Transcript for 2.12 The Wibbly Wobbly Season Two Wrap Up Episode

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

Lucia Kelly: I’m Lucia Kelly, expert at applied analysis, and the emotions that destroy you sustain me.

Talia Franks: And I’m Talia Franks, media critic, fanfic enthusiast, and that’s not how translation works! (Lucia laughs)

Lucia Kelly: And we’re here today to talk about Series Two of Doctor Who. It’s the wrap-up episode!

Talia Franks: The wrap up episode!

 (Picture Talia doing jazz hands, Lucia goes “ooooo”)

Talia Franks: 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.

Lucia Kelly: With that out of the way, The Doctor is burning up a sun just to say goodbye. So let’s get in the TARDIS! (Talia giggles)

 (Transition wobbles)

Lucia Kelly: Oh, we’ll get there. (Lucia laughs)

Lucia Kelly: So the Wikipedia synopsis says “The second series of British sci-fi show, Doctor Who, began on the 25th of December, 2005, with the Christmas Special, The Christmas Invasion.

Lucia Kelly: It is the second series of the revival of the show and the 28th season overall. And this is the first series to feature David Tennant as the 10th incarnation of The Doctor.

Lucia Kelly: He continues to travel with his companion Rose Tyler, with whom he has grown increasingly attached.” (Lucia breaks through reading the quote with a laugh) Understatement of the century.

Lucia Kelly: “They also briefly travel with Rose’s boyfriend, Mickey Smith, and Camille Coduri reprises her role as Rose’s mother, Jackie! This series is connected by a loose story arc consisting of the reoccurring word Torchwood.” I love that Jackie gets a mention in the Wikipedia summary. It’s what she deserves.

Talia Franks: Me too.

Talia Franks: Our synopsis is that this is the season where The Doctor and Rose are reckless as fuck. (Lucia laughs) And literally everyone pays the price.

Lucia Kelly: They’re so reckless.

Talia Franks: Oh my God. At least when Clara and 12 are reckless. The consequences, I feel like, aren’t this bad. I mean like ⁠— Okay, when Clara and 12 are reckless, yes, the universe almost ends, (Lucia laughs) but at the same time, Clara gets immortality and a TARDIS out of it. And the only people that I can think of who die are Time Lords who regenerate. And one of the Time Lords who regenerates gets out of being a man, which made her really uncomfortable. Like, she talks about how that regeneration was the first time that she was a man.

Talia Franks: And she was like, “Oh my God. So much testosterone.” “That was so hard to handle” or whatever her line was.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah. I… I’m annoyed that I’ve come around to your point of view. At the beginning of this journey, I was so adamant that I was gonna make you like Season Two. (Lucia and Talia laugh)

Lucia Kelly: I was like, “No, I’ve got really good memories. No, it’s all good. No, I’ll be fine.”

Lucia Kelly: I still had a good time, but I see a lot more now than I did ⁠— like, little baby Lucia was not looking at it with the intense gaze that 25-year-old Lucia is looking at it with.

Talia Franks: I will say, conversely, I do like Season Two, a lot more now than I did at the beginning of this journey. I still hate it. (Lucia laughs) Don’t get me wrong. It’s still my least favorite season, but I think also one of the things that I noted about this season is that this season is one where specifically the directors and the writers were all men. I’m not exactly sure about the script editors, but I do know that this season, and Russell T. Davies seasons in general, are notable for how few women directors are in them.

Talia Franks: In later eras of Doctor Who I feel like there is a lot more diversity in terms of who is telling these stories and who is directing these stories. And I definitely felt in this season, the heaviness of having such a male gaze on the season.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah. I wonder ⁠— It makes me think about how we have not been quiet about the fact that Rose is all over the place this season. And it makes me wonder, if there had been more women writers and women directors, whether we would’ve got a little bit more consistency and also (Lucia searches for her words a little) separated Rose a bit more from, or at the very least been a bit more deliberate with, just how patriarchal Rose’s storyline is. If it was the same storyline, at least it would’ve had a bit more perspective.

Talia Franks: Yeah. And I definitely feel that with Rose, in terms of her agency, and her lack of, in this season.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah…

Talia Franks: And in her entire arc, she just lacks agency so much. And I feel like that’s such an interesting dichotomy because she’s often seen as this companion who has so much agency, and so much drive, and is always going forth and doing things, and being in the thick of the action, and taking control, and taking initiative, and doing the work to like, save people and whatever.

Talia Franks: But like, that is, at the same time, so constrained because everything that she does, she does it for The Doctor and she does it because of The Doctor, The Doctor is who and what drives her and also it’s interesting because you sort of, wonder with Rose, who would she be without The Doctor? She doesn’t have an identity outside of The Doctor.

Talia Franks: Everything that she does is molded by him and shaped by him. Even in like, her last episode, she says she didn’t do anything with her life before The Doctor. She was nothing before him. He is her whole life, he is her everything, and that’s a really dangerous and toxic thing, to have your whole life shaped by another person, especially when you’re so young and in such a formative space.

Talia Franks: That’s a really dangerous thing to be saying.

Lucia Kelly: And also patently untrue. It’s a really dangerous narrative to tell yourself. Rose keeps talking about how, like, she’s nothing without The Doctor. Her life meant nothing. She was boring. She was like ⁠— There are all these really awful classist remarks about how an ordinary life, just you know, eating chips, working in a shop, living, is beneath her. It’s looked down upon and it’s seen as not worthy. And to frame it as not worthy and then frame living this sort of fantastical, adventurous life, but particularly framing it as being centered around this much older, much more powerful man is really fucking dangerous.

Talia Franks: Yeah. And I think to a certain extent, they did a similar thing with Donna, where they said, that she’d done nothing with her life and that she couldn’t do anything with her life without The Doctor, but at the same time, I think they did it better with her (Lucia hums in agreement) because they showed that even though she didn’t believe in herself, I feel like Donna’s lack of belief in herself was examined by the narrative. And Donna was affirmed in so many ways. And while I hate Donna’s exit and I hate that she had so much of her character development erased. I love the fact that even when she had all of her adventures with The Doctor erased, she’s still herself, she still had all of that, spitfire, energetic, like, she was still something, she still had that potential. She didn’t need The Doctor. She never needed The Doctor. And Martha too. She definitely didn’t need The Doctor. She was always herself. She always had agency. She always had autonomy. And while at some points she was dependent on The Doctor, she eventually was able to break away from him. And that toxic relationship was something she was able to break away from.

Talia Franks: Even Amy, ultimately was able to make the choice to break away from him, and she had a life away from him. And I feel like so many other companions, have such substance away from The Doctor.

Talia Franks: Also Yaz, who we’ve talked about too. I feel like Yaz and Thirteen’s relationship parallels Ten and Rose a lot.

Talia Franks: Yaz also started traveling with The Doctor when she was 19. But the thing is Yaz already was something. You know, she was … a police officer, which I have feels about, but she like, already was making something out of her life.

Talia Franks: She already had a goal. She already made it her mission to want to do more with her life and to go and do things with her life. And yes, she’s enamored with The Doctor, but she also is self sufficient and doesn’t need The Doctor in a way that I feel like Rose truly needs The Doctor.

Talia Franks: Rose is just so unexamined, and it’s so stressful for me to watch, but at the same time, watching it, it makes me realize that I think part of the reason that Rose is so messy is because she’s the first companion. She’s the companion that they were learning with. And it’s kind of like, she was the practice companion? We made all these mistakes with Rose, and so now we can make all of these companions that are better.

Lucia Kelly: No! Don’t assign Rose eldest daughter syndrome. You can’t do that. (Lucia and Talia laugh) Oh …

Talia Franks: Listen, listen, I am the eldest. I am the practice. So, I get to call it. (Lucia laughs)

Lucia Kelly: Yeah and it also creates this really weird thing, ’cause I, I think you, you’re absolutely right. The thing with the later companions is that I feel like, and again, we’ll see, as we actually look at it and examine it more closely, but my memory is that, after Rose, they make a point of it’s not that The Doctor made this person it’s that experiences with The Doctor brought out what was always there. (Talia mhmms) And so, there is always the possibility of it, coming out without him there as well. It’s not dependent on him. It’s dependent on the journey that the companion goes through.

Lucia Kelly: It’s centering the narrative back onto the companion and it’s centering the agency back onto the companion rather than making it all about The Doctor. The Doctor is the catalyst, but he’s not the reaction.

Lucia Kelly: If that makes sense.

Talia Franks: Definitely.

Lucia Kelly: But then with Rose, you’ve got this really weird dichotomy where her whole thing is about The Doctor, so that even when she is fighting for her agency, you know, even when we get multiple, multiple instances and it becomes more frequent and more sort of, loud  towards the end of the series, but throughout this whole season, Rose is like, “I’m gonna stay with you forever.” Like, “You’re never getting rid of me.” ” Like, “I’m in it for the long haul.” “I’m traveling with you, forever.” And like, literally every single particle in the universe is shouting at her being like, “That’s not gonna happen! Watch out!” (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: Mm-hmm.

Lucia Kelly: So, you’ve got all of these people trying to basically talk sense into Rose? Like, have a conversation with her about it, but it’s all through this incredibly patronizing, patriarchal, lens. So Rose doesn’t listen, and we don’t take that very good advice as genuine because of the packaging it comes in.

Talia Franks: Yeah, and I think that’s very indicative of how, when a message is given in a certain way, it’s very easy to ignore. Which brings me to the next topic I wanted to talk about, which is how Torchwood is a symbol of Empire, and how, because Torchwood is the symbol of Empire, it is representing all of the bad things about colonization, about what happens when people have too much power, and when people are able to have too much control and because they are able to basically do whatever they want, control, whatever they want and really put people down, and they are enemies of The Doctor, we’re not able to see the fact that they actually have some really good points.

Talia Franks: The points that they raise against The Doctor? Some of them are incredibly valid. The Doctor sometimes really does need to be stopped.

Talia Franks: Yvonne is actually a wonderful character. She clearly cares about the people that she works with. She cares about her version of doing what’s right. And ⁠— I don’t know. I feel like her points against The Doctor are not wrong. I keep going back to that part where The Doctor says that, “It’s the 21st century. You can’t have particle guns.” Because it’s The Doctor trying to control humanity and trying to control what they are and aren’t capable of.

Talia Franks: Yes, Torchwood has done a lot of damage. But at the same time, The Doctor has also done a lot of damage. And I feel like the way in which Torchwood operates, especially when you see like, the Torchwood TV show, doesn’t have to be terrible. Torchwood can be a force for good. What distresses me most about this is that we’re only seeing critiques of The Doctor through the lens of people who are the villains and specifically through the lens of people who are colonizing and destroying, and the way that they’re doing that is through a metaphor, which as I’ve said before, when people do colonization and Empire through the sci-fi metaphor lens is problematic. So yeah. I feel like I rambled a little bit there.

Lucia Kelly: It’s fine. (Lucia laughs)

Lucia Kelly: Yeah. The only person I can think of, off the top of my head, who holds The Doctor account ⁠— like, really holds The Doctor accountable, and tells him exactly how it is, and is also seen as a “good guy,” is Martha. Like, that’s it. And it’s only in that one scene. Like, in terms of explicitly, like basically an intervention scene, right? But it’s, so ⁠—

Talia Franks: I would argue that there are a few times when Clara holds The Doctor accountable.

Talia Franks: I’m particularly thinking of how Clara, when she dies, she makes a point to tell The Doctor that he’s not allowed to get revenge on anyone for her. She’s like, “You’re not allowed to use revenge as a way to mourn me. You have to go on and live your life without me.” Like, “Do not let this destroy you.” Something like that. I don’t know.

Talia Franks: I really have to go back and rewatch that. But that episode makes me cry every time so I don’t. It’s a beautiful, beautiful episode.

Lucia Kelly: This is something that gets referenced to again and again, particularly with 10, is The Doctor is the highest authority, 10 and 11, and particularly The Doctor as an authority figure that is supported, and is a product of, a patriarchal system. Like, the Time Lords as an entire concept is so patriarchal, this whole idea, that even in the very first place, that you would have a society, as it’s understood right now in Series Two, like we will get to the ⁠— Everything wrong with every single person on Gallifrey later on. (Lucia laughs) But in terms of how we understand it right now in Season Two, it is just a given that there was a society of people who, for all intents and purposes, are immortal and also have control of time, are keeping the univer ⁠— in ⁠—

Lucia Kelly: I wanna make this very clear for all the listeners. I’m putting this in air quotes, “keeping the universe safe and correct” ⁠—

Talia Franks: Mm-hmm.

Lucia Kelly: ⁠— and that is not examined at all, that is just taken as given, is wild.

Talia Franks: Yeah. And I also wanna think about if Torchwood is an Empire, what it means that The Doctor is in this moment that he’s destroying the Daleks, and the Cybermen, also tearing Torchwood down.

Talia Franks: He’s tearing Torchwood down using the Cybermen and the Daleks, but also Torchwood is surviving, through Jack, but in a different form that is seen as good and is seen as doing good. So, I’m wondering if we’re like, sort of, expanding this “Torchwood as a metaphor for the British Empire.”

Talia Franks: What does it mean that there’s a good version of Torchwood that continues?

Lucia Kelly: I think it might be more a question of ⁠— Because, because Jack specifically is the one who builds it back up again and Jack for whatever else he is, is very much ⁠— and this relationship is complicated ⁠— but is very much a disciple of The Doctor, right?

Talia Franks: Mm-hmm.

Lucia Kelly: Um, because Jack gets his own show, by the very nature of how television works and how character works, Jack is a lot more nuanced and thought out in his own show than he is in Doctor Who, which makes sense. And in his own show, he has a very complex and sophisticated philosophy on ideas about control and consent and what people are allowed to not do and what they are allowed to do.

Lucia Kelly: But in the context of Doctor Who as a show, rather than Torchwood as a show, he’s very much a disciple of The Doctor. And I’m thinking specifically of the Roman philosophy of, if you can’t beat them, make them join you.

Lucia Kelly: It’s not about whether Torchwood is good or bad, it’s, “Does Torchwood follow its own philosophy, or does it follow Time Lord philosophy?” Is it considered an extension of Time Lord’s and Gallifreyan thinking rather than human thinking and Earth thinking? Big thoughts. (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: Yeah. That’s something to think about.

Lucia Kelly: Mm-hmm.

Talia Franks: Especially as we’ll see Jack and Torchwood come back by the end of Season Three and at the end of Season Four, albeit in smaller roles.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah.

Ad Break

Talia Franks: I do wanna talk about the idea of how faith and religion are portrayed in this season, especially thinking about how it’s portrayed across the different episodes. It comes up in Tooth and Claw with Queen Victoria, it comes up in The Impossible Planet and Satan Pit with actual, literal Satan, and it comes up again in the final two episodes with this idea of ghosts and thinking about, the afterlife.

Lucia Kelly: I would argue it also comes up in a sort of non secular way, and this ties again into this idea of The Doctor as a God or a God-like figure, the idea of faith in The Doctor specifically is very present also in School Reunion, The Girl in the Fireplace, and Love & Monsters.

Talia Franks: Definitely. It comes up there in all of those places. Particularly if we think about Love & Monsters and how L.I.N.D.A. is a kind of, almost cult devoted to The Doctor. I mean, we talked with Priya about how L.I.N.D.A. is a kind of fandom, but I mean, for me, I definitely feel like fandom in many ways, overlaps with religion.

Talia Franks: I actually wrote a whole blog post about it. (Talia laughs) But that’s, that’s ⁠—

Lucia Kelly: That’s something you can read in the show notes. (Talia laughs)

Talia Franks: Anyway! I think definitely the idea of faith is all over the place in this season. Faith in a higher power, faith in The Doctor, The Doctor as a higher power, as an authority, is definitely all over the season. And it’s just a really interesting avenue for the show to go in.

Talia Franks: I find the way that the show talks about faith to be really interesting. I think part of it is that there’s different writers across the season, that each writer talks about it differently. I find it particularly interesting in The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit, because so much of it is left to mystery. So much of it is left to this idea that we might believe in a idea of Satan because of something inherent, because of something deep within us — which, not everyone believes in Satan, so I don’t really hold with that. (Lucia snorts softly)

Talia Franks: But I do think it’s very interesting, this idea of faith as something that is inherent and deep within someone, even if they don’t practice a particular religion, the idea that faith is something that we have deep within us.

Talia Franks: The thing that I take away from this season is that everyone has faith in something and that we express it in different ways because of the ways that it’s expressed differently across the season.

Lucia Kelly: Hmmm.

Talia Franks: And the other thing that’s coming to mind is the way that everyone is portrayed in Army of Ghosts as just eventually accepting and coming to terms with the idea of ghosts being around the world, and just the way that that might have changed so many people’s reckoning with the idea and conception of the afterlife, and that deep, deep feeling of grief and the way that people can feel torn apart when they become disillusioned with their faith, or when their faith is questioned, like The Doctor challenging Jackie’s idea that the ghost is her father is really, really provocative.

Lucia Kelly: I always come back to the way that Camille Coduri delivers the line: “You’re ruining it.”

Talia Franks: Mm-hmm.

Lucia Kelly: Oh God.

Lucia Kelly: We talk all the time about how science and magic are interchangeable on this show, often to my frustration and your amusement. (Lucia laughs while saying um)

Lucia Kelly: But faith occupies this really interesting space, that’s kind of, right in the middle, and I feel like Jackie falls much more along the lines of the magic side of faith and The Doctor falls much more along the lines of the science idea of faith.

Lucia Kelly: And also The Doctor can’t entertain the notion of ghosts existing, which is like ⁠— The way that The Doctor uses his emotions to mask everything this season, and in particular grief, and in particular the fact that he has not worked at all on any of the sort of deep emotional issues that Nine was dealing with.

Lucia Kelly: So, when the afterlife, and ghosts, and the idea of any kind of great beyond, or great reckoning, comes up, The Doctor immediately becomes very vulnerable and also shuts down the conversation. And I’m actually thinking now that it’s highly possible, that the reason he pushes this idea of himself as the ultimate authority and himself as “The Lonely God” and why he doesn’t push back when other people also reinforce that idea is that if he is the ultimate authority, he does not have to be held accountable or, brought home in any way. Like, he doesn’t have to deal with any of the consequences of what he’s gone through, including his own past.

Lucia Kelly: Multiple times, most explicitly in Tooth and Claw and Doomsday, The Doctor refers to the idea of ghosts coming back as horrific, and I think that’s very telling to how he has processed his own actions in relation to Gallifrey and how he views himself. To have to speak to his dead family ⁠— that he killed, right? ⁠— would be horrific to him. To speak to anyone who has died, that he knew, would be horrific to him. And at the same time, he is also mourning and missing them.

Lucia Kelly: And so, instead of dealing with all of that, he makes himself the ultimate authority who would not have to answer those questions, except when he is forced to.

Talia Franks: That makes a lot of sense for Ten. And I think also makes a lot of sense, thinking about how the Twelfth Doctor reacted to The Testimony which you don’t know about, ’cause you have not watched Twelve’s episodes. But basically, in Twice Upon a Time, which is the Twelfth Doctor’s last episode, there’s this entity called “The Testimony”, which right before someone dies, goes and extracts their memories and basically keeps them in a vault. And there’s this robot that can basically take hold of the memories of the person and become the person. And there’s this whole idea of whether or not a person is their memories.

Talia Franks: And so The Doctor is able to, via this, talk to Bill, and Nardole, and Clara.

Talia Franks: Oh my God. Your face right now.

Lucia Kelly: I’m having lots of thoughts. None of them good. I don’t (Lucia makes an uncomfortable humming noise) ⁠— I guess we’ll get to it when we get to it. I have many thoughts and feelings about, uploading memories and like ⁠—

Talia Franks: Yeah, it’s, it’s really ⁠— (Lucia makes a noise of extreme disgust) And also they’re in World War I at this point, like during the Christmas Armistice, and so, The Doctor is evading regenerating, ’cause he doesn’t wanna regenerate, ’cause he thinks he’s lived too many lives, and The Doctor says, “You’re not even really here. You’re just memories held in glass. Do you know how many of you I could fill? I would shatter you. My testimony would shatter all of you. A life this long, do you understand what it is? It’s a battlefield like this one and it’s empty because everyone else has fallen. Thank you. Thank you both for everything you were to me, what happens now, where I go, it has to be alone.”

Talia Franks: And so basically, I’m just thinking of all the parallels right now between Ten and Twelve, and how there’s just so much grief in The Doctor, and The Doctor is a constant exercise in evasion, and avoidance. When he doesn’t wanna deal with his problems, he dashes off to a new place, and finds a new set of companions, and runs away. And it’s actually really funny. I was talking to my therapist and I didn’t wanna talk about something. And my therapist was like, “You can’t run away from your problems forever. You have to confront them eventually.” And basically I’m saying The Doctor needs a therapist, but I don’t know that anyone would be equipped to deal with The Doctor. (Talia laughs)

Lucia Kelly: Also, you need to find someone he would genuinely listen to. Like, you can go to all the therapy sessions you want, if you are not actually being present and like, listening and taking stuff on, you’re wasting money.

Talia Franks: Yeah, no, I do. Yeah, no, for me personally, I did eventually listen to my therapist. We have a good rapport. (Lucia laughs) I’ve been seeing her since I was 12. I’ve known her for more than half my life. So she can tell when I’m bullshitting. But yeah, no. The Doctor and grief. It’s hard to watch, honestly.

(Transition wobbles)

Talia Franks: One of the things I just wanted to circle back to, but I think one of the reasons that Ten and Eleven are so similar is because Ten’s last words were “I don’t wanna go.”

Lucia Kelly: Yep.

Talia Franks: It’s just my pet theory. That’s why Ten pervades is because he really didn’t wanna leave.

Lucia Kelly: He sure didn’t.

Talia Franks: Really didn’t. I think Eleven, when he’s saying why his regenerations were used up, he said something like one of his regenerations was having an identity crisis. (Talia laughs)

 (Transition wobbles)

Lucia Kelly: Before we do favourite moments and least favourite moments, do you wanna talk about music?

Talia Franks: Yes! I just wanted to say really quickly, cause I didn’t get to say it last episode. I loved the reveal that the sphere was Daleks not Cybermen, because you knew it was Daleks before they popped out, because the Dalek music started playing because Murray Gold is iconic.

Talia Franks: The Dalek music is iconic. He’s just done some beautiful work. I love Segun Akinola, I think he’s done wonderful work in Chibnall’s era. I hope RTD keeps him ’cause Murray Gold has had his time, but when he had his time, he did wonderful, wonderful work.

Talia Franks: That’s all I wanted to say. (Talia laughs)

Lucia Kelly: All good. All right. So, favourite and least favourite moment of Season Two as a whole.

Talia Franks: Least favorite moment … Just Rose’s treatment of Mickey in general. Just the way that she treated him and the disrespect.

Lucia Kelly: It’s just awful. I hate it.

Lucia Kelly: My least favorite moment is going to be The Idiot’s Lantern. The end. (Talia laughs) Fuck that shit.

Lucia Kelly: He should have gone to uni. He should have gone to uni. He should have sent letters back to his mum. He should have supported his mum.

Talia Franks: (Talia giggles) He should have gone to uni. He should have become a successful engineer. Made a lot of money. Sent some money back to his mum.

Talia Franks: Made sure she was well cared for. Said “Fuck you,” to his dad. Kicked him into the curb.

Lucia Kelly: (Lucia sighs) Favourite moments though?

Talia Franks: My favorite moment is when Rose got stuck in the parallel dimension— (Lucia lets out a burst of laughter)

Lucia Kelly: You can’t say that! (Lucia continues laughing while speaking) We’ll get kicked from the fandom.

Talia Franks: And she and The Doctor were split up for good. (Talia giggles)

Lucia Kelly: (Lucia sniffs) I’m not responsible for anyone who comes after you. (Talia continues laughing) You did this to yourself.

Talia Franks: (Talia continues to laugh and then sniffs to compose themself) Listen, I know it made a lot of people cry. I know people were upset, but honestly, I’m just glad Rose is gone. (Lucia squeaks) Bring on Donna!

Lucia Kelly: Oh God. I’m so excited. All in its own time.

Talia Franks: And we’re gonna have a guest for that episode!

Lucia Kelly: I know, and I’m so excited. Honest to God, I like ⁠— Every time I remember who we’ve got on as a guest, I just start being so excited. (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: I’m doing a little happy dance. I mean, I’m not literally because I’m sitting down and I don’t wanna knock over my green screen, but internally I’m doing a little happy dance. (Talia and Lucia laugh)

Lucia Kelly: It’s gonna be so cool. So good.

Lucia Kelly: My favorite moment of Season Two. (Lucia laughs) Yikes.

Lucia Kelly: I hate that it happens so early. (Talia and Lucia laugh)

Lucia Kelly: I’m trying to think, like, is there a different moment? And I’m like, “No.” It’s Cassandra in New Earth. Just, all of her, but in particular, the sort of resolution to her arc and the journey she goes on and Chip.

Talia Franks: Actually, I have another favorite moment. I really love the ending of Satan Pit where The Doctor is able to save ⁠— What’s her name? ⁠— Ida?

Lucia Kelly: Mhmm.

Talia Franks: Yeah. Where The Doctor is able to save Ida and swaps her out for Rose. I’m upset that the Ood didn’t survive because they were innocent, they were just possessed, but I’m happy that he was able to swap them out and that they were saved. And that the Black guy lived! I was happy about that.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah! I also wanna just special mention Girl in the Fireplace. Girl in the Fireplace is that girl. It’s so good. Everything about it is golden. (Lucia and Talia laugh)

(Transition wobbles)

Lucia Kelly: Alright, so, Hero and Adam of the season.

Talia Franks: I feel like the Adam of the season is Rose and The Doctor’s relationship. (Lucia and Talia laugh)

Lucia Kelly: Mm-hmm.

Talia Franks: And the Hero of this season… I don’t know. I picked the Adam of the season. You get to pick the Hero of the season.

Lucia Kelly: I mean, you know I’m gonna choose Jackie, so ⁠— (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: I’m wanting to choose Jackie too, but I’m trying to justify it.

Lucia Kelly: Yes! I love that. We’re on the same wavelength. Well, we know she saved The Doctor right at the beginning in Christmas Invasion.

Talia Franks: Yeah! She saved The Doctor in Christmas Invasion. If it wasn’t for her calling The Doctor in with Love & Monsters, then the Absorbaloff would’ve done bad things on Earth ⁠— (sotto voice) I don’t know what the Absorbaloff would’ve done ⁠— but it would’ve done bad things.

Lucia Kelly: Yep. Also, I just wanna give her the Hero award. Like, I wanna hand her the medal of the Hero award for being just ⁠— She’s such a trooper.

Lucia Kelly: Like God, it ⁠— Imagine ⁠— like, I was thinking about this the other day, the parallels between, and again, stay with me, I’m gonna go on one of my wild parallels. But the parallels between Rose Tyler and The Doctor and Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester.

Talia Franks: (Lucia laughs) I’ve never read Jane Eyre. I’m (Lucia sighs) such a bad literature major.

Lucia Kelly: Honestly… I mean it’s good to read just to have read it, but I struggled, because like, it’s a really cool examination of exactly how women’s identities are confined and restricted by the society ⁠— like, particularly the society that Emily Brontë was living in and the society that she put Jane Eyre into ⁠— but ⁠—

Talia Franks: I got about halfway through it. Um ⁠—

Lucia Kelly: Yeah.

Talia Franks: Same thing with Wuthering Heights. I got about halfway through that too, but I could ⁠— Like, the Brontës are just not my thing. I could not get through.

Lucia Kelly: I have a question. Have you tried Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall? Because she is the one Brontë sister who has her head on straight. (Lucia laughs) Who’s like, “You know what? Instead of this wild Byronic hero, why don’t I just set you up with a good farmer that’s gonna like, treat you nice?” Like, why don’t I just ⁠— (Talia giggles and Lucia laughs so hard she can’t speak and then claps for emphasis while talking) “Why don’t we get you a healthy romantic relationship?”

Lucia Kelly: (Talia laughs quietly) Which I love her for and no wonder she’s the least known Brontë sister. But yeah, basically, I’m thinking of a, a Tumblr post that was talking about how like, “Imagine if you were Jane Eyre’s friend, like how do you go to that wedding? How do you go to that wedding knowing everything?” And in the same vein, how does Jackie just have to come to terms with the fact that this is what her daughter’s doing?

Lucia Kelly: Like… She, she is in it for the long haul and by God she tries. By God she tries.

Talia Franks: Yeah. I don’t know that my mother would be able to do it. She probably could. I mean, my mom put up with my ex, but I don’t know that she could put up with The Doctor. (Lucia and Talia giggle)

Lucia Kelly: The way my mother would kick The Doctor to the curb. He would not be allowed in the house.

Talia Franks: Yeah, no.

(Transition wobbles)

Talia Franks: Ranking and grading.

Lucia Kelly: So, I just wanna summarize, Jackie gets the Hero because she deserves it and that’s all the requirements (Talia starts laughing) that are required.

Talia Franks: Okay. That’s all the requirements that (Lucia laughs) are required. Jackie gets the Hero ’cause she deserves it.

Lucia Kelly: Thank you.

Talia Franks: So, last episode we said that the season got a B in Production, an F in Writing, an A+ in Acting, an F in Science, a D- in Rewatchability, and a C total, but we are scaling it, and giving it a final grade as a total.

Talia Franks: Because that’s what we did for Season One. So, we’re gonna be fair, and do the same thing for Season Two.

Talia Franks: So, to calculate, we’re gonna remove the lowest grade in each category and then give it a final grade for the season as a whole.

Talia Franks: So, we’re removing the one that it got in Production for Love & Monsters. The 1 that it got for Writing in Idiot’s Lantern. The 4 that it got for Acting in Christmas Invasion ⁠— It also got a 4 in Army of Ghosts, but we’re only removing one of the 4 ⁠— We’re removing one of the 0’s for Science. It got a 0 in both Idiot’s Lantern and Fear Her. And we’re removing the 0.5 it got in Rewatchability for Army of Ghosts and Doomsday.

Talia Franks: So, final grade, Production. What do you think?

Lucia Kelly: Am I guessing or are you just gonna tell me?

Talia Franks: Like, the season as a whole, if it had a final exam, what would its production grade be?

Lucia Kelly: I mean, I’d put it at a solid 3.5.

Talia Franks: Okay. (Talia sounds noncommittal and Lucia laughs in disbelief. You can hear typing.)

Lucia Kelly: Why are you saying it like that?

Talia Franks: I’m not arguing with you! I have no opinion. (Lucia grumbles)

Talia Franks: Writing?

Lucia Kelly: Three.

Talia Franks: Yeah, I was gonna say three.

Talia Franks: Acting? Uh, give it a five.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah. We’ll forgive Billie. I’m willing to put that down to bad direction and bad writing.

Talia Franks: Yeah. Science?

Lucia Kelly: Another three?

Talia Franks: Yeah. Rewatchability? As a season. If you had to sit down and rewatch the entire season all the way through again, would you do it? Start to finish? Not necessarily a binge, but you had to sit down and watch every single episode again?

Lucia Kelly: I feel like it’s too soon. Like, we’ve just done that.

Talia Franks: No, not like, right away, but like ⁠—

Lucia Kelly: I know! ⁠—

Talia Franks: Would you ever do a full watch of the season?

Lucia Kelly: What I’m saying is that I think right now my opinion on that question is skewed because I’ve just rewatched it. So, right now, I don’t really want to.

Talia Franks: Oh my goodness Lucia. But how rewatchable (Lucia laughs) do you think it’s as a season? You just watched Flux all the way through. You just watched Season One all the way through, just a couple months ago.

Lucia Kelly: (Lucia speaks through giggles, finishing in laughter) But both Flux and Season One are considerably better than Season Two.

Talia Franks: Just ⁠— Just ⁠—

Lucia Kelly: Okay. I’m gonna give a 3.5. Are you happy?

Talia Franks: Okay. I was gonna give it a two.

Lucia Kelly: Then we can give it a three.

Talia Franks: Okay.

Lucia Kelly: Is that in the middle?

Talia Franks: Yes. All right.

Lucia Kelly: I also ⁠— having thought about it ⁠— I wanna up Production, ’cause I was thinking of bad production episodes and I’d forgotten ⁠— Like, I really like the production value in Girl in the Fireplace. I really like the production value in ⁠— I actually really like how they did the parallel universe in Rise of the Cybermen and Age of Steel. Impossible Planet and Satan’s Pit is cool…

Talia Franks: One of these days, you’ll remember that the episode is called Satan Pit and there’s no “S”. (Talia laughs)

Lucia Kelly: I’m in charge now. I get to name it.

Talia Franks: (Lucia laughs) I believe that we are co-hosts and we are both in charge?

Lucia Kelly: But I’m in charge of The Doctor Who in my head. In The Doctor Who in my head it’s called Satan’s Pit. (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: (Talia sounds like their speaking through their fingers in a tired weariness before taking them away) Okay. Anyway. Let’s give production a 4.5.

Lucia Kelly: Yeah.

Talia Franks: Okay.

Talia Franks: So, 92% in Production. That is an A-. 64% in Writing. That is a D. 98% in Acting. That is an A+. 64% in Science. That is a D. Rewatchability. That is a 68%. D+. Series total 77%. That is a C+.

Lucia Kelly: Yay. (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: Compared to Series One. Which gotta B. So, Series Two, not doing great, but oh well.

Lucia Kelly: But now we get to do Season Three!

Talia Franks: Yes!

Lucia Kelly: Now we get to do The Runaway Bride. Now we get to talk about Donna for a whole episode. I’m so excited.

Talia Franks: And then after that we get to do Martha!

Lucia Kelly: We never have to talk about Rose ever again, except for when we do! (Lucia laughs)

Talia Franks: (Talia sighs) Alright.

Talia Franks: Well, catch you next time! It’s gonna be a few months until you hear us for our regular episodes. Probably we’ll have a couple bonus episodes. I don’t know. Maybe. Who knows?

Talia Franks: Bye-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 also send us an 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: If you’d like to support us, you can send us a donation at paypal.me/wibblypod

Talia Franks: Special thanks to our editor, Dee who has been a vital member of the Wibbly Wobbly Team.

Lucia Kelly: That’s all for now. Catch you in the time vortex!