House of R - A 'Doctor Who' Viewing Guide (Part 3)

Episode Date: July 22, 2023

Mal and Jo are back with Part 3 of their dive into 'Doctor Who.' They describe their emotions as David Tennant's run as The Doctor comes to an end (12:36), their love for Donna (49:19), and much more. Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons from The Ringer, and this is a podcast called The Rewatchables. We have been doing it. Really since 2017, it started with how much we love the movie Heat. We decided to structure a whole podcast with categories, most rewatchable scene. Who on the movie, Apex Mountain, what age the best? But here's the thing. If you want the full archive, you can hear them only on Spotify. For free, by the way.

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I'm from the planet Gallifra in the constellation of Casterboros. I'm 903 years old and I'm the man who's going to save your lives and all six billion people on the planet below. You're no problem with that? No. In that case? Hello. Into the ringerverse, your nextest podcast feed.

For all things, fandom. I'm Joanna Robinson and joining me is my favorite companion in all of time. And space, Mallory Rubin. Hello. How are you? I don't want to go. Oh, no. I can't start there.

I don't want to go. How dare you? Listen, it's a Friday and maybe you're tuning in. You're like, hey, I remember last week they said they were going to cover secret invasion this week. Surprise. We're going to save all of our secret invasion thoughts and feelings for the finale. So the midnight boys and the house of our way back next week with all of our takes that we've been building up over the last couple weeks about secret invasion.

So that means today, instead, Mallory and I are covering our final chapter of the Doctor Who rewatch that involves David Tennant, season four,

and the specials that come after it. So that, this is a, this is a Doctor Who, it's a Doctor Who day. Surprise. The TARDIS has arrived.

Not where it's supposed to, as always. That's how it goes. Yeah. Quick programming reminders elsewhere. As I said, Secret Invasion.

for both House of Our Midnight Boys next week. But before we get there, there's a lot of other things you can check out. Our beloved Jess Clemens, if you're looking for secret invasion stuff, Jess already has her video up about secret invasion. It's already up. Check that out. I really recommend. There's nothing I live more, actually, than listening to Jess talk about secretive.

That's like maybe my favorite part of secret invasion is Jess covering secret invasion. The videos have been absolutely wonderful. Wonderful. Speaking of Jess, them in addition to. Pals will be covering Barbie this weekend. Barbie, a movie I absolutely loved and adored. And so, you know, come on, let's go party with the mid-edition this weekend. And then on Monday, there's another video game pod on the feed.

So there's a lot going on. Mallory, how on earth is someone expected to keep on top of all the things that are happening in the ringerverse feed? Oh, I have a few recommendations. The first would be to follow the pot. Follow the ringerverse on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. while you're at it, go ahead and follow the ringerverse on the social media platform of your choosing the ringer versus on Twitter, the ringer versus on Instagram, the ringer versus on TikTok. If you have thoughts, feelings, questions, theories, your favorite memes of David Tennant's doctor, anything, Apple thoughts, mushroom recipes. you can send your emails to hobbits and dragons at gmail.com.

I have to tell you, I know you've been quite busy this week. I know that you have not seen Oppenheimer yet. And I'm so excited to hear what you think of it. But I just need you to know that it starts with a very significant Apple moment. And I saw the film with our pal, Rob Mahoney. And when it was over, he's like, how do you feel about the fact that that was a granny Smith apple joy, how do you feel it? I'm going to say, it's not great for Apple Wars.

Not great. As if Parbenheimer could have gotten any more meaningful here on the Ringer podcast network. Think of me fondly when you get to that moment. I enjoy your new

Twitter avatar, by the way. Thanks. All apples all the time. Spoiler warning. As I said, we're here to talk about season four and then all of the specials that come after it. actually there's one we may not talk about it at all,

but we're definitely going to talk about every, the very final moments of David Tennant. So if you have not seen through the final moments of Dave, if you have not watched David Tennant transform into Matt Smith, you have not done all the viewing for this episode. That's what you assume, you know, Geronimo and Matt Smith is the tail end of the last episode that we're covering here today. Mallory is already pre-morning the loss of David Tennant.

I tried to learn everything I could about pre-grieving from the whole of the last season of succession, and yet nothing could have prepared me for the experience of farewell. I don't know that Roman Roy is a model of pre-greeving. It's true. It's true. I learned what not to do. Our dates, I don't want to like hard commit to anything because we were supposed to do this episode in June and it is July 21st as we're recording this. We're being a little free and easy with the doctor who rewatch.

A lot of people were like, are you even doing it? Guess what? We are definitely doing all of it. But in August-ish, maybe probably all actually September, we shall see. We will be covering the Matt Smith era of Doctor Who. That's what's coming up on the Doctor Who rewatch program. So season five and season six in their entirety. And then this is my executive decision.

Season seven, episode four, power of three, season seven, episode five, Angels Take Manhattan. And then the two specials, the day of the doctor, the time of the doctor. That's the assignment. I'll put it in writing somewhere so that people can know. But like if you want to watch all of season seven, if you want to be a completest, I support you. It just feels like a lot of homework. So if you want to skip some things, those two season seven episodes and then the 2013 specials. I haven't figured out what are.

I'll be watching every second. I know. I know you will. I just want to give you permission to skip. I want to give you permission to skip if you need to. And then in October, we're going to do the best of Capaldi and. Whitaker. Again, Mallory might be watching all of those seasons all the way through. I support her if she does. But I haven't put that curriculum together yet. So we will get to that when we get to that. And then November, the three specials themselves. And that brings me to like what I want to start with. Actually, before I start anything, I just want to cite to Doctor Who creators that I watched a lot of their content in prep for this episode. And it's a woman named Ellie. at Loose Leaf Ellie, love tea, great, great name on TikTok and the Ramley Man on YouTube.

Both have like excellent Doctor Who content that I was sort of slurping up. So I just wanted to shout them out before we get started. But speaking of the specials, these three specials that are coming, this anniversary specials, I am so jealous of you, Mallory, because you have finished your time with Tenet and Donna and you only have to wait until November to see them back together again. I've had to wait. I can't imagine. Years and years and years. So now that you've spent more time than one episode with Donna, now that you've met

Wilf, and we should say that the great Bernard Cribbins, who passed away July 22 at the incredible age of 93, before he did. In May of 2022, he was filming these Doctor Who specials. So Wilf in some capacity will be in the Doctor Who anniversary specials. Donna will be there. what does it mean to you having seen especially how Donna's story ends that this is like do you understand now why I was losing my mind that Donna and 10 were coming back for the specials? So I don't even know like how to process everything I'm feeling. It's all so new and fresh.

I rewatched. I mean, we talked on the last spot about how I had I had watched the trailer. I didn't know if I should, but I kind of couldn't resolve. this and it was so out of context for me that it was like exciting but didn't I I didn't know really how to process it or like what what it meant I rewatched it last night and it was one of the many times that I like basically just dissolved ceased being a human being made of skin and bone and tissue it just became like a puddle on my floor I was like sobbing because all of these little things, these little tiny indicators and references to what had happened at the conclusion

of their arc, which again, I just had no like frame of reference for I understood in full now. So the emotion not only of being back with David Tennant, but of being back with Donna and them together and what will happen? I have no idea, but will Donna remember, will there be a way that she safely can? I just like was absolutely overwhelmed. It's 55 seconds. I felt like I lived an entire lifetime in that span. I'm going to cry this show many times today. I just like, I can't wait to talk about this with you. I know this is one of your favorite seasons of TV ever.

I'm so excited to hear all of your thoughts and feelings. And like, it's just really special to share this with you. These episodes are so important to me. Like, this story is so foundationally important to me and how I understand stories. And the, like, poor Isaiah is filling in for Steve on the production work today. And I already told them before we started recording about how much we were going to cry today. I pre-apologize. And I'm already like tearing up because we were,

we were texting about it last night. And I was just like, I was genuinely like tears were kind of pouring down my face because it means so much to me to a lot of people in this world to share the stories you love with the people you love, right? And so it means so tremendously much to me that you are watching this show. And, um, and especially this season. Like this is just, this is it for me. And, you know, there's much more to come.

That's fantastic. But this is like the height of everything for me. So I'm so glad to be here with you. On the like what I don't know what is going, what storytelling excuse they're going to use to bring Catherine Tate back into the fold in the anniversary specials. Here's a quote from Russell T. Davies, who is also coming back to run the show starting with the specials. He said, maybe this is a missing story or a parallel world or a dream. or a trick or a flashback. The only thing I can confirm is that it's going to be spectacular

as two of our greatest stars reunite for the Battle of a Lifetime. I mean, I know it's hype and hyperbole, but I'm like, yes. Two of our greatest stars, yes. Gathered David's right. It's like Oud Sigma is here with us, Joe. You know, the song is ending, but the story never ends. That's how I feel right now. Aren't the Oud incredible?

Great stuff from the Oud this season. Great stuff. something I should say, maybe some extra credit that we can do in all your spare time is Catherine Tate and David Tennett did a really fun production of Much Adieu About Nothing. It's not my favorite, but it's like really fun to watch them as Beatrice and Benedict. So if you start to get withdrawals before November and you need like a little injection of them together, like watch that. That's available online. All right. So we are going to do a sort of like like we did last time.

We're going to do like a broader check in for some of our bigger themes that we've been tracking. And then we're going to drill down on sort of four specific episodes. It's a bit of a cheat this time because two of those episodes are two-parters. So really it's kind of... We love a smuggle. We're smuggling six episodes into our four-episode check-in spot. But we're going to begin here with just like a quick check-in on the RTD Eric, because now you've seen it from the beginning of Eccleston to the end of Tenet.

This is Russell T. Davies as showrunner begin to end. in fact, in the final episode, he wrote everything up through tenants, you know, transformation and then pass the script off to Stephen Moffat, the new showrunner, who wrote everything that Matt Smith says, including Geronimo in that final episode. So it's a real passing of the torch moment here. How are you feeling about this era overall? I know you don't have the other ones to compare it to yet, but like, how are you feeling having watched them? transformed. Yeah. Like forever changed.

You know, I have regenerated. This is the new me, the one who has seen these seasons of Doctor Who. I was thinking back to, you know, you asked in the first pod we did if I had like a prediction or an anticipatory guess about who my favorite doctor might be. And I was leaning tenant, but kind of kind of on the fence, tenant and Smith, because I love both of them so much and so many other. different roles and I am very excited to be clear to spend time with Matt Smith's doctor who I'm sure I'll love. I adore Matt Smith. I am very much right now in the stage of like not being ready

to say goodbye to something that is really meaningful to me. And these seasons were just sensational. I mean, I loved seasons two and three as we discussed at length in our second. House of Whoopod. But this season, I mean, the fourth season is just spectacular. Like, truly one of the best seasons of TV. There are very, any Doctor Who season, I think I've seen enough now to understand has its peaks and valleys. And that's kind of, I think, part of the fun of it, really.

But so many moments in this season are not only intriguing from a sci-fi or time travel or paradox perspective. Like I thought there was not only enough of that, but kind of an ample quality of it to really intrigue that part of my mind as a genre fan, but the depth of emotion and poignancy and theme and character

and specifically the way that the individual arcs are running in tandem with the shared arcs, everything for 10 on his own, everything with 10 and Donna, 10 in Rose, all of the children of time, Wilf, I mean, is this the part where I just say that, spoiler,

Wolf is my favorite character in the show and one of my favorite characters in the history of television? Holy shit. And like I think he's very emblematic of the way you're describing this stretch of the story overall, right? Where you have this like

thirst for and desire to go see the stars, right? Beautiful moment, beautiful idea. Wolf looking down from the spaceship to earth, that sense of like always having wanted to see. I'm an astronaut. It's incredible, right? But so much of what we get from Wilf is like the heart.

And it's the tether. It's the anchor. It's the thing that gives all of the adventures that we get to go on with the characters and that they get to share together, like feel so meaningful. It's what allows them to be that little oud brain that we're holding in our hand. Except it's a who heart. Oh, my God. I think that they're peaceful.

Anyway, I think that being able to compare what he does here with what we've seen him do since in something like it's a sin, something that we loved, years and years, another thing that we loved. Amazing. I think you can see a through line of storytelling that is very character and relationship-driven. And I would say we'll talk about this more when you have more of a taste for Moffitt. but I think comparing this to Moffett, I would say Moffitt, well, we don't even need to go there. You can look at the Moffitt written episodes that we've covered so far. You have a girl in the fireplace or blink or the library twofer that we get in this season. Like there's a phenomenal episodes.

Right, phenomenal. But he loves a concept. He's a very high concept storyteller. And sometimes I think he gets a little tangled up in that. And he, his approaches is almost, and I think you'll get the sense from the very first mass myth episode is almost like fairy tale like whereas i feel like russell d davies is giving us like earthy human emotional mythic kind of stories and i don't know why i feel like there's a distinction between mythic and fairy tale but maybe i'll be able to articulate it better when you spend

more time there but that character driven stuff i'll talk a little later about his what i think he the RTD era really succeeds at. And I don't know how he does it. I've watched these episodes so many times and I don't know he does it. It's to get us to care about brand new characters that we just met and sometimes only spend an hour with immediately. Like, how does he do that? I don't know. You know what I mean?

And obviously it's not just him writing these episodes, but like this is a hallmark of this era of who. And then the other thing I want to talk about is just like what a. phenomenon who was at this moment. The farewell tour of Russell Tee Davies and David Tenet took two years, two years between Journey's end and end of time. So those specials, you know, there's like one, one, two, four, five, like those five specials, two years. David Tenet was everywhere.

There were, there were, there's this, I know, because you're an anglophile, like I am, I'm probably telling you something you know, but like, like, There's this concert series called the proms in the UK, the Royal Promenade concerts. They did like a Dr. Hu, Murray Gold is the composer. They just did like one of the proms is just like Dr. Hu music, which reminds me of like the Game of Thrones for me and Javadi, like concert tours that were happening at the height of Thrones. You know what I mean?

People will pay so much money just sit there and listen to the score and watch clips from this show that they loved. And that's what was that that's what Dr. Who was at this time. This is the height of the ratings for Doctor Who. Like Matt Smith-era is popular, but it is diminishing returns after 10. I'm just so, I'm so thrilled that we got to watch this. I want to go now to this idea that we've been revisiting each time,

and this idea of like how this story fits into our understanding of the fantasy and mythology stories that we love, that sort of like world hidden just behind. your own world. And I think there are two ways in which that story is told so beautifully in this season, which is through Wilf and Donna, right? Wilf has spent his life looking up at the stars, as you just said, right? Looking through the telescope and then what does he get at the end of the first episode this season is like to see his beloved Donna in the box in the sky?

You know what I mean? And then Donna has been searching for the doctor. ever since the runaway bride, searching high and low. And then there's the delightful comedy of like when they see each other across the office for the first time. Astonishing. Incredible moment. But like this she's finally found it. She's like the world behind the world that I've been looking for since you last saw me.

Right. I finally found it. How do you feel like it's manifesting this season? Well, I think it's an interesting point in the overall era of New Who for. or that particular question because, like, this is something that we chat about a lot when we talk about the Infinity saga and what it would be like to live inside of the Marvel universe as the spectacular increasingly became routine as, like, you, a person walking around New York would say, yeah, I was there for the Chitari invasion, right? And so, like, in the Who universe,

there are a lot of different moments across different episodes or different plot points where there's some attempt to explain away and mass what happened, right? How have people been talked out of believing what they saw or forgotten it or in some other way failed to like have to acknowledge and embrace that this is what the universe is really like. This is how big it is. And so I think that's this like a really tricky thing to maintain the more just by the definition of volume, the more times people have seen something remarkable.

How do you really get us to believe that a number of people could walk around saying, yeah, like, that didn't really happen. Did it? Or it did, but I have no desire to live my life in any other way. And I think there are plenty of stories where that would have gone wrong. But here it actually like heightened, I think, the potency of what you just described, which is like the people like Wilf or Donna who want to answer the call, right? who can't wait to answer the call, who, like, are ready to be transformed, to experience

some sort of awakening. And I think, like, one of the reasons I was just so captivated by Wilf is because he's not, this is so rare, I think. He's not, like, trying to run away from anything or escape anything. Like, he loves his family. He loves Donna. The thing he wants most in the world is, for his granddaughter to be happy.

Like, we'll talk more about this later, but the scene in part one of the, the final two specials where he, and the doctor is sitting in the cafe and he's like begging him to help Donna remember is one of the saddest things I've ever seen because he like can't bear the fact that she doesn't have that anymore. Like,

it's more devastating than never having had it at all, right? Which we obviously know we'll talk about a lot today. So I think it's just, it's almost a marvel to be able to give us those moments that like bowl us over and to feel the magnitude of something transformative like that in a show where not only are magical, mythical things happening all the time, a lot of them are happening on Earth. A lot of them are happening on the streets of London, et cetera. It's just like really, really, really hard to execute well. I love that moment in Voyage of the Damned when they go down to London on Christmas and the doctor's like, we can't do this. The streets are going to be teeming. What are you talking about? Everyone's home. And then... Except Wolf. Our first introduction of Wolf, and Wolf's like, have you been here at Christmas in London? We don't go out in the streets anymore. We've seen some things. Yeah, it's pretty great. We have since the last time we spoke about Doctor Who, we have read the first Percy Jackson book. So like our listeners were like, when we were talking about are there American examples of this like world behind our own sort of thing or this like you know spectacular story we have now read a good example a good american example of that which is the percy

jackson books so yeah it's been a joy to start our percy journey as well the first book was super fun i'm excited to to keep going i was keeping an eye out for for like how this was discussed and explored in in the first book on the heels of the a deluge of emails and notes about this. And I think it's, while it's irrefutably true, and this is a story set in America, I did think it was interesting that the presence of the mystical in America is defined in the text as having moved from somewhere else.

Right? That was like, you mean the Greek gods are here? Like in America? Well, certainly, the gods move with the heart of the West. The what? Come now, Percy. What you call Western civilization, do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force, a collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years.

The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least they are tied so tightly to it, that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. So that idea that, and this is one of our favorite things to talk about, like, what are the connections across different versions of of a myth or a story and how do we absorb that into our own life and our own culture and our own backyard? How do we find it in our own backyard? It's very Neil Gaiman-in-American gods that concept. And I hope that you just made like all the Rick Reardon fans like super happy to hear Mallory Rubin cite a passage from Percy Jackson. I had a blast reading this book. More to come. We got a couple emails on this subject. This is like again.

Explain. Thank you. Thanks, I say it. Again, this, um, listeners trying to explain this very Britishness of this idea. Um, and I like this email we got from Tom,

who said, I wonder if this is something that's rooted in English society's deep structures of class and station and a historical lack of social mobility, whereas the mythologies of America have always seemed to me to be rooted in the fact that anyone can become whatever they want, manifest destiny, etc. This idea, I think of like, strict class boundaries is prevalent in Victorian area literature, where industrialization was hammering the working classes, but also providing the potential for social mobility is there in Dickens' urban underworld and as a fantastical place in nature where stations can mix in the secret garden and the moors of Wuthering Heights. Even further back, it's present in Shakespeare's as you like it, where crucially, the characters all return back from the forest at the end of the play, and the gender-bending freedom of the middle acts returns to preordained social order of court.

Often these hidden worlds offer an escape to a place where the rules don't apply and social order is negated before ultimately the protagonist must return to normality, even if that's a higher place within the same system. This social structure is massively present in RTD's first series of who, especially through Rose, who works in a shop, lives on a council estate. It's also emphasized in Rose when the doctor says, I mean, you lot, all you do is eat chips, go to bed and watch telly. Human beings forced into loops. And on a meta level, it's there too in the choice of the doctor be played by a working class northerner. This is me, Joanna, inserting to say something that you might not know Mal, is that previous incarnations of the doctor had all been very posh. before we got Christopher Eccleston. The doctor never travels with the upper class in Nuhoo,

notably rejecting later Christina DeSuzza in the specials. They always choose normals and ordinaries. Donna Noble, super temp. Oy, watch it's space, man. I think that I was reading an interview, I think it was right before Jody Whitaker took over, where it was between Stephen Moffat and Russell T. Davies, and they were both reflecting back on their respective eras.

And Moffat was talking about this idea of casting Eccleston, the working class doctor, and avoiding having that sort of like posh alien picks up, like, you know, lower class or whatever girl and takes her an adventure, just make him like both rough and tumble and having an adventure. And I don't know, I just think that's really interesting, like, modern space been on a story to make it less like a remote and we're going to talk about this a lot as it as it applies to 10 to make it less like some remote removed superior oftentimes in the earlier

seasons much much older than you um alien has descended to take you on an adventure and much more like a mate a boyfriend a like whatever is here to like enjoy it alongside with you He's wearing Chuck Taylor's, just like you. A listener Jason also wrote in to say, I've just read Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, a book that I love, Joanna. And so this topic is top of mind, me. I also studied this topic a bit in college. This can be traced back to the concept of, please forgive my, I think this is Gaelic,

Tuatha de Danin, which I think is in Willow, which is the only reason I had a chance of pronouncing it correctly. They come from Celtic mythology and are essentially fairies that live in the other world, the other world being a secret world within our own or under the earth. I would imagine these specific concepts originating within the UK or why we see this so often in British media. That reminds me, that email reminds me of the secret Commonwealth, the Philip Pullman, the second novel in the book of dust. That's very of a piece with, yeah, with that idea. Very interesting.

Interesting. I've loved thinking about this thing. We might put it to the side when we get into the Moffat area just because I do think that we have like really very, very. thoroughly examined it, but I really appreciated all the listener feedback on this concept. I want to move over to this idea. This season, I think one of the reasons that this season feels so satisfying is that even more than some of the other seasons where we get like Bad Wolf seated in or the master and the drums seated in, et cetera, et cetera, this is such a clear one foot after another

path from the beginning of the season to the end of breadcrumb trail that has. been left behind mirrors parallels foreshadowing recurring themes um the many rows we're starting with the many rose teases like you're like well that's a rose the first episode and i was like what are your rose theories you know like imagine in a tizzy texting you yeah god there's something on your back we get that kind of early with donna chilling the doc the doctor donna we get with the ood i think Your song must end soon, Doctor. The missing planets that we get referenced throughout the whole season. It's a tough beat for Clom this season.

Yeah. It won't Clom. Poor Clom. The hand in the jar plus the cloning concept. The whole Jenny episode is basically setting us up for the second doctor to come out of the hand. The missing bees. And Donna's death foretold and turned left. And then eventually he will knock four times, all of that.

Yeah. How does the breadcrumb trail sort of carefully plotted clues kind of approach to the season work for you? I loved it. This was one of my favorite parts. I mean, it was one of the things I really enjoyed about the bad wolf of it all back in the day. But you're right. This is at a different scale and scope entirely that makes even the episodes that are more of like a one-off adventure. Everything feels so connected. And like this is one true. narrative. And like I liked to that the foreshadowing was everything from these quick passing mentions of things like the Medusa cascade where like you hear something recurring and repeating and you know you should be paying attention. Does that mean something why? To something

that is in every instance that it's presented to us clearly very core to like a sacred tenant for the doctor. Sick or 10. More than one of respect, I guess. Like the number of gun dimensions throughout this season, this is very much in the foreground. There are a number of times before we get to the Wilf 10 scene where Wolf is begging him to take this gun and save himself and save the human race,

where we are reminded of what the doctor has come to deplore about not only the physical gun itself, but what it represents, and not only what it represents about other people, but about himself, about the things that he is capable of and the things that he knows others are capable of and the violence that they can inflict that cannot be contained, right? And so, like, when you got that moment with Wilf,

it was just like, it's the way you feel when you're reading a novel and you finish it and you have that, like, tingle through your body that the thing you read in the second paragraph on the third page mattered at the end. So satisfying. It's just the best. And yeah, and then you get to look back at like dumb concepts like adipose, which is pretty dumb. Or the giant bee in the Agatha Christie episode. And you're like, it's all connected.

Oh my God. You know. When I saw that little adipose gum drop in the bar. In the bar. With Jack at the end, I cackled. Also a thrill to see a slavine there at the end. Oh, yeah, that like, yeah, that incredible bar sequence. They're like, yeah.

We get to have a canteen a scene scene. Exactly. Why not? I think the way that Rose is deployed in the season especially is so, so powerful. Dase has said it was always his intention to bring Rose back for the end of Tens run, right? Like, you know, if they had gone a couple more seasons, that's when she would have come back. But she was always going to come back for the final season. and she was always going to be instrumental.

The way that we just see her pop up on a monitor, you know, or Donna gets to interact with him, her, but 10 doesn't, you know, all of that sort of stuff. And we're just dying for them to interact. Then they do. And we'll talk about all of that. Literally running toward each other. And it works somehow.

She's got the biggest gun you've ever seen in your life, but it still like works somehow. I'm not sure how I'm going to get through our discussion of their latest goodbye. I am not sure I will be able to handle it. Sometimes I just watch it on YouTube. I'm not sure I'm up for it. Go to Bad Wolf Bay and cry. All right.

Let's return to this question we've asked each time and each time you have a little bit more information, which is this question of like, what do you think makes a good doctor? Starting with the frankly, absolutely basement low levels of horniness this season of Dr. Hooie. He's just looking for a mate. You want to mate. No, it's looking for a mate. And so on the horny level, on people being horned up for the doctor, this is a low showing.

And I love what my favorite running bits of this season is all the time that people like assume that the doctor and Donna together and they're always like, no, we're not a, we're not a, we're not a couple. So, that's not wonderful. Um, how do you feel? About the horniness here, but like. Tremendous. You know. Yeah.

This is, uh, you know, one of our, our superlatives as, as everyone who's been on this journey with us will know is a hornyest moment. So we'll, we'll revisit this later and, and award our favorite, but there's a number of contenders, as you noted. I, I, we chatted a lot in the last pod about, I mean, We talked a lot about Rose in 10, and we talked about Martha and 10 and what worked there and what didn't in terms of like the longing. And I really liked the way that this season engaged with the idea of lust and yearning in a way that felt quite separate, actually, from the really like heart-rending. I have to confront whether I'm going to be able to spend eternity with the person I love.

Sections, which were different, right? Yeah, yeah. And so you get the, why do you even have handcuffs? Oh, yes. Spoilers. Eyebrow wiggle from River in Forest of the Dead, which I thought was just, like, iconic. I have to assume this is considered an iconic Doctor Who moment in the fandom. This was, like, absolutely exceptional.

I was cracking up. Jack proposing a doctor orgy in Journey's End when Sarah Jane says so there I can't even three of you. Can't tell you what I'm thinking right now. And it's like, Jack, you don't need to. We know, buddy. I mean, this is wonderful. But, you know, you take a character like Christina in Planet of the Dead.

This is somebody who we only have one episode with. and there is clearly this like palpable mutual attraction. There are like there's a lot of innuendo. There are these like moments where they're acknowledging how they're the perfect couple, perfect team. When she says at the end, come on, doctor, show me the stars. I had just assumed she's referring to the life altering orgasm that she thinks she'll experience when they fuck. Oh yes. Is this where we talk about Minnie the Menace?

I mean, I Oh, Minnie. Let's talk about a horn dog. Holy shit. So it's a very horny season, but. That's so funny. I think it's the least horny season,

but I like that you're like, let me show you all the little corners where the horn is lurking. But I agree with you because it's like, it's a very horny season, but in a way that feels really like separate and compartmentalized from the emotional arcs.

And so like it doesn't, it doesn't feel quite as like central to the text of the story. season as the horniness of the prior series did, but I still loved it. And I really enjoyed how many people remarked upon Tens' gorgeous face and spiky hair. His hair. Got a real kick out of Donna's multiple descriptions of him. It's just like a streak of nothing. Just a streak. Streek of nothing. Wonderful stuff. Yeah. I mean, Donna's taking the piss out of him constantly as opposed to like Rose and

Martha just looking in with heart eyes. pretty fantastic. I think that and also like when he, I love when he shows up in the like regrettable Suntar and two-parter but, you know, he shows

up all like, oh, is this going to be awkward with Martha? She's still in love with me or whatever. And Donna's like, but she's engaged someone else. So funny. She does not care, but it's fine. My theory is that and you got a taste of Torchwood

in the two-parter because Jack shows up and also Yonto and Gwen from Torchwood get like a little, their own little storyline. Eve Miles currently killing it over on High Jack on Apple TV Plus right now. That is an incredibly horny show. That is Dr. Who after dark. And so I think that Russell T. Davies was like venting his horniness over there and it's sort of like leached out of this one a little bit more. But still here. Minnie is still squeezing butts.

She sure is. She sure is. I want to talk about this concept of the doctor's corruption arc, which is a really interesting way, I think, to think about Ten's whole journey. We love a character on an arc. Usually, we love an archetype arcing up. This is a character arcing down and to his end. And I think that that is also very, very interesting. Isaiah, will you play me in this clip, please?

of all the people to survive, he's not the one you would have chosen. But if you could choose, Doctor, if you could decide who lives and who dies, that would make you a monster. Incredible moment from Voyage of the Damned where like the worst person in the world survives and Kylie Minogue doesn't and you're like, the injustice. But there's this, you know, there's that great forewarning of where the doctor's about to go in this season. that comes from, you know, a character, a one episode character,

um, about the doctor on his way towards monstrosity, which is, you know, where he winds up. Um, right. I want to start back at the beginning. This is a, this is a line that I brought up in an earlier episode, even though you hadn't seen it yet, but this line from Journey's end, when 10 and Rose are saying goodbye and he's talking to her about the new, the blue-suited raspberry, you know, sneaker wearing doctor. And he says of him, you were born in battleful, blood and anger and revenge. And then he turns to Rose, remind you of someone.

That's me when we first met and you made me better. Now you can do the same for him. So this idea of thinking about who the ninth doctor was, just having committed genocide, when he met Rose, and how she forever changed. who he was and how in in like an episode like Dalek, an episode we really like from Christopher Eccleson's run, you know, she says she's trying to stop it from killing the Dalek.

And she says he's changing. She says, what are you, what about you doctor? What the hell are you changing into? Right. So the concept that comes up again and again of like the doctor needs someone to stop him.

Yes. But like this is such a crucial time in who the doctor is that rose. is right there. And I'm once again going to cheat and pull from a line that you haven't seen yet, but it's a Matt Smith line that I love that I think about all the time when talking about his first companion. He says, the first face that this face saw. I love that idea.

The first face that this face saw. So when we think about David Tennett, the first face that this face saw, Rose Tyler, Billy Piper. And he's never happier. He's never lighter. He's never better, like quote unquote better than he is in that second season. Just like puppy love season of 10 and Rose. And the dark side of the doctor is still there in that season.

He goes absolutely apeship ballistic anytime that Rose is in trouble. But when he loses her in Doomsday, he loses as part of himself. And he is just sort of kind of tail. spinning ever since and he latches onto people and he latches onto moments but like I just think that this idea of the doctor and we'll talk about this a little bit more later on but I don't think there's a doctor before or since that is as human as 10 is and I I there's no conclusive like statement doctor who thesis that like this is true but like I love this idea that perhaps he had some hand in crafting who he would become after he was nine in.

to 10 and he crafted himself into a package that might be younger and more attractive for Rose and a personality that might fit her effervescent curiosity. And this idea of like an ancient God trying to be human is so interesting to me when I think about 10. What are your thoughts on some of this? Oh, I mean, this was a chilling, a chilling thing to watch across the season. Like the moment when Davros screams you did this, I name you forever, you're the destroyer of worlds. Like the fact that Oppenheimer co-promotion, yeah. Exactly. That's why we move the pod to this weekend.

Let's go with that. It's not. Yeah. Synergy always here at the house of our. This, if we go to the Pompeii episode, like if Pompey is destroyed, then it's not just history. It's me. I make it happen. And that idea across the season where right there, in the second episode of this season,

there's horror and dismay when he has to confront that, the hand that he has directly played in loss, not just preservation, right? and when one of those things can't happen without the other. And then when you think about that as you were watching the waters of Mars, which I know we'll talk about more so we won't like linger on it here, but the lust for power, the spinning on its head of that idea, there are so many moments in the season where he's identifying what is a fixed point in time or when is time still moving, when is it fluid, when can it be changed?

And the way that he has to confront his own role in various renderings and when he is wrong and what the cost of that can be. And there's like a hubristic aspect to that fall that is inextricable from his loneliness, right? Like the fact that he has, Rose and Martha and Jack and Donna and Wilf, like these. these anchors the need someone to stop you idea right like when he doesn't have that and he has to see what that means and what he is capable of unleashing on the world it's like absolutely devastating and so one of the things I really loved about the season and found because it's very sad to like

watch a character who you love and care about in that state and it's it's sad to watch characters you care about make mistakes but I loved that that happened here because like one of the things you and I always talk about across various stories is that it's just much more interesting to watch a flawed character who's trying and failing and learning and growing and maybe at the end of the day after all of that it's still not enough and I thought that that was like really really really impactful especially in the context of the you know the conversation between wolf and 10 about how old he is and like what has happened in that time but and sometimes it's like humorous across the season sometimes it's very very like deeply deeply sad

and intense, but when he's thinking about just how long he's been around and whether that's too long. Like we've made this comp before elsewhere, but like it did make me think again about the good place and that question of like, if you have forever, how do you hold on to something that feels like more tangible and concrete? Like what gives every decision the consequence and the stake? And for 10, it's the people. And so when he feels like he's lost them, when he says people have traveled with me and I've lost them, lost them all never again, and he's, he says, he's lost them all never again. which is what he says to Christina. Christina, yeah.

Well, this is what's left after, right? Loses Rose. Martha, thank God, pieces out, lives her own life. Loses the master. Loses Jenny. Loses Rose again. Loses Donna. Just loss after loss of loss.

And the doctor, this kind of immortal, I mean, he's not immortal-ish character, we've seen this kind of storytelling over and over again in like vampire stories or in Highlander to quote Queen who wants to live forever. You know what I mean? Like what happens when you live forever and you have to watch those nearest and dearest to you die or leave you again and again and again again? This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business to keep companies of all.

sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. Let's talk about Donna. And this question of what makes a good companion.

Donna fucking noble, you already cited the Pompeii episode, one of my favorite episodes. Isaiah, will you play this clip for me, please? I can never go back. I can't. I just can't. Just someone. Please.

Not the whole town. Just save someone. We got, I mean, save someone that plea from her in her second episode as a full-time companion. Partners in Crime is so delightful and ever-fussed and weird and like whatever, you know what I mean? But it's just sort of like up and fun and peasant. happy. And and then you get, so for Catherine Tate, who is a natural born comedian to like do what she does so well in that first episode and then give us this profound depth of emotion in episode two, tears streaming down her face, right? Save someone. That's episode one and two. And you're like

in for it for the rest of the season with her. It's interesting. I got we got more emails about Donna than anything else because people love Donna Noble. And I think especially Donna Noble is the kind of character that I think grows on you as you, I think, experience more and more stories. I think for a lot of young people, Rose and 10 are like it. And I get it. I really, really get it. But what I heard from a lot of our listeners is like as they revisit Doctor Who when they are older,

you know, and Donna is like, you know, older than Martha and Rose or whatever. or when their taste for the kind of relationship that they want to watch, Donna emerges as a favorite companion, I think, for people who often rewatch these seasons. You know, there are companions to come that are people's favorites. So, like, I'm not saying Donna's the end all, be all, but she matters so much to a lot of people. Or maybe it's just self-selecting to the kind of people who would listen to this podcast,

really love Donna Noble. But I did get feedback from one person who was, like, who was watching for the first time. And they were like, she's not very nice. Like, I get that her mom is terrible. She's not very nice. And I'm like, no, Donna isn't nice, but she's kind. Like, and I, that's such a sliver of a distinction.

But it's a true distinction where she's like, she's not going to be nice to everyone. She suffers no fools, right? Oh, yeah. She's rude in a way that I kind of love. But she's so compassionate. Yeah. Right. you know, when she's like listening to the Ood song and is breaking her open, you know what I mean?

And that compassion and empathy in her is building on her journey here, right? Like we're seeing another character on an arc. It is very important that all of that is developing and deepening because then when she loses all of that, it's so tragic. But we'll talk about that in a second. But talk to me a bit about your experience with Donna through the season. I loved it. I cherished it. It was magical.

I'm so excited to hear more from you about because I know I know that Donna is this like central figure in your life. And so I'm so eager to to hear everything about like what she and what the season of TV mean to you on that front. I thought that Donna was just exceptional. I mean, the first taste that we get in Burnaway Bride is like really fun. and the wit and the barbs. I love the blend, like the multitudes inside of Donna.

I think that that point that you just made about the Donna's not nice thing is really fascinating because I had never thought about it that way. Like, I agree with your, your framing completely, the compassion and the empathy. It's not only so central for her,

but it specifically is the thing that other people around her need. It's the thing that 10 needs, right? He needs, but he also needs that humor from her, which I love to, like, when, again, in the cafe, when Wolf is like, you know, she could make you laugh. We'll talk about that moment more later. But, like, for one person to be able to bring you everything. And I really enjoyed the number of times that Donna went out of her way to say, like, I'm not, I'm not anyone. I'm not special.

I'm a temp. Here are how many words per minute I can type. And, like, here are the things I learned just by being. a person in the world. That's always one of the most satisfying and rewarding things is when there's a character who really does allow you

to see yourself in that vast wide world of possibility. Like somebody who was just going about their day and then something extraordinary happened and they went with it. But the other thing I loved again

is like nothing was simple inside of this season because that would have been enough. And I think that would have been really satisfying. But then we also have entwined with that all of these moments where Donna's inextricable relationship to an impact on 10 and events is not something that anybody can ignore. And so that idea that like the most regular person could become the most important is just like conceptually, quintessentially, like archetypically really fun and cool. But Donna's not just a archetype.

she is such a singular creation. And that's, I think that's, again, a hard thing to do is to, like, create a character who connects to all of these tropes or totems or things that feel familiar, right? Those tics and tendencies that you recognize from other stories. But, like, each line, each smile, each time that she's making fun of somebody or taking the piss out of the doctor or sitting at the table, rolling her eyes at her mother, as she asked her what she's doing with her life,

like you can only see Donna forever now when you think about those moments. It has to be her. And I just like thought she was sensational. It's interesting. I like the way you floated the theory about maybe where you are in your life. And I think like, as you know, I'm very attached to Rose and very attached to Tan and Rose together and love them and cherish them. been in a state once again of rekindled grief after what has happened inside of this season. But that was also one of the things I loved about Donna and Donna and tend together.

Like, there's so much meaning from so many different types of relationships. And, like, friendship and that kind of found family that, like, isn't romantic. is just this is just as meaningful and consequential in somebody's life, right? And so, like, I loved that in a vacuum, but I love that we got the different, like, versions of companion for 10. I love that they didn't all feel the same. Yeah. And I think, again, I think Martha is, like, wildly underserved by her storyline or season.

And I would love for her to have a chewier, more complex relationship with the doctor. but like Rose and Donna as these like two different flea like very strong flavors is so interesting. There's this tiny moment in the final special two-parter when the master sends one of the, you know, a couple of the photocopies himself to go like attack Donna and she blasts out with this sort of like psychic wave or whatever. And 10 and 10 says, do you think I would leave my best friend? without a defense. And when he says, my best friend, I believe him. Oh, yeah.

I believe him that Donna Noble is his best friend in the whole wide world. Absolutely. After 900 years of living. Yeah. It matters. Okay. So a couple emails we got. This one comes from Maddie.

Who identifies this moment in the Pompeii episode, just being crucial. She says, when the doctor comes to the realization that he will have to cause the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, in order to stop the pyruvils and ensure that this fixed point in history remains intact. It is a devastating reminder of the burden that he carries as the last of the time lords. A burden made all the worst due to his guilt over the actions in the time war. When he positions his hands on the lever that will cause the eruption, the most improbable thing happens. Donna places her hands over the doctor's own and they push the lever together. By performing this action with the doctor, Donna is showing that she,

will help him carry the weight of the universe. While I believe that any of 10's companions would have offered their support to him in the situation, I do believe that is Donna and only Donna who would perform this act with him. In this moment for the first time since the Time War, the doctor realizes that while he may be the last of the Time Lords, he does not have to shoulder the weight of their responsibility on his own. He has Donna, and she understands. It is then Donna, as we mentioned, who forces the doctor to return to Pompeii,

save Casillas and his family. she helps him realize that while by tining the appropriate flow of time is a heavy burden, it is not an excuse to forego empathy. In fact, by making him return to save Casillas, Donna demonstrates that it is his willingness to try and save someone, rather than his ability to save everyone that makes him the doctor. I just love this. Beautiful. We got this.

Again, we got tons of love letters to Donna. I'm just going to read one more because this comes from our listener. Cassie, but she forwarded what she did. She forwarded this essay from Carmen Maria Machado, who is one of my favorite fiction writers. She wrote her body and other parties, which is an incredible book that I suggest. It's a horror short story horror book, but I really recommend people check that out. But I just love when I find like serious authors who like have written at length about genre properties that I love. Like, you know, when they, when like David Foster Wallace is like, let me tell you about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'm like, tell me David Foster Wallace about Buffy.

Anyway, this is Carmen Maria Machado on Donna, an excerpt from the essay. She says, Catherine Tate plays Donna hard and fast along the boundary of hilarity and tenderness. Donna is the first companion in the Doctor Who reboot, who isn't incredibly young, doesn't fall madly in love with him. And she isn't at first particularly kind or good or curious or thoughtful or self-actualized. She's rude and afraid more than anything she's afraid. But as she and the doctor traveled time and space together, it turns out Donna has been seeking the part of herself that connects to other people. Season four of Doctor Who is transcendent, a near flawless arc of character development,

wherein Donna faces down her choices and realizes she's been looking for reasons to care. He takes her to a planet where the Oude, a telepathic Cthulhu-Face society who carry their brains in their hands, have been enslaved and turned into sentient apple products by the human race. The doctor gives her the ability to hear their mournful song and horrified and overwhelmed by her own sadness. She begs him to take it away. She follows him to an interstellar library with carnivorous shadows where she becomes trapped in a computer and lives out a perverse and surreal version of her once fantasy life until she is rescued.

She misses the events of an entire episode, midnight, because she's at an alien spa and doesn't want to leave. She continues to be rude, blunt, forceful, honest. They are good skills necessary. She also becomes less guarded, less afraid. She learns that a good life is not about achieving random milestones, is about realizing that you are a center, puzzle piece among many that your life and your mind have value that it's never too late to do good or shape your own destiny it's also about occasionally a shoeing foamo and sapphire waterfalls for alien massages the greatest lesson of all um love love this the whole essay is is uh fantastic um

and i think that that idea that like rudeness bluntness like that these are good things are often considered bad things, especially in women, but like, that these are kind of good qualities in Donna, which means we now have to talk about, I want to talk about the like absolute fucking atrocity overending here. So it doesn't sort of, so I can clear the decks to talk about other things later because it's wrapped up in a lot of other things that are happening and I just want to ISO it here. This is the worst thing that anyone has ever done to a character is, is how. I believe. I cannot. I physically cannot play the clip where she's begging for her life to hold on to her life because I will die. So this is a gentler version of this that comes when she's talking to Martha earlier in the season. Isaiah, will you place play this? Are you sure about this? Yeah. Positive. I can't do this anymore. You'll be the same one day.

Not me. Never. How could I ever go back to normal life after seeing all this? I'm going to travel with that man forever. I'm going to travel with that man forever, is what she says. One last email that I'm going to read here, and then I'm going to hand the mic over to you. Maddie wrote in, thank you, Isaiah. I'm Maddie Rone in to say, there's a moment in the episode Plano the Ood that I think sums up the cost of this moment of the end of Donna's story here. When referring to the process of removing part of an Ood's brain, the doctor says to Donna, the Ood are born with a secondary brain, like the amygdala in humans.

It processes memory and emotions. You get rid of that. You wouldn't be Donna anymore. You'd be like an Ood, a processed Oud. It's so interesting because I can get so, I do an Arama's and you can get so reactively angry to storytelling choices that it like ruins my ability to understand a story, to absorb other parts of the story. that is not how I feel about this season of Doctor Who.

I think it is one of the most special things ever. I think the ends for so many of these characters are so interesting. I do think that what happens to Donna is incredibly cruel, worse than death, I would say. I've been angry about it for a really long time. And it is why I'm so, I come to you with like my anger on a very low simmer, though, because I know that Russell T. Davies has heard from years from people that they are so upset about what happened to Donna. And I know that that has informed his desire to bring her back for the special and do

something more with the end of her story rather than strip this character development away from her and leave her chattering on the phone as we see her. Tell me how you felt about Donna's ending. Oh, I mean, it's beyond tragic. I think the word cruel is right. I was thinking of a moment from the first season that we talked about on our first pod when Rose is sitting at the cafe with Mickey and Jackie and thinks that she is just back in her old life and says, but it was better.

It was a better life. The doctor showed me a better way of living your life. he showed you too that you don't just give up and as we talked about at the time hearing that from Rose I was like shattered

because I think it taps into something just deeply true at the heart of the story and at the heart of stories in general and why we gravitate toward stories like this that at some level are ultimately about one thing right which is

possibility. Possibility in the form of adventure, a quest, connection, love, discovery. And for that specific thing to be taken away from you, like, what happens to Donna is, it's that rose conversation exponential at a scale that you can't even measure anymore, right? And, you know, you didn't want to play the clip. And I won't, I won't read the quote in full. but like I want to stay I was going to be with you forever to be deprived of that would be

devastating but to not even know that you had it like to lose that completely it just like isn't fair it just isn't fair it's it's yeah it's terrible it's something that it's a question that like

Russell T. Davis has been asked genuinely forever over and over and over again. And I think, I don't think he fully understands, understood exactly what he was doing when he did this. I think he was like, I have cooked up an incredibly juicy and cool tragic story and look at the impact this is going to have on the doctor. All of that is true. And it is really well done. And like the doctor without Donna in free fall until his death is tremendous story. telling that I wouldn't trade necessarily.

But I think he knows that he, I think he would do it differently. Were he to do it now? And that's why we're getting more Donna. I do want to shout out. Again, I think something that Davies is really good at is there is never one dimension to a character. So Sylvia Noble, Donna's mom, who we like do not like because she is horrible to Donna. Smith fan just like you.

Big ball of them on the kitchen table. Are they? Those are Wilf's apples. I do believe. Wilf enjoys a granny Smith apple. But she gets like we care for her by the end. And she gets this tremendous moment when the doctor says, I just want you to know that there are worlds out there safe in the sky because of her. There are people living in the light singing songs of Donna Noble a thousand million light years away.

They will never forget her. While she can never remember. And for one moment, one shining moment. she was the most important woman in the whole wide universe. And Sylvia says she still is. She's my daughter. And then he says that maybe you should tell her that once in a while. Fair enough.

Okay. But like Sylvia being protective of Donna or like in the whole sequence and like it's just Sylvia and Wilf like alone on earth like against the Daleks or whatever. I'm like I care about Sylvia. I do. Like you know, it this is a genius of this of this show. Anything else you want to say? I'm sorry, I'm tearing up. Anything else you want to say about what happens to Donna?

Here. It just absolutely her heart reaching to watch. I don't want Donna's time lord absorption memories in the 6th anniversary specials to return in full in a way that harms her. But I do hope that they have figured out a storytelling mechanism by which she can remember all of the adventures that they shared and have that whole part of herself restored. This is a thing with Dr. Hu. There's a solution for everything until there's not. You know what I mean? Yeah, but then there can be again somehow.

You know, exactly. Like, the sonic screwdriver can open anything in the world except for that one glass door that Wolf's behind. Do you know what I mean? Like, until it can't, it can do anything. So, you know, wibbly wobbly. We're going to talk about Wolf a lot more when we get into our, like, episode specific stuff. We've already mentioned how much we love him. He's incredible.

For me, the character rankings in Dr. Hugo, number one, Donovan. Number two, Wilfurt, Motte, number three, David. Ted doctor. Like, this is a one, two, three for me. But it's close with Wilf and Donna, for sure. Which brings us to River Song while we're talking about companions in the season. This is an introduction of an iconic Stephen Moffat creation who will live on into his era of Doctor Who. This is the trick of her moving one way through time and the doctor moving another way through time.

Isaiah, will you play me this clip, please? Can you not me do this? You die here. It'll mean I've never met you. Time can be rewritten. Not those times. Not one line. Don't you dare.

Okay. It's okay. It's not over for you. You'll see me again. You've got all of that to come. You and me. Time and space. You watch us run.

Alex Kingston, the great Alex Kingston, you know, originator of the spoiler sweetie, uh, meme. I genuinely think this character is partly responsible for like the proliferation of the use of spoilers. Spoiler warning, spoiler culture. Don't tell Van. His new mortal enemy, River Song. How do you feel about your introduction to River Song here?

I loved it. These were two of my favorite episodes of the season. The library arc was sensational. Great blend of the concept, the sci-fi concept. I texted you when I finished it. like that it was one of my favorite examinations of time travel inside of Doctor Who to date. Like really intriguing. You're kind of trying to crack the mystery of all of the different elements as you watch,

but also you understand intuitively pretty quickly what has happened that a future version of the doctor. So 10 doesn't have this information yet has that his future is her past. And I thought that this was really. really rich at a few different ways, like, wouldn't be a pod if I didn't say the words choice versus destiny at some point. But like, this was a great season for that in general because there are a number of moments where the idea of like a paradox that's something, that you were the one who did it or that's something.

There's a causal loop that's already in play. But all, or that there's a fixed moment in time. You try to change something and then it's the outcome happens anyway, maybe even. in a more horrific way than you realized. But then there are just as many moments where, turn left, great example, right? Where one character does one thing differently,

and the course of history is altered completely. And so to hear, to see the doctor, to C-10 say like, River, you know my name, you whispered my name in my ear, there's only one reason I would ever tell anyone my name, for him to have not yet lived those things,

but to understand what it means. There's this really fascinating element to that for me where I'm like, okay, I haven't watched their relationship yet. I'm looking forward to doing so. I will always have in my mind now, like how much of this is happening because it's the authentic organic, whatever this is, I don't know yet, authentic organic bond that would have unfolded between them no matter what.

And how much of it is because he knows that it happened. Right. That's just, I love thinking about stuff. like that. Yeah. But so for her to say to him and then you just played it in the clip, like not those times, not one line, don't you dare, feels sacred, that there have to be moments like that inside of a world where things can, where people can meddle and time and space are these

big, wide, amorphous concepts that something has to be concrete and somebody has to say. keep it so. Like I, I love that. And then there's like the eyebrow wiggle and the flirtation and the innuendo and the smarts and the savviness. Like I thought the part where she's saying to him like describing their last day together and his the way that he cried and then he's piecing together the puzzle of why he would have given to screwdriver. It was just that great kind of like vintage blend of a really elevated and intriguing sci-fi concept that ultimately will linger with us because of the heart at the core of it. I really liked these episodes.

And they also, we have a very emotional stretch. I know this is the river, the river chunk here. But because we're talking about those episodes, everything with Donna and Lee, I also found fucking shattering, I will just say. That's devastating. Comes in, he is there. He is real at the end.

His stutter. Can't say her. It can't, yeah, I can't say her name and she doesn't hear her see him in time. Like, fuck. Jesus. very tragic very upsetting very poignant i think um also again donna's kindness comes through uh in this episode um where she is kind while other people are snarky and dismissive of to to the most vulnerable that's who she will be kind to and um and also iconic donna noble has left the library donna noble

has been saved is, I mean, we're not, spoiler, we're not going to talk about this, the library episodes in our like episode drill down. So I just wanted to talk about that line there. I think I sometimes I just say it to myself and Donna Noble has left the library. Donna Noble has been saved. So I know I was going to say to the reveal of the child and the Dr. Moon and all those sort of stuff. I should say that Moffitt, in that Moffat Davies interview that I read, Moffat had said that and he never, he never wound up writing this, though it may still be. to come in the lore because the doctor is still ongoing and will forever as long as IP is alive probably. But his idea, so again, this is just the idea of one man who is no longer

writing the show is that the doctor moon is somehow also the doctor. And so like, River is actually with the final version of the doctor who is the doctor moon or something like that. I was like, okay, okay, Stephen Moffitt. Let me tell you something. River Song always had treat. The story of River's song. This is a, this is a, this is just a perfect example of Stephen Moffat. This concept right here, she's moving one way in time. He's moving another. Brilliant. Having to then live with the consequences of setting that premise up for the rest of your run. Complicated. So we will get to that. I've been more. It's just like, it's a little dicey. Let's just dip through some other minor companions before we, we roll forward. We get. Last thing.

very quickly that just occurred to me actually that on the Donna front and one of the things that makes her so special and this connects to the fact that she's not in love with the doctor, she's not jealous when other companions come into the fray. And I really, really liked that. Like, not only is she not threatened by what's happening with River or by what she's learning about and piecing together about Rose. She's the one who's like, tell yourself. Like she's, she can't wait to see him back with people who

She's us. She's like, she ships the doctor and Rose like we do. You know what I mean? And yeah, and he's like, he's all worried, you know,

he's like remembering how it was when Rose and Sarah Jane first met each other and he's like, oh, here it comes. Donna's going to meet Martha. And she's like, what's up? Love you.

Isn't he ridiculous? What the fuck? I really like that part of it. Yeah. Yeah, me too. And, but meanwhile, like Rose, when she shows about, is frustrated and jealous that like she can't connect understandably but like is specifically like

jealous of Martha and wealth we got to get the IT set up looked at do you have a webcam she says she says naughty I got it I should have picked that as my funniest moment of the season that absolutely killed me um all right other minor companions um we got to mention astrid calla minogue is here A huge, like, stud casting moment for the show was really fun. Jenny. Uh-huh. Played by the doctor's daughter. Yeah.

Played by Georgia Moffitt. Uh-huh. No relation to Stephen. But yes, related to Peter Moffitt, who was one of the actors who played Doctor Who. She's the daughter of an actor who played Doctor Who. And then she married David Tennant after playing his daughter. It's normal. It's totally fine.

And they have conservatively one million children together, including our guy. Tentonet of House of the Dragon fame. They seem like a genuinely beautiful family. Yeah, like genuinely delightful. Lady Christina, you already mentioned, Michelle Ryan at the peak of her like absolute hotness, just incredible, incredible stuff. Remarkable. This was the one moment where I felt even though everything tracked for me,

dramatically cheated. But I can't believe. We can't get one sex scene. We can't get like a blowjob behind a sand dune. I was just saying you text you texting me that. I'm like, what are they going to do? Go behind a sand dune. And I said to you, she's already complaining about how she has the sand in her hair.

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Martha, more actively involved in Torchwood. On the spin-off front. Jenny is clearly set up to possibly have a spinoff. She doesn't get one. But like, this is clearly Russell T. Davies in his Buffy fandom era being like, what if we have a partial time lord who is Rose essentially or who is Buffy, you know? That was, I will say that was like one open loop that I was surprised didn't come back and to play this season? Seems like it would matter that she's out there. I feel like I am a huge

Doctor Who fan, but there are Doctor Who fans who would laugh at my fandom and say it is merely a speck in the wind because I'm here to tell you that there's like a whole vibrant world of Doctor Who radio dramas that I don't listen to produced by the Big Finish. And there are Jenny adventures on the big Finnish stuff. And she's like she will voice them like the actors will voice then. Like Christopher Eccleston has done radio adventures as a doctor even as he hated his time. You know, like Catherine Tate and David Tennon and

like, you know, there's a bunch of radio stuff, but like Martha, they wanted Martha to be more active in the Torchwood. She shows up in Torchwood. They wanted her like sort of more actively on that. It didn't like wind up working out. But like Martha is clearly a sort of like set up to go be involved in all of that. And then there was at one point

an idea to do a Rose centric spin off, Rose Tyler, Colon, Earth Defense, a 90-minute special that could possibly come an annual event, was canceled by Davies at a late stage in development. And he said, it's a spinoff too far, which I just kind of love. But yeah, you can sort of see these seeds being planted because they had Torchwood, they had the Sarah Jane Adventures. Those are two spinoffs that are working.

And what Davies has said in coming back to Who is he is interested in, like, creating a whole network of Who shows. Yeah, because they've done this big deal with Disney going forward with Doctor Who. So they've got an influx of Disney Cash. And Devi is compared to like what's happening with Star Trek over there where there's just like five different Star Trek shows running right now. He wants like something comparable for Who. Interesting. How do you feel about that?

Do you do you want that? Does it scare you to think of the universe expanding too far and diluting the quality? Or is it a thrill for you to consider? I think he's not trying to run them. Well, like, first of all, Doctor Who seasons are so short that I think you could do like three different shows, one season or three different shows a year. So, sort of comparable to like one big 22 episode season. So I wouldn't be that scared about that. If he feels like he needs to run all of them, that's when I would worry about his like focus being two split.

But that sounds like borrowing worry. I'm just, I'm so excited for the specials. I'm so excited for our new doctor and his new companion. And then we'll see what happens from there. You know what I mean? I love a spinoff. More pod fodder. Let's go.

Full-time who potting? You've already told me, before we go into our sort of like episode, many deep dives, you sort of told me how you feel about letting go of 10. Anything else you want to say? Pre-pre-grarming? I'm despondent. I honestly am like, I'm in that. But it's the best kind of feeling.

Like, I love when you finish a book or finish a show or finish a movie and you are broken because you're not with those people anymore. So, like, who is such an interesting proposition in that respect? Because the journey will continue. Work is ever on. Yeah, exactly. This song, this song is over. But I am excited for the next song. and also like there is the part of me,

if I'm being honest about it, that just wants to keep listening to this song, the one I just finished on repeat forever. Like I'm not ready to go to the next one on the playlist quite yet. And I'm sure when I do, I will love it. I just thought that I love David Tennant. I thought he was extraordinary. Like it is,

it's such a fascinating thing. The idea of multiple people and embodying this character and inhabiting that mantle is like, It is the text. And so I don't want to sound like I don't understand Dr. Who when I say this. Like it is impossible for me currently to think of anybody else as the doctor. It's just he feels it's like an indelible performance.

I loved it. I thought he was so wonderful. And I will rewatch his seasons for, and maybe all of who, I hope all of who, but definitively his seasons like for the rest of my life. And so I'm sad right now that I've reached. this point but you know i don't it's like it's like old nan told brand like the stories wait you know so i can't wait to like revisit this again it's always going to be there for me and so while i'm sad that's just a beautiful thing and like you gave me this wonderful gift what an unbelievable thrill it is to share this with you it's just really meaningful when this when this was on i mean it's still

streaming i can watch it anytime but like there was something you when it was a doctor who was on on Netflix for a while. It's been all over. And then I was on Amazon, you know, many custodies of of Dr. Hoins string me. But like, when I was on Netflix, I used to just comfort background watch season four all the time. Do you always go in order or do you like dip in and out of of episodes? No, I mean, I used to like just rewatch season four. No, but I, you've seen my outline of what is essential and not. I skip those. Like, rewatching the Suntarine episodes, like Poison Sky, et cetera, like, is valuable in talking about the season

in a whole, but like, I don't rewatch those episodes. I don't think they're great. You know what I mean? And that's okay because, like, you can just watch the bangers in season four and you get the full arc, you know? I don't watch the doctor's daughter. I don't really rewatch that one, though is lovely to see a baby Joe Dempsey in that episode. Great to be with Henry.

But the run, the end run of the library two-parter. midnight, turn left, you know, and then the finale two-parter. Like that, I will put that, those, those episodes up against any other television ever, honestly, which brings us to our first little mini deep dive, season four, episode eight, my favorite episode of Doctor Who of all time, midnight. Directed by Alice Troughton, written by Russell T. Davies. This is... Remember that discussion we had about bottle episodes when we were talking about The Last of Us?

Uh-huh. And how that episode wasn't really a bottle episode. This is a classic bottle episode of television. And in fact, midnight and turn left the next episode, which has barely any tenant in it, they're filmed at the same time. It's a budgetary thing, right? So you can, like, save up all your budget for all the guest stars that you're bringing in for your finale two-parter and do these two low-budge episodes, film on the same. time shove everyone into a tin can in this episode. Don't even show us the monster and let the psychological horror unfurl. If you haven't rewatched midnight in a while, this is the story of

the doctor taking a lovely tram tour ride across the planet called Midnight. The tram breaks down because they're on a different path than they usually take. And then some Eldridge horror from out of the brightness of this gleaming planet comes inside the tram, takes over the body of one of the passengers. And then it's just paranoia, mob mentality, savagery, breaking down the real monster are the humans in this episode. Our cast of characters are Sky, Sylvesteri. We can talk about her in a second. the Cain's a couple, their son, the hostess who doesn't get a name,

Professor Hobbs and D-D. And that's it. You know, Donna and the bookends. I am obsessed with this episode. I watch it all the time. I think it is some of the most exquisite storytelling that has ever happened. I think it's so spooky.

I think about it all the time. Leslie Sharp, who plays Sky Silvestri, I think is like one of the most incredible and terrifying human beings that has ever done anything. Tell me how you feel. This is your favorite episode of Dr. Who, Joanna. This is it. Yeah.

Amazing. So this was, I knew this was your favorite heading into it. I didn't know why. And it was fascinating because as soon as I realized that Donna was staying at the spa and wasn't going. I was like, I'm surprised that this is Joe's favorite because Donna's not there. and Ten and Donna aren't together. I must have a treat in store if that is not a detriment

to everything that is ahead. I thought this was a very scary episode, but not too scary. I thought the horror was incredibly effective. The fact that we don't see this spectral doom I loved. It reminded me a little bit of not hearing the torture sound that Bix hears in Andor.

And it's so much more terrifying for us than it would be if we actually were in that headset with her because like your mind fills in things that the screen maybe couldn't match. And I think that actually kind of amplified in a meta way what the episode is saying because it's like maybe it is like a budgetary reason like that we don't see it. But regardless, there's a kind of like wink to the audience there and acknowledgement that the, what we can do with our minds will have this impact that nothing else can match. And then that connects to what you said already, right? Like the humans or the monsters, like nothing is scarier ultimately than what people are capable

doing to each other. And so to watch the descent within that car and like the rapidity of it, the speed with which everybody is willing to throw somebody out into the death-scape that awaits was like absolutely fucking harrowing. And then everything that happens with tenant with the doctor, the fact that Donna, while I, of course, missed her, wasn't with him, it sets up so nicely like what you get in the absence of a companion later in this stretch. It's like what happens to him when he's alone?

What happens to him when he doesn't have that? It's so perfect for that. It sets up two really key things. What happens when the doctor's alone, right? This does not happen if Donna is there. No. Absolutely does not happen. And his hubris.

Because I think the I'm Clever moment is one of my favorites. Isaiah, we play this clip, please. You called us humans like you're not one of us. That's what he said. And the wiring. He went into that panel and opened up the wiring. That was after. But how did you know what to do?

Because I'm clever. I see. Well, that makes things clear. And what are we then? Idiots. That's not what I meant. If you're clever, then what are we? You've been looking down on us for the moment we walked in.

Even if he goes, he's practically volunteered. I love this moment because it turns on its head the thing that the doctor has, we've seen the doctor do time and time and time and time again, should show up and there's a crew of some ship somewhere or something. And he's just like, you know, we saw it in the Titanic episode, the first clip we played here. He's like, why should you be in charge? And he's like, because I'm a time lord. I'm ancient, blah, blah, blah. You know, I'm going to save you all. He saves nearly none of them, by the way, on the Titanic. But he says that all the time. I'm going to save you. You'll be safe. You'll be fine. And the people die. I promise. I promise. But, you know, like, that doesn't work here. And in fact, it is what.

hangs him, you know, essentially. He would have, like, we're not for one place, well-placed converse, like, hooking on to a seat. Like, he's going out the door, right? And the fact that what the monster does to him or what the creature does to him, if you prefer, is steal his voice, his, like, most influential tool. So, yeah, it's the, it's the hubris. And also the answer to his hubris is this, like, anti-intellectual. that is sort of like comes from this group there's a professor there but there's also that like the

husband and wife are this real like you know she says the quite a part out loud where she's like like an immigrant and you're like okay okay right not quite brexit yet but we get it we get what's going on here but like I just I think I so admire the storytelling the simplicity of it that without any bells and whistles they are able to deliver this just like chamber piece essentially there has been a stage play version of this, Doctor Who's Midnight, that is performed. And you could see how easily it could be performed. But yeah, I just...

And then, and then, like, to highlight the absence of Donna is the comfort of Donna at the end when she, like, embraces him, you know? Beautiful. Beautiful. I loved it. Yeah, it's so contained. It's so restrained and tight. In that clever clip, like, the other thing it makes me think of

is... We get the beauty later in the specials of the moment of Wolf saying, we must look like insects to you in 10 saying, I think you look like giants. And that's also something that we consider very central and core to who he is and how he thinks about humanity. What I loved about the other side of that in midnight is the reminder that he has to choose that every time. Like he has to choose to believe that people have value and worth. And on the one hand, it's a distinction between him and someone.

like, we're president or the master, but he sees in them what he could be calm if he didn't have that empathy and that compassion that Donna helps to reinforce and bring out in him, right? And didn't value other worlds and other ways of life and didn't think that every single person could make a difference the way that he could. Like, he has to hold on to that certainty

in what human beings are capable of, because otherwise he's just another one of the people he's trying to stop. So to get the moments where you really actually do see what it could look like if he made different choices and lived his life a different way, like very, very impactful. Spoiler, we are going to talk about the waters of Mars in a second. But there is a line in there in his final like confrontation when he mentions like the little, I've saved little people. And she's like, little people. You know what I mean? Like that's that's the, that's the push and pull. That's the God and the human, you know, at war with each other. Um, before we roll on, um,

Do you, what, if you were to pick one favorite episode of the, of the episodes you've seen, what would you pick? From any season or from season four? Yeah, from any season. You can think about that. I just put you on. I don't know. It's, it's, I probably, I feel like I have like a handful in the consideration set. I mean, I really, really, really loved human nature, family of blood, blink, that run in season three.

I absolutely loved. I loved the girl in the fireplace. I love midnight. I mean, I loved Journey's End. I loved the end of time, part two. Let's talk about Journey's End. It's hard to pick. I sprung that and you think about it.

We'll talk about it next time in August or September, whatever we get to. Okay, so season four, 12 and 13, Stolen Planet Journey's End, directed by Graham Harper, written by Russell D. Davies is our next stop. If we're saving budget on midnight and turn left, we are blowing it on. bringing the entire group that children of time are all here. Jack Harkness plus Gwen and Yanto from Torchwood. Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith, Sarah Jane Smith, Martha Jones, Rose Tyler, Tyler, Tyler, Donna Noble.

I sent you that group shot, which was like, there's this group shot of them if you, like, if you just Google like, you know, Journey's End group shot or whatever. It was like the background on my laptop forever because it's like an iconic, I think, laptop background. But I sent, I texted it to Mallory. I was like, I'm going to tell the next generation of these were the Avengers.

Like, did you expect that? I mean, I know I, I don't know how you were reading the spreadsheet that I sent you, like, how much you were spoiling yourself and like whatever. And I just wrote like, who's in this? Everyone. Did you know that like everyone was going to be in this episode? So obviously the whole season is building toward Rose returning in a meaningful way. So I was certainly prepared for that.

We had gotten time with Martha earlier. So it felt very plausible. that she could be back in the fray. I always, at this point now, the one thing, literally one, okay, two things I expect out of every season of Who, I'll see Adelic at some point and I will see Jack at some point. Those are like the constants of the Who experience. You know, I didn't necessarily know I would be back with, I'm holding up my credentials here so you could see former Prime Minister. Very much. So funny. Having a Zoom, just like us, Joe, having a Zoom.

But like it felt right. You know, it didn't feel forced. It felt cool to see the whole gang together. I liked that there was room for all of the specific individual dynamics. Everybody had like something to do to varying degrees. Jackie and Mickey and Sergei, not so much. But yeah. They were there.

Yeah. But ultimately it sets up, I thought, like, not to skip ahead to a different episode entirely, but it sets up, you know, when he's saying goodbye, when he's receiving his reward. Well, to see the tart is full. Yeah. And this is how it's meant to be flown.

Yes. Full of people. And then empty again. Yeah, his reward. Ooh. Let's play this. Speaking of the children in the time. Let's play this clip from good old Davros who shows up here.

Isaiah, will you play this? The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun. But this is the truth, doctor. You take ordinary people and you fashion them into weapons. Behold your children of time transformed into murderous. I made the dialects, doctor. You made this. I mean, brutal.

welcome to the chat emperor palpatine um daveros who you get from context clues is a is an older character that they have like brought back for this but i think like the reintroduction of sarah jane in season two i don't you don't need a lot of context like you get all the context you need sarah jane is scared of him he created the daleks that's all you really need to know savoros is here um i love this concept as you mentioned we get this idea over and over and over and again this season and the doctor won't pick up a gun, he won't pick up a gun, he won't pick up the gun. And Davers is like, these are your weapons, you dumb dumb. Osterhagen-key, are you kidding me?

Like these are your lethal, lethal weapons that you have sent out into the world. We see Jack, we see Rose with, and Mickey and Jackie with enormous crazy guns. The craziest guns you've ever seen. You know, so does it even matter if the doctor won't pick up a gun if his disciples are willing to? What do you think about this complication of the doctor's legacy? I love this. It's like the nuance and the richness. I think it's ultimately more satisfying and compelling than if he turns everybody

he touches into a saint and he's one too. Like if everybody behaved exactly the way that he thought they should or if he has a moment where he has to confront whether he even understands the impact fully that he's having on other people. and what it means to have access not only to that kind of like awakening and awareness but that like connection to power and to shaping. Like it was interesting to see all of the scenes with,

you know, we've gotten our tastes with Torchwood to get these unit scenes and these people who are operating in the shadows, including a willingness in the planet of death episode to say, oh, and this isn't one of the children of time, but in the unit group like, shout out Malcolm, I don't want to end. the pod without saying shout out Malcolm.

I love that guy. I got such a kick out of him and his phone calls with the doctor. I love you too. Guilby. A willingness to say like, yeah, well, we even have to sacrifice the doctor to protect. Like when the protection becomes your mission or the preservation of something becomes your mission, this question throughout every episode and every season of like, well, how are you preserving peace if you're not waging war?

It actually made me think of my gal, the Duchess Seteen. One of the moments I love in Clone Wars, when she refers to Obi-1 Canovey is like this contradiction. And this amusing contradiction that she points out about like the Jedi referring to themselves as peacekeepers when they're out there and everyone's calling them general and they're waging war. I just think that's a really kind of fascinating thing for the characters to have to confront. And I love that with 10 inside of the context of this season where he's like, I won't put my hand on that thing.

Like, I won't. I never, right? Never, he says. And then he takes it. We had a second doctor in a blue suit. Looking great. Dr. Donna hybrid. Great stuff.

Metacrisis doctor. One heart, Joe. Means he's mortal. It's the gift that he gives to Rose. So let us talk. We already talked about Donna. and we have put that to bed. Let's talk about Rose's happy ending question mark.

Only that I love about this episode, it's called Journey's End. There's a very famous Shakespeare quote from 12th night, Journey's End in Lovers' Meeting. And I'm sorry, I'm going to get so emotional. The scene back on the beach at Battle of Wolf Bay with Donna, the doctor, the Metacrisis doctor, Rose, Jackie, etc. Jackie being like, no, we didn't name our baby after you. What are you a fucking idiot? Great stuff. Tony.

I got it. That was so funny. What's wrong with you? The way that Rose, you know, Donna points out in turn left that Rose has been wearing the same outfit the entire season. It's blue and raspberry. It's color-coded to match the Metacrisis doctor. She's been color-coded all season to match him.

this idea, this is a very controversial ending. Some people love, they're like, great, perfect solution. She gets her own doctor. He will age with her. Like, great, beautiful solution. Some people are like, I'm sorry, she gets the fucking Xerox copy doctor. Is that really? Is that cool?

Is that just? So I am curious how you feel about it, but I will say on a non-ci-fi level, to have this young woman, like, to have her ask, her doctor brown suit pinstripes say it say you love me say it why can't you say the thing that you almost said last time you were here and he gives her the old doesn't really need saying fuck you dude you know what I mean good old good old metacrisis doctors like oh I'll say it I'll whisper it into your ear I will say it you know and I have I there's no mystery this isn't like lost in translation you know what he says I love you to her like that's what he

says, right? And then she lays a big old smooch on him. And then she, and then the doctor leaves and she's upset, understandably. But like, to me, I'm like, it's not that he's the mortal doctor. It's not that he's the whatever doctor. He's the emotionally available doctor. And I think that that's a good thing for Rose to have at the end of her journey here. How do you, how do you feel about it? So it's absolutely tortured. Completely and totally. I thought this was devastating. I, and I liked that part of it actually that it didn't feel neat and tidy that it was complex that I had to like kind of work through

how I felt about it and that rose in real time and the scene is working through how she feels about it like is saying out loud he's not you and then says he needs you that's very me which was quite quite sweet and quite sad I liked that part of it.

That's actually kind of emblematic because on the one hand, I liked that part of it, that he is acknowledging that Rose is capable of impacting and like morphing him, of genuinely, consequentially, tangibly changing him and making him better

in a way that is distinct. I also was like, the course of the rest of Rose's life is now basically defined by like a homework assignment, which is sort of tough. Fix him. Yeah, fix him. Not great. She's like, but yeah, I already fixed you and you're right here.

Like just say the thing out loud that I know you feel. Say it. That idea, too, of the one heart, the fact that they'll age together. Like, I thought that that was beautiful. and like something that that Rose deserves, right, is a person who is there and can be there, like in lockstep with her to like live a life together and really be a partner for the span of the experience that they would share. That's wonderful.

I'm glad that she has that. I think that the kind of interesting philosophical quandary is like, again, then is that the doctor. Well, what makes the doctor the doctor? What makes Rose and the doctor, Rose and the doctor together? That's ultimately for the characters to decide and figure out. And I think it's the thing that they bring out in each other is the answer, really. But I think, yes, I think what's also possibly true, if you think about, like, who, you know, she's like, she gives, she hits us with the old Brand Stark. I came all this way, right?

You know? But, like, the doctor that she knows is the doctor that she left in Doomsday. that doctor has had a lot more development since. His whole time with Martha, his whole time with Donna. She was absent. So my question is like, is this doctor actually closer to her doomsday doctor than the doctor who has experienced midnight, who has experienced like all these other things? Do you know what I mean? It's a great question.

It's like it's a very black mirror thing to think about like consciousness and what makes somebody who they are and whether a copy of you could be you. but like hearing you say that, I could rebel against it a little bit more because on the one hand maybe yes, then it is her doctor in a way that the actual doctor kind of isn't anymore. I think that's an interesting way of thinking about it.

But also like, I don't know, part of what growing and living a life with somebody is, which is like the thing that she really wants, is like the experiences they have without you too, right? And how you make room that in the life that you try to build together. I did feel like when

Metacrisis doctor said I could spend it with you his one life if you want that that was like a gift I was glad she received. I still can't help but wonder when she turns around and the other doctor's leaving if she's like, well, fuck, he's the one I wanted. But the thing that honestly like crushed me the most

was thinking about it from his, from Tens' perspective because I think he wants to be giving, he doesn't want metacrisis, on the one hand, he doesn't want metacrisis doctor to be a genocidal maniac, right, this weapon forged in war. On the other hand, he genuinely wants Rose to have this thing that he thinks he can't give her. But I'm just like, why can't you? Why can't you let yourself try? It's just so heart-wrenching. That doesn't need saying is like, I'll think about

that moment forever because what if he just said it? What if he could allow himself to say it? And so you have this stretch at the end here, the end of Journey's end, and then again in the final two-part special, where he has to watch everybody else with somebody. Like, everybody has someone but him. And is that the burden of the immortal time lord who, you know, will outlive everyone who, you know? It's heartbreaking.

It's horrifying. And, like, I will just say this. Like, what happens? happens. Like Donna and the doctor get in the Tartis. They go away. Billy Piper gives us the old mascara down the face gasp that she's so good at. Queen.

What happens next with the Metacrisis doctor and Rose? I have not checked this, but I guarantee you there's like millions of fan fictions about this. And I can, I can, I know exactly how they play out, which is like she doesn't want him at first. and then they grow to love each other. I just see, I choose to see this, again, emotional availability. I choose ultimately. Roast deserves that. Absolutely.

Ultimately, Brown original flavor doctor just chose not to stay. It's true. So who want, be with the person who said, I want to spend my life with you. I think if it were a more active choice on her behalf, maybe it would feel that way about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. The sneak away is not ideal. All right.

Arm breaking. Season 4, episode 16, the Waters of Mars, directed by Graham Harper, fuck up episode. And Phil Ford. Based on, it's a 20 days later sort of riff, fast zombies, water zombies. Gemma Chan is here. The great Lindsay Duncan as Captain Adelaide Brooke. Incredible.

This is just like a classic space horror. We've seen a couple versions of this already. in your run of Doctor Who, you will see it again. But again, I just want to shout out an example in this episode of that thing that I was talked about where Russell U. Davies makes you care. There's this character, Steffey Erlich, who we haven't spent much time with. But when the water is approaching her, and she, like, calls up this video of her kids, and she is, like, crying, and her entire team is, like, calling for her and desperate and

devastated that she's about to get hit by the water. I care. I get really upset. And I know next to nothing about this character. And that's just like something Russell T. Davies is better than anyone else at, I think. So the lonely doctor. Here we are, right? To Christine in the previous app, as we mentioned, people have traveled with me and I've lost them,

lost them all, never again. Donna Noble's casting this long shadow on him. Also looming over him in this episode is the prophecy from Carmen in Planet of the Dead. Your song is ending, sir. It is returning. So his death is looming over him. And this is when we get the time lord victorious, the literal lord of time. The nadir of the 10th, Dr. Isaiah, will you please play this clip for me?

For a long time now, I thought I was just a survivor, but I'm not. I'm the winner. That's who I am. The time lord victorious. And there's no one to stop you. No. Chilling. The way that he is so self-congratulatory, right?

He says, is anyone going to thank me to the crew, to the shell-shocked crew, who have just lost everyone that they cared about? on the space station. In contrast to Martha's whole speech at the end of season three when she's telling the people about the doctor, right? And she says he's always there in the shadow. Never, never asking to be thanked, right?

It's something that she says. And he's like, who's going to thank me? You know what I mean? So the arrogance of the doctor, the self-congratulatory nature, the I am the Lord of Time. And then for Adelaide to do what she does.

Oh, my God. Dark, dark moment in this ostensible children's show, right? Commit suicide. Yeah. This was originally supposed to be a Christmas special. They moved it off of Christmas, I think, for the better. And the Lord. And the lesson that he learns there, right, is that time is a way of correcting itself.

You know what I mean? He does this thing. He saves her. He wasn't supposed to. It was a fixed point of time. time finds a way to to make the thing happen anyway. And Stephen Moffitt will like sort of more in-depth explain or sort of explore this concept of the time as like a conscious force.

And that'll be really interesting for us to journey through. But I think this is the beginning of it because we've had this idea of the time lords, but we haven't really thought about this idea of like time as this force. We get fixed things in time, blah, blah, blah. when he tries to exert his dominance over it. And it's like, oh, I'm bigger than you. You things might call yourself the time, Lawrence, but I am time itself and I am bigger than you.

And here's what's going to happen here. I am obsessed with this episode. I think about it all the time. I think about the bravery of turning your hero into a villain, which is who he is in the final moments of this episode. Mallory, how do you feel? Oh, man. I loved this episode.

Absolutely bone-chilling to watch the doctor behave this way. And it was very Gandalf, Frodo, many that live deserve deaths, some that I deserve life, can you give that to them? And how important it is for characters to confront that question and to hold on to that ensuing Gandalford. the off kernel of wisdom and truth, you know, do not be too eager to deal out death and judgment

or the inverse, like to try to. And, but again, like the, I think the richness of it is, he's actually trying, if you strip it down, to save people to thwart some inevitability.

And there's like a part of us that should want to root for that. Right. That's what makes it even more insidious, is cloaked in the, this sort of like righteous heroic do goodery. You know what I mean? Yeah.

The thing that we've heard him say in the Pompeii episode and elsewhere, like, I actually can't. I can't try to save these people. They're doomed. But when the quest to go the other way, like manifest like this, just absolutely horrifying. And then to see him have to really like grapple with what he is capable of that cafe scene. again with Wilf in end of time part one when Wilf asks who he has now and he says no one traveling alone I thought it would be better alone but I did some things that went wrong yeah I need and he

can't even finish the sentence because he breaks down into tears and wolf is like quivering all my word reaching from across the table I have that I have that as a clip I don't want to cut you saying and I love you saying it. Let's hear tenants say it too. Isaiah, will you play this clip? Yeah, how about you? What have you got now? No, I'm traveling alone.

I thought it was better, I thought it was better. But I did some things. It went wrong. I need. Oh, my word. Merry Christmas. Yeah, thank you. I forgot.

He says Merry Christmas. Oh, it's got wrenching. Sorry, go on. Please continue. No, I just so I love that, like, the episode sets up a moment like that and it gets back to what you were saying earlier about how much of a progression there is across the season, how every little thing like builds toward this incredibly emotional reckoning and culmination of our time with 10s.

Just whew, man. Last and last and least, the end of time, part one and two, directed by Yeros Lynn, written by Russell T. Davis. We already heard the first clip I was going to play that just devastating. There are three Wilf scenes in this episode. I mean, Wolf's here throughout, bless. Cafe scene. Yeah.

Spaceship scene, which I think you and I agree is. Yeah. Top-tier doctor whoever. And then, of course, like locked in a nuclear chamber scene. That is just some of the best television you will ever, ever see. the raw emotionality. Wilf is such, we know, we already mentioned we love Wilf,

but like this is where we just really need to celebrate. Wilf, the choice to make Wilf the doctor's tense vital companion. Oh my God. Yeah. Fun, funny, delightful, his wonder,

his delight to be along for this ride, the like the antlers, the everything, the like all the wolfiness with this just ready, access to deep emotionality. And his admiration for the doctor is

our admiration for the doctor. And his despair at losing the doctor is our despair at losing the doctor. And it's just this idea of prophecy and destiny, as you mentioned, that is sort of like swirling around these characters, right?

The doctor says, people waited a hundred of years to find me. And then you manage it a few hours. Well, says, well, I'm just lucky, I suppose. And doctor says, no, we keep I'm meeting Wilf over and over. Again, like something's still connecting us. And then this is where the doctor is still quite rude.

Again, on a downward spiral, right? What's so important I mean? Exactly. Why you? I'm going to die. And Will says, well, so am I one day. And doctor says, don't you dare. All right. I'll try not to. Anything else

specifically you want to say about Wilf here in this moment? Oh, boy. I don't think anything could have prepared me for the moment when he knocked four times. Nothing. I was bowled over by that. And like the look on Tennant's face when it's dawning on him, like what it means, I thought that was extraordinary, just sensational.

A really clever red herring. Yes. Because we love to talk about how characters who are aware of a person. prophecy, think about it and try to avoid it and often end up fulfilling it. And like why, also why does, and so Ten, Ten keeps mentioning what he heard from Carmen. Sometimes it's because he is trying to work through it. Sometimes it's because he's afraid because he's not ready for it to end. Sometimes because he is trying to warn a character like the master about what awaits, like what they could bring.

about by proceeding. Why does Wolf end up in that chamber in the first place? It's because somebody else asked for help to get out. And he just, without thinking, without hesitating for a second, open the other side. And it's such a tiny background moment when that happens. All this other stuff is happening and like just some guy needs help and Wolf just like bops in there for him. That's the other thing.

Like you almost forget that he's in there and that you hear his fingers on the glass. And it's like, oh, no, this is it because there's only one way that he can get out. and it's pretend to go in the other side. I thought that was just like absolutely heart-wrenching. What else to say about Wilf? You know, we've talked about the cafe scene a lot. I thought that was one of the best scenes of the four seasons that I've watched so far. I absolutely loved it.

I loved Hearing 10 open up to Wilf and talk about what it, what he's afraid of and what he's dreading. Like even then, even if I change, it feels like dying. Everything I am dies. Some new man goes sauntering away. and I'm dead. Like, I don't think he would say that to everybody. And so it means something to hear it in general,

but it really means something that Wilf is the one that he shared that with. When we see Donna through the window, and Wilf is begging 10 to help her remember, I was like, I was just, like, weeping. I was just sobbing on my couch watching this. It was so fucking the heartbreaking. and 10 asking, is she happy, is he nice? But when Wilf said specifically,

sometimes I see this look on her face, like she's so sad, but she can't remember why. Oh my God, it was just absolutely gut-wrenching. The ship scene, sublime, top tier, exceptional. On the ship scene front, we're running along, so I'm gonna cut a clip or two, so Isaiah, will you play clip number 11 for me here? It's not like I'm an innocent.

I've taken lives. And I got worse. I got clever. Manipulated people into taking their own. Sometimes I think a time lord lives too long. That idea of like sometimes I think a time lord lives too long. And also the cleverness. That clever, that defense that he throws up in midnight and the way in which he needs to think about how that,

is actually a weakness for him and thinking about the family of blood and that vindictive, you know, end for all of those, you know, all of those monsters. That self-reflection, it is what makes 10 such an interesting character for me because, like,

when you were early, early in your watch, you were talking about your wonderful husband Adams' reaction to 10 and, like, his criticisms of some of his behavior. And I'm like, I agree. And that's what I love about 10.

Yeah. Is he's so fucked up and striving for heroism, but often fucking up. And again, I think it's because he's the most human of all the doctors. Yes. Again, I think this. And so that quote that you cited from the cafe scene where he's talking about regeneration, no other doctor talks about regeneration this way. No other doctor is this bitter.

about their ending. And it is very human of him to fear death, to fear regeneration, to throw a goddamn tantrum. Yes. Yeah. When he finds out what's going to happen. Well, exactly. Look at you. Not remotely important.

But me, I could do so much more, so much more. But this is what I get. My reward. And it's not fair. And then he goes, and he pulls himself, oh, I've lived too long, right? And then the sweetener after that is it's my honor, of course, genuinely delivered. It's my honor.

Right. To save you, Wilf. Who are you? But this is my honor. This is how I want to go. But that attitude of the doctor, I don't, I don't think it's a bug. I think it's a feature of what of the kind of unique creation this particular doctor is because if you zoom forward to tens goodbye, I don't want to. to go.

It's so different from the other final lines of the other doctors. I won't spoil what's to come from the doctors will get going forward. But if you go into the past, you get, well, then here we go the long way around from the first doctor. Or a tear, Sarah Jane. No, don't cry. Well, there's life. There's.

And then it's the end, but the moment has been prepared for. Or physician heal thyself or R. Guy 9. Rose before I go, I just want to tell you, you were fantastic, absolutely fantastic. And you know what? So was I. All of that is like the doctor with his idea of like, what is death to a time lord? It's not, it's not what it is for a human. Not 10 though. For 10, it's like, this is the end of me. This is the end of the face that Rose Tyler loves. This is the end of me. And that ego, that very human, very human, very. fragile ego that he has sets him apart from all the other doctors who are more alien or more childlike or more like all these other things. That's what makes him so the darkness in him is so fascinating to me. I love that. The humanity is so undisplay to when he says like, I'd be proud of what if he were my dad to both? Like that's just such a human moment between them. And I think that the other thing I really love about it is that it allows all of

that to go in both directions because like when wulf is on on the ship insisting literally ordering him to take the gun right what is he what does he say it's not just he's got the kind of like logical part of it initially with don't you dare put him before them but it ends with that just the depth of connection that people forged with each other please don't die you're the most wonderful man and I don't want you to die. If Wilf were thinking about the long life and regeneration of the doctor and the fact that the doctor could come back with another face and he'd still be there, he wouldn't, he couldn't say that and feel that that way in that moment.

But that face, that doctor is, is everything to Wilf. And so like to lose that is to lose the thing completely, even if there's a rational part of his mind that understands that that isn't true. And that's the other thing I loved and will always remember about the end of time part two is the reward, the goodbye. Going and saying goodbye or not saying goodbye, like it's just maybe a look or a wave. I will, I was to see 10 look at Donna as she's getting married across a fucking cemetery, like he's staring at this like bloom of life and new hope across a graveyard. was just so heartbreaking. And it's like you don't get moments like that

if that particular doctor didn't think that the fact that he was seeing those people for the last time with that face and that body and this exact version of himself was really the last time that that could happen in that way. For some reason, I could not tell you why. In that scene, what got me this time in a way that it's never gotten me before

is the fact that like the you know the lottery ticket that he buys that he like goes and gets the money from Donna's dad which is a gift he kind of gives to Sylvia again a character who is like not done much to earn our affection but she just like crumples at that and he's just like giving this beautiful gift um having said have that on me oh my god absolutely I'm done toast like absolutely so beautiful. kills me or the look on the very you know like okay listen i don't think it's great that martha ends up with mickey but whatever that's fine what i do like in that moment is is and with sarah jane has the same thing they don't get a verbal goodbye but they know what it is yes they understand so just by looking and and and and mickey and martha sort of clutching at each other you know or sarah jane having her reaction um and then do you want to talk about bringing jesska hines back in um in this goodbye tour. Verity.

The Journal of Impossible Things, this idea that Nurse Redfern's great, great granddaughter, has written down this tale and that she's signing these books and he walks up and she says, who's it for? And he says, the doctor. And she says to the doctor, funny,

that's the name he used and looks up and realizes. And the things that can pass between characters in this show, like on Tenant's face just in the span of a second is, I think, really extraordinary. Was she happy in the end? Yes. Yes, she was.

Were you? I mean, we talked so much last pod about like the way that in the John Smith persona, that anguish with which he had to confront, like, what sort of man is that? Like somebody who doesn't have room in his life for love. and that kind of depth of devotion or who has to think about devotion in a different way for him to be thinking about that here

at the very end was just like really heavy. On a letter note, Captain Jack gets a hookup with a midship and frame, Alonso from the Titanic. The context here is that the character of Yanto Jones,

who was Jack's love interest on Torchwood, died sort of right before this. So it's like he's mourning the loss of his boyfriend, Yanto Jones. And so the doctor's like, here, meet midshipman frame here. And it's just very charming. I love Russell Tovey who plays

you know, Alonso. So that's just like a really fun little moment. And as you said, we get a little parade of critters. Yeah. There in the, in the canteen. And then the gutting, you know, Rose moment. He can't say goodbye.

to his Rose because she's in another, you know, universe. So he goes back and we meet Rose where we first met her, long hair, a beanie covering the wig. Thank you, bless you, Russell T. Davies for that. I appreciate you. And it's just charming. Jackie and Rose, just like having a little banter, a little New Year's banter, you know, her being like, you are, mate, you know, and she doesn't know who she's talking to. It's just, and the score.

And I just, I love that. the full circle of that. It's so beautiful. I bet you're going to have a really great year. I can't. The last thing I want to say about this doctor's attitude towards death or this doctor's attachment to his face, this person, blah, blah, et cetera, is that like my interpretation, again, there's no evidence for this necessarily.

My interpretation is that like this is what happens when you regenerate. in the middle of being in love with someone, right? Because I think we could say that the ninth doctor was already well in his way or halfway in love with Rose or whatever. And the love story between the doctor and the companion isn't really something that they explore on this level before or since. So like the doctor in love with his companion, people please do email me if you disagree. There are some like flirtations or whatever.

But like this is love to me. And so like the ninth doctor nursing his wounds from doing a genocide, laches on to woman falls in love with her and in the middle of that turns into someone else and turns to someone who is so attached to her that to lose this version of himself is to lose that all over again and because who he's going to become is him but isn't him you know what I mean and is is that doctor going to be in love with Rose you know and and often and so what will happen next is Matt Smith will meet his next companion. And that is the core relationship going forward.

You know what I mean? So it's just really the end. It's Russell T. Davies morning the end of his time on Doctor Who. It's David Tennant morning the end of his time on Doctor Who. It's the end. It's a clear end of an era. Matt Smith pops in. How did you feel about seeing the baby that is Matt Smith in the old brown suit?

Oh, my goodness. He looked so young. I'm excited. Gerhanimo. Yeah. I've lived too long leading into the youngest in both personality and age of performer doctor we've ever gotten. Really excited for that. Anything else you want to say?

We're running longer than I meant to, and I am unsurprised. I'm also unsurprised as one of the great seasons of TV here in our last run with 10. Should we do rapid, rapid, rapid fire superlatives? Absolutely, we should. Favorite line? I guess with apologies to Peter Parker, I'm going to go with the doctors. I don't want to go. It's absolutely shredded me, but my runner-up will be,

Wilf's don't say that like it's shameful, which destroyed me. Oh, my God, when he's talking about how he's never killed someone. Love that, love that. I love this early Donna line when, like, the doctor is saying something snarky about humans. And she says, is that why you travel around with a human by your side? It's not so you can show them the wonders of the world. It's so you can take cheap shots. I'm just like, I love you, Donna.

Amazing. Best villain. Oh, it's got to be the time lords. I mean, not only the return of the master, but welcome to the party, Timothy Dalton. I can't believe we haven't mentioned. Holy shit. I mean, I didn't really talk about the master either, but it's very cool that the master is here at the end of all things. This was wild.

Yeah, I really, I really like this. And hearing the doctor talk about the depth of horror that he had. thwarted and needed to find a way to thwart again was like absolutely chilling. And that re um, that re contextualizing of who the time lords are. Yeah. You know what I mean? Which he, we skipped over that part that I meant to talk about. But like I think that that is a huge part of, again, why he's racing towards

latching onto a humanity because being a time lord is so uncomfortable for him because of who they actually are. Yeah. You've seen my enemy's wolf. The time lords are more dangerous than any of them. Yeah. fucking incredible um all right um i'm gonna give it we already talked enough about sky love and blesser absolutely is my real answer but i would just want to shout out the vashenorada yeah shadows

great great villain um very best best fit of the season uh this is easy for me it's the doctor's fit uh at the beginning of the end of time part one when he's in the brown suit and the brown coat, but he's wearing sunglasses of pink lay and a straw hat talking about how he just got married. Got married. That was a mistake. Queen Best. And let me tell you, our nickname is no longer,

anyway. That's going to come back. QE, QE2 is coming back. Oh, boy. The Virgin Queen herself. Yeah, his, like, vacation doctor. So good. Talking to the Ood.

By the way, Brian Cox is also here. There's a bunch of people we haven't talked about who are here. Oscar Ritter, Daniel Kalu, is. here like yeah well we have best guest star coming up as our next oh sorry so true you can pick any of them well best my best fit is donna's iconic brown leather duster which i just think is such a great look best guest star holly rubin i'm gonna go at timothy dalton's great his narration just like gives the whole thing this like yeah and it's also like it's ominous but it's kind of soothing and gentle at first you're sort of lulled into this false sense of like that fairy

tail aesthetic and then boom no he's a he's a monster who wants to destroy everyone and um got a gauntlet consciousness itself move over thanos um yeah i'm gonna give it uh to not one of the big names i'm gonna give it to leslie sharp as guys last year i just i just i just her face just haunts my dreams um hornyest moment i'll i'll go first and just say that we've already mentioned mine it's when um captain jack says I can't even tell you what I'm thinking right now. Yeah. That's probably mine too. The doctor's just absolutely tremendous.

Though also shout out to Donna when she meets Captain Jack. Like, she's delighted to meet him. Cringiest low budget moment. I don't know if this is just a sign that I'm fully into the hoo-hive, but I kind of, this sees it was like, oh, yeah, look at these adipose fat babies. It looks like just little like blobs of marshmallow. I love it. I actually, like, had a lot of affection for it.

I guess my pick, I'm going to go with the master's constantly flashing electroskeleton skull. It's pretty jarring the 5,000 times that we saw it. I mean, shout out John Sim for, like, that whole, like, sticky hot, blah, blah, like, all that, like, disgusting meat sort of monologue that he has. I'm starving. So gross. I have to give it to the adipose babies.

of them are the Vesuvius rock monsters, one of those. Yes. Funniest moment. Shout out to the tiny throwaway moment in Poison's Guy when 10 puts on a gas mask and says, are you my mummy? I love a in-universe callback. Thank you for that. Fantastic.

Mine's got to be partners in crime. When 10 and Donna spot each other for the looking glass of the door. and the window, the way that they're mouthing to each other and we're following this whole conversation, the expressions on their faces absolutely killed me. And then Donna just freezing

midpoint when they realized that Ms. Foster is listening. That was just so, so, so funny. I loved it. I was cracking up. Yeah. Shout out the great Sarah Lancashire who is also in that episode. Okay. Most emotional.

emotional moment. I mean, we've talked about all of the contenders at length. I think the finalists are like, for me, Tan and Rose saying goodbye to each other again. Donna losing her memories. Ten and Wilf, there are various scenes in the end of time. And then I think I'm going to go with Ten's reward.

Just watching him go look upon with his own eyes. all of the people he's loved, it absolutely wrecked me. Like, wrecked me. I have to go with Donna's final moment. Yeah. Don't make me go back.

I can't go back. Please don't make me go back. Um, awful. All right. This has been tremendous exploration of who with you. I want to play one last clip. And it is forward-looking.

the future of the doctor and Donna is able to play this last clip please. Don't you see? You lead her, doctor. I mean, wouldn't she make you laugh again? Good old Donna. Good old Donna. Good old Donna is on her way to make us laugh again in the anniversary special. She's going to be very mad at the doctor is my anticipation.

I'm excited for her to dress him down. It's going to be really fun. And before then, we're going to spend time with Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi, Jodi Whitaker. It's going to be great. So this has been Doctor Who, Season 4. Thanks to Mallory Rubin. Thanks to Isaiah Blakely for playing one million clips for me. I really appreciate you.

And for listening to Us Cry. I really appreciate you for that. Thanks to Arjuna Rainkapal, who also, Midnight is also his favorite episode of Dr. Who. He's a hardcore Who head, Arjuna. Love that. Thanks to join me a dinner on for his work on the social. We'll be back for Secret Invasion next week. We promise this time.

And stay tuned for a video game pod on Monday, the Min Edition Barbie episode over the weekend. Go watch Jess's Secret Invasion video. Thank you so much. I don't want to go. Bye. All pay off your home. Travel for life. Drive a Ferrari.

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