The Final Cut
The Final Cut is a bold and insightful podcast exploring the latest in film and television. Hosted by Professor John Cook and filmmaker Charlotte Bjuren, each episode dives into new releases, classic gems, and the stories shaping screen culture today.
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The Final Cut
Dr Who: Breaking the Frame: How Doctor Who Pushes Boundaries in "Lux" and "The Well"
The Final Cut podcast examines Doctor Who's darker turn with episodes "Lux" and "The Well," exploring how Russell T. Davis blends fantasy elements with traditional sci-fi as part of his second run as showrunner.
• "Lux" successfully blends animation and live action, introducing a trickster villain in Mr. Ringading
• The God of Light represents RTD2's shift toward fantasy over science fiction, creating elemental forces beyond the Doctor's scientific understanding
• Setting "Lux" in 1950s segregated Miami adds historical depth while acknowledging racial dynamics
• "The Well" follows Doctor Who's tradition of base-under-siege narratives, explicitly connecting to RTD's classic "Midnight" episode
• The character of deaf scientist Alice Fenley demonstrates meaningful representation that serves the story
• Both episodes contribute to a larger season arc involving gods invading our universe and Earth's apparent destruction
• Doctor Who's darker themes connect to British sci-fi traditions that differ from American optimistic space exploration narratives
• Viewership appears to be improving with each episode, with "The Well" gaining 400,000 more overnight viewers than "Lux"
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Spotlights fade, the curtains rise, new stories waiting behind our eyes. Stories waiting behind our eyes, charlotte and John with the final say, breaking down the screens in their own way. This is the Final Cut, where the real reviews ignite.
Speaker 1:Hi and welcome back to another episode of Final Cut. So today we're going to discuss the latest episodes from Doctor who. The one is called Lux and the other one is called the Well, and both of them have a rather dark tone. I mean, the Lux introduces us to a kind of evil cartoon character called Ring-a-Ding, which almost brings thoughts back into Roger Rabbit when you saw the recording of it, but an interesting, slightly darker-toned story which is the same as well. He has a kind of again a slightly evil character, but at this time an invisible evil character, but this time an invisible evil character. So, but I will start talking about Lux, I think in this episode. So Lux, it blends animation and live action. Did you think it worked and how was that actually? How effective was that when telling the story and what was your view opinion of the episode as well, I should ask.
Speaker 2:Well, hi, charlotte and hi folks Delighted to be back with you talking about Doctor who. Yeah, I really enjoyed Lux. I mean, I think, in common with a lot of the critical reception of this episode, it's regarded as one of the strongest episodes, certainly of Russell T Davis's second run showrunner what people are now rather euphemistically calling R2-D2, r-t-d2, because it was certainly strong. It very much put me in mind a little bit of who Framed Roger Rabbit Actually as well, with the idea of people stepping out of the cinema frame an woody allen movie from 1985 called the purple rose of cairo, in which, um, in the 1930s, a woman goes to the cinema only for a screen idol or a matinee idol to step out of the screen and run away with her. So there's there's a sort of similar feel here in Lux. So I really enjoyed it. It was strong, it was dark, but it was also fun and light in terms of the use of cartoons and animations. So it was a nice balance between the dark and the light, I felt.
Speaker 1:And yes, and also, what did you think about Lux, this god of light? What do you think that symbolises? I mean I was kind of thinking, does it symbolise fame or does it symbolise power? I mean I had sort of various thoughts of that kind of what it could be. What was your opinion of it?
Speaker 2:Well, I think there's a danger sometimes of reading too much into episodes of Doctor who. I think it is clear within the development of the RTD2 Shuti Gatwa run of episodes that Russell T Davis is very much stepping into the idea of Doctor who, much more as fantasy rather than science fiction. So we're starting to get a pantheon of gods unfold. We already met the god of music, we met Sutec, the god of death, at the end of the final episode of season one of the rebooted season one, and here we're meeting the god of light. So it's the idea that there are these dark forces beyond the universe, beyond the rational laws of physics, that are invading the universe. So that's how it's justified within the show that suddenly the show is lurching towards fantasy rather than science fiction and elements of the supernatural, in this case literally beyond the universe, beyond the physical laws of the universe that the Doctor character understands and that creates fear because it it means that the doctor can't necessarily solve it with his usual um, uh laws of science. Instead he has to reach for, maybe, maybe, forms of trickery and um and deception of the gods. So, um, this character is Lux Imperator, the emperor, or god of light, and I think it just needs to be taken at that level almost.
Speaker 2:The idea of elemental forces Again interesting connection to British science fiction television history. It kind of echoes an old show from the early 1980s called Sapphire and Steel, which was about a sort of psychic time detective agency where you had these various elements of the universe that were battling each other. So in the case of Sapphire and Steel they were the good people fighting other elemental forces. So in some ways Russell T Davis is drawing upon that idea of fantasy, allowing a space for elemental forces like light to battle with us mere mortals.
Speaker 1:I want to go back to Mr Ringading, because he is a kind of bizarre charismatic villain, but is he actually in the style of previous villain and did you find him effective? I mean, was he, is he? Is he threatening, is it? Is it a sort of metaphor for something? And and sometimes I wonder if it's a Disney like Disney coming in and their influence? What was your view of the villain, mr ringer?
Speaker 2:well, I wouldn't say it's. It's done in the style of a disney cartoon. In fact, that might be seen as an insult to disney because, um, you're showing a cartoon that turns very dark, so in many ways it's much more in the style of. It actually struck me more in the style of sort of max fleischer cartoons like Felix the Cat, for example, which was an early rival to Disney. But Disney's influence is certainly there in terms of the budget, the ability now to mix live action with animation and to do it convincingly. Doctor who even in the rebooted series since 2005, where there was a bigger budget for special effects, even then it could never have attempted to do this sort of, um, mixing of live action and animation. Only with the disney resources are they, are they able to do it and it works really well. Um, I mean, I look, I paid attention to the, to the use of animation in the context of the live action, and it was pretty seamless.
Speaker 2:There was no sense of the actors looking at the wrong place, for example, that you sometimes get in cheaper variations of that, and I thought the character works very well in terms of being something that is ostensibly light and fun for the kids but has this much darker element to it that, as we you know, we think, oh, it's just a cartoon and then all of a sudden it's actually really dark. The cartoon characters in many ways are kind of trickster figure. Trickster, you know, the idea of some sort of impish devil that comes in and tries to create chaos. So it very much worked, I think, think, within that level, the idea of the character as a trickster.
Speaker 1:And then I want to go on this pushing boundaries, and obviously it is physically a boundary where they step out and meet the fans etc and kind of step it out of the frame and trying to overlist. But maybe there it is where they're actually trapped, where they can't actually get out. So how do you think that element works, this kind of different words and trying to kind of almost Truman show, like being stuck in?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I mean, in some ways it's Russell T Davis, the writer, pushing the idea of breaking the frame as far as it could possibly go within the context of Doctor who. So as soon as you have the idea of breaking the frame, of stepping outside of the film into reality, it's a short logical step or hop to actually think well, hang on, let's break the frame and have the characters from doctor who actually step out into something that resembles our reality. Now, when I, when I I watched this first of all um, I thought, I have to confess, my heart sunk a little bit so I thought maybe this has gone too far, that suddenly you know what was a an interesting sort of meta story, if you like um set in the 1950s. Suddenly we're in our world with a bunch of of russell t davis satirical representation of what fans are.
Speaker 2:And there's always the danger, with television shows like doctor who and others, of what we call euphemistically jumping the shark, where it becomes just too unreal and therefore it's impossible to put the fiction back into the bottle and actually to have some sort of believability to what is.
Speaker 2:After all, doctor who is just a series of tall tales and you've got to suspend your disbelief in order to run with it, and could we ever re-immerse ourselves in the story again now that we've actually broken through to the world of the fans? However, russell T Davis cleverly takes it back. So actually it turns out it's just to be another level of deception from a trickster character, mr Ringading, that in fact they're in a fictional universe, although it still begged the question why on the TV you had the Doctor who logo with BBC brand on it. So how does that work within the fiction, within a fiction? But, however, he did rescue it back. So it was the idea that in fact, the Doctor, it was just another level of fiction that was preventing the Doctor and Bel, just another level of fiction that was preventing the doctor and belinda from seeing the real reality, although at the very end the fans survived.
Speaker 1:so I suspect that we may not have seen the last of those fans yeah, yeah, that was, and I think, and I think it was a really exciting episode, interesting use of animation etc. And just to find a question before we maybe move on to where well is, you know, they set it in the 1950s. Do you think it was like a bold choice by also making this slightly say political or political is the wrong word the point that this is a segregated miami where you know, blacks are colored, are not allowed into the cinema, etc. Do you think that was a kind of bold step? How did that affect the overall action? Do you?
Speaker 2:think yes, well, um, I like the 1950s settings. I always like doctor who, historical stories and the idea of 1950s amer is quite a resonant one because it relates obviously to the theme of cinema and breaking out of the frame. Oddly enough, there were odd sort of paparazzi shots that appeared a year or so ago when this episode was being produced, and there seemed to be some discussion that perhaps it was all going to be about roswell and ufo crashes. But in fact obviously it wasn't, and it was. It was set for the most part within the confines of a cinema. So the 1950s historical setting worked well with the context of cinema, because you know it's boom time for the cinema.
Speaker 2:I also like the resonances to the fact that nuclear testing was going on in the cold war and the idea that the god of light would be attracted to to the nuclear light.
Speaker 2:But as soon as, of course, you do this and you make that decision to set it in the 1950s or indeed any historical setting pre our own contemporary era, you inevitably when you, when you cast actors of color in the lead roles, you inevitably have to contend with that, and so actually I felt that that was handled quite well by russell t davis, it wasn't sort of put in your face but it had to be acknowledged because this was a segregated society and if we're supposed to suspend disbelief then we have to be able to to actually um, uh, relate to the fact and understand the historical reality that that that there were segregation bars.
Speaker 2:Um, there's a nice line actually within the the show itself the episode where Russell T D, where the doctor character is being challenged by Belinda and he says look, belinda, I you know, I sometimes let worlds topple themselves. So it's the idea that he will not intervene in terms of the overt racism that's going on. Instead he'll just let history take its course and eventually that will hopefully resolve itself. So it was handled quite well. But it's always going to be an issue actually with historical stories and I'm glad in some ways that New Doctor who is acknowledging it and isn't just sort of operating on a sort of colorblind issue, that it is acknowledging the ethnicity of the lead characters.
Speaker 1:Maybe more topical. I just can't leave this episode without mentioning Belinda. How did you think she performed in this? What is her role? Did you feel more of her role coming out now and the fact that she's much more independent than your previous companions?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, if you recall, in our first discussion about the first episode of the new season of Doctor who, the Robot Revolution, I felt that Belinda was a sort of maybe a rather pale imitation of the previous feisty assistant companion, donna, played by Catherine Tate in the original Russell T Davis run of episodes back in the noughties.
Speaker 2:I still oddly felt that with Lux that her best moments were more when she was involved within the story rather than challenging the Doctor, that sometimes those punches didn't quite land. But I have to say and this maybe leads us nicely into a segue into the next episode, the Well that in episode three I thought her performance was much more strong and much more emotionally exciting for the viewer to watch. I thought it was a much stronger, more intense performance. So it may simply be that this is a, this is an actress who's learning as she gets more into the role, because I do believe episodes in chronological order, um of transmission, so um. I felt she was much more strong in the well and and gave an excellent uh, quite anguished performance at times.
Speaker 1:So moving on then to Welles Welles is slightly more darker. We almost think of. It almost shifts us into the language of psychological horror. How did you so we kind of feel as if we were sitting on our edge of a seat? How did you have success what do you think they were with getting that sort of horror-like, thriller-like feel to the viewers?
Speaker 2:Well, it's very much. This episode, though, wells very much in a long tradition of Doctor who of kind of I mean what euphemistically might be called bases under siege narratives or bottle narratives where it's all set within mainly a kind of single location, a space station or an underground base of some sort. And this goes right the way back to classic Doctor who. There were always episodes or stories, you know two or three part stories that were set in that kind of bottleneck or base siege scenario. So the well is very much within that tradition. Explicitly it gives the nod back to Midnight, an absolute classic bottle episode, if you like, from RTD's first season.
Speaker 2:As showrunner Now, whether you needed to make that connection explicitly, I'm not so sure it seems to me that it's noticeable from the credits that there are two writers on this episode, russell T Davis, the showrunner, working in collaboration with a new writer called Sharma Angel Walfall, and it may be, for example, that she pitched the idea of a story set on a base with a well, and Russell T Davis thought hang on, that's a bit like Midnight. So what we'll do is we'll join the two stories together and therefore preempt any kind of fan criticism that they've seen this sort of bottle type story before um. But nevertheless, the well, the well was effective, I thought so how do you think they compare that?
Speaker 1:if you're comparing the well to the midnight, you know, um, does it live live up to the same hype, if that's the way to put it.
Speaker 2:Well, it was interesting actually, on X, formerly known as Twitter, stephen Moffat, one of the former showrunners of the rebooted Doctor who, who followed Russell T Davis and who actually has contributed some episodes to Shuti Gatwa, was run. Um, he tweeted out on x that, uh, hold on to your horses, don't you know? Close all the doors. Uh, don't talk to anyone online. This is an absolute stone cold classic. Perhaps blinks. Long rain is over. Because blink, written by steven moffat, regarded as one of the best episodes. I didn't feel that the well lived up to that hype and I think that was Stephen Moffat rather generously trying to boost the viewership for Doctor who, which struggled a little bit in terms of overnight ratings, at least in the UK. So it didn't work as well, but it was a strong dark story. That was probably one of the strongest episodes of Shitty Gatwas run, but not, I would say, beating some of the real Stone Cold classics of an earlier era.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I wasn't super, not a super fan of this the unseen sort of nature of the creature and but sort of and kind of maybe wonder is this the creature from within? Is it? It's, it's the danger from within that we can't spot. You know it's, it's the reference to that. So what do you think it's add to the storytelling? I, I, I just it didn't land well with me, but maybe I wasn't picking up something how did you find this unseen creature?
Speaker 2:well, the creature um, you know it's a. This is a sequel to midnight now in the original um 2008 episode. Midnight it was very much the the creature was was unseen. Essentially it it just invaded human hosts and what was remarkable about that episode was the way that it used the idea of the monster of the week to explore how the real monsters were actually the human beings themselves, because they turn on each other. When they realise there's an unseen enemy within this space shuttle that they're all sort of trapped in, then they start to fight with each other and think about jettisoning somebody into space if they think that you know falsely, as it turns out that they're actually the host.
Speaker 2:I didn't get so much that resonance with the well, it was just more the idea of a creature on your back and something that is dark and is unseen, and to that extent, this was a more simple exploration of the forces of darkness compared to Midnight. I mean the well, if we think about the title, the well, the idea of something dark, deep and dangerous, subterranean, perhaps from the deepest recesses of our subconscious. So it's the idea. It's maybe the sum of all our fears, the idea that it's an unseen, unknowing enemy that we can't see, but only just get a brief glimpse of uh before it's gone. So, uh, it's really playing with these kind of primal fears. Um, I had some criticisms that in fact, um, the, the, the problem actually was because, um, that kind of psychological horror works very well with a lower budget show, as soon as you have the big budget of Disney with those huge big sets, that somehow that kind of primal fear and claustrophobic horror is diluted by just the sheer size of the set and that could be a potential criticism of the world.
Speaker 1:It makes me almost think of a film that was very popular a few years ago called the Blair Witch Project, which was done very much with shaky cameras, but the thing of it was that it was something unseen that you couldn't quite say. It may be better if you use that example. Moving on, though, to the character Alice Fenley and I was actually very impressed by her performance. I think it was very, very good and, but I think it was a strong actress. I almost thought it was a shame that she had such a little role. I think she was great. She kind of lightened up in action a bit, but what do you think you know? What do you think makes her so compelling? And also this idea that she's deaf and she can't actually hear the creature. How did you find that?
Speaker 2:Yes, at first I thought you know, okay, so we have a deaf character. Is this a sort of form of stunt casting? Is it really, you know, is it, quite audibly, an attempt to widen representation and to provide, you know, less abled characters, less abled actors, a chance to perform in a big budget show like Doctor who? But of course it was built in to the story that, in fact, the deafness was not just a prop, it was actually part of the story, the fact that she couldn't hear.
Speaker 2:I thought it was a very good performance from the actress, rose Elling Ellis, who did successfully capture both the vulnerability of that character but also some of the manipulation of her as well, that she knows there's a creature on her back which she's not going to say because she desperately wants to escape that base. And, of course, if she does, then the monster will escape. So that was well done. So a very good performance. And I think not contrary to some of the worst criticisms of this new era of Doctor who, I didn't think it was just shoehorning in political correctness. I think it actually made it part of the narrative and that was laudable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you shared a really good performance. Moving on, though, this episode kind of floods with the idea of moral sacrifice, particularly when she's running away there with an ultimately sacrificed life jumping into a well, and I thought that was actually quite dark to be in a kid's film. But how did you think that? How did that kind of ethical tension there of she can ultimately sacrifice herself by jumping into the well Well, there's quite a lot of that actually in, certainly in the rebooted version of Doctor who since 2005.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm not going to go through it systematically, but there's been a lot of characters that the Doctor has encountered who have sacrificed themselves in order to so that the main characters, whether the Doctor or the Companion, can live on.
Speaker 2:So actually, that character was in quite a long tradition over the last 20 years of Doctor who of characters who sacrificed themselves, and of course it's a way of resolving the narrative and getting us onto the next episode.
Speaker 2:Of course it's a way of resolving the narrative and and getting us on to the on to the next episode. Um, of course, with this um, there is self-sacrifice, uh, falling down, that well, but there is very much the question at the end of the episode whether that self-sacrifice was in vain and that perhaps the creature is still with us and ready to escape. So there is a slightly ambiguous scene at the very end of the episode in which two characters discuss and it's clear that maybe something is behind one of the characters' backs. So we may not have seen the last of this monster and it may even be that that is a blind by Russell T Davis and that in fact, who knows, the monster may even have escaped into the TARDIS. So I don't know that and that's speculation, but certainly there was a hint at the end that the monster was not destroyed by being plunged down a well.
Speaker 1:So what do you think the well then is meant to represent? Again, coming back to power, memory, darkness. That's why I felt like both of these episodes are very dark. They are. I don't know if you believe in dark and time, but compared to other episodes of Doctor who, and particularly written by Russell T Davis, I thought it was very dark. And then, what is the symbolism, do you think?
Speaker 2:Well, I would say that, you know. I think Russell T Davis himself said this when he took over as showrunner way back in 2005. You know, if you look at the entire history of Doctor who, it's saturated in death. It's. You know, the Doctor who universe is a very dark and dystopian one. You have the character of the Doctor who's the hero who brings light, but it's in a very dark universe.
Speaker 2:Now this compares interestingly with something like Star Trek, the original sort of classic Star Trek from the 60s, which had much more of a gung-ho optimism that the idea of space is a world of opportunities.
Speaker 2:It's literally the final frontier, the next and final American frontier to be conquered by the intrepid Americans venturing out on the appropriately named USS Enterprise. So it's steeped in sort of American frontierism. With Doctor who and other British science fiction, television and science fiction in general, you have a much darker view of the universe and indeed of the future if we take it as science fiction, and you can relate that, as I have in sort of academic writing, for example, to the fact that for Americans in the 1960s onwards, going into space was a physical possibility, whereas for the British it wasn't. All the British could do was look back to the past. So it's interesting that a British show is about time travel whereas the American show is about going forward and conquering space, if we take Star Trek. So Doctor who's always been saturated in death, and I would argue that the most effective episodes in the last 20 years of the reboot of Doctor who called New has been the dark ones, the ones that scare us. That's what Doctor who was originally intended to be. It was supposed to be, you know, idea of um hiding behind the sofa and scaling kids.
Speaker 1:So I don't think we should be worried about um these shows being too dark, um because, um, that's what children like almost coming to the end of it, but this, this uh title, the world, it sort of gives a nod to the midnight. Is there a sort of mythology emerging, a bit like what happened in previous seasons, where they sort of got together and it became like it was built up to a larger story or like yes, well, there is a larger story.
Speaker 2:There's clearly a larger story. This is the modern trait for what we call episodic shows. So it's a doctor who is an episodic show in the sense that, um, uh, you know, each story is self-contained but it operates within a larger season arc. Um, and the season arc is clearly that the gods are coming to invade us and, as we've seen from the very end of episode one, the earth appears to have been destroyed. So we saw images of debris of the Eiffel Tower and floating in space in a London cab.
Speaker 2:So what has happened to the Earth? And the Doctor and Belinda are beginning to understand that the reason, maybe, that they can't take Belinda back to the exact date and time that she wants to go home is because the Earth may not exist. So it's a larger season arc and this is the way that New who has tended to operate. It's been what one would call a sequential series, where each episode is self-contained, a story of the week but part of a larger sequence, a larger story arc that will eventually have a narrative payoff in the final two episodes, which I understand is a two-parter, at the very end of this season.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, these scenes almost made me think about Planet of the Apes at least I was, you know when they come in and see what have they done to us? And yeah, and certainly dark. So what are your final thoughts and what is there any other thing you want to add for this episode that we haven't said so far?
Speaker 2:I just say on a subjective level, you know, as a fan as much as a someone who, who, um, can pontificate if you like about doctor, who is that? I'm I'm finding that each episode is getting better than the last, which is a very good sign. So the robot revolution, as we discussed in our first episode talking about Doctor who, is kind of a scene opener quite light, quite airy, and then the episodes get darker and darker, with the world definitely being the most dark, and it looks as if it's going to get even darker as we return to revisit Ruby Sunday, the companion from last season, and see how she's fared. There seems to be some monster on her back as well. So the show is Each episode's getting better than the last, which has got to be a good sign.
Speaker 2:One just hopes that the season is going to get the viewership that it deserves, because there have been some concerns about the ratings. But I did notice that the episode three got a bump in overnight viewership compared to the previous episode. So 400,000 more people tuned compared to the previous episode. So 400,000 more people tuned in to the Well in the UK compared to Lux. It's still not huge numbers, but it was 1.9 million for the Well overnight ratings, I hasten to add so streaming figures will come later compared to 1.5 million for Lux, and you tend to find that that if there's been a strong episode the week before then the audience will come to the next episode. So one waits to see what will happen in terms of the next episode, lucky man, and whether it will benefit from an inherited audience of people who, maybe through word of mouth, heard that the well was a good episode that's good?
Speaker 1:Well, let's hope so, and, as you know, you can always follow us here and subscribe to our YouTube channel, and we will, of course, release more episodes. But thank you very much, and I also want to thank Professor Cook for contributing to this episode and we will see you next time. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you and bye-bye, bye. Thank you.
