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Strictly Come Hamster - Series 7A (featuring Mark Donaldson & Dave Rennie) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

• 0:34
  Welcome back to Strictly Come Hamster.
• 0:37
  My name is Joe Ford and I am here today with three
• 0:42
  magnificent gentlemen. I've only got one thing to say
• 0:45
  to you all before we start together or not at all, I'm
• 0:50
  going to hand you straight over to my Co host, Mr. Rod Brown.
• 0:54
  Hello, Rod. Hello Joe, how are you doing?
• 0:57
  Well, I'm here talking about Stephen Moffitt's season.
• 0:59
  For the first time. We had to get to it.
• 1:01
  We had to get to it, but we've chosen one that you.
• 1:05
  Yeah, yeah. We haven't gone in with six.
• 1:07
  You know, we're going to break you in gently.
• 1:10
  I've. No idea what this pair thing at
• 1:12
  all. I know.
• 1:12
  I can't wait to be surprised. That's.
• 1:14
  Going to be exciting? No?
• 1:15
  So we are doing season 7A tonight, so just five stories,
• 1:19
  but I'm sure we've still managed to talk for a good couple of
• 1:21
  hours. I think I must have been living
• 1:24
  under a rock because I kind of thought this season was quite
• 1:27
  well regarded by fandom until we asked for comments.
• 1:30
  And then boy, did we get inundated.
• 1:34
  And actually, can I just stop a minute and just do a serious bit
• 1:39
  for once and give a serious thank you to everybody that
• 1:42
  sends us comments? Because we get absolutely
• 1:45
  inundated by people. And it's really rewarding that
• 1:48
  everybody sends their comments on the seasons that we're
• 1:51
  reviewing and we really appreciate it.
• 1:52
  Although can I add an addendum? The comments not fucking essays.
• 1:57
  All right, edit them down. If it's seven tweets per story,
• 2:01
  all right, one tweets. Worth's going to make it in OK.
• 2:04
  So here we are. We're at the tail end of 2012.
• 2:07
  We were just saying that's 12 years ago.
• 2:08
  Cannot believe it's 12 years ago.
• 2:11
  So the show is gearing up for its 50th anniversary.
• 2:14
  We've got six episodes this year, and we're going to be
• 2:17
  talking about five of them. Amy and Rory are going.
• 2:20
  Clara is coming in probably a little bit sooner than we
• 2:22
  thought. In the wider world, it's the
• 2:25
  2012 Olympics, but there's no sign of stadiums mysteriously
• 2:29
  disappearing or David Tennant just ignoring an injured man on
• 2:33
  the road and picking up the flame.
• 2:36
  And in wider news, Prime Minister David Cameron
• 2:38
  accidentally left his baby daughter in a pub.
• 2:41
  And it's just a shame that Steven Moffett didn't do the
• 2:45
  same with Stephen Berkoff's casting Fire the.
• 2:48
  Fucking country in our pub as well, didn't we?
• 2:51
  So back to today and help us sort out our Cowboys from our
• 2:55
  Angels. And yes, that is a nod to George
• 2:57
  Michael. We are being joined by two very
• 3:00
  special guest stars. They're going to help us decide
• 3:02
  which story's going to pick up the Lucursion glitter ball,
• 3:06
  which one is going to be imprisoned in a spaceship fitted
• 3:09
  with Arabica security software, which, as we all know, has
• 3:13
  successfully been incinerating intruders for three centuries.
• 3:17
  So let's welcome today's guests. Gentlemen, would you like to
• 3:21
  introduce yourself? Let's start with Dave.
• 3:24
  Hi everyone, I'm I'm Dave Rennie of the Kettle and Some String
• 3:27
  podcast and yes 7A. It's going to be fun.
• 3:32
  So that's one word for it. Yeah, I've kept my cards close
• 3:35
  to my chest or what I think about it, and I apologize in
• 3:38
  advance that I might have a lot to see, so.
• 3:41
  Just all right. We always have a lot to say.
• 3:43
  Don't forget. About his accent for a second,
• 3:45
  please. That is the sexiest accent in
• 3:47
  all of podcasting. You're in for a treat listening
• 3:50
  to Dave tonight. And we're joined by another
• 3:53
  Scotsman today with another sexy accent Mark.
• 3:56
  Hang on, that's yet to be determined.
• 3:58
  He hasn't spoken yet. Conan graphics Hello, Hello.
• 4:03
  It's It's Mark from Well, Formerly Upon the Time Lash,
• 4:08
  from On the time Lash Where We're still.
• 4:09
  Working. But yes, hello, I yeah, really
• 4:14
  looking forward to chatting about this series.
• 4:16
  I've got a lot of fond memories of it, but I I Are they still
• 4:21
  fond memories? We'll find out.
• 4:23
  Oh, you tease. You tease.
• 4:26
  Can I say? That's what's been do with
• 4:28
  tease. Is that right?
• 4:30
  Oh, interesting. I want to say that Boom was not
• 4:34
  for the fact that you mentioned on the Time Lash, OK?
• 4:36
  It was for the fact that it's no longer going.
• 4:40
  It'll be. Back.
• 4:41
  I know, I know. So before we get to the stories
• 4:45
  themselves, let's just talk about the season or half season
• 4:48
  as a whole. What did you think about it at
• 4:50
  the time? Roughly what do you think about
• 4:53
  it now? Let's start with Dave.
• 4:56
  Well, when you said on the message that we will be doing 7
• 4:59
  AI nearly had a heart attack before I saw the letter E7 BI
• 5:04
  would have probably collapsed in a heap because I hate and detest
• 5:08
  7B. But seven AI don't quite like
• 5:11
  it. I remember at the time after
• 5:14
  series six was this complicated you know had to really pay
• 5:18
  attention season and then this one came along.
• 5:21
  I don't quite understand still the Amy, Rory when they had a a
• 5:26
  good sort of send off in the gold complex.
• 5:28
  But they came back for these five episodes and this five
• 5:30
  episodes in isolation I think is really pretty good.
• 5:33
  I certainly thought it was pretty good.
• 5:34
  Do I think it's pretty good now? I'm still teasing and but yeah,
• 5:41
  I think it's it's after season five, probably the best mini run
• 5:45
  of Maxwell. OK.
• 5:48
  And Mark? Yeah, so I mean to go down a
• 5:52
  very sort of slightly personal route for this series 2012, I
• 5:57
  was living in Margate. I'd broken up with the the girl
• 6:00
  that I moved there for, so I was living in a kind of house share.
• 6:06
  I was working, so I was a duty manager at a cinema, working
• 6:08
  really late hours, probably drinking too much.
• 6:11
  I'd probably still drink too much, but that's by the way, and
• 6:15
  this once. A night, all right?
• 6:18
  But this sort of five episodes of of Doctor Who was quite, it
• 6:23
  was a comfort, you know, it was, it was great.
• 6:25
  So it was either I would be watching this at like 2:00 in
• 6:29
  the morning, coming in from a shift and it was just a kind of
• 6:33
  nice way to unwind. Or, you know, Asylum of the
• 6:36
  Daleks. I watched it with my landlord,
• 6:39
  slash housemate, and both of us were like, I'm on a minute,
• 6:43
  isn't she supposed to be coming in next year?
• 6:46
  What's what's going on here? So that was quite a fun kind of
• 6:50
  bonding experience with him. So yeah, a lot of fond memories
• 6:54
  of this, which I was worried would slightly colour my
• 6:58
  judgement of this series for this.
• 7:01
  And it probably has, but we'll see.
• 7:03
  We'll see. Joe, have you ever bonded with
• 7:06
  your landlord? It's a woman, no.
• 7:11
  Although I will say just in case she's listening, honestly, she
• 7:14
  does you whenever I need her. I've got a problem.
• 7:16
  I'll send her a text. She sorts it out within the day.
• 7:19
  Please don't put the rent up, OK?
• 7:22
  Honestly, it's been fixed for five years.
• 7:24
  Oh, she's very kind. Anyway, I it pains me to say
• 7:29
  this, but I rather like this season as well and I'm really
• 7:33
  not a fan of the era, but I think I like this even more now
• 7:37
  than I did on 1st viewing. It's fun, it's colourful, it's
• 7:42
  simple. Fucking hell, it's simple.
• 7:45
  For a Steven Moffett season, they're doing that really kind
• 7:48
  of quirky movie of the week thing.
• 7:50
  I think it's full of startling images, it's got lots of
• 7:53
  engaging set pieces. This viewing rounds, I did go
• 7:58
  off one episode that I previously have given a very
• 8:02
  positive reading to for one specific reason.
• 8:05
  So I'm sort of like half love, half don't love, but that's a
• 8:09
  good batting average for me and Stephen Moffitt.
• 8:11
  So I I actually, no, I think I think it's a really strong half
• 8:15
  year. It's certainly the stronger half
• 8:17
  of this season and it's fun. It's really fun to watch.
• 8:21
  So it's a thumbs up for me. And it's glorious to look at as
• 8:25
  well, which we will no doubt touch on.
• 8:27
  Many Times Now, money's on the screen.
• 8:29
  Isn't it just? Yeah, no, I think this is really
• 8:31
  good. Solid, solid run of episodes,
• 8:33
  which is why I was surprised when the negative comments came
• 8:36
  in. As a lover of season six and the
• 8:39
  very detailed, intricate plotting of Stephen Moffett,
• 8:42
  this was perhaps a slight disappointment because it is
• 8:45
  Movie of the week, as you say, but it's just as you say.
• 8:49
  It's a lot of fun. So generally good scripts, we
• 8:53
  will come to that, but I do miss a little bit of the darkness and
• 8:56
  a little bit of complexity, but let's get into it.
• 8:59
  So before we go to the stories, let's have our first batch of
• 9:03
  listener comments and Dave and Mark are going to do the duties
• 9:07
  in their lovely Scottish accents and read them out.
• 9:10
  For us, let's just put our feet up, Rod.
• 9:12
  Come on. OK.
• 9:13
  Cup of coffee, Let the lads do the work.
• 9:16
  Well the first comment is from Andy Parkinson who says you know
• 9:20
  as a kid when your mum said if you don't have anything nice to
• 9:22
  say, say nothing. That pretty much sums up this
• 9:25
  half season. All I will say is I enjoy
• 9:28
  dinosaurs, mostly due to Mark Williams.
• 9:30
  Otherwise, it's just an OK run of stories at best.
• 9:33
  We've got Melvin Pena, who says series 70 rules.
• 9:39
  It's for the fun, fizzy, pacey, bombastic stories.
• 9:43
  It's it's biggest problem. Barkoff should have been beyond
• 9:47
  anyone's control, and while Amy and Rory should have left at the
• 9:50
  God complex, as they didn't, I enjoyed Moffett fucking up their
• 9:53
  lives and then reassembling the relationship as a narrative arc
• 9:57
  for the series. More on that later.
• 10:01
  James H says starts with a crap Dalek story.
• 10:04
  Looks like it might get better before the TV diarrhea that is
• 10:07
  Angel, I thought. There's utter drivel and an even
• 10:11
  less convincing reason for not going back for Amy and Rory than
• 10:15
  five gave for Adric. A real low point for of who?
• 10:19
  The thing about R James, you know, is he's not very clear
• 10:22
  about what he thinks about things, no.
• 10:24
  He's very sort. He got to read between the
• 10:26
  lines. But we love your coppers, James.
• 10:31
  Dylan Race says an uneven start to a ropey season which climaxes
• 10:35
  with Day of the Doctor. I think a few people climaxed
• 10:38
  with Day of the Doctor if the screening I was at was anything
• 10:41
  to go back a a story that's even more uneven than the season that
• 10:46
  precedes it. 7A, however, has some of the better stories.
• 10:51
  Sigh, Heart. It's OK.
• 10:53
  All totally competent. But A Town Called Mercy aside,
• 10:56
  there's nothing really outstanding.
• 10:58
  The title sequence filters look dreadful.
• 11:00
  Amy and Rory's departure is totally overblown and ridiculous
• 11:03
  in a way. Very underwhelming.
• 11:05
  Episode I. Remember, Sigh.
• 11:07
  Hart is fandom sunshine. If he doesn't like something,
• 11:10
  then something might be going wrong.
• 11:15
  Trouble, aren't we, Jason Thompson says it feels
• 11:18
  superfluous, as Amy and Rory's story came to a decent end last
• 11:21
  season with them having a nice house, etcetera.
• 11:24
  And the docs are telling Amy that this is a better
• 11:26
  alternative than standing over her grave, because life with him
• 11:29
  is dangerous and he ends up standing over a grave.
• 11:34
  Feels like Moffett has trouble letting go of his characters, so
• 11:36
  it's a weird little collection of episodes that feels like
• 11:39
  filler before we get to Clara. James Lark A decent run of
• 11:43
  stories, all nicely made and full of good performances.
• 11:46
  Much better than the messy series preceding it and the
• 11:49
  uneven half series to come. So I'm not sure why it all feels
• 11:52
  a bit throw away. Perhaps because it's obsessed
• 11:55
  with significant story arc stuff, SO treats this batch as
• 11:58
  fuller underselling of the silly film of the weak motif.
• 12:01
  They should have taken more pride in telling good stories,
• 12:03
  which these are. Daniel Ronsley says I like it.
• 12:07
  After the convoluted Art Heavy Series 6, I was ready for Amy
• 12:10
  and Rory to leave, although Gillen and Darvell have grown
• 12:14
  beautifully into their roles and both are superbly characterized,
• 12:17
  so it's a huge relief. Then the Moffat chills out a bit
• 12:20
  and here's this mini season down to stand alone blockbuster
• 12:24
  attraction of the week adventures.
• 12:26
  I already love Daniel Rosley, but that just sums it all up
• 12:30
  there. He's fucking chilled out for
• 12:32
  half a season. It's such a relief.
• 12:34
  Sorry, sorry, Dave. All right, David Gillespie,
• 12:37
  Pratt said the decision to move away from a big season spanning
• 12:41
  story arc was a wise move, except A5 part story arc leading
• 12:45
  to Amy and Rory leaving might have worked, but they left last
• 12:48
  season so it does feel like stringing their story out.
• 12:53
  And Paul Quinn says a season that it's impossible to give a
• 12:57
  shit about. A four episode holding pattern
• 13:00
  until Angels, but even then they bollocks it up.
• 13:03
  The least consequential season since 20.
• 13:06
  Obviously 7-8 is better than that limp shite, but it's such a
• 13:09
  waste of the brilliant regular cast.
• 13:12
  Yes, Matt Smith haters. He's giving it everything.
• 13:15
  And it's also a waste of the mighty Jenna Coleman who,
• 13:19
  obviously. Makes Paul was very passionate
• 13:20
  about Doctor Who. You know I.
• 13:22
  Never know what he's thinking. Whichever direction he's going
• 13:25
  in. Tends to veer more towards the
• 13:27
  negative I've noticed, but there was.
• 13:29
  Some positivity there, though. That was sort of mixed, yeah.
• 13:33
  Yeah, yeah. Well, it's getting televisual
• 13:37
  diarrhea, sight the. Trouble is, Rod wants Rod wants
• 13:40
  it all to be nice when they're talking about.
• 13:42
  Yeah, too right. We save the hate for Chibnall.
• 13:44
  Come on. Right.
• 13:48
  Let's get into the stories themselves.
• 13:50
  So let's start with Mark. Mark, pick your story and give
• 13:54
  us the three reasons why you're either going to champion or
• 13:57
  condemn it. I was I was wondering what what
• 14:00
  am I going to what if you pick me first, what am I going to go
• 14:03
  for? And I think do you know what I'm
• 14:05
  going to go for A town Called Mercy because it's the one
• 14:09
  story, this series that I don't particularly like and have never
• 14:14
  particularly liked. I can see it.
• 14:17
  Stunning it. We're not in Cardiff anymore.
• 14:20
  That's great. It feels like a proper, well,
• 14:23
  visually it feels like a proper Western.
• 14:27
  But I think it fundamentally fails on all the the Western
• 14:31
  tropes and just becomes a kind of Doctor Who story in a Wild
• 14:35
  West setting. Which is kind of unforgivable
• 14:38
  when you've got such a great location that it kind of just
• 14:44
  it's basically does that Doctor Who thing of like it's RoboCop
• 14:48
  at the OK Corral. That's that's the sort of
• 14:51
  elevator pitch for this story. That's why I love it.
• 14:54
  But it doesn't feel like a Western, Westerns or either.
• 14:58
  You know, it's a bunch of guys betraying each other for, you
• 15:02
  know, gold, so you know you could do alien gold or whatever.
• 15:04
  Or it's a revenge story, which this is.
• 15:07
  But I don't think you ever really get enough of the it's a
• 15:14
  revenge story where the guy seeking revenge isn't the
• 15:17
  protagonist. And I think that's a problem.
• 15:22
  If you're going to do a revenge Western in Doctor Who and the
• 15:25
  Doctor's not the guy taking vengeance, it's kind of hard to
• 15:30
  kind of give a shit about the the gunslinger, really.
• 15:33
  I think. So that's my first issue with
• 15:36
  it. The second issue with it is I
• 15:38
  don't buy the Doctor's reaction to any of it until the until
• 15:46
  towards the end where he calms down a bit and he's like, yeah,
• 15:48
  I'm the Doctor. I don't go around pointing guns
• 15:51
  at people and killing people. It's him flying off the handle
• 15:57
  throwing pawn shop Davros over the over the barrier to get
• 16:02
  killed by the gunslinger. Sure he's doing it to protect a
• 16:06
  town but it's kind of he really flies off the handle and I know
• 16:11
  he kind of try and explain it away by going oh you're you know
• 16:14
  you're travelling alone too much.
• 16:15
  But that would work if these war were five specials split up
• 16:21
  across the year rather than sort of week by week adventures.
• 16:24
  So you never quite get the the times in between, you know, the
• 16:29
  Doctor. Anyway, so the Doctors off
• 16:31
  gallivantry while Amy and Rory are having a life.
• 16:33
  You get more of a sense of that in The Power of Three than I
• 16:35
  think you do here. So yes, I don't buy the Doctor's
• 16:40
  thing whatsoever. And the third thing, which I've
• 16:43
  forgotten about, so let me consult my notes.
• 16:48
  It is, yeah. It's Matt Smith at his most
• 16:51
  annoying now. I love Matt Smith.
• 16:53
  I was gutted when they announced he was leaving.
• 16:57
  I burst into tears after after he regenerated into Peter
• 17:01
  Capaldi. Even though I was really excited
• 17:04
  to see Peter Capaldi, I think there was something about that,
• 17:07
  that tonal neck break that just broke me.
• 17:11
  I just said I didn't know how to feel.
• 17:12
  Should I be sad? Should I be happy?
• 17:14
  Burst into tears here. Oh God, from The Walking into
• 17:19
  the saloon. Like it's it's also self
• 17:22
  consciously mannered. So it's like oh we should put
• 17:26
  Doctor Who in a Wild West setting, but let's not make it
• 17:29
  campy and silly like the gunfighters.
• 17:32
  But then they kind of have their cake and eat it by making the
• 17:35
  doctor be a bit, like, overly silly, like, Oh yeah, the doctor
• 17:39
  wouldn't ask for whiskey or sarsaparilla.
• 17:42
  He'd ask for a cup of tea and he's going to play that up, even
• 17:45
  though, you know, I've seen the. Doctor the widow in the water,
• 17:49
  bro. I know, but so there's that
• 17:53
  element of it. And then all the nonsense with
• 17:55
  the, you know, the the trans horse.
• 17:59
  Can we call it that? All that stuff.
• 18:04
  It's like she's a funny gag about because he says it to a
• 18:07
  preacher. That's quite a funny joke about
• 18:09
  but but at the same time I just find him quite annoying until he
• 18:14
  has to be the serious doctor again and it just doesn't.
• 18:18
  And I wonder if he doesn't land it because up to that he's just
• 18:21
  been daffy and eccentric and going I'm in the world West.
• 18:27
  So yeah, that's it's it's not for me.
• 18:29
  I'm OK. But was not seeing that coming.
• 18:32
  Oh, me. Right.
• 18:34
  Shall we go to the column? Surprise is like, Oh yeah, let's
• 18:37
  do that, yeah. So we start with James Lark, who
• 18:40
  in contrast, Mark says this is the unexpected highlight.
• 18:43
  Unexpected because of the time it didn't register as such.
• 18:46
  Less showy than the other stories around it.
• 18:48
  A bit of a pastiche, but it looks gorgeous.
• 18:51
  The regulars are on excellent form.
• 18:53
  It's a story with heart but not in the on the nose way that we
• 18:57
  might expect from this era and Adrian Scarborough gives a stand
• 19:00
  out guest performance some rollicking action sequences as
• 19:03
  well. A minor classic.
• 19:06
  Jason Thompson says the highlights.
• 19:08
  I've got a feeling you know, the comments are going to go in this
• 19:11
  direction. A great exploration of how
• 19:13
  multifaceted people are, with Jack's being both someone who
• 19:16
  has committed atrocities but has also done good and tried to
• 19:20
  atone The one bit that really greats though is when Amy pulls
• 19:23
  a gun on the Doctor and they have a great discussion about
• 19:25
  morality, undercut massively by the comedy Accidental firing of
• 19:30
  the gun. I love that bit.
• 19:32
  What's he talking about? Firstly, that's not funny as she
• 19:35
  might have killed somebody, that's why it's funny.
• 19:38
  And secondly, that whole discussion is the meat of the
• 19:40
  episode and deserve to be treated as such.
• 19:43
  The Grim Recapa says the stories this season all feel like
• 19:46
  they're trying to be the big idea episode so hard they forget
• 19:50
  to be, well, you know, coherent. This is the best, though that's
• 19:54
  mostly for having the space balls to cast Ben Browder and
• 19:57
  then kill him off halfway through.
• 19:59
  John Bensalia, who professorally does not like the new series at
• 20:03
  all. Not bad.
• 20:06
  That's high phrase it's. Glowing.
• 20:08
  That's glowing. The location filming looks good.
• 20:11
  Adrian Scarborough does well. But overall, like all other
• 20:14
  stories from this period, oh, here we go.
• 20:16
  It feels inconsequential. One of the many times new Who
• 20:19
  harps on about Doctor shouldn't travel alone because he gets
• 20:22
  bad. Jack Coyer says the best of the
• 20:25
  bunch on one of Matt Smith's best performances, the boyish
• 20:28
  Glee at figuring out there's a mystery of thoughts, and then
• 20:30
  the valiant attempt to disguise his solemn fury when he figures
• 20:34
  out what's happened but can't reveal his full knowledge just
• 20:37
  yet. Murray Gold is having real fun
• 20:39
  leaning into the genre, with his score one of the most varied of
• 20:43
  the era. Fraser Gregory says Yee Ha Smith
• 20:49
  once again shows Joe how well he can do angry acting.
• 20:52
  All right. Fraser as Toby Whithouse gives
• 20:55
  us a tale of moral dilemmas with no easy answers.
• 20:58
  Great dynamics with the poem. Beautifully filmed.
• 21:00
  It's the best of the series. Keep it.
• 21:03
  Melvin Pennier says I loved seeing Ben Browder from Farscape
• 21:06
  and SG-1 along with Adrian Scarborough.
• 21:08
  I'd have done anything for this to be A2 parter to give them
• 21:11
  both way more screen time, Especially Browder, because we
• 21:15
  don't get enough North Carolina representation in Doctor Who.
• 21:19
  Darren lit roundels Wit House's scripts rarely work for me, and
• 21:22
  this one just left me cold outside of the gunfighters.
• 21:25
  I can't relate to Westerns. It's a Gordon production, but
• 21:29
  just boring. Michael Storm says Toby Wit
• 21:32
  House wins the writing crown with the highlight of the
• 21:34
  season, a great examination of the Doctor's morality and
• 21:37
  perhaps even our own as we're forced into taking sides on a
• 21:40
  character who's essentially an escaped war criminal who would
• 21:43
  no doubt be put on trial of the Universe version of Space
• 21:46
  Nuremberg. However, it's a little worrying
• 21:49
  that three of the five episodes are resolved by self sacrifice.
• 21:54
  Nobody's self sacrifice is worse than Kosh Armus from The
• 21:57
  Timeless Children. And what I also say, has anybody
• 22:01
  seen the first? Well, I was convinced to say the
• 22:03
  first Christopher Eccleston series, the Christopher
• 22:05
  Eccleston series. Everyone's self sacrificing all
• 22:07
  over the bloody place. Could we call it a new series
• 22:10
  trope at this point? No.
• 22:11
  Have you seen Classic Who? I think there's plenty of self
• 22:13
  sacrifices there too there. Daniel Knight Handsome Daniel
• 22:18
  Knight says. Best of the season, well
• 22:20
  photographed with some good supporting characters, are based
• 22:23
  on the siege story disguised as a Western.
• 22:26
  The Doctor speaking speaking horse is a silly Muffetism I can
• 22:29
  do without, though. Jolie Well, instead of first.
• 22:32
  The only thing I liked was the music.
• 22:34
  I thought it was a lame pastiche of Rio Bravo, my favorite
• 22:37
  western, but it was really an Star Trek Next Generation
• 22:41
  episode about war. My views of war have definitely
• 22:43
  changed in the last 10 years. Joel Luella has actually been to
• 22:47
  war, so he's got some weight behind that argument.
• 22:49
  But a Next Generation episode about war sounds ghastly.
• 22:54
  Crash Dummy says Sorry, we're nearly there.
• 22:57
  Crash Dummy says, looks beautiful and authentic, with an
• 22:59
  interesting, if slightly dull threat.
• 23:02
  The moral dilemma is compelling and everybody is enjoying
• 23:05
  themselves. The guest casts are great and
• 23:07
  make that make the whole thing really watchable.
• 23:09
  Your mileage may vary if you don't like Western SO.
• 23:12
  All smice is underrated. Good characterization on the
• 23:15
  location work is glorious. And Top podcast host Dylan Reese
• 23:20
  says I'm sure this is good, but much like a lot of whithouse
• 23:24
  scripts, I can't remember a thing that happens.
• 23:27
  I mean by faint praise. I knew.
• 23:29
  I knew there was a reason that, like Dylan Reese, hang on, I'm
• 23:33
  awake. I waited on.
• 23:34
  Every single one. So let's let's hold that opinion
• 23:36
  until the end. I'm aware I'm getting thrown
• 23:39
  through the saloon doors on my arse, but.
• 23:43
  You know it's good to push against the crowd, though,
• 23:45
  right? So you've put forward a a valid
• 23:49
  argument against town called Mercy.
• 23:51
  Let's go to Dave. Let's see if you've won us over.
• 23:55
  Well, I never used to like Westerns or the gunfighters, but
• 24:00
  I really like this one, so I'm totally going the other way.
• 24:05
  Even evokes a lot of things from the gunfighters.
• 24:07
  You've got the doctors, the Marshall, you've got a wanted
• 24:10
  man in the cell, you've got a voice over.
• 24:12
  Even on the story, the first thing is it looks amazing.
• 24:15
  I think it's beautifully directed by Soul Medicine
• 24:19
  instead of a great set in The Gunfighters, you've now got the
• 24:21
  sweeping movie like Vista in Spain, which is Dublin obviously
• 24:24
  for America. You've got lovely shots of the
• 24:27
  doctor in the capsule seeing the atrocities that he's responsible
• 24:30
  for. You've got Jek on the bed.
• 24:31
  You've got the gunslinger coming into view and the doctor and
• 24:34
  later Jek on the town threshold and he's disappearing nearer and
• 24:37
  nearer. Later there's the close up of
• 24:40
  the clock and the preacher in the church scene which is got
• 24:44
  very tense, you know, praying for the folks lives, you've got
• 24:47
  the music that beautifully for me evokes the Wild West and the
• 24:50
  BBC again because it's period, it looks authentic, you know,
• 24:54
  you've got all the costumes there and so on.
• 24:56
  The make up of the colours. Colours.
• 24:58
  Is it colours? Colours.
• 25:00
  Colours, colours. It's very simple just this sort
• 25:03
  of coverage of piece on this the cheek but it's very effective
• 25:07
  And and then this story continues this theme of the
• 25:10
  Doctor being more dangerous when not travelling with companions.
• 25:13
  Now you could see was that not bun to death in the 10th Doctors
• 25:16
  error but this many sees that it's still fascinating to go
• 25:19
  back now with a different doctrine see again how does that
• 25:22
  affect him? So here you've got, of course,
• 25:26
  Carla Jepp being a war criminal who's created this Cyborg army
• 25:31
  to win a war. But he's also stopped that war
• 25:34
  and has helped the western town prosper.
• 25:36
  And that's even the argument that comes up.
• 25:40
  But Alton even says now he's so old he basically can't be
• 25:43
  bothered with negotiation and that's when he completely just
• 25:45
  loses it and just wants everyone to evacuate.
• 25:50
  Matt Smith is vicious on this from from his sit down to react
• 25:55
  to him when jet goats on my mercy, chucking him out the town
• 25:58
  and holding a gun. But I think the whole scenes
• 26:01
  terrific. I mean Amy of course is the one
• 26:02
  that calms him down and says, look, what are you doing?
• 26:04
  You don't do this. It's the opposite of the last
• 26:08
  episode, where in the last episode the villain is just a
• 26:12
  Rotor, really. And this one, this guy's got
• 26:15
  many layers. I mean, it is ambiguous.
• 26:17
  Is he a good or a bad guy with what he's done?
• 26:20
  Which is more like real life and makes the view a Fink.
• 26:24
  It isn't a simple war as goodies and baddies, and this shines a
• 26:27
  light on all of that, even though Amy and Rory even
• 26:29
  disagree for a moment about what the Doctor's doing.
• 26:32
  Is that good or right or wrong that he's just chucking this guy
• 26:35
  out? And the other reason I had for
• 26:37
  liking this is that nobody talks about him but the Undertaker in
• 26:41
  it, this joyous camera. He's great, isn't?
• 26:44
  He he just pops up every now and then and just measures the
• 26:46
  doctor for his coffin. And is that an echo for trends a
• 26:49
  lot later on? I don't know.
• 26:51
  I vote this for it instead. Fabulous.
• 26:56
  So convincing as well. Very convincing.
• 26:58
  Oh, I don't want to talk now because, like, one of my points
• 27:01
  is literally the complete opposite of something that Mark
• 27:04
  said and that. You know I can't.
• 27:07
  I can't handle it. No, because I was.
• 27:09
  I was listening to you give your argument.
• 27:10
  I was like, well, why the hell do I think the complete opposite
• 27:13
  of this? Because I think the scene where
• 27:14
  Matt Smith throws Adrian Scarborough out of the town is
• 27:17
  his best actors seen in his entire era.
• 27:20
  It's my favorite moment. And it's because he plays it
• 27:24
  like he just doesn't know how to handle the feelings that he's
• 27:27
  having. And it's this weird, awkward,
• 27:29
  twitchy, and he's sort of throwing him and running and
• 27:33
  he's kind of trying to be quick and he just doesn't really know
• 27:35
  what he's doing. I love it.
• 27:37
  I'm absolutely gripped. And as we'll see with the rest
• 27:39
  of this season, I feel as if Matt Smith is at his absolute
• 27:42
  worst when he portrays anger. He's got this, the Sylvester
• 27:46
  McCoy School of axing, You know, when he's asked to shout you
• 27:49
  embarrass me, River and all of this, I'm like, Oh no, I'm
• 27:53
  watching EastEnders. Whereas this I really lied.
• 27:55
  He is angry, but he just doesn't know what to do with it.
• 28:00
  I really love that. I agree with what they says
• 28:02
  about the production values, the music, the location work, the
• 28:07
  camera work in this as well is superb.
• 28:10
  I do think it has some of I mean, I studied Westerns when I
• 28:13
  was in. I did a media class at school
• 28:16
  and God, they're fucking boring, aren't they?
• 28:19
  Westerns are so boring. Lots of men sitting around being
• 28:23
  very serious with grudges. But one of the things they they
• 28:27
  do, which they do do in a town called Mercy, which they don't
• 28:30
  do in the gunfighters because that's all in the studio, is
• 28:34
  have a sense of space. And this really does that.
• 28:37
  It's all of those sort of wide angled shots of vistas with the
• 28:40
  sun up and the horses going across.
• 28:43
  And I I really like, what did you say his name was?
• 28:45
  Sol Mitt Mittstein. Next time, Yeah, he does a
• 28:49
  brilliant job filming this. I mean, I think the production
• 28:52
  values of all five are great. This might just be Pip as my
• 28:57
  favorite. And my last reason is Adrian
• 29:00
  Scarborough, who I think gives the best turn of this half
• 29:03
  season. He's charming and smart to start
• 29:06
  off with because that's what the script requires him to be and to
• 29:09
  win everybody over. And then he's sort of creepy and
• 29:12
  unforgivable in the middle sections where he's trying to
• 29:16
  justify the terrible war crimes that he's committed.
• 29:20
  He he plays it the way I think the best actors play Doctor Who
• 29:25
  villains, which is just a notch above naturalistic, you know,
• 29:30
  not Graham crowded up here, but just a little bit above and
• 29:34
  he's, I just think he's absolutely riveting to watch.
• 29:37
  So for Matt Smith and me giving Matt Smith as one of my reasons,
• 29:41
  that's a big deal. Adrian Scarborough and the
• 29:44
  direction as a whole, I think this is fabulous.
• 29:46
  It's probably my favorite of the year.
• 29:50
  OK, Grace, so my my vote is superfluous because it's
• 29:53
  definitely going through based on Joe and Dave.
• 29:55
  But I am absolutely going to put this through as well.
• 29:59
  It must be a gay thing because I also hate westerns.
• 30:03
  I just don't get Westerns. It's a load of blokes.
• 30:05
  I mean, you'd think we'd love them.
• 30:07
  You would, wouldn't you? But God, it's dull.
• 30:09
  I've always hated Westerns, so when they knew they were doing a
• 30:11
  Western, I was a little bit concerned.
• 30:13
  But I think this is a great, great episode.
• 30:17
  The movie of the week format that we've got this season means
• 30:20
  that we lose some of the elements that I really like in
• 30:22
  in Stephen Moffett. And that's a slightly darker
• 30:25
  tone, something a bit more morally ambiguous, something
• 30:28
  that raises questions for the audience.
• 30:30
  But I think we get all of that in absolute spades in this
• 30:33
  episode. And that's why I think this is,
• 30:36
  I'm not going to say it's definitely my favorite to the
• 30:38
  season yet because I'm a bit tight, but it's it's definitely
• 30:40
  up there. So we've got Carla Jacks, as you
• 30:43
  guys rightly said, he is he a war criminal or is he a
• 30:46
  compassionate Dr. And he's both, and he knows that he's both.
• 30:50
  And this episode really kind of highlights that dichotomy.
• 30:53
  And even Amy and Rory are divided whether he's good or not
• 30:57
  and how I read. So it's interesting hearing Mark
• 31:00
  say he really doesn't buy Matt Smith's reaction to it.
• 31:05
  My reading of it, that Matt Smith reacts so badly in that
• 31:08
  moment after that discussion is because he sees himself there.
• 31:11
  He thinks that he's also a war criminal because he's killed
• 31:14
  everyone on Gallifrey, but he's also a compassionate Dr. So I
• 31:18
  think having that mirrored in Jax, that's how I read it.
• 31:21
  That's why he absolutely loses it in that moment.
• 31:24
  Because the. Doctor Right.
• 31:26
  You don't read Matt Smith? No.
• 31:27
  No, no, the Doctor. Well, you said Matt Smith.
• 31:30
  The Matt. Smith Maybe he's just been
• 31:32
  posted the scripts for series. Have you seen Morbius?
• 31:35
  Have you Have you seen Morbius? Because I think you could you
• 31:37
  could accuse Matt Smith of war crimes.
• 31:41
  Is it that bad? That's.
• 31:42
  An Terminator, yeah. Maybe Is it terrible?
• 31:45
  It's pretty bad. Oh great, I'll get you tomorrow.
• 31:50
  So that's that's why I think the Doctor, thank you for correcting
• 31:54
  me. Joe react so badly in that
• 31:55
  moment because Jack seems comfortable at that point in the
• 31:58
  episode with the fact that he's both Yin and Yang, whereas the
• 32:02
  Doctors riddled with guilt and self hatred for killing everyone
• 32:05
  on Gallifrey. So that's why I think I read
• 32:07
  that that that triggers him and that's why he reacts in such an
• 32:10
  extreme way. I love also, this episode throws
• 32:14
  out about what a community does when it's got someone in its
• 32:17
  midst who is threatening their way of life, the Marshall says.
• 32:21
  You know, if we give up checks, then this town is going to go to
• 32:23
  chaos. And I think that division in a
• 32:26
  small community is probably more pertinent now in both England
• 32:30
  and America than it was in 2012. And I think that having that
• 32:35
  debate in Doctor Who is really powerful and the Doctor says
• 32:37
  frightened people give me a Dalek any day.
• 32:40
  I think that's a really great line.
• 32:43
  Other things that made you think there's a whole discussion about
• 32:45
  you carry your own prison with you, though I was a lovely
• 32:48
  poetic line. So there's lots and lots of good
• 32:51
  stuff here. The one bit I kind of that
• 32:54
  doesn't quite sit comfortably up with me is a self sacrifice at
• 32:57
  the end because I don't feel that it's particularly earned or
• 33:00
  in character. Jax, as as I said earlier, feels
• 33:03
  quite comfortable with being Yang and Yang.
• 33:05
  So the fact that he then goes off to commit sacrifice I.
• 33:08
  Don't you know why that is right?
• 33:09
  Because the story's got to end. Exactly.
• 33:11
  We've got 44 minute clock to. We need the.
• 33:13
  Voice over at the end. Well, exactly so.
• 33:17
  But it's a bit too quick. Is it because the Marshalls been
• 33:20
  killed? Who is was his friend?
• 33:22
  If it is, they don't really signpost it that well.
• 33:24
  So that's a bit off I think. But for everything else it
• 33:27
  raises is great. The other reasons you guys have
• 33:30
  already covered the location filming is absolutely beautiful.
• 33:33
  I mean the blistering sun. You can feel that blistering
• 33:36
  sun. There's a shot where Matt jumps
• 33:38
  off Susan the horse and he's he's looking at the cable on the
• 33:41
  ground and the sun is shining behind him.
• 33:44
  And occasionally he moves his shoulder and the sun just
• 33:47
  obliterates the camera. It's beautiful.
• 33:49
  Isn't that round the corner from the snow scape in the sun?
• 33:52
  Absolutely, yeah. I know, it's tremendous, isn't
• 33:55
  it? Because it's so bright.
• 33:56
  So. I mean, that sky is so stuck
• 33:59
  when you get the gunfighter silhouetted against his.
• 34:01
  Mark is right, the horse jokes are tedious.
• 34:04
  They do go on a little bit long, so I think location filming is
• 34:07
  also great. And the acting you guys have
• 34:09
  already mentioned. I think Matt Smith is fantastic
• 34:11
  in this episode. I think he even plays the, I
• 34:13
  love the episode when he comes and talks about, you know,
• 34:16
  electricity, keep out signs, aggressive stares.
• 34:19
  Has someone been peeking at my Christmas list?
• 34:21
  I think he plays that well. He's not doing the really
• 34:24
  mannered exaggerations that we will get elsewhere in the
• 34:27
  season. Adrian Scarborough's great.
• 34:29
  He was really well known at the time for Gavin and Stacey, but
• 34:32
  here he gives a really. Drama, lovely love and
• 34:35
  Christmas? Yeah, exactly.
• 34:36
  It was just lovely, wasn't it? But that first moment when he
• 34:39
  stands up where he's been lying on the on the cell bed and he
• 34:43
  stands up and he just come comes full into camera and says good
• 34:46
  afternoon. He looks like every paedophile
• 34:48
  you fear, doesn't he? Yeah.
• 34:49
  Yeah. He's really scary and good
• 34:52
  afternoon with a bowl of hats on and he just looks terrifying.
• 34:56
  So, yeah, I think the acting is great.
• 34:57
  Yeah, that's it's definitely going through.
• 35:00
  Sorry, Mark. Just one extra point for the you
• 35:04
  know, for having Ben Browder in it, who's the sexiest man in all
• 35:08
  of science fiction, but then making him look like a 70's porn
• 35:11
  star. I mean, how could you not put
• 35:13
  this through? It doesn't surprise me that the
• 35:15
  one straight man sitting amongst us did not want through but for
• 35:19
  everybody else. It's an instant through, yeah.
• 35:23
  Ben Browder tech, Right. So that is definitely going
• 35:27
  through. Dave, we're on to your choice.
• 35:29
  Pick something to. Critique or.
• 35:32
  Champion. I was thinking whether they
• 35:34
  bring up one to Champion, but saw that let's just get this one
• 35:37
  right out of the way. I'm booting out Asylum of the
• 35:39
  Daleks because Steven Muffet, right?
• 35:44
  He said he hadn't written a Dalek episode before this,
• 35:47
  right? A full one on his own, but he
• 35:49
  shouldn't have bothered because there's so many things in this
• 35:51
  that really don't make sense here and a lot of it's in the
• 35:54
  pre title sequence. So first of all there's a giant
• 35:57
  Dalek on Scaro and a secret meeting in its eye.
• 36:01
  Then they've got Dalek agents that got ice stalks that
• 36:03
  breakthrough skulls and guns in their hands.
• 36:05
  The agents managed to infiltrate Amy's makeup artist and as
• 36:09
  Rory's bus driver, all because and the Daleks say the Doctor
• 36:12
  needs companions. Why they even bothered having
• 36:14
  them there. None of it is explained at all,
• 36:16
  Dave. No, is it?
• 36:17
  But then there's a Dalek parliament.
• 36:19
  So what on earth is this Parliament all about?
• 36:21
  South. Up to now, we've had Dad, Ross
• 36:22
  or an Emperor, and then Daleks, Supremes and Daleks.
• 36:26
  So now there's a Parliament. So we're led to believe now that
• 36:29
  there's a Parliament that debate things with a Prime Minister.
• 36:31
  So what are they discussing in this Parliament?
• 36:33
  Are they discussing Our balls are a bit big guys.
• 36:35
  Let's reduce the size of our casings, please.
• 36:37
  I mean, what are they? What are they doing?
• 36:41
  Yeah, it's just a mad silly idea.
• 36:43
  It doesn't make any sense. And another Dalek episode is
• 36:46
  they exterminate Daleks who are defective in their mind if their
• 36:49
  mind is not pure or whatever. But here we're led to believe
• 36:52
  that they send them to a planet to be dumped, An asylum which
• 36:55
  has got a force field which can only be deactivated on the
• 36:57
  planet so the Daleks can't blast it.
• 37:00
  And then the Daleks say save us, which is something that isn't
• 37:03
  what a Dalek says. We've got what we then see ice
• 37:08
  stocks. They will be punched through the
• 37:09
  snow. There's a nano cloud which
• 37:11
  conveniently just turns everything into a Dalek.
• 37:15
  But the biggest crime there was a tagline at the time.
• 37:18
  I remember when this episode came out and said we're going to
• 37:20
  have the most Daleks you've ever seen.
• 37:23
  No, we don't. We just see them in the
• 37:24
  background and they're just wandering around, going through
• 37:26
  rooms where they say eggs and the Doctor causes one to go
• 37:30
  backwards because Muffet doesn't know how to write them.
• 37:34
  The fact that the Asylum is a room of Daleks which survived
• 37:36
  the Doctors. OK, a neat touch, but really,
• 37:38
  why is it make any sense? And then they've got Oswin
• 37:41
  chained up in another room. Why?
• 37:44
  For a convenient float point for them going through the door and
• 37:46
  seeing, oh, there's a Dalek chained up?
• 37:49
  The Doctor says at one point. It never made sense to me.
• 37:51
  And these dialects just don't make sense.
• 37:53
  They forget the Doctor in the end.
• 37:55
  Yeah, that lasts long. And the dialects actually killed
• 37:58
  no one in this story whatsoever. So are they even Daleks?
• 38:03
  No. So then that that's the
• 38:05
  dialects. And then there's Amy and Rory,
• 38:07
  who had a lovely closure in the golf complex, and they've got
• 38:11
  this beautiful quota scene in the Doctor, the widowing
• 38:13
  wardrobe. The one scene that I will agree
• 38:14
  with Fraser, is brilliant. When at the end you know she's
• 38:18
  got a tear in her eye and he has and he wipes, It's a lovely
• 38:21
  finish for. Her agree with Fraser?
• 38:23
  Dave What? Is but that one little thing.
• 38:24
  The rest of the story is crap but that.
• 38:26
  But I'll be with that one scene. But, and they seemed really
• 38:29
  happy and overjoyed and I know relationships can break up and
• 38:32
  so on, but I just don't buy this whole thing of a divorce because
• 38:37
  Amy's infertile. I just don't buy it.
• 38:39
  I'm sorry they're signing divorce papers.
• 38:41
  Amy's looking grungy and sad in a modelling shoot.
• 38:44
  Rory just seemed bemused that he was chopped out.
• 38:47
  And yeah, I just. I don't buy it.
• 38:50
  This whole thing of I love you more Than You Love me just
• 38:53
  leaves a bad taste in the mouth because they've been through so
• 38:56
  much in the last 20 years. They've been through all of the
• 38:59
  thing, the river, all these demon running that really would
• 39:02
  break them up. I'm sorry, I don't believe it.
• 39:06
  And then the worst thing, though, is not the fact that
• 39:08
  happened. It's resolved in one tiny moment
• 39:10
  in the episode, which is completely unrealistic.
• 39:16
  Yeah, and then later on, isn't it that Amy and Rory foster
• 39:18
  kids? Anyway, so where did this
• 39:20
  tension come from? And I think it's bad judgement
• 39:24
  from Muffet. And then we've got Osmond
• 39:26
  Oswald. Now, anyone knows that I don't
• 39:29
  like Clara at all. And I always thought that I
• 39:32
  liked this version of Clara. Well, I've watched it and I
• 39:36
  don't. The only one that I really like
• 39:39
  now is the Victorian Clara. I think I've not seen episode.
• 39:42
  For a few years. Me too.
• 39:44
  But I thought I liked the Soufi version.
• 39:46
  But no, she's just so she's been trapped in an asylum.
• 39:50
  Obviously it's all in her head, I get that.
• 39:52
  But she's been trapped in asylum for a year.
• 39:54
  But she's smoked, sarcastic and flirty.
• 39:56
  She plays it well, but is it really realistic that somebody
• 39:59
  in that situation would act like that?
• 40:01
  I mean, I like that the twist was signposted.
• 40:03
  Well, I've never noticed this before where the screen looks
• 40:06
  like a Dalek eye view. I've never noticed that before
• 40:09
  and the reveal has still got a shock moment.
• 40:11
  But. Well, Gina Coleman plays it
• 40:13
  well. I just don't like the character.
• 40:17
  I think the story's style over substance, well directed as, as
• 40:20
  always, slow motion shots. The dream sequence from Amy's a
• 40:23
  bit weird. I'm not quite sure what that's
• 40:24
  all about. I think Matt Smith is actually
• 40:26
  pretty awesome in this. He's adorable.
• 40:29
  If have you seen this prequel for this?
• 40:31
  He's having a scorn and a cafe and he's caring about his
• 40:35
  friends and he's he's lovely and that, and he's inquisitiveness
• 40:39
  about Oswin. Unfortunately, even that's sour
• 40:42
  though, because he's seen dancing around the console,
• 40:44
  almost singing Doctor Who over and over and over at the end, as
• 40:47
  the obsession with the Doctor's name keeps happening again.
• 40:51
  Which is a It's the anniversary of Myers.
• 40:53
  You know the plant in the sea last.
• 40:55
  Year we had, we had Doctor, that guy in the blue.
• 40:57
  We had Dorian going. Doctor Who?
• 40:59
  Doctor Who. Oh, just don't go wrong.
• 41:02
  I think it's fucking tedious as well, but I'm just trying to
• 41:05
  give a rig. In you know, so I think he had,
• 41:07
  he was great. But then it's spoiled by this.
• 41:09
  He's twiddling around the TARDIS, saying Doctor Who,
• 41:11
  Doctor Who, Doctor. No, I I don't like this episode,
• 41:15
  and I think it should be. That's the best rant I've heard
• 41:19
  on here since anyone of Rods, thank you very much and no one
• 41:23
  needs to bother go listening to my 2 hour commentary on
• 41:26
  Assignment of Daleks. Just listen to the last 10
• 41:28
  minutes where Dave said it all succinctly.
• 41:30
  Thank you. I will remind you, you were very
• 41:32
  positive on that, Joe. So I'm expecting equal levels of
• 41:34
  positivity. Did you really listen to that?
• 41:37
  Yeah. Oh yeah.
• 41:38
  Wasn't positive on it at all. Should we go to the comments?
• 41:45
  I've lost my place. Should I start?
• 41:49
  Go for. It Dylan Reese A stylistic
• 41:51
  triumph, action-packed, brilliantly directed and a
• 41:54
  couple of great twists. The plot may not entirely hold
• 41:57
  together on multiple viewings, but a Saturday night
• 41:59
  entertainment? It's wonderful.
• 42:01
  As you're reading that, all I can see is Dave shaking his head
• 42:04
  in anger and frustration. By the way guys, if you wish to
• 42:07
  interject with any of these insane comments, please do.
• 42:10
  Well, I think he's mad. Sorry Dylan, but I don't agree.
• 42:15
  And we love you. You're right.
• 42:17
  We do, but I don't agree. John Bensale I think will be
• 42:21
  more up your straight day, says typical Moffett Dark episode,
• 42:26
  which misses the point about what the pepper pots are all
• 42:29
  about. Too much self indulgent navel
• 42:32
  gazing. Not enough exterminating.
• 42:35
  Plus way too many postmodern, clever, clever quips.
• 42:38
  Plus Pointless, Amy, Rory, Fallout.
• 42:41
  I could have written that way, couldn't I?
• 42:43
  James Lark says. Asylum scores highly for me as
• 42:46
  an exercise in atmosphere and making Daleks impressive and and
• 42:50
  scary again. Style over substance for sure,
• 42:53
  but since when has that bothered Doctor Who fans?
• 42:56
  What bothers Dave? All right, Murray goals, best
• 42:58
  score for Moffett and Coleman is great.
• 43:01
  Daniel Knight is superficially enjoyable, boosted by the
• 43:04
  surprise appearance of Clara. The plot makes little sense.
• 43:07
  The Daleks are useless and the ending with Matt Smith prancing
• 43:10
  around the TARDIS shouting Doctor Who is the show
• 43:13
  disappearing up its own arse? Jason Thompson says a messy
• 43:17
  tower with a nonsensical premise.
• 43:19
  Daleks have been sent on suicide missions before, so the idea
• 43:23
  that they're too scared to go is absurd.
• 43:26
  And it's baffling that having made a big deal of its inclusion
• 43:29
  of classic series Daleks, the scene where the survivors of
• 43:32
  classic tales are name checked shows them all in the new series
• 43:35
  Bronze stock. Do you know what?
• 43:36
  Right? When I was watching this, I was
• 43:38
  turning up my brightness. I'm like, where are they?
• 43:40
  Where's the Special Weapons, Dalek?
• 43:45
  Can I just hit the Jack there? Like, right?
• 43:47
  Yeah, sure. Suicide dialects have been sent
• 43:49
  to suicide missions before I get it.
• 43:52
  However, they're not some tyrants, right?
• 43:54
  They don't want to destroy themselves in the glory of
• 43:58
  battle. They want to be the dominant
• 44:01
  species. So sending dialects against mad
• 44:04
  dialects isn't necessarily going to go the way they want, so that
• 44:08
  you can see why they would, you know, nudge some cannon fodder
• 44:12
  in that direction, I would agree.
• 44:14
  I agree with you because I feel like, well, they're evil
• 44:16
  bastards. And what's even scarier than an
• 44:19
  evil bastard? An insane evil.
• 44:21
  Yeah, but I please don't apologize for interjecting.
• 44:26
  Just do it, All right? I'll do it all the time.
• 44:28
  Just. Jump straight in.
• 44:29
  Yeah, go on, jump straight in. Michael's.
• 44:32
  Sorry, excuse me, I hadn't finished.
• 44:34
  I'm sorry. Lifted somewhat by the
• 44:35
  unexpected appearance of Oswing. Clara and Jenna is brilliant.
• 44:39
  Michael Storm says a fairly strong opener.
• 44:42
  Whilst the every Dalek hype doesn't pay off, the use of
• 44:45
  modern props to represent survivors from classic Who
• 44:48
  encounters doesn't bother me and can be explained away with the
• 44:51
  Dalek mutants having been recased.
• 44:53
  The parliament may be a bone of contention, but we do know the
• 44:57
  Daleks have a hierarchy, so Yabu sucks Dave we.
• 45:00
  Didn't. Say that bit by the way, I just
• 45:02
  added that. Fraser Gregory Moffett struggles
• 45:06
  with Daleks as they bore him, so he's always going to try and do
• 45:09
  new things with them, which doesn't always land like here.
• 45:13
  But the Daleks aren't the story here, it's Amy and Rory.
• 45:15
  The breakdown and resolution of their relationship makes perfect
• 45:18
  sense and is an important step on the road to departure.
• 45:22
  Gillan is amazing. Keep it.
• 45:25
  Jack Coyer says if the Daleks can snap up the doctrine
• 45:27
  companions, you'd have thought they'd have made more use of
• 45:30
  that. And not since Peter Purvis has a
• 45:32
  companion had such an out with the old in with the new vibe to
• 45:36
  them. When Jenna started flirting with
• 45:38
  a semi divorced Rory, I was hoping he would reciprocate.
• 45:43
  Frankly, she deserves it after trying to fuck the Doctor in
• 45:47
  flesh and stone. Right.
• 45:48
  I can't disagree with that. Also, if I'm being picky, how
• 45:52
  can people hear Jenna's voice when the Doctor meets the Dalek
• 45:55
  and hears it's voice? Good boy Melvin Pena, one of my
• 45:59
  all time faves. It's big, bold and bonkers.
• 46:02
  Jenna was a major shock and the look on her face when the
• 46:05
  revelation sinks in is priceless and I wanted the poems gone more
• 46:09
  than ever. Her outfit in that episode is
• 46:12
  perfect, too. Paul, Quinn says, So bleak I
• 46:15
  find it unwatchable from the apparent collapse, the Pom's
• 46:18
  marriage to Amy's enforced Baroness climaxing the horrible
• 46:22
  flashback of Oswin's transformation.
• 46:25
  David Gillespie Pratt Asylum promised so much and didn't
• 46:28
  deliver as a fan. The Dalek Asylum was meant to
• 46:31
  titillate, but it failed as classic props can hardly be
• 46:34
  seen. The Amy Rory divorce story,
• 46:36
  though, is just bad and borderline offensive.
• 46:39
  Govern LIP route, Aaron Lit, Randall says, visually stunning.
• 46:44
  The Oswin reveal was a surprise, but I didn't take to her at all.
• 46:48
  Her revealed to be a dialect all along.
• 46:50
  Yep, didn't buy it at all. Amy and Rory's relationship
• 46:53
  issues were totally unearned and dismissed so fast.
• 46:56
  Yeah, it looks good. If you guys are going to be
• 46:59
  positive, you've got some work to do after this bunch, all
• 47:01
  right? Fresh Dummy Asylum takes a nice
• 47:04
  idea and markets it for all it's worth.
• 47:06
  The head guns, Amy and Rorys manufactured issues.
• 47:09
  Hidden classic Daleks makes it a slog that even Jenna Colman's
• 47:13
  best performance out of two can't save.
• 47:16
  Jo Lou, Ellen said. I really liked Oswin.
• 47:18
  Love that red dress. There's a lot of love for the
• 47:20
  red dress. She looks so sexy and red.
• 47:25
  However, the family drama with the Pons was contrived, but the
• 47:28
  11th Doctor got to say 11th Doctor things and the reveal of
• 47:31
  what Oswin was was pretty cool. Made me look forward to Jenna
• 47:35
  joining the show. Big orange, Michael.
• 47:37
  Some good concepts here. The build up to the Pond's
• 47:39
  departure worked fairly well and I like seeing the show introduce
• 47:42
  Clara, although I was surprised to see the new companion
• 47:45
  featured in an episode early. Stephen Rhodes said I really
• 47:48
  disliked Amy, and Rora's separation felt like a strange,
• 47:51
  if brief, direction to go in. Oh, I really liked Oswin.
• 47:55
  I thought this was going to be Jenna Coleman's best episode
• 47:57
  until her character dramatically improved when Capaldi turned up.
• 48:02
  Finally, Kieran says very succinctly one of my least
• 48:06
  favorite Dalek stories ever. So I think I got the hint that
• 48:12
  Dave isn't that fussed on this episode.
• 48:15
  Mark, are you going to agree with him?
• 48:18
  I'm afraid not. I like I love this story and
• 48:24
  it's kind of two things. First of all, I I did
• 48:29
  Resurrection of the Daleks recently for the Polish Box.
• 48:32
  I'm so sorry for you. I will take a Dalek dickhead
• 48:36
  over Rodney Jeans any day of the week.
• 48:39
  I got dickhead. I know it.
• 48:41
  I know it looks stupid. I know it doesn't make sense,
• 48:44
  but it has a lot more presence than Rodney Bewes, Kind of
• 48:48
  copping his groin, trying. To I am a darling mind.
• 48:51
  Control. Yeah, I'm a Dalek agent.
• 48:54
  I serve the diocese. Yeah, maybe we get that.
• 48:57
  It's. Confusion in my mind.
• 49:01
  So it's nowhere near as as ridiculous as that.
• 49:06
  Anyway, as to reasons I love this.
• 49:08
  I think what we sometimes forget as as Doctor Who fans, and I
• 49:12
  think it's fair enough to forget this.
• 49:13
  I'm not criticizing anybody for doing it.
• 49:15
  I'm just pointing it out is that we see Doctor Who as a thing
• 49:21
  that's made purely for us Doctor Who fans now while in the
• 49:26
  streaming age where, you know, Disney are giving millions of
• 49:29
  dollars to things that have an audience of like maybe
• 49:32
  3,000,000. Yeah, sure, but this is BBC One,
• 49:36
  primetime BBC One. There has to be something that
• 49:40
  you know every Dalek ever is not going to sell this episode to a
• 49:44
  general Saturday night audience. You mean they weren't all tuning
• 49:47
  in hoping to see the SO? One Special Weapons, Dalek.
• 49:50
  The senses for Dalek from the chase come on overall.
• 49:54
  They tried it again with The Magician's Apprentice.
• 49:57
  Sure, but that's just to keep us nerds watching.
• 50:01
  Do. You know what I mean.
• 50:02
  General audience had all gone by Then.
• 50:03
  Don't. Worry.
• 50:04
  Yeah, sure. But I think fundamentally this
• 50:07
  isn't this isn't a Dalek story. It's just, you know, Moffett,
• 50:12
  you know gets it. Asylum because he knows Asylum
• 50:14
  of the Dialects. Every dialect ever.
• 50:16
  There's, you know big Matt Smith carrying gap carrying gap.
• 50:20
  Yeah, start that again. Carrying Karen Gillan.
• 50:23
  That was quite a complicated 3 words to string together there
• 50:28
  through exploding dialects. All of those images are great in
• 50:32
  a trailer, but fundamentally this is a story about the docks
• 50:36
  are fixing for a divorce. Now we can argue over whether
• 50:40
  that's appropriate for Doctor Who to do.
• 50:44
  Oh. We will.
• 50:45
  I'm sure we will, but I think it kind of works.
• 50:49
  It sets up. So this is my first sort of
• 50:52
  defense point. I think it sets up the arc
• 50:55
  because I think to the whole story of this series is Amy and
• 50:59
  Rory. Sort of.
• 51:02
  Like putting the Doctor aside and finally kind of settling
• 51:06
  down and having a normal life. And I think Doctor Who has this
• 51:10
  thing where normality is kind of like shunned, you know, it's
• 51:17
  that kind of thing. You know, you look at Sarah
• 51:18
  Jane, school reunion, it's like, you know, oh, you know, after
• 51:22
  the Doctor, I could never quite settle down into a normal life.
• 51:25
  And, you know, I was quite unhappy.
• 51:27
  And and then obviously The Sarah Jane Adventures gives her that
• 51:30
  kind of wonderful sort of normal life, but it's still full of
• 51:33
  aliens and adventures. You know, you look at any of the
• 51:36
  BBC books or new adventures where they meet an old companion
• 51:39
  and they're just miserable. What I love about this series is
• 51:44
  that Moffett actually kind of celebrates normality.
• 51:48
  It's like that's just as much of an adventure.
• 51:51
  It's a different type of adventure, but it's just as much
• 51:53
  of an adventure. So to set them on that arc, you
• 51:56
  do kind of have to break them apart.
• 52:00
  And I think if we're talking about what the Doctor's like
• 52:03
  when his companions aren't there, let's talk about what the
• 52:06
  companions are like. The Doctor's not there.
• 52:08
  There are a couple in our house forced to live with all the
• 52:13
  stuff that happened to the bit in series six.
• 52:17
  They don't have adventures with the Doctor.
• 52:20
  They're not kind of adventure, because it seems that there's
• 52:21
  been quite a big chunk of time between the end of Series 6 and
• 52:26
  the start of this. So they're not distracted.
• 52:29
  They're there every day of every week together.
• 52:34
  Of course, you know things set in.
• 52:36
  It's the same in any relationship, sort of resent
• 52:38
  little resentment set in. You start thinking like, you
• 52:43
  know they're trying for a kid. Amy starts blaming herself.
• 52:46
  You can see that. You can see in Amy's character
• 52:48
  as well that Rory's always the guy that is doing everything for
• 52:53
  her. You know, he's, he waited 2000
• 52:56
  years for her. He did this, he did that.
• 52:59
  I think you can see how that character would go.
• 53:02
  The one thing he wants from me, I can give him.
• 53:07
  So I'm going to set him free, which is obviously the whole
• 53:11
  story is that it doesn't matter because he loves her and it
• 53:14
  doesn't matter that they can't have kids.
• 53:15
  And yes, they do eventually foster in 1930s America or
• 53:18
  whatever it is. I mean, a little bonus scene, So
• 53:22
  I think that's fine and good. And this is, this is actually
• 53:27
  what the story's about. It's about the Doctor fixing Amy
• 53:30
  and Rory's marriage by giving them the adventure to distract
• 53:33
  them from the thing, but also by putting their lives in enough
• 53:36
  danger that they can actually finally have an honest
• 53:39
  conversation because they think they're going to die.
• 53:41
  That's a really big Doctor Who idea and I'd love it.
• 53:44
  I'd say that argument held way if that had been the dominant
• 53:49
  thread in the episode, but I feel that this is about 45%
• 53:54
  Daleks, about 15% Jenna Coleman, and about 12 1/2% Amy and Rory.
• 54:01
  Well, the Daleks are kind of set dressing really.
• 54:04
  We've all said it, you know, we've all said, you know, the
• 54:08
  actual plot. The Daleks aren't really up to
• 54:10
  anything really. They're just kind of sitting in
• 54:13
  their Dalek Parliament. And also, look, if you think
• 54:16
  that's a stupid idea, have you seen the current state of the
• 54:19
  Parliament? You know they can't get
• 54:20
  anything, they can't get anything.
• 54:22
  So I don't mean it. Would be a better option.
• 54:24
  I agree they can. At least they get things done.
• 54:27
  Exactly. So yeah, so I, you know, I get
• 54:31
  your criticism, but I think that's fundamentally what this
• 54:34
  is. And then the second thing I love
• 54:35
  about this is tied into that is that I think it's one of Arthur
• 54:39
  Darvell's best performances. He gets to be a Doctor Who
• 54:46
  companion in a way that he doesn't always get to be,
• 54:49
  because he's either Amy's sidekick or the Doctor's
• 54:52
  sidekick. Here we see him exploring the
• 54:55
  asylum by himself. We see him flirting with Oswin.
• 54:59
  We see him kind of a little Gaelic ball, sort of one of the
• 55:04
  Gaelics. It's great.
• 55:06
  And then you get that kind of confrontation between him and
• 55:08
  Amy, which is, which again kind of breaks your heart away
• 55:12
  because he is the kind of the, the one that's kind of been a
• 55:17
  bit hard done by over the past two series.
• 55:19
  And finally he kind of, I think stands up for himself and that
• 55:24
  kind of sets up a much healthier kind of relationship between him
• 55:28
  and Amy for the rest of the series.
• 55:30
  And then finally, Oswin Oswald. You know, I think she, Jenna
• 55:36
  Coleman makes such a big impression in this first episode
• 55:40
  that I think it becomes incredibly hot and then again in
• 55:42
  the Christmas special that actually by the time you get to
• 55:45
  the Bells of Saint John, it is like, oh, no, but you you've
• 55:49
  done it way better before. Can we have kind of more of
• 55:52
  that? But arguably a lot of the
• 55:55
  confidence that you get in sort of series 7B Clara is is there
• 56:01
  in Oz when sure, it doesn't necessarily work.
• 56:05
  Why do they hear a voice and then they don't hear a voice?
• 56:08
  Why has she been there for a year and she's still kind of,
• 56:12
  you know, confident and flirty? But then also, let's not forget,
• 56:19
  I think the answer to that lies in the guys that they meet on
• 56:22
  the the crashed Starliner where the doctor kind of is asking him
• 56:29
  questions about the crash. And I said, well, this happened
• 56:33
  like a year ago and you seem to be acting as if it only happened
• 56:36
  10 minutes ago. So that is kind of setting up.
• 56:39
  That's why she's so flirty. That's why she's so confident,
• 56:43
  because she's been turned into a Dalek and she's just kind of
• 56:47
  going over those last, I don't know, half hour, 40 minutes in
• 56:50
  her brain, just constantly. That's how she's fighting it.
• 56:53
  She's kind of focusing on the last kind of few hours before
• 56:57
  she got turned into a Dalek. So I I don't have an issue with
• 57:00
  that. And it gives it so much life.
• 57:03
  You know, this episode is her kind of guiding the Doctor and
• 57:07
  Rory through the the Dalek asylum like it's nightmare.
• 57:10
  She's great, brilliant. So I get.
• 57:13
  I love this. It's going in for me.
• 57:15
  Joe, let's go to you. Oh, it's.
• 57:18
  Terrible, isn't it? Isn't it unendurable this
• 57:23
  episode, every Moffett smug trope going.
• 57:28
  I've detailed it a lot elsewhere, and actually Dave
• 57:31
  pretty much said every one of my points.
• 57:33
  So apologies for repeating myself, Dave, that was a
• 57:36
  fabulous argument. Thank you.
• 57:40
  And the Parliament of the Daleks?
• 57:42
  Yeah, the Daleks do politics now, Do they?
• 57:45
  He really. He doesn't have a.
• 57:47
  In the real world, if you know he's.
• 57:48
  Just a collective noun. He doesn't have a collective.
• 57:52
  Noun. What to do with the Daleks?
• 57:54
  He tried the bubble bath Daleks and failed.
• 57:56
  He tried Daleks with politics and failed.
• 57:59
  He tried honey, I shrunk them into the Dalek and that was a
• 58:03
  miserable failure as well. Like, he knows he's got to bring
• 58:06
  them in because they're popular, but he's so he bored of me,
• 58:09
  doesn't want to do do it, so it always feels half hearted I
• 58:12
  think. And there's so many dialect
• 58:15
  trappings in it. I don't really know how anyone
• 58:17
  can say this isn't a dialect story.
• 58:18
  So much of this story is centred around the Daleks, but that idea
• 58:23
  at the start I was just like that is fundamentally not
• 58:27
  understanding what these creatures are.
• 58:30
  And so that's all, as ever, makes me question whether he
• 58:33
  understands the series or what I like in the series.
• 58:38
  Yeah, Dave, every single Dalek ever in the half Dark, hidden
• 58:42
  away. It's the title of the bloody
• 58:45
  episode, right? The title of the episode is
• 58:47
  pointed at what this should be about.
• 58:49
  And they did make a big splash about this in DWN.
• 58:52
  So Doctor Who fans went in with a certain degree of expectation,
• 58:56
  which was not met. I think The Magician's
• 58:59
  Apprentice and the Witches familiar was a reaction to the
• 59:03
  reaction of this episode where everyone was up in arms going
• 59:06
  well, where were the cream and gold ones and where were the
• 59:09
  Spirid and Daleks and etcetera, etcetera.
• 59:12
  Unfortunately, it was even worse in that episode.
• 59:14
  But we'll get to that later. Yeah, I was so disappointed at
• 59:20
  the end because I really thought we were going to have.
• 59:22
  It was going to be like Dalek porn, you know?
• 59:24
  But it failed on that level as well.
• 59:28
  And I'm with Dave about Amy and Rory as well.
• 59:30
  The only person that cannot get rid of characters more than
• 59:35
  Russell T Davis is Steven Moffett.
• 59:37
  You know, he gives Clara 15 exes before she finally leaves.
• 59:41
  And Amy and Rory. Like whilst I like some of the
• 59:44
  stuff this half season does, people have said more eloquently
• 59:47
  in the comments it's completely unnecessary.
• 59:50
  They had an exit last year, which?
• 59:52
  Was what they did. Though, right, he bought the
• 59:54
  house and said off you. Go, I know, but I always saw
• 59:57
  that as he's just kind of like there's a very bad thing about
• 1:00:01
  to happen. So I'm going to make sure Amy
• 1:00:03
  and Rory are OK and then obviously he kind of fixes that.
• 1:00:08
  So I never had an issue with him just going back and picking him
• 1:00:11
  up and having more adventures. I've turned out the argument of
• 1:00:15
  this thing and say, I wonder why we needed five episodes to see
• 1:00:19
  them out of the series. Because most companions just get
• 1:00:21
  one, well, Clerical 3, but most get one.
• 1:00:25
  You know, he just, I think he really loves working with these
• 1:00:28
  people. He knows they're popular and so
• 1:00:30
  he sort of longs it out as long as possible.
• 1:00:32
  And as this half season goes along, it's like, yeah, go
• 1:00:34
  already. We're ready for Jenna Coleman
• 1:00:37
  now. That's until we see what she
• 1:00:39
  does. But we're ready for it now.
• 1:00:40
  Yeah. And I really hate and how I
• 1:00:44
  really, really hate how all the development is off screen, like
• 1:00:48
  ducking the drama and going straight to the consequence.
• 1:00:52
  And he does that a lot. He did it with Clara where at
• 1:00:54
  one minute she was a babysitter and next minute she's a teacher,
• 1:00:59
  at one minute she's a live in and the next minute she's got a
• 1:01:01
  flat. And I'm like, you know, I know.
• 1:01:03
  To watch a series of Doctor Who where?
• 1:01:05
  Oh, Clara's in teacher training college.
• 1:01:08
  Oh, OK, great. It feels inconsistent, though.
• 1:01:10
  It feels inconsistent. It feels like I'm watching
• 1:01:12
  another Splinter, like, OK, so two episodes earlier you were
• 1:01:16
  this person and now you're this person.
• 1:01:18
  Fair enough. But how do we get from there to
• 1:01:21
  there? There's no acknowledgement of
• 1:01:22
  it. So she was caring for children
• 1:01:24
  before and now she's caring for children in a different role.
• 1:01:27
  I mean, we didn't have to spend any more time with Angie and
• 1:01:29
  Arty, so I didn't mind with that development if I'm honest.
• 1:01:32
  I feel the pain for whoever has to do that one, that's that's.
• 1:01:35
  Or look after him. No, we we do Seven being us to
• 1:01:39
  talk about that episode with Angie and aren't.
• 1:01:41
  We I'm bored. I'll say that next once, you
• 1:01:44
  know. Oh no, she doesn't quite say
• 1:01:46
  like that. She's like, I'm bored, as if
• 1:01:49
  anyone would give a shit. Sorry.
• 1:01:53
  I I do feel like it's a bit of a last minute attempt to make them
• 1:01:56
  interesting, but it kind of feels like they've been
• 1:02:00
  exhausted of worth at this point.
• 1:02:03
  And I don't like Karen Killen and Arthur Darville being
• 1:02:07
  spiteful and mean to each other. I don't think that makes good
• 1:02:10
  viewing. And I do think it's a very quick
• 1:02:13
  turn around within this episode. And I'm sorry, Matt Smith
• 1:02:16
  flourishing his bow tie as he fixes their marriage.
• 1:02:19
  Oh, fuck off. You know, you're no therapist,
• 1:02:24
  you know. Jesus Christ, get over yourself.
• 1:02:28
  I, I, I do. I've heard smarter people than
• 1:02:30
  me give readings about this episode and I absolutely get it.
• 1:02:35
  It just feels too quick and too unconvincing for me.
• 1:02:40
  Yeah, so if this episode is all about Amy and Rory, it fails on
• 1:02:44
  that level for me as well. I I love Amy in series 7A, but
• 1:02:49
  from next episode onwards where she is just so ridiculously
• 1:02:53
  competent and confident for the rest of the year.
• 1:02:57
  But this is the Amy from series 5 that was playing two men off
• 1:03:01
  each other and trying to fuck the Doctor on her wedding night.
• 1:03:04
  This is that horrible Amy I don't like at all, and so Asylum
• 1:03:08
  of the Daleks on all levels fails for me.
• 1:03:12
  It looks great. It's got a lot of money thrown
• 1:03:15
  at it, but this just isn't my Doctor Who.
• 1:03:19
  So it's one a piece, Dave, have you won this battle?
• 1:03:22
  And I can tell you. Yeah, I know.
• 1:03:26
  Yeah. What a shot that is.
• 1:03:30
  This is Dave. You've got to play this
• 1:03:31
  tactically, right? If you sniff that those two are
• 1:03:33
  going to love it, then you've got to choose someone else.
• 1:03:37
  Don't give away. Don't give away.
• 1:03:39
  How to? Play it.
• 1:03:41
  I think this is wonderful. I'm definitely putting this
• 1:03:44
  through. Mark, I'm with you 100% on this
• 1:03:47
  one. It's weird.
• 1:03:49
  The three reasons I've picked pretty much mirror saves. 3
• 1:03:53
  reasons, but for the complete opposite.
• 1:03:56
  So I picked the cold open. So I think Sir Moffett promised
• 1:04:01
  us a season of mini movies and I think the cold open here, which
• 1:04:05
  is 6 minutes, it packs so much into it.
• 1:04:08
  I think it really kind of sets the style and tone to say, yeah,
• 1:04:11
  we're going to deliver on a mini movie, so we get so much
• 1:04:15
  spectacle in just six minutes and the plot moves on.
• 1:04:17
  We start with an amazing shot of scaro, so the camera swoops
• 1:04:22
  round and then comes up onto the huge Dalek statue with the with
• 1:04:26
  the eye stalk and we go into that.
• 1:04:28
  I mean, Nick Curran's direction is so fluid and dynamic, it
• 1:04:31
  looks absolutely beautiful. Then we get the meeting between
• 1:04:34
  the Doctor and Darla and the Doctor is much darker and
• 1:04:37
  moodier and more intense, so we know this is something really
• 1:04:40
  serious. Darla obviously turns out to be
• 1:04:43
  a Dalek agent. And Joe, you criticize.
• 1:04:45
  Yeah, you may well be doing that, but you you criticize
• 1:04:50
  Moffett a hell of a lot for forgetting the kids.
• 1:04:52
  What is more child friendly than a Dalek eye gun coming out there
• 1:04:57
  for a gun stick? Coming in room and sticking
• 1:05:00
  dildos to their heads. That might be your reading of
• 1:05:04
  it. Yeah, that's fantastic for kids
• 1:05:07
  in the playground, I thought, excusing the dildo comment, but
• 1:05:12
  but what could be better for kids than playing?
• 1:05:14
  I'm a hidden Dalek agent and this suddenly comes.
• 1:05:17
  I think that's a great image for kids.
• 1:05:19
  So yeah, it doesn't make a hackle out the sense, but I just
• 1:05:23
  think it's it's playing to a certain demographic and it
• 1:05:26
  works. It moves the plot on.
• 1:05:28
  Then we go to Amy and Rory and yes, there's a real darkness
• 1:05:31
  that I love. The way even Karen Gillan's
• 1:05:33
  makeup is really got really dark eyeliner to we're setting the
• 1:05:38
  tone. Rama Queen isn't.
• 1:05:40
  She isn't. She just Then we go to the Dalek
• 1:05:42
  prison, stark whiteness. Then we see space outside with
• 1:05:46
  hundreds of Dalek spaceships. Then the floor rises and we take
• 1:05:50
  them into the Parliament. Yes, the Parliament.
• 1:05:52
  I mean, that's far more dramatic than just walking through a
• 1:05:55
  door. And then we think the doctors,
• 1:05:57
  you know, in more. You say it's more dramatic than
• 1:05:59
  walking through a door. Anything would be more dramatic
• 1:06:01
  than that. I just said visually it.
• 1:06:04
  Depends on ingredient. Exactly.
• 1:06:06
  Or visually it's just these. Sexy doors and.
• 1:06:09
  It's good. Sorry.
• 1:06:11
  Dave, it is good. It's.
• 1:06:13
  No, I'm saying I'm saying visually, yes, everything you
• 1:06:15
  said visually it looks, it does look amazing and the shots are
• 1:06:18
  fine, but it's still is any good.
• 1:06:22
  Yes, it is. You remember in the Reason of
• 1:06:24
  Akuten when they've got that whole audience in the theatre,
• 1:06:27
  but it's like 10 people and then they've just done them a million
• 1:06:29
  times. And you can tell because there's
• 1:06:31
  that one robot in there. It just goes up there, there,
• 1:06:33
  there, there. That Dalek Parliament is a bit
• 1:06:35
  like that, You know. You can see the different
• 1:06:37
  dialects in there, but they're sort of like you can see where
• 1:06:40
  they've copied and pasted. But it's very dynamically shy.
• 1:06:42
  It's constantly moving. I don't think you got chance to
• 1:06:45
  yeah. Akuten holds the camera a bit
• 1:06:47
  longer, whereas this is constantly moving and flowing
• 1:06:49
  around. Let's not do Akuten.
• 1:06:53
  We're on Asylum so I think the cold open really delivers and
• 1:06:56
  says yeah, we're delivering you mini movers of the week.
• 1:06:59
  Here you go, bang. My second reason, Mark, I'm
• 1:07:03
  absolutely on board with you. It's the Amy and Rory
• 1:07:06
  relationship. So we know Moffett looks at what
• 1:07:09
  he's done before and sometimes seeks to address or remedy
• 1:07:13
  potential gaps or weaknesses. So season six was criticised,
• 1:07:16
  criticised. Who knew for Amy and Rory not
• 1:07:19
  confronting their grief or losing their child?
• 1:07:21
  So. So we take that opportunity
• 1:07:25
  here, but we don't do it in the obvious way.
• 1:07:28
  We look at the fact that demons run means that Amy can no longer
• 1:07:31
  conceive a child. So we're dealing with that.
• 1:07:34
  And I think it's really interesting that we open the
• 1:07:36
  season with her. As you were saying, Mark, you're
• 1:07:38
  absolutely right. It's part of the narrative that
• 1:07:40
  we're getting this season about how Amy and Rory and they're now
• 1:07:44
  dealing with day-to-day issues that re acclimatize themselves
• 1:07:47
  to normal life after travelling with the Doctor.
• 1:07:50
  And this is one of those issues that they've come up against in
• 1:07:53
  normal life. And yes, there's marital tension
• 1:07:57
  in the relationship. Lots of people in our comments
• 1:07:59
  were saying I want to see that for five episodes you'd be
• 1:08:02
  moaning like hell if you had Amy and Rory bitching at each other
• 1:08:05
  for five episodes, it wouldn't be interesting to watch.
• 1:08:08
  It wouldn't be fun. I don't think Moffatt's
• 1:08:10
  interested in telling that type of story.
• 1:08:12
  He he set out for us. We haven't seen that, Joe.
• 1:08:15
  You're right, we haven't seen the relationship breakdown.
• 1:08:17
  We know it has. What we see is the resolution.
• 1:08:20
  And as Mark rightly said, we're dealing with the doctors put
• 1:08:23
  them into a situation where they have to be honest and open each
• 1:08:26
  other and address their issues. And it addresses Rory's innate
• 1:08:30
  worry that he isn't good enough and that he loves Amy more than
• 1:08:34
  she loves him. And that's the moment she tells
• 1:08:36
  him she hasn't chucked him out. She's giving him up.
• 1:08:39
  And now that is the honesty and openness that forces them to
• 1:08:42
  reconcile. And I think it's lovely.
• 1:08:44
  And yes, I cried my eyes out. I think it's wonderful.
• 1:08:47
  Why couldn't he have just gotten one of those cummy babies from
• 1:08:50
  the previous years? You know those babies made out
• 1:08:53
  come you know, one that that fell apart in their hands.
• 1:08:58
  Oh really? They just got one of those for
• 1:08:59
  us. So there you go.
• 1:09:01
  Yeah, you know those. Aren't aren't all babies kind of
• 1:09:04
  made of cum? That's a good point.
• 1:09:06
  That's a very good point. This conversation's gone in a
• 1:09:08
  very. Dark.
• 1:09:09
  No, it's no more absurd than losing your child and just going
• 1:09:12
  well, off we go to night terrors.
• 1:09:13
  Now let's go. I mean, I'm, I'm probably the
• 1:09:16
  wrong person to ask because obviously I've not got any kids.
• 1:09:19
  But the thing that people see forget with that whole thing is
• 1:09:22
  that they've had a kid. They've just, they've just had a
• 1:09:24
  big adventure with her for two stories.
• 1:09:26
  So the fact that she that she can't have children, but they've
• 1:09:31
  had a child that everyone sees. But they can't.
• 1:09:33
  They can't raise a child, yeah. Yeah, but I don't I why can't
• 1:09:38
  they adopt buy that that would be the.
• 1:09:42
  No. I just don't buy it.
• 1:09:43
  They can't adopt because you've got five episodes of Doctor Who
• 1:09:47
  left. Who's going to look after the?
• 1:09:50
  Who's going to look after the adopted?
• 1:09:51
  Also, do you have any, you know, the adoption questionnaire or
• 1:09:56
  will we bugger off in a blue box every every sort of couple of
• 1:09:59
  weeks? Nobody's given them a bit, yeah.
• 1:10:01
  Who are they going to give us? A referee?
• 1:10:02
  The doctor? Don't think he'd be great.
• 1:10:03
  They wind up fostering anyway. That's 179.
• 1:10:08
  You got the oh. Yeah, they wind up fostering in
• 1:10:10
  A scene that doesn't even take place in the bloody series.
• 1:10:14
  I noticed all your criticisms of this episode of blaming other
• 1:10:17
  episodes. But we don't see.
• 1:10:20
  It really annoys me. It's like the Dalek invasion of
• 1:10:22
  Earth, you know? Like the drama isn't the
• 1:10:25
  war-torn earth. It's watching the bombs come
• 1:10:27
  down and the plague missiles and that's where the fucking drama
• 1:10:30
  is. Why aren't we watching the
• 1:10:32
  drama? But the we Are we watching the
• 1:10:34
  human drama of Amy and Rory coming together?
• 1:10:38
  Sometimes the aftermath is more interesting than the actual
• 1:10:41
  event. It works for me.
• 1:10:43
  Emotionally landed from. And they've not been able to
• 1:10:46
  talk for months. Oh.
• 1:10:46
  No, just the way you look to me now.
• 1:10:49
  I don't think I made an innuendo, but Joe's making me
• 1:10:51
  think I made. An innuendo never had sex.
• 1:10:53
  And then afterwards, the conversation has been more
• 1:10:55
  interesting. Good for you, but.
• 1:11:02
  Clearly you have. Sorry, Rod.
• 1:11:06
  Though I'm putting this through that's great I.
• 1:11:09
  Figured that's where you were going.
• 1:11:10
  You know I. Think Yeah, yeah, it's
• 1:11:12
  definitely. Staying It's clearly a very
• 1:11:14
  polarizing episode, this one. I think that's fair to say,
• 1:11:17
  yeah. Yeah.
• 1:11:19
  So it stays. I'm sorry, guys.
• 1:11:20
  I wish I'd had the chance to choose that one.
• 1:11:22
  It would be gone. Oh, no.
• 1:11:23
  We'll still be coming through, wouldn't it?
• 1:11:25
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:11:26
  It's staying, damn it, right? Should we go to our second and
• 1:11:31
  final batch of comments? Oh yeah.
• 1:11:33
  Come on guys. All the.
• 1:11:33
  Listeners. Let's hear the madness.
• 1:11:36
  Oh, it's me first, isn't it? OK, so we've got Joel, Joel
• 1:11:40
  Llewellen, who says my first and favorite doctor.
• 1:11:43
  And this series is very special to me based on where I was when
• 1:11:46
  they came out. I was in Kabul and that's is it.
• 1:11:49
  Kabul, Kabul. Kabul.
• 1:11:52
  Kabul. Yeah, I was in Kabul,
• 1:11:53
  Afghanistan, serving with the combined joint engineers.
• 1:11:56
  I was in the mobility section, in charge of military bridging
• 1:11:59
  and engineer resource parks, the entire country and doing my best
• 1:12:03
  to keep my unit out of trouble. So I was downloading episodes
• 1:12:06
  from questionable sites with incredibly slow Wi-Fi.
• 1:12:09
  I mean, if you've got to put in that much work in that situation
• 1:12:14
  to watch Doctor Who, it. Means it's good.
• 1:12:17
  It's all going in. It's all to get around, too.
• 1:12:21
  Sorry Dave, our our arguments are moved.
• 1:12:26
  Brendan Jones I have long expressed that the episode order
• 1:12:28
  should be Dinosaurs Town called Mercy Asylum, Angels and Power
• 1:12:33
  of Three, with Amy and Rory choosing to stay in their own
• 1:12:36
  time, having repaired the relationship over episodes one
• 1:12:39
  to three. Interesting.
• 1:12:42
  Matt Dennis says the stronger half of Series 7.
• 1:12:45
  I do wish the Ponds Marriage Wars ran throughout the five
• 1:12:48
  episodes instead of being raised and resolved in the space of 45
• 1:12:51
  minutes. Tom Newson Newsome.
• 1:12:53
  Sorry, the most incoherent series.
• 1:12:57
  The episodes are fine, but there's no fur lane, and the
• 1:13:00
  explanation for Amy and Rory's departure is particularly
• 1:13:03
  torturous. Michael Storm says, well, not
• 1:13:08
  perfect. Season 7A is a nice coda to the
• 1:13:11
  Doctor, Amy and Rory set up. The idea of a short afterlife
• 1:13:15
  with the Doctor after companions leave is interesting, but may
• 1:13:18
  have benefited from having a temporary companion or two in
• 1:13:21
  between. Gareth Bailey says the whole
• 1:13:23
  season feels incomplete. Pond Life needed to be presented
• 1:13:26
  as part of that to understand Amy and Rory's situation.
• 1:13:31
  We don't need any more Chip North.
• 1:13:34
  Please don't unleash that on us. We've got a bit more to come in
• 1:13:38
  this episode. Yeah, we do.
• 1:13:40
  We've got quite a lot of chip, little big orange, Michael says.
• 1:13:43
  I recall how they hyped up every episode to complete with its own
• 1:13:47
  poster a lot. I I will admit I like these
• 1:13:50
  episodes a good bit, probably more than others based on what
• 1:13:52
  they see online. Never base anything on what to.
• 1:13:55
  Hear online. That's based on what you hear
• 1:13:58
  tonight. Yeah, yeah, What you hear online
• 1:14:02
  in podcasts. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:14:03
  Yes. That's fine.
• 1:14:05
  It was a great time to be a Whovian, even if we only got
• 1:14:08
  half a series. Dan Hollandsworth An average
• 1:14:12
  collection of stories with way too much hype, which made it
• 1:14:15
  easy to feel disappointed. The surprise not to Clara in
• 1:14:19
  Asylum was fun, but the poems should have kept their previous
• 1:14:22
  happy ending. Doesn't that sound wonderful?
• 1:14:25
  Not Clara. I thought when you said that
• 1:14:30
  sounds wonderful, I thought you were referring to the happy
• 1:14:32
  ending. Oh, go in there again.
• 1:14:33
  No, I don't. I don't do that sort of thing.
• 1:14:38
  Matt Lee Newby says Mark Williams is the unsung hero of
• 1:14:42
  the series. The two stories he's in are
• 1:14:45
  lifted by his presence. Paul Smye, More Mrs. and hits in
• 1:14:50
  my opinion. Equally to the point is Stephen
• 1:14:55
  Rhodes who says for me this is one of the low points of the
• 1:14:58
  modern era. Wow.
• 1:14:59
  Just the Morphic era. The modern era.
• 1:15:02
  He's not. He's not.
• 1:15:03
  Watched Stephen B then. Well, he says one of So I said
• 1:15:09
  That's the. Other.
• 1:15:11
  One LSG. Haven't watched this since it
• 1:15:13
  aired. I'm not a fan of Amy at all, and
• 1:15:16
  if I was Rory, I'd have fun. I would have run sorry rather
• 1:15:19
  than maybe he should have had some fun.
• 1:15:22
  Sorry. If I was already.
• 1:15:24
  I'd rather run rather than wait. I remember her being terrible to
• 1:15:27
  him. Oh, then Clara arrives.
• 1:15:30
  Oh. Dear not a fan.
• 1:15:34
  Paul Bowler says one of Moffat's best seasons for the spectacle
• 1:15:38
  and stand alone storytelling. It also offered a thrilling
• 1:15:41
  finale to the Ponds Adventures, but the Doctor still missed
• 1:15:44
  them. And we finished with Joshua.
• 1:15:47
  This is great. This is a wonderful comment.
• 1:15:53
  Capaldi couldn't come soon enough.
• 1:15:57
  Joe's always to the point, you know.
• 1:16:00
  Right, Joe Heck, Your story of poison.
• 1:16:04
  I did want to choose Dinosaurs on a spaceship if it hadn't been
• 1:16:08
  chosen already, but a little spoiler for later.
• 1:16:11
  I'm so on the fence with that episode now.
• 1:16:16
  That's one where I've completely changed my opinion.
• 1:16:18
  I used to love it. I'm so 5050.
• 1:16:21
  I'll need to hear what the three of you say before I make it, so
• 1:16:25
  I'd like to go last on that one, please.
• 1:16:27
  In my way, I would like to champion The Angels Take
• 1:16:31
  Manhattan, which is not the sort of thing I usually do at all.
• 1:16:37
  I think this is a spectacularly clever episode, and I love how
• 1:16:40
  it resolves around that book. You know how he tears out the
• 1:16:44
  last page and that's Amy's goodbye to him?
• 1:16:47
  How all the discussion around not reading ahead and spoiling
• 1:16:51
  your own future or changing your own future if you do read it.
• 1:16:55
  I just love the fact that it's written by river and how that
• 1:16:58
  set up in the last five minutes. The dedication and the bit where
• 1:17:03
  he's reading the chapter points and he's immediately getting
• 1:17:06
  spoilers about the future. Just structuring the whole
• 1:17:09
  episode around that book. It's the sort of thing that
• 1:17:12
  Moffett at his best in terms of sort of clever structuring.
• 1:17:17
  It's what he does. He does what he does best.
• 1:17:19
  So I love that. I love it, love it, love it.
• 1:17:24
  Surprisingly for me, in this era, the emotional beats all hit
• 1:17:28
  in this episode. And you know, one of the things
• 1:17:31
  I don't like about the Moffett era is how calculated everything
• 1:17:35
  feels. It feels like I'm being
• 1:17:37
  manipulated. I can see the sort of gears
• 1:17:40
  turning in the plot all the time in a way that I never did with
• 1:17:43
  Rusty Davis. He just made me feel a lot, all
• 1:17:46
  the time. And that's kind of what's my my
• 1:17:48
  take away from that era. Whereas with Moffett, I can feel
• 1:17:51
  him trying to make me feel, which is why a lot of the time
• 1:17:54
  it doesn't work. But Amy finally 2 1/2 seasons in
• 1:18:01
  making the choice to choose her husband over the Doctor to the
• 1:18:05
  point where they're committing suicide together.
• 1:18:07
  I mean, it's melodramatic as hell.
• 1:18:09
  If I could go out that way, I'll be so happy together.
• 1:18:13
  Or not at all, Would Matt. Smith need to be on the rooftop
• 1:18:19
  telling you not to do it for it or or you just have to jump off
• 1:18:22
  the room. For the second, no, no, no.
• 1:18:25
  He can fuck off, but with that woman going, oh, that would be
• 1:18:32
  my way to die in all of Doctor Who.
• 1:18:36
  But it works, right? I absolutely believe them as a
• 1:18:38
  couple in a way that I never did in five, because it was so weird
• 1:18:43
  and toxic. And with the Doctor as a third
• 1:18:45
  wheel now I'm completely sold right as they're leaving.
• 1:18:49
  Kind of happened with Clara as well, which is it's a bit
• 1:18:52
  annoying. He wins me over in the last
• 1:18:54
  episode, and then I love the bit where Rory's beamed off into the
• 1:19:01
  past and the Doctor sort of blubbing.
• 1:19:04
  I will never see you again. And River's going fuck what he's
• 1:19:08
  saying, go and be with your dad. And again, I never believed that
• 1:19:12
  she was her. Dad.
• 1:19:13
  He was her dad. I never.
• 1:19:15
  Yeah. Sorry.
• 1:19:17
  Very, very weird. The ERA is very confusing in
• 1:19:22
  that. Regard.
• 1:19:23
  But I never believed that they were, she was their kid ever
• 1:19:27
  until that point where she basically says leave all of this
• 1:19:30
  and go and be with that. I love it.
• 1:19:32
  I really, really love that scene.
• 1:19:34
  So all the emotional beats in this, they don't make me cry.
• 1:19:37
  Doctor very rarely makes me cry, but I felt moved by them and I
• 1:19:42
  think the angels really work in this as well.
• 1:19:45
  And the idea of the battery farm building is really chilling,
• 1:19:51
  aging people to death in that one location.
• 1:19:54
  And and how that sort of weaved into the episode and how Rory is
• 1:19:57
  a victim of that any episode as well.
• 1:19:59
  I think that's really, really well portrayed.
• 1:20:01
  So basically on the every level this works for me.
• 1:20:04
  I've only got 1 criticism of the Angel takes Manhattan and that.
• 1:20:09
  No, Oh no. I love that this is Doctor Who.
• 1:20:11
  You all crazy shit in Doctor Who.
• 1:20:13
  I mean it is crazy crazy, but it's kind of fun, right?
• 1:20:18
  No. I mean, it's hilarious at the
• 1:20:20
  back of that very emotional scene on the roof.
• 1:20:22
  You've just got that huge sort of mouth open of the Statue of
• 1:20:25
  Liberty. But never mind, never mind that.
• 1:20:28
  No, it's Matt Smith. Oh, he's agonisingly terrible in
• 1:20:32
  this episode. You know, it is all soap
• 1:20:35
  operatic. It's like, don't.
• 1:20:36
  He's not in a soap. Stop making you embarrass me,
• 1:20:40
  River. I will never see you again.
• 1:20:42
  All of this stuff, the bit where he comes up on the roof, he's
• 1:20:45
  like, what are you doing? I was like, oh, Matt, stop,
• 1:20:48
  please, please stop. I feel like the acting
• 1:20:52
  everywhere else and this is great, but he's just pushing it
• 1:20:54
  over a Cliff. It's just not playing to his
• 1:20:57
  strengths. I think he's got huge strengths
• 1:20:59
  of the Doctor. He's charming as hell.
• 1:21:01
  He's very funny. He doesn't really do that sort
• 1:21:05
  of hysterical anger well, and I don't buy it.
• 1:21:07
  So that's the one thing I don't like everything else.
• 1:21:10
  Beautiful looking, that sort of noirish direction that they're
• 1:21:13
  doing. The lighting is fabulous in
• 1:21:16
  this, the New York footage, it it genuinely feels like an
• 1:21:22
  Englishman in New York. I don't know if this is an
• 1:21:24
  English director, it feels very touristy, but we love that in
• 1:21:27
  Doctor Who, right? We want to see as much as
• 1:21:28
  possible when we're in New York. Yeah, this works like
• 1:21:31
  gangbusters. So many people complain about
• 1:21:33
  this episode in the comments. I don't see what they're seeing
• 1:21:36
  yet. The the reason why the Doctor
• 1:21:38
  can't go and see Amy. Rory is lame.
• 1:21:41
  But then so was, I don't know, the Doctor going.
• 1:21:44
  I've had a call to Gallifrey. Fuck off, Sarah Jane.
• 1:21:46
  You know, like we've had. We've done this so many times.
• 1:21:50
  It works. I think it's great this.
• 1:21:51
  So I am putting it through. Fabulous.
• 1:21:54
  Let's go to the comments, Jack Coyer says as the series is
• 1:21:57
  being pushed hard in America. We get two stories there in
• 1:22:00
  three episodes. Riversong finds her ideal role
• 1:22:04
  as a cheesy, wisecracking Pi. Karen Gillan faces some of her
• 1:22:07
  most challenging material and rises to it.
• 1:22:10
  It's time for Amy and Rory to reach adulthood, and we all know
• 1:22:13
  where that ends in the final moment, the final departure
• 1:22:17
  really works for me emotionally. For Amy, this starts as a story
• 1:22:21
  and ends with a story book. Fraser Gregory has written us as
• 1:22:25
  Very small Dissertation. The final farewell for the poems
• 1:22:29
  is rightly the focus of this story, but the intermediate
• 1:22:31
  stuff is also really good. Moffett Ties is tiny wiminess to
• 1:22:35
  some rules for once, which lends an atmosphere of genuine
• 1:22:38
  foreboding. The Angels are at their most
• 1:22:41
  effective since Blink, and even River Song can't stink this one
• 1:22:44
  out. The final departure of Amy is so
• 1:22:47
  heartfelt, with both Gill and Smith working their socks off.
• 1:22:51
  The code. Where the Doctor goes back to
• 1:22:52
  the 11th hour to plug a plot gap, is pure Moffett poetry.
• 1:22:57
  Keep it. Paul Smyce There's a fitting
• 1:22:59
  climax of the Amy and Rory story, an emotional finale.
• 1:23:02
  The scene in The Graveyard stands out for me.
• 1:23:05
  Excellent stuff. One of my favorite Matt Smith
• 1:23:07
  episodes. Hold on to your heart, Paul
• 1:23:09
  Quinn. I'm not loving angels.
• 1:23:11
  Instead it should be great, but it's not.
• 1:23:15
  Some good bits, but ultimately illogical.
• 1:23:18
  Toss, Michael Storm says, often goes to the moment and
• 1:23:22
  atmosphere over plot logic, but I could waive a list of other
• 1:23:25
  stories that do that and get a free pass.
• 1:23:27
  The story itself has got quite a dark tone, with the angels
• 1:23:31
  creating a human battery farm to keep themselves fed and another
• 1:23:34
  suicide solution to the problem. David Gillespie Pratt A great
• 1:23:38
  basic idea, but once the episode gets underway, I'm just
• 1:23:41
  underwhelmed. The ending wants me to feel
• 1:23:43
  emotional, but I was glad it was over.
• 1:23:46
  Cold Darren lit, Randall says. Stunning visuals and creepy
• 1:23:50
  atmosphere. River was mostly tolerable.
• 1:23:53
  Amy and Rory finally leave this time, but the script goes
• 1:23:55
  through massive hoops to justify why they're totally gone.
• 1:23:59
  I felt Moffett fatigue setting in.
• 1:24:01
  I'd overdosed on his style. Anyone feeling the faint praise
• 1:24:05
  for River Song and these? Poor river.
• 1:24:09
  Joe Llewellyn Moffett ties tries to permanently exit the ponds,
• 1:24:13
  but couldn't kill them. He traps them back in time so
• 1:24:16
  the guy who has a time machine can't get them.
• 1:24:18
  Manhattan is blocked. Get on a train, take a cab to
• 1:24:21
  Jersey, fly to California, get the fuck out of Manhattan and
• 1:24:25
  get picked up. John Bensalia, What do we think?
• 1:24:30
  The Angels? The Angels return with
• 1:24:32
  diminishing results. It's clearly aiming for an earth
• 1:24:35
  shock vibe with a race against time to save Amy and Rory, but
• 1:24:39
  it misses the mark because of the usual failing of New Who
• 1:24:42
  lack of subtlety, OTT blubbing and the Murray Gold score.
• 1:24:47
  Annual Knight A mess with an unlikable river, a convoluted
• 1:24:50
  plot, and the dumb idea of the Statue of Liberty being a
• 1:24:53
  weeping Angel. Amy and Roy have outstayed their
• 1:24:56
  welcome, so the ending lacks the emotional punch of roses or
• 1:25:00
  Donna's exit. Dillon Reese's terrible
• 1:25:03
  performances all round, cringe inducing in every way, and the
• 1:25:07
  angels jump the shark in the Statue of Liberty, which is made
• 1:25:11
  of metal. Terrible performances all round.
• 1:25:15
  Was he watching the same? Episodes.
• 1:25:17
  Also, I don't think it was ever said that the angels have to be
• 1:25:21
  made of stone. It was like in Blink.
• 1:25:24
  It's like any statue, any statues that could be any
• 1:25:28
  material. Good point.
• 1:25:30
  Pack your bag, Dylan. Reece.
• 1:25:31
  No. Point going so bloody New York
• 1:25:33
  and not having the statue exactly an Angel.
• 1:25:35
  Right. They'd have been criticized if
• 1:25:37
  they hadn't. Terrible for poems.
• 1:25:40
  It's all round. I can't believe that Crashed On
• 1:25:42
  Me Angels is not for Me. Timey wimey tripe, the further
• 1:25:46
  dilution of the Weeping Angels concept, River bloody Song or
• 1:25:50
  nothing on the fence about that, and a bollocks reason for
• 1:25:53
  companions to be gone for good. Amy and Rory deserve better, and
• 1:25:57
  I didn't even like them that much.
• 1:26:00
  Melvin Penny says I love this for the exact reason everyone
• 1:26:03
  else hates it. The Statue of Liberty gag is so
• 1:26:05
  over the top it never fails to make me laugh.
• 1:26:08
  It's exactly the kind of things Moffett would do with a New York
• 1:26:12
  City Weeping Angel story. He literally could not do it.
• 1:26:16
  James Lark Angels probably takes the bottom spot because it
• 1:26:19
  thinks it's weightier than it is, so suffers from being
• 1:26:22
  overblown whilst nonsensical. But look, if stories this fun
• 1:26:26
  and pacey are the weakest of the season, we've got nothing to
• 1:26:29
  complain about. Gosh, I've got a Jason Thompson
• 1:26:32
  dissertation. Dreadful.
• 1:26:35
  It's trying for a genre that it doesn't quite hit.
• 1:26:37
  The Statue of Liberty as an Angel is absurd.
• 1:26:39
  The stuff about reading things, fixing a timeline is
• 1:26:42
  nonsensical. Rory gets massively short
• 1:26:44
  changed by being zapped without so much as a goodbye and the
• 1:26:48
  Doctor turns into a crying baby that's not even helping by
• 1:26:51
  looking at the Angel to stop it zapping Amy leaving.
• 1:26:54
  That's a river whilst he whines about not being able to see her
• 1:26:57
  again. Yuck.
• 1:26:58
  Hated her. Come on, I'm picking up a bit of
• 1:27:01
  a vibrator. I wish they'd been able to film
• 1:27:03
  the little code with Rory's dad, though.
• 1:27:06
  That scene was lovely and I'm glad we got to see it for you.
• 1:27:09
  The momentum when you read that tweet was very impressive.
• 1:27:13
  Finally, Greg Lachlan says it made no logical sense.
• 1:27:17
  The doc took a of easily have jumped back in time to pick them
• 1:27:19
  up and bring them back to their normal timeline.
• 1:27:22
  It wasn't as if they had died, IE Adric as a fixed point in
• 1:27:25
  time. All right.
• 1:27:27
  So, Joe, have you convinced us? I'm going, I'm responding to you
• 1:27:30
  first, of course, this is going through, absolutely 100% going
• 1:27:35
  through. Firstly, the Amy and Rory
• 1:27:38
  departure. I love this departure.
• 1:27:40
  I think it's powerful. I think it's emotional.
• 1:27:43
  I think it's moving. I think it's interesting how
• 1:27:46
  Clara and Bill's departures are both criticised because everyone
• 1:27:50
  says, oh, Moffett's left it open-ended so they can come back
• 1:27:53
  again, whereas here. No, no, they do get that's not
• 1:27:57
  what. Yeah, that.
• 1:27:57
  No, that's not one of the reasons to get to criticised.
• 1:28:00
  Because one of them goes off in a flying diner and the other one
• 1:28:03
  ends up with a lesbian puddle, I mean.
• 1:28:05
  What end up with lesbian relationship?
• 1:28:07
  What are you? Supposed to feel about those
• 1:28:08
  endings? He gets criticised for
• 1:28:11
  everything he does, get criticised for leaving it open,
• 1:28:13
  killing them, then leaving it open.
• 1:28:16
  This because we're never happy, that's all.
• 1:28:17
  I know this finishes the story and says that's definitely it,
• 1:28:20
  they're never coming back. And fans say, oh that's it,
• 1:28:23
  they're never coming back, why can't they?
• 1:28:25
  He can't win. So.
• 1:28:27
  So I think it works really well. It brings Amy's story full
• 1:28:30
  circle. So we literally see young Amy at
• 1:28:33
  the end waiting for the Doctor to come to us, which is a lovely
• 1:28:36
  scene. Love.
• 1:28:36
  It turns to Sepia as the Doctor comes back to reassure her that
• 1:28:40
  her adventure is waiting around the corner, but it finishes
• 1:28:43
  Amy's story in a really successful way.
• 1:28:46
  We've seen Amy grow from a little girl to a young woman
• 1:28:49
  who's lost in the world through to motherhood, through to
• 1:28:52
  troubling times such as those we saw in Asylum, and now she's a
• 1:28:55
  confident older woman who needs reading glasses.
• 1:28:58
  But she knows that her place in the world is with the man that
• 1:29:01
  she loves. So I think that completes her
• 1:29:03
  story perfectly. And the fact she wants to stand
• 1:29:06
  by Rory. As you said, Joe has proved
• 1:29:09
  multiple times the story and that first time when they jump
• 1:29:12
  off the roof together. Oh my God, that is just a
• 1:29:15
  glorious, most beautiful scene. The music, please don't wail and
• 1:29:19
  ruin it again. But Murray Gold score there and
• 1:29:22
  the choral singing is oh thank God he's on mute.
• 1:29:26
  I'm not on mute, no. How How long did she say they've
• 1:29:30
  been since she first met the Doctor?
• 1:29:31
  10 years, is it? Yeah, 10 years to realize that
• 1:29:36
  it should be Rory. I think she knew that.
• 1:29:38
  Love going, isn't she? Were you really happy about
• 1:29:41
  their exit, just because you'd have to endure 5 episodes to get
• 1:29:44
  to that point? No, I think it's a lovely,
• 1:29:47
  lovely accent. And I think the final accent.
• 1:29:50
  You're right. When when she makes the ultimate
• 1:29:52
  Amish choice. You're right.
• 1:29:54
  I picked up as well. This river squeezes her hand.
• 1:29:57
  I mean, it's a perfect way for Amy to go.
• 1:29:59
  She's not listening to the Doctor Who's whining selfishly
• 1:30:02
  in the background. She wants to.
• 1:30:03
  Be doing his best. David Tennant impression is.
• 1:30:05
  He is. She doesn't even look back.
• 1:30:07
  She doesn't even look at him. She's going to sacrifice
• 1:30:09
  herself. She doesn't even know if she's
• 1:30:11
  going to end up with Rory, but she's damn well going to try and
• 1:30:14
  hope that she does, and they do. I think that's perfect.
• 1:30:17
  I don't have a problem with the Doctor not being able to get
• 1:30:20
  back to them again. We established early in the
• 1:30:22
  episode 1938. New York is full of time
• 1:30:25
  distortions. Then Amy and Rory create a
• 1:30:27
  paradox that's centred on them. I think there's enough reasons.
• 1:30:31
  OK, it's all set in a bubble, but there's enough reasons
• 1:30:34
  within the story why they cannot go back.
• 1:30:36
  Why the Doctor can't go back. If you were reading that
• 1:30:39
  synopsis of a Starfish Voyager episode, then you know.
• 1:30:42
  What time? Distortions and paradoxes.
• 1:30:45
  Ah, it's still wonderful though in it.
• 1:30:47
  And emotionally it works for me. I find it fulfilling.
• 1:30:50
  So it's the big tick from me. Number two reason is Nick
• 1:30:54
  Curran, who's director. I think it looks beautiful.
• 1:30:57
  Joe, you rightly said we've got sunny, modern Central Park and
• 1:31:01
  then we go to dark, gloomy New York City with the rain coming
• 1:31:04
  down without the flickering light of that winter key
• 1:31:07
  tenement building. What a perfect setting for the
• 1:31:10
  Weeping Angels as the lights flash on and off.
• 1:31:13
  It's so evocative of that kind of 1930s, nineteen 40s movies
• 1:31:16
  that worked perfectly well. There's just little scenes he
• 1:31:19
  does like. All the people in the windows of
• 1:31:21
  the opposite tenement block looking out, watching on
• 1:31:24
  obviously that part of the battery farm, but really
• 1:31:27
  disturbing. The scene with Rory going into
• 1:31:30
  the cellar, with the cherubs waiting for him and they're
• 1:31:33
  giggling and scuttling around the cellar.
• 1:31:35
  And that one fantastic shot. When Rory's lighting the
• 1:31:39
  matches, he lights the match and you just see the cherub with its
• 1:31:43
  lips pursed to blow out that. That is just spectacular as a
• 1:31:46
  proper jump. So knicker and stuff.
• 1:31:49
  And then my third reason was like you Joe.
• 1:31:51
  The fact is centred on the book. Series 5, Moffett said many
• 1:31:56
  times. This was fairy tale, so it's
• 1:31:58
  perfect that we end Amy's story within a book.
• 1:32:01
  And it's typical Moffett, isn't it?
• 1:32:03
  You think the book book at the beginning is just nonsensical,
• 1:32:06
  light hearted humor. It's just a joke.
• 1:32:08
  It makes the line about, oh, I tear the page out because I
• 1:32:11
  never like endings. And you think, OK, that's just a
• 1:32:14
  gag, and it foreshadowing the fact that Amy and Rory are going
• 1:32:17
  to leave, but then that comes back so powerfully in the end
• 1:32:20
  when she writes the epilogue to the Doctor to close the chapter
• 1:32:24
  to close the story. Brilliant, lovely.
• 1:32:27
  And why not have the Statue of Liberty's Doctor, for crying out
• 1:32:29
  loud? So, yeah, for me it's in Dave.
• 1:32:36
  You know that thing that keeps coming up on Twitter where
• 1:32:38
  you've got the cartoon character and all the knives or?
• 1:32:43
  Well, if you don't like it, you'll be In Sync with about 80%
• 1:32:46
  of the comment. Yeah, I was very, very torn and
• 1:32:49
  was surprised by this one. Like Joe Sedela about dinosaurs
• 1:32:53
  on the spaceship, This episode, I used to always really like it,
• 1:32:56
  but I didn't really like it on this rewatch.
• 1:33:00
  And I'll tell you why. It reminds me a bit of this.
• 1:33:04
  You're going to laugh at this. It reminds me a bit of the Time
• 1:33:07
  of the Doctor and that the 1st 30 minutes or the everything up
• 1:33:11
  to last 10 minutes is a mess for me.
• 1:33:13
  But then the last 10 minutes are absolutely brilliant.
• 1:33:17
  But the 1st 30 minutes? I mean, it starts off with one
• 1:33:20
  of Steven Muffett's best. Oh, wouldn't it be so cool?
• 1:33:22
  But actually, if you think about it, doesn't make any sense.
• 1:33:25
  The Statue of Liberty as an Angel.
• 1:33:27
  I mean, it's it's even thinking that.
• 1:33:29
  He's just thinking, oh, that's a nice little image.
• 1:33:33
  Even Sam Garner says you've got to be kidding me.
• 1:33:36
  He's right. He's got to be kidding.
• 1:33:39
  And this one, the angels can now control lifts and doors in a
• 1:33:41
  hotel and makes it trap people. I mean, I don't understand what
• 1:33:45
  do these people do for 40-50 years?
• 1:33:47
  Are they just in that room and the angels are coming in like
• 1:33:50
  the Daleks of a tray of foods? I wasn't getting what was going
• 1:33:53
  on. Do they speak to them?
• 1:33:55
  And the Cherubs are really freaky, but they're able to walk
• 1:33:57
  about in one of the busiest cities in the world during the
• 1:34:00
  day and. Yeah, they do when you when
• 1:34:03
  you're not looking. The I mean the whole I get the
• 1:34:08
  the point about the time distortions and now in Doctors
• 1:34:10
  who it can be ignored. But it's a typical case of
• 1:34:13
  Muffet making up as he goes along because then he thinks in
• 1:34:16
  a year or two saying, you know what, I need another story in
• 1:34:18
  New York. I know I'll just make it that
• 1:34:20
  the Doctors can make a kid become Superman and just fix it
• 1:34:22
  while I'm there. It's just, yeah, I mean, and
• 1:34:26
  there's other bits in that. I mean River's got the vortex
• 1:34:30
  manipulator. She doesn't just take her bad
• 1:34:32
  dad back to 2012, does she? And also the TARDIS falls, you
• 1:34:36
  know? I mean, you've got Reverend Rory
• 1:34:38
  translating stuff in Ancient Cafe.
• 1:34:40
  I didn't get what that was about.
• 1:34:43
  Yeah, I've got some. Grieving to me, Dave today.
• 1:34:47
  You know that whilst he is a very clever structuralist,
• 1:34:50
  sometimes he doesn't think things through.
• 1:34:52
  He doesn't think we should, because, for example, the Doctor
• 1:34:54
  can regenerate a broken wrist, but then later on, of course he
• 1:34:56
  can't regenerate at all, we're told.
• 1:34:59
  So what's that all about? What happens in the graveyard?
• 1:35:03
  I mean the input. The Angel's able to suck them
• 1:35:05
  while they've turned around, but the doctors staring right at
• 1:35:08
  him? What?
• 1:35:10
  How does that work? Somebody actually.
• 1:35:11
  Yeah, he does, doesn't he? The Doctor is looking right at.
• 1:35:14
  It it's the only gravestone in the world where there's no date
• 1:35:17
  on it, which is a tiny point, but I was a bit annoyed by that.
• 1:35:20
  Who was Grill or what was Grill about?
• 1:35:23
  I mean, he had an Angel chained up and seemed to provide people
• 1:35:26
  what for the angels to feast on, but we never found out what he
• 1:35:29
  was all about. And then he gets killed halfway
• 1:35:31
  through Matt Smith and Max Griffin.
• 1:35:34
  The last 10 minutes is tremendous, I've got to admit.
• 1:35:38
  I mean, that bit where he explains to Rory about the death
• 1:35:41
  he's just seen and that that's going to be you and the pain of
• 1:35:46
  what he has to do up to seeing him fall off the roof.
• 1:35:49
  I mean, I know Joe, you were saying he's a bit over the top,
• 1:35:51
  but I found that quite realistic that he was like, Oh my God,
• 1:35:54
  they're falling off the roof and.
• 1:35:56
  I'm saying somebody's over the top.
• 1:35:57
  They've got to be pretty over the top.
• 1:35:59
  But that scene, that scene where Amy is zapped back through time,
• 1:36:03
  and that gets me every single time when he cries
• 1:36:06
  uncontrollably because he's lost his best friend, he's he's lost
• 1:36:09
  him. I mean, he is selfish, of
• 1:36:10
  course, but of course you are. You think your friend's going
• 1:36:13
  to, you're not going to see them again.
• 1:36:14
  So I think that's realistic. It's Amy.
• 1:36:16
  You remember? It is Amy.
• 1:36:18
  Yeah, but prior to that last 10 minutes, I find him so annoying
• 1:36:21
  in this. It's like it's a different
• 1:36:23
  actor. I mean, the rage of reading
• 1:36:25
  Amy's last fear. Well, when he puts the book to
• 1:36:26
  his head and he sort of stumbles around the room and rivers just
• 1:36:30
  going, oh, he's getting a bit angry.
• 1:36:32
  I mean, what are you doing? He just look like you're a girl
• 1:36:34
  or going around before top of your head.
• 1:36:36
  And I just seen his hair in the mirror before.
• 1:36:40
  He sees river songs about oh God and this river when he's
• 1:36:43
  flailing, yeah. I've forgotten about that bit.
• 1:36:48
  River, he's just, I mean, the Doctor then shouts at River to
• 1:36:51
  get herself out from the statue. I mean, that's just a bit mean.
• 1:36:54
  I'm ripping the last page of the books because he doesn't like
• 1:36:57
  endings. OK, wait, the Doctor doesn't
• 1:36:59
  like endings, but he said that umpteen times.
• 1:37:02
  This point has been umpteen endings.
• 1:37:03
  I don't understand my suddenly this is a big thing where in I
• 1:37:07
  don't like endings because you've been through it with 10
• 1:37:10
  other generations up to this point.
• 1:37:14
  Yeah. I mean there is some other great
• 1:37:16
  things in this. I mean the Angel Howell, I think
• 1:37:18
  it's terrific. I love that noise.
• 1:37:19
  The It's always in it, the set. And of course looks beautiful.
• 1:37:29
  Rory's adorable in this and he clearly loves Amy.
• 1:37:32
  I mean, I think Mark brought a Pearl of Arthur Davil's on some
• 1:37:35
  hero in these these five episodes for me, I mean, I think
• 1:37:37
  he's terrific. And these episodes, that scene
• 1:37:40
  on the rooftop when she, Karen Gillan, sheds a tear with the
• 1:37:44
  music and he's going to make the sacrifice.
• 1:37:48
  Oh, and of course the sepia. But is a gorgeous ending yet
• 1:37:53
  Brian's never spoken about as we've touched on as well, which
• 1:37:55
  is a bit an oversight, and the idea of reading a book that
• 1:37:58
  tells the future is a great idea.
• 1:38:02
  I'm in the minority, but also like Alec Kingston, His River.
• 1:38:05
  Although we've had a bit of praise today, I was a bit
• 1:38:06
  surprised. She defies the Doctor Amy to
• 1:38:11
  join her dad and fakes that she got out by breaking her wrist,
• 1:38:15
  which is these moments. But 10 minutes of greatness for
• 1:38:19
  me couldn't cancel out the 1st 30 minutes, so it's a very soft
• 1:38:23
  out for me. It's because it's a bit
• 1:38:25
  schizophrenic, but I mean, this is when I could be persuaded.
• 1:38:29
  So do you know, I'm noticing something, though, with Steven
• 1:38:32
  Moffitt's stories? I feel as if because they are so
• 1:38:36
  complicated. Yeah, and intricate and there
• 1:38:40
  are logical inconsistencies and things like this.
• 1:38:42
  You can even go with that because you like the direction
• 1:38:45
  and the tone of it and the width of it, or you'll sit there
• 1:38:50
  picking up the threads. No, I meant that, I mean.
• 1:38:53
  Since I don't know because I'm normally you, Dave, but this is
• 1:38:56
  1 where just the the emotional beats work so well, I'm joining
• 1:39:00
  the dark side. The right side.
• 1:39:03
  Although that's because I I would say that's because you're
• 1:39:05
  a Russell T Davis fan, Joe, because he does that all the
• 1:39:08
  time. He doesn't even put a flot in.
• 1:39:11
  What are you talking about? Yeah, I mean since doing the
• 1:39:14
  podcast and I think I'm certainly picking at the plots a
• 1:39:19
  lot more than I would have. And this is a typical example
• 1:39:21
  because as I see, I used to love this episode.
• 1:39:22
  But then when I looked looked at this time where critical eye, I
• 1:39:25
  saw all the holes in it and I thought actually this doesn't
• 1:39:28
  make one bit of bloody sense. But I think what he's doing
• 1:39:32
  though is he's concentrating when he's writing on the last 10
• 1:39:35
  minutes and that big fallout. But the 1st 30 minutes are
• 1:39:39
  right. I've got to get there.
• 1:39:40
  But yeah, I'll just take some liberties with the plot.
• 1:39:44
  So it's a very soft out from you and I'm probably and I know I'm
• 1:39:47
  going to get, I suspect Mark's going to love this one.
• 1:39:49
  But but yeah, it's just a soft out for me, I'm afraid.
• 1:39:53
  Well, Mark, you've got the casting.
• 1:39:54
  Vote it's well, let's, let's can languish in this position.
• 1:40:00
  So right, the City That Never Sleeps is the perfect home for
• 1:40:07
  the Angels. Hang on a minute.
• 1:40:08
  What? The City That Never Sleeps means
• 1:40:11
  that there's loads of eyes open to see the Angels.
• 1:40:16
  So surely the angels, which has never moved the battery farm,
• 1:40:21
  right? Where, where did they get the
• 1:40:22
  food from? Are they?
• 1:40:24
  Can the Angels call up a Chinese take away or like get a grocery
• 1:40:28
  order in? What's happening, however, to
• 1:40:32
  stop milking this position that I have for the cash and vote, I
• 1:40:36
  love this. I because ultimately you know I
• 1:40:41
  think Dave's pointed out the reasons that I love this is that
• 1:40:44
  ultimately it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter because
• 1:40:48
  the the the last 10 minutes I watched it like about an hour
• 1:40:52
  before we recorded this and I was, I was in tears and I was
• 1:40:56
  like you've seen this at least two more times since 2012.
• 1:41:00
  How are you still flying? You know Amy and Rory's ending
• 1:41:05
  and I was it gets me every single time and I think it gets
• 1:41:08
  me because it is the Amy and Rory.
• 1:41:12
  It's the perfect ending for Amy and Rory.
• 1:41:15
  It's Amy finally. I wouldn't say I think finally
• 1:41:18
  choosing Rory over the Doctor isn't necessarily the.
• 1:41:23
  I mean it is the decision I suppose, but not in that kind of
• 1:41:25
  romantic way. It's just them because the whole
• 1:41:29
  arc has been them going right. We can't keep travelling in the
• 1:41:32
  targets. And this is the final point,
• 1:41:36
  because either she can go back in time, find Rory live happily
• 1:41:41
  ever after, or she can get in the TARDIS with the Doctrine
• 1:41:45
  River and sort of have this kind of futile quests to sort of try
• 1:41:49
  and pinpoint the exact date of where Rory's ended up.
• 1:41:54
  And she chooses Rory in that. In that situation, which is?
• 1:41:59
  Look, it might not work, I might not find him, but it's better
• 1:42:03
  than knowing for a fact that I won't find it.
• 1:42:07
  And. He got kicked back like 300
• 1:42:09
  years. Oh fuck, what am I going to?
• 1:42:14
  Do. And I'm not made of plastic, so
• 1:42:15
  I can't just, I can't just weather the storm of, you know,
• 1:42:18
  don't. Worry though, there's a DVD
• 1:42:20
  extra that tells us they made it all right.
• 1:42:23
  It wasn't in the episode it but it wasn't.
• 1:42:24
  The braid stone tells us they make it.
• 1:42:27
  Put your claws away, she's. Very odd.
• 1:42:29
  You know when he's going in the TARDIS and he goes, oh, that
• 1:42:33
  braidstone right over there? I'm just going to go and look at
• 1:42:36
  that and the writers on the other side.
• 1:42:37
  I was like, why the fuck are you looking at that gravestone?
• 1:42:41
  Sorry. Sorry.
• 1:42:42
  That's right. So yeah, so I I really, I buy
• 1:42:45
  it. You know it really gets me.
• 1:42:48
  I think it's great. Other things I love about this.
• 1:42:53
  I think it is very atmospheric. It's again you know what I love
• 1:42:57
  about this series as a whole is that we're not in Cardiff
• 1:43:00
  anymore. Like it.
• 1:43:02
  It's none of this feels like, you know, this same four
• 1:43:07
  locations in Cardiff that they just changed the set dressing
• 1:43:10
  of, which we've gone back to now in, you know, in 2024 with
• 1:43:14
  Disney money. But that's a whole separate
• 1:43:16
  thing that I won't do right now. I'm not.
• 1:43:18
  Sure, they're spending Disney money yet.
• 1:43:20
  You know, I think that might be the next series.
• 1:43:23
  Sure, but I've heard, I've heard rumours about Phil.
• 1:43:26
  Phil Collinson's approach approached the budgeting, and I
• 1:43:30
  think a lot of it's proved by this five episodes of Doctor
• 1:43:34
  Who. For you haven't been talking to
• 1:43:35
  Dylan Reese, have you? Because he had a bullshit he
• 1:43:37
  spun. Me possibly comment.
• 1:43:39
  That's OK. But yeah, but you know, these
• 1:43:43
  five episodes from 12 years ago look far more cinematic, far
• 1:43:48
  more rich, far more you lived in as well than anything we've seen
• 1:43:54
  last year. Like it's it's proper cinematic
• 1:43:59
  Doctor Who which absolutely does what they what they set out to
• 1:44:03
  to do with this and you know we've we've got the Doctor and
• 1:44:06
  his companions in actual Central Park not you know just a little
• 1:44:11
  green map in front of our sort of green screen in a in a set in
• 1:44:15
  Cardiff. It's proper, you know, Central
• 1:44:17
  Park are. You not convinced that's great
• 1:44:18
  artist in Manhattan then? Well, you're not convinced.
• 1:44:24
  The production team in Manhattan.
• 1:44:26
  Yeah, yeah, what, David Tennant. And for Imagine standing in
• 1:44:29
  front of a wall that's matted. Oh, that.
• 1:44:32
  Garsley. It's down.
• 1:44:37
  So yeah. So I think, you know, it gives
• 1:44:38
  it a sense of scale and it roots it in a location and it feels,
• 1:44:44
  it feels like, you know, it's Doctor Who in New York.
• 1:44:47
  I think that's that's great. I love the concept.
• 1:44:51
  The third thing is I I do think I'm not a big fan of the Angel
• 1:44:56
  stories between Blink and Village of the Angels.
• 1:44:59
  I think Village of the Angels is the sequel to Blink that we
• 1:45:02
  should have had in series 5 rather than that kind of weird
• 1:45:08
  Aliens sort of style adventure that they get.
• 1:45:11
  But I think this is good. I think the concept of, although
• 1:45:15
  it doesn't hold up to any sort of scrutiny whatsoever, I think
• 1:45:20
  the Angels plot it is a really smart idea.
• 1:45:23
  I like the idea of the Angels because you know, just because
• 1:45:28
  you know their statues, it's constantly sort of said to us
• 1:45:32
  that they sort of work on a quantum level.
• 1:45:34
  So they could be doing all sorts of things while nobody's
• 1:45:37
  looking. So I I buy into, I mean I can't
• 1:45:40
  buy into them going shopping, but that's but you can buy in
• 1:45:45
  from sort of building this and sort of sealing off this area of
• 1:45:49
  a city that becomes this sort of massive battery farm that's
• 1:45:53
  going to generating all this sort of paradox energy for them
• 1:45:56
  to feed off. It's a really good idea.
• 1:45:58
  It's conceptually really scary, isn't it?
• 1:46:00
  Like, like the the illogic of it aside, the idea of being trapped
• 1:46:07
  in that building and being, you know, your years being bled
• 1:46:11
  away. It's really in a way the the the
• 1:46:15
  idea of Asylum of the Daleks, it just isn't you know or should
• 1:46:19
  have been you know, but but don't know because you said in
• 1:46:22
  Asylum that you know that's about Amy and Roy.
• 1:46:23
  This is about Amy and Roy with the Angel sort of as the set
• 1:46:26
  dressing. He's doing the same sort of
• 1:46:27
  story, but I think this is more successful.
• 1:46:31
  I think it's more successful because the angels are his
• 1:46:34
  creation, so he can have a bit of like he knows how to write
• 1:46:39
  them and he knows sort of things that he wants to kind of do with
• 1:46:42
  them. So yeah, I think it may be kind
• 1:46:45
  of comes maybe that's maybe why it succeeds for you better than
• 1:46:49
  Asylum of the Daleks. But yeah, I I I think it's great
• 1:46:53
  it's going in for me. Fabulous.
• 1:46:55
  So all three so far are going through.
• 1:46:58
  And we're left with Chip now. Oh.
• 1:47:00
  God, why did you leave me with two bloody chip stories?
• 1:47:04
  Oh God, you've left me with. Right, I go.
• 1:47:08
  On Rod, choose the one you like rather than the one you don't.
• 1:47:13
  Or do you think I'd play that game, Joe?
• 1:47:15
  Am I That's obvious? I absolutely do.
• 1:47:17
  Well, I'll prove you wrong then. I'm going to go with the power
• 1:47:21
  of Three and the power of three is going out.
• 1:47:27
  So I think the power of three is a really odd episode.
• 1:47:32
  So structurally, it's got a lot in common with things we've
• 1:47:36
  seen, like the Lodger and the Curse.
• 1:47:38
  The black spot in that about 8090% of the episode is in one
• 1:47:42
  Earthbound setting and then suddenly we transfer to the
• 1:47:45
  spaceship for the denouement. And like Lodger, this is a lot
• 1:47:50
  of this is about the Doctor trying to integrate into regular
• 1:47:53
  life and like curse the black spot.
• 1:47:56
  We go to spaceship and we've got Rory on the hospital bed.
• 1:47:59
  But it's also got a lot in common with Russell T Davis.
• 1:48:02
  We've got news readers, we've got the kind of apprentice, so
• 1:48:06
  there's all these bits. It really feels like we've been
• 1:48:08
  here before. We've done this before.
• 1:48:11
  It's rehashing. Same ideas.
• 1:48:13
  You could say it's a reminder of when the show was really good.
• 1:48:17
  Curse the Black Spot. Oh yeah, right.
• 1:48:20
  It's Fairpoint. Thank you.
• 1:48:23
  And then my disappointment at the fact that we've got all
• 1:48:25
  these repeated ideas, It's compounded by being fucking dull
• 1:48:30
  as hell. It's just so dull.
• 1:48:32
  The sci-fi elements of this story is sold as a slow
• 1:48:36
  invasion, but that you know you guys are getting really excited
• 1:48:40
  about the asylum of the Daleks, every Dalek ever seen.
• 1:48:43
  That's exciting stuff. And the movie posters here you
• 1:48:46
  told, oh this is a slow invasion, Well, that's really
• 1:48:49
  going to get my pulse racing, isn't it?
• 1:48:52
  So that's dull as hell. And then we mix that in with the
• 1:48:56
  Doctor trying to fit into Amy and Rory's life.
• 1:48:59
  That's been done before. We've seen that in The Lodge in
• 1:49:01
  Series five. We saw that in closing time in
• 1:49:03
  Series 6. Neither one of those was him
• 1:49:06
  trying to get involved in Amy and Rory's life.
• 1:49:08
  No, but it's the it's it's the same beats, isn't it?
• 1:49:11
  And that you're right, Joe, that is the difference.
• 1:49:13
  This is Amy and Rory's life, but we don't see enough of that.
• 1:49:16
  There's too much focus on the comedy antics, and I think they
• 1:49:20
  even know that. So they do these weird little
• 1:49:22
  diversions of the doctor taking them in the tards, and they go
• 1:49:25
  to Henry of Henry the Eighth's court and they play beat for
• 1:49:29
  beat. The direction is the same as the
• 1:49:31
  beginning of The Impossible Astronaut, with them hiding
• 1:49:34
  under the bed on the socks of the guy coming into the room,
• 1:49:37
  it's exactly the same. We get them going to the Savoy
• 1:49:40
  for a Zygon plot. It's just it's all these little.
• 1:49:44
  Maybe it's our best off before they depart.
• 1:49:47
  You could possibly say that, yeah.
• 1:49:49
  But it all just feels very convoluted.
• 1:49:52
  It's it doesn't really know what it wants to be.
• 1:49:55
  It's trying to be lots of different things, and I don't
• 1:49:57
  think the structure helps that either.
• 1:49:59
  So we try to have that grounded conversation about the Doctor
• 1:50:02
  not running away but running towards things.
• 1:50:04
  And he and Amy have that conversation, but they have that
• 1:50:07
  conversation just as they've gone to the Tower of London and
• 1:50:10
  the plot finally starts to kick in.
• 1:50:12
  Then they decide to stop for 5 minutes and have a conversation.
• 1:50:15
  After the plots been dull as hell for the beginning.
• 1:50:17
  We then get a bit of momentum and it stops again.
• 1:50:21
  And then obviously we've got all the structural problems at the
• 1:50:23
  end, which OK, I appreciate that's not their fault, but it
• 1:50:28
  is the most egregious use of the Sonic as a magic wand that I
• 1:50:32
  think the series has ever, ever shown.
• 1:50:36
  It's horrendous. So my first reason is structure
• 1:50:38
  and tone. Second reason is the Doctor and
• 1:50:41
  Matt Smith. I don't think this is a great
• 1:50:43
  episode either for the character or for the actor.
• 1:50:47
  There's just too much whimsy. I mean the scene of Matt kicking
• 1:50:52
  a football painting the fence, mowing the lawn.
• 1:50:55
  So a dreadful speed up soundtrack.
• 1:50:58
  Oh my God, it's just so embarrassing.
• 1:51:00
  It is. It feels very kids TV.
• 1:51:03
  That and I think Matt. Feels all.
• 1:51:04
  I don't know why you or you keep objecting to Doctor Who being
• 1:51:07
  kids TV, but it's kind of supposed.
• 1:51:10
  To be I know, but it's sometimes wears its wears its heart a
• 1:51:13
  little bit too much on its sleeve and Oh yeah, and I think
• 1:51:16
  Matt looks awkward. That horrible scene in the
• 1:51:19
  hospital where Amy's restarted his heart and he jumps up and
• 1:51:22
  starts dancing and say hello Lefty.
• 1:51:25
  Oh it's just fucking idiots. Oh, that's.
• 1:51:30
  Basically Matt Smith in his entire run.
• 1:51:32
  But he's real. I know.
• 1:51:33
  But we've lost a lot. Then the only dose and it comes
• 1:51:35
  back and he looks, he looks half hearted.
• 1:51:38
  He doesn't actually look like he believes in it.
• 1:51:40
  And then we got the one scene I really object to where Matt's
• 1:51:44
  talking to Amy and Rory and Rory.
• 1:51:46
  Rory says I'm a nurse and the Doctor's really sarcastic and
• 1:51:50
  really dismissive and talks about their little lives.
• 1:51:53
  He's kind of spitting with resentment.
• 1:51:55
  I think that's just a horrible beat for the Doctor to know that
• 1:51:58
  Rory's become a nurse looking after people and he's so
• 1:52:02
  dismissive and heartless about it, and there is an inherent
• 1:52:05
  contradiction. He does this speech I alluded to
• 1:52:07
  earlier about saying I'm not running away, I'm running
• 1:52:10
  towards things. But in the next breath he says
• 1:52:13
  I'm running back to Amy. So which is it?
• 1:52:16
  He's either running forward or he's running backwards.
• 1:52:18
  Make your fucking mind up. It's horrible.
• 1:52:21
  And then the last, last point is the science.
• 1:52:25
  Now I do. I I do not let.
• 1:52:29
  You like, You like kill the fucking moon.
• 1:52:31
  I'm just. About to mention Kill the Moon.
• 1:52:33
  I'm just about to mention that I can live with the moon being an
• 1:52:37
  egg I can live with travelling through a black hole in UNIT
• 1:52:41
  headquarters. That's fine, I can live with
• 1:52:43
  that. But I do not like the whole
• 1:52:45
  heart attack scenario. I think that's uncomfortable in
• 1:52:48
  a fantasy show that we're seeing a third of the population drop
• 1:52:52
  dead of heart attacks. It's a bit too real.
• 1:52:54
  It's a bit too on the nose. But.
• 1:52:56
  Especially for Doctor Who. Sorry, did.
• 1:52:59
  You know what the original draft for this was?
• 1:53:02
  No. That everyone was going to be
• 1:53:03
  stabbed. OK, maybe that's a bit.
• 1:53:06
  Well, it's you're caught between a rock and a hard place with
• 1:53:09
  those two. You've got the better option.
• 1:53:11
  The ending is very different as well.
• 1:53:13
  When a heart attack's the better option, that's worrying.
• 1:53:16
  But then not only that, but then he use 10 minutes later he
• 1:53:21
  reverses the cubes so everybody is revived from a heart attack.
• 1:53:26
  It's just nonsensical and I think bringing it into something
• 1:53:30
  that's very real, like people having a heart attack and then
• 1:53:33
  magically waving them better again is just uncomfortable.
• 1:53:37
  I'll judged and just is the final cherry on an episode of
• 1:53:41
  Complete shite. So for me this is going in the
• 1:53:44
  bin do. You like the TV movie?
• 1:53:48
  Yeah, that's. Exactly what happens in the TV
• 1:53:50
  movie, isn't it? They all die at the end and the
• 1:53:52
  magic wands wave. They're all back to life.
• 1:53:54
  Again, but we're not told explicitly it's a heart attack,
• 1:53:57
  and I just think that is we see people dying, brought back to
• 1:54:00
  life all the time, but actually being told explicitly 1/3 of the
• 1:54:04
  world's population and we see them dropping dead on the
• 1:54:07
  street. Average people are dropping dead
• 1:54:10
  of heart attacks that we're told they then wait 10 minutes and
• 1:54:13
  then suddenly they magically revive them.
• 1:54:17
  Now it's written by Chibnall. Suddenly the details are
• 1:54:20
  important, correct? Yeah.
• 1:54:24
  My true colours. I'm sensing some bias in this
• 1:54:27
  argument. Not at all.
• 1:54:29
  We'll see when we get to Dinosaurs on the Spaceship, but
• 1:54:32
  hour of three for me is just horrible and the worst episode
• 1:54:37
  of this run. So it's going.
• 1:54:39
  Should we go to the comments? Let's do it.
• 1:54:42
  Mark Harrison says the dumbest hill I will die on is that this
• 1:54:45
  is Chipman's best Doctor Who script.
• 1:54:47
  Obvious production problems aside, it's everything I hoped
• 1:54:50
  his era would be. Sorry, Mark.
• 1:54:53
  Absolute without absolute with concept.
• 1:54:56
  A rare Chipman episode I really like.
• 1:54:59
  Dylan Reece says wonderful character episode, looking at
• 1:55:02
  what it's like to travel both with and Left Behind, Left
• 1:55:05
  behind by the Doctor. Shame about the cobbled ending,
• 1:55:08
  but it's no worse than a lot of other endings in this era.
• 1:55:11
  Jason Thompson Kate Stewart gets a decent introduction and the
• 1:55:15
  scene with Amy and the Doctor talking about how he is running
• 1:55:17
  to things is beautiful. The ending is shite, but that
• 1:55:21
  can be forgiven for having now heard what a prick Stephen
• 1:55:25
  Berkoff was and how they had to salvage the end from what they
• 1:55:29
  could get working around his dickishness.
• 1:55:32
  David Gillespie Pratt had a real fun and engaging first half, but
• 1:55:36
  then Stephen Berkoff turns up and it all falls apart.
• 1:55:39
  One of the few instances where behind the scenes issues just
• 1:55:42
  couldn't be fixed in the edit. John Bensale As a drama, it
• 1:55:45
  fails. The shakery of shit.
• 1:55:49
  Berkoff is forgettable, but the usual everybody lives tosh.
• 1:55:53
  Kate's really boring, too. As a comedy, it works quite
• 1:55:56
  well. Despite The Apprentice.
• 1:55:59
  Oh sorry, Despite The Apprentice, I've got the
• 1:56:01
  inflection wrong there. As usual, Matt, Karen and Arthur
• 1:56:05
  are a delight in one of their last hurrahs.
• 1:56:07
  Even John Benzali is nice, and you are that.
• 1:56:09
  Is I know Fraser, Gregory says Chibnall's Forte.
• 1:56:13
  Has he got one? His family dynamics?
• 1:56:15
  Forcing the Doctor into that setting provides some laughs,
• 1:56:19
  but there's also some amazing scenes as the Doctor discusses
• 1:56:22
  his relationship with Amy and his previous companions with
• 1:56:25
  Brian. Kate Stewart is introduced in
• 1:56:27
  one of her better stories, and if the Poms left here then it
• 1:56:30
  would feel totally natural. Berkoff stank up the ending, but
• 1:56:33
  I shan't let one person spoil a perfectly decent story.
• 1:56:37
  Again, the cubes aren't the story, it's the Poms.
• 1:56:40
  Keep it. I thought you said there sorry,
• 1:56:43
  Berkoff was spanked at the end. That's.
• 1:56:47
  Why I was pissed, Jack, Jack Goria says.
• 1:56:50
  Kate Stewart is really good here, channelling the Brigadier
• 1:56:53
  spirit quite well. I like the Cube invasion too.
• 1:56:56
  Humorous scenes of people being utterly nonplussed about them
• 1:56:59
  before they show why they're really here.
• 1:57:01
  Douglas Mckinnon's direction feels very sherlockish and very
• 1:57:05
  reminiscent of the 11th hour. This brings some of my favorite
• 1:57:09
  interactions between this TARDIS team, like the Doctrine Amy at
• 1:57:11
  the Unit base. Around it, Randall says.
• 1:57:14
  Superficially enjoyable with fun padding, but it introduced one
• 1:57:17
  of the worst characters in New Ho.
• 1:57:19
  Did you leave this episode? Didn't appeal to me, but I had
• 1:57:21
  some good gags. The birdie song one amused me.
• 1:57:24
  I love that bit. Michael Storm, weakest of the
• 1:57:27
  season. The idea of it being Doctor Who
• 1:57:29
  does. The Man Who Came to Dinner is
• 1:57:31
  good, but it follows that concept for about 10 minutes.
• 1:57:34
  Even the slow invasion idea is good, but nothing seems to gel.
• 1:57:37
  Oh, and that Duff about being able to restart the heart 17
• 1:57:40
  minutes after 17 minutes with no medical issues is really
• 1:57:44
  flipping stupid. Well said, Michael Storm.
• 1:57:47
  Jolie Welling says the least of this series.
• 1:57:50
  It's fine. Daniel Knight A clever little
• 1:57:52
  story, the ending sadly spoiled by someone being a right burkos.
• 1:57:56
  Jemma Redbrake makes an impression and we get more Mark
• 1:57:59
  Williams. James Larks is really good, a
• 1:58:01
  confident re imagining of how Doctor Who works that feels like
• 1:58:05
  it could be the basis for all different kind of series.
• 1:58:08
  I'd have liked Chipmel to do this sort of thing more when he
• 1:58:10
  was running the show. Epic and intimate.
• 1:58:13
  Matt Lee Newby I wish they'd scrapped the Angels and made the
• 1:58:16
  power of 3A2 parter, with Amy and Rory calling time on their
• 1:58:19
  travels and just saying goodbye. Crushed Dummy says a fairly
• 1:58:23
  standard episode with a bit of a dump squib ending.
• 1:58:25
  I know it was out of their control.
• 1:58:27
  It's elevated by the performances, the central
• 1:58:29
  mystery, the doctor staying around Brian, and the various
• 1:58:32
  cube related shenanigans. Very watchable.
• 1:58:36
  Finally, Stephen Rhodes says really love it.
• 1:58:39
  Man, There's a bit a lot of positivity around this one, far
• 1:58:42
  more than the Angels Take Manhattan, I noticed.
• 1:58:45
  I think it would have been even better if the cubes had never
• 1:58:48
  been explained. It's just an unknowable alien
• 1:58:50
  mystery that allowed us some lovely Doctor, Amy and Rory
• 1:58:53
  moments. It really feels like Amy and
• 1:58:55
  Rory should have left by this point.
• 1:58:58
  Right. So I think I might have made my
• 1:59:00
  feelings clear on this episode. Mark You agree or disagree?
• 1:59:07
  I've got to say, I disagree. I really like this and I'm going
• 1:59:15
  to be bold here. One of the reasons I want this
• 1:59:18
  to stay in is Stephen Berkoff, right?
• 1:59:22
  And it's not because of the performance or not thereof.
• 1:59:26
  Not true. Like we'd love.
• 1:59:27
  We'd love like behind the scenes.
• 1:59:30
  Oh, yes. You know, and rumours about, you
• 1:59:34
  know, like how terrible and someone actor was to, you know,
• 1:59:38
  to work with Or you know, outlandish stories about onset
• 1:59:42
  behaviour. We'd love all of that kind of
• 1:59:45
  thing, and I think the Modern series has some of that and a
• 1:59:49
  lot of it's quite dark. And maybe we don't want to kind
• 1:59:53
  of go over that, the darker elements of the Russell T Davis
• 1:59:56
  era, but this is just a pretentious actor who is just up
• 2:00:03
  himself, turns up in a bad mood, refuses to to do the lines,
• 2:00:08
  whatever exactly happened. I love Douglas Mckinnon's quotes
• 2:00:13
  when he was promoting this episode.
• 2:00:16
  I took a take a screenshot of it allowing me to, So this was in,
• 2:00:21
  I think it was in SFX magazine in the kind of preview of the
• 2:00:27
  episodes. So, yes, so Douglas McKinnon was
• 2:00:29
  promoting the episode. And oh, is there anything, you
• 2:00:31
  know, you can tell us about it? You know, a lot of, there's a
• 2:00:34
  lot of secrecy around the episode.
• 2:00:36
  What's it like working with Stephen Berkov, etcetera,
• 2:00:39
  etcetera. And Douglas McKinnon sort of
• 2:00:41
  said that obviously he'd worked with Berkov before, that's why
• 2:00:44
  he cast him. And he says the experience of
• 2:00:47
  working with him on Doctor Who was something that will never be
• 2:00:50
  repeated. You can ask anyone on the cast
• 2:00:53
  or crew and they'll agree that his participation it was
• 2:00:57
  extraordinary. Very polite.
• 2:01:02
  That like the height of diplomacy.
• 2:01:05
  And you know, I know this isn't like we're punting it off.
• 2:01:09
  Should never be, you know, part of the Doctor Who cannon.
• 2:01:12
  However, I think if we were to lose the power of three, we lose
• 2:01:16
  that extraordinary story that isn't.
• 2:01:21
  There's still gaps. I think we've kind of pieced
• 2:01:23
  together most of it now, but there's still a few gaps.
• 2:01:27
  So, yeah, so that is genuinely one of my reasons for giving it
• 2:01:29
  in. Mark, do you?
• 2:01:30
  Remember when he appeared in Ticket Space 9 in the series
• 2:01:35
  five episode? Apparently it was a total twat
• 2:01:37
  in that as well. I can't imagine.
• 2:01:40
  At least, he said his lines. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:01:44
  Yeah, because he's an arms alien, arms dealer or something
• 2:01:46
  like that. But the campus one in history,
• 2:01:48
  he's going around going absolutely, you know, like.
• 2:01:52
  I mean, I've seen some of birth some of Berkov's plays that he's
• 2:01:56
  written. So it's it's an issue.
• 2:01:58
  But no, but if it's an issue with scripts, I mean he's not
• 2:02:00
  the best writer himself. So come on.
• 2:02:04
  So yeah, so that's that's one of the reasons.
• 2:02:06
  The second reason is as kind of, as I was saying with Asylum of
• 2:02:11
  the Dalits, this celebrates the mundane and the banal.
• 2:02:16
  And I think yes, it's it's tackling similar beats to the
• 2:02:20
  lodger and closing time, but you care more because it's Amy and
• 2:02:26
  Rory. It's not just some random guy
• 2:02:29
  who he's just rocked up answering an advert, you know,
• 2:02:31
  it's it's his best friend's and it's like what happens when your
• 2:02:35
  best friend moves in with you. That's essentially kind of what
• 2:02:39
  what we've got going on here. Whilst there's a really weird
• 2:02:43
  alien invasion going on and Shibno really likes these kind
• 2:02:47
  of weird aliens. You know, we've had sentient
• 2:02:50
  bandages in in the Julie Whitaker.
• 2:02:54
  We've had that kind of what I really loved in the room who
• 2:02:57
  Fell to Earth was that bizarre kind of coil monster on the
• 2:03:01
  train that was like, God, He's like really going for the kind
• 2:03:04
  of alien. One of those toys.
• 2:03:06
  It starts off as a ball. Pull it apart.
• 2:03:09
  And he said he's going for stuff that isn't just the standard
• 2:03:12
  humanoid sort of alien. And yeah, sure you get Berkov at
• 2:03:15
  the end but actually the kind of cubes and the idea of you know
• 2:03:21
  human beings, the great early adopters, which is also just
• 2:03:24
  human beings, they'll pick up any old shit and put it in their
• 2:03:27
  house is essentially the kind of thing and and I don't think it
• 2:03:32
  it kind of properly hammers at home.
• 2:03:35
  But there is quite a fun commentary on consumerism kind
• 2:03:38
  of going on there which is why The Apprentice isn't there.
• 2:03:42
  Because of course the stupidest man in the in the UK is going to
• 2:03:47
  set up a set up a challenge on The Apprentice to sell cubes.
• 2:03:52
  And in my head Canon it's the same.
• 2:03:54
  It's Craig from The Lodger that he gets fired by Alan in this
• 2:04:00
  episode. It must be right.
• 2:04:02
  That must be what Chipton's gone first.
• 2:04:05
  So yeah, so I love all that stuff.
• 2:04:07
  And then third is his unit or. And my favorite gag in this is
• 2:04:13
  when Mark Williams, as Brian calls it, unit.
• 2:04:20
  No one's ever done that before. And it's fun and it's like,
• 2:04:23
  yeah, that's that is probably what normal people.
• 2:04:26
  Would do, they could still someone could still say on it,
• 2:04:29
  couldn't they? Yes, that's true.
• 2:04:32
  We could get that in the next year.
• 2:04:34
  I think like, yeah, sure, I I think Kate Stewart is probably
• 2:04:40
  at her best here. I think she's bet, but she's
• 2:04:42
  really getting the giggle. But I think here she's really
• 2:04:45
  kind of confident comes in. There is a kind of element of
• 2:04:49
  the break in there that you can kind of see the sort of link
• 2:04:53
  between the two. And I love the kind of back
• 2:04:56
  story that's that's sort of sketched in sort of between the
• 2:04:59
  end of Battlefield and and the you know the start of this is
• 2:05:03
  that it's become more of a sort of science LED organization
• 2:05:06
  because ultimately of course it has, it's been decades.
• 2:05:11
  You know, it's not, it's no longer just about defending the
• 2:05:15
  Earth with military strength. They've kind of proven that
• 2:05:18
  actually that pisses them off a bit more.
• 2:05:20
  It maybe it makes more sense to kind of understand the science
• 2:05:23
  and and figure out other ways to kind of take on alien invaders.
• 2:05:27
  So it's a really nice upgraded unit and I think it's the first,
• 2:05:31
  it feels like the first time in the modern series where they've
• 2:05:34
  actually given some thought to what a modern unit would be
• 2:05:37
  because Tortured has that really horrible thing where they put
• 2:05:42
  torch in like Guantanamo Bay, you know, and why not anyone as
• 2:05:48
  well. Yeah.
• 2:05:51
  Now save a woman in the basement.
• 2:05:53
  Yeah. I think the only good thing
• 2:05:56
  about working for tortures is you can fuck the men and the
• 2:05:58
  women on the staff. You know, there's no HR issues
• 2:06:02
  at all. Yeah, but that like that episode
• 2:06:04
  of Tortured where Tosh gets arrested by UNIT and they're all
• 2:06:07
  just like the Keeper in a cage and it's like, what is what?
• 2:06:10
  It's not Unit. There's a kind of weird thing.
• 2:06:14
  Well yeah, but he wrote this, which makes me think it's an RTD
• 2:06:20
  thing there. There was this kind of weird
• 2:06:22
  thing when Doctor Who came back where like he was very kind of
• 2:06:25
  you know, and or the Doctor's anti military, which is utter
• 2:06:28
  nonsense because he kind of isn't, you know?
• 2:06:31
  Well, we do get a bit of that in Series 8 as well.
• 2:06:34
  Yes, we do. And again, that's utter
• 2:06:37
  nonsense. Because there there's plenty to
• 2:06:41
  prove that that's not true. But here it's a unit that you
• 2:06:44
  can kind of see the Doctor working a bit more
• 2:06:46
  collaboratively with. But also there there's an edge,
• 2:06:49
  you know as as well they are still the United Nations
• 2:06:53
  Intelligence Task Force. They're still going to work in
• 2:06:56
  the kind of best interests of Earth and that's necessarily
• 2:06:58
  always going to do the right thing.
• 2:07:00
  So yeah, so I yeah, I really, I loved this When it went out.
• 2:07:04
  I was really surprised because it felt like, oh, this is the
• 2:07:07
  budget saving one because it's, you know, a bunch of black
• 2:07:10
  cubes. It's all set at Amy and Rory's
• 2:07:12
  house and a hospital. But it really took me by
• 2:07:17
  surprise and I love the the guys with the weird with the cubes
• 2:07:20
  kind of rammed in their face. That's really good as well.
• 2:07:24
  So yeah, it's it's again going in for me.
• 2:07:28
  Dave, are you going to be foolish and follow Mark's lead,
• 2:07:33
  not trying to bias you in any way at all?
• 2:07:35
  I'm with Mark with this one for me as well.
• 2:07:38
  I covered this one recently with Luke Malloy on my podcast.
• 2:07:42
  So I never actually rewatched this one.
• 2:07:43
  I just went and listened because I couldn't remember what what
• 2:07:46
  what we talked about. But we talked about pretty much
• 2:07:49
  all the stuff use of obviously raised.
• 2:07:51
  Yeah, I mean we've talked a lot about the pawns and whether or
• 2:07:55
  not they should have even came back for the season.
• 2:07:57
  But as we're covering this season, they're going to leave
• 2:08:00
  in the next episode. This is a nice little breather
• 2:08:02
  before they go and we get to see the domestic life, and I think
• 2:08:06
  that's really nice. You get the montage of the last
• 2:08:09
  2 1/2 years at the beginning just to set up right.
• 2:08:11
  This is every the story so far. You've got things like Rory's
• 2:08:15
  saying soldiers in my house and he's in his pants, which is a
• 2:08:17
  lovely woman. You know, they've got real
• 2:08:19
  chemistry after Darvo, like Karen Gillan, and it's delight
• 2:08:22
  to see them and that's just like seeing them away from the
• 2:08:25
  doctor. I mean those little bits where
• 2:08:29
  they go off to the Savoy and that must cost him a fortune for
• 2:08:33
  just a little moment. But they invest so much in that
• 2:08:36
  because they wanted to show these characters that they're
• 2:08:40
  what they're all about. You know, I like the fact it's a
• 2:08:44
  long term invasion story. I mean, it's not Crash, Wham,
• 2:08:46
  wallop, it's a cube and then what's going on?
• 2:08:51
  I mean, it is very realistic as well that if that really
• 2:08:53
  happened, we would be stupid enough to just go get a cube,
• 2:08:56
  bring it in the house, think nothing about it.
• 2:08:58
  So it's actually not the worst idea for a villain.
• 2:09:01
  I'll just take my time before I I'll get rid of this false sense
• 2:09:04
  security before I then well, some of the things are a bit
• 2:09:07
  ludicrous, you know, of all the things to kill humanity is put
• 2:09:13
  everyone in a heart attack when you've got they could have done
• 2:09:15
  literally anything. Every cube does something
• 2:09:17
  different and that is the one thing that shows.
• 2:09:19
  That is a bit lame, but it. Struck me there while you were
• 2:09:22
  saying that there there is something quite ahead of its
• 2:09:25
  time as well with the cubes. So the cubes are are collecting
• 2:09:28
  data on the human race. We've allowed it into our homes.
• 2:09:33
  This is like what six years before we all started being
• 2:09:37
  concerned about Alexa and and sort of data mining and Facebook
• 2:09:42
  and social and how all that's going to work.
• 2:09:44
  So, yeah, so it is quite ahead. Do you think they're selling all
• 2:09:46
  that information on the galactic market?
• 2:09:49
  This is what's going on on the Earth.
• 2:09:51
  Here's all the stats. Come along you can.
• 2:09:53
  Oh no, wait, we've killed them all with heart attack.
• 2:09:55
  Sorry, but they've made a buck. They've made a buck as well.
• 2:09:58
  Be honest, the way the human race is going, we'll do it
• 2:10:00
  ourselves, but we didn't need an alien to destroy us.
• 2:10:03
  But I digress. Brian again is brilliant.
• 2:10:07
  I mean, Mark Williams in these two episodes we'll talk about, I
• 2:10:09
  mean the other episode later, but I mean his theory about the
• 2:10:12
  cubes being little bombs and seeing him staying in the TARDIS
• 2:10:16
  for days like a, you know, and then they're like, oh, you've
• 2:10:19
  actually been in your four days and you've been watching the QP
• 2:10:21
  for four days. That was just lovely.
• 2:10:24
  I think he's just a joy to watch that scene where he find, well,
• 2:10:30
  the the, the end story first, but he sends them on the way for
• 2:10:32
  final adventure because he says, look, just do it.
• 2:10:35
  I'll water the plants. Lovely, lovely stuff.
• 2:10:37
  And that's seen his husband, the Doctor.
• 2:10:38
  But he says what happened to them because he realizes they've
• 2:10:41
  been away for a couple of weeks and he just says, well, what
• 2:10:43
  happens to them? And then it's a lovely little
• 2:10:46
  moment he's came a Sue Arthur Darville I've been working at
• 2:10:50
  the hospital Rd. is safe and laughter when he says what's the
• 2:10:53
  name of the blog Brian's Log. He just staples the laughter
• 2:10:57
  when he's having the the coffee And I love the bit where he's
• 2:11:00
  proud his son saying to the doctor that there's more to life
• 2:11:03
  than you. Rhodes right in the doctor was
• 2:11:05
  really cruel saying that saying is what you're really going to
• 2:11:08
  just have a job in a hospital you know and he's like well
• 2:11:11
  actually there's more to life than you.
• 2:11:12
  And you can see if you watch Mark Williams and that scene has
• 2:11:15
  he looks so proud of his son for just like yeah, you're right,
• 2:11:18
  you know you tell him what you think.
• 2:11:21
  It's just that look of pride. And that moment on the trolley
• 2:11:24
  where he's open mouthed when he sees the Grow Mary and he's LED
• 2:11:27
  away is just hilarious. The music, the, the Cube theme
• 2:11:34
  and the. Whistle.
• 2:11:36
  Yeah, and I think it's really well directed.
• 2:11:38
  I mean, some of the shots, like the pan up to the ponds window
• 2:11:40
  is Brian knocks on the door. And this isn't looking at things
• 2:11:44
  straight on the Doctor on the climbing frame, speed up shots
• 2:11:47
  of the Doctor do domestic things I'd rather like.
• 2:11:48
  That scene, like Doctor, is so bored I think that I leave.
• 2:11:51
  Very Sherlock, isn't it? Yeah, it's it's very like, you
• 2:11:54
  know, I'm bored silly here. I can't even just stay here and
• 2:11:57
  do nothing and nothing's happening.
• 2:11:58
  I'll go and do the and I've seen that and they flick back to
• 2:12:03
  their domestic life all the time and it's great fun.
• 2:12:07
  I mean, the The Chicken song is obviously a really good gag.
• 2:12:11
  Brian Cox appears and I've got a mad person on a bike outside.
• 2:12:15
  Sorry, I mean that prick gallon sugar shows up as well.
• 2:12:18
  But Brian Cox appearing, I mean the most enthusiastic physicist
• 2:12:23
  known to mankind is is a great little cameo.
• 2:12:27
  Kate Stewart is actually all right in this I think was the
• 2:12:29
  comment on put in my podcast because she she just becomes a
• 2:12:32
  cardboard cut out later on. Sorry Lucy McCall and Jill Short
• 2:12:35
  who love her out there, but she's actually all right in
• 2:12:38
  this. She's actually A3 dimensional
• 2:12:41
  person I. Counted Dave.
• 2:12:42
  She smiled three times in this. Episode actually.
• 2:12:46
  She doesn't smile again in the Muffet era, but she smiled three
• 2:12:49
  times in this episode. She's a living, breathing person
• 2:12:51
  in US. And that scene, as we touched on
• 2:12:54
  at the end, which has had a lump in my foot when she's talking
• 2:12:56
  about, I knew, I knew that you were his daughter.
• 2:13:00
  And and it wasn't just Stephen Berkoff that caused the
• 2:13:04
  fractured ending. I mean, when I've done the thing
• 2:13:06
  for my podcast, the production wanted to change the emphasis of
• 2:13:09
  the ending to to be more on Amy and Rory, because I think the
• 2:13:12
  original ending was that the Shark Key were going to have.
• 2:13:16
  They were going to put injections in his neck and he
• 2:13:19
  was just going to slump, which sounds even more crap than what
• 2:13:22
  we got. So yes, the ending is really
• 2:13:24
  muddled and really abrupt, but they actually wanted it like
• 2:13:26
  that because they wanted it to be focusing on Amy and Rory.
• 2:13:29
  I don't know what the girl's about when she's there for
• 2:13:33
  months and nobody notices and the track tree ultimately while
• 2:13:38
  looking like a great crack rock, just expels claptrap like the
• 2:13:41
  tally will be paid and as I'm not obsessed with the number
• 2:13:44
  seven, I'm not quite sure what's going on.
• 2:13:47
  But it's about the points. I mean I'm I'm using the reverse
• 2:13:52
  argument what I used in one of the other episodes we talked
• 2:13:55
  about but back of being a prick it's probably a good thing we
• 2:13:59
  don't see much of them. As we've said, I think it's in.
• 2:14:04
  So it's going through, Joe. Yes.
• 2:14:08
  I wasn't going to put this through because I do think it
• 2:14:11
  has issues. And the biggest issue is
• 2:14:13
  obviously the ending where Howard episode can start this
• 2:14:16
  strong and end this badly was pure Chip.
• 2:14:20
  No, no, it's. Did I say that?
• 2:14:23
  No, no, it is a it is a really dodgy, unevolving ending, which
• 2:14:28
  is a big, big problem. But Roger was so mean about this
• 2:14:32
  that I'm going to focus on all the positives and put it through
• 2:14:35
  like everyone. Everybody else?
• 2:14:36
  Of course you. Are and everyone in the
• 2:14:37
  comments. So it makes you the entire
• 2:14:39
  outlier to this. Into this episode?
• 2:14:41
  Well, that's never happened before, has it?
• 2:14:43
  Because I think you need this episode, you need this episode
• 2:14:46
  for this mini season to make sense.
• 2:14:48
  You need to see the the friction between them staying on earth
• 2:14:54
  and going in this hardest. And it really leans insight into
• 2:14:57
  the beginning. And they're they're sort of
• 2:14:59
  cross cutting. One thing Chibwell does really
• 2:15:02
  well is he adapts to the showrunner that's in charge.
• 2:15:07
  So in Rusty Davis's time he wrote Rusty Davis style episode
• 2:15:11
  show big bowl 42 countdown full of drama, you know, and lots of
• 2:15:15
  character. Here he's bringing in a sort of
• 2:15:19
  hybrid of Rusty Davis with the news reports and all that sort
• 2:15:23
  of spectacle. But that crazy cost cross
• 2:15:27
  cutting of things happening in the pre title sequence is very
• 2:15:31
  more fair. You know how how sort of
• 2:15:33
  complicated all that is and I think he does it really well.
• 2:15:37
  He adopts Moffett's style really, really well and I think
• 2:15:40
  all of those jumps about all over the place are fun.
• 2:15:43
  It's really fun and there's an element of sex in it, which I
• 2:15:48
  think he bring because his own era is totally senseless, isn't
• 2:15:52
  it? But when he's writing for
• 2:15:53
  Moffett's era, he adds sleazy jokes because he thinks that's
• 2:15:56
  what Moffett wants to hear. He'll keep We haven't got the
• 2:15:59
  dinosaurs on the spaceship yet, but there's a terrible one in
• 2:16:02
  there. But I think the Amy and Rory
• 2:16:06
  stuff is brilliant, and everybody mentioned in the
• 2:16:09
  comments about that scene outside you headquarters.
• 2:16:12
  It's beautifully written and beautifully acted, and I think
• 2:16:16
  you need that moment as well for the Angels Take Manhattan to
• 2:16:19
  land. So I think all of that stuff is
• 2:16:21
  absolutely vital. I love the cube invasion, so
• 2:16:24
  simple. A cube like the Borg in Star
• 2:16:26
  Trek, a very simple design. The suspense around that plot is
• 2:16:31
  when are they going to start doing something?
• 2:16:33
  And halfway through the episode they start counting down and
• 2:16:37
  it's brilliant. That whole sequence of unit
• 2:16:39
  headquarters as they counted down, you go from one cube to
• 2:16:41
  another and you're like, shit, what's going to happen when we
• 2:16:44
  get to 0? It's a bit disappointing, but
• 2:16:47
  until that point the suspense is really, really great and the
• 2:16:50
  jokes that he plays rather the birdie song like Dave said when
• 2:16:53
  they open that door. I've not heard that since my Nan
• 2:16:56
  used to make me endure that as a kid.
• 2:16:58
  But it's very, very funny. And you know what?
• 2:17:02
  I'm going to put this through for no other reason than the
• 2:17:05
  fact that Gemma Redgrave is actually endurable for one
• 2:17:10
  episode of Doctor Who. She's really quite fun and
• 2:17:13
  likable, and I feel as if she's got a bit of character in this.
• 2:17:17
  She isn't just the face of UNIT, she genuinely feels like the
• 2:17:21
  Brigadier's daughter. She's massively competent at
• 2:17:25
  what she's doing and she smiles three times.
• 2:17:30
  So yeah, it's 3 for three. I'm afraid it's going through.
• 2:17:33
  Which is makes it 4 for four so far.
• 2:17:35
  So we're only left with dinosaurs on a spaceship, so
• 2:17:39
  we're going to have to leave it to our guest to fight out Dave
• 2:17:42
  Mark, who wants to take the lead on dinosaurs.
• 2:17:46
  Bye, bye, bye, bye. Who feels?
• 2:17:48
  Really passionate. I don't.
• 2:17:50
  I don't mind taking it if. No.
• 2:17:53
  Just remark. So, polite pair of you.
• 2:17:55
  Aren't they just not like us, are they?
• 2:17:59
  So right now, Dinosaurs in spaceship.
• 2:18:03
  I love this. I unironically love this.
• 2:18:08
  I think it it definitely has issues, don't get me wrong.
• 2:18:12
  But there is a childish Glee to this story that I just find
• 2:18:18
  incredibly infectious and it's, you know, it's summed up by Matt
• 2:18:22
  Smith sort of directly to camera saying dinosaurs on a spaceship
• 2:18:29
  before they started titles crashing.
• 2:18:30
  So. That is the ultimate example of
• 2:18:32
  the movie of the week. In it him looking at the camera
• 2:18:35
  and saying what it is. This is what we're doing this
• 2:18:37
  week we're doing. We're doing dinosaurs, and
• 2:18:40
  they're on a spaceship. So the things I love about it is
• 2:18:43
  that I think it's the first time.
• 2:18:45
  I'm probably wrong, but I think it's the first time that we've
• 2:18:48
  had a proper sort of companion father and son relationship.
• 2:18:53
  We've had a lot of mothers and daughters In the RTD era.
• 2:18:58
  Amy doesn't really have parents, although she kind of does, but
• 2:19:01
  doesn't really. It's kind of a weird thing, you
• 2:19:03
  know, because the crack, it's all because of the crack.
• 2:19:06
  But here we get Rory's dad, who is.
• 2:19:11
  There's just this really lovely thing of that.
• 2:19:13
  You can see the lineage from from Brian to Rory.
• 2:19:18
  They're both. It's just really nice, like
• 2:19:23
  dependable blokes that should have gone in different
• 2:19:26
  directions because we all reject our parents to some degree.
• 2:19:31
  So whereas Brian's very kind of stuck in his ways and stays at
• 2:19:34
  home, Rory goes out and has adventures.
• 2:19:37
  And it's about Rory kind of showing his dad's that actually
• 2:19:41
  there is another way and you can go out and see the world and and
• 2:19:45
  sort of broaden your horizons and they're just really funny
• 2:19:50
  together. Arthur Darvill and Mark
• 2:19:52
  Williams, there's just such great chemistry that you just
• 2:19:56
  absolutely buy into them as a as a father and son.
• 2:20:01
  And just all the stupid stuff like the Doctor thinking Brian's
• 2:20:05
  some kind of, you know, interloper in this artist.
• 2:20:09
  And then the kind of argument with with Rory, it's just like,
• 2:20:12
  well, no, you materialize the TARDIS around as well.
• 2:20:15
  He was changing a light bulb. What am I supposed to do?
• 2:20:19
  And I love the fact that the episodes sort of teams the
• 2:20:22
  Doctor up with Rory and Brian and then you you get Amy getting
• 2:20:29
  to be the Doctor with with the other two, the other two
• 2:20:32
  characters. So yeah, I love, I just love
• 2:20:36
  this record, what it does with the core dynamics of the Doctor,
• 2:20:39
  Amy and Rory, that's great. The dinosaurs, I think, you
• 2:20:45
  know, this isn't invasion of the dinosaur as much as I love it.
• 2:20:49
  And it does that thing that Jurassic.
• 2:20:51
  I mean, it's not Jurassic Park, but it it remembers what makes
• 2:20:55
  Jurassic Park so memorable and so, so strong a film and why
• 2:21:02
  Jurassic Park hasn't dated in a way that a lot of later films
• 2:21:07
  that rely purely on CGI have dated, which is that you need
• 2:21:12
  something tangible. So this kind of mixes
• 2:21:15
  animatronics with CGI and it gives you something to kind of
• 2:21:20
  relate to. I mean, it makes you, it makes
• 2:21:24
  you feel sorry for a triceratops that's been gunned down by
• 2:21:29
  Mitchell and when. That was the saddest moment of
• 2:21:32
  the season, I thought. Is there anything more Doctor
• 2:21:35
  Who than two RC robots voiced by comedians booting a Triceratops
• 2:21:43
  to death whilst a serious actor looks all sad?
• 2:21:49
  And for like, that's Doctor Who. That's the indefinable magic of
• 2:21:52
  Doctor Who right there, they. Said to Matt Smith his audition.
• 2:21:56
  It'll be a challenge, all right. You're going to have to, yeah.
• 2:22:00
  But I just think it's great. And you know Amy and the what's
• 2:22:06
  the. I can't remember the character.
• 2:22:09
  Yes, Riddell, I was going to go, you know, the from Astrad, from
• 2:22:12
  Sherlock, but those two just, you know, shooting CGI
• 2:22:17
  velociraptors, it's just so silly and fun and I think it's,
• 2:22:23
  it's really enjoyable. And then thirdly, now I think
• 2:22:30
  this might, I don't know, I think this might be
• 2:22:32
  controversial. I think, I think David Bradley
• 2:22:35
  is a properly nasty villain in in the in a way that we've not
• 2:22:43
  really had him on modern Doctor. He feels like a kind of Robert
• 2:22:46
  Holmes like late period Robert Holmes villain, like a caves of
• 2:22:50
  Andrew Zani or two Doctors villain.
• 2:22:52
  This is a guy who does not operate on the Doctor's level
• 2:22:57
  and it but at the same time is not sort of big sort of panto
• 2:23:04
  villain. He's just, he's just a shyster
• 2:23:07
  who's in it for his own, his own game, you know, that who who
• 2:23:12
  puts profit above all else? He'll like massacre a whole ship
• 2:23:18
  full of Silurians just to get the precious cargo.
• 2:23:22
  And I I remember when this went out, there was people, because
• 2:23:26
  people love to do this. And I don't get it.
• 2:23:28
  I do not get it. People love whenever Doctor Who
• 2:23:32
  does something like the Doctor, like murders a bunch of people,
• 2:23:35
  you go, Oh well, that's not very Doctor Who.
• 2:23:37
  Say, hang on a minute, sorry, hang on a minute.
• 2:23:40
  Have you been watching the show since 1963?
• 2:23:42
  The first serial he bring, he almost brings a caveman with a
• 2:23:45
  rock. It's very Doctor Who.
• 2:23:47
  And also he gives him chances because I, in revisiting this,
• 2:23:52
  was like, I'll be really interested to see that because I
• 2:23:55
  remember at the time, everybody thinking, oh, it's like it's
• 2:23:58
  pretty scorched earth, the way that the Doctor treats Solomon.
• 2:24:03
  But it's not. He does the David Tennant thing
• 2:24:06
  of he in that sort of halfway through the episode, it's like
• 2:24:10
  Solomon, I'm giving you one last chance here to get off the ship
• 2:24:15
  while you still can. And he doesn't because his greed
• 2:24:18
  won't let him and he comes back, He kidnaps Nefertiti.
• 2:24:24
  And the Doctor's like, all right, fine, I can't negotiate
• 2:24:26
  with you. So I'm an alien with a different
• 2:24:29
  sense of morality than the viewers at home.
• 2:24:31
  So here, catch. And then, you know, they can
• 2:24:34
  blow up the ship, he can save the dinosaurs, Everybody's happy
• 2:24:37
  because the guy's, the guy's a rapist, right?
• 2:24:41
  We're going to, we're going to go down that.
• 2:24:43
  We're going to go down that road.
• 2:24:44
  He's not a good guy. You remember the end of the
• 2:24:46
  Christmas invasion when he uses that tangerine and murders the
• 2:24:50
  correct leader. No one had an issue with that
• 2:24:52
  because he was quoting The Lion King 5 minutes ago.
• 2:24:54
  You know, for some reason people really went to town on.
• 2:24:57
  This No one bats an eye. I Because for some reason,
• 2:24:59
  nobody bats an eye when Russell T Davis does anything.
• 2:25:03
  But Jody? Jody took out three armies in
• 2:25:06
  the Vanquishers you know and then skip.
• 2:25:08
  People, they're not about that. They're like, oh, I said.
• 2:25:11
  They're taleks and some tyrants and Cybermen.
• 2:25:13
  Who cares? Well, last week we did the
• 2:25:15
  Dominators and packed trout and threw the bomb into the
• 2:25:17
  Dominator ship. He was going around with those
• 2:25:21
  those things and sees the deck and wiping out exactly and asked
• 2:25:25
  for Colin. You know, so I think you know
• 2:25:30
  and I think it you're you're with the Doctor in that decision
• 2:25:34
  and it's because of David Bradley's points because he just
• 2:25:37
  exudes just odious, like scuzzy predatory villain.
• 2:25:44
  He's brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
• 2:25:46
  So yeah, those are my three reasons for evening.
• 2:25:50
  Horror, isn't it? Yes.
• 2:25:51
  Yes, let us go to the Commons, the final batch of comments.
• 2:25:55
  So Crash Dummy says. Brilliant, fun, funny.
• 2:25:58
  On one of the top five of the Moffett era.
• 2:26:01
  Brian elevates the story and you can see his success leading
• 2:26:04
  directly to Graham in season 11. It's also shows chippers can
• 2:26:08
  write a three person TARDIS team with extra guests, which he
• 2:26:11
  doesn't show elsewhere. Joe Llewellen Still my favorite
• 2:26:15
  Chipnall story. Like the guest cast.
• 2:26:17
  Love Brian. Like the little groups, Riddell
• 2:26:19
  should have been an unlikable cliche, but wasn't.
• 2:26:22
  Same with Nefertiti, an underrated gem.
• 2:26:25
  Looks really good on ATV budget. Dylan Reece's best of the
• 2:26:29
  season. Another wonderful looking
• 2:26:30
  episode and a rippering adventure full of great laughs.
• 2:26:33
  Oh this chip. No love Fraser.
• 2:26:36
  Gregory. What promises to be a light
• 2:26:37
  hearted Rob goes in a very dark direction which allows Smith to
• 2:26:41
  reveal in the dark side of his Doctor.
• 2:26:44
  The normalization of the ponds life continues with the
• 2:26:46
  introduction of Brian, one of the best supporting family
• 2:26:49
  characters in any era. The team of Nefertiti and
• 2:26:52
  Riddell falls flat, but David Bradley Solomon is top tier
• 2:26:55
  villain. Plus, it had Mitchell and Webb
• 2:26:57
  keep it. Jack Coya.
• 2:26:59
  I'm not going to do a Matt Smith impression.
• 2:27:01
  So he quotes the Doctor saying I thought we might need a gang.
• 2:27:04
  Really. Not really had a gang.
• 2:27:06
  It's new Chipnall taking notes for his future on the show.
• 2:27:10
  The dinosaurs are fun, but Chipnall's strength is putting
• 2:27:12
  the Doctor in the room with one villain and letting them spar.
• 2:27:16
  And in true Chipnall fashion, it's bordering on small C
• 2:27:19
  conservativism. The sort of story that argues
• 2:27:22
  it's just a bit of fun, really, Bradley and Smith aside.
• 2:27:26
  John Benzaglia A small screen attempt at Jurassic Park.
• 2:27:29
  Characters are non existent cliches, although David
• 2:27:32
  Bradley's quite good most annoying robots ever thanks to
• 2:27:35
  David Mitchell who has the most annoying voice ever.
• 2:27:39
  Overall, more shallow than a kid's paddling pool.
• 2:27:43
  Darren Lit Roundles says. Probably one of the best things
• 2:27:45
  Chipmel wrote for the show. The pile on of bonkers elements
• 2:27:49
  works for me and adds to the fun.
• 2:27:51
  Love the addition of Brian again, a talented director
• 2:27:54
  brings it alive visually. Love the cold demise of the
• 2:27:57
  body. Michael Storm An entertaining
• 2:27:59
  and fun episode. If you view it as a straight to
• 2:28:02
  video cash in on a major motion picture, make sure web comedy
• 2:28:06
  robots are irritating in the extreme.
• 2:28:08
  Solomon is a truly nasty piece of work and David Bradley brings
• 2:28:13
  his vileness out in full, but he's hard to believe that's the
• 2:28:17
  first Doctor as well, isn't it? But Even so, the Doctor cold
• 2:28:20
  bloodedly murdering him feels off.
• 2:28:23
  Jason Thompson says a decent enough tale, although the random
• 2:28:26
  gathering of a team of people seems weird.
• 2:28:29
  Hooray for Mark Williams as Rory's dad, he's excellent
• 2:28:32
  throughout his appearances. David Bradley Solomon is a
• 2:28:35
  decent villain, too. Daniel Knight, Great fun.
• 2:28:37
  Mark Williams is so brilliant as Brian.
• 2:28:40
  Lots of Brian Love. It's a shame they didn't
• 2:28:42
  introduce him earlier. David Bradley is also good as
• 2:28:44
  the villain, but shame on the production team for giving him
• 2:28:47
  such an obviously Semitic name. And finally, Tina says fabulous
• 2:28:52
  fun on one of me and my husband's comfort watch
• 2:28:55
  episodes. Casting Mark Williams as Rory's
• 2:28:57
  dad was genius. So Dave, do you agree with Mark
• 2:29:03
  or disagree? I totally agree with Mark.
• 2:29:06
  I like this one as well. Mark Williams, as, as we've
• 2:29:13
  said, all the love for Brian. I mean, he's just fantastic on
• 2:29:16
  us. I mean, he gets his ball sniffed
• 2:29:18
  by a triceratops, gets short, he rides a dinosaur.
• 2:29:24
  I mean, he's such a positive person to be around and that
• 2:29:27
  little bit at the end when he's over the edge of the tard, the
• 2:29:29
  seat needs lunch and a sandwich that is just so sweet.
• 2:29:32
  And I said earlier about Carla Jacks, about how it's more
• 2:29:36
  realistic to have a volume with lots of layers.
• 2:29:37
  But I think in Doctor Who it's one of these shows we can get
• 2:29:40
  away with just having a straight a bad guy.
• 2:29:43
  And Solomon in this, he reminded me a bit of a faun in the power
• 2:29:46
  of Kroll and that he's just a complete rotor.
• 2:29:49
  He's, you know, it's it's just a really horrible piece of work
• 2:29:52
  and with bad legs who apparently I was reading that he, I read
• 2:29:57
  that he was based on a nightclub owner with long hair.
• 2:30:01
  I mean, my first reaction to that was is, was he based on who
• 2:30:04
  was that? Peter Stream.
• 2:30:06
  Fellow Possibly. Yeah, I.
• 2:30:08
  Was going to say Jimmy Savile, but he was a nightclub.
• 2:30:13
  Owner and he was. I'm horrid as well.
• 2:30:16
  Wasn't he? I mean, he he plays this wicked
• 2:30:18
  trader. I mean with the right level of
• 2:30:20
  his ability that it not to be pantomime.
• 2:30:22
  And he looks vile with that bearded look, the leather outfit
• 2:30:25
  and the most vicious looking walking sticks I've ever seen.
• 2:30:29
  I mean, he just sent the sailors to death to get some dinosaurs,
• 2:30:32
  and it's just a slimeball with Nefertiti, as we've said.
• 2:30:35
  I mean, I'll break you in with immense pleasure indeed.
• 2:30:37
  I mean, oh, let's just go there. No.
• 2:30:40
  You love though, Dave the fact that, you know, he's clearly so
• 2:30:43
  awful looking and yet in his first scene he's like, oh
• 2:30:46
  doctor, oh, you know, I'm an innocent here on the bed he
• 2:30:49
  tries to. Play.
• 2:30:51
  I think he's just an uncomplicated, horrible guy and
• 2:30:55
  he just kills Trixie because he can, just because he's bad.
• 2:30:59
  I mean, I think it was quite up that his final bet is like he's
• 2:31:02
  like a bit of cartoon building at the end where he's shouting
• 2:31:04
  Dr. as his ship gets blown up. But I just love the fact that
• 2:31:08
  he's, he's not a deep one. And I said because this story
• 2:31:11
  for me, after we've had the complicated season six, we've
• 2:31:14
  had the same with the Daleks, which, well, we'll not go over
• 2:31:16
  that again. But this is just fun.
• 2:31:19
  This isn't a big complicated plot.
• 2:31:21
  This is just a bit of fun. It goes back to basics about a
• 2:31:26
  ship just trying to avoid a missile.
• 2:31:28
  You know, Matt Smith I think is infectious in this.
• 2:31:31
  I mean, he's enthusiasm. He hugs Amy after not seen her
• 2:31:35
  for a while. He kisses Rory and is loving it
• 2:31:39
  on the beach saying Oh well, you know, we're, I think we're in
• 2:31:42
  the engine room and and oh, there's metal on the floor.
• 2:31:45
  It's such fun to be around in this, I mean.
• 2:31:47
  I love in that bit, the bit where Ryan's like, oh are those
• 2:31:50
  kestrels? And he's just like, I do hope
• 2:31:53
  so. It's just such a brilliant
• 2:31:55
  delivery of that line. It's it's great.
• 2:31:57
  I was desperate for those peridactyls to come down going.
• 2:32:06
  I mean, he's like a little kid when he rides the dinosaur, but
• 2:32:09
  he's ancient and weary as well when he confronts it as death
• 2:32:12
  because he's relating to it because it was like the last is
• 2:32:15
  is the last of its kind of thing, we're told.
• 2:32:19
  And then the scene where he confronts Solomon, I mean,
• 2:32:21
  again, he's, I get the criticism about, Oh yeah, yeah.
• 2:32:25
  Rather, I don't, as we've talked about the whole how can you have
• 2:32:29
  a go at the Doctor putting the guy to his death when he's done
• 2:32:32
  all these other things? I mean.
• 2:32:33
  But again this is continuing this season's thing of when the
• 2:32:36
  companions aren't around him he's going to be a bit more
• 2:32:38
  rufous. I mean I love when he's smoked
• 2:32:41
  him and says like they outwitted you and he's just and he has his
• 2:32:45
  hands right his back when he's saying don't mess with this
• 2:32:47
  Egyptian queen man. Therefore TT just completely
• 2:32:49
  like gets pins him down. He's loving it.
• 2:32:55
  I don't mind the fact that he literally says he's deaf.
• 2:32:57
  It's almost poetic justice really.
• 2:33:00
  Have I got anybody else that we've not discussed the gang
• 2:33:05
  thing. I mean nowadays he they're all,
• 2:33:07
  he's all he she or they are always picking up a gang.
• 2:33:12
  OK, there for TT and the gang Hunter don't make much an
• 2:33:14
  impression but and the robots are annoying.
• 2:33:17
  But you know, I quite like the fact he's just brought this
• 2:33:19
  little band together and they're just having a bit of fun.
• 2:33:25
  Yeah, I think I've pretty much covered everything.
• 2:33:27
  I don't think this is an absolute Tommy Law as it said in
• 2:33:30
  the episode. I think it's a the.
• 2:33:34
  Weird thing about the gang is that Riddell makes sense if the
• 2:33:39
  Doctor knows the ships from the Dino, but anyway, I'm not going
• 2:33:43
  to do. Can I take this Rod?
• 2:33:46
  Because I want you to be in the position of having to cull or
• 2:33:50
  Chipnall episode. Go for it.
• 2:33:53
  Oh, dinosaurs on a spaceship? Yeah, I don't like it.
• 2:33:58
  And I'm going to tell you why I don't like.
• 2:34:00
  I feel like it's. It leans into the worst of
• 2:34:03
  Chipnall's era later on, and that is just overloaded with
• 2:34:07
  elements in a 45 minute story. You know, dinosaurs, yay,
• 2:34:12
  robots, yay. Loaf of villains, yay,
• 2:34:16
  Silurians, yay. Historical guest characters,
• 2:34:18
  yay. No fucking time to deal with any
• 2:34:21
  of them in any way. It's just sort of throwing them
• 2:34:25
  all at you and going isn't this fun?
• 2:34:27
  And it is fun. There are fun moments in it, and
• 2:34:29
  there are fun set pieces and basically sort of everything you
• 2:34:32
  guys have said is true until you get to the line.
• 2:34:37
  I like my possessions to have spirit.
• 2:34:39
  It means I get to have fun breaking them and I will break
• 2:34:43
  you with immense pleasure. Which is a rape reference in
• 2:34:47
  Doctor Who and we shouldn't be going there.
• 2:34:50
  And I said that chimney was right in the sort of.
• 2:34:54
  We did have it quite a lot through the 60s I.
• 2:34:57
  Mean. I'm just in the new series I've.
• 2:34:59
  No, no I absolutely. Yeah, it's there in case of
• 2:35:01
  Mariners and it's there in. Time Meddler, Time Meddler.
• 2:35:07
  Yeah, and and in the Crusade, I think as well yet.
• 2:35:10
  But it doesn't ever belong in Doctor Who, I don't think, and I
• 2:35:13
  think that sort of uncomfortable sexualisation of the show in the
• 2:35:18
  Steven Moffett era, which leads to lines like Lara having, oh,
• 2:35:22
  she's got too short of a skirt and stuff like this.
• 2:35:24
  We shouldn't be doing this no matter what Luke Malloy says.
• 2:35:28
  It's it's really, really uncomfortable and Queen
• 2:35:34
  Nefertiti is sexualised throughout this.
• 2:35:38
  That's her purpose in this, and Riddell is the one doing a lot
• 2:35:43
  of that. I think one of his first lines
• 2:35:45
  is about, you know, handling two women or something like that.
• 2:35:48
  But I was fine. It's all in this weird sexy
• 2:35:51
  stuff which Moffett somehow, mostly he gets away with, but
• 2:35:56
  she just can't do it at all. Thank God, you know he put a
• 2:36:00
  condom on Doctor Who when he took over because he just.
• 2:36:03
  It's like the the worst, the worst excesses of Chipnall
• 2:36:11
  doing. This is Cyber Woman, you know,
• 2:36:13
  which let's not even touch it. It's just hideous.
• 2:36:17
  The robots are really annoying. Mitchell and Webb, I actually
• 2:36:20
  think are brilliant comedians. I love their sketch show.
• 2:36:24
  I think it's one of the most ingenious sketch shows out
• 2:36:26
  there. So what the hell they're doing
• 2:36:28
  in this being so annoying? I've no idea.
• 2:36:31
  God, I've had pubic lice less than annoying than them.
• 2:36:34
  Than this. Chipnalls I've never had.
• 2:36:38
  Pubic Eyes DVD in the end. Did they that'd?
• 2:36:40
  Be the new tagline for the podcast.
• 2:36:43
  No, Chip Chipmel's doing Moffett again.
• 2:36:46
  You've got another Pre title sequence which introduces a ton
• 2:36:49
  of characters in a load of locations and where I felt that
• 2:36:52
  it worked in Power of Three. It didn't really work for me
• 2:36:55
  here, and it's mostly because all that running around we do to
• 2:36:58
  pick up these characters. Queen Nefertiti and Rigel don't
• 2:37:02
  contribute anything to this story.
• 2:37:05
  They're just there, which is baffling.
• 2:37:08
  You've got Brian come along. That should be enough, right?
• 2:37:11
  And so I just don't get it. I I mean, I get the idea he's
• 2:37:14
  bringing in all these sort of fun elements, but it's it's
• 2:37:17
  overloaded for me and I'm really sorry because I feel like I'm
• 2:37:21
  going to disappoint everybody ever.
• 2:37:24
  But I just find Brian so fucking gormless.
• 2:37:28
  He's so boring. Like, I I can't see the lineage
• 2:37:32
  between Brian and Rory. I love Rory.
• 2:37:35
  He's great. Brian, man, he he walks around
• 2:37:38
  like a dull Simpsons character, doesn't go what's going on?
• 2:37:42
  You know, I just don't get it. So I know I get everyone loves
• 2:37:46
  him and he's very sweet. You you bloody love all your you
• 2:37:49
  know Jackie Tyler is your big campaign soap don't characters
• 2:37:53
  don't you And that's what it is. You don't, you know you don't
• 2:37:55
  like the grit and the you know, just a dependable I.
• 2:37:58
  Don't think Brian and grit really go in the same sentence
• 2:38:01
  to be fair. And I will say that Graham is
• 2:38:04
  one of my favorite characters in Doctor Who and and I feel like
• 2:38:06
  Graham is Brian done well, you know, with a bit of death and do
• 2:38:11
  you know what? Very.
• 2:38:13
  Fair enough. You guys will find him likable.
• 2:38:15
  I just think he's dull as anything to watch.
• 2:38:19
  And you know a bit at the end where he's sort of hanging his
• 2:38:21
  legs out the tard. It's like someone push him out,
• 2:38:24
  please. And it is weird, his admission
• 2:38:29
  in that last episode, this season.
• 2:38:30
  It is weird, isn't it? Given the sort of build up that
• 2:38:33
  we've had, it really feels like like he should have been a part
• 2:38:36
  of the age of takes Manhand. Was there anything else?
• 2:38:41
  No, I think that's it. Oh, I do really like, I like the
• 2:38:46
  reveal that it's a Silurian ship.
• 2:38:48
  When that comes along and he does that music from Cold War
• 2:38:53
  kicks in. And I really thought they were
• 2:38:55
  going to do something interesting with the Silurians.
• 2:38:57
  And then it turns out, no, they were just all booted off the
• 2:38:59
  ship. David Bradley's brilliant.
• 2:39:01
  I couldn't take my eyes off David Bradley.
• 2:39:03
  And he is truly loathsome in the way, like you said, Mark, a lot
• 2:39:07
  of Doctor villains on pardon the set pieces aside, I feel like
• 2:39:13
  this is an uncomfortable hybrid of everything that Chris Chippel
• 2:39:17
  does badly and everything that Steven Moffett especially.
• 2:39:21
  So it's it's not a win for me. But Rod, why don't you tell us
• 2:39:24
  all why you're going to put it through?
• 2:39:26
  Why? I've got a casting vote on the
• 2:39:27
  Cheap Chris Chippel episode that you've condemned.
• 2:39:30
  This is a rarity. I'm putting it through.
• 2:39:35
  I knew you was. I'm going to.
• 2:39:38
  Put that's five for five. What's going on?
• 2:39:40
  I. Know.
• 2:39:41
  So I'm putting this through because I think Chibnall, Chris
• 2:39:44
  Chibnall in this occasion got the note he was told we're doing
• 2:39:48
  movie of the week and he's doing movie of the week.
• 2:39:51
  I mean it's the most obvious busted offspring of you know,
• 2:39:54
  Jurassic Park and snakes on the plane.
• 2:39:56
  He's just merged them together. We have got hang.
• 2:40:00
  On. Hang on, hang on, hang on.
• 2:40:01
  Yeah, You're welcome to like this, but you don't like a rat
• 2:40:03
  needs in the UK, which is just a riff on every spider field.
• 2:40:06
  Go. Yeah.
• 2:40:07
  OK. Fair enough.
• 2:40:09
  Keeping a powder dry on that one.
• 2:40:11
  So this has got every single movie cliche, big blockbuster
• 2:40:16
  cliche you could think of. It's action-packed.
• 2:40:19
  You've got threats from the dinosaurs, you've got threats
• 2:40:21
  from robots, threats from Solomon, threats from missiles.
• 2:40:25
  You've got misjudge comedy sequences, which are absolutely
• 2:40:28
  part of every big blockbuster out there.
• 2:40:31
  You've got big cast of heroes. You've got real hessebel villain
• 2:40:35
  in Solomon. You've got a bit of romance with
• 2:40:38
  Nefertiti and Riddell. You throw in a way to issue, to
• 2:40:43
  make it look like you're serious.
• 2:40:44
  So we talk about genocide. You get the most ridiculous plot
• 2:40:48
  contrivance you've ever had in Doctor Who, which is all this
• 2:40:51
  spaceship can only be flown by two people from the same gene.
• 2:40:56
  So Brian and Rory Butterflyer. Again, that's just a staple.
• 2:41:00
  Of suddenly theological details don't bother.
• 2:41:03
  You guys, you've got a cameo from Cylorians, you know you've
• 2:41:08
  got the whole range and it's a visual treat.
• 2:41:10
  Apart from the Tricy running away with the Doctor on the back
• 2:41:14
  of it whilst the robots are chasing, that is the slowest
• 2:41:17
  chase I've ever seen. Did you watch The Confidential?
• 2:41:20
  It's because it's a terrible monster.
• 2:41:24
  But it's a heady cocktail of blockbuster cliches, and if
• 2:41:28
  that's what we're going for this season, then it fulfils the
• 2:41:31
  brief. So for that alone, I'm going to
• 2:41:33
  give it a pass. I will say it has got a bonus
• 2:41:36
  point for the Terry Nation naming convention that the head
• 2:41:40
  of the Indian Space control is called Indira.
• 2:41:46
  I'm back, Terry. It's the.
• 2:41:47
  Second imagination signal took into his O'Neill.
• 2:41:50
  Sadly, you took the words right out of my mouth.
• 2:41:53
  Down it's. Word for Terry Nation, all
• 2:41:55
  right. The main companions, I think
• 2:41:58
  they're pretty well served here. I love the way, Mark, you
• 2:42:01
  pointed out that Amy kind of plays pseudo Dr. and takes the
• 2:42:04
  role and takes charge her party, and she absolutely does.
• 2:42:07
  I think she's shows herself as bright and intelligent.
• 2:42:10
  She, you know, works out what's going on on the ship.
• 2:42:13
  She plays action heroine when she's firing away at the
• 2:42:17
  Raptors. Rory is great.
• 2:42:20
  I mean, yeah, Arthur Darvill throughout the whole season has
• 2:42:23
  been fantastic, hasn't he? He just plays that character so
• 2:42:26
  well. I agree.
• 2:42:27
  I can see the lineage with Brian and Rory.
• 2:42:29
  They're definitely cut from the same cloth.
• 2:42:31
  It's a shame that Chipnall didn't follow the lead with
• 2:42:34
  Graham and just keep Graham as a semi regular as he does with
• 2:42:38
  Brian here rather than bring him on board the TARDIS, But that's
• 2:42:41
  for season 11. I disagree.
• 2:42:43
  I I think we should have got rid of Tush and Cole as he should
• 2:42:45
  have had him as the regular, and then just kept fratty Walsh from
• 2:42:48
  the TARDIS. Toast, toast.
• 2:42:51
  And Cole should have been on that spaceship with Solomon that
• 2:42:53
  gets blown up. We'd have all, we'd have all
• 2:42:55
  been happy then. And I love the fact at the end
• 2:43:00
  that the adventure inspires Brian to go travelling.
• 2:43:02
  So he's kind of morphing into his sun.
• 2:43:04
  I think that's a a nice ending for it.
• 2:43:06
  And then finally, I think the sets of locations we get so much
• 2:43:09
  here. We get, you know, ancient Egypt,
• 2:43:11
  you get the African plains, Indian space control, the
• 2:43:14
  spaceship, the hang of the plant room, the hydro power room,
• 2:43:19
  which obviously is a is a beach location.
• 2:43:21
  But you go from set to set to set.
• 2:43:23
  I mean, Joe, you said earlier about the money being on screen
• 2:43:25
  and I think this is the most obvious example of that.
• 2:43:28
  This absolutely feels like a multi billion # blockbuster and
• 2:43:33
  I'd say for 45 minutes I was thoroughly entertained.
• 2:43:36
  Has it got floors? Yes, it has, but it's a whole
• 2:43:38
  lot of fun. So I'm giving it a pass and it's
• 2:43:41
  through. Do you reckon it's because they
• 2:43:43
  had like a bigger budget because this was 5 episodes in a year?
• 2:43:48
  But, well, it wasn't, because the whole series, well, maybe It
• 2:43:50
  depends on how they authorize their budget.
• 2:43:53
  Yeah, no, yeah, it's it's just weird, isn't it?
• 2:43:56
  Because I think 77B looks way cheaper than 7.
• 2:43:59
  It does. It does.
• 2:44:01
  Maybe they put all the money up front and forgot about it later
• 2:44:04
  on. And the lead up to the 50th,
• 2:44:06
  yeah. Well, yeah, because then the
• 2:44:08
  50th looks quite expensive. So then, yeah, it's you've kind
• 2:44:12
  of got these sort of bookends, so the first five episodes
• 2:44:15
  looking really cinematic, the 50th looking great and sort of
• 2:44:18
  being a 3D movie and all that kind of thing.
• 2:44:21
  And then you've got season 7B, which is just kind of cheap bog.
• 2:44:24
  It's interesting, but 7B didn't get advertised as movie of the
• 2:44:28
  week, did it? You dropped that quite quickly.
• 2:44:33
  So I'm putting this through. So all five stories have gone
• 2:44:35
  through, which is quite remarkable.
• 2:44:38
  So we're on to round two. Which is, I think we're not the
• 2:44:41
  people in the comments, otherwise nothing would have
• 2:44:43
  gone through, nothing would have gone.
• 2:44:44
  Through I didn't think. I didn't think all five would go
• 2:44:46
  through. So it's always a nice surprise
• 2:44:49
  when it does. So round two, we start with
• 2:44:52
  Angels Take Manhattan and that is up against the power of
• 2:44:57
  three. I'll go first because I think
• 2:44:59
  it's going to be fairly obvious. I'm going Angels, Angels Take
• 2:45:02
  Manhattan, Joe. Angels Take Manhattan for me as
• 2:45:08
  well. Dave.
• 2:45:11
  Oh, I'm going to be outvoted anyway.
• 2:45:14
  I'm going to have to stick with my guns, and I might be mad, but
• 2:45:17
  I'll go for power of three. Dave, you are mad over.
• 2:45:20
  Tonight. I I think it is Angels Take
• 2:45:24
  Manhattan because it does have a bigger emotional punch, doesn't
• 2:45:28
  it? So power, that's.
• 2:45:29
  The first time we've had Moffett against Chipnall as well.
• 2:45:32
  Power of Three, thank goodness, is the first to fall, So we've
• 2:45:36
  got Asylum of the Daleks against Angels Take Manhattan.
• 2:45:44
  Angels take Manhattan. Dave, I think we know where
• 2:45:48
  you're going. It has to be angels, because
• 2:45:50
  asylum is just terrible. Mark Oh, this is tough.
• 2:45:57
  I think it's asylum for me. I just love it.
• 2:46:00
  I've always loved it. So I can't.
• 2:46:01
  I've got to stick to my guns. But I thoroughly enjoy both of
• 2:46:05
  them. But Angels has far more
• 2:46:07
  emotional beat for me. So it's Angels.
• 2:46:09
  So, Asylum of the Daleks, it's the 2nd.
• 2:46:14
  Time. Thank God for that.
• 2:46:15
  So we are left with three and we have dinosaurs on a spaceship.
• 2:46:22
  Sorry, Dinosaurs on a spaceship plays Town Called Mercy.
• 2:46:31
  I'll go first with this one. Town called.
• 2:46:33
  Mercy's got more depth and weight to it.
• 2:46:36
  That's an easy win for me as well, because I'm the only one
• 2:46:40
  who didn't like it. The honest horse and spaceship
• 2:46:42
  in the whole world. So tangled mercy.
• 2:46:44
  Dave. I like them both but it has to
• 2:46:48
  be timing it as it has got more weight to it.
• 2:46:51
  Mark, it's. It's.
• 2:46:54
  I mean it is obvious but then also it town called Mercy looks
• 2:47:01
  better and you're right. There's more.
• 2:47:04
  It's trying to do more. Yeah, right.
• 2:47:07
  I'm, I'm going to just be. I'm just going to go back and
• 2:47:10
  everything. I said.
• 2:47:12
  Town called mercy. So.
• 2:47:15
  One thing we've learned doing this is that Doctor Who fans
• 2:47:18
  contradict themselves all the time.
• 2:47:19
  Oh yeah. What do you mean?
• 2:47:21
  So we are left with Angels Take Manhattan against Town called
• 2:47:25
  Mercy. Those are our final two.
• 2:47:31
  I'm going to wait a bit this time so I can play my camp
• 2:47:33
  suspense music a bit longer, yeah.
• 2:47:35
  Let's go to Mark first. Yes, Angel State Manhattan for
• 2:47:44
  me it is. It just is because it it made me
• 2:47:48
  cry. Whereas Tyco Mercy just may be a
• 2:47:50
  bit long crossed. So, yeah, Angel State,
• 2:47:52
  Manhattan. Dave.
• 2:47:55
  I really, obviously, based on what I said earlier, I should be
• 2:47:58
  saying 10 Commerce. I'm actually really tall now
• 2:48:00
  because you did. He's all put up a good argument
• 2:48:03
  for angels. Oh God, that's a tough one.
• 2:48:12
  I'll stick. I'll stick with time, but I've
• 2:48:13
  got a horrible feeling we're going to have a tiebreaker and
• 2:48:15
  then I'm going to have to concede.
• 2:48:16
  But we'll see what? So we know who to novel if we do
• 2:48:21
  have a tiebreaker. John Ross.
• 2:48:23
  No, you go. I am going with angels because
• 2:48:28
  of the emotion attached to it. I think Amy and Rory are a great
• 2:48:32
  team. I really buy into them and their
• 2:48:35
  departure I find very moving. So it's angels for me.
• 2:48:39
  This is my two favourites as well.
• 2:48:41
  It's Angels and A Town Called Mercy.
• 2:48:42
  Yeah, Whithouse and Steven Moffett.
• 2:48:46
  The guy that ruined Doctor Who or the guy that never had a
• 2:48:49
  chance? Whithouse never ruined Doctor
• 2:48:51
  Who? What do you mean?
• 2:48:53
  He might have done. You never know.
• 2:48:55
  You see that show he created. Like, do you know what to prove
• 2:49:01
  that I'm not contrary bugger And I can say nice things about
• 2:49:06
  Steven Moffett. Let's let Steven Moffett win the
• 2:49:09
  day with Angels Take Manhattan, because I do think that last 10
• 2:49:12
  minutes is the best 10 minutes of the whole year.
• 2:49:16
  Fantastic. So we have a clear winner.
• 2:49:18
  It's Angels time. Manhattan Town called Mercy in
• 2:49:21
  second place. I think that, yeah, the
• 2:49:23
  strongest two of the season and power of three.
• 2:49:26
  Oh, what a shame. It came last.
• 2:49:28
  Not deserved. A well deserved last play.
• 2:49:34
  No, I had a feeling. No, I.
• 2:49:36
  Had a feeling that would be the last two.
• 2:49:39
  Yeah. But yeah, if you hadn't said
• 2:49:41
  that I would have, I think I would have conceded anyway.
• 2:49:43
  I think, I think, I think you're right that the last 10 minutes
• 2:49:47
  you've you've turned. But I love 10 called Mercy.
• 2:49:51
  But yeah, it that last two minutes, Angels is simply right.
• 2:49:54
  I kind of say that we have been so out of step in general with
• 2:49:58
  the comments, right. And you guys, thank you because
• 2:50:00
  you provided some really thought provoking arguments today.
• 2:50:04
  If we have had any two other people on this, I feel as if the
• 2:50:07
  whole episode would have been in the other direction.
• 2:50:11
  It's strange, isn't it? It it entirely depends on who's.
• 2:50:14
  Absolutely. Absolutely.
• 2:50:16
  Well, fantastic. We have a winner.
• 2:50:19
  So we just need to thank our two guests for coming on tonight.
• 2:50:22
  Gentlemen, would you like to plug anything or point people in
• 2:50:25
  your direction, Dave? I can be found on Twitter as
• 2:50:30
  Chemo Force capital R Us and I've got a podcaster kettle on
• 2:50:35
  some string where we take a random trip through the doctor's
• 2:50:39
  events in time and space. So if anyone out there wants to
• 2:50:43
  say do an episode, we do a deep dive on each story then let me
• 2:50:46
  know. There's a particularly fantastic
• 2:50:50
  episode on terror, The Verve Voice, yeah.
• 2:50:54
  There's a particular guest on that I can't remember his.
• 2:50:56
  Name. Oh, I heard he was absolutely
• 2:50:57
  annoying as. Fuck loudmouth cum, yeah?
• 2:51:00
  The Stephen Burke up of podcasting, I think.
• 2:51:05
  No, because at least some people say nice things about Stephen.
• 2:51:07
  Burke but. I do usually fuck up the ending,
• 2:51:11
  so yeah. Mark.
• 2:51:15
  Yeah I'm on the what I heard, What I hear people that I refer
• 2:51:20
  to as the website formerly known as Twitter as at old man Krondas
• 2:51:26
  with AK. It's basically just the letters
• 2:51:29
  of my name jumbled up and I am the Co host of on the Timelash
• 2:51:34
  and we've got loads of episodes. You can enjoy those if you've
• 2:51:37
  not heard them. We basically worked our way
• 2:51:40
  through the whole of New Who whilst drinking and we paired it
• 2:51:45
  up with sort of classic series story that was either perfectly
• 2:51:51
  In Sync with the modern story or just very tangentially linked
• 2:51:54
  because we ran out of better options.
• 2:51:58
  But it's a lot of fun. People.
• 2:52:00
  People seem to like it. May I for one second, please.
• 2:52:04
  It is a glorious podcast and I tripped on it because deliveries
• 2:52:09
  recommended it to me and then I binge the whole lot in what felt
• 2:52:12
  like a month. It was a bit longer than that.
• 2:52:15
  You're never supposed to do that.
• 2:52:16
  It's like it's like absorbing all the time Vortex.
• 2:52:18
  You just don't. Don't.
• 2:52:20
  You were with me everywhere, Mark.
• 2:52:22
  Waking and sleeping in the bath. You know, everywhere I went, you
• 2:52:26
  was there. Do you feel dirty now, Mark?
• 2:52:29
  No, it's no, it's seriously one of the quirkiest, funniest,
• 2:52:36
  smartest podcasts out there. Please, everybody go.
• 2:52:39
  Just try one. You'll be hooked.
• 2:52:42
  Well, you've been a great pair of guests.
• 2:52:44
  You've both talked very passionately.
• 2:52:45
  We thank you for your time. We've still managed to go nearly
• 2:52:49
  three hours, even though I thought this was going to be a
• 2:52:52
  short episode with only five episodes.
• 2:52:54
  And our next episode, which will be coming next week, is season
• 2:52:57
  26. Oh, please don't make me do more
• 2:53:00
  podcasting. Please.
• 2:53:03
  That's what everybody else is saying.
• 2:53:05
  I'm looking at that. He didn't believe that.
• 2:53:07
  He didn't believe that, you know.
• 2:53:09
  It's a special oh, don't make me do more podcast.
• 2:53:13
  Me, please. Me.
• 2:53:15
  Joe Ford, the hardest working podcaster in the world.
• 2:53:20
  That's it. It's no longer together.
• 2:53:22
  Or not. So fuck off, God.
• 2:53:27
  So all remains for us to do. Thank you is thank everybody for
• 2:53:31
  listening and until next time keep listening.
• 2:53:37
  Good night. Thank you guys.
• 2:53:55
  The.