RTD2Date Part Three

You're listening to a podcast of Spurious Morality. And welcome to our third episode, looking back at the second RTD era. Last time we got up to 73 yards, and we'll be picking up today with the second half of Season 1, and also the special Joy to the World. My name's Mansor, I'm joined again by Mark to run through these. Hello. Yeah, shall we jump straight in? Oh, and we'll also do a little bit of looking forward to season

two at the end, if we get time. Right, so second half of season one starts off with Dot and Bubble. This was definitely one of my favourites of the season. Where did it rank for you? Very highly, yeah. I'd say this and 73 yards and boom are kind of the top -ranking ones for me. Well, and joy to the world when we get there. But, yeah, in terms of the overall main season, this is sort of in the kind of top three, really. Yeah,

definitely. Same for me. it's like like a lot of Doctor Who you can see its roots in other things and I think Russell T Davies spoke quite explicitly about Black Mirror I'm trying to think back to my interviews and things that he did at the time but yeah you can see its connection to other stuff but also like you know just even down to the the monster designs and things there's a lot of like very Doctor Who feel to it so it feels like it's part of this world it doesn't

just feel like a rip -off of like other stuff um and yeah i do think it was unfortunate that we had so many dr light episodes in such a short run when it was shooting at was first season but they made the best of this one i think we might have said before that the doctor and ruby might not have been uh the actors might not have been pulled in for as many filming days but they feel very present because they're always popping up on these on these screens during the episode

um yeah what was it what do you think what is it about this that made it sort of further up the rankings for both of us i think it's it's the central conceit and how it's delivered i i I had a bit of an interesting sort of experience of this one because I had heard sometime ahead of the season starting, and this is something I occasionally, you know, I have no one to blame except myself on this front. But occasionally a spoiler will be put in front of me and I can't

resist. And in this particular instance, it came via another podcast, which has a pretty good track record of, not a perfect track record, but a pretty good track record of being quite close to the grapevine and revealing things in advance. And so at my own risk, I listened to this thing and they said that this episode would feature... What I'd heard by this podcast was that the story would involve the doctor arriving back in a colony he'd originally been to as the

second doctor. And they remembered him having saved them. He was a very celebrated character. And that he would end up in a situation where he was helping them out, but from a remote location where they couldn't see him. And he was sort of talking them through the crisis. And then what would happen at the end would be, he would be revealed to them as, you know, the now black presenting, well, the black doctor that he now

is. And their racism would suddenly be revealed in this moment and they would become hostile to him. So you can see that that wasn't too far wide of the mark in terms of what was ultimately broadcast. Now, because I'd heard that. It meant that when it came to watching it, even when I saw the next time trailer for it, I could see the sea of white faces. And I thought that rumor,

that inside information was correct. But it also meant that I never got to put myself to the test insofar as I don't know had I not heard at what point I would have noticed that it was an entirely

white colony. It's an interesting one because they have some interesting, you know, you're so focused, I think, on the dynamics of the character and the tensions in the situation and the eccentricities of this sort of social media world that you're not necessarily thinking about who looks a certain way, apart from the fact that they're all wearing pastel colours or whatever it is. And, you know, so, yeah, I will never know what, At what point, if at all, I would have twigged what was going

on there. There are some subtle tells all the way through, you know, things that Lindy says to and about the Doctor, which... Yeah, when you re -watch it. Yeah, when you re -watch it, you certainly spot them a lot more. You know, they jump out at you, whereas on first watch, they just hit you with a kind of a... They hit the ear slightly wrong, maybe, but you don't quite fully consciously process it, and it's

quite clever in that respect. um you know some of the things she says for instance um uh you know how did you get in here or or um you know is is this something to do with you when stuff starts going wrong you know those kind of little comments and and stuff about oh i can't wait until you're disciplined afterwards and but that you know until until you really get to that moment of reveal um it's not very clear what that's all about other than just her being petulant

you know because she could come across that way anyway she's quite a sort of bratty character really um anyway and some of it's quite uh subtle facial expressions as well like the first time he pops up and she dismisses or blocks or swipes him away there's this slight you know what you think is just a sort of petulant look of annoyance of like oh who's this person who's who's bothering me that you know who's made that cold call but then in hindsight that look of disgust takes

on well yeah it comes across to me more as a look of disgust rather than annoyance when when she just does this like little sort of grimace as she's um swiping the doctor's screen away and yeah there's loads of little things like that and it gets less subtle as it goes on closer to the reveal but right at the end when they're talking about voodoo and all of that just before the twist but i think it's it it's one of those twists that doesn't because there's certain types

of twist where on a re -watch it sort of saps the excitement out of it because it's like oh i i you know i know what's what's going to happen here but this is one of those examples where re -watching it is actually quite rewarding because you're picking up on these things and seeing it in a different way and almost watching a different episode with that with that knowledge of what's

coming at the end Yeah, absolutely. Another thing about this one is, you know, that's a heck of a first day in the office for Nshudi, isn't it, to come in and his first scene be that one where it is that culminating scene where he fully processes what's going on and has that incredible reaction to it. It's very powerful. It's hugely uncomfortable.

And it's... you know he he's he's amazing in that scene but it was a heck of an ask for him to come in on day one and just write this is what you're doing um yeah so that was a baptism of fire right there and i don't want to um sort of like just make sort of unfable comparisons to the chibnall era but i think the fact that you have a black doctor the fact that you're doing something with that and acknowledging it and and doing a story like this i know jody's

era had bits of that like in the witch finders and other stories um like gender is mentioned but uh most of the time it's sort of it's sort of brushed off and and maybe that's right to like get on with telling a story but i would have liked a bit more of that in 13th doctor zero what does it mean to be a woman in history

and what is that sometimes mean. And another interesting dimension to think about that, you know, adjacent to all of that is, say it had, you know, maybe it's in my mind more because I was originally set up to expect that, you know, they had this sort of historical memory of, you know, a white doctor, you know, like Patrick Troughton or somebody having come and saved the

colony before. But if you think about it, like there could be any number of those sorts of colonies that we saw in particularly the 60s or whatever, the Macra Terror or something like that, where a white -faced doctor shows up to, you know, a pretty much white cast, you know, and then they happily resolve things. He's waved off with a cheery goodbye. And you might, one or two of those colonies may have shared, you know, these racist values. We just don't know. And the doctor

would never have known. And it's unsettling to think, do you know what I mean? That the characters, maybe guest characters we grew to like or enjoy in that particular adventure could have held these sort of, you know, it could have been a widely spread belief amongst their people, but

it just never came up in the story. And so this really puts that front and centre and sort of makes you think about that kind of... I mean, hopefully there aren't too many colonies like that in the far future because it's a bit dispiriting. But I guess it's one of those lessons of history that if you're not careful. Oh, and that's one thing because one of those things that RTD likes to do is to present you with a thing and say, look, I'm not saying that this is a negative.

It's actually maybe a real positive for the future. Like, for instance, in this case, it's the two -hour working week. And that two -hour working week frees up so much. I think it's a logical.

path of progression that society will eventually get to something like that because there'll be more and more technological assistance and things and so people will only work for less and less but less and less time in the future but the point I'm making I suppose is what he's saying is he's not inclined to be negative about these things like he wouldn't sort of wag his finger about people watching too much television he sees the virtue of the public discourse in television

and things like that Here, the equivalent of that is to say, look, the two -hour working week is a potentially very positive thing, but it's a double -edged sword because as much as it frees up time for creativity and hobbies and all the rest of it and meaningful social engagement, it also maybe presents a time in which conspiracy theories and paranoia can fester and you need

to be really careful about what you do. do with your time in this in this world of of you know potential almost full -time leisure do you know what i mean it's so it's like don't don't fill your time with um prejudice um i guess it's kind of one of those lessons for the future you know well ahead of that that envisaged future if you see what i mean yeah that's that's interesting about the two hour working day because i i didn't take it that way i took it more as because i

felt you never get an impression that they're doing anything useful because i feel like if you were i feel like if you were doing like a story that's set in the future where they have like employment um law and practices advanced to the point where you can do a useful day's work in two hours um you'd be doing like two quite intense hours of high value work but it feels like these people are just like sat at desks doing busy work what's of ambiguous busy

work for a couple of hours that's because they're on their their dot and bubble while they while they're doing that work as well aren't they so that's true yes i i never got the feeling that they were like going in and doing this you know sort of intensive uh high value two hours of work um but uh but yeah that's a good point about the downtime that it creates as well and so let's talk about before we move on i think we should talk about lindsey and pepper bean though like

this the central character who with it being doctor and companion light who's our main focus for most of the episode um i think there's a lot of interesting stuff there with subverting this that sort of when it starts off you expect that trope of here's this person who's um you know being taken on this like heroic journey to move from someone who's quite passive and stuck and then starts to take on traits of the doctor and becomes more active and becomes a

hero and then there's a complete subversion or rug pull around that uh well i guess it's with rookie september isn't it but that's is that the moment or is that's a turning point yeah i mean um that that's the moment when he's first introduced he's sort of i think you're absolutely right it sort of leans in momentarily into that trope of oh he's going to open her eyes to these other possibilities of see the world and all that doctor basically yeah and of course we don't

know how far his individualism extended in the end. Was he the only non -racist on the planet? And probably not, actually. He was probably just, in that respect, as bad as the rest of them, but just a bit more of an individualist in terms of what he did with his time. But, yeah, I actually have to be careful how I put this, because obviously her views turn out to be reprehensible, like the rest of them, and she becomes very unlikable

for that reason. But I did think, okay, as far as I can, this was in the early stages of the episode, as far as, you know, even though I could see she was petulant and kind of snappy and all these things, there was nevertheless something likeably kind of quirky about her. And I just, I kind of hoped for her that she would go on that journey you're talking about. And I do wonder,

there's... I'm thinking back, for instance, to a character like Novice Haim, who, you know, comes back having been on a sort of an unseen redemptive arc in the meantime when the Doctor reconnects and a previous villain has become somebody reformed or, you know, considerably more matured in terms of how they see the world and how much they want to help. And I wonder, is there a potential redemptive path and even a possible return on the cards for somebody like

Mindy? Now, she does have, you know, when they part company at the end there and she gives him that very cold, just narcissistically cool stare from the boat and they make eye contact. There doesn't seem to be any prospect of that. I was wondering about that this time, actually, because, again, I might be imagining it, but I was imagining just in her expression, just a little bit of

regret, a little bit of doubt. the way she's looking back like obviously on the surface there's disdain and disgust but the way that like why doesn't he just if if she was so like steeped in those racist attitudes that she had like zero regard for the doctor would she have said thank you like and would she have held his gaze wouldn't she have just like turned away and just sort of talking to her friends about where they were going Yeah, I guess there is a sort of a bit

of an ambiguity to some of that, but it does. I mean, oddly enough, I had the reverse this time. Having seen a bit more of what you're talking about first timeline, I think I looked at it this time and thought it was it just felt a bit harder. You know, it just felt a bit. Yeah, a

bit. leaning towards the possibility of redemption and it was just it was almost a look of just narcissistic defiance and that conceding of the thank you was nearly a point of social etiquette in the same way as you know back in the day somebody might have talked to the household help with a sort of surface thank you but absolutely still this sort of two tier thank you because she's intelligent enough to be aware that he has probably helped save her life and it's like only with

that sort of extraordinary circumstance that she can bring herself to talk to him face to face yeah it's very much a I suppose I'd better thank you kind of thing you know rather than a that's as close as she can get but then of course she is being witnessed by her peers there and so possibly it's an interesting one just one thing while it's in my head before we move on because it could be easily overlooked, a small

production thing here. The set design I thought was clever because the way they've done it, they have these sort of like very quite relatively nondescript like walls and things. So as she's walking around, as she's being guided around and trying to walk unaided for the first time without the aid of the bubble. you see these walls and it's like just literally like a two -tone thing, beige at the bottom or whatever, and a primary color like a blue or a green or

something at the top. And it's really there just, it's all just about something to impinge upon your peripheral awareness and say, you know, okay, if the wall's orange, I'm on level two or whatever, you know what I mean? You don't have to think about it, but there's certainly no, you know, there's nothing more finessed than that. There would be no wall art or anything.

You know, it's not a world. that needs that because it's just purely about these people that live inside the bubble 97 of the time and um no one's going to see yeah sculptures or so i like that i like that thing which i only really took on board this time watching it you know little um set choices and things really lean into that whole world anyway yeah we probably say lots more about that episode but let's let's move on to to rogue and this is one that i would say

was an episode i enjoyed like i placed it well above space babies in terms of rankings um it was great to see in general farmer like i said as a villain um and uh and it was cool to see the Doctor having a romantic relationship that's not a heterosexual one and that just being played in the same way as it was in Girl in the Fireplace and just not made a big thing of. Beyond that though, and I was really surprised with this one because this one had a guest writer I think,

but maybe out of... Well, maybe this and Space Babies, maybe the finale as well. These were the episodes that felt the most like a bit of a rerun of what we'd had before. And that surprised me with this one in particular, having a guest writer, that this felt like a lot of the stuff we'd seen before in the first RTD era. So my feeling was, decent episode, not a bad one. but it's never going to be at the top of my list. There's nothing that makes it really extraordinary

or stand out for me. It's just very solid. What were your impressions of this one? Similar. It's one of those things where, yeah, in terms of, there's some clever stuff going on in it. I think it might have been a 7 out of 10 -ish type of episode for me, were it not for the fact that that kind of charismatic pairing up of the Doctor and Rogue really pulls the spotlight. It's so

well done. There's just this real... It's interesting because I've heard one or two other podcasts suggest there was no chemistry between them, and I'm thinking... Are you blind? Because it's

there in spades as far as I can see. But yeah, you know, that moment where they dance and the lights come down and everything, that's actually in some ways, it's one of the episodes that most subtly, because it's sort of doing so much and you're sort of steeped in this world of Bridgerton and everything, you can almost... was i thinking about it failed to notice that here again are these sort of like meta i mean obviously bridgeton is a very meta thing to throw in there and the

cosplay idea and everything cosplaying history but like the fact that you know you're watching something that's either metaphor or actuality in terms of the lights coming right down and those two being in the center of the dance floor and if we are you know and i know we'll talk about it i'm sure towards the end again if there's still a possibility that the meta thing could be could be in the mix there's something quite quite interesting um i think just there's some

beautiful visuals in this i think i think um all that stuff you know where they shoot outside in the moonlight and and the little tardis park next to the the the big tree and you've got the giant spaceship i love just just in terms of a sort of a mood i really like it i'm i was a bit less enamored of the um the children themselves in terms of just like, I don't know, it's quite broad, isn't it? But then it's, it's fun too. So, you know, it's, and then the business at

the end with the, the triforce. Oh, this is, of course, this, this, this has to be mentioned when the, when the triforce was first introduced and the doctor is trying to get out of that situation after he's been dancing to Kylie Minogue and all the rest of it. We have the iconic Richard E. Grant appear and, you know, that was an interesting moment. That was one of the most notable bits

for me. Yeah. So it's either just playfulness or, again, they're suggesting something of the, you know, the expanded universe, the Doctor Who multiverse or something. It could be just... toying with the fans a little bit. It could just be having a bit of fun or feeding things in. Yeah, I think this was just a musical choice, but another thing you could add to that meta list is that thing about using modern songs, but doing them in a period style, like some of

the music during the dance scenes. I can't remember which songs it were, but... Yeah, we had Lady

Gaga towards the end, didn't we? and correct me if I'm wrong because I'm not an expert but Bridgerton itself does that doesn't it it takes it's probably a reference to that yeah yeah yeah but I agree about Rogue and the chemistry I could easily you know I'm not it's another question about whether the actor would be available but I could easily see the character Rogue being this semi -regular river type character over

the next few years coming back. Because it felt to me like it was, you know, he disappears at the end, but it felt like it was almost being set up for a return or the possibility of a return. Yeah, like the new Captain Jack almost. It didn't feel, yeah, there was a lot of Captain Jack in him as well, but yeah, kind of mixed between

Jack and River possibly. Obviously, it's not a historical figure, but it didn't feel as final and tragic as Girl in the Fireplace, where this is a finite thing and the tragedy is that she's died and she's gone. This felt just more like they've been separated, possibly temporarily.

Yeah, he throws out that... find me challenge to him at the end and even though the doctor does say look you know there are there are many there are as many parallel dimensions as grains of sand in the universe sort of thing um you know that yeah if the writers want if the writers have seen the potential for more there and they will have done um that is on the cards you know jumping ahead to season two but like our final finale for season two is called the reality war

so Ah, well, there you go. So that somebody could step through in the right circumstances. That's right. Yeah, so I thought it was, it's just one of those ones you can really steep yourself into the atmosphere of. And it kind of hits the doctor quite emotionally hard at the end. You know,

he is affected by it. in a way you know it's good that ruby makes him stop at the end and have that hug because he's he's ready to rattle on to the next thing which is him almost reverting back to old habits and forgetting about you know being the post therapy doctor there for a minute she has to pull him back into that uh um that mode his his more um his more sort of self -aware motive i think that's that's that's an interesting thing actually like maybe like with this whole

retrospective that we've done We went into this era with that notion of this is the doctor who's gone through therapy. That's why he's in touch with his emotions. It's not entirely consistent. There are moments where there's a lot of that old sort of repression or difficulty of dealing with emotions that is still there. He's not a completely different character. Maybe this is one of those moments that shows that. He does sometimes react in the way that he would have

done in previous incarnations. But yeah, so I was just bringing up the season two titles, but maybe we can come on to those once we've gotten through the remaining episodes. But shall we move on to our two -part finale for this season? Yes, let's do that. Now, I didn't have time to rewatch both of these, but I rewatched Empire

of Death. And just like a little structural thing that I felt at the time, I think, is it almost feels like the episode break comes 15 minutes into Empire of Death, because that's the big time jump when, you know, time's moved on and

we pick things up again. And that felt very much like the space between... um like a more fat two -parter where you'd have like a big universe changing thing in the penultimate episode jump a few months forward and then pick up in the finale so this i felt like this maybe it was just to do with running time so the structure of this two -parter was a bit a bit off for me um and i'll very very briefly sort of mention sort of my feelings because i think they're quite

common ones and then i'll hand over to you because i think you you felt more positively than than some about about these episodes but there was lots to like um there were some really lovely moments with like mel in the memory tardis just having mel as a companion for these two episodes um it looked really good in places there were some really exciting action sequences uh and there were some interesting ideas about you know ruby's mother is significant because we thought

she was significant again tying to that meta thing of it's almost us as the audience watching doctor who and assuming that ruby's mum is special which makes her special um that was an interesting idea i wasn't super sold on the execution and it's it's it's just like it's things like when i watched um uh you know church on ruby road and uh and you see that hooded figure in retrospect that falls a bit flat for me because it's oh it's just it's just a mom and she's pointing

menacingly towards a a street sign for some reason rather than just like leaving a note saying this is ruby um But yeah, so that's my feeling. And I think this retrospective has been really good for reminding me of how much good stuff there was in this season. I think because I was a bit down on this ending that had this effect of slightly souring me on the whole season and leaving me with an impression that was worse than it deserved. Yeah, so basically this didn't work for me as

well as it could have done. I think a lot of other people felt similar. But I'll hand over to you, Mark, because I think you found more to enjoy in this one. Yeah, I went on a bit of a strange journey with this one because I understand something of what you're talking about there because... I had been going on this, to me, the season went on this very strong run, certainly from episode two through to right up until and

including Rogue. And then I was all ready for, and I understand that I'm, you know, partly to blame for this because I brought my package of expectations to what the finale would and should even be, you know, in terms of all this meta theorizing that had crept into the mix. And then, you know. The Legend of Ruby Sunday initially disappointed the heck out of me because I watched it and I thought, oh no. Like, certainly when that ending arrived, I thought, surely it's not

just bringing back an old villain. Is it just bringing back an old villain? And then it was exactly that. And it was, it felt, you know,

that moment of reveal falls. fell and actually still largely falls totally flat for me for two reasons right one i think the way it's executed is very overdone now not the build -up through the episode itself which is actually pretty strong um but the moment of of its reveal do you remember how in aliens of london they had that first sort of cliffhanger around the slitheen yeah and because they hadn't done cliffhangers for years it felt a bit too spun out it lost its own momentum it

wasn't concise enough and it didn't, and because of that, it just sort of over toppled a bit.

This felt like that to me. And I thought, oh, even with all those intervening years, it's still, they've done that again, you know, su -text, you know, if it had been like at the end of Fenric, you know, at Fenric part three or whatever, where it's like, we play the contest again time, you know, that kind of really concise punchy moment and you go flip a neck, but it was this, you know, Don't get me wrong, the Harriet Arbinger

stuff and all, great. The sort of talking, the kind of her talking and that kind of mantra and everything. And then even the anagram thing. But then Susan Twist stands there for ages talking and talking and talking and everybody is wide eyed. And I don't know, it felt really stretched. It's even more than Utopia levels of hype. And I think Utopia works so well because it's built up just enough in the season. Derek Jacoby is

so good. Yeah. The master has so much personal significance to the doctor who thinks that he's the last survivor of a genocide that he committed. All of that makes it so impactful. And then, and this one, yeah, Sutec's a well -regarded villain, but it's a long time ago. He's not really, he's not really like, however much you retrospectively. talk him up. He doesn't really feel like a recurring nemesis of the Doctor. It's like one TV story

and a few bits of spin -off media. Yeah, and then the other thing, by the way, I realise I'm sounding quite negative here, but I am going

to spin this around in a minute. The other thing, the second... dimension to that that really disappointed me was well just the fact that it was Sutec you know it's just like to me now I have to admit and I know that I'm unusual in this as a fan right one of my least favorite stories is Pyramids of Mars I don't know why it just it's just not it just doesn't hit me the same way like I think in some ways it's so like this is what Doctor Who should be to a certain generation of fans

that it just it almost repels me with it's sort of like you know or totemic nature or something. You know, it's just like, okay. And then you've got Sutec who, don't get me wrong, like Gabriel Wolfe has an amazing voice and he invests that character with so much surface sort of, I don't know what the word would be. Like he really draws you in with that voice and he's scary, but there isn't really much to Sutec. He's this godlike being. And by the time we reached the end of

this season. He's somebody that's sort of built himself up to a point where he's close to omnipotence and he has a sort of obsession with acquiring total omnipotence, which is why Ruby's mother is the one missing link of the chain for him. But I don't know, just at that moment, I was so hugely disappointed that it was just like, oh, we've put a Sutec in it, you know, that... It just left me really disappointed that week. Then Empire of Death came along, right? And totally

redeemed it for me. Again, I know I'm unusual in this regard because most people out there seem to be saying, oh, the first part was the one that worked amazingly well and it was the second one that let everything down. I personally

feel it's the opposite. I think what Russell T Davies did... was intentionally bring back a villain that he knew a certain proportion of the fandom would love to see again right and he he says well look okay i've given you i've done the ian levine thing now right i've done it on purpose and i've given you this now be careful what you wish for because he's actually a great big god of nothing right and and then overtly says so and then dispatches him in a

manner which you know had a lot of fans wailing and gnashing their teeth But I think actually it was brilliant because what he's saying is, okay, there he is. He's a device. He's brought about this catastrophic end of the universe thing. Now what is he? He's just a big dog with a scary voice. What do we do? How do we bring this back to the soul of what Doctor Who is? And the way you do that is you say, it's kind of in the way

that the Daleks were sort of. summarily dismissed by Rose at the end of The Parting of the Ways. You say, right, you are a great big god of nothing and all that's really important here is the foregrounding of the emotional journey of our main characters. And there's a moment, there are some beautiful moments in this. The real heart of this for me, right, there are two key things that have both the soul of this story, what's important in this

story, and the soul of Doctor Who. And I've seldom seen the essence of Doctor Who captured better than in these moments. And I'll try and explain as concisely as I can what I mean. One of them is the moment where the Doctor goes in to the wasteland, into that tent, and talks to that lady. And... That was a really good scene. It's

so beautifully done. Yeah, it's so... It... The kindness in his eyes and the way she's so exhausted and she talks very, you know, with this sort of residual sense of romance about the place, but it's all fading, it's all going. And he is so gentle with the way he approaches it. He asks about the deceased baby. She isn't quite even aware that she's lost the child. She has some sort of... vague awareness at the end. And when she hands over the spoon, this is the crucial

thing for me. I know some people find this very stupid. They were like, this is ridiculous. What is it he's after, a spoon? But they're sort of throwing away the poetry of that moment for just plot literalism, you know? And I think what that scene gives us is just like this amazing distillation of the Doctor. where he holds his spoon aloft and he says, with this spoon, I might save the

universe, right? And then by the time that scene has ended and that lady is deceased, he actually changes, it has changed from I might to I swear, right? Now he doesn't mean literally the spoon and only the spoon, but there's something in that that boils down the essence of the Doctor to like, what is he? He's a very silly man who can do... the most profound and hope -giving things by virtue of the sheer silliness, you

know. Do you know what I mean? Like, he takes the most improbable thing there and he gives you hope and you believe him, you know. And I think that's Doctor Who in a nutshell. I've never seen a scene, I've seen very few scenes in the series history. And what's crazy is, Russell D. Davis said on the commentary, you'll probably remember this. that they were going to cut that

out, that whole scene was going to go. That's unbelievable to me, that they would have sacrificed that on the altar of having some more stuff in the Westminster. Easily, I think, the best final

episode for me. The other thing I was talking about that I think encapsulates the spirit and the heart of Doctor Who in this story is... a lot of people were complaining afterwards about how much time was spent in the memory tardis and even saying it was embarrassing and just you know they had all that disney money and look what they've done i've taken it down into this they've set one third of this finale in this cramped little cluttered space and to me what

that's saying is that's rtd having really good instincts and going yes we have all this disney money now right we have It's brilliant that we have it and we can and should be doing amazing things we've never been able to do before with this. But let's remember what Doctor Who has. It has a BBC heart. It's BBC to its core, right? This might sound like a strange thing to bring in at this moment, but what is more BBC, right?

The BBC we grew up with, you and I. I'm a bit older than you, but you'll know what I'm talking about. The likes of, you know, the broom cupboard, for instance, right? The memory tortoise is the broom cupboard. It's this intimate space. It's the counterintuitive move of, yes, we're this big institution, but come and join us behind the water pipes in this little silly cupboard and you'll feel like our friends every afternoon. Do you know what I mean? It's kind of drawing

you into an intimate space. in a way that no amount of grandstanding with money could ever do. And I think that all those little touchstones, it's not just Mel caressing the Sixth Doctor's coat or holding the Seventh Doctor's question mark. I know all those lovely kisses to the past are there, but it's just bringing the scale back down, pulling you in and giving you hope in this little warm ember of sanctuary in the middle

of this devastated universe. And from there... giving the doctor just this little breathing space to find his way back to his best self. And I just, I'm not talking about it as articulately as I wanted to, but you know what I mean about that? There's something like, it's the spirit of the broom cupboard, it's the spirit of Lime Grove. It's small, it's intimate, and it's going, doctor who is still this, it hasn't forgotten

what it is, and it's still here. Please see that we see that and please see that that's the heart of it. And then at the very end, you get all that stuff about Ruby's mother, the scene in the coffee shop. And I think it's fantastic. I would happily watch 10 more scenes of that than I would have just Sutec saying villainy things while the doctor does witty retorts. You know, you need that stuff too. But I think they got the proportions exactly right. And I think

they just... There's a bit in, again, another odd thing to bring in at this moment, but I was watching a bit of season 17 the other night, of all things. And I hadn't seen it in years, but Creature from the Pit. And the doctor, Tom Baker, just throws out this very flippant comment. I had a couple of things that guy didn't have, which was a teaspoon and an open mind. And that phrase, you know, there's the doctor holding the spoon aloft, you know, that's kind of nearly

like the... Yeah, I was just thinking of that phrase when you mentioned... Yeah, there he is with his teaspoon and open mind. And it's the only way back to the universe in that moment. It's like it makes, you know, it gives me goosebumps thinking about it. And so, yeah, I don't know. So I've seen all this stuff in it that apparently other people aren't seeing. Maybe I'm over -romanticizing it. I see it, definitely. The stuff with the scene with the spoon, I definitely see that.

And that's, I think, one of the reasons why I liked that part of the episode. I liked lots of parts of this episode, all this two -part finale, including the stuff with Ruby's mother. I think that was played really nicely. There are little things like where the barista's called Ruby's order and she's said, yeah, that's me, and then just ignored the... Bruce didn't have that conversation with his mum. But no, it's played with a lot of really affecting emotion.

The one last thing that didn't work as well for me was the departure at the end. And it felt like something that was designed to come at the end of a longer run. of time with Ruby and the Doctor. Because we've had eight episodes, two of which we haven't had both of them heavily featured. So six episodes plus a Christmas special. And it felt like it was really going for it with that sort of Rose and the Doctor parting ways in Doomsday sort of energy. Again, both the actors

played it really, really well. The scene in isolation was great. It's just I didn't feel like there had been enough build -up over the previous episodes to warrant that level of focus on it. Yeah, I understand what you're saying. And yet when I watched it, and every time I've watched that scene so far, the fact that it hits me, it does

affect me emotionally. i i get it you know i get the feels as they say you know every time and and deeply and i mean the doctor's little tight smile at the end there like he's he's wait it's it's it's kind of like a little echo of when sarah leaves at the end of hand of fear or something like that you know he's holding it in but he's not really holding it he's slightly better at short but he's still you know it again there we are there's a double -edged sword of

post -therapy but not still still not brilliant at some aspects of that um but you know that there's yeah i i can i think i i can i can just looking at it from a production standpoint i suspect what happened is that you're right it was intended to be a longer run i think how things hit the the news headlines got a bit garbled there probably was an honest conversation between um millie gibson and the production team where she maybe said like i i can't presently at any

rate for whatever her reasons were i can't presently carry on at this this rate of workload and i for my mental health or something you know this is me i have no basis for this it's just it's just my own feelings about what might have happened so she maybe was meant to be right through the following season too but they felt the duty of care towards her and they said we want you to still be part of it so we'll bring you back in a smaller capacity smaller but just as important

capacity next season and so they probably did have to reshape that ending but given that that's the case i still think it was really well done and actually quite well rationalized you know i've heard people complain that um they believe that her you know having found her birth mother and and investigating the birth father and all that was was too flimsy a reason in their opinion for for them to have this sort of even temporary separation, but I don't think that's true. I

think it's right to me. It makes loads of sense. Like, I think absolutely. I think the only thing I personally would have preferred is if it was just like a little, yeah, like you mentioned Sarah leaving, like that sort of just a little more underplayed with like just a moment of, you know, him alone in the TARDIS afterwards rather than it. Yeah, again, like I said, being played like they're being ripped apart and they're

never going to see each other again. I know that's the, like on an emotional level, that's what the Doctor's feeling because like, yeah, they're temporarily separated, but he knows that this is like the beginning of the end and they're

not going to be travelling together. One other thing I just want to bring in, because this illustrates both something that... kind of simultaneously a scene that both simultaneously annoyed and you know I both loved it and hated it at the same time because there's that very quiet scene where Kate comes and finds the doctor you know in one of the little pauses and things in the middle of all the madness and she says she's talking to him about how her father would tell

stories about the doctor you know and in the firelight mill when she was younger and uh he says this amazing thing which i think is is very uh on point for his doctor in particular where he says uh in those days i was the great enigma and i'm still trying to shake that off and i think that's brilliant that's so him right he's all about text and not he's all about sort of text and not subtext these days he He wants to

be straightforward. He wants to be, you know, this is progress for him, not to be so, you know, mysterious all the time, even though he will accuse himself of exactly that in the Christmas special. But at the same time, the one bit I really didn't like in that was he's talking about his granddaughter and saying, oh, yeah, I am a granddaughter, but not yet. And I just thought, what? I don't know. That just doesn't... Yeah, there's been a lot of little skirting around

Susan in the Devil's Chord as well. Maybe we can talk about that briefly in our expectations and see if that will come back. Shall we go on to... Yes, I did really ramble on there. Apologies. I feel like one of the few people that really thinks an emperor of death is actually... I'll stop short of saying a masterpiece, but way, way better than people are giving it credit, like many people are giving it credit for. So

I probably got a bit carried away there. No, I think it's always better to hear a sort of defence of something that has been, you know, had a mixed reception rather than just rehashing the same tidal criticisms. And like I said, I agree with you a lot about those bits in isolation, like that scene in Scatulating. the spirit of Doctor Who, I think that's a really lovely thought as well. But yeah, let's go on to Joy to the World. I think both of us liked this one, and

I think a lot of people did as well. I think overall it went down quite well. Viewing figures, Christmas always means there's a bit of a bump, but I think it did reasonably well in the viewing figures as well. I don't have the numbers to hand. But yeah, I think you especially liked this one. What was it about Joy to the World

that really stood out for you? Okay, yeah. I actually, when I watched this on Christmas Day, I think about five minutes after the episode had ended, I realized that it was my favorite Christmas special of all. And I thought, wow, that's a very, you know, normally it takes a little time to make up your mind about that stuff. But I thought that's a very firm. I've drawn quite quickly there. Why is it my favorite? And

I think it just, it's a number of things. I think it just, I think it's the one that just destroyed me the most emotionally. Like it just, you know, to bring it back, like what do you want a Christmas episode to do? You don't want it to be overly mawkish, but you want it to resonate deeply with you on an emotional or spiritual level or something.

this did now one criticism i've heard people say quite a lot is that they find it um i don't know whether you will or won't agree with this one but they they find it to be like uh an uneasy compromise between in other words it should in their opinion it should have been one thing or the other either the the year spent at the hotel exclusively or it should have been giving joy more airtime um how do you feel about that actually i i wouldn't have i think i said at the time

i would have liked more time with joy i think it was enough like yeah it was enough for that ending to have the impact it was supposed to have and yeah so in hindsight i think it works fine but yeah my initial impression was more along those lines of like this felt a bit and i think part of the sort of confusion with that was like who was being pushed as the big star um and maybe that was like a marketing thing um but both of these actresses were great but

it just seemed weird that only one of them was like getting that top billing when both of them had some really great moments with the doctor I have a little theory about that. But actually, what I want to say before it goes out of my head first is that I actually feel that it was perfectly weighted between those two elements. I think some people are looking at it as this thing that was sort of like had to be, you know, was bodged together from parts for behind the scenes reasons.

And you can sort of see the join. And to me. Instead, it looks like it's been carved out of whole marble the whole time. Like it's a perfect thing. And the exact amount of joy and the exact amount of the year the hotel was there, that thing works as a short story in the middle perfectly. And any more of it would have over toppled it.

And any less of, I think we just had just the right amount of joy to really get to know her as a person, get some really... powerful stuff from her and and then see her you know transform into the star and by then really feel something about that because but but the theory thing i was going to get back to was isn't it interesting that yes she did have the star you know nicola cochlan whose star is very much on the rise no pun no pun intended um but she so so and then

you have this actress playing um Anita. And first of all, Anita, that's an interesting name. I don't know whether that's a bit of a red herring or a teasing of the fans to try and make you make a connection with Mrs. Flood, but it wouldn't surprise me because if she did turn out to be Mrs. Flood in the end, and it's because the cast and actress there, and if I remember rightly, she was It was her first television thing ever.

And it was supposed to, well, notionally, it was supposed to be quite a small five minute appearance by her. Or you would only have seen the bits you saw at the start with Joy signing in and so on. And we're told the story that actually when they realized what she could do, they wrote up her part more and more. And I'm not sure I believe that. I think that feels like a little bit of a fib. And I think they wrote it exactly as it was from the outset, but they didn't want

to pull too much focus towards this lady. But they needed to pull a certain amount of focus to her by giving her this full year in the doctor's company because she may well turn out to be Mrs. Flood. And you may think, well, how would that be? Because she's just a very straightforward, normal person. But then she goes to work in the Time Hotel. So let's imagine that maybe she gets, I don't know, possessed by a force. Maybe she becomes the receptacle for one of the guardians

or something. I don't know what it is. Something quite big would have to happen. Because, like I said, I was re -watching Empire of Death, and the way that she talks, she's talking about herself as being on the same level as gods, even if she's not a god herself. It's so interesting, isn't it? Yeah, she's talking about tearing down the gates of heaven and stuff like that. We do have hints at hell in the forthcoming. season. So there's something going on with heaven and hell

there. But yeah, to return to Joy to the World, I just found it a perfect emotional journey. I love the fact that at the end, they actually treat the business of the Bethlehem moment with, first of all, I think it's right. after all the Christmas specials we've had to finally go there, but also to do it in a way that respects everybody. So whether you're atheist, agnostic or a firm believer, you can take what you want from that moment. It can hit you on your own emotional

level. The iconography of it is still there and the joy of the doctor in that moment and just the visuals and the music in particular, I just think it all comes together. There's a beautiful music cue, that whole final build up to that

moment. um it's done very reverently and like yeah in a way that's not gonna upset anyone but it's also a little bit fun and it's it's almost like the sort of um the dialogue version of it is it the tenth doctor who drops a hint about um being at the stable but oh yeah um like when you hear him talk about it that's like much more irreverent in terms of how it's put across but this was like there's a slight flippancy about the no room at the end at the start but then

i think when you get there it's it's done very very sensitively and and actually something else you've just reminded me of was another sort of sensitive approaching of that was in um the paul mcgann story on audio the relative dimensions where he talks about leonardo wanting to go see the the nativity and so on, and then they get almost to the inn and then he has a panic attack

and needs to go back. And so he takes, you know, but he describes that whole thing so beautifully and then he says, well, he still ended up painting a beautiful picture at the end of it. And anyway, that's a bit of a tangent. I didn't really need

to go on there. I just, it's just, it's a very, stephen moffat -y thing you know to have that just i don't know he he plots it so well and he he has just the right the right character things said you know like there's a character like trev you know he's not in it much but you you really feel for trev you know like he by the end he's he's he feels like an old friend and you're like yeah i'm glad you're you're dead but you're happy you know yeah that's really

good i mean things like the night of the doctor is the peak example of that of like packing a lot in and doing it in a really deft concise way um and i totally agree with you that there's lots of little examples of that here one that stood out for me one example of that was is the opening scene which is um kind of i think i talked about this on the the sort of immediate reaction episode but it's kind of Going against this thing

of the Doctor being... Going back to the thing about the Doctor being this weird Patrick Troughton -style character who's popping into steel milk rather than being a superhero or some other type of character. It felt like really going back to the weird, strange roots of the character. I did love that, yeah, the milk stealing and the mugs that are bigger on the inside and all that. Just him in his house coat there, like,

you know, just the whole thing's brilliant. Yeah, and just, well, there's so much you could say. I just, I know I'm not going to be able to do the thing justice. It's just how it hits me on an emotional level. I think, I know I could watch that one again. Oh, I'll tell you what, sorry, I would be absolutely furious with myself if

I hadn't mentioned this part. that moment in the lift like the part that really captivates me every time it's it's uncomfortable to watch but it is brilliant and it's almost like the doctor has to channel his inner seventh doctor in that moment or something because the stakes are so high yeah i really like like that moment he is brutal there you know and it's like he doesn't hold back you know you really there's no there's no now you know it's you know it's

hurting him on the inside to do that but he gives it like he goes full method like he's he's just going right i have to be and you can't hear you know cruel to be kind yeah and you can't have that every episode but i think those sorts of moments are great for actually giving this doctor some edges and some because he's extremely like charismatic and likable in every episode he's in but though and it's the same with jodie jodie whittaker's doctor as well actually like extremely

likeable and watchable and really feels like the Doctor. But I wanted her to get more moments of that edge and those unexpected turns. And yeah, the moment in the lift that you've described, that worked so well for me because of that. Yeah, I could watch that over and over again just because as an acting thing between the two of them, it is immaculate. Every single beat and choice that

they make. um and it even helps you forget about the fact that this must be traveling incredibly slowly but you know it's a very common that's a very common tv trike that like lifts take just as long as you need for a conversation to happen um one more thing to mention about this episode i think before before we move on is um and you sort of you alluded to it earlier but like all the stuff with Joy's mum and I don't know if they used the word COVID but like referring to

the pandemic in a pretty obvious way I thought all of that was like incredibly like really well judged in terms of how far they go and the balance between you know being upsetting and like having that moment of happiness at the end and doing all that in a fluffy piece of Christmas television. And, yeah, I thought it walked all those lines really well. And it contrasted, and it was very

real. It was like acknowledging that COVID and the pandemic happened, and it's always interesting how TV shows engage or don't engage with those sorts of things. And it contrasted for me with... like back in 2005, where you have the reference to weapons of mass destruction. What was the phrase? Weapons... Oh, they could be deployed in 45 minutes. Or was it 45 seconds? 45 seconds. And it was something like weapons of... There

was some variation on that phrase. And that was obviously referring to real -world events, but in a much more kind of jokey sci -fi sort of way that was still... and was making some sort of point. And, you know, the whole thing about the Tony Blair analogue being the Prime Minister. But the way it's handled in Joy to the World, I thought it was like a really emotionally sincere and well -judged version of that in terms of engaging with serious real -world events. Oh,

completely. I mean, and that bit where she just breaks emotionally because she's... reliving the trauma of listening to the advice. And she's reeling about these politicians that, you know, were total hypocrites and the damage that, you know, it would have been, it's a traumatizing thing anyway, but to have been so badly let down. I think Doctor Who acknowledging that in about

as overt a way or making room for that. to the right extent not not not underselling it and not um yeah not underselling it i think that's the key thing yeah um yeah so but uh yeah and of course it was very specifically the year 2020 there you know so what else could it be except for cover even though you're right it doesn't it doesn't explicitly say so um so yeah it's uh it's an incredibly powerful piece of work. I think it's neat. Actually, just one tiny thing

further on Mrs. Flood. Somebody, this is not me, some other eagle -eyed person out there had spotted that there's a car in the first Christmas

special, Churchill and Ruby Road. It appears to be the same blue car, supposedly, as Anita's car, and it's outside Mrs. Flood's house or whatever or nearby um in shot anyway and of course she has that moment where the car is reprogrammed to take her where she needs to go it's it's a bit tardissified or something um anyway sorry that's i just wanted to throw that in there because i thought i'm not taking credit for that one and i can't remember to whom i should give the

credit but i read it somewhere online someone had spotted that and i thought it's an interesting catch well let's let's wrap up then with like moving on to season two theories hopes fears um we have episode titles we've got a few trailers now we've got a behind the scenes trailer um yeah let's let's do it in terms of like hopes and fears like what what are you hoping for from season two um non -cancellation at the end of it um well uh To be a bit more serious, well,

not that that's not serious because we have serious worries about that, but I would just like to see, in a way, more of the same, because I think it's been a very strong run and I could just sit and watch. and another companion who's obviously going to have a great dynamic with him, just foregrounded against whatever events they're

going to throw at us. Even though I said I'd learned my lesson, I think when we spoke about this last time, I said I'd learned my lesson and I absolutely wasn't going to rekindle the embers of the meta theory. I don't know. Things seem to be... There's a lot of things lining up, like episode two is very much along those... Well, that is the concept of episode two, and

the name of the final episode is... Yeah, and even in terms of the promotional stuff, they have those, the whole adverts that they put on where the Doctor was popping up in programs, you know? And like an old episode of EastEnders, like a really old episode of EastEnders and stuff like that. And you're kind of going, what's, you know, is that saying something? Because if

it's not saying something, it's an odd. That one in particular, you know, the 90s episode of EastEnders is a particularly odd one to have used. In isolation, you could just see that as like marketing, like an extension of the thing of like having fun with idents and things like we have done in the past, like, you know, David Tennant. driving a sled through the BBC ident. But we've had lots of stuff like that in the

past. I think it's all of this stuff coming together in a cumulative way that starts to rekindle that theory. And the BBC, not the Disney, but the BBC promotional stuff had at the end, you know, those little cool, what do you call them? They're like just two second things of what each episode's

about, you know, a little sort of style. yeah um the final one has you know cracks come out of the doctor who logo and stuff and it just if that's not saying doctor who will turn out to be a program from which all realities fragment i don't know what what would you know but i've been wrong about this before i'll probably be wrong again and you know uh i did mrs flood possibly turn out to be i don't know um romana gone bad or something god knows i i'm like i'm hoping

for mrs flood to be some sort of really compelling interesting new character um i'm sure there's a way of having it be the rani or someone else that we already know and it being good but i don't know i just i feel like i'm drawn to the idea of her just being some new fascinating entity that we have no idea about. And even like a bit ambiguous about like who she is or what powers she has. And maybe we don't get all the answers

about her by the end of the season. It sounds like there's going to, it seems obvious there's going to be some big reveal about her. And we even have hints about like which episode that's

going to. come with with some of the leaks and things yeah i think russell c davis has like given a warning about which episodes to like really catch up with to avoidly see it on broadcast or or see it on online or or um social media for the rest of the day kind of thing three and six he said yeah so we know there's going to be big things in each of those episodes Yeah,

I'd like there to be something new. I would like, because I wasn't as sold on the season one finale, one of my hopes is that seasons one and two work together to tell a story that's more satisfying for me as a whole. Here's an interesting thing on that very topic, which is... I forgot to say this when we were talking about the two -part finale just a moment ago. There's a point during the whole investigation of that amazing, beautifully done sequence where they're inside the VHS tape

and all that. And Chidozie is what you call the unit operative that goes on in. The doctor encourages him to go on in at his own risk. And of course, the guy gets killed. um but at the point when he gets killed sutek well who we who we will later find out to have been sutek says the voice from the cloud says he has gone to hell right and then later on when when kate and every one else on the planet has died but then gets resurrected thanks to bringing death to death by the way

I think Death to Death is not silly at all. It's beautiful and it's poetic and I will defend that one to the, well, to the death. But anyway, people are being sometimes overly literal about this stuff, but like Doctor Who, you know, who knows what the powers of a god are? He's weaponising, he's making the monster fall into his own traps and he's doing what he's always done there. So anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, Kate... comes back and she says she remembers echoes of something.

And I thought this time around, okay, that connects to what was said about Chidozie having gone to hell. And this forthcoming season, I think it's episode three, where that word seems to be somewhat associated with that episode. The first time I heard some of the titles leaked, that was originally going to be called Five Miles Down. And I don't know, hell, we've had that word used in the past and Doctor Who to refer to, for instance, the, you know, thing we call, the first one with the

oud and all that, you know, we had. So, you know, it's probably not a literal one. My hope is that the two seasons work together as like two acts of the same story. The finale at the end of season two is going to wrap the whole thing up in some sort of way that feels very satisfying. I'm also really excited about the new companion. There's a lot of parallels to Martha. She's a nurse rather than a medical student. But yeah, just in the little bits that we've seen of her in the trailer,

I just get like a really... And to Tegan because... Oh, yes. Tegan and Rhiannon Barber because the whole mission statement is to get her home. That's exciting as well. This season has that really strong mission statement. This is what we're trying to do. It's almost like a movie. You have a sense of what a high -level plot is just from

that tagline. Oh, I love that second trailer, by the way, because... I would never have guessed in a million years that they'd use a Phil Collins track of all things, but it works so well and it ties thematically in so well because even, I went, I'd never heard that song before, but when I went and watched the video, did you do

this? In the video, even he travels around the world, like he just keeps popping up in all these different, you know, landmarks, you know, from Tokyo to, and of course we've even had those little idents where, you know, a destroyed Eiffel Tower is flying through space and all that kind

of stuff. So I feel there's something about, you know, there's something really cohesive about this marketing strategy where they're going, they're thinking about even the song choice, making it thematically relevant, but maybe subtly thematically relevant for anyone casual looking

in. But yeah, I just think it feels kind of, I could be getting my hopes up here beyond what they should be, but it feels very... sure -footed in what it's doing I've almost begun to wonder is RTD sort of nearly trying to I know it might just literally be that like Disney really are sitting on their hands and he doesn't know what's going to happen and there could be a couple of years where they don't even know whether the show's coming back but I think he might even

just be playing a bit of a game he knows what the plans are but he can't reveal what they might be until or the new format for the show or something until whatever happens happens it's all speculation but like i wonder as well whether he's trying to be clever and hedges bets with where season two is going because if this is some sort of multiverse reality war thing that it's all heading towards maybe the ending oh and that's the other thing we've heard we've heard about reshoots

haven't we yes so and the reasons for those reshoots as well the rumored reasons oh well yeah that's the other thing about like um yeah is is the doctor gonna gonna regenerate and but but but in terms of like is it gonna is it gonna go on hiatus are disney going to continue is it going to go back to just being a bbc thing is it going to be a new maybe this reality war finale has some sort of um safety mechanism where they can reboot the show in like various different forms

depending on where where like the production backstage stuff goes in future so like there's some big cliffhanger at the end of this season and then if disney continue we get like more in the same style but if it goes back to the bbc maybe we have some sort of reality changing event that justifies why we're shifting our scope and style back to where it used to be yeah i think you could be onto something there that sounds very um persuasive um yeah so but but

another thing about that is say for instance that um Who very understandably at this point must be thinking, look, I have other things to be doing here. I'm a young up and coming actor and I can't sit around indefinitely waiting for contracts to be, you know, signed here. What if that being the case, RTD has said to him, look, hang fire here. We will accommodate you. Like say, say we do need to go to just like. two years of two specials per year or something

like that. We can quickly shoot them. We can get them done. We can let you go off and do your Hollywood stuff and we'll still have you. I think that would be a very worthwhile compromise because he's so good, this guy. Like we want him for his life. Well, I would certainly like, I'd take 10 years of shooting doctors. You know what I mean? I'd happily see him be the longest running we've had on TV. But, you know, realistically, that's not going to, that's not the modern. way

it goes. If he stops after this, then he won't have done much more than Christopher Eccleston. No, that's true. He does say at the end of Empire of Death, he does say, I'm keeping this face. Don't you worry, I'm keeping this face for a long time. Which maybe in retrospect sounds like that moment that Colin Baker said he was going to do seven years. It could be a time of the doctor situation where we have a story where he spends thousands of years. That's true, yeah.

The old prosthetics going, yeah. Okay, so anything else about season two before we wrap up? I'm just looking through the episode titles. Can we have good songs, please, for the Eurovisions?

Oh, yeah, there's a Eurovision episode, which they've managed to sync to the... day i think and they talked about having like backup plans around marketing i'm presuming if if it didn't align precisely but i think they managed to have it go out on the day yeah that was a lucky break uh yeah so we've got robot revolution lux is the one that one of the ones i'm most interested in they they all look interesting like this whole like from the first trailer And again, trailers

don't always accurately reflect what the actual thing is like. But both the BBC and Disney trailers I've really liked. And the first BBC one had this much kind of scarier atmosphere to it that felt, I don't know how to describe it, like less safe. Like they were like, OK, we've established what this new era is, who this new Doctor is. now we're going to do. And the 2006 series two was a bit like that. You had the impossible planet, Satan Pit. And I don't think you would have had

that sort of story in season one. They needed to establish what this new Doctor Who is and then do those weirder, darker stories on that foundation. And this feels like a repeat of that, of like branching out a bit and doing stuff that's

more ambitious. more weird interesting yeah there's i love what's really exciting is there's whole swathes of this season i think even more so than last time where you just don't know what like there's there's there's what looks like a sort of a 1960s kind of i don't know like a cafe or something like it's tilted sideways at one stage and it's got very you know it's got it's i don't know whether it's african -american or what or what the the vibe is there but there's there's

there's a there's distinctive flavors to each episode that that uh wish episode looks i don't know very otherworldly or you know something like like out of mervyn peak or something it's got that kind of vibe about it um and Yeah, I mean, I think Lux is the one that I think could on its face be the most sort of like, okay, here's our sort of equivalent gimmick to last year's. It's a pretty much identical scene of them getting

dressed. That's true as well. So there's speculation about whether that's intentional, isn't there?

Because it's so shot for shot the same. that it's some people are going you know weaponizing that and going this is RTD finally out of ideas and then some people are going well hold on what if this means something um you know that that they're that they're making that so overtly shot for shot the same I don't know um actually just on that subject just just and I'll try and make this point as quickly as possible but it's been on my mind right there's been a lot of online

negativity about the show from certain quarters, right? And they seem to be attacking on every front. The primary one being that it's supposedly woke and so on. And I know it's like a case plus a change on that one, right? But the thought struck me the other day. I wondered if you took last season, the season we just spoke about, right? And somehow through some timey -wimey mechanics, you could... Take that and swap it and put it into 2005 as the first season we had

and put 2005 season here. You know, just swap the bookends around completely. The same people would probably be waxing lyrical about what we had in the first year and say that this year is rubbish. And it's not the show that's changed. It's them. They've got older. Yeah, I think it's totally the cultural context. It's the same thing with like a lot of anti -trans stuff at the moment.

Like you used to have... trans people on shows like big brother and it it wasn't an issue it's only like in the recent you know last few years where that's has become a massive issue for people oh for sure i mean you've got you've definitely got the transphobes and the racists and so on but like let's put down to one side right there's still a critical mass and thankfully not the majority but but a very loud minority that's out there and just just doctor who's not what

it used to be it's gotten rubbish the storytellers and this show needs to be cancelled and they're they sound angry and bitter and i think what they're angry and bitter about is i think this is history repeating because you remember somewhere around like the early 80s fandom began to sort of eat its own tail a bit and just get a bit

poisonous and call for RTD to be sacked. I think we're sort of there again with the people that came young to the revival and are now, you know, they've 20 years on the clock since then and life has been maybe a bit unkind to them and they're just, the show isn't giving them, the show isn't a sort of an all. an all fixing salve for them. You know, it's, it can only pull them out of their day, their, their work a day lives for, for 45 minutes. And then they have to go

back. Do you know what I mean? And they just, I think some people just need to try a bit harder to reaccess their inner child and still see that it's, it's hard. The show's heart is still the same and it's something to still be hugely proud

of. That's, we probably haven't got time to go into it now, but like, that's just made me think of something else, which is, like i wonder how much this new show is landing with like children and teenagers who's i think there's been like some stats and surveys on this i haven't really looked into them into that much detail but my instinct and my sense is that it's not it's nowhere near like the impact of 2005 It really landed

with the audience that it was meant to. And those people, like you say, have stayed with it for a couple of decades. Although, interestingly, I think one of the stats we did hear about, wasn't it, was that, I mean, this may have just been an attempt at spin, you know, pulling the positives out of whatever data points they did have. But it was supposedly the case that for BBC One anyway, Doctor Who is the youngest skewing. That's true.

I don't want to be negative, but the counter argument would be it doesn't have loads of competition on BBC for what else is there that's going to compete with it. And maybe that's because the landscape is not in a great position in terms of BBC produced sci -fi and fantasy. And again, a couple of decades ago, Doctor Who seemed to be prompting a bit of a resurgence of that. You had Merlin and other bits and pieces that were sort of... jumping on the excitement that Doctor

Who is generating. And maybe what we need to hope for here is that instead of it being 1989 all over again, what we've got is 1969. You know that point at which the BBC were sort of going, did we make any more of this? And then they went, can you think of anything that's... Got to do this better than it's already been done. All right, give it another run. So I want to look back on when the end of season two is done, or maybe when War Between Land and the Sea is done

as well. And we talked about this in one of our previous episodes, but going into this new, new era, I was expecting more. radical reinvention and revolution. I don't know what that looks like. I have no idea what that would be. But I was expecting something, with all the talk of it being a new era, I was expecting a bigger departure from what we had before. And I was up for that. I loved trying something new and

different. And it's been more of an evolution rather than that revolution I was being or expecting. And part of that is Russell T. Davis himself, who's brilliant at talking things up, but he can sometimes talk himself up onto a ledge, you know. But what he did was he was saying, look, I'm writing stuff that this show has never, ever attempted before. And I was thinking, wow, what

could that be? It's so out of the box here. And one of the things that came to mind to me as a concept that they, you know, maybe there's just two out there, but I was envisaging things like. it's going to start off as a series where there's five people and one of them is the Doctor but they don't know it and they have to go on a quest and one of them is going to turn out to be the Doctor and they know that's going to be one of them but they don't yet. Do you know

what I mean? It could be that sort of thing where you only find out at the end of the season which of these apparent humans is actually the person who's going to become or re -become the Doctor or something like that. That would be a truly revolutionary thing. So that would maybe capture a young demographic in a way that the show never has before. So this would be like a, we should probably wrap up soon, but that's given me like an idea about a discussion we can have in future.

Like maybe when series two is done and we could think, okay, where should Doctor Who go next? Do you remember that Doctor Who magazine article in the wilderness years? I do, with the little legal people and all in it. Was it called Let Beers and Star Wars? We're Going to Be Bigger Than Star Wars, it was called. And it was like all of those new adventures authors and people doing their pictures for what Doctor Who should be. Russell T. Davis and actually Stephen Moffat

and I think Gatiss were in there. Which one of them? I think it was RTD who said the way he would do it. This was him talking then and it shows you how much his thoughts evolve on these things over years. But he was talking then about how he would bring it back and call it Doctor Who 2000 and have the Doctor work in a bookshop

somewhere in a little village. And then over time, mysteries would be brought to his door and there'd be a little police box parked somewhere in the village green or something that doesn't have any significance until episode six or something. I think that's the sort of stuff he was saying. And then when we, yeah. That's interesting because

I think like... 2005 we were just at the point where the mill was making like you know acceptable cgi within reach so maybe like late 90s russell t davies wasn't thinking that that was on the table so he was thinking okay how do we make doctor who effectively in the constraints of bbc budgets and like you said 1969 1970 maybe that sort of thinking was on his on his mind at that point like how to just shift the whole setup of the show to do something cool within

those constraints um but yeah let's but one one final thing i just want to say is you mentioned the land between the war and the sea before and the one thing that gives me hope that you know the reality war is not doctor who's final television episode for you know a decade or something is that uh or forever is that um I just don't see the BBC putting out as its final ever thing of the Hooniverse a spin -off about the sea levels. I just can't conceive that that's how you bookend

things. So there'll be at least one more thing.

Well, maybe I'm being overly optimistic there, but I kind of do trust that RTD, if anyone can work miracles and turn this ship around in terms of the possible decline of popularity and maybe... genuinely blindside people with something extraordinary here um i think he's capable of it i think he's still capable of it yeah all right so i think we're both going into season two with our hopes and some excitement yeah and yeah we're expecting to do like more instant reactions on the podcast

as we go through the season and i think it'll be great to get together again afterwards for another retrospective once once season two is done. But any final thoughts before we wrap up? No, I think that's it for me. We've done that one. We've covered that pretty thoroughly. I think so. And I think these chats have helped me to see the good stuff in season one that I might have missed because of focusing on the

bits that I just didn't. fall within my expectations or do exactly what i wanted them to there's so much good stuff for me in the middle of that series um that i think really stands up and is worthwhile uh so yeah i've really enjoyed going back over it yeah me too i've really enjoyed this So we'll leave it there. And yeah, as I said, we'll be back with reactions for season two. But otherwise, thanks very much, Mark, for joining me. Well, thank you. It's been fun. And

we will see you soon. Goodbye. Bye.