Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to 500 Year Diary.
The only Doctor Who podcast whose hosts are all ranking captains
of the Innuendo Squad.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Hannah.
I'm James, and I'm feet.
It's the 4th of June, 2005.
It's been a mere 6 weeks since the Passimir Day Slovene family
exploded in 10 Downing Street, and tonight, 7.680000 people will
tune in for the 2nd coming of its last surviving member, Blondfell
Foch Passimir Day Slovene.
Also known as Lord Mayor of Cardiff, Councillor Margaret Blaine.
But how will she get on without her large and pungent extended
family?
Let's find out as we discuss Boomtown.
So, we're here tonight to talk about the second appearance in
Doctor Who of the Slovene, in the form of Margaret Blaine, played
by Annette Badland.
I want to start, though, by perhaps going around the table and
talking about how we felt about the Saline's 1st appearance on
Doctor Who.
And so I'm going to start with P.
Yeah, they were the 1st instance of me and what was I?
early 30s being a little bit like, oh, okay, this is going in a
direction.
I'm not so, no, the farting.
Actually, just the farting.
Everything else was fine.
Yeah, so I wasn't sure whether I was crazy about the Celine or not
whether this is it going to be too silly for proper doctor?
Because I'd loved the 1st few episodes so much.
So, yeah, my I was a little bit reticent in my enjoyment of the
Slovene, I'll say.
I was 11, so it was quite much more on board.
Yeah, I remember that of a shock.
Oh, my God, like it's a 2 parter.
I didn't know that was going to be a thing.
And really, really enjoyed them.
They were really kind of the episodes that I think were kind of
converting me into a fan.
I was 24, so I was really on board with it.
I am still a child.
I have to say, I have said, and I think it says on the flights or
entirety website that aliens of London and World War 3 is my
favourite Doctor Who story.
That's probably not true, actually, strictly speaking, but I did
like it a lot.
I did experience a sort of twinge of awkwardness like Pete about
the farting and it perhaps wasn't the farting in itself, but that
it didn't seem to be being done very well.
And we'll talk a little bit about that, I think.
But, of course, that, too, part is crazy, isn't it?
There's nothing like it ever before.
It's an alien invasion, but we get to see it on television.
You've got people that you know as political reporters who've got
Andrew Marr involved, you know, like all of this stuff.
It's really very different from anything we've ever seen.
Even as an 11 year old.
I did not know of Andrew Moore because I was not watching news at
10. surprising.
But like we'd not long had the general election in the UK.
So and that was the 1st time I was a bit more aware of what
politicians and stuff were and was used to my parents constantly
having the news on and seeing images of number 10.
So I got what that was.
And the massive weapons of destruction line was a real, they did
that.
They literally, that's, that is the headlines rephrased very
slightly.
And during an, and it was during an election campaign too.
And the BBC Let Russell T. Davis get away with that then.
It really is extraordinarily political.
I mean, the whole sort of farting aliens things, you know, make it
kind of a grotesque caricature.
So you have these fat monsters that want to consume the world for
fuel, uh, and then all of the kind of terrorism and the, you know
the lies that were told to get into the Iraq war, and all of that
stuff's being addressed in a story where Russell pretty much
starts by killing Tony Blair and putting him in a cupboard.
And, you know, kind of starting an annual tradition of killing the
president or the prime minister of the UK, which does happen in
each one of his 4 seasons.
So that kind of level of specificity.
I mean, we'd seen it maybe in curse of Paladon and maybe in
Monster of Paladon, but they were kind of cartoons in a way.
This was a little bit more kind of angrily satirical, I think.
How do you feel that the Slovenes looked, though, on television?
The cuts between the CGI and the and the costumes were so really
really noticeable 1st time around.
But this time, I mean, is there much CGI this time or is it much
more physical for Boomtown?
They don't use the models, the full length models.
They do whatever CGI they need to do to get Margaret to take the
skin suit off when she's in the toilet?
Yeah, but they don't, we don't use them to run or anything like
that.
So we are just using the suits.
And I mean, the design is it's so distinctive and original.
I think it's a really good design. these baby faces and the fact
that they're giggling while they do their, while they do their
evil deeds sometimes.
It's an attempt to do something as distinctive as the Zygons and
they're just that they've got they've got a particular vibe
they're going for.
I liked even no details like the blinking is vertical.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
With a clicking sound.
But I mean, they have all of the kind of physical characteristics
of a fat person as well.
Do you know what I mean?
They have paunches and stuff.
And that's bit of a damn from Mr. Davis this year, isn't it?
It feels very like mid-naughters in general as well of all these
reality shows and stuff we'd get.
It was just like perfectly acceptable to say, yeah, fat people are
terrible.
There's one kind of line that I think here is in retrospect a
little bit awful about Trisha Delaney later on in Boomtown.
And it is clearly a thing.
Russell's a large man, like a tall man who has clearly kind of
struggled with his weight for his entire life and he's a gay man
as well.
And so there is some kind.
I don't know.
I always read it at some level of sort of self-loathing.
Yeah, I'm, and it's that thing of, like you're saying, Hannah, in
the naughties, there was that kind of, let's do it all, but do it
ironically, or, you know, which leads to Little Britain doing
blackface, which leads to, but, but, oh, we're doing it to show
how, how awful it is, and it's likely still doing it.
But also Russell dives on that.
He dives on being gay.
And also, I think there's a lot about class in this.
There's a lot about his word.
I think I remember, I can't find the quote, but I think I remember
talking about his working-class background and how the way you
feel about the people who haven't made the leap to international
superstardom like he has and whether he should feel guilty about
that or whether, you know, and the way that Rose talks later about
you know, just dawn to sit around eating chips or do I want to go
and save the universe?
It's like, that's, you know, you judging everyone who is still
working in a shop and eating chips.
But he knows that and he thinks, well, that's my territory, so I'm
going to go for it, I guess.
You could actually extend that to.
You know, there's that whole sort of mythos around Russell's
version of the show, which is the doctor makes people's lives
better.
He shows them how to be better people.
That's, in and of itself, could be read as classes.
Because he, like, you know, like they tend, a lot of them tend to
be like working-class people or people who don't have an education
not Martha.
And so is that actually, yeah, could that be read that way?
don't know.
Yeah, because Martha's the exception, really, isn't she?
Yeah, Martha's him doing the opposite of what he normally does, you
know.
But yeah, and the, um, the 1st time in, in this series one that
something really clanged with me was, was with, um, the moment, uh
at the end of the long game after they ditch Adam, uh, and there's
that lineup, I only take the best.
And I was like, whoa, that's, I can't, I just can't imagine Dr. Dr
who doesn't say that?
And that was the strangest thing to just feel out of place in
Doctor Who for me.
When everything else had done this year.
They were doing loads of new stuff.
That was the one moment that I remember it really clanging with me
that year.
I mean, Tagan is in the show for like 3 years.
I mean, you know.
Don't tell Janet.
It's something I've noticed increasingly like, you know, to the
present, in sort of, choo-choo's time, it feels.
And it does increasingly like gnaws at me a bit from when I kind
of go back and watch the classic series where it feels like the
whole idea is that you're a kid and the doctor can turn up and you
can go and anyone who gets the, it's pure look and chance rather
than, oh, no, I'm going to be picky and like, maybe all the child
who doesn't get to go with the doctor feels like the of road
you're kind of putting that idea down for me, which I don't like.
I mean, it's not class, is it, that makes the distinction between
who is acceptable and isn't acceptable in Adam's case.
Adam is treacherous and he's out for himself.
And so that's ultimately why he gets rejected, I think.
And one of the fun things about Boomtown. is it actually shines a
light on Rose, who is really, and I think intentionally, not a
very nice person.
And her very last moment is wishing that she could have the same
chance that Margaret has, to start again, to have a 2nd go at it
because she has been so mean to Mickey and Mickey is having such a
bad time.
And so, so it can't quite be that.
It can't be you need to be terrifically selfless to be allowed to
travel with a doctor.
It is an odd bum node, I think.
I think he's deliberately saying in this one.
You know, she's not Sarah Jane and he's not Harry.
Because when I was little, I never liked the Harry Sullivan as an
imbecile moment in Revenge of the Cybermen.
I made that turn against the 4th doctor a bit.
I did roll my eyes when the Ricky bit kicked in at the start of
this again. rewatching it because I'd sort of forgotten how kind
of a bit annoying I found it, that the doctor would be that petty
and sort of snide towards this lad who's just had his life
destroyed by the doctor coming and stealing his girlfriend.
I feel a lot of sympathy for Mickey in the story when he realised
actually, what he what he'd been through in the year when Rose
disappeared and now that's it.
She started off again.
And 6 months later, and it feels like he's had therefore 6 months
of sitting and thinking about this.
It's that bit where as well, he, he tells, you made me feel like I
was nothing.
Yeah.
And therefore, you've gone off with a, with a guy who, like, just
constantly berates, like, your boyfriend, um, we were nice, we
were happy.
I'm really more conscious now watching it of how young they are. of
being like 1920 and it's, you know, from both of them.
It's probably like their 1st proper relationship.
And we see them in rows and they're very sweet together and
stuff.
It feels like you can see the hurt and but then also like, as much
you want to say, like, yeah, Rose is terrible.
Yeah, she is also a sort of young, naive teenager in many ways and
she kind of really hoping that him telling her this is something
that she takes on board.
Yeah, I, I, like, I think that the, that the episode is very, very
definitely about that, like the big character thing.
You know, we start with a sort of hijinx, don't we?
The heist, you know, the capturing Margaret thing, which is about
the 1st 3rd of it.
And it's so funny.
It's all this fun, light, playful music.
Yeah, yeah.
That's the funniest that I think Doctor Who's been, but also just
knowingly, like the jokes about where the journalist is listing
the ways all the people got killed.
And Margaret's excuses get more and more rosterous down to the
point of, I didn't see him coming, you know.
She literally killed at least 2 of them.
It's on record that shit.
It's on an icy patch.
It was a very icy patch.
So great.
It's literally on record that she personally killed 2 of them in
accidents and still nobody has stopped this project. and and the
wonderful uh delivery of it all about, you know, Westminster
wouldn't notice if we fell off the cliff, which is, again, only
someone from Wales can get away with writing an English person
saying that and it also working as a joke at the expense of the
English rather than the Welsh. just all hangs together so well.
It is really fun.
My favourite bit is where the doctor says to Margaret's personal
assistant.
She's climbing out the window, isn't she?
And he goes, yes.
I just think is absolutely tremendous.
So all of that sort of stuff is really terribly fun.
And you notice that we don't really have that much of the Sabine
costume at all.
So we have the Slovene costume appears in the bathroom.
Yep.
We at last gets his dream.
It's not it's not tooting back.
But it is, but it's the next place thing and we finally get a, and
I have been researching.
I've been and checked on Tardiswiki.
This is the 1st use of a toilet in Doctor Who on TV.
And it's definitely the 1st monster on a toilet.
And instead of it being terrifying.
It becomes a moment with sympathetic music and she starts
questioning herself.
It's really good.
She's delightful.
Like the young woman who plays, Kathy is just sort of sweet and
beautiful and instantly appealing, I think.
It's a really small cast, isn't it?
I was going to start, like, I was thinking, there are real
parallels between this and edge of destruction.
Not many, but some.
It's written as a last minute replacement.
It is a case of we can only do it with stuff we've got in the
cupboard.
Right, knock us up a model nuclear power station.
That's basically the only new prop that it got.
And we film it all around Cardiff. which is, you know, as good as
filming in the studio.
And yeah, there's a character piece for these 4 characters
particularly that are getting to know a new crew, but the couple
of new characters that we do get, like the journalist, and the guy
who he was pro-to-yanto, wasn't I?
I think he was offered the role of Yanto.
Oh, okay.
So I had other commitments.
I can see that.
But he couldn't do it.
And but yeah, you could easily see how that would fit into place
wouldn't you?
The undertaker from Rembrandts.
Oh, our 1st returning actor.
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he's terrific.
That opening scene.
And this is another thing.
One of the problems, I think, with the Sabine's 1st appearance is
that they are shot in the 1st recording block of the new series.
And I think that there's a scene in the office where there are a
few people in the costumes who are kind of moving around an office
looking for rose.
I think Rose and Harriet might be hiding behind the curtains or
something.
It's in World War 3 and it's shot maybe on the 1st day.
It's shot really, really early and it's terrible.
Like, it really is absolutely appalling.
And, you know, Keith Bow, who shoots the 1st episode, who shoots
Rose and then shoots those 2, and then Eccleston has a massive
fight with him and he never works on the show again.
And there are problems with his direction. obviously, and then
problems with what's going on on the set.
But that is so badly done.
And it was such a bad idea because we weren't in a TV landscape
where they were shooting lots of shows where people were dressed
up as giant rubber monsters.
You know, we'd kind of lost the knack of it.
No one had been doing it for ages.
And so it's bad.
Whereas here we have Joe Hearn, and Johearn shoots kind of the
back end, I think, of series one and never works on the show
again.
I think that opening scene is incredible.
So we're outside, we just see Cleaver through the door.
We don't see who he's talking to, the camera's static and it's
sort of well and truly outside and we only go in later on one of
her lines so that we can see that it's her.
But all the way through, this is directed just so much better.
We don't make the costume, Slovine, do very much.
And in a way, the farting noises and stuff are actually slightly
worse, I think.
Like, certainly the one where Kathy hears Margaret in the toilet
and goes, Wow, it sounds like we only got here.
We got here just in time. time.
Like, that's really gross.
That's much worse than anything that we heard in Aliens of
London.
But somehow they work.
Like all of that sedine stuff is less kind of ridiculous and more
just kind of a little bit more grounded, I think.
Yeah, and she's presaging the dilemma. doctor's going to have
later and it's like, it could just be about, oh, it's not just all
we're doing, a silly toilet noise. which there was quite a bit of
in the 1st story.
In this one, it's much more, isn't this a weird backdrop for what
is actually a really pointed and emotional conversation between a
monster that's deciding not to eat someone because she's with
child.
Again, her speech patterns are so, uh, well, the kind of classic
Doctor Whoey, aren't they?
Aliens are posh.
Yes, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is our first visit to Cardiff, proper, modern Cardiff 20.
It's the naughties.
Welcome to Cardiff, and it looks that the Roald Dahl Platts looks
like it had just been built as the perfect set for landing at
TARDIS on with that giant the giant monolith of water behind it.
God, there was just so much money in the like the turn of the
millennium.
UKU.
Yeah. than being spent on all these things pre- 2008.
They would, yeah, we'll whack up the parliament.
Well, whack up a big convention centre.
And it's great.
The Cardiff authorities completely let them take it all over for
this reboot of this show that could have been a complete flop at
the time that they're taking the bookings, but they completely
accommodate them all.
And the way that that square is shod is really useful as well.
Like you get the TARDIS parked, you know, straight in front. of
that big water feature thing.
And so there's a lot of kind of, like the shots are just sort of
very carefully constructed so that you can see the millennium
centre opposite and all of that.
You get a great big panning shot across at the start so that it's
like, get a look at all this.
Yeah.
It's really wonderful, isn't it?
And clearly, like they want, you know, it's BBC Wales and they
want it in some ways to be Welsh.
And eventually, I think they offload the need to be Welsh onto
Torchwood, so it can be as Welsh as it wants and we don't have to
go to Wales every year.
We never get a Welsh companion.
No, no, that's true.
That's true.
But we get some Welsh voices and we'd get sort of plenty of Welsh
actors and stuff.
But as a way of showcasing whales and as a way, perhaps, of
thanking whales for, you know, all of the roads that we close down
and various inconveniences that are gorgeous during the making of
this show, I think it's really good.
And it looks great.
Like the place, you know, the 2 places where we go out to dinner.
All of that looks really, really nice, I think.
It feels very 2005 decor in that restaurant, I've noticed, all the
white and red, the menu design.
We're missing any ashtrays on the table.
So clearly they're ahead of the smoking gun.
Because now I'm smoking restaurant.
No one's smoking around by the bars.
Not quite entirely accurate, but expected for Doctor Who.
Yeah, because they don't want the DVD to get a PG certificate when
it comes out.
That's it.
Yeah, nice.
And yet they got a 12.
Did it?
Did he get a 12 anyway?
Oh, just because of the peril.
So yeah, because certainly kind of like some of them were 12.
I think that one of the series one ones, the one with Dalek on it
got a higher rating because of the doctor's behaviour, I think.
And a lot of people get killed, I guess.
But I think it's mostly the doctor's behaviour.
I thought it was...
Really?
Two phallic.
Who's Phallus?
Yeah, yeah, no one I know.
The other thing about this that I think is really good, and it is
a thing that just happens because it's a late replacement for
other things that fall through, is that this isn't, in any sense
like a four-part Doctor Who story that squeezed into 45 minutes
and it is just a 45 minute episode of television.
And it's the sort of thing that ever since it's been on, I kind of
wish that they would do it more often, like that we could just
take a breather and see what it's like for these people.
Yeah, and get to know that you get to know your characters.
We get to know Margaret Blonde so much better than almost any
character that we get now in a 45 minute episode because it's all
being told a double speed or more.
Hmm, it's a character piece.
This went out the week of my 12th birthday.
And I was having a sleepover with friends.
So we taped it with the intention then, oh, we'll watch it once
it's gone dark.
Having had several weeks of quite scary Doctor Who, we thought
that'd be a fun thing to do.
And obviously, we were expecting excitement, fun, action, scared
Miss Brendan. didn't get that. disappointing.
So it had never really been that high in my measure since that
kind of memory had stuck with me because it wasn't what I was
expecting.
But watching it now, I think, actually, this works so well within
the season.
It feels right to have a pause and a breather of going, you know
we've talked about roads delving into who roads really is a bit
more.
But then also like the doctor, and I think probably more so
important for like 2005 when, yeah, there's a lot of viewers who
don't know this character at all, don't really know what he's
like.
And all the things we've been seeing, like how he is or are the
exceptions to the rule, that emphasis about, you know, him
pointing out that you don't stick around to see the consequences
um, and that nice little exchange between him and Margaret about
you let one go and that's how you live with yourself.
Only a killer would know that. wonderful.
That's maybe the best line, isn't it?
It's so good.
And the way that it changes that scene, because that scene is
really brilliant.
And you think, well, the doctor knows about this because he's met
evil people who are killers and he kind of understands them to
some degree.
And so you think that he's got the upper hand there and that he's
kind of successfully psychologising her and that he's neutralising
that little moment of self-approval.
Margaret actually thinks, no, I'm not really that bad a person.
Look, I didn't kill Kathy earlier this episode.
And the doctor kind of just takes that away from her.
But then she comes back and she just says the only reason.
It's really cool.
I mean, there's these magnificent like extreme close-ups that you
don't really get in television much at that time then.
Um, let alone now.
We've got big TVs.
We don't do extreme close-ups like you'd have in the 60s, but it's
such a subtle like drop in Eccleston's facial expressions the
moment she says that and he's like visibly quite uncomfortable.
Like, you can tell he's been caught off guard.
So superb from him there.
And at this point, we know that about him too.
I mean, the beginning of this episode has taken the tone that, you
know, Sarah Jane adventures will eventually take with a great deal
of success.
But now to be reminded that the doctor is someone who is a killer
and has admitted to that.
And, you know, we've seen him blow people up and do all sorts of
fun things for the, you know, 26 years of the classic series, but
this, I think, you know, this series for the 1st time gives us a
little bit more of the doctor's interiority, we get a little bit
more about how he feels about things and seeing his reaction.
That moment, remember the moment in the end of the world where
Jabe holds his hand and he weeps for a 2nd and then he shakes it
off.
And, like, I can't imagine, you know, like, you can tell when the
doctor thinks Eldrad's hot or when the doctor thinks Astrid's
hot.
You know, like occasionally you can tell what the doctor's
feeling.
But never quite like this.
And so that, where you've got a great actor, like Christopher
Eccleston, and there's nowhere to hide in those massive close
ups.
It is a pretty great moment.
It's really well shot that, isn't it?
Because you've got them opposite each other across the table for
some comedy business as well.
Like the dart and the puff of the puff of poison.
Yeah, yeah.
And again, that's really fun and cartoonish and really light.
And that's the Russell thing where you go from that to the
admission that your hero is as much of a killer as the person that
he's sitting opposite.
I kind of love the moment just before they get to dinner, where he
gets the handcuffs off Jack.
She's like, hmm, dinner and bondage works for me.
Why does Jack have them?
Where has he got them?
I think we know.
This is the 1st time we've mentioned him, because this is kind of
Jack's 1st episode.
As a companion.
Is it?
No, no, I'm getting them in the reward.
Yeah, we met Jack the week before, didn't we?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So this is Jack's 1st episode the 1st episode that begins with
Jack and the TARDIS on travels with them all.
And I couldn't help thinking, imagine if season 19 was like this
and they all kept high-fiving each other and doing innuendos all
the time, so... about the bickering, but my God, I couldn't cope
with that.
The whole like into time and space.
And you see ourselves.
And I'm so unreaky sorry for that point.
You are cheesy, guys. are cheesy.
We're supposed to be Mickey in that scene, aren't we?
But yeah, yeah.
We're walking in them.
Who are these smug wankers?
It starts with Mickey getting off the train, doesn't it?
Cardiff.
We follow him.
We aren't in the TARDIS and we don't watch them appear or anything
like that.
There, they're already doing whatever it is they do, and we follow
Mickey over to meet them, and they are obnoxious.
Like they are really quite obnoxious, I think.
Jack doesn't have a great deal to do in this.
And this line of, um, who are you captain of the innuendo squad
does just sum up really what he ended up doing most of this
episode.
I think it's probably right that, you know, obviously didn't try
and squeeze in something for Jap because it is so much more about
the doctor and Rose and Mickey and leaving him to, you know, fiddle
with things in the TARDIS is sort of the best way of keeping him
out of the way.
That makes him the Nissa, doesn't it?
It does make him really, yeah.
He's a tin dog.
It also kind of shows starting the post-credits scenes with Mickey
getting off the train. kind of shows how rose has changed over the
course of this season.
She is no longer the audience identification figure in a way.
He has become the audience identification pickup because she has
been changed so much by her travels.
And, I mean, later on, like the following year, we'll get Jackie's
take on how Rose has changed and how she's likely to change in the
future.
You know, the fear that Jackie expresses in Army of Ghosts that
one day, there'll be Rose and she'll be on an asteroid in a space
market or something and she won't be human anymore because she
won't even remember her home.
And you know, there is that as a possible thing.
I mean, the big thing, and it becomes even bigger next year, is
how kind of obnoxious the doctor and rose are together, and their
arrogance and things.
The bit, you know, where Queen Victoria takes them down a peg
because she knows all along that they've been making fun of her.
Like, it is a sort of funny thing to do, but I really appreciate
making the leads in some sense unlikeable in some ways.
And they're still charming and funny and fun and they're fun to be
around flawed.
Yeah, the banter is really fun, all that sort of, you know, buy me
a drink first.
You know, are you saying I'm not handsome?
I like that's where they go.
And that's a big deal in 2005 on TV to have an ostensibly straight
character and an ostensively queer stroke gay stroke by whatever
character.
However, Captain Jack is being...
Stroke, stroke, character.
Pinned down.
Yeah, categorised is the word.
However, he's been categorised.
The idea that he can flirt with the doctor and the doctor can just
have a laugh about it and flirt back with him.
You don't see 2 male characters doing that much on TV, even then
maybe it's coming into soaps a bit.
But it's just so casual and lighthearted and breezed over, and
it's actually quite a big deal, I think.
We get our 1st I think it's our 1st Doctor Who of the of the new
series from Naughtyanto in the reception desk when he says, tell
her I'm the doctor. and nobody drops an anvil on it.
There isn't a Murray Gold fan fair.
It is actually just jump very casually.
You, the viewer, can, ah, you said the thing, but the show doesn't
go, he's just said the thing, which is what it will start doing in
a couple of years time.
Well, yeah, from the Christmas invasion, it just a few episodes
time, actually.
I'm a big fan of Dr. Watt actually.
It was interesting, you mentioned about the arrogance, because we
get the line about playing with so many lives, you might as well
be a god, which feels like the 1st touch on where they're going to
go later with tenants, doctor.
Yeah.
We always build it up too much to a point in the series because it
does become where do you go?
Whereas at this point it is just sort of a hint, like acting like
it, not actually.
I think it does eventually go too far in places and there are
times when I just think that David Tennant's doctor is really
roundly slappable.
Mostly I'm on board and usually when I'm watching it, you know, I'm
surprised by how much I enjoy his performance generally.
And, you know, like I'm in record saying this is my favourite era
of the show, but he is really often quite annoying.
There's a flight through Entirety episode.
I think it's our fear her episode, which is called Most Punchable
Moment. which is absolutely named after that phenomenon, I think.
Yeah.
And I do wonder, I always wonder, one of those, I don't think, you
know, what if Eccleston had done series two?
would they have developed his doctor in that direction anyway?
Would he have become more and more arrogant unless impassive?
That's the wrong word, but less whatever he is.
It is hard to know because, I mean, they do change.
There's some of series 2 is kind of more or less written for
Eccleston and obviously Tennant's performance is very different
from that.
But you can see a kind of version of the show.
Anyway, I've talked about this before, but I have a feeling that
Russell's blindsided by Billy's decision to depart at the end of
series 2.
And so a whole heap of what he intended to do with that
relationship just never ends up properly happening. think.
Right, because yeah, because I always felt watching series 2 that
you know, this is building up to her having a realisation about
how arrogant she's been.
And in the end, she kind of doesn't.
She just cries and feels sorry for herself and that's the end.
It's like, okay, that wasn't you realising that you'd been wrong.
No, no, I feel sorry.
And that's kind of the end of this too.
You know, she's feeling sorry for herself.
There's the bit that she gets that line.
This has nothing to do with Trisha. is all about me.
She says to Mickey as an accusation.
It reminds me there's a bit in one of the early Buffy episodes
where Cordelia gets that line.
It's all about me when she realises that whatever the curse of the
week is, is actually all about her.
And Sandler gets to say for once, she's right.
It's just little droplets of Cordelia in Rose.
She's not entirely buffy.
I do feel like I spend this episode.
Well, definitely originally, questioning whether the doctor is
going to go through with taking Margaret back to be executed.
It seems so certain initially, and then we get that very
increasingly vile descriptions of what's going to happen to her.
And there's so much more emphasis on that than what she's done
even though I know we've sort of seen it in the 1st sort of half
of the episode.
You start to sort of get to the point of, are there other
options?
Could he do something different?
And in the end, the episode never follows through with it.
The choice is taken away and he's never forced to make the
decision.
It is a little bit of a shame, isn't it?
I also think the other thing that happens is that it's made very
clear that all of this staff is Margaret just toying with him, she
has no intention of allowing him to take her back, and she's
already working on plan B, which is what happens and what
interrupts their dinner, is that the extrapolator, which Jack is
tinkering on, takes over the TARDIS and is about to get enough
power for her to surf out of and destroy everything just as she
had kind of planned to do.
So all of that stuff is her playing him.
Now, in retrospect, when you're watching it, you can just choose
to not worry too much about that and then there's a twist and
whatever.
And then the story sort of changes.
And I think the story tries to have its cake and eat it too, a
little bit by having Margaret smiling beatifically into the shiny
light and thanking the doctor as if she kind of understands what's
about to happen.
So maybe on some level.
We're supposed to believe that the chance of a 2nd chance he's
welcome to her.
That's what she wants.
But we don't get the chance to see where the doctor lies, what
would the doctor have done?
But we even get the kind of that whole conversation sort of
undermined by what we then discover is going on in her head.
I mean, I think that conversation is really magnificent.
It is really great, isn't it?
And what I really love about it is that it is a conversation.
If Russell was writing this a year later, it would have been a
speech.
And we would have had a big closer on the doctor and he says, I
have to, I could just imagine in my mind's eye.
Yeah, yeah.
It's not, it's characters working it through and yeah, she's
chipping away at him and he knows she's doing it and he's got his
defences up and it still starts working.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was all along.
Russell was thinking, obviously there'll be a get out for him.
This isn't the story where we find out whether the doctor really
will send someone to their death.
It's the episode where the doctor is forced to think he might have
to think about that.
And it is one of the 1st times, one of our 1st Russell T. Davis
etch mashing endings.
So it when 1st few times you do it, it doesn't eclipse the central
message about it, which is the point is, yeah, the doctor had to
think he might have to do that.
And yeah, that's quite all quite political.
The whole European human rights act thing, not being able to
deport criminals to countries where they might face the death
penalty.
That the real ongoing debate 20 years later.
Oh, goodness, isn't it?
That's kind of depressing Probably more so now then.
Yeah.
It's the opposite of a Dr. Light episode.
The doctor's bang in the middle of it, but and yet it sort of
feels like it's doing what the Doctor Who light episodes is often
do in terms of tone and in terms of being a character study.
I do remember 1st watching it, I was there thinking, is it going
to get going soon?
And the once you get about halfway through.
And at 1st I was like, okay, did I see what they're doing?
It's quite interesting, but I want a proper episode next week.
And it's one that's really grown to become one of my all-time
favourite episodes in the couple of years after it 1st went out
because, yeah, it didn't, it didn't blow me away on 1st viewing
because that's not what I was trying to do.
It's just.
We are about 20 minutes in, really, before the doctor and crew and
are together with Margaret and we kind of get a bit more of a hint
of where is this actually going for the episode?
Yeah.
Yeah. is what it's really about.
I love that she'd got permission to demolish the castle.
So again, like that is unbelievably great.
And like, I'm not quite sure what's happening there.
So it's clear that in this sort of, in this run of RTD, the future
is played largely for comedy and the past is serious, but the
present is really cartoony, isn't it?
And like it really kind of wears its unreality on its sleeve.
Like no one is going to allow kind of castle to be demolished.
That's never going to happen.
We're not going to build a nuclear power plant right next to a
major population centre as Margaret herself.
The word nuclear power station and major population centre.
I'm the happiest of bedfellows.
The smash cut is wonderful where the doctor says, we can just
leave the TARDIS here.
Central Cardiff, safest place in the universe.
This nuclear power station.
That's what you do.
It's almost, you know, it's the borderline between Austin Powers
and real, James Bond kind of situate humour.
James Bond is often very nearly as funny as Austin Powers.
Yeah, it used to be.
And once upon a time.
And yeah, it's doing that same thing.
Let's almost spoof Doctor Who.
But keep it on track.
But it's also like, it's not our actual present.
It's always, you know, since 6 weeks earlier, we have had a false
present and we are now actually what is meant to be like 18 months
later since like Rose.
So this is an alternative. like autumn 2006 technically.
Yeah, where everyone knows the earth nearly got invaded a few
months ago.
Yeah.
This is like the equivment of unit dating in the 21st century.
I'm thinking a bit of a mess at some point.
He's being more careful about it.
I think he's probably learned his lesson because we have that very
definite period between rose and aliens of London, which is, you
know, quantified.
We're told how long that is.
And we do get 6 months later here.
And I'm almost certain that it's 6 months later because it's 6
weeks later in real time.
And of course, it's not really long enough for Margaret.
I mean, she's just been elected mayor, so Newman, New Cardiff.
There are no photos of her for some reason.
I don't quite know what's happening there.
No photos.
I'm the mayor. take a photo of me, take a photo of the new prop
that we spent 10s of pounds on.
The torchwood crew, of course, are all hiding.
Well, this is going on because Captain Jack is already there.
Yeah, running torchwood. taking them on an away day.
Do you remember that?
We didn't know how any of that fitted together for so long and
then it all just gets kind of solved very quickly and without much
fast, but it's entirely.
They were they were all doing Laser Quest in Swansea that day or
something.
That's almost certainly how it happened.
A team building exercise.
Talking of spinoffs, we get mentions of offscreen adventures, I
think, for the 1st time here, don't we?
Rose talks about woman wept and names of planet that's in a book
that would come out, which is...
Justicia, I think, is the name of the planet that she mentions.
And then the doctor will mention some other offscreen adventures
at the beginning of Bad Wolf.
You know, he mentions the adventure that they've just been on in
kind of feudal Japan, which I think is a reference to a book as
well.
And generally speaking, that was something that they didn't want
to do too much.
I think the BBC had rules about not requiring people to kind of
buy spinoff material in order to understand what's going on in the
parent show.
But I think the reason for it here is that because this show
starts from Mickey's point of view, we aren't following the
doctor's adventures at this point.
And so having some time pass. and having other things happen.
And I think too, at this point, you know, series one is set in and
around Earth in its entirety.
It's basically, you know, platform one, satellite 5, and
everything else is on Earth, we never go off.
And I don't think that we actually go to an alien planet until, you
know, the beginning of the next season.
And even then it's just a very, very, very cold and windy day in
Wales, isn't it?
So, I guess telling that stuff, like telling those, you know, like
having Rose say that stuff fills that in for us.
We also get Jack's story as well, which is, you know, we come in
as the audience halfway through this story.
It's a kind of put us in Mickey's view as well there.
Um, and that great big hilarious story and we're not, we, we can't
get the joke of it um, as well.
Yeah.
It's a very odd scene in that cafe and that having very loud and
not a single, one of those retired people sat reading the
newspapers and stuff, takes a glance at them, which feels so like
you've told the extras not to look at the action.
Watching the reaction of the of the extra when the doctor gets up
and takes his newspaper off him and walks back to the table.
Um, he, uh, really doesn't quite know exactly how to react to
that.
No, you dare act. for not paying your tenement.
Yeah, he just turns to the person he sat next to, doesn't he?
just carries on talking.
I mean, the fun thing about that, though, is that that story is a
kind of shaggy dog story, and Mickey is the one who guesses the
final line of it.
And so, like, that's the other thing too, is that things look like
they're going really well.
Like Mickey comes in, he owns them.
Do you know what I mean?
He is winning at some of the banter there.
He's, and remember the kind of the last time that we saw Mickey, I
guess, except in Father's Day.
The doctor is actually quite nice to him.
He's been a bit of a hero in World War 3 and stuff, saving Jackie
and things.
He gets to be, he's not Mickey the idiot in that.
No, and the doctor actually invites him aboard the Tartars and he
says no, and he also kind of doesn't want Rose to know that he
said no, that he doesn't think he could take it.
And so the doctor kind of pretends that he's not allowing him
aboard the Tartars.
And so the doctor has developed a liking for Mickey at this
point.
And Mickey does start to, like, things start to warm up.
And there's even that scene, which is really unusual for Doctor
Who and is just really perfect, where Mickey and Rose talk about
like, Rose admits that she didn't need her passport.
She just wanted to see him.
And that seems nice.
Do you know what I mean until I think we're invited to reinterpret
it later as her just being demanding and manipulative and really
kind of horrible. wanting to keep him ticking over.
Yeah, that's right.
But it does seem nice.
She shouts, jump, and he comes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it looks like things are going well.
You know, we're going to go out to dinner.
We are going to a hotel.
We've kind of decided that we're going to do that. and that seemed
like a very kind of grown up.
You know, it's a step beyond a saying, you know, professor, I'm
not a little girl anymore.
You know, no, you're about 27. response that.
You're about to fall in love with a cheater person.
But I mean, there is going to be some sex having going on.
Do you know what I mean?
Like later on in the evening.
And so things do look like they're going well, but the whole thing
kind of goes to hell.
And I'm not quite sure exactly why.
There doesn't seem to be a big thing, does there?
Like, he blurts her out.
Well, it's him mentioning Sheila Delaney and suddenly they've kind
she's quite keen on the idea initially of, oh, we could go for a
drink.
I could got a hotel, I could get some got some money.
And then actually, later, they're quite awkwardly like, they've
moved apart on like standing around and it's just such an
awkwardness in between them and he mentions the hotel again.
She's just like, Sheila Delaney.
Like there's no kind of big obvious thing. like it's like a real
conversation in that it kind of goes pear shaped because of some
awkwardness that they can't overcome.
And the moment where it really kind of takes a turn for the worst
is when he just says, I'm going out with Trisha.
And then it kind of goes to hell and then now Rose is kind of
contemptuous and a little bit put out.
There's a bit of a feeling as well that they haven't got anything
in common to talk about, she tells him about stuff and then he
tells her what he's been up to back home and it is worlds apart of
and they, what have they got to talk about what would happen
between them 18 months ago?
It's the archetypal couple who decided to say they're going to
stay together when one of them goes to university and the other
one doesn't, you know.
This is kind of what it thought me about.
So when we talk about like, oh, rose changing and stuff, it is
that age of, you know, going to university or like leaving home
and getting your 1st job and stuff, it's okay to change, but you
do also think sometimes have that realisation that the people you
like were friends with growing up, you suddenly don't have
anything in common apart from you're from the same place or you're
roughly the same age and you know, you found some new things that
are going to define you and change you.
Yes, it takes a turn for the worst there, but the clinching moment
for me is that she just runs off to try and get back to the TARDIS
and forgets about him.
You know, they had the fight.
Like, the ground starts to shake.
People start screaming and she just runs off and leaves him and
well, it's not her.
It's an extra with some terrible pigtails.
But he doesn't run after her, but she just runs off without doing
or saying anything.
And she's she's off to get the doctor, you know, like she's off
because there's an adventure and now Mickey's no longer
interesting.
It's not that she's abandoning Mickey or doesn't care what happens
to him or anything like that.
It's just her 1st instinct is, I've got to run to the Tartars.
And Mickey knows that.
Like, that's how Mickey's interpreting it as well.
I don't think he's interpreting it as I'm being abandoned by you
to my terrible fate while this restaurant in Carter lands on top
of me or anything.
Like, it's just that I'm less interesting to you than whatever
adventure is going on over there.
That's still pretty crushing, though.
Yeah, no, no, it is absolutely that.
There's one small thing as well. back at the start of the episode
when they 1st exit the TARDIS and they're going off to the cafe
and Mickey's just turned up.
And as they're walking off, Rose grabs the doctor's arm in a just
to kind of go friendly heading off together, but that film is such
a sign of how close friend she's become with the doctor and yet
Mickey has just turned up. like, my God, like hold his hand like
although it's clear kind of art that they're meant to be boyfriend
and girlfriends like previously, but clearly like by this time it
seems to be, they're not entirely sure what they are anymore.
Also, like, he's turned up.
She grabs the doctor's arm.
He's trailing along behind them, all of them.
And she puts her head on the doctor's shoulder.
And it's like, oh, my god, that's just, oh, my my heart breaks for
him just there.
He gets to win.
I mean, I think he goes on his own terms, doesn't he?
So these things never sort of properly stick, I think, in this
era.
Like there's not necessarily a proper through line about their
relationship or there's nothing super intentional about it.
We turn up, you know, mostly Mickey's here because we want him in
it for some reason.
We're never again primarily about the relationship between Rose
and Mickey, I think, in a way that this episode is.
But he kind of gets to just hang back and not allow himself to be
found.
He doesn't want to give her the chance to apologise and he doesn't
want to give her the chance to make up for it.
And like I think he's learned properly what she's like.
Yeah, he's got to slip away, otherwise he will never be able to
break free.
His thing as well, him saying always, he talks about he will
always come after her and stuff earlier.
And I wonder if that is the realisation that he needs something to
stop himself doing that.
He wants a relationship that is nice and is happy.
And needs to feel not beholden to her.
So instead he goes and marries a woman who was unrequited in love
with the doctor.
Just one of the oddest arcs. that we've ever had.
I really, really like how good Margaret looks in the TARDIS
console room with the green light on her face.
And so we don't need to put her in the stupid costume because she
because the savine is meant to look like the face of a person, you
know, it's a baby face, but it's also the face of someone who's
carrying some extra weight.
And so, like, she's got the big cheeks and everything that a
Slovine has and she's green, like, Joe, her and puts the green
light on her.
And in this era, you know, the Tardis is either golden or green in
the way that it's lit.
And I think it depended on who the lighting guy was that day.
But we very definitely get those scenes where, like, it's just
before dinner, isn't it, and where she really kind of lays out
what the dilemma's going to be, and she looks like a Slovene in
that scene.
And I think that's kind of really well done.
I think the decision to kind of minimise the use of the Sabine
costume and to kind of eliminate the use of the CGI one and just
to make it a prop.
It's obviously a budgetary thing.
It's a cheap episode, but it also means that we get Annette and
her performance in all of that rather than some big guy called
Alec in a rubaround.
Which is always going to be the right choice.
But I wonder how she lifted that arm up.
Was it on a winch?
It's a very heavy arm.
She's very strong in air.
She's a fantastic villainous character in the archers, the BBCs
even longer than Doctor Who running right.
Yeah, she's she only she sort of flies out on a broomstick every
decade for a few episodes. the daughter of the estranged daughter
of the kindly old man who I think's long since gone now, but she
was always just coming in to try and get more money out of him and
to get herself into his will and things like that.
So she, Yeah, she's got a very good villain voice well practised
from that, I think, which I think she was doing around the same
time as this early naughties, I think.
At the other end of the spectrum, she's quite a good proprietress
of a pub in Ted Lasso.
Oh, I've never seen that.
I remember, like, I think she was wonderfully in wizards versus
aliens.
Like I was a, um, I really enjoyed Wizards versus Aliens and it
was the 1st time that we ever saw Gwendolen Christie and stuff and
it had a giant puppet, Brian Blessed in it, and she was like, she
was fabulous.
Like, she was just awesome in that.
Just, it was very nice that she got that sort of big role in
another RTD thing.
Well, that's all the time we have on his ring.
We'll be back next week to catch up with Samantha Bonds, Mrs
Wormwood, and she gets to menace a new set of children in the
Sarah Jane Adventures, Enemy of the Bane.
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, it's going to be a cold winter, so be careful out
there on the ice.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
Good night.
Bye bye.
Ta-ta.
That was 500 Year Diary starring Nathan Bottomley, Hannah Cooper
Pete Lambert, and James Selwood.
The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.
This episode, Aliens of Posh, was recorded on the 25th of May 2025
and released on the 22nd of June.
Well, I'm planning to spend the next week in the nearby parallel
universe where Idris Hopper plate Alad Pedrick in Torchwood
instead of Gareth David Lloyd as Yanto Jones.
It's a kind of gentler reality than this one.
People are nice.
It's nice that they hang the, um, the hat on it of the explanation
of the, the great line in that, in that scene in the TARD as well
uh, right, I think it's Rose gets to say.
So it's finally being used as a real police box.
They have the split up at the start where they do have to explain
to the children.
And anyone born after 1980.
What a police box was actually four.
It's not just a telephone booth.
It's a little police cell as well.
That was really good, actually, wasn't it?
Because you kind of think, well, we've got time to do that.
We're not running from anything.
This is a more slow paced, less urgent story.
No peril is going to kick in until the last kind of 10 minutes or
so.
And so we've got time to do some much needed exposition.
And it really is much needed.
It's the 1st time the show has ever mentioned it since it sort of
comes back.
He just calls it a disguise, doesn't he?
in the opening being.
And Rose calls it the cloaking device and he corrects her to
chameleon circuit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
One of the 2 major references to the 1996 movie.
The other one being, I think, when the Daleks, does a Dalek, does
the Dalek emperor say something about being half human or being
partly human and all of the Dalek's chorus, that is blasphemy.
I think...
Almost certainly a reference. reference to that as well.
I reckon we've got an out.
I think we're probably in the in the in the tag stage at this
point.
Don't you?
Do you think?
Yeah