Lucky Day

You're listening to a podcast of spurious morality. Hello and welcome to a podcast of spurious morality. I'm Johnston and I've got Mansour back with me this week. Hello, Mansour. Hello. So we missed you last week. I had a good chat with Greg about The Well, though, and I will sort of get your take on it later on. But we're mainly here to talk about Lucky Day, which is obviously the... The latest episode of Doctor Who. It's a Doctor Light episode, but I quite like what they did

with this Doctor Light episode. We didn't have much Doctor, but we brought Ruby back. It was good to see Ruby again. And we also got to spend a bit more time with Unit, which I was quite happy about. I really think we do need to see more of this Unit. We've talked about how reduced episode count means things are feeling a bit

rushed. I think Unit's one of those things. Unit has a big tower now, and there's a thing there called the Blinks, which seems to run away like a king of Monty Python whenever danger appears. We've been introduced to a lot of Unit characters and sort of seen them once or twice, and then they've trotted off, so it's good for them to come back. So just generally, I quite liked the fact that this just did a few things that I've

kind of wanted to see for a little bit. So yeah, I quite liked Lucky Day and it did some interesting things. It was an interesting use of the Doctor Light sort of format that we got in the first Russell T Davies and we got a couple of the last series. And I think this did something quite clever. It was sort of setting itself up to be a bit Love and Monsters -y. And then completely turned that on its head halfway through. And I quite liked how it did that. You know, I was

sort of settling in going, oh, here we go. When's Peter Kay going to turn up or whatever? And then it totally went off in a different direction and not necessarily won. I was not going to say I wasn't expecting it. Like I'd spotted that Conrad was a wrong gun, as I'm sure most people watching it had. But it was just kind of interesting to see. where it went. So yeah, good to catch

up with Ruby, good to catch up with Unit. And I quite liked the concept of dealing with units in the age of the internet and the conspiracy theorists and the sort of terrible sort of people that Conrad was one of. What was your take on it, Mansoor? Yeah, I really liked it for all those reasons. I think, like you said, making a virtue of the Dr. Light aspect, making that part of the plot in the way that Love and Monsters did as well. I think it's an interesting contrast

or companion piece to a few things. So, yeah, there's the contrast between Elton in Love and Monsters and then Conrad, because you see these two characters, like I say, start out on a journey that looks very similar and then... the big reveal shows you that, no, that these are very different people who react to similar situations in very different ways. And also, like, a nice companion piece in terms of just tone and, like, the focus on Ruby, it kind of connects quite well, I think,

to 73 Yards. I think, did they have a director in common? They had something else in common besides focusing on Ruby. There was something. behind the scenes, I think. I might have been directing or I might have been misremembering. But yeah, I think it works quite well as a little companion piece to that. There's a little mention of Albion as well, the political party from 73 Yards. If there was anything... There weren't

any major issues with it for me. there were some things that I've seen commented on that I'd agree with around pacing and I feel like that's a bit of a thing for this season or even era of Doctor Who in general that sometimes in an effort to like trim all the fat and just zip through it and you know hold everyone's attention it sometimes goes a little bit too fast and there's It's not like loads, but I just feel like a lot of these episodes would benefit from an extra five or

ten minutes just to flesh out a couple of aspects. Yeah, I don't know what you thought about or what you think about this era in general in terms of things like pacing. I have to admit with this one, I did feel as though the whole the internet is against Ruby and Unity thing kind of passed by too quickly. They could have really done something

with that. Having the internet or a bunch of right -wing conspiracy theorists or whatever turn on you must be an extremely nasty experience, and I feel as though we didn't quite get as much of that as we could. Yeah, and I feel like in RTD1 we would have done. I feel like in RTD1 there would have been a scene intercut to show something. I know there were a few little intercut...

Were there a couple of intercut TV things? It was like Trinity Wells and... I love that Trinity Wells is like a proper right -wing American broadcaster. Yeah, so it wasn't just like... In the giggle, it wasn't just the Z -dex or the giggle that was affecting her. It seems like she has those

sort of leanings anyway. Yes. That's an interesting contrast as well, because I think part of the point of the giggle was, if I'm remembering right, wasn't it that it was bringing to the surface the sort of unpleasant things that people have, like the sort of unconscious racism or unconscious bias that people might have, even if they're quite liberal or right -minded on the surface, they might have these socially ingrained prejudices that the giggle was releasing. Yeah, and this

was, like, different. This wasn't about any sort of mind control. It was just, like, very human, very unpleasantly real and relevant contemporary things that we see today. Yes, absolutely. But, yeah, I mean, I agree not just this episode. I agree with you overall that we're... Some things are moving a little bit too quickly. I'd like us to spend time on things. I genuinely thought this episode had the mileage to be a two -parter. Yeah, easily. There was definitely room for the

story to be stretched out a little bit. But yeah, I enjoyed it, and I agree with you. Things moved a little too quickly. You know, rubies. Ruby's relationship with Conrad kind of happened too quickly. It was kind of like they went out for dinner then all of a sudden, oh, five dates now and then, you know, this kind of thing. We very rarely get like director's cuts of episodes. We get like deleted scenes sometimes separately

on DVD. But I'd be really curious with especially this era, what it would look like if some of the cut scenes were put back in. Yeah. Yeah, what that would do to the pacing. Because I don't know if all of it made it to being filmed, but there's bits of script that have been released with this era that kind of give a little bit extra detail here and there on bits and pieces. Yeah, it'd be interesting to see sort of what there is for this one. It'd be a good one for

novelisation. Yeah, is that on the list? I can't remember now. I think it's Empire of Death, Robot Revolution and The Well. Was it? I'm not sure if it is. I can't remember off the top of my head at all. But yeah, I think this could benefit with a bit of fleshing out. Maybe it'll be fleshed out a bit in The War Between the Land and Sea because it was obviously a bit of set up. Yeah, some kind of backdoor pilot setup type idea thing.

And I hope perhaps we do get to deal with unit in the world of social media a little bit more when that comes along. But we'll discuss that more in a moment. Because it's not wrapped up entirely neatly at the end, is it? Like Geneva's unhappy with the way Kate acted. Yes, that hashtag

thing seems to wrap up. quite conveniently where everyone's suddenly on unit side but that could be a very temporary fickle thing and it could it could be that there is now in the air some questioning or debate about unit and what they do yeah it's um yeah i think there needs to be that sort of that gray area um you know they're a big international organization with a huge tower and everyone seems to know what they do so People are going to have opinions about that

and those opinions are going to sway things. So hopefully, yeah, we get a little bit more of that. I like that. I like looking into, you know, social media and that kind of thing. I like it when Doctor Who does that and I don't think it sort of has pushed far enough a lot of the time. So I think this is a good opportunity to kind of do that. So obviously the big thing

was it was a Ruby episode. Like, the Doctor's hardly in it, Belinda's in it even less, but Ruby definitely took centre stage and it was very much what has Ruby been doing since we left her behind. And it turns out she's been not doing a very good job of letting go of the Doctor and she's maybe a little bit PTSD with the whole thing. And... But it's good that we're revisiting

her. I'm glad that we are revisiting Ruby because I've said quite a few times I thought the way she was left was a little bit abrupt and definitely served the plot more than served anything else. Or served the series, I should say, more than anything else. So we've got Ruby back. She's grown up a little bit, which I think is good. She's... Still quite vulnerable, and that did come across a few times in that series. She's a strong character, but she does have her vulnerabilities,

and that's still there and present. But yeah, she's sort of in her post -doctor life, with her two mums and all that kind of thing. She's a little bit more grown up, and she's dealing with things, dealing with the world differently. One thing I couldn't quite work out was what her relationship with Unit was. Like, was she working for Unit? Because if she was, I don't think she'd be doing a podcast about Unit. But also she's got Kate on speed dial and can seem

to wander in and out of HQ at will. I feel like it was maybe Kate has tried to recruit her and she said no. I didn't get the feeling. I felt like they were in touch, but that she wasn't working there. But Kate definitely seemed very, very protective of her towards the end, especially. I quite like this whole unit is there to look after previous companions of the Doctor thing. But, you know, it's a route to bring other past

companions back, I guess. It's, you know, we've got Mel working for unit and, you know, we've already had Ace and Tegan. Yeah, and was it Mel and someone else got a mention being busy off screen somewhere? Yes, I caught Mel, I didn't catch anybody else. It might have just been Mel, but they were just nodding to the fact that there are these other people who are still working here, but they're not going to be in every episode because they're big stars we can't get for every

single appearance. There's definitely a sense of whoever's free this week. Isn't there? Yeah, well, Shirley is just quietly slotted back in. There wasn't any mention of one of the child labour people. Was it Morris? Yeah, Morris or Rose. Yeah, both. Maybe there'd been some legal action and they've had to stop doing that. Maybe Geneva didn't like that either. I've no idea. I'm fine with Unit having a rotating group of regulars. It did that in the classic series.

Benton wasn't there every story. Mike Yates wasn't there every story. I can deal with that. Threats can come in 24 hours a day, so it makes sense that they wouldn't all be on call at the same time. There's a slightly odd thing with Star Trek is that the bridge crew are always... around and on call when a crisis is happening. It's a bit more realistic. It's actually more realistic this way to have like a rotating set of staff

coming in and out. Yeah, it's never like a nighttime crew of like not very good Starfleet officers. Yeah, so it's, yeah, it's just sort of good to see that units are sort of actively seeking out past friends of the Doctor. At least looking after them. But yeah, I think that sort of the whole Unit After Dark and the way Unit was, and it is setting up for a spin -off series, obviously. I still want to know what the hell the Vlinx is. Like, it's a cool idea, but what is it? Why

is it there? Whose fault is it? Yeah, I did think of Bracer Robin when... He disappeared because it felt like because he's built into the set, they wrote the script and there weren't any lines for him and there wasn't anything for him to do. And then they realised that they had to get him out. So there was just like a line inserted to kind of like when K -9 would break down and conveniently not be like trundling along on uneven terrain. Yeah, when his batteries needed recharging.

But it was very much just run away, run away. Because when he said that, I assumed that everyone would be evacuating. He was triggering some evacuation protocol for all of them to keep them all safe. But no, everyone else was just there still and he'd gone. Yeah, I want to know what he's about. Like I say, it's a cool idea. I'm sure it's going to sell. action figures, trading cards, whatever it needs to do. It keeps Nick Briggs in the studio for them when obviously we're not getting much

happening with the Daleks. But what is it? Why have you, Nick, got an alien computer robot droid thingy? And again, if we're answering this in a spin -off series, let's do that. I'm okay with that. Yeah, it was just kind of, I mean, the nearest thing I can compare it to is Mr. Smith in the Sarah Jane Adventures. And we got a whole storyline about where Mr. Smith came from and actually he was a bit of a wronger than working with the Slitheen and all of that. And like,

okay, is the Vlynx doing that? Because I'm not getting anything sinister from it at all. I'm getting runaway runaway, but I'm not getting sinister. Whereas Mr. Smith was kind of dropping I'm slightly sinister hints all the way through that first series of Sarah Jane. I thought about Mr. Smith and whether it would be that kind of surprise reveal. But then that made me also think, OK, maybe the reason they got rid of him in this

episode was also a tonal thing. If they are trying to engage with more real world politics and have a unit take a darker turn and have Kate enter this morally grey area. Maybe just the flinks sitting in the corner, just his whole vibe just doesn't fit with that sort of time. I wonder if they created him and thought, oh, this is a cool thing that can sit in the corner of the building, and then went, ah, we've written ourselves into a corner here. I hope it goes somewhere.

I hope that it isn't just the computer that sits in the corner. I hope there's something to it. I hope we get an explanation. If they're waiting until the war between the land and sea to give us that, it is stretching it a bit because presumably unit's going to show up again later in this series because we know that we've got Mel coming back at some point. Presumably that's linked to unit. So it's fair to say we've got more. I mean, I'm assuming it's fair to say we've got more Ruby

as well. Yeah, it didn't feel like this. It would feel like quite a downbeat note to end her character on. Just for that, I feel like we're going to see her again. Last time we spoke about it a couple of weeks ago, I sort of said, I want her in the TARDIS. Like, I want the Doctor and Belinda and Ruby as a TARDIS team. Yeah, they haven't met as well. I feel like that's something they would want. Yeah, because we were kind of speculating,

like, how's this going to work? Is it going to be like a... a doctor's daughter kind of deal with Martha and Donna. But actually, they've not met. Ruby's just had a separate adventure. So I still want that to happen. And I do want to see sort of a three -character dynamic in the TARDIS between them. And that's kind of what

the press release about Belinda implied. So I want to know what's... what's going on there I'm assuming they're just going to meet up in the finale and it's cool but I feel that maybe we've missed an opportunity if that's not the case perhaps but yeah it was a good episode even if I've heard a few people say and I struggle to disagree with this actually some people have said it's kind of a bit directionless And I think

it just seems like that at the moment. I think it's actually very significant in terms of setting up a spin -off series, but it didn't quite lead into a spin -off series, did it? It was a Doctor Who episode that did its own thing. And I think I'd have maybe preferred a more direct link. Maybe in retrospect it will be, because I think there were comments from Pete McTighe or Russell T Davies about it. setting up some stuff. That's probably because you don't want it to be like

a really conspicuous backdoor pilot. It should be something that fits in the main series without standing out too much. Look at how they introduced Torchwood in series two. We knew that Torchwood was coming. They actually announced Torchwood. They announced it was a series called Torchwood and then they started dropping to Torchwood into Doctor Who, which then built up to Army of Ghosts and Doomsday. And that kind of did its own thing,

but firmly established what Torchwood was. And then we got to spin off into Torchwood, which was quite different from it actually, but nevertheless. I thought that was really well handled. It's not about Door Pilot, but it's linking Torchwood to Doctor Who. In a quite inventive way. Yeah. They never told us what Torchwood was, if I remember correctly. They went, Doctor Who's getting a

spin -off series, it's called Torchwood. And then we didn't know what Torchwood was and had to find out what Torchwood was via the series. Yeah, so even though it was that early Russell T Davies thing of the arc is just a word that's repeated, it had that additional... and weight to it. Ruby's not been announced as being in the spinoff, is she? Because I'm wondering if that could be where her character continues as

well. She's certainly not among the regulars, or not announced among the regulars, I should say. Yeah, there was like a cast photo, I think, put out, and she wasn't part of that group. But it hasn't actually got much of the new unit team either. In fact, is it just Kate? And Ibrahim as well, I think. Yes, yes, Tish, you're right. But there's no Morris, there's no Shirley, there's no Rose, there's no Donna supposedly working for them. I feel like some of them must turn

up, even if it's like cameos. Yeah, guest appearances. I'd be very surprised if not, but I mean, we don't know much about it really, do we? Is it just that initial announcement? Is that it? It's confirmed to be about sea devils, and I don't know if there is much more beyond that. The other new actors, I don't think we even know who they're playing, do we? No, I don't think so. Oh, isn't the general from Children of Earth back? I can't remember the actor's name, which is really bad.

Yeah. Well, it might be same actor, it might be same character, we don't know. But I can't remember the actor's name and that's really bad. I can name you like 30 big finishes that he's in. I did see something from Russell T Davies saying that in terms of where it will be pitched, because this is what I was curious about, it's not going to be as old as Torch was aimed, but it's going to be older than the main show. So it's going to be a little bit more grown up.

I think Torchwood was aimed at about 13, 14. At least initially. Yeah, I think it's like, yeah, Torchwood is very much like the new adventure novels. Like when they started, I think in both series, they were just very overexcited about what they could do. Yes. And just like throw in as many swears. It's like, we can say the F word, so let's say the F word. And then they realised, okay, we actually have to think about.

storytelling and character and they both improved a lot as they went on we need to be grown up what's grown up sex is grown up I know alien sex gas can you imagine just like being a fly on the wall at those initial pitchings yeah well yeah Higher than the main show, but not quite as high as Torchwood. I'm happy with that. That can work. And it leans into sort of being a space where we can discuss all the social media stuff

that I was on about before as well. Yeah, because I think this episode, coming back to Lucky Day, just in terms of the themes it's dealing with, this was probably skewing a little bit higher than the average. It wasn't the most cerebral thing. But it was, I think, yeah, dealing with stuff that was like a little bit more advanced than some Doctor Who episodes are. Yeah, absolutely. But it had the opportunity to, I guess, you know, it was modern day. It was, yeah, it had room

to. Yeah. And, you know, I'd always wondered, like, this episode was obviously set in the modern day, but at the same time. We don't seem to have a modern day. The Earth seems to have been destroyed or whatever. The Doctor certainly can't get there. So I did wonder how they were going to do that. Having it be a Doctor Light didn't occur to me. It must be in the lead -up. Because Conrad spends a year in prison, so it must be 2024 when most of it takes place. There's a reference to Christmas,

though. We saw Ruby at Christmas briefly, didn't we? Okay. So Christmas. Don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how that will work. Unit dating. It's back. Maybe it's a timeline reality thing. Maybe it was a Christmas in the 70s or the 80s. Ha ha. I don't know. Anyway. So. Anything else you want to add about Lucky Day, Ruby, Unit, anything like that? I think we covered, like you talked about Ruby's PTSD. I think, again, just using those terms, skewing a little bit

older than some episodes would do. And apart from extended media, we haven't as explicitly dealt with the fact that travelling with the Doctor would cause any normal human to go through

that. sort of stuff afterwards um and Conrad we haven't talked loads about him but I think the performance was really well judged to not make him not make him such a sneering cartoony villain that he lost all reality he was like a bit villainous but grounded enough to feel real and to feel all the more frustrating and hateable because of it um And I contrast it with the guy in Robot Revolution, which I think was

at the more cartoony end of things. Again, not criticism of the performer, but just like how it was written and how he's presented. That felt a bit more one -dimensional, whereas Conrad had a lot of depth. And we had more time to get to know him as well. Yes. I think we... I mean, I'm assuming it was a deliberate decision, but we never really got what a lot of what sort of the origin of Conrad was. That's the skipping

over stuff. Yeah, that's the stuff where like if it was 10 minutes longer, I would have wanted a scene like as a teenager or something. There was the scene with his mum at the very start, which sort of implied unpleasant childhood. Yeah, so it's very, very sketchy. Yeah, relatively

subtle very early on. I have to admit, I spent the first few minutes of the episode trying to work out where I'd seen the kid that played Child Comrade before, and it was The Devil's Hour, an Amazon series with Jessica Raine and Peter Capaldi. He's in that as the creepiest kid that's ever been in any kind of media ever. I was just looking at him like, I recognise that kid. That kid scares me. Why does that kid scare me? And

it's because he was in Devil's Hour. So, yeah, I did spend the first few minutes of the episode going, where have I seen that kid before that? Yeah. So I kind of didn't quite fully get that scene maybe, but there was certainly the implication of home wasn't nice when Conrad was a child. Yeah. It was there. And again, that feels like something the novelization could feel like. But the interview with Unit for the job as well,

you see it. You see a silent clip of it. But I almost wanted that montage of Conrad growing up, like 73 yards where you see the way his life is going. And you could have seeded those little hints about it taking a darker turn but not been as explicit with it and still preserve the reveal. Yeah, I wanted a bit more filling up. You could have had him been. sort of groomed by a right -wing gang or whatever, something like that. Or maybe that is a little bit too dark and heavy

for the Doctor Who. Yeah, and it might have brought the surprise a bit as well, because then you'd have had that suspicion at the back of your mind. Well, you'd have dropped the flashback after the reveal, I suppose. Yeah, you could have filled out extra bits of flashback after that. Yeah, that was something that was missing. This really could have been a two -parter. Out of everything we've had so far this series, the one that I wish was a two -parter is the one that the Doctor's

not in. If it wasn't eight episodes, yeah, I'd agree. Because if it was 13 episodes, I would have quite happily had this taking up two slots to flesh out all of the stuff. Especially if, like last series, we had two Doctor Lights. That's how I'd have done it this series. Hopefully we've not got two Doctor Likes this series. Hopefully that's the only one. I'm pretty sure we don't because it's five, six, and then the finale and everything seems to suggest that they're all

quite... Yeah, the main cast are in all of those. We've seen quite a bit of Doctor -y stuff. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, yeah, Conrad was very well done, very well. very close enough, like you say, to reality, to people that we see in the media all the time, to actually be quite a scary, sinister villain. They weren't explicit about his political leanings, but there was that sort of subtext of racism at the end with, like, get off my planet. Interestingly, like, echoing the Brigadier's

words. Yeah, get off my world. but i think yeah we all know what type of um you know disinformation it's getting up uh and there can be disinformation on all sides of the political spectrum but oh absolutely it it it's kind of i think it's pretty clear that right now it's it's there's one type that's a particular issue yeah i i also think that using the think tank name from Robot, which was a very deliberate choice, certainly on the

part of the writer, you know, he said so. They were definitely a right -wing organisation in Robot, so it's fair to extrapolate from that as well, I think. All right, well, before we disappear, we didn't get to talk about the well last week, or you didn't get to talk about the well last week, so do you just want to sort of

give us your hot well take? um yeah i'm just thinking back now uh uh i really liked it both as an episode in its own merits and i think because it was because i know some people's complaint was that the changes and the changes in the nature of the creature but i think the amount of time that's passed in universe it gives you an excuse for that it might not even be the same creature it might be you know, a different creature from the same species or related species we might

have involved over those thousands of years. I think it makes sense in universe and it's a coherent, effective story in its own right. The twist at the very end, I liked that, that sort of horror trope of, you know, the monster is still out there. But then in retrospect, it does sort of make... make the sacrifice a bit, it sort of loses something when you see her sacrificing herself at the end and you know that this creature is just going to escape anyway. It's kind of

what the creature does though, isn't it? Like trick people into killing each other. Like it did that in Midnight, like it tried to get everybody to kill it off. So it's, it's, yeah, I guess. It makes sense to an extent. Yeah, I thought it was a good episode, though. I really enjoyed

it. I mean, I spoke about it last week, so I won't go on for ages, but I'm still loving the fact that we had a Midnight sequel, and I know that whether Midnight needed a sequel or whether it really was a sequel to Midnight in anything but name is sort of up for discussion and has been up for discussion. I'm happy to go with it. I like it. It's a good idea. who's been around for 20 years now, it should be calling back to itself. Not every reference has to be to flipping

Dragonfire or whatever. Doctor Who can reference its recent past as well as its ancient past, for want of a better word. Yeah, it's this sort of weird purist belief that, well, if we're not referencing Marco Polo, it's not a proper reference, is it? I mean, I'm... I've got issues with last season's finale, but I think a callback to the Midnight Creature here makes so much more sense than the callback to Sutec at the end of last season, just in terms of telling a coherent story

within the show. Because if you didn't know what Midnight is, this story still works. But my sense is that if you don't know who Sutec is, you would feel like you were missing out watching. Last season's finale. See, now I just feel disappointed we didn't get a TARDIS Tales updated CGI version of Midnight. Like, let's finally make Midnight high budget. But what would you update? Because there's relatively few VFX shots once you're in the bus. Very true. They could have added

it. Add the creature, yeah. A little glimpse of it out the window. Add the creature, add... Exterior shots. You know how the war games added the base control? Add exterior shots. What did Crusader 50 look like on the outside? You could have the driver kind of floating around or something like that. I don't know. It would have been ridiculously excessive. Midnight is not an episode that needs

re -editing. Maybe one day. It'll have some dreadful music added to it, be made black and white and cut down to five minutes for a younger audience. I don't know how you would do it, because I think it's gotten even more in RTD2, but even from Rose onwards, there's not much fat or padding in episodes. It pretty much always rattles along pretty quickly. So how would you do cut -down versions of post -2005 Doctor Who? There's a few that I can think of that maybe could do with

a re -edit. I'm not necessarily saying cut down, I'm saying a re -edit. To this day, I'm convinced that the Rebel Flesh two -parter makes no sense in places. I honestly think something goes wrong with the editing or they didn't get to film something. I don't know. Particularly in the second episode, it just feels like there's something missing or something not quite right. Yeah, I can see that, like fixes or reduxes or director's cuts.

But the mission of the war games type thing seems to be get these things, squeeze these things down to a digestible length and do fun stuff like insert the master's theme and things like

that as well. I'd be interested to see someone try and see half hour versions of 2005 episodes yeah there's got to be something that can have a bit trimmed and I'm fairly sure it's sort of I mean I can only think of episodes from series 6 and we've been on a massive series 6 tangent on this podcast while discussing The new series of Doctor Who before. So let's not go down there again. Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll leave it there. So it's still a strong series. We've not had

a dud this series. Yeah. From two episodes. The quality. I think it's been really strong since Lux onwards for me. Yeah. Robot Revolution was good. Did what a starting episode needed to do. And then. The three that followed it have been very, very good. And they've all been very, very different. And there's been some nice surprises. So, yeah, let's keep this going. I hope that we just sort of keep the form going until the

end of the series now. You know, we've got next week's episode, which looks like we don't really know a lot about it, do we? It certainly doesn't seem to feature particularly highly. It's like shots of the spider in the barbershop. People shouting and arguing and I haven't picked up much more beyond that. It's quite nice going into... Actually, this is one of the first it feels like we're going in not knowing much and

that's quite nice. Intergalactic Song Contest, whatever it's called, that seems like we know where that's going to go. We know there's a big reveal because he said watch this one early to avoid spoilers. And then we don't know much about the finale. So actually, moving forward, I think we've had the majority of the trailers. Yeah, which is good. Yeah. We kind of have a second half of the series that's a bit of a mystery to us. So roll that on. I like it. It's good.

But yeah, I'm enjoying New Doctor Who far more than I did last year. I'm really enjoying this series. I enjoyed... I'm being unfair. I enjoyed series one, but I'm really enjoying this. This feels like proper can't wait for Saturday, Doctor Who. Yeah, it feels like it's built on last year, which will be a massive shame if there is a gap or hiatus because it feels like it's really finding its feet after last year. Just like season 26. Right, we will definitely leave it on that note

before we end up cancelling it ourselves. Well, yeah, thanks very much for joining me, Mansour. Obviously, we'll come back next week and we will discuss the story in the engine. Story in the engine. Story in the engine. We'll discuss that and we'll see if we get any hints about what's going to happen beyond that, sort of between now and then. But I'm not expecting it, to be honest. Yeah, Doctor Who's surprising me. It's

good. Keep it up. All right, we'll leave it there then, and we will be back for more spodcasting very soon. Goodbye now.