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 a special episode of future patrol i'm eugene and i'm simon and this is part
two of our conversation about doctor who the giggle i will say this let's try to go positive
rtd still writes some fantastic dialogue he he can get the characters when they're talking to
each other feel like people talking to each other most of the time once in a while it's a little
heavy-handed but there are a few moments in this episode where the doctor and donna the doctor and
mel are we're having uh the chats and you're just like yeah rtd can can do things that other writers
are not so adept at jms and um wow you set the bar low there i there are people
there who disagree with you very vehemently but there we go i well let me let me just pick up on
on that then because because i'm not going to disagree with the die i like i like rtd's dialogue
the kind of the conversations they're entertaining and they they kind of strengthen the character
rather than feeling like they're being led by the plot but they're being led by something
in certain cases and that that does not always feel like it's completely earned and that's
what he what he's doing is is trying to kind of build up to a an emotional crescendo in the
exchanges i think you see this in a lot of the doctor and donna's dialogue in this so he he is
he is making the case that the doctor sort of never never stops never takes the time to
decompress or consider what has happened and hasn't done so since he was William Hartnell
and I think that those kind of very um charged scenes are one of the things that are RTD's
strength but I also think he he's so keen to do it something he just goes for it he just goes for
it without considering whether it it's sort of earned whether it whether it fits and the problem
with the three episode arc and I think this touches on what I was talking about before is that
I think you can't do that beyond the three episodes that you're that you're writing unless
you really delve into what's gone on in the episodes immediately preceding. I think one of
the kind of weaknesses of this arc, although I can see why they've done it because of the Disney stuff,
is that it doesn't touch on the reaction that the Doctor may have to those final kind of parting
parting exchanges with Yaz or indeed everything that has happened with Yaz and in many ways
that could have fed into why the doctor needs to think about how that how they deal with their
relationships probably more than just sort of needing a holiday in fact definitely more than
needing a holiday because for goodness sake the doctor spent a year hanging around with Amy and
Maury in The Power of Three, and that was only a couple of incarnations back. And there are
countless other examples where we've had references to the Doctor just spending time in places.
Thousands of years on a Christmas planet.
For example. So I think, from almost everything I've said about RTG's writing in the past three
episodes, everything that is his strength is also his weakness. And I think, yeah, the dialogue is
good but where it doesn't always work for me is where he goes for this this is the really
emotionally charged scene but he hasn't done the spade work to feel like it's earned and you feel
like actually no i feel like i'm being manipulated a bit here whereas sort of as a as a kind of
palate cleanser i've been watching i need a bit of a moffat fix i've been watching moffat's
adaptation of the time traveler's wife and you get the scenes where there's where they where
because he can do he can do the kind of emotionally charged speeches but when he writes them it feels
like it's genuinely built up to that and uh and in that sense it's it's kind of earned so well
we did not get an explanation about the clothes and the regeneration and we did not get an explanation
i do have something to say about the clothes which is was so i wanted an explanation for that
my worry
I don't, this is probably
misfounded but my worry is
that they decided
I don't know whether this was Tennant or whether this was Davies
or whether this was Coddinson or
someone else, they didn't want
Tennant
in women's clothes
because I can't see why they
did that regeneration
scene differently and
when Chibnall did it, he had
Sasha Dewan wearing
her earring and everything
so it was a kind of break with so not only just like very recently established continuity but
literally within the episode continuity the other possible explanation is that because of the by
generation he didn't want the doctor to have to be necessarily in the same costume because he
couldn't have two doctors in the same costume and what he's done here is a bit of a mishmash
gatwick gets the tie and the shoes but the shirt and we'll note because tenant's still wearing the
shirt so they're both wearing the same no he's wearing a different shirt no it looks to me more
like some sort of a night shirt or something it's a different it's a different type of shirt i mean
that was an undershirt or i don't know i think it was something different because you guys dress
differently than we do in arizona where undershirts are frequently way too much right it's like you
It's like, no, I was thinking about this the other day.
This is true.
I don't, I own exactly one long sleeve shirt and have never had more than one in my life at a time.
And that's only to put on under a suit.
So, you know, we just, we don't have the same, I don't have the same clothes.
But I was looking very closely.
It looks to me like it's a slightly different material, like something more linen-y, but it does still have a, seem to have a collar.
So, yeah, I think he's there with no underpants.
I was wondering about the underpants.
i've got a question mark there i thought the shirt had been duplicated there was only one
tie and shoes and and gator got both of them and then the trousers and the and the waistcoat
ten and keeps and i you know there's absolutely no logic or sense to any of that but then
i'm not going to go back to the by generation and logic and sense but that was it on the clothes
yeah yeah so we didn't get that and it it's still uh i'll stand with he could have had the scene
with tenant standing there in whitaker's clothes because that's where the episode ended and the
next one open and opens with him stepping out into london obviously days later yes time later he could
have just been wearing clothes he's like he's gone back he did not need a scene with him going and
doing the clothes like that was that was a ridiculous explanation of why he didn't want to
do that and i don't i don't just annoy us don't think don't think i yeah but that has to be some
reason the the the you know i i say i'd have made different decisions when you know some of these
things get signed off but my what i am correct about is that all of these decisions get poured
over and examined by multiple separate people so the decision to regenerate tenant into different
clothes was something that you know would have been thought thought through by the costume
department and by the director of that episode and obviously by RTD probably not by Chibnall but
certainly by some producer and all all of them would have I'm sure raised the question
shouldn't he be wearing her outfit and decided that whatever reason no the the subtitles don't
know if you watch what the subtitles on i just want to point out that the subtitles on disney
absolutely say 10th doctor in all the scenes where there are two doctors which i thought oh
that's interesting okay so are we the toy maker takes is i seem to recall that there was something
about the Toymakers
from the original.
I have read the book,
but boy, has it been a long time.
I seem to recall that
the Toymakers MO
was when you lost,
the price he extracted
was that he turned you
into a toy of some kind.
I feel like that was
part of the horror of it,
that his toy room
is populated with toys
who were people.
Stooky Bill.
Stooky Sue.
Stooky Babies
People who lost
Possibly but I
And if so did Donna murder Stooky Sue
Well yes she did
I mean regardless of whether it's a person or not
That was pretty violent
My name is Donna and I think you're a goner
Yep that was a good line too
Um
It was nice to see Mel
But why
Yeah
Why Mel
Oh no well I don't know
Well okay so
this wasn't a this wasn't a surprise in fact nothing in this episode was surprised was that
there was that video where rtd said you know avoid spoilers i had no idea what what he was saying
probably generation is what he was yeah we did it wasn't a spoiler in the sense that we knew
bonnie langford was coming back although i thought she was coming back uh in the series
gats were so this was yeah earlier than i realized but i i i think the reason that they're bringing
her back is because they think bonnie langford is great and i'm not going to argue with that at all
i'm probably feeling slightly disappointed that she i mean i know it was set up in power of the
dialects but that she's just sort of now another kind of unit grunt i mean she's not obviously but
it's like does everyone have to be working for unit now i i can see kate's uh point of view on
that you got a group of people who are who are vested in dealing with aliens and have proven
themselves to be defenders of sure and understanding i absolutely see her point for you on that and i'm
kind of fine with it and i would have been disappointed if i thought this was it done
well the fact that donna is now working for unit is going to cause problems when
you know we have unit stories in the future and katherine tate isn't in them but hey ho
maybe she spills coffee on the vlinks and uh and destroys them they have to fire her
yeah there we go that seems fair i i so i i think i i think i would have been disappointed
if this was it for mel but as it is you know it's nice to see her and i'm looking forward to
more mel i i will pick up on something that i said about chibnall that i now need to retract
Because I got quite cross, I think, when we were talking about Power of the Doctor, about the fact that when he brought Tegan and Ace back, he stuck in some dialogue about their not having seen the Doctor for a certain number of years, which basically trampled all over the big Finnish stuff that had established what they had actually been doing in those intervening years.
so that they couldn't be continuous.
And I was cross about it,
partly because I kind of think that's unnecessary.
It's like when he does a Mary Shelley story,
of course, he's got to basically rewrite
the big Finnish Mary Shelley stuff.
They, you know, he couldn't fit it around that.
But with this, it would be easy.
I said, I think at the time,
there's no way RTD would have done that.
So now, R2D sticks in some utterly pointless dialogue.
There's no way Moffat would have done that.
He sticks in some utterly pointless dialogue.
Well, actually, it's true. Moffat wouldn't.
Moffat, the one who actually walked out of that initial Big Finish planning meeting,
is the one who has been most respectful, actually sticking the names of companions into Night of the Doctor.
But RTD, who we know absolutely listens to Big Finish, enjoys it, has ripped off at least two or three of the Big Finish stories to make into episodes now.
But he doesn't need to kind of do all that stuff about what happened to Samalong Glitz that contradicts the stuff I was talking about earlier that Big Finish have been writing in order to continue Mel's storyline later in her timeline.
They have a version of her leaving Samalong Glitz, which is not after he's died from tripping over a whiskey bottle or whatever it is.
I mean, Big Finish will deal with it.
They'll probably have her go back.
I mean, it's difficult now Tony Selby is dead,
but they'll probably have her go back to Sabalong Blitz
in her personal timeline, reunite with him,
so that she can see him.
Well, that will help, actually.
Big Phenis can fix their problem then,
because the other one is...
The fact that she's 20 years too young.
20, maybe 60?
I don't know.
I mean, I don't know how old Tony Selby,
the actor, was when they made...
He would have been 83 this year, I think,
if he was still alive.
from that okay so yeah 20 20 more years of age on mel for him to have been 101 assuming that you
know he's an alien maybe he was already 95 and we just don't know i mean you can make that argument
or you can say that mel left savalon glyphs went off with the fifth doctor i don't know if that's
what happened i haven't heard those stories i'm just getting it from what you said and then he
drops her back off uh she picks up with savalon glyphs when he's 99 and oh uh i landed at the
wrong time sorry now i can't do anything about it or i'll cross the timeline so okay fine
they can fix that they can fix it they did the thing that annoyed me was just that that that
kind of that little bit of dialogue didn't really add anything it was it was kind of pointless fan
service whereas in the video commentary rtd mentions that he wrote he wrote a bit during
the regeneration scene where mel starts saying that she'd seen this before in the kershia
and Tennant sort of said, do you mind?
Because he said that I live regenerating.
And I was thinking, well, that would have been hilarious.
So, you know, it would have done the fan service bit,
but it would actually have served a purpose
in terms of creating a comedy moment.
Whereas, you know, what you get there didn't.
And it wasn't the only example of it.
I don't see why he has to be explicit about the toymaker
having only met the doctor once before.
because Big Finish have done The Magic Mousetrap and Solitaire
and a version of Nightmare Fair,
which was going to be the sixth Doctor story
when Colin Banker and Michael Gough
were going to face off against each other again.
And it's a shame he's kind of erased those
because two of those are absolutely brilliant.
I do think Nightmare Fair is dreadful,
but I would definitely recommend...
Anything from that season was going to be dreadful.
You know it was.
Yes.
That's why they didn't make it and why Big Finish should have not made it either.
But hey-ho.
Yeah.
Yeah, we'll hope.
Maybe.
I know you'd already guessed it, but we definitely need Moffat's hand back here to fix a bunch of this stuff.
And I'll just throw in here from the commentary, Moffat did save us from one thing.
Apparently, he saw the opening credits that RTD had made, the new ones.
And they had included a scene where the doctor and Donna are hanging out the door of the TARDIS, waving as they go by.
And Moffat was like, now you've got to take that out.
And he did it with RGD.
Yes, he had it for them as well for the new credits.
He's like, you've got to take that out.
Just take it out.
But I was thinking, no, take it out.
And he did it, which is like, thank you.
Listen to Moffat more often, please.
I think I'm sure you're right.
I'm sure you're right.
But there is a little bit of me that wants to see what that looked like.
I'll see how bad it was.
That would be, to me, as bad as Sylvester McCoy's wink.
Winking.
Yeah.
Oh, that was terrible.
It was like, oh, don't.
It is terrible.
Don't.
Yeah, don't do that.
So that would just be another JNT RTD comparison.
The wave.
The wave is the wink.
I think Colin Baker's smile was bad enough, but the wink was terrible.
uh that we go there clearly bernard cribbins had either died or become incapable of working between
filming the last one and filming this one yep um that that scene was very poorly done
hiding well just basically there is that scene where donna says you're gonna take him and you're
gonna get into safety and like there's nothing there because it's just being completely obscured
there is we do see a scene where somebody in a hat with a dad's head down is slightly being turned
but yeah and i and i you know it's a it's a shame i i i wondered why the last episode
had the in memory of bernard cribbins um dedication to because you know right at the
end where they materialize and bernard cribbins is there and you think oh right he's going to be
a big character in the next story it's his last appearance on screen that's why slightly strange
well it was his last appearance on screen but i thought it wasn't going to be his last appearance
on screen having yeah having seen him appear there i thought you know even if he only appeared and i
did know he hadn't been able to film all the scenes that they'd intended to but i thought
if he was only appearing briefly there there would still be you know the other half of that scene as
it were in this episode and they would dedicate this one but i i get it now i get it and that that
that point i was making we were talking about the star beast of of how they had written in that
tribute to nicholas courtney yeah when he died and what you know why why they were making jokes
about wilf not being dead and again on the video commentary rtd wrote in a scene about wilf having
died the kind of tribute to it and that got cut because it apparently it's not very happy
but you know well colin's phil gonson supposedly was like now you gotta you gotta do it happen
i i i asked which would be better i mean i i think if anybody could have written one that
was appropriate and not brought the mood down and yet still was somber enough i think it was rdd
I think that's what he could do.
And I think it's the same thing about the regeneration.
Happy ending.
Well, it's not necessarily a happy ending.
It's a way of dealing with loss.
You know, the fact is, Tennant is going.
If you like Tennant's doctor, sorry, but that's that.
You're losing him.
And, you know, death, the ultimate loss.
Bernard Cribbins is no longer with us.
And, you know, the show, it would be nice if the show paid tribute to the contributions that he has made over the years.
And I think, as you say, it could that could have been done in a way.
It's sad.
But at the same time, you know, it celebrates him rather than just takes the mood down.
so yeah you know another thing about that that final scene in in um wild blue yonder i realized
that as you say they couldn't film all the scenes they wanted to film for him in the in this episode
in the giggle but his lines of dialogue in wild blue yonder do not fit oh thank goodness you're
here i i sent all the others to safety and i'm gonna wait here for you it's like does rtd not
write read his own scripts because if they who have not traveled in the TARDIS are also affected
by the giggle then they're not gonna go I got them to safety no you're not you're not gonna
convince them to do anything they don't want to do it's like was wolf in the TARDIS yes didn't he
travel I don't remember I don't remember him traveling in the episode where the doctor
died the end of time wolf was his companion yeah i think he took him in it not for long but i think
he took a trip in it i do remember them being on a space station looking uh yeah yeah that must
have been in the tardis yeah okay that's fair because i was wondering there was that explanation
that traveling in the tardis somehow stopped you being affected by the giggle but i have
explanation i have questions about that part partly which is is that consistent with people
who are and are not affected by it.
And also, why?
Why?
It keeps you out of sync.
Yeah, don't think, don't think.
Don't think, don't think.
I want to know is how Unit managed to get the VDEXs, ZDEXs built.
If two days ago they all went mad too,
with the exception of Mel and the Vlynx.
Did Mel and the Vlynx make one and then one by one get the Unit staff back?
There's a story there.
The implication was Vlynx already had one.
It was Flink's tech, wasn't it?
But how they manufactured them, I don't know.
Well, I don't know.
I didn't think that it was.
I thought he invented it, but I thought he invented it in response to the crisis.
But it's not stated explicitly either way.
But, yeah.
Let's see.
That is all I had about the episode itself.
Wow.
All right.
Well, now we've got stuff on the episode.
And I'm going to pick up with, you know, what we're just talking about in terms of whether traveling in the TARDIS immunizes you against this phenomenon of the giggle.
Because I've got a question about, because you've got Logie Baird at the beginning of it, right?
But the giggle, apparently what we're told is it is in every screen.
Yep, which of course.
Yeah.
My point here is that, but television isn't screens, right?
Well, I mean, I don't know how we want to define television, but an essential part of it is to do with transmission.
If it's screens, right, cinema.
Cinema's been around for a while.
In fact, you know, you could even say what the butler saw machines are screens of a sense.
If it's the particular tech that Logie Baird invented.
Well, actually, Logie Baird's mechanical televisions are not like the cathode ray tube.
televisions that actually made
television popular in the 20th
century and anyway in the 21st
century cathode rage
she was no longer around they were you know
they were going out in the 90s so
I have no
idea what was going on there but
you know okay. Toymaker magic
see toymaker magic
he can do that because he's the toymaker
and physical laws don't apply to him
but that's literally what we were told
that he didn't need the satellites
or the tvs it's he didn't didn't need that so but my question was just why put logie bed in it and i
i couldn't see a reason for i mean ironically it's supposed to be educational remember scotts
invented tv ironically enough i think you could have put logie bed into last year's big november
special the power of the doctor which was supposedly the the kind of celebration of 100
years of the BBC but actually for me just in just in terms of you know we've talked about whether
these are anniversary specials or just a mini season of Doctor Who and for me this felt like
a mini season of Doctor Who and last year's Power of the Doctor was what I feel like an anniversary
special is I mean that had had 50th anniversary vibes in it because of Tegan and Ace and all the
past doctors turning up so but i yeah i in terms of logie baird being being in it that did not
really make any sense to me it just seemed to be trying to take that plot from the silence story
and the moon landings and kind of trying to reapply it but not actually it fitting yeah
the toymaker i'm not i've we've kind of done most of the toymaker stuff but i do have to mention i
kind of quite like i everyone was very excited about neil patrick harris or patrick neil harris
or harris patrick neil whatever his name is who i wasn't familiar with i did think he was very very
good what what was the german accent the cod german accent about is that kind of because
again games i know with the celestial toy maker that there are reasons why it is considered
offensive i haven't seen it so is this is this a way of just doing kind of some much milder form
of offensive i mean like i found this i'm not quite sure if it was offensive or just really
really annoying but it was definitely annoying exactly kind of bad god's german accent i thought
it was slightly offensive actually i i i will say i was vaguely amused afterwards my wife said to me
she said no i was i was really impressed when he was doing the german accent because he sounds
exactly like the math teacher we have at school because they have a german math teacher so
so maybe maybe that's what a german sounds like to an american which neil patrick harris is an
american um he's american yes okay yes he's doogie hauser he's the original doogie hauser
oh okay that's who he is well well well um and i think he was in some he was in another sitcom a
big one uh which i've never seen an episode of uh how i met your mother i believe he is no i'm
seen the obnoxious i've seen doogie howser i've heard of it i haven't seen doogie howser but
you've heard of it yeah there's a new doogie howser out now i think it's a different child
doctor but yeah that's uh yeah and that is yeah i can see you i don't know if you noticed the teeth
did you notice he was prosthetic teeth no oh no the rest of them he had like two or three times
as many teeth as a human being in his mouth i didn't bother it was it was a prosthetic piece
they did on purpose a couple of his smiles you'll catch it and they're like that looks wrong it's a
very subtle effect it's a very subtle effect and i never would have even looked for it if i hadn't
heard him in an interview after it saying i've got this mouthpiece in for the teeth i'm like
and and then you look at it and like oh yeah he's got at least 30 teeth in the front when he smiles
like it's it's it's creepy look at that's a very subtle special effect but uh i don't know if it's
effective because i'm it just it just put me off a little bit but it didn't uh you know he's from
hollywood so i figured he just had a bright shiny pearly smile anyway we met we mentioned the
master's teeth and that that's obviously a setup but there was also a lot of other kind of fan
service continuity in there we've talked about sabalong glitz as well but the guardians the
yeah white garden they're dead trial of a time lord um being exiled to us key to time logopolis
uh adric bit of spoiler there everything on you've got gods of ragnarok uh river song
The Time War, Mavic Chen
Pandorica
Mavic Chen, that's fan service
Yeah
Well yeah
Are there any surviving episodes of Mavic Chen?
Don't believe so
No because I don't think they know what anybody looks like
Maybe
Maybe that means that Warner Brothers
We're going to get animated
But what does
What does Sarah Jane has gone mean
To a time traveller
I mean obviously she's dead
But yeah.
Yeah.
But.
Well, just like the brigadier, though, they mourned the death of the brigadier.
Matt Smith mourned the death of the brigadier, even though he could go back in time and see him again.
Yes.
But there was a reason for that in the sense that he was he was checking in on the brigadier in that time and place.
Yeah.
But this is this comes out of nowhere saying Sarah and Sarah Jane has gone.
Can you believe that?
Well, OK.
But, you know, if you were 100 years in the future having that conversation, which they easily could have been, Joe Gron has gone as well, you know.
So, I mean, goodness me, much would.
Hopefully, Katie Manning has not gone by the time this podcast airs.
Or 100 years from now.
But, you know, pick her as an example.
Yeah, I'm just saying.
it felt like a force wall breaking thing um not sure not sure that i needed all of that fan service
but i guess that's what we're getting as a substitute for it being a proper 60th anniversary
celebration well that and that and the fact that we get trinity wells back you mentioned all of
the things that were present from the last of the time lords but you didn't mention trinity wells
and Trinity Wells has not appeared in the show
since the end of time.
Why?
What is it that RTD has got for that character
or that actor?
I don't get it.
She gets an entire,
there's an entire episode of a Big Finish,
you know, an hour long play
that centers on her character
from the Lives of Captain Jack series.
So I'm sure the Trinity Wells fan base
are celebrating.
Naturally enough,
The big Finnish version was actually good.
Every time I see Trinity Wells on the screen, and this is a terrible thing to say, but it's true because this is not me.
This is American television.
She's supposed to be the American television host.
And I just find it hard to believe that they would hire someone, particularly back when Doctor Who was first showing, that wasn't absolutely perfect.
And because that's how they hire women on television in the United States.
It's very, very, very rare for an actual journalist to make it onto TV news reading, a female journalist, right?
There are very few and far between.
And if Trinity Wells is supposed to be that, we don't get that.
So it's just the first reaction is you see somebody pop up and you go, oh, that's a guest on a news program.
Because guests on news people can be, you know, look like normal human beings, but the hosts have to be perfect.
and perfect and it's like wow okay i could see her running a conspiracy website which obviously
she is now but anti uh yeah anti-chronic there's there's our covid comment covid vaccine comment
yeah yeah i i want to say once again in this episode we had it last time we have it this
episode again and it it leads into a comment something rtt said in the show but once again
Basically, when Shirley asks how the heck does a toy maker do that?
And the doctor says, basically, you're too stupid to understand.
Right.
You can't understand it.
So don't even bother because you can't understand it, which is him talking to the audience saying, don't bother to pick this apart because it's not going to make any sense.
So you can just which, of course, it doesn't, which is don't think.
And he it's like so.
But once you do that, once you say that the toy maker can do anything and anything that makes no sense whatsoever, then suddenly you go, well, then why did he waste?
this time doing it the way that he did do this it doesn't make sense but but we got into that but
it's just it's like this is at least the second in a row and i don't remember if there was a moment
like that in the first one now but you know this ties into the fact that oh i cast salt at the end
of the universe and now i've let all the bad things in and the toy maker was one of the bad
things rtd does say in this commentary that he likes having these godlike beings because they
can do anything i he maybe he's not realizing what he's telling us here when he says that but
he is telling us i don't like being constrained in what i can tell in my fantasy story and there are
more gods coming back these legions are following the boss was obviously not the toy maker no and
there is there's a thing hiding in the universe that even the toy maker is afraid to challenge
so he's afraid of yes more that's probably the boss chick stuff and yeah and and but you know
he also said well you know we should have the gods of ragnarok back it's like oh no really i i'm not
one of the people who thinks that that particular episode of doctor who was a good one what is that
circus at the greatest show in the galaxy there we go yes um but yeah i i'm not of course maybe
he likes those episodes of a big finish where they're up against the the gods i i find it
problematic from a storytelling point of view but yeah that that is unfortunately that's coming
and salt at the end of the universe is that is that a superstition or did you literally make
that superstition up to to to make an excuse that is a superstition and because because
whoever thought end of the universe would be a place where you could cast salt you know i don't
understand that superstition then what what is it specifically no no no this so the superstition is
that i i forget whether it's vampires or something else but the superstition is that you can keep
them out with salt the line zombies in zombies what okay the line in wild blue yonder is because
this is at the edge of the universe i shouldn't have done that because at the edge of the universe
anything can happen which is obviously a foreshadowing line in the same way that's
hiding in the universe the bosses the legions are coming the master's tooth but but it does
it does make it difficult and i think we've had this with every showrunner of doctor who is that
they put these clues in and sometimes like the doctor wearing a different jacket in Matt Smith's
first season turns out to be a huge reveal and sometimes the doctor regenerating into a different
set of clothes turns out just to have no consequence whatsoever or the word gravity
becoming gravity appears to have no consequence whatsoever so I'm not quite sure which things to
attach any significance to did they say gravity in this episode at all didn't didn't hear them
say gravity or mervity yeah i think they're gonna forget that too yeah i think yeah come on come
back fix fix some stuff maybe maybe just maybe rtd can write the whole season and just have
moffett come in for the final episode of each season and go okay now fix it you clean up what
i made the mess of the tragedy the tragedy is that the thing the things that i'm now remembering
about watching RTD stuff was that I like the small RTD episodes,
the ones that aren't the big kind of story arc episodes.
But actually the thing I mainly looked forward to was every episode,
sorry, every season was the episode that Stephen Moffat writes.
Moffat wrote, yes.
And we're not going to get that.
You know, Moffat is not going to come back.
But RTD said exactly the same thing.
I will never write for Doctor Who again.
They both said it.
But I think I'm not going to write for someone else running the show.
You know, I'm not going to have someone else picking over my script or making the kind of final creative decision.
Somebody should be picking over his script.
I think they should.
I think he, you know, he needs he needs he needs someone to, yeah, to set to kind of sense check some of his ideas because he's very good at the idea generation stuff.
And he himself is actually very careful, I think, of not overworking some of his ideas because he doesn't want to lose the freshness of it, which is fair enough.
But if he can't rework some of these things or can't spot what he needs to keep and what he needs to chuck, I think that's where having a script editor with some authority to do that would be possibly a good idea.
Yeah, I have a hard time believing the script editor can say no to RGD, but, you know.
Yeah. Okay. So, you know, for all the things that we pick on here about how RTD, I'm using the term loosely, messed up the Doctor Who universe. Moffat comes in, fixes all sorts of stuff, which he did.
he came in and
yes he can but he
you know he had his plan and he
he fixed it out
RTD doesn't usually seem to care
about these things
but I feel like maybe
just maybe
maybe he handed us
a prize in this episode
when he said
when the toy maker said
to the doctor I made a
puzzle of your past
and suddenly all of the chibnall timeless child crap became something the toy maker did and
because it doesn't have to make sense because the toy maker is a god and can do anything
we can now go well okay there can be other doctors that they think they're from before
the first doctor because he did that to screw with the doctor's head okay i think i think that
definitely a i think that's exactly what it was it was a new it's the new time war in effect yeah
it's a clean that i've just cleaned that slate now the past is the best although i was going to
say the other alternative is this although you know the time yeah i i prefer that one but they
say when they bi-generate they say what's a myth it never happened it's like well if it's a myth
How did what made you think what event happened to make there be a myth about the idea of by generating?
Why would that idea have even sprung forth unless it has, in fact, actually happened?
And did it happen before William Hartnell?
So was Hartnell a Gatwa?
Was he a by generation split?
And then he didn't get to keep his memories.
I don't know.
that doesn't work literally the TARDIS the whole thing doesn't work everything that is a myth
in Doctor Who turns out to be something real you know true that's right it's yeah yeah yeah it's
it always works out that way because that's storytelling in our in this kind of universe
so you know it must have happened in the past hopefully it wasn't Rassilon but but but you know
I prefer the toy maker just screwed with the doctor's past.
And so,
all right,
it's kind of,
it did happen,
but it didn't really happen,
but I've remade reality.
So it did.
So it's like,
I'll take that.
I will,
I will accept that one.
I don't like it,
but that one I can take the bit where the William Hartnell is not the first
doctor and William Hartnell gets a TARDIS and is surprised that it's
in a police box form after that makes no sense for there to be all those other doctors with a
blue police guy that doesn't work but by but by plunking down and shuffling it around a little
bit uh okay all right fine whatever i'll take it i'll take that as at best i'm ever gonna get
at fixing the flux well i'm not sure it fixes well it can fix anything but that wasn't the flux
well I think the flux is yeah no the flux is part of it because the flux was created as part of the
whole you are the timeless child we need to get you back to do our our business thing so yeah the
flux was a consequence of that of the timeless child so yeah no yeah that that fixes the flux
it doesn't fix the fact that half the universe is gone including apparently scarrow and all the
other planets but uh that that are gone but yeah um i think it it does it does help um let's see
uh here's one i think my opinion i i understand why they did it i feel like in the scene at the
end when there are two tardises david tenet opens the tardis bends down pops out the wheelchair ramp
and then everyone makes a big deal out of the big the wheelchair ramp which in its way is a big deal
i don't disagree i feel that scene would have played so much better if he had undone he'd just
opened the doors popped the ramp and said come on in surely and they all walked inside to look at
the tardis well walked sorry wrong word there ambled ambulated is ambulated even correct moved
they all moved inside the TARDIS and looked around and were like wow that's amazing TARDIS
that would be enough calling attention to it and it would be like everyone who was ever wanting
there to be a wheelchair ramp in the TARDIS would be like there is a wheelchair ramp in the TARDIS
this is a great day for representation and and and and I agree but you could also go back and say
you know it just never came up before but yeah it's always been there I have to say that I mean
again this is the the big finish thing in me although i i mentioned before i haven't got
the hebe episodes but i i thought if you had just flipped it open so that shirley could go in
then you did you know you could have just assumed it always been there maybe it had maybe it hadn't
but you know it fits with whatever hat cannon you need it to fit with but it's still obviously there
yeah it's the first time we've seen it on screen it's it's very obviously being used it's making
the point and i know i i think i i agree entirely i agree with you entirely they did not use it
they should have at least let them go inside the tardis for crying out loud they have a wheelchair
ramp accessible tardis and they did not take the wheelchair user into the tardis they just stood
around outside mel just stood around outside not going i'd like to look in the tardis again
what yeah yeah it didn't make didn't make any sense and you know i if you see some of the
behind the scenes stuff uh the actors i don't know was just made cried when they saw that
um because it's so important and i i i get that uh but it just feels like by flipping it out and
going hey look surely we'll hear you and you can't use it sorry stay out but also you're so signaling
it you're signaling it but you're not showing it as being just the way things ought to be
i don't know it just i it it was nice but it could have been better i think um is that the um
same backyard from the star beast whoa when did we see it in the star beast that's where the shed
was oh god doesn't look it no it probably is it's probably just filmed from a completely
different maybe it's maybe it's mom's house i guess it could be yeah because yeah it could be
yeah no i don't know no idea no idea well let's see i want to say something positive because
you know i feel like i've spent most of this 115 minutes of recording time she got it i i i have
previously kind of criticized the fact that rtd has come back and sort of it felt like he'd swept
aside everything that had come before and he has gone out of his way obviously there's the stuff
about amy and clara bill and the flux and the illusion rory last week's episodes the timeless
not not rory not graham or he died oh i see what you mean he's yeah picking picking on the ones who
died well i kind of see i don't know i kind of see why the the um the big but the big difference
I think is that he has written for Kate Stewart,
who is not his character.
So she was written by originally by Chibnall in the Stephen
Moffat run show.
So post dating RTD,
although he has been around for,
I mean,
it has been a while.
She's been playing the role for 11 years and Nick Courtney was playing the
Brigadier for 21 years so she's you know she's getting there she's met seven doctors now seven
incarnations of the doctor I should say if I'm being true to myself but I thought that the way
RTD wrote her was excellent you know it was very yeah very much kind of consistent with
the Kate that we've seen and in some ways truer to the the kind of Moffat era Kate than the
the Chibnall version, as in the version that has been in the Chibnall run show,
rather than the version that he introduced in the Power of Three.
So I enjoyed her in this episode, really glad that she's come back.
Still slightly upset that Osgood isn't there.
Yeah.
And has now been succeeded by Shirley.
I really, really want Osgood to come back, but she's clearly not going to.
But it is lovely having that recurring character.
I think Gemma Redgrave is great
so long may she continue
I thought it was interesting that
in the very, in the Chibnall
episode, in 42
Are you talking about Power 3?
Or are you talking about 42? Power 3, there we go
I don't know
Power 3
42 was in the RTD era
and didn't have Kate Stewart
Yeah, that was also Chibnall though, wasn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a Chibnall episode
Alright, well at least I got that
All right. Power of three. In the power of three, Matt Smith's doctor says, Kate Lethbridge Stewart.
And just Kate Stewart. And subsequently has been Kate Stewart ever since.
Yeah. Until this one. When Tenet goes, Kate Lethbridge Stewart.
Nothing. Hug. Go on. Seems to be seems to be that RTD likes the Lethbridge Stewart better than Stewart.
And I agree with him on that.
If I had a cool hyphenated name like that, I would definitely use it.
I don't know.
But because it's been established as Kate Stewart, I wanted to stay as Kate Stewart.
So my thinking on that is just that she's just got bored of correcting him.
See, he's a future doctor.
Now, if he'd been an earlier doctor, if he'd been the 10th doctor, he wouldn't have known that because he hadn't met her yet.
But yeah, anyway.
Well, but he has.
The 10th doctor has met her.
He's just forgotten about her.
Well, yeah, true. True. True.
Yeah, but he forgot about her. Will that happen
now between the bi-generational
doctors? When they meet each other, will one forget the
other? Crossing time?
What if 14
meets the next incarnation of
Gatwa, but he's actually 14
from further in the...
Anything that R2D says
in the video commentary is not canon.
It is canon
as long as he's the toy maker playing
with us. He's got to get it on screen.
for me to even start to get upset about it and and you got your wish and i told you it was exactly
what was going to happen i told you it was exactly what was going to happen they were going to put
some furniture in that tardis to make it look like oh see it's got a jukebox now i will say
presumably it's going to get a seat i know i think that's just because that was the suggestion for the
old man's tardis i think datra doesn't need to sit down he's too cool i will say i was right it does
with gatway in it what is that a contrast thing it's like a color contrast why does it look better
with him i don't understand that statement but okay because because it's new and because he's
got he's slick he's kind of got a much more i don't know i don't know it's not like it's not
like tenant was ever fuddy daddy or whatever he i guess he had his own kind of style and everything
but because of the I guess because of the sand shoes and because of the grungy old TARDIS he
used to live in it just didn't feel like it fitted him whereas this feels a bit more like
it fits Gatwa's doctor I'm not saying I like it and to be honest it could just be this is three
episodes of seeing it the kind of initial dislike is just starting to wear off but I did say at the
time i wondered if new tardis new doctor i might like it better it doesn't hurt whitaker's tardis
never got less ugly with time you know sometimes now i will say this you build a set you make a tv
show and there are good camera angles and there are bad camera angles and as series go along you
learn the good angles and the bad angles right so you you'll see a show that's a long-running show
see well well we've decided to concentrate on this because it makes a better shot or it makes
better composition and it looks better in the long run and you know hopefully as they get going uh
you know they did say in the commentary they blew their budget making that so there's no more rooms
uh for the TARDIS and I'm like why did you waste your money on that big space why did you waste
your money on that big space why why why geez Bill Collinson I thought you were doing a good
job as a producer why didn't you stop them on that one and go can be half the size and it'll
still be phenomenal i agree about camera angles i i i thought that that shot where gasway is high up
and he's talking down to tenant at the console is that that may be the shot that made me feel like
it's not so bad after all i think with the um with the jukebox there's going to be a pop music
interlude in every episode from now on i'm certainly looking forward to that i missed the
I'm not we had a bit more with
Jibnall I mean Rara Rasputin was good
in Power of the Doctor that was okay
because it's kind of funny because he was
Rasputin
yeah but you're right I mean
the episode did that
really in the end of the
world work
it was it was the best thing
about the the end of the
world
it didn't work but then
it was a great gag
it was a great gag because the whole point about it
was it had to be something contemporary because they called it classical plus you know toxic is
an excellent song 70 000 classical eras between rose's time and the end of the world but yeah
toxic will never be not classical it's super i honestly had never heard that song before it came
on and i've never heard it since anywhere other than that show so was it popular it was it was
extremely popular um i i don't have anything else i guess i i i want to be clear here as
here we are two hours in and probably going to split this into two podcasts but but here we are
two hours into this i want to say i do not hate this episode it's the ramifications of this episode
that i didn't it was you know on par with wild blue yonder it was yeah god no i enjoyed bits of
But but all the mythos and the things that have just been those those will hurt for years to come.
And so in the end, no, this was not a good episode of Doctor Who.
It was not a good way to introduce that.
Well, it was not a good way to send Tenet to the farm.
It was to the pasture to enjoy grazing as an old man.
Oh, I just I just had a terrible phrase in my mind.
He's like, please tell me we haven't put him out the stud.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
I thought it was very tough on Gatwa
because normally when you have your first moments as the Doctor,
and it's only a few moments in the episode that you regenerate
at the end of an episode, you have a few moments,
maybe a line or two, but all eyes are on you.
And I don't think it will.
Here is Schneering Stage.
Well, yeah.
And actually your second fiddle,
because the lead actor is the one who's been leading for the whole episode.
I don't think it will affect him in the long term.
I think I've already kind of taken to him as the doctor.
I haven't rewatched the whole episode.
What I did was I rewatched from the bi-generation onwards
because I wanted to focus entirely on his performance.
for that part of it and i i think he's great i have obviously watched the trailer for the
christmas episode and i think the line delivery in that is phenomenal i'm really looking forward
seeing him lead i do have one comment i mean i said it online i'll say it here it's like oh
honey could your performance be any more camp no i mean i i think he's but that but that but you
know that is the that is rtd and rtd's doctor that is rtd that's true i don't uh i don't mind
leaning into those if that's the strength then hey go for it i mean it's not like the doctor
hasn't been extremely calm please stop the honey the love i i i detest those phrases anyway
uh lovey lovey like all of those things it's so affected i i don't it doesn't feel affected to me
i think there's something i don't know i don't know it's one it's one of these things
again you know just in terms of how special regenerations are we did a whole series of
um fusion patrol podcast episodes on the first post-regeneration episode for every doctor up
to I don't think we did Peter Capaldi onwards.
Well, we did the episodes, so yeah.
Well, we did the episodes.
All we were looking at was, because, again,
how special the regeneration is.
Retroactively, yeah.
That's true.
But it was looking back at the Doctor's era
and seeing how did their initial performance
actually foreshadow the way they play the Doctor
and the kind of tone and style of their performance
throughout their run.
It'll be interesting to see how that works out for Gatwa.
It's also a question for me.
We always looked at the first episode in which they were the Doctor in,
and you discount the one in which they regenerated.
But I don't know if you can discount it this time,
because this isn't just a one-line thing.
This isn't just a kind of, oh, new teeth,
or you seem a very opinionated woman.
I know, Carson, no, no.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
It's actually his proper first 20 minutes.
But I also feel like we can't really judge him on this.
But I already am.
And I don't think we can, frankly,
we're not going to be able to judge him on a Christmas special either.
Maybe not.
But I don't know.
Bring it on.
I'm glad given how I feel about this episode,
we don't have to wait much more than two weeks.
Do you have anything else?
I've got a couple of production things, very, very brief things.
One of which is the big letters at the end.
That's a very RTD thing, but we got rid of those.
Don't like it. Never mind.
And the music again, I was kind of talking about having Murray Gold back in the past two episodes.
And this time, I thought Wild Blue Yonder was kind of quite different and I liked it.
At this time, it sort of felt a bit different for Doctor Who,
but it also sounded exactly like his score for years and years,
which was kind of maybe tying into the themes around the way
in which the population were behaving and thinking they were right about everything.
But I did like his 15th Doctor theme.
I'm assuming we're going to hear that quite a lot, so it's a good thing.
I didn't pick it up until I listened to the commentary.
and I say oh you can hear the
shooties theme I think is actually what
RTD called it
there at the end
and so when I
watched it again after listening to the
commentary I did hear
it and what I hear
is a remix of I am the doctor
I don't think it's I am the doctor
listen to it again
that might it's missing a few
notes here and there it's not
it's not exact
but it's it's a retread right now just not necessarily in the right order it's a retread
of it with different instrumentation and some changes to the it's like harmony it's the same
tune but it's different it's it's yeah it i'm not saying i like it better than the doctor i'm saying
it's different than i like it uh yeah retread hopefully it'll it'll maybe it'll grow on me
I didn't dislike it.
I just like,
yeah,
okay.
I've heard it before.
Just,
it's like when my kids are on their keyboard and they,
they never play anything twice the same,
but you can change the instrument and then it's a whole different tune,
even though it's not.
All right.
Well,
the,
the thing is it will be two weeks.
This one will go out to our patrons just as fast as I can get it edited.
It'll go out to our,
let's see if you're hearing it now,
it's going out to you on the 16th of December.
Yay.
I'm just going to say next week
we'll be looking at The Underwater Menace
how often can we get to say next week
we're going to be listening to The Underwater Menace
or indeed say what we're going to be listening to
next week at any time with the listeners
so anyway Simon thank you
for joining me it's a pleasure as always
and listeners
I do hope you'll join us all again next time
on Fusion Patrol
you've been
listening to Fusion Patrol
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On the next episode of Fusion Patrol
we will be looking at the 2023
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the Underwater Menace. When we compare the differing reconstructions from this and the
previous release, we discussed whether changes in the colour version of the animation contradict
the dialogue, as well as the sexy fish people, and we argue over our favourite colour choice
for the Doctor Who original titles. Come join the conversation on Fusion Patrol.
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