Boom

[0:00]

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to the 2nd great and bountiful Human Empire.

The only Doctor Who flash cast, which is beginning to wonder if war is really such a good idea.

I'm Nathan.

I'm Brandon.

I'm pizza.

And I'm Todd.

Well, Russell seems to have the week off this week, and so we're here with Stephen, who, as well as writing this episode for the 1st time since, what, 2017, I think, is also executive producer.

He gets an executive producer credit along with the director Julianne Robinson.

And so I gather that Russell just kind of handed this one over to him completely, even more completely than he used to back when he was writing silence in the library.

So how do we think he went in the executive producer's chair, and in the writer's chair, for boom?

Let's start with Brendan.

So I think he's done really well here.

And I think Steve, Stephen Moffatt has done what I loved him so much for from 2005 to 2008, which is he's just turned in a really good single story.

[01:13]

It's not massively arc driven.

And also, he's done what I think he does best a lot of the time, which is he's gone.

What haven't I done before?

And he hasn't done a sort of single location story.

And when he has done stories set in one place, There's still lots of sets and lots of action.

And here, you know, he talks about it in interviews.

He's like, I wanted, you know, a story where the doctor is standing in one place and it's an amazing idea.

What about you, Tom?

I liked it a lot, and I liked it even more the 2nd time I watched it.

And I kind of think, you know, as you said, he hasn't written the show in a while and he's come in with these 2 new characters and uh, he's, he's had a really good stab at it and I think he, I think he's done.

I think he's done a very good job.

I enjoyed it immensely.

Peter?

And if you wanted to do a story about the doctor standing in one place.

[02:15]

He could have just gone back and watched the space museum, you know.

But I did enjoy it.

I thought it was a big step up from the 1st 2 episodes of the season.

Um, one of which I didn't particularly enjoy and the one which I thought was sporadically enjoyable.

This was a good solid Doctor Who episode.

And Brendan, you said it's a chance for Steven to do things that he hadn't done before.

There was also plenty of chances foreign students that he had done before.

It felt very, very familiar moffat in many ways.

And you know, that's not a terrible thing.

I think Moffat mentioned in his interview with Tom Spielsbury for TV choice, I think it was, that there was some consideration given to this being the opening episode of the season, and I actually think that might have been really good if we'd thrown the doctor and Ruby into a tense dramatic situation like this and made them kind of bond over it and sort of find their way out of it when they didn't particularly know each other.

But that said, as an episode three, I'm glad it's there.

Yeah, I'm a massive fan of Moffat and I thought he was really great.

[03:17]

And, you know, it is new ground for him, but as you said, Peter, it's old ground.

And if you think about his 1st episode ever, like there's some talk and, you know, rule one is Moffat lies, so you can never be sure, but there's some talk that this is his final, um, normal episode, his final just kind of non-special episode.

And in that case, um, villain guard is in his 1st episode and the problems are caused by out of control ambulances in both stories.

You know, there's a lot in common a lot that he's going back to this time while doing that sort of wild formal experiment, which he did from time to time, but, you know, particularly, I think, in heaven's sand.

And he's placed the same or placed very similar constraints on himself.

How do people think that works as an idea?

We've kind of heard from you, Brendan, but did you want to add anything?

[04:18]

Yeah, in terms of the concept, what I what I love about it is we've had so much talk over the last, however long it's been since the Disney co-production deal has been announced and we've had so much talk about how the budget's increased and Russell has specified, yes, the budget is bigger due to Disney money.

And then Stephen Moffatt comes to Russell with this idea of how about we set this story 90% in one gravel pit.

And, and of course, Russell goes, it's 1983 all over again, you know, where, where um, we're chasing around cybermen in a gravel quarry.

Um, but, I think it's important to have a story like this where it's this single concept and exploring everything around that because I know there was concerns with Doctor Who having Disney Money in Disney influence that it might lose its identity of trying new things and what have you.

[05:20]

And so straight away in this season, we've had a musical number, we've had talking babies and snot monsters, and now we're having a story which is like, yes, we know we've got more money than ever before, but we're going to put you in a pit and you're going to like it.

It was, to be fair, a pretty expensive gravel pit, wasn't it?

Yes.

So it's the volume, isn't it?

Which is what they shoot things like the Mandalorian and stuff on.

So, um, while a lot of it does just look like a studio, uh, the skyscapes and things, which are visible to the actors, I think, look amazing and are sort of crisp in a way that special effects haven't been for the last few years.

Peter.

I can't for the life to me really see what they've spent the money on this season so far.

I mean, it always makes me laugh when people say Disney money, Disney influence, it puts me in mind of Candace Bergen from the Sex and City movie where she's talking to Carrie about her wedding dress and she's like vogue styling, vogue photography, vogue airbrushing just makes me think Disney money, Disney influence, Disney airbrushing.

[06:29]

Apparently not.

I'm yet to see where all this Disney money is gone because the 1st 2 episodes of the season looked quite cheap to me in many ways.

I did think this was a very well staged episode and I liked that it had the courage of its convictions because you could see that this is the kind of thing that they could have done back in the classic series.

He could have had a Peter Davidson 2 parter where he was standing a corner of the studio and it was on a time flight style heath and would have been done, but they would never have had the courage to have done a story like this.

Likewise, they could have done it in sort of 2008 by going out on a night shoot to a quarry for a couple of nights.

Well, you know, maybe a week or 2 weeks and getting David Tennant the flu again.

Um, and they could have shot it there.

But they've embraced the new techniques and sort of restricted themselves to this.

And I kind of applauded that.

I think it's good that they've got the courage to go to small scale.

Todd.

I love the fact that it was just in that one place and having Shoot, he just standing still, like his presence is just phenomenal.

[07:29]

Like when he says honey.

You know that you're in trouble.

Reminds you, this is Remington, you know, honey, you know.

Um, back from someone's nurses, and he just had so many powerful moments and quiet moments and just gave him, rather than all movement and all that sort of stuff, to distract you, you were just focussed, and I really, really adore him.

And I love the ambulances.

They remind me of this, the, the survey robot from, um, The mysterious planet, really.

I'm going to say the server robot from the wheel in space.

I was expecting.

You know, the service robot from that.

And all of the landscapes and all that, I thought it looked brilliant, you know?

Doctor Who can now afford to stage its own quarry inside the studio?

amazing.

I think it's quite funny that like we've had like Stephen as a former showrunner and then we've had 6 episodes from Russell and then we had 13 episodes um and 2 co-writes with Chipmull. like it's been the showrunners showrunners for quite some time.

[08:36]

But I think that makes you appreciate all their strengths and weaknesses even more.

So, yeah.

So I'm going to talk about one thing that I think I'm really glad to see back and it's something that's been a feature of this era ever since the Starbeast, which is having a very definite political position.

And this, I think, is the most political story that we've had in a very long time.

And I'm thinking perhaps since oxygen.

We haven't had a story as angrily political as this.

And one of my beefs with the cymbal era is how it didn't want to be particularly political.

And therefore, it was just a little bit less interesting to me.

But here, like in this era already, we've had a major character who is trans and whose transness helps to resolve the plot, we've had Drag Queen Story Hour, which is a big culture war, touchstone, both in America, and here, our drag, Queens, you know, appropriate for children's entertainment, and his jinx monsoon to say yes.

[09:41]

We had a conversation in space babies about abortion, and here we have a very, very angry script.

Not just about militarism, but also about religious faith.

And I've seen a few people online, a few people of faith who were not particularly happy with it.

But I have to say that I'm glad that the show's aboutness is back, and I think it's been a long time between drinks.

What do you think, Brendan?

Yeah, like, going back to what you said about space babies.

I wasn't here last week for that.

And yeah, it struck me the political commentary in that being so upfront.

Whereas, as you say, the tubing lyric could very much sort of equivocate on things and and, you know, have Jodie Whittaker just sort of ruminate that, oh, isn't this sad?

[10:42]

and then stare off and the episode ends.

Um, And yeah, I, I felt the themes in this episode were very well explored.

On the topic of the themes about faith, I'm just trying to find something I sent to you earlier today, Nathan, someone on Twitter, Father Edward Barlow, who summarises the attitude of faith in the story as because if faith is a reason to blindly charge into holy wars, you can keep it, but if faith is the reason a grieving child in a big universe can know that they are loved, then that's an entirely different game.

I think Edward there has nailed it on the head.

You know, the story is not anti-faith, as I think some people are purporting it online.

It is like anything in the human experience.

It's how you use the thing, you know, and even though the doctor criticises faith at the end.

He, when he's talking to Splice, you know, he praises her faith.

And I thought that that moment at the end is in years to come going to be regarded as one of shootings defining moments and it's not overblown.

[11:52]

It's not overplayed, and it wouldn't have worked without the mission statement of the episode from earlier on.

The way that he calls Monday faith gal, you know, with that accent is so gray.

And it's the moment where he realises where he hears that she will fight and die without proof of any enemy existing, but when it comes time to lay down her arms, that's when she needs proof and just how incredulous he is about that.

I just think it was really properly strong.

Todd?

It doesn't worry me one way or the other if the show decides to be political or not, you know?

Sometimes it goes further than I'd like.

Sometimes it doesn't go far enough.

And I thought, Brendan, summed it up that you have those 2 sort of views throughout the episode and I think that's really great.

Like if you just come in saying it's criticising it, you're wrong because the ending disproves that completely.

And that's the strength of Stephen's writing.

[12:53]

I had no particular reaction to that theme of the episode because I think the classic series, Dealt with it quite well in the face of evil, where it's just a couple of lines where saying when you start to have evidence, you stop believing and Piccarriage turns around and says when you're given evidence, you don't have to believe.

Um, and also I think the discussion of religion in the Satan pit for me is really on the money.

I really enjoyed the way that that story approached it.

So this didn't mean much to me, but I'm glad that it was there, like I said.

I thought that the, uh, that the most brutal line was not the one that everyone's complaining about, but the doctor's observation to Ruby, that, um, when she says, when she says, but the church isn't an army, and he says, well, it was, and you're just living in a blip, you know, it'll be an army again soon.

And given what's happening in America and how strongly supported that is by white evangelical Protestants.

[13:53]

I think those are things that the show could profitably say.

And particularly if it has a big American audience, you can kind of, I think, see both Russell and Stephen looking over their shoulder at a new American audience, which is why I think, for instance, that abortion thing appeared in space babies, you know.

So, yeah, like I'm super in favourite.

I'm really happy that it's back.

I somehow think the crossover between us, perspective Doctor Who audience and evangelicals is probably quite small.

Yeah, getting smaller all the time, probably.

All right, so we've heard a little bit from Todd about how he saw Amelia and Shooty in this episode.

What did you think, Brendan?

Oh, I I am just loving them more and more every episode.

And even even space babies, which I'm currently sitting on a 6 out of 10, I want to find a reason to give it a 7 out of 10, so on my next viewing, it might get that.

[14:57]

Can I give you a reason to give it a three?

Because that's where I'm at. back there again.

But even, even with that six, um, I can't really fault 1000000 shooties performance there, and it's just, it's just coming on in leaps and bounds, particularly the moment where, um, he's trying to get her to throw him the remains of uh, Splice's dad and she argues, but not in a sort of Donna Noble kind of way, but in a really compassionate way of yes, I know it's dangerous, but you're in danger too, and we face this together because we are mates.

And The hardest thing to do for any new companion is to establish what makes this relationship different. from previous relationships.

And, you know, I think a lot of us love it when the doctor and companions are on some kind of equal footing, you know, like Romana or Sarah Jane or Donna.

[16:01]

And I feel like Um, 1000000 shoot, he put the characters on equal footing.

In a different way, in a more human way than has been done before because we have a doctor who has dealt with their trauma.

Um, And we have Ruby, who is, you know, dealing with being adopted and not being able to find out who her birth parents are.

But at the same time, she's dealing with that in a really sort of healthy way as far as we can see.

It's just, there's such an energy and a crackle between them.

And they, but they're also just really lovely.

The thing about Shooty's doctor is something that we haven't seen before in the new series is that he isn't closed in any way.

He is so open.

And you know, I think Russell or Moffatt, like in some of the sort of, um, you know, publicity talks, it's like the doctor has, you know, too hearts.

And so he feels everything more keenly than other people.

You kind of think, yeah, no, he doesn't really.

[17:02]

He's kind of, you know, shut down or she is shut down as well.

You know, you don't get that openness.

And there is something really just surprisingly open about shooty.

And having the 2 of them under stress for the entirety of the episode means that they get some really, really great material and he's just terrific. you know I think this is his best performance so far in the role.

I think he was given some material that was worthy of him in this episode.

I'm not sure he's had all that much so far, but this was the episode where I saw green shoots and thought that he could turn out to be a heavyweight doctor.

And I'm looking for more of that this season.

Um, I think.

Ruby is scarily generic for me at the moment.

I think that Millie's doing a reasonable job.

Um, but I'm waiting for her to be given the same kind of material that, um, shooty has been in this episode.

I just thought this could have been any companion and I sort of didn't really buy the, The crackle between them, as you said, Brendan.

[18:07]

I thought that was a little bit absent, but I'm willing to be impressed.

I'm waiting for that to happen.

I agree with you, Peter.

Um, Millie's doing a, okay, or a fine job.

I'm just not buying her as much.

I really am impressed with shooty and to me, she has, she does some, she does some of the emotional stuff quite well.

I like that, but other times I just feel, for me, it's the Nicole Kidman effect where I don't buy her.

Um, and that's not a bad thing, but I just, I think they've got a nice dynamic.

Like I do.

Um, I was very impressed with um, the other female guest star actually.

Yeah, yeah.

Monday.

Monday.

And the little girl was good too.

High paced, high paced. phrases you rarely hear.

So, I actually think that the ruby thing is the weakest thing about the season so far, because when I think about the 3 previous RTD companions, you have Rose, you have Martha, and you have Donna, and admittedly, we've known them for years now, and they've kind of, you know, we've lived with them and thought about them for ages and ages.

[19:24]

But I think they arrived far, far more fully formed than Ruby's character did.

And I can't help feeling that I'm getting a little bit of Series 7 Clara here where Millie is a mystery and we're not looking at her as a person.

And so I think Russell has learned some lessons from Moffat.

But maybe this isn't the right one.

I think it was telling that we, again, got the mystery that is, like, who is her kin and all that sort of thing, and that's what she is mystery wrapped in an enigma or whatever those particular lines are, and perhaps that's coming to the fore a bit more.

Calling it now, I think Jinx Fon soon is going to end up being her father.

Yeah, well, they're little Henry Arbinger's father.

So I thought as well, like the idea of having her unconscious for a 3rd of the episode where this looked like the episode where they would get to stop and talk, everything had been at a fairly breakneck pace in their 1st 3 episodes and I thought, here, we're going to get some character stuff.

[20:32]

And we do get character stuff in the sense that we get to see how they react under pressure, you know, not in the sense that they get to sit and talk about their relationship.

But then having her unconscious at the climax.

You know, one of the problems with the chipel era is that not once does the companion or any of the companions solve the story.

They never save the day.

And that's not true either of Russell or Moffatt.

But Millie's not really getting the hero moments here either.

And I guess that there's always next week.

I suppose, given what the trailer looks like, it's saying.

I think character wise, she's being slightly let down by the writing so far.

Russell's and Stevens, and I think there's moments for her to react like a living breathing person where she doesn't.

She comes across as a little bit of a constructed character.

So to give an example this week, where the doctor's just stepped on the landmine and she's hunting around to do the Harry Sullivan thing and find rocks put under it.

She sort of pauses to look at the, you know, the fact she's on an alien world with wonder in her eyes and I just didn't buy that.

[21:38]

There was another way that that could have been written or maybe performed using the same script, which would show the urgency and the panic at the same time as she was getting that.

I didn't quite buy that a regular person would just stop their hunt or something to stop their friend being blown up to admire the sky.

I loved the doctor's reaction to that, though, where he kind of goes, oh yes, sorry.

That's what this is like for you, isn't it?

You know, that he stops and drinks in her reaction to being on a on an alien planet for the 1st time and stops thinking about the very urgent landmine that he's standing on for a second.

Let's talk about what we expect to come.

We had Susan Twist at the end, another twist at the end this week.

And Russell did announce that they'd been in touch with equity and that there weren't really very many actors and so they just keep employing Susan because they really like her and they think she's really good.

[22:38]

It's just possible that he's not telling the truth.

See, that was in the envision commentary, which was available as well.

He was explaining why Susan Twist was appearing quite so often.

And this is her.

I was wondering why they were getting the queen to play the ambulance for a while, you know, but...

She's very good Yeah, yeah, she is great.

You can see why they keep asking her back.

And look, you know, I think there is some truth to what Russell is saying because all of all of the ladies who sort of match Susan's description inequity are currently filming the last season of Vera, where the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Vera, along with the war era, team up to tackle the AI reconstruction of Inspector Morse.

Right.

Okay.

Well, that explains it.

And look, I don't think anyone listening has watched Vera, so you can't tell me I'm wrong.

So what do we think is coming from all of this is there's just no way of saying, I think.

[23:39]

There's so much stuff in the air.

I've got no idea.

I'm hoping that we're building something really big and I hope that we are because given that that's 8 episodes in the season and the last story is a 2 parter.

I'm really hoping there's going to be some kind of serious defining event there.

Um, if it turns out that all of these little hints that are dropped in and the discussion of Susan Foreman last week, um, and the all stuff about Millie, if it turns out there is more there, um, then I'm quite willing to go back and say, oh, okay, I misrepresented all of these things where I thought maybe she wasn't a fully constructed human being or whatever.

She's not a fully constructed human being.

But I am looking forward to finding out.

That's to be a payoff.

If the payoff is there, then I think it will just tie in these episodes and improve them probably in the long run.

We can't just do the hybrid was just the friends we made along the way again, I think.

Well, I was just thinking back to 2005 and I remember, because, you know, this is in the age before Twitter, on, um, Gallifrey Base, or possibly outpost gallifrey, as it was, then, there were heated debates as to whether Bad Wolf meant anything.

[24:55]

You know, if it was just an inside joke for fans to go, oh, they're using the words bad wolf over and over again, but a very vehement proportion, saying, no, there is no plot.

There's nothing going on. production company in Wales, isn't it?

Yeah.

As for what to expect, I've had a realisation of an idea Russell abandoned that could be happening, but I kind of want to keep my powder drowned because if other people haven't thought of it.

I want to put it in their heads.

So come back to me on episode 8 and see if, see if I'm right there.

But I have noticed a pattern that has emerged over the last 3 episodes.

So space babies are by definition, unearthly children.

Oh my god.

The devil's chord showed us a dead planet.

This week, the doctor was on the edge of destruction.

So what's next week?

Doesn't go well for episode 7 with the sensorize.

What is the next story?

Yeah, six, nine. 73 yards.

[25:58]

Marco Polo.

So, um, maybe the doctor will take a nap.

Or come back and compare your theory to mine when after upsetting, we're all gathered to talk about how there was a surprise regeneration to the 16th doctor, Susan Twist.

There's always a twist of the end.

So she was the doctor all the time.

The lady who played Monday.

She's the next companion, is that correct?

Yeah, that's right.

So she's Verada Sefu.

We don't know yet whether this is an army of ghosts thing or an asylum of the Daleks thing.

I suspect it's an army of ghosts thing.

I think that they probably saw her performance this week and when the next companion thing came up.

They said, let's get Verada back in.

She's in.

Only because Susan Twist wasn't available, probably. right.

The Vera people had finally got hold of her, I think, by that point.

[27:00]

She, she's, of course, in Andor, and he's very good in that.

Yeah.

Oh, you should.

It's excellent.

Yeah.

It was funny because like at the beginning of the episode, I just thought, well, the camera really likes her.

And then when I rewatched it, like I was almost brought to tears by her reaction to her love interest, non-love interest, and I just really loved her performance and the emotion in her face.

It's something I took away from it quite.

I just really thought, oh, she's really human.

Her scenes were shooting.

I just thought the conversation was really natural and very strong.

She, in fact, almost saved one of the things I hate most about Moffatt's writing, which is the power of parental love saving the universe, so I'll give her credit to that.

Well, he did it in his 1st episode for the show. as well. many in between.

All right, so it's time for us to plug a few things. 500-year diary finished its 1st season on Sunday.

[28:02]

So there's 6 episodes of that for you to listen to on new beginnings in Doctor Who, and it's spinoff, so you can find that at 500-yeardiary.com.

Uh, Untitled Star Trek project is continuing every week.

Last week we did one of my absolute favourite Star Trek. episodes ever, disaster, which obviously has the most superb Marina Syrtis hero moment.

So you can go back and listen to that and the other 109 episodes of Untitled Star Trek Project.

And Brendan, I believe, released an episode last night as well.

Yes, so the latest episode of the BJBJ game show is now out on my husband's suggested game, which is Catquest.

I'd also just like to drop in here My co-host over on that show, BJ is enjoying the new series of Doctor Who, and she was very grateful that I didn't tell her beforehand that Boom was written by Stephen Moffatt because she said she really enjoyed it, but that might have prejudiced her opinion.

[29:02]

She's not the biggest fan of Moffat.

And last week, we also released the 3rd episode of The Three-handed Game, finishing off our theme of Reach for the Stars, with the Honour Blackman episode, The White Dwarf.

Which hand did you reach to the Stars?

First one, then the other.

And then the third.

And then the 3rd.

It's not a good night.

All right.

Well, in that case, all that remains is for me to say, until next time, look up an Arundel tomb by Philip Larkin.

It's good.

You'll like it, and by the time you hear this, it'll probably have its own TARDIS wiki page.

Thank you very much for listening and good night.

Good night.

Good night.

See you soon.