S2E6 - Who's Your Mummy? THE LEGEND OF RUBY SUNDAY

Hello and welcome to Tardis. Rubbish. I'm Josh, and today we're talking the Legend of Ruby Sunday, the penultimate episode of season 14 of Doctor who. Sorry, Michael, I can't call it season one. It's just. It just doesn't make any sense. It's too confusing for me. And joining us today at the console, he is a frequent contributor to the secret Origins of Mint Condition podcast, trash compactor, a mostly Star wars podcast, and perhaps creator of a mystery project he's working on. We don't know. Welcome, John.

Even I don't know. I probably do. Glad to be back. I'm excited. I love the proper use of penultimate, one of my favorite words.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. He is the former engineer of the game of Rasal on Doctor who rpg podcast and player in the upcoming good chaotic rpg podcast. Welcome back, Michael a. Nixon.

Hello. I'm back. Josh is the only person who still puts an a as middle initial, and I love it. Thank you.

No, you're welcome. I like that a. I'd be sad to lose it.

Hey, I'm not complaining.

And she is a frequent fixture on the secret origins of mint Condition podcast and an expert in all things sound. Welcome back, Adrian.

Hello.

Okay, so the legend of Ruby Sunday, the, as John pointed out, the penultimate episode of this season. So we're into the finale. We're into the big stuff. We're starting to get some answers. This is definitely a Russell T. Davies fireworks in the kitchen sink finale, and I'm here for it. But let's get our overall thoughts. Michael, you want to start us off?

Yeah, sure. I feel like I saw a lot of complaints, quote unquote, in the discourse, as they say, about how this really felt. A lot like part one of a season finale. And I guess my only response to that is, yeah. Yes, you're right. Well done. I thought it was fantastic. Like, Davey's just. He absolutely played me like a fiddle until the reveal. Even down to just, like, hiding the reveal in a gag earlier. It, like, just. I feel like an earlier appearances. I didn't give Russell Davies nearly enough credit for being absolutely the top of his game. Like, just like, sure, he's doing all the Russell stuff, but that's the stuff we love. I love it. Yeah, I had a great time. I feel like it's just like the tea in Russell T. Davies is. Is it troll? Is he just trolling us? Because just there's so much efficient, like, mass, like, with the regeneration talk and the Susan talk and the. The amount of stuff that gets dropped even before they go into the time window, I have no idea what's inside that window by that point. It's such a clever bombardment of information and just sort of a larger thing about the whole episode. You're not supposed to know what to expect until the reveal, and even after the reveal, it's like, wait, what? Which is terrific. That's good tv.

Good tv, I think, is exactly hitting the nail on the head, which I want to talk about a little bit more. Adrienne, your overall thoughts?

It was creepy. No, it was. It was good. I very much enjoyed it, but I was very creeped out. I've never been, like, a horror person, so I was like, oh, no. Oh, no. As it was going on, but it was. It was really good. Yeah. I knew going in that it was gonna be a part one. Did not know. I mean, I guess the villain is somebody from old who. But I haven't seen Matt, so I wasn't aware of that. But I kind of guessed that it wasn't Susan just because they were trying to point that way. But I was, like, trying to figure out who else was maybe Susan instead. But we didn't, you know, if she is, we're not. We didn't find that out. But, yeah, I really enjoyed the episode, even if it was creepy.

Yeah. I want to come back to a few of the things that you just said, but, john, your overall thoughts, and I do want to ask you and Adrian more specifically about the reveal, because I know neither of you, I don't think, have seen the pyramids of Mars, the Tom Baker story.

No, I looked it up afterwards because I had, you know, I just a sense of, like, was this something pre established? I needed to know more. So, you know, was instantly on Wikipedia with. With that. Yeah. So I really. I was there. I was texting you, and you were like, no spoilers. No spoilers. And I was sitting there. Just in the first two minutes, I was like, I need to talk about all of just two minutes so far, because it was just a fun. I thought it was really cool assembling at unit from the dramatic entrance of the TARDIS, which I think that's the theme for the season, is that this Doctor loves the flair and drama in the. His appearances, and I love that there's no attempt to tone that down or be like, oh, no. He's just sort of like, you know, he's the Doctor. It's fine. No, no, no. He's on full display. And it was just cool to see everybody sort of there, and it wasn't the typical, like, unit is falling apart and is a disaster, and the Doctor has to save everything. This was unit at the top of its game, and the Doctor's like, I need help. I'm not sure what's going on, but this is weirding me out. I saw this anagram, and I think this person is really important. Susan twist. And then it comes in like, oh, granddaughter. That whole thing, that was such a hard fake that I was not expecting it to be a hard fake. Yes, it was obvious, but I was really expecting there to be a. A thing with that, because that's something that I was also speaking of. Doctor who passed is that, you know, I'm really. I really started in 2005 when you mentioned it to me. I think. I think I'd seen it somewhere else. You know, there was an episode or two right towards the very beginning of the reboot. And then by episode three, we had synced up, and we were both watching it, you know, in real time, and I was obsessed. So all of that history wasn't, you know, isn't really there for me in the same way. So I want. I was really looking forward to more of this granddaughter doctor relationship. I was. I was literally, during the episode researching, like, wait, how did. How did that work? Because he made the reference to, like, oh, well, I haven't had kids yet. Wait, that means the doctor has kids but can have grandkids out of order. Oh, man, that's just like, the therapy. Everything can be out of order. And I was loving that. And then for it to be a complete fake out is just, oh, okay, what's even more messed up than this? So it was a ride from the beginning to the end for me. But, yeah, I just, I. This is an episode where I wish I've been watching it live with somebody. I think to anybody who hasn't, well, if you're watching this, I hope you have watched it, because. Spoilers. But maybe for the next and final episode of the season, watch it with somebody. I think that. I think this is something best shared if possible, because I wanted to look over, be like, wait, did you just see what I saw? For most of the episode, and that's before even getting into the heavy details, but I was freaked out by the end, and I had no idea that, well, it's Sudec, but isn't that set. Isn't that the egyptian God set or supposed to be an incarnation of the version of that? So, yeah, I didn't know that that was part of the story or mythology of Doctor who. So that's. That's gonna be something real interesting. And you know what? The special effects were really cheesy in a way for that, but also perfectly on brand. And I have to, like, dial back and remember that sometimes it's hard to remember that this is Doctor who. It's. It's not always supposed to be the, like, most grounded, like, hard boiled science fiction with the most realistic effect. It's meant to be sometimes scary silly. Actually, all the time scary silly. So sometimes I have to, like, reprocess that when I see their choices for special effects. And in this one, I was like, okay, all right, what are they gonna do? Adrian? Yeah, I'm there with you. Like, at the end, I was not expecting the zombie disintegration sand effects there and scare things like, oh, great, now we got undead to deal with. This is something the doctor hasn't seen in a while, which I think is part of the storyline. And that's what I'm going to ask the rest of you now, if this is another past doctor who adversary and threat to all of creation, is this linked to the toymaker or what happened at the edge of the universe? Is this why he's back?

Well, that's an interesting point. If it has to do with what the 14th doctor did with the salt at the edge of the universe, that was really a bad, bad idea, a bad mistake that he made.

Terrible move. Truly bad.

Yeah, he knew it right as he did it.

He said, it's like, oh, I really shouldn't have done that. And I had no, I was like, what are you talking about? This is just a one off episode. No idea it was gonna be that substantial.

Well, what is interesting to me is that Russell. So first of all, I think because Russell said in some interview, I don't know if it was in Doctor who magazine or if it was in. He said it in some interview. He was like, there's an episode this season that I've had this idea for 40 years or for 50 years. And so now I'm like, okay, he had a sequel to Pyramids of Mars in mind. And knowing that, that makes me think he started with this idea. He knew that at the end of the season the Doctor was going to confront such. And then it seems to me he reverse engineered the season from that. And I think that's where this idea of establishing these gods came from. Because, you know, this reveal reminded me in a lot of superficial ways of the reveal of the Master in season three and Utopia, except there, even if you'd only ever seen the new series. The reveal of the Master still had weight because they had spent three seasons building up this idea that the Doctor was the last of the Time Lords. So it didn't matter who the other Time Lord was. You felt the weight of the fact that, that the Doctor's realizing he's not alone anymore. Here, though, the name Tsutek, like, it's a reference to a 50 year old story that the vast majority of the audience hasn't seen. So there's not really any weight there. But what he did was he built a scaffolding up from the giggle, bringing the toymaker in and setting this whole thing into motion about how, like, now the old gods are returning. And he built it up by talking about the one who waits, and you're like, okay, who is this? It must be the head God of all of these gods. So he tried to build up the importance, the significance. So I think that's where we get this new direction that he was talking about for this season, about how we're invoking more fantasy elements and more mythic gods and stuff like that. I think it all stems from his desire to bring back SuTeC, which is like the nerdiest, most insane. I don't know. I just think it's really funny because I think, like, yeah, he just, he just wanted to bring SUTEC back from the periods of Mars, and then that was the rationale behind a lot of the decisions that he ended up making during the season. But right after I finished the episode, I was like, if you hadn't seen the classic show, would that have just fallen completely flat?

I definitely think it was. Since I had no familiarity with it, it didn't fall flat, but I don't think it had much of an impact beyond, oh, it's another big bad. And as I took it, I'm like, okay, well, this is a big bad. And between the, you know, the drama of, well, what he's already doing and what is heralds are doing and what Susan twist is doing. And that's, and that's my next big question, is, what in the world is Susan twist? I don't think the answer is just another herald of SutEC, but that doesn't, that at least I said it doesn't make any dramatic sense. So I think there's going to be another reveal in the next episode as to what her deal is. And either washi's one of them, you know, one of the chief motivations, but if this, if this sutec is just out there, and again, I didn't go into detail about what he was in the past. In classic who, why does he need another right hand? And is it just another right hand? So I really want to find out what that is, because I think the doctor was already connecting with that person and was like, okay, what are these dreams you're having? What is this? So I think there are some cool surprises awaiting us in the end. But, yeah, I just see it's like another villain at the Master. I already knew the master, though, I will admit, for me, yes, the master being played by. Oh, how did the name just vanish from me? The professor, famous actor Sir Derek Jackerby. Derek. Oh, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Was brilliant. And I was. I was so sad that he was turning into a bad guy. Was like, no, I want more of this nice old man. So he turned out to be the master. But then when he didn't regenerate into the only master, I was familiar with Eric Roberts in the 1990s. I was like, well, who in the world is this? I actually think Eric Roberts made that appearance kind of would have been hilarious. I think there's a lot of camp that you can really. That you can really go in with or that maybe he should make an appearance as the Master someday. But that was my. I already had some, you know, I knew from the nineties specials and the general Doctor who were like, oh, the Master is the ultimate nemesis of the Doctor, you know, as a Time Lord. So when there was that reveal, it had impact. Synthetic, to me, is just sort of like, oh, another. Another big bad. I'm waiting to see how that. How that plays out. But I'm definitely hoping that there, it does play into, like, a larger pantheon and that maybe they refer to Susan twist as, like, the mother was sort of what I picked up from that is that, you know, she's one of the other gods or something else in the pantheon. And I don't know, I trust him to wrap all of this up. But this was. This was, as Michael said, classic Russell Davies. But it was also the explosion of all the different things. It was, you know, he who waits, Washington, the granddaughter, the not granddaughter, having the whole unit cast involved. This was the whole kitchen sink and more. And I was there for. They brought the mother in. I noted that, too. And I thought, I love that cute move that they often make in this show, which is to bring in the family members and put them also at the center of drama, not just keep them at arm's length worrying about their kids or their family members. It's no you might end up being partial to hero. That's why Wilf was so amazing to me. But it's saying, no, this is sort of an all humanity affair and it weirdly connects families together through the shared, you know, saving the world. And I think that would bring most families together.

Yeah, but that is interesting. That is something that Russell Davies has done with all of his companions. You know, Michael, as you mentioned a few episodes ago, that's the DNA from the soap tradition that he injected into Doctor who. The other brilliant thing that Russell Davies brought to Doctor who, which I think we forget, is the way that he grounded it in this kind of domestic kitchen sink realism that helped the show have the broad appeal that it used to have, because it wasn't just cult ScI-FI it's grounded in the domestic drama. Yeah. While you were talking, I had like 43 thoughts. I can't. I can't remember the misses flood who broke the fourth wall again. And she said, he waits no longer, or whatever, but we still don't know who or what misses flood is.

Except she's mean.

Well, yeah, she's mean. She's mean.

Don't give an old lady her tea. That's just not. I mean, I know my sensibilities. That was meant.

Yeah, that was very mean. It seems like. Yeah, it seems like we're not going to get. I have a feeling we're not going to find out who misses flood actually is or what her true nature is. Next week. Susan Triad, I think we are probably going to get a little more information on because it seemed like SuteC has some control over the TArDIS. So I think I. Whatever Susan Triad's role was in this story, I think it had something to do with allowing him to have access to control the TARDIs somehow through whatever the software is, because they never elaborated on or they never got into what exactly is this software that, you know, it's called Triad. And they went out of their way to point out at the very beginning that striad is an anagram for Tardis, which I also really loved. Like, Russell Davies is so aware of how people watch tv in general, but how Doctor who fans watch Doctor who. And he knew the anagram was obvious and that's why he put it there, because he knew the fans were going to figure out that it was an anagram for TARDIS immediately and they would start expecting that. And just in the first, like, three minutes, he had the characters be like, yeah, it's an anagram for TARDIS, like, obviously. And I just thought that that was like a very, like, clever wink and a nod to the sort of participation that the audience brings to the show. Yeah. The other thing about Susan, which also, again, was something of a misdirect, but you can't bring up Susan like that and not do something with it. So I don't know if we are going to see Susan next week or if she'll return in some fashion maybe later on. But I just don't think you can reintroduce the concept of Susan show the Doctor sort of getting emotional about it and then not follow up on that.

It seems to me, the thing, I feel like there's been a lot of negativity around how Carol Anne Ford just didn't walk out of Unit HQ this week. Just like, the door next to the Vlinx opens and, like, Carole Anne Ford and the Susan outfit from an unearthly child, like, strolls out was the only way people were happy. But I do think it's really notable how even without literally having Carole Anne Ford play Susan again, we got not only, like, the answer to why the Doctor never went back, we also get a new mystery with Susan, which is even the Doctor doesn't know his own kid. Like, he doesn't. He hasn't met the intermediate step to Susan, which is, you know, for. For John and Adrian. Like, that's new information after, like, 60 plus years of Doctor who. Like William Hartnell, the original Doctor who was with Susan, the granddaughter. And it was like a problem for the show. So they booted her out of the show in this one serial and just like, moved on because it was complication that. If you can ever explain who Doctor who is, like, how can you explain who is slightly psychic granddaughter who maybe invented the TARDis, she claims is like. They're just like, you know what? Nevermind. And he picked up a totally different girl from space in the rescue. It's fantastic. I love the rescue. It's genuinely my favorite Hartnell serial just because it's genuinely complicated and I think the twist is amazing. But, yeah. So Susan, for forever, had been, like this weird, unsolved thing and for Davies to come in and not only make it this, like, wonderfully emotional moment for Kate and the Doctor and I. There's so much to praise in this episode, don't get me wrong. But, like, Gemma Redgrave, every time she comes back as Kate, she's just doing incredible stuff every time. And she's asked to do such completely different things every time Kate reappears. And just the moments of silent acting, she and Shurigatwa get to have across the whole episode, even with those moments with Susan, down to the time window, down to one of my favorite silent exchanges I've seen on tv in a long time, which is the one after colonel doomed guy walks into the cloud and gets obviously vaporized. And the Doctor and Kate have this look of, like, like, Kate, like, Gemma and Gemma and Trudy effectively communicate in that scene. Like, I'm sorry, I know I did the wrong thing. And then Kate is also, like, you get from Kate. Like, yeah, I would have done that too. Like, there's no there. There was no way around this other than feeding that guy to whatever was behind the TARDIS. And you get the whole complex array of emotions across the two of them without them having to do, like, the bad dialogue version, you know? So I just. Yeah, I thought that was, like, very cool. I'm, like, lost in the Susan point. But there was a lot in this episode sort of on that line of, like, sort of giving everybody what they want in a very cool way. So for, like, Davies, he's got this concept with SutEc, and it goes back, I guess, 50 years. He wants to tell this sequel, but then you get the new voice of Anshudi in there too. And in basically every one of his pre show interviews, they're like, who's a monster you want to go up against? And he goes, the beast. I love the beast. Like, I just really dug the beast. And the big thing about the beast is that's Gabriel Wolf. Like, this is the same voice actor as Sutec. So for Davies, it's like, oh, hell, yeah, I gotta get Gabriel Wolfe back in here for, like, more than one reason. And that's why I think you also get that beat with Carla of, like, it's the beast. Because I think Davies is very, like, consciously, unconsciously trying to connect those two characters together now, which is all kinds of interesting, don't get me wrong, but I just really love the way of, like, down to Sutec, down to. Down to Gabriel Wolfe, down to Susan. He's like, giving you the thing you want and something else, like, you're getting one more thing, which is cool but good.

The connection to the beast from Satan pit, impossible planet. Like, at the time, the beast was sort of speculated, like, how is it connected to SUTEC? Because obviously it had the same voice, and it's like another this God is real sort of concept. And now I feel like, in retrospect, you could read it as Russell Davies doing SUtEc at a time when he didn't think probably he would ever be able to really do SuTec because, like, that would just be crazy. Like, some obscure reference from 50 years ago, like, who would do that? But I. Now that the show has been on for almost 20 years, we're in era three. Yeah, yeah, it's new.

New who?

I feel like he was like, fuck it. I can do it. I can get away with it. And he's right, but not in 2006.

But I think he can get away with it now because he's also giving a. So we're here doing a deep dive, like this show that we're doing, even right now, like it goes. We're talking about the layers that the writing is operating on, the layers of the mythology going back. But most of these episodes have just been so accessible on their own that it's pulling off that dual sort of, like, mandate of a good tv writer or a good show is that in my small anecdotal pool of people who are new to the show, they're finding it very accessible. And I've had people come in and say, well, I can't start the show. I have to start from the very beginning. I'm like, no, no, you don't have. You're. Because you're never going to. You're not. And you literally can't. Because those episodes don't exist. They were destroyed. And explain that to somebody as a whole process. But I said, well, at least start with the 2006 series or something like that. You don't have to start from the very beginning or just start here. Just start here isn't even not a bad starting point. And the people who have. Are just finding it very accessible, very fun, and we get to go stupidly deep about it because Davies is getting to do that, and that is. That's a really hard trick to pull off. But I think it's also the. The reward he gets for coming back and having matured as a writer, rather than just relying on old tricks and saying, well, I'm gonna bring back the stuff I always wanted to do, but now I know how to do it. I. Only moments before the episode, we were filming this that I realized the voice actor for SUtEC was linked to the beast. I was like, oh, man, that's a lot. Because that was an intense, intense episode. But, yeah, I mean, this is just layering and layering, but you don't need to have a. You don't need to have the 60 year history of who to enjoy this series, this episode with the reveal. Yeah, I think that one little thing is missing. But I think we're gonna get that payoff in the next episode. I think we're gonna get the intensity of why SutEC is so scary and why it's such a problem, besides the fact that, you know, he's turning people to sand death, you know, that's. That's gonna be a problem itself. But I think there are a lot of mysteries, because we still have no idea who is Ruby's mother. This episode is called the Legend of Ruby Sunday, and we still don't know who her mother is. That's gonna be the big reveal, and, I mean, yes, I am hoping that's gonna be a reveal that knocks me back. I'll be okay. If it's just mildly cool, that'll also be fine. But I'm really hoping for something where I just go where, again, it's gonna be, damn, I hope I watched this with somebody. I'm gonna be texting you if you're telling me you haven't watched it yet, I'm gonna lose my mind, because that's what I want it to be. I want it to be that. That kind of reveal, because, come on, they've been building it up. You didn't get to see her face. Nobody could see the face. All the different people in the. In the time window could not see her mother's face. So I think there's gonna be something big with that, and it better not be, oh, come back for the next season to find out that one. I think they do have to do that one in the next finale. But what a fun series of things to do while giving us, really, the need to watch this finale and find.

Out what it is with the whole Susan thing, because that is when I started watching the show. It was when Matt Smith started, and then I went back, and I attempted to start back in the earliest one I could find a William Hartnell. And I am usually, like, totally gung ho for really old stuff. I can handle a slower pace, that sort of thing. And I just. I couldn't. I couldn't get through them, and I felt really bad. But I saw those early, you know, some of the early ones. So I did have an idea of who some of the people were, but because they kept mentioning Susan throughout the season, and there was that, is she gonna turn out to be somebody? Is it gonna be a reveal or. Or what? And then you also have the question, who's Ruby's mother? I don't think she would be Ruby's mother just because the age thing. But the whole regeneration, she could be. One thing I started wondering is when they were talking about how he didn't know who Susan's mother was yet, so he hasn't had the kids yet. I didn't know that. That, like, I just figured in the 60 years, you know, we at least knew that. So then I started wondering, is Ruby Susan's mother? In which case, who's Ruby's mother? I don't know. I was just like, I literally. Because the answers were not the answers that a lot of people have been speculating. I was like, all right, what other straws can we grasp from? You know, what. What weird connections would come out of left field when it first started? And, like, the first episodes for a little while, I guess, is she rose and other world, David Tennant's daughter that somehow wound up there, and. Which could also be because then it would still be the doctor's daughter's granddaughter. So I don't know, there's. There's a lot of different possibilities.

It's gonna be something simpler than we expect. I think when all is said and done, that tends to be how Davies does it, is that we will. He will give us a lot of stuff, but then when it comes down to it, sort of like, oh, all right, well, that's a much easier explanation for it. There we go.

This one's just for the old who heads, but as long as there are no looms involved, I'm gonna be fine. Like, just.

I actually.

I think you don't want to, don't.

I think. I think I'm the only one on earth who actually thinks the loon thing is kind of cool.

But that's because I, too, enjoyed that era of Doctor who. Okay, so briefest possible explanation for the folks at home, I guess, is, like, back in the nineties era of Doctor who, in the wilderness years, and there was no tv show and everybody was obsessed with cloning, and, like, we just sequenced the human genome. So that's, I think, where a lot of this comes from too, is that, like, the idea was that Time Lords don't give birth to kids, they loom them out of genetics. This ends up being like a thing in Superman comics, by the way. Like, Superman's birthing matrix is. Is this. It's this. They're stealing from Superman, I think. Anyway, the, like, the big mystery of Doctor who back in the nineties, Washington, the Doctor was actually a loomed reincarnation of an ancient gallifreyan figure called the.

Other, who was a contemporary of Raslott and Omega three.

Time travel, right? Yes. Basically, there's, like, the guy who invented time travel and the guy who was a dick about it and then this other guy. And then the explanation back then was that Susan was the granddaughter of the other who the Doctor picked up later and she recognized. And it's like, okay, let's throw all that out. Just trash trap. Put that in the TARDis rubbish bin, and we can have this new, like, easier to explain thing than that. So I just. I had to do a little diversion about looms because it. It looms heavily on Doctor who.

I kind of like the concept of the looms for two reasons.

Yeah, I get it.

Because it sort of says something about how completely, like, ossified Time Lord society is that they procreate or replicate through this, like, repository of genetic material, just sort of, like, remixing their society over and over again. And I also like, well, so here's how it ties in with the conversation. I agree with you, Michael. Susan didn't literally return, but we got the show to deal with and pay off some long, long term questions. I don't think they really get any longer term. And Davies did it in an emotional and effective way. And the reason why the show has never done that before is because you start opening a can of worms. You know, as you noted, the reason that they wrote Susan off the show is because they realized that it didn't actually make that much sense. And it was like harming the doctor's ability to adventure. If he was always concerned about the safety of his granddaughter and, like, she was never allowed to grow as a character for many, many reasons, one of which was the fact that she had to remain this, like, prepubescent peril monkey, and there was, like, nowhere for her to go. So once you acknowledge that the doctor used to travel with his granddaughter, you have to deal with the fact that, well, why hasn't he returned like he says he will and never does? How does he have a granddaughter? But also, like, her whole departure, like, as used to be common, especially in the earliest years of Doctor who, was. They weren't very sentimental about the departure of the companions because the show didn't really work in that register. So, like, I. You then have to deal with. It's really lame and rushed and screwed up, how she just left.

I mean, he locked the Doctor, locks her out of the TARDIS, and then, like, gives her a speech about how time for you to settle down with this guy you just met. Click. Gotta go. Like, it's the worst. It's the worst possible stuff. Like, we're. We're really underselling how badly. Like, in classic who, it was like, well, you found a boy. Get out. Get out of the ship. Like, so much of classic Doctor who is like, the companion or assistant would be like, oh, Doctor, I found this nice man who vaguely resembles the concept of you, and he's like, get the fuck out of my ship. Get out of here. Like, you're not allowed to be a sexual being in this ship. That is not permitted. Get out.

Right?

So, I mean, that's that back to the founding, like, concept of Doctor who is, like, the reason he's her granddaughter is so it's not creepy. There's an old man with a young girl on the ship, right? It's. It's all this, like, really basic first draft tv problem they solved, and it's sort of haunted them for 60 plus years now.

But you have to love that all of this discussion is based on decisions that were made by people who had no intention this being discussed 60 years later, not even six days later. This is not something they ever imagined. And it has become this woven mythology that we nerd out over, which says something about us as well. Just not sure what. But it's fascinating because this is the Star Trek problem of serialized Sci-Fi television is, what do you do when this previous writer did something for a motive that has nothing to do with what you want to do? And now Davey's just like, well, I'm gonna have some fun with it. I'm just gonna have fun. And that's literally what this is, is that this is sort of his joyride through it, being able to do it, I think. And it's mostly working too, which is the fun part. But I love how I have no idea most. I. Until that very moment, I had no idea that's how his Susan, his granddaughter, was sent off the show. Because from what this episode showed is that, oh, well, it was complex. He didn't want to mess up her life. It's that. It's like, yeah, but really what just happened was it was like, get out of my ship. You found a man. You're done. Like, that's hilarious. That's hilarious.

And the reworking of that into, like, I was worried my life of danger would follow her. It still retcons into the show very well. Even when you, like, think of, like, so previous guest of the show and friend of mine, Riley Silverman, very astutely brought this up in the game of Raslon group chat, which is just like, now that we've got Susan kind of back. We now have to talk about how none of us talk about how she showed up in the five doctors. We all just kind of conveniently don't talk about that time she showed up 20 years later because it kind of sucks. Like, that's the truth of it is, like, she just sort of runs around and breaks her ankle again. Like, nothing really happens there.

Well, there's a lot of things about the five doctors that we don't talk about because, yes, it's like, here's all the stuff that you love from Doctor who, but when you start to think about it, it all sort of breaks down very, very quickly. Which is exactly why Susan just breaks her ankle, because, like, that's the pop memory of who Susan was. She's the one who broke her ankle. It's ticking all the boxes. Oh, we have to have a dalek in there. We have to have cybermen for some reason. We have to have the master. We have to have everybody.

The rastern warrior robot.

Yes.

One of the absolutely lamest things in the five doctors that is also simultaneously one of the coolest things in Doctor who. Like it again, going back, like, John, Andrea, like, back to the 60 wacky year history of this show, you're just like, that's another thing that makes no sense and is stupid, but we love it. There's just no way around it. It's a guy in silver spandex jumping around and throwing spears, and we love it. Like, we love it.

It rules. That's a funny thing. Even though I haven't seen the majority, you know, I've seen probably six episodes of classic who. Whenever something does come up, I get excited about it because I know, like, I always get excited for things that other people get excited for. I'm like, oh, I know this is going to make this person happy. And there's just a different vibe. Like, yeah, just every time somebody like one of the old companions or something like that happens, and, like, there's just a different vibe. So even though I don't necessarily know who they are until they explain it, it's, oh, this is a special moment. Josh, you asked earlier, though, about if John and I knew who Sutec was, and I. And that I didn't know until afterwards. Checking to see if it was something from an earlier episode, because I was like, he seems really scared about what's happening, and I couldn't tell if it was because he recognized from a past experience or if it was just the culmination of all these gods that they've been encountering in the season. But, yeah, like a couple hours later, I knew it was somebody from previously.

Well, you know, something that Michael and I were talking about briefly before we started recording that, I have to imagine, is what stuck in Russell Davies mind for so many years and, you know, made Sutec a candidate to return. Was that one of the things about Sutec and the pyramids of Mars was he really scared the Doctor? Because the Doctor, for one of the few times, really appeared vulnerable and really had no idea how to get out of this one. Like, he really was powerless and vulnerable and scared in a way that the Doctor in the classic series, and especially Tom Baker's Doctor, never really was that often. So I think it makes sense for Anciudi's Doctor to kind of have that same sort of profound fear because he's remembering. You know, the last time I went up against, I should have lost, which dovetails nicely with what the doctor said. And the doctor was realizing about the maestro in the devil's court, he was like, I have tricks and I usually get lucky, but fighting something like this, where the laws of physics, the laws of the universe, do not apply, like, how do you fight that? That's a similar sort of response that I think the Tom Baker doctor had when he faced SUTEC, was sort of like, how do I fight this?

It's something that gets quoted in the Meister episode that is right out of Pyramids of Mars is the moment in Devil's court where the Doctor takes Ruby to the quote unquote present day, which is a thing that classic who had never really talked about. But there's a moment in pyramids and Mars where Sarah Jane, the companion in that episode, is like, in serial, rather, is like, let's just go back to the 1980s causing a lot of timing problems late. Don't worry about it. Let's just go back to the eighties or the seventies, and they go to the quote unquote present day, and it's a blown out nuclear disaster, which is like, not a thing the show had ever done, which is like, if we don't get this right, when we go back to where we just were, this is it. Everybody in your time is dead. The show had never really done that kind of time hopping. And what I think is it's part of setting all this stuff back up, is that Russell Davies quoted that in Devil's maestro. They stole music. They can do all these incredible, impossible, godly things. And the Doctor is still the Doctors. The strange thing is, I'm thinking now of like, the initial run of Neil Gaiman's sandman, where the sandman was still bound to these tools, like the ruby and the bag of sand and that sort of thing. The Doctor is still bound to the Tardis and the sonic. He still has tools and a conveyance, whereas the gods don't have. They just have a harbinger or whatever the hell Susan Triad is to go.

To a completely different direction, because it just jumped into my mind about this, the Susan triad thing as a herald. There's. There is a herald already in unit, just like the kid was a herald. Which is why, again, I was like, wait a second. Susan Twist is not just Harold, it's implied that she's one of the gods, but it's also. But it seems to just be doing that. That's where it gets confusing. I think the reveal next week is gonna be big. But what. What got me about that is you have. All right, so you have, like, the big scary thing. You have all that. What. What is the Doctor? Is it gonna be the Doctor's job to save this? Or is it gonna be something a little bit different? Because this episode is about Ruby Sunday. I mean, it's titled about Ruby Sunday. And she has only a fairly modest role in this episode. I mean, she's there. She's there with her mother at different points, but she's not really like the central character, except in the time window, which I thought was a brilliant plot device. This was. Okay, can't take the Tardis back. But you have a time window, right? No, we were prohibited from developing. But you have one, right? Yeah, it's on the 10th floor. Brilliant. Brilliant. Because that's. Because the doctor, he's like. He knows. He said, your parents, like, listen, I know what you get up to. Don't try this. Where is it? Great. Cool mechanic. Cool idea. The fact that they're using all the nuclear power of Europe. I had my mind going, so where are the power cables? And how does that work? And Brexit happened. So they really still part of Europe. I went down a rabbit hole in that one moment. I don't know why. It's just like, okay, so they have this. We still didn't get an answer about Ruby Sunday. So that's going to be a big thing. And what are the gods? And my last point where I was going with this and then got completely derailed in my own head was the whole tech thing and the revelation of the technology that was about to be free code for everybody. It was a weird thing that I felt that Susan twist was a combination of Elon Musk before he went completely crazy or before he realized he was crazy. And the british prime minister who did the awkward walkout, you know, which there.

Does the Teresa may dance. Yes, yes.

We'Re gonna do the Teresa May dance. And she even knows she's doing it. She's like, ah, I'm doing this in front of a fake live audience was brilliant. But I want. I want to talk about that whole, like, the tech billionaire thing, which is not a new thing for Davies and it's not a new thing for Doctor who or new who, because I remember the Sontaran introduction was brilliant because it was all about, like, yeah, the young tech billionaires at that point, that would have been, what, like, 2009 ish.

Yeah, 2008 social network style.

Yeah, that was before even, like, musk was the big guy on the scene. This is when many other tech billionaires post.com boom were there. And Davies and the writer were highly critical of the, you know, masters of the universe type tech billionaires that now we're seeing. Oh, God, we're dealing with that in overdrive today with AI. And just so people know, like, it was just announced today that, like, Sam Altman's like, oh, hey, you know, maybe we are going to become, you know, for profit and everything else. Like, every single billionaire you encounter, or potential billionaire in his case, has that same problem. And Davies is like, yeah, but in this case, they actually might be the herald of the God that is going to destroy all of creation. So there we go. And I like how he was just sort of putting it out there, but that there's been a through line, that of skepticism about somebody like that, that, yeah, they may have the best of intentions, but in fact, they are going to spread something that is going to have all these horrific, unintended consequences that's going to bring us down and it's going to destroy our society. You know, and we don't have the convenience in our actual world of having the doctor to come in and be like, yeah, we'll take care of that. Like, well, I'll undo that bad code that weaved its way through your entire civilization and is now going to destroy it. I mean, I hope maybe we do the doctor out there. We just don't know it. But, you know, maybe that's the only reason we've actually survived this long.

No, it was funny, too, because this episode, I think, literally called out Elon Musk. At one point when they were in unit, somebody said, I'm a. I'm reading the transcript right here. Evil genius with secret alien software. It was top of our list. God knows we've stopped enough of them. Well, except the obvious. We'll get him.

We'll get him. That's who that was. Okay. Everybody I know is trying to figure out, like, who is the doctor who person they're referencing? And you're right.

I think it's Elon Musk.

Elon Musk.

Oh, my God.

Holy hell. You're so right. Wow. Oh, that's so good.

Okay.

Oh, wow.

Which I think is. Which I think is really kind of incredible. If you step back a second, in 2017, Star Discovery was name dropping. Elon Musk.

He's in there with Zephram Cochrane and the Wright brothers. Yeah.

Six, seven years later, he's an evil villain on Doctor who, who's by proxy responsible for unleashing an angry God on the planet.

That's why I like that Davies has always been skeptical like that, because in 2017, and I have heard the background rumors that a lot of that was almost his PR machine, almost purchased his way into Star Trek to get that sort of name drop, or that there was something that had to do with that PR machine, and that was the genius for him, was really a PR machine, running companies reasonably well and getting some new tech out there, but it was a giant PR thing. And that's what all these are. That that's oftentimes, what these villains and Doctor who are, is that they have a platform. They sell themselves. I mean, how many times has the master done that? And then different incarnations decides, well, this time I'm going to be a prime minister. You know, it's always about finding a platform, reaching out to people and convincing them how awesome you are so they will follow you off the Cliff. And that's what almost every tech billionaires, they're just like, yep, follow me. I have your best interests at heart. This will be great. And then we go off the cliff, or they just end up with lots of money and make us poor, which is usually the scenario. And that's where I love the idea behind, like, okay, well, we all have heroes. We all have a hero, and the hero of the show is the Doctor. And they play into that because the Doctor has to always step back at different points and deal with their own thing, or has to or is not going to be there to save us every single time, because it's. Yeah, the moment we look at somebody as a superman, they'll become a ruler in one way or another. And that's sort of what the master to me always sort of manifested because that was sort of what the master was getting at, and hence the name master. It wasn't just like master of time, it was master of other living beings. And the Doctor steps back. The doctor rescues people, but then the Doctor has the power to correct so many of humanity's ills in the short term, effectively have to rule us to do so. So the Doctor steps back and watches us screw up time after time after time, is horribly disappointed. We get lectured by Peter Capaldi's doctor in the most profound ways, and then we continue screwing up, creating empires in space and still screwing up in. The doctor rescues us, but doesn't live our lives for us. And the villains oftentimes manifest that other flip side, which is that, oh, I'm gonna solve all humanity's problems. And even if they come from a good place or initially, and then they end up ruling humanity or trying to rule humanity, and, you know, that's how you become a villain. So I like how that's maintained really consistent throughout the series is that the Doctor is not there to solve all our problems. The Doctor saves us from scaring ancient gods every once in a while, but can't necessarily save us from ourselves.

I think you're right on the money with that, though. I do have a cynical response, but I much prefer your interpretation. And I think. I think a part of it is that the doctor, he says, like, I don't get involved. But then he sees something he doesn't like, and, like, he gets involved. So he. He can put a stop here.

He gets very involved.

He gets very involved. He will bring down governments, entire civilizations if they look at him the wrong way, and then he leaves. He doesn't stay around to clean up the mess because he doesn't. That's not his style. He's like, okay, my work here is done, and you guys go figure this out, and I'm gonna go keep on having adventures. I do think, though, that both things can be true.

Well, yeah, because the doctor isn't, again, is not meant to be perfect. It has to be the perfect story mechanism for us to watch the show, obviously, to keep it going. But, you know, from, I think that really, you know, especially in new who, the way they tried to examine the doctor as a being, you have this flawed person who will rage, will grieve and mess things up on their own, but usually every once in a while and at a level, when Tennant's doctor does that, it's just like, no, I'm going to fix everything. I'm literally going to. And I'm going to do whatever I want and I can influence all of it tries and is humbled by it has to learn. And it feels like almost every doctor has to learn that at some point that they can't fix everything and that when they try, they will mess everything up even more. And that's sort of been the cycle of the doctor. And I wonder if we're going to see inJudy's doctor sort of do the same thing of like, oh, no, I'm going to fix it all. I'm going to reset everything, I'm going to make it all work and then have to be taught, yeah, that's not going to work. And that's that fine line between where he could become a villain and, yeah, the shows need to have him go to new adventures every week. Obviously, you just got to look at it like, yeah, we're going deep on it, but at the end of the day, it's a serial show. The doctor has to be able to move on. It cannot just be the show about the Doctor fixing all of humanity's ills every single time. That's why I love Torchwood. When Doctor's not there, the absence of the Doctor is so profound because that's when you're told it's like, yeah, that when we really go dark, the Doctor won't save us from ourselves. And I think that's the key difference, is the Doctor will save us usually from a villain or an individual human or an organization, not from ourselves. Yeah. The core of our being. He's like, no, you got to do that. You got to do that yourself.

That's the thing that I feel like the. I like that. It feels like Davies is picked up from the post Torchwood eras of who in, like, the Moffat era and even the Chibnall era of the Doctor is a force that improves the people they meet as well. As you were talking, John, I was thinking about the John Hurt quote from Day of the Doctor. I'm going to paraphrase it badly of like that great people are forged in fire. It's the privilege of lesser people to light the flame. And the idea of the Doctor has always kind of been the person carrying the torch. Not necessarily. And the Doctor makes these companions into their own adventurers and their own people. And the thing I've been trying to sneak into, talking about this whole ep and keep forgetting about is there's just this amazing moment between Ruby and Carla where Ruby, after a whole season of being terrified of these abandonment issues and having them actualized against her over and over and over again and being terrified of being alone. She has the strength because of the adventures with the Doctor and because of her own internal strengthen, having been catalyzed by the Doctor, to say to her mother, like, if you're not going to help, leave. Like, if you're not going to help us out here, go home. I got this. And that is like the Ruby of Ruby Road and the Ruby of Legend, of Ruby Sunday are two different people. Like, the way the Doctor has catalyzed her into becoming her own sort of hero, I think that's another great success of the new era of Davies is I think he's even looking back at that himself and being like, for me personally, when I initially watched Torchwood, loved it, had a great time. The more I think about Torchwood, the more I hate it, because it just doesn't get the message of Doctor who. The whole message of Torchwood is that we're like grubby, shitty fucking monsters. And it's just like, yeah, sure, but, like, we've got a heart of gold, dick. Like, come on, we're not all sex gas and cannibals in the fucking woods.

Like, well, but that's. That's why I find Russell T. Davies such a compelling writer. And that's why I think Doctor who is such a perfect vehicle for him because he. He thinks that. He thinks humanity is really, really awful. But he also knows from experience that humanity has a capacity for great beauty and kindness and wonderful, wonderful things. And it's that contradiction, the tension between those two things is what makes Russell T. Davies writing so interesting. And Doctor who is great because you can go to those places, but you can't stay there.

Well, to jump in, I want to talk just briefly, and this is where I would love, you know, in another episode to delve into Davies, but as part of the, you know, because there's part of the queer aspect of Doctor who, but when he wrote and produced it's a sin, which is, you know, about the group of friends, 1980s, living through the HIV, the AIDS plague, the horrors of it. So as a gay mande, he saw and lived through and lost people in a way that people just older than me really, really experienced, which was humanity abandoning them, completely condemning them, and almost celebrating, in many cases, actually celebrating the horrific deaths of. Of largely gay men. And that shapes your humanity. And you watch something like, it's a sin. You see that transition of, like, celebrating humanity to its absolute depths. And horrors to some element of restoration, but through grief and all of that. And I think, yeah, there is that. Torchwood plays a role in that because it shows humanity again, having that moment where it turns its back and then participates in the worst atrocities, participates in just, you know, even if it's just standing by saying, yep, we're gonna let this happen. We're gonna let this happen. These people deserve it. That happens. And I think that shaped Davies personally. I can't say how it wouldn't have. And that sort of writing. So you always get these dual aspects of humanity that we're really shitty, we're really awful, where we do these horrible things and then we do these beautiful, amazing things. And I think that's why when you're writing and then you're going to put that into a character like the doctor, it's that same duality of like, yeah, I want to save these people. Oh, man, these people are so awful. And how do you put that on screen repeatedly to an audience without giving them complete whiplash? And I think that was what Torchwood did successfully, was it showed us that darker aspect. And then uses Doctor who a year later in that scene where Tennant's doctor is regenerating, is about to regenerate and basically approaches Captain Jack to partially absolve him of what happened in children of earth in Torchwood. And that was a beautiful scene to me and profound because it was, again, it was that whole cycle humanity of, yeah, you went really low and really bad and you experienced that. You watched that happen and. But you still deserve life. You still deserve happiness. You still deserve companionship and love. That was. That was the message and that, that struck me so profoundly. And I still, you know, this is a lighter season. This is. This is, you know, it has its depth, but it's definitely more accessible and brighten. But that through line is still there. And I think we're going to see some of that. Some of that coming through. I mean, I think that was what 73 yards did for me in this season, was it gave us that darkness because, oh, I wanted to jump back because you're talking about the performance of Kate Lethbridge. Brilliant in every episode. That was a scene that got me, was her switching from getting the message in the earpiece, you know, disengage, disengage and go. And another moment of complete and total abandonment. And Ruby lives and lives to old age and says in a peaceful way, everybody abandoned me, you know, except for. Except for her, whoever that mysterious figure is. Again, that just, yeah, that gets me. I'm like, yeah, what. What do we deserve? Like, writing on. On this level, even if not everything's perfect, where these little moments that were so. That were so great, showing us the darkness and then followed up by somebody coming to peace with stuff, I don't think this finale is going to be quite. I think the finale is more bombastic. Other than that, we've had a lot of our emotional beats, but we could be surprised. You could be surprised. And who knows?

I don't know. I think it's gonna have its share of emotional beats. I mean, I don't know for sure, but I assume Ruby is going to find out who her mother is and I'm sure there will be some sort of emotional thing there. But, yeah, I mean, so. Russell T. Davies, Doctor who finale. So it's definitely gonna be bombastic. Just a couple things before I want to start wrapping up here. Russell till Davies, I think five days ago he put out a list of previous Doctor who episodes to watch before you watch the Legend of Ruby Sunday. And I thought his list was. I thought his list was interesting and in retrospect, quite cheeky, because obviously the one episode that's not on this list that is probably the best episode to watch before is Pyramids of Mars. But if you said watch Pyramids of Mars, then you would know, oh, SutEc's probably got me back. But on his list was the parting of the ways, the season one finale, the bells of St. John.

Ooh.

Spearhead from space. The first third Doctor serial, which I don't quite understand. And that was actually what my question was about units in it. Yes. Right. I guess.

What the fuck?

I guess units. Yeah, I mean, that's the only thing I can think of there. A good man goes to war.

Oh, these are weird pics.

I know. And the church on Ruby Road.

Well, I mean, okay, that one makes sense.

Yeah. The one that really baffled me was spearhead from space, because some people were dropping some hints that there was a third Doctor connection to the finale, which excited me because that's an era of the show that Nuhu doesn't really engage with that much because it's sort of anomalous. It's when, you know, Doctor who tried to become like the man from uncle or something, it was like sort of like a spy fi sort of a thing. And Michael, I know you and I have talked about this in the past, but my opinion of the Third Doctor and the unit era has risen since we last spoke about it. There's something comforting about it that I like. I think it's like the regular cast of characters, and there are some. There are some bangers in there.

The sound design is just so bad. Like, so many John Pertwee serials just end with one alarm screaming for five full minutes at top volume, and it's like, no, you could just. Just turn that off. What are we doing? Like, I want to give that. It just. It's physically painful to watch sometimes for me because of the sound design.

My main problem with the third Doctor, it's the closest they get to really undermining the character because the entire concept of the character.

Yes. As soon as Jon Pertwee goes, I know that guy from the club. I've seen him at the same country club. You're like, this is not doctor who. This is some rich asshole.

Yeah. It's the closest they come to making the doctor a part of the establishment. They make him an establishment figure, which is why I was intrigued. He would invoke spearhead from space because similarly to how he reintroduced Susan and how problematic that was with, like, the whole concept of the show as we understand it now. I was also like, I wonder if he's gonna somehow reconcile the, like, patrician establishment figure that the doctor was in the seventies. But I guess I was overthinking it.

But there's one line about the great enigma, and that's all we get, right?

The great enigma. Yeah, no, I like that. But that said, yeah, the big thing obviously missing from that list is pyramids of Mars, because I think that would be probably a pretty good episode to watch.

Kind of a biggie.

Yeah, it's kind of the biggie for anyone who may be tempted to go back and watch pyramids of Mars ahead of the finale, if they're curious, there are two suggestions I have to trying to engage with the classic series and actually enjoying it first. Usually when a classic story is shown on tv or, you know, used to be sold on dvd, it would be shown as, like, one long feature length movie where they combine 25 minutes episodes into two and a half hour feature length show. And that's a bad way to watch the classic show because the classic show is meant to be watched 25 minutes at a time with some time in between. When you cram all the episodes together and watch them all the way through, the pacing just feels insane. And there's a reason it's not meant to be watched like. Like, it was meant to be watched in these, like, little discrete chunks with a week in between. And they sometimes remind you about things that happened last week because maybe the person watching didn't see last week or maybe they don't remember last week. So I would suggest watching it one half hour episode at a time. And the other thing is some context to keep in mind. Like, one of the key differences between the way british television developed and american tv developed was american tv was sort of working more in, like, the Hollywood cinema tradition, you know, using the same cinematic language and making, like, cheap and fast mini movies every week. In the UK, tv was more or less coming from a theatrical tradition. So if you think about it as, like, this is televised theater, I think all of a sudden it starts making a lot more sense why it is the way that it is and the choices that they're making. And then, like, viewed that way. Like, imagine you were doing a stage production, and all of a sudden you had access to, like, a chroma key, and you could make all these wacky effects happen. You could, like, change the background. That would be a game changer. It's like, wow, the possibilities of that. And John, you said something earlier about how you have to change your mindset in terms of how to take in the effects and stuff. The thing about Doctor who is that if you remember that it's actually coming from, like, a theatrical tradition, then all of a sudden you realize, like, oh, like, realism isn't the goal here. It's trying to communicate or represent this idea visually. You know, if you're used to watching Hollywood movies where realism is the goal, you watch some old doctor who and you see the special effects, and you're like, what were they thinking? How could anyone possibly see this and take it seriously? And the reason is because they weren't necessarily expecting realism. And I think the creators of the show were like, with this new tool, there's more possibilities for the kinds of ideas we can represent on screen, not necessarily realistically, but it's sort of like, it allows for a story to happen.

A lot of it was approached very much like a play, which is, you're going to be limited on your set. You're going to have a set that is less dynamic, not as focused on special effects. Some things to give you a certain impression, but then it's the audience's position to then imagine the rest and take it, sort of take it from there. So thinking about it from there. Yeah. That would help me get back into the older episodes and sort of shift in and help do that, like, context shift and dealing with that. There is a legal way to get pyramid of Mars. And with that disclosed in a specific location. Josh, our hometown library has the DVD.

Oh, fantastic.

And there are numerous libraries, as it turns out. So to all viewers, your public library is an amazing resource for all kinds of things, including classic episodes of Doctor who. So I fully suggest people take advantage of their local libraries. Support your local libraries. I will die on that hill. But in many cases, they are the last place we have. They're the ones keeping DVD's and Blu rays for the ones that upgraded to that, you know. And there was so much released on DVD for that period of 97 through even. Even now that that was not in any other format. So, you know, get those DVD's, watch them, and, you know, keep your libraries going because they're. They're the art, they're the archive.

At this point, I'll just say I work at home entertainment and I am astonished every day by the lasting power of DVD versus everything else. So many people just like, never went past that one. So, like, yeah, DVD's pretty much. Yeah, it's an invaluable resource.

I will tell you, I'm going to be driving back, getting that DVD so I can watch it before this week's finale.

Heck yeah.

Yeah.

Yes. And if you can, I do suggest you space out the other parts. Is it. Is that a four part serial? Do you happen to know off the top of your head, Michael?

No. I've been trying to figure out basically this entire recording off the top of my head. If it's a four or a six, I want it to be a four. Cause if it's a six, it's gotta be bad.

I don't think Tom Baker did six.

I don't think he did a lot of sixes.

Except for invasion of time. But that was like a production.

When wasn't it? I was gonna say earlier, like, I feel like the story of Doctor who is so much of the production story of Doctor who is like, one friend of the producer is like, hey, here's this gadget I found. Like, so much of the production history is like, we found this yellow screen, not a green screen, not a blue screen. A yellow screen is how they were doing it. There's so much of that stuff. Like the paint box. The guy was like, I figured out the settings on this software called the paint box, and then all the way down to another random story before we close. But I'm in tangent mode. Like the guy who invented the robot companion chameleon and then died. So they had no idea how to operate the robot companion Chameleon and had to, like, deal with that for a year or two and then just kill them off.

Oh. JNt on the list of Jnt man. JNT on the list of questionable production and creative decisions that Johnathan Turner was responsible for. Where do you think? Let's make a companion, an actual robot that surely won't have any problems.

I will say the one smart thing he had on that is that the robot's name was Chameleon and it could turn into other actors. That was very smart. They really thought that part through. That's the thing that saved them.

That idea came from the writer who was like, there's no way that this robot is gonna work. I'm gonna write them out.

What a king.

What's also crazy to me is that they wrote the character out instead of just making the robot transform into something.

Change into another guy. Like, yeah, you could have Chameleon could still be on the show. But, yeah, we could talk about, this is not Chameleon.

I love about old movies and tv shows, though, is like, they. They had to be so creative with their writing based on their limitations. So if they find things and it's like, this is cool, let's do something with this. But if it didn't work, or they could only do so much with it, then they had to figure out, you know, and whether it's something in a Sci-Fi series with, you know, technology or effects or something or, you know, just a regular drama when you had, you know, censorship things and the way they get around saying, you know, it's just. You need to figure out what's being said. It doesn't have to just be said flat out. Like, I just enjoy that with older things in general. Sometimes I'm like, really watching something now. I'll be like, you really needed to say that. They could have been way more creative in the way you did that. But everything's just like, wha. Now?

No, totally. And that's actually to bring it back to something that John said earlier about how, you know, whoever wrote this idea couldn't have imagined that it would be discussed 60 years later. That's one of the reasons why I genuinely love Doctor who so much, is because there wasn't a, you know, single mastermind behind the show. It was a lot of serendipity, a lot of different creative voices, a lot of things that were established and they ran with some of them. They forgot, conveniently, certain other ones that didn't really work. And over time, this entity emerged. This conglomeration of all of these different ideas emerged to something that's as coherent. Like, it's amazing. The cosmology of Doctor who has the coherence that it does have, given the myriad of different creative voices and production teams, different lead actors. But as Doctor Elizabeth Sandifer says, she calls Doctor who a quasi sentient metafiction authored by an anarchic spirit within british culture. And I think that's as good a definition or explanation of Doctor who as any. It's kind of alive. It's its own thing. It shouldn't exist.

I will say, though, like, we. It is this thing that exists and is this, like, cultural phenomenon within british culture. But two times now it's been Russell Davies with, like, his hands on the defibrillator paddles going, no, we're not rebooting it, Kathunk. Like, all that continuity stays. K Thunk. Wake up, fucker. K Thunk, you're still 16. Different people. Like, deal with it. Like, he's twice. He said the option to start from scratch and change what the TArDIS is or do whatever the hell. But he's like, no, it's a police box. It's this thing that was common in 1963 that now has to be explained. Like, that is part of the charm. It goes back to, I think, of that quote from Ian, the late William Russell, of, like, who would have thought a mild curiosity in a junkyard would have turned out to be all of this? Like you said, josh, it just really is like, I can't believe this thing that started there is all the way here. And in this week's episode, we're talking about stuff from 1963. It's all still relevant to still one enchilada, which is a very un british food. It's one donor kebab. Yep.

No. Yeah. That's why I love the. Just, like, the idea that doctor who is a quasi sentient metafiction that just kind of exists. Because, of course it exists. And it.

It must.

It must exist. Wow. We got on some weird tangents there. Any final thoughts or musings before next week?

Yeah, I mean, my final thought is just now I'm ready for it. And yes, it is part two. For the viewers that were very upset that this turned out to be a two parter, I think it was specifically told that it was gonna be a two parter. So, yes, this is a two part finale.

That's how these things work.

Yeah. So I'm just. I'm just glad this isn't best of both worlds. We have to wait a season, you know, for a season break. Like, we're gonna get it this week.

Well, you actually don't know how next it's gonna end, so say that.

Don't say that. Don't say that.

You just threw salt over your shoulder at the edge of the. At the edge of creation, John. You made it. You made it happen.

Next.

Yeah.

If we are left with a complete cliffhanger until Christmas, it's my fault.

It's your fault. So thanks for that. Yeah. Next week, we will be back with the season finale. I can't believe. I can't believe season finale already. I do have some ideas. I have some plans in mind for how to continue this illustrious podcast in between seasons. I know. I'm sure everyone is freaking out about no more Tardis rubbish, but tales of the Tardis rubbish. Tales of the Tardis rubbish. Yeah. So until next week, we are Tardis rubbish on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. And please always remember to run fast, love hard, be kind of.