A new Doctor Who flashcast by the people who brought you Flight Through Entirety.

Space Babies / The Devil’s Chord

Season 1, Episodes 1 and 2. First broadcast on Saturday 11 May 2024.

Episode 5 · Sunday 12 May 2024.

Five episodes in and it’s the start (again) of a new season and a new era of Doctor Who. So how will these five grizzled veterans of the Time Wars cope with a space station full of babies and the concept of music itself in a lavish new non-binary form?

Recorded on Sunday 12 May 2024 · Download (44.4 MB)
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Transcript

 Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to the 2nd great and bountiful Human Empire, the only Doctor Who flashcast which always says space restaurant or space champagne or space, you know, hat. I'm Nathan. I'm Todd. I am James. I'm Peter. And I'm Simon. Well, we are here to talk about the 2 Doctor Who episodes that screen for the 1st time, just a day or so ago. The 1st time ever, I think that 2 Doctor Who episodes have debuted on the same day, certainly the 1st time that 2 stories have debuted on the same day. So an exciting moment only previously achieved by Torchwood series one, which actually did the same thing. So let's start with episode one or possibly episode two, who can possibly say Space Babies, which is written by Russell T. Davis and directed by Julianne Robinson, who we be seeing again next week. Let's start by talking about something perhaps, perhaps the least controversial aspect of the episode, which is how do we think this went reintroducing the regulars and the premise of the show to a new audience and to an old audience? Let's start, perhaps, with pizza. I mean, I think it did a fairly good job of introducing the show to a new audience. My question is, what audience is that? Because I don't think it's aimed at me. And I don't think it's aimed at fans who might have been fans of the original series because this feels like stretch too far for me. Whereas I can draw a direct line between something like partners in crime and something like City of Death. I can't draw a line between this and any previous stock 2 that I was a fan of. Just to expand on that. I mean, I find it odd the way it starts because if the purpose and we're told the purpose of this is to introduce Doctor Who to a new audience through the Disney streaming platform worldwide. And so the assumption is when I was watching it, even more so than the Churchill and Ruby Road, and certainly more so than the Starbase, was that we were introducing the show in Globo to an entirely potentially an entirely new audience. And I just cannot get past how bad a job they did of that with all this exposition that made the tele movie, the 1996 telemovie look restrained. How does that actually introduce the regulars to a new audience? This kind of bizarre info dump that the doctor manages to kind of almost breathlessly dish out about basically the last 61 years of the show. It's bizarre. And dare I suggest inept? Can I just say, though, that it's almost exactly beat for beat what we do in the end of the world. And because we don't have a 13 episode series. We want to get this out of the way, I think. And so it is, why do we need to get out of the way? Why talk about it at all? Why bring, it's not the end of the world. The end of the world had a few little bits and they were spread throughout the episode. This was like, the script editor suddenly realised that they needed to fill in the audience, and they quickly wrote a scene that the regulars performed in the bit of studio because they had 5 minutes to go before 10 o'clock. That's what it wreaks of for me. And for a show which has got so much money behind it and so much time spent on it. I find it. I just find it perplexing. I think that actually there was an edict from Disney. I'm told that Disney wanted Russell to include more of introducing the show to a general audience, but I do agree with Simon. I think it could have been done in a slightly better way than info dump in one scene. And also, I do wonder if there was more interesting way to do it because you could get away with it in the end of the world because there was a generational gap there. Doctor Who hadn't been on television for 15 years. Whereas I think Doctor Who globally is a known phenomenon now, and the basics of it are known pretty well. So I understand getting it out of the way quickly, but it was done quite inelegantly, I think. Oh, okay. Todd. I kind of sit somewhere towards what both Peter and Simon are saying, it was a bit of a list. The Rani adopted genocide, Gallifrey. Last of the Time Lords. We then had other things like, I liked the fact that she looked out onto a whole new world, but we did the whole, here's my phone again. We did the whole stepping on a butterfly like they done with Peter Capaldi and Pearl Mackey, but redone. We did at the end, we did the whole scan of Millie's character like they done with Amy. So I saw all of those things in there and it didn't necessarily worry me too much. I kind of was there going, okay, this seems to be quite forced onto us. Is this the right direction? Are we just going to try and get rid of it because we've got 8 episodes? Okay, that's the way they were going. So I didn't necessarily really dislike it. I didn't really, really love it. It was just there and it happened. Yeah, look, I mean, I see what you're saying. Um, I probably am a little more forgiving of that because I think there's actually often that is a way that um, The generations younger than us talk. There is a lot of information. There's a lot of quick talk and there's a lot of info dumping. Um, like what we might see as inelegant scriptwriting actually might be a deliberate choice. I also thought, I mean, getting away from how we felt about the list of things. What I found quite moving was how differently the idea that the doctor's people have been wiped out and there's been a genocide against them. comes across when it's coming from a Rwandan man like someone who has experienced that in their own life as opposed to some old white guy. going on and on about, oh, all my people are dead. It hits differently. Um, that's not necessarily a, I mean, I, I, I think that has to be a deliberate choice on the part of Russell. I mean, there's no way that this is not a deliberate choice and there's no way that this is has got out of Russell's control. And I don't think that there's actually all that much information delivered in those 10 minutes or so. And what we get as new information as some longtime viewers is some idea of how the show is now going to treat those issues. And what it is going to do with those issues now is mention them without being all overwrought and in your face about them. And I think that's a relief. It's kind of something that I sort of expected when Chibnall took over and it looked like we were going to leave that stuff behind. But it now does look like we're properly leaving that stuff behind. And so I thought that those scenes were charming. I think it gave us a chance to see the 2 leads talking about something. I don't know what else they were going to talk about at that point. We got to see a pretty impressive visual with the dinosaurs and stuff like that, which was kind of fun and a bit of a weird gag and things like that. Like, I think all of that kind of works, and it is the choice that he made the 1st time round. And so I think, you know, every 20 years you're allowed one of these. I understand the imperative, and I know that you've got to introduce concepts like, um, we'll, uh, Millie be able to talk to her, um, mother and all of that, but it was beat for beat the same as the end of the world. And I remember in the end of the world feeling that was a really interesting way to approach it where the doctor would zap her phone and she was able to speak in real time to Jackie. Jerose was able to speak real time to Jackie back home. And it was quite an affecting scene. I just wondered if we could have done it a slightly different way because this was exactly the same scene. He didn't manage to do it a different way in series 3, to be fair he does something fairly similar as well with Martha's phone. So maybe there aren't that many ways that that can be done. I do agree with you about the last of the time on stuff. Like it was mentioned, but he didn't dwell on it. So I was quite pleased about that. It was more them connecting over things and her taking on board where he's coming from, and I did get that from the episode, and I did like her reactions to some of the things that he had to say without her overplaying it or being deeply distressed. Yeah, yeah. I think that's being handled very well in both episodes as it as it happens. Um, I have to agree on that. It's very, um, none of none of that sort of... interaction between those 2 cast members feels forced. It feels like they get they do get on behind the scenes and and there were moments in this and the next episode of sort of a genuine kind of her responding to his pain. I just have to say the whole thing about drama is you show, don't tell. I'm not saying this because I didn't like it. I'm saying this because I think it is, I'm genuinely think it was bad. It was badly written. There was nothing elegant. There was nothing sophisticated about the way he did this. And I don't mind, look, I don't mind the fact that you repeat things from end of the world and repeat things from other things. There's going to be stuff like that. I just think it is, it is a very peculiar choice from some, from people who I believe should know a lot better and that's kind of where I'm coming from. I'm perplexed. anyway. All right. So it's time to talk about something that I think everyone will be behind, which is a baby farm run by babies. I'm a big fan of babies, I have to say, and I'm sure that everyone else here will agree with me that this was harmless fun. It would have looked much better, I think, if they were all shimmer on babies. It was like, can I, yeah, I think it's like someone. in 1974 saying, yes, Barry, we can do dinosaurs realistically. Oh, but you can't think. You can't think that they are intending to do that realistically. I think that absolutely what they were going for was the incredibly off putting weirdness of what we ended up getting. With their mouths and their speech. Yes, absolutely. I just... I was just going, this is bizarre. and I, and I'm not, I don't know if I'm buying it. I don't know how I feel. I'm not connecting with it. I struggled through all of that. I think Eric, the incredibly concerned, weird looking baby is the absolute MVP in this. I can't believe that he wouldn't have been named after another notorious baby on the Dog 2 production team, Eric Seaward. Probably. But, um, like, all of that stuff is absolutely preposterous, and it is a little bit like, I think, the, um, you know, maybe the adipose or something like that, where we had sort of little baby fat people and stuff. Um, but obviously far, far further down the uncanny valley, I think. I did have to say that I just thought, Eric, with his little toy sword heading down to attack, the giant bogey man at the bottom was pretty great. But yes, it does seem very much designed to kind of put people off in some ways. So there's at least one Shimmeron baby in this. Downstairs. I can't believe that we've had more than one monster made out of boogers. A different type of booger. That's true. Just awful. Look, I didn't, look, I'm prepared to try anything when it comes to Doctor Who and, you know, you have to be able to argue that anything's potentially possible and you can take the show wherever you want. But I just thought that this was just a bridge too far, not necessarily even in the concept, just the puerile way the whole thing is executed. I just found it beyond childish beyond it, I suppose the immaturity level. It's just too much. I kind of understand what it's going for because the vibe is not that dissimilar from season 24. And so I sat there watching it, trying to work out why I enjoy great suedes of season 24, but I wasn't necessarily enjoying this. Um, it feels, and the next episode as well, have a feeling of Delta and the Bannerman about them, where it's sort of knowingly camp and fun, and yet Delta and the Bannerman also has realistic characters to engage with and um, a structure that tells a story. Whereas I felt from this that it didn't. It felt like the, it felt like the campness and the weirdness was the end in itself. And so maybe that's what I have problem with. Yeah, exactly. I think Peter, you're absolutely right. It's the fact that rather than it just being the way it happened to be made. It is like they're kind of striving for that at the get go, and that means that you end up with this this unbelievably shallow thing that I'm not even sure who the hell this is being aimed at. I'm yeah. See, you know, one of the things that I was sort of acutely aware of, because I have heard people, you know, horrified by these 2 episodes, is that acute sense of fan embarrassment that we all suffer from. You know, we're watching this and we wonder who comes in. We wonder what happens when someone comes in and sees us doing that. And we've talked about that on flights or entirety. And of course, this, I think, is much less likely to elicit fan embarrassment than a bunch of robots in a room talking about things or, you know, the, um, that French and Saunders sketch, you know, on the trial of a timeline set. Yeah, the Sanurians. Turn come back, sea breaks. Yeah, no, no. That sort of stuff. I have to violently disagree. That sort of stuff, I think, is embarrassing. I don't think you get the sense from like TV reviewers and stuff who are writing explicitly for the not we, that this is a bridge too far for them. This is the sort of thing that only Doctor Who could do. Maybe no one should try it. It might be the take home lesson from this. But for me, in fact, I think it's the more traditional of the 2 episodes. You know, you have a base, there's a computer, the people have been abandoned and they don't know why. There's a monster downstairs. You know, we we explore, we find out the nature of the monster, we discover the monster's not so terrible after all, and we decide to save it. Like all of those beats seem to me to be very, very traditionally Doctor Who. So a lot of the purpose of this episode is to establish what sort of thing Doctor Who does, but marrying it to what is an extremely high concept. Yeah, I mean, when you express it like that, I agree that if you express it in those terms, yes, those are traditional sort of Doctor Who tropes, form of a better word. But I think the way the way it's done, and I think this comes back to what we talked about a lot, is that I think too many of the makers of the current show, we're embarrassed by being a Doctor Who fan when they were 12 and 14 because it was the most uncool thing to be. And so rather than fix the failures of the original series and make it so that when the robots are talking to each other in the room and when the cellular ends are on trial in the front of time whatever the hell it is, it looks better, it sounds better. It's done in a better way. Whereas what they've decided to do instead is to try and say, and this is why the reviewer is writing for the not we, write, you know, say, oh, you know, this is just Doctor Who being bonkers and mad because that's what it always was. No, it was not bonkers and Maz, deliberately. It became bonkers and mad from time to time because of various failures, um, often because of over the top people who happened to be in it or whatever else it was. And instead they decided because they're leaning into that. I actually think that they are risking alienating, particularly with this episode, but also with the next episode, of alienating any Doctor Who fan with any standing. Now, if they want to do that, fine, but I just don't understand how that then appeals to another generation, who are experiencing even as children, like, even if you express it as a children's drama or a family show, experiencing stuff, which is so much more interesting and mature and thoughtful and has got a message and so on, but rather than this, just nonsense. I'm not entirely sure it's the fan gene thing either, because I have, myself, quite a high tolerance for whimsy and weirdness and camp and Doctor Who. You know, I love Time and the Rani. I think time and the only is genuinely extremely enjoyable and in places rather good. Um, and so I don't... I know I'm out on a limb, I know. But I wouldn't be embarrassed by someone else watching it and walking and by someone else walking in and watching this. I was a bit embarrassed watching this and I don't think it was the visual of the babies. I don't think it was the uncanny valleyness of that and the weird idea of having babies. It's just that it didn't really work. didn't seem to be in service of anything. It just seemed to be there as a weird visual and yet as a gimmick as a gimmick. right. And hearing babies talk constantly is sort of not what I tune in to Doctor Who for at all. I think we'll get they when Flight Through Entirety comes around because I think there are all sorts of things to talk about when it comes to kind of the gay experience and babies and that Russell you know, that Russell is probably coming from a particular place here. But certainly the off putting this of the baby strikes me as something that's absolutely intentional. Yes. I guess for me, I didn't connect with it. I found it embarrassing. The way in which I originally found Paradise Towers or Time in the Rani, all Joshua and the Badman embarrassing. I'd rather go and watch those episodes than have to sit through this episode again. That's how I feel. You see, I was actually quite excited about the prospect of watching these 2 episodes again today, uh, in a way that I wasn't that I haven't really been very much for the last few years. Like, it just seemed to me that this is absolutely just here not to tell a particularly sophisticated story in itself, but to just reintroduce the show as a concept, and it absolutely does that, I think, in a way that, you know, previous Russell episode ones have done. So I'm kind of here for it, I think. I actually was quite looking forward to watching them again today and I actually enjoyed them a hell of a lot more the 2nd time round because I was expecting what was coming and could appreciate it or how different it was from what has been done at various times over the last 20 years. Like, I think it, it's trying to be different and trying to approach the concept of show differently and trying to push the boundaries, but it can do visually and in terms of storytelling with the 2nd episode, which we'll get to. I actually really enjoyed them. I, I, I'm not saying there weren't out there flaws and I agree with a lot of what you're all saying, but I didn't find that took me out of the drama. I just have to say that I just think Russell has done the reintroduction of the show a number of times and every single time he's got it right. And this time I just, this is the one I just don't connect with at all. I will say that I think that if this was meant to be a reintroduction to the show to a wider audience, I don't get the impression, and I'm crossing my fingers, that this is the model for the show going forward. So I don't think this episode is what the show is going to be every week. So it seems to me a strange idea to bring in a whole new viewership and then deliver them space babies when space babies is quite far removed from what Doctor Who does most of the time. Well, I think that probably what we're expecting is 8 episodes, all of which are substantially different from one another in tone and subject matter and appearance. Is that what a new audience is expecting though? I don't know, but that is what Doctor Who tends to deliver when it has enough money to do that, is something basically different every week. And although the previous Russell T. Davis era, we said we found he kind of made the same season 4 times. Within each variation of that season, we went from place to place to place and did quite different things from week to week. And I think that Modern Doctor Who, that Doctor Who that can afford to build new sets every week, um, does that, you know, and that's very much part of what it's here for. But this had the structure. I think that I enumerated before, which I think is the structure of a Doctor Who episode. So it's establishing that, but in a sort of high concept way. Having said that, parts of this set are cannibalised from, well blue yonder. Here, I say. And you know, that's the thing. It not just about Russell's way of making Doctor Who because I found things to enjoy. And in many cases, very much enjoy in the Starbeast, wild blue yonder, and the giggle. It's just really with the church on Ruby Road and Starbabies that I felt like the series was getting right away from me. And so I've no doubt that that was an artistic and stylistic choice. I just can't quite fathom what's behind it. Yeah, I mean, I was never a huge fan of the 1st Russell T. Davies era, but I did appreciate a lot of it, and I thought he was fine. There was some great, great episodes. Some of the greatest series has ever produced, I felt. I have criticisms of it, but you know, that's that's being Doctor Who fan. And I was terribly anxious about there being a 2nd Russell T Davis series. I went, no, God, no. I was so pleasantly surprised, not by the Starbeast, but by Wild Blue Yonder and the Giggle. I thought, okay, there are things about them that I don't like, but they were everything that the previous era wasn't, which was engaging, entertaining. I was with it. And unfortunately, every shooty episode so far has not been that I've returned, and especially with the Church on Ruby Road and space babies, especially with those two, I was back to the Chibnell era thing, of going, oh, what time is it? How long has this got to go? Sorry, do I just don't even care. And that's that I found bizarre. One of the things I did like about this episode was the flashback to the church on Ruby Road and what was coming through there and I liked the change in the memory and that sort of thing because I went, okay, there's something going on here and I want to know more. I think we'll talk about that at the end of the episode, actually because there's quite a bit of that sort of up in the air at the moment and much more than we would expect, I think, from a Russell T. Davis arc. Let's move on to the 2nd episode that we saw, the Devil's Chord which seems to start in almost exactly the same way as its spiritual predecessor, the giggle, where a sort of strange godlike entity emerges somewhere in London in the 1920s and sort of attaches itself to some weird historical event. How do we feel that the introduction of Jinx Monsoon as the maestro went? In love chicks? Yeah, I'm probably more familiar with Drag Race than most of you here. I know Todd's been watching it recently. Oh, compassion in it, didn't he? Thank you, Peter. I've watched I've watched a lot of the jinx and think that they are fantastic. They are so witty and I've just enjoyed their performances so, so much. What about here? Disappointed. Oh, wow, that was that that's framed. Oh, my God. Can I say, I wasn't disappointed. I thought they pitched this character really, really well. It really needed to be just over the job and ridiculous and like literally not a single piece of scenery. Well, it's left on shoot. It was fantastic. And then... And then after... Um, little Mr... HR bigger. Um, was was gotten rid of and um, Maestro had eaten um, the music from uh, from the gentleman's soul, the playing into the Doctor Who theme, into the opening titles. It was just, I was like, they're going to do it. They going to do it. Yeah. This is fantastic. I really love this episode. The ending, which we'll get to. Maybe that was a bit a bridge too far for me, but possibly because I just felt it was a bit messy, not the musical element. I love a musical, but overall, yes, I was much more whelmed. By this episode that I was by the last. I thought the maestro was a very entertaining character. And I think they were given a lot of importance in the story and we got to know a lot about them. I think the performance by Jinx Monsoon was pretty good. It was, if you'll forgive me, saying so, a little bit one note. I think I think, but I think that you could draw a line between that performance and someone like Linda Baron in Enlightenment. There wasn't a huge amount of daylight between it. I just think that maybe Jinx was not an accomplished enough performer to bring a lot of light and shade to the role. I'm not sure that we need it a lot, but maybe just a little more to win good. I really did enjoy the scenes, though, for what they were. I think that, you know, I love a good chewing the scenery performance. I think though, in order for that to be effective, it needs to start somewhere below 250%. And I probably would have enjoyed the performance a lot more had they started, had that opening sequence been much more measured and quiet and almost whispering, and maybe, maybe the, the, the lid of the grand piano opens and out comes this person. And, you know, that, I think, would have been a way of me then dealing with the fact that the sooner he is chewed to oblivion as as Nat James was saying. The point is, I think it was a regrettable performance and they may be capable. Maybe it's the way they're directed. I don't know, but it was, it was... I think that that's almost certainly what they were asked to do. I think, and that's almost certainly why they were cast as well. I think that that's absolutely what they were going for. I'm going to put my cards on the table and I think that this is one of the best stories of the modern era. And, um, I think it's really astoundingly moving and interesting and well done. And the fact that it does things like the musical number at the end, the fact that it fools about with a diogesis of who's in control of the show as a TV program. And that bit in the middle where we just sit there for like 3 or 4 minutes and watch Millie play the piano, play Ruby's theme on the piano, and then we just see the people in the window react to it. I think absolutely sells the promising and importance of music in a way that lesser shows would have done by telling us about it. And in fact, this show did that a little bit as well. And also, you get to see Tune Hudson be eaten. Yes, absolutely. I do want to see that. That's why Jinx. The garden's closed. Yes, exactly. I will put my cards on the table and say, I did enjoy this episode a lot more than the previous one. In fact, I think this is probably a template going forward for what Russell is trying to do with the latest series, and I'm not not on board with that. I thought that there were a few problems with this episode including again. I didn't think it was particularly well structured, or had an enormous amount to say, really. I understood what it was saying, but it was all fairly basic. What I will say is that there were scenes in it which reminded me of very good Doctor Who in the past, including that wonderful scene where the doctor uses the Sonic to make everything silent and it just goes on for 90 seconds from that. That was a fantastic scene and it gave me hope for the rest of the series. I think it is oddly structured, and I think that's intentional. I think, you know, it doesn't have lots of reversals or reveals or anything like that. It is just, you know, we encounter maestro and we fight them until we stop, you know, it is, it is very linear. But I think that just the weirdness of it is so well done. And we've been primed for that, I think, by the giggle. You know, this has a lot in common with a giggle. There's a reason that the toy maker is Maestro's father, and we actually discover that Maestro is the father of someone else as well. We're going to discover it, who turns up at the end in a twist somehow. Oh, how twist. What a twist, Nathan. That's the only twist. No, but look, look, I just think that I will definitely pay that there is an interesting concept there, but it just upsets me so much how badly it was then executed. Jinx Monsoon is known Neil Patrick Harris. Right? Absolutely. Now, the toy makers over the topness in the giggle is sold by an absolutely top tier performer who is capable of walking the life he is capable of making something over the top and seniory chewing whilst at the same time you're taken into it as opposed to, I feel like with Jinx, I always feel like I was just watching a child's pansomime in a bad way. And so you're right that there are some great, interesting things there. And, you know, I great, that musical number at the end. I think I think it completely suits it. Yes, let's do that. It was a shame that they, for a budget, the monumental size that it is. It would have been so much better had they have actually done a Beatles song or something. That would have actually made it even even valuer. But anyway, maybe... That was actually the point, was that we can't afford the Beatles like even with a monumental budget. We can't get the Beatles songs. There are so many interesting things that this could have done with this concept. And, you know, I love music. I love this idea, right? It was just done so exquisitely badly and shallowly that that it's like, is this what Doctor Who's going to be? and that's what you're saying, Peter. I worry, you're saying, Peter, you said that you're hoping that this is the template that they're going to do for the next rest of the season and possibly the rest of this era. Oh, no, let me just let me just let me just say that someone. I'm not hopeful, but I'm more hopeful of this being a template than space babies being one. Okay. I am equally unhopeful because Space Babies was breathtakingly embarrassing, whereas this was breathtakingly disappointing, and I think that it was disappointing because not just performance choices, you know, that's a thing, and sometimes that goes wrong but also just because of the of the sheer basicness of it, the shallowness of it, the kind of like, you know, it's, you know, and this goes back to what I was saying earlier, is that who is this actually pitched at? I know it's not supposed to be pitched at us and that's fine, but I just can't understand the modern teenager, the modern child being impressed by this. And that, I think, is what I'm what I'm getting at. It's just not clever. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think you may be overestimating the extent to which Doctor Who has historically been clever. And I do think that there are clever things here. I actually think as well that this episode has more to recommend it than either space babies or the Church on Ruby Road did. I mean, I broadly do agree with you, Simon. I found this a disappointing episode as well, but there was green shoots there. There was a lot which I found to enjoy, I think Jinx Monsoon's performance was very entertaining, even if it wasn't very deep to my eye. There were certain scenes, which I thought reminded me of very good doctor from the past. I mentioned one earlier. I also think that the scene at the end, the dance number, was a perfect ending and was actually quite well put together. And actually, that made me think about context because if this had been an episode 2 in a series which had started with a very traditional episode one, if it had started with partners in crime or the 11th hour or Smith and Jones, I would actually be thinking of the devil's chord as a delightful whimsical episode and we would get back on track. Instead, this feels like the new norm and that's unsettling to me. I think you're overestimating how much partners in crime in the 11th hour were traditional when they when they were 1st broadcast. No, Nathan, I think something like the 11th hour was really kind of, for me, when that went out, and, you know, it maybe how many years ago, 14 years ago, but when you're an adult in their 50s, 14 years is nothing. And I will say that I was utterly captivated by that, and even partners in crime, which I didn't think was particularly good, but at least I bought it and it all just sort of was happening. Yes, I can draw the line directly between partners and crime and city and city of death or the horns of Nimon or the time warrior. Any of those stories. I draw a line. Partners and client. And actually, all of those stories. I really enjoy, including partners in crime. I'm just not sure whether I can draw a line from the devil's court and more specifically space babies to any Doctor Who that I've enjoyed in the past. I enjoyed this much more than the previous episode and there was a lot of stuff in there that I really did like. And Jinx's performance. I wanted more light and shade. But I'm looking forward to going back and rewatching this one. And I'm going to do that. And I think in the context of the season it's going to be very interesting to see what it's like. I wanted more links with McCartney and Lenin and the payoff there. I just thought it was very pedestrian to get to that. Even the doctor coming up with the notes and the chords, like I just wanted a bit more story around that and them. And I guess I didn't really buy the actor playing Paul McCartney very much. Like I liked Lennon, but I didn't like the other guy. So those elements I struggled with. There were times when I thought Jinx was absolutely wonderful. I guess I had a really high expectation of what they were going to deliver and they were obviously directed in a certain way. I also, I guess, another positive that I really liked was a lot of the backstory stuff, you know, where the doctor lived in Totter's Lane and with his granddaughter and then other things that the maestro mentioned to do with the toy maker and legions and all that. Again, I liked all of that through line in there. As I said, I thought this episode was a step up from the previous one. Maybe if I'd had a week between them, I might have had a different attitude because I was coming off that 1st episode going, 0 my goodness. Like, I found it a train wreck is this one going to be as bad, you know? And so I had that expectation in my mind. Anyway, that's where I'm at with things. I think that's a really good point about the structure towards the end, Todd. I think I agree with you. If it flowed a bit better. But I think also that must be a deliberate choice to cut it that way, to be off-putting, to to break the 4th wall, to say this is this is not normal, even for whatever the new normal of Doctor Who is. This is, this is us kind of going, the rules of reality, liking the giggle. The rules of reality are being bent and, you know, we can have a musical number at the end because it's digetic. That joke was fantastic. Oh, I thought that music was non-digetic. I mean, yes, that joke was fantastic, but that actually made me think along those same lines. Is there something bigger going on here, is doctor making a comment about something being non-digetic, the fact that the rules are breaking down and there's something going on. And of course, there's a lot of internet speculation about the fact that the actress, Susan Twist, is in each episode and they talked about Susan a lot in this episode, which makes us think, of course, is there going to be a Susan Twist. I'm going to put my cards on the table and say that Susan is going to come back as the Rani and Jinx Monsoon is going to turn out to be the father of Melanie Bush. Well, let's actually, let's actually talk a little bit about that. So I think Susan Twist 1st appears in Wildloo Yonder, and she's the person that the camera follows with the news that something needs to be told to Sir Isaac Newton. And she has been in, I think she's in church on Ruby Road. She was one of the people who was abandoning baby farm beta and delivering her message, saying how sort of terrible it was. She was the woman who sold the doctor the cups of tea for an incredible amount of money. And so she has been appearing over and over again. She's from Brookside. Is that right, Peter? Oh, it's never Brookside viewer. I was just Googling it to find out who she was that says Coronation Street. Coronation Street. Okay, so she's known. She's being recognised, I think, by the people at home. So we've got her. We have Mrs. Flood from the end of church the church on Ruby Road who knows what a TARDIS is, although she didn't seem to do that at the beginning of the episode. The readout on Baby Farm Beta had 9.9 for Mavity. of planet. And given that the previous RTD era, It's like when we talk about arcs. RTD would just have a word. You know, the only arc that was really, particularly interesting was the Saxon arc where Saxon at the end of episode 12 travels back in time to the end of season two, which is why he's been appearing all the way through. And that's kind of fun and interesting. It's not sort of super a big deal. Nathan, of course, don't forget about the Ark as well. That's awesome. Is that Doctor Who's 1st art? It might be. So there's a lot more on the table, I think. Oh my god, there's so much more. There has been. And it'll be interesting to see what happens. Because Moffat had more sophisticated arcs, but they tended to be just about the relationships between the regulars and semi regulars. And sometimes like conspicuously in season 9, he'll go, ah, yeah whatever. It was a thing, you know, and it won't go anywhere. And I don't mind that. I didn't think that that was a, you know, the great war crime that so many other people seemed to think it was. Um, so I'm interested because this seems to be quite a different approach. Well, it is. I think there's a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff to do with Ruby, the hidden song in Ruby. The one who waits is almost here, the oldest one, like there's a whole heap of other stuff going on, not only with ruby, but with those other characters and with everybody connected with the toy makers. So I'm actually quite confident that Russell's going to tie all this together, whether we like it or not. That's another question, but he's always managed to pull all the threads together at some point. So I'm actually looking quite forward to the last few episodes of the season to see where it all goes. I've got a few things to plug before we go. We're right near the end of our 1st season of 500 year diary, which has dealt with the idea of new beginnings. The episode that we released most recently was on the Torchwood Pilot. Everything changes. and we are going to be back next week for one more episode on the Sarah Jane Adventures New Year's Day special called Invasion of the Bane. Um, Startling Barbara Bain continues, uh, and so keep an eye out for that. It is pretty much the same pain. And of course, maximum power and untitled Star Trek Project. If you want to know about the Flight Through Entirety podcast Empire, go to any one of our websites and go slash podcasts and there will be a massive and embarrassingly long list of all of the podcasts that we're involved in. In which case, all that remains is for me to say, until next time remember that if the doctor can hear the incidental music that might explain the mood that Pertwe is in throughout the claws of Axos. Thank you very much for listening and good night. See you soon. Ta-ta. Good night. Bye bye. And what about Doctor Who and the Silurians, Nathan. in quite a good mood for that.