Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to 500 year diary.
The only Doctor Who podcast that's all about second chances with
that kind of a podcast.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Brendan.
I'm Peter.
And I'm Stephen.
It's Christmas 2005.
It's been one hell of a year for the UK generally, and for Doctor
Who fans in particular, and here's how it ends, with a Christmas
special watch by 9.80000 people, introducing the new new doctor
just over 40 years after the introduction of the 1st new doctor.
Let's see how this introduction shapes the history of the new
series as we discussed the Christmas invasion.
So, one of the things about the new series is that it is almost
immediately haunted by the idea of imminent cancellation, and that
is, of course, because we get the announcement, almost immediately
after the airing of Rose, that Christopher Eccleston is quitting.
It's the fear that fans have lived with for their entire lives.
It was so I just, I have this very strong memory of being insanely
happy for all of 2005.
And I remember someone stopping me at work and saying, wow, you
seem to be in a really good place right now and I said, yeah, you
know, Doctor Who's back.
And this was kind of like, you know, to have it just cruelly
threatened, cruelly taken away.
And I do remember someone at work coming up to me again and saying
you heard the news.
Yeah.
Did they announce in the same breath or did they announce earlier
or later that the series was going to get a 2nd series and have a
Christmas special?
It was pretty much in the same breath.
I believe it was 2 separate announcements on the same day.
And it's still never been confirmed why that Eccleston
announcement went out because Russell T. Davies didn't want it to
go out.
It had been drafted pretty much to go out after parting of the
ways to make it a surprise for generation, but somehow it went out
at the same time and, you know, Eccleston has said that it was
part of the BBC, basically blacklisting him for a few years.
That's possible, but to me, it's probably just incredibly terrible
timing from someone in the publicity department who doesn't
understand that this is a big deal.
And Chris was on board with like keeping up the pretence because
he fulfilled all his obligations to promote the new series in the
lead up to Rose.
And when they asked him questions like, um, you know, are you
doing a 2nd year?
you know, does it feel like you've got a big future?
He would sort of answer with, oh, I think I've done the hard yards
this year and really sort of play it down.
There's an interview that's with that ridiculous series one box
set, the TARDIS box set.
And the interviewer says to Eccleston, are you in it for the long
haul?
And he says, I think I've just done the long haul..
Yeah, well remembered.
Yeah.
And of course, by the time we saw that, we knew exactly what he
meant.
So Russell goes into the new show with a very definite plan and a
definite idea for the doctor that's based on Eccleston's
portrayal.
And he is, I think, forced, of course correct, isn't he?
I think that's true, Nathan.
Obviously, he would have not anticipated that Chris would have
left after a single season or series rather, but I think it
actually plays out for the best.
There's so much healing, I guess, that the character does in that
1st series.
And I think that would have come to fruition in that 2nd series
had Chris been in the part.
But there's something that maybe only a change of doctor brings in
terms of, you know, fresh air, I guess, into the part and into the
series and, you know, having Tennant, who's such a happy smiley
character and as an actor as well as a, as in the part, maybe
helps to sort of refresh the show after sort of bringing it back
from the wilderness years where the time war is the metaphor for
that.
And we have a sort of PTSD doctor I've said in the past, that's
that's not tenant.
Tenet is much more, perhaps on the other side of that, and I can
absolutely see how Christopher Eccleston, as the doctor in series
2, could have worked and it would have been a triumph, but equally
I feel like there's some kind of new start with Tenet, and it
works wonderfully for it.
On the surface of it, the Christmas invasion doesn't feel like a
reboot.
It feels very much of a piece with series one.
And, you know, it has a lot in common.
It starts with that big shot of the earth from Rose, where you
zoom in to some action.
It looks like series one and then you get Jackie and Mickey and
then Harriet Jones and there are shots of Central London with a
spaceship in the sky.
And so it feels like, you know, it has a lot of DNA in common with
some like aliens of London.
And to match that, Russell goes with the spearhead from space
robot model of having familiar faces around to cushion the new
doctor into the role.
But having said that, I think this is quite a reboot for the show
because it's now a very different series.
It's Doctor Who is a popular success again, which they didn't know
it would be in the 1st series.
And so it's not that old show, Doctor Who, which came back and
people liked it again.
It's Doctor Who, all caps.
And so the opener with the TARDIS is like a big barnstorming
statement of intent.
And it sort of, I think the episode refines the formula and makes
Doc 2 a long-term prospect rather than a one series prospect and
sort of boils down the essence of what RTD Doctor Who is.
What do you think gets left behind?
Like, I think Russell could have just said, all right, we'll just
recast the doctrine, keep doing what we were doing.
And I think we agree that there's some kind of course correction.
What gets left behind in season one?
Lens Flair?
For the most part.
That's all right.
Chippers brings that back.
Something that I think gets left behind.
Although it is, it is still present because it's an essential part
of the character.
But perhaps a better way to put it would be less emphasised is
loneliness.
Yeah.
The 10th doctor is immediately a less lonely character than the
ninth doctor.
And something Russell wanted to highlight in the script, and one
of his 1st thoughts was the new doctor having Christmas dinner
with the tilers.
Yeah.
And not only is that what the story builds up to, but you have
Jackie and Mickey and Rose.
Throughout this episode, their immediate response is to take care
of the doctor, to bring him into their home, to put him into a bed
you know, and check what else he's got to of.
What else he got to?
I find it incredibly touching that scene where Rose goes into the
bedroom and sees that Jackie has fallen asleep while just sitting
with the doctor.
Like, I think that's really, really just lovely.
Like, you know, Jackie is such a great comedy character and such a
flake and and, you know, a bit of an idiot and stuff, but she has
a big heart in a way that Rose kind of doesn't.
And that I just find that actually quite moving.
He's been being rude to her.
He is a bit of a dick.
But now he's a kind of younger man and he's unwell and vulnerable
and she wants to look after him and I think that's really lovely.
And there may be a scene, I think, before that, where Jackie just
comes in to check on him quietly and just puts a cup of tea next
to the bed and it's like, it's really just so caring.
And I think that shows in the doctor's performance with the
regulars with Eccleston, it sort of played off Eccleston's spiky
demeanour and reputation to kind of have him at loggerheads with
the people in Rose's life, whereas that becomes gentler humour.
And so the doctor is actually quite pleased to have Mickey and
Jackie around and we'll join with a group hug in the end and that
kind of thing. go to Christmas dinner with them.
And I think it's a softer, less spiky series for it.
The doctor is actually really massively unlikeable at the end of
World War 3, isn't he?
where he just makes Rose choose between Jackie and him.
And, you know, there's not going to be a dinner together.
There isn't going to be anything like that.
I don't do that.
And he's verging on being a kind of manipulative boyfriend, I
think.
Like, and that's deliberate.
Russell knows what he's doing.
He is making the character genuinely unlikeable, but that's
unthinkable, I think, with tenants, Doctor.
Yeah, completely.
And I think in addition to that, that it spikiness sort of
abrasiveness, um, which sort of comes with Eccleston's portrayal
but also perhaps just, you know, him as an actor as well.
As I say, I can imagine that mellowing in the 2nd in the 2nd
series, but Tenant really, it just clicks automatically and maybe
the fact that there is a fresh face there helps to sort of, you
know, signal that as well.
But in terms of what I feel like series one, what's left behind
from series one is the tentativeness.
It kind of reminds me in terms of, I think Moffat has said this
about season 12, Tom, in season 12 is a little bit on his best
behaviour and he's just wondering, is this going to work?
Is this going to land?
And that's the show.
That's actually the entire show during series one where they're
giving it their best and they're really trying to put the, you
know, best foot forward, but there's no guarantee actually that
this is going to land.
And when it does eventually blow up, when it hits the screens, you
know, they come back for series 2 and it's just much more
confident that tentativeness has been left behind.
It happens over over and over again in Doc 2, doesn't it?
You look at kind of the Tom example when he comes back in terror
of the zygons and all of a sudden it's a very different and darker
and more confident portrayal.
We said it with Matt Smith in his 1st series, once he's seen
himself on screen and he knows that he's a hit and he comes back
for a Christmas carol, the performance is different.
I like to think that Eccleston also would have kind of mellowed
into the role a little bit, but I think this is almost Casanova
flavoured.
So David Tennant was leading Casanova in 2004, the Russell T
Davies version.
And this brings that kind of that joie de viv which Eccleston had
to force slightly and sort of puts it front and centre in the
role.
Because that's a feature of Reckleston's performance too, isn't
it?
Like, it's very clear that all of his sort of jollity is forced
and that's underlined by how uncomfortable the actor himself seems
to be with that sort of material.
Yeah, um, something Christopher Eccleston has said now that he's
making big finish stories is the main element that he felt
uncomfortable with as the doctor was the comedy, but he's quick to
point out, it's not the writing, it's not the direction, it's how
he was playing it.
And he's kind of like having now gone back and rewatched
everything before I've recorded these.
I know how I would have done it differently now.
And if I'd continued, I know how I would have done it.
But at the same time, I just found the fact that he is an actor
was uncomfortable with the comedy made it funnier.
Whereas David Tennant, I think, has a greater natural comedic
ability in the same way that, say, Tom Baker had.
And funnily enough, I'd say it's different to the comedic ability
of, say, John Bertley, who was a professional comedian.
But when you see him act, it's very clear he wants to be a serious
actor with flashes of comedy, whereas you can imagine David
Tennant, if he hadn't been an actor having a very successful
career as a stand-up comedian.
Well, at the same time, though, I don't know if it would have
taken Christopher Eckliston 15 years to figure that out.
Like, had he decided to stay on for series two, he probably would
have gone away, watched the tapes at that point because I don't
even know if DVDs were out at that stage and come back and sort of
realised, oh, no, this is where I want to take it.
And also this is where the scripts are taking.
He would have seen the Christmas invasion and just brought that
warmth, I think, and reflected on that.
But you're right, there is that kind of, I guess, difference in
Kristen's performance from series one to what we see in the big
finish audios where he's more comfortable with that kind of
material, I guess.
He certainly wouldn't have been watching the DVDs because I was
living in Britain at the time and working for Doctor Who magazine
and we were getting the preview tapes and they were these ratty
old.
Good old BBC.
Always cheaping out.
I do remember on Outpost Gallifrey at the time, there were very
very heated threads that we weren't getting VHS releases this
season.
Fast forward and we're not getting VHS releases now.
That's true.
To the point that, you know, people were making their own covers
and it led to this whole cottage cover industry and artists like
Tom Webster and Simon Halube and Soundsmith have all come out of
that forum artwork making.
Andrew Wharton, for instance, who is now like working on 3D
renderings for the Blu-ray range.
There's so many fan talents have their origins in this era as well
where everything was so mysterious to us and there was this sort
of car crash sense of is this going to be terrible?
You know, it's Christopher Eccleston.
What's Christopher Eccleston's most doctor-ish role before you've
seen Christopher Eccleston as the doctor?
It's as that guy in the League of Gentlemen with the silly hat.
I think his role as, I think it's Steve Baxter in the 2nd coming
is his most.
That's true to say his role as Jesus Christ.
The other thing I think that gets left behind is the he's a bit of
a bully, like there is this anxiety which we've all identified
about the show being for nerds.
And so the kind of science fiction language where we get, you know
planet Earth and stuff like that, you know, just worlds and skies
and stuff like that, just normal words for things where we were
used to space terms for them all.
He makes some Snider remark about Adam's A levels and stuff.
There's just a kind of slight bullying thing about it.
And a sort of reluctance to kind of be too smart, I think.
And of course, his relationship with Mickey, where, you know
constantly Mickey the idiot.
Yeah.
He warms to Mickey, I think, and it is by the end of episode
five.
I think, you know, there's some grudging respect, and he even lies
to Rose for Mickey's benefit there.
The other story that I, I've always wondered how Russell reacted
to this because in the original show outline, it says something
about the doctor, it says something about not introducing
regeneration.
And it says something about the doctor not being a new to public
schoolboy.
So there was a very much an idea that the doctor wouldn't be
eccentrically dressed either.
Right?
that he had enough to be going on with.
And then when he has that interview with David Tennant and says, I
want you to be the new doctor.
Tennant immediately says, I want a coat that goes down to my
ankles.
I think, well, there's that plan out.
And we know then we are definitely having a Doctor Who outfit.
And that's the other thing, I think, that Tenant brings is an
awareness of what works in Doctor Who because he knows it in a way
that Eccleston didn't.
Well, I discovered in my reading for this episode 2 things about
the doctor's costume that I didn't know before.
And one was sort of shortly after he'd provisionally accepted the
role and wasn't allowed to talk to anyone about it, but had met
Billy Piper and she knew it was happening.
So he was sort of watching Billy's TV appearances to get an idea
of sort of how she worked and what have you.
And she had an interview, I think, on Parkinson.
And one of the other guests was Jamie Oliver.
And Jamie Oliver was wearing sort of what became the 10th doctor's
silhouette and the trainers and what have you.
Super Converse.
And David messaged Russell and said, switch on Parkey now.
Can we dress the doctor like that?
When it finally came time to do the suit shopping and what have
you, as well as going to costumiers, they also just went to
general shops and they found the pinstripe trousers that they
really liked, but there was no matching jacket.
So Louise Page bought a bunch of the trousers on consignment and
unstitched them and made the jacket out of them.
So the outfit is truly pants.
And not even making it up.
It's funny that you only had to go one further iteration from
David Tennant and you hit Matt Smith and you have that definition
of kind of the, maybe not new titty's quite sexy.
But the public schoolboy.
And yeah, it's pretty incredible how quickly Doctor Who returns to
its roots.
Both of those costumes, both for David and Matt are very, very
fashionable at that point in time.
You know, we're talking about that sort of indie revival of the
early to mid 2000s, which sort of carries through even into the
early 2010s.
And that really shapes, I think, both David and also Matt's
costume.
Like, you know, I used to go to these indie clubs where, you know
indie bands would play and people dressed like David Tennant and
later, um, you know, Matt Smith, the bow tie, and it just, it was
so...
So cool at that point in time. absolutely.
Yeah.
You know, you look at the Dead Ringers special that goes out
shortly after the Christmas invasion, I think, and it's the Doctor
Who's at Christmas.
And there Eccleston says, I was intense meat, your Doctor Who was
just Jarvis Cocker in space. brilliant.
Also another indie legend.
Exactly.
So let's talk about what is new to the show, and I made a list.
Did you check it twice because it is Christmas.
It's the National Orchestra of Wales and the middle eight.
Yeah, I remember the forums when they realised the Middle 8 was
back and then that continuity announcer.
I talked over it.
Almost like it's a normal TV show.
You certainly had a whole generation of people saying, what does
the Doctor Who theme sound like live aids feed the world?
Well, don't they know it's Christmas time?
I think what really marks this as a soft reboot for me.
What's really new about the Christmas invasion is that for the
very 1st time this is Christmas, Doctor Who.
It's a template that the show will return to again and again over
the years.
Christmas is important in the BBC One schedules.
More so, I think, back in 2005.
It marks a very subtle but very important shift, I think, for
Doctor Who, from hit to flagship, this episode, and it's by virtue
of the fact that it's on Christmas Day and sort of prime in the
schedule.
It's mentioned in the same breath as something like strictly or
Gavin and Stacy or EastEnders.
And of course, you get that shot of the Sicorax ship coming over
the Thames, which looks exactly like the EastEnders opening
credits, and that's just got to be a reference to that.
Christmas audiences are not a regular TV audience.
In many respects, they're not there by choice.
They're sort of there by inertia.
And it's the one day of the year where people will just sit down
and watch whatever's on with whoever they're with rather than
being choice viewing.
And I think British Christmas TV is designed to be this mass
entertainment, cross-generational event.
And Doctor Who, the program, is now, for the 1st time, I think
what it's always claimed to be, which is that multi-generational
crowd pleasing event.
And so I think the show has changed irrevocably in this episode
just by the nature of what it has become now and where it is in
the schedules.
Can I choke in on that and say, I think one of the main reasons
for why it becomes a mainstream hit is Billy and David.
And what eventually turns out to be pretty quickly, actually.
Hey, will they, won't they, kind of dynamic between the 2 of them
which is just a staple for mainstream hit shows, right?
And this is the 1st time that Doctor Who does that brings romance
into the doctor and companion dynamic.
And I've said it before, but I think it absolutely works here in
series 2.
I'm a big fan of it, particularly because I just sort of look
outside fandom and see how alluring, I guess, and how relatable
these characters were to mainstream audiences in a way that
probably hadn't happened for decades.
You could believe that Eccleston and Rose were in love, you can
believe that Tenants, Dr. and Rose are boning.
Really?
Quite right.
Listener, as you cannot see us, Stephen had just taken a big swig
of water just before Peter said that, and he's currently choking
on the other end of the... on the other end of the call.
It has its clearest, it has its clearest situation in the Satan
pit where they talk about setting up home and getting a mortgage
and that kind of thing.
But also, I think when, you know, all through the tenant era
doctor is incredibly popular, but it reaches its zenith in series
4 throughout that sort of 2nd half of series 4, and that entire
run is characterised by the will, they won't they?
Will Rosen, Doctor, who love each other, get back together.
I think something else that feels new about this is, yes, it's a
Doctor Who Christmas special.
And aside from a sort of thing of necessity with the Feast of
Stephen, which was you've still got to put an episode on, but also
a lot of people aren't going to be watching, so make it a series
of vignettes.
This is commissioned as an additional episode because the
production team knew that a Christmas special was on the cards, but
thought it would be part of the next order of 13.
Instead, it becomes an order of 14, which leads us to Love and
Monsters.
And a lot of people sort of retrofit Boomtown as a Dr. Light
episode, but what Boomtown was, was we're running behind.
We need a sort of episode where we can have 3 units filming at the
same time.
Whereas Love and Monsters was planned very early on to be a Dr
Light episode.
Now, the faith this shows in the program is amazing because I
thought, I want to have a look because I feel like Christmas
specials weren't a super common thing and they really weren't, but
they started to become more common for drama once Doctor Who
started doing them.
Now, that's not to say they hadn't happened before.
Um, particularly, I'm thinking, all creatures, great and small, in
the 80s, Jonathan Creek shortly leading up to this as well, but
even that wasn't an annual thing that was just every few years.
There'd be a new Jonathan Creek Christmas special.
But, you know, off the back of this, we get called the midwife has
a Christmas special every year.
The other big example was sort of heartbeat and the soaps would
often have a Christmas special, but I think the public perception
was that Christmas specials are for comedies.
Right.
You know, so you have like Hyacinth Bouquet putting on a Christmas
pantomime and, you know, getting crowned at the end by a crown and
falling down.
I think that's the last episode of keeping up appearances.
John Inman becoming a pop star and that sort of thing.
It's got to, I think, overcome this audience perception that this
one's going to be played for laughs.
And something that I think Russell does from the very beginning is
it can have some funny Christmas moments that immediately then
have to be something deadly. with, you know, robot Santa's, I'm
going to be killed by a Christmas tree.
A 3rd of the world about to jump to their deaths.
But I mean, literally the funniest moment is when Penelope Wilson
looks off screen during that to camera address and asks about the
royal family and then just turns back to camera.
They're on the roof.
It's so good Like, it's really probably funny and the threat is so
obvious.
I mean, if you compare the threat to whatever the hell is
happening in, let's say Arc of Infinity. like it's absolutely
clear what's at stake here, it's visual, it's visible.
We see we see people standing on roofs all over the world.
You know, there's money spent on those big crowd scenes.
You know, having just one off characters who are talking, that
woman who is walking along the street, not the one chasing Jason
in the power state, but the one who's walking along the street
with her husband and the 2 kids.
Like all of that stuff is there.
The policeman, the people walking up the staircase.
It's huge.
Like it's a massive, massive giant event.
And we look at it now and, you know, like maybe it looks a bit
dodgy, but it's massively ambitious.
It's film like.
It's like a big blockbuster on a BBC budget and it's, I mean, it's
just so clear to everyone at home what's going on, I think.
I mean, I still think I would have preferred to have seen Harriet
Jones wobbling against a CSO Matrix background.
But it's relatable as well.
It's the bus stop scene in Spearhead from Space, just bit large
you know, you've got the, as I say, like a 3rd of the world's
population are about to jump to their depths and it automatically
maybe with this particular viewer, you start to think, well, if
I'm in that world, am I one of the, you know, 2000000000 people
standing on a rooftop or, you know, who amongst my family are, it's
it's human.
It's not, you know, the space reasons and bliz-bloss. actually
genuinely about people, the threat to humanity is relatable, I
guess, rather than just some sort of abstract, as you say, arc of
the infinity kind of reason.
That's right.
And those scenes are not about people marching to the rooftop.
They're about the family members begging with them and trying to
stop them and crying over them.
Yeah.
I do have to say, and this is not something sort of deep and
meaningful about those scenes.
But there is the woman trying to get Jason to come away from the
edge.
And in order to do that, she steps in front of him.
Yeah, good for her.
But while he's on the edge.
Oh, yeah.
It's a Kings of Mariners moment of, oh, there's force field here.
Oh, I'll just step in front of you into the force field.
I'm all for keys to mariners, movies.
Like, it's just a thing of, like, he steps in front of him
presumably even closer to the edge.
He stops moving and she says just stop.
He has done, let's bring back the Jenny Led.
No, no.
I'm being mean to the actress now.
But it was just a moment that even struck me at the time, like the
1st time I watched it, I just went, he just did.
God, calm down.
I think we'd just gotten broadband.
So this was the 1st episode.
I acquired in advance for myself.
Yes, say.
One of the other things too that I had kind of forgotten is how
cool England is.
And, you know, here at the end of sort of 13 years of pretty
disastrous Tory government, it's hard to even imagine such a thing
now.
But it was so cool.
And so just like Vicky's ship in the rescue, the Guinevere one has
a big union flag on it. and Harriet Jones is talking about British
workmanship up among the stars and just the fact that London is
central, that unit headquarters is under the Tower of London is so
brilliant and so superb and remains that way during the Moffat era
as well.
He absolutely leans into that.
All of that centrality of London and all of the kind of greatness
of Britain, it's Britain's golden age.
Poor people are getting more money in this golden age, which again
doesn't seem to be, you know, an ambition. 18 for a week at all.
It doesn't seem to be an ambition of, you know, any major
political parties at the moment anywhere in the English speaking
world.
But all of that stuff was so huge and sort of so amazing.
And one of the things that I loved about the show, I think.
Everything that was popular culture at the time was leaning into
that cool Britannia kind of idea.
So all of the Brit pop from the 2nd half of the 90s and into the
naughties, you know, the Spice Girls with Jerry Halliwell with her
Union Jack Top, Rose with her, Union Jack Top, hanging off the
blimp in Empty Child.
All of that is calculated because the way that you sell Doctor Who
and Britain to the world is through that cool Britannia lens
absolutely.
And, you know, I've said in previous occasions.
I think Rose is the 1st British female character who's a leader
protagonist in a show like this, since perhaps Diana Rigg as an
appeal in the Avengers.
Like, we have to go that far back to get that kind of proactive
female lead, I think, in this kind of show.
And that, you know, Rose, and, you know, Billy Piper's performance
is absolutely central too that.
And again, it plays out, as you say, Peter, against that backdrop
of cool Britannia, it sort of starts in that mid 90s, but it sort
of reinvents itself.
And, you know, this is the era of Amy Winehouse and the libertines
you know, and Camden is like the coolest place on earth.
London is at the centre of everything.
It's very tied up with new labour.
And so I think that golden period from 1997, probably through to
when Tony Blair quits the premiership in 2007.
That is the golden age that they're referencing.
That is when people were thinking of Britain as being youthful and
forward looking.
And, you know, you have remnants of that going all through the
Moffat era basically up until Brexit.
But this was the real golden age.
I think there's something to be said about that. 2003 and, you
know, the weapons of mass destruction sort of pretence for the
invasion of Iraq perhaps sort of signals a bit of a turning
point.
But you're right, it's sort of, there is that sort of fag end of
that that continues on through until probably 2007.
Yeah, that sounds about right, Peter, yeah.
The show has already kind of done that as well.
It does come back in a London centric kind of way with a sort of
consciousness that Britain is cool, but the very, very 1st
earthbound story after the premiere episode is, of course, aliens
of London and World War 3, which kills Tony Blair and shoves him
in a cupboard and relitigates the weapons of mass destruction
thing.
And that happens again here.
Russell famously kills the Prime Minister of Great Britain once a
season during his 1st run.
So he kills Don Warrington in season two.
He kills like John Simmers, Harold Saxon in series 3.
And who does he kill in series four?
Well, Harriet Jones.
Harriet Jones.
I don't know, Prime Minister.
So he does...
Don't forget, in series 3, he also kills the American president.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And here, of course, this ends with that disillusion because I
think another thing that gets cut short and may not have been in
the original plan is that we quickly hurry Harriet Jones into the
Prime Minister position at the end of Aliens of London, World War
III.
We know that that's coming in the future.
The doctor remembers that in the future and it's a new thing and
it will be called Britain's Golden Age.
When we come back just a few months later, Britain's Golden Age is
18 more a week for Jackie Butt, basically, that's about it.
And, of course, uh, when she goes full Thatcher on the departing
uh, Cicarac spaceship and he brings her down.
Like, I don't think that that's intended at all.
And I think maybe that's another thing that is new to this doctor
which is the no 2nd chance as I'm that kind of a man, because
that's what we land on.
There's that whole comic scene, isn't there, where the doctor says
I don't know who I am.
And that goes on and is played for laughs and is absolutely like
just a sort of virtuoso performance by Tenet.
Then what we land in is that very blunt and rather odd.
Uh, like it doesn't even seem to follow uh, the previous scene.
Do you know what I mean?
Like it's lit differently.
It's an odd shot where he says no 2nd chances I'm that sort of a
man.
And that's something that happens going forward as well.
It's new for this episode, but I think it's a bit of a cul-de
sac.
What always happens with new doctors is that they impose rightly
and characterly traits on them, and they tend to fall by the
wayside once the actor finds their feet and starts injecting
themselves into the role, and you can see that very clearly with
David Tennant.
You get a bit of the no 2nd chances here.
You get a little bit of it in school reunion with that speech.
I used to have so much mercy.
And then it pretty well comprehensively falls by the wayside when
tenants natural charisma just kind of takes over and fills the
void and fills out his doctor.
But don't you think it's this doctor's failure mode?
I mean, that's what ends up happening at the end of Waters of Mars
where his kind of arrogance takes over.
And, you know, he compares himself.
He calls himself the lonely god, I think, in new earth in the very
next episode.
And so even though he's mostly genial and stuff.
You do still get hints of it much later.
Even Voyage of the Damned, where there's some reflection on the
fact that he didn't get to pick who lived and who died.
You know, that's always there, I think, and I don't know that
there's anything like that in Chris, and maybe that would have
developed.
Who knows?
I mean, I think that's played as a character flaw going forward.
So that bit in midnight where he basically starts to lose the
trust of the people around him, when he starts shouting at them
and saying that they should believe him because he's clever.
Like that is the clearest possible way to lose a crowd of people
is to tell them that you're smarter than they are.
Believe me, I do it all the time.
I think also it's possibly meant to juxtapose coward any day from
parting of the ways.
And the funny thing is, like, we flip-flop on this because we've
got coward any day in parting of the ways.
Then we've got him to posing Harriet Jones.
Then we've got him forgiving Cassandra.
Yeah.
You know, and I remember at the time, at the end of New Earth
there was a big response to that going, well, hold on. 3 months
ago, he deposed Harriet Jones, who did a horrible thing, but
according to what we know of the Doctor Universe is meant to be
this wonderful figure for the next 10 years.
Of course, behind the scenes, Russell has just had the
irresistible idea of making the prime minister the master.
And so he's like right, I've got to get rid of Harriet Jones now.
But yeah, I wonder if also, with no 2nd chances, I'm that sort of
man, that is a thing to set up against the Christopher Eccleston
doctor who, one of the criticisms of that characterisation, was
that often other characters would solve the problem inspired by
him, but he wouldn't press the plunger himself, he wouldn't push
the button himself.
This is a doctor who will do that and will absolutely as someone
is trying to attack him from behind, you know, knock him off a
high building kind of thing.
And yeah, that's the funny thing.
Like, David Tennant does it with a Satsuma.
Everyone goes, oh, yeah, Peter Capaldi does it with a robot on top
of a building and it's like, okay, no, we can't show that.
And it has to become a debate point for a season.
What?
Because he did it in a comedy way with us at Suma.
We fine.
That Doctor Who can't press the button, that would have been had
an amazing resonance if Eccleston had actually come back for Day
of the Dog.
Yeah, being put in that position.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
And, you know, we were close to that happening.
He had several meetings with Stephen Moffatt, and while I would
have loved it.
You know, I respect his decision not to, even though I'm
disappointed.
He prefers to be written by Nick Briggs than Steve.
Do you mind if I bring up a point that I think a lot of people see
as new to the tenant doctor, and it's something that is almost
labelled, you know, a criticism of the era and of the character.
But I actually think he's probably a reversion to type and he's
something old rather than something new and that is something that
you mentioned, Nathan, not too long ago, about the lonely god.
And I don't think that this is entirely new.
Um, I think what we have with the tenant doctor is, you know, that
sort of emo doctor who's, you know, hair trembles with emotion, um
and is saddled with this, um, particularly post-rose leaving at
the end of this series with this sort of, um, you know, incessant
and inherent sadness about him because of that loss and that loss
sort of symbolising this this reality that this is a figure who
will never be able to find his home.
And if I go on a bit of a tangent here around Aristotle, he talks
about the most deplorable of fates for a man is effectively that
of Odysseus, someone who is unable to find that half at home and
that people that he belongs with.
And of course, you know, it's something that maybe we revisit with
the giggle, where he does get that.
But this doctor sort of is adopted that is set up as a character
who can't have that.
And so he's always perpetually alone.
And there comes in the lonely god, the traveller without a home.
But I think that actually isn't new.
That isn't actually something that is a construct of new who and
particularly David Tennant's doctor.
I think it's there with, you know, the broken old man at the end
of the massacre who can never go home again or, you know, the
space vagrant who leaves before anyone can, you know, ask him too
many questions at the end of each adventure or even the exile who
can't stay to see his best friend married and walks off into the
sunset, literally.
And even also, I guess, with, you know, the sole survivor of the
last great time war.
These are inherently lonely figures and that, or those portrayals
of the doctor is inherently lowered me figures.
And I think what we have with the lonely God, particularly in
tenants era, is probably just a recycling or a revisitation of
that construct of the doctor, the archetype of the stranger rather
than, oh, this is something new and the doctor being emo about
being alone.
I think that's unfair.
I think, though, it is the result of just this being TV for the
21st century.
Because I do remember that moment in the end of the world where
Jabe puts her hand on the doctors and the doctor starts weeping.
And I, you know, I think that perhaps the only time that we got
anywhere near that is Pertwe at the end of the Green Death, and
that's so rare, and that now becomes the show's kind of default
mode, that we do know how the doctor feels about things, and we
have some idea of why. and that becomes a focus of the show.
It's a little bit like what this story is doing as well, which is
reintroducing the doctor as a superhero.
And the doctor isn't a superhero when the show starts at all.
And even in the classic series, the doctor, even though he has a
habit of overthrowing an oppressive government once a month.
We never reflect on that.
Do you know what I mean?
We never sit back and think, well, what does that make him?
And both Russell and even more Moffatt take that on board as part
of the character's kind of reputation and as part of his kind of
his self-perception?
Previously, I think he was an anarchist, and that kind of doesn't
work in 21st century television.
You need someone who's sort of got the chops to bring about this
kind of change.
Like you can't just walk into a society and bring it down
overnight because it might just look to the audience a bit twee.
Oh, yeah, that's definitely possible.
I think there's something in that.
My mind was going in terms of just, this is kind of what you said
before, Nathan.
This is the syntax and grammar of 21st century television.
And the interiority of a character like the doctor, which was
forbidden up until even you think about like the Virgin you
adventure style guide where you weren't allowed to go into the
doctor's head.
That's not tenable anymore.
You can't have a character like that on 21st century television.
So we do get the doctor remoting, which goes back again to this
idea of the emo lonely god.
I just think it's always been there.
It's now text rather than just, you know, per subtext.
Yeah.
I think also another place it comes from is Russell looking at the
origins of the series and looking at the rejected or rather never
explicitly referred to idea that the 1st doctor is fleeing a
galactic war.
And I think David Whittaker, sort of reading more and more about
him really wanted to embed that.
Like it was in the script of power of the Daleks, for instance.
However, the producers kind of went, no, no, we want to keep
things vague and nebulous.
And I think that's possibly because science fiction at the time
whenever it showed a sort of space war, it was always really twee
and lasers and there's a woman on the ship and that's bad luck.
Captain Pike.
But you get to 21st century television, wars have been televised
since the 1970s.
People who have not been in the armed forces have their own ideas
and opinions and thoughts on war, and Russell very clearly has his
thoughts on the most recent war, which is part of this and part of
the tone for series one.
So saying that the doctor was in a time war with sort of strange
and esoteric descriptions, the audience gets that shorthand in a
way that if it were said in 1963 might have seemed twee and easy
to brush off.
Yeah.
And maybe too soon after the Second World War, maybe.
I can just imagine Innis Lloyd saying to David Whitaker.
Enough of this lonely god fleeing a time war.
Let's have fluid links and static electricity.
That's what the audience wants.
And there is truth in that. absolutely.
It's interesting to me how the series undercuts that lonely god
thing.
So all throughout Tenants era, and then by series 4, really, the
running arc through the series is that the doctor needs his family
around him.
You know, he empowers other people and his his associates and his
companions and sort of his extended family are the people who he's
inspired and who eventually can save him.
So actually, he's not a lonely god.
It's the people around him who's inspired.
But there is a distance between them because, you know, after
journey's end where that's established, the very next time we see
them all, he's saying goodbye to them.
And so having the solution to that doctor's problem, which Russell
never gets to solve because Tennant and he both leave, having that
solution delayed to the giggle, where it is solved properly, and
he does get to stay with a group of people who he loves and are a
family.
I think, you know, that's perfect.
And like you said, many times, Nathan Moffat, as a showrunner, is
not interested in giving the doctor a regular group of compatriots
about him.
He's more interested in the doctor and his companions.
And so I think the fact that you've got to wait from Journeys end
and the end of time, and then basically leapfrog, the entire
Moffat and Chipmull eras, to get back to that point with Russell T
Davies is pretty fun.
What do we think that Russell has learned from previous soft
reboots of the show here?
Stick the doctor in a 0 cabinet for half the episode.
We actually did say something about this in our Spearhead from
Space episode because there is something about making us wait for
the doctor, which make sense in all sorts of ways.
But when your 1st story is 425 minute episode spaced over 4 weeks
having to wait for the doctor's hero moments for several weeks
when you might be tuning in just to see what the new doctor is
like, all you get in Spearhead from Space episode one is that
conversation with the brigadier who doesn't recognise him and some
burbling about his shoes.
Yes, unhand me, man.
Here we actually get to do what both Castra Volver and Spearhead
from Space want to do, which is kind of delay the reveal of the
real new doctor.
And, you know, Russell is right.
You can't do it two-thirds of the way through.
You have to do it at the very, very end.
And then I think Julie or Jane.
I don't know who's responsible.
Lorraine Hegasy.
Lorraine Hegasy, right?
Okay.
She's also right to say, actually, you can't make us wait that
long either.
I think it's very interesting that for the examples of Spearhead
and Castra Volver, part of the function of that is getting to know
2 new characters.
Because even though they've been introduced in previous stories, Mr
and Tegan haven't interacted that much.
So it establishes their relationship because Matthew Waterhouse as
Adric is sidelined as well for that.
So it establishes their relationship, it establishes Liz and the
Brigadier's relationship in Spearhead.
But here, we're establishing relationships that are already
established, except we've never been able to spend as much time
with them because Rose has always wanted to get going again, and
now she can't.
And she's having to turn to 2 people she's rejected in the past
for support.
Like there's a bit where She's turning to Mickey for support and
Mickey says you really love him, don't you?
And in my mind, Rose's natural reaction to that should be, okay
this is uncomfortable and making Mickey uncomfortable.
Instead, she cuddles him, you know.
And then she breaks down to Jackie and says he's left me, he's
left me.
And both Jackie and Mickey step up to support Rose in this moment
visibly not having any of her nonsense though.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, they're kind of both visibly annoyed at her and particularly
Jackie, but he's left me thing, where the real issue would seem to
be that the doctor's not there to prevent them all being killed by
the big giant spaceship.
Yeah, you know. which I think is a great choice.
And, like, there's that way of characterising Rose.
Like Rose is an interesting enough character to maintain this
episode, but she's not necessarily a nice person and I really like
that.
I like the fact that Rose is always the centre of Rose's universe
and this might be... the purest iteration of it.
And then when they retreat to the TARDIS and Jackie's arguing with
it, Rose admits it's like, I've got nothing else.
Like, this isn't a plan.
This is just retreating.
And it's actually then Jackie and Mickey who are suggesting
things.
Like, Jackie's like, okay, I'm going to get us a cup of tea and
rose.
Oh, yeah, that'll solve everything.
And it actually does.
She's such a sucky bitch.
It's wonderful, isn't it?
Awesome.
And even Mickey is the one who suggests using the scanner to find
out what's going on and Rose is like, yeah, whatever you want.
It's funny when what you were saying about that because this is
the robot mould, isn't it?
This is coming back to the characters we know and establishing
relationships between them concerning the new doctor, whereas they
have pre-established relationships.
And it's the same in robot.
I think in robot, we get our 1st real scenes between the Brigadier
and Sarah Jane Smith.
They've insected before, but then you'll get those lovely scenes
in robot where they're actually their mutual concern for the
doctor brings them together.
And there's the bit where the brigadier is telling Sarah. who's an
investigative journalist.
Let's not forget about the secret plans for a disintegrated gun.
And she calls him one and says, why are you telling me?
He says, well, there's no one else I can tell.
And so you see sort of, you know, it's like the characters move
around in their puzzle box and establish new relationships because
of the change doctor.
I think that's spot on and absolutely, I agree with all of that.
The other thing I think that it does.
And perhaps that it learns from Castravelve and Spearhead, that's
what not to do.
And that is to give the doctor a 1st little mini hero moment at
the end of the 1st act, just so that we can see, oh, he's actually
the doctor.
It's him.
He's actually really good, and then he goes back into his coma
until basically the 3rd act, which we don't get in Castrovale.
Got to see if Lorraine Legacy.
We don't get in Castro Elber and we don't get until basically part
4 of Spearhead from Space as well.
So I think that's probably something that he's looked and learned
from.
You probably don't get it until the last scene of the twin dilemma
which is courageous at stake.
Yeah.
And what's so strange, I was just going to talk about the twin
dilemma in time of the Rani in relation to this, the twin dilemma
is written with the idea in mind of, okay, Peter Davis almost
unconscious for 3 episodes, let's have Colin awake all the way
through.
But let's make him totally undoctor-like, you know.
And then time in the Rani comes along and Silver's conscious all
the way through, but it's Sylvester McCoy playing Colin Baker and
having been cast sort of 2 weeks ago.
Also, it commits Russell's definition of the Cardinal Doctor Who
sent off, we don't care about what's happening to the Zog monsters
on Planet Zog.
You know?
And I say that as any regular listener will know, as someone who
adores time in the Rani and if anything happens to it, I will kill
everyone and then myself.
I wish Russell had taken more inspiration from time and the
writing.
I think we were cheated out of Billy Piper dressing up as the
run.
We do have Buddy Langford back.
So anything could happen.
I'm gonna get killed by a bubble trap.
Well, that's all the time we have for this week.
We'll be back again next week.
And ten months into the future, to see how a Doctor Who spinoff
gets started in Torchwood's first episode, Everything changes.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us on our website, 500yearDiary.com, where
you'll find our social media links, as well as links to all of our
other podcasts, including our other Doctor Who podcasts, flight
through entirety, and the 2nd great and bountiful human empire.
Until next time, may you find someone who loves you the way
Russell T. Davies hates Tony Blair.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Be seeing you.
Don't you think I look tired?
That was 500 year diary, starring Nathan Bottomley, Stephen B
Brendan Jones, and Peter Griffiths.
The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, Indie Revival, was recorded on the 4th of April 2024
and released on the 5th of May.
Well, it's less than a week until the latest season of Doctor Who
drops, and we'll be there just a few days later with our hot takes
on the 1st 2 episodes on the 2nd great and bountiful Human
Empire.
So make sure you've subscribed on your podcatcher of choice, or
that you've bookmarked us at greatandbountiful.com.
What do you think?
We are an hour in.
We haven't done the finale, the closing thing because I forgot.
So we have to do that.
I think we also haven't talked about why David Tennant's so
irritating.
Ah, I think he is.
Okay, I think.
Because I actually wanted to say, I just thought it was the lonely
god thing, you know what I mean?
I know a way it.
So like, oh, maybe this can be a tag.
Yeah, I mean?
Yeah.
So, like the thing, the experience of watching it last night was
and my experience of watching David Tennant in general, including
in the 60th anniversary specials is he is always so much better
than I expect him to be because they're, you know, like the ticks
start to take over during the course of his run, teeth.
The teeth acting, the sticking the tongue on the roof of his mouth
you know, like while he's thinking, like just all sorts of ticks
and things.
And, you know, sometimes the show addresses that, you know, there's
like in science and the library, I think I've mentioned this heaps
of times before, where the mask drops, where River says something
to the doctor, and like he's just not, like he doesn't, he stops
all of that nonsense and and we actually see the doctor, and that
the doctors are performing. you know, in lots of ways.
I don't know why you find why don't you find him irritating?
I find him irritating because he's so bloody good.
But you know, it's sort of a variation of what you said.
I'll put in a David Tenner episode.
I'm like, okay, here we go.
I know there's something that's going to set my teeth on edge and
then I get to the end.
I'm like, no, you're actually just magnificent, you bastard.
Like, speaking of someone who likes Matt Smith better.
You know what I mean?
And I think Matt Smith is a better actor, but Tenant's performance
is always just so great.
It's so compelling.
I mean, there's, you know, who else could you possibly have
brought back for the 60th anniversary?
There's just no contest.
You know, even though I think, you know, Capoldi's incredible.
I think Matt Smith is incredible.
I think, you know, this is the doctor and the doctor when the show
was at, it's absolute high.
Paul McGann, Nathan, Paul McGann.
Only with a wig.
Paul McGann without the wig is not canon.
I think the reason that David Tennant irritates you is the reason
he is so successful in the eyes of the general public.
He is a really broadly acceptable and charismatic and therefore
slightly bland iteration of the doctor.
It's why fans, I think, like Matt Smith's performance, that sort
of that more doctorary slightly idiosyncratic performance versus
David Tennants.
David Tennant is playing it as an acting part without leaning into
all of that doctorishness, which is kind of like removed from what
Christopher Eccleston was doing, but is sort of more in the Doctor
Who mould.
And I think that's why a broad audience really loves him as the
doctor, because he's kind of acceptable and accessible to
everyone.
He's much more human, like that Matt Smith thing of not being able
to tell if someone's pregnant and stuff like that.
Like all of that sort of weird Martian nonsense that he goes on
with, which is really fun and properly funny.
Um, but tenant's not at all like that.
I mean, he is the most human of the doctors, isn't he?
And I think, um, and also I just think the verbal, just the, that
performance, that huge speech that he comes out with, where he's
really kind of mercurial, you know, 12nd he's doing the sicker
axe's voice, you know, that, just ridiculous line, the, it's a fat
in hand line.
Like, that's so weird, annoying.
No one else would ever have done it.
I really like it.
I think it's really funny.
Um, um, the Arthur Dent references the Lion King references, like
all of that stuff, you know, like he is smart without being a
boffin, you know, he's because he's just fast and verbal and
funny.
It's because he's not talking about Isaac Newton and that kind of
thing. talking about Harry Potter.
And so that's what the kids who are watching would be
referencing.
Yeah, yeah.
I think it's also for that reason why David Tennant is cast at
exactly the right time and why Christopher Eccleston, as much of a
powerhouse, as he is in series one, it's probably for the good of
the show that David is the doctor as it moves into its imperial
phase.
Yeah, yeah, I think you're right.
I think you're right.
He's nowhere near as accessible.
And having a Doctor Who's spiky and prickly, like my thing is that
I think the best performance of any actor in the role and the best
conception of the character is Tom in Horror Fang Rock.
Like I would just have that all the time.
But, you know, it's a bit less fun. than tenant, you know, going
at a 1000000 miles an hour and just sort of being witty and funny
and, you know, just wordy.
Yeah.
And we will eventually get the series going back to that with
Capaldi's characterisation, which is extremely successful.
And again, a lot of fans absolutely love Peter Capaldi in his
performance, but it is undoubtedly playing to a smaller audience.
Yes.
All right, I think we won.
What do you think?
Let's do the finale again.
It's good night in the bright order.
Normally we would do this at the beginning, but I forget.