House of R - ‘Doctor Who’ Anniversary Special Part 2: "Wild Blue Yonder"

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

Jo and Mal are back to venture into the "Wild Blue Yonder" for the second 60th ‘Doctor Who’ anniversary special (06:48). Then they dive deep into the episode that brings back one of the most emotional and impactful episodes of the series yet (19:11). Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Social: Jomi Adeniran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And together we host The Big Picture, the ringers film podcast for new releases, career retrospectives, director interviews, movie drafts, top fives, and so much more. Twice a week, we break down the latest releases,

argue about whether movies are doomed, and debate our modern film canon. Listen to The Big Picture on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the finals, with Fandul Predict. predict the spread, total points, and even the game winner. Sign up and get a $25 bonus.

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for your business and even this podcast. That's why I trust Spectrum business. They 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. Wilfred Mott. Oh, now I feel better. No, nothing is wrong. Nothing in our whole wide world.

I love me old soldier. I'll never see you again after all these years. Oh, doctor, that lovely face. It's like springtime. Please welcome back into the House of Who, a special Doctor Who celebration on the House of our podcast. I'm Joanna Robinson, joining me today, helping me to wipe away my tears while the tears streamed out her own face

as we get to see Wilfred Mott again. It is Mallory Rubin. Hey, Mal, how you doing? Joe, I think I shall hide me to yonder apple tree there to contemplate the mysteries of God's universe. An apple opening. What a treat for us. Yeah, I feel like you could really pull off a Sir Isaac Newton fit. Thanks.

The Bridges, I think you could make it work. I appreciate that. We got some feedback on the tree, and it seemed to some people, that one could not tell for certain whether those apples were green or red. I mean, what's true is that if there's a single blush of red, it's not a great simple apple that we do know. But there were some apples that were quite green on that tree, and the overall green-red ratio was pretty equally distributed.

How do you feel about the apples and Mr. Isaac Newton here at the beginning of this episode, Dr. Who? An episode of Doctor Who that opens with an apple tree and ends with Wilf? What more could we possibly want? I don't like, I don't like to tempt the universe by saying things were made for me, but like, this really does feel like Russell Trey Davis is like, hey, Joanna, listen. You've been a loyal, loyal friend to Doctor Who. What if we took two of your favorite people in the whole world, David Tend and Catherine Tate, doubled them. put them in an episode that's reminiscent of your favorite episode of Doctor Who,

Midnight. And at the very end, cherry on the top, Bernard Cribbons, Wilfred DeMott is here. Like, I couldn't possibly ask for anything more. Delight. All right. So we're here to talk about the second 60th anniversary, Doctor Who special, wild, blue yonder, before we get into all that, even as if we haven't already gotten into all that.

Quick programming reminders. After this episode, this is what I'm going to call unofficial Japanese art appreciation week on the Ringarverse and House of Art because the Midnight Boys, Poo! Beow! They're going to be covering

Blue Eye Samurai and Godzilla Minus 1. I've seen Blue Eye Samurai, as I mentioned, our House of R recommends. Phenomenal. And I really, really recommend it. Godzilla minus 1. I have not seen, though, Dave Gonzalez is trying to tempt me by telling me Godzilla is the most cat-like that Godzilla has ever been.

Intriguing. In Godzilla minus one. So, Dave is working on me. Dave loves Godzilla. I am not the biggest Godzilla fan. First Grover was a cat. Now Godzilla is a cat. My goodness.

I mean, it's a win for us. Over here, on the house of our feed, we are covering Miyazaki in the back half of the week. There's a new Miyazaki film. film, Mallory and I have been rewatching some of our faves, and we're just going to, like, do a little celebration of Studio Dibli and Miyazaki and our love of those films. So that is for later in the week. And then also, maybe right this very minute on this feed,

there will be a breakdown for Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson, your loyal dragonologist on the House of the Dragon Cheezer trailer that dropped over the weekend. That's another episode also from us. So three episodes from us this week, Midnight Boys doing their thing. There's a lot going on, Mallory. How do folks keep track of everything? I would recommend following the pod. Follow the pod on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

And while you're at it, follow the ringerverse on the social media platform of your choosing. The ringer versus on Instagram. The ringer versus on TikTok. The ringer versus on Twitter. That's a great way to see what's going on. Check out the latest memes. See when a new episode drops.

While you're at it, you're already on your phone. You're on your computer. Send us an email. Send your thoughts. to Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com. The name makes sense again. We're back into Dragon season, and the name makes sense again.

Wonderful. Wonderful. I love that for us. There's also Dragons and Miyazaki. So yeah, get your Miyazaki takes off before we record the end of the week. Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com.

As far, who's schedule? There's only one more of these left, and I'm already like completely, devastated and decimated by this. I genuinely have never felt more kinship with you, Mallory, than I have these last couple weeks experiencing this. Like, this is, I feel like this is how you feel all the time when you're like, I can't believe it's already over.

I'm like, I can't believe we're already here. And there's only one episode left. Yeah. Though it makes more sense in this context when there were only three episodes with the doctor and Donna than when I'm like, we're at the beginning of a 40 episode stretch of some sort of consistent. assumption and I'm mourning the end. Totally.

You're right. But still, welcome. You live in a delightful extreme that I enjoy visiting every now and then. And you're always worried that it's going to be cold soon. Is the water going to be warm when we record about Aquaman? Is that going to be a warm water situation or should I bring some NeoBriam? No, it's going to feel like our natural habitat. That's part of how we really heighten the meta experience, you know?

Great. Can't wait. Well, Blue Yonder. Written by Russell T. Davis, have you heard of him? I think you have. RTD, if you're nasty. And then directed by Tom Kingsley, who directed this great little feature called Black Pond that I really recommend,

folks, check out. Before we get into sort of the deep dive of the episode, we want to take a snapshot of Wild Blue Yonder. Here we go. I'm going to call this a tartacy of you on the episode, just as I did last week. I'm still in love with that phrasing, so let's go. Mallory Rubin. Give me your thoughts.

I loved this episode. I thought it was absolutely sensational. I reserve, like, the right always to change my mind, as you know, with any sort of, like, ranking or pecking order on where things slot. And certainly still too close to this. And frankly, frankly, to my entire doctorate experience to have much clarity on where things stand for me. but I do think this is like a top 10 episode kind of right off the bat for me. It just felt like the perfect,

as is so often the case with the Pantheon Who episodes, this perfect blend, it's the old Mobius Jetsky form and function. It's like the perfect blend of concept and the emotion and the character arcs. Like I thought that the spooky edge of the universe mirrors in space body horror confined puzzle escape room setup was like deeply unsettling and had just enough goofy who energy mixed in to keep you from being like fully scared but this was like

a disturbing concept and mixed in constantly with all of that horror was just so much heart it's fun to now think back on the marketing run up for these 360th anniversary specials and all of the talk about like how little we knew about this episode and what we hadn't seen. And to realize that like at least in part, it seems now intuitive to deduce that that was because there was nothing really to show. It's just them. It's 10 slash 14 and Donna and the not things are taking their shape. The TARDIS is gone.

The Sonic, by the way, that we just spent last week seeing do all these new magical powerful things. And you strip away everything. And the thing that they are left with is each other. And that was enough. And like, that's the best, right? As we work toward this closure, this wound they need to heal with each other to see how much they had both changed in their time away, but also what just feels like a truly constant eternal element between them was really beautiful and wonderful. I cried multiple times in this episode. I was an absolute, wreck when our beautiful beloved Wilford Mott returned to the screen and when he saw the doctor and put his hand over his face and was like quivering in not only like glee and joy but the certainty

that he felt in his bones that he would get to enjoy that moment again. It was like just such a beautiful gift for fans and also like part of why Wilf is so special is because you can see yourself in him, such an incredible audience avatar. And for the show to capture the feeling that so many fans were going to be experiencing, which was wonderful. So I absolutely loved it. I thought it was sensational. And I can't wait to talk about it with you today. What did you think? I think that like I've cried plenty of times watching Doctor Who. You and I both have cried plenty of times, Dr. Who. We've cried while talking about crying about Doctor Who. Like, we're fairly easy criers. Like it's not, it's not any sort of like major accomplishment

to get us to cry over characters we love and story we love. I don't know that I've ever, like, emitted such like an instant, like, primal wail as I did when, like, when I knew we were getting wolf at the end of this episode. Because I was so certain they were going to save that for the final episode. So I didn't see it, like, coming and just seeing his face, you know, and hearing him say Donna or watching Tenet's face. as the doctor is so delighted to see Wilf the way that we're delighted. Like, Wolf is the audience avatar, but in that moment, the 14th Doctor is our avatar because we are so excited to see Wilf. Something that you and I discovered later because Russell T. Davis posted about this

immediately after the episode was that, you know, we knew that Bernard Cribbins had filmed something before he had passed away, and they revealed that this is all that he was able to film before he passed away. So this is it. This is it. You know, that they'll make some reference to him in the final episode. Like, I think they've already assured people like, he'll be fine. We just

like won't be showing him. And I am both gutted to learn that because when I saw I was like, oh my God, I can't believe we get more of this next week was my first thought. Now knowing that this is it is both devastating, but also just like

what a perfect beautiful send off to a character that we love so much. I wish I could accomplish anything right now, half as good as this man accomplished right at the very end of his life, which is filming this beautiful scene that emotionally touched so many people. So a beautiful moment for a beautiful actor and a beautiful character. One of my favorite people of all times. Speaking of Wilford Mott. I did want to invoke that same, sorry, it's like tear streamed down my face. I did want to invoke that, like, a quote that you called out from the end of time part one when Wilf and the doctor traveled together. When Wilf says, how about you? Who have you got now? And the doctor

says, no one traveling alone. I thought it was better, but I did some things that went wrong. I need, and then he starts crying, right? And I've just been thinking a lot in this episode, because this episode is so much about refractions, you know, we talk about so much when we talk about meeting your other self, meaning a mirror of yourself, meeting a multiversal version of yourself, how much that exists to teach you about who you are. And these two partners in crime to invoke, like, you know, their first official episode together, it was so necessary for them to know each other well enough to cling to the real versions of each other in this very scary moment. And, I was thinking about this question of like, it's not just that the doctor needs someone to travel with him.

It's like, who does he, very specifically, who does he need? And I think the, many people have said this more eloquently than I, but like, the reason that Donna is so important to me, it's not just like, it's not as simple as like she's his friend, she's the mate. She's the like, you know, which is a different dynamic. It's like, it's not just she's a friend. She's, she just doesn't have a single ounce of that hero worship that I think. clouds every single other relationship in the new who era whether it's like rose and martha in love wilf it has this sort of like hero worship i think you're the most wonderful man um idea of the doctor um amy this is amy's imaginary friend this is you know clara it's very messy on both ends but like she it's it's not like a clear-cut thing and then bill it's like a student teacher and then we talked about why the jody companions just feel sort of like scattered Rather than that, rather than like this thing that Donna could do, which is dig in, get to the reality of what's really going on, which we see a bit here. How much the doctor needs that right now.

How much him thinking he had it with a vicious copy of this person who means so much to him, what that moment meant to him, what realizing that that wasn't the actual connection. And then the return of heartbreak at the end of the episode with him realizing he can't quite have that with the real Donna either, at least not in this episode. That stuff is so potent to me because the doctor companion relationship, in addition to having fun, which these two do constantly, they're constantly having so much fun. And having so much fun in a tone that is like so perfectly matches the way that Tennant and Tate act. in like all of their interviews. It's this sort of like vaudeville double act thing that they do all the time just in their naturally like talking because they're both quick and funny in their own right. And so Russell T. Davis and writing the episode or perhaps improvisationally occasionally

who's to say sprinkles these little sort of like they have the perfect comedic rhythm together. And it didn't take more than a second for them to find that again with each other. You know, and that's, that's really special, too. It's the best. Like, you know, in real life when you have these friendships that you care about and you cherish and then they kind of lapse and like, I'm always amazed and consider like those sign of a true lifelong lasting friendship and maybe part of the reason I think this is like a way to like almost absolve myself of responsibility for not doing a better job of tending to some of these relationships in my life, if I'm being honest. But I'm always amazed when there are those people who, like, no matter how much time has passed, you can just pick up exactly where you left off. And so not to jump ahead, but I think it's the first thing that popped into my mind hearing these beautiful words from you is like, at the end, when the doctor asked Donna if she also remembered everything from those 15 years that not Donna was able to hold on to in glimpse. And I was like, there's a lot to talk about inside of that conversation about how she pushes him and how she knows him. And we'll do that later when we go through the episode. But the choice to have her saying no, like that she didn't remember, I thought was perfect. Because this isn't a relationship that's about like cheats and fast forwards. Right. It's about like truly the time that they have spent together because that is actually enough. And in the moments when it isn't, they have to be able to like interrogate that and figure that out together. Like,

What is one of them afraid of? What is one of them craving and longing? Can the other person help them unlock that? And so for Donna to just like, no, if she had been able to retain all of that, everything that had happened with the timeless child and division and the flux and just have downloaded that into her brain without him choosing to open up and tell her that and what it would mean if he chose to share that. What it would mean if he said that out loud to her is like, I thought that was a really important choice. and a reflection of the strength of their relationship.

I love that interpretation. And I also, what is so special to me in that interaction, in addition to the Donna stuff, which we're going to talk about, is tenant's delivery of asking her if she remembers, because he is trying so hard to keep it light and breezy. Like, no big deal if you don't. But that longing of. of like, I really need this, is just churning underneath that top note of breeziness.

Guess what? David Tennant is really good at his job. Just unbelievable on this episode. I mean, always, but both. Yeah, both of them is like a masterclass for, you know, getting to watch them play against other versions of themselves. So really, really great stuff. Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away.

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So let's just go through it, beat by beat as we are want to do into the Deep Dad. All right, we start with a little historical figure. And I'll As we were talking about going through our full year rewatch of all of New Who, so impressed that you did that with me still. You know, we talked about how, like, once a season, we stop with a historical figure unless we're Chris Chibnall, in which case we're doing it like every other episode. But, like, for Russell T. Davis, we're doing, like, one famo historical figure per season. And I love if you think about this as, like, a mini-season of these three, a three-episode, mini-season. He's like, all right, we'll do our historical person episode, but it'll just be like in the cold open. And it's Isaac Newton. And he's here. And of course, these like absolutely hapless

puppies have crashed their tARDIS into his apple tree. Setting up, um, first of all, it's the first of their little like vaudevillian double act thing when they do the gravity of the situation. Yeah. Because he's like, even before that, like, but don't worry, he's got a time machine, which means he can blame me for all eternity. Like their humor and the way they rib each other is just so good. And she's like, have you got control set to famous or what? He's like, if I had controls. You know, like, so good.

We get this Mavity, gravity misunderstanding that sets up this Mavity runner through the episode, which as far as I'm concerned, if Gravity just wants to be called Mavity for the rest of all of Doctor Who, I wouldn't mind it. I think it's cute and charming. Do you think it's setting up something deeper in terms of the way in which the timeline can be impacted? That was my assumption is that like the number of times, including once where the doctor says gravity and it corrects it to Mavity, really like drawing our attention to it, is that they have disrupted something in that interaction, that they were not meant to disrupt and that they have spawned, perhaps leading to. the state of affairs on earth when they return and find Wilf at the end of the episode. Oh, is this the butterfly?

The butterfly they stepped on? I think so. That's how it felt to me was that they had like, they had disturbed something that was not meant to be disturbed and set a new course into action. Now whether that's something that they will, in the span of the next episode, work to address and contain or whether that will open up, you know, perhaps in tandem with the very ominous I've invoked a superstition at the edge of the universe. where the walls are thin.

It's concerning and I am troubled. It feels like we're on guard for a few ripple effects here. Fun fact about Isaac Newton here is that this is the first time we've had a doctor. Davis, I think, is doing such a good job of just sprinkling in with the hats. There's just a bunch of stuff that'll crop up that'll just be like a little nod to Dr. who history without. having like all the doctors show up for the 60th anniversary social. Though there's still more one more episode to go.

Who knows? Steve, will you play this clip from the fourth Dr. Tom Baker, please? Newton. Who's Newton? Old Isaac, friend of mine on earth. Discovered gravity. Where I say he discovered gravity, I'd give him a bit of a fraud. What did you do?

Climed up a tree. And? Dropped an apple on his head. Oh, and so he discovered gravity. No, no. He told me to clear off out of his tree. I explained it to him after for some dinner. There's the TARDIS doctor.

That's Romana and the fourth doctor. I love this stuff. I really do. And I think that like Davis loves this stuff. Speaking of like the cameos of all the other doctors, in the official Doctor Who podcast this week, one of his little segments that he filmed to sort of cut into the podcast had him talking about, we thought it would be really fun to keep this episode kind of secret because,

It's always fun if, like, you know, there's something secret, something people don't know about. He was like, unfortunately, I may have accidentally given people the impression that there was a lot more going on in this episode than there was. And I was like, whomst among us hasn't accidentally fed the hype machine. But it was like, oh, no, if it isn't the consequences of my known actions. So he's like, you know, I think people are expecting this, that, or the other thing. And I hope they're not disappointed that it's literally just tentate and taint for almost the intent. entirety of the episode. Imagine being disappointed by that.

Yeah, exactly. But I mean, I guess I will just say that, like, I have fallen victim to this in the past. I just decided to take the prompt of face value of, like, don't learn anything about this episode. And I was like, okay. And so I didn't. And even though, like, some stuff that was accurate was out there, like the director of this episode, Tom Kingsley, like, gave some tees about the thing. John Carpenter's the thing And some other things

And I was like Oh well if I had known that Then I would have known to like look for Dopplganger shape shift You know like there are things that I would have known to look out for And I was just completely surprised Because I kept it completely blank So listen

Ringer Don't let anyone tell you that you Our listeners haven't changed me on my spoiler policies Um After we lose sir Not sir Mr. Isaac Newton To Spoilers

Not sir yet spoilers Spoilers Great stuff. We get the title of this episode as the TARDIS crash lands onto this spaceship. I love the effect of the way it sort of like snaps and whirls and whizzes into frame. There's some interesting special effects in this episode, which we can talk about that range from top tier to, oh, no. But listen, it's not Doctor Who if there isn't a special effect that's like, oh, no. Right.

And we get a snippet of the song that gives the episode its title. Off we go into the, well, the lyrics, the exact lyrics we hear in this moment are off we go into the wild blue yonder, climbing high into the sun. Here they come zooming to meet our thunder. Adam now, give him the gun, give him the gun. Mao, what was it like? What did you think when we first got this song, this crash, another, another happy landing for the TARDIS? What did you think? So first of all, I thought, wow, the Tardis is spitting fire just like the Dragons.

It really is hot these season again. Here we are. We're back, truly. This was like a perfect little setup sequence because you have the intrigue of what is unfolding with the TARDIS and why we love when we get the episode title. We love when we can point and say they said the title. They said it. They said the name of the thing. you've got the delightful comedy of the Sonic screwdriver,

non-sonics screwdriver exchange. But then you had the substance of the conversation about the song and the history of the song. Donna's saying that they used to sing this in primary school and that Wilf didn't like it. He said, you shouldn't be teaching children that. It sounds all jaunty and fun, but it's not. It's the military going to war.

And then later, when Donna is talking about the instant icon, Mrs. Bean, who will have a role to play in this episode. episode in absentia, but still, we learned that she thought she really was like offended by this, right? Thought it was jolly. And there's like, I think a lot inside of the episode and more broadly the who canon that this fits to and applies to. Like when the not things are saying to them at the end, everything that reached us from your civilization was violent and awful and made us this way? Like what other, what other declaration or summons could there be than a song about marching off to war? Like, that's the thing that they expect to hear and that's the thing that

they think defines the human experience. And so the fact that there's a debate within that for this very song, is it jaunty? Is it jolly? Is it a declaration of some sort of violent intent? And Wilf is this like wonderful avatar for somebody who believes in protection and service, but also really works toward against, like, needless violence. I always think back to the beautiful will exchange with the woman at the end of the time, part one in season four, you never killed a man. No, I didn't. No, I did not, but don't say that like it's shameful.

Shameful. You know, and how, like, beautiful that idea is of the ways that you can protect and serve without seeking to harm. And, like, it was just, and how for the doctor, that is also the pursuit, but there have been moments where he has needed a companion or a friend to like help him hold on to that clarity. You know, I was thinking also of like a character like Danny Pink, not like saying to Clara time and time again, remember, this isn't a soldier.

This is an officer. He's the one who's like happy to send people out to die. And like whether that was fair or not was almost beside the point. It's that that is the exact kind of thing that the doctor has. carried with him through the years and through the eons is like, is that true? I tell myself that I'm here to protect and that's how people see me and think about me, but what about the people who don't? So like the dissonance and tension and questions inside of that idea just felt like the perfect

opening note for what the episode was seeking to explore, especially as we built towards something like the PTSD and lingering guilt and shame over the flux and why it was spawned. I love that. And I think that's really apt. And I think that that combination of jolly in wartime is sort of this note that Russell T. Davis is so perfect at capturing because this episode is scary and it's emotional and it's harrowing. And it's also fun. It's all those things. And that is something that some of the other showrunners, I think, have struggled with of like the balance of terror and joy.

It's why you keep running with the doctor Because even when things are scary They're also irresistibly fun and adventurous And yeah, I would say some Some versions of this show Since RTD's departure has really struggled That's my preferred tone It may not be everyone's

Some people might Some people definitely prefer this sort of like More romantic fairy tale version of it that Moffat does Or actually don't think anyone prefers Chibnil but that's okay We're not here to bury that run. But I think that like it's such a tricky tone to capture.

It's something that I, it's one of the reasons I'm so excited for the 15th Doctor because this is something that I've seen Shudy Gotwa do on sex education. That just oscillating back and forth between joy and drama. I think it's something that nine did really. well. I think Eccleston did it really well, and I think no one has done it better than done it. So I love that sort of jolly wartime idea. This is that exchange you mentioned is my first number one official wolf reference of the episode. There are three before we get the man himself. And also we should say that the second doctor, Patrick Troughton, does say off we go into

the wild blue yonder in an old episode of Who. But what I was thinking of was when Stephen Moffitt took something old, something new, something borrowed something blue in the episode where Amy remembers the doctor sort of back into existence. I was like, is this another showrunner reclaiming another phrase of the word blue in it to be like, now when I think wild blue yonder, I'm going to think of Doctor Who. Like, of course, it's just sort of linked now. So that's that's really fun.

I just need a moment to celebrate David Tennant's face and reaction and little utterance of, oh, when he opens the door and sees what has happened to his brand new Tartis. I put a gif in the notes just because it's so, like, perfect to me. Yeah. It's just like, oh, it's barely, barely audible. Yeah. So great little, like, very cat-like, almost like little like chirps and like warbles. These just little, like, emitting these little sounds that somehow convey. There's a couple other great ones in the episode.

They're like, just the way that he's communicating with Donna with these little just like symphonies of signals and sounds, it's just incredible. And the facial expression pairings put it absolutely. over the top. It's the best. Speaking of Chirps and Warbles, quick sidebar, did you say the update that we got from Dave Filoni on Merley, the Lothcat? I did. Yeah. It took a little longer than it should have to put some Merley clarity out into the world, but I'm glad we got it eventually. I hope it, I think, it's a nice validation, I think, for both of us.

For me to say absolutely, Merle does not know how to work the elevator. And for you to know that there are series of vents and shafts that will allow Marley to get downstairs if and when he needs to. Okay. Comedially, I mean, they cannot resist a mystery. So the doctor and Donna go wandering off a little bit into this vast CGI hallway. If you see in the behind the scenes, it's really just a short platform. It's like the bridge in House of the Dragon.

It's just a short little platform with green screen all around. Yeah, exactly. So it's just like everything they did they did on like a treadmill and a short. And you could kind of tell once you know that. But that's okay. Because like the breadth, the length and the breadth of it is quite astonishing and interesting. Then we get this moment where the doctor is like, hey, Isaac Newton, played by the canonically hot Nathaniel Curtis from Mitt to Sin is kind of hot. And then he says, oh, is that who I am now?

And then Donna comes back with, well, it was never that far from the surface mate. I always thought, which is great. But yeah, canonically queer doctor. I, we don't know yet what's going to happen in terms of this regeneration. We got a little, in the trailer next week, we got, you know, Shidigatwa standing inside the new Tartis. We get a little bit of like regeneration goop around Tenet's face. So, like, we know that this is happening.

next week. But we don't know exactly how it's going to happen and if it's going to be a standard regeneration or what's going on here. This is such an unusual little mini regeneration that we're in the midst of. But there's something about this like openly loving. Like later when he kisses Donna's little like hand and grasp it to his heart, you know, openly loving, canonically queer doctor is just so in line with how I would envision Shudegatwa playing this character based on like.

Barbie in sex education, which is all that I've seen him in, but I've seen many seasons of him in sex education. And it's just like, I wonder if they made 14 as some sort of like bridge between 15 and 10. You know what I mean? Like he's closer to 15. Or if this characterization is just going to be the same characterization that we see when she got what comes around. Do you know what I mean? Like, rather than like ping ponging portrayals, we're going to get something that feels like a more direct line. What do you, do you have any thoughts or feelings about this?

Yeah. I mean, I guess it's hard to assess in full until we know what 15 feels like. But there is a small part of me that if it is like a deliberate bridge to, shooty's 15th doctor that almost like wonders if they were afraid to like wait to let 15 be what 15 was going to be in full. And it's like, this is too much change at once. Let's get people acclimated with a more familiar figure first. And whether like if that is the case, and I have to be clear, have no idea if it is, whether that's like, in some ways like unfortunate to like worry about the reception. and readiness for something else in the story.

But again, I don't know if that's the case in any way. I'll say more broadly just assessing inside of the arc that we have to this point. Like, this feels like a very, not only like a natural progression, but when we get back to the question we were asking a lot last week of like why, and that the characters were asking, why this face again? Like, why return? Why is 14 wearing 10's face? what closure is necessary,

like what prior wounds need to be assessed so that they can heal. Who was 10, right? He was the man who forgets so that we could then go to 11, the man who regrets so that we could go to 11, the man who forgets. And so for part of,

for part of like the closure for the man who regrets, who regrets to come in the form of like more introspection and a clearer sense of self and a more open approach to like all aspects of life, including looking inward and saying, who am I? Who am I right now? Is that who I am now? Is it who I am next? Is it who I've always been in some way? Another, like I thought that Donna reply was great, right? Because that aspect of the doctor's regenerations overall was always so interesting, like what has always been there just waiting to be discovered and what really is maybe like new based on the context of your experiences or your journey to that point. But like that openness with other people, the comfort saying, you know,

and we think to that exchange at the end of last episode between Donna and the doctor and like, well, like, why does it always have to be just one last time with you, right? Why can't you just come, like, get to know my family and hang out and be my friend and be in my life? And we were discussing what we were reading in the trepidation that the doctor met that query with. And like this general closed-off protective approach, like this fear of allowing these relationships to continue beyond a certain point in time, almost definitionally, I mean, Donna is a character who can unlock that so fully, but almost definitionally returning to a prior face from a, from a previous regeneration to a prior relationship

from a different moment in time makes you think about like the permanence or lasting impact of your experiences. The impact those people had on you and the impact you have on them. And if part of that for the doctor is embracing a more like, a less like shielded

sense of self and interaction. Like it was, I think one of those heartbreaking moments of the episode was the, the God, Donna, I miss you with not Donna, because, you know, he didn't get to actually say that. Charmitizing. To his Donna, but that's a true thing that he feels.

And it took this, like, this incredibly intense, perilous situation for him to be able to say that out loud. So whether it's who you love or how you think about your life or who you want to be with, just more broadly, being more comfortable saying, like, you're a person who matters to me and I'm afraid to lose you. Every moment that we've gotten like that from the doctor has been beautiful, right? Like when 12 talked about like she might meet someone she can't bear to lose, that happens, I believe. There was a part of that that was like so wrenching because of what the doctor was actually sharing.

And then a part of it that was so painful because it's like, what is I believe? It's just another shield to hide behind because you can't say the full truth out loud, which is I know that because I feel that because that's my experience too. And so if being back with Donna and Wilf can help the doctor say that more full-throatedly, then that's like a wonderful, beautiful thing. And I love that. So I hope that Shudy has the opportunity to create his doctor in full and that the show doesn't feel like anyone needed to like warm us up for that first.

But more broadly, I think that like the doctor winding up in this spot is a beautiful thing and that it makes a lot of sense in the 10 to 14 arc for 10 to get to this place too. And I think that like it does and I have a couple of responses. One is that I really wish that River Song could meet this doctor because like, you know, how frustrated I was often with the 11 River relationship, how valuable the 12 River exchange, how valuable the 12 River exchange was, you know, that makes me just like weep to think about it when they're gazing out the singing towers of Deryllium, but how that was just like a grudging, like, drop, a small cup of, like, affection and romance

that she was finally able to, like, eke out of him. But, like, if she met this doctor, this doctor would just sort of, lavish her with like praise and affection, which is what River Song deserves. But also, I think that in terms of warming up, I suspect that's interesting thought that it's like if shooty got was, doctor is going to be also canonically queer, be he pan or by or whatever, that having that concept first introduced through the lens of David Tennant, might ease people into it. I agree that that is an unfortunate mindset.

I do believe that the reason that Tenet is here in the first place is, okay, interest in Doctor Who has waned because of a series of choices. Let's bring back our most popular doctor to try to juice those ratings back up so that Shudegawa can start on the like with the strongest boost possible off a rather unpopular. era of Dr. Who. Yes. And that I get. And obviously it's a point we are in complete agreement that it is a wonderful thing. A precious, precious pearl of a gift to have this time with 10. I just like even, you know, now the TARDIS has kind of like been destroyed and repaired.

So who knows this thing like that will happen again. But even like last week the new Tartis arriving like early like before 15's run, there's a part of. And 10 getting to. Yeah. Like so I, I can't wait for. shootie to arrive, I can't wait for 15's run. I am overjoyed to be here with 10 slash 14 now. I think that, again, all of this actually does make sense to me in terms of the character

arc to this point and in the context of revisiting these relationships and what the character might learn. So I'm in no way like diminishing the impact. I think it's no, no, no, beautiful and wonderful. I just like hope that they're not operating in any way. And I don't even know if this is like a reasonable thing to say because I have no idea if this is true. I just hope they're not like afraid to let shooty's doctor be Shudy's doctor on his own merits. That's all. I completely, I completely grew with you.

And I think that like, I was watching, I'm like greedily lapping up every single behind the scenes feature that I can. And I watched this whole like video of David Tennant taking a tour of inside the new TARDIS for the first time. Watching them like build the set and stuff like that. And he's touching, he's pressing every button

and fiddling with every lever because he's like, he's like, I love a button. And they're like, we heard that about you. We also heard that you broke all the buttons on the old harness all the time. He's like, well, that was a little more flimsy. You guys have more budget now. But he said something about like, I can't remember. It's two very different meanings that I can't remember.

But he said something either like, I have to leave something for Shudy to discover for himself. Or, you know, I want to touch all of this before Shudy does. It was neither was like met maliciously. It was all done with, like, Glee and Joy. But it was a little bit like he gets the run of Shudy's. TARDIS before he does. And I'm just like, there's something Joyce about that I wouldn't

necessarily trade seeing David Tennant run around, literally run around the set for anything, but, you know, maybe he can get, shooty will be the doctor for a long time and he'll get a redesign sometime in his run. Yeah, let's get another new TARDIS. A new Sonic, you know, whatever, something like that.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The people who spent literally 20 weeks building that set are like, what are you talking about? This is the TARDIS or the rest of time. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner.

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I'm just going to throw a little crumb to our listeners who, like me, love Buffy the Vampire Slayer because I cannot help any time I see a character stripped down of certain things, be it Thor and Thor Ragnarok or at the end of season three of Buffy when Angel taunts Buffy and he says no friends, no weapons, no hope, take that all away and what's left and she says me and you're like, yes, let's go. So that's how I felt when the TARDIS with the sonic in the keyhole goes off into the wild blue yonder and leaves the doctor without. I do love these stories where the doctor only has his wits. Father's Day and episode we really like from Eccleson's run is one of those. Gravity from Twel's Run is another one. But yeah, there's just like a few times when the doctor has been left without his tricks and tools. of the trade and just has to figure things out for himself. It also means that, like, it's not just narratively fun to watch the doctor and Donna try

to think their way out of something, but also the sonic would have really bungled the whole, like, witch doctor is witch concept later. If one of them had a sonic, it wouldn't have worked, you know? Yeah, I mean, I get maybe the not things could have, like, mimicked it in some way, the same way they could wear a tie until the tie disappeared. Until, who knows? Who knows? But yeah, like the actual, okay, there's no point of distinction between the two except

suddenly the arm is too long, et cetera, the jaw is hanging to the floor. But yeah, I think more thematically just like, especially on the heels of last episode, seeing all of the new functionality of the Sonic and having this moment where we're like, what won't they be able to do with this new Sonic? And then boom, it's gone. And the second he puts it in the keyhole, you know it will. be you know they're going to find themselves in this situation where they have no tools at their disposal and they have to embrace the fact that like their friendship and their ability

to trust in each other is the greatest tool of all, Joe. And guess what? The ultimate Sonic. The Sonic was the friends we made along the way. The friends we made along the way. Yeah, great. Don't worry. He still has the real screwdriver and assault seller in his like pocket of holding.

So it's fine. Great stuff. The way that he said, thank you. when she explained, I think a non-sonic screwdriver was called a screwdriver and it was like, oh,

thank you. Exactly. It's their little double act. It's so funny. Oh, there are you. It's so good. Yeah, they're so good. Oh, born,

Donna is panicking, right? Because she's thinking about her family. And as I mentioned, he takes her hand and he kisses it and he clashes it to his chest. And he promises that he'll get her home. Listen, the doctor has made that promise to people before and it has not worked out, but, you know, we are lucky that in this case it does. Such a tenderness.

I know. So sweet. A little kiss. Got this email from our listener Miller. He says, he says, the Donna of Series 4 was more than willing to spend eternity with the doctor. However, when confronting with that possibility in this special, she mourns the thought of Sean and Rose being alone. There is a small change, but one that further illustrates why. Donna won't be traveling with the doctor in series 14 slash one.

I love this contrast of the Donna of series four. It was like, I was going to travel with you forever. And who didn't have other than like, Wilf, obviously, something to anchor her at home and something to go back for. And her immediate thought is of Rose, of Sean, of home. And I think made all the better for us having met Rose last week and seeing Rose as someone who as like a, you know, a trans teen as someone like who is all children could use their parent. But like this is someone at an extremely vulnerable position in their life could really, really use someone as fiercely protective as Donna in their corner.

So we feel that poll as well. Donna has to get back to Rose and lovely Sean. What do you think of this contrast between the Rose we met before and the Rose we know now? Yeah, I thought this was, this was beautiful and this is one of my favorite parts of the return to this character set so far. Like what we are seeing about Donna's evolution and Donna's growth and Donna's progress and what Donna prioritizes in her life. And like one of the great moments later in the episode is when the doctor says, that's the astonishing thing about people from her planet. they can believe two completely different things at exactly the same time. And that's what leads to the brain box earth girl moment.

But like this is actually one of many ways in which we see this in Donna, like two completely different ideas at exactly the same time. And both are true. And that makes her a fuller version of herself. Like I was thinking not just about the, I want to say, I was going to be with you forever, rest of my life traveling in the TARDIS. anguish from season four, but much more more recently, like last week in the first special in Starbees, how we got my daughters down there, right? We got the declaration of intent,

the single specific, focused clarity of the most important thing in the world. And then we also got the joy of, it's like the old days, just me and the doctor together, or how long have I got? 55 seconds, best 55 seconds of my life and how like all of that is true. This doesn't mean that Donna has like reached a point where she has stopped valuing this relationship. It's that she has a more complete picture of the things that matter to her. And she has other relationships that are like tethering her to that purpose. And one, the fact that she actually understands, like, when she says to the doctor last week, we can have more days, can't we? She understands in a way that the doctor does not, that those things don't actually have to come at the expense of each other.

And it's just one more way where the companion can teach the doctor something. It doesn't just have to be the doctor teaching the companion. Like Donna's origin is that sometimes you need someone to stop you companion, right? That she was going to, as you were like alluding to earlier, be able to like provide a different sort of push and counsel and caution. in caution maybe than the other people in the doctor's life. And this is like what feels like a very organic but like hard one extension of that. Like another gift that she can give him, another lesson that she can teach him is the things that you care about can change over time and you can have new priorities and a new funnel

for the purpose that drives you. But that doesn't mean you have to stop caring about these other things. There's room for all of it if you want there to be. And I think what's also true to go back to your point about. about, I have a few of those, I can like think of a couple of those friends where, if you haven't talked to them for years when you see them again, like the dynamic hasn't changed, your rhythm hasn't changed, your understanding of each other hasn't changed. But that doesn't mean you haven't changed.

Right. You know what I mean? And so like this idea that like Donna, so much has happened to the doctor, you know, as he says, like so much has happened in those 15 years. but so much has seismically changed inside of Donna as well in terms of like someone who wants to run away, the runaway bride, versus someone who like really wants to stay.

And I think comparisons aren't always useful. It isn't always useful to say, you know, having a child versus half the universe got blinked out of existence because of you, etc. But it can, I mean, to the point of Starbeast, it can feel that way. Your child can feel as important as the fate of the entire world. And having a child and having, I don't know, we don't have kids, so I'm just speaking on my ass a little bit, but like having a child can just completely upend your worldview. It probably should. And so these massive things have happened to the doctor. We've spent years watching his adventures, but this

massive thing has happened to Donna too. Right. Right. And I think that, and it puts them on similar footing in a way that I always love. Yes. That they have been. And I think also, Davis, it, it almost sounds like defensive of what he quote did to Donna, the like great original sin. Yeah.

Right. Of him having taken everything away from her. And both last week and this week, it seems to be, he's also like, yes. but look what she has. Yes. She found this, this purpose, these people, this thing worth defending, and that has value, as much value as anything else. And listen, I didn't consign Donna to frivolous phone calls for the rest of her life.

She has created meaning and purpose. She has a lovely house, a lovely husband, a lovely daughter, all this sort of stuff. Some tuna madras waiting from Sylvia. Yeah, that's what I was going to say the same. I think it's like, it's an important part of the, healing that the viewers are experiencing in addition to the healing that Donna and the doctor are experiencing. Like, there is the acknowledgement and the atonement for the sin, right? That is also happening. And that is like central and certainly was last episode. But in tandem with that,

like this recognition and embrace of the fact that this horrible thing happened to Donna and it shouldn't have. And it is being rectified. But Donna's life didn't stop. Because if it had, what would the message be? It would be that the only thing that mattered actually was the adventure with the doctor. And part of the gift that those adventures give you, sometimes you have the moment that Rose has at the cafe or that Yaz has in the conversation with Jack. Like, I can't go back now that I know. But the fact that each companion's journey is different is part of what makes this a fully realized world, right? Otherwise, everybody's just playing out a little script and it's mad libs and everyone has the exact same experience and the exact same takeaway.

Like for some people to say, I'm ready to go back to my world and I'm ready to go back to the people I was with. Now, Donna didn't get to make that choice on her terms and that was the anguish of it. But to know that in that intervening time, she made connections and she found like meaning in all sorts of ways and she built a life. She put down roots. Like I think when the show is at its best, it's able, this is kind of like, this is kind of like, the jaunty jolliness inside of the war song, it's another version of this dissonance that somehow becomes the balance that breathes meaning into the story. You sit on your hill with Wilf and you look out at the stars. And part of the reason that you two understand each other

better than anybody else in your life to that point is because you want to know. Like you want to look, you want to see. And that's beautiful. Like we are drawn to the characters who have that impulse, right? You have the desire in their hearts to take that step and see beyond the thing that's just like waiting right next to them. But if you can never find peace in your own life after that, that's like actually a really devastating thing for us to have to carry with us. So Donna is able to give us both of those lessons. Right. At once, which is like a really, really, really beautiful thing. She wants to go for one more ride.

She wants the doctor to come for dinner. She wants the doctor to meet her family. And she wants to be back with that family, too. And, like, that feels right. Quick sidebar and spy for what you just said. I've been watching these, like, screeners of this Netflix series is coming out a little. I actually don't know the date. It's called Dead Boy Detectives, and it's like a little spin-off of the Sandman in the

Sandman universe and it's very charming, but Kirby Halvot, T's who plays Death and the Sandman story shows up briefly in this show. And, you know, as death, she shows up and she's talking to someone and he's asking her all these questions. And I along, I said along with her, now's when you find out, right? That's what Death said, you know, and like she said it right when, like, I expected she was going to say. And it was so, it's, I got emotional because it was so. beautiful, it's such a beautiful, uplifting concept of death of like, now is when you find out the great mystery, the great question of the universe and stuff like that. And this idea of like, now's when you find out for Wilf, for Donna, the kind of people who ask the questions

when death comes calling is, I don't know, a very special kind of character. And it's, and all these complexities and contradictions and it can be two things at once is something that Davies or the various writers working under his era have been so good at. It's why it's just why there just feels like there's so many layers to his inventions and why these characters

immediately just sort of sing off the page for me because they are so layered and contradictory and human. They're just so So human. Not the not things, though. So let's carry forward. If you listen to the Prestige TV coverage of the Crown, you will have heard me very recently lecture Amanda Dobbins, poor Amanda, the great Amanda, about what a bottle episode is and isn't. And I will say this is very nearly a bottle episode in that we are all in one location.

The cast size is very small. I prefer when it's like We're literally trapped in an elevator But this is like pretty close And the point of the bottle episode Is to keep the budget down This is a pretty budget friendly episode We're working with a lot of green screens

And we have two main actors on the sheets I'm sure they're not like cheap actors We've got two actors on the sheet On the call sheet and like a robot puppet And that's our guy Jimbo What we're working here Yeah that's what we're working with here We got this

This email from our listener Kevin who says, as much as I love serialized storytelling, I'm so glad that RTD and the BBC didn't try to make the 60th anniversary this big massive thing with multiple doctors, a grand sweeping story, maybe another River song appearance, just everything. As awesome as that could have been,

it worked so much better as just this mini season with two, quote, regular Doctor Who episodes and a finale that will probably be a bit more grand. And something that Russell T. Davis said in the behind the scenes is like he did consider a version of this where they found David Bradley playing William Hartnell's doctor in a box somewhere, that he did consider that, but that he said his favorite kind of story is two people.

And he's like, two people, just two people trapped somewhere having to think their way out of it. And I'm like, that's like us every time we pod. But I love the, I love the claustrophobia we get in this because we first realized. that there are other entities on the ship because we get the through the vet POV shots that I love that Dr. Who does so well, like someone's watching you. You know, so good. Scary.

The walls are moving. There's a, what we find out later is a countdown. Jimbo is here. The air is getting cold. The air is getting cold. Please do you watch the behind the scenes to see how they created Jimbo? It's like very, very charming. But it's a little puppet that they had to like ever so slightly

suspend so he's like slightly hovering above the ground so that they could like move his limbs the way that they needed to it's so good i loved the like rusted design on him yeah but it was great but i love i love this bit i mean i don't know how the doctor knew that there was a little car beneath the floor but sure um love love a bit with a little car and this was great this is like this is when i get to play a british culture anthropologist that i like to do when i watch British television because I'm like, I have no idea what they're referencing when he says, you call my lady, and she says, thank you, Parker. And I'm like, what are we doing here? What is this? I immediately Google. Thank you Parker. Yeah. Immediately. Thank you, Parker.

Thunderbirds is a British television series that was a like a puppetry thing. It looks very much like Team America World Police and meets Austin Powers. And it looks absolutely bonkers bananas to me. I watched some clips of it. It's an extraordinary 1960s artifact of British television. But again, it's just their little double act of just sort of like, thank you, Baca. I just thought it was

so charming. Absolutely wonderful. The fact that we get to see them like change places, Donna wants to drive. Yeah. It gives us truly one of the great moments in Doctor Who history when she says

Alon's as idiots say E and gets to just dunk on him and make fun of him But also kind of like In the process of dunking on him Acknowledge that this is a thing that anybody would want to say In that situation He's got the The chucks

Like feet kicked up on the dash The converse in full display during this car sequence And it was like so deliberate clearly When they become huge later And the converse is so prime prominently displayed at scales. This is just iconic. I loved it.

When the car gets like a pod, like batted around and is spinning and his foot is up on the dash, I'm like, you dramatic, like, you're going to want both feet braced on the bottom of the car if your car is spinning through. And he's like, no, I got to look as gangly as possible. Got to have limbs everywhere. He's like vect. He's got this. It's just like, this is this long. extensions hooking on to anything for purchase. Very noodily.

Great stuff. There was actually one shot, Joe. I wish I had grabbed the timestave of this where just visually, I was like, oh, it's the not doctor because the arms are too long. And then it wasn't. It's incredible. These incredible waving, yearning tendrils. The best.

Speaking of those yearning tendrils, did you enjoy all the ways. the doctor got in and out of chairs and seats in this episode. I've called it Rikering, which is a Star Trek Next Generation reference, but so she went to get to the captain's chair, which of course gave me hardcore Prometheus vibes, and he just like had to just like leap into it and leap out of it again. How did how did you feel about all of this? Loved it. The physical, like the combination of physical comedy and genuine gazelle-like grace is

just a tenant spectacular that is difficult for anyone else, I think, alive to replicate. But you pair it with a bit of poetry like, we've got a chair. That's a good sign. It's a life form with a bum. It's just like, what more could you want? It's a life form with a bum. And he couldn't be more serious. Like, this is a clue. It's a life form with a bum. This is the best. I loved it. We get the, speaking of, like, actual poetry, I mean, Life Forces of the Bum is pretty good, but when the doctor, Donna, stare out into the starless void here. Yes. And talk about being at the edge of creation, the nothingness, right?

Absolutely nothingness. And Donna, this isn't an official wolf reference, but I will call it like a side willf reference. Yeah. When she says, you can stand in my garden and look at the light from stars a billion miles away. It counts. It counts. That counts. Okay.

You know, and he says, you know, they're 100 trillion years away from her home. She says, that's my family over there, right? That's the magnet force, magnetic force, drawing her home. That's what she needs to go. And then he says something that has driven a lot of Doctor Who completionist bonkers when he says, I've never been this far out to stand here like this physically unprotected right on the edge. No one ever has, not ever till us end this ship. And then Donna says ominously and an airlock that opened three years ago and close.

But that line, I'd never been this far out, blah, blah, blah, said Doctor Who fans across the internet going, well, actually, and like hitting all the, and like, and prompted R. Russell's reading all of your tweets, guys. he posted a page from the script where the doctor did in fact rattle off all the times that he had been somewhere like this. And he posted it with a snoring emoji. He's like, this was in the script, but like snoring emoji. Like it was too boring. So I cut it out. He's like, but I do know.

I know what I'm doing. I thought that was really funny. Great stuff. How do you feel about the doctor's approach licking something to taste the exact nature of the goobie? of it. Okay, so I guess I can't in good faith say this was my favorite moment of the episode just because there were so many deeply profound and like moving moments that will stand the test of time. But in the moment, real time watching it, I was like, is this the best moment in the history of television?

It was, first of all, if you will allow me to say. Suck it, Grogo. No. If you will allow me to say, this is mere. hours after you had shared a TikTok with me. That was a compilation of all the times David Bennett had licked things as the doctor. So like I was primed for this in a way that was like supremely special. But just the fact that he did this, the sniff, the lick, Donna's abject horror.

And then it's these two love a bit. Like the moment where the music changes and he pretends. and he pretends to die. And she says, talk to, and then he's, no. No.

No. No. It was just wonderful. It's like, again, it's that shorthand that you have with a person who you have not actually known forever, but it feels as though you have. And it was beautiful.

Yeah. Yeah. Friends at play, the best. Just need you to know, you speaking of friends at play, I just need you all to know. That sometimes Mallory says, should I join TikTok?

And I say, I'll just send you all the things you need to know. I have a curated experience. I am on TikTok. A compilation. Yes. But I don't. She's like, should I spend more time there?

I was like, yeah. I'm like, no, just let me send you all the David Tennant licks things, TikToks that you need. And here we are. My algorithm is like completely tethered to the TikToks you have sent me. It's remarkable. What is true and interested in? It's basically just like cats, David Tennant and you and McGregor, pretty much. Which honestly, I.

And Harrison Ford. Yes, we have a few Harrison Ford Tick-Docks in there. I think there's a reflection of my needs, candidly. Yeah, I think I understand you pretty well. Okay. Here come our antagonist. It is an hour into our podcast and 20 minutes into the episode before the antagonists enter the scene.

Did this get you in any way or were immediately like, that's not the doctor? The speed with which. the doctor, the seeming doctor, ultimately the not doctor, returned to the filament swap room that Donna was in when we know he had just gone to the water spindle room. I was like, that was quick. And then, of course, we're on guard because we're waiting for something terrible

to befall our cherished pals. So I was anxious, but I will say, I was not completely aware of the way that we were being duped in real time, which was part of what made it so fun because you have like the shock of cutting back and seeing the doctor in the water room and you're like, fuck, because you're waiting for like an alien to emerge or like some other like evil robot. Like the fact that the threat would take this form is not really something that we had considered until we had reason to. But I think less that like the logic aspect of our brain and how we're trying to solve the puzzle in real time.

and more specifically how unmoored we are and disarmed we are by the conversation that is unfolding. Not doctor could come in to real Donna and they could talk about anything, but the specific conversation that unfolds is that Donna is as vulnerable as she has maybe ever been and says to a character who end up not being the doctor, like just this great fear, right? this, but also like even within the fear that she is revealing, like, will her family move on? How long will they wait? There's like a little bit of almost comfort and hope that she knows that, like, Rose will be okay.

And there was that moment specifically about Sean, where she says, he'll keep going back every single day. He's nice. You know, he's lovely. I hope you get to know him. And not doctor says, I hope so too. here was my journey with this moment. In real time, before we knew for sure what was happening, this broke me. Like, thinking that the doctor had said, I hope so too, because what would that

mean? It would mean accepting her invitation from the end of last episode, like a willingness to be present in their lives and to continue to be present in their lives. And so the absolute kick in the ass when we realize that that wasn't him. And I mean, you already noted that, the acting is exemplary across the episode. But like this is a great, this is a great microcosm because on a rewatch when you know what you're seeing, it plays as so sinister,

whereas it played to me fully and completely the first time as this embrace of something that there had been a prior reluctance to wrap your arms around. Like this was brilliant. Totally. It's like a beautiful moment of sharing. Yeah.

And I love that, like, I love the color tones of the two rooms. Yes. We should not only help us really grok the penny dropping, you know, completely, because all of a sudden we cut back and he's in, as you said, the water spindle room, but it's cool and blue. Right. She's in this sort of warm golden room. But it helps us like better. We get sort of parallel conversations, and it's just much more sinister the second time because we know what's going on here.

But similar to him saying, the not doctor saying. I hope so too, in terms of getting to know Sean. We also get our official wolf reference number two or number three, if you count the garden line. And Wolf, your grandfather, what would he do? Oh, him, he would install himself with a sleeping bag and a thermos and he would sit there forever. Call you everything, wouldn't he? He's a lovely, Wilf. Such a nice man.

I'd love to see him again. So I hope so, too. I hope I get to know Sean. I hope I get to see Wilf again. Spooky body snatch language here. And I'm just like, stay away from Wilf. Stay all the way away from Wilf, you monster. But again, that's like something that hits.

Dare he. How dare he? Yeah. How dare he? Not a finger. Not a single goopy, too long finger on our Wilf. All right. Not one of those actual domino.

The kilometers that wound off in not Donna's wrist later. Not one. Not one. Well, Donna's talking about her family and her home. The doctor is also talking about his home, his most permanent fixture. I love this. Let us hear this, please, Steve. Funny, because I wonder where the child is goes around them.

Maybe it lands on some outcrop by the sea. There's a tribe and they worship it for a hundred years. Then they grow up and try to burn it. Then they get wise. They preserve it. Then they build a city. All around it. So the TARDIS is just kind of little dot surrounded by skyscrapers and monorails.

Time passes and city falls. All get swept away. And there's the Tardis. Still right to help from. By the sea. Is it everything I've got left. that Murray gold coral music coming in behind the monologue to help you understand how you should feel I absolutely loved this just like beautiful beautiful language it's sad to hear him say she's the only

thing I've got left when he's talking to thinks he's talking to Donna like that's a wild thing to say it's it's interesting to contrast Donna thinking about her family and him thinking about this object, even though we know that the TARDIS is a she, his wife, but like kind of also not really, right? There's just a number of ways you could read this speech, and I'm so curious to hear your thoughts. I thought there was a bit of like this idea of glory, right? There's a tribe and they worship it for over 100 years, this idea of like, you know, this is a grand and important thing that I run around the universe. in. But I also think, I was also wondering if RTD meant this as a sort of metaphor for the

institution of Doctor Who of like affections for this thing come and go. Sometimes they worship it. Sometimes they try to burn it. Sometimes they surround it with so much like ephemera and fandom that like you can't even see the heart of the story anymore. But it's always there. No matter what, it stands. I also thought, of course, of the ghost monument.

one of our first Jody Whitaker episodes when the TARDIS goes off and we've got people worshipping it and fearing it and all this sort of stuff like that. And then we've got this great RTD sort of lampshading of all the things that have happened with the Gallow Frey plot since he introduced the Time War

and we talked in our big rewatch about the way that Stephen Moffitt said what if I undo the Time War Galfrey stands, right? Galfrey stands in Moffat's idea. And then Chris Chibnell in his era is like, okay, the master's just going to destroy Galefrey again. And so we've got not Donna saying, do you miss home, Galefrey? And he says, I suppose, I mean, yes, but no, it got complicated.

It's the least of our problems right now. And I was just sort of like, that feels like a little bit of a gentle showrunner to showrunner ribbing of like, what did you do with my Time War story, you bastards. Anyway, tell me your TARDIS monologue interpretation, thoughts and feelings. Yeah, I absolutely loved this.

I'm in agreement with you on the standing in here is a symbol for the institution of Doctor Who and this thing that goes through these cycles and people's relationships to the thing that they are looking at and gazing upon changes over time, but there's

something there that is like lasting and permanent kind of amid that sea of change. There is like a constant, and it is Doctor Who. I think like the fact that that Gallifrey exchange happened right on the heels of this monologue seems very purposeful to me because it all kind of feels of a piece. Like this, it's a, so if the doctor and the Tartis are linked this fully, entwined this fully, either in how we think about them or how the doctor does, and that very sad, I agree, she's the only thing I've got. left line, then like the doctor, even in describing this secret life and journey in a period of separation is kind of in a way describing himself, right? There's this self-mythologizing that is

happening here, this thing that is associated with me and linked to me, like, how would it be worshipped? And so I think it's interesting to like, to like then sequence that kind of a mythologizing monologue with like the, I have no ten. to any of that anymore. I don't understand that anymore. My home, my past, this is the only thing, actually, that I am definitively carrying forward and know is, like, real and tangible and true. Like, those journeys that time that I spend in the TARDIS that's in my mind, I have a grasp of it. I know it's real. That's the thing I have. I don't have clarity anymore about where I came from or what my past is. And so I thought it was actually kind of a tidy and smart way of acknowledging the recent canon while kind of simultaneously hand-waving it. Like what, you know, has it taken inside of the doctor and what struggles maybe are playing out inside of the doctor's mind and maybe the way that that manifests out loud is to say like we don't really have time to talk about this now. I think also though it's just another great way for us to think about we talk about this with the doctor. We've been talking about it with Loki. A timeless being,

what does time even mean then? So you have like a great moment. It's a little quick one earlier in the episode where Donna asked if time maybe had like slowed down and the doctor, I would feel it. I would feel it in my bones, right? And I would I, I love your impression of tenants. Five syllable nose. It's terrible, but I try. The, and like, we believe that's, when, when he says that, we believe that that is true and right, right? And would be true and right. And so, like, the thing actually that this, one of the things that this beautiful, oh, who, who the Tartis's potential secret experience made me think of was 12 in Missy and the vault and the oath. And like, or 12 and heaven sent.

And like, that's one hell of a bird. Like, what does time mean to the timeless child? For the time Lord. Like, what that entire beautiful ode to the Tartis's secret experience, that's a blink for the doctor. That's a minute. Like, that's a grain of sand in the hourglass of this entire journey and experience. And so I almost was like, I was struck by how easy it was for the doctor to envision the entire history, for what like other people would be the entire history of a thing. And for the doctor would be, what did you do in the five minutes while I was waiting?

I just thought that was fascinating as a way to like give us some sense of a perspective that we can never truly. ever truly have. I think the closest we ever get is when they put that hideous wig on Matt Smith to denote that he spent 900 years on a planet, defending a planet. Speaking of added

you know, wigs and limbs and etc. We got this brilliant evil I thought from our listener Randy because things get spooky. Things get spooky pretty quickly. We got wonky limbs, weird eyes, this stuff is going on. The repetition of my arm's too long.

Remind me a lot of, are you my mummy? Yes. From the empty child. And also, hey, who turned out the lights from silence of the library, right?

This like repeated refrain that helps you know that something's gone very wrong. Indeed. But Randy wrote in, it feels like the effectiveness of some of the horror in this episode stems from our

cultural anxieties surrounding artificial intelligence. All of the messy proportions. My arms are too long. And wonky eyes evoke the sort of visual soup we are accustomed to seeing from AI art generators. Even the motivations for the doppelgangers reeks of AI. They're copying humanity, but picking up on our worst tendencies. Just think of all the stories we've seen about AI chatbots shifting so quickly into hate speech and misogyny. And I love this email from Randy. It hadn't occurred to me, but I like absolutely love it. And thinking about it and

rewatching it, the line, I don't know why, but the arms is so very difficult. Stuck out to me because that the AI, whenever I'm like, whenever I look at something that has been AI generated trying to determine, there is something about the eyes and the face that just seems like slightly off. And then they always fuck up the hands. The hands are the tell. Like there's always something very weird going on with the hands. So I just, I don't know. I love this idea. Yeah. This is great. This hadn't occurred to me either. But as soon as I read it, I was like, this feels this feels right. The something like, oh, we get hungry do. We like this quest to constantly learn so that you can seek to more fully mimic something that you are impersonating. This is, this was like disturbing. The jaw on the floor after we get hungry, Dewey was so creepy. And you know, one of the creepiest moments on this front

and like this is very, what would your chatbot learn over time is like the tie? When Donna realizes the tie is going, it's like, oh, right. Oh. Oh. Yeah. Like when you put shit down and stays.

Yeah. And it's like, right. It's so creepy. And like, learning. It's horrifying. It's creepy and he and he bends back and is sort of like, oh, like thing. And then he bends back all the way and does his creepy little crawley.

Very upsetting. It's like pretty incredible. Quick question for you and perhaps also for the Midnight Boys. Do you want to have like an episode of the Ringervverse that is just Sean Temple's scientific validity, notes for the Venom franchise. Yes. Because I would like to hear all of them. Sean Temple is just a lot of questions about mass.

Specifically about mass in the Venom films. And you know what? Same. I loved this. This killed me. We get Willf reference either number three or four, depending on how you're counting it. They say his name, so I'm counting it. Here we are.

Four people in a room. Two of them look like David Tennant. Two of them look like Catherine Tate. I put a Captain Jack Harkness Giff in the notes for you. Were you thinking of good old Captain Jack? There's three of you, three doctors. I can tell you what I'm thinking right now.

You don't need to, Jack. We know. This is exceptional. Joanna's subhead for this section is four of you. I had a dream about this once, and it is perfection. I have no notes. I'm just trying to make you proud all the time.

It's the best. Absolutely the best. This is a classic, this is a classic, like, doppelganger. I'm the real one. know I'm the real one, Gambit that we've seen all over genre, but often in Doctor Who, this is the Zygons all over again, the rebel flesh, prisoner zero, like we've seen a bunch of different iterations of this. But folded into the like who's who, whom is whom, hijinks is this very sad moment of, as you mentioned, we're, we're connecting. into the canon of the timeless child in the flux

and that idea of 10 and 14, perhaps, both as the one who regrets. Can we please, this is just genuinely devastating. One of the worst things I've ever experienced on Doctor Who in terms of emotional whiplash. Steve, can you play this? So where are you from? No, but we've done that.

We talked about that. By there out loud. All four of us. No, it's Galephrae. Except it's not. You don't know where you're from. How'd you know that? How did anyone know how does Donna know?

Back on earth, when I was the Doctor Donna, I saw your mind. I've had 15 years without you and I saw everything that's happened to you since and oh my God it hurt. You're saying this to break me down. But we haven't stopped to talk. We haven't had a chance. It's always like that with you. Running from one thing to the next, I saw it in your head. It destroyed half the universe because of me.

We stand here now on the edge of creation, a creation which I devastated. So yes, I keep running, of course I do. How am I supposed to look back on that? It wasn't your fault. I know! I'm sorry. Yeah.

I missed you. Like, the worst thing that has ever happened. Anguish. Anguish. Like, just the pain. Just when this, not Donna, not Donna says, and I think, it was like actually, I think pretty clear at this point, who was the real one in each of those rooms. But when she says I've had 15 years without you, I saw everything that's happened to you since and oh my God, it hurt, you know, all those. And then he says all those years I missed you.

And this is a vicious. This is just so cool. And then her not, like she melts into a puddle in her nasty little laugh. Who are you? Like all this stuff. It's just like, it's, it's so vicious. It's so horrible. It is a very clever way for us to understand that RTD is not going to ignore all the things

that Chimnell has introduced, like the flux and the timeless child. Like, we are going to grapple with it. And in fact, we could argue that RTD grappled with it better than Chibnil. ever did because the flux happens, half the universe is wiped out at the end of Jody Whitaker's run. And that doctor never really stops to contemplate it. We got an email from Caleb who said, one of the most jarring things for me in those three post-flux specials is that they never really addressed the fact that the universe was absolutely decimated. So while it's crazy to think it took this long, I'm glad that we're addressing the emotional fallout for that doctor.

Structure-wise, I also think RTC is smartly using Donna as an audience surrogate. here for all the labs fans who are popping back in for these specials provides a nice Watsonian reason for bringing up to intervening years. And then, but my question for you, Mallory, and this is the first thought I had as well, is how do you feel, our listener Madeline wrote in to say, how do you feel about RTD essentially substituting in the flux for the time war in terms of traumatic event impacting the doctor? Just hearing tenants' delivery of it destroyed half the universe because of me.

It just gave me instant, took me back in time to the 10th doctor talking about Galefrey in the Time War. So, like, how do you feel about all of this? Jiggery-pogry. I thought the sequence was absolutely devastating. Truly and deeply painful, all those years I missed you. Donna is that you? All those years I missed you. It just shattered me, not just because it's not her.

But because of what it means to him that it could be, right? Like what he needs for her and that that relationship and that trust that they have with each other, it made me think it's interesting to be talking about like the flux and what happened to the 13th doctor. Because the thing that this sequence made me think of the most actually was that beautiful end note from 13, nobody else got to be us. Nobody else got to live our days. and like this question of facing your dark mirrors and these impostors and this like very intimate setting and thing. It's only us.

It's only them or the not. It's us and it's not us. That's the not things. And that idea that like there's this tracking over the episode of how much they're acclimating and learning and how close they are to like fully completing them. But like we have to hold on to that. truth that there's no way they actually could be them because nobody else got to live their days, right? And like their history together. It's not just about the memory of it. I love like right after

this when Donna is going through her version of this of trying to suss out the truth and she's talking about her family. And she's like, and it's basically like it boils down to like anybody could know these facts. Like anybody could hold onto this information. But nobody can know the way it makes feel, right? And like, that's the truth for both of them. And so for the the flux and all of the Chibnol 13th Doctor Canon to be incorporated in this way, I am wondering, like, we'll get to this maybe at the end of the pod, but when we talk about that, like, I invoked a superstition at the edge of the universe where the walls are thin moment, I think it's difficult not to think about the flux and division and everything that happened

with that plot when we hear something about thin walls. Because, like, I mean, first of all, it also made me think of Amy and 11, of course, and, like, the cracks in the walls and how, this has been deployed in the story before. But, like, I was about to say, like, here's the quick version for anyone who didn't watch. There's really no, like, quick way to explain what happened with the flux. But I think, like, a key thing to know is what you know here, the emotional truth of it, which is, like, this group called division, because of the doctor set this horror out

in order to try to, like, erase and eradicate the doctor's imprint and impact on existence. And the quest was to start over in a different universe. Let's unleash the flux in universe one and let's move on to universe two. So I am sort of like, is universe two about to enter the fold here? Like, is that where this is heading? Maybe we're not ignoring this canon as much as we think. And maybe like saving it for a later day really is like saving it for a later day. I don't think we are ignoring this canon because, well, I don't know if you're referring to the flux there.

but I will say that Russell D. Davies is on record as liking the timeless child concept, which was not the prevailing opinion when that was introduced in the Chimnal Run, but RTT likes it. So we're going to talk about it. That is for sure. Yeah. And I think we should. And like, so to the question in Madeline's email on this idea of subbing, Timor, flux, which trauma is like driving the doctors, the doctor running from? our doctor always a runner in a given moment. I guess my answer is kind of like it feels, even though mileage may vary and did on whether you liked you anybody, like, liked the timeless child division, flux,

ravagers of it all. I actually almost sent you an Instagram of one of those cakes that I was talking about with like the jewel. The GEO of cake. I found one I was like, this is kind of what I was talking about, but it was more fruit than jewels, so I decided to wait for a better example, but I will find one.

It's all connected. It's all of a piece. Like it all traces back to the root of who am I and where am I from and what is my relationship to this place, right? And so whether it is like I had a hand and then had to live and then eventually learned that maybe I didn't have the hand I thought in like destroying my home and my people and that shifts to the people who came into existence because they were templates of me sought to destroy me. I mean, you could twist yourself into like a logic pretzel trying to like iron out all of the particulars. The emotional truth of it is the same to me, which is like, what is my connection to the place that I came from and to the other people who I grew up thinking, rightly or wrongly, were like my fellow Galefraians. Like this was my culture.

This was my world. Other time lords, how do time lords behave? What is our history? What is our purpose? What is our intention? What do we bring into the universe? as we travel and unleash our might. And, like, that is still there, right?

It's just repositioned slightly. Where did I come from? And what is my relationship to that place as a root that is deeper and traces back further than we previously understood? And the enormous guilt of the destruction that, you know, is laid at your feet. which

Russell loves a tormented doctor so we'll see how shooty gets to handle this. We're going to talk about midnight for a second. For folks who didn't do the full rewatch with us or never watched

the Davis era or never watched all of Tenant or whatever, midnight is yes, my favorite episode from series four of Doctor Who and it involves Don is barely in it

and involves the doctor going on this sort of pleasure cruise pleasure tour that goes horribly wrong and an entity enters the shuttle that he's in and it becomes this paranoia who's the monster what's going on

there are so many similarities between that episode and this episode that I've seen a theory floating around that the not things in this episode are somehow like related to the things that takes over in midnight, just a band theory.

And I'm like, yeah, sure that's fun. It genuinely doesn't matter if it's true or it's not. What's true is that, because Davis also wrote that episode, that he is consciously interacting with one of his most popular episodes that he ever made. In addition to the sort of the doctor stranded

with only his cleverness to get him out of it, he does have the Sonic in midnight, but with only his cleverness. And then that cleverness becoming, actually a detriment. In midnight, it becomes the thing that other people that makes other people

suspicious of him. And in this, the fast brain is something that he is supposed to slow down in this episode. But I love this moment when the not thing doctor,

as the not thing Donna is counting grains of salt on the floor, says, you know, we drifted here in the lack of life, passing no time, but we could feel it

from so far away. You're noisy, boiling. universe. We want to travel there to play your vicious games and win. The doctor said, if you exist here, no shape, no form, no purpose, then what's made you so bad? Quote, the things we felt they shaped us carrying us across, carrying across the dark, we could hear your lives of war and blood and fury and hate. They made us like this. You alluded to this exchange, right? Nodana says, we are more than that. This language here,

The darkness, the blood, all the stuff just took me right into that train car with the doctor and this creature who has inhabited the body of this woman. Steve, will you please play this clip? He's waited so long. He's waited so long. In the dark. In the dark. And the cold. And the gold.

And the diamonds. And the diamonds. Until you came. Until you came. Body so hot. Body so hot. With blood. With blood.

And pain. Oh, my God, make him stop. Someone make him stop. I love that episode so much. But yeah, like waiting in the dark, hot blood, boiling, pain, anger, all this sort of stuff. It's just the same idea. I have no problem with that, personally. There's also the banging noise on the roof in midnight, and there's the banging of the captain's sort of like hook on the outside of the ship in this episode.

I love earlier in the episode She's just like, what's that? And he's like, a noise. You're helpful. That's so good. What do you think about these midnight comps?

Is this interesting to you? What do you think? Yeah, this all tracks completely for me. I love it. And I think like one of the things I wanted to ask you and revisit here, an observation that sprung up at some point during the run, I guess it was in our pod about the 12th doctor because we were talking about, I was saying that heaven sent was I thought at that point my favorite Doctor Who episode and Midnight is

yours, observed that both of our favorites are the doctor alone without the companion and what does that maybe mean? And like, is there something for us to really interrogate there about why an episode like that really got its hooks into us? And so I think it's like really interesting to see a lot of that thematic text and also kind of like plot and like conceptual the horror

and intrigue poured it over into an episode like this built around the key relationship, right? That it's got space, not only space for that inside of it, but that's the essential thing. And like you take something like

the doctor's mind and make the great, I was going to say weapon, but I think the doctor would maybe prefer that we say tool, and turn it into the trap door that you can fall through at any moment. Like that question of, can you trust your own mind is always so interesting to me. It's one of the reasons that like playtest, I think it's like a really underrated black mirror episode. Black mirror episode. Yeah, that question is just always so fascinating to me. but I think that the genius of this particular speech from the not doc in interaction with the doc here is that it gives us a couple like key emotional bearings at the end of the episode here the things we felt they shaped us carrying across the dark we could hear your lives of war

and blood and fury and hate they made us like this this is the doctor who just revealed that the guilt and shame of the flux and half the universe being eliminated because of the doctor is like this turmoil, this roiling inferno of misery inside. To hear from the beings that would seek to mimic you so that they could go undo the very places and people that you seek to protect, that your entire identity is wrapped up in. Like, I'm the one who keeps them safe. and to hear the impact, your legacy, the thing that reached us is actually horror. Like, it's difficult for me to think of a more devastating thing for the doctor to hear. And so I don't want to jump ahead and spoil our feelings on the Wolf Exchange at the end, but I will just say, because I think it's contextually linked, is that as painful as this is here for the doctor,

Wilf saying, I never lost faith. Like, that's the self. That's the balm, right? That's like the thing that the doctor needs to hear on the heels of this, is that actually the impact that you had is this. It's the thing that you just heard for Wilf. It's what Donna and Wilf are reminding you of. It's your ability to, like, heal and preserve and protect.

And I was so struck by not Donna at the end of the clip we just heard. when, because real Donna says we're more than that. And what does not Donna say? Not Donna says, love letters don't travel very far. And like, so good.

What a good line. It's incredible line. And again, when we hold on to that question inside of these three episodes of like, who found me this face, who smirked me this face,

why this face, right? Yeah. This is the doctor who was a part of the doesn't need saying moment with Rose, who like couldn't put the love letter out into the world at all.

So to have to, like, confront the fact that the idea of, like, the love that people, the people he's trying to protect share with each other isn't the thing that permits. I think that's an important thing for this doctor to be thinking about. I love that. And I love how, I love that so much. And I love how the, how the, who frown me this face bleeds into this moment when the doctor is busy reading his own face being like, oh, you don't. I know that. I know this face very well.

So good. And I know that look and you don't know, you don't know what's going on. You don't know why I just did this. Another bit of language that I want to praise Russell for is goosebumps like braille, reading us. Goose bumps like braille. So good. Love this. Meanwhile, Tennant and Tate are just having a feel day smirking and sneering and their eyes gleaming and they're just being as evil as possible on the other side of the glass.

It's so good. And then I just want to like, in the performance and the characterization of the response, Donna and the doctor's individual responses to what the captain did, when Donna says with so with her big-hearted crying for the Oude empathy, she killed herself, right, for the greater good, right? She killed herself. Just the way she says that. And then Tenet as the doctor just brimming with admiration for her. Oh, well done, Captain, like, with a little space after she killed herself. But, like, working out what she did, setting up those slow-moving bomb. Oh, well-done, Captain.

And that's just, like, so I missed that admiration, you know, that the doctor would show for humanity from time to time. Your giants. I think you're giants. Just love that. And then Donna's just, like, just aching humanity. for this, you know, nameless creature that we know nothing about, except she did something very brave and very self-sacrificing. So incredible, incredible stuff.

This is just like actors who know their characters so perfectly, a writer who knows them perfectly, all working in perfect harmony. I could just never have dreamed. Even though I'm like, okay, they're giving me exactly what I want, which is the doctor and Donna are coming back. But, like, oftentimes what Hollywood's like, or in this case, the BBC, is going to give you what you want, it often ends up not being exactly what you wanted, actually. This just is. Like, I don't think I've ever experienced.

Like, I just don't think I've ever experienced such a perfect fulfillment of the prompt as this. Anything you want to say about running towards the bomb and everything that happens there down the corridor, the tariff. Hart is returning. You know, I think that... You know, I think that... Yeah, I think, you know, maybe the doc after this experience will reflect on the need

to learn a little acclimacy. That's probably something that I would throw out there, you know? So let's learn to shield our thoughts. I thought that the moment of... Choosing the wrong Donna... This was so upsetting. It's like actually almost

like difficult to believe. Classic who. I was like my heart was racing. My stomach was clenching. But when he said, and why is Mrs. Bean funny? Donna, who actually ends up being real Donna says,

because it's the name of a vegetable giving to a woman. It's like in tears I was laughing so hard. It was just perfect. Like it was just perfect. then not Donna says it just is and he grabs her. And you're like, oh my God. Like there's again, the rational part of your brain understands the doctor is in a time machine and we'll figure it out.

At some point, we'll like turn around and see that the arms are too long, which is exactly what happens. It ends up being mere millimeters. And we'll get back to Donna just in time. But there was like a minute, like a second where I was like, wait. Is this about to happen? Like, were you, did you think that it was possible? And, like, I pride myself on not getting duped around a fakeout death. I think I'm just still so traumatized by what Russell did to Donna all those years ago that I'm

like, he wouldn't. He wouldn't bring her back to do this. There's no way he would. But would he? Like, I don't know. You know, like, it got, like, I really, it really got me for just, like, yeah, just a few seconds. And also, like, helped by Catherine's incredible performance of Donna. facing, you know, the end, knowing she won't get back to Rose and Deshaun, all of that

in the face of this inferno. But it was just like, yeah, I was like, what if he does? What if he does this? Like, I'll really never forgive him this time. But, yeah. That would have been unbelievable. I thought, too, like, there was a part of me that was really rebelling in real time against the doctor making the wrong choice because I was like, this is an episode that's a real

celebration of. I agree. their bond and their true understanding of each other. But I kind of ended, then I ended up coming back to like, I like what that tells us about life being a progression and about relationships being living documents that move and change in real time. And that like the takeaway of being back with them for me is not,

they know each other in full completely. It's as we see when Donna pushes him in a conversation that we'll talk about in the TARDIS in a minute, is that they care enough to always try. Right. And so the fact that he made a mistake, I was like very wounded and actually like offended at first. And then I kind of worked myself into like, does this maybe tell us something important about? I like that interpretation. I was also very offended. But at the same time, if I were the doctor in that moment, I would be like that the not Donna gave the what feels like the more human Donna answer. Honestly, I was like, I would have made the same wrong decision.

Also, it must be said, what was she? I was just going to repeat again, it's the name of a vegetable given to a woman, which I just can't believe. It just killed me. It's so funny, Donna. We must acknowledge the moment, I don't think we've ever seen anything quite like it, when Ten uses his foot to skateboard the TARDIS down the ramp, towards the Donna's. Sensational.

Yeah. Sensational. Wonderful. Another absolute showcase for the converse. So this was a moment where I was thinking to myself, should the doctor embrace like a Nike SB dunk? If we're going to be doing some skateboard work. A little grippier. Yeah.

Do we need to get some dunks into the mix? Maybe so. I have some thoughts. Send them to shooty. Okay. So we get this aftermath reflection, which is not always the case in a Doctor Who adventure. Something scary can happen. just sort of jaunting on to the next thing.

But this is an episode so carefully calibrated between Jolly and Wartime that we get this moment where they're just like sitting on the floor of the TARD is clutching each other. Panting, traumatized. The kiss on the head. The little kiss on the head. Incredible. I loved it. Clutching her to him.

She's so precious to him. And it reminded me of this moment at the end of midnight. when the doctor comes back to this, like, luxury hotel they're staying with. And, um, the, Donna does a, like, cutesy little, like, mock repeat of what he just said, which is what the monster was doing on the, on the train. And, uh, and he goes, no, no, no, no, don't do that. Right. Just like, this was so, I am so shook.

This is so unsettling that I cannot just go back into, like, jolly, jollity farm sort of stuff. So, yeah. He says that thing about superstition at the edge of the universe. It's concerning. Where the walls are thin and all things feel possible. What are we more nervous about? Meep bringing back the boss or spilling some salt at the edge of the universe. I'm troubled by it all.

I'm troubled by mavety. I'm concerned. I just want everyone to be okay. Let's hear the doctor trying to make this bid for connection again with the real Donna and Donna not letting him off the hook fully, but also not pressing him fully. See, if we play this, please. The other Donna had your memory. She could remember us as the doctor Donna.

So she could see my life and my mind and my thoughts. The past 15 years. All the time we've been apart, she could remember it. Can you? No. It's too much. It's like looking into a furnace. But I suppose she had a great big outspaced brain.

She could make sense of it. Yeah, maybe. Why? I was wondering. What did she see? Like what? Where have you been since I love song? What's happened?

What happened? I don't know the usual. Robots chases waterfalls. I'm okay. But what really happened? I'm not. You okay? I will be.

When? A million years. Two things both of equal importance. Number one, Donna pushing back. Okay, but what really happened, right? Donna pushing back. Number two, do you think the phrase, robots chases waterfalls is supposed to make me think of

don't go chasing waterfalls robots chases waterfalls please that's where my brain went I'm sorry I don't know why else waterfalls is in there anyway what do you want to say about this exchange You know, I think like what I was, I loved this. I thought this was wonderful. And like I was saying earlier, like I absolutely love and adore that Donna knows that there is something here that needs unearthing.

And like, she's not pushing. She's pushing, but like in a loving, nurturing way, not in a forceful way. Yeah. And she's pushing in a way that says, like, I'm. reminding you that I'm here when you're ready. And, you know, in the way that he was asking. And I know you. I may not have the memories of the past 15 years, but I do know you.

Exactly. And like the way that he was asking, if she remembered this, the tone and like trying to kind of read and parse the tone was, it was so interesting to me because there's a part of it that feels like he's hopeful, right? Well, if you have all of this information, then I don't have to like muster the courage to tell you. You already know, but also a part that was like fearful and like, what would it mean? if you knew this about me.

I'm not quite ready for that yet. And so like I said earlier, I really appreciated that they didn't fast forward through whatever this sharing ultimately looks like, whatever shape and form that takes for them, and that that's a decision that they have to, like an active choice that they have to make for themselves. And that like even in the absence of that knowledge here,

it's okay because the truth of their relationship and like Donna saying, I know you, I know enough to ask, I know that there's something you're not saying is the thing that matters most. I thought that was lovely. And like, I think that Donna understands, Donna understands, like, I think a central thing about what it means to be the doctor. Like, I was thinking a little bit about this isn't a 10 line.

This is an 11 line. But that beautiful stretch of 11's parting, like, we all change. When you think about it, we're all different people all through our lives. and that's okay, that's good. You've got to keep moving so long as you remember all the people that you used to be. And, like, how much of what we're experiencing here with 14 really seems to connect to that idea, like so long as you remember all the people that you used to be. And, like, Donna knows a person that he used to be, and he has learned new things about himself since,

and she has learned new things about herself since. and now part of moving forward together means like learning those new things and sharing those new things with each other and the way that they choose while also being able to hold on to the thing that came before. Like it doesn't erase. These aren't actually AI bots.

Like you're not just writing over a new version of like copy, right? It's not like a new OS that you downloaded and now you're the new doctor. It's like every experience that you had is a part of who you are right now. And that's been so true for Donna as a human being in the world. And that's part of why, just like with Wilf and like when he was saying to

to Wilf that sometimes he thinks that time lords live too long, this is the other side of it. Like, it's the possibility always for some new discovery and new source of connection inside of that long life. So I thought that this was, this was beautiful. I like that idea of like hopeful and also scared. Like, can you as being scared of like, am I ready for you to see, all of that. Because as you know, I spent a lot of time

on Dr. Who TikTok. I have seen some people do really good edits already of him saying, okay, her saying okay, but really happened. And in the pause, a bunch of flashes of like extremely traumatic things that have happened

to all the doctors in between. And then he says a lot. So you like feel, we felt, we just spent all year watching those adventures, so we do feel the weight of that. in case you need a refresher. Like some of those edits are really powerful. But I think that this is something that the doctor doesn't get to have.

This is why the doctor is always chasing connection to the master. Yeah. Which is like it's so hard for the doctor to feel known. And this prospect of like, oh, here's someone that Dr. Donna. Right. She will have known. Because it wasn't 15 years. 15 Earth years, but like, you know, so many years in heaven sent, 900 years on a planet for 11, you know, like, it's eons.

And if there was another person out there who had all that information downloaded, then there was another person out there who could know you the way that you're craving to be known, the way that these ephemeral passing human companions can only ever see a sliver of you. What if someone could see a whole great big slice of you, of your history? And then the prospect of the master is someone who could see all of you, which is why that dynamic is always so, when done right, so interesting. All right. Let's get to Wilf. Let's get to what I'm calling the Gramps who waited. The Gramps who waited.

Gramps just out here with his thermos. I love it. I think nothing RTT has ever written. Nothing the show has ever said is more true than the clip we heard at the top. The doctor saying, Wilford Mott, oh, now I feel better. Same. Now nothing is wrong. Same.

Nothing the whole wide world. Same. Hello, me old soldier. Hello, me old soldier. Like, come on. Magic. We've already talked about our emotional reaction to Wolf. Let's hear like the other half of this exchange.

As you said, there's the I Never Give Up Hope, that aspect, and also an ominous next time on Doctor Who. Yeah. Steve, will you place, please? Yeah, well, I knew it. I never lost fake. I said, he won't let us down. Who come back and save us?

Save us from one. And where's the family? West Rose. Are they all right? Yeah, they're fine. They're safe. I've told them to bunker down. I'll keep watch.

I said, you save us. Why is there something wrong? It's everybody. It's everything. They're all going mad. Listen, you're going to do something, doctor. The whole world coming to an end. And as I said in our notes,

Oceanic Flight 815 crashed above as this exchange is going on. Great stuff. Incredible performance. Bernard Krivitz. Great stuff. I love this tease. of the next time on, you've got to do something, Doctor.

The whole world's coming to an end. What a great tease. I just, I don't know. Maybe I've already said all the things that I wanted to say about this. I just think that, like, Wilford Mott is one of the most special creations of all fiction ever. And that sort of, I was, I was, it's funny, I was watching an old, I just, like, went down to, like, Bernard Cribbins YouTube rabbit hole at some point

preparing these notes. And I rewatch one of my favorite things, which is David Tennant guest-hosted this British panel show called, never mind the Buzzcocks, I think that's what it's called, which I've watched hours of on YouTube, but he's guest hosting, and Catherine Tate is on one team, and Bernard is on another team, and it's just, like, really funny and delightful, and Bernard is, like, very sharp and hilarious. And Noel Fielding is on Catherine Tate's team, and he's just like, he's like, I got to retire. Like you are, you are like so weird and funny and like I look like mainstream comedy compared to you.

It's like very, very charming. But I found this old like Doctor Who confidential, which is what the after show used to be called, of the episode where Wilf is really established as Donna's grandfather, the sort of like at most, not a tremendously great episode of television. But, you know, we get Wilf as not just someone that the doctor met. with Kylie Minogue on Christmas, but like, an official part of the family. And Davis said the grandfather character, this grandfather character is one I wanted to write from the very beginning. This is a character that's been rattling around my brain from, like, from Rose,

from the very beginning of his run. And he was like, he's someone who gets swept up in the romance of the doctor, in that sort of romances in like just a dashy. hero, someone to look up to, someone so brave and wonderful. And the emotional, like, Wilf is a conduit for me at my most emotional when I just love the doctor, balanced by the tartness of Donna who never lets the doctor off the hook for his bullshit. Alon's as an idiot would say E, like all of that sort of stuff.

Like, the sweet and the salt of the two of them with this doctor. is so phenomenally important to me. And I am so grateful that we got this scene with Wilf here at the end of all things. Same. This was just so beautiful. I just loved it. I'm really grateful. I'm really grateful that we and everyone in the show got to have this beautiful,

precious moment that we can cherish and think of and be glad for and celebrate for the rest of time with Wilf, who we love. And I just, the moment where he saw the doctor and, like, brought his hand to his face and the joy that just washed over him and, like, the encapsulation of faith rewarded, it was just such a beautiful moment and message. And, like, I think the thing that has always been so great about Wolf and Donna and Wolf and the doctor is that everything is circular and that love and admiration is so mutual. And so the doctor has that look on his face too when he sees Wolf. And Donna has it on her face when she sees Wolf. And we have it on our faces because, like, this is a love shared. And that's like, I don't know if you've heard, Joe, but adventures, they must be shared.

And Wolf really helped us remember that. I love him. It's a lot of what we talked about in Star Base, this idea of, like, well, a couple of things are going on here. Like, Wilf, getting to see the doctor wear this face again, knowing that Wilf carried some. some guilt around the doctor's last regeneration, right? Even though we all agree it's not Will's fault, but like, and then we won't get to see it because this is all that Kribbins filmed, but the idea that Donna can greet her grandfather as the fullest version of herself.

And he can tell her about his adventures with the doctor and she can talk to him about her adventures with the doctor. Presuming they both survive next week, which I think is the intention of this showrunner, we can then just, we get to imagine those conversations that they get to have now. It's not just a greeting of Gramps and Donna, I haven't seen you since, you know, two days ago or whatever.

It's, I haven't seen you really in 15 years. years. Right. Not fully. And this is the reunion we get to watch. So. It means a lot to me. This song is ending, but the story never ends. All right. One last one last thing before we go is we're going to do a little quick theory corner based on an email we got. It's not really like spoily theory corner at all, but it does contain some information about how RTD is thinking about the new season that I thought that I hadn't fully read about, and so I thought was interesting and worth including here. So this is Theory Corner out of nowhere from Caleb.

Who writes, my big question is, is RTD bringing up these 13th Doctor Threads to potentially wrap them up and clear the deck for Shootie's doctor? RTD has publicly talked about how the big publicity blitz for Doctor Who on Disney Plus is set to coincide with Shooties launch. And an SFX magazine, he talked about how they're referring to Shudy's first season is season one. There are plenty of other small things that line up with this, such as the BBC I player, where the ninth through the 13th's doctor seasons are now labeled Doctor Who 2005 to 2022, whereas the 60th specials are now under Doctor Who, 2023, to whenever.

If they want the 15th Doctor to serve as a new dumping on point, I think the most logical thing would be to try to tie up these big, messy stories from the previous era so that RCT can once again start with a similarly fresh slate with 15 a la what he had with nine. essentially the plot mechanics achieved with the time warp at this time on screen. We've already seen sewn throughout this episode the rewriting of history with the whole gravity mavety bit, which feels like a big check-offs reset button. That was so disconnected for the rest of the plot that I don't see RTD repeatedly highlighting it if he didn't have bigger plans for it.

So to Caleb's, I didn't know that we were branding shooties for season and season one. That's interesting to me. I it feels like way too much to try to get out of the way in one episode, which presumably includes a lot of deal Patrick Harris wanting about the place, you know, like with his dodgy British accent. So like I don't know. And also, as we said, RTD has been on record that he likes the timeless child thing. That being said, we both have a spidey sense about the Mavity thing.

So I feel like there's something going on there. I don't know if it's going to be a big erasure of the timeless child. Maybe we can erase what happened with the flux, but I don't know. RTD loves a brooder. So I can't imagine he would clear the tragedy off the board. So any thoughts or feelings about this email from Caleb, Molly Rubin? Interesting. I don't know. I feel like I'll be better equipped to comment on this after next week and like seeing where we landed here.

That's like a... Sure. That's a lot to wrap our mind. I also did not know that this was being... That the 15th Doctor's first season was being branded as season one and that there was a little bit more of like a breaking off point and like a repositioning. That's interesting to me. feels that almost feels like a let's just replicate as much as we can of what RTD did with the ninth doctor so that it feels like a safe place for people to start yeah like it's so I think it

I think if people it's like when we were talking about fargo and has the recommends and you're like can someone just jump into season five and I'm like yes but there's still people who are going to feel weird about jumping into season five of something and I certainly think people are going to be like seasons you know 15 like yeah yeah. Like how much of this is potentially about the actual story and what will carry over and not carry over and feel contained and how much of it is literally like this is going to be on Disney Plus and we really want a lot of people to watch it. And so like let's make it. Yeah. And logistically. Natural starting point. The older stuff. The older stuff is here at least in the States still on Max. Right. So on Disney Plus right now are just the two new specials.

And then, yeah, it'll say season one, and that'll be much more clean than season 15. Where do I find seasons one through 14? Well, you've got to go to a different streaming service to find those. Welcome to the streaming. Because the rights are weird. Also, by the way, Disney Plus is doing a terrible job. I don't know if you've experienced this of putting the specials like on the splash page. Also, both specials had their own.

They're not like part of one Doctor Who Carousel. They were separate entries. I think I will say one, though I guess this could have. happened either way. But one benefit of that maybe is that when you finish special two, it says the recommended viewing is special one, whereas after special one, the recommended viewing was Dr. Strange in the multiverse of madness, I believe, because it begins with the word doctor. Doctor. I know. And also it's a space and time adventure, sort of. Yeah, recommending Dr. Strange was genuinely one of the funniest things. Yeah. So this is probably,

it's probably a logistical thing. And also like, let's remove a bear. of entry for people thing. But I think it is worth thinking about. Always worth thinking about. But I mean, I can envision, you know, we're getting a new companion, we're getting a new doctor from what we've seen just from like costumes and guest stars and stuff like that. Like, I can really see this feeling more like 9's first season or 10's first season versus like a season where a bunch of mythology is going to come heavily back into play.

Like I just don't think we should expect too much like, oh, River Songs here or a rose is here or something. You know, I just don't think, I think he's going to want to be like, this is our new doctor, this is his companion, this is the adventure that they're on. So we'll see. And I think if that's the desire, like a full or a more full, a more fully established demarcation between like character sets and even just like the past mythology that's being incorporated, then some sort of like we spawned an alternate timeline. line slash dimension or we went into universe two after all or something like maybe does help like formalize that reset. I think also it would help like further answer that question of why this face and like why 10 returned as 14 and really like putting a bow on that era of Dr. Who? Why is Donna not a big part of, you know, this new thing? And like, and what's also true

is that here's my secret. It's not realistic. We're almost, we're almost, we're almost down here. We're about to wrap up. Let me just whisper my secret desire into the universe. RTD is like, if you got so close to the screen, I love you. She said you were going to whisper. I mean, I'm wearing headphones. I'm not going to whisper. I'm not going to whisper, but like, I think as we mentioned last week, if you watch this on BBC, there's this Marvel-esque, Marvel Studios-esque, Hooniverse. And RTD has all these plans, you know, similar to what he did the first time with Torchwood and Sarah Jane, etc. Of spinoffs galore

and they're just going to create a whole IP Spiderweb of Who's stories. I know we've seen regeneration evidence and stuff like that, but I'm like, what if we got both? What if like Shudie gets this tremendously wonderful adventure in a new universe, but we could still occasionally have

David Tennett and Catherine Tate specials in our current. universe. I know there's a million reasons why I shouldn't want that. And I do want, I want Shuddy Gathwa to be like the doctor. I don't want him to be like a sub-multiverse, whatever doctor. Like, not really. You don't want to be finished with, with Tenet and Donna and Rose like, again, this is, this is, this is the, my inner Mallory Rubin is coming to the surface. I feel this way too. I mean, that's the button. The downside of a true reset is like, it's painful. think of like never returning to, forget even like, will we get answers to our questions

about the timeless child? It's like, you have never hearing from or checking in on Donna or Rose or Martha or like anyone again is almost inconceivable to me. That actually does seem impossible to me. I cannot imagine that being the path forward. But maybe it's a break for a while and then, who knows? Well, keep an open mind and open heart. Always. This episode of Dr. Who was dedicated to the memory of Bernard Cribbins, and I think we should do the same thing for this podcast.

They are not departed from us, but I would also like to dedicate this podcast to our lovely producer, Steve Allman, to Arjuna McPul for his production work on everything. Arjuna is like the best. one of the biggest Hoovians I know. So it's been a real joy to talk to Arjuna about Doctor Who. And to join me a dinner round on the social. We'll be back again and again this week to talk about House of the Dragon to talk about Miyazaki.

Until then, is your arm the right link? You might want to double check. Bye!