PR of the Daleks

If you despise that throwaway feeling
From disposable fun
Then this is the one
- Martin L. Gore

(You fall through the clouds, damp tentacles clutch at your tingling cheeks.  Abruptly the opaque surroundings clear and you see that you’re plummeting toward a rather solid looking toy village.  The sun’s low in the distance and shadows stretch like inky sneezes towards the broccoli-wood that hedges the edges.  You don’t feel scared though; not until the screech of a dinosaur rudely wakes you.)

Me:   That’s a T. rex, isn’t it?

Him:  Baby T. rex.

Me:  Baby T. rex.  Okay. The exciting news that broke this week about The Power of the Daleks?

Him:  Oh, yeah.  I definitely know about that.

Me:  Okay, what do you know about it?

Him:  I know that you sent me a link, and the link said, “This does not exist.”

Me:  Yeah!  That’s because, in classic BBC ‘License-fee payers enjoyed the chance to watch these episodes for free when they were first broadcast in the Sixties’ Worldwide fashion they, once again, leaked what the secret reveal was.  All by themselves.

Him:  You have really red elbows.

Me:  Have I?  I suppose so…  There’s a two-disc version of The Power of the Daleks coming out.  It’s all been computer-animated, and it’s based on designs by Adrian Salmon and Mar-

Him:  What’s wrong with The Power of the Daleks animation that’s already on YouTube?

Me:  It’s great, isn’t it!  I do like that one.

Him:  I’ve got a soft spot for it.

Me:  That’s the one we watched when we did our previous ‘review’…

Him:  We watched it for about five minutes.  You couldn’t handle it.

Me:  They hadn’t… quite captured Polly’s likeness…

Him:  Ha!  And that one scene with, “Oh yes, maybe this will work. Yes.  Yes, okay, I’ll take this bit and then…   Okay.”  And you’ve just got the little Patrick Troughton drawing standing there -

Me:  Just with the mouth moving.

Him:  - completely still.

Me:  There was that other computer-generated one where he slipped up the wall.  Do you remember that? 

Him:  No…

Me:  It was animated photographs and it was really creepy.  It was a bit like the Annoying Orange.  A little bit Uncanny Valley for my liking.  Soooooo.  There’s been some conjecture that if it’s going to be two discs, then that suggests…  Surely, you could fit six episodes on one disc if it’s just animation and no extras?  There’re rumours that it might contain missing footage, but I don’t think that it’s going to.  Why do you think this might be coming out?

Him:  Why do I think what might be coming out?

Me:  The Power of the Daleks.

Him:  I don’t understand why you think it is.  You sent me a link to-

Me:  Oh no, it is, it is.  The BBC’ve announced it and everything.  It’ll be available to download and you’ll be allowed to own the download after you’ve bought it; it’s coming out on DVD too.

Him:  You’re allowed to own the download?

Me:  The BBC’ve caught onto this new, modern idea.  This… y’know… valueless format.1

Him:  “404 – Daleks not found.”  Really, it’s not…  I don’t know why you think it’s coming out.  I could send you a link, right, having typed in, ‘www.bbc.com’-

Me:  ‘.co.uk’

(Potentially the final appearance of the sea-badger before Hallowe’en 2016…)

Him:  Nah, it’s BBC Worldwide, innit.

Me:  Ha!  If it’d been BBC Miami, I’d have understood.  The whole thing’s probably up there already.  I wonder if Marcel Carmego got his job back?  Anyway… 

Him:  ‘/The_Web_Planet_Episode_7_Through_9’ and saying they’d returned and that they’d been missing…  And we still don’t have the remaining episodes of The Web Planet, but seven through nine have at least returned…  I could’ve sent you that link and said, “Whoah!  Look at this!”  And you’d have clicked on the link and got, “Sorry, this web page doesn’t exist,” and you’d have been-

Me:  Web page!  Very good.  It did come back up at midnight.  I think, basically, what you’re looking at here is…  Because Top Gear’s curled up and died-

Him:  Well, no.  It just isn’t owned by the BBC.

Me:  Yeah, they own Top Gear.

Him:  No, they lost it.

Me:  No, they’ve got Top Gear, because now it’s a spin-off from Friends and-

Him:  Didn’t it run away to Amazon?

Me:  -just lost the ex-Mr Billie Piper…  The presenters ran away to Amazon.

Him:  Did they?

Me:  Yeah.  That and Doctor Who were the BBC’s biggest brands.2  So now Doctor Who has to carry the torch since Top Gear died on its arse-

Him:  What about whichever one of the soap operas the BBC does?

Me:  EastEnders?  Yeah, but you don’t get EastEnders  box-sets.  You watch it once and then – meh.  It’s not got rewatch value at all.

Him:  It does if you’ve not seen it before.

Me:  If you’ve never seen it before, that’s really good.  It’s like never having bought a National Lottery ticket.3  Just kidding.  Obviously, it’s one of the most important breeding soups for new writers in the country. 

Him:  I thought that was Casualty?

Me:  Same sort of thing.

Him:  Casualty’s very important for new writers and new actors.  Everyone in the world has been on Casualty.

Me:  It’s like Rep.  Or The Bill.  It’s a rite of passage you have to pass in order to get your Equity card.

Him:  It really is, though!  But why?

Me:  Well, it depends.  If you haven’t got a mate running the programme then that’s the route you’ve got to take…

Him:  Even obscure voice actors who’ve only been a voice actor in one thing…  They’ve been in Casualty.

Me:  Of course.  Have you not…  I’ve been in Casualty, when’re you going to be in Casualty?  Have they not got in touch with you yet?  Everyone’s in Casualty.  Everyone in the country.

Him:  Casualty’s like jury duty.

Me:  Ha!

Him:  They send you a letter through and you have to be on Casualty, otherwise you can go to prison.

Me:  Yeah.  It’s a bit like jury duty or leader of the Labour Party.4

Him:  Is Casualty any good?

(Okay, maybe I was a bit hasty with my earlier sea badger prediction…  I did type ‘potentially’.)

Me:  So, anyway…  Paterson Joseph was great.

Him:  Ah!  You’ve got a signed thing from him in Casualty.

Me:  I have.  He played Mark Grace.

Him:  But was he in Casualty for more than one episode? 

Me:  He was.  He was a regular.  I think the reason the BBC’re doing it is because they know they’ve got around twenty-thousand… people… who will shell out for something that costs about 50p to make.

Him:  It costs more than 50p to animate it.

Me:  I meant to manufacture the physical DVD!

Him:  Have you ever manufactured a DVD?

Me:  No.  CDs though…  Once you’re producing a certain amount it gets cheaper with each one.  It’s the initial mastering that costs…  There’s no restoration required.  If the BBC’ve come up with the money in order to do the animation then…  What this one is, really, is something that’s just being sold-

Him:  Last week, I specifically remember you telling me that they were never going to release any more DVDs.  I said, “No, no.  They can still make money off them.”  And you were like, “No!  They’ve said they won’t!  And they never will again!”  And then, not a week later, not even a week later, you’re like, “HRRRR!  THEY’RE RELEASING NEW DVDs!”

Me:  I reckon they’ve got the Hut bugged.

Him:  Then, why even record this?  The BBC’ll put it up.

Me:  That’s true.

Him:  Although, to be honest, no-one’ll hear what I’m saying…  Just your replies…

Me:  Ha!  Let’s be fair, the reason the BBC’re doing this one is because it’s a regeneration story and it’s got Daleks in it.  Also, it’s a classic and they can really push it.

Him:  It’s not really a regeneration story.  Are regeneration stories spread across both stories?  I mean, that makes the TV Movie a regeneration story squared.

Me:  It’s a regeneration story in the same sense that Castrovalva is…  And remember, William Hartnell does appear in it.

Him:  How much d’you think he got paid for that appearance?

Me:  Nothing.  Almost certainly.  Or, very little.  Going on the fact that Bret Vyon vanished off the floor, ensuring Nicholas Courtney wouldn’t get an appearance fee, which was a bit harsh.

Him:  He did come back, I think.  Was he not an extra in one of the later stories?

Me:  I think so, yeah.  He turned up in something, outside a castle…  

Him:  Was he in Casualty?

Me:  He must’ve been.  Colin Baker was.  He had glowing green eyes.

Him:  Was he in Casualty for a long time, or just the one episode?

Me:  He was one of the main characters-

Him:  Really?

Me:  Yeah.  He was the monster that lived in the hospital’s basement…  Or, am I confusing that with something by Lars Von Trier?  So, I think that if this is a success, we’ll probably get The Evil of the Daleks, which would explain the computer-generated Dalek Queen that was in that Doctor Who Adventures all that time ago…

Him:  I don’t think they’ll ever explain that.  Also, that must’ve been years ago.

Me:  It takes a long time to do this stuff.

Him:  It doesn’t take that long.

Me:  It takes a while.

Him:  It doesn’t take that long.

Me:  Alright.  Probably-

Him:  And, if they had a shot of it, then it means they’d probably already done it…

Me:  Could just be a design.  It depends on how this stuff sells.  If The Power of the Daleks sells really well, then it could open the rest of the stories for the DVD market.  If they can flog that one, then they can get away with milking the fans to buy the rest.  Having said that, the BBC’re going to have to start putting in some extra features.  It’s not like there’s any restoration that’s been paid for.  It’d put an end to the Omnirumour as well.

Him:  The ‘Omnirumour’?

Me:  Yeah, that’s the name for the rumour that all the missing episodes’ve been returned and they’re just sitting-

Him:  In the BBC Canteen?

Me:  Unable to escape.

Him:  You would get pretty sick of watching Feast of Steven on repeat.

Me:  Ha! 

Him:  It’s a bit upsetting because that one, it cannot return.

Me:  No.

Him:  Because the BBC were wiping it as they broadc-

(Tape runs out.)

1.  A chat we’ll have another time.

2.  Oddly enough, at the time of typing it’s just been announced that Auntie’s misplaced The Great British Bake Off as well, which really does put a lot of pressure on Doctor Who, a show that’s – basically – not even on this year.

Leaving aside the political scourging the BBC’s currently undergoing, some of it self-induced, it’s probably worth pointing out a few things that might be going on here.  First off, The Power of the Daleks isn’t the step backward some fans might think.  After Spearhead From Space and The Enemy Within, there’s no Classic series stories that’re genuinely suitable for BluRay treatment.  (BluRay’s not a terrific format either, it’s nowhere near the huge jump in quality between VHS and DVD for a start.  It arrived to the party slightly too late as well, with digital media already starting to infect the wider industry.  Even punishing DVD owners by only sticking extras on BluRay didn’t work.  After all, who wanted to buy a new player and TV to see what got chopped out of Prometheus?) 

The range of Doctor Who DVDs is very, very good indeed.  There are a few bad decisions – inverted Terreliptils, ‘improving’ rather than enhancing and a tendency to self-indulgent cronyism5 being the least-defensible – but the love that went into producing them really shines through.  The most impressive thing about the collection however, is also the T. rex everyone’s ignoring: the VAM.

With a few notable exceptions that we’ll get to, the Classic Doctor Who range contains a staggering amount of historical information about one of the most important1 TV shows ever made.  But there are gaps, and, despite what Auntie and other people may argue, those omissions are very, very hard to defend. 

There’s a definite air of The Tripods about TV Professionals Who Happen To Be Doctor Who Fans.  The Uncapped are cattle fit for milking and mocking and not much else.  Occasionally, one of these ‘Milkable Barkers’ will win a place at the side of the Chosen.  That these happy few seem to always hail from Arslikhan is just one of those things.  Like Derren Brown tossing ten heads in a row.  Or ‘needing’ a zombie to provide a jump-scare climax to a 28 Days Later homage that makes Pebble Mill’s Cyberman look like a herald of the Apocalypse.1 

Two Troughtons returned.  No extras.  Those days’re done.  Whatever the official reasons for vanilla releases with no accompanying documentaries, they’re bollocks.  Truly.  Not just a poor show, there’s no excuse.  There wasn’t at the time, and there isn’t now.  I’m sure that BBC ‘License-fee payers enjoyed the chance to watch these episodes for free when they were first broadcast in the Sixties’ Worldwide will disagree – these are the folk who gave us the Regeneration and Fourth Doctor boxsets after all – but it’s an attitude that’s smug and arrogant and, well, rather entitled.  The world’s changed – it might not even have very long left – so denigrating your customers while they still exist, should probably not be company policy.  (You might want to leave the knitting patterns alone too.)

In much the same way that record companies totally misunderstood how mp3 worked and criminalised it as a format (remember then, kids?), the BBC need to be very careful here.  It’s a no-brainer that The Evil of the Daleks and then Mission to the Unknown/The Daleks’ Master Plan are the next in line for production.  Both (yeah, yeah) stories have surviving episodes, which minimises the need for animated episodes, and both feature Daleks – which, let’s be fair – and Aaru never lie - are the main draw after the incumbent.  The Daleks’ll be back next year – AsBill’s intro presumably fulfilling the contractual obligations for 2016, we’ll see – so that’d be the time to relaunch them.  Give Mr Chibnall’s run a boost/fighting chance/Open-Airing (delete according to bias).

The BBC then have the opportunity to flog a box-set containing every Dalek story.  The DVD market-door’s closing, but folk out there might be tempted.  A download bundle’s one thing6, but A Complete Dalek Story Box-Set You Can Drive?  “Hey!  This cash prints itself!”7

Auntie’s not got long.  The twenty thousand (cit. needed) fanfolk she’s been exploiting won’t wait around forever.  There’re good quality reconstructions in the wild, complete with artwork that matches her own design better than she’s always managed.  DVDs are already a desktop-publishing market, and her market knows the production costs.8

If, y’know, being all speculative, the Dalek stories sell, then…  Well, within a limited timeframe…  There’s the potential for half-a-century’s double-dipping.  Forget Dalek and Cybermen and Doctor- themed box-sets, forget even the multiple season box-sets…

You see where I’m going?

The BBC’re currently running nostalgic reanimations of things they killed with bricks.  It’s desperate and sweaty, but understandable.  Imagine.  Just imagine.  A complete Doctor Who Collection box-set.  It’s Auntie’s only reliable brand.9  The potential’s incredible – for Humanity if nothing else.  Y’know, if Auntie doesn’t go full-Dodgson.10

3.  Other opinions are available.

4.  Triple-bluff for balance there.

5.  Still, that’s showbiz.1

6.  It’s, let’s be fair, the same as taping an album for a friend/reading a magazine in Smiths/finding a VHS in the street, and being charged full-price for the experience .1

7.  For Kroll’s sake, don’t throw in a ring modulator though.  If the peasants and livestock see behind that particular curtain, the outcry’ll be horrific.  Thankfully, Equity don’t seem to care. 

8.  If there’s an actual proper reason that The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear cost so much to bring back to life there was nothing left in the budget for VAM, then the BBC shouldn’t shy from explaining what that reason was – when they can.  Barring the Destruction of Humanity, I can see this story running for a while yet.

9.  BC.

10.  She will, just you wait.  I’ve presented a potential business model for the brand11 that emphasises integrity and longevity in the long-term (I doubt I’m the first).  This isn’t a Barrowmenesque rejection of the facts.  Torchwood: the ship that sank itself.  Hopefully Class’ll do better.  After all, it only exists to keep BBC 3 viable, and surely it can’t get that wrong…

11.  Ych y fi

Deep Breath (live)

One measures a circle beginning anywhere.

- Charles Fort

or

Don’t ruin it. 

– Zoë Ball

Me:  So, that was Deep Breath.  Did it feel like ages since we’d last seen any new Doctor Who to you?

Him:  Yeah.

Me:  We watched all the World Tour video recaps in preparation before we left for the cinema – and the countdowns too – we watched those all in one go.  Did that help build up your enthusiasm?

Him:  No.

Me:  Ha!  And we watched…  Let’s see…  We watched quite a bit.  We watched The Name of the Doctor, The Night of the Doctor-

Him:  Which one’s Night of the Doctor?

Me:  It’s the one that doesn’t count.

Him:  Yes, we did watch Night of the Doctor.  There are too many ‘Of the Doctor’s to keep track of.  Night of the Living Doctor being one of them.

Me:  And then we watched Dawn of the Doctor, Day of the Doctor-

Him:  I’ve already made that joke!

Me:  City of the Living Doctor, Land of the Doctor, Diary of the Doctor and Survival of the Doctor, which was rubbish.  Ummm…  Simon Pegg – who didn’t play the Master was-  Oh!  That reminds me.  Missy!

Pause.

Him:  Yeah?

Me:  Who d’you think Missy is?

Him:  I’m not sure that…  I care at this moment in time.  But, I’m sure that Steven Moffat will make us care.

Me:  I think so.

Him:  She’ll probably be him as a child.

Me:  Ha!  Well, there’s rumblings about River Song and, “It’s short for ‘Mistress’.”  So maybe we could be looking at a female Master, which I think’d be quite good.  Michelle Gomez is very good in the part from what we’ve seen.  I had a bit of a thought that I’ve not seen mentioned anywhere else yet.

Him:  Okay.

Me:  Could be Miss Evangelista.  Because she’s kind of uploaded to heaven.

Him:  Yeah, true.

Me:  And then that could tie in with River Song.  We’ll have to wait and see what happens.  I’m quite excited by the whole thing.1  Alright, what did you think of the Paternoster Gang in Deep Breath?

Him:  Well, they’re in everything.

Me:  Do you think they should have a spin-off series?

Him:  I think if they had a spin-off series then Steven Moffat would write it and maybe just do that forever. 

Me:  It’d give him something to do later on, wouldn’t it?  I think they’re worth a series.  I’m going to hide my ‘review’ in the footnotes, because a lot of what I want to say is a little bit different to, possibly, what our regular readers might be expecting.

Him:  Did you think it was terrible?  You did!  You thought it was terrible, didn’t you?

Me:  You’ll have to keep reading to find out.

Him:  I want to know now.

Pause.

Me:  I’ve renamed the ages on the psychoGEOLOGY page and that should give anyone who’s really that interested an idea of what I thought about it.  The Matt Smith era is now the Second Silver Age-

Him:  You should’ve left it as the Second Golden Age and made this the ‘Capaldage’.

Me:  Ha!  I should’ve!  Do you think they spent too much time on him being old?

Him:  Maybe.

Me:  It’s talked about a lot within the episode, which is really weird because it’s not like Clara’s unaware of regeneration seeing as she’s sat in his regeneration stream and counted them.

Him:  True.

Me:  So, that seemed a little bit odd.  And then-

Him:  And after she’s seen Colin Baker, she should really be sure that he can transform into anything.

Me:  Oh!  Right.  We saw it in the top floor of a car park.  It was massive-

Him:  It was actually the second floor of a car park.

Me:  Alright then.  It was pretty big.  It took up the whole of the floor by the feel of it.

Him:  Well, the second floor’s got very few screens just because that one is so big.

Me:  That’s probably why.  It hadn’t sold out, even though it was supposed to-

Him:  I think some people just didn’t show up.3

Me:  When we got there the foyer was packed.  I haven’t seen this before – there was a Dalek usher checking tickets and things.  We’d only just flown in from the Arctic-  I noticed members of Glasgow Who hanging around there.  There’s a bit of link with Glasgow Who and Peter Capaldi and the time I ‘met’ Peter Capaldi, so I’ll-

Him:  It was all in Glasgow.

Me:  It was.  I’ll put a link here to that one. 

Him:  That’s nice.

Me:  Extra features.  We had a few.

Him:  A total of eighteen minutes of bonus material.

Me:  And what was the first one of those?

Him:  I’ll leave that to you to explain.

Me:  As before, when we saw The Day of the Doctor – but not, oddly enough, when we saw Monty Python (Mostly) Live – there was a brief introduction from Strax.  He was explaining the whole process of regeneration for anyone who’d casually, accidentally spent a load of money buying a ticket to go and see something that they could’ve watched at home for free.  I don’t know how many new viewers the BBC were expecting to pick up in however many cinemas it was being broadcast in- 

Him:  You loved the introduction. 

Me:  I thought it was great.  I hope Steven Moffat wrote that.  I’ll be a bit disappointed if it turns out to be written by someone else and I’m praising them simply because I didn’t see a credit for it.  I’ve got bias to maintain here.  I thought it was really good.  Some of it was a little bit forced.  To be honest, that bit had – as with the majority of extra Who material – it’s the Murray Gold music that sounds really forced.  It didn’t match the action.  Someone’s just pressed play at the start of the scene and left the track in there.  It’s like temp music you’d find on a workprint or something, it’s just been left in as an approximation that really doesn’t add to it.  They’d be better leaving it off or writing something new.  But I’m going to talk about Murray Gold properly in the ‘review’. 

Him:  You love him. 

Me:  I though the way Strax broke down all the different regenerations was terrific.  The misunderstanding for comic effect worked well throughout.  It was a treat hearing that many people laugh- 

Him:  People tend to laugh when things are funny. 

Me:  So, who did we see?  There was a guy dressed up as the Fifth Doctor. 

Him:  Yep.  There was another guy dressed up as Peter Davison. 

Me:  Ha!  There were a couple of people dressed up as the Fourth Doctor.  Quite a few bow ties and fezzes, the odd Mohican – I can’t remember which Doctor that was, probably one we haven’t had yet.  So, that was the first thing.  Then we had the main show…  The new titles.  Do you like them? 

Him:  No.  But, I’m never a fan of them.  The music’s alright, it’s just so… bizarre.

Me:  I’m going to say that I think the music’s a vast improvement on the tosh that we’ve had to put up with for the last few years.  Having said that, there was one variation of the Tennant theme that must’ve gone a bit Delaware and escaped…  It sounded really powerful and…  I liked it for a moment.  That was a while back.  Okay, what did you think of the Half-Face Man?  Did you think they were scary? 

Him:  Who’s ‘they’? 

Me:  All the clockwork lot. 

Him:  There’s something about things that don’t move the way they should that I don’t like. 

Me:  That’s what they’re going for.  The movement was really good and the sounds- 

Pause. 

Me:  Did you notice London was invaded by a dinosaur? 

Him:  Yeah, I was there. 

Me:  Pretty good dinosaur effect.  In London.  Jon Pertwee reference? 

Him:  No.4 

Me:  The whole ‘regeneration episode’ thing, did you think Peter Capaldi did it well?  All the disorientation-while-your-brain’s-rebooting-and-all-that. 

Him:  Yeah.

Me:  There’s a couple of things that I want to come back to that tie-in with the extra bit at the end.  After the episode had finished, we had a rebooted Doctor Who Confidential with the wrong name – more DVD extra stuff.  It makes sense.  There’s been so much time and energy invested that there should be makings-of, there really should. 

Him:  “Because that’s how you ruin the experience.” 

Me:   Yeah.  It was a bit of a pain having to sit through it in the cinema without the option of going straight to the Q and A.  It’s just an electronic press kit really, VAM to be stuck on the end of a DVD, or the Red Button, as a lightweight distraction.5  The presenter was too enthusiastic as well, like being bludgeoned by a puppy that’s really, really missed you.  It’d be nice for the BBC to tone that sort of thing down.  It feels as though the whole series has slowed down going on- 

Him:  That’s because the episode was longer. 

Me:  They slowed down the scenes to give them a chance to breath, is that what you mean?  And no, I didn’t intend the pun. 

Him:  Yeah. 

Me:  The second-  No, the third piece of additional exclusive bonus material- 

Him:  Oh yeah. 

Me:  -was the Q and A session between Zoe Ball, Steven Moffat, Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman.  Interestingly, the only person who made a mistake and looked mortified-  Did you notice it?  Peter Capaldi got Nicholas Courtney’s name wrong and made it sound like Nick Briggs had passed on.  I felt really bad for him.  The pressure must’ve been immense and after the tour and the hype frenzy, his head must be whirling. 

Him:  Yeah. 

Me:  You could tell that wasn’t just-  Not like the Hound's gaffe.

Him:  Well, that wasn’t intentional either. 

Me:  No, but there’d be more sympathy from me if the Hound hadn’t been so rude about fans. 

Him:  You’re going to cut this bit out, aren’t you? 

Me:  Some of it.  Steven Moffat came across brilliantly.  In my opinion.  He was self-deprecating and…  I think we’ve been giving him far too hard a ride.  Genuinely.  He’s got an impossible job.  Did you think the balance was right between the humour and the- 

Him:  It was a lot funnier with Peter Capaldi than it was with Matt Smith, oddly enough.  Maybe that’s because it’s the first episode with him and every single joke in the series’ll have been pushed into there and the rest of it’ll be really dull and bland. 

Me:  Or it’ll just get grimmer and grimmer. 

Him:  Uh-huh. 

Me:   Don’t worry, Mark Gatiss has written one, so I’m sure that they’ll be jokes a’plenty. 

Him:  You loved The Crimson Horror. 

Me:   I thought The Crimson ‘orror was really good.  The best thing Gatiss has written for the series.  That’s because it’s one that really plays to his strengths. 

Him:  What are his strengths? 

Me:  Writing stuff that sounds like League of Gentleman.  Pastiche.  Sketches.  Grotesques.  Or Horror Documentaries.  We sort of started talking about Peter Capaldi, so let’s keep going.  He said the moment you see how he’s going to play the Doctor is the very final scene with him in it, the phonecall.  What did you think of that scene?  Were you expecting anything like that?

Him:  It’s Steven Moffat.  If you’re expecting something then he’s not going to do it. 

Me:  Alright.  That’s good.  Peter Capaldi’s been waiting all his life to do this.  What about Jenna Coleman as Clara?  It’s a different companion dynamic now to the way that it was with Matt Smith.  The whole, “I’m not your boyfriend,” draws a line under… something.  I’ve seen comments from people who feel that the phone-call scene was put in to please fangirls, but that seems like a rum way of looking at it.  I think it’s there to ease the transition across- 

Him:  “Yes!  They’re gone.” 

Me:  That was the reaction of fans who’re approaching it- I read some terrible things in a comments section on [redacted on lawyer’s advice] that really shocked me.  It doesn’t say much about the state of fandom- 

Him:   Are you going to tell me what these things were? 

Me:   No. 

Him:  You can leave it out of the actual- 

Me:  I’ll tell you later.  Let’s wrap up then.  Do you think there should be more Doctor Who in the cinema? 

Him:  It seemed a bit random to put it in the cinema. 

Me:  Why’d they do it? 

Him:  To hype it up again, since it’s been several years since we last had a Doctor Who episode. 

Me:  Ha! 

Him:  This year we’re only getting two and then in three years time we’ll get the next two. 

Me:   Nah.  It’s a full run of twelve, all in one go.  No breaks. 

Him:  Well, that’s familiar.  Like years and years ago. 

Me:  Are you looking forward to the rest of the series? 

Him:  Are you? 

Me:   Yeah, I am.  Very much.  Do you think he’s going to be a good Doctor? 

Him:  Yeah. 

Me:   Me too.  Alright, I’ll stick my review under this and we should probably just make barnyard noises for a while. 

Him:  “MOOO!” 

Me:  “MAN YAK!”  Oh!  One thing I almost forgot to point out...1

1.  Me:  So, when the Doctor and Clara descend into the pit under Mancini’s, and they’re surrounded by all the clockwork droids – ‘cause it’s the sequel to The Girl in the Fireplace, of course.  I thought this was a much better episode than The Girl in the Fireplace, because I’m one of the few people who think that one’s quite hokey and not really very good at all…  I’ll just put that in there. 

Him:  You loved it when you first saw it.  As opposed to Tooth and Claw, which you hated. 

Me:  You’re allowed to change your mind about things. 

Him:  But that’s such a weird change of mind. 

Me:  Okay, I now think The Girl in the Fireplace is horrendously over-rated, in much the same way that I think Vincent and the Doctor is actually a dangerously misjudged piece of television and one of the worst things that’s been shown as part of the series.  But that’s just my opinion. 

Him:  “And everyone else should think that.”2 

Me:  Not at all, people should- 

Him:  “No-one should think that.”

Me:  Ha!  People should reach their own conclusions about these things.  I’m just saying how I see things and not telling people how to think.  Now then, if you look in the Mancini basement alcoves you’ll notice that one of the clockwork droids looks an awful lot like it should be in The Mind Robber.  Now, I wonder whether or not, maybe Missy is the Master.  "But probably not the one you were expecting." 

Pause. 

Him:  Okay… 

Me:  Because the Master first appeared – well, apart from The Space Museum, where the Doctor decided he was the Master.  And a Dalek. – The Master first appeared in The Mind Robber, as a character who’d later crop up in Promethea.  In fact, this ties in nicely with stuff that I’ve been saying about the Doctor being a fictional construct- 

Him:  Yawn.

Me:  -and whether or not…  Well, it’s my theory about The Chase, which I should probably reveal at some point soon, just in case it turns out that’s what’s going on in the next series.  It’s the World of Fiction.  Now, it’s not impossible that what we’re seeing here is that we’re in the World of Fiction. 

Pause. 

Him:   Yeees… 

Me:  And why not?  The Doctor is – like I’ve said before – real. How important are the faces we wear?  Can we trust them?  Let’s reflect upon reflections – we’ve seen a mirror lie before after all.

Pause. 

Me:  That’s for another day.  I’ll have to explain why The Chase is one of the greatest pieces of- 

Him:  Yeah, because you still won’t say. 

Me:  No.  Although I’ve hinted at it a few times.  Okay.  Thanks for playing.6

2.  Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed there’re a few people in fandom – not all of them on forums - who seem to believe this, loudly, which is a shame.

3.   As part of the obligatory Car Park Attendant’s speech – “Exits are located here, here and there.  In the event of a fire, it’s the end.” etc. – whoever was sitting in seat K9 was offered complimentary buckets of popcorn and carbonated sugar fluid.  The seat was unoccupied. 

4.  Yeah, it was, and it was one of lots.  I’m hesitant about using the term ‘kisses to the past’ for several reasons, most of them being that the obvious references have vastly annoyed a surprising amount of fans (if the internet’s to be believed) whilst the ones they missed didn’t bug ‘em at all.  We’ll get back to The Mind Robber earlier.1 

5.  Like Night of the Doctor.

6.  Deep Breath ‘review’.  Apart from the fact that every department, including music, has – finally - given itself a kick up the backside/moved up a gear, see above for full details.