WEBVTT 00:00:00.020 --> 00:00:02.320 Fusion Patrol is a listener-supported podcast. 00:00:03.220 --> 00:00:08.300 Find out how you can help support us at patreon.com slash fusion patrol. 00:00:18.640 --> 00:00:20.460 This is the Fusion Patrol podcast. 00:00:21.340 --> 00:00:25.280 Each week, we look at a different science fiction TV episode or movie 00:00:25.840 --> 00:00:29.280 and overanalyze it to within an inch of its life. 00:00:31.280 --> 00:00:32.500 Welcome to the discussion. 00:00:59.480 --> 00:01:04.379 just for her companions to sniff the air around some famous historical figures and then leave. 00:01:05.100 --> 00:01:08.820 They've popped back to the infamous night when Lord Byron challenges his guests, 00:01:09.360 --> 00:01:14.860 Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Godwin, a.k.a. Mary Shelley, Claire Claremont, and Dr. John Polidori, 00:01:15.280 --> 00:01:18.020 to write the most terrifying ghost story imaginable. 00:01:18.440 --> 00:01:24.160 It is the infamous night that gave rise to Mary Shelley's story, Frankenstein, or the modern Prometheus. 00:01:24.820 --> 00:01:30.980 But Percy Shelley isn't there, and the others are more interested in parlor games to pass the time than writing ghost stories. 00:01:31.960 --> 00:01:34.920 The doctor detects an evil vibe in the house. 00:01:35.600 --> 00:01:39.700 Plus, there are apparent ghosts and animated human bones flittering about the place. 00:01:40.560 --> 00:01:44.900 Then the walls go all funhouse on them, except no one is laughing. 00:01:45.500 --> 00:01:48.500 During this time, ghosts feed Graham some lovely nom-noms. 00:01:49.420 --> 00:01:51.460 Percy is found in the coal cellar. 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:56.240 He has been infected by and become the guardian of the Siberium, 00:01:56.720 --> 00:02:00.440 a database of a bunch of stuff from the future about the Cybermen. 00:02:00.880 --> 00:02:02.940 And the lone Cybermen wants it back. 00:02:03.380 --> 00:02:06.000 You know, the one Captain Jack warned everyone about? 00:02:06.500 --> 00:02:10.020 About which he said, whatever you do, don't give it what it wants? 00:02:10.520 --> 00:02:12.060 Yeah, that lone Cybermen. 00:02:12.600 --> 00:02:16.500 Not coincidentally, the lone Cybermen, whose name is Ashad, is here too. 00:02:17.040 --> 00:02:19.500 The Siberium will kill Percy if it stays in his head. 00:02:19.880 --> 00:02:25.140 If he dies, Earth's history is irrevocably altered, and all the companions probably won't have existed. 00:02:25.740 --> 00:02:30.800 The Doctor takes the Siberian into her head, so the Lone Cyberman threatens to destroy the Earth to get it, 00:02:31.100 --> 00:02:36.220 unless the Doctor does the one thing she's been warned she must not do. 00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:39.200 So, of course, she does it. 00:02:39.740 --> 00:02:43.580 History and the planet are safe, but the future has been threatened. 00:02:44.220 --> 00:02:52.720 For some reason, the departure of the Lone Cyberman also undoes all the ecological disaster that was the aftermath of the eruption of Mount Tambora the year earlier. 00:02:53.420 --> 00:02:58.800 Also, it now seems like Lord Byron's poem Darkness is not about the apocalypse, but about the Doctor. 00:02:59.420 --> 00:03:02.200 Byron scholars will be confused for centuries. 00:03:03.060 --> 00:03:03.680 The end. 00:03:05.820 --> 00:03:11.000 All right, so what are your initial thoughts on the haunting of Villa Diodati? 00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:13.420 Well, I'll tell you my initial thoughts. 00:03:13.980 --> 00:03:19.420 on the haunting of Villa Diodati, which were, it didn't really work. 00:03:19.530 --> 00:03:27.580 It seemed to be three stories which didn't seem to quite hang together comfortably 00:03:27.700 --> 00:03:32.400 because there's the story there about the Night of the Ghost stories 00:03:33.100 --> 00:03:36.140 and the kind of, the historical. 00:03:36.720 --> 00:03:41.520 So we've got a nice historical setting with Barry Shelley and Percy Shelley 00:03:41.640 --> 00:03:46.280 and Lord Byron and John Polidori and some famous works being developed. 00:03:46.980 --> 00:03:52.560 And that in itself is a fascinating setting to explore. 00:03:53.550 --> 00:04:02.180 And then we've got a fantastical moving Castrovalva type house thing, 00:04:03.060 --> 00:04:09.040 which is spooky and exciting and weird and quite interesting to explore. 00:04:09.820 --> 00:04:23.680 And then we've got a story about cyber wars and the lone cybermen and the Siberian and all that kind of jazz, which is quite good in its own way. 00:04:23.870 --> 00:04:38.380 But you kind of feel that that story, at least, and possibly the other story, would work absolutely fine without these historical figures kicking around. 00:04:38.700 --> 00:04:42.040 I mean, you might want a few extra players just to be able to kill them off or whatever, 00:04:42.280 --> 00:04:51.920 but they're not necessarily needing to be significant contributors to English literature. 00:04:53.340 --> 00:04:54.760 And those were my initial thoughts. 00:04:55.450 --> 00:04:55.900 Fair enough. 00:04:57.440 --> 00:04:58.640 Well, I'll give you my initial thought. 00:05:01.600 --> 00:05:05.560 I would say, and your criticisms are completely valid. 00:05:06.180 --> 00:05:11.060 I found this the most entertaining story of the year so far, hands down. 00:05:11.720 --> 00:05:14.580 Not great, not like an instant classic. 00:05:15.480 --> 00:05:22.140 And I can't exactly point a finger to why, but I at least enjoyed this episode by the time I got to the end of it. 00:05:22.840 --> 00:05:24.820 And even on rewatch, I enjoyed the episode. 00:05:25.700 --> 00:05:36.060 So your points are all valid and they're a list of things that we could go into that don't make a lot of sense or don't hang together well. 00:05:36.720 --> 00:05:40.500 But for whatever reason, it managed to overcome that to a degree for me. 00:05:41.380 --> 00:05:47.340 So your comment about initial thoughts implies to me that you've got some secondary thoughts. 00:05:49.540 --> 00:06:06.460 I have some secondary thoughts because, well, now the thing is that for the listeners, we don't normally give each other any clue as to how we've reacted to the episode before we hit the record button on the podcast. 00:06:07.700 --> 00:06:12.160 I did manage to infer from something you said that you didn't hate this one. 00:06:12.780 --> 00:06:22.580 And I kind of wanted to give you my initial thoughts to bounce off, because at first I thought that's where I would be coming from this discussion. 00:06:23.200 --> 00:06:31.000 However, what happened then was I rewatched the episode and discovered that everything I thought was wrong. 00:06:31.580 --> 00:06:37.220 It does work together as a single story. And in fact, it's really, really cleverly constructed. 00:06:38.040 --> 00:06:46.060 And I wouldn't quite go as far as to say the episode is flawless, but it is very impressive. 00:06:46.380 --> 00:06:52.460 And I, having rewatched it, I get all the kind of hype around it. 00:06:52.540 --> 00:07:01.820 Certainly some of the discussions, I mean, you'll find Doctor Who fans anywhere who have any opinion you care to hunt for, I guess. 00:07:02.020 --> 00:07:03.380 But probably so. 00:07:04.000 --> 00:07:08.500 I was a bit surprised by how positively it was being regarded. 00:07:08.800 --> 00:07:13.360 And then when I watched it again, I actually completely changed my opinion on it. 00:07:13.360 --> 00:07:19.240 And I'm not quite sure why, although I think a lot of it has to do with expectations 00:07:21.180 --> 00:07:25.280 and particularly expectations around the story that is going to be a historical. 00:07:25.530 --> 00:07:29.300 And not only that, it's not just a historical setting, is it? 00:07:30.979 --> 00:07:33.740 It's got to be an homage to Frankenstein, right? 00:07:34.900 --> 00:07:42.140 yeah it kind of does you can't do this story without there being elements of of 00:07:43.660 --> 00:07:49.200 shelly's story in this so you're already you're already expecting it to unfold in a certain way 00:07:49.720 --> 00:07:54.900 added to which is the is the heavy burden of the thing that you alluded to 00:07:55.800 --> 00:08:03.800 in last week's synopsis which is that the doctor has been here before he's been here 00:08:03.960 --> 00:08:13.540 at the creation of Frankenstein and Shelley has met him and met Cybermen on a previous occasion 00:08:14.340 --> 00:08:21.320 and so not only is there a bit of my brain even while I'm watching it trying to think 00:08:21.770 --> 00:08:26.500 okay how can we fit the different parts of the Doctor's history together in a way that doesn't 00:08:27.620 --> 00:08:37.300 conflict um but it's but it's also it's also running over the way that the the the five key 00:08:37.620 --> 00:08:46.240 characters in this were portrayed in mary's story because the performances in this are 00:08:46.630 --> 00:08:53.519 different and the characterizations are different um so so and there are some actually some other 00:08:53.420 --> 00:09:00.640 sort of fairly key things that are different like William is in this but not in Mary's story 00:09:00.780 --> 00:09:08.860 whereas Percy is in Mary's story but barely in this so all of those things affect what I was 00:09:09.180 --> 00:09:17.080 expecting and I guess the dynamic I was expecting going into it and once you've watched it through 00:09:17.260 --> 00:09:22.920 once and you've you've sort of got through those expectations then I think you see it in a different 00:09:22.880 --> 00:09:29.100 Well, I guess that's why my first impressions, my second impressions, so radically different on this occasion. 00:09:29.760 --> 00:09:34.220 That one thing I thought was interesting, a couple of small points. 00:09:34.380 --> 00:09:37.800 One, it's weird that this one's not co-written by Chibbers. 00:09:39.560 --> 00:09:41.460 He has rewritten practically everyone. 00:09:41.640 --> 00:09:43.420 No, let's let's not use rewritten. 00:09:43.640 --> 00:09:48.440 Let's say he has co-written practically everything this year. 00:09:49.560 --> 00:09:51.180 This may be the only one that wasn't. 00:09:52.440 --> 00:10:03.800 And yet, with all the lone Cyberman stuff, which we know is his two-part finale, it feels like he should have had a hand in here. 00:10:04.320 --> 00:10:07.680 A hand sufficient to get a co-writing credit. 00:10:09.900 --> 00:10:12.320 So, I just thought that was interesting. 00:10:12.620 --> 00:10:17.820 Especially when, you know, the Cyberman shows up and you're like, wait, this isn't supposed to happen until next week. 00:10:18.160 --> 00:10:22.120 Which, by the way, listeners, we will not be doing a Doctor Who podcast next week. 00:10:22.300 --> 00:10:34.380 We're going to digest the so-called supposed, according to all the promotional hype material, two-part finale as a single episode, even though it appears like this is part of it. 00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:39.380 But we didn't know that going in and we're going based on the hype machine. 00:10:40.320 --> 00:10:41.440 And another thing. 00:10:42.820 --> 00:10:59.300 Well, on that question, I think the reason he hasn't got, the reason he may have handed this writer over, he may have handed this story to this writer is because there are two things I discovered this week. 00:10:59.400 --> 00:11:05.000 One is that he seems to have instituted some kind of writing room arrangement. 00:11:06.060 --> 00:11:14.160 So really, the only element that affects the arc in this could be just on a standard shopping list. 00:11:14.340 --> 00:11:17.300 You know, you've got to get the lone Cyberman in there. 00:11:17.360 --> 00:11:18.820 You've got to get the Siberian in there. 00:11:20.200 --> 00:11:25.480 But if there's some kind of writer's room, then there's an opportunity to input any way through that. 00:11:25.540 --> 00:11:33.160 The other thing is that apparently Maxine Alderton is definitely coming back for the next season. 00:11:33.940 --> 00:11:42.600 And someone tracked down something on her online CV saying she was a, quote, core writer on season 13. 00:11:43.360 --> 00:11:46.060 Interesting. Well, maybe she'll take over for Chibnall. 00:11:46.500 --> 00:11:59.780 Well, I think the idea of there being a core writer is an interesting idea because it suggests that the story is being developed in a more collaborative way. 00:11:59.780 --> 00:12:05.120 The story arc is being developed in a more collaborative way, which isn't commonly how Doctor Who has been done. 00:12:05.120 --> 00:12:09.680 It was done on Torchwood for Children of Earth and that seemed to be very effective. 00:12:10.020 --> 00:12:14.740 But it's not been the usual pattern on this show. 00:12:15.280 --> 00:12:21.960 And she has no prior Doctor Who cred, but she has been script editor Emmerdale for ages. 00:12:22.540 --> 00:12:25.220 Yeah, she's written about 100 episodes of Emmerdale as far as I can tell. 00:12:25.520 --> 00:12:26.720 I haven't watched any of them. 00:12:27.280 --> 00:12:30.760 No, I don't really know anything about Emmerdale except I assume it's a soap opera. 00:12:32.290 --> 00:12:35.340 Yeah, Emmerdale Farm. It's about farm, I think. 00:12:35.800 --> 00:12:36.160 Wow. 00:12:36.800 --> 00:12:39.120 Get me in my in-depth knowledge of British culture. 00:12:40.720 --> 00:12:44.280 Chibnall calls her an expert or pro on Byron and Shelley. 00:12:44.800 --> 00:12:47.800 But, you know, I don't know that to be true. 00:12:48.420 --> 00:12:50.900 Apparently she is a buff at the very least. 00:12:52.580 --> 00:12:59.600 So he really talked her up about her expertise on the subject prior to the episode going out. 00:13:02.320 --> 00:13:05.260 So my list is once again in an illogical order. 00:13:05.560 --> 00:13:07.160 I've got more important things to talk about. 00:13:07.340 --> 00:13:28.540 But one thing that kind of does bother me about this episode is the almost dismissal of the scientific fact that the year without a winter summer, the year without a summer, was caused by the 1815 explosion of Mount Tambora in Indonesia. 00:13:30.240 --> 00:13:40.400 Very famously, it was particularly bad in the area of Lake Geneva, which could be what they were trying to go for, that it was made worse by the Cybermen. 00:13:40.880 --> 00:13:51.060 I don't know, because the visual of it going away and suddenly being a sunny day was way over the pow. 00:13:53.420 --> 00:13:58.760 And I just kind of, you know, Doctor Who can play fast and loose with some stuff. 00:13:58.940 --> 00:14:03.980 But in a way, they shouldn't play that fast and that loose with the events. 00:14:06.540 --> 00:14:11.380 Because that was a significant event that killed tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people. 00:14:11.820 --> 00:14:20.200 Not just the explosion, but the famines, the freezing, the human suffering on a mega scale. 00:14:21.200 --> 00:14:24.780 And it didn't end in June of 1816. 00:14:25.740 --> 00:14:34.180 But at the same time, we get a lecture about how we cannot allow time to be changed later in the episode. 00:14:35.880 --> 00:14:37.220 So, again, it's that uneasy. 00:14:39.199 --> 00:14:41.400 Pick something and stick with it. 00:14:44.079 --> 00:14:50.400 I can't see what the problem is there, apart from the not allowing time to be changed. 00:14:50.460 --> 00:14:58.580 What the doctor is saying, and the effect you see at the end of the skies clearing or whatever, 00:14:59.220 --> 00:15:06.960 is not that the eruption of Mount Tambora was not a significant event, 00:15:07.760 --> 00:15:13.800 but that its effect on Lake Geneva in the summer of 1916, 00:15:15.880 --> 00:15:19.380 1816, was wrongly attributed to it. 00:15:19.400 --> 00:15:27.360 in fact there was another cause for it now obviously it wasn't but yeah well it wasn't but 00:15:27.410 --> 00:15:33.580 but but it could have been it's not that's not a that's not a big difference because you're not 00:15:33.680 --> 00:15:40.640 saying that the volcano didn't erupt you're not saying that there wasn't global anomalies just 00:15:40.740 --> 00:15:49.820 that this particular local weather wasn't due to it. 00:15:50.490 --> 00:15:51.640 It was due to something else. 00:15:52.440 --> 00:15:56.540 And it would be entirely understandable why people thought it was due to it. 00:15:57.140 --> 00:16:02.600 But it's not a big fictional leap to say, actually, in this case, 00:16:03.440 --> 00:16:06.360 this particular thing, that was due to something else. 00:16:06.920 --> 00:16:25.360 Hmm. Well, I'll stand at disagreeing on that one and move on. I'll ask it got a couple of things that didn't seem to fall together, even on the second viewing to me. What was animating the hand and the skull? 00:16:26.120 --> 00:16:33.280 i've got that and why okay why does the hand attack ryan yeah yeah i i and and later it takes 00:16:33.300 --> 00:16:38.800 the place of the baby and it's chattering in the jar and also so that's one that doesn't appear to 00:16:38.800 --> 00:16:45.800 be anything that shelly is doing and it it doesn't appear to be anything that the cyberman would be 00:16:46.360 --> 00:16:51.520 doing or would have the ability to do i think there's a lot about it being the siberian but 00:16:51.940 --> 00:16:58.340 i don't see what why it's the yeah exactly what what's the purpose of it doing that 00:16:58.670 --> 00:17:06.560 yeah and then the ghosts that appeared to gram which i think is either one of two things either 00:17:06.900 --> 00:17:15.780 it's just a throwaway to create a spooky ghostly atmosphere in which case i kind of think it's a 00:17:15.880 --> 00:17:23.400 little lazy or it leads to something else. And, and timeless child. I don't know if it's a timeless 00:17:23.640 --> 00:17:30.580 child. What crossed my mind and I Google failed me. So either I'm wrong, which is very possible, 00:17:30.900 --> 00:17:37.540 or my Google foo is just not up to it. I just have this weird, familiar feeling 00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:47.420 that there is some legend somewhere probably contemporary to these events or older that had 00:17:47.660 --> 00:17:54.620 something to do with about not eating food supplied by ghosts that there was something 00:17:55.060 --> 00:18:01.500 certainly seems a bit dodgy to me but that's that's just my kind of natural caution over 00:18:02.080 --> 00:18:06.299 hygiene right like that obviously you're not supposed to know that the ghosts are getting it 00:18:06.180 --> 00:18:13.840 But like if a ghost supplies you with food and you're unaware of that and you eat it, there's something about that. 00:18:13.870 --> 00:18:15.520 But I could find nothing. 00:18:16.040 --> 00:18:20.500 All I could get was hungry ghosts, which is Chinese, which is a different thing altogether. 00:18:20.700 --> 00:18:24.780 So or two other theories here go in. 00:18:24.920 --> 00:18:31.800 One, is it some sort of metaphor for the return of the cancer that's going to be eating Graham to death by the end of the series? 00:18:32.440 --> 00:18:34.060 Or I don't think it's that. 00:18:34.580 --> 00:18:38.620 Or this was some sort of infection, just like the Siberian was. 00:18:39.180 --> 00:18:46.640 Graham has been infected with something from the future that these ghosts brought back for him. 00:18:47.320 --> 00:18:50.460 And he is now a pawn in this somehow. 00:18:51.820 --> 00:18:53.160 Otherwise, it is just lazy. 00:18:53.900 --> 00:18:54.960 You know, so it's spooky. 00:18:55.200 --> 00:18:55.680 I agree. 00:18:55.820 --> 00:18:56.540 It works well. 00:18:58.100 --> 00:19:01.440 But the fact that they leave it at the, well, you know, there are no ghosts unless there are. 00:19:01.620 --> 00:19:01.740 Okay. 00:19:03.120 --> 00:19:09.900 didn't uh uh you know the doctor has been pretty firmly on the side of ghosts or temporal anomalies 00:19:11.240 --> 00:19:18.400 for for a long time going all the way back to at least the fendal and maybe even further 00:19:19.440 --> 00:19:24.620 day of the there's no way there's no way that these are ghosts yeah i i would like to think 00:19:24.820 --> 00:19:29.679 that yes i would like to think that they are at least not going to go there with the show 00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:30.900 and that they are. 00:19:30.900 --> 00:19:33.160 I mean, the doctor states in this episode, 00:19:33.390 --> 00:19:35.920 clearly there are no such thing as ghosts. 00:19:36.900 --> 00:19:37.900 Unless there are. 00:19:38.520 --> 00:19:41.600 Yeah, but it's a tongue-in-cheek line. 00:19:41.800 --> 00:19:43.360 It's not that... 00:19:44.820 --> 00:19:46.580 It's there as a throwaway. 00:19:47.100 --> 00:19:48.440 Maybe that's bad delivery. 00:19:49.160 --> 00:19:50.140 No, I don't think it is. 00:19:50.140 --> 00:19:51.000 I think it's clear. 00:19:51.560 --> 00:19:54.620 I think it can be there 00:19:54.810 --> 00:19:56.360 because they've already established 00:19:56.950 --> 00:19:57.780 during the episode 00:19:58.380 --> 00:20:03.260 what the doctor's standard response is so that they can make a joke about it at the end. 00:20:03.860 --> 00:20:10.840 But it's not just there for the joke, because they're clearly drawing attention to 00:20:11.730 --> 00:20:19.560 the fact that Graham saw them and only Graham saw them right at the end. And they wouldn't do that 00:20:19.560 --> 00:20:23.680 if there wasn't some kind of purpose to it. Future payoff. There's definitely something to be 00:20:23.580 --> 00:20:29.040 resolved you would definitely think that but then on the other hand there's been so many things that 00:20:29.040 --> 00:20:36.620 do not pay off throughout doctor who that are just i i i don't trust them to complete this 00:20:37.030 --> 00:20:43.300 i would like them to but i don't trust them to do it anymore so i can see you know they're just 00:20:43.480 --> 00:20:47.620 too many times they've put the puzzle out on the table and they've been missing 30 of the pieces 00:20:48.080 --> 00:20:52.220 and when you're all done putting it together you're like well i get the gist of it but 00:20:53.480 --> 00:21:00.860 who stole my third of the pieces um also it would be remiss if we fail to mention that dr john 00:21:01.280 --> 00:21:08.420 polidori is the writer of the vampire which also came out of this thing which is uh the uh basically 00:21:08.880 --> 00:21:15.240 it bugs me a bit that they they they they haven't i mean either in well any of the big finish stuff 00:21:15.380 --> 00:21:22.200 actually but you know they they obviously had the this other story that was set on the night on which 00:21:22.220 --> 00:21:31.840 vampire was also conceived and and they have this notion that our vampires the you know the vampires 00:21:32.220 --> 00:21:44.260 of uh our literature are inspired by the real vampires who are the gallifreans you know good 00:21:44.780 --> 00:21:52.180 most deadly so there's so there's this whole vein of doctor who mythos and backstory they 00:21:52.200 --> 00:22:01.140 tap into in terms of explaining um how polidori's story was inspired especially given that it's 00:22:01.310 --> 00:22:05.720 you know that it's the it's essentially the first one that puts together the vampire myths into some 00:22:05.820 --> 00:22:13.320 kind of coherent narrative and yet basically was a foundation for dracula which everyone thinks is 00:22:13.500 --> 00:22:19.920 the the the first but it really it really isn't i'm i think it's polidori is definitely a second 00:22:19.940 --> 00:22:30.260 fiddle character in this you the the the kind of lead guests are mary and lord byron and then 00:22:30.920 --> 00:22:35.980 claire and polidori are so you know they have they have a couple of decent scenes they're they're 00:22:36.100 --> 00:22:42.280 quite good or whatever but they're they're easily trimmable you know you can see how if they'd had 00:22:42.380 --> 00:22:47.940 to lose a bit there there are there are bits of the plot that wouldn't have gone and then there 00:22:47.860 --> 00:22:52.500 of those scenes that they could just have left out i'm gonna i'm gonna come back to something 00:22:52.520 --> 00:22:57.320 you said earlier because i wanted to bring it up but this is a great time to do it i would have 00:22:57.680 --> 00:23:05.060 much preferred i think it would have been much more interesting exploration if the events that 00:23:05.060 --> 00:23:09.960 had occurred in this house had been vampire related you said you know it's got to be what 00:23:10.060 --> 00:23:14.760 inspires frankenstein no it doesn't it could be what inspires the vampire yes it could have been 00:23:14.780 --> 00:23:18.180 completely different. It could have been somebody could have taken a take on this who knew what they 00:23:18.180 --> 00:23:23.580 were talking about and said, I'm not going to do the thing everybody expects. I'm going to go with, 00:23:24.100 --> 00:23:27.960 I'm going to go with this other thing that people don't know about because I want them to learn 00:23:28.180 --> 00:23:35.560 something about it. And, you know, just as likely there is vampire fiction in Doctor Who. So could 00:23:35.560 --> 00:23:42.260 have done that. I would have, I'd have been much happier with that, actually. Not that I'm 00:23:42.280 --> 00:23:49.320 displeased it's just frankenstein and cyberman is actually not even exactly a great mix um 00:23:50.260 --> 00:23:56.320 because cybermen aren't really frankenstein and and no and we could frankenstein's monsters and 00:23:56.320 --> 00:24:02.700 we could talk about the fact that this cyberman is a weird one a very weird one that did in fact 00:24:02.790 --> 00:24:10.920 appear to be stitched together no i well i don't i don't think i mean i part partly that that was 00:24:10.940 --> 00:24:18.500 where I initially thought this wasn't a good fit. And yet running back through it, I think it is 00:24:18.720 --> 00:24:25.180 because some of the things that I was a bit, I don't know, I was a bit taken aback by when, 00:24:25.840 --> 00:24:33.240 for example, Mary says to the Cyberman, he is made of several people. But it's a misconception, 00:24:33.600 --> 00:24:39.880 isn't it? But if you look at his hand, his left arm, when he hands it out, it does appear to be 00:24:39.900 --> 00:24:45.620 like the hand is stitched on somebody else's arm it does look like that oh i must have another look 00:24:45.620 --> 00:24:53.220 at that but yeah but it's still it's still i mean primarily he is it's he still he still fits the 00:24:53.360 --> 00:25:00.960 standard cyber model for what we understand a cyberman to be yes he he was he was a person he 00:25:01.020 --> 00:25:10.160 was ashad and he he he was mechanically augmented and possibly then biologically augmented but 00:25:10.160 --> 00:25:14.860 there's a there's a world of difference between saying you know adding a hand to something that's 00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:24.080 mostly already you know a single person to say um assembling a selection of different organs or 00:25:24.140 --> 00:25:30.740 putting a brain in someone else's skull or something like that so i i my interpretation 00:25:31.050 --> 00:25:37.680 of that was that actually mary was seeing something that wasn't necessarily there and 00:25:37.680 --> 00:25:43.800 it was going to inspire her but it wasn't it wasn't inconsistent with our understanding of 00:25:44.180 --> 00:25:49.020 cybermen and what they are right and and getting his power from the lightning mary didn't see that 00:25:49.460 --> 00:25:55.300 that was just the doctor true so it's another piece that that is there in the story that we 00:25:55.440 --> 00:26:00.300 see but not in the story that mary sees um i was just going to say while we're talking about things 00:26:00.300 --> 00:26:07.420 that conflict with uh established cyberman law from the show there was something that definitely 00:26:07.780 --> 00:26:13.960 did conflict with it or seemed to conflict with it but it was something that was said by the doctor 00:26:13.960 --> 00:26:15.140 and I thought it was odd. 00:26:15.490 --> 00:26:16.480 I don't know what you made of it, 00:26:16.510 --> 00:26:20.960 but she described what cybermen are 00:26:21.360 --> 00:26:23.340 by talking about how they've had parts of themselves 00:26:23.740 --> 00:26:25.900 replaced with mechanical parts. 00:26:25.990 --> 00:26:27.840 And she said explicitly without consent. 00:26:27.980 --> 00:26:29.240 Without consent, yes. 00:26:30.800 --> 00:26:31.680 She did say that. 00:26:31.690 --> 00:26:33.420 And I have a note here about that. 00:26:35.960 --> 00:26:39.560 I thought that was very strange 00:26:40.700 --> 00:26:43.000 because obviously some cybermen, yes, 00:26:43.280 --> 00:26:45.000 have had all their parts augmented. 00:26:45.280 --> 00:26:49.780 Probably most Cybermen have had their stuff replaced without consent. 00:26:50.160 --> 00:26:52.960 But that is not what makes the horror of the Cybermen. 00:26:53.100 --> 00:26:54.540 It's whether with or without consent. 00:26:55.240 --> 00:26:57.700 And some of them went willingly, as far as we know. 00:26:59.940 --> 00:27:03.580 That's what's so wonderful about the origin stories, 00:27:05.160 --> 00:27:07.060 you know, in Tenth Planet or whatever, 00:27:07.220 --> 00:27:08.880 is that they did this to themselves. 00:27:09.300 --> 00:27:10.420 That's what is so horrifying. 00:27:11.160 --> 00:27:11.380 Right. 00:27:11.660 --> 00:27:14.140 That is the doom that we should be watching. 00:27:15.200 --> 00:27:15.640 It is. 00:27:16.220 --> 00:27:16.300 Right. 00:27:17.799 --> 00:27:19.560 And that does. 00:27:20.880 --> 00:27:23.080 Yes, it was a very strange line. 00:27:23.390 --> 00:27:28.800 And when she said that, you're just like, I was. 00:27:29.540 --> 00:27:31.260 Am I supposed to make something out of that? 00:27:31.290 --> 00:27:38.800 Are they just driving home a point about consent because they haven't got any other social justice issue at all in this episode? 00:27:39.160 --> 00:27:45.280 Maybe that was her concession to Chibber's checklist. 00:27:45.640 --> 00:27:46.940 She said, make sure you talk about consent. 00:27:47.120 --> 00:27:47.680 Okay, got it. 00:27:48.120 --> 00:27:48.220 Done. 00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:51.120 It's hardly a controversial social issue. 00:27:51.880 --> 00:27:52.360 I agree. 00:27:52.780 --> 00:27:54.420 Well, I didn't say any of them should be controversial. 00:27:54.500 --> 00:27:57.400 Well, it is controversial to people who don't agree with it. 00:27:58.440 --> 00:27:59.720 Like, as with all things. 00:28:00.400 --> 00:28:02.680 You shouldn't have your body parts replaced without consent. 00:28:03.780 --> 00:28:07.280 I'm sure that there's some, well, consent as an issue as a whole, 00:28:07.420 --> 00:28:08.760 not necessarily that specific, 00:28:10.040 --> 00:28:12.680 that specific aspect of it for, 00:28:12.920 --> 00:28:13.780 for body replacement. 00:28:14.100 --> 00:28:15.560 But yeah, 00:28:15.810 --> 00:28:15.920 I, 00:28:16.120 --> 00:28:16.200 I, 00:28:16.290 --> 00:28:17.060 it was an odd line. 00:28:17.420 --> 00:28:18.980 So the other aspect of it that I thought was, 00:28:19.500 --> 00:28:22.100 is worth asking the question is, 00:28:22.970 --> 00:28:26.540 is that a Cyberman that's broken down or is that a Cyberman that was put 00:28:26.740 --> 00:28:28.820 together from spare cyber parts? 00:28:29.480 --> 00:28:29.940 It's a, 00:28:30.200 --> 00:28:31.500 it's Cyberman that isn't complete. 00:28:31.800 --> 00:28:33.120 I'm sure there's a line. 00:28:33.200 --> 00:28:34.340 The doctor says something. 00:28:34.480 --> 00:28:34.700 It's like, 00:28:34.780 --> 00:28:38.120 You're not all complete or something like that. 00:28:38.460 --> 00:28:44.520 But yeah, because because because he's he's not had his emotions fully removed. 00:28:45.380 --> 00:28:53.600 He does get, you know, he sweeps he sweeps everything off the table in a very kind of cliched soap opera ish kind of angry way. 00:28:54.340 --> 00:28:56.020 Isn't that what people do in real life? 00:28:56.020 --> 00:28:59.000 When they're angry. Cybermen don't have emotions. 00:29:00.100 --> 00:29:08.900 Right. Well, he was angry and he touted several other emotions, irritating, irritated, and a number of other things. 00:29:09.060 --> 00:29:13.520 And the doctor specifically says he hasn't had his inhibitor in place. 00:29:15.120 --> 00:29:23.580 But no, I guess what I was getting at is you look at his helmet and it looks like it's busted apart. 00:29:24.440 --> 00:29:32.500 And my question is, is that, is this a Cyberman that for whatever reason didn't, um, didn't 00:29:32.660 --> 00:29:34.780 get finished or he was finished? 00:29:35.700 --> 00:29:36.620 How do I phrase this? 00:29:37.040 --> 00:29:41.880 The question is, did they put a, did the helmet that got put on him, was it complete and it 00:29:41.880 --> 00:29:43.060 got broken away? 00:29:43.620 --> 00:29:51.100 Or did they dig, uh, did they dig the helmet out of a pile of cyber rubble and put it on 00:29:51.320 --> 00:29:51.640 somebody? 00:29:52.380 --> 00:29:59.840 And is it possible because of a line that was said in this that it was done with consent? 00:30:01.060 --> 00:30:05.660 Because he said he slit his children's throats when they joined the resistance. 00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:07.240 Yes, that's yeah. 00:30:07.800 --> 00:30:10.240 And that's not something a Cyberman would do. 00:30:10.820 --> 00:30:11.020 True. 00:30:11.620 --> 00:30:13.220 That's something a human would do. 00:30:13.760 --> 00:30:20.480 And so is it possible that this guy, is it possible that there is a group of people who are working with the Cyberman? 00:30:21.240 --> 00:30:25.940 I think there is a potentially interesting story here. 00:30:26.790 --> 00:30:29.940 I hope that the next episodes deliver on it 00:30:30.140 --> 00:30:32.400 because I had a sense. 00:30:33.480 --> 00:30:35.460 I mean, I wasn't even kind of questioning this stuff 00:30:35.700 --> 00:30:37.740 about how his helmet was broken. 00:30:37.960 --> 00:30:39.720 The strong sense I got, 00:30:40.580 --> 00:30:44.320 and I guess it's maybe from the sort of background 00:30:44.900 --> 00:30:47.560 around what little we know, 00:30:47.600 --> 00:30:55.340 is that this is a cyber man from late in the cyber wars. 00:30:55.440 --> 00:30:59.260 I think that's referred to in future things that you do. 00:31:00.339 --> 00:31:04.820 And therefore, it's not, you know, 00:31:04.820 --> 00:31:07.920 you don't have the pristine cyber conversion, 00:31:09.340 --> 00:31:11.340 you know, all the kind of clinical, 00:31:12.540 --> 00:31:15.600 well-oiled machinery to do this stuff. 00:31:15.640 --> 00:31:19.640 What you're basically doing is you're just making do as best you can. 00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:22.200 The stuff may be failing. 00:31:22.980 --> 00:31:26.980 That could be why he is mid-processed. 00:31:26.980 --> 00:31:33.540 And it would also explain why parts of him are missing or in poor condition. 00:31:33.720 --> 00:31:39.000 Of course, that doesn't preclude the possibility because clearly in those circumstances, 00:31:39.440 --> 00:31:44.960 you're going to extreme measures to try and put together whatever you can to make some kind of army. 00:31:45.560 --> 00:31:51.340 even if it's not perfect just to to you know get them out there on the front line so it's it 00:31:51.660 --> 00:31:58.420 certainly doesn't preclude the possibility that he has been uh shot about a bit in the wars too 00:31:59.240 --> 00:32:05.200 but i guess the one the one thing the the one strong feeling i've got from that and i you know 00:32:05.200 --> 00:32:13.259 i can't i can't put my finger on definitive proof it's just a an impression i got from what we've 00:32:13.280 --> 00:32:21.140 been shown is that he was never a pristine cyber man from the start yeah i think yeah i think that's 00:32:21.200 --> 00:32:28.500 possible and i i i just have this i have this feeling that we're gonna get somewhere and this 00:32:28.500 --> 00:32:35.980 is totally speculation not any kind of spoilery stuff i'm just i get this feeling that those lines 00:32:36.360 --> 00:32:42.099 like the with consent in the and the and the bit about slitting his kid's throat we're gonna find 00:32:42.120 --> 00:32:48.680 in the future that there is a, I don't know, cult of the Cybermen trying to resurrect them. 00:32:49.780 --> 00:33:00.020 And to do that, they turn Ashad into as close to a Cybermen as they can to go back and get the 00:33:00.260 --> 00:33:07.980 information in the Siberian. I think that's what the lone Cybermen is going to be. He's going to be 00:33:08.580 --> 00:33:29.880 A lunatic, basically, because I think there's I think there's a lot of mileage in current social activity about talking about the lunatics who follow fascists and or support them or try to bring them into power. 00:33:31.640 --> 00:33:38.280 So, yeah, I and that would explain a resistance and that would explain special advisers in Downing Street. 00:33:40.880 --> 00:33:51.880 exactly so uh yeah that that i if they go there i'll be a kind of okay now my next question is 00:33:52.020 --> 00:34:00.720 but i mean connected with that is there is there is some other agency acting because 00:34:01.620 --> 00:34:07.200 someone has sent the siberian back and the siberian itself going yeah yeah what is that 00:34:07.080 --> 00:34:09.760 Yeah, it doesn't want the Cybermen to get it. 00:34:10.360 --> 00:34:25.820 And yet it seems to be billed as the cyber technology, I don't want to say the controller of the Cybermen, but it sounds like it's a thing built by the Cybermen to do cyber-y stuff. 00:34:26.480 --> 00:34:29.620 And yet for some reason it doesn't want to go back. 00:34:30.139 --> 00:34:33.260 Well, and I find it intriguing. 00:34:33.419 --> 00:34:45.060 I think it feels to me like there are potentially three different interested parties involved in whatever it is that is sending things back through time here. 00:34:45.820 --> 00:34:47.000 Could there be cyber factions? 00:34:47.780 --> 00:34:48.879 The purists? 00:34:49.460 --> 00:34:53.580 We'll call them the cult of the Cybermen, if you like. 00:34:54.960 --> 00:35:10.660 But whoever it is who is, the lone Cybermen and whoever his creators or acolytes or whoever may be, there is the Siberian, which is very mysterious and it's unclear what that's going on. 00:35:10.660 --> 00:35:13.980 But I think that may be the idea of a pure cyber race. 00:35:14.010 --> 00:35:14.560 I don't know. 00:35:14.700 --> 00:35:19.160 But I mean, pure cyber race doesn't make much sense because Cybermen have always been. 00:35:19.480 --> 00:35:19.560 Right. 00:35:20.840 --> 00:35:22.880 They've always been augmentations. 00:35:23.540 --> 00:35:30.160 And then there's obviously the actual resistance, the Captain Jack and whoever else. 00:35:30.690 --> 00:35:32.600 Yeah, now the Cybermen have always been the communists. 00:35:33.150 --> 00:35:39.100 I mean, the Daleks were the Nazis and the Cybermen were the communists who come in and take you over from within. 00:35:42.200 --> 00:35:43.940 Yeah, so I don't know. 00:35:44.400 --> 00:35:45.680 I don't know. 00:35:45.740 --> 00:35:57.820 I suppose there's what happens if Mondozian and Talosian Cybermen came up against each other one or or Mondozian and Cybex ones from another universe? 00:35:58.120 --> 00:36:04.320 I mean, would they would they all get along or would they all be like, no, we are the better cyber race. 00:36:04.940 --> 00:36:06.260 You will become like us. 00:36:06.830 --> 00:36:07.380 I don't know. 00:36:07.460 --> 00:36:17.920 I can imagine them, you know, getting together and have a sort of cyber swapping party where they exchange various bits of their augmented anatomies with one another. 00:36:18.560 --> 00:36:19.900 Hey, cool handles. 00:36:20.200 --> 00:36:23.820 Let, you know, let me swap that with your head, with my head. 00:36:23.900 --> 00:36:24.720 I've got this lantern. 00:36:24.960 --> 00:36:25.920 This is great, huh? 00:36:26.600 --> 00:36:27.840 I can see in a dark room. 00:36:31.200 --> 00:36:31.380 Yeah. 00:36:31.500 --> 00:36:32.040 So that. 00:36:32.820 --> 00:36:32.940 Yeah. 00:36:33.480 --> 00:36:33.660 I. 00:36:34.640 --> 00:36:36.580 It raises some interesting possibilities. 00:36:36.660 --> 00:36:41.420 It raises interesting questions a week before I expected us to have any questions about Cyberman. 00:36:42.200 --> 00:36:43.660 I will ask this question. 00:36:45.720 --> 00:36:47.880 Throughout, well, okay. 00:36:48.839 --> 00:36:52.200 Cyberman or the Siberian or Captain Jack's people. 00:36:52.240 --> 00:36:55.500 Well, we know Captain Jack's people because Captain Jack's a time agent. 00:36:55.630 --> 00:36:56.580 They have time travel. 00:36:57.160 --> 00:36:58.020 He's not a time agent. 00:36:58.680 --> 00:36:59.780 He's an ex-time agent. 00:37:00.060 --> 00:37:00.460 All right. 00:37:00.640 --> 00:37:03.240 But he is from a culture that has time travel. 00:37:03.760 --> 00:37:04.000 Sure. 00:37:04.580 --> 00:37:04.700 Okay. 00:37:05.140 --> 00:37:10.580 So, and so therefore his civilization has time travel. 00:37:10.690 --> 00:37:12.660 So human civilization has time travel. 00:37:12.660 --> 00:37:16.120 I know we've talked about the problem, the fact that everybody seems to have time travel now. 00:37:17.400 --> 00:37:17.920 And I agree. 00:37:18.660 --> 00:37:27.380 But if you had a thing and you wanted to keep somebody from getting it, is sending it back in time really a good idea? 00:37:27.950 --> 00:37:33.480 I mean, that seems like just the worst possible place to send something that you don't want people to find. 00:37:33.520 --> 00:37:37.760 The people sending things back in time are the people trying to change history. 00:37:38.400 --> 00:37:41.680 Is the Siberium, are they trying to change history with the Siberium? 00:37:41.730 --> 00:37:43.020 Is that what we're going for? 00:37:43.420 --> 00:37:44.380 I'm assuming so. 00:37:44.640 --> 00:37:47.580 I thought Jack said they sent something back in time to hide it. 00:37:47.690 --> 00:37:50.160 But I don't remember now. 00:37:50.800 --> 00:37:51.720 That's what I took out of it. 00:37:51.780 --> 00:37:52.740 I could be completely wrong. 00:37:53.460 --> 00:37:55.960 And the lone Cyberman is coming back to find it. 00:37:56.520 --> 00:38:01.100 So also, you know, if you are going to send something back in time for crying out loud, 00:38:01.160 --> 00:38:04.260 don't send it to Percy Bysshe Shelley's house, 00:38:04.980 --> 00:38:05.420 you know? 00:38:06.440 --> 00:38:06.500 Well, 00:38:06.680 --> 00:38:07.280 to be fair, 00:38:07.300 --> 00:38:09.420 it was in the lake by his house, 00:38:09.700 --> 00:38:10.720 but by his house. 00:38:10.940 --> 00:38:11.000 Yeah. 00:38:11.480 --> 00:38:13.540 It's like at the time when he would be there. 00:38:13.760 --> 00:38:14.000 I mean, 00:38:14.000 --> 00:38:15.360 you have all of time and space. 00:38:15.800 --> 00:38:16.380 I'm thinking, 00:38:17.540 --> 00:38:17.820 gosh, 00:38:17.920 --> 00:38:21.260 there's lots of places you could send it to and it would never be found that 00:38:21.400 --> 00:38:23.140 don't have people or we don't know. 00:38:23.200 --> 00:38:24.740 They sent it back to 1816. 00:38:25.580 --> 00:38:25.700 Yeah, 00:38:25.700 --> 00:38:26.220 we don't know. 00:38:26.300 --> 00:38:26.600 We don't, 00:38:26.660 --> 00:38:26.920 we don't know, 00:38:27.560 --> 00:38:29.700 but it could have been there for a few thousand years. 00:38:31.440 --> 00:38:38.580 fair enough fair enough um i just my general conjecture hiding things in the past seems like 00:38:38.580 --> 00:38:45.540 a bad idea um for everyone in the present um well while we're on the while we're on the cyberman 00:38:46.400 --> 00:38:53.340 i want to record the fact i love him he's such a good cyberman that's because he's got emotions 00:38:53.760 --> 00:38:59.860 and he's kind of cool looking and yeah he's cool looking he's there he's cool looking the whole 00:38:59.880 --> 00:39:06.000 thing of being able to see his you know his face and his arm and and you know getting that kind of 00:39:06.120 --> 00:39:13.340 the the horror of the the graying body parts inside the metal shell and all of that kind of 00:39:13.340 --> 00:39:19.920 thing and not just that the the way he the way he moves and the sounds when he moves and oh goodness 00:39:20.120 --> 00:39:28.660 me that you know the the hydraulics in his arms as he picks the baby up and and uh oh oh yeah yeah 00:39:28.680 --> 00:39:36.380 shivers for that bit it definitely is uh mostly better than all of the uh cybermen we've had in 00:39:36.380 --> 00:39:41.960 the new series and mary mary's aware that he doesn't kill the baby so that's another element 00:39:41.990 --> 00:39:47.820 in frankenstein isn't it yeah i guess it is i i like the fact that mary mary gives him the big 00:39:48.040 --> 00:39:55.540 speech about you know how trying to appeal to his humanity um and obviously the monster has 00:39:56.640 --> 00:39:58.400 this degree of humanity. 00:39:59.120 --> 00:40:01.960 And yet it completely doesn't wash with him. 00:40:02.260 --> 00:40:03.660 It looks like it's going to. 00:40:03.680 --> 00:40:05.780 And then he just turns on her 00:40:05.900 --> 00:40:07.280 and it's a brilliant scene. 00:40:08.560 --> 00:40:10.000 So I had a question about that then. 00:40:10.140 --> 00:40:11.800 You've read Frankenstein 00:40:11.880 --> 00:40:13.080 far more recently than I have, 00:40:13.220 --> 00:40:13.780 I'm quite certain, 00:40:13.960 --> 00:40:17.540 because I recently read your post on that. 00:40:18.840 --> 00:40:21.340 But I think I haven't read it 00:40:21.580 --> 00:40:23.340 since about 1980. 00:40:23.920 --> 00:40:30.640 So it's been a while since I read the book, which was a hard slog, as I recall. 00:40:31.760 --> 00:40:37.180 But what I recall is that when you come out of it, the monster is Frankenstein. 00:40:38.000 --> 00:40:43.500 Frankenstein's monster is more human than Frankenstein himself. 00:40:45.180 --> 00:40:48.300 Is that not what I remember from that? 00:40:48.440 --> 00:40:50.920 Remember, Frankenstein is the monster, not the doctor. 00:40:51.760 --> 00:40:55.680 No, I'm saying Frankenstein is actually the monster in this story. 00:40:55.880 --> 00:40:57.740 The Dr. Frankenstein is the monster. 00:40:58.240 --> 00:41:01.640 His monster is actually the more human of the two. 00:41:02.200 --> 00:41:04.200 Yes, Frankenstein is the monster. 00:41:04.980 --> 00:41:10.720 So if you were putting together a story where a woman was inspired by something that she 00:41:11.040 --> 00:41:16.680 encountered to write, I don't know that having her think she got through to the Cybermen 00:41:16.700 --> 00:41:23.100 and then have him prove that she was wrong would be maybe the story would have come out differently 00:41:24.020 --> 00:41:30.540 if you had if you had done that okay the monster is the monster though i mean the monster is 00:41:31.440 --> 00:41:39.420 the monster is a killer he's driven mad for understandable reasons but i don't think she 00:41:39.480 --> 00:41:48.160 tries to justify his actions so it i think the thing the thing there that doesn't fit is that 00:41:48.160 --> 00:41:53.040 you don't see you don't see the circumstances of his creation you know there's there's not 00:41:53.320 --> 00:41:59.000 there's nothing in the haunting of villa diodati that explains the character of frankenstein it 00:41:59.440 --> 00:42:06.020 it gives you the inspiration for the monster sure but frankenstein himself no but then on the other 00:42:05.940 --> 00:42:11.760 hand the the downside of stories like this fun though that they are where you kind of say oh 00:42:11.940 --> 00:42:18.000 this is how you know this is how this historical figure came up with this idea um is that you 00:42:18.220 --> 00:42:26.380 slightly diminish their creativity in inventories in the first place so perhaps in a way it's better 00:42:26.520 --> 00:42:32.280 that there is some distance between what we see in this story and what's actually in in the novel 00:42:33.080 --> 00:42:49.380 Do you know, if my wild speculation about this guy being assembled from parts of busted up Cybermen is true, which I don't know that that's explicitly enough stated. 00:42:49.460 --> 00:42:54.100 I mean, if somebody had never seen a Cyberman, you wouldn't necessarily get that. 00:42:54.800 --> 00:43:02.720 But that would be – then the person who did it is Frankenstein and Dr. Frankenstein. 00:43:03.320 --> 00:43:18.280 And, you know, there's no inkling of such a person or where he came from or what he did that Mary would get out of what she gets a chance to see in this story. 00:43:20.860 --> 00:43:25.380 So one thing that was kind of interestingly done, I guess, is that they were very adamant. 00:43:25.460 --> 00:43:32.520 And I don't know what the ages are, but they hired very young actors to play the parts because they were young, apparently. 00:43:33.540 --> 00:43:37.760 Particularly the women were quite, I think, teenagers still. 00:43:38.320 --> 00:43:39.060 18, 16. 00:43:39.380 --> 00:43:41.980 Mary would have been, yeah, she'd have been 18 or 19, I guess. 00:43:42.240 --> 00:43:52.900 Yeah. And so they hired people who were genuinely close to that age compared to, they're usually kind of aged up. Supposedly, I didn't look at the actors. 00:43:53.880 --> 00:43:54.960 I was unfamiliar with them. 00:43:54.960 --> 00:44:05.560 Another thing, either Chibnall or the writer said that they had, I think people will be interested because we've hired actors who are more appropriate to the actual age of the characters. 00:44:06.360 --> 00:44:24.100 They certainly looked the right age. What impressed me was they were really, really good. I mean, the actors playing Mary Shelley and Byron, especially, I just loved the performance of Mary Shelley. 00:44:24.240 --> 00:44:30.000 and that that did surprise me got that first time round I just I was just instantly taken 00:44:30.560 --> 00:44:35.640 with the way she portrayed her and I I really enjoyed Julie Cox when she was playing 00:44:36.900 --> 00:44:45.020 against Paul McGann as his companion as Mary Shelley but and and so I came into it with 00:44:45.080 --> 00:44:50.240 some expectations of of the character of Mary Shelley who I was expecting to see she did play 00:44:50.260 --> 00:44:56.140 completely differently but i i really i i don't know there was just there was there was something 00:44:56.460 --> 00:45:04.080 about her her glee in the the horror of it and her yeah i just yeah it was lovely i thought 00:45:04.800 --> 00:45:14.300 it was it was it was it was well done i will say the guy who played um byron um i i did occasionally 00:45:14.320 --> 00:45:20.360 look at him and think well i mean if they ever launch up a a revival of sherlock without benedict 00:45:20.460 --> 00:45:30.220 cumberbatch um maybe oh i didn't see him he kept reminding me of cumberbatch and i don't know what 00:45:30.220 --> 00:45:36.820 it was but something i mean yes but the hair maybe and and general stature but there was something 00:45:36.950 --> 00:45:42.760 else there that that uh you know and he was actually playing a different he wasn't playing 00:45:42.800 --> 00:45:48.080 sherlock holmes i don't don't mean to imply that just uh no no i'm not and i'm not saying 00:45:48.280 --> 00:45:54.940 i'm not saying i could imagine him as holmes but i i thought i thought his his performance as byron 00:45:55.180 --> 00:46:01.860 didn't you know it didn't it it was it was quite different it was quite distinctive and i i did 00:46:02.200 --> 00:46:11.420 i did like his um the way his mind was obviously working it it was yeah it was entertaining his 00:46:11.440 --> 00:46:16.900 his pursuit of the doctor who well i can't remember what the phrase he used he was something about how 00:46:16.920 --> 00:46:23.080 she was just enchanting or particularly lovely in a crisis something like that and she shot him down 00:46:23.120 --> 00:46:27.700 just like john pertwee would have if he tried that on her on him yeah um yeah which 00:46:29.800 --> 00:46:33.900 so makes her in some ways makes her more like older doctors and it would have david tenet or 00:46:34.040 --> 00:46:40.440 matt smith because i think both of them would have probably blushed um yeah i mean i think i think 00:46:40.460 --> 00:46:50.920 there is no doubt that this doctor is far less um well actually no it's true the the i must stop 00:46:51.020 --> 00:46:58.580 myself i hate that term this doctor the doctor currently but also the doctor in her past couple 00:46:58.680 --> 00:47:06.680 of incarnations i think it is fair to say has a lot less interest in that whole side of things 00:47:07.080 --> 00:47:11.580 than she did in the two incarnations preceding that. 00:47:12.280 --> 00:47:12.380 Yeah. 00:47:12.960 --> 00:47:13.680 At least two. 00:47:14.200 --> 00:47:15.400 And I welcome that. 00:47:15.790 --> 00:47:17.900 I welcome her spurning his advances. 00:47:19.280 --> 00:47:20.120 Good job. 00:47:21.140 --> 00:47:22.900 It was very funny. 00:47:23.680 --> 00:47:26.860 I do not like her licking bones or tasting bone dust. 00:47:27.540 --> 00:47:29.840 I didn't like that tasting dirt in Norway. 00:47:30.940 --> 00:47:31.880 Why didn't you like that? 00:47:32.120 --> 00:47:35.040 I just think it's a ridiculous too far. 00:47:35.660 --> 00:47:36.820 It varies due south. 00:47:42.140 --> 00:47:44.260 And due south is comedy. 00:47:49.540 --> 00:47:55.060 Due south is meant to make the Canadians look ridiculous in many ways. 00:47:56.740 --> 00:48:01.100 Whereas the Gallifreyans are all terribly, terribly dignified and serious people. 00:48:02.380 --> 00:48:05.980 It would be one thing if I thought the doctor who was licking it and was lying. 00:48:06.620 --> 00:48:07.360 Was lying. 00:48:08.380 --> 00:48:09.560 Yeah, this is just... 00:48:09.560 --> 00:48:14.260 But the fact that she's pronouncing that that actually is the correct comical composition, 00:48:14.840 --> 00:48:20.180 age, and no things from tasting a bit of a bone is just... 00:48:20.280 --> 00:48:21.640 You know... 00:48:22.680 --> 00:48:24.680 It's bad enough she could do it with a sonic, 00:48:25.300 --> 00:48:26.640 which at least is an instrument designed for detecting... 00:48:26.640 --> 00:48:28.100 Oh, no, I much prefer this to the sonic. 00:48:29.140 --> 00:48:31.780 I would prefer if she actually couldn't do either. 00:48:33.140 --> 00:48:37.320 and would have to rely on not that kind of shorthand. 00:48:37.390 --> 00:48:39.400 But anyway, let's see. 00:48:39.670 --> 00:48:44.440 I guess probably my one thing that comes to my mind at the episode 00:48:44.600 --> 00:48:47.200 is that the ultimate solution to this problem is to just give up, 00:48:47.780 --> 00:48:48.880 which is what the doctor did. 00:48:50.320 --> 00:48:51.360 You mean the dilemma? 00:48:52.140 --> 00:48:52.300 Yeah. 00:48:52.880 --> 00:48:53.740 Yeah, we'll just give it to him. 00:48:55.199 --> 00:48:57.080 Yeah, I liked that. 00:48:57.140 --> 00:49:02.120 I liked the fact that it was set up with a clear, you mustn't do this. 00:49:02.290 --> 00:49:07.320 And yet, when you get into the actual situation, how could you do anything else? 00:49:08.740 --> 00:49:11.720 Could the cybership have really have destroyed the Earth? 00:49:11.900 --> 00:49:13.500 Did he really even have a cybership? 00:49:17.340 --> 00:49:18.220 It seemed... 00:49:18.380 --> 00:49:19.760 You wouldn't find out, would you? 00:49:19.900 --> 00:49:24.060 I mean, if he had a cybership, you'd be dead before you knew it. 00:49:24.960 --> 00:49:39.400 I can't think of any specific examples, but I'm going to say that there have been occasions in the past where someone threatens something like that to the doctor. 00:49:40.340 --> 00:49:46.420 And the doctor does not back down because the doctor will outsmart them and or outplay them. 00:49:47.180 --> 00:49:53.260 And if it weren't for the fact that we had set up this, oh, don't give it to him under any cost. 00:49:53.760 --> 00:50:02.120 You know, I mean, I knew from the moment Captain Jack said that, that there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the doctor will give it to them. 00:50:04.240 --> 00:50:06.980 And well, it's Chekhov Siberia, isn't it? 00:50:07.620 --> 00:50:08.620 Pretty much. Yeah. 00:50:09.880 --> 00:50:14.120 Well, you've got to give them the MacGuffin because otherwise you never get to find out what the MacGuffin does. 00:50:14.640 --> 00:50:20.160 So, you know, it's got to happen and then you can then you can deal with it. 00:50:20.220 --> 00:50:43.440 I must say, one of the things I like about this Doctor, and I think, you know, I've mentioned this in the past, is that, I've done it again, this Doctor, the Doctor in this incarnation, the Doctor in this series in the Chibnall era, is fallible in, you know, in the way that Davison's Doctor was fallible. 00:50:43.940 --> 00:50:54.340 There is that scene at the end of the ghost monument that I think sets this up where you get a sense for a moment that she can be defeated. 00:50:55.680 --> 00:51:01.940 And it does, it does when when used appropriately, I think, create a real sense of jeopardy. 00:51:01.950 --> 00:51:12.420 The feeling I had in this was that when she when she was making the call, when she was saying, can I can I risk the fact that, you know, there could be a cyber ship that will destroy the earth. 00:51:12.680 --> 00:51:19.980 I believed it. I believed that she, you know, whatever, whatever you want to say about what 00:51:19.980 --> 00:51:24.460 the doctor has done in previous episodes, and there are goodness knows enough of them. 00:51:25.440 --> 00:51:32.260 I believed that in that moment, the doctor was weighing up the odds and was sufficiently convinced 00:51:32.600 --> 00:51:39.740 that this was a really, an impossible corner to get out of. And yes, there may have been a long 00:51:39.760 --> 00:51:44.620 shot she might have been able to outwit them or do something else but it was too big a risk to play 00:51:44.760 --> 00:51:50.920 with hey thought just occurs to me is captain jack trying to change the past well he comes 00:51:51.010 --> 00:51:55.200 he's either trying to change the past or he's trying to stop someone else from changing the 00:51:55.390 --> 00:52:00.240 past don't give it he's come to warn the doctor he says don't give them what they want 00:52:01.380 --> 00:52:10.080 she does not have what they want at the point in time that he contacts her she doesn't get what 00:52:10.470 --> 00:52:17.920 they want until they arrive at this place entirely through happenstance sure but 00:52:18.210 --> 00:52:24.480 happens to the right place to do is to encounter her before she has what he wants not you know 00:52:24.580 --> 00:52:27.180 But that means he has to know that she will get it. 00:52:27.740 --> 00:52:31.960 And that it is catastrophic that she not give it to them. 00:52:31.980 --> 00:52:36.560 There's no point in telling her not to give them something that she's never going to have. 00:52:36.630 --> 00:52:37.180 So he must. 00:52:37.880 --> 00:52:46.180 But my point is, is that if he knows she's going to get it, then he is trying to manipulate his past. 00:52:46.800 --> 00:52:48.080 Because that's a thing that's happened. 00:52:48.080 --> 00:52:49.220 He's certainly trying to manipulate it. 00:52:49.280 --> 00:52:56.760 what all i'm all i'm saying is he he might he may be he may be changing the past as it originally 00:52:56.980 --> 00:53:03.520 was whatever originally means or he may be trying to stop someone else from who has tried to or who 00:53:03.600 --> 00:53:09.200 has changed the past to some other course because it comes back to this thing i was saying earlier 00:53:09.340 --> 00:53:12.920 that there are these different there are these different operators involved in this situation 00:53:13.300 --> 00:53:19.240 and it's not quite clear who they are or what their agendas are or even because there appear 00:53:19.260 --> 00:53:21.660 at least two people trying to change the past, 00:53:23.600 --> 00:53:26.200 whether either of them have succeeded. 00:53:27.000 --> 00:53:30.660 Well, do you think that the Cybermen is trying to change the past? 00:53:31.180 --> 00:53:31.520 Yes. 00:53:32.040 --> 00:53:34.340 How so? He's just trying to get the Siberian back. 00:53:34.840 --> 00:53:38.400 Because the Cybermen have been defeated in the Cyber Wars. 00:53:38.880 --> 00:53:40.800 But we don't know that's why he wants the Siberian. 00:53:41.240 --> 00:53:44.920 But it's a pretty good motive for wanting to change the past. 00:53:45.260 --> 00:53:53.260 I'm thinking getting all of your, if it is, but I see no evidence that he's trying to change the past. 00:53:53.440 --> 00:53:59.300 I see evidence that a defeated Cyberman is trying to get something that will allow them to rebuild and start again. 00:54:00.100 --> 00:54:08.740 And I think that even Captain Jack said that, that they're trying to start again or they're trying to get it going all over again or something like that. 00:54:08.940 --> 00:54:14.560 So it's not about changing the past or at least there's no definitive thing. 00:54:14.780 --> 00:54:17.240 The only thing that sounds like it's changing the past is Captain Jack. 00:54:17.900 --> 00:54:23.320 And in so doing, we ask the question, well, how is that different than if they just killed Byron in the first place? 00:54:23.820 --> 00:54:28.440 Sorry, Shelley in the first place, but and let the Siberian go or stay. 00:54:28.690 --> 00:54:31.820 Well, because changing the past is not a goal in itself. 00:54:32.070 --> 00:54:41.460 There are parties involved here who have an interest in how future history plays out. 00:54:42.540 --> 00:54:54.600 And so it may be that they want it to go a certain way, or it may be that they want it not to go a way that someone else wants it to go, someone else who is trying to change it. 00:54:55.380 --> 00:54:58.600 There is no doubt that there is some changing of history going on here. 00:54:59.240 --> 00:55:10.400 And by the end of this episode, apart from the, as I say, the timescale, the fact that there's several days has turned into just one night, Percy wasn't involved in it. 00:55:10.430 --> 00:55:11.220 So that's all wrong. 00:55:11.880 --> 00:55:16.200 So at the end of this episode, the history is broken. 00:55:16.740 --> 00:55:22.320 The, you know, the story that took place within the episode was not how it should have happened. 00:55:23.340 --> 00:55:25.560 This is totally what's creating Dr. Ruth somehow. 00:55:26.980 --> 00:55:27.620 Well, it could be. 00:55:27.840 --> 00:55:35.380 I mean, I'm certainly wondering if the existence of Dr. Ruth is the reason that the doctor doesn't remember traveling with Mary Shelley in the past. 00:55:36.260 --> 00:55:36.820 Oh, nice try. 00:55:37.200 --> 00:55:49.320 She wouldn't turn up at the Villa Diodati knowing that she'd been there in the past and that she'd been traveling around with Mary in the past because that would be wildly irresponsible. 00:55:50.020 --> 00:55:51.420 Yeah, and the Doctor never does that. 00:55:51.760 --> 00:55:52.240 Exactly. 00:55:53.760 --> 00:55:56.540 What about this little Time Lord trick of showing you your death? 00:55:57.100 --> 00:55:58.060 Nice. I like it. 00:55:58.460 --> 00:56:02.880 It raises some interesting implications for the villains that the Doctor has defeated. 00:56:03.660 --> 00:56:08.980 It kind of makes that whole predestination thing kind of a little more real. 00:56:09.580 --> 00:56:11.480 So Time Lords can tell you how you're going to die. 00:56:12.460 --> 00:56:21.960 So if Morbius is, or not Morbius, if Solon is trying to, you know, if they could just take a quick look and see how Solon's going to die. 00:56:22.080 --> 00:56:22.600 Oh, okay. 00:56:22.660 --> 00:56:23.220 Well, then never mind. 00:56:23.460 --> 00:56:24.120 He's not going to succeed. 00:56:26.560 --> 00:56:27.360 I didn't. 00:56:27.780 --> 00:56:29.600 It doesn't necessarily work on other Time Lords. 00:56:30.440 --> 00:56:31.720 Well, Solon wasn't a Time Lord. 00:56:31.920 --> 00:56:32.680 Solon was the surgeon. 00:56:33.280 --> 00:56:34.340 I was trying to bring Morbius back. 00:56:34.760 --> 00:56:36.920 But that's why I switched from Morbius to Solon. 00:56:39.240 --> 00:56:40.200 But, yeah. 00:56:40.740 --> 00:56:40.840 Anyway. 00:56:41.180 --> 00:56:43.860 I haven't seen the brain of Morbius for quite a while. 00:56:44.080 --> 00:56:47.080 So I can't remember how Solon dies. 00:56:47.700 --> 00:56:48.220 Or what difference... 00:56:48.220 --> 00:56:50.720 The doctor murders him with cyanide gas. 00:56:51.340 --> 00:56:52.300 Oh, naughty doctor. 00:56:53.640 --> 00:56:54.420 It's like... 00:56:55.260 --> 00:56:56.420 So, yeah. 00:56:57.040 --> 00:56:57.900 Just a note. 00:56:58.920 --> 00:57:00.200 Shelley, Percy, Beth Shelley. 00:57:00.540 --> 00:57:10.360 Bish Shelley, obviously quite famous, and he did die in 1822 of drowning, although not in the shallows. 00:57:10.410 --> 00:57:12.520 He was in deeper water. 00:57:13.120 --> 00:57:15.980 But I thought it was kind of interesting. 00:57:16.740 --> 00:57:25.420 Shelley, if this wasn't known, was kind of a bit of a notorious atheist for his era, one of the scandalous things in his thing. 00:57:25.840 --> 00:57:36.140 When he died, the Courier in Britain, which I guess is a is or was a Tory paper, wrote the following to mark his passing. 00:57:36.860 --> 00:57:40.620 Shelley, the writer of some infidel poetry, has been drowned. 00:57:41.400 --> 00:57:43.680 Now he knows whether there is God or no. 00:57:46.240 --> 00:57:46.380 Hmm. 00:57:47.240 --> 00:57:48.760 He wasn't very popular in his lifetime. 00:57:50.040 --> 00:57:52.000 It's only afterwards that his writings were. 00:57:52.520 --> 00:58:05.040 And he wasn't popular with the British because he wrote in favor of Irish independence and all sorts of interesting, interesting, scandalous stuff, as did Byron as well. 00:58:06.400 --> 00:58:11.860 Because I guess we've kind of covered the lead guests. 00:58:12.100 --> 00:58:19.340 I'm a bit cheesed off that the staff get rather unceremoniously topped. 00:58:19.840 --> 00:58:22.300 That didn't sit so well with me. 00:58:22.540 --> 00:58:27.320 It kind of reminded me of, oh, what's his face in Madagascar? 00:58:28.680 --> 00:58:29.140 Oh, yeah. 00:58:29.740 --> 00:58:32.460 Dies and no one even remembers that he was alive in the first place. 00:58:32.460 --> 00:58:33.900 Or can't remember his name. 00:58:34.220 --> 00:58:34.340 Right. 00:58:34.820 --> 00:58:37.360 I can't remember his name because he's an instant character. 00:58:37.900 --> 00:58:44.920 I mean, I liked the character of Fletcher, the valet, in this. 00:58:45.560 --> 00:58:50.340 And I especially, especially loved it when Polidori announced that he would be his second. 00:58:50.470 --> 00:58:52.960 And he makes a sigh that's almost exactly like, you know, 00:58:54.080 --> 00:58:57.760 Zach Brannigan's Lieutenant Kiff in Futurama. 00:58:58.400 --> 00:59:02.320 Whenever Brannigan comes out with some outrageous declaration, 00:59:02.900 --> 00:59:08.960 normally wildly sexist or self-aggrandizing, and he just makes this sigh. 00:59:10.260 --> 00:59:14.220 And I just, I was irresistibly reminded of it by Fletcher in that scene. 00:59:14.840 --> 00:59:17.500 I did like the character of Fletcher. 00:59:18.090 --> 00:59:20.760 I think it's a little different from the guy in Madagascar 00:59:20.810 --> 00:59:23.580 because at least Byron, when he finds the body, 00:59:25.000 --> 00:59:27.640 seems to be, I'm not going to say moved, 00:59:28.240 --> 00:59:31.640 but at least, I don't know, poor Fletcher or something like that. 00:59:31.760 --> 00:59:33.220 So, I mean, he wasn't completely forgotten. 00:59:33.720 --> 00:59:34.700 Poor Fletcher, I knew him. 00:59:36.140 --> 00:59:41.340 I think it maybe ties in, or my disquiet with it ties in with the, 00:59:41.800 --> 00:59:45.640 I like it, but partly because it is making me think. 00:59:46.530 --> 00:59:52.580 And so there is this confrontation between Ryan and the Doctor 00:59:53.100 --> 00:59:58.740 because Ryan essentially puts the case for letting Percy die 00:59:58.950 --> 01:00:02.360 because it will save X other many lives. 01:00:03.280 --> 01:00:09.000 And the Doctor's response to that one is quite an interesting one 01:00:09.000 --> 01:00:11.320 because she doesn't, as I might expect, 01:00:12.100 --> 01:00:16.180 she doesn't kind of chastise him for his consequentialist approach. 01:00:17.100 --> 01:00:18.200 She doesn't say, 01:00:18.940 --> 01:00:21.560 I never met a person who was not important or whatever. 01:00:22.040 --> 01:00:27.560 She actually talks about how Shelley can't be allowed to die 01:00:27.760 --> 01:00:28.880 because he is important, 01:00:29.340 --> 01:00:35.500 which kind of the corollary or the flip side of that is, 01:00:36.520 --> 01:00:44.220 well, then these household servants, these nursemaids and valets are not important. 01:00:45.220 --> 01:00:51.540 And so in the end, she goes to argue, she convinces him by, 01:00:52.240 --> 01:01:00.220 Shelley is not a question of saying it would be worth saving him, whoever he is. 01:01:00.800 --> 01:01:02.600 She doesn't even try to make that argument. 01:01:02.780 --> 01:01:08.480 She says he's important. He will have a consequence on the way that history plays out. 01:01:08.760 --> 01:01:13.020 If history doesn't play out the way it's supposed to play out, you will be dead. 01:01:13.860 --> 01:01:18.080 Therefore, you should agree with me in order to preserve yourself. 01:01:18.800 --> 01:01:23.460 Yeah, it was. I did not care for the whole the whole piece there. 01:01:23.660 --> 01:01:29.320 I know a lot of people are cheering finally a Jody speech, but I did not. 01:01:30.300 --> 01:01:32.140 It is a good speech. It is a good speech. 01:01:32.720 --> 01:01:35.420 What I like about it is partly that I don't... 01:01:35.560 --> 01:01:41.440 We've had this thing now running through this whole series 01:01:41.900 --> 01:01:47.260 where essentially this set of companions who are played by good actors, 01:01:47.420 --> 01:01:49.260 we're getting good performances from them, 01:01:49.300 --> 01:01:53.380 and they are interesting characters in the way that they were introduced and written, 01:01:53.380 --> 01:01:55.320 and I enjoyed them in the last season. 01:01:55.700 --> 01:02:01.699 But there is no doubt that the Doctor has been written in a way 01:02:01.720 --> 01:02:04.040 that she is essentially just treating them as pets. 01:02:05.400 --> 01:02:07.980 This speech acknowledges that. 01:02:08.470 --> 01:02:12.600 The fact that, you know, she actually explicitly says 01:02:12.900 --> 01:02:17.120 all of this fam stuff is just so much bullshit 01:02:17.420 --> 01:02:18.500 as far as she's concerned. 01:02:18.740 --> 01:02:20.120 They are not equal to her. 01:02:20.700 --> 01:02:23.300 She is the one who has to make these decisions. 01:02:24.240 --> 01:02:29.280 And while they may be amusing and pleasant company 01:02:29.370 --> 01:02:30.560 to have around the TARDIS, 01:02:31.240 --> 01:02:32.660 They don't matter to her. 01:02:33.020 --> 01:02:33.880 In the end, yep. 01:02:34.560 --> 01:02:37.120 I took that out of this as well. 01:02:37.180 --> 01:02:38.240 And I like that being acknowledged. 01:02:38.820 --> 01:02:45.020 I think it fits with your notion that she's being built to a big fall for this. 01:02:46.600 --> 01:02:47.740 For her arrogance. 01:02:49.000 --> 01:02:50.400 You know, it's all... 01:02:50.980 --> 01:02:53.160 The moral dilemma of it is different from... 01:02:53.440 --> 01:02:54.100 That's fine. 01:02:54.100 --> 01:02:58.540 The moral dilemma of it is fine because she... 01:02:58.900 --> 01:02:59.740 I'm not saying she's right. 01:02:59.900 --> 01:03:02.740 I'm just saying that she has to make the decision. 01:03:03.480 --> 01:03:09.140 She feels that the ultimate decision-making process falls upon her. 01:03:10.480 --> 01:03:16.360 I guess the other part that bugs me is, as you say, with the whole Shelley being important, the other people are not being important. 01:03:16.750 --> 01:03:27.360 It comes down to what the heck is it that they're doing with time travel that isn't anywhere that they go that they couldn't screw something up. 01:03:28.020 --> 01:03:41.620 And without any kind of limitations on it, a la the Aztecs, it seems like they are kind of floundering around with different ideas that they can't reconcile. 01:03:42.920 --> 01:03:46.360 And the the Butler versus Shelley is one of them. 01:03:46.920 --> 01:03:53.580 Well, I know I I don't I don't think that's what bothers me about it, because I don't think what bothers me about it. 01:03:54.350 --> 01:03:55.240 Oh, well, fair enough. 01:03:56.200 --> 01:03:58.280 I wasn't trying to paraphrase what it bothers about you. 01:03:58.320 --> 01:04:01.040 It bothers me for those reasons. 01:04:01.420 --> 01:04:11.060 Like the doctor cannot possibly know whether or not that butler isn't Ryan's great grandfather for all we know. 01:04:11.700 --> 01:04:17.600 But we've never really had any kind of butterfly effect in Doctor Who. 01:04:17.700 --> 01:04:20.140 I mean, the closest I think is Pyramid of Mars. 01:04:20.180 --> 01:04:23.000 And that's another big, you know, you make a big change. 01:04:23.920 --> 01:04:32.100 that Doctor Who wouldn't work if you had that and so it's in in that there has been any 01:04:32.480 --> 01:04:37.200 consistency about time travel and I think we've spent a good couple of hours just discussing all 01:04:37.260 --> 01:04:43.420 of the different and entirely contradictory approaches to time travel that the show has 01:04:43.580 --> 01:04:51.939 adopted throughout the years it it is it is at least it is at least that the the thing that 01:04:52.240 --> 01:05:03.240 The thing that bugs me about this is that the characters in the story, and particularly our supposed heroes, don't take those deaths seriously. 01:05:04.300 --> 01:05:07.860 They take the deaths of the toffs seriously. 01:05:09.500 --> 01:05:10.960 And there is a story reason for that. 01:05:11.100 --> 01:05:12.000 And OK, fair enough. 01:05:12.120 --> 01:05:14.140 And, you know, this may be the exception to rule. 01:05:14.150 --> 01:05:14.560 I just. 01:05:15.280 --> 01:05:16.640 Those are the names history remembers. 01:05:16.830 --> 01:05:17.840 And that's all that's important. 01:05:18.350 --> 01:05:18.540 Yeah. 01:05:19.650 --> 01:05:19.840 Yeah. 01:05:19.920 --> 01:05:24.800 We have no idea if Fletcher was the name of their actual ballot. 01:05:26.860 --> 01:05:27.800 In the end, that could be. 01:05:27.820 --> 01:05:28.340 I don't know. 01:05:28.500 --> 01:05:28.940 I don't know. 01:05:28.980 --> 01:05:29.700 They may have not had one. 01:05:30.240 --> 01:05:38.460 If Matthew Nolston is a brilliant scholar on Mary Shelley, she may have done the research and she may have discovered the records. 01:05:39.700 --> 01:05:40.380 And killed them off. 01:05:41.080 --> 01:05:41.320 Maybe. 01:05:41.400 --> 01:05:42.480 It turned out they died that night. 01:05:43.000 --> 01:05:45.160 They actually died of heart attack, both of them that night. 01:05:45.260 --> 01:05:55.200 and uh coincidentally so she decided to work it into uh into her her story uh the thing is i don't 01:05:55.320 --> 01:06:02.880 think that whatever i although i like it being acknowledged that she is she is sort of um arrogant 01:06:03.660 --> 01:06:09.100 yeah arrogant she she has that she has this it's acknowledged the regard that she holds the 01:06:09.180 --> 01:06:18.840 companions in is is this kind of um view of them as being very far from uh equal and and their 01:06:19.740 --> 01:06:27.440 agency doesn't does not really play a part when it comes to the important things that's not for 01:06:27.520 --> 01:06:32.700 me necessarily going to make up for the fact that they have had very little agency throughout this 01:06:32.800 --> 01:06:39.280 series and that has made for some disappointing stories because though I say that I like 01:06:39.840 --> 01:06:43.580 I like them all I think they're interesting I think there is lots of potential it is quite 01:06:43.840 --> 01:06:49.780 frustrating when you see that not being realized and in many ways I think because I think this 01:06:49.950 --> 01:06:56.240 season for me I loved the previous season of Doctor Who it's really really good this season 01:06:56.940 --> 01:07:01.299 I haven't enjoyed it nearly as much not because there haven't been some good episodes but because 01:07:01.320 --> 01:07:09.060 there have been some real ups and downs and it feels to me like that the the good episodes would 01:07:09.300 --> 01:07:14.340 actually perhaps have been better if they just had the doctor traveling on her own in a story like 01:07:14.480 --> 01:07:19.380 this you know a mechanical dog percy had had to be written out you've got a lot of interesting 01:07:19.660 --> 01:07:28.219 supporting characters and yet what they what they have to do then is find something for these three 01:07:28.780 --> 01:07:36.160 extra people to do in this whole haunted house thing on top of the doctor and and it's not that 01:07:36.160 --> 01:07:44.060 i didn't enjoy some of it i mean i i loved ryan and polidori's uh confrontation uh you know ryan 01:07:44.280 --> 01:07:49.500 trying to talk him down from fighting a duel and all that that that was very good graham's usually 01:07:49.620 --> 01:07:56.719 good value even if they they're kind of oh cheers mate some lovely nosh shtick is wearing a bit thin 01:07:57.280 --> 01:08:04.580 it's just you could do without it yep you could you could sorry i was just gonna say while we're 01:08:04.580 --> 01:08:11.440 on the companions i probably ought to mention we have a another reference to the zero chemistry 01:08:12.170 --> 01:08:19.940 um apparent uh what what should we say uh crush that someone has on someone else in the tardis 01:08:20.900 --> 01:08:30.480 i'm assuming where was that yaz says to claire who claire is mooning over byron she's actually 01:08:31.120 --> 01:08:37.680 it's not mentioned in this she's pregnant with byron's child at this point yeah um yaz says 01:08:38.410 --> 01:08:44.619 i know someone like that who's she talking about well um she's obviously talking about the doctor 01:08:45.200 --> 01:08:50.799 i was not willing to go so far as to think she was thinking about the doctor romantically i thought 01:08:50.900 --> 01:08:56.080 she was talking about i thought she's thinking about ryan based on really no nobody nobody would 01:08:56.240 --> 01:09:02.859 describe ryan in the terms that claire was describing byron exactly yaz says my person's 01:09:02.980 --> 01:09:13.099 different uh well no i didn't get that i thought she was just referring to the fact that the cult 01:09:13.120 --> 01:09:19.700 of magnetism that the doctor has is you know claire is drawn to the magnetism of byron yes 01:09:20.140 --> 01:09:25.380 they hang around to the magnetism of the doctor is what i was i'm not sure about that i think i 01:09:25.390 --> 01:09:31.180 think there is something else going on you were the one in spyfall who said that ryan was interested 01:09:31.250 --> 01:09:39.180 in yaz oh yeah it was clear in spyfall in orphan 55 it's not that way around no it's the other way 01:09:39.160 --> 01:09:43.779 around and i think that's that i think that's what's going yeah yeah seems to be interested in 01:09:43.799 --> 01:09:48.660 right but but when you get scenes with them together i never sense it and i never there's 01:09:48.660 --> 01:09:54.360 no i never i never understand i don't have any sense of why she thinks it's not reciprocated so 01:09:54.860 --> 01:09:59.540 you never get any sense that in spy fall there is the scene where the two are sitting on the bench 01:09:59.670 --> 01:10:06.260 and and ryan is talking about how i would never let anything happen to you yeah so i mean that's 01:10:06.280 --> 01:10:10.600 a scene where they're together just just to contradict that you never see it when they're 01:10:10.760 --> 01:10:15.820 together they're there they were um no no there are scenes when they're together what i mean is 01:10:15.820 --> 01:10:23.580 you never get any scenes that make you sense that either yaz has this crush on ryan it's not it i 01:10:23.720 --> 01:10:29.980 don't i don't see any indication of it in those scenes nor have we seen anything that suggests 01:10:30.000 --> 01:10:33.100 that Ryan isn't interested in her. 01:10:33.790 --> 01:10:36.800 Ryan did go awfully fast for the crazy woman in Orphan 55. 01:10:38.120 --> 01:10:39.580 Yeah, I guess it could be that. 01:10:41.140 --> 01:10:44.300 And maybe Yaz is taking him at his face value 01:10:44.500 --> 01:10:46.040 when he talks about Sonia, I don't know. 01:10:46.780 --> 01:10:50.100 Or, you know, Yaz is pining after the doctor. 01:10:50.720 --> 01:10:53.060 I mean, that was set up in the first season as well 01:10:53.280 --> 01:10:57.000 when mom made a crack about Yaz being a lesbian. 01:10:57.500 --> 01:10:57.800 True. 01:10:58.620 --> 01:11:05.240 And it sort of explains some of that stuff in Praxeus, where she's obviously trying to impress the Doctor. 01:11:05.960 --> 01:11:09.740 She's trying to be seen by the Doctor as being an equal. 01:11:10.440 --> 01:11:10.760 Could be. 01:11:11.300 --> 01:11:12.240 I wonder where this is going. 01:11:12.360 --> 01:11:14.140 If the Doctor is saying, none of you are my equal. 01:11:14.800 --> 01:11:15.440 They're all leaving. 01:11:16.020 --> 01:11:16.900 All three of them are gone. 01:11:17.360 --> 01:11:17.720 They're out. 01:11:19.220 --> 01:11:19.600 I don't know. 01:11:19.760 --> 01:11:23.420 I will put out this for the record. 01:11:23.620 --> 01:11:24.600 It was interesting. 01:11:24.900 --> 01:11:34.400 It was nice to see Chibnall acknowledge something that happened in the Moffat era and not try to pretend it didn't happen in the cyber conversion of Bill. 01:11:34.900 --> 01:11:36.400 We did get a call back to that. 01:11:37.260 --> 01:11:38.460 I'll never let that happen. 01:11:39.120 --> 01:11:40.360 I'll never let that happen again. 01:11:41.960 --> 01:11:44.100 And my final question to you. 01:11:44.800 --> 01:11:55.140 The poem that Byron is reading at the end, which was indeed written in about July of 1816, is called Darkness. 01:11:55.900 --> 01:11:58.400 And it is apocalyptic. 01:11:59.080 --> 01:12:04.880 Many people think of it as a post-apocalyptic view of the world. 01:12:04.880 --> 01:12:12.240 Many people thought, scholars thought for many years, that it had to do with the year without a summer. 01:12:12.900 --> 01:12:20.040 Because not only did that happen, it was an incredibly low solar minimum. 01:12:20.900 --> 01:12:23.180 Sunspots so big they could be seen with the naked eye. 01:12:23.760 --> 01:12:26.860 There were a lot of people thinking it was the end times. 01:12:27.130 --> 01:12:27.800 There were riots. 01:12:27.990 --> 01:12:33.540 There was all sorts of confusion and consternation that the world was coming to an end. 01:12:35.140 --> 01:12:41.860 It was also a period of time when we were discovering that there were fossils, that there were extinct species. 01:12:42.040 --> 01:12:49.920 this is a notion that to some people was an unacceptable notion because God created the 01:12:50.020 --> 01:12:54.880 earth the way it is. And all the species are here for man and they can't go extinct. 01:12:57.239 --> 01:13:03.740 And we know that was in the thinking of Byron in some of his work, that he knew that and that 01:13:03.740 --> 01:13:10.840 he recognized that as problematic for some people. So anyway, the point is, is that in the end, 01:13:10.900 --> 01:13:15.060 I think the schools of thought are, is that he was talking about this whole end times thing. 01:13:15.070 --> 01:13:21.400 And he's also, he's talking about religion, because there's a lot of religious imagery in that poem. 01:13:22.520 --> 01:13:23.540 And the bad things. 01:13:24.219 --> 01:13:32.120 And the way this episode ends, by having him read that and end it over a sort of glamour shot of the Doctor, 01:13:32.820 --> 01:13:35.760 makes me feel like the writer is trying to say, no, no, no, no, no. 01:13:36.320 --> 01:13:38.720 Byron was talking about the Doctor. 01:13:39.340 --> 01:13:40.300 She is the darkness. 01:13:41.140 --> 01:13:43.000 and that's probably just the directing 01:13:43.740 --> 01:13:46.640 but did not think that worked right 01:13:47.060 --> 01:13:48.240 because not only that 01:13:48.440 --> 01:13:50.680 I don't think that's what Byron would have taken out of it 01:13:51.100 --> 01:13:52.460 out of his encounter with the Doctor 01:13:52.920 --> 01:13:54.000 she didn't bring the darkness 01:13:54.660 --> 01:13:55.420 she brought the light 01:13:56.140 --> 01:14:00.500 so did any of that resonate in any way 01:14:00.740 --> 01:14:01.620 as you were watching that 01:14:01.860 --> 01:14:04.300 because that's what I was thinking as I saw it 01:14:04.300 --> 01:14:05.780 I don't get that 01:14:05.860 --> 01:14:07.240 I would not associate her with 01:14:07.300 --> 01:14:09.500 and if you go read the poem even more so 01:14:09.520 --> 01:14:14.620 But, well, I am reading the poem now, but I haven't studied it. 01:14:14.860 --> 01:14:19.660 So this is very much my off-the-cuff opinion. 01:14:20.040 --> 01:14:24.260 But I felt that there was more of the darkness about this Doctor 01:14:24.440 --> 01:14:26.280 than we have seen for quite a long time 01:14:27.060 --> 01:14:30.000 because of the decisions that she was making, 01:14:30.540 --> 01:14:33.460 because of the way in which she was making them 01:14:33.440 --> 01:14:41.480 and the attitude and the way she was treating the people whose lives she was weighing up, I guess. 01:14:42.020 --> 01:14:45.340 I liked the episode ending with the poem. 01:14:45.840 --> 01:14:46.880 I liked it at the time. 01:14:47.000 --> 01:14:48.820 I still like it now, looking at the poem. 01:14:49.340 --> 01:14:53.320 I felt that cutting to a shot of the Doctor was a bit on the nose. 01:14:53.840 --> 01:14:55.400 You could have... 01:14:55.740 --> 01:15:01.140 It's an episode of Doctor Who where he's just spent the whole thing mooning over the Doctor. 01:15:01.240 --> 01:15:09.180 you don't need that cutaway to get the the possibility that he could be writing about her 01:15:10.140 --> 01:15:16.940 so that was my main feeling it was i still get the feeling you know he he sees her as amazing 01:15:17.410 --> 01:15:23.620 he says as much you know she is she is it just it feels like the wrong choice of a poem to try 01:15:23.740 --> 01:15:29.880 to associate with her at that at that moment anyway do you have anything else because we've 01:15:29.900 --> 01:15:31.740 run long on this one. No, I'm 01:15:32.080 --> 01:15:33.840 all done. Finally an episode of 01:15:33.940 --> 01:15:34.900 Doctor Who worth talking about. 01:15:37.040 --> 01:15:38.040 For a long 01:15:38.360 --> 01:15:39.920 time. Well, listeners, 01:15:40.220 --> 01:15:41.860 remember it's going to be two weeks. 01:15:42.080 --> 01:15:43.860 Next week, we are going to be releasing 01:15:44.540 --> 01:15:45.900 a podcast we did 01:15:46.620 --> 01:15:47.920 in 2019 for 01:15:48.040 --> 01:15:49.920 our patrons, but 01:15:50.040 --> 01:15:51.600 we're going to be releasing it to the public feed 01:15:51.960 --> 01:15:53.800 to fill in your week, and we're going to be 01:15:53.900 --> 01:15:56.100 talking about... Sex Olympics! 01:15:56.640 --> 01:15:57.840 Sex Olympics! The year 01:15:57.940 --> 01:15:59.860 of the Sex Olympics. An amazing 01:16:00.080 --> 01:16:03.680 an absolutely amazing piece of work by Nigel Neill for the BBC, 01:16:05.480 --> 01:16:10.060 that if you can find it, find it, watch it, and join us for our discussion. 01:16:11.640 --> 01:16:13.620 And Simon, thank you for joining me this week. 01:16:13.840 --> 01:16:14.960 It's a pleasure, as always. 01:16:15.880 --> 01:16:19.380 And listeners, hope you'll join us all again next time on Fusion Patrol. 01:16:21.460 --> 01:16:24.240 You've been listening to Fusion Patrol, a listener-supported podcast. 01:16:25.040 --> 01:16:28.760 Find out how you can be a sponsor and get early access to all episodes and more 01:16:28.780 --> 01:16:31.860 at patreon.com slash fusion patrol. 01:16:35.460 --> 01:16:37.840 Come join the conversation on Facebook or Twitter. 01:16:40.200 --> 01:16:42.940 All episodes are available at fusion patrol.com. 01:16:46.080 --> 01:16:48.520 Our music is fight the future by Amber Wolf. 01:16:51.560 --> 01:16:54.080 This has been a lone locust production. 01:16:55.500 --> 01:16:59.460 If he dies, Earth's history is irrevercably irrevercably. 01:17:02.380 --> 01:17:02.880 Irrevercably. 01:17:03.420 --> 01:17:04.000 Wow, that's a good word. 01:17:04.000 --> 01:17:05.560 Yeah, you're not going to be doing any verking after that.