Hey, Who fans and welcome to the December 2025 Roundtable

As the new spin-off has just landed, we’re chatting through the first two episodes as well as what we’re looking forward to for the remainder of the series.

Enjoy this last Roundtable of 2025. The team will be back in January. Have a great Christmas, listener and a fantastic New Year!

This is The Big Blue Box Podcast, hosted by Garry and Adam. We cover Doctor Who news, reviews, commentaries, general chat, plus our regular Round Table episodes with the full team.

All episodes are available for free on our website, alongside articles and reviews from the team.

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Thank you for listening!

Thank you again for listening. For even more Doctor Who content, head over to our website and check out the blog, featuring articles from our writing team.

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Until the next episode, take care and... Aaaaaaaallons-y!

Hey, hey, hey, who fans and welcome to The Big Blue Box Podcast. My name's Garry.

I'm Maria.

I'm Matt.

I'm Adam.

I'm Harry.

And welcome to the December Roundtable. Hey, hey, hey, you lot. We hope you are keeping well and safe.

We hope you've had a cracking month since the last Roundtable and that you've all managed to do something. Doctor.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, Maria.

Whoa.

Oh, no.

Maria's had a Weetabix this morning. Crikey.

She weren't messing around there.

I was. I was, Yeah, I was up for the big one then. I was up for the big build up. We're all, you know, there's, there's five of us on the show this month.

Got Adam back, gonna do the big build up, and Maria's like, no way. Not on my watch.

We. We haven't got time to waste, have we, Barry?

So thank you very much. We hope you've done something glossy related and that you've. You've managed to watch something or read something. Specifically watching something.

There's been a certain spin off show that's finally started which has felt like forever since that's come around, but. So the first two episodes of that have finally landed or docked or swam up to our shores.

Whatever you want to, whatever you want to call it, it's fine. I'm not saying anything. I'm not going down the whole pun thing again. It's official that those puns have stopped. Okay, so.

Yep, he's off already.

No, it's good.

It's good to put a clause in the, in the recording that he wasn't allowed to do any fish puns.

Yeah, yeah, I'm good. This is going to be a fin. Tastic episode. We're all, we're all fine and dandy here. All good. Right? So let's.

What do you say, Gary, we set sail on the episode?

Oh, we're gonna set sail.

No, not you as well, Harry.

I can't help it. I love myself a dad joke. I love him, especially around Christmas. The crackers, they're my favorite bit.

He does, yeah. Oh, Harry, he's just squidding. He's just squidding about. So we'll crack on and we'll see how these guys are. Maria, how are you, darling? How are you?

Since we last caught up?

Yeah, I'm good. I was out and about at the weekend. I was at Riverside Studios. They were doing a screening of Time in the Rani.

Cool, cool.

Not, not necessarily my favorite McCoy story, but there were some Good guests that were in attendance. So Bonnie Langford was there, Wanda Bentham was there. I got a lovely pic with her.

We had Andrew Cartmell, Andrew Morgan, the director and Dodson was there as well, so. And an actress called Karen Clegg who, Who played San. So it was a good turnout, very, very good event actually by the Dewass.

Started quite late though. It was on at 2 in the afternoon, so it didn't finish until properly, until around 9 o'.

Clock.

It was a bit of a late one, but it was a good event.

Didn't Andrew Cartmell get the award for. What's the award called? You know what it's called.

Yeah, he got the Terrence Dix Writers Award which the Dewass kind of give out every year normally when they do their convention, the Capitol. But you know, I think it was probably well due for Andrew Cartmel.

I mean he's just been so, I think influential, you know, for the stuff that he did in the 80s. I mean he. I think it was such a shame, you know, the show was kind of, you know, starting to find its feet and you know, and obviously then finished.

But you know, it was a good run of stories actually, those McCoy stories, especially the last two seasons. So, you know, I think it was well deserved really, to be honest.

And he's done, you know, he's done a lot of writing in the meantime as well, you know. So yeah, I thought. I'm a fan of his actually, to be honest.

I mean I've seen him a couple of the Capitol events and he's an extremely charming man to speak to, so I'm a fan of his anyway, so it was, yeah, it was, it was a, it was a nice surprise. He wasn't aware it was happening. And Terence Dix's sons were there as well. They wanted to say a few words as part of the award giving.

So that was really nice as well. So they came down. So that was a nice surprise as well.

Sweet. Sounds like a good day as usual over at the old Riverside. Was it Riverside? No.

Yeah, it was, yeah, yeah, yeah, nice.

Sounds like a crabulous day all round. Very good, Harry. How have you been, dude?

Yeah, Gary, I'm not too bad, not too bad. My discounted Doctor Who books arrived in the post recently which is very exciting to follow up from the last episode.

So actually while we were recording, the offer changed. We had.

We had a new like Sea Devil trailer, War between the Land of the Sea trailer and the offer that I was talking about, three for eight pounds, it turned into Four for ten pounds. So naturally I bought four. So I bought Dalek by Robert Shearman, his novelization.

He's going to be at the Capitol next year, so I'm hoping to get that signed by him. And the origin stories collection that came out recently as well.

But most magnificent of all were the Terrence Dick's Essential Terence Dick's Target novel volumes, which I believe our good friend Adam here has done a review on an unboxing review type thing on his channel, the Geeks handbag. Don't forget to remember, thanks for the Shameless Plug. Absolutely. And they're wonderful books. I was a bit.

I was a bit sad that one of them turned up and the dust jacket was nearly completely ripped down the middle.

So I'm wondering if maybe these were just a bunch of books that they had, like in some storage somewhere and they were in a bit of battered condition and they just wanted to get rid of them.

But it would be a bit churlish to like complain about that because it was only 2 pound 50 on a book that was originally worth like 25 quid or something like that. So I'm not gonna complain. I'm not gonna complain at all.

And yeah, so I'll probably send those over to Father Christmas and ask him to wrap them up for me so that I can unwrap them again on Christmas Day. Because, you know, being an adult, that's, that's the way it works. That's the way it goes.

Yeah, yeah.

But, yeah, no, I'm all right. Apart from the obvious, the, the spin off and the, the Sea Devils re edit as well, it was a really fun night. We'll get into all of that. That was.

That's kind of it, really. Bit of a quiet one. Bit of a quiet one to end the year on Gary.

Yeah, nice. Very nice. And Matthew, how have you been? Good, sir. I think it's been a couple of months since you were on the Round Table.

It has, yeah. Thank you, Gary. Yeah. It's no good really, is it? Where have I been?

It's almost like life stuff, you know, I thought it was more important, but obviously Doctor Who comes first, as we all know.

Priorities.

Shameful.

Absolutely.

Shameful behavior. Sorry, I'll do better. But this month, you know, I've. I've been. What have I done? Who related? Not too much to be fair.

Actually, I've been continuing my Dalek build. I took a like a wee pause on doing those for a while, just as these silly life things got in the way. But I've really Got back into that.

I've just uncovered the part where you get to see the Dalek mutant, which is massive. You, you can't really comprehend how, how big this Dalek is gonna be until you see this mutant.

And this mutant is just a tiny, like, part of the Dalek, but it's, it's bigger than my hands. And you guys can see my hands. They are some of the biggest hands I've ever seen. And it's just.

He's not lying. He's not lying.

The, The Dalek mutant itself is, is just, it's. The attention to detail is brilliant, I gotta say, with, with these.

But I just, I just got done with a issue last night that I thought, oh, I'll do quickly before I go to bed. It's not much, it's just a little bit of plastic wiring for the, the mutant housing. Well, 45 minutes later, lots of swear words said.

Plastic wiring is a bit of a bugger to put together, it must be said.

So, yeah, so anybody that's doing it has probably got to that stage already because I'm way behind and knows the frustrations that I've had last night. But, yeah, I'm really enjoying that on the whole. And aside from that, I am re watching series 12, giving that another shot, because I really.

I just kind of wanted to watch Fugitive Drudoon, but then I thought, why don't I just start from Spyfall and work my way through? So I'm on Praxius at the moment, which I think I've only ever seen once, because I don't remember really enjoying it on Transmission.

Surprisingly, a lot of this. Obviously, I don't want to talk about Orphan 55. My views have not changed.

Anybody that wants to know my thoughts on that can go back to a previous Roundtable where I was not, you know, not shy about my feelings, shall we say. But Praxius, that was much better than I thought it was going to be. Much better than I remember.

So it's been quite pleasant doing this sort of rewatch.

Nice. I think Harry did a rewatch of that stuff not too long ago.

I did, yeah. I rewatched all of it sort of in the summer months, and I really enjoyed it. I'm not gonna lie, it. It kind of aged quite nicely, I think.

I think away from all of the echo chamber of negativity, I think there was, around the time from a lot of fans just kind of binging, it all worked really well. So, yeah, no, it's good, it's good. 13th Doctor era, it's all right.

Yeah, there are some duds, you know, Orphan 55, but, you know, you're gonna get that.

I remember on transmission, I really like Nikola Tesla. The episode with the. With Nikola Tesla this time. Really enjoyed it. Really. It's been a standout. So, you know, it's worth anybody that's.

That's maybe thinking I didn't really enjoy series 12 or, or Jody 0 that much. Just give it another go, see what you think.

Yeah, nice one, dude. Even if you didn't sort of warm to it the first time round, you know, any fin is possible. Get into it.

Yeah, you're on fire tonight. Wow.

Alrighty. Who's this, then? The final member of the round table for this month. You might recognize his voice, you might know him. Is Adam the Geek's handbag.

Here he is.

I think we should have a tin, like, instead of a swear jar, like a tin for every time you make a fish bun tonight. And we can all go out and get smashed on the process. I'm doing good, mate. I'm very jealous, first of all, of the.

The Maria going to the Time in the Rani event because I think you all know that I've always loved that story, despite his faults.

I would have loved to have gone to that and I would have loved to have heard what they had to say about it as well, because I know Andrew Cartmel, you know, he's always been very honest and said that it's not how he wanted to kick off as producer and he felt they got better. So, yeah, I would have loved to have been at that event, Maria. And I'm also very jealous of Matt's Mutant Dalek. He put a picture in the.

In the blue box. WhatsApp chat. And it looks awesome. I tried to get just that one issue just for that.

So I'm not doing that build the Dalek thing, but I wanted just the Mutant. But, yeah, I think a lot of people did, so it's hard to get. Are you a subscriber, Matt? Is that how you got it?

Yes, yeah, so I subscribed just before. Sorry, the. Yeah, I saw your laptop is not working very well. But yeah, I subscribed just before issue one. So there's been quite a few.

A few little other gifts that. That they sort of reserve for you as a subscriber. The. I'll put up. I'll put it in the Discord. But yeah, there was.

There was this extra special sort of commemorative coin recently that's come out and it's all sort of very fancy. I knew, I didn't realize that, that they'd given it to me until I checked my bank and they charged me another 30 quid for it.

Oh, really? Oh, wow.

Yeah.

What? Well, I can't wait to see it when you, you know, in a. Probably another year's time when you actually get to finish the Dalek.

It's going to be cool though, with his wonky mesh head, unless you managed to get it sorted.

I did eventually.

Does look cool.

I haven't really been doing that much Doctor Who related stuff actually. I'm still in the us but I, I did have quite a, quite a moment recently, about a couple of weeks back.

There's a shop I like to go to here is about 25 minute walk. So I always feel really good for doing a bit of exercise and going there.

And occasionally they get one or two Doctor Who books in there and I'm always check the website and if I see that they've got one in and this is Target books, by the way, I'll rush up there and get it, you know. But the other day or a couple of weeks ago, they had obviously a delivery and they had three shelves of Dr. Who Target books delivered.

And I have never, you've never seen me move so fast as I did that day. I raced up there and I was in there for hours cherry picking because they, they were all like $2 each as well.

They were so cheap, which is about £1 50. And yeah, I was just going through thinking, putting that one back. Oh, I think I'll get this one. Because obviously even at $2, it soon adds up.

I think I spent about 50 just checking the other half's not around 50 or $60 in there. And I got some absolute gems, I tell you. I was.

So are they different covers, Adam? Are they kind of US specific covers or are they kind of the Target books over here, just exported over there.

So the majority of them are the same. A lot of the ones are the same covers, but there was these three really odd six Doctor covers and I was like, what are these? These are bizarre.

Like really, what's that word when something's like a scientist sci fi word that I can't think of. But the covers were really cool, right? And it's so unlike the normal covers you get on a book. And I was like, what are these?

And I don't know if you remember, but back in the 80s they did these six doctor books where you could choose your own path. So you'd like get to page 12 and then it Would say, if you want to go to the page, so and so. Yeah, so it was those. And it was.

But they got completely different covers on them, and they didn't look like doctor books at all. But when you sort of looked closely, it's like, oh, yeah, that's the sixth Doctor in some weird room with all these swirls around it.

So I picked them up. They're very cool. I've done a video on it. I've just been really slow, like editing, as usual.

But at some point, there'll be a video and you'll be able to see all these. All the books I picked up. So I'll probably get it out early next year. But I got some great stuff. I was well chuffed with that.

I just got really excited because I actually own one of the books that you mentioned, Adam. At least I think it is. Which one is. I can't remember what the name is, but the weird thing about it is that.

So it was a choose your own adventure thing, and it was a sixth Doctor and Perry on the front cover. And as I was reading it, giving it a go kind of thing, it transpires that Harry Sullivan is also one of the main characters.

And I was like, 6th Dr. Perry and Harry Sullivan. What's going on here?

Turns out it was originally written as the fourth Doctor, Sarah Jane and Harry Sullivan, but they rewrote it because at the time, it was around the Six Doctor's era, so they wanted to make it more current, and they couldn't really unwrite Harry Sullivan out of it. So it's. Yeah, it's an interesting little bit of merchandise. It's a little bit of an oddity. I have the name. I can't remember it.

But, yeah, that might explain why one of them. Because I know I had these as a kid. I've still got three of them. One of them's got canine in it, and that might be why then. So perhaps that.

That might even be the one you're talking about. But, yeah, I didn't manage to get the US version of that particular book, so I just remember loving that as a kid.

I'd love to see, like, this cover with the reimagined canine on it or whatever the artist would have done. But, yeah, they didn't have that one. I can't think what it's called either, but I know the one you mean.

They sound awesome.

I have to go and get it. I'm gonna nip in the other room and just grab it just so I can get the name for you. But, yeah, all right, talk amongst yourselves.

Go on. It sounds like you've done a couple of little who things while you've been over there.

Oh, yeah.

Which is good when the old geek shops get restocked and all the shelves. Make sure you don't pull a muscle when you're looking through for all the toys.

But in terms of just reminding you guys about Adam's channel, the Geeks Handbag, we normally do this, of course, over on the. The regular show, but some very cool videos that Adam has dropped over the last couple of months to do with Doctor Who.

You've got the 10th Planet vinyl set, you've got the Doctor Who John Pertwee collection, the vinyl box set, you've got the Moon Base vinyl and you've got the Last Voyage vinyl. So loads of vinyl stuff. And if you go back, obviously through Adam's channel, there's tons and tons of very cool Doctor Who stuff.

So don't forget to remember to head over to YouTube and subscribe to the Geeks Handbag.

That's it. Thanks. Thanks for that. Shameless. But two shameless plugs in 20 minutes worth coming back on for.

Yeah, of course, yeah. Free marketing.

And in terms of time in the rally, I will say once again, every time this story gets mentioned, 99% of people will say, yeah, the story is pretty weak. And it's not. It's not great. I don't disagree. But I will say one thing. I'm a big sucker for the soundtrack by Kef McCulloch.

Oh, yes.

I do think that's a really nice, very cool soundtrack.

Do you know, bizarrely, I've got that.

I've got the download of that and, you know, like, on your phone, most of stuff's in the cloud, but there's sort of like some songs that you've actually downloaded to your phone.

So because I've been flying quite a lot recently, it'll only play stuff on my phone that's downloaded the amount of times I've been, like, on a flight or on a coach or somewhere where I haven't got, like any signal or Internet, whatever, and a track from that soundtrack comes on, because it's the only thing that's actually downloaded on my phone. It's so funny.

It's like found myself on a sort of coach with that playing, going, oh, the Brain or, you know, the Ronnie Returns or whatever the track is. It's just brilliant. I love that soundtrack. Very 80s, a lot of orchestra hit sounds on it, you know.

Very cool. Yeah, yeah. No, it's Very cool.

All righty.

That's the catch up done and out the way. It's. We are finnished with the. With the ketchups. Etc. We're gonna dive into the main.

Gary.

Whoa. Whoa. Oh, he's got it.

Doctor Who and the Rebels. Rebels Gamble. That's what it's called. Did you see this one, Adam?

I have never seen that book before. No. That's awesome. I love the COVID on that.

He may not.

No, I've never seen that book before, mate. I love the COVID on that.

No.

Oh, yeah. They hide the fact that Harry Sullivan's in it, don't they? Yeah, it's a weird one, but that's.

Not the one I was thinking of.

Okay, this one's a weird, a strange one because you actually have to roll a dice, roll two die actually, in order to make choices. So you don't actually choose your own adventure. The die chooses it for you. But yeah, no, it's really interesting.

I might write an article about this at some point because it's a really. Yeah, it's just a unique bit of. Bit of merch.

So, yeah, what's it actually called that book?

Doctor Who and the Rebels Gamble. A solo play adventure game.

Cool.

So, yeah, storytelling innovation.

Yeah, I think I was gonna say, I think we need an audiobook version of From Harry now.

Oh, I have to record all the different strings. Yeah.

That'D be cool.

Yeah.

Cool. Before we crack on, actually, with Waterland Sea, we've given Adam's the Geek sandbag a bit of a plug. Let's plug these guys stuff as well.

So the last. The last couple of months or last few months, Matt has been quite busy on the Discord. If you want to top into the Discord.

Matt often posts the big merch news in there. So we did a. Did a. A rundown of the last Blu Ray set announcement. Season 21. 21, 21. Yes. And then some other cool bits on there before.

Over on the blog, Harry did a review of the Rose and ninth Doctor set. The Last Days of the Powell Estate. That was really cool. We got loads of retweets and everything on that one, which is very cool. Yeah.

Maria did a review of the screening at Riverside for the Ark, which is very cool. And she also did the rundown for the Terror the Zygon screening at the bfi. That was a good one.

And before that she also did the big finish review of the Dark Gallifrey Master series. That was part two from Big finish. And lastly, let's not leave out Jordan. Jordan's last review.

He's very busy at the minute with university and stuff, but he did a review of the sixth Doctor story, six Doctor Adventures from Big Finish and that was Bad Terms, which is a six Doctor and Perry story. So lots going on on the whole Big Blue Box, socials, Discord blog, everything. It's all good, so make sure you are.

And of course the podcast episodes as well. Make sure you're following and subscribing so you don't miss out on those as they land.

At least once every month there's a an episode from the Big Blue Box, whether it's these guys on the Round table or something else, a news roundup, whatever it might be. And we're on the socials too. The links on the website give us a like and a follow over there as we chat.

Plenty of Doctor Who, as I said, there's Discord Server as well. Loads of chat going on in there. Pretty busy the last couple of days on the War between the Land and the Sea channel, which is good.

So some, some opinions knocking around in there and let's do a third one. Don't forget to remember to check out the geeks handbag over on YouTube. There we go. There we go.

Very nice.

Alrighty. The main theme of the December Roundtable is going to be a look at the war between the land and the sea that dropped on Sunday.

Plus we'll, we'll do a very quick chat on the for those of you that watch the the new edit of the Sea Devils that went out just before it.

Yes, Gary, I have seen it. I have seen both episodes. Yes, cool.

Perfect. Maria, what have you seen, if any?

I know well, because I was gadding about on Sunday. I've only just caught up with the War between the Land and the Sea, or Surf and Turf as we're really calling it.

So I watched episode one last night and I've watched episode two today. Unfortunately I haven't had time to look at the Sea Devil's new edit, the 90 minute special, so I'll catch up with that at some point.

But yeah, I think there's enough to talk about on the two episodes we're going to be looking at anyway.

Cool. Okay, perfect. Matt, you've seen both eps, right?

I think both episodes, yeah, I saw them last night but not the edit. I haven't had a chance yet but I'd love to hear what you guys.

Thought of it ad did you manage to watch them where you are in.

The U.S. yeah, I did, yeah. And I watched the Sea Devils edit as well. In fact, I watched that first.

I watched the Sea Devils edit and then I dived in, no pun intended, into the war between. That didn't even say that on purpose.

Not intended.

You've got in my head. Yeah, I dived into both episodes of that the following night. So it actually flowed quite well. It's quite a nice way to do it.

So I, I don't know if we're going to talk about the Sea Devil's edit, are we? But I, I just want to say I enjoyed it.

I'm not a big fan of these episodes being chopped down particularly but I have to say, and especially in a story that I really love, the Sea Devils, I have to say I thought it was a good edit of it as an alternate, you know, for somebody you might not want to sit through. Oh, it's a six part, right? Always, always lose track with Bert. We sometimes he throws a sneaky seven.

But yeah, I thought for, you know, for perhaps people who are new to the story, it had a sort of a much faster pace to it obviously. And yeah, I thought it was really good edit, I have to say.

And the new music works quite well with it because that's one of the other things that I absolutely love Marquez.

But I have to say some of the music on some of the other edits have been a bit jarring mixing in with the older music and I thought in this one it worked pretty well. So yeah, it's a good edit and obviously we'll get on to our opinion of the. The new spin off.

Nice. Nice one, dude. Who else has seen it? Harry and Matt, you guys? Yep. No, not Harry, not Matt. Harry. Sorry. Jesus. What did you think?

Just a couple of minutes on this. What did you think of, of the edit?

Yeah, so it was a good. I think you said, Gary, it was a good sort of warm up for the spin off. It was. It was a good appetizer for sure. And yeah, it was a nice little treat.

It was largely inoffensive.

I think the problem with these edits is that they're not, they're not really edited very well, I don't think like, I think A lot of these recent ones that have been done by Benjamin Cook and particularly it was very noticeable in this one.

There was a lot of like the dialogue of the next scene starting at the end of the previous, steep previous scene to just chop like a random second here and there. And I really don't like that. And I also didn't like.

There was one shot where I noticed they actually fast forwarded it and I thought, that looks really bad. I really don't like that. But other than that, it was. Yeah, you know, that it's.

I mean, the Sea Devils is already a really good story and I, to be honest, more so than the stuff with the Sea Devils. I really enjoyed the stuff with the Doctor and the Master in that story, particularly their little fencing duel.

And I'm really glad they pretty much didn't cut any of that out because it's one of my favorite scenes in the story.

So.

Yeah, no, I, I really enjoyed it and I liked the way that they mixed the music in. They didn't completely do away with the music of the original, which I really like. I know it's a little bit.

It's a little bit silly, goofy kind of vibe, but I, I really love it. I think it's a lovely score. And yeah, it, it. That.

That was the most seamless part of it actually, the way they sort of blended the modern and the old music. So, yeah, as an alternative, as a little bit of a treat, it was all right.

All right.

Yeah.

Yeah. Nice. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure when, when Matt, Maria, when you guys have seen it, we'll have a, we'll have a quick chat on the next one.

Just get your thoughts on that. Whether it's any good or not, that's up for debate. We'll see. We'll see on that one. Right, let's dive into the spin off then.

The one that we've been waiting for for a while. We've been. Adam and I have been talking about this. It feels like for at least a year and a half or something like that.

Two years on all the podcast episodes. Like. Yeah, and don't forget, you know, when this buggers off, we've got that are all between land and sea to insert whatever here.

Look forward to, not look forward to, whatever because we have to remember, and we all picked up on simply in the last Roundtable, that the. This is still a Russell T. Davis created, produced, partly written by thing and we've not been the biggest fan of some of his stuff of late.

So it was a bit of A risk going into it. So, Maria, let's go to you first, because I'm your. I'm so interested to see what you thought of it.

Cause I think you, out of all of us, I think it's fair to say you were the biggest skeptic, I think, on this one. So, Maria, hit us. What were your thoughts on it?

Whatever makes you think that I'm a skeptic, Gary.

I mean, I know what gave it away. The fact that you just said it would be an absolute pile of beep. Maybe that was the giveaway.

Well, I, Yeah, I had. I had my doubts about this. I'll be honest about you. I mean, I'll be honest with you because, you know, I.

Like I said to you before, I'd kind of lost faith in Russell T. Davis and the quality of his writing. What I will say is I'm.

I'm not saying that this was the best bit of television that I've ever seen, but it was definitely much better than anything that we've had in the main show. I think tonally, I loved some of the darker pieces in.

Was interesting because, as I say, I watched episode one last night, which was written by Russell Q. Davis. And then I watched the second episode, which is written by Pete McTeague today. So I think there's definitely a difference in the two episodes.

I think the first episode was really suspenseful and I, you know, I really enjoyed some of the visuals on it as well, I think.

I mean, I don't know where they filmed it, but I mean, it looked fantastic wherever they did film it, you know, you can see obviously there's been a lot of money spent on. On it. Visually, I'm kind of.

You can tell it's a Russell T. Davis production because there are some familiar things in it, you know, in terms of some of the. Some of the themes of it. So, you know, you've got. You've got an alien that they need to negotiate with.

You've got them building a tank for the aliens. I'm just trying to think what else there was. There were some other things that I kind of picked up.

The fact that they have to negotiate with the creatures, and that kind of took me back a little bit to Children of Earth. But aside from that, I thought it was actually. It was actually a good piece of television. I did enjoy it. I'm still not 100% sold on Russell Tovey.

There's still something about him that I just. He's not my favorite actor, you know, and there were some things in it that I didn't like, but the design on the Sea Devils is actually fantastic.

I really enjoyed the way they looked, how aggressive they are as well. I mean, they really made them aggressive. You know, that first scene with the fisherman, you know, you really got a sense of threat from them.

And I love that scene where they came, they took back that dead sea devil and they killed the two. The two UNIT soldiers. I mean, that was kind of. That was really kind of. I really enjoyed that. You know, it was so dark. I'm. Yeah, I think.

I think the bits that let it down for me are the domestic bits, if I'm honest. When Russell Tovey is with his family, you know, his ex wife and the child. I can't remember the name of his child.

I mean, that child doesn't look 16, if she's meant to be 16. She looks about 25, to be honest. But, yeah, and there was a little bit of all that domestic angst, but I didn't like.

I think it kind of slowed the action down in the story and I wasn't convinced in that dynamic. I think the domestic bits were the bits that let it down.

But in terms of the rest of it, what I do like is we've got UNIT up on the global stage again, which I think is quite nice, because I don't think. I don't think UNIT has felt very strong in the last few years in the main show.

So I think it was quite nice that they're back on that global stage, which I think is, you know, is important for them. But then on the flip side, you've got them employing somebody like Barclay and he goes out as a.

As in a case of mistaken identity to go and investigate these Sea Devils. So, you know, you either think unit's really incompetent, you know, they're still not getting their admin right, are they? What else? Kate and Ibrahim?

Yeah, I'm. Yeah, it's not.

I mean, I suppose it's nice to see a little bit of background for Kate and Ibrahim, but there's nothing in there that makes me kind of invest in their relationship or what's going on with them. I don't think it's that important. I'd rather kind of see a bit more with the alien. I think the character of Sort is really intriguing.

Excellent performance by the actress, to be fair. I think she's one of the best things in it. So there's lots of positives, there's a few negatives.

For me, I'm intrigued by the cliffhangers that We've got. I think I'm intrigued to see what happens in episode three. And going forward, I did have some concerns about how they feel. Five hours with this.

You know, they seem to be doing okay. I mean, I hope that the action kind of speeds up a little bit and that we're not kind of, you know, it doesn't kind of slow down in that respect.

But yeah, it was. I was impressed with certain things a bit. I think we. I think we can see there's been a lot of money spent on it, and it looks fantastic.

I love the incidental music as well. I think it really suits the tone of the miniseries. I think that works really well by Lorne Balf. Yeah.

I mean, there's loads of other things that I can say, but, yeah, overall, I think it's a positive for me.

Wow, Maria, you've surprised me and I think you've surprised the world who's listened on that. I honestly thought you were going to say, Garry, I can't do this anymore. I cannot come on the podcast and say how beep it was.

It's just going to bring everything down. It's going to bring the mood down, and nobody needs that. But now you've. That was. Yeah, I agree with you about the music as well, actually.

I strongly agree with two things you said. The music is very, very good. They've already dropped that on Spotify and app music and stuff. I've listened to that a few times around.

It's really, really nice, good music. And I hate saying this, I really, really do, but I kind of wish that Murray went down this. This road with the style of music for shooty stuff.

Anyway, that's another story. And also, yes, you can tell a mile off that they've plowed every last penny of the Disney deal money that they had. They've plowed into it because.

Yeah, I mean, the location stuff was very co. They have done a bit of location work. They were on. On location in Mallorca. Oh, they did a bunch of stuff there.

Yeah. No, yeah, it looked amazing. That bit where the sea devils first appear on the seashore. I mean, that was. That looked absolutely amazing, to be fair.

You know, and I, you know, maybe that's where the main series. I kind of said this before. I think the main series went wrong in that they didn't find.

Spend the money in the right places, you know, I mean, you know, obviously going out on location for this story has, you know, really helped the atmosphere of it and kind of. Yeah, it's. It's Just so far, so good. I mean, we've still got three episodes to go, so, you know, let's see.

Wow. Very cool. Very cool.

Right, who wants to go next with their thoughts on anything just in general or if you've got anything specific you want to bring up about stuff. Matt, go on. He's got his eyebrow up. Here we go. Matt, hit us. Not physically because you're strong now, but vocally.

Well, I'll be honest, I came into this, I remember saying a few round tables ago that I kind of after the final, because I didn't not enjoy the last season up and then, then the final happened. Really didn't enjoy that. And then was just kind of really lackluster, like feeling wise about this spin off. And it, it just.

I don't know whether it was the marketing or something like that, but it just, it, it didn't have me excited and I wasn't. Just wasn't really looking forward to it all that much. So going into it, I didn't know what to expect. Watched the first two episodes last night.

So nice and fresh and just when you think that they might be on to a good thing. They are. They are indeed.

See how he reeled us in there?

Phew.

Yeah.

Oh, nice one, dude.

I gotta say, I was so pleasantly surprised. And I did see, because I watched this a day after transmission and I saw a lot of positive things and I was hopeful.

I was like, it's just cautiously hopeful and really wanted to love it. And yeah, it so far surpasses anything that we've seen in the last couple of years, in my opinion.

And it's just obviously other, you know, everyone's. Everyone's got a different opinion. But for me, it was just, it was like, ah, this is how they did it.

This is how they've remembered how to make it good again and cut all of that unnecessary crap out and just get to the good storytelling. And you know, this, this was you. You don't feel like you're missing the Doctor. You, you don't like even the, the little mentions of the Doctor.

You think, oh, yeah, of course, it's a Doctor Who spin off. I forgot about that because I'm so invested in what's happening right now.

I loved how the music builds the tension perfectly and it's something that I find we haven't had in a long time with. With Murray's music because it's so bombastic and it's so over the top most of the time. Whereas this was quietly building.

It's like it's like reading a really good thriller book where it just quietly builds in the background until you're, you don't even know it, but you're, you're, you're on edge, you're waiting for something to happen and you're right there. Your heart sort of a bit elevated. You, you know, it's so. I really enjoyed that and the performances I thought were fantastic.

Really, really strong from. Especially from. Well, I'll have a go. But is it, Is it Gugu Mabathroar?

Google Bathar.

Bathar.

Sorry.

But yes, absolutely fantastic Assault. And the prosthetics for the new sea devils, brilliant.

Such a good change because quite often you find that, you know, they come to update a classic and dare I mention Sutek, but you know, with the sea devils, just. They've done it, they've done it to perfection. It looks great. They all look great. Apart from the, The CGI fish that they were.

They were kind of like I said to. I watched this with my Mrs. And I.

If anyone likes Harry Potter, I said, ah, it's like they're Draco Malfoy in the middle and they've just bought in crab and Goyle on the side. They're like the hired henchmen, you know what I mean? They do nothing, but they look beefy.

That's a very good point.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I wasn't sure on that, but I thought Russell Tovey absolutely sold me to Barkley. I think he's like, he is the perfect sort of everyday man or what do they call it, an everyman.

Where, where, you know, you, you, you can't help but root for him. I think the. Like Maria said, I think the only thing I found annoying was some of the family scenes. Not really with. With their daughter.

I think it's more with the. With the ex wife. As I also said to my missus, whoa, you can see why she's an ex. It's.

Yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't hard to see where, where that went down the pan, really. I just didn't warm to her at all. But yeah, I think episode one did a great job. And then episode two just built perfectly on what was already there.

What I. In all honesty, I think episode two was probably a lot stronger than episode one, especially with the mad rubbish storm.

I thought that was, that was perfect. And I was thinking if I was in their position, I'd have done the exact same thing. You can't blame them.

You know, you've woken up from millions of years and look what we've done to your home. Give it back. Yeah, absolutely 100% with them. So, yeah, so I could talk.

I could talk more about it, but I'll give my jaw a rest and let somebody else have a go at talking. But, yeah, really pleasantly surprised. Didn't think I was gonna like it and I'm so invested.

Cool. Another positive one. Nice one, dude. Ad glad that he had the opportuna tea to watch it where you are. Hit us, dude. Hit us, man. What do you reckon?

Hold on one sec. I think my computer was cracking up there. I may have missed a fish pun, but no, I. I think after the last two seasons, mate, I.

My enthusiasm for this had dropped off a cliff. I really wasn't excited for it at all. But I have to echo what the other guys have said. I was very pleasantly surprised.

I really enjoyed the first episode. I thought it set out the stall very nicely. Kind of dive straight into the story. I thought the production values look fantastic.

You can definitely see where that Disney money has finally been spent. And it's tonally, it's. It's exactly what I would have liked to have seen Doctor Who more be like in the last two years.

And I think a few people have said that. So I think when I say pleasantly surprised, that's what I mean. I was.

I didn't know if this was just going to be more of what we've had from season two. It's not. It's a completely different tone taking itself much more seriously. Much more the sort of sci fi program that I want to be watching.

So, yeah, it's. It was good. I think the second episode was good as well. There was a lot of dialogue, though. I watched this with my partner.

I always, as I said before the podcast, like to gauge a show with him because I treat him as the casual viewer. So he definitely was invested in episode one. I could feel him drifting off during the second episode.

He actually said something along the lines of lot of negotiating in that episode. And I was like, yeah, it didn't push the story forward that much. And I agree with what Maria was saying about scenes with the Barclays family and.

And the Kate Stewart and whatever his name is scenes. I was like that. I was bored during those scenes. I did feel like they, you know, I just want to get on with the Sea Devil storyline.

And I am intrigued to see where it goes. I'm wondering how they can wrap this story up. If, you know, I mean, it's, you know, is the Sea Devils are the good guys, really.

We're the ones who have destroyed the planet, they're in the right, but we can't obviously have them taken over the Earth.

So assuming at some point they're going to get obliterated and the man will be victorious, which is sort of the inevitable outcome, but the wrong outcome. So I'm intrigued to see where the story goes and how they handle, you know, the subject matter. But yeah, I was, I enjoyed it, mate.

And as I said, I wasn't bothered about watching this at all.

You know, the promotion for it's done nothing for me, so I don't know if I went into it with low expectation, but I immediately liked the tone of it, the difference in tone from Doctor Who.

And I think I was listening to a live stream the other day where they were saying about the difference in tone between this and the Doctor Who we've had for the last two seasons. And they were saying what really highlights that is if you imagine shoot as Doctor turning up in this show, he would feel very out of place.

And I think that sums it up for me. You know, if he was to suddenly waltz in and be like, hey, sea devils, get back in your cave, babes, and all this sort of thing, it would just.

It doesn't work. And I'm much more for this sort of darker tone. This is how I want Doctor Who to be. So, yeah, it definitely gets a thumbs up for me.

I'm not going to go crazy and say it was amazing. It wasn't. It was just enjoyable and good and I hope it can sustain that. Are you laughing at my shooting? It wasn't meant to be nasty.

It's just.

I'm just trying to sum up.

No, it was really good. I just, I was taken aback.

Oh, okay. But, yeah, but I just, I. I don't know, I don't want to get ahead of myself, mate.

I don't want to say this is amazing because I want to see how the rest of the series lands. I want to see how they managed to wrap up this story. I don't think we can have another two episodes of just chatting.

We need something to happen now, like they've set up the story and it needs to progress. I like the fact we're potentially going to go beneath the sea for the next episode. That sounds like it's a change up, so that's cool. And just very.

Lastly, mate, I'm absolutely getting Children of Earth vibes from this. I mean, there is a lot of similarities. You know, the. If you think about the thing in the tank and a lot of that story was negotiating with it.

So it's, you know, it's not exactly the most original thing from Russell and his team, but, you know, I let it off. I found it entertaining.

I see. Nice, man. So, another positive one. Mostly. I think we've all been pleasantly surprised so far. Harry. Yo, Bean.

What did you think to Homo Aqua and Plastic Apocalypse?

Oh, Bean.

The War between the Land and the Sea.

I think that's the one we're talking.

About, the Land in the sea.

I think so.

More like the pretty good time between the Land and the Sea. Gotta be honest, it's pretty good. Gary. Yeah, okay. Again, also pleasantly surprised. And there's. There's so much I could say about it, like.

But I. I thought that it was really entertaining. Real kind of edge of your seat stuff. It's a. It's a solid drama which kind of has its place, like prime time Sunday night on BBC1.

It didn't feel out of place, even.

Though it was a.

It's an out and out Doctor Who spin off. And, you know, you had a few mentions of the Doctor sort of here and there, and I still don't really like the unit characters.

I also kind of feel like Kate and Ibrahim have no chemistry, so that's just strange. But other than that, I thought it was really solid and I love it.

Frisky, though.

Yeah.

I was like, oh, we're back to Torchwood days, are we?

Yeah, it was. It was. It wasn't quite as. As. As full on as that, but it was a bit like. Oh, I wasn't. Wasn't expecting that.

But you know that there was a large. A large population of. Of women around Gemma Redgrave's sort of age range who were just fist, like, pump in the air, like, go on, Kate, go on, you.

You get some girl. Go on.

Yeah, sure. To each their own. To each their own. But. But yeah, I. The. The standout scene for me was the.

The titular plastic apocalypse when all of the plastic came raining down. I mean, it makes total sense, like, you know, the sea devils going, like, if.

If you want it back, if you're really serious about it, then you can bloom and have it. And I just thought that was excellent. And, yeah, that was kind of political allegory done right.

I think I thought it was really affecting and it kind of made me feel like.

I mean, I tried to really recycle as much as possible, but I think I was rinsing out a milk carton or something yesterday and I thought, yeah, better put that in the recycling. Yeah. Otherwise I feel kind of bad about it, but.

Yeah, it's been educational for you if nothing else.

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. No, I really liked it and I really like the newer characters. I think Russell Tovey's character in particular is. Is a bit.

He seems a bit more like a normal bloke then a lot of the, A lot of the characters in the sort of hooniverse don't feel like real people. And I know it's a science fiction show and I know that, you know, the Doctors, a Time Lord and all the rest of it.

So we're kind of stretching the bounds of realism a little bit.

Are they though? Should we go down that road? Are they though?

Well, I mean, yeah, don't open that tin of mackerel.

Unit don't have a great track record in terms of employing people. I mean, come on, let's be honest.

I mean, they employ kids, they employ people that don't have the right skills, they employ aliens that come and go as they please. I don't know, the unit are kind of a bit in a mess at the moment, aren't they, really?

You should work for the Maria, you should sort them out.

You know what?

I do work in hr. I'd sort them. I'd sort them out in two minutes, I'll tell you that.

You'd make sure the right taxis.

Right.

One question for you guys. I don't know about you guys, but when I, before I watched it, I kind of had a bit of a.

An inkling before that we would have some political stuff going on, whether it would be sort of around climate change or around pollution and all that stuff. A combination of those things. Do you guys think that they got the balance right with that or was that too on the nose or not?

The message not strong enough?

I thought it was perfect for me personally. I know a few people have found it to be a bit heavy handed, but I didn't, I didn't really feel like that, to be honest.

I mean, I suppose it makes a point of that being kind of central to the plot. It's not, it's not kind of extraneous. They've not, they've not shoved it in.

It doesn't feel like a. I don't like to use the term, but it doesn't feel like a political agenda kind of thing. It feels integral to the story, into the narrative and to the conflict. So I thought it worked really well.

It's really.

Yeah, because when we've had this in. Sorry, Maria.

When we've had this in the main show before, it's always got massive criticism because it felt, it's felt like the doctors kind of preaching at you through the, through the screen when they've gone on their little rants or speeches and stuff. But yeah, sorry, Maria.

No, I was going to say I actually wrote down in my book when I was making my notes and is this message too heavy handed? Because I was kind of thinking.

Well, I think the bit that was heavy handed was when Barkley kind of broke out from the script that he had and he was kind of saying, oh yes, we have done all these things wrong. And he was trying to justify everything to Salt. I thought that was a little bit heavy handed.

But the scenes with all the rubbish kind of coming back to us in terms of raining from the sky, I thought was. Was actually because what you want to do is you want to, you want to show it rather than tell it.

And I think it's a difficult balancing act because I think sometimes when things come out of characters mouths, they have to sound natural. And when Berkeley was saying all of that stuff, that kind of.

That felt heavy handed to me because I didn't feel that even if you were somebody that was breaking away from the script in terms of what your government or your advisors are asking you to do, you wouldn't necessarily say all of that. That didn't feel natural to me. But the visual image of all the rubbish coming back, that actually felt, that felt right in terms of we could see.

See it and we understood what it meant. So I, I think it's a difficult balancing act, to be honest. I mean, there was a few bits of clunky dialogue that I didn't like. Just as.

As we're kind of talking about heavy hand. Well, was it heavy handed? The bit about. There was a bit of script from the. Is it the Colonel and he said when they were talking about the sea devils.

Kfc.

Yeah. And he said in, in Mythology and Superstition Edition we call them sea devils, but we are better than that now.

So that again, that feels a bit heavy handed to kind of say that obviously they're changing the name of the cat, of the. Of the monster. So that felt a little bit heavy handed. You know, there's bits in the script sometimes that just feel a bit heavy handed.

Okay, that was gonna be my next question to you guys after this was what you guys thought of the internal reference to these characters now as not sea devils by the characters within the program, but as Homo aqua.

They played on that a little bit in the script, didn't they, where there was a bit of back and forth, like, yeah, probably shouldn't call them that anymore. Let's call them this thing. I think he just plucked it out of the air at the time, but, yeah.

Any more thoughts on the political stuff or the naming for these things, guys?

I think overall it's been handled pretty well. I guess that's one of the things I was worried about, that it was going to be really over the top, like pre chi. But I think what Harry said is true.

This is a storyline about that, so it doesn't feel like it's shoehorned in with other stuff. This is about a race rising up and start saying, you know, look what you've done to our world.

Just because we're under the sea, we're still part of your planet and, you know, you. There's no consideration for what you're doing and you've got a. You know, there are consequences.

So I think, you know, it doesn't feel too in your face. Some of the dialogue is a bit clunky, without a doubt, but, yeah, it all fits in with the narrative and I think what is. What it's done is it's show.

It has highlighted how we all, or the government or whoever quite often will say one thing, but they don't really mean it. It's kind of just put out there to quiet them down and they're having. The sea devils are having none of it. And that's what I like is this dynamic of.

What do you mean? It's going to take you 40 years, you're going to do it now, you know, and that's something we face in real life, isn't it?

Oh, we're, we're going to bring in this legislation, but it's going to take 10 years to act and all this sort of.

Why I love the bit with the glass as well, where she told him.

To drink the water.

Drink the water. Yeah.

Yeah, that was a really good example that.

Yeah. Anyone that's. Anyone that knows of the condition of the water in the Thames would have been absolutely reaching at that point.

I was, I was thinking, he's not gonna drink it, is he? It's not going to cut to him in the back of an ambulance in a minute being rushed off to jr.

You know what the shame is that the Thames actually used to be very clean at one point, because they did clean it up and I can't believe that. It's kind of brown sludge again. You know, it just.

Yeah, I blame, I blame The Garrison Maria.

Yeah, he was. He was traveling up the Thames and he was leaving a few nice deposits he needed.

Yeah, he couldn't wait to get back to Scotland, you know.

Yeah. When you got to go, you've got to go.

Ain't that true?

Yeah, yeah. And so. Okay, so I think overall then, we're all sort of a mix of not.

This is not going to win, like, you know, oh, this is our best world of Doctor Who thing at the moment. However, it's off to a reasonably good start. We're all reasonably happy and certainly not massively disappointed anyway, so that's very cool.

Last thing I just wanted to get some thoughts on before we wrap up is we've mentioned some of the characters and the dialogue being clunky and that kind of thing. Some of the episode titles for the future ones look quite cool. The next one being called the Deep.

So at the end of episode two, Salt basically says, look, if you're serious about compromise and. And all this stuff, then you need to show some. Some good faith sort of thing. So how about the next round of negotiations?

You come down to where we are. So I think the next episode's going to be a very visual effects, heavy underwater, all that stuff.

And then the one after that is called the Witch of the Waterfall. So I won't talk about the. The last episode or predictions for that, which is called the End of the War, which sounds very.

Oh, man, that to me sounds like a Doctor turns up at the end and wraps it all up in a neat little bow to me. So I'm hoping that's not the. That's not the case. But certainly the next two episodes, they sound very interesting. The.

The.

I've got like Star Wars Episode 1, Phantom Menace, Gungans underwater, all that sort of vibe in my head for the next one. And then the Witch of the Waterfall sounds so interesting. I can't wait for that.

So is there anything that you guys are particularly looking forward to for the next couple of eps coming up? Or similarly, is there anything that you're thinking, please don't do that, please, whatever you do, don't go down this road or don't go down that.

Is there anything that you're. So I guess my question is, is there any one thing, at least you're looking forward to and is there anything that you're hoping that they don't do?

Matthew, I would probably say to. Not to.

Just like you said, I would not want to see any sort of form of the Doctor, especially in the final coming in you guys, you know, I'll come in, swoop in, save the date like they did with class. Sort of just pop in, save the day. Oh, I'm off again. Like, it was no big threat if the Doctor was there.

You've made this into this, like, multinational diplomatic crisis that I could have just gone, like, wave Masonic and it would, you know, be fine. So I don't want to see any of that. The only thing that.

I think, if they were to do that route, the only possible thing that I can think of that would make it still, I wouldn't want to see it, but okay. As if you just hear the TARDIS landing and then just take off again. Just. No, they got this, they got this. I don't need to be here.

But I still wouldn't want any of it, really. I think they're doing fine on their own. Not seeing this weird relationship vibe, going too deep with Salt and Barkley.

It kind of feels like they're running along that flirty line. I don't really.

I'm telling you now, he's gonna go and live under the sea, mate. I'm telling you now, under the sea, it's gonna. Under the sea, it's gonna happen.

He's gonna become Mr. Ariel, isn't he? But, yeah, he's. I. I don't know. I. I don't really want to see that. I. I think the story holds enough weight without it, without that in it.

I think in. In. In quite a different opinion to everyone else. I quite liked the. The Kate and Colonel Ibrahim scenes.

I thought that was just enough of a pause from the action to just let the. Let the show breathe a little bit without it feeling too slow. It didn't last too long. Give a bit of a whoop, you know, Kate got some. Well done.

You're not a robot. But at the end of the day, it didn't really affect the story too much for me, so I. I did. I quite like that. And I wouldn't mind seeing how they unit.

They. They say to Barclay, you know, right now we're going through every single second that you've ever lived sort of thing.

But they still can't work out that Kate Stewart and Colonel Ibrahim are, you know, shacking up and then come in separately, just, oh, yeah, nice to see you here. What a coincidence sort of thing. Their unit, they know. So it would be nice to see that progress a little bit more, I think.

But.

Yeah, I think aside from that, I'm just really excited to see where it goes. I want to see it Handled by humanity. And not so much the staring at the camera directly telling us to.

That we're bad people, showing us what we've done wrong sort of thing.

That.

That was the. The pivotal thing. And I think they mostly got it right. Like you were saying.

The only time that I thought, oh, God, here we go, it's Russell again, was when Russell Tovey stared at the camera and went, yeah, we've been really stupid. We're all just stupid. And I was like, here we go. Russell's. You can. You can hear the clacking of his keyboard going. But it swiftly.

That scene was over and done with. The rest of it, really nicely handled. I want to see more of that. I just don't want this to flop, basically, because it's got such a strong start.

Just ride it out, ride it out as it's been going.

Yeah, nice one, dude. I'd be. I'd be a bit miffed if I was Ibrahim, because, you know, they've. They've done.

They've done the business and then she's straight back on her laptop, paperwork all over the bed. I'm like, what is this? This is not the office, love. Yeah. When you're here, we are equals. Yeah.

I don't put all of my security guard stuff out on the bed, you know, and start doing all that. So bugger off to the shed if you're going to do that. Yeah. Also, last thing to bear in mind, guys, before we move on.

Technically, I don't know when this falls in the timeline, I can't remember, but technically there is a Doctor, isn't there? We've got David Tennant version two.

Yeah. Where is he?

Having a cup of tea.

Where is he?

Gary, cup of tea and crumpets.

Just don't think about it, yeah?

So this whole thing's. The whole world's going absolutely beep, beep.

And we do have a Doctor in London, so with the tardis, with a TARDIS and a sonic screwdriver and thousands, if not millions of trillions of years of history with all this stuff. I don't know whether it's worth going down that rabbit hole. I don't know. But that's just something to bear in mind. Peeps. Russell, come on.

RTD will never live this down. You know that. Writing himself into that corner, he's never gonna live it down. It will come up every time. Where is the 14th doctor?

I think, Matt, you might get your wish with episode three, because it's written again by Pete McTeague or McTigh. So I think you're going to get more relationship stuff. So I think you might be happy. I might not be, but you might be. I want to see more adventure.

If it's called the D. I want. I want to see that adventure. I want to see him. I want to see Barclay going down in a diving bell.

However, they're going to get him down to the bottom of the ocean. I don't want to see this romance between Salt and Barkley, though.

You remember I was talking about my goldfish the other week, So I think that's a no no for me. Hopefully we won't see any of that.

Oh, no, I know, I know. Yeah.

I can't wait to get to episode five, if that's the way it's gonna go. But, yeah, I am intrigued by the fourth episode, the title of that, because that sounds intriguing. So, yeah.

River Songs.

I'm not gonna say anything else, but, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It's a double bill again, isn't it? Next Sunday.

It is it, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, I didn't realize it's double bill.

Yeah. Disney are like, look, just get this out the bloody door.

It does feel like that, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah. So we can move on, get this whole thing behind us. Yeah. Adam, same question to you, dude. Yeah.

It's only five.

Yeah.

Geez.

Adam, what? Your thoughts moving forward?

Yeah, I. I just. I'm really hoping that just the next two episodes aren't just filled with.

With too much padding, really, Because I feel like, as I said, they've set the stall out. The storyline is good, but, you know, to sustain over five episodes.

I just feel like we're going to get a lot of relationship stuff, which I think some people will be more invested in than. Than others. So, yeah, I just hope that they can maintain this level of sort of engagement over the next two episodes. I agree with Matt 100%.

The one thing I don't want to see is the Doctor rocking up in this at all. I'm not missing the Doctor. Like you said, fourteenths out there somewhere.

I don't know which would be worse, 14th or 15th turning up, but none of them or Jody. None of them. I don't want to see the Doctor in this at all.

I think McGann turned up. That stopped him there.

I can see him fitting in with it. That's the thing. That's why I stop to think. Yeah, I could see McGann coming into this. I can't see Jody coming in.

So they are inventing Well, I can go down in the sea and I can't see, you know, David coming in and flipping switches and being.

Oh.

And I can't see Shooty coming in. I've already done that impression. So I just can't see any of the recent Doctors coming in. But I can see McGann.

But no, I seriously, I don't want to see the Doctor and I want UNIT to sort it. And most of all, mate, I, I'd like to be. I'd like to be surprised in the direction it goes, you know, I don't care how they do it.

But so far, as much as I've enjoyed it, it has been a little bit predictable because of the, the nature of the storyline. I don't. It's not.

Not criticism on the way it's written or anything, it's just that we already kind of know where this series is going, you know, the sea devils coming up from the sea to give us a good old talon off. We kind of know the story before it's even began.

And that's all well and good, but I kind of want it to have a few twists and turns and surprise Major. I mean, that's what I was saying about how the series is gonna land.

Like how, where, what direction are they going to take this in that we're not just going to get, sit back and say, oh, well, I thought that's what they do, you know what I mean? So I'd like a few surprises thrown in, but not the Doctor. Don't need that class ending again. You're quite right.

We don't need the Doctor rocking up and saving the day and then. And swishing off. I can so see Tenant doing it as well. I can so see him coming in and flicking switches. Alonzi, let's go.

Oh, no, no, we don't want that.

I'll read you, dude. Yeah, fair point. Fair point. Harry, lastly to you, bud. Thoughts?

Yeah, well, Adam, you took the words right out of my mouth because that's exactly what I want to see as well. I want to see an unexpected. I want to be surprised basically, is, is what I'm getting that I think the Witch of the Waterfall.

I mean, I find that very hard to read. Like, I don't know, like what that could possibly mean.

And also Russell and Pete are right in that one, so it could be, it could be quite interesting. So.

Yeah, no, I mean, I just like the fact that we have no idea how this is going to end and, and I just, I'm looking forward to hopefully Being surprised. I think that's kind of my, My biggest wish. Biggest wish. That and no fishy business between Salt and Barclay, please.

And yeah, I think, yeah, that's probably the thing. I don't want to. Don't want to see any of that weird, strange romance. But there's probably gonna, you know.

Well, there definitely is gonna be more of that. That's the direction their head again. So, yeah, we'll. We'll see how that pans out. We'll see if it sticks the landing.

I mean, it started off really strong, so I hope that it, it maintains that sort of towards the end. I hope it's a steady wave along. Along the seashore. We'll have to see.

Tell you what, you could say, you could say that Kate and Ibrahim's relationship is one thing, but Salt and Barclays is a complete different kettle of fish.

Oh, yes.

How long have you been storing that up?

He saved that one.

You said something earlier and I was like, oh, you could have used it. I'm gonna use it later.

Very tentacool. Very tentacool. Nice. Alrighty.

On that very fishy note, thank you very much, dear Listener, for listening to our thoughts on the first two episodes of the War between the Land and the Sea. Tune in next month where we will give you our thoughts on the remaining episodes and, and our thoughts on the. On this miniseries as a whole, etc.

But for now, fellow Roundtablers, I think that's a good time to take a pin in the December Roundtable. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for sticking around, dear Listener.

For this Amaranth table, I was joined by Maria Harimat and Adam the Geek's Handbag to talk about the War between the Land and the Sea and our pleasant surprise, it seems at the reasonably strong start that this miniseries has got off to, which is cool. Maria, thank you very much for another Roundtable, Mrs. Regular.

Thank you, Gary. It's been brilliant indeed.

Thank you, Harry. Thank you as always, dude, for your thoughts and everything.

Thank you, Gary. Merry Christmas one and all. And I'm off to play Doctor Who in the Rebels Gamble.

Very nice, Matt. Thank you very much, dude.

Thank you very much for having me, as always. And Merry Christmas to everyone and everyone at home.

Oh, and Adam Co, Mr. Co Host. Cheers, dude. Your thoughts have been just amazing as always, as we expect of everything.

It's been great to jump on with our team and have a good old chin wag. I. I can't wait to see how this all wraps up, so it'd be interesting to get back together and when it's all done and see how the dust settles.

Indeedy. Yes, indeed.

So in the meantime, as I said earlier, make sure you're following or subscribing to the podcast in your preferred podcast app of choice so you don't miss all these episodes. And you can check out all of the articles and reviews from this lot over on the website bigblueboxpodcast.co.uk.

you can link off there to the socials and the discord as well. And for the final time, don't forget to remember to check out Adam's channel on YouTube the Geek's handbag once more.

Yes, until next time, my name's Gary.

My name's Maria. Merry Christmas, everybody.

My name's Matt.

My name's Adam. Merry Christmas, everyone.

My name's Harry.

Happy New Year and remember a. Merry christmas.