House of R - ‘Doctor Who’ Anniversary Special Part 3: "The Giggle"

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

It is time to introduce a new doctor and the ‘House of R’ is here to guide you through the third special of ‘Doctor Who,’ titled "The Giggle" (07:47). They take a look at the thrilling conclusion of the 14th doctor as he faces off against the toy maker, as well as the introduction of Ncuti Gatwa as the 15th doctor (23:42). 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 Derek Thompson, the host of the Ringer podcast, plain English. Look, a lot of news these days is kind of nonsense. I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here. I'm just trying to ask the questions that matter from people who know more than I do about about everything I'm curious about. And that's most things. Recession fears, AI hyperbole, psychology, productivity, China, war, streaming, movies, sports, you name it. The world without jargon.

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visit spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. You're saying you need to stop. I don't know how. Well, I can tell you. Because you know what I did? When you went flying off in your blue box basement,

I stayed in one place and I lived day after day after day. What drive me mad? Yeah. It does. One adventure you've never had. Because of what happened. You changed your face. And then you found me.

Do you know why? Dr. Vers. I'll see. Hello. I'm Joanna Robinson. And joining me today. To wrap up a year-long kind of adventure of a lifetime, maybe. Alone, it's a journey.

Adventures they must be shared. It is my forever companion. Don't say companion. Mallory. Ruben. Hey, Mallory. Joe, I'm here. I got a lift off a zingo.

Owsy, bad babies. Here we are to talk about the last of the specials, barring the Christmas special, which is also just coming in a couple weeks. So don't cry too soon. We're going to talk about, though, the giggle, which is anniversary special part three. So if you've not yet giggled your way through

the introduction of a brand new doctor. You're going to want to go watch that before you listen to us, cover it here today. Quick programming, reminders. Our pal's a buttmash. Ben Lindbergh, our beloved pal. It's covering Avatar, colon,

Frontiers of Pandora. Mallory, over under me ever playing an Avatar video game. I actually feel like maybe more likely to try the game than to watch the movies. You know what? The big sales pitch of, it's just like, I just want to hang out in this water. Yeah.

There you go. Swim around. I do love hanging out in water. You know that about me. All right. You love an ocean. You hate a crevice. You love an ocean.

The minty folks are covering things we missed this year. So if you have been, you keyboard, keyboard warrior's been like, excuse me, why isn't anyone covered X, Y, or Z, the Mint Edition crew will be, you know, going back through some things that we missed on our coverage. And the Midnight boys are taking a little, I think a little break, but it seems like they will be back for Aquaman, as will we, back for, you know, film of the year next week. So, you know. But before that, before we dive deep into the waters of Aquaman, Mallory and are going to

be doing our favorite best moments of the year. second annual tradition for us. Last year I cried four times. We'll see how many times I cry this year. I don't know who's to say. I can't wait for this spot. We'll be counting down our top moments of the year, including sound clips and tears and all the rest later this week on this very feed.

Mallory, gosh, so much. I can folks keep up with all the exciting programming in the Hooniverse. Thanks for asking. Yeah. Not yes. Appreciate it. here in the Hooniverse, the Ringiverse,

House of R, follow the pod. Follow the House of R on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Follow the Ringiverse, follow Tryabout content, follow Prestige TV.

While you're at it, you've got your phone in your hand already. Follow the Ringervverse on the social media platform of your choosing. The Ringervverse is on Instagram. TikTok, Twitter.

Almost on X. almost in it, but I just simply can't bring myself to do it. Bloody Twitter. And don't forget to send us your emails. The inbox is open this holiday season and always. So send your musings to Hobbits and Dragons at gmail.com. Sign it with your pickle. Something you.

Yeah, please do sign it with your pickle in your Apple of Choice. We got, as you might imagine, one bejillo. Julian Doctor Who emails. Because something big happened in this episode, and a lot of people had some thoughts and feelings about it. So we got so many. And, you know, as I said, it's a culmination of a year-long adventure with us on our rewatch, etc. We have a couple more things worth of the year. And maybe I just want to put this bug in listeners here early and just say, if you're a Percy Head, you're a Percy Jackson fan.

You might want to, you know, get a jump on that. I know you haven't seen the episodes. We haven't seen the episodes yet, but we will be covering some Percy before the year is out. And I know a lot of people care a lot about those books. So if there's like book feelings you have or whatever, Havas and Dragons at gmail.com. The Christmas special of Doctor Who, we shall be covering. I think if all goes according to plan, it will be up the same day or perhaps on boxing day the next day, something like that, in and around the debut of Shidi Gatwa's first full adventure.

The episode's called The Church on Ruby Road. we'll be talking about that a little bit at the very tail end of this episode. But we're here today to talk about the giggle written by Russell T. Davis, directed by Chania Button. And I watched a panel with Chania and a couple of other folks who worked on the show. They did like a live streaming panel right after the episode on Saturday. And I thought I loved David Tenet the most, but I'm wildly incorrect because this woman is the world's number one David Tenet fan. So here she is to give him.

this big moment in the sun under some wisteria. Before we get into the episode, and we're not quite going beat by beat this week because we really want to make sure we have a lot of time for the by generation, a lot of thoughts and feelings and questions and comments and concerns about that. But before we get into that, let's do the old snapshot of the episode. Obviously, we'll get into the details of shitty arrivals, his arrival later. all of our thoughts and feelings, all of that in context and larger episode.

But I thought we should start with like first impressions of the 15th doctor. Mallory Rubin, she got what is here. We got much more of him than we usually get in a handoff episode. What did you think? Oh, I thought that I thought shitty was sensational. I already am absolutely smitten. In love with 15. Can't wait to spend more time with the 15th doctor.

a charisma bomb, just like magnetic, the charm, the excitement, like the zeal, the zest for everything that awaits, it feels like the most enthralling and energizing boost you could have. It's like a little trampoline into the new era, right? It just gives us that jump. And like when he's running around and exploring the TARDIS and gently and lovingly shoeing 14 and Donna out because it's time. It's time to go explore the great big world. I felt that excitement too. I felt ready to get going. I'm glad that the wait for the Christmas special, our first full episode with 15 is a brief

wait because we will be in the throes of this first new adventure before long. So I thought he was sensational. I can't wait for more. I'm genuinely really, really hyped. How about you? Loved it. Loved him. I love that you said a little trampoline is such a good one.

I was thinking like he took a giant oversized mallet and smacked the franchise lovingly on the side of its walls and then apologized to it. Just like a very, we've been talking about this a lot with 14 as a very loving doctor. And it almost feels like we talked about this. I think last week is like, is that a bridge to help us get ready for, she got while playing 15 as a more emotional doctor? And so the hug we get, the kiss, like, you know, just like, yeah, like a warm hug of a man. And I'm so excited that we get to follow him wherever he goes. It's just I'm thrilled. This is like, and it's such a great fulfillment of like an actor I'm familiar with.

I have seen him play a role, like a TV role, Eric on sex education for years and years and years. So it's like, okay, what, like, is this just going to feel like Eric? again, is it going to feel like something a little different? And it does feel different, not just because he's got this, like, dashing mustache, but like other things are going on. And so it's just like, it's like, it's what I wanted, which is like for everyone to get to enjoy and understand how exciting this casting is and how exciting this actor is, but also something like a little different and more involved from this other role that I already love so much. quick commentary from our listeners. Brooke wanted to share this comment she saw on YouTube from someone named Stephanie. So that's like a Russian-nesting doll of a comment. But anyway, this YouTube comment reads, he was born, gave himself a kiss on the head, told himself to get therapy, and flew off all without wearing pants. What a sleigh, honestly.

Tremendous. Yeah. And the first glitch we have of the new trailer is dancing in the club. Like, this is great. Incredible. There is a thirst for life that is palpable from the jump. It's exciting. I love that.

And then we got so many emails that had the word pants or trousers in the subject line. I hope you're proud of the bad babies, Mallory Rubin. Of course. I expect nothing less. Pants in both the UK and American sense, I think. Right. Sure. But one of our listeners, I think it's Tiley is how you pronounce his name.

Just that the subject's line. was, and he did it with no trousers in all caps. That was a subject line of an email. And I think that sums it all up. Sums it all up. You got a nice pair of underwear and a nice pair of converse. What more do you need to tackle the world? The universe.

And a jauntily untie tie tie. You would, you would, get to go. You would save the universe. You would tour the universe in your skivies. The whole full risky business. Probably, honestly. Yeah, I think so. I would be fine with that.

Okay. I wouldn't mind. Other than Shudy, what's your other sort of like big picture take away from this episode? Yeah, I enjoyed the episode on balance. I found certain parts of it more successful than others. I was recoiling in revulsion and horror during the Snokey Sue, Stooky Bobby's section, which genuinely sent me back to a childhood trauma of one of my neighbors' older. brothers showing me child's play when I was seven years old. That was a no for me, but that's not

really the episode's fault. I am excited to talk about the, a performance that I think redefines camp. I'm excited to talk about the toy maker with you today. There's a lot to discuss. In terms of 10-14 and Donna, it felt cathartic. And like, we got the closure that we needed and that to me. That and setting up 15s era, those are the two most crucial tasks that this episode faced. And I thought it achieved both of those. So other elements being slightly less successful, that's a thing. And we'll talk about maybe why that was as we go.

But the emotional, our opening clip today, like the emotional wallup. of hearing Donna welcome the doctor into a piece that he did not know he could have. That was beautiful. And I thought that was like a really meaningful thing. I'm not even going to get into my response to the by generation stuff here because I think we'll just end up then having a 40-minute conversation before our subsequent 40-minute conversation. So we'll just put a pin in that and save all our thoughts. I will say it's a rich text and we have a lot to discuss. And I look forward to hearing all of your thoughts. What about you, though? Broadly, how did you feel about the episode? Yeah, the Tartis is like an in-law unit and Donna's back garden was not something that I had ever on my

bucket list, but I loved to see it. I could decide if it felt more like, because it was so like enmeshed in the shrubbery, I can decide if it felt more like a particularly blue hedge or just like a shed, like very Amy Ponds backyard. incredible how it looked like the yard wouldn't make sense without the tartis in it. I loved that. Yeah, it was sort of being swallowed by the greenery. And I think that, like, I have questions about what happens to that greenery when he jumps off. And crucially, what happens to the force field around the moles, Joe?

That was my big question. I think it's staged. I think it's intact. What happens to the force field protecting the moles from will fit all costs? And if you think of it like a shed, then it's a nice little circle back to Rose's Shed in the first episode of these three episodes, etc. So I will talk about a little bit about how I watched this episode, which is different from the last two specials. I thought I was doing us all a favor by requesting screeners from BBC and Disney because I heard a rumor that some were going around and we hadn't watched any for the first two episodes. And I was like, oh, I'll get a little jump on my weekend homework.

and this way I can do more prep. So they sent me, and they were so kind and generous and quick to send me a confirmation, and they sent me a screener for this episode. And I thought I had the whole episode. And I did freak out when I, I, because I don't read the fine print of my emails, that's why. And so I like watched it. And I saw the runtime was like 38 minutes. And I was like, that should have pinged something for me.

And I was kind of like, did they not send me the whole episode? But I was like, or is this a 30-minute episode? So I spent that whole viewing, basically screaming at my screener, which I watched after, I should say, after we recorded last week, I watched it on like Friday or whatever, screaming, we don't have time for this.

That's how I felt. And I still kind of feel that way about a lot that happens in the first half of the episode. Basically, the screener then cuts out right before they go out. on the plot, like the deck of Avengers Tower of the Gunners H-Q. Yeah. Yeah.

So it's like you get the Spice Girls number and essentially like right after that. Iconic. Yeah, great. I love the Spice Girls number. But I was just like, I was, as you really going through the Toymakers realm and all this stuff was happening, I was like, I don't, it felt it's, no matter how you watch it, it's an antic frantic kind of episode. It's just going and going and going.

And you could maybe make the argument. that that's kind of the point. It's supposed to make you feel like this sort of frenetic grind so that when everyone's like, you can rest now to the doctor, you yourself are sort of coming down from this like panicked pace of the episode and this performance. A very pepper pot's way of putting it. That intentionally so. Sorry, I think about that line all the time because it's what we wrote in our book as a dedication

to my sister. and I'm like, was that too much for my sister? You can rest now. Anyway. I love it. I love it. Good old pep. Couple things.

I had this in my notes last week and I forgot to say it. But the 14th doctor's vest that is only fashioned by or only held together by one button. And I heard last week that that was David Tennant's idea. So I was like, wow, what a like slutty little button choice. Like it just looks so slaty. And I mean that in a sex positive sort of way. I'm just sort of like, ooh, what a like a tantalizing little like choice he made. And then a costume designer Pam Down who has a lot to say about who wears pants,

et cetera, et cetera, that we'll talk about later, said basically they put the costume together. David Ten was very insisted that he have a costume that looked very similar to his old costume, right? He's like, if it's not broke, why fix it? So we're going to do something very similar. Different chucks, as Mallory's noted, different patterns. So they go, they make him this beautiful suit, like a Saville Row Taylor, makes him this beautiful suit. And then he's like, now make it smaller because it should look like it doesn't fit me anymore.

And so she was like, the pants are tighter. You know, and she's like, and then you see the Saville Roe Taylor, like his entire life crash before him because he's like, what do you mean? Make the suit. fit you. That's my whole life's purpose is to make the suit fit you like a glove. Oh, man. But he just, it was all part of this idea of making this doctor look worn out tired, just raggedy, raggedy man, you know, sort of thing. I don't think it really worked, but I like I got to say, it did not have that with love and respect for everybody who put a ton of thought

into that. It did not have that, it did not ping that way for me simply because I think David Tennant can pull off anything he wears. So it looks like I'm just really leaning into like a hipster skinny cut. Correct. Kind of vibe. And I was like, it's working. It's working. Last thing I want to say before we get into this.

Yeah. Is I want to have a moment of shared silence for Martha Jones. Because I do not understand quite what happened in this episode. I did rewatching the episode. Yeah. I was like, wow, every, like, okay, the Jody companions don't get a mention, but like all the other companions get a mention. River Song gets a mention. Rose is mentioned.

The Moffat companions get their own little like Puffet show. Yeah. Unit is here. Yeah. Where is Martha fucking Jones? And if she's not in the episode, why does she not even mention it? I like even went over to like a transcript of the episode just in case I missed it and word searched Martha to see if Martha was mentioned anywhere. And she's not.

And I was like, I'm like, I'm not mad. I'm just disappointed. And I'm like, to the point, it's so bizarre that I'm like, does Frima, the actress? I was like, does she have beef with RTD? Like, what's going on here? I was just like, I, anyway, justice from Martha Jones. May she show up in many a spinoff in the future. And I'm a little disappointed for her that Rose gets her very own David Tenet Doctor.

and Donna gets her memory of David Tenet Doctor and Martha doesn't. She's the only one. What is going on? What gives? Oh, man. Yeah. Obviously, the puppet show specifically was framed as like, here's what Donna missed and Martha came before.

So that part made sense to me. But the unit of it all, I agree, that felt conspicuous. And then certainly even just the absence of a mention in the rundown of all of this, the shared memory and all of this history. But given Martha's canonical involved. involvement with unit, there are, there just had to be a way

to account for what Martha was doing, even if Martha wasn't going to be present in the episode. And I think certainly we'll get to Mel later. But I will just say with love for Mel, a person that I have now known for one hour of TV and TV only. So I do not claim to be equipped to like properly comment on what it meant to have Mel, Mel back.

in a three-run stretch that is oriented around the idea of why this face, like why return to this version of who you were, I think irrefutably would have been more impactful if Martha had been either in the Mel role or there in addition because Martha is a person that 10 slash now 14 has history with, right? And that's what this was about, like reassessing 10's life through 14's eyes. to achieve a new sense of harmony. I have no connection to her history with Mel as a companion or Bonnie Langford really as a performer. She seems to be of special importance to Davis, you know, and he has indicated that perhaps

we'll see more of her in the future. And I'm like, okay, that's fine. I like her well enough. She doesn't mean anything to me personally, and she didn't connect to me. with me the way that Sarah Jane did sort of instantly when when she showed up. And so I found myself really wishing that had been Martha. Again, with love and respect to the Mel B fans out there. Absolutely.

Absolutely. All that said, Mad Auntie Mel, it's a great nickname. So good. And I hope it sticks. Will you start calling me Matt? Yeah, will you start calling me Matt Auntie Mel? Yeah, I will. That's a promise for meeting you.

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Ask your doctor about Trimfaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. All right. Let's go into the deep dive. Steve, to get a taste of Neil Patrick Harris and his very distinctive accent as the toy maker, will you play us this first clip?

Leave your troubles outside. Oh, I'm sorry, Steve, Steve. I'm so, Steve? Oh, I'm so sorry. I think that's a clip of Neil Patrick Carrick is the emcee and cabaret. Bizarre. I don't know how that got in there. Incredible. Can you play? It's clip number two, Steve. Can you play that for me, please?

Remarkable. Goodbye to the Tardis. You never tell me to do that. Oh, but he is recognizing me. Are you not get pleased, it, air doctor? To see me again after so many years. So I would argue that a lot of the six years. of this episode, at least the first, oh, 38 minutes of it, hinges on your appetite for

Neil Patrick Harris' is schick in, especially in this role. He's using his accent from cabaret. He's using all of his magic castle tricks. Actually, even I was, so I was watching some, because obviously Steve didn't, just so Steve doesn't get any comments. Steve didn't mess up. I put a cabaret clip in there. It's a bit. I thought it would be hilarious. It's a bit. Ever heard of a bit.

You did. And that brought joy to my heart. But since I was like looking for clips of Neil Patrick Harris playing the MC in Cabaret, I was watching some footage of him. And one of his dance moves in the Spice Girls sequence is directly from his opening number in Cabaret. I mean, it's not like a wildly unique dance movie. It might be a coincidence, but it didn't really feel like a coincidence to me. You know, Patrick Harris has history with Russell T. Davis, of course. He was in It's a Sin.

He's a musical theater guy, et cetera, et cetera. I do have questions about all the accent choices in this particular episode. But, like, if you were looking for, as the word you used, Mal was camp, you're looking for camp, if you're looking for over the top, if you're looking for all of that, he certainly delivered. How did that work for you, Mallory Rubin? The accent oddity I didn't mind, I think in part because it was called out right at the top in the opening scene with Charlie who was there to secure Stoogie Bill and like said right away, your accent's slipping and we understand that this is like all stick, all farce, all gimmick

to try to like put whomever is across the counter. on the back foot. And it was just so over the top and bizarre. And then we get these lines about like governed by the rules of play, which is how the doctor describes the toy maker's, the toy maker experience, the proposition of interacting with the toy maker to Donna. I thought that was conceptually intriguing and certainly on the precipice of a canon altering moment where the doctor decides to finally stay put,

giving us just utter, unpredictable, unnavigable, chaos was like a tonally, as you said earlier, unmooring, the pace, the tone, all of it. You're just like uncomfortable, I think, by design watching it. And so then you feel even more keenly than you maybe otherwise would. the pleasure of sitting in the garden for a meal with friends. I thought that the like, so there's a line that the doctor has early, that's what unravels me. All the laws I cling to gone.

And there were a few moments in the episode where a character is saying something and I didn't feel it the way that we normally would in a Doctor Who episode and I think especially a tenant episode. It's like, wait, really? I don't know. It seemed to be enough time. Like, there have been times before when the doctor's like, oh, my God, I've never faced anything like this or oh my God, I don't know what to do in this. Like, oh, no, at last I've figured out the limits of my own capabilities or whatever it is. Even Donna's saying, like, I understood all these other things, but this, this is like beyond what I can conceive of.

And I was sort of like, why? Yeah. And also, like, a hallway that changes and doors that go to unpredictable, like, you guys are in the house of the undying. You've done this before, you know? You've seen weird things before. Yeah, exactly. And it's like, that was a little odd. And especially because there's a lot in this episode, the puppets, the many doors and stuff like that, that remind me of a great episode of the 11th Doctor that I think about all the time with the Minotaur and all of that, that really takes its time to set up an atmosphere and I'm like, oh, God, what do we do here?

I just don't, I feel like if they wanted to do this, to give us the toy maker, to give us a circumstance where. the doctor felt like helpless to figure something out, this needed to be a two-parter. That's what I think. Like I'm not, I'm not, because Neil Patrick Harris didn't fully work for me in this role and he definitely worked for plenty of people. Plenty of people love this performance.

Didn't fully work for me. It sounds bizarre for me to say I wanted more of it. But I really did want just, to your point, to feel that helplessness rather than just sort of like we literally just got here. You figured yourself out of like, like much weirder situations. Like, what are you talking about?

Yeah. And I found the performance quite entertaining, but I think it was more that dynamic and how the doctor was disturbed and unsettled to be confronting this foe again. And I think that was a little bit of a theme for me in the first like 40 minutes of the episode two, the combo of the toy maker and Mel. And that's, again, this is not the episode's fault.

It's like I don't personally have the history with those characters with other people have. So like you have a moment where I think for the, both for those who have the history and would be like, oh my God, here we are, but also those who don't, a quick explanation. You have a moment like, you know,

when I was young, I was so sure of myself. I made a terrible mistake. And we're getting this kind of quick expisional updating on what the relationship is. And I found that idea very compelling. There were a few moments in this episode. We'll talk about a couple of them where the idea was interesting to me, but needed to be an entire episode on its own, I think.

I wouldn't have wanted to sacrifice anything in Wild Blue Yonder, but I wonder if the toy maker had been there with love instead of the meep in the first episode and we had gotten like that set up and then maybe we okay the TARDis takes us away or we still have the wild blue yonder but it's heightened by this like anxiety of what is waiting and then we go back if that would have felt like a little bit more of a complete experience and even though like we talked about with the 13th doctor and the flux specific stuff with division and the Flux and the Ravitors and all that was like, you know, I did. I really liked, as we talked about at the time, having like a six episode.

Yes. Arc. I think it's, it always is nice for, to me, when we get to spend a little more time with one other character or one idea or one dynamic. So I, I enjoyed that. I enjoy those longer runs. It would have been fun to get that here. Yeah.

And the closest, like, I was like, has this kind of antic performance worked for me before? Doctor Who and like absolutely yes, because I would say John Sim is the doctor or Michelle Gomez is the doctor. Like those two, you know, and Sasha Dewan, like, to slightly lesser extent, but like those two, like, extremely antic performances, um, works so well for me. And with Johnson especially, like, um, when he comes back, we already know him. Like, it's a similar thing where it's like the master is this old threat for the doctor. So there's history.

So when he first shows up and he's played by Derek Jacoby and then. and he's played by John Sim, like, that works pretty well. But then when he comes, shows up again, there's just, like, so much more going on there. And so, yeah, I think it's a lot to put on a character, an old Who character resurrected, like, with only 40 minutes, really, to make a massive impact on us. So just in case folks don't know the history, this is obviously a classic Doctor Who villain, has come up a couple times, but most notably four episodes from 1960. played by the legend Michael Goff, who we get to see very briefly in a colorized flashback

that sort of inserted in. Michael Goff, most people know, who played Alfred in the Tim Burton Batman movies. The four episodes that he was, the Toymaker appeared in 1966, are called chillingly. I looked this up, and I was like, no thank you entirely.

Quote, the Celestial's Toy Room. Okay, quote, the dancing floor. Quote, the hall of dolls. Absolutely not. Quote, the final test. Great episode names. There's a fun, like six-ish minutes compilation up on the official Doctor Who, YouTube, if you want to get a little bit longer of a feel beyond just the quick flashes that we got for,

yeah, the OG Toy Maker. That was so, actually, I found that fascinating to watch and like how deeply theatrical, the staging of an old school who scene was. That was really cool. That was interesting. Yeah. I liked that. That is what's, I think the extreme theatricality of Old Who is part of what makes these various

companion integrations sometimes feel so funky because like, I would say the least successful or the two we got in the centenary special. But I think Sarah Jane folding in as well as she did was maybe an exception, not the rule of these old companions coming back because I think Elizabeth Sladen just better, matched the tone. And even that, even that era of who was just like a little closer to the campy theatricality of original who. Okay. And also K-9 was there. So. K-9 always helps. What's not to love. As we suspected, the toy maker is something that Dr.

drew into this universe by doing the bit with assault last week. He thought it, we thought it. It turned out to be true. It's always fun for me. Anytime any hero is battling their own mistake, their own hubris, something like that. We see that with Tony Stark all the time. I was going to say, do we want to just talk about Tony Stark again? We create our own demons? Anything else? Anything else you want to talk about the salts or the circumstances of the toy maker's

arrival here? I think the last thing I'll say on the kind of big picture was the toy maker an interesting choice for on a thing I liked, kind of philosophically. thematically, there was that great little moment. Donna is often in this episode, the one who is

giving the doctor the courage to take that next step, right? Not the first time. Probably won't be the last time. And there's this great moment where she is sharing, she's like imparting this wisdom

from her father and says, dice don't know what the dice did last time. Games don't have a, a memory. Every game starts from scratch. Now, the toy maker and the doctor's like, oh, I love that, right? But the toy maker and the doctor have history. They have memory. Their first game, it's not like that is hand-waved and discarded. I'm not implying that. That obviously is like very

central to the eventual I will now face a third doctor by generation plot. But I did really love that idea as like a deliberate counterweight inside of this episode where the idea of memory is the central thing, right? The idea of a doctor who can embrace the possibility of starting from scratch, like that moment with Donna inside of the framework of an interaction with the toy maker is a big part of what allows him to build toward that. Like what carries over, or what do you need to bring forward with you? When did the dice need to remember what the dice did last time? I thought that was compelling.

I love that moment. That's a great call out. And I think that the slight contradiction, but it all comes together kind of in harmony, of having that in concert with the idea of like, these are three different faces who have played a game, the three rounds of the toy maker, but all the same person.

So there's just like connection of history. but as you say, a chance to wipe the slate clean. And it's something, again, we're going to talk about this a little bit more later, but it's something I really have been thinking a lot about in terms of, like, how often does a doctor talk about what came before for him to a companion? And how often is that true inside of one actor's run versus, like, how much does when, you know, you've got holdover companions like Clara bridges to doctors or Rose Bridges to Doctors. Or is like that's something.

But like when like say the 12th doctor shows up played by Peter Capaldi and he's just like never talking about the pawns, it's just like it feels strange. Yeah. But yeah, absolutely. Usual because I think I think what Doctor Who always wants to do, the Doctor Who the show always wants to do is to make it friendly for new people to join in the adventure. So if you're like, oh, I heard Peter Capaldi's playing the doctor and I've never watched Doctor Who but I like Peter Capaldi. I want to watch him as the doctor, then you're not having to, like, scramble and catch up with, like,

what did Matt Smith do during his entire run, et cetera? So totally. And, like, I love that we got, you know, we'll talk a lot about the very intense conversations we had done on the doctor more later, but right before they walked in to the Emporium after they went back to 1925, Don is like, you never mentioned Meld me?

And I always love these moments. I mean, we talked, obviously, at length, about the Sarah Jane Rose doctor dynamic back then and how really like riveting it was to watch that unfold and there have been a number of other examples of that. But it's like important to always have those counterweights and those contrasts, right? This of course sets up the, she says here like you're staggering along.

This sets up to like your thin as a pan, right? Like you don't have a chair in your TARDIS. You don't have a place to sit. But we hold that in tandem in our heads with like a moment like Clara saying, run you clever boy. Like the impulse to run has always been central. It's not like that vanishes from being an important part of the story. We have to have moments where someone else says to the doctor and who better than the sometimes you need someone to stop you figure to say like you talk about no one ever. Like it's not just that you don't sit down for dinner. Talk about Mel. Well, yeah,

you don't just you don't talk about no one ever. Yeah. And I was like kind of going back through trying to remember. I mean, certainly an exception to that rule is Rose because he talked about Rose with Martha and he talked about Rose with Donna. So, like, certainly Rose is this, like, shadow that looms over a lot of things for the doctor. But otherwise, not really.

And that takes us to... And some of that is the guilt we get into. Yeah, here, exactly. That takes us into this puppet show, which is either a trip to Bravo's to see the players there if you prefer, or the Amber Island players of Avatar fame. I love it when a show...

How about Loki's Asgard? You know, when he's pretending to be able to throwing plays in his own honor? It's never a bad move. It's never a bad move. It's always funny. Like, always do it. If you can, always do it.

This is, this is... I really liked this section between the puppet show and the sitting down for the game itself. When we slowed down and spent time with Neil Patrick Harris as a toy make her here. This works quite well for me, but this is another moment and we'll, and we'll hear her say it right at the end of this clip. I'm glad you called out that moment in the

street. This is another moment where Donna is like, why don't I know any of this stuff, right? So we're about to hear the puppet show. I just think it's really funny to think of it as a little recap for people who maybe didn't watch those seasons, but also just like Russell Xavier's poking a bit of fun at Stephen Moffat in the way that he wrapped up everything for his companions. And also, please, I don't know if it'll translate in an audio fashion, but please pay attention to the part with Clara, Clara and the Bird. Because, Neil, I rewounded so many times because his facial expression is so, yeah, exactly. So funny. I can't even do it. I'm like trying to move my eyes. It's a pretty good impression. Anyway, but after all that buildup, please,

please, our Steve, please play this clip. called Amy Pond. And he loved Amy Pott. Yes, he'd be liking the redheads. And they went to and throw in time and space. But Amy Pond was touched by the V-Ping angel. And she died. She died of old age.

Well, that's all right then. And then he was meeting Clara. But she was... She was killed by a bird. She still survives in her last second of life. Well, that's all right, then. And then? The doctor met Bill.

Not Stokey Bill, but Lady Bill. But she was killed by the Cybermen. But her consciousness survives. Oh, well, that's all right, then. And then, there came the flocks. Autonomic. Tona noble. The poor doctor

the flux was killing everything is all this true. Unbelievable scene. I thought this was amazing. So good. I loved this.

I love it. A couple things at play here. I love Neil Patrick Harris coming in with a like sort of almost Jim Carrey-esque already then like American accent on the like, well that's all right then.

Really cracked me up. Also, I think it's really interesting for us to see this all in a row to think about, like, Moffat's bloodthoraciness. But it's also interesting to me. Neil Patrick Harris said that RTD lute him into this via like Instagram DM. He's like, he slid into his DMs to ask him to do this role. And Neil Patrick Harris is like, I don't know anything about Doctor Who, but I was just sort of like, this is like, this is iconic so sure. So I just love the idea of him reading the script.

And I hope the bird reaction was like his job. He's like, what do you mean a bird? And then also. Oh, man. I love this. Him saying Cyberman as Zeiboman. But I also just love Neil Patrick Harris reading this and being like, what the fuck is a cyberman? Like what is what is a weeping angel?

Like what's this all this stuff that I'm talking about? I don't understand any of this. This was so, this was so fun. And it was like, it was. I do like it when we hear, when we see a doctor think of and feel touched by a companion that another face knew. So to see David Tennant's 14th doctor react to Bill, something like that, I don't know, that's meaningful to me.

Also, absolutely. For fucking Bill, honestly. I think, yeah, what do you want to say about this? I loved this scene. This was one of my favorite parts of the episode. I, yeah, now I want to rewatch it knowing that about Neil Patrick Harris. It's going to make the bird moment even better, which was already just like the sheer bliss. So a few things.

Donna, you know, we heard the end note there is all of this true. Like Donna having to confront what she doesn't know. But one of the things that I love about Donna and Donna just, Donna never surprises because we always expect the best. But Donna also never ceases to amaze. And I, you felt both in that moment on the street. and here, like, I think it would be totally fine if Donna was, like, wounded by this or a little hurt or like, what about me? But it felt in both instances so fully through the lens of like, I am thinking about what it means for you, a person I care about deeply, that these are not things you share with the people who matter in your life. And that you carry this with you, like this massive weight.

Like, yeah, what a lonely burden to shoulder. And the look, this was just an incredible tonal mishmash because the toy maker, the facial expressions, the accent shifting, all of it, it's hysterical. And you cut to 14 and he looks shattered, having to confront all of this and having to rationalize the place that everybody wound up and how much of that blood is on his hands, which is a way the doctor always came. And I was very struck by the fact that he went right from this. Like when Donna says what she says to him on the street about Mel and why don't you tell me anything. Why don't I tell anyone anything? Why do you carry all of this? He spots the Emporium across the street. He doesn't, he has like the quick, Don, I'm a billion years old, but he doesn't really, really stop to grapple with and confront what she's saying.

They walk into the shop. And here, similarly, like you could sit with this, but it's a lot to sit with. So I'm going to challenge you to a game. It's like all. always still the run you clever boy. It's like, what's next? What can we move on to? And, you know, I was, I was thinking about, because this is, as you brilliantly observed, such a Moffitt's run-centric recap. And like, again, there's the explanation inside of the script for like, Donna, here's what

happened right after you. Here's what you missed. So that makes sense. But I was thinking that like this obviously does predate 11 and 12. Like, I was thinking back to that moment. really liked with in Planet of the Dead between 10 and Christina when he says people have traveled with me and I've lost them, lost them all never again. Obviously, we've talked about the just absolutely gut-wrenching exchange with with Wilf at the end of that season and that finale.

And then you move towards something like 12 in the girl who died, like thinking about immortality. And this is in the shielder stretch. and saying like immortality isn't living forever. That's not what it feels like. Immortality is everybody else dying. And for that to be the way the doctor thinks about the length of this life, it's just the people that you lose and how long that ledger gets. It's like so heartbreaking.

So for him to be confronted by that here was just, it was devastating. I also just think it's really interesting to think about, because I don't think we really process this in our examination of the various showrunners, but to think about the way that like, yeah, when you put it all together, Moffett did sort of try to like kind of have his cake and he needed it to where he's like, a tragic death that also

don't worry, they're also kind of still alive. But it does make traveling in the TARDIS a death sentence for all of these people. So you're like, why would you ever get in the Tartis when what happened to all the Malfit companions? Comparing to how Russell T. Davis did tragedy, which is like, you know, Rose is

is sobbing on the beach of Bad Wolf Bay. She's safe. She has a future. She has a life. But it's also traumatic and, you know, really sticks with us watching Billy Piper sob on the beach. Or what happened with Donna, which was like horrifying, even though she has a beautiful life that she built out of it. So it's like in that way, Davis's idea is like you run and you run with the doctor, you go in the TARDIS. There's a cost.

but it's not your life. Whereas with Moffitt, it's like, I guess similar, but to a slightly less, because, you know, the life you go back to, well, I guess it's true for all the companions, the life you go back to is forever altered by the adventure that you had. And I would say the kindest to his companions is Chimnell, right? Like those three companions just sort of step off the TARDIS all in their own time of their own accord and are in therapy. be together. So great. Cram's got his support group going. Good old Graham. What follows the puppet show here is something that is less successful to me, which is the game, but the, but as the toy maker again explains, and to go back to this sort of like antic frantic, this is all going too fast, the way that like

the doctor gets scooped up goes to unit and then they're like, it's an arpeggio, it's a giggle, it's been in here forever, it's this, that, and the other thing. It just all felt, so fast, I didn't really buy fully, like Donna's explanation, that recorder lessons that are allowed her to crack that when unit couldn't or that Mel was like, it's this. You know, it just all seemed like way too fast and easy, so then unimportant, you know? And then also the fact that it's... I am on the watch for the blinks, I will say. Some very suspicious of the blinks and the Z-D-X, the Z-E's all of it.

Yeah. I love that you were like... A device that is now canonically established as quote disrupts the brink. and we're just like, here we go. I don't know. I've got some theory corner stuff for you on a unit coming. Oh, great. Yeah.

Because, I mean, certainly they didn't build that whole set to not show it to us again and again and again. But so all of that happens really quickly. It's also the same plot as the Masters embedded, like drum beat in, you know, all of that plot line in season three. of the new who. And then this, like, messaging of the Toymaker explaining why this is happening, and it's very, like, a showrunner talking to people who are critical or argumentative on Twitter

or on the Reddit boards. And whether that's him, the theory of the official podcasters was, like, listening to the official podcast, they were like, oh, this is kind of Russell getting ahead of the criticism he sees coming from the by generation. idea. But it also just felt, it reminded me of like some of the clumsier chibnal era stuff

where it's just sort of like it's a bit sanctimonious, it's a bit on the nose and it's just a bit too like finger waggy at the camera in a way that I just like doesn't really feel

deft or sophisticated to me in terms of like telling us a sci-fi story about the way we live now. Yeah, this was one of the things I was alluding to earlier with like, I think this actually

they shout and they type and they cancel so I fixed it. everybody wins and everyone loses the never-ending game. I agree with you completely that as a basically 15-second indictment or meta-comment it feels like very much like a shoehorned critique or anticipatory note,

I think that that idea works as like a one-hour black mirror episode. And we've seen versions of it and they've been successful, but you need the space to examine what, well, like the critique of a modern society where everybody thinks they're right all the time and like everybody's staring into their screens and our brains have been programmed to rebel against our better instincts and just amplify the base instincts. And we had, I thought that was interesting when the doctor had the moment where he's kind of shifts abruptly into like, hey, humanity, you're not like completely off the hook. This is inside of you. that was also like, I think, of a piece with this where that's an interesting thing when, especially the doctor with the face of, I think your giants, is, is pushed to critique something

about human nature. I'm always interested in that kind of an interrogation, but this was broadly a very forceful. I must protect you at all costs. And surely it's a great question, but no, none of you can do anything I have to be the one to save you and fix this, that those little asides felt, they felt very much like just that, aside, it's not like central, textual, enriching elements. So, yeah, it was, and again, I was just like the blinks. What's up with the flinks here? Keep your eye. Keep a weather eye on it.

All right. This is a section I'm calling Mel B, the other Mel B unit, right? Because we've got Melbush. We also got the Spice Girls. This is the last thing we're going to talk about, I think, before. we get to the by generation, which is just like, unit is here. I'm never thrilled with a unit plot line personally. Like, it's just not my fave thing.

Soldiers, guns, all that sort of stuff. It's just not my fave. But what is so clearly happening with unit and unit tower and all this sort of stuff is just like a very, very clear attempt to marvelize Doctor Who. we had an email from listener Cecilia who said Do we think the Disney influence is why we have a Star Wars robot and unit working at Avengers Tower?

I should say Cecilia's email is mostly just like a love letter to Should You Got Well, I just pulled out this one part. Sorry, Cecilia, I did read your whole email. But the Avengers Tower comp is just undeniable. It has been there, you know, since we got a cityscape shot in episode one of the new specials. Like, undeniable. the opening crawl that, not crawl, but the opening splash page thing that the BBC productions get,

which looks like the Marvel logo, this idea that like Disney is bought into Doctor Who with this idea that like Davis as the architect will build out a massive sprawling. He's calling it the Doctorverse. I think it should be called the Hooniverse, but whatever, a connection of IP of spinoffs. And as we mentioned, this is not new. knew for Russell, he did Torchwood as a spinoff, he did Sarah Jane, Adventures is a spinoff, like, this is something he had already done, but it seems like possibly, as we have been discussing all year with Marvel, the Disney Plus demand for spinoffs and content and to supersize, superhero eyes, et cetera. I'm not necessarily worried about like the quote unquote

Disneyification, though we'll talk about that a little bit later on, but I am worried about squeezing an IP to try to get too much juice out of it and the very clear Marvel comps in a year where Marvel like surely we know that all these

like sort of clear Marvel comps were conceived when Marvel was a steadier thing to be imitating versus when it's premiering during a very wobbly time for Marvel. So it's just like I'm just like I don't know that Marvel's the blueprint you want to follow right now, RTD. I think maybe not. But, you know,

it's perhaps too early to get to hang crepe about that. But it's just something that sort of pain for me. What do you think about that? Yeah, you know, spin-offs and side quests and a connected universe, like an earlier Marvel comp is, I think, still is interesting and appealing. And there's certainly enough who can in to call back to or tie in or build off of without question, right? The moment in time, as you noted, I think, yeah, it's difficult to not have a little voice in your head, like, well, at least it's never gone wrong on Disney Plus before. It's like, you can't like not think about that for a minute. I think particularly because of the, not just the comp of launching new stories

and building a connected universe but a multiverse and godlike figures and sort of invoking the arrival of these large like the one who waits there were a few we'll talk about this later I don't mean to jump ahead in the outline

but there were a number of kind of a number of pins put in omens and harbingers and our old friends signs and portents portents and signs you had the master tooth we've got the toy legions that he says are coming. And then there was that very spooky allusion to the one who

waits. So this idea of like a true big bad, like that's all just very marvely. And I don't think that means it won't work. But yeah, I think the what is the fan appetite for that at this particular moment in time is an interesting question. But maybe in the doctorverse or the hooniverse, there's a real enthusiasm for it because it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, a newer thing. And I know that there have been comics and other, you know, extensions of the universe, obviously. But more live action series? Like, that's, that's exciting. Yeah. I mean, potentially exciting. Just caution, you know. The, it's thinking about the cyclical nature of all this is really interesting to me because as we discussed in our first, um, Dr. Who rewatched that we did

way early in the year. We were talking about the ninth doctor. We were talking about Russell D. Davis talking about all these influences and a major, major influence on him was the success of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the U.S. And so he took a lot of lessons from the Buffy Vampire Slayer Blueprint and brought it into his new Who run. So I would actually argue that like this idea of like the big bad or all leading up to the culmination of something, which is something that Joss Whedon popularized on Buffy is something that was already there to a slightly different extent, but was already there with stuff like Bad Wolf or you've got something on your back, like these things, these season-long hinty, loomy, seas that were planting,

leading to, oh, we're hearing the drums all season, oh, it's the master, like something like that. So that was taken from Weiden in the Buffy sense and put into that. But then since then, Whedon's influence then shaped what Marvel did, because Whedon's the one who put Thanos and Avengers, like Whedon's idea of the big, bad and all that sort of stuff for, like, obviously it's in the comics.

He didn't, like, invent it, but, like, popularized it. Weiden's shaping of the beginning phases of the MCU, and then once again, Russell's now looking at this other thing that Weed in shape. So it's all this sort of, like, feedback loop of

not that it all comes back to Weiden, but it all, like, you know, the idea of genre storytelling it as it is, like, looping back on itself and building on itself and going forward is really interesting to me. What I will say, what I will definitely agree with is, like, it's one thing to have Bad Wolf mentioned. This is like four or five different seas that are planted? Like, is the Meepe's boss the same as the one who waits? Is the same as the same as the legions?

Is the same as what's going on with the master in the gold tooth and the maniacal laughter? Like, what is all of that? Or is it worse bringing off like, this is for the 14th doctor to handle and that's for the 15th doctor to handle? and like how many seeds are we planting to sprout and grow, I think is what feels like right now a little bit like to match the tone of the episode entirely frenetic, you know? Yeah. But I'm excited about the prospect of the idea,

and who knows if it'll actually end up being this. Like I don't think it's impossible that the one who waits at being a figure we already know, right? But the idea of it being a new figure, a new big, bad, and not having another season that builds toward the Cybermen or the Daleks or whatever else is... Totally. That's exciting.

I would like a fresh foe. And I think that is certainly on Davis's mind. When you mentioned this sort of idea of like gods or celestial, this is something he mentioned in the official podcast. Yeah. Where he was like, if we think of the toy maker as the god of games, what other historical figures in the Hooniverse, doctorverse, whatever you want to call it, could you consider the god of something? or will there be new gods of something? And it sort of seems like he's setting up a kind of like celestial, you know,

army of gods, the gods of Ragnarok get mentioned in this episode. So he's setting up this idea. The doctor uses the word celestial when trying to, yeah, dupe the toy maker into leaving earth behind. He's using this idea, maybe like preconceiving this idea of like a super team of gods versus the doctor. How many doctors will it take? Are we building towards...

Daptors? You know? A sample! Exactly. Exactly. Which doctor will lift me all near? What do we think? Who's the most worthy?

Someone like Sylvester McCoy, I think. Something like that. I say having not watched his episodes, but just off vibes only. I'll take your word for it. But I, or Tom Baker, who knows. But I think that that's potentially exciting, but also just like makes me a little nervous. And I just like focus, you know, I just like also. the idea of just following Shudigatwa and only Shudigatwa like into the future.

We already talked about how we kind of wish that Martha had been here, but we should just say really quickly a couple things I want to say. I've never seen, as I said, the Mel Bush. She traveled with the six and seventh companion doctor. She's an 80s companion. She does have a phenomenal spiral perm. I did look up like old photos of her. She looked like incredible 80s there.

But listening to the official podcast, And one of the hosts of that show was talking about how, like, she was kind of like a run and scream and sort of helpless kind of companion and not a really, like, got a lot of Vim and Vervin gumption companion. And so maybe this is like a nice little, let's do better by this companion and let her have like a more active role to play. And then Bonnie Langford, an interview that I saw was talking about how Mel was a computer programmer, which is cool.

It's the 80s. Doctor Who? They have a female computer programmer. And she said who never went near a computer. So they put her in a computer. And that's great. We like that. But good stuff.

You know who else goes behind a computer? Is Donna Noble right? When they get back from this like situation with the toy maker. I don't, this. If you, if they could easily cover this by saying there's some lingering Dr. Donna in her. But the idea of Donna being a fast typer, right? Fast attempt in Chiswick.

Great. Love that. But that doesn't mean she then understands everything that has to do with like systems of computer. That has never been a Donna's skill set necessarily. The doctor Donna, sure. But Donna knows. So like what is what's that? What is that?

I don't know. This Donna doubled her salary in 10 seconds flat though. Five weeks of vacation. Here was my take on this. Great work. Also, you clearly could have asked. for more. I know she said yes that quickly.

She said yes so quickly. I know. Like you want to feel good, but you're like, damn. Could have asked for more. Roth. Oh my gosh.

Tough stuff. Donna. The spice girl sequence though. Oh, what else do you want to say? I was just going to say because it was in the general like everybody is on the same floor at unit.

Everybody's talking stretch where I just would have to quickly remark. I know we'll have some more Fitwatch stuff coming. The glasses. that 14 put on when they were at unit were exquisite. I loved them. Joanna. Fantastic.

Absolutely fantastic. I've already seen some great, like, 14th Doctor cosplayers that they were already, like, out there in their check suits. I'm like, you guys look great. Spice Girls. This was incredible. 10-0-10. No notes. genuinely 10 out of 10 no notes.

What was your favorite moment? What was your favorite shot? It's a tie between high kicks on the desk. And then like the first moment when he turns a bunch of unit soldiers into like balloons or bouncing balls. He just sort of like boops them into bouncing balls. And it's like screaming face inside of the ball. Yeah. Unsettling.

Yeah. How about you? Those were great. What was your favorite? By a comfortable margin. Like, it's not close. Yeah. The overhead shot of the toy maker making a snow angel in the rose petals.

Very, I'm moving my body. Like, I'm in the bedroom scene in Gong girl. Like, just a mashup of pipes and ideas that I didn't know we deserve to see. It was absolutely remarkable. I rewounded and watched it like 15. times. In general, this sequence was, you know, we just spent a few minutes talking about Marvel, gave me real Thanos with the Reality Stone vibes. And also, Steve will like this, made me think of, I won't get into too many plots specifics from Gen V because I don't know how many people

listening have watched that, but there is a character in Gen V who commits these deeply violent acts and we see it and the character sees it because of a mental state as a puppet show. So the character on GenVie will like rip a puppet in half and the like little bits of confetti will fly. Yes, but it was a person. And it really was giving me was giving me that vibe too. This whole stretch was just brilliant. You love a musical number. Power ranking, this and Rasputin. What's the what's the power ranking here? This is, well, I mean, if the Rasputin dance number had gotten longer and we had seen more dancing from Sasha Jouan than that it might have be a competition, but no, it's this comfortably, number one. And I would say, number, the ranking for this episode is like the best things that Neil Patrick Harris does.

Number one is this. Number two is the bird line. And then number three is like everything else. the puppet show. So, like, it's just, it's good stuff. We then get a game of, well, I mean, this comes technically after the by generation, but I just want to get it out of the way. There's, like, really prolonged game of catch.

They've talked about it in, like, every behind-the-scenes package or panel that I've seen about, like, how it catch was written out, like, 47 times, and how they spent all this time figuring out how they're going to do it. And you see all these behind-the-scenes packages of, like, actually David Tennant, actually shoot a got one, actually Neil Patrick Harris, like, hurling their bodies around, as they played a ball of catch, I gave a catch. I don't think the end result quite matches all their enthusiasm and effort that they put into it in the first place.

But what I will say is Shudegah went behind the scenes, confirmed something that I was very confident was true, which is for most of his, he's not catching the ball. The ball is just already in his hand, and he's like pulling his hand back as if he just caught it because I was like, that's what it looked like to me. Shudikawa was like, I kept missing the ball over and over and over again. So we just had to like compromise with this, which is like I have it already in my hand. So game of catch. Yeah.

Very strange sequence that I will say was one more great showcase for David Dennett's incredibly long arms. That was one part that I appreciate it. Because he was like bowling. He was doing like a cricket bowl maneuver. Yeah. He was doing the over the head cricket bowl maneuver. So yeah. Love that.

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This episode is brought to you by Nass Energy. Every ounce of dirt, sweat, and gears, every checkered flag and trophy raised, every lap, every race, every hard-fought place. They're all jammed inside every can of Nass energy, high-performance energy for burning the midnight oil in the garage, and pedal to the metal human horsepower for the streets. Go ahead, crack open a can of Nass energy and get after it. By generation time. Okay, time to get to a section that I have labeled in the Love Letter Scott Pilgrim a little. Curious, by Furious. With not with an I don't want to go,

but with an All-Z from the 14th Doctor, we are off to the controversial, exciting, canon-breaking choice that Russell D. Davis made to give us something called a bi-generation. Are we of two minds about it? Are we peeled off right down the middle about it? How do we feel about it?

First and foremost, though. We have many things to get to. We're going to start with the most important, which is Pants in the British Sense Corner. TM with Mallory Rubin, TM. Mallory Rubin. Wow. What an honor it is to be in a wigwatch TM

with Joanna Robinson, TM adjacent corner here. Here was my journey, and this is genuinely the sequence of thoughts in this exact order. a beam goes through 14's chest. It's 41 minutes and 45 seconds into the episode. I was like, holy shit, this is really soon. What's happening? Donna walks over.

She says he's not dying alone. You can do what you like to me. I'm going to be with them. I was moved to tears. Then Mel did the same thing. And I was like, respectfully, this is sort of Donna and the doctor's moment. I feel like the Mel heads are going to be pissed. This is my journey.

Yeah. We, we have the actual, by generation, the, the shocking moment. It happens. We're going to talk all about it and what it means. Get the fuck out of here, Mel B. I'm so exhal out of my room. With respect. Bell.

No. And as soon as we have, 14 and 15, my first thought. My second thought was, Holy fuck. The canon is forever altered. We have a lot to talk about.

But my first thought was, so 14's not wearing any underwear. Genuinely my first thought. I was so excited to text to me. It was my first text to you about the episode. Because they split the outfit. So 14 has the pants and the undershirt and the vest. And 15 has the button down and the loosely hanging.

and the boxer briefs and the chucks. And it was actually the moment where I saw the bare toe on 14 and realized, because it's all happening very quickly. It's a lot of process. And I was like, wait a minute. No shoes. Right. 15's got the chucks.

Oh, what? 14's not wearing any underwear. 14's going command though. It really is a new era for the doctor. I'm thrilled. Personally thrilled for you. The time. You're welcome.

I had already relayed this to you, but for folks listening, costume designer Pam Down was talking about the split, the clothing split. And how do you decide who gets what? And she said in the script, when she got the script, it says it designated trousers for one, Dr. Pants in the British sense, a boxer brief super fur, for the other. She did not yet know who was playing the other doctor, the 15th doctor. And so she apparently was going around and being like trying to get from people like, who's playing him, who's playing him, who's going to be, are you sure we want them only in their box of briefs? Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Who's playing him? She asked Chana, who is the director and the director knew and was sworn to secrecy, so did not spill.

but Pam was like, can you at least tell me will they look good in their underwear? Like, will this look okay? And she's like, and then I found out I was shooting and I was like, oh, of course he should be in the underwear. I retract any concerns. Yeah.

All questions come as or concerns are gone. The 15th doctor rocking the underwear for the first 20 minutes of established 15th Dr. Cannon is unbelievable. He had time to put pants on. He had time to put trashes on. He just did it. Yeah.

No need. The Chucks go to 15. Yes. And that was another, that was another Pam down thing. I really liked your interpretation when you were texting about it. You were like, what better torch or mantle to pass down? Exactly. From 14.15 than the chus.

Yeah. But the true nature of it was they were deciding who gets the shoes. And Pam was like, shootie only has boxer briefs on. Give him the fucking shoes. I love it. Let him have some shoes. I love it. Central the chucks have been to the 10th and 14th doctors.

And given what we as consumers and fans know about Tenant himself saying, like, this is a thing I want my doctor to wear. I really did like thinking of it as like, okay. I love asking the mantle. It's yours now. Beautiful. Sand shoes. We got a couple emails about this, but we didn't need any emails about this because I think you and I had this. You and I had the same thought.

Where is Jack Harkness in this moment? This is the most Jack Harkness needs to be here moment of all. all time. Oh my God. Or Jack. I am torn between feeling a deep, like a soul deep sorrow for Jack, for Captain Jack, that he missed this. Yeah.

And carrying with me a certainty that I, I just, in my bones, Joe, I believe that Captain Jack sensed this wherever he was and felt. connected to this moment. I feel that he was a part of this even though he wasn't there. How could he not be? Russell, I would like a little minisode where it's just Cap Captain Jack Harkness in a bed surrounded by like all kinds of sexual partners. They're all sleeping off whatever adventure they've just had together.

And then he just sits bold like gasps, like sits bolt upright. And it's just sort of like somewhere. The doctor's only wearing underwear. Okay. Now that very important, very crucial aspect of the by generation has been addressed. We're not going to go to, hey, have you ever been given exactly what you wanted and asked for a moment? To be crystal clear, and I will swear on a stack of whatever book I hold, a Lord of the Rings, like, first edition. I did not know this was happening.

I had no clue about this. Apparently, there were some spoilers or rumblings about the internet. I had no idea. I was not looking around for info about these Doctor Who specials. I was keeping myself very, like, once I heard that while Blue Yonder, there was like nothing out there about it. I was just sort of like, what if we just like black box ourselves on Doctor Who content? So the only thing that I had been researching was when we were franchising. trying to figure out when this was coming was the only time I went on like the Doctor Who Reddit boards. Other than that, I've not been looking. So I had no idea this was coming. And I didn't even occur to me to think that we could get a future with both Shidgatwa and David Tennant until you, Mallory brought up the concept of the multiverse, which is not quite what we got, but like you brought up the idea of a multiverse in last week's episode. So when you said that, that inspired this in me with, promise you not even a trace amount of foreknowledge.

Steve, will you play this clip from last week's house far? I know we've seen like regeneration evidence and stuff like that, but I'm like, what if we got both? What if like shooty gets this tremendously wonderful adventure in a new universe, but we could still occasionally have David Tennett and Catherine Tate specials in a our current universe. I know there's a million reasons why I shouldn't want that. And I do want, I want Shudhikahua to be like the doctor. I don't want him to be like a sub-multiverse, whatever doctor. But you don't want to be finished with Tennant and Donna and Rose like,

I just don't. I want to. Wow. And here we are. Musical accompaniment. So how are you feeling? You got exactly what you wanted. What's so funny is I, like, I didn't even process.

that until we started getting like emails and tweets from people and they're like, you've manifested this into the universe. And I was like, oh. Because I was just thinking it's so different, like, because we were talking about multiverse. And so I was thinking that is so different from by generation, which never in a million years. Like, it wasn't until. Yes. Yeah.

Right. We were on the heels of the 13th Doctor of the Division, like Universe 1, Universe 2. Could we actually maybe have a split world? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So 10 never, 10 when he died said or regenerated said I don't want to go. I never wanted him to go. So we get to do this, which excites me and the possibility of like, anytime David Tennant is born and has a gap in his schedule or whatever, we could bring him up. And I think that's kind of exciting, hopefully done sparingly, but exciting because you know how excited I've been for these specials. I have some questions, comments, concerns. We're going to get to all of them. But a lot of our listeners wrote in with a much more cynical read of this,

which I can't dismiss entirely. So I'll just pick this representative from our listener Kevin's email, who says, I'm now concerned there's now a mechanism to keep the fan favorite Dr. round. Rating's in a slump? Studio execs anxiously gnawing their fingernails? Oh, hey, look, it's our favorite Dr. Tennant show. Like that 10 is there as a sort of like ace up the sleeve for RTD that they can always just like deploy if they need a little juice on something.

I'm certain that's also true. I mean, that's definitely why he's here at all of these specials. I mean, I am sure that that is true. I'm sure that there is cynicism along with the just sort of like joy of like, hey, this thing is, hey, guess who's really good at this? David Tenet. Guess who loves doing this, David Tenet. It's also just like a really beautiful idea of the doctor helping himself. We've talked over and over again for months and months about this idea of the doctor racing around the galaxy,

trying to find someone who like really understands him. We talked about this a lot in relation to the master. That was both the ten. doctor and the 12th doctor verbalized this wish of like someone who knows you, who has known you since you were a child. Even the doctor inviting the toy maker to come with him, like, even though that was like desperately trying to save Earth, it also was like, hey, you're an ancient creature. I'm an ancient creature. Should we hang out together? But like, who better to reflect that back at you than your literal actual self? Yeah. Yeah. And how. And how. And how. And how? And how.

How can we not think of Loki in this moment? It's impossible. Yeah, this is just so Loki and Sylvie, so like Loki variant. And that was, you know, basically our favorite thing about a series that we really love because it allowed this godly figure to take stack of priorities, history, trauma, wants, hope, desires. What are you willing to sacrifice? We won't get into specific Loki spoilers, but it was deeply impactful.

And I was struck by... so many aspects of this are striking. I think that the combination of the tenderness with which 15 greets 14, the hug, the kiss, the comfort, the kind of, the thing that that, it's everything with Donna and the doctor

is deeply meaningful, but there's something that like only a version of you granting you the permission to move forward could achieve, right? there is an acceptance of yourself in that moment. And like, that's powerful. I was struck by 15 right away saying, you can't save everyone.

There is a perspective that 15 is able to impart, which I think we can reasonably assume will be important for 15's journey, but it is like allows 14 to take this step that no one has ever. ever taken. And I was thinking it was difficult for me. Obviously, Donna was here, and very top of mind, but it was difficult for me, of course, not to think about Rose. And I was thinking of the metacrisis doctor, the one that Rose got. And that specifically, you know,

we, we, I often bring up tens, like, does it need saying, like that real rupture and, and like, severing of the thing that they had. But we don't talk quite as much about the other part of it, which was the bed of crisis doctor saying to Rose, I've only got one life, Rose. I could spend it with you if you want. And for 14, thanks to Donna, thanks to wealth, but also thanks to himself, thanks to 15. Move in the next few series of conversations and through the rest of this episode to a point of, this could be my one life, at least for a little while. Like, you don't have to stay forever, we'll see. That's an incredible thing

that our loki variants unlocked for each other here. I also, I think the point, the emails and the cynicism and tenant is adored, including by us, and will people always be excited to tune in and see him?

I think that's a completely valid thing, and I have absolutely no doubt that that's a factor. There's a part of me, there's a lot to talk about with the by generation choice. Obviously, a lot of implications here. I think there are pros and cons to it,

But there is a part of me still that is like a little bummed for shooty that the 15th doctor is the first doctor that has to share space with anyone else. And we're going to get to that for sure. Yeah. That's a bummer. I agree. But knowing that 10 is there in the Noble Temple Garden. And we'll talk about their conversations about family. Like, that's incredibly powerful.

Both of those things are true. Then you start to get into like, what does it mean to be in the doctorverse? And that's kind of a whole other conundrum. That feels a little bit like, not, none of it is separate. It's all connected, but like a little bit separate from the emotional catharsis of this doctor getting to no peace. Which I think is beautiful. I really am of two minds, honestly. Yeah.

I feel very solid about this. It'd be too soon to know how to be anything but, right? Like, we kind of have to see how it plays out and what it actually means. I'm also of two minds. Are you at war with yourself? Would you say you're at war with yourself? I would. I really would.

Conflict inside my two hearts. Okay. So, the only thing I was writing about? Let's go back to that hug. We got this great email from Deck. Deckerode. The 12th doctor said Never trust a hug.

It's a way of hiding your face. It's a sad and beautiful moment in the story with Clara. But what is 15 do? He hugs. He hugs and smiles and embraces and loves. And 14 is comforted by that hug.

It's absolutely beautiful and it has to be in conversation with those scenes with 12. You can't trust a hug and maybe you should hug yourself. Honestly, it was so beautiful. I immediately went in and hug my three-year-old son. That's an incredible email.

Thank you for sharing that with us. That's beautiful. I agree. It was impossible not to think of the 12-clara moment, but it was also, it was equally impossible for me not to think about 14 cradling Donna last week. That's a hug. That's an embrace, bringing Donna's hand to his chest, kissing Donna on the forehead. And so, you know, you've been tracking these like bridge moments. And I think both of these things, it's all connected, right? Like 15 is able to help grant 14. genuinely life and universe altering clarity. But 15 has that ability because of the steps of 14 took with Donna.

Like these things have to inform each other. We even get specific callouts and reminders. Like you came after me. You're the older one, right? Right. This idea like I get to be this because of the therapy you're about to do. Exactly. And like, which is very, very fun, timey, whimy idea.

Yeah. I'm fine because you've fixed. You fix yourself. We're time lords, where you rehab out of order. Great quote. But what I love about that is that like, when we've got an email with this,

I'm so sorry, I don't have it in front of me, but this idea that that then gives the doctor permission to rest, not just because you look tired or you've earned this or anything like that, but it's sort of like you're doing something good for someone. Okay, it's yourself in the future. But you are fixing yourself so that a refreshed me

can go out and save more people. in the universe. Let's listen inside the TARDIS to this conversation between the 15th and 14th doctors. No, you're thin as a pin, love. You've been running on fumes. That's what I keep saying. I'm just post by generation. That's more than that. I will whole lifetime. That doctor that first met the time may connect. ever, ever stopped. Put on trial, exiled, key to time, all the devastation of Lugopoulos. Adric.

Adric. River Song. All the people we lost. Sarah Jane has gone. Can you believe that for a second? I loved her. I loved her. End Rose.

But the Time War, Pandorica, Mavik Chen. We fought. the gods of Ragnarok and we didn't stop for a second to say, what the hell? You know, I'm fine. I'm fine because you fix yourself. We're time lords. We're doing rehab out of order. Once again, it's a great time to slip Martha Jones's name in there.

Just slip, just slide a little Martha reference. Sarah Jane, River and Rose are all in here. But not Martha. Okay. But I love this whole thing. Your Thinid is a pin love. He later says like honey, right? Like I get a prize honey. Like all those sort of stuff like that. Like these little like flavors that we can sense of the future of the 15th doctor. But also the shorthand and the weight behind just like when 14 says Adrick and 15 just responds Adrick. Like I have no idea what the fuck that means because it's classic who. and I don't know what it is. Okay, me, Joina Robinson as a viewer. But that, but that, that's almost even better than knowing what the hell Mavic Chen or Logopolis or all the stuff is.

It's like, it's almost better that I'm outside that moment because I could never understand it the way that they could just by saying a word. Even if they explained it to me, even if I had watched it, to have lived it, to have been it. And to just have someone look you in the eye and say, Adrick, Adrick. You know what I mean? is so special and important and it's just that shorthand, that understanding, that reflection back and not just like a mirror reflected back

with love and respect to Sylvie and Loki, who you know I would like die for, Sylvie has never reflected back to Loki in this loving, glowing, kind, respectful way of like, which is what makes their dynamic so fun. But, like, how healing? Well, all this also made me remind me of when the doctor wants to take down Harry Jones, and he just says, doesn't she look tired?

And I was like, essentially 15 Adonar, like, don't you think he looks tired? Anyway. But in a nurturing way here, rather than I will now end your reign. Yeah, that is. Yeah. Man, that was so withering. Great moment in who history, wild times. Top tier moment.

Moment like right before the wonderful clip that we just got to hear, the one thing you need in this place is a chair. Like any companion who walks in the TARDIS could say that. And it would be just as true. But there's something about hearing that from yourself. Like you don't allow yourself to take even a beat. You don't allow yourself to stop for a moment. and you need to has like an impact that is supreme and distinct.

I was thinking in the, you know, the part we just heard the, we fought the gods of Ragnarok and we didn't stop for a second to say, what the hell? What the hell? I was thinking of one of the many moments from 12 that really stuck with me when, because I think we often think of 11 as the real runner, But 12 has some great quotes and lines about the fear of loss, like the fear of being alone with your sorrow for some time

and how inescapable that can be and like how you're trying to outrun something that you can't. I was thinking of that great quote, look at you with your eyes. You're never giving up to anger and your kindness. One day the memory of that will hurt so much that I won't be able to breathe. and I'll do what I always do. I'll get in my box and I'll run and I'll run in case all the pain ever catches up.

And every place I go, it will be there. Like there's been this awareness. And that's self-awareness too, right? This is what I do. I flee the thing that I'm afraid to stare at clearly because I think it will subsume everything else. And something about just saying, can you pull?

Okay, push. and you are looking at a version of you who can say that same thing out loud and just have it finally resonate. But again, I think, like, what made these three specials really work is that I don't think 14 hears that from 15, if not for Donna.

Donna's not that. Yeah. And so those are not mutually exclusive. That is specifically the journey of the doctors. Like, what are you afraid to lose with your companions? And what do they allow you to understand? about yourself and the thing that you're fighting for. It's always with the doctor, other than family of blood when he is not the doctor, it's always, do you want to come with me, not can I stay with you?

You know, and that's the big difference here. As far as chairs and the Tartis are concerned, what is deeply intriguing about this, there have been chairs in the Tars before in like classic who and stuff like that. Ten had a chair. Ten had a chair in his Tartis. So, like, this idea that, like, between 10 and 14, this idea of, like, go, go, go, like, never stop, never sit, never put your feet up. Ten was always putting his feet up.

You know what I mean? Like, he was always, he had some semblance of work-life balance. But when you get back around to 14, it's not there anymore. So there we go. The other upshot of this idea by generation is it is something of, like, a continuity reset, possibly or tonal reset for Shudy's doctor. So you've already hinted to the downsides of what this means for Shudy as as like the first doctor to have to have another version of the doctor lying about the place and we'll get

to that, I promise. But the benefit is that Shudy more than any other doctor that has come before him gets a clean slate because this idea of like he has, I come back to this idea of like almost was exfoliating off the most like tired and traumatized layer of himself. He had like a emotional chemical peel, right? And just to make room for like a you know, shooty gets to play then

a lighter, happier, zippier, doctor, not burdened by the time or the flux or Zad's birds that killed Clara. You know what I mean? Like just not wait down all that. That was something I got very wrong in our discussion last week when I was like, I said RCTD loves a brooder. Like I can't imagine him

erasing the continuity. But this is sort of like he's not really erasing the continuity, but he's just sort of like giving this doctor a past to not be weighed down by it. There's a great line from 10. You know, I've taken lies and I got worse. I got clever manipulative people into taking their own.

Sometimes I think a time lord lives too long. Right? So this is a time lord who's lived past what is supposed to be the regeneration cycle for a time lord, only to learn that he's not even really a time lord in the first place, honestly, is a timeless child that's just going to go ever on. We got this really interesting email from John that I want to read. But I should just say that this idea of like a canon reset of sorts

where it's just sort of like, yeah, all that happened, we don't have to worry about it. That's something that Marvel is maybe could look to RTD to figure out how to do for themselves. because I think they're feeling a bit weighed down by their own canon right now. But anyway, John wrote, by generation, one doctor finally has the time to stop and actually process his trauma. And the other doctor, the true doctor, is well, his doctor,

giving him an embrace love and a prescription to heal. In trauma therapy, there's a lot of talks of, quote, splits, the ways our mind and consciousness compartmentalized to process trauma and cope with life. And quote, integration when the two points are, parts of our hurt self can finally coexist in the same context. In quote, splitting the doctor, RTD has created a means of one doctor, holding the weight of the world and loads of unprocessed trauma to stop and heal, while giving us a, quote, integrated doctor. I'm not keen on the nose way this refers to our first black doctor, but it's a clinical term whose whole, healed, and free to adventure.

So this sort of emotional reset for Shudy, this emotional clean slate for, this emotional clean slate for Shida Gawa's doctor. What do you think about that? I don't know. Honestly, this is something that I don't feel like I can answer until I see the new season because on the one hand, I like it. I like the idea of like a reset and a fresh start. I think that it's one of the things with the entire by-generation choice that I'm attempting

to run. wrap my mind around is, okay, you can update canon. I actually think that's important. We've talked about this a lot over the course of the pods and many other pods that we've done about other fictional universes. You can't be bound forever by the first choice somebody made or the first version of the story somebody told, especially a story that runs this long. Like, you have to evolve and adapt and position new eras of the story for new things.

So whether it was the timeless child or by generation or any number of other things, you And I think I maybe feel like even more open-minded about this with Dr. Hu than I do in some other stories because there's often in the Who Canon A, well, here's a, here's an explanation for this new thing that we just decided to do. And that's kind of like the nature of the fabric of the universe, but also because candidly, as I've mentioned before, like, while I have watched now, you know, north of 170 episodes in the year, it's the first year really of my relationship with the story. So I don't just have like, oh, I've held this truth in my mind for 15 years. I really have to like grapple with how to adjust to a new truth. I like the idea of updating

the canon. I think the part that I'm wrestling with more is, is this not a central tenant of Doctor Who? That like each new version of the doctor after a regeneration does carry forward the trauma and the joy and everything that came before. that part of what I keep thinking back to that initial, one of the initial questions you posed on our very first rewatch pod of like,

is it a character or a mantle? And I think the thing that ensures it is a character, not just a mantle that is past, is that the experience moves forward, the history carries forward. And that the shows and the universe's ability

to like allow each version of a doctor to forge their own specific style and sensibility and relationships and an arc within, this larger arc is the magic of the universe. And so, like, I wonder a little bit about the risk of untethering too fully because isn't the history inextricable from what it means to be the doctor? That would be my concern.

And I think, again, like a fresh start, cool, great. I genuinely am here for it. I don't know how unburdened a doctor can be and still be the doctor, right? Does that feel like a reasonable way to think about it? wholeheartedly agree with you. And in fact, at the first I was like, I don't like this because when I think about the ninth doctor, the first doctor that I spent time with, I love that inherent contradiction of the doctor that like childlike wonder and joy mixed with the time war guilt and burden that he's carrying.

And which bleeds into 10, which bleeds into 11, which bleeds into whoever. And so that we talked about this when we talked about Jody, how we felt like they had sort of flattened her character a bit by not going into some of the aspects of the doctor that we think are central, such as arrogance, rage, all this sort of stuff that makes the doctor such a compelling character because the doctor isn't just a, you know, buoyant, heroic thing. The doctor is, you know, all of these things at once. The doctor is kind and the doctor is unforgible. The doctor is this and also that, you know? And it's just like protective but vindictive. Like all this sort of stuff. Like, you know, all of this together in one larger than life creature. And so, yeah, like, it's not just that trauma and burden is an inherent part of being the doctor.

I also feel like an inherent part of being the doctor is the idea that it ends. A definitive ending is part of it. As much as it pains me. Yeah. When to say goodbye to a doctor that I've grown attached to, and you've had to do it in rapid succession all year, but as much as it like pains me, every time I think about David Tennant as the doctor saying, I don't want to go, it brings me into tears. Will it now do that when I know that he like gets to come back and get to be the doctor forever?

You know what I mean? 11 speech, which you have called out a number of times since we watched that episode when he says we all change. We think about it. We're all different people all through our lives. You've got to keep moving so long as you remember all the people that you used to be. I will not forget one line of this, not one day. I swear I'll always remember when the doctor was me. We talk about this a lot in storytelling. The fact that something ends is what confers value to it in the first place, is what makes it precious, is that it is finite. And so to, make it forever.

And if Shudy shows up and is just like a bouncy buoyant, I go clubbing doctor, which I actually don't, I don't think it's, to your point, I don't think it's just going to be that because Shuddy Gotwa, again, if you watch sex education, the character of Eric is this like bright, like funny, like all this sort of stuff, but it's also like a queer teen in a very conservative family and also like has a complicated relationship with a boy who is bullying him. Like there are these various, like, serious, dramatic, emotional moments that Chittagawa has, like, knocked out of the park so he can do all of it. And I want to see him do all of it. So I think if they don't put in the rage and the regret and all that other stuff, amongst other things,

I think they're never going to beat the Disneyified allegations if they don't give us the doctor that gives us the full range of all the things that the doctor can be, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I was thinking of, I actually was thinking of another, a lot of, 11 line, like him in The Angels Take Manhattan, saying, I always read out the last page of a book. Then it doesn't have to end. I hate endings. And how that was truly like some of the most relatable content. I thought the doctor had ever provided.

And there's this like meta quality, well, we don't want to say goodbye to the characters who we grow so attached to and who we love. But like part of what makes the experience so meaningful when you fall into a world fully and you come to think of a fictional character like a person in. your real life is what it feels like to have to say goodbye to reach that moment where you don't know what happens next for them or you have to confront the fact that there is no next for them. And it's a very good place finale to me, right? Like the, you know, is it okay to spoil the end of the good place? And this is more just like a central tenet of what the good place is interested in examining, right?

Like, do you actually want to go on forever? Forever? In the immortal words of Queen. I generally didn't know you were about to start singing Queen so that's amazing. Or is just so insane. Yeah, Cheedy and Eleanor. Yeah.

Like, Cheeney and Eleanor's final conversation is. Yeah. I think about it all the time. That being said, as much as I was like, I don't want it untramatized doctor, I don't want it unburdened doctor. Like, holy. Like, somewhat better, but not wholly better, you know. I did read this email from Rachel about RTD's own experiences.

This is information I actually just found out very recently, I think, within the last week and a half sort of looking, I think, at Russell's Wikipedia page. I found this out. But Rachel writes, I'm enamored by the idea that RTD said that it's time to heal. I learned recently that RTD lost his partner a few years back. And I'm so glad he got a chance to write a happy ending for his doctor. Just this once rose, everybody lives. 14 gets to be happy with the Mott Temple Nobles,

hopefully off-screen for the rest of his calm of fulfilling life. It's perfect as long as he never comes back. Well, not really never. There's always a 70th anniversary. 15 can roam the stars not beholden by David Tennant or the ghost of his fast. For the first time in this new Who era, we get to have a doctor unburden smiling amongst the stars. So there's a part of me when I was like,

Russell loves a brooder. And then I was like, oh, he lost his long. time partner just a few years ago. And maybe he's like, I don't want to write a brooding story about trauma. I want to write something else. So again, to your point, about all these questions, and we have a few more, about all these questions, we're going to have to see how it plays out. Yes. Yes. Before we know whether or not it works. You know, we have questions about it. But we want to give benefit of doubt. And Russell, I think, has certainly earned that from us. For sure. For sure. Given all the things he's made.

that we've enjoyed, not just Doctor Who, but other things as well. So this is a storyteller I trust. So even though I have questions, yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think that's a great email from Rachel. And again, I think even our discussion to this point, the questions about maybe the implications of the canon or the kind of core DNA of the doctor as a figure, you know, I think we both have said and feel the power of this and the kind of emotional impact

of what it means for 10 slash 14 to get to enjoy this quiet garden meal and say out loud that he has a family is like a genuinely meaningful and beautiful thing. And I think we, the flip side of something like 11 saying, I always read about the last page of book is another moment that we've cited a lot that was very top of mind for me here in terms of how beautiful this is and how meaningful this is. and how glad I am that we got to see 14 experience this, 12 and River, right? Looking out at the towers, times and River because they have to, because there's no such thing as happy ever after. It's just a lie we tell ourselves because the truth is so hard.

That is what he believes. That is what the doctor believes. And River said to him, no, doctor, you're wrong. Happy ever after doesn't mean forever. It just means time, a little time. a little time, but that's not the sort of thing you could ever understand, is it? And for the doctor to now be in a position, to be in a place, to be with people who allow him to enjoy that little bit of time and to try to understand that you can actually experience happy

ever after. Like, I don't even want to say this all because I don't want to think about it, but like, Donna's not going to live forever, right? nobody else in that garden lives forever. This is the question about like, will this doctor age? We don't canonically know the answer to that. But like, yes, it's horrifying to think of him, just as you said in a previous quote, outliving. You know, I mean, he could just be a fixture in their back garden and just be there for every generation of Noblemont temples in the future because there's Rose and then Rose's kids and then whoever and ever and ever.

It's just sort of like the doctor in our garden sort of story, very fairy tale. But I think you make a really good point. What I love about that, just quick sidebar over to the many husbands of River song, that phenomenal Chris is special. What I love about that is like she's right and she's wrong at the same time because when she says you wouldn't understand that, would you? And then like what's clear is that he has carved out a little bit of time for them. Like he does understand it. But even if he's not calling it they're happy ever after, you know. I mean. So what feels, I completely agree, it's a great point. I think what feels different to me is

he did that for her. And this is the first time he's doing it for him. The first time that he is appreciating what it can mean for the doctor to sit in that yard and be with people he loves and wonder which casserole is vegan. And like, I don't think anybody watching it really allows themselves to believe, in part because Don is like, you don't have to stay forever. And he says, we'll see that it is forever. but to live inside of that a little time idea is like a gift. I think it's 25 years in their back garden, even if that's a blink of an eye for a time lord, like it's still, it matters. The back half of Rachel's email about, okay, we're glad that 14's in the back garden,

is he going to stay there? I would like him to stay there. Brings us to, I think, the real dangerous concept, which is what you alluded to before, which is like, and Anne was already present in that clip we played from last week's episode, is like, with 14 still here, will 15 feel enough like the real doctor? And will we ever resent 14 for sitting on the sidelines, aka the Steve Rogers conductroom, right? Steve Rogers gets to go back in time and dance with Peggy and we're like, we have all these questions of like, what is Steve, what is that Steve doing while the world rages around him? You know what I mean? So it's like when you put the doctor in the backguard.

What is he, we're going to have to ask that question. What is he doing every single time? So they discussed this on the BBC I player commentary, which our listener, Caleb, they, very helpfully transcribed for us. A plea from us to our pals. DP, put this on Disney Plus so we can enjoy these insights, please. The fact that BBCI player has it and we don't is a torment, honestly. But I also want to point out that like... It reminds me of every time I watch an F1 race

and it's watching it on ESPN and they're constantly referencing the bonus features on Sky Sports that are not available to me. You're like constantly. So one more reason to move to London, Joe. Not that we needed yet another reason, but here it is. I'm ready. Tell me when. I'm ready. Okay.

Baked into the episode itself, is this insistence on the 15th Doctor Shudegatwa being the real doctor? our listener Randy wrote in with this line. 15 says, quote, I'm me. I think I'm really, really me. Oh, I am completely me. You know, don't just stand there push, right?

So like, okay, it's in the text. But also in this commentary, which Caleb sent to us, do you want to play roles? Do you want to play RTD or Tenant? Oh. You pick. Okay. Who's Collinson?

Is Steve Collinson? How about you be Tenant and Collinson? And I'll be R2. That's okay. You know what's going to happen? No wait, did you notice that tenant slipped? Irish accent came out when he said wheelchair accessible was such Pony.

See, it was just unbelievable. Okay, I will just read this in my Baltimore accent. All right. Tenet, you know what's going to happen. All I'm going to be asked. So what does that mean? When's the next story? When's the...

Yes, I think that's not... I was going to do a Welsh accent, but I won't even insult whales to do it. Yes, I think that's starting already. Let me tell you, you get mentioned once. Oh, show business is harsh. One mention, because it's like, I know, because someone said to me, why doesn't the doctor... Okay, this is Collinson, not Tenet.

Why wouldn't Unit call on? Why doesn't the doctor come sailing in? Why doesn't he always? It's like Colin Baker coming to rescue Patrick Trotton. They did that. They all came at the end of the time. day the doctor. Clara's out there flying around in the Tartis with what's her name? Oh my God. For it all. Tough look for a shielder. Sorry.

Devastating blow for a shieldor. Okay, back to Tennant here. River Song. Jenny. The doctor's daughter. I love that. I believe this is David Tennant making a bid for his wife to get a spin-off. That she's the spin-off she was supposed to get in the first place. Russell concludes by saying the doctor's daughter, she's out there. So you can kind of use that argument for anything. Why didn't someone else, whatever. But that's not what happens in stories.

Then he talks about a tale of two cities for a second. Don't worry about it. And then he says, it just doesn't work that way. It's like you're in the story. You tell the story. Okay. So like, so this is a little less like, will it always feel like the legit doctors back in the garden and shooties? Like, and it's a little bit more like how often can we expect 14 to come swooping in and saving the day.

And Russell here is promising a very, very light touch, if any at all whatsoever. And also, though, every other doctor. We're going to talk about that in a second. It's not a real shit show. We're going to talk about the second. The other concern people have is like now that we've duplicated the Tartis, barring the jukebox and the ramp that was added, does 15 have the real Tartis?

Or does 15 just get a copy? And if so, is that another moment where we're like, that's not fair. Russell says, see, I think if I'm any judge of fandom, people will worry that that is a new Tartis and not the old Tartis, Shudy's Tartis. And I'm here to say in a story to come, There's proof that is still the old Tartis. That's all I'm saying. So we'll get some TARDIS answers in this upcoming season.

There's also zero regeneration identity crisis. You know, we don't even get like, this is hard. I'm coughing up sparkly clouds of goo for a little bit. Just a very intense backcrack. I kind of miss that, if I'll be honest. But I suppose you could argue that like 14's been doing enough of that for all of us, right? like early in this episode, he says, oh, what do I say? What do I say?

What do I say? Because I'm always so certain. I'm all Sonic and Tardis and Time Lord. Take that away. Take away the toys. What am I? What am I now? Of course, it makes me think of that same Buffy line.

I keep quoting, which is about like, you know, no friends, no weapon. Whatever. What does that leave? And she says, me. Or our listener, Lauren, points out, Mallory, you want to give us a Tony Starkism? Big man in a suit of armor. I'm sorry, I can't help but start with the cap line. Take that away.

And what are you? Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. One of my favorite scenes in the history of the MCU. Everything special about you came out of a bottle. It's quite rude. This Who Am I? I suppose the 15th doctor doesn't have to do that because the 14th doctor spent 25 years in a garden.

thinking about it. I don't know. Whatever you decide. We're not doing that. Just not like all in this, yeah, one instant. I need a cup of tea from Jackie Tyler before I could settle in burst and it's, dispensed us over time. All right. Last thing about the by generation that we would talk about. But certainly not the last ever, but last, the last or today. I suspect it's only just beginning. RTT said a truly, I'm just going to say, fucking bat-shit thing on the BBCI player commentary, which they then talked about the official podcast. Yeah. Which is that now that the 15th and 14th doctor, she got one, David Tennant, have experienced by generation.

Now every doctor has retroactively experienced by generation is the, quote, birth of the doctor. verse, meaning all, like, from a logistical, uh, nostalgia play angle, every actor who's ever played the doctor is now back on the table because they've all now retroactively by Jenner rated stresses me out. This is like so stressful of a concept for like, again, that sort of like take a tip from Marvel, and once you open all the doors, it can be just overwhelmingly too much. That being said, if RTD manages to get Christopher Eccleston back on screen as the doctor after this like acrimonious split, I would like to see it.

That would be amazing. That's like the one exception where I was like, I would like to see that. I would be thrilled to see Matt Smith again at any point. I mean, Kapal to Ed. Joe, do you? Of course. It's like, yeah, we're addicts. I mean, it's hard not to think that sounds fun, but also just terrifying.

But also, oh my God. Because then it's like, to that point about things end, that nobody has had an ending. Nobody has had to say goodbye. The Eccleston thing, quick sidebar is that he has started to go to like, I already mentioned this, but he started to go to like Dr. Who conventions and like answer Dr. Who questions again. And then he posted on his Instagram, like a Doctor Who magazine, was shooting on the cover. It was just like so sweet and supportive. And I was just like, he's starting to heal.

That's wonderful. I love it. So I'm like, put on the black leather coat again. Chris, come back to the TARDIS. But does that mean everyone gets to, like, how many Tartis is around there? What are we talking about now? Like, what's happening? So I'm scared.

I'm genuinely concerned about this. excited and scared to quote Stephen Sondheim. What do you think? It was like a cute aside and very sweet in the like, you know, whatever my niece wants. I want to keep my niece happy way. But we didn't learn that 14 is already taken rose to Mars. Rose to Mars. And melt New York.

So like I think to that question you posed a few minutes ago, the Steve Rogers dancing and fucking and not stopping. Hydra Travelling. We have questions and concerns. Yeah. Matt, you make it magnifold, right? Like, what will... And I guess, like, you could maybe talk yourself

into the doctor being a character who understands the weight of meddling in O.A. You're not supposed to. But then again, that's where, like, the why this face question and, like, Donna being the character in Pompeii, who said, like, just, like, save someone. Someone. I don't think we can accept.

I don't think we will be able to accept that the doctor is not helping and it's just chilling. So then there needs to be an explanation for that or you enter kind of a comic book. And we say this as people who love comic books. Like kind of continuity where you have like whatever the doctor versus version of the asterisk

at the bottom of the page that tells you like, this is what happened elsewhere. This is why these characters weren't here because they were off doing this other thing. And I don't know how sustainable that will feel. Has Carol Danvers been? Our listener Matthew wrote in to say, maybe 14 is the doctor incarnation who becomes Tom Baker as the curator.

That's in the 50th anniversary special. I like that as it ties up the continuity, gives a lot of earthbound adventures to imagine, and doesn't feel like it needs to regularly intersect with the main storyline. Sure. But Matthew, I would say Tom Baker is Tom Baker as the cure.

Definitely. I think that is the accurate read based on what we've learned here. And this idea, the way that the official podcast is talking about it as it relates to these 2020 or the anniversary tales of the TARDIS specials that they did where they got like Sylvester McCoy and Peter Davis and these old doctor

who actors to put on their old costumes and be in the Tartis with their companions. but they were acting as if they were also the doctor. So is it like all bi-generated doctors then age? So we never have to explain why David Tennant is aging or why when Peter Davison came back for a special appearance. They had to explain why he was aging. Why is Tom Baker look the way that he does the 50th anniversary of special? It's this idea that they've all bi-generated and they're all the doctor, I guess.

I wonder, this makes me think, here's my new head canon based on this information. Okay, great. 11. The bi-generated 11. Yeah. Went back. Once again found James Corden, found Craig, and joined the rec league, playing some footy, and eventually 11 becomes a Premier League manager.

It's all soccer for 11 all the time in this mortal life. 11 who, as we know, in stark contrast to 14, who winds up happy in the garden, could not sit still in the pontome for one day. Right. What if instead 11 somehow gets involved with technology and cybernet and becomes the literal personification of Skynet? And then that explains that Terminator would be. Wow.

I like that. Your Messmith plays Skynet. You said technology. very Obadiastain voice. I still think we're in the Iron Man of it all here. Technology. I like it. I like it.

13 to 13 go and fine, yes? There are just so many questions. Questions. And Russell's like, great. I have a million spin-offs with which to give you answers. All right. Let's bring back down to Earth. Let's go full circle with Donna Noble.

So the idea of the doctor settling in with Donna and her family, or at least, like, regularly being with them was something, of course, that Donna proposed in Starbees, the first episode of these three episodes. And he pulled a very, like, we'll see face. That's not available to me, face. I think is how I would reinterpret it. Like, we had questions about what face he was pulling. We felt certain that was going to pay off somehow. We just didn't understand how. Now we better understand sort of what they were going for here.

But coming inside for dinner with the family goes back even further with. Donna. And I just want to say, yes, we do. We both listen to the official podcast. I clipped this before I listened to that. They referenced it on that. But we're all thinking about this. We're thinking about Donna and the runaway bride when she first meets the tent doctor and she invites him in for dinner. This is not just full circle for Don Noble and Noble and the doctor and their whole story. This is full circle for our journey with the doctor. because I played this clip on a lone wolf and cub trobes course before we even started to rewatch as a sort of like here's what's coming on dr. this is the very clip I played. Steve, will you play it again? Thank you. Tell you what I will do though. Christmas dinner. Oh, come on. I don't do that sort of thing.

You did it last year. You said so. And you might as well because mom always cooks enough for 20. All right then. But you go first, but don't warn them. And don't say I'm a Martian. I just have to park her properly. She might drift off to the Middle Ages. Oh, see you in a minute. You can shout. Am I ever going to see you again?

If I'm lucky. Just promise me one thing. Find someone. I don't need anyone. Yes, you do. Because sometimes I think you need someone to stop you. So the reason we brought this up in the lone wolf and cub episode was this idea of like the lone wolf needing the cub character as someone to stop them, to hold them back from like their worst tendencies and stuff like that. And so Donna's like travel with someone in The TARDIS.

And this, of course, comes back when the doctor and Will for having their conversation, you've cited this interaction a bunch when the doctor talks about traveling alone and how he thought it would be better. and it wasn't all of that. But there's just, it's so satisfying, even though Russell, I'm sure, did not plan this from this jump. It's so satisfying to feel all of this payoff of like coming in for dinner. The idea that there's way too much food,

which there is, that table is just groaning. Like, you know, the idea that like, uh, Sean Temple, the house, rose, all of that.

Sylvia, the way that the specials have really been selling us on this idea of like how nice, how lovely Sean is, how lovely their home is, how nice it is, like not just a nice ending for Donna, but a nice future for the doctor. So come and for dinner, right? Stay for dinner. And then that idea of stopping. I think you need someone to stop you.

And as you already mentioned, it's not just 15, is 15 and Donna. It took both of them to truly stop the doctor, once and for all, at least for now, and let and rest with occasional trips to Mars with Rose and New York with Mel. You know what I mean? You know, but I just love how, I just love how, and honestly, truly sometimes I do feel like I'm dreaming and these are just specials that are plucked out of my dreaming mind. Because can I just tell you that my number one fantasy of all time in terms of like, when I, honestly, when I think of happy ever after, is a long table outside under a bower

some like wisteria great, Bougainvia, great, some sort of flowery bowery bowery. or long table, surrounded by loved ones, laughing and sharing a meal. That to me, to me, has always been, like, happy ever after. Like, you know, if I ever own land, the first thing I'm doing is building a power and planning that wisteria or whatever it is because it takes time to grow. So it's just the happy ever after dream. I think it's absolutely beautiful. And also, there's this storytelling.

part, right? This idea that like, so in the runaway bride, like I said, I've been going back through and trying to think about like when the doctor did talk about his past or his other companions with his current companion. And I was like, well, Donna knows about Rose. So like, didn't they have a long talk about her in the runaway bride? And I looked at that scene. I mean, there's two mentions of Rose in the runway bride. Three actually. But this scene, which I was like, oh yeah, in the rooftop scene, surely they have a long conversation about her. Then I looked it up and literally the doctor says, I spent Christmas Day just over there, the Palo Estate, this family, my friend, she had this family.

Well, they were. Still gone now. Donna says, your friend who was she? And the doctor says, question is, what do camouflage robot mercenaries want with you? Like, he's not, he's like a abrupt subject change. All right. All right Z to the problem at hand, you know. Versus what we get at this, you know, to your point that you made about Donna talking about all

the things that he doesn't talk about or I didn't know that or what is that true or what is that. We get him just sitting down at the dinner table freely and openly sharing his history with this family, using his eyebrows to tell this story about one of his adventures, you know? And it's just sort of like, beautiful. It is. What do you want to say about this happy ever after? Oh, man, I loved this.

I thought the scene was wonderful. I love the clip that you played in that full circle satisfaction and closure that we get here. I was thinking also of Amy inviting 11 in for Christmas dinner and the moment of like, you didn't know I was coming? Why would you set a place for me and his face when Amy tells him that they always do? Always do. And like having to think about that, that there are people who are waiting for you and who would welcome you the moment you decided

that you were ready for it and for this doctor to finally be ready for it. And like part of 11's farewell is times change. change and so must I. And like, what was the nature of that change really, doctor to doctor? And when is it a progression and when is it seismic? And like, what does it mean if it's seismic? And for the doctor to say, who thought I ended up with a family is incredible. Like, that is just so deeply, deeply meaningful and moving. And, you know, I was thinking when he said, said, you know, Donna asked, do you miss it out there? And he said, funny thing is, I fought all those battles for all those years and now I know what for this. I've never been so happy in my

life and that smile, that beaming smile. I was thinking of a couple things. I was thinking of another agonizing moment between 10 and Wilf that we have cited a lot when he said, even then, even if I change, it feels like dying. Everything I am dies. Some new man goes sauntering away and I'm dead. And like that's really, I think all the points we've made so far are valid and we will continue to assess them as we receive new installments of the story. But like that is the magic of this, right?

Is like he doesn't have to feel that way because he isn't. He isn't dead. Some new man went sauntering away and lovingly said, it's time for you to leave the TARDIS. I'm ready for my new adventure. And that was awesome. And then we got this. We got to see him sitting under that wisteria.

And the, you mentioned this episode earlier, God Complex. Like I was thinking of Rory saying, this is really, this ended up being one of my favorite lines from the entire run. I'd forgotten not all victories

are about saving the universe. And like, this is one of the, the times the doctor actually really gets to understand that and appreciate that and experience that. Like, this was not about saving the universe. This was about saving himself, right? Like, Joe, this is the Frodo Grey Havens for the doctor, but he decided. But not for me.

But actually going back to the Shire. I was thinking about the Shire so much. Yeah. Now I know what I was fighting for. Like, what are you fighting for? We always bring up the Shire when we talk about like the thing worth the And to get to go sit there. It's like Bilbo's birthday party.

Like essentially, you know what I mean? Like, what if you just get to go to Bilbo's birthday party every night in your back garden? I love this so much. It makes me so happy. Also, I'm so glad you brought up the God Complex. I really think I think about that episode all the time. I really think it's like a low-key, like an underrated, absolute classic. All right, we were going to talk about these like signs and portents, but I feel like we already

covered this. Like, I feel like we already talked about anything you also want to add. Let's talk about the tooth. We talked about the, we talked about the, the one who waits and the legions are coming. I think that we have to talk about the tooth. The toy maker saying that the master is in the tooth. The tooth falls after the toy makers folded up and compressed and hidden away in this box that will go into the deepest vault and be packed in salt. And then a hand with red nail polish picks up the tooth. Well manicured. And the tooth giggles. So on a watched, I looked at every person's hand, and Kate's nails are painted red. You think it's Kate? I don't, it's either, or it's a misdirect, because the nail polish, I was like,

does Shirley have nail polish on? No. Does Mel have nail polish on? No. Kate has red nail polish on. So they must know that we would spot that, right? So does it mean it's a misdirect, or is it Kate? Kate had left already.

Kate had left the helipad. So could Kate have come around somehow? Oh, that's so interesting. because I just like all, I thought they were all just inside, and it like couldn't have been any of them. Could Kate have gotten around somehow? This is, this gets to my larger unit. I'm on unit watch because this compulsion to collect former companions is suspicious to me.

I think you could just say like the most basic read is like these people know a lot about these galaxy shaking events and have skills that are useful for units work. But is there a more sinister read? either because of the Vlinks or something else. I love all of that. I want to watch. Kate, you're on notice. A lot of people are wondering if this is the character that Jinks Monsoon,

a wonderful drag queen will be playing on Doctor Who. Though if you go to Entertainment Weekly, there is like a first look at Jinks Monson in their Doctor Who costume and the nails are very different. not to say that a very stylish person can't have many different beautiful manicures in their life, but it's a different thing. I don't know if I actually think this is Kate, but I was just like change the nail polish if you're going to do a close-up.

I really like that you were on like nail polish watch. And during the like the pointing scene when they were showing the spike, it was just like it was so. Plenty of people have also compared it to a manicure that we've seen on River Song in the Time of the Angels, whatever, that first Weeping Angel episode

is of Matt Smith's era when she's like in the gown and stuff like that, she's got the red nails going and stuff like that. The other thing with unit, I'm just like, okay.

I mean, we're all on unit watch. I agree with you. Yeah, like the collection of, oh, the like, Ark or the Covenant-esque collection.

Yeah. It's concerning to me. Trumbling. If it's not Kate gone, if it's not, Kate gone rogue, but this idea of having a dangerous collection and then someone waltzing in and just letting it all free. Yes.

For sure. That could happen. It happened. Okay. All right. Last and not least. Yeah. Holiday special forecasting.

We are getting, we're not going to spend too much time on this. We have plenty to talk about when we talk about it. But the episode is called the Church on Ruby Road, which I really love because our new companion is named Ruby Sunday is played by Millie Gibson. We see her in the trailer. Right. The premises long ago on Christmas Eve, a baby was abandoned in the snow. Today, Ruby Sunday meets the doctor stolen babies, goblins, and perhaps the secret of her birth.

As you said, we see Shudy dancing in the club. Tremend. Very sex education. Very new, new, who, you know. And he's got two different outfits in the very first episode alone. We've already called this out in publicity shots that we see the doctor as a, this doctor is a clothes horse. But we see the club look, and then we also see that amazing brown leather trench coat look that we've seen in some promo photos as well. And then I don't know if we want to talk about this right now, but I just simply need to say it, and we will talk about it more next week.

And you can say anything you want. The new Sonic is bananas. It is absolutely bananas. I was like, what? There's a little behind the scenes of Shudy giving you a tour of it. Very sweet the way that he talks about it. and he's very excited. And there's this like Rwandan proverb and Galefran on there that says the sharpness of the tongue defeats the sharpness of the warrior, which is very like the doctor doesn't carry a gun.

The doctor carries a screwdriver. But it's the shape of it is. Yeah. I'm excited to see it in action. The little sneak peek we got in that little feature at was very intriguing. It's cool. It does kind of heighten that that sense of like a harder. reset.

New, new. New who. And I'm excited for the jukebox and the TARDIS, and I hope we get like several dance party. Let every episode end with the dance party. I would be completely down with it. In. We did it, Mallory.

Fantastic. Fantastic. We sail off into the future. I'll see you in a week. I have to talk about who again. Can't wait. In the meantime, I'll be in the back garden. Eating.

vegan castle by accident. But not, can I just say not tunamadras? Because actually, Tuna Madras does not sound good to me. But I just didn't want to say it because I felt rude. But now that I know that the doctor's forever going to be eating in that back garden, I just have to say Tudemadrasse, that seems like a combination of flavors. I'm not particularly keen on myself. Totally fair.

I'll be here, Joe, on Zoom, shouting, everybody loves the balls in my best toy maker impression. Bad, baby. There's a line in the episode, Steve. I don't know what to tell you. This episode. was produced by the great Steve Alman. Thanks for Jenner & Quillal for our additional production work and for Jomea Jenneron, always on the social. And we will see you later this week for our best moments of the year podcast, but also in like a week and a half for more Doctor Who.

Okay, that's it. Bye!