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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
See you soon.