Talia Franks: Hello and welcome to the Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Podcast! 

Lucia Kelly: I’m Lucia Kelly, expert at applied analysis and lupine wavelength haemovariform. 

Talia Franks: And I’m Talia Franks, media critic, fanfic enthusiast, and it’s good to be a lunatic. 

Lucia Kelly: And we’re here today to talk about Tooth and Claw, the second episode of Series Two of Doctor Who. 

Talia Franks: Tooth and Claw aired on April 22nd, 2006. It was written by Russell T Davies and directed by Euros Lyn. 

Lucia Kelly: Reminder that time isn’t a straight line. It can twist into any shape as such, this is a fully spoiled podcast. We might bring things in from later in the show, the comics, the books, the audio dramas, or even fan theories and articles. 

Talia Franks: With that out of the way, there’s a lot of unfinished business in this house, so let’s get in the TARDIS! 

(Transition wobbles) 

Lucia Kelly: Okay. So the first thing I want to point out, because I did look up the Wikipedia page for this, just for the plot summary. The plot summary on Wikipedia does not mention the highly controversial Kung Fu monk scene that actually opens this episode, and I’m like “Hmm … that’s a choice.”

Talia Franks: Yeah.

Lucia Kelly: Listen, I love this episode. It’s a bit of a mess.

Talia Franks: Yeah. This episode is a bit of a mess, and I will say, full disclosure, this is the second time we are recording this episode because the first time we recorded this episode, I had a less than generous take on Tooth and Claw. And it’s not that I hate this episode. It’s not that it’s a terrible episode. It’s that I have to be in a certain mood to watch it.

Talia Franks: There’s a bit of a je ne sais quoi about this episode that makes it, sometimes I love it, sometimes it makes me want to pull my hair out. I call it the Steven Moffat effect.

Lucia Kelly: Which is remarkable because he didn’t even write this one.

Talia Franks: I know he didn’t write this one, Russel T Davies wrote this one, but this episode reminds me of Steven Moffat in a way I can’t really explain.

Lucia Kelly: The racism definitely jumps out, like a lot, in a way that’s just like mmm—like not—we’re—we’re not even talking about the monks here, we’re like, like—the way, Queen Victoria is like, “Oh yeah, also I’m the head of an Empire and the Empress of India,” and that’s just completely, not only glossed over, but kind of like, “Ooh, she’s the Empress of India.” I’m like, “No.”

Talia Franks: Yeah. And I guess it’s kind of funny that I call it the Steven Moffat effect. I think it’s because I hate Moffat’s era so much that I name it after him.

Talia Franks: And it’s something that we were talking about actually in our Eve of the Daleks episode, one of the things that we were talking about is that people tend to look at RTD with Rose colored glasses, and one of the things that is good about looking back at his older season is that we can examine the ways in which he actually made a lot of not great moves.

Talia Franks: He made a lot of mistakes that I feel people forget about. And I think one of the interesting things about when we think of Chibnall’s era and how it has so many glaring errors when it comes to how it portrays race, how it portrays different kinds of marginalization.

Talia Franks: Part of the reason it’s so obvious is because Chibnall is making an obvious effort, and in many ways he has failed in certain places, but because the racism and some of the forms of marginalization in RTD’s era, and later on in Moffat’s era, are so casual and so unexamined they fly beneath the surface.

Talia Franks: It’s easy to not notice for a lot of people and because it’s easy to not notice people may think that this is a new problem for Doctor Who, when in fact it’s always been a problem. Like, Victoria and her portrayal, very racist, very classist.

Talia Franks: Also the monk Kung Fu scene, like, that is not okay at all.

Lucia Kelly: There is no possible explanation for how that would even occur. You literally just wanted to do a Kung Fu scene, but you set it in Scotland. Like, ah.

Lucia Kelly: And speaking of Scotland and unexamined biases, I find it so fascinating, in the midst of all this, you know, racism, there’s also weird nationalism undercurrents? Because this is the one episode where David Tennant gets to use his natural accent, right?

Lucia Kelly: Like the fact that Christopher Eccleston had to fight, fight to use his natural accent in the first season, and that was a huge thing, because there’s a huge issue with having a person in power in a popular TV show having a, not, you know, RP English accent, across the board in English media, but especially with the BBC, and then to just go right back and say, like—like, we could have had a Scottish Doctor from season two and that didn’t happen.

Talia Franks: Yeah. And honestly, that’s part of why I love Capaldi’s Doctor so much because he did get to use his accent.

Lucia Kelly: Right?

Talia Franks: Why I like Whitaker’s Doctor so much because she does get to use her accent. I just love that for them so much, and it makes me so sad that Tennant doesn’t get to use his accent, and like, Tennant gets to use his accent so infrequently that I am constantly forgetting—I’m constantly, constantly forgetting that he even has one! I have to make a cognitive effort to remember that he has a Scottish accent because he—

Lucia Kelly: And that is also an erasure of identity, right?

Lucia Kelly: It’s a very specific to this region of the world, in that, like, in the very particular politics of England versus Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, but it’s also a worldwide issue as well.

Lucia Kelly: It’s something that I always notice and I always take a lot of ire with, because it’s something that Australian actors have to deal with all the time, because of the way that the film industry works and complications with all sorts of stuff that I don’t need to get into, but basically the end of the line is that most Australian actors that make it big, do so by going over to America, and the only way that they usually get jobs, unless they’re being a joke Australian character, is to put on an American accent. You will not get work otherwise, and it’s just bullshit and I hate it, and the world is wide and varied and diverse in all kinds of multiple ways, and people should be allowed to use their natural accent for whatever job they want.

Talia Franks: Yeah. The amount of actors who I’ve, to my surprise, realized are British or Australian, because they’ve been acting in American projects.

Talia Franks: I’m like, “Wow,” because it’s just not something that is noticeable to Americans, because it’s not something that’s advertised, it’s something that I’ve had to make an effort to learn, and because I don’t really pay attention to media, because I don’t usually care about movies or TV very much, outside of Doctor Who? I love Doctor Who, and I really like Marvel, but outside of Doctor Who and Marvel, I don’t really watch media very often.

Talia Franks: It’s like, Dr. Who Marvel, BBC Merlin and Buffy-verse. That’s basically the TV that I watch. I don’t pay attention to actors. Whenever I learn information about an actor, it’s almost always involuntary. So like, it’ll pop into my frame of view, and I’ll be like, “I didn’t even know that.”

Lucia Kelly: As the film nerd between us, uh, it happens a lot. As someone who does pay attention to that kind of stuff, who looks up cast members, who tries to read every bit of trivia I can and watches a—reasonable—a not reasonable amount of movies and TV, once you start noticing it, you can’t stop noticing it. It’s wild.

Lucia Kelly: And I just want to ask all of our American listeners: Hello. I love you. Hi. You can understand me, right? You can understand Talia. You can understand me. We’ve been talking about this for over a season now, you can understand an Australian accent. It’s possible. Let us use our accent!

Talia Franks: Yeah, no, it’s kind of funny. I call myself a media critic at the beginning of every episode, but mostly what I mean by that is that—

Lucia Kelly: You’re a fanfic critic (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: No, I’m a fanfic critic, but also, I read a lot of books. Most of the media that I critique is literature.

Talia Franks: I read a lot of books and I watch specific TV shows. But it’s mostly books. I read books, I review books. But I don’t watch things.

Lucia Kelly: We have gotten off topic.

(Transition wobbles)

Lucia Kelly: So, The Doctor introduces himself as, it’s actually really cute, he introduces himself as James McKinnon, which was a companion of the second Doctor. He was a Scottish Piper from the 18th century. So the real James McKinnon could absolutely be wandering around the hillsides, but that’s that was just a little cute moment.

Lucia Kelly: But they all had over to the Torchwood Estate, spooky, spooky. Very cool. Oh my gosh. Is that a plot thread? Possibly. And cool things are happening. Spooky things are happening. The monks have stolen everyone.

Talia Franks: Okay. I want to just address something that I’ve noticed is a pattern in this season and it’s the pattern of The Doctor and Rose getting split up.

Lucia Kelly: Right? It’s weird. And I mean, this was a problem with Rose in season one as well. It’s wild that Rose is seen as the ultimate companion, the companion that The Doctor fell in love with, right? Like OTP, whatever. They are so rarely written as a team. They’re are so rarely written together.

Lucia Kelly: They’re so rarely written as working together or like, I was noticing just how like all of their banter—You’re right. You’re absolutely right. It’s very Moffatesque in this, like, I dunno, again in Eve of the Daleks, we—I had a bit of a rant about American romcoms and like, it’s giving me that energy of like, do you actually like each other? I get that it’s meant to be playful, but like, I don’t know. I wasn’t super feeling it. Also the “are you amused?” joke gets tired really, really quickly. I’m done. (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: Oh my gods, yeah, I get so tired by that joke. And I feel like—Okay, so I feel like it’s a trait of companions that they have to get separated from The Doctor in order to have their autonomy, be the hero of their own story, do their own thing. Think about how in season three, there’s that big example of Martha goes wandering the earth on her own.

Talia Franks: It’s not unusual for The Doctor and a companion to be split up and work separately to solve a problem. The thing that I find interesting about the way that The Doctor and Rose are split up is that—I guess I’m finding it hard to articulate. Rose is an interesting dichotomy for me because she’s, on the one hand, very independent, but on the other hand, very dependent and tied to The Doctor in a way that feels toxic to me?

Lucia Kelly: Hmm. Yeah. It’s, you know, it’s the strong female character thing, right? Women are allowed to be strong and independent and compassionate and empathetic and whatever, and, write their own story and do whatever but we also have to always remember that, make no mistake, they are attached to a man, right? And that in the end, it’s all about love for the man. It’s really insidious how the idea of the strong female character was pitched, as this step towards feminism and written for women and that’s why it’s a trope, right? That’s why it’s “strong female character” and not just a strong female character, is that it’s a trope and it’s a trope that specifically feeds straight back into patriarchal thinking. It gives the illusion of independence and power while really tying you closer to the patriarchy, and specifically the idea of white feminism that is not intersectional.

Talia Franks: Yeah, and I also think the thing about Rose and Ten, that bothers me about this episode and the reason that again, sometimes I love it and sometimes I hate it, is because the episode is simultaneously dark and lighthearted, because it’s such a dark episode. It’s so grim, so many people die. It’s an episode that’s steeped in death and in empire and in racism.

Talia Franks: And yet The Doctor and Rose are making jokes the whole time, and then Victoria has that moment at the end, where she says, “I know that you consort with stars and magic and think it fun, but your world is steeped in terror and blasphemy and death. And I will not allow it. (Lucia mhmms in agreement) You will leave these shores and you will reflect, I hope, on how you came to stray so far from all that is good and how much longer you may survive this terrible life. Now leave my world and never return.” And that’s a really ominous warning that ultimately means nothing because they just laugh it off. They just go.

Lucia Kelly: But I don’t think it does mean nothing though, because I think, I mean, it’s the Torchwood estate, right? Like, this is the establishment of Torchwood. I would say that, that line and specifically tying it to Queen Victoria, who then starts Torchwood, is kicking off the foreshadowing for Doomsday. Throughout the whole of season two, we are reminded again, and again, and again, of this idea that like Rose wants to stay with The Doctor forever, and like, literally everything is saying like, it’s not going to happen. Literally the whole universe at every turn is like, “Prepare yourself for heartbreak, because that’s not possible. It’s not going to happen. Something’s going to break. Something’s going to wreck this and you guys aren’t taking it seriously.”

Lucia Kelly: Like, I think that’s actually very, very deliberate.

Talia Franks: I guess what I mean by when I say it means nothing, it doesn’t mean nothing in the sense that there’s no ultimate consequences for it. I mean that Rose and The Doctor ignore the warning and they ignore the consequences that are coming for them and they just keep pushing forward regardless, and I feel like—like season two, for me, the reason I dislike it so much is because there’s such a weird imbalance of high stakes and this sort of jokester quality that feels so dissonant, because you’re right, Rose and The Doctor almost never take anything seriously. There’s constantly all of these warnings and they’re just constantly ignoring them.

Talia Franks: And I think the core of why it bothers me, is because what it’s really about is about privilege, and it’s about the fact that Rose and The Doctor are just tearing through the universe, taking advantage of their privilege and not exactly wrecking everything they touch because they do save the world in many cases, but in many places where they leave things, isn’t good. If you think about it, when they leave Tooth and Claw, the Torchwood estate is devastated. All these people are dead. When they leave Love and Monsters, that whole fun little group of friends is dead. When they leave New Earth, there’s that whole new group of humans, but all the nuns are gone. Girl in the Fireplace, Rynette has been abandoned. Rise of the Cybermen, the Cybermen end up coming back and Doomsday is the consequences.

Talia Franks: So much of where they leave isn’t necessarily worse for them being there, but it isn’t necessarily better. And I think, what really stresses me—and also Idiot’s Lantern, which we’ll get there.

Lucia Kelly: We’ll get there.

Talia Franks: We’ll get there, but—

Lucia Kelly: Oh my God. Well see that’s what bothers me about how Rose is so often held up as the working class hero?

Lucia Kelly: And I’m like, in what universe? Cause she’s not written that way, do you know what I mean? Like, yes, there are all these jokes about how Rose wants everyone to join a union and she’s always asking after everyone, no, the working class hero companion that you’re thinking of is Donna Noble.

Lucia Kelly: She’s the working class hero. Rose is what happens when a person who is not from the background of the character they’re writing is trying to write something and just writes them as themself. Rose does not read as working class. She doesn’t. She’s dressed working class. She’s got the accent. She’s got the technical background. But in terms of like, how she actually behaves and how she interacts with others, it reads so much more as middle-class white woman looking to save someone and that is such a different aspect, that is such a different outlook. You are coming at it from an entirely different angle than what you think you’re coming at it as.

Talia Franks: Yeah. That’s exactly right. And (Talia sighs) and the thing about Rose too, which I constantly, I constantly struggle with, and I struggle with a lot about Rose, but I struggled so much with her inconsistent writing.

Lucia Kelly: So much. Like –

Talia Franks: It’s just—

Lucia Kelly: The way I would love Rose Tyler if she was consistently written, honestly, if she was consistently written as what I think they were aiming at, which is that working class hero vibe.

Lucia Kelly: I would adore her, but she’s just not.

Talia Franks: No, and the thing is even if they were going to consistently write her as that white savior, middle-class white woman, I would like her more.

Talia Franks: If they just picked one, I could deal with it. But they don’t. If they consistently wrote her as a 19-year-old, I could do it. If they consistently wrote her as mid twenties, I could do it, but they don’t consistently write her. She’s not consistently written, and there’s all these different versions of Rose. And I like some of them, I like some versions of Rose, but the fact that she’s not consistent is the problem.

Lucia Kelly: And especially, not examined by the narrative at all. She is not held accountable by the narrative at all. If she was written, as you say, as, you know, middle-class white savior complex, but that was acknowledged and put in, like, we’re meant to see Rose as complicated, right? And as trying to do this thing and achieving this other thing, and how, the way that she helps it’s both self-serving and not actually helpful. Like, I was just talking about how much I love Sarah in Eve of the Daleks. Like, I love when an unlikable character is written well because then that’s actually a really good character, (Talia mhmms emphatically) but it’s just not there, and I think the reason that Rose is so beloved is I actually think it’s because she’s so inconsistent that people just pick and choose and then self insert whatever they think their version of Rose is, but when you actually look at the text, it’s just not there.

Lucia Kelly: And it’s really unfortunate. I want to like Rose.

Talia Franks: Yeah. Especially since she’s absolutely everywhere and— (Lucia laughs) No, cause Rose pervades everything after her, everything after her is just soaked in Rose. Every companion after Rose is compared to Rose, and if you think about it, the companion that’s truly that self-starter independent, is able to think on her feet and work on her own and is consistent, is Martha.

Talia Franks: Martha is the companion who has that autonomy and is able to like, do the work. And Martha is the companion who was able to at the end of her season say “No, I’m good. You don’t value me the way that I need to be valued. I’m going to leave.”

Talia Franks: Martha is the companion that we need, but Martha is too good for The Doctor and I really hope she comes back for the Centenniary celebration. I would love that. Also, she’s the one that makes sense, because she and Ryan, and I guess Graham, are the only companions who had clean exits, every other companion in Doctor Who had a messy exit, except for the two black companions, who are like, “No, I’m good.”

Talia Franks: Even Bill, who had a messy ending, was the one who chose to leave. She left The Doctor for dead. (Talia laughs) Which is hilarious. But I actually think that’s kind of brilliant that it was all the black companions who were like, “No, I know my worth. I’m going to leave.”

Talia Franks: And it was all the white companions who were like, “I’m going to be here till I die.” And then they died.

Lucia Kelly: That’s what happens! Know your worth. Leave when you need to.

Talia Franks: But that’s just a, that’s just a little observation of mine.

(Transition wobbles)

Lucia Kelly: There are two reasons that I love this episode. And one is that I just love werewolves. I find the whole concept of werewolves just fascinating, there’s so many interesting avenues that you can take it. Anything that involves a werewolf, I’m probably going to like it. But the other reason that I like it is… I love how Queen Victoria is written specifically as a person of faith. Putting aside everything she is as a person, the way that she talks about faith and religion and grief and what that means and how it interacts.

Lucia Kelly: And specifically that moment where they’re all around the dinner table, and they’re talking about ghost stories, and she and The Doctor share this moment because they’re both grieving. There’s this shot of Tennant as Victoria is talking about how ghost stories are about hope and it breaks my heart every time. Absolutely everything is written on that man’s face.

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Lucia Kelly: But yeah, no, this episode is absolutely written as a horror story, which jumping straight off of New Earth and Christmas Invasion is an interesting place to take it. And then next episode, we’ve got school reunion, which is going to be so fun.

Talia Franks: But I’m very excited.

Lucia Kelly: Yes, we’ve got—We’ll save that—We might save that announcement to be end, but it’s very exciting. We’ve got plans.

Lucia Kelly: But it’s a real departure from—I guess the Satan’s Pit two parter is also written—that’s more of a supernatural, thriller horror, but all of the other ones are very strictly romp, and I just find it fascinating that they decided to go so dark.

Lucia Kelly: It’s very interesting.

Talia Franks: Yeah. I really love The Impossible Planet and Satan Pit. Those are possibly two of my favorite episodes of the season.

Lucia Kelly: Is there anything else you want to cover before we move on to favorite moments or?

Talia Franks: No, I think that was basically everything.

Lucia Kelly: Two things I want to mention. Just like, as a sort of appendage to the whole—the wreaths and wreaths of unexamined privilege in the writing of this episode.

Lucia Kelly: It’s wild to me that you have a joke about Margaret Thatcher being terrible, and then you have Queen Victoria in the same episode and then hold her up as like, a good person? Like (Lucia struggles then starts laughing. Talia sighs deeply.)

Lucia Kelly: Wow. Okay. I just hate a cheap shot. Just do it properly, you know?

Talia Franks: One thing I did actually like is the use of mistletoe, because I’m pretty sure mistletoe is actually toxic too.

Lucia Kelly: Oh yeah, it is. It’s massively toxic.

Talia Franks: It’s massively toxic. I know it’s toxic to cats. I think it’s also toxic to dogs. So that was—

Lucia Kelly: I’m pretty sure it’s toxic to humans. I find it fascinating, the whole mythology around mistletoe and everything about that being like, “It’s harmless!” And I’m like, “It’s not!” (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: Yeah, no. (Lucia laughs) Especially with The Doctor licking it. I don’t know, but The Doctor is not a human.

Lucia Kelly: The Doctor needs to stop licking stuff. Stop licking stuff. You have your magic little Sonic, just point your Sonic at it, there need—there need—there need not be no touching.

Talia Franks: You admitted them at the Sonic was magic!

Lucia Kelly: I am just saying, I don’t believe that it should not—I don’t—I hate that it is magic, but it is magic. It’s annoying.

Lucia Kelly: It should be scientific, but it just does whatever’s needed and that’s magic. But yeah, he’s just doing it because he wants to. That’s literally the only reason. The Tenth doctor just likes to put his tongue on things. (Talia laughs)

Talia Franks: Do you think he likes to put his tongue on Rose? (Talia continues to giggle)

Lucia Kelly: I was literally about to ask—please—please—but no, you went there. I mean … apparently!

Lucia Kelly: All right. Favorite and least favorite moments. What have you got? (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: My least favorite moment is when the werewolf is in the cage and it’s talking and is about to transform. I just find it sinister and creepy and gross in a way that makes me viscerally uncomfortable. And I can’t quite explain it, but every time I think about it, it makes me want to be sick.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah, no, I’ve actually got the same. It’s the noises for me. I just—No, I can’t handle it. I literally skipped over that bit, cause I was like, “Not today. (Lucia laughs) I can’t do it.” Literally like, the 15 seconds or whatever it is. I’m like, “Nah, I don’t need to hear that.”

Talia Franks: Yeah. And then the favorite moment is when The Doctor is in the library and he says “Books, best weapons in the world.”

Talia Franks: I like that line. I do think the way that they searched the library is slightly unreasonable because I slightly dubious about reading that many books.

Lucia Kelly: Also, this man prepared for everything, you don’t think he had an index somewhere, or like, a catalogue? (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: Like, it—It would make more sense if he had a catalogue and they looked through the catalogue and found the thing. But randomly flipping through a book and randomly finding the page you needed seems so unreasonable to me. Another thing that seems unreasonable to me is all the books being in English.

Lucia Kelly: Oh yeah. No. Well, well, they’re all in English cause the TARDIS is nearby. We’ve established that already.

Talia Franks: That—Okay. Not how translation works!

Talia Franks: I maintain for the record. Some of those books would have been in Latin, and French, and German, just saying. The TARDIS is somehow translating it all into English and somehow the sentences are all making sense. But for the record, a man of that stature in the 18th century, some of those books would have been in Latin and French and German, probably some in Spanish and Italian too.

Lucia Kelly: I wonder what kind of translation bias the TARDIS has. Like, you know, when you read multiple translations of the same book and they’re all slightly different because it’s a person interpreting another person’s work. And so everyone’s going to be a bit different. What’s the TARDIS bias like? The TARDIS has got a bias!

Talia Franks: Yeah, I wonder, because sometimes when things are translated out of different languages, like some languages have gender and stuff, so how does it translate things that have gender?

Lucia Kelly: Who knows. One of my favorite fan theories, because obviously Doctor Who is a family friendly show, the TARDIS deliberately censors people. So basically, the theory came about because everyone was like, “Donna Noble would say fuck,” (Lucia and Talia laugh)

Lucia Kelly: “Hmmm, it doesn’t make sense that this woman’s keeping her language PG.” And it was like, “Do you know who is making it PG? The TARDIS.” (Talia laughs)

Lucia Kelly: So that’s my favorite translation theory. But yeah, no, I would say my favorite moment—

Lucia Kelly: I’ve got a tie. Is that okay?

Talia Franks: That’s fine.

Lucia Kelly: Okay. Because it—it—it’s the two moments that I’ve talked about. Because one of them, I love for story reasons and one of them I love for meta reasons. But the meta reason is just David Tennant getting to use his natural accent, I love it. It’s great, just that whole—and again, sorry to get back on this road, but like, even in that little scene where you have an actor who’s Scottish, and you’ve deliberately written this episode in a way that means that he gets to use his natural accent, and in the same scene that you’re introducing the fact that he’s speaking in this accent, you have a whole bit making fun of the accent?

Lucia Kelly: Someone needs to take Russell T Davies to sensitivity training before he gets back in the chair. That’s all I’m saying. (Talia laughs as Lucia sighs)

Lucia Kelly: Anyway, but my other favorite moment is the dinner scene where Victoria and The Doctor talked about ghost stories. Because I am an angsty bitch at heart. (Talia laughs)

Talia Franks: Those are both great scenes.

(Transition wobbles)

Lucia Kelly: Here’s the thing, I know we’ve only got 10 minutes, I hate self-sacrifice being lauded as heroic. We had this conversation during Father’s Day and it just really rubs me the wrong way that—First of all, Sir Robert was doing his bloody best. Like, like I would like to see someone else do better. He was surrounded by Kung Fu monks in the middle of 18th century Scotland. He was doing his best.

Talia Franks: I wanted to give the hero to Lady Isobel.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah. I really liked Lady Isobel.

Talia Franks: Yeah, she was pretty great.

Lucia Kelly: She’s pretty great. But also like, I don’t know, the Adam, the Adam for this one is difficult because a lot of people were like mediocrely bad, but no one was God awful. (Lucia laughs) So, there’s a lot of weak contenders for second place.

Talia Franks: Yeah. I was going to give it either to the head monk or the werewolf, not the guy who’s possessed by the werewolf, but the werewolf itself.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah, I guess the werewolf. It feels—I don’t know. It feels too easy giving the Adam to the villain. You know what I mean? (Talia and Lucia laugh)

Lucia Kelly: Like, yeah, of course he was the bad guy. He’s the bad guy. But like, was he the worst?

Talia Franks: I mean, he like possessed a child and took over their entire life and killed a bunch of people.

Lucia Kelly: I’m pretty sure that was the monks. Like their whole dynamic fascinates me. That is such a chicken and egg dynamic. How does a singular cell suddenly start controlling an entire monastery?

Lucia Kelly: I’m so confused.

Talia Franks: Why don’t we give the monastery as an institution the Adam?

Lucia Kelly: Mm Hmm. That sounds good. How about we give The British Empire the Adam? You know? Like let’s just—

Talia Franks: Yeah, let’s give the British empire, the Adam.

Lucia Kelly: That’s it. All right. So Hero, Lady Isobel, unfortunately, part of the British empire and then Adam is the British empire, as a whole.

Talia Franks: The Adam is the British Empire. Alright, um—

Lucia Kelly: Grading! (Lucia snaps her fingers) Production!

Lucia Kelly: Pretty good. For the time. A lot of really obvious CGI, but—

Talia Franks: No, we’re giving it a three, four at best.

Talia Franks: Did you see that werewolf transformation? No, no. When it was caught up in the light beam, no, no three points—

Lucia Kelly: Everything else was really good.

Talia Franks: The Kung Fu monks?

Lucia Kelly: That’s a writing choice. Production had to do that because it was written already. I think they did well with what they have. That’s RTD’s fault. (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: Okay, (Talia sighs) I want to give it a 3.5.

Lucia Kelly: Alright.

Talia Franks: That CGI was truly atrocious.

Lucia Kelly: That CGI was from 2006, okay? On a TV budget.

Talia Franks: Writing.

Lucia Kelly: Writing. (Lucia sighs) I’m torn. I think this is another three. I don’t know, maybe I’m getting mixed up with Rewatchability. I feel like it’s very rewatchable, but when you actually look at it, so many things are bad.

Talia Franks: It’s—it’s not good. It’s not good. I want to give it a three.

Talia Franks: Acting was a five. Acting was still good.

Lucia Kelly: The acting’s always five, apart from Christmas Invasion, because what the fuck? But—

Talia Franks: Uh, what’d you think of the science? We didn’t talk about science at all.

Lucia Kelly: We didn’t talk about science at all. I liked the science overall. I liked that it was all tied together. Like, what I always said about science is as long as you can explain it in a world, I’m good, and they did that.

Talia Franks: But how does a single cell take over a monastery?

Lucia Kelly: I know. (Talia laughs) I know, and I know I brought that point up myself, but— (Lucia sighs) I guess what I mean is, I really like the solution. I really liked the sort of marriage between science and magic in this episode and the way that it’s considered the same thing.

Lucia Kelly: I do think that the whole werewolf mythology that they build for this werewolf is pretty stupid (Lucia and Talia laugh) but—within like—within the context. Yeah so, the setup makes no sense, but the solution, I really like, so another three maybe.

Talia Franks: Okay. Rewatchability.

Lucia Kelly: Rewatchability, I wanna go with four.

Talia Franks: Okay.

Lucia Kelly: It’s a fun episode. It’s a good episode. It’s a highly problematic episode.

Talia Franks: I feel like I have to be in a certain mood to rewatch it. Like, when I’m in the right mood, I can watch it. If I’m in the wrong mood.

Lucia Kelly: Much, like—this is going to sound wild, but stay with me. It’s the same vibe as an Indiana Jones movie.

Talia Franks: I’ve never seen an Indiana Jones movie.

Lucia Kelly: All right. Every single one of them is like a fun romp, that’s exciting and fun and has a lot of big moments and fun action scenes. And all of them are absolutely steeped in racism, like all of them are steeped in sexism, they’re steeped in like, every single possible problematic, like every single foot they put in their mouth.

Lucia Kelly: So you have to just like put that aside and decide that you’re going to have a fun adventure, and that’s what this episode feels like to me, it’s a fun romp, as long as you ignore 80% of it.

Talia Franks: We got 74%. It’s a C.

Lucia Kelly: This is what you get when your writers don’t examine their privilege, we could have had a good time. There was a way to do this. That was not like this. (Lucia and Talia laugh)

Lucia Kelly: Anyway, we hope you all had a good time listening to us talk about Tooth and Claw today. It’s going to be very exciting. Uh, We’ve got school reunion coming up next, and guess what?

Talia Franks: We’ve got a guest!

Lucia Kelly: We’ve got our first guest! It’s gotta be really exciting. We’ve got Joy from Reality Bomb who is incredibly cool and incredibly knowledgeable and—

Talia Franks: We’re gonna have a great time talking about Sarah Jane Smith.

Lucia Kelly: Ah-huh!

Talia Franks: And so you should tune in for that in two weeks. We are doing every two weeks from now on because of Eve the Daleks we had our schedule a little bit scrunched up, but from now on, we’re going to be releasing episodes every two weeks, except for when we do bonus episodes, we’re going to squish them in there.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah. So basically, our regular scheduled programming is going to be every two weeks, but when we’ve got live episodes happening, it’s going to be co-current to whatever’s actually airing.

Talia Franks: Yep

Lucia Kelly: So Yay

Talia Franks: Yeah So

Lucia Kelly: See you in two weeks!

Talia Franks: Bye!

Lucia Kelly: Bye!

Lucia Kelly: Thank you for listening to The Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Podcast.

Talia Franks: We hope you enjoyed this adventure with us through space and time.

Lucia Kelly: You can find us elsewhere on the internet on Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram @WibblyPod. Follow us for more Wibbly Wobbly content.

Talia Franks: You can find out more information about us and our content on wibblywobblytimeywimey.net And full transcripts for episodes at wibblywobblytimeywimey.net/transcripts

Lucia Kelly: If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can send us email at wibblywobblytimeywimeypod@gmail.com.

Talia Franks: Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and other platforms as it helps other people find us and our content.

Lucia Kelly: That’s all for now, catch you in the time vortex!