Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to the 2nd great and
bountiful Human Empire, the only Doctor Who flash cast where half
of the hosts are recording in their underpants and the other half
are going commando, and we'll let you imagine who's in which
half.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Brendan.
I'm James.
And I'm Simon.
Well, so we watched yesterday the last of the 60th anniversary
specials, The Giggle by RTD and directed by Chanya Button.
I'm going to go round the table and try not to think too hard
about what everyone's wearing and we'll find out what people
thought of it just overall.
How did you find it, Brendan?
Can I just ask, is the commando Colonel Ibrahim in this instance?
Because I am 100% behind that.
We've had a hot unit commander in 2 out of 3 of these.
Yeah, it's a pattern, I think.
Yeah.
I had misgivings.
I thought, oh, hold on.
What don't I like?
Oh, I'm not entirely clear.
And so when I watched it again, it's like, right.
I'm going to watch this particular section very clearly to see if
it says what I think it says, I'm like, oh, it does.
Okay.
So my 2nd time through.
I was able to enjoy it a lot more.
There was like a few hours between those where I'm just kind of
sitting there going, I'm not sure I like that.
Not, no.
Mm.
What did you think, James?
Uh, look, I really liked it.
Uh, I was expecting a lot of what happened in the story.
But I was pleasantly surprised in how it was managed.
The performances were just so enjoyable.
Uh, and we'll get to this later in the episode, of course, but, um
duty amazing.
And and yeah, look, I mean, we knew, I think we most of us knew a
lot of what was coming in this story.
Uh, a lot of it had been spoiled um, over the last year, but not
to extent that it ruined the enjoyment of the episode.
So overall, I was, yeah, there were moments when I was in, I was
crying.
There were moments when I was punching the air, uh, and I, yeah, I
was really pleasantly surprised.
Simon.
Well, I don't feel I was particularly spoiled.
Maybe I don't spend enough time online or maybe that means I spend
the correct amount of time online.
I don't know, but I thought it was really, really good.
You know, I mean, obviously I have a few reservations on a couple
of things, but they're at the periphery.
The whole episode for me is about the fantastic performance of
Neil Patrick Harris and just the quality of that performance and
the detail he brings to so many parts of it is just so wonderful.
And what's great is to have a humanoid villain on the right side
of the chewing the scenery line.
Yes, he's big.
Yes, he's chewing the scenery.
Yes, he's showering off and doing everything, but I am carried
along with it absolutely every step of the way and that, for me
absolutely makes the episode.
So I'm prepared to eat my words and the reservations I had about
sort of RTD to from last week and this week, whilst again there
are some peripheral things that, you know, I wish were a bit
different.
I had 2 of the best weeks of my Doctor Who life.
Oh, wonderful.
I thought it was really tremendous.
I was slightly spoiled because I had the idea that we weren't
going to say goodbye to the 14th doctor. finally.
But that was really all that I knew.
And otherwise I was kind of largely unspoiled except for what I'd
seen in the trailers and things like that.
So that's exactly the right amount of spoiled, I think.
But yes, it exceeded my expectations.
It was very, very clever.
And it did a thing which I'll talk about a little bit later, which
I think is long overdue in New Doctor Who, and which I'm really
looking forward to playing out over the next few years.
Let's talk about the beginning.
I think there's a few things that happen in this episode, and I
want to talk about just the very beginning when we were 1st
introduced to the toymaker in that opening scene back in 1925.
What do you think about how the Toymaker gets introduced to us and
how he works as a character in this context?
What about you, Simon?
The kind of comedy German accent where at 1st you're going, oh, is
this actually going where I want it to go, is quickly papered over
by the fact that, you know, the other guy into your accent when
he's kind of changing.
So he's definitely playing that up.
It's creepy.
Neil Patrick Harris owns the screen the 2nd he steps onto it.
It's that great typical old style mysterious opening to a Doctor
Who story.
So I really loved it.
Brendan?
Yes, I very much enjoyed that 1st scene.
And I think one of the lines that just made me chuckle was, it is
raining here with all this delicious splashing on the pavement.
I want to know how much, sorry, Brandon, I want to know how much
of that was actually scripted and how much of that is, is
Adelaide.
Totally.
Yeah, there is an interview with Neil Patrick on YouTube just
saying this is unlike anything I've ever done.
I'm like, well, don't puppetry.
I done juggling.
I done dancing, I've done singing.
I've never done them all in the one production.
James?
What I love, what I love about that scene is that they are taking
a character who has been problematically racist in the past
because of production decisions and making him deliberately racist
to show that he is evil.
That horrible comment about you, you know, oh, you're used to
sunny at times.
It's it's basically hanging a lantern on it and and also saying
this person is doing this because they are.
I've asked it, basically.
I mean, I think that the interesting thing is that the original
toymaker isn't played in Yellowface and Michael Goff doesn't do an
accent, but what it is doing is what Professor Lightfoot's
character does in talons of Wing Chiang or what his family does
they appropriate, you know, the culture of the place that they've
kind of invaded and colonised or been involved in that.
And I gather that, um, Russell himself made some comment in
unleashed about kind of the idea of making the toy maker, a racist
as kind of a way of, a way of making him useable, I think, in the
current day.
And I think he works incredibly well.
You know, his evil posh English accent was the accent that he does
that I liked the best, I think.
Although he's American, you know, I guess that's okay then during
the puppet show was also pretty great.
That's actually the most the most dark part of his accents
actually.
It's it's, but I guess that's all right then. is actually the
darkest thing.
Look, I mean, I sort of, I'm not prepared to sort of agree or
disagree with anything that you said there, James, because I think
that we don't really care.
You can't solve all of the deliberate or accidental bits of racism
from the show's history, particularly from the show's early
history.
And I think that doing what they did in this just gives enough of
a little nod to the concerns that some of the audience will have
to say that, look, we know what your concern is, and look, where
we've tried to address it here, without making the whole thing
about it, because that would have just been utterly dumb.
Yeah, exactly.
I think that's the right level to pitch that.
Yeah, yeah.
So let's move on to the unit show.
And for those people who are hoping for a unit spinoff.
That's almost what this looked like.
It was a back door pilot for.
I'm still not convinced that our unit's been off has legs, but I
do think that this is a version of unit that we will actually see
going forward.
And of course, we see them investigating the mysterious sound that
has turned all of humanity into a YouTube comment section.
So what did we think about that?
Yeah, look, I quite like the unit set.
I think as an ongoing set for a TV series.
You kind of got a massive set with about 10 people sitting behind
desks in it.
But, you know, all looking at a screen.
It's the Star Trek, the original series problem of everyone's
hunched over their consoles waiting for something to happen.
But that being said, I like this group of people.
I like Kate Lithbridge Stewart and it looks like someone said to
her, can you act a little bit more, please?
Peter can't be with us tonight, but I'd love to hear his thoughts
on the performance.
Of course, I love Ruth Madely as Shirley.
Melt back.
No, Mel, let's go.
Yes.
It's, that's, and that's amazing.
And, you know, we know that Aces don't work for Unit and Tegan's
don't work for Unit and Kate offered everyone a job at Companions
Anonymous a few weeks ago.
So, and then you've got, yeah, silly robot man.
Yeah, what the hell's that?
It's the Links.
Was I supposed to know what was I supposed to know what that was?
No, you see, good.
It's deliberately there and I'm hoping that it's an ongoing
character that he's literally never explained to us and that it's
just this sort of robot that they have and we have literally no
idea.
It's the morn from Deep Space 9 of this version of unit, and I
think that that would be actually pretty gray.
It is very funny.
Russell is already on record as saying that character will return
in an upgraded form.
So perhaps able to actually move.
It did look like it was the cheapest part of the entire thing, if
I may say.
But I have to say puppets.
I puppet villains.
I want there to be more puppet villains.
You like the return of the puppets, do you?
puppets.
Heaps of puppets this episode.
All little creatures from the end of colony in space kind of
thing.
Russell was saying in interviews and hospital, so unleashed this
week that originally, as scripted, the villain of this story is
Spooky Bill.
And he got quite far through the drafting process before he
realised, this isn't working.
I cannot have this puppet menacing David Turner on a rooftop. 50
floors up.
What can I do?
He's a puppet or I need a puppet pasta.
Maybe a toy maker.
And also the idea of villainous puppets and a villainous toy maker
is in the zeitgeist at the moment.
You have the Annabelle movies.
You have Megan, which, you know, I know that's an automaton rather
than a puppet, but it's in the zeitgeist.
But yeah, I think we're definitely seeing a bit of that.
Yeah.
Did everyone else jump when the puppet's mouth dropped open?
It's forcibly to believe it.
No, exactly.
But isn't that isn't that something always freaky about those very
primitive early television.
Whatever it is, whether it's a real person or a puppet.
It just makes it so demonic and strange looking.
It apparently didn't catch fire the 1st time it was used and it
was used in sort of public demonstrations of television, but it
did eventually get sort of horribly singed. incineration by
Wikipedia, whether it was human hair or not.
Which.
But the other thing that I thought worked really well was just
them working out exactly what the giggle was and having Donna work
it out because she's clever, having Mel sing some arpeggios for us
after all these years, she's never sung on the show.
Using that wonderful musical theatre training.
Yes.
That's right.
Yeah, so I thought all of that was really just terrifically fun.
Isn't it wonderful to have Neil Patrick Harris do that whole Spice
Schools routine?
you know, using part as he said, he uses every single skill that
he has in the one piece of television drama and he just dances
that so absolutely beautifully.
And and it's shot like a video clip because you, you know, you'll
cut to another shot and he'll be in that shot as well. suddenly be
there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's no logic.
There's no logic to how people are moving about.
He said, he said, he said to the production team.
So you got me doing a lot.
I mean, I can do this and I can do that and, you know, like, I can
do puppets, I can juggle, like, um, I think I can dance.
I mean, I can dance, but I've not had any lessons.
Well, he said, That's why we employed you, too.
I particularly love about that that dance thing.
You know, you know that Bonnie did all those spins herself and
then they just had to speed it up a bit.
And on 2nd viewing, on 2nd viewing, during those spins, I can just
hear a little bit of a scream in the key of F. Just...
It didn't take phantom that long to actually put that scream over
the top and post it to Twitter.
Marvel.
Of course. absolutely marvellous.
We're clearly back in 2023 now.
And it's not very long before the toy maker actually kills the
doctor.
And I have to say that that did take me by surprise because we're
about 20 minutes from the end of the episode then.
Were people expecting that or not?
I wasn't, although I didn't have the little timer thing on the
screen, so I didn't know how far into it I was.
I was actually a bit surprised that it happened sort of so
suddenly because it did feel a bit, um, I don't feel like I've had
a climax quite the climax yet from that point of view, but then it
kind of, of course, the climax is then yet to come.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I was expecting it.
That's because I had a brain fart moment. on Sunday morning and
clicked on Facebook before watching the episode and saw the scene
of them splitting in half and looking at each other.
It's like, damn you.
Damn it.
I mean I knew it was coming.
I'd heard.
They're so inconsiderate and annoying.
I heard the split regeneration rumour, so I kind of knew it was
coming. and then I saw it, I was like, 0 my, I mean, like, I knew
it was coming.
But also it was just so frustrating, but that didn't spoil the
scene.
Now the thing is, I'd heard about the split regeneration thing, but
I hadn't heard about it actually sort of emerging from the same
body, what have you?
So that moment did still take me by surprise and it was only when
he's like, could you?
Oh, that I thought, oh, my god, like they're literally going to
like pull them apart like a one of those American cheese string
things.
Yeah, yeah.
So I got a little bit.
I got a little bit of surprise from that, thankfully, but, you
know, Russell had also said a few months ago, you don't have to
wait for Christmas to see Chutie.
Shooty will be in the specials and I kind of went, just my
immediate thought was, oh, this is interesting.
We're kind of doing the reverse of the telly movie where one
doctor has 2 thirds of the beginning and then the next doctor
picks up straight away and yeah, it wasn't quite like that.
I would have preferred it if it had been more like that because I
think it would have been better if it had happened earlier.
Um, and can I can I venture my little critique of this now?
Or is this not the right time?
No, no, no.
I don't have a problem with the bi-generation stuff or bi
regeneration, whatever it is, fine.
It's a thing.
And it's, I think it's interesting to have both actors.
And it's a way of doing sort of a mini multi-dog story.
I wondered whether, in hindsight, it was unfortunate, because
usually what happens is that the previous doctor explodes in a, in
whatever bunch of light, and then suddenly he or she is the next
doctor.
And I've always instantly accepted that person is the doctor, even
though I already knew who it was going to be.
But you instantly accept it.
The problem with doing it this way is that Tenant is still there.
And so I think that it cheats shooty of that moment of those early
moments where he owns the role.
So I think if you're going to do this, maybe another way of doing
it, is for a start, have it a little bit earlier in the plot, maybe
during the 1st game that, that, um, you know, when, when it's won
all, that the doctor has with the toy maker, and, and the tenant
doctor is then knocked unconscious by the bi-generation process, so
that then you have shoot his moments in the sun for 10 minutes
however long it is, and then tenant comes to, and they can have
the multi-doctor bit for the rest of the episode.
I just worry that Chooty's been cheated of that full strength to
boo.
That all.
Except that he absolutely outdoes Tenant immediately right from
the get go and makes himself his doctor much, much more exciting
than Tenant's doctor.
Yeah, no, no, I'll pay that, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit like, you know, bringing Tom Baker
into a pertwee story for for Robot.
And, you know, he's got pert to his show around him, but he's just
much better than everyone else in it.
And so we're fine.
We're going to be okay with this new doctor.
And I think I think that Shooty here isn't better than everyone
else around him, but because Tennant chooses graciously, I think
to downplay it and allow Shooty to have the floor.
And also because that doctor's character is so kind of beleaguered
and tired and sort of miserable.
You know, he told us at the end of wild blue yonder that he would
get better, but it would take a 1000000 years before he felt any
better.
And, you know, you have Donna stopping him saying, you're
staggering from place to place now.
And so he's a much less charismatic character because he's so
beleaguered, I think.
And then when Judy comes along and isn't any of those things, it's
such a relief.
It's so wonderful.
And so instantly Tennant takes the place of the past doctor.
He's suddenly John Pertey and the 5 doctors instead of being the
lead of this episode.
And I thought that that was really well done.
I think that's a fair enough view to a taken from it.
I just still felt, even though Shooty's much more dynamic from the
get go, and tenant's kind of more retiring for one of a better
description, it's because tenant is already there, tenant is
established, that's what I'm talking about.
Like it feels it feels too much like this character rather than
the next doctor.
It was just my takeaway from it.
See, I also have this thing.
You know, in a Christmas carol where um, Catherine Sardic hugs
young Catherine Sardic. like he goes to hit him.
He goes to hit his younger self, and sees the younger self flinch
and then hugs him, and there's that moment, and having Shooty be
able to kind of help tenant through, you know, tenant's the man
who regrets, and he's talking about the people who've died, that
hilarious comedy moment where Kate says, where are all the staff
on the, on the big laser gun?
And, And Neil Patrick Harris says, I think they're still falling.
And then you hear the sound of the...
That's dark.
That's very good.
And so you have shooty comforting him and making it okay for him, I
think.
And all of that where Shooty comes not just to save the day, but
to save the doctor.
I think that's pretty good.
My misgivings are similar to yours, Simon, for the 1st time I
watched it through, because all the way through Jody's tenure
there's all these crossovers in comics, video games, and Time Lord
Victorious, where Tenant is put in front of Jody.
And then, of course, she turns into him.
And I'm like, really starting off, Shooty Gatwaz era with a spare
David Tennant over in the corner that we can wheel out.
It was actually the 2nd go around where it becomes very clear that
no, the intention is, the 14th doctor can retire and take it easy
because the 15th doctor carries on the work.
But, but it's actually more nuanced than that, is that the 14th
doctor, all of the memories that he will have before he eventually
regenerates, are with the 15th doctor.
I'm okay because you healed yourself.
Like, he remembers everything to that doctor.
That doctor is retiring with his adopted family and going through
the process of healing from the last, what is it, 4.5000000
years?
I didn't notice that the 1st time, the 2nd time around, it's very
clear that he's actually saying, you know, you did the healing and
that's why I'm okay.
And the production team have gone on record basically saying that
bi-generation did not just happen to the 14th doctor.
It happened to every incarnation of the doctor to the very
beginning of the show.
So there is now a split reality where William Hartnell goes on at
the end of 10th planet.
Patrick Towson on earth.
Like, it's, it's created a, what Russell referred to as the doctor
verse.
I actually don't care.
Like, I mean, it was very nice.
And if they want to do, you know, big finish audios on that basis
fabulous.
You know, that's the extended universe.
But sometimes I wish people wouldn't put too much thought into
these things because what matches is who they're going to cast to
be the doctor in each of the seasons as we move forward and who
they do or don't invite to come back.
I think the show works best probably if Tennant doesn't come back
again, even though we get it hinted at that with his family, he's
sneaking off.
I mean, we've already got one in the parallel universe, for God's
sake.
Yeah, I know, we're just leaving copies of tenants all over the
place all through time.
Oh well.
But I like that point, James, which I picked up as well, which is
and it's said with the most moffety line imaginable. you know
we're time lords, we don't do rehab in the right order.
And so shooty goes off, enjoying the new outlook on the show that
was one because Tenant stays behind and has an adopted family and
Mad Auntie Mel and all of that, which.
Oh, look, I'm just looking forward to the big finish box set with
the 14th doctor and Mad Auntie Mel in that 20s New York.
Yes. absolutely.
So good.
Get up and take my money.
But I just wanted to say that the incredible thing was was
shooty's performance and how immediately sort of sexy he makes
that moment where they're splitting off and they're kind of
sharing a body and they're facing one another.
You know, he's smiling super broadly and all of that and just kind
of how relaxed.
You know, he's in his underpants for that entire 15 minutes
because he gets half a turn.
The rest of the show.
So so he gets the shoes.
I mean, if you got it flaunted, I say.
He's got great spites.
He's got extraordinary thighs.
He does a lot of squats.
Evidently.
It's like, I mean, he's so relaxed and so sexy, and I think the
thing for me that this has done is something that I think Chibnal
tried to do, but backtracked on because he couldn't make it work.
But ever since Doctor Who came back in 2005, the doctor's been a
tragic hero in some sense, and so it's been the time war, then we
fix the time war, and then it's, am I a good man?
And I remember when Capoldi left the stage and and Jody Whittaker
turned up and she looked at herself in the mirror and said
brilliant.
You know, I don't hate myself. this is the best thing ever And I
thought, this is the era of man pain over.
And of course, it wasn't because Chibnell destroyed Gallifrey
again, just to put Jody into a Marty mood for series 12.
But I think that very much, Russell, now is going to do a version
of Doctor Who, where the doctor isn't constantly saddled with this
sort of terrible angst and where we get to see him and Ruby having
fun.
I'm looking forward to that.
I will pay that.
I think that's great. if that's where we're going because I am
really sick of the angst.
My worry is, of course, they'll do that for 3 episodes and then
there'll be a new angst thing to introduce, you know, because
sometimes these people can't help themselves.
He does touch on this thing in all 3 of the of these specials.
Do you know what I mean?
All 3 of the specials are working towards the moment where the
doctor decides to stay behind with Donna and heal.
And I think that absolutely that this is indicative of where
Russell wants to take the show.
Yeah.
And, you know, that's juxtaposed with Donna, you know, we find out
she's given away all her money, uh, et cetera, et cetera.
But she keeps reiterating how happy she is.
She's got a caring husband.
She's got a beautiful daughter.
She's got a better relationship with her, mom, her granddad's
being looked after.
Despite the problems of real life, which she alludes to with the
doctor saying, I'll go mad.
And she's like, yeah, it does drive you mad, but you've got this
amazing life while it drives you mad.
It's kind of a closure.
I didn't know I needed for Donna because, you know, when we see
Donna previously, it's like she's got a lottery win and she's
marrying Sean and everything's fine.
It's like, yeah, except she's lost this thing and then we, you
know, we come back and she's given away all the money.
Um, It's then this message that she still has the life she chose
making her very, very happy.
There's that brilliant moment where Kate offers her a job for 60 K
a year and Donna just says 100 K and 5 weeks off and she gets it
and she just, oh, my good.
Yeah.
Whereas I think Kate's going, the salary is 100, but I'll tell her
60 and she won't take.
For that brilliant moment as well in that scene with Donna and Mel
working together on the computers, you know, fastest type of in
choosing.
But she could also code.
That's some secretarial, Collie.
Well, remember, she does subconsciously tap the knowledge of the
doctor.
That is true.
Yes, of course.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, remember, way back in Journey's End, she can realign the
Dalek path web quicker than anyone.
Yeah.
I'd just delete that period of the show from my memory.
Wow.
That's the one you delete.
Yeah, that's right.
Season 20 is right there.
All right.
Well, in that case, I'm just going to plug a few things.
We have our FDE series 9 coverage, which finished on Sunday.
So you can catch up with that.
It was our series 9 retrospective.
And of course, on Christmas Day, we will be releasing the
Christmas special, the Husbands of River Song.
Startling Barbara Bain continues to exist, and there's every
chance we'll record an episode at the end of this month.
And of course, maximum power is continuing to release series C
episodes, and untitled Star Trek project has ended a triumphant
year with a commentary on Star Trek for the Voyage Home.
And of course, we will be back here at the 2nd great and Bountiful
Human Empire sometime very soon after Christmas and the Christmas
special, the church on Ruby Road.
All that remains is for me to say, until next time, you probably
need to stop buying bone broth and synthetic androgen supplements
from Trinity Wells.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
See you soon.
Bye bye.
Trinity Wells.
She's back.
That's amazing.