01:59
  to just say sod it and and and cut corners.
• 1:02:03
  And that, I should think is a really interesting sort of
• 1:02:07
  message in there as well. It's like he's not just killing
• 1:02:09
  the animals. It's not just the villain.
• 1:02:10
  They're not cloning them, killing them is that they're
• 1:02:12
  impatient. But also, if we're talking
• 1:02:15
  villains in the book, the unnamed bitch, because you can
• 1:02:20
  tell she she's not named. You can tell Jacqueline Rayner
• 1:02:24
  is not a fan of that type of person.
• 1:02:28
  And I thought she was really nicely characterized.
• 1:02:31
  I usually do going. I can feel a little bit of venom
• 1:02:34
  dripping onto the page with these types of people.
• 1:02:36
  You do not like these people. And the fact that you haven't
• 1:02:40
  named her, I thought was quite an interesting choice.
• 1:02:46
  But yeah, Eve evil Android Frank, at least as I say, his
• 1:02:52
  comeuppance is, you know when you're reading that and it's
• 1:02:56
  like the the the I had to read it twice because the, the
• 1:02:59
  Dorothea put the form in the back.
• 1:03:04
  You're not alone in reading it twice, I can tell you, I
• 1:03:06
  thought. Dorothea is just the best
• 1:03:09
  character in this helper. I think she's definitely the
• 1:03:11
  best character. Big Finish, there's your spin
• 1:03:13
  off series. They could do a sequel where
• 1:03:18
  Dodo meets Dodo. The two dodos, the. 2 dodos.
• 1:03:23
  You, you remember that line in Kablam that everyone goes mad
• 1:03:27
  about because it seems to be saying, yeah, Amazon's great up
• 1:03:31
  the corporation where the doctor says it's not the system that's
• 1:03:35
  wrong, it's the people that abuse the system that is wrong.
• 1:03:39
  Technically a big warehouse as soon as that parcels is fine in
• 1:03:42
  theory. The fact that these people are
• 1:03:45
  greedy and treat people terribly is what makes it so appalling.
• 1:03:50
  And in this, it's nice that when we find out why the museum came
• 1:03:54
  to be, the idea behind the museum, like you said, it was
• 1:03:58
  altruistic. It was a it was a good idea to
• 1:04:01
  preserve those species. It was the people that were
• 1:04:05
  abusing the system that turned it into at first it's Frank and
• 1:04:10
  then it's Eve. I think any system is there to
• 1:04:14
  be abused, but this is sort of like planet wise.
• 1:04:19
  Consequences are real. I must admit, when I when I
• 1:04:23
  started this one again, I, and I think it's because I've been
• 1:04:26
  reading so many of the Christie books over the last year, I
• 1:04:29
  thought we were literally going to be introduced to everyone.
• 1:04:31
  So I can't confirm. David, there is indeed a Celia.
• 1:04:34
  You, you got that one right? I thought that's how it was
• 1:04:37
  going to be, especially once we got sort of got Eve and then
• 1:04:39
  Tommy and then right and then all the earth is together.
• 1:04:42
  I thought we're going to have a moment with each of them while
• 1:04:44
  we go off anywhere. And then we suddenly didn't.
• 1:04:48
  And by that point you're left with the question of, well, is
• 1:04:52
  it going to be frank? Is it going to be?
• 1:04:54
  And I must admit I I was suckered into the handkerchief,
• 1:04:58
  although from my perspective, I didn't wonder why they would
• 1:05:00
  still have handkerchiefs in the future if they can do all this
• 1:05:03
  great stuff with freezing time and things.
• 1:05:05
  We still can't cure the common cold.
• 1:05:08
  You know, it's Yeah, I I liked it.
• 1:05:14
  But they were the only people. It could have been, as you say,
• 1:05:17
  once Tommy's been bitten and he's completely unawares of
• 1:05:21
  everything. And then you get that scene when
• 1:05:22
  they're all around the hospital bed panicking like chickens
• 1:05:25
  about what's happening while Frank's trying to get is it the
• 1:05:29
  pendant from off of Tommy in the bed?
• 1:05:32
  And by that point, you know who the bad guys are.
• 1:05:36
  You know what they're about. And you know that this it boils
• 1:05:40
  down to money at the end of the day, from Frank's perspective.
• 1:05:44
  And yeah, Frank's comeuppance is glorious in the way it's
• 1:05:48
  delivered. The chapter is worth a second or
• 1:05:51
  third read for how his demise is met, because normally it's the
• 1:05:57
  doctor that dishes out the final kurta on the on the ultimate
• 1:06:02
  villain of the piece. Because Frank is just an
• 1:06:05
  outright bully, no two ways about it.
• 1:06:07
  Eve's a bit more complex because he's just doing what she were
• 1:06:11
  told. She was told to stand there and
• 1:06:13
  watch dinner, and she did. She watched it burn to a
• 1:06:15
  frazzle, you know, that's what she was asked to do.
• 1:06:17
  And she fulfilled that. And, and that's a little bit
• 1:06:19
  tragic in that way. And even the chaplet in the last
• 1:06:22
  10 pages of Name a Loose Man, I'm not sure I could do it
• 1:06:24
  justice even if I pronounced it her off.
• 1:06:27
  A Roland. Roland.
• 1:06:29
  Let's call him Roland. Yeah.
• 1:06:34
  Even he admits himself that she she was never programmed.
• 1:06:37
  Too bad. This is the way it turned out in
• 1:06:39
  the end. And so I really like it because
• 1:06:41
  actually the only one who's an outright villain in this piece
• 1:06:44
  is Frank. And he's so like David said,
• 1:06:47
  he's so mustache twirlingly evil.
• 1:06:50
  He couldn't have been anything but see, I, I really like the
• 1:06:53
  way it it developed. But like I said, there wasn't no
• 1:06:56
  one else it could have been. Dad is right.
• 1:06:58
  It's very funny that she comes to sort of the light conclusion.
• 1:07:02
  Oh, oh, this is just too much trouble.
• 1:07:04
  These species keep popping back into existence because of time
• 1:07:07
  wars and things, you know, destroy all the planets.
• 1:07:10
  There we go. You see, Gareth, you, you,
• 1:07:14
  you've done exactly the same thing I did with Harolin,
• 1:07:16
  because when I read that bit, they have that bit where they've
• 1:07:19
  got from their point of view. And I had this kind of
• 1:07:23
  Shakespearean actor giving this. And then they go back to Martha
• 1:07:30
  and it's like I thought her one was going to cry when we took
• 1:07:32
  her into the laboratory. And it's like, I assumed, for
• 1:07:36
  whatever reason why the bias I have got, I just assumed it was
• 1:07:40
  a male character. And I'm just, and I, and I was
• 1:07:43
  going to admit that I wasn't, I wasn't going to admit that
• 1:07:46
  because I thought that's a bit, you know, I just that's my bias
• 1:07:49
  is at work and everything and all that.
• 1:07:50
  And it's like, I'm glad I'm not. It's not made clear at all.
• 1:07:54
  There's no gender given until that point when Martha speaks.
• 1:07:58
  So it's like, it's just that point.
• 1:08:00
  It just makes you stop and and it made me stop and think and
• 1:08:02
  like I just made that assumption.
• 1:08:04
  It's the nice ambiguity around their species though, isn't it?
• 1:08:07
  That's true. The fact that you were literally
• 1:08:08
  given an entire species in the last 10 pages and a bit of back
• 1:08:12
  story to set it all up. You know, normally you'd have an
• 1:08:15
  entire episode to get into something like that and you
• 1:08:17
  don't get it at all. I'll tell you what, though, if
• 1:08:20
  it was Moffett doing that, you know, give me an explanation at
• 1:08:23
  the end of an episode. Like, as if he'd forgotten about
• 1:08:25
  it. Oh shit, I better put that bit
• 1:08:26
  in there. I would be.
• 1:08:28
  I wouldn't forgive him. But because it's Jacqueline
• 1:08:30
  Rayner, she gets away with it. He's done with such style.
• 1:08:34
  What? Yeah, because it is.
• 1:08:35
  Because it is genuine, it makes sense, and it provokes an
• 1:08:39
  emotion as well. And in the end, you know, I
• 1:08:42
  think that's that's the thing about this book overall, you
• 1:08:44
  know, it's it, it is nicely paced as to how it does it this
• 1:08:47
  time in the museum, this time away, it's constantly moving.
• 1:08:51
  It's never really still the moment.
• 1:08:54
  It still is when it gets to the very end.
• 1:08:55
  And that's when it's kind of delivering the message of the
• 1:08:57
  setup of all of this. But the the thing you said about
• 1:09:01
  money, anyone who say it's like, oh God, money.
• 1:09:04
  That's just such a boring motive.
• 1:09:06
  Like so many Doctor Who villains are motivated by money.
• 1:09:10
  You look at every single reason these animals were driven to
• 1:09:15
  extinction. It's always money.
• 1:09:16
  It's medicine, it's style, it's status, it's land.
• 1:09:20
  You know, it's always money. It's it's the unfortunate.
• 1:09:24
  We are a greedy bunch, that's what I'm saying.
• 1:09:27
  Look at all the ills in the world today.
• 1:09:29
  Yeah, it's probably all of the above that you've just said.
• 1:09:31
  That's. Probably why we're all fabulous,
• 1:09:34
  right? We don't really care too much
• 1:09:35
  about money or, or or do you? We don't have any.
• 1:09:39
  We buy books. I get money, I buy it on Doctor
• 1:09:43
  Who merchandise. That's what it's for.
• 1:09:45
  You don't care? Preservation of Doctor Who
• 1:09:47
  merchandise. So how do we feel about the
• 1:09:54
  doctors feelings towards zoos and confinement?
• 1:10:00
  Do we think it's mixed up with some trauma from his time in
• 1:10:02
  exile in the 70s perhaps? Or how do we feel about him
• 1:10:07
  being the last of the Time Lords?
• 1:10:09
  Let's go to David. I must have missed that episode
• 1:10:15
  of season 7 where the Brigadier locked the Doctor in a cage and
• 1:10:18
  fed him bananas every now and again.
• 1:10:21
  Oh, it's. Great, David, it's a brilliant
• 1:10:22
  episode. I'm fisted banana vendor.
• 1:10:26
  We did not set that up, by the way.
• 1:10:28
  That feels like we've said that. That.
• 1:10:30
  Was that was wonderfully spontaneous.
• 1:10:34
  I, I think the Doctor's reaction to the zoos is quite interesting
• 1:10:38
  because you know, he, he takes and he gets this sort of sadness
• 1:10:42
  in his eyes moment. And you can imagine dear Tim
• 1:10:45
  playing it and he'd be doing his eyes all downcast and he'd be
• 1:10:48
  like, well, not making eye contact with Martha and all
• 1:10:50
  that, the way he usually plays that sort of thing.
• 1:10:54
  But I think the way he's written, it's not the Doctors
• 1:10:59
  right in his attitude and his attitudes towards the museum in
• 1:11:03
  general. It's say it's a little more grey
• 1:11:07
  because it's that thing of, but the museum is trying to do a
• 1:11:10
  good thing. It has good intentions.
• 1:11:13
  And actually, the Doctor being so against it, in fact, there's
• 1:11:17
  a point where you kind of go, I can see why you're totally
• 1:11:20
  against it, but I'm not completely on the side of the
• 1:11:24
  Doctor on this. I can see where he's coming
• 1:11:25
  from, but I can also see where the other sides come from.
• 1:11:28
  And I think Martha represents that really nicely.
• 1:11:31
  That sort of conflict between, I can see why they've done it, but
• 1:11:34
  I can also see the Doctor's point of view.
• 1:11:36
  And that's what keeps this into it.
• 1:11:38
  And I go back to the only point about why doesn't it feel like
• 1:11:41
  the books wagging a finger at you?
• 1:11:42
  It's because you've got Martha there looking at those different
• 1:11:46
  points of view. And I think it quietly
• 1:11:50
  challenges some of the Doctors points of view.
• 1:11:52
  You're not necessarily going to go yes, he's absolutely right.
• 1:11:54
  Yes, we're on his side. It's we you know, we get his
• 1:11:58
  sadness that these species be made extinct.
• 1:12:00
  Here's a method of preserving them.
• 1:12:02
  Oh, that's still not good enough.
• 1:12:04
  So it's it's it's I find the way that it deals with the doctor
• 1:12:07
  really interesting. I mean, she does capture tenants
• 1:12:11
  energy very perfect. Just want to.
• 1:12:14
  Go. Oh, shut up.
• 1:12:16
  There were a couple of points the the bit where amidst all the
• 1:12:20
  crisis, he says to the firemen can basically, can I have a ride
• 1:12:24
  on the fire engine, please? We never get to see that.
• 1:12:28
  But if he's disappointed, if he doesn't get it, he does get it a
• 1:12:31
  few years down the line in the 11th hour where he gets to
• 1:12:33
  finally ride a fire engine. Yeah, it it it's so recognisably
• 1:12:40
  tenants, doctors. There's times where you go, is
• 1:12:42
  this quite? And they go, no, you can.
• 1:12:44
  There's just certain passages where she's captured that voice.
• 1:12:47
  There's a bit near the end with Frank where the doctor keeps.
• 1:12:51
  We're threatening Maltha and the doctor and his friends, he said,
• 1:12:54
  well, they're not really friends.
• 1:12:55
  They're kind of. And then every time he keeps
• 1:12:57
  caveating it and he's like, I can hear that.
• 1:12:59
  I can hear that performance. And that's how well I think
• 1:13:03
  she's captured it. So I think the doctor's
• 1:13:06
  interesting. Even on the cover, he's looking
• 1:13:08
  a bit serious and a bit Moody. And it's like that's kind of
• 1:13:10
  where this tenant Dr. is at this point.
• 1:13:12
  His distraction technique is never shutting up.
• 1:13:16
  I've adopted it myself. How about you, Dan?
• 1:13:20
  How did you feel about the doctor in this one?
• 1:13:22
  Yeah, now I, I, I, the, the Doctor's stance on zoos totally
• 1:13:30
  makes sense to me because he came from a, from a race of
• 1:13:35
  people, the Time Lords, who almost treat the entire universe
• 1:13:41
  as a zoo because they will not intervene.
• 1:13:44
  They are observers and, and that and so I can and, and what did
• 1:13:50
  the Doctor do? As soon as he could, he, he, he
• 1:13:54
  found himself a TARDIS and, and, and and flew away from that so
• 1:13:58
  that he could get out there and, and get his hands dirty and, and
• 1:14:02
  do stuff and, and, and not not sit on the sidelines.
• 1:14:05
  So it it totally makes sense that the Doctor would be against
• 1:14:09
  zoos and especially as then, you know, as Joe pointed it out, we
• 1:14:14
  get that that little bit from the from the doctor in the
• 1:14:17
  italic typeface where where he is basically talking about his
• 1:14:23
  exile on Earth. You know how that felt like
• 1:14:26
  being an animal in the zoo. So that yeah, but, but totally
• 1:14:33
  agree with with David that Jacqueline Rayner absolutely
• 1:14:40
  nails David Tennant's 10th doc doing this.
• 1:14:44
  You you can read the dialogue, you can close your eyes and you
• 1:14:49
  can, you can hear it in your in, in, in your head.
• 1:14:54
  David Tennant delivering those lines and and then just kind of
• 1:14:57
  makes sense, whereas I think her version of Martha is not
• 1:15:04
  typically good. That was one thing that I didn't
• 1:15:07
  really one thing that kind of kind of didn't, it didn't feel
• 1:15:13
  right, but but there are reasons for that.
• 1:15:16
  But, but I'll, I'll talk about that in a bit.
• 1:15:17
  Because you hear her doing the audio.
• 1:15:19
  Oh my God, she's so. Funny.
• 1:15:21
  Hiya, it's Martha here. Yeah, so, Joe, did Doctor Zhu do
• 1:15:29
  it for you? Oh.
• 1:15:30
  Well done. I find the 10th Doctor a little
• 1:15:34
  bit problematic, morally speaking, because I think
• 1:15:39
  sometimes he's got a real issue about things that we all know
• 1:15:42
  are wrong, and other times he's utterly unaware of things that
• 1:15:47
  we all know are wrong. So yes, caging up animals is
• 1:15:50
  wrong, and he's very angry about it here.
• 1:15:52
  Yeah, whereas telling Martha in the Shakespeare Code, I'll just
• 1:15:58
  act like you own the place, knowing that there's blatant
• 1:16:01
  racism there. He's just oblivious to what is
• 1:16:03
  going on there. In Planet of the Yud, Where do
• 1:16:08
  you think your clothes come from?
• 1:16:09
  He's furious about the slave trade.
• 1:16:11
  And then in Unicorn and the Wasp, you know, when the fella
• 1:16:14
  can't grieve his boyfriend who's died utterly oblivious to it.
• 1:16:20
  So like, he sort of picks and chews his his his moral battles.
• 1:16:25
  Do you find that quite interesting, though?
• 1:16:26
  I think flawed characters are way more interesting than, you
• 1:16:30
  know, morally upright characters all the time.
• 1:16:32
  They can be a bit tedious. So yeah, I totally get it.
• 1:16:37
  Again, the voice was perfect. There's a speech he gives here,
• 1:16:40
  which is so tenant he goes. You keep talking about the
• 1:16:43
  universe like it's something quantifiable, but it isn't, not
• 1:16:46
  really. You're talking about the bit of
• 1:16:48
  the universe known to you. It would take you billions of
• 1:16:51
  years to destroy all life in the universe, even if you were full
• 1:16:54
  of it, and by the time the last planet you've got the last
• 1:16:57
  planet and your last single specimen life would have sprung
• 1:17:00
  up again on the first ones. It can be amazingly resilient.
• 1:17:04
  Face it Eve, you're never going to achieve peace that way.
• 1:17:07
  Just the the pace of the dialogue, the fact that he's
• 1:17:11
  being a little bit kind, the fact that he's quite angry.
• 1:17:14
  Just she just gauges the nuance in tone of Tenant brilliantly
• 1:17:20
  throughout the whole book. And the bit, forgive me, the bit
• 1:17:24
  where we slice down the dinosaurs back like the
• 1:17:26
  Flintstones was just absolutely wonderful.
• 1:17:31
  Yabba Dabba. Doo and I agree with you.
• 1:17:35
  I think the, the tenant that we've got here is the tenant
• 1:17:38
  with bite, the disgruntled post time war tenant that's all hyper
• 1:17:46
  on the on the surface, but underneath there's something
• 1:17:48
  boiling and I think, I think it's captured here.
• 1:17:51
  I, I, I found I found it strange reading about the, the zoo and
• 1:17:55
  how he felt about it. And obviously we kind of look at
• 1:17:57
  the unit stories as being that cosy period in time because it's
• 1:18:01
  what most people watched it or they like that family, they like
• 1:18:04
  Nicholas Courtney, John Levine and all of that, all those
• 1:18:07
  window dressing around that. But actually for him, that was a
• 1:18:11
  form of containment. You know, even thinking about
• 1:18:15
  the number of times that per we tried to get away just in spirit
• 1:18:17
  and space alone, you know, and I weirdly, I ended up sticking
• 1:18:25
  Carnival of Monsters in my head as well with this and the
• 1:18:29
  Doctor. And I know he's not referenced
• 1:18:31
  in here and he didn't need to be, and I'm not saying he should
• 1:18:33
  be, but I found when I got that in my head as well, it just went
• 1:18:37
  well. This, yeah, he's outcry about
• 1:18:38
  this, this thing, despite all the benefits that he is
• 1:18:42
  producing, he's going to be like this.
• 1:18:44
  Obviously we get we get the shouty Last of the Time Lords
• 1:18:46
  thing, which I could do without. Why do you need to do it?
• 1:18:50
  Why? Still doing it now.
• 1:18:52
  Oh, don't let's, let's dress up in a new outfit so we can blend
• 1:18:55
  in with people. But I'll tell you what I am.
• 1:18:58
  Oh well, what's the point in dressing up then?
• 1:18:59
  You might as well have not bothered.
• 1:19:02
  Which I'm sure some people probably wanted, but that's not
• 1:19:04
  the point. The the, the, the doctor's
• 1:19:09
  reaction to the zoo and how it is makes perfect sense.
• 1:19:13
  And then to come up with the idea of how to send them all
• 1:19:17
  back as well at the end, it feels like a nice halfway house
• 1:19:22
  to a solution that's probably not going to turn out well for a
• 1:19:26
  lot of those that are going back, but it feels like the
• 1:19:30
  right thing to do at that time. And again, it's not particularly
• 1:19:33
  preachy. It's just something that has to
• 1:19:35
  be done and it's dealt with like that.
• 1:19:37
  And so I really, I really like the 10th Doctor in this.
• 1:19:40
  And I'm yeah, I can give or take the 10th Doctor most times.
• 1:19:45
  But here I really, really like him.
• 1:19:47
  He's quite straightforward. I'm I'm fully enough.
• 1:19:51
  And I'm, I think I might come on to this as the next question in
• 1:19:53
  the same camp as Dan. I think Martha doesn't come off
• 1:19:58
  quite as well in this by comparison.
• 1:20:04
  And I and I, so I think there's, there's some levels, but I'll go
• 1:20:07
  to the next question, shall I? And so we can, we can cover
• 1:20:10
  that. So.
• 1:20:13
  This book apparently which was published in 2006 was originally
• 1:20:19
  going to be published in 2006. Even if he got me on teeth in as
• 1:20:22
  the last museum and wasn't completed in time and had to be
• 1:20:25
  replaced. So this would have come out
• 1:20:28
  originally with the 10th Doctrine Rose as the companion.
• 1:20:33
  So this book in now has come out with Sting of the Zygons and
• 1:20:37
  Wooden Heart. Memory served me right.
• 1:20:40
  So how do we feel about this? Does Martha come across as
• 1:20:45
  Martha or is it Rose in Rose by other name?
• 1:20:53
  Let's go to Dan. Let's start with you.
• 1:20:57
  Yeah, that, that actually makes a lot of sense.
• 1:21:02
  Actually, I, I had no idea that this was originally A10 and Rose
• 1:21:08
  one that got delayed. But yeah, that yeah, the the way
• 1:21:13
  that that Martha is kind of because I think that's the thing
• 1:21:17
  it it feels like so so I was, I was kind of like, well, where
• 1:21:22
  did this come in the scheme of things?
• 1:21:24
  So it's, so basically this was published in or published on the
• 1:21:29
  19th of April 2007. And that was between Gridlock,
• 1:21:35
  which was April the 14th and Daleks in Manhattan, which was
• 1:21:40
  April the 21st. So basically I'm going to let I
• 1:21:47
  think that allows Jacqueline Rayner a lot of leeway really,
• 1:21:52
  because she's probably just working off of like scripts,
• 1:21:59
  possibly rushes of of some of those episodes.
• 1:22:02
  So so she hasn't got a lot to kind of hang the character of
• 1:22:06
  Martha on, which feels half of. Smith and Jones I think she had
• 1:22:10
  half of. Smith and Jones, yeah.
• 1:22:12
  So, so not a great deal, really. So it's a really brave decision
• 1:22:18
  to kind of then have these most of the chapters kind of start
• 1:22:22
  with Martha's POV, her her internal monologue.
• 1:22:28
  And, and, and I think because it doesn't feel like the Martha
• 1:22:33
  that we come to know and love on on the screen.
• 1:22:37
  I think that I that that was one of the reasons why I was kind of
• 1:22:40
  like struggling with it at times because it was like, that's not
• 1:22:44
  Martha that that isn't. But but then if if like you say,
• 1:22:49
  Gareth, that this was meant to be a Rose book, then then
• 1:22:52
  actually thinking about it, some of that does feel very Rose like
• 1:22:58
  the the bit where Martha is comforting.
• 1:23:04
  Is it Celia after after it's after it's revealed that Frank
• 1:23:09
  is is the wrong and she's that she after a while she's like,
• 1:23:13
  oh, Philippine, you droning on a bit.
• 1:23:15
  That feels like Rose doesn't feel like Martha because Martha.
• 1:23:20
  Yeah, I mean, Martha is a very well as someone that's trained
• 1:23:24
  to be a doctor, is naturally a very caring, very friendly, very
• 1:23:28
  loving person, you know, and and it it just didn't.
• 1:23:31
  And I was like, oh, no, that that isn't Martha.
• 1:23:33
  She wouldn't have been like that.
• 1:23:35
  So, yeah. But but then when when you think
• 1:23:39
  of what Jacqueline Rayner had to to go on wasn't a great deal.
• 1:23:46
  You know, you can let her off to that kind of thing.
• 1:23:50
  Really. I may maybe I would have like
• 1:23:54
  dialed down perhaps those those sort of PO VS of Martha.
• 1:23:58
  If you haven't got if you haven't got a good enough grasp
• 1:24:01
  on the character, probably dropping those might have been a
• 1:24:04
  good idea. I I don't know.
• 1:24:05
  I'm I'm not a writer. But yeah, it it just it just
• 1:24:11
  felt like Martha wasn't wasn't wasn't wasn't there.
• 1:24:15
  But but like I say, she had very little to go on to get that the
• 1:24:19
  handle on that character. Yeah, David, how did you feel
• 1:24:25
  about Martha? I know the same.
• 1:24:28
  I mean, it's really an interesting parallel that what
• 1:24:32
  we're dealing here with is a story where the doctors blonde
• 1:24:36
  companions had to be written out very suddenly and replaced by
• 1:24:40
  another companion who has a medical background.
• 1:24:44
  And they haven't quite captured the voice and adapted it to give
• 1:24:49
  the character their own distinct personality.
• 1:24:53
  I, I don't know what I'm potentially alluding to at all
• 1:24:56
  then, but I think now that you said that this was originally
• 1:24:59
  written with Rose in mind some the bit where Martha is paired
• 1:25:04
  off with Celia and then the compassion bit later where she's
• 1:25:07
  just a bit like. It's like it.
• 1:25:10
  Did stick out a little bit of like, that's quite a few and I
• 1:25:14
  was waiting for some unrequited love bits in there.
• 1:25:18
  It isn't really any of that. And it's like, well, and I was
• 1:25:21
  thinking the same thing. Where did this fall in terms of
• 1:25:23
  the production and what did Jacqueline Maynard have to go
• 1:25:26
  on? Because I think they've had they
• 1:25:27
  have that in some of the other books as well.
• 1:25:29
  It's like they haven't got they've got a script maybe in a
• 1:25:31
  photograph of the ACT to go on and that's what they've got to
• 1:25:35
  base it on. So yeah, I I have to.
• 1:25:38
  I'd like to listen to the audio book.
• 1:25:39
  I didn't have time because it was a breached as well.
• 1:25:42
  But it'd be interesting to see how Freeman kind of puts a spin
• 1:25:45
  she goes. For it Woo, it's Martha here.
• 1:25:51
  I, I'm, I'm this is going to sound so mean.
• 1:25:53
  I I think Freema got as the series went on, Freema got much
• 1:25:57
  better. But in some of those early
• 1:25:59
  episodes, I don't think she's all that great talking about
• 1:26:03
  David. Don't you remember the
• 1:26:04
  cliffhanger Totalis in Manhattan?
• 1:26:07
  What is this great experiment report?
• 1:26:11
  So there's, there's a couple of I think that the worst 'cause
• 1:26:14
  when they had that, you know, they used to do the trailers of
• 1:26:16
  Christmas for like the coming season.
• 1:26:18
  And the first thing is like Martha, Martha Jones.
• 1:26:21
  I was like, oh God. It was just you.
• 1:26:23
  Remembered a bit of the doctor's daughter when she's falling down
• 1:26:25
  that bog. Oh my God.
• 1:26:29
  I just, I felt so bad then when you, I saw her being interviewed
• 1:26:32
  on stuff and I thought, Oh my God, she's lovely in real life
• 1:26:34
  and she's such a wonderful ambassador and everything like
• 1:26:36
  that. You know, she's not the best.
• 1:26:39
  But I grew to love Martha over that season and by the end I
• 1:26:44
  thought she was so much better by the end.
• 1:26:46
  But if you're having to base your novel on some of those
• 1:26:49
  early bits, that's probably why it is quite broad.
• 1:26:52
  It could also be, and I was trying to find it just now.
• 1:26:54
  Is this the only Doctor Who book that references Supermarket
• 1:26:57
  Sweep? Yes, but more should.
• 1:27:01
  Yeah, next time you're in the supermarket with a dodo and you
• 1:27:05
  hear the beep, think of the fun you could be having on.
• 1:27:10
  Supermarket 3. Yes, Dale.
• 1:27:16
  So, Joe, did you find yourself calling Doctor Jones on this
• 1:27:19
  one? I heard the audio first, so I
• 1:27:21
  absolutely heard Marv because it's frame Rashman playing it.
• 1:27:24
  So I first heard the audio and then I read a book.
• 1:27:27
  And I don't disagree. This is a it's a very vanilla
• 1:27:30
  take on a Doctor Who companion. It's spunk agency, intelligence,
• 1:27:37
  caring for the dodo, you know, being proactive, solving issues.
• 1:27:44
  There's there's nothing in there that Jesus Christ, you know,
• 1:27:47
  think back to a bad therapy. You know, like as much as I call
• 1:27:50
  Chris Quesch a blank slate, we went into his head a lot and
• 1:27:54
  explored his grief and there was a lot happening there.
• 1:27:57
  There was 1 moment in this I really thought was great.
• 1:28:01
  When Jacqueline Rayner just says I'm going to give her a summy,
• 1:28:03
  I'm going to throw her a bone. So she writes.
• 1:28:06
  When you'd be the only black female in your class, when you
• 1:28:09
  had a student loan that would cry like a small country, When
• 1:28:13
  you'd enjoy the sarcasm of shrieking consultants every time
• 1:28:16
  you got an answer wrong. So she was given like little
• 1:28:19
  pinpricks to her. But really with There's No
• 1:28:21
  Bible, a bit like Belinda, if there's nothing you can give to
• 1:28:26
  these writers, then they kind of have to go with the de facto
• 1:28:30
  model of a two companion. And because it's the new series
• 1:28:33
  adventure, you're sort of going to do something Rose Ish anyway,
• 1:28:37
  right? That's that's our only idea of
• 1:28:38
  what a new series companion is. But I did think she was likable.
• 1:28:42
  I thought she was involved in the story all the way through.
• 1:28:45
  She has some very funny reactions to dinosaurs roaming
• 1:28:48
  about. And please, I mean, we've got to
• 1:28:51
  talk about that fellow with the missing link in his bath.
• 1:28:53
  Her reaction to that whole scene was just an absolute delight.
• 1:28:57
  And her askance? When she realized that the dodos
• 1:29:00
  are burying bombs all over the earth, I mean, the quirkiest
• 1:29:04
  threat to the earth we've ever had.
• 1:29:06
  So there was lots of fun moments.
• 1:29:07
  But yeah, it's it's companion one O 1.
• 1:29:14
  And I'm glad I've asked that question actually, because I did
• 1:29:16
  teeter. I'm not asking it on this, but I
• 1:29:19
  needed to see what hear what everyone else's opinions were on
• 1:29:22
  it because I I found it a little bit jarring, not in a bad way,
• 1:29:27
  but as Dan said, it just didn't quite feel like Martha.
• 1:29:30
  It felt like a little bit a character was a little more
• 1:29:34
  immature than the mother were presented within the TV show.
• 1:29:37
  And and that was the bit that I couldn't reconcile with.
• 1:29:40
  And I'll be honest, I thought it was me and then I found a bit
• 1:29:43
  about about the replacement. The fact that what you said,
• 1:29:45
  Joe, about the amount of script that she's been given nothing
• 1:29:49
  for that makes absolute sense if it does.
• 1:29:53
  And then the fact that it the fact that it kind of holds
• 1:29:56
  together like you say with the character that is there is
• 1:30:00
  dividends for it. Absolutely, absolutely it is.
• 1:30:05
  So obviously we spend a bit of time between first and third
• 1:30:09
  person and we have the eye spy elements thrown into the book.
• 1:30:15
  Do we feel that these work well for the books throwing that
• 1:30:18
  between third person, first person and the eye spiders?
• 1:30:21
  How how do we feel about that fitting in with this, this book
• 1:30:25
  in general? Joe, how about you?
• 1:30:27
  Yeah, I really liked it. I I think keep the kids
• 1:30:30
  interested with as many fun things as you can throw at them.
• 1:30:37
  And I'd I'd throw in like the italics as well every now and
• 1:30:40
  again, just lots of visually interesting things on the page
• 1:30:43
  to keep them going. But the ice spider pits were my
• 1:30:46
  favorite. That's the unique selling point
• 1:30:49
  about this book is, you know, the little prey.
• 1:30:51
  See, there's usually a joke in there as well, right?
• 1:30:55
  What's the Time Lord one? They've they've been on earth
• 1:30:58
  for a long time, but they could technically be considered an
• 1:31:00
  immigrant species. For God's sake.
• 1:31:04
  She's so sneaky from first, third.
• 1:31:07
  I think there's some form with that with a new series of
• 1:31:10
  ventures. But yeah, I had no issues.
• 1:31:13
  Like, the prose was so smooth. It was like spreading butter on
• 1:31:16
  toast. Like, do you know what I mean?
• 1:31:18
  There was no bumps to the prose. It was simple language.
• 1:31:21
  So whether she's talking to you direct from a character or
• 1:31:25
  overviewing or writing little segments from a museum guide, I
• 1:31:30
  just thought it was an ephembus read.
• 1:31:33
  And so, David, how did the prose goes for Yo's?
• 1:31:39
  These questions are brilliant. You're showing us all up here.
• 1:31:44
  I think I can't really disagree with you, Joe.
• 1:31:47
  I think I. Love the I spy bits.
• 1:31:49
  I think they just add that extra layer and I think having that
• 1:31:53
  ever growing list is such a master stroke.
• 1:31:56
  I think it it just drives home the point behind this book, but
• 1:32:01
  the fact that the descriptions have a little bit of wit as
• 1:32:04
  well. So, and I've said this before, I
• 1:32:07
  like books with short chapters, but I think that works here
• 1:32:09
  because you get so many different entries in the
• 1:32:11
  Icevider guide. I did like the time law bit,
• 1:32:14
  although the bit I liked was it is most commonly found in
• 1:32:18
  Europe, especially the United, United Kingdom.
• 1:32:20
  And it's like just a nice little in joke I just wrote at the end
• 1:32:23
  of the book. Humanity is the only species
• 1:32:27
  stupid enough to clone itself or something.
• 1:32:33
  And yes, which between 1st and 3rd persons quite nice
• 1:32:35
  obviously. We we don't have Martha.
• 1:32:37
  We have Dorothea's point of view.
• 1:32:39
  We have the alien creature whose name I've something forgotten at
• 1:32:44
  the end. So you do get those other little
• 1:32:46
  points. Of view as well, which is really
• 1:32:48
  quite nice and sometimes, you know, with a lot of these books.
• 1:32:54
  You know when they go to first person.
• 1:32:55
  It's a new chapter or whatever, actually, it can go mid chapter.
• 1:32:58
  It will just switch perspective and it's just quite nice.
• 1:33:01
  It keeps you on your toes, it keeps moving.
• 1:33:03
  And yeah, it makes sure I not capture Martha's voice right.
• 1:33:06
  But I like the use of Martha's first person because I think
• 1:33:11
  this is, I feel like this is her story.
• 1:33:13
  I think it's, it's more through her eyes than anyone, obviously
• 1:33:16
  first person perspective, of course it's through her.
• 1:33:18
  It's a Martha's story 1st. And I think that that just adds
• 1:33:21
  to it. It just gives it that extra
• 1:33:23
  layer. It's odd, right David?
• 1:33:25
  Because there's an NSA called the Story of Martha.
• 1:33:28
  But that. Is not from her point of view at
• 1:33:30
  all. I just got my reading list.
• 1:33:35
  I suddenly realized the other day while getting the last dodo,
• 1:33:38
  I'd actually not. Got a physical copy of this
• 1:33:40
  book? So I had to get go and get it.
• 1:33:42
  It's the next one on my list to read, I'd say.
• 1:33:43
  Those little balls on the front there, I think.
• 1:33:45
  I think, you know, gleaming out of that toplifane.
• 1:33:48
  Ball, ball, ball. Yeah, I believe there may be a
• 1:33:51
  little child wedged inside. Well, that's a horrific idea.
• 1:33:58
  Yeah. Last of the humans.
• 1:33:59
  Yeah. Extinct.
• 1:34:00
  I wonder if there's. One of them in the museum.
• 1:34:03
  Oh yeah, maybe that one. The sky is full of diamonds,
• 1:34:07
  that one. Dan, how about you?
• 1:34:11
  How do you feel about the narrative structures?
• 1:34:14
  I, I loved it it it gives a lot of.
• 1:34:18
  Different texture to to it and and I and I think it would I I
• 1:34:26
  think it would appeal to to a lot.
• 1:34:27
  Of a lot. Of children, you know,
• 1:34:30
  especially like, you know, nowadays attention spans are
• 1:34:34
  that much reduced to, to, to how, how they were back, back in
• 1:34:39
  the day. And I, I think you've got those
• 1:34:42
  nice short chapters. You've got the the I spy bit.
• 1:34:50
  You've got the yeah, you know, like the, you know, the POV from
• 1:34:55
  for Martha's point of view. And it, and it reminded me of
• 1:35:00
  two things. It reminded me of probably the
• 1:35:04
  best target book from the new series, the giggle, where it
• 1:35:08
  does a lot of interesting things within the page.
• 1:35:14
  This this was doing that, not not to that level, but it but it
• 1:35:18
  was it was going that that way, which I I think is always really
• 1:35:21
  good to kind of, you know, mix it up and and and keep keep the
• 1:35:25
  kids interested. But also when we were, we were
• 1:35:31
  looking at the earlier on in the year, the the 20th anniversary
• 1:35:35
  of new who I went back and read the the six new series books
• 1:35:41
  that were with Christopher Eccleston in it and last human
• 1:35:46
  by he who should not be named that had a lot of there were
• 1:35:55
  there were a lot of chapters in that where it was just from the
• 1:35:57
  perspective of of the the caveman character.
• 1:36:00
  I can't remember his name now. And, and, and that was basically
• 1:36:04
  him go trying to learn to be a human in the modern day and all
• 1:36:10
  this sort of stuff. So so I think like Joe says,
• 1:36:13
  there's a track record there with that kind of thing
• 1:36:16
  happening in this in this range. And this was really kind of
• 1:36:19
  continuing that. But but yeah, for me, you know
• 1:36:24
  someone that has ADHD and and and.
• 1:36:29
  Therefore my my my. Attention isn't necessarily
• 1:36:33
  always, always held on. It was given me enough to keep
• 1:36:36
  it, keep it there because of all the different, you know, the,
• 1:36:40
  the, the I don't want to say chopping and changing.
• 1:36:42
  Because that's that almost sounds bad.
• 1:36:44
  But but to give me that texture to keep me, you know, going
• 1:36:48
  along with it was was really, really good and and and and a
• 1:36:53
  masterstroke. In a way.
• 1:36:54
  It's like, oh, we're doing this now.
• 1:36:56
  Are we OK? Wow.
• 1:36:57
  Yeah. Perking up.
• 1:36:59
  Yeah, it's truly I think Dan, you like the giggle.
• 1:37:02
  Lux is coming. Oh, boy.
• 1:37:05
  Yeah. I, I, I was listening to to your
• 1:37:08
  your interview. This this morning and and it
• 1:37:12
  yeah, I'm just like, Oh yeah. Is it, is it 10th of July?
• 1:37:16
  Those come out at those targets. Yeah, I've got them a pre.
• 1:37:19
  Order our deliberately didn't bring out the episode of where
• 1:37:22
  we review it because. It was just too many spoilers,
• 1:37:27
  but yeah, you will love it. Oh, excellent.
• 1:37:34
  No, I must admit I like the variation that this book gave,
• 1:37:37
  and I say that as a. Person who is not so keen on
• 1:37:39
  first person books and first person stories and there was
• 1:37:44
  just enough of it here to warrant it when you needed that
• 1:37:46
  introspection, be that Martha's opinion on what the zoo's like
• 1:37:50
  or the fact that she sent all the specimens to the four
• 1:37:53
  corners of oblivion and things like that.
• 1:37:56
  The other thing I am going to throw out as part of the ice
• 1:37:58
  spider, and we have mentioned the ice spider ones which are
• 1:38:01
  the great punch lines at the end of each each chapter that you go
• 1:38:06
  through is the fact that you get the certificate at the end.
• 1:38:10
  Now I don't know if any of you guys know this, but there are a
• 1:38:13
  series. Of I Spy books.
• 1:38:15
  Out there that are available to buy.
• 1:38:18
  My son had one he had, I believe it was.
• 1:38:20
  Vehicles surprise. Surprise, as mentioned earlier
• 1:38:22
  is a bit of a petrol head and this was when he was a lot
• 1:38:25
  younger. And you could indeed e-mail them
• 1:38:27
  at the end of it having spotted everything and get a certificate
• 1:38:31
  from them to say that you had spotted.
• 1:38:33
  So that the authenticity of getting this in the book really
• 1:38:36
  made me chuckle. The fact that we have at the
• 1:38:38
  last page, the arachnid first class for Martha Jones and the
• 1:38:42
  number of points that she's got, yeah.
• 1:38:45
  It's, and again, it probably lends itself to that deafness,
• 1:38:49
  that lightness that this book is couched in when he, you know,
• 1:38:53
  he's actually quite a serious message in there.
• 1:38:56
  But at the same time, our attention's kind of drawn to the
• 1:38:59
  different styles that are happening with us to take us
• 1:39:02
  through the story. And I yeah, I liked it.
• 1:39:06
  I can't. Just how many of those ice
• 1:39:09
  spider certificates have been issued, may I ask?
• 1:39:12
  It's there is a number Oh no. And I did not.
• 1:39:16
  I did not. Clock that I did not spot.
• 1:39:17
  That that's very. Clever.
• 1:39:20
  I mean, you know what? Maybe we shouldn't say?
• 1:39:22
  I encourage people to go and see that last piece of that last
• 1:39:26
  little detail, the fire part of the book.
• 1:39:28
  The trouble is you need a Time Lord to get all those fucking
• 1:39:32
  points to get this. Does anyone know any?
• 1:39:38
  I'm sure we can find one or two somewhere.
• 1:39:41
  Well, there's. There's the last of the Time
• 1:39:43
  Lords and all the other ones that.
• 1:39:46
  And the master I mean this sidebar but.
• 1:39:51
  Reconciling this story knowing. What we know about the Master
• 1:39:54
  still knocking around and the Rani and all those time laws
• 1:39:58
  that ultimately come through from that other dimension,
• 1:39:59
  wherever they are, when Raslon's in charge of them.
• 1:40:02
  Does it not feel then a bit odd that they've designated him the
• 1:40:05
  last of the Time Lords in this? And maybe he's a little bit more
• 1:40:08
  flawed than we think, but that's just a bit reckoning.
• 1:40:12
  And he's designated himself, which is a very Doctor thing to
• 1:40:15
  do. It's like I've decided.
• 1:40:17
  I have decided on Last of the Time Lords.
• 1:40:20
  Can I very quickly? Mention right?
• 1:40:22
  What I mean, they always slip. In rude jokes in these new
• 1:40:26
  series adventures, it's like the best Disney movies, right?
• 1:40:29
  You know when they make jokes and you go, but OK, all that all
• 1:40:33
  a good panto. You know when you're there and
• 1:40:35
  you're going, Oh my God. And the kids are just looking
• 1:40:38
  baffled. Like what does that mean?
• 1:40:40
  And just the the sex gag about the missing link.
• 1:40:44
  I bought him a goldfish down a hamster because I wasn't sore
• 1:40:47
  which side of the family he would incline towards.
• 1:40:50
  That made me howl with laughter. I mean, I was going to say
• 1:40:55
  that's a pretty robust experiment, but there's a good
• 1:41:00
  story there though about that guy who's.
• 1:41:02
  Sold. Everything.
• 1:41:04
  To have that missing link with him buried away in a caravan, I
• 1:41:08
  think we just have to take a moment to appreciate that the
• 1:41:10
  missing link may have had sex with a hamster.
• 1:41:14
  And, you know, just feels appropriate birth this podcast
• 1:41:18
  to good grief. Well, on that note, I'll open it
• 1:41:24
  up because we've covered quite a few things.
• 1:41:26
  Is there anything else anyone wants to bring to the table on
• 1:41:30
  this one? I'm going to try to say this but
• 1:41:35
  I'm going to get it wrong so forgive me.
• 1:41:39
  Because I said there was no complicate, complicated
• 1:41:41
  language. As far as anyone on Earth is
• 1:41:43
  concerned, the dodo is as dead as no, I say I've already got it
• 1:41:48
  wrong. The dodo is dead as the
• 1:41:50
  dinosaurs. Are dinosaurs ants?
• 1:41:53
  And the infatigable Galapagos mouth remains sadly for
• 1:41:59
  capitulated. Oh, did I get that right?
• 1:42:01
  I don't know, I don't know what about this sound?
• 1:42:05
  It sounded good, sounded authentic with conviction.
• 1:42:08
  With conviction, it goes on undisputed.
• 1:42:10
  Facts. The word dodo is a corruption of
• 1:42:12
  the Dutch Dodeers. Meaning fat rear.
• 1:42:16
  So if a dodo asks you how big his bomb is, is tactful to fib
• 1:42:20
  all right? Is that why her nickname was
• 1:42:24
  Dodo? Is this?
• 1:42:26
  Something. Is this just something we're
• 1:42:27
  missing in that? Final episode of the Massacre.
• 1:42:28
  When she comes in, you know, is there some sort of sight gag
• 1:42:31
  where she gets her arse stuck in the doors?
• 1:42:34
  They have to open both doors. I didn't spend a lot of time
• 1:42:36
  looking at Dodo's arse, but we. Do have two heterosexuals on
• 1:42:39
  this call. There's a look of.
• 1:42:45
  Nonplussness in them both. They had a good look at Zoe, Zoe
• 1:42:50
  in The Mind Robber when she was. Yeah, I can confirm.
• 1:42:56
  That, yeah. I mean you.
• 1:42:58
  Can't miss it as it bypasses. The.
• 1:43:00
  Camera. It was very funny, though there
• 1:43:04
  was there was lots of witty. Lines in this Oh yeah.
• 1:43:08
  It was just just very enjoyable for me.
• 1:43:12
  Yeah, it's not the best book we've read.
• 1:43:15
  But it's a really enjoyable, easy, straightforward read.
• 1:43:19
  It's got something to say. And I breezed through it.
• 1:43:23
  And I think that for me that's a sign if if I can get through it
• 1:43:27
  quickly. And I mean, I spent a good chunk
• 1:43:29
  reading it stuck on a train delayed on Friday because it's
• 1:43:32
  like, I just need and I was just steaming through it.
• 1:43:36
  And it's like, this is it's a good distraction.
• 1:43:38
  It just takes you out of the real world for a little bit as
• 1:43:40
  well, which is what a good book should do.
• 1:43:46
  Any more for any more? It teaches kids and I think
• 1:43:50
  good, entertaining Dr. Who should?
• 1:43:54
  I mean, I think we easily forget that Doctor Who is for kids
• 1:43:57
  because we're all of a certain age now and we still love Doctor
• 1:44:02
  Who. And I think when Doctor Who
• 1:44:05
  forgets children, that is a fatal mistake.
• 1:44:09
  So the fact that this range of books existed for younger
• 1:44:13
  children that gave them a whale of a time and told them
• 1:44:17
  something really important, I think that's a wonderful thing.
• 1:44:23
  I tried, I tried to get my dad did say to my son yesterday that
• 1:44:26
  this. Is a book he would probably
• 1:44:27
  enjoy. He's he's not interested in
• 1:44:29
  Doctor Who. He's he's, he's really not.
• 1:44:32
  The only books we send and share at the moment are the Agatha
• 1:44:34
  Christie ones, but I've said to him if he didn't read anyone
• 1:44:38
  this is a good one and I would happily give this to someone who
• 1:44:42
  isn't even a fan of the series because I don't think there's
• 1:44:45
  anything complicated in here that links it other than the
• 1:44:48
  TARDIS and the Doctor and Martha.
• 1:44:50
  Anything that inherently links it to Doctor.
• 1:44:52
  It is a just a good tale. I'm not sure I'd give it to an
• 1:44:56
  adult that I know, but if. There was a sort of a sharp 10
• 1:45:01
  year old I would, you know, of a friend of mine.
• 1:45:03
  I would say please give this a read.
• 1:45:05
  You have a blast. Jack Rainer.
• 1:45:08
  She's good. She's Yeah.
• 1:45:10
  No. I'm so pleased we've done this
• 1:45:11
  one. Whoever whoever said we should.
• 1:45:14
  Do a Jack Rainer book. Well done.
• 1:45:16
  Although at some point we. Should do Jack Rainer for adults
• 1:45:19
  as well. Yeah, because, because.
• 1:45:22
  Because that was the thing. Because.
• 1:45:25
  I, I was really looking forward to doing this because I read,
• 1:45:28
  like I said, I read those, those initial 6 Christopher Eccles and
• 1:45:32
  she did is it win it takes all. And that was that was a really
• 1:45:36
  good one. And then I think like there was
• 1:45:39
  like the decade books that came out around the time of the
• 1:45:44
  anniversary. The imaginary friends.
• 1:45:48
  Yeah, Friends is beautiful head. And shoulders the best one of
• 1:45:51
  that range. It's a book club on that one.
• 1:45:53
  We. Did that one and.
• 1:45:55
  Yeah. Maybe that was good.
• 1:45:56
  Yeah, it is. So good.
• 1:45:58
  So, so good. So yeah.
• 1:46:00
  So I was. I was.
• 1:46:01
  I was delighted that we were going to do that.
• 1:46:03
  And I think, I think like, I still stand by.
• 1:46:06
  Why the heck hasn't she done ATV story?
• 1:46:11
  Why? Because I think she'd be
• 1:46:13
  magicated. She's too busy doing everything
• 1:46:16
  else. Yeah, yeah, pretty much right in
• 1:46:18
  the comic. Strips, articles, you know, big
• 1:46:20
  finishes. Yeah.
• 1:46:24
  So I think it's safe to say we all enjoyed celebrating the last
• 1:46:28
  Dodo. And so we can now send this off
• 1:46:31
  to the Museum of the Last Ones to stand proudly in its cabinet
• 1:46:35
  for all to see until someone jettisons it out into space and
• 1:46:39
  then forgets the thing was there in the first place.
• 1:46:42
  I heard people coming and look for somewhere to hide.
• 1:46:44
  Of course I'd have not zapped all the dinosaurs to modern day
• 1:46:47
  Earth, that would have been easy enough.
• 1:46:49
  But as it was, I crouched behind a sign indicating the way to the
• 1:46:53
  gift shop, put a finger to my lips and shushed Dorothea and
• 1:46:57
  hoped for the best. The footsteps got louder.
• 1:47:00
  There's also the sound of something being wheeled along,
• 1:47:03
  and for a moment I thought they'd got a shopping trolley
• 1:47:05
  too. But as I peered cautiously round
• 1:47:08
  the sign, I saw that it was actually a wheeled stretcher.
• 1:47:11
  The men pushing it wore jumpsuits with Infirmary written
• 1:47:15
  on the back, and on the stretcher laid Tommy.
• 1:47:18
  There was colour in his cheeks and he was breathing normally,
• 1:47:21
  and although I wasn't really in any position to make a
• 1:47:23
  prognosis, I was pretty sure he was going to be all right.
• 1:47:27
  Didn't stop me from feeling bad for abandoning him though.
• 1:47:32
  But I didn't have time to indulge in guilt.
• 1:47:34
  I had a job to do, or try to do. It's all very well-being sent to
• 1:47:38
  find out something, but when you're actually come to consider
• 1:47:42
  the matter, you realise it's not quite as simple as that.
• 1:47:45
  Size of museum? Probably several million square
• 1:47:49
  mile. Size of investigator?
• 1:47:50
  Well, I might manage 6 feet if I was wearing high heels and
• 1:47:54
  standing on a stool. Like looking for a needle in a
• 1:47:56
  haystack as big as whales, except more difficult because at
• 1:47:59
  least you'd know a that you were searching for a needle and B
• 1:48:03
  what a needle looks like. Because I didn't have a clue
• 1:48:06
  what I was after. Duplicate dodos, double
• 1:48:10
  dinosaurs and some Sabre tooths. Someone had to be breeding them,
• 1:48:15
  or more likely, this was being the future and everything
• 1:48:19
  cloning them that would account for them being identical.
• 1:48:25
  I looked down at Dorothea. I guess this meant she wasn't
• 1:48:29
  the last dodo after all. That was probably back on
• 1:48:32
  Mauritius right now, causing havoc among the holiday makers.
• 1:48:34
  But something grown in a VAT from an abstracted cell or two,
• 1:48:38
  Did it make her any less of a being?
• 1:48:40
  Not in my eyes. I ruffled her neck feathers and
• 1:48:43
  she nuzzled my hand, seemingly perfectly content in my company,
• 1:48:48
  I guess. Like her earlier relatives,
• 1:48:50
  she'd not experienced any predators inside her VAT, Didn't
• 1:48:54
  know that humans could bring harm.
• 1:48:56
  She'd know nothing except a laboratory.
• 1:48:57
  Before her brief foray into the Earth, she'd know nothing except
• 1:49:01
  a laboratory giant Peruvian flightless homing pigeon.
• 1:49:05
  The Doctor had called the bird to cunningly mislead a curious
• 1:49:08
  passerby, and the dodo entry in the eye spider guide had called
• 1:49:12
  the largest member of the pigeon family.
• 1:49:15
  Could it be possible? Was there any chance whatsoever
• 1:49:18
  that the Doctor's jesting words are?
• 1:49:20
  Contained a grain. Of truth.
• 1:49:25
  I waited until the Infirmary party was completely out of
• 1:49:28
  sight and then heftered Dorothea out of the trolley.
• 1:49:32
  She started walking forwards and I held my breath, but she'd only
• 1:49:35
  gone to investigate an empty paper cup, presumably dropped by
• 1:49:39
  a visitor. I breathed out.
• 1:49:41
  It had been a daft idea. Time to rethink.
• 1:49:45
  Here's what I found useful. Being a detective.
• 1:49:48
  OK, Being with the doctor, coming up with ridiculous Pine
• 1:49:51
  the Sky hypothesis and not being afraid to test them.
• 1:49:55
  Where was all this stuff happening?
• 1:49:57
  That's right. Therefore, who was most likely
• 1:50:02
  to be involved? Yep, one of the Earthers.
• 1:50:06
  After all, one of them had already been exposed as a dodgy
• 1:50:09
  dealer. I considered Frank as the
• 1:50:12
  culprit. Possible, but he was currently
• 1:50:16
  locked up, so how could he have sent all the clones to Earth?
• 1:50:19
  Plus, would he have the scientific knowledge necessary
• 1:50:23
  to create them in the first place?
• 1:50:25
  Still, the Earthers quarters seemed a good of place as any to
• 1:50:28
  start the search. Of course, I didn't know where
• 1:50:31
  they were. I did, however, know which
• 1:50:34
  cafeteria Dorvani had gone out of on her way to bed, and I
• 1:50:37
  couldn't think of any other starting point.
• 1:50:40
  So I put Dorothea back in the trolley and set off.
• 1:50:43
  I didn't have the instincts of a homing pigeon, but I was fairly
• 1:50:46
  sure I could find the way to the cafeteria, mainly because there
• 1:50:49
  were signs with great big arrows indicating the right direction.
• 1:50:54
  The sight of the canteen made me realize that I'd only had a
• 1:50:58
  doughnut all day and I was starving.
• 1:51:01
  Of course, I didn't have any money on me to get something out
• 1:51:04
  of the vending machines. And then I spotted a cardboard
• 1:51:07
  box by the side of the half empty machine.
• 1:51:10
  Refills. And funny how your polite 21st
• 1:51:13
  century law abiding habits are hard to break.
• 1:51:16
  Could I bring myself to nick a packet of crisps?
• 1:51:19
  Not a first, and then I reminded myself that thanks to this
• 1:51:22
  museum, I'd been nearly shot at and nearly eaten, to name but
• 1:51:25
  two incidents. So the Lisidomi was a packet of
• 1:51:28
  cheese and onion, so I had one with some salt and vinegar to
• 1:51:32
  follow and bother the cholesterol.
• 1:51:35
  I did venture A sniff at the packet of sausage and
• 1:51:37
  marshmallow, obviously the in flavour of the future, but
• 1:51:40
  chickened out. They turned out to be a hit with
• 1:51:43
  Dorothea though, who crunched the savoury sweet snack down
• 1:51:46
  with every indication of enjoyment.
• 1:51:49
  She was halfway through the Chris when she suddenly stopped
• 1:51:52
  and put her head to one side, listening.
• 1:51:55
  Birds must have ears, mustn't they?
• 1:51:57
  It's just, you can't see them. Yes, of course they have.
• 1:52:00
  There'll be no point at all that chirping otherwise anyway.
• 1:52:03
  After listening for a few moments, she waddled to the end
• 1:52:05
  of the trolley, pushing on the child seaters to try to propel
• 1:52:08
  the whole thing forward, but owing to physics, she couldn't.
• 1:52:11
  Of course I lifted her out, hardly daring to breathe, but
• 1:52:14
  surely my plan wasn't actually working.
• 1:52:16
  Was she really homing? She waddled off and I followed
• 1:52:20
  eagerly through the door, down a corridor, down another corridor,
• 1:52:24
  and then she stopped outside what appeared to be a plain
• 1:52:27
  white wall and started scrabbling at it with her beak.
• 1:52:30
  I listened. There was definite squawking
• 1:52:34
  sounds coming from the other side of the wall.
• 1:52:36
  Dorothea probably hadn't been homing, she'd just been
• 1:52:38
  following the sounds just, well, it was good enough for me.
• 1:52:43
  But how to get in when there didn't seem to be any doors at
• 1:52:45
  all? Not for the first time, I wish I
• 1:52:48
  had a Sonic screwdriver of my own.
• 1:52:50
  And then suddenly a section of the wall slid back.
• 1:52:54
  I don't know who was more surprised, me or Frank.
• 1:52:58
  Frank. There you are.
• 1:53:00
  Always go with your first instinct.
• 1:53:03
  You're supposed to be locked up. I cried.
• 1:53:06
  You took a couple of steps back. Yeah, right.
• 1:53:08
  Ain't built a place that can hold me.
• 1:53:11
  What are you doing? I asked.
• 1:53:13
  He shrugged defensively. Just nipping out for a, well,
• 1:53:16
  you know, there. Planning advice for anyone
• 1:53:20
  thinking of installing a secret laboratory with secret doors.
• 1:53:24
  Make sure it's got a loo. If Frank had done that, he'd
• 1:53:27
  probably be free to this day. That's not what I meant.
• 1:53:30
  I told him, and before he could stop me, I'd pushed past.
• 1:53:34
  If I was going to find any answers, this looked like the
• 1:53:37
  place to be, but we like to finish our top three, so this is
• 1:53:46
  no exception. And the top three that we're
• 1:53:49
  doing this week is you have three spots in a museum and you
• 1:53:54
  can put three Doctor Who items into those spots from anything.
• 1:54:02
  Time isn't important, place, etcetera, doesn't matter
• 1:54:05
  anything. What 3 items do you pick to go
• 1:54:08
  into those spots? And let's start with Dan.
• 1:54:15
  OK? Do you want me to do all three
• 1:54:16
  or are we going to do do you? Want to go for all three OK OK
• 1:54:25
  yeah, so I. Think with with my choices.
• 1:54:28
  I wanted to celebrate all of the brilliant, inventive and
• 1:54:36
  creative people that have kind of worked on on the series.
• 1:54:40
  I didn't, I didn't want to go, I didn't want to go, oh, let's,
• 1:54:43
  let's stick a Dalek in, let's stick aside the mountain on the
• 1:54:45
  TARDIS and that sort of thing. I didn't want to go, I didn't
• 1:54:47
  want to go Route 1. So I think the first, the first
• 1:54:53
  thing that I would like to stick in this, this museum is I want
• 1:54:59
  to highlight the contribution that that Stephen Mansfield and
• 1:55:03
  Susan Moore did towards the end of the classic series.
• 1:55:08
  I know I could have, I could have picked quite a number of
• 1:55:11
  things, but what I've gone for is I've gone for the, the, the,
• 1:55:15
  the destroyer from Battlefield. That costume, I think is
• 1:55:19
  possibly one of the greatest or best looking monsters from that
• 1:55:24
  original run. And, and, and I think you could
• 1:55:27
  do all kinds of things. You could get the, the
• 1:55:29
  animatronics working for the display.
• 1:55:31
  So it's snarling away and drooling and dribbling.
• 1:55:34
  So I think that would be really cool.
• 1:55:35
  So that'd be one of mine. The next one is I would want to
• 1:55:41
  put in something by Alastair Pearson.
• 1:55:43
  He's my favorite cover artist, I think for Doctor Who and and I
• 1:55:49
  would like to have the, the painting for, for his version of
• 1:55:55
  the, the, the target book for survival.
• 1:55:57
  So it's not necessarily my favorite of his.
• 1:56:03
  It is a cracking painting, but then the balls of this guy to
• 1:56:07
  finish the painting and then go on.
• 1:56:10
  I'm going to get a scalpel and go down down it to make it look
• 1:56:16
  like it's been torn by one of. The the Cheetah people.
• 1:56:19
  Is just an amazing because like one false slip one false move
• 1:56:22
  and he could have totally messed up that and I was like man of
• 1:56:26
  life, but I would I would like that in there the original one
• 1:56:29
  that's. Been.
• 1:56:30
  That's been slashed and then this probably is a little bit
• 1:56:37
  route one, but I think it's very appropriate.
• 1:56:39
  For. What we are actually doing.
• 1:56:41
  So I would want a first edition hardback of the Frederick Muller
• 1:56:47
  Doctor Who in an exciting adventure with the Daleks
• 1:56:50
  because that is the book that started it all.
• 1:56:54
  You know, 60 odd years on, we're still getting Doctor Who books
• 1:57:00
  and and and without this, this book club wouldn't exist.
• 1:57:04
  So it's got it's got to go in there.
• 1:57:05
  So that that's my freak fabulous.
• 1:57:08
  And David, how about you? What are you putting in the
• 1:57:10
  limelight? See, I'm kind of getting into.
• 1:57:13
  My eve mode or or Governor Lobos.
• 1:57:16
  Kind of, you know, who's going into my Space Museum, you know,
• 1:57:19
  and I thought I'm going to put one real world thing, one thing
• 1:57:24
  from my own collection and then one thing from the series
• 1:57:27
  because I thought I might as well.
• 1:57:29
  And the real world thing I'd love to stick into a museum is
• 1:57:33
  Colin Baker. Because I think you need you
• 1:57:37
  need an exhibit that's an example of the actors who've
• 1:57:39
  played the Doctor. I think, considering how poorly
• 1:57:44
  he was treated and how fandom treated him of like, who better
• 1:57:48
  to be the exhibit of the example representing the whole of Doctor
• 1:57:52
  Who in a museum. It would have to be called
• 1:57:54
  because he he deserves to be stuffed and put in a case, not
• 1:57:58
  stuffed. He's in a he's he's he's, he's
• 1:58:01
  in a temporal thing. He's presented.
• 1:58:04
  You've said stuff now. I wouldn't.
• 1:58:05
  I would never I. Could stuffed.
• 1:58:10
  Stuffed. You can record that on a loop
• 1:58:13
  and every time you go you press the button.
• 1:58:14
  And he comes out with quotes but I just.
• 1:58:16
  Say sorry you were treated so badly, Colin, we're going to
• 1:58:19
  stuff you up there from. Behind He's not dead.
• 1:58:24
  He's preserved like he was in the Museum of.
• 1:58:28
  The last ones, he's there. He's immortal.
• 1:58:31
  Immortal forever. Oh I'm going to get such abuse
• 1:58:35
  for that. We have like a camera doing a
• 1:58:37
  regular crash zoom on him though like.
• 1:58:40
  Never wax, never wane. I'm going to move on now before
• 1:58:46
  this gets even weirder from. My own stuff.
• 1:58:50
  It is. The Radio Times from 1993, the
• 1:58:53
  one with the five doctors on the cover.
• 1:58:56
  Protein dimensions in time. I still have that.
• 1:58:59
  It is barely in one piece because it got read so many
• 1:59:04
  times. It's sitting in a box upstairs.
• 1:59:06
  I dare. I almost kind of like, oh, bring
• 1:59:08
  it down. I go, no, don't because the
• 1:59:10
  cover will come off or something will fall out.
• 1:59:13
  I have had that since 1993. It was probably my first piece
• 1:59:17
  of Doctor merchandise. It is still one of my most
• 1:59:20
  favorite things because that was just such a the beginning of my
• 1:59:23
  fandom. It has an A-Z of monsters and
• 1:59:26
  it's like, what are all these things of these?
• 1:59:28
  Brilliant. And that cover's fantastic.
• 1:59:30
  So that's my second thing. Finally, it has to make
• 1:59:34
  something from in the fiction of.
• 1:59:37
  Doctor to go. Into a museum thing that I think
• 1:59:39
  embodies series the most is ethos and everything.
• 1:59:45
  There's a punch line coming. I'm sorry, it's Barbara Wright's
• 1:59:47
  cardigan. Because, you know, it's already
• 1:59:50
  kind of in a museum because it's kind of strung round the Space
• 1:59:52
  Museum anyway. But I think not many action TV
• 1:59:56
  series can get away with having a hero wearing a cardigan.
• 2:00:00
  And actually they're making it a plot point.
• 2:00:02
  So it's like that alone. And also it represents Barbara
• 2:00:04
  Wright, who was probably one of the greatest companions of the
• 2:00:06
  entire series. So I'm sticking Barbara's
• 2:00:09
  cardigan in the museum. Don't expect a serious answer to
• 2:00:12
  a question about Peter the Chase, where he's like, oh, can
• 2:00:15
  you take your card to get off? I'm just going not.
• 2:00:17
  Again, for God's sake. So, Joe, can you top Barbara's
• 2:00:23
  cardigan? Oh, these were such smart.
• 2:00:26
  Funny. Ideas I've just gotten personal.
• 2:00:29
  My first bit of merchandise I bought with my own money, which
• 2:00:32
  is the trial of a Time Lord Tardis tin, which meant so much
• 2:00:35
  to me at the time. I've got into it at nauseam, but
• 2:00:39
  Colin was my hero. That season got me for a
• 2:00:43
  difficult patch, so I love that. So I would love to have that
• 2:00:46
  preserved. And then I want to swing right
• 2:00:49
  to the other side, to a piece of merchandise that taught me at
• 2:00:53
  the tender age of 44. David, are you going to have to
• 2:00:58
  correct me here or not that there are still things to learn
• 2:01:02
  about Doctor Who even when you think you know it all.
• 2:01:05
  And David and I covered the myth makers on the hamster and I read
• 2:01:09
  the novelization. Still my favorite Doctor Who
• 2:01:12
  book of all time. Absolute revelation to me.
• 2:01:15
  It was, I didn't really give the story a chance before then.
• 2:01:18
  And now it's one of my favourites.
• 2:01:19
  So I'm putting Donald Cotton's myth Makers in there as well.
• 2:01:23
  And finally, probably my greatest gift from starting
• 2:01:31
  podcasting is my relationship with Nathan Bottomley from
• 2:01:36
  Flight for Entirety, who I started talking to you like five
• 2:01:39
  years ago. We talk every single day now.
• 2:01:42
  And so sorry, Nathan, it's been nice talking, but I'm going to
• 2:01:45
  shove you behind glass now till the end of time.
• 2:01:48
  I love that man with all my heart, and podcasting is what
• 2:01:51
  brought me to him. And so, yeah, a person is my
• 2:01:55
  last name. Nathan.
• 2:01:56
  Sorry, mate, you're in prison. Just make sure he's good doing a
• 2:02:00
  very nice pose. He's sharing the museum with
• 2:02:03
  Collins, so you know he's in good company.
• 2:02:05
  He'll go out on a witty line. I'm.
• 2:02:07
  Sure. Oh no, not again.
• 2:02:13
  My my might seem a bit. Bit dull by comparison.
• 2:02:16
  I'm sorry Dan, I have gone for a Tardis police box, but the
• 2:02:22
  original Unearthly Child design to sit there to sort of typify
• 2:02:28
  the entire series that on an unchanging silhouette, although
• 2:02:32
  it does change a little bit, but it's essentially the structure
• 2:02:35
  that everything else is then built out of the the spider at
• 2:02:38
  the centre of the web of Doctor Who.
• 2:02:42
  My second item is actually the manuscript for an exciting
• 2:02:47
  adventure with the Daleks. And I say that because I never
• 2:02:52
  got to see the manuscript of Agatha Christie's Curtain that
• 2:02:55
  was on display last year. I missed that one.
• 2:02:58
  So I was, I was determined to have something that was book
• 2:03:00
  related in there. And for very similar reasons as
• 2:03:03
  Dan. It's the one that starts it all
• 2:03:05
  and it's the the original manuscript.
• 2:03:07
  So, you know, you can just stand and stare in appreciation and
• 2:03:11
  watch the eons that traverse afterwards of, of literary
• 2:03:15
  greatness that come after that. And my final item is Colin
• 2:03:22
  Baker's coat, because that is a pure work of art and would
• 2:03:27
  absolutely look wonderful, sort of splayed out so you can
• 2:03:30
  literally witness all the colours in one mosaic.
• 2:03:35
  So between all of us, we've probably got a lot of the six
• 2:03:37
  Doctor in our museums. Colin's finally dead and stuff
• 2:03:41
  and he's still got to look at our fucking coat.
• 2:03:43
  For God's sake, even more of me, I think like.
• 2:03:49
  That Tardis, Tim, that that you. You've put in the I again, I
• 2:03:54
  again it, it was my first kind of introduction to the sick
• 2:03:59
  doctor. And and So what was that?
• 2:04:02
  Was that 90? That was 93.
• 2:04:04
  Yeah, yeah. And because of that.
• 2:04:08
  I then went into. This massive for two or three
• 2:04:12
  years, Colin Baker was the be all and end all and like I
• 2:04:16
  remember I remember like because my form room at the school was
• 2:04:20
  was The Art Room and I remember making clay models and it was
• 2:04:26
  always Colin Baker and always that coat it it.
• 2:04:29
  Yeah, it's just. Do any of those still exist,
• 2:04:31
  Dan? No, I I've got.
• 2:04:34
  I've got a Tom Baker kicking around.
• 2:04:36
  Somewhere. I'll, I'll dig it out and show
• 2:04:39
  it to you guys. I can show you something really
• 2:04:41
  freaky in clay if you want to see it.
• 2:04:43
  Yeah, go for it. Go for.
• 2:04:44
  It just. In my window.
• 2:04:50
  This has been all right. This is.
• 2:04:52
  Tom Baker's. Face.
• 2:04:54
  On a carrier bag. That I did.
• 2:04:58
  For GCSE. Art and I still have it to this
• 2:05:01
  day. His nose isn't quite right
• 2:05:03
  because somebody smashed it when it came out of the kill and I
• 2:05:05
  had to remodel it. Yeah, I'm sorry.
• 2:05:08
  I'm just thinking about paving, slabbing, love and monsters.
• 2:05:11
  You. Know.
• 2:05:18
  I'm sorry, Better than that. I mean on the subject of the
• 2:05:21
  TARDIS. Tin what did we all get on the
• 2:05:22
  bottom? Who did we get on the bottom?
• 2:05:24
  I had Tom on. Mine.
• 2:05:26
  Yeah, I had John Perkway. I can't.
• 2:05:29
  Remember. Dig it out, David, you still.
• 2:05:32
  Got it. I would speak to.
• 2:05:34
  Davidson. Pretty sure it was John.
• 2:05:37
  Yeah, yeah. Jump that way.
• 2:05:39
  There he is. I've got a fact.
• 2:05:41
  Yeah, Gareth. Why Peter Davison?
• 2:05:46
  Am I? Oh wow.
• 2:05:48
  Don't know what I'd. Call in.
• 2:05:50
  Oh my God. I didn't realise.
• 2:05:53
  I didn't. I didn't.
• 2:05:53
  I got it as a Christmas present, so I didn't.
• 2:05:55
  Even get a choice with it. No, I I did as well.
• 2:05:58
  I think we can sort of come to the conclusion of what an
• 2:06:01
  incredible. Museum we would all curate.
• 2:06:03
  Together I I think it would be a fantastic one and definitely,
• 2:06:08
  definitely. Worth visiting fellas before we
• 2:06:13
  go? I've got some.
• 2:06:14
  Really bad news for all of you. Oh, no, that's right.
• 2:06:21
  Yes, yes. It's the next book.
• 2:06:24
  That's right. Next time we're going to a mid.
• 2:06:28
  Range. Torture pawn.
• 2:06:31
  New adventure. Now, Dan, you might be all right
• 2:06:33
  because you're, Oh no, you're all sort of massive fans on New
• 2:06:36
  adventures, aren't you? Now this is Jim Mortimer, so the
• 2:06:38
  death count will probably be quite high.
• 2:06:41
  The boobies are very real on the cover and as we like them well,
• 2:06:46
  two bro 2 deep. You know the fellow from Too
• 2:06:51
  Broad and Too Deep podcast? He's been reading The Pit.
• 2:06:55
  He's having to hide his copy around his house because he
• 2:06:57
  doesn't want his flatmate to see the blue boobies on the front.
• 2:07:02
  So parasite is is where we're going.
• 2:07:04
  Next, how are you feeling? About that I I, I don't think
• 2:07:11
  I've ever read it so. So I'm.
• 2:07:14
  Coming to it new but but I know obviously his reputation isn't
• 2:07:18
  great and it's probably why I haven't read it so well because
• 2:07:23
  this the the context of this was.
• 2:07:26
  I. We were trying to decide the
• 2:07:27
  next. Book I shared a picture of a
• 2:07:28
  bookshelf and Joe just said I spot I've spotted something I
• 2:07:31
  think we should do and it was like what?
• 2:07:34
  I think it was a stunned silence.
• 2:07:36
  It was like what? What's he going to pick?
• 2:07:39
  Who would be? Mad enough to do.
• 2:07:41
  This book with me, Thanks. Gents.
• 2:07:44
  And it's it's one of the stories those books has got a really bad
• 2:07:48
  reputation. Because Joe, you shared it
• 2:07:50
  today, I shared it today and so many people have said what a dog
• 2:07:55
  of a book. But if we listened to received
• 2:07:59
  fan wisdom, we would all be saying how terrible the
• 2:08:03
  Gunfighters is or how terrible the myth makers is.
• 2:08:06
  Because these are stories that are not well regarded.
• 2:08:08
  They put in anything. Yes, indeed.
• 2:08:13
  So you know this is a chance and as.
• 2:08:16
  As my as my husband always makes.
• 2:08:18
  Fun of Doctor Who fans for we can't just decide if we like or
• 2:08:20
  like something. We always have to reappraise
• 2:08:22
  things. So it's like, let's let's have a
• 2:08:25
  look. And I actually I I've had
• 2:08:26
  parasites since early 2000s and I realised I thought I must have
• 2:08:30
  read this and I was looking at it.
• 2:08:31
  They got off the shelf last night going yeah, I don't think
• 2:08:33
  I read it. I think I skipped.
• 2:08:35
  I think I just heard the reputation skipped it.
• 2:08:37
  So I'm for this. I am already 50 pages in and
• 2:08:42
  it's not disagreeable. So far I enjoy it so we can
• 2:08:48
  stick that on the front cover. This is not disagreeable.
• 2:08:54
  It says nobody from the tagline, Gareth.
• 2:09:00
  You have not said your thoughts on parasite.
• 2:09:05
  And because it comes in that period.
• 2:09:10
  That's preceded by Falls The Shadow, which was the worst new
• 2:09:16
  adventure ever, and my memory of this is that it wasn't very
• 2:09:20
  good. Although I haven't just looked
• 2:09:21
  on good reads, I've seen my star rating, but I might save that
• 2:09:25
  for next time because even I've been surprised at my star rating
• 2:09:28
  based on my memory. Gareth, can I say thank you for
• 2:09:34
  your lovely questions and your, you know, the way you.
• 2:09:37
  Wittily put them all together. You're a fabulous host at this.
• 2:09:42
  I will drink gin more often. Do it, do it, do it.
• 2:09:45
  Touch Courage. Is that the secret to it?
• 2:09:49
  Being half cup? No, you were.
• 2:09:51
  Fabulous as well. No, I wasn't, but thank you for
• 2:09:55
  saying so. How do we help this in a sort of
• 2:09:59
  last dodo sort of a way? Best Martha Jones impression.
• 2:10:05
  Are we going to go for KFD? What's?
• 2:10:10
  That dodo. What can't find Dodo?
• 2:10:14
  Let's all just waddle out the. Door of our big fat asses into
• 2:10:17
  the future.