You're listening to a podcast of spurious morality.
Hello and welcome to a podcast of spurious morality.
I'm Johnston and I've got Mansour back with me
this week. Hello, Mansour. Hello. So we missed
you last week. I had a good chat with Greg about
The Well, though, and I will sort of get your
take on it later on. But we're mainly here to
talk about Lucky Day, which is obviously the...
The latest episode of Doctor Who. It's a Doctor
Light episode, but I quite like what they did
with this Doctor Light episode. We didn't have
much Doctor, but we brought Ruby back. It was
good to see Ruby again. And we also got to spend
a bit more time with Unit, which I was quite
happy about. I really think we do need to see
more of this Unit. We've talked about how reduced
episode count means things are feeling a bit
rushed. I think Unit's one of those things. Unit
has a big tower now, and there's a thing there
called the Blinks, which seems to run away like
a king of Monty Python whenever danger appears.
We've been introduced to a lot of Unit characters
and sort of seen them once or twice, and then
they've trotted off, so it's good for them to
come back. So just generally, I quite liked the
fact that this just did a few things that I've
kind of wanted to see for a little bit. So yeah,
I quite liked Lucky Day and it did some interesting
things. It was an interesting use of the Doctor
Light sort of format that we got in the first
Russell T Davies and we got a couple of the last
series. And I think this did something quite
clever. It was sort of setting itself up to be
a bit Love and Monsters -y. And then completely
turned that on its head halfway through. And
I quite liked how it did that. You know, I was
sort of settling in going, oh, here we go. When's
Peter Kay going to turn up or whatever? And then
it totally went off in a different direction
and not necessarily won. I was not going to say
I wasn't expecting it. Like I'd spotted that
Conrad was a wrong gun, as I'm sure most people
watching it had. But it was just kind of interesting
to see. where it went. So yeah, good to catch
up with Ruby, good to catch up with Unit. And
I quite liked the concept of dealing with units
in the age of the internet and the conspiracy
theorists and the sort of terrible sort of people
that Conrad was one of. What was your take on
it, Mansoor? Yeah, I really liked it for all
those reasons. I think, like you said, making
a virtue of the Dr. Light aspect, making that
part of the plot in the way that Love and Monsters
did as well. I think it's an interesting contrast
or companion piece to a few things. So, yeah,
there's the contrast between Elton in Love and
Monsters and then Conrad, because you see these
two characters, like I say, start out on a journey
that looks very similar and then... the big reveal
shows you that, no, that these are very different
people who react to similar situations in very
different ways. And also, like, a nice companion
piece in terms of just tone and, like, the focus
on Ruby, it kind of connects quite well, I think,
to 73 Yards. I think, did they have a director
in common? They had something else in common
besides focusing on Ruby. There was something.
behind the scenes, I think. I might have been
directing or I might have been misremembering.
But yeah, I think it works quite well as a little
companion piece to that. There's a little mention
of Albion as well, the political party from 73
Yards. If there was anything... There weren't
any major issues with it for me. there were some
things that I've seen commented on that I'd agree
with around pacing and I feel like that's a bit
of a thing for this season or even era of Doctor
Who in general that sometimes in an effort to
like trim all the fat and just zip through it
and you know hold everyone's attention it sometimes
goes a little bit too fast and there's It's not
like loads, but I just feel like a lot of these
episodes would benefit from an extra five or
ten minutes just to flesh out a couple of aspects.
Yeah, I don't know what you thought about or
what you think about this era in general in terms
of things like pacing. I have to admit with this
one, I did feel as though the whole the internet
is against Ruby and Unity thing kind of passed
by too quickly. They could have really done something
with that. Having the internet or a bunch of
right -wing conspiracy theorists or whatever
turn on you must be an extremely nasty experience,
and I feel as though we didn't quite get as much
of that as we could. Yeah, and I feel like in
RTD1 we would have done. I feel like in RTD1
there would have been a scene intercut to show
something. I know there were a few little intercut...
Were there a couple of intercut TV things? It
was like Trinity Wells and... I love that Trinity
Wells is like a proper right -wing American broadcaster.
Yeah, so it wasn't just like... In the giggle,
it wasn't just the Z -dex or the giggle that
was affecting her. It seems like she has those
sort of leanings anyway. Yes. That's an interesting
contrast as well, because I think part of the
point of the giggle was, if I'm remembering right,
wasn't it that it was bringing to the surface
the sort of unpleasant things that people have,
like the sort of unconscious racism or unconscious
bias that people might have, even if they're
quite liberal or right -minded on the surface,
they might have these socially ingrained prejudices
that the giggle was releasing. Yeah, and this
was, like, different. This wasn't about any sort
of mind control. It was just, like, very human,
very unpleasantly real and relevant contemporary
things that we see today. Yes, absolutely. But,
yeah, I mean, I agree not just this episode.
I agree with you overall that we're... Some things
are moving a little bit too quickly. I'd like
us to spend time on things. I genuinely thought
this episode had the mileage to be a two -parter.
Yeah, easily. There was definitely room for the
story to be stretched out a little bit. But yeah,
I enjoyed it, and I agree with you. Things moved
a little too quickly. You know, rubies. Ruby's
relationship with Conrad kind of happened too
quickly. It was kind of like they went out for
dinner then all of a sudden, oh, five dates now
and then, you know, this kind of thing. We very
rarely get like director's cuts of episodes.
We get like deleted scenes sometimes separately
on DVD. But I'd be really curious with especially
this era, what it would look like if some of
the cut scenes were put back in. Yeah. Yeah,
what that would do to the pacing. Because I don't
know if all of it made it to being filmed, but
there's bits of script that have been released
with this era that kind of give a little bit
extra detail here and there on bits and pieces.
Yeah, it'd be interesting to see sort of what
there is for this one. It'd be a good one for
novelisation. Yeah, is that on the list? I can't
remember now. I think it's Empire of Death, Robot
Revolution and The Well. Was it? I'm not sure
if it is. I can't remember off the top of my
head at all. But yeah, I think this could benefit
with a bit of fleshing out. Maybe it'll be fleshed
out a bit in The War Between the Land and Sea
because it was obviously a bit of set up. Yeah,
some kind of backdoor pilot setup type idea thing.
And I hope perhaps we do get to deal with unit
in the world of social media a little bit more
when that comes along. But we'll discuss that
more in a moment. Because it's not wrapped up
entirely neatly at the end, is it? Like Geneva's
unhappy with the way Kate acted. Yes, that hashtag
thing seems to wrap up. quite conveniently where
everyone's suddenly on unit side but that could
be a very temporary fickle thing and it could
it could be that there is now in the air some
questioning or debate about unit and what they
do yeah it's um yeah i think there needs to be
that sort of that gray area um you know they're
a big international organization with a huge
tower and everyone seems to know what they do
so People are going to have opinions about that
and those opinions are going to sway things.
So hopefully, yeah, we get a little bit more
of that. I like that. I like looking into, you
know, social media and that kind of thing. I
like it when Doctor Who does that and I don't
think it sort of has pushed far enough a lot
of the time. So I think this is a good opportunity
to kind of do that. So obviously the big thing
was it was a Ruby episode. Like, the Doctor's
hardly in it, Belinda's in it even less, but
Ruby definitely took centre stage and it was
very much what has Ruby been doing since we left
her behind. And it turns out she's been not doing
a very good job of letting go of the Doctor and
she's maybe a little bit PTSD with the whole
thing. And... But it's good that we're revisiting
her. I'm glad that we are revisiting Ruby because
I've said quite a few times I thought the way
she was left was a little bit abrupt and definitely
served the plot more than served anything else.
Or served the series, I should say, more than
anything else. So we've got Ruby back. She's
grown up a little bit, which I think is good.
She's... Still quite vulnerable, and that did
come across a few times in that series. She's
a strong character, but she does have her vulnerabilities,
and that's still there and present. But yeah,
she's sort of in her post -doctor life, with
her two mums and all that kind of thing. She's
a little bit more grown up, and she's dealing
with things, dealing with the world differently.
One thing I couldn't quite work out was what
her relationship with Unit was. Like, was she
working for Unit? Because if she was, I don't
think she'd be doing a podcast about Unit. But
also she's got Kate on speed dial and can seem
to wander in and out of HQ at will. I feel like
it was maybe Kate has tried to recruit her and
she said no. I didn't get the feeling. I felt
like they were in touch, but that she wasn't
working there. But Kate definitely seemed very,
very protective of her towards the end, especially.
I quite like this whole unit is there to look
after previous companions of the Doctor thing.
But, you know, it's a route to bring other past
companions back, I guess. It's, you know, we've
got Mel working for unit and, you know, we've
already had Ace and Tegan. Yeah, and was it Mel
and someone else got a mention being busy off
screen somewhere? Yes, I caught Mel, I didn't
catch anybody else. It might have just been Mel,
but they were just nodding to the fact that there
are these other people who are still working
here, but they're not going to be in every episode
because they're big stars we can't get for every
single appearance. There's definitely a sense
of whoever's free this week. Isn't there? Yeah,
well, Shirley is just quietly slotted back in.
There wasn't any mention of one of the child
labour people. Was it Morris? Yeah, Morris or
Rose. Yeah, both. Maybe there'd been some legal
action and they've had to stop doing that. Maybe
Geneva didn't like that either. I've no idea.
I'm fine with Unit having a rotating group of
regulars. It did that in the classic series.
Benton wasn't there every story. Mike Yates wasn't
there every story. I can deal with that. Threats
can come in 24 hours a day, so it makes sense
that they wouldn't all be on call at the same
time. There's a slightly odd thing with Star
Trek is that the bridge crew are always... around
and on call when a crisis is happening. It's
a bit more realistic. It's actually more realistic
this way to have like a rotating set of staff
coming in and out. Yeah, it's never like a nighttime
crew of like not very good Starfleet officers.
Yeah, so it's, yeah, it's just sort of good to
see that units are sort of actively seeking out
past friends of the Doctor. At least looking
after them. But yeah, I think that sort of the
whole Unit After Dark and the way Unit was, and
it is setting up for a spin -off series, obviously.
I still want to know what the hell the Vlinx
is. Like, it's a cool idea, but what is it? Why
is it there? Whose fault is it? Yeah, I did think
of Bracer Robin when... He disappeared because
it felt like because he's built into the set,
they wrote the script and there weren't any lines
for him and there wasn't anything for him to
do. And then they realised that they had to get
him out. So there was just like a line inserted
to kind of like when K -9 would break down and
conveniently not be like trundling along on uneven
terrain. Yeah, when his batteries needed recharging.
But it was very much just run away, run away.
Because when he said that, I assumed that everyone
would be evacuating. He was triggering some evacuation
protocol for all of them to keep them all safe.
But no, everyone else was just there still and
he'd gone. Yeah, I want to know what he's about.
Like I say, it's a cool idea. I'm sure it's going
to sell. action figures, trading cards, whatever
it needs to do. It keeps Nick Briggs in the studio
for them when obviously we're not getting much
happening with the Daleks. But what is it? Why
have you, Nick, got an alien computer robot droid
thingy? And again, if we're answering this in
a spin -off series, let's do that. I'm okay with
that. Yeah, it was just kind of, I mean, the
nearest thing I can compare it to is Mr. Smith
in the Sarah Jane Adventures. And we got a whole
storyline about where Mr. Smith came from and
actually he was a bit of a wronger than working
with the Slitheen and all of that. And like,
okay, is the Vlynx doing that? Because I'm not
getting anything sinister from it at all. I'm
getting runaway runaway, but I'm not getting
sinister. Whereas Mr. Smith was kind of dropping
I'm slightly sinister hints all the way through
that first series of Sarah Jane. I thought about
Mr. Smith and whether it would be that kind of
surprise reveal. But then that made me also think,
OK, maybe the reason they got rid of him in this
episode was also a tonal thing. If they are trying
to engage with more real world politics and have
a unit take a darker turn and have Kate enter
this morally grey area. Maybe just the flinks
sitting in the corner, just his whole vibe just
doesn't fit with that sort of time. I wonder
if they created him and thought, oh, this is
a cool thing that can sit in the corner of the
building, and then went, ah, we've written ourselves
into a corner here. I hope it goes somewhere.
I hope that it isn't just the computer that sits
in the corner. I hope there's something to it.
I hope we get an explanation. If they're waiting
until the war between the land and sea to give
us that, it is stretching it a bit because presumably
unit's going to show up again later in this series
because we know that we've got Mel coming back
at some point. Presumably that's linked to unit.
So it's fair to say we've got more. I mean, I'm
assuming it's fair to say we've got more Ruby
as well. Yeah, it didn't feel like this. It would
feel like quite a downbeat note to end her character
on. Just for that, I feel like we're going to
see her again. Last time we spoke about it a
couple of weeks ago, I sort of said, I want her
in the TARDIS. Like, I want the Doctor and Belinda
and Ruby as a TARDIS team. Yeah, they haven't
met as well. I feel like that's something they
would want. Yeah, because we were kind of speculating,
like, how's this going to work? Is it going to
be like a... a doctor's daughter kind of deal
with Martha and Donna. But actually, they've
not met. Ruby's just had a separate adventure.
So I still want that to happen. And I do want
to see sort of a three -character dynamic in
the TARDIS between them. And that's kind of what
the press release about Belinda implied. So I
want to know what's... what's going on there
I'm assuming they're just going to meet up in
the finale and it's cool but I feel that maybe
we've missed an opportunity if that's not the
case perhaps but yeah it was a good episode even
if I've heard a few people say and I struggle
to disagree with this actually some people have
said it's kind of a bit directionless And I think
it just seems like that at the moment. I think
it's actually very significant in terms of setting
up a spin -off series, but it didn't quite lead
into a spin -off series, did it? It was a Doctor
Who episode that did its own thing. And I think
I'd have maybe preferred a more direct link.
Maybe in retrospect it will be, because I think
there were comments from Pete McTighe or Russell
T Davies about it. setting up some stuff. That's
probably because you don't want it to be like
a really conspicuous backdoor pilot. It should
be something that fits in the main series without
standing out too much. Look at how they introduced
Torchwood in series two. We knew that Torchwood
was coming. They actually announced Torchwood.
They announced it was a series called Torchwood
and then they started dropping to Torchwood into
Doctor Who, which then built up to Army of Ghosts
and Doomsday. And that kind of did its own thing,
but firmly established what Torchwood was. And
then we got to spin off into Torchwood, which
was quite different from it actually, but nevertheless.
I thought that was really well handled. It's
not about Door Pilot, but it's linking Torchwood
to Doctor Who. In a quite inventive way. Yeah.
They never told us what Torchwood was, if I remember
correctly. They went, Doctor Who's getting a
spin -off series, it's called Torchwood. And
then we didn't know what Torchwood was and had
to find out what Torchwood was via the series.
Yeah, so even though it was that early Russell
T Davies thing of the arc is just a word that's
repeated, it had that additional... and weight
to it. Ruby's not been announced as being in
the spinoff, is she? Because I'm wondering if
that could be where her character continues as
well. She's certainly not among the regulars,
or not announced among the regulars, I should
say. Yeah, there was like a cast photo, I think,
put out, and she wasn't part of that group. But
it hasn't actually got much of the new unit team
either. In fact, is it just Kate? And Ibrahim
as well, I think. Yes, yes, Tish, you're right.
But there's no Morris, there's no Shirley, there's
no Rose, there's no Donna supposedly working
for them. I feel like some of them must turn
up, even if it's like cameos. Yeah, guest appearances.
I'd be very surprised if not, but I mean, we
don't know much about it really, do we? Is it
just that initial announcement? Is that it? It's
confirmed to be about sea devils, and I don't
know if there is much more beyond that. The other
new actors, I don't think we even know who they're
playing, do we? No, I don't think so. Oh, isn't
the general from Children of Earth back? I can't
remember the actor's name, which is really bad.
Yeah. Well, it might be same actor, it might
be same character, we don't know. But I can't
remember the actor's name and that's really bad.
I can name you like 30 big finishes that he's
in. I did see something from Russell T Davies
saying that in terms of where it will be pitched,
because this is what I was curious about, it's
not going to be as old as Torch was aimed, but
it's going to be older than the main show. So
it's going to be a little bit more grown up.
I think Torchwood was aimed at about 13, 14.
At least initially. Yeah, I think it's like,
yeah, Torchwood is very much like the new adventure
novels. Like when they started, I think in both
series, they were just very overexcited about
what they could do. Yes. And just like throw
in as many swears. It's like, we can say the
F word, so let's say the F word. And then they
realised, okay, we actually have to think about.
storytelling and character and they both improved
a lot as they went on we need to be grown up
what's grown up sex is grown up I know alien
sex gas can you imagine just like being a fly
on the wall at those initial pitchings yeah well
yeah Higher than the main show, but not quite
as high as Torchwood. I'm happy with that. That
can work. And it leans into sort of being a space
where we can discuss all the social media stuff
that I was on about before as well. Yeah, because
I think this episode, coming back to Lucky Day,
just in terms of the themes it's dealing with,
this was probably skewing a little bit higher
than the average. It wasn't the most cerebral
thing. But it was, I think, yeah, dealing with
stuff that was like a little bit more advanced
than some Doctor Who episodes are. Yeah, absolutely.
But it had the opportunity to, I guess, you know,
it was modern day. It was, yeah, it had room
to. Yeah. And, you know, I'd always wondered,
like, this episode was obviously set in the modern
day, but at the same time. We don't seem to have
a modern day. The Earth seems to have been destroyed
or whatever. The Doctor certainly can't get there.
So I did wonder how they were going to do that.
Having it be a Doctor Light didn't occur to me.
It must be in the lead -up. Because Conrad spends
a year in prison, so it must be 2024 when most
of it takes place. There's a reference to Christmas,
though. We saw Ruby at Christmas briefly, didn't
we? Okay. So Christmas. Don't know. Yeah, I don't
know. I don't know how that will work. Unit dating.
It's back. Maybe it's a timeline reality thing.
Maybe it was a Christmas in the 70s or the 80s.
Ha ha. I don't know. Anyway. So. Anything else
you want to add about Lucky Day, Ruby, Unit,
anything like that? I think we covered, like
you talked about Ruby's PTSD. I think, again,
just using those terms, skewing a little bit
older than some episodes would do. And apart
from extended media, we haven't as explicitly
dealt with the fact that travelling with the
Doctor would cause any normal human to go through
that. sort of stuff afterwards um and Conrad
we haven't talked loads about him but I think
the performance was really well judged to not
make him not make him such a sneering cartoony
villain that he lost all reality he was like
a bit villainous but grounded enough to feel
real and to feel all the more frustrating and
hateable because of it um And I contrast it with
the guy in Robot Revolution, which I think was
at the more cartoony end of things. Again, not
criticism of the performer, but just like how
it was written and how he's presented. That felt
a bit more one -dimensional, whereas Conrad had
a lot of depth. And we had more time to get to
know him as well. Yes. I think we... I mean,
I'm assuming it was a deliberate decision, but
we never really got what a lot of what sort of
the origin of Conrad was. That's the skipping
over stuff. Yeah, that's the stuff where like
if it was 10 minutes longer, I would have wanted
a scene like as a teenager or something. There
was the scene with his mum at the very start,
which sort of implied unpleasant childhood. Yeah,
so it's very, very sketchy. Yeah, relatively
subtle very early on. I have to admit, I spent
the first few minutes of the episode trying to
work out where I'd seen the kid that played Child
Comrade before, and it was The Devil's Hour,
an Amazon series with Jessica Raine and Peter
Capaldi. He's in that as the creepiest kid that's
ever been in any kind of media ever. I was just
looking at him like, I recognise that kid. That
kid scares me. Why does that kid scare me? And
it's because he was in Devil's Hour. So, yeah,
I did spend the first few minutes of the episode
going, where have I seen that kid before that?
Yeah. So I kind of didn't quite fully get that
scene maybe, but there was certainly the implication
of home wasn't nice when Conrad was a child.
Yeah. It was there. And again, that feels like
something the novelization could feel like. But
the interview with Unit for the job as well,
you see it. You see a silent clip of it. But
I almost wanted that montage of Conrad growing
up, like 73 yards where you see the way his life
is going. And you could have seeded those little
hints about it taking a darker turn but not been
as explicit with it and still preserve the reveal.
Yeah, I wanted a bit more filling up. You could
have had him been. sort of groomed by a right
-wing gang or whatever, something like that.
Or maybe that is a little bit too dark and heavy
for the Doctor Who. Yeah, and it might have brought
the surprise a bit as well, because then you'd
have had that suspicion at the back of your mind.
Well, you'd have dropped the flashback after
the reveal, I suppose. Yeah, you could have filled
out extra bits of flashback after that. Yeah,
that was something that was missing. This really
could have been a two -parter. Out of everything
we've had so far this series, the one that I
wish was a two -parter is the one that the Doctor's
not in. If it wasn't eight episodes, yeah, I'd
agree. Because if it was 13 episodes, I would
have quite happily had this taking up two slots
to flesh out all of the stuff. Especially if,
like last series, we had two Doctor Lights. That's
how I'd have done it this series. Hopefully we've
not got two Doctor Likes this series. Hopefully
that's the only one. I'm pretty sure we don't
because it's five, six, and then the finale and
everything seems to suggest that they're all
quite... Yeah, the main cast are in all of those.
We've seen quite a bit of Doctor -y stuff. Yeah.
Yeah. But yeah, yeah, Conrad was very well done,
very well. very close enough, like you say, to
reality, to people that we see in the media all
the time, to actually be quite a scary, sinister
villain. They weren't explicit about his political
leanings, but there was that sort of subtext
of racism at the end with, like, get off my planet.
Interestingly, like, echoing the Brigadier's
words. Yeah, get off my world. but i think yeah
we all know what type of um you know disinformation
it's getting up uh and there can be disinformation
on all sides of the political spectrum but oh
absolutely it it it's kind of i think it's pretty
clear that right now it's it's there's one type
that's a particular issue yeah i i also think
that using the think tank name from Robot, which
was a very deliberate choice, certainly on the
part of the writer, you know, he said so. They
were definitely a right -wing organisation in
Robot, so it's fair to extrapolate from that
as well, I think. All right, well, before we
disappear, we didn't get to talk about the well
last week, or you didn't get to talk about the
well last week, so do you just want to sort of
give us your hot well take? um yeah i'm just
thinking back now uh uh i really liked it both
as an episode in its own merits and i think because
it was because i know some people's complaint
was that the changes and the changes in the nature
of the creature but i think the amount of time
that's passed in universe it gives you an excuse
for that it might not even be the same creature
it might be you know, a different creature from
the same species or related species we might
have involved over those thousands of years.
I think it makes sense in universe and it's a
coherent, effective story in its own right. The
twist at the very end, I liked that, that sort
of horror trope of, you know, the monster is
still out there. But then in retrospect, it does
sort of make... make the sacrifice a bit, it
sort of loses something when you see her sacrificing
herself at the end and you know that this creature
is just going to escape anyway. It's kind of
what the creature does though, isn't it? Like
trick people into killing each other. Like it
did that in Midnight, like it tried to get everybody
to kill it off. So it's, it's, yeah, I guess.
It makes sense to an extent. Yeah, I thought
it was a good episode, though. I really enjoyed
it. I mean, I spoke about it last week, so I
won't go on for ages, but I'm still loving the
fact that we had a Midnight sequel, and I know
that whether Midnight needed a sequel or whether
it really was a sequel to Midnight in anything
but name is sort of up for discussion and has
been up for discussion. I'm happy to go with
it. I like it. It's a good idea. who's been around
for 20 years now, it should be calling back to
itself. Not every reference has to be to flipping
Dragonfire or whatever. Doctor Who can reference
its recent past as well as its ancient past,
for want of a better word. Yeah, it's this sort
of weird purist belief that, well, if we're not
referencing Marco Polo, it's not a proper reference,
is it? I mean, I'm... I've got issues with last
season's finale, but I think a callback to the
Midnight Creature here makes so much more sense
than the callback to Sutec at the end of last
season, just in terms of telling a coherent story
within the show. Because if you didn't know what
Midnight is, this story still works. But my sense
is that if you don't know who Sutec is, you would
feel like you were missing out watching. Last
season's finale. See, now I just feel disappointed
we didn't get a TARDIS Tales updated CGI version
of Midnight. Like, let's finally make Midnight
high budget. But what would you update? Because
there's relatively few VFX shots once you're
in the bus. Very true. They could have added
it. Add the creature, yeah. A little glimpse
of it out the window. Add the creature, add...
Exterior shots. You know how the war games added
the base control? Add exterior shots. What did
Crusader 50 look like on the outside? You could
have the driver kind of floating around or something
like that. I don't know. It would have been ridiculously
excessive. Midnight is not an episode that needs
re -editing. Maybe one day. It'll have some dreadful
music added to it, be made black and white and
cut down to five minutes for a younger audience.
I don't know how you would do it, because I think
it's gotten even more in RTD2, but even from
Rose onwards, there's not much fat or padding
in episodes. It pretty much always rattles along
pretty quickly. So how would you do cut -down
versions of post -2005 Doctor Who? There's a
few that I can think of that maybe could do with
a re -edit. I'm not necessarily saying cut down,
I'm saying a re -edit. To this day, I'm convinced
that the Rebel Flesh two -parter makes no sense
in places. I honestly think something goes wrong
with the editing or they didn't get to film something.
I don't know. Particularly in the second episode,
it just feels like there's something missing
or something not quite right. Yeah, I can see
that, like fixes or reduxes or director's cuts.
But the mission of the war games type thing seems
to be get these things, squeeze these things
down to a digestible length and do fun stuff
like insert the master's theme and things like
that as well. I'd be interested to see someone
try and see half hour versions of 2005 episodes
yeah there's got to be something that can have
a bit trimmed and I'm fairly sure it's sort of
I mean I can only think of episodes from series
6 and we've been on a massive series 6 tangent
on this podcast while discussing The new series
of Doctor Who before. So let's not go down there
again. Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll leave it there.
So it's still a strong series. We've not had
a dud this series. Yeah. From two episodes. The
quality. I think it's been really strong since
Lux onwards for me. Yeah. Robot Revolution was
good. Did what a starting episode needed to do.
And then. The three that followed it have been
very, very good. And they've all been very, very
different. And there's been some nice surprises.
So, yeah, let's keep this going. I hope that
we just sort of keep the form going until the
end of the series now. You know, we've got next
week's episode, which looks like we don't really
know a lot about it, do we? It certainly doesn't
seem to feature particularly highly. It's like
shots of the spider in the barbershop. People
shouting and arguing and I haven't picked up
much more beyond that. It's quite nice going
into... Actually, this is one of the first it
feels like we're going in not knowing much and
that's quite nice. Intergalactic Song Contest,
whatever it's called, that seems like we know
where that's going to go. We know there's a big
reveal because he said watch this one early to
avoid spoilers. And then we don't know much about
the finale. So actually, moving forward, I think
we've had the majority of the trailers. Yeah,
which is good. Yeah. We kind of have a second
half of the series that's a bit of a mystery
to us. So roll that on. I like it. It's good.
But yeah, I'm enjoying New Doctor Who far more
than I did last year. I'm really enjoying this
series. I enjoyed... I'm being unfair. I enjoyed
series one, but I'm really enjoying this. This
feels like proper can't wait for Saturday, Doctor
Who. Yeah, it feels like it's built on last year,
which will be a massive shame if there is a gap
or hiatus because it feels like it's really finding
its feet after last year. Just like season 26.
Right, we will definitely leave it on that note
before we end up cancelling it ourselves. Well,
yeah, thanks very much for joining me, Mansour.
Obviously, we'll come back next week and we will
discuss the story in the engine. Story in the
engine. Story in the engine. We'll discuss that
and we'll see if we get any hints about what's
going to happen beyond that, sort of between
now and then. But I'm not expecting it, to be
honest. Yeah, Doctor Who's surprising me. It's
good. Keep it up. All right, we'll leave it there
then, and we will be back for more spodcasting
very soon. Goodbye now.