Latest / A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast / Strictly Come Hamster - 11th Doctor Special (featuring Frazer, Si, Mark, Luke & Jackson)

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Strictly Come Hamster - 11th Doctor Special (featuring Frazer, Si, Mark, Luke & Jackson) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:02
  Rest now, my world. OK, then that's what I'll do.
• 0:23
  I will tell you a story. Can you hear?
• 1:00
  Them all these people who lived in terror of you.
• 1:02
  In your judgement. All these.
• 1:04
  People whose ancestors devoted themselves sacrificed themselves
• 1:09
  to you. Can you hear them singing?
• 1:21
  Oh, you like to think you're a God.
• 1:23
  You're not a God. You're just a parasite.
• 1:28
  Eat now with jealousy and envy and longing for the lives of
• 1:32
  others. You.
• 1:34
  Feed. On them.
• 1:36
  On the memory of love and loss and birth and death and joy and
• 1:40
  sorrow. So so.
• 1:46
  Come on then, take mine, take my memories and I hope you've got a
• 1:56
  big appetite because I have lived.
• 2:00
  A long life and I have seen a few things.
• 2:16
  I walked away. From the Last Great Time War I
• 2:20
  marked. The passing of the Time Lords.
• 2:23
  I saw the birth of the universe, and I watched as time ran out,
• 2:28
  moment by moment, until nothing remained.
• 2:31
  No time, no space, Just me. I walked in universes where the
• 2:37
  laws of physics were devised by the mind of a madman.
• 2:44
  I've watched universes breeze and creations burn.
• 2:48
  I have seen things you would have believed I have lost things
• 2:53
  you will never understand. And I know things.
• 2:57
  Sequence that must never be told.
• 2:59
  Knowledge that must never be spoken.
• 3:02
  Knowledge that will make parasite God's place.
• 3:07
  So come on then, take it. Take it all baby.
• 3:14
  Have it. You have it all.
• 3:52
  Welcome back to Strictly Come Hamster.
• 3:55
  My name is Joe Ford, and miracle of miracles, I'm going to have
• 4:00
  no opinions beyond the fact that this is strictly come hamster,
• 4:03
  the Matt Smith special. Why does Mark Donaldson looked
• 4:06
  out for? I'm just put it out there.
• 4:10
  I don't think you're going to be able to stay impartial, but.
• 4:13
  I'll take my mouth up. We are here today to determine
• 4:18
  the I'll say the best, our favorite Matt Smith 11th Doctor
• 4:24
  episode. I've got a a panel of Smith
• 4:28
  fans, Smith lovers here and I'm going to go around now and ask
• 4:31
  everybody to say who they are and how the hell would people
• 4:34
  know you in podcast land? Let's start with Luke.
• 4:40
  Matt Smith's the best. Matt Smith is the best.
• 4:42
  I love, love Matt Smith. He's the best doctor ever.
• 4:45
  Well, thank you for joining Strictly.
• 4:47
  Come Hamster, the Matt Smith special.
• 4:48
  We'll see you. And how would people know you,
• 4:52
  Luke? Where are you from?
• 4:53
  I'm from you, Joe. Fucking plots.
• 4:58
  Listen it so Melody Pond all over.
• 5:00
  Again, that's very of this era. I'm your father.
• 5:07
  This is. Where the doofs come in.
• 5:09
  You named your podcaster after your podcaster?
• 5:13
  Yeah, No, I mean, I don't have a podcast of my own, which just
• 5:17
  set me apart for most fans, but I'm usually fucking on them, so
• 5:24
  here we are. So basically every every
• 5:27
  podcast. As you call me, I'm a podcast
• 5:29
  hoe. You are one of my favourite
• 5:32
  podcast hosts. Yes, you are.
• 5:33
  Hello, Jackson Reece, how are you today?
• 5:35
  I'm very well. Thank you.
• 5:37
  You're. Going to start with some massive
• 5:39
  exclamation about Matt Smith as the doctor.
• 5:42
  Well, my favorite Matt Smith episode is the one with Matt
• 5:46
  Smith in it. Oh.
• 5:48
  That's. It.
• 5:50
  I liked that one too. Are there?
• 5:51
  Any on the list that you could choose from that you would have
• 5:54
  liked to have spoken about rather than these episodes?
• 5:58
  There's quite a few ones that I think should be on that.
• 6:01
  I think The Impossible Astronaut is pretty damn good.
• 6:05
  I have a lot of love for that and the day of the Boon.
• 6:10
  You're right, Mark, this is going to be really hard.
• 6:14
  And Jackson, where can people find you?
• 6:16
  Not on this podcast. You can find me very
• 6:19
  occasionally on 2 Hot for TV, which is the podcast mainly
• 6:24
  presented by my brother Dylan Reece.
• 6:26
  Not frequently enough if you ask me.
• 6:28
  You 2. Together we're doing more.
• 6:30
  We're doing a lot more this year.
• 6:33
  We just need to put it in between our schedules.
• 6:35
  Again, that sounds like Steven Moffett promoting Season 6, but
• 6:38
  it's going to be in two parts over the year.
• 6:41
  This could be more Doctor Who than ever before.
• 6:44
  Well, there's a nice voice piping up there.
• 6:46
  Hello, Mark Donaldson. Hello, hello, how are you?
• 6:49
  It's yeah, I'm off of on the time MASH and I really like Matt
• 6:53
  Smith. In fact, I've really realized
• 6:55
  over watching these episodes he's probably, I think that's
• 7:00
  like my go to Happy place era is the Matt Smith sort of three
• 7:05
  seasons. Look at Joe's face, he will not
• 7:07
  stay in partial. A really bad day, Mark.
• 7:11
  Would you come home and put on, I don't know, the rebel flesh?
• 7:14
  Something like that. No, obviously not.
• 7:16
  I put on all the other like, there's loads of other ones to
• 7:20
  choose from you know? The rings of Acton, maybe?
• 7:23
  Maybe it's quite joyful. What 11 tower which isn't
• 7:27
  obviously on this? Possible spoilers for later.
• 7:32
  Hello Mr. Sigh, Heart, no one knows who you are, but please.
• 7:36
  Tell us what do I have to introduce where I'm from?
• 7:38
  Because have we got the we can boost the running time a lot.
• 7:44
  No, no, come on, name and shame. OK, so yeah, so I have my own
• 7:48
  podcast, The Library of Impossible Things.
• 7:50
  I have done more episodes of this than anyone else still.
• 7:55
  And you could all yeah, you'll never catch up.
• 8:00
  I have done. I'm a regular host on Trap One.
• 8:04
  I've done. I'm a regular voice on Maximum
• 8:07
  Power, the Blake 7 podcast, and I've guested wherever anyone
• 8:12
  will have me. You say Luke is a podcast hoe.
• 8:15
  He's got nothing on me. You appear more times than River
• 8:20
  Fucking Song, don't you and I? Would just say before you say
• 8:25
  that. Yes.
• 8:26
  Matt Smith was the doctor that I fell in love with most quickly
• 8:32
  ever. Absolutely.
• 8:36
  We will dig into that a bit later.
• 8:38
  Last but absolutely not least, the only person coming in Matt
• 8:42
  Smith cosplay. Fraser, Gregory.
• 8:46
  Good evening everyone. My name is Fraser.
• 8:48
  I am also a Matt Smith fan. I'm also.
• 8:51
  Sound like an AA meeting. Hello, morning.
• 8:54
  It's it's what it feels like. It's just, I'm not Smith fan.
• 8:57
  Oh, have you been like Matt Smith?
• 8:59
  He's my favorite. Yes, I'm also a gigantic
• 9:03
  podcast. Who are you will find me
• 9:07
  cropping up more than Amy's crack throughout the universe
• 9:10
  and everywhere, anywhere that will have us so.
• 9:14
  I before we go into the first conversation point, I'm going to
• 9:18
  ask you all I'm prepared to give me one word to describe Matt
• 9:22
  Smith as the doctor. OK, Luke.
• 9:27
  Exuberant. Mark.
• 9:31
  Awkward. Oh.
• 9:33
  That's great, Jackson. Charming, OH.
• 9:38
  Definitely Fraser all. Right, Madame Vastra, Dr. I'm.
• 9:45
  Sorry. Gangly.
• 9:48
  Gangly. Yeah, he's very gangly.
• 9:53
  Those fucking arms don't stop moving in Series 7.
• 9:55
  I'm sorry though. OK, well look, before we go into
• 10:01
  round one, I would like to talk about the ears.
• 10:04
  I'm not the Doctor. We'll do that later on.
• 10:07
  What do you think of the Matt Smith era as a whole?
• 10:09
  Series 5, Series 6 and Series 7. Luke well, I mean, series 5 is
• 10:19
  the best series of Doctor Who, so that's a very strong starting
• 10:23
  point. It's got an amazing series arc
• 10:29
  that doesn't intrude on the episodes that though it's not
• 10:33
  really part of. But also is is in there enough
• 10:37
  that it does feel like it builds, you know, I mean, I
• 10:40
  generally love stuff that has got like, you know, back to the
• 10:45
  Future 2 has Marty going inside back to the future one.
• 10:49
  So the fact that the whole series arc has concluded with a
• 10:53
  reversing timeline that has seen set in episodes we've already
• 10:57
  watched. It's just so clever and so
• 10:59
  satisfying and so magnificent. And at the centre of it all is
• 11:03
  Matt Smith. Just this this No, like the
• 11:07
  previous nobody that is instantly took on the role of
• 11:12
  the Doctor quicker than I agree with sight anyone.
• 11:15
  Maybe Tom Baker is as close as it gets before it, but just
• 11:20
  straight out the doors walking into that scarecrow post or
• 11:24
  whatever it is. It's just straight away the
• 11:26
  Doctor. So I love that.
• 11:27
  And I mean the first sort of five episodes of Series 5 with
• 11:30
  him and Amy exploring the universe and that sort of I know
• 11:35
  it is. I don't want to say this word
• 11:37
  too much. Fairy tale feeling that you get
• 11:41
  in that first five is just fills me with absolute wanderlust.
• 11:44
  Then I just watched them first five over and over again, as
• 11:48
  well as the finale, which is just a brilliant.
• 11:52
  Luke. Yeah, yeah, it's got Matt Smith
• 11:54
  punching someone in the face. That's great.
• 11:56
  Sorry. So can I just interrupt at this
• 11:59
  point just to make the point that Joe Ford is going to say
• 12:02
  bad things about the fat? Mix in.
• 12:04
  Victory the Daleks and I just need to make the point now that
• 12:07
  he has one in his bath every time he has a bath with his
• 12:11
  Paradigm Dalek and that just needs to be made.
• 12:13
  So carry on my. Bookshelf as well he used.
• 12:17
  To have bubble bath in it, yeah. Because when they brought those,
• 12:19
  yeah, yeah. You know, you get like a little
• 12:21
  set. There was like 2 or. 3.
• 12:23
  Yeah. He's got all, all of them, all
• 12:25
  the colours. How do you know what's in my
• 12:28
  bath? You keep trying to show us.
• 12:32
  Not really. Oh, it's alright.
• 12:34
  Yeah. Series 5, the high point.
• 12:35
  Series 6 I enjoyed but slightly less.
• 12:39
  I have got that feeling of when you think about it, it just
• 12:42
  feels dark and grim because of I think mainly the colour palette.
• 12:46
  I actually don't think it really is story wise.
• 12:50
  I just don't think it's got. I think you've had a better
• 12:52
  payoff for the end. It's sort of would tie the
• 12:54
  series together better, but it doesn't.
• 12:57
  I don't think The Wedding of Favorite Song is very strong as
• 13:00
  a conclusion and that probably that's it down.
• 13:02
  Like any series. I think if the finale where
• 13:04
  everything's leading to in the modern series, that's it down.
• 13:08
  Off about Empire of. Death, like Empire of Death, it
• 13:12
  does impact the Series A bit as all, but it's got some cracking
• 13:14
  episodes in and Matt Smith sort of becomes a bit more darker and
• 13:17
  manipulative. And that's that's fun to see in
• 13:20
  a Doctor because I'm so bored of the Doctor being a nice guy or
• 13:24
  lazy. And then 7A.
• 13:28
  Sort of fine. I do enjoy the episodes, but
• 13:32
  fine. And then 7B, I really like 7 BI,
• 13:36
  feel like I'm always champion at 7B.
• 13:38
  It's just two people that sort of fancy each other, find about
• 13:41
  time and space for a bit, and in the build it's the 50th.
• 13:43
  It was quite nice. OK.
• 13:47
  So you think you're sort of hemorrhaging interest as you go
• 13:51
  or? No, I think for me it'd be like
• 13:54
  five, then 7B, then six and then 7A.
• 13:57
  So flip flops up, but I mean, 5 is a real high point and then
• 14:01
  the other three it's just pure. It's just enjoyment on different
• 14:04
  levels. Fraser, the Era.
• 14:08
  The era, yes, kind of agreeing with what looks in there.
• 14:12
  Obviously Series 5 was was phenomenal.
• 14:17
  You know, coming after the first four series where Rusty has laid
• 14:22
  down the template that every series follows since Moffat took
• 14:29
  that template and really just invigorated it.
• 14:34
  Series 4 for me, as we'll discuss in a week or two time
• 14:39
  felt quite tired by that point. It was sort of like you could
• 14:44
  see the that's the crack shown, but you know, it just it was
• 14:49
  running a bit dry, I felt then Moffat.
• 14:52
  You couldn't see the crack showing in Series 5?
• 14:56
  Come on now. We'll get that.
• 15:00
  But yeah, so, you know, series 5 was just, you know, exactly the
• 15:04
  same as what we've had before, but somehow just completely
• 15:07
  magical and reinvigorated was everything was like turned up to
• 15:11
  11. It was kind of like, you know,
• 15:14
  Davos is going to threaten to destroy the universe,
• 15:16
  motherfucker, I'm actually going to do it.
• 15:18
  Boom, there you go. And I've still got an episode of
• 15:20
  Left Bitch. And you know, it was just,
• 15:24
  everything was just fresh and new and exciting.
• 15:26
  I think that's one of the reasons why it really worked
• 15:30
  going into 6. I think it is a great grimmer
• 15:34
  and it is a bit darker, but I think what would see in there is
• 15:37
  a shift away from light entertainment into drama.
• 15:42
  You know, there's always been the balance between the two in
• 15:45
  Doctor Who to certain extent. You've always got a bit of bit
• 15:49
  of guns and a bit of frock and you've got the sort of balance
• 15:52
  between the two. And I think CS 5 was very much
• 15:55
  more light entertainment, but then six went a lot more drama.
• 16:00
  Whether you like that or not, you know your mileage is always
• 16:02
  going to vary. There's some fantastic stories
• 16:05
  in in CB6 and some absolutely wonderful bits of drama, some of
• 16:11
  which we're going to talk about. There's some low points as well.
• 16:14
  I'm not going to lie. There's there's some bits where
• 16:16
  you just think when you watch, when you watch your back and
• 16:20
  when you watch at the time, like you said this, this arc just
• 16:25
  really didn't work in six. So that fell a bit flat.
• 16:28
  And then you go into 7 where you've got the sort of cinema of
• 16:33
  the week feel. Because another thing about 6
• 16:37
  is, you know, Moffett's done the rusty template.
• 16:40
  He's done, you know, the traditional new series series,
• 16:44
  and then he decides to mix it up a bit.
• 16:46
  Obviously, we'll have a break in between, which is never a good
• 16:49
  idea and whether that was intentional or Sherlock foisted
• 16:53
  on us. But he's mixing things up.
• 16:54
  But he's trying new things. He does it again with Seven.
• 16:57
  You know, this, this idea of every episode is just going to
• 17:00
  be a movie of the week. Feel about it as we usher the
• 17:05
  Ponds on their way. Series.
• 17:09
  We call it 7 Bay. Should we call it 8?
• 17:11
  Because, you know, new TARDIS, new titles, new companion, new
• 17:16
  outfit for the Doctor. It's, it's a new series in all
• 17:19
  but name. And that's, you know, the, the,
• 17:24
  the 50th anniversary year. It's trying its best, but there
• 17:27
  is some just a little spark missing from that.
• 17:31
  But you know, that spark comes back in the vengeance in the
• 17:35
  50th anniversary special day of the Doctor.
• 17:38
  You know, that just explodes all over everywhere into cinemas,
• 17:43
  into 3D. It's it's one of the best
• 17:47
  stories ever. And then you have time with the
• 17:49
  Doctor, which isn't, but it's still an absolutely phenomenal
• 17:53
  way out to see, wait to see out what was a phenomenal Dr. Thank
• 17:58
  you for coming to my Ted Talk. Jackson, what do you think of
• 18:03
  the Matt Smith era Doctor Who? I think it gave me a lot of hope
• 18:08
  for the show. So I think I do think the the
• 18:12
  Russell T Davis era had a very particular house style of, you
• 18:17
  know, aliens with animal heads. And David Tennant's performance
• 18:22
  got quite familiar. And I think Series 5 showed that
• 18:28
  the show didn't need to rely on that stuff, and it had a new
• 18:32
  fresh Doctor and a new fresh take on the show.
• 18:35
  And it showed that Doctor Who was a show that new showrunners
• 18:38
  could come to and put their stamp on it.
• 18:41
  So I loved Series 5, and then Series 6 came along, and it's
• 18:48
  probably my favorite series of Doctor Who, barring one other.
• 18:52
  I think the ambition of it is everything that the show should
• 18:55
  be doing. I'm not saying that it delivers
• 18:58
  on the ambition that it lays down, but I remember watching
• 19:02
  The Impossible Astronauts and thinking this is the perfect
• 19:06
  marriage of everything the new series has set up and everything
• 19:11
  that I enjoyed about the wilderness years and you know,
• 19:15
  new Adventures or Big Finish, whatever.
• 19:18
  It just had such an amazing scope and I think Series 5 and
• 19:23
  Series 6 just keep building and improving on itself, barring a
• 19:27
  few duds. And it's only really towards the
• 19:30
  end of Series 6 that some of that confidence is lost.
• 19:35
  So I think Series 7 is a slight, I think it's it loses its
• 19:42
  confidence that's laid down in the series before it, but then
• 19:48
  it it brings me back with the final few specials.
• 19:52
  And I think Day of the Doctor and even Time of the Doctor
• 19:57
  showed some real ambition returning again.
• 20:01
  So yeah, I think 2/3 of it is amazing.
• 20:05
  And then it slightly becomes scared of its own ambition and
• 20:10
  gets a bit, yeah, gets a bit tentative when it's so confident
• 20:15
  at the beginning. I am so pleased to have found
• 20:19
  the person that's played Series 6 is my favorite season of New.
• 20:24
  Who Is anyone else on this call in agreement with that?
• 20:28
  I'm not in agreement with that, but I will say Jackson, you
• 20:30
  know, I've always said Doctor Who wins points for me for being
• 20:34
  ambitious. Something like the Web planet is
• 20:37
  is my favorite. Hartnell story because of the
• 20:40
  ambition, because it tries something new, because it tries,
• 20:43
  you know, different things. So I'm I'm fully on board with
• 20:46
  what you're saying there about. Love the flux.
• 20:48
  I will say joint, joint first place, there's one of the
• 20:52
  series, there's not a number one, but there's two in that
• 20:55
  place. And the other one is a Stephen
• 20:57
  Moffat series, which is I think it's it's the one with with
• 21:04
  Clara and Kapound. Clara and Kapound in second
• 21:07
  series. Oh, there's oh, series. 90 God
• 21:10
  fucking hell that's my least favorite.
• 21:13
  Yes, that makes sense. Though it's it's ambitious in a,
• 21:18
  in a different one. Yeah, yeah.
• 21:21
  I just don't think Doctor Who's been bettered in those two
• 21:23
  series. Wow.
• 21:26
  Everyone else, I always remember John Dorny saying about series
• 21:34
  6, like, because a bit that slightly lets it down is the arc
• 21:38
  stuff, isn't it? And I always remember John Dorn
• 21:40
  saying if you weren't making TV on the fly, you can make that
• 21:44
  story. If you're writing a novel or
• 21:45
  something, you can make that story work.
• 21:47
  So you just go back and re edit it.
• 21:48
  Like you'd slip Mel's in in The Big Bang and stuff and you'd get
• 21:51
  this beautiful coherent story. It's just sort of let down by
• 21:55
  the fact that Doctor Who's made in a hurry, you know?
• 21:58
  Yeah. It's it's like called the
• 22:00
  writers room. A writers room.
• 22:01
  Not a not a one man showrunner. Yeah, Yeah.
• 22:07
  Sigh. The era.
• 22:09
  OK, well, coming in I was really full of trepidation.
• 22:16
  We'd got a doctor that was younger than me, which seemed
• 22:20
  impossible, and he was impossibly young.
• 22:24
  We've got someone whose stories I'd had very mixed feelings
• 22:29
  about before he became the showrunner.
• 22:33
  I, I had real. Yeah.
• 22:35
  As everyone knows, I'm the one fan who doesn't like Blink at
• 22:39
  all and thinks it's terribly overrated and incredibly dull.
• 22:44
  And so this, and, you know, this was the person coming to take
• 22:47
  the show on. And I was just thinking, oh God,
• 22:49
  it's going to be awful if it's going to be.
• 22:52
  And I fell in love with it straight away from Matt Smith
• 22:55
  holding on to the the bottom of the TARDIS, which was, I get so
• 23:00
  different to what even David Tennant had been an energetic
• 23:03
  Doctor, but he'd not been physical like that.
• 23:06
  And so I was won over straight away.
• 23:08
  I really loved the tone of Series 5.
• 23:12
  But I think the big problem with this era is there's also, it's
• 23:20
  big plus is it's trying to tell one big cohesive story that this
• 23:24
  is the story of a Doctor's era. And it's trying to tell the
• 23:28
  Riversong story. It's trying to tell the story of
• 23:30
  Amy and Rory. It's trying to tell all these
• 23:32
  things. And halfway through, the
• 23:35
  showrunner goes off and runs another show at the same time,
• 23:39
  and he takes his eye off the ball.
• 23:40
  And I think you can really see from the tail end of Series 6 up
• 23:45
  to Day of the Doctor, you can see Moffat's head is not in this
• 23:49
  show the way it should be. And This is why the arcs don't
• 23:54
  cohere, because he's trying to do too much all at once.
• 23:57
  And I think this is a problem. I think there's I it's, it
• 24:03
  affects the quality a lot. And I think you can tell through
• 24:07
  Series 7, both halves, that he's not quite on this.
• 24:14
  The pond should have gone. This should have been the whole
• 24:17
  series with Clara. Matt Smith is very feels very
• 24:19
  much at sea once. Well, to me anyway, Once Jenna
• 24:25
  Coleman comes on board and he doesn't, he doesn't seem as
• 24:29
  comfortable. And I think that's where you see
• 24:31
  all those quirky movements and things come in because he's
• 24:36
  trying to do his stick without his team and he's he's lost and
• 24:39
  he's not supported. And so that it comes to a really
• 24:44
  tremendous end with the day of the Doctor.
• 24:48
  And most of the time of the Doctor is, is a bit of a shock.
• 24:51
  I wasn't sure they were going to pull it back.
• 24:53
  But. This is the era that I come back
• 24:56
  to more than any other in the new series.
• 24:59
  This is the era that Murray Gold finds his his groove and really
• 25:05
  goes for it. I don't think there is a bad
• 25:07
  score throughout this era and you know you're.
• 25:11
  Going to be hearing a lot of that music throughout this
• 25:13
  episode. Yeah, OK, so the theme's a bit
• 25:16
  shit, both of them really, but. I wonder that theme now.
• 25:20
  But yeah, you know, he got worse.
• 25:24
  So yeah, I, I, I think it's kind of diminishing returns for me,
• 25:31
  but Series 5, I would watch any of them and be happy.
• 25:36
  Is that your favorite series of the new series?
• 25:37
  Series 5 do. You know what it is until Flux.
• 25:46
  I'm always controversial. I agree with what you're saying
• 25:49
  about Matt Smith feels slightly more isolated in 7B, but I quite
• 25:53
  like that it makes him feel older and more alien, which
• 25:58
  feels like a development from the sort of cosiness of Five.
• 26:02
  It also works with the story that they're trying to tell as
• 26:05
  well, this kind of mystery of Clara.
• 26:07
  So it kind of works that he's slightly distant from her, but
• 26:10
  it also leads to some really lovely bits, like there's that
• 26:12
  bit in the Crimson. No, I'm sorry.
• 26:14
  In Rings of Accutane where he gets her to give her mum's ring
• 26:19
  to the merchant thing and he doesn't know what to do with
• 26:22
  himself and he kind of just taps her on the head, this kind of
• 26:25
  like awkward, thank you, I know how much this means to you sort
• 26:28
  of thing. I love sort of those little kind
• 26:30
  of tactile awkward touches. Also as well, oh God, I'm going
• 26:35
  to express an opinion but it's a +1 so I'll allow it for myself.
• 26:40
  I am pleased that they brought in Clara in the second-half of
• 26:45
  Series 7, otherwise we would have just had the Doctor and one
• 26:49
  set of companions. And it's really interesting to
• 26:51
  see how we react against somebody else for that last run
• 26:55
  of episodes. Otherwise, you know, it would
• 26:56
  have been a sort of 1 trick pony era.
• 26:59
  Now I think he just needed both halves of a full season with her
• 27:03
  and that would have been much better, or another season
• 27:06
  afterwards that it feels like this should be happening and it
• 27:09
  doesn't happen. You're saying I have 2 1/2
• 27:13
  seasons of Clara, You want three seasons of her?
• 27:16
  Well, you know what improves that series by the way, series
• 27:19
  7B only watch the Victorian episodes and then you get a mini
• 27:24
  Seriously, you it turns it into this this strange mini series of
• 27:29
  like a detective series only set in Victoria, London are.
• 27:33
  They The Crimson Horror. Snow.
• 27:35
  You got the Snowman, the Crimson Horror, and the Name of the
• 27:37
  Doctor. Yeah, you're.
• 27:39
  Right. I remember there was a rumor
• 27:40
  going around at the time that the whole of 7B was going to be
• 27:43
  in Victorian, and I was well up for it.
• 27:47
  With barrel, wasn't it barrel the companion instead of Yeah.
• 27:50
  Yeah. And a story will be told one
• 27:53
  day. Well, Mark, what do you think of
• 27:57
  the era of? The.
• 27:58
  I don't know if I don't know if I've got anything to say that
• 28:00
  that anybody hasn't already said, but I think your.
• 28:03
  Opinion. Come along now.
• 28:05
  Well, indeed. So I, I distinctly remember, I
• 28:08
  think one of my happiest memories watching Doctor Who is
• 28:11
  the first time I saw the event that I watched with my dad and
• 28:14
  my sister and my sister's boyfriend at the time.
• 28:19
  And it felt like night and day compared to what we'd had just
• 28:23
  visually. Like right from the off, you're
• 28:25
  like, oh, this is a step up. And just the storytelling and it
• 28:29
  felt different. It was in like a little village.
• 28:32
  And there was like this kind of feeling that finally the show
• 28:36
  had nailed the kind of old school vibe of Doctor Who in a
• 28:43
  modern television drama. And that was like, this is what
• 28:48
  I've wanted since 2005. And I didn't realise how much I
• 28:51
  wanted it until the 11th hour, you know, just.
• 28:56
  Nice to get away from bloody London as well for a.
• 28:58
  Very, yeah, yeah, Lovely. Cardiff.
• 29:00
  Cardiff disguised as London. So yes, with that.
• 29:04
  And I loved Season 5. I've got a lot of happy memories
• 29:07
  of Season 5. Season 6 I think is really
• 29:11
  strong. I think, yes, the art, I think
• 29:13
  the problem with the arc is that it has too much elements to it.
• 29:17
  I think if they drill down into who is River Song, we know she's
• 29:21
  his wife. We don't need to kind of have
• 29:23
  this kind of added thing of like, oh, but how do they get
• 29:26
  married? What does that matter?
• 29:27
  You don't need any of that. What you need, I think what you
• 29:30
  need is either, oh, she's the Doctor's wife, or oh, she's Amy,
• 29:35
  Rory's daughter. Like that one or the other, I
• 29:38
  think would have kind of tightened that up a bit.
• 29:40
  Similarly, the whole, oh, I killed a man.
• 29:44
  Well, it's obviously the doctor, but he spent such a long time
• 29:47
  kind of going to Who did she kill?
• 29:49
  Who shot the Doctor at Lake Silencio?
• 29:51
  If you'd opened that episode with River Song pulling the
• 29:54
  visor up and Dunning him down, and then you spend the rest of
• 29:57
  the series figuring out why that's happened and how he
• 30:00
  escapes it, I think it'd be a lot tighter you.
• 30:03
  Know. Well, maybe, but I think it
• 30:05
  would be a lot tighter and a lot of people would maybe kind of
• 30:07
  have a more fondness for it because actually I think there's
• 30:10
  a lot of really strong episodes, two of which are are in this
• 30:15
  episode that we'll talk about later, but there's a lot more as
• 30:17
  well. So yes, I really like series 6
• 30:22
  and then, you know, like 6. Series 6 and series 7 I think
• 30:25
  are sort of Hanford by the fact that Stephen Moffett
• 30:28
  accidentally sort of becomes in charge of the BB CS two biggest
• 30:33
  exports. Because it's not just that he's
• 30:37
  sure running another TV show, it's that he's sure running the
• 30:40
  other massive show that the BBC does.
• 30:44
  So it's it's this kind of really horrendous and it must have been
• 30:47
  horrible. And it sounds like it was.
• 30:49
  He's kind of. Mark, what does he do?
• 30:50
  He brings in Mark Gatiss to write a load of 7B.
• 30:54
  Who's the other person who's doing the the rest?
• 30:56
  Of how true, true, but I think Mark Gatiss is I think Mark
• 30:59
  Gatiss is best work is well, actually, no, I I do really like
• 31:02
  Empress of Mars, but I I I like Cold War I I could do without
• 31:07
  the little, you know, alien thing, but I I like it.
• 31:11
  I think more Gators does some strong work and I like a lot of
• 31:16
  of season 7 A and season 7 BI think in an anniversary year
• 31:21
  where there's like more of a focus on the show from like a
• 31:25
  general audience. I think what it gives you in 7B
• 31:29
  is fairly traditional Doctor Who, which might not be to our
• 31:34
  tastes after Season 6, but in terms of actually what it's
• 31:37
  doing for an audience that my other interest piqued again,
• 31:41
  it's like, yeah, this is what Doctor Who.
• 31:42
  This is the Doctor Who I remember from David Tennant and
• 31:45
  Catherine Tate and Billie Piper. It just looks a bit more
• 31:49
  cinematic and it's sort of polished up.
• 31:51
  So yeah, I love it. There's a few I don't like, but
• 31:55
  that's the same with every era. It just felt really.
• 31:58
  It's like Jackson said, it's the ambition of it and the fact that
• 32:01
  Moffett's never comfortable with just doing the same thing every
• 32:06
  year that really, really helps. Because I think Doctor Who is an
• 32:13
  anthology show. It's not a continuing drama.
• 32:16
  And, and I think too often with with RTD, he approaches it as a
• 32:20
  just a, it's like you tune in every year because you expect
• 32:24
  certain things to happen. Whereas Moffett is all about
• 32:26
  kind of just tearing up the all the scripts at the end of each
• 32:30
  series and go like, we're doing something completely new next
• 32:33
  year. So yeah, I love that.
• 32:35
  I love that about it. I think to add to that, it, it
• 32:39
  feels like it's, it has a reason to exist and it always feels
• 32:43
  like it's going somewhere and, and that that was exciting at
• 32:47
  the time. And even if there isn't the
• 32:50
  biggest, greatest payoff ever, it's still there's still you
• 32:54
  still get that feeling when you rewatch them that it has a
• 32:56
  reason to exist. It's it's a lot about the
• 32:59
  journey, isn't it? Not the destination, yeah.
• 33:01
  I think he has fun shaking it up as well though.
• 33:04
  Like when he does what, effectively the season finale as
• 33:07
  the opener of yeah, and then he does a single episode finale
• 33:12
  instead of a two-part 1 that you normally get, I mean.
• 33:15
  He does start getting series 9 as well.
• 33:17
  He does start getting series 9. So another link for Jackson.
• 33:22
  What's interesting, I think he's in five, he's sort of easing
• 33:26
  everybody in. So he does the Rusty Davis, the
• 33:30
  structure of the season and in 10, which is obviously Capoli's
• 33:34
  time, that's what he's like. Well, this season never should
• 33:36
  have been. And I've got to create this
• 33:37
  season quick because Chippers ain't ready and he does that
• 33:40
  again. But everything in between, you
• 33:42
  can't get comfortable, can you? He does do the monk three-part.
• 33:46
  I know. Like that's sort of trying to
• 33:48
  shake it up in 10. I don't think you should be
• 33:50
  using that in your defence, Luke.
• 33:52
  Well, I, I, I would say in the defence, the season 10 has the,
• 33:56
  it has a character arc, which is that kind of dynamic between the
• 33:58
  doctor and Missy. That's the most interesting
• 34:01
  thing about season 10. That's because again, that's not
• 34:04
  just, oh, where, where's the word Saxon going to appear this
• 34:08
  week? It's each episode like it.
• 34:11
  It has this kind of tangible link to like, if it's the doctor
• 34:14
  just telling Missy what they've done that week at the end of the
• 34:17
  episode or, you know, oh, who's in the vault, all that kind of
• 34:21
  stuff. It's, it's a lot more
• 34:22
  interesting than just kind of throw away sort of tenuous
• 34:26
  links, you know, and. It's got the university, it's
• 34:29
  set in the university. You know, the doctor is a
• 34:32
  lecturer. I think that that could have
• 34:34
  gone on for years as a president, as a base for the
• 34:36
  show, and I think they should go back to it again.
• 34:39
  Do you know I'll have you all back for the Capaldi era?
• 34:42
  All right? You clearly got things to say,
• 34:43
  although I think I'll probably help.
• 34:45
  Rewatch, sorry, rewatch your Matt Smith as well.
• 34:47
  It's nice to have the 787B1 part is.
• 34:52
  Before we go on though, I do and we're talking about Matt Smith,
• 34:56
  particularly the 11th Doctor himself coming up.
• 34:58
  But I do want to have a little conversation about the
• 35:01
  companions as well, because I think the companions are an
• 35:05
  essential part of this era. And obviously we'll start off
• 35:09
  with Amy Pond, Joe's favorite, and let's see if we can get a
• 35:12
  reaction out of them here. Amy Pond for me was was
• 35:17
  fantastic. Another kind of breath of fresh
• 35:19
  air. The RTD companions are very
• 35:23
  traditional. I feel in as much as the other a
• 35:25
  kind of support the Doctor to be, you know, hold the test
• 35:30
  tubes and have the the exposition and, you know, they
• 35:35
  obviously do a lot more than that, but fundamentally that's
• 35:38
  they've got a very traditional role.
• 35:39
  I think with Amy, there was a very new dynamic that it was a
• 35:44
  dynamic. It wasn't just, you know, the
• 35:47
  doctor and the company. It was more of a back and forth
• 35:50
  between the two, which I which I really enjoy bringing Rory in as
• 35:54
  well. Halfway through that first
• 35:55
  series really just compounded that.
• 35:58
  And you know, you then had you were able to move away from the
• 36:03
  whole to a certain extent. You know, Amy wants to shag the
• 36:07
  Doctor. You've got Rory there.
• 36:08
  And I think Rory and the Doctor and Rory and Amy and Amy and the
• 36:12
  Doctor all have, you know, certain dynamics going on.
• 36:17
  The best thing I think he did with the companions that was he
• 36:19
  kept them on. You know, it's really
• 36:21
  frustrating for me that, you know, we'll get one series of
• 36:25
  Rose and the 9th Doctor. We'll get one series of Rose and
• 36:28
  the 10th Doctor. Obviously, no people leave.
• 36:30
  You can't help that. You get one series of 10th
• 36:33
  Doctor and Martha. You get one series of 10th
• 36:35
  Doctor and Donna. We'll get 2 1/2 of Amy and the
• 36:41
  Doctor and Rory. And I think that gives us a
• 36:43
  really good chance to do some really interesting things.
• 36:45
  Moffett always gets slated as the man who never does character
• 36:49
  stuff. But then, you know, you look at
• 36:51
  what he is able to do over that those 2 1/2 years when you know,
• 36:55
  you're coming into Asylum of the Daleks and Amy and, or you're
• 36:58
  broken up and why? Yeah, it's, it's, it makes
• 37:01
  sense. It's natural.
• 37:02
  You know, they've had some trauma.
• 37:04
  They haven't dealt with it properly.
• 37:06
  The the relationship is broken up.
• 37:09
  It comes back together again. And the rest of that sort of
• 37:12
  half of series is, you know, the road map to their eventual
• 37:16
  departure in Angels of Manhattan.
• 37:19
  So there's so much good stuff on there.
• 37:21
  And then we'll have discussed, you know, Clara in the 11th
• 37:24
  Doctor. And I think, you know, what
• 37:25
  everyone said there is spot on really, that, you know, there is
• 37:28
  a distance. It's not quite the same.
• 37:30
  It's it's very sort of like Pertway without Manning, isn't
• 37:34
  it? It's like, you know, I've lost,
• 37:36
  I've lost me right on, basically.
• 37:38
  And you know, it's not quite the same, so this is probably time
• 37:42
  to go, as it were. But that really does feed in
• 37:45
  well into that story that the telling of Clara, the impossible
• 37:48
  girl, the girl he doesn't trust. You look at that scene at the
• 37:50
  end of Journey at the center of the TARDIS where he's like
• 37:53
  shaking up by the shoulders just.
• 37:54
  Tell me who the fuck you are. And he's, you know, and he twigs
• 37:59
  actually, she hasn't got the first clue.
• 38:00
  And that's a brilliant scene, you know, And that just, you
• 38:06
  know, really works as well. So yeah, companions or or just
• 38:12
  as fundamental. Yes, it was brilliant,
• 38:16
  brilliant, unexpected storytelling that the Doctor met
• 38:20
  his companion when she was a child and that was awesome.
• 38:24
  I know there are many accusations that have been
• 38:28
  thrown at this and obviously it messes Amy up a lot.
• 38:34
  He's not too much. He's not.
• 38:38
  It's creepier when he goes back to see Clara as a child.
• 38:43
  Bath while I was watching Rings of Akaten last night and that
• 38:46
  felt. Stalking the parents.
• 38:48
  I mean, I know this isn't really a defence, but he's stalking the
• 38:50
  parents. He's not stalking the kids.
• 38:52
  Yeah, although it kind of, you know.
• 38:53
  But he's got a reason. He's got.
• 38:54
  He has got a reason. I know he's got a reason.
• 38:57
  Just. Nonsense, yeah, but.
• 38:59
  He's sitting on a swing watching a kid.
• 39:02
  Also, I think if we really run again, I mean, we could be here
• 39:05
  all night, But I mean, if we look at the age gap between the
• 39:07
  Doctor and some of the, you know, David Tennant's Doctor
• 39:11
  absolutely. Is that nonsense?
• 39:12
  I mean they might be in their 20s but he's 2000 years old.
• 39:15
  I mean, I would. Suggest that Moffett started all
• 39:17
  that with David Tennant's Doctor as well.
• 39:19
  But yeah. Well, yes, but just that idea of
• 39:23
  him meeting Amy and then meeting her as an adult felt so
• 39:28
  different to anything that anyone had ever come up with,
• 39:32
  that it was so fresh and interesting.
• 39:35
  And young Amelia and Matt Smith together for those opening seats
• 39:39
  are so brilliant. The chemistry between them is
• 39:43
  better than he's got with Jenna Coleman.
• 39:45
  It's incredible. Not go through to be a winner
• 39:48
  and in this episode. But I will never understand
• 39:51
  strictly. I think, yeah, it would have
• 39:54
  won. It would.
• 39:55
  I mean, when you think of that image of little Amelia sat on
• 39:58
  the red suit, on the white suitcase with the red stripes.
• 40:02
  In the garden at night, you do just get a pang.
• 40:04
  Absolutely. And to that, they keep coming
• 40:06
  back to it through the era. It's the image that defines the
• 40:09
  whole era. That bit at the end of Angel
• 40:12
  Takes Manhattan where she's sitting on the suitcase and
• 40:14
  yeah, her, it's her voice over. Isn't it about going up into
• 40:19
  outer space and seeing a space whale?
• 40:21
  And then little Amelia Pon just looks up and that's how they out
• 40:23
  Amy. You know what I love about that,
• 40:26
  though, is that it is. It is ultimately a metaphor for
• 40:30
  fandom. And it's it's sort of Doctor Who
• 40:33
  reflecting on like, well, Stephen Morphett reflects on the
• 40:37
  fact that why does this, why does this show still mean so
• 40:41
  much to me? Why have I now dedicated my
• 40:43
  whole adult life to Doctor Who, this show that fell out of the
• 40:46
  sky when I was a kid? We are.
• 40:48
  Still, you know can. We hold a minute.
• 40:52
  'S silence Can we hold a minute's silence for the
• 40:54
  episodes that couldn't be here tonight?
• 40:58
  Now 11,000 Well, Fraser is what was it?
• 41:02
  The girl who? What's it called?
• 41:03
  The girl who waited. Yeah, we waited.
• 41:05
  It's a. Flashing Stone The Angels.
• 41:07
  Flashing stone 5 minutes. Yeah, Oh yeah.
• 41:09
  I didn't like the angels, and then that story made me love
• 41:13
  them. Exactly the same.
• 41:15
  Exactly the same. Christmas Carol?
• 41:17
  Where's that? Oh yeah.
• 41:19
  OK, well I think the one word you all said whilst talking
• 41:26
  about the era there was ambitious and I think we can all
• 41:31
  agree this is probably, I think I'd say even more than Capaldi's
• 41:35
  time, the most ambitious. I think it's actually coming
• 41:38
  like a wife and said coming off RTDS, it definitely takes more
• 41:42
  gambles which is why you get the inconsistency of real highs and
• 41:48
  some maybe lows. Well, I'd say you're all being
• 41:52
  extremely polite and letting each other talk and because
• 41:54
  you're all being very positive and no one's really coming at
• 41:57
  you, which is unusual on this, Fraser and I are now going to go
• 42:01
  over to the first lot of comments.
• 42:03
  And I'm going to get another drink.
• 42:04
  Please do not be polite, OK? People seem to like it when
• 42:10
  people shit all over the comments.
• 42:14
  Fraser's going to start off with a delightful overview from
• 42:18
  Jackson's brother. Yes, let's get shitting.
• 42:23
  Right. This is from Dylan Reece, so
• 42:25
  Joe, if you can start playing the Cyberman slash the Yeti
• 42:28
  music please. While Dylan goes on his little
• 42:31
  rant, Matt Smith arrives on screen with a fresh explosion of
• 42:40
  energy. However, he is never better than
• 42:42
  his first block of shooting. And by the Pandorica cracks,
• 42:46
  it's the Pandora opens Dylan, not cracks.
• 42:51
  Cracks are staunting the show. He doesn't have the chops to
• 42:53
  pull off the big speech at Stonehenge or that panting thing
• 42:56
  he does when he is locked in. Yeah.
• 42:59
  Absolutely get him out. I'm not.
• 43:01
  Relating Who is this trick? Oh, he goes on.
• 43:06
  Season 6 is an absolute highlight of the new series,
• 43:09
  with the show finally catching up with the rest of TV in terms
• 43:13
  of style and storytelling. Now you think you're related to
• 43:16
  him though, don't you? Well, yeah, but he's.
• 43:18
  I know. The hand that giveth away is you
• 43:21
  know it's not but you. Cannot finish that.
• 43:24
  Oh, he's not finished yet. By season 7, any spark is
• 43:28
  completely gone and the old man in young body performance Smith
• 43:31
  settles into makes for an embarrassing watch.
• 43:34
  But perhaps he is bored with the material he has given.
• 43:37
  Who can blame him? I think Smith is the only Doctor
• 43:40
  Who gets worse as he goes on. Oh shit, he says that?
• 43:44
  No. But when shooting out.
• 43:45
  With second series comes out, listen changes too.
• 43:50
  You're feeling good, think he could get worse?
• 43:52
  You'll still be crying, at least, Ham.
• 43:55
  Well, on the other hand, James. Lark says, an era I tend to
• 43:58
  remember for it's considerable highs rather than it's also
• 44:01
  considerable lows. Series 5 was so refreshing when
• 44:04
  it arrived, Moffat's complex, structured story telling much
• 44:07
  more to my taste than RTD's heart over sense approach.
• 44:11
  Yes, he could have just told a straightforward, decent story
• 44:13
  more often, but it was a thrilling ride at the time.
• 44:16
  Matt Smith is a force of nature in need of good direction.
• 44:20
  As a McCoy fan, I've plenty of time for that and I can hear Joe
• 44:24
  screaming in disgust. I really like his dynamic with
• 44:28
  Gillen and Darvel. You like?
• 44:31
  James Lark. He.
• 44:34
  Talks sense falling under the weight of its own.
• 44:36
  Ambition. But by golly, there are
• 44:38
  misfires. But I love it's this ambitious
• 44:41
  and I love the feeling that the show is being pushed as far as
• 44:44
  it can go. It's a sensible.
• 44:46
  Man at. Least.
• 44:49
  There's one next. Up I have Jack Kyer.
• 44:53
  Who writes? The fact that strictly compounds
• 44:55
  the winners for this era were mostly correct was a little woo
• 44:59
  Yin have. You not Have you not listened to
• 45:02
  the In Memoriam? Sometimes people get it right.
• 45:05
  Page look at this call. This is the.
• 45:07
  String come hamster contributors all right.
• 45:09
  Have you not listened to the list of?
• 45:11
  Stories that I'm missing that should have worked.
• 45:13
  Anyhow, a lot to like about it, but maybe an ear for picking and
• 45:17
  choosing highlights rather than binging.
• 45:19
  Series 5 has a fun and cohesive all for binging.
• 45:26
  Series 5 has. A fun and cohesive.
• 45:27
  Art could take or leave a lot of the rest by.
• 45:31
  The emoji. I just called him that because
• 45:34
  it was just a spider emoji. One of the most doctorish
• 45:37
  performances of the modern era. Mercury 1 moment steal.
• 45:41
  The next season 5 is almost perfect.
• 45:45
  Taking the baton from one of the most popular doctors and
• 45:48
  matching it. Remarkable.
• 45:50
  A superb performance from that, yeah.
• 45:53
  Exceeding it I would. Say.
• 45:55
  Yeah, yes. Next up is Jim Allenby.
• 46:00
  I was so into the Matt Smith era on its original broadcast.
• 46:04
  It's only on a recent re watch that I discovered that a lot of
• 46:07
  it is convoluted and messy. Smith is.
• 46:10
  Smith. Is good.
• 46:11
  But mostly in series 5 and I prefer small scale stories now
• 46:15
  like The God Complex and The Girl Who Waited.
• 46:18
  Do you know what life's convoluted?
• 46:19
  And messy and sometimes maybe doctor needs to reflect that.
• 46:23
  That's what I say to those sort of small intimate.
• 46:26
  Stories, do you think? And seven is very.
• 46:28
  Unconvoluted though, yeah, that's.
• 46:31
  True spider man. 72 says his era starts off strong and then sadly
• 46:35
  goes downhill for me. Never really took to his
• 46:38
  companions either. He has some gems though.
• 46:40
  The 11th Hour, The Doctor's wife, Vincent and the Doctor.
• 46:43
  But largely most of the stories are average.
• 46:45
  However, bollocks gives less. Than 100.
• 46:48
  Percent with his performance as the Doctor, True, Yeah.
• 46:53
  Not. Bollocks.
• 46:57
  Some bollocks. 1 bollock. Maybe he's 1 bollock.
• 47:03
  He's gone the full Hitler. No, no he hasn't.
• 47:05
  Sorry. He's in the cupboard.
• 47:14
  Danielle, Matt Dennis. Writes in to say it's a decent
• 47:18
  year overall, though the ongoing story arcs all failed to deliver
• 47:22
  on what they promise. Lots of great individual
• 47:25
  episodes throughout though, and Smith's characterization is
• 47:28
  perfection. I'm hearing this a lot at the
• 47:31
  start of. This next contributor, Mark
• 47:34
  Stockley, It started out so strong.
• 47:37
  Series 5 is up there with some of my absolute faves from
• 47:40
  classic and new Who. A few clunkers but mostly good
• 47:43
  to great. How did it nose dive so badly
• 47:45
  that we ended with time with the Doctor?
• 47:47
  What went so wrong? Answers on a postcard please.
• 47:51
  Well, did it nose dive though? Did it?
• 47:54
  Nose dive. Because all we're all saying
• 47:56
  Series 5 is like our favorite or one of the best Series A Doctor
• 48:00
  ever made. Is it a nose dive if you come
• 48:02
  down from that? If you come down.
• 48:06
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 48:07
  But there's a difference. Between a nose dive and it's a
• 48:10
  gentle decline, a glide. Troll.
• 48:14
  Glide landing. But.
• 48:16
  I think, I think most people would say 7 to us than 5, but it
• 48:21
  doesn't mean it's bad. Yeah, yeah.
• 48:23
  I mean. Whereas a.
• 48:24
  Lot of people. Would say sorry.
• 48:26
  Fraser that 4 is stronger than two, so sort of tenant went in
• 48:30
  the other direction a lot of. People would say that.
• 48:34
  Not everybody. Yeah, you are.
• 48:36
  Right. A lot of people sorry about the
• 48:38
  the. Matley newbie essay now that
• 48:40
  you've got to read out Fraser, OH.
• 48:43
  Yes, anyhow. So, motley newbie.
• 48:46
  I really struggled with Smith's performance and his era as a
• 48:49
  whole. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I
• 48:54
  said. I nearly.
• 48:55
  Stopped watching the show. He started off OK, but quickly
• 48:58
  developed into a character made-up of buzzwords and catch
• 49:01
  phrases with personality. Has he watched David Tennant,
• 49:05
  Mr. Alonzi. I'm not.
• 49:08
  Matt Lee, newbie all. Right.
• 49:10
  Oh, I know which one. Which comment?
• 49:11
  You're. On here I don't know.
• 49:13
  Also, have you nearly stopped watching the show?
• 49:15
  What an amateur. He's very much a fan though.
• 49:22
  Any. Personality which felt like he'd
• 49:25
  been told to be eccentric and left to it by series.
• 49:29
  Has he seen Matt Smith in literally?
• 49:31
  Any interview? By series 6 I found him.
• 49:37
  Incredibly annoying, not helped by the writing which was on the
• 49:40
  whole disappointing and supported by a narcissistic
• 49:43
  companion and her Comic Relief husband.
• 49:46
  When Clara. Came along, they didn't.
• 49:48
  Even seem capable of writing her as the same character from week
• 49:50
  to week. Then the stories felt like
• 49:52
  barrel scrapings, right? Clara is this different
• 49:55
  character from seasons the series because she goes through
• 49:58
  trauma. Guys, come on.
• 50:00
  Yeah, no one says the same criticism.
• 50:01
  Of Sarah Jane who changes who changes completely between
• 50:05
  series 11 and. 12, yeah. Yeah.
• 50:08
  Just put different characters back in the.
• 50:10
  New series. Yeah.
• 50:14
  I've tried a few times since to rewatch.
• 50:15
  The year but found myself too many times to quote John A
• 50:18
  Troop. Joey Tribbiani wanting to RIP
• 50:21
  off my arm so I had something to throw at Smith's Doctor.
• 50:25
  I'm sure everyone put their all into making the show, but it
• 50:28
  just wasn't an air I remotely enjoyed.
• 50:30
  And I was overjoyed when I didn't hate Capaldi even.
• 50:34
  Is that a genuine? Joy as a friend.
• 50:36
  I would RIP my arm off to have something to throw even.
• 50:39
  I like this era. More than that.
• 50:41
  OK, you don't have to. Watch Doctor.
• 50:44
  Who? Who hurt you, man?
• 50:48
  You're. Broke.
• 50:50
  Your doctor's day. Away.
• 50:58
  Mark says oh, I. Want to say something nice for
• 51:02
  fuck's sake. An error I rarely feel the urge
• 51:05
  to revisit. The story arcs made for
• 51:07
  disjointed and convoluted storylines.
• 51:09
  I found Smith's portrayal of the Doctor compelling though, and
• 51:12
  realized I was watching mostly for him, not the tales
• 51:14
  themselves. I'm prepared to reassess this
• 51:17
  era after we covered it on 7B on Strictly.
• 51:20
  Yes, he is responsible for the Rings of Accutane being in this
• 51:24
  episode all right. Well, at least he wants to
• 51:26
  revisit. It and.
• 51:27
  Try and see something positive that's more than many fans do.
• 51:31
  I seem to recall him quite. Like the journey at the centre
• 51:34
  of the TARDIS as well, which is the right rings of.
• 51:37
  Accutane if you like. Singing Join the fucking.
• 51:41
  Choir, we'll get there, We'll get.
• 51:48
  There, let's see if David Gillespie.
• 51:50
  Pratt can bring some sense to the proceedings.
• 51:53
  Smith, Veers. Between the subtle and.
• 51:54
  Sublime to the self consciously wacky and embarrassingly goofy.
• 51:59
  Compare the measure of his performance in the 11th hour to
• 52:01
  the odd nasal voice he sometimes has by the time of the Belts of
• 52:05
  Saint John. Oh, I'm pleased I get to.
• 52:07
  Say this one, Michael. Storm almost the golden era of
• 52:11
  new Who the highest are some of the greatest highest the show
• 52:14
  has, and the lows may be the lowest, but they are few and far
• 52:19
  between in the forest. Of the night, I wonder how do
• 52:23
  you want? This brilliant story.
• 52:25
  Brilliant. Story Space babies.
• 52:29
  Not without its charm. Daughter.
• 52:32
  'S daughter. Yeah.
• 52:35
  Awful. We'll come to that.
• 52:39
  Oh, so I'm off to I've. Got Dan Pin then Dan pin right?
• 52:43
  Since. The 11th Doctors era is a roller
• 52:45
  coaster ride. Series 5 is one of the best but
• 52:48
  series 6 is one of the worst and series 7 is up and down like a
• 52:51
  tarts knickers. Oh, like Amy's then?
• 52:56
  Now we only come on Amy's that's.
• 52:59
  Such a nice. Boy, wasn't expecting that, has
• 53:03
  there. Ever been a better?
• 53:05
  Debut story than the 11th hour? I don't think so.
• 53:08
  Yes. Well, apparently other.
• 53:09
  People do. On this episode and Smith makes
• 53:15
  an excellent doctor. Yes, the 11th hour should be
• 53:18
  just just tonight. Yes, it is.
• 53:20
  I tried. All right, I.
• 53:23
  You. Know where the we know where the
• 53:25
  fault lies. Oscar Groucho.
• 53:27
  Says Smith is an era transition. Moving from the tried and tested
• 53:31
  RTD formula to something more experimental and complex affords
• 53:35
  a character one of their most nuanced narrative arcs.
• 53:38
  The jump between companion feels like a chasm, yet Matt Smith
• 53:41
  holds the whole thing together with charm and pathos.
• 53:46
  I like him. Yeah, good luck.
• 53:49
  Let's. See if the.
• 53:50
  Lovely Jewel Short is going to be lovely Matt Smith there.
• 53:58
  The bloody. Ponds double there.
• 54:03
  I'd just like. To say.
• 54:05
  This is Joe Short, who voted for the Time Monster as the best of
• 54:09
  Season 9, though I. Think we can discount?
• 54:13
  Any of her opinions completely here?
• 54:16
  The whole. Era.
• 54:18
  Yes, you've guessed it. Kill it.
• 54:22
  That's right with. Fire.
• 54:27
  Well, Gareth Bow. Really.
• 54:28
  To go 1 Better than fire. Of course he does very
• 54:32
  succinctly burn it all in a supernova.
• 54:35
  I mean, come on, you can't write off.
• 54:37
  Come on. Jesus, he can't.
• 54:40
  Even I like War of the Sons. Sirens for fuck's.
• 54:43
  Alternatively, just don't. Fucking watch it, I love these
• 54:46
  people. I think these are a bit.
• 54:49
  Thank you very much for writing in.
• 54:50
  Gareth, I very much enjoyed your nuanced and completely well
• 54:56
  reasoned arguments there. And yeah, I look forward to
• 55:01
  hearing more from you in the near future.
• 55:05
  Last, Last. One then of this batch comes
• 55:09
  from an account called just some random guy online.
• 55:14
  You know it's not going to be good, right?
• 55:16
  When he's called, just some random guy.
• 55:18
  Well, well, I looked. At this I'll read the comments
• 55:21
  the Doctor that started the decline of ratings and led to
• 55:24
  the downfall of the show. Now I looked at this account,
• 55:28
  the show that's still on the television.
• 55:29
  Yeah, I mean for another few weeks.
• 55:33
  Wrong time, but I looked. At this account because we.
• 55:36
  Had a few little comments from this one and it's got no
• 55:38
  followers, no following, just about me.
• 55:45
  Just about 100 and. 50 odd comments post tweets, and all of
• 55:49
  those 150 tweets are slagging off, jumping into other people's
• 55:55
  conversations and seeing nasty things about Matt Smith.
• 55:59
  I don't include him. Because it's you.
• 56:02
  It's your second. Account or is it one of those
• 56:06
  Russian? Contention spot you a male off
• 56:08
  board. But there's that.
• 56:10
  Those like Russian. Contention bots, which are like
• 56:13
  designed to just start arguments online to, I don't know, to like
• 56:19
  get more advertising or whatever.
• 56:21
  Fandom doesn't need that. These people get though.
• 56:24
  I mean, I I'm. Very happily.
• 56:26
  Just me saying those things online, you know?
• 56:30
  Hey, very odd. Matt Smith.
• 56:32
  Left 12. Years ago, he's he's bothering
• 56:34
  to tweet about how much they hate Matt Smith.
• 56:43
  Thank you very much you. Positive hamster contributors
• 56:46
  for all of those lovely comments.
• 56:47
  I think things do get a bit more positive in the second batch.
• 56:50
  I certainly hope so, but we will now spread the positivity.
• 56:54
  OK, so as we head into round one, I name the 2nd place
• 56:59
  entries from the various Strictly episodes for Matt Smith
• 57:03
  and then I'll hand it over to each of you to choose one of
• 57:06
  these stories to champion and to try and kick through into the
• 57:10
  into the second round. We have got the Pandorica Opens
• 57:15
  and The Big Bang, the God Complex, a town called Mercy and
• 57:21
  somehow the rings of Akatini and.
• 57:27
  Do you know what I? Think I'd like to hear from the
• 57:30
  one person who hasn't done a strip me before Jackson, what
• 57:34
  would you like to choose to champion to get through to the
• 57:37
  next round? I would like to choose.
• 57:40
  The Pandorica opens and The Big Bang.
• 57:44
  Go for it, OK? To put it simply, I think.
• 57:49
  Russell T Davis bought the romantic comedy to Doctor Who,
• 57:54
  which isn't isn't a pejorative. He bought romance and character
• 57:59
  and I think Stephen Moffat bought jazz.
• 58:03
  Jazz in the sense. That.
• 58:04
  He never took the simplest way to go from A to BI.
• 58:09
  Think the Pandoric Ropes is a really simple story in that all
• 58:13
  the doctors old enemies turn up at Stonehenge and there's a
• 58:17
  secret magic box hidden there that they're trying to get to.
• 58:21
  But I think every step he takes the less obvious route and tries
• 58:25
  to give you something that's more complicated and more
• 58:29
  surprising or more layered than you expect it to be.
• 58:33
  So every time I rewatch this I'm still surprised by the twist
• 58:37
  that they go back to Amy's childhood home and find the book
• 58:43
  of ancient Rome and the photograph of Rory and Amy it
• 58:49
  didn't have. To be there.
• 58:50
  It could have just been they go to Stonehenge and there's some
• 58:53
  monsters and I think the the. Previous showrunner.
• 58:58
  Would have taken the simplest, quickest route possible, but I.
• 59:04
  Think Stephen. Moffatt does care about.
• 59:07
  The adventure, he knows that there's, It's not about the 10
• 59:11
  minutes of character at the end. It's about the adventure and the
• 59:16
  plot that gets you there. So there's just so many bits in
• 59:23
  that story that. Don't have to be there, but are
• 59:28
  and. Improve.
• 59:28
  It the. Doctor's speech at Stonehenge.
• 59:33
  Which is a brilliant performance, and Dylan's wrong
• 59:36
  on every level, saying that it's awful.
• 59:41
  Again, it could just be a big heroic moment, but it's not a
• 59:45
  big heroic moment. It's simultaneously Matt Smith
• 59:48
  that is most heroic, and it's also all of his enemies laughing
• 59:53
  at him because they know they're about to imprison him.
• 59:58
  The Pandorica. Could have just had.
• 59:59
  Some kind of big enemy or some kind of weapon in it.
• 1:00:02
  But it's not, it's actually, it's, it's a myth that hasn't
• 1:00:05
  been completed yet. It's, you know, it's a story
• 1:00:08
  that hasn't. Yet started so the legend of
• 1:00:12
  this trickster is actually the Doctor himself.
• 1:00:15
  He's going to be imprisoned in it and it's a 2 parter.
• 1:00:19
  Definitely about stories and about the power of stories and
• 1:00:26
  the. I think.
• 1:00:27
  It's definitely relevant to Doctor Who itself in that it
• 1:00:32
  turns into this bigger legend of.
• 1:00:36
  If something is remembered, it. It can come back and I I can't
• 1:00:41
  think of a better metaphor for what happened to Doctor Who in
• 1:00:44
  that it was a show that remained in the public consciousness and
• 1:00:47
  then came back because people still had a yearning for these
• 1:00:51
  stories and underneath all of. The all all.
• 1:00:57
  Of the different, like plot twists or whatever the
• 1:01:00
  characters, I think it's fundamentally A2 parter that's
• 1:01:04
  about Doctor Who and about the power of the show.
• 1:01:10
  I'm going to step down off Stonehenge.
• 1:01:11
  Because I've run out of things to say and get imprisoned in the
• 1:01:16
  Pandorica. Well, I don't know what.
• 1:01:18
  You've done with. These guys.
• 1:01:19
  But you've bewitched me. I want to go now.
• 1:01:24
  OK, 14 the. Pandorica opens and The Big
• 1:01:28
  Bang. Sigh.
• 1:01:29
  What have you got for the rhyme? Going for the God complex
• 1:01:34
  because I'm following. In.
• 1:01:38
  I think The God Complex is a masterpiece.
• 1:01:41
  It's a sequel to The Horns of Nimon in part, which is so
• 1:01:47
  utterly unexpected. That made me gasp and made me
• 1:01:50
  happy. But it does so much in its 45
• 1:01:54
  minutes. It explores the nature of faith.
• 1:01:57
  It has one of the and forget Shona, forget Linda with AY.
• 1:02:03
  It's got the best companion who wasn't in Rita who is just
• 1:02:09
  magnificent. The way she says don't be
• 1:02:12
  frightened is brilliant. She is so good and it's shocking
• 1:02:18
  when she gets killed. Really shocking.
• 1:02:21
  This is a muffet, a muffet era story where people get killed.
• 1:02:26
  It explores Rory not having any faith and he's the one who could
• 1:02:31
  get out right from the start and no one listens to him.
• 1:02:35
  It explores the relationship between Amy and Rory.
• 1:02:39
  And the. Doctor in some detail.
• 1:02:42
  It really critiques how they're feeling when Rory speaks about
• 1:02:47
  their time in the past tense. It's it's wonderful.
• 1:02:51
  He's he doesn't want to be here anymore.
• 1:02:53
  He doesn't want to do this and they should have left here.
• 1:02:57
  That ending for them is so utterly perfect.
• 1:03:00
  The Doctor keeping them safe because he realises the universe
• 1:03:04
  is dangerous is too dangerous for his friends.
• 1:03:07
  That's a lovely ending. And he gives them everything
• 1:03:10
  they need to have a happy life and go and heal together.
• 1:03:14
  And then Moffett pisses all over that by bringing them back again
• 1:03:18
  because he doesn't want to. It's such a shame because this
• 1:03:20
  is absolutely great. But also, I just want to say as
• 1:03:25
  well, it's beautifully directed, it's stylish, it's clever.
• 1:03:32
  The use of sound as well as visual throughout this story is
• 1:03:36
  really saying a lot. The use of the cameras watching
• 1:03:40
  everyone, the way that you don't see the minor tour accept bits
• 1:03:45
  of it. You see, it's it's a reason for
• 1:03:48
  that. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:03:50
  There's a reason. For that but it's but it works
• 1:03:52
  really, really well the scene after Rita has died and all the
• 1:03:57
  characters are sat at an individual table all in a long
• 1:04:01
  row, not speaking to each other and you can sense the fury and
• 1:04:05
  the tension in that room. Really, really good Murray Gold
• 1:04:10
  on brilliant form for this adventure This the the Muzak
• 1:04:15
  that's playing throughout the hotel is simultaneously cheesy
• 1:04:18
  and creepy at times, and mixed with what he does with his
• 1:04:22
  incidental music throughout this episode is really, really good
• 1:04:26
  so. I'm just here to praise.
• 1:04:28
  Him This is a brilliant story. And Nick Hurran, I think.
• 1:04:33
  We're up there with. Toby Haynes and Adam Smith as
• 1:04:36
  the director of the era and it's no wonder they get him to come
• 1:04:41
  and do the 50th of for the day of the Doctor.
• 1:04:44
  He's magnificent and he should should have carried on directing
• 1:04:47
  for Doctor Who ever since. So there we go.
• 1:04:50
  I rest my case. Sigh, those horrible laughing.
• 1:04:53
  Dolls. Oh yeah.
• 1:04:56
  Yeah, and and it makes you think what would be in your room and
• 1:05:01
  you just. Open it and.
• 1:05:02
  Say well of. Course, it's that in the way
• 1:05:04
  that Matt Smith does it would be me podcasting.
• 1:05:07
  For 900 episodes. Oh my God.
• 1:05:11
  And I'd be there. 1. For the God.
• 1:05:16
  Complex Luke Malloy, AM. I picking.
• 1:05:21
  One that's left or what you know.
• 1:05:23
  You choose whatever you want, wherever.
• 1:05:25
  If it's a deadlock, I'll decide. Right.
• 1:05:30
  Well, I was going to. What's that, Luke?
• 1:05:33
  I was going to go. In and praise.
• 1:05:35
  The rings of Akaten. But I can't, not with the
• 1:05:39
  Pandorica opens in The Big Bang. The I can't.
• 1:05:42
  Do you remember what I told you earlier?
• 1:05:44
  What? What?
• 1:05:46
  Your choice? Oh, you very much.
• 1:05:49
  Well, that you guess what I'd go for in this round.
• 1:05:51
  I got it wrong. I mean, yeah, like like Jackson
• 1:05:55
  said, it's little scenes in it make, it's full of just little
• 1:05:59
  scenes that make it better. I mean, I'm, I'm a sucker for
• 1:06:02
  little time travelling bits and pieces.
• 1:06:05
  So yeah, you get the epic big Part 1 of basically every enemy,
• 1:06:12
  Gaslight and the Doctor into a box.
• 1:06:15
  But then Part 2 is where it comes alive for me.
• 1:06:18
  I remember watched it with my dad, who watched Part 1 and
• 1:06:21
  thought it was amazing. I watched Part 2 and thought it
• 1:06:23
  was shit because because it did come away from all the monsters
• 1:06:27
  and was just like a sort of character piece.
• 1:06:30
  I was something absolutely entranced by it.
• 1:06:32
  I mean, my favorite little bit in it is little Amy saying that
• 1:06:37
  she's thirsty in the museum because someone's robbed a
• 1:06:41
  drink. And then she keeps saying it.
• 1:06:43
  So later on Matt Smith goes back in time and Nicks a drink from
• 1:06:45
  her to to give it to her. I mean, it's just so nice and
• 1:06:49
  tricksy and fun and and we're we're in a world where we can do
• 1:06:55
  paradoxes and do little time shafferly tricks because it's
• 1:06:58
  all explained with with it being the end of the universe and the
• 1:07:01
  eye in the storm and all that stuff.
• 1:07:03
  But I mean, has there ever been a better cliffhanger in in
• 1:07:07
  Doctor? Has there ever been a longer
• 1:07:09
  cliffhanger in Doctor? I mean, the cliffhanger sort of
• 1:07:11
  starts on the 35 minute moment. It goes on for about 10 minutes
• 1:07:18
  with the back and forth between Rory and Amy.
• 1:07:22
  And she starts to, you know, we talked about.
• 1:07:24
  Doing what you don't expect. And RTD, it's all noise.
• 1:07:27
  Noise, noise, music. It's absolute silence at the
• 1:07:31
  end, isn't it? The last thing you expect at the
• 1:07:33
  end, Yeah. And all the galaxies and.
• 1:07:35
  Stars have just gone out and it's just hang on, are you
• 1:07:38
  seeing? That silence fell.
• 1:07:40
  Oh yeah. And it's just left, I mean.
• 1:07:45
  I also. Like some of the shots.
• 1:07:47
  We keep going sort of back to the visuals because there there
• 1:07:51
  is a visual step up from from the RTD era and Adam Smith is
• 1:07:56
  like for doing the 11th hour and the Pandora Coopers Big Bang.
• 1:08:00
  That was Adam Smith, right? No, it was.
• 1:08:03
  Toby, sorry, Yeah. Toby.
• 1:08:05
  And Erica, it's just like the green hues as the doctors like
• 1:08:10
  working around the box and the some of the shots are like the
• 1:08:13
  Paradigm Daleks where there's just a flame behind them and
• 1:08:16
  stuff. I mean, absolutely gorgeous.
• 1:08:21
  But yeah, it's. That I mean it's.
• 1:08:23
  Everything you got, the time travelling Trixie stuff, Matt
• 1:08:26
  Smith's great like speeches and performance.
• 1:08:28
  But or do it, Luke, do it. Do the screen at the end of
• 1:08:32
  episode 1 what? If I say it like listen to me.
• 1:08:38
  Please, please listen to me. Every song was.
• 1:08:42
  Supernova every moment in history, please.
• 1:08:47
  But we also there's there's that speech as a paddock speech.
• 1:08:50
  There's obviously the the speech next to the next to little Amy
• 1:08:53
  in the bed where you know, probably the best line of Doctor
• 1:08:58
  Who comes from of we're all stories in the end.
• 1:09:00
  Just make it a good one, which is just really ghost bumpy and
• 1:09:04
  brilliant and it all it was all for a purpose.
• 1:09:08
  It is all to plant an idea in Amy's head to bring him back and
• 1:09:12
  oh, and I mean, it was I and it was so clever.
• 1:09:15
  That the thing that all the fans were jumping on saying oh, there
• 1:09:17
  was a big continuity error where the doctor's not wearing his
• 1:09:20
  jacket yet and then it was made the.
• 1:09:23
  Whole. Time, but you couldn't have ever
• 1:09:25
  guessed. It was a plot point because it
• 1:09:27
  just sounds like he's talking bollocks in the version stone,
• 1:09:31
  but it was an entirely new way of telling.
• 1:09:33
  Doctor Who wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:35
  And it's. Just such a clever idea.
• 1:09:37
  And I think because he got the time to structure the series,
• 1:09:40
  you do, you do get us an arc that's actually pays off and
• 1:09:44
  it's really gorgeous to watch play out.
• 1:09:47
  And I mean, there's something blue, something old, something
• 1:09:50
  new. It's just that's been sat in his
• 1:09:53
  head since like 15 and he's been able to bring it and it just oh,
• 1:09:58
  it went so well season end on a party as well.
• 1:10:01
  Yeah. And then there's a party, and
• 1:10:03
  it's. Again, like Matt Smith's, you
• 1:10:04
  know, he's he's, he's the doctor still at the party because he's
• 1:10:07
  that bit where he's just looking out at them and he's like good
• 1:10:10
  on you mate. And he's still got that
• 1:10:11
  laddiness, but he's got the isolation of being the alien.
• 1:10:14
  But they all go off together. It's a great, joyous end.
• 1:10:17
  And they'll go off together on new adventures, except the the
• 1:10:20
  dynamics change. Like we're going somewhere new.
• 1:10:23
  It's. Yeah.
• 1:10:24
  I mean, you can it. It really is a story I could
• 1:10:28
  just watch over and over and over again.
• 1:10:31
  You know all. Every Russell.
• 1:10:32
  T Davis series ends miserably with the Doctor miserable,
• 1:10:39
  moping back to the TARDIS or regenerating or whatever, you
• 1:10:43
  know, And it was such a joy to end on something that was happy
• 1:10:47
  and everyone, just like you said, rushing off to new
• 1:10:52
  adventures because running away from boring life in the TARDIS.
• 1:10:55
  What a joy. What was so funny was then in
• 1:10:58
  Seven. They tried it again, didn't
• 1:10:59
  they? Having a drink in the in the
• 1:11:01
  garden, all of them, but like, they seemed so miserable.
• 1:11:04
  Sorry, six. It didn't quite have the same
• 1:11:06
  impact as the party at the end of the party.
• 1:11:09
  Do you know the? Pandorica.
• 1:11:10
  Opens I I think it's probably oh, I'm giving an opinion again.
• 1:11:13
  It's probably the the best penultimate episode they ever
• 1:11:17
  did, but man, he. Set up that there was a driving.
• 1:11:21
  Spaceship up there? Why did we not see a draft with
• 1:11:23
  all of those monsters? That would have made it perfect.
• 1:11:28
  I mean a blonde woman. With a behind.
• 1:11:30
  Gun it would have been. Gun it would have been.
• 1:11:32
  Cheap. OK.
• 1:11:34
  So. I mean it's.
• 1:11:35
  Just I think it's. Just the best finale like by by
• 1:11:39
  quite a long shot and oh, I agree.
• 1:11:42
  And like the whole, I think that's the.
• 1:11:43
  Last, but the whole remembering aspect of it, remembering
• 1:11:47
  stories and what what you've lost is, is so it's the real
• 1:11:52
  trick to time travel and the whole story is about Trixie time
• 1:11:57
  shuffle and the most the simplest trick is just
• 1:12:01
  remembering. It's just all so beautiful as
• 1:12:03
  well as spectacle. Two votes for the Pandorica.
• 1:12:08
  Open and The Big Bang, Mark Donaldson, what have you got for
• 1:12:11
  us so. I thought we.
• 1:12:16
  Were doing the the. The sort of standard strictly
• 1:12:18
  thing. And I thought one of us was
• 1:12:20
  going to, we were all going to just pick one of the stories and
• 1:12:22
  then eventually we would just pick whichever 1 was going to go
• 1:12:24
  through, send you a very robust. No, no, I knew we were all.
• 1:12:27
  I knew we all. Had to pick.
• 1:12:28
  I knew we all had to pick one of the stories, but what I thought
• 1:12:31
  was we were just going to talk about, you know, like 1 each
• 1:12:36
  rather than what is now going to happen.
• 1:12:38
  What are you talking? About Well, no, we're not.
• 1:12:40
  Because I am now going. To talk about one of the stories
• 1:12:42
  that either sigh or Luke and Jackson.
• 1:12:46
  Talks about because. It is down to those two.
• 1:12:49
  It's down to the Pandorica opens The Big Bang and the God
• 1:12:53
  Complex. And coming into this, I was
• 1:12:55
  thinking, I have this whole thing about Doctor Who and I
• 1:13:00
  think the best episodes generally are the ones that
• 1:13:03
  shone of mythology. And it's it throws the doctor
• 1:13:06
  and his companion or companions into a situation and they work
• 1:13:11
  it out. And it's all really atmospheric
• 1:13:12
  and exciting and adventurous and spooky and whatever.
• 1:13:16
  And the God complex is that. However, I.
• 1:13:20
  Bloody love the pandorical. Like it's, it's so good.
• 1:13:27
  It's so it's. It's like Fraser said at the
• 1:13:30
  start, it's it's such a upgrade from the season finales that we
• 1:13:36
  we've been getting. It's Oh, no, no, no.
• 1:13:40
  The end of the universe. Isn't a threat.
• 1:13:42
  We're going to do it at the end of Part 1 and then.
• 1:13:46
  Like Part 2. Is how we then rebuild that
• 1:13:49
  universe and it becomes this whole sort of melancholy story
• 1:13:54
  about memory and the and sort. Of childhood and.
• 1:14:01
  The, the things from our childhood that we want to bring
• 1:14:03
  back and, and growing up and, and sort of anxieties over
• 1:14:08
  growing up and sort of, and it culminates in that kind of
• 1:14:11
  amazing scene at the wedding where Amy doesn't know why she's
• 1:14:15
  crying. She's got Rivers Diary and then
• 1:14:18
  you've got the something bored something blue, Doctor I.
• 1:14:22
  Don't think, Doctor. Who But I think it has.
• 1:14:25
  But it's certainly not up to that point I've ever been that
• 1:14:30
  that joyous. That.
• 1:14:31
  Punched the air, like celebratory kind of thing.
• 1:14:36
  I listened to that bit of music from that so many in times when
• 1:14:39
  I got that Season 5 CD, just to kind of relive that a bit more
• 1:14:44
  because it was just brilliant. It's such a fantastic pay off
• 1:14:47
  and such a beautiful spin because what is the TARDIS if
• 1:14:51
  it's not something old, something borrowed, something
• 1:14:54
  blue? It's so good, so clever, and
• 1:14:58
  also the reason I want to rethink my opinion on the big.
• 1:15:00
  Bang, at the moment you know the other reason I want to put.
• 1:15:03
  Through the pandoric open to The Big Bang is that ultimately I
• 1:15:06
  think it is the it's the sort of the perfect distillation of
• 1:15:12
  everything that Doctor Who can be.
• 1:15:13
  But it's all in one episode and it and it all manages to kind of
• 1:15:17
  hang together. Like there's space travel.
• 1:15:21
  We go off to some shady bar in in space.
• 1:15:24
  And then we're back in time with Vincent van Gogh and Winston
• 1:15:27
  Churchill. And then we're like far into the
• 1:15:29
  future with Queen Elizabeth the 10th or whatever she is.
• 1:15:33
  And then we're back at Stone Hedge with Romans and the
• 1:15:36
  spaceships overhead and and the Doctor has to give a big speech.
• 1:15:43
  And there's loads of Trixie time.
• 1:15:44
  Travel, and it plays with time travel the way that Doctor Who
• 1:15:48
  bar the Space Museum comparison. But.
• 1:15:52
  Bar the Space Museum, I don't think there's any other Doctor
• 1:15:55
  Who story that's really actually kind of no it's.
• 1:16:00
  Not really, is it? It's just like.
• 1:16:02
  Oh, don't touch yourself if you meet yourself from the past, you
• 1:16:05
  know. This is.
• 1:16:08
  Properly like playing around with narrative structure and
• 1:16:12
  having fun with time travelling the way that Doctor Who very
• 1:16:15
  rarely does. So I feel that it needs to be in
• 1:16:18
  the kind of the final just for that, really.
• 1:16:23
  So yeah, I really, really like. I'm doing lots of Matt Smith
• 1:16:26
  handy waving. But one final thing.
• 1:16:31
  Sorry, one final thing. At the risk of talking too much,
• 1:16:34
  one final thing. I remember when this went out,
• 1:16:36
  and I can't remember where it was, there was a blog article.
• 1:16:40
  Well, it was. It was an article like a fairly
• 1:16:43
  maybe AV Club or something like that, and it was a kind of
• 1:16:47
  condemnation of the Stonehenge speech.
• 1:16:50
  And it was like Doctor Who is not Captain Kirk.
• 1:16:53
  How dare Doctor Who stand up on that platform and bully all
• 1:16:57
  those aliens was essentially the kind of premise, because that's
• 1:17:00
  what Captain Kirk does, would have ripped his show off.
• 1:17:03
  Well, exactly. But Captain.
• 1:17:04
  Kirk threatens violence or he would punch somebody in the
• 1:17:06
  face. It's as Jackson points out,
• 1:17:08
  though, they're all up there laughing at him because they
• 1:17:11
  know what that box is or what it's there for.
• 1:17:14
  And also, crucially, the bit that everybody can forgets about
• 1:17:17
  the Pandorica speech. He drops the microphone at the
• 1:17:21
  start. This.
• 1:17:23
  Isn't the kind of? Swaggering space hero that we
• 1:17:25
  had with David Tennant. This is a Doctor Who is going to
• 1:17:30
  make a big speech, but he drops the microphone.
• 1:17:31
  He has to kind of fumble it back up, and then he kind of stands
• 1:17:34
  on the on the plinth and sort of gives his speech.
• 1:17:37
  That's what everybody forgets when they ask Colin Baker or
• 1:17:39
  Sylvester McCoy of Peter Davison to read at the convention, if
• 1:17:43
  you want to. See how good Matt Smith is.
• 1:17:45
  Compare it to Jacob Dudman doing it.
• 1:17:47
  Jacob Dudman is good, but he's not Matt Smith.
• 1:17:50
  No, and just just imagine a nuance.
• 1:17:54
  Of it is. Amazing that whole season.
• 1:17:57
  That's a message to Dylan. Reece Whole.
• 1:17:58
  Season, Yeah, hinged. On David Tennant's choice to
• 1:18:04
  take that season or not, and he chose to not, but if he had,
• 1:18:09
  that speech would have been his and it would have been
• 1:18:11
  completely different Well, also the.
• 1:18:13
  Speech. After it, he says, oh, that'll
• 1:18:17
  keep us scrambling for 10 minutes.
• 1:18:18
  Like it's not even a speech to scare the monsters away.
• 1:18:21
  Yeah, that's, it's a speech to buy a tiny bit of time from the
• 1:18:24
  doctor's point of view. Oh, so this is a sort of, this
• 1:18:27
  is a. Whole other podcast, I think.
• 1:18:28
  But that's interesting though, that whole David would if David
• 1:18:31
  Tennant had taken on Series 5, what what would Doctor Who have
• 1:18:34
  looked like? I don't know if it would have
• 1:18:35
  survived. Yeah, because I don't think Matt
• 1:18:38
  Smith would have taken that show on in that he would have been in
• 1:18:41
  a completely different place in his career.
• 1:18:43
  I think it's that lightning in a bottle thing that we get Matt
• 1:18:45
  Smith, Stephen Moffatt, Kerringer and Darth.
• 1:18:48
  Altogether at. That time freshness, isn't it?
• 1:18:51
  Yeah, exactly. Well, just say.
• 1:18:54
  One thing about the. Space hopping.
• 1:18:55
  Thing at the start, like the reason I think it works here
• 1:18:59
  compared to say a good man goes to war is because we know these
• 1:19:02
  people like yes, we've we've had a bit of time with them
• 1:19:06
  throughout the season. So it's like, oh, it's them and
• 1:19:08
  it's them and it feels like everything's building.
• 1:19:11
  Whereas when we did pre title sequence is so.
• 1:19:14
  Brilliant. It's like, what if the stolen
• 1:19:16
  Earth was? Was good.
• 1:19:20
  Who invited him along? Well, Fraser, the Pandora opens
• 1:19:25
  and The Big Bang is going through with the winners.
• 1:19:29
  However, what what would you have chosen and why?
• 1:19:33
  I mean, I really struggled with this.
• 1:19:35
  Really struggled because it's, it's kind of, you know, when you
• 1:19:37
  go for your son to dinner, you go out and you look at the menu
• 1:19:40
  and you go, you know, they've got beef, they've got pork,
• 1:19:42
  they've got chicken. And you're like, well, you know,
• 1:19:46
  I really like beef. I really like beef, but I always
• 1:19:48
  have beef. I never have pork.
• 1:19:50
  You explain which of the stories or which.
• 1:19:51
  Meat. Which one is the?
• 1:19:54
  Rings. Yeah, which is the Turkey?
• 1:20:00
  I quite I like Turkey though. That's.
• 1:20:02
  The thing I think chickens probably going to be the rings
• 1:20:05
  of Akaten because I think, you know, the rings of Akaten is
• 1:20:08
  nowhere near as. Plain, it's not too cheap.
• 1:20:11
  It's no chickens too cheap for Akaten.
• 1:20:18
  I mean, it's, it's, it's got feather chickens.
• 1:20:20
  Are staple Isn't it chickens? Are staple rings of Akaten I
• 1:20:23
  would say was a staple. It's not like Santa, it's a one
• 1:20:26
  off I did. Think though, if I'm not, if I'm
• 1:20:28
  not back in, I could send then it doesn't stand to check.
• 1:20:33
  Why is there a lullaby that's telling?
• 1:20:34
  The God to wake up? I've never understood that.
• 1:20:39
  Well, it's either. That, or there's always A twist.
• 1:20:40
  At the end, so it's a better song than that to be.
• 1:20:43
  Fair. Yeah, so.
• 1:20:46
  Your meets Fraser, Yes, so. The chicken.
• 1:20:49
  Is the rings of Akatan and I think the rings of Akatan, as
• 1:20:52
  you've said, is is, is it's a good episode.
• 1:20:55
  It's a good episode of of Doctor Who and there's a few flaws in
• 1:20:58
  it, not going to lie, But you know, by the time you get to the
• 1:21:01
  end, by the time, you know, the choir is singing, sorry,
• 1:21:04
  Jackson, and by the time, you know, Matt Smith is delivering
• 1:21:08
  that speech that, you know, we're talking about Stonehenge,
• 1:21:12
  you know, let's talk rings of act and let's talk that speech.
• 1:21:14
  Take it all, baby. I mean, that is just that's a
• 1:21:18
  standard performance. There's there's a criticism of
• 1:21:22
  Matt Smith that by the time we get through season 7 years or
• 1:21:24
  just flappy wrists and ticks and eccentricities.
• 1:21:27
  A lot of light in the rings of Act 10 as.
• 1:21:29
  Well, bollocks, I. Don't know there is, yeah.
• 1:21:35
  Look at that speech around the Tardis.
• 1:21:37
  But you. Know there's there's the.
• 1:21:39
  Idea is that you know he's checked out he's you know he
• 1:21:42
  knows he's going at the end of the series he gets brought back
• 1:21:46
  for his finales yes, but he's he's kind of checked out he's
• 1:21:48
  got 1 foot in Hollywood or on the next one of his career
• 1:21:51
  ladder and I think bollocks. You know, if he's checked out,
• 1:21:54
  then that just shows exactly what an amazing actor is, that
• 1:21:56
  he can come in and give a monologue to a CGI son with a
• 1:22:03
  face. I mean, it's more that what's
• 1:22:05
  his name? Mr. What's his face in Nightmare
• 1:22:06
  in Silver? I think that's what he.
• 1:22:08
  Oh yeah, that's terrible. I mean.
• 1:22:09
  I, I'm, you know, he's. I I Matt Smith in Alcatel is my
• 1:22:13
  favorite doctor performance that he does.
• 1:22:15
  Oh, don't you love him when he's sitting there?
• 1:22:16
  In the audience trying to sing the song, the hymn.
• 1:22:19
  It's so. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:22:20
  I mean you. You.
• 1:22:20
  Get you get every slice of the doctor you want in that.
• 1:22:24
  Like he's he's sly and weird at the beginning.
• 1:22:26
  You know, some say Nancy, he's got he's got a loud, powerful
• 1:22:32
  speech, he's defeated, he's flirty, he's the most dazzling
• 1:22:35
  man in the room. And like he seems to hit every
• 1:22:39
  little bit of it perfectly. That attempt for me also that.
• 1:22:42
  Speech is funny because it's. Weirdly about absolutely
• 1:22:45
  nothing. It's like he's reading a Doctor
• 1:22:48
  Who wiki entry and yeah, Matt Smith, the way performs that,
• 1:22:55
  you're just swept up in it'll and you're the maddest thing.
• 1:22:59
  About that speech is the bit where he goes.
• 1:23:01
  I have seen what is it I've I've been to a universe with the laws
• 1:23:06
  of physics devised by a. Madman and I was like, oh that's
• 1:23:12
  a cool. Sentence And then it was only
• 1:23:13
  today I was like, he's on by the three doctors, isn't he?
• 1:23:15
  That's also the land of. Fiction.
• 1:23:20
  Yeah. Yeah, that's true.
• 1:23:22
  Yeah, there's loads of. What's?
• 1:23:23
  Hilarious about that speech, though, is.
• 1:23:25
  I can't believe I'm about to praise Jenna Coleman.
• 1:23:27
  Here we go. Is that she comes in after him
• 1:23:30
  and underplays her part of that scene and is so moving in doing
• 1:23:35
  that. The contrast in the acting
• 1:23:37
  styles anyway. Are you choosing the rings of
• 1:23:39
  acting? I'm no, no.
• 1:23:42
  Just explain. The way but we've.
• 1:23:43
  Got to. Go to bed tonight yes so anyway
• 1:23:46
  we'll. You look at town called Mercy
• 1:23:49
  and you think, well, that's a bit pork, isn't it?
• 1:23:51
  It's a bit, it's a bit different, but is it very
• 1:23:53
  exciting, Juicy, you know, juicy.
• 1:23:55
  It is, yes, but. Joe did a great commentary on
• 1:23:58
  that. But you know what?
• 1:24:00
  It comes with brown is might. Be quite juicy, but is is it is
• 1:24:04
  that? Enough to tempt you on the menu.
• 1:24:06
  To go for the port because town called Mercy is gorgeous, isn't
• 1:24:11
  it? It's an absolutely stunning
• 1:24:13
  visual bit of Doctor Who the, you know, the can't remember
• 1:24:18
  where the film did, but you know, it's, it's selling spin.
• 1:24:21
  Yeah, but it is, it is selling the Wild West.
• 1:24:23
  And you've got that sort of like Gunslinger and you've got the,
• 1:24:28
  the, you know, the, the whole cowboy thing going on and the
• 1:24:32
  sets that the views there are are out of the world, out of
• 1:24:36
  this world called Susan as well, which.
• 1:24:39
  Yeah, very appropriate. And it does that that thing that
• 1:24:42
  I'm always. Fond of where it just realizes
• 1:24:44
  it hasn't really got enough plot to go for you know stretch out
• 1:24:48
  for 45 minutes if you want to keep the suspense going so it
• 1:24:50
  just goes awesome halfway through will just reveal that
• 1:24:54
  you know Carla Jacks is the bad guy and he's and we'll start
• 1:24:57
  again from there so we'll start with a new story which is so
• 1:25:01
  we're now as we're doing like the Boomtown thing where we're
• 1:25:04
  no we're having to have a bit of a moral dilemma and we're having
• 1:25:08
  to he always does it in a different type of way and
• 1:25:10
  everywhere that he does I think he really sells it so he has you
• 1:25:13
  know he's dragging Carlagex to sling him out and Amy's kicking
• 1:25:16
  off and always kicking off with Amy and the dynamic and
• 1:25:19
  everything is you know it's just wonderful but you know does
• 1:25:23
  attempt us on the menu not as much as beef or lamb you know I
• 1:25:27
  said to Mark earlier I. Said everyone else is going to
• 1:25:29
  pick one story to talk about. Fraser will go through all of
• 1:25:33
  them. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:25:35
  You should have worked with me. 1st God Complex, I think so
• 1:25:40
  you're 100% right in everything you say about the God comics.
• 1:25:42
  It is an absolute masterpiece. It is fantastic.
• 1:25:45
  I know Joe, when we did series 6:00 we we really struggled at
• 1:25:49
  the end between the eventual winner and the God complex.
• 1:25:52
  And I said I would have been really happy for either to go
• 1:25:54
  through and you know, I stand by that because you know, it is
• 1:25:57
  again such a powerful bit of drama.
• 1:26:00
  You know, it's if there's this sort.
• 1:26:02
  Of mini arc of. The Ponds coming at the end of
• 1:26:05
  their life with a doctor really, you know, we've had to go to
• 1:26:08
  wait beforehand, which is really emotionally traumatic on the
• 1:26:11
  pair of them that could have left there because, you know,
• 1:26:13
  Lori, you're screaming at the doctor.
• 1:26:14
  That's where you are. I don't want to travel with you
• 1:26:17
  anymore. But they do go on another
• 1:26:18
  adventure and everyone realizes pretty much it's, you know, it's
• 1:26:22
  not going to end well. So let's end it now on a high
• 1:26:24
  note. It's fantastic, but Fraser, what
• 1:26:28
  meat? Is the God complex?
• 1:26:32
  I'm going to say beef for this one.
• 1:26:34
  I'm going to say. Beef for this one.
• 1:26:36
  Because you know, it's, it's again, it's it's tasty, it's
• 1:26:38
  juicy, it's something you can get your your mouth, it's
• 1:26:40
  something you will come back to again.
• 1:26:42
  But ultimately, you know, I don't have lamb much.
• 1:26:45
  So when I go out, the lamb is really exciting.
• 1:26:48
  So I'll, you know, oh, lambs on the menu have a bit of an and
• 1:26:51
  that is the Pandora got opens and the big bag.
• 1:26:56
  So that would have been my my choice as well.
• 1:26:58
  It was really difficult, but because the reason is is because
• 1:27:02
  I think the God complex is equally as good, but they're so
• 1:27:07
  different. You know, 1 is this really
• 1:27:09
  dense, really self-contained, really atmospheric and counter
• 1:27:13
  driven spooky drama and the other is your Big Bang flash
• 1:27:18
  wallop end of the series spectacular.
• 1:27:21
  But you know, the storytelling in in Big Bang and Pandorica is,
• 1:27:27
  is just that little bit better. Because I am a very story driven
• 1:27:31
  person. You know, plot means a lot to
• 1:27:34
  me, character means a lot to me. But you know, the overall story,
• 1:27:37
  if that's what I'm really looking for, plot kind of wins
• 1:27:40
  out on character for me 9 times out of 10.
• 1:27:43
  And the plotting of The Big Bang is just phenomenal.
• 1:27:47
  As we've said, Pandora opens though, and I watch that back
• 1:27:51
  again because usually I don't watch that when I just skip to,
• 1:27:54
  you know, the universe is dead and let's fix it.
• 1:27:56
  And yeah, watch that side. And I was.
• 1:27:59
  What? Well.
• 1:28:00
  The superior episode. It's not, it's not true, but.
• 1:28:04
  What? No, No, no, no, no, no, no.
• 1:28:06
  It's far. Too much.
• 1:28:07
  We have a song in it there and. You forget things, don't you?
• 1:28:12
  You. Kind of forget things when
• 1:28:13
  you're watching them in a while. And I watched it back and just
• 1:28:15
  that opening bit where you've got Vincent van Gogh, you've got
• 1:28:18
  Queen Elizabeth, you've got Churchill's popping up there as
• 1:28:22
  well. That was just so clever.
• 1:28:26
  You know, just. Right, OK, while we're filming
• 1:28:28
  all these, let's just tack a little 5 minutes on, you know,
• 1:28:31
  use use these characters and we'll just, you know, you know,
• 1:28:35
  take half of their film and whatever just to stick a little
• 1:28:37
  5 minute snippet in. I mean, he gets Christopher
• 1:28:40
  Einbach as the fucking son Darwin and puts him in me.
• 1:28:43
  We will save do you in the verse from you.
• 1:28:46
  Yeah, for the one line. I mean, the the the ball, the
• 1:28:50
  ambition again, of of that of being able to say, well,
• 1:28:53
  actually, and it's it's it's that theme of the arc runs
• 1:28:57
  through the entire series. It's not just that you were
• 1:29:00
  saying Mark of all what's Mr. Saxon going to be up to this
• 1:29:02
  week or who's going to say the word Torchwood this time?
• 1:29:05
  You know, it's, it's woven through from, you know, the,
• 1:29:08
  it's an integral part from like the first two parties, the 4th
• 1:29:11
  episode, fifth episode, when you and the angels and the crack
• 1:29:14
  saves the day, you know, and it's, it's all in there, you
• 1:29:18
  know, always died 3 episodes earlier because of the crack.
• 1:29:20
  And now he's back because he's worried that's what he does.
• 1:29:23
  And that jaw I. Was just amazing.
• 1:29:26
  That. That whole way that the arc was
• 1:29:31
  was woven throughout the whole story.
• 1:29:33
  But you know, the real kind of it is the big bag is that, you
• 1:29:37
  know, plotting of of that final episode is just next level.
• 1:29:41
  You know, is we've had the balls to kill off the universe as with
• 1:29:44
  cliffhanger, how we're going to undo it.
• 1:29:46
  Well, we're just going to do it, you know, and we're going to
• 1:29:49
  have tiny when he's going to pop up here, he's going to pop up
• 1:29:52
  there, gives us the Fez, the stone Dalek, which is gorgeous.
• 1:29:56
  And you know, as we've said, just to have that bit where he
• 1:30:00
  winds back through the season, drops a scene in into that fifth
• 1:30:05
  episode from the finale and ties back to it.
• 1:30:08
  It's just it's just next level. And then you know, that that
• 1:30:12
  happy ending, you know, Amy climbing over table to get to
• 1:30:15
  the TARDIS, the Doctor popping out with these tucks.
• 1:30:17
  I'm going, oh, yes, that was a total surprise for me.
• 1:30:19
  I wasn't expecting that at all. It's just it's just brilliant.
• 1:30:23
  It is, you know, probably apart. From yeah, I know it I'll.
• 1:30:28
  Yeah, it's the best of the new series.
• 1:30:31
  Series finales by quite a distance.
• 1:30:33
  I think so. It wins.
• 1:30:35
  I will leave the kissing. To Mr. Pom.
• 1:30:41
  No, no, no. It's.
• 1:30:42
  Yes, it is. It's Mr. Pom.
• 1:30:44
  Can I just say it was? So close between the two and I
• 1:30:49
  was just going to congratulate you.
• 1:30:50
  Sai for being the only person in round two round one who wasn't a
• 1:30:53
  basic bitch. I tried.
• 1:30:56
  I tried not to be a basic bitch, but then ultimately basic bitch
• 1:30:59
  won out. I did it.
• 1:31:02
  Those scenes in the. Under Henge with the cyber heads
• 1:31:05
  should have been stopping. Yeah, they're.
• 1:31:08
  So. Brilliantly.
• 1:31:10
  Done. And it's really tense and scary.
• 1:31:15
  So, oh, you know, like I'm going to.
• 1:31:16
  Hold off to my name, Luke. You said in the season 21 I was
• 1:31:20
  defending 22 when in the series Matt Smith episode, I'm going to
• 1:31:24
  defend Mr. Saxon and the Arkin series 4 because it's worth
• 1:31:27
  remembering people were fucking excited about those at the time.
• 1:31:31
  Yeah. I mean I, I I've not said a
• 1:31:33
  word. About them because I I also like
• 1:31:35
  that razor Gregory but they. But.
• 1:31:37
  I would say you're excited in. Utopia, and it's nothing to
• 1:31:41
  fucking do with who said Saxon the week before.
• 1:31:43
  It's to do with the fact is Derek Jacobi holding I creamed
• 1:31:46
  my knickers. Speaks with the voice of
• 1:31:48
  Anthony. Inley and Roger Delgado.
• 1:31:51
  That's why you're excited off. It does refine it though, like.
• 1:31:54
  I, I really do remember the, the shock something like
• 1:31:58
  revolutionized. I remember the shock of watching
• 1:32:01
  fashion stone and the crack being noticed because we're so
• 1:32:04
  used to them. Things go through the series
• 1:32:06
  unnoticed. It's like, oh, where the hell do
• 1:32:09
  we go now? And then in in the next two
• 1:32:11
  party, as you said, you get the the Rory and Rory getting sucked
• 1:32:15
  through the crack and. Do you remember Matt Smith?
• 1:32:21
  It actually. Builds, Yeah.
• 1:32:23
  Do you remember Matt Smith quoting the Cyber King in
• 1:32:26
  Victoria, London and it's feeling like it happened 40
• 1:32:29
  years ago? Yes.
• 1:32:30
  The gap between flesh and stone and the next doctor feels felt
• 1:32:34
  longer than that shitty gap were quoted Mavic Chen.
• 1:32:38
  Yeah. Also as well, didn't you love
• 1:32:42
  the fact that the. Cracks.
• 1:32:43
  He was just like, oh God, I can't be art of all this
• 1:32:45
  invading earth continuity for Rusty Davis's era.
• 1:32:48
  It's all just fallen down a crack and we're resetting.
• 1:32:51
  He's just online with it, doesn't he?
• 1:32:53
  He says we're doing our own thing.
• 1:32:54
  Well, fellas, the Pandorica opens and The Big Bang heads
• 1:32:58
  into round two. We're now in the second-half of
• 1:33:01
  the episode. You'll be pleased to hear.
• 1:33:03
  And now we're going to talk about Matt Smith himself and the
• 1:33:08
  11th Doctor. So a round Robin to everybody.
• 1:33:11
  What the earth do you think of the?
• 1:33:13
  11th Doctor. Himself and Matt Smith's
• 1:33:16
  performance. Let's shake it up the direction
• 1:33:18
  and we'll start with Mark. I bloody love.
• 1:33:24
  Him I I remember when Tammy the Doctor went out and he
• 1:33:30
  regenerated into Peter Capaldi and I was so excited to see
• 1:33:32
  Peter Capaldi be Doctor Who, but also I'd had.
• 1:33:37
  I was sitting. There watching at my dad's house
• 1:33:39
  because we that that was the period where we used to go
• 1:33:41
  around my dad's for Christmas. We watched Doctor and I was
• 1:33:44
  like, OK, yeah, yeah, I'm fine with this, I'm fine with this,
• 1:33:47
  I'm fine with this. Let's go for a wee.
• 1:33:49
  And I got halfway up the fucking stairs and I started just, like,
• 1:33:52
  weeping. Because I love you, I.
• 1:33:56
  Didn't want. Him to I genuinely.
• 1:33:58
  Didn't want him to go. When David Tennant left, I was
• 1:34:00
  like, yeah, this is like, he's great.
• 1:34:04
  We all love David Tennant, but maybe it's time.
• 1:34:06
  I feel like it's time now with Matt Smith.
• 1:34:09
  I don't know what it was. I just was like, Nah, he's just
• 1:34:12
  because he nailed that character.
• 1:34:15
  And for what anybody says about kind of like, yeah, he becomes a
• 1:34:17
  caricature by the end or whatever.
• 1:34:19
  I don't really think he does. I think he's still.
• 1:34:23
  When the scripts are strong, he's still putting the work in.
• 1:34:27
  Maybe that's the problem then. Maybe the scripts aren't quite.
• 1:34:30
  As good. I think that's maybe what it is.
• 1:34:33
  But I mean, he's the first. He's in fact, I say, I say the
• 1:34:37
  first. I mean, Capaldi comes a close
• 1:34:39
  second, but he's got he's had that kind of education, I
• 1:34:41
  suppose, and kind of classic Doctor Who.
• 1:34:43
  He kind of grew up with it. But he's the first of the modern
• 1:34:46
  Doctors that felt like the Doctor that I, I do not identify
• 1:34:51
  what's a strong word, but that I gravitate towards that kind of
• 1:34:55
  slightly aloof, slightly awkward alien observer rather than this
• 1:35:01
  kind of swaggering Rockstar that we get with David Tennant.
• 1:35:05
  And that was absolutely the right way to go at that time, I
• 1:35:09
  think, to kind of make it that kind of big populist hit.
• 1:35:13
  But it wasn't quite the doctor that I necessarily wanted.
• 1:35:18
  Eccleston was a lot closer to that.
• 1:35:21
  It was doing. Eccleston was doing really
• 1:35:23
  interesting things. He was this kind of batter
• 1:35:26
  damaged war hero. But still very much the doctor.
• 1:35:31
  But just a bit harsher and, you know, and then he turns into
• 1:35:35
  David Tennant and suddenly what? Every inch fine, I'm David
• 1:35:40
  Tennant. OK.
• 1:35:49
  My. David Tennant from all of my
• 1:35:50
  Danny. Dyer not very fucking good.
• 1:35:56
  I hope you're doing the David Tennant.
• 1:35:59
  Yeah, Jacob Dudman. Yeah, get your P-45.
• 1:36:03
  No. So, yeah.
• 1:36:05
  So Matt Smith to me just felt like the doctor.
• 1:36:08
  I loved the awkwardness of like, I think I know a lot of people
• 1:36:13
  were kind of put off by Amy coming on to the Doctor and Amy
• 1:36:16
  being quite a kind of hyper sexualized character.
• 1:36:21
  But I think what makes it work is that the doctors are this is
• 1:36:27
  there. No, no, no, no, no, no, this is
• 1:36:29
  not this is not golf slot. All right.
• 1:36:32
  Whereas David Tennant would. Probably be like oh.
• 1:36:34
  Maybe. You're good and I think that's
• 1:36:41
  why. Again, why the River Song thing
• 1:36:43
  works really well with with Batsmith is because again, it's
• 1:36:48
  kind of just that idea that like it's back to this idea of the
• 1:36:51
  doctors kind of like he doesn't really do romance.
• 1:36:55
  And so when the Doctor does romance, it should be like a big
• 1:36:57
  deal, like a girl in the fireplace kind of situation, you
• 1:37:01
  know, So the River Song thing, this kind of strange sort of
• 1:37:06
  relationship they have throughout that series.
• 1:37:08
  And the way Matt Smith and Alex Kingston play it is this kind of
• 1:37:12
  he's sort of slightly awkward. She's the kind of domineering
• 1:37:14
  older woman. It's it's very it's very Steven
• 1:37:18
  Moffat sitcom. But I think it also kind of
• 1:37:20
  works quite well as a kind of, yeah, what does the Doctor look
• 1:37:23
  like in a romantic sexual relationship?
• 1:37:27
  Let's let's play around with that.
• 1:37:29
  I think he's absolutely the best, the best guy to play it
• 1:37:32
  so. And he can do.
• 1:37:34
  He does that thing that Tom Baker does so well as well.
• 1:37:36
  He turns on a dime. You know, he's very kind of hand
• 1:37:39
  WAVY and sort of frivolous. And then the next minute he's
• 1:37:45
  sort of just turning around and going, no, I'm not having this.
• 1:37:52
  We're going to do something better.
• 1:37:53
  It's yeah. He's the, I think, the actor
• 1:37:56
  that gets the character of the Doctor the most until Capaldi,
• 1:38:03
  but that maybe trips Capaldi up. But that's for a whole separate
• 1:38:05
  podcast. Gorgeous sigh.
• 1:38:10
  The 11th Doctor, as I said at the start.
• 1:38:14
  I fell in. Love with him the.
• 1:38:16
  Minute, he was dangling off the TARDIS and about to hit the top
• 1:38:20
  of big the Big Ben Tower and the he's nuts.
• 1:38:24
  We're going to hit the top, yeah.
• 1:38:26
  And just the. Expression of relief that he
• 1:38:29
  pulls when he's pulled himself back into the TARDIS and it
• 1:38:32
  spins off, and then the minute he pops up out of the crash,
• 1:38:36
  TARDIS looks over the top and it's all the golden light.
• 1:38:40
  It's so great, he looks. Beautiful.
• 1:38:43
  And amazing. And it was just like, I didn't
• 1:38:47
  expect to love a doctor so young.
• 1:38:50
  I, I was a bit worried going in because I'm an old school fan
• 1:38:54
  and we don't cast young people as Doctor Who.
• 1:38:57
  And he's even younger than Peter Davison.
• 1:38:59
  And this is all going to go wrong.
• 1:39:00
  But that minute where he was doing the thing with his fingers
• 1:39:04
  when he was revealed in the part.
• 1:39:06
  And I'm just thinking there's something about this man that I
• 1:39:08
  quite like, like quite fancy. This is a bit worrying and he is
• 1:39:13
  the only Doctor Who I've ever fancied.
• 1:39:15
  It's amazing. I I am weird.
• 1:39:18
  It's true. I have very weird taste.
• 1:39:20
  Just look at my partner anyway. He would say the same.
• 1:39:26
  He won't. Listen to a Doctor Who.
• 1:39:28
  Podcast. Don't worry, like it'd be fine.
• 1:39:32
  And it's just like this. Bolt out of the blue that like
• 1:39:35
  Mark said, this was. The doctor back.
• 1:39:40
  Because much as I love David Tennant, he wasn't, like you
• 1:39:44
  said, a Doctor that I, I knew from the old series.
• 1:39:48
  There wasn't a Doctor like him. He didn't feel like, like the
• 1:39:53
  Doctor in lots of ways. And suddenly Matt Smith did.
• 1:39:59
  And I loved the way that he handled himself and that we
• 1:40:02
  really did get the old man in the young body that everyone
• 1:40:05
  said was Peter Davidson's Doctor that never really came.
• 1:40:10
  Out as much as it should have done, Matt Smith absolutely
• 1:40:13
  personified that. You could see underneath this
• 1:40:16
  young body, this is a man who's 1000 years old or whatever.
• 1:40:21
  He'd got something about him that was really an old soul in
• 1:40:26
  that body. And I think it's sort of
• 1:40:29
  typified by his, his first costume with the tweed jacket
• 1:40:33
  and the trousers and the bow tie.
• 1:40:36
  It's someone who absolutely thinks they're they're really
• 1:40:40
  cool and really isn't and yet really absolutely is.
• 1:40:44
  On top of that, it's those 3 layers that because he thinks
• 1:40:48
  he's cool, he isn't cool but he looks so good.
• 1:40:52
  He can carry. Off that look and I think you
• 1:40:56
  can see the change in his performance when he's got the
• 1:40:58
  longer jacket later on that it's not ever quite the same as those
• 1:41:02
  sort of initial tweed jacket doctor performances.
• 1:41:07
  Yeah, it's it's just brilliant and mesmerizing and does
• 1:41:11
  interesting, unusual, unexpected things all the way through his
• 1:41:16
  tenure. And he can hold his own against
• 1:41:19
  Alex Kingston and he can hold his own against John Hurt and
• 1:41:23
  David Tennant as well, and not lose focus that he is the
• 1:41:27
  current Doctor in the day of the Doctor, which we will probably
• 1:41:31
  be discussing shortly. And he's still the central
• 1:41:34
  Doctor of that story, which and hold his own against Tom Baker,
• 1:41:39
  which is quite an amazing thing, you know?
• 1:41:44
  Yeah. And.
• 1:41:45
  Like like you Mark. I didn't want him to go.
• 1:41:48
  I was ready for another series of him looking for Gallifrey
• 1:41:51
  after this and it felt like suddenly we were cheated out of
• 1:41:55
  another year of him and I've never quite forgiven Doctor Who
• 1:41:59
  for not keeping him on for another year.
• 1:42:01
  You've got Pin, what are you complaining about?
• 1:42:04
  Well, we know that's not my era. So he's the man I wanted to play
• 1:42:08
  the doctor forever, and he didn't play a doctor I liked.
• 1:42:14
  So that's what that's a, that's a story for another day.
• 1:42:19
  But yeah, I wanted him just for another year, just to see what
• 1:42:22
  else he could possibly do with the role.
• 1:42:25
  I don't think he'd have disappointed Luke.
• 1:42:30
  Well, I mean. I cried when Pick Party left.
• 1:42:34
  I cried when David Tennant left. But fucking.
• 1:42:38
  Hell, I cried when Matt. And.
• 1:42:42
  It's odd. What?
• 1:42:43
  Mark said, because it sounds exactly what I did is that a
• 1:42:47
  whole Christmas special went in and it was almost like they were
• 1:42:51
  the brain hadn't accepted it yet.
• 1:42:53
  So they ended. I left the room, walked up the
• 1:42:56
  stairs away from everyone, got to the top of the stairs and
• 1:43:00
  just cried and cried and cried because it shouldn't.
• 1:43:03
  I think it suddenly hit me. There was over and then it's
• 1:43:06
  possibly the only time where in my memory where the doctor's
• 1:43:10
  gone and it felt too soon. Everyone else seemed to go at
• 1:43:14
  the right time and yeah. Just exactly.
• 1:43:19
  What I said, I was so ready. I think you come off that high
• 1:43:23
  of day, the Doctor and the the series looking forward and it's
• 1:43:27
  just so strange to lose. Well, there are there.
• 1:43:30
  Is a sort of quite persistent river that he was supposed to
• 1:43:35
  come back. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:43:36
  And the muffins there. Was a.
• 1:43:38
  There was a sort of. Contractual snafu or something
• 1:43:41
  that meant that he ultimately didn't, but yeah I yeah, yeah.
• 1:43:45
  Because the the rumour is like. Series 8 was going to be like
• 1:43:48
  multiple episodes on trends alone, Really build up that war
• 1:43:51
  thing and tie in the side. And I mean, that just sounds
• 1:43:54
  like it would solve every issue that everyone's ever got with
• 1:43:56
  the hero, doesn't it? I certainly would try with the
• 1:44:00
  doctor. Oh yeah?
• 1:44:02
  Fucking hell, that's me. I, it's hard for me to, it's
• 1:44:08
  weird because I grew up with David Tennant and that
• 1:44:10
  definitely got me into the show that I'm like, he's amazing.
• 1:44:13
  It's because David Tennant is the confident hero.
• 1:44:18
  He's, he's a bit more of a John Perry Doctor in that he's just
• 1:44:21
  confident and he owns the room and you like him and you go
• 1:44:26
  along with it. It's it's that sort of show, but
• 1:44:28
  I agree with what the others are saying.
• 1:44:29
  It's Matt Smith has just got the essence of the Doctor that
• 1:44:33
  Troughton's got, that Tom Baker's got that is the alien.
• 1:44:38
  It's, I think it's what a lot of people sort of forget to play or
• 1:44:41
  sometimes it's hard to identify in the performance.
• 1:44:45
  And I think for me, he's the only mods in Doctor to have the
• 1:44:50
  alienness really, which is, I mean, why I absolutely love, for
• 1:44:55
  me FEAR. His whole era feels different
• 1:44:58
  and it's because he's at the front of it as well as the sort
• 1:45:00
  of the visuals and the Moffett. Moffett is also writing a
• 1:45:04
  different Doctor to RTD, which is obvious.
• 1:45:07
  He's not writing that big hero. He is writing an alien and an
• 1:45:10
  alien that's been around for a long time, which, yeah, really
• 1:45:14
  works well for Matt Smith's Doctor because it's the old man
• 1:45:17
  and the young man's body. And I think once someone once
• 1:45:19
  that said, once that line is said it, you can't help but say
• 1:45:23
  it all the time. It's, it's just really
• 1:45:28
  beautiful. He's just, he's amazing.
• 1:45:30
  He's got everything I would ever want in a doctor.
• 1:45:32
  And to be honest, I really can't see how it could ever be topped.
• 1:45:35
  I was quite as very excited for when Shooter joined because I
• 1:45:38
  was getting a similar vibe before like we've seen before,
• 1:45:42
  we've seen his episodes go up. I was getting a similar vibe
• 1:45:44
  because it was a it was a young guy that looked like he could do
• 1:45:49
  what Matt Smith basically did with the role, but do it in his
• 1:45:52
  own way and put his own stamp on it.
• 1:45:54
  But maybe the fact they were sort of being written by Rusty
• 1:45:58
  Davis has has made him into a more of a tenant Dr. than a than
• 1:46:02
  a Moffett Doctor. I know Moffett wrote for him.
• 1:46:04
  But then I think Shitty's best performance was Joyce of the
• 1:46:06
  World. So it's it's it's sort of the
• 1:46:12
  yeah, I won't grab it over to like that's it's just the best
• 1:46:15
  he is. He's the best of all the
• 1:46:16
  Doctors. Jackson why is?
• 1:46:21
  Matt Smith. So magnificent.
• 1:46:24
  Well. I think he emerges.
• 1:46:26
  In Series 5 as this kind of silent movie star, as though
• 1:46:29
  he's just stepped out of a Chaplain film, I mean.
• 1:46:34
  His performance in Series 5. Is probably the best performance
• 1:46:38
  of a Doctor I don't like. I don't think it's actually ever
• 1:46:41
  been beaten. I think it's such a special
• 1:46:43
  performance, very similar to Tom Baker's first series, when he
• 1:46:48
  doesn't know that whether he's going to be a success or not,
• 1:46:52
  he's just focused on the work and the performance he gets.
• 1:46:58
  He gets being. Unintentionally funny, better
• 1:47:02
  than any other Doctor. I think with with David Tennant,
• 1:47:04
  you were kind of laughing along with him, but with Matt Smith,
• 1:47:07
  he just throws out all these weird and odd mannerisms and
• 1:47:12
  reactions to things. I mean, the lodger is just
• 1:47:17
  incredible for those kind of gags.
• 1:47:19
  I mean, vampires of Venice, where they're around the table
• 1:47:26
  together and he's talking about how gross it is that the the
• 1:47:29
  fish are going to breathe together and he just goes, I
• 1:47:32
  mean, I don't know, but like that.
• 1:47:35
  Always makes me laugh. But also in that first series.
• 1:47:38
  He's such a lad. It's like what size?
• 1:47:41
  So it was is a he's a lad, he's awkward, but he's a lad.
• 1:47:45
  But he's awkward and it's all in there.
• 1:47:48
  Yeah, I think he doesn't understand.
• 1:47:51
  The sex does he in the first series?
• 1:47:53
  I feel like he does say that, but yeah, he does.
• 1:47:55
  Because in the Lodge, A very much plays James Corden.
• 1:48:01
  He's called Sophie, Yeah, He very much plays them into each
• 1:48:05
  other and it's so smooth. I mean also.
• 1:48:13
  Tom Baker. And Ian Martyr.
• 1:48:15
  Move over because Matt Smith and Arthur Darvel are here.
• 1:48:18
  I think the best and come on. I mean, I really think the best,
• 1:48:21
  you know, Doctor and male companion pairing since the 70s.
• 1:48:28
  And I think the quality that I like the most about Matt Smith
• 1:48:32
  is actually there in Capaldi as well, because it's it's it's
• 1:48:35
  part of Moffat's take on the character, which is the improv
• 1:48:42
  comedian in an accent action adventure show.
• 1:48:45
  So you get you get this with The Big Bang and you get it with
• 1:48:48
  Let's Kill Hitler, which is everything.
• 1:48:53
  You're. The characters are already
• 1:48:54
  dying. They're already dead.
• 1:48:55
  The universe has already ended and what what ensues is this
• 1:49:01
  long kind of comic routine of the central character just
• 1:49:05
  improvising shit. And the story have these
• 1:49:08
  wonderful kind of like spontaneous qualities of an
• 1:49:14
  improv comedian just being like, oh, we can try, try this and put
• 1:49:17
  this hat on and go here and then just put this in there.
• 1:49:19
  And then we'll just come up with something, something that
• 1:49:21
  happened. And it's what I love about The
• 1:49:24
  Big Bang. It happens again.
• 1:49:25
  I mean, even literally in next Kill Hitler, where he's
• 1:49:28
  balancing on that cane poisoned, just trying to come up with
• 1:49:31
  stuff to do. Yeah.
• 1:49:34
  I. Mean I love it I.
• 1:49:37
  Just fucking. Great, I don't have any more
• 1:49:38
  words. To say.
• 1:49:43
  The great improviser. Matt Smith Fraser, Now I somehow
• 1:49:48
  have come to you last again, but I know you're going to go on the
• 1:49:51
  longest if anyone. Wants a Pittsburgh?
• 1:49:54
  Take one now I mean. Obviously a lot's been said.
• 1:49:59
  Which I very much agree with. I think it took me a slightly
• 1:50:03
  longer than, say, to fall in love with the 11th Doctor.
• 1:50:06
  And by slightly longer, I'm talking about 6 minutes because
• 1:50:09
  it's the scene where he does exactly what Mark was saying,
• 1:50:12
  you know, and he pivots, you know, from being this sort of
• 1:50:16
  really eccentric character, you know, chuckling plates a bacon
• 1:50:21
  out the window and eating fish fingers and custard and pivots
• 1:50:25
  to talking about the crack in Amy's wall.
• 1:50:28
  That first initial scene shows it just what he can do with the
• 1:50:33
  role. You know, when you ask to start,
• 1:50:35
  what word, one word would you use to describe him?
• 1:50:37
  And I said, I said doctor because I think he is the
• 1:50:41
  doctor. Everything that you want in a.
• 1:50:44
  Doctor is is in. There he is manipulative, he is
• 1:50:50
  dangerous, he is scary at times, but he's also really, you know,
• 1:50:57
  funny. He's charming, he's playful.
• 1:51:02
  He's got that physicality about him.
• 1:51:05
  You know, everyone knows that the best Christmas special is
• 1:51:08
  the doctor, the widow in the wardrobe.
• 1:51:09
  That's an established fact. And there's the scene in there
• 1:51:12
  where he's got the the suit on back to front and he's clowning
• 1:51:16
  around, walking into lamp posts again.
• 1:51:18
  You know, that's just brilliant. That's a real example of the
• 1:51:22
  physicality he can bring to that rule.
• 1:51:26
  But you've killed Joe. I'm.
• 1:51:29
  Physically restraining myself. Right now.
• 1:51:33
  You've been a pain and all night.
• 1:51:35
  Man, come on. I've done.
• 1:51:36
  Well. I've done.
• 1:51:40
  Well, I've already. Said, you know, by the end, you
• 1:51:43
  know, there was there was a bit of a change in his performance.
• 1:51:45
  I don't know if it's the clothes or the writing.
• 1:51:48
  And I'll say you've said many times before that, you know,
• 1:51:51
  when he first starts in in series 5, no one knows what he's
• 1:51:55
  going to do. So he has just written as a
• 1:51:57
  doctor. He's just given, you know,
• 1:52:00
  Doctor Lyons and doctor scenarios to go in and Matt
• 1:52:03
  Smith goes in and puts his own stamp on that.
• 1:52:05
  But by 7, everyone knows what to expect, to know to expect the
• 1:52:08
  wacky and the flappy and the and and the rest of it.
• 1:52:11
  So there's an element of that, I think.
• 1:52:13
  But like I say, he's, he's never less than superb.
• 1:52:16
  He's never less than you know. Engaging in.
• 1:52:21
  Fantastic to watch. I think there's a lot of stories
• 1:52:24
  which are lifted and could be terrible, but you put him in and
• 1:52:29
  he lifts him a little bit. You know, let's kill Hitler.
• 1:52:31
  You know the scene where he is dying and he's on the cane and
• 1:52:35
  you know, as a as a prime? Example of that.
• 1:52:36
  The, I've already mentioned journey at the centre of the
• 1:52:39
  TARDIS, that end scene, but the start where he's he's playing
• 1:52:43
  the victim, he's playing quite desperate to get the, the Van
• 1:52:46
  Buren brothers into the TARDIS. And as soon as he gets them in
• 1:52:49
  and he shuts the door and he pivots once again to, you know,
• 1:52:53
  I've got just now bitches, you're mine.
• 1:52:55
  Let's go get Clara, you know. It's just that fantastic turn.
• 1:53:00
  That he's got. He does the the quiet moments
• 1:53:05
  really well. One thing I know I mentioned in
• 1:53:08
  when we did series 6 was if you go and watch night terrors,
• 1:53:13
  every scene he's got with that kid, he is so quiet and he
• 1:53:16
  brings it so much down with that kid.
• 1:53:18
  It's it's really fascinating to watch him, you know, be with
• 1:53:22
  Daniel May's character, quite exuberant and then quite quiet
• 1:53:26
  with the kid anger. I think he does anger really
• 1:53:29
  well. There's another point where I'm
• 1:53:30
  going to test Joe's resolve to keep quiet.
• 1:53:32
  But you know, we see a lot of different styles of anger from
• 1:53:36
  him bringing it to a Dalek with a foam spanner in victory the
• 1:53:40
  Daleks to the God complex, One of my favorite scenes.
• 1:53:43
  And that is where he's he's got the the anger and the disgust
• 1:53:46
  with David Walliams character and he's right up in his face
• 1:53:49
  and his face is just molten with emotion that he's containing.
• 1:53:55
  And you know, he can just do every everything.
• 1:53:58
  He's got such range. I'm the beast below, yeah.
• 1:54:02
  Nobody. Human has.
• 1:54:03
  Anything to say to me today? Yeah, Best I think is the.
• 1:54:07
  Quiet anger. He shows in town called Mercy
• 1:54:09
  when he's in that ship and all this, all the cold, yeah and
• 1:54:13
  yeah. It's all on his.
• 1:54:15
  Face. And say.
• 1:54:17
  A word. Yeah, and he's, he's got to
• 1:54:19
  wear. In the same story where, you
• 1:54:21
  know, Jax is talking and he's he's really distracted and he's
• 1:54:25
  just like so angry. He's just so distracted.
• 1:54:27
  He's just, yeah, I'm just going to go and check them.
• 1:54:29
  Talk about when he says you embarrass.
• 1:54:32
  Me river straight. Out of EastEnders.
• 1:54:37
  Yeah, even, I mean. That's not as great as well.
• 1:54:40
  But he is he can do. Everything he's he's the full
• 1:54:44
  package and a lot of the time he is doing it, you know, quite a
• 1:54:47
  lot of the time and again going back to the best Christmas
• 1:54:50
  special ever, the Doctor, the widow in the wardrobe, the scene
• 1:54:53
  in matches bedroom. It's one of my favourite all
• 1:54:55
  time scenes in the hall of Doctor Who where Marge, you
• 1:55:00
  know, is sick of his shit. He's been, you know, lemonade
• 1:55:02
  taps and I know. And it's just like, shut up man.
• 1:55:06
  The kids dad's. Died and I've got to tell them.
• 1:55:08
  And he pivots and he does the one thing which I think the 11th
• 1:55:13
  Doctor has more than anyone else, and he's got empathy.
• 1:55:17
  He's alien. He's one of the most alien
• 1:55:20
  doctors in Moffett writes both his Doctors, both the 11th and
• 1:55:22
  the 12th as aliens. I think the 12th Doctor is a
• 1:55:28
  lot. Got a lot.
• 1:55:29
  Less of a. Filter so it just comes across
• 1:55:31
  very he does have those cards. That he reads.
• 1:55:34
  Out to be empathetic. Let's not go with that.
• 1:55:39
  But the 11th Doctor is this childish alien.
• 1:55:43
  He's naive. He has this sense of wonder.
• 1:55:46
  And, you know, he's just kind of blithering over his way around
• 1:55:49
  the universe rather than, you know, being quite direct and
• 1:55:52
  blunt like Capaldias and, you know, upsetting everyone.
• 1:55:55
  But like I said, that empathy, that ability to know when he's
• 1:55:59
  confronted with the grieving widow, you know that he's fucked
• 1:56:03
  up basically and he needs to make the situation better and he
• 1:56:06
  knows the exact words to do it. No other doctor would would do
• 1:56:09
  that. I can't imagine any other
• 1:56:11
  doctor, any of the other 14 doctors being able to stand in
• 1:56:14
  that room and have that such pitch perfect response to that
• 1:56:19
  situation as he does. And that is why one more than
• 1:56:23
  anything, that's why he's my favorite doctor, because he is
• 1:56:28
  the doctor that reacts how I want him to react in those
• 1:56:32
  situations. It can also fall down a chimney.
• 1:56:36
  In the best Christmas special ever.
• 1:56:39
  Which? Which part was that?
• 1:56:40
  Was that before or after? The go through the voucher
• 1:56:42
  portal for the world. I think I might win The Who.
• 1:56:46
  Fell in love with Matt Smith the quickest then because I love the
• 1:56:49
  bit where he grabs his hair and end of time and goes I'm a girl.
• 1:56:53
  I love that. Bit then I fell out of love with
• 1:56:55
  him so maybe. That doesn't kill him.
• 1:56:57
  Fraser. Shall we go to the comments?
• 1:57:00
  Oh God. Oh, here.
• 1:57:02
  We go. There's been.
• 1:57:04
  Far too much love spread. About this place.
• 1:57:07
  Well then, I shall let you kick off these ones.
• 1:57:08
  Too. OK, well, Paul Cresser.
• 1:57:10
  Says I thought I found the change in tone and style from
• 1:57:13
  RCD era to be a bit of a jolt. I did think this young doctor
• 1:57:16
  showed a lot of promise. Then I lost my goodwill with The
• 1:57:20
  Big Bang and it all went downhill.
• 1:57:23
  Is. That my dad.
• 1:57:26
  By the end, he was just a. Caricature.
• 1:57:29
  Of himself a shame. That comment was a shame.
• 1:57:34
  We all become caricatures of ourselves.
• 1:57:36
  I mean, look at the six of us, you know, it's just the 100.
• 1:57:39
  Episodes mark all. Right, that's all Dick jokes.
• 1:57:42
  What's the tale of youth? Tom Newsome.
• 1:57:48
  Lovely. Lovely Tom Newsome Matt Smith is
• 1:57:51
  one of those that seems born to be the doctor.
• 1:57:55
  From his very first scenes, he gets it very succinctly.
• 1:57:59
  Very usually. Mcquinn here.
• 1:58:02
  At its best, Matt Smith's interpretation of the Doctor is
• 1:58:06
  the best of the modern era. Yeah, a lot less.
• 1:58:12
  Squarely than usual. As well.
• 1:58:18
  Daniel Hornsley's. Got an essay for us?
• 1:58:20
  Matt is an extraordinary physical actor and dependent on
• 1:58:23
  the material, when the writing rose to meet his challenge, he
• 1:58:26
  could embody the Doctor more than anybody else.
• 1:58:29
  I still like a lot of season 5 as well as season 6-7 in fits
• 1:58:32
  and starts Season 6. However, it remains one of my
• 1:58:35
  least favorite and modern Doctor Who.
• 1:58:38
  As far as companions go. I generally like the Ponds,
• 1:58:41
  Clara, and River Song as characters.
• 1:58:43
  Emphasis on like rather than love as they're all missing a
• 1:58:47
  bit of spark. They're sitting as genesis quoi.
• 1:58:51
  I grew up with previous iterations of the show.
• 1:58:54
  Maybe that's just my RTD bias showing.
• 1:58:59
  Maybe it is, Gavin says. No matter how.
• 1:59:01
  Rubbish the episode Smithy shines.
• 1:59:04
  He was the most perfect casting and he never let us down.
• 1:59:07
  Probably at his best in Angels but Ducks love season 7 as a
• 1:59:12
  whole. Clara to Amy.
• 1:59:16
  There's always one. I did know that.
• 1:59:18
  About Gavin. Gavin wants your Series 7 Be a
• 1:59:21
  lot. Yeah, good lad, Dave Newton.
• 1:59:27
  For me the best. Era and Doctor.
• 1:59:29
  Of Modern Who, only second to Tom Baker.
• 1:59:32
  Overall, the only Modern Who I saw instantly was the Doctor.
• 1:59:36
  Admittedly the rest only usually took an episode of two Doctor's
• 1:59:41
  Wife and possible Astronaut Time and Angels Day of the Doctor and
• 1:59:44
  the Snowmen being particular favourites.
• 1:59:47
  What a common. Brilliant.
• 1:59:49
  The evil P says. Moffett, who is fun, the heavily
• 1:59:53
  heteronormative, and bits of it can alienate.
• 1:59:56
  Oh, you ready, boys? Even the straightest of us.
• 2:00:00
  Well, that's me, Al. I'll.
• 2:00:03
  Speak love into the mythos, but it lived.
• 2:00:05
  By a code that afforded the sources of nicker twirling,
• 2:00:08
  twirlers and nobility, right? No, sorry, Look.
• 2:00:13
  I hate to be. That I hate.
• 2:00:14
  To be this white guy as far as his butt, actually, I'm going to
• 2:00:18
  turn it. Around.
• 2:00:19
  Has Doctor ever been anything but heteronormative?
• 2:00:23
  Like I mean the. Last series.
• 2:00:28
  Well, I don't. Know, sorry, I mean up.
• 2:00:29
  Up to Season 5, you know, I'm sorry, I hate to.
• 2:00:33
  Bigot people. But Peter?
• 2:00:34
  Davis and Anthony Inley, we're not fucking, no matter how many.
• 2:00:38
  How? Much fan art you do no.
• 2:00:41
  Matter how much, do not put. Those ideas in his head?
• 2:00:45
  Slash fiction, you're right. Like.
• 2:00:47
  Doctor Who is up to that point, has always been.
• 2:00:52
  You have seen his. Tissue compression unlimited
• 2:00:54
  though, yeah. OK, may I finish this comment?
• 2:00:59
  I'm. Just going to say the unit era.
• 2:01:01
  He's only not Hetch. Innovative, but not by design.
• 2:01:07
  Planet fire how? Could you do that to your own?
• 2:01:10
  Boyfriend. After reading that tea bag.
• 2:01:15
  Play. I mean.
• 2:01:19
  He. Finishes by.
• 2:01:20
  Saying Moffett. 'S lovers are off the rails
• 2:01:22
  mistake makers, and it can be tough to forgive what that
• 2:01:27
  means. OK, wait, wait.
• 2:01:28
  Muffet. Muffet like.
• 2:01:30
  Lovers like, oh, as in the characters, I don't know, maybe
• 2:01:33
  stirrups lovers. I don't know we're mistake.
• 2:01:36
  Makers. You are mistake makers I.
• 2:01:39
  Mean. Oh, I mean I'm absolutely a
• 2:01:40
  mistake. Maker, I'm not.
• 2:01:41
  I'm not going to deny that. Off you go, Fraser.
• 2:01:47
  Luke Sims. Jenkins.
• 2:01:48
  In search of a catch phrase says my least favorite year of who?
• 2:01:52
  Mostly stank Nuggets with the occasional episodes of gold he
• 2:01:57
  loves. That stank Nuggets.
• 2:02:01
  Horrible. Is that like a?
• 2:02:02
  Young. Person saying like.
• 2:02:03
  How we thought that. I mean, it's sort of our age.
• 2:02:07
  Yeah, he's in Australia. Maybe that?
• 2:02:08
  Counts and you'll know it. Quotes.
• 2:02:11
  It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.
• 2:02:14
  Wonderful. He should have.
• 2:02:15
  Just said it. Rose so.
• 2:02:17
  High. And it fell so low.
• 2:02:21
  Wonderful story such as the. 11th hour Vincent and the girl
• 2:02:24
  who weighs rubbed shoulders with dross like a good man goes to
• 2:02:27
  war shine there in silver and that horrendous widow, yes,
• 2:02:32
  widow in the wardrobe nonsense. Must be a different one he's
• 2:02:35
  talking about. That himself.
• 2:02:38
  Was never less than superb. But occasionally, yes, I am
• 2:02:41
  going to say this, he was let down by the writing.
• 2:02:43
  His doctor would also often be reduced to arm flapping goofball
• 2:02:47
  when he's given good material to work with.
• 2:02:49
  Matt was absolutely brilliant. Well, this next comment.
• 2:02:54
  There's going to be a little ray of sunshine.
• 2:02:57
  It's the world's most. Notorious.
• 2:02:58
  Steven Moffat fan Mr. James Hadwin Bennett See.
• 2:03:03
  What the nights? Take a deep breath.
• 2:03:06
  I wasn't cracking my. Knuckles here.
• 2:03:11
  Let's. See, we've got an era.
• 2:03:13
  In which we were graced with a fantastic actor with warmth,
• 2:03:17
  charm and humour. OK, nothing about what we do.
• 2:03:22
  My favorite era. Of all of who?
• 2:03:26
  With a show runner who regurgitates cliche after
• 2:03:29
  cliche. Fucks clock.
• 2:03:31
  Yeah, can't even bring. Yourself clock he.
• 2:03:35
  Saw. It does fuck a clock.
• 2:03:36
  He does fuck a clock. Yeah, Clock.
• 2:03:40
  Fuck. That's the.
• 2:03:41
  Best description of muffin I've heard.
• 2:03:43
  I'm gonna start using. That as a phrase.
• 2:03:46
  Oh fuck, a clock. Fucking clocks, that is his.
• 2:03:52
  Plots right? Hooks plot.
• 2:03:55
  Arcs up spectacularly and who causes the ratings?
• 2:04:01
  To. Nosedive.
• 2:04:02
  Oh, that's such a lazy. Album as as as as.
• 2:04:05
  Marks other TV show that's still on there.
• 2:04:07
  For now. For now.
• 2:04:12
  From the. Bilge.
• 2:04:13
  That is victory. Of the Daleks, the the dullest
• 2:04:15
  regeneration story ever via the 50s fetishism of Beast Beyond in
• 2:04:21
  moronic series finales. I'd rather they'd handed Who
• 2:04:25
  over to the team that did search out space than ever let Moffett
• 2:04:29
  or Smith near it again. Shuts up also.
• 2:04:33
  Time of the doctor, right? Time of the doctor is a lot of
• 2:04:36
  things, but it is not done. No, not when Legopolis.
• 2:04:40
  Seems to be dull. Yeah, it it, it's a mess.
• 2:04:44
  But it's not dull. Do you remember when we did the
• 2:04:46
  commentary? Joe, I'm saying the doctor went
• 2:04:48
  on for 4 1/2 hours. Yeah, because took the whole.
• 2:04:52
  Journey. From my house to Joe's house,
• 2:04:54
  which is about 2 1/2. Hours.
• 2:04:57
  Of driving it's because at the end I made.
• 2:04:59
  Josie 11 nice things No, it was it was 11 + a war thing about
• 2:05:03
  it. We so that was like 24th nice
• 2:05:06
  things were said about it at the end Challenge yet yes.
• 2:05:09
  Well, let's see if we can be more positive.
• 2:05:10
  Paul Arthur says the 11th Doctor is probably still my favorite
• 2:05:14
  modern Doctor. Matt Smith brings a brilliant,
• 2:05:17
  gangly physicality to the role. He does a great job of being
• 2:05:20
  both full of youthful energy and feeling like an old soul at the
• 2:05:23
  same time. While I love Matt's Doctor, his
• 2:05:26
  era is patchy at best. The highs are really high, but
• 2:05:29
  there are plenty of lows. By and large, I prefer many of
• 2:05:32
  the individual stories than the Ark stuff.
• 2:05:34
  I'm hearing a lot of that, actually.
• 2:05:36
  But I think you know the patchiness.
• 2:05:37
  As we said, comes from the fact that Moffett gambling and doing
• 2:05:41
  some new stuff, like it's not going to be patchy if you stick
• 2:05:45
  to the consistent template of what we had, which was mostly
• 2:05:49
  set on contemporary Earth. Yeah, but also I think.
• 2:05:52
  Like it's weird, isn't it? Because like all of Doctor Who's
• 2:05:54
  patchy, Like absolutely, there's all bits that.
• 2:05:57
  We don't like, but there's. There's this kind of weird
• 2:05:59
  except trial of a time or which is.
• 2:06:01
  Perfect, but there's a weird. Thing.
• 2:06:03
  Fans have where they really, really focus on the patchiness
• 2:06:07
  of the kind of Moffat era. Yeah, like you think it's sort
• 2:06:11
  of expensive? And then other era.
• 2:06:14
  Not the tribunal era. And then they.
• 2:06:15
  Get they get really excited. They get really.
• 2:06:18
  Excited at this? Past episode like side by side
• 2:06:21
  so they Oh yeah that run from sounds in the library to turn
• 2:06:24
  left pretty good I don't I don't think it needs to happen before
• 2:06:29
  maybe 2010 but now that we watch stuff differently yeah it
• 2:06:34
  affects the way people watch it because they watch it in order.
• 2:06:39
  Over to you, Fraser. Well, I'm after.
• 2:06:41
  I've got Ed Watkinson, my least favorite doctor by far, the
• 2:06:45
  cringe inducing collection of tawdry quirks and full
• 2:06:49
  eccentricity desperately trying to mask a vacuous stats version
• 2:06:53
  of the character. I am not Edward.
• 2:06:56
  My people. Got to be so.
• 2:06:58
  Horrible. Professor.
• 2:07:01
  Stephen Hawkwind. Says he's the 7th Doctor done
• 2:07:05
  better, and I say that as an ardent McCoy fan.
• 2:07:08
  He does a fantastic job of playing the silly clown with
• 2:07:10
  plans within plans and secrets wrapped up in lies That Matt
• 2:07:15
  Smith Who wrote that? Comment.
• 2:07:20
  Yes, because he's watching the positive.
• 2:07:22
  Era. I'll do an anagram.
• 2:07:25
  RTD stuff? Nah, don't think.
• 2:07:29
  Next up, it's Kevin. Bianco After a recent week
• 2:07:32
  rewatch of the Matt Smith era, I have to say it Matt Smith is my
• 2:07:36
  favorite new Who doctor. Man of style and taste, Kevin
• 2:07:41
  Bianco. He was best in series.
• 2:07:43
  Five but. Always engaging throughout
• 2:07:45
  despite some shoddy stories. Also working with Karen Gillan
• 2:07:49
  and Jenna Coleman. What a jam you get.
• 2:07:55
  Nearly there, folks, Elliot says.
• 2:07:58
  Oh boy, might be the worst ever era.
• 2:08:01
  Even I don't think that, but I don't think it's Matt Smith's
• 2:08:04
  fault he's OK Acting is Hanford by the writing, which seems
• 2:08:07
  desperate to yell in your face that this doctor is funny and
• 2:08:10
  quirky, but Smith brings little bit little of his own charms as
• 2:08:13
  a flaccid and lifeless character in those poor series.
• 2:08:19
  Wow, I don't agree with that. I, I I you could say.
• 2:08:22
  Those exact words. Does not bring their character
• 2:08:26
  to the entire flaccid area area to the entire flaccid area to
• 2:08:30
  the entire flaccid era to Peter Davison, because I would say
• 2:08:34
  that's how far more like Davisons hilarious.
• 2:08:37
  He's he's got this sort of acrobic whip and he never brings
• 2:08:41
  that to the character of the doctor.
• 2:08:42
  So layoff Matt Smith for God's sake.
• 2:08:44
  Come on starting to think. You know, I found the five.
• 2:08:47
  People that like this era a lot like this.
• 2:08:50
  Does make up for strictly season. 6 Yes, I feel like this
• 2:08:54
  is a. Kind of re, you know, like a
• 2:08:56
  reposition. We're going to get back to the
• 2:08:57
  celebrating. After just one 2-3 more
• 2:09:00
  comments. I mean you say when early done.
• 2:09:03
  But you know, Dave Rennie's given us a Game of Thrones
• 2:09:06
  length comments. Yeah, he's not faithful.
• 2:09:09
  This is. Why these podcast recordings go
• 2:09:10
  on so? Long, Yeah, Matt Smith starts.
• 2:09:13
  As a brilliant, awkward Doctor, Season 5 is superb.
• 2:09:16
  However, he then descends into a waving guy in a Willy Wonka
• 2:09:19
  outfit. In Season 7, he.
• 2:09:22
  Loses in my opinion. The things that made him great
• 2:09:26
  in the beginning. Is it the writing or the actor?
• 2:09:29
  Probably a bit of both. Season 5 is one of my all time
• 2:09:33
  favourites. Amy's choice 6 is the binge
• 2:09:35
  season with variable quality. 7A is a lovely mini season and 7B,
• 2:09:40
  You know my thoughts on that one.
• 2:09:42
  Don't get me started a good era. That runs out of steam.
• 2:09:47
  Dan Hollingsworth. Says he starts off as a
• 2:09:50
  refreshing new Doctor with child friendly silliness.
• 2:09:53
  Has a complicated family set up which is nice, but then the show
• 2:09:56
  goes up its own arse and he ends up all laddish and doesn't end
• 2:10:00
  up laddish, does he? No, he still aren't laddish.
• 2:10:02
  He. Sort of starts and a certain
• 2:10:05
  type of. Moffaty Oh, I love all this
• 2:10:07
  defensiveness on the call. It's wonderful.
• 2:10:09
  Muffaty Male. Character.
• 2:10:11
  Loved him at the start but was ready for him to go at the end.
• 2:10:14
  Unlike most of the people on this call, they were balling
• 2:10:16
  their eyes out. This is it.
• 2:10:20
  This is the last 1 then. The last comment evening, the
• 2:10:23
  last comment on the 11th Doctor era, I will say before you say
• 2:10:28
  it, it is. True as well.
• 2:10:29
  And it is. I think it probably does.
• 2:10:31
  Sum up this season, the era, the Doctor more perfectly than any
• 2:10:35
  other comment could. Michael Miller says Clover
• 2:10:38
  Oswald may yet turn Joe straight.
• 2:10:42
  Has any? Other era that power.
• 2:10:48
  You know that dress that she wears in?
• 2:10:49
  Journey to the centre of the TARDIS.
• 2:10:51
  That red dress. Oh yes.
• 2:10:55
  Doesn't she look pretty? Oh no, mind you that suit she
• 2:10:59
  wears in Time Heist as well. Yeah, yeah, Capaldi episodes.
• 2:11:06
  OK. Let's push away.
• 2:11:07
  The hand fan now, and they're one, one final.
• 2:11:11
  Thing about Matt Smith, he's he's not come back, which yeah,
• 2:11:17
  I think does like Capaldi says this.
• 2:11:20
  So if his doctor's still out there, he very much get out with
• 2:11:23
  the Matt Smith thing. He's never been back on audio.
• 2:11:26
  He's never come back as a cameo. And so he's like this lovely
• 2:11:30
  little collection lost alien thing over here that is back in
• 2:11:37
  the next story. At the end of the next episode,
• 2:11:41
  when? He leaves, we talked about.
• 2:11:45
  You've got a. Matt Smith's cameo.
• 2:11:47
  Yeah, but you know. You know, you know he's the
• 2:11:50
  quickest doctor to. Come back of all time.
• 2:11:53
  I know what. You mean Luke?
• 2:11:54
  Just no. Yes.
• 2:11:56
  So do we even stop picking pants alone?
• 2:11:59
  Well, let's head into the. Final round then, and decide
• 2:12:02
  what is, according to you mad people, the best 11th Doctor
• 2:12:07
  episode of all time. Here are your choices gentlemen,
• 2:12:10
  Choose wisely. You have got Vincent and the
• 2:12:14
  Doctor, the Doctor's wife, The Angels Take Manhattan, The
• 2:12:19
  Crimson Horror because I was forced to do series 7 in two
• 2:12:22
  episodes, Day of the Doctor and the Pandorica opens and The Big
• 2:12:28
  Bang. Let's start with where do we
• 2:12:31
  start? What are we going?
• 2:12:32
  So we're not doing the head to head thing that.
• 2:12:33
  Would have been so much easier. Razor.
• 2:12:39
  I've run out of meat. Now for dessert.
• 2:12:46
  This is the ultimate. Champion for you.
• 2:12:48
  Come on, it's such. A difficult choice because
• 2:12:51
  again, we've. Got a lot of variety there,
• 2:12:55
  could just take a quick. Thought I mean.
• 2:12:56
  Who would actually pick the 11th hour if it was in?
• 2:13:01
  Probably. Oh, that's.
• 2:13:03
  The way it's good, it's good. It would be.
• 2:13:06
  It would be. Close but no deadlock, Fraser.
• 2:13:09
  OK, so not as. Not as clear as I thought it was
• 2:13:12
  going to be, but yeah, that would have been my choice
• 2:13:14
  because I think that is the best story for the 11th and the best
• 2:13:19
  story of all. Look, I've done a comment go
• 2:13:21
  through on the others. Please do not.
• 2:13:22
  Go through ones that aren't even on the fucking list.
• 2:13:26
  So anyhow. Christmas Carol, That's really.
• 2:13:27
  Good one, I've got a chance to talk about that yet.
• 2:13:31
  No, I. Don't got rid of that.
• 2:13:35
  One do you recall? I don't got rid yes.
• 2:13:38
  Yes. And you felt so bad about it you
• 2:13:40
  had to go into a commentary of his own.
• 2:13:45
  The randomizer would be so much. Easier wouldn't be so much
• 2:13:48
  easier. Quicker do.
• 2:13:50
  You just want to come back. To me, let me have a.
• 2:13:54
  Think you guys, yeah. Come back to me and.
• 2:13:58
  Then I can listen to you guys and that'll help me decide.
• 2:14:01
  Is it too late to fire up the random?
• 2:14:02
  Answer. No, it is too late, Mark.
• 2:14:05
  Donaldson, what's your choice? Oh, don't come to me.
• 2:14:08
  Come on and tell us your reasons.
• 2:14:18
  There'll be music playing. There'll be music playing, just
• 2:14:21
  speed things up. And also because actually, to be
• 2:14:24
  honest, I'm looking at this list and.
• 2:14:26
  I think if there's a story that. That sums up the Matt Smith era
• 2:14:33
  and also the best of Doctor Who. I think it is the.
• 2:14:36
  Pandorica open to. The Big Bang, so.
• 2:14:40
  I'm just going to say that. And I'm out.
• 2:14:42
  OK, I've I've made my choice. Yeah.
• 2:14:45
  OK. Sigh, what have you got?
• 2:14:47
  For us, well, OK, so. It's not The Angels Take
• 2:14:51
  Manhattan, which is a tedious mess of a story that I revisited
• 2:14:56
  last night and I really, really dislike.
• 2:14:59
  I disliked it on on 1st transmission and I've never
• 2:15:02
  walked to it at all. Together or not at.
• 2:15:05
  All, Yeah. No.
• 2:15:09
  Oh look, this grave's got your. Name on it I will never.
• 2:15:14
  See you again, sorry. So I'm going to.
• 2:15:18
  Pick Angel to take Manhattan. Then.
• 2:15:23
  OK, much as I love. It it's not the Crimson Horror,
• 2:15:27
  which is a huge fun has one of the best actresses to ever grace
• 2:15:33
  Doctor Who having the time of her life being in Doctor Who.
• 2:15:37
  How nice have you? Just Rachel Stern, Rachel.
• 2:15:40
  Stern. You.
• 2:15:43
  Perfidious hag, these are the wrong.
• 2:15:49
  Just the sweet come. Back I absolutely.
• 2:15:52
  Love it but. It's not the best of the era.
• 2:15:56
  What else have we got? The Doctor's.
• 2:15:58
  Wife now. That's an interesting one, and
• 2:16:01
  particularly now, and I'm not going to talk about Neil Gaiman
• 2:16:04
  because and so fucking badly the fucker, but what a stone.
• 2:16:11
  That's a great story. That's really brilliant and
• 2:16:14
  moving and sweet and lovely. But it's also not.
• 2:16:22
  The Pandorica opens and The Big Bang, which is brilliant and.
• 2:16:26
  Gorgeous. And clever for all the reasons
• 2:16:28
  we said how many superb teams have.
• 2:16:31
  You got written down 6 and. I've used them all.
• 2:16:37
  Vincent and the Doctor made me cry.
• 2:16:40
  When I watched that. Last night that is superb and
• 2:16:43
  brilliant. And so basically from it's
• 2:16:46
  between Vincent and the Doctor and the Day of the Doctor for
• 2:16:49
  me. And it's really hard choice
• 2:16:52
  because I absolutely bloody adore the Day of the Doctor.
• 2:16:56
  But there is something about an anniversary special that makes
• 2:17:00
  it sit outside of an era. In the same way that the Five
• 2:17:04
  Doctors is the greatest story of all time, but isn't a Peter
• 2:17:09
  Davison era story and it's not the greatest story of all time,
• 2:17:12
  but I absolutely love it. It sits outside of Matt Smith's
• 2:17:16
  era. It's bigger than the era and
• 2:17:18
  it's bigger than his Doctor. And so it's Vincent and the
• 2:17:21
  Doctor. It's Vincent because.
• 2:17:25
  It's. A small story about a tortured
• 2:17:30
  genius. It's so beautifully told.
• 2:17:35
  It's so beautifully written from someone who shouldn't have
• 2:17:39
  written a Doctor Who story. Really not.
• 2:17:43
  He's too big for Doctor Who, and yet he comes in, does it once,
• 2:17:47
  aces it and walks away. It's beautifully acted.
• 2:17:51
  It's full of wonderful, wonderful moments.
• 2:17:55
  Again, we talked about Amy crying in the big in the
• 2:17:59
  Pandorica opens, but that moment where she's crying and she
• 2:18:03
  doesn't understand why in Vincent and the Doctor really
• 2:18:07
  hits and the relationship between her and Vincent is
• 2:18:11
  beautiful, but it's. That scene at the.
• 2:18:14
  End where they take him to the future to see his legacy.
• 2:18:18
  And just for that moment he's happy and he walks out of the
• 2:18:23
  TARDIS a change man. And yet history doesn't change.
• 2:18:27
  He is still the same. It's wonderful.
• 2:18:30
  It's. So the confidential on that one,
• 2:18:33
  all right, because. That page he's on is going
• 2:18:35
  around in circle. It ain't the camera moving, is
• 2:18:37
  he so? Vincent the Doctor.
• 2:18:41
  Was my second, definitely kind of my second choice there.
• 2:18:44
  But the reason they disqualified it from that was I love that
• 2:18:48
  scene too, where they take Vincent to the future and they
• 2:18:51
  show him the exhibition and Bill Nye gives his speech and and he
• 2:18:54
  hugs him and he gives kiss and cheek and and leaves.
• 2:18:58
  And like Bill Nye like realizes was that Vincent Pankoff.
• 2:19:01
  And then he goes back and the tragedy of the fact that he
• 2:19:04
  still took his own life. Because, you know, ultimately,
• 2:19:08
  you know, that's just how it's going to play out if it wasn't
• 2:19:11
  for that bloody song. Like we give like, Murray Gold.
• 2:19:15
  We give Murray Gold. Such a hard time.
• 2:19:16
  Song's amazing. Oh.
• 2:19:18
  No, I'd love. Athlete doesn't.
• 2:19:21
  Need it. But say name.
• 2:19:22
  It's got such. No, it's got.
• 2:19:24
  Such power without it and and it just kind of it just like, oh,
• 2:19:29
  we oh, let's just turn it on to a living.
• 2:19:31
  No, just let like silence should fall, but also we've got.
• 2:19:37
  The starry, starry. Night that is coming to life,
• 2:19:41
  which is one of the most and the moments in.
• 2:19:44
  Doctor. Who?
• 2:19:45
  So yeah, it's Vincent and the Doctor out of these stories for
• 2:19:49
  me. What do you write in Day of the
• 2:19:51
  Doctor then? I thought that's the way you
• 2:19:53
  were going. I'll tell you all the reasons.
• 2:19:56
  I like that when we do our commentary, what?
• 2:20:00
  I do. Love Vincent and the Doctor, but
• 2:20:03
  it does contain the most absurd line in the history of the show,
• 2:20:08
  which is an apologies to Mark the Scottish man on the call
• 2:20:13
  which it goes. That.
• 2:20:14
  Accent of yours, are you? From Holland, like me.
• 2:20:21
  That's a really good book, Dutch.
• 2:20:25
  South. Bristol Feller.
• 2:20:34
  But it does have an. Amazing heart.
• 2:20:36
  And it does make me weep every time I watch it.
• 2:20:39
  So I do love it for that. And I do love pretty much every
• 2:20:44
  story on this list. But it's still going to be The
• 2:20:48
  Big Bang and the paddock are open.
• 2:20:53
  For the reasons given earlier. I presume, yeah, I've already
• 2:20:55
  kind of shot my load. Over it I don't have.
• 2:20:59
  Just spent now on you OK, well, that's. 2 for that, good grief.
• 2:21:05
  This one could win this thing. Luke Malloy.
• 2:21:08
  Well, I. Mean.
• 2:21:10
  Yeah, of the ones left, like Crimson Horror is a great, a lot
• 2:21:14
  of great lot of fun, but it's just never going to compete with
• 2:21:17
  these big boys. Is it up here The Doctor's wife
• 2:21:21
  I've never really been too keen on, but I think I going into it,
• 2:21:26
  I think I was expecting more scenes in the TARDIS of my fan
• 2:21:29
  brain has just never got over that that it was just a corridor
• 2:21:33
  and then an old TARDIS set. Same problem with Journey to the
• 2:21:36
  centre of the TARDIS as well, which it looks even less like
• 2:21:39
  the TARDIS there and just take Manhattan.
• 2:21:42
  Fine. So yeah, it's really between
• 2:21:44
  Pandorica Vincent and Day of the Doctor.
• 2:21:47
  Day of the Doctor, it's just so hard to place for the same
• 2:21:53
  reasons that I was saying, because like on it's day, it's
• 2:21:56
  just completely number one. It absolutely is.
• 2:22:01
  It's hard to talk about because all you want to do is just spew
• 2:22:04
  things that happen in like you can't talk about anything.
• 2:22:08
  You just want to go on all 13 and the curator, you just want
• 2:22:13
  to say all the bits that happened so you remind everyone
• 2:22:16
  so they sort of get books again. I go, oh, I watch it.
• 2:22:19
  It was literally #1 wasn't. It it was the most watch program
• 2:22:23
  that week. Oh yeah, it was in your.
• 2:22:26
  Favorite it was #3 in the. U.S. box office in the cinemas
• 2:22:30
  as well. That's incredible, yeah.
• 2:22:32
  And in the DWM poll. More importantly, 50 years,
• 2:22:36
  Paul, it was, it was number one. It's been me, you know.
• 2:22:39
  Remember this entire podcast? Was created to contradict the
• 2:22:43
  deal, right you're. Doing pretty well, yeah, that's
• 2:22:47
  all children, of course. Dear the Doctor.
• 2:22:51
  Yeah, I would say on the day it wasn't possible to get it right.
• 2:22:53
  Moffett delivered with Day of the Doctor, but it's.
• 2:22:58
  Just. It's that thing.
• 2:23:00
  Of you don't want it to be Christmas every day, is that
• 2:23:02
  like you wouldn't watch Day of the Doctor every day?
• 2:23:04
  It's too celebratory. As much as all the fun memories
• 2:23:08
  are there, Vincent and the Doctors are very strong,
• 2:23:13
  Incredibly strong ending more. I mean, the one, the one I would
• 2:23:19
  be really sad, like depressingly sad if it didn't exist, always
• 2:23:24
  took away from me, would be the Pandorica opens The Big Bang out
• 2:23:28
  of all of them. The others could sort of be lost
• 2:23:32
  in a crack, but Pandorica I would.
• 2:23:35
  I would feel like I've lost the best story of possibly Doctor
• 2:23:39
  Whoever because I love. It so much.
• 2:23:43
  So there was just no doubt it's bad.
• 2:23:47
  Like rope, it's big bag. For me, I mean, it's one it's.
• 2:23:51
  One the mass myth era. But what an underdog story.
• 2:23:53
  Which? Is weird for a for a a story as
• 2:23:56
  big and bombastic as it is to ask because I voted it off mark.
• 2:24:00
  Because I have a big bag. All right, Kaiser.
• 2:24:02
  What would you have chosen? And why?
• 2:24:06
  I mean, I agree with everyone. What you're saying about Day of
• 2:24:08
  the Doctor just start. It is, you know, hands down the
• 2:24:12
  best out of the the ones that we're talking about.
• 2:24:15
  But it's it's hands down the best.
• 2:24:16
  Not just because of Matt Smith, not just because of the other
• 2:24:19
  doctor. It's because the 10th doctor was
• 2:24:21
  in there. It's because John Hurt is coming
• 2:24:22
  in and doing the ward doctor, you know, one go.
• 2:24:27
  But being the doctor and Capaldi's eyes, yeah.
• 2:24:30
  You know one grow up being the. Doctor John Hurt just actually
• 2:24:34
  walks in, smashes it, walks out again.
• 2:24:37
  Yeah, you know, all 13 of them, that eyes, you know, maybe you
• 2:24:41
  will have the voice of the of the curator coming.
• 2:24:44
  No, I really think you might. Or maybe I am you.
• 2:24:50
  I mean who? Knows oh, it's Christmas again,
• 2:25:00
  you know it's. The day of the Doctor is.
• 2:25:03
  A. Is a celebration of the Doctor,
• 2:25:05
  the character of the Doctor or, you know, 115 of them now, you
• 2:25:10
  know, that's what that is. It's not the celebration of the
• 2:25:13
  11th Doctor. So that's, that's by the wayside
• 2:25:17
  for me on that basis. Crimson Horror, yeah, it's, it's
• 2:25:21
  got some really good bits in it, but it's also got some, a few
• 2:25:25
  troubling bits in there. You know, that sticking the lips
• 2:25:28
  on Jenny is a bit might have, you know, flown at the time, but
• 2:25:32
  really doesn't land nowadays. And I am watching this nowadays.
• 2:25:38
  So I wouldn't really be going for Crimson Power either.
• 2:25:43
  I would say Angels take Manhattan would be a contender,
• 2:25:46
  I think, you know, but all that is jam packed full of River
• 2:25:49
  Song. It's it's really a really
• 2:25:53
  powerful ending for the for Amy and Rory, you know, the final
• 2:25:57
  scenes, you know, taking the piss out of a jewel, but you
• 2:26:00
  know, all together and all I absolutely.
• 2:26:02
  Celebrated those you know is. A fantastic scene, the scene in
• 2:26:06
  the the final scene in the graveyard, you know, that final
• 2:26:11
  between Amy and the Doctor, it's just superb.
• 2:26:16
  Again, that's that's some really good stuff from Matt Smith
• 2:26:18
  there. Don't you think that's Rivers
• 2:26:19
  best moment where she goes? No don't listen to him.
• 2:26:22
  Go go and be with dad. I love that bit.
• 2:26:25
  What if that's best moment is the husband?
• 2:26:27
  'S another song, but Oh yeah she is great.
• 2:26:31
  You know, ultimately though, there's there's too many things
• 2:26:33
  that's wrong with that. And you know the.
• 2:26:37
  Statue of Liberty being an Angel.
• 2:26:39
  That's just silly, you know, whatever song.
• 2:26:43
  Is isn't it a bit? Too much for me.
• 2:26:44
  You know, she doesn't need to be there.
• 2:26:45
  She adds nothing to that story, but she is there throughout.
• 2:26:49
  So I would discount that. I think it would ultimately
• 2:26:54
  leave us with. Doctor's wife and.
• 2:26:59
  Vincent and the Doctor, I think, you know, if all that big band
• 2:27:02
  pandoric opens is a fantastic story, would I say it's the best
• 2:27:07
  ever representation of the 11th Doctor?
• 2:27:10
  Is it the best of the era? I wouldn't say so.
• 2:27:15
  Out of those two, I think, you know, the Doctor's wife is a
• 2:27:18
  stunning bit of work. It's got some real heart to it
• 2:27:22
  and it's got some real scares to it.
• 2:27:23
  And it's it's got a lot. It's got wit, it's got charm.
• 2:27:26
  It's got some moments of, you know, scariness and heart and
• 2:27:31
  emotion where it says kill Amy. All over the Tardis.
• 2:27:35
  I know you love that, but you know.
• 2:27:37
  That's just. You but oh.
• 2:27:39
  No, it's great. Like Simon?
• 2:27:41
  Says you know. It's passing, it's missing.
• 2:27:45
  Mr. Gaming. 'S activities outside of work
• 2:27:49
  have soured that quite a bit for me.
• 2:27:52
  So it kind of leaves us with with Vincent and the Doctor
• 2:27:55
  because I think, you know, that is it's a brilliant bit of work.
• 2:28:00
  It's again like Simon. Says it's the.
• 2:28:03
  Someone that's not a genre writer coming in and writing an
• 2:28:07
  episode of Doctor Who and saying, you know this.
• 2:28:12
  Is what I can do you? Know I'm a you know, ROM com
• 2:28:15
  writer, film writer by trade. You know, this is but this is
• 2:28:20
  what I can do if you give us a man in a box that can travel all
• 2:28:23
  the time and space. You know, the end scene is is
• 2:28:26
  fantastic, but I think it's it's an important kind of message to
• 2:28:31
  give to people. You know, it's it's an important
• 2:28:35
  story to tell. Say you know, your mental health
• 2:28:38
  is is out is real. It's complex.
• 2:28:42
  You know, it's it is boiled down into 45 minutes, you know, so it
• 2:28:46
  does lose a little bit in your once and sort of the obtains,
• 2:28:48
  but you know, to have a story that focuses on you know, what
• 2:28:53
  is you know, we are all you know.
• 2:28:55
  Well, most of us are also middle-aged men.
• 2:28:58
  And you know the the biggest killer of men under the age of
• 2:29:01
  35 is is. You know the.
• 2:29:05
  Suicide sort of have that message going out at sort of
• 2:29:08
  7:00 on a Saturday at the BBCI think is is unbelievably
• 2:29:11
  powerful. It's the ambition again.
• 2:29:14
  It's the, the, you know, the striving to do something a
• 2:29:18
  little bit new and a little bit different.
• 2:29:21
  And the thing that everyone forgets about that that end
• 2:29:25
  scene is, you know, we'll have that wonderful line of, you
• 2:29:28
  know, everything's a pile of good things and bad things.
• 2:29:30
  And you know what, what's the Doctor doing when he's
• 2:29:34
  delivering that line? He's given Amy a big hug, you
• 2:29:39
  know, because Amy's got that. Vincent still took his own life.
• 2:29:41
  So the Doctor brings Amy in for big massive hug and gives her
• 2:29:45
  that wonderful console and line. And after everything I've said
• 2:29:48
  about, you know, Matt Smith and why I love him as a doctor, that
• 2:29:51
  really encapsulates the 11th. Doctor for me.
• 2:29:54
  So, Vincent. The Doctor is my winner, the
• 2:29:56
  real one. But what else is he doing?
• 2:29:59
  He's also. Telling the kids watching live
• 2:30:01
  is full of hard stuff and easy stuff.
• 2:30:04
  I just think it's one of the most responsible moments ever.
• 2:30:09
  Should we just put them both through then?
• 2:30:11
  Well, you know if I was voting. Which I'm not.
• 2:30:14
  I would have chosen Vincent and the doctor, we would have had a
• 2:30:16
  deadlock and they both would have gone through.
• 2:30:20
  But that's not the case. I said I wouldn't have an
• 2:30:21
  opinion today. So the Pandorica opens and The
• 2:30:25
  Big Bang goes down as strictly come hamsters best 11th doctor
• 2:30:30
  story and into choice with all the other doctors the story that
• 2:30:36
  couldn't even. Win.
• 2:30:36
  Its own episode. Yes, come on, love it.
• 2:30:43
  Love it. I think does.
• 2:30:45
  Although you. Know I think if Roddy's listened
• 2:30:47
  to this he'll be can yes because he was really champion in this
• 2:30:50
  one should be very very happy funny.
• 2:31:07
  I thought if you could hear me, I could hang on somehow.
• 2:31:12
  Silly me, silly old doctor. When you wake up you'll have a
• 2:31:25
  mum and dad and you won't even Remember Me.
• 2:31:31
  Well, you'll Remember Me a little.
• 2:31:35
  There'll be a story in your head.
• 2:31:39
  That's OK. We're all stories in the end.
• 2:31:45
  Just make it a good one. Because it was, you know, it was
• 2:31:50
  the best. The daft old man who stole a
• 2:31:57
  magic box. Did I ever tell you that I stole
• 2:32:05
  it? Well, I borrowed it.
• 2:32:06
  I was always going to take it back.
• 2:32:11
  Oh, that box, Amy, your dream about that box.
• 2:32:19
  He'll never leave you. Big and little at the same time.
• 2:32:27
  Brand new and ancient and the lowest blue never and the times
• 2:32:36
  we had would had never In your dreams they'll still be there.
• 2:32:50
  The Doctor and Amy porn and the days that never came.
• 2:33:06
  The cracks are clothing but they can't close properly till I'm on
• 2:33:14
  the other side. Can't belong here anymore.
• 2:33:28
  I think I'll skip the rest of the rewind.
• 2:33:32
  I hate repeats. Give well love Lori.
• 2:33:44
  Bye bye Bond. I think next thing we'll just
• 2:33:55
  rate all the. Things down, we'll throw them up
• 2:33:57
  in the air, and whichever 1 lands first, well, we'll say 2
• 2:34:00
  1/2. Hours, but we're.
• 2:34:01
  Laughing as well. Bellas, thank you very.
• 2:34:06
  Much for your time today. Now we sort of talked about your
• 2:34:08
  podcast at the start of this, very briefly at the end.
• 2:34:11
  If you wish to share where can people find you on social media
• 2:34:14
  psy, you can find me mostly on Blue.
• 2:34:17
  Sky these days where I'm at. Cyhart, Luke.
• 2:34:22
  At lost under score. Gallifrey on Twitter and
• 2:34:25
  appearing gone Hamster and two hop TV and on the timeless and
• 2:34:29
  strangers in space and anywhere that will have me.
• 2:34:31
  Why am I doing this every fuck? I listen to this.
• 2:34:33
  Knows where you people are, Mark.
• 2:34:36
  Yeah. Mark Donaldson.
• 2:34:38
  Or on the time lash at blue sky, that's that's where you can play
• 2:34:41
  this. I think Ben and I, I don't know
• 2:34:42
  when this is going out, but Ben and I are going to be doing some
• 2:34:45
  more YouTube sort of live stream chat things starting on the 4th
• 2:34:51
  of March. So this is as much for you guys
• 2:34:54
  on this call as it is for the listeners, but yeah, so we're
• 2:34:58
  going to be doing those like monthly for a little bit as
• 2:35:00
  well. So yeah, I can find those on
• 2:35:02
  YouTube, but on the Timeless Jackson.
• 2:35:06
  I'm mainly. Just on Instagram under Score,
• 2:35:08
  Jackson, Race and Fraser. Well, when I'm not in the
• 2:35:13
  British. Museum trapped into a giant cube
• 2:35:16
  whilst. Simon and Joe watch.
• 2:35:18
  Over me to make sure I don't escape.
• 2:35:20
  You can find me on Twitter at Felix phrase that one word
• 2:35:23
  phrase with AZ, see him over on Blue Sky where I'm trying to,
• 2:35:26
  you know, get a bit more active thanks to Mr. Mr. Musk being a
• 2:35:30
  twat just typing that champion. Of the damned, Yeah, we will
• 2:35:35
  find him, Yeah. Other than that as before.
• 2:35:39
  Any you know, I'm a big who are, so any podcast that will have me
• 2:35:42
  on I am more than happy to appear on.
• 2:35:47
  Yes, sorry, I was momentarily without words.
• 2:35:51
  Then for a second. I just want to say very quickly,
• 2:35:53
  thank you very much for coming on today.
• 2:35:55
  I wanted to find 5 people that love Matt Smith, the 11th Doctor
• 2:35:58
  era, and it has been really nice to just shut up for one episode
• 2:36:03
  and listen to people extol the virtues of this because I think
• 2:36:06
  the three or 4 episodes that came out about this era were
• 2:36:10
  sort of swayed in the negative direction.
• 2:36:12
  So it's incredibly refreshing to hear so many nice things said,
• 2:36:16
  especially about the 11th Doctor.
• 2:36:18
  Thank you very much guys. Thank you.
• 2:36:21
  Thank you. Negative things I said about.
• 2:36:24
  This. Bastards.
• 2:36:28
  Well, Fraser? Can you lead us out of this,
• 2:36:30
  please? Yes.
• 2:36:32
  So count to three, OK. Does everyone know what?
• 2:36:37
  They've got to say. You're on the MO, no?
• 2:36:40
  Oh, sorry. Right.
• 2:36:41
  No. Sorry.
• 2:36:42
  You can say. You're on the MO if you like.
• 2:36:46
  Go on. Fraser.
• 2:36:47
  And three. Two, what I will always remember
• 2:36:50
  when the doctor was me. I'll tell you what, I'll cut it
• 2:36:56
  there. The.
• 2:37:48
  The.