you're listening to fusion patrol a listener supported podcast
each week we take a single episode of a science fiction tv series movie or
audio and overanalyze it to within an inch of its life welcome to the discussion
Hello and welcome to another episode of Fusion Patrol.
I'm Eugene.
And I'm Simon.
And tonight we're looking at the third and final 60th anniversary Doctor Who special,
The Giggle by Synopsis.
In 1925, Charlie, assistant to John Logie Baird,
enters a toy emporium where he meets the eccentric German proprietor.
Charlie is in search of a toy doll for an experiment for his employer.
He chooses Stookyville and returns to Baird's workshop.
Using Stookyville's head as a test subject, Baird transmits the first television picture.
As it catches fire, its mouth opens, and it laughs.
In the present, the world is in chaos, and the Doctor and Donna are soon picked up by
Unit, taken to their skyscraper headquarters, where the Doctor finds Melanie Bush, a former
companion now working for Unit, and Kate Lethbridge-Stewart.
they explain that two days ago the world went mad and at the same time the final worldwide
connect everything satellite went live without a little gizmo on their arms every human except
those who have traveled in the TARDIS believes they are right about everything and cannot be
told otherwise it's true the planet has turned into one big online flame war except with planes
trains automobiles guns and whatever else the doctor quickly identifies that the first television
image ever transmitted is lodged within every screen in the world and it's causing all this
the doctor authorizes unit to destroy the korean satellite while unit prepares to destroy the
satellite the doctor and donna take the tardis back to the time of the first television transmission
and they find the toy emporium the doctor soon realizes that the proprietor of the shop is none
other than the eternal immortal toy maker who has been nursing a grudge since the first doctor
defeated him at a game of logic. Corridors are traversed, and finally the doctor challenges the
toy maker to a game. The game is cut cards. I-Card wins. The toy maker wins, but the doctor points
out that they are even, and a win must be two out of three. The toy maker agrees that he'll do it
back in 2023. Back in 2023, Unit destroys the satellite, and I'm not sure, but I think that
saves the world from the giggle. However, not so much for the doctor. The Toymaker is here,
and he's decided to play the third and final match against the next doctor. He fatally shoots the
doctor, starting the regeneration process. Then magic happens, and the doctor splits in two.
One old, one new, and they challenge the Toymaker to a game of catch, which the Toymaker loses.
he is banished from reality for all eternity but now there are two doctors and with a little
leftover toy maker magic there are now two tardises dr new heads out into the universe
and the doctor stays behind to live with donna and her family to recover from the traumas of his life
the end now not not very often but upon occasion we do exchange a little uh of our opinions on
these episodes before but typically we don't but once in a while a little bit of it creeps through
and in a case like doctor who uh big deal like this uh some of it creeps through um can be hard
to can be hard to help myself sometimes yeah yeah i can understand that and i have avoided
as much as humanly possible all online opinions podcasts i have seen a few toots here and there
with people talking about how amazing this was amazing i say it's the most amazing oh my gosh
russell d davies is god himself he's so fantastic it's amazing oh it's wonderful i love it not my
opinion um but uh but seems to be what i've seen so far which is a bad sign for people who might
be nursing that opinion when they come to this podcast so simon what did you think of the giggle
I'm very cautious about being one of those people who pour cold water on the joy that an episode can bring to those people to whom it has brought joy.
And I had quite an emotional response to this one, which I haven't had for really quite a while to a Doctor Who episode.
and it has made me think about the kind of it i mean the fact that there are people who like
like some episodes and don't like other episodes and just like certain eras of the show and don't
like certainly none of that is is new you know there are people who for whatever peculiar
reason you know some sort of childhood trauma or something don't like stephen moffat's era of
doctor who i get that you're gonna say sylvester mccoy's but okay yeah yeah well sylvester mccoy
So, you know, it's the same thing for everyone who loves Russell T Davies and hates Chris Chibnall.
There are people who love Chris Chibnall and hate Stephen Moffat or, you know, whatever it may be.
So I think throughout the kind of, well, let's say the Capaldi and Whittaker runs of the show,
I've kind of not had that kind of real sense of feeling disappointed
or feeling like something deeply important about the show
has been messed about with.
And I think I did have that quite a lot, actually,
with Russell T Davies in his original run.
And, you know, the passage of time has dulled the pain with some of it.
And I had it again.
You know, Stephen Moffat is not perfect.
I definitely remember the last time I was really kind of feeling angry having watched a Doctor Who episode was after Death in Heaven, where Moffat brought back the Brigadier in a way that I thought was kind of deeply disrespectful and unpleasant and kind of taint rewatching that.
So that was actually Capaldi, wasn't it?
I was saying Capaldi run was fine.
It's odd.
You know that was meant to be respectful.
I know Moffat did that tend to be respectful. And yet some people vehemently see that as just a destruction of his memory.
And, you know, that's the kind of thing about these things.
It's these, all of the kind of people involved in production,
the number of stages anything goes through to get signed off,
because it's not actually all down to Russell T. Davis.
There are umpteen other people involved in the process.
You know, I mean, there is a script editor and there are multiple producers.
And I think, you know, certainly with David Tennant here, you've got him having some kind of creative input into the show.
And they all think that what I'm going to get the spoiler right.
The spoiler here is that my problem is with particular problem with this is the regeneration.
It wasn't episode I love, but the regeneration really pushed my buttons.
And it's not a regeneration, obviously a bi-generation, but it went through all of these kind of creatives who all thought that it was great.
And as you say, the reaction online is this is terrific.
And so it's not like this is wrong.
I would have, if I'd been in any of those meetings in some kind of parallel universe where I was some sort of TV executive, I'd have been going, oh, my God, you can't possibly do this.
People will hate it.
People didn't hate it.
My judgment about that is completely wrong.
Wait, there may still be people out there who hate it. I just haven't gone looking for them yet.
Well, of course there are. Of course there are people out there who hate it. And, you know, anything to do with Doctor Who, and indeed anything about what regeneration actually is and what it means, there are going to be as many different interpretations of that question as there are Doctor Who fans out there.
So I guess in a way what this has forced me to do is to consider what it is about regeneration that is so important to me and why I don't want it messed around with.
And I think it's because one thing that is really key to when I watch any Doctor Who is the sense that the Doctor is the same person whenever you're.
And this has been kind of diluted a bit, the idea that really what you're getting here is someone.
I didn't say someone new because, you know, even Mel's lying in this to know who you're going to be, but it's going to be someone fantastic.
And it's like someone is going to occupy a point in the Doctor's space time continuum.
Even that's not simple because he's a time traveler.
And so what that means is difficult.
But I guess, you know, fundamentally, the point about identity has to do with memory.
And the Doctor keeps a set of memories, even through regeneration, apart from, you know, Paul McGann's Doctor.
And even then they came back.
And the personality changes are, it's, I feel in a way that, and I like the personality.
I like the fact the Doctor changes.
It's still the same person and it's a different personality, but it's not a completely different personality.
It's a different set of characteristics coming to the fore that are all there in some sense.
It's a different desktop.
I think, well, yes, in a sense it is.
But in a sense, it's also reflecting the fact that if I were to kind of examine my own core beliefs about identity
and kind of leaving all of the kind of intellectual philosophical arguments that I studied at the university
and just kind of going, what do I actually instinctively believe?
I think it has partly to do with memory being a kind of massive force in it.
And it has partly to do with biology in the sense that the body with which we inhabit
has such a huge effect on things like our mood.
I mean, if you just think about how different I am when I'm hungry compared to when I've been fed,
I think, you know, and for people who experience chronic pain or I mean, we know all this stuff from people who experience brain damage or whatever, that huge personality changes can take effect.
And the doctor has this complete cellular regeneration.
So all of that's kind of fine.
And I've kind of arrived at my understanding of what regeneration means.
But this is still the same doctor, right?
All the way through, this is still the same doctor.
And the problem that we've got here is that instead of there being a kind of linear, this is the same Doctor, we've now got the same Doctor.
And it's not the same as when the Doctor time travels and you've got two Doctors in the same place.
It's the Doctor's own timeline.
Timeline.
And whatever happens to David Tennant's Doctor now, Shuti Gatwa's Doctor is not going to remember because they have diverged.
okay oh and i don't know how i feel about that i have questions i do know how i feel about that
i don't know how i'm going to feel about it right i don't like it i feel like it at all
okay so here is the weirdy part okay if you look at this in any let's come back to our rtd mantra
don't think but if you think about this for a second can david tennett's doctor regenerate
Now, will there be a different next doctor if he gets hit by a car while he's shopping with Donna?
I don't know.
Are we got another line or did he expend all his regenerative power and it's gone off into Shooty's doctor and now Tenet is the end of the line?
They will grow old and die or whatever.
I don't know, but they say in this episode,
Shooty says, I'm me because I'm okay
because you took the time to get healed,
which more than implies that Shooty is still a future incarnation of David Tennant,
which is don't think or you will hurt yourself.
Well, your comments about what you're livid about is interesting.
And I mean that in a serious way.
I'm not trying to diminish it.
But immediately after the episode, which is what I know you had our first conversation, what you were upset about was once again getting a companion, getting their own little bespoke doctor to take, like Rose did.
I mean, when the comparison was there to that.
That sounded like what you were talking about.
they've pulled the same ending again i that's that's kind of not my issue i don't i don't mind
i don't mind what the doctor does now i know just the fact that rtd has to do that to give them a
happy kind of i think i can't leave rose without a consolation prize so she gets her what what was
the term you used for that one paper cut out doctor yeah i mean the so there is there is the
fact that russell t davis has done this before in journey's end he did it slightly differently
but in effect he took took a regeneration and he used it to create duplicate doctor but in that
case he did explicitly say this doctor cannot regenerate and he did it so that rose wouldn't
rose would have a doctor i don't think i don't think that's what he was doing here i don't think
he was i don't think donna was incomplete without the doctor i think no i i no no it's just you know
it's that idea that we don't want to kill the doctor we don't want the 10th doctor to
to be gone he has to continue on and like so i think that i think that was more to do with
not wanting to kind of sever the viewer's emotional connection with this incarnation
of the doctor and it's not this incarnation of the doctor to be honest it's david tennant
playing the doctor because for the same reason i dislike i dislike this i dislike naming the doctors
as the 14th doctor or whatever because it's not the 14th doctor the doctor it's the first doctor
right or in your your um theory of what's gone on it's well that is the first doctor now that is the
doctor and second the second doctor but it is the doctor but what we what we are calling the 14th
doctor or the 14th incarnation of the doctor is different from is supposed to be different from
the 10th incarnation of the doctor which is also plagued by david tenant but what rtd is trying to
avoid is people feeling like david tenant's version of the doctor has gone away the the reason i think
that's kind of self-defeating is that and again i'm wrong everyone else loves this episode fine
But the thing that surprises me, OK, is that I think that regeneration does actually serve a kind of purpose here in the sense of it brings closure.
The reality is David Tennant's incarnation of the Doctor has gone away.
For all the speculation there is online about this being a setup for a spin off with the Doctor and Donna, you know, stranded on Earth or whatever, that's not going to happen.
right david tenon has left the show again and all those people who love that incarnation of the
are not going to be watching him continue his adventures do you remember uh sorry do you do
remember we had a talk a little while ago uh about when they made the paul mcgann movie that they
wanted to get tom baker to come in to do the regeneration instead of celester mccoy it's
Because the audiences love Tom Baker, right?
That's Tom Baker was at that time, iconically the doctor.
It's, you know, so sorry, everybody else.
But for particularly in America, Tom Baker was the doctor.
And that would have been a big boost for them to get him in even for a bit.
If they could have got him in to play the doctor in the movie, that would have been even better.
And I just do feel like Disney might be trying to hedge their bets here.
You know, you get a movie.
They've always wanted Doctor Who movies.
They could actually have David Tennant legitimately in it as the Doctor.
And that would be far better than, to them, from an economic standpoint, than any other possible combination or thing that they could do.
Because Tom Baker is too old.
And that time has passed.
Now David Tennant is, you know, kind of that apex doctor model.
May not be my favorite, but, you know, from the pop culture thing, that's kind of the thing.
So, you know, I'm not saying we won't.
That's nice theory, but it's not.
We will not.
Okay?
I don't think we are going to see David Tennant play the doctor again until, you know, we get the 75th anniversary or whatever it is and we get him playing.
the curator and you know that maybe he regenerates into the curator david tennant has left doctor who
because he wanted to do other things and the reason he's come back to doctor who now is because it was
just three episodes he's not going to start doing a movie series or whatever i just think
that is not going to happen and 50 million pounds salary that's not part of the consideration
around why no i mean i think if he'd been willing to come back and play the doctor they would have
carried on having him you know they'd have had it they'd have had him for what i'm calling season
40 what might be season 14 or one or whatever they they would they they'd have brought him back for
that but that's you know he's he's done that he's not doing that again i don't think that is
happening and i think that you couldn't get leonard nimoy back for a series of star trek but you could
get leonard nimoy back for a big budget movie and a fat fat paycheck it's less time it's less
commitment and it's a lot lot more money i don't think that is part of the reason that russell t
davis has done this i think the reason he has done it is because he thinks that it's unhappy
to have Tenant's doctor die.
Yes, but you can have more than one purpose
in your mind when you're doing something.
You can have more than one position.
It's not binary.
It doesn't have to be binary.
I'm doing this because I either want a happy ending
or I want a sad ending.
It can be the universe is not that.
I'm sure I've heard those words somewhere very recently.
The universe is not binary.
And I'm absolutely sure he just wants to have a happy ending.
He wants all the doctors to have a happy ending.
He said so as much in the commentary.
He doesn't want them to die.
He said that.
And he said that, you know, this is not the idea that he's leaving the door open for a movie or whatever is, I mean, it doesn't fit with anything we've had or seen anything about anywhere else.
But we have absolutely, we know from, as you say, the commentary that this is the reason that he did this here.
It's also the reason that he did not want to kill off any of the companions because he has this view that, you know, when you kill a companion.
And he was critical in the episode of what Moffat did to Amy Pond and to Clara and to Bill.
He doesn't like the episodes where they die.
And he seems to have extended that even to regeneration.
And I think that's a problem because I think he's trying to give the audience this happy experience.
But I think he's denying them the closure of when their favorite actor playing the Doctor goes away.
And seeing that, seeing that, the kind of moment in which they transform.
And I also think he's creating a problem for the new actor.
And I don't think, I don't think he's alone in thinking it's a difficult thing for audiences to take to the new actor because the, you know, the previous one has had to die in order for them to take their place.
because in a way that was what we saw Moffat dancing around in Deep Breath,
where he has Matt Smith appear and give what is basically a kind of fourth wall breaking appeal to Matt Smith fans to give Capaldi a chance.
I mean, that's what Clara is a proxy for in that scene.
But by doing what he's done here and just allowing Tennant's Doctor to continue, he's not actually even steering the fans down that road.
I think he's giving, I think he's giving Shuti Gatwa a difficult time because he has to spend his first 20 minutes as a doc, as the doctor playing second fiddle when he should be the pretender, the, the absolute lead in those scenes.
Although I don't think Gat was going to have a problem with that based on how fantastic he was.
But I think those things are, it makes it all problematic in terms of just the kind of the real world function that regeneration is supposed to provide in terms of stewarding the audience through a change of doctor.
and I also think there's an in-world
problem with it which quite
simply is regeneration
is supposed to deal with
the Doctor dying
it's a consequence of the Doctor dying
but actually what happens here is there
is no consequence of the Doctor dying
the Doctor being killed in this case
means the Doctor
survives and as a bonus
kind of
spawns an additional Doctor
so yeah what the hell
was the drawback there?
I don't think this is a good idea.
You know, if we never see David Tennant again,
I will always think of Shuri Gatwa as a different doctor.
And I don't, you know, so, okay, let me,
well, we have so far off talking about the episode
and to the ramifications, but that's, you know,
hardly surprising.
I was thinking about this.
This is not, call it a bi-generation,
and there are some distinctions,
but this is actually asexual reproduction.
The doctor has split into two.
There are now two doctors.
The Toymaker actually, Toymaker makes it sound like if he kills one of them, they too will now split in two.
Because that's what he's contemplating.
It's like, oh, I'll just keep killing you and you'll split into two and then there'll be more of you to kill.
Which is like, let's get a new showrunner before we change doctors again.
Well, they tried to stop him.
We tried to stop him, which is like, well, why would you do that?
Why would you try to stop him?
You're just going to shoot me again.
Yeah.
Where's the drawback?
Just get another one here.
But so, but if you think about it, this is a question that comes up, has come up somewhere
in the ages.
And I think I even peaked at the first sentence of a summary of Wikipedia.
And this is, oh yeah, this is something.
I think if you have an amoeba, an amoeba, how long does an amoeba live?
Right.
They go about two days before they split into two identical amoebas.
Is the amoeba still alive?
Is it two new amoebas?
Is an amoeba immortal until someone squashes it or burns it in a lab or something?
I don't know.
But it's definitely two amoebas.
And they go off and do different things.
They don't have memories, but they have different experiences.
One might get fatter and the other one might get skinnier if they go down the wrong food path, whatever.
But they are the, you know, they will start having different amoeba experiences from the moment they split.
And they are two different amoeba, but they are the same amoeba.
And, you know, that's a mind bender.
I don't know how you would consider that.
Is that one continuous life or is that an end in two new lives?
I don't know.
I really don't.
It does kind of raise the question whether in the terminology of 14th Doctor, 15th Doctor stuff is whether the character that David Tennant is playing post by generation is 15A and Schutte is 15B, as it were.
Or, you know, Tennant is 15 and Schutte is one beta.
Well, I don't know why you're making a difference there. They're both... How do you choose which of you are me?
One has the continuity of identity that you yourself described earlier. It is both your memories and your physicality.
But they both have that physical continuity because they are...
The knot. Shooty's completely different physically.
You were talking about, oh, I'm different when I'm hungry, but I live a different life because I'm tall and my wife is short.
If you put, if I was in a short body, I would have a different identity.
I was not clear enough.
What I'm talking about is physical continuity.
You're occupying, again, you've got to be careful because time traveler, but occupying the same physical space in effect.
It's this thing that you don't have with humans.
We all actually physically are completely changed because, you know, pretty much every cell is new if you wait long enough.
I think it's seven years or something.
You mean we're regenerating?
We're regenerating slowly.
But the point I was making is not that there's a physical difference or that in some way, because I think you're trying to make the point that Schutte's doctor is, he is not as much the doctor because he's changed.
But then, you know, that would be the argument for saying that Whitaker's doctor is not as much, you know, she was different from Capaldi, right?
But what I'm trying to argue is that she is the same as Capaldi.
And the doctor that Tennant was playing at the beginning of this episode was the same as Whitaker's doctor because they'd been in the same space.
And now they have both emerged from the same physical through line because during the regeneration, they actually split.
So there was one doctor at the beginning, and now there are two doctors who have both, you know, followed on.
And in a sense, Schutte is the true continuation because he's the what you would expect that there would be a complete change.
And David Tennant is at this point more like the kind of discarded skin of a snake.
Yeah, no, I'm not going to go with that.
Capaldi and Whitaker are two different beings, and they are also the same.
That is, they are a continuation of the same being.
They are, but they are.
Why?
They are different, because they are different.
They are physically different.
They are mentally different.
They are.
Why are they the same?
They are the same because they are temporally and physically connected through linear function.
Our cells regenerate slowly.
their cells regenerate quickly and change more than ours do but we are the same they are the
same shooty follows through that he he follows he does but the other one didn't change so which one
is more original so you've got one and you you you linearly split another one off that one is
different it is if you're going to say one is a different model and one is the same old one
it's not a skate snake skin because as far as we can tell nothing was left behind except his tie
in his underpants uh and a shirt i'm gonna come back play thing you know yeah but what we've done
is we have not killed tenet off and that's even rtd's thing so he is the doctor that is the doctor
this is a new doctor and it is in this one instance a truly new separate entity it's a new
entity he is new he is not the older doctor he is the younger doctor because he is a day old
and nothing more with the memories i mean i i i'm not i'm not gonna i've got 101 other things i want
to argue about and i just don't yeah i don't agree with that because i think you're not you're not
being consistent but i i don't think that either of us are going to convince ourselves being
consistent with every other bi-generation there's been no i think i think you're not being consistent
in saying there is there is some sense in which in every other regeneration when the doctor changes
but it's still the same the fact that shooty changes here means that he is you know david
tenet says it's a different person in in the episode what the end of time yeah the end of
time david tenet says that it's like i die another person gets up and walks off with my memories
but i die it isn't you but it is also yeah which which which is the previous doctor reanimated the
point the point i'm making about consistency is that i think all of these arguments you're making
about shooty's doctor apply to every previous regeneration so i it depends on your understanding
of regeneration and i think you and i unsurprisingly have slightly different
understandings of regeneration and there's kind of no point in arguing about which one is right
or wrong because as rtb didn't think about it everyone has a slightly different interpretation
of it and i think what's what's different here is the fact that they do seem to split off and
don't share a timeline although one of the other things that i want to go on to talk about is it i
think you've kind of alluded to it already slightly in the sense that there is that dialogue where
shooty's doctor says and i'm calling shooty and not calling tenant david gato's doctor says to
tenant's doctor you know i'm i'm sorted out because you went and you know chilled out and
had a rest even though there isn't that linear continuity and that to me didn't make sense
the the whole you know where gata is explaining it to tenant you need to stop but why is tenant
the one who needs to stop why you know if they're if they both emerged from by generation as two
versions of the doctor with the same shared history why haven't they got the same shared
traumas and things i'll tell you how they can fix that or how when moffat comes back for moffat
to era how he'll fix it no god no he will have he will have david tenet start to regenerate
and he will somehow merge back to the 60th anniversary special and be the shooty that
pops out that's the kind of thing that i i think you know i think that moffat could actually do
he's very he's he's clever at doing the things like that but i i'm kind of like i just want to
move on and forget about all the horror of this as soon as we finish discussing it for the podcast
so that i can this is my therapy right this is i need to talk about it now so that i can
i can move on but the the other the other thing that i think suggests that at least in rtd's mind
that there is still some kind of strange linear continuity going on here is that he has donna say
that tenant's doctor is younger than gatto's doctor and she justifies it because you came
after him but that makes absolutely no sense it i mean it makes sense that 10 tenant was young
tenant you know half an hour ago was younger than gatwiz now but 10 and half an hour ago is younger
than tenant is now himself it this is nonsense this is absolutely nonsense yes i agree shall we
um putting regeneration aside for for a bit and talk a little i i i broke my notes out into two
And I tried to, because I watched the episode and I not intentionally taking notes.
I watched the episode to enjoy it live.
And I, when I watched the episode, I don't necessarily say I watched it to enjoy it.
Although I didn't hate it.
Don't get me wrong.
There was, there was fun.
There was fun watching this despite things that were annoying me, but there was fun watching it.
But when it was done like you, my therapy is numb.
I'm going to take some notes now.
And all of those notes had to do with this whole regeneration thing, that all the implications of this regeneration thing. And they did not get better when I listened to the commentary where RTD says basically, yeah, that that was retroactive. It did it to all the doctors in the past. They all had a happy ending and got up and left and went on. And like, oh, oh, and it's like, and I'm not doing anything different than what Big Finish does. And I said, yes, you are doing something very different.
they are a curator they are curating the legacy of doctor who and you are playing the freaking
toy maker with the legacy of doctor who because you're its god at the moment and you can change
it and mar it and and twist it and do anything you want to it and oh i think i totally tried to
you don't think he's playing the toy maker he's the toy maker he can do whatever he wants and he
does for us i think it always i think big finish can do things that i that i god i don't i'm not
going to give examples because i'm i'm not wanting to spoil for listeners who have not heard all big
finish we'll remember you complaining just a couple episodes about the david tenet episodes
of big finish and the tom baker episodes because they too slavishly try to recreate the air i know
there's there is nothing there is nothing there is nothing in the tom baker or david tennant
i'll all right i'll pick it i'll pick an example they do no i'm not i'm not i'm not i'm not going
to throw any spoilers in there but i think people remember if they're remembering that from a couple
of episodes ago i said one of the things i liked about certain certain stories the big finish do
with other doctors like the i think the examples i was given the sixth seventh and eighth line
the example I'm thinking of now is with the fifth is that they is that they push the boundaries or
whatever one of the things they do is they pick up stories of the other companions or I am going
to get I am going to give an example it's a it's a mild example it annoys me mildly but I'm going
to give it because I need to give it anyway for a point I'm going to make about the episode later
so hell why not do it now and that is where they bring back mel at a later stage in her timeline
than we have seen on screen so rather than doing what you're talking about which is kind of
curating the old episodes inserting stories that kind of fit in between what we've seen on screen
they create some of their own continuity and they in this case they do it by having Mel reunite
with the doctor later in her own personal timeline and I've got a point to make now about you in
response to your point which is that I think that sometimes big finish do mess about with things
in a way that I think Russell T Davies has messed about with things now and I've also got a point
which is that I, I, which is what I was saying, you know, last time we talked about Doctor Who,
which is I like it when, when Big Finish are more experimental, just as I actually do appreciate the
fact that, well, Russell T. Davis here is doing something different and it doesn't always work.
And in general, I'm cool with that. And in fact, you know, to avoid being hypocritical, I, I've got,
I've got to say and this you know this is why this is what you've got to do as a Doctor Who fan you've
just got to learn to let go of these things and it it is just that I kind of forgot what it felt
like because it hasn't happened quite like this for a while but it reminds me that I probably
should have been kinder to all the people who were complaining about the things that they hated in the
Whittaker Chibnall era because actually none of them were pushing my buttons like this but when
you remember what it feels like it is actually a little bit painful so but i the sorry yeah the the
the point about the point about big finish is that yeah i think they sometimes do do do that kind of
stuff but but i don't think and so i think that there is there is a sense in which they are doing
the same thing rtd is doing here but what rtd said about big finish i i'll agree with you in the sense
that he didn't get what they do but I think he was missing a different point about what they do
which is that they don't say all of the doctors in the past by generated in order to be able to
tell stories with them they actually fit the stories in to the timelines that went before
so for example with the one I'm complaining about which is what they did with Mel in Mel's
future didn't involve any kind of contortions or whatever i mean obviously they had to pick up mel's
story from her several on glitz days but that that you know that didn't contradict regeneration or
anything like that and when they want to do it with the the doctor um you know different actors
playing the doctor whatever they get the different actors in the doctor playing the doctor as the
doctor was when they were playing them in many cases and as rtd said in the country it's a bit
like they're doing with tales from the tardis they did exactly the same thing there and they
threw in some line about you know how timey wimey stuff has changed the doctor's appearance in age
it's exactly what chibnall did in power of the doctor doing the same thing i kind of think that
thing is fine and also if you haven't heard once in future i'm not going to recommend it because
it's awful but they do something different that's the uh as well that's the 60th anniversary big
finish yeah i've heard all those i quite enjoyed them yeah yeah well it's not awful some of them
are all right but generally speaking it's a mess um it's a mess you know again it's it's big finish
doing something different and experimental in order to tell these stories in a doing the kind
of multi-doctor thing in a different way and I'm in favor of doing things differently doing new
things and so I'm while I'm complaining about these things I'm not saying I'm not saying don't
do them but I do think I do think RTD missed the point in the video commentary that's not what Big
finish do he's not doing something that big finish do but what you're saying is that you just need to
let it go that fans just need to let it go yes let go and i'm i am i am very much looking forward
to rtd telling us that too because he has been talking to the audience in these three episodes
and uh i'm i'm looking forward to i'm thinking what episode two where got was doctor breaks
into a song and dance number of let it go maybe with uh uh waddingham from uh ted lasso maybe
she'll be a guest i don't know but there's a musical number an episode in the christmas
special i heard that one today just before we podcasted uh actually uh okay let me let me
let's get to the episode unfortunately the first thing i'm going to say about the episode is it's
the last of the time lords all over again it is a giant children of earth and torchwood miracle
day and and it's like okay you've got you got the satellite network remember they even name check it
you have the crazy dance number take the master take the yeah take the toy maker uh rtd overuses
pop music he even says that in the commentary he loves the power of pop music i think it dates the
show and it doesn't work but okay of course the solution it's the spice girls yeah i'd really it's
not it's not like using britney spears in in um they'll be dated someday too whatever it's called
the end of the earth or whatever it's called the toxic no no the point this point about using the
spice girls is you're genuinely using some old music it's it's more like it's more like um
oh there's in far in father's day where they use uh tainted love or something there's a
anyway there's some that was modern at the time of the episode yeah but no no no it was content
it was contemporary to the episode it was contemporary with the episode tainted love i
was contemporary with the time the episode was shot in if that's what it was
no no no not not not sorry was meant to be i.e earth 1980s yes exactly yes it was it was
contemporary with period the time of the period uh let's see you've got the doctor being magically
saved by a ridiculous bit of meh you've uh you've got the finale taking place aboard a unit hq
in the sky basically and you have the sequence where why do you have to be so small why do you
have to be bad why don't you come with me and we'll travel the stars together i mean and someone
picking up the master's ring i.e. tooth a woman's hand poppy i mean wow look although although i
think that that was a very deliberate nod whereas i i could put the rest of it down to just running
out of kind of ideas yeah yeah or or just you know his his he's running along the same tracks but
no i i agree and certain the kind of trope of everyone in the world being affected i mentioned
Miracle Day and The End of Time are kind of standard things that he does a lot and you just
really haven't seen since he left the show but I also think that there are certain things in this
episode like, I don't know how, we did discuss this a little bit I think when we talked about
wild blue yonder was the fact that previous doctor who episodes have done some of these things
and have done them better and so for example the message in the screens i thought was better with
the moon landing in the silence and the kind of scary puppets was better in night terrors and
even kind of the corridors rearranging themselves i was thinking god i've seen that before no it
wasn't they weren't corridors in night terrors were there i thought you said puppets and night
terrors yeah the puppets were night terrors what's so night terrors i don't remember night terrors
it was almost the puppets or the dolls they were dolls they they were the they were the main bad
in night terrors well i'm sure it was done better it was a moffat effort episode um but
the rearranging corridors i was kind of thinking i'm sure i'm sure there's an episode where they
did that i was thinking hotel with a naimon well i could have been the hotel with the naimon or it
could have been wild blue yonder literally last week well there's that too wait a minute was the
one was the one with the hotel night terrors no okay the one with hotel i've forgotten the name
of temporarily but it was the same season i think it might be i think they might i think that might
be in the episode after the one with the with night night terrors do you not remember night
terrors at all i do not remember it at all i don't remember anything with puppets uh other than
yeah deep down below yeah um well obviously rtd i'm kind of i'm not i'm not averse to reuse
reusing ideas my argument i can't remember whether i've ever written this theory up but my argument
is that the beast below since you mentioned it is basically exactly the same plot as the day of the
Doctor he just reworks his own story I'm fine with that because the day of the Doctor turns out great
I'm not necessarily particularly against RTD reusing great ideas but I guess my problem with
the way it happens in this episode is that all of the other examples except I guess for Last of the
time lords and no end of time as well where were episodes where i thought it'd been done better
previously so why why come and do it again here's a obviously this episode switching switching
gears obviously this episode has something to say about social media and i don't think it does in
i think it's i think it's another example of throwing throwing an idea in and not developing
it well yes but that's the point he's thrown it out there to show you see how awful it is and and
then he hasn't done anything meaningful with it i'm not saying that it was a successful
thing out there but but here's my question if in fact every person thought they were right
all the time is that what would happen i i don't i just don't feel like this is how it would the
chaos would devolve i'm not convinced that an airline pilot would think i can just land this
plane wherever the heck i want to i i i'm maybe if he tried landing it you know go first or something
but bringing it down on his house and and is this what kate really thinks when she turns the
device off is that really what she's thinking or is that something else is is it some does she
really distrust the doctor does she really have a thing about shirley's wheelchair is she uh
you know i i i i'm not clear whether or not what we're seeing is meant to reflect our opinions
without consequence or or what i just didn't get it they're just unpleasant yeah and it it's it's
an interesting idea the you know that that if you kind of removed that that kind of self self
regulating the the kind of part of ourselves that suppresses these kind of ugly suspicions or
prejudices or whatever they may be and we we just kind of allow them to run unchecked what would
happen then it's another interesting idea but it's an it's an idea that isn't developed and
it's not an idea that really fits with the toy maker this is one of my problems with it it's that
yeah there are things in this episode that aren't really about games and the the the toy maker may
not may not have been the best villain to choose for this i guess considering what he could do
did he really need to employ the satellite network to and and the television image to cause everyone
on earth to be the way they are that doesn't feel like it feels like he could have done that just by
he has he has the power everything has to be everything has to be a game and everything has
to follow the rules and that's not that doesn't feel like a game to me yeah i i think what it
doesn't know it's not and i so i think that idea and this idea of everything being right they were
not games and i think hold on yeah he he does say later in the episode all the games you play with
the children playing in the xboxes and their rooms and whatnot and then there's the other games the
dating the ghosting the canceling it's like those aren't games either i mean sure we say it's playing
games but it's not that is not really what a game is that's a that's a that's that's a playing
without rules kind of thing.
Except it's not.
I think the argument would be there are rules to these things.
They're kind of unwritten rules.
But I think you could make the case.
I think it's an idea that needs developing,
but I think you could make the case.
It's about rules.
But I think you've also put your finger on the key thing
about the Toymaker, which is, and I say this having not seen
The Celestial Toymaker, so maybe I shouldn't comment,
But I have encountered the Toymaker in the three Big Finish stories.
And assuming that they are, and I'm inclined to give them credit, are based...
I haven't seen The Celestial Toymaker because I'm waiting for the animation to come out, which is now announced.
Waiting is one word.
Dreading is another word.
Yeah.
Possibly.
But the way that they interpret the Toymaker is that it's all about rules.
It's all about rules.
And that's not...
You want to cheat, really, the kind of take on this here,
because I think even when they do play a game with the toy maker,
I don't mind them choosing a simple game.
So cutting the cards is fine because that has a clear set of rules
and that kind of fits with the way the toy maker thinks.
But playing, I mean, you could call catch a game
because in a sense it's playing, we amuse ourselves,
But it's not a game in the sense of having rules, because the rules that the toymaker says would not create a sensible game.
Like the rule is that if you drop the ball, you lose.
Well, then just throw it wild.
No one would be able to.
You need a whole other set of rules around it,
which is why people develop these games into much more complicated things,
like Oligorn, for example.
I would have been so happy.
I would have been so happy if, and I believe, if I'm not mistaken,
Gatwa Stocker throws the last throw.
So he actually gets, it's a tag team throw,
Tenet to Gatwa off the tower.
I would have been so happy if he'd managed to pull that in as a bullet,
get a good spin on it and get some turn on that ball in,
in honor of the fifth doctor,
you know,
actually,
actually use some skill to defeat the toy maker.
The ball comes right at him and we see it do a,
you know,
a 90 mile an hour turn and swing away from the,
from his hand.
That would have been phenomenal.
And it would have been consistent with the doctor.
But while we're on that subject,
I also think that there's something that's emblematic of the whole new who
era or at least rtd's time in it anyway if you go back to the celeste toymaker what we do know is
that the doctor won a logic game the doctor won by his brain these doctors played a game of pure luck
and a game of just action and physical skill there there these are those are hollow games
compared to say playing a game of chess not saying there's anything wrong with playing games like
that but they're in a different category altogether and they are definitely not uh
it it feels we have lost something where the doctor is the cleverest man in the room
and wins by being the cleverest man in the room i think there was a point there
in in this episode the point where the doctor selects just cutting the cards which as you say
is purely a game of chance where i thought we were going to get an explanation for why he is
chosen a game of chance when i think i know i'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt
well i'm going to give him the benefit of doubt it could have been a reason because you play a
game of skill against someone who who is this extraordinary shouldn't be able to lose elemental
force when you play a game of chance it's 50 50 whereas when you do anything that involves skill
against something that has these elemental powers i think you've got to be you've basically got to
be a god to to be well what he did was he gave himself two chances i think it was intentional
i think that if he'd sat down at that table and if he had won he'd have said okay i banish you
to eternity and he lost so he says okay best two out of three those are the rules he that i think
he planned it i think that was his i have two shots at this kind of thing and that's and that's
the way i'm going to do it but i i would so i think in a way he was strategizing a little bit
although it does kind of know the logic uh it does defeat the logic of uh donna's dad yeah
donna's dad saying the cards don't have a memory that's true you actually don't have better odds
of winning two but you feel like you do it was like well interestingly it wasn't donna's dad
saying the cards have no memory that was ian fleming in uh i think casino royale it was it
was donna's dad saying the dice have no memory dice which i sorry dice card i assume was it
was deliberately i'm i'm pretty sure it must have been a reference to me in flebbing but anyway
it might be it might be i mean that's not a that's not an uncommon um saying when people
are debunking logical fallacies about odds um so dice cards if it had been mark gaitis the marksman
is it the marksman's fallacy or something no that's not it and i can't remember which fallacy
it is, but it's a logic, it's a formal logical fallacy, but it's definitely not the marks for
that one. And at that seemingly opportune moment in this conversation, I think we'll hold off until
our next special episode out tomorrow. Simon, thank you for joining me. It's a pleasure as
always. And listeners, I hope you'll join us all again tomorrow on Fusion Patrol.
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