Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords Omnibus (featuring Toby Hadoke)

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The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords Omnibus (featuring Toby Hadoke) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:00
  But to all of you, diplomatic relations with a new species
• 0:04
  will begin tomorrow. We take our place in the
• 0:09
  universe. Every man, woman and child.
• 0:13
  Every teacher and chemist and lorry driver and farmer.
• 0:18
  I don't know. Every medical student.
• 0:44
  You do it. He knows about me.
• 0:45
  What about my family? Don't.
• 0:46
  Tell them anything. Do what I like, Mum.
• 0:52
  Oh my God, I'm here of. Course I'm here, sweetheart.
• 0:54
  All right, I'm. Fine, I'm fine Mum.
• 0:58
  Has there been anyone asking about me?
• 1:00
  Martha, I think perhaps you should come round I.
• 1:03
  Can't. Not now.
• 1:04
  Or no. But it's your father.
• 1:05
  We've been talking and we thought we might give it another
• 1:07
  go. I'd be so dark.
• 1:09
  He's wet. Just come round, Come to the
• 1:12
  house. We can celebrate.
• 1:14
  You'd never get back with him in a million years.
• 1:16
  Ask him yourself. Martha, it's me, Dad.
• 1:23
  What are you doing? There, like your mother said,
• 1:25
  come round, we can explain everything.
• 1:27
  Dad, just say yes or no. Is there someone else there?
• 1:34
  I. Don't care.
• 2:11
  We have condition red on the Jones plan we're taking.
• 2:14
  Them in all of them. Martha can't talk now.
• 2:26
  We just made first contact. Did you see?
• 2:29
  What are you doing? Go on.
• 2:32
  Leave it. Tell what happening.
• 2:36
  It's your. Oh, it's all your roots.
• 2:42
  I was helping you get off me. Get out of here.
• 2:44
  Get. Out target identified.
• 2:47
  Martha Reversh. Take.
• 2:49
  It. Take them away now.
• 3:09
  Careful, Markham, listen to me. Do as I say.
• 3:11
  We've got to ditch this car. Pull.
• 3:13
  Over right now. A hamster with a blunt pen knife
• 3:49
  for doing quicker, quicker, quicker, quicker.
• 3:52
  Welcome back to a Hamster with a Blump pen Knife, the Doctor Who
• 3:55
  Commentary podcast. I'm here today with the very
• 4:00
  English so he won't like me complimenting him too much.
• 4:03
  Magnificent. Toby Haydog.
• 4:06
  Hello, Toby. Hello Joe, I've been listening
• 4:09
  and very English as I am, I've been disapproving of the filth
• 4:13
  that you pedal. So I'm glad we've chosen because
• 4:17
  there was a suggestion that I might have climbed aboard the
• 4:20
  filth train and I reject. That's just which is why I've
• 4:23
  chosen some very sensible episodes.
• 4:24
  The the sound of drums, because obviously you, you don't like
• 4:27
  hearing a banging, you don't like imagining a banging going
• 4:30
  on in your head, do you? Repetitive banging, just banging
• 4:33
  in your head morning, noon and night.
• 4:35
  And and you don't you don't like you don't like thinking about
• 4:37
  somebody else playing their own instrument, do you?
• 4:39
  Or would you prefer playing the instrument yourself?
• 4:41
  Joe I. Don't know.
• 4:47
  And I felt, I felt dirty doing it.
• 4:49
  Scurrilously accused of everybody you know, Toby, we're
• 4:55
  here today to talk about the Sound of Drums and Last of the
• 4:59
  Time Lords first foray into series three.
• 5:05
  I think this is a really, really strong season of the new series,
• 5:09
  but I don't know what you think of this series overall.
• 5:12
  Joe, it was a marvellous time to be alive.
• 5:15
  I I mean, it's funny, isn't it? You don't appreciate good things
• 5:20
  until they're in the past that. Well, that's not quite true
• 5:22
  because I I mean it was amazing at the time and I just bought a
• 5:27
  DVD player that you could also record on as well.
• 5:30
  So I was going to be making my own individual DVD S with their
• 5:33
  own menus and stuff like that. Then sort of real life got in
• 5:36
  the way. But I remember that, you know,
• 5:37
  that was a bit like when you were collecting your own old VHS
• 5:40
  ISM. I used to make my own VHS covers
• 5:42
  and all of that sort of thing. Suddenly as a gross, you know,
• 5:45
  the wheel turns and the same old things happened, but you'd,
• 5:50
  you'd manifest themselves in different ways.
• 5:52
  But you know, doctor, I remember the trailer for this season.
• 5:55
  I remember hearing Freema Adgeman being announced and then
• 5:59
  her being interviewed on Radio One, I think.
• 6:02
  And, and, and you know, like they're doing now where you get
• 6:08
  little bit pictures of costumes, little bits of trailers, little
• 6:11
  bits of this nice. They, they keep feeding the
• 6:14
  beast just to keep, you know, just to keep it alive.
• 6:18
  And I mean, I, I sense that the public know about it.
• 6:23
  And that's always exciting as a doctor fan because it's, yeah,
• 6:25
  it's nice when when you've got something to look forward to,
• 6:28
  but when you feel your thing is something that's on everybody's
• 6:30
  lips and that is making waves and is making ripples.
• 6:33
  And there was also the worry, of course, because, you know, we,
• 6:37
  we'd already lost one doctor. But then with David and the
• 6:41
  David Turner to Billy Piper had been so successful.
• 6:43
  And then she went and had that amazing ending to the previous
• 6:46
  season. So now we've got the thing
• 6:47
  going. OK, well, now we've got a change
• 6:49
  of companion. And Billy Piper had been so
• 6:51
  important to the success. How is this going to work?
• 6:55
  And that new dynamic came in and of course, it worked brilliantly
• 6:58
  there. And they have the you know,
• 7:01
  obviously they had, you know, Rose and the Doctor will they
• 7:04
  won't they, whereas that we're or do they don't they?
• 7:07
  And and and with this one, it's very much, you know, she likes
• 7:10
  him, but he's oblivious because they couldn't repeat the same
• 7:13
  dynamic. It's a hard it's a hard thing to
• 7:15
  do, isn't it? But they, but there were, you
• 7:17
  know, there was still an attempt to cover that element of does
• 7:20
  the, the, you know, do the companion and the Doctor, you
• 7:24
  know, have, have something beyond a friendship and, and,
• 7:28
  and, you know, finding out how the series moves on from that.
• 7:31
  Because it's one thing to launch a series and have a dynamic that
• 7:33
  sort of works. But then when the series, if the
• 7:36
  series is going to be as long running as Doctor Who was first
• 7:38
  time around, things have to keep getting mixed up and it keeps
• 7:41
  having to reinvent itself. So there was always a worry that
• 7:44
  the magic would not be repeated or that they would drop the ball
• 7:49
  or that they're and and they kinda never did.
• 7:51
  And I, I mean, I remember this series being, you know, we're, I
• 7:57
  mean, especially at this point when you get to sound of drums,
• 8:00
  we're on the back of human nature, family, blood and, and
• 8:04
  then, and then Utopias. I, I'm glad, by the way, that
• 8:07
  we're not doing that thing where we're doing Utopia slash Sound
• 8:11
  of Drums slash Last of the Time Lords, because I think of Utopia
• 8:14
  as a separate episode, even though I.
• 8:18
  Phenomenal episode. I love.
• 8:21
  It it is, but it's it's it's not it's it's it's the mission to
• 8:25
  the unknown to the Daleks master plan of this rather than episode
• 8:29
  1 of a three parter for I mean, it does.
• 8:31
  Inform a lot of war about watch and just not at a time law.
• 8:36
  It's in a very bleak moment. Yeah, I I can understand people
• 8:41
  who want to lump the three together, but they're not
• 8:43
  welcome in my house. But no, it was.
• 8:49
  But look, and looking at it now, I mean, I, I remembered there
• 8:52
  being a bit of a, I said the, the, the Dalek, the Dalek 2
• 8:56
  parter and and Lazarus experiment had been a slight
• 9:02
  dip. I mean, there was but the but,
• 9:03
  but, but just in terms of because the bar was so high,
• 9:08
  they were still great, but they were as close to being sort of,
• 9:12
  you know, run of run-of-the-mill if you like, but but a great,
• 9:17
  you know, gridlock. I'd loved and and, and Martha
• 9:22
  was, you know, Martha and Martha's family, you know, were
• 9:26
  quite an interesting and new dynamic and and yeah, it was a
• 9:31
  time. It was a time to be alive.
• 9:33
  And I think there'd been a gap in the middle hadn't there for
• 9:36
  Eurovision. So we'd had a week off.
• 9:38
  So there'd been another, there'd been a mid season trailer
• 9:41
  instead of the next time trailer for was it for 42 or was it 40?
• 9:45
  Yeah, Was it between Lazarus Experiment and 42?
• 9:48
  Instead of there being a trailer for 42, there was a trailer for
• 9:51
  the second-half of the. Season was fantastic.
• 9:54
  My I was well, and there didn't one before as well that I
• 9:57
  thought was was even better. Do you know what the weird thing
• 10:00
  was was like when Chris Rickson left the show and we did you
• 10:04
  know, that cancellation anxiety hit us again, You know, will the
• 10:07
  show survive? I actually think people were
• 10:09
  asking even more will the show survive if Billie Piper leaves?
• 10:15
  It shows you the shift from the classic series to the new
• 10:17
  series. Well, it shows what an impact
• 10:20
  she made. But you know, she she did.
• 10:22
  And in fact, when my, when a friend of mine had watched, you
• 10:26
  know, you could watch Rose a week early if you were so
• 10:28
  inclined, and I chose not to, I thought I'd waited this long.
• 10:32
  I but I but I said, you know, you know, how's Eccleston?
• 10:35
  And he said he's great. But the the real revelation is
• 10:38
  Billie Piper. And from then, you know, it it
• 10:41
  was you know, that that that that secondary character was
• 10:44
  actually an equal lead really, and as as as much of AA key
• 10:50
  figure in a way that I'd argue companions never quite been even
• 10:54
  the very best companions of the classic series were never really
• 10:57
  a Co lead in that way. And and and yeah, and it and and
• 11:05
  and it could easily have been a a real problem for the show
• 11:09
  because she was such an important character.
• 11:11
  And I think Freemer Agilent had such a difficult job to do and
• 11:14
  not just in terms of following Billie Piper, but also in terms
• 11:17
  of the dynamic of the character had to be the unrequited.
• 11:22
  She fancies the Doctor. The Doctor doesn't note her,
• 11:24
  which is quite a hard thing to to be.
• 11:28
  It's it's not, it's not as it's not as positive a role to
• 11:31
  inhabit as the one Billy Piper had, which because it makes you,
• 11:35
  it makes you subservient, it makes you overlooked.
• 11:38
  She is as a character. Martha is one of her character
• 11:41
  traits is that the Doctor overlooks her and doesn't
• 11:43
  realize that she fancies him, which is an interesting dramatic
• 11:49
  dynamic. But as an actor, it's, I think
• 11:51
  it's a, it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's more of a bum deal.
• 11:57
  And I can see why some people might look at this season and
• 12:00
  not like that element of it because the Doctor is a bit of a
• 12:02
  Dick in the first half of the season at times.
• 12:05
  So he doesn't realise he's, you know, how much he feels for him.
• 12:08
  But what's great about that is just like with the David
• 12:12
  Tennant, Billy Piper sort of Arc that ran through 2, it means
• 12:16
  that in the second-half of the season when Martha sort of gains
• 12:19
  her independence, and then especially in like the last two
• 12:23
  episodes, I think she comes out all the stronger for sort of,
• 12:27
  you know, realising actually to know what I'm pretty amazing,
• 12:30
  whether you look at me or not. It's a great run for Freeman
• 12:33
  Regiment. And I remember watching Smith
• 12:35
  and Jones as well and going in with such a sense of trepidation
• 12:40
  and just feeling it felt so confident and fresh.
• 12:44
  That first scene with with all the family on the phones and how
• 12:47
  he really economically just got. We knew that all those dynamics
• 12:51
  in a couple of minutes. He has so many skills as a
• 12:55
  writer, but economy, I think nobody does does better than
• 13:01
  him. You can't have too much economy.
• 13:05
  But his the deftness with which he paints characters and
• 13:11
  dynamics with, you know, in, in in a series of seemingly very
• 13:15
  trivial scenes that, as you say, tells you everything you need to
• 13:20
  know. And then you can get on with the
• 13:21
  business of what Doctor Who is really about, which is, you
• 13:24
  know, yeah, a hospital being transported to the moon, but you
• 13:27
  already know where all those people stand with each other.
• 13:30
  And it's and it's great and and funny.
• 13:34
  And he likes his character so much as well, which is not all
• 13:39
  writers do. You know, some, sometimes
• 13:41
  writers are quite cruel to their characters, especially the sort
• 13:45
  of funny ones. You know, they're, they're,
• 13:47
  they're funny because he thinks they're stupid or whatever.
• 13:49
  But Russell doesn't do that. You know, he he he doesn't,
• 13:53
  yeah, he doesn't patronize people like Jackie Tyler.
• 13:56
  He actually really likes them. And, and as we will see,
• 13:59
  including one of my favourite bits of this episode, you know,
• 14:03
  there are fairly feckless characters who get their their
• 14:06
  moments to shine. Not even like Francine.
• 14:09
  He doesn't even look down on Francine, even though
• 14:12
  technically she's in the wrong and she's doing terrible things
• 14:17
  that she's got a motive for what she's doing.
• 14:20
  Perfectly plausible 1. Do you know what I found as well
• 14:24
  is I, I, it's not actually. I had a bit of an issue with
• 14:27
  some of Steven Moffett's era of Doctor Who and I whilst I liked
• 14:33
  Chris Chipnall's Doctor Who, there were problems there as
• 14:35
  well. I've gone back after those two
• 14:38
  eras and watched the duds of this era and I'll tell you what,
• 14:42
  you see them in entirely new eyes when you.
• 14:44
  I watched Dialects in Manhattan and Evolution of Dialects
• 14:47
  recently. I was like, this is funny, it's
• 14:48
  stylish, it's got great characters, it's got brilliant
• 14:52
  dialogue. It's a lot better than I
• 14:54
  remember it being. I.
• 14:55
  Must watch it again because I haven't watched that one for a
• 14:57
  for a while. I, I watched, I think it was
• 15:01
  after the pandemic or during the pandemic.
• 15:06
  I, I, I went back and watched a load of RTD stuff and I watched
• 15:09
  42, which I'd always thought was a bit, I think the common
• 15:12
  parlance is meh. And, and I watched it and, and
• 15:17
  apart from the silly pub quiz, which I think is a bit too
• 15:19
  silly, but just in terms of the structure of it, that every 5
• 15:23
  minutes there's a sort of cliffhanger or there's a change
• 15:26
  in the dynamic or there's an upping of the stakes.
• 15:29
  And I was going, God, this is an average episode from the first
• 15:34
  three years, and yet it's utterly gripping and and I'd
• 15:43
  forgotten the bit where, you know, she's in the escape pod
• 15:46
  and it's separated and they pull away and you go this this
• 15:49
  episode just keeps ramping up the ante.
• 15:52
  And it's basically an episode about trying to get to the
• 15:54
  middle of a spaceship. Really.
• 15:55
  I mean, that's all kind of all it is.
• 15:56
  And the, and the, the, the real time thing is a total cheat
• 16:00
  because you can just insert clock whenever you like, but it,
• 16:03
  it, it works. It works so well.
• 16:05
  And I've remembered sort of thinking, Oh, well, this'll be
• 16:07
  all right. And, and actually at the end of
• 16:09
  it going, wow, I that I found that that moved a lick.
• 16:13
  The characters were all great. It was, I mean, the energy that
• 16:15
  Graham Harper puts into that direction.
• 16:17
  He's the secret weapon there, you know?
• 16:19
  Oh, absolutely. And you can imagine him on the,
• 16:21
  you know, on the set go give me lots of energy and and I just.
• 16:26
  Graham some more. They're not sweating enough.
• 16:27
  Come on. If if this is an average
• 16:30
  episode, then no wonder you know we were as happy as pigs in
• 16:35
  Doodah during this this period because it was it was a great
• 16:39
  time to be alive and to be A to be a fan.
• 16:42
  Well. Before we skip into the sound of
• 16:44
  drums, obviously Utopia does lead into this episode.
• 16:49
  I just kind of want to talk about the last 10 minutes of
• 16:53
  Utopia and the shocking revelations which genuinely for
• 16:57
  the second time in the new series.
• 16:58
  The first was the Macra revealing gridlock.
• 17:02
  But the the master reveal in the Eutoka did make me leap up off
• 17:06
  the sofa in delight. Our doctor, who'd ever done that
• 17:09
  to me before? When I heard Roger Delgado's
• 17:11
  voice. Oh yeah.
• 17:13
  Because I think I knew, but a bit like the Dalek at the end of
• 17:21
  Army of Ghosts, because they've been monitored.
• 17:23
  They've been one on a chat show or the Bafta's or something, and
• 17:26
  they'd had a black Dalek and we'd never seen a black Dalek
• 17:28
  before. And I think it was like, Oh
• 17:31
  well, the Daleks must be back. And still.
• 17:33
  But nonetheless, when the Daleks came out of the sphere and this
• 17:37
  I, I knew that John SIM was, I knew that Derek Jacobi was going
• 17:43
  to change into John SIM, or I'd been told anyway that Derek
• 17:46
  Jacobi was going to change into John SIM.
• 17:48
  And John SIM was playing the master.
• 17:51
  And despite knowing that, I somehow managed to make my brain
• 17:56
  either decide that wasn't true or forget it or whatever.
• 18:00
  There was a cognitive dissonance going on that meant despite my
• 18:04
  pre knowledge, or pre hinting at least, when Roger Delgado's
• 18:09
  voice from the Demons just seeped into the soundtrack, I
• 18:13
  just went. Can you hear Anthony Amy
• 18:17
  laughing as well? Yeah, yeah, you.
• 18:19
  See. And, and of course, because the,
• 18:26
  the, the fob watch had been in a previous story and it had been a
• 18:31
  plot device to help the Doctor that, that wonderful turn around
• 18:35
  there, that then the plot device means that would be sort of an
• 18:38
  important aid to the Doctor is now something of much darker
• 18:42
  purpose when it belongs to, you know, a malevolent character
• 18:46
  that that suddenly gives it more umph as well, because you're
• 18:50
  sort of invested in it a little bit more as a regular viewer,
• 18:52
  irrespective of the fact that it's the master from old Doctor
• 18:55
  and all of that, they, they managed to make it important
• 18:57
  within the terms of series 3 of the new series of Doctor Who.
• 19:01
  So even if you don't know who the Master is, it's still a big
• 19:05
  moment, irrespective of the fact that for for people like us, we
• 19:10
  knew it was the Master. If you'd only watched series 3
• 19:13
  of Doctor Who, it's somebody who's got a chameleon arch,
• 19:16
  bladdy, bladdy, blah blah. So that that was very clever.
• 19:20
  Through his seasons so. Clever, doesn't he?
• 19:23
  And you are not alone. Oh.
• 19:26
  Yeah. Yeah, well, you know the 10
• 19:29
  minutes, they did have a secret weapon as well.
• 19:31
  Graham Harper. Graham Harper, absolutely.
• 19:34
  And that and that last. And they're all again.
• 19:37
  It's because they're all charging about.
• 19:39
  And there's that scene, there's the scene with him and Jack and
• 19:41
  Martha isn't there And, and, and at the other end of the
• 19:44
  corridor, you know, Jacob is there looking at his watch and
• 19:47
  they're all charging about. And it's, you know, and again,
• 19:49
  it's the pacing, it's the tension.
• 19:51
  And it ramps right up to the last scene that it doesn't
• 19:54
  relent until that music is. Yeah, and it's funny because I'd
• 20:00
  I'd actually been away and so I'd not seen it on the night.
• 20:06
  I don't think I'd been in Bath doing a gig.
• 20:09
  So I had to come back home and watch it and a friend of mine
• 20:13
  decided to wait and watch it with me.
• 20:16
  But I'd had AI just had a text from somebody and I said, you
• 20:22
  know, no, no spoilers. And they said, oh, no, it's,
• 20:25
  it's, it's great tonight. Bear with it because the first
• 20:27
  half hour is like an episode of Blake 7, but but then it really
• 20:32
  kicks in. And so so, you know, I went into
• 20:36
  the beginning of it with kind of low expectations for for all of
• 20:39
  that. And and I can see what he meant.
• 20:42
  You know, the future kind are a bit are a bit like sort of punky
• 20:45
  Blake seven kind of baddies. But I always, but because he
• 20:49
  planted that seed, I, I felt like, well, until I get to the
• 20:52
  half an hour in, I'm kind of watching a prologue to what the
• 20:55
  story is really about, you know, And it is, you do kind of forget
• 20:59
  about the beginning of it, but by the time you've got to the
• 21:04
  end of it. Yeah.
• 21:07
  Because it's really, it's really about what Derek Jacobi is,
• 21:10
  isn't it, you know? I think Derek Jacobi delivers
• 21:13
  the most chilling line in the whole of Doctor Who.
• 21:16
  You know when he says, oh, now I can say I was provoked.
• 21:22
  That line is so scary. He's fabulous.
• 21:25
  So great to have Derek Jack. You think we were denied though.
• 21:27
  But I am not doing more. I know he's done big finishes.
• 21:30
  Well, and isn't it funny of course, because in Scream of the
• 21:32
  Shalka he is the master, isn't he?
• 21:35
  So it's, it's funny how, you know, they can sort of, because
• 21:39
  nobody, obviously nobody went well, we can't have him as the
• 21:42
  master because he's already been the master.
• 21:43
  They can sort of push that to one side and go, no, for the
• 21:46
  sake of the main program. We don't, you know, we don't
• 21:48
  worry about things like that. But and yet there exists in this
• 21:52
  sort of subcategory of Doctor Who an instance where that actor
• 21:56
  has actually played that character in a different format
• 21:59
  of the show, which seems extraordinary.
• 22:00
  Now, you know, I have to say, I think we'll talk about this a
• 22:09
  lot when we get to the episodes. I had liked Derek Jacobi's
• 22:14
  performance very much, but I was very excited because John SIM
• 22:18
  was big news this time, you know, life on Mars for for
• 22:22
  sci-fi fans to have, you know, Doctor Uber and also another
• 22:25
  sci-fi type program that was being, you know, lauded in the
• 22:29
  mainstream press and that everyone was loving.
• 22:31
  And John SIM was a, you know, a name, a name on everybody's lips
• 22:35
  at the time. And the fact that he was now
• 22:37
  going to be in Doctor Who as well seemed like, you know, it
• 22:39
  seemed like everything was, you know, Doctor Who was at the
• 22:42
  centre of where everything that was going on in terms of popular
• 22:45
  culture and what was on. And it seemed like, you know,
• 22:47
  such an amazing thing to be happening.
• 22:49
  He's absolutely previously like when, when Derek Jacobi turns
• 22:55
  into him and he does that stuff that he does in the TARDIS at
• 23:00
  the end of Utopia. I've seen it happen, but I've,
• 23:05
  I've, I've known it to happen in plays in rehearsals when you
• 23:10
  know, everything's going well and then an actor comes in and
• 23:12
  does a bit and everyone sort of goes, are they going to do it
• 23:16
  like that? And I'm, and I'm, I'm afraid I
• 23:19
  kind of had that with him because I love him.
• 23:22
  He's a brilliant actor. And I just found it especially
• 23:25
  in contrast to what Jacoby had done, which is what you call
• 23:28
  more traditional master acting. I when oh Christ, I hope he's
• 23:32
  not going to do it like that. And and it did kind of knock the
• 23:37
  ending off kilter for me slightly because it I didn't
• 23:42
  want a mask. I I wanted the master to be like
• 23:44
  Derek Jacobi, not like John Simb.
• 23:46
  Now, as we will discover in this the the it's, it's a very clever
• 23:52
  choice decision because what essentially the wiry, energetic
• 23:57
  John Simmons is he is a negative of Doctor.
• 23:59
  You know, he's the evil mirror image of David Tennant.
• 24:03
  But for somebody used to, you know, Roger Delgado's
• 24:06
  restrained, you know, villainy and the suave, you know,
• 24:11
  underplaying, which I certainly favour over, you know what, what
• 24:16
  Amy does. But Amy's slightly different
• 24:19
  again. I found a sort of jumping,
• 24:23
  jumping, sort of almost childish Glee stuff, not as much to my
• 24:31
  taste. And I, I still, I think prefer,
• 24:34
  I think he works really well as the feral master in the End of
• 24:37
  Time with the hoodie and hanging around the back streets and
• 24:40
  slightly damaged. Yeah.
• 24:42
  And, and that, that he I think he fits that vibe really well.
• 24:45
  I love him when he's painting his eyeshadow in, in when, when,
• 24:50
  when, when, when, when, when Stephen Moffat brings him back.
• 24:53
  And that was so because I, because he thought you'd seen
• 24:55
  the end of him because Michelle Gomez was, you know, and it was
• 24:57
  so it was so exciting to see him again.
• 25:00
  And he, he came back and he played.
• 25:01
  But but in, in this, I can see exactly why they've gone for
• 25:06
  that performance and why they've gone for that portrayal.
• 25:09
  But I don't want to lie and say I was over the moon about it
• 25:14
  because I, I, I find a sort of childish and it even ties in
• 25:20
  with the taclofen because they're quite childish and
• 25:22
  giggly as well. But it, it, it didn't fit the
• 25:27
  suave politician that I thought he might be that maybe I'd
• 25:31
  imagined. And as I say, I, I that didn't
• 25:38
  quite fit with my image of of of sort of underplayed villainy
• 25:43
  that I expected that. Change now then?
• 25:46
  Or is that still your opinion now?
• 25:47
  Well. Of course, I mean, because
• 25:49
  Michelle Gomez comes in and and shows how a master can work.
• 25:51
  He's completely unhinged and and you know, batshit crazy and that
• 25:57
  totally works. So that sort then sort of feeds
• 25:59
  back into Sims sort of in insanity sort of element and you
• 26:06
  go, OK, no, that I get OK, that that that makes that.
• 26:10
  Well, I I will be interested when we watch it now.
• 26:14
  I remember. Where it all clicked for me
• 26:16
  because I, I was a bit like you. I was like, this is a bit over
• 26:19
  the top and it lacks any subtlety.
• 26:22
  And then that bit where he murders the entire cabinet,
• 26:25
  which I love. Yeah, it was a bit afterwards
• 26:28
  where he's he's bashing his ring on the table and the camera and
• 26:32
  I'm like, shit, he's crazy. I.
• 26:35
  I love the bit and that that had been in the trailer that had
• 26:38
  been in the next time trailer or one of the and I thought, oh,
• 26:41
  that looks really, really amazing.
• 26:42
  But I found the I found that, oh, he he, he all of that.
• 26:47
  Yeah, I it it it didn't bowl me over at the time.
• 26:52
  I mean, all things are comparative.
• 26:54
  Didn't hate anything. I didn't stop me enjoy.
• 26:56
  But I'm talking about I'm talking from a little of
• 26:58
  somebody that that generally really likes Doctor Who.
• 27:01
  And so if any misgivings are still couched in a oh, that's
• 27:05
  just not exactly what I was expecting, hoping for rather
• 27:08
  than I hated it and thought it was awful.
• 27:11
  But it, it, yeah, as I say, I, I, it, it, it, it wasn't, it
• 27:17
  definitely wasn't what I was hoping for, I think.
• 27:21
  The yeah, we'll get there. But the the climax where he's
• 27:24
  got the Sonic screwdriver in the air and the music is playing and
• 27:27
  the bombs are raining down and he's like an agent of chaos.
• 27:32
  I just think, I don't think that for me, the master's ever seen
• 27:35
  more powerful than in that. And that line removed 10% of the
• 27:40
  population. See, now you're describing it,
• 27:43
  I'm going. I love all of that stuff, so why
• 27:46
  did I ever have a problem in the first place?
• 27:50
  I wonder if we have just a perception.
• 27:51
  Roger Gardo, you know, he created the character so
• 27:54
  vividly. Maybe we just.
• 27:56
  That's odd to fall. Yeah, maybe.
• 27:59
  Maybe I don't. You know, I'm always happy to
• 28:01
  revise my opinion, but I'm just, as I say, I'm just being
• 28:05
  truthful in that it was, it was a reservation for me with these,
• 28:08
  the episodes, that that John SIM wasn't quite what I'd expected.
• 28:15
  Well, let's shall we head in and see what he's got to offer them?
• 28:19
  Yes, and we'll. Be doing three things a piece at
• 28:21
  the end of the story, so if John Sims is one of them, we'll know
• 28:24
  he's managed to change your mind.
• 28:27
  At the end of the story or at the end of the episode?
• 28:29
  At the end of at the end of the second episode, we'll do three
• 28:33
  things for for the the whole, I'm calling it a two-part.
• 28:36
  So it's 2 episodes, but yeah, would you want to count us in?
• 28:42
  Well, here come the drums. Here come the drums in 321.
• 28:52
  I actually watched it. You know when this came out.
• 28:54
  I watched this episode at least 10 times between this and Last
• 29:00
  of the Time laws. It left such an impression on
• 29:02
  me. And I'm glad they kind of jumped
• 29:06
  straight in with the story as well.
• 29:07
  And you don't have 5 minutes of them having to get off out of
• 29:11
  the last story, you know? And there is something very cool
• 29:15
  about these lot walking around London being serious.
• 29:19
  Oh, Colin T Colin Teague's direction I think is terrific.
• 29:23
  What really makes this story work is the urban thriller
• 29:28
  Spooks kind of vibe that it has. I think it's shot like a like a
• 29:32
  sort of urban spy thriller, which gives it a but with added
• 29:37
  sci-fi, you know, dystopian dictator Big Brother vibe going
• 29:42
  on as well. And I think it's, I think all of
• 29:44
  this stuff is terrific. And later on, sort of hiding
• 29:47
  down under paths, warehouses, love all of that.
• 29:50
  Yeah, me too. Me that's.
• 29:52
  Very sort of like V, you know, where everyone's sort of the
• 29:54
  resistance are hiding out, you know, all of that.
• 29:57
  And Dalek invasion of Earth. You know it gives.
• 29:58
  Me a bit of a Season 7 vibe, you know, warehouses and back
• 30:01
  streets and things like that. And we know we love Season 7.
• 30:05
  We do, but with added but we're hiding from the authorities.
• 30:10
  You know, nowhere is safe. This is this is great.
• 30:14
  And of course, you know, we'd seen the Vote Saxon signs in the
• 30:17
  very first episode. So we knew that this was going
• 30:19
  to be the, you know, the art, the Bad Wolf of the season.
• 30:26
  Very cleverly seeded as well, wasn't it?
• 30:28
  It was in a tortured episode as well.
• 30:29
  Was it in a Sarah Jane too? Yes, it was.
• 30:32
  Yeah, I think it, I think it was.
• 30:34
  I think it was. And and again, you know, they
• 30:38
  they don't beat about the Bush with this, they they stick it in
• 30:44
  the pre titles. And this is this is a great
• 30:47
  opening. It's the best one liner into the
• 30:51
  titles I think we ever had. Right now it's.
• 30:56
  A doctor, See. That's brilliant.
• 30:58
  Fantastic. I love David Taylor's Relax, the
• 31:01
  Master in his wife. Yeah, he.
• 31:03
  Just grabs her and snogs her in. Front of the press.
• 31:06
  It's a brilliant opening and, and again, Russell's very good
• 31:09
  at doing those simple devices. The tap, tap, tap, tap, tap,
• 31:11
  tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. It's it's really unsettling.
• 31:15
  It's costs nothing, you know, and it, and it speaks to other
• 31:20
  elements of the story, but it's a it's, it's just a fantastic
• 31:23
  little device to unsettle. The I love the fact that it is
• 31:26
  the Doctor Who theme tune, Dah dah dah dah dah dah.
• 31:29
  I love the fact that he's utilising mobile phones as a
• 31:32
  weapon because we've all got them.
• 31:34
  So perfect sense. Yeah, of course.
• 31:38
  Oh, I I wonder if my sound is too high for you, Joe.
• 31:41
  So I. Know I I can just not hear it
• 31:42
  gently, but it's not at all distracting.
• 31:45
  Correct me if I'm wrong. Does this entire season take
• 31:48
  place over a few days or a week? Well, yeah, it's not very long,
• 31:53
  is it? Because yeah, No, it's not very
• 31:59
  long, but I haven't timed it. You tell me, but yeah.
• 32:01
  I I think it's a week. You've got Smith and Jones and
• 32:03
  you've got the Lazarus Experiment, which is a few days
• 32:06
  later, Yeah. And then I think 42 is a day or
• 32:11
  two after that, and then this is a few days after that because
• 32:13
  they're talking about the election upcoming.
• 32:16
  Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 32:22
  Yeah, yeah, See. He's he's quite silly here and I
• 32:25
  know he's supposed to be and that's the lovely contrast.
• 32:28
  I like this actor, Nicholas Goex, who's who's, you know,
• 32:31
  channelling irritated politician and and so John Sims doing
• 32:36
  exactly what is required and what what the what the story
• 32:39
  wants him to do. But as I say, it was a bit of a
• 32:43
  culture shock that I would expect the, you know, Delgado
• 32:47
  would have, would have, you know, absolutely fitted into.
• 32:50
  Imagine life, you know. Yes, Wolf, he'd probably have a
• 32:54
  Brandy or something. A cigar, but.
• 32:59
  The. Thing is, he plays that all, all
• 33:00
  that, you know, crazy comedy and he murders them all.
• 33:03
  Yeah. And I, as I say, I think this is
• 33:05
  brilliant. So I don't know what my
• 33:08
  reservations were first time round because I think that's
• 33:11
  great. But this is, you know, panto
• 33:13
  these special expressions. Yeah, yeah.
• 33:18
  But, but even though he's being silly, you know that he does
• 33:22
  have that, that ferocity behind him and that, you know, that
• 33:30
  psychotic sort of edge to his temper.
• 33:34
  And, and he's got a sort of troubled, he's like a sort of
• 33:42
  dysfunctional youth almost, isn't he?
• 33:44
  Who's who's, who's become Prime Minister And, and, and that's
• 33:48
  very funny. It's, it's a gas mask for the,
• 33:50
  for the gas. It's brilliant.
• 33:53
  So what was my what was my issue, Joe?
• 33:55
  I'm not sure you know, but I going by the Twitter thread that
• 33:59
  I did earlier, there are still people with serious issues with
• 34:02
  this depiction. Interesting because it makes up
• 34:05
  and again, it makes absolute sense because because it's the
• 34:09
  the the anti David Tennant, you know, physically and and in
• 34:13
  terms of the energy and everything, but but this this is
• 34:15
  this look, they weren't that brilliant with this the thumbs
• 34:18
  up as the gas and that's a great shot.
• 34:20
  Going across his coins. It's fantastic and that.
• 34:25
  Was that is naughtiest, best murdering me?
• 34:28
  You know, all the inhabitants of Downing St.
• 34:31
  Brilliantly directed that scene as well.
• 34:34
  But also, you know, crazily, the master is sort of justified
• 34:38
  because he's because they're a load of hypocrites who sided
• 34:40
  with the guy that was going to win.
• 34:42
  So in a way, even though he's murdered the whole capita, he's
• 34:45
  also murdered a load of, you know, morality free bandwagon
• 34:52
  jumping, ladder climbing, self interested assholes.
• 34:57
  Could say you've done a good thing then, couldn't you?
• 34:59
  Well, in a, you know, in a way, and that again makes you because
• 35:02
  you have to kind of like the master as well.
• 35:04
  You know, that's, that's the that's the thing about the
• 35:06
  master as a villain. You have to like him.
• 35:08
  Oh, here. She is.
• 35:10
  Now, Nicola McCall, if she'd been in a series called Surgical
• 35:13
  Spirit, which I'd not liked, which I'd not liked as a kid
• 35:18
  because it seemed to be on all the time, so I was.
• 35:21
  So when she was in this, I was like, Oh well, she's going to
• 35:24
  have loads to do obviously, because she's a bit of a star.
• 35:28
  But I wasn't, as I said, I wasn't very well disposed
• 35:30
  towards Surgical Spirit. And she walks into this and she
• 35:34
  owns it. I think she's absolutely, she's
• 35:38
  brilliant. Well.
• 35:38
  She goes in just so sort of, you know, showbiz, yeah.
• 35:43
  Then when the mask drops and she's love it.
• 35:46
  Really terrible. And then when he comes in.
• 35:48
  Yeah, she does. She does so much.
• 35:51
  I mean, she's barely, she's on screen for what, about 3-4
• 35:54
  minutes and she does the whole thing.
• 35:56
  She makes an entrance where she's, you know, Yeah, as you
• 35:59
  say. Hair and makeup and.
• 36:01
  Glam columnist woman. You know, Daily Mail reporter
• 36:05
  type woman. But then as soon as the door
• 36:07
  closes, you go, oh, OK, she's she's doing something serious,
• 36:11
  which she's about to do now. Brilliant.
• 36:13
  Completely changed. And then and then we have the
• 36:16
  change that comes later on. And I mean, she probably wasn't
• 36:18
  on this for more than a day, was she?
• 36:21
  And I think it's it's one of those great, you know, 1
• 36:24
  episode, even 1 scene performances and she's a class
• 36:28
  act. And I met her and she was in a
• 36:30
  play with Julian Glover and Sheila Reid.
• 36:32
  And I did the child, I didn't think go around afterwards and
• 36:35
  chatting to him. And she was so nice and and and
• 36:39
  very down to earth and all right, lads.
• 36:40
  And she's, yeah, I really liked her.
• 36:43
  And how do we feel about this McFly and Ann Widdecombe?
• 36:46
  You see, I know is he take is Russell taking the Mickey out of
• 36:49
  Anne Wick? Oh, of course.
• 36:51
  He is and Joe. I bet she was game as anything.
• 36:54
  But what does that, you know, what does that say?
• 36:56
  Is it? Is it?
• 36:57
  He's basically saying to somebody, come and play yourself
• 37:00
  in a program. Where you're aligning yourself
• 37:03
  with evil, yeah. Yeah, you pregnant woman
• 37:08
  manicling to hospital begged. Evil cow that you are.
• 37:12
  But you can also. Give that you know that the the
• 37:15
  the satellites have done their magic on them as well, so you
• 37:17
  can give it that reading if you want to.
• 37:20
  Yeah, no, I think, I think I'm absolutely forced.
• 37:22
  She'd have just done it. Can I just say?
• 37:25
  OK, I still can't say any Nicola McAuliffe.
• 37:27
  Is that how you say it? I said this year off Mike, her
• 37:30
  convention appearances, given she's in this one scene, are
• 37:35
  absolutely astonishing. And the scream, the elongated
• 37:38
  scream where she dies in this, she performs at every convention
• 37:43
  appearance. She does a whole song and dance
• 37:44
  routine while she's doing it and she makes it last for minutes
• 37:47
  and the audience just goes crazy for it.
• 37:50
  She is a proper turn. She's a proper.
• 37:52
  Actually, she was also the. Do you remember when Ross Kemp
• 37:56
  did Shakespeare on stage? And he did.
• 37:57
  He did the production of The Taming of the Shrew?
• 38:00
  She was, she was Kate. Yeah.
• 38:02
  Ross Kemp decided it was the only time there's been a theatre
• 38:04
  review and the son because Ross Kemp was married to Rebecca
• 38:06
  Brooks at the time and and. I want to see it, though Katie
• 38:10
  isn't sure I love well. Then she was, she was Kate to
• 38:14
  Ross Kemp's Petruchio. But she's got, and of course
• 38:18
  she's got the same name as Emma Thompson in years and years.
• 38:22
  She's Vivian Rook, isn't she? And of course that's basically
• 38:25
  forgets. Her name does he.
• 38:26
  He sometimes repeats the name. Dennis Potter did that sometimes
• 38:29
  too. But of course.
• 38:32
  And Jean Rook was the, I think Daily Mail columnist who wrote
• 38:36
  an article where she interviewed Robert Holmes and said, what do
• 38:38
  you think you're doing? Scaring my child?
• 38:40
  So it's all. Filtering in.
• 38:43
  It's all ties in what? About Lucy Saxon.
• 38:46
  She's great. It's a strong.
• 38:48
  Interesting. It's quite a sophisticated
• 38:51
  performance for a, for a sort of, you know, cheery sci-fi show
• 38:57
  that flirts with sometimes very. It's edgy, isn't it?
• 39:02
  But this? Is this is a dark domestic
• 39:05
  concert, you know, abuse, drugs, control, gaslight, all sorts of
• 39:10
  things going on. I was.
• 39:10
  Very interested that they gave her the bruise.
• 39:13
  Yeah, and she's quite sort of spaced out and strung out as
• 39:17
  well, which I think is great choice from the from the action
• 39:20
  who's barely got any lines. No, I know.
• 39:22
  It's all in her face though, isn't it?
• 39:24
  Dead behind the eyes. It's a really, it's a really
• 39:27
  smart piece of acting. Yeah, the end where she's
• 39:29
  awkwardly dancing to the music as the squatters going on.
• 39:34
  Yeah. I think, and you know what, I
• 39:37
  remember watching this and thinking this was the best
• 39:39
  special effects I'd ever seen, where I think it's such a simple
• 39:42
  effect, the toplophane. Yeah, well, yeah, they're just
• 39:45
  round things, aren't they? But, and this I mean I can
• 39:49
  understand why people might not. I like this, but I think it's
• 39:53
  great. I love it because you know what,
• 39:56
  Like, you know what I'm saying? Rossiter remembers.
• 39:58
  The kids are watching this, you know, and they want to have fun.
• 40:02
  It's it's, it is brilliant, it's daring and I love it.
• 40:06
  The, the, the tone of this manages to cohere, even though
• 40:15
  it, you know, it flirts with a lot of dark humour.
• 40:18
  But then it's got the, the, the thriller element to it as well.
• 40:21
  It's it, it, I think it's tonally really well spliced
• 40:25
  together and I and it's about and look at and look at Colin
• 40:31
  Teague's angle, slightly high, slightly angled.
• 40:34
  And there's a lot of it now when we go outside the house, when
• 40:36
  the bomb goes off, we're on a right tilt.
• 40:38
  We are about to enter, I think my favorite period of the
• 40:43
  episode. Much as I love the Nicola
• 40:45
  McAuliffe bit. What was my issue?
• 40:47
  I'm loving this and I I'm. Confident.
• 40:52
  And, and I've loved it ever since as well.
• 40:54
  But I do remember, as I say at the time, having some some
• 40:58
  reservations and and it's odd, this seems so odd to me now
• 41:02
  because there's nothing, there's absolutely nothing wrong with
• 41:06
  this. I love how Freema plays this
• 41:09
  when she's talking about sort of, you know, how she supported
• 41:13
  Mr. Saxon and then she just. Starts tapping her hand very
• 41:16
  gently. I I think it's really well
• 41:20
  directed, The, the, the, the whole tempo of everything.
• 41:27
  And I love this, isn't it? Because.
• 41:30
  Yeah. And you know what you get in a?
• 41:33
  Second, before we get into bombs and guns on the street and all
• 41:38
  of that, you get a wonderful sequence where Mr. Saxon appears
• 41:42
  and catches us up on all the alien invasions that we've had
• 41:44
  so far, You know, So we are, you know, sort of continuity now.
• 41:49
  Of course. But the show didn't do that
• 41:52
  before, did it? It was just like one an invasion
• 41:54
  after another, and we kind of forgot about it.
• 41:56
  Yes, yeah. Every time there was an Indian,
• 41:58
  Asian people would go, are you? You're talking out of your hat,
• 42:00
  Sir. And you go, but hang on.
• 42:02
  It's because they invaded last week, and the week before and
• 42:05
  the week before that and. Those dinosaurs in London when
• 42:08
  everyone was evacuated and and. I mean, I, I think I prefer, I
• 42:14
  prefer a world where, you know, the Doctor is at odds with
• 42:19
  everybody and the, and the, and the, it's the world today where
• 42:23
  if you said aliens, you'd go, no, you're, you're bonkers.
• 42:26
  But of course this one makes much more sense because people
• 42:30
  can't, you can't people go. And I know Moffat tried to wipe,
• 42:33
  wipe people's memories, didn't he?
• 42:35
  And, and all of that sort of thing.
• 42:36
  And it, you know, if you know, if you have obvious Earth
• 42:39
  invasions, you've, you've got to sort of acknowledge it.
• 42:41
  But then of course, it stops being a world that we identify
• 42:44
  with because we live in a world where aliens are ridiculous.
• 42:47
  So it's a hard, it's a hard 1 to negotiate that when.
• 42:52
  You do do a constitution like that.
• 42:53
  You can do fun things like love and monsters where you did see
• 42:56
  it all from Elton's point of view, you know, and.
• 42:59
  And and the wonderful recurring joke with Donna where she's
• 43:02
  just, she never noticed. You know that's coming back,
• 43:04
  don't you? Such a good joke.
• 43:07
  Well, I miss something again. From here I love this, the whole
• 43:12
  the cutting of it, the camera movement, the angles.
• 43:15
  I even love the big company sticks of dynamite.
• 43:19
  I was watching this earlier. You know this is.
• 43:21
  Shot on high def, this explosion, they've got high def
• 43:24
  cameras here and it looks absolutely terrific.
• 43:27
  Angle the the cameras on the floor, Yeah.
• 43:30
  It's absolutely terrific. And then I absolutely love this
• 43:35
  is my favorite bit of the episode.
• 43:36
  And I love the way she does that.
• 43:37
  And the music's kicked in and the action.
• 43:40
  And when she said don't you dare and and then go go to her home,
• 43:43
  you think, of course she's going to warn her family to tell them
• 43:46
  to get out. But it's too late.
• 43:47
  Because we know that that the lady from 42 is there, the lady
• 43:51
  who used to be in Hollyoaks, who's replaced Bertie Carville
• 43:55
  because he's got on to be really famous from the Lazarus
• 43:58
  Experiment. They're telling her as well,
• 44:01
  aren't they? You know we're going to get back
• 44:02
  together, and that's an immediate red flag that
• 44:04
  something is wrong. And then she gives it to a
• 44:07
  useless dad who's an idiot who was also in trial of a Time Lord
• 44:13
  and has just proved himself to be a Burke who's run off with
• 44:16
  this, you know, blonde 20 year old.
• 44:19
  And in true brilliant Doctor Who style, he gets to be brave.
• 44:23
  And I love that because it's it's going no, instead of him
• 44:26
  being feckless and useless, he does the right thing and she
• 44:29
  yells at him and they grab him and that's all action.
• 44:33
  And I love it. I the bit where he turns and
• 44:36
  goes no run just gets me every time.
• 44:38
  I absolutely love it. It's I.
• 44:40
  Said today when I was watching this, this is the best telly
• 44:42
  ever and I. Love you know when.
• 44:45
  Francine is screaming. You can't really hear what you
• 44:47
  and it's so chaotic. Yeah, it's my meat and drink
• 44:50
  that that the, the the ordinary dumb guy finding it within
• 44:55
  himself to do something brave, even though it's staged himself.
• 44:58
  And I love this. I like this.
• 45:00
  I like the sexy, sexy lady. Of course, who's a bit who's who
• 45:04
  who? Who does the ready aim fire the
• 45:06
  mysterious woman? Guns on the street here.
• 45:09
  It feels very spooked, doesn't it?
• 45:10
  Yeah. Really.
• 45:11
  Sort of urban warfare. Oh, we haven't even mentioned
• 45:14
  Tish, who's gone on to be an Oscar nominee as well.
• 45:16
  There's a time when Doctor Who was casting future Oscar
• 45:18
  nominees left, right and centre. Carey Mulligan, Andrew is Andrew
• 45:22
  Garfield. Yeah, Andrew Garfield.
• 45:24
  This bit where they just suddenly stop and everybody
• 45:27
  stops. Yeah, and as a moment.
• 45:33
  Oh, it's so great. Fire I.
• 45:35
  Love that. I love that.
• 45:37
  It's terrific. Well, that's the episode.
• 45:43
  Brilliant right there, that. That is I that whole sequence
• 45:47
  from seeing the dynamite to this bit, I, I, I think is so well
• 45:52
  done and it's brilliant and it's thrilling and it makes me very
• 45:56
  excited and happy to be a Doctor fan.
• 45:58
  And I also get a little bit sort of lump in the throaty when,
• 46:01
  when Trevor leads brave love it all.
• 46:04
  And now they're in an underground tunnel and it's all
• 46:07
  spooky and they're on the run and.
• 46:10
  And of course, it's raining. It's Cardiff.
• 46:12
  I really love Martha in that sequence as well because she has
• 46:15
  spent a lot of this season sort of being talked down to a little
• 46:18
  bit and now her family are endangered.
• 46:19
  She just goes, you know what, fuck off.
• 46:21
  Yeah, I'm going to go and help them, you know.
• 46:24
  Yeah, and then she has to ring Reggie Yates, who's been double
• 46:27
  booked and can't be in the story anymore.
• 46:28
  And I live very near Brighton. That is not Brighton OK.
• 46:33
  Oh. Not Brighton, that is Cardiff.
• 46:36
  Oh well, it can fit as somebody that is not as familiar with the
• 46:41
  nooks and crannies of Brighton as you are, Joe.
• 46:44
  Saying a word. Convinced me and this is great
• 46:48
  because it's the first time they've spoken and and you know,
• 46:51
  they give this the weights that it needs.
• 46:54
  But it's also incredibly flirtatious, this scene.
• 46:57
  Yeah, Doctor, it's a bit sexy, isn't it?
• 47:01
  It is. It is because I love it when you
• 47:03
  say my name. Of course, if Russell Davis got
• 47:07
  a right scene between the Doctor and the Master, it was going to
• 47:10
  get a bit flirty. Yeah, it's great.
• 47:15
  But you really feel like the weight of these two, the last
• 47:18
  two of their kind and. They're not even in the same
• 47:21
  room. You know, it's, it's, it's
• 47:23
  really, really well done. And John Sims delivery of the
• 47:27
  line when he's talking about Gallifrey and he's like, you
• 47:30
  know, how did it feel when it burn?
• 47:33
  I'd love that, Yeah. Yeah.
• 47:39
  I mean, there's a fair bit of exposition here, but it's all
• 47:41
  done very economically and just emotionally and entertainingly.
• 47:47
  Yeah, and, and and, you know, the doctors, the doctors
• 47:52
  instinct is to go, you know, it's just you and me, kids, you
• 47:56
  know, things are different now and.
• 47:59
  That's basically the Doctor throughout the entire 2
• 48:01
  episodes, isn't it? He's waiting out and until the
• 48:04
  master realizes it is just the two of us, you know,
• 48:08
  unfortunately it doesn't quite end where I think he hopes it
• 48:10
  was going to end, but. No, but, and Tennant's so sad.
• 48:14
  You know, there's a, there's a beautiful sadness to to him
• 48:16
  here. And I think they capture that
• 48:19
  very nicely because obviously, you know, the Doctor has, you
• 48:23
  know, blown up many a bad guy in the past, But he's always, he's
• 48:27
  always tried, you know, he's always sought leniency and mercy
• 48:30
  for the, for the Master. So there's obviously got to be
• 48:32
  something a bit more a bit more there.
• 48:35
  And and I think they said it's just that one very, very well
• 48:39
  tenant is I think it's I think it's easy to take for granted
• 48:43
  how good an actor tenant is because he's not doing he's not
• 48:48
  doing sort of the some of the sort of character Y you know,
• 48:52
  whirly gigs that that that that Trouten or or Baker.
• 48:55
  Do you know, there's no, there's, there's, there's, you
• 48:59
  know, it's, it's so it, it comes so naturally to him that I think
• 49:06
  we forget sometimes The, the, the, a lot of the dramatic
• 49:10
  weight and the drive of these episodes comes from the, the,
• 49:15
  the fact that Tennant is on point all the time.
• 49:19
  I do. Wonder if that's the weakness of
• 49:21
  Last of the Time Laws is where you take Tennant out and you
• 49:24
  bring CGI Doctor in. That is an odd decision.
• 49:28
  I again I will be interested to see how we we fare with that.
• 49:31
  But Dobby, the house doctor is a is a peculiar choice for your
• 49:36
  season finale to suddenly go well, let's, let's yeah.
• 49:40
  Did you cover this episode? Oh, I mean, I'll listen to them
• 49:42
  all, but I can't remember. Did you cover this episode?
• 49:44
  When you interviewed Rusty Davis for did did he mention that?
• 49:50
  Oh, and what I? Can't remember?
• 49:51
  I don't think so. What did we talk about when we
• 49:54
  talked about this? Or had I interviewed some?
• 49:58
  I can't. I honestly can't remember.
• 50:00
  It was a long old interview, that it was.
• 50:04
  Fantastic. But I, I think, I think I
• 50:06
  probably talked about the sort of spy thriller element of it
• 50:09
  because that's my, that's the part that sings to me.
• 50:14
  But had I, I'd, I'd maybe interviewed somebody else about
• 50:18
  there's no because I didn't interview Colin, Colin Teague
• 50:21
  about it. There's a there's an interesting
• 50:27
  line here where he says you're ticking every demographic.
• 50:29
  Well done. And you run.
• 50:33
  You really notice me? Yeah.
• 50:38
  Run. Oh, you.
• 50:41
  One thing that really stood out to me watching the season as a
• 50:44
  whole was that obviously the Doctor and Martha go for this
• 50:48
  entire season which has been manipulated by the Master.
• 50:52
  But they actually reached the Master until towards the end of
• 50:54
  the season where they encourage him to open the watch, which
• 50:57
  then makes him go all the way back to the start of the season
• 51:01
  and manipulate their events through the season.
• 51:03
  It's got a real circular plotting to it it.
• 51:05
  Has, isn't it? And this is great luck with the
• 51:08
  extras, you know, tapping, tapping the drum sound out.
• 51:12
  I'll miss the news reports, you know.
• 51:15
  I love a bit of, I love a bit of yeah.
• 51:17
  I hope, I hope they bring back Trinity Wells.
• 51:20
  I'll give her an episode. Please give her a whole episode.
• 51:24
  And of course, this is this is an obvious, you know, repeat of
• 51:27
  the the Clangers gag from the Sea Devils, which is nice to
• 51:32
  see. They've got televisions in their
• 51:36
  stomachs. Yeah.
• 51:41
  What I like about the toplophane is they're nicely mysterious and
• 51:45
  actually the pay off is chilling when we get there.
• 51:49
  Yes, it's, it's, it's a, it's a bold choice, isn't it?
• 51:53
  Because obviously the, the childish voice thing is there to
• 51:56
  create a dissonance between their deadly nature and, and the
• 52:01
  way that they speak of this sort of childish phraseology.
• 52:04
  And the, you know, the very childish voices in the same way,
• 52:07
  actually, the, the quarks, you know, have that, you know,
• 52:11
  childish speech. That's supposed to be a contrast
• 52:14
  to the fact that they, you know, melt people.
• 52:17
  But it does, it is dangerous because it does mean you're
• 52:22
  scary villains sound like babies.
• 52:24
  And that that can, that can backfire in terms of about how
• 52:30
  dangerous and threatening they feel when they're, you know,
• 52:33
  doing their discourse. Doctor Who has walked that fine
• 52:36
  line many times, isn't it? Like, like the troll doll in
• 52:39
  Terror of the Autumn, which is a bit cute looking and a bit weird
• 52:42
  until it, you know, he's got his hands right?
• 52:44
  Yeah. Absolutely.
• 52:46
  Or the chair. You know he sits in that cute
• 52:48
  chair. Isn't this the sexiest warehouse
• 52:52
  you've ever seen? Honestly, and also it makes it
• 52:55
  seem really quite exciting being on the run having fish and chips
• 53:00
  in a warehouse. He.
• 53:01
  Brings in domestic element so effortlessly, doesn't he?
• 53:05
  But there's also something very exciting.
• 53:06
  I call it survivor's syndrome. And I sometimes when I'm sort of
• 53:10
  on my own wondering where I do sometimes sort of fantasize
• 53:12
  about it being the end of the world and, you know, you being
• 53:15
  the only person left and stuck by.
• 53:17
  And, and there is something quite sort of exciting about
• 53:21
  going, oh, what if I was cut off from everybody else and, and,
• 53:24
  and, you know, had to make my own way.
• 53:26
  And it's frightening, but also strangely liberating in a way
• 53:30
  that suddenly, you know you don't have to.
• 53:32
  You can't do any of the things that you normally do relying on
• 53:35
  other people or or or or being in the usual places that are
• 53:38
  safe and have the usual home. Home company.
• 53:40
  It would be so peaceful. Would wouldn't it?
• 53:43
  But also deadly and lonely and frightening.
• 53:46
  This this first glimpse of Gallifrey with a budget.
• 53:50
  Yeah, Orange sky, the collars. Yeah, Doctor with glasses on.
• 53:58
  Love that. I mean, look at Tennant.
• 54:01
  He just owns the show, doesn't he?
• 54:04
  Yeah, he's, he's absolutely phenomenal.
• 54:09
  I I think we we haven't got the music playing, but the score
• 54:13
  throughout these two episodes is it's my goal that is peak, but
• 54:18
  the score for this at this scene is epic.
• 54:22
  I. Can I can just hear it on on
• 54:23
  mine? Oh, this poor chap is no longer
• 54:26
  with us. The young master, he, he, he
• 54:30
  died a couple of years ago. It's always sad when you see
• 54:34
  somebody so young, isn't it? It is.
• 54:37
  But he was a he was a boxer as well.
• 54:39
  He got into boxing but. Incredible eyes, isn't he?
• 54:44
  Yeah, yeah, really soulful, soulful eyes.
• 54:47
  But that seems extraordinary, doesn't it?
• 54:50
  This is the close up into the eye and the vortex.
• 54:55
  And the fact that he's wearing a costume from the war games, he's
• 54:58
  wearing the Time Lord robes from the war games.
• 55:00
  You got do. You know what?
• 55:01
  Love it. Then he got us in with that
• 55:03
  first season and he made it very domestic and he pulled everyone
• 55:06
  in and now he can start doing all the stuff.
• 55:10
  But he doesn't overdo it. I think they do do it in
• 55:12
  Moffett's time when you get to Hell Bent and stuff like that
• 55:15
  and you're down in the Matrix and the vaults and all, and I'm
• 55:17
  like, oh, what is all? Then the technobabble.
• 55:19
  This is still hugely accessible, but if you're a big Doctor Who
• 55:23
  fan then you've got your your Easter eggs there.
• 55:26
  Yeah, yeah, you have to. You have to wear it all lightly.
• 55:29
  It can't be. It can't be alienating to the
• 55:32
  oldest. And of course, this is Torchwood
• 55:36
  is on as well, as is The Sarah Jane Adventures.
• 55:39
  I mean, this is Doctor Who is everywhere and it's it's quality
• 55:45
  is pretty consistent everywhere as well.
• 55:49
  So it's not just that they're doing 3013 episodes of Doctor
• 55:52
  Who, they're doing episodes of Torchwood and Sarah Jane as
• 55:57
  well. You'll remember, you know, later
• 55:59
  seasons, they were putting out five or six episodes a year or
• 56:01
  one episode a year, you know. And we had Doctor Who
• 56:04
  Confidential and totally Doctor Who.
• 56:07
  You read that writer's tale. No wonder he was tearing his air
• 56:10
  out. Yeah, absolutely.
• 56:12
  But you're right and and the quality just got better and
• 56:14
  better. You know, I kept waiting for it
• 56:17
  to go wrong. Do you know what I mean?
• 56:21
  It's it's so easy as a Doctor Who fan to, to, to live in a
• 56:24
  constant state of panic, you know, oh, it's good now.
• 56:28
  But what if it's not good next week or people love it now?
• 56:31
  What if it gets what if they stop loving it next week will be
• 56:33
  get cancelled. You know, I love the latest
• 56:37
  Blu-ray box set. When's the next one coming out?
• 56:38
  You know. You can.
• 56:40
  See it. But, but I identify with all of
• 56:42
  that because I'm, I'm wired. It's a constant battle to try
• 56:46
  not to be sort of pessimistic or worrisome.
• 56:49
  And I think, I think because in a way, I don't know if the
• 56:55
  people of my generation have never quite recovered from the
• 56:58
  the 1980s hiatus, where a show that seemed indestructible
• 57:04
  almost overnight went from being, you know, part of the
• 57:08
  furniture and a national treasure to being something
• 57:10
  people incorrectly written, wrote off as this terrible,
• 57:13
  shitty program that had always been a bit crap and the
• 57:16
  injustice of that as well. After survival it was so anti
• 57:20
  climactic that it, you know, it just sort of got forgotten
• 57:24
  rather than, you know, there was no big bold attempt to bring it
• 57:27
  back. Yeah, and when the thing that
• 57:29
  you love most in the world, everybody incorrectly writes off
• 57:34
  as this sort of rubbishy relic from the past, when actually it
• 57:39
  was really successful and everybody loved it.
• 57:43
  You know, it it, it did make for a, a period of being, I think,
• 57:46
  unnecessarily spiky and hard done to.
• 57:50
  And, you know, I I would react in, in, in those ways.
• 57:53
  And you, you know, one has to be, one has to be very careful
• 57:56
  not to. And I see people doing it today
• 57:57
  in discourse about Doctor Who. And when something happens to a
• 58:00
  character that they don't like what a writer's done to a
• 58:03
  character and they take it very personally and they they get
• 58:05
  very cross. And it's that way.
• 58:06
  Madness lies. You know, but as well, I think
• 58:10
  another reason why it's it gives me a glow to go back and watch
• 58:15
  these Four Seasons is there was just that collective endorsement
• 58:19
  of the show at the time, you know, and I still feel that now
• 58:22
  when I watch these. Absolutely.
• 58:25
  There's another good PIT score here as well.
• 58:28
  I could sing it, you know, I've known the music so well.
• 58:31
  I won't. And it, and it's, and it's great
• 58:33
  because, you know, this gives us a chance for, you know, the
• 58:36
  perception filters are lovely or whatever it's called is a is a
• 58:39
  lovely way of getting them out of the open and not being
• 58:41
  spotted. But it also shows, you know, it
• 58:45
  emphasizes the fact that they're lonely and they're on the run
• 58:48
  and that's really dramatic. I love the whole atmosphere of
• 58:50
  that of the. News straight in with the news.
• 58:53
  Air Force One. Suddenly we're on a massive
• 58:55
  scale again. Another cracking piece of music
• 59:00
  and and there's something about having the president, Colin
• 59:06
  Stinton. I saw him on a train once.
• 59:07
  He is American or he's Canadian. I saw him, I saw him getting on
• 59:11
  the train in Manchester, but I decided not to bother him.
• 59:13
  In fact, I've seen a few of them because I also saw the lady
• 59:15
  who's the professor, Ellie Haddington in the next episode.
• 59:18
  I saw her on a train from Manchester too.
• 59:21
  I think so I should. Yeah, she's, she's based around
• 59:25
  here. I think she used to be in
• 59:26
  Coronation Street. Have you met the wife?
• 59:34
  He's so playful, isn't he? He goes.
• 59:36
  I think it's down the back of the seti.
• 59:38
  I had a look there, you know I found a sweet.
• 59:41
  I, I also feel like having the American president in Doctor Who
• 59:47
  makes it feel like it's a, you know, it's a step up.
• 59:50
  It makes it feel like Doctor Who's on the global scale, our
• 59:53
  funny little British programs, even though he's only a
• 59:55
  fictional American president has, has got the president, the
• 59:58
  president of the United States, you know, because America's
• 1:00:00
  where all the big stuff happens. You know, a part of Doctor Who's
• 1:00:03
  charm is that it takes takes place in, you know, invasions
• 1:00:07
  take place in the Home Counties or whatever, but suddenly if
• 1:00:09
  you've got Air Force One and the American president.
• 1:00:12
  Taking it very soon, and it really works here in a way that
• 1:00:15
  I don't even remember. In Death in Heaven, they make
• 1:00:18
  the the Doctor president of the Earth or something like that,
• 1:00:22
  and they're trying to sort of key into the same sort of stuff.
• 1:00:25
  It just didn't quite have the same impact on me.
• 1:00:27
  No, no. And actually what's what's great
• 1:00:31
  about this of course as well is that the the Doctor and Co are,
• 1:00:36
  you know, on the, on the run and on their own and their enemy is
• 1:00:40
  the Prime Minister of Great Britain.
• 1:00:42
  That's that's who is the. Master.
• 1:00:44
  I mean, that's who is the master, that's.
• 1:00:46
  Mistakes to those, and I think his coat's about to blow open
• 1:00:49
  and we're going to see a really gorgeous red lining to his coat.
• 1:00:53
  What? Does that remind you of Toby?
• 1:00:55
  Oh, it's and. It's just a tiny moment, but
• 1:00:59
  it's just one of those bits of attention to detail it.
• 1:01:03
  Has to be deliberate, right? Oh, absolutely.
• 1:01:06
  But it just shows that that this program is, you know, playing
• 1:01:11
  for high stakes at every opportunity and and everybody's
• 1:01:14
  working on the top of their game.
• 1:01:17
  Just having like having the Doctor and the Master in a
• 1:01:20
  contemporary setting, I just get so many John Perky vibes here.
• 1:01:23
  It's like season 8 vibes. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:29
  Oh this is horrible with them being dragged out of the car.
• 1:01:33
  It is, and it's cruel. Martha's restraint, Anger.
• 1:01:37
  Well, and and of course, yeah, that their impotence is again,
• 1:01:39
  really dramatic. They can only watch at the
• 1:01:41
  moment because, you know, the price of being able to hide in
• 1:01:44
  plain sight is is they can't actually do anything at the
• 1:01:47
  moment. And that is really dramatic.
• 1:01:48
  They're essentially stuck behind a glass partition while horrible
• 1:01:52
  things are happening to the people on the other side.
• 1:01:55
  And and, you know, Russell's very good at deploying, you
• 1:01:58
  know, this perception filter that, you know, really helps
• 1:02:01
  them observe the action. And so bring us there, too.
• 1:02:04
  And, and Jack's, Jack's, you know, Jack's wrist thing as
• 1:02:07
  well. Yeah.
• 1:02:08
  It, it sort of means that we don't have to dither about doing
• 1:02:11
  annoying, annoying things in order to keep the story going.
• 1:02:15
  You know, he's, he's very good at creating.
• 1:02:18
  The psychic paper, isn't it? Just to get there and
• 1:02:20
  established. Oh, this is one of my favorite
• 1:02:24
  parts of the the Valiant. It's just so.
• 1:02:28
  I mean, it feels very Thunderbirds to me, but that's
• 1:02:30
  no bad thing. Look at that shot.
• 1:02:32
  Look at that CG shot. Yeah.
• 1:02:35
  And I love the fact that, yeah, the the Valiant almost becomes a
• 1:02:38
  sort of character because later, because when it gets killed,
• 1:02:42
  then it gets destroyed. Oh, it's great.
• 1:02:44
  It is a bit like, oh, but it's, I mean, again, it's a thing
• 1:02:47
  that's on the screen probably for the whole of Doctor Who for
• 1:02:49
  about 20 seconds. But when the Valiant does get
• 1:02:52
  destroyed, it is it You do feel like it's a part of the show's
• 1:02:56
  history being and. It gets that hero moment in the
• 1:02:59
  poison sky doesn't it? When it comes out, clears the
• 1:03:01
  mist. Yeah.
• 1:03:06
  You know, he's, he's a very, very bad man, you know, because
• 1:03:09
  not only does he murder the American president, but, you
• 1:03:13
  know, I've heard a lot of people say there are allusions to Tony
• 1:03:16
  Blair and terrible things that happened.
• 1:03:19
  Yes. In the end of the episode, he's
• 1:03:21
  quite. A Blair like Prime Minister,
• 1:03:23
  isn't he? The, you know, the swish,
• 1:03:25
  likeable, smiley, you know, guy with his wife, all of that, you
• 1:03:32
  know, it's it's the there's definitely contemporary barbs
• 1:03:36
  and all of this industrial sort of stuff is what Doctor Who does
• 1:03:39
  very well these days. You know, these these smoky,
• 1:03:42
  beautifully lit, shadowy settings, you know, that have
• 1:03:45
  got real industrial heft to them.
• 1:03:47
  I'm only. Going to make one complaint and
• 1:03:49
  it's the same complaint I have with the Suntara Stratum and the
• 1:03:52
  poisonous skies. I don't think yellow and purple
• 1:03:56
  lighting is particularly dramatic.
• 1:03:59
  How interesting. Yeah.
• 1:04:00
  OK, OK. It's funny how the the color
• 1:04:05
  palettes of things do date them in a way that you don't expect
• 1:04:09
  them to when you're watching them at the time.
• 1:04:10
  It's the same with Buffy. I never thought Buffy would look
• 1:04:13
  old fashioned. And I've and I've watched a bit
• 1:04:16
  of. I watched.
• 1:04:17
  I watched a a new who recently. I can't remember which one.
• 1:04:21
  I think it was a oh, I think it was Rose.
• 1:04:23
  It was Rose. And I was.
• 1:04:25
  And I and I was thinking, oh this this this does look a bit
• 1:04:28
  old fashioned in places when I remember when it was freshly
• 1:04:31
  minted and that seems really weird.
• 1:04:34
  Like last week. Well, yeah, And I remember when
• 1:04:37
  it was new in a way that I don't remember when, you know, the
• 1:04:39
  Seeds of Death was new. You know, it was always
• 1:04:41
  something from the past. But.
• 1:04:44
  But things should reflect the time they were made in.
• 1:04:47
  Oh, of course, it's not a criticism.
• 1:04:48
  It's, but it's just, it's, it's very odd how that stuff comes to
• 1:04:53
  bite you in the arse a little bit.
• 1:04:54
  You know, where that thing that was spanking you is now
• 1:04:57
  suddenly, oh, do you remember when that came out?
• 1:04:59
  Do your granddad you know? One of my friends is a teacher
• 1:05:02
  and he was like, Oh yeah, yeah, I remember when Doctor Who
• 1:05:04
  started and he thought he was talking about Unearthly Child
• 1:05:08
  and no, he was. Talking about Rose.
• 1:05:10
  Well, when we, when we went to the, the, the, the screening of
• 1:05:15
  the Sea Devils at the, the BFI, they had a couple of the young
• 1:05:18
  women who were in the trailer that Pete Mctire directed.
• 1:05:21
  And they said, you know, that. And they were asked, you know,
• 1:05:25
  oh, did you know when you did it that Doctor Who was a, you know,
• 1:05:28
  had been on in the olden days. And this, this young actress
• 1:05:31
  went, yeah, yeah, 'cause my, my dad, he remembers, he remembers
• 1:05:35
  it back in the old days, you know, with the, with the Weeping
• 1:05:38
  Angels. And you're like, that's not the
• 1:05:42
  old days. Yeah, I felt like, I mean, they
• 1:05:45
  were lovely, those two girls, but they were.
• 1:05:46
  Great, you know the cannibalised.
• 1:05:50
  TARDIS, the the engine. I remember I got to that point.
• 1:05:54
  I thought, my God, there's so many ideas in this, how is this
• 1:05:57
  all going to cohere? And he's very good, Russ, I mean
• 1:06:02
  the news reportage stuff as well, but that, you know,
• 1:06:05
  cutting to cafes and people watching stuff on screens just
• 1:06:08
  opens it at is really effective economic way of opening it out
• 1:06:14
  and and bringing it into the everyday world.
• 1:06:16
  He's stolen that from the war machines, you know.
• 1:06:19
  Yeah, well, and it's it's quite Nigel Neil used to do that sort
• 1:06:22
  of thing as well, people watching stuff unfolding on a
• 1:06:25
  pub television. And it kind of stresses the
• 1:06:30
  importance, doesn't it? And then the drama at the end
• 1:06:32
  when the Togler fain attack all of them.
• 1:06:35
  He calls himself president-elect here, which I think is a
• 1:06:38
  mistake. I think it sounds good.
• 1:06:40
  President-elect sounds good in a bit more formal, but
• 1:06:43
  president-elect is the person waiting to become president
• 1:06:46
  while the outgoing president finishes their term.
• 1:06:49
  Maybe that's his get out clause because when we return to.
• 1:06:55
  But why? Well, why have they sent the
• 1:06:56
  president-elect then? That seems a bit odd.
• 1:06:59
  I I'm not, I'm not a great fan of Barack Obama being in in the
• 1:07:04
  the at the end of time. Yeah, it it's it just seems a
• 1:07:10
  little bit sort of giddy to me that going oh great, we've got
• 1:07:13
  this brilliant new president. So he has to be in Doctor Who.
• 1:07:15
  It seems a bit I don't know. It almost points to the artifice
• 1:07:20
  by by having something from the real world in it.
• 1:07:23
  I don't know how to tell. It's a terrible double as well,
• 1:07:26
  so. Yes, the handheld camera here is
• 1:07:31
  great and the because of course you've also got the fact that
• 1:07:34
  you've got cameras in there as well.
• 1:07:37
  So it's it's, it's sort of feels like you're you're in amongst it
• 1:07:40
  and it's being broadcast. So you've got that kind of meta
• 1:07:43
  thing going on there's. A brilliant clue there as to
• 1:07:46
  what the toclophane are as well, because when they blast people
• 1:07:48
  it's that stead radiation effect from Utopia.
• 1:07:51
  Oh yes. Oh well, yes.
• 1:07:54
  And I and I love the way that John SIM delivers the line
• 1:07:57
  complete peoples of the Earth. Please attend.
• 1:07:59
  It's almost like because he won't have known or maybe
• 1:08:02
  somebody told him, but he delivers it like it's a line
• 1:08:05
  that the master knows, he said before.
• 1:08:09
  If only. If only the person came onto the
• 1:08:11
  set and said the same thing about Metabolis 3, right?
• 1:08:17
  Oh, this is great. Tying in Lazarus as well, and
• 1:08:20
  the technology. That's that episode that felt,
• 1:08:23
  you know, benign in the season. It's actually, it's about the
• 1:08:26
  long game, you know? Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:08:30
  And this is great because this is all ramping up now as well.
• 1:08:33
  It's ramping up to the cliffhanger and, and Tennant's
• 1:08:38
  really acting is, you know, his socks off.
• 1:08:41
  He's giving it the gravitas that it it, it needs.
• 1:08:44
  Well, well, we get a bit of the back story in.
• 1:08:46
  When he attacks him with the screwdriver, the the effect of
• 1:08:50
  him sort of screaming and going really fast, and then you've got
• 1:08:52
  that weird sort of techno music playing over it as well.
• 1:08:55
  It just feels like everything's gone to shit.
• 1:08:58
  Yeah, yeah, it's it's really hit the fan.
• 1:09:02
  I see. I think Simon is playing all
• 1:09:04
  this brilliantly. Yeah, he's great.
• 1:09:06
  He's great. Because he's basically having to
• 1:09:08
  say, can you remember that episode you had in the middle of
• 1:09:10
  the season? Like, yeah, because this is all
• 1:09:14
  really sort of back story, back story, back story.
• 1:09:17
  But it's, it's so well characterized that it, it feels
• 1:09:23
  like he's not filling us in. He's actually using the
• 1:09:25
  information to to belittle and upset the doctor, you know.
• 1:09:30
  He even gets like a Cilla Black moment where he goes, you know,
• 1:09:32
  we've flown them in all the way from.
• 1:09:36
  This, this is great. The the the little side with
• 1:09:39
  Jack and Martha because she's got no choice.
• 1:09:41
  She's got to go. Speaking of somebody that's done
• 1:09:46
  a lot of commentaries on genre television, that's not terrible.
• 1:09:49
  Old age make up. I've seen a lot worse.
• 1:09:52
  I. Think that's superb.
• 1:09:54
  I think that's an incredible job, you know, and it can stand
• 1:09:57
  a real close up as well. And there's something about the
• 1:10:02
  fact that they're tied up with cable ties rather than handcuffs
• 1:10:05
  that makes it worse as well, because they're, you could
• 1:10:07
  really, you know, that's really horrible.
• 1:10:08
  I. Love in the back of that scene
• 1:10:10
  there, that Martha's horrifying. You've got the master going.
• 1:10:12
  Oh yeah, he's so bad. And.
• 1:10:15
  This when he's, when he's saying I can't hear you and all of
• 1:10:18
  that. Oh, and this pays off, doesn't
• 1:10:22
  he? If I told you what they were,
• 1:10:23
  your hearts would break. Yeah.
• 1:10:27
  Yeah, look at that sort of giddy shot from below with the top of
• 1:10:29
  the vein whizzing around his head.
• 1:10:32
  Oh, this is this is my favorite part of the episode.
• 1:10:35
  Here come the drums. I like the races Earthlings as
• 1:10:38
  well. And just like I was just
• 1:10:43
  watching it and the sky tears open and they all come out and
• 1:10:46
  I'm like, what is going on? You know?
• 1:10:50
  But in a good way. Not, you know, I don't have a
• 1:10:51
  clue what's going on. It's like this is so exciting.
• 1:10:56
  I always like it when Russell throws the song in because I
• 1:11:01
  don't know much about music, but it makes it makes Doctor Who
• 1:11:04
  feel cool and modern and relevant to A to to to a bit of
• 1:11:07
  a square like me. I don't resist it at all.
• 1:11:09
  I love it. I loved it when Toxic was in.
• 1:11:11
  I love her little dance that she does.
• 1:11:14
  She's she's like a sort of broken marionette.
• 1:11:18
  When Toxic's in the end of the world, you know it.
• 1:11:21
  It just felt, Oh my, my funny old program is, is is being cool
• 1:11:26
  for the young people and I like it.
• 1:11:29
  I just have a bit of a dance. It breaks my heart when I see
• 1:11:32
  those versions of The Last of the Time Lords without.
• 1:11:35
  I can't decide about the Scissor Sisters.
• 1:11:37
  Yeah, it. Was did Netflix cut it out or
• 1:11:38
  something? Yeah, it was the one version.
• 1:11:42
  I, I, of course, I mean, I, I rarely buy music, but I've, I've
• 1:11:45
  bought this and I bought the Scissor Sisters song.
• 1:11:47
  It's hypothetic. I get all the songs that have
• 1:11:51
  been in Doctor Who. These shots of the tocophone
• 1:11:54
  coming down and then that one coming straight at the camera.
• 1:11:58
  Yeah, I just never. Envisaged Doctor Who looking
• 1:12:00
  like this. I also, it's a really Doctor Who
• 1:12:04
  Y thing as well is to go, we're going to point out the true
• 1:12:07
  meaning of the word decimate at this point, because people use
• 1:12:11
  it's a word that's used incorrectly by people all the
• 1:12:13
  time. So he goes, well, that's I'll,
• 1:12:16
  I'll throw in a friend of mine who's a teacher texted me and
• 1:12:19
  went, I love the fact that when the master killed everybody, he
• 1:12:22
  did it correctly, giving the correct meaning of the word
• 1:12:25
  decimate. He's got his priorities right,
• 1:12:30
  but I mean, is this as dark as the show gets?
• 1:12:34
  Yeah. I mean, I think, I think you
• 1:12:36
  probably as as a programmed Doctor Who fan at this point,
• 1:12:39
  know that there's no way that they can't retcon this.
• 1:12:43
  But that was the exciting thing for me, where I was like, how
• 1:12:45
  are they going to undo this? Yeah, I love this part of the
• 1:12:50
  score as well. This the score is really feel
• 1:12:52
  like it's leading to a oh, Doctor Who's going to be a bit
• 1:12:55
  post apocalyptic for a bit. And I and I like, I love the
• 1:12:59
  Martha Jones wandering the earth and, and this shot that's kind
• 1:13:02
  of saying she, you know, she's the only one in any position to
• 1:13:05
  do anything. And she's basically in a field
• 1:13:07
  that's on fire on her own without even a change of pants
• 1:13:10
  with. Death raining down on that
• 1:13:13
  London skyline that we're so used to seeing.
• 1:13:15
  Yeah. And then?
• 1:13:18
  And then the. And the misquote from the Bible
• 1:13:21
  as well. Is it the Bible he's quoting and
• 1:13:23
  I thought it good? And I thought it good.
• 1:13:26
  It's, it's Paradise Lost, isn't it?
• 1:13:28
  Oh my. God, I'm not sure.
• 1:13:30
  It's fantastic though. And the music here was like and.
• 1:13:36
  I thought it good, Yeah. And, and I mean tenant hasn't
• 1:13:40
  said anything for ages, but it's all in the eyes.
• 1:13:44
  And I noticed plenty of that was without dialogue.
• 1:13:47
  So them raining down, you're seeing it from their point of
• 1:13:50
  view, them attacking people in their homes.
• 1:13:53
  And like a lot of it's quite cinematic in that respect.
• 1:13:56
  Murray Gold is vital to that. McFly as themselves.
• 1:14:06
  Actually, do you know what, Compared to later, this is going
• 1:14:08
  at a reasonably steady pace, these creditors.
• 1:14:11
  Yeah, and I'm quite pleased because I've got my finger on
• 1:14:14
  the button. iPlayer has not been saying to me, I'm going to jump
• 1:14:17
  away from the credits now because although we want to
• 1:14:21
  inform, educate and entertain, we don't expect you to be able
• 1:14:23
  to read words. But no, I'm very happy with
• 1:14:28
  this. I was watching, oh, I've been
• 1:14:30
  watching Children of Earth just for fun.
• 1:14:33
  And but the but the credits zoom past, you know, it's a it's a
• 1:14:38
  different kind of fun. It's because the the next time
• 1:14:41
  trailer is at the end. That's why they haven't jumped.
• 1:14:45
  Oh, and I think this is a a fairly silent next time trailer.
• 1:14:50
  It's all, it's all just the drums and quick clip, quick,
• 1:14:54
  quick clip, clip, clip, clip. It's basically a trailer as
• 1:14:58
  directed by Graham Harper. Yeah, it's kind of in space and
• 1:15:02
  people can only hear you drumming now.
• 1:15:06
  It's. Asking to go to the next
• 1:15:08
  episode. You should do that all the time
• 1:15:09
  iPlayer. Or you should always imagine
• 1:15:11
  there's a trailer coming. That for me, not even the Stolen
• 1:15:15
  Earth had the cliffhanger impact that that one did for me.
• 1:15:21
  And, and I think Wimbledon was on or something at the time
• 1:15:24
  because my mum was watching that a lot.
• 1:15:26
  But I just watched this episode over and over again because I
• 1:15:28
  just wanted to figure out how it was all going to end.
• 1:15:31
  It's. Great.
• 1:15:33
  It's great. I think there's nothing wrong
• 1:15:37
  with that episode. I said to you going in, didn't
• 1:15:41
  I? I think the first episode is
• 1:15:42
  pretty flawless. Yeah, yeah, it's excellent.
• 1:15:47
  The atmosphere and the pacing and the build up is fantastic
• 1:15:53
  and. Like you said, we slingshot,
• 1:15:54
  don't we? From comedy to high drama to
• 1:15:59
  melodrama to a flashbacks, you know there's all sorts going on
• 1:16:03
  in there. It's stuffed, but.
• 1:16:06
  I definitely remember at the time that the feeling was, or
• 1:16:12
  maybe it was after the second episode, but the feeling was
• 1:16:14
  that this finale had not been as strong as previous ones.
• 1:16:20
  Because they'd, you know, for the first time they'd have to
• 1:16:22
  go, well, we're not going to do it with any of the big monsters,
• 1:16:25
  OK, They, they've got the master, they've got the him.
• 1:16:27
  But the, you know, the monsters are the, the, the tocophane,
• 1:16:30
  which are essentially sort of babyish footballs, you know,
• 1:16:33
  Suntar and spaceships with scissors.
• 1:16:36
  But I, I remember there was a sort of feeling of, oh, that
• 1:16:40
  wasn't quite. Whereas I think now it stands up
• 1:16:44
  really, really well. I think it it's, it's really
• 1:16:49
  strong. Well, before we out this very
• 1:16:53
  strong episode, would you indulge me with answering a few
• 1:16:57
  questions from Twitter because I think I might do it all at the
• 1:16:59
  end. Yes.
• 1:17:01
  Well, our Twitter's been because the questions are, I mean, our
• 1:17:03
  Twitter I've, I've did, I've not really read them because I knew,
• 1:17:07
  I knew you were going to read them out.
• 1:17:10
  But our Twitter was ablaze. It was and a lot of opinions as
• 1:17:14
  well. I felt I apologise to you at
• 1:17:16
  some point during the day because I was like, oh this poor
• 1:17:18
  bloody phone must be going off like crazy.
• 1:17:20
  It was it. Was beeping a bit, but it's all
• 1:17:23
  right. Yes, it was punctuating me
• 1:17:26
  writing about Nigel Neil, but there we go, it's all right.
• 1:17:30
  I'm going to try and find questions that are specifically
• 1:17:34
  linked. I think a lot of them are about
• 1:17:36
  Last of the Time Lords. Do we think for Hannah at Mrs.
• 1:17:41
  Simon Templar? Do we think this master could
• 1:17:43
  have deliberately stolen the face of Sam Tyler?
• 1:17:48
  Well, I mean, I certainly feel that at the time, this piece of
• 1:17:53
  casting really helped cement Doctor Who as part of, you know,
• 1:18:00
  the cultural landscape that everybody was was talking about
• 1:18:03
  it. It it seemed too good to be
• 1:18:05
  true. You know, there was this other
• 1:18:07
  sci-fi show that people loved that had John SIM, who was, you
• 1:18:11
  know, already a a well regarded actor, but he was doing, you
• 1:18:14
  know, something with a bit of genre going into it and you
• 1:18:16
  think, oh, OK, this is great. And now he's crossing over into
• 1:18:19
  Doctor Who. It felt, and he's got the same
• 1:18:22
  surname as Rose. It, it felt, you know, it felt
• 1:18:25
  like Doctor Who instead of being this funny little, you know,
• 1:18:30
  thing floating, floating on the outside that people was, was,
• 1:18:34
  you know, sort of front and centre and, and sort of almost
• 1:18:36
  controlling the narrative of the of, of, of what everybody was
• 1:18:40
  consuming and liking. But I I don't think Sam Tyler
• 1:18:46
  can exist in the Doctor Who universe, can he?
• 1:18:48
  Probably not, no. It's a nice idea, but maybe
• 1:18:51
  that's a little a little too meta.
• 1:18:53
  OK, here's AI was like, how could I possibly ask Toby this
• 1:18:56
  question? But I'm going to So Joe Short,
• 1:19:00
  the lovely Joe Short at the Brain of Spock asks Apart from
• 1:19:04
  all Tory MPs, who we would all include if you had a chance to
• 1:19:10
  kill off 10% of the world's population?
• 1:19:12
  Who would you choose? Oh gosh, well, I'm a, I'm a
• 1:19:18
  lover, not a fighter. Can't I can't I make just not
• 1:19:23
  have sex with 10% of the population.
• 1:19:26
  So God. Well, no, I mean, no, I, I,
• 1:19:31
  I've, I've, I mean, I know it's only a question with tongue
• 1:19:34
  firmly in the cheek. So I, I suppose I could say
• 1:19:37
  something like people who consider utopia Part 1 of a
• 1:19:41
  three-part story or something like that.
• 1:19:45
  Anybody who describes the second Doctor Who story is the Daleks
• 1:19:50
  AKA the The Mutants AKA the Daleks.
• 1:19:53
  There's. A whole list.
• 1:19:55
  Isn't it? Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:19:57
  But sorry, I'm sorry. My my notifications seem to be
• 1:20:01
  beeping. I hope you're not picking that
• 1:20:02
  up. I don't know what's happening.
• 1:20:07
  I think something must have happened in the news.
• 1:20:08
  We'll, we'll turn this off and find out that that the 10% of
• 1:20:12
  the population have been decimated.
• 1:20:14
  Something because my, my phone hasn't my phone hasn't pinged
• 1:20:16
  like this since Russell T Davis announced he was coming back to
• 1:20:19
  Doctor Who. I thought somebody had died
• 1:20:21
  then. But 10%, So what?
• 1:20:24
  10% because he chooses a random 10% of the population.
• 1:20:28
  I'll tell you what my 10% is. Anybody who that listens to
• 1:20:33
  music on public transport either with leaky headphones or now.
• 1:20:37
  A phenomenon that I'm shocked as as even arisen in a civilized
• 1:20:42
  society in the 21st century. People who don't bother to use
• 1:20:44
  any headphones at all. I would, and that they seem to
• 1:20:47
  be on the increase. So there's problem.
• 1:20:49
  I would happily eradicate those fuckers.
• 1:20:53
  That's a great answer. Luke.
• 1:20:56
  Is lost on? Gallifrey asks, Is this the
• 1:21:01
  perfect master for this story? Yes, I think he is.
• 1:21:07
  And, and as, as we've discussed, I, I think the, he, he is the,
• 1:21:12
  he's the other side of David Tennant's coin.
• 1:21:16
  And it's, it's a, it's a smart piece of casting aside from, you
• 1:21:20
  know, the status of the actor and, and all of that, but just
• 1:21:22
  in terms of their physicality, the energy of their
• 1:21:24
  performances, that they're slightly sort of wiriness, the
• 1:21:27
  attack that they both have. Yet he is the perfect.
• 1:21:31
  He, he, he, he doesn't quite, he's not quite.
• 1:21:35
  I think when I imagined the storyline, I imagined a smoother
• 1:21:39
  politician. I don't think if this wasn't a
• 1:21:43
  story about the Master and the Doctor, if it was a story about
• 1:21:46
  a guy who, without any hypnosis, had managed to inveigle his way
• 1:21:51
  into the highest seat of the land, I think I would have
• 1:21:54
  expected a more sort of suave, sophisticated, charming sort of
• 1:22:03
  type to have become this Machiavellian politician.
• 1:22:08
  But obviously the story gets us away from that by going, well,
• 1:22:11
  yeah, no, he's, he is obviously, he has obviously messed with
• 1:22:16
  people's perception, which is why because he's not, because
• 1:22:19
  he's obviously a bit childish and a bit.
• 1:22:22
  So he doesn't quite fit to me the image of of the guy that
• 1:22:26
  would become Prime Minister through sheer force of cunning
• 1:22:32
  and charisma because he's he's, he's, they've gone for something
• 1:22:37
  slightly different. So, and I think that was perhaps
• 1:22:43
  one of my misgivings about it is that, but actually the story
• 1:22:46
  explains that that that it does work within the context of the
• 1:22:50
  story if you don't go in with any sort of preconditions of
• 1:22:53
  what you imagine your charming false Prime Minister to be like,
• 1:22:59
  you know, which is not this sort of giggly childish thing.
• 1:23:02
  And how he seeds that technology as the way that the master
• 1:23:07
  hypnotized everybody so he can use that in the climax of the
• 1:23:10
  story. But Martha to bring him down is
• 1:23:14
  beautiful. OK, couple more than Tom Newsome
• 1:23:18
  asks how prescient were RTDS cartoonishly evil politician
• 1:23:22
  baddies? Well, I mean, again, I that have
• 1:23:29
  it having, you know, those, those endorsements from famous
• 1:23:34
  people, you go, you know, you wonder is the, is the joke on
• 1:23:36
  them? Part of my worry about that
• 1:23:41
  though is, is that because Doctor Who was riding so high at
• 1:23:43
  at that point? Part of you is going, but hang
• 1:23:46
  on, you're giving these people kudos by them being in Doctor
• 1:23:49
  Who. It's not like 2 years before
• 1:23:52
  where Doctor Who was benefiting from anybody with any clout
• 1:23:56
  associating themselves with it. You know, Simon Callow comes in
• 1:23:59
  as Dickens and you go, well, that's, that's going to give
• 1:24:01
  Doctor Who a bit of a bit of respectability and bit of kudos
• 1:24:09
  that it currently doesn't have because it's Doctor Who
• 1:24:12
  whatever. Whereas by now, you know,
• 1:24:14
  everyone's queuing up to being Doctor Who.
• 1:24:16
  So in a way you could almost say, well, by having Anne Widder
• 1:24:21
  come in, we know she's having the piss taken out of her in a
• 1:24:23
  way, if you if you want to read it like that, it's also probably
• 1:24:28
  1 paying her and two giving her a platform that makes you.
• 1:24:34
  But I'm slightly uneasy about that because she's a terrible
• 1:24:37
  person. Yes, I mean you'll remember this
• 1:24:39
  is a woman that was so desperate for exposure she when I Strictly
• 1:24:41
  Come Dancing and was dragged around the floor dressed up as a
• 1:24:44
  Canary. Well, and that's my problem then
• 1:24:46
  again, when somebody like, because she came a bit of a sort
• 1:24:48
  of national treasure, but actually if you look at her
• 1:24:51
  politics, they are, they are deeply unpleasant.
• 1:24:55
  You know, not just, I'm not. And I don't just mean, you know,
• 1:24:59
  slightly at odds with my worldview.
• 1:25:01
  I'm, I mean, I actually think quite dangerous and unkind and
• 1:25:04
  cruel and hiding behind a profession of morality that I
• 1:25:10
  find flawed and hypocritical and and and and I'm very and I'm
• 1:25:17
  quite difficult in in rationalizing that with her
• 1:25:20
  being in my favorite program, even though her presence there
• 1:25:23
  is kind of a gag going. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:25:26
  She she, you know, she likes the most evil man in the universe.
• 1:25:30
  The joke is on her, but actually is it because she was paid to be
• 1:25:34
  and doctor, you know, well, it's it's tricky.
• 1:25:36
  It it, it, it, it plays it, it makes you think, but I think
• 1:25:40
  that's but that's good as well. I think that's interesting.
• 1:25:43
  I think I, you know, you can wrestle with that objectively
• 1:25:45
  and it not be because, again, I think if this happened today,
• 1:25:49
  people would be taking it way too personally and, and calling
• 1:25:52
  for this to be cancelled or that to be.
• 1:25:55
  And I think you go, no, you, you, it's a piece of drama.
• 1:25:57
  It's not real. You take a step away from it and
• 1:25:59
  you, you, you chew over those issues and that makes us that
• 1:26:02
  gives us that's good brain fodder and it and it and it and
• 1:26:05
  it and it and it means that the national conversation circles
• 1:26:08
  around you have to be a bit more objective.
• 1:26:10
  I think about things like that. And I I at any unease I have is
• 1:26:15
  is you know, is is objectively is objectively wrought really.
• 1:26:18
  But the the politicians think, well, yeah.
• 1:26:21
  I mean, I mean, we always are nostalgic about the past.
• 1:26:28
  But it seems to me that the current crop of politicians and
• 1:26:32
  the way that we conduct our political life and, and the
• 1:26:35
  tenor of political discourse is at an all time low.
• 1:26:38
  And I look back fondly to those times when I thought every a
• 1:26:42
  lot, a lot of people were pretty dodgy back there, you think, But
• 1:26:44
  at least at least they had a veneer of respectability.
• 1:26:48
  They don't even bother with that now they've realized that they
• 1:26:50
  don't even have to conduct themselves with any sort of form
• 1:26:54
  of decorum. Now that's that.
• 1:26:57
  You know, I I quite like the hypocrisy of the old days where
• 1:27:00
  at least we pretended that our politicians weren't venal scum
• 1:27:04
  suckers. What we need is the masters to
• 1:27:05
  take up position at Downing St. you know, and we'll, we'll play
• 1:27:08
  out the particular scene in this Now.
• 1:27:11
  It was interesting because the last question I'm going to ask
• 1:27:14
  you, I think you've just answered this, but I'll ask it
• 1:27:17
  anyway. David GP asked.
• 1:27:19
  Should the sound of drums be edited to remove a certain
• 1:27:22
  controversial former politician from the celeb cameo slot?
• 1:27:27
  That's David GP, by the way. You should all follow on
• 1:27:30
  Twitter, because he does really good things with sort of obscure
• 1:27:35
  but enjoyable bits of trivia about old programs.
• 1:27:41
  No, I'm not a believer in editing the past.
• 1:27:45
  That's what that's what the party did in 1984, and they were
• 1:27:49
  the bad guys. You shouldn't be afraid that the
• 1:27:51
  past has happened and it's got us to where we are today.
• 1:27:54
  And if we are to understand today, we should be again,
• 1:27:56
  objectively able to look at things that happened in the past
• 1:28:01
  and view them in context. If you can't view something in
• 1:28:03
  the past in context without being upset, I, I, I think you
• 1:28:08
  need to do a bit of work because because the past has got us to
• 1:28:12
  where it's happened. You can't do anything about it.
• 1:28:15
  And rewriting it is dangerous. And if we, if we pretend what
• 1:28:18
  went before us didn't happen, we can never live in a truthful
• 1:28:21
  version of today, of the present, because you've, you've,
• 1:28:28
  you've, you've, you've, you've fictionalized the journey to get
• 1:28:31
  us to this place. To understand the present, you
• 1:28:33
  have to understand the past as it was not a sanitized version
• 1:28:37
  of it. And I don't, I don't like
• 1:28:39
  censorship and cancer, you know, and, and, and, and removal of
• 1:28:42
  stuff. Anyway, I don't think it behoves
• 1:28:45
  us and I don't think it's healthy.
• 1:28:49
  We shouldn't always be. We shouldn't always be protected
• 1:28:51
  from stuff that we find uncomfortable because it's in
• 1:28:54
  the things that we find uncomfortable that we learn
• 1:28:57
  about what's acceptable and what isn't.
• 1:28:59
  And again, the past allows us to contextualise that because it's
• 1:29:03
  over and done and it's happened, OK?
• 1:29:06
  I'm dangerously close to quoting a line from the Aztecs then, and
• 1:29:10
  I also do like. I also do like a bit dark, but I
• 1:29:15
  do like the suggestion that she is the quintessence of evil
• 1:29:18
  because she has aligned herself with the master.
• 1:29:21
  I know it gives her a platform. It's kind of a funny joke as
• 1:29:24
  well. Yeah, but also I think, and this
• 1:29:26
  isn't done of enough, I don't think because I don't like Ann
• 1:29:30
  Widdecombe, that people who might be sympathetic to a
• 1:29:34
  politics. And I, you know, I'm one of
• 1:29:35
  those old fashioned people who thinks the people who have
• 1:29:37
  different political views from me might have very good reasons
• 1:29:40
  for coming to the conclusions that they've come to.
• 1:29:42
  They don't want to destroy the world.
• 1:29:44
  They just think that their approach to making the world a
• 1:29:47
  better place is a more sensible one than mine.
• 1:29:49
  And I think sometimes again, and particularly those of us have a
• 1:29:52
  sort of liberal sensibility could be a bit censorious these
• 1:29:55
  days. And, and the dismissal of
• 1:29:58
  anybody with a contrary view to yours and, and, and the desire
• 1:30:03
  to raise them or whatever is, is actually illiberal and
• 1:30:08
  counterproductive. And, you know, we go there at
• 1:30:11
  our peril. So just because I don't like Ann
• 1:30:13
  Widdecombe, it doesn't mean that she shouldn't be in a program,
• 1:30:18
  just as I don't take it personally when there's a when
• 1:30:21
  there's a a meal on a menu that isn't to my taste.
• 1:30:25
  Do you know what I mean? We need to get over ourselves a
• 1:30:29
  little bit, I think sometimes. I see Toby, you are as smart as
• 1:30:33
  ever. I could sit here and listen to
• 1:30:34
  you all day, but we should probably end this episode and
• 1:30:39
  head into Last of the Time Lords if you're ready to do so.
• 1:30:42
  Well, yes, I suppose. I suppose we should end by
• 1:30:46
  saying we we watched this episode, Joe, and we found it
• 1:30:50
  good. Hamster with a bump pen knife
• 1:31:27
  will do it quicker. Hello and welcome to a Hamster
• 1:31:34
  with a Blunt Pen Knife. My name is Toby Hadoke.
• 1:31:38
  I know, that's that sinking feeling when you get a Doctor
• 1:31:41
  Who DVD or box set. You go, oh God, it's that prick
• 1:31:45
  again. Well, I've invaded your favorite
• 1:31:47
  podcast as well. It's a hamster with a ubiquitous
• 1:31:53
  Z list. Anorak here to spoil it all, but
• 1:31:56
  thank goodness we have the hoonah versus Ryland Joe Ford.
• 1:32:02
  Ryland. Yeah, I love Ryland, and you
• 1:32:05
  remind me of Ryland a bit with your lovely energy and delivery.
• 1:32:10
  Fortunately, yes, Ryland Joe is here to to, to to assure you
• 1:32:17
  that all things are all right and hopefully to stop me going
• 1:32:21
  off into metaphors that don't quite end or dropping in facts
• 1:32:24
  that you really couldn't give a shit about.
• 1:32:27
  Gosh, it's quite, it's quite freeing being on this Joe.
• 1:32:30
  I don't have to. I can say things I wouldn't say
• 1:32:33
  anywhere else and they'll all be against me.
• 1:32:36
  But anyway, there we go. Hello, Joe.
• 1:32:37
  I hate to tell you this, oh, I don't.
• 1:32:39
  I love to tell you this, but every time I release an episode
• 1:32:42
  with you on it, my stats take a massive spike.
• 1:32:44
  So what you've said there is essentially a load of bullshit.
• 1:32:47
  Oh. It's massive kisses or or
• 1:32:49
  they're trying to see if they can find a clue as to where I
• 1:32:51
  live so they can come and novel me, knock me off, get rid of me.
• 1:32:56
  Yeah. I mean, I'd be sick of me by
• 1:32:58
  now. I think if I I'm not on the
• 1:33:00
  season 20 box set that has just been announced.
• 1:33:02
  There's not a there's not a trace of me anywhere.
• 1:33:04
  You can bring it. No, it's been cancelled now.
• 1:33:09
  Oh, that looks enticing doesn't it though?
• 1:33:10
  That's great. Yeah, I think it's going to be
• 1:33:13
  fabulous. I've seen, I've seen a couple of
• 1:33:15
  the bits that are that are going to be on it and they're great.
• 1:33:18
  Yeah, I think it's lovely and there's loads of stuff I haven't
• 1:33:21
  seen that I'm really looking forward to that.
• 1:33:22
  So glad they got Martin Clunes on it.
• 1:33:24
  I think that's terrific. Oh.
• 1:33:25
  Yeah, and I. I didn't know about that.
• 1:33:27
  There's a yet another version of the five doctors.
• 1:33:29
  I think I think every 10 years with the technology available,
• 1:33:32
  there should be another version of the fund.
• 1:33:35
  We talked about this yesterday. I surely in 10 years time for
• 1:33:38
  the for the 70th, they'll be able to what's that?
• 1:33:42
  What's that thing that they do AI thing?
• 1:33:45
  It's not only fans. That's a different thing.
• 1:33:47
  What's the thing that you do when you where where deepfake
• 1:33:50
  where you could put William, they could put William Hartnell
• 1:33:52
  in instead of Richard Herndel. You could actually have William
• 1:33:56
  Hartnell in The Five Doctors. You're on the way there, aren't
• 1:33:58
  we? Yeah, I'll be able to do that in
• 1:34:00
  10 years time easy. Do you know what though?
• 1:34:03
  This is appalling to say, but Richard Herndel was my first
• 1:34:07
  first Doctor. I love Richard Herndel.
• 1:34:09
  I wouldn't. It would have to be an
• 1:34:10
  alternative version. I wouldn't.
• 1:34:12
  I, I, I can. I can do some of his lines.
• 1:34:16
  Yeah. I wonder what happened to the
• 1:34:18
  other. And I've always envied the way
• 1:34:22
  he gamely tries to eat that bit of pineapple.
• 1:34:27
  But as you see his pie as. I mean as all of that.
• 1:34:32
  But you know just as an exercise in going.
• 1:34:36
  Well, what would they, you know, had had Hartnell still been
• 1:34:39
  around And let's because he, he is different from Hartnell.
• 1:34:43
  But, but I didn't know that at the time because as like you, he
• 1:34:46
  was, he was pretty much all we had to go on.
• 1:34:47
  He certainly was what my, my image of Hartnell.
• 1:34:50
  He was, he was certainly how I imagined Hartnell to have been.
• 1:34:54
  But it would be an interesting exercise if you could if you
• 1:34:57
  could actually insert an actual Hartnell in there.
• 1:35:00
  I think, you know, every time they do an interpretation of
• 1:35:03
  Hartnell, they just forget how funny and charming he was.
• 1:35:07
  Yeah, yeah, Tray him as an old grump.
• 1:35:10
  Yeah, I think, I think, and I think that's partially because
• 1:35:13
  all the interviews that were done, you know, those, those
• 1:35:16
  first interviews we ever had of people talking about Doctor Who,
• 1:35:20
  I think people maybe mistook William Hartnell for his doctor,
• 1:35:23
  you know, that I think he was quite grumpy and, and I and I
• 1:35:26
  think there was a sort of crossover.
• 1:35:28
  I mean, I, it still happens now when I've interviewed people
• 1:35:30
  when, you know, I remember Michael Bryant saying, well,
• 1:35:33
  you've got to remember Toby, that William Hartnell was very
• 1:35:35
  old and you have to go. No, he wasn't.
• 1:35:37
  He was he was in his late 50s. So, you know, I think he
• 1:35:42
  projected a certain image as well that that that influences
• 1:35:45
  the way that people remember him.
• 1:35:46
  I. Believe Paul Mcgahn is currently
• 1:35:48
  older than William Hartner was when he started as Doctor Who.
• 1:35:51
  Is that right? Oh, much older, yeah.
• 1:35:52
  William Hartner was 55 when he when he started as Doctor Who.
• 1:35:57
  Drinking from the eternal fountain of youth, Paul Mcgahn
• 1:35:59
  still looks 30 somehow. He does.
• 1:36:02
  But they, you know, people in those days, they had, they had
• 1:36:05
  worst diets, hard alive. Terrible teeth.
• 1:36:08
  Terrible. And I'd and I'd all been in a
• 1:36:09
  war. You know, I think that I think
• 1:36:11
  that takes it out of you it. Prematurely ages you?
• 1:36:14
  Yeah. So, yes, but yeah, we, we have,
• 1:36:20
  we, I, I think we have many more versions of the five doctors to
• 1:36:24
  come. My other heart is so excited for
• 1:36:28
  that. But above anything else, because
• 1:36:30
  that 90s one with those wibbly triangles that came down, you
• 1:36:33
  know, CGI triangles back in the sea, it was the most exciting
• 1:36:36
  thing in the world for him. So he doesn't care about any of
• 1:36:38
  the extra feet. You don't care about any of it.
• 1:36:40
  He just wants to modern CGI effects on the Five Doctors.
• 1:36:44
  Yeah, new new time triangle. That's what we get.
• 1:36:46
  We get a different one every. You'll be able to judge what
• 1:36:50
  area you're living in by the time triangle that you remember
• 1:36:53
  and the. Countdown starts now as to when
• 1:36:55
  they announced the next box set. Oh yeah, yeah, yes, I know what
• 1:37:01
  that is. I'm, I'm, I'm on that one.
• 1:37:04
  Sorry everyone, I'm there ruining that one for you but.
• 1:37:08
  Never mind now, God, I defy you to find a segue from what we're
• 1:37:12
  talking about into Last of the Time Lords.
• 1:37:15
  Well, we've just announced the last of the DVD box sets for
• 1:37:20
  now. It's not no, that's terrible.
• 1:37:22
  It's not the last of the DVD, but the latest of the it's not
• 1:37:25
  latest of the Time Lords. The new release of the Time
• 1:37:27
  Lords, well, from the five Doctors to the from the from the
• 1:37:34
  five Doctors with new CGI to the old Doctor almost made it
• 1:37:39
  entirely out of CGI. Well done.
• 1:37:44
  It's tenuous, but I'll take it. It's yes, it's, it's the Last of
• 1:37:51
  the Time Lords, which is a great title and carries on.
• 1:37:57
  And we're trying to get to the narrow.
• 1:37:58
  I don't know if you remember listeners, but last time we
• 1:38:01
  loved Sound of Drums, but the spectre was hanging over us.
• 1:38:05
  Was that at the time this was deemed to be less satisfactory
• 1:38:10
  than perhaps previous season finales.
• 1:38:13
  And we couldn't for the life of us having watched sound of drums
• 1:38:18
  work out where our feelings about that had come from.
• 1:38:20
  Apart from the the the stuff we talked about about John Sims
• 1:38:23
  master who, which is a which is a, an interpretation that
• 1:38:30
  provokes a lot of sort of internal conflict and
• 1:38:34
  conversation. But it, it worked, it very much
• 1:38:37
  worked in what we what we saw last week, didn't it?
• 1:38:40
  Didn't it, Joe? So it'll be interesting to see
• 1:38:42
  if the stuff in this episode that makes you that's why people
• 1:38:45
  came out of this season or, or is it just that Doctor Who fans
• 1:38:49
  are never bloody happy and always have an eye on worrying
• 1:38:54
  about whether other people will like it, that we forget to like
• 1:38:57
  it ourselves? I think there's two major
• 1:39:00
  objections in fandom about this episode and fandom that's very
• 1:39:05
  general, you know, from the people that don't like it, and
• 1:39:07
  that is the Dobby Dr. and the ending with the Doctor coming
• 1:39:13
  down in a light. Yeah, so Doctor Who's Dobby and
• 1:39:17
  Jesus. Which is not, I figured after
• 1:39:21
  watching the sound of dramas where we were heading.
• 1:39:24
  Yeah, that's very true. Yes, I will be interested to and
• 1:39:28
  I, I, but I, and I know we've had lots of feedback on Twitter
• 1:39:32
  and I sort of scrolled through, but I deliberately but, but
• 1:39:34
  there seemed to be some sort of fairly heated responses as well
• 1:39:38
  to people who had a, a sort of visceral dislike of, of elements
• 1:39:42
  of this. So I will be, I'll be interested
• 1:39:43
  to see when you read those out how they chime with what we've
• 1:39:48
  watched. But interesting that it can
• 1:39:49
  still stir up that that kind of response even now, because quite
• 1:39:56
  often things that don't sit easily with you at the time,
• 1:39:59
  over the years you go, oh, I don't know why I ever had a
• 1:40:02
  problem with that. And I think this is definitely
• 1:40:04
  one of those for me. I've I've, as I say, I was
• 1:40:07
  slightly, there was some niggle at the time and I can't remember
• 1:40:09
  what it was. But every time since that I've
• 1:40:12
  I've really enjoyed it. I love the the urban thriller
• 1:40:14
  element and the dystopian stuff and the, the underground
• 1:40:17
  rebellion stuff and all of that. That's very much my kind of
• 1:40:20
  Doctor Who. So I will be interested to see
• 1:40:26
  because I, you know, you can read criticisms of something
• 1:40:28
  that you like and go, yeah, no, OK, fair enough.
• 1:40:30
  I can, I can, I can get where they're coming from.
• 1:40:32
  So that will be an interesting coder to our own watch.
• 1:40:37
  I think they're both. Both of those things are very
• 1:40:39
  bold, creative decisions to make.
• 1:40:41
  And I do think the show should always be bold and not just go
• 1:40:46
  down the obvious route. So now I kind of admire rather
• 1:40:50
  than like them. I I admire that he went there.
• 1:40:54
  Well, let's press play. Let's find out.
• 1:40:56
  OK, Are you going to count us in?
• 1:41:00
  I will and 54321. I can't get the Roland thing out
• 1:41:08
  of my head. Thank you.
• 1:41:10
  Oh hang on, start program. Oh, shall I pause?
• 1:41:16
  Yeah, yeah, it's it jumped in, in a funny place then.
• 1:41:21
  So let me, let me just go back. I was a trust I pick up from
• 1:41:24
  where you left off. Right.
• 1:41:28
  I've I've paused it on the opening, on the opening shot
• 1:41:32
  because I play as being tricky. Is that OK?
• 1:41:35
  So I'll unpause when you tell me.
• 1:41:37
  I like a bit of this in the podcast, you know, where things
• 1:41:39
  go a little bit. OK.
• 1:41:41
  Oh, so you're going to keep all this in?
• 1:41:42
  Oh, of course, yeah. Gorilla podcasting, I call it.
• 1:41:45
  Yeah, anything can happen. The dog could walk in, the kid
• 1:41:48
  could cry. I've had it all I think in 500
• 1:41:51
  odd episodes. God, it's good job I didn't tell
• 1:41:54
  you that thing about that person then.
• 1:41:59
  OK 54321. Oh, what a smooth start to So
• 1:42:09
  we've got the recap of what happened last time.
• 1:42:15
  The only thing I don't like about her previously on is it
• 1:42:18
  always points you to what's important in that first episode.
• 1:42:21
  You know what's going to inform the finale?
• 1:42:24
  Yes. And it happens a lot with
• 1:42:25
  American shows where they go, oh, they're emphasizing that
• 1:42:28
  character, so they're going to lie or that, well, that thing's.
• 1:42:32
  Yeah, definitely. That was sort of broad.
• 1:42:35
  I was watching that there. That was a fairly broad overview
• 1:42:37
  of what happened in the last episode.
• 1:42:40
  Yes, but it did. Mention the satellites I
• 1:42:42
  noticed. Yes, and the paradox machine,
• 1:42:45
  which is one of those great big nonsense things.
• 1:42:49
  But again, that they, that, that they, they managed to make the
• 1:42:53
  nonsense resonate and not spend too much time with stuff that
• 1:42:57
  isn't, you know, isn't real if you like, because all the sort
• 1:43:01
  of technological stuff isn't really real.
• 1:43:02
  But they, they give it enough heft without being sort of
• 1:43:05
  boring with it and disappearing up their own fundamentals.
• 1:43:07
  Because sometimes programs can do that when they create their
• 1:43:10
  own law, can't they? This is really important, but
• 1:43:12
  it's, it's only important because you've created all of
• 1:43:15
  this nonsense. It's that's that's when shows
• 1:43:17
  start to eat themselves, when they believe their own inner
• 1:43:20
  publicity, if you like. I think Rusty Davis just gives
• 1:43:23
  you the big idea, shows you what he can do, and then moves on.
• 1:43:27
  Well, shows you what he could do in order to provoke the
• 1:43:29
  emotional response and the character dynamics that are what
• 1:43:32
  is really important to the stories that he's telling do.
• 1:43:35
  You know, Toby, I don't think any showrunner since Rusty Davis
• 1:43:39
  can provoke emotions in the same way.
• 1:43:42
  He's so good at it. He's so good at.
• 1:43:44
  It I'm looking forward to that element coming back to the show
• 1:43:47
  Where go on. Sorry, no.
• 1:43:49
  No go, no go on. I've say too much.
• 1:43:51
  No. Go on.
• 1:43:54
  Well, I. I was deeply shocked when this
• 1:43:56
  opened and we were skipping a year into the future at the
• 1:43:59
  time, but now I really like that.
• 1:44:02
  Yes, and it's it's more of a thing I associate with Moffat
• 1:44:04
  where you you have a cliffhanger and then he takes you to a
• 1:44:08
  completely different thing. And then sort of, but then what
• 1:44:11
  he does is he sort of tells the story backwards or whatever.
• 1:44:13
  Or is it whereas whereas this I I think what he Russell
• 1:44:19
  Cleveland, this, this, that opening is every, you know, it's
• 1:44:24
  pirate ship on the shore, you know, smugglers, but also French
• 1:44:27
  resistance. It's very, it's very keyed in to
• 1:44:31
  those sort of action adventury things that were seem to be part
• 1:44:36
  of my youth, but never sort of seem to always seem maybe
• 1:44:40
  slightly too grown up for Doctor Who back in the olden days, but
• 1:44:44
  have now been incorporated into its into its storytelling.
• 1:44:48
  That a, that a, a sort of, you know, bread and butter sort of
• 1:44:51
  adventure things. But also because they're they
• 1:44:57
  echo sort of dramas that were about, you know, things like
• 1:45:02
  World War 2 or whatever, because they have an anchor in real
• 1:45:05
  life. You know, the stake seems
• 1:45:10
  slightly higher and it seems slightly sort of grimmer and
• 1:45:12
  more grown up, if you like, as grown up as Doctor Who can be.
• 1:45:15
  Because obviously World War 2 was a terrible thing where awful
• 1:45:19
  things happen to real people, but it's using the the equipment
• 1:45:24
  of the fictionalised version of that that that was so much part
• 1:45:27
  of our landscape. But I know I'm talking over the
• 1:45:30
  Scissor Sisters here. My partner hates this scene.
• 1:45:33
  He thinks this is everything that's wrong with this approach.
• 1:45:36
  I think this is fantastic. It's the Master at the height of
• 1:45:39
  his powers. He's completely batshit crazy.
• 1:45:41
  He's got the Doctor in a tent like a dog, you know, he's
• 1:45:45
  snogging his wife, he's got a bruise on her face.
• 1:45:48
  It's all a bit dark and crazy. And the song as well, it's just
• 1:45:53
  really jarring. Yeah, I really like it.
• 1:45:57
  I, I, I mean, I mentioned last week, while I like Doctor Who
• 1:46:00
  having a song in it and, and I, I then and actually I then not
• 1:46:07
  long after this, I, I moved in with my now ex-wife and she,
• 1:46:11
  she, she had, well, we used to listen to the Scissor Sisters
• 1:46:13
  before we went out to London town to do things.
• 1:46:16
  And so I rather like the Scissor Sisters.
• 1:46:18
  They're, they're happy memories for me.
• 1:46:19
  But but also because I'm a bit of a square.
• 1:46:22
  Any, anything that is a, that, that, that, that, that is sort
• 1:46:26
  of musical that is introduced to me that I sort of like, I, I,
• 1:46:28
  I'm, you know, I'm sort of grateful to, because it makes me
• 1:46:31
  feel as though I've at least got my finger slightly on the pulse,
• 1:46:34
  you know, You know, if they've been, if they've been, if, if,
• 1:46:38
  if they've been doing this to, you know, something from the
• 1:46:44
  olden days, I wouldn't have felt quite so invigorated by it, you
• 1:46:48
  know, and, and, and also it's a great, you know, it's a great
• 1:46:52
  sequence. It's again, a sequence where
• 1:46:54
  there's no sort of plot or dialogue, but it's a, it's a
• 1:46:56
  mood piece that encapsulates everything that's going on.
• 1:47:01
  And it's got a sort of cheeky power and it's, it's really
• 1:47:03
  nicely filmed, But also it's leading us into this sequence
• 1:47:09
  where it seems like the master's in control, but we're actually
• 1:47:13
  getting a little bit of rebellion.
• 1:47:14
  It it ends up to be foiled rebellion, but it shows that
• 1:47:19
  there's still a spark of even though it's one year later.
• 1:47:23
  And I and I like the I like the way that this is drilled that
• 1:47:26
  they've obviously this is their moment and it's all done with a
• 1:47:29
  look and and you know, you feel the relationship between them
• 1:47:33
  all. That's all, you know, the
• 1:47:36
  ordinary people coming together to try and overcome.
• 1:47:39
  That's a very Doctor Who thing, you know?
• 1:47:41
  But then obviously it's foiled. So yeah, it was sort of like
• 1:47:45
  hopeless. Although have they tried this
• 1:47:46
  before? Because I swear Jack goes, oh,
• 1:47:48
  not again when they go to shoot him, Yeah.
• 1:47:50
  Well, you get, yeah, you get the impression, but it's the
• 1:47:53
  opposite to me of, of the Doc, the Jodie Whittaker Doctor Who's
• 1:47:57
  a prisoner of the Jadoon just go just having given up and Jack
• 1:48:00
  going to free her, which I, I, I think is an odd choice.
• 1:48:06
  And I think if Russell T Davis had written that situation, it
• 1:48:09
  would have been, you'd have met the Doctor and the Doctor would
• 1:48:12
  have been trying to escape, and it would be foiled for the 400th
• 1:48:15
  time because the Doctor never gives up.
• 1:48:17
  And actually, the Doctor had been doing that in order to get
• 1:48:20
  closer to Jack because that made the Doctor very passive.
• 1:48:23
  I thought so. So this is a way that's showing
• 1:48:26
  that even though our characters are subjugated, they are still
• 1:48:29
  doing what our hero characters do, which is trying against the
• 1:48:33
  odds. Even if it fails, not again.
• 1:48:36
  And even in the face of all that humiliation they're going
• 1:48:39
  through, like Francine's dressed up like a maid, you know, the
• 1:48:42
  dogs have been treated like a dog.
• 1:48:46
  The enormous John Sims statue. Yeah, that's that's great.
• 1:48:50
  You know, that's what great old despots do, isn't it?
• 1:48:52
  Make big statues of themselves. Now, I'm sure Tom Ellis is your
• 1:48:56
  cup of tea. Is he Joey?
• 1:48:58
  Absolutely beautiful. Yes, I think he used to live
• 1:49:02
  around the corner from me when I lived in London, but he's in
• 1:49:06
  America now, isn't he? He's Lucifer.
• 1:49:08
  So he's. Probably got to test it with
• 1:49:10
  redlining. But obviously I wholeheartedly
• 1:49:15
  was on board with Martha Marie and him as well after this.
• 1:49:18
  You know, that's, that's the inference in Season 4, isn't it?
• 1:49:21
  And then all of a sudden and. Then suddenly she's not.
• 1:49:24
  Which? Yeah, which?
• 1:49:26
  Which? Park is a good looking man, but
• 1:49:29
  he's no Tom Ellis. Yeah, and and I've discussed
• 1:49:32
  that on an another podcast about how, you know, there's an
• 1:49:38
  unfortunate element where they go, yes, let's let's marry the
• 1:49:42
  two black people because they're they're both black.
• 1:49:44
  They'll marry each other, which seems an odd Miss strange
• 1:49:48
  misstep. And it and it sells Tom Ellis's
• 1:49:51
  character short because he makes quite an impact in this and it
• 1:49:54
  is lovely that he's not actually dead.
• 1:49:57
  And there is that inference and then he's kind of forgotten
• 1:50:01
  about it was. With this sort of one year later
• 1:50:06
  subjugated Earth, there was 1 trick I thought they missed
• 1:50:09
  because I think they do sell quite well with the locations
• 1:50:12
  they've got. But we never go to like a High
• 1:50:14
  Street or a town centre or, or like the centre of London to
• 1:50:18
  really sort of sell the idea. We go to a street, we're on a
• 1:50:22
  beach, you know, we go to some hills, yes.
• 1:50:26
  Well, that's because they're a lot cheaper as this manage
• 1:50:31
  where's. The finale, you know, like.
• 1:50:34
  Yeah, yes, the the there's parts of this world we we could have
• 1:50:41
  seen that we don't for sure I. Mean it's been explored
• 1:50:43
  elsewhere there's a four part big finish set there was ABBC
• 1:50:47
  book the the story of Martha, you know so this was certainly
• 1:50:51
  right for people to to go on and you know use the how how are.
• 1:50:56
  You with the extra curricular adventures, do you?
• 1:51:00
  Do you view them as Canon or just interesting?
• 1:51:03
  Curious that add texture to televise to if you so choose?
• 1:51:09
  Well, I don't. This isn't a common argument I
• 1:51:11
  have with my partner because he's obsessed with fitting
• 1:51:14
  everything into a jigsaw. So he has rules and regulations
• 1:51:17
  and, and, and you know, certain things count and other things
• 1:51:20
  don't. Whereas to me it all just counts
• 1:51:23
  and I don't try and fit it into one massive narrative.
• 1:51:26
  I just enjoy the stories. As far as I'm concerned, it all
• 1:51:29
  happened, even if it contradicts something before.
• 1:51:32
  I've listened to every Big Finish and I've read every book.
• 1:51:36
  I I never think a television story should worry about an
• 1:51:40
  important dramatic beat revelation plot twist if it
• 1:51:43
  contradicts something that happens in a spin off book or or
• 1:51:47
  or or or a big finish it. Literally just happened with
• 1:51:49
  that DVD trailer where they said to Nassau, we left you on
• 1:51:53
  Terminus and there was a whole run of Big Finished Stories
• 1:51:55
  where an older Nessa came back and travelled with the Doctor
• 1:51:58
  and it completely sort of contradicted that.
• 1:52:01
  Yeah, yes. But if I mean, if if you're
• 1:52:06
  somebody that is angry with that trailer before that, you will be
• 1:52:10
  in the 10% of people that I get the top to fame to destroy.
• 1:52:15
  It's. Going to be it.
• 1:52:16
  Might you know what? I might end up putting more than
• 1:52:18
  10% of the population. You might, I hope you I won't
• 1:52:21
  have a partner by the end of the night either.
• 1:52:24
  He's first on the list. The only thing I really object
• 1:52:27
  to is when extraneous material, which is important to the TV
• 1:52:32
  show is I miss it. So like those, those extra
• 1:52:35
  things they did, like the Amy and Rory thing at the end.
• 1:52:39
  And I'm like, why wasn't that part of the show when it when it
• 1:52:41
  could have informed the TV show and actually given it some
• 1:52:44
  emotional resonance? And, and, and it leaves you
• 1:52:47
  loads of questions as to why they didn't do that.
• 1:52:49
  And then they do these extras that are on the DVD, you know,
• 1:52:51
  Well, that's not really part of the show.
• 1:52:54
  No, no, that that that. And that's one of the problems
• 1:52:57
  with multi platform stuff now because yeah, you go, oh, that
• 1:53:01
  could have actually be done with being in the series.
• 1:53:03
  Yeah. This is very well shot, all of
• 1:53:06
  this stuff, isn't it? This is all great.
• 1:53:08
  I, I, I loved it. I loved V when I was a kid.
• 1:53:11
  It seems so grown up that you would have because they all had
• 1:53:14
  that, you know, they had a resistance movement, an
• 1:53:16
  underground cells and it was all, you know, it had that kind
• 1:53:19
  of survivors element of their having to beg, borrow and steal
• 1:53:22
  their sustenance and their supplies.
• 1:53:25
  But also it's got the, you know, despotic ruler thing going on
• 1:53:29
  and also, you know, the people, some people being compliant with
• 1:53:32
  that, that, that that ruling malfeasance and all all that
• 1:53:36
  sort of stuff. So and, and it and, and you're
• 1:53:38
  able to make it look like everything's been cobbled
• 1:53:41
  together, you know, because they've they've had steel
• 1:53:43
  equipment. So, and that makes it feel a
• 1:53:46
  little bit retro and World War 2E in a way, because they're
• 1:53:49
  using archaic equipment. And so it's really evocative,
• 1:53:52
  all of that stuff. It's a really clever thing to
• 1:53:55
  decide to do because it gives you atmosphere, it gives you
• 1:53:58
  drama, just in the way it looks and just in the way it feels
• 1:54:01
  we're. Not going to have to have that
• 1:54:02
  conversation we had about Blake 7, about V, are we?
• 1:54:06
  Because remember when you said you had no idea when you were
• 1:54:08
  younger just how camp it was? I'm afraid so.
• 1:54:12
  I. No, are you saying?
• 1:54:14
  It. Was like dynasty in space V, no.
• 1:54:17
  It was, it was, it was clever. It was, you know, it was, again,
• 1:54:23
  it was like sort of World War 2. I mean, and actually they, they
• 1:54:26
  wear the World War 2 illusions on their sleeve, don't they?
• 1:54:28
  It's very deliberate in places. But I did.
• 1:54:31
  I didn't realize Diana was camp. It was very glam as well.
• 1:54:36
  And and glam and all of that. But I have to say that that is
• 1:54:40
  more so once Kenneth Johnson has left and it becomes the the
• 1:54:45
  series. And you know, you have the two
• 1:54:47
  bitchy Richie, the Diana and Lydia, don't you?
• 1:54:51
  And but that's that's not what V the mini series was when it's
• 1:54:55
  got the spaceships in the sky and the, you know, and the
• 1:54:58
  tearing off of the faces and, you know, spotting them in, you
• 1:55:01
  know, you threw a grill eating up, eating a hamster because
• 1:55:04
  you're a nice person. Yeah.
• 1:55:08
  It it seemed it it was ATV event.
• 1:55:10
  It was really grown up. It was the thing that people
• 1:55:12
  sort of talked about. Then I revisited it and was
• 1:55:16
  really disappointed. And actually, when I watched it
• 1:55:18
  recently, I think there's a a huge difference between the the
• 1:55:24
  original and then the final battle where they actually the
• 1:55:28
  guy who envisaged it has been fired and executives have, what
• 1:55:33
  a surprise, come in and fucked it up.
• 1:55:35
  A. Bit like Fred Freiburger getting
• 1:55:37
  hold of Star Trek The Original series, isn't it?
• 1:55:40
  And we've completely talked over the first appearance of the
• 1:55:43
  Dobby Dr. here. Oh.
• 1:55:44
  Yes, well. What would you imagine?
• 1:55:47
  What's going on here? I don't know.
• 1:55:50
  I wonder if, you know, as a, as a contractual thing, David
• 1:55:54
  Tennant could only give them a a certain amount of time and and
• 1:55:59
  they found themselves towards the end of the series realizing
• 1:56:02
  they weren't going to have their leading man.
• 1:56:03
  Because it seems, especially as Tennant was so big and so
• 1:56:07
  integral to the success of the series and so popular, it seems
• 1:56:12
  an odd choice to remove him from the season finale.
• 1:56:17
  But it may it may have been a more positive thing.
• 1:56:19
  It may have been that they've gone.
• 1:56:20
  We've we've worked out a way to do a convincing CGI shrunken Dr.
• 1:56:24
  And and we should do that because that will be a big
• 1:56:26
  event. That will be a big scary thing
• 1:56:29
  for the finale. But it does.
• 1:56:32
  And it could have been one of those things.
• 1:56:33
  It's only when you put it together at the end that you go,
• 1:56:36
  oh, yeah. But in doing that, we've we've
• 1:56:37
  removed our lead actor because, you know, hindsight is always
• 1:56:41
  2020 and you know, I've made things where it's only when you
• 1:56:45
  get to the other side of it, you think, oh God, that never
• 1:56:47
  occurred to me. But but now look at it.
• 1:56:49
  But I don't know, because Russell is cleverer than I am
• 1:56:52
  and the. Whole team behind him of the
• 1:56:54
  thing. He's got his massive eyes so he
• 1:56:56
  just looks kind of like an anime character.
• 1:56:59
  Yeah, well, I'm not a massive CGI fan anyway.
• 1:57:04
  I am a big fan, by the way, of Eddie Haddington here, who has a
• 1:57:07
  brilliant face and is a very good actress and does it does a
• 1:57:13
  nice turn as this, this professor.
• 1:57:16
  Did you ever see her in She? She was given a comedy show on
• 1:57:19
  Sky called The Cafe and it was very slight, very quiet 2 series
• 1:57:26
  comedy. She she would move me to tears
• 1:57:28
  in nearly every episode. Oh.
• 1:57:30
  No, but she's great and I have seen her on the train.
• 1:57:33
  I think she lives. I think she lives around these
• 1:57:36
  parts. She's she's also the mum in
• 1:57:40
  Motherland as well which I binged recently and adore.
• 1:57:45
  This whole sequence with them trapping the chocolate fate,
• 1:57:48
  it's very dynamic, isn't it? Oh.
• 1:57:49
  It's fantastic. Colin Colin teeds great at the
• 1:57:52
  at the sort of dramatic set pieces.
• 1:57:56
  I'd I'd like him to come back actually and direct some more
• 1:57:58
  because I think he's I think he handles his episodes really,
• 1:58:01
  really well. And I think he's particularly
• 1:58:03
  good at this modern day fast pace making Doctor Who seem sort
• 1:58:10
  of of its, I know it's about time travel and alien worlds and
• 1:58:14
  history and all of that. But there's something about when
• 1:58:16
  it when it comes to the present day and really makes an impact
• 1:58:21
  and seems like it fits into the modern sort of televisual
• 1:58:26
  landscape that that, that, that as a as a fan for whom it was so
• 1:58:30
  often an embarrassment. Do you know what I mean?
• 1:58:32
  It really excites me when Doctor Who sort of comes into the
• 1:58:36
  present day and grabs it by the scruff of the neck.
• 1:58:38
  And again, you know, I don't think it's been captured since
• 1:58:40
  Rusty Davies left, not in the same way.
• 1:58:43
  Well, I think, I mean, I think Moffett's decision to take
• 1:58:46
  Doctor Who back to villages was refreshing, was refreshing and,
• 1:58:50
  and smart. And, and I thought Chibnall's
• 1:58:55
  decision to, to go, you know, to go to Sheffield and, and, and
• 1:58:59
  give a slightly different vibe in that way was because you
• 1:59:01
  can't do what's gone before. In a, in a way, you know,
• 1:59:05
  Russell had it easy because he could choose from everything and
• 1:59:08
  everyone that followed him had that terrible thing to go.
• 1:59:10
  Well, I, I can't be seen to be trying to copy what, what
• 1:59:15
  Russell did. I have to do something else.
• 1:59:18
  So I will be very interested to see because he's not going to
• 1:59:20
  come back and do exactly the same.
• 1:59:23
  I've heard that no look at he's, look at what he's done since he
• 1:59:27
  left Doctor Who. He's gone off in all kinds of
• 1:59:30
  direct and it's just got, you know, I think his work's just
• 1:59:32
  got better and better since he left the show.
• 1:59:34
  I'm, I'm, I have not been as excited by the prospect of
• 1:59:38
  Doctor Who. There's no reflection on the
• 1:59:39
  show when it's on. I'm not calling any any anybody
• 1:59:43
  out in terms of the actual manifestation of the program
• 1:59:46
  now, but just in terms of because, you know, the
• 1:59:50
  excitement obviously also wanes as you get older and as you get
• 1:59:54
  more used to it. You take it for granted blood
• 1:59:56
  and like you do with anything like you do with, you know,
• 1:59:59
  bloody husbands and wives, you know everything.
• 2:00:02
  But I, I, I haven't been this excited about the prospect of
• 2:00:08
  Doctor Who for a very long time. And that's partially because
• 2:00:12
  they manage, they manage the outside of the show so well.
• 2:00:17
  But suddenly everyone's talking about the show in such a
• 2:00:19
  positive way, you know? And it's just a few.
• 2:00:22
  It's a trailer. It's a few pictures.
• 2:00:24
  It's a It's a three sentences uttered on a red carpet, but so
• 2:00:28
  well chosen. Although nothing got me more
• 2:00:31
  excited than when Donna touched Beat the Meep on the eye.
• 2:00:35
  This is going to be amazing. Beat the meep.
• 2:00:40
  If anyone could do it, oh Toby, this sequence.
• 2:00:44
  I thought that was Davros for a split second.
• 2:00:47
  It's horrible. Isn't it?
• 2:00:49
  It's great. It's the.
• 2:00:50
  Idea that that's the kid from Utopia or that they're all
• 2:00:54
  linked. I think they have to all be if
• 2:00:57
  it's a, it's a, it's a mad coincidence if the one that they
• 2:01:01
  capture is the kid. And I never read it as that.
• 2:01:04
  And I'm sure some people have and I I can understand why and I
• 2:01:08
  don't really, there's no sort of in show justification for my
• 2:01:12
  feeling that what they're trying to suggest is that he's going
• 2:01:18
  because we're a sort of group entity.
• 2:01:20
  We know you had that conversation with that lad and
• 2:01:23
  he's one of us. But we are all one and we are
• 2:01:25
  all, you know, I don't need to say I'm the guy that you met.
• 2:01:28
  I'm the I'm the lad who won the Blue Peter competition.
• 2:01:31
  Hello. I don't because that that I, I
• 2:01:34
  think that's too unbelievable in a programme about someone who
• 2:01:37
  travels through diamond space in a police box that's bigger on
• 2:01:39
  the inside than it is on the outside.
• 2:01:41
  But I don't think that's what Russell's trying to suggest with
• 2:01:43
  that, that it's the literal same, same guy.
• 2:01:47
  And this here, where Lucy and the Master talk about what they
• 2:01:53
  saw on Utopia, the furnaces and the last of humanity being
• 2:01:57
  burned. I'm not sure.
• 2:01:59
  If the show has been much darker than this, it's horrible.
• 2:02:03
  It's bleak. And again, Russell's Doctor Who
• 2:02:06
  is full of positivity and zeal and fun, but he puts, he makes
• 2:02:13
  his main characters pay for the adventure that they have.
• 2:02:18
  And it's always the sort of pay off with Doctor Who is that it
• 2:02:22
  is a fun adventure, but people die and and, and and he plays
• 2:02:29
  quite deliberately. I know a lot of people that
• 2:02:30
  didn't like the Doctor and Rose because they saw them as being
• 2:02:33
  too smug or whatever. Now, whether he listened to that
• 2:02:37
  and so then built it in or whether it was a plan all along,
• 2:02:40
  I don't know. But he he kind of went well,
• 2:02:42
  yeah. But that's building up to
• 2:02:44
  punishment, you know, and I've been watching quasi Mass a lot
• 2:02:48
  recently. And it's it's it's that that
• 2:02:49
  thing about, you know, we celebrate the breaking of
• 2:02:53
  frontiers of science because that is how we progress.
• 2:02:56
  But that thing that can also be mad folly and can unleash hell.
• 2:03:03
  And the two things sort of go hand in hand.
• 2:03:05
  And the same with this, you know, you, you enjoy this
• 2:03:07
  adventure because you have to, because it's the only way to
• 2:03:10
  stay sane. But if you enjoy it too much,
• 2:03:12
  what sort of a monster does that make you?
• 2:03:14
  And what are the consequences of that?
• 2:03:16
  And and Russell's not afraid to go there.
• 2:03:19
  And I think that's really interesting.
• 2:03:22
  And the, the, the joy of this is obviously when they went off in
• 2:03:24
  that rocket in Utopia and you thought, oh, that's the last
• 2:03:27
  we're going to see. And then they're off to Utopia.
• 2:03:29
  They're going to have a great time, you know, have happy days
• 2:03:32
  for the human race. They haven't returned it to baby
• 2:03:35
  footballs. Yeah.
• 2:03:38
  And the arse has been screaming us in the face since the middle
• 2:03:41
  of the last episode. Yeah.
• 2:03:44
  It's, I think it's, it's really great.
• 2:03:45
  And you know, I'm going to make a maybe unfair comparison with
• 2:03:50
  exposition delivered by Chris Chibnall and the Timeless
• 2:03:53
  Children. Well, you have 15 minutes
• 2:03:55
  slideshow that is absolutely interminable.
• 2:03:58
  I love that era, but I have big issues with that sequence in
• 2:04:00
  that episode. And he does the same thing.
• 2:04:03
  Rusty Davis does the same thing here in 2 minutes, cross cutting
• 2:04:07
  between two sets of characters with a visual representation of
• 2:04:12
  what they're talking about. And it's economic and it's it's
• 2:04:16
  brutal dialogue and it's beautifully acted.
• 2:04:19
  And. There's drama within it as well,
• 2:04:21
  because Tom Ellis shoots it and all of that.
• 2:04:23
  So you know, the, the, the conversation leads to something
• 2:04:26
  within the scene, not just explaining to the viewer.
• 2:04:30
  It's, you know, it's, it's all very elegantly seeded into the,
• 2:04:34
  to the drama and to the pacing of the episode.
• 2:04:37
  It's it, you know, it's, it's integral to the pacing of the
• 2:04:40
  episode rather than a pause from the pacing of the episode whilst
• 2:04:43
  that stuff has got out of the way, you know?
• 2:04:45
  Sort of boring you silly. It resonates, you know?
• 2:04:49
  It really does. And this, of course, is Martha's
• 2:04:56
  last episode as a regular, isn't it?
• 2:04:57
  It is on. She gets a good meaty role as
• 2:05:00
  well. Which we didn't know at the
• 2:05:02
  time. I don't.
• 2:05:03
  I didn't know she was leaving, I don't think at the time.
• 2:05:05
  Did you? No, I don't think the Catherine
• 2:05:09
  Tate thing had been announced. No, yeah.
• 2:05:11
  I think the Kylie thing might have been had it, I can't
• 2:05:15
  remember. No, but I, I was.
• 2:05:17
  I'm pretty certain it was a surprise when she didn't get on
• 2:05:20
  board the TARDIS. It's the weirdest thing because
• 2:05:22
  when I first watched this I found her departure so
• 2:05:25
  underwhelming. Now it's my favorite of all the
• 2:05:28
  new series companions departures.
• 2:05:31
  Because it's so positive. It's so positive.
• 2:05:34
  It's it and and it's sort of it is all linked into the season
• 2:05:37
  and she is sort of claiming her life back and saying, do you
• 2:05:39
  know what? I'm not going to hang around you
• 2:05:41
  anymore if you're not going to give me what I need.
• 2:05:44
  I actually used that. This sounds crazy.
• 2:05:47
  I used that scene. I showed a friend who's not a
• 2:05:49
  fan of Doctor Who, who's in a toxic relationship.
• 2:05:51
  I needed to walk out, you know, I just wanted her to hear those
• 2:05:54
  words. Get out, you know.
• 2:05:57
  That's really interesting. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:05:59
  And it makes a virtue of the fact that, you know, those who
• 2:06:03
  might say, well, it's unfair on her because, you know, the
• 2:06:09
  Doctor obviously has this slightly, you know, this, this
• 2:06:13
  we, we love each other thing with Rose, whereas she doesn't
• 2:06:17
  have that. And people say, well, that's
• 2:06:18
  unfair on Martha. And mad people say, oh, that's
• 2:06:21
  racist because she's the black companion.
• 2:06:24
  And Rose wasn't, it's like, oh, so they shouldn't cast an
• 2:06:27
  actress of color because there's only certain things you're
• 2:06:29
  allowed to do. I mean, that way madness lies,
• 2:06:31
  but let's not get into that. But it, it, it, it actually, it,
• 2:06:37
  it, it, it turns what could be a disadvantageous thing for the,
• 2:06:41
  for the character and the actor to go, well, you're, you know,
• 2:06:45
  you, you, you don't have all the positive things that Rose had as
• 2:06:48
  a character and actually make you more powerful and make your
• 2:06:54
  journey more powerful. Because because of that
• 2:06:57
  rejection and playing second fiddle, she finds herself and
• 2:07:02
  empowers herself and takes that very, very positive step.
• 2:07:06
  Yeah. And it's, and it's written by
• 2:07:07
  Joe Russell Davis, who understands emotions and
• 2:07:10
  relationships and people so well.
• 2:07:12
  So the, the joy of it is she kind of has that awkward goodbye
• 2:07:15
  with him. And then she walks out and she's
• 2:07:18
  like, no, I'm going to bloody well have my say.
• 2:07:20
  And she goes back in and she goes right.
• 2:07:22
  This is why I'm going. Yeah, it's brilliant.
• 2:07:26
  Oh. And.
• 2:07:27
  Look, Professor Docket is a traitor.
• 2:07:30
  But that's another great thing about Rossi Davis, right?
• 2:07:32
  Don't get comfortable with any character you think Harriet
• 2:07:35
  Jones, you know, is the savior of humanity.
• 2:07:39
  Well, guess what? She may fire out and destroy
• 2:07:41
  that cigarette shit, but. She's But look, it's all in her
• 2:07:43
  face as well. She's not a baddie traitor.
• 2:07:45
  She hates herself for doing this, but she's doing it.
• 2:07:51
  She's doing it because she's a person, you know, under, under
• 2:07:57
  despotic rule and she's, she's, she's got something that might
• 2:08:02
  give her a little bit of help in something that she needs, you
• 2:08:05
  know, something very personal. So it's a lot of good people do
• 2:08:09
  a lot of bad things under those sorts of circumstances.
• 2:08:12
  The beautiful payoff where she gives her the flowers at the
• 2:08:15
  end. Lovely.
• 2:08:16
  Gorgeous. Even though, yeah, she's giving
• 2:08:19
  flowers to somebody who never actually became the person who
• 2:08:22
  did that thing. Yeah, but yes, it is.
• 2:08:24
  She felt the. Need to do it anyway.
• 2:08:25
  What do you think about all of this then?
• 2:08:27
  What do you think about Martha going around spreading the word
• 2:08:30
  of the Doctor, essentially creating a ton of Doctor Who
• 2:08:32
  fans? They're going to save the day.
• 2:08:35
  It's, I think it's, it's something that I have to think
• 2:08:40
  long and hard about with this era and it's, and I think it's
• 2:08:43
  an entirely personal thing and it's maybe not something I'm
• 2:08:48
  comfortable with about, about myself in that I, I, I
• 2:08:54
  automatically shrink away from Doctor Who patting itself on the
• 2:08:58
  back. But maybe that's me reading too
• 2:09:01
  much into it and, and they're just trying to tell a, an
• 2:09:06
  exciting story. But I, I worry.
• 2:09:08
  So it's all so complicated. It's all bound up with all of
• 2:09:11
  our history as Doctor Who fans and what we've gone through with
• 2:09:14
  the show being slagged off, But we've, we've, we've.
• 2:09:16
  So this is a well rehearsed conversation, but, but when Doc
• 2:09:20
  I, I like the Doctor Who of I save planets mostly, you know,
• 2:09:24
  you know, I, I do this kind of by mistake.
• 2:09:27
  I'm a, I'm a, you know, I'm a slightly disorganized traveller
• 2:09:31
  who's got a moral core. But the temptation, of course,
• 2:09:34
  when you're making a program that is successful is to sort of
• 2:09:38
  go, you know, the stuff of legend and all of that sort of
• 2:09:41
  thing. But I, I shrink away from that
• 2:09:43
  because I think, oh, let's not get into the psychology of my
• 2:09:49
  Methodist grandmother who told you never to have ideas above
• 2:09:51
  your station. And even if you look vaguely
• 2:09:53
  pleased with yourself, she'd cut you down to size and then make
• 2:09:56
  you feel guilty when you weren't even feeling arrogant about it
• 2:09:59
  in the first place. You would just, you know, it's
• 2:10:00
  all bloody complicated. But I, I, I, I, I, I think I
• 2:10:07
  like Doctor Who is a program to be the plucky underdog that
• 2:10:10
  somehow embedded itself in the heart of the nation and the
• 2:10:13
  landscape rather than the chart topping brilliant success.
• 2:10:17
  Because I identify more with the with the plucky underdog that
• 2:10:21
  does its best despite not necessarily having the qualities
• 2:10:25
  that will make it mainstream success.
• 2:10:27
  Then I do identify with the chart topping show that
• 2:10:30
  everybody loves. So therefore when the show
• 2:10:32
  itself sort of goes, the Doctor is the stuff of legend, IE.
• 2:10:37
  I'm uneasy with that, even though that might just come from
• 2:10:42
  self loathing rather than anything the show is doing
• 2:10:45
  wrong. Well, the trouble is we're going
• 2:10:47
  down that rabbit hole is weird as the end, you know, because I
• 2:10:51
  think each showrunner has taken on that idea and suddenly got
• 2:10:54
  people screaming out Doctor Who, Doctor Who.
• 2:10:57
  And, you know, Matt Smith materializing as and as shadow
• 2:11:00
  on the wall. And people are scared because
• 2:11:02
  he's such a great scary mythological figure.
• 2:11:05
  And then suddenly the Doctor is the foundation of Time Lord
• 2:11:09
  society and you know, like it gets a bit much.
• 2:11:14
  Yeah, I'm much more plucky improviser on on the outskirts
• 2:11:18
  of everything than, you know, angry God the.
• 2:11:21
  One thing I do love, which a lot of people object to, is how
• 2:11:24
  Rusty D Davis eventually addresses that.
• 2:11:26
  And then you have a doctor in the wars of Mars that suddenly
• 2:11:29
  starts believing in his own patient.
• 2:11:32
  And his hubris is ultimately his downfall.
• 2:11:34
  And I feel that was a really clever that to make him that
• 2:11:37
  unlikable at the end of that episode.
• 2:11:40
  Yes, it is and it's the, it's the logical extension of of of,
• 2:11:44
  you know, this, this kind of build up that they give it.
• 2:11:48
  I quite like that once again that the sort of Mcguffin ends
• 2:11:51
  up being completely useless. You know, her big gun that she's
• 2:11:53
  travelled the world and sad to see Tom Ennis getting zapped.
• 2:11:57
  But I suppose that was bound to happen.
• 2:12:00
  Although I, I think if you want to kill somebody, you should
• 2:12:02
  shoot them rather than run down the street pointing your gun and
• 2:12:05
  yelling no, but there we go. I'm old fashioned.
• 2:12:07
  That's just one of those TV things, isn't it?
• 2:12:11
  One of one of my best friends Luke Malloy, he loves this scene
• 2:12:17
  where he left a comment on the Twitter thread.
• 2:12:19
  This scene where she said with 15 satellites and Mara get
• 2:12:22
  Martha gets her here a moment. Yes, she.
• 2:12:25
  Does deliver it perfectly. I yeah, I think Prima Regimen is
• 2:12:30
  really good at all that stuff. And this is a great episode for
• 2:12:34
  her. And I like, I like her family.
• 2:12:41
  It is unusual, I do think that Martha is skipped over a little
• 2:12:44
  in favour of Rose and Donna. I think so.
• 2:12:47
  I think so. Unfairly as well.
• 2:12:51
  Yeah, yeah. But she'll, she'll get a moment
• 2:12:53
  in the sun, You know, it's it's it's happened to a great many
• 2:12:58
  companion. You know, nobody talked about
• 2:13:00
  Steven Taylor for years, but everyone loves Peter Purvis and
• 2:13:03
  Steven Taylor now. So you, you just wait, you know,
• 2:13:06
  suddenly, suddenly she'll she'll be, she'll be everybody's
• 2:13:10
  favorite for a bit. You know, pendulum swings.
• 2:13:14
  And I've seen her in other stuff.
• 2:13:15
  She's in that. Is it sense 8 that that funny
• 2:13:18
  show? She's great in that.
• 2:13:19
  Don't get me started on that. The first sequence, I don't know
• 2:13:22
  if you recall, was her getting out of bed with a dildo.
• 2:13:26
  And I'll type this is this is no.
• 2:13:28
  I want to see Martha Jones up too.
• 2:13:29
  No, no. No, none of that's my cup of
• 2:13:31
  tea, but. But do you know what if if?
• 2:13:35
  Bonnie Langford can have a triumphant return to Doctor Who.
• 2:13:38
  I now believe that anybody could.
• 2:13:40
  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
• 2:13:43
  And it's, you know, that's extraordinary that that somebody
• 2:13:48
  who the news of her casting in Doctor Who the first time round
• 2:13:51
  caused such seismic derision and the news exactly the same
• 2:14:00
  people. And I would, I'm afraid, include
• 2:14:02
  myself in this. I was furious when Bonnie
• 2:14:05
  Langford was cast when I was a teenager for all reasons that I,
• 2:14:09
  you know, that that seemed perfectly understandable at the
• 2:14:12
  at the time. And then when her return to
• 2:14:16
  Doctor Who, which I'd never anticipated, was announced, it
• 2:14:21
  was a punch the air triumph of a national treasure being in and
• 2:14:25
  you suddenly go. But it's the same person and she
• 2:14:27
  hasn't done anything different. The.
• 2:14:28
  Only difference is, well, the difference is is where her
• 2:14:31
  career was then and where her career has been since.
• 2:14:35
  Yeah. And hopefully I think maybe more
• 2:14:41
  circumspect and less childish response to things and but but
• 2:14:49
  yeah, she's she's she's a national treasure and rightly
• 2:14:52
  show she's brilliant. Isn't it typical of this country
• 2:14:55
  though? Isn't it that why didn't we like
• 2:14:56
  Bonnie Langford in the olden days?
• 2:14:57
  Because she was really good at everything that she did and
• 2:15:00
  really enthusiastic about it. How dare she?
• 2:15:03
  You know that Talented there's. Something in that inherent self
• 2:15:07
  loathing isn't there that we hate successful people.
• 2:15:10
  Yeah, yeah and yeah. Oh, here we go.
• 2:15:13
  Here. We go.
• 2:15:15
  Transforming now into a messianic figure.
• 2:15:19
  Yeah, which I mean makes absolute sense.
• 2:15:22
  And it makes plot sense as well into, as you say, the 15
• 2:15:24
  satellites and the psychic network which the Master has set
• 2:15:28
  up. So it actually makes sense
• 2:15:30
  within the science fiction of it.
• 2:15:34
  And it makes sense within the fact that the Doctor has become
• 2:15:37
  this figure, you know, the, the, you know, my God, he's, he's
• 2:15:42
  played the Doctor has played a bigger part in my life than most
• 2:15:46
  real people. And as in, in terms of
• 2:15:52
  happiness, morality, all, all sorts of things.
• 2:15:54
  But I'm, I'm not wild about the Doctor is Jesus.
• 2:15:58
  I don't know it and I don't know why the gun doesn't work.
• 2:16:06
  He's got superpowers now. By all accounts, after that old
• 2:16:09
  age makeup, David Tendon has never looked more beautiful.
• 2:16:14
  How do you feel about the Doctor is Jesus?
• 2:16:18
  Do you know, I had somebody on Hamster who is a Christian who
• 2:16:24
  gave it an entirely positive reading.
• 2:16:27
  So we were doing that. We were doing New Earth, I
• 2:16:29
  think, and it wasn't part of that episode, but he wanted to
• 2:16:31
  address it. Yeah, it's a bit much, isn't it?
• 2:16:36
  I like this. You remember the sequence in
• 2:16:38
  Voyage of the Dam as well, where the angels take him up to have
• 2:16:43
  in slow motion with the chorus going crazy.
• 2:16:48
  Maybe it's just a bit melodramatic, that's all.
• 2:16:50
  But but watching it now and I think I've, I think I've
• 2:16:53
  rationalized myself with some of Russell Davis's big flourishes,
• 2:16:57
  is that it's more important the effect that it has on the master
• 2:17:03
  than than what it does to our suspension of disbelief or, or,
• 2:17:07
  or whatever in that that I forgive you is obviously a
• 2:17:11
  continuation of the Jesus thing. And, and that's the worst thing
• 2:17:15
  you can say to him, which is really psychologically very
• 2:17:18
  interesting as as to how that character works and what the
• 2:17:21
  shows is about. So it's almost like it's
• 2:17:24
  metaphorical value is, is more important than its dramatic
• 2:17:28
  value in, in, in a sense. And I, I sort of respect that in
• 2:17:33
  a way more now than again, I did back then where I used to get,
• 2:17:37
  you know, very cross about, you know, endings, you know, magical
• 2:17:42
  endings or whatever. He's really thinking about the
• 2:17:44
  dynamic of their relationship in a way the classic series sort of
• 2:17:48
  barely flirted with. Yeah, and I, I have to say, I
• 2:17:52
  love people with machine guns especially, especially if it's
• 2:17:57
  Captain Jack in Doctor Who. Love that it's a.
• 2:18:01
  Gorgeous tracking shot there as they were running around those
• 2:18:03
  corridors, yeah. Beautiful.
• 2:18:07
  You know, ever since somebody said to me that they're like a
• 2:18:09
  bunch of Maltesers heading towards the Earth, that's all I
• 2:18:11
  can see now, because there's an advert with a very similar
• 2:18:13
  special effect, do you know? What?
• 2:18:15
  There's an underrated suite? I love a Malteser.
• 2:18:17
  Yeah. Me too.
• 2:18:18
  Are they trying to evoke a sort of Rikenback Falls moment here?
• 2:18:23
  They're all they've got on to this sort of massive edifice
• 2:18:25
  down on the Earth. It's a weird the way they've
• 2:18:27
  beamed down and then sort of head back up again.
• 2:18:29
  It's. Always a bit I kind of forget
• 2:18:31
  has happened every time I watch it and this bit happens and I we
• 2:18:34
  have forgotten about this bit because it seems so unusual for
• 2:18:38
  the story and they've they've kind of blasted the filter as
• 2:18:40
  well, hasn't it? It's a it's a something about
• 2:18:42
  the sort of colour palette and is this the the music?
• 2:18:47
  Yeah dump dump, dump. I love this piece of music.
• 2:18:51
  I yeah, I love it's. I think it's called All the
• 2:18:55
  Strange, Strange Creatures, isn't it?
• 2:18:56
  And it's the training music. I I sometimes listen to this on
• 2:19:02
  my telephone when I'm walking around the park and I imagine
• 2:19:06
  being in a trainer for Doctor Who.
• 2:19:08
  So there we are. There's a confession.
• 2:19:10
  Never told anybody that I. Have I have all all of the
• 2:19:13
  Murray Gold and the second I can only ones and I listen to them
• 2:19:16
  over and over. So these musical cues, I just
• 2:19:18
  don't in my brain. Yeah.
• 2:19:21
  But you know what? It's quite busy this isn't.
• 2:19:23
  There's a bit too much going on here.
• 2:19:26
  But it is the season finale. Is it an inevitable reset?
• 2:19:32
  I guess it is. We, we, we really couldn't
• 2:19:35
  continue the show with that many people being killed.
• 2:19:38
  No, I, I think that would be, Yeah, I think that would.
• 2:19:43
  But there is I I do think there's something strangely
• 2:19:48
  unsatisfying about going everything that you've just
• 2:19:50
  watched didn't happen. But what I do like about it is
• 2:19:54
  that the characters we care about, it did happen to them.
• 2:19:58
  That's, that's, that's very clever.
• 2:20:00
  The people in the eye of the storm will carry the weight of
• 2:20:03
  again, the emotional repercussions, which are what is
• 2:20:07
  important. So yes.
• 2:20:09
  So again, I'm perhaps more forgiving of it now than I I
• 2:20:12
  felt at the time where the the bigger picture.
• 2:20:16
  That bothered me more than the smaller but more important
• 2:20:20
  picture resonated peculiarly and.
• 2:20:25
  I do think the realization of it, of the sun going around the
• 2:20:28
  earth and then we've cut to all parts of the globe in sort of
• 2:20:31
  beautiful images. That's so well done.
• 2:20:34
  Yeah. But again, just like kind of
• 2:20:37
  told you really quickly, really economically, I keep using that
• 2:20:40
  word, but that's Russell T. And again, brilliantly, he's
• 2:20:44
  sewed all this, but the story needs to end.
• 2:20:47
  The Doctor needs to beat the Master, and you're going, well,
• 2:20:52
  they can't just capture him. What's going to happen here?
• 2:20:54
  But of course, so I don't think you see this coming
• 2:20:57
  particularly, but it all makes sense in retrospect because you.
• 2:21:04
  Can always. And Owen and I've forgotten.
• 2:21:06
  There's the, there's the cheat of that.
• 2:21:08
  You think she's going to do it? I was going to say that because
• 2:21:12
  throughout this I haven't mentioned it but my eye keeps
• 2:21:15
  getting drawn to Lucy despite her she's not saying or doing
• 2:21:18
  anything in the same. It might be the red dress.
• 2:21:20
  It's the. Red The red dress is a very
• 2:21:21
  clever choice. But I'm always aware of her.
• 2:21:24
  You. Know she's there.
• 2:21:25
  It's a bit like the perception filter.
• 2:21:27
  She's you just see her at the corner of your eye.
• 2:21:30
  It's very cleverly placed. But but this this.
• 2:21:34
  But this is a very clever example of the show having its
• 2:21:37
  cake and eating it, because the show has to say it is wrong to
• 2:21:40
  kill people. You're better than this.
• 2:21:43
  But for its satisfying climax, it needs somebody to kill him.
• 2:21:48
  And it very cleverly rejects that as the answer, but provides
• 2:21:54
  it as the answer at the same time.
• 2:22:00
  Because, you know, I don't care what anybody says.
• 2:22:03
  If the ending had been that they put him in prison, even me as a
• 2:22:07
  terrible sort of bully, liberal peacenet, as as somebody who's a
• 2:22:11
  consumer of drama, it's unsatisfying if he doesn't get
• 2:22:15
  killed, which what does that say about us and what we look for in
• 2:22:19
  our drama? But if it had just been right,
• 2:22:20
  go and put him in prison. You know, nobody says the ending
• 2:22:24
  of Battlefield isn't is is, you know, is baffling, isn't.
• 2:22:28
  It. Satisfying women.
• 2:22:30
  That can transport anywhere. And this, I think this is so
• 2:22:34
  well done. Tenant is fucking brilliant in
• 2:22:38
  this. Really, really good.
• 2:22:41
  Well, this is the sort of emotional intensity I never
• 2:22:43
  thought I'd see in the show. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:22:47
  Although we were here this time last year, last season, weren't
• 2:22:50
  we? We were doing this level of
• 2:22:53
  intensity in Doomsday, which we also did a commentary on.
• 2:22:56
  Oh did. Oh gosh, we do the season
• 2:22:58
  finales. We.
• 2:23:00
  Gosh. I only saved the best for you.
• 2:23:03
  You know, because. I thought we were because
• 2:23:04
  because I'd chosen this and then you wanted me to do.
• 2:23:06
  We were going to do midnight at one point, weren't we?
• 2:23:08
  We're still going to hopefully and we're.
• 2:23:09
  Still going to say, OK, there we go.
• 2:23:11
  How excited? He's so good.
• 2:23:13
  He is such a good actor. Did you see the look on Lucy's
• 2:23:17
  face when the gun went off? You said dead behind the eyes.
• 2:23:22
  But an act of revenge, you know? Yeah.
• 2:23:24
  She, I'll tell you what, she is cracking.
• 2:23:27
  She is a it's a really good performance that she.
• 2:23:30
  It's a shame she didn't have a bigger role in The End of Time.
• 2:23:34
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And as an actor, if your agent
• 2:23:39
  rings up and goes, you know, you were so good in that Doctor Who.
• 2:23:41
  They were so pleased with you. They want you back for a scene.
• 2:23:44
  They're, they're bringing the master back.
• 2:23:46
  And you go, they're bringing the master back.
• 2:23:49
  Oh, amazing. Yeah.
• 2:23:50
  And yeah. And they, and so they want you
• 2:23:51
  back. Brilliant.
• 2:23:53
  And you, you read your first scene and realise it's your only
• 2:23:55
  scene. Oh.
• 2:23:56
  Come on. What is it you said earlier?
• 2:23:58
  It's a cruel business. It's a cruel business.
• 2:24:01
  That's so good. Well done everybody.
• 2:24:04
  Brilliant, and this is beautiful.
• 2:24:06
  Echoes of Star Wars here isn't there with the IT.
• 2:24:09
  Is a bit yeah, and. Well, what's what happens when
• 2:24:14
  he brings the Master back in the End of Time is obviously he
• 2:24:17
  can't do the same ending, can it?
• 2:24:19
  He can't just hit him off again. So he makes that really unusual
• 2:24:23
  choice, have the Master effectively save the day.
• 2:24:26
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:24:27
  It's great. But we know, but that does make
• 2:24:30
  sense within the dynamic that they have, and we sort of know
• 2:24:32
  that. And again, that's built into the
• 2:24:36
  law because of something that also didn't happen was that if
• 2:24:38
  Delgado had lived, his last story would have been the Master
• 2:24:42
  sacrificing himself to save the Doctor.
• 2:24:44
  So even though it didn't actually happen, it's that's
• 2:24:47
  still somehow inveigled its way into the DNA of the show.
• 2:24:50
  And then? We revisit it again, don't we?
• 2:24:52
  We did it again in well enough time in the doctor folds we see.
• 2:24:55
  I love, I love the two masters in that, Yeah.
• 2:24:59
  Your suggestion that? They're at it, I mean.
• 2:25:03
  It's. Honestly, Stephen Murphy.
• 2:25:07
  Yeah, that's lovely. Just to say I don't blame you,
• 2:25:13
  she goes. Who are you?
• 2:25:16
  Right, it's it's just basically a random act of kindness, isn't
• 2:25:18
  it? Very sweet, I suppose.
• 2:25:23
  The impetus there is so you know.
• 2:25:25
  Oh, now I'd forgotten about this.
• 2:25:27
  I remember texting back and forth with a friend of mine
• 2:25:30
  going no, it's it's just a big face because this is where
• 2:25:36
  Captain Jack says he's the face of Beau, isn't it?
• 2:25:39
  And and I remember just go, no, that doesn't.
• 2:25:42
  No, that's not that. What?
• 2:25:47
  But actually I don't mind. He's.
• 2:25:49
  Had so much plastic surgery at that point that his face is
• 2:25:52
  enormous. Again, I don't really mind it
• 2:25:56
  now, and I suppose it has a bit more resonance if it's Captain
• 2:25:59
  Jack, but I remember at the time.
• 2:26:00
  Go what? No, that's just, that seems to
• 2:26:03
  me an idea somebody's had at 3:00 in the morning and nobody's
• 2:26:06
  then gone. No, that don't do that.
• 2:26:08
  Where was Julie Gardner going? Oh, Russell, come on.
• 2:26:11
  Yeah, but it doesn't contradict anything we've seen before.
• 2:26:16
  No, but it was called the face of Beau because it's a big face,
• 2:26:19
  not because it's been a face on a poster from the Beauchaine
• 2:26:22
  Peninsula. But I love their reaction when
• 2:26:25
  they're just like, no, that's like us when A twist hits in
• 2:26:29
  Doctor Who. And of course, they, they do
• 2:26:34
  have to address the because I mean, John Barrowman now has
• 2:26:38
  white hair, doesn't he? So yeah, they do have to address
• 2:26:42
  the, the fact that if they want to bring the actor back, he's,
• 2:26:45
  he is going to age. It's a bit like the data
• 2:26:48
  problem, isn't it? In, in Star Trek The Next
• 2:26:50
  Generation is that androids don't age.
• 2:26:52
  But of course, Brent Spinner is now.
• 2:26:54
  Space is very full now compared to 1987.
• 2:26:58
  Yeah, going back to what you said in the last episode about
• 2:27:03
  the three shows taking place concurrently.
• 2:27:06
  Astonishing how much they informed each other, didn't
• 2:27:09
  they? Lieutenant and Matt Smith going
• 2:27:10
  over to Sarah Jane with Martha going over to Torchwood and then
• 2:27:14
  them all coming together here. And it takes a special kind of
• 2:27:17
  brain to keep, keep all of that and juggle it all.
• 2:27:23
  And I, I, I took me ages to see that Reggie Yates is actually in
• 2:27:26
  this shot because he's credited in the episode.
• 2:27:29
  And I was going, why is he credited in the episode?
• 2:27:30
  He's not in it. He's in it through the window.
• 2:27:33
  So, yeah, whilst Lucy Saxon gets a bum deal in the next, next
• 2:27:38
  appearance, because, you know, she, she's not in it much,
• 2:27:41
  Reggie Yates gets an episode fee for standing behind a window.
• 2:27:45
  That's that's, that's not a bad deal as an actor.
• 2:27:49
  My mate Dylan knows him quite well and apparently he had a lot
• 2:27:51
  of other work at the time, you know.
• 2:27:53
  Yes, well, I remember being quite worried about his casting
• 2:27:57
  because he was very well known as a, just as a personality, as
• 2:28:01
  a, as a DJ. And I thought, oh, is this
• 2:28:02
  Doctor Who getting a little bit, you know, believing it's, you
• 2:28:05
  know, putting celebrities in it? Rather than you've got to stop
• 2:28:08
  doing this, Bonnie. Bonnie Langford, Billie Piper,
• 2:28:12
  Catherine Tate. Reggie Yates.
• 2:28:14
  Yeah, I know. It's weird.
• 2:28:16
  I never had an issue with Catherine Tate, but I think
• 2:28:18
  that's because because Reggie Yates wasn't known as an actor
• 2:28:22
  really. It was more that he was known as
• 2:28:24
  a DJ. Do you know what I mean?
• 2:28:26
  But that shouldn't stop anything anyway, you know, I'm all for
• 2:28:29
  comedians getting cast things. But he, he kind of was, he
• 2:28:35
  didn't really have a substantive role at any point in the season,
• 2:28:38
  did he? He was so interesting.
• 2:28:40
  Gets a bit to do in the Lazarus experiment, but that's, that's
• 2:28:43
  kind of it. You get the impression that they
• 2:28:45
  probably wanted to do more with him in in this finale.
• 2:28:49
  And and as you say, he'd, he'd got loads to do so they had to,
• 2:28:53
  you know, grab him for a day and write him out.
• 2:28:54
  But it means that that character look, when you look back at the
• 2:28:59
  history of Doctor Who, you go, oh, they, they obviously they
• 2:29:02
  never quite got to do with him what they intended.
• 2:29:06
  We really love the dynamic between Martha and Tish in The
• 2:29:09
  Lazarus Experiment. I kind of wish we'd had a bit
• 2:29:11
  more of that because they they really sparked off each other.
• 2:29:13
  Well, she's a. Terrific actress as well.
• 2:29:16
  That bit we didn't mention in episode 1, that bit where
• 2:29:18
  Tisha's on the aunt's phone, she's about to tell them exactly
• 2:29:20
  where they need to be, and Martha just turns off the aunt's
• 2:29:22
  phone and goes, oh, whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:29:28
  Tisha's fantastic goo goo. Yeah, so here's the sort of
• 2:29:34
  awkward hug. OK, we're going to say goodbye.
• 2:29:38
  She's she's basically said she wants to go off to be with her
• 2:29:40
  family, so she's giving him a reasonable out.
• 2:29:46
  Yeah, that. Line there.
• 2:29:48
  I spent a lot of time with you thinking I was second best, but
• 2:29:50
  you know what? I am good.
• 2:29:53
  Yeah, and it's, it's an unusual thing, isn't it?
• 2:29:57
  Because she does actually come back for a few and she goes into
• 2:29:59
  Torchwood. So you know, she's leaving, but
• 2:30:02
  she's but she's not. But as you say, this is this is
• 2:30:05
  the masterstroke is you think that's the goodbye.
• 2:30:08
  And, and you know, she then has this empowering thing of going
• 2:30:11
  hang on Doctor Who, the, the man, the man and the program.
• 2:30:16
  This is so beautifully written, just using using a friend as an
• 2:30:21
  example. Yeah.
• 2:30:24
  I feel like Roxy Davis has just spent his whole life looking at
• 2:30:27
  people and relationships and he just pours it all into his work
• 2:30:30
  now. Well, that's a story as old as
• 2:30:32
  time, isn't it? When you look at you look at a
• 2:30:35
  relationship from the outside and you go, what the hell?
• 2:30:38
  It's usually so you know, what, what the hell is she doing with
• 2:30:40
  him? Because he's, you know, she's
• 2:30:43
  great and he's awful And it, you know, I think we can all
• 2:30:48
  identify with that. Did you ever watch Cucumber?
• 2:30:52
  Yes, Do you? Remember in the first episode
• 2:30:54
  you got that couple with that really toxic relationship where
• 2:30:56
  they're both bringing men home and they had that massive row
• 2:31:00
  with the other man in the house? And you will.
• 2:31:03
  Oh. Yes.
• 2:31:04
  Yes. Well, I watched that whilst I
• 2:31:06
  was going through something similar in my life and it was
• 2:31:09
  only watching it. I was like, Oh my God, this is
• 2:31:11
  me. That's me.
• 2:31:13
  Like. It was so resonant.
• 2:31:16
  Yeah, well, I mean, and that's what you have to do with Doctor
• 2:31:20
  Who. It's a ridiculous program.
• 2:31:23
  Anything that it makes a viewer go, oh God, yeah, I'm I'm seen
• 2:31:27
  or I I've seen that I understand that anything that helps to.
• 2:31:31
  And she does that that's that's nice.
• 2:31:33
  That's a nice little hero moment for her.
• 2:31:35
  Anything that helps to to ground the ridiculous in an emotional
• 2:31:38
  reality is vital. And I think that's that's, you
• 2:31:41
  know, where Russell T Davis has been so triumphant and is is not
• 2:31:45
  to be underestimated. The the.
• 2:31:48
  Smile that he gives her. So the first look he gave her
• 2:31:51
  when she went out, it was a bit weird, and then the smile we
• 2:31:55
  give her when she comes back and gives him the speech, like he
• 2:31:58
  totally respects her decision. Well, that's Tracy Simpson,
• 2:32:02
  isn't it? That's Tracy Simpson's hand.
• 2:32:04
  Oh boy, did we speculate about that ring.
• 2:32:08
  Yeah. Painted nails well and we.
• 2:32:12
  Do we do get? But it was just.
• 2:32:14
  Going to be some random prison officer.
• 2:32:16
  Yeah, but we do at least get a pay off, don't we?
• 2:32:19
  And Oh yes, and, and of course this was a, this is a cheat,
• 2:32:26
  isn't it? Because it, it says Titanic and
• 2:32:28
  you go, oh, are they going to do, are they going to do a
• 2:32:31
  Titanic story? But of course it's not.
• 2:32:35
  It's the Titanic in space. And you know, I'm I'm a huge fan
• 2:32:39
  of voyage of the Dam. So I think it is a really fun
• 2:32:42
  Christmas special. But the the get out of that ship
• 2:32:44
  hitting the Tarvis where he just sort of presses a button and it.
• 2:32:47
  Comes. Yeah, but it's kind of, I mean,
• 2:32:50
  in a way you, you, you kind of you kind of want that actually,
• 2:32:56
  because you don't want the next story to start with a sort of
• 2:33:01
  getting out of the thing that's got us in.
• 2:33:03
  I think I think Russell is very wise sometimes in going
• 2:33:07
  something that in the old days might have taken us a sort of 10
• 2:33:10
  minute sequence that delays us getting into the story just
• 2:33:13
  goes, no, we can, we can press a magic button because actually
• 2:33:15
  that's not what this is about. And so long as we don't press a
• 2:33:19
  magic button as a cheat of a major plot point with, you know,
• 2:33:24
  we're fine. What's what's interesting is
• 2:33:28
  that he did the same thing, didn't he?
• 2:33:29
  With Doomsday, you have Catherine Tate pop along at the
• 2:33:32
  end and that's your in for the next episode.
• 2:33:34
  Here you have the Titanic and they did shoot a sequence with
• 2:33:38
  two Cybermen coming up behind him in Journey's end.
• 2:33:41
  And then they thought, no, we're going to take that out.
• 2:33:43
  They were right to. They were right to because it's
• 2:33:48
  it is nice having that that that repeating gag of what?
• 2:33:53
  What? What you go, oh, yeah, OK, cool.
• 2:33:56
  I know where I am now. But actually that would have
• 2:34:00
  spoiled. That would have spoiled.
• 2:34:02
  Which was very, very big. Yeah, and and, and brave to go
• 2:34:07
  actually that thing that we normally do, let's let's not do
• 2:34:10
  that this time because it it doesn't serve this particular
• 2:34:13
  moment in this particular episode.
• 2:34:15
  I think they tend to judge those sorts of things very well.
• 2:34:19
  You know, this attention to detail is, you know, makes those
• 2:34:25
  makes makes this era so very strong.
• 2:34:28
  I was really happy to see Free and Rajman back, both in series
• 2:34:32
  4 and in Torchwood. Some odd decisions were made
• 2:34:36
  because they brought her back, and then she was essentially an
• 2:34:41
  evil doppelganger in one and shifted off to a side plot in
• 2:34:45
  the Doctor's talk. Well, the.
• 2:34:46
  Doctor's talk she just basically gets to walk around in a quarry
• 2:34:49
  with some with some poor fish guy who dies she.
• 2:34:54
  Gets a much better showing in The Stolen Earth I think.
• 2:34:56
  Yeah, I just sort of like, I mean, I'd have, I'd have sort of
• 2:34:59
  thought, thanks. But I mean, if this is what I'm
• 2:35:01
  going to do, I'll just do an episode of Casualty.
• 2:35:06
  And then in Torchwood, she gets one.
• 2:35:08
  Brilliant episode called Reset where she's kind of front and
• 2:35:11
  centre, then she's she turned into an old woman in one episode
• 2:35:15
  and then she is again shunted off to the sidelines in the last
• 2:35:18
  one. Yes, I'm, it's it's curious
• 2:35:20
  because the Torchwood opens up a whole big issue, of course,
• 2:35:24
  because Torchwood is the adults Doctor Who spin off, which
• 2:35:26
  brings with it problems all of its own.
• 2:35:28
  And I, I mean, I, we don't need to go into too much detail, but
• 2:35:32
  I, I, you know, it, it felt to me that because I remember I had
• 2:35:37
  an English teacher once who, who said we could, we could use
• 2:35:39
  swear words in our, in our stories if we, if we wanted to.
• 2:35:43
  So the first one I wrote was, you know, replete with them.
• 2:35:45
  And, and he said, look, he said, actually, you know, they, they
• 2:35:49
  didn't, they didn't work because you, because I said you could
• 2:35:52
  use them, you used them and you used them too much.
• 2:35:54
  And it's gratuitous. And, and it was a, it was a
• 2:35:56
  lesson to learn and, and, and with Torchwood, I, I felt, you
• 2:35:59
  know, there's it right? We could do Doctor Who with the,
• 2:36:01
  the, the, the sort of shackles removed.
• 2:36:03
  And so somebody goes, well, the second story shall be about an
• 2:36:06
  orgasm monster. And I was in a sketch show at
• 2:36:10
  the time and I, I actually wrote a sketch and we about Torchwood.
• 2:36:16
  And it was, you know, how should we defeat the monster this week?
• 2:36:19
  We shall defeat by swearing at its face.
• 2:36:21
  The root of the swear word, the better.
• 2:36:23
  And you know what's this week's alien?
• 2:36:25
  It's an alien that manifests itself by disguising itself as a
• 2:36:29
  pair of women's knickers. You know, because it was, it was
• 2:36:32
  all just seemed so. And it felt to me like the
• 2:36:35
  televisual equivalent in in that regard of writing boobies on a
• 2:36:40
  calculator and turning it upside down, you know?
• 2:36:43
  What it felt like to me, it felt like I don't want to write off
• 2:36:46
  the new adventures. I think they've informed a lot
• 2:36:49
  of the new series. But when they were told you you
• 2:36:51
  could write Doctor Who for adults, now suddenly characters
• 2:36:54
  were being tortured in horrible ways and swearing.
• 2:36:56
  Syphilis and yeah. Enough.
• 2:37:00
  The adult show winds up being quite immature.
• 2:37:03
  Yes, absolutely. And, and I only mention that as
• 2:37:08
  context to the fact that therefore, for me, it was
• 2:37:10
  slightly awkward that Martha crossed over into tortured
• 2:37:15
  because I could, I could sort of live with tortured as an adjunct
• 2:37:18
  to the show. Even though Captain Jack was in
• 2:37:19
  it, he was, he was still a sort of cheeky guest character.
• 2:37:21
  And he was, and he was the character in Doctor Who who was,
• 2:37:24
  you know, closest to being doing the sort of naughty stuff.
• 2:37:27
  So it seemed sort of acceptable to go, OK, he's going to head
• 2:37:29
  this new adult Doctor Who spin off.
• 2:37:32
  But to to bring Martha into it. I I found slightly awkward
• 2:37:38
  because then you go, well, I'm I'm taking taking one of the key
• 2:37:41
  figures from, you know, the the children friendly Doctor Who
• 2:37:44
  into adult. You're encouraging adults.
• 2:37:46
  And I noticed that she she didn't do any of the swearing or
• 2:37:49
  any of the, you know, she was immune from the effects of
• 2:37:53
  tortured being placed just beyond the watershed.
• 2:37:56
  But yes, and, and, and, and actually the Sarah Jane
• 2:37:59
  Adventures with its stories about homelessness and and all
• 2:38:01
  sorts of other things. It's very mature, actually
• 2:38:03
  seemed to be more adult in it in a way it.
• 2:38:05
  Was for some, when they were side by side and you had the the
• 2:38:09
  children's show being extremely mature and the adult show being
• 2:38:11
  very immature. I was like, I mean, this is
• 2:38:14
  great for Sarah Jane, but it's a little bit embarrassing for
• 2:38:16
  Tortward. Yeah, Sarah Jane is definitely
• 2:38:19
  much more my preference. But then I, you know, I am an
• 2:38:22
  older person who remembers Doctor Who being a particular
• 2:38:24
  way. So, you know, I'm informed by my
• 2:38:26
  own environment and previous experience.
• 2:38:29
  So I'm, I'm careful not to sort of point the finger and say
• 2:38:32
  whether it's necessary, right or wrong.
• 2:38:33
  I'm just talking about my own personal experience, but I I
• 2:38:37
  also, I'm a bit old fashioned. I think the key to the success
• 2:38:40
  of Doctor Who is that it has to be suitable for children.
• 2:38:43
  So it gets you when you're a kid, but you retain that
• 2:38:46
  affection for it when you're an adult.
• 2:38:47
  And as a kid, you want it to be all grown up and violent and
• 2:38:52
  sweary. But actually the fact that it
• 2:38:55
  can't be too grown up and violent and sweary is what way.
• 2:38:58
  So so you actually end up liking it more for reasons that you
• 2:39:03
  don't. I think you do because actually,
• 2:39:05
  if it had been those things that you wanted it to be as a kid,
• 2:39:08
  because kids want things to be grown up, you wouldn't actually
• 2:39:10
  have enjoyed it as much. So I think it's, you know,
• 2:39:15
  careful what you wish for. And also that the children
• 2:39:20
  friendly thing about Doctor Who that you sort of resent a bit as
• 2:39:23
  a kid because you want to be all grown up is actually one of the
• 2:39:27
  fundamental parts of its success the the.
• 2:39:32
  Knock on effect with tortured for me was I came to not expect
• 2:39:35
  much from it, so when it pulled its act together I was really
• 2:39:39
  surprised and impressed. You know when and.
• 2:39:43
  There's some fantastic episodes of Tortured and I and I'm, I
• 2:39:46
  think I mentioned in the previous episode, I'm watching
• 2:39:49
  Children of Earth again and I think, I think it's an
• 2:39:51
  astonishing piece of television. You know, Doctor Who related or
• 2:39:55
  not, I think it's a crap. It's an amazing piece of work.
• 2:39:59
  It's a brilliant, confident, fabulous piece of top notch
• 2:40:05
  television that sort of deserves to stand on its own 2 feet
• 2:40:08
  really. Torturewood's a funny creature,
• 2:40:12
  isn't it? It is.
• 2:40:13
  It's 4. It's four series that are all
• 2:40:15
  completely different. But, but, but you know, what a
• 2:40:21
  but what a time to be alive and, and also making television is
• 2:40:27
  really hard and making television that is imaginative
• 2:40:32
  and outside the box and, you know, doesn't necessarily fit
• 2:40:36
  into any categories and is related to this weird phenomenon
• 2:40:39
  that is a Doctor Who is, you know, I think any, anything we
• 2:40:45
  talk about where we might say we don't particularly like it or,
• 2:40:49
  or it doesn't quite work for us, that that is within the context
• 2:40:52
  of it of, of something that is phenomenal achievement.
• 2:40:56
  And, and it's qualified by the fact that it's part of this
• 2:41:00
  whole thing that is absolutely amazing and, and brilliant.
• 2:41:04
  But, but, but we're, so we're talking about sort of qualified,
• 2:41:10
  you know, lack of success as it were.
• 2:41:14
  And a lot of it's purely a matter of taste.
• 2:41:18
  It's entirely subjective, yes, because I know some people wear
• 2:41:22
  Torchwood as their preference. So there are those people out
• 2:41:24
  there. Well, let's tell you we've got 2
• 2:41:28
  impossible tasks to do here now. One is to go back through the
• 2:41:32
  tweets and see what people have to say.
• 2:41:35
  Every time I do this, you put your head in your hands.
• 2:41:40
  It's not too terrifying. No way.
• 2:41:41
  And then we will list our three favorite things this episode,
• 2:41:46
  and then you can go to bed. OK, so I've got a few comments,
• 2:41:53
  Ian Clark says controversially. I don't mind the ending because
• 2:41:56
  the scientific mechanism for it is plausibly layered into the
• 2:41:59
  story, and Martha puts in the legwork with a narrative pulling
• 2:42:03
  a clever misdirect as to what her true goal is.
• 2:42:06
  Obviously the Dobby Dr. is terrible though.
• 2:42:09
  I I think all he says about the ending is, is is fair.
• 2:42:13
  And what he says about the Dobby Dr. is is not unfair.
• 2:42:19
  That's fair. Fraser, Gregory.
• 2:42:24
  Hi. Fraser does he say something
• 2:42:26
  like I love to dominate as me? Well, when he hears you're
• 2:42:30
  talking about the quarks, he will be very excited if you did
• 2:42:32
  mention him in the last. Episode Oh, the Quark.
• 2:42:34
  The Quark Clefanes, yes. He.
• 2:42:38
  Says the Doctor. Is Jesus good ending or Deus Ex
• 2:42:41
  machina taken literally too far? Well, I mean, I think as we
• 2:42:46
  said, the science is kind of worked into the plot.
• 2:42:49
  So it's not a Deus Ex machina in that sense.
• 2:42:52
  In the way that say, opening up the TARDIS and and making blonde
• 2:42:56
  Felfach turn back into an egg, which, you know, which comes out
• 2:43:00
  of absolutely nowhere. And there are and, or, you know,
• 2:43:03
  covering yourself in all the medicines in the world in, you
• 2:43:07
  know, so, you know, there are a few of those.
• 2:43:10
  To be fair, this one I think did feel like that at the time.
• 2:43:14
  Because I think we, you know, we, we would be unsurprised if
• 2:43:17
  it was some sort of magic button.
• 2:43:19
  But actually it's more artfully deployed than that.
• 2:43:22
  I just think in terms of a, an aesthetic, the the you know,
• 2:43:31
  Lazarus from the flames thing thing seems a bit a bit
• 2:43:35
  religious for a show. And I'm talking as an atheist
• 2:43:39
  now. So I know and I know I have, I
• 2:43:41
  have friends who like I know people who like Doctor Who are
• 2:43:43
  religious. And so again, it's I can only
• 2:43:45
  ever be personal. But for me, the, the, the show
• 2:43:48
  it, it, you know, is, is, is quite rejecting of religious
• 2:43:55
  ideology and, and, and, and the idea of magic as well, that that
• 2:44:02
  has to be called a sort of quite scientifically rigorous and that
• 2:44:05
  and that science and reason always win out over superstition
• 2:44:09
  and magic. And in it, and with no offense
• 2:44:12
  to religious people here in, in, in a lot of Doctor Who writing,
• 2:44:16
  religion is seen to be in the same camp as superstition and
• 2:44:20
  magic and science and rationality are seen to be
• 2:44:24
  contrary to that. And that, that we, we, we, you
• 2:44:27
  know, we're, we're, we're encouraged to embrace
• 2:44:30
  rationality and reason and, and science rather than go back to
• 2:44:34
  the, the, the dark ages of superstition or believe in
• 2:44:37
  magic. And, and, and the plot should
• 2:44:39
  work like that as well. So seeing a sort of Jesus like
• 2:44:44
  resurrection seems counterintuitive to the flavour
• 2:44:50
  and tenor of Doctor Who. Now, I don't know whether that's
• 2:44:54
  a fair criticism, but that would I.
• 2:44:56
  When I think about it, that's that feels to me like my gut
• 2:44:59
  reaction to that, that that moment where it's all angelic
• 2:45:05
  and banjicky. Well, is it?
• 2:45:07
  It's interesting it's in the same season as Gridlock where in
• 2:45:11
  the confidential, you know, Rossi Davis addresses the facts,
• 2:45:14
  you know, that they they all have a faith in that episode,
• 2:45:19
  but that was him saying that, you know, why is faith?
• 2:45:24
  Yeah. Exclusive to religious people.
• 2:45:28
  You know I. I think that moment in gridlock
• 2:45:32
  is astonishing. And I and I and I love it and
• 2:45:35
  it's because I think it's quite easy.
• 2:45:37
  And again, I'm not a religious person.
• 2:45:40
  I wish I was. I actually respect religion in,
• 2:45:44
  in, in, in many ways. I, I understand the Dawkins
• 2:45:46
  argument of going, you know, you can't sacrifice your humanity
• 2:45:49
  and reason for something that you can't prove.
• 2:45:51
  And people who follow a religion blindly can do very bad things
• 2:45:55
  to other humans because they, they believe in this creed
• 2:45:58
  rather than the reality in front of that.
• 2:46:00
  I understand, you know, that religion has been used for, as a
• 2:46:03
  smokescreen or a controlling thing or, or, or an excuse to do
• 2:46:06
  bad things. I get all of that.
• 2:46:08
  I get all the arguments against religion.
• 2:46:10
  They're well rehearsed in many dramas and satires and all of
• 2:46:12
  that. But I also actually quite admire
• 2:46:15
  people who, who, who, and in this increasingly narcissistic
• 2:46:19
  age in which we live, people who subsume them themselves and
• 2:46:22
  their own needs and personality into something that is about a
• 2:46:25
  greater good. And something where you humble
• 2:46:28
  yourself in, in, in front of a, a code or a creed that makes you
• 2:46:33
  be part of a wider community. And, and, and can be a moral
• 2:46:37
  guidance, which you know, and, and, and using religion as a as,
• 2:46:41
  as, as a control is very bad. But using it as something that
• 2:46:44
  means we all, we all have a common goal about common
• 2:46:47
  humanity and common decency and a common set of morals is, is,
• 2:46:51
  is the other side of that coin. And that's a good one.
• 2:46:54
  So I was going somewhere with this and I've, I've lost track.
• 2:46:57
  I went, but it's, it's still about the religious side of
• 2:47:00
  things. What did you say?
• 2:47:01
  You you asked a question 100 years ago.
• 2:47:04
  It's probably not the Dead Sea Scrolls.
• 2:47:09
  The question was the doctor was Jesus good ending or day?
• 2:47:12
  Oh no. Yeah, but then we moved.
• 2:47:14
  Then we moved. But it's no, you said something
• 2:47:20
  when we were talking about whether Doctor Who's religious
• 2:47:23
  or not. Oh.
• 2:47:24
  About gridlock. Ah, that's it.
• 2:47:26
  But in grit and, and, and I think it's very easy.
• 2:47:29
  And Russell's an atheist, isn't he?
• 2:47:30
  It's very easy. And I see comedians do it all
• 2:47:33
  the time and I've been guilty of it.
• 2:47:34
  It's very easy to take the piss out of religion.
• 2:47:36
  It's very easy to satirize. It's very easy to, you know, to,
• 2:47:42
  to knock down, you know, big institutions and all of that
• 2:47:45
  sort of thing. And I, I, I think it's sometimes
• 2:47:49
  again, it's, it's, it could be quite unkind and disrespectful.
• 2:47:52
  Now when you're knocking against something that's a prevailing
• 2:47:54
  wisdom, you know, it's, it's quite rebellious.
• 2:47:56
  But in this day and age, it's actually not that rebellious to
• 2:47:58
  not be religious. And I think it's easy to be glib
• 2:48:03
  about people who are, and to be disrespectful in a way that I
• 2:48:05
  would have happily done 20 years ago and I wouldn't now, for all
• 2:48:08
  the reasons I've just explained about, you know, admiring some
• 2:48:11
  elements of, of, of, of religious views.
• 2:48:14
  And what I, what I think is so clever about that bit in
• 2:48:16
  Gridlock is that he shows the power of that community that
• 2:48:21
  that where they listen to the old rugged cross and they and
• 2:48:24
  they cry and they have that moment where everybody is
• 2:48:27
  brought together. It is beautiful.
• 2:48:30
  It is unifying. It shows the power where
• 2:48:33
  religion could be used for good, but also brilliantly acts as a
• 2:48:38
  metaphor for why they don't move it.
• 2:48:46
  It gives them comfort, it gives them solace, but it also is what
• 2:48:52
  paralyses them and traps them. And so that is a really clever
• 2:48:56
  writer because you go, he's showing.
• 2:49:00
  And this is where a lot of modern criticism really gets
• 2:49:03
  because because some people might look at that and go, oh,
• 2:49:06
  he celebrates religion. I'm not religious.
• 2:49:08
  Other people might go, he's he's showing religious to be a
• 2:49:12
  paralyzing force. I am religious.
• 2:49:14
  That's insulting. No, what he's doing as a clever
• 2:49:16
  idea, he's going. Both of those things are true.
• 2:49:21
  Take from it what you will. Yeah, make of it.
• 2:49:23
  Well, and, and actually, there are so many things in our life
• 2:49:26
  that are paradoxical, so many things that I believe, you know,
• 2:49:30
  instinctively, but that intellectually I know can't be
• 2:49:34
  that true because by my reason tells me that they can't.
• 2:49:37
  But my heart tells me something else.
• 2:49:39
  And that's far. We must embrace those things
• 2:49:41
  because life is full of contradictions.
• 2:49:43
  And if anyone thinks they've got the absolute answer, they're a
• 2:49:45
  potential despot. And a good writer doesn't go,
• 2:49:49
  this is the one way and it's the only way.
• 2:49:52
  And if as a if as a, as a consumer, you go, well, they're
• 2:49:55
  saying something that I don't agree with, Therefore this is
• 2:49:57
  wrong or it's offensive. No, it's, it's anything that
• 2:50:00
  shows but the paradoxical nature of our, you know, our instinct
• 2:50:05
  and our intellect and, and, and the way that our society is
• 2:50:08
  formed is, is, is something that is working as a drama on, on,
• 2:50:12
  on, on, on a, on a really thoughtful and intelligent and
• 2:50:16
  thought provoking level. And I, I think that bit in, in
• 2:50:19
  Gridlock is, is absolutely as extraordinary for that because
• 2:50:23
  it is, it is sympathetic and yet satirical.
• 2:50:28
  It it is human and yet intellectual at at at at exactly
• 2:50:32
  the same time. But I don't think the sequence
• 2:50:35
  in Last of the time was is as clear.
• 2:50:39
  No, no, I mean, it's interesting what what leapt out at me when
• 2:50:43
  we were watching it this time. And bear in mind, you know, we,
• 2:50:46
  we have to talk through it. So, so we missed some of the
• 2:50:50
  subtle. But what really hit her, because
• 2:50:53
  I got the subtitles on is that at the end of that silly
• 2:50:56
  sequence where he floats and is impervious to laser beams, you
• 2:51:00
  know, and and I love John Sims brilliant reaction where he's
• 2:51:02
  kind of scared. It's the doctor saying, I
• 2:51:07
  forgive you and you go, oh, that's what it's all about.
• 2:51:10
  It's not it's not the it's not the floaty, floaty that's
• 2:51:14
  important here. It's the it's the it's the act
• 2:51:18
  of forgiveness. That's what Russell needed to
• 2:51:21
  get to. And if he needs to get through
• 2:51:24
  that by a sort of that's, you know, Easter Monday, then, then
• 2:51:29
  so be it. But but as an as as an
• 2:51:34
  aesthetic, it, it does sit awkwardly to me within the tone
• 2:51:38
  of what what I expect from from Doctor Who.
• 2:51:42
  I do go on. I don't know why people listen
• 2:51:44
  to a word I say. I am absolutely fascinated do.
• 2:51:47
  Not you. Do this.
• 2:51:49
  Every time you come on, I wouldn't censor a word, you
• 2:51:53
  know? And you'd think, you'd think I
• 2:51:59
  was the amount I talk. You'd think I was somebody that
• 2:52:01
  liked the sound of their own voice and thought they had
• 2:52:04
  something worthwhile to say. I don't.
• 2:52:05
  I, I really don't. But I seem to have this
• 2:52:09
  compulsion to, well, I just opened my mouth and it falls
• 2:52:11
  out. It's oh God, it's awful.
• 2:52:13
  The unfortunate thing is people like to hear it.
• 2:52:16
  Well, I'm well, if only to go at least I'm not that guy.
• 2:52:23
  So all. Right.
• 2:52:23
  Well, I'll move on. I'll move on to Jason.
• 2:52:26
  Thompson's comment which says OK Jason, I wish the reset switch
• 2:52:31
  hadn't been telegraphed right at the start of Lies at the Time
• 2:52:33
  Lords, but it was so obvious everything was going to be
• 2:52:35
  undone. Rather glaringly, the big reset
• 2:52:38
  at the end is treated like everything is fine and back to
• 2:52:40
  normal apart from the Jones family, but overlooks the fact
• 2:52:43
  that everything up to the activation of the paradox
• 2:52:45
  machine still happened. He's thought about this.
• 2:52:48
  So Howard Saction was PM assassinated his cabinet.
• 2:52:52
  Oh, there's another part announced.
• 2:52:54
  The first contact with the toclophane arranged the event so
• 2:52:56
  most of the world still witnessed the toclophane
• 2:52:58
  appearing and vaporizing. the US President then Saxon declared
• 2:53:02
  himself the leader of the world and then apparently vanished.
• 2:53:05
  Big stuff to just ignore. Yes.
• 2:53:09
  So it means it's again, it's because it because he could have
• 2:53:13
  chosen any time to reset it to really, he could have come up
• 2:53:16
  with some baffle gab as to as to why, but he clearly chose that
• 2:53:20
  because of the impact it would have on our regulars.
• 2:53:22
  The regulars needed to have gone through what they went through.
• 2:53:27
  It's bad news for Vivian Rook in it.
• 2:53:29
  She's still dead. The president's still dead.
• 2:53:33
  And, you know, but I, you know, I think he'd gone to great pains
• 2:53:36
  to show that the politicians, you know, in televisual terms
• 2:53:40
  deserved to die because they were, they were all, you know,
• 2:53:45
  people, opportunists. I can imagine, you know Terence
• 2:53:49
  Dicks watching this gang. I should write the target of
• 2:53:53
  this. There's a lot of threads
• 2:53:54
  hanging. I could do this in a paragraph.
• 2:53:57
  I don't think Terence would have approved of the reset.
• 2:54:02
  I don't know. That's just an instinctive
• 2:54:04
  response. It's difficult.
• 2:54:09
  It's difficult. Jason's, I mean, Jason makes a
• 2:54:12
  very convincing case, but I managed to sort of not mind
• 2:54:18
  because it makes, again, the impact it has on our regulars
• 2:54:23
  seems to sort of justify that positioning.
• 2:54:26
  And I can kind of in the same way that I can forget that the
• 2:54:29
  scarison appeared outside the Houses of Parliament.
• 2:54:31
  You know, you kind of go, I can, I, I, I, it's funny, isn't it?
• 2:54:36
  The things that we allow ourselves to live with.
• 2:54:39
  And again, sometimes it's entirely due to personal taste.
• 2:54:41
  I've been doing a lot on the Hinchcliffe era recently and
• 2:54:44
  purely objectively, a lot of the Hinchcliffe era episode fours
• 2:54:48
  are unforgivable in terms of plot.
• 2:54:52
  But I forgive the Hinchcliffe era almost everything because of
• 2:54:56
  the quality of the production and the, the writing in terms of
• 2:55:01
  the, you know, the, the language and the character and the tone
• 2:55:04
  in a way that I wouldn't in eras I'm less naturally drawn to.
• 2:55:10
  And and I, I, I have, I cannot justify that apart from to say
• 2:55:15
  that I can with that and I don't with that.
• 2:55:18
  I think we all have that bias about the eras that we love.
• 2:55:23
  OK, I've got a interesting question here.
• 2:55:26
  James H asks is the glowing magic floating Doctor a nod to
• 2:55:32
  Kai in the Mutants that's explaining why the Time Laws
• 2:55:36
  actually sent the Doctor on that mission in the first place.
• 2:55:40
  Lovely, but no. But he's not unlike, is he?
• 2:55:44
  He's not unlike. Crash Dummy asked would the Top
• 2:55:49
  of Fame have been a better or worse replacement?
• 2:55:51
  Daleks and the Other Side of the Time Law.
• 2:55:54
  Time War in Series 1. It's, it's funny.
• 2:55:57
  I'm, I'm, I'm sure I'm not betraying a confidence when I
• 2:55:59
  say this. I, I, I remember Rob Shearman
• 2:56:03
  saying to me that when, you know, the Daleks weren't going
• 2:56:06
  to be in Dalek, he said, you know, because, because that was
• 2:56:09
  a yes, as you alluded to, that, that, that the tocophane were
• 2:56:12
  going to be the replacement of the Dalek.
• 2:56:14
  Russ said, you know, I've, I've come up with this monster and
• 2:56:16
  I've, I've done a drawing of it and Rob said he showed me this
• 2:56:20
  drawing and it's, it's basically, it's a circle
• 2:56:24
  because, you know, it's that OK, Because I, I, I think the
• 2:56:29
  Taclofane work because they are an adjunct to the master.
• 2:56:34
  I think, you know, there's a reason the Taclofane haven't
• 2:56:37
  come back is that I think they work within the context of that
• 2:56:40
  story. But I, I don't think a, a
• 2:56:45
  childish talking football thing and, and they may have had a
• 2:56:52
  different voice and personality and all that sort of thing in,
• 2:56:54
  in Dalek. Look, I'm, I'm pleased with the
• 2:56:57
  way it turned out Dalek needed to have a Dalek.
• 2:57:00
  Thank God it did. I'm, I'm sure they'd have made
• 2:57:04
  it work. But I think the, the way that
• 2:57:06
  we've got it, the way that we've got it is, is the best way to
• 2:57:11
  have it. And I, I don't feel the need to
• 2:57:15
  see the toclophane again. They work within the context of
• 2:57:18
  that story. And I think if it had just been
• 2:57:20
  a toclophane story, it's not a toclophane story, It's a master
• 2:57:24
  story. And the toclophane are, you
• 2:57:27
  know, his, the, the things that, that, that sort of back him up.
• 2:57:31
  But I, I don't think it would have been strong enough that
• 2:57:33
  that they're, I don't think they're strong enough to work
• 2:57:37
  independently. As a complete side note, I'm 1
• 2:57:41
  chapter away from finishing Rob's target novelization of
• 2:57:46
  Dalek and it is magnificent he's.
• 2:57:50
  A He's a very clever, clever man.
• 2:57:53
  Honestly, anybody who hasn't go and read that book, it's the
• 2:57:58
  backstories of those guest characters are fleshed out.
• 2:58:01
  I'm going to use the word again with such economy and with that
• 2:58:06
  sort of dark, dark humor of his, he's brilliant.
• 2:58:11
  He's great and of course, as we record this today, it's just
• 2:58:14
  been announced that we are getting target novels of the
• 2:58:17
  three specials hot on the heels of their television I'm.
• 2:58:21
  Going to have a book on my shelf called Giggle.
• 2:58:25
  Great. OK.
• 2:58:27
  Let me let me sort of cherry pick some of the others.
• 2:58:30
  Otherwise you will never go to bed, no.
• 2:58:32
  I don't mind, I've got to, but I can understand if you want to
• 2:58:34
  keep it shorter. But don't don't do it on my
• 2:58:35
  account. I'm I'm at home on my own and
• 2:58:39
  I'm happier doing this than I probably would be doing anything
• 2:58:42
  else. Charming man?
• 2:58:45
  Jim Allenby asks. At the time there was wild
• 2:58:48
  speculation about who picked up the ring at the end.
• 2:58:51
  It turned out to be Missus Miss Trofusus, a prison guard.
• 2:58:54
  Nothing exciting at all. But who did you think had picked
• 2:58:58
  up? Who did you have picked up the
• 2:58:59
  ring? Well, I mean, I, I do, you know
• 2:59:04
  what? I, I wondered if it mattered and
• 2:59:08
  if it was just a nice visual, you know, the red, the red nail
• 2:59:13
  varnish and the, you know, next time we saw the master, it would
• 2:59:17
  just be alluded, you know, one of one of my acolytes rescue.
• 2:59:20
  But but then I, but then I thought about it and thought,
• 2:59:22
  no, they're going to, they're not going to ignore that.
• 2:59:25
  They, they, they will bring that in.
• 2:59:26
  But I, I had no idea. But, but I kind of like the
• 2:59:32
  mystery. It's it's great, isn't it, that
• 2:59:34
  that even the hand had some a sort of talking point because of
• 2:59:37
  of the of the of the rosy red. There was a suggestion, wasn't
• 2:59:43
  it was an idea that it might have been.
• 2:59:45
  I think we entertained the idea. It might have been Lucy and
• 2:59:49
  that, you know, maybe what she'd done, she'd done deliberately.
• 2:59:54
  And I think and and I wouldn't have been surprised if it was
• 2:59:56
  that I was quite pleasantly surprised that it wasn't because
• 2:59:58
  I think that that that was better for her, her ending.
• 3:00:04
  But I. I don't know what I expected,
• 3:00:08
  but there was, there was no way it could ever be something
• 3:00:10
  hugely satisfying because there was no way it was going to make
• 3:00:12
  any sense beyond, oh, it's that random person we've never seen
• 3:00:16
  before because not. The rings, I mean.
• 3:00:17
  I heard all the usual names doing the rounds.
• 3:00:20
  The Ronnie you know and everybody.
• 3:00:22
  Always wants everything to be like in Granny.
• 3:00:25
  Although when? When Ronnie was the Sarah Jane
• 3:00:29
  Adventures and people went it's the Ronnie and you go, no, it's
• 3:00:31
  somebody called Ronnie, you fucking morons.
• 3:00:35
  Honestly, if Jinx Monsoon turns out to be the Ronnie, that's the
• 3:00:37
  one I'll be like, I'm on board. If who does?
• 3:00:40
  Jinx Monsoon. Oh yes.
• 3:00:44
  Yes, that would be funny. The only person who could out
• 3:00:47
  camp Kate O'Mara do. You know, I've never seen Jinx
• 3:00:51
  Monsoon in anything. Hugely talented.
• 3:00:55
  But I think, I think Jinx Monsoon has a fabulous name.
• 3:01:00
  But that's how I know that. Season of RuPaul, the stand out
• 3:01:04
  queen. I am.
• 3:01:05
  I will. It surprise you that I've never
• 3:01:06
  seen an episode of RuPaul's Drag Race.
• 3:01:10
  Not at all. It's fun.
• 3:01:15
  It's but I'm. I'm I'm looking forward to to be
• 3:01:18
  and, and you know, I bet you in a year's time I would go.
• 3:01:21
  Well, of course, I've always been a massive fan of the work
• 3:01:23
  of Jinx Monsoon. Daniel Knight asks why oh why do
• 3:01:31
  fans bitch about Jodie's Doctor being sidelining the Timeless
• 3:01:35
  Children and yet don't seem so bothered that tenant is
• 3:01:38
  sidelined and then the and then dobbified in this?
• 3:01:43
  Well, let's leave away the the antagonistic phraseology.
• 3:01:51
  I mean, I don't bitch about. I don't say I try not to say
• 3:01:55
  anything. No, I don't say anything
• 3:01:57
  negative on online. So I so my, my views on I know
• 3:02:01
  that this wasn't the suggestion here.
• 3:02:03
  My my views on the Timeless Children are unrecorded, but I
• 3:02:09
  will posit this that. Well, one, I think it's more
• 3:02:20
  elegantly worked into the to the plotting and the the writing.
• 3:02:27
  And we talked about how the exposition works a little bit
• 3:02:29
  more better, a little bit better.
• 3:02:32
  And also, it's not to facilitate a 15 minute monologue about the
• 3:02:40
  back story. Essentially, you know, the
• 3:02:44
  equivalent of holiday snaps of, you know, a new invention of
• 3:02:48
  continuity. But but I do, I do take I, I,
• 3:02:54
  you know, I do take the I, I, I think that the comparison is not
• 3:03:01
  an unfair one. That's being drawn and going
• 3:03:03
  well. If you you know if you don't
• 3:03:04
  like 1. You.
• 3:03:06
  You. You.
• 3:03:07
  You. If you are a fan of Russell T
• 3:03:09
  Davis and if you're one of the people.
• 3:03:10
  You were just saying this, weren't you?
• 3:03:12
  That celebrates Russell T Davis and disparages Chris Chibnall.
• 3:03:16
  You have to acknowledge that that there is a similarity, a
• 3:03:20
  similarity in what they've done in both of those things.
• 3:03:23
  So. We did acknowledge that while we
• 3:03:25
  were watching it as well, didn't we?
• 3:03:26
  That it was an odd choice to. But what's what's the name of
• 3:03:29
  the treaty? Sorry it.
• 3:03:31
  It's Daniel Knight. No, sorry.
• 3:03:33
  Yeah, Daniel Knight. Yes.
• 3:03:35
  So, so I, I, I'm, I'm getting from the, the sort of
• 3:03:38
  phraseology that Daniel is a is a fan of Chris Chimney and Jodie
• 3:03:41
  Whittaker and, and has felt slightly slighted by the tenor
• 3:03:45
  of the criticism of that and is and is defending his particular
• 3:03:51
  night. And I think, and I think it's
• 3:03:52
  not, it's not unfair of him to do so.
• 3:03:55
  And I'm sorry that that he feels that, you know, a lot of the
• 3:04:00
  conversation out there has, has, has kind of been a dig at as
• 3:04:05
  either a story or an era or whatever that, that he
• 3:04:07
  particularly likes. And that there might be a little
• 3:04:10
  bit of double standarding in there.
• 3:04:12
  I, I do think that it does. We've said this in the episode
• 3:04:18
  that it does seem a bit of an odd choice to remove your very
• 3:04:23
  popular lead actor from such a vital episode to such a big
• 3:04:28
  proportion. And if you're going to if you're
• 3:04:31
  going to criticize, you know, the the masters holiday steps,
• 3:04:34
  you've got to criticize W the the the house doctor.
• 3:04:40
  But why do people bitch about one and not the other?
• 3:04:45
  It's, it's, it's, it's probably because because we, we love what
• 3:04:53
  we love and we don't like what we like and we try to
• 3:04:55
  intellectualize it sometimes. And again, often it's, it's just
• 3:04:59
  a matter of taste. But if, if I was forced to
• 3:05:01
  defend Russell T Davis's writing over Chris Chibnall's writing, I
• 3:05:08
  would say I, I, I, I think it is more artfully deployed when
• 3:05:13
  Russell does it and the action doesn't just kind of stop.
• 3:05:18
  And, and also there are emotional consequences for it.
• 3:05:23
  The whole strange thing about Timeless Children thing is that
• 3:05:27
  the doctor essentially goes through all of that and then
• 3:05:29
  goes, oh, you know, that seismic rewriting of the show's DNA
• 3:05:34
  hasn't affected me, essentially does.
• 3:05:35
  Isn't that the conclusion drawn at the end?
• 3:05:37
  It's kind of, oh, yeah, I'm still who I am.
• 3:05:39
  And you go then, then that seems an awful lot of effort to go to,
• 3:05:42
  to have to make no emotional journey whatsoever.
• 3:05:46
  Whereas I think with with Russell, it's sort of deployed
• 3:05:49
  for a for a a reason of of the emotional arc of the character
• 3:05:53
  that I think is more successful. It's very interesting in in it
• 3:05:57
  is fair in both cases. The showrunners in the very next
• 3:06:02
  season finale, Journey's End gave us 2 David Tennants to make
• 3:06:08
  up for it, and The Vanquishers gave us 3 Jodie Whittaker's to
• 3:06:11
  make up for it. Oh yeah.
• 3:06:15
  They were saving them up. OK, here he is.
• 3:06:19
  He's always got a comment for you, Johnny Morris.
• 3:06:23
  Oh, Johnny Morris. My main disappointment with Last
• 3:06:27
  of the Time was that we only got one song.
• 3:06:30
  Should the whole thing have been a Dennis Potter style musical?
• 3:06:34
  Well, I mean, as I say, I love having music in Doctor Who.
• 3:06:38
  I love her music. Do you know what I, I quite I
• 3:06:41
  like it when you go on YouTube and people have done Doctor Who
• 3:06:44
  montages to songs and things like that.
• 3:06:46
  I love all of that. I I love, I like, I mean, I'm a
• 3:06:50
  big fan of Dennis Potter, but I, I, I like, I like the bit in in
• 3:06:54
  the last episode of the prisoner where they gun everybody down to
• 3:06:57
  all you need is love. I think, I think having a, a, a
• 3:07:01
  popular track and juxtaposing it with the insanity of Doctor Who
• 3:07:07
  is, is I'm, I'm happy to see more of that sort of thing.
• 3:07:12
  I mean, because they're quite often in sort of casualty in
• 3:07:14
  Holby City. They'll have a, a sad montage,
• 3:07:16
  won't they, to a drippy song. Well, which I, which I think is
• 3:07:19
  a bit, you know, mawkish and a bit twee.
• 3:07:22
  But, but to have but to have a, a, a, a, a sort of crazy song,
• 3:07:29
  you know, underscoring bizarre situations, Doctor Who allows
• 3:07:33
  you to do that. And and yeah, more a musical
• 3:07:36
  episode of a musical episode's almost become a cliche now, but.
• 3:07:40
  Eat my heart if there is not a musical episode in that first
• 3:07:43
  you to get well season. Yeah.
• 3:07:46
  Let's revisit this conversation. Yeah.
• 3:07:47
  Yeah, it's almost a cliche now, but I I, I mean, maybe, maybe
• 3:07:53
  another thing to do instead of doing a musical episode is to do
• 3:07:55
  an episode where there's no dialogue, but it's all entirely
• 3:07:58
  like a pop video where it's all just underscored by, by, by
• 3:08:02
  music and it's all a load of set pieces.
• 3:08:04
  That that would be a challenge. That would be more of a
• 3:08:07
  challenge than a musical episode now.
• 3:08:08
  I think that's the next step. More of a comment here, but I
• 3:08:13
  think it's one we both agree with.
• 3:08:14
  Mark Donaldson says Sims Master is the first time that Doctor
• 3:08:18
  Who remembers what the character was meant to be.
• 3:08:22
  The dark contrast of the Doctor. Where Tenon is a charming ladies
• 3:08:25
  man, SIM is a cruel misogynist. Where Tenon is fizzing with
• 3:08:29
  energy, SIM is manic and unpredictable.
• 3:08:33
  I agree with that entirely. I agree.
• 3:08:34
  With that, I think that's a really eloquent summation.
• 3:08:38
  Oh, there's a, there's a ranking question here.
• 3:08:40
  So many brilliant moments, says Daniel Rawlsley.
• 3:08:44
  But Martha's exit and 15 satellites seen are just the
• 3:08:47
  best in terms of Sims performances.
• 3:08:50
  Do we prefer the urbane, sophisticated master of this
• 3:08:53
  finale, the Mad Dog homeless master in The End of Time, or
• 3:08:57
  the spiteful Delgado light master in The Doctor Falls?
• 3:09:02
  See, I don't think he does do a bane and sophisticated in this.
• 3:09:05
  Which is. Which is why I'm slight, which
• 3:09:08
  is why it's it's it's slightly nonplussed me in in places, even
• 3:09:13
  though there's there's nothing wrong with the performance.
• 3:09:16
  I, I, I think he works as the really feral, you know,
• 3:09:23
  homeless, homeless chic master vibe later.
• 3:09:27
  And, and I, and I love the, the, the face, the, the, the sort of
• 3:09:31
  double act with Missy. That's where I I think John SIM
• 3:09:34
  works best for me. Okie, Dokie, the British alien
• 3:09:39
  asked. What is it saying about the Tony
• 3:09:41
  Blair? Era well, I mean, we, we touched
• 3:09:44
  on this as well. It's, it's, it's not, I think
• 3:09:47
  it's not an accident that you have this, you know, smiley,
• 3:09:54
  slick media operator of a politician who turns out to be,
• 3:09:59
  you know, not all he seems, you know, Russell's very good at
• 3:10:02
  that sort of thing. And I think Doctor Who should do
• 3:10:04
  that sort of thing. But I think it does it better,
• 3:10:07
  best when it does it with that kind of cheeky, cheeky,
• 3:10:10
  subversive tone that Russell does than when it does it, than
• 3:10:14
  when it's very earnest and sort of wags its finger or tries to
• 3:10:18
  make a point. I think Doctor Who absolutely
• 3:10:21
  must have social comment in it, but it has to be the social
• 3:10:24
  comment of a sort of naughty graffiti rather than a leaflet.
• 3:10:28
  I like this simmering anger in some of that as well.
• 3:10:32
  Do you remember the speech that Anne Reid had at the end of
• 3:10:34
  Years and Years? The what?
• 3:10:36
  Sorry, the. The speech that Anne Reid had at
• 3:10:39
  the. Oh yeah, amazing.
• 3:10:40
  Beware the What was it? Beware.
• 3:10:42
  The clowns beware, Yeah. And and yes, maybe I've actually
• 3:10:46
  slightly undersold Russell in those because yes, he always, he
• 3:10:49
  has. There's a cheekiness to to a lot
• 3:10:53
  of his subversiveness. But yes, let us not ignore the
• 3:10:57
  fact that it is also very, very angry.
• 3:10:59
  But again, I think it's a testament to how that he does it
• 3:11:02
  because anger is a turn off. So he, it's, it's digestible
• 3:11:06
  anger. It is anger disguised or it's,
• 3:11:10
  there's a spoonful of scampishness to help the, the
• 3:11:14
  anger go down. Do you know what I mean?
• 3:11:16
  Because because if something is overly preachy, overly earnest
• 3:11:19
  or too cross, then you're that, that, that hampers you getting
• 3:11:25
  your message across. Whereas if, if, if you do it
• 3:11:28
  with a sense of verve and satire and you know, sort of
• 3:11:37
  cheekiness, it's, it's, it subversiveness, it's, I think
• 3:11:43
  it's much more effective. What?
• 3:11:44
  What always makes me laugh and it doesn't make me feel smart.
• 3:11:47
  It's when people missed a joke. So when the Slovene turned out
• 3:11:51
  to be, you know, political windbags and people were going,
• 3:11:55
  oh, they're just farting aliens. They tear up.
• 3:11:57
  I was like, Oh yeah, yeah. OK.
• 3:12:04
  Let's see Este O double R. That's a mouthful.
• 3:12:09
  I was never really on board with Martha's crush.
• 3:12:11
  Some episodes it felt shoe horned in.
• 3:12:14
  Therefore her second exit felt a bit odd.
• 3:12:16
  She more or less said you didn't realise we've got a massive
• 3:12:18
  crush on you, so I'm leaving you because you don't see me that
• 3:12:21
  way. I didn't read it that way.
• 3:12:24
  No, but I do understand what is the estate double O, you know,
• 3:12:34
  unease with the, with the dynamic because it is a, you
• 3:12:39
  know, it is a, it is a hard one for the character.
• 3:12:43
  If you're introduced as automatically, you have to not
• 3:12:46
  be a carbon copy of Rose. So of course they, they change
• 3:12:50
  the dynamic up and go, well, it's a, it's an unrequited, you
• 3:12:53
  know, the doctor's still mooning over Rose and and Martha's whole
• 3:12:56
  vibe is that she's wanted to be noticed and isn't that's that's
• 3:12:59
  a, that's a real, that's a really disadvantageous thing to
• 3:13:02
  me. But you totally understand why
• 3:13:05
  that's the next dynamic that the show needs.
• 3:13:10
  But I can understand why it doesn't work for some people
• 3:13:16
  because, you know, it is heavily compromised by what has, what
• 3:13:19
  has gone before and what it needs to be reacting against.
• 3:13:24
  And, and, and and it does mean poor old Martha suffers a a
• 3:13:29
  little bit because it's, it's not a very attractive character
• 3:13:34
  trait to be the, the, the, the unnoticed 1, is it?
• 3:13:37
  You know? And he does say she's brilliant
• 3:13:40
  and all of those, you know, things that the Doctor says to
• 3:13:42
  his companion. But it isn't the same
• 3:13:44
  relationship he had with both Rose and Donna.
• 3:13:47
  Maybe that's why. Yeah.
• 3:13:49
  Well, yeah, because again, when Donna comes in, whoever it was
• 3:13:54
  going to be the next companion, you have to go.
• 3:13:55
  Well, we've done the one that they both sort of love each
• 3:13:58
  other and can't say anything. We've done the one where she
• 3:14:00
  loves him and he doesn't notice. So what do we do, you know?
• 3:14:03
  Oh, well, they're just mates and, and, and.
• 3:14:05
  And you. Ah, well, great.
• 3:14:07
  Yeah. And that.
• 3:14:08
  And that's much. That's immediately much more
• 3:14:10
  fun. It's more fun and what I love
• 3:14:12
  about the Doctor Donna dynamic is she doesn't really believe in
• 3:14:16
  herself and he's always telling her, you know, you're brilliant
• 3:14:21
  and and that just got me on board with her straight away
• 3:14:23
  that she's always got those doubts about herself and he's
• 3:14:26
  and. The other very clever thing
• 3:14:28
  about Donna is that she's awful. But.
• 3:14:32
  Again, we said this, haven't we? Takes such a good writer to go
• 3:14:36
  Yeah, she's awful, but she's great.
• 3:14:38
  Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm
• 3:14:41
  going to round this off with two comments, one very negative and
• 3:14:46
  one very positive. It's.
• 3:14:48
  Just so how divisive this episode can be so.
• 3:14:51
  You've got half a dead crave Raven on your head and half a
• 3:14:54
  dead dove on your head. You're you're being the equal
• 3:14:57
  forces of light and darkness. Here we go.
• 3:15:00
  So the Lord Reverend Cole ingenious Moe great names here.
• 3:15:05
  I really hated it. The shriveled Dr. Messiah Dr.
• 3:15:09
  was just silly. I was never a fan of Martha and
• 3:15:12
  the whole get everyone saying the Doctor thing was
• 3:15:14
  embarrassing. It really is the worst of
• 3:15:17
  Russell T Davis. Gosh, well, I respect.
• 3:15:23
  You, but I don't agree with you. I, I, no, but I can see why.
• 3:15:26
  I can see why it would provoke that reaction.
• 3:15:28
  I think particularly the, the everybody chanting, the doctor
• 3:15:31
  thing. If if, if you're not, if you're
• 3:15:33
  not dialed into sort of the tone of of what that's after, I can
• 3:15:39
  absolutely see why you might think that's sort of pretty
• 3:15:43
  mawkish and horrible, but it works for me because of what
• 3:15:48
  he's driving at and what we've we've talked about before.
• 3:15:51
  It it to a certain extent, but I can understand if you're if
• 3:15:54
  you're not, if you're not plugged into that, why why it it
• 3:15:59
  would be a real turn off. I get, I get.
• 3:16:00
  I get that. And then Jackson Reece, who's a
• 3:16:04
  wonderful podcaster. I love his podcast to hold for
• 3:16:07
  TV. It says Last of the Time Lord
• 3:16:09
  stretched everything Doctor Who could be and was when it aired,
• 3:16:15
  and I absolutely loved it. It's always a special story for
• 3:16:17
  me. I wish you'd gone into more
• 3:16:19
  detail there because I'd like to hear that.
• 3:16:21
  Yeah, well. But we did say it's doing new
• 3:16:25
  things, isn't it? And new things are going to be
• 3:16:27
  divisive, boldly. Yeah.
• 3:16:29
  And and of course, you know, when you when you're building on
• 3:16:34
  a success, you have to build on what's gone before, but also do
• 3:16:36
  different from what's gone before.
• 3:16:38
  And that's always going to be slightly jarring because when
• 3:16:42
  you like something, you sort of want it to be like it was when
• 3:16:45
  you liked it. But of course, if it does that,
• 3:16:47
  it gets repetitive and boring. And familiarity breeds contempt.
• 3:16:51
  So it has to do something different.
• 3:16:52
  But because it's different, it then doesn't necessarily feel
• 3:16:54
  quite right, which is why it's always rewarding to come back
• 3:16:58
  and revisit this stuff when you're freed of the shackles of
• 3:17:02
  of the expectations of the time and the momentum of the time.
• 3:17:05
  And you can just watch a story sort of on its own terms and
• 3:17:08
  really enjoy it, you know? What I love by the Rusty Davis
• 3:17:11
  era is it really, some of it really looks back at what Doctor
• 3:17:16
  Who did before and updates it a bit, you know, based under
• 3:17:19
  Siege, the Impossible Planet, you know, things like that.
• 3:17:22
  But at the same time it completely catapults it into the
• 3:17:26
  modern age and does fresh and interesting things.
• 3:17:30
  I've just pulled one example out of a hat asking that question a
• 3:17:33
  companion has left with the Doctor.
• 3:17:36
  What questions are asked from the family and friends left
• 3:17:39
  behind that we've even thought of in 26 seasons before?
• 3:17:43
  Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah.
• 3:17:46
  The fact that Francie really hates him.
• 3:17:50
  And Sylvia? Yeah, yeah, she.
• 3:17:53
  Well, we'll find out. I love.
• 3:17:56
  Her. Well, OK, our last task then is
• 3:18:00
  to another thing is going to be too difficult.
• 3:18:02
  Choose three recommendations for the two episodes.
• 3:18:06
  Yeah. Why don't you go first?
• 3:18:10
  I I think that overall feel of urban thriller that that it is
• 3:18:18
  given by the the the director and of course that's, that's
• 3:18:21
  prompted by the the script. But I think so the that that
• 3:18:24
  that sort of, you know, city underground, sharp suits, you
• 3:18:30
  know, machine guns on the streets, Jack booted police
• 3:18:33
  people, stuff happening in politics.
• 3:18:35
  There's sort of the it's it's like a sort of sci-fi episode of
• 3:18:38
  Spooks. And I think that that that that
• 3:18:41
  fits so well within Doctor Who and yet is never quite been done
• 3:18:45
  like that within Doctor Who. And I think it fits that story.
• 3:18:48
  And it's the first thing I think of when I think of that story is
• 3:18:51
  that kind of atmosphere given to it by the, the director.
• 3:18:55
  And I, I, I, it's a really nice feeling that the story has a,
• 3:19:00
  it's a lovely tone that the story has that I think really
• 3:19:03
  suits the script as well. Then my first thing is I sent
• 3:19:07
  you a message saying I think Rusty Davis is the master of the
• 3:19:12
  penultimate episode cliffhanger, Bad Wolf.
• 3:19:15
  You've got the Daleks scared because the Doctor's coming in
• 3:19:20
  Army of ghosts. You've got the side or promise
• 3:19:22
  of the Sidemen and the Daleks and in the Stolen Earth, Well,
• 3:19:26
  who's David Tennant going to be next week?
• 3:19:28
  You know, he absolutely is brilliant.
• 3:19:29
  But I think my favorite and the one I watched again and again in
• 3:19:33
  the lead up to the last episode is this one.
• 3:19:36
  I think the whole set piece from when he says here comes the
• 3:19:39
  drums, the the balls come down. They start murdering everybody.
• 3:19:44
  The Doctor's been tortured. Martha's on her own.
• 3:19:47
  It's so climactic, it's so exciting.
• 3:19:51
  I think he just knows how to to sort of generate that feeling of
• 3:19:55
  excitement in people and to get him back next week.
• 3:19:58
  So that's my first one. I think that's a very, very good
• 3:20:03
  choice. I'm also going to choose a
• 3:20:05
  sequence and it's everything that happens between and
• 3:20:09
  including the master on the television saying every doctor
• 3:20:16
  and then turning the telly round and seeing the stick of dynamite
• 3:20:20
  and them then pulling away under that that the hail of gunfire
• 3:20:26
  and ending up in the the under underpass underneath the bridge.
• 3:20:29
  That whole sequence of the explosion.
• 3:20:32
  Martha telling them, I don't care.
• 3:20:34
  I'm going to you know, I'm going to go and get my family.
• 3:20:36
  The, the heroic moment of, of, of Martha's dad with Francine
• 3:20:42
  yelling at him. The, and I'm sorry, the, the,
• 3:20:45
  the, the, the, the sexy, mysterious lady doing a take aim
• 3:20:50
  fire and all of that. Or that whole sequence, I think
• 3:20:55
  is every moment from the bit, the bit of silence when they
• 3:20:58
  pull up and it's what's going to happen.
• 3:21:00
  It's, you know, so from the sound, the music, the, the
• 3:21:03
  shooting of it, the, the acting, the aesthetic, every the pacing,
• 3:21:07
  everything about that sequence, I when I'm watching the episode,
• 3:21:10
  I look forward to that bit coming up and I thoroughly enjoy
• 3:21:14
  every second of it when it happens it.
• 3:21:16
  Shouldn't have like every frame was considered, doesn't it in
• 3:21:20
  that editing suite? Yeah, absolutely cracking.
• 3:21:24
  My second one is going to be Lucy Saxon, because I think it's
• 3:21:28
  really hard to be a character that compelling with that little
• 3:21:33
  dialogue and the idea of giving the master a wife is enticing
• 3:21:39
  anyway. But they're sort of very creepy,
• 3:21:43
  dark undertones. They had a bruise on her eye and
• 3:21:48
  but like I said, my eye was just constantly drawn to her in every
• 3:21:50
  single scene. And the fact that she gets to
• 3:21:53
  fire the gun at the end as well is a nice but she's just a
• 3:21:57
  brilliant, brilliant character. Well plays, supposedly well
• 3:22:00
  written, but she doesn't get a lot to say.
• 3:22:03
  No, she's it's, she's really good.
• 3:22:05
  Yeah. I mean, there's the scope there
• 3:22:07
  in the script, but it takes her, it takes a good actress And I,
• 3:22:11
  you know, you wonder how much they saw of that in the edit and
• 3:22:13
  went, my God, she's doing some great stuff here.
• 3:22:15
  Let's let's pop this in. Let's pop that, you know,
• 3:22:18
  because I suspect if you read the script and looked at how
• 3:22:22
  many lines she'd got, you go, oh Christ, there's nothing here.
• 3:22:26
  But of course, it can be layered into the script in instead, but
• 3:22:33
  also it it means that the actress has obviously turned up
• 3:22:36
  and and and done a lot of work and and definitely deserves the
• 3:22:40
  screen time that she gets and and and puts in some makes some
• 3:22:44
  really interesting and, as you say, quite alarming in places
• 3:22:48
  choices. Weird moment where she dances at
• 3:22:51
  the end of the sound of Rob's as everybody's being killed.
• 3:22:55
  Yeah, yeah, I. Want to know what's going on in
• 3:22:57
  her head at that point? Well done, Alexandra Moen.
• 3:23:01
  It's very, it's a very good piece of work.
• 3:23:05
  Yeah. Ah, well, I mean, I'm support
• 3:23:07
  for choice because this is my last one is, you know, I I I
• 3:23:15
  love Vivian Rook, You know, Nicola McAuliffe.
• 3:23:18
  I think I will choose her actually, because I think she's
• 3:23:25
  brilliant and it's a, it's a real master class in, you know
• 3:23:30
  what to do with a very limited, it's a beautifully written part
• 3:23:33
  and it's, it's not a small part. It's just, it's condensed.
• 3:23:36
  And obviously it's a good enough part to get a, a very good
• 3:23:39
  actress to do it. I was going to choose that, that
• 3:23:41
  piece of music, the all the strange, strange creatures,
• 3:23:44
  because I love that. And as I say, I, I, I, I play it
• 3:23:48
  a lot and pretend to be a Doctor Who because I'm a child, but
• 3:23:52
  I'm, I'm drawn this time. I'm drawn to to to Vivian Rook
• 3:23:56
  because I think and because of the way that that the
• 3:24:00
  interactions that she has go through every every tone in such
• 3:24:06
  a small space stuff. The breezy she's oh, she's a
• 3:24:08
  breezy, larger than knife character.
• 3:24:10
  She's going to be fun. Oh God, no, she's doing the
• 3:24:12
  conspiracy secret stuff. Oh, that's quite exciting.
• 3:24:16
  That's new layer. Oh, she's, she's absolutely
• 3:24:19
  terrified and she's showing the threat to the Master.
• 3:24:21
  Oh, and then she gets a sort of slightly dark comedy death.
• 3:24:24
  It's all there and it all works together.
• 3:24:29
  So it's a, it's a testament to how many different things you
• 3:24:32
  can do within the, you know, the context of Doctor Who.
• 3:24:36
  And, and it's still all weirdly fit together because the fact
• 3:24:39
  that some of these shows have this broad range of things going
• 3:24:44
  on and they don't come across as a total mess, shows a real
• 3:24:49
  control of of of tone and tempo. And I think, again, you'd only
• 3:24:54
  notice this if it was bad. So the fact that all this stuff
• 3:24:57
  happens and we don't notice it unless we're really thinking
• 3:25:00
  about it and talking at great length about it, shows so much
• 3:25:03
  of the work that is done on some of these shows.
• 3:25:05
  Because making good television is hard, especially when it's
• 3:25:09
  good television. It's asking a lot more if it's
• 3:25:11
  the people making it the most television.
• 3:25:13
  The, the, we, you know, I think we sometimes take for granted
• 3:25:20
  just how cleverly some of this stuff is, is, is pulled off.
• 3:25:27
  And I think that's a great, that's a great example of it.
• 3:25:30
  So, yeah, Vivienne Rook and that and that, that, you know, all,
• 3:25:33
  all the different things that that just one thread gives us.
• 3:25:39
  And I always forget that you see her again when she's recorded
• 3:25:42
  that message. It's.
• 3:25:43
  Always a surprise to me. Well, she even gets a comedy
• 3:25:46
  death as well. There's so much I know.
• 3:25:49
  Let's not let's not forget how many times she's exploited that
• 3:25:52
  scream. Great.
• 3:25:53
  Good for her. And yeah, and she's, she's good.
• 3:25:55
  She's good value. Nicola McAuliffe for my brief
• 3:25:58
  meeting with her as anything to go by.
• 3:26:00
  She's a good egg. I don't get the impression she
• 3:26:03
  doesn't need the work in those conventions either, that she
• 3:26:05
  just loves coming along and telling her stories.
• 3:26:08
  Yeah, and very generous. She's very generous with
• 3:26:11
  everybody, with her time. Good.
• 3:26:14
  Yeah, she was excellent in this stage play.
• 3:26:17
  I saw with her and Julian Glover and Sheila Reed.
• 3:26:21
  I mean, what a triumvirate of talent.
• 3:26:23
  Yeah, then for my last one, I'm going to choose Martha's exit.
• 3:26:30
  Yeah. Because it I think it is AI.
• 3:26:32
  Think Russy Davis. We talked about this in Season
• 3:26:35
  2, the sort of long game with the Doctor and Rose and, you
• 3:26:39
  know, the punishment stroke pay off at the end of that.
• 3:26:43
  And I think he's doing the same thing here.
• 3:26:44
  And I think he knows he's going to cheese some people off in
• 3:26:48
  scenes in the Shakespeare coat and things like that where the
• 3:26:51
  doctors in the bed alongside Martha, completely dismissing
• 3:26:54
  her, you know, and she's given him moon eyes.
• 3:26:58
  But Martha does turn a corner halfway through the season where
• 3:27:01
  she just goes, you know, I've had enough of this.
• 3:27:03
  I'm I'm I'm off and he's like, no, I'm giving you a key.
• 3:27:06
  And and that's what a moment where he's really acknowledging
• 3:27:09
  her. Then we get human nature and the
• 3:27:11
  family of blood, which plays on the whole thing of unrequired
• 3:27:14
  love in a whole new way and brilliantly.
• 3:27:19
  And then we're sort of leading into this where she really comes
• 3:27:22
  into her own and decides that her family is actually more
• 3:27:25
  important than anything. And so many of these companion
• 3:27:31
  endings I think are so overblown or I'm not sure how to feel
• 3:27:36
  about them. I don't know how to feel about
• 3:27:39
  Amy and Rory going back into the past and the Doctor not being
• 3:27:43
  able to visit them when they could probably just go to
• 3:27:45
  another town. I'm not sure how to feel about
• 3:27:49
  Clara Oswald travelling around time and space, cheating death
• 3:27:53
  in a diner with the woman at the end of time.
• 3:27:57
  And I'm certainly not sure how to feel about Bill Potts
• 3:28:01
  travelling time and space with her lesbian puddle lover.
• 3:28:04
  I don't have to think about any of that stuff.
• 3:28:07
  It's just all such weird endings.
• 3:28:10
  I know the Rose ending broke my heart, the Donner ending broke
• 3:28:14
  my heart, and Ossie Davis is the person to do that.
• 3:28:18
  But this is the one which is just.
• 3:28:19
  Really. Positive and subtle and and
• 3:28:24
  vusely written, very real. As I said, I've used it in my
• 3:28:28
  life to sort of demonstrate to somebody get out of that
• 3:28:32
  relationship. It really, really moves me and I
• 3:28:35
  what's baffling is it shows you how much I kind of matured as
• 3:28:38
  ATV watcher because I found it a bit dull at the time.
• 3:28:42
  And now I just think it's really celebratory.
• 3:28:44
  The way she sort of walks out the tile is with her head held
• 3:28:46
  high, having coming out of that season as a better person.
• 3:28:50
  And you know, it's very different from when Graham and
• 3:28:54
  Ryan decide to go in Revolution of the Daleks.
• 3:28:57
  It almost just feels like, well, we've had enough.
• 3:28:59
  We're off, you know, and Dan in in Power of the Doctrine.
• 3:29:02
  I did love all those characters, but he's just like, you know, I
• 3:29:05
  had one dangerous scrape, so I'm off.
• 3:29:08
  Despite the fact that I've been having dangerous scrapes ever
• 3:29:10
  since I've stepped into the TARDIS, none of it so his.
• 3:29:13
  His is entirely I'm going on tour.
• 3:29:17
  But none of it rings true. And.
• 3:29:20
  Graham and Ryan are very much we've decided not to renew our
• 3:29:23
  contracts because we were being underused, you know.
• 3:29:26
  I didn't look like Graham's, do you?
• 3:29:28
  Know what, I would like to keep travelling, but he's my
• 3:29:31
  grandson. I'm going to go with him.
• 3:29:32
  I didn't really like that, but yeah, so this is my favorite and
• 3:29:37
  I think it's worth celebrating for all of those reasons.
• 3:29:39
  It's a great scene. I think your advocacy is, is on
• 3:29:44
  the money there. I, I completely buy that.
• 3:29:46
  And I yeah, quite right as it is.
• 3:29:48
  It's, it's, it's great and it's, it's refreshing and it's
• 3:29:51
  original and it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a good version of
• 3:29:55
  of, of how to have a companion exiting.
• 3:29:58
  Well, yeah, bang on. The station.
• 3:30:01
  Oh, I'd love to unpick with you what you think about all those
• 3:30:03
  other bizarre endings, but not today.
• 3:30:08
  Yeah, we, well, we will. We will, I'm sure, yes, visit
• 3:30:12
  those. I'm not sure how I feel about
• 3:30:14
  them, to be honest. I mean, I, I feel that the, the
• 3:30:17
  the, the Clara one and the Bill one are essentially the same.
• 3:30:23
  The, the, the person is died but is miraculously sort of
• 3:30:28
  resurrected, but as a compromised version.
• 3:30:31
  You know, they can't go back to their own life because of the
• 3:30:34
  price that has been paid for the resurrection.
• 3:30:36
  And so they end up travelling through space and time with a
• 3:30:44
  certain sapphic undertone of a character they've encountered.
• 3:30:49
  So there's, there's a lot of similarity.
• 3:30:51
  And I in in a setup that I'm find slightly unsatisfying as a
• 3:30:59
  resolution anyway. And to have that happen twice
• 3:31:01
  seems a bit of, you know, I don't buy the oh, I'm relieved
• 3:31:06
  my favorite character isn't actually dead.
• 3:31:10
  If what it means is they aren't human anymore, don't have a
• 3:31:13
  heartbeat and can't do any of the nice things that we do as
• 3:31:15
  humans, it means that the much loved actress, you know, lives
• 3:31:21
  to perform that character another day.
• 3:31:23
  But the the reality of the for the actual character is I'm not
• 3:31:27
  a person anymore. Seems to me an odd tonally an
• 3:31:32
  odd victory. And there's just so only so many
• 3:31:35
  times I can accept that, you know, this beloved character is
• 3:31:39
  dead. Oh no, wait, they're not before
• 3:31:42
  I just stop believing anybody's dead.
• 3:31:45
  Yes, indeed. It's it's, it's a, it's an act
• 3:31:48
  of diminishing returns, unfortunately.
• 3:31:51
  And in fact, when Clara died in the Raven one, I thought, well,
• 3:31:54
  I know she's going to come. I know she's going to come back.
• 3:31:57
  I just. Seen that cover of Doctor Who
• 3:31:58
  magazine where she was dressed up as the waitress, and that
• 3:32:01
  hadn't happened yet. In fact, you know what I'll very
• 3:32:05
  quickly say in The Woman Who Fell to Earth when Grace died
• 3:32:09
  and we had the funeral and that coda and I was like, oh, OK,
• 3:32:13
  we're doing something different now.
• 3:32:14
  People stay dead in this version of Doctor Who.
• 3:32:17
  Whereas I because and because all of the posters and all the
• 3:32:22
  publicity said, well, these are the new companions and this is
• 3:32:26
  the new Doctor. And you go, well, who's the one
• 3:32:28
  person that, well, she's toast, isn't she?
• 3:32:32
  You know, she's, she's not been announced as a, as a, as a
• 3:32:35
  regular character. And she did.
• 3:32:38
  Appear in the last one as a ghost, you know.
• 3:32:43
  Oh yeah. Toby, this has been a an epic 4
• 3:32:49
  hour recording. Well, I'm sorry about that for a
• 3:32:52
  90 minute. Sorry, so sorry, I'm so sorry.
• 3:32:58
  Don't. You dare apologize.
• 3:32:59
  It has been an absolute treasure as ever.
• 3:33:02
  Well, I hope your listeners enjoy it.
• 3:33:05
  I can almost guarantee that they will and I'm hoping the thing we
• 3:33:09
  mentioned within the recording that you will pop back.
• 3:33:12
  I know you have already covered Midnight, but I'm sure we can
• 3:33:15
  unearth. Some.
• 3:33:18
  The treasures as we go through it, it's quite possibly my
• 3:33:22
  favorite David Tennant era story.
• 3:33:26
  Yeah, so I turn. Left actually well that's yes
• 3:33:34
  it's hard for me to choose a favorite because there's so much
• 3:33:36
  that's that's good but yeah and and at the time I I think I was
• 3:33:41
  that run of tooth and claw to school reunion to girl in the
• 3:33:45
  fireplace to me just seeing so but actually and and whereas
• 3:33:49
  midnight the first time I you know I thought it was
• 3:33:53
  interesting and curious, but I thought it's not really like an
• 3:33:55
  episode of Doc do Midnight is one that as every time I've come
• 3:33:59
  back to it I've I've enjoyed it more and more and more and more.
• 3:34:03
  It's one that's really grown on me and it's I think it's
• 3:34:08
  probably one of my favourites too.
• 3:34:11
  But I do like all the season finales as well and human nature
• 3:34:14
  and family blood. But no midnight is is very, very
• 3:34:18
  special. I'm perfectly.
• 3:34:19
  Convinced that Lindsay Coulson's character is the biggest monster
• 3:34:23
  in the entire series. She.
• 3:34:26
  Terrifies me. She's so good and that that
• 3:34:29
  brilliant piece of acting when she says I knew it was her, but
• 3:34:33
  then then then at least looks a little bit ashamed as well, so.
• 3:34:38
  Wanted to ring someone's neck, you know, reach into the telly
• 3:34:41
  more. So good, so good.
• 3:34:45
  Well, we'll unpick that in the future.
• 3:34:47
  I just need to say thank you so much for your time again, you're
• 3:34:50
  an absolute gem. Thanks for having me.