The Story & the Engine

Season 2, Episode 5. First broadcast on Saturday 10 May 2025.

Episode 17 · Monday 12 May 2025.

This week, in a barbershop in Lagos, we find a web of myths and stories — and a whole world — that we (at least) never knew existed.

Here’s a link to Inua Ellam’s story What I Did On My Holidays By Omo Esosa on the BBC website.

Recorded on Monday 12 May 2025 · Download (33.4 MB)
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Transcript

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to the 2nd great and bountiful Human Empire, the only Doctor Who flash cast whose 6 word story is some nerds had too many opinions. Actually, maybe not the only Doctor Who flash cast. I'm Nathan. I'm Brendan, and I'm Todd. Well, we are here to talk about the story and the engine, the 2nd Doctor Who episode to have an ampersand in the title. It's written by Inua Ellams, who also plays the stall holder. Uh, it turns out, uh, and directed by McCallum McPherson. And I think that we'll just start by saying what we thought of the episode generally. Todd, what sort of experience did you have watching this episode? Well, Nathan. I wanted to like it more than I did as I watched it the 1st time. I found it very talky, and I was missing things, and I could see all the components, and, and but I kept looking at my watch, which reminded me of Chris Chibnall episodes, and I sort of, I sort of left myself muddled at the end. It's not a four, it could be an eight. You know, it's probably a 6. So I wanted to give it some breathing space. So I did watch it again last night. And I'm so delighted to report that I did have a ton experience where I liked it a lot more the 2nd time through and I got a lot of the explanations, which I missed, which just made it much more cohesive. So I actually thought it was very good. Brendan? I wanted to watch it again. before recording, but I haven't had time. But I've sort of had the experience of just thinking about it more and just thinking about it more has made me enjoy it even more. And even my 1st impression of it was, well, this is definitely a 7 out of 10. And I've said this on socials elsewhere, it gave me the Warriors Gate feeling of the 1st time I watched Warriors Gate. I came away from it going, I loved that. I don't know what was going on. This I actually had a better idea of what was going on when I finished watching it and just the 2 days I've had since then just sitting cogitating it. It's like, it's not only something beautiful, which is what, which is what I felt as the credits rolled. I went, no, no, no, I really like this story about stories and reading up on Enua Ellams and finding out his background as a playwright. I understand why the episode is written and directed the way it is. It's like a stage play and that's obviously something I'm very fond of. He's a poet as well, which is sort of interesting. I had a similar experience. I actually went out to dinner on Saturday night and came home having enjoyed the dinner and I watched it in bed on my phone. And I'm kind of going, I'm not following this, but maybe I'm kind of not sort of a bit under the weather or whatever. Like I thought it was stunningly beautiful and some incredible performances, but I couldn't kind of see how it all fit together. And I have to say the 2nd time I watched it, it was clearer, but it does seem to operate on a logic that I'm not always able to follow. And some of it is the sort of logic of myth and mythology and things like that. It seems to be really packed and really dense. And then this afternoon I read El Sandov's review and she compared it to Ghost Light, which I thought was actually really interesting because Ghost Light has a very strong thematic core. It has a real proper vibe and a real kind of atmosphere that everything is working towards. And on 1st viewing it makes very little sense. It's hard to see how all the pieces fit together. And so, there's a sense in which this is an episode that is being told in a way that we're not used to. And I still think it is a bit talky in the middle, but I think it's magnificent. And like you, Brendan, I've not been able to stop thinking about it since I 1st saw it. Well, I just have to concur that, you know, I gave it that breathing space because I kept thinking about it too. Well, I mean, let's talk about Africa. Doctor Who has been set in Africa before. For a few brief moments in the middle of the Dalek Master plan where we visit Egypt. And I thought that, you know, that it just looked amazing. Like the attempt to create, you know, Lagos in Wales, I think. Although there must have been some shooting overseas as well. There must have been some shooting in Africa, I think, some of the earliest scenes in the market. But I thought it looked amazing, like a really striking looking episode and vastly different from anything that we've seen before. It reminded me of, oh, I can't think of the show now. It was done several years ago and it was all set in Africa and they did one series of it. Oh, somebody will remind me. I think it's the ladies something detective agency. I can't remember. Oh yeah, the number one ladies detective agency, is that it? Yes. Correct. Yeah. And that's what it reminded me of, just their experiences and what they were talking about, and I really appreciated that. But then the barbershop, the sparseness of the barbershop and the streets and that I thought was really striking. Look, I did think that the initial scenes obviously were filmed in Lagos, but then we went into the, we've done the studio market and I did kind of went, well, I think it looks better than the market in turn left. I think it because, yeah, it's shot closer and stuff and there seem to be more people and the and the set seem to be bigger. I'm just, I'm just seeing here. they did commission and shoot drone shots of a market in Lagos and everything else was created in the studio. The funny thing is, those really tight early shots in the market where it's really crowded. It didn't strike me immediately that, oh, this studio. It was when the doctor goes into the back alley and sees the missing posters and finds Omo's shop. And I was kind of okay with that feeling a bit more like studio because we're meant to feel that this is different. Yes, to the bustling, lively, happy market outside. And, you know, with how happy the doctor is as soon as he's walking through there. Yeah, in Doctor Who terms, it does make me think of turn left. It does make me think of the Rings of Akaten. But in both of those cases, you never really feel like the doctor is part of the market. Like the doctor is there and is a tourist enjoying these things whereas... Shoot, he just really manages to subtly play that feeling of belonging that the doctor is talking about. And it's quite beautiful. It's something we don't often see. You know, something about the doctor's characters. The doctor is distant. So to have somewhere that the doctor feels like home is absolutely beautiful. I mean, this is a doctor who's much less guarded and much more willing to show his feelings. He's someone who is open. He's not, it's not like he's a mask or a performance the way maybe tenants doctor is or the way that Jody's doctor was. She was very guarded and very private and this doctor isn't like that at all. There's that scene at the beginning, which I just thought was magnificently good because like you're casting a black doctor. And what we have here is a black doctor, a black script writer, and a black director, all working on this episode, and this episode really centres Shooty's blackness, and it lets him talk about it for the 1st time. There's that, you know, that moment in dot and bubble where he suddenly realises that all of those people are racist and that's why he's being treated in this way. Um, but here he talks, he talks to us about the experience of being black and what the barbershop means to him. And like I was aware that the black barbershop is an important element in African-American culture. You know, you see that depicted on TV and in movies and things all the time. I didn't know that it was a thing in Africa itself. But that barbershop where men meet and it's a safe place. But I really appreciated that insight from him. And the wonderful way that, you know, it's portrayed as something like I, you know, this is an alien thing, I'm the doctor and you won't understand this, Belinda. And then Belinda comes back and talks about being taken to India by her nan and having exactly the same experience and feeling the same way. And that's not a perspective that we've heard expressed in Doctor Who before. And it is a thing where having a black doctor opens up the show to different types of storytelling and that's exactly what's happening here. And that was a beautiful scene and a lovely moment with Belinda. She had some nice moments actually in the episode. She had a couple of other lines later on, which I thought were very nice, even if I did feel like she was a bit sidelined for part of the episode. Like, obviously they need to get to flash back in so they could have Mrs. Flood and that sort of stuff. But it would have been nice, had, um, Abby, perhaps been monitoring her in the marketplace and led her there. I just kind of thought that was a little bit clunky, if I can put it like that, because at one point in the marketplace blending gets pulled up for knocking over the, you know, the store and then she's okay, like nothing happened. Yeah, I would have liked if Abby had sort of been monitoring this companion and then sort of directed her or just something there like that was something for me that that I would have liked to have seen. But when she was in the action, later on, she was extremely good and I can't remember the line, but there was a line that she did say, I'm sure she said it to Abby, which was very powerful, but I can't remember why. Is it hurt people, hurt people? Was that her line or was that for his line? Yeah, that was her line. Yeah, that was blind. Yeah, that was the line then. Yeah. And I just thought, wow, you know, again, showing what a great character that she is. I mean, I believe this was originally written for Millie's character. Oh, right. But you don't realise that, you know. In fact, I think it works really well because there's that thing where she really wants to go home and and the doctor's going to take her. He goes out, like he explains how important this place is, but he goes out with a vindicator. He uses the vindicator, and then he's coming back in to just leave and she says, no, you go, you know, go to this place that makes you happy. And people have been sort of complaining a little bit about her constantly saying, I need to, I need to go home. You have to take me home. But, One of the things that I've felt is that she continues to warm to him in a way. She doesn't want to get home because she doesn't like this. You know, she was desperate to go outside in 1952. And here she wants the doctor to experience the place that's so important to him. I mean, that's the nature of this script. It's a shame like in an 8 episode season. She wasn't really in last week and this week she was very much in the background. You kind of want more with the current companion, but you know that's just the nature of things. Yeah. I also think the doctor telling a story about Belinda that we didn't see and that she hasn't told him. It is a way of showing us that they have been talking and getting to know each other in the scenes we haven't seen. And it's not a story about an adventure they've had together. It's a story about a day in her life and why she does what she does and how her life has affected people. And it's actually the doctor kind of taking Omo's idea of, you know, you're the great, you're the great time lord and the great traveller, you will have so many stories. And the doctor's like, you don't have to be a timelord and a traveller and save planets to have stories. I think the story's just beautiful. And the 2nd time I watched it, I found myself really incredibly moved by it because, you know, when they wheel her out. Like the doctor says, they wield the lady away and then she starts crying and she's just crying, of course, because she's exhausted and because of what she's given up, not because the ladies died. So when the lady comes back at the end. Um, you know, like I just found myself very moved by that. I thought it was great. It was really good. What do you think of the wall that shows the stories on it? Marvellous. absolutely marvellous. And the opening title star on it, which is great. You know, we're continuing this theme of the gods break our reality. Because, you know, we had maestro starts playing the theme and that goes into the titles and we got Omo is imagining the titles. Like, he's imagining, he's like, oh, I'm in a pre-credit scene. Marvellous I liked the way that segued into the titles. that was good. I think the way in which that was used did remind me of one of the chibnal episodes, I can't remember which one it is. Can you hear me? We get a backstory for the gods because Jim will really kind of kind of sets up the pantheon and then Russell runs with it. And it's an explanation of where those 2 characters come from in. Can you hear me? But it is kind of there for kind of just to illustrate someone's exposition scene. And so it's not used quite as cleverly. And I think that this version of Doctor Who has incorporated animation, like I think the animation of that story that he tells at the beginning, that Omo tells at the beginning, is really stunningly beautiful, did either you see on the BBC website there's a longer version of Omo's story? Oh, no. What I did on my holidays by Omo Esosa in the great tradition? And it's really good. It's excellent. I will put a link to it in the show notes, but it's well worth a read. And it explains the background to the girl with the blue earrings as well and tells us a little bit about what Omo's life was like. So it said in 1965. And it's in Nigeria. It's really very interesting and pretty cool. So what did we think of the barber? And Abby, our 2 are they antagonists? Sort of. How 2 strange? Yeah, our 2 strange antagonists. I thought both brilliant performances, and the concept of the barber, as sort of the herald of the gods. You know, he goes around telling their stories. And the doctor then links that to being an online troll. And I'm also kind of like, okay, this is also, he's a bit like a proprietorial fan in that he knows the best way the stories are to be told and he, if the stories are not being told in the right way he's going to rip the heart out of the storytellers and the gods. And just the performance had, it had menace, but it also had humility. Oh, I just loved it. I just loved him. He played Lord Boreal in his dark materials and he was absolutely terrifying in that. I spent my whole time going, where do I know this guy from? And I checked it out. I saw his, you know, MDB page where he had his sort of Lord Boreal hair. I thought he was pretty great in that. It's a strange thing, isn't it? Because he's taken the barber shop over from Omo. And so at the beginning, the doctor arrives and we don't really see the barber, like he's there. He's sort of doing things, but we don't really see him. And he acts like a mythical character. You know, you know how Fenrick plucks bones from the desert sands and carves them into chess pieces. That sort of thing where mythical characters and gods and things take a normal thing and turn it into something huge and epic. And that scene of him creating the web. Do you know what I mean? That's exactly how you would tell that story in a myth. And so he is this sort of strange mythic character. I really bought it. But he also spends the beginning of the episode being a sort of Doctor Who villain, you know, like in the next room with the control panels and all of that, which I thought was pretty great. I perhaps did not buy it as much as you guys bought it. The whole gods thing, I just didn't quite buy into, like, we're experiencing these gods now, not the ones that Shooty is talking about, which we're never seen. It's like when we experience the doctor meeting like Zastor or Asma or the Borad, which adventures that had never happened, and I just kind of, I kind of go, oh, it's just words to me. It's sort of like, you know, it's convenient for the plot. Um, so the whole gods thing. I'm just a little bit annoyed with perhaps suddenly she's the daughter of one of the gods that he's met and he kind of remembers her but doesn't and that was the aspect that I was going. Well, I mean, it was great to see Joe Martin and that was a fantastic shock moment. Um, So does that mean that he met, like, he obviously met her at that time? Did he meet the gods at that time when he was Joe Martin? You know, I was just a bit sort of, but putting that to one side. I thought his performance was wonderful. And I kept thinking about this. I kept thinking, oh, they've got to kill off people. They've got to be zapped out into space. You know, I'm not seeing anybody getting destroyed in the chair. But then I realised at the end, like in order for him to have redemption, that was never going to happen. And that was actually quite powerful that at the end, he, he could go and live a normal life and let that go and people could forgive him. And I thought that was extremely powerful. So, I was, this is why I was all muddled and conflicted the 1st time I watched it because I was wanting, The Doctor Who tropes that I love. But then I realised we're not being given that and why is that? And I thought that was really a wonderful ending, you know, at the end there. When Omo gives him his father's name. You know, he says I don't have a name for people to trust me with. And so Omo gives him his father's name and I just think that was so great. That was such a great moment. I mean, the gods thing is really interesting because these don't seem at all to be the gods that we've been talking about over the last couple of years. Like, you know, Maestro and the and the toy maker and and Larks. That's why I struggle with it because they're ones we haven't encountered. And thinking, where does this fit in? How have we had the time for this? And like the doctor's always been so kind of human over the years he's just met evil people and villains rather than gods. And when it starts going to that territory, I just, I struggle with it. I do. Simon said that, I think, online too, that he thinks that the show is getting too kind of supernatural and stuff. I mean, gods and storytelling are super important and they're intertwined, and these are all real gods who he was mentioning, and he obviously mentioned some European gods, but some African gods as well, and the barber and Urbana and stuff. Do you know what I mean? Like they're clearly kind of associated with that. And there's things going on that I don't know enough. I know that Anansi is from Ghana, I think, and is a sort of spider trickster figure, and so is appropriate for that, and he talks about Saga, who's from Norse mythology, and Dionysus, obviously. And, you know, gods are created by stories. That's where they come from. And this tells it the other way around. So there's something about mythology going on there. But it was one of those things where I felt I'm not not quite equipped to know exactly what's going on here. But I was kind of content to just sort of let that wash over me a little bit. This might be something where I'm just not going to get this and that's kind of okay, I think. Here's a question. Is Abina a god at the end? Like, does she walk away? Like, she is a god and she just walks off stage left or page right or whatever it happens to me. Looking fabulous, by the way. Awesome. Her performance was so wonderful. It was warm when it needed to be warm. It had an edge to it when it needed to have an edge to it. And, yeah, I really, really loved her. And, and having her in that moment with the fugitive doctor, woman to woman, was Marvellous. And and something I find really extraordinary because just looking up the cast here, Ariana Bakari, who is the barber, we have seen in Doctor Who before, he is Leandro, the Lion Man, in he is, of course he is. So another not quite Warriors gate link. Michelle Asanti seems to have most of her experience in voice work. That's not to say that she hasn't appeared on screen, but just looking here, it seems to be maybe 50-50 on screen and voice work and yeah, I would just love to see more of her. I'd love to see her back in Doctor Who in the same role. But yeah, I found her really compelling to watch. And because, you know, I'm a bloody, you know, anorak with a copy of the discontinuity guide, when the doctor's saying, I know you I'm going, well, obviously she's a new character. She's not going to be the Rani or anything like that. She's no one we as fans have met before, but I was really drawn into the mystery of, okay, who is she then? Yeah. And yeah, then using that as a way to bring Joe Martin in genius. See, I wanted them to then have one of those flashbacks in the picture. You see, that's the anorex that I am. We talked about all that, but we didn't see it over there and I kind of really wanted that. Yeah, that would have been great. Yeah, yeah. This is why I considered this episode to be good, but there's little things that I pick apart, you know? the things with the gods and that sort of thing, right? I just kind of think, oh, it was right there. Give us that. I think like keeping the Joe Martin thing a little bit Vegas, super interesting. Like, does he remember what happened to Joe Martin? I don't think he should. But also it's the previous time that the doctor's been black, and you kind of think maybe she needed to be there? And it's so generous. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's so generous. Russell, I think, has treated the cibnolera in a sort of kindly and generous way. And given that Joe Martin as the fugitive doctor is one of the best things about the era, having her back just for that moment, I thought was really terrific. Really good. And then all of the clips of all the other doctors, you know? Yeah. Although mine is one the fact that Colin Baker had like one millisecond at the end. the great tradition. I have just noticed that Michelle Asanti has been in Doctor Who before as well she is credited as neighbour in the forest of the night. So I'm guessing I'm guessing maybe she was complaining about the hydrangeas. don't know. Can someone cut them? So this is reasons why both of these actors now have to be in another episode because they just want to erase those 2 episodes from there. Hey, I like the woman who lived. I don't mind either fast of the night, oddly enough. All right. Well, um, there is one other thing that we haven't mentioned while we're talking about people who have been in the show before. So Belinda notices, and if you don't want to be spoiled, this isn't a spoiler, it is in the closing credits, but we are going to speculate about the finale or the next few episodes. And if you haven't noticed this thing, you might find that irritating. So if you're particularly squeamish about that, you might want to bow out, but make sure that you, you know, obviously listen to 500 year diary. But I want to talk about Captain Poppy, who is the creepy little girl, I think is how Belinda puts it, who she just spots for a 2nd. And she does say to the doctor, did you see the creepy little girl? And the doctor says, all the stories are leaking out or something and getting mixed up. But that is Captain Poppy, who we last saw in the 2024 classic Space Babies. And thus it gets a -one for me. So this episode can't get more than an 8 now, so there's a ceiling to it. Look, I mean, as much as, you know, I disagree with you on space babies, the fact that she's there is an interesting thing and I think if these stories are bleeding, what's going to happen in the next episode and who are we going to then see, obviously, in the finale? Yeah. I didn't actually realise it was Poppy until you mentioned it just before recording, Nathan. And my immediate thought was, it's one of the timeless children. You know, it's one of the pre-Jo Martin doctors. But no, it being poppy is a lovely, is a lovely callback. Yeah. And even if it was never explained who she was, when we have Doctor Who doing myths and legends and gods and stories, it's okay to have things that aren't explained. And, you know, all all the showrunners have done that at some point. Like, I mean, even if we don't see any of them again in the finale it's, it might be mentioned like there might be consequences for other bleed throughs, et cetera. So, yeah, you know, as soon as I saw her, I thought, mhm. Okay, that's who it is, is it? I do like that it does emphasise that those babies were meant to be creepy because they definitely were. Just before we go, though, I do want to say one thing. Richard has spoken to fans, someone who's listening, who talk to him a little bit about Lux and Richard quoted some of the things that he said about Larks. He sent quite a long message to Richard, and I haven't got his permission to read it out or anything like that. But I have to say that some of the stuff that I said, I think, was informed by what he had said in particular about the importance of barbers in African-American culture, which is something I was vaguely aware of, but he clarified quite a lot. And he did mention, and we haven't mentioned this, the thing about cornrows, and I did sort of look this up later, that corners were used by enslaved people to carry messages and maps and things like that. And he also mentioned the importance of hair. You know, that hairstyles for African-American people have been, uh like are a cultural marker and are hugely significant. And that's something that he mentioned. So I just wanted to say, I'm not going to read that out because I don't have permission, but I really, really appreciate his insight and his engagement. It was a really, really interesting read and important, I think, in the way that you and I came to think about the episode, Brendan. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Alan. Your words were absolutely beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Well, I found it extremely interesting. The whole hair braiding stuff. And I thought, you know, that's what I love in Doctor Who, things like that that educate and inform and widen your worldview, you know? Yeah, you know, I think that's brilliant. And getting back to something you said earlier, Todd, that's why I actually quite appreciated the use of gods we recognise, you know talking about Loki. And, you know, I hadn't heard of saga, but I'd heard of Dionysus. And I had only vaguely heard of Anansi, but it's kind of a way of going, whichever of these gods you've heard of as a viewer. You have an anchor point to then understand. A Nancy or Saga or Dionysus, if you're not familiar with Greek mythology, for instance. And I think when the new series sets out to educate, it often does it in a really beautiful way that's not info dumping. You know we have the word assassin in English today. But it made me go, oh, okay, like, I was already understanding what was going on, but it's like, oh, this gives me additional context as someone who, you know, is a white viewer who doesn't know about as much about black culture as perhaps I should, and it gives me an anchor point. It helps me understand the richness of the story even more. That's a really good point, Brendan. Nicely put. All right. Well, in that case, I think we might wind up. I have some things to plug. I've already mentioned 500-year diaries season 2, the 2nd coming which just released its episode on the Seeds of Death last Sunday and this coming Sunday, we'll be looking at the return of the Santarans in the Santaran experiment, and you can keep up with us at FlightTorentirety.com on Blue Sky or at FTE podcast on Mastodon or Twitter, if you insist. Brandon, do you have anything to plug? Just the most recent episode of the 3 handed game, this green unpleasant land, which is on Emily, which is the last episode of the new Avengers. And before we go, I just want to continue with my occasional series on linking back the 2nd Russell T. Davies era to the William Hartnell era, this being the 5th episode of season two links very nicely with the 5th story of season two, the Web Planet. She got a web? You've got a web. You've got a web. You got a very poetic way of speaking and telling story. And you have a central brain repository in the middle of everything. And Vicky calls the animus a giant spider. We have a giant spider here, and the threat here is eliminated by the destruction of the giant spider. Well, that's excellent. I'm waiting for us to get to the chase now. And Nathan, Nathan, what's your 6 word story for your life? I podcast I work i podcast? Yeah, basically. It's actually a podcast, I podcast, I podcast, really. Oh okay. Yeah, yeah. One day I'll figure it out. All right. Well, in that case, all that remains is for me to say, until next time, laugh and tell stories. Thank you very much for listening and good night. Good night. See you soon.