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This transcript was created on 2026-06-07 at 09:11:24

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Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to 500 Year Diary.

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The only Doctor Who podcast whose hosts are all ranking captains of the Innuendo Squad.

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I'm Nathan.

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I'm Hannah.

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I'm James, and I'm feet.

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It's the 4th of June, 2005.

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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.

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Also known as Lord Mayor of Cardiff, Councillor Margaret Blaine.

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But how will she get on without her large and pungent extended family?

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Let's find out as we discuss Boomtown.

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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.

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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.

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And so I'm going to start with P.

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Yeah, they were the 1st instance of me and what was I?

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early 30s being a little bit like, oh, okay, this is going in a direction.

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I'm not so, no, the farting.

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Actually, just the farting.

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Everything else was fine.

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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?

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Because I'd loved the 1st few episodes so much.

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So, yeah, my I was a little bit reticent in my enjoyment of the Slovene, I'll say.

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I was 11, so it was quite much more on board.

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Yeah, I remember that of a shock.

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Oh, my God, like it's a 2 parter.

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I didn't know that was going to be a thing.

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And really, really enjoyed them.

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They were really kind of the episodes that I think were kind of converting me into a fan.

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I was 24, so I was really on board with it.

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I am still a child.

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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.

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That's probably not true, actually, strictly speaking, but I did like it a lot.

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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.

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And we'll talk a little bit about that, I think.

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But, of course, that, too, part is crazy, isn't it?

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There's nothing like it ever before.

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It's an alien invasion, but we get to see it on television.

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You've got people that you know as political reporters who've got Andrew Marr involved, you know, like all of this stuff.

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It's really very different from anything we've ever seen.

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Even as an 11 year old.

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I did not know of Andrew Moore because I was not watching news at 10. surprising.

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But like we'd not long had the general election in the UK.

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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.

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So I got what that was.

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And the massive weapons of destruction line was a real, they did that.

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They literally, that's, that is the headlines rephrased very slightly.

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And during an, and it was during an election campaign too.

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And the BBC Let Russell T. Davis get away with that then.

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It really is extraordinarily political.

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I mean, the whole sort of farting aliens things, you know, make it kind of a grotesque caricature.

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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.

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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.

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So that kind of level of specificity.

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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.

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This was a little bit more kind of angrily satirical, I think.

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How do you feel that the Slovenes looked, though, on television?

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The cuts between the CGI and the and the costumes were so really, really noticeable 1st time around.

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But this time, I mean, is there much CGI this time or is it much more physical for Boomtown?

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They don't use the models, the full length models.

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They do whatever CGI they need to do to get Margaret to take the skin suit off when she's in the toilet?

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Yeah, but they don't, we don't use them to run or anything like that.

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So we are just using the suits.

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And I mean, the design is it's so distinctive and original.

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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.

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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.

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I liked even no details like the blinking is vertical.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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With a clicking sound.

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But I mean, they have all of the kind of physical characteristics of a fat person as well.

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Do you know what I mean?

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They have paunches and stuff.

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And that's bit of a damn from Mr. Davis this year, isn't it?

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It feels very like mid-naughters in general as well of all these reality shows and stuff we'd get.

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It was just like perfectly acceptable to say, yeah, fat people are terrible.

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There's one kind of line that I think here is in retrospect a little bit awful about Trisha Delaney later on in Boomtown.

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And it is clearly a thing.

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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.

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And so there is some kind.

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I don't know.

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I always read it at some level of sort of self-loathing.

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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.

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But also Russell dives on that.

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He dives on being gay.

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And also, I think there's a lot about class in this.

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There's a lot about his word.

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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?

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It's like, that's, you know, you judging everyone who is still working in a shop and eating chips.

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But he knows that and he thinks, well, that's my territory, so I'm going to go for it, I guess.

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You could actually extend that to.

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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.

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He shows them how to be better people.

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That's, in and of itself, could be read as classes.

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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.

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And so is that actually, yeah, could that be read that way?

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don't know.

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Yeah, because Martha's the exception, really, isn't she?

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Yeah, Martha's him doing the opposite of what he normally does, you know.

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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.

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And I was like, whoa, that's, I can't, I just can't imagine Dr. Dr. who doesn't say that?

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And that was the strangest thing to just feel out of place in Doctor Who for me.

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When everything else had done this year.

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They were doing loads of new stuff.

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That was the one moment that I remember it really clanging with me that year.

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I mean, Tagan is in the show for like 3 years.

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I mean, you know.

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Don't tell Janet.

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It's something I've noticed increasingly like, you know, to the present, in sort of, choo-choo's time, it feels.

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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.

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I mean, it's not class, is it, that makes the distinction between who is acceptable and isn't acceptable in Adam's case.

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Adam is treacherous and he's out for himself.

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And so that's ultimately why he gets rejected, I think.

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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.

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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.

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And so, so it can't quite be that.

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It can't be you need to be terrifically selfless to be allowed to travel with a doctor.

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It is an odd bum node, I think.

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I think he's deliberately saying in this one.

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You know, she's not Sarah Jane and he's not Harry.

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Because when I was little, I never liked the Harry Sullivan as an imbecile moment in Revenge of the Cybermen.

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I made that turn against the 4th doctor a bit.

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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.

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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.

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She started off again.

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And 6 months later, and it feels like he's had therefore 6 months of sitting and thinking about this.

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It's that bit where as well, he, he tells, you made me feel like I was nothing.

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Yeah.

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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.

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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.

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It's probably like their 1st proper relationship.

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And we see them in rows and they're very sweet together and stuff.

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It feels like you can see the hurt and but then also like, as much you want to say, like, yeah, Rose is terrible.

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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.

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Yeah, I, I, like, I think that the, that the episode is very, very definitely about that, like the big character thing.

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You know, we start with a sort of hijinx, don't we?

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The heist, you know, the capturing Margaret thing, which is about the 1st 3rd of it.

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And it's so funny.

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It's all this fun, light, playful music.

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Yeah, yeah.

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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.

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And Margaret's excuses get more and more rosterous down to the point of, I didn't see him coming, you know.

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She literally killed at least 2 of them.

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It's on record that shit.

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It's on an icy patch.

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It was a very icy patch.

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So great.

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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.

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It is really fun.

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My favourite bit is where the doctor says to Margaret's personal assistant.

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She's climbing out the window, isn't she?

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And he goes, yes.

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I just think is absolutely tremendous.

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So all of that sort of stuff is really terribly fun.

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And you notice that we don't really have that much of the Sabine costume at all.

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So we have the Slovene costume appears in the bathroom.

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Yep.

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We at last gets his dream.

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It's not it's not tooting back.

157
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But it is, but it's the next place thing and we finally get a, and I have been researching.

158
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I've been and checked on Tardiswiki.

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This is the 1st use of a toilet in Doctor Who on TV.

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And it's definitely the 1st monster on a toilet.

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And instead of it being terrifying.

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It becomes a moment with sympathetic music and she starts questioning herself.

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It's really good.

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She's delightful.

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Like the young woman who plays, Kathy is just sort of sweet and beautiful and instantly appealing, I think.

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It's a really small cast, isn't it?

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I was going to start, like, I was thinking, there are real parallels between this and edge of destruction.

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Not many, but some.

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It's written as a last minute replacement.

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It is a case of we can only do it with stuff we've got in the cupboard.

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Right, knock us up a model nuclear power station.

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That's basically the only new prop that it got.

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And we film it all around Cardiff. which is, you know, as good as filming in the studio.

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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?

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I think he was offered the role of Yanto.

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Oh, okay.

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So I had other commitments.

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I can see that.

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But he couldn't do it.

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And but yeah, you could easily see how that would fit into place, wouldn't you?

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The undertaker from Rembrandts.

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Oh, our 1st returning actor.

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Yes.

184
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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And he's terrific.

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That opening scene.

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And this is another thing.

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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.

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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.

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I think Rose and Harriet might be hiding behind the curtains or something.

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It's in World War 3 and it's shot maybe on the 1st day.

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It's shot really, really early and it's terrible.

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Like, it really is absolutely appalling.

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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.

195
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And there are problems with his direction. obviously, and then problems with what's going on on the set.

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But that is so badly done.

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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.

198
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You know, we'd kind of lost the knack of it.

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No one had been doing it for ages.

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And so it's bad.

201
00:16:42.419 --> 00:16:52.139
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.

202
00:16:52.200 --> 00:16:54.779
I think that opening scene is incredible.

203
00:16:54.840 --> 00:16:58.740
So we're outside, we just see Cleaver through the door.

204
00:16:58.799 --> 00:17:09.180
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.

205
00:17:09.240 --> 00:17:12.720
But all the way through, this is directed just so much better.

206
00:17:12.779 --> 00:17:16.980
We don't make the costume, Slovine, do very much.

207
00:17:17.039 --> 00:17:22.380
And in a way, the farting noises and stuff are actually slightly worse, I think.

208
00:17:22.440 --> 00:17:29.160
Like, certainly the one where Kathy hears Margaret in the toilet and goes, Wow, it sounds like we only got here.

209
00:17:29.220 --> 00:17:31.380
We got here just in time. time.

210
00:17:31.799 --> 00:17:34.079
Like, that's really gross.

211
00:17:34.140 --> 00:17:36.900
That's much worse than anything that we heard in Aliens of London.

212
00:17:36.960 --> 00:17:39.240
But somehow they work.

213
00:17:39.299 --> 00:17:47.039
Like all of that sedine stuff is less kind of ridiculous and more just kind of a little bit more grounded, I think.

214
00:17:47.099 --> 00:17:58.799
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.

215
00:17:58.859 --> 00:18:10.680
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.

216
00:18:10.740 --> 00:18:15.779
Again, her speech patterns are so, uh, well, the kind of classic Doctor Whoey, aren't they?

217
00:18:15.839 --> 00:18:16.920
Aliens are posh.

218
00:18:16.980 --> 00:18:18.299
Yes, yeah.

219
00:18:18.359 --> 00:18:18.900
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

220
00:18:32.579 --> 00:18:36.599
This is our first visit to Cardiff, proper, modern Cardiff 20.

221
00:18:36.599 --> 00:18:37.799
It's the naughties.

222
00:18:37.920 --> 00:18:47.160
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.

223
00:18:47.220 --> 00:18:52.079
God, there was just so much money in the like the turn of the millennium.

224
00:18:52.140 --> 00:18:53.339
UKU.

225
00:18:53.400 --> 00:18:57.180
Yeah. than being spent on all these things pre- 2008.

226
00:18:57.359 --> 00:18:59.640
They would, yeah, we'll whack up the parliament.

227
00:18:59.700 --> 00:19:01.140
Well, whack up a big convention centre.

228
00:19:01.200 --> 00:19:02.880
And it's great.

229
00:19:02.940 --> 00:19:12.720
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.

230
00:19:12.779 --> 00:19:16.200
And the way that that square is shod is really useful as well.

231
00:19:16.259 --> 00:19:22.500
Like you get the TARDIS parked, you know, straight in front. of that big water feature thing.

232
00:19:23.279 --> 00:19:33.059
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.

233
00:19:33.119 --> 00:19:39.000
You get a great big panning shot across at the start so that it's like, get a look at all this.

234
00:19:39.119 --> 00:19:39.779
Yeah.

235
00:19:39.839 --> 00:19:42.059
It's really wonderful, isn't it?

236
00:19:42.119 --> 00:19:49.200
And clearly, like they want, you know, it's BBC Wales and they want it in some ways to be Welsh.

237
00:19:49.259 --> 00:19:57.900
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.

238
00:19:58.140 --> 00:20:00.240
We never get a Welsh companion.

239
00:20:00.299 --> 00:20:02.460
No, no, that's true.

240
00:20:02.519 --> 00:20:02.940
That's true.

241
00:20:03.000 --> 00:20:07.140
But we get some Welsh voices and we'd get sort of plenty of Welsh actors and stuff.

242
00:20:07.200 --> 00:20:20.160
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.

243
00:20:20.220 --> 00:20:21.420
And it looks great.

244
00:20:21.480 --> 00:20:25.019
Like the place, you know, the 2 places where we go out to dinner.

245
00:20:25.079 --> 00:20:27.720
All of that looks really, really nice, I think.

246
00:20:27.779 --> 00:20:36.900
It feels very 2005 decor in that restaurant, I've noticed, all the white and red, the menu design.

247
00:20:36.960 --> 00:20:40.019
We're missing any ashtrays on the table.

248
00:20:40.079 --> 00:20:42.779
So clearly they're ahead of the smoking gun.

249
00:20:42.779 --> 00:20:44.339
Because now I'm smoking restaurant.

250
00:20:44.400 --> 00:20:45.660
No one's smoking around by the bars.

251
00:20:47.160 --> 00:20:52.079
Not quite entirely accurate, but expected for Doctor Who.

252
00:20:52.140 --> 00:20:56.460
Yeah, because they don't want the DVD to get a PG certificate when it comes out.

253
00:20:56.940 --> 00:20:58.500
That's it.

254
00:20:58.559 --> 00:20:59.099
Yeah, nice.

255
00:20:59.099 --> 00:21:00.779
And yet they got a 12.

256
00:21:01.019 --> 00:21:01.619
Did it?

257
00:21:01.680 --> 00:21:02.640
Did he get a 12 anyway?

258
00:21:02.700 --> 00:21:03.960
Oh, just because of the peril.

259
00:21:04.019 --> 00:21:06.359
So yeah, because certainly kind of like some of them were 12.

260
00:21:06.779 --> 00:21:14.579
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.

261
00:21:14.640 --> 00:21:16.319
And a lot of people get killed, I guess.

262
00:21:16.440 --> 00:21:18.539
But I think it's mostly the doctor's behaviour.

263
00:21:18.660 --> 00:21:20.640
I thought it was...

264
00:21:20.700 --> 00:21:21.660
Really?

265
00:21:21.720 --> 00:21:22.859
Two phallic.

266
00:21:24.180 --> 00:21:26.099
Who's Phallus?

267
00:21:26.160 --> 00:21:27.420
Yeah, yeah, no one I know.

268
00:21:31.740 --> 00:21:56.099
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.

269
00:21:56.160 --> 00:22:10.500
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.

270
00:22:10.680 --> 00:22:14.460
Yeah, and get to know that you get to know your characters.

271
00:22:14.519 --> 00:22:24.420
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.

272
00:22:24.480 --> 00:22:26.700
Hmm, it's a character piece.

273
00:22:26.819 --> 00:22:29.880
This went out the week of my 12th birthday.

274
00:22:29.940 --> 00:22:33.059
And I was having a sleepover with friends.

275
00:22:33.119 --> 00:22:38.099
So we taped it with the intention then, oh, we'll watch it once it's gone dark.

276
00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:43.259
Having had several weeks of quite scary Doctor Who, we thought that'd be a fun thing to do.

277
00:22:43.259 --> 00:22:51.359
And obviously, we were expecting excitement, fun, action, scared Miss Brendan. didn't get that. disappointing.

278
00:22:51.420 --> 00:22:58.619
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.

279
00:22:58.680 --> 00:23:04.200
But watching it now, I think, actually, this works so well within the season.

280
00:23:04.259 --> 00:23:14.519
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.

281
00:23:14.579 --> 00:23:26.700
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.

282
00:23:26.700 --> 00:23:47.400
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.

283
00:23:47.400 --> 00:23:50.519
Only a killer would know that. wonderful.

284
00:23:50.759 --> 00:23:54.059
That's maybe the best line, isn't it?

285
00:23:54.119 --> 00:23:55.079
It's so good.

286
00:23:55.140 --> 00:23:59.099
And the way that it changes that scene, because that scene is really brilliant.

287
00:23:59.279 --> 00:24:08.279
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.

288
00:24:08.339 --> 00:24:20.039
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.

289
00:24:20.099 --> 00:24:23.279
Margaret actually thinks, no, I'm not really that bad a person.

290
00:24:23.400 --> 00:24:26.940
Look, I didn't kill Kathy earlier this episode.

291
00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:29.759
And the doctor kind of just takes that away from her.

292
00:24:29.819 --> 00:24:33.359
But then she comes back and she just says the only reason.

293
00:24:33.960 --> 00:24:35.759
It's really cool.

294
00:24:35.819 --> 00:24:42.839
I mean, there's these magnificent like extreme close-ups that you don't really get in television much at that time then.

295
00:24:42.900 --> 00:24:44.579
Um, let alone now.

296
00:24:44.640 --> 00:24:45.599
We've got big TVs.

297
00:24:45.660 --> 00:24:58.559
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.

298
00:24:58.619 --> 00:25:01.500
Like, you can tell he's been caught off guard.

299
00:25:01.559 --> 00:25:02.819
So superb from him there.

300
00:25:03.059 --> 00:25:06.299
And at this point, we know that about him too.

301
00:25:06.359 --> 00:25:15.660
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.

302
00:25:15.720 --> 00:25:23.460
But now to be reminded that the doctor is someone who is a killer and has admitted to that.

303
00:25:23.519 --> 00:25:44.519
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.

304
00:25:44.579 --> 00:25:52.680
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.

305
00:25:52.680 --> 00:26:02.460
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.

306
00:26:02.519 --> 00:26:05.519
You know, like occasionally you can tell what the doctor's feeling.

307
00:26:05.579 --> 00:26:07.859
But never quite like this.

308
00:26:07.920 --> 00:26:15.420
And so that, where you've got a great actor, like Christopher Eccleston, and there's nowhere to hide in those massive close-ups.

309
00:26:15.480 --> 00:26:17.400
It is a pretty great moment.

310
00:26:17.460 --> 00:26:19.200
It's really well shot that, isn't it?

311
00:26:19.259 --> 00:26:23.640
Because you've got them opposite each other across the table for some comedy business as well.

312
00:26:23.700 --> 00:26:28.680
Like the dart and the puff of the puff of poison.

313
00:26:28.740 --> 00:26:30.119
Yeah, yeah.

314
00:26:30.180 --> 00:26:33.299
And again, that's really fun and cartoonish and really light.

315
00:26:33.359 --> 00:26:41.819
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.

316
00:26:41.880 --> 00:26:48.059
I kind of love the moment just before they get to dinner, where he gets the handcuffs off Jack.

317
00:26:48.119 --> 00:26:51.119
She's like, hmm, dinner and bondage works for me.

318
00:26:51.420 --> 00:26:53.700
Why does Jack have them?

319
00:26:53.759 --> 00:26:54.779
Where has he got them?

320
00:26:56.460 --> 00:26:58.259
I think we know.

321
00:26:58.259 --> 00:27:03.059
This is the 1st time we've mentioned him, because this is kind of Jack's 1st episode.

322
00:27:03.059 --> 00:27:05.099
As a companion.

323
00:27:05.160 --> 00:27:05.460
Is it?

324
00:27:05.519 --> 00:27:06.900
No, no, I'm getting them in the reward.

325
00:27:06.960 --> 00:27:08.940
Yeah, we met Jack the week before, didn't we?

326
00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:09.720
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

327
00:27:09.839 --> 00:27:15.059
So this is Jack's 1st episode the 1st episode that begins with Jack and the TARDIS on travels with them all.

328
00:27:15.119 --> 00:27:25.559
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.

329
00:27:25.619 --> 00:27:28.619
The whole like into time and space.

330
00:27:28.680 --> 00:27:30.900
And you see ourselves.

331
00:27:30.900 --> 00:27:33.000
And I'm so unreaky sorry for that point.

332
00:27:33.059 --> 00:27:35.099
You are cheesy, guys. are cheesy.

333
00:27:35.160 --> 00:27:37.380
We're supposed to be Mickey in that scene, aren't we?

334
00:27:37.440 --> 00:27:38.339
But yeah, yeah.

335
00:27:38.400 --> 00:27:39.480
We're walking in them.

336
00:27:39.539 --> 00:27:42.180
Who are these smug wankers?

337
00:27:42.240 --> 00:27:45.420
It starts with Mickey getting off the train, doesn't it?

338
00:27:45.480 --> 00:27:46.259
Cardiff.

339
00:27:46.319 --> 00:27:47.099
We follow him.

340
00:27:47.160 --> 00:27:51.960
We aren't in the TARDIS and we don't watch them appear or anything like that.

341
00:27:52.019 --> 00:27:58.859
There, they're already doing whatever it is they do, and we follow Mickey over to meet them, and they are obnoxious.

342
00:27:58.920 --> 00:28:02.400
Like they are really quite obnoxious, I think.

343
00:28:02.460 --> 00:28:04.859
Jack doesn't have a great deal to do in this.

344
00:28:04.859 --> 00:28:13.500
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.

345
00:28:14.279 --> 00:28:32.039
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.

346
00:28:32.099 --> 00:28:34.079
That makes him the Nissa, doesn't it?

347
00:28:34.200 --> 00:28:35.519
It does make him really, yeah.

348
00:28:35.940 --> 00:28:37.980
He's a tin dog.

349
00:28:38.819 --> 00:28:53.099
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.

350
00:28:53.160 --> 00:28:56.880
She is no longer the audience identification figure in a way.

351
00:28:56.940 --> 00:29:01.680
He has become the audience identification pickup because she has been changed so much by her travels.

352
00:29:02.160 --> 00:29:11.160
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.

353
00:29:11.220 --> 00:29:27.240
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.

354
00:29:27.299 --> 00:29:31.200
And you know, there is that as a possible thing.

355
00:29:31.259 --> 00:29:42.059
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.

356
00:29:42.119 --> 00:29:49.319
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.

357
00:29:49.319 --> 00:29:58.559
Like, it is a sort of funny thing to do, but I really appreciate making the leads in some sense unlikeable in some ways.

358
00:29:58.619 --> 00:30:02.400
And they're still charming and funny and fun and they're fun to be around flawed.

359
00:30:02.460 --> 00:30:06.960
Yeah, the banter is really fun, all that sort of, you know, buy me a drink first.

360
00:30:07.019 --> 00:30:09.420
You know, are you saying I'm not handsome?

361
00:30:09.480 --> 00:30:10.980
I like that's where they go.

362
00:30:11.039 --> 00:30:17.940
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.

363
00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:19.799
However, Captain Jack is being...

364
00:30:19.799 --> 00:30:21.000
Stroke, stroke, character.

365
00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:21.960
Pinned down.

366
00:30:22.079 --> 00:30:25.920
Yeah, categorised is the word.

367
00:30:25.980 --> 00:30:29.400
However, he's been categorised.

368
00:30:29.460 --> 00:30:34.019
The idea that he can flirt with the doctor and the doctor can just have a laugh about it and flirt back with him.

369
00:30:34.079 --> 00:30:39.059
You don't see 2 male characters doing that much on TV, even then maybe it's coming into soaps a bit.

370
00:30:39.119 --> 00:30:44.700
But it's just so casual and lighthearted and breezed over, and it's actually quite a big deal, I think.

371
00:30:44.940 --> 00:30:56.940
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.

372
00:30:57.000 --> 00:30:58.619
There isn't a Murray Gold fan fair.

373
00:30:58.680 --> 00:31:00.119
It is actually just jump very casually.

374
00:31:00.180 --> 00:31:06.839
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.

375
00:31:06.900 --> 00:31:11.400
Well, yeah, from the Christmas invasion, it just a few episodes time, actually.

376
00:31:12.900 --> 00:31:16.079
I'm a big fan of Dr. Watt actually.

377
00:31:28.740 --> 00:31:43.740
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.

378
00:31:43.799 --> 00:31:45.059
Yeah.

379
00:31:45.119 --> 00:31:49.920
We always build it up too much to a point in the series because it does become where do you go?

380
00:31:49.980 --> 00:31:55.500
Whereas at this point it is just sort of a hint, like acting like it, not actually.

381
00:31:55.740 --> 00:32:03.660
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.

382
00:32:05.940 --> 00:32:13.440
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.

383
00:32:13.500 --> 00:32:21.059
And, you know, like I'm in record saying this is my favourite era of the show, but he is really often quite annoying.

384
00:32:21.119 --> 00:32:24.599
There's a flight through Entirety episode.

385
00:32:24.660 --> 00:32:34.619
I think it's our fear her episode, which is called Most Punchable Moment. which is absolutely named after that phenomenon, I think.

386
00:32:34.680 --> 00:32:35.579
Yeah.

387
00:32:35.640 --> 00:32:40.380
And I do wonder, I always wonder, one of those, I don't think, you know, what if Eccleston had done series two?

388
00:32:40.440 --> 00:32:43.079
would they have developed his doctor in that direction anyway?

389
00:32:43.140 --> 00:32:47.759
Would he have become more and more arrogant unless impassive?

390
00:32:47.819 --> 00:32:49.500
That's the wrong word, but less whatever he is.

391
00:32:49.559 --> 00:32:52.380
It is hard to know because, I mean, they do change.

392
00:32:52.500 --> 00:33:01.859
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.

393
00:33:01.920 --> 00:33:05.339
But you can see a kind of version of the show.

394
00:33:05.400 --> 00:33:11.940
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.

395
00:33:12.180 --> 00:33:18.900
And so a whole heap of what he intended to do with that relationship just never ends up properly happening. think.

396
00:33:19.019 --> 00:33:25.259
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.

397
00:33:25.259 --> 00:33:26.819
And in the end, she kind of doesn't.

398
00:33:26.880 --> 00:33:30.000
She just cries and feels sorry for herself and that's the end.

399
00:33:30.059 --> 00:33:32.940
It's like, okay, that wasn't you realising that you'd been wrong.

400
00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:35.339
No, no, I feel sorry.

401
00:33:35.400 --> 00:33:36.960
And that's kind of the end of this too.

402
00:33:37.019 --> 00:33:39.119
You know, she's feeling sorry for herself.

403
00:33:39.180 --> 00:33:40.920
There's the bit that she gets that line.

404
00:33:40.980 --> 00:33:42.900
This has nothing to do with Trisha. is all about me.

405
00:33:42.960 --> 00:33:45.119
She says to Mickey as an accusation.

406
00:33:45.180 --> 00:33:49.859
It reminds me there's a bit in one of the early Buffy episodes where Cordelia gets that line.

407
00:33:49.920 --> 00:33:55.259
It's all about me when she realises that whatever the curse of the week is, is actually all about her.

408
00:33:55.259 --> 00:33:57.359
And Sandler gets to say for once, she's right.

409
00:33:57.839 --> 00:34:02.339
It's just little droplets of Cordelia in Rose.

410
00:34:02.400 --> 00:34:03.299
She's not entirely buffy.

411
00:34:03.359 --> 00:34:05.700
I do feel like I spend this episode.

412
00:34:05.759 --> 00:34:13.739
Well, definitely originally, questioning whether the doctor is going to go through with taking Margaret back to be executed.

413
00:34:13.800 --> 00:34:22.679
It seems so certain initially, and then we get that very increasingly vile descriptions of what's going to happen to her.

414
00:34:22.739 --> 00:34:29.940
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.

415
00:34:30.000 --> 00:34:34.320
You start to sort of get to the point of, are there other options?

416
00:34:34.380 --> 00:34:35.519
Could he do something different?

417
00:34:35.579 --> 00:34:38.039
And in the end, the episode never follows through with it.

418
00:34:38.099 --> 00:34:40.739
The choice is taken away and he's never forced to make the decision.

419
00:34:41.099 --> 00:34:43.860
It is a little bit of a shame, isn't it?

420
00:34:43.980 --> 00:35:19.559
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.

421
00:35:19.800 --> 00:35:23.280
So all of that stuff is her playing him.

422
00:35:23.340 --> 00:35:30.360
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.

423
00:35:30.420 --> 00:35:32.820
And then the story sort of changes.

424
00:35:32.880 --> 00:35:46.800
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.

425
00:35:46.860 --> 00:35:49.800
So maybe on some level.

426
00:35:49.860 --> 00:35:55.380
We're supposed to believe that the chance of a 2nd chance he's welcome to her.

427
00:35:55.440 --> 00:35:56.400
That's what she wants.

428
00:35:56.460 --> 00:36:02.880
But we don't get the chance to see where the doctor lies, what would the doctor have done?

429
00:36:02.940 --> 00:36:12.420
But we even get the kind of that whole conversation sort of undermined by what we then discover is going on in her head.

430
00:36:12.480 --> 00:36:15.059
I mean, I think that conversation is really magnificent.

431
00:36:15.119 --> 00:36:17.760
It is really great, isn't it?

432
00:36:17.820 --> 00:36:21.239
And what I really love about it is that it is a conversation.

433
00:36:21.300 --> 00:36:24.119
If Russell was writing this a year later, it would have been a speech.

434
00:36:24.239 --> 00:36:29.820
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.

435
00:36:29.880 --> 00:36:30.360
Yeah, yeah.

436
00:36:30.360 --> 00:36:37.860
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.

437
00:36:37.920 --> 00:36:40.800
I wouldn't be surprised if it was all along.

438
00:36:40.860 --> 00:36:43.679
Russell was thinking, obviously there'll be a get out for him.

439
00:36:43.739 --> 00:36:48.059
This isn't the story where we find out whether the doctor really will send someone to their death.

440
00:36:48.119 --> 00:36:52.320
It's the episode where the doctor is forced to think he might have to think about that.

441
00:36:52.380 --> 00:36:59.579
And it is one of the 1st times, one of our 1st Russell T. Davis, etch mashing endings.

442
00:36:59.639 --> 00:37:07.619
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.

443
00:37:07.679 --> 00:37:09.599
And yeah, that's quite all quite political.

444
00:37:09.659 --> 00:37:15.000
The whole European human rights act thing, not being able to deport criminals to countries where they might face the death penalty.

445
00:37:15.059 --> 00:37:17.280
That the real ongoing debate 20 years later.

446
00:37:17.340 --> 00:37:19.260
Oh, goodness, isn't it?

447
00:37:19.320 --> 00:37:24.000
That's kind of depressing Probably more so now then.

448
00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:24.659
Yeah.

449
00:37:28.320 --> 00:37:31.139
It's the opposite of a Dr. Light episode.

450
00:37:31.199 --> 00:37:40.019
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.

451
00:37:40.079 --> 00:37:44.280
I do remember 1st watching it, I was there thinking, is it going to get going soon?

452
00:37:44.340 --> 00:37:47.099
And the once you get about halfway through.

453
00:37:47.159 --> 00:37:50.820
And at 1st I was like, okay, did I see what they're doing?

454
00:37:50.880 --> 00:37:53.639
It's quite interesting, but I want a proper episode next week.

455
00:37:53.699 --> 00:38:04.559
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.

456
00:38:04.619 --> 00:38:05.280
It's just.

457
00:38:05.340 --> 00:38:14.460
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?

458
00:38:14.519 --> 00:38:15.659
Yeah.

459
00:38:15.719 --> 00:38:17.219
Yeah. is what it's really about.

460
00:38:17.280 --> 00:38:20.039
I love that she'd got permission to demolish the castle.

461
00:38:20.099 --> 00:38:23.699
So again, like that is unbelievably great.

462
00:38:23.760 --> 00:38:26.880
And like, I'm not quite sure what's happening there.

463
00:38:27.000 --> 00:38:41.880
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?

464
00:38:41.940 --> 00:38:46.739
And like it really kind of wears its unreality on its sleeve.

465
00:38:46.800 --> 00:38:51.480
Like no one is going to allow kind of castle to be demolished.

466
00:38:51.539 --> 00:38:52.800
That's never going to happen.

467
00:38:52.860 --> 00:38:59.460
We're not going to build a nuclear power plant right next to a major population centre as Margaret herself.

468
00:38:59.880 --> 00:39:04.260
The word nuclear power station and major population centre.

469
00:39:04.320 --> 00:39:06.119
I'm the happiest of bedfellows.

470
00:39:07.260 --> 00:39:11.400
The smash cut is wonderful where the doctor says, we can just leave the TARDIS here.

471
00:39:11.460 --> 00:39:13.380
Central Cardiff, safest place in the universe.

472
00:39:13.679 --> 00:39:16.139
This nuclear power station.

473
00:39:16.260 --> 00:39:18.300
That's what you do.

474
00:39:18.360 --> 00:39:22.980
It's almost, you know, it's the borderline between Austin Powers and real, James Bond kind of situate humour.

475
00:39:23.039 --> 00:39:27.119
James Bond is often very nearly as funny as Austin Powers.

476
00:39:27.119 --> 00:39:28.079
Yeah, it used to be.

477
00:39:28.139 --> 00:39:30.840
And once upon a time.

478
00:39:30.900 --> 00:39:33.719
And yeah, it's doing that same thing.

479
00:39:33.780 --> 00:39:36.360
Let's almost spoof Doctor Who.

480
00:39:36.420 --> 00:39:37.440
But keep it on track.

481
00:39:37.800 --> 00:39:41.460
But it's also like, it's not our actual present.

482
00:39:41.519 --> 00:39:52.559
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.

483
00:39:52.619 --> 00:39:58.380
So this is an alternative. like autumn 2006 technically.

484
00:39:58.440 --> 00:40:01.980
Yeah, where everyone knows the earth nearly got invaded a few months ago.

485
00:40:02.039 --> 00:40:02.340
Yeah.

486
00:40:02.400 --> 00:40:05.940
This is like the equivment of unit dating in the 21st century.

487
00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:08.820
I'm thinking a bit of a mess at some point.

488
00:40:09.239 --> 00:40:11.820
He's being more careful about it.

489
00:40:11.880 --> 00:40:20.400
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.

490
00:40:20.460 --> 00:40:21.780
We're told how long that is.

491
00:40:21.840 --> 00:40:24.119
And we do get 6 months later here.

492
00:40:24.179 --> 00:40:31.860
And I'm almost certain that it's 6 months later because it's 6 weeks later in real time.

493
00:40:31.920 --> 00:40:35.099
And of course, it's not really long enough for Margaret.

494
00:40:35.159 --> 00:40:39.179
I mean, she's just been elected mayor, so Newman, New Cardiff.

495
00:40:39.239 --> 00:40:41.400
There are no photos of her for some reason.

496
00:40:41.460 --> 00:40:43.619
I don't quite know what's happening there.

497
00:40:43.679 --> 00:40:44.699
No photos.

498
00:40:44.820 --> 00:40:50.639
I'm the mayor. take a photo of me, take a photo of the new prop that we spent 10s of pounds on.

499
00:40:51.960 --> 00:40:55.739
The torchwood crew, of course, are all hiding.

500
00:40:55.800 --> 00:40:58.559
Well, this is going on because Captain Jack is already there.

501
00:40:58.619 --> 00:41:02.460
Yeah, running torchwood. taking them on an away day.

502
00:41:03.900 --> 00:41:05.940
Do you remember that?

503
00:41:06.000 --> 00:41:15.539
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.

504
00:41:15.599 --> 00:41:18.780
They were they were all doing Laser Quest in Swansea that day or something.

505
00:41:18.840 --> 00:41:20.880
That's almost certainly how it happened.

506
00:41:21.300 --> 00:41:23.699
A team building exercise.

507
00:41:24.599 --> 00:41:30.539
Talking of spinoffs, we get mentions of offscreen adventures, I think, for the 1st time here, don't we?

508
00:41:30.599 --> 00:41:37.619
Rose talks about woman wept and names of planet that's in a book that would come out, which is...

509
00:41:37.739 --> 00:41:40.619
Justicia, I think, is the name of the planet that she mentions.

510
00:41:40.679 --> 00:41:47.760
And then the doctor will mention some other offscreen adventures at the beginning of Bad Wolf.

511
00:41:47.820 --> 00:41:55.260
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.

512
00:41:55.320 --> 00:41:59.400
And generally speaking, that was something that they didn't want to do too much.

513
00:41:59.460 --> 00:42:08.400
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.

514
00:42:08.460 --> 00:42:19.019
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.

515
00:42:19.079 --> 00:42:23.579
And so having some time pass. and having other things happen.

516
00:42:23.639 --> 00:42:31.199
And I think too, at this point, you know, series one is set in and around Earth in its entirety.

517
00:42:31.260 --> 00:42:37.380
It's basically, you know, platform one, satellite 5, and everything else is on Earth, we never go off.

518
00:42:37.440 --> 00:42:45.179
And I don't think that we actually go to an alien planet until, you know, the beginning of the next season.

519
00:42:45.239 --> 00:42:51.360
And even then it's just a very, very, very cold and windy day in Wales, isn't it?

520
00:42:51.420 --> 00:43:02.400
So, I guess telling that stuff, like telling those, you know, like having Rose say that stuff fills that in for us.

521
00:43:02.460 --> 00:43:09.840
We also get Jack's story as well, which is, you know, we come in as the audience halfway through this story.

522
00:43:09.900 --> 00:43:13.920
It's a kind of put us in Mickey's view as well there.

523
00:43:13.980 --> 00:43:21.480
Um, and that great big hilarious story and we're not, we, we can't get the joke of it um, as well.

524
00:43:21.539 --> 00:43:23.099
Yeah.

525
00:43:23.099 --> 00:43:36.239
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.

526
00:43:36.300 --> 00:43:43.980
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.

527
00:43:44.039 --> 00:43:50.039
Um, he, uh, really doesn't quite know exactly how to react to that.

528
00:43:50.519 --> 00:43:52.980
No, you dare act. for not paying your tenement.

529
00:43:53.039 --> 00:43:56.099
Yeah, he just turns to the person he sat next to, doesn't he?

530
00:43:56.460 --> 00:43:57.360
just carries on talking.

531
00:43:58.199 --> 00:44:07.800
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.

532
00:44:07.860 --> 00:44:14.039
And so, like, that's the other thing too, is that things look like they're going really well.

533
00:44:14.099 --> 00:44:16.739
Like Mickey comes in, he owns them.

534
00:44:16.800 --> 00:44:17.639
Do you know what I mean?

535
00:44:17.699 --> 00:44:21.480
He is winning at some of the banter there.

536
00:44:21.539 --> 00:44:28.860
He's, and remember the kind of the last time that we saw Mickey, I guess, except in Father's Day.

537
00:44:28.980 --> 00:44:30.719
The doctor is actually quite nice to him.

538
00:44:30.840 --> 00:44:35.940
He's been a bit of a hero in World War 3 and stuff, saving Jackie and things.

539
00:44:36.000 --> 00:44:38.880
He gets to be, he's not Mickey the idiot in that.

540
00:44:39.119 --> 00:44:52.739
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.

541
00:44:52.800 --> 00:44:58.139
And so the doctor kind of pretends that he's not allowing him aboard the Tartars.

542
00:44:58.199 --> 00:45:03.539
And so the doctor has developed a liking for Mickey at this point.

543
00:45:03.599 --> 00:45:08.159
And Mickey does start to, like, things start to warm up.

544
00:45:08.159 --> 00:45:18.599
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.

545
00:45:18.659 --> 00:45:19.679
She just wanted to see him.

546
00:45:19.679 --> 00:45:22.860
And that seems nice.

547
00:45:22.920 --> 00:45:32.699
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.

548
00:45:32.820 --> 00:45:33.659
Yeah, that's right.

549
00:45:33.719 --> 00:45:34.440
But it does seem nice.

550
00:45:34.500 --> 00:45:36.420
She shouts, jump, and he comes.

551
00:45:36.480 --> 00:45:37.679
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

552
00:45:37.739 --> 00:45:39.480
But it looks like things are going well.

553
00:45:39.539 --> 00:45:40.920
You know, we're going to go out to dinner.

554
00:45:40.980 --> 00:45:42.119
We are going to a hotel.

555
00:45:42.179 --> 00:45:46.739
We've kind of decided that we're going to do that. and that seemed like a very kind of grown up.

556
00:45:46.800 --> 00:45:51.360
You know, it's a step beyond a saying, you know, professor, I'm not a little girl anymore.

557
00:45:51.420 --> 00:45:58.380
You know, no, you're about 27. response that.

558
00:45:58.679 --> 00:46:01.920
You're about to fall in love with a cheater person.

559
00:46:02.880 --> 00:46:06.360
But I mean, there is going to be some sex having going on.

560
00:46:06.420 --> 00:46:07.380
Do you know what I mean?

561
00:46:07.440 --> 00:46:08.699
Like later on in the evening.

562
00:46:08.760 --> 00:46:13.199
And so things do look like they're going well, but the whole thing kind of goes to hell.

563
00:46:13.260 --> 00:46:17.099
And I'm not quite sure exactly why.

564
00:46:17.159 --> 00:46:20.219
There doesn't seem to be a big thing, does there?

565
00:46:20.280 --> 00:46:22.199
Like, he blurts her out.

566
00:46:22.260 --> 00:46:30.539
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.

567
00:46:30.599 --> 00:46:32.940
I could got a hotel, I could get some got some money.

568
00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:47.219
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.

569
00:46:47.280 --> 00:46:49.320
She's just like, Sheila Delaney.

570
00:46:49.380 --> 00:47:00.840
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.

571
00:47:00.900 --> 00:47:09.360
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.

572
00:47:09.360 --> 00:47:16.980
And then it kind of goes to hell and then now Rose is kind of contemptuous and a little bit put out.

573
00:47:17.039 --> 00:47:34.739
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?

574
00:47:34.800 --> 00:47:40.860
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.

575
00:47:40.980 --> 00:47:43.320
This is kind of what it thought me about.

576
00:47:43.380 --> 00:48:13.800
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.

577
00:48:13.920 --> 00:48:26.940
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.

578
00:48:27.000 --> 00:48:28.500
You know, they had the fight.

579
00:48:28.559 --> 00:48:30.239
Like, the ground starts to shake.

580
00:48:30.300 --> 00:48:36.900
People start screaming and she just runs off and leaves him and, well, it's not her.

581
00:48:36.960 --> 00:48:39.239
It's an extra with some terrible pigtails.

582
00:48:39.300 --> 00:48:44.340
But he doesn't run after her, but she just runs off without doing or saying anything.

583
00:48:44.400 --> 00:48:51.719
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.

584
00:48:51.780 --> 00:48:56.039
It's not that she's abandoning Mickey or doesn't care what happens to him or anything like that.

585
00:48:56.099 --> 00:48:59.579
It's just her 1st instinct is, I've got to run to the Tartars.

586
00:48:59.639 --> 00:49:00.780
And Mickey knows that.

587
00:49:00.840 --> 00:49:02.760
Like, that's how Mickey's interpreting it as well.

588
00:49:02.820 --> 00:49:10.619
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.

589
00:49:10.679 --> 00:49:17.280
Like, it's just that I'm less interesting to you than whatever adventure is going on over there.

590
00:49:17.340 --> 00:49:18.719
That's still pretty crushing, though.

591
00:49:18.780 --> 00:49:20.760
Yeah, no, no, it is absolutely that.

592
00:49:20.820 --> 00:49:29.340
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.

593
00:49:29.400 --> 00:49:55.500
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.

594
00:49:55.559 --> 00:49:58.139
Also, like, he's turned up.

595
00:49:58.199 --> 00:49:59.760
She grabs the doctor's arm.

596
00:49:59.880 --> 00:50:02.340
He's trailing along behind them, all of them.

597
00:50:02.400 --> 00:50:04.559
And she puts her head on the doctor's shoulder.

598
00:50:04.679 --> 00:50:10.739
And it's like, oh, my god, that's just, oh, my my heart breaks for him just there.

599
00:50:10.980 --> 00:50:12.840
He gets to win.

600
00:50:12.900 --> 00:50:16.139
I mean, I think he goes on his own terms, doesn't he?

601
00:50:16.199 --> 00:50:20.280
So these things never sort of properly stick, I think, in this era.

602
00:50:20.340 --> 00:50:28.139
Like there's not necessarily a proper through line about their relationship or there's nothing super intentional about it.

603
00:50:28.199 --> 00:50:33.900
We turn up, you know, mostly Mickey's here because we want him in it for some reason.

604
00:50:33.960 --> 00:50:41.340
We're never again primarily about the relationship between Rose and Mickey, I think, in a way that this episode is.

605
00:50:41.400 --> 00:50:47.039
But he kind of gets to just hang back and not allow himself to be found.

606
00:50:47.099 --> 00:50:54.659
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.

607
00:50:54.719 --> 00:50:59.880
And like I think he's learned properly what she's like.

608
00:50:59.940 --> 00:51:03.780
Yeah, he's got to slip away, otherwise he will never be able to break free.

609
00:51:03.840 --> 00:51:09.360
His thing as well, him saying always, he talks about he will always come after her and stuff earlier.

610
00:51:09.420 --> 00:51:15.900
And I wonder if that is the realisation that he needs something to stop himself doing that.

611
00:51:15.960 --> 00:51:18.659
He wants a relationship that is nice and is happy.

612
00:51:18.719 --> 00:51:23.699
And needs to feel not beholden to her.

613
00:51:23.760 --> 00:51:27.179
So instead he goes and marries a woman who was unrequited in love with the doctor.

614
00:51:28.139 --> 00:51:32.579
Just one of the oddest arcs. that we've ever had.

615
00:51:47.219 --> 00:51:55.980
I really, really like how good Margaret looks in the TARDIS console room with the green light on her face.

616
00:51:56.039 --> 00:52:09.659
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.

617
00:52:09.719 --> 00:52:18.719
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.

618
00:52:18.780 --> 00:52:25.199
And in this era, you know, the Tardis is either golden or green in the way that it's lit.

619
00:52:25.199 --> 00:52:28.980
And I think it depended on who the lighting guy was that day.

620
00:52:29.039 --> 00:52:46.380
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.

621
00:52:46.440 --> 00:52:48.659
And I think that's kind of really well done.

622
00:52:48.719 --> 00:52:59.880
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.

623
00:52:59.940 --> 00:53:02.219
It's obviously a budgetary thing.

624
00:53:02.280 --> 00:53:11.579
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.

625
00:53:11.639 --> 00:53:13.860
Which is always going to be the right choice.

626
00:53:13.920 --> 00:53:17.099
But I wonder how she lifted that arm up.

627
00:53:17.820 --> 00:53:19.920
Was it on a winch?

628
00:53:21.360 --> 00:53:23.519
It's a very heavy arm.

629
00:53:23.579 --> 00:53:25.320
She's very strong in air.

630
00:53:25.860 --> 00:53:32.280
She's a fantastic villainous character in the archers, the BBCs, even longer than Doctor Who running right.

631
00:53:32.340 --> 00:53:47.880
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.

632
00:53:47.940 --> 00:53:57.179
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.

633
00:53:57.239 --> 00:54:05.099
At the other end of the spectrum, she's quite a good proprietress of a pub in Ted Lasso.

634
00:54:05.159 --> 00:54:07.139
Oh, I've never seen that.

635
00:54:07.199 --> 00:54:11.039
I remember, like, I think she was wonderfully in wizards versus aliens.

636
00:54:11.099 --> 00:54:22.320
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.

637
00:54:22.380 --> 00:54:24.239
Like, she was just awesome in that.

638
00:54:24.300 --> 00:54:30.179
Just, it was very nice that she got that sort of big role in another RTD thing.

639
00:54:57.300 --> 00:54:59.760
Well, that's all the time we have on his ring.

640
00:54:59.820 --> 00:55:09.300
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.

641
00:55:09.420 --> 00:55:27.179
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.

642
00:55:27.300 --> 00:55:33.179
Until next time, it's going to be a cold winter, so be careful out there on the ice.

643
00:55:33.239 --> 00:55:35.340
Thank you very much for listening and good night.

644
00:55:35.400 --> 00:55:36.480
Good night.

645
00:55:36.539 --> 00:55:37.559
Bye bye.

646
00:55:37.619 --> 00:55:38.280
Ta-ta.

647
00:55:50.340 --> 00:55:56.219
That was 500 Year Diary starring Nathan Bottomley, Hannah Cooper, Pete Lambert, and James Selwood.

648
00:55:56.280 --> 00:55:58.619
The theme was composed by Cameron Lamb.

649
00:55:58.679 --> 00:56:05.639
This episode, Aliens of Posh, was recorded on the 25th of May 2025, and released on the 22nd of June.

650
00:56:06.840 --> 00:56:17.880
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.

651
00:56:17.940 --> 00:56:21.059
It's a kind of gentler reality than this one.

652
00:56:21.179 --> 00:56:22.440
People are nice.

653
00:56:33.539 --> 00:56:42.960
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.

654
00:56:43.019 --> 00:56:44.699
So it's finally being used as a real police box.

655
00:56:44.760 --> 00:56:49.559
They have the split up at the start where they do have to explain to the children.

656
00:56:49.619 --> 00:56:51.300
And anyone born after 1980.

657
00:56:51.480 --> 00:56:53.940
What a police box was actually four.

658
00:56:54.000 --> 00:56:56.039
It's not just a telephone booth.

659
00:56:56.099 --> 00:56:58.260
It's a little police cell as well.

660
00:56:58.320 --> 00:56:59.820
That was really good, actually, wasn't it?

661
00:56:59.880 --> 00:57:02.159
Because you kind of think, well, we've got time to do that.

662
00:57:02.219 --> 00:57:03.780
We're not running from anything.

663
00:57:03.840 --> 00:57:07.980
This is a more slow paced, less urgent story.

664
00:57:07.980 --> 00:57:12.059
No peril is going to kick in until the last kind of 10 minutes or so.

665
00:57:12.119 --> 00:57:15.780
And so we've got time to do some much needed exposition.

666
00:57:15.780 --> 00:57:17.400
And it really is much needed.

667
00:57:17.460 --> 00:57:21.539
It's the 1st time the show has ever mentioned it since it sort of comes back.

668
00:57:21.659 --> 00:57:23.760
He just calls it a disguise, doesn't he?

669
00:57:23.820 --> 00:57:25.079
in the opening being.

670
00:57:25.139 --> 00:57:29.760
And Rose calls it the cloaking device and he corrects her to chameleon circuit.

671
00:57:29.820 --> 00:57:30.480
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

672
00:57:30.539 --> 00:57:35.280
One of the 2 major references to the 1996 movie.

673
00:57:35.280 --> 00:57:48.480
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.

674
00:57:48.539 --> 00:57:51.239
I think...

675
00:57:51.480 --> 00:57:55.800
Almost certainly a reference. reference to that as well.

676
00:57:55.980 --> 00:57:58.139
I reckon we've got an out.

677
00:57:58.199 --> 00:58:02.099
I think we're probably in the in the in the tag stage at this point.

678
00:58:02.159 --> 00:58:03.480
Don't you?

679
00:58:03.539 --> 00:58:04.139
Do you think?

680
00:58:04.199 --> 00:58:04.739
Yeah