[00:00:00] DRI: Happy holidays, everyone, and welcome to the Implausipod. We're going to take a quick break from our ongoing schedule of episodes on various cyber related themes and look at the 2024 Doctor Who season over the next two podcast episodes. We'll start with a rundown of the 14th series of the new Doctor Who, or Disney Series 1, depending on how you count these things, and we'll follow that with a look at the 2024 Christmas special next episode.

As Doctor Who is a bit outside my wheelhouse, I'm joined once again in this discussion of all things Who by Dr. Aiden Buckland, who joins us on this episode. So,

as we get into finding out whether Dr. Who goes boom, we'd like to take a moment to thank our very special guest, Dr. Aiden Buckland, for joining us. It's been a year since they've been on the podcast, even though we've talked in the intervening months here and there. So yeah, welcome back to the ImplausiPod.

[00:00:53] AB: Yeah, thanks for having me back. It's always lovely to talk about Dr. Who and of course at this humus season. It's always fun to dive back in 

[00:01:02] DRI: a humus season. , 

[00:01:03] AB: yeah. The, the what culture folks have just started to try that and I, I'm gonna tow the line with them. We're gonna, it's it's humus, Merry humus.

This is when, we get the Christmas special and if you're a little bit overboard like myself, you might even go back and rewatch some of the older ones as well. 

[00:01:18] DRI: Okay. Well, we can maybe do a Christmas in review, Christmas years past sometime in our near future, but right now we'll get into what happened in Geez, I don't even know what season this is, but basically the 2024 season that appeared aired on, not aired, Streamed on Disney plus in May and June of 2024, watch the episodes at the time, but the way life works, we didn't necessarily have a chance to connect up and discuss them as they're happening.

So now we're going to do them in like rapid fire session, and we'll kind of run through all the episodes. So. This carries off of the Christmas special last year, the one that introduced Shudi Gatwa. So this was the Church on Ruby Road, and I know you were telling me before we started talking here that that episode is included as kind of the episode list for the current season, but Seeing as we already did a full episode, we're not going to really go into depth on that one here, and we'll start the season kind of in media res, so to speak, with the Space Babies episode.

Now, this is the one where the Doctor and Ruby show up in a space station, and it was kind of a monster of the week. We saw that with one of the Christmas specials, or one of the special episodes in 2023 as well. And then we find out this is operated automatically with a number of babies. And I got to admit, I know there was a monster the babies had an AI caretaker.

This was not a good start for me as a regular viewer of a doctor who, like I started last year with the specials and this one felt, I gave it. See if we're giving grades these things. I really, I really didn't care for it at all. So maybe you can give me your quick impressions of this one and we can move on to some of the other episodes.

[00:03:04] AB: Of course, this one was the snot monster. The, the monster turned out to be made of the baby's mucus. Which was a little bit gross but in terms of Doctor Who, I thought Space Babies was a pretty standard episode. I gave it a round of B. There was nothing too offensive in there in terms of how the episode unfolded.

Generally, you always have this kind of episode with a new companion. So this is kind of their first proper adventure, now that the companion is gone. Aware that this is the life they're signing up for, and they've kind of dove in after the 1st 1. so each companion has kind of gone through this as far as the, the new doctor who era has gone and you know, no worries about being confused on the numbering.

This is a pretty classic thing with doctor who since of course now. In the Disney era, there's been 3 completely different eras of Doctor Who, where we've started back at episode 1, now 3 times, so it is understandable. Even Disney seems to not quite understand where they're placing things, because both The Church of Ruby Road is both the first episode of this previous season and also listed as a special unto itself.

So, this is a very Doctor Who thing in terms of the numbering. 

[00:04:19] DRI: Okay, so if we were comparing this to like a more traditional episodic television back when say, Star Trek Next Generation or X Files would have, You know, a 22 or 24 episode season, you'd have a lot of those filler or monster of the week or planet of the week kind of episodes where you kind of get used to the regular vibe of the, of the show and how the pair interacts or what have you.

So this was kind of filling that role in a abbreviated season where we saw some other more high points. And I think that's kind of that vibe episode has really been a casualty of like the streaming era. Like, okay, we've got 8 or 10 episodes, we're going to hit all the high points, but You don't get the regular kind of the day to day and, and, and maybe, maybe that'll, we'll touch on that later on in this discussion.

But yeah, that episodic nature is kind of someone is somewhat lost. So I get what you're saying that it was like a, a, a, a regular episode of doctor who, whereas maybe a lot of the rest of the season wasn't. regular episodes. So, all right, not bad. So interesting start a little bit mixed, but then we go straight from there into the Devil's Chord, which I gotta admit, I like this one a little bit more.

This is where we have another being called the Maestro. And it seemed with the Toymaker kind of as the finish of the specials in 2023, that this had a lot of continuity with that, that we're seeing this carry over of this massive threat. And the Maestro, I think, was was a aspect of the Toymaker or a child of the Toymaker or something.

And we get this overarching view. Now, this is also the one where we have the I guess a very British thing where we have the introduction of the Beatles into the Doctor Who universe. I don't know if they ever showed up before, but here they're doing the recording at the EMI studios and we've get again, like I said, continuity and epic threat.

And I like the episode overall. I gave it a B. I felt it fit. Within the continued a little better, but I guess the thing that knocked it down a little bit for me was there was a bit of a lull in the second half where it felt like they were going through some of it, and I'm not necessarily on board with the musical numbers that I've seen so far in Doctor Who, whether it was the Church of Ruby Road, the singing with the goblins, or the one in this one.

So a little bit of a step down from like perfection for me, but you know, still a good episode. How about yourself? 

[00:06:39] AB: For me, and especially I think with the new iteration of Dr. Who, there's kind of two things that I always love to see. The first is the reclamation of stuff from Dr. Who's past. So the Toymaker was a great example of this obscure character from the original Dr.

Who run. You know, 67 and 93, that was kind of a reclamation project. And now that introduces kind of something brand new to doctor, which is something I always find intriguing. You know, Moffat introduced us to the angels in this latest, the previous run to the Disney run. Which again are just a, they've become now a kind of classic Doctor Who villain.

So, I like this notion of these beings that are somehow over and above the normal powers of the universe. So the Toymaker being one, now the Maestro being the other. They're all very Gaiman esque in terms of, they seem to be personifications of, like one is a personification of music, you know, the other is the personification of fun or games.

Which, you know, is, I think, interesting and makes me interested now to see if Davies will bring in Gaiman for another episode. He's written some of my favorite episodes of Doctor Who, so it'll be interesting to see if he comes back to that. So for me, The Devil's Chord, I agree, there were definitely some problems in the back half.

Of the episode in particular, right? The music stuff didn't exactly hit for me, except for that final number where they talk about the twist. I thought that that was clever because it did land in exactly the part of the episode where you get the big twist in a Doctor Who episode. So for me, it was around a B, I gave it a B plus actually because of the introduction of this kind of new threat but then, you know, kind of funnily, we didn't get back to any more of those threats this season.

So I'm expecting in the new season, we might run into another one. 

[00:08:34] DRI: Yeah. Okay. You got to pace them out a little bit. I could see that. And if it is a larger pacing, then not having everything, you know, totally loaded within one. You kind of. You gotta, you gotta seed your pantheon of threats kind of a little bit.

And yeah, okay. That makes some sense. I can see where you're going with it. So next up the third episode of the season was boom. And I gotta admit, this is one of the highlights for me. I really liked it. Now it felt, this is the doctor is on a war torn planet within the middle of a combat zone and reaches out and lands on a very peculiar landmine.

which forces them to remain basically in place. It's almost like a bottle episode where very, you know, very little minimal in the terms of set, but a lot in terms of drama and discussion and plot and, and the work with the Ruby and the characters here. And there's also commentary about like the AIs of the soldiers that are going around and the AI of the nurse.

So I thought this was a fantastic episode. We have the introduction of Valengard, which is a weapons manufacturer. And I thought that really as kind of a meta commentary about some of what we're seeing with respect to war and the engagements that are happening within a our own timeline, so to speak.

I thought that was a really effective commentary as well. So I gave us a straight up A. I thought this was fantastic and I don't know where it'll rank long term in like the Doctor Who pantheon, but I could easily recommend, you know, anybody who, whether they're a Doctor Who fan or not to check out this episode.

I thought it was great. 

[00:10:07] AB: Yeah, I would have to say I also landed on an a for boom. It's a Steven Moffat episode and Moffat being a former show runner and being a former show writer before he was a show runner has put together. I think some of the actually all of my favorite doctor who episodes. So. He, he has just a knack for finding a way to put the doctor in positions or situations that are innately clever, like the idea that you take the man who runs and make him stationary for an entire episode, so now he can't run away, he can't, You know, do anything and in fact, you know, the way that landmine worked, he had to stay a particular kind of calm the whole way through the episode 2, which, you know, I thought added a lot of drama to it.

And the thing I think I liked about boom and I, one of the things that, you know, for me is a necessary component of a great doctor who episode is there has to be some kind of tragedy or sacrifice. So having that, you know, father character introduced in the beginning and having that. The finality of of him being becoming part of the Lingard is the kind of thing that I think makes doctor who episodes interesting.

There's always those kind of side characters that, you know, you get that sacrifice from and it makes the stakes of the episode a little bit more real. So, when, you know, something happens and, you know, rubies and. threat, then the threat feels more real because we've seen characters already go through that and not come out the other end.

So boom is definitely an A for me and spoiler alert probably in the top three for me for this particular season. 

[00:11:42] DRI: Yeah. Spoiler, spoiler, I agreed. Yeah. Any quick thoughts about the idea of the algorithmically generated war for just the continuity of like profit and R and D, or is that like too on the nose for Planet Earth in 2024 going into 2025.

[00:11:57] AB: It's one of the things that I think draws me to Dr. Who overall is that I think like all good sci fi, Dr. Who's able to take contemporary issues and moral quandaries that we're currently dealing with. And just set them in relief in this weird sci fi environment that, you know, seems so far fetched, but at the same time is, is tangible.

It makes sense to us because in, in ways we are currently living it, right? Yeah. 

[00:12:22] DRI: Okay. So with that, moving from a fantastic episode to honestly, another fantastic episode with 73 yards, this is the journey upon the coast of not England, Wales, and they come across a ferry circle. And then we've got a very a lot of similarities to the previous episode where there's a bit of like being continually, continuity in place, but this time focused on Ruby and how she deals with the problem in a, you know, a bit of a similar way to what we just saw with Boom, but a very Ruby focused episode here, but less about science fiction and more about like magic and the Fae and bringing that forth.

We also have, I guess, a bit of a call out to Not necessarily earlier Doctor Who, but this is the plot of the Dead Zone, I think, with Christopher Walken, more or less, or at least elements of that showed up in the show with the idea of the, yeah, the prime minister in this case, or president in the case of the Dead Zone, and the knowledge of the crimes that they may be committing in the future and the destruction that that might be wreaking on the world.

So yeah, this was an A minus for me. And the only reason it kind of came down a bit of a step from boom, I think is because of that pacing in a larger season. If you had a few episodes in between this and more regular episodes, but then You had the one two punch of boom and then 73 yards, and it just, the parallels were there.

Strong episode, but it just kind of brought it down a little bit. Part from the dead zone interpolation, let's call it, and then part from just the spacing. I think if this and the next episode had been flipped, they probably both would have done better in my estimation. But how about you for 73 yards?

[00:14:05] AB: Yeah, I'd say that this one is far and away my favorite from the season. It reminded me a lot of Blink, so a Doctorless episode, which again, you know, puts all the pressure on the companion. In this case, we have a companion that we're going to come back to with Ruby. But watching her work through it, I really liked the, the horror elements of, you know, having the person 73 yards away every time someone goes to talk to them.

They just, they absolutely freak out and run away from Ruby like that part. I, I, I'm a big fan of horror. So whenever doctor who it kind of trips into that genre. I find it to be very entertaining and I liked this 1 as well, in terms of the companion coming to terms with. So. We've seen this to some extent, you know, in flashes here and there, but watching a companion come to terms with no longer being with the doctor, it's the kind of thing that you don't spend a lot of time on.

So Martha we've seen a bit from, you know, we've seen a bit from Amy and Rory because of the way their story of the doctor kind of pans out. But this is, I think, the, the first time that we got to kind of sit and stew with it for a while and really kind of deal with as Ruby's dealing with. She still has the weird crisis that is happening, which usually would be the kind of thing the Doctor would help her with, but he's not around, and she has to figure it out on her own, and also kind of get over the fact that she had this weird, wonderful, wacky, little blue box that would take her places and now can't.

So I thought that that was the thing that pushed it over the edge for me. It is the kind of thing that I like horror and sci fi mashed together. I especially like it when it's a Doctor Who property and again, watching how Ruby develops as a companion who is Doctorless, I thought really kind of sold the episode for me.

[00:16:03] DRI: Fantastic stuff. No again, high marks and just hear from you. It was just the kind of the. positioning of it, but I, you know, if you ask me on a different day, I could swap, swap the two. They're, they're both really fantastic episodes. So, as a person who's coming in new to Who, I guess I'm spoiled for riches in here is that I'm, we're getting a lot of hits without too many misses, but I don't want to say the next episode is necessarily a miss.

I think the, the dot and bubble where we looked at the citizens of fine time with social media influencers, continually surrounded by a sphere of their own making, I, I, My first pass, I gave it a C and then, you know, I'm reflecting on the episode. I'm going, Oh, wait a second. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm the one who's wrong here.

And I, I, I'm, I'm kind of giving it about a B, but that's because I'm a little conflicted about this one. The aliens behind the scenes, almost like a very, they live ask a very carpenter esque version of the horror going on and the larger plot about the different planets that these are basically. the elite of another planet that are off on this planet waiting to hear from the rest of their families.

I, I, I liked it, but it frustrated me. And I think it frustrated me because of the Attitudes and perceptions of some of the characters, which means they're playing their part well, but it, it drove me drove me to distraction in some parts as well. So I'll, I'll take a bit of a pass on this and I'll throw you the mic and let me know what I'm getting wrong on Dot and Bubble.

[00:17:33] AB: I tend to find this one, and for me, this season really is the core four. It's Boom to Rogue. Where the season really had the strongest of elements and again dot and bubble is, you know, that great great service that sci fi provides us by taking something that's happening now and putting it in such an absurd.

Kind of remote removed position that we can really play with it. And I thought that did such a great job of that. Find time is a broken utopia was just a fantastic setting and to me again, one of the things that really sells this episode is. The doctor has oftentimes won the day but still lost and the, the ending of fine time, I thought was what really put the episode over for me is this idea that, okay, we get our, our protagonist.

Who is super annoying throughout the whole episode, finally get her down to the place where she can be safe and she rejects the doctor because of what he looks like. And that prejudice is still within her. And that is what's preventing her from listening to him, which would preserve their lives. But clearly they're going to go on.

And run into lots of bad things on their own. So I like that kind of victory where, you know, the doctor gets the main objective completed, but then you know, still finds a way to kind of lose at the end, which. I think it's the kind of thing that Doctor Who does quite well. He is constantly going from kind of heartache to heartache as he moves from one adventure to the other.

And this was a great example of kind of one of those little heartaches that happen as he goes. 

[00:19:26] DRI: Okay, I appreciate that. I'll maybe inch up a little bit to like a B but it was tough. But I agree that this, this streak, this run of episodes they had in the middle of the season was fantastic because that leads into which I think was my favorite episode overall, though again, the other ones are great too.

Rogue, where we have the Doctor and Ruby at a party in England in the Victorian era, I guess. And we have them kind of split off in various parts of the party, but then the doctor finds someone who's an equal or a match in rogue, who is a bounty hunter trying to track down some party guests that are not necessarily what they seem.

And this is a commentary on cosplay and a commentary on like misinformation and also the notion of sacrifice that you mentioned earlier that they could have for each other. I thought this was really, yeah, a fantastic episode that I enjoyed on the rewatch still. So Rogue I gave a straight up A to not big on A pluses for episodes, but it was, it was good and it was entertaining.

So how do you feel about Rogue? 

[00:20:33] AB: Yeah, the strong for this was not, I think it was probably my least favorite of the 4 episodes, but that's. You know, still putting it kind of heads and shoulders above the remaining 4 episodes. The 1st, 2 and the last 2. In terms of what it gives us again, something new to who and not really, but there's.

Companions are almost always attracted to the doctor in some way. We've had several in the new who era. That are, you know, physically attracted to him in various ways or her actually happened with Jody as well. But I thought this was interesting because this is the 1st time we see the doctor gets smitten with someone and maybe not the 1st time we've seen it, but.

The first time where we, we get to play it out to an extent and then again, like the whole sacrifice at the end, I think, again, speaks to those kind of little heartaches. The doctor is the kind of character who goes kind of from one tragedy to the next. And it's one of the things that keeps him running or her in the time that he was Jody just that, you know, these are the things that You know, kind of move him from place to place.

So I thought Rogue was very interesting. I'd like to see that character come back. I know the way the episode ended is, you know, not giving us a lot of runway there, but the writers at Doctor Who are quite clever, so I'm sure that we can find a way either before or after or, you know, in the middle of what happened there for the Doctor to see them again.

But I thought that was the new thing they added which was interesting. And Shooty as a doctor, this is kind of one of the things he brings to the table, I think is that he's more emotionally available than previous doctors. So seeing him actually like and pursue someone I think was very interesting in this particular episode.

[00:22:18] DRI: Fantastic stuff. All right. So with that, then we get into the final two episodes. They're kind of listed as like Episode 7 and 8 or Episode A and B. But the first one being The Legend of Ruby Sunday, which is kind of a clean break from the previous one. And what they're doing here is bringing together a Bit of like an interstitial thread that had been happening since the church on Ruby Road with the old woman who had been showing up in various forms.

Actually, I can't even say old woman. I mean, older, but I don't, you know, age indeterminate, I guess, depending on the episode. And then we get this idea that we're meeting Susan, who is this entity who's kind of been showing up in various forms. Forms, and they again are not what they seem.

We see UNIT come back into it, which is again, the doctor engaging with a larger paramilitary organization, and we see a few of the other recurring characters. So I drop this down to a C, because I, I don't know, I've, I've found myself. not really engaged with the larger narrative that they're doing.

I like that they were trying to tie together these threads, but I didn't really work with the idea of a tech leader, I guess, in this case even though there was some small, not a tech bro, but I'll think of the word for it anyways, but we have this idea. And I think after everything, after that kind of fell apart and linking it up to like the Sue tech, or in this case, the Egyptian got a death at the end and then carrying that into the next episode, I thought fell a little bit flat.

So this was just a straight up C for me. Watch yourself. 

[00:24:03] AB: Yeah, I'd probably land, you know, C plus, maybe a B minus. And again, like, I tend to look at these 2 episodes as 1. So Dr. Who's had a long tradition of doing these kind of multi episode stories. And it's actually something that goes back to the original series, which would sometimes release.

Entire seasons as just 1 story. So it would be like, this is the and it's like 5 episodes long. So the multi episode arcs are usually difficult to pull off again. Just the way that television works to have that kind of big reveal at the end of 1 episode so that it feels like there is. Kind of a purpose that drives you to the end of that 1st episode.

So, like, investigating the mystery of Ruby being abandoned at Christmas was interesting, but this is, again, something we'll probably get to in a few minutes in other parts of the discussion, but. I feel like we didn't have enough of RWBY in this season for me to be as invested in this mystery, so I thought that, like, maybe just a few more mentions, or even, like, another episode or two to really hammer home the significance of this for RWBY.

Because she seemed to have a pretty decent situation her foster family were very nice, she was a very lovely person so she doesn't have that kind of edge of feeling like a person who's missing something, that absolutely needs to go find that thing in order to be whole. Whereas like other companions have had that you know, Rose, the first companion of the new era, Father's Day is the episode where we really hammer home that for her.

Like the, the Father's Day episode, I think is really the, the version of the Legend of Ruby Sunday that came before, also in the RTD era. This is when he first brought the show back. And, you know, leading up to that episode, there was a bit more about who Rose was. So that when we get the father's day, you get this notion that she never got to know her father.

And this is 1 of the things that drives her as a character. It kind of makes more sense. You're more invested in it. Whereas with legend of ruby road, I was less invested in this, this notion that. You know, she somehow feels this, this void that she needs to know the end of this mystery. And then when we get the second half with the God of Death and these are, you know, grand things that Doctor Who does from time to time.

And generally you know, they become anticlimactic because again, you get beautiful scenes where like you know, Kate Lethbridge Stewart is Standing in the middle of unit while everybody's turning to dust saying, you know, birds will sing again, you know, but at the same time that you're watching that happen, you know that.

Okay. Everybody can't stay dust. This is just not the way that this is going to end. You know, there's a previous episode again at the end of the season. We're like. Everybody gets converted into something or everybody gets turned into the master. It's like, whenever the stakes get too big, you know, inevitably, okay, well, now the doctor is going to do his or her thing and that's just going to get reversed.

So, you know, it, it kind of ramps the stakes past. That suspension of disbelief to the point where it breaks and I'm like, okay, there's no way that they're going to end the show with everybody die. That's just not going to happen. So we're going to get to, you know, a nice, pleasant ending. I did like, however, though, the end of Empire of Death with Ruby going off on her own, because again, that's something that companions don't do in Doctor Who.

There's one companion that does it. She is amongst my favorite companions because of it. She actually comes to the realization that, you know, I love this guy, he's never gonna love me back, so I have to go in order to preserve myself. And she's like the only companion that does that. Every other companion basically ends up being lost by the Doctor in some tragic incident.

Which, you know, has its own emotional weight. But this idea that a companion would see this wonderful life, go on these beautiful adventures, and then decide, Okay, I've got something more important to do. That was really fantastic. So that, that's what pushed it still into the B range, B for me. On the Empire of Death.

I'd say C for The Legend of Ruby Sunday. Because again, I just felt like we needed more of Ruby's character in this season for us to really get invested in why she's so kind of invested in this kind of mystery. 

[00:28:38] DRI: Okay. Fantastic. So I think with that, I got a couple of quick questions. So if you're going to rank your top three, if you're going to pick them for the season, how would you rate them or at least rate them right at this moment?

[00:28:50] AB: For sure. So 73 yards far and away, number one for me. Boom, definitely number two, it's a Moffat episode, and again, I think the things that they introduced there and the stuff that they've done was very interesting. And actually, three gets a bit tough, because like I say, it is a strong four episodes.

I'm gonna have to go dot and bubble. Just because, both episodes do end in a tragedy for the Doctor, for the sacrifice of one. Just being ignored in the other. I think the ignored is the more tragic for the doctor because he is and she is the kind of character that is Cassandra like they know everything.

They're omniscient. They see time and space in a way that we don't experience it. So they know. Things that we don't know and are constantly, constantly being ignored at the peril of the person who is ignoring them almost inevitably. So, I really liked the dot and bubble for that ending. That really kind of saved the episode for me.

How about yourself? 

[00:29:51] DRI: For myself, very similar. I got Boom, Rogue, and 73 Yards with You know, a little bit of flex, you know, any given Sunday, you ask me where I'm rating them. And I think those three will be in the top one based on your discussion. I'm probably bringing a dot and bubble is probably fourth for me.

And then you know, some of the other episodes fall away from there, but yeah just a fantastic middle section to the season. So I've got a few other questions for you directly as a more long time. Dr. Whovian. What was the favorite new element for you this season, whether it's a lore or a character an enemy, etc?

What really stood out to you as like a takeaway that you'd like to 

[00:30:30] AB: Oh, I've got a top three here as well. I mean, right away, I would have to say the old gods, the, the Lovecraftian. Nature of the toy maker and the maestro. I'm interested to see how much further down this pathway we're going to go. Like, what other personifications will we see?

And again, is this a big signpost by Russell T Davies to, to Attract Neil Gaiman back to Doctor Who for at least another episode or two, you know, come personify some stuff for us and we'll see it. That said the Sonic for the, really the, the relaunch of the show when RTD first brought it back up until right now, it's always been something that looks very much like a magic wand.

And the doctor very much uses it like a magic wand, just kind of points it at things, and he's not, you know, shouting out the Harry Potter esque spells, but, you know, he just kind of points it at things and stuff happens, and that was starting to get very tired and kind of old for me. Especially as we got past the Matt Smith era, Capaldi did it less.

He wanted sonic sunglasses and, you know, there was these kind of weird iterations. I like Ncuti's. Ncuti's sonic screwdriver is very funky. It looks more like, almost like a Star Trek communicator than it does a sonic screwdriver. So it looks more sci fi ish, but also looks kind of natural. At the same time, like something that you wouldn't necessarily point out.

So I do like that and by generation. I thought by generation Was the most fascinating thing that's been introduced to the who canon just because now You know possibilities are endless really any doctor at any point Can come back even Tom Baker who's I believe in his 90s if not his very late 80s Could come back and the fourth doctor could be an old man.

He's pretty much Kind of done it already in the day of the doctor for like a very brief scene and apparently he's had some comments about that and his experience of it, but you could very easily see like the the fifth doctor the Sylvester McCoy the last doctor before the series was canceled, you know These are people who could come back and just be the doctor again, but not You know, necessarily their doctor and of course, we're going to get tenant again.

The 14th doctor will be back. I am sure, but you know, the idea that maybe after RTD is done with the show and hands it off, you know, you could even see a Christopher Eccleston. Whose doctor was fantastic. He was one season. He was the first doctor in the reboot of the show. And Christopher Eccleston, of course, at the time was famous for playing bad guys.

I mean, this is a, a, a guy who played Destro from G. I. Joe. And, you know, was the bad guy in 28 Days Later and had played all these fantastic villains. And then here he is as this, this character, Doctor Who, who Can be villainous, he can be a heel from time to time, but at the same time has to be light and goofy and, you know, seeing Eggleston pull a goofy smile was amazing and I can't, I can't wait until someone is able to convince him.

To come back and do one more run as the, the eighth doctor, ninth doctor, sorry. 

[00:33:45] DRI: Yeah, well, that'll be fantastic. So I know you touched on a couple of things, maybe you didn't like about the season earlier, so I'll just skip over that. But what's your overall impression of the 15th doctor now having seen like the full season and, or the other actors performances, you kind of met you, you seeded that a little bit throughout, but what, what's your take compared to.

Like you started watching with the 10th Doctor or whereabouts did you come in? 

[00:34:10] AB: I started watching full time. So Matt Smith, the 11th Doctor, is what I would consider my doctor. So this is the doctor where you start watching the show in continuity. I had seen Waters of Mars with Tennant, which piqued my interest because it was an episode that ends In exactly the way that you would expect a sci fi doing the story that they're doing to end and then the epilogue comes and just.

Smacks you in the face with just this complete reversal. And that got my attention so the 11th hour was the. The next episode up here in Canada, we have a channel called space. They were famous for doing marathons. So that's how I caught waters of Mars. And they were doing the marathon as a promotion for the upcoming 11th doctor's first episode.

So Matt Smith is in many ways my kind of prototypical doctor. So when I'm looking at every other doctor, I'm looking at them kind of in comparison to the way he does it. The way he did it was very silly, goofy. He's very childish at many points. But then he's also very serious. What I really enjoy about Shooty is that he is ceaselessly buoyant.

He just is This glowing center of every scene that he's in, that smile is very disarming. This year's Christmas special, you know, just the intro sequence of the, you know, the ham and cheese toastie and pumpkin latte. It's that smile that's very disarming. I'm liking as well as he goes with the Doctor's character, watching him put on all of the other kind of accoutrement.

It's very disturbing. That comes along with being the doctor. So the doctor, like any long standing kind of franchise character, like your Batman or your Sherlock Holmes, there are things that they have to do as a part of being that thing. So, you know, in Batman, you're going to have to put on the cowl at some point.

You're going to have to drive a cool car, you know, so watching shooty go through, not just. Kind of the the psychic paper and like the little gadgets that Doctor Who has. But go through the emotional beats that every single Doctor has gone through. Is very interesting. Because I think the Doctor, you know, when he's up, like the Doctor is someone who is, you know, and he's from Gallifrey, so we don't know what they're going through.

Name for this is, but he is very similar to someone who's living with the condition of bipolarism where his highs are really high, you know, when he is having a good time, he's having a great time and just, you know, all that joy and all of that excitement when he's low, he's really low because it's usually, you know, some and, you know, it's a companion has left and he's in that post companion funk.

So, watching Shudi put those pieces on now, after seeing the season, I think is very interesting and, you know, I, this is a doctor that I could, you know, see going for another, you know, three, four seasons. I, I find him very enjoyable in terms of What he brings to the role and how he goes about it.

He's the first doctor in a while, I think, that didn't have to become the doctor. Whereas Capaldi, I really felt a lot of his first season is really the character resisting all of those things that make the doctor the doctor and then eventually he gets the outfit and he starts doing things. Jody you know, did really well but again, it was a slow burn for her run as Doctor.

So, really, she starts to really feel like the Doctor, like, midway through, and then, you know, by the end, it really starts to get cookin and she's starting to play with all of the pieces. But, you know, the Chibnall era is, is one that, Kind of gets cut short and and, you know, for my own taste, that's that was a good thing because it really wasn't firing in a lot of ways.

But shooty, I think is definitely I would say probably my 2nd favorite at this point. And I know that that's probably controversial among other doctoring fans. Especially in the new era, David Tennant is the Tom Baker of the new era. If you like Doctor Who in the new era, you have to like the 10th Doctor.

And I do. David Tennant is a fantastic Doctor. Love what he does with the character. But, you know, Matt Smith is always going to be my Doctor. And Shudi, I think, is a good close second. In terms of being able to do a lot of the things. It's the range that you have to have to play the role. Of being able to be.

You know, as young as you look but. You know, Yoda like age in terms of, you know, you're 900 to maybe 1100, maybe 1300 now. I'm not entirely sure how old he is anymore, or they are, I guess, anymore, because of the way that they've done some of the plot points in the past few seasons. So, that I think Shooty is doing quite well, and I'm looking forward to the next season.

I, I noticed that there was a bit of a controversy at the end of last season, because the, the, the pitch to the Christmas special, Kind of gave us the indication that we're not going to have the same companion and the way the season ended, you know, you kind of get the impression that Ruby's not coming back, but it seems as though she's coming back at least for an episode or so.

So, I do like that. We're going to get back into that relationship. I think they had good chemistry together again. Another 1 of the things that is kind of core. To a doctor succeeding for me again, Capaldi and Jenna Coleman, they just didn't click for me in the beginning. And that was mostly because Jenna Coleman and Matt Smith did.

[00:39:56] DRI: Yeah, 

[00:39:57] AB: so, you know, when you see 2 people really have great on screen chemistry, you take 1 of them away, replace them with someone else. And the chemistry is just not. They're in the same way, or it just doesn't fit the same whole that really, you know, that can hinder a doctor. And I think the same with Jody, they just loaded her up with too many companions.

So there was no core relationship. It was her and the fam and the fam was an interesting twist, but. It kind of detracts from really getting to know who are these two people that are in this box, or who are these three people, I think, are the best trio is, for sure, Matt Smith, Amy, and Rory, because they are, Amy is a great companion, but Amy and Rory together are like the best companion, because you get kind of the hot and cold, you get the yin and yang, you've got someone who is absolutely 100 percent smitten and You know worships the doctor and her husband, who does not, he just doesn't.

Arthur Darvill, the way he plays the character is just fantastic because he, he knows how dangerous the doctor is because the doctor makes people want to do things to impress him. And that's usually the thing that makes him dangerous to other people, which. You know, that's the thing I think I really liked and I think shooty and Ruby have a nice chemistry, which is really kind of one of the things that has helped him as well in his first season is that they're both likable and their their chemistry together.

Makes them likable as a duo. So, it'd be interesting to see how he goes with new companions, though. Because the Doctor always has new companions. 

[00:41:33] DRI: Yeah, we got a bit of a glimpse of that, and we'll talk about that glimpse in our next episode. So, thank you for joining us. It's been, I think, a fantastic season, or at least the core of it was fantastic.

And I'm really looking forward to seeing some more of it. So again, thank you for joining us on this one, Dr. Aidan Buckland. I'll have a few quick notes here at the end, and then we will talk if you can join us next episode, we'll talk about just the Christmas one, seeing as we have a tradition now, you know, once as once as it happens, then, you know, the second time it's tradition.

So we'll, we'll start our tradition here and we'll talk about the 2024 Christmas episode, Joy to the World, in our next episode of The Implausible. 

[00:42:12] AB: Sounds great. Thanks for having me. 

[00:42:13] DRI: Anytime.

Once again, thank you for joining us on the ImplauiPod. I'm your host, Dr. Implausible. You can reach me at drimplausible at implausipod. com, and you can also find the show archives and transcripts of all our previous shows at implausipod. com as well. We'd like to once again thank our guest, Dr. Aiden Buckland, for joining us for this episode and for our next episode as well, which should be available in a day or two where we discuss the 2024 Doctor Who Christmas special.

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