3.02 Smith and Jones (S03E02) Public Release Transcript

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

Lucia Kelly: I’m Lucia Kelly, expert at applied analysis, and I’m a survivor Mr. Stoker, at any cost.

Talia Franks: And I’m Talia Franks, media critic, fanfic enthusiast, and laughing on purpose at the darkness. (Lucia laughs)

Lucia Kelly: And we’re here today to talk about Smith and Jones, the first episode of Series Three of Doctor Who!

Talia Franks: Smith and Jones aired on July 6th, 2007. It was written by Russell T Davies and directed by Charlie Palmer.

Lucia Kelly: Reminder that time isn’t a straight line. It can twist into any shape and 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 plasmavore loose in the hospital! So let’s get in the TARDIS.

Talia Franks: Content warning for slavery, police violence, and hospital death.

Lucia Kelly: According to IMDB, when the hospital she works at is transported to the moon, medical student, Martha Jones, joins forces with The Doctor to hunt down an alien fugitive before the oxygen runs out.

Talia Franks: Our synopsis is that this is the one where the police don’t give a fuck and Earth almost gets destroyed.

Lucia Kelly: This is also the one where The Doctor sends mixed signals and then gets mad at Martha because he’s been sending mixed signals, but we’ll get there. (Talia and Lucia laugh)

Talia Franks: Yeah. Also, I just love how The Doctor is like, “Call me The Doctor” and Martha’s like, “You have to earn that title.”

Lucia Kelly: I know.

Talia Franks: And then at the end of the episode, he’s like “Welcome aboard, Ms. Jones” and then she’s like “Glad to be here, Mr. Smith.” She doesn’t call him Doctor. She says Mr. Smith. She denies that title. She’s like Mr. not Doctor. (Talia laughs)

Lucia Kelly: Yeah. This is a great introduction to Martha. It’s so good. I love that immediately — We just get thrown into her whole, like family drama, like, oh my gosh, that family’s a mess. Poor Martha. And you immediately understand like, her role within the family dynamic. Like, she’s the mediator, she’s the one that everyone goes to.

Lucia Kelly: And also it introduces her as like, okay, she’s a problem solver, and she knows people, that’s cool. We’re in for a good time. Unlike a previous blonde protagonist.

Talia Franks: We’re not here to talk about her. (Lucia laughs) We’re not here to talk about her.

Talia Franks: I do really love Martha. I love Martha so much.

(Transition wobbles)  

Lucia Kelly: So the slab, the poor slab gets fucking fried. Which, these slabs before, before I get into that, these slabs they’re clearly sentient because they don’t, they, this is also down to the choreography, but they move organically. They don’t move automatically. And the way that the second slab dies by Judoon is like, clearly in pain.

Lucia Kelly: The first one doesn’t really have a chance to react before he’s irradiated, but like — So there’s that whole business of like, these slabs are not just like, pure leather, they’re clearly sentient to some degree. And then The Doctor refers to them as “Your basic slave drones.” And then Martha says “They were working for her, like her servants or something.” And it’s just like…

Talia Franks: Also, can we just unpack the fact that he said they were pure leather all the way through and leather is made out of animal hide?

Lucia Kelly: Oh, I thought you were gonna talk about the fetish line. No yeah, yeah.

Talia Franks: Yes the fetish line is like — (Talia makes a sound of disgust) But like also — Can we just talk about the Judoon aesthetic? I feel like the Judoon have a particular aesthetic.

Lucia Kelly: They sure do. The Judoon are interesting. I — So, The Doctor very specifically says that they’re not actually police, that they’re “thugs for hire”.

Lucia Kelly: But they’re police, right?

Talia Franks: Yeah. So this is where I find the portrayal of the Judoon really interesting. ‘Cause I’m thinking about how the Judoon are portrayed here versus how the Judoon are portrayed in future episodes in Doctor Who, and also how they’re portrayed in the Sarah Jane Adventures, because I’ve just been rewatching, the Sarah Jane Adventures, and I just rewatched Prisoner of the Judoon, and Sarah Jane literally calls the Judoon “galactic police” who worked for The Shadow Proclamation. And I find that episode really interesting because in this episode, The Doctor says that they’ve taken the hospital to the moon because they have no jurisdiction on Earth. In the Sarah Jane Adventures episode, Prisoner of the Judoon, there’s a Judoon who has crashed on Earth, who’s going after a prisoner who is a shapeshifter, and who literally goes in and possesses people’s bodies, and at one point possesses Sarah Jane, and the Judoon literally just go in full force to capture this prisoner on Earth with no regard for all the people on Earth that they are going to potentially hurt. Full force, like no consequences, like, they think they have jurisdiction.

Talia Franks: And also, in a future episode in Doctor Who, Fugitive of the Judoon, which is where the Fugitive Doctor shows up. My fave. Ruth Doctor. Love her.

Talia Franks: The Judoon also just stroll up onto Earth.

Talia Franks: And they have full jurisdiction to go capture a prisoner. So I’m like, this whole Judoon not having jurisdiction on Earth thing just gets fully ignored in other places on Doctor Who.

Lucia Kelly: Maybe—

Talia Franks: It’s totally a plot device,

Lucia Kelly: Yeah. Maybe some legislation passed in the meantime.

Talia Franks: Yeah, and I’m actually very annoyed that I didn’t rewatch Fugitive of the Judoon. Because I’m currently, I think I mentioned, doing a rewatch with my roommate and Fugitive of the Judoon is literally the next episode that we’re gonna watch.

Talia Franks: But we haven’t watched it yet, so I’m really annoyed that I haven’t rewatched it because then I could talk about this episode better.

Lucia Kelly: Also, I do wanna ask, because it’s all I could think about, Talia, is that how language works?

Talia Franks: (Lucia is speaking in a teasingly curious tone because she knows Talia is going to have Opinions) It’s not how language works and it’s one of my most— (Lucia laughs as Talia sighs and gears up for an explanation) Okay. It’s both not how language works and potentially is how language works. So, on the one hand, it’s not how language works because you just can’t translate like that. But on the other hand in Doctor Who there are translation circuits, I’ve just accepted that Doctor Who has translation circuits.

Talia Franks: And it is entirely possible that the way that the Judoon do this is that they have a database where they contain all of the languages in the universe, just like the TARDIS does, and what they do is when they have this little speaker thing, they record someone talking, and when they record someone talking, it basically takes a sample, just like any one of our, like Alexa, Siri — I can’t say the G word because then the one I have in this room will activate — but any one of those will, if you trigger it, and then say a sentence and say “Hey Alexa, translate “donde estan mis pantalones?” Alexa will say “donde estan mis pantalones” means “where are my pants?”

Talia Franks: If you say that, then that AI can translate it for you. So I’m saying, the Judoon have this database where they take the sample of the language, figure out what language it is, and then basically engage in a translation circuit where I’m guessing their suits can translate for them.

Talia Franks: So, given the rules of Doctor Who and how translation works in Doctor Who I can accept that their suits are translating for them and that they have, by taking this sample, designated that in this space, they have to speak Earth English, because that’s what the database has told them they have to speak. I don’t like it, but I will accept it. (Transition wobbles)

Lucia Kelly: I’m wondering if we should talk next about… Okay so, do we wanna tackle Mr. Stoker being an arsehole and also all of Martha’s like, the two students that we get to know apart from Martha, Morgenstern and I believe her name starts with S — The one who The Doctor is very rude to, and is like, dismisses out hand, which, rude, okay.

Talia Franks: Yeah, The Doctor is so rude in this episode.

Lucia Kelly: Do you wanna talk about that or do you wanna talk about The Doctor sending mixed signals.

Talia Franks: The Doctor sends such mixed signals and it’s, it’s so upsetting to me and my spirit, because it’s like, Martha can do so much better.

Talia Franks: She can do so much better. And then she ends up with Mickey of all people. She can do so much better. Both of them. She’s out of their league.

Lucia Kelly: The Doctor’s in this really weird place where like, he’s very much in that like, “Yeah, I’m totally over my ex,” period, (Lucia laughs) where it’s like flirting and being like “I’m so ready to be back into society again.” When clearly they’re not. Also, the little sneaky “We were together.” No, you fucking weren’t.

Lucia Kelly: That’s the whole point. You guys never like, talked about your bloody relationship.

Lucia Kelly: You were not together. (Talia snorts) You couldn’t even say, “I love you.” Don’t come at me with this. It’s ridiculous.

Talia Franks: I mean, there’s lots of different definitions of being together. Like, technically they spent a lot of time together.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah. But you know the way that he meant it and they did not have that conversation.

Talia Franks: I mean, lots of people are in relationships without having conversations.

Talia Franks: You don’t have to be in a conversation with someone to be in a relationship with someone.

Talia Franks: Lots of people have relationships with bad communication. Trust me. I know. (Lucia laughs)

Lucia Kelly: I guess it’s more that like, it’s weird. I’m feeling weird about it because Rose isn’t there to like, give her side of the story. I know she would say that we’re together as well, but like, it’s weird. I didn’t like it. And then, so he is actively flirting with Martha. I don’t care what he thinks he knows. He is actively flirting with her and then is like, “Don’t mistake this for anything other than me just doing you a favour,” like I’m so done with this man. Get outta here. Do we need to call it Doctor Who?

Lucia Kelly: Can’t it just be Martha Jones and the TARDIS?

Lucia Kelly: She can just kidnap it. The TARDIS clearly likes her. Because if the TARDIS didn’t like her, then the TARDIS would’ve taken The Doctor somewhere else when he was doing that little cheap trick.

Lucia Kelly: So, she’s got the TARDIS’s stamp of approval.

Talia Franks: Yeah. My phone background is a graphic that I made in Canva of the 13th Doctor, the Fugitive Doctor, Martha, Bill, and Yaz, because that’s what I aspire to.

Talia Franks: I would love to see them all in a TARDIS together.

(Transition wobbles)

Talia Franks: I was thinking, and I know that this is totally off track, but I was thinking of that other medical student, Morgenstern, and how Morgenstern means Morningstar. (Lucia laughs)

Lucia Kelly: I know why you were thinking that too, but I won’t out you.

Talia Franks: I know you know why I was thinking that. But anyway, so then that was making me think of how, like, to give credit where credit was due, he was trying to be an ambassador to the Judoon, he was trying to keep people calm, but also I feel like he took a lot of credit where he did not —

Lucia Kelly: Oh Yeah.

Talia Franks: — deserve credit.

Lucia Kelly: Oh Yeah.

Talia Franks: And so — W hen Martha and The Doctor were really the ones who saved the day. And then that little bit where he was praising Saxon, AKA the Master, and I’m just… a lot of pieces being pulled together here. And I feel like the fact that he was named Morgenstern is not an accident.

Lucia Kelly: He definitely like, gives snakey vibes.

Talia Franks: I don’t know. I feel like whenever a character has the last name Morgenstern, it’s not an accident.

Lucia Kelly: I would honestly love to see him more. I feel like Morgenstern could have actually been a really interesting companion.

Talia Franks: I’m sick of white man companions. (Lucia laughs) Please no. No more. No more.

Talia Franks: I’ve accepted Dan, because he is on the Thasmin train — Caveat! This is being recorded after Eve of the Daleks, before Sea Devils, before Thirteen’s final episode. That’s all I’ve seen of Dan. I don’t know what else he has done. Just for the record. I approve of Dan up to Eve of the Daleks. Just putting that out there.

Talia Franks: Just making that explicit. Sorry. I’m shouting a little bit. I apologize if that affected my audio quality, I was shouting into the microphone.

Talia Franks: Ooh. Need to drink some water. Got a little passionate there.

Ad Break

Lucia Kelly: (Talia knocks into their microphone) So, this villain… I’m trying to figure out whether this is a strong or a weak episode. Cause it feels like a real mix of stuff. I really like all the Martha stuff. About half of the science makes sense? Which I appreciate. (Lucia laughs) A lot of it feels very unexamined. Like I wonder how much of this episode was written before Freema Agyeman was cast? How much of it like, and 2007 was a very different sort of cultural…. There were different things in zeitgeist in 2007 than there is right now. Rewatching this episode now feels really heavy, in a way that I don’t think it was meant to be.

Talia Franks: Yeah. I’m thinking like, watching this episode now? Was so, so upsetting because as you said, it’s so unexamined. I was thinking, especially the fact that it set in a hospital and the fact that it’s so unexamined just how many people would’ve died?!

Talia Franks: Because if you think about that entire hospital, like was wiped clean of oxygen. I was wondering for a second there, why The Doctor brought Martha out, like why he bothered? And then I thought about it and I’m like… the time it would take for oxygen to get back into that little room?

Talia Franks: Like he had to bring her outside because he had to get her back to oxygen as soon as possible. So all the people who were trapped, in the hospital, wouldn’t have gotten oxygen back because the amount of time it would take the oxygen to repopulate through the building, everyone who was like deep into the hospital and didn’t get outside as soon as possible would’ve suffocated.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah… also it makes absolutely no bloody sense that the electricity is still on. Like it just doesn’t— what’s it connected to? What about all loose wires? The plumbing! I mean, there’s just… that building would’ve started falling apart. It just doesn’t —

Talia Franks: I think it’s implied that the plasma cores are what’s keeping the building powered? That’s what I assumed, but I don’t know what plasma cores are. (Lucia laughs) I dunno.

Talia Franks: But yeah, the fact that when the building was taken out there was like that water flowing and like the whole, like when the building was like carved out, I was like, yeah, no, that makes no sense.

Talia Franks: And all the people who died from the hospital was first moved. Like, that room was entirely shaken up. People who were like connected to like fragile medical equipment would’ve died right away. Almost, not right away, but like very quickly because they would’ve gotten shaken out of their beds. Anyone who was in the middle of surgery. Yeah, there are so many people dead. So, so many people dead. And like all those people who were like screaming, crying, upset, and like also that person who hit the Judoon who was clearly having a panic attack, some sort of mental breakdown, and then was just killed? Like that was… it felt very ableist to me. And it’s just like … this whole episode was just so heavy and emotionally devastating. I felt crushed by it.

Talia Franks: And I don’t know why it hit so hard and so heavily when I just rewatched it a few months ago and I was like, this is, and it’s so weird, cause I just rewatched it a few months ago and did not have all these heavy emotions associated with it. Like it was literally like just last summer I rewatched it and I guess last summer when I rewatched it, I was not looking at it this critically.

Talia Franks: I was just rewatching it to have fun. And so I wasn’t looking at it with this critical eye. But looking at it with this critical eye, and I think also what it is, is that because it’s so soon after my grandmother died and she died like in a hospital. Like she was sick. And just looking at it from that different lens just completely shifted how I see the episode.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. That’s why rewatching shows, I think, is so valuable because you draw different things out every time. I was also just really struck by — I was in this weird double think space where I was like, Martha’s in no danger because the Judoon are aliens, who don’t have the social context for humanity that we do. They just think of us as all the same blobs. But they are coded as police.

Lucia Kelly: Because she’s essentially harassed — The Doctor deliberately, literally plants evidence on her, plants a big smooch, and leaves her to fend for herself.

Talia Franks: Yeah. I actually wouldn’t say that Martha’s in no danger because the Judoon are aliens who specifically don’t care about humans.

Talia Franks: So I was gonna say, it’s kind of like how Black people and other people of color often aren’t seen as humans, like, aren’t valued the same way that white people are. Judoon don’t value humans as having worth. It’s like that person who like hit the Judoon with the vase or whatever it was like — Also, why was there a vase on hospital? But —

Lucia Kelly: It takes me out every single time. (Talia laughs) What was this vase doing there?

Talia Franks: Yeah. But anyway but as soon as like a Judoon, who is valued, gets attacked, this human is just automatically worthless and just automatically gets shot and killed. Like, just immediately sentenced, like crime assault, like sentence —

Lucia Kelly: “Plea,” “plea” in quotation marks. Guilty.

Talia Franks: Yeah. Plea, guilty. Sentence, execution. Humans have no worth to Judoon. Their only mission is to capture this criminal and they just don’t care. When the MRI machine is about to go off, which, we’ll get there about how that doesn’t make any sense, but they just don’t care about the fact that the Earth is gonna get destroyed. They just evacuate.

Lucia Kelly: Hmmm.

Talia Franks: They have their prisoner. They did their job. They’re just gonna go. Like they could fix everything — When The Doctor fixes things, all he has to do is unplug those two things. Literally, all he has to do is unplug those things.

Talia Franks: The Judoon could have walked over and unplugged it. That’s all they had to do. And yet they didn’t ’cause they didn’t care. ‘Cause they don’t value humans. So that’s exactly it. Is they don’t value them.

Talia Franks: So it’s not saying that Martha’s in no danger it’s that she is equally not valued along with all the white people.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah. Yeah.

Talia Franks: So it’s not that she is valued more it’s that the white people are valued less. (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: I don’t know who originally said this. It’s something that I’ve seen in a lot of places, but a lot of dystopia and sci-fi in the future is just white people imagining what it would be like if they were treated like people of color.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah, no, I’ve seen that one too.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. That MRI does not make sense. Okay so — Okay so, Florence sets up the MRI machine. First of all, I find it delightful that The Doctor is so committed to the bit. Like, he is committed, he’s working it in. He’s trying to work in as many lines as possible to convince Florence that he’s human and the way that he convinces her that he’s human is by just being as oblivious and friendly as possible. And I find that delightful. That is delightful.

Talia Franks: Commit to the bit Doctor. Commit to the bit.

Lucia Kelly: Commit to the bit. I loved it.

Talia Franks: Even how he works in the fact that he’s not wearing shoes by explaining that he had bunions and they’re gone.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah.

Talia Franks: And that he was in the middle of getting surgery when the hospital crashed and that’s why he’s not wearing shoes and explaining that. Commit to the bit.

Lucia Kelly: Commit to the bit.

Lucia Kelly: But, so Florence is setting up the MRI machine. (Lucia sighs) That’s not how MRIs work.

Talia Franks: Nope.

Lucia Kelly: My sweet Russell T. No. So I did ask my science, my actual, the person in the family who’s actually into science. I am not. I am an art student feigning and blustering my way through the science rating. But I asked my actual science nerd sister, who happened to be in the room at the time, like, “Hey, does this, does this make sense? This thing with the MRI?”

Lucia Kelly: So it doesn’t. People would die though. So Florence says “This wave will go out and everyone’s brain stems will be fried.” It’s a magnetic resonance imaging machine. So that’s not what would happen. What would happen, according to my sister, is first of all, an EMP would get thrown out. So about half the world’s electricity grid would get thrown out of whack, which would cause a lot of deaths. But then everything magnetic would suddenly be moving very, very, very fast all in one direction.

Lucia Kelly: So people would die and it would be a lot of them, but it would not be by their brain stem frying.

Talia Franks: Yeah…

Lucia Kelly: It’s… ugh.

Talia Franks: That’s a little gross.

Lucia Kelly: She then went into, she then went into very explicit detail, which I will spare both you and the audience from but I may be scarred for life. (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: I appreciate, I appreciate that.

Lucia Kelly: The other science that just does not bloody ma— the radiation thing. Okay.

Lucia Kelly: No. No, I refuse. I refuse. It’s not — Not only is that not how radiation works, for both the radiation and the MRI, if it’s at that level of power, that little room is gonna do nothing for you. It’s gonna do nothing for you. You are not safe inside that little room.

Talia Franks: Nope.

Lucia Kelly: If it’s gonna radiate through like half the Earth, the plexiglass will not save you.

Talia Franks: Yeah. The plexiglass didn’t save her from the Judoon. Although I did like how she said “Burn with me, burn in hell.”

Lucia Kelly: That line was too intense for what was happening in the rest of the episode. I feel like Florence was on her own little journey that we weren’t privy to.

Talia Franks: Also, can we talk about how sharp that straw was? Like, it looked like a plastic straw but it’s gotta be metal.

Lucia Kelly: Or something, like —

Talia Franks: It’s gotta be made outta some alien, like some alien, like very strong thing.

Talia Franks: Also, like —

Lucia Kelly: When she pokes Ten I always flinch. I don’t like it.

Talia Franks: Yeah. Also does his blood taste different—

Lucia Kelly: I would assume so.

Talia Franks: —than human blood?

Lucia Kelly: Surely. Maybe she’s just too full, ’cause she’s just drunk Stoker. Which by the way, I do love the fact that this is about an alien vampire and then the teacher is called Stoker.

Talia Franks: I told you all names are intentional. There’s no way. There’s no way. Also the fact that this episode is called Smith and Jones, like we were talking before we started recording, that sounds like a shell company for the mafia.

Lucia Kelly: It sure does. Like, Mr. Smith can turn up and Ms. Jones can turn up, but not together. That’s not real.

Talia Franks: Yeah. I’m entirely certain that they named her Martha Jones just for this joke of this episode. Like her last name is Jones, just so that they could call this episode Smith and Jones.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah.

Talia Franks: Everyone’s name is intentional. There’s no way. When you’re writing, every name is intentional. Every name has a reason.

Talia Franks: And like, even when someone has a random name that supposedly doesn’t have a reason. Eventually, if you’re writing about them for long enough, their name will get worked in. Something about their name will get worked into the plot of the show.

 (Transition wobbles)

Lucia Kelly: Is there anything else you wanna talk about before we go into favourite moments and least favourite moments?

Talia Franks: Let’s just go to favorite and least favorite moments.

Lucia Kelly: (Lucia claps for emphasis) Okay, favourite and least favourite moments. Talia. What was your — We’ll end on a high, what was your least favourite moment?

Talia Franks: My least favorite moment, I have two, both have to do with Stoker. So Stoker was an asshole. One of them is that whole scene where Stoker was criticizing Martha and all the other medical students, ’cause he was just being an ass. The second moment is when he’s about to die and he says like, “My daughter’s still in university. I’m never gonna see her again.” Not because I felt bad for him, but because I felt bad for his daughter, because she’s never gonna see her dad again. And I just felt really devastated for her. Cause I’m like, I don’t know whether or not she had a good relationship with her dad, but like, losing a parent, I feel like is always hard.

Talia Franks: Whether or not you get along with relatives. I feel like it’s — (Talia sighs) I don’t know.

Lucia Kelly: I am going to choose not to be an arse. (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: You can, you can feel whatever you wanna feel. I’m saying that I personally—

Lucia Kelly: Stoker deserved it, I don’t care.

Talia Franks: I’m saying that I personally have had relatives that I don’t particularly care for pass away. And it’s still been devastating for me. Like, it’s awful. Like, when my grandmother died, I am still feeling very devastated about that, obviously. Like, it’s especially bad when you really care about someone, but even when it’s like, someone that you don’t care about or don’t like at least, or not you, but even for me, when it’s someone who I don’t have a particularly close relationship with, or don’t particularly care for, it still hurts. Particularly never getting the chance to reconcile. I don’t know. I’m just very in my feels about it.

Lucia Kelly: My least favorite moment is gonna sound really trivial next to that. It’s the moment when all the extras are screaming about being left on the moon. It’s so badly directed. It takes me out every time. It’s not —.

Lucia Kelly: It’s not done well, it’s meant to be this huge devastating moment, and every time all I can think about is how tired everyone was on that day. Like, you can feel it in the way they’re performing. This is like, Take 10. It’s so overdone. It doesn’t feel real. I hate it. It’s the worst bit for me. It might even mean that we’re docking the acting grade. Possibly.

Talia Franks: Yeah.

Lucia Kelly: Like it’s just, it takes me so far out. It’s so bad.

Talia Franks: Yeah. It’s not good. Especially because it is devastating, because like I said, everyone on that — in that hospital suffocated and died. (Lucia makes a sound in agreement and they both have a bit of a giggle.)

Talia Franks: Like — No, I’m just saying —

Lucia Kelly: Yeah, no!

Talia Franks: — Like, it took way too long to oxygenate that hospital back, like they’re right to be upset because they’re all gonna die. They’re all gonna die. Martha survived. Morgenstern survived. A few of the people that were close enough to the doors to get back out and like, the people who were connected to the oxygen, I think they might have lived, but like most of the people in that hospital suffocated or got killed when they got disconnected from their machines.

Lucia Kelly: Favourite moments? What was your favourite moment?

Talia Franks: Um. Wait, sorry. Hold on. Another least favorite moment is when Ten says that Martha isn’t replacing Rose, and Martha says that um, “She only goes for humans.”

Talia Franks: Because that’s speciesist. And she’s also pushed into it because Ten is being an ass.

Lucia Kelly: He’s being such an arse.

Talia Franks: Because the thing is, is that Martha isn’t actually like anti interspecies relations, but she’s being forced into saying something that is honestly pretty bigoted, because 10 is being an asshole.

Lucia Kelly: That whole ending scene. I feel really icky about… From the minute, like it starts at the party. I feel icky about it because that entire scene is set up for The Doctor to be Martha’s saviour. Like that whole scene is set up from the very beginning. We are framing Martha’s family as something that Martha wants to escape.

Talia Franks: Mm-hmm.

Lucia Kelly: And here’s The Doctor with his shiny TARDIS who’s offering her that.

Talia Franks: Yeah.

Lucia Kelly: Ugh.

 (Transition wobbles)

Lucia Kelly: My favorite moment, I think. It’s….

Lucia Kelly: Yeah, I’m gonna say it, it’s The Doctor doing human improv. I loved it. It was great. (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: Yeah, I’m gonna say that’s my favorite moment. And the only thing I like about this episode.

Talia Franks: Oh wait, no. And also like, the one thing I like about the ending is when he said “Time travelling along your own timeline is strictly prohibited except for cheap tricks.”

Lucia Kelly: No, I hate that line. I hate it so much, ’cause it means, what that actually means, what it actually means is, there is no rule, right? What that line actually means is that it’s a completely self inflicted rule and that there’s no actual real world consequences or there are, but they’re negligible, so that he could actually cross his own timeline at any point, it’s just the honour system or whatever, like it’s just a traditional Time Lord rule, but he can absolutely do it.

Talia Franks: See, that’s why I like it is because it — So, I know that this is weird logic, but I like that it’s a weird way of us seeing that, like, of us getting a peak into the fact that The Doctor is a little bit the bad guy.

Talia Franks: And I like getting a little sneak peek at that.

Lucia Kelly: Please say more. What do you mean?

Talia Franks: The Doctor is entirely capable of crossing their own timeline and entirely capable of going back and making these changes and just chooses not to.

Talia Franks: And so I really like seeing that and I wish that we could see more of that and I wish that we could unpack that more. But I don’t know. I just really like seeing scenes where we can get a glimpse of how The Doctor… about how The Doctor doesn’t hold themself accountable, and doesn’t do the right thing —

Lucia Kelly: Hmm.

Talia Franks: — and doesn’t follow their own rules. And I just really like —

Lucia Kelly: Yeah.

Talia Franks: — seeing that.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah. I totally understand why it’s a rule. It’s a really important rule to have, because if you are not being really careful and responsible about it, you could get in some pretty messy time loops and time isn’t something to be messed with.

Lucia Kelly: That’s a good rule to have.

Talia Franks: I really, really want you to watch Before the Flood and Under the Lake. (Lucia laughs) I forget which one comes first. I don’t know if it’s Under the Lake and Before the Flood or Before the Flood and Under the Lake, but those are two of my favorite Twelve episodes. They’re so good.

Talia Franks: Seriously just watch Twelve, please just watch Twelve. He’s so good. He’s so good.

Lucia Kelly: What was your favorite moment, Talia?

Talia Franks: I just told you it’s—

Lucia Kelly: Did you?

Talia Franks: Yeah. I told you it’s The Doctor pretending to be human ’cause it’s the only good part of the episode.

Lucia Kelly: Right? Yeah, of course. Sorry. Um —

Talia Franks: I’m so, I’m so sorry, Skye. Okay. Spoiler alert! We have a guest on our next episode. It’s Skye from The Queer Archive. I’m so excited and this is their favorite episode of Martha’s season and we just ragged on it the whole time.

Lucia Kelly: Sorry, Skye.

Talia Franks: Sorry, Skye! (Lucia and Talia giggle)

Lucia Kelly: I’m sure you’re gonna have marvelous things to say about the Shakespeare Code.

Lucia Kelly: The Hero and the Adam.

Talia Franks: Martha — Hero. Adam — Doctor. Yeah.

Lucia Kelly: Pretty straightforward. Yeah. I feel like that’s gonna be the Hero and the Adam for the most of Series Three.

Talia Franks: I feel like this is gonna be a pattern. (Lucia laughs) I feel like, I feel like this is gonna be a repeated pattern going forward. I can, I can see clearly now, I can see clearly before us, it’s gonna continue.

Lucia Kelly: The path laid out.

Talia Franks: Path laid before.

Lucia Kelly: All right. Grading.

Lucia Kelly: Production. I’m leaning towards a three or a four.

Talia Franks: Three?

Lucia Kelly: The CGI’s… something. There are also like weird, really odd direction choices. Just really odd ones. There’s the cutting and the editing is a bit strange. Particularly early on.

Talia Franks: I’m distressed by the straw still. (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: I don’t…

Lucia Kelly: Also making the electric shocks visible was a choice. (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: Yeah, it was definitely a choice.

Lucia Kelly: So yeah, probably a three.

Talia Franks: Writing?

Lucia Kelly: Three again? I reckon.

Talia Franks: Acting?

Lucia Kelly: Do we dock a point for that terrible extras scene?

Talia Franks: I think we do.

Lucia Kelly: I think we do.

Lucia Kelly: I think we do. Ugh.

Talia Franks: Science?

Lucia Kelly: Two. (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: Rewatchability? Before I rewatched it.

Lucia Kelly: Right?

Talia Franks: I would’ve given it a four.

Lucia Kelly: Same.

Talia Franks: Now I wanna give it a two.

Lucia Kelly: Shall we compromise and say three?

Talia Franks: Yes, let’s give it a three.

Lucia Kelly: Fair.

Talia Franks: And now that is —

Lucia Kelly: 15 out of 25, which is —

Talia Franks: 60?

Lucia Kelly: — not great.

Talia Franks: That’s 60.

Lucia Kelly: Oof.

Talia Franks: That is, that is an F, no, that’s a D minus.

Lucia Kelly: D minus. Close call though. How does this happen? (Lucia laughs)

Lucia Kelly: Oof.

Lucia Kelly: Well, I’m excited to see Martha. I’m really—

Talia Franks: I am excited to see more Martha.

Lucia Kelly: I’m really excited.

Talia Franks: I’m hopeful. The next episode we’ll get more because I’ve rewatched the next episode pretty frequently. I like the Shakespeare code.

Lucia Kelly: I’m also really looking forward to rewatching 42.

Talia Franks: I love 42.

Lucia Kelly: 42 is great and I think it is severely underrated and I’m excited.

Lucia Kelly: Alright! That was Smith and Jones. We hope you had a lovely time.

Talia Franks: For the general public, we will be back with Skye from Queer Archive, for The Shakespeare Code. For Patrons, we will be back with a special episode covering Infinite Quest!

Lucia Kelly: Yes. We have a Patreon now and I’m so excited to talk about it.

Talia Franks: Yeah. So you can find us at patreon.com/wibblypod.

Talia Franks: Be there be square.

Talia Franks: (Talia laughs) We have all sorts of fun things. So come be a… Wobbler? Is that what we decided on? (Lucia laughs) A Wibbler? A Wobbler? A Timey Wimer?

Talia Franks: We’ll, we’ll workshop it.

Lucia Kelly: We’ll workshop it. Maybe, maybe the audience can choose if they are a Wibbler or a Wobbler.

Talia Franks: Are you a Wibbler or a Wobbler? We’ll make a poll.

Lucia Kelly: See you next time.

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!