Transcript
So the night's Doctor only did one series, didn't he Is that right, he did and that was partly because he felt we had an acting career To get back to.
0:28:08 - Speaker 1
I understand the danger is being James Bond. You get kind of stuck, and so am I right in thinking that's the reason he left. Yes, I mean, it's decided that he would. You know it was.
0:28:19 - Speaker 3
In a way, he came in and he did what was needed. He got Doctor back on the map. He made it that much more modern and exciting and yeah, and had other things he wanted to do. For him it was, I think, a very big change. He hadn't played that kind of. He had a lot of. He had a lot of. He hadn't played that kind of family friendly, more straightforward hero. And although he had to portray a lot of dark elements because he's a survivor of the great time war, in this iteration of the programme, yeah, I think he was excited that it would be good for them to re-establish the format and then widen it up further and then, somewhere in the casting, room.
0:29:00 - Speaker 1
I don't know who he's in charge of casting, you might know. Somebody had the absolutely brilliant idea of replacing him with David Tennant who, before this had been known, he'd been in a programme called Casanova, I think just prior. Yeah, which was what he, davis, wrote.
0:29:17 - Speaker 3
So that answers your question about further casting.
0:29:22 - Speaker 1
Right and he seemed to solidify that success and I think of the modern era he's most often thought of as everybody's favourite doctor, I think on a poll of the public that picked him. So what would you say, mg, was your feeling about the David Tennant doctor? What did you think he was like?
0:29:46 - Speaker 2
He's not my favourite, to be honest, but he's one of the favourites, like that. But paradoxically, I think most of my favourite episodes are in his era. He was just a bit too cocky for me, that's. You know, there's an episode that I really like where his cockiness just goes and he's actually in fear of his life and he doesn't save the day in that episode and I really like him. Then, you know, I like him when he's not so cocky anymore, when he's actually having to kind of be completely sincere. That's that episode called Midnight. So I really really like him in that episode. There are some other episodes where I really really like him, but he's kind of little. It's just personally to me. I don't love his kind of cocky-assides all the time. It gets a bit much. He's a bit cheeky-chappy. But even saying that, he's still like in my top five. I would say.
0:30:45 - Speaker 1
For me, I think what worked and I didn't think it would work is the doctor actually having a romantic relationship with the Billy Piper character, and seeing that side of him I think was new and I think it meant that when they get parted there was a genuinely emotional parting of the companion. Then he's always emotional, he's always sad to leave them like. But that one had much more Well in my view, the way I read that is, I felt it had less of a melancholy and more of a sacrifice.
0:31:24 - Speaker 2
Yeah, and that's one of the things I least liked, to be honest, was that kind of work, his regeneration episode, where he just can't let go. That's personal though, but you know I wasn't used to seeing a doctor like that, just so kind of emotional and like.
0:31:38 - Speaker 1
I don't want to die. It's just too tough, isn't it? I know? I think I thought it was great.
0:31:45 - Speaker 3
Yeah, that's a huge episode of that one because it's got Daleks fighting Cybermen, which is keeping all the it's a bit everything but the kitchen sink.
0:31:51 - Speaker 1
That one isn't it.
0:31:52 - Speaker 3
It's all going on in it, but yeah somehow it all hits home with that final sacrifice. You just say that you have to let go of the person you love to save the universe, and yeah. I think there was. I mean, I was in floods watching that one. After that Then I was used to a Dr Who'd make me cry.
0:32:10 - Speaker 1
And then I've tried to think of the name of the next companion with him.
0:32:13 - Speaker 3
It was Martha.
0:32:15 - Speaker 1
Martha, that's right.
0:32:16 - Speaker 3
I'm coming across as such a no-it-all on this, I'm very sorry. No, no, no, but this is why you're here. This is why you're here.
0:32:20 - Speaker 1
This is why you're here. It's a triggering thing.
0:32:22 - Speaker 2
I did say to Julia, I'm not such an incredible effort. I've kind of watched almost all of Dr Who and really liked it and particularly nerded it out about some episodes and some eras. But I do not have the encyclopedic noise that I know you have.
0:32:36 - Speaker 3
Oh I, sometimes I just hear myself no, this is when it's, this is when your knowledge is wanted, so feel good.
0:32:45 - Speaker 1
The Martha companion I felt was less successful because she had a kind of unrequited element to her, but she does get to be in one of my favorite of all time episodes, which is the Shakespeare one. I love the Shakespeare one. It was silly but also huge fun. I just really enjoyed that because it brought together all sort of wonderful. If you know your Shakespeare, but also if you know your Harry Potter. There's also some little Easter eggs in there for you, which was great fun. And then is it after that we get Donna. That's right, yeah, and so Donna played by Catherine Tate, that was a really I think they did a successful thing there, because having the older woman who basically tells you he's the answer, she's the answer to his cockiness, because she basically sort of says you know, stop being so silly a lot of the time. So that was great fun. It definitely come across as being really great friends.
0:33:39 - Speaker 3
And I think that that was really lovely at that point because it felt like the romance thing needed to be put on the back burner after the Rose and the Martha. As you say, fencing in but not getting anything back.
I think having the two of them just as a couple of mates running through time and space, and you know it didn't stop the emotional stuff, because there's a very affecting story in Donna's run called Turn Left, where we find out what would happen if she hadn't got the doctor, and it gets very dark and you know it's a burner crimson. That makes me cry, you know. I mean it's like it's a wonderful, wonderful story.
And yeah, Donna is hilarious, but of course it's a very tragic when she has to lead the program Because she has to forget the doctor. And if she does remember him, remember him.
0:34:22 - Speaker 2
Yes, exactly so it feels like there's some conclusion coming with the stories coming up.
0:34:31 - Speaker 3
So that's good. We'll discover just how she and the doctor get back together and and what's in store. And then we move to the Matt Smith era and I mentioned to like the Peter Davidson choice They've got.
0:34:44 - Speaker 1
they went young with Matt Smith. I think it was helped by the fact that Matt Smith has a bit like Benedict Cumberbatch. He's got a very distinctive, different kind of face. So even though he's young, he felt as though he could be Dr Who. Yes, there's something very little alien about him yeah.
0:35:00 - Speaker 3
And the old man and the young man's body. I mean, this is the thing is, as obviously, as the doctors go on with the casting, the actual character himself is getting older and older and I think Matt Smith's doctor eventually dies of regenerates from old age. You know he's been around for so long, ironically, but yes, he's. I think he had that wonderful, ungainly alien sense you say in and a really interesting energy that he brought to the character. Also, you see, quickly increases in confidence as he goes along, because it was a huge, huge as part on TV really into and to go to someone relatively unknown and young like that. It was a genius piece of casting and there was a great relation of his own to my favorite actually.
0:35:42 - Speaker 2
Which one's that, his regeneration episode. I think it's called the power. It's wonderful, absolutely wonderful.
0:35:47 - Speaker 3
Yes and introduction of a new companion as well.
0:35:50 - Speaker 1
I think one of my favorite ones and that is the one with James Corden, the one where he's the, the larger, the larger, I think it's just such a wonderful. Yeah, that was really very, very funny.
0:36:02 - Speaker 3
Yes, turning a turning a Craig's life upside down. Yeah.
0:36:08 - Speaker 1
And we got Amy and I forget the name for her husband, roy Roy, so that was nice. I'm a married couple and sort of follow that arc. It was a bit different. And then we've got who comes next Clara, clara, I've stuck around for quite a long time. My dog will get excited because her name is Clara and because my my children named her after the companion. I'm going up and down.
I think one of the things which I had a problem with with Clara is they kind of tried to make her as the the most important thing in the universe.
0:36:47 - Speaker 2
I I struggle with that bit, but anyway with Rose as well, because Rose was connected to. You're right, you're right.
You know they, they had formed that and I think to be honest that that I was probably an important evolution in Dr who, that you know that you don't just have these randos who get picked up and travel around with a doctor, but there's a reason that they're picked, if you like there is, there is a inherent you know, kind of it's not just random who he's who he is hooking up with, in a platonic sense, obviously. And was River Song that character introduced already? Or was this a Matt Smith? He was introduced in an episode of the.
David Tennant, which is one of my favorites as well, I think. Silence in the library and it's wonderful. This is where they're doing the time travelers wife storyline and they so they have. Have you heard the time? Time? Time travel is about this kind of okay Time traveler who meets his wife in a different order. So they do that. They have River Song. The first she meets David Tennant and because, like, oh, you're very young, let's do diaries. And she realized he's never met her before. And then she realizes that she's coming to the end of her life because she knew that, you know, the last time she meets him is the first time he meets her. It's amazing episode, it's one of my favorites.
0:37:59 - Speaker 3
His reaction to her is just wonderful If you watch that performance by Tennant.
0:38:02 - Speaker 2
he's you know, the beginning he's a bit like freaked out because the way she's touching him and looking at him and then he begins to become more comfortable with it, you know, especially after he shares some information with her. But he, you know. But so she shares some information with him and then he starts to get a little bit more comfortable with it. But he, you know. So she shares some information with him. That proves how much he trusts her in the future. And Donna is amazing in that episode too, because she sees this dynamic and she's watching, but not like a jealous, not like she's jealous, but like she's like she's his sister or his mom or something like who's this woman, who is she to you?
0:38:34 - Speaker 3
And then of course she realizes hang on, you know him in the future, but you don't know me why there's any sort of lovely, lovely touches because the character is created by Steven Moffat and then Steven Moffat takes over show running duties from Russell T Davis at the start of the Matt Smith era. So she kind of comes back because obviously he's you know, he felt that she had a lot of potential to see those, what for her earlier experiences meeting the doctor which will the doctor obviously a current day.
0:39:04 - Speaker 2
And you also feel like it's promised to you because at the end of the episode you've got all this great stuff to look forward to this and that and the other. She gives all these details and you're like, oh, we're going to see this.
0:39:14 - Speaker 3
And sure enough I'm sure it's several years it happens.
0:39:19 - Speaker 1
And is it at this time we've also just so we're keeping our our timeline in in in step that some of the spin off series start being made, like torchwood and eventually, the Sarah Jane adventures?
0:39:32 - Speaker 3
That was way back when the continent was doing it yeah.
0:39:36 - Speaker 1
Yeah, so it's the 2000s. Okay, so just people know that we're aware of these other things going on and that Smith has quite another long, fairly long time as Dr who and he hands over to Peter Capaldi, and I remember that Peter Capaldi so that's again a bit like the shift are going old, again older. Peter Capaldi was also a huge Dr who fan, a real, and he's also an amazing actor and the element of the, the. The high listen days of the 2000s seem to be passing quite quickly and so his time at the doctor was shorter and probably a bit less successful in terms of audience numbers. But though he does get a very brilliant episode as well. Isn't he the one with the, the Groundhog Day one? Where do you know the name of that episode?
0:40:34 - Speaker 3
It's called heaven sent.
0:40:36 - Speaker 1
Heaven sent which I thought was I remember watching it. It's been him by himself as being stalked by that mysterious thing.
0:40:42 - Speaker 3
Yeah, it's a very unusual episode.
0:40:44 - Speaker 1
I mean, this is what Dr who does so nicely is? It changes what it does within its own rules and, as you say, it's pretty much him on his own, Just as another really good episode is the when the weeping angels are introduced under David Tennant. David Tennant hardly appears in it, so it's a very, very good one. I think he was playing a very good role in the role of David Tennant and he played a very good role in the role of David Tennant and and then he changed the rules on that one and again, it's a totally brilliant episode.
0:41:13 - Speaker 2
So we've got Peter Capaldi who played a. I suppose it was a bit Colin Baker-ish, in that it's a bit more angry.
0:41:18 - Speaker 3
It's going back to yeah about the sort of like, but they kind of cranked up to 11, because at least you know Hartnell had you know the cheeky twinkle in his eyes Hard to imagine Hartnell ranting at Robin Hood that he wants to chop his head off and kick it around like a football. You know as he felt like kind of more extreme. I think part of the audience popularity issue there might be that I think kids are very used. You know, matt Smith was a young and heroic, david Tennant young and heroic, and the kid in the playground can run around pretending to be the doctor. But when the doctor is more a grandfather figure, well, no one really wants to go around pretending to be their own granddad. You know it's. And so I think maybe a kind of a shift in how accessible the storylines were combined with a brilliant actor but a very different sort of a doctor maybe maybe did impact on how essential family viewing Dr Who became at that point.
0:42:11 - Speaker 1
And then, of course, Peter Kabaldi hands over to number 13,. Who is Jodie Whitaker? Surprise, surprise, she's a woman.
0:42:19 - Speaker 3
Get over it world, you know it's a wonderful moment that roofing it off yeah which, which we get.
0:42:26 - Speaker 1
all the other comparable role where you get this, of course, is James Bond. It's always should we have a black James Bond, should we have a female James Bond, and so on. And the filmmakers to a certain extent do have to provide us with this eventually, just so they don't. So the choice of another white guy isn't such a retrograde step. But they did pick on a another lovely actor and the problem she had, I feel, is that her character, the way she, her doctor, was characterised, was very kind of it, oh, didn't have authority. She felt a bit like a slightly over-infusiastic primary school teacher. Sometimes it's not her fault, because I've seen her do other roles where she's not at all like that, but there was very much the clowny aspect had come in with her character.
0:43:23 - Speaker 3
Yeah, I think again with Dr Who, it's often about reacting against what's gone before.
0:43:29 - Speaker 1
Yeah.
0:43:30 - Speaker 3
And she was very serious and grumpy. They wanted to get someone who again was very, was the reverse and the darkness was taken away and she's having the best time exploring the universe and she's got a whole bunch of friends with her. I think problems perhaps weren't with her own character but the fact that she because you've got to find screen time for a TARDIS crew or in a 45 minute episode I mean that's a real challenge and I think that it works better when, I mean, she goes down to having two companions, which is a bit more, gives a bit more room. But I think, yeah, it's a shame I'd love to have seen her having a you know, just her and a single companion. Having that dynamic. I think would have been really cool.
But I think also we have to accept that Dr Who's shifting to a Sunday was pretty difficult in terms of getting viewers in On a Saturday night.
It's perfect for kids to be brought to a program like that because it's on at the right time. You know the next day is a Sunday, whereas you know this came off. Dr Who was coming after country file on a Sunday night when it's bath time, you know, when it's school the next day, and so I don't think you ever got enough enough children watching in enough numbers to really kind of, like you know, maintain all the tie in stuff or the merchandise and the excitement and the buzz and the playground which keeps people kind of coming back to it. I think that was partly the problem and it dropped from the Christmas day schedule and turned up on New Year's Day when everyone's feeling a little bit exhausted and hungover and sort of like ratty. It doesn't quite have the same, the same sort of like feel good factor about it perhaps during that time. Because I think I think she was was a lovely doctor. I thought she was really good.
0:45:12 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I think, I think she could have been, I think there's. So, for example, there's a couple of episodes which I think stand up among the best. So there's one about the division of the Punjab, yeah, and then there's one about Rosa Parks. That's really good, yeah, and I love the fact that the companions were in the role of being having to be on the wrong side of history in that confrontation so as not to change history. Wonderful, and I love that. It was great. And I also enjoyed her last episode. I thought, yeah, so she did have some good moments.
Okay, we've taken a while but to get through. But it is 60 years we've been talking about so well done us for getting through. So clearly there are things which are inseparable from the doctor. So we've got the TARDIS. We've got the doctor be able to regenerate. We've got the doctor with his companions or her companions. We've got the traveling in time, the traveling in space. But I was talking to an American science fiction writer just yesterday, a guy called David Levine, and when I mentioned Dr Who he said oh yes, that's very British. What do you think it is? Can you identify within the Dr Who world? What is the cultural aspect of it, which makes it feel distinctly British, as opposed to the Star Trek and the Star Wars and the rest of them.
0:46:57 - Speaker 2
Well, it's a very different kind of show. I would say that the Americans don't. You know there is nothing quite like Dr Who which is about a sole heroic traveler. The other things are much more ensemble and they're much more, if you think about it, they're quite militaristic. Really All of the Star Trek franchises are militaristic, Even if it's a friendly military, even if later they realise that the Federation is basically NATO or whatever and there's problems with it. So basically a military show, and Dr Who is nothing like that.
How is it British? I mean, the doctor espouses, I think, what would be thought of as the best of British values, you know, sort of tolerance, and you know good humour and fairness and justice and all of that kind of things. They probably think Dr Who is incredibly woke in America, whereas you know some people say that here too. But actually it's always been that way. It's always been. You know it's always been interested in things like, you know, the environment and science, getting out of hand and doing destructive things. And you know there have always been female companions, right from the beginning, and they've always been taken notes of and the doctor's always been, you know, not at all sexist. All of those things existed from the beginning. So when people say, oh, it's woke, it's always been like that and I think that's a good thing, but you wouldn't see that in America, I don't think.
0:48:21 - Speaker 3
Yes, and I think also it's a product as well of the British television system which you know. Basically you get a producer and a script editor, in later years a showrunner and some exact producers, but basically making it to their own vision and not having to satisfy the various demands of a network, perhaps which makes it a. There was a greater simplicity to the BBC commissioning process. You know it was. They didn't have to rely on sponsors or you know they weren't a production company pitching to a network, so there were probably fewer compromises when it was originally brought along. So it's Britishness is also a kind of a function of the way British television was made, particularly on the BBC. It remains, along with Top Gear, the only show that BBC owns all rights in, for example.
But I think that yes it's the idea that doctors always, you know being British and enjoyed a cup of tea and you know notions of play. He also sends up the establishment as well. I mean some people say you know John Pert to his doctor is, you know much more of a Tory in many ways because he's there and is you know being dandy and talking about fine wines and everything, but also he's scathingly anti, small minded attitudes. He sort of lampoons politicians with ideas of you know, britain for the England, for the English or things like that. He's always preaching coexistence with aliens. You know the humans can be better than they are and I think that that that appeal into this is essential British soul of you know fair play and and doing right and fighting, fighting evil without weapons, yeah, with a with a sonic screwdriver, for heaven's sake. You know which is excellent at removing that sometimes.
And indeed by the time Peter Davison comes along, he's lost the sonic screwdriver. And it's interesting that it gets brought back in the reboot because it's it's a kind of a way of bypassing what in the old days, when you have four or six episodes to tell a story, you'd have a five, 10 minute sequence to get out of the sonic and basically do all sorts of things it never used to be able to do which can help you tell the story faster. So it helps the pace keep up. Likewise, the psychic paper which the doctor has in the reboot let's him into situations and be accepted as an authority figure in a way that might take one or two episodes in the old series. You can see that. You know they're very cleverly short circuiting some of the classic Dr Who storylines, but they're all still there as, as MG says, they're. All is always been there the concerns for the environment, the need for coexistence and the you know, basically good people coming together to overthrow evil.
0:51:09 - Speaker 1
I mean, the sonic screwdriver is basically a wand, isn't it?
0:51:12 - Speaker 3
It's become increasingly a wand.
0:51:14 - Speaker 2
yes, but it can't. It can't destroy somebody, can't. It's not a gun.
0:51:18 - Speaker 3
No, exactly, it's a tool. Even if it's a tool for opening a computer, in the same way it would open the door and allowing information out, as you say, which is great because you have children running around the playground with. But it's basically, you know, a Swiss army knife of intergalactic proportions. You know it's not a ray gun or anti-matter blaster, you know so it's. It requires ingenuity to use, which is, you know, very key, you know, very key to the, to the Doctor's character.
He is the cleverest person in the room on the planet quite often and and yeah, he also makes mistakes. So he don't ever feel he's this aloof super being, because he's grumpy sometimes or he's cocky, as we were discussing earlier, or, but you know, he'll normally be brought up short on one of these shortcomings at some point, in the same way that every, every child, every person in the country is brought up short on their own fault sometimes. So I think it's another reason why we can relate to that and learn from it and grow through it. I think, again, that's quite a, that's quite British in its sense.
0:52:20 - Speaker 1
I think one of the areas is so the science fiction in America grew out of Westerns. You know, westerns were the big dominant cultural force and then it became science fiction and so things like Star Trek are there. Searching the final frontier is like a way going into the Wild West. I think the, the method of exploration wasn't in the British conscience, wasn't, you know, pushing forward a frontier? Was the gentleman explorers going off into, you know, africa, somewhere, that sort of an in HD wells you've got the experiment are going off into the future and so on. I think it's much more of that. Solitary exploration possibly is feeding into that. So a final question where do you think Dr who is going to go next? What's gonna? We got Russell T Davis back for a bit. I don't know how long, but we've got him back for a bit.
0:53:19 - Speaker 3
He's gonna be around for a while. I can't answer this because of course, I know the answers.
0:53:25 - Speaker 1
Oh, that's really exciting.
0:53:27 - Speaker 3
Yes, because I work it on the, the, the.
0:53:29 - Speaker 2
Really don't have it. I mean, the thing is there is a there's a characteristic style to RTD and I just think we're gonna get back to that and I'm happy with that Cause, you know, I think he's written basically most of the best Dr Who that there ever has been, or either he's written it or produced it himself. So I'm very, I'm very happy that he's coming back. You know, I think Michelle will be in fantastic hands. He's incredible. He's a great writer.
I mean that you know people, people who learn to write on soap operas, you know, on Holly Oaks. Or, like Frank Hottrell, boys learn to write on Holly Oaks and he's a great writer. And RTD learned on Coronation Street. And there's another really good writer who came out of Coronation Street I can't remember who it is, but they are Adele Rowe. They're fantastic writers and they can write dialogue and characters just so well and that's what made RTDs Dr Who so fantastic.
So, like Philip Hinchclisere from the Tom Baker, they kind of grabbed a lot of the best science fiction tropes that were going and they kind of made monster episodes and sort of you know, they basically took all of the ideas they were in science fiction and made them into episodes and so that kind of laid down a lot of the lore of Dr Who and now we're not really getting. I mean, we're getting stuff that's, you know, maybe based on like AI and actually the kind of big science fiction concepts were explored a long time ago. So where RTD went was he said well, where haven't we gone? We haven't gone into people, we haven't gone into the human dynamics, into families, into relationships. So we're going to take all of that and put that into the existing Dr Who and that was the great development and you know it's still working.
I think there were some issues with the last, you know, a few couple of seasons. We've discussed why not seasons, but you know the last couple of doctors, why they didn't work as well. I think RTD knows what he's doing and I'm sure shooting will be a fantastic. Dr Who is fantastic. In sex education he's a great doctor.
0:55:25 - Speaker 3
Yes, I mean, I think this is all very true and it's, you know it's basically RTD. Yes, it's back in and prepped up to 11. I mean, it's, there's some genuinely, genuinely jaw-dropping stuff coming up. It's wonderful, and you know it's also it's a celebratory year, 60th anniversary. So the first episode is based on a comic strip from Dr Who Weekly in 1980. That's the starting point for the episode. So it's like, you know, it's this joyful embrace of not just Dr Who but also, you know, doctor Hara, is it as well?
0:56:02 - Speaker 2
yeah, Not the Stockbridge horror, is it? That's the best?
0:56:05 - Speaker 3
That is a fantastic comic strip. No, it's a few.
0:56:07 - Speaker 2
I thought that was the best one. Yeah, I wish I looked at that.
0:56:10 - Speaker 3
This is. But this one goes back to when I was, like, you know, eight or nine or something you know. So it's really funny that that's become, you know, a starting point. But yeah, huge drama and it's. You know, it's never looked better either. Now it's. You know the Disney Channel have got involved as well. I mean, as we can see from the trailer on on YouTube and online, the effects are just absolutely through the roof. It's on par with the best of anything Hollywood can get out there. So there is always that kind of conception of all the sets wobble and they do this and do that and you know that's. It's like the idea that Daleks can't climb stairs. Those ideas are kind of like dusty and clunky and sit in the psyche of those who don't believe. But I think Dr Who doesn't give you any option now but to believe and it's going to be big and bold and fantastic.
0:57:04 - Speaker 1
That's brilliant. So two final things. One is I want you to give us the episode we should watch. If we haven't done a complete watch to all Dr Who, which is the one episode that we should watch. And then the final thing is about if Dr Who was going to visit another fantasy world, wherein all the fantasy world should be sent him. So let's start off with your must see episode. It could be from any of the 60 years, Steve have you got an answer.
0:57:40 - Speaker 3
I would say from the classic series, I would say City of Death, which was written by a time in. Douglas Adams was scripted editing the show and he co-wrote that one under a pseudonym. It's wonderful and witty. It's Tom Baker and Lana Ward who, again, their romance was off screen, but they actually got married.
So it's the Doctor and Romana in Paris, filmed in Paris as well, with this incredible adventure where an alien splintered into 12 parts is basically using the fact he's back in time to get artists to knock up you know, extra Gutenberg Bibles or Mona Lisa so he can sell them to fund his time travel experiments. I mean it's bonkers, but it's brilliant. And from the new series, I would say Blink, the first Weeping Angels episode that you mentioned earlier. I think that's a wonderful one to start anyone off on Dr Who.
0:58:31 - Speaker 1
Yeah, that'd be my one as well. Mg, how about you?
0:58:35 - Speaker 2
From classic who I would say Genesis of the Daleks, which is also a Tom Baker episode and it's, you know, basically you find out what happened, where the Daleks came from, and it has a really amazing moment where the Doctor has an opportunity to kill the Daleks, you know, to destroy the kind of, you know, the baby Daleks so that they'll never exist, because it's a whole experiment by this guy, davros, and he's, you know, he's got the wires there, he's going. Can I do it? You know? Do I have that right? It's wonderful and it's like very serious science fiction as well. And you also see, you kind of net the origins, you know, of the Daleks From new who, I would say I would have said Blink, but you've already said Blink, I'd say the Silence in the Library which is the one where he meets River Song at the end of her, at the end of her life, and it's also a really good science fiction episode as well.
You know, it's an amazing big library but it's empty. Why? Why is it empty? And there's a really good Stereo alien and it's got Donna, who's the best companion, and that's saying a lot, because Sarah, sarah James Smith, who's in Genesis of the Daleks, she would have been my favourite companion before. That Donna's just got amazing, you know. It's an amazing, amazing comic timing that she can just say two words in just a certain way. And then the episode that it's kind of paired with also is fantastic, and these are really good science fiction concepts as well. So, and it's written by Steven Moffat, who may not have been the best producer or showrunner, but he certainly was the best writer, apart from RTD, I would say and and and Robert Holmes back in the olden days.
1:00:11 - Speaker 1
Thank you. And then, where are we going to go off in a fantasy world if we were taking a doctor? Just not that we'd actually make this, but just what would be fun to imagine.
1:00:19 - Speaker 3
The, the, the chemistry it's probably Dr Who is kind of.
1:00:25 - Speaker 1
he's already been to a lot of these places, I mean in special, I mean like I, for example, I would take him to Wonderland, like Alice in Wonderland Wonderland, just to sort of have the mind He'd probably get on really well with Lewis Carroll. I'd like to see the episode. You know he sometimes goes back and meets the writer. That's the one I'd like to see is the one where he meets Lewis Carroll and they had, and in fact Wonderland is generated by an encounter with Dr Who.
1:00:53 - Speaker 3
It's the most racist self, doesn't it? It does Give me a call.
1:00:57 - Speaker 1
if you want that one written, I'll come and I'll come and do it.
1:01:01 - Speaker 2
I'd quite like to see him in the world of Star Wars actually, like you know, some of the TV and or something like that, because I actually have to say I really do like the more serious Dr Who episode, episodes where he's in a kind of existential battle, you know, in a war or something like that with the, with the Daleks or something, and I think it'd be quite interesting now.
1:01:25 - Speaker 1
If you find him sort of just in the background of a scene in a bar where there he is sort of sipping a multi-coloured drink just watching the, the goings on you say oh, stop the who. Yes, he's got there. How about you, steve? Would you like to crash him into any other universes?
1:01:43 - Speaker 3
Yeah, I'd like, I'd probably like him to go somewhere, you know, Marvel wise you know turning up you know, during the battle for the Infinity Gauntlet or something, would be great fun to have Doctor sort of like squaring up to Thanos in the midst of all this superhero mayhem. The Doctor sort of like running about there as well would be.
1:02:00 - Speaker 1
He does. He does fit strangely well, doesn't he? Because he is a kind of British superhero.
1:02:05 - Speaker 3
Yes, I suppose you. Maybe a Dr Who, Doctor Strange team up would be quite fun, because you know Benedict Cumbach playing alongside.
1:02:12 - Speaker 1
That would genuinely work Mine you know, our ideas are just more like mischief making, Whereas that's because I think the American concept of what a British superhero would be like it's a captain. I can't even remember the name of the British.
1:02:27 - Speaker 2
He's a British superhero.
1:02:29 - Speaker 1
What you think. That's not really, that's not really us. Whereas Dr Who turning up, I'm there, well, as I say what happened.
1:02:39 - Speaker 2
Horlock has a British accent. He's one of the new Guardians of the Galaxy. Actually, don't die. What's his name? Will Poulter, he. If they ever cast a white man as Dr Who again, I think Will Poulter would be good.
1:02:53 - Speaker 1
Oh, he's such a fave ever since he was used to us in the Voyager, the Dawn Treader. Yeah, walking around saying I want to speak to the British console, I have loved him ever since that. Anyway, thank you very much for travelling through time and space with me, and we all look forward to tuning in to see the next round of Dr Who. Thank you very much.
