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.
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.