You're listening to a podcast of spurious morality. You're listening to a podcast of spurious morality. Hello and welcome to a podcast of spurious morality. I'm Johnston and this week I have Connor with me. Hello! And I have Mansour too. Hello! And we're still kind of wrapping up 2024. And I think this is the last stop on our way out of 2024. We're going to talk about Joy to the World, which was the Doctor Who Christmas special, which I generally enjoyed. I think it was a good one.
So we're going to have a chat about that. We're going to talk about some of the things that happened in the episode. And we are going to chat about some other Christmas TV as well, because we just couldn't not mention Wallace and Gromit and a few other things. So we'll dive straight in. There will be spoilers here. Obviously we're going to talk spoilery type things for a fairly recent episode. So we'd probably better warn you all about that. Joy to the World.
Connor, you go first. Let's talk about it. What did you think overall? Yeah, definitely an improvement on the Church on Ruby Road. I liked a lot of the setting. I like the time hotel and I like hopping around into the different time periods. It's quite cool seeing the likes of the Orient Express and Everest Base Camp. I think those wee miniature time zones were captured really well. I quite like those. And I like most of everything else. I think a decent start.
I think it drops a little bit in the middle. It gets quite slow and there's not a huge amount of plot to carry it through. What saves it for me is the ending. It's the first episode of this new series I think that has really hit for me on an emotional level right at the very end. I know that's not the case for everybody. I've heard other reviews and seen other people talking about the ending in slightly more critical terms. But it worked for me, I think. Just how things turned out.
So I cannot deny that I felt quite moved by some of what went on right at the very end. Yeah, it's good. Shudy Cat was on great form. I think it's always a milestone for a Doctor to carry the series on their own without their first companion. And he accomplishes that very well here. As good as Millie Gibson is, I didn't miss Ruby Sunday in this. Beyond the little cameo she got, I didn't feel like there was a gap missing from this.
And that's testament to how well Shudy Cat was and some of the guest characters filled that slot. So big fan of his performance. I love the wee bit at the start where he's coming out of the TARDIS in his dressing gown with his morning coffee. And he's just going to steal some milk from the hotel and then he's going to go away again. I think that's hilarious. And I really liked the wee bit then when he goes back into the TARDIS and sort of subconsciously puts on his coat and gets ready.
And then, hold on, I'm putting on my coat and I've lifted the sonic screwdriver. I'm going outside. What did I see out there? I think that's really funny and it worked really well for his doctor. So I thought that was a really lovely wee moment. As I said, I think it drags a little bit in the middle. What saves it in the middle again is the doctor's relationship with Anita, their friendship. Because he gets stuck on Earth for the year and he has to live his life out.
I think he coped with it better than some of the other doctors would. Like you remember Matt Smith in The Power of Three not coping with linear time or linear time and domestic life. This doctor obviously copes much better with it, gets himself a job in the hotel and genuinely builds a friendship with Anita. So that's the highlight of the episode really is that segment where they're just being mates for a while.
I've seen a lot of people say that that should have been the whole episode and I sort of agree. I think it was by far the strongest part. As you're going through then towards the... Yes, it sort of slows down after that is what I mean when I'm talking about the middle being a bit slower. When he and Joy are trying to work out what to do with the briefcase. There's not an awful lot going on, I don't think.
And it feels like it stalled slightly once Anita goes out of it and the doctor gets back to being the doctor. But as I said, that picks up towards the end. So by far the strongest character element as far as Joy goes was her... The guilt she feels over losing her mum and the way she lost her mum, which is picked straight out of the real world. Her mum died on Christmas Day 2020 on a... it's not explicit that it was Covid, but it's very obviously related to Covid.
And that hits quite personally, I think, for an awful lot of people. I like that they take a swing at the former government and how they behaved during those times when everyone else had to behave in a certain way. And they did not. There's very clearly anger in the writing and in the performances over that. And it's incredibly justified anger. And I'm glad that Doctor Who decided to take that real world swing over all of that.
So I like the bit where Joy talks about her mum and about those awful people with their wine fridges and their parties. And I followed the rules and they didn't. That hits really personally, I think, for an awful lot of people. Your mileage may vary on whether it's appropriate for Doctor Who to do that. I thought it was fantastic to see that on the one day when Doctor Who is guaranteed an audience on Christmas Day. So ties in, as I said, to the ending.
I genuinely teared up whenever Star Joy went back and got her mum, because I think we all know people, or the chances are that we all know someone who was affected by Covid or by, or was in hospital during those periods. I was in and out of hospitals during that period. And remembered all very, very clearly, obviously. So seeing that almost sort of wish fulfilment that you could go back and not rescue, but be there. It's sort of almost pitched as a rescue or presented as a rescue on screen.
I think there's a bit of wish fulfilment in that. And it's you can almost sort of live vicariously through Joy in that moment. Going back to see a relative in those times when you couldn't. So I thought that worked pretty well. And I liked that an awful lot. Yeah, that's it. That's Joy to the World for me. I'm very glad it did do the sort of harder hitting, not necessarily harder hitting, but you know what I mean stuff.
The angry stuff, the stuff with the message, because it would have been very easy for this just to be another sort of fun, inconsequential and fairly flat Christmas special. I think there's a lot of hard work being put into past Christmas specials to make them sort of overly Christmassy and all very jolly and have the big happy ending moment and that kind of thing. And this had a bit more substance.
And I don't think Doctor Who should just lose any kind of substance all of a sudden because of the day that it happens to be broadcast. People are tuning in for Christmas Doctor Who episode, not to spend Christmas with Doctor Who. So I'm kind of really glad it did have that moment and it did have that stuff. Like you say, it was kind of a nice emotionally heavy payoff that ran through the episode. Yeah. Mansour, do you want to talk about it? Yeah, I agree with a lot of that.
I was just looking back at what I'd written like immediately after it was on. I think I still feel the same way overall. So I really liked it overall. But if you were picking holes, I think it's almost like two halves of two very different stories squashed together with the whole Anita bit in the middle. And then Joy's story almost being like a wraparound around that from the doctor's point of view. Yeah, so I just would have liked a bit more time with Joy.
And I think the ending did land. It was really, really well judged for all the reasons Conor was saying. It wasn't officially a Christmas episode, but was it originally? Waters of Mars is like another episode that's like a sort of standalone special, but like has a much, much darker, more emotional ending. And that those moments with Joy, yes, it ends on a hopeful note, but that reminded me of the ending of Waters of Mars of like Doctor Who just unexpectedly suddenly like doing this like.
And it's all the more effective because it comes in the context of like a sort of fluffier adventure around it and then you suddenly have this really hard hitting moment. I thought that really worked well. Like, and it was just really good to see I think Stephen Moffat's really good with this doctor and this era.
It's almost like replicating what was going on in 2005, 2006 where I like both the original RTD era and Moffat's era, but there was something about Moffat being a guest writer on someone else's show that seems to work really well for him. And I think Boom and this episode have both been both been some of my favorites of this whole recent run.
I'm not saying that I want him to take over from Russell T. Davis in the next few years I think it should absolutely be someone new who comes in and takes over next. I feel like whatever good stuff, people like RTD or Moffat might come back and do. Doctor Who across any medium just starts to stagnate if you have the same people making it for decades on end. But yeah, it was interesting as well like some of the chatter online about a controversial moment.
It was, I was trying to work out after the fact whether they were talking about the Bethlehem bit, which is very on the nose, or whether they were talking about the pre direct COVID reference. I think from context people were talking about the Star of Bethlehem, but I feel like the COVID bit is much more controversial or political than, so that's a cheeky moment at the end where you have to, you know, joy turning into the Star of Bethlehem. What else? I really like the doctor in this.
This is like a sort of continuity cohesiveness point, but after the giggle, it very much felt like, okay, this new doctor is a fresh start, they're not going to be overly burdened by trauma or, or like, or their past. They're going to have gone through, they've gone through therapy retrospectively and they're going to move on in a, with a much lighter tone. Maybe this is Moffat's style, or maybe just the nature of this story.
But it feels like there's a few moments here where this doesn't feel like a doctor who's addressed all of his psychological issues and is still clinging on to a lot of the same things. Like the way he doesn't leave the hotel when he's with Anita. That seemed to be important.
There's a lot of good stuff about his character that was brought out here that I liked as well. And that makes it like some of my favorite moments from, from this doctor, the bit where he's very sort of directly channeling Sylvester McCoy and that moment of manipulation and pushing his companion over the edge with a kind of long game in mind.
And sort of the thing about getting the milk at the start. I thought that was really nice as well. So there was like some chat on social media about how there's different ways of portraying the doctor, you could go with like what we've been seeing over the last scene is a bit more of a sort of
a suave romantic doctor and yes that is part of this incarnation. And, but it's nice to have a moment where he's just being I think phrase someone used was like a weird little goblin man and stealing milk, and I think that that was really nice to see as a way to reintroduce him in this in this special.
So yeah, I did like I didn't have any huge problems with it the only like I said the only thing was that it is almost those two episodes smashed together and it's slightly harms each side of it for them to share that space. Because the Anita thing could have been a whole episode in itself. I could have spent a bit more time with joy. As well. That would be my one criticism but I liked, I liked everything else about it.
You see I felt as though joys, essentially death didn't really have much of an impact at all because we haven't actually spent much time with the character. Like, the whole episode kind of almost went out of its way to avoid spending time with her. I wonder if that was just so we wouldn't be sort of emotionally hit at the end of it. I wonder how much time they actually had with Nicola as well. That's true.
I don't know that they maybe had her for the whole shooting time, and it was only part of it because she's completely well the whole thing is completely set bound, but she's only ever really in three sets. Three or three sets. It's very limited time for her to get like, she, she, a lot of the reviewers were surprised that she got top billing and given how much time you spend with Anita and how much of an oppression she makes.
Just thinking about it now like, I don't know if this would have worked at all and you know it's always weird to criticize something for what it should have been rather than what it is but I feel like it would have been interesting to have had like a much more full, full on story with Joy, much more focused on her. And then maybe in the following season, you have an episode that jumps back and is just about the Anita strand of things.
So you see the start and the end of Anita's story in this special, and then you go back and get the full story. Yeah, because the Anita bit should have been a whole episode is, it's a pretty common sort of comment at this point isn't it. I've said it myself, I've heard quite a few other people say it was, I actually really liked it like I thought it was a really, really good way to format an hour episode because obviously
Normal Doctor Who is 45-50 minutes, the Christmas episode is longer than that. And instead of stretching out an idea that maybe was for 45 minutes to the full 60, what we've got instead is essentially a mini episode in an episode like it's its own sequences, its own little bit, it's not interrupted by anything else.
It is essentially a mini-sode, it is essentially an episode within an episode and I quite like that, it kind of sort of reminds me of how sort of Tom Baker's Six-Party has kind of had a bit of a location whatever shift in the final two episodes.
It's sort of similar to that, you know, instead of padding out an episode, let's do something else, let's go elsewhere, and I liked that, that works. But it did kind of, I cost the end of the episode a little bit of the emotional heft that it was trying to get across.
The ending I guess is comparable with Voyage of the Damned as in the single episode companion goes off to be a star. And by the end of Voyage of the Damned, like we were, we were properly invested in Astrid, you know, Astrid was a character that we'd really, really come to get to know, the Doctor had kind of slightly fallen in love with and all of this kind of thing.
Whereas, like, the Doctor doesn't spend much time with Joy at all, like there's not even some off-screen stuff where obviously, you know, we basically see the entirety of their adventure together. And it just, it doesn't feel as though there's enough there to fully make us feel what we should be feeling about this, the conclusion to this character's story. I really enjoyed the episode, I thought it was great, you know, I will add.
I just think that we were perhaps robbed of maybe a stronger emotional payoff at the end. But you're right, I suspect, Conor, you're right, and I suspect that it's down to like how long they actually had with various cast members and that kind of thing.
And I can understand why they've given a top billing, because, you know, she is the big name, she's the star of Bridgerton and Derry Girl, so yeah, why not, why not give her the top billing, why not have her on the poster to get people in to watch the episode, you know, something extra to pull people in that wouldn't normally watch Doctor Who, but, oh well, maybe it's acceptable on Christmas Day because it's got her off Bridgerton in it, which is what.
What? Well, which is what Voyage of the Damned was doing with Kylie as well, so it's, they're very different episodes, but they do that one thing or those couple of things exactly the same, and I think that part of their success is because of it.
There's a lot of good, we like light comedy moments throughout it as well, which I think help a lot. The one that always, you know, the one that has been coming to mind is whenever the doctor's helping out around the hotel and Anita hands him the plunger and he looks at it and her's like, is this armed? It's stuff like that stuff like him going to get the coffee.
It's stuff Shooty does well and it's those wee moments that have stuck in my head the most, just those light, quick, wordy little bits of Moffat comedy as well. Did anybody notice the Paternoster gang reference as well at the very beginning? He mentions the, it's the guy in the first hotel room during the war mentions about the cathedral being bombed. I used to know someone up that direction. Because Paternoster Row is as far as I know a real street beside St Paul's Cathedral in London.
And his wife says, oh woman was it? And he's like, oh two women actually. I was like, ah it's the Paternoster gang. No, just me. Yeah, my London geography is not that good. Well it was, it was a Vastra and Jenny cameo or reference. Yeah, that's a nice little reference to drop in. I've always been surprised actually that we haven't seen Paternoster gang back on screen since. It was deep breath, wasn't it?
It's over 10 years ago now, that's mad. Because obviously they've carried on at Big Finish, they've popped up elsewhere and they've had their own range in Big Finish. Was that it? Did they never come back for the Twelfth Doctor? I don't know if they did, did they? Unless I'm completely forgetting an episode. No, I think deep breath was their last story. It wasn't even like a show on an era thing, it was Muffet himself didn't bring them back for the Twelfth Doctor after that.
I suppose we've had a relatively big gap without Kate Stewart appearing as well, haven't we? Yeah, but she seems to have transitioned quite wholeheartedly into this new era when she's in the spin-off as well. Not just that she's transitioned well, they've given her her own spin-off.
Well, the sort of other talking point from the episode that we kind of came to was, we've already mentioned Anita, we've mentioned that wonderful sort of 15 minutes of the episode where the Doctor just lives on Earth for a bit. But Anita, as a companion or a recurring character or whatever, have we been robbed? Absolutely. There's two points in this where I actively dislike the Doctor.
That's whenever he's going to leave Anita without saying goodbye, because that's not this Doctor. I don't think that's this Doctor. He's not the sort just to slip away and sneak away from somebody like that. He didn't do it with Ruby, I don't think he would have done it with Anita. And the other moment I don't like the Doctor in is, I know why it's happening, but I think he gets too vicious towards Joy when he's taunting her about her mum.
I actively do not like the Doctor in that moment, but we're talking about Anita. I don't understand why, I understand in real world terms why they keep Anita on as a companion, because she's just this one off character. But the Doctor has no reason not to at least invite her onto the TARDIS, because you can tell that she really doesn't want him to leave. And he clearly, he's going because he has to go more, I think, because more than he sort of wants to go.
In terms of writing, there's no reason for the Doctor not to go back for Anita and at least invite her into the TARDIS. And it's a testament to how good her bets were that we're sitting here going, oh, she should have gone with him. I think the Doctor has let her down by not asking her to come with him. Do you think she might come back? I'm not saying she's Mrs. Flandt, but like, because Moffat's mentioned something about something in this story linking to the end of season two.
I think I'm right. He said something in an interview about he had to be briefed on the plans for season two because it was relevant to something here. Or is it just going to be that the end of season two is, Joy's star floats down and resets everything? But I could see like the Time Hotel coming back or maybe there is like some really out there theory about Anita grows up to be Mrs. Flandt or comes back in some form. Like, it wouldn't fit at all with the tone of how things are left here.
It would be a bit of a weird swerve. But yeah. I mean, the Mrs. Flood thing is ongoing and is going to be speculated about until it is resolved. And, you know, we're going to have everything from it's the eighth Doctor to it's Anita in that time. I'm not on board with it at all. Like, I'd love the character to come back or to have another kind of significance, but I think it was just an excuse to give us a really just nice 15 minutes of this Doctor at Christmas.
I'm pats out the episode. I don't think there's anything bigger there. She sets up like a spin-off as well, though. Like, whether it's big finish or like that. Doctor Who does faulty towers. Yeah, like the Time Hotel spin-off. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I hope somebody writes that fan fiction where Basil faulty finds the Time Hotel. Oh, that's how I'm going to spend my afternoon. Oh, that's all. Could you imagine? Oh, I'm so disappointed. That's not a thing.
It's sort of territory I can see. Big finish. One day trying to get into the brought back sort of more obscure things to, you know, relative levels of success, actually. Yeah, for me, it was just a really nice bit of the episode that, unfortunately, I think Moffat's just so good at creating characters has made everybody fall in love with Neeta in the space of 15 minutes and made us wish that there was more.
I do honestly think it's just a throwaway 15 minutes of sort of pretty good, fairly fluffy for Christmas, quite nice Doctor Who. And I think that's joy to the world done. Unless there's anything you'd like to add. Only only that I don't know how I feel about the Star of Bethlehem. I'm not a religious person in any way, shape or form. There are people in my family who are religious and who were a little disapproving, but like not enough to actually complain about it.
I thought it was a nice wee moment, but I don't know how necessary it was. It's just it's a wee. It feels like a cheap and easy guy right at the end. And I don't know whether Moffat started with, let's do the Star of Bethlehem as like the starting point for this story or whether he realized halfway through, you know, halfway through, you know, hang on, Christmas story, stars.
I'm going to make this Bethlehem. And you can almost sort of hear him cackling at his keyboard as you're watching that bit. But I quite like it as a nice little moment. I didn't spot them on first view, but you can see the three wise men on the left hand side of the screen and camping out with their camels. As the doctor looks down at Bethlehem. So I think it's a nice moment, but it's a bit of a strange one.
It's not going into tasteless territory at all, is it? It's not like deciding to show the birth of Christ on Doctor Who or anything like that. So yeah, it was a harmless bit of fun, bit of fluff.
Yeah, exactly. And people's views might vary depending on like how they face and things like that. But like I was saying, I was surprised that early reviewers were calling it out as something that's going to be controversial or a massive talking point when you had that whole COVID element in there right next to it. Yeah, so I thought it was like a nice little tag or cherry on top of that scene. It wasn't like super fundamental to the plot resolution on an emotional level.
I'd heard rumors about it in advance. So as soon as the doctor emerged out into the desert, I was like, oh, OK, they're in Bethlehem. I was like, oh, it's happening. And that's like 10 minutes before they actually showed Bethlehem, not one. I did see somebody suggesting that it should have started like Bethlehem, zero, zero, zero, zero. I looked that up and it starts at the actual calendar starts at one, doesn't it? There's no zero AD.
Yes, I think this was actually on another podcast someone and then someone pointed that out. But it would have been a moment like have it come up zero, zero, zero, zero. You hear a baby crying and then it ticks over to one. It would have been a funny gag or like BC changing the AD or something like that. Yeah, yeah, I think I think I land on the side of it's a nice moment. Ultimately, I'm there's a nicer moment in it, though.
There's one more moment that I kind of looked at it. It did make me smile, which was one of the doors in the time hotel was quite clearly a hobbit door. I didn't know it's the first time, but I did see people mentioning it. It's once you start doing that, you almost wonder like, were they tempted to go even further and have like Professor X's Cerebro door and all sorts of other little hints to different properties? Yeah, it's one of those that could easily have gone too far very quickly.
But I like the idea that that's there. And it's sort of. Obviously, it's open to interpretation at no point does anyone go, oh, that's a hobbit door. Let's go to Hobbiton. It's very much just it's a door in a time hotel. It could open there. It could open anywhere. But it was. Yeah, lots of other possibilities. You could have stuck in like a wardrobe for Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The Master's Tardis from Planets of Fire.
I think there's one or two other things. I don't know if they're like on that scale, but like someone pointed out one or two other like unusual door designs as well. There was the name of the restaurant. I've not read the book myself or seen Moffat's version, but it's Detambles. He's the name of the time traveler from Time Traveler's Wife. And Mr. Ben for the costume shop as well. The costume shop. Yeah, there's a couple. Yeah, it's just a nice way to shout out in the design. It's quite cool.
And I'm not so faulty. I saw it. It feels really strange. But one of the you know, the extras that are sort of milling about in the background of the time hotel and they're all dressed for different time periods. So there's like Georgians walking past like as if they're going to Bridgerton or there's a couple of guys in US Army dress uniform. One of the time periods was London 2012 Olympics because the guys are all dressed in like Union flag jackets.
They've got Olympic signs on them. And it's just like London 2012 is now a historical period according to the time hotel. So moving away from Joy to the World, there was there was another bit of Doctor Who on TV over Christmas. And we were treated to another colorized cut down version of a black and white story. And this time it was The War Games, which I absolutely love. I think The War Games is one of the greatest Doctor Who stories ever made.
And I went into this a little bit apprehensive because chopping down 10 episodes into into 90 minutes was always going to be difficult. And I think they just about pulled it off. I certainly think they did a better job than they did with the Daleks. I enjoyed the Daleks, but it really did need an extra little bit of time. The War Games is an even longer story. But yeah, I actually thought they did quite a good job of it. And the color was absolutely fantastic. It worked a treat.
It looked brilliant. There were hints in there that the War Chief was the master, which is a debate that I'm sure we're going to have in the next couple of minutes. But I thought it was an absolute winner. I really enjoyed it. I was really looking forward to it and I really enjoyed it. Any sort of apprehension that I had disappeared pretty quickly. And I think it shows that The War Games is all these years later still a really, really bloody good bit of Doctor Who.
What did you think of it, Connor? I loved it. Genuinely the most exciting bit of Telly Doctor Who I've seen in quite a while. Or the most excited I've got watching Telly Doctor Who for quite a wee while. I really enjoyed it. I think in terms of the edit, it settles down once they get to the Warlords base. It's quite choppy before that in places and I'm not sure it entirely works, but I don't know that they could have done a better job ultimately than what they did.
I think the whole... I think that's mainly based in we were all sitting waiting to see what happened to... I think we were all waiting to see what happened whenever the Warchief saw the Doctor and didn't disappoint me. I was not previously a die-hard Warchief is the Master sort of fan. I think it was a funny little... It was a joke. See when they've actually done it for real, I'm fully on board. Yes, the music's playing, that's the Master. It sort of changes how you watch it.
Whenever I was watching the black and white version for the first time, I knew the whole Warchief is the Master thing. I was aware of that fan theory and I was sitting watching going, OK, I can see he's the prototype Master. And this with the music playing, not just the John Sim music that sort of starts off. They play the Roger Delgado theme as well at one point from Mind of Evil.
I'm sitting here going, yes, this is Canon. Oh my God, that's the Master. Doctor Who has met the Master for the first time. And it does genuinely change how you view it. The colour's fantastic. I think they managed to keep enough of the story intact. I never actually saw the Daleks. I kept putting it off and now it's been taken off BBC iPlayer and I can't watch it. And I'm definitely not going to go and buy it. Who's got the time?
But knowing what I know, the complaints were about that. It does seem that they did a much better job with this one. I just thought it looked great. It's a really fun way to experience old Doctor Who. It's amazing to see these stories, sort of the way you've imagined them in your own head, actually put to screen.
And that regeneration sequence. What an absolute joy to see that little previously unseen in quote marks regeneration and get to see John Pertwee's first moments as the Doctor for the first time. I know it's not really that, but that's the effect they're going for. And you're sitting watching it like this is mind blowing. It has done so well. I love the wee bits they added in, like the TARDIS flies down to Earth and the nesting pods come in as well.
I just thought the whole thing was so much fun and I'm glad I watched it live on TV and didn't see on like fan forums or Twitter or whatever. That, oh my God, he's the master. I'm glad I got to see that live on broadcast. So I thought I really enjoyed it. It was little details like the nesting spheres that really, really made it for me. Just being able to add in just tiny little moments like that really added something to it.
The other one that it's proper easy to miss, but you get the regeneration sound effects after the war chief master, whatever, has been killed. He's kind of his body's moved off to the side and you just hear that regeneration sound effects and you kind of wonder, you know, did everyone just miss the regeneration and all the chaos that was going on? Because it's immediately a big fight after that moment. Yeah, I thought it was brilliantly done. What about you Mansour?
I also quite liked it. Definitely preferred it to the Daleks. I agree it did feel a bit choppy in places, but I don't know. I think given the, if they were given a time limit or a running time, I don't see how you could do a much better edit than they did. It was done really well to like squeeze it all down. Ideal world, I think maybe another 10, 15 minutes, 20 minutes to let it just breathe a little bit more. The color, as I said, looked really good. And again, huge contrast with the Daleks.
This might have been a creative choice, but like some of the skin tones in the Daleks were like, felt very artificial and very inconsistent from scene to scene. Now they might have been quite deliberately going for like a very, very sort of technicolor in your face color palette. But I think that was calmed down a lot for the War Games, either because of learning from that first try or because it's a very different sort of story.
And you have those scenes that are set in those what look like Earth based settings. Music, really good. Again, contrasting the Daleks on each of these points, because that felt like a very, very sort of sensory overload in your face, especially with like the editing. And I think it was it was much more settled in the War Games.
There was a bit of an odd smashing together themes and styles from different eras, like some of the original music from that era and some new stuff and then pulling from different new series themes. But it sort of worked. And I did like that final scene. It was such a sort of switch in style that it almost makes me feel like should that have been like its own separate minisode?
Like it was based on a fan film, but maybe the BBC could have put that out as its own separate minisode afterwards with like an official logo and credits. Because, yeah, it just felt like you were going from the very nicely restored old stuff to like something that looks very different in those last few minutes. Oh, one more thing is the like the effects, the new effects. It was a mix of CGI and model work, I think.
And I feel like I think there were new models made for some of them, and those felt like the bits that were most successful for saying like, or for going for that brief of what would this production have looked like if they'd had a lot of small money at the time and had been using like technology that was available at the time. And I think extended shots of the base and things like that looked really, really nice and sort of felt era appropriate as well.
So yeah, really successful, I thought, like improvement from the Daleks in lots of respects and I'd be quite keen for them to do more of these, like make it an annual event maybe. What would you say is next on your wish list? I would like to see something that can make good use of the color. I think the Wargames does that certainly in the base, which looks a lot more visually interesting when it's got the reds and yellows and whatnot going on than it is in black and white.
My gut with this is I would like to see the Time Meddler in color, but I think that would probably have like quite a muddy green and brown palette and the stone. I don't know that it would be visually interesting beyond seeing like the Monk's Tardis getting revealed and I don't know that that's enough to sustain a story. That's thinking of the chase, like the chase would be quite interesting in all those different settings.
It would be a lot of work for colorization because I'd have to like develop the palettes for all those different scenes and sets. I would also be wild seeing the chase condensed down into like one unit rather than six. Because it is very episodic. It's very episodic and it's a lot of different locations.
I think the problem that you'd have with both the Time Meddler and the chase is that there are a lot of scenes in a studio that are supposed to be outdoors, like the studio is representing an outside location. And I think the color might show that up a little bit too much. The one that comes to my mind first of all would be the war machines, which has got a lot of exterior London stuff going on. And while it still does have sort of outside spaces represented in the studio, it's not as big.
It is just, you know, smaller areas, that kind of thing. It's not like an entire forest or anything like that, which the Time Meddler has. There's also less to lose because it's only four episodes. I'd like to see them do a story that's already fairly close to the runtime that they're aiming for. And you don't have to lose a huge amount, maybe. More like a four-parter rather than a big seven or ten-parter. Yeah, like I'm happy for there to be some cuts for pace.
And I don't think there are many Doctor Who stories that, or classic Doctor Who stories, that you wouldn't cut at some point to speed things up a bit.
I'm hoping that whenever the likes of Invasion of the Dinosaurs, you know, whenever season 11 comes around for the collection set, I'm hoping that they're going to get whoever's doing these colorizations to redo Invasion of the Dinosaurs, part one, and some of those partway episodes that have been colorized before, but could be done a lot better now. I think it might be Inferno. I don't know. I know it's due to come out. I know that collection set is on its way.
But I always think they all sort of look slightly sunburned in Inferno. And I would quite like to see a more balanced color palette. Color wise, I think the worst suffering from season seven is still Ambassadors of Death. Like they did a really, really, really good job for the DVD, but it was still noticeably not as good as others. So I'm looking forward to seeing how that turns out on the Blu-ray because I hope they manage to do quite a bit more with it.
I think they've shared some screen caps of like someone involved to share a couple of screen caps. But just adding to the wish list, I was just looking down the list and I would put the Romans and the gunfighters on there as well. I feel like it could be, especially with the Romans, there could be a lot of color. And obviously there's issues with it happening. One really great thing to see would be the first story, An Unearthly Child. Yeah, I can see both of those working.
Again, with Romans, there's a lot of outside in the studio stuff. And I'm really not sure if it would stand up or not. But then, because you don't really get a lot of it after the 60s, it becomes a lot more location heavy towards the end of the 60s. So it's only really the heart and a layer away. You do have outside spaces represented in studio. The Aztecs would have the same problem, wouldn't it?
You'd have like those outdoor scenes, but that would look, that would be, again, amazing opportunities for the costumes and sets to be colored. For the sake of representing Troughton in this conversation. I was going to say we're all assuming as a heart now. I wouldn't actually mind if they did another Troughton. I would like it to be Enemy of the World. Here's the field, complete. Great. I think Tomb of the Cybermen could work quite well. It's very silver though.
Would it have that same thing of looking like, the impression of black and white that's been tinted? Maybe. Because all the base is going to be silver. Well, actually, maybe it doesn't have to be. But in my head, it's always like the whole base is silver, the side men are silver. I was going to say all the downstairs, in the underground bit, in the actual ice tomb for the Cybermen, I've always thought it's such a monochrome story.
Like the frost and snow and the silver and metal, I don't know that it would necessarily benefit from colorization. And the invasion would be great if two episodes weren't missing as well. Do you think if the invasion was cut down, same with the web, is there a way of doing a cut down version that doesn't need those missing episodes? I reckon you could probably skip episode four of the invasion without too much trouble.
Like you've got the Cybermen cliffhanger at the end, but then again, at the same time, that exists in part five. The first episode does set up quite a bit and introduce a couple of characters. Or Tales of the TARDIS. You could do like, combine Tales of the TARDIS with these colorizations. And that could help. Take away the gaps with narration and framing devices. So basically just Nicholas Courtney's links for the VHS. Oh yeah, they've done that already haven't they?
And there's one with Ian for, was it the crusade? Yeah, crusade. Yeah, so basically that. Anyway, let's sidestep further and let's talk about other Christmas TV. Briefly. That one. So yeah, this is the repeat of the wrong trousers that I watched on BBC iPlayer. And that's all the Wallace and Gromit there is to talk about. Oh no, there was the entirely new film that was really, really, really good. It was brilliant.
It was brilliant. Vengeance Most Foul, the new Wallace and Gromit, which was, let's be honest, it was the bit of Christmas TV we were all looking forward to the most. Sorry, Doctor Who. Well, listen, we were all very happy because it was a double bill and it was like straight out of Doctor Who and into Wallace and Gromit. It was wonderful. We didn't move for about two and a half hours. It was great because I didn't have to like suffer strictly in the middle or anything like that.
It was just a case of. Yeah, they got it over and done with. Yeah, got that over and done with and out of the way. And it was just Doctor Who, Wallace and Gromit solidly all the way through. It was fantastic. Vengeance Most Foul was a lot of fun. It was definitely not just a worthy Wallace and Gromit, but a worthy sequel to The Wrong Trousers as well.
And I've seen, and this is kind of testament really to just how brilliant Wallace and Gromit and Aardman are, is I've seen so many posts just floating around the internet along the lines of, isn't it amazing how they make a piece of plasticine look so evil with Feathers McGraw. For every single time I've seen this posted or shared, it's been with a different shot of Feathers McGraw, like any shot of him. You can just take him out of it and it's just got that penguin is pure evil. It's amazing.
But yeah, I really enjoyed it. It was an awful lot of fun. It's exactly what I wanted from Wallace and Gromit. Sort of in the build up to Christmas, we talked about it, didn't we, Connor? And I was sort of discussing how I wasn't entirely sure it'd be the same without Peter Salis, but no, absolutely perfect. Couldn't have been better.
Do you think it's the, with Feathers McGraw, do you think it's the physical design or I'm wondering if it's more like the way he moves and the way they're just like very disciplined about having him keep very still and there's something quite creepy about that, that combined with the eyes? I think it's a bit of a mixture. I think the biggest thing he has going for him is that we sort of, it's his eyes, it's his wee black beady eyes that sort of seem to look deep into your soul.
And you're right, it is partially in the way he's animated, but he always seems to be stirring really hard at something. I know there's a lot of bits that you'll probably like, I know the whole narrowboat chase at the end is probably going to become iconic. I think my favorite bit in the whole thing was when Feathers was in his cell and he had the wee robot hand.
There's just so many cool wee gags in that bit and it's animated so well, I would mark that out as my favorite scene in the whole thing because at first you think he's going for the keys and he's actually going for the computer keyboard. Rather than whip the hand back whenever the officer goes to sneeze and wake up, he puts the thing's finger under their nose to stop the sneeze. It's just such a masterclass in visual comedy.
And it's a wonderful callback to the sequence in The Wrong Trousers where he's robbing the diamond. Yes, it's just brilliant. And he's trying to guess Wallace's password. And there's those rare little moments where you see Feathers McRaw expressing some emotion when he's sweating and he's nervous that it's going to go wrong. They did that in The Wrong Trousers as well. But other than that, he's very still and scary.
You know the bit where the submarine comes up in his enclosure in the zoo and he's stroking the seal. The seal's name is Ron. Apparently, I don't know if it's on screen at any stage, but the animator said that the seal's name is Ron. So Ron seal. Oh, brilliant. There's a lovely wee thing as well. I've seen this pointed out in a few places, but it's always worth a mention because it is just really lovely.
Peter Salas's costume from Last of the Summer Wine is hanging up in Wallace's hallway. I thought that was a nice wee tribute. And the new voice actor is excellent, I thought. It's sort of Jonathan Carley levels of indistinguishable from a very, very distinctive original actor who's passed away. There genuinely wasn't a moment where I went, oh no, that's not Peter Salas. Peter Salas wouldn't do that or whatever. It was spot on. Absolutely spot on.
Have you seen any of the behind the scenes? The actor's name is Ben Whitehead. Have you seen any of the behind the scenes of him recording it? It makes me feel like they've put Peter Salas's voice over that behind the scenes footage. And he's overthinking to it, yeah. But like his whole face changes shape. Just the levels that he's going to to capture the sound and voice of Wallace.
It's again a masterclass. They could not have found anybody better. He's incredibly expressive during that performance, isn't he? Which sometimes it's not easy to do when you're doing an impression. You just kind of pull the face that you do. But yeah, you're right. There's a real performance in there and it's brilliant. Wallace and Gromit, definitely a winner. And Feathers McGraw escaped at the end. So there's got to be more. There's got to be a third. The Feathers trilogy.
I know. A moment that got a real laugh was a couple of moments in the narrative. I've seen a lot of people single out the, that's just an innocent nun out for a pleasure cruise. Maybe Wallace really was just a misunderstood inventor and then he comes off out of the boat and he's peddling like mad. It's absolutely brilliant.
I just discovered this detail as well that in, I've not seen it, but apparently the end of Chicken Run 2 has an appearance by Feathers McGraw, like in the background with this little glove on his head. I didn't know. So it's a universe, the Aardman cinematic universe. Yeah. He's pretty central in the frame when you know where he is. He's like kind of in the back, but yeah, pretty obvious. Oh, I'll have to go and have a look at that.
Yeah, I need to find that. Brilliant. Other Christmas TV then. What else was there? What else did you watch and enjoy? Do you want to go first, Connor? Well, the big, there's a couple, but the big one probably has to be Gavin and Stacey. And I'm not, I'm not, it sounds wrong for me to say that I'm not a fan of Gavin and Stacey. I don't mean that in that I don't like it. I mean that I've never really watched it.
My brother's a big fan of it, so I'm aware of a lot of what went on in it, but it's not a show I would ever have sat down to watch myself. But I saw the 2019 special and I saw this special and I've seen the earliest episodes. I haven't seen sort of the original series as it moves on a bit later on. But like none of those actors and none of those characters have changed in what, 20 years? They all seem, you know, it feels like it's off a pace with the earlier seasons and the earlier episodes.
You know, like the five year or the long, you know, the five year long gap since the last one, you know, obviously it's not that it didn't matter, but it had no effect on Gavin and Stacey itself, but they can recapture it so easily. It's a really nice, it's a good story. It's funny as get out. Again, we laughed the whole way through it.
So, yeah, it absolutely deserves a mention. And I did get that little Doctor Who fan moment where Smithy's having his wedding in the same place. Sarah Jane Smith did. So it felt really weird watching that and like you're expecting in the reception area the camera to turn around and the TARDIS should be where it was in that one. But no, no Doctor Who crossover. Sheridan Smith had a wee camera, which was nice. And Lauren Cornelius was in it as well, wasn't she? Was she?
I'd not seen it. I'm not a fan, but I believe she was one of the bridal parties or something like that. No, I had no idea. All right. Maybe I've just made that up, but that's, I'd heard. What about you Mansour? Any Christmas TV highlights we've not discussed yet? The thing I watched to mention is probably like the season finale of the Frasier reboot, which is on season two now.
It came out a few weeks ago, but it's been a bit up and down as a reboot and I've been very sort of mixed on it and have been continuing to follow it. I thought this was like a really, really strong final episode for the season. So if you're going to dip into the new revived Frasier, I would recommend maybe starting with that episode. Yeah, so that was it. I don't think there's much else. I think I really watched all of the Wallace and Gromit stuff in advance of the new one.
And if we're going to apply Doctor Who level continuity monitoring to Wallace and Gromit, they end the last special with another dog joining them and then she's not in the new film at all. So clearly the new film is rubbish. Like we should ignore it. I think the dog went to stay with Sir Charles in the country and sent his love. The dog went to Java. See, in terms of Wallace and Gromit continuity, I don't care. I don't care.
I don't care at any stage. But it's the ending or how they depict Feathers McGraw's capture and like flashback in this is different to how it was in the wrong trigger. So yeah, it's very different. This is an alternative universe version of Wallace and Gromit. This is the Wallace and Gromit multiverse. There's been a time war that's changed established history of the universe. Wallace invented a time machine at one point and that's created branching time lights.
That would not surprise me for Wallace. That wouldn't surprise me at all. Or did Feathers escape from prison after the wrong trousers, pop up in Chicken Run 2, pop up in a close shave. He's in a close shave if you look really closely, then get caught again by Wallace and Gromit in an unseen adventure that will one day be produced by Big Finish. And the fun thing about that is because it's Big Finish, it will remain unseen.
I just as a note on the Ardman subject, I'm very excited for their next project, which is due out next year. That is 2026, I think, which is Pokemon. Wallace and Pikachu. Wallace and Pikachu. Like I can't think of a more perfect marriage than like Ardman's animation style and Pokemon. It's going to be really cute. It's going to be really funny. I'm looking forward to that a lot.
Yeah, that should be good. I'm very, very curious to see what the result of that is because it's not two things you would have put together. Like in the world of coming up with things that could potentially cross over, that's not one that ever would have occurred to me. And I like Wallace and Gromit and I like Pokemon. I like playing Pokemon games at least. But that was truly unexpected. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens there.
I think if this episode has proved one thing, it's that there's room for a coffee bar. What have we been watching on TV recently episode? So I've watched loads over Christmas. I've watched a series called The Rig on Amazon, which is the first series is very, very Fury from the Deep. And the second series is maybe The Humans with the Villains or Long, but definitely worth a watch. The first series was a couple of years ago. I watched it at the time. Then the new ones just come out.
On Christmas Day, one more bit of Christmas Day TV, which I did really enjoy later on in the evening. And this is a proper thing that they put on late at night on Christmas Day for you to fall asleep to when you've definitely had... Can't we start talking about Mrs. Brown's Boys? I'm going to quit this podcast. That was another Christmas present. They moved that into a graveyard slot. But that's what you're leading up to that here is bloody Mrs. Brown's Boys.
It isn't. It's a documentary about Roger Moore narrated by Steve Coogan doing an absolutely brilliant Roger Moore impression. So you kind of had Steve Coogan as Roger Moore reading from Roger Moore's memoirs in a documentary about Roger Moore. It was all very surreal. And then Roger Moore's kids all look exactly like Roger Moore, like the ones that feature in it. So yeah, it was one of the most bizarre things ever. I need to go back and watch it, like not after all that drinking.
I'm so glad you said that Steve Coogan was in it because I was about to say that's the most Alan Partridge thing I've ever heard. Oh, yeah, it was. It was almost Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge as Roger Moore narrating it. It was fantastic. I think this will be known officially as the episode's podcast Jump the Shark. Just like Roger Moore did in The Spy Who Loved Me. Yeah, yeah. And on that note, we really will leave this episode there.
But thank you very, very much for coming and discussing Joy to the World, The War Games and other Christmas TV with me. And we'll be back for more spodcasting soon. We will definitely do that Coffee Bar What's Good to Watch on Teletubbies episode because it sounds like we've got an awful lot. So I will say goodbye to Conor. Goodbye. Thank you very much. And I will say goodbye to Mansour.
Goodbye and Merry Christmas. And I will now be silent for a moment while one of these idiots, no doubt, does the whole end of Feast of Stephen thing, whichever one of you is doing it, get on with it. Merry Christmas to all of you at home. There we go. Goodbye now.