S7 E02 - Hampered By Length

Doctor Who: Too Hot For TV continues its celebration of 30 years of the 8th Doctor. Every week Dylan is be joined by a different guest to discuss the expanded universe of the 8th Doctor with Maygann! This week Dylan is joined by Iain Martin and Joe Ford to look at the Big Finish audio 'Other Lives' and the Titan comic 'Empire of the Wolf'.

Artwork for MayGann provided by Artfully Liam https://www.instagram.com/artfullyliam/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Welcome back to Doctor Who Too Hot for TV. We are the podcast that looks at all things expanded universe, Doctor Who. And we're back in Megan month. Yes, every week. This month, I'm looking at a different Paul McGann-related release to celebrate 30 fucking years of the Eighth Doctor. I feel so old and so tired. Did you coin that, May Gan? Was that you? I did, but I can't guarantee that other people won't have thought of it. I'm seeing it everywhere. I'm sure I'm not the only person to have gone McGann, May Gan, you know, but yeah, copyright Dylan Reese. Sure. As you've heard, I've got Mr. Joe Ford back with me.

SPEAKER_04 1:17

Joe Ford, welcome. I didn't wait to be introduced. Hello there.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Everyone knows him. They know his shtick. And you will have already heard him this month on the other two Hot for TV talking about the X-Files. It's Mr. Ian Martin. Ian, welcome to the Doctor Who podcast to Hot for TV.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Thank you very much for reminding me specifically where we are and what we're talking about, because I've been joined by my hangover, who's come along to uh see what all this podcasting lark is all about. So you'll be hearing from me, you'll be hearing from him.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Excellent. Well, I didn't drink anything at all last night, so I am on fire today. And Joe Ford is basically teetotal.

SPEAKER_04 2:02

I'm high on sugar, I've got loads of sugar next to me. Just to say, I was supposed to be on that X-File episode and managed to cancel it like 12 times. Um so uh just as a small side note, the movie was a banger and the book was a fucking clanger. Alright, what the chore that book was. Okay, so well, there we go.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

You keep your mouth shut. If you want to talk about the X-Files, there's places you can do it. Here we're just Doctor Who, Doctor Who, Doctor Who. Quite refreshing actually for Two Hop for TV to be back in the Doctor Who sphere. I know. I I needed a break, but we're back. I'm doing theme months this year. So May is a theme month, and then the next one will be July, and so on and so on. Anyway, so we're here to celebrate, well, hopefully celebrate, the life and times of the Eighth Doctor, uh, and we've chosen to dip in today to a Big Finish audio and something from Titan Comics. The first thing we're going to look at is Other Lives from Big Finish Productions. It was written by Gary Hopkins, directed by Gary Russell, produced by Gary Russell and Jason Hay Gellery. It was released on the 13th of December 2005. News at the time. The new look Cybermen had been revealed for Doctor Who Series 2, you know, the big chunky Cybers Men with the flares, uh, along with the guest cast for that Cyber 2 Parter. And the tabloids were reporting that Billy Piper might leave, which Doctor Who magazine said, don't take that seriously until you hear anything officially. She did leave. And David Tennant and Billy Piper turned on the Christmas lights. Heady heady days, eh?

SPEAKER_05 3:36

Did she leave, Dylan? Did she?

SPEAKER_03 3:38

Because she was back again in series four, and then she was back again for the 50th.

SPEAKER_04 3:42

And I don't know if I need to remind you, but she was back again last year. Did she leave?

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Well, she certainly left full-time employment with BBC Wales in favour of occasional employment by BBC Wales. Ian, you a fan of the Cybus Men? Uh no. Oh, good. I quite like the top half, but the bottom half just doesn't quite work for me.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

You specifically the flares. You're against the 70s retro hippie vibe. You don't like them sitting around smoking a doobie, listening to the dead. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:19

You know what's wrong with them is they look terrible in long shot when they're just marching about. They do just look like a load of men in plastic plastic costumes. And yeah, that sort of art deco head and that. When Graham Harper shoots that from below when they're smashing through doors and they look fucking amazing. Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

I think the main problem I had with them was the kind of duplication of the origin story and sort of reinventing them in a sort of Dalek way. They have a little disabled leader who invents them. And it's not even Davros, it's fucking trigger. There wasn't much imagination. They just added a blimp, didn't they?

SPEAKER_01 4:56

That was it.

SPEAKER_06 4:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

That's the alternative universe we've got by blimp. What can we do that's really cheap with the London landscape we've already got? Put in a blimp. Nothing says alternative dimension like that. Releases at the time from BBC Books, we had Atom Bomb Blues featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace. From Big Finish, we had The Devil in Miss Wild Time, make of that what you will. Project Valhalla, the book that ties into Project Twilight. Never even heard of it. Wanna give that a read. Cybermen Conversion and subscribers exclusive featuring the Sixth Doctor and Perry Cryptobiosis. From Telos, we had the Time Hunter novel Deus Le Volt, I'm gonna say. Who knows?

SPEAKER_02 5:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Then online we had Slavine Surfer and Sue Doc Who to Doctor Who games. Back in Time, New Doctor, New Danger was broadcast on BBC Radio Wales. The Christmas Invasion was broadcast on BBC One, and Attack of the Grask premiered on the BBC Red Button. The comic strip was a ninth Doctor Row story. The Groats Worth of Wit.

SPEAKER_04 6:04

Am I the only person that was hoping that Sue Doc Who was gonna be like some obscure spin-off starring Sue Pollard as Doctor Who? Susan Quist.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

I don't know what Slitheen Surfer is, but I want it in my life now.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

I imagine it's like Silver Surfer, but with a lot of farting. Just propelled by anal gas gut broth.

SPEAKER_04 6:29

What's that? What she wanted to do in Boomtown. Surfer away out of Cardiff as it was exploding. Would you think it's nothing to do with that?

SPEAKER_07 6:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:36

You too can be Margaret Slovene online surfing away from a radioactive whale or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

I would like to cover Attack of the Grask on this one day. I feel like it's a little bit of Doctor Who we never talk about. You know, the debut on television of Gareth Roberts as a writer, much to be Lord of Fair, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_04 6:58

Anyway. You also mentioned the very last book as written by Andrew Cartmell there. I saw Ian creaming his knickers when you mentioned the name. I I did a little excitement.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

I didn't get on with Atom Bonne. No, neither. It was weird because he'd he'd established himself as my favourite new adventures. How, Ian? How? Because uh because I lived in Canterbury where he sets his books. And I'm a very simple man and I like stuff that's relatable. Forgot to include the doctor in his stories, though, didn't he?

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Doctor's overrated. In Doctor Who's. You'll learn from the uh X-Files episode that we did that Ian liked that X-Files book mainly because it mentioned places that he lived in as well. So fair.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

I don't think anything ever mentions Eastbourne, you know. Closest I've got is New Haven in a Doctor Who story.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

No.

SPEAKER_04 7:52

Oh, and Brighton.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Yeah, but Brighton's a popular place. Eastbourne, not so much. No, no. Oi, you bitch. It's lovely, but it's not like everyone's going, let's set a story in Eastbourne. It's the same as Birmingham. No one's setting a story in Birmingham.

SPEAKER_04 8:06

I think in the long history of Eastbourne, it will be Dylan Reese once came here. That's the only thing Eastbourne will be known for.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

They always roll out the red carpet when I do. The Dr. Charlie and Keris arrive in London in 1851 during the Great Exhibition, but are almost immediately separated and forced into very different adventures. The Doctor is taken in by Georgina Marlowe, who mistakes him for her lost husband, drawing him into an unexpected domestic life. Charlie, meanwhile, is left to fend for herself and becomes involved with a group of political agitators and reformists, while Keres is captured and displayed as an exotic curiosity, subjected to exploitation and cruelty. Each of them must adapt quickly, living unfamiliar other lives in order to survive. As their separate paths unfold, a wider political conspiracy comes into focus, involving revolutionary elements who seek to destabilize Britain during this pivotal moment in history. The Doctor gradually realizes that events are veering off course while Charlie and Kerry struggle with their own harsh realities. Eventually their stories begin to converge as they work to uncover the truth behind the unrest and prevent violence from erupting. In doing so, they must extricate themselves from the roles they've been forced into and ensure that history proceeds as it should. So, have we heard other lives before? Let's come to Mr. Ian Martin, who I think is gonna say no.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

I am going to say no. Would you like it um in a sort of deep clanging voice, or would you like a sort of high-pitched?

SPEAKER_01 9:43

No.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

What what how would you say?

SPEAKER_01 9:45

Give me a couple of options and I'll edit it.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Alright. Let's go. Let's go no.

SPEAKER_04 9:49

Can I hear your Charlie Pollard version?

SPEAKER_07 9:52

No!

SPEAKER_04 9:53

Can I hear your Duke of Wellington version? No. Can I hear your Fasakoli version?

SPEAKER_01 9:59

No. Well done. That's beautiful. I'm gonna edit that all together into a beautiful No no no no no no no no there's no limit.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

That's the single.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

I know this, and I could have let you say this to yourself, but I believe you gave up on the Eighth Doctor range when the series came back, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:19

I did. It was a perfect jumping off point at the end of the next life because it leads into an adventure with the Daleks, and I thought, time war, blah, I'll just switch tracks and carry on the TV route. So how much further into the Eighth Doctor's run was this story?

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Well, he's absorb he's absorbed into the main range at this point, so it's what, sort of a year later, but maybe we've had a couple of stories. I tell you what, Big Finish never promote the perfect jumping off point, do they? They're always saying this is the perfect jumping on point, but it's like as you just considered great PR, you know, the perfect jumping off point.

SPEAKER_04 10:55

Just stop here, guys. It's the beachy head of Big Finish. Jesus Christ. It's actually because um, by a weird twist of fate, other lives is the very next story Mark and I are listening to in our Finish Big run through. Um, there's only Terra Firma and Scaredy Cat uh between this and the Divergent Universe. So it's very, very soon into the Ape Doctor's Little Run.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

But it's about a year later in sort of release dates. Uh Joe Ford, presumably you've heard this before.

SPEAKER_04 11:25

Yeah, yeah. Loved it back in the day, have many thoughts about it now. But yes, yeah. I was I was I I went back and read my review for this, and actually I I was sort of backhanded about a lot of my compliments. So I don't think I think I may have been struggling with the main range at the time. But this one, yeah, I thought quite a lot of at the time.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Right. I would have heard it when it came out and it did not leave an impression. And then when I did a listen through about 2012, I heard it then. And even though I couldn't remember what it was about, I remember enjoying it quite a lot. And this time round, sort of mixed feelings, but uh more good than bad, I think. So after this arc heavy run of the Eighth Doctor and the Alternative Universe, do we think this is the sort of story the Eighth Doctor needs?

SPEAKER_04 12:12

Yes, definitely. The last thing that the Eighth Doctor needed after his torturous time in the Divergent Universe is a story like Terra Firma, where he comes back to Earth, the whole Earth is wiped out, and everyone's tortured horribly. And it's like, okay, so we've come back to our universe just to do what we was doing back in the Divergent Universe. Then you get Scaredy Cat, which is literally no one remembers Scaredy Cat. Everyone's heard it, no one remembers a thing about it. It's such a nothing story. This just a little bit of history, uh a historical character, a character tale, lots of charming interactions for the regulars, a little bit of development for some of the regulars, uh almost romance for the Doctor, chill time for the Doctor Charlie and Cariz. Well, maybe not Cariz, he's putting a thong and tortured. Um yes, I absolutely think this is what they should be doing. And I think this is probably the best story of their last run. Full stop.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Interesting. Yeah, it's a nice it's just a slower pace and it's everything's a bit more calm, and it's just them enjoying each other's company, enjoying the adventures, except maybe Charis, but who knows, I don't know what turns on Cariz. But it's an interesting different take compared to there was a lot of bleakness before this, I feel like, and this is a bit more even though it does deal with, you know, sort of some of the horrors of human history and stuff like that, it's still very much like no, this is this is a more slight adventure and just an easy listen. Uh Ian Martin, what say you?

SPEAKER_02 13:45

So I'm just kind of thinking about the uh the standard big finish offering, and because it's there's no budget, there it it can be really high stakes, you can have universes boiling into each other and divergent universes, and you can bring back all the doctors and wrestle on a woo. But the the thing that kind of works with Doctor Who as a TV show is that sure you can have a big story, but then you'll get three little cheap ones that are like two-handers they filmed in the corner of Lime Grove. And sometimes in the audio range, it's nice to get the same thing. It's nice to get something smaller stakes, small scale that emphasizes different attributes of the Doctor and his companions. So in some ways it's a a breath of fresh air. And this and this story in particular is a is a sort of a blend of very much fresh air and very much heavily recycled tropes of the Victorian era. Lots of dickens in there, eh? Was there enough for you, Joe?

SPEAKER_01 14:50

But it is essentially a pure historical, right? There's a timey wiminess with the TARDIS, but nobody's fucking around with time, really. There's no monster. So it is a pure historical. I can't think of any science fiction element that doesn't involve the main trio.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

No, it's the the monster is Victorian society, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 15:11

It's to Big Finish's credit that they are the only uh arm of the Doctor Who franchise that is willing to do uh you know, no aliens in history. Um, and they've done many of them, but they're still doing them, and they're usually pretty good when they do.

SPEAKER_03 15:28

Just to ask, though, for what could be a sort of sci-fi spin-off, did uh those two French royals did they go all around the universe in the TARDIS and have adventures, the pair of them? It's only a matter of time before we're the Madame La Roche adventure.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

There's a a book set called Oh Gosh La Roche.

SPEAKER_04 15:49

Yes. I've actually all you've got to do, me and Ian could play the part, all you've got to do is do a very bad French accent.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

And you got your cars. God bless Conrad and India, but their French accents are they're obviously having a whale of a time doing them, but I don't know if I was looking for French actors whether I would cast the two of them.

SPEAKER_04 16:12

The trouble with this story is you've got India Fisher playing Charlie and playing the French uh royal and playing a pretend version of the French royal, and you've got her sister playing the Doctor's missus in this as well. So there's so many of the Fisher family in this. I was like, is one person playing the entire cast here?

SPEAKER_01 16:34

What about this contrivance of the heart? Because the whole thing is that everybody's got this other live that and a lot of it is to do with them looking or sounding like other people. So, like, is that the sort of contrivance that works for you in a massacre-esque way?

SPEAKER_02 16:50

It's something you do at some point in any sci-fi franchise. There'll be an episode like this. When I first realised I was hearing India Fisher playing more than one character, I thought, oh, here we go, typical big finished cost-cutting bullshit. But then you kind of realize it's kind of supposed to be obvious and and and then it kind of works. And it goes back to Shakespeare as a trope, doesn't it? This kind of farcical story based on people confusing each other for other people and and and being absorbed into other people's dramas because of how they look. It's I'm trying to think of that. There's that play by Sheridan, what I studied once, you know, but it's been a kind of trope for a good 500 years.

SPEAKER_04 17:34

It's a midsummer night's dream, isn't that all people mistaking people for other people and fucking the wrong person and ending up up the forest?

SPEAKER_02 17:42

That's generally how I spent my midsummer stream.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

That was the bit that I kind of struggled with. That the doctor just happens to run into a woman who he looks just like her husband, that these French diplomats looked a bit like Charlie and or at least Sam like Keris. It's all too contrived for me, and I just I I don't really like it in the massacre. I don't really like it when it's done anywhere. Black orc is? Yeah. As you say, it was done 500 years ago. I'm not sure we need to be do still doing it. Someone's got to think of something else to do.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

Well, there's not too much in Doctor Who that we haven't kind of seen before. Normally this is the sort of thing that would have annoyed me, but I I was kind of here for it on this occasion. I think it worked really well in the doctor's story, and I thought that was kind of worth following and you know, worth worth the money. But conversely, I found the Keras storyline to just be really frustratingly root one and kind of obvious and kind of oh, really. So I I I I go both ways on that. Oh really?

SPEAKER_04 18:49

Can I fight you on that? Because I've really struggled. Um we're doing this run at the moment, and I've really struggled with Kourias as a character. Because I don't understand a character who sort of murders people every other story, and then we start the next story of him going, Oh, let's go off on a jolly adventure. I there's just adventure.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

But it does sound a lot like the doctor.

SPEAKER_04 19:10

It does, to be fair. It does. But and and because Conray Westmas is such a charming performer, like, really, so when they try and turn him into this mass murderer, it just doesn't really work for me at all. However, I thought if they were gonna do a historical story and he's a lizard, then this is a really great way of integrating him into a historical story, right? This is why he worked in a divergent universe, because that's all sci-fi stuff. But now they're stuck with the problem of, well, do we put him in a cow? You know, do what is it they do at the start? You stay in the TARDIS for a few days and we're gonna have some fun at the Crystal Palace. But no, he's kidnapped by Mr. Crackles, is it? Mr. Crackles, Mr. Crackles. Mr. Crackles. Joseph Craigner. Yeah. And put in a thong, which I'm sure we all had great fun visualising. Um forced to perform to the eccentric knobs of the Victorian era.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

I did message Conrad to find out if he went method for the scene where he was whipped in a thong and he said, Yeah. Yeah. I bet Paul McGow was holding the whip as well.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

In many ways, I think he's lucky that they landed in London and he was put in a kind of generic Victorian freak show because if they'd landed in, say, Thailand, he might have found himself being forced to do all manner of degrading activities in front of a large ticket buying crowd.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

With a ping pong ball.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

But essentially, yes. Oh, I don't want to find it. Which you can replicate quite well on audio, actually. Just thinking about that.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

I'm genuinely surprised we don't have more Victorian freak shows in Doctor Who, because it is such a a ripe setting for a science fiction story and it's a great way to get a menagerie of monsters together.

SPEAKER_04 20:49

I mean, I fear Lloyd Rose could uh uh you know call her lawyers because she'd written Camera Obscura before this, which is set in the Crystal Palace with a freak show. And then along comes Gary Hopkins and goes, Oh god, I'll have a bit of that. It's not quite as good, I'm afraid. Camera Obscura is a much better story.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Is it is it the same sort of period?

SPEAKER_04 21:09

It's exactly, yeah. It's it's set it's set in the Crystal Palace. They explore it just like the Doctor and Charlie do. Um and the doctor joins the freak show instead of Carez. But do you know what? I'll say you would be a big issue with this is it's so long. It's two hours long, this thing. And there's enough story here for about an hour, right? And we spend the first two episodes literally just going to the Crystal Palace, coming away, the Doctor almost meeting the woman, coming away, uh Charlie meeting the Duke of Wellington, coming away. And it's not until the end of episode two where all the pieces are in place the story clearly wants to tell, which is Corey's as the freak show, the doctor in the Dickens esque romance, and Charlie and the Duke of Wellington just having hijinks together. And those three things are all excellent, but they don't really start until an hour into the story.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

I think a lot of Big Finish at the time is hamstrung by the format of classic Doctor Who, which is we say this quite a lot on this podcast, but I think one of the best things Nick Briggs did when he came in after sort of carrying on that format for a little bit was go, actually, Doctor Who doesn't always need to be four 30-minute episodes or whatever. We can shake it up a bit. Like I listened to Pacini and the Doctor recently. Oh, fabulous. Yeah, brilliant. And it's an hour long. And had it been two hours, it would have it would have been a less of a story. Like they've kind of got to a point where they go, actually, maybe about an hour is all we need to tell a Doctor Who story, unless it's a big, big story.

SPEAKER_04 22:39

I know this is an old argument, so I won't labour the point, yeah. But it's worth mentioning there is at least double the amount of main range stories on Nick Briggs' watch than they are on Gary Russell's, and they're all about two and a half hours long. So it took him a long time. But it's only because he created so many fucking ranges that there were also some hour-length stories as well.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

But he'd been trying to get rid of the main range for years and years. Well, it took him 15 bloody years to do it. No. I've seen Nick Briggs at conventions for at least 10 years before, just going, we're trying to get rid of it, and the fans just don't want us to do it. People kept buying longer and longer subscriptions, so they were like, at some point we've got to stop these subs. And they did it. But yeah, as you say, all the other ranges, they start to go, oh, we'll give them an hour. Like, even whether you love or loathe those early Tom Baker ones, they're not all fucking four-parters, are they? Thank God for that. Imagine a six-part energy of the Daleks.

SPEAKER_04 23:35

Oh, Christ. When it rolls, though, when Ebola Lies rolls from the hour point, I think it's excellent.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Absolutely. Well, I messaged you after two episodes, didn't I? And said, I'm not sure I'm enjoying this. And then, but by the end of it, I was completely sold. So what do we think of this is by Gary Hopkins, who's not a name I'm that familiar with, but he wrote the last in the Divergent Universe. He adapted Power Play for the Lost Stories, did an episode of Gallifrey and an episode of I Davros, and that's about it. What do we think of his script?

SPEAKER_04 24:04

Well, I just want to say quickly the last, his first script for Big Finish, probably my favourite from the whole Divergent Universe. I remember that being brilliant. Utterly fatalistic about this planet where everyone's down in a bunker and we're all gonna die. Poor old Charlie has her legs crushed and uh has is smothered by the evil Excelsior, which is one of those fabulous villainesses that Big Finish pulls out of their assholes every now and again. Really, really great script. And this is a good follow-up as well. Yeah, I think he knows what he's doing. I think he's hampered by his length as well. So he is, he spends he spends so long putting his jigsaw pieces in place, and you are a bit confused about well, whose story am I listening to here? There are so many things happening in those first two episodes. I mean, I thought the story initially was going to be about the two royals in the TARDIS, and then they're just gone for two episodes. But he I mean he gets these regulars right at a point where no one is getting these regulars right. He makes Charlie fun and effervescent again. He leans into the Paul McGann, uh, romantic doctor that I really love. I mean, he is flirting with her. I don't care what you guys say. I don't know the eye. And even Curries works here for me. So yeah, I think I think uh it's a it's a good script with decent dialogue. For example, are you ready for this?

SPEAKER_05 25:28

You're thinking that I'm a tart, a harlot, a strumpet, a street walker.

SPEAKER_04 25:33

I mean, it's it is very funny in places. I mean, the bit where the Duke of Wellington's going on about what's have you seen the bloody monumental column in Trafalgar Square? Horatio's taller than the rest of us now. It's very funny in places. I think it's a grizz script, it's a bit of a gym.

SPEAKER_06 25:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Ian? The very first sentence of the story, you get Charlie going, Oh, it's enormous, Doctor.

unknown 25:55

Ooh.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

And and you think, okay, this is a comedy story. And then it kind of isn't, but parts of it kind of are, and you don't really know where you are with it. It's a it's a tricksy thing. And you know, I'll I said it before, I'll say it again. I think some of the writing is is amazing. The with the the doctor's story. And yeah, you know, Charlie's story as well is is pretty lovely and pretty carefully well written. But as soon as you get the character of Joseph Crackles, it's like this could be any kids' TV show from the eighties, like the Baker Street Boys or something. It's a really sort of grotesque performance of a very predictable cockney man who's gonna turn out to be a bad man. And you know, it's it very similar to Susan Kay's Phantom of the Opera novel that was set before the Phantom of the Opera, where you get him growing up in a freak show for 30 years. Um, and I was just left with this kind of sense that one-third of this story's really lame, and two-thirds of it are really good.

SPEAKER_04 27:00

Joseph Crackles, if he'd have turned up in the Crimson Aura, you wouldn't have blinked an eye, would you?

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Absolutely not. But he was well acted, I'll say that for him. He is you know, there was a an element of steely menace underpinning things. He does love this stuff though, don't they?

SPEAKER_04 27:16

You can tell the cast love this script.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

Absolutely. Um, for me, I think actually the Duke of Wellington stuff, despite how well it's played, is the least interesting stuff. I'm wanting to get back to the freak show, I'm wanting to get back to the Doctor and his new missus. Um, but yeah, the Charlie stuff is some great dialogue in there, as you say, Joe, but it's it's the least interesting story strand for me.

SPEAKER_04 27:40

She's just not been fun for so long. It's just so nice that somebody remembers she can have some fun in these adventures.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

When you listen to those first couple of seasons of The Doctor and Charlie, they're having so much fun, and then the moment you get to the divergent universe, the fun is just sucked out of it.

SPEAKER_04 27:56

It's interesting, isn't it? Now they've gone back to the early times of Paul McGann with the Audacity stuff. They haven't gone back to the other live period. They've gone back to the seasons one and two, Charlie and Ape Doctor.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, well no, they have done a couple with Kerries, haven't they?

SPEAKER_04 28:12

So Yeah, yeah, but that's like a running storyline now, isn't it? With Audacity set in the second series, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's when they're fun. That's when they're having a good time.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

The more recent ones they've done with Charlie and Kerries as well, I think there's uh there was a Sontar and Rutin one. That one was a lot of fun. It wasn't the greatest story ever, but it was just them having fun again in like a you know, a Santara battlefield.

SPEAKER_04 28:35

I said that to Mark earlier, or I said, because he's obviously listened to these with me at the moment, and I went, Oh, I said they're so funny, aren't they? That Sontar and Rutan one where the Dr. Charlie and Curios are all having a great time. They're trying to make us believe that's what it was like back in the day. Is that how badly we've gone for nostalgia now that we're looking back at this period affectionately?

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Someone's gone, or we could squeeze some more out of the other lives dynamic.

SPEAKER_04 29:00

Give it 15 years, you know, we'll be back to the reality.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Oh, I remember those good times. Back to the reality war. Back to Darton fucking bubble. Anyway. Oh yay! Oh sorry. So let's talk a bit more about the guest cast. Because we have somebody who was very nearly Doctor Who in this. We have Mr. Ron Moody, who is not somebody I've ever really been familiar with, but old people seem to like him. I love him. I'm old. Well, there we go. Who is he? And how do we feel about his performance as the Duke of Wellington?

SPEAKER_04 29:35

Take a tip from Bill Sykes. He can steal what he likes. You got a pick-a-pocket or two, that's all I know him from. But I thought he was great in this.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

The the definitive Fagan. And I think he was was he not also Rothgo in the first series of Into the Labyrinth?

SPEAKER_07 29:54

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

1980 Peter Grimweight thing. Yeah. Um, which I'd bloody love, and I'm a scare of the internet to see.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Got it on DVD, and it's features Have you? I think it features one of the last credited writing credits for both Robert Holmes and John Lucarotti. Good lord. I think that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

Um, I loved Into the Labyrinth. It's amazing, especially because it's got evil Pamela Salem. I'm always here for her throwing some witchy shapes.

SPEAKER_04 30:22

Coming to a too hot for TV, too hot for TV for you. So I hope so. Into the labyrinth.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

It was on tele, we can't do it.

SPEAKER_04 30:29

Oh fuck.

SPEAKER_05 30:32

However, Ron Moody, fabulous.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

Yes, so he's uh kind of a a presence that I think my parents kind of knew who he was and and looked out for him when I was growing up. Uh not looked out for him in a kind of protecting him way. But they knew him and he was he was a thing. I personally uh Fagan and uh Rothko.

SPEAKER_01 30:53

Did you play your parents other lives and go, look, it's Ron Moody? I don't think they'd have enjoyed that.

SPEAKER_04 30:59

Do you not think that the one word that was agonised over most in this script was Fuzakali? Because that's the word that he enjoys saying the most throughout this entire story, Ron Moody. Oh, for Zakley. Uh like they've they've shaped that word perfectly for Ron Moody, so he can be sarcastic with it, insulting with it. But he's like he is having a good time in this.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Again, there's one thing that Doctor Who can always do well. It's posh old Victorian men or of that that sort of era. Yeah, you're right. It's really a place for an elderly white man to thrive.

SPEAKER_05 31:41

Did he commit any um war crimes?

SPEAKER_02 31:42

That's when we like the Victorian theory.

SPEAKER_03 31:44

The Duke of Wellington. I know I know how we try and make Churchill cuddly. Did the Duke of Wellington do anything dreadful while we were making him a cuddly, lovely chap in this? I imagine. I don't really know too much.

SPEAKER_02 31:54

Oh, okay. He he probably wiped out hundreds of thousands of uh foreigners.

SPEAKER_04 32:00

Yeah. And he had to hold Charlie's smelly shoe as well.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

He was involved in a lot of wars, especially he was in India. So I imagine he did some bad things.

SPEAKER_02 32:14

I I know his type. I can see him now painting a flag on a roundabout. My god, this ain't a history podcast.

SPEAKER_04 32:22

He was involved in a lot of wars and he was in India. That's all you're thinking.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

Thanks, Dominic Sandbrook, for those insights.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Look, if you want a history of Robert Holmes's career, you've come to the right place. If you want a history of the Duke of Wellington, go on Wikipedia.

SPEAKER_04 32:37

Or listen to other lines. Yeah. Although, even he, you know that bit at the end where they all meet up, all the characters meet up, and it's like that bit from Rocky Horror where they go, Dr.

SPEAKER_05 32:47

Scott, Brad, Janet, and they're going, Careers, Doctor, it's a Duke of Wellington. And then you're just saying each other's voice.

SPEAKER_04 32:54

And Ron Moody, man, throws himself. He's just having a great time. He throws himself into that brilliantly.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

He is good. He's not the only Duke of Wellington that Big Finish have done. The other is in The Curse of Davros, in which the Duke is played by Granville Saxton. Not as good. Not as good.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

The Curse of Davros. Oh my god. Plus he got like some kind of like skin disease.

SPEAKER_04 33:20

No. You've got to come with that one in the future. That's the one where Davros and the Doctor are body swapped. And Colin Colin is playing Davros for the first two episodes, but you like he's doing it in a very sort of mannered way. And you're all the way through, you're going, what the fuck is wrong with him? Why is he acting like this?

SPEAKER_01 33:38

It's so funny. The only thing more tired than a doppelganger is a body swap story. You guys will be back for that in a few months, I'm sure. So I'll look forward to that.

SPEAKER_02 33:47

Absolutely. Wouldn't miss it.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

We mentioned a bit about our regulars. Anything we want to say about them? Especially Paul McGann, who has a little go at playing somebody. They all get a little go at playing somebody else. But how do we feel about Paul McGann with a beard? Hot. Yeah?

SPEAKER_02 34:03

I mean, you know, yeah, y y you can't necessarily improve on perfection, but he he takes a beard in a sort of poorly photoshopped kind of way.

SPEAKER_04 34:13

I don't know if you remember him. He had a beard in the Adventure Henry A Street, didn't he? I mean, they've all been reading those books, haven't they?

SPEAKER_02 34:19

It's I mean, these are coming like two or three years after those books were being published. So it's not even like they sort of snuck back to something that no one will remember to recycle it. It's like, eh, let's just do exact. But then again, you know, why the hell not? And you know, Gary Hopkins probably doesn't read the works of Lloyd Rose. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 34:38

Paul McGann is vacant in Scaredy Cat. I listened to that this week. He has to deliver a load of exposition, and you know how someone when they just sound so bored. Yeah. Whereas here he's properly engaged. He's really engaged, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

Well, if there's one thing you can guarantee Paul McGann will engage with, it's flirting with a woman. That's right. His performance here is great, and it's not like big speeches and exciting moments, but you can tell he's having fun. As we said, all the cats are having fun. I think Kerries is on fine form, Charlie's on fine form. I do struggle a little bit with the doctor's wife in this, or his not wife as it was, Georgina Marlowe, played by Francesca Hunt. How do we feel about her?

SPEAKER_04 35:22

Well, she's all over the place. First of all, she's telling him off, and then she's kidnapping him back to her house, and then she's absolutely obsessed with him, and then she's like, Oh well, yeah, I guess you're not my husband. Like, there's no great through line with her character, is there?

SPEAKER_02 35:35

The whole kind of underpinning premise of their storyline is that he looks a lot like her missing husband. She doesn't notice that when she first sees him. Yeah. No, not at all. She's like, grab my child. And then while she's doing a sort of midnight tour of police cells looking for a bit of rough, and she's like, Oh, he looks exactly like my husband. He'll do for my for my scam. I thought she was very, you know, inconsistently written, but very sensitively and very warmly portrayed by. Did you say the lady's name was Francesca Hammond? I did, yes. You say that very carefully, please.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

I thought she was inconsistently written, but I also thought her performance was a bit a bit bland, if I'm perfectly honest. It didn't bring her the character quite to life for me.

SPEAKER_04 36:22

Could definitely hear the same finishing school that India Fisher came from as well. They both had a sort of clip tone to their voices.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

Quite possibly. Francesca's been in quite a few big finish stories, and they're all quite forgettable. She's in Moonflesh, Tomb Ship, Masquerade. Oh, so boring. Was she Hannah Bartholomew? Uh I don't know. The Perfect Prisoners, The Skeleton Key, and New Horizons.

SPEAKER_04 36:45

These all sound rubbish. You could be talking about anything there.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:49

You could be talking about breakfast soon.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

She was she was in the sandwich dilemma.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

Oh, hello. No, I'm here for that. We've got the sandwich dilemma.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Afternoon of the Daleks. Oh for God.

SPEAKER_04 37:05

The sandwich dilemma sounds intriguing, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_02 37:08

Yeah. I shouldn't Colin had started on that. Do you go turkey and provolone or do you go do you go tuna fish with gherkins? What what? Oh, like a New Yorker, you know?

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Yeah. It's gotta be packed with meat.

SPEAKER_04 37:23

As much salabi as possible. Although I I will say that the the twist at the end that what's his name?

SPEAKER_03 37:30

People bum dimple squeeze. Was that his name?

SPEAKER_02 37:35

Yeah, uh Scrotal Rub. Dimple Squeeze, yeah. Yeah, Rumpel Stilts.

SPEAKER_04 37:41

That the owner of her husband just happened to be the same man that was trying to fuck Charlie in episode two. I was like, that is so dickens, that twist. A character that we've already met before. And then that bizarre ending where the husband comes back and goes, Oh, I'm back. Thank God he didn't turn up like an hour earlier, otherwise the plot would have just ended, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Does he even say what he's been doing for a year?

SPEAKER_02 38:06

Well, he hasn't he got the the the hand wave of being an insomniac or something, so he can just say, Oh, I just came here and uh I I thought something might happen. Yeah, keep it keep it vague.

SPEAKER_04 38:18

Or we'll at least give them points for at no point, including the children in this plot, so we don't have to listen to any god-awful minor performances. They're sent off to the country and good riddance to it.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

Yeah, also the budget can't stretch to any more characters. We've already got people doubling up. Tripling up. Well, quite. So obviously, this comes at a time where the show's back. We've just had Eccleston season, Christmas Invasion is on TV. Is this the sort of stories spin-off media should be doing at the time?

SPEAKER_04 38:51

No. I think they should have realised and done the Lucy Miller format a lot quicker than they did. Um, it was a savvy move when they eventually got there doing those one hour, what was it, ten stories per season, something like that?

SPEAKER_06 39:04

Something like that, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:05

Uh, very much in the mould of the new series, and loads of people just leapt on that because it felt like familiar with what Doctor Who is bringing out now. Now, these two-hour stories set in the past, pure historical, with characters that we've been with for donkeys years, they kind of feel this is a good script, but it does kind of feel like, okay, been there, done that.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

Yeah, if you've got two hours now, you need to fill it with something legendary like the reality war or something like that. Tumbleweed.

SPEAKER_02 39:33

I'm like Jody's bit. Just every time anyone talks about the reality war, I just feel this bone deep sorrow.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

The reality bore, am I right, lads? Am I?

SPEAKER_04 39:45

People usually whisper it, um, you're bold with your volume, Dylan.

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Ian, anything to add to that about what the show should be doing at the time?

SPEAKER_02 39:53

Yeah, I think I don't know. It's they're kind of damned if they do and damned if they don't at this point. They've kind of built their career and they've built their audience on giving them substitute for classic who, you know, four parts 30 minutes long starring Paul McGann. They should have pivoted to doing something that kind of would have brought in new fans who like the format on TV. But, you know, if you do if we suddenly switch to a 45-minute audio starring Christopher Accleston, do we lose all of our existing customers? So as a you know, as a as a business, what they should have done was sort of sort of do the Lucy Miller thing kind of at the same time, or you know, just be more agile, but the it's not really in the big finish DNA. They can't be agile because they record their stuff so far in advance. A bit like podcasters.

SPEAKER_01 40:46

I think I think you're right, like they've they've certainly got a backlog of scripts and stories to release. It's nowhere quite the lead time that they they have today. But also they don't know what the new series is going to be like. They don't know how people are going to respond to it, they don't know whether it's going to be success. It might have been a one and done season because nobody watched it. And also, fundamentally, it's quite nice that this exists for a little bit of time for anybody who tunes into this fast Saturday night show and goes, This isn't the Doctor Who I know and love. I want something more familiar, and they can crawl back here and have other lives.

SPEAKER_04 41:21

You said it earlier though, Dylan. You said that, you know, they kept extending the main range because they knew they had a staple of old farts that love the classic series, that won it in that mold, half an hour stories, four episodes, you know, running around in episode three, all of the old doctors that we love. So you're right, Ian, we are damned if we do, and we're damned if we don't. So I suppose Nick Briggs did do the only thing he could possibly do, and that was both. He gave us the Lucid Miller season, and he kept doing the main range, and wherever you wanted to go, that was the direction you went in. What's interesting is obviously the Big Phillips balance sheet is plummeting by the month at the moment, and it isn't until Dark Eyes on the back of Day of the Doctor that they oh please, that they see us swing up in the right direction again, and that's a good seven-year period that they were hemorrhaging listeners. So I'm surprised they held out that long, if we're honest. I know, I know there was points where they maybe might not have. So good on Jason Hagelery for taking the risk.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 42:26

I do just want to say though, like we have sort of said maybe this isn't right for this point in Doctor Who's Run. Around this, you've got um Lies 34, you've got Thicker Than Water, you've got the Council of Nicaea, you've got Terra Firma. They were delivering really good stuff at this point. So if it even if it wasn't the format it should have been in, they were doing good work, I think, at this point. And this is also good.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

And it's still Gary Russell, who's like, I'm, you know, I've got 12 releases a year essentially, and I'm trying to make a wide variety of different types of Doctor Who. And if nine of them work for you or something like that, then that's a good hit rate. And this is one that it does work for me. Like, sometimes it's nice to have just a bit more of a casual Doctor Who that you can just listen to and sort of get immersed in the world. The stakes aren't too high, and you're not waiting for the cliffhanger because you think it's going to be a Dalek, a Croton, a Zarbie, whatever. You just want to know how you're gonna get out of this slightly minor but dangerous scrape. And it's quite it's quite nice sometimes just to have that in your life.

SPEAKER_04 43:33

Think of Black Orchid Episode 1 for for two hours. Hang in with the regulars.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

I very rarely think of Black Orchid.

SPEAKER_02 43:42

Thinking of large parts of the Hartnell era, to be fair.

SPEAKER_01 43:47

We'll we'll have no bad words said about the William Hartnell era on this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 43:51

I didn't say they were bad, I just said they were low statement.

SPEAKER_01 43:55

Yeah, no fair. Do we have much more we want to say on this story? Uh Ian.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

I think I've said uh all that needs to be said about this story. I feel like we've we've wrung it dry.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

Yeah, there's not huge amounts to say. What about you, Joe Ford? No, just really enjoyable.

SPEAKER_04 44:13

Like uh I was a bit confused in the first hour and I was totally on board in the second hour. Um I would definitely recommend it though. I think a a as a eighth Doctor Charlie and Cariz story, yeah, it's maybe the only one that's fun.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

No, I agree. I think it's it's worth checking out. Just don't set your expectations for Dark Eyes or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 44:34

No, set them far above it. One day. You're coming on to do that one, right?

SPEAKER_01 44:41

Absolutely. So we must rate it. Is it a clanger, a banger, or an average meander?

SPEAKER_02 44:48

It's an average meander from me.

SPEAKER_01 44:50

It's an average meander from me, but from the very top end of the average meander. Oh, the very low end of a banger. Okay. Well, we'll we'll all sort of meet in the middle. Hurrah. The next thing we're going to cover is the Empire of the Wolf. It was a comic from Titan Publishing Group. It was written by Jodie Hauser, with art by Roberta Ingrata. Colourist was Wanira K. Shadiwa, and it was released on 17th of February 2021 to the 9th of February 2022. News at the time. The 13th Doctor's Era had just wrapped up on television. Oh no, the end of Good Doctor Who.

SPEAKER_04 45:34

Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 45:35

The book The Who Adventures, looking at the new adventures, was announced. The news was that the abominable snowman was getting animated. Chris Achilleos had just passed away. A brigadier Bambera would be returning to audio, and Colin Baker would also be playing The War Doctor on audio.

SPEAKER_04 45:53

They were not all desperate, were they?

SPEAKER_01 45:55

Right. Now. I'm about to read a list of what came out over these four months. If anybody needs to go for a 20-minute jog.

SPEAKER_04 46:04

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01 46:05

Here's your time. Let's see how quickly I can get through this. From Big Finish, we had Time Jack still running between two worlds, The Red List, Lost Warriors, Stranded 3, Warbinger, The Grey Mare, The Year of Martha Jones, The Lichwick Abomination, 40 Volume 1, I Chameleon, The Weather on Versimamon, Watchers, Charlotte Pollard, The Further Adventures, K. Dot Point, Peladon, The Slender Fingered Cats of Boop Boobast. Boobastist, The Lone Centurion Volume 2, The Annihilators, Old Friends, Gallifrey War Room, and Sonny. From BBC Audio, we had K9 Audio Annual, The Time Travel Collection, Twelfth Doctor Tales, The Underwater Menace, London 1965, Time and the Rani, The Space Travel Collection, Revenge of the Cybermen. On TV we had Flux, Neve of the Daleks. Games, we had Edge of Reality, The Eternal Mystery. On DVD, we had Flux, and that's it. Let me know what you think of all of those.

SPEAKER_04 46:58

It doesn't surprise me at all that Ian knew precisely how to pronounce the slender fingers of Bubasis. I mean, hello, you just mentioned Flux, the best season of Doctor Whoever.

SPEAKER_05 47:10

Yeah. Uh agreed. Yeah, you Eve of the Daleks, the best New Year's special ever. Uh that's a lot of Doctor Who, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 47:20

That really is too. No wonder people are so intimidated by the Big Finish. I mean, you listed about 30 stories there, didn't you?

SPEAKER_01 47:27

That's over four months. Yeah, but that's a lot. There's more Big Finish there than they release in their first year. That's crazy, man. That is.

SPEAKER_02 47:37

What point in in Big Finish's history did they sort of have more episodes of Doctor Who than the classic era on TV? And now what's the ratio?

SPEAKER_01 47:47

God knows. Ten to one.

unknown 47:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:49

You talk about jumping off points. That was a good jumping off point, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_04 47:53

Yeah. Much like a hapsaw and a blunt pen knife, Big Finish at that point is just a load of noise, in it. Good God. Mind you, I mean, if anything, if there was a pitch for a story that sounded like a big finish, uh Doctor Who's story, well, Dylan, why don't you tell us about Empire of the Wolf?

SPEAKER_01 48:13

The Eighth Doctor encounters a version of Rose Tyler pulled from another universe, drawing him into a wider crisis involving multiple timelines. Meanwhile, the 11th Doctor becomes entangled in the same conflict, which centers on an alternate reality where another Rose has risen to power as the Bad Wolf Empress, ruling a vast and expansive empire. As the Doctors compare notes and attempt to understand the paradox, they uncover that this empire has been built through aggressive interventions across worlds, blurring the line between heroism and conquest. As the story unfolds, the two doctors and the two roses are brought together, their very existence threatening to trigger catastrophic paradoxes. The Empress's advisor, the poor, manipulates events to consolidate control, even as the Doctors try to persuade the Empress to reconsider her methods and halt her Empire's expansion. The resulting clash culminates in a reality-threatening confrontation involving time displays on Tarans, where the paradox energy generated by the meeting of the counterparts become key to resolving the crisis and restoring balance. In the end, the doctors succeed in undoing the worst of the damage and returning those displaced to their proper timelines, averting the collapse of reality itself. So I'd not experienced this before, but it's one that I've wanted to do for a long time. I knew nothing about it apart from the cover, which had Rose on a throne looking like an Empress, which she is, the Eighth Doctor, and the Eleventh Doctor, and this is pitched as an the an Eighth Doctor comic, so it's part of an Eighth Doctor run they do. So he's sort of the main Doctor in it. And because on one hand, it sounds like it could be quite an epic, interesting story that, you know, perhaps perhaps somebody's got that multi-doctor chemistry just right and they're gonna do something interesting. On the other hand, it sounds like a load of old fan wank. So much to my surprise, when I started reading it and realized not only was it a load of old, incomprehensible fanwank, it was one of the dullest comics I've ever fucking read in my entire I don't know how you take these two charming doctors and one of the most successful companions of all time and just make something as shit as this. Baffling, isn't it? Inexcusably bad.

SPEAKER_04 50:42

Have we reached peak desperation with multi-doctor stories now? Everyone's doing it all the time. It's lost its luster, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 50:50

And I have read other Titan, I haven't read loads, but I've done a few little Titan and IDW comics for this, and they are capable of doing good stuff and interesting stuff. Or, you know, sometimes just bog standard Doctor Who, a bit like other lives, and you go, that was nice. I've read those 13th Doctor comics, some of them, and they were all lovely. Not gonna blow your mind, change your life, but Dylan, most of those were written by Jodie Halsey. Well, she's capable of of doing some good writing. So how familiar are we with Titan comics? And I'm presuming none of us have read this before, but Ian Martin, are you a are you a Titan?

SPEAKER_02 51:26

Um I'm aware of them as a a publishing company. Um I've never really dipped into the comics because you know I'm notionally an adult. These I assume are aimed at uh, shall I charitably say, a younger readership or or or the the touched.

SPEAKER_01 51:46

I th I think th I think they're probably aimed at new series fans. Yes. But I would say like over fourteen. If I'm thinking of I went to the Flux Convention, which was a new series convention, and that was a lot of people I would say between eighteen and thirty. And I think it's probably them when they were growing up essentially. The touched? What does that mean?

SPEAKER_06 52:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 52:12

The uh the different. The afflicted. The du the daft kids.

SPEAKER_06 52:16

Uh oh, okay. The dancers.

SPEAKER_02 52:24

I mean, yeah, no, my god. This as an introduction to the work of Titan Crooks, this is this is the words barrier to entry kind of flashing in in red.

SPEAKER_01 52:36

It's a jumping off point. It is.

SPEAKER_02 52:38

It is. We're doing a lot of jumping off today. I worry.

SPEAKER_01 52:43

What a celebration of the Paul McGann era today. Look, there's four or five episodes and there's some great stuff being covered. So Well, why are we covering that, you bust? It can't all be good, can it?

SPEAKER_04 52:55

We're doing the best on my one though, aren't we? Well, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 52:58

Joe Ford, are you a Titan reader?

SPEAKER_04 53:00

No, I was gonna ask you fellas about this, actually, because I only really know the you know the Doc Who magazine comic collections. I went into Forbidden Planet, so I and I thought I'll have a look and see what Titan comics they've got. Buck of me, it was like anyone being confronted with the Big Finish library. This whole wall of shelves, all Titan comics. There's so many of them.

SPEAKER_01 53:20

I was like, where do I even start? So I just didn't. There's so much of it. So much like Big Finish, inevitably there's some good ones in there, but there's also a lot of mirrors. But they must sell, right? They don't print this much material that doesn't sell. IDW had the license for about 10 years and they did shitloads. And then I think Titan took it over in about 2015, 2016. And they do less just because Doctor Who popularity's on the decline slightly, and just merch is selling less in general.

SPEAKER_04 53:52

What was the one everyone was banging on about with all of the different doctors in it? Had every doctor in it, and uh the tenth doctor, I think, was going through each of the different doctors. It was a really big deal.

SPEAKER_01 54:03

Yeah, I mean that is something I'd like to experience. Also, like people out there, if you're like, you guys need to check out this Titan comic or this Titan comic, please let me know because I'd love to do an absolute belter of a Titan comic. But this isn't it. I think Cornell's done some big ones. Me and Richie Morgan, many moons ago, did the one that he does with the third doctor.

SPEAKER_04 54:23

Yeah, that's the one.

SPEAKER_01 54:24

And the second doctor shows up, but it's not the second doctor, it's Salamander. Oh great. It's so well done. Like, it sounds like fanw this sounds like fanwank and is fanwank. That is fanwank, but done so well that you just walk away going, Well, that was fucking great, wasn't it? Anyway. Let's jump in to the empire of the wolf. Do we think it's an alluring concept to sort of get people in?

SPEAKER_02 54:51

It is. It's a great idea. It's just they they didn't do that. The idea of a of the bad wolf taking over the galaxy or the universe and just doing something that the doctor has to oppose. That's a great idea. Because, you know, they're in love, but they're on opposing sides. He's got a reminder of her humanity, she's massacring people in the name of good. There's a huge morality story. It could be brilliant, but but That sounds amazing, Ian. Yeah, that's that's not what this is.

SPEAKER_01 55:25

So in fact, you would be forgiven for thinking that Rose and the Doctor were ever in a relationship. And I know it's different incarnations, one of which doesn't know her, but very particularly the 11th Doctor. I kind of walk away from this going, Did does the 11th Doctor even remember what happened with Rose? They just don't work together at all in any way, shape, or form.

SPEAKER_02 55:46

It's that argument about is each is each doctor a different person, or is it the same soul in a different body each time? Because there is uh you know, there is nothing going on between these two. The doctor's like, yeah, well, I I I've changed. I'm not here. I I know.

SPEAKER_03 56:04

Ian, do you remember the 10th doctor in school reunion creaming his knickers when he saw Sarah Jane? I mean, you can remember the past solely.

SPEAKER_02 56:11

It's it's like, I don't know, it's like they're approaching this inconsistently.

SPEAKER_04 56:16

But also, you've got two of the most relatable, potentially the most funnest doctors, the eighth doctor and the eleventh doctor, right? I mean, I don't see it with the ladder personally, but a lot of people do. Uh Ian. Shut it.

SPEAKER_05 56:32

And they're just so prickly with each other. They're so horrible to each other throughout this whole story and no one's having fun at all.

SPEAKER_01 56:38

Yeah, that's a really bizarre. And I think somebody's watched the Trouton and Pertwin to play and gone, that's how you do it, but that isn't how you do it. Because there's a bit of bickering between 10 and 11 in Day of the Doctor, but very quickly, because it's the two very good, likable actors doing it, it comes across really fun. On this page, it just comes across like completely out of character for both of the doctors. I mean, you've said this many times before, Joe, that quite often the 11th Doctor is a bigger prick than the 12th Doctor, but it's the charm of the performance. He's cuddly, yeah, and he's silly, and there's none of that here. But yeah, here he just comes off like a twat, and I'm like, I wouldn't want to go travelling in time and space with this prick.

SPEAKER_04 57:17

I'm not, I don't believe I'm ever going to say this on a podcast, but you know, I feel maybe we might have been missing Matt Smith's charming performance here. And it was never there in the writing at all. It was just Matt the whole time.

SPEAKER_02 57:29

My favourite panel of the whole thing is is the one where Matt Smith's doing the double finger pointy uh. And I was like, yeah, that's that one panel has captured something of the essence of what I love.

SPEAKER_01 57:43

Let's get into the art very quickly, just because the the likenesses are largely terrible.

SPEAKER_02 57:49

I didn't know there were any likenesses.

SPEAKER_04 57:51

Uh the rose likenesses were.

SPEAKER_02 57:54

Yeah. It's not hard to do a blonde girl. Sometimes they got her passable, sometimes there's one where she, you know, her facial features are like a tiny thing in the middle of this huge skin-coloured turnip head. It's bizarre.

SPEAKER_04 58:10

Not as disturbing as old, I've just sucked 15 sour apples, Paul McGann. Yeah. I mean, what the hell is going on with his face?

SPEAKER_02 58:19

Well, why why are we recycling the same picture about six times in each edition that's clearly based on a publicity photo but with a different haircut? And if they're doing that, can't they just trace it so it looks a bit like the Eighth Doctor as played by Paul McGain?

SPEAKER_04 58:36

There was there was the occasional potent image, like there were some silhouette shots of people around the console, uh black against white, which I thought was really clever, but they reused that three times as well. I was like, oh well, I guess there's only a certain amount of money for the art here.

SPEAKER_02 58:51

It's like they're they're doing it on some kind of software, and they just use AI to duplicate the images as much as they can to save time. If anyone's gonna behave like that, it's Titan.

SPEAKER_01 59:03

Paul McGann has never looked so ugly as he's looked in this. There's parts of it where he's chubby, there's parts of it where he's sour faced, there's parts of it where it looks like he's balding, and it's just like Paul McGann's a pretty man.

SPEAKER_02 59:16

How dare you make Paul McGann ugly? Paul McGann, in the what, the top five most beautiful men ever, surely.

SPEAKER_07 59:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:24

Right? So this is like some kind of work of almost terrorism, maybe.

SPEAKER_06 59:29

It's like someone someone hates him.

SPEAKER_04 59:31

Yeah. It's very I don't know what publicity pictures are. Is it the is it the dark eyes ones? Where are they getting these pictures from?

SPEAKER_02 59:39

I think I I recognise some of them, the posture, it's just the EDAs, it's like stills from the TV movie.

SPEAKER_01 59:47

Yeah. Do you remember when you could first do AI art online about three or four years ago, and it always looked really skew if and weird? That's what every Paul McGann looks like in this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:57

But as well, and I'm no expert at this, so how the panels were set out on the page, right? Occasionally it was really imaginative, and they were sort of telling a narrative on a page, and you were getting glimpses into Rose's life and things like that, with like a star field behind, and it was really interesting to look at. Most of the time it was just boring bricks, you know? One to one to one, one to one to one. I was like, oh, jazz is up a bit. You're supposed to be telling uh, you know, a story across dimensions, all these different wars and uh no, yeah, not good.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:29

Yeah, it it all feels quite workman-like in terms of like we've got to churn out six issues or four issues, or whatever it is, of Doctor Who, and we've got to tell this story, we've got to churn out an issue every month and just get it out, get it out there, it doesn't matter what it looks like, these these fools will buy anything.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:46

Do you know what I wish? I wish they would take the Amber Sand symbol off the keyboard. Right? Especially for big Finnish writers and clearly for Titan writers as well, yeah? Because one and isn't enough. The Metacrisis Doctor and Rose, and an evil alternative Rose, and the Eighth Doctor, and the Eleventh Doctor, and the Santarans. Fucking hell.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:13

What do we think about Rose? So the the one Rose is our Rose trapped in the alternative universe, like the the main timeline Rose. Do we think it's a good idea to tell more stories with her? Because we see her home life, she's got a kid, she's married to the doctor's weird clone brother thing. Do we want more stories there?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:33

I don't personally. I feel like if you're gonna tell more stories with that character, because we know we can picture in our heads, there's probably a lot of people who've written a lot of fan fiction about the kind of nice, blissful domestic life of Rose and ten and a half.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:50

Be very careful what you're Googling. There's images as well, all right?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:54

Oh, really? Full frontal. Just don't go on deviant art, Ian or I'm just deviant art. I'm just gonna drop out of the call for half an hour. Turn your turn the sound off, it's gonna be unpleasant. Yeah, no, I I love the idea of Rose coming back. If the character's moved on and we're doing something new with the character. Like if she had become this kind of, you know, empress, uh, a huge powerful figure who was kind of trying to dominate the universe for for what she thought of was good. I think that would have made perfect sense. But just doing this felt a bit five doctors, you know. It's like, oh, here's me making a cup of tea. Oh, a little black triangles whisk me away to a field in Wales, alright.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:37

It makes it less definite, doesn't it? It needs to be a bigger event, and I feel like somebody in Cardiff should be going, no, don't do that. We can save that. If we're gonna do it, we'll do it another time.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:48

I wanted to see more of Rose, because I listened to the Rose Tyler Dimension Canon, big finish audios, and they're great. They're really, really fun. And a great use of Billy Piper as well. So I don't really want to see more of her um as the doctor though, so I won't be watching any more Doctor Who on TV. Um, but this one, not really. She got a happy ending, right? Wasn't that the point? A happy ending.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:12

Not a happy beginning.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:14

And I think Big Finish were quite clever when they did Dimension Canon. It's set in between her return in Journey's End, isn't it? So it's all leading to that moment. So you get a bit of that alternative universe Rose, but it's before she's got Alternative Doctor. Uh, and it's like it just all ties in quite nicely. But yeah, like there is probably a story to be told in there somewhere, but a very good writer would have to do it. But I don't know what it is. But also, as well, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:40

The the the whole Empire of the Wolf thing, yeah, it's so ill-formed, it's so underexplored and completely not motivated at all. I just didn't understand why she had done this, what she was trying to achieve. Like it it's such a it's such a comic book idea, it's a visual idea, and they've just gone, well, it's fun, we'll go with it.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:03

Yeah. What she's done, and you clearly didn't read it properly. So read it again. Tell me she's Empress because she's got a big throne and she's got a little robot gentleman who looks a bit like Marvin from the Hitchhiken movie. Um and um Is that it? That's all I've got for now. Give me, give me, I'll just I'll just double check. Yeah, it had the visual trappings of a story, but it didn't have the kind of underpinnings of of sequential events that follow uh in a logical way.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:37

You want to talk sequential events? That first installment. I mean, it took me three days to go back to the second installment because it was literally like I'm with the eighth doctor, I'm with the eleventh doctor, Rose is meeting the Santaras, Rose is with the Metacrisis doctor.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:51

I'm like, whose story is this? I'm so confused, what am I reading?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:56

Yeah. If you're selling this as an eighth doctor story, then you need to tell the story from the point of view of the eighth doctor. Yeah. Yeah. And it's it should be him discovering these things in real time, not jumping around between them. Can I say something a bit unkind? Yeah, oh well, we've been so lovely so far.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:14

You may cut this out though, once I'll say it. You didn't have to tell me this was written by a woman. I knew. I knew this was written by a woman because it it felt like the wish fulfilment of somebody that absolutely loves Rose Tyler and wants to explore the romance angle, wants to explore the idea of her as this great, you know, warmongerer and and her greater good and humanity ultimately, and have her hang out with two different doctors as well. And I just I just knew. When I googled it afterwards, I was like, yeah, I was right.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:50

I don't necessarily think it's about being a woman, but I think it is the wish fulfillment of fans of that age who grew up on it and have gone, I just want to know what happened. Don't get me wrong. If this was written by a man, it would have just been rose in loincloths. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I think Star Wars has taught us that sometimes you can hear about something and really want to know what happens, but when you actually see it happen, it perhaps doesn't deliver. I don't know. What are you talking about there?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:14

Which of the prequel trilogy are you honing in on there? Or is it the last trilogy?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:20

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:21

I absolutely adore that pod race. Leave it alone. Yeah, pod race was fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:25

Yeah, pod race is fun. So there's also lots of like the visuals of the Empire are quite good, and we do get a moment where the the 11th Doctor goes, oh, and you know, you liberated this planet, but now it's got slaves, and oh, it's all gone slightly wrong. And it's one of those irresistible big ideas that you can do in comics quite easily. But there's just there's not enough exploration of it. Like, what would have been a better comic is the Eighth Doctor going to this dystopian future and hearing about the overlord or whatever, like Doctor Who often does, and the end of the comic, it's revealed, oh, it's it's this alternative rose.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:00

Yeah, end of end of part three. That's your drop your bacon sandwich moment.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:05

Exactly. But so obvious, though, isn't it? I'm gonna read the line here of what you're saying, and Dylan, you'll recognise this because I say this to you frequently when you come to my house. He says, if you're not careful and if you're not watching, the whole cycle of suffering will start all over again. Well, yes, if you become a warmonger and tyrant, that is a possibility, yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:30

So can I tell you my sort of single main essential problem with this? Please do. Why is this an AIDS Doctor story? Why are we doing that? Why isn't it Eccleston? Because the people reading this have watched New Who and they they're invested in New Who, but they don't know who Paul McGann is. Paul McGann's doctor brings nothing to this story. It should have been Eccleston.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:57

Yeah, that does make sense.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:58

Well, it means you've got to establish her relationship with the eighth doctor and then her relationship with the 11th. But it's like, okay, so none of these actually have any emotional weight because she doesn't have existing relationships with either of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:11

Yeah, the problem is if it was the ninth doctor and the tenth doctor, they'd just spit roaster for four episodes, so you know, it can't be done. I'd read that.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:22

You say read, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:25

I'll take it in. I'd absorb that content. I'd ingest that content. God, can you imagine Christopher Eccleston's O face? Oh my god. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:40

I've lost my training thoughts.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:43

Have you guys ever experienced temporal fluidity?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:47

Only after a lot of lager.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:51

That's why I couldn't make your podcast the other week, Joe. I had a bit of the temporal fluids. Oh, really?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:57

That's not what I told everyone. So I mean, the ultimate, the end of this story is two temporal fluidities, one st unstable one cancelling out a stable one or something. And the whole universe just goes back to normal again.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:11

I was like, okay. This big event that was big enough to bring two doctors together and 16 roses or whatever, just it just seemed to be solved like that. And I just I was just like, oh, this is just even more inconsequential than it's it started out with. But at least the Santarans are there, eh? Why are they there? They don't do anything, they just turn up and march and then vanish again. Yeah. But to the point that when they do show up at the end, I was like, I'd forgotten the Santarans are in this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:41

Yeah. And and and you're kind of pleased to see them because at least they've got some kind of bearing on the story and and they are an enjoyable presence, whereas everyone else is like phoning it in. And they're not even them, they're just being drawn.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:56

The characters in the comic are phoning it in, you know?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:59

Do you know the only thing that's more annoying than an incomprehensible technobabble ending like this is when they hang a lantern on an incomprehensible technobabble ending, and to have Rose say, if anyone can make this complete and utter nonsense work, it's him. And that's supposed to be enough for us to buy into this bullshit.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:20

That's that's a writer saying Yeah, exactly. But it's a very confident. That's a writer at 3 a.m. going right. And then and then, right, there's this thing, and it resets the universe. I don't know why I'm I've become Keith Richards.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:39

You guys not confused though, how this didn't end up as a once and future script from Big Finish. I mean, it's right up there street, this isn't it.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:47

I mean, I never got that far with Once and Future. I managed 10 minutes of the first story and ten minutes of the last.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:52

Loads of different doctors and companions coming together, you know, Fan Wank and uh one alien monster from the classic series. And they're all over that shit at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:01

It's just not what you want, is it?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:03

That's just So I I'm curious, because for years spin-off media tended to err on the side of caution with multi-doctor stories, and quite rightly so, I think. Now, do we think it's just a case of the more doctors you put on the front cover, the more it's gonna sell? Are we j is that just where we are?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:23

Yes. Doctors and Daleks, I think, sell, which is why they both lost interest a long time ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:32

It's sad because I do like a multi-doctor story. There are two ways of doing it. I think it's either gotta be a massive event or they just sort of bump into each other. But you need to get out of the way very quickly that oh, we're the same, but we're different, and just get on and have a reason for them both to be there, because having two of the same character in anything, it's a lot of writing to get right, and I just don't think a lot of writers of spin-off material are able to do that. And it just weakens the brand for me.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:06

Each era of the news series did it once, and RTD one didn't even do a multi-doctor story, they did a multi-companion story, and that was The Stolen Earth. And it was so exciting when they all came together. There was two doctors in it, but it was two of the same doctor. Well, same one from this, isn't it? And then Day of the Doctor, that felt special because we hadn't done it since then, and then Power of the Doctor, because we hadn't done it since then. So it was what? Twice upon a time. Oh, yes, I forgot. Well that that was so unmemorable. No one remembers that one.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:35

I don't particularly like it, but it's it's a worthy thing to do to get these two iterations of the doctor that are so far apart. I don't think it quite worked how I would like to put it to have worked, but two old farts pondering death for an hour.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:49

The kids are absolutely gripped. But you know what I'm saying, though, that ekes it out. Whereas Titan, may I very quickly just tell you a little bit about Josie Howser's other output? Yeah, please do. So she does the doom story with Missy and the 12th Master. She does the Call Me Master big finish audio with the Master and his Sontaran companion, Veg. That's his name. She does the master plan with Missy, the 12th Doctor, the Third Doctor, River, Joe Brunt, Benton, the Symaster, the Eighth Doctor, Dorian Maldivar, Grace Holloway, and Clara. She writes Old Friends with 13th Doctor and the Sixth Corsair.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:27

Oh, I've read that. That's good. Still fan wag.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:30

A little bit from my friends. Which is the 13th Doctor Yaz, the 10th Doctor Martha, and the Nestines. So they're doing a lot of this.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:39

Oh, Christ, I don't want to read any of that. No, our comics getting the rights to use Grace Holloway and Big Finish still can't.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:48

Well, they probably just use her likeness, but they can give her a name.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:51

No, but you said it, you said it was Grace.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:53

That's what that's what Wiki titled means. Uh, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:56

I maintain that her work on the 13th Doctor that I've read was good, but that's because she's just writing for one doctor having an adventure. And I think when you like, I feel sorry for a writer, because I don't know whether she's pitching these or whether the company are going, we need to cram all these elements in. Like, who knows where the shopping list comes from? But certainly in Old Friends that I read, it was a lovely story that she'd managed to put together because it was just a a fun bit of Doctor Who. But here, I'm just like, if I'd had read this, just this, I would have gone, I don't need to read anything more by her. But I've I've I know she can do good shit.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:36

That's where I'm at with Titan Comics. I'm like, well, they're all gonna be like this.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:40

And let me just confirm something. They they expect people to pay money for this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:47

Yes. Well, we all bought it with our hands. We did, yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:53

But you know, when it all comes down to two versions of Rose Tyler kicking the shit out of an army, this is just wishful fulfillment. It's not a story. It's just, oh, I'd love to see that happen.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:06

It's like when you're six and you're trying to play Star Wars with your Star Wars figures. Yeah, it's it's Muffin's. A few set pieces, yeah. You know, it's like, oh, but now we'll do the trash compactor and what's the one with Moffat and his figures? In the five doctors. Yeah. I've got you now, Doctor. Pew pew pew. It's that. It's just it's just it's just a bit of play. It's just a bit of nonsense. And it actually angers and offends me that this exists and people are being paid money for this.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:35

Well, no, I it I it's annoying because they think they're ticking boxes that we want. Yeah. And it annoys me more that I think they're succeeding with a certain corner of fandom.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:46

But that list you just read out of all the all these other crossovers, I was just sitting here curdling thinking. I would I would literally rather contract an inflammation of the foreskin than have to read, listen to whatever, any of that shit. You got why are we having Riversong meeting Benton? Fuck off. Ian, don't approach Wants the Future then, for your soul's sake. I absolutely will not do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:12

For this month run, I've done a lot of Eighth Doctor, and I've just done Children of the Revolution, the comic the Eighth Doctor comic strip, with the Daleks from um Evil of the Daleks, which is fanwang, but it's done so well and it's so accessible. If you gave that to a new fan, all they need to know, it's all in there that you don't even have to tell them that the companion's been turned into a fish because they cover it in the story. They've got a flashback to evil, so you know exactly what it is. This is you're a fan, you'll love this because we've crossed these elements together. Is that the one where they're all underwater?

SPEAKER_04 1:16:48

Sure. Oh my god, that's amazingly good.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:51

It's brilliant.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:52

Artwork is phenomenal.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:54

Why the hell didn't we do that? Instead of this shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:58

But let me let me just circle back though, because I there's something good in every Doctor Who's story, is has been said. And in this, I really like the character of DePow. I thought he was he was lovely. It's like the little short man. Yeah. Yeah. Lovely little gentleman.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:16

He was the least offensive part of it, sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:18

That's probably what I mean.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:20

And he was a brand new element, so I think it was just nice to have a generic sci-fi body in there who turned out to be a bit of a scheming evil prick.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:29

You know what the the most offensive thing about this was was this line. I literally wanted to throw my phone across the room. I was the bad wolf, actually. I'm the mum of a teenager. I was like, oh god almighty. There are so many ways you can do girp in Doctor Who, but this is not one of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:52

Catherine Tate could have got away with that line, but I think Billy Piper could have got away with it if she delivered it herself.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:58

Maybe.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:59

Because a lot of Doctor Who actors spend a lot of time polishing turds, you know, in terms of like one of the greatest skills the actor playing the Doctor has to have is to be able to reel off sci-fi bollocks and make it sound convincing and fun. And the same to is said to the companions for a lesser extent, and they all have those little moments, but you're really lacking having the actual characters here saying these things that these lines just don't pop in the way they should.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:29

And also, if if Rose is the mother of a teenage daughter, then Rose is like what 40 odd? Yeah. There's no there's no attempt to depict that in what is a visual medium. They don't draw her.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:41

No, she doesn't look any older, does she? Yes, she's got a kid who's like 14.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:48

But also, nobody's got any lines on their faces at all, anyway.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:51

So it's like, well, evil Rose has got a big line on her face, and she's a big Nicholas Courtney S scar to prove she's from an alternative universe. Evil Rose, though, I would be on board for that. You are right, though, Dylan. Tiny diversion. I never I'll never forget reading that little bit of script mark, God for Power of the Doctor, when it was filmed there. And there was a an exposition bit where Jodie comes in the room and is reeling off all this stuff about the quarrents and the master doing this, and I was reading it on the page going, no actor in this planet will be able to make that, would sell that material. Then I saw Jodie come in and it just ran off her tongue like honey. And I was like, uh, you cannot underestimate what actors bring.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:36

Yeah, absolutely. And Jodie is particularly good at that. And so is Paul McGahn. We're here to sing the praises of Paul McGann ultimately.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:42

In fact, I think all of those new series doctors they they've got that just about right.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:48

Do we have anything else we want to say on this masterpiece?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:51

Plenty, but you couldn't broadcast it.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:54

Uh no. I just uh I'd like to see further adventures of the evil warmonger in midgets, but that's about it. Beyond that, no. Oh, which is just terrible.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:08

I did have a a note. Uh this is so bad, I wrote, it puts me in mind of the reality war. In terms of just steady on steady slapping things together to try and force them into a story and failing.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:25

Absolutely, absolutely. It was fucking dreadful from start to finish.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:29

Should we rate it? See see what we're doing. Happy anniversary, Paul McGann!

SPEAKER_01 1:20:37

This was the most clangiest of clanger. It was it's right at the bottom in the dregs of the things we've got. I'd rather watch Doctor Screw again than read this. What about you, Ian?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:48

Well, it goes without saying that I'd rather watch Doctor Screw than do. Do pretty much anything. But yeah, I think in all the expanded universe stuff featuring the Eighth Doctor, who is still in my top three doctors, this does nothing to further his cause. I don't think it's an Eighth Doctor story. I think that he doesn't belong in the story, he's not really depicted in this story. It's just ghastly. And I think if you imagine a subterranean crypt, and beneath that there's like a weird rock formation of a cavern with a little stream going through it, and at the end of the stream there's this chasm leading down to almost the centre of the earth, as deep as the Marianna Trench. Underneath that, in the very core of the earth, you can hear the clanging of a very big clanger bell. This for me, therefore, goth clang.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:47

I can feel the reverberations from here.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:50

Me too. Joe Ford?

SPEAKER_04 1:21:52

Do you remember the comic Aro Ouroboros? Yes. The from the Eighth Doctor range? Man, oh man, Paul McGann was drawn so beautifully, and it's top-off in that. I mean, my version of that graphic novel is practically cardboard now. It's so beautiful. And then I look at the artwork of this and I think to myself, how could you possibly make Paul McGann look that bad? I mean, Jesus Christ. No, it's a clanger, but uh Ian Diglan, it's not the clangiest clanger because simply for the time commitment of us listening to that Bill Baggs Red book, I got through this very quickly in comparison. That is fair. It's only just the second worst thing we've ever covered.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:38

Well, happy 30 years, Paul McCann. Joe Ford, if people want to find you, where can they find you?

SPEAKER_04 1:22:47

Well, why don't they hopped straight over to a habit of blood pen dive where they'll hear us talking and extolling the virtues or otherwise of the TV movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:56

Excellent. Ian Martin, anything to push? Anything to peddle?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:00

Uh listen to the electric sodcast for Christ's sake, people. Um also there's something on Spotify called Quantum Spice Crisis. That might be worth a listen as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:11

Excellent. I'll be back next week, where I'll be joined by assorted members of Strangers in Space, and we'll be talking about the audio The Doctor and Pacini by Matthew Jacobs, and looking at Matthew Jacobs documentary, Doctor Who Am I?

SPEAKER_04 1:23:28

Much more exciting material, but much duller guests. Things are about right.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:35

Until next time, I've been Dylan. I've been Joe. And I've been Ian. And this has been Doctor Who Too Hot for TV. While you lick the lid of your drink or whatever you were doing then? Um sorry, yeah. Lid licker, eh?

SPEAKER_02 1:24:30

I've we'll have none of that here.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:34

Um TV. Uh how's everybody doing? Do we need to have a wee, a drink, a poo, a wank? Anything like that? A wank! How long do you think that takes?

SPEAKER_04 1:24:48

Yeah, that's about six hours, right? Just extract a few more belts. I don't want you to have the crackling sounds anything. Oh there we go.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:55

You know how to extract a belt.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:57

Shall we do, buddy?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:00

So shall we do it then? Shall we step into the Empire of the Wolf?