Fusion Patrol is a listener-supported podcast.
Find out how you can help support us at patreon.com slash fusion patrol.
This is the Fusion Patrol podcast.
Each week, we look at a different science fiction TV episode or movie
and overanalyze it to within an inch of its life.
Welcome to the discussion.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Fusion Patrol. I'm Eugene.
And I'm Simon.
And tonight we're going to be looking at the Doctor Who episode, Can You Hear Me?
The year is 1380 in the Syrian city of Aleppo, and Tahira, a mentally ill woman who gets her kicks by stealing things, is returning hastily to the hospital she is staying in.
She asks Miriam, a hospital worker, if she's prepared for the coming of the things, but she hasn't because they don't believe her.
Big mistake! The monsters come and take them away.
The doctor returns Yaz for something at a particular date and time.
She's close. She only misses by 77 minutes.
The gang leave the doctor to spend a single day catching up on their lives.
For the doctor, time weighs heavily on her hands until, unbeknownst to her,
a mysterious man in black appears briefly in the TARDIS,
followed by a noise coming from 1380 Aleppo, which she decides to check out.
She arrives in the empty hospital and waxes poetic to the audience
about how enlightened Islamic 14th century mental health care was,
as you do. She encounters Tahira, cowering in fear, and one of the monsters, hereafter referred
to as Chagasca. Actually, I'm kidding, I'm not going to mention them again. Which runs away when
Tahira tells it to leave the doctor alone. There are not many clues to be found, but luckily every
last member of the gang calls at this exact moment. They've all been reconnecting with their
disinteresting lives, and something weird has happened. Ryan's friend has been having bad
dreams and now is seeing the mysterious man in black from his dreams in his room. Yaz had a dream
and saw the same man in black in her parents' flat. And Graham had a telepathic call for help
from a woman trapped in an orb projected into his brain. The telepathic call, not the orb.
All together in the TARDIS, along with Tahira, they plug Graham into the telepathic circuits and
off they go to an orbiting space platform, which is monitoring what appears to be the collision
of two planets, somehow suspended at the last moment by the very orb Graham saw in his psychic
episode. It's a prison! Never one to miss the opportunity to rescue someone locked up in a
prison without doing any research, the doctor sets about using the TARDIS to free the woman inside.
The man in black now captures Tahira and the gang and sets them to dreaming their nightmares.
He confronts the doctors, explaining that he is zealot, and he is one of the immortals,
and that playing with the nightmares of humans passes the time for him.
She's got him thwarted though.
She's released the prisoner he was holding in the orb because she's clever.
Except the doctor has forgotten occasionally prisons are actually to incarcerate naughty people.
In this case, the naughty one is Zelin's partner in crime, another immortal.
Between them, they caused untold suffering to the people of the two worlds
until they rose up and imprisoned the worst of the two immortals in the orb.
Oops, the doctor has been played for a fool.
Zelen needed someone clever enough to unlock the prison so that his partner could escape.
The doctor is captured and placed with the others,
while the immortals go to Earth and cause tasty nightmares.
But the doctor soon escapes and, with very little effort,
imprisons both the immortals back into the orb.
Oh, and Ryan convinces his friend to get mental health.
Yaz remembers the time she needed mental help.
And Graham opens up to the doctor about his fear of cancer returning.
It is a heartfelt plea for connection and help, which the doctor bungles spectacularly.
Our heroes leave to destroy Big Finish's story, The Company of Friends.
The end.
All right.
Gosh, how am I going to phrase this?
I have it written down here.
You know, what the heck, people.
I'm just going to get out the bleep machine and I'm going to read my sentence as spoken when the episode ended.
For f***'s sake, Chibbers, do you own any tools except a hammer?
You can fill in the bleep, folks, for what you think I said at that point.
So what did you think of Can You Hear Me, Simon?
Well, I was very impressed with it.
Okay.
Although there are points at which I might have some sympathy with your criticism,
I think on the whole, I thought it was quite sensitively done and quite impressive.
Okay.
I will say this.
The episode played better the second time, which is rare this year,
Um, because some of the things that were just sort of there did in fact make sense in context after you had the whole thing replayed.
So I will give them that, that unlike many other stories where when you watch it again, the stuff that happened earlier seems to bear no connection to the stuff at the end.
This one was a little bit better.
For example, I'm skipping ahead of my notes, but Tebow's problems.
You could be forgiven when watching it for thinking that his problems were caused by the fact that he's having weird nightmares as the episode goes through.
And then when he gets to the end and it's all solved and suddenly his house is spick and span again because everything's fine.
We've solved the problem of the nightmares.
They're gone.
The guy in black was causing it.
It's no big deal.
He's cleaned up the house.
Everything's good.
It's like everything's set back in order.
And then suddenly Ryan goes, but you know, you got to go get help.
It's like, why does he need to go get help now?
It seems like you solved the problem.
You watch it the second time through.
It's more obvious that he was having problems before the nightmare.
But it's not, it's not quite clear because you just don't know what the heck's going.
You don't know who this guy is.
You don't know what, you know, you know nothing about him when Ryan shows up at the door.
other than he's, I don't know, I wasn't even sure if he was a friend or a family or, you know,
at a distance, I thought it was his dad. Before you get a close-up shot on him, when he's at the
door, right? And he's knocking and a face pops out and you're like, does he go see his dad?
That seems strange, but okay. Oh, no, no, it's somebody else. We don't know.
So because we have no backstory and you're just plunked right into it, it's hard to pick up any
context on the on the guy until you come to the end and then come back and and the same is true
with yaz's situation her nightmares don't make any sense until you finally figure out what it's all
about and then then his night her nightmares do actually make sense so i'll give him that um
so i i didn't hate it don't get me wrong i didn't hate it i do i do feel like it's just so
you know, where's, they've got a checklist in the office, like a global warming,
plastic pollution, check mental health problems. You know, I don't know what next week's is going
to be, but I feel like there's going to be a checkbox that we're going to mark off.
And it's going to be about something. I really don't have a problem with that. I,
I I've been, I've been critical of the way they've handled global warming.
Yeah. Oh God. Yes. And, and does it, the, the one thing I will ask though,
does this the is this one bringing home the theme that is running through this entire season which
is are the real monsters us because that's pretty much what it's been consistently throughout
this season i'm not sure we are the problem that's been the scene really so i mean we created
the plastic we we global warmed um we're you know we're our own worst enemy with a with a creature
tesla was yes capitalism uh the the edison's mentality against visionary people and the
sure absolutely the human nature is the problem in this story the monsters are secondary we are
the monsters has been has been pretty consistently i'm not sure about i'm not i'm not episode because
it actually had alien no yeah spy problem we're our own worst problem because we create allow the
social media to steal all our privacy and people are there to do it yeah no it's it's yeah it's
it's us as a society we're bad we're we're humans we're we're awful i i don't see that
and i'm just wondering if that's going to prove true for gallifrey as well
well gallifrey gallifreyans are the monsters as well oh i thought we meant the destruction of
gallifrey was because humans are terrible which i know it'll be gallifreyans are a substitute for
humans yeah they're just a metaphor for us well that's a bit inconsistent but but i i i i've got
to say i think i think in some of those cases you're having to stretch for that i can see
that i can see with the the two environmentally themed ones the theme is humans are the problem
i kind of think that's because humans are the problem and you couldn't really do those stories
without acknowledging that. In the other cases, I'm not sure that, I mean, Tesla is not, it's not
like the overriding thing is humans are awful because Tesla's a human. And yeah, capitalism
may be bad, but that's not the same as saying that all humans are terrible or that. Yeah,
but that's true in the global warming. And it's true in the plastic one. Not all humans are doing
that but the society that we live in the society that we've created values things that cause
these problems rather than that's that's not that is tesla's problem token edison represents
what the world is like and tesla represents what the world could be i think no i think i think i
I think Edison represents something much more specific and the environmental problems are much more universal.
Well, in 1901, but anyway.
So then I'll ask this question.
If in an episode that clearly is an excuse to talk about mental health, is it a mixed message that the immortals were initially vanquished?
by two planets committing suicide i don't think they well thought about it is what the answer is
i don't think they thought about that but no no i don't mean i don't no i i'm i'm i'm just having
a reason i now i know you could argue that the planets might have been empty right i'll i'll
i'll take that argument although the doctor did specifically said it's an extinction event
yes yes no i no i think i think you make a good a good point that that is really what the story
was i hadn't thought about it in that way partly because they were yes uh
i don't know why that i don't know why that passed me i probably need to watch watch this
one for a third time why is it a mixed message i don't think it is a mixed message that uh that
their problem was basically solved by suicide that's a mixed message i i feel like that's not
the correct well it was because it didn't maybe imperfectly but the doctor finished the job and
put the got two of them in instead of the one but it's still their prison it's still their sacrifice
it's still their death that created the prison but that enabled that that didn't solve their
problem that didn't solve their problem well in a way it did because they're gone but i mean that's
But that is, that's just, that's the choice, isn't it?
I mean, it's just, that's laying out the facts.
It doesn't present that solution,
if you can call a solution,
doesn't present that course of action
as being one that is a good solution.
I don't know.
I'm asking the question.
I have, don't have an answer to it.
I just made note of it that...
It's interesting because I didn't think about it
because it's a planet-wide issue.
The two planets, I mean, that must be a load of people
acting collectively.
And that's why I didn't make the connection.
But now I've made the connection.
I see your point.
And I think that is the message that's coming across.
There is an interesting glimmer of an idea that, generally speaking, I would make the argument that killing yourself is probably a bad idea.
But on the other hand, I believe, you know, in euthanasia, which is, or self-euthanasia, I should say, under certain circumstances.
So, you know, I can't say it's universally bad.
television, Doctor Who has had a very long history of people who are willing to go out
and die to save the day. It's heroic. But it's difficult. I mean, obviously, in television,
that's not reality. And most people don't go out, don't get the opportunity to go off,
die heroically saving the universe so and that is what these people have done this is a heroic
a heroic death but still yes i think it's just not the right story to tell that that sacrifice in
i think it would have been easier if they had just found another way for that race to have
imprisoned the immortals and and gone on their way but yeah how how does the how well does it
work for you when the doctor is on her own in this episode a couple of times i feel like she
demonstrates how useless the companions are to her in it because she just yes she can just talk
so it doesn't matter if anybody's listening or paying any attention or doing anything she she
she does almost treat them like pets at times i think that's been a particular problem through
this season and by by and large they've they've not been they've not been written with anything
to do and the story's not really been about them um this is maybe well certainly in yaz's case this
is a difference in this episode but it bugs me a little bit that the doctor doesn't seem to
I don't want a TARDIS full of John Nathan Turner style squabbling companions who just
irritate the Doctor to hell all of the time. But on the other hand, it would be good if they had
some kind of impact on her equilibrium. And that could be that they push her out of her comfort
zone. It should be that they push her out of her comfort zone. It shouldn't just be that they are
there as a sounding board that is you know essentially replaceable with literally a sounding
board i mean i think you're right she doesn't she doesn't seem to need them there she doesn't seem
to need them there and i think and and i'm not going to go with one of my favorite companions
necessarily but certainly a very functional companion was donna noble because she performed
the function of altering the doctor's behavior yes which was why i loved her because because
they wrote her in at they wrote her in at a time where the way that the doctor was being written
was actually getting quite heavily on my nerves in some respects so that the the doctor's kind of
his arrogance, his God complex, his self-righteousness and his self-pity,
all of that was kind of punctured by Donna's straight-talking,
calling it how she sees it, attitude towards him.
And because he'd had a number of companions who were in awe of him
slash in love with him, that had just kind of fed this growing complex
he had donna had none of that so she could cut through it and i'm starting to feel like that's
what we need somebody to course correct the doctor yes there is not just it's not just the fact that
that jodie whittaker's doctor is starting to get she's she bit it like you say the way she treats
the companions is very as if they're as if they're dispensable essentially and she's not
you know she's not really been terribly respectful of them in the sense of it took her a while to be
honest with them about why she was feeling mardy and so forth and so i in a way it's almost like
if you're going to have dispensable companions we'll just have just have the doctor on her own
that case. I mean, you could pick up... She wouldn't talk less. She wouldn't talk less. And
in fact, you know, just watching five minutes of a Capaldi episode, I was thinking how effective
it is when he shuts up. I mean, not that he talked a lot. It's more the contrast between
the two performances of the Doctor. He's much more reticent and that can be quite interesting.
The other thing that is really, really starting to bug me about Jodie Whittaker's Doctor is
she's, and you know, I think it's come through from the way Russell T Davies wrote Tenant's
Doctor, but it's this unbearable smugness. I'm just that little bit smarter than you thought I was.
And her performance of it, it's just like nails on a blackboard. It's really, really,
really irritating i can tell that they're they're setting up for a fall but that that's not going to
be particularly satisfying because it's it it feels like there is a it's not based on anything
it's it's not based on anything because in this episode for example she has been outplayed
so all she is doing effect okay she gets she ends up with two eternals trapped rather than one but
all she is doing is writing the thing that she screwed up show a bit of humility for goodness
sake yep yeah and and yeah it's and her her her prattle you know when the eternal is confronting
her and she's he's rambling on about was it tap dancing this time i don't remember now yeah yeah
it's like whoever writes that dialogue is not good and i'm wondering if that's chibnall
contributing to the way the doctor. I don't know. Obviously, I don't know who wrote the particular
line. I don't necessarily have a problem. I mean, I quite like the line. I don't necessarily have
the problem with lines like that per se. It's how they're used and it's how they fit in the bigger
picture. And if it's a line in the context of the doctor is genuinely frightened and is playing
against that and you know it is this kind of fake bravado then okay bring it on I'm I'm there for
that but I don't get the sense that that is how this is being written and I certainly don't think
that's how they're playing it when it comes to the performance and therefore when you know when
the fall comes it's not going to be it's not going to be that the doctor is loses something that she
has been working at it's going to be just that she gets her comeuppance for being too big for
her boots i guess and i i'm not so into that as a storyline yeah so a couple things with regards
to the the way she treats the companions and and maybe it's just bad direction or maybe it's that
terrible tardis set i don't know but call to friends i'll come get you next shot tahira's in
artists the the the gang are all sitting along on the stadium bleachers over to the side or out in
the audience or whatever it is and presumably the doctor had to pick them all up one at a time
because they were all in different places right well they were all in and at no point did she
introduce them until they all got in they all came in had a seat and they're standing around
for them the doctor go oh tahira this is graham ryan and yes yes it's here like what wouldn't you
have opened the door yes hey this is tahira yeah yeah graham ryan here here you go this is tahira
oh graham ryan whichever one it was next yes you know introduce them as they come in but no they
have this really weird staging as if she just ignored them pick them up had them come in all
sit around and now that i've gathered you all here together i shall conduct formal introductions
productions it it it felt kludgy and and badly managed i don't know if that's just staging or
because of the way the set is that it made sense or what but i i don't like it i don't like them
all sitting around like that it's been a thing of the last two or three or four episodes it just
doesn't it's just a bring back the unknown doctors tardis um and the other thing specifically with
regards to the doctor's interaction with the companions that scene at the end with graham
was i don't know what it was meant to be but it was disgusting it was horrific they were making
light of that i i mean i don't know what the point of graham going to the doctor and saying by the
way dog i'm you know i'm having some fears and things like is that supposed to represent talking
to a friend, you know, if you're not going to get professional help and go talk to a
friend, and then the doctor fails him miserably in that there is no connection between the
two.
There is no, there is no empathy.
There is no, uh, you know, oh, well, Graham, I can just hop you to the 24th century to
a hospital.
We could check you out and give you the anti-cancer drugs and you'll never have it come back.
There's nothing.
There's, there's absolutely nothing.
It's just like, oh, well, I'm, I'm awkward.
so i'm not gonna we're not gonna talk about this so i think i understand the point of the scene i'm
not i didn't think so there's a by and large i think this i think this there there are so many
things in this episode that i really really liked that these are to me kind of minor things but at
the same time it's interesting the choices were made like this because i because i looked at it
And I think, well, you could have made quite different choices and I'm not quite sure why you did.
The edit that you just picked up, I, you know, I thought I'm generally a fan of edits that keep the pace going or whatever.
But I did think that one was kludgy. And I also think there's too much in this episode.
And it might have been better with a bit less and a bit more room to breathe, especially since there's so much good stuff in there to enjoy.
The scene with Graham and the Doctor at the end,
that comes straight after what to me was the culmination of the episode.
I mean, it was just so movingly performed and we can come back to all of that.
Yeah, I want to save Yaz's story for the last, right?
Okay, sure.
The good part of the story.
Absolutely.
This scene after it was in the wrong place.
And so that made it a lot worse.
I think it's an interesting scene.
And I think what they're going for is that the doctor herself has social anxiety.
But I think you're right in the sense that the way that is realised is problematic and is not entirely consistent.
And, you know, the thing that someone discussing this online posted a clip.
And obviously, Doctor Who has done mental health before.
And this was a clip from Vincent and the Doctor.
And it's the scene in the gallery at the end when the Doctor is comforting Amy.
And you can't imagine Matt Smith reacting to Graham in the way that Jodie Whittaker reacts to Graham there.
fair enough and so i feel that they could have expressed the doctor's social awkwardness which
has often been there certainly you know in the last couple of incarnations and still at the end
of it had had to give graham a hug i mean that would have been enough for me to it's like you
can you can you can express the social awkwardness and you can still overcome it within a scene even
that short yeah i i just i couldn't tell if it was supposed to be comic relief even so um yeah i i
would have ended what i'm saying i would have ended this episode with yaz walking into the
police officer's home yeah yeah so done roll end credits maybe even without without music or
no i wouldn't have gone that far we're not making the same mistakes earth shock made
yeah but then they could have put a you know suicide prevention line number up or something
or mental health line which i'm surprised they didn't or maybe they did no they didn't but but
on the but on the other hand i think because you have socialized care so people can actually go
get mental health uh care in your country but that's another story why they didn't let i will
come back come back to that when we talk about yas because i i i think i think i think the reasons
for that are intertwined with the way that they they present you know some of the some of the
issues in this in this um but but picking up on that on that question of the ordering of the
episode i saw another suggestion online which i thought was uh entirely on point which was that
the cold open and oh yes thank you cold opens are back i thought when we got one for spyfall
that that was going to be a thing this season and i love a cold open so i was celebrating and it was
pretty rubbish for spyfall the cold open to this should have been the there are no bogeymen scene
and you know from the you know she's wrong hands their fingers fly off his hands boom bang into the
into the opening credits because that would have been proper scary the the aleppo stuff
was trying to to give you a scare with the cgi monsters and all the rest of it but here's my
thing about the aleppo stuff why were we in aleppo why did we go to syria at all this episode it
doesn't need doesn't need syria in it i'm all for going to if we're going to be stuck on earth all
the time and apparently that's it from now on we never go anywhere else unless it's a brief foray
onto a platform in deep space if we're going to be stuck on earth from now on i would very much like
to continue to visit some other locations but we don't have to if we're doing aleppo let's do aleppo
i mean if this like say this is a two parts if this was a two-part story and and we had room for
all of this extra story i fine okay we could have part one in syria but instead what we actually had
was a bit of unnecessary time travel as well as a bit of minor space travel which clearly there
wasn't any money in the budget for because goodness i mean you've got cgi aleppo and then
what an awful set inside that asylum i mean goodness me that looks it's not an asylum
so let's let's be clear there so um but but yeah i i have here why what was the whole point of
tahira well why is it 14th century syria why i i don't i i think i think it is because they wanted
to they wanted to include the fact and maybe this came through you know drafts of the script where
this was some central theme of the story but they wanted to include the fact that the syrians got
mental health or whatever which is fine it's a nice idea sort of true but not but it's so detached
see that i i i agree that that feels like somebody and i've had this i've said this many times this
season somebody sat around with an idea so did you know that they had mental health wards inside
hospitals in syria going all the way back into the 12th century really well we should definitely
write that in somehow and it you want to build a story around that i i'm interested it's if they
had built a story around it but it isn't it's a throwaway it's no that's my fast and and um and
the other part that bugs me about that is when she comes out she says oh this is a miss by maristan
did you know that the uh the ancient syrians were very progressive in their mental health care or
whatever it was she said. That may be true. They did actually consider that there was such a thing
as mental health care. Although, from what I'm able to tell, some of that's still involved.
It's probably demon possession. But a Bemeristan is not a mental health institute. It is a hospital
and it will be broken up into like six or seven different wards in the same hospital.
It's mental disease, contagious diseases, non-contagious diseases, surgery, medicine, and eye diseases.
So the doctor plopping into the room and seeing the word bimeristan
and then launching into mental health care,
she could be in the contagious disease ward for all she knows.
You know, they had some really good practices for maintaining non-contagious activities in the hospital.
But no, they don't.
She launches into mental health care suddenly.
And because that was what the writer wanted to make sure that you looked up on the Journal of Royal British Medicine, which I was actually looking at a couple of articles on to see if this was really true, if they really truly were enlightened.
And yes, they did put out the canon of medicine in the 12th century, and it was used up through the 18th century, even in Europe, as the go-to book on medical care.
But that was general medicine.
They were more advanced than us, us as in Europeans.
Northern Europeans, I don't even want to break that down.
But I don't know, I wouldn't have pulled out of this that mental care was their forte.
No. And I think the issue with that, with the way that is played, is also where your hammer comment, actually, I will accept that there is one small aspect of this episode where that is true.
It's signalling what they think the theme of this episode is.
I know I think I think it is the theme of this episode I don't I'm not arguing that they're wrong
but at the same time this is a this is a sequel to Enlightenment which is fantastic because
obviously I love Enlightenment and is it or is it a sequel to the Celestial Toymaker uh well I think
it's it's a sequel to the it's a sequel to Enlightenment which may be a sequel to the
Celestial Toymaker according to the New Adventures which this is acknowledging the connection um
I yeah I guess we could say it's a sequel to both but it's because I thought he was very clear that
the Eternals and the Guardians and the Toymaker were three separate species of no immortals and
that I couldn't tell whether he was supposed to be one or of a different type it's it's in it's
interest it actually is interesting that you that you read it that way i did i did sense there was a
little bit of ambiguity in it but i read it the opposite way they they are eternals and so is the
toy maker i mean they are i read it as they are eternals the toy maker watch his line again and
see because i got the impression he was talking about them the eternals have their stuff the
guardians have their stuff yeah the toy maker would be proud but he's one of them he sounded
to me like he's one of the toy maker whatever they are that that is how i took that out of this
the toy well the toy the toy maker is the toy maker is an eternal an immortal of some kind
and an eternal but that's only from virgin adventures and we already know that yeah
doctor who does not necessarily honor that because they're about to mess up but it honors
But loads of the stuff, loads of the stuff in the new series is is is is stuff that was established there.
But yeah, he says the Eternals have their games.
The Guardians have their power struggles.
For me, this dimension is a beautiful board is a beautiful board for a game.
The Toymaker would approve.
I feel like he's more akin to the Toymaker than the other two.
But but anyhow.
Well, we Immortals have our games.
Eternity is long, and we are cursed to see it.
We Immortals.
Yes.
So bigger group set, Immortals, subset Eternals, subset Guardian, subset Toymaker, me and them.
Yes, but they're not necessarily non-intersecting sets.
The Eternals, we know the Eternals and the Guardians are different,
but I think he and the Toymaker are Eternals.
It probably doesn't matter all that much.
It's still...
I think we'll never see him again.
We'll never see who? The Eternals?
These two.
Oh, no. I mean, no, no, they're done.
This is their story.
We said that about the Daleks in 1963, too.
well but if you said it about particular daleks then i think that probably would have been
perfectly valid we haven't we haven't seen many daleks making a return it's always some other
daleks just as it will be some other eternals what i what i liked in this story was that i liked
i liked it working as a story about the eternals i liked the fact that into that they wove uh all
all these different stories about our heroes or their friends struggling with their mental health
and connected it all together in in what felt to me like a very a very appropriate and relatable way
i so let let me let me clarify my hammer comment a little bit okay i have absolutely
no problem whatsoever. In fact, I quite thought it was very, very well done. Yaz's piece in this.
The fact that they just kept looping back and it's like, oh, and the Aleppo is a mental health issue.
And Ryan's friend is a mental health issue. And by the way, Ryan's also got his fears about the
earth being destroyed and and graham's got his fears about thing and yes that is like a child
with a hammer and too many nails and a board no we didn't need four nails in this story we needed
one we needed one good nail in this story no i think that misses and they could have they could
have dropped a lot of that and and use the yaz line more and that would have been a better story
As it is, you feel like the writer is shouting at you.
In case you missed it in the other plot thread, here's one more.
And here's another.
And some of them are less interesting than others.
By far.
So that is part of it.
It's not as bad as 155.
It's not as bad as the plastic one in the terms.
But it's like it's an overabundance.
It's overused.
And that's my complaint.
Except that that isn't what the story is about.
What is the story about, by the way?
The story is about the different ways in which people struggle with mental health issues.
And that's why I think there are a number of different examples.
And the story is making connections between those.
quite effectively i think and though there are there are major and minor stories within that
and that is also a key part of it so i i think i mean really really the the the the kind the kinds
of the graham obviously has his his anxiety about his cancer can i ask a quick question about the
cancer yeah showed up in spy fall that's when we first got him talking to a doctor about yeah no
you know and it was like sort of like a now you're all clear or something to that effect
we get anything last season at all about this yes did we yes i don't remember it okay how
how do you think he met grace i don't know rides on the bus do you remember what grace's job was
nope dead woman at first episode okay so he met her when he had cancer and what was her job i i
think she was a nurse and so he he met her in her professional capacity and then he had gone into
remission and then they carried on seeing each other is that explained in an episode i think
it's the one who fell to earth i completely did not get any of that i mean obviously it might not
be the very first episode because we've got a number of other episodes that discuss graham's
relationship with grace no don't remember any of it absolutely none of it feels but it feels like
they're they're working it for some reason this year i i i think i think here that it is just it's
And if you're going to explore mental health, it's such a, you know, it's a thing for cancer survivors and an often unacknowledged thing.
And so it is nice to see it recognised in a story like this.
But, you know, so it is to see Tebow's issues and so it is to see Yaz's.
I mean, I think if you had just one, it would just be about that particular issue.
Whereas the fact that it is about different mental health issues.
And yet, I think the key thing this story is about is it's not just you.
It's that line.
It's not just you.
largely out of the blue we decide to air them all today and that i think is the where the the issue
i mean from a story structure standpoint i like i said i'll stand with my thing if you want to
draw a parallel i would rather use yaz drawing some sort of her fears drawing some sort of
parallel to the fact that these creatures are exploiting fears but and and i would refer back
to the tesla episode for saying that of the things in it it's a nice it's nice that they
managed to draw the parallel between edison and the and the aliens because that's a nice strong
i think if they tried to do three more in that episode it probably would have been uh less
coherent and and i but but the but the again the the point is the point is not any one individual
in this. It's the commonality between their mental health struggles. And the reason that
we're getting them all being aired, as you put it, at the same time, is because of the Eternals
and the way in which they have exploited this. I would have, I realise that the immortal is
is doing some exploiting of the doctor's companions although why tebow and and not
right in other words so he's he attacks yaz and graham and and tebow not ryan and that's a little
but he also gets ryan obviously and that's the other one that makes again makes no sense to this
story why her what did she create in her mind the scariest monster ever she created she created
particularly scary monsters i mean that in itself is quite logical and so is that little boy at the
end who was scared of the bogeyman couldn't have done it too i mean it just seems like it's the
the aleppo thing doesn't make any sense and it undermines the it undermines the notion that it
is a strategic strike on the immortals actions that that he is working specifically working the
companions to get at the doctor by randomly picking aleppo in in 1380 and well he that i i
agree from a story point of view it does it doesn't have to be aleppo but in and he's obviously
got a lot more fingers than just her friends so a quick question why five fingers run out when he
only sticks one in an ear i don't know but it's okay it's a it's a nice it's a nice creepy effect
it was a creepy effect i will i will i mean i i i i liked the i liked the atmospherics and you know
the i thought that zelin worked particularly well when he was standing in the shadows because he
looked really properly sinister and i and i loved that effect and at the same time i loved the crazy
hitchhiker's guide visuals in this episode as well i thought it was just incredibly imaginative
so are you talking really the animation oh yeah oh i thought that was particularly poor i didn't
think it was bad animation i just thought what a strange way to project a story into someone's mind
and i got the hitchhiker's guide uh um milieu vibe to it i i saw that and i thought huh
why why would you do that why would you project it that way because it's a story and projected
psychically well yes there's no budget there it's not we don't need to do cheap animation
we got budget we get the mind that's but but it but it but it's not it's not being told it
it's a story that is an epic you can't you can't expect to describe the arc of a story like that by
including all of the details within the story what you want is something that is an outline
and this is outlined animation this is this is very much that and it's exactly why they use the
technique in hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy and it's very effective there because hitchhiker's
guide the galaxy it is a quote-unquote book you are looking exactly exactly so what you're talking
about is telling a story then why not words on a page well why not realistic animation when it
the hitchhiker's guide could have been words on a page is this zelens or whatever it's not zelan
what's her name the female again with an art i've forgotten it i'm afraid yeah i i don't i didn't
even think they mentioned it in the episode it's i've only seen it in the credits but um you know
is this her artistic license that this is how she chooses to manifest it it's like i was feeling
artistic today so i'll do animation when she's pushing it in the doctor's head that that is the
let me run ryan out let's get rid of ryan here as quickly as possible um we've we've talked about
his friend um tebow hebo but more importantly i haven't talked to him when he gets his one
nightmare which is his actual nightmare which is everything's burning and his friends have all
gotten old and he hasn't been around which he then goes on to yes a little bit about that uh and also
the creatures from orphan 55 it's it's very clear that ryan is about to leave the tardis and join
a charitable earth and start working to save the planet i don't think that i don't think that that
dream that you saw was the same as what ryan is worried about and what he was talking to yas about
really that was the only time we saw his dream his fear dream that was his only nightmare i thought i
thought it was a shared dream i thought the t-bow we saw in that was the t-bow who who was i didn't
think that well either way it doesn't fit with what he was saying to yaz at the end because it's
the wrong way around well how does it not fit i mean he said that we're we're going in our friend
we're missing out on our friends he's saying no he's saying he's saying we we change and they
don't he gets older and they don't the doctor can take you back and you can be at exactly the point
where you left them so they aren't a day older but then he turns around and he says that so the
argument is that you know we're we're missing out on their lives no no no which is what he did to
tebow well we're missing out on the shared life let's put it that way the you know the moments
in between yeah yeah yeah yeah he's he's definitely that is that is anxiety about
his friends running out of missing out on their lives and and also the planet burning
from global warming which is why the orphan 55 monsters were shouting at him i i i'm he's gonna
go be an eco warrior i absolutely it's in the cards it's gotta be they're they're setting him
up for a they're setting him up for a go it's like i can't do this anymore and he won't think
of the idea of asking the doctor to help him fight but yeah i like i like i like the idea
if they're doing that of them actually laying the groundwork for it so you have an explanation of
why he leaves i really hope if you're if you're right which i i you know i'm open-minded about
but if that is the way it happens i bloody well want an appearance by sophie aldrid please
well okay the charitable earth part was was uh me hoping hoping beyond hope because the season 26
blu-ray trailer was just superb so we'll i guess we'll have to see on that one but i think they're
setting ryan up for uh mind you clash with sophie aldridge dot novel um which has just come out i
haven't read it yet oh he doesn't have to have a cameo from her he just can like i've got this
business card from this woman who said i should come work for her and he's already met her he's
met sophie aldrid he's met ace he has in the in the novel oh in oh in oh oh oh oh well the novel
is not canon so it's okay um they ignore them right and left they ignore them at their at at
their convenience so no no big deal it's literally just been published and it's gone through it's
gone through Cardiff so I don't think I don't think Chibnall reads these things he doesn't
read the scripts clearly um even though he co-writes them I just want to say Tebow and
the Tebow Tebow and Ryan's relationship was really nicely done I think it was I think it was
yeah I I'm not gonna I'm not gonna complain about it in terms of how it was realized because
it did come off pretty well they came off as pretty good friends and i i do ask the question
why ryan didn't check in on him sooner if he was getting lots of messages from him
i know he said his phone's on the blink but we know that's not true well i think there's
their phones work just fine i've been complaining about it before which is which is this whole thing
of why they go away for a period.
Why they, as Yaz says at the end,
the doctor can drop them back as soon as they've left,
but they don't, they never do that.
But they can't, right.
I don't understand why.
No, the doctor's dropped them off
within 77 minutes of the time that they requested.
Why have they requested a time
that is months after they left?
That doesn't seem particularly logical to me.
And if they can get phone calls,
How does that sync up?
I mean, this goes all the way back to Martha and her mom.
How does that sync up with how long they've been gone?
Well, it goes up.
It connects with the phone that the doctor gave, wasn't it?
Rose.
Yeah, I know.
But the point being is that if Rose is gone for a month to Jackie and Jackie calls and
talks to Rose and she talks to Rose.
Does she talk to Rose a month after they departed in the TARDIS to Rose's time?
Or does she call two seconds later?
Or do they come in in the wrong order?
Or it doesn't make any sense.
And you know what they did?
They fixed that.
Chibbers fixed it.
He fixed it.
This silly bugger.
He fixed it by using those stinking comm dots in all the way back in the ghost monument.
And again, last week for no mysterious reason.
How does that fix it?
Because then you cut them off from their family.
You cut them off from their phones.
You know, phone doesn't work.
CommDot works.
But the CommDots will still have the same problem.
They will between themselves,
but they're all in the same kind of shared time.
But right, but not with, you know.
I picked up on this as well,
because I thought the line,
it's not tomorrow lunchtime already,
is it, didn't necessarily make sense
without a fuller explanation of how these,
I mean, anything that does this,
it's it's it's in the that um that christopher bidmead doctor who audio where you where the
doctor invents the pocket into rossiter and and so you you have this issue of well if what does
it mean it's not tomorrow lunchtime it's tomorrow lunchtime you can go to tomorrow lunchtime but
right now um it's whatever local time it is from wherever you're speaking from so i thought we'll
points off for that on the other hand points for the doctor actually saying i could nip straight
to tomorrow lunchtime which as soon as she closed the door was me thinking well what you know surely
that's what you should be doing straight away they want to spend 24 hours in sheffield you do not want
to spend 24 hours in sheffield and you have a time machine oh sideburn sheffield um
yeah it uh yeah yeah so yeah ryan could have returned those phone calls i feel yes he could
have gotten those messages and he could have said hey doctor my friend's in trouble can i go visit
him yes but he didn't so that that does i think i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i
the guy who played the immortal oh yeah yeah yeah fantastic job really i thought i thought he
as a creepy man.
He was good looking as a creepy man.
Well,
that's,
that's what,
that's what I've got because I mean,
like I said,
I'm,
I'm enjoying the Eternals being back.
His appearance was great.
I thought it was somewhat undermined by the very,
very camp British thespy voice.
And he was enjoying himself with that.
Yeah.
I'm also a little confused as to why he would have a tattoo on his head,
but,
well,
I,
but anyway,
I guess he'd have to wear a wig to hide that.
I don't know.
So do they, can they, can they travel?
Can they time travel?
Yes.
So if you're an immortal, yeah.
Okay.
I was, it's sort of rhetorical.
So if you are an immortal being plucking out eternity in boredom,
is not time travel really a bad thing to do because it just makes eternity
even longer?
I think that the point about eternity might be that you can't,
I mean, without wanting to get into like Cantor's sets of infinity or anything here,
can we just basically agree that eternity is as long as it gets
and therefore it can't be longer?
But what about eternity minus one year?
I mean, bring my analytic geometry back into this.
Yeah, in Cantor's terms, that's still the same size as Eternity.
For me, I'm quite happy with the idea that they are in another dimension
or however you want to put it in terms of that.
And therefore, from the point of view of connecting with the themes
in this episode, obviously there's an element,
and I'm glad they didn't start quoting from King Lear
and as flies to wanton boys are we to the gods they kill us for their sport but I like the vibe
that that brought and the and the line they had what what do you think it feels like for them
to be such tiny ephemeral flashes of existence which is cut again I like I said it just it feels
to me very relatable when you are in the throes of anxiety or panic or whatever and you you just
you you become overwhelmed by some some of these ideas sometimes interesting i didn't get really
anything particularly deep out of that other than just that sort of the candle that burns fast burns
bright i think it's the other way around because in some way in some way they they represent they
represent these demons in our heads when we suffer from these things and the thoughts that we have
when we when we you know when we are when our mental health is low but by and large disposable
plot part of the story there tricking the doctor good um didn't get any of the doctors didn't get
anything like um doctor having any insecurity about the fact that she'd been tricked or anything
like that which probably would have tied better as i think you mentioned earlier um so let's talk
about yes that is a very nice character piece and it is is very nicely tied to yes his profession
because i think you could walk out of that saying you know this is the person that inspired her
to be in the police it's a very there's some very nice writing in it um i admit i i was very much
taken by a line and it's probably not the best line but it's the one that resonates the most
to me is the trouble with the trouble with being old or something to that effect
is that you have all that experience and no one listens yeah um or is that so true it's beautiful
It's beautiful.
And also the bit about, you know, a job doesn't pay, but I love it.
And it is really a lovely portrayal of somebody who is a cop, who is doing it for the right reasons, who is helping people.
I mean, finally there.
This is why people become in public service.
And the fact that she made a difference to Yaz's life, that she saved, potentially saved Yaz's life.
The moment at the end when Yaz shows up and she remembers her, it really does.
It resonates.
It's beautiful.
I mean, it really sets it apart in this story.
Yeah.
I mean, I think it's a beautiful performance from, well, both from Nazarene Hussain and Mandip Gill in that scene at the end.
I think you're right.
That line in particular, you know, get another job then, can't, love it too much, is why.
Because we already know this is why Yaz became a police officer.
But that's the line where, to me, that feels like it's an eye-opener because she's seeing someone who is in love with the job in a way that she will go on to be in love with the job herself.
and considering that we really don't know a whole lot about yaz's past um it you know you you can
believe that there is a moment in your life where someone like that inspires you to the course of
your life and you don't have to have it set up we didn't need to have this foreshadowed in any way
it it's like there you go she she is in this because of that and but it kind of is i mean
Well, we know that she has that love for the job, but we don't know how she got that.
She may have had it her whole life.
She may have just always wanted to be in the police.
I mean, you don't need to know that there was some exact moment in her life where you could go back and say,
that's probably the moment that made her go down the path that she's done.
No, we know it comes from this time in her life.
Do we?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
because this is the year Izzy Flint turned the whole class against her.
That's what's led her to where she is at this point.
So I think we're going back into that.
And we know the outcome of that was that she wanted to go into the police
because she wanted to work in child protection.
But we didn't necessarily see the human personal interaction
that we get to see here.
And we also, I don't think, have had an indication of where that year led her to.
And also how Sonia's part in that played out.
Yeah, Sonia has not been a particularly sympathetic little sister up till this point, I have to say.
That might be the one piece in this that is a little jarring, isn't quite the right word, but wasn't necessarily expecting that.
that it was her intervention that saved the day in a way.
No, but at the same time, the relationship there is very nicely done, I think.
And I'm definitely really...
The whole thing about Sonia kind of resenting the fact that, you know,
Yaz is spending all her time on the job and then Yaz having a go at Sonia because she keeps getting
fired or whatever but then in this one first first of all you get a different side to that
relationship which is this kind of it's awkward because they obviously do have this you know they
embrace each other and Sonia says hi loser and and they don't really quite know what to say to
each other over this anniversary meal but at the same time when when sonia is talking about the
latest job that she's lost and yaz is having got her and she says well people are really annoying
and they hate being told that i think oh god she's brilliant i love her yes she's not holding
down a job but i can so relate to that sentiment well i think i think many people can um
many people can was so what was what was you guys doing but where did you see that leading
i i so i'll be honest and this is where this is where watching it twice it it took me that to get
what to get what was going on here because i didn't realize this was about suicide and and i
thought some about that i thought about why i mean maybe i just wasn't paying close enough attention
to it the first time around but also why why the choices were made to present the story
in the way it was presented and i think i think the answer is that this was just responsible
storytelling because it's incredibly ambitious and again this is why i i love this episode
you know not just for how well it's pulled it off but for its ambition in doing so
it's trying to in a in a in a mainstream family tv drama address issues of mental health and yet
at the same time we know from various studies that if you present if you present suicide on
television you know whether it's whether it's reporting in the news or whether it is
portrayal in fiction that it it can lead to an increase in suicide and also you know it's a
kids show so you don't necessarily want to force people into having these conversations when
they're not ready to and so what they're what they're doing is and they're avoiding all the
kind of things that you must avoid when you know in terms of the guidance on how you how you actually
discuss and present suicide in the media so never never discuss any of the the howls and
all of that kind of thing so that so what they do in this is actually present it in a way where you
just don't see what she's doing all you get is it's there in the dialogue and even then it's
not explicit enough that you couldn't miss it and i'm proof of that because i watched the whole thing
with with thinking it was about yaz running away and then the second time i watched it i clocked
oh my god no it's not and then you you know you get the the the dialogue between her and
nasreen hussein and suddenly all of it clicks yeah i mean i got the i i even on the first pass through
I got what I got and and this is what made it the tiniest bit awkward and not in the way that the
conversation would be an awkward conversation but tiniest bit awkward is that you're seeing one
thing and you're hearing another I mean it the way it's staged the way it's filmed the way they're
out there what you're seeing is a girl running away from home what you're hearing is a girl
who's going to kill herself. And I never took anything from it. Once people started speaking
words, it was, oh, this is, this is, I guess she's running away from home to commit suicide
because a little extra inconvenience on the way is, I don't know. I don't know if I was supposed
to take something like that, like she's running away from home to give her time to think about
whether she's going to commit suicide or I, I don't know, but it was definitely, it was,
it was there immediately for me they're talking suicide they're showing runaway and i don't know
that there's any link between the two ever i mean i don't know do kids run away before they commit
suicide i honestly don't know yeah well no i i thought they ran away to you know then then get
into trouble and then you know get under drugs and prostitution and then commit suicide but i didn't
i didn't it's not but it's not like she's run away actually it's not that it you can interpret
as her running away but actually that's not what you're seeing what you're seeing is that she's not
at home so she's she's she's gone away from home but you don't know where she's going the the dial
the dialogue is where yeah where are you going away yeah it's nice that well but actually actually
that's that's not the case what she's what she has has done is left the house and a recently
remote location sonia puts it well she's yes she has gone through but but as as sonia puts it
whatever she you know she's worried about what what she will do to her herself see that works
the the thing is all that works much better in the dream because dream is not reality the road
can represent you know can be metaphor standing between the safety and the thing and then want to
and and because sonia's not actually there correct again in the in the night in the nightmare
she is not but then when they cut to the final scene which i believe to be an accurate representation
of what happened she is actually on that road out in the middle of nowhere and how the heck
the police found her is amazing but well probably not because it's it's unlikely to be random because
very few things are so that was uh again perhaps slightly odd but but worth it for the payoff
worth it for the payoff um i say that i just wish the rest of the episode had been as good
of course i don't know that they could have sustained this for 48 minutes so uh you have to
see all right well simon thank you for joining me it's pleasure as always listers i hope you'll
join us all again next time on Fusion Patrol.
You've been listening to Fusion Patrol,
a listener-supported podcast.
Find out how you can be a sponsor and get early
access to all episodes and more
at patreon.com
slash fusion patrol.
Come join the conversation
on Facebook or Twitter.
All episodes
are available at fusion patrol.com.
Our music is Fight the Future by Amber Wolf.
This has been a Lone Locust production.