Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Strictly Come Hamster - Series 7b (featuring Mark Dodyk & Cameron from The Polis Box)

Transcript

Strictly Come Hamster - Series 7b (featuring Mark Dodyk & Cameron from The Polis Box) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

0:33
Joe Ford, you hag. You a vidious hag, you've a
0:37
raga, you harpy. After all these years, I've
0:40
helped you on Strictly Come hamster.
0:42
I've served you, I've looked after you.
0:43
They come for nothing. Nothing at all.
0:47
No die. Welcome back to Strictly.
0:52
Come Hamster. My name is Joe Ford.
0:55
I was going to start with that terrible quote that Clara Oswald
0:58
keeps saying in this season. Run, you clever boy.
1:02
What's the rest of it? I can't.
1:03
Even Remember Me. Oh, I forgot.
1:05
I can't remember it. Yeah, the travel is right.
1:08
He does a lot of running, but he don't remember nothing in this
1:10
season. It's the arc that never gets
1:12
going. Or even when he does start to
1:14
remember. No.
1:15
All right, we'll get there. Yeah.
1:18
My name is Joe Ford. Hello.
1:19
And I'm going to hand you over immediately to Mr. Rod Brown.
1:22
Now, Rod, we haven't recorded for a couple of weeks.
1:24
We may be rusty. We may be rusty, so let's let's
1:27
hope, let's get into it. I mean we are finishing off
1:29
series 7 after we started 7A got a couple of months ago now and
1:34
we had two too. Kind.
1:35
Far too kind about. Well, we had two takeaways from
1:38
that. One, our guests and our
1:40
listeners pretty much unanimously said about 7A, thank
1:43
fuck we're not doing 7 day. That's right.
1:46
I don't know what that's going to say about tonight.
1:48
But secondly, if you remember, we had two Scottish guests to
1:51
help us out on 7A and. We guess what's?
1:53
Happening tonight. We've got two very handsome
1:56
Scottish guests with us today. You could almost think this
1:59
podcast was planned, couldn't you?
2:00
Yeah. Oh, did you do that on purpose?
2:02
Well, I don't like to say, but. This is not quite Amy Pond in it
2:06
now. There's nothing Scottish.
2:07
Oh, I suppose morph it. Yeah, hello.
2:09
Yeah. Anyway, let's get into it.
2:11
And to help us sort out our long song from our river song from
2:15
our Victorian Smog Pong, we're joined by two very special
2:19
guests who to misquote the 11th doctor I would have on my quiz
2:23
team. So between us, we're going to
2:24
decide which story is going to be lifting the recursion glitz
2:27
ball and which is going to be left to freeze underwater in the
2:30
hope that they're thawed out either for 1983 or the second
2:33
Ice Age. So let's welcome tonight's
2:36
guests. Let's start with Cam.
2:38
Cam, would you like to introduce yourself?
2:40
Hello, my name is Cameron Phillips.
2:42
I am the third wheel on the Polish box for about the last
2:47
six or seven years. You're also my 7th husband, you
2:52
know. I am.
2:53
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am in podcast.
2:55
I was married to Joe. That makes you the short, grumpy
2:58
Scottish one. Yes, you.
3:01
Know indeed, even more of a good time Girl than River Song, you
3:03
know. And I don't know where to go
3:08
with that. And our 2nd guest Mark.
3:12
Hello, I'm I'm. Hello, thank you for having me.
3:15
I'm Mark Dodick. You may have heard me on other
3:17
editions of Hamster at some point or other and a few other
3:20
podcasts here and there like Trap One.
3:23
Yes, looking forward to discussing this series.
3:27
Well, that's. Why has he got a psychotic gleam
3:31
in his eye right now that. Was some odd yeah, Everyone's
3:33
keeping the powder's very dry tonight, but we're going to get
3:36
straight into it. So before we get into the
3:38
stories, come on guys. What do you feel generally about
3:42
7B? Without specifics, how do you
3:44
feel about it as a can't say a series, but a half series at
3:48
least Cam? I would put forward the theory
3:54
that this half of season 7 gets overlooked slightly because
4:00
everyone was looking for the 50th and everyone was kind of
4:03
looking ahead for that. I was pleasantly surprised when
4:06
I rewatched this after about 10 years during this broadcast.
4:10
There's a couple of absolute gems here that I completely
4:13
skipped by. You know, I never returned to
4:16
after original broadcast and I've kind of forgotten about.
4:19
Gems. You would go that far.
4:21
I would say gems. I can't wait to hear what they
4:23
are because I've watched them this week.
4:25
Stone cold bangers in here, Joe. Oh my gosh.
4:28
We all love a Stone Cold. Bang, this is going to be a
4:30
revelation, this podcast. Mark, where do you sit on 7 Bay?
4:36
Ambivalence. Oh, OK, let's see.
4:41
But that's probably that's that's my improved opinion,
4:44
having just recently revisited a lot of it.
4:48
OK, he's really, he's really keeping his powder dry, isn't he
4:53
Joe? I'd hate to ask, but what do you
4:56
think about 7B Joe? We're sort of tentatively
4:59
messaging each other today, as we tend to do winding each other
5:03
up before a recording, especially if we're doing
5:05
Moffett or Chibnall that I think this is probably my least
5:10
favorite half season, season whatever of Classic and Noohoo.
5:15
I think there are points in this half season which are as inept
5:20
television as Doctor Who ever put out, and I can't wait to
5:24
talk about those couple of episodes.
5:26
But how dogs who survive this is baffling to me.
5:31
And as usual, I can confirm that Joe Ford is talking absolute
5:34
shite because I too think that this is a much overlooked and
5:38
undervalued half series. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
5:41
I enjoyed it at the time. There are some highs, there are
5:44
some lows. I'm not going to, I'm not going
5:46
to deny there are a couple of a couple of lows.
5:50
I think there are a lot of highs in here too.
5:52
And there is one absolute stone cold classic in here.
5:55
Yes, classic. I use that term advisedly.
5:58
Joe is looking at me as though I've just completely.
6:00
Redefining the the the terms of a classic.
6:03
I think if it's Journey to the centre of the Sardis, we're
6:07
done. All right, well it might be, it
6:10
might be. Let's get on to it though.
6:12
So come and Mark, can you do us the honour please of reading the
6:16
listeners overview comments before we get into the stories
6:20
themselves? Oh, and also fellas, you know,
6:25
should you wish to disagree or insult the viewers for some
6:28
reason, they sort of like that kind of thing.
6:30
So if you really don't agree with what what you're reading
6:32
out, please feel free to say so because I certainly will be
6:35
doing that. Glenn Fitzgerald says Matt
6:39
Smith's finest hour. He absolutely owns the show at
6:43
this point. His Doctor is almost Jekyll and
6:46
Hyde, going from serious to buffoon and back again in
6:49
seconds with Clara. They make the show what it
6:51
should be, refreshing and action-packed.
6:55
He's mad. When was Matt Smith serious in
6:57
this season? He just waved his hands around a
6:59
lot like Willy Wonka. On the other hand, we've got
7:05
David Gillespie Pratt's comment, the nadir of Doctor Who.
7:08
Boring, lazy and tired. The mystery of Clara doesn't
7:11
work. The mystery is teased in bells,
7:13
then nothing really happens until the end.
7:15
So that means a lot of treading water.
7:18
He's such an engaging bloke. David Gillespie Pratt, isn't he?
7:21
What a smart guy, yeah. And also the smart Luke Malloy,
7:25
you know. Yes, Luke Malloy, Doctor Who at
7:29
its breezy best, Smith totally inhabits the character with
7:33
great performances in great stories like Bells, Akatan and
7:37
Crimson Horror. Barely an ark, loads of
7:41
monsters, straightforward adventures.
7:44
Doesn't that sound refreshing right now?
7:46
No it doesn't. And anyway he's barely reached
7:49
puberty. In his opinion, don't matter.
7:54
Dylan Rees says very mediocre, filled with episodes that would
7:58
be OK in a 13 part series, no classics, and a finale that
8:01
feels like it belongs to a season we haven't seen.
8:04
Bin them all. It's when I'm not being even,
8:07
I'm not being that. Much.
8:09
Yeah, that's about. Them all, good God.
8:13
He's a madman, Dylan Rice. Take no notice.
8:16
Michael Storm says feels like new fresh air breathed into the
8:19
11th Doctor. Matt's updated costume is great,
8:22
as is the new TARDIS console room.
8:25
Jenna is very likable and engaging.
8:27
A good mix of new and classic foes and only one episode which
8:30
is an absolute Turkey. And that's not the one you're
8:33
expecting. OK.
8:36
Dave Rennie says the worst season ever.
8:39
A companion who doesn't act like a person an an annoying WAVY
8:44
handed Doctor Who wants to get into her skirt.
8:46
Too many boring stories, a horrible Willy Wonka costume,
8:50
crap title sequence and wasted guest stars bad it.
8:55
Could be me writing that tweet? Good job we don't have people
9:00
from Scotland on this podcast. Doctor Who thing, it's not an
9:06
awful little run, just not top tier.
9:09
Well, angsty, Brax says. Brilliant guest casts but awful
9:13
episodes. It really is sad.
9:16
Oh Mark, he's all the all the horrible comments.
9:19
He's such a happy bloke, Gavin. Says oh I love it.
9:25
Smith and Coleman's chemistry lifts the lesser scripts, Name
9:29
of the Doctor sets up the 50th nicely, Cold War has an
9:32
excellent guest turn from David Warner, and Crimson has Emma
9:35
Peeled camping it up superbly. Plus Strax.
9:39
He might have very nice muscles, but he's clearly very easily
9:43
pleased as well. I.
9:43
Thought he meant strax his muscles.
9:45
Then I thought you are. I thought he might have.
9:46
Seen him? He might have.
9:50
Well, Luke Sims, Jenkins says yeah, Amy has gone Boo Clara.
9:56
Bad companions generally keep me from revisiting eras.
10:00
Only seen these once. Hang on, if he says Amy and
10:04
Clara, he doesn't like I so he can't watch any of this era
10:07
again at all. There's a lot that Luke doesn't
10:09
like. We've done, you know, Pertwee
10:11
series season 10. He doesn't like this.
10:13
What does he like? Fucking loves Jodie though, what
10:17
a queen. Madman, madman.
10:19
Saya. Is this the most average of
10:22
average Doctor Who series? Nothing bad, nothing
10:25
outstanding, it's all just kind of OK.
10:29
Dan Pin says I know it goes against popular opinion but I
10:32
love 7B. Yes, quite a difficult point in
10:35
my life and it was the escapism I needed to cope.
10:38
Yes, it has its faults, and yes, there are a couple of absolute
10:41
stinkers, but so much to love. Absolutely perfect summary
10:46
there, Dan. So one argument you can't really
10:49
go against, isn't it? It's like I needed the escapism
10:51
at this point in my life. But then someone said that about
10:54
the battle of Ranskorov Kolos in our series 11 episode.
10:57
So fair, Dukes. I'm biting my tongue.
11:01
Tom Newsom. So many episodes ended up
11:04
wasting the potential and monsters and they only just get
11:07
away with Clara being written so genetically genetically
11:12
genetically. Kind of thanks to Jenna being
11:15
great. And Stephen Flanagan says, like
11:19
Puffy's season four, it seemed like a big drop off at the time,
11:23
but in retrospect, it's more like what came before than the
11:26
next two dismal years. Oh OK, so we've got quite a few
11:31
hush comments 2. Years after this I annoy it all
11:34
Fair. Yeah, we all know your feelings
11:38
on 9, Joe. Let's not go there again.
11:40
I still got the scars, right? Let's get into the individual
11:43
stories, Mark. Let's start with you.
11:46
Pick your story of choice and give us the three reasons why
11:49
you're going to champion it or condemn it.
11:53
I am going to condemn the name. Of the Doctor.
12:01
Interesting. It's.
12:03
One that I haven't gone back to very much and on re watching it
12:08
again I realise that not an awful lot actually happened.
12:13
The story stops about 30 minutes in and the last quarter of an
12:17
hour is the Doctor and Clara. And there's a lovely nothing
12:21
wrong with the scene between the river and the Doctor, but pretty
12:24
much everything has stopped by the 30 minutes in and very
12:28
little happens for the last 15 minutes.
12:30
So it just, it just seems to be treading water an awful lot of
12:34
the time. Do we actually, you know that
12:36
point you said there about the doctor and river?
12:38
Do we even need River Song in this post?
12:41
The library like that's done now, that's done and dusted.
12:44
Why are we going back to that again?
12:46
It seems, it seems an odd inclusion, but it feels there's
12:50
just something lacking about this and I couldn't quite
12:52
pinpoint what it was. So it's the fact that there's
12:56
very little going on. We've had this idea of the
13:00
Doctor's name being, you know, the be all and end all.
13:03
And if you find out what it is, all sorts of calamitous things
13:06
could happen. It's been teased for two to
13:09
three years at this point. We still don't find out his
13:12
name. That's just, you know, you've
13:13
just been played for that entire length.
13:17
And we get to the end of the episode.
13:18
And is it mentioned? No end of.
13:22
So I find that's a bit of a, it's a, it's a thing.
13:27
Moffitt teases you with lots and lots and lots and lots and lots
13:30
of stuff. And there often isn't a pay off.
13:32
And I can't say one thing about name and his name, and that is,
13:36
I mean, the way I understood it. And it ain't clever.
13:39
Don't get me wrong, it's not clever.
13:40
It's absolutely stupid. But it's not about his actual
13:43
name. It's about doing things in the
13:45
name of the Doctor, which is what this is all about.
13:48
Which is why the War Doctor comes about with who's revealed
13:50
at the end of this, because he stopped calling himself the
13:53
Doctor despite the fact that in every big finished set he's in,
13:55
he behaves just like the Doctor and just says don't call me the
13:58
Doctor. I think that's sort of the idea.
14:00
But you're right, as a pay off it's.
14:02
Really lame. Yeah.
14:04
It's just, it's just not a very effective pay off because you've
14:07
you've been led to believe that that might be where it's going
14:10
to go and it just doesn't. What do you imagine his name is?
14:12
Mark. Oh gosh, I wouldn't even know
14:14
where to begin. It's one of those things, isn't
14:17
it? Because I think Moffett at the
14:18
time wrote in his production notes in DWM whole thing about
14:22
how it would ruin the mythology if you actually gave away the
14:25
Doctor's name. And you're like, OK, so you
14:26
teased us about it for no readily apparent reason.
14:33
Doctor Who, Doctor Who? It's just going to be
14:37
anticlimactic, whatever it is. Well, it is that's the problem.
14:41
You just never share it. So try and make a story about
14:44
being. It just doesn't work for me.
14:48
And then finally, I think because it doesn't have that
14:52
muff, it's not good at the finales necessarily.
14:54
This one just doesn't pay off very well.
14:56
It doesn't, for me, serve as an epilogue for the series that's
15:01
just gone, and it's not really a prologue for what's to come in
15:04
Day of the Doctor. It just falls somewhere in the
15:06
middle and doesn't really set. It doesn't set out to do much,
15:11
and it doesn't accomplish much. Essentially, don't.
15:14
You love the way that they superimpose Clara into all of
15:17
those, like, really terrible superimpositions at the
15:21
beginning. That bit where she's on the
15:23
beach with Patrick Troughton, I mean, this production values
15:26
that is high, isn't it? Oh.
15:28
Yes, those, those key little moments like that.
15:31
Shall we go to the comments? John Hall says.
15:34
I really really wanted to like this, especially with Rich D
15:37
Grant, but after the reveal of John Hurt as the War Doctor, the
15:40
story just ends without any continuation or resolution in
15:44
the next story. What the fuck, Moffett?
15:47
Darren Lit roundels a story with some decent ideas.
15:50
Oh sorry, a story with some decent set pieces.
15:52
Love the feel of the production but it's a serious disappearance
15:55
bring up its own orifice. I was so done with the miss of
15:59
miss of by this point. Even the shot cliffhanger just
16:01
made me shrug. Steve Miller said a narrative
16:04
rich with law, which fans will appreciate as a standalone
16:07
episode. It's quite underwhelming,
16:09
requiring only the episodes around it for any narrative
16:11
coherence, but it did leave me eager for more.
16:16
Cliff Chapman says. I can see why people don't like
16:18
this, but I do. A lot of Moffett stories are
16:20
most like Virgin New Adventures and novels.
16:23
That's why I don't like them. And you do, Rod.
16:25
Yeah. Exactly.
16:26
Big Moody, emotional and surreal things that we deep lore and fan
16:30
wank in with Dark, scary, dreamlike adult sci-fi and
16:34
fantasy. That sounds sounds fucking
16:37
hidden. I love that David Gillespie,
16:40
Pratt said. Is it time to admit that the
16:41
opening montage of Clara being dropped into the classic who
16:44
looks bloody awful? It's a nice idea, but HD Clara
16:48
hovering over the dreary invasion of Time corridor
16:51
doesn't work. And As for the trout and body?
16:54
Oh dear. Jason Thompson.
16:56
Death is so temporary that one character can announce she's
16:59
been murdered and another pulls out a magic box to bring her
17:02
back to life. The end is a bit rushed.
17:04
The intelligent goes in and undoes the Doctor's existence.
17:07
Clara goes and undoes that. Then the Doctor goes and rescues
17:10
Clara. The end.
17:13
Oh dear, I've got John Bensalia. John Bensalia, Mr. Happy when it
17:17
comes to the new who says Exhibit A for why putting a fan
17:20
in charge is a very silly thing to do.
17:23
The reveal of boring Clara's mystery is underwhelming and
17:25
poorly realized. Meanwhile, Richie Grant
17:28
sleepwalks his way through the episode and a cliffhanger that's
17:31
instantly forgotten. Andrew Colonel a weird one, the
17:34
doctor not revealing his name while his friends die is hard to
17:37
accept. The 1st The plot of the the plot
17:41
of First Foe and then Friend jumping into the Doctor's
17:44
timeline is too abstract to be really compelling, but frankly,
17:47
I can forgive a lot for that cliffhanger.
17:50
James H says oh, so the Doctor's death is foretold again.
17:54
Reset switch again. River beam smug again.
17:58
Moffett shows that he hasn't got a bloody clue anymore, which he
18:02
glanced. Rich D Ground sounds more bold
18:05
than he did doing a Shalka. The Whisperman lacked any menace
18:08
and the ending lacks cohesion, consequence and logic.
18:11
A Moffett Wankfest Bennett. I've got a feeling people don't
18:14
like this. Episode.
18:15
I'm definitely getting a bit of a bit of a bit of a hint here.
18:18
You've got an. Army behind your Earmar,
18:23
obviously. Melvin Pena now he loves the
18:25
Moffett era. Let's see, the cliffhanger is
18:27
the closest who got to Picard turning into Borg in The Next
18:31
Generation? OK, the opening month Dodger
18:34
Clara dashing through the Doctor's lives is magical.
18:37
I. Mean capital, that is magical,
18:40
Dan Hollingsworth says. Intriguing.
18:42
And I enjoyed the new mystery about the special bonus Doctor
18:44
Who that we didn't know about until now because one of the
18:47
recent actors wouldn't return for the 50th.
18:49
The Doctor's name slash Trenzelor arc is tedious self
18:53
referential waffle though. Daniel Knight, one of those
18:56
pretentious Moffaty Bobbins finales that makes you feel like
18:59
you've been fleeced by a con man.
19:02
A real let down, not helped by terrible CGI effects of Clara
19:05
with past Doctors and Richard E Grant sleepwalking through his
19:08
part. Daniel Ormsley says I actually
19:10
like Richard E Grant should have been the master, though.
19:13
Ditto the mournful, funereal tone of the episode once we
19:16
reached Translaw, inserting clearer, clearer, inserting
19:20
Clara even into 50 years of who history sounds better on paper.
19:24
But Oh my God, that John Hercliffe hanger.
19:26
Can you really imagine Richard E Grant as the master?
19:30
No, he'd be very dull. Wouldn't say.
19:33
Big orange Michael says Moffat at his most Moffaty.
19:37
I recall being slightly perplexed on 1st airing, but
19:40
it's grown on me since the Cliff AI was well done and left me
19:43
ready for the 50th. Keep it.
19:45
And finally, Tom Newsome says it pales now in comparison with the
19:48
mega expensive Day of the Doctor.
19:50
But at the time, this felt super exciting to see past Doctor Who
19:53
on screen. There's a lot of mythology, but
19:55
Moffett still makes it relatively fun.
19:57
The Whisper Men look terrific. He's very young as well,
20:00
remember? OK, so he hasn't seen a lot of
20:02
Doctor Who at this point. He doesn't know that so much of
20:06
the classic series is better than this portal.
20:08
OK, Joe, over to you. What do you?
20:10
I think you've probably already given us a reasonable hint
20:13
there, but what's your take on Name of the Doctor?
20:15
Well, actually I said to you, there was one episode this
20:17
season I was a bit on the fence with, and now Mark has convinced
20:20
me to been here. But I was on the fence of it
20:22
before this because I do like the Jon twist, the Jon Hurt
20:26
twist at the end. And I really like the weird
20:29
trippy River Song scene where she collects all the doctor's
20:32
friends and the way that's all filmed with that crazy music and
20:35
lighting and that, that's a really nice scene.
20:37
And for one time this season, I like Matt Smith actually being
20:42
able to display an emotion that isn't sort of a child at a
20:45
party. And the bit where he realized
20:48
he's got to go down to Trenton Law and cries, that's a really
20:51
affecting moment. It's Oh my God, he can still act
20:54
after Nightmare and Silver. You can still do it.
20:57
However, I don't understand what on earth the Great Intelligence
21:01
are up to in this story. Despite the fact that it's been
21:04
a season since they were introduced, I still don't have a
21:07
clue what they're doing. I don't know what the Whisper
21:10
Men are and why on earth they're important to this story.
21:13
If that is explained, that is completely lost on me.
21:17
I don't like the fact that Jenny is like murdered in a very
21:20
unnerving moment. It's a great moment.
21:22
And then brought back to life on the whim because he's not brave
21:24
enough to kill off one of his own characters.
21:26
We do this again and again and again.
21:27
And then later on we lose Vastra and Jenny Anstrax, and then
21:31
they're all provided. But death means nothing in this
21:33
era anymore. Now, like, you know, if somebody
21:35
is going to die, like next year, it happens to Osgood and we
21:38
think, my God, what a shocking scene.
21:40
No Kel Sabri's in series 9. She's back again in.
21:43
That's like 1-2 Palsa. But the real reason I don't like
21:46
this? I'd like to read you a small
21:48
excerpt from my DACO Reviews blog, if I may.
21:51
He's a madman. Don't listen to him.
21:53
That is one of those Internet lunatics.
21:55
Well, The thing is, he's read a lot of the 8th Doctor books,
21:58
right? Where Moffett plundered every
22:01
single idea from this from this TV episode.
22:05
Now fair enough, they're great ideas, but they were done better
22:08
back in the day. I'd say.
22:09
So Alien Bodies centres around the idea of the Doctor's death
22:12
being the catalyst of bringing all manner of people together.
22:16
His coffin buried on an unknown world and his bio data a
22:19
potentially powerful weapon in the wrong hands.
22:21
Oh, that sounds very like naming the Doctor.
22:24
Unnatural History dealt with people breaking into people's
22:27
timelines via their DNA, specifically pruning and
22:30
altering moments in their lives and being able to manipulate
22:32
their bio data. Oh, just like Name of the Doctor
22:36
and Interference changed the way we look at regeneration
22:38
completely by perversely offering up an alternative way
22:41
for the Third Doctor to depart the series, thus changing the
22:44
timeline of the Doctor forever. Oh, just like Name of the
22:48
Doctor, there is not one original Steven Moffat idea in
22:51
it. Or if there is, those are the
22:52
things I've already mentioned in this argument.
22:56
They didn't pay off. So I don't think any of this,
22:59
any of the smarts that's credited to Moffit in this
23:01
episode, I think he's borrowed from elsewhere.
23:04
So yeah. So I'm going to have to be in
23:06
it. Although their individual scenes
23:08
of this are pretty good. I think as a whole it you can
23:12
this is this is the point where I can absolutely feel Moffy as a
23:15
writer juggling 2 shows at the same time and not being able to
23:19
give this a focus he say gave Series 5.
23:22
So I would be in this one. Interestingly, I did read that
23:28
what went out was virtually a first draft.
23:31
Really. It was most of the dialogue was
23:34
went untouched and it's not a very quotable episode.
23:37
There's not any real stand out moments or things to reflect.
23:42
It's like you say, there's nice moments, there's things that
23:45
there's scenes and there's points that you can hang it on,
23:48
but it's not one call cohesive story and it's it's a bit of a
23:52
waste and no pay off. I think like you, we've had
23:55
Clara, the idea that there's all these Clara's out there in the
23:57
universe. There's the dramatic potential
24:00
of Clara having met another Clara.
24:03
Why did he not not go down that Ave.
24:06
You remember though, Mark, when this episode came out, Ian
24:09
Levine took to his keyboard and as usual was like, this is our
24:14
best episode ever, 10 out of 10, just because it had that scene
24:18
at the beginning on Gallifrey with the Doctor and Susan
24:20
leaving and he was like, my Moffett is making all of my
24:23
dreams come true. Does he still think that today,
24:26
though? For that reason alone, it should
24:28
be. You've been here.
24:29
You think of this one, Ross. Right, well, I'm putting this
24:34
one through. I wouldn't say this Kelsey
24:37
Prize. This is not my favorite of the
24:39
series by a long shot, but there's enough in here to
24:43
satisfy and entertain me. I like this one.
24:47
I hear what you're saying. There is an emptiness to it and
24:52
a lack of cohesion. But, and it's interesting
24:55
actually, you guys talk about the moments because the three
24:57
things I've picked out actually are three scenes or three
24:59
moments. So it's interesting that you,
25:01
both Joe and Mark, you've talked about being more of a series of
25:04
moments because that's what I've picked out.
25:06
But I think there's plenty going on here.
25:08
I like the fact we come full circle.
25:10
We started with a giant Dalek statue on Scara.
25:13
We end with the giant TARDIS statue on Trenzelor.
25:16
We end the Great Intelligence arc, we resolve the Impossible
25:20
Girl arc. We cap off 11 time, 11 time.
25:25
That's not easy to say with River Joe.
25:26
You said why she even in it? I think because she's been such
25:29
a fundamental part of Matt Smith's time that it gives them
25:32
that final coda, doesn't it? And it sets up the 50th.
25:35
So I think there's plenty going on here.
25:37
But my three reasons. Sorry.
25:39
Yeah. Whole point.
25:40
The whole point of silence in the library is the the only way
25:44
that works her first story being her last story is if her first
25:48
story is her last story and we lead up to that throughout the
25:52
run. So setting this after the
25:54
library, it kind of makes the whole thing a bit different or
25:57
it loses. It's like a air going out of a
25:59
balloon. Yeah, yeah, speak to Big Finish.
26:03
You were just about to launch a whole new box series based on
26:07
River after Silence in the Library when she gets a new
26:10
body. So at least here, she's just.
26:11
A holy, is that right? Is that what they're doing?
26:13
Yep. But anyway, my three moments are
26:17
now you're all going to absolutely scream at me, but
26:19
fuck you all, I'm saying it anyway.
26:21
The cold open, Call me shallow, but at one minute, 39 seconds,
26:26
the beginning, I absolutely love that.
26:29
I can't tell you how many times I've watched that cold open.
26:32
Yes, some of it is incredibly clunky visually.
26:36
Obviously that's not Paul McGann, you know, Troughton in a
26:40
in a fur coat running across a beach when his legs don't even
26:44
hit the floor. Yes, it's very clunky, but it's
26:47
still just, I don't know, there's something about it that
26:50
I find quite, to quote one of our listeners, Magical I.
26:54
I love it where Pertri sees Clara in the the mirror in the
26:57
mirror in the fire. Is that when he went great balls
27:00
fire? But even gives us a rationale
27:04
for how Sylvester gets out of the cliffhanger in Dragon Fire.
27:07
That's what I've been waiting for all these years.
27:10
And the music's brilliant in it. So it mixes in the Doctor Who
27:13
theme and the Gallifrey theme. I just, there's just something
27:16
about that opening. Don't forget the love of God.
27:19
Call me Ian Levine, but there is something about that opening
27:22
that I just love. It tickles my fan balls.
27:24
So that's one of my. Reasons.
27:26
It's a compliment you'll have thrown at you tonight.
27:28
Wow. Absolutely.
27:29
You are not Ian Levine. Thank you.
27:32
Yeah, well. Yeah, downstairs on the fence
27:36
Cam. My second reason is the
27:39
conference call. Now, I like the Paternoster
27:42
gang, but I do feel, particularly after Crimson
27:44
Horror, that they kind of needed something a bit more to them at
27:47
the moment. They could be a little bit cut
27:50
and paste, Jago and Lightfoot with a bit more lesbianism and
27:53
Suntar and gags, but this actually, the conference call
27:56
gives them something to do. We're suddenly moving into the
27:59
world of a bit of magic and science.
28:01
It opens up their world to much more possibilities than we've
28:04
seen before, gives them a chance to communicate across time and
28:07
space and bring in Fara and bring in River.
28:10
I think that scene is also really moodily directed.
28:13
When they first go into the trance, you just see the whisper
28:16
man in the mirror. If you look carefully, you can
28:19
see them hovering. That and Joe, you mentioned
28:21
about it, the scene where Jenny realises that she's left the
28:24
door open and she's scared and then she realises she's been
28:27
murdered. I think that it's so chilling.
28:30
It. Means nothing.
28:31
She's. Back alive again. 2 minutes.
28:33
She is back alive again in about 10 minutes time.
28:35
But at that time I just think that is such a brilliantly done
28:38
scene and I just like the whole concept of the conference call.
28:41
I think it's doing something different.
28:43
And my third moment is that final conversation between River
28:47
and 11. Watching it again now, you can
28:50
see Matt Smith is making eye contact and acknowledging River
28:54
all the way through, even though we don't think he is.
28:56
And he can't see her when you watched on first run.
28:58
But he is looking at her. And yeah, I'm an old romantic.
29:01
I love the conversation between them.
29:03
I buy into their relationship. I think it's quite a powerful
29:06
and emotional moment that they've got this final goodbye
29:09
to say. It works for me.
29:11
It it it brings a tear to my old eyes.
29:14
And they don't have any chemistry though, isn't it?
29:16
That would help. Do you not think so?
29:18
I think they've got, I think. She had brilliant chemistry with
29:20
with Baldy, but with Matt Smith, no.
29:24
I think. He yeah, puberty himself.
29:26
But they're both quite subdued here.
29:28
Then neither of them are turning up to 10 as they both can do.
29:31
They're both quieter and more sedate.
29:33
And I think that works. I buy into their chemistry at
29:35
this moment. So that's my third reason.
29:37
So, Cam, it's one apiece. You have got the deciding vote
29:41
whether to put Name of the Doctor through.
29:43
What did I put down on my notes for the Name of the Doctor?
29:48
I've got it as a bit of a miss I'm afraid, sorry.
29:52
I've been the one at the start of this so, but now I think I've
29:56
got my technical problems sorted out hopefully, he says.
30:00
Keep talking, we'll let you know otherwise.
30:05
It's an episode purely designed to lead into the 50th, so it
30:08
feels a whole lot of faffing about going on and it can't
30:11
quite go in full force because it knows it's got something more
30:14
important later on to deal with. Clara, been with him since the
30:18
start leads to this kind of weird retrofit problem that
30:21
we've got. We've seen it more recently with
30:23
Sutek. Oh, he was always on the TARDIS,
30:26
honest. And it's like you have to go
30:29
back and shoot one. Unless you've planned that since
30:31
1963, it's really going to look kind of awkward and obvious and,
30:37
and it boils down to a lot of Richard E Grant gloating in a
30:40
room. Really.
30:43
It's, I know what it wants to do.
30:46
It wants to be this massively powerful sort of end, sort of
30:52
all singing, all dancing end of the season.
30:55
But it is building up to that 50th, which is a few months
30:57
away. So it it can't, it's got to kind
31:00
of totter along and let the 50th run.
31:05
Can I ask a question to you, Cam?
31:06
Hello, yes you can ask me a question for zoom crashes again.
31:11
How is? It that Richard E Grant, despite
31:13
being one of the most talentless actors on this planet, managed
31:16
to hijack pretty much every genre, television show and
31:19
franchise go in. I mean the the man's career is
31:23
incredible and his talent is not.
31:26
He's iconic. Did you not read the BBC press
31:28
release? No.
31:30
What was that? They said he's iconic.
31:32
Oh, OK. Coming to Doctor Who, the iconic
31:35
Richard E Grant. He doesn't do much though it's a
31:37
great. Intelligence performance is like
31:39
his jaws wired shut through. It.
31:42
Does there is a lot of kind of just going, you know, with one
31:46
upper lip just kind of stuck kind of going, yeah, that's not
31:49
the whole thing do. You think he's as emotional as
31:51
that? Do you?
31:52
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
31:53
That's it. So Name of the Doctor is the
31:57
first to fall Cam come to you for your first story.
32:01
Pick your story and tell us why you're saving it or condemning
32:05
it. OK, we've had one full, so let's
32:09
go for one that I was pleasantly, pleasantly surprised
32:12
by Hyde. It's brilliant, I love it.
32:19
My God, A Story about ghosts is right up my alley.
32:22
This is overflowing with atmosphere as well, and there's
32:24
a huge creepy vibe to this. It's just absolutely wonderful.
32:28
It could just fall into being a bogeyman and a house story as
32:30
well. But it doesn't.
32:32
It says near the end it's actually a story about love.
32:34
And do we often get developments between a new companion and the
32:37
TARDIS? Because we get it in spades
32:39
here. I can't remember the last time
32:41
we had like a companion that like plays off with the TARDIS
32:44
as if the two characters, you know, sort of as if the TARDIS
32:47
is a fully fledged character is what I mean.
32:49
Because you've got the whole thing about how the TARDIS isn't
32:51
sure about Clara and where she came from, and it's really kind
32:55
of cool to have this whole kind of like face off between the two
32:57
of them. So this whole is that.
32:58
Resolved though Cam in this season.
33:00
Is that ever resolved? I.
33:02
Think it doesn't explicitly need to be.
33:04
It's the fact that there are so many splinters off her
33:06
throughout time. She's most of this season and an
33:08
anomaly, no? Resolution.
33:09
Whatsoever, it just requires the viewer to use a modicum of
33:14
intelligence. Go forward, it puts.
33:16
Pieces together season with all these unresolved threads, you'd
33:19
be going to town. Hang on, the Chipmunk season
33:22
doesn't have threads. Let's get it wrong.
33:28
No, I was pleasantly. I remember liking Hyde when it
33:32
first was broadcast but I haven't revisited it since and I
33:37
was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked it.
33:39
Watching it again for this. Brilliant.
33:43
Shall we go to the comments? Gareth Bowley says.
33:45
A gem. The mood and direction is very
33:47
atmospheric, plus a wonderful reveal that the monster isn't
33:51
trying to terrify everyone. John Hall says as a huge fan of
33:55
the house, sorry, The Haunting of Hill House, that's a tough
33:58
one to. That's not easy to say.
33:59
As a huge fan of The Haunting of Hill House, I really wanted to
34:03
like this story. You gave me this comment as
34:05
well, but the ACT left field, third act and the resolution
34:08
destroyed it for me. Now Vin Penya says tremendous,
34:11
Jessica Rayne gives a wonderful turn and Du Gray Scott is
34:14
excellent. The setting, the 70s and the
34:16
house really works for me and I love Clara's growing horror as
34:19
the Doctor fuss forward through time.
34:21
Dan Pin never seems to get talk about, yet the spooky haunted
34:24
house with heaps of atmosphere and mystery is great.
34:28
The small cast helps to add isolation and scares, and both
34:31
Du Gray Scott and Jessica Rayne are fantastic.
34:34
Jason Thompson says a mystery, ghost story, love story and the
34:37
small supporting cast Rather wonderful.
34:40
The only thing that greatest for me was that once again we have
34:43
the holographic interface that allows characters to converse
34:46
with the TARDIS, in this case Clara persuading it to go into a
34:49
hostile dimension. Save the Doctor heap, but bin
34:52
that bit. John Bensalia There's potential.
34:56
My God, Rod, there's potential. Hang on.
34:59
Can we just? Can you just say that again from
35:01
John Bensalia? Did he?
35:03
Can you just repeat that? Potential.
35:06
I've got a feeling there's a part though.
35:08
It's the next word right? Turning a.
35:11
Spooky haunted house mystery into a dreary love story.
35:14
In other news, Mr. and Missus Boring are even more faceless
35:17
than the chameleons. Claro is starting to grave and
35:20
the Doctor turns into Duncan Norvell.
35:24
Chase Me Steve Meller says Ghosts in Doctor Who Never.
35:29
The ghost story framework is engaging and well paced, and the
35:32
performances are strong, particularly from the guests.
35:35
It has a nice sci-fi twist that enriches the story, but it's not
35:38
as scary as one might expect. Jack Coyer, a scientific
35:42
professional. One is young, mysterious plucky
35:44
assistant investigate a spooky mystery and slowly start to fall
35:48
for each other. If only the Doctor and Clara
35:50
will stop getting in their way. Well done Jack, I wish you'd had
35:54
more. We'd had more time in the
35:55
haunted house atmosphere, but it's tricky to balance the story
35:58
with this many plot twists. Andrew Kerner says lovely small
36:01
scale story, hugely atmospheric. Do Grace Scott is especially
36:04
good. But I'm afraid, pet as it may
36:06
be, the mispronunciation of Metabolis still annoys me.
36:11
Do it right or don't do it at all.
36:14
That what has he been in it for that reason?
36:16
I think so. Dan Hollingsworth scary and
36:18
atmospheric with a classic who kind of setting and felt a bit
36:21
Sarah Jane Adventures. A highlight of the season as it
36:23
focus on telling great self-contained story instead of
36:26
an over reliance on the ark. Even Clara is bearable.
36:31
Big Orange Michael says a story that I don't recall much about
36:35
beyond that I watched it when it first aired.
36:37
Feels like fella. Bennett now I'd suggest go back
36:40
and watch it again like Cam because that's how he felt and
36:42
then he went back and watched it and he likes it.
36:45
Joe Llewellyn so good. Great small guest cast, love the
36:49
setting and the vibe. Quite a mass long before I ever
36:52
watched it. Karen lip Randall says this grew
36:54
on me Jessica rain do grace Scott act Coleman and Smith off
36:57
the screen. They're really irritating me
36:59
here and often destroy the atmosphere, but time has been
37:02
kind. It has tone issues, but it's
37:05
watchable. It's.
37:05
Literally taking one of my points there, James H By
37:08
reaching the heights of mediocrity, it takes the top.
37:11
Spot of the Series A. Vaguely intelligent and original
37:15
use of time travel in the story. Characters I could just about
37:18
tolerate, but the schmaltz really wasn't needed.
37:21
Keep as it attempts something. Daniel Neiss has two stellar
37:25
guest actors but gives them Boggle to do in the second-half,
37:28
which descends into yet another Moffic Love Conquers All fest.
37:32
And finally Paul Smy, I literally do not have a clue
37:36
what this story was about. Plus it bored me.
37:39
One of the worst stories of all time.
37:41
That's really hard. That's not great, is it?
37:43
I don't. Know what?
37:44
A few episodes. But it's still bored mini.
37:45
Season and say that too. I don't think height's the one,
37:48
but no, I wouldn't. Maybe Mark agrees.
37:51
Let's go with that. I dearly want to love this
37:55
episode. Oh God, there's another buck
37:57
coming, isn't there? I I love ghost stories.
38:01
I love folk horror. I want you know, Neil Cross said
38:04
his ambition was to make this the scariest episode of Doctor
38:07
Whoever. It doesn't even get in that
38:10
league for me. It doesn't.
38:13
It doesn't. It's got all the trappings, it's
38:15
leaning into Nigel Neil, it's got Stone Tape, all these things
38:19
that I love and admire and adore for as scary tales and things
38:25
that leave you feeling uneasy. They're there, but it doesn't
38:30
work. It just doesn't come together
38:32
for me very much. And I think that is.
38:36
I mean, one of the things when it comes to a scary story is you
38:38
should the best scary stories, you never get a real answer for
38:42
what's going on. You should be left uneasy.
38:46
Hang on, hang on a second, Mark. If that had happened, you'd have
38:49
Joe Ford in the top corner saying Moffin never explains
38:52
what's going on. So.
38:54
But I do agree I. Absolutely agree with that
38:56
point. I think the second you reveal
38:58
the monster in a horror movie, it's usually that's where the
39:01
the. Yeah, it doesn't.
39:02
It doesn't meet what you've imagined.
39:04
The sense of the uncanny and the unease and leaving it open
39:09
would. But this is just personal.
39:11
This is absolutely for me, it doesn't really work as a ghost
39:14
story. And I forgot about the line at
39:16
the end where they go, oh, it's not a ghost story, it's a love
39:18
story. And you go, oh, right.
39:22
OK then. That's what this was all about
39:24
all along, Mark. Yeah, and it just.
39:26
And that's just like, right. OK, so maybe they weren't trying
39:28
to make it scary. And as some people were saying
39:31
that, do Grace Scott and Jessica Rain were really good in the
39:35
comments, I don't see any chemistry whatsoever between
39:39
these supposedly destined lovers.
39:43
I I just doesn't come across. Hey, Joe.
39:48
Hello. Yeah, I'm going to be in this
39:51
one as well, I'm afraid. Sorry, guys, because I really
39:54
feel like we're being quite down on this half season at this
39:57
point, but I'm not too sure. What if Hyde knows what at all
40:01
it wants to be. It does start off as a ghost
40:03
story. Halfway through.
40:05
It becomes a science fiction mystery and it ends up being
40:07
this weird, grotesque sort of romance.
40:10
Now, we talked about it takes you away recently, which skips
40:13
genres, but does it so much more confidently than this.
40:18
You know, I, I the three parts of the episode, they just don't
40:21
belong together. And yeah, I, I just, I just felt
40:25
very confused, right, me watching it.
40:28
The Doctor and Clara, this is, I think this is their worst
40:32
episode of the season. And that's against some stiff
40:35
competition because they're goofing around so much.
40:38
And the one thing you just don't do if you're trying to scare
40:40
your audience, just walk around going like, Jesus Christ, man,
40:45
talk about killing the atmosphere.
40:48
I did like Jessica Rain and Dugrey Scott, and actually I
40:51
feel as if we do have a Doctor and companion in this story, but
40:54
it's not Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman.
40:56
I don't know what they're doing. Go to the kids party and leave
40:59
us alone. I think the scenes in the woods
41:02
are brilliantly filmed, really very scary until we see the
41:08
monster with the very bizarre hanging off head.
41:11
And there's just no way that they can make that shitty design
41:15
work, no matter how much they try and do it.
41:17
So like Mark said, you know, don't show, just tell, just this
41:21
once. And the love story bit at the
41:24
end is just the pits. Like, it doesn't feel like a
41:27
clever reversal. It doesn't.
41:28
There's no hints that that's what this story has been about
41:30
all along. It's like an Agatha Christie
41:32
twist at the end, which then just blings off into another
41:36
genre and goes, well, it was all about this all along.
41:38
We know we've got no hints or whispers about it at all, but
41:41
this is what the whole story has been about.
41:43
Like you should be able to guess that ending from clues that are
41:46
happening throughout. So yeah, again, I think there's
41:49
good scenes in this. I do like the bit in the middle
41:51
where Matt Smith goes off. And what the hell that's got to
41:54
do with the ghost story and the love story, I've no idea.
41:57
But it's a good sequence. But as a whole, I think it's,
42:01
and I really feel bad saying this because it's one of my
42:03
rather favorite episodes, but he's mad because he's getting
42:06
out with me. So I'm going to bid this.
42:09
Can we get Mark in to replace you then, Joe?
42:11
Because clearly he makes a lot more sense than you do.
42:14
Well, this is the only episode he likes this season.
42:16
What is? Wrong with you people tonight.
42:18
Can I agree with you? I would absolutely be putting
42:20
this one through. I think this is really stylish.
42:23
I think it's got a lot for Mark Joe.
42:26
You both said you don't like the blender.
42:27
I think the Blender genres works really well.
42:30
I think it's quite smoothly done.
42:32
I think it's quite elegantly done.
42:33
I don't find that. I find something like Power of
42:35
Three where everything's on Earth and then suddenly we go up
42:38
to a spaceship and completely forget what's happened on Earth.
42:41
That kind of thing is jarring. But here, I think because we're
42:45
constantly coming back to the house, we're constantly coming
42:47
back to 1974, where the story is effectively both literally and
42:51
metaphorically anchored in 74. Wherever we go to the pocket
42:55
universe, we're always coming back there.
42:56
I think those stories fit really well together.
42:58
I like the blend of genres. Yeah, we start off with, you
43:02
know, ghost story got all the trappings of fleeting
43:04
apparitions and, you know, cold spots and candlelight searches,
43:08
jumps in the dark. And I think that's, you know,
43:10
it's effectively shot. It's it's well done.
43:12
Yes, it doesn't turn the pot boiler up to 10.
43:15
You're right, Joe. It is quite light hearted and
43:17
Joe are. They running around like they've
43:19
eaten a truckload of Skittles though.
43:21
I don't find. That I don't think they are.
43:23
They're literally in the corridor gang.
43:26
Like it's so weird. I don't find personally I don't
43:30
find them as irritating and they there are moments later on.
43:33
I agree, but not here. I think so.
43:35
I like the blender characters. The pocket universe I think
43:38
looks spectacular. I can't think of another
43:40
alternative world that's better realized.
43:42
It takes your way when they reversed everything very
43:46
cleverly. Yeah, yeah, possibly.
43:50
But I think the woods are shot in Gethin Woods in South Wales,
43:53
and these are fantastic location.
43:55
The direction, the grading makes it feel really unearthly.
43:59
It takes you away when you're in that city, you don't get that
44:01
unearthly thing. I think you really get it here.
44:03
The fact that Matt's all wet and his hair's bedraggled.
44:06
I think it just sells it. The grading cells there.
44:09
The fact that when they shoot the Crooked Man, it's quite,
44:11
it's almost like staccato, the way it kind of jumps and it's
44:14
uneasy. It's so.
44:16
Terrible, but I do it again in Journey to the Centre of the
44:19
Tardis. They're trying to disguise how
44:21
bad that. Not quite as blatantly.
44:23
It works for me. I like that.
44:25
And then fuck you. I like the two couples.
44:27
I think that. I think Bara and that worked
44:30
quite well here. This has come to fuck you.
44:34
Fuck you. 21 episodes in and we've reached the nadir.
44:41
I like my muttons genuine. This.
44:43
I think they work really well. This is her first story that she
44:46
shot as this version of Clara. I think she's great.
44:49
I think she does. She's got a little bit of that
44:51
scared but brave that Elizabeth Slayden had in spades.
44:54
I'm much better, I have to say. But I think she's got that.
44:57
I think she sets herself apart from Amy.
44:59
I think they've got an easy, comfortable relationship.
45:02
Thank God we've ditched all that over sexualization that we got
45:05
with Amy in her early days. Are you?
45:07
Mad at? This point, at this point we
45:10
have wow, OK, it does. Unfortunately, it comes up later
45:15
on, but at this point I was very pleased that we weren't doing
45:18
that. And do Grace Scott and and
45:20
Jessica Rayne, I think they play their roles really well.
45:23
I, I not really, I don't really buy either of them in other
45:26
things ironically. But here I thought they did it
45:29
really well. And do Grace Scott in particular
45:31
that kind of restrained, you know, English stiff up a lip.
45:35
I don't think he overplays. I think he does it really well.
45:37
And he's got some good dialogue talking about the kind of
45:39
horrors of war that he's experienced.
45:42
So I think it works quite well. But clearly I might vote it
45:45
again. Those two couples, it's like
45:47
watching a classic Doctor Who, Doctor and Companion and a new
45:51
series, Doctor Who and Companion, side by side, and I
45:53
know what I'd rather be watching.
45:56
Yeah, do Grace Scott and and Jessica Ray in a very kind of
45:58
poetry and Leshore, aren't they? They've really got that kind of
46:01
scientific vibe going on. But looks like Hyde is also his.
46:06
Well, so far, I was the lone voice on the first one.
46:09
There were two of us speaking up for the second one.
46:12
So hopefully it's all positive all the way from here.
46:16
And unfortunately, we turn to my good friend Joe Ford.
46:19
It's a picky story, yes. Well, I'd like to be kind about
46:22
something now because I've been far too mean so far and I
46:25
haven't even got to the dreck yet, but I'd like to talk about
46:28
the Crimson Horror please and can we please put this one
46:32
through for being the only entertaining episode of the half
46:35
season? Matt Mark Gates best script by a
46:39
country mile. I think for the possibly maybe
46:42
the unquieter dead side packed full of style.
46:47
The best direction of the year as well.
46:49
This is a season with some terrible direction in it.
46:52
Who? I can't remember who did this
46:53
one. Do you know who did this one
46:56
dorm It was it. No wonder he's great.
47:00
Yeah. Just full of grotesque imagery.
47:03
Really leaning into that, that League of Gentlemen sort of
47:07
grotesquery that Mark Gatiss can bring really well.
47:10
I adore the flashback get like literally get getting rid of
47:14
Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman for the 1st 15 minutes.
47:16
I'll have put it through just for that.
47:18
But then when they are introduced to so economically,
47:22
say, the beginning of the story in that sort of weird, what is
47:27
it? It's like cine film, isn't it?
47:29
It's really well done and lots of different images just very
47:32
quickly telling the story that way.
47:34
Brilliant. And of course, Diana Rick, who's
47:38
having the time of her life in this far more fun than I think
47:41
she was on Game of Thrones. Evil, isn't she?
47:43
What a cow bag. And her daughter, I think, is
47:47
having even more fun. Rachel Sterling, who really tugs
47:49
at the heartstrings in this. And it's even an episode where I
47:53
find Madame Vastra, Strax and Jenny tolerable.
47:58
And the only time I saw potential of a spin off series
48:02
because I think the 1st 15 minutes of this are the best 15
48:05
minutes of this season. Yeah, I think I'm pretty much
48:08
every level. This works really well.
48:10
It's funny, it's scary, it's gross.
48:14
I don't like the bit where Matt Smith non consensually kisses
48:19
somebody that should not be in there.
48:21
And I hate the spaceship at the end.
48:22
Why the fuck is that spaceship there?
48:24
We didn't need it at all. But apart from that, I think
48:27
this is all absolute gold. And yeah, let's put it through.
48:30
Let's go to the comments, Girgie says.
48:32
One of my least favourites of the entire show.
48:35
Such a slog to get through in a way that normally only the most
48:38
naff classic who stories are, and it's nowhere near as long as
48:42
those. John Hall says a delicious slice
48:45
of Cam thanks to the much Miss Diana Rigg who chooses scenery
48:48
in all the right ways and Mr. Sweet.
48:51
Odd how it starts off as a Doctor Light story, but the
48:53
Paternos again compensates for this competently.
48:57
And Randall says this surprised me.
48:59
It's the first episode to feel authentically Gaitus.
49:01
I love the atmosphere. Don't care for the Paternossters
49:03
but they're tolerable here, especially over the regulars.
49:06
Rachel Sterling is the star. Rig hams it up perfectly, but
49:09
Clara is a void. I think I didn't notice you gave
49:12
me a comment there or I had to say Paternoster compensates
49:15
competently. You did very well.
49:17
You did. Very well.
49:20
Where are we, Steve Miller? Infused with dark humor and
49:23
gothic elements, I like this one.
49:24
Despite a rather convoluted conclusion, Strax, Jenny and
49:28
Madame Vastra shine and their interactions provide substantial
49:31
entertainment value, making it an enjoyable watch.
49:34
Andrew Kernos is Mark Gates best Who.
49:36
I love the mad but logical story and the great Adams.
49:39
The ideas like the fake factor in the people in Bell Jars and
49:42
it's easy to get blase about the fact that Diana Rigg was in
49:44
Doctor Who and she is, Needless to say, superb.
49:48
Jason Thompson keep for Diana Reek alone, she's bloody
49:52
marvellous, as is her daughter playing Ada.
49:55
It wasn't for those two. The non consensual kiss and the
49:57
erection joke with the Sonic. Oh how did that get past me.
50:00
Both directed at Jenny would massively lower this one in my
50:03
ranking. That Koi, says Gatis.
50:06
The cast and crew absolutely have a handle on the necessary
50:08
tone and rise to the occasion. Talking about erections, it's
50:12
the paternostic gang's best outing, although I thought they
50:15
were finding the snowmen such a shame.
50:17
Enough interlinking scene is tagged on at the end to lead to
50:19
something much worse. Let's enjoy a fun ROM.
50:23
Dan Pyne My favorite Gate is story The Victorian Penny
50:26
Dreadful style plays to his strengths, weaving humour
50:28
amongst the horror. Diana Riggs Diana Rigg is
50:32
amazing. The highlights of the series and
50:35
Smithy Smith plays off her will. Just wish that bloke would stop
50:39
fainting. Oh.
50:40
That's really funny, what's he talking about?
50:42
Daniel Romsley says Gates. Best script in ages.
50:45
Delightfully macabre and over the top.
50:47
The Smith Coleman combo is pitched perfectly here.
50:50
Bonus points for Smith's dreadful Yorkshire accent and
50:53
Jenny giving the Doctor a well deserved clobbering.
50:56
Oh, and Strax's horse. You have failed in your mission.
50:59
And that stupid TomTom joke always makes me laugh.
51:02
Oh. Is that in this as well?
51:03
Bing Bing milestorm supplying we have Dyna Rig.
51:08
I'm getting a lot of Dyna Rig love here, Playing the sort of
51:11
diabolical mastermind she'd be facing off with Steed.
51:14
Do you know what? These are the wrong hands.
51:17
Smith, Chapman says, feels who wants just the right amount of
51:20
plot and pace. Very funny, looks amazing.
51:22
Diana Rigg is fantastic. Let Gatis do gothic Victorian
51:26
for a whole season. James H is Gatis trying to do an
51:30
Avengers backdoor pilot tracked down by Smith's awful acting.
51:33
Thank you and cupboard scene. It was already a definite bin,
51:36
but the tag scene with the kids confirm it.
51:39
Massive disappointment. Oh my God, is this the one that
51:41
ends with we know that your time travellers and if you don't take
51:45
us and that's hardest. That's the one that's two bins
51:50
now, Melvin Pena says my jewel of 7B may be Gates's crowning
51:54
who triumph. It's a showcase for the
51:56
Paternoster Gang and the Rig Sterling pair.
51:59
Mr. Sweet is one of the weirdest, the most bizarre alien
52:01
menaces. And the Yorkshireness of this
52:03
episode is a joy. Really is.
52:05
Daniel Knight Possibly the best of the season, although that
52:08
Sonic gag is inappropriate, as is the Doctors snog with Jenny.
52:12
Fortunately, Diana Rig and Rachel Rachel Sterling saved the
52:14
day. Joe Llewellyn says, Oh yes,
52:17
great performances, great guests.
52:18
Jenny should have kicked the doctor in the junk.
52:21
In the junk. Maybe that loses something in
52:23
translation. Joe Llewellyn for laying that
52:26
kiss on her. Paul.
52:27
SMY a very average story, not so much a Horror Story but a horror
52:31
to watch. Diana Riggs accent is terrible.
52:34
And finally, Steve Flanagan says crisp, fun and highly
52:37
rewatchable, right? Crimson Horror, I am going to
52:45
say to you Joe Ford. I love her romp.
52:49
I love camp. I picked Preach from the Pit
52:51
from my desert island pick for a classic story.
52:54
But you know, this just does not work for me on any level
52:58
whatsoever. I know I'm going to be
53:01
completely out of pace with everybody else.
53:03
I just think this is so smug and it's trying to hit Tones and I
53:09
so it feels as though it forgets this is Doctor Who now.
53:12
So my first reason is humour. Now, yeah, we all know humour's
53:15
subjective and what you can find funny one day you might not
53:18
another day. But none of the humour in this
53:21
hits for me. Let's start with the fainting
53:23
man. He doesn't faint once, he
53:26
doesn't faint twice. He faints three times and he
53:29
crosses his eyes as he faints. It's so chuckle, vision it, it
53:33
just really grates me. And then there's the whole
53:36
extended stand alone sequence just to squeeze in that terrible
53:40
TomTom joke. You know, humour should, humour
53:44
should spring from a situation. Even the Wi-Fi family, God bless
53:48
Chris Chibnall, even the Wi-Fi family is better because it's
53:51
responding to a plot element. This is just shoehorned in
53:55
because they think it's a funny joke and it's really not funny.
53:59
Then we've got all the grotesques, we've got the man in
54:01
the Mortuary. As you said, Joe, it's so League
54:03
of Gentlemen. There's not an ounce of kind of
54:06
subtlety or believability in that character.
54:09
This is so broadly, This is not Amy.
54:11
It's not, but it's just one after the next after the next.
54:14
Even Miss Gilliflower is so hammy.
54:16
I can't believe I'm dissing Dame Diana Rigg, but I just find her
54:20
so arch, so hammy, so character. I missed a sweet sucking on her
54:24
breast like David Walliams in those bitty sketches.
54:27
It's just a Step 2. Oh.
54:31
Mr. Sway. Oh, come back.
54:36
Get all the reaction shots of the cast.
54:38
They're all told to really ham this up.
54:40
Matt and Jenna at the end that I mean, Miss Gilliflower dies, she
54:44
falls to her death. It's so Monty Python as the body
54:47
falls down, hits railings on the way down whilst Jenner and Matt
54:51
are girning and grimacing and saying oh Ouch, it's just
54:55
painful. That's not a serious death.
54:57
That's just it's just comedy gone too far.
55:00
Even the props play up to the comedy.
55:02
You know, they walk along with a huge VAT of red poison.
55:05
Just walk through the streets with it.
55:07
It's ridiculous. I.
55:08
Think it's supposed to be a comedy though.
55:10
It's just gone too far. And then the tag sequence of the
55:13
end with a terrible Photoshopper, right?
55:15
It's just humour too far. So humour for me is one I don't
55:18
get. Secondly, homages.
55:21
This is just so packed with homages to all of Gates
55:24
favourites that it kind of just becomes a tapestry of other
55:27
shows and it hasn't got a distinctive voice of its own.
55:29
There's loads of Wyang Chai Yang in here, from the ravaged bodies
55:33
being picked out of Thames through the trips to the
55:36
Mortuary and all the penny dreadful illusions talked about
55:40
League of Gentlemen already. Everyone's a grotesque, apart
55:43
from, I will say, Rachel Sterling, who's the only person
55:46
in the entire production that grounds it.
55:48
Thank God she's inept. And then there's The Avengers,
55:51
but The Avengers in Victorian times.
55:53
And it's so obvious when you've got the Sally Army army who
55:56
transform into the army of supermodels.
55:58
Then Jenny strips off and she's in an Emma Peel atsu.
56:02
Why? It's just hideous.
56:04
I. Know it is a homage to the lead
56:08
actress and you've got all those Avengers things like the huge
56:10
speakers people in bell jars people on conveyor belts being
56:14
dropped into vats. It's it's just two Avengers for
56:17
its own good. And then the third reason, the
56:19
two things that really get my goat, if that already hasn't
56:23
one, is the sexualized Dr. I just said in hide He wasn't.
56:26
Thank God. By now he hasn't.
56:29
Fortunately, we've established Matt's doctor.
56:31
He's clumsy, he's awkward, he doesn't recognise advances, but
56:35
he's snogging Jenny and getting a Sonic erection.
56:37
It's horrible. It's really horrible.
56:39
Why, though? We're trying to appeal to the
56:41
Americans now, aren't we? It's become a success in
56:43
America. That's horrible.
56:45
And then the second thing that really gets my go is how does a
56:48
prehistoric Leech that they admit is a Leech?
56:51
Because the Doctor's going to take it back to prehistoric
56:53
Earth. So it's a Leech.
56:55
How does that help Mrs. Gilliflower build a rocket,
56:58
develop advanced electronics and plan this whole crazy,
57:02
convoluted plan? It's just stupidity gone mad.
57:06
There's not an ounce of rationality in it.
57:08
It annoys the hell out of me. It's smug and horrible.
57:11
It's going, I bet. It's really fun to watch though,
57:13
isn't it? No.
57:14
OK, I really want to watch it now after you've.
57:16
You're waiting for me to. No, no.
57:18
I just find it really irritating.
57:20
Sorry guys. It's down to our guest, then to
57:22
this is shit out over this one. Cam, let's go to you first.
57:26
Yay or nay? Definitely.
57:28
Yay. I love this one.
57:29
This is one of my two highlights when we're watching this.
57:32
Sorry, but I just. It is.
57:34
I love the atmosphere. I know you're saying the
57:37
characters are are, you know, grotesque and not realistic in
57:41
any way, but I just I love them for that.
57:44
I love the kind of like sort of it it it does say at one point,
57:47
you know, the penny dreadful, and that's what this is all
57:50
about. You know, between the the
57:51
Mortuary technician going, you know, the Crimson are.
57:55
It's just that that moment for me got me the pattern Nostra
58:00
gang. I still I love the pattern
58:02
Nostra gang. I would watch a whole TV series
58:04
of my no big finish. I got the ordeal for them, but I
58:07
would watch a whole spin off TV series of the pattern Nostra
58:10
gang. I just find, you know, their
58:11
interactions brilliant. And I think it's an interesting
58:14
story in the fact that it's the Doctor screws up by kind of
58:19
being the sort of confident, you know, oh, we're going to
58:21
investigate this and great. And then ends up getting like
58:23
roped into it himself and incapacitated as someone's pet
58:26
monster, which I find quite amusing.
58:29
So it's not as if, you know, the Doctor's going to, you know,
58:31
that he didn't save the whole thing.
58:32
It is kind of like, you know, it's unusual to see the Doctor
58:35
kind of incomplete Dire Straits until about halfway through, No?
58:40
I'd say the the two big surprises for me re watching
58:43
this were Hyde and the Crimson Horror and I love this one a
58:46
bit. Sorry.
58:47
Oh dear, so we've already done your two highs.
58:49
That's a bit worrying for the rest of the podcast.
58:51
Wonderful that they put him in that two awful ones.
58:54
It's a shame they let him out halfway through the episode, but
58:57
it's wonderful. Well, yeah, He's like, you're
58:59
thinking, who's the, you know, what's the monster?
59:00
What's the monster? There's a glorious bit halfway
59:02
through and it's suddenly like, oh shit, it's the Doctor.
59:06
Remember that time you came in and so I came in and you didn't
59:09
have the dinner ready and I just went, you perfidious hack?
59:12
Yeah, yeah, I remember that. Sterling and rigged together.
59:15
Yeah, amazing. That's it and it's great and I
59:17
think she's wonderful. That means Mark has the power.
59:21
You've got the deciding vote. The wrong hands potentially.
59:28
No, I would champion this one. I I love it for a lot of the
59:32
reasons that Rod hates it. It's a common thing, you know on
59:37
Strictly. Yeah, just love.
59:39
The vividness of this, the campering, and it's one of those
59:43
rare stories in the new Who where you've got the guest stars
59:48
given something substantial to do.
59:50
You've got Diana Rigg, they've given her a lovely meaty role.
59:52
You've got Rachel Sterling, who is absolutely in a blinder.
59:58
They're fantastic throughout. And what could be more Doctor
1:00:02
Who ish than having a big rubber Leech attached to the
1:00:05
decolletage of a British Empire? That's just the most bizarre and
1:00:10
Doctor Who you think you could possibly have ever.
1:00:13
Oh my God, now I want to watch it even more.
1:00:16
Crimson Horror is the first of our three so far to go through
1:00:21
right, So I'm going to pick my first.
1:00:23
I think I'm I'm going to be out of kilter with everybody
1:00:25
tonight, so I might as well go full hog on this one.
1:00:29
I'm going to pick Joseph Grittiestie.
1:00:32
I'm going to pick my favorite of the season.
1:00:34
For me, this is my classic of this half series.
1:00:41
Adventure, imagination, ideas, laughs, sentiment.
1:00:48
It's the Rings of Akatan. Oh, thank.
1:00:50
God. I love the rings of No, he
1:00:56
doesn't look very impressed. Cam, you're supposed to keep
1:00:59
your powder dry. Love.
1:01:03
I love the rings of Akaten. So for me, this is full on fairy
1:01:08
tale and it's got a lot in common with another modern fairy
1:01:11
tale Star Wars. So my three reasons for
1:01:14
recommending this are all linked to Star Wars because I can see
1:01:17
so many links between Akaten and that.
1:01:20
So first one is the visual clues, cues even as opposed to
1:01:23
clues, although there are clues and cues.
1:01:27
So like the first Star Wars film, we begin very
1:01:29
domestically. There we've got Luke with his
1:01:31
aunt and uncle having allegedly lost his parents.
1:01:34
Here we start with Clara losing her mum.
1:01:36
Then we travel to the Accutane marketplace that is so
1:01:39
reminiscent of the Star Wars universe.
1:01:40
There are head sculpts on some of those monsters and droids
1:01:43
walking around, which looks so much like Star Wars characters.
1:01:47
And it is that Alien Marcus's like the scene from every Star
1:01:51
Wars film, whether it's the cantina in the original or the
1:01:53
Tatooine bazaar in Phantom Menace, where you got trades of
1:01:57
every size, colour and creed. It just smacks of Star Wars.
1:02:00
And it's interesting, actually. Yeah, well.
1:02:03
Have you seen Star Wars lately? I have seen star.
1:02:05
Wars, the new series. The new TV series this.
1:02:08
Is what Star Wars would look like.
1:02:10
I've been watching these fan films on YouTube on a budget
1:02:12
with 30 pence. This is what Star Wars would
1:02:14
look like if they. Had on a budget of £0.30 I don't
1:02:19
know Star Wars still have their own rubber heads walking on
1:02:21
people so but it just feels it's got a Star Wars vibe hasn't it?
1:02:26
And it's interesting that even the TARDIS translation circus
1:02:29
have stopped working here. So the aliens are speaking in
1:02:31
grunts and barks, which again very Star Wars got people
1:02:35
walking through the marketplace sweeping through in robes very
1:02:38
Jedi Knight. You got the arena then, which is
1:02:41
very attack of the clones. You got that moped sequence in
1:02:44
space, which is like the speeder bikes from oh, it's terribly
1:02:47
shot. But I mean, talk about cheap,
1:02:49
Joe. That is possibly one of the
1:02:51
cheapest sequences. It is kind of a hybrid of the
1:02:54
speed of bikes from Return the Jedi.
1:02:57
And it's a little bit the asteroid field chase from Empire
1:02:59
Strikes Back. Then you've got the mummy
1:03:01
figure, who's obviously a lot more Ferrell than Darth Vader,
1:03:04
But when he's flanked by those helmeted Vigil, this, you know,
1:03:07
this similar visual look there. And then finally you've got the
1:03:10
grandfather, the planet, the big orb in the sky, which again for
1:03:13
a visual icon, iconography, even I can't speak tonight.
1:03:18
He's very dead star, isn't it? So there's lots of visual cues I
1:03:21
think that tie them together. Didn't quite take off like Star
1:03:24
Wars though, did it? No, funnily enough, it didn't.
1:03:26
And I don't think it's quite as beloved as Star Wars, I thought.
1:03:30
What makes you think? That.
1:03:32
I think we'll come to that in a minute.
1:03:34
My second reason is that the storytelling motif.
1:03:37
So Star Wars talks about princesses and Queens, and
1:03:40
that's not something much we do off in Doctor Who.
1:03:42
Well, there's plenty of Queens, but not many princesses.
1:03:46
Here we've got Mary Galal, who's a cross between Princess Leia,
1:03:49
Queen Amidala and Anakin Skywalker.
1:03:51
She's being rescued by a gang of heroes, including an old wizard
1:03:55
type character, the Doctor or Obi Wan.
1:03:57
However you want, the reader. And my Star Wars has obviously
1:04:00
got the Force at its heart, this mythical presence that empowers
1:04:03
good or evil. Here we've got the power of
1:04:05
memory and sentiment, and that's used both as a form of currency,
1:04:09
but it's also the means of defeating the enemy at the end.
1:04:12
So I think there's lots of storytelling motif parallels.
1:04:15
And thirdly, the music. Look, Star Wars and John
1:04:17
Williams music are absolutely synonymous, and Murray's
1:04:20
actually got a very similar approach to to New Who.
1:04:23
It's full of big orchestras, it's main themes for all the
1:04:26
main characters, and music is more central here probably than
1:04:30
most Doctor Who stories in that kind of for a long song, kind of
1:04:34
becomes the episode's equivalent of Duel of the Fates from
1:04:37
Phantom Menace. So yeah, I think that for all
1:04:39
these reasons, it's very Star Wars for me.
1:04:42
But Despite that, I think it's a great story, lot of fun.
1:04:45
Don't know why people hate it. I love it.
1:04:47
It's going through for me. Should go through song.
1:04:50
You know, unlike, unlike the episode itself, that long song
1:04:52
did take off. It absolutely did.
1:04:55
A big song of Phantom, didn't it in?
1:04:57
Yeah, during lockdown, Yeah, let's go to the comments.
1:05:00
Captain Wonder. Hello, Captain Wonder, he said
1:05:03
when this came out, it was voted voted worst episode in all of
1:05:07
who beating the Twin Dilemma. Why?
1:05:09
It's genuinely a banger. You're absolutely right.
1:05:11
It is fun visuals, a solid story, gives Clara lots of
1:05:14
development and ends with one of the most gripping Doctor
1:05:17
speeches in the show. Darren Lick roundels the first
1:05:20
episode I've ever been tempted to switch off.
1:05:22
It looks incredibly cheap. So unengaging.
1:05:24
Another tedious Dr. speech. Loss of races.
1:05:28
I normally find something I like in most episodes but by the end
1:05:32
of this I was red faced and fuming.
1:05:34
It made me realize I need to get my blood pressure under control.
1:05:37
A multitude of reasons why I didn't like it, topped with a
1:05:40
boring, pretentious speech. Jason Thompson I liked all the
1:05:44
aliens, but the scary Pumpkinhead monster in the
1:05:46
overblown speech just didn't work for me.
1:05:48
I'm riding a space bike through space between asteroids with
1:05:51
wind ruffling their hair. Give me strength.
1:05:55
I can't bin it though, because it lets the amazing Lockdown
1:05:58
choir reckon rendition of The Long Sun in 2020, which was
1:06:03
glorious. John Bansal Can we skip John
1:06:06
Bansal here please? Disney style who before it
1:06:10
became a reality. Flashy visuals but zero plot. 0
1:06:13
tension and overwrought speech making.
1:06:16
The Doctor takes the creepy stalking up a notch whilst
1:06:19
Murray's pompous choir drowns the place out with tune free
1:06:22
schmaltz. Do you know what?
1:06:24
He didn't leave any comments at all and I added him saying
1:06:27
please leave. Comments for this season.
1:06:29
Daniel Romsley, an unsung classic, takes some end of the
1:06:32
world window dressing and blows it up into full blown space
1:06:35
operatic melodrama. Yes.
1:06:40
I'm Hawk. I'm Hawk turning one of his best
1:06:43
performances, only to then be bested by Coleman.
1:06:46
Gorgeous. Chacoya says some neat costumes
1:06:49
and sets, and I think that of the stories this season, it
1:06:51
shows what makes Clara unique. It's a story I like but don't
1:06:54
return too much. Maybe because I can hear the
1:06:56
gears grinding on the Moffett dialogue generator.
1:07:00
Dan Pin You'll either love it or hate it.
1:07:02
And I I love it. It has something magical at the
1:07:05
heart of it, and the most ordinary of objects can become
1:07:08
so powerful because of the memories we make with the people
1:07:11
we love. Brilliant.
1:07:13
Andrew Kernos is such an oddity. In fact, I really love this one.
1:07:16
There's quite a bit of love for this until the plot kicks in.
1:07:19
A doctor as traveller, explorer, wandering around the market,
1:07:22
going to the arena. All that stuff's great.
1:07:25
But the story is bizarre and I'm afraid I hate that big speech at
1:07:28
the end. Daniel Knight can't decide
1:07:30
whether it's gloriously wonderful or absolutely hideous.
1:07:34
It's not the worst for sure, but the song is so sugary and
1:07:36
overblown it's like wading through treacle whilst being
1:07:39
forced to listen to Céline Dion. How mean about Céline Dion?
1:07:45
It's all coming back to me now. Hard to get through and very
1:07:48
painful. And the gag of the night goes to
1:07:53
Greg Orange. Michael says the speech by Matt
1:07:55
Smith is one of the finest moments of his era.
1:07:57
I adore it. Keep it, keep it, keep it.
1:08:00
James H takes tediousness to a whole new depressing levels.
1:08:03
It's like Moffett rerunning End of the World but without the
1:08:06
charm. Lots of utter bollocks about a
1:08:09
leaf saving the day bin though. Better make the compost one as
1:08:14
it's so recycled. John Horse is easily my least
1:08:18
favorite 7B story. Boringly average until the
1:08:21
Doctor somehow destroys a Jack O Lantern living son with a
1:08:25
smegging leaf of all things. We're nearly there, folks.
1:08:28
Thanks for your patience. Steve Miller, visually a treat.
1:08:30
Loved the marketplace, but the real star is choral music.
1:08:34
The plot sometimes gets lost in its sentimentality.
1:08:37
That doesn't quite help. Together as a cohesive story,
1:08:39
there are moments of genuine emotional impact.
1:08:42
Joe Llewellyn says not loved by all but I love it.
1:08:45
Very alien setting and I love the songs.
1:08:47
Risky but it worked for me. Another shouty Matt Smith
1:08:50
speech. Bliss.
1:08:51
But ultimate comment, Paul's My dear God not great.
1:08:55
By the Doctor's speech, the song in inverted commas is cringe
1:08:59
worthy. And Karl Oligarch says a
1:09:02
beautiful story with lovely visuals, a touching plot and a
1:09:05
wonderful message. Should we go to Cam?
1:09:08
Because I think your facial expressions have kind of given
1:09:10
it away, Cam, seeing as you were grimacing and throwing up in a
1:09:13
bucket on everything I said. But let's go for it.
1:09:16
Let's say what you think. I want to like it.
1:09:18
I do want to like it because it it it the bit when they go
1:09:22
through the market is really well done and it it it really is
1:09:26
a fantastic introduction for Clara to, you know, for the
1:09:29
Doctor. And this is how he travels and
1:09:30
this is the sort of people he meets and this is the sort of
1:09:32
thing that's everyday. It has that thing of Clara for
1:09:36
me throughout this entire her entire run always does the most
1:09:40
stupid thing available to her at any particular time.
1:09:42
And this is the including the very end at face the Raven.
1:09:46
And I think this is the start of it because she picks a lump of
1:09:49
fruit that she's just been handed before the doctor could
1:09:53
do any kind of toxicity readings or anything.
1:09:55
She's hulking right into it. So it's like going to go, this
1:09:57
is the start of Clara's trouble being being a companion.
1:10:02
In the end of the day, it kind of just we sing a song to keep a
1:10:07
God asleep and then there's not really going to be much else
1:10:12
apart from them standing, looking at this vampire thing in
1:10:15
the box in the room, and then a planet burning up and destroyed
1:10:20
by a leaf. It's a bit too tenuous for me.
1:10:24
It kind of falls off a Cliff halfway through and then I'm not
1:10:27
I'm not with it. This is the one.
1:10:29
I didn't remember much about it. Someone I was watching, I was
1:10:31
like, oh, I'll probably like this one.
1:10:33
And at the end I was like, no, no, doesn't hit.
1:10:35
Doesn't hit. Sorry.
1:10:38
So you've had the episodes that you've rewatched and you've gone
1:10:41
both ways with them. Yeah.
1:10:42
Like, like that. You didn't remember too much
1:10:44
about Obviously Hyde. You went the right way.
1:10:46
Anchors and Horror and Rings of Accotin is not for you.
1:10:50
No, not for me, sorry. Mark, is it for you?
1:10:54
It is actually. Yes, at last.
1:10:59
It gets a lot of hate this episode and even when it went
1:11:04
out, I didn't understand quite why it's it's really ambitious,
1:11:10
but it's also kind of inoffensive and unremarkable as
1:11:14
well. At the same time, it's it's a
1:11:15
really, it's like it's very the direction I think undermines it
1:11:19
terribly throughout. That's probably the main factor
1:11:22
in going back to revisit it on this occasion.
1:11:24
I went why do people dislike it? A lot of people had read
1:11:28
comments saying people saying how the pace was off and it is.
1:11:33
And I think that's what means this story just doesn't get the
1:11:37
the love. If it was a different director
1:11:39
and a different pair of hands, I think it would hold up better.
1:11:42
Like Farron Blackburn, there seems where Murray Gold's music
1:11:45
is working so hard to bring some sort of drama to very static
1:11:49
sequences. You know, the only other
1:11:52
episodes that Farron Blackburn directed.
1:11:54
Talk to the widow and the wardrobe.
1:11:56
Yeah, I mean, it says everything.
1:11:58
Does it does. And I, I think there's so much
1:12:02
potential here. Whereas I thought Neil Cross
1:12:05
when he wrote Hyde, he was aiming for something and he
1:12:07
didn't achieve it. In this he's trying to do
1:12:10
something which they can't, they can't realise effectively,
1:12:14
certainly with the with the what they had available at the time.
1:12:17
Like if they made it with the Disney money, that would
1:12:19
probably be a different story again.
1:12:22
But there's some moments that are really undermined by the
1:12:24
poor direction, like the the grandstanding of the Doctor
1:12:27
towards the end. That's just a knock off of the
1:12:29
Pandorica opens. But you've got a scene with Mary
1:12:32
Galelle where he stops and he pauses and he explains to her
1:12:35
that you are unique in the universe.
1:12:37
And it's a really beautiful speech.
1:12:40
And it's not focused on very much when people talk about this
1:12:44
episode, but there's lovely sequences in it.
1:12:46
A lot of lovely sequences, including Clara trying to save
1:12:50
Mary at the start and then hiding behind the TARDIS.
1:12:53
There's real compassion and there's just a niceness about
1:12:58
it. It's maybe a bit more juvenile
1:13:00
than the sort of Doctor Who we're accustomed to, and I think
1:13:03
that's possibly another reason why people don't take to this
1:13:06
very much, because it's not quite got the heft of other
1:13:09
stories in this era. But overall, I like it and I
1:13:15
appreciate it and I want to champion it for that reason,
1:13:17
because it it's got the ambition.
1:13:20
Does it succeed? Not necessarily, but I've never
1:13:23
had any cause to dislike it. Fabulous.
1:13:26
So it's one apiece. Joe Rings of AKA 10.
1:13:30
I used to love this episode. I've done several podcasts about
1:13:35
the rings of AKA 10 and so I'm not entirely sure what went
1:13:39
wrong watching it this time. And I'll see you on the fence
1:13:43
and I've got a few notes and I'll sort of make a decision at
1:13:46
the end because I'm I just don't know.
1:13:48
I do not know. I think Clara's mum and dad
1:13:52
meeting via relief Falling Down is utterly saccharine in all the
1:13:55
worst ways, but it's actually played brilliantly by the two
1:13:58
actors. That whole big bit at the
1:13:59
beginning is lovely, until that stalker the Doctor turns up at
1:14:03
the graveside in and on in the park.
1:14:06
I mean, what are they thinking? Clara's dad aged terribly well,
1:14:10
though. I'll get to that, don't you
1:14:12
worry. I I don't like the doctor
1:14:18
spelling out the Clara's not possible.
1:14:19
All of that just reminding us of the Ark directly to us, to
1:14:23
nobody in particular. That's really awkward.
1:14:27
I think it looks very incredibly cheap this episode.
1:14:31
They're really trying to put in as many aliens as they possibly
1:14:34
can, and they can't really do it.
1:14:36
The bit in the the four and where she's singing, you can
1:14:40
clearly see that robot in about 15 different positions where
1:14:45
they've matted the same five people over and over again.
1:14:50
It is a bit like you said, it's like the cantina scene.
1:14:52
It's like the cantina scene in Dragon Fire, not Star Wars.
1:14:56
You know, where they pulled in the firm RC and all that's in
1:14:59
the chairs and that dreadful bit on the bikes.
1:15:02
I just can't forgive it that. But the music's going.
1:15:06
The music's going. I think I mean along.
1:15:10
Oh, Star Wars, are you mad? Trying to be trying to be.
1:15:14
I did notice when they came back on the speeder bikes they just
1:15:17
literally cut them arriving. They didn't even attempt it the
1:15:20
second time on the return trip. But I love the idea of the
1:15:24
emotional currency. I think that's a really
1:15:26
interesting idea and it's explored well.
1:15:29
I think the sentiment is on the right side of sentimentality,
1:15:32
actually. People say it's sort of vomit
1:15:34
inducing and I don't think that's true at all.
1:15:36
I think the the contrast between Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman's
1:15:40
performances in the climax where he's screaming his head off and
1:15:44
I love the fact that he's willing to go for it as well.
1:15:46
Like to the point where he's crying and then she comes along
1:15:50
all restraint and it's just hold up and saying this is the most
1:15:54
important leaf in human history. The the contrast between the two
1:15:58
means it's very touching. For that reason, I think both
1:16:00
sides of that wasn't the climax works really well, man, that
1:16:04
you're right, Mark. The direction is not great and
1:16:07
the pacing is an issue. I think the first half of the
1:16:10
episode's too slow and the second-half of the episode's too
1:16:13
fast. But fuck it, I'm going to put it
1:16:16
through because Clara's dad is so fucking hot at the funeral
1:16:22
and that's enough to tip it in in my favour.
1:16:24
So let's go. Let's put it through for round
1:16:26
two. Shallow.
1:16:27
Shallow. Man.
1:16:28
Well, I was going to put it through for that reason as well,
1:16:30
but I didn't want to be so shallow.
1:16:34
It's a tricky one though. I don't think it really works,
1:16:36
but a lot of it is good. But at least it's got through to
1:16:40
round two. How long it lasts in round two,
1:16:42
who knows? So we've, we've put two through,
1:16:45
we've lost 2 Mark Cam, shall we go back to the second batch of
1:16:49
overall comments from our lovely listeners?
1:16:53
Left-handed Dalek, this is Moffett at his most horny.
1:16:56
Like he abstained from his thrice daily wank before sitting
1:16:59
down to write and edit this. And it makes it borderline and
1:17:02
watchable. The lady is not wrong.
1:17:06
Rob Morris says it's Vim and Vigour is amazing.
1:17:09
It looks stunning. The leads work, but the stories
1:17:12
don't. It reaffirms my view that
1:17:14
companions work best when they transition to a new Doctor, not
1:17:17
join one. Interesting.
1:17:21
Darren Litt Randalls. I was really tired of the show
1:17:25
at this point. Jenna is a great actress but
1:17:27
Clara is an awful addition. She really brought out the worst
1:17:30
in Smith. Charlie Barnes says some very
1:17:35
underrated episodes and Smith's steampunk outfit is to die for.
1:17:40
Not the best season, but not as bad as its reputation.
1:17:44
Bill Evenson an absolute mess. Amazing to think that the
1:17:48
wonderful day of the Doctor came immediately after it.
1:17:52
That's because he wasn't focusing on this.
1:17:54
He was right in that. Oscar Gretcher says Movie of the
1:17:59
Week is a neat conceit, but it leads to jarring stylistic jokes
1:18:02
between genres that lend the Series A scattershot motif.
1:18:09
Philip Culley The season which could have been sorry, the
1:18:12
season which could have made made me give up just dismal
1:18:16
tripe. Which shows Moffett wants to
1:18:18
write shows as good as HBO dramas of the time, but fails
1:18:21
miserably. Paul Kirkley says not sure why
1:18:26
it gets a bad Rep. 5 Gooden's to three duds seems a reasonable
1:18:30
return by Doctor Who standards. Be interested to know what his
1:18:33
five to three ratio is. Steve Miller bit of a mixed bag,
1:18:41
offering stand out moments but uneven storytelling.
1:18:43
Smart ideas often struggle to balance their ambitious concepts
1:18:47
with coherent plots. Isaac Isaac Heeks.
1:18:52
I have fond memory memories of this as I first started watching
1:18:55
on its broadcast. Each episode takes you somewhere
1:18:58
radically different. It has its ups and downs and
1:19:00
quality, but you can't fault its ambition.
1:19:03
Clara's computer genius powers are wasted, though.
1:19:08
Matt Dennis. It's an OK run but would have
1:19:10
benefited from a couple of two parters.
1:19:13
Jenna gives the show a big shot in the arm though.
1:19:15
Utterly fab. Brendan Jones I could have done
1:19:19
without the attraction between the Doctor and Clara.
1:19:21
We had it with Amy and it still clangs here.
1:19:24
But Matt and Jen have great chemistry and they each get to
1:19:27
explore a range of emotions over the 8 episodes.
1:19:30
Overall fun for the most part, do.
1:19:32
They have great chemistry. I do not see it.
1:19:35
Oh, there's moments, there's moments, but it's not sustained,
1:19:38
is it? No.
1:19:42
Doctor Humst, this is my nostalgic series.
1:19:46
I remember buying every Doctor Who Adventures magazine when
1:19:48
they came out and reading them for hours.
1:19:50
I love every episode of this series.
1:19:52
I never and I never really understood the hate.
1:19:57
And the final word goes to Joe Shorts.
1:19:59
At least the bloody pawns are dead, which is a bonus.
1:20:04
She hates them. She is a cold hearted cow at
1:20:07
times. Isn't shame.
1:20:09
It's very succinct. We know where she stands.
1:20:13
Right, we're round to the last four, so we are turning to Cam.
1:20:19
Cam pick your story. OK, which one?
1:20:23
Which one? Which one?
1:20:28
That We've done that. Oh, yeah.
1:20:29
OK, let's go for it. Nightmare on silver.
1:20:34
A nightmare in silver. Which?
1:20:39
No, it's a mess. Is that it?
1:20:42
Just no. No, it's a well, it's got a few
1:20:46
good ideas, but I'm using the opinion that I hate heel turns
1:20:50
in TV drama. And I know I'm using heel turns
1:20:52
as like the wrestling vernacular, if anyone's familiar
1:20:55
with that. I will tell us.
1:20:57
Right. Heels are bad guys in wrestling.
1:20:59
If you heel turn, you turn into a bad guy right now, as with
1:21:04
most things in, you know, in life, in professional wrestling,
1:21:06
you heel turns have to be earned and they are pointless to come
1:21:09
out of nowhere. And I'm not a fan of characters
1:21:13
that suddenly have to behave like heels when they've been
1:21:16
good guys all along. And in this, Matt Smith does
1:21:19
both, sometimes within 3 seconds of each other, then back again.
1:21:23
And it really doesn't work for me at all.
1:21:26
It's just no, it's got the two annoying kids that we just kind
1:21:32
of touched upon just now. Not touched them obviously, but
1:21:34
touched upon. And you know, I don't know why
1:21:38
they're there. They're just kind of the end,
1:21:40
end the story before kind of going, oh, we want to go in time
1:21:42
machine and then they're here and they're probably more
1:21:44
annoying than Ardrick. And then he's got Clara suddenly
1:21:49
gets put in in charge of a military operation just because
1:21:52
the Doctor says so. Haffling, isn't it?
1:21:54
Which is like, why are they listening to her?
1:21:58
And then the porridge reveal at the end when he's actually the
1:22:02
emperor is pretty fucking limp because what it did is just
1:22:05
sounds bored throughout the whole thing.
1:22:08
He's just like, yeah, it was the emperor here.
1:22:10
That was great. Yeah, yeah.
1:22:13
And chess is a rubbish spectator sport.
1:22:16
It. Is of anything else, just
1:22:19
anything else have them play fucking foosball or something
1:22:21
like that. You know, just not.
1:22:23
I get there's always chess. It's the height of intelligence
1:22:26
so you have to be sharp witted. It's boring to watch and.
1:22:30
Pretty boring to play to be fair.
1:22:32
Well, yeah. Well, this is it.
1:22:33
Do you remember? When they did deaf chess in the
1:22:35
wedding of River Song, that was even more boring than this.
1:22:38
Yeah, well, pretty much, yeah. And also, as I told Joe in
1:22:42
WhatsApp, Neil Gaiman, he's one of my favourite writers.
1:22:47
And in the last week, I'm doing a lot of serious separating the
1:22:53
art from the artist. Yeah, because it's all I know.
1:22:58
Some of it's allegedly, but he has apparently admitted to
1:23:02
having sexual relations with a nanny who was looking after his
1:23:06
kids who was like 40 years his junior, which.
1:23:09
Is like. How have I missed this?
1:23:11
Normally I've missed this like this.
1:23:13
Yeah, he's he's disappeared. Well, he disappeared from
1:23:15
Twitter anyway, but he's now disappeared from his favorite
1:23:17
social media of Blue Sky. Should we?
1:23:20
Actually, we had a quick allegedly.
1:23:21
Allegedly, Yeah, allegedly Allegedly Allegedly not legally
1:23:24
proven, blah blah blah blah blah.
1:23:25
I mean, we're not allowed to like the Doctor's wife anymore.
1:23:27
I don't know. We'll just say it was by Steven
1:23:29
Moffitt, because it kind of was. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
1:23:31
But I mean, I yeah, that's not the only reason, but it's it's
1:23:36
one of in recent memory, looking back on this, it tints it a fair
1:23:40
bit. It's tough, isn't it?
1:23:42
I think it's really tough when just as a very quick aside, when
1:23:45
you have an, a writer that you really admire, because I always
1:23:50
really liked Gareth Roberts books and now I think he's a
1:23:54
despicable human being and I have to try and reconcile the
1:23:57
fact that I still really love his books.
1:23:59
And it's it's a strange conflict to have.
1:24:03
Quite a minefield like you say, comets, that having to be able
1:24:05
to separate the art from the artists and it but some people
1:24:09
it's easier than others. With you, Mark.
1:24:14
With me. Yeah, no, no, no, I'm not saying
1:24:18
I've not got a no. How is is it easy for you to
1:24:22
separate artists and? Art.
1:24:25
It's very odd, the sort of the culture that we're in where
1:24:28
people are getting cancelled quite easily.
1:24:32
I think if something brings you joy, I mean, I'd, I know a lot
1:24:35
of people are Harry Potter fans and I never was.
1:24:39
So for me, JK Rowling's anti trans stance, well, you know, I,
1:24:45
you know what she's done Harry Potter.
1:24:46
People completely enjoy that it's a franchise in its own
1:24:49
right. I know a lot of people that are
1:24:51
trans, you know, that are, that are trans and supportive of
1:24:54
trans rights, who continue to enjoy Harry Potter, but they
1:24:58
will not hear her name mentioned.
1:25:01
They just, they just have to accept that she's become this
1:25:06
mother. You know, she's she's just
1:25:07
beyond that realm. So it's quite a.
1:25:09
It's a. Tricky one.
1:25:11
We're lucky she didn't turn up in that Christmas special.
1:25:13
Really, aren't we? It's.
1:25:17
Kind of like when we, you know, people have a big thing against
1:25:20
the phrase Lovecraftian horror now and prefer to use eldritch
1:25:25
horror to separate from HP Lovecraft because he was a
1:25:28
horrendous racist. But you know, but you can still
1:25:32
kind of read his stuff and go. It's really good.
1:25:35
Not to be facetious though. I mean I think after this
1:25:37
episode aired he could have been cancelled at that point if I
1:25:40
want. Well, yeah, this was obviously
1:25:44
the start of a very slippy downward slope.
1:25:46
It was all it was nightmare, and Silver started it all.
1:25:49
Yeah, that's it. That's it.
1:25:50
It just went into his dark place.
1:25:52
Shall we go to the comments? Dan Hollingsworth says nightmare
1:25:55
and silver Nightmare for the viewer.
1:25:58
I'm a huge fan of gay men, but I can only assume this has a lot
1:26:01
of rewrites as it was a frustrating mess.
1:26:03
Why is it so hard to do a great Cyberman story?
1:26:07
This is where we know now Michael Store will forgive
1:26:09
anything in the Steven Moffat era.
1:26:12
The best story in Sorry, The best Cyberman story in New Who
1:26:17
Until Capaldi, Swan Stone and the highlight of the season.
1:26:21
Keep it. Can you hear that petty drop?
1:26:25
Well, we haven't been around the panel yet, so who knows.
1:26:27
Joe Llewellyn says another unloved story loved by me.
1:26:31
Warwick Davis. Annoying kids, some of the worst
1:26:33
soldiers in Doctor Who history. It's fine.
1:26:35
Hang on, he he hates everything and then says it's fine and he
1:26:38
loves it? I'm very confused by that
1:26:40
comment. Daniel Knight.
1:26:42
Was this really written by gay men?
1:26:43
It's the biggest clunker of modern era.
1:26:46
An absolute mess in every department, writing, acting,
1:26:49
direction, design. I wanted to throw my TV.
1:26:51
Always going to Ian Levine on us.
1:26:53
I wanted to throw my TV out the window when I saw this on
1:26:56
transmission. The absolute piss.
1:26:58
David Gillespie, Pratt said the week this was shown, I got a
1:27:01
hooky copy of the recovered episode 2 of Underwater Menace.
1:27:04
It goes a long way to say that I preferred the antics of
1:27:06
Professor Zaraf and his octopus to Mr. Clever and that awful
1:27:10
comment about Clara Skirt. Darren Lick, Randalls Clara is
1:27:14
utterly unbelievable. Smith's performance is awful.
1:27:17
The whole upgrading Cybermen got tedious fast.
1:27:20
The naff subplot about porridge that no one cared about.
1:27:23
Really bad but nice setting. If the budget could support it,
1:27:27
it couldn't. Akoya said a creepy Jurassic
1:27:30
Park knock off with upgrading Cybermen on the loose should
1:27:33
have been so much more. Is this Clara secretly another
1:27:36
splinter? We haven't seen her act like
1:27:38
this before or since. When did she become a great
1:27:40
military tactician? Maybe this could have been
1:27:43
seeded in Cold War. Probably the worst one.
1:27:46
I just couldn't decide what to deliver, that's all.
1:27:49
It was Daniel Romsley, a train wreck in many respects with lots
1:27:53
of cool cyber concepts never getting used again.
1:27:55
I can't decide if Smith's car crash duel performance of Cyber
1:27:58
Planner is the best or worst performance he's ever given.
1:28:02
Probably both. I still quote Wakey wakey boys
1:28:06
and girls. John Bensalia says in theory a
1:28:09
strong contender. Cybermen, the return of an
1:28:12
acclaimed writer and a starry guest cast.
1:28:15
In practice, complete shit. The cast are wasted.
1:28:19
Smith's Mr. Clever is more Mr. Silly than this Angie and Artie,
1:28:22
who drag this fiasco down to new levels of cringe.
1:28:26
Jason Thompson having gaming on board again raised expectations.
1:28:30
The result did not deliver. The story hinges on totally
1:28:33
changing what the Cybermen are. They're not that bloody Borg.
1:28:37
Matt Smith is damn good arguing with himself, but the whole Mr.
1:28:40
Clever thing just doesn't fit with the Cybermen.
1:28:42
And I can't give a single toast about any of the sporting
1:28:45
characters, Ben. Big Orange, Michael said.
1:28:48
I was pretty excited for more game and who when they said I
1:28:50
like that he's trying to return the menace, the Cybermen, but I
1:28:53
don't think this one ever connects with me in the way that
1:28:56
it could or should. Alas, I say Bennett.
1:28:59
Andrew Kerner. The Cybermen look great, but
1:29:01
apart from that I'm not a great fan of the sort of whimsical
1:29:04
style that has a character called Porridge.
1:29:06
And why wasn't the Emperor just sorry, Why doesn't the Emperor
1:29:10
just rescue everyone earlier? Not a favorite.
1:29:12
Don Horses. Oh my God where to start on this
1:29:15
utter shit show of a story. Gaming in the cyber and saying
1:29:18
like a perfect match on paper but proved to be anything on
1:29:21
screen. And surely I wasn't the only
1:29:23
viewer rooting for those two bloody kids to be converted.
1:29:27
No, you weren't Cliff Chapman. It's the sort of enjoyable,
1:29:31
sorry. It's sort of enjoyable, but the
1:29:32
Sidemen are way too close to the Borg and there are some Duff
1:29:36
performances. I like the idea of toughening up
1:29:38
the Sidemen and the new design is nice.
1:29:41
Adrian Berry said finally would have been better without the
1:29:44
kids and Mr. Clever Mark. Mr. Clever, Yay or nay?
1:29:50
Nay, nay and thrice nay. There's just of all the episodes
1:29:59
that I've watched, this is the one that I scribbled the most.
1:30:03
Let's hear them at all. It was just there were so many
1:30:05
things and a lot of people have touched on it in the comments.
1:30:07
The Cybermen effectively as Borg and being able to upgrade them
1:30:12
appearing on mass, Where are they coming from?
1:30:16
The the whole there's just the setups not great.
1:30:18
The fear factor in the Cybermen is that about conversion and the
1:30:24
being, you know, just off human. There's no threat of conversion.
1:30:27
They just seem to be an endless supply of them coming from who
1:30:31
knows where. It's not really explained.
1:30:35
Matt Smith when he's playing the Cyber planner.
1:30:37
There's hardly any differentiation between the
1:30:40
Doctor and Mr. Clever and just it's not effective.
1:30:45
I feel like it should be, there should be more differentiation
1:30:49
between the two characterizations, but he's just
1:30:52
playing the Doctor but with a slightly frostier inflection,
1:30:55
but only slight. Like, annoying and annoying,
1:30:59
isn't it? Yeah, essentially.
1:31:01
And you've got the, you know, the whole idea of the Doctor
1:31:03
being assimilated is into the into the Siberia AD and gaining
1:31:07
all this Time Lord knowledge and technology.
1:31:11
That should be a bit of a threat in itself, but it's kind of
1:31:13
brush past. It's not there.
1:31:15
They could be more focused on that the kids, Angie in
1:31:24
particular, I'm bored. She doesn't even deliver the
1:31:27
line with any like no. And and I mean, from the skirt
1:31:34
comment at the end alone that, you know, that we've already
1:31:38
touched on the idea of there being a slightly more sexualized
1:31:41
version of the doctor. Smith's interpretation of the
1:31:44
Doctor is so much better when he's being this haphazard and
1:31:48
clueless asexual type who doesn't, you know, air kisses
1:31:52
and is. Just do you remember that?
1:31:55
But but he is for the first five episodes of this series, he is.
1:31:58
And then suddenly someone said earlier, you know, that maybe
1:32:02
Moffett's getting hornier as he goes along, but Matt Smith
1:32:05
starts off quite asexual in this half series, but suddenly in the
1:32:10
last three, it's suddenly ramped up again.
1:32:12
It's very odd. It just seems to come out of
1:32:14
nowhere. It's really odd, and it's a bit,
1:32:16
I mean, you know, the trial of the Time Lord as well when you
1:32:18
get thankless cliffhangers of crash rooms on the Doctor's face
1:32:23
virtually every episode. This series ends with the Doctor
1:32:25
contemplating Clara as she walks out the TARDIS doors.
1:32:29
Virtually, you know, four or five of the eight episodes end
1:32:32
on the same. Yeah, but this, this one ends up
1:32:34
with almost like a carry on where he's looking at to go.
1:32:36
It's just horrible in that I'm just.
1:32:41
Throwing it at that I'm. Reliable.
1:32:42
And before I say this, I don't mean it in an improper way
1:32:45
really. I think, I hope I'm reliably
1:32:48
informed, that Moffett had a bit of an infatuation with Jenna
1:32:52
Coleman, and I'm wondering if some of that is coming into the
1:32:55
scripts. I didn't say rubbing off on the
1:32:57
scripts there. It goes into all sorts of
1:33:00
problems. Well that comma said he juice to
1:33:02
do the rubbing off before he writes the scripts.
1:33:04
Oh no. But yeah, for that, for that
1:33:08
final comment about the skirt, I just that alone it should be
1:33:11
bent for. OK, I'll go next.
1:33:14
I'm going to try and defend Nightmare and Silver.
1:33:19
So I'm going to start by Clara. So everyone criticizes Clara in
1:33:23
the saying, well, how does she get these military skills?
1:33:26
But she hasn't got any military skills.
1:33:28
I think people are missing the point.
1:33:30
She's doing exactly what the Doctors told her to do.
1:33:32
He puts her in charge and he has the authority to do that because
1:33:36
he's got the psychic paper that he's shown to the soldiers to
1:33:39
say that he's a high up, so they trust him.
1:33:42
He puts Clara in charge. He tells her not to let anyone
1:33:45
blow up the planet and to get somewhere defensible, and that's
1:33:48
all she does. She follows his instructions.
1:33:51
Yes, she plays up to it and plays as though she's in
1:33:53
control, but come on, that's what the Doctor's been doing all
1:33:56
these years. He walks into a situation and
1:33:58
plays as though he's in control. So he's not.
1:34:00
She's following his lead. Maybe it's.
1:34:02
Because she hasn't earned it yet.
1:34:03
I think maybe, maybe the season's time we would have got
1:34:06
there. But she does that, doesn't she?
1:34:07
A different. Heaven.
1:34:08
Exactly. Exactly.
1:34:10
But at this point she's, so I'll defined.
1:34:13
Yeah. Possibly it's just like, did we
1:34:15
miss this military training? Has she had it like?
1:34:18
Yeah, but actually, I say when you watch it, she actually the
1:34:21
only plan she comes up with is to put the power cables into the
1:34:23
water to electrocute the sideman.
1:34:25
But that's a plan that, I mean, Polly came up with nail Polish.
1:34:28
You know what I mean? Companions come up with
1:34:30
solutions all the time. Sara actually doesn't come up
1:34:33
with any military tactics apart from that.
1:34:35
She just plays this role. They fall for it.
1:34:38
And weirdly, the audience seem to fall for it as well and then
1:34:41
start questioning it. So I think I think that's
1:34:43
slightly I'll fair to judge the story by that because I don't
1:34:46
think that's that's a, a, a harness on the story's part.
1:34:50
Those are pretty ineffectual anyway.
1:34:53
So the fact that she can come in with no military experience and
1:34:56
still command them, I think that I think there's an element of
1:35:00
that brought to play there. Maybe it just needs to be better
1:35:03
written. My second reason for supporting
1:35:07
this story. And that's where I fall down.
1:35:10
I've just got Clara. It's the rest of it's fucking
1:35:14
awful, isn't it? It's just terrible, yeah.
1:35:17
Finally. My three reasons.
1:35:20
Very quickly we've probably touched on it.
1:35:22
The characters. Have there ever been a more
1:35:25
irritating trio of characters than Angie, Arty and Porridge?
1:35:29
I hate them all with a passion. That final scene in Cardiff's
1:35:34
Temple of Peace for the 200th time, where Porridge proposes to
1:35:38
Clara and you've got Angie and Arty mooning on.
1:35:41
It's the most so curling bit of TV I've ever seen.
1:35:45
It's so children's TV. It's just horrible.
1:35:48
Warwick Davis is poorly. I'm sure he can act.
1:35:52
I've seen him acting other things.
1:35:53
He's definitely phoning it in here.
1:35:55
Those children ought to be executed at birth.
1:35:58
It's just horrible. So sorry everybody.
1:36:01
Don't cancel me, please. The second reason I went too
1:36:05
far. The second the second reason go
1:36:10
far enough Ros. The second reason, the Doctor
1:36:13
versus Mr. Clever. Now, probably most of you are
1:36:16
too young to remember, but back in the 1970s, there's a very
1:36:19
famous, sure, you've seen a very famous Two Ronnies sketch where
1:36:22
Ronnie Bark does one of his big monologues and he's dressed half
1:36:25
of him is dressed as a man, half of him is dressed as a woman.
1:36:28
And he keeps turning towards the camera to speak either as male
1:36:31
or female. And that's what Matt Smith's
1:36:33
doing in this episode of a sci-fi classic in 2013.
1:36:38
He's just spinning on the spot to show us I'm the Doctor, I'm
1:36:42
the cyber planner. And gurning appropriately.
1:36:45
It is just hideous. I actually read, and I nearly
1:36:48
threw my computer. I read this week.
1:36:50
Then when Neil Gaiman wrote that, he said to Moffett, this
1:36:54
will be the script that gets Matt Smith his BAFTA for acting.
1:36:58
And this is what they gave him, I mean.
1:37:00
He also said this was going to be the scariest ever been.
1:37:05
Did he succeed there? No, not on either.
1:37:08
It's just hideous. I like Matt Smith a lot, but in
1:37:12
this episode that those scenes are just so badly judged, so
1:37:17
badly time. Everything about it is just
1:37:19
hideous. And then the other reason is the
1:37:22
plot. So the whole plot is the
1:37:24
Doctor's totally committed to not blowing up the planet.
1:37:26
What do they do at the end? They blow up the planet.
1:37:29
I mean, it's just why? Why have I wasted 45 minutes of
1:37:32
guff on this? And yes, still, please, Angie
1:37:36
and Arty put them into a hole in the ground quickly.
1:37:40
The end, Joe, we're. Endorsing child murder now on
1:37:44
this podcast. Sometimes it's justified, Joe.
1:37:47
It's the only option. Well, I played a blinder on you
1:37:50
early yesterday because I would like to defend Nightmare and
1:37:54
Silver. No, I don't want to do that.
1:37:57
Also, I don't want to do that. You basically said it all, but I
1:38:01
think this is one. This is the single worst
1:38:04
directed New Who episode. Stephen Wolfenden Never seen
1:38:08
before, never seen again. And that's because everyone
1:38:11
watched the episode. When?
1:38:12
What the hell. Like the worst director since
1:38:15
Pennant Roberts, I've written here.
1:38:18
No pace, no drama, no visual splendor, no joke lands, no
1:38:22
performance gels, no set piece coheres.
1:38:25
As a piece of television, it is staggeringly inept.
1:38:29
I I don't know why I've written this, but it clearly annoyed me
1:38:32
because I wrote it down. I just put the Castle with the
1:38:34
purple and yellow lighting, so I'll just say it.
1:38:37
It's because I wrote it down. It's the least scary the
1:38:40
Cybermen have ever been. What the hell are those little
1:38:42
cyber sperm things all about? I've never seen before.
1:38:47
Never seen against no. And the weird that the the
1:38:51
slightly feminine sidemen. It should work, but it doesn't.
1:38:55
Making them like Marvel monsters that can zoom into rooms and
1:38:59
grab people in slow motion. What the hell is that all about?
1:39:03
I've said Matt Smith has given up.
1:39:05
It's an embarrassment of childishness, idiotic shouting,
1:39:08
stupid asides, and easily the worst villain performance I've
1:39:11
ever seen. When Jodie played the darker
1:39:16
version of herself in Once Upon Time and it was leagues ahead of
1:39:21
this. Remember when Patrick Trout
1:39:22
played Salamander in The Enemy of the World?
1:39:25
Leagues ahead. I don't know.
1:39:26
What Baker is Megalos? Wonderful.
1:39:29
Really creepy at times. Like, he's just found out Matt
1:39:33
Smith went on record saying that the material he got at the end
1:39:38
of his era disappointed him and he wished that he'd kept the
1:39:42
characterization and the writing that he had in Series 5.
1:39:45
And I think it's this sort of stuff that he's talking about
1:39:48
because it's frankly, he is a man of some talent and giving
1:39:51
him this bullshit to say he's a bit of a joke.
1:39:54
And yet, of course, Angie and RC, the the living encapsulation
1:39:59
of why you never want to feature Doctor Who in like kids in
1:40:02
Doctor Who ever, ever again. And what do we do next year?
1:40:05
Fucking Forest of the Night, for God's sakes.
1:40:08
A whole bloody playground full of kids.
1:40:10
Yeah, but Joe, nobody is these. Two that just can't.
1:40:13
They are. They are the worst.
1:40:15
I actually think that Artie might even be worse.
1:40:18
You go, I go. How marvellous it all is, you
1:40:21
know, like, who is that? Who knows That kids?
1:40:24
I don't. I'm thinking, why are they so
1:40:26
sarcastic and angry and fed up all the time?
1:40:29
Like, I know kids are about a little bit, but look at the kids
1:40:32
in The Sarah Jane Adventures. You know, they were curious and
1:40:35
intelligent and emotional, unbelievable and likable.
1:40:39
It's so. Slightly thrilled to be in the
1:40:43
situation they're in. They're on another bloody world.
1:40:46
I mean, they are, they are asked to do some more things when they
1:40:48
do that antique grav at the beginning and they're laughing
1:40:51
and then they come down to earth and then Angie's back to go.
1:40:54
She's worse than that Harry Enfield teen.
1:40:56
They're drunk. I.
1:40:58
Want another planet but I'm boom.
1:41:01
It's just fuck off. Yeah.
1:41:03
We're bored of you. I think actually it should be in
1:41:06
awe of what they've, you know, they've been a once in a
1:41:08
lifetime opportunity and they're bored.
1:41:11
Don't you remember Courtney Woods who's goes to the bloody
1:41:14
moon and she's there on TikTok or something?
1:41:18
That's played better. Yeah, it has played a lot
1:41:20
better. She is a bit more, a bit better.
1:41:23
And do you know that I can't remember the fellow's name,
1:41:25
Jason. Jason Watkins.
1:41:27
Jason Watkins. Thank you.
1:41:28
He is such a great actor. How dare they waste him in this
1:41:31
pointless role. Frankly, I've seen him do
1:41:33
wonderful work. I think there are gamers in his
1:41:35
performance. Yeah, I think it'd be something
1:41:37
about it. Yes, yes, but he's bumped off,
1:41:40
isn't he? Or he's sabotized and.
1:41:42
Yeah, because Tom's and outweight's just painful.
1:41:44
Yes. Really.
1:41:45
What is it? She says.
1:41:46
What is it you talk to your porridge I.
1:41:50
Mean, even when she's killed, it's just almost thrown away,
1:41:53
isn't it? You always forget that she's
1:41:54
been shot down. There's no Joe.
1:41:55
You're right. The direction is so bad.
1:41:57
She's just shot from a distance, falls to the floor, is like, oh,
1:42:00
move on. I think.
1:42:02
Lots of little clunky things as well.
1:42:04
The the bit where the Cybermen are barging their way into the
1:42:07
castle, there's literally a barrel about a foot away from
1:42:09
the door and they just push it open there.
1:42:12
There's there's those things are, as you say, inept.
1:42:16
It's really like there's, there's no barricade, there's no
1:42:18
effort there. What went wrong?
1:42:21
One barrel apparently is all it takes.
1:42:24
And I did just put the end Clara the armour commander.
1:42:26
What the hell is that all about? But we've covered that.
1:42:28
So yes, a four way bin bin bin bin.
1:42:32
Right Nightmare and silver. Strangely false Mark, over to
1:42:37
you. You've got left, Bells of Saint
1:42:40
John, Cold War and June to the centre of the TARDIS.
1:42:44
I'm going. To champion 1 Bells of Saint
1:42:49
John. I always like this one, possibly
1:42:56
because it's Steven Moffett trying to do an homage to
1:42:59
Russell T Davies series openers. It's got the fun and the
1:43:02
vibrancy in the the joy of it. It's not as dark and grim as
1:43:07
some of it or fairy tale quality of as some of his other stories.
1:43:13
It's I like the plotting, I like the pace of it.
1:43:17
There's set pieces, but then there's moments to breathe and
1:43:21
you get to know the Doctor and Clara in those moments.
1:43:23
And then you have the thrill of going the the scene where they
1:43:27
run from the TARDIS and there's brilliant tracking shot around
1:43:30
the console, that brand new lovely console that we've hardly
1:43:32
seen yet out into the plane. Clara's still carrying her mug.
1:43:37
It's very it's got that a lot of RTD tropes of somebody very
1:43:41
everyday and normal with their cup of tea in an unlikely
1:43:44
situation. So there's things like that that
1:43:46
I just a door and there's an element of the campary as well.
1:43:51
When you've got miss Kismet speaking through all these
1:43:55
people. They're all they're all played
1:43:58
so well, particularly the did I say anti grav?
1:44:03
The Oh my goodness, the whole just those, all those little
1:44:06
bits. There's a lot of elements about
1:44:07
it that I really enjoy. I'm watching it again.
1:44:11
I know some people said, oh, what's the plot of this story?
1:44:13
It's quite it's got a very clear plot and it's very neatly
1:44:18
plotted. It's probably one of the better
1:44:19
plotted Steven Moffett stories for that whole era.
1:44:24
So for that reason I want a champion it.
1:44:26
Fabulous. Let's go to the comments.
1:44:28
Big Orange, Michael says, has to put a lot of pieces in place for
1:44:31
the series. It does so fairly well, but it's
1:44:34
not the gangbusters return I'd hoped for when it first aired.
1:44:37
Harry says one of Moffett's best.
1:44:39
Snappy pace and neat direction. The threat feels real with the
1:44:43
creepy spoon heads and the plane.
1:44:45
And Celia. Celia Imrie is amazing.
1:44:47
Also a wonderful introduction to proper Clara.
1:44:50
Aaron Randall says quite nice visually, good music score, but
1:44:53
forgettable on the whole. Daniel rules.
1:44:56
He says it should have been the blink of Series 7.
1:44:59
Don't click, apparently. As it is, the story makes good
1:45:02
use of London iconography and has a great fake one.
1:45:06
Take companion entry into the TARDIS.
1:45:08
But if you're going to do the World Wide Web of Fear update,
1:45:10
replace the spoon heads with the Yeti.
1:45:13
John Bensalia Betty really loved it, John says.
1:45:17
Every new Who ingredient is put in the kitchen blender, whooshed
1:45:20
up and served up as a stylish but totally insubstantial
1:45:23
cocktail. Smith's Doctor has now become
1:45:25
Leonard from Butterfly as he stalks sorry, observes Clara in
1:45:30
a no way creepy fashion. Jason Thompson, a very Doctor
1:45:33
Whoey idea. Scary Wi-Fi.
1:45:36
Also great energy and sparkling dialogue, but there's a
1:45:39
motorbike going up. The Shard.
1:45:40
A contrived monk scene, just to get the sense of the title.
1:45:43
A creepy monster undermined by having one standing on a crowded
1:45:47
terrace in broad daylight with nobody noticing The back of his
1:45:50
head is missing bin. And Hollensworth says a nice
1:45:54
soft reboot with scary Wi-Fi being a cool modern thing to
1:45:57
scare the kids with. It has Dame Celia Imrie in it,
1:46:00
which makes the hit for me. Shame we're still going down the
1:46:02
oh isn't Clara so very important Rd. though?
1:46:06
Melvin Pena My fondest lingering memory is the fun little Murray
1:46:09
Gold tune as the Doctor and Clara motor towards the Shard.
1:46:13
Most unsettling? Celia Imrie Infantile.
1:46:16
Oh God, how? Do you say this infantilizing?
1:46:19
Infantilizing when the great intelligence abandons her at the
1:46:22
end and. I'll just give a quick call out
1:46:24
there to Melvin. Melvin, bless you.
1:46:27
When you send that comment in, you actually try to write the
1:46:31
Murray Gold tune in words for me to be like that, I'm afraid.
1:46:38
Yeah, you lost me, but it was great.
1:46:40
Effort. Doesn't he just go like that?
1:46:43
Yeah, he put much more Melvin put much more effort into it.
1:46:46
I thought we would end up destroying it, Jack Coyer says.
1:46:49
Either the 21st century attempts to snort on story or a modern
1:46:52
day idiots Lantern. Isn't this crazy new inventions
1:46:55
making over London super dangerous.
1:46:57
The motorcycle sequences are a merchandising opportunity made
1:47:00
manifest in front of our eyes, and it's slight pop plot zips
1:47:03
along to remind us what this Doctor Who thing is about.
1:47:07
Daniel Knight says utterly forgettable despite sealer Inri,
1:47:10
but unfortunately she gets little to do.
1:47:12
The spoon heads hark back to silence in the library,
1:47:15
betraying a lack of originality. Tom Newsome says this one's
1:47:19
actually good a spend the budget opener with tons of Moffat ideas
1:47:22
and a fast enough pace for you to not question the logic too
1:47:25
closely. Clara not knowing how Wi-Fi
1:47:27
works seems crazy now, but 2013 was a different time, kids.
1:47:31
Michael Storm A nice relaunch with very terracistic style Bill
1:47:35
to the villain reveal. Guest cars are all on form, even
1:47:38
the Brood, and the Really the fate of Celia's character being
1:47:43
reset to factory settings is conceptually quite horrific.
1:47:46
Keep. Liv Chapman said solid, fun but
1:47:49
light on logic. More RTD than moth.
1:47:51
It's torn between being a mid season episode and a season
1:47:54
opener. The spoon heads don't make much
1:47:56
sense. Unique imagery but why?
1:47:58
Would have liked a better explanation.
1:48:00
James HA plot like guest cast wasting start to the run.
1:48:04
Oh what a surprise. The companion Clara is the
1:48:06
modern day sassy girl. In A twist she's brunette to
1:48:10
distinguish her from the others. The plane was, the plane bit was
1:48:13
OK, the bike bit bloody awful. Will you still give me these
1:48:18
tongue twisters? But keep, he says.
1:48:21
Steve Maller gets the award for the gag of the night and starts
1:48:24
by saying the motorbike is a Triumph.
1:48:27
Well done station. Some nice dialogue.
1:48:30
It's odd to see an episode where the Doctor doesn't need to
1:48:32
Babble constantly and it's all the better for it.
1:48:35
It's a nice sci-fi premise, but the resolution doesn't fully
1:48:38
capitalise on the set up. And finally, David Gillespie
1:48:41
Pratt. What the fuck is a snog box?
1:48:44
It feels like a line designed to go on a T-shirt because we all
1:48:47
found it so hilarious. OK, Cam, do you fancy a snug
1:48:52
box? Often Joe's here.
1:48:56
He wants to snog his box. OK, let's move.
1:48:59
Let's move swiftly on. What goes on behind closed
1:49:02
doors? Rod see how shaped his lips are.
1:49:05
Sorry, Cam, continue. I wrote down here keep, but
1:49:10
barely because Matt Smith is obviously having a lot of fun.
1:49:15
He seems to have an absolute ball with a geek awkward version
1:49:19
of the Doctor. It's a Horror Story based on
1:49:21
Wi-Fi, which for a modern day setting you know is is really
1:49:24
good. As we've kind of touched on, it
1:49:26
feels kind of strange how someone as young as Clara
1:49:29
wouldn't have a clue how Wi-Fi works, which, you know, 10 years
1:49:33
ago maybe, you know, it maybe wouldn't fly now.
1:49:35
And there's some brilliant twists in it, like, you know,
1:49:38
that the, the, the Doctor that goes the Shard on the bike isn't
1:49:41
actually the Doctor, it's the copy of him and things like
1:49:45
that. Apart from that, there's
1:49:48
sometimes an over reliance on scenes which Moff obviously sits
1:49:53
in and goes, oh, this will look cool.
1:49:55
And then they don't actually appreciate where that's going to
1:49:58
fit in the story because it's like that, oh, an anti gravity
1:50:01
bike went up the Shard. Brilliant.
1:50:02
That'll look amazing. And then, Oh yeah, folk turn
1:50:09
around with like like no back of the heads and you know, Wi-Fi
1:50:12
signals. Yeah, they'll look cool, but it
1:50:14
doesn't make a lot of great sense in the grand scheme of
1:50:17
things. It belts along at a fair enough
1:50:20
rate. I always have a thing for season
1:50:22
openers. I will forgive them.
1:50:25
Well, it's not a seasonal in this case, but kind of bringing
1:50:27
back the season. I will always, you know, forgive
1:50:30
them for having maybe a lack of story because they're just
1:50:33
basically a kick on things and reintroduce people to what's
1:50:35
going on. So that's why I'm saying keep
1:50:38
but absolute thin line go. Yeah, I don't like this at all.
1:50:46
And I think this is where Moffett's sort of boredom with
1:50:51
the series starts to feel like it's kicking in, or certainly
1:50:53
boredom with Matt Smith's time. I think he he gets a shot up the
1:50:56
arse with Day of the Doctor and then again in Series 8.
1:51:00
But this just feels like stuff we've seen done better before.
1:51:04
Less impressive. But I've got a lot of notes.
1:51:07
I'm trying to sort of zip through them.
1:51:09
How can evil Wi-Fi be this clinical?
1:51:11
1 involving? Why is Stephen Muffin not having
1:51:14
fun with the idea of evil Wi-Fi? People whose heads turn around.
1:51:18
Well, what's fun about that? I mean, Rusty Davis would go to
1:51:21
town on evil Wi-Fi. He would have so much fun with
1:51:24
it. The monk stuff is superfluous
1:51:26
and annoying. The ringing phone docs.
1:51:28
We've done that before. Got the least interesting
1:51:31
version of Clara yet we've had two far more interesting
1:51:34
versions than the babysitter of Angie and Artie.
1:51:38
Is it an evil spirit? It's a woman.
1:51:41
Oh, fuck off. Can you ask me that again?
1:51:46
Doctor Who? Oh, fuck off.
1:51:49
How can you waste an actress as strong as senior Emery in a role
1:51:52
this unmemorable? Like, she doesn't get to be
1:51:55
truly sinister or camp or especially interesting in this.
1:51:59
She has one great scene at the end when she turns into the
1:52:01
little girl, but apart from that, she's.
1:52:03
She's like Mrs. Delfox in what's that episode called?
1:52:07
I'm Heist. Thank you.
1:52:08
Yeah. It's just a great, great actress
1:52:11
in a really generic role. The spoon heads are dull and
1:52:14
visually drab robots. I don't understand who Clara is
1:52:18
as a personality beyond I'm willing to be a companion, and
1:52:22
that's not good enough. In your first story.
1:52:25
I knew who Martha was by the end of Smith and Jones, when she
1:52:27
stepped into the TARDIS at the end of that story, and I know
1:52:30
we're doing Clara's a big mystery.
1:52:33
Why are we doing that? It didn't work before with
1:52:35
Riversong and Amy and all the others.
1:52:38
So yeah, I don't know who Clara is at the end of this.
1:52:40
Zakatin does a much better job of defining her than this.
1:52:45
I found the Quadra Quadra cycle in the garage.
1:52:47
No, you didn't. Oh, I invented the Quadra cycle.
1:52:51
Oh man, you say Chibnall can't do jokes?
1:52:55
That is fucking terrible. You know, somebody actually
1:52:57
quoted that and send that in. So that was their favorite line
1:53:00
of the story. Bless them, bless them, bless
1:53:04
you, Mark as well. You've got a reasonable playing
1:53:07
sequence until Chris Shipbill came along and shows us how you
1:53:10
really do it in Spy Fall. The music is doing a lot of
1:53:13
heavy lifting in this episode. It's a really nice score.
1:53:16
So that's one thing I did quite like Richard E Grant as the
1:53:20
Great Intelligence is really boring.
1:53:22
The snob blocks line. I mean, I could go, I won't go
1:53:24
on, but I've just got reams of notes so that just basically say
1:53:27
this is really tired. People are saying this is
1:53:30
energetic and fun and zippy, but I just felt a sense of I just
1:53:37
felt sod ambulistic. There you go, that's the word.
1:53:40
OK, so Nate, I found this entertaining and fun and zippy.
1:53:47
Bless you. Sorry Joe, of all the season
1:53:50
openers that do light and frothy, this is possibly one of
1:53:53
the most successful and most enjoyable.
1:53:56
I thoroughly enjoy this. I think it's a great opener
1:53:59
slash refresh slash reboot. They're really entertaining.
1:54:03
I don't know what you're watching, Joe.
1:54:04
Maybe you're in a funny mood. I was in a bit of a down mood
1:54:08
when I watched this and you know what?
1:54:09
I put a smile on my face. I was.
1:54:10
In a terrible mood. I wanted to be in a better mood,
1:54:13
but I was suicidal by the end of it.
1:54:15
I think this is really good. So my first reason is I think
1:54:18
there's loads of really good solid concepts in here,
1:54:20
something hiding in the Wi-Fi at the time.
1:54:23
If you remember, there's lots of talk about whether Wi-Fi signals
1:54:26
would be damaging our bodies as they're, you know, all the
1:54:29
electrical fields that was going on.
1:54:30
It's good topical basis for a story.
1:54:32
What? Does.
1:54:34
It do with it nothing There are there is a lot there are a lot
1:54:37
of good ideas. He doesn't necessarily follow
1:54:39
them through and the one about kind of being uploaded and I
1:54:42
captured and uploaded he kind of throws away.
1:54:45
It's a scene at the beginning of the episode, and then it's
1:54:47
never. Touched on it I'll tell you what
1:54:49
he does with it he then recycles it next year in death in heaven
1:54:52
with the nether sphere and brings it back again because
1:54:54
it's too good an idea to waste Yeah, we.
1:54:57
So it's a very intangible menace.
1:54:59
We've got the spoon heads, and I do like the idea that the spoon
1:55:02
heads the enemy and then at the end they turn out to be the
1:55:04
resolution of the plot. So it's hiding in plain sight.
1:55:07
I quite like that thing. That's quite clever.
1:55:09
What's? Great about those spoon heads.
1:55:11
They're just people that stand there and their heads turn
1:55:13
round. What's great about that?
1:55:15
I didn't say they were great. Sorry.
1:55:16
I'm. Sorry to be destroying your
1:55:18
argument. I quite like them.
1:55:21
I like the fact they use the personality enhancers to adjust
1:55:25
people's mood. Obviously Joe, yours is.
1:55:28
That's on miserable grumpy old twat tonight.
1:55:31
So we need to push up the happy button onto Joe again.
1:55:35
That's a great idea. Yes, some of these ideas are a
1:55:37
little bit under baked, but you know what?
1:55:39
I'd rather a Doctor Who story is throwing loads of ideas and
1:55:42
concepts in there rather than just sitting back and doing
1:55:44
nothing. Joe, you said feels tired.
1:55:46
It doesn't feel like not loads. I think it's got lots of ideas.
1:55:51
The Wi-Fi is something hiding in the Wi-Fi, The personality,
1:55:54
there's lots going on here. I like it.
1:55:56
Secondly, I think we've got a bit of a return to fairy tale
1:56:00
here, which we had in series five.
1:56:01
It's come back a little bit here.
1:56:03
Excuse me? Mark said he liked this because
1:56:04
it went the other way. Well, I think there is a bit of
1:56:07
fairy tale in here, and the most fairy tale sequence of all is a
1:56:10
glorious sequence with Clara talking to the Doctor out of her
1:56:15
attic window. We're in a normal street, by the
1:56:17
way. It's shot, the way it's
1:56:18
delivered. Joe, stop pulling faces at me, I
1:56:21
think. That's it's.
1:56:24
A really delightful scene. It's accompanied by Murray's
1:56:28
lovely Clara theme. I just think the way it's shot
1:56:30
there without the same. It's like when all the lights
1:56:32
start going on and off in the. That's right, it's.
1:56:34
Scary, isn't it, The lights going on and off?
1:56:37
Yeah, but then it's great when you go in the plane and actually
1:56:39
see that their street is the only St. that's lit up
1:56:42
something. Though, you know, if you drive a
1:56:44
plane down like that and just pull on the lever as it's
1:56:47
plummeting towards an industrial estate or whatever, you can just
1:56:50
sort of turn it up. It's.
1:56:51
Doctor, it's Doctor Who dear, get over yourself.
1:56:55
I like it. I think it looks lovely.
1:56:57
And also the end for Miss Kislett is also quite fairy tale
1:57:00
with her quite dark fairy tale. They were asking for mummy and
1:57:03
daddy at the end. So I quite like that.
1:57:05
And then the spectacle, this is a big spectacle, is very London
1:57:08
centric. Joe, you mentioned before
1:57:10
they're really pushing the series in America now and
1:57:13
absolutely they are. We've got the motorbike sequence
1:57:16
across Westminster Bridge, we've got the South Bank, we've got
1:57:19
the Shard, we've got the Rooftop Cafe showing the London skyline.
1:57:23
Absolutely we are showing London off to its full here.
1:57:26
And I think that works really well.
1:57:27
And that sense of scope and scale also help help sell an
1:57:30
alien takeover plot. So I think it's I think it's
1:57:34
bright and fun spectacle fairy tale.
1:57:37
I don't. See that Either we're in a road
1:57:40
and we're in. Central and then we're.
1:57:42
How is that a sense of scale? Because we go all over.
1:57:46
London every fucking week. Not as now.
1:57:48
Go watch the flux, then you'll see a sense of scale Buck.
1:57:51
Flux we're in. Go watch Spyfall, then you'll
1:57:54
see scale. We're all around the world in
1:57:56
that here we're on some dismal housing estate and in London,
1:58:01
which we always do. It's got a plot that doesn't
1:58:04
work. Yes, yes, go to Spyfall.
1:58:06
I'm sticking with this. It's fun and frothy.
1:58:08
It's fun, it's going through and it is going through despite your
1:58:13
negativity. God, I won that personality
1:58:17
button right Joe down to you. Hello, it's Cold War or Joey
1:58:23
something to the. Targets.
1:58:24
Nothing nice to say about the last three.
1:58:27
Last two. Cold War and Journeys sent to
1:58:30
the TARDIS. Do you want me to take one
1:58:32
first? Then I'm.
1:58:34
Fine, I'm fine. I'd like to talk about Cold War
1:58:37
please. Or the episode I never remember
1:58:40
because I watched it last week and I beyond it having an ice
1:58:43
war in it, I couldn't really tell you a thing about it.
1:58:45
So unfortunately I've got some notes here.
1:58:49
I think that Gold's music actively works to sabotage this
1:58:52
episode. It makes the action far too
1:58:54
jaunty. This is trying to be a
1:58:55
claustrophobic thriller. It needs to be something sort of
1:58:58
that Dudley did in Hinchcliffe Time to bring to really make
1:59:02
this feel tight and scary. And instead we're doing like,
1:59:06
it's weird jaunty action music, which, yeah, it doesn't work.
1:59:11
I think Datus goes to sabotage the story completely by failing
1:59:14
to capitalize on the claustrophobia of the situation
1:59:18
by failing to characterize his victims.
1:59:20
Why do we care about any of these people?
1:59:22
What the hell do we know about any of these people?
1:59:25
You have the most sublime cast in this story.
1:59:28
David Warner's in there, for God's sake.
1:59:29
I think there's an Oscar winner in there somewhere, and I don't
1:59:33
know a thing about them. I couldn't tell you a thing.
1:59:35
Whereas you point to several other Doctor Who stories and I
1:59:38
can tell you a character's entire life story, despite the
1:59:41
fact I haven't watched it for two years.
1:59:42
I watched this last week. I don't think any of them are
1:59:45
well refined. The lighting.
1:59:50
The lighting doesn't work in this either because it's far too
1:59:52
pretty for a submarine. They're putting lots of jails
1:59:54
over the the cameras and they're trying to do Blues and greens
1:59:57
and Reds and things like this. Whereas just go for the Reds, do
1:59:59
hunt for Red October because that's what a submarine looks
2:00:02
like. It's the prettiest submarine
2:00:04
you're ever going to see. It's also the biggest submarine
2:00:06
you're ever going to see. Now, I've been in one myself.
2:00:08
I'm telling you now, they ain't as big as this.
2:00:11
But of course, we've got to do a lot of action.
2:00:13
Why the hell does it have to be such an important Ice Warrior?
2:00:16
Why can't it just be a guard like in Dalek?
2:00:18
I really hate the fact that he's this great Grand Marshall of
2:00:21
1000 conflicts Ice Warrior history has vomited up in 30
2:00:26
seconds. And that's all we hear about the
2:00:28
Ice Warriors, really. So then we can just get on with
2:00:30
the rest of the real stuff like Ultravox and well, no, that's
2:00:34
about it. Actually, if I'm honest, it's
2:00:36
really hard to learn anything from that exposition.
2:00:38
Dump back the Ice rollers because Matt Smith says it in
2:00:40
about 4 1/2 seconds, despite the fact it's 3 pages of dialogue.
2:00:46
I don't understand the point of bringing them back if we're not
2:00:47
going to sort of go into what the Ice Warriors are all about.
2:00:50
I don't understand why they're here.
2:00:52
And I think Stephen Woffett made a huge error for showing us
2:00:55
what's inside the Ice Warrior, because one of the scariest
2:00:58
things about them was what the hell is in there?
2:01:00
That horrible lizard, you know, with the rasping, hissing voice.
2:01:05
And it's that cheap, very forgettable CGI creation that we
2:01:09
see at the end of this episode. It's just really boring this,
2:01:14
And I don't know why, because Gaius wrote Crimson Horror.
2:01:18
Like I said, it's got a sterling cast.
2:01:21
He really has trouble writing Clara in this, like Clara's in
2:01:24
situations of extreme peril in this story.
2:01:28
And I just couldn't care less about her.
2:01:30
She she's like a phantom of a character with no real
2:01:33
characteristics. Yeah, it's incredibly dull.
2:01:38
Been it. I can't think of anything else
2:01:40
to say. We go to the comments.
2:01:43
Daniel Knight says Gatis tries to emulate the Hinchcliffe era,
2:01:47
but only succeeds by having the companion as the only female
2:01:49
character. You know, I suppose in a
2:01:51
submarine in the 80s on a Russian sub you're not going to
2:01:53
have many women. But anyway, some tense moments,
2:01:56
but a wonderful Getter caskets very little to do.
2:01:58
Should have been A2 parter perhaps.
2:02:00
Oh. Please no.
2:02:01
Lots of rear a tightly knitted are tightly knitted together.
2:02:05
Based on the siege story with great performances.
2:02:07
The only negative is David Warner.
2:02:09
Oh, it's the best thing about this.
2:02:12
Didn't have more to do. David Gillespie, Pratt says.
2:02:15
Oh, the good one, as I call it, gets a pass thanks to the
2:02:18
legendary David Warner and a nice new Ice Warrior design.
2:02:21
Jack Queer, who's usually a very intelligent guy says an
2:02:25
underrated gem and maybe the most trad story in New Who with
2:02:28
a base under siege, classic monster and a litter of classy
2:02:32
character actors is a gated script.
2:02:34
So Matt and Jenna are occasionally in insert Doctor
2:02:37
companion here mode. Now they're always in that mode.
2:02:40
In this the Ice Warriors make for an interesting parallel.
2:02:43
Give them the Doctors mispaced trust in previous stories.
2:02:46
John Ben Sally says this is the best of a bad bunch, which is
2:02:49
something of a damning indictment.
2:02:50
It's attempts to reach for tee time horror but hasn't got the
2:02:53
balls to send the kids behind the sofa.
2:02:55
Characterization is so below par that the best thing they can do
2:02:58
with David Warner is to make him an Ultravox fan like.
2:03:01
When you guys say your arguments for this, I'll defy you to tell
2:03:04
me anything about any of these characters that isn't David
2:03:08
Warner. Like Ultravox?
2:03:09
Can I tell you? Go on, they're Russian.
2:03:11
No, no, that's not a character be that's just where they come
2:03:14
from. OK, well we'll get there.
2:03:17
Andrew Kerno is set on a nuclear sub during the Cold War,
2:03:20
stranded far below the surface with a killer alien on board.
2:03:23
And yet somehow, in a rare fail, the rice had manages to not
2:03:27
generate any tension at all. Plus, the great David Warner is
2:03:30
wasted. Darren Lit Randall says.
2:03:31
Well, I've never cared for the Ice Warriors, so this had an
2:03:34
uphill struggle, but I was just bored.
2:03:36
Stuff happens, witty lines are performed, and I zoned out.
2:03:39
Such a shame as the cast is so strong.
2:03:41
Michael Storm Gatie's attempts to do for the Ice Warriors what
2:03:44
Shearman did for the Daleks. Unfortunately, he falls flat on
2:03:47
his face and actually makes the Ice Warriors less credible.
2:03:50
Stupid idea to see the actual alien head in crap CGI yet it's
2:03:55
quite fun to watch. Man, he'll forgive anything in
2:03:58
this dreadful era, will he? Jason Thompson said why bring
2:04:01
the Ice Warriors back and remove the signatures and voices and do
2:04:04
a great update of a classic design only to make it a crappy
2:04:08
CGI thing at the end. The sets are wonderful, the
2:04:10
water everywhere is an effective reminder that we're in an
2:04:13
inherently dangerous place, but overall, the return of the Ice
2:04:16
Warriors was wasted. Daniel Rumsley.
2:04:18
Really like the 1st 5 minutes, Really like the last five
2:04:21
minutes. The problem is everything in
2:04:23
between. The tension evaporates once you
2:04:25
realize scale deck gets more character development than the
2:04:27
Russian crew. No, not the mind, probe says.
2:04:30
Quite fun. An All Star blockbuster movie
2:04:32
scale cast and the ambition to match.
2:04:35
Riffing off the Humphrey, Red October and Alien, it gives the
2:04:38
Ice Warriors a much needed makeover.
2:04:40
James HA crap rethinking of the Ice Warriors, shockingly bad
2:04:43
visual continuity with wetness of hair and utterly wasted.
2:04:47
David Warner and a surprise Big Finish haven't done a six box
2:04:51
set based on the joke ending. If Chapman says OK though, it
2:04:54
feels a bit rushed and it's pedantically annoying that Ice
2:04:57
Warriors in Warriors armour and speaks with a doomed voice.
2:05:01
I love David Warner but I'm still not entirely sure why he's
2:05:03
on board. It's a bit of a stretch.
2:05:05
Shame about the CGI. Joe Llewellyn It's a historical
2:05:09
that I lived for as a teenager. I'm old love David Warner's new
2:05:13
wave loving scientist. Oh Smice is the highlight of the
2:05:16
season. A wonderful base under siege
2:05:18
story. The best Ice Warrior story since
2:05:20
their debut. I really love the alien vibes
2:05:22
here. Classic.
2:05:23
And finally, lovely Jeff Goddard show promise.
2:05:27
Until the Ice Warrior got next, I've got nothing else.
2:05:32
That's supposed to be naked, isn't it?
2:05:35
That's how I read that. He says next.
2:05:37
I know. I think he's.
2:05:38
I think he's colloquialism. Make it.
2:05:42
It means the same thing to me, yeah.
2:05:44
Should we go to Cam? Cam, what do you think of Cold
2:05:48
War? I couldn't even remember the
2:05:49
title of it. Then there's.
2:05:51
A reason for that? Oops, I like it.
2:05:55
I like it, no. Yep, sorry, divorce is coming,
2:05:58
isn't it, Joe? I'll put it in the morning.
2:06:03
No, I simply because it's alien in a submarine.
2:06:07
That's that's what I get from this.
2:06:09
It's alien in a submarine. It's actually taking advantage
2:06:12
of Doctor Who being a show about time travel.
2:06:15
It would have been very easy just to have, oh, there is a
2:06:18
bomb going to go off. Whereas this is set in the
2:06:20
1980s, height of Cold War, height of equal attention.
2:06:24
It's within memory of imagining all of us probably how old we
2:06:30
are. Kind of Mark's looking at me
2:06:32
kind of going, how fucking old do you think I am?
2:06:37
Generalizing. Some of us are aware of the 80s.
2:06:43
I'm having an ice warded out. The armour I think is an
2:06:45
interesting twist for it. I mean, it gives it something a
2:06:48
little bit different to just being a standard Ice Warrior.
2:06:52
I know what you're saying about, you know, he has to be this
2:06:54
Grand Marshall General. It's like, well, that UPS the
2:06:56
stakes a bit. If it was just Ice Warrior,
2:07:00
Mcshore, Ice Warrior face from, you know, platoon nothing, then
2:07:04
it's just going to be like, no, at least it's just passionate.
2:07:08
So, you know, it's, it's good that they have some money.
2:07:11
So high up when he comes out though, that CGI looks like a
2:07:13
turtle that's been hit with a spade.
2:07:15
That's. CGI bit.
2:07:16
You've got to. Admit you probably, if you do it
2:07:19
again and it would have been up to me, probably wouldn't have
2:07:21
done that. You probably would have just had
2:07:22
two glowing red eyes talking in a shadow somewhere does this.
2:07:27
Really sustain your interest, Yes.
2:07:29
Oh, crikey. OK.
2:07:34
Do you want another answer to that question?
2:07:36
No, because yes it did. I enjoyed this one.
2:07:41
Fabulous, Mark. As we've kind of proven already
2:07:45
with some of the things we've said, it is an awfully
2:07:47
forgettable episode. I want to like it, but it's
2:07:54
probably the one that I'm most ambivalent about.
2:07:56
There's elements that I like. I think there are some really
2:08:00
atmospheric shots of the Ice Warrior, especially when it's
2:08:03
chained up and scaled. The the costume looks great.
2:08:07
It looks imposing. It looks quite scary.
2:08:11
But it's the most perfectly average episode of Doctor Who
2:08:16
would have it just it doesn't, it's not really reaching for
2:08:21
anything. And it's not, it doesn't seem
2:08:23
like it's trying to reach for anything.
2:08:25
Spectacular, wonderful cast, as you say, really, really strong
2:08:31
cast. But who are these people?
2:08:33
We don't really get an awful lot of a feeling for them.
2:08:36
It's it seems like an awful lot of wasted opportunity.
2:08:39
When I realized the Ice Warriors were coming back, I was quite
2:08:42
enthused as, you know, a fan of the classic series, something
2:08:44
brilliant going to get out. You know something other than
2:08:47
the dialects and Cybermen back and it's just a bit of a wasted
2:08:53
opportunity. It doesn't come to much, but I
2:08:58
love it for one reason and one reason only.
2:09:01
I I knew a young boy, I worked with a boy.
2:09:07
He just, he was virtually non verbal and he was really into
2:09:14
Doctor Who and he would only quote bits of Doctor Who to me.
2:09:18
Those were the rare occasions when he would talk.
2:09:21
So he would say things to me like don't blink or exterminate.
2:09:24
And that was how I realised, you know what he was on.
2:09:27
And after this episode went out, the thing he started to do at
2:09:29
the youth group that he was at, he would come up behind me and
2:09:34
put his hands round the back of my head and trying to rip my
2:09:39
head. So the iconography, the imagery
2:09:41
of that really captured the imagination of this young child.
2:09:45
And Mark Gatiss knows about that sort of stuff when it comes to
2:09:50
Doctor Who. He knows about the nuts and
2:09:52
bolts. He's maybe not the most
2:09:53
accomplished of all the writers for the series, but he knows how
2:09:57
to get little Nuggets, things in there that will appeal to a
2:10:00
child audience and get the attention of kids.
2:10:03
And hopefully, you know, there might be kids further down the
2:10:06
line. You'll see that we're scared by
2:10:07
this episode. Or do you think it's a good
2:10:08
example of Doctor Who or people who may be more accustomed to
2:10:13
the mythos and the mythology and the history and the continuity?
2:10:16
It's a bit of a dab squid, but just doesn't live up to what it
2:10:20
could be. So is that a yay or a nay?
2:10:25
Think a nay. Oh, OK.
2:10:28
Oh God. That was a great reason back in
2:10:31
what it was. If you'd have put it through on
2:10:33
that alone, it would have been. Just it's not enough to push it
2:10:37
through. Bollocks on this one.
2:10:40
I've got the deciding vote. You know what?
2:10:42
This is one of the very few stories that we've done on
2:10:47
Strictly where I just can't make up my mind which way to go on
2:10:50
it. Mark, like you used a perfect
2:10:53
word, ambivalent. And I'm just ambivalent towards
2:10:56
it. So I was, I was trying to think
2:10:57
what reasons I would give. So I started off thinking, well,
2:11:00
everyone compares it to Daleks. So there are lots of other
2:11:03
Doctor Who comparisons. Let's start with the good one.
2:11:06
So let's compare it to Warriors the Deep.
2:11:08
So why not? Let's go for an easy target.
2:11:13
It's easy. It's better than Warriors the
2:11:14
tape, but there are a lot of similarities on there.
2:11:16
They're both set into the sea. They've both got returning
2:11:18
villains. They've both got the theme of
2:11:20
the alien menace setting off a nuclear explosion at the time of
2:11:23
Cold War. So there are a lot of
2:11:26
similarities between that and Warriors the Deep, but the
2:11:29
differences between are significant.
2:11:32
First of all, the sets here really sell.
2:11:35
I think, Joe, you said you don't think it's claustrophobic.
2:11:37
I've really got since claustrophobic.
2:11:38
You're here. I love the fact that honestly
2:11:40
got water dripping down from the ceiling.
2:11:43
Yeah, it doesn't make an awful lot of sense that water is
2:11:45
constantly dripping throughout this submarine.
2:11:47
Not sure what that would do for all the electronics on board,
2:11:49
but it does sell the visual. But you're underwater and
2:11:52
there's constant. It is pretty and the light's the
2:11:54
same. I quite like the lighting.
2:11:56
You mentioned the lighting. You make a good point.
2:11:58
But it's quite dark and Moody, which again worries the deep did
2:12:02
not have because everything was, you know, pendant Roberts right
2:12:04
up to 10. There's some dynamism to the
2:12:07
direction. I don't think McKinnon always
2:12:09
directs Dr. terribly well, but here I think he gets the
2:12:12
tension, the tone in the mood quite well.
2:12:15
The Ice Warrior, I think he's far more effective, obviously,
2:12:18
than the Sea Devils and Silo Reince and more is the deep.
2:12:21
The armor obviously is suitably bulky and solid.
2:12:24
I quite like that we see something underneath.
2:12:26
Like you were saying, it does give a difference to it.
2:12:29
But I God, I'm so fed up of Nicholas Briggs's voice at this
2:12:32
stage. So someone said he said the Ice
2:12:34
Warrior sounds like a Judoon. He sounds so like a Judoon.
2:12:38
And so do the Cybermen in Nightmare and Silver.
2:12:40
They also sound like Judoon. close your eyes when they come
2:12:43
on and listen to them. They are.
2:12:45
Why does Nick Briggs have to do every single fucking monster?
2:12:49
Give somebody else go. He's great at the Daleks, OK at
2:12:52
the Sidemen, but not in this version.
2:12:53
But not. Everything and the diversity of.
2:12:56
Actions they had. Playing monsters.
2:12:59
And we just it's Nick Briggs, Nick Briggs, Nick Bricks, Nick
2:13:01
Bra. I'm not on the Nick Briggs
2:13:03
kicking bandwagon. The Flinx rod.
2:13:06
It's Nick Bricks, isn't it? It's like, oh please give
2:13:10
somebody else a go. So yeah, I think he compares
2:13:13
favourably to Warriors the Deep then.
2:13:15
What else does this remind me of?
2:13:18
First thing it reminds me of weirdly is Robots of Death
2:13:21
because every time we see that submarine with the rocks falling
2:13:24
model shot just reminds me of the sand miner with where we see
2:13:27
that rock getting thrown towards the the camera.
2:13:30
But of course Robots of Death does a lot more with its cast
2:13:34
yes, we've got an absolute A list here.
2:13:35
We've got Liam Cunning, we've got James Norton, Josh O'Connor
2:13:38
gets killed before the opening credits.
2:13:40
Tobias Mendez, David Warner, obviously great, great cast.
2:13:44
But I don't know, Joe, you're, you are, for once, absolutely
2:13:48
right. I don't know anything about
2:13:50
these. People you know this doesn't
2:13:51
have Zelda either. That's.
2:13:52
No it doesn't. It's shocking oversight.
2:13:54
I want Zelda, I want Zelda to be crying over the submarine.
2:14:00
So it doesn't compare. I mean, Robots of Death is a
2:14:02
classic. This doesn't compare well with
2:14:04
it, which is no surprise, but it just makes me realise how
2:14:08
anodyne and vanilla this all feels.
2:14:10
And then the third story I compare it to, because there are
2:14:13
so many parallels, is Battlefield, because there again
2:14:16
we end the story with two villains about to press the
2:14:19
nuclear button and the doctor appealing to their better
2:14:22
judgement. It's almost line for line, 7th
2:14:25
doctrine. More game, but think.
2:14:27
About the characters in Battlefield.
2:14:28
I was about saying I would rather have Gene Marsh any day
2:14:32
than Nicholas Briggs, so although there is some good
2:14:36
stuff in here, I just can't get excited about it.
2:14:40
So it is, as Lord Sugar would say, it is with regret that you
2:14:44
fired and Cold War falls. Oh.
2:14:49
Gate isn't you? I've not had a good year, have
2:14:51
you? No, really haven't.
2:14:53
So it's my final story and it's the final story of the evening
2:14:58
and it is Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS.
2:15:04
That sounds amazing. Doesn't it sound good?
2:15:07
You know what, I think the title is half the problem with this
2:15:09
story. If they've just called it
2:15:10
salvage or something, I don't think it would have such a bad
2:15:13
rap. Reset.
2:15:14
They've called it Reset. We would have all.
2:15:16
Been maybe that would have given too much away.
2:15:18
Let's go with salvage. Do you know what?
2:15:21
This is by no means the worst story in Doctor Who history.
2:15:25
And let's first of all, let's, let's deal with the elephants in
2:15:27
the room, the alleged joke of making Tricky think that he's an
2:15:31
Android. OK, so we say it's a joke.
2:15:34
And it's clear that Greg or the brother actually did say that.
2:15:37
But the reason he said that is because he's jealous of Tricky.
2:15:40
Who's the brightest brother, That's who his father wants to
2:15:43
take over the business. Tricky's in an accident.
2:15:45
He loses his slight voice and memory.
2:15:47
So Greg Gore is a selfish bastard, thinks, right, I want
2:15:50
to run this business. We'll put him, put him down, you
2:15:53
know, OK, they'd make a ridiculous play and say, oh,
2:15:56
you're an Android. But the reason is not just a
2:16:00
joke. It's showing the selfishness and
2:16:02
unpleasantness of that character who gets redeemed at the end.
2:16:06
So there is some redemption. Did he never have?
2:16:09
A poo though Rod, like he was actually a person and when he
2:16:12
had a poo did he not think, oh I'm an Android, why am I having
2:16:15
a poo? There are some.
2:16:18
Not a lot of questions. About it for 2 1/2 seconds for
2:16:22
the whole thing. I've got really hungry, I need
2:16:24
to eat something. I'm really thirsty, I need to
2:16:26
have a drink or I've just accidentally cut myself.
2:16:29
I'm bleeding a lot of actual blood here.
2:16:32
Or, to go back to the earlier comments, I need a wank.
2:16:35
I mean, come on, you know this guy.
2:16:37
I wasn't going to lower the tone.
2:16:38
Well, I absolutely was. How unusual.
2:16:43
So yeah, it's stupid, but I like the idea behind it, making
2:16:48
Gregor out to be a selfish bastard.
2:16:50
But the whole Android thing is stupid.
2:16:51
But I think people just get too clouded by that.
2:16:54
I'm going to park that because apart from that, I think it's a
2:16:56
hell of a lot to enjoy in this story.
2:16:58
My first one is the sets look again.
2:17:02
People constantly moan that the Tards looks really dull, but I
2:17:06
don't think they've really watched this.
2:17:07
There's lots in here. There's some gorgeous sets.
2:17:09
Think of the TARDIS Library, this huge cavernous set with its
2:17:13
millions of bookcases, and then those claustrophobic corners
2:17:17
where you've actually got encyclopedias, which are
2:17:19
bottles, and they're accidentally dripping Time Lord
2:17:22
information onto the floor. You know, there's some lovely
2:17:25
idea, lovely image. Information.
2:17:27
Yeah, it is. It's a it's an encyclopaedia of
2:17:29
the Time Lords. I was.
2:17:30
Just being rude again. Go on.
2:17:31
So. You're back to.
2:17:34
You're back to the earlier one, Yeah.
2:17:36
Then he got the room full of living metal, which is obviously
2:17:39
validium from Silver Nemesis, which we all know that which we
2:17:42
thinks this, you know, enormous tree full of lanterns, but
2:17:45
actually they're sources of information and power.
2:17:47
Then he got the heart of the TARDIS.
2:17:49
That's a white void which is full of this exploded engine and
2:17:53
frozen in time that Matt and Jenna walked through.
2:17:55
There's some great, great visual imagery in here.
2:17:57
And everyone said, oh, it's just a repeated corridor.
2:17:59
No, there is so much more here. And yeah, you also get glimpse,
2:18:03
glimpse of the swimming pool, the telescope, which is
2:18:05
obviously nicked from tooth and claw.
2:18:07
But there's a lot going on when you've even got some location
2:18:10
filming when they when they come out to that door, which is the
2:18:13
gateway between the TARDIS and the engine room.
2:18:15
So visually, I think there's a lot going on and I like it.
2:18:19
Secondly is Matt Smith. Joe, hold your place.
2:18:24
I think for the first half of this season, first 5/8 of this
2:18:28
season, Matt is really great. I think he's pulled back in
2:18:32
seven A There were times he could go very OTT.
2:18:36
In the last three stories of this series, he goes horribly.
2:18:39
TTTI give you Mr. Clever and Miss Gilliflower falling down
2:18:44
the stairs in the gurns. But for the first five stories,
2:18:47
he holds it back. He's much more restrained.
2:18:50
I love it when he sidles up to the brothers.
2:18:52
The beginning he's he's talking to them, he's charming, he's
2:18:55
being comic, but at the same time he's being quite quietly
2:18:58
dangerous and threatening. Equally like when he reveals to
2:19:01
them that the the self destruct is all the big joke it does,
2:19:05
there's no big histrionics about it, it's quiet and centred and
2:19:08
he's much better for doing that. And then there's that brilliant
2:19:11
1 to one with with Clara on the hilltop when he demands to know
2:19:14
who she is and then he realises that she genuinely doesn't know
2:19:17
what she's talking about. Lots of people say oh that gets
2:19:19
thrown away because it's a reset, but no, because it's
2:19:22
clear the Doctor remembers it. And in Name of the Doctor we see
2:19:25
the Clara room is made to remember it too.
2:19:27
So it's not thrown away. It does come back as a pay off
2:19:30
at the end. So that's my second reason for
2:19:33
this and then my third reason, Joe, I've got a feeling from the
2:19:36
comments really exchanging earlier today, you're hardly
2:19:38
going to disagree with this, but I'm going for Matt King's
2:19:41
direction on this one. I think he's quite a dynamic
2:19:46
director. The camera is constantly moving,
2:19:49
gives us low shots, high shots, angle shots.
2:19:52
There's constantly a sense of momentum.
2:19:54
Just think about that opening walk around the console is quite
2:19:57
dizzying as they're walking round and round it.
2:19:59
It's a lovely tracking shot. He does quite clever stuff.
2:20:02
So when you've got the the walkway with the.
2:20:04
Lava monsters at either side and the eye of harmony in the sky.
2:20:07
It's quite enclosed set, but I think he makes all the action in
2:20:11
in that sequence play really well.
2:20:13
It's very clear and obvious what's going on, which you know
2:20:16
might not necessarily have done. We've got stuff like that
2:20:18
Indiana chase with all the metal poles coming out and dodging it.
2:20:23
He's also shooting with multiple echoes of the same set and I
2:20:27
think he does that very economically and you never lose
2:20:30
at any point where people are on, where the action is up to.
2:20:33
In a story like this where there's awful lot happening, you
2:20:36
could lose pace with it. I think the direction keeps it,
2:20:39
keeps it interesting, keeps it intriguing, but also keeps it
2:20:42
coherent and consistent. So I really like Journey to the
2:20:46
Centre to Tiles. Please call it salvage and
2:20:48
people I think will be less harsh about it.
2:20:51
Shall we go to the comments? I can see Joe biting his lips.
2:20:56
I know this. Time thank you thank you so much
2:20:58
for that let's go to the comments.
2:21:00
No official says. I actually weirdly adore this.
2:21:04
I know it's an even episode and some things are a bit hand WAVY,
2:21:07
but man, I still love the fact that we got to see the inner
2:21:10
hallways and stuff in the TARDIS.
2:21:11
I've watched it probably three dozen times.
2:21:14
Michael Storm. Oh my God.
2:21:16
Oh my God. You ready?
2:21:19
Utter, utter, utter, utter shit for the first time tonight.
2:21:25
So we have the first of all people of colour guest cast.
2:21:28
Sorry. So we have the 1st all people of
2:21:31
colour guest cast and each of their characters is an unlikable
2:21:34
asshole. It's like a say word script on
2:21:36
crack. The whole make him think he was
2:21:39
an Android doesn't even stand up to minor scrutiny.
2:21:42
The reset button ending is clearly supposed to be clever
2:21:45
and funny, but is neither. With, Chapman says an
2:21:48
abomination with horrible guest performances, and it just
2:21:51
doesn't feel like the TARDIS said story anyone would want.
2:21:54
Lots of stupidity. James H Run around corridors, do
2:21:57
soddle for a while, then have a wanky reset switch.
2:22:00
Sadly I can't wipe it from my mind no matter how much I might
2:22:03
want to. Don't just been throw it in a
2:22:05
supernova to make sure, Daniel. Wormsley says an absolutely
2:22:09
thrilling set up of squandered promise and dragged down by
2:22:12
three of the worst written and acted characters in New Who.
2:22:16
On the plus side, Smith looks great in a waistcoat and Coleman
2:22:19
looks even better in a red dress.
2:22:20
And didn't we already do corridors?
2:22:23
And Hollingsworth? Not the journey to the centre of
2:22:25
the TARDIS that I'd wanted to see since being obsessed with
2:22:28
the rooms of the TARDIS when I was little.
2:22:31
Jason Thompson said oh bin it for the clumsy plotting, the
2:22:33
absurd. We made him think he was an
2:22:35
Android and somehow he never figured out that androids don't
2:22:37
eat, drink, pee, fart, etcetera. Also for the significant moment
2:22:42
of the Doctor confronting Clara about the mystery of her
2:22:44
existence being undone by the reset button.
2:22:46
A mess in every way. Nelvin Pena.
2:22:49
My favorite bit is Clara exploring the rooms of the
2:22:51
TARDIS. The library is especially
2:22:53
beautiful. Important episode since this is
2:22:55
where the Doctor finally learns to trust and accept that Clara
2:22:58
is just Clara. Steve Malla mentioned.
2:23:01
That you don't forget all of that, but never mind.
2:23:03
But does say I'm not sure he does, Steve Malla says weak
2:23:06
character developments and a conclusion that feels contrived,
2:23:09
undermining the earlier creative build up.
2:23:11
The episode excels in imagination but falls short in
2:23:14
delivering a satisfying arc. But it's fun singing inside the
2:23:17
TARDIS. John Bensarlia waste the big
2:23:19
budget on some corridors, a Hogwarts library and 1/2 hour
2:23:22
saga Saga Xmas disco. What's that?
2:23:27
Stargas for the over 60s. Plus a reset button, the biggest
2:23:32
sin a writer can commit. Darren Lip, Randall says.
2:23:34
For a TARDIS fan, this couldn't be more dire.
2:23:36
As much as I like the Michael Pickwood version of the control
2:23:39
room, those corridors are so generic.
2:23:41
Clara again annoys me. Atrocious guest acting.
2:23:45
At Orange Michael I used to eat up TARDIS interior stuff during
2:23:48
JNT era, so I should love this. And yet I don't.
2:23:51
An interesting concept, let down by the execution.
2:23:54
Been it. McCoy says Moffitt allegedly
2:23:56
wanted to do this due to being frustrated with the invasion of
2:23:58
time. The issue is, if you make a
2:24:00
story to prove you can do it better, you kind of need to do
2:24:03
it better. An uninteresting tale with some
2:24:05
of the least interesting sporting characters we've seen
2:24:07
in this show. Some pretty TARDIS rooms do not
2:24:10
make a story. Joe Llewellyn didn't really like
2:24:12
this the first time, but Clara's dress is perfect.
2:24:16
Watched it two nights ago, way better.
2:24:18
I just miss this era. Brendan Jones finally says The
2:24:21
only one that I find little to enjoy and it's ideas are poorly
2:24:24
developed, either being basic the TARDIS interiors or
2:24:27
cringeworthy the Android brother.
2:24:29
Even then the Doctor and Clara's seen in exploded engine room is
2:24:32
magical. OK, so it sounds like I'm pretty
2:24:36
much a lone voice. Ed, let's go to Mark.
2:24:38
Mark, journey to the centre of TARDIS.
2:24:42
I've come round to it. I quite like it.
2:24:48
Obviously the thing with Tricky that's just, that doesn't make
2:24:52
sense. It's not everybody.
2:24:54
I think that's one of the things that's overshadowed this
2:24:57
episode's reputation for a very long time.
2:25:01
And there is a hint of redemption at the end, but
2:25:04
equally they've forgotten most of their memories.
2:25:06
So are they going to carry on with the pretence?
2:25:09
There's that that's left hanging.
2:25:10
I don't particularly like that hanging.
2:25:14
However, the rest of the episodes, some of the comments
2:25:16
that you've made already, Rod, such as Matt King's direction, I
2:25:20
really like it. There's lots of disorientating
2:25:22
shots. The as they progressively get
2:25:25
further and further through the TARDIS, it becomes quite a scary
2:25:28
space. And when they're in the eye of
2:25:32
Harmony and they're trapped from both sides, it get the tension
2:25:35
is really there. And I didn't fully appreciate
2:25:38
that for a long time. I think the, one of the, the
2:25:42
biggest feelings of this era of Doctor Who was that at that
2:25:45
time, they were marketing every episode as a mini movie and
2:25:48
everything was going to be bigger and the scale was going
2:25:50
to be bolder. And as you say, this episode's
2:25:54
title is Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, which comes with
2:25:57
expectations. And a lot of us fans are going
2:25:59
to think, oh, there's going to be roundels.
2:26:01
There's going to be all sorts of elements and things that maybe
2:26:05
will see the zero room. But why?
2:26:08
You know, if you don't know that and you try and go in without
2:26:12
that for knowledge and you try and just accept what you're, you
2:26:15
know, this is going to be what we're given.
2:26:18
I watched again and I went, do you know what?
2:26:22
I'm not that bothered that none of the things I would have
2:26:24
expected aren't there. There's still so much more going
2:26:27
on. There's excellent lighting.
2:26:28
There's a good sound design. There's some really creepy
2:26:31
moments like when I'm one of the brothers falls down the sound,
2:26:37
it's everything's it's very key sound moments.
2:26:39
It's very hollow and equi and ominous.
2:26:44
There's yeah, I have totally come around to have changed my
2:26:48
opinion. I am.
2:26:49
And I think the, I think a lot of people's expectation of this
2:26:54
story was going to be something else because we were told it's
2:26:57
going to be this mega movie. And it's it's not the epic that
2:27:03
it's trailed as it's a pretty well self-contained little
2:27:07
Doctor Who story that gives you little bits of the arc, the
2:27:10
ongoing arc. And yeah, I've completely
2:27:15
changed my opinion on it. Fantastic.
2:27:17
I think we should come to Jonah because I think we know where
2:27:19
Joe's going to fall. And that will give Cam the
2:27:21
deciding vote because I just don't know why.
2:27:23
But I think Joe might be down on this story.
2:27:26
But who knows? Joe, surprise us.
2:27:28
I couldn't disagree with the pair of you more, and in fact,
2:27:32
especially the comment about the directions.
2:27:34
Sorry Mark, there was a scene at towards the beginning of the
2:27:37
episode where the three brothers first come into the TARDIS.
2:27:41
Go back and watch that scene, the blocking, the editing,
2:27:45
everything about that scene is so that's a terrible word.
2:27:49
I can't really say a nip again. It's so badly dumb.
2:27:53
And you you were saying about, you know, all the blurring out
2:27:55
of the tilted angles all this, that I just couldn't figure out
2:27:58
what the fuck was going on half the time, you know, and and
2:28:01
that's what he did focus on the the sets involved, which were
2:28:04
very boring indeed. You thought this was a visually
2:28:08
interesting episode? Or you add what, an edge of a
2:28:12
mountain? Things suspended in the air like
2:28:16
this is the TARDIS. It could have been anything.
2:28:18
They could have gone to fabulous locations and had beautiful
2:28:22
vistas and all sorts, and all we saw was corridors and gantries
2:28:26
and things hanging in the air. It couldn't have been more
2:28:29
visually uninvolving. If it's right, I have no idea
2:28:32
the interior of the TARDIS could possibly be this mundane.
2:28:37
My innings Doctor Who is the characters and there is no
2:28:40
redeemable characters in this. I just didn't care about anybody
2:28:43
in this story. 3 hideously characterized guest stars that
2:28:46
lack any kind of charisma and sparkle.
2:28:49
Matt Smith is playing it down. Are you mad?
2:28:52
He is more over the top in this than any of the other episodes
2:28:54
put together. And Clara is wandering around in
2:28:57
the first half of the episode. Like in search of a plot, in
2:29:00
search of a character, in search of a purpose.
2:29:03
I don't know what she's doing, but she's just that.
2:29:05
It's just Jenna Coleman walking through these very dull sets.
2:29:09
Oh, no, just none of that works. Talk the line.
2:29:11
What's the matter with the talk? What's the matter, TARDIS?
2:29:14
You scared to fight me? I mean, this is the level of
2:29:17
dialogue that was. And there are lots of scenes
2:29:19
without dialogue and this. And thank goodness, actually, do
2:29:21
you know, can I just say the bit you said about the fellow
2:29:23
falling down the ladder? That was another bit of really
2:29:27
jarring editing because when he literally he falls down, right?
2:29:30
But it's very clearly only about two meters from the floor
2:29:34
because they actually show it in the short.
2:29:37
Really, really badly done. Tricky not being an Android.
2:29:41
Let's not go there again. It's absolutely ridiculous.
2:29:44
I just can't believe that that twist made it through.
2:29:47
Steven Moffett, a script editor, a tone meeting, a read through.
2:29:51
And nobody said this does not make sense.
2:29:54
Like Moffett, It's I was totally off the ball at this point.
2:29:58
I think the ending, the Doctor creates a magical door to the
2:30:02
pass where he can walk through and toss a big friendly button
2:30:05
which resets this whole thing. So it never happened in the
2:30:08
first place. What I mean, I can think of
2:30:12
another a load of other Doctor Who stories where that could
2:30:15
have come in handy, frankly. But if any could reset our
2:30:18
bloody memories and I could forget this episode ever exists
2:30:20
as well, I don't know. I just think everything that's
2:30:24
wrong about the Steven Moffett era Kobe is here.
2:30:27
I don't like the characters, I don't like the regulars.
2:30:30
I don't think the ideas I've seen through, even the monsters
2:30:35
are terrible. I think you're supposed to see
2:30:37
those monsters and they did that sort of blurred out effect.
2:30:41
So we didn't because they were too bad.
2:30:43
It's irredeemable on practically any level.
2:30:46
I think it's atrocious, this genuinely terrible television.
2:30:51
Can I just ask, are you putting this through then opening it?
2:30:54
I'd like to put it through. No, I'm big.
2:30:57
Leaves you with the deciding vote.
2:30:59
Got some quite diametrically opposed views on this one.
2:31:03
Well, it looks like me and Joe are back together, because fire
2:31:11
this one into the sun. Back in the bed.
2:31:15
Excellent, Fantastic we do. Do we get to keep the hot water
2:31:18
bowl? No, you can keep me warm.
2:31:21
OK, that's right. No, I just didn't get on with
2:31:25
this at all. You know, when they have this
2:31:27
thing where nostalgia is almost weaponized and you have that
2:31:31
thing where TV shows go, do you remember the thing?
2:31:33
Do you remember the thing, The thing from the thing from years
2:31:35
ago? The thing, well, here's the
2:31:37
thing. Have a look at the thing, look
2:31:38
at the thing, move on. It's this is an entire episode
2:31:42
basically based on that. And so no, for that reason, as
2:31:46
we've said, it's the one of the rare occasions where there's an
2:31:49
all black supporting cast. Do manages to cast them all as
2:31:54
particularly vile human beings who are engaged in criminal
2:31:56
activity, which is a bit of a kind of step.
2:32:00
It's a choice, it's a shape one, but it's definitely choice.
2:32:05
And I'm not defending it, but is that not down more to the
2:32:07
casting than to the writing? I'm not saying it's, you know.
2:32:11
It's still part of the show. Though Oh, it is.
2:32:13
Yeah. Yeah, Completely, completely.
2:32:14
We can't, we can't, we can't blame.
2:32:16
We can't lay that to the door of the right.
2:32:18
So. I would be interested to see the
2:32:20
script though because I think this is being written for a all
2:32:23
black cast. Also, the bit at the end with
2:32:32
the big friendly button and resetting and just going back to
2:32:35
the start and being able to just hand a button that fixes
2:32:38
everything. I get, as Joe was saying,
2:32:40
there's a lot of doctor stories where that would come in handy.
2:32:43
It reminded me an awful lot of Do you know, on the subject of
2:32:46
time travel. You know, the ending of the
2:32:47
first Bill and Ted film where they're all kind of going
2:32:51
through the police station kind of going, you know, we should
2:32:53
totally leave ourselves, like, all this money here on this, you
2:32:56
know, this to do this. It's like, yeah, oh, we did.
2:32:59
And it just feels like that. Why aren't we watching that
2:33:03
instead? For an engine for Doctor Who.
2:33:05
And it's like, yeah, great. Fuck off.
2:33:08
No, no, not having it. Been it.
2:33:11
Wow. OK, so.
2:33:13
Good for that. We've lost five of the eight
2:33:16
stories this season. We lost Name of the Doctor.
2:33:19
We lost Height. I don't know how Nightmare in
2:33:22
Silver. I do know how Cold War and
2:33:24
Journeys and Stars. We're left with The Bells, St.
2:33:27
John, Rings of Acton, and the Crimson Horror.
2:33:30
It's a higher success rate than I was expecting if I was.
2:33:33
It's the crikey. So we've got three out of HO
2:33:36
your camp music is not going to be needed for very long.
2:33:39
Can. You guys please just just keep
2:33:42
your choices, like make us wait a bit, all right?
2:33:44
Just so the music can play. So we spin the wheel and we have
2:33:49
got Crimson Horror. Please.
2:33:54
It keeps the so few. It keeps giving me the same
2:33:56
option again. Bells of Saint John.
2:33:58
Well, I'm going first because I fucking hate Crimson Horror, so
2:34:00
Bells of Saint John every time for me, Mark.
2:34:07
Oh, that's the Crimson Horror is the one Matt Smith story that I
2:34:11
go back to more than any of the others.
2:34:14
So Crimson Horror, I'm afraid. Come.
2:34:19
Crimson Horror. Let's see where this is going.
2:34:22
And Joe, you. Know my answer?
2:34:25
It's the Crimson Horror. OK, so Belsson, John
2:34:30
unsurprisingly falls and we are left with the rings of Akutan.
2:34:35
Which is the best story this? Season everybody and the Crimson
2:34:38
Horror, which is the best story this season everybody so.
2:34:44
Joe, you and I should go first because I think we've made our
2:34:46
feelings clear. It's Rings of Akaten every time
2:34:48
for me. I like the rings of Akaten.
2:34:52
Well, vote for it then. Go on, be a devil I.
2:34:55
Really, really like Crimson Horror as well.
2:34:58
I think they're both visually interesting.
2:35:00
I do think Akaten struggles more, but it's it's ambitious.
2:35:05
It's trying to be visually ambitious.
2:35:06
You don't get you don't get Sonic erection, you don't get
2:35:09
the doctor inappropriately kissing women.
2:35:11
And I do think that Pakistan has a better ending because I hate
2:35:15
that spaceship in Crimson Horror was a lot of speeches at the end
2:35:19
of Pakistan but I just The 1st 15 minutes of Crimson Horror is
2:35:24
the best 15 minutes of the whole season because it don't have
2:35:27
Matt Smith in it. So is the Crimson Horror Cam.
2:35:32
Crimson Horror. Again, sorry.
2:35:34
I just love it. I love the atmosphere of it.
2:35:36
I love Dame Diana Rigg giving it wild even as the villain and I
2:35:43
just love the fact it's all these little horror stories from
2:35:46
Victorians or freak shows brought to life and I don't do
2:35:49
story great Crimson Horror. And mark sliding vote.
2:35:55
I love the fact that the Rings of Akaten has made it this far.
2:35:59
I hope. Where it should be?
2:36:01
I hope people go back and reappraise it.
2:36:03
However, I prefer the Crimson Horror more.
2:36:07
So yeah, Crimson Horror wins. And not for the first time, I
2:36:13
resigned from the podcast. Can I say though, the only
2:36:16
reason the rings of accident went through to round two
2:36:18
because I was the last one on that one was way was because as
2:36:20
far as dad's heart, if he'd have been ugly, then it.
2:36:25
Would no one's been? No one's ever called you
2:36:27
superficial, Joe. Good job.
2:36:28
That's very true. So Crimson Horror ridiculously
2:36:33
wins the day. It sometimes goes to Sway, Rd.
2:36:37
doesn't. It I'm not a sore loser at all,
2:36:41
I usually say at this point a worthy winner, but I'm
2:36:43
absolutely not going to say that tonight it's a winner.
2:36:48
It's a worthy one, I'll say. Oh, very worthy winner.
2:36:51
Such a worthy winner I think. They're never coming on this
2:36:55
podcast again. Gentlemen, thank you very much
2:37:00
for your time tonight and your wit and intelligence.
2:37:03
Apart from on The Crimson Horror, obviously.
2:37:06
Would you like to direct people to where they can find you on
2:37:08
social media, or would you like to promote anything you're
2:37:10
doing? Let's start with Cam.
2:37:14
I am 1/3 of the Doctor Who courtroom drama podcast known as
2:37:19
The Polish Box, which you could find on YouTube at
2:37:22
youtube.com/the Polish Box. That's POLIS.
2:37:27
Because we're Scottish, every Thursday, well every second
2:37:32
Thursday, we are dissecting and doing arguments for or against a
2:37:38
particular story of Doctor Who. We are starting on Thursday
2:37:43
night, coming for our new season.
2:37:47
Probably about two months ago, but yeah.
2:37:49
Probably. Wobbly, timey way.
2:37:50
Wobbly time we we are halfway through.
2:37:53
Sorry. Much better, Much better.
2:37:56
Capaldi's last season, so we have, well on Thursday night I
2:38:02
have Doctor Mysterio coming up to defend.
2:38:06
No, this means Cam. It means Rod and I have already
2:38:08
hashed it out over Smile and I've won with a landslide glory
2:38:12
already. Yeah, amazing in it.
2:38:15
Amazing. It's a fix and mark.
2:38:20
Echo my face if it's the. Other way I hope it is.
2:38:26
Well, you can find me on Twitter.
2:38:28
I will continue to call it Twitter.
2:38:30
It's mark under score dot. It's spelled DODYK.
2:38:33
You can also find me on Instagram and it's mark dot it
2:38:36
no under score all one word and I'm on blue sky somewhere as
2:38:40
well. Nobody ever knows that blue sky
2:38:42
address. I don't know mine.
2:38:45
Oh. Come on, what?
2:38:45
And now? And I know you've done hamsters
2:38:47
before, but I know you've done all the stuff.
2:38:49
So tell everybody where they can find you on all these podcasts.
2:38:52
True, true. Thank you very much.
2:38:55
I have cropped up quite frequently on trap one.
2:38:58
Now I get called in to review books on a regular basis with
2:39:01
them. I have a few in the pipeline.
2:39:05
I'm going to be speaking to Jim Allenby about what's in my box
2:39:09
soon. Cabinets are here.
2:39:16
Sense to pull out of that one. No I'm not.
2:39:20
I was going to say a really crude comment, but I I'll
2:39:24
resist. You are on strictly come
2:39:26
hamster. I know.
2:39:27
I was like, you know? Calling it The Crimson Horror
2:39:29
would be taking it too. Or even the rings of Pakistan.
2:39:35
Oh gosh. Can you too?
2:39:39
Yes. Stop of calling you a perfidious
2:39:41
fat now. I'm not going to say it.
2:39:45
Yes, I, I, I pop up on, on podcasts if people want me.
2:39:49
I'm I'm trying to be articulate. Well, you've been very
2:39:55
articulate tonight, as has Cam. So thank you both for your time
2:39:58
and diligence and picking through this next season, shall
2:40:03
we say. Ioffer you both 1/2 out apology
2:40:06
for me. You know, you're coming on
2:40:07
strictly come hamster, and this is the bullshit we've made you
2:40:10
watch. I would like to I'd like to
2:40:13
extend an open invitation to because we're having obviously
2:40:16
having the people back when we go into round two and it's
2:40:20
stories versus stories. Please come on and watch
2:40:22
something good. OK.
2:40:24
Yeah, will do, will do. It's been great fun.
2:40:27
Thank you. Technical four parts.
2:40:29
The early part. Of the show, the audience won't
2:40:31
notice. It's fine.
2:40:33
Editing does wonders. If you're satisfied with this
2:40:36
with our second episode, you're going to be fucking thrilled,
2:40:38
mate. So next time, Joe, we are doing
2:40:43
season 23, one of your favorite trial of a Time Lord.
2:40:48
But there's an extra secret bonus as well because we are
2:40:52
going to be deciding Colin Baker's best story as well in
2:40:56
the same podcast. So it's two for the price of 1.
2:40:59
So it's in two weeks time. And until then, all that we have
2:41:02
to say is thank you for listening and listening.
2:41:07
Good night everybody. The
2:41:37
the.