Russell Two Davies

[Nick R]

Apparently, today there was some news about a change to Doctor Who’s production staff, in some obscure behind-the-scenes role. I don’t know if anyone else heard about it?

Topic

[Ben Saunders]

Matt Smith is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, squeezed into a shirt that’s just a little bit too… tight.

[Dave]

Although I do think it could have used some more explanation. Not even direct explanation necessarily, just more details that would allow us to join the dots ourselves.

Yes, this. I don’t think explicit explanations were necessary, but some kind of gentle indication as to what was going on would have helped.

I don’t think Roger ap Gwilliam needed further explanation. Nationalist strongmen like him exist all over the place. We don’t need to hear a backstory for him to make sense. It’s kind of depressing that with the timeline reset there’s nothing to stop him though.

I think we’re meant to assume that because he is Mad Jack*, he somehow remains contained by the Faerie magic in the eventual timeline. Somehow. Even though the Doctor still knows about him. Somehow.

(*a name that simultaneously made me think of both Mad Gerald from The Black Adder and Mad Jack McMad from Blackadder The Third.)

[Dave]

> young people just look, act and feel different to old people.
and yet I totally buy Matt Smith’s aged Doctor in Time of the Doctor. But then Matt had been playing well beyond his years from the start in a lot of ways. 

I think that’s what Smith did brilliantly – that sense of an old soul in a young body. It’s part of what makes him one of the all-time best Doctors.

[Flap Jack]

I think we’re meant to assume that because he is Mad Jack*, he somehow
remains contained by the Faerie magic in the eventual timeline. Somehow.
Even though the Doctor still knows about him. Somehow.

Hmm… maybe, but if Gwilliam is on some level supernatural, that kind of undermines the idea of him as a normal and human villain. The political commentary isn’t exactly deep here, but it at least retains some bite if anyone could become Roger ap Gwilliam.

To me, the “Mad Jack” connection played as a coincidence. Ruby thinks that it’s a clue, that the spectre’s purpose is to get her to stop Gwilliam, but she does so and nothing changes, so actually it isn’t.

[Dave]

To me, the “Mad Jack” connection played as a coincidence. Ruby thinks that it’s a clue, that the spectre’s purpose is to get her to stop Gwilliam, but she does so and nothing changes, so actually it isn’t.

Could be, I suppose. The episode’s refusal to commit to even hinting at cause and effect for so many plot points means that a lot of theories are potentially valid.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Maybe by stopping Gwilliam, it allows Ruby to live to the end of her natural life, reabsorb the creepy future Ruby lady back into herself and close the splintered timeline, bringing her back to her original timeline with The Doctor. 

Has she not stopped him, global nuclear war and she dies young.

Gwilliam can still exist in this timeline and  be known by The Doctor.

or The Doctor is remembering as the timelines fade and readjust. Same way Ruby senses she’s been to Wales a third time.

[Flap Jack]

Could be, I suppose. The episode’s refusal to commit to even hinting at
cause and effect for so many plot points means that a lot of theories
are potentially valid.

True. Though even with that interpretation, if leaving the fairy circle unbroken also stops Gwilliam, then Ruby stopping him more directly in the alternate timeline is at best redundant.

Now that I’m thinking about the political aspect, it’s interesting how this is yet another example – after The Sound of Drums and Years and Years – of Russell T Davies forcing UK party politics into a US presidential politics type shape. The premise of all these stories is that a singular ideologue becomes so popular and so obsessed over by the media that their brand new party sweeps a general election (OK, with Harold Saxon he literally hypnotised the country, but still). Yet this basically happened in real life with Nigel Farage, and the best outcome he could get was to win, like, 2 seats.

It would be far more believable if Roger ap Gwilliam were a Tory PM (or even a Labour PM, in the vein of the equally bloodthirsty Tony Blair), but either RTD is too cowardly to write it this way, or he just expects the BBC would stop him.

[Dave]

Maybe we can headcanon it that Albion is what one of the current two main parties is called by then.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Could be, I suppose. The episode’s refusal to commit to even hinting at
cause and effect for so many plot points means that a lot of theories
are potentially valid.
True. Though even with that interpretation, if leaving the fairy circle unbroken also stops Gwilliam, then Ruby stopping him more directly in the alternate timeline is at best redundant.
Now that I’m thinking about the political aspect, it’s interesting how this is yet another example – after The Sound of Drums and Years and Years – of Russell T Davies forcing UK party politics into a US presidential politics type shape. The premise of all these stories is that a singular ideologue becomes so popular and so obsessed over by the media that their brand new party sweeps a general election (OK, with Harold Saxon he literally hypnotised the country, but still). Yet this basically happened in real life with Nigel Farage, and the best outcome he could get was to win, like, 2 seats.
It would be far more believable if Roger ap Gwilliam were a Tory PM (or even a Labour PM, in the vein of the equally bloodthirsty Tony Blair), but either RTD is too cowardly to write it this way, or he just expects the BBC would stop him.

I think he just doesn’t want to name a specific political party.  And people tend to vote what they know.  That’s either Red or Blue. Thought we shouldn’t forget UKIP had about 30% of the national vote at one point, it’s just but a few votes here and there they were beating by their incumbent.  If we had proportional representation UKIP should have had something like 100 seats

[Ian Symes]

Incidentally, if he had used the name of a real, current political party (which they never would on a BBC show, but hypothetically), the episode would have to have been pulled as soon as the general election was announced due to purdah rules. Either that or hastily re-edit it to include depictions of all the parties being led by bloodthirsty rapists. For fairness.

[Jenuall]

Been playing catchup on this but am up to date now! Quick thoughts on the episodes so far:

Space Babies
Thought it was pretty decent overall. The space babies concept could easily have been awful but RTD seemed to rein in some of his excesses to handle it well. Doctor and Ruby seem like a good pair together so far, although after so much time it’s inevitable that the relationships and character beats start to feel repetitive – Ruby feeling a bit “impossible girl” ala Clara and the way the adventures they’ve been on are drawing from her life/back story is feeling quite series 5 Amy as well.

Come to think of it then third actually Doctor saving the “baddie” when they realise a kinship as both being the last of their kind is also getting a bit familiar now…

Still overall it was a decent opener!

Devils Chord

Again, thought this was pretty solid – for the most part this was the right kind of RTD excess, although like many recent stories I felt like it got less interesting as it went on. The opening with the “WTF, why are The Beatles gooseberry fool?” moment and seeing The Doctor and Ruby trying to work out what had gone wrong was a lot better than the eventual hokey “music battle” sequence. RTD always seems great at coming up with interesting concepts but often fails to capitalise on those or seemingly know how to deliver a compelling narrative through to conclusion.

It was all well carried by the leads though – Ncuti is proving himself to be a great Doctor so far and whilst it’s early days Millie could well be shaping up to be my favourite RTD companion.

Contrary to what seems to be popular opinion I did quite enjoy the musical number at the end though!

Boom
This was very good for the most part! Although it was some way short of peak Moffat for me, but still a very nice return for him and got us some of the best dialogue we’ve had yet from Ncuti!

It was a good central premise and the balls to write an episode where your lead spends 90% of it stood still is to be commended! It was kind of like a grab bag of already used Moffat themes and ideas though, still satisfying but lacking the punch of originality. The “church as soldiers” thing has cropped up quite a lot in his stories for example.

Not sure some of the story beats quite flowed as naturally as they could have done, e.g. why did the tattoo viewer guy who declared his affection for the lady die for example? (Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention – I was watching with my kids so I blame them!) and whilst sending the Dad into the system as solution was cathartic it was probably a bit of a stretch to believe that his AI could have done that level of damage!

Fish fingers and custard reference was a bit on the nose but I’ll take it because Smith is the king for me

73 Yards

Hmm. “Brilliant until it wasn’t” is basically how I would sum this up. RTD once again remains the king of coming up with great setups but not being able to deliver them!

As noted by others the lack of any real resolution or tie back from the conclusion to the events in the episode kind of destroyed it for me. Which is a shame as the story had huge promise.

The opening section, everything in Wales in particular but also pretty much all the way up to the UNIT encounter was incredibly compelling and it had such a great invasive “something is fundamentally wrong” atmosphere, after that it started to lose its drive sadly and the ending just didn’t satisfy me at all. Too many unanswered questions, too much specificity in the setup that didn’t end up having significance.

Overall I think it was probably a decent enough effort, but frustrating because it could have been something really special!

Overall I’m definitely enjoying this RTD2 era more than expected, my interest in the show has definitely bounced back from the Chibnall days and I’m looking forward to how things pan out.

I think the central “what’s up with the snow? what is special about Ruby? what was so special about her birth and discovery on that night by the doctor?” is actually shaping up to be quite an interesting mystery – I’m actually finding myself contemplating this as the episodes progress in a good way – something that Chibnall definitely struggled with, and even RTD and Moffat had a sketchy success rate with in the past!

The Doctor bringing up in Devils Chord the fact he was a parent in the past, but that all the Time Lords were wiped out felt quite Checkov’s Gun to me – yes RTD has done this kind of context reminder dialogue before to get people up to speed but this felt particularly on the nose to me and feels like it was being dropped in as necessary information to feed into the central mystery…

[Ben Saunders]

Now that’s more like it.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

That fucking ending! Way to whiplash you. 

That was a really well put together and entertaining episode. Very Black Mirror, obviously. And really sort of plays on audience expectations a little to then smack you in the face with probably the same amount of force as The Doctor felt when he realised! A very clever way of doing an episode that involves The Doctor being faced with the reality his skin colour has changed for the first time in thousands of years (that he remembers as The Doctor anyway) without the episode being all about that throughout.

A little seed of it earlier on might have been nice. You’ve obviously got the fact the entire cast has sparkling white skin which is obviously in hindsight but sort of nearly not entirely to be unexpected. Which is what the show is hoping the audience won’t (and probably doesn’t at all) question, even if they notice it. 

I think somehow revealing Ricky Summer was mixed race might have then explained why Lindy basically murdered him other than pure selfish preservation. 

I’ll be really interested to see whether this experience informs this Doctor at all from now on. Will he start to question and second guess himself as if to someone is worth saving at all?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

[Dave]

I liked that one, even if the messages were a little bit on-the-nose. The comparisons to Black Mirror are very apt, even down to the absurd humour of her not being able to walk properly in the real world. And the big moment at the end was done well, a bit surprising but it fit with the rest of the episode. 

Plus, we got to see what it would be like if Rimmer tried to attack someone with his light bee.

[Flap Jack]

Pretty good stuff. It’s striking just how unconventional all these episodes have been. Last episode The Doctor barely appeared, the episode before that The Doctor was trapped in one spot, and in this episode The Doctor and Ruby are only seen on screens for 95% of the episode.

Crazy to think that a guy may have upped his chance of survival by changing his name to “Dr. Pee”.

RIP Ricky September, baseball champion and possible-but-unlikely non-racist.

[Ben Saunders]

It was the single most on-the-nose piece of television ever created, and sure there are some logical leaps you have to make (why didn’t the slugs just kill them randomly, why slugs at all), and the zoomer speak, while deliberately cringe, is still painful to hear. And it’s a bit silly they can’t WALK. Etc etc. But still an excellent episode, and a fantastic performance from Ncuti. So heartbreaking that all the Doctor wants to do is save people, but here he realises that simply because of the colour of his skin, he’s going to have a much harder time doing that. You can’t save those who refuse saving.

I adored the Doctor still offering them help regardless of their racism, it reminded me of the current shit about Palestine – the bad faith ‘argument’ of “oh, gay people are treated badly in Palestine, why are you championing their freedom”. Because they’re human? And it’s the right thing to do. There was also a line something like “the river… the sea” and I don’t know if that was intentional (this was shot something like two years ago wasn’t it, so maybe not).

While they seeded little bits of prejudice throughout the episode (“I thought you just looked the same”), her decision to murder Ricky September was so cold blooded that it put to bed any thoughts of “oh, she’s just a product of her society, it’s unfortunate but is it really her fault?” and changed my mind to “what a total [censored]”.

Strange that Ricky September is another “R-name Timeperiod” name like Ruby Sunday. Whatsername Tuesday from Boom, as well. 

[Ben Saunders]

A little seed of it earlier on might have been nice.

It is subtle, but from memory:

 – Everyone in Finetime is white

 – Lindy blocks the Doctor immediately, but not Ruby

 – She thought the Doctor was a different black person from before (“I thought you just looked the same”)

 – “He’s not as stupid as he looks”

 – “He’s going to get so disciplined, I can’t wait”

 – “I was so right to hate you”

 – Lindy is shocked that the Doctor and Ruby are in the same room (I initially thought this was just a cute joke)

They’re microagressions, really, the kind of thing that you might ignore/gloss over if somebody you knew said just one of them, but as they keep building up it gets harder to ignore. Also the rich white girl who’s mummy pays for everything gets away with murder scot-free, after doxxing a man’s deadname and getting him killed. And she seems to get over it pretty quickly. Very 2024.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Yeah I was wrong to imply the seeds aren’t they. They clearly are and I knew that. I just felt it a missed opportunity to start to make it blatantly more apparent if Ricky had some ethnicity in him and that would have led to why she chose to basically murder him

But ultimately it’s almost worse she is just so terrible she’ll murder anyone, especially her idol, to survive 

[Jenuall]

Keep forgetting these release on Friday night now, was wondering why the RTD thread was suddenly so busy! 

[cwickham]

I think the early seeds are meant to have some kind of plausible deniability to them — she blocks the Doctor because he’s an unsolicited contact talking about monsters, the presumption is probably meant to be that she thinks it’s spam or something, whereas Ruby poses as someone from technical support — but “he’s not as stupid as he looks” is probably around the point we’re meant to stop giving her the benefit of the doubt.

[Ben Saunders]

How was Lindy at 0% bladder first thing in the morning? Did she piss the bed?

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

That is an odd one, because she’s then also congratulated on it too. So she must be deliberately dehydrated. 

[cwickham]

One of the eaten people has green blood so they’re not human

[RainbowGazelle]

That was a banger of an episode! Probably my favourite of the series so far, actually. I’m embarrassed to admit how long it took me to realise the theme was racism. The early seeds all had other non-racist interpretations I took, as alluded to be cwickham. There were plausible alternatives. Even her calling the Doctor stupid I just thought was her being a horrible, snooty person; she called Ruby dumb multiple times too. And I first I (stupidly) didn’t understand why they wouldn’t go with him. I thought maybe because they’re snooty rich kids and he’s not, or they’re just really dumb, but it eventually dawned on me that it was because he is black. And looking back throughout the episode, it’s obvious now. So I commend the episode for walking a perfect line between giving plenty of hints, without blatantly bashing us over the head with it. Superb stuff!

[Jenuall]

Hmm. Think I might have benefited from watching this one before I’d been exposed to so many effusive reviews and comments about it.

I mean don’t get me wrong jt was a good episode overall, and I appreciate the message it was trying to convey, but for it didn’t work well enough as a story in itself thanks to the usual plot holes, illogical development, motivations and inconsistencies that we seemingly just have put up with these days.

The ending didn’t quite land for me, the doctor is basically infinity old at this point and has experienced so many varying cultures and prejudices that for this one specific example to seemingly shake him so much just didn’t quite scan right to me. Suspend disbelief enough and it’s obviously a very powerful moment and message for sure! But it had just enough wrong to stop it soaring for me. 

That said we’ve seen some uncharacteristic reactions and behaviour form Ncuti Doctor before so I’m willing give it some slack for bi-generation shenanigans 

Interestingly they apparently designed the episode so that you’re supposed to like and/or be sympathetic to the characters until quite late on, but I thought they were all a bunch of cunts from basically frame 1!

[cwickham]

I don’t think you’re necessarily meant to *like* Lindy, you’re just not meant to think she’s a total cunt, or that she might be redeemable, up to the point she gets someone murdered to save her skin.

[Ian Symes]

the doctor is basically infinity old at this point and has experienced so many varying cultures and prejudices that for this one specific example to seemingly shake him so much just didn’t quite scan right to me.

But he hasn’t experienced this particular prejudice happening to him before.

[Dave]

But he hasn’t experienced this particular prejudice happening to him before.

Thankfully the Fugitive Doctor only went to nice non-racist planets.

[Ian Symes]

* that he can remember

[Dave]

I was only joking really, ultimately what matters is what we see on-screen, and this is the first time the show has had the opportunity to explore the idea. I thought it worked really well and was a nice way of addressing the issue of race for this Doctor without making it the explicit subject of the episode from the outset.

[Jenuall]

It’s established that every Doctor is their own thing as well to be fair so it’s not too hard to accept that he would respond differently. And that’s before you factor in the unique nature of this latest regeneration

[Ben Saunders]

Nobody else is saying this and it’s probably just wishful thinking, but in the shots between the Doctor and Lindy at the end of the episode, as they’re sailing away… I felt there was maybe a little bit of regret, or sadness in Lindy as she sort of half-smiled back at him… like she seemed to only go into full-blown racist mode when her friends were around, and maybe the speech got through to her. In a more simplistic story, she would be the seed of anti-racism that would spread through the colony and maybe they would slowly but surely start to take a better path… but in reality even if that was the case she’d probably just be shunned for such a view and forced to keep it to herself, or fail to enact any real change.

…but then I remember she killed a man and I probably wouldn’t offer her such a level of devil’s advocation if she weren’t a young, attractive white lady. Much to think about.

Also, unrelated, but I was thinking, if the (proto-)Time Lords are the bastards they are depicted as in Timeless Children, I imagine they would simply re-kill the Doctor until they regenerated as a white man again if they knew/learned about racism/sexism getting in the way of their goals.

[Ridley]

I’d say if any of the Finetime inhabitants possessed a glimmer of change for the better it would be Ricky September. That he’s reading when he can, he’s literally and figuratively getting out of the bubble.

[Ben Saunders]

Well, that was fun. And devastating. The birds were silly and you could nitpick them if you wanted to but man, Ncuti and Millie had me with tears in my eyes. And that sneaky reveal… kind of awkward for me because it made me spend most of the scene going “who IS that?!”

It is a LITTLE distracting how similar Rogue is to Captain Jack, even down to the accent. It’s like RTD took the Barrowman controversy as an excuse to reboot the character as somebody else.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Nice classic episode 

Cool and silly villains

Don’t think it earned the emotion 

Coming hot off the heels of an episode about racism this completely ignored it. Perception filter?

I hope Rogue returns at some point

Interesting inclusion of Fugitive Doctor.

Was mentioned re last week this isn’t the first time the Doctor has been black. But it is the first time this character remembers being black so wouldn’t remember experiencing any racism.

[Ridley]

I hope Rogue returns at some point

I assume he will unless he goes beyond bawdy 1970s hospital.

Doctor got faced with the same choice as Jack Harkness in Children of Earth.

[Dave]

I thought this episode was fine as a frothy bit of fun. The kind of thing that would have been a regular filler episode in the old RTD days, a bit silly and predictable but still very watchable.

My wife has watched Bridgerton and I haven’t so she enjoyed it more than I did on that level too.

I do think it crossed the line into feeling a bit fan-fiction-y at times, and the Doctor’s romantic relationship felt very sudden and over the top (albeit explained by finding someone who’s so like him in so many ways) but that suited the melodramatic nature of the genre they were pastiching.

Plus “Why isn’t it cloaked?”/”Well it’s behind a tree” felt very Red Dwarf and got the biggest laugh of the episode for me.

[Flap Jack]

I like how this episode was a gay romance story, but the thing people on social media are focusing on is the brief appearance of a floating Richard E. Grant head. As it should be.

Honestly at this point they should just go ahead and canonise the Unbound Doctors, the Curse of Fatal Death Doctors, Peter Cushing, the Nicholas Briggs Doctor, the Lenny Henry Show Doctor, the Purple Doctor, Inspector Spacetime, the Brazzers porn parody Doctor, all of them. If you don’t care about continuity, why stick to half measures?

Anyway, good episode. 👍 But hang on… it’s called “Rogue” and it’s about beings who have the power to ‘become’ people by touching and killing them? Marvel should sue.

And it was a bit silly to reveal that a technologically advanced trap which perfectly fixes people’s feet in place actually runs on Indiana Jones logic.

Also, we get it, writers. One direct reference to Bridgerton is enough. 3 times is kind of condescending.

[Ben Saunders]

 Coming hot off the heels of an episode about racism this completely ignored it.

The past isn’t racist anymore (Moffat’s “tell a lie” quote), historical episodes are full of colour and people rarely mention it. I did think part of the scandal of them dancing would be the race thing, but quickly realised a lot of the other pairings were also mixed race.

I think the relationship really took a turn with the marriage proposal thing, I don’t think either of them realised the mavity of what they were doing and it was certainly a shock to the Doctor in particular. Plus with the whole bonding over trauma and sacrificing yourself thing, even without the romantic elements the Doctor would still greatly admire somebody for doing that. I don’t think it was the least believable romance the show has seen, especially after the last one, or that it was necessarily more rushed than other single-episode romances. It was just a hot fling that brought up a lot of complicated feelings.

Rogue being able to just shove Ruby out of the force field is extremely silly, she can’t move because she’s glued to the floor but Rogue can move her and freely move within the circle until he can’t for… reasons.

[Jenuall]

LOVED that episode! 

Yes there were parts that required you to ignore logic for the plot but my god it was a good romp! Fun, well paced and fantastic performances.

More of this please! 

[Flap Jack]

When you realise that the Duchess was played by Indira Varma.

[Ian Symes]

73 Yards
Boom
Dot & Bubble
Rogue
The Church on Ruby Road
Space Babies
The Devil’s Chord

[Flap Jack]

It’s a solid list, but you need to switch the positions of Space Babies and The Church on Ruby Road.

S comes before T.

[Ian Symes]

I’ll never be a racist-eating slug.

[Flap Jack]

Not with that attitude.

[Ben Saunders]

Rogue (recency bias) …regency bias?

Dot & Bubble

Boom (it’s good but it’s very stock Moffat)

The Church on Ruby Road (xmas fun)

Space Babies (it’s not THAT bad)

73 Yards (it is that bad)

The Devil’s Chord (yikes!)

[Flap Jack]

Oh, go on then. My Season 1 ranking so far:

1. The Daleks
2. An Unearthly Child
3. Boom
4. The Aztecs
5. Dot and Bubble
6. The Keys of Marinus
7. Rogue
8. Marco Polo
9. The Church on Ruby Road
10. 73 Yards
11. The Edge of Destruction
12. The Sensorites
13. The Devil’s Chord
14. The Reign of Terror
15. Space Babies

Overall impression? Good but very disjointed.

[Jenuall]

Ratings and rankings for me so far would be:

Rogue – 4/5
Boom – 4/5
Dot & Bubble – 4/5
73 Yards – 4/5
The Devil’s Chord – 3/5
The Church on Ruby Road – 3/5
Space Babies – 3/5

With the standard level of RTD “switch the brain off and overlook some things” viewing expectation I’m actually finding this to be a much more consistent and enjoyable return than I had expected!

[si]

How many times did they turn Kylie back on? Seemed to me like they did it just *once* too often.
Moan over.

Actually,  no, moan not over. Thought the episode was okay, yet for some reason, to me it seemed both full of stuff *and* I found myself looking at the clock a couple of times, finding time seeming to drag. Beats me.

Also: the blue bird alien was best. Looked great, and it’s nice to see what Larry’s been up to since Elon stuck his nose in.

[Author]

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