WEBVTT

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you're listening to fusion patrol a listener supported podcast

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each week we take a single episode of a science fiction tv series movie or

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audio and overanalyze it to within an inch of its life welcome to the discussion

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Hello and welcome to another episode of Fusion Patrol. I'm Eugene.

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And I'm Simon.

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And tonight we are looking at season 2025 of Doctor Who episode 4, Lucky Day, episode synopsis.

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It's New Year's 2007. London and the Doctor and Belinda arrive for another Vindicator reading.

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They meet a small street urchin named Conrad, and the Doctor gives him a coin,

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says it's his lucky day, then buggers off. Conrad goes to tell his mom about the appearing blue box,

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the doctor, and Belinda Chandra, and she spacks the little liar upside the head for being such

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a little shit. Fair dues. The year is 2024, and Conrad, now grown, self-proclaims that he's spent

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years tracking down appearances of the blue box and the doctor, but then he sees it again.

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Investigating, he observes, while the doctor and Ruby put paid to the shriek,

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a multi-dimensional creature that vomits on its plurie,

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then stalks it to terrorize its victims.

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Conrad observes the doctor give Ruby the antidote,

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but he too has been vomited on and receives no treatment.

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As the doctor and Ruby leave, he snaps a picture of Ruby.

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A year later, and Ruby is on his podcast,

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talking about aliens, the doctor, and to a lesser degree, unit.

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It's a meet-cute right out of a Nora Ephraim screenplay.

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They go out for dinner, then Ruby reveals the truth.

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The shriek returned for him.

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Unit has captured it, and she gives him a vial of the antidote,

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making him promise to take it before bedtime.

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The next few weeks, C's romance blooming,

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and Ruby confiding in Conrad all of the things she's done and seen.

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Finally, feeling like she can open up and trust someone.

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They go away for a weekend in an English village,

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and Ruby begins to notice the telltale signs of a shriek on the prowl.

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She calls Kate Lethbridge-Stewart at unit,

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but there are no telltale signs of a shriek on the loose,

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and Kate verifies that the shriek they captured is still secure.

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The pub they are in appears to be surrounded by multiple shriek,

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and when Conrad's pal, Sparky, goes missing,

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and Conrad admits he never took the antidote,

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things are looking grim.

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Ruby goes outside with a fireplace poker in an effort to,

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I'm not sure make the Shriek laugh at her just before they eat her.

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She's joined by Conrad, who feels responsible.

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They spy the Shriek just as the unit helicopters arrive.

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Kate wants them alive to investigate how they got to Earth without being detected.

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And then the truth is told.

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Conrad is a lying little shit that needed to be hit upside the head a whole lot more often

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and a whole lot harder when he was a child.

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The Shriek are his friends in costumes.

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and this has been an elaborate setup to lure out Unit and expose them live-streamed to the world.

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Conrad's not just a scheming jerk, he's also a cruel asshole,

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and he makes sure Ruby knows just how much he really loathed her and hated pretending to be her boyfriend.

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Kate has them arrested, but they are soon released because terrorizing a little village

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and screwing up their electricity is just a harmless prank,

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and the disaffected youth of the world turn against Unit.

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It's looking bad

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And then everyone in UNIT is doxxed

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Geneva orders the UNIT assets

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Alien and Tech retrieved to Geneva HQ

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Lest the British government seize the UNIT tower

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There's a traitor in UNIT

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And he lets Conrad in

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And gets shot for his pains

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Conrad makes his way to the command center

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And Kate lets him in

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He is armed

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With not just a stolen UNIT gun

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But also a live stream camera

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He demands that they admit that UNIT is a scam

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To cover up their real agenda

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Conrad is a nasty piece of work

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But he crosses a line when he calls Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart a coward

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So Kate lets the shriek out to hunt him down

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Which it does

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Everyone except Kate is pretty much horrified that she's going to let it kill him

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She even hacks his live stream to send pictures from all the unit HQ cameras all around the world

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So they can watch Conrad be killed by the so-called fake monster

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Terrified, Conrad relents, and Ruby tases the Shriek, which apparently isn't very formidable

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after all. And then Conrad goes right back to his former ways, claiming the air effects have

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improved. Then the Shriek bites his arm off. The opinion of the world changes, and hashtags are

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all pro-unit. Huzzah! Recovering in his prison cell, the TARDIS materializes around Conrad,

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the doctor gives him a stern talking to, and then when Conrad isn't impressed, the doctor drops him

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his cell, only to have Mrs. Flood let him out. The end. Okay, what'd you think? Well, I think...

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Wait, wait, wait. Before I ask that, I do have one thing to do first. Because right for cover

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up for last week, right after I clicked the shut off recording button last week is when it occurred

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to me that the mineshaft in last week's episode, the well, is not a well. It's a mineshaft.

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And this supports my theory that they rewrote the episode and that that was probably meant to be a

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mercury well. They were trying to pull mercury out of the planet. And then the story got rewritten

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to be about diamonds so that they could make it a midnight sequel. Just putting that out there.

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Okay. Sorry to interrupt. Go on. What did you think of the episode?

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Yeah. Back to this week. So, I mean, I'm a big fan of the Doctor Light episodes. I

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struggle to think of a Doctor Light episode that I haven't enjoyed.

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I don't.

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Love and Monsters.

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Yeah. Well, you see, Love and Monsters, I still don't totally understand why that's such a

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Marmite episode. I don't understand quite why it's so divisive. I accept that it is. I recognize that

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not all Doctor Who fans think it is as wonderful as it is, but it is wonderful.

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There is a sense in which this is kind of retreading that love and monsters thing,

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although it's obviously doing some slightly different things with it in the sense that our

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Clive Banks, Elton Pope character here, there's a twist. And obviously, it's centered on

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ruby in a story that's kind of at least you know nominally a kind of post post companion

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story yeah but yeah i just i thought this was terrible sorry it was awful it was awful there

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were bits i liked but there is there is there are so many things in it that i found unsatisfying and

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unconvincing that it really felt like less than some of its parts which were not great to begin

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with interesting interesting i actually kind of liked it i mean really it is dr light and that

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is a huge improvement you know in this current era i like last year's dr light yeah you know

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i don't particularly like ruby but and i don't and i actually so i don't have much empathy for ruby

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But even in this episode, even I had empathy for her because she really, really got dumped on hard.

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And in it, it just absolute.

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I don't know that anybody has ever been as as a despicable, disgusting villain as Conrad in an episode of Doctor Who in all the years.

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And I'm including Davros.

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I mean, at least Davros, you can kind of understand him.

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This guy.

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I don't know.

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Just so the viewers know, we're in just a little bit of a time pressure this episode, so I'm going to kind of run through my notes as quickly as I can, and we can just kind of
see if that bounces off all our topping points.

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I want to say, I also think this is a clever approach to a Dr. Light episode, just kind of the way that they interwove the current companion and past companions and the way
it's structured.

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I do think it's interesting that RTD era, I know this is not an RTD episode, Pete McTie,

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I believe, unless it's McTeague.

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Okay, it could be McTie.

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I thought it was McTie, but RTD really does have an obsession with checking back in on

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companions.

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I mean, we've checked in on Rose, Martha, Donna, Ruby, Mel, Sarah Jane.

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Maybe Joe Jones, because that was in Sarah Jane Adventures, right?

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Even though that was Matt Smith era, you know, it's kind of an obsession.

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rtd it wasn't rtd wrote it i probably i mean i'm not sure whether you count sarah jane adventures

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that were made when matt smith was the doctor part of the rtd era you do right i mean

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like yeah i mean i think even marfitt wasn't producing them no well no i i'm pretty sure

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that was executive produced by rtd i not stake my life on it but i i'm fairly sure so

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it's kind of interesting they never really seem to have great post-doctor times it's kind of a

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it's almost a melancholy but in this case ptsd ruby so which i mean so i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm

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gonna agree with the point that i think the structure is interesting i think checking in

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on a companion at this point like after oh you know after she's come home and what what that is

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like is interesting. I also think that the timeline is generally interesting in the sense

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that the logic for this episode being where it is in the series is because for the Doctor and

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Belinda in the cold open, we're in the sequence following the well and before presumably whatever's

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coming next week but i'm also presuming the other appearances of the doctor in the episode

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are from some other earlier point in his timeline yes i think oh yeah at the same time checking in

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on ruby is a bit of a throwback but this is taking her forward in her timeline to a kind of

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almost contemporary period with belinda kind of pre pre-traveling with the doctor so all of that

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is kind of quite an interesting setup i think and i think the reason that it doesn't that doesn't

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satisfy me because you know potentially that's that's what would have kind of saved the episode

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for me is that like you i'm have i'm struggling with with ruby i think i didn't have much of a

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problem with her last year but since she's left i kind of realized that she didn't leave much of

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an impression on me so when she comes back in this i'm struggling to get a handle on what her

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motivation is really because i don't necessarily really have much of an insight into her character

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so that leaves me with lots of questions about the way she acts in the way that she does like

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why is she appearing on conrad's podcast and why i i don't i don't want i don't want to kind of put

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it all on but why is i don't i don't want to blame her for being treated so badly i agree he's a bit

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of a villain but why is she so easily seduced by this this con artist i'd i'd like to have seen not

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that she not that she's to blame for it not that she shouldn't have been but i'd like to have seen

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a bit more about why and then when she is like that sequence outside the pub was weird like why

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what was she going out there to do?

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With a poker.

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Yeah, that it was a discussion that we had.

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And you asked me about, prior to the recording,

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you asked me about what the not we thought.

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And I watched this with three of the not we.

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And that very point came up.

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So it felt like it stuck out like a sore thumb.

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And to me, what all that added up towards was,

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I don't really get what Ruby is thinking or doing in this.

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When she says she thinks she has PTSD, it's kind of like that's a potentially interesting

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take on, yes, what the kind of extreme experiences that you would have traveling with the doctor

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could do to you, but it doesn't land for me because I just have lost my sense of this character.

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I don't think we ever really had much of a sense of the character, but I mean, one, and this is just being as harsh as possible.

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She's just dumb and reckless.

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And she kind of was last year, too.

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And that's kind of her personality.

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It's an interesting thing.

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She's supposed to be about the same age as Rose was, right?

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Yeah.

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Rose seems so much more mature.

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Ruby seems like a foolish kid.

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And sorry, kids, but sure, the youngers, the youngs listening to this podcast are probably all up in arms in that.

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But she's always seen dumb and reckless.

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Yeah.

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To me.

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Yeah.

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And it is.

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Yes.

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I mean, Rose was Rose was smart and brave, I guess.

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And so the kind of smart is opposite of the dumb.

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The brave and the reckless could easily be mistaken for one another, but they're not the same.

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that and even even the reckless you know if you think about i mean this is obviously straying into

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the big finnish companions but if you think about flip jackson who was a companion to colin baker's

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doctor in the audios one of her kind of defining features is her recklessness like she is very

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reckless to the point where the doctor is a bit alarmed by it but you kind of understand that is

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part of who she is she's quite kind of she's wild and impulsive in a in a in a way that is

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a bit unusual a bit exceptional i don't get the feeling that ruby is like there is some

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there is some particular character trait there is just that she does a lot of reckless things

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if that makes sense uh you know and and as you say the ptsd notion kind of makes sense i could

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see how somebody who everywhere you go, monsters are attacking you and now you've returned to

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normal life and you hear noises. You think monsters are attacking you or, or however,

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I mean, that's an oversimplification, but you know, you're, you're back in it and I can totally

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see that, but I really think unit probably has some really good counselors for that much better

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than a ratty little support group meeting in a library. Yeah. Or Kate saying, you know, you come

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and you come and talk to me. I'm going to come to one of the other things that really dissatisfied

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me about this episode, which has a lot to do with Kate Stewart. But one of the things was Kate

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Stewart just saying, you come and talk to me when Kate Stewart should have said, you come to me and

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we will get you the best counseling that unit has. Yeah. With that tabernacle, they probably at least

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have too you know i mean that surely that's and and all the people who see monsters and things i

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mean yeah okay just switch roll back here for a second about the time frame we were explicitly

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told that the early sequence with ruby and the shriek and the doctor was immediately after the

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beatles yes which is odd because we all have complained and i mean we all as in fandom in

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general it's like it's really weird that there's a six month or so gap between snot babies and the

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beatles sing about dogs and yet they don't place this in that gap they place this after that gap

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and that was like such a perfect instead of saying oh i'm gonna have a coffee with john

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lennon and she should have been talking about i'm still cleaning snot off my clothes or whatever

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the case may be but it's just it's just odd and then well i don't think it is i don't think it

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is odd i think i think the reason for that is it's very difficult to place it in that gap

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in half a line of dialogue it's like it perhaps mentioning the beatles you don't the audience

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doesn't have to think about it they you know they know oh it's okay it's after that episode

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i've got it whereas saying you know oh it was six months since we met the snot babies

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i don't know how you actually make that sound right clearly ruby is post-sutec

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in her thing because they literally mentioned turning everyone to dust and fighting gods

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yeah so that is true and the doctor does not yet know belinda chandra when he kept

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traps Conrad in the TARDIS.

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So that is person.

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And the question is,

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is that the person he heard her name from?

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Because it was very awkward on the doctor.

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And this is Belinda Chandra, right?

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When he, when he calls her all the time.

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And then the kid remembers that Belinda Chandra and then passes it on.

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So it's kind of, it's, it's kind of weird, but yeah.

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And, and, okay, let's just pretend I'm,

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this is probably later in my notes.

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Conrad tells him about Belinda Chandra.

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She didn't even imagine Belinda Chandra yet.

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The doctor later says he came looking for Belinda Chandra because he heard about her from a guy.

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Well, this is a guy.

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Slimy guy, but a guy.

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But would he do that?

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Would you go hunting for a companion before the companion is fated to do this?

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What about the web of time?

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Has anyone thought about the web of time here?

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I think not.

00:18:24.240 --> 00:18:26.120
It doesn't make any sense.

00:18:26.640 --> 00:18:27.240
But okay.

00:18:28.540 --> 00:18:30.160
Also, what does everyone remember?

00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:35.080
Clearly, the people at UNIT remember being turned into dust, right?

00:18:35.470 --> 00:18:38.580
When the doctor undid that, everyone seems to know what was happening.

00:18:39.300 --> 00:18:46.540
So the world must all know that something really dusty happened and that got undone, right?

00:18:46.920 --> 00:18:58.820
I mean, so how is an organization like Think Tank, we'll come back to that name in a bit, able to...

00:18:59.240 --> 00:19:00.400
No, that's the point of the episode.

00:19:00.600 --> 00:19:01.340
We'll come back to that later.

00:19:02.760 --> 00:19:03.220
Let's see.

00:19:03.380 --> 00:19:04.420
Ruby's crushed, rightly so.

00:19:04.700 --> 00:19:06.620
I mean, that's worse than a betrayal, right?

00:19:06.650 --> 00:19:08.800
A betrayal is someone you did that.

00:19:09.400 --> 00:19:10.860
I mean, yes, it's a betrayal.

00:19:11.040 --> 00:19:12.300
She trusted him and he betrayed her.

00:19:12.330 --> 00:19:14.000
But I mean, it's not just a betrayal.

00:19:14.160 --> 00:19:15.280
It was a setup betrayal.

00:19:15.520 --> 00:19:18.340
Those are those are even worse than just I was your friend.

00:19:18.430 --> 00:19:20.360
And then I decided to stab you in the back.

00:19:21.020 --> 00:19:22.060
He was never her friend.

00:19:22.660 --> 00:19:23.740
He was he was.

00:19:24.680 --> 00:19:29.020
And and staying on Ruby, she says at the end of this, you know, I'm just I'm going away.

00:19:29.420 --> 00:19:30.600
I'm going to get away from people.

00:19:31.140 --> 00:19:33.200
I'm a long time.

00:19:33.820 --> 00:19:34.400
Is that the end?

00:19:34.870 --> 00:19:37.120
Have we gotten rid of Ruby or will she be back for the finale?

00:19:37.950 --> 00:19:39.080
Oh, no, this is not the end.

00:19:39.540 --> 00:19:40.040
No, I'm sure.

00:19:40.280 --> 00:19:41.160
I'm sure she's down.

00:19:41.900 --> 00:19:42.040
Damn.

00:19:42.070 --> 00:19:43.340
I was hoping that was her.

00:19:44.300 --> 00:19:44.660
Sayonara.

00:19:44.780 --> 00:19:45.820
You're never going to see me again.

00:19:45.960 --> 00:19:50.080
I'm going to go live on a desert island somewhere with my with my PTSD.

00:19:50.450 --> 00:19:55.860
And and is that the same performer as biological mom?

00:19:56.800 --> 00:19:57.520
Same actor?

00:19:58.090 --> 00:19:58.680
I think so.

00:19:59.340 --> 00:20:03.320
I didn't check a little different, but okay.

00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:05.840
Let's looking at Conrad here.

00:20:06.580 --> 00:20:11.780
I've got, obviously he's a horrid little shit from the word go, but what does he believe?

00:20:12.720 --> 00:20:13.860
What does he actually believe?

00:20:14.340 --> 00:20:19.700
Not counting what he's selling, but is he trying to expose unit as a fake, but he knows

00:20:19.800 --> 00:20:20.300
they're not?

00:20:20.800 --> 00:20:22.960
I mean, he's seen the freaking TARDIS land.

00:20:23.620 --> 00:20:31.320
He's seen the Doctor and Ruby track down and deal with a monster, which he saw.

00:20:32.220 --> 00:20:34.560
And they didn't know he was there.

00:20:35.040 --> 00:20:37.660
So it's not like he should be making the argument.

00:20:37.740 --> 00:20:44.120
This is like, oh, this is some unit covert operation to spread disinformation because there was no disinformation.

00:20:44.160 --> 00:20:45.900
There was no information spread.

00:20:46.600 --> 00:20:54.080
So it's like, I feel like he actually believes these things and yet he is deliberately lying about them.

00:20:54.880 --> 00:21:01.080
And wow, he built up a podcast to expose this stuff.

00:21:02.320 --> 00:21:10.380
But at the same time, the podcast is a front to get Ruby so that he can execute his real plan.

00:21:11.660 --> 00:21:14.240
That whole thing is a problem.

00:21:14.320 --> 00:21:37.820
The podcast thing didn't make any sense to me. Generally, the whole idea that Conrad would be able to do what he did as well as he did is something I find a bit difficult to
accept. He doesn't seem that skilled, and if he is that skilled, why is he such a loser? I don't know.

00:21:37.900 --> 00:22:04.640
What I think there is and what I think maybe doesn't come across enough is there is a bit of the kind of psychological reasoning behind why he is invested in kind of
proving that unit is a front, even though he may not, like you say, 100% believe it himself, which I think has to do with his mum.

00:22:04.720 --> 00:22:12.760
and that scene in the opening where she reacts to him. Because there's the point in the episode

00:22:13.260 --> 00:22:21.180
where he says to Ruby that his mom's died. And I was instantly like, his mom hasn't died.

00:22:21.560 --> 00:22:28.260
His mom hasn't died. And my friend watching with me was like, oh, and she was instantly into,

00:22:28.480 --> 00:22:33.680
is this a timey-wimey thing? Is so-and-so his mom? And it's like, no, no, it's just,

00:22:33.920 --> 00:22:40.340
he's lying. He's lying about this. He's clearly lying about this. He was lying about it because

00:22:41.220 --> 00:22:48.900
what was going on there, I thought, and I saw nothing to contradict this, was that he had

00:22:49.740 --> 00:22:58.539
convinced himself again of a lie that made him feel better because his mum was clearly

00:22:58.540 --> 00:23:10.240
an awful awful woman and he preferred the idea that she had died and horribly you know he'd been

00:23:10.420 --> 00:23:19.200
left an orphan rather than that she abandoned him and you know and yet he pays for her to live

00:23:19.860 --> 00:23:24.519
comfortably that was listed that they said that in the episode later on she's not dead but i

00:23:24.620 --> 00:23:26.640
He pays for her to live in France or wherever.

00:23:27.140 --> 00:23:30.900
But I think that's because she's controlling.

00:23:31.350 --> 00:23:34.940
I think, I don't know, I think it's part of the psychology.

00:23:35.180 --> 00:23:39.280
I could see the stuff being woven in there.

00:23:39.940 --> 00:23:42.560
I just didn't think it kind of came across in the,

00:23:42.940 --> 00:23:46.980
we didn't really kind of get a handle on Conrad and who he was.

00:23:47.940 --> 00:23:50.400
And the kind of twist came too fast.

00:23:50.880 --> 00:24:18.320
It was a bit like the way in which the master's relationship with, in The Sound of Drums, the master's relationship with his companion, there's a load of implications
about a pretty dark and unpleasant relationship there that doesn't ever kind of get surfaced.

00:24:18.840 --> 00:24:22.680
but at least there there's kind of like you you understand why not right i mean it's

00:24:22.980 --> 00:24:28.900
like i think rtd wanted to suggest something but wasn't willing to say it wasn't going to

00:24:28.900 --> 00:24:34.700
kind of go there on a on a on a family show whereas with this i felt like those were the

00:24:35.659 --> 00:24:41.899
elements of who conrad was and therefore what was motivating him to do what he did

00:24:42.500 --> 00:24:50.460
but it just the dots were not joined that i yeah i'm not i'm not really i mean we can there is

00:24:50.720 --> 00:24:58.740
clearly this episode that the central theme is of course talking about again the social medias and

00:24:59.300 --> 00:25:08.960
gaslighting and and misinformation and whatnot so okay but trying to figure out because he also

00:25:08.980 --> 00:25:12.920
and it's self-proclaimed. He claims he was searching for information on the blue box for

00:25:13.190 --> 00:25:18.800
17 years and collecting all this stuff. So it's not like he isn't obsessed with it. And again,

00:25:18.830 --> 00:25:22.340
I don't know whether he, I don't know whether he believes it or not, or whether he's convinced

00:25:22.460 --> 00:25:26.940
himself that it's not real, but yet at the same time, I mean, he didn't take the antidote. Is

00:25:27.060 --> 00:25:32.660
that, is that a stand in for vaccine denialism? I don't know. He kind of reminds me of possibly,

00:25:33.470 --> 00:25:38.560
he kind of reminds me of Alex Jones. And I don't mean Alex Jones appeared in this episode. I mean,

00:25:38.600 --> 00:25:46.380
Alex Jones, the guy that, you know, could not possibly believe all the things that he espouses

00:25:47.360 --> 00:25:56.460
on his show without being completely insane, but he makes a lot of money from it. And is that what

00:25:56.540 --> 00:26:04.720
this is? Is, is Conrad supposed to be Alex Jones? Is he supposed to be a guy that is peddling this

00:26:04.740 --> 00:26:10.280
stuff so he will enrich himself? Because I don't see how that's happening here, apart from TikTok

00:26:10.640 --> 00:26:17.860
streams. I'm not sure that... He's definitely Alex Jones, right? That was my thought during the

00:26:18.080 --> 00:26:28.720
episode. This is kind of RTD's take on Infowars. The reason Alex Jones does what he does or did

00:26:29.280 --> 00:26:37.140
can't just be money. It can't just be money. So I think part of what's going on here is to do with

00:26:37.640 --> 00:26:44.160
the psychology of where his obsession with the doctor and connected with that unit and all the

00:26:44.280 --> 00:26:51.360
rest of that comes from. And in this case, it's mummy issues. But I think that RTD probably has

00:26:51.520 --> 00:26:55.820
in mind when you're talking about kind of misinformation and all that kind of thing,

00:26:56.280 --> 00:27:03.500
he's probably also thinking about why Trump does what he does. And the fact that in the end,

00:27:03.520 --> 00:27:14.080
it comes back to he wants people to make him feel like he matters. And in Trump's case,

00:27:14.240 --> 00:27:21.020
that's coming back to issues with what his mom thought of him. She thought he was weak.

00:27:21.920 --> 00:27:29.180
And he wants to prove that that is not the case, despite the fact everything he does seems to prove it is.

00:27:29.740 --> 00:27:36.920
And I think maybe something similar is going on here with Conrad.

00:27:37.400 --> 00:27:44.860
And I think he hates his mother, but I also think he loves his mother and wants to prove something to her.

00:27:44.860 --> 00:27:47.060
And I think it's all a bit kind of mixed up.

00:27:47.220 --> 00:27:54.320
And in the end, what it comes down to is he wants the doctor and unit to make it seem like he matters.

00:27:54.400 --> 00:27:59.640
He wants them to pay attention to him and nothing else matters.

00:27:59.820 --> 00:28:05.840
None of the truth, the lies, none of that is important to his psychology.

00:28:07.420 --> 00:28:12.440
Well, he did try to apply to get into unit and Kate's assessment don't trust him.

00:28:13.080 --> 00:28:19.520
The question is, was he trying to legitimately get into unit because he was obsessed with the doctor and the blue box and the monsters and things?

00:28:19.930 --> 00:28:24.920
And then when he did not get it allowed, then it turned to wanting to destroy them?

00:28:25.080 --> 00:28:26.720
Or did he want to destroy them to begin with?

00:28:26.810 --> 00:28:29.160
And that was part of his attempt to do it.

00:28:29.400 --> 00:28:31.180
I don't think.

00:28:31.950 --> 00:28:38.440
The suggestion is that he genuinely wanted to get in and then he was kind of motivated by revenge.

00:28:39.020 --> 00:28:39.320
Revenge.

00:28:39.670 --> 00:28:39.780
Okay.

00:28:40.000 --> 00:28:43.840
But I, you know, I think he's unstable.

00:28:44.100 --> 00:28:44.700
He's unstable.

00:28:44.900 --> 00:28:49.260
So if he had got in, it wouldn't have been like, well, that would have meant that he

00:28:49.300 --> 00:28:50.340
never needed to seek revenge.

00:28:50.600 --> 00:28:52.100
So he would have just been a model employee.

00:28:52.740 --> 00:28:54.640
He would clearly have been a problem whatever happened.

00:28:55.260 --> 00:28:55.400
Yeah.

00:28:55.940 --> 00:28:56.100
Okay.

00:28:56.340 --> 00:29:02.680
So he works for an organization called Think Tank, who were, in classic Doctor Who, the

00:29:02.800 --> 00:29:06.500
people who created the robot and wanted to take over the earth as a fascist dictatorship

00:29:07.200 --> 00:29:09.100
ruled by scientific thought.

00:29:09.500 --> 00:29:12.520
And that would have been in the past because it was the Brigadier.

00:29:13.120 --> 00:29:21.860
And he did have a particular bug against the Brigadier as well, which, you know, would

00:29:21.960 --> 00:29:25.340
he have really known much about the Brigadier anyway?

00:29:26.040 --> 00:29:30.320
So is Think Tank an homage to the original Think Tank?

00:29:30.620 --> 00:29:35.679
Or is this in some way a carry on, like the children of Think Tank or the grandchildren

00:29:35.700 --> 00:29:43.300
children of Think Tank who are still bearing a grudge against Unit because it's Unit and the

00:29:43.540 --> 00:29:50.500
doctor. But I mean, the name doesn't make much sense otherwise. I completely missed the reference

00:29:51.040 --> 00:29:57.880
and I thought that he had established Think Tank. Well, they all popped their shirts and said,

00:29:57.980 --> 00:30:05.660
we're members of Think Tank. I was like, yeah, maybe he did create it. Maybe he didn't. Where

00:30:05.760 --> 00:30:10.840
I think you're right. It has to be a reference back to Robot.

00:30:11.360 --> 00:30:15.900
Okay. One of the things I like about this episode, particularly in a way,

00:30:16.520 --> 00:30:17.840
you and I are not stupid in this.

00:30:18.480 --> 00:30:20.080
Go on then. Make the case for that.

00:30:20.780 --> 00:30:24.840
They are, the Shriek came to Earth. They captured it.

00:30:25.600 --> 00:30:28.400
They are securely holding it, safely and securely.

00:30:29.340 --> 00:30:31.580
They have monitoring going.

00:30:32.400 --> 00:30:35.760
When Ruby reports it, they check all their stuff.

00:30:36.440 --> 00:30:40.700
They've got scientific information and data to find and locate Shriek.

00:30:40.710 --> 00:30:41.700
They cannot see it.

00:30:42.340 --> 00:30:45.080
Fair enough, because it's not there, right?

00:30:45.860 --> 00:30:46.640
Kate checks it.

00:30:47.010 --> 00:30:49.260
We don't assume that the thing is still locked away.

00:30:49.290 --> 00:30:50.820
We verify that it's still there.

00:30:51.600 --> 00:31:01.060
Ruby, who should be considered a reliable witness, basically phones in a report and says, I don't know, kind of tells them not to come.

00:31:01.300 --> 00:31:08.080
but they do anyway. It's like, no, we have a companion of the doctor who's reporting a shriek

00:31:08.360 --> 00:31:15.800
and that's worth investigating. So in all that, the way unit operates, the way they're set up and

00:31:15.840 --> 00:31:21.560
the way they're functioning, I think Kate's got them on the ball. This is far, sorry,

00:31:22.060 --> 00:31:25.400
sorry, Brigadier. This is kind of far better than the way the Brigadier handled this,

00:31:25.780 --> 00:31:27.440
which was, oh, that's ridiculous.

00:31:27.640 --> 00:31:30.440
No monsters every freaking time.

00:31:31.420 --> 00:31:33.120
And so, right?

00:31:33.900 --> 00:31:37.400
So the doctor's like, no, no, no, I think we really do have some cave monsters down there.

00:31:37.780 --> 00:31:38.140
Yeah.

00:31:38.940 --> 00:31:39.020
Right.

00:31:39.740 --> 00:31:44.120
So, no, I think that's done it well.

00:31:44.260 --> 00:31:47.400
I've got, you know, scientific advisors who are actually good at their job.

00:31:48.100 --> 00:31:52.580
Not as good as the doctor, but, you know, and Bingham is Bingham, right?

00:31:52.940 --> 00:31:53.340
Is back.

00:31:53.820 --> 00:31:54.300
It is.

00:31:54.440 --> 00:31:54.680
It is.

00:31:55.150 --> 00:31:55.260
Yeah.

00:31:55.650 --> 00:31:55.740
Yeah.

00:31:55.840 --> 00:32:19.520
I've got a question about Bingham, which is that she wasn't in the SUTEC two-parter. She'd been replaced by some nine-year-old scientific advisor. And I knew that she
was going to be in the war between the land and the sea. So I guess I was expecting her to come back. There's no explanation of where she'd been or why she'd been replaced
and now she'd been unreplaced.

00:32:20.040 --> 00:32:22.040
It's probably in Hong Kong, like Mills.

00:32:22.110 --> 00:32:22.480
Or Sydney.

00:32:23.820 --> 00:32:24.300
Was it Sydney?

00:32:24.600 --> 00:32:24.780
Okay.

00:32:25.280 --> 00:32:25.460
Yeah.

00:32:25.540 --> 00:32:26.240
Somebody was on the way.

00:32:26.400 --> 00:32:28.380
Someone was on the way to Hong Kong too, though, weren't they?

00:32:28.620 --> 00:32:29.400
I seem to recall that.

00:32:29.980 --> 00:32:31.020
Maybe I was watching something else.

00:32:31.700 --> 00:32:33.800
Yeah, I think Mel was in Sydney.

00:32:34.560 --> 00:32:37.160
Yeah, she was on her way to Sydney, but yeah.

00:32:38.340 --> 00:32:39.500
Not even something else I was watching.

00:32:39.580 --> 00:32:41.900
It was Hong Kong the same day.

00:32:42.640 --> 00:32:43.060
Fringe, maybe.

00:32:43.700 --> 00:32:44.720
A couple of things about UNIT.

00:32:45.260 --> 00:32:46.300
Geneva is still there.

00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:48.060
Seems to be the controlling.

00:32:48.260 --> 00:32:51.640
Well, seems to be the controlling entity over UNIT.

00:32:52.400 --> 00:32:59.780
And so I've kind of had this question about it since Doctor Who came back in 2005.

00:33:00.610 --> 00:33:07.420
You know, why did they change that name to the stupid unified intelligence task force

00:33:07.940 --> 00:33:11.760
when then it would be UN period I period T.

00:33:12.460 --> 00:33:13.500
She drives me to the bonks.

00:33:13.960 --> 00:33:16.120
But isn't it because they were all...

00:33:16.120 --> 00:33:17.080
The UN got upset.

00:33:17.740 --> 00:33:19.280
Yes, the UN got pissy about it.

00:33:19.940 --> 00:33:20.020
Yep.

00:33:20.550 --> 00:33:20.740
Yep.

00:33:21.260 --> 00:33:22.620
I verified that today.

00:33:23.200 --> 00:33:24.560
They apparently did.

00:33:25.820 --> 00:33:30.480
But yet, this now once again appears to be very United Nations.

00:33:31.720 --> 00:33:33.020
Just not in name.

00:33:33.560 --> 00:33:44.720
I think the only thing that the UN could actually, to be honest, I don't even know on what basis they could say you can't use the name.

00:33:45.299 --> 00:33:46.380
I don't think they did.

00:33:46.420 --> 00:33:49.140
I think they asked for it to be changed.

00:33:49.760 --> 00:33:51.360
But yeah, I don't see they have a leg to stand on.

00:33:51.370 --> 00:33:53.400
They're paid for with our taxpayers' money dug on it.

00:33:53.440 --> 00:33:54.260
We're going to use their name.

00:33:57.000 --> 00:34:05.220
But if it is the UN, could the British government really take control and get the assets in the Black Archive and whatnot?

00:34:06.080 --> 00:34:11.280
Just because a few politicians who obviously do, in fact, know that this stuff is real.

00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:17.899
You know, if anybody knows, it's the government people that these things have really been happening and they've been covering them up or whatever.

00:34:18.440 --> 00:34:23.240
But it's not unit doing the cover-up, it's anybody above and beyond.

00:34:23.860 --> 00:34:32.460
There is, just talking about cover-ups for a moment, there is a problem with this public

00:34:32.860 --> 00:34:34.419
knowledge of aliens thing.

00:34:35.020 --> 00:34:40.800
And I think it's specifically a problem because of the longevity of Doctor Who.

00:34:41.899 --> 00:34:46.000
It's a bit like the fact that every week, as you were complaining about the brigadiers,

00:34:46.080 --> 00:34:49.600
It's like, no, it can't be aliens, absolute nonsense.

00:34:49.980 --> 00:34:52.020
It's like, how many times does this have to happen

00:34:52.260 --> 00:34:53.899
before he's willing to say,

00:34:54.440 --> 00:34:57.420
well, maybe actually it could be aliens

00:34:57.580 --> 00:34:59.540
since it was aliens every other single time.

00:35:00.260 --> 00:35:07.920
And it was his idea to create units because of the Yeti.

00:35:08.540 --> 00:35:09.460
Well, yes, indeed.

00:35:10.200 --> 00:35:13.540
So then you've got the problem that once,

00:35:14.380 --> 00:35:17.680
And I feel like this is particularly an issue with Russell T Davies.

00:35:18.390 --> 00:35:23.140
I can't remember it happening before RTD, at least as much.

00:35:23.140 --> 00:35:24.460
I mean, there are things, right?

00:35:25.030 --> 00:35:26.380
But there are often things in the future,

00:35:27.000 --> 00:35:33.860
like the Mondas being ejected from the Earth's solar system

00:35:33.930 --> 00:35:36.720
or whatever is like, it's in the far future of 1986.

00:35:37.340 --> 00:35:40.700
Okay, you set it in the future, it's not such a problem.

00:35:41.180 --> 00:35:46.740
But once you start, and I guess there's in Battlefield, I think it is, there's a reference

00:35:47.020 --> 00:35:50.060
to the king and there's a five pound coin and whatever.

00:35:50.220 --> 00:35:54.820
So there's some kind of small nods to there being a parallel presence that Doctor Who

00:35:54.960 --> 00:35:56.440
is set within.

00:35:57.360 --> 00:36:04.359
But once you start getting into the kind of Battle of Canary Wharf and Aliens of London

00:36:04.360 --> 00:36:12.540
and all of that kind of stuff, people are obviously not going to be unaware that there

00:36:12.540 --> 00:36:21.240
are some pretty strange things happening. And so the kind of world that the citizens of Earth

00:36:21.310 --> 00:36:28.500
in Doctor Who live in and the world that we know is diverging. And it's diverging now over sort of

00:36:28.780 --> 00:36:37.100
the 20 years since aliens under nor so it that makes it that makes it kind of quite hard to get

00:36:37.100 --> 00:36:45.400
a handle on how plausible is it that all of that could be special effects or whatever and it feels

00:36:45.600 --> 00:36:53.819
like rtd is trying to do what they did in the x files the the kind of are aliens real or are they

00:36:53.840 --> 00:37:02.220
not thing that sustains the kind of tension between Mulder and Scully because Mulder always

00:37:02.400 --> 00:37:07.560
thought everything was aliens and Scully was always, there has to be another explanation for

00:37:07.680 --> 00:37:13.560
it until at some point Mulder became disillusioned and Scully became believer and they swapped and

00:37:13.560 --> 00:37:19.140
then that lasted for a couple of series. And even in the kind of short run of the X-Files,

00:37:19.200 --> 00:37:25.680
they managed to have to swap that back and forth just to keep it going. I don't think it's necessarily

00:37:25.700 --> 00:37:33.420
a problem to tell a story in which there is a kind of big public threat to Earth. I will say

00:37:34.060 --> 00:37:39.780
one of the best things ever is Torchwood Children of Earth, which is absolutely that. But I think

00:37:40.400 --> 00:37:41.760
the problem is in kind of...

00:37:41.760 --> 00:37:42.700
This in this universe.

00:37:43.220 --> 00:37:49.160
Yeah. But the problem with kind of bringing this tension out of this and

00:37:49.180 --> 00:37:59.160
trying to set up the kind of the think tank perspective that everything is special effects

00:37:59.480 --> 00:38:03.920
and is the government trying to fake you out and then and then you do get into those those

00:38:04.140 --> 00:38:08.700
questions like you've just been asking about well what do the what do the actual politicians believe

00:38:08.960 --> 00:38:13.780
how and i guess you know if you wanted to make the whole show about that you could properly

00:38:13.800 --> 00:38:19.560
explore that stuff but on its own it's a bit like i it's hard to know what you're supposed to think

00:38:19.880 --> 00:38:27.800
i i think that you know in in this universe there shouldn't be a person on this planet who doesn't

00:38:27.900 --> 00:38:32.800
know that there is some form of alien life or that there's some form of alien threat the cybermen

00:38:32.800 --> 00:38:40.340
were taking over the world the you know just the spacecraft and all that stuff i mean yes there'll

00:38:40.360 --> 00:38:46.360
always be people who are like, oh, no, no, no, it's not. What I think is the intent is to take

00:38:47.360 --> 00:38:54.200
hard, obviously established facts of the world and some numb nuts on the internet can convince

00:38:54.460 --> 00:39:00.820
people that it's not true. I mean, that's the whole point here is that people are dumb as posts

00:39:01.100 --> 00:39:06.160
and we're going to prove it because we can just have a guy live stream something and everybody's

00:39:06.180 --> 00:39:08.120
stupid as hell. I mean, this is

00:39:08.460 --> 00:39:09.820
very, very pointed.

00:39:10.150 --> 00:39:12.100
It's not even satire. It's just

00:39:12.240 --> 00:39:13.760
very pointed social commentary.

00:39:14.460 --> 00:39:16.200
Except, you know, the problem

00:39:16.250 --> 00:39:18.340
is it's hard to believe the reality

00:39:18.340 --> 00:39:20.220
we live in, right? We

00:39:20.400 --> 00:39:22.320
live in that reality where people believe

00:39:22.740 --> 00:39:24.320
the dumbest, dumbest things

00:39:24.580 --> 00:39:26.300
because some moron with a

00:39:27.000 --> 00:39:28.260
megaphone tells them

00:39:28.700 --> 00:39:30.280
that, and it's, I have trouble

00:39:30.580 --> 00:39:32.520
looking at those people and going, I don't understand

00:39:32.820 --> 00:39:34.440
how your brain can be so

00:39:35.140 --> 00:39:35.620
flippant,

00:39:36.320 --> 00:39:42.380
stupid. And yet, right, that's what they're presenting here. The problem is I'm watching

00:39:42.480 --> 00:39:46.860
it in a fictional universe, and it's harder to believe in a fictional universe than it is in

00:39:46.860 --> 00:39:52.540
the real world. But I get that that's the point that they're trying to make. But the problem is

00:39:52.700 --> 00:40:01.980
that the facts that they are stating are supposedly so well-established, because they've

00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:07.220
had this problem before and they keep trying to have their cake and eat it in terms of do people

00:40:07.340 --> 00:40:13.480
know about aliens or not is that there's some i think it's one of donna's lines about how you know

00:40:13.620 --> 00:40:18.760
there was there were those hallucinations or something referring back to the the battle of

00:40:18.880 --> 00:40:27.180
canary wharf when so they've already established this idea that the public can be convinced of

00:40:27.200 --> 00:40:39.660
the the the kind of the fake the fake nature of these massive public events that that you know

00:40:39.780 --> 00:40:46.780
are the kind of day the earth stood still style do you do you want do you want to have

00:40:47.500 --> 00:40:55.960
worse you've seen war of the world the the 1950s one okay and so what happened you know the aliens

00:40:55.980 --> 00:41:02.360
came? George Powell, flying triangular spacecraft, come to Earth. They try to nuke it. It's War of

00:41:02.360 --> 00:41:06.360
the Worlds. I don't know. You and I haven't done it. John and I did it on the podcast. But

00:41:06.900 --> 00:41:12.040
it was the first movie adaptation of War of the Worlds. It's a big color, spectacular.

00:41:12.800 --> 00:41:18.000
But basically, it was set in 1950s. And they came to Earth, and they wiped out all our cities.

00:41:18.900 --> 00:41:24.540
And we tried nuking them, and that didn't work. And eventually, they died from bacteria.

00:41:25.680 --> 00:41:29.600
And, you know, with our cities in tatters and ruins and the world destroyed, the aliens all died.

00:41:30.120 --> 00:41:38.400
Well, in the 1980s, perhaps the 1990s, late in the 80s, 1990s, they made a sequel TV series to that.

00:41:38.800 --> 00:41:40.040
And they had to set it up.

00:41:40.460 --> 00:41:44.580
The premise was everyone on the planet just basically forgot that that happened.

00:41:46.220 --> 00:41:46.420
Right.

00:41:47.620 --> 00:41:50.320
And people are like, well, how come nobody remembers this?

00:41:50.440 --> 00:41:53.460
It's like, ah, it's an amazing how a human mind can do stuff like that.

00:41:55.200 --> 00:41:55.360
Yeah.

00:41:55.380 --> 00:42:12.780
Yeah. And so I'm sure RTD has done that before. And this is the problem. You can do these things as a one-off, but it becomes more of a problem in an ongoing series. And I can
see why they kind of try to reset things and say, oh, yeah, everyone's forgotten about that.

00:42:12.800 --> 00:42:19.000
or they've moved on to discussing what happened in EastEnders this week, because it's much easier

00:42:19.000 --> 00:42:27.220
to tell these stories in a scenario in which something like UNIT operates in a very covert

00:42:27.520 --> 00:42:33.800
way. You can't have a tower in the middle of London. Exactly, exactly. So the idea that they

00:42:34.110 --> 00:42:41.280
are hidden in the Tower of London, not the tower that they're in, but the actual Tower of London

00:42:41.300 --> 00:42:50.340
as they were in kind of Moffat era unit or you know with the with the the brigadier they weren't

00:42:50.560 --> 00:42:57.820
quite as in your face it it it to me I don't know there's just something much more kind of

00:42:58.100 --> 00:43:04.400
satisfying about it and I guess it's partly my kind of like the the x-files version of things

00:43:04.500 --> 00:43:34.460
You can believe that you are in the world of the X-Files, that there really could be a secret unit of the FBI, and that the signs of aliens on Earth are, subtle may not be
quite the right word, but are so well disguised that the world that your average punter in universe is in.

00:43:34.500 --> 00:43:40.060
in the x-files universe it could be the same world that you're living in and i i cut that i can see

00:43:40.060 --> 00:43:45.020
the appeal of that it appeals to me well we're not living in that world anyway because that

00:43:45.780 --> 00:43:51.880
because this is this is this fictional storybook reality which which is started yeah the world of

00:43:51.880 --> 00:43:56.020
with the giggle and if it started with the giggle that's the first time we saw unit tower so

00:43:56.280 --> 00:44:00.440
basically none of this is happening except that this is you know this is what i'm complaining

00:44:00.480 --> 00:44:10.720
about is not a new thing. It's an ongoing thing. It's what Doctor Who has done in the past couple

00:44:10.720 --> 00:44:17.020
of decades, and I'm just being a grumpy old man about it. Let me hit a couple more things about

00:44:17.140 --> 00:44:26.060
Unit. One, I still absolutely detest the idea that Kate and Ibram are having some sort of

00:44:26.080 --> 00:44:32.660
relationship. I mean, it's human, perhaps, but if you want to destroy an organization-like unit,

00:44:32.980 --> 00:44:40.120
you start by having the boss boink the staff. That's a, you know, the big boss boink the staff.

00:44:40.280 --> 00:44:49.100
That one's a big no-no. Maybe two people in different sections, but supervisors and subordinates,

00:44:49.360 --> 00:44:52.360
It's just a disaster.

00:44:53.120 --> 00:44:57.200
Also, on that and linking with that,

00:44:57.520 --> 00:45:01.220
your, I guess, a rebuttal to unit did everything right in this episode

00:45:01.700 --> 00:45:06.600
is that I don't think Kate's doing the right thing there, as you say,

00:45:07.020 --> 00:45:11.520
but also almost everything else that Kate does in this episode is the wrong thing.

00:45:12.260 --> 00:45:18.060
They overreact to what is just, in the end, a social media campaign.

00:45:19.060 --> 00:45:32.980
Then when they more than a social media campaign, it is, it is a, it is a well orchestrated hoax, which involves endangering people's lives by having Sparky nickname
for an electrician.

00:45:32.990 --> 00:45:41.140
I think they even mentioned that he was an electrician, which is a nice call in so that you know that he could screw up the power at the pub and at the bus signs and whatnot.

00:45:41.360 --> 00:45:43.940
But that's not the safest thing to do.

00:45:44.240 --> 00:45:47.440
And I am not happy that it's like, oh, it was just a harmless prank in a village.

00:45:47.600 --> 00:45:52.500
No, you intentionally draw out any form of emergency services with a fake emergency.

00:45:53.760 --> 00:45:55.600
You deserve to be in jail.

00:45:56.230 --> 00:45:58.800
Or at least sternly fucked.

00:45:59.040 --> 00:46:00.860
So did they overreact?

00:46:01.800 --> 00:46:05.020
They got a credible report of a monster from somebody who should know.

00:46:05.190 --> 00:46:05.920
I don't think so.

00:46:06.370 --> 00:46:10.260
I mean, helicopters are the fastest way to get there.

00:46:10.270 --> 00:46:10.960
But yeah.

00:46:11.240 --> 00:46:15.240
Well, I'm not defending what they did.

00:46:15.400 --> 00:46:18.920
what I'm saying is that in the face of these jokers,

00:46:18.970 --> 00:46:22.740
the unit response was an overreaction.

00:46:22.790 --> 00:46:24.280
Like they shouldn't have arrested them.

00:46:24.420 --> 00:46:29.340
That is kind of just playing into what they want.

00:46:30.020 --> 00:46:34.760
Kate gets riled by it and she makes errors in judgment.

00:46:35.210 --> 00:46:41.040
And similarly, letting the shriek eat Conrad's arm

00:46:41.900 --> 00:46:44.300
doesn't seem to me a particularly...

00:46:45.579 --> 00:46:51.360
but there's a point there and that and this but the other thing i was going to mention here is

00:46:51.400 --> 00:46:57.920
the back to the future moment right it seems to me like kate has the same trigger almost the same

00:46:58.080 --> 00:47:03.980
trigger that marty mcfly has what's the matter mcfly chicken and then he'll do any stupid thing

00:47:03.980 --> 00:47:11.640
he can think of what's the matter kate rigadier chicken don't talk about my dad eat him like she

00:47:11.660 --> 00:47:19.000
has that trigger right she's very very possessive of her dad she does and i don't mind seeing that

00:47:19.080 --> 00:47:24.160
she's annoyed by it but i want to see that she's got a bit more smarts i want to see a bit more

00:47:24.230 --> 00:47:34.620
self-control and the reason for that i i like i i like the character so much i really the russell t

00:47:34.800 --> 00:47:41.620
davis had a take on unit when he brought doctor who back in 2005 that was very much more kind

00:47:41.640 --> 00:47:49.920
of militarized and very much less sympathetic and he was telling stories in the kind of immediate

00:47:50.340 --> 00:47:58.740
aftermath of the the gulf war and the the way in which he wanted to have a military organization

00:47:58.900 --> 00:48:04.540
and portrayed them i'm sure was influenced by that and unit was the kind of convenient

00:48:04.600 --> 00:48:12.120
vehicle for it and okay fair enough so that's that's an organization that's obviously very

00:48:12.170 --> 00:48:19.280
different from the organization that the doctor worked for back in the 1970s or 1980s

00:48:20.540 --> 00:48:28.780
don't have a unit dating argument just now but then you got kate stewart and and chibnall and

00:48:29.520 --> 00:48:36.300
and Moffat I mean it's really the way Moffat wrote Unit because I thought bringing in Osgood was

00:48:36.740 --> 00:48:43.520
was just a masterstroke so all of those kind of stories with those two at the at the core

00:48:44.260 --> 00:48:49.980
and I guess I'm slightly influenced by the big finish spin-off which takes both of those

00:48:50.300 --> 00:48:54.520
characters and adds a team around them and it's one of you know one of the better audio

00:48:55.200 --> 00:49:02.520
spinoffs or better any spinoffs actually from doctor who and so i feel i feel this kind of

00:49:02.860 --> 00:49:06.680
from all of that this kind of enormous affection for the character of kate stewart and i don't

00:49:06.800 --> 00:49:15.100
feel she's being done justice by rtd who seems to be kind of reverting back to this more militaristic

00:49:15.400 --> 00:49:26.260
model of unit it it feels much more like the unit of his first era yeah and yet it's it's still being

00:49:26.300 --> 00:49:32.880
run by by kate stewart and she's not quite the same person who she was in the moffat era or even

00:49:32.960 --> 00:49:39.560
in the chibnall era because chibnall brought her back without without osgood yeah well he got it

00:49:39.580 --> 00:49:45.660
Yeah, he got rid of Unit and then he gave them their own Unit tower, etc., etc.

00:49:45.710 --> 00:49:50.700
I mean, it wasn't great, but he was the one who wrote the original Kate Stewart story.

00:49:50.710 --> 00:49:52.320
So I'm cutting him some slack on this.

00:49:53.700 --> 00:50:00.160
I'm disappointed with this episode partly because of the way that Unit is being handled

00:50:00.190 --> 00:50:06.860
and partly because I know that we're getting a spinoff which is focused on Unit and this

00:50:06.960 --> 00:50:08.460
is not boding well for it.

00:50:09.200 --> 00:50:14.700
is definitely the setup for that. I feel like the bit where Ibram says to Kate at the end,

00:50:14.940 --> 00:50:21.840
you went too far. I mean, first off, there's why you don't point the staff, but it's like,

00:50:21.920 --> 00:50:31.500
because that relationship's going to crack and that's a problem. And my first thought when I'm

00:50:31.620 --> 00:50:37.280
watching this, I'm like, this feels so much like, you know, Kate went too far intentionally so that

00:50:37.300 --> 00:50:43.680
they have got some sort of controversy going into War of Surf and Turf.

00:50:44.580 --> 00:50:48.040
And then I thought, you know something?

00:50:48.350 --> 00:50:53.780
Actually, I think that is the setup for the finale.

00:50:54.270 --> 00:51:03.400
It is this mistake that Kate made that will ultimately mean that units not there or whatever

00:51:03.400 --> 00:51:09.360
to prevent the destruction of the planet when conrad does that however conrad does that because

00:51:09.820 --> 00:51:14.900
he and this is you think conrad's coming back absolutely i think absolutely i mean i was i'm

00:51:15.060 --> 00:51:20.300
50 50 on it i was definitely i think the master let him out and so that he could help with revenge

00:51:20.530 --> 00:51:28.020
on unit she's not the master of course it is of course it is who else would have a vendetta

00:51:28.040 --> 00:51:35.020
against the master and unit and who can travel through time i mean who else how many others are

00:51:35.100 --> 00:51:44.120
there i think she's i don't know i don't know i don't know whatever it is no reason for the

00:51:44.320 --> 00:51:50.320
storyteller to have a thing in for unit but clearly this is yeah maybe maybe so i'm not sure

00:51:50.520 --> 00:51:55.320
my friend my friend said we're not gonna do we're not gonna find out who mrs flood is and i was like

00:51:55.560 --> 00:51:57.520
Yeah, we are going to find out who Mrs. Flood is.

00:51:57.520 --> 00:51:58.760
R2D has sworn that we would.

00:51:58.760 --> 00:52:00.280
And it's going to be a terrible anticlimax.

00:52:00.600 --> 00:52:01.720
Oh yeah, it's going to be awful.

00:52:02.220 --> 00:52:04.940
This is why they should never give the doctor's name, because you can't.

00:52:05.820 --> 00:52:08.660
There's never going to be a way to give that up, and it's going to be satisfactory.

00:52:09.060 --> 00:52:11.440
It'll either be stupid, or it'll be stupid.

00:52:12.000 --> 00:52:14.620
There is no clever way out of that one.

00:52:16.119 --> 00:52:21.220
But R2D is not just going to tease us with Mrs. Flood and then leave us to figure it out for ourselves.

00:52:21.280 --> 00:52:22.780
No, he said he won't.

00:52:22.780 --> 00:52:24.360
Banging her into every single episode.

00:52:24.920 --> 00:52:28.900
He said it will be really kind of make us keep asking the question.

00:52:29.740 --> 00:52:31.120
And I'm bored of asking the question.

00:52:31.260 --> 00:52:31.960
I don't care.

00:52:32.480 --> 00:52:32.920
I don't care.

00:52:33.180 --> 00:52:33.220
I,

00:52:33.300 --> 00:52:34.040
I it's,

00:52:34.180 --> 00:52:36.960
I do not like the way this is hammered in at the end of episode.

00:52:37.200 --> 00:52:37.300
It's,

00:52:37.540 --> 00:52:41.020
it is as bad as bad wolf and it's not funny and it wasn't good.

00:52:41.160 --> 00:52:42.540
It's a lot worse than bad wolf.

00:52:43.460 --> 00:52:43.580
And,

00:52:43.740 --> 00:52:44.440
and yeah,

00:52:44.640 --> 00:52:46.860
bad wolf was at least relatively benign.

00:52:47.020 --> 00:52:48.100
This is far worse.

00:52:48.380 --> 00:52:53.480
The other thing I'm just going to pull out here is somebody mentioned this the other day that I was listening to.

00:52:53.520 --> 00:52:53.840
And I'm like,

00:52:53.960 --> 00:52:54.080
Oh,

00:52:54.180 --> 00:52:54.340
you know,

00:52:54.440 --> 00:52:59.380
they're right. There have been an awful lot of spoons in the show the last couple of years.

00:52:59.800 --> 00:53:05.980
Just saying, just saying, it's been a lot of spoons. And so if the doctor solves the universe

00:53:06.220 --> 00:53:11.240
problem with a spoon at the end of this series, you heard it here, probably not first, because

00:53:11.250 --> 00:53:14.840
I'm sure somebody else's must have come to that same conclusion, but a lot of spoons,

00:53:15.190 --> 00:53:19.900
a lot of spoons. Go back and think about it. A lot of spoons. This, by the way,

00:53:20.720 --> 00:53:24.800
Surf and Turf is written by RTD and Pete McTie.

00:53:25.280 --> 00:53:25.660
Yes.

00:53:26.480 --> 00:53:29.540
So here we have Pete McTie setting up.

00:53:29.690 --> 00:53:35.300
Pete McTie also wrote two absolutely awful episodes, Kerblam and Praxis.

00:53:37.180 --> 00:53:39.380
I quite liked Praxis.

00:53:39.520 --> 00:53:43.200
Well, I thought Praxis was okay, but I agree Kerblam was terrible.

00:53:43.860 --> 00:53:49.260
The thing that had given me some hope was that he also wrote all of those really wonderful

00:53:49.640 --> 00:53:52.260
trailers on the Doctor Who collection box sets.

00:53:53.820 --> 00:53:56.160
Well, let me just come back to something about Praxeas.

00:53:56.160 --> 00:53:57.940
An episode of another show I liked.

00:53:58.180 --> 00:54:02.940
So it's not that he's a bad writer, it's that he's written a lot of bad Doctor Who.

00:54:03.120 --> 00:54:08.140
I thought this was far better written than anything RTD has done since he came back.

00:54:08.740 --> 00:54:12.660
It's not a perfect episode by any stretch of the imagination, but man, was I pleased

00:54:12.680 --> 00:54:15.560
not to hear RTD in every word in this episode.

00:54:16.479 --> 00:54:19.760
But I don't remember whether you and I agreed on this,

00:54:20.560 --> 00:54:22.840
and I'm not going to go back and listen to the podcast to find out,

00:54:22.910 --> 00:54:25.020
but I know that I definitely was of the opinion

00:54:25.620 --> 00:54:29.820
that Praxeus felt like it was written as a sea devil story,

00:54:30.600 --> 00:54:32.460
and then the sea devils got yanked out of it.

00:54:32.800 --> 00:54:33.520
Oh, I see.

00:54:33.660 --> 00:54:37.360
So you think that Pete McTire's got a sea devil's obsession.

00:54:38.200 --> 00:54:38.320
Yep.

00:54:38.840 --> 00:54:40.500
I think he wanted to do it back then,

00:54:40.510 --> 00:54:41.820
and he didn't for whatever.

00:54:42.080 --> 00:54:46.580
you know, they just couldn't get the rights at that particular time, or they didn't, you know,

00:54:46.620 --> 00:54:51.440
there was something to it that they just, it's just like, just like the well. It's like, oh no,

00:54:51.560 --> 00:54:57.040
I've got a better idea. Let's make it the, let's make it midnight as opposed to your Mercury planet

00:54:57.300 --> 00:55:02.360
thing. For whatever reason, Shibnall was like, yeah, I like the story, but let's not do sea

00:55:02.400 --> 00:55:11.320
devils for whatever reason. And I'm thinking that, that, you know, McTighe is really likes the sea

00:55:11.340 --> 00:55:13.200
devils and jumps at this chance.

00:55:13.800 --> 00:55:17.180
And well, he wrote a story that made me think of the sea devils.

00:55:17.600 --> 00:55:18.500
So that's a good sign.

00:55:18.840 --> 00:55:25.140
He didn't write whatever that horrible one was with the sea devils at the end of Whitaker's

00:55:25.540 --> 00:55:25.660
time.

00:55:26.300 --> 00:55:27.000
Can't think of its name.

00:55:27.000 --> 00:55:27.380
No, he didn't.

00:55:28.100 --> 00:55:28.220
Yeah.

00:55:28.460 --> 00:55:28.880
That's what I'm saying.

00:55:28.880 --> 00:55:29.420
He didn't do that.

00:55:29.480 --> 00:55:30.380
That's in his favor.

00:55:31.100 --> 00:55:34.200
Pirates of the Silurians or whatever it was called.

00:55:35.100 --> 00:55:36.380
I've forgotten what it was called.

00:55:36.420 --> 00:55:38.260
It was something of the sea devils though, wasn't it?

00:55:39.200 --> 00:55:40.000
I don't remember.

00:55:40.100 --> 00:55:41.020
I really don't remember.

00:55:41.700 --> 00:55:44.860
okay so does everyone that works at unit that stands at that desk are they a

00:55:45.040 --> 00:55:49.100
because if so maybe they should just rearrange the furniture so that nobody

00:55:49.360 --> 00:55:52.860
stands in that spot because that's jordan lang was sitting in the same place

00:55:53.660 --> 00:56:01.720
as as as the harbinger was also jordan lang was that guy's name there are no

00:56:01.940 --> 00:56:07.040
anagrams that i could find conrad clark no anagrams that i could find but but

00:56:07.060 --> 00:56:16.920
and this is important both names at least have the letters l a n d in them land which is a synonym

00:56:17.420 --> 00:56:21.920
for turf in the war of the surf and turf just saying it's a hint

00:56:24.579 --> 00:56:31.580
this is not crazy conspiracy stuff this is hard and analysis conrad can't be anyone else he

00:56:31.800 --> 00:56:50.220
Conrad is a new character because of that defining moment when he's a young boy, very much the Elton Pope kind of a way. It shapes who he is. So there can't be an anagram in
his name or anything that says he turns out to be someone else.

00:56:50.660 --> 00:57:08.120
Yeah, no, I don't think he's going to be like, you know, the master, you know, Mr. Saxon. I don't think it's anything like that. I just, I just checked because those are
pretty, really dull names and they're kind of quite similar, but in a, in a sort of boring kind of way.

00:57:08.500 --> 00:57:10.740
I thought I had caught a mistake in this episode.

00:57:11.720 --> 00:57:12.820
Well, okay, no.

00:57:13.160 --> 00:57:19.160
I thought I had caught something incredibly clever in this episode, but it was not.

00:57:19.820 --> 00:57:23.500
And that is, so we see the shriek early in the episode with Ruby and the Doctor, right?

00:57:24.200 --> 00:57:24.460
Sort of.

00:57:25.060 --> 00:57:27.280
And then we see the shriek in the town.

00:57:27.980 --> 00:57:32.920
And I noticed something that I don't think I've ever noticed in a Doctor Who monster before.

00:57:33.640 --> 00:57:36.420
Well, if not, not for a very, very long time.

00:57:37.060 --> 00:57:38.280
They had kaiju legs.

00:57:39.020 --> 00:57:44.760
now now let me describe that kaiju japanese monsters godzillas that kind of thing going

00:57:45.120 --> 00:57:50.900
all the way back to gojira no gyakusu which is the second godzilla film godzilla raids again

00:57:51.540 --> 00:58:00.020
and the creature anguirus or angirus it's a guy in a suit pretending to be a four-legged creature

00:58:00.680 --> 00:58:04.700
and the problem with a guy in a suit pretending to be a four-legged creature is that he's got

00:58:04.720 --> 00:58:09.220
knees and they bend the wrong way and they have to crawl on their hands and knees.

00:58:10.160 --> 00:58:14.880
So you always look at a creature like that or from like Gamera films or whatnot, they've

00:58:15.150 --> 00:58:20.700
always got man back legs and it looks terrible because they're obviously their knees.

00:58:20.750 --> 00:58:23.920
It's like, why would a creature evolve to walk on its knees?

00:58:24.700 --> 00:58:27.620
These creatures were walking on their knees when they were in the town.

00:58:27.950 --> 00:58:33.420
And I saw that and I saw the bit where they were talking about, you know, we're not getting

00:58:33.460 --> 00:58:39.480
any signals. And about the time it jumped up on a car while Ruby and Conrad were outside,

00:58:40.340 --> 00:58:45.440
I'm like, those are men in suits. I mean, those are actually men in suits, not just

00:58:45.840 --> 00:58:50.120
they're men in suits, they're men in suits. And I thought when we see the shriek later,

00:58:50.260 --> 00:58:54.740
because obviously we're going to see the shriek later in the episode, it's going to be a CGI

00:58:55.060 --> 00:59:00.800
shriek and it's going to have proper rear legs. And it wasn't, it was still a man in a suit with

00:59:00.820 --> 00:59:02.900
bent knees, which was very disappointing

00:59:02.960 --> 00:59:04.860
to me. But nonetheless, it tipped

00:59:04.960 --> 00:59:06.320
me off to the

00:59:08.220 --> 00:59:08.700
twist

00:59:09.040 --> 00:59:09.640
in the episode,

00:59:10.860 --> 00:59:12.480
or some of the twists in the episode,

00:59:13.400 --> 00:59:14.840
because they had very

00:59:15.140 --> 00:59:16.800
poor costumes for these

00:59:17.020 --> 00:59:17.260
creatures.

00:59:19.280 --> 00:59:20.840
I thought at the

00:59:20.900 --> 00:59:22.700
end when Kate released

00:59:22.720 --> 00:59:24.740
the shriek, that that was

00:59:24.740 --> 00:59:26.880
going to be a fake shriek, that Kate

00:59:27.540 --> 00:59:28.860
had got someone

00:59:28.960 --> 00:59:30.180
to dress up as the shriek.

00:59:30.280 --> 00:59:40.180
in order to spook Conrad on camera because he would believe that it was real. And that was her

00:59:40.320 --> 00:59:45.660
goal, but that she wouldn't do anything as reckless as release a real freak. But apparently

00:59:45.800 --> 00:59:51.660
not. She would do that recklessness. Yeah. I'm surprised that we didn't let him get eaten. And

00:59:51.760 --> 00:59:57.500
that's why I'm pretty sure that he'll be back, especially since the master let him out.

00:59:58.860 --> 01:00:01.080
Or the governor.

01:00:01.800 --> 01:00:02.820
Governor Flood or whatever.

01:00:03.820 --> 01:00:04.920
So, uh...

01:00:05.859 --> 01:00:07.700
Mrs. Flood's gonna turn out to be

01:00:08.280 --> 01:00:09.180
Jean-Paul from

01:00:09.820 --> 01:00:10.480
Spook Bugs.

01:00:11.540 --> 01:00:12.280
Could be.

01:00:13.100 --> 01:00:15.700
Or Rogue from Rogue.

01:00:17.220 --> 01:00:17.780
Ooh.

01:00:21.160 --> 01:00:23.000
So, I'll give them this.

01:00:23.260 --> 01:00:24.300
I will give them this.

01:00:25.200 --> 01:00:25.560
Finally.

01:00:26.400 --> 01:00:27.280
For once.

01:00:28.040 --> 01:00:34.380
In an episode of Shooty Got What Doctor Who, he got a Capaldi's B, or as close as he's

01:00:34.520 --> 01:00:38.600
probably ever going to get, with his condemnation of Conrad there at the end.

01:00:39.180 --> 01:00:42.480
Like, just for a few moments, it was like, it is the Doctor!

01:00:44.480 --> 01:00:45.120
Not for long.

01:00:45.660 --> 01:00:47.000
But what was he going to do?

01:00:47.420 --> 01:00:50.140
Was he going to invite him onto the TARDIS to fly around?

01:00:50.700 --> 01:00:51.380
I don't know.

01:00:51.540 --> 01:00:57.360
It seemed odd to me that he would know what had happened.

01:00:57.660 --> 01:01:03.800
I couldn't work out how he would have known what had happened between Conrad and Ruby.

01:01:04.360 --> 01:01:05.840
How would he have been alerted to that?

01:01:06.540 --> 01:01:09.720
Like, has he...

01:01:10.440 --> 01:01:12.800
I realize I don't know exactly where he is in his timeline,

01:01:13.720 --> 01:01:16.720
other than that it's before he meets Belinda Chandra.

01:01:17.600 --> 01:01:20.560
But it suggests that there's a point after he's left Ruby,

01:01:20.640 --> 01:01:23.860
and after we've seen Ruby in this episode, when they do talk to each other again.

01:01:24.240 --> 01:01:27.520
Is he wearing the same clothes in this when he picks up Conrad?

01:01:27.560 --> 01:01:37.540
that he was at the beginning of robots of death or robots of war robot robot revolution wow i don't

01:01:37.660 --> 01:01:42.920
know but it's not it's not so much its position in relation to just be interesting if that's what

01:01:43.300 --> 01:01:48.900
straight went off to do like we know it's got to be before that but it's it's where is it in in

01:01:49.540 --> 01:01:56.860
relation to the last time he sees ruby like has he seen has he seen ruby since the since dropping

01:01:56.880 --> 01:02:03.040
her off like has she yeah you get what i'm you get what i'm saying like is there is for ruby

01:02:03.810 --> 01:02:10.860
she is back on earth after after her adventures with the doctor does she see him again

01:02:11.680 --> 01:02:17.720
after the events of this episode i would like to think ruby's not going to be back again

01:02:18.400 --> 01:02:23.760
but yeah maybe you know until the doctor regenerates and then you know a brief scene where

01:02:24.340 --> 01:02:30.680
her head floats around in his vision or something but yeah i i think i i'm 50 50 on conrad being

01:02:30.800 --> 01:02:36.720
back i'm 99 on ruby being back we're going to see ruby again i do think they kind of said a couple

01:02:36.760 --> 01:02:43.460
episodes what i mean is how how does the doctor know about conrad in this is there an unseen scene

01:02:44.839 --> 01:02:50.880
where ruby is reunited with the doctor in the course of this episode fills him in takes off

01:02:50.900 --> 01:02:56.980
monthly reports oh it could be kate yeah yeah okay you know time space telegraph she just types

01:02:56.990 --> 01:03:00.600
up a report every month well we defended against the earth against a shriek and then then somebody

01:03:00.600 --> 01:03:07.420
was really mean to ruby boom i'm there yeah i guess that i guess that's plausible i mean obviously

01:03:07.530 --> 01:03:14.480
the other thing that kind of the the kind of question that i'm still not really caring about

01:03:14.500 --> 01:03:16.420
but which is overhanging all of this

01:03:16.660 --> 01:03:18.060
is that this is 2025

01:03:18.980 --> 01:03:20.340
so the events

01:03:20.500 --> 01:03:22.360
in this episode are still

01:03:22.640 --> 01:03:23.660
before are happening

01:03:24.480 --> 01:03:26.140
sometime before May 2025

01:03:26.940 --> 01:03:28.280
and possibly happening

01:03:28.480 --> 01:03:30.140
before the robot revolution so

01:03:30.560 --> 01:03:32.300
you know before the Doctor actually

01:03:32.560 --> 01:03:34.380
has been on Earth in which case fine

01:03:34.500 --> 01:03:35.780
it's within bounds

01:03:36.700 --> 01:03:38.420
but we see the Doctor and

01:03:38.480 --> 01:03:40.040
Belinda get as late as

01:03:40.760 --> 01:03:41.320
2007

01:03:42.120 --> 01:03:44.460
so the Doctor wherever he is in his

01:03:44.480 --> 01:03:51.800
current timeline from our perspective probably can't i go to any of the places in this episode

01:03:52.080 --> 01:03:58.020
that he's in the fact that he's there is because he's already been there in the past in his own

01:03:58.160 --> 01:04:03.900
personal timeline which is fine until you start thinking about as you suggest kate sending him

01:04:04.020 --> 01:04:09.440
reports in which case where in his personal timeline is she sending the reports from 2025

01:04:09.460 --> 01:04:19.800
five. I didn't seriously mean to imply that there was any logical explanation for it. But I just,

01:04:20.000 --> 01:04:23.640
like I say, I'm kind of curious about the clothing now. And I am going to go back and take a look,

01:04:23.860 --> 01:04:29.320
because if this happened in the moment where the doctor drops him off and says, all right,

01:04:29.320 --> 01:04:34.579
well, I got to track down Belinda Jenner. Maybe that's happening right now. Maybe that event in

01:04:34.600 --> 01:04:36.660
the doctors, literally on earth

01:04:36.730 --> 01:04:38.500
in this moment, maybe

01:04:39.220 --> 01:04:40.640
the doctor just hops right

01:04:40.790 --> 01:04:42.220
over to Belinda Chandra's place.

01:04:42.920 --> 01:04:44.560
Well, at first he hops over to a phone booth,

01:04:44.720 --> 01:04:46.580
looks her up in a phone book, then he hops over to

01:04:46.660 --> 01:04:48.500
Belinda Chandra's house, and then

01:04:49.180 --> 01:04:50.320
those events start.

01:04:50.760 --> 01:04:52.520
It's possible. It's possible.

01:04:52.960 --> 01:04:54.640
I recall, I think I

01:04:54.860 --> 01:04:56.260
recall the outfit he's wearing

01:04:56.600 --> 01:04:58.580
in this episode, which

01:04:58.740 --> 01:05:00.640
isn't, you know, one of the problems with having so

01:05:00.780 --> 01:05:02.440
many outfits is

01:05:03.080 --> 01:05:03.880
continuity outfits.

01:05:04.720 --> 01:05:10.800
but yeah okay i don't have anything else on my list what have you got well i actually have one

01:05:10.840 --> 01:05:17.000
other thing on my list but what have you got i think i've hit almost everything on my list but

01:05:17.060 --> 01:05:23.380
the one thing i did note down was that and this isn't particularly groundbreaking trinity wells

01:05:23.420 --> 01:05:32.460
is back again she was i know i hate her she's so obnoxious and so not actually what an american

01:05:32.480 --> 01:05:38.560
newscaster sounds like it's just funny it's oh i didn't know i did have i had one other i had one

01:05:38.660 --> 01:05:45.080
other note that i didn't manage to hit when we were talking about the shriek itself and that was

01:05:46.040 --> 01:05:52.320
that it looked very green death i thought there had to be a connection but there isn't i can kind

01:05:52.320 --> 01:05:57.920
of see that yeah yeah i can see it's a little lumpy and bad effects got a rubber suit well no

01:05:57.940 --> 01:06:06.640
it was it was it was the green the green on the skin yeah and being infected it made me think

01:06:07.450 --> 01:06:14.240
there has to be some connection here especially with the kind of what is essentially a throwaway

01:06:14.380 --> 01:06:19.040
monster like i can't even remember the name of the once the monster in love and monsters but

01:06:20.320 --> 01:06:25.260
absorbaloff which is another reason not that monster the monster that the doctor is chasing

01:06:25.280 --> 01:06:31.200
around at the beginning of the episode that looks like a weevil from Torchwood, but isn't a weevil

01:06:31.300 --> 01:06:35.640
from Torchwood. And that Shriek looks like it's something to do with the Green Death. And I

01:06:35.800 --> 01:06:43.400
thought, well, there's an opportunity. If RTD is so keen on callbacks all the time, and I didn't

01:06:43.500 --> 01:06:47.340
even pick up the Think Tank thing, I was thinking, oh, this is a reference to the Green Death. But

01:06:47.440 --> 01:06:55.240
no, in fact, it's not. Well, you know, there's maybe Think Tank, the Master, Boss, all of them

01:06:55.260 --> 01:07:03.260
together to take their revenge on unit it's the the one thing i do want to say is i'm i'm beginning

01:07:03.320 --> 01:07:10.060
to feel like i understand why rtd came back to doctor who i mean you know we could argue cynically

01:07:10.180 --> 01:07:17.400
that it's the money or we could argue cynically that it's the money or it's not but i i really

01:07:17.460 --> 01:07:19.380
do believe, based on the way

01:07:20.180 --> 01:07:20.620
it's going,

01:07:21.480 --> 01:07:23.600
that RTD has brought the show back

01:07:23.980 --> 01:07:25.380
with the

01:07:25.560 --> 01:07:27.300
premise that the world

01:07:27.620 --> 01:07:29.300
really needs Doctor Who.

01:07:30.060 --> 01:07:31.400
We really need

01:07:31.400 --> 01:07:33.380
the Doctor telling us all

01:07:33.440 --> 01:07:35.000
the things that are wrong with us

01:07:35.700 --> 01:07:36.040
right now.

01:07:37.359 --> 01:07:38.440
I think it's

01:07:39.160 --> 01:07:40.660
like, we need our heroes,

01:07:41.420 --> 01:07:43.060
and he's...

01:07:43.260 --> 01:07:45.260
I think that might be it.

01:07:45.800 --> 01:07:47.420
I think it actually might be altruistic

01:07:47.440 --> 01:07:47.880
on his part.

01:07:48.260 --> 01:07:52.160
Oh, I, I, I think he's, I mean, I've said,

01:07:52.320 --> 01:07:53.540
before he wanted Dr.

01:07:53.680 --> 01:07:54.940
Who back because he loved Dr.

01:07:54.980 --> 01:07:56.040
Who, but now he wants Dr.

01:07:56.160 --> 01:07:58.320
Who back because we need.

01:07:59.000 --> 01:08:00.940
Well, I don'T know because I, I, I think,

01:08:01.120 --> 01:08:03.540
I think, I think he would still want Dr.

01:08:03.660 --> 01:08:04.820
Who back because he loves Dr.

01:08:04.940 --> 01:08:05.080
Who.

01:08:05.280 --> 01:08:10.700
And if it'S a question of the BBC or whoever

01:08:10.920 --> 01:08:12.760
saying we're, you know what's going to do,

01:08:12.760 --> 01:08:15.700
we're thinking of putting it on hiatus and the

01:08:15.840 --> 01:08:17.359
only way they're going to be convinced to

01:08:17.359 --> 01:08:17.400
get,

01:08:17.440 --> 01:08:25.299
carry on with it is if he comes back it's so much like jnt not leaving because the bbc will shelve

01:08:25.420 --> 01:08:31.259
it if they're put in a position where they have to find another producer but will they shelve it if

01:08:31.480 --> 01:08:37.420
if disney with all their money says well we've got an idea for another producer well i think what

01:08:37.600 --> 01:08:44.819
rtd is planning i think i mean i think if there's if there's if there's something you know if there's

01:08:44.839 --> 01:08:50.640
something motivating him that is a little less altruistic it might be the sense and i'm not

01:08:50.859 --> 01:08:57.660
saying that it's wrong although i you know i i'm much more of a fan of his first run than than this

01:08:58.200 --> 01:09:06.880
it's the sense that he may have that he and let's say very few other people would be capable of

01:09:07.480 --> 01:09:15.420
saving the show and what he thinks he can do is use his kind of understanding of television and

01:09:15.520 --> 01:09:22.700
his capability to make event television and his success previously in creating doctor who

01:09:23.380 --> 01:09:29.660
spin-offs because he has undoubtedly made the most successful doctor who spin-offs there's ever been

01:09:30.279 --> 01:09:36.940
that he thinks he can put the show on a footing where it it will be impossible for the bbc

01:09:36.960 --> 01:09:38.600
to think about shelving it.

01:09:39.000 --> 01:09:40.500
Apart from K9 and Company,

01:09:41.000 --> 01:09:42.759
what other Doctor Who spinoffs

01:09:42.759 --> 01:09:44.560
have you created from the show?

01:09:45.040 --> 01:09:46.940
Well, the fact that you've forgotten it

01:09:47.359 --> 01:09:48.920
shows that it wasn't very successful.

01:09:49.120 --> 01:09:50.779
But K9 and Company wasn't

01:09:51.500 --> 01:09:55.200
the least successful non-RTD spinoff.

01:09:55.840 --> 01:09:56.940
There was another one called Class

01:09:57.220 --> 01:09:59.620
written by Patrick Ness in the Moffat era.

01:10:00.340 --> 01:10:03.880
Oh, yeah, well, yeah, that was awful.

01:10:05.140 --> 01:10:06.480
That was truly dreadful.

01:10:07.540 --> 01:10:14.520
all right in that case do we have anything else i think i'm done i think earlier in this episode

01:10:14.650 --> 01:10:19.500
we both had no clue what next episode of doctor who was but the answer to that question is

01:10:19.980 --> 01:10:27.500
the story and the engine with story time and the little engine who could okay simon thank you for

01:10:27.680 --> 01:10:33.260
joining me it's a pleasure as always listeners i do hope you'll join us all again next time

01:10:33.920 --> 01:10:34.920
on fusion patrol

01:10:36.880 --> 01:10:40.340
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01:10:42.560 --> 01:10:45.760
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01:10:51.550 --> 01:10:57.200
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01:11:04.240 --> 01:11:09.400
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