Three Do Who S3E7-Osgood

Episode Description

In this episode of Three Do Who, hosts Eric, Mike, and James dive into the latest "Doctor Who" news and discuss the upcoming "Circuit Breaker" event. They explore the character of Petronella Osgood, her adventures, and her significance in the "Doctor Who" universe. The conversation touches on the expanded universe, including audio dramas and comics, and the hosts express their hopes and concerns for future storylines. They also reminisce about classic "Doctor Who" games and the challenges of preserving digital content. The episode wraps up with plans for future discussions on UNIT and Doctor Who board games.

Links 

https://www.doctorwho.tv/unit/black-archive

This podcast contains adult language and adult subject matter and is rated M for mature. Listener discretion is advised. 

Closing audio

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Welcome to another episode of Three Do Who. I'm Eric, and with me today are my two favorite Hooviens, James and Mike. How are you two doing today?

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Just fine.

SPEAKER_05 0:42

I'm I'm suffering with English weather. But put it this way: last fright last Saturday was 25 degrees. They predicted that today would be nine degrees. It's actually 20 degrees. I hadn't prepared for it, and I am melting already.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Yeah, we're at nine degrees today, and I'm melting. The walk back from downtown was uh fast because we were a little late.

SPEAKER_05 1:07

So hopefully, hopefully you can't hear anything blowing me from the ground upwards. Um it's keeping me.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

No, tell Alex, he tell Alex hi from me. Sorry, children.

SPEAKER_03 1:16

Hello. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

All right. So should we uh get into some Who News?

SPEAKER_05 1:24

Yes, because I want to ask if you know about something.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

I I'm probably don't. Just because.

SPEAKER_05 1:31

Yeah. Well, go for it and I'll ask.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Okay. So our our first piece is uh the countdown to Doctor Who's Circuit Breaker starts now. The global multimedia platform story uh begins uh the 25th of June with the fugitive doctor, and uh she's at the center of it all. Uh and the I have to say, and I'll put up a picture of it uh here too. Her new outfit is bringing Carmen San Diego wives. I mean, really. She her and Carmen could be twins. It's really good. So I'll put that picture up now. You guys can what's that?

SPEAKER_05 2:05

Interesting parentage if they are.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Yeah. Well, I mean, you you you know how you know, you know how Time Lords are. They choose, you know, sexes and and colors and everything. Do they choose it or does the TARDIS choose it for them? Uh well, the the more uh talented of the Time Lords choose it, as we know Romana had full control over her transformations.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Okay, all right. Because I got the doctor's TARDIS. The doctor's TARDIS is like, here's your new body and here's a wardrobe, pick something.

SPEAKER_05 2:38

I might blow up. So for God's sake, don't regenerate into anything larger than what you're currently wearing.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Right. Right, right. Yeah, like like Peter Davidson now, wearing the same outfit he was wearing back then. Oh god. I don't think it would have fit. He was much more uh spelt back in the day. Tighter buttons. Uh anyways, back to Circuit Breaker while we quit teasing former actors. Major new Doctor Who story event is here, and this time the thread is closer than ever. Following its initial reveal last year, BBC Studios has unveiled a new rollout details, story elements, and artwork for Circuit Breaker in the latest episode, The Wooniverse Show. Uh, and that's available, of course, on uh the official Doctor Who YouTube channel if you want to go check it out. Uh Circuit Rachel launches June 25th, as I said. Uh kicks off an epic multi-platform adventure unfolding this summer across audio, publishing, gaming, and digital, bringing fans together for one connected, must-follow Huniverse event. We'll see if they get it right this time.

SPEAKER_05 3:41

Right. Um, yeah, getting it right this time. Is third time lucky? I don't know. First time was catastroph catastrophic cock-up. Second time was horrendously badly launched and killed off all the interest in it. There is something I have noticed in the uh publicity for it that has seemingly garnered no discussion at all so far. And what is that? Okay, so they've released a kind of a story guide so that you can see which ones are gonna be comics, which ones are gonna be audios, books. And again, you got the wretched computer game thing, which I'll talk about later. Right. But if you look at it carefully, one of them is listed as DVD. Yes. I do think. It's about half it's about halfway along the line.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Yeah. Huh. And it's just like I do see a familiar companion there who's no longer with us. The actress is no longer with us. So this should be interesting.

SPEAKER_05 4:49

I just yeah, there's so much I think the problem with this, there is so much potential. Because you've got Joe Martin who is fabulous.

SPEAKER_04 4:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 4:59

Um you've got, yeah, this bizarre so far lacking in publicity, DVD. So no one knows what that's gonna be. Um I'm just thinking, please don't cop this up. Please don't cop this.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Yeah, well, especially especially since Liz Slayton's gonna be in it. I really want to hope that they do her uh justice and don't is it Liz Sladen or her daughter? Well, the the picture is of Liz. So if they're doing her in the audio portion, it'll probably be her daughter uh training. Yes, but uh yeah, I just hope that they don't cock that part up.

SPEAKER_05 5:37

Yeah. So I'm gonna try and ask around to see if anyone knows anything about this DVD. I suspect, as you say, launches next month.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Um it's coming up very quickly.

SPEAKER_05 5:50

We'll actually be recording again before then, so hopefully, yeah, in the next recording, we might have some more details.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Yeah. So according to their website here, the DVD is going to be the black archive files on Blu-ray. Oh yeah, but so if you if you follow the schedule there, everything that circles got a little color code, and it says that's what the Blu-ray is, the green around that.

SPEAKER_05 6:12

So I'm wondering if that just means they're gonna release a few episodes, like the Time Lord Victorious. Could be. Or if they're gonna try and cobble something together. I suspect it'll be past episodes.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Um but yeah, there's a part of me that really hopes they're gonna do like a you know some new footage with Joe Martin for the Yeah, it would be kind of awesome if that black archive files thing is is you know more a tour of the black archives and and you know peppering in some cool stuff. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 6:44

Hold that thought about for about another 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Okay. Yeah. Yes. Well, I I do know the reason is because it is very close to what we're talking about today. Oh, it's even closer than you realize. Yes. Yes. Well, I I I then I I kind of guess what's going on now. Right. But yeah, it uh it looks like it might be fun. Uh, I'm hoping that uh they do a better job than the last uh the last one they did, uh, which, like you said, was a total colossal mess up of epic proportions. Um but yeah, it looks really good. They've got a lot of stuff going out uh between the launch date and uh what going all the way into September, the 24th of September.

SPEAKER_05 7:29

Yeah. Um and again, not that I'm ever cynical or anything.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Never but we are too. You're the most optimistic person I know.

SPEAKER_05 7:41

But currently, as of recording, we're about 270 days away from Christmas.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 7:47

Very close. And we have had absolutely no news, no information, anything about no um yeah. And I was doing some I was doing some looking up because I'm doing an uh another online project kind of thing. And I just happened I I started looking up. I was like, yeah, so we knew about Christopher Eccleston like a year before, you know, and we found out all about filming. And like pretty much every doctor and every major thing was announced at least like a year ahead. And I'm just thinking, okay, uh June, July, August, September, October, November, seven months. Um, pull your fingers out, DBC.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Um yeah, we don't know anything about what it's gonna be. We don't even know if it's gonna be Billy in this one. No, we don't know for sure. We could they could bring Tenet back and have him do the Christmas special again.

SPEAKER_05 8:43

Apparently, so far, two actors have openly denied that they're either in it or have any interest in being in it.

SPEAKER_04 8:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 8:53

Tenant and Joe Martin.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Well, I almost don't believe Tenant because uh like he's sneaky about getting back in Doctor Who.

SPEAKER_05 9:07

Um, the other the other reason I I'm pretty sure it's not Tenant is because we're seven months away from publicity and so far it hasn't been leaked yet. Yeah. Which let's face it, it's RTD.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Um David's never been too bad about leaking stuff.

SPEAKER_05 9:24

No, but RTD has always leaked stuff.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

True, true.

SPEAKER_05 9:28

Yeah. Right. So what else have you got on the news front?

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Uh so that's pretty much it. Like I said, and uh I'll I did put I did put up earlier the uh picture of where in the world is Carmen Doctor Hugo. Uh it that got some some traction on on my on our Blue Sky account. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 9:50

So the only other bit that I've got, which we must be getting close to now. Uh last year there was an accidental leak.

SPEAKER_03 9:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 9:58

Um which so far has held true for all the things that were leaked. Um and basically kind of yeah, we're we're May as of recording. There is a very strong rumour that there will be a Trouton announcement for an animation coming up in the next month. Um very nice. Because basically, yeah, last year, or quite a while ago now, I think it was I think it was longer than last year, um a YouTube channel showed up, which was basically a collection of a certain type of extra from the Blu-ray releases. And they accurately included details of Blu-rays that hadn't yet been announced. And so the only one that hadn't been announced so far and hasn't come out of anything, is they said there was gonna be a Troughton version of this extra uh released around about October time. Now, that YouTube channel has since disappeared. Um which is why a lot of people thought, oh, did someone put information up that they weren't supposed to? Um and the other rumor, which has appeared today, okay, uh, there is some convention up north somewhere, you know, because every bloody convention goes up north. Um and allegedly up there. Yeah. So this month uh is of course the McAniversary. It's 30 30 years of Paul McGann. How the 30 years of Paul McGann? The bastard hasn't aged a day.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Um No, he he looks fantastic. Actually, I think he looks better now than he did uh during the movie. I mean, basically, because he wore a wig for the movie, you could put the wig back on him and you really wouldn't notice much difference. I actually like him with the shorter hair though. I think he's I think he's really good looking.

SPEAKER_05 12:05

So there is a new version of the uh a newly restored version of the Blu-ray coming out this month to celebrate. Um and apparently one of the guests at the convention uh that's going on today accidentally let slip that permission had been granted for some archive footage for a Wilderness Years box set. Ooh, okay. So I say uh that's still very much on the rumour list, but as the person involved would have been the person that they probably would have gone to to get permission for this footage, um it looks like the long rumoured uh Wilderness Years box is at least a step closer to being a possibility um in a few years' time.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Okay. Yeah, I'm kinda you know, with all the with all the really fun releases coming out, I kind of wish they'd do more Pertwee.

SPEAKER_05 13:08

Well, there's only one Pertry season left. Yeah. And the trouble is that Pertry season has got problems.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Yeah. Well, they could do some they could do some, you know, some uh specials with with Pertwee. And I I wish the the problem is the person I want them to play, uh uh Pertwee is is uh you know his son. Uh but his son has vehemently said he will not do it because he he's like, no, that's my dad. I can't I just can't do it.

SPEAKER_05 13:39

Oh, which I genuinely have a lot of respect for him saying.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

I do too, because he he could he could make a lot of money out of he looks so much like his dad.

SPEAKER_05 13:46

Um but yeah, there's only one Pertwee season that isn't out on Blu-ray. Um, and one of those stories, when they released it on DVD, they tried to do a clean up job of an episode that was in very bad condition, and they had to release not only their attempt at cleaning it up, but the black and white version because they could not clean it up well enough.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Yeah, there's only so much you can you can do. I mean, and maybe in a few years' time, they can make another shot at it and get it better. But yeah, uh it's like one of those things. It takes a lot of technology and time.

SPEAKER_05 14:22

And the other problem with that season is because they have left it so long, uh, a large number, in fact, virtually all of the people involved with it are no longer with us. So whether or not they would get many new features for it is another matter.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Yeah. I'd just like to hear Sean talk about his dad.

SPEAKER_05 14:42

I think that would be I think I think that would be a great extra him being interviewed about his memories of it.

SPEAKER_01 14:48

Because uh, when I met him at one of the Comic Cons and talked to him just briefly, he's like, Oh, my dad was the best. And you know, he had he had nothing but great things to say about his dad. So uh, you know, and I was like, Well, are you gonna play him sometime? No, can't ever do it. Can't ever do it. He's like, I I can't live up to that. He's he's my hero. I can't, you know, can't do it. That's cool. I mean, he's such a nice guy. Uh I'm sad that you know his dad's not around anymore.

SPEAKER_05 15:14

Yeah. So should we get on to the main bit? It ties in with poetry and the unit year. Yes, yes. Uh, let's get on with uh Osgood.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

I can't wait to hear just how much you're gonna try and cover and and then I get I only covered a little bit, and it's still by far the longest intro for a character that I've ever done. I had no idea. I love Osgood, and just a few times I've seen her on screen, I had no idea that her backstory has exploded like exponentially since she first appeared. It's I mean, it's great because it's a fantastic character. Uh, but uh and the actress that plays her is she's sweet as can be. Uh but uh wow.

SPEAKER_05 15:54

Well all I all I can say about the actress is that I you know there is a certain meme of a hamster trying to eat a banana.

SPEAKER_04 16:03

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_05 16:04

Her husband is about six foot six and she's about five foot.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

Yes. They're cute together, though. I peeked in on her Instagram and she uh like they are so cute together.

SPEAKER_05 16:15

Yeah. I just see her as that hamster every child.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

She does look like that hamster, yes. Yes, very, very much so. She is so tiny. Yeah, anyway. Uh anyways, yes, Petronella Osgood is a human who worked at Unit as a scientific advisor under Kate Stewart. Uh, she helped in thwarting a number of alien threats to Earth. In her first appearances, she sported the fourth doctor's scarf. The good one, not the rubbish one that was maroon and ugly. I can't stand the maroon. The worst thing they ever did to Tom was put him in that maroon outfit.

SPEAKER_05 16:53

I think I think they did worse to him.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Uh maybe, but God, the the grape, the grape doctor was just not me. I I go back I go back and watch those episodes, and I'm like, you picked one color for his entire costume and just ran with it. It's a little bit much. Anyway.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

So if he was a grape, if it was a grape when you squeezed him, did he give out a little wine? No, he drank all the wine.

SPEAKER_05 17:22

Ah, yeah. Right with Petronella.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Yes. So uh she also belonged to an old unit family, and many of her relatives were science geeks, uh, including her aunt, I believe, was a was a huge influence on her. Uh when she was young, she took swimming lessons, but had a fear of diving boards, and so she didn't get her swimming badge. She was interested in insects and wanted to pet spiders and learn about them, but ended up hiding under the stairs because she was scared of them. So it's not a great place to hide because usually that's where the spiders hide too.

SPEAKER_05 17:54

Sorry, can I just get can I just clarify? There was a comma between she was interested in sex and wanted to pet spiders, isn't there? No. Insects. Oh, in the butt.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Insect. I heard sex also.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

So it's just like that's my pronunciation being all messed up from learning two languages or from learning a second language.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

And I'm trying to figure out why spiders had anything to do with sex.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

I haven't gotten to the I've only gotten through the first three pages.

SPEAKER_05 18:32

Right. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Every time I try the one on the third page, I get a cramp and we have to stop.

SPEAKER_05 18:36

Yeah, I saw the pictures on the web. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

There's a niche for that. Yes. Osgood earned at least one PhD at King Henry's University in London. And after university, she was hired by the MOD, where she was uh mentored by Professor John Torrance, who is kind of an asshole, it turns out. But um, he's a well-respected asshole, I guess. Uh having shown promise at university and having family members connected unit, Osgood was recruited by Kate Stewart, who was building a team to lead the organization with a more scientific bent than military. Uh, with a high score on her IQ test, so high that it was rejected three times, uh, and a good reference from John Torrance. She was recruited into unit as a technician at the Gray Archive in November or December of 2011. Kate would later say that she hired Osgood because she was brilliant. And at her very first briefing in unit, Kate gave a five-minute speech on duty that Osgood memorized and could recite by heart. Uh, though uh accident prone, she stubbed her toe on a dwarf star alloy and was in pain for weeks. She was uh she impressed the higher-ups at Unit by building a universal clock out of a prototype of psychic paper and some scavenged nestine plastic. So she's she's uh she's quite the quite the bright little girl. I I could see why I could see why she gets along with the doctor well. Yes. Because yeah, he's that's the kind of thing he would do. Uh so on Christmas Eve of 2011, Osgood was attacked and wounded in the gray archive by several Sonterans uh produced by a Sonteran cloning pod, and uh slowed her bleeding by tying part of a long scarf she found around her arm and wearing the rest of it around her neck. She fended off the Sontarans by improvising traps with the archive's artifacts, including a gravity globe and a memory filter. She finally tricked the Sonteran leader, a clone of Luke Radigan, into falling into the gravity globe, uh, which uh, of course, you know, ended the little lockdown problem they had there. Kate arrived on the scene a few moments later and took her to her office, deciding then that she would reassign Osgood to report directly to her in January. So that's some pretty quick promotion right there. I mean, considering, you know, she only started uh what did what did we say? 2011. Yeah, 2011 December. And by by uh 2012, she was already promoted and promoting, you know, and reporting uh directly to Kate. So that's uh she's definitely impressed some people, I guess. Um Osgood became uh Unit's scientific advisor and focused on building tech to stop the soldiers from shooting aliens. Uh she continued to wear the scarf that she found in the gray archive and enjoyed reading about the doctor's adventures so much so that she accidentally memorized them. She later took to dressing like several of the doctor's other incarnations. This included the third, fifth, sixth, and eleventh doctors. And later, her and or her Zygon Duplicate would dress like the seventh doctor as well. Uh, in addition to being one of the doctor's biggest fans, she idolized several of the doctor's companions and even had an adventure with Sarah Jane Smith, who later told her about the importance of screaming when running from alien threats. Very much sounds like Liz. She also met Kate's father and also worked with Joe Jones. So that Kind of ties in again to what we were talking about. Yep. Osgood created several gadgets to help against the combatative aliens, including a 360-degree headband that to defeat the silence, and took to using uh their image with her holographic projector to influence people. Yeah. It's like that's a that's a pretty good technique because they won't remember it afterwards. Influence away, and and they won't remember being influenced afterwards. Uh so there we get to the Zygon invasion. Osgood was duplicated along with several unit personnel, and later in the Black Archive, the war, 10th and 11th doctors made Kate, Osgood, and the Zygons forget who they were, or who were the humans and who were the Zygons, to allow them to create the perfect peace treaty. They spent 10 hours devising the treaty, and during one of the breaks, Osgood realized that she was the human and her double was the Zygon when she handed her double her inhaler. However, they kept this a secret. The two Osgoods administered and embodied the peace between their two races and kept an eye on the Osgood boxes, which uh go back and watch that if you um if you're on if you're unsure of what the Osgood boxes are. Um, but they refused to reveal which one of them was human and which one was Zygon, and together they recorded a message to dissuade anybody who captured them for searching for the boxes. Osgood Osgood's Zygon Double was later killed by Missy, and she went mad with grief and later went to went undercover to the United States. She vidted, ah, I can't speak today. She visited Truth or Consequences, where fights broke out between the humans and Zygons and informed the doctor of the nightmare scenario when she was attacked by Zygon rebels. The 12th doctor saved Osgood, but their airplane was shot down by Bonnie, the leader of the of the Truth or Consequences rebels, who had taken the form of Clara Oswald. Uh they later saved Clara and afterwards the doctor talked Bonnie out of her revolution. Bonnie then took on Osgood's form to help her keep the peace. The doctor offered Osgood the opportunity to travel in the TARDIS with her, or with him, uh, but she turned him down as she was needed at home and returned to work with her new sister. Uh so there's a lot more adventures that Osga Osgood and Bonnie participated in, but I'm gonna stop here and hand things over to James and Mike to give their thoughts and perspectives. Uh, I honestly didn't realize it was such a complex and large storyline. Um, what's kind of good is what's kind of good is is by by happenstance, I happened to tie it in with the new release that's coming out just after this. So and I had no idea at all. It was it was just sheer luck that this happened.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

I'm gonna be honest with you, when I started doing the research on this, I thought we were talking about Nardal. And I started doing all the research, then I realized, wait a minute, that's that's the wrong character. So I had watched like two or three episodes with Nardal in it, and I was like, wait, wait, no, no, this is totally wrong. So I had to go back to figure it out because it's just that as soon as you said Osgood, I was like, oh, I love that guy. And then I just you know off I went, and then and then when I when I looked at it, I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, you dummy. Um, so so I didn't delve into the the expanded universe, and so I was a little curious as to why you guys were so excited about her because she had like maybe 20 minutes of air time total uh explaining the Osgood box, and then that was it. And then a couple of other where she ran up in different costumes, and and I did like when the doctor said that uh she shouldn't wear the bow tie.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Um yeah, it's not a good look for her, it really isn't. No, all the different ones she's done, the the bow tie is the worst for her. Yeah, she's just not a bow tie gal.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Yeah, and you know, the whole the whole doubles and all other kind of stuff. I would kind of like to know how many other doubles are out there in the unit um besides her. There's gotta be more. There's gotta be more.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Well, yeah, because there's a treaty, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

So unless the treaty's broken.

SPEAKER_05 26:11

So yeah, this is this is where I'm gonna uh pick up the story because I need to have a little rant.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

Okay, rant okay.

SPEAKER_05 26:18

Yeah. Um and unusually I'm gonna save the Moffat bit of the rant till later. I'm gonna start with a big thingish rant. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Ooh, and usually you don't rant about them so much.

SPEAKER_05 26:31

Yeah. Um, because, yeah, Osgood and the expanded universe. Basically, they have done huge numbers of new unit boxes. The Kate Lethbridge Stewart, Osgood, and they have come up with a vast team of their own who work really well on audio. Um and they've also tied in with old units, so yeah, that was how she one of the one of the times she met Joe Jones, she's met other unit people. And yeah, Big Fingish have done some really good unit boxes. Yeah. But there is a problem. They've done some apparently. No, no, no. No. They have only done one story that uses both Osgoods.

SPEAKER_04 27:27

Oh.

SPEAKER_05 27:28

And in none of the main unit releases, is there really any indication that there is a second Osgood? And yeah, I say I love, don't get me wrong, the stories are brilliant. They've done one with the Warmaster, there was one against the silence, they've done ones against sea devils, autons, all kinds of people. But every time I've listened to them, I've been sitting there thinking, I want something more about what happens when you are cloned by a zygon, and basically you are living essentially with your unexpected twin. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

I'm wondering if they're not if they're not putting her her her double in the stories maybe because it's a little bit too overpowered for you know for the situation. Because you know, it's like it's like the doctor goes around sonicking everything, and it's it gets a little old in some of those episodes. If you got like two, it's like having two MacGyvers in the same show. Because I mean, essentially Osgood is a McGyver character, she's super brilliant.

SPEAKER_05 28:38

And if you got two of them, given that about 10 boxes, you'd have thought that at least once or twice they could.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Yeah, or at least you know, not not using the double in a crisis thing, it maybe using it in more of a of a you know of a personal story bit, what it's like to live with your yeah, and and how many of those episodes did she use the inhaler?

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Because if she didn't use the inhaler during the episode, then that's the zygon.

SPEAKER_05 29:06

Right. I don't think they put an asthma inhaler of sound effect in many of the episodes. I would have to go back and listen to all of them.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Um because the reason I wanted them to do something with it is because in the eight Doctor books, one of the Doctor's companions essentially was killed, cloned, and had an existential crisis about whether or not him being a clone of himself made him any less of a clon any less of a but was he cloned uh out of like a cloning bat type situation or cloned by a zygon?

SPEAKER_05 29:44

Oh god, it's really complicated with this one.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

I mean it's like by a zygon, they're they're an individual person that just takes on the traits of another person. So there's still a whole individual there.

SPEAKER_05 29:56

I say the the this character fits. Um it is a mind-blowingly difficult situation involving all kinds of weird stuff that seriously, I don't even think 20 years after the books came out, I've ever got my head around. Um but say, but yeah, I can see why it'd be why it'd be kind of existential crisis. At least in the books, this particular character does occasionally have to stop and think, you know, am I actually a real person? You know, are my feelings real or are they based on distorted memories of what my original body would have thought? It's basically kind of like you know, the whole AI thing.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

Well, and there was a whole Star Trek, there was a whole Star Trek book uh with a character who was who uh was very anti-transporter. I can't remember the book now, I read it a long time back, but uh you know, essentially, transporters are death machines, they basically kill you, break you down, and rebuild you at a different location. Yeah, like probably like the best one of those type of scenarios I've ever seen is the movie Moon. Um with uh I'm forgetting the guy's name. Uh, I think it's Sam something. Fantastic movie. He thinks he's getting to leave, and it turns out he's not getting to leave because he's just gonna be killed and replaced by a clone of himself.

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Over and over and over and over. Over and over and over.

SPEAKER_05 31:27

Yes, it's really good. Unusually for big thing ish, I do feel a little bit frustrated that yeah, because they could at least give some some interpersonal relationship stuff.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

Because it's gotta be hard living with somebody who's, you know, essentially a twin you didn't have from birth.

SPEAKER_05 31:47

And also, it would be great just for some comic interludes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, there was so much possibility. Um, there is a new unit box set that's just come out, but it's not purely the Lethbury Stuart era, it's a mix of different eras. Um, but yeah, one story that wasn't actually even in a unit box, it was in one of the other boxes that they did. Um, yeah. And then I'd say, I mean, I know on TV Moffat couldn't really kind of go into psychological stuff and everything. Yeah, yeah. He didn't have a lot of time. But yeah. Um as I said, when it happened on TV, I started getting flashbacks to the Eighth Doctor books and the kind of like the whole who's the real thing, you know. So the I didn't think it was a a brilliantly original idea at first, but yeah, the character is fantastic. Yeah. Um so even though I'm disappointed that we didn't get the doubles, the the the unit boxes, her relationship with Kate, her relationship with the other characters that they've created for the unit team is brilliant. And then RTD comes along, and where is Osgood?

SPEAKER_01 33:01

Yeah, like he shelved one of the best unit characters there and then brought in you know some other characters. No, don't get me wrong. Uh the I'm forgetting her name now, the lady in the wheelchair. Yeah, she's fantastic. I love her too. She's she's brilliant. But like, where's Osgood? She's nowhere to be seen.

SPEAKER_05 33:17

And worst of all, and I even went back and checked the scripts for every relevant episode. Osgood is not even named, as far as I can tell, in any of the unit stories. That's a shame. Like, that's you know, you had a really good working relationship with Osgood. Surely you should have at least nominally said, Oh, by the way, you know, how's Petronella?

SPEAKER_01 33:41

How's Bobby? You know. Yeah, some at least some mention of her, uh, let us know what's happened to her.

SPEAKER_04 33:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 33:48

But I say, unfortunately, that's uh a bigger issue for me, say, than just the Osgood thing.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

I mean, you know, well, I mean, even Moffat did that. There's there's the there's the there's the mention of, oh, you uh you know, when the doctor uh the doctor asked about her, I can't remember which episode, she's like, you just missed her.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

You know, she's gonna be so upset that she missed seeing you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:09

I mean, is it is just you've got this brilliant, and I appreciate that the actress might have had other things, you know, getting married, all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_04 34:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:17

But I feel that's been years especially, has really ruined so many opportunities to but to make up for that, okay. Um, this is where this whole episode is gonna degenerate into a jumble of everything being interconnected, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

No, no, you'd laugh, but say you kind of, you know. No, I I can I can only imagine because just reading the first parts that I read, I was like, I had no idea the character was this ingrained in the in the stories.

SPEAKER_05 34:48

So uh we didn't do playlists last month because we had all the stuff about them, the return missing episodes. Um, and my playlist was gonna be computer games. And it's I'm gonna do the proper bit later on once we get to it. But Osgood is huge in the expanded universe, not just in the unit boxes, to the extent where one of the games, which I believe you can still even download, install, play, and run and everything on Android and iOS, has Osgood as the central character. It's called The Lonely Assassins.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

Yeah, and I think she's mentioned in the VR game, too.

SPEAKER_05 35:29

She's she's mentioned, oh, believe me, she is in every fucking thing. She is in the weep, the weeping assassins. Uh Doctor Who Infinity, which I believe, more of which data though, I don't think is officially available anymore. She is in that. She was in Doctor Who Legacy. Um, she has been in the comics, she has been in this, that, and the other. She has been, you know, when when they have done kind of big things, she's done big box sets, she has nearly always had a presence in the box set. Osgood is amazing. And I think that's also why I'm kind of doubly disappointed in the TV series. But um the one thing I want to really praise her for, praise them for uh she is Osgood is in Doctor Who Redacted. And Doctor Who Redacted is um I've never known what to call it, because it was kind of initially advertised as a podcast kind of thing. But it isn't, it's a it was a full-blown ten-part Doctor Who world drama. It wasn't done by the BBC, it wasn't done by Big Fingers, it was done by the BBC, and it is all about LGBTQ characters. And Osgood is part of that series, she is part of the story. And you know, when you've got a character that can front a major computer game that can appear in minority dramas, that can appear in huge big finish ranges, that can guest in you know, big finish stories outside of unit, and feel natural in every single thing that the character is in, that is the kind of you know, the mark of a good character for me. And that's really kind of sadly.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

She does not appear in Edge of Time. I'm sorry. Okay. I just looked it up. I was trying to remember, I was like, I thought they mentioned her in it, but uh no, I I don't think she is.

SPEAKER_05 37:28

So yeah, given given how many other things she's in, you know. I think dipping out on one thing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

Um and the game wasn't that good, anyways.

SPEAKER_05 37:37

So right. Okay. Um my closing comment is yeah, Osgood fits into Doctor Who like a glove. Yeah. She is the absolute spirit of everything that Doctor Who should be.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

Well, I mean, she's she's essentially a you know, a human version of the Doctor in as far as her ability to cobble together unique uh solutions for you know out-of-time plans and and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_05 38:11

Right. Should we do the delayed playlists?

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Sure, let's do it.

SPEAKER_05 38:18

Because this is gonna get really complicated and wibbly, timey, knotty, kind of.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

Oh, yeah, it's gonna get even worse as we go on, sorry.

SPEAKER_05 38:26

No, no, no, no, no, no. It's gonna get not just worse, it's gonna get obscene. Right. Because one of you picked a topic that resulted in complaints being made to television.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

Yeah. We know which one that is.

SPEAKER_05 38:44

I don't think Mike does know, does he? No, I don't think so. Right, let's do Lupari first. Um yeah, the problem is because they're in the flux, which was 2021, I think it was, you know, and then we had the specials in 2022, and there's COVID and everything going on. Um Big Fingish only got the license to do Jodi era stuff, you know, very recently sort of thing. So there isn't a huge amount of Lupari kind of stories, okay? However, um a great box set to get again, this is one of the things that Big Fingish does very well, is they find ways to bring fans of New Who in contact with uh Classic Who. And they're the range that they do this with a lot is Classic Doctor's New Monsters. Um by the way, if you search for C DNM, that's way too close to certain other abbreviations in the fetish world. Yes. Um, and I had a very confusing conversation with someone a couple of weeks ago. But anyway, um volume five of Classic Doctors New Monsters is called Faithful Friends, and there is a story in there called Dying Breed. Uh, it's a fourth Doctor, Leela, and K9 story featuring the Lupari. Um, you know, it's a a great way to meet characters from Flux, but also get introduced to a truly classic Doctor, a brilliant companion, a brilliant robot dog, you know. Um plus you get Miriam Margoyle's as one of the voices. She was the voice of the meep. Um, yes, yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:42

And also, also Professor Sprout in the uh the uh Harry Potter universe. Anyway, yeah. Um it's not her fault. It's not her fault. It's not any of the actors or actresses' fault uh about you know the the author. Yeah, yeah. The movies are separate entirely to me from from the author.

SPEAKER_05 41:03

But say, because it's a box, you also get the acrylatine feint, the acrylatine uh relic, and a story featuring the monks from the 12th Doctor era. Nice. So first off, it's a opened up kind of it opened up a way to get into it. Um and we'll do the kind of the weird one first, the weird good way first.

SPEAKER_04 41:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 41:28

Um, because I only discovered this today. Um so basically, by the time this comes out, I will have sent Eric uh full information. So basically, if you look down there, pointing to the text, not anything else, yeah, uh, I will have provided Eric with some more details. But it looks like and this is where it gets really freakishly kind of how miraculous was this. Um at one of the comic cons, it looks like there was a virtual reality kind of unit experience. Oh. And I think I remember seeing something about that. Yeah. Some of that seems to have made its way online. Um to the extent where you can go to, right, reading off my notes, Doctor Who.tv. You click on the unit badge top right of the screen. Now you do need a BBC account to access this, but they're free to set up. And I don't think they're region locked.

SPEAKER_01 42:33

But basically uh Is this the is this the when you go into the unit thing, is the is this the one where you actually sign up to unit uh like your own unit thing? Because I had to sign up for that for the war between the land and the sea. This is why I said I'm gonna send you more information because yeah, send me more information, I'll look because I've got the I've got the unit sign in from the land and the sea.

SPEAKER_05 42:53

But anyway, yeah. Um one of the things you can do is you can explore the black archive, including relic relics that the uh that have been collected, including a Lupari axe. Okay. So yeah, there is stuff online um which is starting to kind of build up this world of unit again. Um I had a very brief look at it. Um there's wonderful kind of like uh newsletters from Kate Lethbridge Stewart, there's all kinds of stuff on there. So yeah, um I thought I was gonna really struggle because I didn't think there was anything for Lupari, but yeah, I found this whole wonderful interactive experience. Um great and then we then we get to those horrid words online. Yes, right. Um Eric, as much as I love the furry community, sometimes sometimes they go a little bit too far. Not always, but yeah, a lot of time. I will be sending the YouTube link to the two of you after this. Um because yeah, uh John Bishop, who played Dan, uh Carvinista's Assigned Human, he's a stand-up comedian. I mean, that's unfortunately why he was not in Power of the Doctor so much, is because the rescheduled dates due to everything going on in the global world conflicted with his stand-up tour, so he had to kind of take yeah. But basically, John Bishop, not only is he a stand-up comedian, he's got a great, huge amount of BBC TV under his belt, his own shows, everything. And in one of them, uh called The John Bishop Show, imaginatively, um, he had a guest on who was one of the actors from Lord of the Rings. Oh, nice. And uh they were chatting about fan art.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

Yes. And was it rule 63?

SPEAKER_03 45:00

Um I'm gonna just is it rule 63?

SPEAKER_01 45:06

If if the if if there is art of it, there's there's sex art of it. Oh, I don't know. I thought it was I don't know what number it is, but yeah, it's I can't remember either. But yeah, there's the rule on the internet that if there is if there's fan art, there's also sexual fan art.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

Also, by the way, for our listeners, I did just go to that website and I was able to create an account so it's not region locked.

SPEAKER_05 45:26

Oh, brilliant!

SPEAKER_00 45:27

Perfect. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 45:28

Um, so yeah, um, they brought up some of the fan art of this Lord of the Rings actor.

SPEAKER_04 45:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 45:36

And then they brought up some fan art of Dan and Carvanista.

SPEAKER_04 45:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 45:43

And then they brought up some fan of art of Dan and Carvanista hugging.

SPEAKER_04 45:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 45:50

And then on BBC TV, they brought up on full screen HD resolution fan art of Dan and Carvanista fucking.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

Nice. Well. I mean, that is not the first time, though, that that's happened on BBC. Uh go back to John Oliver's go back to John Oliver's bit about the the uh rat art, the erotic rat art. Yeah. Um they're like selling this at an auction, at a charity auction on TV, and they're like, oh, it's two rats having a bath, or it's two rats enjoying some downtime together, and there's a bottle of lube in the corner.

SPEAKER_05 46:31

Oh no, I mean, this wasn't even bottle of lube in the corner. This was full-blown into Yeah. Um, I will the ones on the option. At least rats are the same species as each other. True.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

Oh, true.

SPEAKER_05 46:44

Yeah. Um so yeah, I will send you a YouTube link.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

It actually took me a while to find the specific clip because a lot of the clips of it are of people doing reaction videos to John Bishop reacting to the I was like, oh, but to be to be honest, it's not just the furry community, but the furry community has uh a big interest in the in the werewolf uh artwork stuff, the erotic werewolf artwork stuff. But that's not just a furry thing, there's also some regular, oh yeah, you know, regular side of art, just normal sexual stuff that that fetishizes werewolves as well. Well, and vampires and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:24

And dig into Doctor Who Hentai and see what that gets you. Oh god, yeah. There's a lot of that too.

SPEAKER_05 47:30

But I mean, it's it's fine to do it on the net, but to send it to the actor.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

Yeah. Unless they ask you for that, don't send stuff to actors like that, please. Public service announcement time here.

SPEAKER_05 47:44

But yeah, I want to say to about John Bishop, though, to sit on your own TV show and behind you knowingly bring up this artwork and be happy to comment on it. Hats off, John Bishop.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

That is something that took genuine kind of comedians tend to be a bit more open about stuff like that than than typically but even so, I mean Yeah I I just watched one of my I just watched a a comedy special with Brad Williams. He's a he's a uh dwarf comic. And uh he was uh this this was the most uh sexually explicit he's gotten in any of his concerts, and I was a bit surprised. It's a little bit more uh yeah, it was a little bit more than I I had uh ever heard him get into stuff like that. But a lot of comedians they they get to the point where it's just like okay, it's funny. I mean, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:41

Right. And speaking of inappropriate sexual acts, let's get on to Susan. Okay. Um Yeah. Because let's face it, RTD screwed Susan.

SPEAKER_01 48:54

Big time. Oh. Well, not just RTD, though, it really wasn't entirely his fault aside from he couldn't run a show.

SPEAKER_05 49:02

I mean, every everything to do with seasons 14 and 15, or whatever the fuck we're gonna end up calling them now that there's this big review.

SPEAKER_01 49:09

It was a big cluster fuck of of just mismanagement, entirely just mismanagement. You you know, uh, some people should have been managed better. Yeah, some people should have uh realized that they had a good thing going for them and not acted like a primadonna. Yeah. Um, yeah, there's there's a lot of blame to point in seasons 14 and 15, and I I don't think it's fair to place it entirely in RTD, but he was the showrunner, so he should take the brunt of it. So I I agree.

SPEAKER_05 49:39

Let's let's look on the positive side and say that, yeah. So Susan, no matter what we've had recently, Susan, Doctor's granddaughter. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 49:50

Um G. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:54

That means that, yeah. Um the the the list that I was trying to narrow things down from to give you some Susan recommendations. Yeah. Seriously, I mean you should you could have just said, why don't you pick some Doctor Who?

SPEAKER_01 50:08

That would have been easy. Yeah. Yeah, well she had a good run on TV. She had a very good run on TV, and then and then she's had a fantastic run in the expanded universe. Um more so than you realize. Yeah, well, I know. I looked briefly just because I was like, oh, am I setting him up for something bad? And then I was like, uh, I kind of. Sorry. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_05 50:28

Actually, it's given me a chance to speak about some things I genuinely love. Okay, so I've I've had my the first of my rants was a and the Susan bit is just gonna be full of love for Doctor Who.

SPEAKER_01 50:40

Yeah, I mean, she's she's a fantastic character.

SPEAKER_05 50:42

Um, I mean, RCD wasn't the first one to mess her up. I mean, that's why Susan left, because Caroline Ford wasn't happy with the way the character was developed. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 50:51

You know, that's I I remember reading about that, and yeah, it's a shame because she was she is fantastic on screen. Uh she had good chemistry.

SPEAKER_05 50:59

She's actually, and I need to check the dates, she's either the subject of the first or second bit of expanded universe fiction.

unknown 51:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 51:11

Um, because going back bizarrely to last month, do you remember this?

SPEAKER_03 51:18

The Dalek book.

SPEAKER_05 51:20

Um there is culled from screen grabs of Doctor Who's they have woven together a whole new Susan Solo story based on pictures from Doctor Who and the Daleks.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

Oh wow. Fantastic. Nice.

SPEAKER_05 51:42

So, yeah, although the rest of the book, as I said, you know, was very much kind of its own universe of the 60s Daleks, Susan actually ends up in her own book, uh her own story in this. And the second it is they it's a work of genius because they've taken screen grabs or whatever they could get from the first Dalek story of Susan and told a whole new, totally different story from them.

SPEAKER_01 52:14

Awesome.

SPEAKER_05 52:15

Yeah. Um, and then we have the the drought kind of thing of the 70s, where there was very little DocTo expanded universe. Um and in the 80s there wasn't a huge amount, but guess what? Susan was in the main bit, main important, now forgotten sort of bit of expanded universe. Um for the Docto's 20th anniversary, the Radio Times commissioned a special souvenir uh magazine. And I won't say that it's a spoiler because she's in all the artwork for it. Susan features in the story, and because some people don't want to have sorry, this is the thing right mini rant, which is separate. The Doctor Who Blu-rays and DVDs are great for putting PDF, they put loads of PDF material on there. Right. But people don't have physical drives anymore. You know, so trying to actually kind of you know get this, yeah. Having a bit having a blu-ray drive where you can lift all of the scripts and everything off sometimes means that you have to find a friend who's got one to do it on your phone.

SPEAKER_01 53:26

Uh so the the best I've found, uh, because uh I had to do that just recently because of the move, uh, I couldn't, of course, take all the the hardware that I had at home. Uh I found a really good USB-C uh Blu-ray uh uh drive for my computer, and I've I've just been using that.

SPEAKER_05 53:44

But yeah, um the 20th anniversary is on one of the discs. I can't I think it's the Five Doctors box. I think it's the 20th anniversary box. Um but if you just want the story, uh sneaky subtle plug, I did it as an audio story a couple of months back on my YouTube channel.

SPEAKER_00 53:59

On on YouTube, which we'd be down there. Look down right there. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_05 54:08

Right. Um sorry. And then the 90s come along, and of course we've got the wilderness years, and Susan, my god, there is so much. Um so trying to narrow it down was genuinely really challenging. Okay. Um sorry, not sorry. Yeah. But it's great because, yeah, bizarrely, I can go back to uh something that I've recommended in the past, but I can go back to it in a different way. Uh there was a comic strip in Doctor magazine, a three-parter, called Operation Proteus.

SPEAKER_04 54:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 54:46

It's a pre-Anunearthy Child, Doctor and Susan. And it's not the only pre-Anunearthy Child stuff, by the way. There's been a lot of it since. Um but without too many spoilers, it's one of four stories that lead up to the massive end of Seventh Doctor Era, start of 8th Doctor Era, Threshold Saga. Because yes, Susan not only is in Operation Proteus, but she is in Ground Zero.

SPEAKER_01 55:19

We've just We just lost Mike's transmission. He'll be back in a little bit.

SPEAKER_05 55:24

Um, but Susan is in ground zero. And yeah, Seventh Doctor versus Susan is an interesting conflict. So yeah, uh, first recommendation is Operation Proteus. Right. I'm gonna be very controversial and recommend a story that wasn't made.

SPEAKER_04 55:46

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_05 55:48

Because it's a very famous unmade story, and I love a lot of the lost audio stuff. Um, it's not the greatest story by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it's also not the best big finish by any stretch of the imagination. Not by a very long stretch. Welcome back, Mike. There is a very, very We had a power. Oh.

SPEAKER_00 56:14

Everything flickered for a minute, and I was like, okay.

SPEAKER_05 56:16

Um in 1963, An Unearthy Child, followed by the Daleks, but it wasn't supposed to be followed by the Daleks. It was supposed to be followed by a story called The Masters of Luxor. Oh. Nice. Um the script is was released as a script book because it was found uh in an attic. And Big Finish have made it as part of their Lost Stories range, where they basically take unmade scripts and adapt them for audio. It is not the greatest because unfortunately they've done it as one of their kind of like three-handers, where there are three people doing all six episodes kind of thing. Yeah. Um, it's also not a particularly great story, but it is a fascinating, and I do mean it by the way, fascinating look at how Doctor Who could have turned out had Masters of Luxor been made, because there is so much interesting stuff in there about the TARDIS, about the characters, everything. Right. Um, the other two I want to recommend, one of which is one of the Virgin Missing Adventures. It's called The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Oh, fun. Yeah, and it is a first Dr. Ian, Barbara, and Susan book where they encounter dragons and all kinds of mythical creatures. And I would, you know, if anyone reads it, I would could you please genuinely because it's something that fascinates me about the books set in other eras other than the current one. Yeah, I mean, say at one point they encounter a huge fire-breathing dragon. Sometimes when I read it, I picture a huge CGI, really perfectly rendered, HD colour, fire-breathing dragon. And other times my brain says, Now, how would that have looked in the 60s?

SPEAKER_01 58:15

Like a really bad puppet. That's what I'm thinking. Probably big paper mache, draped uh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 58:22

But it's a very fun book, you know, and actually, there's a there's a you know a lot to recommend about it. It's a really easy read, um, and I just think it's a really fun one. And the other one I want to recommend is then from a few years down the line, from the past Doctor Adventure Range, which was the BBC's version of The Missing Adventures, City at World's End. Ooh.

SPEAKER_04 58:48

That sounds good.

SPEAKER_05 58:49

Yeah. It's about a dying civilization trying to save itself. Um but of course Where does that sound familiar? Yeah. Um of course it is not quite what it seems. Uh Big Fingish bizarrely have done a similar story with other Doctors and Companions, but City at World's End is my favourite to take on it. Oh, okay. Right. Check it out. Okay. Computer games. So yeah. James Meet Rabbit Hole. James has learned a lot. Um, so because again, in my head, I had already worked this out, and I thought, oh, I will just check the facts. Jesus fucking Christ. Okay, I have gone down a time worm hole, basically. Okay. Um what I had discovered is that actually the vast majority of these, if you know where to look, can still be played. Okay. Excellent. Yeah. So this is gonna be a bit of a longer bit than I'd originally planned. Um because actually so much of it is still available. Right. The first two that I am gonna mention with a two secondary bits to it. Okay, um, we're going back to the very early days of 8-bit computing. About 83-ish. Okay. So, the very first one that I have found, and as far as I can tell, is the first Doctor Who computer game, is imaginatively called Doctor Who the First Adventure.

unknown 1:00:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:48

Makes sense. Yes. It's got both. Which platform? Right, I'm gonna get to this. Oh, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:53

Because I'm interested, I'm I'm like hoping that it's on the computer I'm thinking it's on. Uh, but which one do you think it's on? BBC Micro?

SPEAKER_05 1:01:00

Yes! Because if you go to BBCmicro.co.uk, you can play most of these games that I'm gonna talk about for the first one.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:11

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:12

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:12

So it was a neat computer.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:15

The first adventure is a pretty crap game. It's so very it the only thing that really makes it Doctor Who is it's in four parts.

unknown 1:01:22

You know.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:24

Um oh, and there's a nominal bit about the TARDIS, and bizarrely, it's a quest to find the key to time. Okay. No, no, no. There is a reason why this is gonna get weird. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:40

Um and yeah, it's basically four ultra basic platform type games, maze type game type things. It is nothing special, but it is notable because it is the first one. Right. In 1985, uh there was another official one called Doctor Who Warlord, which also is playable on bbcmicro.co.uk in the game section. Right. Now, just as I have uh over the years said that you know Doctor Who is great as a social history, and it is great as a television history, because of it, you know, it pioneers so many things, right? Yeah. What I hadn't really anticipated was actually kind of following the history of computer games through Doctor Who. So um Yeah, some of the first some of the very early ones were Doctor Who. So 1985, Warlord is a type-in adventure game. You know, the the the predecessor of the point and click monkey island style things, type in north, south, east, west, get, drop.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:49

You know, yeah, it's a very Zork game.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:51

Yeah, but basically say I haven't started playing it yet because apparently it has something like 250 locations. Whoa. On an 8-bit computer game.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:05

And it's just like that's like what?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:07

I mean, i if you had the time, those it was possible to do those with those old games.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:14

Yeah, but say 250 locations, it's a non-specific doctor. Uh you are basically the doctor's companion trying to rescue him. Um and then, oh, bloody hellfires and damnation. Doctor Who and the Minds of Terror.

unknown 1:03:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:34

What happens when you can't be asked to pay much copyright? Oh I have the original tape version for the Commodore 64. Right. Wow. No, no, no, no, no, no. Oh wower. So and this is this is the first of my mini rant type things. So you get all kinds of stuff with it. You get a top secret mission guide, which is actually loads of pages of really dense text.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:12

No kidding.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:13

You get your guide to what all the things on screen look like, what they are, what the enemies are.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:21

Um you get a double-sided fold-out map. And you get instructions.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:40

Instructions on distracting a mad rag. What you don't get is a good game. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:50

But if you want to play it, the Commodore 64 is back on sale again.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:54

Yeah, and it's also, by the way, Minds of Terror is on the BBC.code UK my bcmicro.codeuk uh site. Right. The trouble is there is also another piece of card that came with it. It is a card that you need to unlock a certain door in the game. It is your security code card, and I have lost it. And more in and more importantly, as far as I can see, on that site, there isn't a JPEG of the card. Oh no. But basically, if you just get to the bit and you start hammering the buttons in random orders, eventually the door opens. Yeah. Um it tried its best. It tried its best to be something different. Um it tried its best to get the Daleks and didn't get the copyright, hence they got the Madrags. And it tried its best to get canine. It didn't get canine, it got Splinks, which is a which is a cat that you can program. Not canine at all, no surree. No it's a cat. And DWM did not and DWM did not at all nickname it kit 10. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:08

Right. Yeah, they better be careful because uh, you know, the guy that owns uh Commodore now is also a Knight Rider fan and owns two kits. Actually, they're giving one away now, too.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:20

Right. Um, the Daleks did turn up eventually in a really shit platform game called Dalek Attack. Again, it's out there online. It's terrible. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:29

I think I've played that one.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:31

Yeah. Right. Okay. I'm now gonna trigger some really horrid memories. Which one's that? Oh Doctor Who, Destiny of the Doctors.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:47

Plural, by the way. The reason I'm emphasizing that is because there is a 11 CD release of historical Destiny of the Doctor Singular, which is marginally less painful to get through than this. Um this was released at $8.99 in 1997, which in modern money is 25 quid. Which is 24.99 too much. Um Doom Quake type engine. Yes. But the Temu version of it, the Wish version of it.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:22

Um geez. And imagine it's been the game aspect of it has been written by someone who's never played a computer game before.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:29

Uh but unfortunately a lot of a lot of these franchise, you know, science science fiction franchise games tend to be pretty bad. The first the first ones from especially from the early ages of of uh home gaming are pretty bad. Sorry.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:46

They're just the first one was in 1983. This was in 1997. They had 14 years to work out how to do a Doctor Who.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:53

They did. Uh by 97, games were getting better.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:56

You're you're um but two things that make it worth hunting down. One is that there is a TARDIS database in it. Oh, nice. Where you can look up thousands of pages of information about classic Doctor Who. Nice. And the second thing is the main villain of it is the master. Ah. And Anthony Ain Anthony Ainey was called back to recreate the role of the master in about half an hour's worth of specially shot footage, along with classic clips and everything. It is worth it just for his performances. Oh. Oh my god, some of his stuff is brilliant. Um remember Eric Roberts in the TV movie?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:44

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:45

Now let Anthony Ainley go more over the top than Eric Roberts did.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:50

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:51

And throw in a really decent version of the Doctor Who Theme Tune as part of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:56

Did he have time for a costume change before he torturing?

SPEAKER_05 1:09:00

Oh, hell yeah. Okay. Oh yeah. Right. Okay, so we have gone through crappy graphics, non-playable stuff, through typing adventures, through maze games, through kind of platform games, through first-person shooters. We have then got to the bit where I get to the main rant because there is such a bittersweet part of this. Okay, uh, the new series came back 2005. And that was the uh perfect time because 2005 through 2010 was basically the golden era of the internet.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:46

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:48

I mean, they you know, it came back not just at the right time for television, but they made the most of the internet. And I mean, you know, they set up fake websites for Doctor Who, they set up all kinds of things, and starting with the episode, the Christopher Eccleson episode, Dalek, they started doing web-based flash-based games. So Dalek was a one-off trial, it was a brilliant little game. You had to kind of guide a Dalek round to do all kinds of tasks and everything. Um The Christmas Invasion had its own game, which 20-something years later, I still can't bloody play and complete. Um, yeah. And then essentially, right the way through the David Tennant era, so many stories not only had computer games written for them, and not just kind of here's yet another platform one, here's yet another platform one. They were all specific to the story and different styles, genres, everything. Um they are brilliant. Yes, they are still out there. Yes, you can get uh it's called Ruffle, is the main one, which is a piece of software that will play Shockwave Flash. And yes, I want to chemically castrate whichever bastard decided that Shockwave Flash had to be removed and expunged from the internet.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:24

Yeah. Well, especially the way they did it, it was very harsh. It was like a it was like a hard cutoff date, and then stuff just disappeared. And it left a lot of people really upset about that.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:35

Because, well, I would not just on a very side note and a very personal thing, the reason I found this such a bittersweet thing wasn't just because of the Doctor Who stuff, it's because in my other life, in my real life, I am an educator. There were so many educational resources that were perfect, and I mean brilliant, I mean superb, but were flash-based. They were embedded into PowerPoints, they were embedded into this, that, and the other. And overnight, the education industry, some shit in a suit, just decided, oh no, you can't have all this stuff that you've spent decades writing your work around. Tough shit, start again.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:18

Um Adobe should have released a sandboxed version of Flash for people to continue to use their Flash applications and stuff on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:26

But say the good news is if you hunt around, you can find a lot of these Flash games. They play in Ruffle. I have checked this. Uh one particular game doesn't seem to have been ported out correctly because it crashes, it's got the curse of infinite death every time you play it.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:46

Well, uh Flash was that way though. When you if you didn't if you didn't export it correctly, it it was blood buggy.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:52

But I'm I'm guessing that when it was on the BBC site, it worked fine because BBC would have corrected it. Um and yeah, this was a golden era for games. Um and then the BBC thought, oh, we can't do flash anymore. Uh what can we do? So along with these wonderful uh well, depend upon your preference for compute what style games you like. You've got Legacy, you've got Infinite Infinity, you've got you know Weeping Assassins, you know. Um in the first two Matt Smith seasons, uh they released three uh 3D uh adventures. Uh there were five of them in total. Four of them were linear. The fifth one was very much an explore and discover kind of thing. And the reason I wanted to kind of say this this again, this is kind of like you know, they locked them. You had to have an internet connection to install them, you had to be in England. Um, but again, thankfully, just as there are bastards out there who shut us off from Flash, there are wonderful people out there who have hacked these things, and you can now re-get the XE files to download, install, and run and play them. Yeah, the first four, they are linear games. You watch a cutscene, you solve a puzzle, you watch a cutscene, you play a mini-bit. But Moffat made it clear at the time that these weren't just games, they were actual episodes of Doctor Who. The first one, for example, uh, which is called City of the Daleks, has 21 minutes of cutscenes. Wow. And on top of that, you then have to play the games and everything. Right, that's like almost getting a whole episode. By the time you get to the gunpowder plot, which is the fifth one where you explore and you don't have to do it in order, I think it's nearly an hour of extra footage. Wow. All voiced by the proper actors, all voiced and designed by the BBC. We've got Dalitz, you've got Cyberman, Vash and Nerada, you've got one set purely inside the TARDIS. I won't do a spoiler as to kind of like, you know, who the baddies are in the gunpowder plot, because it's not who you're gonna expect. And at the time, they released concept art for them. They released, they treated them as five extra episodes of Mr. Who. Um yeah, okay. There's the Weeping Assassins, which is the found footage game, which Osgood fronts. Yep. Um there's been, you know, there is this seemingly alternate reality video game possibility thing. Um I need to look into it more because yeah, on the Comic Con thing, it sounded like it was a whole virtual reality experience. I don't know if there is a game attached to it or not, but the site is still active. You can register for it, you can see all the exhibitions and everything. And I just miss it. Where is the kind of you know where is the the extras? Yeah, I mean, you know, the Starbeast, can you imagine a beep the meep computer game? Yeah, oh, it would have gone, it would have done well, yeah. I mean, Flux, you've got such gorgeous visuals. And let's face it, Flux, as was a lot of the 13th stock errors, was made during a global pandemic. They had to be so Flux apparently was originally supposed to be eight episodes, it had to be cut down to six, they had to restructure it so that they didn't have more than like three or four people per scene, they had to have you know, but that would have been perfect to have extra material go along with. Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. And the one that is saddest for me, because I'm gonna end on the downbeat note, I'm afraid, because I cannot find the game aspects of it anywhere that even Torchwood had online games. You can find the cutscenes still, but finding the actual games part of it seems to be virtually impossible. Um I think this is uh well, I wanted to end on this was like, yeah, we have no control over the internet. And without getting into the realms of politics because I want to control people's blood pressure, yeah. Um I don't think the internet is guaranteed anymore.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:35

No, uh it's it's blocked off in in several countries. Uh you know, you can't you can't access Western uh sites and we can't access some of their sites. It is kind of sad. Uh it used to be a wide open thing for everybody.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:50

So an impassioned plea. If Doctor Who or any show that you like does these extra bits, like webisodes, stuff like that, download them and keep them. Do not rely on them being there. Yeah, I mean, I'm watching Grim at the moment. They've put the webisodes onto the DVDs, they've, you know, yeah. But I know that there is so much that we now do not have access to because the sites have been taken down, everything has moved on. And yeah, even Internet Archive, the way back when machine cannot give you everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:28

So yeah, if I've been looking.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:30

Yeah. If you if you find stuff like this that you I mean, if you can't download it, but you can still play it, download a copy of uh OBS Studio, uh, do a screen capture of you playing through the game and save it because someday that may, you know, maybe all that's left of some of these games.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:48

By complete chance, and I do mean this genuinely, um the games from the Tenant era also had some cut footage associated with them. I actually managed to save it. And I have not seen these particular clips on any website whatsoever. Um, it's just unfortunate what the content of them is. Uh and yeah, uh it features one of the people on the bad list, is all I will say.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:23

Uh, gotcha.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:24

Yeah, so basically I would love, I I would love to say, yeah, everyone having, but it's like it's awkward. It's yeah, yeah. But yeah, please. It wasn't till I started getting into this and looking turn, try and check, that I realized just how much I mean, even um there was one on the iPad, mazes of time. I can't get that to run on anything. You know? Yeah. It's lost. It is essentially lost media, unless you have an iPad that goes back to 2011 that you have never updated and still runs.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:02

Yeah. So Yeah, and considering who your husband is and what he's, you know, what his love of Apple products is. I if he can't figure out a way to help you make it run, then it's probably not possible.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:13

Yeah. Right. So what do we want for next month's playlists?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:18

Okay, so my next month playlist is going to lead into also next month's episode. So I think this should be fun.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:24

Gone.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:26

I want Kate Stewart.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:28

Oh, okay. Do you want Kate Stewart Mark I or Kate Stewart Mark II?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:33

Maybe porque no los dos. Both of them.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:37

Both of them, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:39

Right. And Mike, what do you want?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:42

I have no fucking idea.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:44

Um something and message it to me before the next recording session.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:49

Absolutely. We'll stay tuned next month's episode so you find out what Mike picked.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:54

Because I'm gonna I'm gonna go with a second version of playlists.

unknown 1:21:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:00

And I'm gonna be a real bastard and say, I'm gonna dig into my collection and we're gonna look at the history of Doctor Who in board games. Oh.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:13

You have quite a few really good board games and knows that.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:15

So I think I had one of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:18

The one with the VHS tape.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:20

Yeah. I just I know that you know they're not gonna be available, but at least I think it's interesting again to see just exactly what they ripped off. Sorry, what they homaged, uh what they paid good money for um to make these things. So yeah, next month I'm gonna have a huge stack of board games. But yeah, do not worry. Um, I will be sending Eric pictures and videos of them to drop in, put on the screen or whatever, so that it's kind of a bit clearer.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:51

Yeah. Right. Yeah, some of those board games are really excellent. Like I said, I liked the one with the VHS tape where you got little clips of the doctor helping you through things. And yeah, it was it was a lot of fun. They did a Star Trek one like that too. It was really good. Um, but yeah, unfortunately, who's got a VHS machine to play those tapes anymore?

SPEAKER_05 1:22:08

So again, it's one of these things that's like, yeah, let's archive the stuff now whilst we can.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:12

Yes before it's too late.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:14

Yeah. Right. That is it for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:17

Alrighty. Actually, I have a playlist for you. So I opened up, I opened up my Doctor Who Who Ology book randomly, and it came up to capacious pockets. The doctor's pockets are hidden on the inside. Very good.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:33

Oh, I can think uh genuinely, I can think of some really fun stories involving the doctor's pockets.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:40

Yeah, there are some ones. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:42

So, yeah, no, no, that's gonna be great, giggle. That's gonna be a real, yeah. Yeah. All right, right.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:48

Excellent. All right, so next month's episode is going to be about unit.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:54

Excellent.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:55

Yes, I I figure we it it's it's been long enough. We should really kind of delve into it because if you're not uh you know a huge Doctor Who nerd, you hear us talking about unit a lot and are like, well, what the hell is this about? You know.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:09

But unit has been very prevalent the last several seasons. But for a while it wasn't. I mean, it's been very prevalent. So it wasn't. It was it was just kind of out there for a long time, and then the latest few seasons it's kind of come to the forefront again.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:25

And yes, we will mention the legal battle over unit.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:29

Uh, yes. All right. Okay. Well, with that, thanks for joining us on another journey through time and space with the doctor. Remember, you can support the show by liking and subscribing on YouTube, or subscribing on Buzzsprout for as little as three dollars a month. You can send us an email at thredo at gmail.com or a text or voice message from three doo.buzzsprout.com. The link is at the top of every episode show notes. Follow us on blue sky three do who dot bsky dot social or join us on our telegram group chat at three doo. All right, see you guys later.