On the Time Lash
A podcast pub crawl through Doctor Who old and new with film programmer Mark Donaldson and stand-up comic Ben Verth
On the Time Lash
156. Stick a Rainbow on It (Rogue/Black Orchid)
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After emerging relatively unscathed from a discussion about racism in Doctor Who, Ben and Mark tackle same sex relationships in Rogue and the representation of disability in Black Orchid. What could possibly go wrong?
Also: Ben adds Janet Fielding to his repertoire of impressions and Matthew Waterhouse eats a soggy buffet, and a bunch of listeners have never seen Bridgerton.
Hello and welcome. It's episode 156 of On the Time Lash.
SPEAKER_03I'm Ben. I'm Mark, and and we're off to a party. You know, I hope you've uh got your best costume on, Ben, because we're off to two not one, but two parties. We're off to Regency Era Bath for Rogue, and we're off to I can't fucking remember where the Cranleys live in Black Orchids. It's a big costume party bonanza.
SPEAKER_05It's uh Mark and Ben talk about a couple of balls. That's on the time lash. Coming up at nine o'clock. Yes, it's a rogue, and we've paired it with black orchid. Um I think I'd been quite uh wanting to do Scream of the Shalka to go along with Rogue because we see you know he's canonized as a real doctor, the Shalka Doctor, but an actual fact black black orchid. Uh much more fitting.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_05Uh and so little of it, which is the bonus.
SPEAKER_03And I mean also, yeah, they they both have sequences in which the doctor takes somebody to the TARDIS to sort of prove a point.
SPEAKER_05Show off.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, just to show off within it. So yeah. So there's some mad TARDIS shit. There's some stuff that maybe doesn't stand up to scrutiny, and uh yeah, everybody's dresses, and there's some duplicates as well, I suppose. There's you know, shapeshifters and rogue. Uh there's two identical characters, although one of them's all covered in prose text and played by a different actor. But in theory, the two brothers in black orchid look very alike.
SPEAKER_05Yes. I am looking forward to this. Uh, and also not.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what you mean.
SPEAKER_05Um I hope we do it justice. Yeah, whatever that means. Yeah. Let's just do it then. Let's crack on with uh with the stats for Rogue. That's where we find ourselves in our new watch through. So uh Rogue was uh written by Kate Heron and Brian E. Redmond and directed by Ben Chessel. It was broadcast first on the 8th of June 2024. It was uh obviously a BBC i player at midnight, uh BBC One at what seven o'clock, uh, and on Disney Plus. Uh overnight it was watched by 2.1 million people, uh slightly down on the two point, slightly down from Dot and Bubble, but it's only consolidated at the end of the week to 3.52 million. But in terms of uh ratings, Digital Spy Radio Times, uh total film IGN all gave it uh you know four stars or eight out of ten. So interesting. Yeah, and uh the tomatoometer on Rotten Tomatoes, uh a hundred percent for this.
SPEAKER_03That just means it's hard like all critics have given it a favorable review. I feel like I'm pretty sure that's what it means. Yeah, so I um gave this, I think I gave this seven out of ten when I reviewed it for Who Culture. Because I I jumping ahead, I I don't buy the resolution to this. I don't really buy into the emotional dilemma that the doctor's placed in. Um that's my main issue with it. But I was on uh Mikey Smith's podcast, Mikey and Who. Mikey Smith short-lived, but very funny podcast, Mikey and Who. And I talked about this, and I I think I went to bat for it back then, but I was silenced by the MSM, you know, from my from my views on Rogue. The MSM being of course Mikey Smith Media. But um yeah, revisiting it today. I think I wonder if the critical reaction to it was similar to my reaction to it, which was like, oh, do you know what? Good for them. Good for them, they're finally they're they're going there. They're going there, they're finally kind of say it like, you know, yeah, the doctor the doctor can have same-sex relationships, the doctor can have heteronormative relationships. Like, the dogs can do whatever the fuck they want. I was like, yeah, good for them. This time, I've kind of rewatched it and going, it's a bit better your gaze, isn't it?
SPEAKER_05Uh yes. Yeah, I was gonna I was gonna bring that up.
SPEAKER_03But anyway, before all that, let's have a bit of fun. Cause you know, we're at a party, we're at a big ball. It's time to I'm not gonna make any comments when it takes these big balls. It's time for I think it's time for the first round of this episode of Dexies. What is it, game? So the Dexesto Funmaker uh chooses an item uh of Doctor Who merchandise each well, two items each episode. Um, and Ben and I have to figure out what it is, uh asking 20 questions or less if we're lucky, um, to find out what it is. Uh the category this round is books. I'll go first then. Uh so books, uh is it uh a classic series item?
SPEAKER_06Yes.
SPEAKER_03Is it a fiction book?
SPEAKER_06No.
SPEAKER_03Um is it 80s?
SPEAKER_06Yes.
SPEAKER_03Is it like uh sort of behind the scenes kind of a book? No. Is it like a book about uh sort of non-fiction subject that's given a kind of doctu twist?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so I was thinking, you know, like those doctors discoverers or the doctu quiz book of magic or you know shit like that. Oh, okay. Not something like that. Then yes. Oh, oh, okay. Is it the Doctor Quiz Book of Magic? Okay. Um so it's an educational book then, is it? Oh.
SPEAKER_05Is it a quiz book? I'm gonna say yes. Because there's quizzing elements to it.
SPEAKER_03Oh, okay. Well, it's not a fiction, so it can't be a choose your own adventure. Is it like an is it an annual? No. Because annuals have quizzes in them. Okay. And then I suppose it's fiction elements, I fucked up. Um quizzing elements to it. It's non-fiction. Is it a guide to something?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_03Okay, I might try and narrow this down. Is it Davison era?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_03Is it late 80s?
SPEAKER_07Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_03Right, okay. Um So you said there's like quiz elements. Is it like is it like an interactive kind of a book? Yes. Is it it's not like a choose your own adventure or something? Because that would be fixing, wouldn't it? I did kind of waste that. But anyway, um, okay, so is it like a raw God, I don't know what the fuck this is. Like um some kind of Doctor Who game book. Yes.
SPEAKER_07Five more.
SPEAKER_03The Doctor Who book of games. Is it that? I mean that's that's not a thing. I mean, like uh Yeah.
SPEAKER_05You've got exactly what it is.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_05It's just getting the name of it.
SPEAKER_03Oh I see now it now that I mentioned I feel like I've seen this somewhere. But what would the uh what would what would the Doctor Who name for that be?
SPEAKER_05I that doesn't even enter into it.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so it's not like the fucking Oh the celestial toy.
SPEAKER_05There is nothing there is nothing kind of smart or um knowing knowing about it.
SPEAKER_03Oh, is it it's not something like the Doctor Who book of crosswords or something?
SPEAKER_05Uh you Oh god, you're on you're on the very street, but that is too specific.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so is it just Doctor Who the Doctor Who book of words games?
SPEAKER_05No. You got three more Doctor Who word searches. Stop with the words. Stop with the words.
SPEAKER_03Okay, alright. But it's like a kind of newspaper it's a pen and pencil kind of game. Yes, it is. That's what we're saying.
SPEAKER_05You've literally got one more, I guess.
SPEAKER_03Fucking hell. Uh what one hundred Doctor Who's book of 101 games you can play with a pen and pencil.
SPEAKER_05Oh my god, no, no, it's not. It is that's a 20 questions. Um it is simply the Doctor Who fun book by Tim Quinn and Dickie Howitt. Oh so it's all your those are good names. Yes, like so it's um the guys that do the kind of uh the Doctor Who com like the Doctor Who little uh comedy comic strip and Doctor Who magazine. It's um it's just an activity book from 1987 published by Target. Crosswords, games, little puzzles, all that kind of stuff. The sort of thing that uh people take in a hospital with them when they need to, you know.
SPEAKER_03I was gonna say caravan holiday, but yeah, you could carry it, I suppose. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Caravan holiday, certainly, okay. There's that, you know, that kind of thing where you're on a long journey and you just like, you know, that type of Doctor Who fun book. So look Wow, there you go. Okay, you didn't get the points. From about ten questions on, you were absolutely I was circling the runway, but uh an activity book. That's uh that kind of thing. Yeah. Which I don't think any of us consider until we actually have it. It feels like something from the past. Okay. So mine book as well, is it? Yes.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Okay, so Ben, books. Twenty questions.
SPEAKER_05Is it Is it okay? Well we'll do the usual thing. Is it new series?
SPEAKER_04No.
SPEAKER_05No, okay. Is it classic series, therefore?
SPEAKER_03Well, no, because I suppose we're we're kind of classifying the classic series in 1963 and 1989, so no. So what's between those two eras?
SPEAKER_05How interesting, I suppose, as we enjoy Paul McGann's 30th McGanniversary. That is an interesting new take, isn't it? Is it is it a wilderness years book?
SPEAKER_03It sure bloody is.
SPEAKER_05Okay, and so there we are. Is it pre-1996?
SPEAKER_03Uh no, no. So it's between I was a bit like shit, I can't remember what year this is, but it's definitely not pre-1996.
SPEAKER_05So it's after the TV movie before Rose. So we're looking at that piece. Yes. Okay, so interesting. Okay, so is it uh prose? Is it fiction?
SPEAKER_04No.
SPEAKER_05Is it a factual book?
SPEAKER_04Yes.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Is it is it about the making of the TV movie?
SPEAKER_04No.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Is it uh okay, oh interesting. Is it okay? Um is that an episode guide?
SPEAKER_03Um, no, no. Sorry, I was just like, I swear I have this thing, and I'm trying to see what it is in the show.
SPEAKER_05Oh, interesting, okay. So it's after the TV movie. Uh so is it uh is it an overview of Doctor Who?
SPEAKER_03Yes, I would definitely say that, yes.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Uh interesting. So it's not an episode guide. It's post-TV movie. Uh is it like a an like an official BBC um production or uh kind of presentation?
SPEAKER_03Yes, it is.
SPEAKER_05It is, okay, interesting. An overview of Doctor Who. So what the fuck was all that stuff then? Doctor Who okay? It's not that regenerations uh making a no I ask that, forget it. Don't even worry about it. Yeah, don't okay. So is it uh is it like a mass market thing? Is it you know like an introduction to the series?
SPEAKER_03No, I think you'd be pretty mental to buy this as a introduction. I like I think this is definitely a niche item for died in the wolf fan.
SPEAKER_07Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_03Um is it but it is official, it is official, it's not like a kind of fan published thing.
SPEAKER_05Oh, okay, so it's official. Is it um what are we talking? Page count, is it like you know, 200 pages?
SPEAKER_03I mean uh hole, please call her. Yeah, it's over 200 pages, yeah.
SPEAKER_05It's over 200 pages, okay. Is the focus like it uh on the cover is their like Paul McGann? Is the focus the eighth doctor?
SPEAKER_03Uh no.
SPEAKER_07No, okay. Interesting.
SPEAKER_03I mean the he's not on it, I would say, so no.
SPEAKER_07Okay. Um focus about it.
SPEAKER_05Is it about the fiction of Doctor Who? Which I suppose also I'll I'll ask the second question, I appreciate, or is it more about the production, the design, the making?
SPEAKER_03Uh it's a while since I read it, but my answer to both of those questions would be a yes.
SPEAKER_05Yes, okay, cool. Does it have that kind of the TV movie logo on it?
SPEAKER_03It does, yes.
SPEAKER_05It does, okay. That's interesting. Cool. It's not the script of the TV movie, no. No.
SPEAKER_03But I can see how you got there.
SPEAKER_05Is it? Okay. Um alright, interesting. Okay, so it's it's between okay, the TV movie, like what came out? What what were we what were we it's a making of? It's it's uh it's about is it about something else than the TV show?
SPEAKER_03Um uh oh god, um I don't think so. Oh well, no, hang on.
SPEAKER_05So is it primarily about something else than the TV show?
SPEAKER_04No.
SPEAKER_05No, okay. So it's about the TV show. It might have elements therefore of uh extracurricular bits and pieces. So what came out? What came out in that time? Not the Regenerations book, that's the main one that ever remembered.
SPEAKER_03I think you got two more.
SPEAKER_05Two more. Okay. Is it uh Is it the Doctor Who the Book of Lists? Was that a thing?
SPEAKER_03It is Doctor Who the Book of Lists.
SPEAKER_05Is it? Yes, yes, well done. Oh my god, I just got you know what I got in my mind's eye. You know the clarity. The the in the inside of the VHS sleeves and what it was advertising, there wasn't just the VHS. I was like, Doctor What the fuck is Doctor Who the Book of Lists? That was a thing. And it looks like the cover of the Eight Doctors, but it's not quite that.
SPEAKER_03It's not yeah, because the sealer rats on slightly to the left.
SPEAKER_05Okay, Doctor Who the Book of Lists.
SPEAKER_03Um Doctor Who Book of Lists, a collection of over 150 lists of information and trivia about the BBC television series Doctor Who. Everything from the actors who have played the Doctor to the Crimes of the Master and spin-off productions is included, as well as notes on production narrative and trivia. I remember there being some very silly lists in. I do have a copy of it somewhere in the house. Um and there's some like I think it's like there's definitely a list in there of the number of times people are seen smoking in Doctor Who.
SPEAKER_05Wow, okay, yes. I can't.
SPEAKER_03And I remember there was one about kissing as well. There was a list about kissing because it was basically just like, oh, you think fucking Paul McGahn kissing his companions, bad to you? Well, here's all these other times that he's had a little kiss or there's somebody's been kissed. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05The perfect Doctor Who book.
SPEAKER_03Yep, by uh Justin Richards and Andrew Martin. Andrew Martin.
SPEAKER_05Perfect. Chuffed with that.
SPEAKER_03Lovely. Yeah, good work.
SPEAKER_01The eleventh hour. All right, that was great.
SPEAKER_05That was good.
SPEAKER_03Listener correspondence now for rogue. There is a bulging sack of uh listener correspondence this week, and I don't really know why, in a way. In a way, in a way, I don't really because I feel like on re-watching it, Rogue's quite uh maybe a bit bland. So like it's interesting that it's it's generated such a lot of responses. Um but and actually apologies to anybody that I don't get to because there is a lot and there's there's some quite long reads as well. So apologies if I've missed anybody. Um it's not deliberate. Uh so so uh Tom Turlow who says, To be honest, I just find Rogue a bit dull. I'm not especially bothered if the doctor snogs a bloke. The truth is I don't really like them snogging anyone, and not being a glee fan, I couldn't quite see why Jonathan Groff seems so irresistible anyway. Um, well, see, it my partner Amy, she's a massive Glee fan. She was a massive Glee fan when it was on, massive Jonathan Groff fan, and she found it pretty dull. So so there's something something's gone wrong somewhere, I think.
SPEAKER_05She said, she said to throw you off the scent. Every time you leave the house, mate, she's uh she's sticking rogue on the Blu-ray.
SPEAKER_03She made me watch him sing Bloody Bohemian Rhapsody earlier on. Anyway, um where was I? Uh the bird creatures were fine, and Millie Gibson was as lovely as always. Um, but beyond that, I didn't live long in the memory. I've never seen Bridgeton, so Bridgeton pastice was lost in me. Not a terrible episode, just very underwhelming.
SPEAKER_05Uh this is from Adam Thomas. Uh finally, some brand new writers, and the focus is back on Shooty after two Doctor Light episodes. And at the time, it felt like maybe that this was the upturn we were hoping and waiting for before the finale. Uh, Gatwa and Groff are great together with their sparring dialogue and this chemistry that sadly isn't quite there with the Doctor and Ruby. As an old fart, all the Bridgeton references sailed over my head. Luckily, they said it every five minutes to keep me up to speed. Yes. We we get it, we get it. It's the the Doctor Who Bridgeton take. The concept of cosplaying aliens attracted to scandal is fun, and Endira Varma is brilliant as always. Correct. Uh Rogue's ship uh kind of resembles the Razorcrest, uh, which is Mandalorian. Sorry. Uh so was RTD pitching Disney a rogue and poppy sign-off a la Mandalorian and Grogu. And maybe it was the Midnight Screening. Could you imagine? And maybe it was the midnight screening or some poor rendering, but I completely failed to spot Richard E. Grant in the past Doctor's Parade. There are some shocking renderings.
SPEAKER_03Pertwee and Jody Whitaker looked like it's partwee from dimensions and time, isn't it? It's not even like five doctors partweek.
SPEAKER_05It's like Jody Whitaker looks like she is homeless outside a supermarket. The fact that they spent some of that important Disney money to apparently just dick with fandom suggests that RTD's head may have been firmly up as arts at this point. Thank you, Adam. Yes.
SPEAKER_03Well, in a similar vein, um Mark Harrison writes, It's a heartbreaker that the only season one episode not written by previous showrunners is also the most bog standard story. All new Doctor Who is fanfiction anyway, but it's a dull vision of new new who that gives us this warmed over Girl in the Fireplace rerun. I wish I enjoyed this as much as Indira Varma did.
SPEAKER_05This is from Artfully Liam on Instagram. There's something quite frustrating about Rogue. Visually sumptuous with a freer period setting and meticulous attention to detail, it gets it it gets lost somewhat in its attempt to marry Bridgerton with a critique of cosplaying in other guises. There's something quite amusing about an app that has its central villains being over-ardent fans obsessed with costume and detail. But Groff doesn't have the charisma to pull Rogue off. Steady Ben. For the way that the narrative demands. Worth the price of admission, though, to hear the tsunami roar of appreciation from Dylan Cregan Reese at the insertion of With Nail into Rogue's long leaked hologram of all the docks. A long leaked hologram. That's a great description of it. The final scene is nice, but you just get the impression this is the hook equivalent of Barbara Knox turning up to collect her paycheck with three scenes of Rita Faircliff staring at the scenery.
SPEAKER_03Gareth Bowley says the book is better. It gives rogue some purpose. What we get on screen, however, is paper thin. Perhaps the title is the problem. Maybe it should have been the featherweight elite. Very good. Allowing rogue to be incidental to the overall story rather than a focus. In a similar vein, uh Dylan Reese says, Rogue is inoffensive filler. Not sure why it took two people to write this. Doctor Who being a horny bloke isn't a take I particularly want from the show. Um I like my Doctor romances to a bit uh special and built up. Isn't Dylan such an old romantic? Uh having said that, an ancient being who pulls a hot young man, where have I seen that in real life recently?
SPEAKER_05And congratulations, Dylan, on your upcoming wedding.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, wait a minute. Are you suggesting that he's the old man who's uh putting I don't know what was he suggesting?
SPEAKER_05I'm not sure T.
SPEAKER_03Davis.
SPEAKER_05Right. Cut this bit out, Mark.
SPEAKER_03Daniel Ronsley writes, I usually love me some doomed romance in Doctor Who, but the Doctor's dalliance with Rogue has got to be the dullest ever realised on screen. The lack of a spark free song between the actors is deadly. Um just look at the scene where Groff half-heartedly tries to stop shooty clowning around with this Kylie song. Gap was all flamboyance, uh, while Groff is giving nothing but dead air. Rather than explore the Doctor as a black man in the historical setting, we get a Bridgetton riff with screechy cosplaying bird people. The saving grace, a very funny Millie Gibson. Out of my way, Lord Stilton. Um that is an interesting point because you could you could do because there's a there's criticism of Bridgetton that it's colourblind casting, yeah, it's it's great in terms of like increasing diversity on screen, but for a historical drama, are you then kind of softening the harshness of the racism that was very much prevalent at the time? And you know, there's that's always kind of like a fine line to to tread with like colourblind casting. We don't do that, we just we just Doctor Who fully steps inside the television and goes into an episode of Bridgeton instead. Um J.R. Southall. Um, if RTD was going to get someone from the musicals in so that we could all fall in love with him, he should have also got Stephen Moffat in to write the introductory episode rather than taking it for granted, the entire audience would be made up of people who love musicals as much as RTD apparently does, and who would therefore love Jonathan Groff as much as Shoty Gatwood does from the instant he sets eyes in the anonymous, unremarkable, unmemorable character. Um now I remember there's a lot of kind of comp comparing Jonathan Groff to Jon Barman, and what I would say, uh I'm gonna dive into this a bit further later, but what I would say, the only thing um that you know Glee Star Jonathan Groff has in common with Doctor Who's John Barman is that they were both in television series from the early 2000s that had some deeply problematic shit going on behind the scenes. Um, anyway. JR continues, although I think this is a criticism of both Rogue and Black Orchid here. Uh I'm sure everyone else will have said this, but only Columbo can get away with showing you who the murderer is, right, who the murderer is, right at the start of the story, and then expecting you not to find the Who Done It part duller than the dancing that precedes it. It's fair. That's another link between both stories, I suppose. They both begin with a murder that ultimately just tells you what's going on, and then you have to sit through the whole exercise waiting for the doctor to catch up. Yeah. Um Paul McAvoy. Some may say space babies, some may say Empire of Death. But for me, Rogue was the story that just broke the show and made it completely unwatchable. A lot of the people who don't like this era don't really know how to articulate themselves, and a lot of the defenders don't know how to take it. Quickly things spiral into arguments of gender, sexuality, race, or whatever. It's boring because it's made discussion about Doctor Who completely impossible on most platforms, which is why I really appreciate you guys having an open platform. Um that said, Rogue manages to answer the question posed by Space Babies who is this show even for anymore? And the answer is elderly gay men. Uh rogue is a story that offers absolutely nothing for family audience. I mean, hasn't it always been for elderly gay men?
SPEAKER_05Um Rogue is made it's made for specifically the character of Hector in Alan Bennett's The History Boys. That's that is the elderly gay man that I've visualised watching Rogue.
SPEAKER_03Rogue is a story that offers absolutely nothing for family audiences, has the doctor dropped everything at the first hurdle to try and be with Jonathan Groff's titular rogue, a character as badly written as he is performed, giving us one of the most forced, unbelievable, and unlikable relationships ever committed to film. So what's left? A half-baked Bridget and pastiche that has to keep telling you that's what it is. Kids and families all flock around the telly to watch Bridget in. I'm sure Russell T. Davis would put as mu would put just as much stock in other Netflix series with extreme cultural relevance like One Piece or Stranger Things and not just this sort of thing on his radar. It becomes increasingly clearer that he doesn't understand the youth audience, and that's what's killing the show. Instead, it's an unbelievable gay romance which feels like it was amped up to cause arguments online. Great stuff. The Shalka Doctor can also fuck off. Um and speaking of elderly gay men, uh Joe Ford's been in touch. I'm sorry, Joe, I love you, I love you, I couldn't resist. Um Joe says, just ghastly on every conceivable level. How do you take two incredibly delicious men like Gatwa and Groff and make their flirting and tepid romance this boring? You want to emulate Bridgerton? Get their fucking asses out! This is supposed to be an awkward geek meets god romance, but it looks like all the backstage shenanigans left all the chemistry off screen. Uh does anybody buy this pair? What would a life between Doctor Who and Rogue look like? Kylie tracks and coy looks. Finally, something has beaten the reprehensibly hideous heartstopper. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Dylan Reese won an Emmy for that. Um as the worst gay romance of all time. You can't have straight actors play gay roles, Russell. You can't have two women write a romance for two men either. Um in reality, they would uh they would have grinder raps bleeping at the party, be rimming in the fountain within ten minutes and playing trains and truck tunnels in the budlayer. Don't look that up. Um by the time the hour is out. I don't know what this is. Oh sorry, I don't know what this chaste, flaccid playground slapping story is, but it is so out of touch with gay life in the 2020s it fails to ignite at any point, and stupid bird people, a score that picks dreadful songs to ape, wasting in Dera Varma in an embarrassing role and a general feeling of cheapness despite all the money they spent on it, and you have an all-round clunker, a stupidly intentioned story, execution with zero pinache.
SPEAKER_05Fucking hell. How are we gonna live up? How's our conversation gonna live up to any of the thought that has just been put forward in that?
SPEAKER_03Should we just go on a black rocket? No. Um Joel brings up a really in a really interesting point. I was at um just like a just drinks with work people uh Friday. I was having this conversation with a friend of mine about um who is gay, about how there's a lot of kind of gay romances written by women that are breaking through into the kind of mainstream consciousness at the moment. So you've got Heartstopper written by Alice Osman, uh, and you've got Heated Rivalry, which was also written by a woman. And the point she was making was that you either get something incredibly chaste and safe, like Heartstopper, or you get something that's sort of verging on pornography, which is heated rivalry, and and all these kind of you know, straight women watching it kind of lap it up. Um, and I feel like that that that's kind of what we get here. We get the Heartstopper side of things, it's a very chaste uh romance, and what this also reminds me of is um The Doctor's Daughter. So a few years ago, Russell T. Davis was I think this was during lockdown or not long after it, because it was a sort of online Zoom thing, I think, for Swansea University during Pride Month, which of course this episode is going out in because Pride Month month is June. Happy Pride Month, and Russell T. Davis had was talking about Loki, the Marvel show that Kate Heron was the showrunner for, and how the character of Loki is kind of set up as bisexual, um, but they don't do fuck all with it, they just pair him up with a sort of female version of himself that he falls in love with. Um, so Davies kind of said, uh, Loki makes one reference to being bisexual once, and everyone's like, Oh my god, it's like a pansexual show. It's like one word. He said the word prince, and we're meant to go, thank you, Disney. Aren't you marvelous? It's a ridiculous craven, feeble gesture towards the vital politics and the stories that should be told.
SPEAKER_05What a lovely bloke, lovely bloke, isn't he?
SPEAKER_03He then goes, I mean, I'm not entirely sure this is the defense he thinks it is. He goes, Once he finds out that this wasn't just for sh for just students and it was an online panel that then went viral, like Russell T. Davies slams Marvel. He goes, uh he sort of in the run-up to Rogue coming out, he does an interview with Games Radar. He says, I love Loki. I actually found Loki very Doctor Whoey and wasn't surprised to find that there was a British sensibility behind it. I actually made contact with Kate because there was a terrible set of circumstances where without thinking I accidentally criticized Loki, and what I didn't realise was an interview. I thought it was one of those online sessions talking to students, and of course, when any showrunner criticizes any other show, it suddenly becomes a headline. Yeah, alright.
SPEAKER_05Um fucking mug.
SPEAKER_03So then he gets so then he builds up a kind of rapport with Kate Heron and then invites her to write this episode, which obviously gives the doctor his first well, the his first, I suppose, gay male romance. And it's it's kind of like Stephen Greenhorn doing that interview in Doctor Who magazine about how well you know you can't really like after he does the Lazarus experiment, because you know, you can't you can't write anything that makes a massive impact on the doctor, and then Russell T. Davis goes, can't you? Fucking write me the doctor's daughter cunt, then we'll see what you could then we'll see what you could do. Uh it feels like it feels a bit like that. I know that's not kind of necessarily the intention, but just the very fact that he criticised her for kind of this kind of lip serve, this sort of hollow lip service to LGBT um sort of themes in her Marvel work to get her to write this episode of Doctor Who and then make it so sort of chaste.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03That it just it's it just it rankles a bit, like it feels like she's kind of been set up because I feel like if Russell T. Davis had written this himself, it would have been a lot sexier and it would have been a lot zippier as well. But we don't get that. And I'm not saying rimming in the fountain, but you know, it would have been it would have been a bit more.
SPEAKER_05I didn't really consider that. I didn't know that. I didn't know that he'd mouthed off about somebody else's show, and then out of P uh PR maintenance or shame or whatever, he struck up a friendship with a showwriter and asked her to come over and do you want to do actual gay stuff on my on my show as an apology. And then encountered presumably the same set of criteria about representing that on television. Um it's interesting. And okay. So for those of you who are who wrote in to us, thank you very much. Obviously, that is a greater perspective. I don't really see it as uh chaste. I uh I I thought it was what it was, which is in the early stages of something. Um that's how they were how they were both playing it.
SPEAKER_03And that's how I saw it when I first watched it. I think it was watching it the kind of second time around. I think I was kind of I was more aware of the kind of stand not standoffishness isn't the right word, but this the kind of dist there is a distance that doesn't feel like a kind of there's a tentative, oh if you know, oh if only. Uh it just feels that they're kind of standing apart from each other and there's not much kind of going on between the the line deliveries.
SPEAKER_05Well, what it is, it's not tentative, it's perfunctory. That was the thing. Uh I think this episode looks great. Uh I think there's some funny lines. I think Millie Gibson is very good in this. Incredible, yeah.
SPEAKER_03She's really good.
SPEAKER_05Um I think some of the directorial flourishes are great. For instance, the bit where Ruby comes into the library to see the two, Lord Stilton and Amy, the other girl, fighting. And it's shot uh kind of through the top of a bookcase. Like it's it's literally shot so that she looks like she's watching a widescreen television an actual episode of Bridget, and I thought that was a a nice territorial touch. Um I think to some degree they do have a good chemistry, Shuty Gatler and Jonathan Groff. I just feel the two main things that keep taking me out of it are one, it just seems so out of character for the Doctor. For any doctor, but also this doctor late in a season which makes me think again this kind of popular fan theory that this was the second episode moved back because, you know Can you imagine the fucking letters that would be written if the first two episodes of Doctor Who were uh babies and uh homo relationships? I mean like people would have their heads would have fucking exploded. Um and also I think there's a point where the only adventure that Ruby lists is space babies.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And anyway. So it feels like it feels very kind of early because the character seems still all over the shop. And secondly, it just feels perfunctory. Like, this is very like the girl in the fireplace. And I entirely bought the build-up of that relationship and that admiration and that kind of mutual attraction. And I don't buy this at all. I don't understand why the doctor is intrigued and uh thinks it's cool that he's a bounty hunter. Uh especially a bounty hunter who like when like he gets the doctor into a ship, he's gonna kill him.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, it's not about like taking him in, yeah, you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, without asking any questions, without seeing if he's gotten the right man, he's just presumed it was him and he's gonna kill him. How many times has that been on? Yeah, like how many times is that is that what he does day-to-day rogue? Secondly, I with Rogue, the characteristic, I just don't buy that he is a bounty hunter, that he's a bloodthirsty bounty hunter that will kill without seeking out the truth that he is the guy that's gonna bring somebody in, storm a situation, get it under control, and then get them off the planet. I just don't those two things keep bringing me out of it. One, I just can't understand because and the the thing is, right? I am absolutely fine if they wanted to tell stories like this, but there is a moment when they think Ruby has been killed, the doctor starts crying, maybe the most kind of over-the-top ugly cry that he's done in the series because he's let her die. And I was like, it it was so simple not to let her die. You you were looking after her and then you just got the fucking horn, mate. And then you just you just you just let her die. You never at no point after finding like a bunch of dead bodies, did you think I better get Ruby, I better see she's okay. Like the moment they identify the doctor as a problem, the doctor's companion is gonna be in the firing line, and he was too busy, and then he has this kind of oh I'll I'll just remember Carla saying don't get her killed, and I fucking got her killed because of my knob. Like that. Sorry, I should do it in our little um voice.
SPEAKER_00Oh no, I've got her killed because of my knob. Oh no, I fancy a fancy rogue in this pink spaceship that looks like a giant sparrow. And a fucking oh no just oh no she did fucking hell rogue. I'm gonna have a wee cry.
SPEAKER_05I I just didn't buy him as a bounty hunter. So though those are my two things. It's just fucking ridiculous.
SPEAKER_03The whole climax is where the thing completely falls apart for me. Because I don't buy for a second that Ruby's dead. And I know it's not about us buying it, it's about the doctor believing it. I do get that. But I'd also just don't buy that the doctor wouldn't give her a bit more fucking credit than that. Like obviously he doesn't know the situation she was in, but like he doesn't for a set it's a bit like Rogue kind of not asking the questions of the doctor. He's just like, well, that's you meant you're going down the thing. That the fact that the doctor doesn't kind of try and figure out if it's Ruby playing a game. Because there's even a bit where I feel like she's kind of signalling to him. Because she there's a bit where she it looks, she's doing those kind of weird bird head movements, and she Millie Gibson definitely gives a look up to the balcony as if to be like, I've clocked the doctors there.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So it j so that side of it I don't really buy. And then the other thing I don't buy is just the the the sacrifice of of Rogue to save Ruby. The little triangle thing traps charge now, so I'm gonna you have to press the button or they just stand on the floor forever. Alright, well, you've probably got a bit of time then, haven't you? There's no there's no real countdown. It's charged up and all he has to do is push a button. So surely he's got time to I don't know. I know they've got oh, it's deadlocked, so you can't fuck around with the sonic and stuff like that. But you could go, well, it's weighted, so I could maybe figure out some they're all just stuck there, they're not gonna do anything. It just doesn't feel like a a situation that warrants and also the fact the rogue grabbing the little button allows him to cross into the thing and fucking knock Ruby out because the weight displaces.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but it's not like he's a grown man, she's a small woman. I don't understand how that's an equal transfer, and then he's lob he lobs the flowers out, means that you can pass things easily in and out of that thing. All of it is such a shit.
SPEAKER_03You just don't buy and I'm not usually one for oh well that that doesn't make a lick of sense, but it really fucking doesn't. And maybe that's because I don't buy into the emotion of the relationship, and maybe that's why I'm more attuned to well, that seems a bit Yeah, and then it's not like you get a hard-hitting emotional epilogue or coda after that.
SPEAKER_05He's a bit gutted, she gives him a wee kind of oh come on, mate, it's alright, kind of cuddle, yeah. And then he does a kind of masking, oh I have to be like this and get on with it, but there's no and it sets it up that it's as if he's gonna be like looking for him is gonna be the thing that happens, if not in the finale, then it'll be in the the next season of the one after. Um we never hear from this again. I mean, rogue obviously pops up again, or rogue in the guise of the doctor's own conscience, yeah. But in any way, we don't this is the end of that, and he moves on, and so for Rogue's sacrifice, there is next to no discomfort from the doctor. No, there's nothing. Like there's a few kind of platitudes, but there's nothing, and you just think, fucking hell. I mean, like we saw eventually what that looked like. He was just wandering around in flames all the time.
SPEAKER_03I know.
SPEAKER_05And you and the doctor makes no attempt to go looking for him.
SPEAKER_03The fucking optics of it, it's like we've given the fifteenth doctor a romantic relationship with a guy, and then we've sent him to a hell dimension.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, uh it's very it's very conservative coded, isn't it? Yes, it's very it is very, very Catholic guilt coded.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's such an odd decision. Because like, I mean, look, we we all knew going into it that Jonathan Groff's not fucking moving to Gardiff and turning up like he's not doing a John Barman and sort of appearing in sort of multiple episodes as and when. Or an Alex Kingston where he'll be kind of coming back sort of every now and again. But at least like maybe get rid of him a bit more artfully than the way that it plays out.
SPEAKER_05Or don't get rid of him. Like the the the conversation they have a few times is the choice who whose life do we want to fit into? And you know, the the of like us as an audience, the obvious thing is, well obviously you go travelling with the doctor, the doctor's not gonna go travelling with you. Well, what if meeting the doctor somehow improves this guy's life? He's a bounty hunter, he's not particularly happy about doing it, you know, he's got a softer side, and for some reason he's just bounty hunting because it's a way of numbing the pain for whoever it was that he lost. Um, what if he just becomes a happier person himself? And that's a nice ending to the story. It was a wonderful little relationship, little love whilst it lasts. Yeah, and ultimately it benefited both parties, and both parties went off to be better forces around the universe rather than one person dying and the other person going, Well, fucking few, I got out of that, so I don't have to make that choice ever again. You know what I mean? Don't have to take those calls anymore.
SPEAKER_03Or you do the the River Song thing of kind of like, well, you know, if the two of us were traveling around together, it'd be a fucking nightmare. So let's just uh because you I don't really sort of agree with your like moral outlook on the universe. Like, so we'll just have a kind of you know, we'll we're in a bit of a situationship long distance through time and space. You know, you could you could do that and they go off and have their own adventures and but nah, we don't don't we don't get that, we just get like a just such a wasted potential or thing. Because Jonathan Groff is a good actor. Like I loved him in Mindhunter, um the David Fincher thing. So he he's got the chops to play like that's why it is like oh he's a bounty hunter, not like kind of just like some I don't know fucking time agent investigator that could be like a nebish like like his character, Mindhunter, he's kind of like a slightly nerdy loner who is kind of like he's in he's investigating time crimes, or he's been chasing these bird pe bird people through history as they're kind of cosplaying these people. You could have done that, and that would have maybe been a bit more of a believable character.
SPEAKER_05Um who's his boss? Like who's he doing this?
SPEAKER_03Like that's more setup that we don't get a payoff for. Because the boss is the I presume is a link back to the beep the meep thing. Yeah. Yeah, I I presume it's the same character who would have presumably been the main villain of season three or whatever.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Because yeah, I mean like watching it again, like that's that line stands out. Who's he doing it for? What's he doing it for? He's all that technology, and he can't even fight one or find or identify that there's one assailant, let alone what five or six of them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05He's inherently bad at his job, is he not then?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, considering the psychic earrings can give off the scent, like that's the thing, isn't it? That's how Ruby masks herself as one of them.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So what? He can't trace the the scent of the the bird people with all of that technology fancy technology he's got on his bird-shaped spaceship.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, you would think there was some link there. Like it's very obviously a little, I don't know, Robin, a sparrow that he's hopping around in. Uh it's just everything about Jonathan Groth is the only thing that keeps his performance is the only thing that keeps credibility with that character. Because it's so poorly, and again, who said it? I can't remember, but well, well observed. How did it fucking take two people to write this? It's just I don't I don't hate it. It was a it was I had fun watching it, but honest to God, I was like, there's some people who hold this up as uh as if it's one of the greatest pieces of Doctor Who, and actually it is just so by the numbers, like it's just so gr it just grinds on.
SPEAKER_03I think anybody that holds it up is kind of saying, like, oh, you know, like finally, sort of, you know, you know, gay representation on Doctor Who or whatever, which you know, there's a whole book just come out by Patrick Mulkern about how let's not maybe suggest that that's never been a thing before, which is very good. Um, but that it does feel to me that, yeah, sure, we've given the doctor a gay relationship, but it is a little bit like fucking Barclays Bank sticking a rainbow on the front of the building while they're still, you know, dealing with countries that you know stone gay people to death or throw them off the top of buildings. Like it it does feel a little bit hollow. Yeah, it does feel a bit hollow.
SPEAKER_05Yes, uh, that is uh phenomenal uh analogy.
SPEAKER_03I kind of stole that from Jackson Race, so uh thank you, Jack. Yeah, but he was kind of using that as a criticism of the whole era, but I think this episode in particular definitely kind of distills that kind of idea of kind of oh stick a rainbow on it just for the month of June.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah, it is that it just feels so out of character for the show for that doctor, for the doctor. Um, and there's a lot of suspending the disbelief where you go, okay, maybe he wants to act this way. But that's why, again, I argue it should have been earlier in the season. I think you said this when we were watching Church on Ruby Road. The doctor dancing in that in that nightclub where Ruby first sees, that's what the doctor that's what that doctor is supposed to be. Free from any of the emotional or mental or physical restraints that the doctor had prior to that. That was, after all, what this was the bi-generation was supposed to be, all the trauma peels off from the new doctor. And so you can see if this was episode one, if this was episode two, you know, a doctor trying to find his way back to his own emotional core or just wanting to grab every part of the universe and explore it, um, and and feeling like he is able to do that. What in the middle?
SPEAKER_03We've had we we've had boom.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03We've had we've had the Devil's Court where he meets a god and shits himself. We've had Boom, where he's on a land mine, uh, and then we've had 73 hours where he blinks out of existence, then we've had Dot and Bubble, where he meets space racists and realizes he can't save everybody. So he's been on a whole that that trajectory makes sense of the bit where he kind of loses his shit at in um Legend of Ruby Sunday. So it's like the doctor, because I I I was thinking at the end of Rogue, it there's that whole thing where like because I so everybody kind of says Rogue is oh it's just Captain Jack again. It's not, it's not. I would argue that Rogue is actually set up as kind of the Eccleston tenant doctor. You know, look at his ship, it's messy, it's kind of green there's green lighting, it's all quite dark, he's by himself, he's alone and he hasn't had hasn't had anybody for a while. The doctor barrels into his life and goes, You don't have to live like this. I'm like living proof of that. You know, I've been through all of this. Let me show you like a better way of living, you know. That's I think what this is. Um so that like you say, that all scans with the doctor that we have at the end of the giggle who's off the universe. He's kind of taken he's literally just die like divested himself of all like centuries, millennia of trauma, and now he's just this free and easy time traveller who's just gonna like grab life with both hands, right? But the end of it, when Rogue dies, the well gets sent off to a dimension or whatever. Um I was like, oh, there is an interesting thing here about how we all fall back into bad habits. Or like the way that you know this positive outlook could only last for so long before life fucking slaps you around the face again.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah, do you see where this is going, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I so I think if this was the second episode, it sets up that trajectory a lot better where ultimately he does become the doc the sort of vengeful doctor again at the end of um what you call it, Empire of Death.
SPEAKER_05That is great analysis.
SPEAKER_03But because it's not there, because it's the penultimate episode, I don't think it works as well. That's I mean, that's my take on it, but I don't know how deliberate it is.
SPEAKER_05That is a great take, mate. Um fuck, okay. Well, favourite scenes and performances, I guess.
SPEAKER_03I feel like that's yeah, I guess so. I guess so.
SPEAKER_05I feel like we balled that up and thrown it in the wash basket.
SPEAKER_03I mean, performances, it's Millie Gibson, really, for me. Yeah, I think she's so funny in this. Like her line deliveries and sort of the little uh like I love the bit where it's it's it's Emily and Lord Stilton's storm out of the dance floor and she's kinda looking around to see if anybody's watching, then her head kind of swings around and she like follows them. Yeah, that's really that's just a really lovely sort of bit of like physical performance. Um yeah, she's just really good, really funny, really just um there's an infect I've never watched, but I've seen bits of Bridgerton while Amy's been watching it. Um so I kind of know roughly what we're playing with, but there's a vi I think there's a vicarious thrill in watching Ruby enjoy what's going on that I think means you don't have to be, you know, a died in the wool Bridgerton fan to get something out of this.
SPEAKER_05Uh I mean I'd I have watched all of Bridgetton. Uh Jill loves it, and actually I quite like it as well. Um because it is such a fun uh but then I like Downton Abbey as well. Like I like all that shit. Like I don't think you really need to they keep saying Bridgetton because it's like the cultural touchstone, but it's not really, it's just like they're at a ball, and we've kind of if you haven't seen Bridgetton at all, you still have those cultural ideas that oh an unmarried woman cannot be found in the same room with uh with an unmarried man, oh scandal, scandal, all that kind of nonsense. Like you don't even have to have seen Bridgetton if you've had a whiff of Downton Abbey, it's exactly the same kind of stuff or Pride and Prejudice or any of that stuff. It's all that kind of cultural idea of Mr. Darcy that we've had since when did that go out?
SPEAKER_03Like 1995 for the character is the is the the woman that um Ruby twats with a book, is she not called something like Emily It's not Bennett, but it's kind of it's not far from you know being sort of the Yes, I know what you mean.
SPEAKER_05Hold on, let me see.
SPEAKER_03It's definitely a kind of call back to Pride and Prejudice, isn't it? You know, that character name.
SPEAKER_05It is Emily Beckett.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so I mean it it sounds enough like yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's all people like Beckett and Miss Talbot and Mr. Price and all that kind of stuff, yeah. Uh so yeah, definitely, definitely Millie Gibson as well.
SPEAKER_03Um Finger of Armour's very fun too. She's properly hamming it up, and actually I do want to say, I think the concept here of cosplay uh as kind of like like cosplaying class, cosplaying political power, I think it's such a potent idea. Um because we see it everywhere at the moment, you know. Um you know, I I was listening to Armando Inichi's podcast about like political language this morning while I was doing housework, and they were talking about, you know, I you know, politicians like Sadiq Khan who say, you know, I I started I started working class, and I said, Well what that means is you know, you had no money, now you have money and you're doing alright, thanks very much. You know, that kind of you know, your cosplaying is kind of this kind of like oh look, I made I made something of myself, good for me.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's also perfectly possible to move class, like even if you've got a billion quid and you started as a working class person, you're not a working class person.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05It's not um it's not it's not a mindset, so yeah.
SPEAKER_03And sort of the idea of kind of I think Britain at the moment is kind of in a period of cosplaying as as kind of you know, the whole Brexit thing, what was that if cosplaying is empire? You know, oh you know, we used to be we used to be a proper force to be reckoned with, but we're not anymore. So I think that's a really good concept that doesn't quite get a kind of proper sort of digging into yeah, they should have made more of that.
SPEAKER_05There's it it's weird, there's there's so many good ideas floating around in here, but none of it sustains favourite scenes?
SPEAKER_03Anything else?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, favourite scenes. Um I do like when he when they go aboard Rogue's ship and you get a bit of comedy flirting. I do think there are some funny lines, I think there's some good comic performances, if not necessarily romantic or sexy performances as well. Um and I do love seeing the doctors, even if they all look spectacularly off. I mean, and also like time has not been kind to the Shalka Doctor. I mean, I know like the Shalka Doctor was initially an animated concept, and he always looked quite haunted, but yeah. Yeah, but apparently making him more real means that he looks like the computer-generated Peter Cushing that they used in Rogue One.
SPEAKER_03I mean, that's and they actually went and shot Richard E. Grant's head to do that.
SPEAKER_05This is remarkable that he came into the production offices or wherever they were doing the post-production, let them measure his head and get all the and then they made him unrecognizable. And Pertwee looks like Wurzel Gummage, like they like like not even not even the doctor looks like fucking Wurzel Gummage. And I don't know what they're doing with Jody Whitaker's hair, but it looks like she's selling meth to unders other single mums on a housing estate. Like just so maybe it's not my favourite scene.
SPEAKER_03I like anybody. I do know what you mean though about that scene though, where like because I I I I think Shooty Gat What is an incredibly charismatic no regardless of what you think of him as the doctor, I think he's got such charisma, and I think like he really kind of shines in that scene, and I think he's very doctorish. Um he might be cosplaying the tenth doctor a little bit, maybe, when he kind of storms in. And he's the I object bit. Like I say, I don't buy the situation the doctor's being put into, but I think Shooty Gatwa gives a very good doctorish performance in that scene.
SPEAKER_05He does. I suspect he maybe didn't quite grasp the character reading this script. Considering the characterisation of the other the other episodes. I I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Possibly.
SPEAKER_05Okay, that was Rogue. Sure was. Wow. I can't believe we've only one episode left of this season. I mean, obviously two episodes, but we ourselves, I mean obviously Legend of Ruby Sunday and Empire of Death are gonna be we're gonna tackle them as one story because that's what they are.
SPEAKER_03I remember feeling a bit like that when Rogue went out. Going, oh shit, there's only two episodes left. I feel like we're only just getting started. Because this feels like an episode six of a 13-episode season, if you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_03That's why I kind of also bring up the Doctor's Daughter. It does feel kind of slightly placeholdery, but there's a degree of import that really doesn't fucking matter.
SPEAKER_05It feels like the episode before they take a week off because the Eurovision song contest is knocking the scatterdy schedule out of whack.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Okay, let's have a little break, and then we'll come back with Black Orchid. We're back. It's Black Orchid, and let's just get into the stats. Uh Black Orchid was written by Terence Dudley, directed by Ron Jones, and it was broadcast on the 1st and 2nd of March 1982. So this was done and under the belt in 48 hours. And it was watched by uh 9.9 uh and then 10.1 million viewers, respectively. That was the stats. Uh now it's time for these where did it come game?
SPEAKER_03Okay, so in the first five decades poll we're using this time around, out of 241 Doctor Who stories, that's everything from, if I remember rightly, an unearthly child to Time of the Doctor, was it?
SPEAKER_05Uh yes it was, yeah. It was no Capaldies, no Whitakers, no Gatois.
SPEAKER_03Where do you think Black Orchid comes in the first five decades poll?
SPEAKER_05Uh I think these Davison two parters get a lot of love, or at least a lot of leeway. Maybe that's the better way of putting it. So I'm gonna say it's probably somewhere in the middle, probably lower middle. So I'm gonna say like a hundred and sixty-five.
SPEAKER_03See, I think it's lower. So what have we got? We've got King's Demons, the awakening, black orchid. I'd say black orchid's probably the weakest for me.
SPEAKER_05Really? That's interesting. Like I like the black orchid vibe. I think uh enlightenment, uh not enlightenment, sorry, I think awakening is uh is pretty good. I hate the King's Demons.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's yeah, but I've got a real fondness for it. Oh but yeah. Well, alright, I'm gonna go 193. Okay. Okay. 193. I said you said 193.
SPEAKER_05165.
SPEAKER_03Let's find out who's closest as I open the golden envelope. The dexestimeal funmaker says, out of 241, Ben, you were the closest, uh, Black Orchid sits at 156. Um it's between that's interesting. It's between the awakening at 155. So you were kind of right in terms of the the sort of positioning of the Davison Two-partners.
SPEAKER_05Oh my god. So the other Davison Two-Part.
SPEAKER_03And then dinosaurs on the spaceship at 157. What the fuck is that box set, Derek asks?
SPEAKER_05Oh my god, okay. Well, there's a degree of kind of uh, you know, things from the past, you know. Yes. Awakening, uh, like an evil from the past. Um they're in the past, and there's a guy trying to murder some folks. Uh, and there's dinosaurs. Dang dangerous fucking stuff from the past. If you say it like a trailer voice, it sounds legit.
SPEAKER_03Uh-uh, or uh-uh-uh, that's not yours. So you've got the black orchids, yes, black orchid, the dinosaurs and dinosaurs in the spaceship, but I was like, oh, but what is it in the awakening? Tegan's granddad. He gets he gets captured, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_05Kind of yeah, okay. That is yeah, there's gotta be this well, okay. The village isn't really theirs to take in the way that they do. Hands off, baddies.
SPEAKER_03The hands off and then nobody buys it because it says hands off on the front of the boxes. Oh, alright. Okay, so it's time for the second time this episode to play Degsy's What is it, game? So I went first last time. It's Ben's turn to go first this time. Uh the category this episode this episode, the category this time is clothing. Um that's interesting, isn't it?
SPEAKER_05Okay, because I feel like we've done Tom Baker underpants, so I'm pretty sure it's not gonna be that I think yeah, I think we have.
SPEAKER_03Um so yeah, clothing. Where'd you start with the colour? Okay, clothing, I suppose. Doctor Who branded t-shirts. Uh remember that Paul McGahn one on the last day of McGannary. There was Paul McGahn's big face, yeah. Cela Raslon behind him, I think, as well. Um, so it's obviously not that. Uh otherwise I wouldn't have gone into so much detail. Um okay, Cattergate's clothing. Bear, the floor is yours. Twenty questions.
SPEAKER_05Clothing, okay. Do you wear it on the head?
SPEAKER_03That's a that's a good starting question, Ben. Well done. No, you don't.
SPEAKER_05Do you wear it on the upper body?
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_05Yes. Okay.
SPEAKER_03I thought you were gonna go Dr. Zeus there. Do you wear it on your head? Do you wear it to bed? Do you wear it with green eggs and ham?
SPEAKER_05Do you wear it when you're out with your friend Pam? Um Okay, so okay. Uh is it something that you would wear anywhere else than the upper body body?
SPEAKER_03Oh right, no, no, it's a it's an upper body item. It's an upper body, okay.
SPEAKER_05So is it a t-shirt?
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_05Is it a jumper? Um a sweater or no.
SPEAKER_03I'm gonna say no, it's not it's not strictly a jumper, no.
SPEAKER_05It's not strictly a jumper. Is it uh cardigan? No, but you're on you're on So is it a kind of uh warming extra layer that you button or zip?
SPEAKER_03No, there's no buttons or zips.
SPEAKER_05Okay, is that a hoodie?
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_05Okay, interesting. What the fuck is that then? Is it a traditional piecing piece of clothing then? Like you just slip it on and it's a it's it's a it's uh it's a normal piece of clothing with a Doctor Who twist to it.
SPEAKER_03Oh yes, yeah, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_05Okay, so it's not a cardigan and it's not a zippy thing. It's not a hoodie. Oh, okay. Well sorry, okay. Well, is it like a jacket?
SPEAKER_04No.
SPEAKER_05No, is it uh um body warmer, a gilet?
SPEAKER_04No, no.
SPEAKER_05Does it have sleeves?
SPEAKER_04No.
SPEAKER_05No, it doesn't have sleeves. Oh my god, okay, so is it a v is that a vest?
SPEAKER_03Uh yeah, I'll g I'll give you vest. It's kind of a pull-overy, vesty, tank toppy kind of thing, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Is that tank top then? Is that like a doctor is that Doctor Who tank top?
SPEAKER_03I mean the name I've been given does have tank top in it. Oh. But obviously I can't give you the the point for tank top. Yeah, to be more specific.
SPEAKER_05Okay, so is it a doctor who tank top?
SPEAKER_03But that is ten, so you've got ten questions with which to do that with.
SPEAKER_04Okay, um Is it are uh are any of the doctors on it? No.
SPEAKER_05Okay, are any of like are the are there any baddies on it?
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_05No.
SPEAKER_03So it's not like a weeping angel Christmas jumper.
SPEAKER_05So is it just a tank top with like the Doctor Who logo on it?
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_05Is it a TARDIS on it?
SPEAKER_03No other iconography could be Okay, so it's not any baddies, it's not the Doctor, it's not any logos, and it's not the TARDIS.
SPEAKER_05Is that a tank top with just like the Fines the Seal of Rassalon on or something?
SPEAKER_03No. Okay, but think of other other sort of icons symbols related to the stuff.
SPEAKER_05Is there is the sonic screwdriver on it?
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_05Um is um the time rotor on it, like the console room, the con like the console?
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_05Okay, it's a tank, it's a tank top with obviously.
SPEAKER_03I thought this was easy. Okay, it's maybe I've led you down the garden path.
SPEAKER_05Okay, so it's a tank top that doesn't have a doctor on it. Doesn't have a baddie on it, so it's not like Daleks or Cybermen or the Master. It doesn't have what else? What else is the Doctor Who? Is it a is it one of those l is it Lavarzo or Lavarzo? Is it one of those kind of like the doctor's costumes?
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_05Yes, okay. A tank talk. Is it the fourth doctor's kind of scarf and bits?
SPEAKER_03Oh, no good shout, but no, it's not that.
SPEAKER_05Is it the sixth doctor?
SPEAKER_03Ding ding ding ding ding. Last question. Unfortunately not, you were one doctor out. It's the seventh doctor's question mark pull uh pullover, but they've called it a question mark uh seventh Doctor Who official seventh Doctor Who tank top. Now I would not I have always called that the question mark pullover.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And it wasn't okay, so it wasn't a tank top, it was But it's yeah, but it is that's a pullover, but they've called it the official Seventh Doctor Tank top.
SPEAKER_05Oh my god, I was one question shy. Okay. Right, okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Okay God, I'm terrified to find out what my clothing item is.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Yours is as specific, is what what I will set up. Okay. Alright, go through it.
SPEAKER_03I think I know where to go with this. Is it a clothing item? Is it a repl is it a replica of a doctor's costume?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Do you wear it on your upper body?
SPEAKER_07Yes.
SPEAKER_03Is it a t-shirt?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_03Is it a hoodie?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_03Is it a sweatshirt?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_03Is it also a tiny dog?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_03Oh, is it a scarf?
SPEAKER_07No.
SPEAKER_03Has it got any doctors on it?
SPEAKER_07Yes.
SPEAKER_03Is it one of those, um So they they did them for the 60s, didn't they? They had like specific they would do like a jumper per or a t-shirt or whatever. It was to be like a print per doctor. Is it one of those kind of things? Or is it just an individual doctor? No. So it's multi-doctors then. I'm not asking that as a question, I'm just Oh wait, no. Oh, okay, maybe I am asking that as a question then. Okay, right. So it's got a single doctor on it. Upper body. What haven't I talked about upper body right? Oh. Because I'm thinking neck and chest and arms. But of course. I missed I missed the question that you started with. Do you wear it on your head? Yes. Yes. Right, okay. I think that's fifteen. I lost count for a second there. I think that's fifteen.
SPEAKER_07I will say also that then.
SPEAKER_03It's not um, did they do these in nineteen ninety Is it a wilderness year's item?
SPEAKER_07No. No, it's not, no.
SPEAKER_03Oh, okay. Because I was like, did they did they ever bring out a baseball cap in like 96 with Paul McGann's little face on it? I'm sure if I saw one, but maybe not maybe not. Maybe not, but maybe not. But is it a baseball cap? It is a baseball cap, yes.
SPEAKER_05Now we're really getting into the nitty-gritty.
SPEAKER_03Fuck me. Right, so it's a Doctor Who baseball cap.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_03Oh god. God yeah. Is it a new is it like a newish thing? Is it is it like one of those annivers those 60th anniversary things? Is it like a recent thing? No, no, no, it's not.
SPEAKER_07Yeah. Yes.
SPEAKER_03Oh! Oh wow. No, hang on. I know a man who loves a baseball cap. Dylan Reese. I feel we've talked about a doctor baseball cat before, but is there a baseball cat that's got like Colin Baker's face on it from the eighties?
SPEAKER_05No, maybe. It's not this.
SPEAKER_03But is it from the eighties?
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_03Is it a Doctor Who? 20th anniversary, five Doctors baseball catch.
SPEAKER_07It is not, no.
SPEAKER_03Oh, goddammit. No, because that was Colin Baker. And you said there's a doctor. I was thinking, cuz I think it's a baseball catch for that. Do you know that Doctor Who exhibition tour they did?
SPEAKER_06Oh my god, man, you're so close.
SPEAKER_03Is it a oh, is it a Doctor Who 1983? This is my last one, my last shot, my final swing for the fucking fences. Is it a longly 1983 official Doctor Who baseball cap?
SPEAKER_05It's not. It's not. Oh ho ho ho, you were so close. So yes, it's a Doctor Who baseball cap. But it's a Doctor Who. The ultimate adventure with John Pertwig's Doctor.
SPEAKER_03When you said Colin Baker there, I was like, oh my god, I swear that's the one Dylan and I were talking about ages ago. He wanted to get hold of one. Fucking hell.
SPEAKER_05It's the Doctor Who ultimate adventure. Uh, the specifically the John Pertwee leg of the of the production baseball cap.
SPEAKER_03God, that's good.
SPEAKER_05Oh, it's a creature of beauty.
SPEAKER_03Right, shall we do some Lister correspondence?
SPEAKER_05Yes, please, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Uh, where are we? Black Orchids. Uh, Mark Harrison says, much like Billy Gibson's comic performances, The Saving Grace and Rogue, Janet Fielding is the highlight of this one for me. You know, when Teagan leaves and says it stopped being fun, she was talking about this story and that's it. Um he's not wrong, and in tribute to Teagan in this, who fucking gets on it. Good for her. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Uh I'm having a little screwdriver. Lovely. Um, Gareth Bowley says, I enjoy Black Orchid. I think it's more that the Fifth Doctor actually fits in here and feels comfortable. The TARDIS reveal is a clanger, but it's two parts, so I appreciate getting folks on side quicker. Um, oh, did you have you had some for Black Orchid, right?
SPEAKER_05Uh yes. Um I've got Adam Thomas. Uh the ever-busy Peter Davison finds time in his first season to make a backdoor pilot for Campion. Uh as a kid learning about who, this was the the last pure historical uh inverted commas. And the Target book with that striking cover felt very grown up and atmospheric. So when I finally saw the two episodes, it was a bit of a come down. The cricket match is interminable, everyone is clearly freezing on location, and as I take on an Agatha Christie style mystery, it contains many of the same tropes that you would rightly hesitate to use today. On the brighter side, we do get to see this ever-bickering TARDIS team actually have fun together. I adore Teagan pulling Sir Robert, and as a fat lad who loves a buffet, I finally find a point of identification with Adric. Um Harry Palmer says, and uh very short, Adrix shouldn't have been abused capital letters for making the most of the buffet in black orchid. Let the boy eat capital letters.
SPEAKER_03I agree. But maybe that's just because I'm a fat lad that loves a buffet as well. I don't know. I need to defend Black Orchid. It's great. Likeable Toff showing just what a bunch of socially awkward randos Davidson's Tardis crew are. It's genuinely fun.
SPEAKER_05Um artfully Liam on Instagram. Uh Black Orchid is fabulous. A missing episode of Campion, second campion name check here, where Matthew Waterhouse eats a lot uh and looks at trains. Michael Cochran's mustache leers at the supporting cast, and the costume department get to have some actual fun. The downtime with the crew interacting is a curious progenitor of both C20 21st century uh Doctor Who and The New Adventures. A quiet, underrated gem of an episode.
SPEAKER_03Uh Lucy McCall says, Black Orchid scared the wits out of me when I was a child. Now the uncritical representation of historical novel themes of disability is unpleasant and seems old fashioned. Yeah, you're not wrong. Um Dylan Reese says it looks nice, but it's a bit dull. Not one I revisit often. I hate a doppelganger plot, it's so lazy. Daniel Ronsley says it doesn't make a lick of sense to mystery, but it's a great one to watch if you just want to hang out with the characters. Sarah Sutton gets to play a more bubbly character than Prim and Proper Nissa, and Tegan is a delight here, feisty and fun in ways the character is rarely allowed to be. Tom Turlow says there's a certain type of Doctor Who fan who constantly yearns for a proper historical. I'm not one of those fans. I like there to be aliens, monsters, or some other sci-fi element in my Who. Therefore, Black Orchid is another one in the really dull column. Um it's a long time since I've seen it, and I'm not a huge fan of the Davis Nero at the best times. Hang on. Do you think Turlo's Tom Turlow's just his actual name? Is and the fact he's in the doctor is a coincidence. I just assumed he was a big fan of Turlo. Maybe not. Um a bit like Rogue, it's not egregiously awful, just a bit meh. You've picked a couple of duffers this week, I fear. That's no way to talk about me and Ben. And finally, Paul McAvoy says black snor kids. You know, he's not wrong.
SPEAKER_05He yeah, he's not. I mean, it's only two episodes. So you can knock this off in the same time that you would, like a you know, like rogue, should just be 50 minutes. It did feel like I was there for hours. It did feel yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, it doesn't help that in part two the story stops to drive everybody back to the railway station to go looking for the TARDIS, and then they drive onto the police station, find the TARDIS, and he goes, Look, I wasn't lying. I do have a police box, and they go, That's all very well, sir, but you were still found near a dead body. So what does that answer?
SPEAKER_05It's like Well, okay, let's let's talk about this because this is whilst it's probably the the most apparent padding in any story I've ever seen, you know, and it's not even exciting padding, at least we're like with Pertwee episodes where there's padding, where it's like boat chases and fucking plane chases, it's exciting stuff. Episode five of Invasion of the Dinosaurs or episode what four of Planet and Spiders, at least it all takes there's momentum to this padding. It makes good television. Episode two is just um it they fucking for some reason Lady Cranley decides not to after the doctor has been has found out that, you know, her son, mad and deformed, is living in the attic and creating all kinds of decides not to help the doctor at all. Even after the doctor has been very understanding about the whole situation, and seems like somebody who could probably be trusted to to help the situation. When we I can't remember if you ever met him, and I'm actually really sorry, I don't remember his name, but there used to be a guy at the Doctor Who group, who was a he was a young guy, um I don't remember his name because this was 25 years ago, um, and he was very quiet, he was very unassuming, very rarely said anything, but when he did, it was funny as fuck.
SPEAKER_01Right, okay and
SPEAKER_05This was round about for listeners this was round about the 40th anniversary and Doctor Who magazine put out a special edition and it was uh you know it was a white binding with a kind of cut out of a heart on the front of it and it was all red behind and when you opened it up it was the red of John Pertwee's cape, it was one of the kind of promotional pictures from when he took over as the doctor, and it was rating uh like top ten Doctor Who stories, uh top ten audios, top ten books, and there was one which was like uh where they decided to rate the best, not best moments of Doctor Who, and it was all stuff like Michael Grade and the six doctors costume, and then they gave an honourable mention to this one vote, and it was this boy from the Doctor Who group, and he said probably the nafest thing that he's ever seen in Doctor Who is that in Black Orchid to prove that the Doctor is a time lord and can be trusted, he just shows a bunch of Edwardian police around the TARDIS so he can get on with the adventure, and he's not wrong, and I have remembered that ever since he said that as like a as like like a bit as a part of a conversation, and then we saw it printed in the magazine. I laughed so much, laughed so much when I saw him again at the next Monday meeting, and it's like he's fucking right. Like, there probably are are worse-looking moments, there are probably more uh contentious moments, there are probably more just complete special effects fuckuppery. I don't think there's anything as naff as in this, where the doctor just shows the police around the TARDIS and they aren't their heads are not blown off their shoulders. Yeah. They just go, Oh, you are a traveller in time and space.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Should we get back to the party?
SPEAKER_03No, and then meanwhile, you've got the rest of the story playing out with none of our principal characters being involved as well. Yeah. So the kind of big climax of the the story is already in full swing by the time they've fanning around at the train station, the police station, the TARDIS. And the doctor goes, I'll give you a lift back, the TARDIS. Oh, now you can fucking pilot it. We've just spent the past two months of you going, Oh, I can't quite land on Heathrow. But you can, you know, hop back to Lady Cranley's manor, no fucking bother.
SPEAKER_05Like a short hop within a matter of seconds.
SPEAKER_03Get really precise, yeah.
SPEAKER_05And it's weird, like Black Orchid is one of these stories, like um, when you think of Doctor Who, I think some people like, I'll think of Daleks, I'll think of Cybermen. There's a lot of Doctor Who which is set in just villages or houses. And I think actually thinking about it, that isn't that's not John Pertwee and Tom Baker. You know, you do have like I don't know, the fucking Android invasion.
SPEAKER_03Image of a fendal, that you know, stuff stuff like that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but it it it's it's it's Davison, The Awakening and Black Orchid, the two two parties, and I think probably that they are so close together in the first is because there's that but uh is that's exactly what I was gonna say because this was released as a double pack video VHS with uh you know so that for six well not for six weeks, for six episodes over three weeks, because they're twice a week, you just have the doctor visiting broadly the same sort of you know, time and you know, like countryside sociality, you know, as that. There's the awakening, there what else is there? There's um you know, to some degree I suppose the King's Demon also fits into that as well. There's a castle in what is very definitely a kind of winter filming period as well. Like this all comes from weirdly, Davison's two partners and the stories that are surrounding it, I feel the idea that the Doctor Who lives in a village or that all like village shit.
SPEAKER_03Wait, because Pertsby it's just it's just the demons. Like everybody thinks that like Pertsby's always always in English villages. It's like no, he's it he's in science bases that might be on the outskirts, but he's never actually wandering in the village.
SPEAKER_05And like, yeah, you're right, image of the Fendal android invasion, but for the most part, Tom Baker's Doctor doesn't come back to that kind of you know, then the they stylistically maybe kind of choose that kind of thing. A lot of the kind of um uh Hinchcliffe and Holmes horror era does ape that kind of mysterious haunted house, but it's very rarely an actual haunted house. Um it's this it's the Davison, it's the Davison villages, and this is what we have here. And in a way, it is a snooze fest, very little happens. It's light, it's airy, it's no alien monster, it's purely a fucking mad lad in in the attic. But the regulars do seem to have a laugh. Even when they're teasing Adric about stuff in his face, he's smirking, they're smirking. Tegan does look like she's having it's funny that she has a bit of a drink and suddenly remembers that she fucking knows who some uh botanists are.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's a weird touch. Oh yeah, that guy.
SPEAKER_05She's the one that goes, Oh, sorry, George Cranley, the famous explorer and botanist. Like just a fucking swit swig of a screwdriver, and so she's like, oh fucking, I was watching QA the other night, and I fucking I've got a fact for you.
SPEAKER_03I love how I love how Tegan with a fucking vodka orange in her it suddenly turns into Billy Connolly.
SPEAKER_05I need to go back to Heathrow that fucking black orchid that uh George Clannon crying wait a minute, you look a bit like his brother in reality, she's no idea what's going on, but presumably because she's the only other per earth person. Uh so she has yeah, like it is there is a certain appeal about watching the TARDIS crew at rest, not being challenged by a monster, not being menaced, just kind of enjoying and then getting a little bored by what time travelling actually is, which is sit sitting watching the doctor fucking play cricket for a bit.
SPEAKER_03Like Mark says, this is the most fun I think Teagan has in the whole Davison era. She's watching cricket, she's getting pissed with the local Bobby, you know, she's having a great time.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, gets to do a Charleston.
SPEAKER_03She's not being chased by creepy guys.
SPEAKER_05No snakes in her mind.
SPEAKER_03She's in no danger at any point in this. It's quite it's quite refreshing.
SPEAKER_05She gets to have a Charleston on uh a veranda that is alternating wet and dry because of the weather that affected the production.
SPEAKER_03It was only really when it came out on Blu-ray that I really, really noticed how great it is.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And how wet and windy it is.
SPEAKER_05Well, so some of it, so like on the sunny day, it looks pretty nice. Right. Yeah. But then what what makes the Adric eating at the buffet even more is that when they've just flapping of the Well, when they've shot him from the back, it's obviously the sunny day. So it looks like a nice day to be outside and have a buffet. When they shoot him from the front, it is the most desperately sad thing. It's just a boy piling cold meat onto a plate with like droplets of rain on his on his white buccaneer frilly shirt that he's wearing billowing in the wind. And there's a bit where like the first time the first time I think you see the presentation of the party, rate Lady Cranley is like looking at the spread, and one of them they're holding up like a fish, and then but the garnish either side of the fish is just flapping madly, like the lettuce under the fish is f it's just flapping in such a wintry, unappealing way. It's just it feels like they're trying to do a kind of uh an Oscar Wilde parlor comedy. Because you know, it suddenly becomes very kind of like the doctor's like trying to explain the plot when Lady Cranley refuses to help him out, and it just sounds ludicrous. Like everything he presents sounds absolutely like it feels like it's very um Lady Windermere's fan accounts at some point.
SPEAKER_03There's some fun stuff in it, and it is like you know, there's stuff like oh the master, all that kind of playfulness of like, don't worry guys, it's gonna be a nice, easy one this week. Uh you know, the master's not in there, you know. There's just there's just a guy going around throttling people, but other than that, it's just gonna be a lovely Breeze like Sunny adventure. I do think it's maybe a little bit optimistic to give Sarah Sutton two roles. Uh yes. Because I know I know Daniel's saying, oh, you know, Anne's a bit more bubbly. I don't know how true maybe at the start where she's like got the kind of oh, you know, I've got the we've got we'll we'll play the we'll play this game and everybody, we'll get the same costume. And then she kind of, I guess because they're wearing the same costume, maybe she just kind of snaps into just being Nyssa. She's just a bit like kind of fay and screamy and you know, doesn't really kind of define herself much from Nyssa.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, until uh the George Cranley in the Doctor's costume tries to murder her. Like it's Yes. Uh I guess it was supposedly I guess it's probably been directed that way that when they both have the costume on and they're both in the same scene, they're supposed to act like that. They're kind of both acting the same, yeah. Um yeah, I get that. Uh well it was, I mean, I suppose it was designed. There was they they wanted to have an adventure where each TARDIS crew member got their like the spotlight. You know, there was Kinder for Janet Fielding, there was Earth Shock for Matthew Waterhouse, which was also his last one, but this was this was the Sarah Sutton showcase. Uh says something that it was the only two-parter. And that was the one that they chose the first. And also, sorry, I completely forgot Terence Dudley is also the author of The King's Demons. So two out of the three out of the three Davison two-parters are um by Terence Dudley.
SPEAKER_03So he's Well and he also can company, which we did recently.
SPEAKER_05And so he's the one responsible for Doctor Who uh in villages. It's down to him.
SPEAKER_03There's no fashion tone to his work, and I don't mean that because this is set in the 1920s. Like, I think it just it just feels quite compared to some of the other stuff in this this run in season 19, it doesn't really feel like Doctor Who, and I'm not saying that, you know, that's a bad thing, because Doctor Who can be anything, but I would argue Black Hawk is a very good example of well should it it's an odd one because it feels like the doc all of this would have happened without the Doctor Adrick, Tegan and Nissa rocking up at the train station and getting mistaken for for Smutty's replacement You know, like it would have all played out the same because nobody gets punished at the end of this either. You know, Lady Cranley and her son, that you know, everybody's a bit like oh that's not on that locking your locking your sort of severely like injured son traumatised traumatised that's that's bad that shouldn't shouldn't have done that, but it's it's fine. Yeah the aristocrats are gonna do what the aristocrats are gonna do.
SPEAKER_05It is a real shame that there was no redemption, that there was no peace for that George Cranley character. Uh that there was no punishment for the fact that he was hidden away and then a courtship was moved on to his existing fiancee.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean I suppose you can argue the punishment for Lady Cranley is the fact she loses the son that she's been trying to keep hold of, but it's not really uh because there's a sh there's a degree of shame and there's a degree of you know, she's not Yes, she's looking at after her son, but she's not saying to everybody this horrific thing happened to my son when he was in the Amazon.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it comes out so inconsequentially what actually happened to him.
SPEAKER_03Like the fact that he was Well considering as well, like you know, not to get old fucking history nerd and well I think you'll find. But at this point, obviously, this is post-second uh post-first world war, right? Yeah Which is at the birth of um reconstructive surgery, you know? This is the early days of reconstructive surgery, right? So she could have she's got the money, but instead she chooses to lock him in an attic and sort of like roam the fucking upper floors and go madder and madder and then pam off his fiance onto his brother and then kind of go, yeah, that's fine.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but like it's it's not even so the so at the start of the story they have two people looking after him the the the friendly now. This is another thing, it's established that he's a Brazilian, but the doctor keeps referring him to an Indian, right? He's neither from India nor a Native American.
SPEAKER_03No, they keep calling it is it like you're calling oh it's the Indian and then the doctor calls him a native South American at one point where you go, yes, but that's not that's still not an Indian.
SPEAKER_05That's people please do some checking, right? This is like Yeah, you can just about get away with the kind of the the symbology of the kind of the flappy lower lip stuff kind of stuff. But there's also like uh the um doctor that he or the male orderly or the nurse or something like that that he bumps off at the start. It's like no wonder he's bumping people off. Sorry, are you just tying him down and then reading a book with your back to him? Is that the level of care you're administering? Because I'd go fucking ape as well. Like I could probably come to terms with having my own top of the castle, and every now and again I get to whatever. But if I'm literally being tied up on a bed, I'd murder you as well. Yeah, I'd murder you too. I know, like I know I've had it fucking bad, and now I'm getting it even worse.
SPEAKER_03Like Yeah, it's yeah, it's like I've had my tongue ripped out and I've been had the shit kicked out of me by tribespeople on the Amazon, and then I've been sent home, and you're gonna tie me to a fucking bed for the rest of my life. Oh, but by the way, the thing that I'm surprised he doesn't just burn that whole fucking house down at the start. The minute he gets away.
SPEAKER_05But also, by the way, that thing that I got that all happen to me, that black orchid, uh yeah no, my mum's fucking taking that downstairs and uh she's just showing it off to everybody. So I don't even get to appreciate fully.
SPEAKER_03So he's been up there writing a book.
SPEAKER_05No, I mean the book I think is beforehand because the fly leaf shows and then he goes off to Yeah, the fly leaf shows the Michael Cochran, George Clant Cranley. It's so fucking it's so weird.
SPEAKER_03It's yeah, and they don't get there's no punishment. Because I did write a slightly glib note here, which I'm not sure. Classic toxic masculinity. His brother tries to hug him and he just backs away and falls off a roof. If only you know, like, guys, don't be afraid to hug your brother.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I thought that was such a nice like the fact that it was only the mum that was complicit. The brother didn't know, and the moment the brother did know, he has a sense of guilt and he goes to hug his brother, but the brother tumbles off because he's presumably he thinks it's an attack rather than for the one moment in his life he was gonna get he was gonna get some sort of emotion, tenderness, kindness.
SPEAKER_03And it does kind of it's like Lucy McCall says it it does kind of hark it back to those kind of historical depictions of disability or you know, disfigurement, you know, where it's like, you know, oh the you know the it's phantom of the opera, it's all that kind of thing. Where it's better off they couldn't possibly live a normal life or accept love, yeah. You know, that that's just not that's just not in their in their future. So they're better.
SPEAKER_05I feel like it's so tragic, and I and I you are right that Lady Cranley just at the end of the episode just goes, Thanks for sticking around for your funeral. Do you want a free book? Uh that's it, that's the end. And all the curu of the TARDIS are just standing around.
SPEAKER_03That's such a weird yeah, in their costumes. It's like because it was a bit like can nobody stump up for some funeral costumes for them as well. Yeah. Because it looks really odd. I'm like, did they go did Teagan go to George Cranley's funeral dressed as a 1980s air hostess?
SPEAKER_05Well, but the the like but the doctor's costume is from this period. It's probably even worse than everybody who was there for the moment. Yeah, he's the one who showed up in his fucking leisure gear. Like he's he's just come from or he's about to go to some sporting he's just kind of fitted this in. And then they're also delighted that they got to keep the costume from the party.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so read the fucking room, please.
SPEAKER_05But do you remember what happened at that party? Or is there like is there like some sort of like uh you know, she's taken the evidence, it's like some sort of Monica Lewinsky kind of thing with a dress because it's like Sir Robert uh was very Maybe she was in danger after all, I don't know. All of it is just so weird. Enjoyably weird.
SPEAKER_03It is quite weird. It is great, I mean it is quite enjoyable, but I did find I did find part two a bit of a slog, I've gotta say. The pacing of it is quite I mean language isn't even doing it justice.
SPEAKER_05I don't understand how we had forty-five minutes and still it falls into all the kind of the Doctor Who padding for pitfalls.
SPEAKER_03It starts with that man throttling another man to death and you're like bang, we're in, and it's no no, we're gonna play cricket for a bit, we'll all get some drinks, have a bit of a dance.
SPEAKER_05Come and meet the mater.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_05Here's a there's just some funny comedy business at a train station. And there's no ness there is no need for Anne and Nyssa to look the same.
SPEAKER_03No, because because you would make you would make it would make sense. Oh no, it does he take Nissa at the end, doesn't he? It's Nissa up on the roof, it's not.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but like so what? It would have still worked if it was Anne. Like the the doctor still the doctor would still get to be in like that, kind of like climbing up the side of the building, be negotiating, involve himself in the situation. Like it doesn't necessarily or you know, something could be engineered where I don't know, he was never actually supposed to be engaged, uh he just took it like he took a liking of Tegan or something, I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, this is the thing, what what is the thematic I don't know what the thematic choice there is because obviously you've got Anne and Nissa, you've got George and his brother. Uh the the so you've got two sort of twins, yeah, you know. And sort of mistaken identity, the doctor's costume is worn. Um so the doctor's accused of murder. I don't really get what all that time do you know what I mean? Like I don't really understand why there's all these doppelgangers and what the theme there is. It's just like, oh I'm just gonna have fun with it. I guess. I don't know.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. I I can't offer an explanation or analysis. I can only poke fun at it. But what are your okay, I mean I guess. Anything else? Bring it in.
SPEAKER_03Uh yeah, let's bring it in.
SPEAKER_05Um favourite performances.
SPEAKER_03I think it is Janet Fielding. Yeah, because I think it's just quite refreshing to see Teagan just have a good time.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Yes.
SPEAKER_03Because I think you know, when you watch Power of the Doctor And she's talking about, oh you know, it's it was tough sentence, but oh what what a great time we had. It's like, did you?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, did you just the only instance where it looked like it and and it was because you were knocking back Bevy. Like nobody's having a bad time in a country house preparing for a ball where they just went, Do you want a cocktail for your bath?
SPEAKER_03She's just knocking back vodka orange and chatting up the chief current. She's having away all the time.
SPEAKER_05I forgot Michael Cochrane, isn't it? I think Michael Cochrane as an actor is one of the most underrated and undervalued television acting faces. Especially as he gets older. He just has this kind of class and gravitas and just gravel voiced authority. And I mean I d I I don't think he I I think he's got I mean, I think he's got it here.
SPEAKER_03Did he do the did he do the audiobook of Blackwater? Oh, did he? Oh, I'd fucking definitely listen to that.
SPEAKER_05I've got it here, yeah. A novelization a novelization of the serial written by Telen Terrence Dudley was published by. Target Books in September eighty six. An unabridged reading of the novelization by actor Michael Cochran was released on CD in June of 2008 by Boosie Audiobooks. Brilliant. Yep, okay. I might just have a little listen to that. Because it's because that's exactly what I'm talking about. Like is Michael Cochrane much closer to now reading that story.
SPEAKER_03And of course, obviously he plays Redford's Fen Cooper in Ghost Light as well.
SPEAKER_05Yes, he does. That's like, yeah, so that's what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, so it's another, it's another kind of yeah, it's a it's another kind of creepy, stately home, and he's playing a very similar character in a kind of similar situation.
SPEAKER_05Arguably that is the better performance in Doctor Who. Um but like just across the board. He's very good. Favourite scenes. Yes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I think it's Liam said this, didn't he? He said like it's kind of a forerunner to 21st Century Who. I think just all the scenes where it is just the Doctor, Adrick, and Nissa and Tegan just kind of enjoying themselves. Yeah. It feels it feels quite fresh and new for something that I do think is a bit old fashioned in terms of its sensibilities and in terms of its story. I think there is something quite oh well, I've not seen this in Doctor Who before up to this point. Yeah. That kind of gives you a sense, I think, of what John Nathan Turner maybe had in mind when he he kind of came up with this particular TARDIS team. Was that it's it's a little family, you know? Yeah. Rather than rather than Davidson as the supply teacher and these fucking kids that won't shut the fuck up. Oh, that's a thing as well. You know the bit where um Teagan go, oh, I'll have a screwdriver, please. And Nissa goes, Oh, I'll have one of those. And uh the chief constable guy he goes, uh, oh no, uh, maybe something else for the children. And I was like, wait a minute. Is Anne Is Anne an Adrian? Because I know Nissa and Adrick are supposed to be kids, but is Anne? Yeah, is Anne also not of legal drinking age?
SPEAKER_05That was an uncomfortable moment because she does opt for a lemonade. The next scene when Anne and Nissa are talking, and she is holding a lemonade, which is what she said she also wanted, because after the doctor suggested it, and Nissa has an orange juice. But if they're supposed to be opposites, that suggests that yes, she's also a child, and this is quite a creepy wee relationship.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's weird, yeah, it's weird. It's probably just that you know they just look similar. But then if they look similar and enough to fox everybody, well, yeah, one's just a bit weird.
SPEAKER_05Whose was it now? One of the telltale signs between one of them is that one of them had a mole. There's a mole on the So maybe one of them has been a bit more around than the like she's already starting to grow like old people cancerous stuff, and she's actually older, they just happen to look I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Old people cancerous.
SPEAKER_05Maybe, maybe that's that's in my head how I'm trying to make it not fucking weird.
SPEAKER_03I forget, of course, that you're a trained GP.
SPEAKER_05I'm just trying to make it not weird in my own head canon.
SPEAKER_03And yet somehow you've made it weird.
SPEAKER_05I've made it weirder.
unknownFuck it.
SPEAKER_05Right. Alright, well, that was Rogue and Black Orchid Black Orchid. It sure was like that mole that Nyssa should get checked out. What are we doing next time, Mark?
SPEAKER_03Well, it's all been building to this, apparently. Um, it's Legend of Ruby Sunday and Empire of Death, the season one finale. Uh, we're gonna be pairing that up with uh the Mythmakers. Why, I hear you ask? Is it as tenuous as one being called Legend and the other one being called Myths? Maybe. Well we kind of thought we kind of thought there's kind of a similarity between Vicky the Orphan rescued from the wreck of the I forgot the name of the spaceship. But anyway, Vicky the Orphan and Ruby Sunday, the foundling who didn't know her parents. So let's see how those characters are written out in kind of a sort of epic, sort of mythological conflict.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_03And how well or otherwise those things are done.
SPEAKER_05Very well explained, because I had forgotten everything about that conversation. If if ever we had that. And it was your idea. I can't remember why I even said that. That okay, good. Yeah, so there we are. So You said that because we've already done pyramids of Mars. Yes, okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, fair enough.
SPEAKER_05Uh yeah, so that's it. So the end of Shoot You Get Was for a season, and uh and then and then Mythmakers. Thank you to everybody who sent in listener correspondence. It means a lot, and actually Paul McAvoy saying that he appreciates that we have an open forum. I'd never considered that, but that I was pretty happy with that you said that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm glad people feel that that all opinions are welcome. As long as you're aware that I'll probably say something sarcastic and we'll disagree with you, but that's fine.
SPEAKER_05That's fine, but uh so yeah, so thank you for that. So yeah, uh I've been Ben.
SPEAKER_03I've been Mark, and he is Kev McCulloch.