A Geek History of Time - Episode 124 - Dr Who vs Loki Variant Part II

Episode Date: September 11, 2021

So first thing foremost, I think being the addition of pant leggings is really when you start to see your heroes get watered down. The ability to go straight man, that one. Which is a good argument for absolute girls. Everybody is going to get behind me though, and I support numbers. When you hang out with the hero, it doesn't go well for you. Grandfather took the cob and just slid it right through the bar. Oh god, I'm sorry. Okay.

And that became the dominant way our family did it. Okay. And so, both of my marriages, they were treated to that. Okay, wait, hold on. Yeah, rage, I could. How do you imagine the rubber chicken? My grandmother actually vacuumed in her pearls. Oh my god, you know what I'm saying?

We had the sexual revolution. It might have just been a Canadian standoff. We're gonna go back to 9-11. Oh, come on. Here we get over it. And don't ever stand in the book, it's a spoiler. Agra has no business being that big. With the cultists when we all win.

This is a geek history of time. Where we connect an urinary to the real world. My name is Ed Blalock. I'm a world history and English teacher here in Northern California. And you know, we had meant to talk about this before our last episode, but I got you sidetracked by talking about my son developing imaginary friends. Yeah. We very recently got into McWoryer V. Yes.

As a new game on the Xbox. Yes. And I actually, I haven't had the chance to mention it to you yet, but last night, I actually managed to get through the fourth mission in the game. I actually managed to get like playing my way through the game. I should probably start. So I'm that much closer to actually unlocking some of the stuff that you know will allow us to do stuff. Very cool. But I'm having an even bigger blast with it than I thought I would.

and even bigger blast with it than I thought I would. Mm-hmm. Um, and yeah, and I want you to tell everybody about, like, the part of the game that you figured out how to unlock and do before producer George and I did, because it's awesome. Yeah, yeah. So, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a Latin and drama teacher up here in Northern California.

I'm also enjoying the hell out of mech warrior 5, which I did not expect. I did and I didn't because we tried a tank game that I didn't care for. And I like World War I or World War II fighter pilot games, but not jets or anything faster. And I was like, well, I used to love at virtual world playing battle tech. Okay. And so that was a lot of fun. I did very well at it. I achieved the rank of master for whatever that's worth.

But then the mech warrior game started coming out on the computers and it was way too complex and way too much. Well, I found a way to mod the mech chassis that they give you. Yeah. And it's not as modables that I would like, but that's okay. But I'm basically recreating a lot of the old tech mechs, uh, well, a lot of the old, the clan mechs that were used at virtual rooms. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that's been a lot of fun because that enabled me to understand how to play the game better. Oh, yeah. And that's been a lot of fun because that enabled me

to understand how to play the game better. Oh, okay. And I was just playing earlier today in a moment of relaxation. And I figured out, because my chief complaint has always been like, I'm running sideways and I'm pointed this way and I don't know how to reorient myself

without just tapping that Y button. Why, I now know if I just look at the radar just like we used to in battle tag. In battle tag, you've got the cone right which shows your field of view right and the dotted line which shows which way your legs are exactly. Yeah, so it's been a lot of fun. So it's it's a hoot in a hole. Now I don't remember this from virtual world, but but one of the other features that they've got is if you look just directly ahead at your HUD, you can see there's a hoot in a hoot. Now, I don't remember this from virtual world, but one of the other features that they've got is if you look just directly ahead at your HUD, you can see there's a little white line

going to one direction or the other that shows you what the variation is from like you know, this pointed, if you're face and your feet are pointing in the same direction, there's just a vertical line there kind of in the middle of your HUD. When your feet start moving to the right, you start seeing the line get longer to the right

and the other way to the left when you've there. I don't actually remember that. I don't know if that's about it. Okay, but if you look closely at your HUD because you know you tend to play in cockpit view. Yes, I do. And I have been trying to develop the skill of playing more often in cockpit view because it's more fun. But yes. Also a little bit more challenging because you can't look at your Mac and see your orientation.

Right. But if you use that, that's also a guide. My problem is I find that I wind up getting target fixated and I stop looking at those indicators on the HUD. And then I'm like, wait a minute, why did I just jerk to the left? Is it be- no, I didn't get hit. Oh no, it's because I just turned my legs and all of a sudden my torso is able to swing in that direction because I was turned all the way to the left.

See, that's the one downside of it. In Battle Tech, at Visual World, you were able to do 360 rotation until you got damaged enough where it would start to impede your rotation. Yeah. And sometimes you would get stuck, by the way. That's right, which you still have. I had that happen a couple of times myself, yeah.

But yeah, I very much am still working with that. Yeah, it's a hoot. It's a lot of fun. Yeah. I'm glad that you and producer George found that game. Yeah. So, all right, so last time we spoke, the doctor was in. Yes. Yes.

So, at the end of the last episode, I basically kind of summed up with my thesis that we in the United States are not ever going to get a doctor who show. The closest thing we're going to get is Loki. Right. And just to kind of briefly recap, Dr. Who, of course, is the longest running science fiction series in the world. You know, from the BBC, it is about a time traveling alien and his human companions who he kind of picks up like lost puppies uh, at various points in his career, his and her career, because now the doctor has been both male and female. Um, and uh, his, his, their adventures through time, uh, where they run into various aliens and, you know, ancient intelligences and etc. bent on conquest domination and whatever. And they escape and or overcome those forces.

Often for some reason, earth is always a very common target of invasion. I think just because it's humans writing the series and this is our dirt ball. Yeah, you know, that's true in so many other Marvel films. Yeah, and it like comes out in the entirety of the universe. How did this many of the Infinity Stones wind up on this particular ball of dirt? Yeah, at this particular time. Yeah, it comes out that this world is a nexus point. Yeah. So. But in any event, this world is a fixed point in space and time to borrow from

Dr. Who. So, but Loki, the series in the MCU, which good that we brought the MCU into the conversation there, is the closest thing we is good that we brought the MCU into the conversation there, is the closest thing we're going to get to the kind of thing that Dr. Who is. We touched on it a little bit in the last episode that there is something very specifically specifically American about Star Trek. Yes. As an example, it is built from our national character and our dominant national identity.

Okay. The story that we tell ourselves about our nation's identity. Okay. It was pitched as wagon train star trek, that is, was pitched as wagon train to the stars, which right there, it's a Western sort of. Right, even though it really was a steamboat. It was really, yeah, a steamboat to the stars,

a much better analogy, but the themes within it, I kind of want to deconstruct Star Trek for a moment to take a look at what the iconic American sci-fi TV series looks like. Star Trek involves a crew of characters. Now of course, we're primarily focused on, I'm looking at the original series for this because it is from the same time period basically as Dr. Who in the 60s. Dr. Who is 63, Star Trek was 60.

Oh, 67. Oh, 67. Okay. So they're, I mean, to a historian's eye, they're, they're same time period. So while, while the Brits were had developed and were then running with the doctor here in the United States, and now I've forgotten his name, the guy who came up with the concept for Star Trek, bad nerd, Jean Roddenberry, came up with the concept for Star Trek, bad nerd, Gene Roddenberry, came up with the organization of Starfleet, and an exploration mission

that has a military structure with a great deal of hierarchy and rank with the main character being the captain of the ship. Right. And with the other senior officers being his dynamic trio partners and then the less senior officers being kind of the recurring supporting cast. Mm-hmm. And it's very hierarchical.

It is overtly utopian. Yeah. Okay. Starfleet exists in the Federation of Planets, which is a society in which, you know, ancient ideas about religion and,-ups from births, primitive past, have been dropped, and everybody lives in this post-scarcity society, which doesn't ever really get fully fleshed out in the original series. We just know, well, we overcame ideological differences, and we don't have scarcity anymore. So we're really actually kind of hyper of hyper socialist, but it's never put that way. Right. Anyway, I'm kind of getting off the set, but it's this, again, very utopian idea that is this story about a starship captain in a leadership position in this organization with very strong military character to it.

And they are engaged in an exploratory mission out into space to make contact with new alien races. And it's all very, it's phrased very much in noble overtones, kind of, deadly duet right of the stars, kind of, kind of outlook to it. And so it's really, really cold war American. Yeah. Like, like immensely cold war American. Oh, yeah, yeah.

You know, we're, we're, we get introduced to the klingons, we get introduced to the Romulans, and it's immediately obvious they're very clearly the Soviets and, and, and or the Chinese, you know, right. Uh, in, in, you know, alien makeup, you know, and, and so, I mean, all of I mean all of the themes and all of the characteristics are really clearly a product of their time in the United States. Yes. And they are very clearly built around a very specific kind of American identity. Our popular culture glorifies the captain of the ship. Yes. Glorifies the hierarchy. Glorifies the idea of the order is good. The organization has high

ideals. The organization is noble and we need to have structure and we need to have order in order to have peace and prosperity and freedom for everybody. This is how we attain this. This is how we attain all, this, this, we have Starfleet. And, and again, Starfleet is quasi-military in its nature. Yeah. You can thank Jean Koon for that. Yeah. But yeah.

Yeah. So now, now to compare that to the doctor, the doctor is an individual who ran away from his responsibilities in order to go see cool shit. Yeah, that's different. Furthermore, he doesn't go out of his way to, like, he doesn't, he doesn't say, okay, now I'm gonna hop in my time machine and I'm gonna go back to the Battle of Kaniyay because I think it went the wrong way and I'm gonna fix that. He says, I'm gonna go back to ancient Rome and you know, he shows up in Pompeii three days before the mountains gonna explode. he shows up in Pompeii three days before the mountains gonna explode.

You know, very famously and, and you know, finds out there's, you know, alien fuckery going on in the background. Anyone's getting sucked into dealing with the alien fuckery in the background. That's, that's, woof. I guarantee you you're gonna get back to that point. Yes. Yeah, because you've seen Loki. Yeah. And again, hold on.

Before we go any further, I do also want to say just like in the last episode, I don't know when they're going to come up, but I want to blanket just state. There will be spoilers for Loki in the middle of this. I would say they're going to be spoilers for some episodes of Dr. Who, but the series has been on since 1960 fucking three. So and I haven't actively watched the show in a couple of years, so I'm not gonna be spoiling anything that's at all recent.

So, no spoiler alerts for Dr. Ho, just know I'm gonna talk about it, and there are gonna be spoiler alerts for Loki. So, you know, like it's spoiler alert, we're gonna talk about some. Pause it here. And when you're done watching all of Loki, come back.

Hit play. And you give me five seconds. So that should pretty much take care of it right there. And welcome back. I hope you enjoyed engaging Loki. What I wanted to say was that it seems like a couple of things are happening. Number one, American censorship was so up its own ass.

I mean, they were literally, so you couldn't have rich stories anyway. And American censorship was there to make sure that order was good. Yes. Was there to make sure that I mean, they literally sent people down there with measuring tape to measure the cleavage of the woman on the set. Oh, I know. Star Trek. Oh, well, they did that in the movie studios too. Yeah, it's insane. There's a great story about one of the ways they would actually have a sensor climb a ladder to look down to to measure, to get an idea. Yeah, I'd be doing some nuts.

So, and I don't know how it wasn't Britain, but Britain seems to have a more literary understanding of how stories work. As a culture. I think it's an- I think it's important to point out they were the ones who kicked the Puritans out. Yes. And the Puritans came here.

We are the ones, we are the ones who are culturally, the dominant culture is descended from the Puritans. Yes. So I think that's basically like, painting with a broad brush because it saves time. I think that's where a lot of that can be. Yeah, so I guess my plan is. Also racist.

The not, I'm gonna point out that the British have races on down. Oh, oh, I know, I know, I know, but I'm talking about a lot of the ways in which our cultural puriences, yeah, say anyway. But I would say that just the difference between Star Trek and your doctor who that I've never seen would also include the fact that America was so up its own ass in the 60s about censoring every little thing.

I mean, to the point where cartoons in the 80s had to be massively rewritten because you do not elevate one over the others because it has to be a collective. Elivating one over the others is much more of an adult TV show thing, which would have been Star Trek. And yet, it was, you know, really good ideas, poorly written quite often, but it wasn't poorly written necessarily because Gene Ronberry was terrible at it. Although I would say that fuckboy Ronberry was not very good at it. But he also was dealing with the studio.

Yeah. That was just letting the air out of his tires left right in the center. Oh, jagged in sword arm constantly. Whereas the BBC is run literally by the government. It's not that they don't have sensors. They did. Oh boy, did they? But they, sounds like they didn't censor ideas as much as they censored. They did not censor ideas as much number one, number two. And now we get into the the the idea in our culture that there is a kid's ghetto in our in our in our media, which is to say in the UK,

you could approach issues on a show that was family viewing. You could come at those ideas in ways that didn't have to be overt. Writers in the United States, if they were writing a moral lesson for children, because partly because we're culturally descended from the Puritans and partly because they assumed kids were all stupid, you know, those kind of moral lessons had to be very

blunt and delivered like sledgehammer blows. Whereas part of what the BBC was trying to do was elevate the art form and, you know, you know, they were actively working to be literary and that kind of thing. And I mean, in a show like Dr. Who, which is rubber-faced aliens and kind of existed in its own sci-fi ghetto within the BBC, that still bled over into the way the show was done. Right. So that there were interesting kind of ideas and there were thematic elements that started being played with that didn't get censored mostly because they could be more oblique

about them. If that makes sense, they could, they, they, the writers, the writers were allowed to be oblique because the assumption was the kids are gonna get it anyway. And there's not, I would say also, an underlying assumption of the communists are trying to pervert our children. Yes, this is true. You know, I, I, I think that one of the reasons

you have so much censorship and have so much, you have to say censorship and have so much you have to say this thing out loud is because if you don't, if someone shares a tool, clearly, as it's collectivism, you're looking a little pink over there. Maybe killing the red shirts was actually There might have been there might have been some some subconscious symbol isn't hey look over look over there We're killing red shirts. You don't have to worry about us. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, heading thought of that, but yeah so

And and we have this concept So, and we have this concept within the dominant culture of the United States of this idea of rugged frontiersman, hero, individual, but we then, after World War II, we see that then grafted onto this idea of what it is that put us at the top of the heap internationally, which was a military army put us in the position of being the world's superpower, one of the two in a bipolar circumstance. And so that is fundamentally part of the DNA of all of the science fiction stories that we see coming forward. Now the other big example that we have in the United States is Star Wars. And the thing is Star Wars is a Western run through a blender of

Japanese cinema and then strained and brought back onto an American screen with with a very heaping helping of the hero with a thousand faces thrown in on top of it. Yes. And it is space fantasy. Yeah. That is very much about a lone heroic innocent figure who leaps at the call. Yep. And his supporting characters are all stock characters out of either fairy tales and or Westerns. And so again, we have this intensely American identity frontier nation, like, you know, his best buddy, his best buddy is literally a gunslinging outlaw.

Right. Like I don't know how you get more Westerns. Who he meets in a literally called a canteen. Yeah. I don't know how you get anymore like John Wayne Americana kind of core ideas than that. Right. You know because it was written by you know a boy from the Central Valley of California. So there you go. And we've talked about that ad Nazim previously, but so every other science fiction franchise that we have developed collectively here

in the United States is borrowing from or responding to one of those two stories. They're either responding to Star Trek or they're responding to Star Wars or if you're Battlestar Galactica, they're stealing leafily from both to try to cash in. Yeah, okay. And like, and what I love about any and all of that

is if you're responding to Star Trek, you're responding to a very specific kind of sci-fi. Yeah. And if you're responding to Star Wars, you think you're responding to sci-fi and you're not. You're responding to Westerns and fairy tales. Yes. So yeah.

And so because of how those two universes are the, you know, 500 pound, 800 pound gorillas of our psyche, right? In terms of genre in this country, we're not going to be able to get over those facets of our identity enough to have a character who is not any of those things. Again, again, the doctor did not jump at the call. He literally ran away from his duties. He ran away from the society he was born in because in later incarnationsations of the doctor it's been it's been intimated that like well you know I found that you know all this total control over the flow of time was wrong and I you know didn't want to be part of it but like he freely

admits they freely admit. No I also did it just because I wanted to run away and see cool shit like I didn't want to do that. Do you think so? It has to do with the fact that there was a king who abdicated in living memory of when the show started. Or am I going? That might have been, that boy, he might be, he might be, you might be, you know, making a connection on the crazy board where there isn't one.

Yeah. But I think that was, I mean, of course that was a huge event for the United Kingdom and within the popular psyche of the United Kingdom it was a big deal. Mm-hmm. So there might have been that might have that might have been something that the writers kind of twigged on. Okay. But I don't think it was like directly... Yeah, it was in a writer sitting down and going. Remember?

Yeah, remember. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, it is interesting to me that you have in the British story of the doctor, a man who is deliberately going... His adventure starts when he refuses the call. Yeah.

And in the American story, he can't wait to find a call. Yeah, he's looking for a call actively. And I think a big part of that is Lucas being from, where he's from. Yeah. Like get me out of here. Yeah.

Oh my God. Yeah. And again, there's a very American Aspect to that of don't know I want to go off. I want to go I want to go have adventures in in you know British storytelling tradition. There's a lot more you know, I'm you know Happy at home. I like home, right. I don't want to leave home. Oh fuck. I got happy at home, I like home. Right. I don't wanna leave home. Oh fuck, I gotta leave home. Yeah. And then the ending of that story arc

within the hero's journey is returning home. And I am home. I am changed, I mean it's Tolkien. Yeah. I am changed. I am never going to be the same man I was, person I was when I left, but I am home. I am never going to be the same man I was, person I was when I left, but I am home. Right.

You know, there is still that return. Yes. And like, there ain't none of that in Star Trek or Star Wars. No, it's true. Like in Voyager, they wanted to get home. Like that was their whole goal and it ultimately did lead to that. But it's not the same spiritual kind of, and now I am home and I am changed by my journey, you know, kind of thing that you see. Mm-hmm.

And, Tolkien and in other stories that follow that arc from a British perspective. Right. of that arc from a British perspective. Right. And so we are still, even two centuries after the close of the frontier in this country, there is still this aspect of our subconscious that keeps telling these stories like we're still a frontier nation. Right. We, we, we, we can't let go of it.

Where we're having, we're, we're having a really hard time getting to the point where we understand that no, no, there ain't no frontier anymore. You know, it's, it's interesting to me because I mean, like I said, one of the things, one of the two pillars upon which we base all of our sci-fi is not even sci-fi. And yet, it's such a classically American thing. We manifest it by not understanding it. And it reminds me of people's understanding, misunderstanding of the three-fifths compromise in American history. You know, just briefly, the three-fifths compromise

said that for the Southern states, they could count three-fifths of every slave toward A voter. Yeah, toward no, toward representation. Right. And a lot of people took that as like, well, three, you know, I'm only three fifths of a man. It's like, no, it's much, much worse. Yeah. It is much, much worse. Because what

it really did was you had a whole class of people slaves, uh, defined by their ethnicity. Yes. Who now counted toward the representation of the people who own slavery, who held, who now counted toward the representation of the people who own slavery, who held them in bondage. And, yeah, and these people now are super voters. Yeah, it's not like you got three fifths of a vote. No, no, you just held your, your existence, held pilots, their political powers. Your enslavement empowered them even more.

Yeah. And a lot of people, they don't see past the math of a three-fifths thing, because that's in itself awful. Yeah. But it's nowhere near as awful as the reality. And yet, it's so hard to get like, that's not what has been branded into our brain. What's branded into our brain? And I mean brand like Nabisco.

Yeah, what has been branded into our brain is the, I'm three fifths of a person, is what that says about me. It's like no, it's far worse. You're not a person and now you count towards someone else. Yeah, three fifths of you counts towards someone else. For. Three-fifths of you counts towards someone else. Forwards. Having even more power of personhood than you don't have.

That's really what it is. They're stealing your personhood for political purposes. To empower themselves to continue to make policies to hold you in bondage. Yes. What I love about that aspect is when I bring up and see this is where you can actually say, you know, because critical race theory doesn't get taught in high schools.

But yet anytime you look at the laws and and how race interacts with that, I always point out, hey, look at the neighborhoods or look at the states in which you have federal penitentiaries and state penitentiaries and realize that anybody who's a felon in there does not ever get to vote, and yet they count toward the population. They count toward populations. So how is that not a three fifths situation? That's a really good question.

Yeah, and yet nobody sees that for what that actually is. And it's the same thing. And it's because we've just lied about it and confused ourselves through manifestation this whole time, which again, it's a long way around to get to star wars isn't sci-fi. And yet we tell ourselves it is. So it might as well be, it's kind of like the word irregardless.

It has just been pumped into a war. It has become a word by force of existence. Yeah. And as a guy who teaches a dead language, I'm okay with that for languages, but it is interesting to me. And in other words, when we're talking about the zit guys, there's interesting kind of point to be made there. So I'm going to be right there.

Yeah. And so that's, I mean, again, we're we're we're I'm just reinforcing my thesis that we're not going to get a hero like the doctor. Right. Because we we don't have the national psyche to generate a hero like the doctor. We need our heroes to be the person who jumps at the call. We need we have. Well, we need heroes, not just protagonists. This is true. And I think that might be a fundamental difference there too.

Could be. I think that's a good point. And the doctor very rarely, it doesn't never happen, but it is almost never the doctor's intention to go somewhere, to do daring, do and fight evil. He's going somewhere because he's got a new companion and he says, let me show off. I can take you anywhere you want to go, anytime, any place. What do you want to see? Well, that is a post-British empire thing too.

Isn't it though? And so, yeah. Why? Well, because we can. Because we can. And so, that has meant he's gone to the destruction, the death of the planet Earth. That means he's gone to the birth of the planet Earth, the very beginning, like the moment where the planet's core accreted.

Right. And then it's like thicker in the middle. Yeah. And then the earth birth with a lot of growth. Nice. Thanks. Thick. Yeah.

And so end in the process of watching that found out, hey wait, there's a giant nasty alien spider living at the Earth. Played by Colin Firth. Nice. found out, hey wait, there's a giant nasty alien spider living at the Earth. Clay, by Colin Firth. Nice. Living at the center of Earth's core, who, you know, millenial later winds up.

Anyway, so yeah, like, and so it's in those like, and then one of my favorite episodes is his new companion. This is with 11 Matt Smith as the doctor in one of his first episodes, Amy Pond, his new companion says, I want you to take me to Renaissance Venice. And they go to Renaissance Venice. Cool.

And they find vampires, naturally. But it's not that kind of show, so they're not vampires, they're aliens. And we get the doctor having the wonderful line of Well, you've got to ask that What could they possibly be that's so bad? They want us to think that they're a valentine And he does the fangs was it's amazing

so and and then so okay, well there are alien vampires in you know Redis on Venice sure now And then so, okay, well, there are alien vampires in, you know, Red Sans Venice. Sure. Now we've got to, you know, we've got to, you know, rescue the other companion and figure out what's going on and defeat, you know, we've now found they're doing bad things, we've got to defeat them. And so, that is how the doctor winds up in an adventure.

Okay. As opposed to Luke Skywalker shows up, Now the doctor winds up in an adventure. Okay. As opposed to Luke Skywalker shows up, by the way, spoilers for Mandalorian, I'll give you 15 seconds. 14. So Luke Skywalker shows up playing a smaller version of a guitar whose strings you can only find in certain spots in Texas, at three in the morning. Yeah, nice.

Yeah. So that's why you get that cool music twang. Yeah. No, but yeah, he he shows up in Mandalorian to wreck bad guys because he's there to rescue the child. Right. Right. And so that's how an American action hero sci--fi hero, shows up to do stuff.

And that's pinnig off. Like huge things. That still is that through line. Yeah. Like Luke is only reluctant at the very beginning. Yeah. And then you see. And he's not really like he is.

His reluctance is not at, it's kind of nominal reluctance and it's kind of a, well, I don't really know about all this mystical crap, but like, you know, my aunt and uncle are dead, so I wanna fuck up whoever did it. Right. Like, you know,

and in the Mandalorian, Din Jaron is not really a reluctant hero at all. And and in the Mandalorian, Dingerin is not really a reluctant hero at all. He starts out being kind of an anti hero, but once he makes... Josie Wales, I mean, he... Well, yeah, once but and again, an American archetype. I mean, it is no shit, a space western.

Yes, it is. We haven't done anything about the Mandalorian. Down into the YouTube. Down, oh my God, the soundtrack. So, I mean, there's two or three episodes about the Mandalorian we can do. But, you know, so that is our collectively, our hero work.

That is how our our our our protagonists behave. That's not how the doctor behaves. And that is why. Loki. That is part of why Loki gives off such amazing doctor who vibes. Yes. Because now we're going to finally start talking about Loki. He shows up in the first episode. Mm-hmm.

And this is where the spoilers are gonna start. I can't, yeah, I mean, we already told you to be warned you. We already told you to be warned you at the 14 minute mark. But like, he gets the Tesseract in that opening sequence. Does his, you know, I disappear, move. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, bam, he's being captured by the cops. Right.

Like, who are the cops? Like, that they captured Logan. From the very beginning of the show, number one, we're following very clearly an anti-hero. We're following some of this. At best. Yeah, we're following someone clearly an anti hero. We're following some of this. At best. Yeah, we're following someone who fled, who ran away. And now at the very beginning, his goal starts out as like in the very first minutes of

the series, his goal is, well, I'm going to get the Tesseract. I'm still going to, you know, I'm going to gonna become king, of everything, like that's still my goal. And so he is not, he is very much not the doctor, he is the master. He's a doctor who villain in the opening a few moments in series, and he's being captured by the Judun, who are space cops in the far future in Doctor Huda.

They also have the heads of rhinocera, but that's beside the point. Anyway, I mean, if you actually look at the TVA Hunter uniforms, and you ever look up Judun, like, yeah, and I just realized that today while I was thinking about this episode, there are similar, remarkable similarities. Now part of that is because they're both

inspired by riot cops. So, you know, but so he gets picked up by the TVAs hunters, right, who are rest of them and carry him off to the TVAs headquarters. And the first couple of episodes of the show are like a, looking back on it, they're like a background episode or a below deck's episode of Doctor Who. Because instead of following the Doctor, we're following the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy, the jadeun, you know, supporting kind of sort of good guys,

but overzo, frequently overzo, that's a good guy supporting kind of sort of good guys, but overzealous, frequently overzealous, good guy, kind of characters. They're kind of in Doctor Who, they kind of embody the idea of law before everything else. Like they want to be protectors, they want to save everybody. But if that means we've got to step on people's toes in order to do it, like they're not fascist, but they're overzealous

Yeah, I mean the TVA overzealously overprotective the TVA is basically the same thing. They're pretty people left and right They are protecting the sacred timeline Now here's here's where there's there's some important differences between the Jadun and TVA the TVA from from the like as soon as you really, like we get about two episodes in, because they only have six episodes to work with. And so the TVA starts looking pretty fascist. Pretty quick.

Really fast. Yes. The Jodun never quite get there. The TVA starts looking like, okay, wait, they are, everybody working for them is very much convinced that what they're doing is necessary. And it's a necessary evil

because whatever's gonna happen, if they're not there, whatever's gonna happen is gonna be so much infinitely worse. Okay. But then the very first time Silvi says it to Loki, she says you're working with, you know, your fascist timecops. Right.

Or whatever phrase it was, but she explicitly uses the word fascist. And the moment that comes out, you're like, oh my God, they really are, aren't they? Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so then we get through the first couple of episodes and then we get to Lamentus.

Okay. They arrive on Lamentus, they get stuck on Lamentus. Yes. And everything about that episode felt and looked like Dr. Who. Visually, what you said in our last episode about the kind of fudging visually made it feel like the frame rate was being messed with, there is something to the shininess of the kind of the nature

of the lighting and the shininess of everything. That is reminiscent of so many different sets from the of the nature of the lighting and the shininess of everything. That is reminiscent of so many different sets from Dr. Who. Gotcha. And the guard uniforms, when they're getting on the train, the sort of faceless guards with the big funny-looking

swoopy visors on their helmets, and the oddly fat-looking sweaters that the guards are wearing, that is so Doctor Who. Like that whole aesthetic is so very much visually, but it would belong right at home in any number of Doctor Who episodes. And by that time, Loki is still saying he's telling himself, no, no, I want to take over the TVA. Yeah, but he's clearly,

yeah, there's a part of that that is still his, his self visualization, his self identification, his self-visualization, his self-identification, still kind of trying to tell himself. No, no, I'm in this, I'm in this for the long con. I've got my eyes prized. When in point of practical fact, he's starting to notice, well, no. No, this episode is where he switches over to being. This episode is where he fully in acts as humanity.

Like it took all of Ragnarok to until the end for him to like be okay with hugging his brother. Yeah. And this was that moment. Yeah, like at the very end when they're sitting there and he reaches out to her. Yeah, yeah. And then everybody watches the variants.

Yes, just like spiking. They're like, oh shit, what happened? Right. You know, and so that whole episode, like the plot arc of the episode of, okay, now we're stuck on the planet. Well, we have to figure out how we're gonna get off of here and it's not a problem we can solve by beating people up.

Right. Like, I mean, there's a fight scene in it because it's an MCU show, but. But, I mean, she very clearly says, no, your idea of doing this is not going to work. Yeah, that's well, she calls him out on, that's not actually a plan. Yeah. You, you, you don't know what a plan actually is. Yes. Well, and I'm going to point out something here as well,

where they are in Lamentis is, and this is brought up in the previous episode, it's that he has figured out her trick. She hides in Armageddon's. Apocalypse is the term they use. And that reminds me of, because I have a lot of students who love Dr. Who. Yeah, okay.

And that reminds me of discussions that I hear from them say from time to time, fixed point in time. Yes. So. There is a thematic parallel there that what happens on Lamentus can't be changed. Right.

What you, you can, it's already the doctor, the doctor talks about, okay, I can, I can fix this, I can change this, I can change this. Um, but this is this, I'm sorry, this I can't do. That's a fixed point in time. They even go to the same place at one point. They go to Pompeii. Yeah. Oh, yeah. They do.

And have, have a wonderful moment with Tom Hiddleston who is a classic major Getting to action station in Latin and I will tell you how stoked my daughter and my son were to hear that And they both said wow his pronunciation is pretty good. I was like yes, it is. Well, that's what you get And I was looking at the grammar and I was like, oh, that's okay, that is not just the, I am here today, I am sitting under a tree. There is also another one sitting under the tree. Together we sit under the tree. No, it was, you know, he used the phrase,

the name for me is Loki. Now it translates to my name is Loki. But he literally used a date of possession, which is, that's a little extra. Like, you did not have to do that. Of course he has to be extra. No, I don't mean extra like that. I was saying, that is a clear understanding

of the appropriate grammar. You know what I'm like? If someone says hello to you, they're greeting you, right? Yeah. But really what they're doing is saying, Hi-all, low there, which is a command user have good health over there, low there, right? Yeah. But we don't treat it like that. No. You know, so if it would be like the equivalent to just saying, so, So if it would be like the equivalent to just saying, Sup, to somebody, and all the cultural understanding

of the language is like, okay, that means what is up, and you just shorten it down. You're not telling me, you're not demanding that I eat dinner right now. You're not saying sup, and it would be similar like instead of, you know, if some were to write a script, that, you know, one character greeting the other would say,

sup, not much you, you know, and that would be it, as compared to, good-morrow, good-fellow. Yeah. How are you on this fine morning? I am well, the birds have chirped. You know, it's like, they could have done that with your Latin, but they didn't. But they didn't, you know, they did, they went, they could have done that with your Latin, but they didn't. But they didn't. You know, they did, they went,

they did a better job. Okay, yeah. All right, so you're kind of saying it was more naturalistic for somebody who would have actually been a Latin speaker at the time. Yeah, it was much more colloquial Latin. Okay. Then, then, then, then, then, then I've heard used,

and not only the pronunciation, that was cool, but the grammar itself was better than what I heard in supernatural You know well, okay to be fair. They're invoking a god all the time. Yeah, so and and and the argument could be made that most the Latin here in supernatural is church Latin Yeah, it's a collision from centuries later. Yes When but the grammar is the grammar. Yeah, well, okay, so the grammar is the Latin grammar I heard in the Pompeii spot of Loki Was better than the grammar that I heard in lost when it turns out some of the other speak Latin

Okay, so all right there you go. All right, very cool. Yeah No, it's one of the most entertaining moments of the whole series Yeah, standing on the back of that cart, shouting, you're all gonna die! Nothing matters. Right. And he's so fucking gleeful about it. Yeah.

Because he was right. Yeah. Well, because he was thinking himself right. Yeah. This is a fixed moment in time. Yeah. And a fixed point in time. And what I love too, also, is that the street that he's sitting on.

Yeah. That's the one that you see. Like, if you type in Pompeii Road, that's the street. Literally that street. I have students, I have pictures of students walking on that street. That's just that one. Yeah. That's entertaining. Yeah. So yeah. So he, they they he and Moby's yes, by the way if you're gonna give a time agent a name like how perfect is that and I Especially since he doesn't know how old he is where he can or where he ends and he keeps coming back. Yeah, yeah I do wish that they would have him show up with like less jacket, less tie, you know, less shoes, just so he's stripping. A mubbing. Stripping, yeah.

Nice. I'm sure there are plenty of Wilson fans who would like that too for different reasons to you. True. I also really wish they would have done this in Loki. Have him keep having moments where it would have been totally appropriate for him to go, wow. And never have to do it.

And then have one scene at like episode five, episode six, episode five at the end, where you know how at the end of, what was it, Age of Ultron, Steve Rogers, Avengers, and then it cuts. He was about to say assemble, but have Wilson's face, and he sees something really cool, and then it cuts. And so it never pays it off. I would have loved that. Just give everybody blue balls for that. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes blue balls. Yes, like, yes, yeah, you're evil. Yes. Um, so, but we see Loki turn into the doctor in this, or into an kind of an avatar of the doctor, at Lamentus, in this moment where he, he stops being a doctor who villain, who is looking for power, looking for whatever. Number one, at this point, he just wants to escape.

Yeah. And number two, he has now determined, okay, yeah, no, no. You know what? No, fuck that. Right. Which is a moment the doctor always hits. There is always a point in a storyline, especially in anything that is a multi,

like we got this serial in, this serial in, this serial. Like there's always a moment where the doctor goes, all right, okay, no. You know what, I'm sorry, I'm done. Now, now, I'm going to stop being nice. Gotcha. And, and then, and then we see things like, you know, the ending of the family of blood, where the 10th doctor chains one of these nearly immortal, pandimensional aliens at the heart of a neutron star for eternity traps.

Another one of them in every mirror, everywhere all the time. If you ever look in a mirror and see something flicker and then don't see it again, that's her. Like mythical, you know, trickster god Avenger kind of shit he pulls off. And this is the moment where Loki as a trickster god Avenger kind of determines,

okay, yeah, you know what, I've got something to care about. And now it's on. Okay, okay. And he answers the call. He answers the call. Yeah. Now Sylvie, his variant has... The variant has whom he is the assistant, the one to whom he is the companion.

Yes. Basically, has had that moment a long time before. And so she turns out being the catalyst for him to have that moment. So she turns out being the catalyst for him to have that moment. And then they wind up having at the end of episode six, as they confront he who remains. They have their own or Hiddleston, Loki Prime, like a better term, variant Loki, not Loki Prime, but our new Loki Prime, right, because the original one is dated. They have their sitting in a hallway with the end of two wires moment. Oh yeah, with Kang, there is a legitimate moral.

Yeah, they have their legitimate moment of no weight. Right. And the thing about it is, and this is again, how he is not following the typical American science fiction hero archetype, it doesn't turn into, now I'm gonna fucking kill him, no, you can't. He doesn't turn into Captain America. Right.

He doesn't fully go, no, we can't do that. That would make us as bad as him. He doesn't turn into Clark, he doesn't turn into Bruce Wayne. Or Clark can't for that matter. You know, he says, we gotta stop and we gotta think about this for a minute. Let's just think about it. And the moral ambiguity of, you can't trust and I can't be trusted.

Right. Comes back and bites as it turns out, the whole universe in the ass. Right. In that moment. And, and that moral quandary from a character who has is, Loki has his roots as being an anti hero. The doctor has never really been an anti hero. Sure. But for us as a viewing audience to get to a place of moral ambiguity in a protagonist, we have to start with him as an anti-hero.

Right, right. For it to be kind of comprehensible for us, you know, again, because of those issues of identity that I talked about before. And so we have this great, very, very hoovian kind of dynamic on top of all of the other vibes that I've talked about, of this great, very, very hoovian kind of dynamic on top of all of the other vibes that I've talked about, being taken kind of from that same kind of mentality. And so it was for me as a fan of Dr. Who.

And previously what I said before was the closest thing we're ever going to see in the United States, Dr. Who is the TV series, The Librarians, which I now have to amend that statement because Rocky is a much better fit. But what I was looking at there was the the kind of protagonist the lead librarian Flynn Carson is The same kind of cookie protagonist kind of character Kind of half-mad you never really know entirely what he's gonna do He always has a plan, but his mouth can't keep up with his brain. So when you're listening to him talk It sounds like he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing,

but he's playing three-dimensional chess. And by the way, that's also a very fun series. Okay. A great time. I highly recommend that as well. But Loki, because it explicitly involves time travel, and all of the kinds of themes that you can get into with it. Right.

Um, is, is, I think, a closer facsimile. Okay. And I don't think we, it, like within my lifetime, I don't think our, our dominant national identity is going to change enough for us to be able to get a version of Dr. Who for ourselves. And I think Loki is the closest thing we're going to get. And I think Loki is still very different from Dr. Who in a lot of ways.

The message that it's trying to get across is very different. Dr. Who basically, at the end of the day, is trying to say something about pacifism and cleverness and trusting in diversity, whereas Loki is very much clearly a direct statement about fascism and free will. Well, and Loki is very much internalizing and dealing with the internal jihad. Yeah. As sounds like Dr. Who is dealing with an external jihad. Yeah. And I think that it's, again, very American in a lot of ways. Like you center the story on this one person

and it's all about this one person. There are other characters that help you learn more about this one person, but it's still all about this one person. Even though it's Dr. Who, you're following him as he introduces you, He's your conduit. He's the host, whereas in Loki, he is the whole reason you're there. Yeah. And I think there's a different distinction there.

Yeah, yeah. I think, totally, you're right. That is a very significant difference. And so, and, you know, I mean, I've spent all this time saying this, I don't want anybody to come away thinking that I'm getting down on Loki for this, or that I'm, or that I'm saying, oh my God, I just crib this from Dr. Ho.

No. Right, you're not saying it's derivative. I'm not saying it's derivative. I'm saying, well, I'm not even necessarily saying it so much. I think, I'm saying, well, I'm not even necessarily saying it so much. I think I think um, it can't because it's a science fiction show about time travel. It can't help but have influences from Dr. Who. Sure. That are, that are director and direct. And it's going to revisit ideas and play with ideas that are similar. But I think the similarity in tone and aesthetic and now

on Lamentus, and off a lot of the background painting, matte painting, and all of that kind of stuff, just like the matte paintings from the TVA, you know, the vast city and the background. Right. That's all very curvy. Yeah. It's also very hoovian in the way that like the TVA is very brutalist looking kind of interior architecture. Yeah. Lots and lots and lots of Dr. Hussets involve a lot of brutalist architecture

because it was filmed in Britain in the 60s. Right. You know, and so like aesthetically, a lot of brutalist architecture because it was filmed in Britain in the 60s. Right, right. And so aesthetically, there's either an homage or just kind of a similar vibe going on. Sure. But I think it's a good thing that we have, I think it's a good thing that we have, that we have a story in our lexicon

that is closer to what the doctor is. Yeah. And I think, and I mean, by itself, it's an amazingly clever show. It's Tom Hiddleston is so charismatic. He could read the fucking phone book. Yeah. And I tune in for it. And I feel terrible because I can't remember her name now.

Sophia. Oh, the guy who plays so, so we got you. I'm gonna have a, she's just a perfect, just to be fair. I've gotta look at it because I feel bad if I don't do it. Just to be fair, just to be fair, I've got to look at it because I feel bad if I don't do it. But yeah, she's amazing. You know, and Sophia Di Martino. Oh, okay. She's absolutely amazing.

Everybody, all of the supporting characters, like the hunters, the recurring hunter characters on the show, a rent slayer, all of them do an image like there's not a dud performance anywhere in it. Very true. And I mean, yeah, no, it is an amazing show, very, very well written. And I can't wait to see what they do with the next season because the very ending, like, my wife and I caught up on it after it had already run. And so just because I'm on the internet,

I knew, I knew my wife didn't, because she doesn't follow nerd websites like I do. But I kind of knew broadly what the story beats were all gonna be, because stuff got spoiled for me already. But I kind of knew broadly what the story beats were all gonna be. It's stuff I've gotten spoiled for me already. But the very ending of the last episode, I was still like, okay, no wait, what? Yeah. Whoa.

Okay. It was awesome. We had all of this other amazing shit happen and now that wait, you know. And the fact that they were able to pull that off. Well, not only pull that off, but pull that off to set up the cartoon now. Yeah.

That is, by the way, first episode, phenomenal. Okay. So that's dating the show, but it was really good. Okay. And a lot of the criticisms are criticizing its very strength, which it's like, oh, y'all never read it. What if, did you? Which is fine. What are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are, what are they, what are, what are they, what are, what are, what are they, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are, what are,, which it's like, oh, y'all never read it. What if, did you? Which is fine. What are they, what are they, what are they,

what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they,

what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they,

what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they, what are they right yeah yeah your point your point stands yeah but it's a lot of fun yeah and what's fun about it is that it continues to play with this multiverse idea which is really just opening the door for spider man to come in oh and the X-men yeah and everything else yes and so I really like where they're going And so I really like where they're going. Did you notice the point at which the one who remains a mortise? Yeah. Where he has that moment where he's like, Oh, I don't know.

I lied to you a minute ago. Right. Yeah. No, but where he says, I don't, I don't actually know what's going to happen next. Yeah. That moment, if you, somebody did this, they played it one to one with the last episode of One Division. Yes. Yep. Yeah, I moment, if you, somebody did this, they played it one to one. With the

last episode of WandaVision. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was pretty rad. Yeah. So. Um, and, and actually I got into a debate with, with a couple of folks about how, how intentional it was. And I'm like, my own take was that lines up too perfectly. Right. Not to be like you can say, well, you know, it's a Marvel ending, so you got to have big amorphous cloud bad guy. Right. You know, you're going to have all these beats because it's the MCU. I'm like, we're not talking about, you know, Wizard of Oz and Dark Side of the Moon here.

Yeah, no. We're talking about two things that were made at the same time about the same subject with the same overarching, you know story Bible. Yeah involved. Yeah, so yeah, it's it's pretty right. Yeah, and and Talking about fixed points in time. Sure What's what's interesting is now through Loki in the MCU? We now have the idea of variant universes and branching timelines and all this stuff. Yes. What's interesting is, in Doctor Who, there is only ever one timeline.

He bounces around on the same timeline all the time. Fixed points in time are just fixed. Yeah. And beyond Timewimey stuff. Right. We don't get an explanation. I should, I've got my thing that goes ding. And so, you know, other than Timewimey ball, there's no explanation of why things are point fixed points in time.

But everything is on the same timeline. Everything is in the end ultimately linear. You do all kinds of chicane re-bouncing around on the timeline, but it's always one timeline. There is only to my knowledge one storyline in which he makes contact with a parallel universe and It's the conclusion and again like this has been part of the lexicon for years. So boiler alert whatever At the end of the rose storyline Mm-hmm In order to foil the master plan of the master

He has to open up or the master opens up. Anyway, there's there's connection between universes. Okay. Between timelines. Okay. And Rose gets in the process of sealing off the other universe, Rose gets sucked through and stuck on the other side. Okay.

Rose is his assistant is And so is his companion. Gotcha. And the essentially love interest that has happened since the reboot. Okay. And so he and she get separated. And at the very culmination of that storyline, there's this incredibly overwrought scene where he's in the tardis making a phone call across universes and he says I'm bleeding off the energy of a dying star to contact you because

that's how much energy it takes to do this. And that's the only time to my knowledge. Again, that we see the idea of parallel universes making contact contact in the Huvian lore, that is really hard to do and it almost never happens. Where is it the MCU? Hap-pap! Oh shit, this is Earth 821, isn't it? Right.

What the hell happened, you know, like, no, you can slip and fall, you know, which, like, you know, depending on what kind of story you wanna tell, you have a different idea of how the metaphysics is going to work and all serves the story. But I just think it's interesting that one of them is rooted in a very linear idea and the other one is in the idea is rooted in the idea of more Schrodinger-like Metaphysics It does that is both dead and alive at the same time It doesn't strike me as on at all considering what we've discussed already is that you know, I mean you've got the British

Yeah, you know fixed points in time Yeah, you you can wander Right, and then you've got the American I'm making new time That's a good point, you know, yeah, yeah. What I do. I know creating a new timeline. Right. That's a good point. Star Trek, when they accidentally bounced into the mirror universe. Yeah. They, um, Kirk 100%. There, there, there was no temporal prime directive there. Yeah. Yeah. You know, he 100% disrupted everything with his presence. Yeah. Yeah. Which by the way, Deep Space Nine did

a fantastic job of exploring about four or five times. Oh, yeah. Um, so you know, the stuff that Trek has done with parallel universes has ranged from really amazing to not. Well, they've traveled a few times. Oh, yeah, they have. They have. And one of my favorite kind of trek related things about the mirror universe is talking about Vulcan students at Starfleet Academy. Have you seen this meme from Tumblr?

Talk about eventually, it's some Vulcan science student is gonna have to go to an older Vulcan at the Academy. And go, what happens when he give humans more than one warp core? Right. They try to fire it into a star. They wind up burning a hole through into a parallel universe where they find out

everything is run by racists and that offends them so much. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That they wreck shit there. Yeah. Before they punch their way back into this universe. Right. You know.

Yeah. It's, yeah. universe. Right. You know. It's, yeah. Okay. So, anyway, we're getting off the subject. But so that's, that's, at the end of the day, we have now probably belabored the point. But I think, I think that Loki is the most hoover in the show. The most hoover in the show, we we're gonna get and it's awesome and

I wish we had more stuff like it yeah basically at the end of all of this that's kind of what it comes down to and I was just so powerfully struck by those similarities and and thinking about where all of that comes from. Sure. That, you know, I had to jot something down and try to get an episode out of it. Yeah, absolutely enjoyed it. So yeah, what's ultimately, what are you going to walk away from this? Well, I think you're, again, having never seen Dr. Who.

I think you're likely right. And I think the fact that Tom Hiddleston's British probably helps. Probably doesn't hurt. Yeah. Because he can bring a Sensibility to it that Americans would be adrift In trying to figure out in fact come to think of it The the variant Loki

What what was her name again Sophia? The character was silly the actress is Sophia D. Martino. So Fina D so Sophia D. Martino Her being British yep as well as, by the way, the old man Loki being a Brit. He did a fantastic job as well. Well, you know, and... But I think having all these British folks in this, certainly because they would have grown up with Dr. Who being a reality. Oh yeah. I would not be surprised if some of them had turned down spots on it or been off of spots on it.

Or if you look back, I don't think Hiddleston has been on it, but I'm sure others probably sure. think Hiddleston has been on it, but I'm sure I'm sure others probably. Sure. But the BBC has a pretty small community. Yeah, I think though that having people who grew up with that being in the soup that they were cooking in, just adds that, you know, like you hear about times where directors will deliberately keep an actor away from the rest of the cast so that it'll feel more alien to each other and stuff like that. And you can't point out the spot where like, ah, that's where that worked. But it just adds to it, seconds it a little.

I think that that absolutely added to it. And I wouldn't doubt that like, you know, reading through the scripts, they're sitting there going like, you know, I've seen this. Okay. I think I know how I'm going to do this. Yeah. So yeah, I think that that that helps. Yeah. So cool. Yeah. So what are you going to recommend for us to read or watch that? I'm going, okay, that isn't Loki. I'm gonna go with the other source of my inspiration for these episodes. I'm going to recommend very strongly that everybody go find some storyline from Dr. Who and I'm going to strongly recommend that you go with either Tom Baker or

Sylvester McCoy first okay okay find any one of the cereals that they did now Tom Baker was in the role for the longest period of time so it's gonna be easiest to find some of his he actually wound up kind of getting fired because he made statements in an interview that like he was the doctor now. Uh-huh. And so they shit-canned him. And he and the franchise had a very contentious relationship for a very long time after that. But either Tom Baker or Silvestre McCoy first find a storyline and watch it with one of the two of them.

Because they're amazing. And they are, to me, for me, they are the two best actors from the original who series between me. 63 and even nine. Then I want you to go to, and now I'm gonna look up the title of the episode. Okay. Wait, the second episode in the pair is the Doctor Dances. And this is the first couple of episodes of the New Who.

Actually, no, I'm sorry. Wait, Dr. Dances is later in the series than that. It's the 10th episode of the first series. Oh, I need you to go find the empty child and the Dr. Dances and these are to me, two of the most, most huvian episodes from the first episode of the new Who Series. Now in this, in this series, it's Christopher Eccleston, who you may recognize from a whole

bunch of Heist movies, usually playing a bad guy. All right. He's playing the doctor in this. He was only, he only played the doctor for one season. And this was it. Or this was this was it. Or this was part of it. Then I want you to either choose a storyline of David Tennant, or Matt Smith

because they're the next two guys to hold the role. Okay. And just get and a, that's kind of the cliffs notes version of how the series has evolved over this incredibly long history. Okay. And you're probably going to be able to tell right away from the older episodes how they're a product of the 70s and the 80s, you're going to be able to tell right away how the later

series is definitely a product of the early 2000s. But just if you are not familiar with the series, take a moment to watch it and see whether you're going to like it, because I think you will. If you are familiar with the series, go back and re-watch some of them. Mm-hmm. And until you've watched some other stuff, don't go watch Vincent and the doctor. Okay.

Not because it's bad, but because it will rip your heart out of your chest and squash it flat. Because the doctor means Vincent and Vengeoff. Okay. And the closing moments of the episode for anybody who has ever been through depression or anybody who has ever been through anxiety or anything related to the kind of mental health issues

that Vincent Vengeoff suffered during his life. The ending of that episode is amazingly bittersweet and you will cry your eyes out because the doctor breaks one of his very important time traveling rules in in-huh. In, in, in, uh, in an amazing way. And so anyway, don't watch that until you've watched other stuff because get familiar with who the doctor is before you do that. For those of you who already know the series, go back and watch Vincent and the doctor, just go do it. Okay.

Because like, it's the, it is to me hands down the best episode out of New Who. Okay. And I'm a big fan of Tenant rather than Smith, but in it's a Smith episode, but it's absolutely stunning. All right. And Bill Nye, the British actor, Bill Nye, makes an appearance, is a supporting character in it and he's funny.

So anyway, that's my recommendation. Familiarize yourself with Dr. Who, if you're already familiar, go watch Matt Smith, break your heart, via Vincent Van Gogh. Okay, so what do you have? Now that I've spent 10 minutes talking about that, what do you have for us? Well, so there is a comic series called Thor

and Loki Blood Brothers by Robert Rody and Assad Rhymek, I think his name is, or Rhyrrik, and there's also, I think it's on Netflix or something, it's this interesting animation of it as well. But it's a story that starts with essentially Loki having defeated Thor already and Thor is imprisoned. And the whole thing is Loki dealing with Siff and Balder and just kind of like really giving his side of things. And talking through it, he realizes, I never hated my brother. I need to go and free him.

I need to apologize to him. I need to own my part in all this. And he gets down there just to store his broken the yoke and Thor whoops his at and and so it never and it's just it's sad as hell. So that is just a wonderful look inside of Loki's adult mind. Okay. And just and what I've always liked about Loki was that he is a he is a... He is a character who is so driven by forces that he cannot control, though they are within himself.

Yeah. So... And I think the series does a really good job of analyzing that. Yes. Like there's a very modern American kind of, we're gonna get on the couch and we're gonna, we're gonna therapist this yeah kind of aspect to the Loki series that you don't see in doctor who well

I think that's largely because people have such a crush on Tom Hiddleston's version of Loki that yeah You need to humanize him otherwise. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, but I do really like the exploration of him and him having a conscience and finally realizing why it is he has been doing what he's been doing and realizing how baked into his firmware that is. Now the other one I want to point out is because we didn't really talk about that many variants of Loki. We talked about Old Man Loki, which was pretty cool. We didn't talk about alligator Loki at all, which I would just point out

big big big Peter Pan vibes. Oh, yeah, yeah, to the point where he bites off the other little hand. Oh, yeah, it's cat and hook. Yeah, but it's called Loki Agent of Asgard and there is a paperback full collection of it. But if not, if you've got the unlimited app, look at that. But it's essentially kid Loki running around and he is kind of a one man secret service for Asgardia, which is pretty cool. And it's fun. I think it's a lot of fun. You get a different look at them.

And so that actually just got put together. And I think it should be out pretty soon. So those two things, I really do think the Blood Brothers one is a far better read though, just because it's so wildly different from what you would expect. And the artwork is phenomenal. Okay.

Those are the things I'd recommend. Very cool. Yeah. Alright, so on the social media is where can we find you? I can be found at EH Blalock on Twitter. I can be found at Mr.Blaloc on TikTok and Instagram. Where can you be found? You can find me at daHarmony on Insta and Twitter,

two Hs in the middle. You can also find me every Tuesday night at 8.30pm on twitch.tv, forward slash capital puns. So those are some places you can find me. By the time this airs, I will have already done some really amazing stuff internationally, as well as nationally. So sorry you missed it,

but you can look them up from previous episodes. Collectively, they can find us. At www.geekhistorytime.com and a geek history of time on the Twitter machine. There you go. All right, well, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmonic. And I'm Ed Blalock, and until next time, we are burdened with glorious purpose. MBC 뉴스 김