Praxeus

[0:00]

Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Jody and Terra, the only Doctor Who flash cast where all of the gay characters are still alive by the end of the episode, unless something deeply tragic and unexpected happens in the next 20 minutes.

I am Nathan.

I'm Brendan.

I'm Todd, and I'm Peter.

So we have watched Praxius this week.

And so we are here to tell you what we think of it, and so we will start in the usual way with a little quick trip round the horn to ask people basically how they felt the episode went.

Let's start with Pisa.

Hmm, well, it was co-credited, but I can't believe that there was too, too much of old Chris in that episode.

It was too fresh to kind of light on its feet.

Um, I did perhaps feel his cold dead hand and less subtlety of the lesson of the week, but um, you know, I really liked using our plastic contamination of the planet.

That is a great doctor who set up and it gave me all the green death feels.

[01:02]

So yeah, thumbs up.

Brilliant.

Todd?

I liked it, I didn't love it.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

Do you want to go into that in more detail when we discussed individual things or was there something in particular that stood out for you?

I thought the companions were used well, and I liked the guest cast.

Yeah, yep.

I think they were both strong.

What about you, Brendan?

Um, look, this is another one I really enjoyed and I feel like, um, Nicola Tesla's Night of Terror and Spy Fall.

This level of quality feels like our new normal, and I'm okay with that.

Yeah, I have to say that sometimes I feel like I'm grading these episodes on a curve a bit, to be completely honest, but I don't feel that here.

I was really very, very impressed with this episode.

I thought it was great.

And, you know, like I thought last week was great, but it cheated a little bit with the sort of, here's a new doctor reveal, whereas this one, you know, I was just sort of unreservedly impressed by, I think.

[02:15]

So let's start with what for me was the biggest deal, which is that we've finally kind of done something about gay male representation in Doctor Who.

Everyone assumes there are lots of gays in Doctor Who, but there aren't really.

And, you know, usually about half of them are dead.

I was trying to think of who's been gay in Doctor Who before and the list is not long.

Do you know why I think people assume that there's a lot of gays in Doctor Who?

Because Russell wrote it?

Yes.

And because Russell was such a big present and so kind of effusive and such a good spokesman for the show, people assume there's been more gay characters than they have been because it was just Russell being lovely on our TV all the time.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah, and you remember that there were no gay characters in series 5 and people critiqued Stephen Moffatt for that.

And then he brought in the fat one and the thin one, which I just think was really terrible.

But here, I don't think the word gay is used.

[03:17]

Is the word gay used?

There's no things about coming out.

It's a little bit like the relationship in sort of resolution or something.

Is there a relationship in resolution or did I dream that?

Well, there's there's a budding relationship in resolution.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So and it's just a marriage.

It's just people who are married, there's nothing about coming out.

There's nothing about, you know, enduring homophobia.

They are just 2 people who are in love and the that romance is super central to it.

Like Jody says, you know, she's a romantic and Graham was lovely with them, you know, the whole thing I just thought was terrific.

And on that, on that thing of, it's not a declarative thing that they're gay.

It's just a fact of the plot.

As well as that Pete McTyre and Chris Chipnell have chosen to give these 2 Professions which stereotypically little boys look up to.

Yeah, okay.

Astronaut, astronauts and police officers.

[04:17]

And especially if you if you look at the UK, Police are more highly regarded by the public, shall we say?

Yeah.

And and so, you know, when we hear he's a police officer. but also seems to be a bit overzealous, but his overzealousness is tackling people.

It's not, you know, getting aggressive and whatnot.

And we find out through the course of the thing that actually that's part of the reason for his fall from grace, as it were, is the problems in his marriage, which he is able to say in this, actually, a lot of it is coming from my end.

And I particularly loved between those 2 characters, the acknowledgement of the prestige imbalance, if you like, of an astronaut who goes into space and a police officer who is currently on sabbatical and working security in a supermarket.

Well, I mean, I kind of got the impression that he was just working at a supermarket and but that he was just a bit of an asshole and he sort of, you know, tackled children and stuff.

[05:25]

And, you know, like I kind of...

Yeah, yeah, because he seemed like such a loser in that 1st episode with lovely old Joyce, you know, giving him the flick, you know, not charging the kid, but making him sort of go for a walk.

Yeah, I like that too.

He got to be a loser, the relationship got to be a bit kind of rocky.

Um, and Graham doing marriage counselling.

It was just tremendous.

It was a lovely moment for him, this episode.

And, yeah, no, I thought that was, you know, I mean, that was Graham's moment and it was lovely to give that to him.

There was some, there was some subtlety for Graham this week.

Normally, the subtlety comes out of his performance, but he was given some in this episode.

It's beautiful, that scene, isn't it?

Where, you know, do you know what it's like to be married to someone who's much more impressive than you?

And I watched it again last night and Graham's reaction.

[06:28]

Do you know what I mean?

There's no way that that's not intentional and it's just nice to have some subtext for a change, I think.

You know, Pete writes Yaz differently from normal as well.

Or should I say he writes her?

She's some, she's sarkia.

She's more independent.

She's given a character.

I mean, Mandip can bring it.

So helper.

Yeah, yeah. was really good.

And in fact, you know, splitting the actors up, someone suggested that there was a production reason for it.

It's a little bit like having a double banked episode where, you know, you need everyone for a bit less time because everyone's doing things separately.

But I thought it just worked really well because it just gave everyone room to do something.

Yeah, I enjoy these globetrotting stories.

Um, uh, Spiteful.

Oh, sorry, Spyeful, Spyful, Spyeful.

I did well because of that.

And you know what, the production is leaning into it.

The series has looked fuller and more produced this year compared to last year's kind of vacant sparseness of Mise en Sen.

[07:37]

But you know the one episode last year that didn't have that problem?

Kblam.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, they really seem to, you know, be making the show look better than it ever has.

And I just thought that was sort of, that was really fantastic, you know, really something.

Yeah, and proper funny jokes as well.

Like, um, uh, the humour hasn't always been kind of as deaf as this in the last couple of years, and there are some real sort of genuine, funny lines.

I do love the moment where Graham tells Jake what a catch he is, you know, and Jake kind of laughs and realises actually, yes, you know, maybe this is all largely my fault.

It's so great.

So great.

Graham even nails the stupid holding the device upside down kind of choke, which is really stupid, but because it's done by Graham, you know, because it's done by Bradley Walsh, it just lands.

[08:38]

It's absolutely perfect Yeah.

And I think the other thing that helps that scene, it's a little thing in that is that it's a red dwarf joke.

It's absolutely a red dwarf joke and usually what would happen is Graham would finish the line, then Yaz would pick up the thing, stare at it, and put it back down again.

Yaz doesn't even wait for him to finish talking.

Yeah, yeah.

And when he resumes the line.

He does it with the exact identical intonation as he did it the 1st time.

Yeah.

As if it had never happened.

Nice moment.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, Graham has been a bit too much used for obvious comic relief for me a bit this year.

So it was nice, 1st of all, to have his comedy a bit more underplayed this episode and to give him that dramatic moment we were talking about earlier with Jake.

I was really glad to see that because Bradley Bradley Walsh.

I mean, he can do the broad and he can do the subtle, but when he's when he's doing the broad, you kind of want to just say, okay, bring it down a bit, mate.

[09:40]

When he's doing the subtle, it's like, no, actually I really like you and I want to go on adventures with you.

And I think Towson had a lot to do this week as well.

And um, I thought he was, uh, you know, he was great in that very 1st scene of his with with Gabrielle, where he kind of gets to be the guy in charge.

Um, and, you know, his reaction to being told that he saved the world by bringing the bird is actually really lovely as well.

But also talking to her in the TARDIS and I thought that was a nice moment again from him and I was really impressed by her. really enjoyed her character.

Do you know I liked the Tartar set this week?

Yeah, say that again, Nathan.

You can't quite believe it.

I actually really like the darkness of it with the glowing and the, you know, the practical light on everyone's faces and stuff.

And, you know, they're kind of, they've got this sort of big problem of these sort of, um, uh, you know, big pillars kind of occluding the view of the uh, of the console.

[10:50]

So they're kind of doing things outside that sort of circle and I think it just, I think it looks good.

I'm liking it.

Sorry. weird.

So I've just got a message from Richard saying that he thought that the, that it was nice that the plot was, uh, was complex.

You know, he texted us earlier about all the gays surviving, but he thought that the plot was just sort of good and sort of complex because it is a bit of a puzzle.

It's not a Moffat style puzzle, but it is these weird things are happening.

How can they possibly be linked?

And I think that that the answer to that is actually pretty satisfying.

Yeah, the episodes, um, in, I think in the in the Chibnal era tend not to be adventurous in their storytelling. and this was fuller.

It had more to it.

Yeah, yeah.

So are we cross about another environmental message?

so soon after the previous one?

This one's competent.

[11:53]

The words out of my mouth.

So, I, you know, I have been urged Brendan to, to reinforce to you that Orphan 55 is a camp classic, and we'll be all talking about it in 10 years' time.

And I like the way that message was told, even though, you know, it was sort of fighting the rest of the episode.

Here I thought what was interesting about the message is.

It was kind of a message about plastic, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't metaphorical or it wasn't the plastic itself that was the thread or anything like that.

It was just a thing that was happening against a background of the way that we filled the biosphere with plastic.

Do you know what I mean?

And we learned more about it and all of that sort of thing, but it wasn't sort of science fictionalised.

It's just a feature of the world that we live in.

Yeah, and it wasn't.

[12:55]

These microplastics are out there and Doctor Who is going to fix that.

It was, these microplastics are out there.

Owen, we've got that alien threat.

But hey, you at home, how about you think about the fact that these plastics are out there while we go off and deal with this?

Yeah.

I thought that was, you know, that was a nice subtle thing that you get to the end of the episode and you're like, yeah, Doctor Who saved us from the disease.

Sorry, the pathogen, I should say.

But hold on, there's there's still these big bergs of plastic in the middle of the ocean.

Yeah.

Yeah, 5 of them.

They use the word gyre.

You know, I'd heard of that, but I didn't know that they were like, they had names and stuff like that and we all knew where they were.

And I don't think I really knew that we were kind of full of microplastics.

Yeah, the thing is, though, we didn't have a 2 minute explanation of what a gyre was, so I'm afraid that moment just didn't land for me.

I still think the plot.

So this plot was so complicated that it did require maybe a bit too much exposition, but there was like, you know, Jody was playing it so well and there was enough action that I thought it, you know, could get away with it.

[14:10]

So, Todd, I'm I'm curious to know what the things you weren't satisfied about were because there's 2 particular things I wasn't satisfied about and I want to see if we've got a bingo.

Oh.

Um.

I didn't particularly like a lot of the explanationary scenes.

Um, I just didn't feel feel that, um, Jody's voice was in the right in there and, um, there were some, There was only, it might have been at 4 or 5 lines in those scenes where I just felt it was hitting like when you play the piano and you hit the wrong note or it's out of tune and and it felt a bit like last season with her trying to be funny or or trying to explain what she's doing.

And I think that's probably Chris Chibnall sawdust coming into those scenes.

And the fact that our composer doesn't underscore them like Murray Gold means they have to stand or fall on their own merits.

And so those scenes I really did struggle with.

[15:14]

I watched it twice and the 1st time through, I really did struggle. with the episode quite a bit, but I enjoyed it much more the 2nd time through.

Um, Oh, look.

My few minor quibbles were the fact that, yes, we're going to set it up and a tent in a rubbish tip and sleep there overnight because like, you know, the stench wouldn't get to you.

That's one of the things.

There were flies everywhere.

I'm sorry.

Nobody in their right mind would do that.

Secondly, um, then the poor guy on the beach who got eaten by the birds.

Well, let's not even mention him.

And the other thing was, um, Oh, what was the other one?

Oh, yes, I'm in space and I've got my mobile phone and they've captured me, but I've still got time to text my location.

I kind of went, really?

So they were my little quibbles. with the episode.

Hmm.

What about you, Brendan?

Well, the thing is, the whole explanation of the pathogen.

I just thought was really poorly written because instead of Ryan saying, is it bad?

[16:16]

I don't know what that is.

He could try and take a guess, he could try and say, is that like a virus or is that different from a virus?

You know, instead both he, just for that scene, both he and Graham are written as idiots.

So the doctor can explain this.

And, um, a friend, a friend of mine in the medical profession, he, his specialism is not virology or anything like that, but he's like, I don't think that's what, I don't think that's actually a good explanation of what a pathogen is, so to go to all that trouble.

But yeah, Todd, my other big thing was Paul Arabu.

Yeah.

One, he does the horror movie thing of, well, I could stand next to this door and watch these birds so that if anything bad happens, I can run inside.

But not only that, he's like, I'm just going to get closer to these things which are acting aggressively and weirdly.

Did anybody, did anybody get the, um, animatronic cat vibe from survivor with the birds sitting up watching them?

I love that.

I love that book because it was weird looking.

[17:18]

Like it looked like it had eaten a whole bunch of plastic. did not look well.

I don't look like an animatronic.

Sure it was.

I thought those bird effects were entirely too good.

Speaking of the green death, I thought we could have had back that flying insect or something.

It looked like the pigeon from mongrels, if you've ever seen mongrels.

It was a BBC show and a puppet.

I did, Brent.

I forget her name, but it looks like that pigeon.

Brilliant.

Yeah, and bloody, bloody Gabriella's like, oh, no, my friend is dead, but hey, time machine.

Awesome.

And hey, at the end, I'm just going to go off and blog with 2 new people, forget about my poor friend.

I actually am not sure that criticism's entirely fair because I did see it quite a lot over the last couple of days.

And the episode spends quite a bit of time on a Gabrielle's reaction to Jamilla's death, including that scene in the Tardis with Ryan and her being sort of angry and wanting to beat something up in Hong Kong.

[18:26]

And I'm reading that final scene as being some time after, you know, the previous scene where they've, you know, rung the European Space Agency and said, oh, you know, not dead and all of that sort of thing.

So, like, it's Doctor Who.

We, you know, think about Rose in the eponymous episode, Rose, where Mickey is killed and she is perfectly fine with it and running hand in hand and laughing with the doctor, you know, mere minutes later.

I think that, you know, death in Doctor Who needs to be given more weight than it was in the classic series.

But I thought that sort of happened.

I don't think she read as happy until that final scene.

Actually, that's, you know what, that's a good comparison with Rose and Mickey.

That's a good comparison.

Yeah.

Um, Something little I noticed in the final scene.

Um, the jacket that Adam is wearing. actually seems to be Ryan's from last series.

And given how careful Ray Holman is, I do have to wonder if the implication is Ryan has given him that jacket, so he's got some clothes to go home in.

[19:35]

That's quite nice.

Yeah, I don't know why they dropped them off in Madagascar apart from the fact that it's a very pretty location.

I guess it's for Jake and Adam's honeymoon.

Can we talk about that?

Can, you know, can we talk about the ending?

Who thought they were killing Jake?

Todd?

Um, I thought one of them was going to die one way or the other, and then when we had the survival, I thought, oh, no, they're both going to live and then when he went up into the ship, I thought, oh, okay, we are.

So, yeah.

No, it was, yeah, look, I'm glad they both survived.

Did you think they were going to die?

Did you think either of them was going to die, Peter?

Um, I didn't actually, because um, I didn't think that the writer would do that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's probably fair.

I had a little moment.

Did you, Brendan?

Were you ever...

Oh, absolutely.

I was convinced, 1st of all, when the doctor has some line about, ooh, the autopilot, the autopilot should work.

[20:43]

I thought, well, okay, well the astronaut's going to run in there.

But of course, Pete or Pete and or Chris very carefully put in the line where Jake's like, this is actually really simple.

Like your job is easy.

Um, so he runs in and does it.

That has a character.

That has a character purpose, doesn't it?

He's been intimidated by Adam all this time and then he just discovers that all he's been doing is pressing up down left and right all this time.

Yeah, yeah.

I was just going to say, look, has every, has everyone on the call seen the midseason trailer?

No.

Yes.

Okay, I won't, there's a moment in that, which I thought came from this scene, which I thought meant that Jake was going to die.

Ah okay.

And the thing is, I have to say, the direction in that bit by Jamie Magnus Stone really leads us to believe that the doctor is not going to make it.

And then it's just a very subtle, like, because we've got an extreme close up of Jake's face.

[21:46]

The actual materialisation is so well done.

And, of course, has led half of Twitter to say, well, why don't you rescue Adric?

And it's just like, it's stupid.

Well, no, it's obvious he just couldn't be asked, you know, like...

But also, I drinks not half of a hot gay couple.

That's my client.

But, you know, it's just like, it's kind of like if the doctor doesn't rescue people, fans get annoyed.

Like, 0 no, you know, the doctor's been neutered and they're not doing things and da da da.

And then when the doctor does rescue someone, inevitably, someone says, oh, Well, what about Adri?

It's like, it was 1982.

It was 1982.

He couldn't fly the ship.

It had been damaged by the cybercontroller people.

Cyberleaguer.

The ship was phasing in and out of time.

It's all there in the script.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And it's Eric Saywood, someone had to die.

Yeah, clearly the doctor decided that Jake was an Ida, and Adrick was nude.

[22:49]

That's it.

That's it.

Well, I was relieved.

I think that was that was just fantastic and literally the best gay male representation we've ever had on the show.

So maybe I'm adding a whole bunch of points for that reason.

All right, well, I think we may wind it up there.

Unless anyone has any urgent closing statements to make. liked it.

Good.

Excellent.

That's kind of closing statement I like.

All right.

Well, in that case, we'll be back next week for an episode whose title I can't remember and that I know nearly nothing at all about.

So it's bound to be incredibly good.

Would you like to know the title?

Uh, it's called Can Papa Can?

Can you hear me?

Papa, can you hear me?

Papa, can you hear?

Yeah, okay, good.

What?

Actually, anyone hear me?

Yes.

Yes.

That's what it's called.

Brilliant.

Okay, so it's a sequel to Revenge of the Cyberman.

Okay.

All right.

[23:50]

So, until next time, nutritionists recommend that a healthy diet should consist of no more than 50,000 microplastic particles a year.

So best to lay off the after dinner pop final figures for now.

Thank you very much for listening and good night.

Good night.

See you soon.

Good night.

God, have you forgotten how to do this?

No, no, it's just that I had a joke, so I was waiting for other people to go first.

Oh, okay.

Because my joke was, damn it, I'm halfway through eating John Hurt.

I can do it again.

We'll just put that in my bag.