The 13th Doctor has arrived on our screens with a large, crashing-through-metal-from-a-ridiculous-height-with-a-loud-plonk sound. Without the benefit of foresight of things to come, how does The Woman Who Fell to Earth preface the newest era of Doctor Who.
Transcript (computer-generated)
Eugene: Hello and welcome to another episode of Fusion Patrol. I’m Eugene…
Ben: …and I was a tall white haired Scotsman, and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to become now, but I think the name is Ben.
Eugene: …and tonight we’re looking at, if you can guess, The Woman Who Fell to Earth, the premiere episode of the 13th Doctor as portrayed by Jodie Whittaker.
Ryan a young man with a bicycle problem encounters a strange floating glyph in the air and after touching it a big seed pod appears. He fetches the police which just happens to be Yaz, a classmate of his from school.
Well, the pod is mysterious, but there are more pressing concerns. A train, on board which just happens to be Ryan’s grandmother, Grace and her husband Graham – he’s a cracker – is attacked by an alien squiggly thing. Also, the newly regenerated Doctor falls from a much-greater-than-the-Pharos-Project height, smashes through the metal roof of the train and gets up kicking.
She seems to fend off the creature but not before it plants DNA bombs on all five of them.
Ryan mentions the other weird thing tonight: the arrival of the seed pod, but when they take the Doctor to see it, it’s gone. Some other guy has it and he dies when it opens and an armored alien steps out and kills him. It seems he was looking for his missing sister who disappeared seven years ago in conjunction with the arrival of a similar pod.
the Doctor Locates the squiggly thing with a little help from her friends and discovers it’s an information gathering tool assisting the other creature whose name is Timothy Shaw something like that. He’s the cheating scumbag wannabe Predator wannabe leader of his people who has come to Earth to ritually hunt and capture a human who just happens to be the other guy who was on that train that I didn’t bother to mention until now because you know, midirection. the Doctor And her four friends go to rescue him at a construction site that for some reason does late-night crane operations.
She defeats the Baddie by being clever, off camera, earlier and all is well that ends well, except one of her friends dies during the battle. How sad. We waste a lot of time on that too. the Doctor Convinces her friends to help her use the alien’s transport pod to teleport her to her TARDIS, which they do and they say their farewells… until they’re accidentally teleported too and they’re in space!
Things aren’t looking good. Roll credits.
The Woman Who Fell to Earth. You know, this is actually only the second time, Ben, that you and I have looked at a regeneration episode of the Doctor.
Ben: That is true. The first one being from Matt Smith into to Peter Capaldi.
Eugene: Yes, so… and… and our listeners may know Simon and I have done a series of looking at first episodes of Doctors and reflecting upon how they reflect upon that Doctor’s entire time. And I think what we’ve come to is it’s really hard to tell from a doctor’s first episode where it’s going to go.
Eugene: So, I don’t know how much we can draw out of this one from from a standpoint of, “what’s the 13th Doctor going to be like?” because I don’t think we’ve got that yet, but we can certainly talk about this this episode.
Eugene: So what’s your initial impression?
Ben: Well, huh, interesting you should say that. Um, it was different to what it is now after hearing your recap, now I hate it.
Eugene: (laughing) . I didn’t hate it.
Eugene: I had problems with it.
Ben: Oh, well, I had a few problems with it, too, but, oh now I hate the episode and I think it’s a piece of crap.
No, I really seriously I think it’s terrible based on your description. You just described what I think is got to be one of the worst Doctor Who episodes ever made in recent history. I mean, it’s just…
Eugene: Okay good. I was gonna say, there’s Greatest Show in the Galaxy. Ummm
Eugene: Oh, yeah you did you did you through in recent so we can’t we can’t put that in there.
Ben: No, I mean after what you do the way you just described it, I know… and I’m listening to I’m thinking, “no I got I got a scratch off everything that I wrote and reevaluate,” and my reevaluation says this was a real dog.
Eugene: I was… I enjoyed it. I enjoyed watching it. It was it was all right, but I tell you what, it reminded me of, um, it reminded me of the worst of Russell T Davies’ episodes or era. Not really a whole heck of a lot of sense going on there.
Not really a whole lot of plot, just more kind of scenes of stuff and and you know, they were they were okay, but they’re kind of empty calories. I think that’s what it is, empty calories.
Ben: But weren’t a lot of the classic Doctor Who’s like that, too.
Eugene: Certainly. Certainly. Yes, some of them were, absolutely
Ben: Because I… there were quite a few, especially in the Tom Baker era, there was there was a period where they were pretty hollow and yet they were fun to watch.
Eugene: Well see there you had they had the fun to watch. You know, we are comparing two very different formats: the long format and the short format and I… I think that there’s a lot of waste in the older episodes but at the same and so you get a lot of that stuff that you can throw in for a little scene here and there to that doesn’t necessarily advance the plot and maybe a little bit off. I’m I don’t I don’t get the same out of this. I think it’s because of what should be a fast episode was actually quite slow.
Particularly towards the end when they got to the funeral. I just got up went to the bathroom. I was like, yeah, you know after he talked long enough, I like, you know, “the scenes gonna go on for a while. I can’t believe I think I have time I’m going to I’m going to give it a go,” and and succeeded and… “Uneven” is another word for it.
Eugene: At times it was moving too fast. At times it was moving too slow.
Ben: I’m just going to I’m just going to boil it right down to the basics. It was bad. Let’s see see the you just described a bad episode.
Eugene: I would describe it as a mediocre episode.
Ben: It’ s not well done. It’s not well done. Mediocre episodes wouldn’t have the, you know, some of the things that you just listed.
I mean at least as far as I’m concerned no, everything is as I said, I was listening to you run down that entire synopsis and I went, “yeah, he’s right about that. Yeah, he’s right about that. Yeah, he’s right about that. Oh my God, this episode really was awful.”
Eugene: Maybe a rewatch is in order. I haven’t a chance to do a rewatch on it.
Ben: I’ve watched it twice.
Eugene: Oh, okay. I haven’t. I I figured I might be meaner if I did a rewatch to be fair. I I was. Hmm.
I’ll tell you where I… I didn’t even include the Sonic Screwdriver which just annoyed me beyond belief. the Doctor Falling out of the TARDIS at the end of Twice Upon a Time, you know, really look like, “oh, how is that gonna how are they going to save the Doctor from that certain death fall?”
And the answer is, “we’ll just smash her into a metal train, which her body will puncture a hole through. And she’ll get up and walk away.”
Ben: She’s still regenerating.
Eugene: We can try to make that excuse. Peter Peter David… The other guy the other Peter Davison – David Tennant sure looked, like he was worried about falling off the Sycorax ship after his regeneration.
Eugene: Although his hand did survive when it went over the edge, but.
Yeah, I I just thought wow. I I may have I may have a problem with how Chibnall resolves Cliffhangers.
Ben: No, I’m not. I’m I am not defending Chibnall. I’m simply stating that they were probably using the Regeneration Factor as an excuse for how the Doctor was able to survive that fall and land in the train.
Was it good? No, it wasn’t. It was stupid.
Eugene: I think I think if you’re gonna do something that ridiculous the very least is you could pay lip service to it. “How did you survive a fall through the roof of a train?
“I’m still regenerating?”
Audience would get it. People would not, but there would be your throwaway line that gives you that… It gives you that out for everyone who’s going to be doing exactly this and going, “oh no of course the Doctor can survive that fall.”
Ben: Hmm. No, the Doctor does not survive that fall in Logopolis.
Eugene: Yeah. Yeah. Logopolis. Yeah. Pharos project,
Eugene: That was that that was the tower he fell off. Yeah. So they did set up that that did set an off note for me. Just just off at the go, I will say.
Before we get into it the other one that I’ll ask you about. There was an article in the Radio Times today about some of the various reactions to the episode and I didn’t go into a lot of them because I don’t want their reactions to be our reactions… or my reactions and but but the article was actually about something that James, my son, said when the episode was over and I don’t know if you had a problem. I didn’t really have a problem. I could see why someone would. But he couldn’t understand what they were saying.
Ben: That’s why I had subtitles on.
Eugene: A lot of people apparently were wishing they’d had subtitles on…
Ben: Yeah. I had subtitles on the entire time
Eugene: …for the for the broad Yorkshire accent that they’re all that they’re all sporting. James had more trouble with the Doctor’s voice and her accent in combination and I had more trouble with Ryan.
Ben: I had more trouble with Ryan.
Eugene: Yeah, he well he mumbles, too, so…
Ben: Yeah. I had a lot of trouble with Ryan not so much with anybody else. Even the Doctor was for the most part… I don’t have a problem with Jodie’s Jodie’s speech. I mean, they might have been the occasional word here and there that kind of snuck underneath me. And I do remember there was some there was like the occasional words that I thought I heard something else but as I read the subtitle thought, “oh, that’s what…” But the word that I heard made perfect sense as well. I couldn’t give you an example cuz I don’t remember but it was Ryan, he was really difficult and at times of a almost spoke with what I call mushmouth.
Eugene: Yeah, it’s the it’s the accent combined with the mumbling. The the just mmm that does it and I don’t typically have trouble understanding people with Yorkshire accents, Northern accents. I’ve heard enough Monty Python to know, you know, what a good properly Cambridge-based imitation of a Yorkshire accent sounds like and I shouldn’t have any problem with them. Or Oxford, Oxford-based imitation of Yorkshire accent either one. Anyway…
Ben: And I’ve seen a lot of I’ve seen enough British films to and with just a big broad spectrum including some like really low working class British or British type stories and have never really had a problem in understanding them. Ryan was difficult,
Eugene: But you know what? I don’t understand is okay. We’ve already had a northern doctor, right? I mean the BBC is rushing them around, you know, to get all the regional dialects in so that no one feels left out and their children will grow up to know, “I could be the the Time Lord, too!”
No you can’t, it’s fantasy thing.
But anyway, you know, we had the Ninth Doctor. He had a northern then we had David Tennant who obviously should have had a northern accent but was doing a southern accent and we had Matt Smith who I don’t know what he was doing. And you know Peter Capaldi is nice Scottish accent as did the Seventh Doctor and you would think that this time around considering it’s all shot in Wales couldn’t if they wanted an unintelligible accent from the United Kingdom.
Ben: Stick with Welsh, yeah.
Eugene: Yeah. I think… or the friends, you know. Yeah. Anyway, I think it’s an opportunity missed and I’m sure that’s what we’re going to get next time. Um, okay so prior to me ruining the episode for you, what what stood out as things you liked?
Ben: Now I can’t remember. All I can think about is everything that I don’t like.
Oops. I feel bad. I feel bad. I hope I’ve ruined that for everyone else, too.
Ben: Because I remember that I enjoyed it. I remember that. I enjoyed it a lot but not all I can think back now I’ll can think now is, “no this really was a terrible story.” I mean is I’m looking at my notes. I’m like, well, that was awful. No, that’s bad. That’s bad. I’m going down the list is like everything that I’m reading in my little my notes is, “God that was terrible!”
Eugene: All right. Well, let’s pick out a couple of things then. Do you think – this is this is the one thing that I’m kind of I’m kind of hoping. I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s going to be true – the TARDIS looked like it was you know, really bad off…
Ben: I thought the TARDIS was doomed.
Eugene: …and and here we have the Doctor leaving Earth without the TARDIS at the end. Taking three people accidentally with him, so basically shanghaiing three people on a trip by accident. What if, when the Doctor gets the TARDIS back, it’s broken and she can’t steer it or get them back to Earth.
Ben: I’ve got an even better one. I don’t think she’s going to get the TARDIS back.
Eugene: You don’t think she’ll get the TARDIS back?
Ben: Not this season. Not this season. Keith has got the theory that this this entire series is going to be the search for the TARDIS.
Eugene: Well, I… I… Alright, we’ll talk about the secrecy of Chibnall. He has said there is no overarching theme.
Ben: Because as somebody somebody else pointed out, just as the Doctor always lies, the Doctor who showrunners always lie.
Ben: Now maybe each maybe there will be an essence of a standalone story but it’s going to be you know, like it’s going to run more like an anthology series, I think, in that ultimately it’s all about the Doctor trying to find her TARDIS so that she can get these three people home and that she can go about gallivanting around the universe like she wants the problem is that you know, she goes on the search She, she… lands somewhere. Okay. Now she’s got a she’s got to settle whatever problem there is in this particular story. That’ll be completely unrelated to what happened in the previous week. Okay, but now we’re, back to the search for the TARDIS. So at the end of every episode it’s, “here’s my new destination as I try to get closer and closer to where my TARDIS is located.” That is going to be the arc.
Eugene: Without a means to do so though.
Ben: She already did it once. They’ll be I’m sure there’s going to be gimmicks left and right as to how the Doctor along with the three will find some way to be able to jump from destination to destination to destination sans TARDIS.
Ben: …all in an attempt to try to get to the TARDIS.
Eugene: Well, I mean, I think… well it’s possibility. That was my first… I did that that did pop to my head first and then what I thought was we do have an opportunity here and and it’s very hard to tell and with production the way it is. I doubt very much that they could do it, but we have an opportunity to quote unquote. “Fix Doctor Who” here and remember Chibnell is an old-school Doctor Who fan.
I don’t know if you remember but there was a time when they wanted to bring back, I think, Sydney Newman to try to shore up Doctor Who’s ratings and to be fair what he recommended showed no imagination whatsoever. It was, “make sure that the TARDIS can’t go anywhere that the Doctor wants it to go. Get three people on board the TARDIS so that he has somebody tadat todat todat tada to have within that he’s trying to get home, but he can’t.” It’s like basically he wanted to reset it back to Hartnell era Who and to some degree, I kind of sympathize with that. Using the TARDIS as means to get from A to B at the beginning and the end of the episode as opposed to in these later years where the TARDIS can land on a dime anytime at once pretty much if a story needs the Doctor to make 47 trips in the TARDIS. He’ll make 47 good trips in the TARDIS and then occasionally they’ll throw a bone and go, “oh, oops. I hit the wrong spot. This is not Rio.”
Ben: You know, you’re saying the very thing that I said last year.
Ben: because I mentioned this very thing it’s okay as so long as the TARDIS is the vehicle pardon the pun by which the story is then told but don’t have the TARDIS be the story and that’s what we had been seeing and that was one of the really cool things that did exis with the, you know, with the Hatnell… even even through much of the Tom Baker there were many episodes, you know, that especially during the the era when Lalla Ward first came on board, you know, introduce the concept of the randomizer. So they had no idea that they were going just flick the switch boom, they’re someplace new and now they have to deal with wherever it is that they’re at. That was great and it opened up a lot of possibilities because, when that happens, then you literally have all of space and time at your disposal and you can just pick anything by at random instead of having to create create this this convoluted story in order to tell whatever whatever moral or whatever, you know, I don’t know whatever kind of episode that you’re trying to craft.
But you know, we’ve seen some just really tragic tragic TARDIS based episodes into the one that really bugs me the most from two years ago, I think it was now, was Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS.
Eugene: Oh at least four. Three Capaldi series. That was that was a Clara/Matt Smith episode, so…
Ben: Yeah there was and I know there were some during the Capaldi era that just drove me insane,
Eugene: But then there’s Edge of Destruction which is a TARDIS based story and you know was a short one, but it was fine.
Eugene: So yeah. I just you know that having a time machine does introduce a whole lot of problems and you know kind of the whole, “we arrived but if we get back in it we can’t come back here.”
Ben: It’s it’s sort of like Time Tunnel.
Eugene: Yeah, once you get out you’re…
Ben: Once you’re out there, that’s it. You know, it’s not and it’s not like what we saw during the first year of Capaldi where he was always dropping Clara off back at where she you know back at home.
Ben: She’s and that got to be just ridiculous.
Eugene: That was ridiculous. That’s right. Um and it’s kind of hard to find a way to make the Doctor forget how to pilot the TARDIS that well, but you know with the damage, it’s got. I’m just I’m hoping. I’m hoping. But you know why they won’t do it? Because it’s cheap to come back to 20th century Earth.
Eugene: So if they don’t come back to 20th century Earth their budget goes up. So if they were randomly going to the past and the future and other planets and could never get them back to Sheffield in 2018, you know that they would their budget would go up. So I don’t think they’re going to do that. I think they’re going to continue to keep bouncing back and forth to modern Earth just because… Unless maybe that’s why the season is shorter so they can afford not to do that.
Ben: How many episodes this year?
Eugene: 10 and a Christmas special.
Eugene: Also, I will give Chibnall this. Again, I’m not going to go out and say every every showrunner lies. That’s you know, that’s that’s unfortunately too much like a likely to be apocryphal. He has done a fabulous job of keeping secrets compared to the others in the past.
We don’t know what the title of the third episode is. We don’t… we haven’t had a look at villains. We got a next, or not a next time trailer, but we got a coming on Doctor Who trailer which usually gives up tips for the whole series gave us a list of…
Ben: giving us a list of like virtually every actor…
Eugene: …meaningless names.
Ben: …guest actors. Well, not not all of them were meaningless…
Ben: I saw Lee Mack. There was Alan Cumming, Chris Noth, Siobhan Finneran. I mean these those those names I recognized immediately.
Eugene: Can’t say I recognize those names but you know,
Eugene: Even a parade of famous faces doesn’t excite me.
Ben: well. But yeah, but you’re right
Eugene: It did not make me want to look for those episodes, but he did keep me from seeing anything except that one of them’s a historical.
Ben: Well and you’re right. The rest of them meant nothing to me. Absolutely, nothing.
Eugene: I’m sure in the UK probably. Far more people would recognize them and go well that but it wouldn’t it. Like I said, they’re just is nobody that’s going to be in his show unless it’s like Matt Smith and you go, “oh multi doctor episode,” but but the other people you see ’em and there’s no context and it’s like well, for all I know they’ve got a two second cameo, you know like Richard Dawkins did. Yeah Richard Dawkins did. You know, they’re just going to show me the face and look at if some of the faces you’re going to see. Great – nah, I wasn’t wasn’t entranced by that by that piece of… But but how much I know about this series is remarkably limi ted in comparison, but we have had some things: no returning villains; no, multi-part episodes; no arcs. So…
Ben: Haven’t seen any yeah, haven’t seen any indication of any classic villains in this.
Eugene: Specifically said there won’t be any. All new villains this year. All new monsters.
Ben: I mean, I don’t know if that’s a good idea or not. But then given the way some of the villains were have been portrayed of last few seasons. Maybe this is a good thing.
Eugene: I’m fine with new monsters if they’ve got new monsters. The guy in this one Tim Shaw… –
Ben: Tzim-sha of the Stenzaih. It’s Tzim-sha.
Eugene: Wasn’t terribly impressive you know, but on the other hand,
Eugene: on the other hand….
Eugene: I kind of like it not being a world-ending universe destroying problem.
Ben: Well, and I will I will admit now that I think about it. This is one thing that I kind of sort of I like the fact that he was a bit of a joke. I mean it was something that was a bit of a throwback to. Someone you know older older Who although I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t draw you any parallels.
Ben: but there was something very amusing in this particular character. I mean the idea of him taking teeth was disgusting.
Ben: but everything else about him was kind of amusing especially the you know, the Tzim-Sha, Tim Shaw? Tzim-Sha Tim Shaw be okay. I was I had to admit I found that funny.
Eugene: It’s kind of a Predator wannabe but. I think okay. There is an interesting thing about him. I will I will say this is an interesting take. Here you have an alien race is going to send somebody to this planet to capture a human being to take back to be a trophy and that’s a terrible terrible thing. Right? I mean that’s worthy of you are the villain for doing that. You can you treat humans as such inferior species that you’re using them as a hunting planet and and I’m on board with that. That’s fine. I mean it’s meh but it’s OK. The fact that they then turned around and made him a cheat and a liar makes him more dimensional.
Not only not only do you have this race of people that would do this, but then you’ve got one who cheats to make sure he succeeds at it. That’s an interesting twist to me.
Ben: Granted. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Eugene: So in that respect I did appreciate that that aspect of it’s like well, you know, I can’t come here with any weapons and I can’t come here with any intelligence gathering and oh by the way, I came here with weapons and stuff. So just to get the job done. So that was you know what he lacked in dynamism and a whole lot of menace he kind of made up for it being a little more than just a shouting villain from another planet that
Eugene: Let’s see I hate to do it. But I’m gonna I’m gonna put through a couple of… I’m gonna go through a couple of notes which may or may not have a negative slant to them.
I think I already mentioned it. I really didn’t like the Sonic Screwdriver. Not just the fact that it looks terrible. I’m not convinced the Doctor could put that together from the equipment that was available on hand. And I know occasionally the Doctor has put together some weird stuff with forks and knives but what we saw the Doctor doing with the soldering iron and everything. It’s like yeah. No, I don’t think so. Especially if this Sonic Screwdriver is going to be just as powerful as the previous ones.
Ben: Which it apparently is
Eugene: It did kind of seem that way. It did kind of seem that way. Talking about.
Ben: Well, I keep thinking, but it reminds me of something. And I’ve not been able to identify it the
Eugene: the Sonic Screwdriver?
Ben: Yeah, just as something in its design that if there’s something very familiar about it and I can’t identify what it is and it’s driving me crazy.
Eugene: I’d have to bleep it but let’s say at some of the people have pointed out
Ben: no, nothing like that.
Ben: No, that’s that’s not what I was referring to. No, something else. It’s something that I’ve seen in a movie or a sci-fi film.
Eugene: Yeah, I know what you mean. I think it’s the the the ribbed almost wood-like metal and then the bend something about it.
Eugene: it does look like something but I couldn’t I couldn’t place it. But anyway. The other thing how did you feel talking Sonic Screwdriver? How did you feel about the way the episode at times didn’t show us what was happening? For example,
Eugene: I felt like I felt like I had a brief blackout.
Ben: There was a cheat. There was a lot of cheats that took place.
Eugene: So like when the time when she found the squiggly thing obviously we were told by the bus drivers. Okay, but we went from garage to on the roof next to the thing as far as I can tell. Either one of two things happened they cut straight from one to the other. I had a blackout. Or there was a streaming glitch, but there was no transition there. There was just boom. Okay.
Ben: No. No, there was no transition. They just they were just there. The other the other…
Ben: …Instance is when when they pulled out the DNA bombs,
Eugene: Right. That one was the big one.
Ben: Yeah that one I thought was a bit egregious.
Eugene: Ah. Yeah, she she obviously took these things out put them in the thing which happened apparently at the time when they were on the roof and they started off her around the thing and scanning it. At no point did we actually see her we kind of saw that whole scene for the point where
Ben: not that’s what I thought
Eugene: from the point she was scanning it to the point where Tim Shaw showed up and zapped around and whatnot. And I didn’t see any opportunity for her to Sonic that out. So
Eugene: When she says it at the end, it’s one of those it’s one of those and I’m not saying the Doctor said this. All right, it’s the writer saying this: “look at how clever the Doctor is. I didn’t show it to you because it’s a slight of hand.” But it’s actually not even very clever because it’s a sonic screwdriver get-out-of-jail-free. Oh DNA bombs get rid of them, right? And we don’t even get to see it. It’s almost like you know the Doctor is in a room locked up and then next scene the Doctor is fighting the alien and somebody bothers mentioned. “Well good thing we have the Sonic Screwdriver to get out of that doorway.” it I didn’t that that kind of… I want to see the Doctor be clever not just have the Doctor tell me that the Doctor has been clever. Even if it’s not here when it happened.
Ben: You want to oooh you and you’re echoing yourself and me. We have both said that in the past.
Eugene: I’m sure we have.
Ben: Oh, yes, we have. We have both said that. That we’re sick and tired of being told I was clever here is you know instead of just saying that you were clever. Why don’t you show us that you are clever?
Ben: but the problem is that is something that has gone back all the way to I mean I can think back to Tom Baker we’ve seen that.
Eugene: oh, yeah, it happens.
Ben: We’ve seen it even even longer than that.
Eugene: It definitely it definitely has happened going way back. There’s no doubt about that. And obviously when you’re being clever and you’re doing something clever that the audience can’t understand, right? I mean the joke here is that it doesn’t matter what the Doctor says. Right. It’s technobabble. It’s fake.
Ben: Well, the one that just does there’s one that just immediately came to mind and it’s funny because I thought about this episode recently because someone had brought it up to my attention and that’s Timelash and there is a bit where the Doctor and HG Wells managed to escape destruction and when Perri corners the Doctor and says, “how did you do that?”
And he says, “oh, Yeah, I was being very clever. Remind me to tell you about it sometime,” and I went. Oh, I don’t know if I should you applaud you or hit you for at least having the nerve to say, you know, that’s essentially the writer saying I don’t know how we did it. We’ll just move on.
Eugene: Yeah, so there was that.
Um, let’s see here’s a minor one this thing came from at least and I don’t remember was it 50 or 500 galaxies away?
Eugene: 500 galaxies away. Since galaxies don’t line up in a straight line…
Eugene: …How do you ah, what kind of a measure is that? I’m just gonna say,
Ben: it’s just it’s yeah, it’s the same measurement that allows a Time Lord to fall from a very very very high height, you know height come crashing through a train and stand up unscathed. Same measurement.
Eugene: Okay. So the other thing I forgot to mention why I’m talking about the stuff that they were cheating on. The pacing of the episode there are things that got glossed over there things that went too fast there were things about and then there were things that just dragged on forever like the funeral like all the you know, kind of rambling on. The the pacing was just all over the place on that episode and they made this a long episode, too, so that they can have more time to waste time. Apparently. That’s a thing. I didn’t I didn’t care for. In the episode.
Now did she kill Tim Shaw with the DNA bombs?
Eugene: What did she do with the DNA bombs?
Ben: Well, she did put them into the coil gatherer that Tzim-Sha then kind of absorbs. So it was hurting him but not killing him.
Eugene: Why not killing him?
Eugene: That’s that was the question. I mean, she said only you know, it felt like. It felt like a I don’t know seems like a David Tennant kind of thing where you know, don’t don’t kill the people don’t kill the people you’ll be sorry. If you kill the people. Oh, you killed the people. Guess what? I turn the gun around and it shot yourself, right? It had that kind of it had that feel to it.
She tried to warn him off. Don’t do it. He does it. You totally absorb the DNA bombs. I thought he was dying. I thought that’s what it was supposed to be then she tosses the teleporter back at. Sending him back home, but I assumed she was sending him back home to die. So I don’t know warning to the people. But when the guy who is so worthless, I don’t what his name is…
Eugene: he amused me to be fair his whole I am valuable. I am whatever but it did amuse me, but still I think it’s
Eugene: not remember his name just to point out that
Ben: it was utterly pointless,
Eugene: but when he tripped the thing and cause it to fall over the edge the Doctor got pissed at him.
Ben: Yeah. I don’t understand why
Eugene: because he tried to kill him which seems like what she was doing and and even if. Even if he had well he did he succeeded in pushing him off the edge. She’d already sent the teleport at him. So it was no chance he was going to so it’s the act of attempted murder in self-defense of a creature that was trying to kill you.
Ben: yeah. It doesn’t make any sense to me
Eugene: which could just be this Doctor’s moral ambiguity.
Eugene: Okay. Um, no opening credits
Ben: none. We only got a hint of the opening theme when the Doctor stood up after falling through the train and I was at
Ben: we did get the closing credits and I hate the closing music.
Eugene: Hmm. I I’d like to hear. I didn’t mind it. Well, let’s face it. I hated the the rat organ music that they’ve been playing throughout the Capaldi’s era
Eugene: I felt like that sounded like somebody was torturing rats. So anything would be a better even even Sylvester McCoy’s music is better than the Capaldi era music so I felt like it was.
And it’s just also the graphics. Of course. I felt like they were trying to be evocative of Pertwee.
Ben: Hmm. Yeah, it felt like a bit of a throwback
Eugene: except for that military beat to it. That was that the the driving… …didn’t fit in my mind. So, I don’t know if they’re not going to have opening credits.
I mean, this is a big, you know, this is a big controversy – not controversy. That’s not the right word, but this is a big trend. Over the last few years at least in the United States to eliminate opening credits because that’s just time that you could be selling to advertisers. Which is not the BBC’s position.
So, I don’t know whether this was just intended to hold the suspense for the theme song longer or whether this is the new the new style.
Ben: I’d I hope not. I’m inclined to think. This was just a one-off just it’s just just a feeling but you never know Chibnall has talked about that. He they were going for something different totally new who knows, you know.
Obviously, we’re not going to know until the next episode comes out.
Eugene: I mean I could see them holding off in the opening credits in much the same way they did in the remake of Casino Royale with Daniel Craig.
Eugene: eliminating the whole Bond
Eugene: intro thing because he’s not Bond yet. He’s not 007 yet, which is exactly what happens in this episode.
She’s not the Doctor until up on the crane.
Eugene: So, maybe I don’t know. I’d like to hear the theme music in a better setting and without the main cut in the middle with coming soon and all that kind of nonsense. But yeah, otherwise Murray Gold is out.
Eugene: some new guys in. There was that scene where the Doctor stood up and there was that sort of thing
Ben: yeah thing right at the very beginning when she comes crashing through the train
Eugene: and then there was a scene when I think you were in the forest. There was a sort of a you know, that that sort of tense keyboard pushed thatt they do to give that sort of tension sound.
Eugene: and then if there was any other music in that episode, I didn’t hear it was invisible
Ben: it was totally forgettable totally forgettable.
Eugene: So which you know is still an improvement over the Sea Devils.
So but I did I it was totally totally not there. So, all right, I will say I don’t know what to expect from Chibnall. I have some hopes because you know, I can I can remember Chibnall as a kid feeling the same way as I do about how bad Doctor Who had gotten under the John Nathan-Turner era.
Eugene: and so I have hopes I have hopes however, you know television has moved on and he certainly has his own style and you know sensibilities and we’ll see
Eugene: This one could be of this reminded me of Russell T Davies a little more than I would like and I will take the stand right now. I am eternally grateful to Russell T Davies for bringing Doctor Who back I think he’s did a lot of great things.
I, with a caveat, preferred the Moffat era. The caveat being is at Moffat doesn’t know when to quit and I don’t mean the job. I mean he doesn’t know when to quit with a theme that he just beats to death
Eugene: But the best of the Moffat era far surpasses the best of the Davies era and the best of the Davies era were all written by Moffat
Eugene: So, you know. Running about Matt Smith’s first year before it just went completely ape do la lee was kind of the high point. So I’m not sure that I’m interested in seeing her return to Russell T Davies, but I’m but I also am ready for change. So let’s see what else is there to talk about about first episode of a new doctor when we really don’t know what the new doctors going to be.
Like, let’s look at her friends first and foremost. Um, what was Ryan’s problem?
Ben: It’s it’s it’s a balance coordination.
Eugene: I mean, I’m not saying it’s a fake thing. But I mean,
Ben: I believe it’s a real condition. I can’t remember the name of it is like dis-por-eccs-seeya or something like that.
Eugene: Is that an inclusivity anything that not only does she have you know a diverse cast this is now our first handicapped companion? Is that what that’s supposed to be?
Eugene: or is this a thing that’s gonna be forgotten.
Ben: I think it’s gonna be forgotten to be honest.
Eugene: Like well, how many times do you need to ride a bicycle in the TARDIS? eh, not very often.
Ben: I mean we saw a little bit from having balance issues when he was on top of the crane with Yaz, so maybe there’s something there but I kind of doubt. I just think it’s going to be forgotten as it goes on.
Eugene: Um, let’s see. Otherwise, what did you think? Of Ryan
Ben: didn’t like him. He’s got a really ugly chip on his shoulder.
Eugene: Mmm. Well fortunately he’s going to be stranded with his chip on his shoulder, Graham.
Ben: Yeah, but I don’t need to be hearing all sorts of just snide remarks back to Graham. I mean for the duration of their time together, I don’t need that. I mean that’s a waste of my time and I don’t want tune into a TV show…
Well, I don’t want to tune into a TV show where you’ve got squabbling family don’t want that.
Eugene: do you think that will continue between the two of them?
Ben: for a time I expect it to I suspect that there is a plan to have them reconcile and start treating each other as family as the as this particular season comes to a close possibly culminating at the Christmas episode, but for the most part, I’d see them at least for half of the series. I see them just bickering and again being that their family. I don’t need to see that.
Eugene: I mean clearly Ryan does not think of Graham as family.
Ben: No, he doesn’t but okay fine
Eugene: is that the standard grandfather er grandmother’s new husband. I don’t I don’t like him or is this the grandmother’s new white husband,I don’t like him?
Ben: I really don’t know. I really don’t know I it could it could be a race issue. It really could be. I hope it isn’t but it could be
Eugene: and what about Graham? Risk-adverse Graham?
Ben: Yeah. Well, he’s older so he’s a bit more settled. It doesn’t want to have his world rocked too much and now it’s been rocked horribly, now with Grace’s death after meeting of the Doctor, so this it’ll be interesting to see what this does for him. But I neither like nor disliked him. I just found him there.
Eugene: I would go along with that. He was just there. He was the third wheel and I think in a way it was kind of meant to be that way.
I mean if you hadn’t…. if you didn’t know who the friends were, I would have put him for the chop and Grace being a companion.
Eugene: You know, I’m going to use the word companion. It doesn’t matter that they call them friends. That that doesn’t it doesn’t work too well, when everywhere the Doctor goes they make friends. They’re are all friends. There are only a few companions though.
Ben: Where’s the Doctor like to say fam?
Ben: She’s Plucky but in all the right ways. I actually liked Yaz so there’s hope there as far as companions with the Doctor. I mean, she might be the most interesting one of the bunch
Eugene: and and she is the one who and I’ll put this question to you too. She helps out Ryan. She’s called out. She wants to get a she wants to do something other than traffic stops. She goes out she meets Ryan. Ryan is an old friend from school. Hey, great. They are blah blah. He gets his call. There’s something weird on a train. She helping out because he’s a friend or because she’s the police?
Ben: I think she helped out because she’s police
Eugene: she didn’t call it in.
Ben: I think in the case of just first going down there now. Okay, I gather from the conversation that she had with the Doctor that it was a bit inappropriate for her to play taxi service for Ryan to get him down to where the train had stopped. So that might be one reason why she didn’t call that in at that moment because Ryan was with her.
Ben: but she wanted to report it and the Doctor kept saying no,
Eugene: okay before the Doctor ever even got there. So she’s off in the woods. And Ryan’s like oh this train has stopped on the track. You would think that that notwithstanding weird things going on or something else that long before the Doctor ever fell through the roof. She would have called in and said did you know there’s a train stuck on the tracks? So another train doesn’t hit it
Ben: she well, it’s it was the last train, well the last commuter train.
She is second year probationary.
Eugene: Why didn’t you call it in Yaz?
Ben: now about to be third year probationary
Eugene: Exactly. So that was a little stretch, but I got the feeling she… Obviously she this may have been a little bit of hey, “maybe I can get a juicy case if I don’t call somebody” which would be you know, kind of keeping with her earlier comments. But at the same time she’s helping out a friend call ’em a friend a classmate. Not everyone that I went to school with I considered a friend. And in about you, but especially ones that I wouldn’t that they obviously not so much older that they wouldn’t recognize each other immediately,
Eugene: But but yeah, she was she was the the brighter of the bunch and I don’t mean that just an intelligence. I mean as the as the group goes and finally, who are we forgetting?
Eugene: What are your first reactions?
Ben: Wow, it’s just too soon to tell. I just don’t know. I didn’t hate it. And that’s about as far as I can go.
Eugene: It was it was pretty generic. How’s that?
Ben: Okay now, I hate it.
Ben: No, I’m serious. I mean if it’s you know, you say generic and I’m thinking of it. Yeah, he’s right. It’s terrible. It didn’t stand out
Eugene: but then I felt the same way about Peter Davison, so
Ben: but I hated Castrovalva.
Eugene: And and the funny thing about Castrovalva if you’ll recall is they shot that I don’t know third.
Eugene: so the Doctor would have time to work out how he was going to play the part before he had to play the regeneration part which you know, I guess is they thought might be difficult. Considering that considering that the Doctor is going through regeneration and didn’t bother me. I just didn’t feel like I’ve gotten any gotten any personality yet out of the Doctor. We’re just we’re just watching we’re just watching
Ben: there was no personality
Eugene: the the the pieces of doctor that we know the Doctor has to have
Ben: there was a zero personality
Eugene: the willingness to help people. The ingenuity.
Ben: All right, all the characteristic traits. There was zero personality not is
Eugene: all enthusiasm I think was
Ben: yeah, that’s not personality though, but you’re right. It’s all all enthusiasm all leap into action. It’s like an empty Jon Pertwee.
Eugene: So coming back to the comment that I made at the beginning about how, you know, having gone through that exercise of looking at the up the the early episodes some of the Doctors come off very strong in their first episodes and and some of them do not and it’s very hard to judge the Doctor by the first episode in some cases
Eugene: So, you know, I’m reserving I’m reserving judgment.
The truth be told Jodie seems to be doing an acceptable job playing with the lines that they were given
Ben: she yes, she did a great job with the lines that she had and I’ve been looking through the news and also checking with you know friends on Facebook and who are Doctor Who fans and the consensus has been unanimous among all of them that they loved her.
Eugene: My daughter’s first words when it’s over, “I love her,” and you know at the end of the episode. I have no complaints at this time, you know, and and honestly by the end of the first episode of Sylvester McCoy, I had complaints
Ben: that is true. I well I had yeah, I had a lot of complaints
Eugene: by the end of the first episode of…
Eugene: …Colin Baker. I had complaints.
Ben: Hmm. I had a few not many a more with McCoy. I have none with Jodie at this present time, but that could really change
Ben: because it will this is Chibnall’s episode he wrote this
Ben: I don’t expect because okay, so he wrote the next one but not the third most likely so we’re again we’re going to be seeing probably some changes in personality because that has been something of a regular characteristic among Doctor Who stories especially during the Moffat era where Moffat didn’t write certain stories for be it Smith or Capaldi someone else around you got completely almost a completely different Doctor.
Ben: So here we just don’t know what we’re going to get.
Eugene: Do you think that, looking at the looking at the pantheon, the first doctor was a crotchety old man, and he was always a crotchety old man and that fit a certain stereotype British eccentric inventor,
Eugene: which you know is the original holotype. They went when they went to Patrick Troughton. They made a deliberate change and frankly, they made him a lot weirder, right?
Ben: Yeah, that’s all very much.
Eugene: He did they made him weird when they went to Pertwee they changed up again and they say we’re going to go with we’re going to go action-adventure Bondian guy. They didn’t do that the first episode there was there was far more Troughton in the first episode for the for Pertwee’s Doctor, but you know, Tom Baker eccentrically weird Jonathan Nathan-Turner comes along, he says next Doctor is going to be younger, more vulnerable, less this, right and we got milquetoast and then they go with Colin Baker. They go to the you know, kind of over the top I want to get back to the angry Doctor from the first which he really wasn’t right, but we want the and right. So basically what they’re doing is every time they’re trying to trying to deviate. Now when we get to the eighth Doctor, Right, which I will say, you know, he got one shot in the movie made by Americans and and then he got that one little regeneration sequence at the end and there is a huge catalogue of Big Finish audios where they fleshed out his character but but new audience new style new thing, right, when they went to that movie he is even more generic than Peter Davison because they aren’t going for this character is different from Sylvester McCoy or this character is different from Tom Baker they are going for what is the distilled essence of the Doctor a little bit weird little little at a time kind of smart. Perhaps excitable kind of. His performance in that movie and Jodie’s in this one remind me very much of each other. And I wonder if because she is the first woman Doctor they’ve decided that that is enough deviating from the pattern from the generic Doctor figure. That should be enough. We’re not also going to try to make her Sylvester McCoy or make her Colin Baker or anything like that. They’re not going to go big with the personality. I think I think they’re going to go with middle of the road.
It’s a guess, based on what we’ve seen it’s very hard to tell from the first episode. But that that was I was I was reeking eighth Doctor vibe off this I’m like, yeah, this is like we have to show that this person is the Doctor whereas in other cases the whole point was to show you that the Doctor was different.
Ben: Yes. Yes, and that’s
Eugene: and we are showing that the Doctor is very different in one particular way here so maybe we don’t need to maybe we don’t need to try to come up with a clever distinguishing feature
Ben: because there’s just the one the one big ways enough
Eugene: So which you know, I don’t actually think will serve serve her well, but we’ll see. I’m hope I’m wrong there. But
Ben: well, yeah. Yeah, I don’t know again. This is the first episode we. We know very very little about where her character is going to go. Maybe Chibnall didn’t even know. I mean he could be growing into this just as much as we are in terms of who the Doctor is going to be hard to say
Eugene: he had a lot of time to prepare, though.
Ben: I hope that but then maybe this is a deliberate attempt to kind of let her have her growth and finally become the person that we want her to become I will say however, I was very wary of the scene after the funeral and they’re all outside of the home and the Doctors just simply talking about how you know, I’m just a traveler, you know, sometimes I find things that need fixing and I fix them and it just felt bland.
I mean, it’s sort of did go back to what it is that. You think back to what River Song kept trying to tell Matt Smith’s Doctor, you know, you’re not the warrior doctor you are, you know, you’re not the Doctor that goes in and scares people half to death. You’re the Doctor who You’re the Doctor. You’re the Doctor who healed, you know referring to who he used to be and maybe Chibnall is trying to push the Doctor back into that kind of a mode, especially after the whole am I a good man nightmare we went through with Capaldi. Hard to say, it’s just too soon.
Eugene: Well, I think I don’t have anything else on this episode.
Ben: No, no. Oh one just one thing that really perturbed me. I didn’t quite know what to make of this one line. When Yaz tells the Doctor that she needs new clothes. She says it’s been a long time since I bought women’s clothes.
Eugene: Yeah, I my first thought there was I think I think probably the one that perturbed you but I think reality is that the Doctor has been had a family the Doctor.
Eugene: shopping for women’s clothing at some point.
Ben: Yeah, it’s possible,
Eugene: you know, even even a granddaughter perhaps.
Eugene: So I I mean I’ve been shopping for women’s clothing, you know, and I’ve never regenerated to or from a woman. So I mean it’s
Eugene: it does happen. And I think that’s how I ultimately chose to take that line instead of the mythical 38 other regenerations we haven’t bothered to tell you about in the past.
Okay, well so listeners so that you know our current plan and you can check out on our Facebook page for our listing of upcoming episodes is to run one of these Doctor Who episodes every two weeks and continue rotation of our regular show.
So through the end of the year we’ll be talking about Doctor Who getting progressively further from the air date of episode. Although I suspect we’ll be recording them a lot closer to the air date than when they get released.
So next week you will actually get to hear our episode on The Night Stalker – The source and the Sea, two-part episode and then the week after that which is October 29th will be the next episode of Doctor Who I think it’s the Ghost Monument.
Ben: I’ll take your word for it.
Eugene: I think it’s the Ghost Monument. I think I see only two we have names for everything else even the names haven’t come out yet. So I think we know the writers of them all but but not the names.
So, all right. Well Ben, thank you for joining me.
Ben: Oh, I wish I could say it was a pleasure.
Eugene: I’m sorry. I ruined it for you. I hope I didn’t ruin it for anybody else that was watching the show that was like loving it and then he’s like, oh, you’re right this was kind of bad. But listeners I do hope you’ll join us all again next time Fusion Patrol.
