One day, I shall come back...
Three, two. Thunder Nerds are go. Thunder Nerds, welcome back. Man, it's been a long time. It's been way too long.
Speaker 1:Good to be back. I always thought I'd bring this podcast back. I was fairly sure that I'd do that. And here we are. Episode, I think, must be something around 46 or rather.
Speaker 1:Now Welcome back, one and all. That's the first thing to tick off the agenda. Where did we go? Well because we got we kinda just dipped off there, didn't we? Look.
Speaker 1:We had an extremely busy period. Josh and I kind of, I suppose, thrust upon us. We dabble in acting, filmmaking as well, and things picked up a little bit for us both. And we had to kinda put the podcast aside, which was a shame at the time because we were just leading up to, Shooty Gatwick's first season of Doctor Who. So I'm yet to give my thoughts on that, all that to come.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, we were I think at the time, dabbling between a doctor who revival retrospective, which we had, I think, just covered off BoomTown, which is episode 10 of Eccleston's first season. Now I'm going to keep all the pods prior to this up, at least for the time being so that there is a historical record for you. If you do wanna go back and listen to that doctor who retrospective because I'm looking to continue that on. Also, Star Trek was another one that Josh and I were covering off. I might pick the Star Trek TNG up and continue with it.
Speaker 1:I was enjoying it. Josh will not be joining us on the podcast, unfortunately. We might get him in every now and then, though, if he's free. See if we can get him in maybe for some especially if we go back to Star Trek. Maybe we'll try and dial him in to get some get some thoughts on what he thinks about some of those TNG episodes because he was much more versed with that than I was.
Speaker 1:But he's busy, so it's gonna be difficult, I suppose, to get him on frequently, but I might call him in every now and then to talk Star Trek or just shoot the shit. But it's gonna be me, predominantly, Thunder Nerd one moving forward. We'll do doctor who, of course. That's a mainstay. I love doctor who.
Speaker 1:James Bond. I'm a massive Bond fan. Might cover some of that off. Thunderbirds. Maybe we need to get Josh on here and do the oh, wow.
Speaker 1:I'm just thinking about it now. Maybe we have to do the Thunderbird live action film because Jonathan Frakes directed that notorious film. Is notorious the wrong word? Infamous, maybe. And it is that.
Speaker 1:So maybe we need to get him on and and do a do a watch along to that because that is a bundle of laughs, that film. Anyway, so we'll do some films as well. Like, I I I'm gonna see sinners soon, hopefully. I'm hearing some really good stuff about that. I'll throw that up when I've seen it, my thoughts on it.
Speaker 1:So films, we'll do some TV shows, like I said. So doctor who's the mainstay, but Severance, I wanna get around to watching that. Breaking Bad's a classic. Maybe we bring on someone and talk about Breaking Bad. Shows like that.
Speaker 1:Endor. I'm hearing a lot of good stuff about Endor. I think I need to watch that. We'll get someone on to talk about that as well. We'll bring some guests in every now and then.
Speaker 1:Today on the show, we have got, Lady Penelope coming on. That's my sister. Code name, Lady Penelope, though, for the purpose of the podcast. She is gonna be talking doctor who well, I guess season one, Russell T. Davies, second era overall.
Speaker 1:What are her thoughts on it? What does she think? Let's talk about that. And then we're gonna get on another good friend of mine, a gaming friend of old, the ice warrior. We'll bring him on.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about his thoughts. What does he think about doctor who and the state it's in at the moment? Does he like it? Does he not like it? What does he think of RTD two?
Speaker 1:Where does he think the show is going in the future? Let's talk about that. We'll also talk to him about the g t a six trailer that dropped. It must be a couple of days ago now. I'm recording this on a Saturday for those of you that are listening, and we're gonna talk about that GTA six trailer.
Speaker 1:I know that there's gonna be thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, honestly, breakdowns of that trailer across the place. There's a lot of anticipation about that game, but let's get him on. Let's talk about that as well. And then to finish off now this is all happening. Like, I've already recorded the segment with, Lady Penelope, Wibli Bopi, Tommy Waimi happening here, so that'll all get fifth episode of this new season of doctor who that we're seeing at the moment, Storing the Engine, one of the ones that I have had a lot of anticipation for myself.
Speaker 1:A new writer on the show. That's exciting. That's dropping soon, so I might go watch that comeback. And if I can dial the d man in, we'll get his thoughts. What did he think of the story in the engine?
Speaker 1:So that's kind of where we're at at the moment. Without further ado, let's get into this.
Speaker 2:This is lady Penelope Crichton Ward speaking.
Speaker 1:Penelope. Oh my god.
Speaker 2:Quite the intern. That was wonderful. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Did you
Speaker 3:like that?
Speaker 2:Quite lovely.
Speaker 1:So from now on, you'll be known as Lady Penelope on this podcast. And that's your
Speaker 2:Oh, that's right.
Speaker 1:Special intro whenever you join in. So, Penelope, let's talk doctor who.
Speaker 2:Let's.
Speaker 1:Do we wanna dive into just an overview maybe of season one? Well, actually, hold up. Hold up. Let's go back a little bit. Let's rewind.
Speaker 1:I when it was announced that RTD was coming back to doctor who, I said to you, the savior has returned, and this will be the biggest show in the world.
Speaker 2:Yes. I distinctly remember you saying that.
Speaker 1:And I was pretty adamant about that. Would you agree? Like
Speaker 2:Oh, very. You were very confident. You said mark my words. Yes.
Speaker 1:How do you think that's transpired?
Speaker 2:Listen. I think that's aged like milk in the sun.
Speaker 1:Wow. Wow. So okay. So what okay. So hold on.
Speaker 2:To put it lightly.
Speaker 3:So, like, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Speaker 1:Are we are you when did it when do you think that you knew it wasn't? How early? And what and what about it that is not didn't work for you? Like, when you watched the sixtieth anniversary specials, were you not vibing with them?
Speaker 2:Look. Yeah. Not really. Didn't really pique my interest. Felt like beating a dead horse a little bit, getting Tenant back.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And sort of just a little bit of a desperate clutch at straws. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:They're trying
Speaker 4:Bringing
Speaker 2:back old favorites, just to bring back old fans. It was just a bit
Speaker 1:So it didn't work for you. Would you would you have would you have rather see just a new doctor straight into the mix in the sixtieth specials?
Speaker 2:I guess so. I just don't think the overall material is just good anymore, but that's just my my opinion.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So with, yeah, that that is interesting. I'm just I'm just trying to so because because you kind of tuned out so I I would say that you tuned out of the show after Smith left.
Speaker 2:This is a complex question because I was not really in it that much for Smith.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I was I would say the first maybe after Amy and Rory left because I wasn't even really in it that much. I did I remember watching Clara's season. But, yeah, I guess yeah. No. You're probably right, actually.
Speaker 2:Once the twelfth doctor came on, I was out ski.
Speaker 1:Because I reckon we I remember watching that last Smith story with you on its first broadcast. Gee. We must have been at The Peninsula then, but that that I remember we watched it there, and then I think from memory because you'd watched before that was the fiftieth anniversary special. Right? His fiftieth special goes straight into his final story.
Speaker 1:And then I think you watched a little bit of Capaldi, but I kinda think you were pretty fastly out of there. I reckon that after that first or second story, you kinda went, this is it for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I I pretty much knew. I said, look at this bird looking motherfucker. Gotta go.
Speaker 1:I think that, like, it's an interesting one with Capaldi because he didn't mellow straight away like other doctors. He was an older kind of stick insect looking doctor. I think he looks exactly as I imagined the doctor would look personally.
Speaker 2:But Though that's yeah. It was not his looks that put me off.
Speaker 1:No. No.
Speaker 4:It was
Speaker 2:his his personality.
Speaker 1:Personality. And I think he mellowed over his three seasons, but I I kinda think it echoes what you said.
Speaker 2:I know, but that I'm not gonna sit there and watch all these episodes where he's just completely not what he has been for the past three generations. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:It's interesting. See, I kinda thought I kinda thought that it was an interesting choice to be like, let's give you something different. Because I usually I mean, there's they they they the general rule that the showrunners seem to go with is, like, whatever the previous guy was, let's do the antithesis of that next. I don't really think that happened with Tennant and Smith. I kinda went from a young doc No.
Speaker 1:I I guess it did in the sense of like a very human doctor became a very alien doctor, but the age didn't really change. And then the next one, you go from the youngest to the oldest younger. Likable to really not likable instantly. Yeah. I guess they ran a bit of a risk there, didn't they?
Speaker 1:Like, and it was a bit of a Colin Baker move to be like, let's go from a really not to that extreme where that he's strangly his companion in his first story. Shout out, Colton. But he was a very brutal doctor to start with. So you you you didn't I don't think he really came back for Jody at all either.
Speaker 2:No. I don't think I've seen one episode of Jody.
Speaker 1:Wow. Not one of Jody. And then
Speaker 2:I think so.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Right. So they bring back they bring back Tenet. They bring back Katherine Tate. It's labeled as a sixtieth anniversary kind of celebration.
Speaker 1:It doesn't really have much to do with anything prior, I would say, in the sixty years of Doctor Who. Like, it kinda feels like season four point two, really.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I would agree. Because I feel like all the other anniversary ones always have, like, some sort of callback to some, like, significant thing in the show. And then that one was just sort of, like, David Tennant comes back. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's really like
Speaker 1:it is a like, when you look at it structurally, it is a really like, I really love Wild Blue Yonder, but it is a weird three stories. Like, if you look at the three doctors, the first three doctors come together to fight Omega. You look at the five doctors, the first five doctors come together. Like, and there's a story, his companions Tom Baker didn't come back. Shout out to Tom Baker, wax mannequin, whatever it was in the in the photoshoot.
Speaker 1:And then, I guess, the day of the doctor, you get Smith Tenet. You get John Hurt as a as the war doctor, but it definitely has callbacks to other eras of the show. And the biggest running story of the time, which was the Time War, and that comes to a head in that story. Spoilers. I think that Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's a it is
Speaker 2:a weird random, and I don't find them very memorable. Like, I can barely remember them. You know, all I remember about those episodes Mhmm. Is them getting, like, really big hands and stuff, big arms. Right.
Speaker 2:Yep. Yep. And that's quite literally all I remember.
Speaker 1:Oh, you remember from those stories. So the first story, we get beat the meat, which is a hilarious, like I mean, the beat was from a Beat the Meat was from a fourth Doctor Marvel comic. Never seen one of the shows.
Speaker 2:With Ruby Sunday? The first one with Ruby Sunday?
Speaker 1:No. That that this is the one with the Wraith warriors and the Miriam playing the little white fluffy Beep The Me.
Speaker 2:And so remember the white fluffy thing. Yep.
Speaker 1:So so that's a fourth Doctor comic villain that he that he then goes, let's bring that story, the star beast, into
Speaker 2:Yeah. I've got a gem. I'm going on bail.
Speaker 1:So he brings in he brings in the star beast. He writes an original story for the second story, which really is just a two hander between Tennant and Tate playing two different versions of the characters, like the the not things and then themselves. And then the third special, he brings in what's his name? Neil Patrick Harris is the toymaker.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes. Of course. How could I forget?
Speaker 1:Of course. And the toymaker is a first doctor villain, so there's a callback. But it it but it seems like fairly, like, bizarre little callbacks to the past, like a comic story, a first doctor villain that I wouldn't even say the toymaker for all the times that, you know, he almost came back in an unmade season twenty three with Colin Baker, that didn't happen, but that was a plan with the original actor. They bring the character back now. Fans have talked about that character a lot.
Speaker 1:Now the character the actual story, the celestial toymaker, is actually look. I've seen the reconstructions. I haven't seen the full thing. I've seen the animation. Personally, it's not that good of a story.
Speaker 1:I think people just liked the idea of the toymaker. They bring him back, but he doesn't do a hell of a lot in that story. Does he?
Speaker 2:No. Oh my gosh. Sorry. You've just you just
Speaker 1:made me think about, like,
Speaker 2:the body laugh and, like, no. You just made me, like, think about this overarching, like, the story arc that's sort of building right now with, like, the laughs.
Speaker 1:Pantheon or something and all that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Whatever whatever it may be. And it just I couldn't be less interested in it. Like, I couldn't care less.
Speaker 2:Like, you know how they used to build a story arc, and you'd like, oh, what's gonna happen? Yeah. This one, every time I hear that goddamn laugh, I want to jump off a cliff.
Speaker 1:So it doesn't do it for you. It's just not doing it for you.
Speaker 5:It's not doing it for
Speaker 2:I'm not intrigued. I want to shut up.
Speaker 1:Do you think that doctor who I mean, I don't wanna go on too much of a tangent here, but I'm just I'm just thinking while you're saying that, like, usually doctor who this is I'm talking, like, historically now. Like, back in classic who, it happened in new who, and I'll give some examples because you've seen new who, like, at on at face value, there's ghosts stalking the streets of Cardiff in the unquiet dead turns out to be an alien race called the Gelf. Right? Mhmm. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:At face value, the doctors all of a sudden fighting witches against Shakespeare. Turns out they're called Carrionites, and they're, you know
Speaker 4:But you know what?
Speaker 1:There's science.
Speaker 2:Like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And and what I what I'm kinda getting at is this internal doctor who logic and science behind the myths or whatnot, but with the pantheon.
Speaker 2:I always loved that they did that.
Speaker 1:And then you get to this Wild Blue Yonder, and the doctor kind of is fighting the not things, and he he he seems to think well, he he tells him, you know, you can't cross salt. He makes this thing up, and then he says towards the end of the story, I feel like I've invoked a superstition at the edge of the universe, and maybe that wasn't a good idea, and that is the explanation they're running with for how the toymaker came back, and now how the what they're calling the pantheon has come through. So you're Lux, you're the maestro from the devil's court, these god like figures. No. No.
Speaker 1:I don't It almost feels like, you know, they're using he's gone, I wanna bring some more, like, I don't know, mythical or godlike beings in, but I don't wanna have to explain the sciences they're using. So I'm just going to say that they're part of a pantheon of gods. And it's like what do you think about that?
Speaker 2:It just feels like cheap and just, like, the easy way out.
Speaker 1:Because then you're not explaining it.
Speaker 2:Me. Like, bringing gods, when I think of like, they've had, like, these, you know, villains before, and they've been different races. But then bringing gods, it just feels like he was like, what's the most crazy thing I could do? What's the craziest thing he could be up against? Gods.
Speaker 2:And then brings in these gods, but they're not even fleshed out. They're just really easy cheap shots. I don't know. That's how it feels.
Speaker 1:Right. Okay. So okay. So he brings in goblins. They are very quickly into the era of season one, I'm talking now, when we meet Ruby and whatnot.
Speaker 1:There's musical number in the first story, Church on Ruby Road, then we kinda go into The Devil's Court where the Beatles are there, but they're not they're kinda background. They're not really in the story a hell of a lot, I would say. And there's a musical number at the end. Like, do you think what what's your feeling of the tone of the Gatwick era thus far?
Speaker 2:What I'm gonna say is this. Disney said, we own this now, and we're going to make some changes around here. And they just
Speaker 1:That's interesting. See, I I think that it's Russell, personally.
Speaker 2:He probably always wanted to do shit like that, and they were probably like, oh, that's just not really the what the show is. It's giving Disney owns it now to me. Like, sorry. They randomly started doing musical numbers.
Speaker 1:That's interesting.
Speaker 2:Never do that before. Well,
Speaker 1:I don't know. It's it's an interesting one. Like, I I kinda feel like he's come back and gone, I'm just gonna do because I I was thinking about this racing. I'm like, no one went so the Chris Chipnale era, whatever you think of it, like, I'm talking to you now, Thunder Nerds. Whatever you think of the Chris Chipnale era, I think there's things that you can take away from it that are good, but there's also a lot that, you know, I didn't like and I know other people didn't like.
Speaker 1:But what what I'm trying to get at is that it almost feels like when they announced RTD coming back, it was like, oh my god. He's back. Like, he'll save the show, and no one said no. It it almost feels like, you know, he'd done it before, and no one maybe did did I know that they're script editors, but maybe did they not I don't know. Like, rein in I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:I'm not I'm not sure really what I'm getting at. I'm I'm I'm kind of
Speaker 2:You could be right. They might have been like, he has full creative control. You've done it before. Let's put it in his hands. And then
Speaker 1:what he says He thinks that's right. Let's do that. And then and then I know season one and two were filmed back to back. Like, they they were filming season two when the Star Beast aired. That's how far ahead they So it's not like when they finished season one, they then had the people watching the show, the the fans come in and then went, okay.
Speaker 1:Let's course correct. Let's make some changes. They had shot the seasons back to back, so no feedback was taken on board. I'm I'm just throwing that out there as an interesting thing that like, so you could look at it two ways. You could look at it and go, well, okay.
Speaker 1:Well, no no feedback's been brought on board. This is, like, whatever you thought of the season one. If it doesn't correct in season two, it was because they shot it so close together. You could look at it another way and say, are the seasons so inextricably linked with the themes they're going for, like the whole, like, maybe this is all happening in a show theory that it's almost you can't judge the entire thing until we've seen the end of season two to see if the landing sticks. Because season one's ending felt very the whole Ruby Mum thing, there was just a lot of things that that felt very underwhelming in a in a kind of off way to me that it like, when I think back on it, I go, have is there knowing that they had these two seasons only greenlit, Like, where is the final going here?
Speaker 1:Like and so I am interested to see that.
Speaker 2:I would love that. If it if it does get wrapped up nicely and it has an ending where everything ties together and makes more sense, then that would be ideal. I don't know if that's actually what's gonna happen, but
Speaker 1:Yeah. I'm not sure either. I just I just get a weird feeling about that, and I I think some of the other people that I've been reading comments on are also getting that feeling that, like, there's more to that fan scene from episode two than just being in episode two. People seem to think that those like, the post credits scene of them going, oh, you know, we're still alive, we're still here, is gonna come back in the final and the fans are gonna actually play a part in the final and that the audience thing is going to be a much bigger part than just a little episode two cameo. That was just the setup for it.
Speaker 1:And I don't mind that idea because I do feel like this era has felt more like a show, if that makes It's felt more like, you know, characters winking and saying things directly to the camera and like, they've done that before in Doctor Who. It's actually not a new thing, like the Doctor speaking to the camera and saying things. Tom Baker used to do it. Capaldi did it. Like, multiple Doctors have had their little wink wink, nudge nudge moments to the audience.
Speaker 1:But to address it in the show and perhaps bring it into the finale, I mean, it could have bad ramifications possibly depending on if they go down and if it's handled. Maybe it could have maybe it could turn out really good. I'm not sure. The track record, would say, personally, this is just me speaking from my own experiences and, you know, how many times I've watched the show, I kinda feel like the the the best landing Russell T. Davies ever stuck for a finale was the Eccleston finale.
Speaker 1:Like, since then, I'd I wouldn't say the the finales have landed as well. Yeah. Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:No. Agree. I would agree.
Speaker 1:What did you think? So we get to the end of season one. Belinda comes on board. How do you think that's changed the dynamic with this doctor? Like, do you are you liking that dynamic better than the Ruby Sunday fifteenth doctor?
Speaker 2:I feel like both of them didn't really give much at all. I found Ruby more annoying. I find this one Belinda, I think is her name is. I find her way more tolerable.
Speaker 5:Yep.
Speaker 2:And I like that her thing is, like, she wants to go back. That's kind of a nice fresh take because that she doesn't really wanna be there. I don't know how she's, like I mean, obviously, they can't really get back to the current day, so I guess that's why she can't. But if that was me, I wouldn't really be going on adventures in between. Yep.
Speaker 2:But but, yeah, I like her a
Speaker 4:lot more.
Speaker 1:You like her a lot more. Okay. Yeah. I think she's I don't know what it is. It just seems to be something for me when I watch her and I go, I don't know why it wasn't there for me with Ruby, but she just seems like a companion to me, like a normal
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's hard. I I I don't really even know how to define that. I just it's just watching it. I'm not immediately thinking it's an actress playing.
Speaker 2:Feel yeah. Yeah. It felt very much like I was watching two actors on screen. Mhmm. Sorry for you all, but you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:You're meant to be sort of lost in it, so you don't really think like that. But with them together, I always felt like I was watching two actors play roles. Yep. This one's a lot more genuine.
Speaker 1:Yep. Yeah. That's good. I think that's been a noticeable change between it. I it does make me wonder where would the show be, and I'm I'm not like, it makes me wonder if they'd opened with this season.
Speaker 1:Because I would say so far, personally, that I I didn't love the Robot Revolution. I don't think you watched that. Not sure if I think that was, like, better than Space Babies or not, but I think for for my personal taste, I thought Lux, which very much felt like the devil's cord, like, in you know, it's going back to the past that it's another pantheon god or whatever. Like, I I felt like Lux was way better to me than the Devil's Chord was with the Maestro and the Beatles. And Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think episode three, The Well was better than Boom, and maybe 73 yards, I think, is I think that's definitely better than the last one. Should I have forgotten the title of the last one? Oh my god. Can't remember what it was. Anyway, I've just I've just completely blanked on episode oh, Lucky Day.
Speaker 1:But Nice. I kinda think if they opened with this season with this dynamic, I wonder if it would have because the general consensus that I've seen, even though I didn't like the robot revolution, is that a lot of people have been week after week going, this is so much better than last year. And I wonder, like, if they'd opened with this, would there be more talk about it? I I almost think you could argue that it's too little too late where people dropped off, and now that they're hitting their stride a little bit with some of the stuff they're doing, like, they've actually lost the viewership already, possibly. That's what it feels
Speaker 5:like today.
Speaker 2:That, but you're probably right.
Speaker 1:What did you think about The Well? Like
Speaker 2:Yeah. It was definitely the strongest one they've had, I would say, at all in this
Speaker 1:In this?
Speaker 2:The new new Doctor Who. Interesting. Definitely.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Did you kind of pick up what it was doing with with being a Midnight sequel? Or, like, what were you
Speaker 2:Well, yeah. As soon as it didn't click straight away, but as soon as they obviously mentioned that it used to be a planet made of diamonds
Speaker 5:Mhmm.
Speaker 2:I sighed to myself, and I said, oh my gosh. It's midnight. That's true. Know that.
Speaker 1:I think
Speaker 2:I sowed away, I was like, I hate myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think that, like, with the well I don't know what your thoughts thoughts are on this, but I I I kinda feel like it's the most doctor ish that Shooty Gatt was ever felt to me in the role. Like, I don't know if it's the script. Well, well, it definitely is the script, but there's something about the way he the moment he enters you know, they arrive on the planet. Go inside, and then they're they're doing the, like, oh, there's something, like, all these people are dead.
Speaker 1:I think they do a really the first thing I I think is worth noting is, like, I think they run a really good balance in the episode where, you know, you know you've got kind of five to six year olds watching. There's not yeah. I guess you can't push things too far, but I thought they dabbled nicely on the edge with, like, showing a few bodies and not showing
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 1:What did you say?
Speaker 2:Sorry. No. You're so right. Sorry. I just that that sentence was wild.
Speaker 2:That was wild. Doubled nicely with showing a few bodies. Crazy.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm saying that, like, you know, you can't be having, you know, bloodied, bad bodies in a in a kid's show, essentially. Like so they they kind of insinuate, oh, every everything in them is broken. Like, half of them have laser fire. Laser fire, obviously, you can't see laser fire, I I suppose, so that no blood there, like and then they they do a bit of paranormal, like, people around. I feel like they do as much as they probably could, and I I could see myself watching it as a kid and being shit scared.
Speaker 1:Like, obviously, the age I am now doesn't do that, but, like, I could see if I was a kid watching that, and I'd never seen anything like that, that I'd be absolutely batshit scared about what I was watching. So I think they do that nicely. Yeah. But I think the way that he walks into the room and completely asserts control with her and goes, you know, he's got the soldiers around. He's in command of them.
Speaker 1:He he knows sign language. I liked that choice. I liked the subtitling.
Speaker 2:Very, like, genuine to the character.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, the twelfth doctor kind of
Speaker 2:Well, he's meant to know every language. Right? So, like, he he would know sign language, so that made sense.
Speaker 1:It's funny. Like, the twelfth doctor kinda walked into a room at one point with someone who was deaf and he he tried sign language and was terrible at it. So I I do wonder, like, did he learn it after that, or did does did different incarnations just recall different things? I wonder.
Speaker 2:I I think that doesn't make any sense, so I think he would have to have learned it.
Speaker 1:Probably learned it after. I mean, you you would think, you know, obviously, there's a gag in there and under the lake, but, like, you do think surely the doctor, knowing knowing how much he says he speaks 5,000,000,000 languages, what, he hasn't learned sign language?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I I don't even I don't buy that.
Speaker 1:So that's an interesting little tidbit. But, like, he walks in, he knows what's going on. I think the actress is really strong. I think her name is Rose. I don't know her last name.
Speaker 1:A list or something like that, but she was really good in the story. And I think I did worry, and I'm not sure what your thoughts were on this. I worried that they were gonna show too much when when it did turn out to be the the midnight entity. There is that risk of going on.
Speaker 2:They were gonna actually show the entity, like, reveal it this time?
Speaker 1:Well, that's what I was worried about. I mean, it it had leaked in in a
Speaker 2:I think that would ruin it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I think so. Like, I I feel like it
Speaker 2:imagine it's just a terrible, like, CGI monster.
Speaker 1:And that's what that's what I was worried about. Like, I know before that they've, like in the Moffitt era, they've gone, oh, like, let's lift up the ice warrior helmet in one story, and then you see it. It's just a CGI lizard thing underneath. You go, did did we need to see under the ice warrior helmet? Like, did we?
Speaker 1:Has that just, like Yeah. Taken away a bit of what makes them cool? The other one was, like, when and I think this is a good comparison to use. Like, if you if we take Blink to be, you know, the comparison of Ridley Scott's Alien
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And then we take Time of Angels and Flesh and Stone to be Ridley Scott's aliens being the sequel, you know, that I kind of feel like it worked on a first viewing seeing the angels actually move, but you ruin That
Speaker 2:was what made them scary was that you couldn't.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And you ruin that a little bit when you see them move in the second in that story, in their in their first follow-up. And I did worry, like, please don't do that, Russell. Like, don't show us the creature properly because Midnight on a on a standalone viewing is one of the classic Doctor Who stories, and I do feel like this is up there actually in a different way with that story. I don't think it's quite at the level of Midnight, but I think I don't know.
Speaker 1:It just had hallmarks of classic RTD, the character sacrifice, but it's done well at the end, jumping into the well.
Speaker 2:I think yeah. I I I liked that. That was good.
Speaker 1:Like, seeing the whole, like, she's running, like, how it flashes to her as a kid. Like, I don't know. It just you can you can say it's a really camp, but for some for somehow, like, he's really good at pulling that stuff off when he does it. When he's on, he's on, I think. And I think he pulls that off, and I like the idea because someone pointed out, they're like, well, why didn't the creature, like, jump?
Speaker 1:Like so she's at the well. She's looking down the well. The doctor's running behind her. People are like, why didn't the creature latch onto the doctor because she was facing away from him. Right?
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:And then and then the the assumption there would be, well, that's what makes that scene so great. It's that the the the it probably it that wasn't a hard and fast rule that it had to be on someone's back. It just was playing around since, like, it cop it was learning in midnight. It was assimilating and becoming, like, learning how to be. You've never seen another life form.
Speaker 1:Four hundred years later, somehow it's coming out of the well, and it's just made up its own rule. I'm just gonna hang on people's backs. And, like, that's more interesting than than a hard and fast rule to say, well, from the moment it realized what she was going to do, it just latched on to the next person that was there, and she didn't have to kill herself at all. She was running down the thing and throwing herself down a well with a creature that never even left that tunnel room or whatever. And then by the end of it, and I think that's a really smart choice by the end to show it again and infer that one of those two in the last scene in the ship, once they've been beamed back up or whatever, beam me up, Scotty, have been beamed back up Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Has it now and now it's achieved its goal. So whether or not they do the story again, you can say, well, the doctor didn't beat this thing again for a second time in a row, but this time, it's now off world. It's actually got out.
Speaker 2:You know what? Russell's setting up for the body hundredth anniversary episode.
Speaker 1:And no doubt
Speaker 2:it will midnight creature's gonna come back.
Speaker 1:Midnight verse David Tenen again.
Speaker 2:The one thing he could never read.
Speaker 1:I remember seeing like, people have done memes where it's like the poster for the doctor doctor who hundredth anniversary, and it's the tenth doctor, the metachrist doctor from the series four finale, the fourteenth doctor, and then like another tenant doctor. As if it's just like a multi doctor story of tenants. It's just so accurate, though.
Speaker 2:So real.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:I think I think we've got through anything else. I mean, do you wanna just just while I've got you.
Speaker 2:Oh, god.
Speaker 1:Yep. Do you wanna give me your high level thoughts on the g t a six trailer?
Speaker 2:Just a switch. Looks really, good.
Speaker 1:Really good.
Speaker 2:Great graphics. Excited. Excited to see more.
Speaker 1:Yep. Very good. No. I'm I'm really keen. I think some people actually, I'm not even gonna go there with that.
Speaker 1:I'm not gonna go there. I'm not gonna open that can of worms, actually.
Speaker 2:That's a different podcast.
Speaker 1:No. No. I'm I'm gonna open it right now. Oh. What's your thoughts on this?
Speaker 1:It gets delayed till May 26. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I
Speaker 1:read something very interesting with someone going, it's it's been it's the wish list is now available on the PlayStation store for the game. Mhmm. It's been delayed till the 05/26/2026. People
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Were saying, I smell a rat with the fact the Wishlist is out already. Like, it's a year away, and they've dropped the trailer. The the natural assumption would be trailer drops because they're appeasing the audience because they had to delay the game. There's a little conspiracy I'm seeing floating around that, like, they've released a fake date, and that it's actually coming at the end of the year, but they're they're trying to avoid data leakers leaking game files and stuff. So they're trying to throw it off to a later date, but they're gonna just do a last minute black market kind of like.
Speaker 1:Sorry. Black not black market. Black market. Black Friday drop, and they're just gonna drop it, like, close to the end of the year at some point. Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's an interesting idea.
Speaker 2:Great theory.
Speaker 1:Great theory. Okay. Okay. You're done. Penelope, we're getting rid of you.
Speaker 2:It's been an absolute pleasure.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. We'll get you back on the podcast again so that I can talk at you. But no.
Speaker 2:Either It's all working.
Speaker 1:But, honestly, honestly, look at me. It's been wonderful.
Speaker 2:It's been Oh. A lot of time.
Speaker 1:Someone's opening a door somewhere near me. Alright. Let's get out of here. Catch you later. Onto the next segment.
Speaker 2:Alright. Catch Penelope. Next time, Thunder Nerds.
Speaker 1:Alright. A tip. Till next time. Goodbye.
Speaker 2:Goodbye.
Speaker 1:Okay. Thunder Nerds, Lady Penelope not overly happy with RTD two era. Very interesting. We'll have to get her on again soon, possibly, closer to the final or after the final to talk about whatever ramifications come from that. But now it's time for this.
Speaker 3:Freely for oil in
Speaker 2:the eyes, I can throw my hand in the mouth. It's not a mammoth. It's an ice warrior. An ice warrior.
Speaker 1:The ice warrior. How are doing, mate?
Speaker 5:Pretty good. How are doing?
Speaker 1:I'm good. Do you like my intro for you? That's gonna play every time you're on the potty.
Speaker 5:I do like it. So it's pretty nice.
Speaker 1:I wanna talk to you about doctor who, shock horror. That's the first thing we're gonna dive into, and then we're gonna go and talk about g t a six. Lots to talk about with that. But regarding doctor who, I wanna get your thoughts on just to start with, level thoughts on the RTD two era.
Speaker 5:It's certainly been a little surprising, I think. I think we're all hoping, at least, RTD fans were hoping for, honestly quite honestly, a little bit more of the same, having the same level, the same quality of storytelling, same quality of episode general overall quality of episodes that we were getting back in the original era. Hoping to see more of that. Hoping to see more more more kind of risks taken, I guess. There were some risks that Arty Arty did a lot in his first era that we don't get I I don't think we've really seen a lot of in this one.
Speaker 5:I think he's really, in some instances, really played it safe or safer than I would have liked.
Speaker 1:It's interesting. It's very interesting. So so Yeah. So with the the way he's kind of you know, we've got musical numbers, things are very off the cuff, like, directly very meta bringing in the audience and the fans into something like episode two with Lux. See, I kinda think that that's that is risky.
Speaker 1:That is, like, something I've never seen the show tackle before. What kind of risks because you were watching did you watch the entirety of the Jodie Whittaker era as it was airing?
Speaker 5:Yeah. I did.
Speaker 1:You did? And you you watched Capaldi. Like, you you've you've been with the show up until this point. You have been following the show kinda since whenever you got into it. Is that right?
Speaker 5:Yeah. I mean, I this is a bit of a throwback for, all of our other Australian listeners. Back in back when ABC only had one channel, it did a rerun of the original series. And because my mother is a big fan of the original series, when I was maybe, like, seven, eight, nine years old, something like that, we sat down. We started watching it together.
Speaker 5:So that's when I first started getting into it, and then, obviously, the revival happened, and I was a little bit older at the time. I could appreciate it a bit more. And I watched it more so in earnest.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's a long time ago. It's been a while. What do you know what your first doctor was? Do you remember?
Speaker 5:I think from I think from memory, it was May I want to say maybe the third. Yep. I'm not I'm not too sure. I what god. It's it's it's it's taking me it's taking me back a fair bit.
Speaker 5:There was I specifically remember watching at least an episode or two in black and white, and then I specifically remember them switching I remember watching the episode they switched to color.
Speaker 1:That would be the first third doctor story.
Speaker 5:It was first? Third. Third. Yes. So potentially potentially second, maybe maybe only third was probably my first one.
Speaker 1:Yep. And so in this modern kind of iteration of the show, which we had knew who, now we've got almost like new knew who, I guess, or the Disney, whatever you whatever you wanna call it. Right? We've got RTD two. Okay?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It starts with the sixtieth specials. Now the decisions made for the sixtieth I was having this chat earlier to code name lady Penelope on the podcast and talking about, like, what's your thoughts on the sixtieth specials kind of not really celebrating holistically the history of doctorhood. It it it's almost like a season four point two with the Donna and doctor, and, you know, I guess the toymakers there, yes. Beep the Meep's a Marvel fourth doctor comic strip villain from a story called the Star Beast. He brings that into the show.
Speaker 1:But overall, you'd say that it's kind of more a season four point two than than a sixtieth celebration. Like Yeah. Did you enjoy the specials? Did you did you enjoy Tenet and Tate when they returned? I definitely know upon watching it, I kind of was skeptical, but I found myself going, I think probably by Wild Blue Yonder, gee, I actually could do with more of this.
Speaker 1:And then Yeah. It gets taken away from you so fast, and a new doctor comes in. I I loved it. Could it have done with just bringing in Chewdie Gatwa? Like, he's he he actually has, like, a hangover of you know, the tenant gets the the new TARDIS first.
Speaker 1:Tenet gets the the new intro first. Gatward just has the same title sequence with a minor change here or there and his name stitching, like, what's your thoughts on the sixtieth specials? Let's start there.
Speaker 5:Oh, that's a deep topic to get into. I definitely have my opinions on it. I think that there is a lot in the sixtieth specials that I liked or at least the concept of them. There's a lot they could have done better. There's a lot they also could have done differently.
Speaker 5:I think the dynamic between Titan Tenant has always been a fan favorite and has always been one of my favorites as well. I think they made a really great pairing. Yep. He he being constantly almost foiled in a way Mhmm. By Tate and being brought up to task by Tate.
Speaker 5:And it having not just having it be a friendship and not this potential romantic or sexual undertone that's taken roost in most companions in the new new era, I think has been was really nice. It was a really breath of fresh air, and it was good to see some of that kind of come back. Am I a fan of the way it came back? I mean, there's certainly parts about that story I'd change. I don't like how easily they dealt with it.
Speaker 1:Well, in the Starbase,
Speaker 4:you may,
Speaker 1:like, tenant like, as in, like, Tate's return as Donna, like, getting her memories back? Is that kind of
Speaker 5:Getting getting getting her memories back was something that was going like, the doctor had already established they'd already established in the series. That was going to have a dramatic effect if that ever happened and if he ever spent enough time around her. I don't mind that part of it. It's more just how they dealt with the the fallout of it. How how they basically mitigated any risk and got rid of the problem kind of with a bit of an asshole, to be perfectly fair.
Speaker 5:I I don't I that's the way they wanted to go about it, that could have been something that they built up towards maybe over the course of all three specials, and maybe that's a payoff that we get towards the end of it rather than, oh, this is something that all just happens in the one special. I would've it would've made more thematic sense to have it be something built towards, especially because that was one of that was one of the concerns for a lot of fans going into this is, oh, okay. Well, is is Tate gonna be dead at the end of this? Or if if if Captain Tate if Catherine Tide isn't gonna be dead, how are they gonna deal with it? I don't like them dealing with it in the one episode when so much weight was put behind it.
Speaker 5:As for as for everything else, I mean, I think I think you'll probably agree with me. Wild Blue Yonder is probably my favorite of the specials.
Speaker 1:%.
Speaker 5:Yep. I think the Toymaker I did enjoy I did enjoy Neil Patrick Harris's portrayal of the toymaker. It would have been this is again another another section where I think spending more time on that would have been good, spending more time with the character and building up to his involvements. Maybe there's maybe there's more that he more sway that he could've had, more things he could've done over the course of the three specials, but don't mind that. I still think Mobbly on is more more of a contained and consistent story than the others.
Speaker 5:And it did some world building. Mhmm. It really helped flush out the the new dynamic between the characters as well a bit more. Yep. Well, because that's the other
Speaker 1:thing it does. It takes It takes Tenet and Tate into directions the characters have never been before and just them as actors into areas they've never been in Doctor Who because they're playing themselves. They're also playing the not things, the, you know, the the the copies of themselves. Yeah. I think it's a really interesting thing with Wild Blue Yonder because, you know, I've just gone and said, oh, doctor who sixtieth specials feel like, you know, series 4.2.
Speaker 1:They do. Yeah. Yeah. Wild Blue Yonder, it doesn't feel anything like an anniversary special. And yet because it's such a succinct, well written, and well paced, and thought out story,
Speaker 4:you
Speaker 1:you forgive it for not being a typical anniversary special. You you you just enjoy, and, you know, I think I speak on behalf of a lot of people here. And there's good things to take out of the the chypnole era. There is. I I know that people say there's not I I do think that there was a lot that I didn't love, but there's also things in the the Whitaker and the Chimnelira that I actually did enjoy.
Speaker 1:I I particularly like not to go on a tangent here, but I I do enjoy the pushes the TARDIS to go to a lot more different locations across the world, not just twenty first century kind of England. I like that. So not not to kind of, I guess, you know, take a shit on that era, but I I I think that I'm speaking on behalf of a lot of fans when I say that it was just good when Wild Blue Yonder came around to see a great, great Doctor Who story for the first time. Properly good story for the first time in a long time when it came out, and you forgave it for for not being a typical anniversary special. I agree with you on the Toymaker front.
Speaker 1:I think that it's a good choice of a villain. I mean, I I said this to Lady Penelope earlier. A lot of people don't actually even really like the celestial toymaker story from the first doctor. A lot of it's missing. A lot of it's just in reconstructions, but it's not particularly just that great of a story.
Speaker 1:It was more the character and the idea, and he was meant to come back in a Colin Baker unmade season twenty three story called the Nightmare Faire. I think it was gonna open the original season twenty three before it became Trial of a Time Lord, and that was gonna be with the original actor. Now I agree. Neil Patrick Harris is quite good, but he's just not there enough in the story. And it it's the longest of the specials, but it just we don't get enough of the toymaker
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 1:In that story to to to leave going, that was really, really good, I think. Like, it's it's not bad. There's great moments, but it's fleeting moments where you go, oh, more of that, more of this. Like, not just confining him to, you know, one room here or the unit HQ, like, what's he doing? What's the scope of what he can do?
Speaker 1:Like, let's see more of that in the modern era.
Speaker 5:And see, that's something as well is that he's described basically as the head of this pantheon, as potentially the most powerful of this pantheon. And we do spend technically more time with them than we do end up spending with any of the others, at least so far. But this is where a a being like this shouldn't be a one and done in the one effectively in the one special. I mean, have that have him set the stage in the first special. Have him be the puppet master that he proclaims to be and gives off the gives off the aura of being throughout the entire thing.
Speaker 5:Have him maneuver the pieces. Have him set that up where he forces he force somehow, he forces the regeneration back into into the tenant doctor. Have him be the reason for that, then turn around and go, oh, okay. Then I'm gonna throw him in the most traumatizing situation of being back in front of Catherine Tae's character.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 5:And go, oh, how's he gonna deal with this? Let's move maneuver that around a little bit. Let's okay. Deal with that. Okay.
Speaker 5:Boom. Let's throw them in a situation out in the edges of space where they are forced to confront each other and have that all be the toymaker's design, the toymaker's game, and have the doctor and Catherine work through like, have Denon and Tight work through all of that and try to progress in the Toymaker's game, and then have the the final level, the the final gambit, the boss fight, whatever you wanna you wanna whatever you wanna call it here, be that final special where they've they've built up to it over time. They've gone, and then they can actually have that final confrontation with the toymaker, have him be more present in the story instead of just it it just feels like whatever involvement he's had is a bit kinda esoteric, for lack of a better word. It it doesn't feel I'm not feeling the weight this character should
Speaker 2:bring.
Speaker 5:And it's something, I think and and for a lot of stories, I think a lot of people agree with me, but it's something that I put a lot of importance behind is the weight of the character, the weight of dialogue, the weight that Thick Springer. Should they have no weight? Should they have some? Should they have a lot? And I I think it's a big it's a big signifier that a story is going to do well when it treats the weight of its characters properly.
Speaker 5:I think that this isn't it. They I don't think they did it right here.
Speaker 1:I wanna ask you a question. Right.
Speaker 5:Oh, no. Okay.
Speaker 1:What did you think of by regeneration?
Speaker 4:Oh, god.
Speaker 5:I'll tell you something I don't like about it. I don't like that it's I'm pretty I'm I'm pretty sure it's actually stated at some point that the doctor bi regenerates from every single regeneration. I think that's just okay. First of all, that's insane. Yeah.
Speaker 5:That is a bit ridiculous. And then there's an unnecessary amount of questions of, what? Did they all buy Regenerate into shitty Gatwick's doctor? Did they all buy Regenerate into the next one down the line? Whose doctor is this?
Speaker 5:What's going on? Especially building on what happened with the Chibnall era, which I have problems with. But Mhmm. With the, basically, unlimited amount of doctors that came beforehand, it feels like it feels like he just it feels like ICD decided to go, you know what? I'm gonna do my own version of the Timeless Child and just make it by regeneration where we have a million more doctors now.
Speaker 5:I I don't know. I think if they can paint it to just the one and had it be a combination or to, like, just the one doctor and had it be a combination of the interference from a god Mhmm. The toymaker, the god of effectively games and chaos, and a significant amount of maybe, like, trauma or something like that, where they could've they could've built a decent enough story surrounding that, and I would've been like, you know what? Happy with that. They could've made it work.
Speaker 5:I don't think it works as it currently stands. And to fix it would probably require a lot of retconning, which I don't like doing because you shouldn't have to you shouldn't, a, have to retcon a story to make it good. If you've done that, you're doing it wrong. And, b, I think that it shouldn't be up to the fans or to the masses to find an explanation that actually works for a story that wasn't told well, which has happened a lot in recent eras, unfortunately. I think the BioRegeneration definitely could've worked.
Speaker 5:It could've been tweaked a little bit better. I think it takes away from Judy's doctor quite significantly, especially especially the way they did it. I think because all of the focus and importance put on was put on Tennant's doctor, even though it's a new doctor, it's basically the same one that kind of puts elevates his importance up quite a bit, which don't get me wrong. I love Tenet. I love his portrayal of the doctor.
Speaker 5:I think it puts more weight and importance on his doctor over any of the others, and it takes away from them. But it takes more away from Judy having to share the screen with him in those moments and being the one that follows, especially when it feels like he's just getting oh, he's getting the second hardest. Oh, he's getting the second best of all of this stuff. He's getting the scraps, the leftovers, and it I that's not a great way to start a new doctor season, especially the first the first black doctor, the first openly, at least, bisexual doctor,
Speaker 1:although in the latest episode doctor, to clarify.
Speaker 5:What's that? Sorry?
Speaker 1:The first full time black doctor, Joe Martin. Exactly. So
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I I know what you're saying, and and and, you know, it's it's it's interesting because see, I think I and I can't don't point me here. I I cannot remember exactly what the reason or quote was. Okay? But I remember them saying, oh, you know, why why does Jodie Whittaker when she regenerates, why why does the clothes change? What when she regenerates into Tenet, like, he doesn't appear wearing the Jodie Whittaker costume.
Speaker 1:He the costume changes, and we've seen that happen before. Like, the first doctor, I think, regenerated, you know, back when the idea was very new, the the the first doctor regenerated and his clothes changed with him into the second doctor. Right? Yeah.
Speaker 5:But Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know? So I guess you can maybe you could say the in reason the in universe reason is the toymaker playing a game and, like, I don't know, bring it we they don't really give a clear the the clearest indication they give in universe is, oh, this face came back to to say goodbye or to with Donna or, like, he needed this or they give a reason like that. They don't give a clear reason. Right? But I guess what I'm trying to get at with this is when he was asked about why he made that choice, it was something like and, again, don't quote me.
Speaker 1:Was something like, oh, it's like undermining to have a male in a female's clothes. It was something like that. Like, it looks silly or something like I think the most undermining thing really, this is just my opinion, that you can do is is buy regenerate the the first full time black doctor. Yeah. Like, he comes through as a almost split off variant of the doctor.
Speaker 1:Like, he's you'll have certain corners of the fandom that'll say he's not a true doctor because he Yep. Do do do you understand where I'm going with that? I'm not saying I agree with it. I'm just saying that there's areas of the fandom that will use that and go, well, technically, no.
Speaker 5:Yeah. Which is a shame. I mean, it's it and I in my personal opinion, I don't view those people as true fans. If they're gonna if they're gonna start pulling that kind of stuff, they're gonna start saying that kind of stuff, it kind they kinda have missed some of the core messages of doctor who if they're saying that kind of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 5:But I do, unfortunately, know that there is a world where people are gonna think that, people are gonna say that, and they're gonna undermine his character, his acting, his place in the show as a result. And that sucks because he is a good actor, and he's shown that. I think he really has stepped to the role massively in this new season. I think he's really settled. I think he's done well there, and I'd love to see more of him.
Speaker 5:But if the if the more vocal parts of these fringe sections of the community have their way, they'd have him out and probably have Tenen back him for another run or something like that. I know.
Speaker 1:God. I love David Tenen, but we need to get past that. Like, we need to we need to move forward. This show, in my opinion, you know, I've heard rumors that one of the things they are thinking of doing if Gatwa well, and apparently okay. I'll put a spoiler tag here for anyone just in case.
Speaker 1:Like, I'll put I'll put chapter points in this podcast as well. So if you wanna go past here, like, we're gonna I just wanna briefly say that there's rumors. I feel like we all know that. Right? There's rumors that that Gatwick regenerate regenerates in the final.
Speaker 1:Might be true, might not. I've heard rumors that one of the options that they're floating is if is if that's true and and and he's leaving the BBC because there's no guarantee yet about the Disney deal renewing. Likely, I think at this point, maybe it won't. There's rooms at the BBC have genuinely considered bringing Tenet back full time, which I think it could be the death of doctor O, genuinely. I'm not or at least in this iteration of it because he's a he's a good actor, David Tennant.
Speaker 1:He's a good doctor. I've actually come to appreciate him in recent years more so than I than I ever did, to be honest. But you're looking way too way too much into the past, I think, if you keep kind of going down that rabbit hole and bringing Tenet back, and it's like, that's not what the show needs. The show has survived for sixty plus years because it moves forward, and it it it it occasionally looks behind its shoulder and brings back a you know, we we the Daleks come back. The Scytheman come back.
Speaker 1:The master, we always know, will end with, you know, I'm dying. No. The doctor's defeated me. And then he'll turn up out of nowhere, and the answer is, I escaped, doctor. And everyone gasps because the master's back, but we all knew he was always coming back.
Speaker 1:Right? But
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So so we get that from doctor who. But to bring back an actor in the sixtieth and then to bring back an actor again possibly to to he he it's becoming the David Tennant show. It's becoming David Who. Yeah. And, you know, that we do not need, I think.
Speaker 1:So that's just a little tangent. Hey. Talking about season two before we get there, get what comes in. What did you think of of season one?
Speaker 5:Season one, yeah, it it had some highs. It had some lows.
Speaker 1:Talk to me about the talk to me about the lows first. What what were your lowest moments?
Speaker 5:I don't think they at least at least in the first season, and we'll get to the second season in a moment. But in the first season, I don't think they treated the emotional maturity of this doctor that well. I think that especially when we are first introduced to this doctor, the focus is on the fact that, oh, he's basically just he's gone to therapy, and he's he's able to process his emotions healthily, and he's able to he's he's basically over most of his trauma and a whole bunch of stuff. I think that's I think the way they portrayed how they how they dealt with that and how the doctor deals with that going forward was a little disingenuous to to all of that. He probably shows emotion maybe a little too much at times to the point where it seemed the the whole thing seems a bit a bit disingenuous.
Speaker 5:Like, it doesn't feel like he is showing almost the right emotion for the right scene. There's there's moments like that. There's certain stories like Dot and Bubble, I think, was a really good one.
Speaker 1:Think I
Speaker 5:I did enjoy most of that. How they handled the end of it was a bit interesting. I think it might have been it might have been an acting thing. It might have been the dialogue. It might have been some combination.
Speaker 5:I don't particularly like how at the end she's just so violently racist almost. Almost to that scene of being, like, violence
Speaker 1:Oh, you didn't
Speaker 5:like that. After everything else. I I think That's interesting. I only only because I think it seemed a little that didn't seem I mean, I guess, again, it could have been the betrayal. Could have been a few different things.
Speaker 5:I didn't feel like the character really meant it, almost. It it just felt that felt odd. Mind I've actually quite enjoyed the the very the the at the beginning, least, the subtle undertones of of the race and racism throughout. But I think that maybe, you know, the the end of it could have been handled a little bit differently.
Speaker 1:Can I ask you a question? Would is that is that dead set one of your low points, that moment?
Speaker 5:Is that one what? That moment?
Speaker 1:Towards the end of Dot and Bubble. Would you are you putting that in a low low low point of the season, or does is it middling? Like I mean,
Speaker 5:I I don't I wouldn't consider it a low point, I think. I think it's probably probably closer to the middle there. That's just I think it's just the betrayal.
Speaker 1:The betrayal from that actress in that moment for you towards the end. See, I that is one of my highlights of the Gatwick era thus far, I would say. That's one of my absolute highlights. That moment.
Speaker 5:I I In this era,
Speaker 1:I'm saying.
Speaker 5:I can see that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. For mine, I think that, like, I really, really liked how they built up to that moment throughout the episode and then the way he's kind of just seething by the end.
Speaker 5:Oh, I love that.
Speaker 1:And the choice of
Speaker 5:I thought it was
Speaker 1:The the choice to be like, hey. Let's what if what if the doctor doesn't get upset? Oh, sorry. He doesn't he doesn't he's not angry. He's just upset that he couldn't save this person, that he wouldn't that they wouldn't allow him
Speaker 5:To save them.
Speaker 1:To save them. That's a really interesting choice. Like and that's what the doctor would do. He would he would put that aside, that racism aside in that moment, and he would go, I don't care about that. Just allow me to save all of you.
Speaker 1:And I I I love that choice. I feel like that's the kind of character choice that we just didn't get in the Chibnall era. Like, that that subtlety of of character and what they would do in the moment. It's similar, I think, to and what a great performance he puts in in Lux. Like, some of the way they handle racism in that story is just clever writing, and it's subtle, but it works.
Speaker 1:And that's what we we liked a bit of that in the tribunal era. That's just as simple as it is without going into it. We just lacked a little bit of that. The ideas were there a lot of the time. Sometimes not.
Speaker 1:I'm looking at you, Orphan 55, and Tessera and Gunundrum or whatever. But, like, there were ideas, but they just didn't always execute the ideas that they had in that era. But here, that's a great moment. I think 73 yards in season one is a highlight. That story I've actually
Speaker 5:Oh.
Speaker 1:Come to really like on a rewatch. Part one of the finale is very good.
Speaker 5:Oh, I knew you were gonna get to that. Yeah. Yeah. No. I I agree.
Speaker 5:Part one is part one is good.
Speaker 1:Part two?
Speaker 4:Mhmm.
Speaker 5:Part two. Wow. What a letdown that was.
Speaker 1:I think it's like I think the thing that is, like, hard to buy is, like, that it's you know, they they build up in that time window in part one and and and how you you know, the TARDIS is there, and then something's near it, and she's pointing at something. And, you know, the mystery of who Ruby is, the snow is being built up, and then the way that the the officer goes behind the TARDIS, and then he can see me. I'm I'm in hell. Like, it's like there's some really, really rad fucking moments in that Yeah. In that part one.
Speaker 1:And then for a moment, think it's the beast from season two because I go, you know, I I can see it. It's the beast. Like, Carla kinda says that, and you go, oh my god. Is it the beast? And then, well, it's the same voice actor.
Speaker 1:It's Gabriel Wolf, voice actor of the original SuTech 1975 and the beast from the Satan pit February and, what, six. And then to hear him come back, and it's super tech. And and it's it is well done. The the the whole arts and anagram is a little bit like, it's not even the right spelling, but, like, it's a it's a really well done cliffhanger. A really great homage to Pyramids of Mars.
Speaker 1:It's freaking awesome. Like, Russell d Davies, I take my hat off to ye. But part two, when we find out that Sutek's been with him, and then it cuts to, like, to all these times the TARDIS has has kind of landed since then. It's like it it's it's a retcon that just isn't needed, and it doesn't work. You you you can you can do something similar by by saying since Wild Blue Yonder, he's been on the TARDIS, and I'll buy it because the wheeze has been there since Wild Blue Yonder.
Speaker 1:Like Yeah. What are we get what are we what are we doing here? Are we gonna do a George Lucas and go and re edit all the doctor episodes before and have a wheezing, groaning sound in every now and then with the TARDIS? And, like Yeah. Do know what saying?
Speaker 1:It just doesn't you could have that from Wild Blue Yonder because it first appears there, and then it happens again in The Devil's Court, and then it happens again I can't remember. But the point is it happens in the first season. You could have it through that first season, and you go, cool. Su Tech's been there since he's the one who waits. He's been there however long in universe.
Speaker 1:That's fine. You don't need it to be since the Pyramids Of Mars or whatever the the inference is. I can't remember. I've watched it once, so I don't anyway. And that that they don't really result know what we never get an answer for?
Speaker 1:We never get an answer for the snow and why it's Don't. We don't. They'd never could we find out that Ruby's mother is a normal mother? Kinda took after the whole Rey plot twist with that one. He kind of and I've read that Russell liked the Rey plot twist in The Last Jedi, and I don't mind that twist.
Speaker 1:I don't mind it being a normal person. But if you build it up to be more than a normal person, if you build it up so there's snow that freezes in time and even when it doesn't snow there and somehow it's and then you never answer that, I go so so this, and I said this to Benelby earlier, there's two trains of thought here. The first one, the ending just is a little bit rushed. Doesn't make sense. The second, though, is is an interesting prospect because season two episode one and three almost, I know episode one for sure, they were filming when the Star Beast aired.
Speaker 1:The first Tenet special aired, they were shooting the second season of Gatwa. Okay? That means that here's what we know that means. That means they didn't air season one, see what the fans thought, take on some take on some criticisms, take on some feedback, and go, let's let's recalibrate. So even though we all and I think there's a general consensus that season two is resonating more with the fans.
Speaker 1:I think I think it is. I think Belinda's been a great addition to this doctor and works a lot better with him than Ruby does, and I think that he I agree with you, we'll get into the well soon. Yeah. He has really stepped up this season, and I'm now going, oh, now I see him as the doctor. Do I like the crying all the time?
Speaker 1:No. Do I like the leg kick ass queens? Not really. I don't think a 2,000 plus year old time lord from Gallifrey who's the PTSD war veteran of I I don't think he'd do that personally. That's very, like, you know, millennial.
Speaker 1:Think, like Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a bit weird for the doctor to just but, anyway but for the most part, when when they get it right like the well, they get it right, and he delivers there. Okay? But what I'm what I'm what was I even getting at?
Speaker 1:I had a point that I was trying to get to. Can't remember. What was I talking about? Shit. I've forgotten.
Speaker 1:Can you remember? I don't know what I was talking about.
Speaker 3:You're going off on a tangent. I was just letting you go.
Speaker 1:On a complete tangent. Sorry, Thunder Nerds. I was talking about something with okay. We're back. Okay.
Speaker 1:I remember what I was talking about. I was talking about no gaps when filming season one and two. So the second option that I was getting at is, well, if they were written so close together, maybe everything we've seen thus far and the the the strangeness of how that first season ended, maybe that's only half the story here. Like, maybe we need to look at the final Yeah. Of season two and go, RTD, you goddamn genius.
Speaker 1:The whole fan, like, the the whole audience thing that the doctor's in a show theory from season one. I mean, we've already seen that he literally comes out of the TV in season two. That was filmed before all these theories came out because season one had an aired. So possibly That's right. It's all intentional, and we're gonna get an extremely meta finale where the fans become part of the resolution or something and not just a cameo in episode two.
Speaker 1:That's what some people were theorizing. Maybe. Maybe we just need to wait until the end and talk about it, but let's get in and talk about the well. Oh.
Speaker 5:Do we wanna do we wanna touch on the the rest of season two before we get into the well, or do we wanna just dive into the well?
Speaker 1:Yeah. If you look go for your high level thoughts on the first two episodes. Go for it.
Speaker 5:First two? Yeah. I really, really, really, really enjoyed Lux. I thought that was a fantastic episode.
Speaker 1:And that says everything you need to know about the robot revolution because he's just skin bright.
Speaker 5:Damn. You found me out.
Speaker 1:A lot of people actually liked the robot revolution. Personally, I
Speaker 5:I your brain off. Sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I
Speaker 5:didn't like us is that we can't Yeah. We're gonna be critical. Yep. But I think I think there's definitely fun to be found there. I just don't think it's my kind of fun.
Speaker 1:There's a good idea in every Doctor Who story. Stipulate it with that. There's always a good idea somewhere in a forty five, however long minute episode of Doctor Who. There is always a good or multiple good ideas that could make a whole other film premise or TV show premise and is just one singular story of doctor who. That must be said.
Speaker 1:It just wasn't my calibrated doctor who lux, though. Continue on.
Speaker 5:Oh, yeah. Yeah. No. Definitely. I definitely did like the I I did like the kind of initial introduction of Belinda in her hospital working away.
Speaker 5:I think having her be a nurse to the doctor's doctor is gonna be an interesting it's gonna be an interesting relationship to see develop over time. I Lux, I think, was just fantastically done. We touched on it earlier with talking about Dot and Bubble, which don't get me wrong. I loved the episode. I love I loved especially Shootie's reaction to not being able to save them, I think was perfectly handled there.
Speaker 5:I think the way that they handled the racism undertones racial undertones of the, like, nineteen fifties era that they found themselves in was really interesting. And they continued that line throughout the rest of the episode. That's the kind of risk I'm expecting him to take, especially with this kind of doctor. I'm expecting him to take these kinds of risks, which is good to see. Lux as a character, I thought he was funny.
Speaker 5:I thought the concept was interesting.
Speaker 1:So well designed.
Speaker 5:Very much had that kind of cartoonish kind of whimsy to parts of the episode and to the interactions with the character with those very subtle Yep. Un evil kind of undertones, which I thought was great. It added some more weight to it. I'm a big fan of that. I think the way they ended it was also the way the way it ended
Speaker 1:I loved it. I'm not sure if you Lady Penelope, my sister hated it, but I I know you, because I watched this with with Hardstar. I you just burst out into laughter when that laughter. I don't know why. I just it's so RTD, but I just loved it.
Speaker 1:But tell me, what did you think? You you you thought him going up into the sky, I am everything, and I am nothing. Like, you you weren't a fan or what?
Speaker 5:Okay. So this is gonna be a Internet deep cut. Alright? This is gonna be Internet deep cut for anyone who knows this. There's a show that is done it was done primarily on YouTube called The Bravest Warriors, and it's just a it's just a bit of a piss day cartoon.
Speaker 5:It is it's I quite enjoy it, though. It's it's a bit weird. It's a bit out there. It's a bit funny. I think a lot of people should definitely give it a go.
Speaker 5:There is a moment where a character, it's so it's so dumb. There's a character who time travels back into the past to see their younger self, to see the the birth of this universe encompassing entity that was originally a it's this entity ends up being a AI generated person from a holodeck style situation that somehow manages to step outside of the holodeck and gain sentience. And then after gaining sentience, he starts just getting, in this episode, larger and larger. And eventually, it he just almost explodes outward and encompasses the entire universe.
Speaker 3:And it's exactly the same as what happens with Lux. And I cannot get this thing. It's a tiny little pink elf dude that just encompasses the universe and everything. I love it. I I don't know why.
Speaker 3:Just feel
Speaker 1:so freaking funny. Out. Oh, that's hilarious. It's well it's well made episode of dog show, though.
Speaker 5:I'll go to the I'll share the scene after this. It's pretty funny.
Speaker 1:Please. Please. Please. Please. I need I'm frothing at the mouth, bro.
Speaker 1:I need you to tell me about the well.
Speaker 5:Let's let's dive into the well, lassie. Right. The well. Ugh. I mean, what what can we say about The Well?
Speaker 5:It was a fantastic story. Top to bottom, one of the most consistent of this era, probably the most consistent of this era if I'm being perfectly honest. It was handled so well. The tiniest little bits of well building that they had, the way they interacted with a deaf character in the series, and the how that deaf character interacted with the rest of the other characters, the introduction of the planet being oh, it's it's midnight. Having this be another standalone instead of being a two parter, I think, actually works better in this instance.
Speaker 5:I love the introduction of of of the way that the beast has evolved over time.
Speaker 1:I just wanna call this out while I'm thinking of it. That was a huge I saw that after the episode in Reddit forums, and and I was a massive fan of this episode. I think, overall, a lot of people would say that's the best story since probably the Capella era. Like, I I'd say that while Pleiander was probably at, for a moment, maybe 73 yards took over, maybe. I'm not sure that's subjective, but I would I would say that a lot of people would agree with me when I say that this was an amazing Doctor Who story.
Speaker 1:And I don't know if it's on midnight's level. I'm not sure. I need to watch it a few more times, but I think that it's damn close to being in that same stratosphere. It's in the same stratosphere. Sorry.
Speaker 1:But it's damn close to being almost equally as good, but for different reasons. It's the entity. Some people had problems in Reddit forums going, you know, entity didn't copy people. You know, if I didn't know it was being died, it was a different entity. Like, no.
Speaker 1:I don't like it. Well, Russell's gone and said that he was writing this story. And at some point, he went, you know what? Who am I kidding? Like, it's a it's a cold, uninhabitable planet.
Speaker 1:It's, you know, decimated with a who am I kidding? It's a sequel to Midnight. Let let's not pretend it's not. I'm just gonna it is this is Midnight from now on in this script. Right?
Speaker 1:So it initially wasn't. Now in my opinion, and I think I've seen that other people echo this sentiment, like, it's a four hundred thousand year evolved life form now. When it first saw people in midnight, it had never seen another life form before. It was copying and learning, and now four hundred thousand years later, it comes out of a well. All the diamonds have been mined, and it's not gonna be the same.
Speaker 1:It it you got everything you wanted out of the copying gimmick in midnight. What more do you want? Like, it's more interesting that it's evolved and it's changed the game and the rules and how it works. And probably just off the top off off the cuff, it's just done that because it wanted to. That's that's interesting.
Speaker 1:I think that's a better way of doing it. And that the the the the horror is handled well for the age range that you're working with of who will be watching this show. The suspense is extremely well done, and the performances are top notch in this story. Everyone knows that they're working with a class a script, and they are they are kind of ripping and roaring as they do it because he can tell that they know that they're onto something.
Speaker 5:Yeah. No. I I % agree. I think they handled it well. I think everyone who was in it really put the weight behind their words, and they they it's clear that they all they were taking this seriously.
Speaker 5:This is this was not a story that they were phoning in, and you can kinda see that in certain stories in in doctor who and and, obviously, in other shows and movies where certain actors will
Speaker 1:Shout out, 55.
Speaker 5:Phoning in the role. What's that?
Speaker 1:I said, shout out, Olphin 55 again.
Speaker 4:Oh, jeez.
Speaker 1:Do recall that story from Jodie's hero? You're right,
Speaker 5:though, mate. You're gonna keep doing this to me.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna keep on doing it to you. You know, you're right. That that no one's phoning it in. Everyone's taking it dead set seriously.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's it's got a great set design as well. Music's wonderful. There's a lovely bad wolf motif as they're dropping down to the planet in one shot that I'm not sure I've seen many people talk about, but I thought it was really freaking awesome. It is solid, solid doctor who. Gatwa, you know, this being one of my things with him, like, I I I haven't I didn't love him in season one Thunder Nerds.
Speaker 1:I he's actually down the bottom of my rankings of doctors, actually. But he's climbing that list a bit. He's moving up a couple of spaces with Lux, with the well. I'm keen to see where he goes from here, but I tell you what, he asserts himself as the the authoritative presence in the room the moment he gets into that colony base. And he opens the door, and all the soldiers are behind him, and he knows sign language, and he immediately asserts himself, takes control.
Speaker 1:Soldiers might go, what the hell are we trusting him? Shut up. And you go, you know what? I buy that. This guy is the doctor, and that is something I feel like I haven't had a lot of in this era.
Speaker 1:And I know when I'm watching, and I I know my doctor who, and I know when I'm watching a story that's a timeless classic, when I start going, I wonder what Capaldi would do in this story. I wonder what Eccleston would do. I wonder what Tom Baker would do. That's when I know. When I when that thought comes into my mind, I know I'm watching a story that is elevated above any doctor that's playing it.
Speaker 1:It's just a timeless classic doctor who story, and then you start going, what would other doctors do if they were the doctor here? But it is Gatware is on fire, and, man, he just he owns he his doctor works so well in the grunginess of dot and bubble sewers where he's he's just so disappointed at the humanity and the the the the stink of humanity and what they and the and the fact that they they wouldn't they'd rather die than than than be offered the hand of a black man. He he works when he's standing on a landmine that's you know you know, what what is it, clerics in the in the in the future who who are being killed, like, by their own equipment. Like
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:He works in the grunginess and in the shadows. That's where this doctor, when they get it right, not space babies, not the robot revolution person. Yeah. This is all those are the stories. These ones that I'm calling out here, in my opinion, are where this doctor thrives.
Speaker 1:And when he's given that material, he he excels.
Speaker 5:Well, the reason and the reason why he does is because he is the antithesis to everything that happens in those stories in in those situations. He is this doctor more than any other, more than, I'd say, more than Tenet and more than
Speaker 2:I
Speaker 5:mean, more than any of the that have come before, he is the happiest. He's the most joyful. He's the most bright and and Energetic.
Speaker 4:Loving and
Speaker 5:open and kind like, he's he's all of these things.
Speaker 1:And
Speaker 5:that can that can work. And we've seen like, we we've seen in these stories that that does work for this doctor when you allow him the space to do that in a story that works against his character.
Speaker 1:That's a great point. So it's it's putting a doctor who's energetic, lively, happy, and sees the universe full of wonder. It's it's then putting him in scenarios of the antithesis of that and going, how does he now deal with this? Yeah. We know what he's like when he's running around and he's the the, you know, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm doing this. I'm doing this. I'm so but what do you do when you put him in a scenario where there is no hope? Where there's sheer horror, where there's where there's, you know, where humans are the worst kind of thing in the room, like the you you dotting bubbles, your booms, and then you get here and there's just something that is he's so out of his depth in in the world.
Speaker 5:Oh, yeah. Like, put him out of his depth. Put him put him in a waters of Mars story. See how this doctor deals with the Waters of Mars. That would be fascinating to see.
Speaker 5:That would that would be a situation
Speaker 1:where, like thing, Mark. I I guess
Speaker 5:That could be something that could have triggered the bud regeneration, though, too, is that have him do that. Yeah. Have him be have Tenet's regeneration do something so horrifically horrible that it borders on the edge of would would he even be the doctor if the doctor did this anymore? Have that combined with anything else to trigger the bi regeneration. Like, I and have his have shooty gat with doctor come out of a situation like that.
Speaker 5:Like, there's ways to tie this in. There really is.
Speaker 1:I think I think
Speaker 5:I really I wanna see more. I do.
Speaker 1:I think at its simplest, it's to say, in my opinion, this is the Doctor Who that I like. I'm I'm always been much more of the the grungy, you know, high concept sci fi ideas. I like a historical as well, but that tone of where they go in boom and towards the end of dot and bubble and and and here in the world, that's the tone that I enjoy. And I know that Russell likes to have different genres. Like, he might go, oh, let's give more of a a kind of younger viewing audience first episode like space babies, like partners in crime with tenants doctor, like Smith and Jones where there's talking rhinos on the moon, like the robot revolution.
Speaker 1:Right? Like a floppy bouncing trampoline, like, that's talking. That's you know, he I know he likes to genre hop like that, and then all of a sudden, we're kind of doing what is it? Bridgerton? Is that the show?
Speaker 1:The where in Rogue, they're kind of at the ballroom dancing, and they're kind
Speaker 5:of Yeah. Yeah. Bridgerton.
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know, like and then and then all of a sudden we're doing sci fi. Like, I get it. I know what we're going with there. It's just to me, it's like, oh my god.
Speaker 1:There's a winning your Wobbley Yonders, your Waters of Mars, your Saint in Pits, The Well, those types of stories, the not even just the setting in the future, the tone of the story, the darkness. If you leaned into that tone for an entire season, you went, I'm not we're gonna we're we're still gonna hop through different periods of time and space and different planets and space stations and back into the past. And if you still want we're gonna do the fundamentals of doctor who, but that's gonna be the tone for a season. You would be playing with maybe one of the great seasons of modern who if you just stuck to it. And and didn't go into areas of, like, Sue Tex, the been on the TARDIS since since forever.
Speaker 1:It's like you don't have to do that. Give us something more bring bring it down and just, like, really laser focus into some character studies, some high concept ideas, some some some tales of morality and which doctor who does really well in the past. Like, take away doctor has always been political, but, you know, it's I think it was Moffett that said and, you know, I won't go too far in this, it was Moffett that said, I believe, you know, the doctor shouldn't take sides. He's not he's not like a I'm I'm not sure what the political I can't remember what the political parties in The UK are. Like, Tories and is that Labor, is it?
Speaker 5:Or Tories and god. I'm I'm blanking
Speaker 1:the source. I'm blanking on it. Completely blank. But the point is it's like, you know, he's neither there he's neither that side. He's neither this side.
Speaker 1:The doctor is an ephemeral being in time and space. He's above the petty politics of human beings. And it's it's you're playing you know, it's fine to bring politics in, but you've gotta in my opinion, you gotta dabble there, and he shouldn't take sides per se. He and and when you do that, you are risking alienating part of the audience. And sometimes doctor who, I think, in recent years, has dabbled too far into, you know, the doctor taking a side on poly and and here's a great example in doctor who in the modern era of the doctor not taking a side, but he's got an extremely strong viewpoint on his beliefs and his stance, that is Capaldi's zygon inversion speech about war.
Speaker 1:That's an example where the doctor can see both sides. He speaks to both sides. He's got them in the same room, and he'll tell them what he thinks. He'll tell them, I fought in a bigger war than than, you know, you would ever know. But he's not taking he's not taking one of their sides, but he's got a real opinion about this and what he thinks needs to happen.
Speaker 1:And it's but it's done in a way where you go, yes, instantly, that's the doctor. That's what he would do.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:This has been a good chat. We've still got a few episodes to go. I think we need to definitely reconvene on the potty once the finale's dropped to talk about how it all turned out. Yeah. Now, though, I think we need to dive in.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm gonna say? To a chat on the GTA six trailer. Let's dive into that. Hi, Sta. GTA.
Speaker 1:Did you play GTA growing up? Like, what what's your kind of history with GTA?
Speaker 4:I remember
Speaker 5:when I was very young playing a bit of GTA Vice City on my older half brother's PlayStation at the time when we were visiting for, like, a night. I remember playing that. I played the crap out of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. That was, like, my main GTA as I spent so much time Yep. In San Andreas just doing everything, cheating my way through it just so much.
Speaker 1:How good was it, like, getting a magazine and it had the cheat codes in it? And you'd like
Speaker 5:I I still have a magazine around
Speaker 1:so good. That was that's retro. That's retro.
Speaker 5:I remember I remember when I was I I oh god. I I was still I was sleeping in a bunk bed with my twin brother, and he was on the he was on the top bunk. And I remember writing, like, looking up cheat codes at school, writing the cheat codes down on a piece of paper, sticking it underneath his top bunk bed so I can look up and just, like, put the cheat codes in as I'm playing. Or I'm just, like, laying down and I'm just looking up and checking, oh, yeah. Cool.
Speaker 5:Do that one. And just, like, oh, yeah. Max health. Yep. Cool.
Speaker 5:Max helmet. Yep. Awesome. And just oh, god. Those were the days.
Speaker 1:So good. So good. Did you play GTA four or GTA five? I
Speaker 5:I touched a bit of GTA four. I played a little bit of GTA five, but it wasn't, yeah, it wasn't much.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Okay. And and what about but you played Red Dead two.
Speaker 5:Oh, Red Dead one and two. Just Amazing. So much.
Speaker 1:Yep. Yeah. Yep. So GTA six sorry. I was gonna say '5.
Speaker 1:GTA six gets a trailer in late shit. What year was it? 2023, possibly? I
Speaker 5:think so.
Speaker 1:I think it might have been, like, late twenty three or I don't think it'll be 2022, surely. But, anyway, so it it drops a it drops a trailer initially. Yeah. Now a delay. We get a notification, you know, GTA six being delayed.
Speaker 1:We get a the first date, though, that we've ever seen attached to it, an actual date, 05/26/2026. We're sorry we're delaying it, but here is the date. So we hadn't seen that before. Right? Now the trailer drops, I had woken up extremely early in the morning just very unusual, like the body clock had woken me up early.
Speaker 1:That doesn't usually happen for me. I go and check my phone. There's a notification from a channel I'm following there on YouTube, GTA six trailer reaction. I go, hang on a second. What?
Speaker 1:I I of course, I load up straight away. I go, what's going on here? Yeah. The trailer's there. It was at 27,000,000 views by the time I saw it within six hours, more than than the entire population of Australia, I believe.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure what we're at at the moment, but it was around 26, 20 seven. The point is it it had reached pretty much the the population of Australia within six hours that had seen it, and I think in twenty four hours, I read that it got to around 465,000,000 views or something like that. Something crazy within a day. I think that safely quietens a few of the people that were saying no one's interested in this game anymore. It's taking too long.
Speaker 1:Like, this game is extremely anticipated. GTA five, the last time I looked was, and I do not think until something like GTA six comes along will will remain. So it is the most profitable piece of any form of media in history. Like, it's about it's it's it's grossed over $8,000,000,000 or something thus far GTA five. Something crazy.
Speaker 1:The budget for this one we hear is over a billion dollars just the budget to make the game, which is unheard of. Right? Now give me your thoughts on the trial because the the first when it played, I just went, holy shit. The I I I thought for a fleeting second that I was watching I I the first thing I thought to myself when I saw the first the first few opening shots, thought, why why is there real people in the start of this trailer? Like, I'm waiting for gay I I wanna see the game.
Speaker 1:I'm not I don't wanna see, like, a little live intro of real and then I went, that's not real actors. That's gameplay. What's your thoughts on that? Did you did you have a similar thing? Like, did you have a moment going, wait.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's graphics? Like
Speaker 5:It I felt I felt the same way I did when I used to be playing through the Need for Speed games as a kid where they would interject some hyper realistic video into a cut scene that wasn't really it was a gameplay cut scene, but it was very much their attempt to make it as look as live action as possible. I was like, this is amazing. The the way that they like, the way you could see the carbonation in the drinks, the way you could see even just the physics of how the water operates as people are moving through. My god. And this is this is as it is now.
Speaker 5:This is not it in a year from now. This is not this is it on a base PS five. This is not it on a high end PC. Holy crap. This is going to this game is going to look phenomenal.
Speaker 5:It I mean, the trailer already looks amazing, but trailers always gonna do that. But this is going to be the biggest gaming release potentially of all time, or at least for or have you know, at least for a while, maybe only closely followed by Elder Scrolls six when that finally releases, because that's got a fairly substantial
Speaker 1:Do we know what the do
Speaker 5:we know what the failing.
Speaker 1:Do we know what the profits were for the original? Or, like, Elder Scrolls five? Or
Speaker 5:Elder Scrolls five is Skyrim.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Do we do we have a total gross thus far of how much that game's made? Because I don't think it'll be anywhere near GTA.
Speaker 5:Come out with, like, five or six different variations of it, though. So it's it's
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 5:Probably the most rereleased game ever as well with how many times different editions
Speaker 1:Well, GTA five can't be that far behind given it came out on a PS three, got rereleased on the PS four, then got out on PC. Like, that that's been rereleased to shoot as well. I'm gonna bring up the trailer. I don't know if this is gonna copyright me, but let's let's just watch the trailer. Can can you see my screen?
Speaker 1:Let's Yes. I I can see it. Watch the trailer. Thunder, as I hope you can hear this as well. I'm gonna hit the play button.
Speaker 1:Let's have a listen and watch through, maybe just pause here and there and have a chat. Here we go. God. I just can't believe that we're good. That's crazy.
Speaker 1:That shot there right there.
Speaker 5:That
Speaker 2:yeah. Seriously, dude. You got some time on your hands. I got some properties with paying tenants.
Speaker 3:Well, that's why you came by?
Speaker 1:Just Like, the way that the character that's gameplay right there. You can tell that's gameplay. That's transitioning to him walking away, and, like, then you'd be walking right there.
Speaker 5:The reflection reflection in the car windows?
Speaker 1:Oh, I know. And and how fluidly they they move. Their bodies move.
Speaker 5:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you know what I mean? They're so look at these
Speaker 2:This is
Speaker 5:catching on a base PS five by
Speaker 1:the way. Base PS five. That's craziness.
Speaker 5:Like, look at the way the look at the the business of the water operate in those drinks.
Speaker 1:Look at that. Look at the NPCs, like, getting arrested and shit.
Speaker 3:I'm here for Lucia Caminos. She's supposed to be getting out.
Speaker 1:Oh my god.
Speaker 4:What's your name?
Speaker 3:Jason Duvall.
Speaker 4:This is
Speaker 1:this is a really well cut together
Speaker 3:You might have
Speaker 1:trailer of ambiance as well, but also stories. Yeah. It's really well done.
Speaker 5:Look at the lighting here.
Speaker 1:Oh my god. It's giving, like, Red Dead two when when that came out. We're all just shocked by how good the dynamic lighting in the game was.
Speaker 2:Same party. Heads above your head. Now.
Speaker 1:Show me
Speaker 2:the story. I remember in the time The new beginning. You
Speaker 1:make the new Look at that. Look at the water there. Oh my god. The clouds.
Speaker 2:Trust me. This place is
Speaker 1:just
Speaker 2:as
Speaker 1:far apart. Just just the what the NPCs are doing, it seems, in this game and their because think about just I have to pause it here. Like, I I think about, like, the advancements they've made in the last few years in AI, what they can have the NPCs just do now. Yeah. Crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We're this. We're doing it right. Oh,
Speaker 1:man. I I cannot wait for this game.
Speaker 2:They got your name, address. They got everything.
Speaker 1:I've never been a big, like, GTA Online person personally, but, like, I love the main stories of
Speaker 3:Rockstar Games. Red Dead, Bully, GTA, like, so good.
Speaker 5:They're looking at why they're trading even just the pieces of their hair I know. As it operates. So you can see the individual hair move.
Speaker 1:I just can't get over that this is a base PS five. It's it's actually it's blowing my mind.
Speaker 5:Look look at the carbonation on the drink right there and the condensation on the outside. Like, Jesus.
Speaker 1:God, it looks good. And you said you were Vice City was
Speaker 3:your first, was it? So this is a
Speaker 5:bit of a throwback.
Speaker 2:Hey. If you got friends, can you hook me up?
Speaker 1:Hook me. Oh, man. It looks awesome. What a trailer.
Speaker 5:What a trailer.
Speaker 1:Yeah. My god. Crazy. So sick. It's gonna make a lot of money.
Speaker 1:There's no doubt. I actually saw Oh, it's gonna a I I'm really oh, it's gonna make so much. I'm really interested to hear what you think about this. So I was reading I was just reading in a Reddit forum or something that peep people are talking about it. They're going, oh, you know, it looks amazing.
Speaker 1:Someone goes, something's not adding up here. And I'm going, what's this guy talking about? I don't know if you heard this, so this is this is really interesting. He goes, oh, something's not adding up. I smell it right here.
Speaker 1:And then he goes on to clarify what he means. He goes, it's really weird that, like, GTA six so it's dropped the trailer. That's you know, you can you could put that you could assume that that's like, the obvious assumption would be of, you know, we didn't get a they pushed the game back, so they're appeasing us with a a trailer to and Yeah. To kind of, you know, whet our appetites a bit and get us, you know, like, go look. We're delaying it, but here's this.
Speaker 1:Right? But he goes, yeah. They released a trailer, and it's it's extremely unusual. And, personally, I don't know if this is unusual because I don't really play the PlayStation much anymore. But he goes, it's so weird to throw up the wish list page a year out from this game given it's already gonna be absolutely massive.
Speaker 1:It's it's weird. A whole year out to more than a year out, actually, to to throw the wish list page up. And this person's thoughts was that Rockstar have have put in place a fake release date for the game, that they're playing four d chess after everything that happened with the data leak is in, 2022 and the state the game was in at that time and everything getting leaked. And they're saying that closer to the game, it's gonna be easy to get access to some of these things and leak them. Could there be merit in throwing up a fake release date for next year, throwing out the second trailer?
Speaker 1:As anyone would assume, you know, they're delayed it. They'll throw a trailer out. They're appeasing everyone and wetting the appetites like I mentioned. But, actually, with the wish list, like throwing it up to get people interested and then because people add it to the wish list, but then drop it on, a Black Friday sale or or some date towards the end of the year, close to when they originally planned to do it and go GTA's out. And it's not unheard of.
Speaker 1:Like, you know, like, artists release albums out of nowhere. Like, what's to say that a a company with the with the most anticipated piece of media in history doesn't just, closer to the date, go GTA six arrived next week, and all of a sudden, they've they've bypassed the leakers, and a game just drops out of nowhere, and we've all been played for fools. Like, how much work do we really think they've got to go on this game?
Speaker 5:I think it's I think it's less. Like, I mean, to be perfectly fair, the game's been in active development for, what, six or seven years now.
Speaker 1:It's been in active development since since the since GTA five came out. They had a different team that was working on Red Dead two. It's been a lot longer than six years.
Speaker 5:A lot longer Even even more so. It is set to be probably the most complicated game in terms of development with with, like with with the map size potentially being two or three times the size of GTA five, all of those NPCs, all of those interactions, the size of, like, the campaign, the online, and all of the there's there's a lot that's going into it. It's probably gonna be the most complicated game.
Speaker 1:Well, it's already
Speaker 5:but at this point, they also had their source code released back in, like, 2122, and that would have dramatically increased development time. Because having the source code of your game released before it's out, they'd have to basically almost go back to the drawing board and fucking recode everything for it to not be available to cheap, you know, cheap makers and and things like that. They just they'd it it it probably put another couple of years on development, to be quite honest. Like, another maybe year or two at most. But I think the stealth release, I don't think that's gonna happen.
Speaker 5:They'll do everything they can to avoid the leakers, but I just this is the biggest piece of media that's gonna be released.
Speaker 1:He's debunked it here on the podcast. You're hearing this live. If you're just tuning in to the podcast, the Hidester has debunked the theory. That's really interesting. I mean, already, it has taken right.
Speaker 1:If you count till now like, I'm talking, like, now, I'm pretty sure, GTA one in '97 to to 02/2008 GTA four, we've already passed that amount of time. All those GTA games, and it's taken just that amount of time from five to six in development time. It's crazy.
Speaker 5:Games games have also gotten
Speaker 1:more expensive and
Speaker 5:more complicated to develop over time. But, like, something we've gotta keep in mind is because of the success of GTA five specifically, and also all the other GTAs that have come before it, GTA six is the most anticipated game of all time. It's probably the most anticipated piece anticipated piece of media of all time. It's going to be a cash it has to be a cash cow
Speaker 1:for bizarre
Speaker 5:because of how much they've put
Speaker 1:into this. Astronomical fail.
Speaker 5:There's no way they're delaying this. Like, there's no like, the gaming industry for the last, like, year, especially in in 2025, has been centered around revolving around the release of GTA six. People developers have been pushing their release dates out so they or not even just giving release dates in fear of when GTA six would release. There's no way they're gonna stealth drop this. The the like, the monetarial impact that they'll have, like, building up anticipation, showing you gotta think of, like, their their stockholders being like, well, okay.
Speaker 5:Well, we need to see investment in the game. We need to see the the closer it gets, the more investment they show, the more the stock price will rise, the the more the the cycles will be happy with it. Like, there's, yeah, there's no way they're gonna stealth release this game. If they do, I well, I don't know. I'll eat my hat.
Speaker 5:Like, it it's just I understand to a certain extent the logic behind it, but I don't think the biggest piece of media of all time is gonna stealth release. I think if it was maybe a smaller game studio, smaller game, sure, artists can do that kind of thing because it's just that we're we're talking about a game that's had, like, $8,000,000,000, billion with a b, put into its development.
Speaker 1:It's it's it's Hold up. Hold up. Hold up. Hold up.
Speaker 5:Oh, sorry. 1,000,000,000.
Speaker 3:1
Speaker 1:yeah. It's it's something like a billion and a bit, and that's to do with advertising. That's to do with the game. Like, it's multiple factors. 8 billion's what GTA five has grossed thus far, and I don't know if that's in I imagine that's inclusive of shark cards and GTA five online as well, not just the sales of the actual physical media because that would be insane.
Speaker 1:So so okay. On a scale of 10 being the stealth drop is absolutely happening to a scale of one, the stealth drop is not happening. Okay? Where do you think you sit on this? Is it an absolute one, not a chance?
Speaker 5:One. There's no way they do it. I'm telling you right now, there is no way that they do this. It's it's it's it's too hot. It's it's there's too much there's too much investment in it.
Speaker 5:There's like, it's yeah. They can't do it. There's no way. It would it would potentially it for at least for for a good couple of weeks, it would potentially cripple the gaming industry to a certain extent, a small pocket of it at least. It would overload all of their servers.
Speaker 5:Like, they wouldn't be able to be prepared for it. People would be scrambling. Like, it it would cause disruption and not in a good way. I don't think they wanna see that either. There's there's quite a lot of reasons behind it, but, like, they've also gotta think about is there other networks going to hold for all of their online components and just downloading the game?
Speaker 5:Like, PlayStation and Steam and all that have to be prepared for this to release. They've, like, actively preparing actually preparing for it at the moment. Like, there's no way that I'm just I'm saying it's a one.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 5:Okay. Easy one.
Speaker 1:Okay. I've been frantically typing to see if I could find anything from anyone else because that was just a stray comment I saw, but I can't find any Reddit forums or any momentum building about this theory of a stealth release. I was going to say if I could find something more on it. Let's throw a little bet on this. Gamble responsibly at home.
Speaker 1:But I'm not prepared to do that now because it doesn't look like, bar that one comment that I've saw, that there's any momentum behind it.
Speaker 5:The one comment on Reddit.
Speaker 1:Here's the deal. Here's the deal, Thunder Nerds. If I see an ounce of more people throwing up the theory of a fake 05/26/2026 release date to hide, I will get the Hidestar back on the potty, and the bet will be this. I'll I'll it'll be if I if I'm confident, I'll say, I'm backing it, and you'll say, hard. I'm not backing it to, you know, release this year or that it's a Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, a a hard backing that it's going to release essentially on 05/26/2026, and it's not a lie. Yeah. The deal is this. What is the deal? What is I've got one
Speaker 5:I've got to try down the bet. Set the turds, Bryce.
Speaker 1:I've got one. I've got one in mind. I've got one in mind. Before you come back and set this, the deal is as follows. The winner, the loser, the loser has to buy the other person a Steam game of their choice no matter the cost.
Speaker 5:No matter the cost.
Speaker 1:So that doesn't matter if it's like, you know, Civ seven, the ultimate pack for a hundred and 50, you know, AUD. That that that's what it is. The the bet's not on now. The bet's not on now. I'm just
Speaker 5:Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:Okay. Saying if I get a whiff of momentum anywhere in the next however long I won't leave it two two legs. That wouldn't be fair. But if I get a whiff in the next few weeks or something that it's building momentum, I'm gonna bring you back on the potty, and we're activating a code red. Alright?
Speaker 5:I'll write down.
Speaker 1:Done. Not done now. That's you understand the deal, Thunderbirds? That's a possibility. Sure.
Speaker 1:Hi, Stuart. It's been wonderful having you on the potty. Like I said, we'll get you on soon. I'm I'm sure it'll be soon, especially probably to talk about the ramifications, whether good or bad. I'm sure there will be ramifications of the finale of season two and maybe a wrap up of how we thought this year has been thus far and possibly how this era has been full stop given it could be the end of an era.
Speaker 1:Is there anything before you go that you wanna plug?
Speaker 5:Yeah. I I have my own Twitch channel at twitch.tv/thearsewarrior20nine. Also, the arse warrior two zero nine on Twitter, TikTok, YouTube. Hopefully, making some more videos for that. Watch me play through Marathon and Destiny two as an official creator for them.
Speaker 5:And I also do a D and D stream. The blokes at exhibit a media on Twitch every Sunday, Sunday nights, from about 08:30 Australian Eastern Standard Time, every once a fortnight, every fortnight. Come watch us and have a bit of a laugh.
Speaker 1:Get behind the warrior on stream. Get behind him on DND. How good. Alright, mate. We're gonna leave it there.
Speaker 1:It has been wonderful talking to you. Moving now swiftly on. We have had Lady Penelope. We've had the ice warrior, now it's time. We've jumped forward in time now, wippee wobby, Tommy Wimey.
Speaker 1:Like I said earlier, I've watched the story in the engine. We need to bring the d man in. Let's do it with this.
Speaker 2:My fellow citizens of the world.
Speaker 1:He has arrived.
Speaker 2:The eagle has landed.
Speaker 1:Cometh the hour. Cometh the d man. And he's here.
Speaker 4:Big d. Hello, everyone.
Speaker 1:How are you doing? I'm
Speaker 4:great. I am the expert of nothing and the talker of everything.
Speaker 1:How are Did you like did you like your intro?
Speaker 5:Love. I
Speaker 4:I do actually request that on all entrances I made All entrances the side of an empty room.
Speaker 1:That will just
Speaker 4:play do what you can.
Speaker 1:In the background non diegetically. That's gonna be your intro from now on whenever you jump on the pod.
Speaker 4:I love it.
Speaker 1:You watched the Thank you. Story in the engine?
Speaker 4:I just I just did. Yes. I did.
Speaker 1:What did you say?
Speaker 4:With the burrito, which I think is the best way to consume Doctor Who with the burrito in hand. Yeah. Yeah. What an episode. Can I just say, like, simplicity was not in the storyline, and I love that?
Speaker 4:Like, we we got some layers.
Speaker 1:It was wild, wasn't it? Yeah. Was something
Speaker 4:The whole time, I was like, are we in the same story? And we we were in many stories. I think that was the the case.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It was I think I think it's one of the best shooty gatwa stories of doctor who.
Speaker 4:Easy. For sure.
Speaker 1:Unbelievable. Like, really, really cool. Like, I've and and and something I've never seen in doctor who.
Speaker 4:Never seen. All in general, I felt it was a very, like, just unique interesting story of storytelling in general. I I'm it's it's such a weird thing because every single episode after every single episode this season, I finished it being like, I feel this. I feel that. And after this one, I'm like, what?
Speaker 4:There's there's so many bits of it that I feel different things for, all in, like, good ways and different versions. But it's just like, I I haven't felt so, like, complex and webbed in my emotions as I do with this episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And I think it's it's great, though. It's so, like, it's nice to have some meat on our burger.
Speaker 1:You know? I thought that it was like well, firstly, wow. The set design for Lagos, Africa was, like, unbelievable. This was shot in Wales.
Speaker 4:Do you not did you not feel like you were there?
Speaker 1:It was crazy. Like, I feel like the trailers did not and and I was this was one I was really highly anticipating just because it was one of the, you know, few stories with a new writer coming on board, which always gets me excited, but he just smashed it out of the park. And, like, the the set design was unbelievable. It felt like such a lived in world. The did you read the prequel that came out, like
Speaker 4:I I saw a lot of parts of that. Didn't I'm like, again, I did a week I got a quick check of it after, but I haven't gone in-depth of it.
Speaker 1:Yep. So the so the prequel was was written by the writer. I've got I'm gonna find his name because we have to shout him out. Sure. And he wrote a prequel to the story, which is almost first meeting with the doctor Mhmm.
Speaker 1:When he puts that fire out, and they they did some really nice illustrations, which they used in the episode at the start. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And and and, essentially, it's just the written trans like, the the written story of that, and we get a little bit of it at the start of this this story, the story in the engine. God, how many times are we gonna say the word story in in in this podcast? Because, wow, the set design was unbelievable. I didn't know what what was gonna happen at any given moment where the story was going.
Speaker 4:Can I say something? What I think was really interesting about this episode, with a lot of stories, you kinda have an idea with what's gonna happen. Like with the well that we saw, we had an idea that the doctor would get out or, you know, move on. Yeah. But one thing I found really interesting with this story, and we'll probably talk about it a bit aft bit later, but how the how you yourself as a viewer weren't sure what was gonna happen.
Speaker 4:And you can kinda see the doctor not know what was gonna happen. Because the doctor always kinda knows where to go, but the doctor is really trying to figure it out. And I felt like so was us. And there was, like, a really good take on how we can kinda get to what what happened in the story. So it was like a a good journey for all of us.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I I agree. I think seeing I mean, I can't get over it. Just seeing doctor who in Africa is cool. Like So cool.
Speaker 1:Like, it's just that that's what I wanna wanna see the TARDIS go more places. It's nice to see the TARDIS. You know, it's anywhere in time and space, not anywhere in London, England. Yeah. Do do you know what I mean?
Speaker 4:And what was so nice is how the doctor's story is integrated a part of the community, and it wasn't because you you would think, oh, it's first time landing there. But he's like, no. He's been there. He's lived there. The like, he his connection has been made in in that community.
Speaker 4:And it's one of those things where it's like, of course, would be. Why wouldn't he be?
Speaker 1:A %, like, to see we get that, you know, here and there, we get the thing of, oh, I've been here before. But here Yeah. The writer has and Russell, I think, talked about this in the doctor magazine or one of the previews he did for the season. He said that the writer and his name I've got it here. It's Inua Ellems.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right. I n u a, Inua, Elams, e, double l, a m s is the surname. And saying that, like, he'd written a mythology here
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 1:For the doctor. And and and you get the feeling. Yeah. This this barbershop, the doctor just what he he's just gelled with it. He's vied with it, and now he kinda comes here every so often.
Speaker 1:Maybe gets a haircut. Like, maybe Tom Baker came here with his frock with his curls, and Yeah. I kinda like that that that's just a thing that he's and he and he sits and tells then they all tell stories and whatnot, and then that gets taken to the nth degree here. But I like that that there's a bit of history here with this doctor and that he's not tied. This is the other thing I like.
Speaker 1:Russell was saying having this new voice come on, he wasn't going, oh, has the doctor done this in, you know, season seventeen episode two? Like, he was like, he just came in as a he he loves the show, this writer. Big fan. I think I feel like you can tell that when you watch this. But Yeah.
Speaker 1:But Yeah. Like, he said he just came in and went, I'm just gonna do what I what I wanna do with doctor who, and I and I love it. The TARDIS there putting out a fire, like, the the idea that he just, that's the doctor. That's the doctor.
Speaker 4:Yeah. It's and and then he you could so get so clearly the this world was lived in, was was detailed. There's layers to this that that wasn't spoken, but you could feel it.
Speaker 2:It it come
Speaker 4:it came across. And what was so nice was that it was also a world that was so lived in but different. So it's like the same Doctor Who world, but it was a it was a different view that was in world.
Speaker 1:Was through a different perspective. It was like watching it and going I had to stop my there was actually a few and I I'm gonna have to maybe more so than other episodes this season, I have to watch this again and soon Yeah. Because there were parts that I was having trouble taking in because I was I kept getting taken out of it by how good the set design was and just how lived in everything felt that I'm going it feels like its own story or own it feels like it's outside of doctor who in a way. Like Totally.
Speaker 4:Totally.
Speaker 1:Do you
Speaker 5:know what
Speaker 1:I mean?
Speaker 4:It it it feels it's it feels like a like a meta a meta take of storytelling as a whole, but in the same time, in its meta ness, it also feels very inside of the doctor who universe. That makes sense. Yeah. Does. It's very
Speaker 1:I loved how the
Speaker 4:intro the fabric.
Speaker 1:I loved how the intro, like, appeared on the Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Love. I I love this integration. This, like, and we we saw it again with the back in the one with the the third episode of the first season.
Speaker 1:What? Boom?
Speaker 4:Oh, the second episode. Sorry.
Speaker 1:The Jinx. All all the the the devil's chord.
Speaker 4:Devil's chord. We we saw that with the devil's chord where we we heard the intro music play it in, and it just like oh, it's such a small detail, but it's stuff like that that just makes you so excited for the story, for the show. You're like, you know, doctor who's in session, sit down, and let's enjoy the ride. You know?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Yep. A % agree with you. I think that, I don't know, this this second season we'll we'll go further into the the story in the engine shortly, but this second season, I wasn't a big fan of the robot revolution, personally.
Speaker 1:It wasn't my type of doctor that I love. Like, I get what they were going for. Just felt like it was aimed a little bit at more so than other stories at younger audiences, which Yeah. It's not it's not out of character for Russell to do that with first episodes in his seasons, but the rest of this season, Lux, tick from me. Big tick.
Speaker 1:The Well, like, it's so good. Lucky day, probably more, like, upfront with what it's trying to do, less subtlety, but I still liked it a lot. And then this, oh, man. Like, this is a a real they're they're real they've hit at least three really good Doctor Who stories. The Wells are classic to me.
Speaker 1:Luxe is very good, and this is fresh and really exciting. This is what I wanted week in and week out for season one. And I feel like
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Man, I was sitting there watching Shootie Gatber in this episode going, that hair that he has at the end and even halfway through, like the braids, I'm going, man, you could throw these entire get up in this episode as his normal Yeah. Outfit, and I would be, like, oh my god. He looks sick.
Speaker 4:It is just I was genuinely so, like, incredible and beautiful and, like, the the flow of how they use the story and how he the, you know, he the hair the hair became a character. You know? The hair was Yeah. That was awesome. Part of the solution.
Speaker 4:And it was just like this thing where every part of the team that worked on it, you can tell every part of the crew just there's a lot of passion in in this project, and it was constructed so well. And and it paid off, it made it so yummy.
Speaker 1:No. It's a yummy. Yummy. Talk to me. How about so there were rumors that the fugitive doctor would show up in this story.
Speaker 1:Gagged. Wow. Yeah. That was a really and and it doesn't overstay its welcome at all. It just oh my god.
Speaker 1:Like, the way that and I have to watch it again, Thunder Nerds, but the way she kind of just and as soon as I did that shot where it went behind the woman's head, went, oh my god. It's gonna be the future. It's true. The rumors are true. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then to see the fugitive doctor standing there and just saying something like, I was busy that day with my own story. I couldn't take you. Yeah. Like, I was like, damn. Like, that is a harsh like, because she's a slave, wasn't she?
Speaker 1:Like, that wasn't she a slave when she was saying that the the doctor was gonna come back for her, like, bitch, she never did. And she's like, well, I had a story of my own. Like, I'm I was busy that day. And it was like, woah. Like, okay.
Speaker 4:It was Like really insane. And it was just a really, like, well paced timing for that where you really got to feel what that would feel like. And, again, it's another it's another case of a companion being left behind by the doctor, but what would that mean for you? You know, what would a person be left by the doctor in those type of in those situations?
Speaker 1:The future doctor showing up so briefly. I mean, I did Yeah. I did after that wonder, oh, no. Is she gonna be more of this? Like, is not to say because I actually like the view, but I'm I'm also saying Yep.
Speaker 1:Where are we going now with this? And I thought limiting it to that, it left me going, I want more. And that's a good thing. Yeah. Knowing that you're left thinking I want more of that and not, oh, I like that first part.
Speaker 1:And then when she showed up second, third, fourth time, I was a bit like it kinda dragged on and took away from where the story was going. It doesn't it does not ruin the momentum of the story that it's telling. It's just a brief moment to throw in the other black doctor in an like, if I'm not mistaken, all people of color episode of doctor who that's never been done before. But you don't think about that when you're watching it. That's what is fucking great about it.
Speaker 1:You don't think about that. The story is so good on its own terms. It's so fresh, so original. The design of the kind of tree mushroom thing opening at the end looked freaking awesome. The doctors.
Speaker 1:Oh. Oh.
Speaker 4:Like It's it was and and and what you know what it was? It was like when they had the Fugitive Doctor at the start and oh, like, in that in that shot and then going back to Judy's doctor, you really got a sense of just, like it was just given a scale. You know? It was just given a scale of this life that this alien has lived, this kind of bringing it back down to earth metaphorically where
Speaker 5:it is.
Speaker 1:Like the
Speaker 4:But so
Speaker 1:good. So good. The the the way that I don't know. There was something I liked Rogue last year. I didn't love Rogue, though.
Speaker 1:That story, the Bridgerton type story. I liked that it was new writers coming in. I didn't love the story. I I I didn't love you know? I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't know what it is for me where, like, you can throw up the doctors as holograms in that story, and they throw the Richard E. Grant doctor in that story to kinda go, like, oh, like, is he part of the canon? Is he not?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know what it is that for me, I go, oh, yeah. That's okay. That's that's cool. I don't I don't and then they do something here, and I go because maybe it's because it feels more like it's part of the story because it's part of the resolution. The doctor goes, I've lived all these lives.
Speaker 1:It's it's linked to me now. I'm I'm born. I die. I'm born. I die.
Speaker 1:And then you go, oh, shit. It's the stories of all doctors coming through, and he's kinda going, I've lived all these lives. This is me. And it's like, maybe that's why it resonated with me more. Like, it gave me goosebumps when I watched it.
Speaker 1:I was like, oh my god. And the and the the choices of shots they used for the other doctors were cool as well. Loved hearing it. It was good. Like, oh, it was just yeah.
Speaker 1:It was so sick. It was so sick.
Speaker 4:And it was so good because it was Given that scale of of all that because we we've had a lot of montage of of other doctors, and I think it what's really important is picking the right scenes, and I think they picked. Well, again, I think this is I I don't know who picks the scenes, but if the writer picked the scenes, I you just know that he big fan. You know? He's just I could just tell that there's
Speaker 1:could tell. You could tell.
Speaker 4:Some Yeah. You could you could tell there's some consideration.
Speaker 1:For it. Doctor in color there as well. You're like, yes. Give me more first. I don't know if they did a second doctor in color.
Speaker 1:I think they might have been, like, seeing the the the black and white doctors in a couple of fleeting moments of color. I'll never tire of that. I love that. The Anasi, Loki, all these kind of, you know, I'm this, I'm that, and you go for a bit, you're like, is this a god? Another one of the pantheon gods?
Speaker 1:Like, is it trickster from Sarah Jane Avengers? Like, what's and then, oh, no. It's just no. It's none of that, actually. Like, he's a copier, aren't you?
Speaker 1:Like, there was so many good seething fifteenth doctor moments. The moments where even the moment where he he goes, Omo, this was my home. This was a home for me. And that that resonates with this particular doctor in ways that might not work with other doctors because he's, you know, part of that culture, shooty Gatwa as well. It just feels like there's more there's something personal here when he says that this here he feels like he says when he gets out of the Tardis, there's other places he might land and there's segregation like we've seen.
Speaker 1:Here, this is a sanctuary for this doctor in particular. Mhmm. It's a sanctuary for all the doctors, it sounds like, but for him in particular, this is a home he can walk through. No one looks at him differently, and and he kinda goes, you don't talk to me. You broke that.
Speaker 1:And that's a nice moment for this doctor. He there's also a crying moment, but it they actually and I'm not sure if maybe someone was editing this season going, shit. He cries a lot, doesn't he? And they've then cut it so that it's a shot where you don't actually see it. He kinda seem getting a bit emotional, but they cut to a different shot, and you don't actually see any of the crying in this one.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure if they've done that on purpose, but I don't know. It just worked. A lot of this story really worked for me.
Speaker 4:And I think because what it is, it was a for the doctor, it was never about doing your hair. It's like Belinda was saying. It's like, you don't you do any lot of otitis? It's like, it's not about the hair. It's about the people, and it's about a connection.
Speaker 4:And if it we don't often really see the doctor go to one place to do something throughout, like, history. He's always traveling, going somewhere in the world.
Speaker 1:Mhmm.
Speaker 4:But it's like the fact that he could have this this home. But then having that home exploited and attacked in a sense and then kind of tarnished by the events that happened. It's it's it's hard. I think you could see the pain that he had where it's like this little safe space is affected. Yep.
Speaker 4:And it's that's rough. But it's oh, it's such good story writing.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was another example this season that I don't know. It's just it's becoming example upon example. I mean, especially with the well, I think, but what but but, you know, Lux to an extent. Like, you know, it's you know, you got the fans in Lux. You've got the mother that he kinda sits and talks with.
Speaker 1:That's a great scene. There's a lot of characters in in Lucky Day. Conrad, just a prick, like Ruby fleshing her out, the doctor a little bit more of Belinda, Shirley Mhmm. Kate. There's a there's a few characters to get through in that story, and and and the well had a had a, well, an ensemble of 13.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. Right? But I don't know. Or or 14 if you count them. The woman that was already there on the base, but there's a lot of characters in that story yet.
Speaker 4:Was it with the well, if you count the entity, it's 15.
Speaker 1:15. 15. Yeah. You're right. So there's a lot of characters to balance and get through and give screen time to.
Speaker 1:This one has less than that, but it's still got a few characters. And somehow, again, another example in this season, in this second season of RTD two where Mhmm. The pacing is perfect for a, you know, forty five ish, fifty minute episode of Doctor Who. And two, they flesh out the characters. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Again, like like, it doesn't feel like anyone's wasted. Somehow, you can have these all these characters, but they all feel like they're doing something or contributing something to the story. That is impressive because it it it it does prove that you can do forty five type minute doctor who today, like it was done when RCD revived it initially. It still works. He's he is really good at having things paced out very, very well.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you know this, but the writer of this story, he wrote an award winning play that was set in a barbershop as well with a lot of the same cast from the play that he cast in this episode. And I feel like the performances in this are very emotionally charged. I think that, like Yeah. You know, it's interesting how at the start, it's almost like a Doctor. Light story.
Speaker 1:And you think, oh, is this gonna be Doctor. Light for oh, sorry. Not doctor light. Companion light for a lot of those start, you go, oh, is this gonna be but then, no, she seamlessly comes back into fold and into the story, and it all just works as a confined doctor who story. I like that he's taken clearly, barbershop thing is something from this writer's childhood that he remembers growing up, like being in his dad's barbershop or something like that.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm guessing. And then he's or or maybe being not sure even if it was his father, but maybe just being around barber shops and hearing stories or the way they tell stories in their culture, like, to write a play about it, get great recognition for it. It was Gatler who separately came to Russell, who was already eyeing this rider and said to the team, let's get him. Gatwa came in one day and said, oh, I've watched this play. You should look at getting this rider throughout for this for doctor who, and they went, we've already got him.
Speaker 1:He's coming in. Oh. And, like, he the stars align when something like that happens, and the way that he's integrated because when I heard that he'd done the play, I wondered, is he just gonna, like, redo if it's in a barber shop, like, you yeah. Is he going to do something really similar to the to the play, but just, you know, change something here or there to make it doctor who? This felt like it was a similar setting that resonates with him, but he's had an idea festering and fermenting of how he wanted to do it for doctor who.
Speaker 1:And this doesn't I mean, I'm I'm sure if you watch the play, there wouldn't be many similarities, but, you know, maybe most of the same cast and it being set in the barbershop, but the way he does it here, chef's kiss.
Speaker 4:So, like, I think it really Keith and that he did and did so well was that he made the barbershop a part like, a character in itself, and he put it into it became an important part of the whole story. But it was so, like, nice to have that kind of grounding. Because another thing with doctor Who is that some stories that we have seen, they can get lost in the grandiose of everything and, like, going to all the different places at different times. And sometimes it's great, sometimes it's too much. But the great thing about this at the end of the day, it was people talking, in this barbershop of their stories.
Speaker 4:And, like, that is just they they did it well. So really interesting interesting stuff that came from it.
Speaker 1:Here is what I want you to do Mhmm. Before we wrap this podcast up. Mhmm. Where we are now now the let let's let's note this. We're talking about 15 before.
Speaker 1:This is the fifteenth doctor's fifteenth story. This
Speaker 4:story. Okay?
Speaker 1:Yeah. 15 for 15. From the stories we've seen thus far you don't have to know the title if you don't know the titles. I know you're not as as wildly kind of fanatic as me, but with what you know of the stories you've seen from the Gatwick era thus far, your top three from three to one. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Lock them in now, and I'll count you in, and we'll get number three. Can you have a quick thing? Tick tock.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Tick tock. Tick Tick tock. I have an idea.
Speaker 1:Okay. Number three.
Speaker 4:This episode. Oh, shit.
Speaker 1:Oh, shit. Yeah. Turn that off. Yeah. Sorry.
Speaker 1:So wait. Wait. So wait. So this this is number three. I think you're not far off, actually.
Speaker 1:I think it might be up there for me. So okay. So we're saying the story in the engine coming in red hot number three for you. Number 222.
Speaker 4:The well.
Speaker 1:The well is number two? That is really interesting. Okay. I I'm not gonna lie. Yeah.
Speaker 1:No. I think I think that would be in my top three. I think that could even push for one, but I'm not sure. Okay. And here we go.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Number one.
Speaker 4:Thought and Bubble.
Speaker 1:I knew you were gonna say that.
Speaker 3:Knew you were gonna say that.
Speaker 4:You knew it. Totally. Firstly, I for everyone listening, I watch episodes once or twice, and I don't watch them much, but I do I really should watch them many times. But I find that the ones that kind of give the life the impact sticks with me. And those three are the ones that had I have little takeaway messages and takeaway bites from them that I think are just I think about all still to this day.
Speaker 4:Like, the other day, I was in the shops, I was thinking I was like, is it Entity on on the spaceship or isn't it? What if what did they see? And with the doughnut bubble, it's just there's so much to talk about there. Yeah. But with this one, while I was watching it, I was just feel like I was just I just kept thinking about stuff, and I know that that's gonna, like, go away with me and be stuck in my brain and be thinking about all the things that I need to think about with this.
Speaker 1:I love the doctor who is, like, leaving that impression again. Sounds like for yourself. It's doing the same for me, like, where I'm thinking about it days after watching it and going, what was that? What about hang on a second. That I love that.
Speaker 1:I love that that's coming back for me. And maybe when we do dot and bubble on the as a retrospective on this podcast, I'll get you into to talk about that episode. Well, what you can break that one down with me because as soon as you I actually thought you'd say the well at number one, and then when you said two, I went, what other oh, dot and bubble. I just knew straight away that would have to be what
Speaker 5:you honestly.
Speaker 1:And It's a good story. It's good.
Speaker 4:Let me be it's just it's so good. And, like, the reason why that's one for me is because it's so I don't think I've seen a story like that before. Yep. And it is doctor who is the show for that story, and it's a show to take a lot of common things that we see when it comes to, like, social media, when it comes to the mindsets that the show covers, and then it really just, like, dives into it. And it just gets into it, and the it's a really good rush of writing where you have these connections of people that you see for literally minutes, and they die, but that impact lasts with you.
Speaker 4:It's good. It's meaty. It's juicy. I love it. And this episode honestly had so much of the kind of depth of characters that I love.
Speaker 4:You know? Give me a character that we, you know, want to learn more about. Give me a character with a story that kind of ropes you in for more content that you can kind of bring your own imagination. Because the thing is a lot of times is that as a viewer, you don't wanna necessarily know everything about the the the characters or even the world. Sometimes you want just enough to be like, what else is there?
Speaker 4:And have your own interpretation. Yep. Because there are sometimes we get characters where we get too much. So I think having characters in a short amount of time with as much background can give a really good impression for myself.
Speaker 1:It's a story that I mean, we know that the doctor has been here in other incarnations. This story can only have worked as well as it did with the fifteenth doctor. And Yeah. It's gonna be one that I think we look back and go, yeah, that's that's one of his defining doctor stories. You you can't take the doctor out of that story because that story is made for that doctor.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And what is so what I loved about it as well is that it wasn't a lot of times where the doctor was saving people. It was kind of the people working with the doctor to save each other. Yep. And it felt like if everyone in that barbershop had an equal hour and play to get them to the the solution.
Speaker 4:Well, in other times, you're like, the doctor's got this. Everyone else just sit back and relax type thing. But this one, it was like, no. If we all need to work together. So which is yeah.
Speaker 4:Great.
Speaker 1:So good. No. I it's it feel I mean, I really hope the further we get into this that word-of-mouth spreads, people talk, people watch it. Doctor Who is firing again with some really strong ideas and some strong stories and some strong execution. We want that season three.
Speaker 1:Russell said that he's got about season four to five mapped out with ideas of where we go. Wow. We need it. Anyway Wow. Let's wrap it up there, D man.
Speaker 1:It's been really, really awesome having you on. Let's do it again really soon because, well, we've got the season finale coming up and the Interstellar Song Contest next week. Rylan's making an appearance on there. We've got some tea going on, so that one's gonna be quite big. I'm sure that I'll see you before then, but, yeah, let's let's do it.
Speaker 1:Let's let's get back on the pod, and let's rock and roll when we get to that finale and have a real chat about what we think by the end of it.
Speaker 4:Sounds good. Looks very exciting. It looks very doctor y, and I love that every week now, we have something to look forward to to watch.
Speaker 1:I know. Just a few more weeks. No. No. It's only, like, three more weeks.
Speaker 1:But, anyway, look. While we've got it, enjoy it.
Speaker 4:Enjoy the ride.
Speaker 1:Enjoy the ride. For sure. Man.
Speaker 4:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Throw the nerds out. Catch you later.
